Mr. President, just quit and become the labor movement leader some progressives want you to be.

[Writer]

When progressives voted for you, they wanted to see real change. And that change was in the form of a complete evisceration of all forms of neo-liberal capitalism and neo-conservatism that has defined American economic and foreign policy for the last 30 years. They want that history overturned, like a penalty call on a football field. Snap! Just like that. They don't want you to talk to Republicans. Heck they certainly don't want you to have any discussions or dealings with Republicans at all, because that will mean that you might not dramatically overturn 30 or so years of political history. And they will settle for nothing less.

They want changes for the worker, and they believe corporations have no place in American capitalism. Some, I believe, would like to see corporations eliminated altogether, for they pose a mortal danger to communitarian ideals. And although they desperately need a public voice - a leader - to press for real social and economic change, instead of waiting for the right person, they expect a democratically elected president, working within a democratic system, to radicalize.

So seriously, Mr. President, why try to please progressives at all? Just quit. Just quit and pick up a bullhorn and become the labor leader that they seek. They need a voice, and no one else has stood up. The idea of an organic intellectual is lost to them - they want to go straight to the top. And that person is YOU.

[Forkboy]

1. ....

:eyes:

[boppers]

2. Heh. Interesting thought.

Maybe if he also started wearing a military uniform, and spouting wild invective, he'd have more fans.

[peacebird]

3. puh-leeez... jeez - hyperventilate much?

:eyes:

[tekisui]

4. Weak.

[VMI Dem]

5. Thats like asking him to quit and become a civil rights activist.

:rofl:

[Name removed]

6. Deleted message

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

[Bluenorthwest]

7. Did you work very hard on this one?

Just not your best work, to put it nicely.

[boppers]

8. I'm guessing this is a response to:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=433x540314

[harun]

9. Democratic System, what country you been living in? We live in a Corporate Representative

Republic.

[Hello_Kitty]

10. This post is so full of straw it should be declared a fire hazard.

And I'm getting more than a little irritated at how these attacks on progressives are allowed on DU whereas calling someone a "cheerleader" gets you deleted.

[kath]

44. +100

[paulk]

46. +200

[Phx_Dem]

11. That sounds about right. n/t

[provis99]

12. any liberal in particular you want to spit on

[jefferson_dem]

13. Some progressives desperately long for an arrogant "decider"...

with a magic wand. Their dream (only with a slight name change) - http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-8678257480937777402#

[golfguru]

14. Clinton got 2nd term by moving to center

Obama also wants a 2nd term, and is smartly moving to center.

[Hello_Kitty]

15. On what specific issues is he moving to the center?

And please explain why it is a smart move in each case. Thanks.

[golfguru]

19. Here are a few issues and why he is smart

No push for public option
No closing Gitmo
50,000 troops still in Iraq
Fighting endless war Quagmire in Afghanistan and propping up corrupt Karzai regime
Tax cuts for the richest 2% are being negotiated as we speak
Bailed out Wall Street
Bailed out large corporations

That's just from top of my head. I can research more if you are not satisfied.

As to why it is smart from his personal gain? He is still more popular than
many other presidents were at this juncture who went on to win 2nd term. He
needs to draw lot of votes from center to win in 2012. He need not worry about
blacks and Hispanics and poor people dependent on government help to survive.
They will all vote for him. His approval amongst democrats is 81%.

[displacedvermoter]

32. Is a quagmire a good thing?

This must explain the high ratings with Democrats! Blacks, and Hispanics and poor people like quagmires, too?

Who friggin knew?

For heavens sake!!!

[ibegurpard]

16. pfft...he passed the center on his way right after he was elected.

[sudopod]

18. Clinton won

because of Ross Perot, may his enormous and indecisive ears be blessed. Moving to the center helped him not one bit.

[golfguru]

22. We are talking about 2nd terms here

You are lost in the 1st term situation.

