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Has Obama Lost the Trust of Progressives, as Krugman Says?
Paul Krugman has an excellent column today arguing that progressives have backlashed so intensely over the prospect of Obama's dropping the public option because -- for reasons extending far beyond specific health care issues -- they no longer trust the President. Citing Obama's steadfast continuation of Bush/Cheney Terrorism policies, the administration's extreme coziness with crisis-causing banks, and the endless retreats on health care, Krugman says that "a backlash in the progressive base . . . has been building for months" and that "progressives are now in revolt. Mr. Obama took their trust for granted, and in the process lost it."
Krugman contends that while "the fight over the public option involves real policy substance," it is at least as much "a proxy for broader questions about the president’s priorities and overall approach." That's the argument I made the other day about why the health care fight is so important regardless of one's views of the public option. The central pledges of the Obama campaign were less about specific policy positions and much more about changing the way Washington works -- to liberate political outcomes from the dictates of corporate interests; to ensure vast new levels of transparency in government; to separate our national security and terrorism approaches from the politics of fear. With some mild exceptions, those have been repeatedly violated. Negotiating his health care reform plan in total secrecy and converting it into a gigantic gift to the pharmaceutical and insurance industries -- which is exactly what a plan with (1) mandates, (2) no public option and (3) a ban on bulk negotiations for drug prices would be -- would constitute yet another core violation of those commitments, yet another bolstering (a major one) of the very power dynamic he vowed to subvert.
It is difficult to dispute that there is rising progressive anger over what the administration appears to be doing in the health care realm. Consider the remarkable, blog-based fund-raising campaign to embolden progressive House members who vowed a NO vote on any health care bill lacking a public option even if that's the bill returned from conference reconciliation. If those House progressives adhere to their pledge, that would be an enormous impediment to the White House's plans -- and Kevin Drum astutely notes that the purpose of the fund-raising effort is to force the notoriously hapless, impotent and capitulating House progressives to adhere to their clear commitment (as The Hill put it yesterday: "House liberals have a history of getting rolled"). In just a few days, that campaign has raised more than $300,000. From what I can recall, that is the most prolific single-issue Internet fund-raising since the fundraising bonanza fueled by anger over the 2008 vote by Democrats (revealingly including Obama) to legalize Bush's warrantless eavesdropping program and retroactively immunize telecom lawbreakers.
If one were to analyze matters from a purely utilitarian perspective, one could find ways to justify the White House's attempt to write a health care plan that accommodates the desires of the pharmaceutical and drug industries [mandates (i.e., 50 million forced new customers) plus government subsidies to pay their premiums plus no meaningful cost controls (i.e., no public option)]. All other things being equal, it's better -- from the White House's political perspective -- that those industries not spend vast sums of money trying to defeat Obama's health care proposal, that they not pour their resources into the GOP's 2010 midterm effort, that they not unleash their fully army of lobbyists and strategists to sabotage the Democratic Party. That's the same calculating mindset that leads the White House to loyally serve the interests of the banking industry that caused the financial crisis (we don't want to make enemies out of of Goldman Sachs or turn investment bankers into GOP funders). Indeed, that's the same mindset that leads the White House to avoid any fights with the Right -- and/or with the intelligence community and permanent military establishment -- over Terrorism policies (there's no political benefit to subjecting ourselves to accusations of being Soft on Terror and there's plenty of reasons to cling to those executive powers of secrecy, detention and war-making).
In essence, this is the mindset of Rahm Emanuel, and its precepts are as toxic as they are familiar: The only calculation that matters is maximizing political power. The only "change" that's meaningful is converting more Republican seats into Democratic ones. A legislative "win" is determined by whether Democrats can claim victory, not by whether anything constructive was achieved. The smart approach is to serve and thus curry favor with the most powerful corporate factions, not change the rules to make them less powerful. The primary tactic of Democrats should be to be more indispensable to corporate interests so as to deny the GOP that money and instead direct it to Democrats. The overriding strategy is to scorn progressives while keeping them in their place and then expand the party by making it more conservative and more reliant on Blue Dogs. Democrats should replicate Republican policies on Terrorism and national security -- not abandon them -- in order to remove that issue as a political weapon.
If those Emanuelian premises are the ones that you accept, if you believe that Obama should be guided by base concerns of political power, then you're likely to be satisfied with the White House's approach thus far -- both in general and on health care specifically. That would also likely mean that you're basically satisfied with the behavior of Democrats during the Bush era, and especially since 2006 when they won a majority in Congress, since that is what has driven them for the last decade: all that matters is that we beat the Republicans and we should do anything to achieve that, including serving corporate donors to ensure they fund Us and not Them and turning ourselves into war-making, civil-liberties-abridging, secrecy-loving GOP clones in the national security realm.
