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Liberals Analyze Their Obama 'Despair'
For many liberals, it is the summer of their discontent.
Many liberals are disappointed with President Barack Obama’s ability to deliver on his campaign promises. Already disappointed with President Barack Obama's ability to deliver
on campaign promises, they now contemplate a slowing economic recovery
and a good chance of Republican gains in November. Such developments
would make enacting Obama's agenda even more difficult.
Two recent essays framed the debate raging within the progressive community over why the promise of Obama's candidacy has not lived up to their expectations - and how liberals should proceed in what they fear will be difficult months ahead.
In a 17,000-plus word piece published in The Nation on Thursday, journalist Eric Alterman calls the Obama presidency "a big disappointment" for progressives and blamed a broken system in Washington that he says allows the minority party to rule with impunity, and special interests and big money to dictate legislative policy.
"Face it," he concludes, "the system is rigged, and it's rigged against us." His essay is subtitled: "Why a progressive presidency is impossible for now."
But writing in Democracy: A Journal of Ideas, Michael Tomasky, the editor, counsels patience, arguing that American history has shown that change always takes time and continued effort against entrenched conservative opposition.
"The changes we want to see won't happen in 18 months, or in two years, or four, or probably even eight," he concludes in his article, "Against Despair."
The essays suggest it is a time of reckoning for a liberal community whose relationship with Obama has had a series of ups and downs since the climactic moment of hope and expectation when he claimed the presidency in Chicago's Grant Park on Nov. 4th, 2008.
"It's not just really about Obama, it's about the state of our country. Every day, you have a sense that people are wondering where this country is headed," says Katrina vanden Heuvel, editor and publisher of The Nation.
The elation of that night in 2008 quickly gave way to the realization that the Number One issue, the economy, and the ensuing fight over an $800 billion stimulus bill, would make Obama's agenda different from the one he had described in his campaign.
From the beginning, the stimulus bill was viewed as containing too many compromises in a futile attempt to garner Republican support. Economist and columnist Paul Krugman led the charge, arguing that the bill was not ambitious enough, containing too many tax cuts and not enough funding for infrastructure projects.
But the bill's $800 billion price tag created a toxic environment for congressional Democrats when they began the long debate over health care, and many liberals viewed Obama's compromises on the legislation as a betrayal. The low point may have been after the special election victory of Sen. Scott Brown (R-Mass.) in January, when the possibility of any health care legislation seemed lost.
"It's open season on Obama, whom so many hoped would lead us out of the neo-liberal wilderness," Firedoglake blogger Les Leopold declared not long afterward. "He once was a community organizer and ought to know how working people have suffered through a generation of tax breaks for the rich, Wall Street deregulation and unfair competition. When the economy crashed, he was in the perfect position to limit the unjustified pay levels on Wall Street. ..."
"Instead, we got a multitrillion dollar bailout for Wall Street, no health care reform, no serious financial reforms whatsoever, record unemployment and political gridlock that will be with us for years to come."
The bill's passage was viewed as a major victory for the White House, but the reaction among progressives was mixed, at best. Only 10 days after the House bill passed, Tomasky writes, "things on the liberal side were more or less back to the dour normal."
"It simply took too long to pass health care," The Washington Post columnist E.J. Dionne Jr. said. "What should have been seen as an important progressive victory didn't feel like it was as much of a victory because it just took so damn long."
But the worst seems yet to come.
"The bad economy creates a mood in which everything looks a bit more bleak than it did before," Dionne said. "The economy helps to create the less-than-wonderful poll numbers for Democrats, and it conditions the national mood - and all of that affects the way that progressives feel."
The list of grievances includes a slew of agenda items yet to be meaningfully addressed: a climate change bill, immigration reform, "don't ask, don't tell," and the Employer Free Choice Act, not to mention a war in Afghanistan that many liberals oppose.
Yet, some of the blame that once was put squarely on Obama and his White House staff has now shifted to a broken system where congressional Republicans have exerted power that does not rightfully belong to them.