[sudopod]

23. If not for Perot

it might have been otherwise. He wasn't as big a deal in round 2, but still...

http://uselectionatlas.org/RESULTS/national.php?year=1996

[golfguru]

25. If I recall Perot was pretty much exposed as a crack pot in 1996

[Hippo_Tron]

27. Horseshit

Perot was pro-choice and to the left of Clinton on NAFTA. Exit polls showed that voters were split approximately 1/3rd for Clinton 1/3rd for Bush and 1/3rd would have stayed home. If anything, Perot made it more difficult for Clinton by taking away his monopoly of being the alternative to Bush who had approval ratings in the 30's.

[Chisox08]

20. For Obama to move to the center he would have to move Left

[golfguru]

21. You have a sense of humor ..I will give you that!

[Chisox08]

24. Sometimes you have to laugh to keep from crying

I'm a bit disappointed in the direction this country is going. It looks like the rich and powerful will get everything that they want and the American workers will get the shaft. The Alpo Bailout Commission (ABC) suggested further tax cuts for the rich and austerity for the rest of us. Our government is going harder after Wikileaks then it has gone after the war criminal Bush.
So my sense of humor gets me through the day.

[golfguru]

26. Why no one talks about TWO different types of rich people

Half of those earning over $250,000 do not employ anyone.
Their taxcuts can expire and won't cause any direct layoffs.
The other half are small business proprietors and taking their
taxcuts away will cause more loss of jobs.

[Hello_Kitty]

30. Nonsense. Wages are paid out of pre-tax business income.

If your business has $250K or more in profit AFTER you write everything off you are doing very well. A slight increase in the marginal tax rate (remember that the Dems want to retain the tax cuts on all income up to $250K) will not affect hiring.

[golfguru]

31. You ever run a business?

Let me try to explain by a simple example.
Let us assume you are running a business.
Let us say your Gross sales are 2 million.
Let us say after ALL deductions, including payroll deductions, your NET profit
is half million. The first 250,000 NET income has no tax increase in proposed law.

The remaining 250,000 income will be taxed at 39.5% instead of the current rate.
If your tax rate on NET income goes from 35% to 39.5%, you will pay ADDITIONAL
$11,250 in taxes.

That $11,250 is no longer available to you to buy new equipment, or hire an employee.
Small businesses create 70% of new jobs by continuously plowing back profits into
expansion.


Every little bit helps.
A 1000 mile journey starts with one step.

[Hello_Kitty]

35. What job are you going to create for $11k?

If you're netting a half mil in pure profit after you write everything off your small business is doing very well. No good business owner worries about a slight tax increase.

Besides, they've had these tax cuts for the past 9 years. Where are the jobs?

[golfguru]

36. You never ran a business?

That 11,500 is in ADDITION to his other profits.

Like I said, every dollar which the business plows back creates expansion.

Do you think the government can spend that $11,500 better to create jobs?

[Hello_Kitty]

38. Every dollar you plow into your business is un-taxed.

What you pay taxes on is pure profit. Many businesses in the U.S. pay no taxes at all because they are so adept at finding deductions.

Do you think the government can spend that $11,500 better to create jobs?

In many cases, yes. For example, $11,500 in food stamps does a helluva lot more for our economy than the same amount going some rich person who might stash it in an offshore account or invest it in a Chinese sweatshop.

[truth2power]

39. Kitty, you've raised one of the two questions I'd like answered...

1. They've had these tax cuts for the past 9 years. Where are the jobs?

I notice no one's shown up to answer that question.

2. As I understand it, businesses hire because there is a demand for their product or service. Not because they get tax breaks. Maybe someone could tell me whether that's true, and if not, why not.

[Hello_Kitty]

40. Seriously. No one can answer it.

Right wingers usually pivot and blame Chris Dodd and Barney Frank for crashing the economy by giving mortgages to black people. To your second question, true that demand is the driver of hiring. Also, and this is something that needs to always be pointed out: Business owners already get a tax break for hiring. The wages you pay your employees are deducted from your taxable income.