But that isn't what Obama pledged he would do when he campaigned. He repeatedly vowed he would do the opposite -- that he would reject that thinking and battle aggressively against domination by what he called "the interests of powerful lobbyists or the wealthiest few" who have "run Washington far too long" -- and he convinced millions of people that he was serious, people who, as a result, became fervent devotees to his cause. Those are the people who New York Times columnist Frank Rich recently said have been "punked by Obama" because it is precisely that same narrow group which continues to be the prime beneficiaries and masters of Washington behavior during the Obama presidency.
More than any betrayal on a specific issue, it is Obama's seeming eagerness to serve the interests of those who have "run Washington for far too long" -- not as a result of what he has failed to accomplish, but as a result of what he has affirmatively embraced -- that is causing what Krugman today describes as a loss of trust in Obama from those who once trusted him most. This approach is not only producing heinous outcomes, but is politically self-destructive as well. In a superb post the other day, Digby recounted what fueled the Naderite movement in 2000 and warns, presciently I think, that the willingness of Obama/Emanuel so blatantly to disappoint those to whom they promised so much (especially young and first-time voters who were most vulnerable to Obama's transformative fairy dust) will lead them either to support a third party or turn off from politics altogether:
Rahm Emanuel believes that the key to Democratic success is a coalition in which Blue Dogs and corporate lackeys mitigate progressive change on behalf of the moneyed interests which he believes the political system must serve. Regardless of his malevolent view of how the political system should work, on a political level, I think he's living in the past. . . .
But on a political level, the left has been betrayed over and over again on the things that matter to us the most. The village is pleased, I'm sure. But the Democratic party only needs to look back eight short years to see just how destructive it is to constantly tell their left flank to go fuck themselves. . . .
At the time [in 2000] nobody believed that an incumbent Vice President in a roaring economy would have a race so close that the Republicans could steal it. But we know differently now don't we? And you would think that the Democratic establishment would also know that because of that, it may not be a good idea to alienate the left to the point where they become apathetic or even well... you know. It can happen. It did happen. Why the Democrats persist in believing that it can't happen again is beyond me. . . .
Obama mobilized a whole lot of young people who have great expectations and disappointing them could lead to all sorts of unpleasant results. Success is about more than simply buying off some congressional liberals or pleasing the village. It's worth remembering that a third party run from the left is what created the conditions for eight long years of Republican governance that pretty much wrecked this country.
After 2000, what is it going to take for the Democrats to realize that constantly using their base as a doormat is not a good idea? It only takes a few defections or enough people staying home to make a difference. And there are people on the left who have proven they're willing to do it. The Democrats are playing with fire if they think they don't have to deliver anything at all to their liberal base --- and abandoning the public option, particularly in light of what we already know about the bailouts and the side deals, may be what breaks the bond.
It's really not too much to ask that they deliver at least one thing the left demands, it really isn't. And it's not going to take much more of this before their young base starts looking around for someone to deliver the hope and change they were promised.
On most fronts that matter -- civil liberties, national security, economic policy, servitude to corporate interests, even rising opposition to Obama's long-promised escalation of the war in Afghanistan -- that defines rather clearly what the Obama/Emanuel approach has been thus far. Stopping it somewhere -- anywhere -- is vital, and for many reasons, the health care fight provides an excellent opportunity (at least as good as any) for doing so. Clearly -- as first became conclusively clear when Obama so shamelessly reversed himself on FISA and telecom immunity -- the Obama White House will not, on its own, cease following the dictates of Blue Dogs, "centrists" and the corporate interests which own them. That will only happen if they realize that their political power is threatened by building their power in service of corporate interests and by continuing to ignore the interests of those who elected them. The signs which Krugman identifies to show that Obama has lost the trust of many progressives is one important step, but preventing a health care bill that is nothing but an ill-gotten gift to the insurance and drug industries is a far more important step still. Whatever else one might want to say, changing who wins in Washington is the most important goal there is.
UPDATE: The new weekly Research2000/Kos tracking poll was just released and -- according to Daily Kos polling analyst Steve Singiser -- Obama's approval ratings have taken a dive (as have the Demorcratic Party's) due to increasing dissatisfaction with him on the part of Democrats:
Across the board, the drops among Obama and the Democratic Party have come not from the loyal opposition, nor have they come from dismayed Independents.
They have come from Democrats.