"Whatever the motivation, it has become easier and easier for a determined minority to throw sand in the gears of the legislative process," Alterman writes. "It is therefore no coincidence that the 40 Republican senators with the ability to bottle up almost anything in the Senate represent barely a third of the U.S. population."
Tomasky sees this shift as an inevitable one that will eventually bring liberals around to the realization that the great periods of change - Roosevelt's New Deal and Lyndon Johnson's Great Society - took place after years of effort and many setbacks along the way.
Slower to come around to this view, Tomasky acknowledges, have been the vanguards of the liberal blogosphere: the Huffington Post, Firedoglake and, to an arguably lesser extent, The Daily Kos.
"People have to work through stages like that before they get to the point where they say that ‘this is not exactly what we thought it would be, but let's just deal with it,'" Tomasky said in an interview with POLITICO. "I don't know that the progressive community is at that stage yet, but people are getting there."
Ironically, given the generally more pessimistic tone of his essay, Alterman sees a more immediate time of possibility than Tomasky - Obama's second term, assuming there is one.
"This would be consistent with FDR's strategy during his second term and makes a kind of sense when one considers the nature of the opposition he faces today and the likelihood that it will discredit itself following a takeover of one or both houses in 2010," Alterman writes in his piece.
Still, others are wary of putting too much stock in the promise of 2012.
"I think that depends on what we build," says Bob Borosage, president of the liberal Institute for America's Future.
Borosage says that over the past 18 months, progressives have learned the hard way that they need to be more independent of the White House to realize the change that they are seeking.
The remedy for the problems that progressives face, Borosage says, lies in the need to create an equal and opposite force that can rival the enthusiasm of the tea party movement.
"If there is a progressive movement that is demanding change, driving the debate, challenging conservative Democrats and Republicans and challenging the White House, you might see a bolder agenda," he says. "But it's equally possible that this reform moment ... that we miss it and conservatives come back with the same ideas they had when they drove us off a cliff."
"It was always naive to expect a president to start a movement," says Michael Kazin, a Georgetown University history professor and co-editor of the liberal magazine, Dissent. "It's a little bit like expecting a chief executive to start a union."
355 Comments so far
Show AllTwo questions need to be asked:
1) Is this just the plan -- the continuous tug of war between two ridiculous corporate parties?
2) What is Obama's agenda? I think Obama's agenda is working very well for those he is in favor of supporting.
To the American public traumatized by the Bush Presidency, corporate America poured enormous amount of money to tout an African American man, Barack Obama, as the candidate of ‘Hope and Change’.
Once in office, President Obama kept Bush’s Secretary of Defense, Robert Gates, in charge of the Military Industrial Complex and kept Bush’s Federal Reserve Chairman, Ben Bernanke, in charge of the Nation’s Banking System.
The Republic has been taken over by a corporate-military state.
Too true, bossyman. "The elation of that night in 2008..." Phillip describes did NOT turn to a "realization that Obama's agenda [would be] different from the one he had described in his campaign."
It turned instead, to immediate shocked disbelief, disgust, and despair---as you note, over his very first appointments. Beyond those you name were WTF appointments like Judd Gregg (R-NH) for Commerce(???), Zionist Rahm Emanuel as chief of staff, hawk Clinton as Secretary of State, and robber baron Rubin globalists like Larry Summers as Econ advisor and NY Fed tax-evader Tim Geithner for Treasury. Oh, and don't forget oil cowboy, Ken Salazar, who fast-tracked BP's disaster by bypassing safety regs.
It was instantly obvious that Obama was designated waterboy for TPTB when new bailouts were pushed through early with that very conspicuous exemption for bankster bonuses---the one Dodd lied about---which came directly from the WH.