[golfguru]

41. Jobs created during 2000-2009

Jobs created in THOUSANDS---

2000 249 121 472 286 225 -46 163 3 122 -11 231 138
2001 -16 61 -30 -281 -44 -128 -125 -160 -244 -325 -292 -178
2002 -132 -147 -24 -85 -7 45 -97 -16 -55 126 8 -156
2003 83 -158 -212 -49 -6 -2 25 -42 103 203 88 124
2004 150 43 338 250 310 81 47 121 160 351 64 132
2005 136 240 142 360 169 246 369 195 63 84 334 158
2006 262 326 304 174 31 69 232 141 100 43 201 177
2007 194 104 239 92 149 55 -20 -71 52 86 128 70
2008 -10 -50 -33 -149 -231 -193 -210 -334 -458 -554 -728 -673
2009 -779 -726 -753 -528 -387 -515 -346 -212 -225 -224 64 -109
2010 -26(P) -36(P)

What this chart shows is job creation or loss in the thousands, by month and by year, from 2000 to the present. During 2000, things were okay, but fell apart in early 2001 when Greenspan's tech/Nasdaq bubble burst. During 2001, there were job losses in 11 out of the 12 months. In 2002, there were job losses in 9 out of the 12 months. In 2003, there were job losses in 6 out of the 12 months. What does this tell us? Outsourcing, jobs going overseas, illegal immigrants being trucked in by coyotes and taking over industries such as the building trades. Somebody may have been making money in 2001 through 2003, but working people were suffering the beginning of a period of regular unemployment. What is the effect of that? People lose everything during periods of unemployment. Then they start all over again in the next job.

2004-2007 were fine, with some job creation most months. Every year students come out of high school and college looking for jobs, so we need regular job creation to incorporate them into the workforce.

Beginning in January of 2008 through the present, 26 months, we lost jobs in 25 months, and gained jobs in one month only, November of 2009 when we supposedly created 64,000 jobs. Then lost 109,000, 26,000 and 36,000 jobs in the following 3 months.

The recession of 2008 began almost entirely due to bursting of the biggest asset class in
United States....HOUSING. And that collapse was triggered by sub-prime mortgages and exacerbated
by Wall Street packaging those sub-prime mortgages into high rated bonds.

[Hello_Kitty]

42. Housing bubble shmousing bubble. Under the glorious Bush tax cuts we should be at full employment.

Seriously, though, job growth in the Bush administration was anemic compared to that which occurred under Clinton. Who raised the marginal tax rate from a historic low. There were the Cassandra cries from the usual crowd about how many jobs would be lost if we raised taxes on the "producers" of society. Didn't turn out to be the case.

[golfguru]

47. Yes, I Loved the Clinton era

My stocks made great returns, helped by the tech bubble.
Allowed me to retire early by cashing in my Cisco's & Amazon's.

But remember there was no shooting war(s), no 911 & no deflating housing bubble.

Also China had not yet emerged as a manufacturing giant to take away half of
manufacturing jobs from US.

[creeksneakers2]

45. What about the last election?

It looks like the center has moved to the right all the way to kooksville.

[digidigido]

29. But the Center is 1996 was 15 degrees left of where it is now

[Radical Activist]

33. Clinton got less than a majority of the vote against a weak opponent.

Considering his political skills, he could have won just as easily if he had been progressive.

[golfguru]

37. NAFTA, Welfare reform, ending Era of Big Gov't were not centrist?

then I do not know what is.

[Radical Activist]

43. Yes, they were centrist.

I must not have made my point clearly. Clinton won re-election with less than a majority of the vote despite his centrist agenda. If he had been progressive I believe he still would have won and perhaps by a larger margin.

[political_Dem]

17. No, they just want someone they can order around and talk down to.

Miss Scarlett would be proud .

However, she better not get mad when Prissy slaps back. In this day and age, Prissy doesn't take that crap anymore.

[boppers]

28. Nice reference.

Gawd, I hated that movie.

[niceypoo]

34. So riddled with logical fallacies

Not sure where to begin...