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TechnoratiHow to Squander the Presidency in One Year
Hey, Conan Obama: How About Now? Can You Hear Us Now?
There's only one political party in the entire world that is so inept, cowardly and bungling that it could manage to simultaneously lick the boots of Wall Street bankers and then get blamed by the voters for being flaming revolutionary socialists.
It's the same party that has allowed the opposition to go on a thirty year scorched earth campaign, stealing everything in sight from middle and working class voters, and yet successfully claim to be protecting ‘real Americans' from out-of-touch elites.
It's the same party that could run a decorated combat hero against a war evader in 1972, only to be successfully labeled as national security wimps.
Just to be sure, it then did the exact same thing again in 2004.
It's the same party that stood by silently while two presidential elections in a row were stolen away from them.
How ‘bout dem Dems, eh?
One year ago today, there was real question as to what could possibly be the future of the Republican Party in America. That's changed a bit now.
And, speaking of ‘change', the one kind that Barack Obama did actually deliver this year was not that which most voters had in mind after listening to him use the word incessantly, all throughout 2008. Obama and his colleagues have now managed to bring the future of the Democratic Party into question, just a year after it won two smashing victories in a row.
Personally, I'm not real bothered by that. Today's Democrats are, almost without exception, embarrassing hacks who deserved to get stomped a long time ago.
What really upsets me, however, is what these fools have allowed to be done to the name of progressivism, and to the country.
Barack Obama has now, in just a year's time, become the single most inept president perhaps in all of American history, and certainly in my lifetime. Never has so much political advantage been pissed away so rapidly, and what's more in the context of so much national urgency and crisis. It's astonishing, really, to contemplate how much has been lost in a single year.
It was hilarious, of course, when Michelle Bachmann invoked the Charge of the Light Brigade at a rally against "Obama's" (has he ever really owned it?) health care "initiative" (isn't that too strong a word to use?), quite oblivious to the fact that the actual historical event was one of history's greatest debacles. Obama, on the other hand, seems to be actually reliving the famous cock-up in the flesh. Except, of course, that he doesn't really "charge" at anything. He just talks about things, thinks about things a real long time, defers to others on things, and waits around for things to maybe happen.
This week, though, something actually did happen. Alas, not precisely what the president had in mind, however.
But the election in Massachusetts was only slightly less inevitable than the sun rising in the east each morning. It was the product of an amazing collection of abysmal choices and practices over the last year that has produced a meltdown of equally amazing proportions for this president and his party. It is fitting that it comes on the anniversary of the president's inauguration, a moment filled with so much hope for so many just a year ago.
What has Obama - this Conan O'Brien of presidents - done wrong in order to produce this devastating outcome? The short answer is: Just about everything imaginable.
More specifically:
* He does not lead. Americans, especially in times of crisis, want their daddy-president to pick a point on the horizon and lead them to it. Often - especially in the short term - they don't even care that much which point it is. They will happily follow a president whose policies they oppose if he will but lead.
* And if he will demonstrate some conviction. I have never seen a president so utterly lacking in passion. This man literally doesn't even seem to care about himself, let alone this or that policy issue. He doesn't seem to have any strong opinions on anything, a sure prescription for presidential failure.
* He has therefore let Congress ‘lead' on nearly every issue, another surefire mistake. Instead of demanding that they pass real stimulus legislation - which would have really stimulated the economy, big-time, and right now - he let those dickheads on the Hill just load up a big pork party blivet of a bill with all the pet projects they could find, designed purely to benefit their personal standing with the voters at home, rather than to actually produce jobs for Americans. And on health care, his signature issue, he did the same thing. "You guys write it, and I'll sign the check." Could there possibly be a greater prescription for failure than allowing a bunch of the most venal people on the planet to cobble together a 2,000 page monstrosity that entirely serves their interests and those of the people whose campaign bribes put them in office?
* Well, yes, now that you mention it. If you really want to bring your government crashing to the ground, why not spend endless months negotiating with vicious thugs, who will never vote for your legislation anyhow, because they are so entirely devoted to your destruction that they're willing to call you a granny murderer? What a great and winning strategy!
* Another possible strategic move even stupider than deferring to Congress to write major legislation is to cozy up with the least popular people on the planet - including, in fact, the real-life granny killers. Got an economy that is so raw it's leaving thousands in literal peril of losing their lives? Why not draft some legislation to bail-out the people who created that mess and guarantee that they retain their multimillion dollar bonuses?!?! You know, the same folks who are always talking about how great capitalism is and how important it is to take risks! The same ones who are always telling us how awful the government is - the same government that saved them from extinction. Those folks. That's right, bail out with outrageous bonuses the very people who need it least and who caused billions of people around the planet to suffer, while leaving everyone else to fend for themselves! That'll raise your presidential job approval ratings every time! And while you're at it, bring in the much beloved health insurance and pharmaceutical corporate lobbyists, and negotiate a deal with them to craft your high profile health care legislation! What voter can't get behind that?
* Another brilliant presidential tactic is to be such a Mr. Happy Nice Face that you acknowledge no enemies for the country, or even yourself. Not the health care corporate vampires who suck the blood out of Americans from San Diego to Bangor, providing absolutely no value-added health service whatsoever, while denying treatment to deathly ill human beings at every opportunity, all to rake in billions more in profits. Not the reckless pirates on Wall Street who bet all our money on insane gambles that wrecked the global economy, took government bail-out money to survive, and yet are still drowning in bonuses as rewards. Not the Republican Party who spent three decades downsizing the middle class, plunging the country into wars based on lies, deregulating every protection in sight, fattening up corporate cronies, wrecking the environment, trashing the Constitution and polarizing the country politically. And not even a catastrophic climate disaster speeding toward the planet with relentless determination. No! We must all be happy and talk nice! No bad guys. Not even the bad guys can be bad guys.
* While you're at it, if you're trying to run the most failed presidency ever, a really good idea is to campaign in the grandest terms possible, and then deliver squat. You know, talk about bending the arc of history. Invoke Martin Luther King's dream and his struggles and even those of the slaves. Ring the big bells of generational calling. Remind voters every thirty seconds that the country badly needs "Change!". Then get elected and turn around and continue the policies of your hated predecessor in every meaningful policy area. Only with less conviction. People will love that.
* A related brilliant move is to mobilize a giant army of passionate volunteers dedicated to putting you in the White House, and then do nothing with them once you get there, other than taking them completely for granted and never calling upon them to do anything in support of your agenda. Be sure to deflate their enthusiasm in every way possible.
* Even more importantly, if you're trying to run your presidency into the ground you'll definitely want to avoid mobilizing the general public behind your agenda. To make sure that you don't repeat the great legislative victories of FDR or LBJ or (unfortunately) Reagan or (really unfortunately) Little Bush, never use their method of appealing directly to the people. Never express your legislative program as a moral imperative, a great calling to the nation. Never attempt to rally the public behind your cause. Never express any urgency. And never call upon them to demand that Congress pass your bills. Then, you can rest assured they won't!
* And let's take it up a whole ‘nuther level, while we're on the subject. A successful president is one who articulates a strong and compelling narrative for the nation. So, in your quest to avoid rising even to mediocrity, be sure to leave a great big gaping canyon where that whole narrative thing is supposed to go. No New Deal, no Great Society, no New Frontier or War on Terror for you. Nope! Just a thousand little projects with little non-solutions to big problems. Hey, why not inject yourself into Cambridge, Massachusetts community police politics while you're at it! Or the New York State Democratic Party gubernatorial primary! Or you could deliberate for weeks about which breed of dog to get for your kids! That's a great use of the president's political capital!
* As long as you're walking away from the grand narrative, why not let the opposition define you as well? Let them say anything imaginable about you, and never respond. You're a socialist! No, you're a fascist! No, you're both! At the same time, no less! You're a granny killer! You're not really even an American! You're taking over the US for the Muslims! You're a massive taxer and spender! You're running around the world, apologizing for America everywhere you go! No worries. Just remember the golden rule, and your presidency is sure to sink: Never engage, never respond, never preempt, never attack, never fight back.
* In general, you'll also want to take the most important power the president has - the bully pulpit - and totally piss it away. Appear everywhere at once, all the time, saying lots of nice words, about a thousand different issues. But never with passion, never with compelling simplicity, never with repetition, and never with urgency. Pretty soon you'll turn being everywhere into being nowhere. Everyone one will tune out your ubiquitous self. Give up the high moral ground which is the most important asset of the office you hold, and you'll make sure that no one ever listens to you anymore. You will persuade the public of nothing. Except that you are irrelevant.
* But you can do better still. Help your enemies, so that they can crush you more effectively! Start by not even realizing they are your enemies. Then, treat them with greater respect than your friends, even though they've run the country over a cliff. Defer to them at every opportunity. Consult with them even as they insult you to your face. Allow them to run Congress, even though they have small minorities in both houses. Never force them to vote against simple, popular legislation. Never call their bluffs. Never associate them with the destruction they've caused. Never label them the treasonous hypocritical liars that they are. Help them to resuscitate the comatose near-corpse of their political party, just before it's about to die, so it can rise up and savage you.
* Another great trick for crashing a presidency is to pick all the wrong priorities to ‘fight' for. Imagine, for example, if FDR had substituted for his ‘Day of Infamy' speech right after Pearl Harbor a ringing call for an American revolution in cobbler technology! Yes, that's right, in response to the devastating surprise attack by the armed forces of the Empire of Japan, what if the president urgently called upon us all to start making really amazing shoes?! Before it's too late, and we all get blisters on our feet! Similarly, Mr. Obama, your spending the last year on (jive) health care and jetting around the world dipping your toes into foreign policy problems while Americans are losing their jobs and their houses is a fine way to kill your presidency. Guaranteed to work every time.
* And, finally, perhaps the most important thing one can do - and the thing that helps explain many of the other items above - is to adopt really, really pathetic policies. If you're doing a stimulus bill, for example, make sure that it's too little money, not targeted at real stimulative levers in the economy, costs a lot, doesn't kick in for a year or two, gives away about a third of the money to ineffective pet projects for Republican while none of them vote for it anyhow, and leaves the unemployment rate stuck at a miserable ten percent. Or, if you're doing a bail-out of the banks for the purpose of producing the liquidity essential to restarting the economy, let them take bonuses as big as they want, and don't actually require that they loan out to anyone the money you've given them. Or, how about spending nearly all your political capital on ‘health care' legislation, which is really an insurance company boondoggle bill instead? That's really what the people want, eh? No wonder Obama's not out there writing the narrative, fighting the good fight or crushing his enemies. Even he can't get excited about his own priorities, so extraordinarily abysmal are they.
All of this represents the best prescription I can imagine for wrecking a presidency, and Obama has followed it with exacting precision. Indeed, doing so would appear to be his only real passion. It's almost as if he were a Republican sleeper politician in some party politics version of the Manchurian Candidate, planted to arise on cue and destroy the Democratic Party from within.
And thus - while anything's possible, of course - I am hard pressed to see how the Obama administration is anything but finished. Consider his options from here.