A cursory look at the graph for Obama's favorability, broken down by party, shows that after a long period of relative stability among Democrats, there was a sharp drop this week . . . Anyone who thinks the protracted arguments over health care aren't frustrating the Democratic base need look no further. A ten-point dip in net favorability, in a single week, is a pretty solid statement.
That speaks for itself. The Obama/Emanuel approach not only produces awful policy but is also self-destructive politically.
UPDATE II: On the general question of "trusting Obama," BTD makes an important point: "I am against the idea of trusting any politician, including Obama, Ted Kennedy, Russ Feingold, Bernie Sanders, Nancy Pelosi and Anthony Weiner. Watch what they do, not what they say." Indeed, as I've written many times, "trust" is appropriate for one's friends, loved ones, family members and the like -- but not for politicians. That's what John Adams meant when he said: "There is danger from all men. The only maxim of a free government ought to be to trust no man living with power to endanger the public liberty." "All" means "all" and "none" means "none."
But that's not how our political culture works generally. Our politics have become entirely celebretized. Political discussions typically resemble junior high chatter about one's most adored and despised actors: filled with adolescent declarations of whether someone "likes" and "trusts" this politician or "dislikes" that one. "I trust Obama" has long been a common refrain among his most loyal supporters. The fact that, as Krugman says, that is much less true now is quite significant, even if "trust" is an inappropriate emotion in the first place to feel towards any political official.
UPDATE III: It's not just the Research 2000/Kos poll that shows a significant decline in Obama's approval ratings among Democrats. According to Greg Sargent, the ABC News/Washington Post poll released this week shows the same and even worse:
A major factor in President Obama's slide in today's big Washington Post/ABC News poll, which is preoccupying the political classes today, is his surprisingly sharp drops among Democrats and even liberals, according to crosstabs that were sent my way.
Much talk today has focused on Obama's difficulties with independents. But the drop among Dems and liberals is also a key driving factor in the President's skid, according to WaPo polling analyst Jennifer Agiesta, who graciously provided the additional data.
Even for those of you who are willing to justify anything and everything in the name of "political pragmatism," betraying clear campaign commitments and constantly exhibiting contempt for core progressive values doesn't seem to be working very well as a political strategy, to put that mildly.
170 Comments so far
Show AllNever trusted him.
He voted for the invasion of Iraq and the bailout.
Those are not progressive positions.
Actually, that is incorrect. Obama was not a US Senator at the time of the vote to authorize the use of military force in Iraq.
BG, you are correct ,but since then ,and more importantly now ,he shows no interest in removing all U.S. troops and mercenaries,in fact ,the surge will be repeated in northern Iraq.A surge is under way in Afghanistan,and the war on "terra" continues as planned.Single payer health care is taboo to mention ,the stimulus was only stimulating to bankers and auto -execs ,and the only change I have noticed,is the lack of change jingling in my pockets! peace
how much will national health care cost us????
NOTHING.......ZERO......ZIP
in fact it will save us
RIGHT NOW
OUR GOVERNMENT spends $3300.00 dollars per person per year on health care.........then the rest of us pay thousands more
in ENGLAND where they have national health care....their GOVERNMENT spends $2900.00 per person on healthcare
and THEY have universal coverage
so we ALREADY pay for UNIVERSAL HEALTHCARE..... we just are not receiving it.....
why not???
I agree. I lived in England for thirty years. You get good doctors and bad doctors wherever you go, but the British doctors are as good as any. Actually, Jordanian doctors are pretty damn good also. And so are those in Saudi Arabia.
Rainborowe
There was a lot more than one vote. It comes up at least once a year. Any vote to fund continuing a war is a vote to commit murder, oops, authorize force.
Well, excuse me--that makes him just great, then?
There have been several votes regarding the invasion and he beat the drum for all of them since he hit the public trough.
Thanks god I left the US many years ago and don't have to stand elbow to elbow with types who want to weasel around the truth of the imperialist agression that Obama voted for and keep sucking their thumbs.
yes
For some reason, people like Greenwald seem to take it on faith that the Dems are opposed to the GOP, but inept.
But what if they're not opposed, not inept? What if it's all theater?
it is all theater, and thoroughly corrupted...there are no dems or repubs, except in the sense of creating an illusion of such to polarize the citizenry into 'teams' that each feel a purpose in countering the other...a tactic used in many arenas within human society to force discussions into black and white, when the realities may be a glorious gray...in the meantime, the business of business goes on, and the planet dies...those in power are controlled via bribery or threat, candidates are weeded out based on their responses to either tactic, with only those that will play along being given the opportunity for manipulated 'success', though a cheap, tawdry, hollow imitation of success it must be...
a radical overhaul of the modern human psyche, particularly the psyche of the human in the 'developed' world is needed, and politics is merely one of the deceptions that must be exposed and discarded...
