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Battered President Syndrome
Listening to poor Robert Gibbs at his daily press briefing attempting to back away from a New York Times report that the administration may finally abandon the quest for bipartisanship and pass a healthcare reform bill with Democrats alone (Gibbs insisted that the administration is still committed to working with Republicans, including those who’ve pledged not to vote for any reform, even if they negotiated it), it occurred to me: we may be dealing with a White House in mental crisis.
Before I explain, and this is going to sound like a tangent — I once had a co-worker, years ago, who had an abusive boyfriend. They weren’t married, but had lived together, and he was extremely possessive and controlling; he didn’t want her to have friends, or even to talk to anyone on the phone, except him. Eventually, as too often is the case, the relationship turned violent. When she’d finally had enough, she moved out, and took out a restraining order. It was at that point that she and I became friends. One day, we were going to lunch in Manhattan with another co-worker, who happened to be male. He was interested in her, but hadn’t yet worked up the courage to say so. So at the time we all went out, there was absolutely nothing going on between them. Well try explaining that to her ex-boyfriend, who surprised us outside our building after apparently stalking her for days. He accosted us with a ferocity you’d normally assume was reserved for a police officer kicking down the door of a murder suspect, and while we made sure he didn’t hit her, the experience was one I could stand never to have again. A few days later, I got a call from her, saying she needed to decompress, and wanted to hang out. So off I went on the subway to meet her at her apartment, so we could catch a movie. Big mistake. No, the boyfriend didn’t show up this time, but we did get into a conversation about him. When I expressed relief that she was finally rid of him, I was treated to a lengthy defense of him as a good guy who really loved her but was “going through a lot at the time,” and the suggestion was made in no uncertain terms that I ought to mind my own damned business when it came to her man. Needless to say, we’re no longer friends. I pray things worked out for her.
I see some echoes of my former friend in Team Obama. They are like a woman who has seen the object of her affection grow meaner over time, and yet even after she’s been belittled, bruised and battered, she’s still hanging on, hoping he’ll change; holding out for the moments of goodness that she hopes will come. In real life, we alternately feel pity and scorn for such women, but nearly everyone understands that they need sustained professional help. Obama ran on “changing the tone in Washington” — a fancy way of saying “bipartisanship.” Somewhere in the course of the campaign, and the first eight months of governing, they fell in love with bipartisanship, and now, bipartisanship is kicking their ass. And yet, they still believe that the people abusing them — Republicans who have no intention of ever supporting a single initiative out of this White House, and who are playing, not to advance the debate or to reform healthcare, but to crush this president and seize back control of Congress so they can crush him even more thoroughly — are basically good guys who are just going through a lot right now.
Campaigns, and I suspect the administrations that come from them, can be insular things; prone to group-think and a kind of “with us or against us” mentality. Often, even non-compliant allies can becomes the object of frustration and anger inside the campaign bunker. I witnessed that to some extent with the Obama campaign’s sometimes testy relationship with Black media in 2008. But the healthcare debate has taken the bunker public, and it seems that the White House is indeed burrowing in for a fight, but not against the GOP. According to the Washington Post, “unnamed sources” in and around the administration are angry; not at insurance-industry-funded AstroTurfers who have turned August town halls into a three-ring circus by lying to the simple and the vulnerable; and not at right wing media outlets that are convincing alarming numbers of elderly Fox News viewers that their government is out to kill them, but rather at the “left of the left,” for insisting on that pesky, popular (and in terms of reform, abolutely crucial,) public option. As I am one of those “public option” Democratic supporters, it’s like hanging with my former NYC gal pal all over again.
There must be a clinical name for an administration so determined to take beatings from the bullies in the Party of No, and yet so eager to trash those who are trying to help them (Christopher Hitchens early on accused the president of weakness in that he seems “more keen on appeasing his enemies than rallying his friends.” I’m starting to fear there might, at least in the healthcare debate, be something to that.) If Gibbs, rather than the New York Times, is to be believed, even talk of “pulling the plug on grandma” by their supposed GOP negotiating partners (later walked back), and armed nuts showing up at the president’s town halls apparently won’t dissuade President Obama and his team from seeking a so-called “bipartisan solution” to healthcare reform — which can best be translated as watered-down reform that Blue Dogs think will get them re-elected by conservative southerners and rural folk — I think we’re looking at the first-ever case of a new political diagnosis: call it Battered President Syndrome. If you ask me, Obama’s got it bad.
By the way, while we’re arguing about the public option, there’s another reason why it’s so important that it be passed: well, actually there are two:
First, if the president gives it away, any bill he does pass will have been done in weakness and retreat. Such retreat will only set the stage for further bloodletting by the right when his next bill (immigration reform? Cap and trade?) comes up for debate.
