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The State of the Union Is Comatose
HANDS down, the State of the Union's big moment was Barack Obama's direct hit on the delicate sensibilities of the Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito. The president was right to blast the 5-to-4 decision giving corporate interests an even greater stranglehold over a government they already regard as a partially owned onshore subsidiary. How satisfying it was to watch him provoke Alito into a "You lie!" snit. Here was a fight we could believe in.
There was more to admire in Obama's performance as well. He did not retreat into the bite-size initiatives - V-chips, school uniforms - embraced by an emasculated Bill Clinton after his midterm pummeling of 1994. The president's big original goals - health care, economic recovery, financial reform - remained nominally intact, as did his sense of humor. In a rhetorical touch William Safire would have relished, Obama had the wit to rush the ritualistic "our union is strong" so it would not prompt the usual jingoistic ovation.
Good thing, too, since our union is not strong. It is paralyzed. Many Americans were more eagerly anticipating Steve Jobs's address in San Francisco on Wednesday morning than the president's that night because they have far more confidence in Apple than Washington to produce concrete change. One year into Obama's term we still don't know whether he has what it takes to get American governance functioning again. But we do know that no speech can do the job. The president must act. Only body blows to the legislative branch can move the country forward.
The historian Alan Brinkley has observed that we will soon enter the fourth decade in which Congress - and therefore government as a whole - has failed to deal with any major national problem, from infrastructure to education. The gridlock isn't only a function of polarized politics and special interests. There's also been a gaping leadership deficit.
In Obama's speech, he kept circling back to a Senate where both parties are dysfunctional. The obstructionist Republicans, he observed, will say no to every single bill "just because they can." But no less culpable are the Democrats, who maintain "the largest majority in decades" even after losing Teddy Kennedy's seat - and yet would rather "run for the hills" than accomplish anything.
What does strong Senate leadership look like? That would be L.B.J. in the pre-Kennedy era. Operating with the narrowest of majorities and under an opposition president, he was able to transform a sleepy, seniority-hobbled, regionally polarized debating society into an often-progressive legislative factory. As Robert Caro tells the story in his book "Master of the Senate," this Senate leader had determination, "a gift for grand strategy," and a sixth sense for grabbing opportunities for action before they vanished for good. He could recognize "the key that might suddenly unlock votes that had seemed locked forever away" and turn it quickly. The horse trading with recalcitrant senators was often crude and cynical, but the job got done. L.B.J. knew how to reward - and how to punish.
We keep hearing that they just don't make legislative giants like that anymore. In truth, the long drought has led us to forget what they look like and to define senatorial leadership down. L.B.J.'s current successor, Harry Reid, could be found yawning on camera Wednesday night. He might as well have just taken the whole nap. Here was this leader's pronouncement last week on the future of the president and his party's No. 1 priority: "We're not on health care now. We've talked a lot about it in the past." Yes, a lot of talk - a year's worth, in fact - with nothing to show for it.
If Reid can serve as the face of Democratic fecklessness in the Senate, then John McCain epitomizes the unpatriotic opposition. On Wednesday night he could be seen sneering when Obama pointed out that most of the debt vilified by Republicans happened on the watch of a Republican president and Congress that never paid for "two wars, two tax cuts, and an expensive prescription drug program." The president's indictment could have been more lacerating. Crunching Congressional Budget Office numbers, David Leonhardt of The Times calculated that of the projected $2 trillion swing into the red between the Clinton surplus and 2012, some 33 percent could be attributed to Bush legislation and another 20 percent to Bush-initiated spending (Iraq, TARP) continued by Obama. Only 7 percent of the deficit could be credited to the Obama stimulus bill and 3 percent to his other initiatives. (The business cycle accounts for the other 37 percent.)
Perhaps McCain was sneering at Obama because of the Beltway's newest unquestioned cliché: one year after a new president takes office he is required to stop blaming his predecessor for the calamities left behind. Who dreamed up that canard - Alito? F.D.R. never followed it. In an October 1936 speech, nearly four years after Hoover, Roosevelt was still railing against the "hear-nothing, see-nothing, do-nothing government" he had inherited. He reminded unemployed and destitute radio listeners that there had been "nine crazy years at the ticker" and "nine mad years of mirage" followed by three long years of bread lines and despair. F.D.R. soon won re-election in the greatest landslide the country had seen.
Obama should turn up the heat on both the G.O.P's record of fiscal recklessness and its mad-dog obstructionism. He should stop paying lip service to the fantasy that his Congressional opposition has serious ideas to contribute to the cleanup. Better still, he should publicize exactly what those "ideas" are.
