Breaking the Spell: The Lessons of Obamamania

[Better Believe It]

Breaking the Spell
The Lessons of Obamamania
by ANDREW LEVINE
ANDREW LEVINE is a Senior Scholar at the Institute for Policy Studies. He was a Professor (philosophy) at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and a Research Professor (philosophy) at the University of Maryland-College Park.
November 30, 2011

What seems unreal was that brief interlude, begun just four winters ago as the Iowa caucuses and the New Hampshire and South Carolina primaries loomed, and lasting into the summer of 2009, when liberal hearts and minds succumbed to the belief that Barack Obama would put an end to decades of Reaganite (neolibleral) depredations, and that we could then take up where the New Deal and Great Society left off. That Obamamaniacal moment now seems a lifetime away.

Too bad for those pundits that reality has a way of intruding upon illusory (and delusory) thinking, and that it soon became undeniable, even to those who had been willfully blind, that Obama was not an agent of “change” at all. For a while, within liberal circles, Republican obstructionism and its bastard offspring, the Tea Party, took the blame. But by the time the 2010 electoral season got underway, the last remnants of Obamamania had faded away. The “enthusiasm gap” was born.

Everyone knows what happened next: the Democrats got “shellacked” and, predictably, drew all the wrong lessons. Team Obama decided that their legislative initiatives had been too bold, that they had not been obsequious enough to their corporate paymasters, and that they needed to pander even more abjectly to apolitical “independent” voters. Perhaps somewhere in Obama’s psyche there is an explanation for all this; after all, there is something borderline delusional in the idea that the Democrats’ 2010 shellacking showed that Obama had not been “bipartisan” enough. But there is no need for depth psychology to figure out what happened. What explains the trajectory of the Obama presidency is evident on the surface: he and his advisors are disposed to serve economic elites as much as their “base” will allow, and their understanding of what their base wants is incredibly out of touch. This is not unusual; it is how Democrats are.

Of course, Republican obstructionism is still a good excuse for defending the Obama presidency, and every time a leading Republican speaks there is fresh material upon which to base fear of an evil even greater than the one we know. Count on Democratic cheerleaders to remind everyone of that. However this line of argument rings hollow, the plainer it becomes that Obama didn’t just fail to solve the problems Obamamaniacs thought he would, but that his administration is an integral part of those problems.

Please read the full article at:

http://www.counterpunch.org/2011/11/30/the-lessons-of-obamamania/

[Autumn]

1. When you consider some of his appointments,

"his administration is an integral part of those problems." Yeah, that's very true.

[bvar22]

163. That was "the most unkindest cut of all" for me.

I rejoiced at the promise of a Team of Rivals.
I thought it meant that voices from The Democratic Wing of the Party would be included in his administration.
After 30 years of exile, the FDR Democrats would be given a voice in a Democratic Administration!!!

Then, he did this:

The DLC New Team

(Screen Capped from the DLC Website)
http://www.dlc.org/ndol_ci.cfm?contentid=254886&kaid=86&subid=85


....and I knew that Hope & Change was all just a well researched, well planned, well polished, and well executed Marketing Scam.


While I agree with the content of this article,
I felt that it was much too harsh on those who followed The Promise.
His piece would have greater impact without the derisive and divisive name calling and taunts.


The goal of moving this nation back to The Left would be better served by NOT driving
people into a defensive corner.

.02




You will know them by their WORKS,
not by their excuses.
Solidarity99!
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

[chervilant]

185. And,

let's not forget Arne "I play basketball!" Duncan as SecEd. We're watching this administration continue the privatization of our system of public education, putting thousands of veteran teachers out of a job.

[11 Bravo]

296. And when you consider that Sean Hannity coined the term "Obamamania" ...

you might tend to question the motivation of those who employ it.

[Autumn]

299. So what. I have found BBI to be an excellent poster.

I see no reason to question his motives. I use the term Obamacare.:shrug: Because I like it. Your motives I might question, since you have no opinion on the article, only the poster. I agree with the article.

"Obama didn’t just fail to solve the problems Obamamaniacs thought he would, but that his administration is an integral part of those problems." A whole lot of truth in that sentence.

[freedom fighter jh]

327. I love BBI's posts, read them whenever I can . . .

. . . but I can't object to raising questions about vocabulary choices in something he (she?) posts.

[Autumn]

329. We don't have power over words people chose to use.

It's called freedom of speech. The word " Obamamaniacs" does not erase the truth in the article.

[Better Believe It]

331. I don't use the term and I understand the point you are making and also the point

the writer is trying to make with use of that term.

Other DU'ers use the terms cheerleaders or Obamabots instead of Obamamaniacs.

[Robb]

2. Andrew Levine: A Noun, A Verb, Obama Sucks.

http://www.counterpunch.org/2011/07/25/is-there-life-after-obamamania/">Is There Life After Obamamania? by Andrew Levine.

http://www.counterpunch.org/2011/04/13/obama-the-conceder/">Obama the Conceder by Andrew Levine.

http://www.counterpunch.org/2011/05/20/obama-s-quot-original-sin-quot-against-morality/">Obama’s "Original Sin" Against Morality by Andrew Levine.

http://www.counterpunch.org/2011/02/01/obama-the-deregulationist/">Obama the Deregulationist by Andrew Levine.

http://www.counterpunch.org/2011/03/29/on-libya-who-does-obama-think-he-is-fooling/">Who Does Obama Think He is Fooling? by Andrew Levine.

http://www.counterpunch.org/2011/10/14/live-from-obamaville/">Live from Obamaville by Andrew Levine.

etc. etc. etc.

[ChairmanAgnostic]

3. But he does make sense. Come on. Patriot Act? Geitner?

So many more examples.

[Recursion]

172. I like Geithner

It's nice to have a Treasury secretary who never once worked on Wall Street. A refreshing change, and it's shown in his willingness to piss off investment banks.

[stockholmer]

243. surely you jest? never worked on Wall Street!!?? The NY Fed IS Wall Street.

The AIG bailout cover-up emails when Geithner was NY Fed chief deserve prison time alone. GOLDMAN SACHS got paid 100 cents on the dollar at the same time the US citizens where raped for around 200 BILLION.

[Recursion]

264. The Fed is not Wall St (nt)

[stockholmer]

268. that response shows you truly know little or nothing about the global central banking system

:thumbsdown:


Bernie Sanders -major statement on how the Fed looted $16 Trillion to bail out banks (many foreign)

http://sanders.senate.gov/newsroom/news/?id=9e2a4ea8-6e73-4be2-a753-62060dcbb3c3



The Fed Audit

The first top-to-bottom audit of the Federal Reserve uncovered eye-popping new details about how the U.S. provided a whopping $16 trillion in secret loans to bail out American and foreign banks and businesses during the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression. An amendment by Sen. Bernie Sanders to the Wall Street reform law passed one year ago this week directed the Government Accountability Office to conduct the study. "As a result of this audit, we now know that the Federal Reserve provided more than $16 trillion in total financial assistance to some of the largest financial institutions and corporations in the United States and throughout the world," said Sanders. "This is a clear case of socialism for the rich and rugged, you're-on-your-own individualism for everyone else."

Among the investigation's key findings is that the Fed unilaterally provided trillions of dollars in financial assistance to foreign banks and corporations from South Korea to Scotland, according to the GAO report. "No agency of the United States government should be allowed to bailout a foreign bank or corporation without the direct approval of Congress and the president," Sanders said.

The non-partisan, investigative arm of Congress also determined that the Fed lacks a comprehensive system to deal with conflicts of interest, despite the serious potential for abuse. In fact, according to the report, the Fed provided conflict of interest waivers to employees and private contractors so they could keep investments in the same financial institutions and corporations that were given emergency loans.

For example, the CEO of JP Morgan Chase served on the New York Fed's board of directors at the same time that his bank received more than $390 billion in financial assistance from the Fed. Moreover, JP Morgan Chase served as one of the clearing banks for the Fed's emergency lending programs.

snip

GAO FULL REPORT


http://sanders.senate.gov/imo/media/doc/GAO%20Fed%20Investigation.pdf

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------

HERE'S ANOTHER $1.2 TRILLION:


Visualizing What $1.2 Trillion In Secret Fed Bailouts To The Banking Kleptocracy Looks Like

http://www.zerohedge.com/news/visualizing-what-12-trillion-secret-fed-bailouts-banking-kleptocracy-looks

While Bloomberg has done a tremendous job of digging through 29,346 pages of FOIA data, its discovery is not at all surprising: http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-08-21/wall-street-ar... that Wall Street's (not to mention the rest of the world's) biggest banks received a total of $1.2 trillion in previously secret Fed loans, in addition to the trillions in public backstops and loans from the US Treasury. As a reminder, "denominated in $1 bills, the $1.2 trillion would fill 539 Olympic-size swimming pools." The best summary of this ongoing collusion between the Fed and Wall Street, in which it once again for the nth time becomes clear that all the Fed cars about is making sure its banking masters are never impaired, is from the article itself: "Even as the firms asserted in news releases or earnings calls that they had ample cash, they drew Fed funding in secret, avoiding the stigma of weakness."

And there you have it: everything that come out of Wall Street is and has always been a lie: either courtesy of 30 years of great interest rate moderation, in which only cheap money adds to banks' top and bottom lines, or due to the Fed making sure the same banks never suffer a dollar loss when central planning fails, such as it does increasingly often lately (and forget about 10(b)-5 violation charges coming from the corrupt regulators: after all they are all in bed together). That Morgan Stanley, Dexia and Citi are, and have been since 2008, dead men walking, is by now known to all financially literate readers: additional confirmation can be found in the Bloomberg article, which we won't paraphrase because it has all been said over and over. That said, Bloomberg has done a great visual interactive chart summary of who got what, when, how much, over peak and average metrics and so forth. We urge readers to play around with it (don't worry, it won't break the banks; and if it does the Fed will secretly bail them out again) and every time they consider putting money into our "solvent" financial system.

snip



snip

---------------------------------------------------------------------

Wake up. Whilst the USA and other nation-states have huge austerity programmes rammed down the collective people's throats, which are given occasional cover via bitter sham arguments over a few hundred million here, or a billion there (usually directed at somebody's scared cow on either fake-left or fake-right lines of faux-combat guaranteed to touch off the required Sturm und Drang) the systemic banking/monetary controllers via the Fed, the IMF, the ECB, the World Bank, the biggest 15 private banks, and the granddaddy of it all, the BIS are literally removing ten's of trillions from the sovereign citizens and consolidating it in their coffers.

[closeupready]

280. A treasury secretary who failed to pay his taxes.

You know, some people here are so beyond help, I don't know why I even engage.

[sabrina 1]

307. So true, it's a waste of energy. That is why people are moving

beyond partisan politics and towards a new way to solve the country's problems. Comments of the type you describe are exhibit #1 of the wasted energy that partisan blogs have been over the past decade. Nothing has been accomplished except to continue the status quo which is dragging this country and the rest of the world towards even more disaster.

[Name removed]

4. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[JNelson6563]

5. Succinctly put.

:toast:

[sabrina 1]

15. Who is going to be in his cabinet if he wins the next election?

Wish I had asked that question before the last one. That will determine whether a second term will be as 'bi-partisan' as the first. And this time we will be asking that question.

[Better Believe It]

18. More Republicans and Wall Street/Corporate types.

[Recursion]

173. Who in his cabinet is from Wall Street?

And I'm not sure what you mean by "corporate types", most people at a cabinet level have had experience working in corporations (oddly enough, Geithner hasn't).

[RaleighNCDUer]

219. Let's take a look at your hero.

From Wikipedia:

Geithner worked for Kissinger Associates in Washington for three years and then joined the International Affairs division of the U.S. Treasury Department in 1988. He went on to serve as an attaché at the Embassy of the United States in Tokyo. He was deputy assistant secretary for international monetary and financial policy (1995–1996), senior deputy assistant secretary for international affairs (1996–1997), assistant secretary for international affairs (1997–1998).<7>

He was Under Secretary of the Treasury for International Affairs (1998–2001) under Treasury Secretaries Robert Rubin and Lawrence Summers.<7> Summers was his mentor,<13><14> but other sources call him a Rubin protégé.<15><16><17>


Treasury Secretary designee Geithner meets Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus on November 25, 2008In 2002 he left the Treasury to join the Council on Foreign Relations as a Senior Fellow in the International Economics department.<18> He was director of the Policy Development and Review Department (2001–2003) at the International Monetary Fund.<7>

In October 2003, at age 42,<19> he was named president of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York.<20> His salary in 2007 was $398,200.<21> As President of the New York Fed, he served as Vice Chairman of the Federal Open Market Committee. In 2006, he also became a member of the Washington-based financial advisory body, the Group of Thirty.<22> In May 2007, he worked to reduce the capital required to run a bank.<19> In November he rejected Sanford Weill's offer to take over as Citigroup's chief executive.<19>

In March 2008, he arranged the rescue and sale of Bear Stearns.<13><23> In the same year, he played a supporting role to Henry Paulson, former CEO of Goldman Sachs, in the decision to bail out AIG just two days after deciding not to rescue Lehman Brothers from bankruptcy. Some Wall Street CEOs subsequently expressed the opinion that decisions in which Geithner participated, especially the failure to rescue Lehman, contributed to worsening the global financial crisis.<24> As a Treasury official, he helped manage multiple international crises of the 1990s<16> in Brazil, Mexico, Indonesia, South Korea, and Thailand.<17>

Geithner believes, along with Henry Paulson, that the U.S. Department of the Treasury needs new authority to experiment with responses to the late-2000s financial crisis.<13> Paulson has described Geithner as a "very unusually talented young man... understands government and understands markets".
-------------------
Try googling some of those bolded items to find out who he is (assuming I got the HTML right).

[Recursion]

265. None of those bolded names are Wall St firms

Kissinger Associates is the only for-profit institution there. CFR is a think-tank (and makes the best foreign policy journal out there, Foreign Affairs). Except for those two jobs he's been in the public sector his whole career.

[RaleighNCDUer]

298. Who do you think makes the rules for those Wall St firms?

Not the regulations - that would be something different. The rules that Wall St plays by. The Fucking Fed. Obama's best bud Geitner worked with fucking HENRY KISSINGER AND BRENT SCOWCROFT. Do you even know who those people are? Or do you just hope we DON'T know? And fuckign CFR is nothing but the neo-lib think tank that is out to make the world safe for American predatory capitalism - not that that has ANYTHING to do with Wall Street.