I don't know what to make of Greenwald...Krugman, I've given up on...trust in politics? misplaced, at least in current \\earth\america...
Mairead & dubit,
I agree with you 100%. It is all make believe theatrics to factionalize the population and make the citizens think they can choose their own government. Add to that, wedge issues that always flare few months before voting from abortion, ten commandments in court houses etc etc and you get the picture.
Greenwald's primary interest is in having a seat at the table of the mainstream pundit class, like with a T.V. show a la these idiotic talking heads he is always criticizing. So it's in his best interests to draw a line between Dems and Repubs as if they are cut from different cloth.
Greenwald is good on the constitutional stuff and civil liberties reporting. That's about it, though. I'd put everything else he writes on the trash heap. He spends 50% of his blog time criticizing the mainstream media (as if it isn't obvious they are ruling class mouthpieces). It's clear where his interests lie: He wants to be part of that carnival ride.
how do you know what Greenwald's primary interest is?
I understand the impulse to get disgusted and sit out elections, but please keep in mind that the lower the turnout, the easier to rig the outcome.
With rare exceptions, it's almost always possible to find someone on the ballot who's neither D nor R. In most precincts you can write yourself in---and if you can't trust yourself, whom can you trust?
Are these protest votes "wasted?" Only insofar as they keep us from being on the "winning" side. But as expressions of contempt for the two corporate parties, they're far better than alienation and apathy, which is what the elites thrive on. Staying home on election day is a resounding vote for the status quo.
The only wasted vote is the one uncast.
Enough attempts at "bipartisanship." Barney Frank had it exactly right: arguing with the nutcase Republican crowd is like arguing with the dining room table.
Obama was elected by Democrats and people who believe in Democratic values like universal health care, fairness, peace, gay rights, and the Geneva Conventions.
Obama wants everyone to love him. They won't. He should stand up for what he believes, and what the people who elected him believe, and stop fantasizing about bipartisanship.
". . . you still claim that "universal health care, peace & Geneva Conventions" are "Democratic values"!"
Well, I'm not sure under what definition the Geneva Conventions would qualify as a value but I'd like to point out that there's a difference between the Democratic electorate and many Democratic elected officials. After all, Wall Street hasn't bought off much of the Democratic electorate.
Still, the only people in Washington struggling to keep some form of government financing for healthcare in play are Democrats (and Bernie Sanders). Their motivations may not meet your own particular demands for doctrinal purity but it's incorrect to lump all Dems together - even the ones in Washington.
q
"Well, I'm not sure under what definition the Geneva Conventions would qualify as a value"
I would say rule of law, international cooperation, and respect for human rights.
"After all, Wall Street hasn't bought off much of the Democratic electorate."
What good is that if those unbougth Democratic electorate keep electing Wall St. bought candidates??!!
And you still defendig the Democrats pathetic and spiritless performance about health care.
The list of Obama and the Democrats reneging on all of the election promises is long and well known. Nuff said.
So what? It matters not in the least!
It might be "self-destructive" in the context of what passes for partisan politics in the U.S. version of "freedom and democracy", but that's a context that is utterly irrelevant to "the interests of powerful lobbyists or the wealthiest few" who have "run Washington far too long."
They couldn't care less if Obama self destructs. In fact, it was almost certainly foreseen and expected. They'll simply arrange another in the endless series of restricted choice electoral processes with their own pre-approved candidates and carry on as before with a renewed mandate and "democratic" legitimization. Works every time.
Unless and until the underlying systemic problems are addressed and resolved at their roots (very unlikely), they'll always win and you're screwed no matter what.
Exactly! I have a lot of respect for Greenwald, but I think he's suffering from the "Liberal" delusion here. We don't have two parties! We have a good cop/bad cop political structure that serves the same mafia boss. The Democrats may "self destruct" but they will have served their primary function: they will have stopped any reform that hurts the interests of Big Business. If a strong 3rd party existed, the one party/two factions would be forced to make real changes. We don't build that strong independent party because too many buy into the "lesser evilism" canard. As we can see,
Obama talks better, but in terms of meaningful policy differences, he represents no difference to a Republican.
I liken the two political parties in the USA to two types of Overseers on a Slave Plantation.
One type thinks you get more work from the Slaves if you subject them to lashings and withhold food if they do not work hard enough.
The other group feels your slaves will work harder if they have a full belly.