Second, Barack Obama ran for president opposing the then-Hillary Clinton position that individuals should be mandated by the government to have health insurance. I wholly agreed with that stance. In my estimation, it is immoral for the government to compel any individual to buy a private product. In states like Iowa, where Mutual of Omaha holds a monopoly, such mandates are tantamount to a massive government subsidy, using individual bank accounts, of single corporations. It’s just as wrong as handing the banks billions of dollars, no strings attached. If I’m going to be forced to buy insurance, I want and indeed insist, that I have the option of giving my money essentially to me, in the form of a publicly-owned nonprofit entity, rather than to some bloodsucking insurance company. It’s bad enough that I’m forced by law to buy private auto insurance, but at least there, it is in the public interest that my car not be able to mow you down and I lack the wherewithal to make you whole financially. In the case of healthcare, we’re not talking about insuring a car, or a house or an art collection. Health insurance is, as Rep. Adam Weiner ably pointed out — insurance that essentially brings nothing to the transaction over your body, other than getting between you and your doctor.
So it’s public plan or bust, Team Obama, and you might as well get used to it. As Ricky Lake might way, take out the restraining order already and kick that jerk political boyfriend of yours to the curb.
45 Comments so far
Show AllKeep this in mind though--while they played nice with the excesses of the Right, they were strong-arming and threatening the Progressives who were resisting Obama's Neocon agenda.
You have to ask yourself where and why they are playing tough and then you will see the ruse of bipartisanship dressed up in sweeping idealism about unity (little more than a play on the old "I'm a uniter, not a divider" crap--& who the hell wants to be unified with bigots and criminal thugs?) for what it really is. Complicity.
And, btw, as for "pulling the plug on Grandma", my Mother just told me that her Medicare copays are doubling.
Since the Obama administration rewards the banksters with a DOUBLING of Bushie's bailout then we can expect he will reward the health/insurance industry similarly.
Obama takes us for fools. After eight years of liars he thinks we won't spot another in a second? Stimulate Goldman Sachs and screw the little guy. Here's a tip Mr. President: if you are going to be toasting a New Normal you should be pouring from a bottle of cognac not a bedpan. Or if you want to cram through another give away to your corporate contributors, I'd recommend doing it while people are busy AT WORK, you know DOING something.
After seeing the big payouts the financial industry got from Obama, CEOs in every other industry are asking the question: "How can I get mine ?"
Obama is getting bribes from insurance, pharma and other industries to assure that they get favorable legislation, that they get regulators who let them merge into outfits that are too big to fail, and that a stream of big US taxpayer-financed handouts are forthcoming.
To my mind, Obama is more abusing than abused; more the bully than the victim. Since I never "loved" him, I don't personally feel abused that he has "betrayed" my love to rush into the arms of that harlot GOP, but many many of those posting on CD articles are expressing this feeling. What I do feel is his disdain for the people who truly ARE trying to help him or at least trying to make reality of the rhetoric of what he says he wants to accomplish: that very left left who represent the majority of U.S. opinion on such topics as single payer health coverage and cessation of U.S. foreign military involvements.
I know that Reid's analogy is well-intentioned---to show the wages of involvement with unworthy people---but I think it lets Obama off far too easily by offering the mantle of public sympathy for the "battered" person. It is not psycho-politically correct to blame the battered person by saying she "brings it on herself" by her own stupidity; our job as citizens or friends of the battered ones is to "stand by them" in their hours of need. But damn it, as we of the left left are battered by the mindless "centrist" political consensus that has brought us to the brink of domestic and international catastrophe, what friends minister to the battering WE are taking as fringe idiots outside the pale of serious political discussion? (Ask sincere and ridiculed people like Kucinich, Nader, McKinney.) At least we need another story about people who gave their votes to a charlatan who used their votes and then threw them under the bus: now that's abuse, and how many trusting souls--from his own white grandmother and his pastor to the whole progressive wing of his own party--has Obama thrown under that bus? And you want us to think sympathetically of HIM as a battering victim? That would be a stretch.
Boy, that's the truth. Well said.
In so many ways Obama seems to emulate Bush. Even his gross joke about the Uighurs at Gitmo was like Bush searching for WMD under his desk.
I have no sympathy for him either.
I completely agree! I have no sympathy for Obama.
Definitely no sympathy here. I'd say he's got one hell of a nerve. too.
Thousands of his supporters were begging him to uphold his stump speech promises about the Constitution and our privacy rights, and vote against telecom immunity. Obama's response was, tough noogies. And if you don't want to vote for me because of it, so what.
Despite all his passionate words, he shamelessly voted against what he was campaigning on and voted in favor of telecom immunity. He lied to his supporters and protected the corporations. Just like he's done since day one.
Now he wants progresives to shut up and "like it." What balls!
He didn't care about his supporters then and he doesn't care now. If he's pissed, that's too damn bad.
Obama was a proven fraud before he even got elected. Anyone who voted for him after his FISA kiss off now claiming they feel betrayed, denied the facts staring them in the face. Obama's a smooth operator who swindled a whole bunch of folks.
Absolutely. The analogy in the article is wrong. Obama is actually the mother hiding and excusing daddy's abuse of the children.
