Subscribe to Common Dreams News Updates
Most Popular This Week
Popular content
Today's Top News
All the Comforts of Home: Republicans Destroy, Democrats Serve Cookies
I got a bad feeling that if we liked the Clinton years, we're gonna love the Obama ones.
Remember those fun 1990s? Actually, they really weren't, of course. If they look good at all in retrospect, it is purely because the intervening monster mash gave us a point of reference so that we might know what ugly really looks like.
Apart from that, however, the political story of that decade had a depressingly simple narrative arc to it. Republican bottom-feeders demonstrated at every opportunity how scummy politics can be, and Democrats responded over and over again with the political equivalent of "Thank you, sir, may I have another?" And wasn't that fun to watch?
What the last months seem to be screaming out for all to hear is the lesson that some people just can't change. Or won't.
Could the little project launched a few centuries back, and affectionately referred to as ‘America', possibly be in a more precipitous free-fall than it is right now?
No. And yet...
...And yet, while Wall Street firms are desperately trying to out-30s the 1930s themselves with their 2008 exercise in earnings annihilation, management gladly rewarded itself with nearly $20 billion dollars in bonuses, many funded by the United States taxpayers. This caused the people's president to nearly raise his voice in remonstration, he was so upset.
...And yet, with the Republican Party tanking so badly that its best likely outcome in the years ahead (and you should see the second best) is to wind up as the undisputed vote-getting champ of Mississippi and large parts of Georgia, still they reiterate their most aggressive and abysmal of behavior.
...And yet, with the Democratic Party holding more or less all the political cards imaginable, still they go desperately looking for any and all possible ways to share their political power with the GOP. And when the latter folks reward such generosity with an immediate slap to the face, still the Dems come back begging for more.
We're two weeks into the Obama decade, and already I'd be bored if I wasn't so pissed. Even with every imaginable self-made predator circling the camp, still we go on with the same set of juvenile antics that substitute for a meaningful politics in America. Even with every conceivable disaster hungrily lapping at our shores, some of us would rather get rich than live to retirement age, some of us would rather win elections than save the country, and some of us would rather hold hands than be the guy who walks away from the knife fight alive.
Yep, it's the Clinton years again. Minus the booming economy and probably the sexual shenanigans. But the politics sure look the same.
Wall Street greed that exists absolutely without bound, to start with. And a government that finds increasingly creative ways to liquidate the commonwealth of its common wealth and turn it instead into private playgrounds, corporate jets, MBA bacchanals, and really big rings on the fingers of really big trophy wives. What, you've got a problem with a $35,000 toilet for a company accepting taxpayer bailout money?
Don't worry. Barrack Obama called it shameful. Since that appears to be just about all he plans to do about it, and since I had already made that particular analytical leap on my own horsepower, I must confess to being seriously unimpressed. Yeah, limiting salaries of the execs running companies receiving bailout funds is not a bad idea, but mostly another terribly trembling tactic from timid town. Since I am now an owner of these firms, would it be too much to ask for new management? Call me strange if you must, but I don't want corporate chiefs who have proven their ability to wreck companies running mine. It's just this odd quirk I've always had.
But the finger-wagger-in-chief's little dressing down was actually the high point of the week. Somewhat less amusing was the GOP's reaction to the president's fiscal stimulus plan. Even though Obama went out of his way to include within it tax cuts that seem to be the only two words the lips of Republicans are able to form in discussions of economics or public policy - tax cuts that are widely understood not to have serious stimulus capacity at this point - still not a single member of the House - not one - voted for the bill. Instead, they went parading around the media complaining about how the legislation would favor illegal immigrants, or would spend a few bucks on family planning services. Can't have that. Brown women in America? Not barefoot and not pregnant? Not okay.
Did I mention that this looks a lot like the 1990s? Zero was precisely the number of Republicans who voted for Bill Clinton's economic rescue package in 1993. Taxes, sex, war, taxes. Taxes, sex, war, taxes. This guys are like a jazz singer who can only hit four notes, two of which are the same. And about as useful.