He could turn to the right, like Clinton did in 1994. But the first problem is that he's already there. If you look carefully at his policies, he is basically running George Bush's third term. Regressives (conveniently) forget that. They call him weak on national security, even while he dramatically escalates the war in Afghanistan, hardly draws down in Iraq, breaks his own promise to close Gitmo, and smashes through the $700 billion mark in military spending for the first time, not even counting Afghanistan's costs. They ignore his Bush-cloned policies on state secrets, renditions, executive power and other civil liberties issues. They forget that Bush's health care bill was far more socialistic and far more fiscally irresponsible than Obama's, and that his bail-outs and stimulus actions were almost identical. So, in short, for Obama to turn to starboard at this point would literally require him to outflank the GOP to its right. Moreover, the Limbaughs and Becks and Palins would still excoriate him, no matter what. Worse still, such policies would only make the lives of ordinary Americans a lot worse, just as they have been doing for thirty years now. So what could be gained by a turn to the right?
Second, he could go small-bore, as Clinton also did in the 1990s. But, of course, these aren't the 1990s. FDR didn't win four terms during a Great Depression and a world war by focusing on school uniforms and V-chips. This is not the 1930s or 1940s, but it's close. People are hurting, frightened and angry. Obama is suffering badly already because he is not addressing their very tangible concerns. More of the same policy-wise will produce more of the same politically. Going this route, he'd be lucky if the public was kind enough to let him finish his single term as a James Buchanan wannabe, then go home.
The obvious solution, of course, would be a sharp turn to the left. Go where the real solutions are. Fight the good fight. Call liars ‘liars' and thieves ‘thieves'. Do the people's business. Become their advocate against the monsters bleeding them dry. Create jobs. Build infrastructure. Do real national health care. End the wars. Dramatically slash military spending. Produce actual educational reform. Launch a massive green energy/jobs program. Get serious about global warming. Kick ass on campaign finance reform. Fight for gay rights. Restore the New Deal era regulatory framework and expand it. Restore a fair taxation structure. Rewrite trade agreements that undermine American jobs. Rebuild unions. Fill the spate of vacancies in the federal judiciary, and load those seats up with progressives. Rally the public to demand that Congress act on your agenda. Humiliate the regressives in and out of the GOP for their abysmal sell-out policies.
All of this could be done, and most of it would be very popular, especially if it was backed by an aggressive and righteously angry Oval Office advocate for the people who knew how to use the bully pulpit to shape the narrative, to market ideas, and to mobilize public support.
But I doubt Obama has anything like the constitution for that sort of presidency. I think his personal disposition is so strongly controlling of his politics that he would rather preside as a three year lame-duck over a failed one-term presidency, than actually throw an elbow or two and make anyone uncomfortable. Think how unpleasant it would be.
Moreover, by blundering during the only chance he'll ever have at introducing his presidency, he's now created an additional set of problems for himself which may well be insurmountable, even if he were to now try to live up to his campaign billing. He needs Democratic votes in Congress to do much of anything, but they're all focused on the looming tsunami of next November. The very same people who might have swallowed hard and reluctantly followed the lead of inspirational new president Obama one year ago, today will join everyone else in the world and spit in the eye of useless, feeble, washed-up Barack. He's got zero leverage over his own party in Congress now. As for the public, it's gonna be pretty hard to now market himself as the great enemy of the people's enemies, when he's just finished a year of making secret sweetheart deals that benefit Wall Street bankers, health insurance pirates, and pharmaceutical predators, all while leaving his own base and the public he's supposed to be serving out in the rain. Politicians can reinvent themselves, but you need time and there are certain limits of plausibility that cannot be ignored, any more than you can ignore the laws of physics.
Of course, I don't give a shit about Barack Obama anymore, other than my desire that really ugly things happen to him as payment in kind for the grandest act of betrayal we've seen since Benedict Arnold did his thing. But what about the country?
Not so good there, either, I'm afraid. What happens when you have two parties to choose from, and one of them wrecks the country with dramatically evil policies so radical even backward America hates them, but then you turn to the other party, which spends an entire year on the campaign trail promising change, only to turn out nearly identical to the first lot when in government? What do you do?
One option is to find another party. To some extent that is happening, but absolutely not where it should be. The tea partyers are the ‘alternative' vision for salvation in today's America. (Very) unfortunately, they are not alternative in any sense, have almost no coherent vision whatsoever, and - as the possible third right-wing party for voters to choose from, out of three, obviously offer zero salvation whatsoever. All the tea party lunatics seem to know is that they don't like taxes and they don't like federal spending. But they can't even tell you what they'd cut if they actually controlled the government. My guess is that it would be nothing, just like the Republicans before them, or else they'd slash entitlement spending, which would surely make them one of the flashiest flashes ever to get royally panned by the public.
The other option, which the voters are now exercising, is to continue a process begun in 2006 of voting for the party which is not the party in power. Today, that means Republicans, as witnessed in Virginia, New Jersey and now Massachusetts. The absurdity of this, of course, is that it was these exact same people who created this astonishingly thorough mess we find ourselves in. What is Mitch McConnell or John Boehner or Sarah Palin going to do for Americans who don't have jobs? Cut taxes they no longer pay (and thus also further increase the national debt, by the way)? What will they do for those same folks who've lost their health insurance? Kill Democratic plans, even when they're nothing but corporate giveaways anyhow?
Americans will simply be more sick, more broke and more unemployed two, four or six years from now than they are at this moment, if they put the Republicans back in control of the government.
Of course, there's one other possibility, which is that this time the Cheney Party goes balls-to-the-wall, bringing down on our heads a full-on fascist dictatorship, serving corporate interests in total, and likely launching a couple of good wars abroad to complement the complete repression of dissent and freedom of expression at home.
Ridiculous? I try pretty hard every day - and it takes some work - to keep my most apocalyptic totalitarian nightmares for this country in check. But think about this chronological sequence for a second: The Democrats get killed in November for doing nothing while the public suffers. But they are still seen as the party in power in 2012, so they get killed even worse, with Obama sent packing and Palin or her equivalent moving into 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. But the new radical GOP regime's policies are even more detrimental to voters than Bush's or Obama's. Maybe the public is distracted for a year or two by some bullshit foreign policy ‘crisis' or another, but pretty soon they're getting real restless. After about six years now of suffering badly, they're getting real surly, and ‘anti-incumbent' doesn't begin to describe the mood of the country. Now they really want some serious change.
Of course, anything can happen - but which part of that sequence seems improbable? And if the answer is none, then the salient question becomes: What does the regime do at that point, faced with an angry mob? What are the Dick Cheneys and Sarah Palins of this world committed to? What are they capable of when pressed?
I don't think those questions really require a response. I think we all know pretty well the answers.
This is the country that Obama - the great Hope guy - is bequeathing us.
Dante said "The hottest places in hell are reserved for those who in times of great moral crises maintain their neutrality".
Better stock up on the mist sprayers, Barack.
197 Comments so far
Show AllDavid is taking his place alongside of Hedges and Greenwald as a voice worth reading unlike the apologetic wing of the pundit movement.
Yes, the Democratic Party's mission is to get as many corporate contributions as possible. The only way they have been able to accomplish that is to abandon their base and try to be as Republican as possible.
If current polls are to be believed, Obama has incredibly high approval ratings considering he steered in the wrong direction EVERY time he hit an icy patch.
The author is not correct when he says Obama doesn't "demonstrate conviction".
When Obama is promoting corporate interests he demonstrates boatloads of conviction.
For example, Obama's Sept. 9, 2009 health care speech that focussed on "preserving insurance company profits" was delivered with great gusto.
Long-winded DMG still can't grasp that BHO is doing exactly what he was hired to do by his corporate patrons.
What you say is true, but at the same time, for a political science teacher at hofstra to write something with such a tone is a step forward, i think.
I have friends and family who still believe in Obama. I sent all of them this article. Green's "tone" is very, very important. Go over to truthdig and read the even-tempered apologists' various takes on Obama. If you remember the dial tone on the telephone, that's what it's like. Obama and most Congressional Democrats need to be trashed in the angriest possible terms. No one needs to show them any respect. I agree with the commenter BodhiHawk that Green joins Chris Hedges and Glenn Greenwald as indispensable progressive political essayists.
Of course BHO is nothing if not corporate-compliant, but DMG does not point out that BHO, like every president from Reagan on, is steadily implementing the purposes of the New World Order as defined by PNAC - world fascism with US corporations in control - while democracy and provisions for the well-being of the US population are being systematically dismantled. They are no longer necessary, in fact are an impediment, to the future activities of the NWO.
As you say, Brian, 'BHO is doing exactly what he was hired to do'. We should not be surprised at his performance. We should organize to combat it, and to elect representatives of the people. Any thoughts on that, DMG?
I remember Spiro Agnew saying the Democrats are "Squishy Soft on Communism" He was nearly right. They're soft on Ronnie-ism, soft on Republicans. This shit about taking impeachment off the table proves it. Obama shows up at the White House last year sporting his flag pin thinking he looks tough like Bush or Tom Ridge. They had Daddy by the balls back in '88 but ended up being wimped out to the wimp. Health care? Compromise before you begin to negotiate? I can go on and on. This is why I gave up on the Democrats in 1990.
Good article, but:
"It's the same party that has allowed the opposition to go on a thirty year scorched earth campaign, stealing everything in sight from middle and working class voters"
I think we all know that the Democratic party as a whole has also actively contributed to the war on the middle class. But other than that he sums things up sickeningly well.
Right. And it's really irritating to hear Dems constantly play the "wha', who me?" game of entirely blaming Repubs. I must have missed their valiant battles against telecom immunity, the Patriot Act, oil speculators, keeping Glass Stegal, NAFTA, Welfare Reform, and the double digit number of trade deals Bush got. They haven't fought for us in decades because, but for a handful, they, like Obama are stealth Republicans.
As loathsome as Repubs are, they couldn't have gotten their Fascist legislation passed without help from Dems. And some still carry on with their dirty deeds, like Nelson, Bayh, war profiteer Feinstein, Landrieu, and Joe "Pants-Crapper" Leiberman.
Better not say that too loud because a guy named Glover might unleash an authoritarian thunder against you for harboring such a thought. :)
You're right. Another example of the same thing is near the bottom, where Green wonders aloud:
"...What are the Dick Cheneys and Sarah Palins of this world committed to? What are they capable of when pressed?..."
- Here also, DMG is revealing the part of him that still believes that the Republicans are really more evil than the Democrats. The truth, meanwhile, is that no matter what horrible things the Cheneys and Palins might do, the Democrats would quietly support them in it. A President Cheney/Palin/McCain/Romney might well decide to nuke Iran or Russia on his/her first day in office. No matter -- the Dems would still support the policy (for fear of being called "unpatriotic," or "not supporting the troops," natch). A President Palin might summarily throw progressive activists into re-education camps. No matter - the Dems would still support her.
The point is that the Dems are NOT the lesser f*cking evil. They are simply an integral & indeed, indispensable, part of the very same evil (as we tried to tell Prof Green a year ago).