Keep on spinning it - people are waking up to what the Republicans, the DLC and Third Way, the PNAC and neo-con/neo-libs are up to. The response to it is OWS.

Be afraid. Be very afraid.

[stockholmer]

244. that very question is an utter insult to all thinking people on here

:puke:

[Recursion]

266. So name a cabinet secretary who worked on Wall Street (nt)

[stockholmer]

269. Obama 'Wall Street' cabinet level members: William Daley, Rahm Emanuel, Thomas Donilon (JP Morgan,

Goldman Sachs, CitiGroup lawyer whilst at O'Melveny & Myers), Tim Geithner (regardless of what you say, as my reply above shows),Ron Kirk (ex Goldman Sachs lobbyist at Energy Future Holdings Corporation), Peter Orszag, Leon Panetta (member of Board of Directors of New York Stock Exchnge, he also was a Merrill Lynch, Carlyle Group, Wachovia lobbyist whilst at Fleishman Hillard).

This list doesn't even include key Obama administration Wall Street-connected power players/advisors such as Lawrence Summers, Robert Rubin, Austan Goolsbee, Michael Froman, David Axelrod, Louis Caldera, David Stevens, Neal Wolin, etc.


--------------------------------------------------

Noam Chomsky on Obama and his Cabinet Selections


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tEJyrrgUvFI

[Recursion]

270. So, Panetta is the only cabinet member who has worked on Wall Street?

Neither Chief of Staff nor NSA are cabinet positions. Meaning the only cabinet secretary who worked on Wall Street was the one who had basically the least to do with financial matters.

And, no, I'm not going to pretend working for the Federal Reserve makes you "part of Wall Street". That's idiotic.

[stockholmer]

271. I refuse to play your 'false framing' game, the Obama people DIRECTLY involved in the US economy are

deeply integrated Wall Street operators. Nice try with attempting to limit the question to non-germane Cabinet Secretaries.

As for your childlike refusal to admit that the Fed is there first and foremost for the uber-banksters (who also created it, and own it) I have this to say:

Sheep, meet shears

[eilen]

326. "It's a club, not a gang"

Let's see, the gang are the banks on Wall St. The Mob is the Central banks that manipulate and feed the banks on Wall St. like the Fed, the IMF, etc.

[Name removed]

62. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[RaleighNCDUer]

218. And I'll bet you didn't read a single one of them. nt

[certainot]

267. thanks for pointing that out. another left twit oblivious to what really drives the agenda in the US

i'll bet levine has no clue that his university endorses Rush Limbaugh in madison by broadcasting badger sports on his big madison station WIBA, probably the loudest koch funded booster for Scott Walker in the state.

"But this does not explain why Democrats have been so much worse than Republicans at driving the agenda. The reason why, in short, is that, in the most relevant sense, they are the more ridiculous of the two parties."

like most of the pundits and commentators on the left (and dem strategists and politicians) they go to and from work every day and never notice that there's a guy on a soapbox on every corner and they're all screaming the same coordinated material every day, written by the think tanks working for the opponent they oppose, screaming their mothers are whores and their fathers are thieves and they're traitors and their ideas are stupid. and they take free potshots at the representatives and presidents who's backs they promised to get.

that's what team limbaugh scream from 100 radio stations to 50 mil every week- that levine is a traitor and his ideas are idiotic, and his reps are shit, and levine, like almost every liberal commentator, gives them a free speech free ride while blaming obama and the dems.

until the left mounts some organized opposition to the right's best weapon then there's way too much whining and evaluating in a talk radio free fantasy world where all is equal.

[blindpig]

282. Your point?

If the shoe fits, wear it.

[DCBob]

6. Anyone who thought Obama was going to be the next FDR wasnt paying attention to what he was saying.

Obama's main message was being a transformational (ie. there are no red or blue states) President to help bring the country together. Obviously that hasnt worked out as planned but I think he still has 5 more years to try to make it happen.

[Better Believe It]

10. Obama has 5 more years to try transformational bi-partisanship bringing the country together?

How do you think that will work out and what kind of economic agenda would it be based upon?

[DCBob]

19. I think the main goal will be to convince voters that the RW agenda is damaging for America.

If that works then it will force the Republicans away from their hard core "just say no" tactic they have been using these past 3 years. Then we can pass some legislation that might actually help regular people and the economy.

[joshcryer]

136. I predict he'll also piggy back on OWS (and it will marginalize them in the process).

He'll mark them as unemployed lackey's trying to get their voice heard (that doesn't define them but he's already doing it in speeches, saying they wouldn't be camping out if they didn't feel like the government failed them, and contrasting it with jobs; in the speech where he was MIC CHECKED he did just that). Fortunately I don't think OWS is going anywhere.

It can backfire as the political progressives decide to sit it out once again and not get out the vote, but it could also work in his favor, it's a big gamble. But I do think it'll happen.

But yes, 2012 is winning back the House and getting back the Senate. We got a lot of recall efforts, too, so I think that will be self-motivating. OWS serves the political process though it is apolitical, and it serves the left more than it does the right. And of course Obama will be bashed for piggy backing on it despite that he's a politician and we have no realistic alternative.

[DCBob]

137. I suspect he will incorporate many of OWS issues into his 2012 campaign.

Woudlnt that be considered a success from OWS POV? Hardly marginalized.

[joshcryer]

143. That depends on the level of success.

If he "just" gets reelected and doesn't have a decent number of progressives in the House and Senate, he'll mosey along and things will still be stalling here and there as politicians try to fit in their constituency (which is how it's supposed to work, mind you, but if you want the big stuff to be passed, and worry about the local constituency for later, potentially as the next election comes around, it can backfire on you).

If he has a decent majority, however, I would expect things like a second stimulus, health care reform reform, EPA strengthening, education, all that to get a good overhaul in due course.

Either way, the marginalization doesn't really effect OWS, but we shouldn't say that he's not doing it if he does. I found the jobs comparison a little off kilter, even if some large part of OWS is unemployed, it's still not a fair and apt comparison to make. But it still scores political points.

If the former happens OWS should consider itself successful and push for even more reforms, of course. And if we lose completely OWS is fucked. Talk about fascism now with mace? People will start dying enmasse. American's will then know fascism as the rest of the world knows it.

[DCBob]

149. Yeah, that makes sense for the most part.. we will see how it plays.

I would like to see OWS recognized at the Dem convention and given a prominent role in the platform.

[Better Believe It]

162. Why would anyone take "new" election campaign rhetoric seriously.

I think the "change we can believe in" candidate clearly demonstrated in 2008 that such election rhetoric is meaningless and is not to be taken seriously.

Judge a person by their deeds, not their election slogans which are used because they do well in focus groups.

[DCBob]

182. its impossible for an elected official to do exactly what he said he would do as a candidate..

that just reality and common sense. However, I believe President Obama has governed quite close to how he campaigned with a few specific exceptions which is expected.

[Pigheaded]

203. And I disagree completely

[Better Believe It]

215. And frequently they don't even come close because it's pure campaign b.s. for the highly gullible

It's not "change I can believe in".

[lunasun]

239. I feel I got 'chump change' and believe I was a gullible chump to think real change was coming

[ooglymoogly]

161. The real problem for 0 is if Mitt Romney or worse Ron Paul gets the nom.

If ones record is any indication, Romney is far left of 0 and Paul stands for legalizing maryjo, ending all wars, including the drug wars, an overwhelmingly popular stance, even considering his glaring faults.

For myself the presidential election is a wash with little difference of consequence.

I am concentrating on getting Liberals into congress...like Warren and Grayson and a few others.

That is where my effort and money is going.

[BrendaBrick]

192. That's what I'm concentrating on too.

A) Supporting the liberals/progressives that are there and B) getting more elected in.

But sooner or later, the way I see it - there is gonna finally come a time between now and 11-2012 where Obama would be well advised to just put all of his cards on the table. Do or die time, no holds barred and shoot straight from the hip with the American Public and just come clean and very straight-forward about what he promised, what his administration has (or has not) transpired and why....EXACTLY.

Bullet hit the bone time.

Because, I may not agree with everything that Ron Paul represents...(all things considered) - but at least ONE THING he DOES DO is stand by his convictions and will not waiver...and I think that alone, in and of itself, is what most people want and crave from a leader - and Obama had best keep this in mind!

The way I see it ~

[Fokker Trip]

263. Not only end all wars. Paul wants to close all or almost all US foreign military bases.

At this point his stance on social programs will make less and less difference as they are going to be defunded no matter who is in(if the bankers continue to hold sway).

But his other positions would make immediate and huge differences in the safety and freedom of not only US citizens but many many people globally. Grayson would be a better choice but Paul has more integrity than any other candidate running IMO.

[tcaudilllg]

232. Right on.

That's what he was elected to do from the beginning.

[sabrina 1]

30. Did he say he was going to order the assassinations of

people without charges or trial, including US Citizens? I listened pretty closely to what all of them said, and supported HIM, because, unlike Hillary who voted for war, and was willing to torture under certain conditions, he appeared to want to stop all this killing and torture.

Did he say he would support offshore drilling? Airc, he went after McCain when HE said he would support it, but I have no memory of him changing his mind on that before the election.

Face it, no matter how much party loyalists try to make that past few years look good, the American people have figured it out. The whole system is so broken, it doesn't work for them anymore. So, now it is the people who have become 'transformational'. That election, 2008, was the last election where people thought that which party they elected, mattered a great, and that all we get when it is our team, are a few crumbs, while the killing and the thievery and crimes continue and no one is held accountable.

The world has moved on. The people know that it is now up to them to take control of their government. No more listening to politicians acting like they are above the people. They are not, unless we allow them to be, which we did, to our great shame. That has changed now. Anyone who doesn't see the different landscape is still living in the past. Obama is now an 'insider'.

His cabinet is filled with 'insiders'. He was never an agent of change, he was one of them all along slightly better than the alternative, but definitely part of the club they set up to which the people do not belong. And now the people are forming their own club. We'll see how it all works out.

[DCBob]

40. Ok feel free to move on. The rest of us will try to win this election..

and keep the RW from fully taking over this country.

[sabrina 1]

67. The rightwing has raked over this country and continues to do so

many times with the help of the left wing. Have you not noticed? Where are all the convictions of war criminals and economic criminals? Who gave the crooked Wall Street banks trillions of dollars to cover their crimes?

Let us know when the Dems, rather than always allowing just enough of them to vote along with the 'rightwing' to help them get what they want, start standing up and fighting for the people.

[DCBob]

68. I thought you've moved on??

bye.

[sabrina 1]

74. Over 80% of the population have moved on from this broken

system. More than that actually. Congress has an approval rating of 9%. Communism rates higher at this point. To deny these facts won't help fix anything, will it? But your attitude is to ignore people who are trying to make the system work so that those left in it who actually are trying to do some good, will have the backing they need. That didn't happen in 2008. Why? And you are asking people to keep repeating a failed strategy, yet are unwilling to discuss it.

I would rather face reality, hard though it has been, than stick my head in the sand and keep doing the same, failed things over and over again. Millions of Americans are without work, have lost their homes, their HC, one in six American children go be hungry each night, this is reality under the current system. If you think this is acceptable, fine, but millions of Americans do not agree with that.

[ooglymoogly]

168. So tell me, what's it like in La La land....Does everyone have to wear rose colored bifocals

or blinders and are ear plugs the norm.

[joshcryer]

72. Your thirst for vengance against criminals as opposed to support for the downtrodden...

...is certainly telling.

[sabrina 1]

78. You have a hard time, I've noticed many times, with the concept

of justice. You project too much. And because of that attitude, the destruction of American jobs, the increase in the numbers of homeless Americans, the deaths of those without HC, among other things, continues, because there are no consequences for the criminals who have destroyed this country.

Just to help you here. Justice is not about revenge, although I can see why YOU might confuse the two. Our system of justice, unlike those who cheer on illegal invasions of other sovereign nations, is not based on revenge. It is based on a system that assures even the accused get a fair trial.


No surprise to me that you have no problem with allowing war criminals, and Wall Street criminals off the hook.

[joshcryer]

80. You cannot stop criminal behavior by punishment, you stop criminal behavior by...

...replacing the criminals with good people. Here's why: the criminals you're talking about define the punishment, so a corporation that bilks taxpayers of millions gets a fine, and the bankers are immune.

But if you don't vote or run for office or support decent candidates, replacing the criminals with good people will never happen, because you have to redefine the punishments and remove the immunities.

I consider the criminals irrelevant, they gamed the system just as they do in Latin American countries, while progressives turn a blind eye. They will be ousted in due course, and no amount of thirst for vengeance will matter. The current criminals will get off (laws cannot be retroactive), but in the future they will think twice.

[sabrina 1]

83. The current criminals may or may not get off. South American

countries are only now prosecuting their war criminals from sometimes 30 to 40 years ago. That is necessary for those who lost faith in justice for their loved ones. If you do the crime, you should do the time.

Otherwise, I'm all for no one being held accountable. Why do people go to jail for murder? Just one murder? Big deal. War criminals are responsible for hundreds of thousands of murders and torture etc. So by your logic, we should let them off the hook. Fine, but if we are going to do that, I want to do the same for all criminals, all wife abusers, all murderers, all bank robbers. If the law does not apply to some, it should not apply to anyone.

You do agree, I'm sure. I mean you seem to believe that having a system of justice is about revenge. Why do you say that? What makes you think that? Do you really think that our justice system is about revenge?

And since you support letting torturers and war criminals off the hook, do you also support abolishing all our laws and letting ordinary murderers and rapists do their thing and leave them alone rather that 'get revenge'? Find with me, but we can't have two sets of laws, we either believe in justice or we don't.

[joshcryer]

96. Stop twisting what I say as you typically and compulsively do to everyone.

I never suggested I "supported" "letting torturers and war criminals off the hook." I merely think that as far as our political system is concerned they are the least of our concern, future generations will take care of them, what we should be focusing on is building those future generations. Your entire focus is revenge, not about justice, justice comes from building away these corrupt institutions (and not replacing them with even more corrupt institutions).

Your damn straight we should let go all those non-violent drug offenders and other petty criminal offenses. And let the political system arrest the corrupt in due course as opposed to sitting on our hands crying about how they should be arrested before we even fix the system, indeed, considering the system unfixable and hoping, delusionally, something will replace it from the outside, as opposed to the inside.

It is about revenge, it is about vengence, it is about "getting back at them." It has very little to do with actually supporting the poor. Type in search (DU google search) "homeless camp eviction" for the last 3-4 years. I know what it told me when I did that.