Of course, people gotta have principles. Texas Senator John Cornyn - who is absolutely everything you'd expect a Texas senator to be - said this week "I read the bill in vain for any real stimulus in the economy. What I do see mainly is an opportunity being exploited to spend a lot of money without much scrutiny." Now see, dang it, that's not okay. For example, let's just say you had this Treasury secretary - we'll just call him John Doe Paulson, to pick a name at random - and he spent $350 billion by giving banks rescue money that they used instead for bonuses and really cool toilets, literal and figurative. Now that there, my friends, is an example of money being spent without scrutiny. Or certain contractors (oh, you know, like Haliburton maybe) and their no-bid contracts in certain wars (let's say Iraq, for instance). Or a prescription drug bill that actually forbids the government from using its buying power to obtain volume discounts. Now those are some nasty cases of unscrutinized federal spending, and we can all be thankful that Cornyn and other Republicans have been on the job this last decade, making sure none of that transpired.
The party, meanwhile, was busy last week choosing for themselves a new chairman. And guess what? He's a real conservative fellow. Now there's a shocker. And he's a black man. And he argues that Republicans have gotten a totally bum rap when it comes to perceptions of their racist politics these last decades. You know, that whole Reagan states' rights campaign kick-off speech in Philadelphia, Mississippi - a town famous for only one thing, murdering civil rights workers - for example. Or that whole Nixonian Southern Strategy to appeal to racist white voters in the South. Or the Willie Horton ad. Or the small matter of mass black voter disenfranchisement campaign in Florida in 2000. Or Ohio in 2004. Yeah, man. You gotta feel bad for the GOP and this unfair reputation. They really need to hire some new marketing people!
Oh, and did I mention the guy who didn't get the chairmenship? He sent around a CD to party leaders that included the snappy little tune, "Barack, the Magic Negro"! Some people in the party thought that was pretty tacky. But others didn't, and so a serious and major debate ensued within the party leadership as to whether this was an appropriate thing to do, and whether it was a good idea to put such a person at the top of the party. Hmmm, tough question. No wonder they had such a struggle over it.
Of course, the good news for the GOP is that with a black man as their chairman now, they'll no doubt be drawing tons of black votes from this point forward. And the even better news is that the GOP thinks that with a black man as their chairman now, they'll no doubt be drawing tons of black votes from this point forward. You know, just like Sarah Palin knocked down those barriers preventing women from gaining equality (the same ones that Republicans had spent lifetimes erecting) and thus energized the female vote for the GOP ticket. Oh yeah.
Let's be honest. The chances that the GOP would change its ugly ways only rose to the high-water mark of about three out of a thousand because of the trouncing they took in two elections back-to-back. Anyone who thought these folks were about to give up either their abysmal politics or their disgusting tactics hasn't been paying attention since the 1950s. And, besides, what would be the point? We already have a party that stands for just about nothing, and does so with unsurpassed strategic blunder, and a passionate devotion to the avoidance of both passion and devotion. Who needs another?
Speaking of which, I'm starting to feel kinda dumb for having said lately that a certain fellow by the name of Obama is a real smart guy. The more I see him in operation, the more I get the sense that the prime directive of his operating system is to always seek the making of happy-happy with his adversaries. He actually had some nice Republican members of Congress over to his new house the other day and personally walked around the room carrying a plate of oatmeal raisin cookies to serve them. You think I'm making this up, don't you? You wish. I wish. If this keeps up, pretty soon he's gonna make Chamberlain at Munich look as tough as the siege of Stalingrad by comparison.
He gave the Republicans a couple of hundred million bucks worth of worthless tax cuts as a means of compromise, even though that substantially diminishes his chances for succeeding in bringing recovery, and therefore also in succeeding at playing president. He says nice things about Ronald Reagan and throws a big shindig for the guy who just got through spending half a year calling him a socialist terrorist. He's now put three Republicans in his cabinet, which by my count totals to a contingent therein approximately three hundred percent bigger than the liberal cohort (of, maybe, one person). Not only that, instead of trading the last Republican added for the 60th Democratic senator and thus a filibuster-proof majority that would guarantee getting his legislation through Congress, Obama agrees to a deal wherein the Democratic governor of New Hampshire backfills Judd Gregg's seat with a Republican appointee.