No. As little difference as there is between the parties themselves, the wingnut fringe of the right is a different animal than the mainstream Dem. DMG has a point when he says that, as bad as things are, they could get a whole lot worse. BHO is setting things up in such a way that the country will be ripe for electing a true wingnut.
I think you are being a bit hysterical about Palin. Nothing about her suggests to me that she'd throw people in concentration camps. Don't people understand that part of what makes her different from the Bush/Cheney Republican regime is that she is NOT part of the elite???
Obama is more in alignment with Cheney than Palin is. Palin is a down-home real person who happens to believe in old fashioned Republican values. She's not a NeoCon backed by big oil or money interests. She fought big oil in Alaska. She is not a normal politician who likes to wheel and deal. She hates that crap. Read her book. You'll get some more perspective.
blah blah blame the hired help.
- Of course, I don't give a shit about... -
Progressives who use this language are on the wrong side of history, because they are on the far-right side.
- He has therefore let Congress ‘lead' on nearly every issue, ... -
I point out again that in 2008 America voted for change in the White House but did not vote for change in Congress.
That would be the fault of the American people.
Soooo, let's blame the hired help instead.
Way to go, Progressives.
There's national unrest, and we should direct that at:
a. the first non-pasty-ass-old-white guy in the WHITE house.
b. the feckless moronic House of mis-Representatives which is up for re-re-re-re-re-re-re-re-election this year.
And you know whose fault that is!
You have the mentality of a 13 year-old with attention deficit disorder and refuses to study his current events.
I think you should take a look at the 44 Presidents of the United States. They may all be white, but their ages vary quite a bit. We've had winners and a lot of losers. Race has nothing to do with who is a good POTUS, but that should be obviously to anyone. FDR proved that being wealthy was not a barrier to being able to emphasize and work on behalf of working people. Obama being a champion for people of color? Don't hold your breath on that one. Obama emphasizing with anyone lower than the elite seems not to be in his DNA -- although he likes to speak a good line now and again.
Yup! Nothing to add here.
-"what these fools have allowed to be done to the name of progressivism"
Gosh, I must have missed the part where Obama said he was acting in the name of progressivism.
...So after running a brilliant election campaign, Obama and the Dems are simply the victim of blunder after mistake after gaff, huh? Gee, what are the odds of that happening?
It couldn't be that the Democrats are doing what they are paid millions of dollars, by Wall Street lobbyists, to do, huh? That would be too obvious an explaination, I guess?
Oh C'mon.
Who would've dream he would continue Bush's third term?
I share the annoyance with so-called Progressives who are continually trying to make apologies for Obama, when they aren't advising him (as if he care to listen to progressives--when it comes to progressives that is the one group he isn't hesitant to twist arms)at the same time thay wail about the dearth of a progressive movement. Can you see how so-called progressives sabotage themselves by not launching uncompromised outrage?
So-called progressives are not "sabotaging themselves by not launching uncompromised outrage". Instead, they are revealing their true position in the political spectrum, centrist, which means that half the day they are beating their spouses and the other half they are begging forgiveness.
"Who would've dream he would continue Bush's third term?"
Ummm...me and a lot of PUMAs...we knew Obama was going to be Bush's third term during the primaries. We started calling Obama Bush III even before he was elected. We PUMAs *tried* to tell you but you would not listen. You were too busy Clinton-bashing.
No, I don't think Hillary is perfect and the Clintons are fairly center-right. But I think BOTH parties are controlled by big money interests, aka "the elite." The Clintons are part of the elite...but have more altruistic motives than others in the elite and try to do some good with their power. This is probably why Hillary was taken out, because the Clintons aren't easy pawns.
So I knew this was coming. I'm just shocked at how blatant Obama has been in pushing the Bush agenda, and how much he's fallen in one year. I seriously thought he and his cohorts were going to be much more savvy and Orwellian in their propaganda and fool people much better than this.
I may have some reservations about DMG, but I absolutely love his style of writing. It took him awhile to come around in being able to see what a total sell-out corporate whore Obama is - when many of us saw it while he was still a Senator - but to DMG's credit, better late than never.
At least he has the cahones to write what most other MSM "journalists" (I know, that word is a joke) wouldn't dare to even whisper. It's known as "the truth," something this country, it's politicians, political parties, and sheeple are more afraid of than they are of dark-skinned Muslims.
"When fascism comes to America, it will be wrapped in the flag, carrying a cross."
Sinclair Lewis, "It Cant Happen Here", 1935
Touche!
--except-
"You guys write it, and I'll sign the check."
Not quite. It would be bad enough if just that was the perception, but he actually twisted arms and made demands behind the scenes to get the disasterous piece of shit that he wanted all along.
Hey, it was the Kennedy seat we lost. It is not just about some Senate voting numbers. The Dem leaders lost Ted Kennedy's seat, and likely his dream. Prof Green says here all I have screamed about the last 12 months. When candidate Obama traveled Europe, campaigned the heartland, he did convey an image of hope and change. I mean, after all, here is a black man in America more apparently suited to the big job than anyone else. And after Nov 4 2008 he devolves quickly into a corporatist with a post-partisan fetish while the badly defeated enemy feeds off his "pragmatism." What a botched job. The energized youth vote squandered. The middle class abandoned. And then the health ---I mean insurance reform debacle. What a bitter disappointment. All making way for the rise of semi-literate populists like Palin and Brown. The future stinks already.
Note to Obama: Think for a moment about the plight of the plebes on your way out of the White House (2012 or sooner)
Even if he's a one term President of your Nation, he'll retire, write books, go on lecture tour, & build a library to himself so won't he really be hurting. Life will be as tough for him as the homeless.
Yeah, sure, he'll be rooting through dumpsters for food. Sure he will.
Then you get the next round of made for Tv candidates the Banks & Corporations off you as your leaders for you Nation. Around 47. 5 percent of the vote goes for Republicans & Democrats, and around 5 percent goes towards third party candidates.
Then all the made for Tv candidates go back to doing what they are told by the Banks & Corporations. Just like in your history as a Nation George Washington's slaves kept picking tobacco even though won his freedom from his Tyrant King.
To then set up the Freemason Branch of the New Order of the Ages or modern day Rome/Babylon. So the Roman Empire was reborn. The mighty legions of Rome pretty much rolled over the Tribes like a great Beast.
As the New Order of the Ages began setting up their globalist government from their Freemason Branch in this land as well.
Welcome to Caesar's Matrix.
I wonder if Jesus knew some 2000 years ago when he said, Render unto Caesar what is Caesar's, that while it may look like Caesar is building some really grand swell world upon the earth that all that will happen eventually is it will be Hell on Earth.
Difficult to say what Jesus knew some 2000 years ago.
There are stories from within Tribes that he lived in this land long ago with them. Even in the Mormon's book they say he lived in this land. Who knows this land before the Continents ever split may have been the Original Israel, & the Tribes here long ago the original Tribes of Israel.
As Petroglyphs were found Colorado they couldn't read until they found similar ones in the Negev Desert that date back to 1500 B.C. From those the ones here gave reference to the land of Canaan & YH, the God of Israel & of all Creation.
Perhaps that is the reason the final Hopi prophecy of this land pretty much being burned off the face of the earth by the gourd of ashes, man made fire, as the prophecy of Mystery Babylon are so similar?
All I know is Caesar doesn't rule the Kingdom of Heaven, nor do Banks, & Corporations, nor Republicans, Democrats, Progressives, Socialists, Commies, or worldly Kings.
So it already sounds like Heaven to me.
Yeah, I have no idea how the Tribes lived for 1000's and 1000's of years upon the earth without you? No idea at all.
Of course back in the 80's I said to a woman I sort of knew, Hunting, fishing, growing & gathering a little food, living simply with the earth, one another, and being friends is pretty much all people ever needed to know.
I was amazed at her reply as she said, That's what it says in the Bible.
And God ushered in Creation & here we all are now. Time flies while your having fun.
The author's fear is that the Bush/Cheney Bros. Horror Show will return to town, perhaps under new management.
To stop them, he offers us...
- only one political party in the entire world that is so inept, cowardly and bungling -
The author's view seems to be that Mr. Obama is at fault if he doesn't change all that by himself.
I disagree with such a view.
Obviously you didn't bother to read the article that actually itemized all the evidence- but didn't Obama present himself as the agent of change?
Soon after he was elected, Obama was asked, "where's the change" when it became apparent that he had no intention of changing anything, and his response was something to the effect of "I am the vessel through which change manifests".
I will never forget that. It was in the same vein as Bush presenting himself as a conduit through which God acts.
This article is great, not only because it tallies up so much, in a humorous way, of the overwhelming disaster,that in the same way with Bush, became difficult to comprehend, but it still feels like the tip of the iceberg on so many levels. And to think there are those who still advocate that it is just a matter of time--that is all he needs--that we are childish and impatient, while the list and comlexity of the mess is ongoing.
I think we all have to face the fact that Obama didn't actually want to be president, he just wanted to win it.
Sort of like if he was cast to play the role of the first Black president and the final scene was the Inaugeration. The End.
Not sure Green understands how politics works in Washington. The Dems of the House do not share progressive ideals with the folks that post here. Even less in the Senate. Compromise is the way the game has been played, and compromise is what Obama sought, but I would argue he didn't play the game well. He was a rookie. He did not stand up and insist on party discipline. He did not lay down lines in the sand over which he would not cross. Instead, he gave away the store to his opponents. How does that look to Americans who want a leader?
Incrementalism is how Washington works, not through revolutionary change. Obama should have presented his vision of the nation, then taken that necessary second step: working for change. He didn't take that step.
Republicans never compromise and they never take incremental steps.
With all due respect are you referring to 'compromise' such as we have recently seen where Single Payer morphed into Public Option which then morphed into 'Triggers' which then morped into coops, which then morphed into a blank check for the For Profit insurance industry? Play that game if you must, but please play it over on the Huffinton Post where the readers are more inclined to Guru worship than the free thinkers (for the most part) you find here.
Agree. The Democrats have been compromising for decades and each time they do, their starting point is further and further to the right. The Republicans have yet to move their starting point to the left.
Yep. Compromise: that is the way the game is played. As I said, Obama never started from "Medicare for All"--he didn't start from anywhere! If he had started there, we could have wound up with a robust public option. He doesn't know how to govern--that is his problem. Folks that post here are so far from actually getting the reins of power that they place ideas regarded as radical by most Americans out there as if they are going to be taken seriously. Socialism will be sneaked in the back door, not brought down the main aisle.
If you regard a public option which most polls demonstrated support by the majority of Americans as radical, then we have no common ground to discuss anything. The type of compromise you are referring is an end game prospect dictated by the corporations whithout a fail safe against fascism.
On the "radical scale" robust public option is a 6. Medicare for all is an 8. Canadian style system is a 10. Obama needed to start with an 8--eventually to wind up at a 6. That should have been his approach all along--meeting someplace at a position left of 5--and telling Congress he can't accept a foolish corporate-friendly "solution."
That analogy is not quite right and I think it is effecting the quality of your analysis.