At the end of the day either one will sell their slaves down the river if the Plantation owner tells them to.
It is more like, the other group believes in fewer lashings, and a half-full belly instead of a quarter-full one.
Apart from the questionable and much-questioned assertion that the Nader presidential run in 2000 enabled the 8 years of Bush disaster by a desertion of progressives from voting for Gore, there is much food for thought and discussion in Greenwald's quick response to Krugman's piece of "trusting Obama."
To recapitulate a bit, I and quite a few others who post on these CD articles have been beating the drum for the argument that a credible challenge from the left would hopefully move the Democratic Party from its fuck-you attitude toward its progessive "base" to a position in which it embraced progressive principals in action as well as in words. Turns out the Obama campaign and later presidency learned it could kow-tow to its other and more powerful base, the corporate power structure, and maintain its progressive support by a flood of pretty populist-sounding words about "changing the way Washington does business" and "challenging Wall Street on behalf of Main Street" and being assured that the blinkered masses of the people would reward the campaign and later the administration with votes, money and idolation even as its actions moved directly opposite to these words.
Well now, Greenwald is suggesting that the progressive base is beginning to recover (hopefully that is) from its sleepwalking support of the "lesser evil" with (gasp) Democrats actually saying they would vote against a health care bill without the public option (that Obama "dropped" in deference to his Republican/Blue Dog "opposition) and (double gasp) Howard Dean saying that members of Congress and presumably the President might face "primary challenges" for voting against or allowing the dropping of the public option (any clue whom HD might have had in mind as a presidential challenger?) So, is it coming to pass that what we 3rd partiers said during the campaign: that non-responsiveness of the Democratic Party to progressive demands might cost the party (now triple gasp) its control of Congress and the White House? Will it actually be necessary for once to "pander" to that progressive base by throwing them a bone of consideration of their point of view: especially since it's a bone (public option) that would actually deprive the big meat-eaters of Wall Street of very little of their daily rations? If Rahm Emanuel, the Pragmatist in Chief in a pragmatic adminstration, knows his business, this is what will happen. The real dangers in this are two: 1. that progressives will accept that dry bone as a real meal and give up their barking; or 2. That the faux-progressive Howard Dean will come back from post-scream political oblivion and lead the all-too-gullible progressives in either a "primary challenge" or a third party one and we'll land in the centrist soup once again. Either way, I'm not as sanguine as Greenwald seems to be on an improved situation for progressives in all this.
"Apart from the questionable and much-questioned assertion that the Nader presidential run in 2000 enabled the 8 years of Bush disaster by a desertion of progressives from voting for Gore,..."
To be fair, Greenwald was quoting Digby, who is obviously still delusional about the mechanisms behind the Election 2000 Coup d'etat.
Just keep in mind that the major funder of the Green party has been the GOP.
The Democratic Party has no interest in putting service to the people ahead of being first in line at the corporate trough. And it's true, the people, and especially the young, want a party that puts them first.
Let's give them one. I know how attached progressives are to the the Green Party, dysfunctional as it is. But it's main shortcoming is that it has taken divisive stands on social issues. So the Main Street Party has no position on social issues, just popular stands on issues for a majority of Americans. Disinvesting in endless war, a fair tax policy, support for small businesses and small farms (who once employed a majority of Americans), free education through college, a living minimum wage and affordable health care with private choice of doctors and public financing with 95% of taxpayers paying a 3.5% income tax to pay for it. If we start small in our Congressional districts, it can be done. Not over night, but over time, we can take back our country.
When the people fear their government there is tyranny,
when the government fears the people there is liberty.
~ Thomas Jefferson
As long as the winner-take-all electioneering under our Constitution persists, third parties will remain a vain hope (even as their solutions are eventually hijacked by one of the two parties), and the left will remain in thrall to the right. It is only the right who is consulted in the validation of the outcome of "democracy," and the right only considers an outcome democratic as long as the left remains bound and gagged.
Analysis, analysis, analysis ...
It is really very simple ...
Obama's positions are very simple
~ Trillions more for Banksters ...
~ Trillions more for endless Wars ...
~ Perpetrating Bush Policies with lipstick applied ...
Real Progressives detest these positions.
Krugman et al are still treating Progressives like children, while they write infantile columns ...
There is NO secret ... Just look at Obama's Policies ...
"mindset of Rahm Emanuel,"
oohhh finally! someone is talking about it... Emanuel is an absolute, straight-forward snake. Initially the story was, Obabma is super-cool, so he can have these guys around and use them as weapons without following their tainted morality or corrupt mindsets. Wrong.