And what do they do, in return? Trash his bill in public, say that they hope he fails, and vote - with nary a single exception - against the signature legislative initiative of his presidency. During an economic crisis, no less, with a public already massively angry at them.
If anyone knows this guy's Blackberry address, pass it along, wouldya? I'd like to remind him that Republicans don't get that whole ‘post-partisan' thing. Precambrian, yes. Post-partisan, no. They will thrash the country (again) if they think it will wreck this presidency and bring them back to power. I'm not sure how Rush Limbaugh could possibly have been quite any more explicit about that. Yo, Barry. They are going to resist you any and every way they can. If you succeed, they'll take credit for it, maybe saying that the Bush tax cuts finally kicked in. If you fail, I'm pretty sure they won't be acknowledging the role of their political sabotage during a national economic crisis.
Lose the hand-holding impulse, dude. You've got cred, you've got crises, you've got control of the government. If you throw them a bone and they slap your face in return, the thing not to do here is increase the size of the bone. No more oatmeal cookies, man. Pull their useless stuff out of the bill, redraft it exactly the way you want it, and ram it down their throats. If they use their 41-seat minority in the Senate to block a relief bill that the people desperately want, the House has passed, and the president is waiting to sign, make them pay for it politically by endlessly reminding the public just who's standing in the way of the Red Cross trucks, and just who's driving them.
I mean, is it really too much to ask for a Democratic Party actually does something? Without asking the GOP for permission first?
Once before, American had a crumbling economy, a bumbling foreign policy, an angry electorate, and a decisive election. Ronald Reagan won in 1980, and Democrats cowered for the next three decades. They're still cowering.
This time the conditions are almost identical, except for three things. First, people are hurting a lot worse now than in 1980. Second, it's the Democrats who have won this time. And, third, it wasn't an election. It was two.
But, of course, one thing hasn't changed.
It's still the Democrats doing the cowering.
40 Comments so far
Show AllIts time to put a foot down and push these people out of the way. They have lost their power, they have no mandate and they have no reason to keep bullying us. I know of one great way to get them to start cooperating with our new, democratically elected government. Find out what they can't live without, not pattycake things, but things that they will feel for years, and threaten to stick it to them if they don't move along in the direction the country has chosen for itself. All's good for bi-partisanship, unless you are dealing with the party that just stole two elections from you, usurped your civil liberties, re instituted a culture of torture as policy and tore apart every ounce of goodwill that existed in abundance for our country at a time when our country needed to heal.
edit: How do they feel about investigations of war crimes? Doctoring evidence to bring the country to war? Vote tampering? Torture policies? It is not too difficult to know what will make them cooperate, you just need to remember what type of diplomacy to use, a discrete suggestion that they start cooperating could do the trick.
Yes, this is the way to hamstring the republicans. Prosecute to the fullest extent of the law. The dems are a sorry spectacle indeed. If they won't put the screws to the repugs, then it's time to hit the streets.
Spot on as usual, David.
Hopefully our new prez will soon come to realize that you can't outthink someone who isn't thinking (the Re-pubs). Obama seems to be a very intelligent man but I don't think he realizes, with the Congress we are stuck with, that he is now driving the "short bus". You can't win a game of chess when your opponent is playing tiddlywinks on the other side of the board, either.
Instead of serving them cookies on a platter may I humbly suggest their asses on a platter would be a much better choice.
Although I do cling to my optimism about our new president, this article is generally accurate. It's the classic good cop bad cop game. These two parties we have in the US are nothing more than two law enforcement partners. They play their respective roles for public viewing but both have the same agenda behind closed doors. If you really assess the actions and words of this new administration, as Mr. Green has done, it is hard to believe that the democrats think their tactics will actually solve any problems much less the imminent crises. Hard to believe but not a fact. So, the possible explanations are as follows. Please add to the list any other explanation I may have missed...
The dems are stupid.
The dems are crooked.
The dems figure they will be quite comfortable with their newly acquired stimulus fortune until the end of time, and as such don't give a shit about anyone else.
Wiretap nails it. The CLASSIC GOOD COP BAD COP GAME.