After that, nothing surprised me:
---not the insurance wealthcare bill which shutout single payer voices at the start
---not his refusal to renegotiate NAFTA/SHAFTA
---not his failure to support the Employee Free Choice Act
---not his maintenance of GITMO and extraordianary rendition (and torture)
---not his refusal to investigate war crimes or financial fraud
---not his doubling of the Afghan escalation
---not his continuation of bribery and lobbyist incest
---not his support for Israeli settlements and war crimes
---not his saber-rattling toward Iran
---not his support for Honduran coup
---not his fast-tracking BP's unsafe drilling and new drilling in Alaska
---not his renewal of the 'Patriot' Act without significant changes
---not his continuation of illegal domestic wiretapping
---not his refusal to sign the International Mine Ban Treaty
---etc. etc. ad nauseum
As Biden noted, Obama is clean-cut and articulate, but the most significant difference from Bush is the eloquence of his lies. Anyone like Katrina VH or Alterman urging patience at this point need to get off the Kool-Aid.
"Whatever the motivation", Alterman writes, blaming the 'system' in which he is a willing cog, "it has become easier and easier for a determined minority to throw sand in the gears of the legislative process"
Oh, puleeze! When cons had a bare majority, Dems were as absolutely limp and impotent as they are now. This is all theater. The Tea Party will now help the cons throw Obama into Willie Clinton's 1994 briar patch, and the script will continue until the entire Ponzi system collapses and the military gets stuck in Mideast quicksand. No one should expect any honest progressive effort from Obama---ever. It's time to move on and not look back.
Doug, Thanks for putting your thoughts to words...very well put.
This article contains so much revisionist history of what really happened during the past two years that it is not worth commenting on.
Perhaps the message here is that when all else fails, revise history?
I allowed myself a single breath of relief at one thing when Obama was elected. That single breath was simply for the fact that I would no longer have to see or hear that little piece of inbred shit, George Jr. or his Satanic Sith master. But I was all too prepared for major disappointment from Obama, and that was because his loyalties were foreshadowed by his votes concerning the immunization of the telecom companies involved in the NSA's illegal wiretapping of American citizens (which, if each instance were counted makes the Bush administration literally guilty of millions of felony counts - easily enough for impeachment and criminal proceedings).
Since then I've lived in a state of dull cynicism, because I'd spent the previous 8 years exhausting my rage. It isn't that the rage is gone, it's that I've lost any hope for any sort of change, unless you talk about change for the worse. I absolutely expect this nation to devolve into outright fascism, and I expect no justice whatsoever. The U.S. Constitution has truly been proven to be 'just a god-damned piece of paper', and I am convinced that ANYONE who still adheres to what they call 'conservatism' is a liar, and an enemy of the state and of the entire concept of democracy and government 'of the people, for the people, by the people'. This pacifist can't help but feel a twinge of satisfaction at knowing that the shit will eventually hit the fan, and that peace will flee this land in short order. The practical and rational part of me truly mourns the loss that will follow. I wish there were another frontier to flee to, or a place I could be that didn't fill me with shame for my fellow man.
Democrats are not limp and impotent.
You are missing the picture.
Working class Republicans conflate freedom for people with freedom for the corporations to screw them.
Working class Democrats still think that Democrats are the progressives.
But the Democratic and Republican politicians feed of the same trough.
They put on a charade every four years.
It is a musical chair where whoever is voted out just bide time being a lobbyist.
It is a win-win scam for the politicians set up by the corporations.
Right on.
What always surprises me in most of the articles about Obama is that he is represented as being powerless against a corrupt senate and congress. The reality is that he is as or more corrupt than they are. Check who gave to his campaign, the people he put in power but mostly the stark difference of what he says and what he does. The media and a lot of voters need to wake up, the situation is hopeless as long as we expect something good to come from Obama and the white house.
One day it will change but it is going to take time, bad people need time to self destruct. Amen!!!
A "disappointing Presidency"? POTUS is a pathological liar, rapidly approaching the egregious lies of the previous Administration.
Are these the main requirements for POTUS these days?
- break all pre-election promises;
- cozy up to MIC, energy and Wall Street corporations;
- the strength to quickly cave in to every conservative demand;
- must be a "War President" wannabe;
- lick the shoes of every Israeli diplomat (even the photo-copying intern) that visits the White House;
- fail to protect the Constitution.
That's a good start.....but feel free to add more!
"It was always naive to expect a president to start a movement," says Michael Kazin, a Georgetown University history professor and co-editor of the liberal magazine, Dissent. "It's a little bit like expecting a chief executive to start a union."