[demgrrrll]

107. Good

[sabrina 1]

116. For you it is about revenge. Speak for yourself please, do not

speak for me. If we are to allow murderers and torturers off the hook it sets up a premise that there is nothing wrong with killing millions of people based on lies, or with torture. And that is exactly where we are right now, because this country has not laid down the law and made it clear that we will not tolerate such massive crimes being done in our name. No one in power now needs to worry about continuing to commit war crimes, which is happening every day right now.

And Wall Street criminals were rewarded and their corrupt behavior continues because of that. While others emulate them knowing there will be no consequences. What you are advocating is a lawless society, which is exactly what we have.

Were the Founding Fathers looking for revenge when they wrote the Constitution, the law of the land, or were they trying to create a civil society?

But, and again you totally missed my point, if we are to allow murderers and torturers to go free while we 'build' (you cannot build on a rotten foundation, could Germany have rebuilt while ignoring THEIR war criminals and allowed them to remain free living in luxury?) then we should open the prison doors and let MURDERERS AND RAPISTS go free, because no matter how bad their crimes, they do not compare to the crimes of those torturers and war criminals who are being rewarded right now for their crimes.

[joshcryer]

121. Again, I never said off the hook. Again, you are putting words in my mouth.

The country will not arrest those people until the country is out of the cycle of corruption, full stop, period. End. Bitching about a reality that doesn't exist is just some sort of madness at the minimum. You either fix the system or you don't.

What is your solution? "Arrest all the criminals"! Who does the arresting? They're all criminals, or at least ethically and morally corrupt, from my point of view. I cannot expect them, reasonably, to arrest people that got them into power or whom have a hold on the power that we give them.

We don't allow them to go free permanently, we focus instead on fixing the country instead of focusing on them.

Why? Because that's exactly what they want. They want us to hate our own constituents because they aren't far left, so we throw them under the bus and they can get their far right guy into elective power. We should 1) run 2) elect better progressives 3) change the system from the inside.

If we keep belly aching because "now is not the time" to arrest these criminals, then we will get nowhere. And indeed, that is really what you want, after all.

[sabrina 1]

129. That was the point of the 2008 election wasn't it?

To elect the other party which we were assured if they took both houses and the WH, would begin the process of restoring the rule of law. But that didn't happen, in fact if anything it is worse now. So what do YOU suggest, 'let's the same thing all over again'. You know what they say about doing the same thing over and over again expecting different results.

So, how do you propose to do it this time? We KNOW NOW that the system is so corrupt that it cannot be fixed by reelecting the same people who are part of the problem. But you are not providing any solution this, just throwing out your usual personal attacks, twisting what people say, then whining that you are the poor victim of having your words twisted. Hilarious! You should try rereading your posts sometime, and you won't have to wonder why so few take you seriously.

[joshcryer]

133. Not to rational observers, it wasn't. That's what I'm saying, Obama said a lot of stuff.

Obama was not the guy everyone made him out to be. That's the point. Truth be told I saw it coming a mile away. What surprised me in the end was that he wasn't nearly as bad as I was expecting (I thought the junior senator part of his post-partisan campaign only amplified it). Instead he's been better than I expected. Also, I was surprised that we allowed the Tea Baggers to get out 9% more votes than we did in 2010 (especially in light of the 2008 voter suppression and Franken sabotage and obstructionism by the GOP senators), but that is mostly due to MSM PSYOPS. They wanted drama, they got it, and it's served them well, because they kept everyone divided, and liberals fell for it hook line and sinker.

How do I propose we do it this time? It's simple. Demographics. We have the numbers. It's unquestionable. OWS proves it. We have the damn numbers. Get out the vote and get it out hard. Run progressive candidates, and run them hard. Do it. Make it happen.

The Republicans don't want you to do that. And every time I see the idea perpetuated by the "left" I am appalled, disgusted.

[sabrina 1]

226. And what makes you think that people other than you, thought

Obama was the answer to all prayers? What he was, to me and to everyone I know, was NOT Bush. Even with that, knowing he was not exactly the greatest choice, especially after his FISA vote, he is far worse than I imagined, still better than a Republican, but that's not exactly an endorsement. He went back on the main issues he claimed to stand for, Offshore Drilling eg, the Insurance Mandate which he slammed Hillary for, Defit Commissions which he also slammed Hillary for and I agreed with him on, but then in the end did the exact opposite. He changed his mind about a PO, and please do not waste anyone's time claiming he was never for it, I am sick of posting his very own words proving otherwise.

To say he is better than you expected, has to mean you were not for the ban on Offshore Drilling that you were always FOR Romneycare, that you supported Commissions, which Obama called 'an end run around the Constitution' among other things. If that was the case with you, then of course he is 'better than expected' because you didn't expect anything different than what Bush gave us.

I was not thrilled with the choices we had, but chose him because of his position on the PO, on the Mandate, on Offshore Drilling, on Deficit Commissions. But if none of that was important to you, then I'm not sure why you did not like Bush.

As for 'getting out the vote'? For whom? Show me a candidate that takes no money from Wall Street and I will work hard to get him/her elected. But I will no longer support Wall Street funded candidates, and for many people that WILL be one of the biggest issues in the next campaign, now that we know what that money buys.

[joshcryer]

250. Please have one fucking honest discussion with me. This is so tiresome.

Obama http://articles.cnn.com/2008-08-02/politics/campaign.wrap_1_offshore-oil-drilling-obama-gas-prices">flipped on offshore drilling months before the elections, as predicted because he was a post-partisan.

Obama never said he was against deficit commissions, this "commission flip flop" is a http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sFqpbI7KD7I">right wing lie and it is embarrassing that you perpetuate it. Obama had hard proposals, and his comments "against commissions" were about making those proposals happen. The National Commission on Fiscal Responsibility and Reform was created after our dear Junior Senator from Illinois realized that's how D.C. works. His statements "denigrating commissions" were at most politics, and anyone watching saw it a mile away. After all, he was a post-partisan.

Obama's Gitmo position was hilariously bad, and showed his overwhelming lack of experience, when he decided that, in the end, he could just throw out an executive order to close it, meanwhile not even knowing that the paperwork to do it via executive order would take years to clear everyone. Oh yes, our President isn't a king, for sure. Then, we lost the house and Gitmo was forced open by the Republicans because they put it in the spending bill, which Obama had to sign. Because he's a post-partisan.

As far as the public option, Obama was always for it, but he never ruled out a mandate, not once. In fact, many of us were pissed that he put the ghost mandate in his plan because it resulted in fines. It was a really shitty plan. I was a big defender of Hillary's plan (but you weren't even on these forums when those debates were happening). In fact, anyone who was against the mandate in that time period I knew was not actually for single payer (everyone for single payer was for the mandate, though none of us could've predicted that we wouldn't get a public option, every plan had it), because single payer is a mandate, which is why Krugman backed Hillary's plan.

Funnily, the obstructionist Republicans wanted to forbid states from providing a public option in their state based health care plans, Obama and other Democrats stopped that from happening. Given that he was a Junior Senator I expected him to cave on that and ban the public option outright. At least Vermont and other states have or will have a public option, which will eventually virally infect the rest of the states. Slower than a federal mandate, but it's far better than I expected.

As far as being "for" Romneycare, no, that's baseless slanders, I don't have to be 'for' anything Obama does to support him. I can support him simply because I believe he's consistent and found himself in a situation that he, a Junior Senator, was not prepared for, and he's made the best of it. D.C. is cut throat and he's finding out. I didn't expect him to end DADT (through post-partisan vote pushing), for instance. Blew my mind that it ended via a fucking vote. Progressively Obama is not impressive. I didn't expect him to be.

Meanwhile if you don't want to get out the vote, that's your prerogative. I'll be happy to blame people like you if we lose in 2012 like we did in 2010, with the far right getting out 9% more votes than we did. And when OWS protesters get mowed down by the far more tyrannical right wing in power, at least I won't feel complicit.

[sabrina 1]

251. On the Mandate:

How Would President Hillary Do It Differently?

Columbia Journalism Review's Greg Marx explains that the debates were never really about specific policies, they were about personality and "moral character." On the one big health care policy debate, the issue of a mandate, Clinton argued for a mandate. Obama argued against a mandate. But, in 2010, the actual Obama-backed bill included that mandate. So clearly policy was never the big issue, and wouldn't have been pursued that differently.

And since you missed it, there is video to back it up:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7AOJBiklP1Q

And here he states that if mandates worked, we could end homelessness by forcing everyone to buy a house.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WfUikax0U5E

And here his words opposing individual mandates used in an ad by the Nurses Union:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EoSnqofelsQ

So you are completely wrong. Throughout the campaign he opposed the individual mandate. And when he changed his mind, many people warned that this would be challenged in court, as it is now. And the judge is using Obama's own words during the primaries to show his own opposition to mandates. And there's lots more.

I don't know where you were during the primaries, but this was one of the issues that differentiated him from Hillary and got my support.

On Offshore Drilling:

Obama slams McCain on Offshore Drilling

“John McCain’s support of the moratorium on offshore drilling during his first presidential campaign was certainly laudable, but his decision to completely change his position and tell a group of Houston oil executives exactly what they wanted to hear today was the same Washington politics that has prevented us from achieving energy independence for decades,” Obama said.

He correctly pointed out that it would take at least a decade before an offshore drilling would have an impact on the market. “Much like his gas tax gimmick that would leave consumers with pennies in savings, opening our coastlines to offshore drilling would take at least a decade to produce any oil at all, and the effect on gasoline prices would be negligible at best since America only has 3% of the world’s oil. It’s another example of short-term political posturing from Washington, not the long-term leadership we need to solve our dependence on oil.

Obama criticizes McCain on offshore drilling

Barack Obama on Friday dismissed rival John McCain's proposal to allow offshore drilling as an election-year conversion, arguing that it will not lower gas prices for families "this year, next year, five years from now."


The likely Democratic nominee pledged to keep in place the federal government's 27-year moratorium on offshore drilling, and criticized McCain on changing his position on the matter.

Said Obama: "The politics may have changed but the facts haven't."

That was in June of 2008. These two positions helped win him the primaries. Again, I don't know where you were, but clearly you were not paying attention.

On Deficit Commissions

Text of Obama's Prepared Speech in Response to McCain's Proposals on the Deficit

Just today, Senator McCain offered up the oldest Washington stunt in the book – you pass the buck to a commission to study the problem. But here’s the thing – this isn’t 9/11. We know how we got into this mess. What we need now is leadership that gets us out. I’ll provide it, John McCain won’t, and that’s the choice for the American people in this election.



History shows us that there is no substitute for presidential leadership in a time of economic crisis. FDR and Harry Truman didn’t put their heads in the sand, or hand accountability over to a Commission. Bill Clinton didn’t put off hard choices. They led, and that’s what I will do. My priority as President will be the stability of the American economy and the prosperity of the American people. And I will make sure that our response focuses on middle class Americans – not the companies that created the problem.

And there's lots more on his opposition to using a Deficit Commission to solve the country's fiscal problems.

As DADT I expected that to be the first thing he would do when he had the majority in Congress. Instead they delayed it to use as a bargaining tool, cynically, as many suspected was the reason, and in fact is what they did in the end. Shameful, it should have been done in Jan. 2009.

Your expectations are pretty low but don't expect others to share them. Most of us want way more for this country and do not like being lied to by politicians. It is your attitude that has continued the status quo in the Dem Party who know they don't have to do anything to earn votes. Hopefully that is about to change. The people have had enough.

As for who you will falsely blame if Democrats lose, I don't care what you do. If that is all you care about, acting like a child, that's your problem, I just hope that most people have other priorities for the sake of the country.

Obama was a wonderful candidate. On most of the issues he was to the left of Hillary and appeared to be very sincere. And maybe he was. What happened afterwards, no one knows. I like him, I am willing to believe that he found out that the US President no longer has much power and cannot do what he would like to do. We will find out IF people focus on Congress and throw out all the Wall Street Candidates, replacing them with people who are NOT under the control of Wall St. as most are now.

I hope you pay better attention in this election to what the candidates are saying.

[joshcryer]

258. Wow.

Beyond the pale.

Everything I said you basically repeated the same right wing talking points. I showed you that once Obama got the nomination he was in the middle on offshore drilling, I showed you that Obama's "deficit commission" thing was a talking point (used by right wingers to bash him) and that ultimately it was predictable that he, a Junior Senator, would cave on that issue. Meanwhile, Obama did in fact say that a mandate was not entirely off the table if enough people weren't signing up, it was buried in his health care talking points but I can't find it, it's there, however, and I personally argued that Obama's plan would eventually need a mandate, as did Krugman and anyone paying attention. It disturbs me that someone who considers themselves a progressive can be against mandates.

If you don't "like being lied to by politicians" you wouldn't back up any politicians. I, well, I can deal with being lied to by politicians because that's what they do. I don't delude myself about politicians because the environment is inherently toxic, indeed, you yourself are spinning bullshit right wing fairy tales.

I've been on DU for the last 2 Presidential elections, don't presume to tell me that you "hope I pay better attention to what the candidates are saying." I have a hard time believing you grasp what I am saying here given that you don't understand how utterly predictable Obama's presidency has been.

Granted, I didn't expect liberals to cave to the fictional tea party like they did in 2010, so I was wrong on that count.

[tcaudilllg]

312. They won't ever get mowed down

because in that event the police will be fighting each other. They are already sorely tempted to as it is, but the would-be rebels see the arrests as a vehicle. Take away their belief in the vehicle, and the peace of the nation will vanish.

[Name removed]

310. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[girl gone mad]

255. Actually, the only way to stop financial crimes now is to punish the criminals.

When financial fraud goes unpunished, the fraudsters gain a clear technical advantage in the marketplace. This creates a criminogenic environment in which honest players cannot compete and are driven out of business.

This is a well understood phenomenon, known as Gresham's dynamic.

The only way to stop it is to prosecute the criminals. End of story.

[tcaudilllg]

235. Justice is primarily about intimidation of the unethical minority. n/t

[WildNovember]

94. Why should criminals hold on to power? I don't understand the point of your post.

[joshcryer]

101. The point is that the criminals won't have that power if they're removed politically.

They will continue to have that power if they are merely removed judicially, because others in the political sphere will come in, take their place, and close law whatever got them arrested in the first place. That's what went on for the past 20 years, lobbyists pushed for immunity and for secretivism and for deregulation, meaning that people could get away with more and more.

All people advocating for this "do nothing" approach is for the system to become more corrupt and more pro-criminal, because somehow they think the system can fix itself if only we get the right savior in place. No, we need a shakeup of the entire system up and down, top to bottom. The corruption must be stopped at the ballot box (or civil war, but I am not advocating that, though some here border on doing so).