Good Cop Obama makes us all feel nice and "hopey" with slogans and cookies. Soon we'll be reveling in cash borrowed from our grandkids, and feeling so proud the Bad Cop's now gone.
Meanwhile, the "hidden agenda" - American/Israeli Empire - rolls on as scheduled unscathed.
Right on, DMG. It is painful to watch Obama's conciliation and compromise with a party that prides itself on ruthlessness. I guess Obama feels that the great American electorate is more disgusted with "partisanship" than with a party that has gleefully driven the country into the toilet over the past thirty years or so. Maybe he needs to realize that the public is really disgusted with a Democratic Party that squanders every chance it gets to undo the damage.
Right wing AM talk radio is telling outright lies about the economy stating that the causes of the current economic downturn are the result of the Federal government forcing lenders to make loans that people were going to be unable to repay. The Ninja loans (No Income, No Job, No Assets) were created by unscrupulous lenders who bundled the bogus mortgages and sold them to investors who thought they were making sound investments because the investment rating agencies had given them far higher ratings than the bogus mortgage backed securities deserved. This is what started the current economic crisis.
The deregulation of the financial and banking industries and the repeal of the Glass Steagall Act removed the safeguards put in place during the Great Depression allowing the excesses that are now falling like dominos in a 7.5 earthquake.
The real question is, given the obvious massive evidence that the economy is facing a crisis unlike any since the Great Depression, why aren’t the republicans being treated like Holocaust deniers. It’s long past time to point out that the Emperor has no clothes. Screw bipartisanship; call those who are unwilling to acknowledge that their economic policies are, as Dr. Frankenstein said “Young Frankenstein” “the theories are Do Do” the idiots that they are.
Finally, given that the republicans have shown not one freakin ounce of bipartisanship drop the tax cuts in the stimulus package, tax cuts have far less of an economic multiplier effect than direct spending or grants to state and local governments where they are required to spend the money quickly and on things like not laying off police and firemen and also replace the funding for contraception and HIV education
The economy is in a deflationary trap. Commodity prices are falling, real estate prices are falling, stock prices are falling, and even food and energy prices are falling. Retail prices are plummeting as people aren’t spending and auto prices are falling even though most manufactures have laid off thousands of their workers. It is this deflationary trap that has caused massive bankruptcies in the ethanol industry where ethanol producers contracted to buy corn at prices that are twice as high as what corn is selling for today while crude oil is half the cost it was a year ago. The only way to break this deflationary trap, given that consumers and businesses are slashing spending, is to replace it with government spending. Oh, and had the republicans not pissed two trillion dollars away with an unnecessary war and created massive Federal deficits with tax cut to the already wealthy while the Fed was creating bubble after bubble we would not be in the crisis we are today. You can’t be bipartisan when reality requires you to call the other party a bunch of greed driven, brain dead, idiots.
Well said. Democrats are mostly assholes, but their way better than most of the republican shit that floats underneath.
Democrats are worse. Why? Because with Republican you know exactly the kind of thrashing you are going to get. With the Democratic, the thrashing comes in your back when you're not looking.
I don't buy your idea for a moment. The Republicans are numero uno at lock-step evil. Democrats are a mixed bag (I accidently typed bad instead of bag). There are even a few decent people in the bunch.
Oh boy. You need some history lessons. I posted this earlier in another response but let me explain to you.
I don't forget the times back in the 1980s and 1990s when the DLC/BlueDog Democrats went out of their ways to undermine the party and make sure the GOP got what they wanted. In fact, remember how LIEberNAZI made a greater push for the war in Iraq even more than Bush or how Joe Biden and a lot of Blue Dogs in Congress went out of their ways to rush Bankruptcy reform and CAFTA into law? Or remember how Obama joined forces with the Establishment to "rescue" LIEberNAZI from Lamont in 2006?
Now, as for the few decent ones in a bunch, both parties have a few good ones. Unfortunately, they'd be better off forming a truly progressive independent party before expecting to take back the party.
Deflationary trap? Let the prices fall! Low prices are good! Fewer rpms on the rat wheels! Good! Good!
I agree with Prof. Green's characterization of the dynamic of America's two-party system over the last thirty years.