Keep your expectations low. What a corrosive sentiment.
Was there anything to be gained from reading this article?
"Was there anything to be gained from reading this article?"
Not for the people. For the oligarchs there's much to be gained. They must convince enough of the people who elected Obama to keep with the program. This article tells me that the oligarchs are happy with the way things are going, but worried that progressives are seeing behind the curtain. What's behind the curtain that they don't want us to see?----Obama is not a liberal Democrat, he's a well spoken clone of George W. Bush.
"Obama is not a liberal Democrat,..."
... he is a compassionate conservative, just like George W. Bush.
It is how they all cover eaxh others asses like Bush and Clinton asking for help for Haiti and then the money dissapears.. who would have guessed?
"For the oligarchs there's much to be gained. They must convince enough of the people who elected Obama to keep with the program." –(Higgs Boson)
–This may be true of a significant vector of the ruling class oligarchy, but the smarter among them realize that they don't have to "convince" anyone.
They can sit back and watch the carnival of incoherence and the parade of fools.
The former realize as long as they can befuddle a debased American public into even participating in Presidential elections, that they have won; the latter, more astute grouping, realize as long as there are ANY 'elections' under the farce of American democracy, they have won.
What they fear is when there are 'no' elections. For as long as there are elections in America the underlying class relationships and power valences will remain in place. And with it the visible or invisible system of oppression.
The oscillations, the variances in electoral results will always default to fascism in America. 'No elections' as a consequence of outright fascist law in America and 'no elections' without fascist law, is a distinction, as yet, without difference. When a generalized fascist consciousness is always regnant or majoritarian in the public, liberation remains an option that has been foreclosed in advance.
As yet.
It is now, regrettably– in the abyss of the American political unconsciousness– as if it were genetically predetermined.
What this means is that there is much work to do. But then history is not immune to tectonic, even galvanic shifts.
"The former realize as long as they can befuddle a debased American public into even participating in Presidential elections, that they have won; the latter, more astute grouping, realize as long as there are ANY 'elections' under the farce of American democracy, they have won."
So, here you go again. The right wing loves posts urging lefties not to vote. Do you post this same stuff on right wing sites as well?
The only thing I gained was reading more Democratic talking points that could easily be struck down. Example:
"It was always naive to expect a president to start a movement... It's a little bit like expecting a chief executive to start a union." - Kazin
Response: Since being President, Obama killed the movements that helped get him elected by betraying his supporters and giving in to the right. Kazin's statement is a straw man's argument because the expectation was that he'd follow through on his campaign rhetoric and support who elected him, not start from scratch and start a movement by himself.
Thank you for clarifying that!
Yes, Obama killed the movements, divided the left - all by design, imo.
The empire's psyops professionals are way ahead of us. They know us better than we know ourselves.
The Nation is lost. Fooled again. Some of us voted Green Party. Sorry, but the Democratic Party is the graveyard of 'progressive' ideas. Movements are not based on watching TV and 'hope.'
From a letter written on The Nation site on 7/30/08:
Ah! Pity The Nation
They picked their beau from column A
'Cause MSM said "He's OK!"
They told all their friends "With him we'll stay!"
Ah, pity The Nation!
They thought he was fine, they thought he was stout,
And then they discovered him catting about
He's being unfaithful of that there's no doubt
Ah, pity The Nation!
They bought the ring when he gave them a rose
Now they have found the ring's in their nose
What do they do now he's turned on the hose?
Ah, pity The Nation!
They could call it off and find a new beau.
But they fear ridicule so they still won't say "No!"
Their learning curve is so painfully slow
Ah, pity The Nation!
MSM has decided "It's A or it's B!
And B is a bounder as well, golly gee!
(But you aren't permitted to pick column C!)"
Ah, pity The Nation!
So they'll marry the cad, on bended knee
But they'll write him a note with a pitiful plea
"Oh sir, please, stop beating on poor little me!"
Ah, pity The Nation!
There are those tried and true who would make a good spouse
But these won't be allowed to come in the house
As they stick with this fellow as Lesser Louse
Ah, pity The Nation!