Shouldn't it really be an ideologically neutral set up: a ten point scale with 0 in the center and 1 thru 5 counting to the left for the "left" and 1 thru 5 counting to the right for the "right"?
Your version has 1 as both the most "right" or "Corporatist-ic" AND the least "radical".
The Constitution-shredding and Republic-busting SlaveCare bills are NOT less "radical" than a "Canadian style system" would be. I'd argue that they are MORE radical, in fact, but they are at least equal, just opposite.
It might seem like I am being nit-picky here, but I think it is VERY important that we not allow ourselves to accept -even unconsciously in our analogies- the Corporatist world-view as reality. Especially if we actually are trying to combat such things.
As for the Public Option and Medicare for All and how someone who actually wanted a low radical scale Healthcare update bill should have gone about the negotiations phase:
I totally agree that starting from a position on the medium-high left side of the scale in order to end up at the low left instead of the low (really high) right would have been the way to go.
But I disagree that the Public Option is on the left side of the (more accurate vesion of the) scale at all! I would have liked to have seen a start from real National Health with the compromise ending up at some version of extending Medicare coverage to all Citizens from birth to death, perhaps with an "opt out" clause for those who would rather pay for private insurance.
But that's kind of academic at this point.
Still think revising your scale is important though.
-matti.
I see the following possibilities, not all mutually exclusive:
1. Obama just wants to be a member of the elites and so willingly let's them carve up the pie, leaving only crumbs and the bill for everyone else.
2. Obama doesn't have a compelling vision, so he compromises with the compromised (aka bought) and imagines that somehow something will come out.
3. Obama justs want to be a front man like Bush and let others (cabinet and congress) do the heavy lifting.
4. Obama is really naive and has no idea about how to lead.
So: cynical?, incompetent? ,lazy?, clueless? Or some combination of these?
9/09 - A Republican member of Congress interrupted President Obama’s speech tonight on the floor of the House of Representatives to yell “You lie!” at the president,...
'Dems undercut Obama on health insurance mandate 'tax''
This is the Congress that Mr. Obama is supposed to lead?
----------
- How ‘bout dem Dems, eh? -
- Today's Democrats are, almost without exception, embarrassing hacks -
- what these fools have allowed to be done to the name of progressivism -
He mentions Mr. Obama 20 times by name.
FDR - 3 times
'Clinton' - 2
JFK - 1
He mentions no other Democrat. Is this attack article something personal?
Are you saying that you are SUPRISED that an article entitled "How to Squander the Presidency in One Year" focuses on the failings of the President?
The article does a good job of summarizing the complete (though predictable, and predicted) catastrophe of the past year. The truly crucial issue, however, is raised only near the end, when DMG contemplates,
"...What happens when you have two parties to choose from, and one of them wrecks the country with dramatically evil policies so radical even backward America hates them, but then you turn to the other party, which spends an entire year on the campaign trail promising change, only to turn out nearly identical to the first lot when in government?..."
This is the closest Green comes to confronting the underlying dilemma. Note that of the possibilities Green considers, NONE of them involves building a new truly Left-wing party. He considers turning to the tea-baggers, voting the Repugs back into office, & a Cheney/Palin style hard fascist dictatorship. No doubt the reason he doesn't even consider a new left-wing party is because he doesn't think it's possible (given the low political consciousness of most Americans, etc). But building a new left-wing party is the only possible place where a real solution lies.
Agree. Good article til DMG threw up his hands in the end. Perhaps he didn't want to admit a third party is needed, if for nothing else but to challenge power and influence policy until it can grow large enough to win major elections.
Nicely stated.
RichM
As near as I can tell and I'm following them as closely as I can, the Tea Baggers wouldn't have Cheney nor Palin either. They have as little use for Bushalikes as they do for Obama.
This seems a differnt bunch.
If anyone is interested, there already exists a "truly Left-wing party", one that shares a name with David Micheal GREEN.
It has organizations in most States already and also already has penetration into the public consciousness, so it will be easier to get it rolling than it would be to start a new party from scratch.
But it has also been significantly hollowed-out, humbled, and depopulated by defeat and bad strategy over the last decade, so there is massive potential for breathing such new life into it that it will be as if it is a "new" party.
I think that making a real attempt at rebuilding the Green Party into a progressive force is a -at least- a good first step. If it works, great, if it doesn't, then we can move on to forming a new party with more undestanding of how NOT to go about it than before.
For folks in Washington State, there is actually a convention to RECONSTITUTE the State Green Party being held Jan. 30th.
If it seems like a good idea to you, check it out. I'm not spamming so I'll just tell you that the info is on the Green Party website, do a site search for "Washington State Convention" you should find it.
-matti.
Fine matti, let's rebuild the Greens, but let's not stop there. Let's build a movement too. That would entail unifying all elements to the left of center. What could make more sense as a way to escape the stranglehold of the ruling duopoly?
Agreed, but so far (and this has been going on for years) the closest we've come to doing anything concrete about forming a third party (really a second party) is to talk endlessly about how desperately we need a third party. Of course the Greens come up every time, and the fact that they exist almost entirely in the abstract inhibits no one mentioning them as The Only Solution. They have pathetically failed. They've gotten essentially nowhere in 30 years. Scarcely anyone is going to jump on the Greens bandwagon these days. We need, we need, we need . . . but we never seem to . . . get.
Are there any reliable signs that Obama is not a Trojan horse or, to use a more contemporary metaphor, a sleeper agent, and that his cabinet is not a sleeper cell, that have now woken up to finish the job begun by Baby Bush?
I enjoyed this article. Green had alot of hope for Obama, while I was very sceptical, so his disappointment is greater than mine. I wonder if he's mistaking mendacity for ineptitude or vice versa. I'm not sure myself, but I think the answer is somewhere between, which is very chilling and depressing.
I'm not Nostradamus, but I certainly saw thorugh the Bammer from the git-go. I uploaded a YouTube video more than a year ago, called "Obama Bad":
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=duzu0hmW6pY
The part that most progressives are forgetting is that they were warned. A lot of Democrats knew Obama for a fraud right away. But most progs had their minds made up and were not listening.
It's all very well to quote The Who's song, "Won't Get Fooled Again," but we've got to make it happen. In the future--if we ever get another shot--we should listen to the people who didn't get bamboozled. This would include Cynthia Mckinney voters, like me, and Ralph Nader voters. (It would not, however, include anyone who voted for John McCain, as some angry Democrats apparently did.)
Great comment Perry!
Obama is not just naive and incompetent, he is also lazy. He won't engage his enemies mainly because it would take too much energy and he just doesn't have it in him. He also is another stunning example of a representative of the one-party state in Washington. There really isn't a difference between the two parties and we are given a false choice every four years.
"Obama is not just naive and incompetent, he is also lazy."
He's also very cynical and dishonest. He wants to some extant to be a member of the elites and so let them carve up the pie the way they want, leaving only crumbs and the bill for everyone else.
"Obama is not just naive and incompetent, he is also lazy."
He's also very cynical and dishonest. He wants to some extent to be a member of the elites and so let them carve up the pie the way they want, leaving only crumbs and the bill for everyone else.
I hate to say this because I was a big Obama advocate when he was running for President. I thought that he was an idealist and would work to get the country back to what it was originally intended to be, but I am so disappointed in him that I have given up on him and the U.S. completely.
He has shown absolutely no leadership, even with his own party. The Congress is running him, not the opposite. If he needed to go to the public to get them to make their elected officials vote for the policies that he campaigned on he should have done that - even (or especially) if they were Democrats.
Right now I see the country getting worse over the next 3 years. He is letting the Republicans, who have vowed to destroy his presidency, run things even though they don't have the votes to decide what pizza to order for lunch!
Unless there is a 3rd party that emerges, I don't see the reason to ever vote again. The Republicans are bent on enhancing the wealth of themselves and their friends while empovershing the rest of us, and the Democrats are so lame, even when you give them an absolute clear majority and mandate, they are too disfunctional get a bill passed. There is never a reason to vote for a Democrat again for as long as the U.S. exists.
Perry logan writes:
"The part that most progressives are forgetting is that they were warned. A lot of Democrats knew Obama for a fraud right away. But most progs had their minds made up and were not listening."
Oikos writes:
"Are there any reliable signs that Obama is not a Trojan horse or, to use a more contemporary metaphor, a sleeper agent, and that his cabinet is not a sleeper cell, that have now woken up ... "
Vern writes:
"I think we all have to face the fact that Obama didn't actually want to be president, he just wanted to win it.
Sort of like if he was cast to play the role of the first Black president and the final scene was the Inaugeration. The End."
--> Also well worth reading:
Barack Obama: Karl Rove's Manchurian Candidate
http://www.smirkingchimp.com/thread/26195
The "historic" flim-flam, the "black" birthday suit and whatnot, was a darn good way to cleanse the political palate from the reign of Cheney/Bush, finish destroying the Democratic Party of FDR, and pave the way for some corporate successor who's a "liberal" Republican (whose dubious deliciousness no doubt will be endlessly acclaimed by the always-snookered uber-left ... Tom Hayden, Alice Walker, Norman Solomon et al.).
"Third party" energy at this point plays mostly to this Republican victory, keeps "Democratic" corporatists in Congress -- but how many really have the heart to reclaim the Democratic Party, in boring central committee and state caucus meetings in a zillion local communities, is an open question.
The best thing imaginable: that Howard Dean -- who was the people's choice before he was sabbed by John Kerry (who threw the 2004 election AND, with Harry Reid, brought in the Obama Trojan Horse) -- run against Obama in 2012.
Dump Obama, draft Dean. It's that simple.
"...how many really have the heart to reclaim the Democratic Party... is an open question..."
- Don't be ridiculous. There's no such thing as "reclaiming" the Democratic Party. It's rotten to the core.
"...Dump Obama, draft Dean. It's that simple..."
- Spare me. Dean is an utterly mainstream figure, only marginally different from a Kerry, an Obama, or a Hillary. // And no, it's not "that simple." Anyone who thinks the solution is "just that simple" has no business even advancing an opinion, because what we're dealing with here has nothing to do with "candidates," but with the failure of the entire political system. The model itself is defective -- it can't be fixed by simply inserting another personality into it.
"it can't be fixed by simply inserting another personality into it." -- RichM
I agree with you! You may have already read Sheldon Wolin's book, Democracy, Inc., but if not, Professor Wolin explains at length about the mutation of our democracy into a fascist regime, and the interchangeable leader -- party affiliation matters NOT -- who manages the government, while the machinery behind him rolls on without pause.
The problems are deep and systemic, structural!
lwhunt330 writes:
"Obama is not just naive and incompetent, he is also lazy."
Were He a normal mortal, observers might well -- especially now, while He seems to be becoming ever-more-skeletal -- leap to assume "drugs".
It's a darn shame that all publicly-paid political "leaders" aren't given regular drug tests. If it's good enough for corporate sports figures, why not?
The Dem are the "Big Tent Full of Circus Clowns" Party
Zzzzzzzzzzz....
This author still ain't gettin the message, is he? Okay, one more time for the peanut gallery:
Frankly, they own the place.