We replay the roles we learn as children so I'm fascinated by what this reveals about his past and ours, and what we can do about it, psycho-practically speaking.
Lying, spying, "moving forward/putting it behind us", abandoning those who tell the truth (Jeremiah Wright), allowing and even expanding on every form of abuse from torture and war to destruction of nature (including us)... are all parts of the repertoire, echoes of the experience of both abusers and collaborators. Let's stop doing this.
Anyone read LINDORFF over on Counterpunch today?
CD should post it because it answers his critics- not that they will ever be satisfied. :)
I read the article. It's not everyday that someone steps up to admit he, or she, is wrong. Lindorff does that. He's right, too, that we need to establish a viable 3rd party, one that might really have a chance to influence the debates -- whatever they might be.
Do you read Fire-Dog-Lake? Jane Hamsher, et. al., have been lobbying for the public option, and the effort has signed up, last count I know, 65 Democrats from liberal and progressive districts across the country who have, now, pledged to vote as a block to deny any health care bill that does not include a REAL public option. In addtion, the effort has, at last count, raised more than $150,000 (in just a couple of days) to help these progressive Democrats with re-election. Part of the problem is that the Obama adminstration has threatened progressive Democrats, those who are newly elected, with NOT helping them to get re-elected unless they vote the way they are supposed to vote, with the DLC. At least, this is how I am understanding what is going on right now.
Vern: at your behest I did get me to Counterpunch to read Lindorff's entry today. He seems to go further than ever toward a total repudiation of Obama and the Democratic Party and regret at his earlier support. However, I don't see that he has retreated that much from the one-note of his critical analysis, which is that no President will be responsive to progressive demands without dramatic "pressure" in street actions of masses of people. On one of his articles a month ago http://www.commondreams.org/view/2009/07/18-3 , in which he "celebrated" a victory of more liberal members of the NLRB appointed by Obama, the discussion thread, in which Lindorff as usual participated, contained among other things my response (4:30 p.m. July 18) to this "pressure" strategy, reflecting my view that "street" politics is likely to be counter-productive to populist government since another street (Wall) is likely to be more powerful; and my view that Lindorff should get over his reticence about electoral politics through the instrumentality of third parties. In today's article he gives a shade more encouragement to third party development, but sticks rather doggedly to his "street pressure" view of politics, which to me is just an indication of a repeat of those who said before Obama's election, "let's get him elected and then put this feet to the fire to do the right (left) thing," with an outcome we have all seen. It's just a hope at this point, but I'd hope that, in the happy eventuality that anything like an electorally viable third party were to emerge, Mr. Lindorff would be a convert to that cause, as he futher evolves toward a realistic strategy to replace the forlorn one of "hope" born of the Obama campaign.
It is discouraging though to think that millions around the world protesting doesn't amount to much of a passing mention. In fact, it is ignored as much as a handful of openly armed thugs standing outside the town meeting. They weren't ignored but their guns were. Obama is Bush-like and Bush couldn't be pressured- what makes anyone think that Obama can? Though, Obama has more to lose than Bush and Bush lost everything. Obama might just do it in record time because I can't see how he--or any of them think that it is a strategy to win in the future. Doesn't it seem like they sense the whole thing is collapsing and they are just trying to grab what they can before the bottom drops out? Can't blame Lindorff, he is doing what he must to "keep the faith". Remember that? I guess I am just too cynical, but I am still interested--although ideally I'd like to have my own couple of acres to ride out the rough road ahead. We shall see.
Is Obama the flim-flam man?
I can't seem to remember just how to get to Shell Beach...
Flawed article. Ex-boyfriends may or may not change and may or may not be "good guys" who are "going through a lot." Ordinary everyday individuals do change and do go through rough patches that they recover from. Republican politicians are inarguably criminal fiends who are clearly working against the interests of the great majority of the population of the US and the world and there is pretty much no chance they will change as their bosses in the corpofiendocracy would not be too happy about that. Obama must know this so the analogy does not work.
Not so flawed... patriarchy is much older and far more deeply ingrained than the Republican Party. In fact, the Republicans, like the Democrats to a slightly lesser extent, are but mere expressions of patriarchy.
And wife batterers, of course, goose step to patriarchy.
You have quite a bit of hatred pent up inside there. A pity there is so much of that going around, particularly on the left. That helps explain why it is virtually impossible to achieve solidarity on the left in the US and the future is so bleak.
Woah, kivals!
You're the one saying Republicans are criminal fiends, not offering the same type of understanding to them that you offer to abusive boyfriends... and someone simply rationally and apparently calmly criticizes patriarchy and you assume it's out of hatred?(Although we can't tell how much force s/he used on the keys there are no naughty words, insults or calls for violence) Going to call him/her a Feminazi next?
Maybe you should take a look around at the world while you do some reading and talking about patriarchy. (I've always loved Mary Daly, especially 'Gyn/Ecology', and Jessica Benjamin, 'The Bonds of Love', but there's lots out there. Chill with your assumptions and unwillingness to consider thoughtful commentary.