Yes, the Republicans were correct to laugh at one of the president's own gimmicks on Wednesday night: a symbolic and pointless spending "freeze." But their own alternatives are downright hilarious. When the G.O.P. House leadership last year announced its plan to cut federal spending by $75 billion annually, it enumerated specific new cuts of only $5 billion per year. A tax-cut-laden "stimulus plan" endorsed by Jim DeMint, the South Carolina senator and Tea Party hero, "would cost more than $3 trillion - more than triple the cost of Obama's stimulus - over the next decade," in the estimate of Jonathan Chait of The New Republic.
On State of the Union day, the Republican National Committee gathered at its winter meeting at Waikiki Beach to battle over a measure that would deny campaign funds to candidates who didn't pass a Tea Party ideological purity test. Back in Washington, other party thinkers trotted out some more brilliant ideas. Paul Ryan, a Wisconsin congressman hailed as the Republicans' new intellectual hope, laid out a lengthy "G.O.P. Road Map for America's Future" on The Wall Street Journal op-ed page that proposed cutting taxes (disproportionately for the wealthy) and privatizing Medicare and Social Security but devoted no bullet point to creating jobs for Americans in urgent need. On the Hill that morning, Michele Bachmann of Minnesota led House colleagues in signing a "Declaration of Health Care Independence" to complement a bill that would let Americans "purchase insurance with their own tax-free money." Gee, why did no else think of that ingenious fix for a health care system that leaves 46.3 million uninsured and whose runaway costs are on track to eat up one-fifth of the American economy?
It was a heartening breakthrough when Obama dismissed such idiocies repeatedly in his televised meeting with House Republicans on Friday. He mocked G.O.P. legislative snake oil that promises to lower all medical costs and "won't cost anybody anything." He must keep this up - and be equally tough on the slackers in his own party who stall his agenda. And he must be less foggy on the specifics of what that agenda is. Though on Wednesday night he asked Congress to "take another look" at the health care bill, even now it's unclear what he believes that bill's bedrock provisions should be. He also said he wouldn't sign any financial regulatory bill that "does not meet the test of real reform," yet tentatively praised a House bill compromised by a banking lobby that is in bed with Democrats and Republicans alike. The Senate, of course, has yet to produce any financial reform bill.
Americans like Obama far more than they like any Congressional leader. They might even like more of his policies if he spelled them out. But none of that matters if no Democrat fears him enough to do any of his bidding and no Republican believes there's any price to be paid for always saying no.
A year in, we have learned that all the conciliatory rhetoric won't cut it. But a president with a big megaphone and large legislative majorities has more powerful strings to pull, no matter what happened in one special election in Massachusetts. If he can't get a working government, at least he can shake things up in November.
Just look at how a sharp public slap provoked Justice Alito, threw a spotlight on the court's dubious jurisprudence and sparked an embarrassing over-the-top hissy fit on the right. A do-nothing Congress, at a time when ever more Americans are losing their jobs and homes, is an even riper target than the Supreme Court - and far more politically vulnerable. Without strong medicine from Obama, we can be certain of the same result: a heedless Congress will keep doing nothing. If he steps it up, there's at least a shot that his presidency, and maybe even the country, will be pulled back from the brink.
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111 Comments so far
Show AllCan we secede and join Canada or Cuba or California for Universal Healthcare?
Rich is stretching when he makes any comparisons between FDR and Obama.
Having instituted extensive banking reforms and real stimulus programs during his first year in office, FDR was entitled to bash Hoover for many years after his 1932 election.
Obama has not only created a seamless transition of Dubya's programs, he has institutionalized moral hazard in the financial industry, accelerated and increased war spending, expanded nuclear proliferation (power generation plants and weapons)and enabled health care "reform" legislation that will set health care back 50 years rather than advancing it. Obama's first year actions eliminated any right for him to criticize Dubya. It hurts to say this, because I loathe Dubya.
To Obama's credit, half of the stimulus bill will provide the needed stimulus while the other half is tax cuts and earmarks that won't stimulate economic recovery. Dubya's stimulus bill would have been all tax cuts and earmarks.
The only question now is, when the US goes down the gurgler will it be clockwise or anticlockwise.
Being in the northern hemisphere, I believe it is clockwise.
Righty-tighty, Lefty-loosey!
That depends upon who is in control during the last act of collapse. If it's the Democrats, the symbolic direction will be counterclockwise - right to right disguised as left. If it's the Republicans, it will be clockwise - right to further right. Of course, the direction is immaterial because the drain is non-partisan.
"the drain is non-partisan"
so there is nothing to fear from sewer-side bombers?
"Though on Wednesday night he [Obama] asked Congress to 'take another look' at the health care bill, even now it's unclear what he believes that bill's bedrock provisions should be." As pathetic as is the fact described, even more pathetic is pundit Frank Rich's complete failure to ask why Obama is "foggy on the specifics"; an inquiry that would undoubtedly endanger Rich's holding out hope for "strong medicine from Obama." --That the above passes for political discourse beggars my imagination and sends me back to Ken Kesey's "Cuckoo's Nest"--"They're out there," wrote he--where the insanity was less frightening exactly because it was acknowledged . . . .