How is it that some of us figured this out BEFORE the election, but "the best and the brightest" still apparently have not?
And come '12, we'll be able to post this again .....
So many excuse from the pundit class for Barakus Obombus, so little time to waste on these rationalizations is what I've got to say. The crux of the matter is he isn't on our side any damn way. He's a cynical Daley machine politician as I've said way before and he see where that got picked up by Laura Flanders program in that interview with Oliver Stone.
AD
The USA has derailed and is burning and exploding and these clowns write as if this or that segment of the political landscape is anything other than corporate flunkies.
The people of consistent integrity in Congress can literally be counted on one hand.
The Repug minority can obstruct policies but the Dims could not stop two horrific criminal wars?
Please, it is definitely way pass time to press the reset button on this failed rouge nation.
And a very large segmentof the population has been dumbed down and eviscerated of ethical analysis.
Right on for everything you said Glen, with, IMO, one small modification:
"The people of consistent integrity in Congress can literally be counted on the hand of an accident-prone wood-worker."
He's a tool of empire, folks. I'm in despair that people STILL think voting means anything. And still believe there is actually a Democrat/Republican divide.
The corporations rule us. The president, at least since Reagan and probably before, is just a PR representative for the multi-nationals.
WAKEY, WAKEY!
***2) What is Obama's agenda? I think Obama's agenda is working very well for those he is in favor of supporting.***
Someone has been paying attention!
Cmon' peoplez, Obama is a corporatist who serves the interestes of the elites. Attempting to separate him from his progressive failures is beyond wrong-headed. To the bone Obama is a corporatist. Independent free thinkers cannot and will not be propagandized by articles such as this to believe otherwise. Progressives must openly admit that THEY elected a polished corporatist whose lies cannot be hidden. Progressives were HAD, and must accept that fact.
But all the radio talk show hosts, their listeners, my family members and their conservative friends all say he's taking us down the path to Socialism!!
Yup. In fact, a recent poll indicated that a majority of USAns believe that Obama is "Socialist".
I myself suffer sort of brain-lock thinking about it. When it is just a couple nuts of a street corner, it can be dismissed and ignored - but when hundreds of millions believe such manifest idiocy, it, what can one do?
Yup. In fact, a recent poll indicated that a majority of USAns believe that Obama is "Socialist".
It simply comes down to an unchallenged lie repeated enough will be believed by most to be true. If we had real journalists in the MSM who challenged this B/S things would be different, but getting at the truth is no longer appears to be in their job description.
Don't get hung up on words. One man's socialist is another man's fascist.
A two-thirds majority of Americans want the uber-rich to pay their fair share of taxes, to bring the troops home now, reduced military spending, single-payer health care, environmental protection, reformed NAFTA and other trade pacts, enforcement of immigration and labor laws against scofflaw employers, etc.
It's the people vs. the corporatists. Labels don't mean nearly as much as the issues themselves. Build solidarity, and throw the corporatists out.
I'm not hung up on the words, but the average American is. There are far too many people who either support Obama and believe he inherited a mess that he hasn't had enough time to fix, or that he's so far to the left that America is on the path to Socialism. Unless I'm mistaken, the majority of Americans seem to be ignorant, uneducated, or just not suffering enough (yet) to understand the root of the problem.
Apparently you didn't understand what I said. You're still hung up on a word, which you define to have one meaning and others define to have a different meaning. (Even historians argue about such things.) As long as a two-thirds majority of Americans agree on the big issues—which I find quite remarkable considering the power of corporate media—I don't see any constructive value in calling half of them "ignorant."
Wouldn't the "value" be in making this "two-thirds majority" realize that they are being divided by folks exploiting their ignorance of the meaning(s) of the term "Socialism"?
Thus allowing them to finally become the unified democratic power they should have been all along?
Saying someone is "ignorant" is only an insult if they really are in the know, but merely disagree. RECTIFYING ignorance involves first pointing it out.
Someone who believes the Corporatist Obama to be ANY of the historically debated meanings of "Socialist" is ignorant of political history and the history of political economy to the point of inability to uphold the duties of Citizenship.