Exactly. Obama is more a gopher lackey than a quarterback.
Obama got to be the first black president. As far as he's concerned he won. He'll always be in the history books and he'll never want for anything. He got the brass ring. Actually, this is not his fault. It was clear to those who paid attention that he was not qualified. His voting record was weak and his passion for justice was (is) missing. He is what he is. Everyone who runs for office thinks they will make a great public servant... it's up to voters to find out who really has the goods and is qualified and most voters don't have the intellectual or infrastructure tools to do it. The media and educational institutions are supposed to help, but they have abdicated their role and most representatives have sold out to corporate power. There is no strategy for making government work other than instilling in our children and in ourselves the importance of striving for intellectual integrity. That's what leads people to think for themselves and to act appropriately regardless of what they are told they should believe in by corporate or religious propaganda. There is no easy fix... this is going to take generations and maybe the effort will not begin until there is enough suffering to finally inspire the effort.
http://www.gpln.com/commentary.htm
You've captured the sum and substance of it, for sure. He got what he wanted, and the ruling class got what they wanted.
The only ones who didn't get anything are, as per usual, we, the proles.
You say it will take "generations" to recover. What makes you think we have enough generations left before Nature stamps our account "CLOSED FOR NON-PAYMENT"?
It seems to me that we'd better presume that we have a few years, not generations, toss out the tv, and get moving. The elites have no problem with our dying merely to make them richer today, so how can we possibly suppose they won't treat us as expendable when climate change reduces the habitable land area down to nothing?
Tis tough to face the hard reality that corporate power now owns and controls both capitalist parties and the people have been reduced to spectators. A multi-billion dollar election spectacle/extravaganza is performed every four years, but the invisible government of the oligarchs remains in place running the Empire irrespective of whether the Dims or Repugs "win". Senior members of Congress keep trying to tell us all this as Sen. Durbin (ILL) did in saying the bankers own the Congress. So do the drug and insurance corporations on healthcare, and likewise the military contractors and their Pentagon buddies do on "defense" spending and coal/oil/gas/metal extractive industries own the Congress and Executive on resource issues. The organized and monied and connected greed of corporate capitalism will always defeat and out maneuver the disorganized people. If and when the people are organized and ready to stop being obedient wage slaves to the oligarchs and are ready and willing to make the sacrifices of revolt, will there be a possibility of substantive change. Until then the oligarchs, all avid deciples of Friedmanite shock doctrine reorganization of societies here and abroad, will continue their program of structural adjustment and privatizing every public service and resource into some sort of corporate profit center. Part of what stuns me at the local level is that despite the open display of contempt for people's desire and need for a universal national healthcare system by Obama, Baucus and other Dems, there is a gross unwilligness to face that reality. Thus the move to blaming those who supported a single payer system saying that we failed to send enough emails, letters, calls, petitions to the Congress. This with the silly notion that any but a tiny few members of Congress actually respond to their supposed constituencies as compared to being tools of the corporate lobby's bagmen who drop off stacks of the votes and messages that really count in politically and morally corrupt Amerika: bucks and lots of them.
Court Jester,
Well done, I posted this above I hope you see it
Since 1945 George Kennon chairman of policy planning committee under the racist American president Harry Truman, it has been the policy of this government to do whatever it takes to be in the forefront of world domination regardless of the cost. This has been outlined in Hegemony or Survival, 2004, a book by Noam Chomsky, and should be read by those who write here. The Americans have tried to control the world under the guise of spreading democracy. This was most cynically seen under George W, Oil Bush. America has tried to do this in every way, perhaps more quietly than others. The exposure of the American torture machine eliminated for all time the myth that America or Americans are better or morally correct and fit to lead the so-called free world. However, the leaders in all countries do not hear their people who want nothing more than fairness and equity for everyone, at least those who can think.
Power, does corrupt and it distorts the minds of those who lead. This is the major reason that true civilization is doomed and the end of humanity assured. Obama, is simply a pawn of the powerful. Basically he is a better person than most but he has been told if he becomes too enamored with his own rhetoric he will go the way of JFK. The American people have been given a black bone to choke on.
Do not blame him too much, the CIA if you have not noticed, with the military machine control everything and everyone. The American military society was founded after World War II to protect your freedom to buy, have and eat more than the rest of the world. Does anyone ask why we continue to fund the military in a war that was evil, illegal and ineffectual, while at the same time we somehow can't find the money for a public option for universal health care? If you are looking for change and hope satisfy yourselves with the love for your children. It is temporal and this too will pass.