Inside the DC beltway, the Republicans play hardball and maintain rigorous internal party discipline. The Democratic leadership continually reaches across the aisle to shake hands, compromise by invariably cutting the baby in half, in order to get suckered in the fine print details and kicked in the shins once again. It's almost a ritual. And the end result is another bipartisan dead baby.
The GOP are sados. The Democrats are masochists who can never get abused and humiliated enough. Today's Repugs have no shame. The Dems wallow in shame.
With Dick Cheney prancing around the countryside already blaming Obama's wimpishness for causing the next terrorist attack, and the GOP Congressional leadership gutting the economic stimulus package so desperately needed to avoid recession becoming depression, it's time for Barack to get some partisan spine (a quality Rahm Emanuel purportedly possesses in the extreme).
If this is the honeymoon period, just wait until the shit really hits the fan.
Bill from Saginaw
Deja Vu. The more things change, the more they remain the same.
Rethugs are as toxic as ever, the Dems have NO balls.
Michael(Uncle Tom) Steele is the titular head of the Greedy Obstructionist Party, but Blush Limpdick is their de facto leader.
How I yearn for another FDR, Give them Hell Harry, JFK, & RFK.
...And yet, with the Democratic Party holding more or less all the political cards imaginable, still they go desperately looking for any and all possible ways to share their political power with the GOP. And when the latter folks reward such generosity with an immediate slap to the face, still the Dems come back begging for more.
Over and over again for the past several years, commenters here on CD pointed out the blatant cowardice of the Democrats. At least several times a day, the cringing nature of the Dems was lambasted . . . and properly so. They're still at it. FUCK THE REPELICANS! Why can't they learn this? LEAD THE NATION! Why can't they learn this? BE BOLD! Why can't they learn this? Or are they convinced that no matter what they do, it's all going to collapse anyway; so why not try to get the reactionaries who authored this catastrophe to step in it with them?
Mordechai -
I don't think it's so much a belief that "it's all going to collapse anyway" as it is a recognition that if the Democrats stood up and made partisan attack issues out of things like preemptive war, torture, Wall Street de-regulation, tax breaks for the rich, and so forth, the Republicans would promptly respond by highlighting the history of all the bipartisan Democratic support the neo-cons' agenda enjoyed. Such reminders would not only blunt the partisan edge, but would also divide the Dems internally. At least that may be the tactical or strategic reasoning of the inside-the-beltway DLC brain trust.
What I find intriguing is how with Obama now in the White House, the Republicans have smoothly transitioned into loyal opposition mode (a role that the Democrats failed miserably to fulfill throughout the last seven years of Little George's disasterous presidency).
I suspect that the GOP leadership plans to play the game for the next four years sort of like the Democratic leadership did: generally avoid direct confrontation with the White House, avoid being labeled obstructionist, and give the party in power just enough rope to hang themselves.
Simultaneously on the outside however, the right wing media megaphone and think tank message shapers can blast away ("Obama's retreat from our victory in Iraq", "the Obama recession", "Obama's surge strategy in Afghanistan", "Obama's pork barrel infrastructure bill", "Obama's coddling of terrorists", etc.) Does anybody think the mainstream media will ever marginalize guys like Karl Rove, James Woolsey, John Bolton and Dick Cheney (now that they are out of power) the way the MSM marginalizes progressive voices like George McGovern, Dennis Kuchnich, Naomi Klein or Ralph Nader? Fat chance.
The Republicans must figure that if the tactic of providing a veneer of bipartisan compromise in Washington, and patiently sitting back to wait for disasters to strike could work for the Democrats in 2006 and 2008, then that same tactic can work to put them back into power. Plus, the GOP has the added advantage as the party out of power of having a whole mass media network already in place to shape the spin. About I can find on my cable spectrum as a modest step towards fair and balanced coverage is Rachel Maddow.
Bill from Saginaw
The R's have been planning this for over a year. They knew economic hell was about to descend and that they would lose in November (and wanted to). Then they would blame everything on the Dems, who they knew would screw it up, and take power forever in 2012. Although the economic stuff started sooner, they are doing their best to erase their complicity in that. The hypocrites are the ones who voted for the bank bailout and not for the stimulus. Alliances should be made with the R's who voted against both the bank bailout and the stimulus.