You are making a simple error, but a common one. The Republicans are properly identified as the enemy by someone on the left, one that must not only be defeated electorally but must be totally discredited if civilization is to move forward. Men, on the other hand, are an integral part of the left, and demonizing men does not serve the interests of the left. The left has no chance of ever achieving any level of solidarity when a large part of the left (women, or at least the women so inclined) is attacking another large part (men). You may protest that an attack on patriarchy is not an attack on men per se. However, the attacks on patriarchy carry all sorts of emotional baggage, much of which is closely associated with misandry (fxduffy's response appeared to be dripping with misandry). And misandry is all too common in the left, and it keeps men from joining the left and serves the purposes of the right well as the propagandists of the right powerfully use it to ridicule the left. Also, it works to dissolve the bonds or at least diminish the strength of the bonds between men and women and generally reduce men's acceptance and understanding of women's issues.
I took a course on the history of women's rights when I was an undergraduate university student many years ago (I was one of three men in the class of over 60 students), and did well in it (made the second highest grade in the class I believe). I took the class because I was very sympathetic to feminist causes at the time and always tried to defend the feminist point of view and point out the evils of patriarchy in discussions with friends and others. But from the many outside readings associated with the class and from some of the classroom discussions, my perspective totally changed. I found that misandry had become completely intertwined with the attacks on patriarchy and traditional social systems. I perceived that as not only a threat to me but as a threat to the entire left (and thereby the human race) as the connections that had developed between concerns about patriarchy, nontraditional approaches to organizing human society, misandry, and the general goals and policies of the left made it nearly impossible to bring the common people together in their struggle with the elites. And I soon realized that the corporate elites were well aware of this and were doing what they could to aid and abet misandry (though not so much it would threaten their enjoyment of life).
So when I hear or read "patriarchy" I think "misandry" and I see a threat to the left and to the human race. What is most frustrating is that it is all so unnecessary as the struggle of the left is to achieve equality, or at least eradicate extreme inequality, in all areas of life, and it is the inequality, whatever the source, that leads to the abuses. So a victory of the left would go a long way towards eliminating the abuses those who are focused on patriarchy are concerned with. But too much focus on patriarchy may well prevent that victory from ever occurring.
In fact, I believe I’m not making any kind of error, simple or complex, common or rare, although when I do make mistakes it’s nice to think of them as rare. Special, sort of.
Identifying Republicans as the enemy may cause a certain limited relief but to characterize that part of a family system that is actually holding your projected shadow for you is not productive. To exhibit such rage as is hinted at in “not only be defeated electorally but must be totally discredited” is not useful. Republican ideas will never be thoroughly discredited to Republicans; carrying on an endless hopeless struggle to destroy something that is in fact part of us is self-destructive in the extreme.
I’d have to say that the abuse of women is NOT an integral part of the left, and while you may be confusing an attack on abuse with an attack on men, the fact that you seem to identify more with abusers than with members of another, broad and varied political party is extremely troubling. The kind of psychological and epistemological mistake one must be making to consider it acceptable to commit violence is what Gregory Bateson defined as ”evil”—or rather, vice versa. The kind of epistemological mistake it takes to be Republican is far less so.
I absolutely do protest that an attack on patriarchy is not an attack on men per se. No “however” is needed. Your emotional baggage is your problem; if you misinterpret rational dialogue about philosophy and psychology as attacks, that too is your problem. Which of course makes it our problem, since we are all in this together. Yes, people are imperfect. I’m subject to the same rage as others; some women mistake men for patriarchy. Most get over it. One really really good way to make that take longer? Confuse antipatriarchy for attacks on men, and attack them for it. (I guess that’s 2 ways.) You had, and have, no evidence that fxduffy was attacking men. His/her response was not dripping with misandry; in fact there was none there whatsoever. Misandry, misogyny, and lots of other misses are common everywhere. That’s not an excuse to read it into innocent passages. Maybe in light of this you should reexamine your memory of that class; it’s entirely possible that at least some of what you thought was attacking was intelligent, reasonable discussion and righteous anger not aimed at you or men at all.
Anger is the result of fear of bodily invasion; it is the summoning of energy to defend our bodies and is useful and necessary. When we feel connected to others we get angry to defend them as well. What is your anger for, and what good is it doing us?
You are hilarious. If you cannot see the misandry in fxduffy's statements, where in response to my simple point that individuals go through rough periods but then do often change and reform while Republicanism is not something easily malleable or subject to reform, you are so lost in your own subjective interpretations, I am sure reinforced in your own little same-perspective circle jerks, that you cannot be reasoned with.