[WildNovember]

103. It's not just political people, it's finance/business people and others as well.

Anyone who started taking those people on and jailing them would have the support of most of the population, but it's not happening. Ergo, the ballot box failed.

[joshcryer]

109. The financial system and business people have been entrenched for about 80-90 years now.

The United States has not been free of them in our lifetimes, and likely won't be unless we do something about it (that is not apolitical).

Those who support arresting those people merely need to either run for office or vote in people they like as opposed to sitting home doing nothing and bitching. They were the ones who put those people into office in the first place, they were apathetic.

[WildNovember]

118. I'm sorry, but to me your answers sound like double-speak. I have been voting

a straight Democratic ticket since I was able to vote. I do not see that it's done much good except on the margins. The overall direction of the country, and the Party, has been to the right. The present financial debacle is the culmination of all that. Your only answer seems to be "Keep doing that, it's a winning strategy!"

[joshcryer]

122. "They were the ones who put those people into office in the first place, they were apathetic."

I did not say "keep doing that, it's a winning strategy." I said either run or get people you want into office. If you simply "vote the Democratic ticket" then, I'm sorry, that's the worst strategy that you can take. And it's part and partial to why we are where we are today.

[WildNovember]

125. So that has nothing to do with whether or not someone votes for Obama.

[TheKentuckian]

128. How can one support the downtrodden when his oppressor is unfettered and unaccountable?

It is hard to lift a person up with the boot of another on their neck.

Making the criminals stop, making it tough for them to repeat their crimes, and making them repay and repair their gross sport looting isn't vengeance it is fairness and it is rational and how you keep trouble from multiplying out of all possible control.

You don't help people by letting the architects, engineers, and practitioners of wickedness go with their gains free to put together the next and more diabolical caper.
Then you compound the insanity by locking people away for years over a plant or comparatively minuscule thefts and you have a pile of corruption that threatens to blot out the sky.

[joshcryer]

145. People put all their hopes in one man when they should've put them in their representitives.

It's that simple. Yes, the Hero's Journey, the Legend, is amazing and awesome and worth thinking about from an entertainment perspective.

But we won't accomplish anything if we don't change the system completely.

The "Obama will fix everything" mentality (which your own post implies) is not realistic, and was ultimately a "top down" approach, which never ever works.

[TheKentuckian]

170. Josh, I never mentioned Obama or President or even administration.

Plus, you ate avoiding my content and moving on to some defense of Obama when we are discussing a philosophical question that would exist whether Obama even exists or not.

I also don't get how you are trying to flip focus to reps when we are talking justice and enforcement, sounds like a smoke screen.

[bvar22]

177. "put all their hopes in one man"?.... Wrong.

The American People put their hopes in the Democratic Party by giving them majorities in the House and Senate in 2006,
long before most people had heard of Obama.

Then, in 2008, the American people gave the Democratic Party:

*even larger majorities in the House & Senate

*The White House

*A HUGE Mandate for "CHANGE"

*and an ARMY standing in the streets



How do you get "put all their hopes in one man" from all THAT? :shrug:

The American people put their faith & hopes in the Democratic Party, not just one man,
and gave the Democratic Party everything it needed to actually effect the promised "CHANGE".
It took much more than just one man to Fuck Up ALL that.

Blaming the failures of the Democratic Party on the people who voted for them
and gave them all the right tools doesn't make much sense to me.



You will know them by their WORKS,
not by their excuses.
Solidarity99!
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

[joshcryer]

209. Please stop the revisionism. Obama never had power in the Senate.

This has been explained time and time again, and no one is listening.

[Better Believe It]

216. You're right. The Republicans clearly run the Senate no matter how many Democrats are in it.

[sabrina 1]

253. Lol, don't you love how, when all their other arguments fail

they always resort to 'but he never had enough Senators'. Same old excuses. And that's all they are. Excuses.

I always wonder why we were not told before the election, that just getting a huge mandate and both Houses, would produce nothing?? No one said to ME 'Sabrina, don't think that just because we might win both Houses and the WH that anything is going to change much. Republicans win even when they are in the minority you know'. I mean if we had been told that this was the case before the election, why bother to vote?

And they, who keep telling us this NOW, wonder why they lost the young people and Independents in 2010 and why people are now on the streets fed up with both parties.

[joshcryer]

261. Uh, it's not an excuse, it's a fact.

It's basic reasoning skills and logic. Note how the response wasn't that it wasn't factual, the response was a snide remark about how Democrats are Republicans. No real attempt to actually have a discussion, because the discussion was over. I let it go because it was childish and predictable and didn't merit a response.

Your post doesn't either, really, but I can't allow this disinformation to continue.

You still don't grasp that the President is not king and winning the House and Senate was necessary to effect change. You still don't appreciate Republican obstructionism, indeed, you clearly give them a pass on it. You give the Republicans a pass on obstructing Franken's seating. You give them a pass on obstructing via the virtual filibuster which the Democratic Senators are too cowardly to fight.

I personally don't blame weak politicians when the strong, vile, atrocious politicians, which the Republicans are and have been for awhile, stomp all over them. Indeed, I kinda feel sorry for them for letting it happen. The Democrats could've easily changed the rules, but they didn't. Some wanted to, but others were afraid, because if they lost the next round, they'd be screwed (and so too would their constituants). And can you blame them? With this "why bother vote" apathy? Oh I don't blame them one bit.

[KoKo]

317. Agree , bvar22. Well said. n/t

[sabrina 1]

252. What nonsense. Speak for yourself regarding this 'hero' stuff

you are projecting on to others. I don't know a single person who views any political candidate in that way. This is the DLC's angry attempt to explain why people are disappointed in this president. Talking points coming straight from their think tanks. You are simply repeating their mindless, moronic attempts to deflect from the reality that there are actual legitimate reasons for the anger of the people who elected them.

[joshcryer]

259. I am not convinced you even know what I'm saying there.

The DLC would never ever bash Obama's post-partisanship while dissing the fact that humans have an innate desire to cling to one individual as a savior. It's a very incoherent response you're making, to be sure.

[bvar22]

273. Then we agree on one point:

The REAL problem is NOT the Republicans,
but Traitors who masquerade as "Centrist NEW Democrats" INSIDE the Democratic Party,
and until we "fix" this problem, we are destined to an uninterrupted
string of MORE failures.

Thanks for stepping out of the darkness and facing the REAL problem.

The American people GAVE the Democrats a Veto-Proof Majority in the Senate.
THAT is NOT "revisionism".

For most of two YEARS, The Democrats held a 59/41 MAJORITY in the Senate,
and pissed it away.
The Republicans accomplished MUCH MORE with MUCH LESS.
Do you have another excuse for THAT?
Something better than,

"It was ALL Joe Lieberman's Fault!!!
He was a BIG BULLY who beat up Obama
and totally ruined his whole health care Plan!!!
There was NOTHING he could Dooooooooo.
It was HORRIBLE! :cry: :cry: :cry:

...do you know how pathetic that is for those of us who KNOW better?
What would have happened if Joe Lieberman had told LBJ he wasn't going to support Medicare?
LOL.

They would STILL be looking for pieces of Lieberman ASS all over Washington.


Truth is, Joe Lieberman took one for Team DLC in the Kabuki Theater.
he had nothing to lose anyway, so he was picked to take the bullet,
and he played his assigned part well,
well enough to fool you.

He didn't fool those of us who have been around long enough to KNOW better.
59/41 AND the White House IS enough to move your agenda forward,
and the White House "Centrist" agenda WAS moved forward.

"Johnson was the catalyst, the cajoler in chief. History records him as the nation's greatest legislative politician. In a great piece on the Daily Beast website, LBJ aide Tom Johnson, writes about how his old boss would have gotten a health care reform bill through the current congress. It's worth reading to understand the full impact of the "Johnson treatment" and how effective LBJ could be in winning votes for his legislation."

http://thejohnsonpost.blogspot.com/2009/08/johnson-treatment.html

You will know them by their WORKS,
not by their excuses.
Solidarity99!
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

[KoKo]

318. Another truth...but, some still don't want to hear it. n/t

[sabrina 1]

294. Intelligent humans do not cling to 'one human' as a savior.

You are describing those who still cannot acknowledge any fault with this president. I give him way more respect than those who turn a blind eye to everything he does. Hero-worshippers cling to one human, and no matter what that human does, they refuse to acknowledge and/or excuse it, blame others for it and continue to cling to him/her and defend them no matter how correct the non-hero-worshippers may be.

As long as there are these people who DO cling to a particular 'savior' there can be no intelligent discussion with them as to what to do about the situation because they instinctively jump to defend their hero rather than acknowledge the problems.

[joshcryer]

302. And yet you say that you didn't understand that we needed "all three" to get things done.

Are you admitting that you're not intelligent?

I've been extremely unkind to President Obama in this thread. Hell we agree in principle that the Democrats are cowards, but instead of saying that's something to be pitied (which I do), you say it's something that makes you think "why bother voting?"

I am defending Obama, the man, the person who everyone thought was going to fix everything "without all three." Everyone else is thinking of Obama as the 'savior.' It's just like Chavez the 'savior' or Castro the 'savior' or any other 'iconic' figure we all lean too. During the past year Trotsky and Marx were trotted out again and again, and it just amused me to no ends, because I grew past that phase of hero worship, for the simple reason that we're in this together and nothing will get done if we hinge everything on the actions of one person or even a few people.

[ooglymoogly]

169. Innit grand how one can just string a bunch of words together

without a modicum of reality or validity and post here on DU and call it a rebuttal.

[RaleighNCDUer]

222. Justice is not vengeance.

And supporting the downtrodden is a futile endeavor if you leave them free to knock their legs out from under them again - probably taking you down as well.

[joshcryer]

260. Justice cannot be had when those in power create the injustice.

They must be ousted from power first.

[RaleighNCDUer]

295. And THAT is why they need to be prosecuted.

Duh.

[joshcryer]

303. So, explain to me how those who are supported by the system, indeed, created it...

...are going to prosecute their own?

What has to happen is a political shift, whereby the incumbents are ousted in large enough numbers so that 1) the incumbants who stay around are at risk of they themselves being judicially prosecuted, and 2) so that those who lobbied the status quo and all who were complicit can be judicially prosecuted.

Until that happens, nothing will be done. Senator Smith will happily watch Senator Jane's back because Senator Jane is watching Senator Smith's back, because they've been doing this for years, and they have constituents to make happy and profitable deals to make.



That has to change before you can magically prosecute these criminals.

This is common fucking sense.

[RaleighNCDUer]

314. Uh, the judiciary does not sit in congress.

And ANYBODY can file a suit.

It's call a system of checks and balances. When any one branch accrues too much entranched power, the other two can bring the one back into line.

That is the common fucking Constitution.

[RaleighNCDUer]

221. Where, in what you said, is the left wing represented, per your claim?

Democrats does not = the left wing. particularly this breed of Democrat that's running things today.

[joshcryer]

57. The American people have figured it out? What are they going to do? Stop voting and bring back...

...the Bush years?

I hope you're right that the American people have figured it out. I really do. It means Obama wins in a landslide and we get the Congress back.

[RaleighNCDUer]

223. I don't give a fuck if Obama wins or not.

If we have solid majorities in both houses - THEN we will get something done.

Frankly, he has no coattails anymore. He's catered to the right which hates him, and betrayed the left which should be his base. He's a neo-liberal American exceptionalist. Somehow he doesn't realize that Manifest Destiny is a failed concept.

Don't count on Obama for anything.

[joshcryer]

248. Never have.

Never will.

Expect the worst. Get surprised every now and again.

Point of OP is about Obamamania.

I'm merely one of those who saw it a mile away.

[ooglymoogly]

165. +1 nt

[mmonk]

86. I heard what he said. I saw what he did. Case closed.

Remember public option? Remember accountability? Remember closing Guantanamo Bay? Remember the pledge about the executive branch made to the American Freedom Campaign? I don't remember anything about privatizing education or challenging the teachers unions. Did he say anything about extending the Bush tax cuts?

[DCBob]

179. No President can do exactly what he said as a candidate.

However, having said that, I think Obama has governed the way I expected him to. Of course there are some specific items that for one reason or another he couldnt accomplish... but thats to be expected.

[NashVegas]

186. Not To Mention Those Comments About Reagan

Oh, remember how some people contorted like pretzels, to rationalize that chestnut?

[RaleighNCDUer]

220. I didn't expect him to be FDR - but neither did I expect him to be Ronald Reagan. nt

[stockholmer]

245. too bad his idea (as would a Republican too) is to bring it together under a boot heel

of corporate fascism.

Obama is simple to describe:

Great soaring speeches, leading to lofty hopes of the less informed, then the bitter reality sinks in, all overseen by the same old genocidal systemic controllers.

If he were to truly do even a semi 180 and start to wind down the empire and try to cut off the global bankster cartel at its knees, he would would never finish his second term.

[SidDithers]

7. Unrec...

Keep trying. And good citizens check for duplicates.
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=439x2406314

Sid

[inna]

12. you "keep trying". rec'd the other thread too, thanks to your valuable message.

[JTFrog]

160. unrec. none more worthless than yours.

[Rex]

285. +1

:rofl:

[Bluenorthwest]

211. A day later and it is at +67 Sid!

You got your finger on the pulse!

[SidDithers]

217. Ain't democracy grand...

BBI could post the telephone book, though, and it would get +50 recs. His fanboys and fangirls would see to that.

Sid

[Rex]

276. Rec...for Sid.

:rofl: :rofl: :rofl:

[SidDithers]

279. Error: you can only recommend threads which were started in the past 24 hours...

Guess not, eh? :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl:

Nice try, tho.

Sid

[Rex]

283. Funny how I rec'd the thread when it was started...just thought I would

get your goat! And I DID!

:rofl: :rofl: :rofl:

Kneejerking must be FUN!

:rofl:

[SidDithers]

289. Sure you did...

Imaginary recs are fun!

Sid

[Rex]

290. Yay! Sid got the right post this time!

Someone give him a hand!

Keep trying!

:rofl:

[Rex]

275. You mean Canadian citizens?

So when are you moving to the States? :rofl:

[SidDithers]

277. I mean DU citizens...

haven't you ever seen the message when you post a new thread?