Now, you can bitch and moan and rant and rave till you collapse about how Obama didn't do this and should've done that, but while you do, you must understand what a major f**king waste of time and energy it is.
Why? Because Obama is the General Manager the Owners of The Place hired to run The Place they Own. He does nothing unless the boss says it's okay. Nothing, understand?
It's like a reality show or the WWF - if you want to believe its real, and then write about it as if its real, go ahead. But the truth is it's all scripted and planned down to the second. So your writings about it from the POV that it's real are completely worthless.
Same with Obama.
Target the Owners, not the puppet.
The Supreme Court just reiterated the owners status as 'human beings'. Next, they will declassify the rest of us from 'human' to 'sub-corporate'.
Excellent post,Ubrew 12!
"It's like a reality show or the WWF - if you want to believe its real ..."
Good point.
2012 -Hope and Change, I really mean it this time! Really!
"It's the same party that could run a decorated combat hero against a war evader in 1972, only to be successfully labeled as national security wimps."
"Just to be sure, it then did the exact same thing again in 2004."
There was hardly anything heroic about Kerrys terrorizing and murdering the people of the Mekong Delta from his swift boat, then his profoundly cynical "winter soldier" act, both calculated stunts to boost his Obama-like lust for high political office. But US politics doesn't even give us space to deconstruct the sordidness of US politics in this way.
This article is nuts on. No one in our government (Republicans or Democrats) gives a rats a$$ about the citizenry. Sad.
I go with the 'trojan horse' theory. I always have.
I saw no reason to think he was credible. "Change you can believe in". When i first saw that on his lecturn, my hair was raised. How Orwellian is that!?
And i saw how everyone was suddenly in love with this man. I found it quite bizarre and unsettling. I thought he is good at one thing. Campaigning. That is all he has ever really done. Including his so called community organizing.
The author writes some things here that are obviously true. But the over arching narrative is wrong here. Because he assumes that Obama had the intention of doing anything differently, in the first place.
What amazes me is that this point is still not comprehended by so many people. Quite frankly. I see this naivete as extreme as those who are still expecting to find the weapons of mass destruction in iraq.
"What amazes me is that this point is still not comprehended by so many people. Quite frankly. I see this naivete as extreme as those who are still expecting to find the weapons of mass destruction in iraq." -- readytotransform
I agree!
Dump Obama, Draft Dean.
When I think of Obama's neutered Presidency as illustrated by Green's article, I'm drawn to consider the potential validity of some of the darker charges concerning our democracy. Saying that our elected officials don't actually govern is not new, but believing it is different, because it admits the powerlessness of us all. Two sources of backdoor control, corporatocracy and military-industrial-complex (MIC), seem the most likely reasons for the puzzling inability of our democracy to do more than throw new paint on old equipment.
Russ Baker was the first person I ran across, here in CD, talking frankly about the powerlessness of the President against the MIC:
http://www.commondreams.org/video/2009/11/20
along with John Perkins warning about corporatocracy.
also, a good Russ Baker read in
http://www.truthout.org/11020910
I'm not sure what to do about all this, but we might start by recognizing the futility in throwing spitballs at the current resident of 1600 Pennsylvania Ave. Maybe they just don't have as much control as we think. Baker hints quite explicitly that assassination is not out of the MIC's trade-space.
RichM writes:
"The model itself is defective -- it can't be fixed by simply inserting another personality into it."
The only possible electoral solution is to bring an actual leader -- the people's choice from 2004, whom the corpo-crats went to great lengths to unhorse -- into it, rather than another "personality".
Or ... you're welcome to try middle-class mobs with machetes, pikes and cudgels -- it's well-warranted, but perhaps impracticable in the surveillance-security state over which Oblabla fecklessly presides.
Time is short: Dump Obama / Draft Dean.
The "progressives" in the Congress ought to be leading the way on this.
So it is now the job of Congress members to "draft" Presidents?
It is strange, your name is Dem-dat-dare, but you write about the United States as if it was Imperial Rome.
How about this for an "electoral solution": vote for progressives for Congress this year, and worry about the Presidency in TWO YEARS when it is relevant!
As completely conspiratorial and ridiculous as it may seem I wondered aloud many times during the run up to the election if the Repubs had actually wanted to LOSE that election.
They ran a horrible campaign and McCain's pick for VP was among the most absurd I had ever seen. It left me wondering if perhaps the plan was to allow the Dems to take the White House knowing full well that there would be no way (even if it were actually desired) to repair the damage of the previous decade, thus allowing the Repubs to rant about the ineffectiveness of the Dems to do anything and retake the White House in 2012 bigger and stronger than ever.
Now I am considering even more ridiculous and conspiratorial theories. Perhaps this wasn't just the plan of the Repubs but was actually worked out with members of the Dems (Obama included) to totally decimate the Dem party and allow the long term return of the NeoCons to unfettered power.
Craziness, I know, but like the assertions that 911 was simply ineptitude and incompetence of epic proportions...I find it very, very difficult to believe (like with 911) that this level of ineptitude and incompetence on the part of the Dems and Obama is even possible.
I don't think its "crazy", and the fact that the Repub leadership "conspires" to get its party into power and keep it there is no secret -its the leadership's openly acknowledged purpose.
I think the way to look at it is that they knew that the damage of the Bush years was too great to keep them in power, so they were smart enough to concede the hopelessness of 2008 and plan for a comeback after the crap all hit the fan on the Dem's watch.
I see what's happening here as an attempt by the Duopolists to change roles in their "good cop/bad cop" game.
In a nation of People who are aware and awake, this would spell disaster for them as everyone would then be able to see through the game.
What will happen in "America"?
-matti.
Darn Professor Green as they say, don't hold back, tell us what you really think!
Fair analysis. Especially the part that starts " Another great trick for crashing a presidency is to pick all the wrong priorities to ‘fight"
OH SO RIGHT, Professor Green!
"Today, that means Republicans, as witnessed in Virginia, New Jersey and now Massachusetts. The absurdity of this, of course, is that it was these exact same people who created this astonishingly thorough mess we find ourselves in."
I do have to differ with you in the respect yhat these are NOT the same Republicans as Cheney or Palin. They were not elected by the same people that elected Bush/Cheney either for the most part.
"Of course, I don't give a shit about Barack Obama anymore"
You sir, are not rowing that boat alone. Over 65% of the population is paddling with you. The man has marginalized himself.
"I do have to differ with you in the respect that these are NOT the same Republicans as Cheney or Palin. They were not elected by the same people that elected Bush/Cheney either for the most part."
Nahhh...they're the same guys. White guys with trucknutz on their jacked-up pickups or fundamentalist anti-gay-anti-nature supremacists, or mid-level corporate executives who do not give a shit about the environment or the poor or good government or the Constitution, so long as they get their fat bonuses and America kicks ass militarily and new football stadiums get built. They're the guys who think the Democratic Party has degenerated to being just the party for wimmin, queers and colored folk... the taxers, not the movers and shakers.
It's the same people that were Bush voters who are now the Teabaggers who hate taxes for anything and Obama for everything, who hate the FDR Socialism that saved this nation from the last Republican National Ruination, also called The Great Depression. Teabaggers don't realize they are being manipulated and played by some of the wealthiest men and corporations in the world, the same wealthy men and corporations that bought the US government from the Reagan Republicans, and now run it behind the federal facade that is so hated by those same Teabaggers. What a bunch of friggin Dimwits. And Obama has kowtowed to please these greedy jackass rightwingers so much, that they are winning elections simply because Obama's dejected and disappointed real base stays home on election day.
And it's the same kind of white guys from the last twenty years Obama thought were so smart, that he would take their advice. Some advice. So much for trying to please those fuckwads, the exact same ones that got us into the current fiascos.
It's just like the Wall Street Banksters. Over 80% of them Hate Obama, even though by rights they ought to be on their knees kissing his ass. So how does that work? What logic is this? He saved their bacon. And they fuck him over. Hey buddy, that's the Corporate Way. That's Capitalism - buy low and fuck that guy, then sell high and fuck that guy too - that's the extent of capitalism's ethics and morality. If there is another dollar in it, screw anyone in the way, even someone who just saved your life.
The Capitalist RightWingers are like the scorpion in the story of The Frog and the Scorpion. Scorpion promises not to sting Frog if Frog would save Scorpion by taking Scorpion across the river, since after all Sorpion would drown if it stung Frog mid-river. Frog says OK and helps Scorpion. Mid-river, Scorpion stings Frog to death. Frog say Why, because I helped you and you will now drown? Scorpion say, Because it is my Nature. Same with capitalism, same with corporatism. Obama is now Frog, stung mid-river by the corporate scum he tried to help across river on their own advice. Now this Nation is Frog. Do we help Scorpion?
Now Obama understands that he should have nationalized the banks instead, and to hell with the treasonous, treaacherous lying banksters who pretended to be his friends and earnest honest counselors. He should now say he realizes he has been mis-led by his hopes of bi-partisanship, that the hand he reached out to them, in his new and hopeful spirit of working together in a spirit of compromise for the good of the nation, has been ripped, bitten and mauled by the ungrateful, spiteful, stupid, vicious, mean-sprited, rabid dogs of the right, the Republicans and their ilk.
Obama now must say, the rabid dogs of the right have had their moment, have had a chance for friendship. And from now on he is going to put them down as the rabid vermin they are. And since he is called a socialist anyway, he will show them Socialism. Like the article above explained. Or he will fail himself and the American people.
And, in penalty for the last decade, the Republican Party and the BrownShirt-TeaBaggers some Republicans now call themselves (apparently unaware that their cause is secretly monetarily suported by banksters and rich rightists and started and kept agitated by corportions and the corporate MSM) must be destroyed, for the good of the nation and the world... and as a lesson to the Democrats that they had better follow the FDR and Socialist trail laid out for them by better humans than they are today. Or else.
FVHorn
I'll just have to disagree with you. They do not look like that to me. And they are not mostly Republicans. Mostly Independents with quite a number of Democrats.
They, I am sure of this are not what the Democrats have portayed them to be.
Mr. Obama is already finished. I'm not sure where you saw him "reach" out in a bi-partisan fashion, I missed it. But he is one and done. And marginalized for the rest of his presidency. He lost the very people he needed.
The appropriate caution that the T-Baggers I have talked to personally are mostly in my state, just a few around the country, though I tried to find every town hall Y-Tube clip or any other on them.
Barack Obama has now, in just a year's time, become the single most inept president perhaps in all of American history, and certainly in my lifetime.
No, the Nobel Prize for Ineptitude still belongs without challenge to George Wanker Bush. What Obama gets is the Nobel Prize for Hubris which I define as a cross between arrogance and stupidity. Obama's betrayal cannot be measured in words. What can is Obama's iron clad belief that his mere words can make anybody believe anything, no matter that his actions say precisely the opposite. All he has to do is utter the words and America will swoon and bat its lashes as the stars twinkle in his eyes and his teeth gleam like halogen headlights. The election in Massachusetts finished that off. No one but the dwindling ranks of unquestioning Obamabots is going to believe a word of his worn out and tiresome high school valedictorian speeches, including even the definite and indefinite articles. Without the silver tongue, what is Obama? He is George Wanker Bush. "Uhhhhhhmmmmm . . . . uhhhhh . . . golly gee . . . uhhhmmmm, let's see here." (Big smile and a wave of the hand) "Hey, nice to see ya." Three more years of that shit!