How can the Dims possibly be bold when they are funded by the EXACT same stanky corporate sources as the Repigs?
Think of it this way. The Dims will be bold in the WRONG direction but not where it counts. I don't forget the times back in the 1980s and 1990s when the DLC/BlueDog Democrats went out of their ways to undermine the party and make sure the GOP got what they wanted. In fact, remember how LIEberNAZI made a greater push for the war in Iraq even more than Bush or how Joe Biden and a lot of Blue Dogs in Congress went out of their ways to rush Bankruptcy reform and CAFTA into law? Or remember how Obama joined forces with the Establishment to "rescue" LIEberNAZI from Lamont in 2006?
Obama is the best we could hope for. But no politician can try to overcome the enormous power of the oligarchy and live. Senator Gravel realized that and gave us a working alternative, the National Initiative for Democracy.
"Obama is the best we could hope for." No. Obama was the least worst that we could vote for. And that is exactly what we got. We will continue to get the same again and again and again as long as we keep voting according to the demands of One Corporate Party with two heads. We got what we deserve, and, we deserve what we voted for.
One would have to assume that Obama or anyone else could actually go against a monster oligarchy. I think only We the People can. See Senator Gravel's National Initiative for Democracy if you would like more information.
Other than the Libertarian Party, you can't get a 3rd party on the ballot in TX unless that party can jump through enough hoops. It's even worse in CA I hear although Nader and Mckinney made it there no doubt while TX could only vote for either of them via "write ins". I notice that every election season, even on the Internet 3rd parties are marginalized. That's gotta STOP !
I'm sick and tired of the Democrats acting like a battered wife asking for more abuse ! Come to think of it, the Democratic Party is nothing more than a GOP plant these days.
We need a serious effort at the grassroots level for Instant Runoff Voting (IRV). Otherwise, we're toast.
That certainly isn't a bad idea. People would think twice and thrice about who they're voting for and the pols would be forced to live up to their bs.
Indeed IRV, and corporate financing of campaigns, and ending corporate personhood are the ONLY things that will make real change possible.
BO and his fellow Dems already know all this - so the question is: why won't they stand up and fight tooth and nail? Ya can't write it off to some sort of collective cowardliness, or some childish fear of being badmouthed by the FOX-bots and big fat idiot drug addict Limbaugh.
They, the Dems, as a group, are making a choice. Is it possible that both sides have exactly the same agendas (to basically do what their corporate paymasters tell them to do) and have decided to just jerk us all off with this bullshit good cop-bad cop nonsense that we fall for every time? Remember, said Dems took control back in '06 and things have gotten progressively worse in every category and on every level...
Our government is built on the theory of compromise, but this can only work in an atmosphere of fact, where claims have correspondence to reality. The development of the conditioning industry known as PR has eroded that correspondence to the point of non-existence. While the GOP pontificates that only gasoline can put out this fire they have started that is spreading around the world, the Democrats hide their matchbooks and lighters while striving for an effective compromise on the ratio of gasoline to water.
Regardless of which party "wins", jump-starting the same economy won't work. It's time to change from making useless junk to making things that are truly needed. Lacking that, we're only postponing a further and faster decline.
The economy can't enjoy endless growth because the ecology isn't endless. We need sustainable wages and endeavors. Good luck getting that from the two-headed-hydra we call political parties in this country.
Amen. See article on this site today by Olga Bonfiglio "opportunity knocks..."
Not an auspicious start to a new administration.
The Dems ought to remove the business tax cuts from the Obama stimulus package and force the issue. Such tax cuts are extremely weak as stimulus measures and are themselves a form of PORK.
Actually, I doubt the efficacy of this stimulus bill but at least it is an attempt. What is really needed is a radical mobilization, I live in Mike Pence's district and work in John Boehner's district and keep hoping they will spontaneously combust. Can't assassinate a ghoul...