:rofl: :rofl:

Sid

[Rex]

284. Only you! HAR HAR!

:rofl:

Derp

[SidDithers]

286. Sure you did...nt

Sid

[Rex]

287. Aww you posted to the wrong reply.

Aww... :rofl:

Keep trying! :rofl:

[SidDithers]

291. Easy enough to do, all your posts look the same..nt

Sid

[Rex]

292. Snarf

:rofl: :rofl: :rofl:

Thank you for the lol, I needed it. :rofl:

[closeupready]

281. Well if you unrecced, that's an automatice rec from me.

Thanks. :hi:

[Rex]

288. +1

Word.

[Arctic Dave]

8. I will admit that I was pulled into the excitment of his candidacy.

I heard what I wanted to hear. After living through the bush debacle I was willing to believe anything as long as it was anyone but bush. Those days are behind me now. I have had time to see the results of my choice.

I duped myself. Fool me once shame on you,...

[DCBob]

11. so if you had a do-over what would you do?

[Arctic Dave]

13. That was then, this is now.

This time my house will not be a call center, a card writing center, a precinct center nor will money go to his campaign. I will allow you to fill in the rest.

[joshcryer]

17. In other words, you will sabatoge your only chance to enact progress.

I've never experienced a more childish view of the political process than now.

The Republicans will be happy to capitalize on something like that as they did in 2010.

I myself will be getting out the vote like I did in 2010 and helped keep Colorado blue (I got out about 10% of the votes we needed to win, single handedly).

[Arctic Dave]

33. Childish? Hardly.

Do you think I just waste time all day posting on chat sites?

Here is the political strategy for Dems in Alaska, RUN AWAY FROM OBAMA AS FAST AS YOU CAN!

[joshcryer]

63. You know what you should do? Run against Don Young.

[Arctic Dave]

91. Can't, I will be helping my wife as runs for House Seat 28.

[The Doctor.]

196. Yeah, it's childish.

"I didn't get what I wanted so to hell with him." is your attitude. That attitude is childish.

Obama has done much to undo the damage of the BA. And you say you're taking your toys and going home.

Many of us are disappointed that Obama didn't get everything he and the rest of us wanted, but we knew that we wouldn't going in. If you really did believe he was going to 'change' everything you wanted, then you were naïve to begin with.

That's not a mature quality.

[sabrina 1]

254. Yes, like assassinating US Citizens, including teenagers

without even being charged. Even Bush didn't go that far, out in the open anyhow.

I guess all those Bush policies weren't so bad after all, because now those who are supporting Obama ARE supporting Bush policies.

So the question is, is it mature to oppose something when the other team is doing it, then support or try to excuse it, when your team is doing it?

[The Doctor.]

274. Wow. That's pretty irrelevant to the point.

You seem to do that quite a bit, I've noticed.

The weird part is that you treat it as though he went there himself and blew them up with a rocket launcher. Sure, I blame him for it. Yes, I'd like it to stop. But I'm not dumb enough to think that

a) It was all his idea.
b) He likes the idea himself.

Bush, otoh, is a sociopath.

So while you sit here defending people who, by their inaction and the encouragement of inaction by others, effectively want to put another sociopath in the White House, all I can picture is a child who's so upset by a few bad policies they'd throw away every bit of good the man has done and could still do just out of spite.

Another 'childish' trait is assuming that just because someone wants to keep him in office, they must necessarily agree with even the bad policies. Carte blanche, black+white thinking IS childish.

Add to that actively sabotaging a reelection and we're talking down right puerile.

So are you among those who aren't going to tell people to vote for him, just keep it to yourself in a stink?

[ellisonz]

102. +1000

[me b zola]

82. I would have written in Kucinich on my ballot. n/t

[joshcryer]

16. Yeah, I find that people deluded about him as a person are the most ardent non-supporters now.

Those of us who had reasonable expectations, ie, that he wasn't some sort of liberal progressive savior, but merely a junior senator who believed in post-partisanship, are completely happy with the job he's doing.

[treestar]

20. +100000

And people who have the slightest idea how the government works never had these ridiculous expectations.

[Arctic Dave]

59. How many times have you ran for office?

Have you ever been on a campaign committee? How often do you go to meetings at your state democratic headquarters?

[joshcryer]

69. I was completely unaffilitated in 2010, I took 200+ people to the polls, all poorer people.

At the end of the day we walked, about 20 of us, to the Church to vote right before the polls closed. Blacks, whites, Hispanics, it was glorious.

You don't need to be at "meetings" or be on a campaign committee to help your fellow people get to the voting booth. In fact, in my experience, it's better that you're not, because you get caught in that vicious partisan cycle (note, I have no problem with partisanship as long as it doesn't result in a sycophantical circle jerk). You can tell people what you think and they can tell you what you think and you can disagree and move on.

[treestar]

88. No. The price of eggs in China is going up, too.

:wtf:

[Arctic Dave]

89. You posted that I didn't know how government worked and that is why

I had a improper view of Obama. I wanted to know how often you participant in the governing process to make such a claim.

[treestar]

158. A campaign is not "the government."

I was talking about people who expect Obama to direct Congress. Which a President cannot do. Or the people who sneer about the power of the Presidency - which is defined in Article II.

Every person on a campaign may have different expectations, some reasonable and some not. And in fact it appears that most of the people who expect Obama to act like a dictator claimed they worked on the campaign. But they were campaigning for something far more powerful than a US President.

[Number23]

227. Ye gods.... "A campaign is not "the government."

Good Lord. The fact that you even have to TELL that to someone is embarrassing as hell.

Every time I think this place couldn't get more clueless, somebody pops up and proves me wrong...

[Better Believe It]

21. So you believe that non-partisan bi-partisanship with Republicans will end the depression/recession?

[joshcryer]

22. I believe that our President is not a king and that his hands are tied as long as he doesn't have...

...a plurality of votes.

See, if I had unrealistic expectations, as if Obama was a savior, that he should've done some sort of fantasy scenario where he passed all sorts of progressive stuff and then dissolved the congress (never been done, but his power alone), but that is magical fantasy idiotic thinking.

Meanwhile when I see that the hand that Obama was dealt, I think he's played his cards very well. :hi:

[Better Believe It]

29. For two years he had a substantial majority in the Senate and House.

What did he need .... 100 Democratic Senators and 435 Democratic members of the House in order to pass a bold stimulus bill that would have put millions back to work with WPA type public works programs?

Hardly.

As you must know, President Obama was in principal opposed to such direct government job creation programs and refused to withdraw President Reagan's Executive Order prohibiting such programs.

[joshcryer]

38. No, Al Franken was not seated until 49 days before Kennedy died. But you know this.

I have told you this repeatedly, it is not information that you lack.

Obama could have, had he been an FDR-like President, set up a package to vote up all sorts of progressive stuff, passed it with Teddy (on life support) and Franken. Then, when he lost the House in 2010 (because liberals said fuck off to Obama, starting with his pick of Warren for the inauguration and his largely post-partisan cabinet), disolve it completely until the 2012 elections.

But Obama was not like that, in any way, and no one in their right mind could've expected such behavior. Yes, fantasy scenario, even Clinton pondered why Obama didn't raise the debt ceiling when he had the chance. But again, junior senator. You were warned.

[Better Believe It]

44. Obama only needs 51 votes in the Senate to pass legislation. But, you know that.

And Senator Reid could have withdrawn his "two-track Senate debate" and phantom "procedural filibuster" rules to force actual Senate filibusters by Republicans. But, you already knew that, right?

[joshcryer]

49. Yes, and I also know that they're a bunch of cowards and won't try the constitutional option.

If they can't do a fucking rule change what makes you think they'll pull the constitutional option?

God some people have utterly unrealistic, fantasy belief systems.

[Better Believe It]

60. If President Obama was a liberal he would have leaned on Senator Reid to end fake filibusters.

I think we are actually in basic agreement.

[joshcryer]

65. No post-partisan politician would act outside of the confines of the system as it's set up.

So if they don't do the rule change they're damn fucking sure not going to do the constitutional option. This is so easy to get.

Obama's been fully consistent. Don't blame him for a failure of your senators.

[Better Believe It]

166. They are in it together. Don't give President Obama a free pass.

[joshcryer]

210. Oh, Obama doesn't get a free pass from me.

I only defend him against irrational allegations. I have already said post-partisanship is a failure (but I can't disrespect him for being consistently post-partisan, now can I?). There's no way I am going to criticize Obama for things resulting from Republican obstructionism, but he gets shit on all the time for that.

[tcaudilllg]

236. And what if that obstructionism never ends?

[joshcryer]

247. Then we get what we deserve. It's our fault we lost the House.

[tcaudilllg]

301. I'm so tired of hearing that.

because there is no "we". People are more different than that.

[joshcryer]

304. The 2010 political failure rests solely on the left, because we historically get out the vote.

We didn't get it out when it mattered. We lost good people like Grayson and Feingold.

[tcaudilllg]

308. Good people like Feingold

who famously failed to lead. The senate is better that he's not there, not that I'm glad a Rethug took the seat. The Democratic Party alone was responsible for their defeat, and registered Democrats sent the right signal in punishing them for letting Goldman Sachs off the hook. Cripes I voted for the Dems, made a point of it... I'm really shocked and angered that they were insider trading all this time. I've said before that we need to clean house this next election, and I still believe it. Not a single person who EVER insider traded should be re-elected.

I'm not convinced that single payer was the best option. Rather, we need to get behind the people who dare to offer realistic pricing and service (comparable to what the government would offer) for insurance, and help them succeed. Besides you know there is co-op money in that legislation, right? Going the private route will result in far less drama than endless attempts by the GOP to defund a NHS. Or enshrine the single-payer option in a constitutional amendment, whichever you prefer. Something to take the drama out of the congress, because people don't need it.

[sabrina 1]

256. You keep repeating those DLC talking points even after you've

been corrected numerous times. Go read Bvar's post explaining the whole situation to you above. You are lost in your fantasy that Obama was a hero to anyone but the OFA crowd, to whom he still is. Now that is hero worship, blind to everything including the assassinations without charges of US citizens, including their children. Anyone who can overlook these horrific policies, they are the hero worshippers.

[DCBob]

23. Thats for sure.

I did have high expectations but not for some FDR style liberal savior. I thought he would have done better at uniting the country. I guess I underestimated the strength of the Republicans hate.

[joshcryer]

31. I didn't foresee us losing in 2010, when I saw the "rise of the Tea Party" (fake meme) I GOTV.

I thought more liberals would have GOTV but apparently where it mattered (in fact, in some districts where we had very on the wire progressives) the vote was a failure. I live in a more moderate state so I had a better chance, I think, but ultimately the 2010 vote is something I will never get over.

Otherwise I think that had we won in 2011 things would be much different (and no, a bigger stimulus would not have helped Obama win in 2011, the recession was huge, bad, epic; future, bailing out the housing industry did not hurt him, as if he hadn't done that many of us would eating out of sewer gutters right now).

Had we had a small minority we'd have had at the minimum a public option (though we'd probably also have a mandate, but since I prefer a mandate, as Krugman does, that wouldn't have bothered me), and there likely would've been a second stimulus.

Now, this is all alternate reality territory, but I think it's reasonable. Post-partisanship means you do whatever you can get both sides to agree upon. 2010 split government power, that is the worst place to be in from a post-partisan perspective. Nothing gets done.

[Autumn]

24. I was not deluded about him. I knew he was not a

liberal progressive savior, he got the nomination and he wasn't a fucking nut case. So I voted for him even though I didn't like him, and I will vote for him again, and I still don't like him, but he's not a fucking nut case. But I sure don't think he's going to pull us out of this mess.

[Logical]

28. Makes sense, you had low expectations so easy for him to meet them.

[joshcryer]

32. No, I did not have "low expectations." We warned everyone about Obama's post-partisanship.

It can't work in a split government environment.

But what did us deluded liberals do in 2010? We made it 100x worse by splitting the government.

We always have more votes than the other side does, always. We merely have to get out the vote and we will win. It's basic demographics. We sat home in 2010.

[Arctic Dave]

42. Can you link me to one of his "post-partisanship" speeches?

I've looked and I haven't been able to find one were he said he would do all in his power to stay in the milquetoast middle.

[joshcryer]

51. Post-partisanship is the overall *view* of his candidacy (McCain at one point tried to coopt).

Just google "obama" "post-partisanship" and 2007-2008.

It was how Obama tried to differentiate himself from Hillary, since they both had effectively the same plans (leave Iraq, attack Afghanistan, bring in health care, etc).

[Logical]

43. I think many were demotivated. Maybe stupid I agree but Obama lost many....

with the "compromise" and starting many issues in the middle and not far right.

I will never stay home but will not work for him either.

[joshcryer]

47. I was motivated by liberal demotivation, the "Tea Party" (mythical invention) was on the "rise."

And it was obvious that the media was creating a narrative where Obama and the Democrats would lose in 2010, and it worked. We became, predictably, self-defeatists and fucked ourselves.

[The Doctor.]

201. Aren't you an anomaly.

First opinion post to the site at the end of September, and the message from there to here has consistently been 'Obama has let us down'.


Something must be very special about the woodwork around here.

[Arctic Dave]

37. Obama was my second choice for nomination but I got behind him.

So were do you see him going in his presidency? Other then a few wonky pieces of legislation what do you think his legacy will be?

[joshcryer]

45. Obama is a blank slate, if you give him a liberal congress, amazing things will happen.

With a divided congress, he will just mosey along doing nothing particularly good and the country will just move along its capitalist pace as it has for the past 235 years.

That's what people don't get, he's really the best kind of President you can get. If you gave Bush a liberal congress (but not a veto override majority congress) he'd be vetoing shit like crazy.

Getting stuff passed if what can and will fix the country, and we squandered that opportunity in 2010.

FYI I was neutral on Obama / Hillary, though I defended some of Hillary's policies (and backlashed againt the asinine pet theory that Hillary was going to "seat Wisconsin" and cause a Democratic Party crisis). I was basically in a similar camp to Krugman.

[Arctic Dave]

50. Who's projecting their wishes now.

If only...

[WildNovember]

95. What prevents Obama from "vetoing stuff like crazy"?

[joshcryer]

97. His post-partisanship?

[WildNovember]

105. Then what use is his post-partisanship?

[joshcryer]

112. Utterly useless in a divided government, absolutely priceless if we have control.

Granted, American's have become used to useless Presidencies and we kind of like a split government, but it's something we can't deal with right now and in the foreseeable future. The shit has to stop.

[WildNovember]

115. We had control.

[joshcryer]

117. No, we did not.

And we're too cowardly to invoke the constitutional option on rules that haven't changed in awhile (clearly unconstitutional but no one will pull the trigger).