Humanity is doomed, consumerism, which the military industrial complex protect with its emphasis on the oil producing regions, like Iraq and Afghanistan and is why America is still there after Obama made you believe this George War would end, how could it, after all Cheney shot is friend in the face? This war assures the business interests, the Banks, Wall Street and the likes of EXXON Mobile that they can continue to supply the fuel for your Hummer. This species may develop once again when the Earth has purged itself of this failed attempt of humanity before it too passes from the universe, "eternal reoccurrence as Nietzsche referred to it.
Good Luck Angry Voters .org, don't be too angry, I suggest you all vote for Palin and whomever in the next election that will ensure an end to this "freedom loving country".
IKE
Whatever else one might want to say, changing who wins in Washington is the most important goal there is.
The question is: Who is the who? Let's say Obama is in trouble in '012. By all polls the election is close and the Republicans are running not their usual Blackshirt but a Brownshirt, a Glenn Beck type. Obama/Emanuel will begin lying their asses off again to progressives, trying to frighten them into backing Obama a second time. I frankly don't think it will work next time. I, for one, no longer care if I live my life under a red or blue thug. If the Greens are around then, I'll vote for their candidate. In fact, it is now, at the beginning of this Obama Betrayal, that progressives must permanently walk away from the Democrats. If progressives can cost Obama the presidency in '012 there is a slim chance that the party can be changed for the better.
"In fact, it is now, at the beginning of this Obama Betrayal, that progressives must permanently walk away from the Democrats."
Including such Dems as Kucinich, Weiner, and Edwards?
If we abandon folks based solely on their party identity and do not reward those who have been the most progressive then we will be defeating ourselves.
q
Kucinich gave me in public his word to bring the anti war position to the DNC convention when he ran for president. One week before the convention he was co-opted by the party.
Kucinich in the democratic party would be different than Obama how?
"In fact, it is now, at the beginning of this Obama Betrayal, that progressives must permanently walk away from the Democrats. If progressives can cost Obama the presidency in '012 there is a slim chance that the party can be changed for the better."
As someone who also voted for Obama, but (futilely) defended him a lot longer than you, I must now say that I agree. I want policies, not politics.
The last time there was a real important US presidential election with somewhat equally balanced multiple parties was 1860, with the less than 6-year-old Republican Party winning what was clearly an election based on sectional issues related to the most fundamental of unresolved constitutional questions from 1787. What made the Republican victory possible was the failure of the only true "national" party at the time because of the perceptions Southerners had of its nominee, Steven Douglas: Democrat. There are quite a number of similarities between then and now, but I'm only writing a comment, not a footnoted essay.
Currently, there are two very important constitutional issues that could become the core organizing principle for a third party, which the Green Party has incorporated into its bylaws but hasn't be able to trumpet because of Propaganda System censorship. Both issues relate to the fundamental issue of law and order: The enforcement of laws already on the books, which is the job of the Executive, with oversight supposedly supplied by Congress; and the enforcement of law by Congress on the Preident or other official through Impeachment--there is no question about what the constitution says about Impeachment: Congress shall [will] impeach those alledged to be guilty of impeachable offenses: There is NO opting out or "Off the Table" position that can possibly be taken by any congressperson and not be in contempt of the oath of office or be guilty of obstructing justice. Numerous laws were broken that led to the US losing Trillions of dollars in wealth while killing and displacing millions of innocents and destabilzing additional countries through illegal meddling. If we can't build a political movement based on those outrages, then why bother.
This article and Krugman's are seriously flawed on the notion that Obama suddenly lost the trust of the progressives when he dropped 'public option' from the health care bill. Obama has been steadily losing support from the stimulus hogwash to continued war spending to no attempts to restore civil liberties but to take away more and finally playing a dirty trick on health care reform. I am one of those who already switched my registration from Democrat to Independent. I usually appreciate what Glenn Greenwald has to write but on this article, he did a shabby job of not taking other issues, except for a quick note on the last paragraph, into consideration where Obama has equally lost the trust of the progressives.
One secret note to reveal. I have a couple of friends who have been strong Obama supporters even today and they revealed to me the secrets of how the media polls are rigged to keep Obama's approval ratings high. Right now, the pollsters biased towards Obama are desperately trying to do damage control to prevent Obama from slipping in the polls. It was done in Reagan and Bush's times and this same trick is being used for this administration. It will be interesting to see if Obama actually gets away with it.
A revealed "secret" that various polls are rigged? Why should that be a surprise?
Name one significant thing to do with politics in the US that is NOT rigged like a carnival sideshow.
Why not reveal to us the so-called 'secrets'? Post some detailed examples or why bother even mentioning it.