-30-
We don't need economic stimuli. The last thing we want is to return to the economic scenario of the past eight years when the economy was driven by a profiteering/speculation frenzy across all industrial sectors, notably military, energy and finance, but also in food, and grotesquely across all commodities. Add to that arms proliferation, and disaster profiteering. Are we so addicted to economic activity? We should be happy to take some nice extended vacations from building bombs! What else do we need? More roads? I don't think so! More bog box stores? I don't think so! Another thousand ice cream flavors? Nope! Relax, Capitalist America, relax!!
actually, what we have is a failure of leadership. on both sides of the aisle. many of these elected leaders (pun being intentional), men and women both, bring with them a legal background, not much leadership required. therein lies one of the reasons why.
first off, mr. obama, certainly you are aware of the situation. if you're not, then you should be. secondly, mr. obama, certainly you have staff members perusing the various political/progressive sites to see what people are thinking and saying. if you don't, then you should. it's way past time to pull the rabbit out of the hat.
it's as if dickhead cheney never left town. perhaps he really hasn't.
thank you again, mr. green. you are, seemingly, the only writer out there with the fortitude to call it what it is. perhaps you could clear a bit of your full plate and help lead us in the necessary revolt.
The only leadership we need is the referendum.
Mr. Green is right on. How can it be possible for Republicans to have any credibility? They have been so wrong on so many things for so long it boggles the mind. Dems must be fools or complicit partners to even consider working with them. Can we please start thinking about third parties as a real possibility and stop apologizing for the Democrats weakness and second-only-to-Republicans-corruption?
I'm a liberal Mr. Obama. Why the hell aren't you?
Liberals believe in the Constitution. You know, the thing you swore an oath to protect and defend. The ONLY thing you are officially sworn to protect and defend.
Liberals believe in the "Golden Rule" and acting like the Good Samaritan to help out the ill and injured. You might have heard of the concept. It's in the bible you used to swear your oath of office.
Say, there was a story in that same book about a guy a couple thousand years ago that kicked a bunch of money lender banker types out of the temple? He seemed to believe they do a lot of harm with their unrestrained greed. Modern day liberals pretty much worry about the same thing, apparently with darned good reason.
Ya know, that same guy back then, the hippy looking one with long hair and sandals, mentioned in that book you mention so much, I don't recall him going to war with anyone except maybe those money lenders in the temple. I don't recall him bombing anybody. You suppose he was a liberal too? When did the Dept of Defense become the Dept of Invade? And, who has more followers today? That weak supposedly defenseless little hippy or his titular emperor in Rome?
Interestingly enough, liberals are actually conservative (small "c" conservative anyway) on many things, the ones that really matter. Have you noticed how conservative the principles of regulation and regulators are? Better yet, have you thought about how conservative the concept of conservation is? Maybe we shouldn't be ripping all those resources out of the ground to despoil the air and waters of what's left of our Garden of Eden. Maybe we should be good shepherds and preserve our flock, our capital so to speak, for future generations. It's the conservative thing that Liberals do and Conservatives don't.
Liberals also read science books and recall history. Maybe that's why they constantly seem to have a far better grasp of reality. They at least seem capable of learning what works and what doesn't or shouldn't. Neocons in contrast seem to lack either the ability or desire to do so.
Think about it. Hasn't it occurred to you that all the values the Republicans, your apparent new buddies, profess to "value" turn out to really be the ones they end up trashing or ignoring?
So then, why aren't you a liberal? It might do your Presidency some good.
Signed: Lawlessone [for more irreverence, see resistence-is-possible.blogspot.com]
I liked that. You said just enough and not too much.
Beautifully put.
Sioux Rose
LAWLESSONE: Well-said. I'd love to see THIS on a right wing site! Use an assumed name, wear a bullet proof vest, and go for it!
re: the purpose of criticism - to complain, or to organize?
Green criticizes Obama and predicts more of the same from Democrats. He is disappointed, he is mad. He fantasizes what he would tell Obama to do.
The marriage metaphor of Democrats-Republicans is implicit in Green's battered spouse piece, but it applies to progressives - will they be neglected, ignored, taken for granted? Or make demands with teeth in them - the relationship changes, or ends.
Green accuses Democrats of cowardice, but he doesn't have the strength to stop being disappointed, to go his own way, and organize the people needed for change...He's still bitching about his bad marriage.