Very well said, Mr. Green.
I think it should appear in every major news source in the country.
That is a big part of the problem, IT WON'T!
swansong writes:
"Now I am considering even more ridiculous and conspiratorial theories. Perhaps this wasn't just the plan of the Repubs but was actually worked out with members of the Dems (Obama included) to totally decimate the Dem party and allow the long term return of the NeoCons to unfettered power.
Craziness, I know ... "
--> That's NOT craziness. As it was, when it looked as though the Republicans might win the election in spite of it all, McCain and Obama joined forces to race back to DC to start transferring the Treasury to the corporations.
See also:
Barack Obama: Karl Rove's Manchurian Candidate
http://www.smirkingchimp.com/thread/26195
by Chris Rowthorn
Jan. 20, 2010
One of the more awful thing about the 2008 election, both the primaries and the general, was that major media people who KNEW better quashed every quibble about Obama, declared Him a great orator (he's anything BUT), a brilliant legal scholar (not at all), let his "it's in my DNA" b.s. go by, made it into a plebiscite on "racism", etc.
Dump Obama / Draft Dean
This is also what happens when you run as a 'saviour'-in-chief'. Why anyone would want to walk into that scenario is beyond my comprehension.
Trojan horse that i feel he was/is. I still think it is unfathomable to set yourself up like that.
Or not.
Prof. Green deserves credit for repeatedly raising specter of fascism in the near or medium term. Although he can be faulted for not spelling out the meaning of "fascism" in his usage, he obviously has in mind the classic fascist models of 1930's Europe. Likewise he does not use "fascist" as a mere term of abuse. Also to his credit he recognizes that the Palin-Beck-Teabaggers are right-wingers--not just "populists" of indeterminate political coloration, as so many hopeful folks maintain--and provide the petty bourgeois (middle or lower-middle class) wherewithal for the future mass basis of American fascism.
soloduff writes:
"[Green] does not use "fascist" as a mere term of abuse."
In fact, he does not use it at all. Same for populism, populist, etc.
The "tea-baggers", like the Obama campaign mobs, are mostly new to political life. They'll change (just as Hillary Clinton changed from Goldwater girl to ... whatever she is now).
As for "petty bourgeois" [petit-bourgeois, by which soloduff may mean, actually, "lumpenproletariat"], the only class analysis necessary in this Obama deflation is rich/un-rich ...
Dem-dat: You are mistaken. Today's article by Green specifically uses the words "full on fascist dictatorship" as well as "Limbaughs and Becks and Palins" (Green's plural usages). Limbaugh, Beck and Palin are in public fact vying for leadership of the Teabaggers. Palin is the lead speaker at the upcoming national Tea Party convention. I also took Green's plural usages to denote the movement associated with Limbaugh, Beck, and Palin, which includes the Teabaggers. My post criticized Green for not being more specific on his usage of the term "fascism". I assumed that Common Dreams readers were aware of Green's handful of articles over the past few months in which he wrote at some length on the right-wing "populism" that today's article leaves as only an allusion. (Perhaps you are new to CD: check the archive for Green's past articles.) Finally, you are likewise mistaken re my usage of "petty bourgeois": This term is no solecism, and I explicitly named its class referent as "middle or lower-middle class" (my words). Thus I am at a loss to explain your claim that I may mean your "lumpenproletariat" by my "petty bourgeois." Your last claim, to the effect that "rich/un-rich" is sufficient "class analysis" for the discussion, only demonstrates the poverty of your analysis. Nor does the term "rich" denote a class. Rich proletarians are called the labor aristocracy. Rich petty bourgeoisie are called parvenus. Rich capitalists are called successful. And so on.
There will be lots of confusion, anger and very nasty details, as the fascist amerikan empire continues to fail ! Remember amerikans DO NOT like to lose wars, toys, homes, jobs and face ! Find a good hiding place; good luck with that one.
tioche, Mexico
Dems used to be the party of the people and labor.
Too bad they didn't inform their base when they decided to change their platform.
The Dems failed and will continue to fail. Not becasue they're weak, stupid, or spineless. Once they decided to go with corporate interests, it's impossible to do the will of the people. There's no way to reconcile those two conflicting interests.
Tune them out.
Turn them off.
Purge them all.
The dems used to be the party of slave holders.
Lincold was a republican.
None of them stand for anything now.
Forget the system.
dear free...ass,
I think it's more like we wanted to count on the Democratic Party to be the party of people and labor as they have been, however inconsistently, in the past. So now we're pissed. You say too bad they didn't inform their base, but regardless of what they've said, the information has been available, the sellout has been gradual but relentless and close to universal. Did anyone really believe Obama was going to govern significantly to the left of Clinton? Based on what?
What disturbs me about all the cries of betrayal is this: it says it's our elected representatives and not us, the people, who are ultimately responsible for where we are. This denies the power inherent in an engaged citizenry. Obama promised centrism and has delivered it in a political system that has moved so far right that it makes ridiculous the harsh denunciations of progressives raging that this cautious centrist establishment Democrat President we helped elect is not governing like a progressive. Sorry, but this is childish. Progressives have a lot more work to do before we can produce a viable candidate for President and a Congress that can enable her or him to fight for progressive legislation and rise to meet the huge challenges that are in our faces NOW. Meanwhile, I'm taking care not to underestimate the intelligence of Barack Obama.
I usually try to read everything posted on CD but I cannot stand another article with the why we're disappointed in tOmbama theme.
knowyourbrain writes:
"I usually try to read everything posted on CD but I cannot stand another article with the why we're disappointed in tOmbama theme."
Read carefully, and not only on CommonDreams: the real theme is "OVER Obama". Free at last!
I feel like one of the runners who followed Forrest Gump across the country, when finally Forrest decides to stop running. One of the runners says to another runner, "Now what do we do?".
I hear what you are saying loud and clear David, but where does that leave the vast numbers of progressives who are disillusioned? Such as waste! I thought that we were going to change the world! Gee - what a shame!
matti writes:
"I think that making a real attempt at rebuilding the Green Party into a progressive force is a -at least- a good first step. If it works, great, if it doesn't, then we can move on to forming a new party with more undestanding of how NOT to go about it than before."
The Green Party is just the Democratic Party's steerage class, where reality-challenged people go to write up fanciful platforms that surpass even the Big Dems' for dreadfully-"correct" positions, and have faction fights.
Not that it's a BAD thing: it's an okay place to cast a protest vote, and for crazy people to run for Congress, Governor, and so on.
The only way around the hijacked Democratic Party, alas, is through the middle.
Why don't you use the "reply" function?
Also, I'm sorry, but you are going to have to actually make some real arguments if you want me to dialogue with you.
Just spouting pithy opinions with no back-up followed by a throw-away attempt at "strategy", also with no back-up, doesn't give me anything to respond to, does it?
Am I supposed to defend the Green Party and its members from your opinion of them?
Why?
Am I supposed to attempt to "draw out" whatever alternate course to my suggestion may be lurking behind your last sentence?
Nah.
-matti.
Wonderful to read such a clear and powerful statement about the OBOMINATION of America, sad though it is. One detail to correct - Bush wasn't just a "war evader" when he ran in '72, he was a DESERTER. Under the Uniform Code of Military Justice, being AWOL for more than 30 days automatically carries the charge of desertion, and in time of war (for which soldiers have been shot). Would that the dems had balls they and fired that across Bush's bows it could have wakened a significant number of voters and...
Er...Nixon ran in '72 against the decorated McGovern. But was he a "war evader"? I don't know.
PLease, all you Retarded Democrats....It was Slick Willie,
aka Bubba Clinton who gave us Nafta, WTO, and with the help
of George H W Bush, gave us Globalization. This game plan
ended up with our industrial base being outsourced to China.
We have lost more than seven million good paying jobs..
It was also the same Slick Willie Clinton who destroyed the
Glass Steagall Act that gave the Banksters and the Enronists
a free hand to rape the country. Obama is a clear Pattern
of Slick Willie..Why isn't this being mentioned in all these
slick paragraphs? Why is the Clinton Circus getting away with
this game? Mr Green, where are you? Hello?
matti writes:
"So it is now the job of Congress members to "draft" Presidents?"
--> Congress? Did someone mention Congress? Not I. But note that Harry Reid, and smarm-king John Kerry, DID draft Obama, he of the unassailable birthday suit and elastic loyalties.
"It is strange, your name is Dem-dat-dare, but you write about the United States as if it was Imperial Rome."
--> It's Imperial Rome with television, freeways, and TSA.
"How about this for an "electoral solution": vote for progressives for Congress this year, and worry about the Presidency in TWO YEARS when it is relevant!"
--> If you can find "progressive" candidates (or have a "progressive" incumbent) -- formerly a code word for "communist", now a way to avoid saying "liberal" -- to vote for, by all means go for it. (In some districts, of course, Democrats voting for hopeless "Green" candidates will throw "Democratic" districts to the Republicans ... but what the heck ... )
--> The US presidency -- hijacked in 2008 by a corporate bait-and-switch candidate operating on false pretenses -- is ALWAYS "relevant" -- there's a throw-back word! :^)
--> Dump Obama / Draft Dr. Dean <--
That first quote is in reponse to your post that ended thusly:
"The "progressives" in the CONGRESS ought to be leading the way on this."(emphasis mine)
Do you see NOW, where you "mention(ed) Congress"?
Are you drunk or something?
Sure the Presidency is "ALWAYS relevant". But it will not be relevant to "electoral solutions" -which was the, y'know, CONTEXT of the sentence- for two years, just as I said.
Maybe you're NOT drunk, huh? Maybe you live under a bridge?
Either way, you're no longer interesting.
Have Fun,
-matti.
Mr. Green,
Well said!
soloduff writes:
"You are mistaken. Today's article by Green specifically uses the words 'full on fascist dictatorship'"
By golly, it DOES, and one use of "a fascist" as well. I stand corrected.
I doubt there's a teabagger in the crowd we couldn't turn. Moreover, I hold out some hope that the young folks in the cities, some of them unacquainted with the niceties of the academy, and many of them uncaring of Palin-Limbaugh et al., may well spontaneously -- at the fall of some presently-unanticipatable last straw -- take it into their empty little heads spontaneously to advance Oblabla's dialectic ... but never mind. :^|
Freddie Kilowatt writes:
"It was Slick Willie,
aka Bubba Clinton who gave us Nafta, WTO, and with the help
of George H W Bush, gave us Globalization."
AND "welfare reform", which Oblabla's present so-called medical "reform" somewhat resembles: mandatory everything, nothing for the poor, much for non-profits and for big corporations.