The fact that this ignorance is contributing to the division of their vote when deeper investigation reveals they are truly in agreement is only an encouragement if SOMETHING IS BEING DONE TO RECTIFY THE IGNORANCE.
Right?
-matti.
Wrong. Disagreement over the definition of words is not ignorance.
As to historical socialism, "National Socialism" was Hitler's ideology, and the "National Socialist German Workers' Party" was his party (the Nazi Party). You may have been upset by Tea Party protesters linking Obama to both Nazism and socialism, but the word is right there in the name of their party, after all.
Today, we have corporate socialism in the U.S.—"socialism for the rich, and capitalism for the rest of us." Obama and the Obama-led Dems have certainly been perpetrating that brand of socialism.
To some people, anything that subverts democracy is "socialism." It's a blunt definition, and that issue can be discussed.
But, you don't begin a conversation with someone—especially someone with whom you agree on the major issues of the day—by calling him or her "ignorant." That, in itself, is more divisive than anything. If you want to build solidarity, you begin the conversation by emphasizing the things you agree on, and then move forward.
Furthermore, who is more intelligent about political influence? Right-wingers who protest loudly in person at rallies and at their congress-persons' events, or left-wingers who sit at home and whine online that political action is futile?
And who is more ignorant? The people who voted for George W. Bush the first time? The people who voted for George W. Bush the second time? Or, the people who voted for George W. Bush the third time?
I don't understand what is so disappointing or surprising. When I read the platforms of both McCain and Obama and listened to them, I found nothing that interested me and Obama's presidency seems to be exactly what he promised.
The candidates who seemed to actually have concrete ideas and goals for ending imperialist war, holding the corporate cronies accountable, protecting civil liberties came from both the left and the right ( whatever that means ) like Kucinich and Paul, but outside of the status quo Dems and Repubs.
Obama, Bush, Clinton, Reagan... Dems, Repubs... all the same shit.
I think it's way overdue that a "do-over" of how Congress works is established.
Congress is full of self-aggrandizing individuals who are making a fortune collecting "bribe money" from corporations under the name of "lobbying."
They have NO LOYALTY whatsoever to their constituents and we're all foolish to think they do. If they did have the least bit of concern for the feelings and desires of the American people, we wouldn't be in an endless "WAR," we would have single-payer health care, and we certainly would have a Congress in the process of overturning the Supreme Court's ruling that "corporations are PEOPLE!!!!!"
Congress sits in session arguing with and fighting each other in order to become the leading party so they can enact legislation that will favor the corporations who give them the most bribes. And it never stops!!!
I have yet to hear a Congress person actually talk about what "the American people want" regarding any issue! I don't think they have an inkling how most Americans live and what sacrifices they're making in order just to maintain a decent home for themselves and their children.
The economy is crashing and yet we hear no discussion, let alone suggestions, from our Congress of how it can be reversed, or what they're doing to achieve a reversal.
It's obvious by this time, and Congress knows it, that the American people do not have the means, know-how, time, or the money to spend all the hours required to unite under a single umbrella of protest about the critical situation our country is in - not that they would do anything about it if they could - they'd rathere we keep fighting among ourselves. But there are many groups within the country (and they're growing) who are sick and tired of the "business as usual" within Congress!
I don't know how to make this "do-over" come about but I'm not interested in voting for anyone who claims to "represent me" until I hear him/her start talking like they know how we Americans feel and has an plan for reversing the present situation: endless war, the sinking economy, and calss warfare! Let's get with it, Congress!!!!!
I think our current politics are a dirty, dirty business!!!
First, if any "liberal" really looked at Obama's actions, and really listened to what he said during the election and looked at the team/advisors around him and where the money that paid for the campaign came from you would have realized what to expect and none of this would be a surprise.
No Democrat will not get us out of this mess, as the mess is the Corporate control of our Government. The DNC is a major part of the problem just as the RNC is. They both feed on the corrupt nature of this system and lose power if the corrupt channels are uncovered and/or diminished.