One must assume that men are inherently evil for someone to jump to the conclusions that fxduffy jumped to, and so I felt secure in pointing out the obvious misandry. You have little problem with attacks on people for immutable characteristics, something they are born with such as their gender (though it must be a particular gender, right, not any gender will do), but you defend something that is a set of beliefs (Republicanism), something not inevitable and not immutable, and every bit as dangerous to human welfare and human survival as Nazism (a comparison I hesitate to make because of Godwin's Law, but I feel the Republicans have been asking for it in the last few years). I guess you would have been one of those arguing against fighting the Nazis as you would have concluded that Nazis are part of the human family, that it would be self-destructive to fight them, and we must learn to get along with them (but we do not need to learn to accept and get along with any men who go through any rough periods, oh no, but of course we must learn to get along with every kind of woman, including those who hate men and want to eradicate them, right?).
Yea, I really confused attacks on patriarchy for attacks on men when virtually all the class discussions ended up with suggestions for how to separate all women from men and allow the men to die off, using modern technology to allow for female-female reproduction. There were even cheers in response to such suggestions and boos and hisses in response to any protest. And then there was the outside reading list... I particularly remember essays going back and forth between "intellectuals" on different sides of the debate -- should the post-men all-women world be socialist or capitalist?
Misandry is all around us on the left, and it is all too obvious that attacks on patriarchy are often used as a cover for, or devolve into, attacks on men (if one is rewarded, by increased power, by attacking a reputed common behavior of X, then why wouldn't one be tempted to try to get more power by attacking X itself). The misandry is clear to anyone who pays attention, except maybe for people like you on the US left, making spectacles of themselves, who complain about all the hatred expressed on the right when so many identified with the left constantly engage in such hate speech. What was that Biblical saying about removing the beam from your own eye first?
How is the left in the US doing, by the way? We are dead, the corpo-fascists are taking over, and the US is quickly becoming a dystopian society. Why? Many reasons, but from everything I have seen since I took that course, roughly 30 years ago, I submit that misandry has played a significant role, as it pushes men away from the left and makes it more difficult to achieve the solidarity and establish the set of common goals and aims necessary to build the numbers and enthusiasm necessary for a successful movement. And because I point that out, you call me a Republican! Thanks for removing all doubts in my mind that the US left is finished. What a self-deluded, self-destructive, solipsistic individual you are. My wife and I have seen the coming decay and are preparing our son to develop the skills, including language skills, to do well in other parts of the world.
Good luck with your delusions.
kivals,
I’m glad I’m amusing you. In fact there is, as far as we know, about as much chance a Republican will change as a batterer, and your original point is not simple at all. “Going through a rough patch?” What are you talking about? Is that supposed to be an excuse for assaulting someone? To say that someone stalking and assaulting his ex may be a “good guy going through a rough period” is to say it’s OK to beat people if you’ve had a bad day, as long as you stop it once you’re feeling better.
That response may be the reason your conclusions are so far off—there is an unspoken false basis for your argument right at the start. Some batterers change, just as some Republicans do. (and certainly more of both would if we handled it better; anger and violence issues certainly are ‘curable’).
You make a common mistake—that is to confuse understanding with surrender. Nothing could be less true; in fact it is not-understanding that makes wars go on forever and makes all participants losers. Only understanding can end a war. And before you jump to any conclusion let me say “understanding” doesn’t mean excusing, ignoring, supporting, joining, or anything else like surrendering. It means—and I know this a difficult technical term that is very hard to read or hear properly, digest and comprehend—it means……… understanding.
In fact, it is exactly the common mistake of people and our society to demonize certain people, and think that batterers and child abusers CAN’T be cured, that perpetuates child abuse and battering. it is the refusal to understand them that causes them, as much as anything. Likewise conservatives. You say on the one hand that R’ism is not easily…reform[ed], and on the other, it is not immutable. And again, your false idea that attacking patriarchy and attacking men are the same makes you say I “have little problem with attacks on people for immutable characteristics” The strands of convoluted logic are so intertwined it’s impossible to answer all. If by “can’t be reasoned with” you mean I’m not about to be convinced by you, I’m afraid you’re right. But people reason with me all the time, and find me a reasonable person.
Hmmm.
“One must assume that men are inherently evil for someone to jump to the conclusions that fxduffy jumped to,”
What conclusions are these exactly?
What s/he said was:
Patriarchy, (a form of society where the father is the supreme authority) is older and deeper than the Republican party. The “GOP” was founded in 1854; LOTS of evidence for patriarchy is found in the Bible (just as an example), and let’s see…it says here in my dictionary… yes, the Bible was written BEFORE 1854. S/he said: the Republicans and Democrats are expressions of patriarchy. Well, harder to prove, but since about 90% of the elected and appointed officials in those parties (a guess) are male, and the rules, policies and philosophy are mostly ones associated with patriarchy, that certainly SEEMS true to me.
S/he said, perhaps in a slightly more sarcastic tone than absolutely necessary (but don’t we all on these pages when dealing with people we think don’t get elementary logic) “wife batterers, of course, goose step to patriarchy” Which I take to mean they subscribe to it.