[WildNovember]

120. How's that? In 2008 the Democrats controlled Congress even before the election

and gained 21 House seats and 8 Senate seats. And Obama won the presidency.

You're saying "we" didn't control because "we" were too cowardly to change some rules? What is control to you? This is an Alice-in-Wonderland type conversation, I'm afraid.

That is what "we" are saying. "Control" didn't matter, the policies stayed the same.

[joshcryer]

123. Al Franken had a long disputed election, so he wasn't seated until 49 days before Kennedy died.

Kennedy's health was questionable and he didn't even vote those last few months so we don't know if he could've voted at all, anyway. Because of the House Rules, the filibuster required 61 votes to break. Yes it's a crappy rule, I don't agree with it. Yes I believe the rule is unconstitutional. But they didn't change it when they had the chance and they won't invoke the constitutional option.

So as far as I'm concerned the "straight democratic ticket" of Senators and Congresspeople who do this their entire lives is a losing strategy, because it produces cowardly useless Senators.

[WildNovember]

127. Whatever. The Democrats had a majority in both houses.

[The Doctor.]

202. Never learned what a 'filibuster' is in civics?

There was nothing useful they could have accomplished with Republican obstruction.

But you knew that, didn't you?

[joshcryer]

212. Everyone knows this, they ignore it and put their heads in the sand.

We inform people of this weekly, and yet it's continually trotted out as a talking point. It's madness, I tell you!

Yes, they should've changed the rules (and I had hopes that they would), but they didn't. The constitutional option is there, of course, but since they didn't change the rules I find it utterly unlikely that they'll invoke it. (The ruling, in the end, will mandate a vote every year, and if the people in charge want, they can just have an up and down vote and things won't change.)

[U4ikLefty]

240. learned that the Democrats could've gotten rid of the filibuster, but did not.

They didn't want to represent the 99%, because they get their $$$ from the 1%.

[The Doctor.]

241. Right, because the 'Nuclear Option' is a clear choice.

Actually, that would only be a choice to those who eschew the Constitution... like the Republicans.

So why are you in favor of a Republican approach?

[U4ikLefty]

242. "Eschew the Constitution", "are you in favor of a Republican approach?"

:rofl:

I have no need to argue with a true believer.

[The Doctor.]

246. Whatever excuse you need to run off.

The fact that you don't understand that it was a Republican idea to get rid of the filibuster for a specific purpose, and that it was called 'The Nuclear Option', only lays bare your abject ignorance.

By the way, I'm a 'true believer' that the Earth revolves around the Sun too.

So don't bother arguing with me.

[sabrina 1]

257. So what you're saying is, don't bother to vote for Democrats

because even in the minority, Republicans get what they want?? No wonder people are not motivated, if that is the Dem Party message.

I guess we were lied to back in 2008 when we were told if only we could win all three. And then we did, and immediately the excuses began.

How come Republicans don't have these problems?? They don't even need a majority. So they threaten to filibuster, let them. But Dems cower and fall these threats. That's not the people's fault is it?? That's what the people are sick of. Democrats making excuses no matter what we give them. And you're not helping, buy maybe you know that.

[joshcryer]

262. If you knew civics you'd have known that you need all three to get everything you want.

If anyone told you that you didn't, then you were in fact lied to, and you should reconsider the opinion of those who told you that.

When a President run he tells you what he wants to do, and he might use language like "I'll do such and such." But a simple civics lesson tells you that they cannot do such and such without the House and Senate. It's common fucking knowledge. Any 5th grader should know this.

Republicans don't have these problems because their form of governance is not doing anything.

[The Doctor.]

272. You'd have to use some very twisted reasoning to arrive at that conclusion.

What I'm saying is the opposite.

You must have super-majorities in both houses and the White House. Then, if there's anything in the law that can be challenged, you'd need the SCOTUS to read the Constitution as an instrument of the people.

Sadly, it is only necessary these days because of the radical right-wing control of the country. No longer do Republicans exhibit any sanity.

[woo me with science]

113. Ah, Newspeak.

War is Peace
Freedom is Slavery
Ignorance is Strength

and Corporate Republicanism is "Post Partisanship."

[joshcryer]

114. Heh, all our politicians are corporatists. Yep, Obama is post-partisan.

It's obscene how far he's taken it.

edit: but I respect him for being consistent and doing what he said, not because I agree with that approach.

[ellisonz]

106. Whose legislation are you calling wonky?

[JoePhilly]

183. Same folks that the right wing mocked for thinking Obama was the "Messiah"

I used to laugh in the face of right wingers who said "liberals think he's the Messiah".

I'd argue that was ridiculous, that no one thought that.

I was wrong.

There actually were folks who thought that Obama would magically fix the world in his first 6 months. And when we reached the end of June of his first year, and the world was not transformed ... those folks went crazy.

[PragmaticLiberal]

197. Good post. I think this describes the situation accurately.

[Number23]

225. Well said, Josh. After seeing Obama take Biden as his VP

after Biden made that truly idiotic "clean, articulate black guy" comment, it should have been obvious to anyone with even one functioning eye that this man was not interested in petty bullshit. He has shown time and time again that he is most interested in coalition building and bringing everyone on board, even those he may not agree with.

I think it is probably one of his most admirable qualities.

[Logical]

26. I did too. Don't feel bad. We were conned.

[DCBob]

34. Nobody was "conned".

His actions as POTUS reflect the candidate Obama... at least as much as can be expected.

[Name removed]

36. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[Logical]

46. Some dumb-asses are naive also.

[Logical]

39. Walking shoes and all?

[joshcryer]

58. No, it's actually better than expected, imo.

One could've expected, for instance, him to completely cave on every issue. Now while many people think that is the case (and they will post misinformation to support that theory), he's kept things relatively better than they could've been. Unfortunately as he enters political mode again things will get worse, because it'll be hard to see him taking a stance somewhere (see the recent non-support but non-disavowing of OWS).

Fortunately DU will be TS'ing a lot of really ugly personalities.

Can't wait.

[The Doctor.]

200. Yet oddly, you've never said anything in support of Obama on this site.

Now, I only spent a few minutes looking, but the closest you ever seemed to get to a compliment was this;

"I would think this means the repug slime machine is going to kick into

Edited on Tue Jun-24-08 09:02 PM by Arctic Dave
overdrive and try to diminish the excitement around Obama and his support. Their thought is "if we cant get high numbers, try to take away the opponents".

And that's kind of odd, considering how we have you claiming that you 'no longer have the excitement about Obama'.

You can't lose something you never seemed to have.

[ProSense]

9. Here's

"...it soon became undeniable, even to those who had been willfully blind, that Obama was not an agent of 'change' at all."

...change, and many of these policies will facilitate huge shifts like this.


"...there is something borderline delusional in the idea that the Democrats’ 2010 shellacking showed that Obama had not been “bipartisan” enough.

Who is he complaining about? The only people who believe that are Republicans, and they're trying to play it for all it's worth.

[blue neen]

52. Jane Hamsher has been working with people from the Institute for Policy Studies for quite some time.

:)

The Institute was attacking Obama when George W. Bush was still POTUS.

[joshcryer]

81. She was also a big Hillary shill.

Which makes it only more bittersweet that former Obama supporters (who used to bash Hillary) are now Hamsher supporters.

[boston bean]

138. No she was not. She did not endorse either, but her website and writers were very Pro-Obama.

You have got to be freakin kidding me. She was not ever a Clinton shill and she was never a PUMA.

You are re-writing history.

[joshcryer]

146. Eh, I remember differently, and so does Google (I hope these links educate you):

Generally everyone in the blogsophere was pro-Obama except for academics like Krugman.

Enjoy this glowing support of Hillary: http://firedoglake.com/2007/06/20/the-ladies-of-tba/

Interesting: http://firedoglake.com/2007/10/30/hillary-to-oppose-mukasey/

Defending Hillary over Obama: http://firedoglake.com/2007/12/03/clinton-and-obama-shadow-boxing-over-iran-vote-or-lack-thereof/

Obama delegate savages Hillary: http://firedoglake.com/2007/12/14/wyoming-democratic-chair-obama-delegate-savages-hillary-clinton/

Annoyed Bush said that he liked Hillary as a candidate (called it a kiss of death): http://firedoglake.com/2007/11/21/george-bush-endorseshillary-clinton/

Not liking a CNN headline on Hillary: http://firedoglake.com/2007/12/27/late-nite-fdl-did-hillary-clinton-kill-benazir-bhutto/

Hillary Clinton Wins most admired Woman poll: http://firedoglake.com/2007/12/26/hillary-clinton-wins-cnns-most-admired-woman-poll/

Annoyed about Hillary's crying moment being portrayed badly in the media: http://firedoglake.com/2008/01/07/feel-the-misogyny/

It goes a lot further: http://firedoglake.com/2007/10/29/obama-not-so-big-on-teh-gay/

And: http://firedoglake.com/2007/10/26/audacious-but-not-particularly-hopeful/

And: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/jane-hamsher/barack-obama-profile-in-c_b_75466.html\

And: http://firedoglake.com/2007/11/27/barack-obama-and-the-kyl-lieberman-flim-flam/

And: http://firedoglake.com/2007/12/05/note-to-obama-either-youre-pro-choice-or-youre-not/

And: http://firedoglake.com/2008/01/16/ronald-reagans-slipping-halo/

And: http://firedoglake.com/2008/01/23/late-nite-fdl-obama-suggests-his-supporters-wont-vote-for-hillary/

If you go back to the 2007 primaries this is pretty much every post about Hillary and Obama for a 3 month period: http://firedoglake.com/author/Jane-2/page/250/

I left out her telecom bashing of Hillary and her bashing of Hillary over Lieberman (though she starts that one off defending her). Overall she was unabashedly pro-Hillary, but every now and again she'd pretend to be neutral.

[boston bean]

153. Educate yourself and refute this!

Here is a cspan video. I suggest you watch it. Start at min 25:50

http://www.c-spanvideo.org/program/id/215996

I think you will be quite suprised at how wrong you are!!!

So knock it off with the PUMA bs on Jane Hamsher. She was never one and thought they were racists.

And just in case you don't want to watch the video, here is a transcript for you:

Caller:

I have been a lifelong Democrat, I was very involved in the health care battles of the 90′s. I was involved in actual implementing of town hall meetings back then in Iowa, Wisconsin, and Illinois; so I don’t take a back seat to you.

But in the area of February of 2008, I discontinued reading your blog and also the dailykos blog altogether because of your extreme hatred and villification of another Democratic candidate, and that was Senator Hillary Clinton.

I don’t know how much you are aware how much damage you did and how much damage Markos did–

Hamsher interrupts the caller: “Are you sure you’re talking about our blog? We had Hillary Clinton on

Elizabeth says: I’m talking about your blog, ma’m, and you should know it. If anyone wants to know they should go read…from that time.

“You mentioned today that Obama was an anti-war candidate. He was no such thing. In fact, throughout the campaign, he continued to say that Afghanistan was a good war

Elizabeth says: “You really caused a lot of people to leave the Democratic party during the 2008 campaign. And I’m telling you now, I’m sorry that you’re sick, I’m sorry that you’ve had three bouts with the cancer, but I’m gonna say this. You are going to be shown exactly what damage you caused our party last primary season, and I will never forgive you for that.”

Jane Hamsher in response:

I know that there was a certain class of women who decided that they would start supporting John McCain over what they thought was bad treatment of Hillary Clinton. In fact I took a video at the Rules Committee meeting, a woman, Harriet Christian who said that she was not going to support a party who would have an inept black man as a candidate, and that became a rallying point for some people.

We didn’t take a position in the primaries. We said that we would support whoever was the winner and in fact had Senator Clinton as a guest on the blog, so I think we represented all viewpoints. I think there were people their who were Hillary Clinton partisans; I think that there were people there who were Barack Obama partisans, and I think that each side…collectively saw the other side as the issue. But I don’t think we were unfair to Senator Clinton, and I don’t believe that the people who left the party to vote for John McCain, who was very much an anti-choice candidate, a pro-war candidate, reflect the same values that I have anyway, or reflect the values of Senator Clinton.

[Youth Uprising]

193. Great post.

Way to vindicate Hamsher and completely demolish these baseless, slanderous attacks against her. Maybe you can make this into its own OP to shut a few of these people up?

[joshcryer]

208. If you click my links my position is completely supported and not slanderous at all.

And it's hardly an attack. One cannot consider facts an attack.

[Youth Uprising]

300. Yeah sorry, I skimmed over a couple of posts.

What I was referring to was the slanderous accusations of PUMA that have been made against her by Obama supporters and the falsehood that that is the reason why she has spoken out against the president. So what if she was a Hillary supporter during the primaries? She clearly came out in support for Obama in the end; she was never a PUMA and as boston bean has demonstrated, has in fact renounced them.

[joshcryer]

207. I didn't even have to click to see that video was from 2008 or later, post-primary.

I never said she was a PUMA. I said she was a Hillary shill. I overwhelmingly provided evidence to that ends. Sorry if you can't accept the evidence because she flipped her position.

FDL did not take a position in the primaries, true. I never said FDL did. Jane Hamsher, as my evidence shows, was unabashedly pro-Hillary. I remember this because I found myself reading her blog whenever some big Hillary bashing event would come out, good old Jane was there defending her. Almost every single one of Jane's personal postings were against Obama and for Hillary. That is not making a statement about FDL.

After Hillary lost, she went into full on bash anyone mode.

[Number23]

228. BUSTED!!

:rofl:
Great work, josh!

[inna]

56. and... wtf is your point - if you have one, that is?

[DonCoquixote]

71. that Jane

tajkes money and works with the GOP, minor issue, no?

[inna]

75. i believe that is not true, explicitly

[DonCoquixote]

131. Beliefs are one thing

facts are another, even if she hated Obama, she should never have taken money from the GOP. period.

http://rootedcosmopolitan.wordpress.com/2011/06/20/jane-hamsher-republican-consultant/
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=439x1337889
http://theobamadiary.com/2011/07/09/the-professional-lefts-heroine/

[WildNovember]

98. The ISP = the GOP? I'm havng trouble following this conversation.

[ProSense]

73. Point:

"and... wtf is your point - if you have one, that is?"

...learn to read!

[inna]

76. LOL

:rofl:


:roflmao:

[inna]

77. i should add to that: ROTF LMFAO

[lumberjack_jeff]

171. We don't know what Hillary would have done. We know what Obama did.

Would Hillary have been better? I think so. Obama's downfall was his naive belief that he could represent everyone by picking an arbitrary spot in the middle and planting a flag there.