True change takes more than listening to NPR and complaining. I think the Greeks get it, like the French and many other nations get it. They get in the street and cause some alarm as we will have to if we want to take our government back from the criminals that control it now. Considering the Patriot Act 1 & 2 and the War Powers Act and other recent destruction to our liberties it might be already too late. But seeing that most of the citizentry are fast asleep or busy blaming their neighbor or illegals (as they are told to), I am not very hopeful.
Berware of the man who advocates extra-legal action "in the street" before/without advocating the LEGAL political action to back it up.
He may be a trickster or a fool.
Either way, he shouldn't be followed.
Even the Jacobins and the Bolsheviks had real organizations backing up the "street action", folks.
As do the Greeks and the French today.
-matti.
Sure the Republicans might make some gains in November, then we'll watch the country go further faster down the hell hole the Bush/Cheney regime dug for the country. Why are people surprised and dissaponted to see the lack of delivered promises from Obama? Change ain't gonna happen in two years, four or eight. It's going to take better than a decade to clean up the pile of shit the previous administration left behind.
They are going to take the House and if this Dunderhead and his cronies don't stop shooting themselves in the foot, they may take the Senate.
I'd say much more than "some gains" are in the offing.
There would have to be a rather large tidal wave in order for your prophesy to come true. The current numbers would indicate that, while the GOP may win a number of seats in both Houses, the Democratic majority seems secure.But so what, with 60 votes in the Senate Democrats couldn't get a damn thing done, with 51 or 52 it will be the same.
...............House Senate
Democrats .... 255 .. 56
Independents... 0 .... 2
Republicans ... 178... 41
Vacancies ..... 2 ..... 1
Do you think the GOP can win 100 seats, some do? Considering the gerrymandering that has taken place, considering all the secure seats due to such this would be an almost unprecedented event.
But in the end so what? There are only subtle differences between the two anyway and maybe what this nation needs is more Bush/Cheney, even if in the form of Sarah Palin, to get some fat and lazy butts off the couch and into the streets.
Your mistake is to think the Dems are shooting themselves in the foot. The D's love the Rs and vice versa: They keep each other in business! It's a scam.
The "Dunderhead and his cronies" will do just fine. Sure, Rs might take back the house and senate. So what? A fat lot of good it did for progressives to have this Democratic majority: the House, the Senate AND the president! Rs and Ds who know their place will be rewarded, the others will be replaced or marginalized.
The empire could care less if it's Ds or Rs, as long as the agenda is pushed forward.
It's the voters who are shooting themselves in the foot by allowing the two-party to lead them around by the nose.
WOLF: And change sure isn't going to happen when the same bankers that caused the fiscal implosion are given a pass by Obama to run things like the economy; or when the same general(s) appointed by Bush gets to run things like the illegal wars of empire-building. Obama has not TRIED to change a f--king thing! Nor in times of such calamity for so many do the nation's citizens have the privilege to think in terms of slow, incremental change! The iceberg has already struck... and you know who gets the lifeboats.
CONSCIENCE: Good post.
As for the ruse that the left lacks organization, that it's the left's fault that it doesn't have an organized set of initiatives...
The sane response to that is:
1. Who controls the air waves? Where are progressive values being given air time?
2. Whose voice gets to manufacture consent? (Hint: Faux/Fox news & its agents of hate, those voices that dominate the bandwidths)
3. What happens (think pre-emptive arrests) when groups begin to organize effectively?
4. The money is on think tanks designed to retain the status quo by blaming the victims (like environmentalists for the Gulf oil disaster) for egregious policy disorders.
5. Current economics make it difficult for many to allot time to community events.
6. The media is awash in polluted messages, the din so dense that few can separate the truth from all the deceptions.
These, and other covert practices make it inordinately difficult to awaken the masses to the truth of their plight. If enough understood the dynamics, there would be massive strikes and street protests... we'd see an enlivened "left" emerge.
And then, of course, the leading agents in these crowds would be deemed terrorists, potentially disappeared, and/or taser'd. Freedom, what a concept!
It's going to take better than a decade to clean up the pile of shit the previous administration left behind.