I think it’s a safe assumption that the vast majority of “wife batterers”, do indeed subscribe—consciously, unconsciously, or in some strong enough way to make their actions speak louder than whatever words of denial they might come up with—to the belief that the father, or male figure is the authority. There might be other excuses to stalk and beat one’s female partner—race, religion, dislike for dimples, etc. but I think if you subtract for all other possibilities you’re left with a very strong statistical argument that battering is about male vs. female; that is, it is a statement about male superiority. While I actually believe that is a sign of deeper psychological issues that isn’t strictly relevant here, except in that conservatism is essentially patriarchy—as Lakoff puts it, belief in the strict father, in the authority of the father.
So I ask again, what assumptions? I see no evidence whatsoever that fxduffy believes men are inherently evil, any more than George Lakoff and I do. Please point it out to me if you do, exactly what word or combination sof words points clearly to men and patriarchy. Again, the misandry is anything but obvious, in fact it is totally obscure. Thus there is nothing in my statement that would suggest I support attacks on people for immutable characteristics, including being male. Further, I did not in way defend Republicanism, and your conclusion about me not opposing Nazis is utterly absurd, without any evidence whatsoever and entirely irrelevant besides. You obviously have no idea whether or how I’ve opposed Republican policies. No one here said anything about learning to get along with them, or surrendering, or any such thing, as I said above. There are other alternatives than hatred-based vicious attack and surrender.
I’ll say again demonizing Republicans doesn’t serve the interests of the left, either, even though I too occasionally indulge in it, in my weaker moments. I’d say it is important to understand your opponent, just as Sun Tzu and Caesar and Klausewitz and Hart and everyone else I’ve ever read on military strategy says. What will win this multi-pronged struggle for us (among other things) is to speak clearly about what we believe, in terms Republicans can understand (Lakoff).
To demonize them is to make that absolutely impossible. Godwin’s law is true because we continue to demonize Hitler and the Nazis, and that cuts off all understanding of them, including understanding that they are not nearly as different from us as we like to think and feel.
We must understand Republicans, and Nazis, to win, and I’d say further, that especially the kind of extreme conservativism we’ve seen in the last few years or decades is caused by a kind of [warning: technical psychology term coming up:] attachment disorder, a false belief in the separateness of the self caused by early childhooddevelopmental skewing. That’s not something that will just go away if we win a few more House seats or pass a good whatever bill. It is in fact something that will go deeper, be redoubled, fester, and burst out in some even more virulent form if we do not treat it instead of just defeating and discrediting it. We must do those political things that will allow us to save the country from fascism and the world from climate catastrophe. But those political things must be informed by, and be subservient to, wisdom about human psychology and systems.
Yes, those pesky college women sound like they overreacted to their oppression. A common and understandable reaction, probably even a necessary stage. As I said, one that most people pass through and recover from, especially if helped with understanding and not forced to concretize and defend each particular stage of development. Babies crawl, talk baby talk, and tie their shoes badly at first. If we make it unacceptable by screaming at them for not walking, speaking clearly and tieing perfectly every time they try, they never learn to do any of those. Teens often reject everything about their parents so they can find out who THEY are separate from their parents; it’s only a problem when the parents can’t handle rejection. To disallow teen rejection is to prolong it. To disallow the rejection of patriarchy, and especially to react violently (and I mean that in a broad, inclusive sense—insults, manipulation, anger, etc.) is to turn it into hatred of men. What could be more natural or logical?
Perhaps your college experience was actually something other than what you saw. Women oppressed their whole lives and finally attempting to carve out a tiny space where they could be unreasonable and angry and not be attacked for it, and then there you are…with your maleness and your defensiveness and your attacking them when all they’re doing is… etc. I’m not surprised some of them goaded you with calling for your extinction and not letting you protest in peace. Seems like a neat bunch of women; I’m sorry I didn’t know them.
I also shudder to think how you are preparing your son if you see your own projected hatred everywhere, and think that’s what’s wrong with the left, and if you insult me the way you did for disagreeing with you and calling you on your illogic and false beliefs. (I don’t mind your insults so much, just marvel at how astoundingly wrong they are).
“So when I hear or read "patriarchy" I think "misandry"
That much is clear. I understand you had a formative experience in college and felt something very strong when you thought you were being attacked unfairly. It seems to have left a strong impression, and to have also left you with some feelings and beliefs which may no longer be serving you. for example, you have me confused with someone else; nowhere did I call you a Republican. It will help you, your wife, your son, us and the world if you deal with those. I think your problems with the women in the class are the same as your problems with Republicans, ans with me. One, you are unwilling to have patience and respond without attacking when someone is clearly in a temporary angry or rejecting phase of a development. It’s not an easy thing, but it is a crucial skill in life, parenting, and politics. And two, while some of them probably were attacking you, some of them—maybe most of them—were not, and you couldn’t tell the difference. As you couldn’t with fxduffy and me.
On the campaign trail last year, Obama talked the talk.
This year not only is he unable to walk the walk, he's unwilling to talk the talk.
Obama in his first seven months in office has shown himself to be just another wimpy, spineless, gutless Democrat.