Clinton's "welfare reform" was VERY hard on poor people, especially on poor BLACK people in cities -- that Obama would send BOTH the Clintons to Haiti (where they got the all-important MOU on the airport from Preval, before the dust had settled) is another obscenity among the burgeoning bouquet of "Democratic" obscenities accomplished, if that's the right word, by Obaaama.
I remember when that welfare reform was passed. I was still transcribing public hearings for the New York State Legislature and some hearings at CUNY. I remember the heartbreaking testimony of young black women who were on welfare and also taking advantage of that help to go college, many of them with kids. These women were succeeding, excellent grades and working very hard -- they wanted out of the welfare system, they wanted a decent life for themselves and their kids. Many of them, within months of graduating at the top of their classes, had to drop out of college due to the onerous welfare reform legislation, because now they had to go to full-time menial jobs -- like picking up garbage in the park -- to pay for their welfare benefits.
Welfare reform was a travesty for all races!
Right now, in NYC, if you need help with rent, you'll find that the agencies allow $215 for rent each month. That amount wouldn't help me in my hometown in Iowa, let alone here in the city. A few weeks ago, the authorities voided all of the Section 8 Housing vouchers -- after they had sent them out. I haven't heard if the decision has been challenged.
But, the bansters are raking in billions in bonuses. To hell with the people!
Under "Slick Willie" -- I can't leave out the deregulation of the the telecom industries -- 1996.
"The "progressives" in the CONGRESS ought to be leading the way on this."(emphasis mine)
You're right, BUT ... that was an afterthought, to convey "why do we have to draft Dean?" Why aren't our supposed REPRESENTATIVES speaking out against Obama's defection to the near-far right?, etc.
When I say "Dump Obama / Draft Dr. Dean", I'm talking about da people, i.e., those who probably don't get PAID to talk about politics, but whose main role is to cast ballots and to bear the consequences, including sending/being the cannon fodder, of the outcome of the elections.
It's no joke: Afghanistan, Iraq, Pakistan. A million homeless in the US that nobody ever talks about, six million with no income but food stamps, that no politician ever mentions, etc.
Spot on, Mr. Green!
Before even quite finishing this article I have to say it's the best ever from David Green. I'm laffing out loud. This is brilliant. The stuff about Obama being a Manchurian candidate planted by the Republicans to destroy the Democrats from within? I was saying this 8 months ago, when it already was seeming this bad. The Republicans can scream "socialist!" from now till doomsday, which will likely occur in the next 3 years under this buffoon of a president, but they know this "Democrat" is the best Republican since Bill Clinton.
One thing I'm wondering is how long before the fetching Rachel Maddow catches on to what a crushing fraud Obama is. She still defends the guy, only because he's the favorite whipping boy (consensually so, as Green persuasively argues) of the Repugs. If they hate him, Rachel has to stand by her man. She's too smart to keep up that absurd shtick.
I was laughing and crying at the same time. It is one of Green's best. "Barry in the Bushes" was very funny. This, however, is quite frightening, because several months have passed since that last article, and I try very hard to keep those apocalyptic visions of the future at bay, too, but it is difficult. I don't give about Barack Obama either, anymore. I don't care what happens to him. He doesn't care what happens to working people like us, regardless of their race or creed. My reasons for not wanting him to be taken out, though, is purely selfish, and it's the same way I felt about Bush. Obama, more than Bush, would be turned into a virtual saint, a martyr for the people. Although the makers of Obama paraphernalia would make an absolute killing (no pun intended).
I have felt much the same way as that expressed by Green. But, feelings are not facts. Among the facts that are ignored by the hyper-critical approach to assessing Obama's first year are those consisting in the unprecedented dire straits the economy was in and remains in.
The USA has entered a phase of irreversible economic collapse. Many have probably heard the phrase "extend and pretend" referring to the way in which the public and private US indebtedness is being handled. There are no viable alternatives to that indebtedness and it has killed the economy. We are running on empty, fumes only.
US social cohesiveness cannot be taken for granted. We are a powder keg society, operating on a short fuse at present. A few more food and fuel shortages and we could explode. As a progressive myself, I know how it feels to recognize that President Obama is a centrist, corporatist Democrat, who steadfastly maintains there's no Red States and no Blue ones.
However, the social divisions in the USA are deep and wide and a few long gas lines might tip us over the edge.
It is best, I think, to hold back on the criticism, absent a coherent strategy on what to do about the collapsed economy.
Actually, the economic collapse could be largely reversed. But you would have to tax the rich and the corporations. And you would have to find a way to collect those taxes, and then use the money to start creating good-paying jobs, probably "Green" jobs.
Politically, this doesn't seem possible under the Dem/Rep government. But without that government, we could do it!
Nice job Mr. Beck, I mean, Green:
<"Ridiculous? I try pretty hard every day - and it takes some work - to keep my most apocalyptic totalitarian nightmares for this country in check. But think about this chronological sequence for a second...">
Is that a tear I see?
I have to say that I agree with most of what you're saying, but one of the differences between progressives and "regressives" is that progressives are supposed to be adults, and shouldn't be indulging in paranoid, worse-case scenarios. Or is that one of the problems... progressives are the adults in a land full of infants.
If scorched-earth policy gets you what you want, democracy be damned (as it appears to be the most effective method of governing a la 8 years of Bush), then do progressives adopt it to bring about change and risk losing their soul? Or, to put it another way, if the majority of a people in a democracy want to ignore what's in their best interest, isn't it undemocratic to overrule their will and do what will help them the most (like Jim Webb believes)?
It was fun while it lasted though, but like every good party there's a hangover the next morning... and maybe worse when the beer goggles wear off.
Sincerely,
Cynically Content.
Nixon was a Quaker--I don't believe he did any time in the military--although he should have done some time in prison--but in this shit hole of a nation, of course he wouldn't have to.
Nixon was in the Navy during WWII. He is now a buck private cleaning latrines in Hell.
That's not George McGovern's opinion. McGovern respects Nixon's deft handling of the Communist superpowers, and believes his legacy in averting World War III (and nuclear extinction) will redeem him in history's eyes. Unlike 'Man Of The Century' Winston Churchill, who never missed a chance to go to world war.
"One option is to find another party. To some extent that is happening, but absolutely not where it should be. "
Why mention the Tea Party, an astroturf project by wealthy Republican financiers, and not one of the actual parties that has been struggling with the corporate duopoly for years, like the Greens, the Libertarians, or state-level parties like the Vermont Progressives? You know, the parties that have actually elected people against a stacked electoral system and indifferent corporate media?
With all due respect, Prof. Green, the Green Party and their candidates like Ralph Nader have been trying to tell folks like you the truth about the Democratic Party for decades. Please remember that before you get swept up in another great marketing campaign and dismiss us.
I'm glad that for many here, your screed against Obama's perceived betrayal of his voters is resonating. Personally, it doesn't tell me anything I didn't already know. I admit that while I didn't vote for him, even I didn't expect him to be this bad.
At this point, it's time to actually put your money where your mouth is, leave the rotting Democratic Party, and get involved with a national progressive party that actually shares your goals and aspirations. Or would you prefer to ping-pong back and forth between Dems and Repubs for the next 100 years?
Go Green, Professor Green. Don't mourn, organize!
When are you going to figure out that MoveOn.org has become an astroturf project backed by wealthy Democratic financiers, ala George Soros? Both sides get manipulated. Wake up!
It feels like we're locked in our seats on a train flying like a bullet toward a new age of slavery and superstition. If the only political options were the ones recognized by the American political system, then perhaps the despair shown by DMG would be justified. But I don't believe it is.
There are alternative political possibilities, but to realize them the first step is to abandon the obsessive focus on Obama. DMG says he no longer cares about Obama, but he obviously does or else he wouldn't blame the failure of an entire political system on him. The roots of this crisis go a lot deeper than the lack of leadership of one man, even the President.
The focus on the failures of the Democratic Party masks a continued faith in the American system. Some of us believe that the American people are great enough to reinvent their system of government and that is exactly what's currently needed: to recognize that the system of government founded 200 years ago was flawed in ways that can no longer be fixed and to accept the challenge of creating a new system of government based on fulfilling human needs and recreating a flourishing human and natural ecology. See http://nonviolentjesus.blogspot.com.
"It feels like we're locked in our seats on a train flying like a bullet toward a new age of slavery and superstition."
I find your optimism refreshing.
Wow. WOW! What a catalog of feckless Democrats and reckless Republicans! That must have felt very cathartic, Prof. Green. I know it was for me.
Previously I had felt that Nixon and Reagan and younger Bush were the lowest points in Presidencies in my lifetime, but even with them I was reminded of the old joke with the punchline, "You knew I was a snake when you took me in." But with Obama I feel I was totally punked.
My belief is that the Obama apologists, seeing Obama as their last, best hope, trying to defend him in the face of absurd Republican onslaughts and heartbreaking Progressive onslaughts, that they are actually helping prolong the agony of the way this Presidency is going.
I'm telling all the Democratic fund raisers coming to me for handouts, "Thanks but no thanks, and thanks for Nothing." I'm going Green.
Well said, DavidQ!!
Hey, folks, all this hatred and rage. Remember what Che said about the nature of revolutionaries: the core quality is love.
"Of course, I don't give a shit about Barack Obama anymore, other than my desire that really ugly things happen to him as payment in kind for the grandest act of betrayal we've seen since Benedict Arnold did his thing." - Green
With due respect for some clarity and skillful rage-channeling by Mr. Green, this hateful motivation seals our fate. It is a reflection of the psychotic right.
Karma: it's the law.
Beware of indulgence in catharsis as a substitute for effective action.
"Remember what Che said about the nature of revolutionaries: the core quality is love."
Yes, Kat, and he said that just before giving credulous folks such as yourself a bullet in the brain.
vanderleun,
I was speaking metaphorically. Guevarra was very clear about what the enemy was in the idealistic beginnings of the revolution but was ultimately transformed by the experience of bringing down violence on his countrymen to achieve abstract goals. I still believe he was visionary and correct when he said what motivates revolutionaries is love. I also believe that non-violence is the only means of manifesting enduring social change.
""One option is to find another party.""
WHAT?, you mean another party where the current rats will jump to and still be the same from in the other party? That is too far ludicrous unless all who jump create a large enough party to get into office, executive AND legislative, people who would and could undo the damage done( I just could not say 'change') and it would not happen in a single election.
But I do believe that yes, to stop this aristocratic take-over and takedown, voting for reliable candidates from any other party than D or R is a way to go and candidates that would be more transparent that any before.
There was this business associate in Ohio I knew once who Obama reminds me of. He was on the surface professional, competent, and well spoken. So I started doing business with him with a fairly high confidence level. Within a few months, however, it was revealed he was generally incompetent and also in his case dangerously volatile. I had to discontinue working with him; I had no choice in my view.
Obama is like him except that Obama is at least not volatile. As the author of this article states, Obama is showing incompetence in a rather dull, non-volatile way.
Although I am not an expert on personalities, I think that people like this, who appear to be competent but when all is said and done are not very competent, are all too common.