Hillary didn't have those illusions. She knew that the Republicans were not to be trusted, ever.

[joshcryer]

14. Obama campaigned as post-partisan and did *everything* he said he would do.

We lost in 2010 because the MSM and Tea Party got out nine percent more votes than we did.

If the claim is that Obama's post-partisanship, ie, "ultra-bipartisanship" resulted in a failure of liberals to get out the vote, it's 1) something he campaigned on and should've been expected 2) asinine that one would sabotage their chances for progress by sitting on their asses and not getting the job done. It is the ultimate in childishness.

NINE PERCENT MORE VOTES

[Angry Dragon]

41. You speak of progress and the only thing that I see progressing

is that the people at the top have more money, big phrama is more entrenched,
corporations are making obscene profits, banks are doing the same as before,
He spent all of his capital on HCR and it helped some but no public/single payer option
and it is under attack every day. Insurance rates are climbing faster than inflation and
the government figures by 2020 it will cost $24,000/year. Not many people can afford that

The people told Obama that they wanted taxes raised on the more wealthy.
Did he listen?? NO
Did he even work for higher taxes?? NO
And I am not talking about just letting the Obama tax cuts expire, I am talking about raising taxes
to the top rate of 50-70%
That is one of the main things that needs to be done.

[joshcryer]

55. Public option is there, they wanted to forbid states from having a public option, they blocked it.

So states can have a public option (as Vermont does now), and it will likely be adopted. If you give him a liberal Congress that can be fixed in due course.

Politics does not exist in a vacuum. You want to raise taxes, OK, do it, but you don't do it during a recession. So, Obama gets blamed for a crash that his predecessors caused and is flamed for not doing things exactly in the manner as is wished.

Meanwhile raising taxes is done solely by the Congress. Obama lost the Congress thanks to us, and we still blame him, the non-king, of not doing something that he cannot do without a liberal Congress.

[Better Believe It]

66. Vermont does not have a single payer public option.

ermont health bill mislabeled 'single payer': doctors' group
Physicians for a National Health Program says draft legislation gives wide berth to private insurers, falls far short of single-payer reform

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
April 7, 2011
Contact:
Garrett Adams, M.D., president PNHP
David Himmelstein, M.D., co-founder PNHP
Andrew Coates, M.D., board member PNHP
Mark Almberg, communications director, [phone], [email protected]

The following statement was released today by the national board of Physicians for a National Health Program.

Health reform legislation initiated by Vermont Governor Peter Shumlin was recently passed by that state’s House of Representatives and awaits action in the Senate.

Many journalists and commentators have portrayed this bill as fully embracing the single-payer approach to reform. We write to clarify the views of Physicians for a National Health Program on the Vermont legislation.

We appreciate the enthusiasm for progressive health reform shown by Gov. Shumlin and the many dedicated single-payer supporters in Vermont. However, it is important to note that the bill passed by the Vermont House falls well short of the single-payer reform needed to resolve the health care crisis in that state and the nation. Indeed, as the bill moved through the House the term “single payer” was entirely removed, and restrictions on the role of private insurers were loosened.

In its present form, the legislation lays out in considerable detail a structure to implement Vermont's version of the federal reform passed in March of 2010, which would expand coverage by private insurers and Medicaid. However, it offers only a vague outline of the additional reform promised by the governor and Legislature at such time when states will be allowed to experiment with alternatives to the federal program in 2017 (or 2014, if the effort to move up the date succeeds).

The Vermont plan promises a public program open to all residents of the state in 2017, but even then it would allow a continuing role for private insurance. This would negate many of the administrative savings that could be attained by a true single-payer program, and opens the way for the continuation of multi-tiered care.

Within the public program, the plan would continue to lump together payments for operating and capital costs, allowing hospitals and the newly established Accountable Care Organizations (ACOs) to use funds not spent on care for institutional expansion. Meanwhile, those with operating losses would shrink or close even if they were meeting vital health needs. This would perpetuate incentives for hospitals and ACOs to cherry-pick profitable patients and services, and hobble the health planning needed to assure rational investments in new facilities and high-technology care.

Under the legislation, many patients would continue to face co-payments that obstruct access to care, and the bill makes no mention of expanding coverage of long-term care. The legislation fails to proscribe the participation of for-profit hospitals and other providers (e.g. ACOs and dialysis clinics), which research has shown deliver inferior care at inflated prices.

Finally, the bill offers no concrete funding plan or structure for the public program that it promises.

We applaud the sentiments expressed by the governor and legislative leaders and remain hopeful that the legislation’s rhetorical commitment to further reform will become a reality. We urge the Vermont Senate to address the shortcomings in the House bill.

Much work, including efforts to enact federal enabling legislation – and continued advocacy by single-payer supporters – will be needed in the years ahead to achieve Vermont’s goal of universal access to high quality, affordable care.

*******
Physicians for a National Health Program (www.pnhp.org ) is an organization of 18,000 doctors who support single-payer national health insurance, an improved Medicare for all. A March 26 rally at the Vermont Statehouse organized by medical and other health-professional students from PNHP and the American Medical Student Association drew over 200 attendees in support of single-payer health reform.

http://www.pnhp.org/news/2011/april/vermont-health-bill-mislabeled-single-payer-doctors-group

[joshcryer]

70. I did not say that Vermont had single payer, and Obama never campaigned on single payer.

Please do not put words in my mouth. Vermont has a public option and the corporate shills in Congress wanted to block states from having a public option.

[Better Believe It]

87. How is this "public option" in Vermont being funded? So a public option is a multi-payer plan

and not a single payer plan?

How does that work?

Or are we just playing semantics here?

[joshcryer]

111. Public option is not single payer.

Public option is merely a public insurer, it has to compete with private insurers. Not a big deal if enough people sign on to the public option (and that's why the lobby fueled politicians were against it), and one reason Krugman and others wanted a mandate, because a mandate forces people to buy insurance and they will naturally, simple game theory, chose the Public Option.

Vermont is doing the public option, currently it has 2 private insurers and one public pool: http://www.markpine.us/?p=3692

Single payer is merely the idea that everyone *must* pay into the public option only. Which is why it was so amusing during the primary debates to hear people suppose that Hillary's plan was bad because it had a mandate. Krugman was correct in pointing out it was quite close to single payer.

[Angry Dragon]

79. You can raise taxes during a recession if you target

the people that have the money. And you also do not cut taxes when you start two wars.
Seems bush and congress had no problem doing that.

I never blamed Obama for the crash. However I do blame him for putting the car companies under different rules than the banks.
Banks got $770 billion. Car companies asked for about what $50 billion and where told they had to scrap the union contracts.
Banks had no rules, why were not banks told to cut executive salaries and change the way they did business??
Different rules for the white shirts than the blue collar.

If they people can not blame Obama then Obama can not turn around and blame the people. He is the leader, I guess a lot of people did not like where he was leading this country or were not sure what direction he was leading. You can not blame the people for the direction this country went under Obama.

You show me some instances where he has led a concerted effort to bring the people that caused the crash to justice and put the big boys in jail.

Show me where he has led the charge to bring the war criminals to justice in the previous administration.......

Show me where he is bringing banks to justice in the mortgage fraud. A judge had to stop a sweet heart deal for Citi that would have left off the hook for fraud.

[BrendaBrick]

198. Sorry. Have to interject here...

"Obama lost the Congress thanks to us" - Gee, ya think his appointments had anything to do with it????

Folks who voted for him - believed in him...yet what does he do (in part)? he turns right around and appoints the same ole same ole.

All folks really want in this country, imo - is a leader who will DO what they said they were going TO DO..at least in some large measure - and I suspect that is a very important aspect of why some folks might lean towards Paul.

May not like all of his views...but by gosh - he stands by what he says - good, bad or otherwise. (I think they call that guts!) And something that is sorely missing when so many folks are uneasy and upset (to say the least) and feel that they don't have much to count on - a strong presence who is willing to stand by his convictions is mighty appealing, I would venture to say, at this point.

[joshcryer]

213. It doesn't matter if Obama was who we decided to blame, in the end. We didn't get out the vote.

Thus the real blame falls on us for failing to get out the vote. We lost a lot of good people thanks to that petulance.

What people are missing is that Obama has been consistently post-partisan the entire time, always reached across the isle as he said he'd do, always very careful with his positions. I do respect him highly for that, despite that I disagree entirely with that philosophy.

[saorsa]

309. Who's this 'We" who failed the "Post-Partisan" ?

The Democratic Party leadership has always followed the same pattern: string the base along then kick them to the curb after elections. No base-building, no permanent year round voter outreach and education, no effort to increase that pesky thin margin of victory to counter Right wing voter intimidation and vote hacking. Nothing. It never changes. These people do not want us ( the voters) to have any power over them, and they manage to achieve this by always managing to lose any real edge we give them. Any time they come close to having enough 'political capital' to wipe up the floor with the Republicans, suddenly they come out all incompetent, and cowardy-like, and the voters start to scratch their heads and say "what is WRONG with these people" and then the familiar phrases and terms begin circulating again like " circular firing squad" and "politics of the possible" and " pragmatic" and " post-partisan". The sickening sound of opinion being herded, corralled, neutered and relayed back at the voters to read: 'it's all good'. Calm down, chill out, we know, we understand, we are working on it, we'll get back to you, hang on to that job now, we are going to need your help to win the next election so we can finally make all those changes you want us to make, our time is now.
What insulting drivel. " We" failed to get out the vote? "Petulance" Do you hear that folks? You did not go out into the wards and districts and round up all those eager voters just waiting for you to come and fire them up and drive them to the polls. It was us, the liberals, the progressives, the ones who always show up, hold their noses and do their duty and hope and try try again. It was 'us' that let our leaders down.
What utter contemptible festering garbage. The gravy-train never ends for our fearless leaders, heads they win tails we lose. When they are in positions of power and we ask them to act on the promises they made to get elected, it's the same hackneyed spew of excuses year after year, decade after decade. But it is all a lie. They know that only the threat of Right Wing insanity can keep us groveling and begging and voting for the 'lesser of two evils' for the rest of our lives, and by this utterly immoral perversion of democracy they kept up the illusion of a balance of power and everything was just fine. They are not cowards, or incompetent, they are partners in this obscene burlesque dance of grotesques, selling out the poor today, the unions tomorrow, the bill of rights next week, the planet next month. Only they are now running on empty, they let it all go on too long, they cut down to the bone and people have started to notice, people have started to tally up all they have lost in terms of economic security, civil rights, education, and environmental stability and the people begin to doubt that they have anything in common with their 'leaders' after all.
Ya got yer "Post-Partisan" right there, good job.

[inna]

48. "did *everything* he said he would do." - patently, egregiously untrue

[joshcryer]

54. Diddle elsewhere if you can't provide substance.

:hi:

[inna]

61. oh, *you* "diddle", 'buddy'

[Occulus]

92. Medical. Cannabis.

He LIED on that issue. Openly, boldfaced lied.

[joshcryer]

134. His position is the same.

The CA raids were done under an appointee, but via the DA of CA. I bet you $50 he'll come out during this next election cycle "for states rights" yet again because it's the most neutral position to take. People read into his comments because he wasn't outright dissing MJ he was a big proponent of it (I remember those debates well). It was never the case. It's come up only a few times and he's been tepid on it at best.

edit: don't believe me, go back and watch the video where it was sprung on him and he's extremely extremely careful with how he answers that question, I remember watching that back in the day and being appalled by his lack of commitment one way or another.

[Logical]

25. +1, I will admit. I was one of them drinking the koolaid. Feel stupid now. But I will....

vote for him but not donate $2000 again.

[Tierra_y_Libertad]

27. Just another Politics As Usual politician with a lot of money and slick slogans.

“Now, the man on the stand he wants my vote,
He's a-runnin' for office on the ballot note.
He's out there preachin' in front of the steeple,
Tellin' me he loves all kinds-a people.
(He's eatin' bagels
He's eatin' pizza
He's eatin' chitlins
He's eatin' bullshit!”

Bob Dylan

[Bonobo]

35. This is how I was fooled:

I assumed that IF America was doing something so surprising, something that none of us could ever imagine would happen --namely electing a black man as President -- THEN it must mean that he HIMSELF will represent a huge shift, a major transformation ESPECIALLY in light of how radical the previous 8 yeas had been --INCLUDING war, torture, unprecedented deficits, military spending, ceding ground to the radical right etc.

THAT was how I got fooled.

[Beacool]

104. Why, because his skin tone was darker than that of the other candidates?

He belongs to their club, they are all Ivy Leaguers. Obama is about Obama. Today he came to NY, but not to help the city in any way. He came to attend 3 fundraisers for the rich. The range to attend was between $35,800 and $1,000.

:shrug:

[joshcryer]

110. Yeah, he has to get reelected. So what?

[Beacool]

174. My point is that he's no different from any other politician who came down the pike.

I don't get why so many people expected him to be transformational, better than the others who preceded him. What I saw was an opportunist who jumped at the chance to fast track up the political ladder despite having minimal experience at the national level. Good for his political career, not sure that it was good for us.

:(

[Number23]

229. Oh God, what the hell are you on about now?

Today he came to NY, but not to help the city in any way.

In what way is the president supposed to "help" NYC?

[CakeGrrl]

233. Gee, I don't think he did a damned thing for Haiti today.

Damned worthless slick car salesman.


Hmm...looks like I got the hang of this silly game!

:rofl:

[freedom fighter jh]

328. I followed the same line of reasoning.

It was also supported by his history as a constitutional scholar.

I knew that that reasoning was speculative and I did see signs that Obama might not bring the change I was looking for. Those sign included his insistence that insurance companies belong in health care and that U.S. troops do belong in Afghanistan. But with McCain and Palin looking like more of Bush and Cheney (or worse, if McCain's health should fail), I decided to go with the optimistic picture of Obama.

[court jester]

53. R&

:kick:

[unkachuck]

64. K&R....n/t

[me b zola]

84. Recommended

[woo me with science]

85. K&R nt

[bigtree]

90. no Democratic nominee will ever be good enough for this type of thinking

Moreover, this is just another not-so-sly attempt to shake Democrats off of their common sense that electing republicans really is CATASTROPHIC and dangerous.

Democratic cheerleaders, indeed. Republican enablers . . .

[Better Believe It]

164. Democratic Senators functioned as George W. Bush Republican enablers during his administration.

How did that work out for ya?

[kiranon]

175. Agree. Newt would be a disaster and MItt will be whatever. n/t

[JoeyT]

93. The 2010 electoral failure was because we didn't love him enough!

The usual suspects were quick with the ad hominems tonight. I wasn't aware that being too mean to a politician was a vice, but now I see the error of my ways. Does this apply to all politicians, do you think, or just The One?