. . . it occurred to me: we may be dealing with a White House in mental crisis.
What you're dealing with here is a pack of cowards. COWARDICE is THE outstanding trait of the contemporary Democratic party.
The problem is that Obama knows he has no support from his Democratic members in Congress. They have taken so much lobby money from the insurance and pharmaceutical industries that they are corrupted and are hanging him out to dry.
Iwhunt, oh really? Is that why Obama has been having secret meetings with Billy Tauzin offering to sell us out to the pharmaceutical industry? Or is he just beating the Democratic Congress at it's own game? You know, like setting a fire to put out a fire? Try another excuse.
When the people fear their government there is tyranny,
when the government fears the people there is liberty.
~ Thomas Jefferson
I agree with the general consensus in these comments that the author gives Obama too much credit for being an innocuous victim of a creepy, abusive opponent.
I never really mastered the psychobabble arising from the rehab industry, but I think I'm using the term correctly when I suggest that there's a more sinister co-dependency at work.
At any rate, at this point Obama is more to be censured than pitied.
· Yr Obd't Servant
while most of these dims are cowards greedy and cut from
the same cloth as their repug, colleagues there are some
of them with ethics and morality for their constiuents
and america. i'm not defending most of the dims as that's
impossible. but the house had enough people of character
that would of jammed up the vote if it came to the floor.
thats a fact. as for obama threatening newbies with
no help in re election thats a fact. a local congressman
was thinking of running for senate when hillary clinton's
seat came up for election. obama personally threatened
this guy even though this woman was a dem in name only
and took money from the nra and had to be schooled
in many issues important to downstate city dwellers.
this woman was appointed by our out going gov. whose
choices have been as weak as obamas.obama learned
his politics in chicago which makes other states
look clean in comparison! this is going to back fire on him in close votes
that will result in egg on his face and them
telling him to stay home ala little georgie bush!
Obama could have started with his own plan.
Medicare for all.
He then could have made the case for it, and let the chips fall where they may.
THAT would have been real reform.
"on appeasing his enemies"
They're NOT his enemies, they're his partners. Obama is not a "progressive", he just used the "progressives" to get nominated by saying what they wanted to hear. Get the pixie dust out of your eyes, the guy is one of them.
I'm glad that I didn't vote for Obama. I voted for Ralph Nader who advocated a single-payer healthcare plan. Republicans and Democrats are essentially the same party.
Obama is The Joker. I fear that he's going to argue that we have to start another war soon.
Bipartisan is an oxymoron. Its application would be an exercise in absurdity.
President Obama has successfully avoided the perennial liberal pitfall of demonizing the government. He has even projected to a high degree the cogency and equanimity that I take for a leadership style.
And yet, he is falling short in demonstrating his ability to govern. He seems hellbent on demonstrating his ability to legislate. Perhaps this is the displaced consequence of his early departure from the legislative halls.
It is not far afield to say that many Republicans consider the best way to govern least is to proselytize most. Sometimes it is better to politely ignore this tendency and move the agenda forward.
obliu222 August 20th, 2009 3:28 pm..............It would seem to me that true leadrership would be the ability to adapt to circumstances. Upon realizing that his "bipartisan" stance was failing, Obama could have learned a lesson, went on the offensive and pushed through legislation to benefit We the People. Early on, he had that opportunity. Too late, now, as he has been out-maneuvered...as the dems always are. To me, this means he is incompetent as a president or is there only as a corporate shill. Either choice makes no difference to We the People. We have once again been screwed and will continue to be until we grow the gonads that Obama obviously lacks.
Reading this article reminded me of so much about Ralph Nader that influenced my way of thinking and even life. I admired Nader so much because he was an unapologetic progressive and he encouraged me to not give in to conceding in life. I avoided conceding to being a slave housewife even though the cost was being looked at differently as a single. When you win against being battered by an abusive partner, the next challenge is overcoming societal battering. Society can be intolerant of singles even today. Overcoming their intolerance has been a challenge that I gladly accepted and still do. I feel especially stronger when I remind myself of that famous quote by Eugene Debs "It is better to vote for something you want and not get it than it is to vote for something you don't want and get it."
And who are we, the american public, in this violent and abusive relationship. The little kids who will eventually watch daddy kill mommy and then turn his gun on himself ? And maybe us ?
Sorry, but I don't buy this analysis. The Obama Team ran such a brilliant campaign that "Brand Obama" won the advertising award (see Obama Wins! ... Ad Age's Marketer of the Year http://adage.com/moy2008/article?article_id=131810). Such brilliant people are not so incompetent nor delusional as this analysis portrays them.
Obama's removal of single-payer from the start, his deal with Big Pharma, and his compliance with so many demands of Big Insurance and its Congressional lackeys, RepubliKKKlans and Blue Dogs, all indicate that the FIX was in from the beginning. This "bipartisan" meme is just a not-so-clever cover-up for deals Team Obama and the Congressional Corporate Tools have made all along to continue to enjoy campaign contributions (see The Baucus Caucus: PhRMA, Insurance, Hospitals and Rahm http://campaignsilo.firedoglake.com/2009/08/19/the-baucus-caucus-phrma-insurance-hospitals-and-rahm). Now that more and more of us are aware of the FIX, what are we going to do about it?