As for this article, it’s very thorough, very accurate, and very well written. Its very, very unfortunate that anyone would be motivated to write this article, but it is Mr. Obama's fault that someone was so motivated.
It is my impression, from reading other articles, that Obama's volatility comes out on members of his own party when they disagree with him, if the DeFazio incident is to be believed. He's subtle but vicious and snide. That came across in a couple of his town halls. I'm sure Obama would have no idea that us common, stupid, gullible people caught these "slips," but we did -- because there's a large measure of us that aren't that gullible and do look closely at something or someone who appears "to good to be true."
I have never found Obama warm, convincing or sincere. I remember during the campaign they had a lunch or dinner with Obama thing -- some contest. I remember thinking at that time thinking this is the last person I would want to have an extended conversation with. He leaves me cold.
Samalabear: I agree with you. I once watched Obama react to criticism and his tone was nasty -- so much so that a chill went up-and-down my spine.
Not all of us are gullible!
You cannot become the president of the United States, or a senator from any state, without having a very large and robust opinion of yourself. That goes for dullards like George Wanker Bush or James Inhofe or intelligent people like Obama. I wonder if Obama's opinion of himself is shaken at all by twelve months of disaster for the American people or his beloved and thoroughly corrupt Democratic party. Yes, he is demonstrably incompetent. That didn't stop Bush and it won't stop him. We're basically back where we were when Bush left office and we're still using Cheesedick Cheney's maps to guide us from day to day. The Time of the Muddle-Through can't go on for much longer.
If Obama is as you say "intelligent", then how it it he can also be so "demonstrably incompetent"? Can you expand on the mechanics of this phenomenon?
Hannah Arendt once wrote, naming it "The Rule by Nobody" --
"These definitions coincide with the terms which, since Greek antiquity, have been used to define the forms of government as the rule of man over man -- of one or the few in monarchy and oligarchy, of the best or the many in aristocracy and democracy, to which today we ought to add the latest and perhaps most formidable form of such dominion, bureaucracy, or the rule by an intricate system of bureaux in which no men, neither one nor the best, neither the few nor the many, can be held responsible, and which could be properly called the rule by Nobody. Indeed, if we identify tyranny as the government that is not held to give account of itself, rule by Nobody is clearly the most tyrannical of all, since there is no one left who could even be asked to answer for what is being done. It is this state of affairs which is among the most potent causes for the current world-wide rebellious unrest."
In 1968, Hannah Arendt made these obserations in an article for the New York Review of Books following the protests. I thought her words were worth posting.
"...Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
The ceremony of innocence is drowned;
The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity..."
W.B. Yeats
Face it. You're fucked.
And the rest of us won't be far behind.
Please
Don't let the country that gave the world the First Amendment, descend into chaos, anarchy and fascism. I'm hoping it's not too late.
Bill in Canada
This is said so well. We have this century's Jimmy Carter, the last President who accomplished almost nothing due to his uncommon decency. Only, it only took Obama less than one year to give up the store.
Samalabear writes:
" ... Obama's volatility comes out on members of his own party when they disagree with him, if the DeFazio incident is to be believed. He's subtle but vicious and snide."
Just in time for the State of the Union and Bernanke, Plouffe re-treaded, campaign mode, before-the-fall redux:
Obama Moves to Centralize Control Over Party Strategy
By JEFF ZELENY and PETER BAKER
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/24/us/politics/24union.html?hp
It has gotten so bad that there are even loser weak and confused democrats saying that they believe that 'Obama's worse than Bush'!!
In what way is ''Obama's worse than Bush'?
I ask this because with only a 1/4 of his first term over he is being procaimed a failed president despite the IMPOSSIBILITY of ANYONE being able to clean up 30 years of Reaganite/Thatcherite neo liberal misrule in a SINGLE YEAR! A period that has seen a reverse of the diminishing wealth differntials world wide to a return to the pre World War one situation of compromised democracy and increased elite wealth monopoly.
Obama has done actually many good things in his first year in a situation that is desperatly hard: to wit;
Bush allowed 9/11 to happen: Obama didn't.
Bush Started 2 wars; Obama is trying to finish them. (and succeed in Afghanistan as he promised he would from 2007 onwards)
Bush destroyed the Worlds economy; Obama has saved it.
Bush tried to start a new Cold War with Russia over the US provoked 'Georgia Crises' and deliberatly provocative missiles; Obama stopped it.
Bush said No torture but bought it back ('24') Obama banned it.
Bush said screw you to diplomacy and Obama revived it.
Bush started the world wide neo racist Islamophobic Movement (inventing the nonsense 'Islamofascism')
Obama has stopped the rules refusing aid to countries that use 'birth control methods.'
Obama has reversed many of the anti enviromental legal changes put in by 'Dick' Cheney and his buddies.
Obama has put to bed the term 'war on drugs' as it is 'illogical, unworkable and hurts those it was supposed to help'.
Obama is redoing the disasterous NAFTA agreement that led to the deluge of illegal immigrats by destroying the life standards of the border poor.
Obama is accused of Being a terrorist a Hitler, A Stalin by the rightwingers who loved Bush and love Palin.
Bush took 8 years to screw thing up Obama hasn't had a year and the deaf dum and blind wonder why the world isn't perfect by now already.
etc etc.
Only the non hysterical centrists see him as he is, the best man in the job since Roosevelt; who had 15 years not 1 to fix things.
Vlad, like all the rest of your "thoughts" your math is.... well... shaky if not out and out skanky. Want to take another try at how many years Franklin Roosevelt served in office?
Here, I'll get you started. Inaugurated March 4, 1933. Died: April 12, 1945. Got that? Okay now work this out: 1945-1933= ?
Don't forget to show your work.
i'm skimming through these at this point,
lordy, lordy.
something about this particular thread has got something
in it to attract the worst kind off flies.
these posers are in no way conservatives, or even Americans
from best i can perceive. "skank??" a truly ungodly term
if ever there was. best not attempt to embody these spirits.
and clearly, don't take them at word.
wonder what Green mentioned, exactly?
you don't think it might be the President's own people do you?
or .. the AG!? now he's that scary.
again, shudder the thought.
Sioux Rose
VLAD: Simpleton be thy name. Your post reads like a cartoon version of events. Bet you could get a job rewriting history books with one of the Bush relatives' text book publishing firms.
You cannot possibly be serious...???? Open your eyes and take a look around rather than just ignore reality.
What a chump....
The loss of the Democrats of Edward Kennedies seat in Massachusettes is worse than many here seem to realise. Ted was the most loyal and stalward of Democrats both effective as a politician and unmovable in his commitment to helping improve the lives of ordinary Americans. Losing this seat was therefor even more catastrophic than merely the loss of one seat.
I have a list following on athe many good things Obama HAS achieved and I think the shallow support he has recieved as well as the unreality of both the tea baggers and the juvenile disappointment of the 'dawning of the Age of Aquarius' for magic to happen in a single year explains this.
However on the 'Health care' the White House and the Democrats really blew it and I have not, cannot, and will not support a bill that makes a very bad situation EVEN worse. It stinks and I will continue to prey and support Obama who has tried sincerely in all other areas to the best possible but withe bill went to far;
# 1) KILL THE HEALTH CARE AND START AGAIN LATER!!! it IS a total disaster; and it should not be allowed to be the instrument of a regenerating republican juggernaut.
# 2) DUMP the traitor LIEBERMAN; who has done more damage to the democrats than FOX and the teabaggers combined; the snake in the grass!!
# 3) STOP BEING FRIENDLY WITH THE ENEMY WHO HATE YOU; HAVE SAID THEY DO AND ONLY WANT TO SEE PALIN AND CO. IN CHARGE!!
My Question # 1 to you is if Obama fails because leftist impatience with the rate of improvements combines with the Wingnutters to crush him so early on despite the fact that he has done quite a few very important changes already. Where do you see it going after that. If their is a 'popular uprising' that succeeds it will be one that the elite's MILITARY will not wish to crush (ie; a rightwing populist military dictatorship.) They will divert it of course to their own purposes. With todays technology it will be implant, total surveillance time. With an over population from the elites point of view and a 'privatised professional mercenary army' mass slaughter will prove no problem; it will NOT be like Leningrad 1917 or Paris 1789 where the army made up of their boys could be talked into refraining or joining the revolution.
The tea baggers are allowed their mad hatter party because IT SUITS THE INTERESTS OF THE RULING CLASS.
They want Obama gone fast. Do you have any positive critisism. I have shown an awareness of his mistakes, the disasterous Health Care bill is just one example. My previous comments gave a list of his achievements. I always saw him as the centrist he said he was. Your critic cannot be taken seriously if it fails to even look at the good as wellas the bad. Your article is an immature and destructive rant. NOT impressed!!
"DUMP the traitor LIEBERMAN; " Tsk, tsk, tsk, Vlad. Please reign in the skanky brainstorms. Just how do you propose to "DUMP the traitor LIEBERMAN;" at any time before 2012 when he is up for re-election? Even then, given the drift into Democrat dementia, he's most likely to win.
The Democrats dumped Lieberman in 2006. He went on to beat both the Republican and Democrat candidate in CT.
There's a good likelihood that he's just giving the Democrats what they deserve for dumping him. That's just politics.
Oh, yes -- lurch left. That will work. Excellent suggestion. Most perceptive.
Massachusetts & Virginia & New Jersey have made it clear that what Americans really, really want is more government intrusion in their lives and businesses.
So, please, pursue the most radical Leftist agenda that you can!
I'm going to have a nice cup of Tea, happy in the knowledge that what Americans really, REALLY want is to be left alone; to enjoy liberty, embrace opportunity, and to retain the rewards they have earned.
One unmentioned problem for Obama is that he regularly asks his God to "Bless America". If he means that he must also accept that his God can punish America and that he should have prepared for that eventuality.
Actually, I don't think you hear "God bless America" come out of the mouth of Obama all that much these days, if ever.
This is a great essay but you lefties would would quickly brand it racist were it not on a commie website and penned by one of your comrades from the fifth column.
"It's the same party that could run a decorated combat hero against a war evader in 1972, only to be successfully labeled as national security wimps."
As a Quaker, Nixon was eligible for exemption for military service. However, he did NOT seek such an exemption & served 4 years in the Navy, which included time in the South Pacific during WWII. For a university professor, Mr. Green is shamefully ignorant of historical fact.
Oh, as you can see, pig-ignorant is Green's stock and trade.
I'd add that McGovern was tagged as a security wimp because of the 'progressive' Hippy Movement behind him.
I'd never call the Dem's base an albatross around their necks, but their base is a built-in political handicap. So I'd cut the Dems some slack. They are elected to govern (in the real world, not in Marx's fantasy world) by the poorest and most powerless, and in America the government's power is limited six ways to Sunday--you know, elections, checks and balances, dissenting opinion, free press (Rush, Fox), private sector, all that awful stuff. The Soviets and the Nazis already tried that 'Totalitarian Worker's Party' thing. It don't work.
Wow. Where did all the right-wing trolls come from on this thread? Unfortunately, most of them don't seem to be type you can reason with or learn from. They're just ranters. But you're welcome here, I guess.