It's another "well duh" moment.
The overwhelming evidence is that the Democratic Party has a pattern of expecting the left to bend over and gracefully request another go.
In order for a progressive to maintain allegiance to the Dems, a certain level of credulity is necessary, which in turn can explain the disappointment. Beyond a certain level of neural activity, surprise at the continued pattern just isn't possible.
For many of us progressives, Obama NEVER had our trust to start with. In addition to all the "betrayals" GG cites, Obama, like most Dems., continued to fund the U.S. wars for Empire and said all along he'd escalate in Afghanistan, our war of revenge and collective punishment.
Gore Vidal knew it long ago: (paraphrased & updated): our Corporate/War Party has two right wings, Democrats and RepubliKKKlans.
Since our current political/electoral/campaign funding system is skewed toward maintaining these two corrupt parties and never allowing other parties to get real power, either we change the whole system, or forget about ever having a possibility of real democracy here.
ED AUGUST
YES, THIS IS CORRECT!
IKE
glen i was wondering maybe a new legal concept when people divorce
it may be on grounds of abandonment perhaps like of obama
did to us on the left. could we sue obama for abandonment
and irreconcilable differences. the way he thinks telcom
immunity was okay but that was after he slept with us
and then abandoned us. well we still liked him and elected him.
then it was wire tapping or other fascist concepts after he promised he was going to stop right after swearing in.
glen do you do you think we have some new or novel legal
concept here.
politicians are all the same
after they get you all hot and get your pants off then
they lie and leave you for someone else! just look at ensign
sanford vitter and spitzer. republicans don't let him con you.
he'll promise you all the things you want under your
christmas tree then leave ya a bag of rocks!
glen i was wondering maybe a new legal concept when people divorce
it may be on grounds of abandonment perhaps like of obama
did to us on the left. could we sue obama for abandonment
and irreconcilable differences. the way he thinks telcom
immunity was okay but that was after he slept with us
and then abandoned us. well we still liked him and elected him.
then it was wire tapping or other fascist concepts after he promised he was going to stop right after swearing in.
glen do you do you think we have some new or novel legal
concept here.
politicians are all the same
after they get you all hot and get your pants off then
they lie and leave you for someone else! just look at ensign
sanford vitter and spitzer. republicans don't let him con you.
he'll promise you all the things you want under your
christmas tree then leave ya a bag of rocks!
Thank you for the article. I felt a shift.
I have been one all along who liked the idea of a third party, but because I knew it was not viable, when I felt the stakes were high, I always voted Democrat. In San Francisco, where I live, I can vote for a Green Party candidate and not feel like my vote is being thrown away because even Democrats there are considered far-left compared to most of the country.
But on a presidential level, I wanted to be with the winner. Or, I wanted to be sure my vote did not make it possible for another George Bush (Jr or Sr) or Ronald Reagan. As much as I hated some of Clinton's policies, I still thought he was better than the alternative.
But now I get it. If I truly want a Democratic Party that is progressive and represents the interest of the people over corporations, I will not achieve that by voting for any Democrat who comes along. I will achieve it by voting only for those who have proven they will not make promises to be progressive and then continue the same oligharchic, corporate-friendly, bellicose policies. Obama has been a major disappointment. I thought he would be different. I thought he really represented a threat to the status quo. I still think he represents a threat to them. But, in some way, he is being managed and convinced that it is best to walk the safe route. He does not want to go too far too left too fast or too soon. But it is a trap Bill Clinton fell into, and it is a trap that eventually brought on his ruin and 12 years of Republican rule.
So my point is, if I vote against the Democrats, we might get more Republicans elected, but the Democrats will eventually learn who their base is, and perhaps feel less inclined to always move to the center. Then, we might begin to see some real change.
In swinging an election, your vote means nothing by itself. The classic "one vote" speech cites examples of votes that occurred in small bodies, like legislatures. Voting for the lesser evil just says you approve of lessor evil. Vote your conscience, and at least the politicians will know where you really are, not how much you'll put up with before you completely break.
My personal strategy is to vote Democratic primary, as often there is a decent candidate, and then the best candidate in the election. E.g. Kucinich primary, McKinney general.
Ross Perot ws to the left of Clinton on a great many issues. Clinton was a continuation of GHW Bush and Reaganite policies, from his economics, to social policies, to Imperial War Crimes. The last--AND ONLY--progressive Democrat ever was FDR--NOT Truman, nor Kennedy, nor LBJ, nor Carter--NOT a one of them was in any way progressive. Certainly NOT Wilson from the so-called Progressive Era--Taft was much more progressive than him.