I have to agree...........but the Team might be like the dog chasing the car: once you catch it, what do you DO with it? Campaigning is such a cerebral/intellectual/creative "high," but once you win, what do you DO with it? "Candidate" they understand, but how do you do this "President" thing?
A mundane item like healthcare reform was probably not as high on the Team agenda as writing speeches for a crowd-gathering orator starring on the world stage. They always seem to be so astonished by the disconnect between their worldview and reality; e.g., cash for clunkers program. Majorly out of touch.
(I think this author meant Rep. Anthony Weiner when she referred to Rep. "Adam" Weiner.) Rep. Weiner, with his "Put Up or Shut Up" amendment tried to get Repubs. to sign up for abolishing Medicare (since they oppose government healthcare); no Repubs. would sign, tho' (but they didn't shut up, either).
I did get the e-mail from Jane Hamsher about FireDogLake's House campaign.
She said: "Members of the House who took this pledge will be under insane pressure from Rahm Emanuel and the rest of the Obama Administration to cave for an insurance industry bailout. Rahm's plan all along has been to trade away the public option..."
I've been seeing more & more of this drift away from health care and TO health insurance........esp. on the White House website which has a Reality Check HEALTH INSURANCE REFORM section..........so it's unnerving (tho' not incredible) to read about an "insurance industry bailout."
What to do about it seems to be to find out where people will be gathering & demonstrating & join them.......the '60s revisited.
ed: seems like the fix was in...no doubt, we get suckered yet again by another spineless dem who can't even effectively defend himself against the birthers
the biggest problem with obama's plan is that there isn't one - nada. he hasn't even outlined a few fundamentals, whatever they may, in his mind, be.
i wonder if we can turn obama in with the cash for clunkers program or do we have to ride around in this lemon for another three years
Can we please stop justifying the term bipartisanship by using it? there's nothing bi about it; it's homopartisanship--everybody the same in supporting the corporate imperial hegemony (sorry about the phrase but come on, what else is it?) although they may have different hobbies and haircuts.
Take a look at this article by David Michael Green on Counterpunch:
http://www.counterpunch.org/green08192009.html
I've been waiting for it to show up on CD but not a sign of it. Maybe it's just too hard on Obama or maybe it's obviously the truth.
norman: i read the article - insightful and informative and spot on - i recommend it as well
the most important observation by the author every american beholden or trapped in "private insurance" should MEMORIZE and repeat to others:
"Health insurance is, as Rep. Adam Weiner ably pointed out — insurance that essentially brings nothing to the transaction over your body, other than getting between you and your doctor."
Private insurance is really a parasite. it is not even NECESSARY in a national economy and society for the health of citizens or even the economy.
it is just a PARASITE upon people AND the economy and industries. it is , after all, based on CLAIMS and PROMISES meant to be broken:
"we will INSURE you"....even if they are not REALLY NEEDED by society..but just insinuate themselves as "necessary".
Although an agnostic freethinker, I regard the editors and administrators here as fundamentalist Christians regard the Deity, in that both passeth all mortal understanding. So I offer no opinion on whether Green's article was rejected.
But I agree that Green's tone may be too acerbic for this venue. And the other thing you wrote, too.
I don't know if you noticed Jerry Rose's and my recent comments about a group of pundits afflicted with what Jerry terms "subjunctivitis".
But it revolved around the observation that many pundits (who happen to be published here regularly) remain unwilling or unable to disentangle their professional insights into Obama's government from their personal wishes.
So they confront the same exact burgeoning mass of evidence as Green does, but resist and rationalize away its clear implications. They can't or won't cross the line and proclaim that the Emperor has no clothes, as Green is finally doing here.
The poor pundits, by and large, don't like to break out of the warmth and safety of the pack.
· Yr Obd't Servant
Yes, Vern, I'm not even your mother and yet my Medicare co-payments have doubled. And I hate President Obama's assertion that Afghanistan is "a war of necessity" with no evidence or proof behind that whatsoever (the better to seem "mysterious"). I didn't even like his Lockerbee decision over-ride-- why not just say nothing about the Scot's Solomonic decision and be glad you didn't have to make it yourself. Oh no, the president had to pander to the American victim families, a horrible subset of inhumanity, who wouldn't be happy even if they could watch first-hand the Libyan's death throes from prostate cancer through a one-way window in solitary with pain-killing drugs with-held. Being a murder victim's relative certainly isn't fun, but dealing with the death of one's loved ones is the same all over, and can anybody in this country now let go of anything, ever? Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton are much alike with their utterances on the side of meanness so much too much of the time, left brain right-winged lawyers both. Okay, the president is left-handed, but why does he think he has to look tough? I find this very unmanly.