I don't think it will happen even in a decade. The ONLY way out is a peaceful revolution in which the Republicans and the Democrats are electorally destroyed and fundamentally cease to exist. Some group, somehow, has to come into existence that has some actual political power somewhere in this country (maybe gaining control of a state government) and starts accomplishing things that Republicans and Democrats hate and fear. This being real life, it might happen but I wouldn't bet a penny on it.
There are some disturbing bits of "self-repression" in your post.
Why would "(t)his being real life" count against an officially democratic country breaking the anti-democratic stranglehold of a pair of oligarchical parties, pray tell?
It has happened numerous times in history after all.
I think the tipping point happens when the "(s)ome group, somehow" of real change becomes "my group, using the plan I'm a part of" for enough people.
What would be your group, and your method?
I suggest Constitutional Conventions in all the States and at the Federal level.
I futher suggest a Coalition of groups, individuals, small political parties, and dissident factions of the Red and Blue parties, who agree to drop all of the B.S. ideological differences until the acheivement of the common goal -a new Constitutional Convention.
-matti.
It's going to take a helluva lot longer than "better than a decade" if folks keep spouting utter crap like "Change ain't gonna happen in two years"!!!!
"Change" my friends "ain't" just "gonna happen" at all. WE have to MAKE it happen!
And when we actually start making it happen, it CAN happen in just a few years.
The CONSTI-FRIGGIN-TUTION went from totally nonexistent to enabling a wholly new form of nation-state in just a few years, remember?
-matti.
Some day the nation may awaken to the need to overturn
the right wing and corporatism - right now it's summer
and Obama is preparing to let a vicious, majority right wing
GOP Panel destroy Social Security and Medicare --
And, our senior citizens aren't even organized or united
in any way - other than thru AARP which is an insurance
company!
So Obama turned out to be a corporate shill - are we really
all surprised?
Are we surprised that our Democrats in Congress are seemingly
impotent against the right wing GOP? It's just more of the
same - we've been watching this for decades.
Not only has Obama succeeded in stopping even a public option
in health care, but he's now ready to work on projects Bush
couldn't move -- Social Security, for instance.
We've known for four decades or more what the problem is.
The question is what are the solutions?
How do we begin to move this country and its politics to
the left?
"According to all myth, the female - not the male -- gives life"
Here's a related blog from changingpower.net
July 10, 2010
A fuzzy copy of a film clip (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LcO3Y_ETK4E&NR=1) that tells the truth about free energy is going viral at the moment and one interesting part is that the film, On Deadly Ground, was made way back in the 1990s, by Steven Seagal.
He’s being sued at the moment, but I’m inclined to think that the disgruntled employee is being encouraged to tell a harassment story as part of an ongoing harassment of Seagal. Here’s why I think that: People who have known him personally have told me that his life became very um, difficult after he had the courage to include that passionate speech in his film. In other words, the vested interests struck back at the lone defender of the environment who was a truth-teller about energy inventions. I can’t remember the details of those problems that were said to be created in his life, but I remember feeling gratitude for his bravery.
The only time I saw Seagal in person was when I was with a photographer who was waiting as a limousine delivered the Dalai Lama to a back door at the university near Santa Barbara. The tall muscular man with the ponytail, standing at the door and bowing a reverent greeting to the holy man, looked familiar…
Barney
What was also shocking was to hear Seagal in the film Above the Law point out, as a rogue cop, that most, if not all, of the military actions that the United States has carried out since 1947 were orchestrated by the CIA.
- "It simply took too long to pass health care," -
Don't forget, the 'Democratic-led Congress' (warning - oxymoron alert!) started the health care 'debate' by assigning it to an ad hoc Senate sub-committee of 3 Ds and 3 Rs - guaranteed to produce stalemate.
- a broken system in Washington that he says allows the minority party to rule with impunity -
How come, then, the Democrats accomplish nothing, whether the minority or the majority?
2006 Democratic platform - 'no more unfunded spending'
What's the budget deficit this year?
1 1/2 trillion?
Seems like a lot of unfunded spending, 4 years after the Democrats pledged to stop it.