I can't wait to see the phone bankers in the next election. "No! Don't listen to the Fox, CNN, MSNBC, conservative, liberal, teaparty, OWS, mainstream media, alternative media* lies! Everyone hates Him because He is so wonderful!". Glad I won't be stuck doing it this time.

*Did I miss any? I'm sure I missed a few.

[joshcryer]

100. No, the 2010 electoral failure was an epic PSYOPS propaganda war by the right wing.

And we fell for it. Full stop.

The fake "Tea Party" was on the news round the clock, while liberals were demoralized by the "progress" they were making.

It has nothing to do with supporting Obama, in fact, at that point in time you could've chosen to vote for the progressive candidates in spite of Obama. Hell, there were even a few DUers here who went out to vote for their perferred candidate in mind, for that very reason. Yet we still lost.

This is not an ad hom, it's an observation of the facts as they happened. The GOP got out 9% more votes. The only logical explanation for that is we got out 9% less votes (because the vote average was the same as in other off years).

I am an independent, not a Democrat, I support Obama because he's the best President I've ever had. And when I got out the vote it was simple, I didn't phone bank or canvass, I went door to do and asked people if they needed help getting to the voting center.

[Beacool]

99. Not me.

I didn't like the guy then, don't like him now and doubt that I will like him in the future.

Foolish those who believed that he was any different than the average politician, he's not.

:shrug:

[bhikkhu]

108. unrec for a pointless ODS-fueled narrative

...or maybe he just likes to hear himself talk.

He fails to acknowledge the collapse Obama inherited, or the reforms he has implemented. Doesn't work with the narrative he has going, apparently.

[joshcryer]

124. Sorry.

It sank twice, I'm done kicking it. I can't wait until election season kicks in.

[cliffordu]

119. This train is never late.

Never never never.

:puke:

:hurts:

[OccupySamizdat]

126. When you decode "hope" and "change"...

When you decode "hope" and "change" it basically translates to "you can go ahead hope we'll change."

To quote Bloomberg news columnist Jonathan Weil on Obama's financial adviser appointments, they “should be getting subpoenas as material witnesses <...> not places in Obama’s inner circle.” And that's coming from the business press.

[BrendaBrick]

199. His appointments....

EXACTLY. Either A) He appointed them to try and get into their heads to see how all this crap REALLY goes down & operates and thus gain knowledge about it all in an effort to maybe counter-act in the future (whereby being as dumb as a fox)... or else B) Fully duped the American people all along.

Sorry. For a long time I have tried to give him the benefit of the doubt of the former...but as of late - it just may be the latter after all.

I mean...what stopped him from re-installing solar panels on the White House which was a simple thing that he SAID he was going to do...by now?

Here it is...December 1st - yet - no solar panels.

Sure, its not a big deal really, all things considered...ON THE SURFACE - but the fact remains that it is the principal of the matter...of credibility - a reflection of his character that even something THIS SIMPLE has not yet come to pass...

It's very reflective! (pun intended.)

[woo me with science]

130. Symptoms

Obamamania is often recognizable by a sudden and extreme change in aspects of perception, such that moral and political positions that were perceived as clearly abhorrent during a previous administration (e.g., indefinite detention without trial) are suddenly perceived as acceptable, justifiable, or even favorable under Obama.

[raouldukelives]

159. Sad but true. nt

[Cali_Democrat]

181. So true. n/t

[Youth Uprising]

194. Well said!

[jberryhill]

132. The sad reality of Obama Derangement Syndrome

Look, there are certainly those who are personally taken by Mr. Obama, but attacking the proposed zealotry of their emotional attachment is not a substitute for simply advancing one's own ideas. This kind of piece is as much a manifestation of unproductively directed energy as the overactive defensive mechanism of what our friends on the right deride as "Obamabots".

In short, insulting people up front provides little inspiration to consider your substantive criticism.

[sendero]

135. At least there are a few..

.... people who get it.

[DCBob]

139. What this author calls Omamamania is in reality the incredible relief many of us feel..

not having Bush or McCain or Palin or something similar sitting in the WH.. and the abject fear someone like that could end up there in 2013 if we dont fully support this President.

[boston bean]

140. Fear Fear Fear. Must be terrible to live life in fear.

Hell, living life the way it is now, with a "democratic" president isn't a box of cherries either you know.

And in many ways it is worse. Especially for the party. There is going to be revolt, there will be people leaving, becoming more apathetic, because Democrats as much as Republicans yearn for the corporate cash and are Wall Streets lackeys.

So, imho, best to just let it all fall to shit faster so we can clean up the mess. Voting people in with absolutely no accountability to the people who elected them will get us no where. The change we need is via a movement outside the party, outside of politics. Make each team (Dem/Repub) shit bricks. And you don't make them do that when you give em your vote for nothing, or if you give em your vote and don't fully support the outside movement for fear it makes your lovable candidate look bad.

[DCBob]

141. If you dont "fear" what a Republican in the WH can do..

you arent paying attention.

[boston bean]

142. Rarely do I feel fear. I don't like what they do and I'm not much liking what democrats are doing.

So what you gonna do? It's a catch 22. I'm throwing my lot in with those who want REAL change, and that is how people like you can overcome your FEAR.

Those actually making a movement outside of a corrupt political process and institution are where the real action is, not just the voting booth.

[joshcryer]

144. And how do you propose it be accomplished, this real change?

[boston bean]

150. think back to the great depression and what brought us the New Deal.

It wasn't all FDR you know, right? He was pressured..., he wouldn't have done what he did if there were not outside political pressures of social unrest. Of people finally figuring out they were getting screwed.

We're almost there and I pray for the day we get there again soon, because it will happen sooner or later. That is where the real change lies.

[joshcryer]

152. You pray for the day we have a great depression?

Wow.

[boston bean]

154. Are you OK, or is it just a comprehension problem. Re read what I wrote and

tell me where I said I prayed for a great depression.

[joshcryer]

249. You edited what you wrote, so that would be a bit difficult, now wouldn't it?

I would've quoted you exactly, but oh well.

FDR had supermajorities in the House and Senate.

I hope you provide that to someone sometime.

Doesn't really matter who as Presidents have little power outside of warmongering and federal guidelines.

[DCBob]

148. I also "fear" what "real change" means when people like you use that term.

Im not quite ready for anarchy and guillotines.

[boston bean]

151. What do you mean, people "like you". I'm a liberal.

Again, some folks are so ingorant of this countries history and labor history that it's frightening (almost), but mostly truly disheartening. It is those who are so ignorant of it, that they are the ones who prevent the positive change from happening, or are a barrier or hurdle to it happening.

[DCBob]

155. Me too.. but clearly we dont think the same way.

[Better Believe It]

167. If you are not worrying about what a conservative Democratic in the WH can do/does you're asleep!

[jpak]

147. Someone is missing a douchebag

:rofl:

[dionysus]

156. !!

:rofl:

[The Doctor.]

157. You're right! Nothing's changed by Obama!

Don't ask don't tell is still in effe.... oh...

Well, we know our troops are going to be in Iraq for a lon.... ummm....

Insurance companies can still deny coverage for pre-existing con.... errr, wait...

The economy hasn't slowed down its decline at a... ah, hold on...

Well, some things haven't changed, so forget about all the things that did. Best to judge a man by what he hasn't accomplished rather than what he has. Otherwise it's difficult to pretend he's done nothing.

:eyes:

[roman7]

180. agree 100%

president obama's biggest problem is his fairweather friends

[ecstatic]

176. “Liberal” Sock Puppets – Right Wing/Corporate Operatives Attacking Democrats From The "Left"

Here's another cool article! Please read the full article at:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=439x967422

[Scurrilous]

184. Thanks.

:thumbsup:

[slay]

190. The Democrats are being attacked from the left because they DESERVE it. They have abandoned progress

ive principles and even worse - embraced those long held by Republicans. why is bailing out huge corporate banks more important than creating jobs? you wouldn't think it would be - go ask Obama. why does Obama continue many of the Bush era policies limiting freedom and privacy? go ask Obama. why does he cover for the Bush admin's war crimes? why did he escalate a pointless war for profit in afghanistan? why does he insist on cracking down on medical marijuana when he promised not to?

The Democrats are corrupt - very corrupt - and they have betrayed us. Even Bernie Sanders says at this point he can not endorse Obama for a second term. Wake up already - Obama is not, and never has been, on the side of progressives or the American people in general. Sure he talks a GREAT game - but it's all talk.

[Youth Uprising]

204. Two can play at that game.

Here's an even better one!

http://www.mediabistro.com/fishbowlny/white-house-dedicates-new-position-to-deal-with-unfavorable-online-media_b36292

And I think this diary beats the shit out of your article:

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2011/05/23/978605/-Watch-Out-for-the-White-House-Shills">Watch Out for the White House Shills

How do I know you're not a paid operative shilling for the WH?

[Bobbie Jo]

231. This.

This one is pathetically obvious. :eyes:

[unionworks]

178. if McCain and Palin had won

Would we be better off than we are now?

[NashVegas]

187. It Was a Spell That People *Willingly* Went Under

The capital L liberals wanted a bona fide knight on a white horse and they put Obama up there, and *kept* him up there, in spite that there was plentiful evidence showing he was no such thing.

Just once I'd like to see one fucking essayist from HuffPo, Salon, etc., admit they just wanted to be one of the cool kids.

[sabrina 1]

293. There's that worthless talking again.

The same refusal to acknowledge the legitimate reasons why the American public are so upset with their government and blame it all on 'hero worship'. So simple, blame it on the people.

What makes no sense with this talking point is that 'hero worshippers' of someone on a 'white horse' are generally blind to everything their chosen hero does. So the term actually applies far more to those who continue to deny the legitimate reasons for the anger of those who thought that by changing PARTIES, the country could begin to repair some of the damage done over the past several decades. Those are the real 'pragmatists' unwilling to blind themselves out of loyalty or hero-worship.

[NashVegas]

306. "The People" Need to Grow the Fuck Up and Take Responsibility For Their Choices

Those people who changed parties for the general election are not the ones I'm speaking of, but the primaries. And if someone changed party to vote in the Democratic primary, then yes, they too are responsible for not looking beyond the surface.

[slay]

188. Excellent article

Obama is NOT part of any fair or decent solution to the problems we face as a country - he IS part of the problem though. K&R.

[indepat]

189. Your administration has to be an integral part of the problem when continuing/ratifying most of your

RW predecessor's extremely ruinous fiscal, tax, and pre-emptive war initiatives, among others, and not requiring those who created the financial and economic meltdown to account. :patriot:

[Major Hogwash]

191. I suppose McCainmania is what Levine would have preferred.

How far up one's ass does one have to have their head before you write them off totally as being full of shit?

[Name removed]

195. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[roman7]

224. its democratic

[akbacchus_BC]

237. America is a democracy, right! Freedom of speech is allowed and even

wire tapping!

Why are you surprised, just because you are an ardent Obama supporter!

He has fucked up many times, get with the programme. This President has fooled us! Wake the fuck up!

[Name removed]

238. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[DeSwiss]

205. K&R n/t

[Remember Me]

206. Absolutely right on -- I differ with not a single word. Not one. nt

[Bluenorthwest]

214. I expect nothing of value from anyone who proclaims religious

bigotry toward others. Any person who announces that their type is 'Sanctified by God' and others are not, and thus unworthy of equal rights is a weak minded, deluded, self important twit like most politicians. Same old mediocre 'one man one woman' hypocrisy, I have no respect for false speaking religious hypocrites. None. Don't care what their letterhead says.

[tcaudilllg]

230. Mr. Levine is an unimpressive intellectual.

"A genius of Freud's stature or greater"... ha. And I didn't like the rest of his intellectual slavishism, either.

And no, Occupy broke no spell over anyone. And it had nothing to do with Obama.

[akbacchus_BC]

234. So who you gonna vote for? Mitts or Obama? For fucks sake, this

President inherited shit and he is trying his best for Americans!

[Rex]

278. Not all Americans, but yeah some.

And that is a STUPID argument made by sockpuppets. Please don't repeat what a bot says...it demeans us all. No one here is voting R (cept for the sockpuppet masters) and that meme is about as dead as the horse it ate.

[LanternWaste]

297. one who conflates "enthusiasm" for "mania"

Tough for me to give serious consideration to one who conflates "enthusiasm" for "mania". Illustrative that the author's melodramatics are more a priority than the actual substance. Perhaps Mr. Levine could moon-light in ad-copy? We could use a few more at my company...

But in the end, we fall behind those opinions, editorials and prognostications which further validate our own opinions and brook little tolerance for any critiques.

[Raine]

305. Absolutely On point! K&R nt

:kick: :thumbsup:

[ileus]

311. He'll get it right in his second 4 years...have faith.

[Better Believe It]

315. People just need to demonstrate a little patience. Everyone wants a change we can believe in now!

[Name removed]

319. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[Major Hogwash]

320. Since Andrew Levine is Jewish, do you agree with everything he writes?

Or just with this article?

[Better Believe It]

321. Is he Jewish and if he is why does it matter to you?

[Major Hogwash]

322. Merry Christmas.

My question wasn't out of line or uncivil.

[Better Believe It]

324. OK Well have a happy holiday season

[Major Hogwash]

325. It's like the Mexican hat dance that you're doing here at DU.

Dancing your ass off, acting like it has nothing to do with it.

"OK, Well I guess I can just bluff my way through it."

[Better Believe It]

330. Is that an anti-Mexican slur and are you suggesting that I'm a bigot? That's major hogwash!

[Name removed]

313. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[gulliver]

316. This helps Obama enormously. Please keep it up!

I beg you. Don't let anyone tell you it is not Levine's right to spew this nonsense. And please don't let anyone here on DU dissuade you from posting it here. The more drivel Obama's opponents spew, the more their argument is undermined.

This stuff is not only great for Obama, though. We need more snotty, half-assed, flaky rhetoric to be directed against whoever Dems want to win. Nothing helps a cause as much as idiotic and hysterical arguments against it.

[JoePhilly]

323. +100

As the 2012 election moves forward, what you said will become more and more important.

Right wing "drivel" will still get posted here as if it comes from "the left" ... but it will only serve to increase the distance between the GOP and the preferred future.

In almost every case, Obama will be well to the left of every GOP alternative.

Independents could not care less about the far left on DU.

If anything, the right wing anger, and the left wing anger, will make Obama seem more reasonable.