By being "foggy on specifics" for a full year concerning health care, Obama makes it perfectly clear (to anybody not affected by the denial epidemic sweeping the blue states) exactly where he stands on health care "reform". The House and Senate have passed bills that contain the corporate welfare provisions that Obama zealously promoted and defended for the past year while doctors and nurses who advocate singlepayer continue to be arrested, and while the public option has gone from being a nebulous concept a year ago to being the sacrificial lamb that won't be missed as long as nebulous "exchanges" placate Americans who were expecting some actual health care REFORM.
I thought he was kissing the GOP's ass. I would have rather seen him go up against a room full of radicals.
Yes, and Rich is not correct calling it a do-nothing Congress. Within the past year Congress has agreed to hand what is left in the US treasury to the banksters, nuclear power and weapons industries, insurance companies, drug companies, war profiteers and other special interests. I would be a whole lot happier if Congress HAD DONE NOTHING.
Yes! Yes! reminds me of how much I like gridlock!
Presidents don't create jobs overnight. It takes planning and cooperation. Obama can't control jobs outside the federal ones. People need to get together and set the job records straight.
Had Obama's stimulus plan been 100% stimulus rather than 50% we would be seeing more jobs.
If Obama had pushed single-payer medical insurance through, rather than his corporate welfare program disguised as health care reform, enterpreneurs, small and large businesses would no longer need to be hobbled by a fragmented health care system that makes them uncompetitive with foreign companies. They would all be adding jobs.
Obama's corporate welfare for banksters gives them no-interest gambling money to speculate on commodities including food and energy, thereby causing price spikes that are job killers. The banksters don't loan money to buinesses, the returns they are accustomed to just aren't there.
These are a few examples of Obama's lack of planning and coordination. While McCain would have done an even worse job, Kucinich or Nader would have done a much better job creating a job enhancing political environment.
At first, single payer would look like it was independent of job creation but most people need to be reminded that single payer benefits both the employers and the employees. Congress and Obama have it so it's hard to make them listen.
I agree with you on the bank bailout as well.
I supported Kucinich in the primaries but I voted for Obama in the general election. I would vote for Kucinich again if he ran a primary against Obama.
His stimulus plan isn't getting any bright reviews and I haven't seen any changes yet but will be doing my W2s so I'll see what changes I got for that. The Republicans and the centrist Democrats had weakened the bill some.
This is one of the most frustrating things about reading the comments on other boards. The idiots -- whether Obama fanatic or not -- fail to make the connection between real health care reform and jobs. And Obama plays right into this ignorance.
There are not many articles that link the connection between health care reform and jobs. Such articles would be better to discuss instead of repeats of another single payer activist getting arrested for fighting for single payer. If people were informed about the connection between real health care reform and jobs, environment, and medicine there could have been a stronger protest turnout for reform.
It was hardly just federal jobs that the stimulus money was directed at, but state and local projects as well. Unfortunately, despite Biden's promise to nix such, bridges to nowhere are too often the result.
Gary
"Courage is the ladder on which all the other virtues mount."
--Clare Boothe Luce
When this nation gets pushed over the brink, which is what is intended, how far will it fall?
How many will be lying dead among the wreckage at the bottom?
Roosevelt was inaugurated on March 4, 1933.
Roosevelt's "First 100 Days" concentrated on the first part of his strategy: immediate relief.
From March 9 to June 16, 1933, he sent Congress a record number of bills, all of which passed easily.
The Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC), hired 250,000 unemployed young men to work on rural local projects.
It was signed into law by Roosevelt on March 31, 1933.
Reform of the economy was the goal of the National Industrial Recovery Act (NIRA) of 1933. It tried to end cutthroat competition by forcing industries to come up with codes that established the rules of operation for all firms within specific industries, such as minimum prices, agreements not to compete, and production restrictions.
Roosevelt signed the bill into law on June 16, 1933.
The United States Public Works Administration (sometimes referred to as the Federal Emergency Administration of Public Works) a New Deal government agency headed by Secretary of the Interior Harold L. Ickes, was created by the National Industrial Recovery Act in June 1933 during the Great Depression. It allowed $3.3 billion to be spent on the construction of public works to provide employment, stabilize purchasing power, improve public welfare, and contribute to a revival of American industry.
more at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Franklin_D._Roosevelt
Good post, Ghandi. It's good to remind people of what a pro-active president can do. Obama is much closer to a Herbert Hoover than an FDR.
How satisfying it was to watch (Obama) provoke Alito into a "You lie!" snit. Here was a fight we could believe in.
This is not a fight. Obama and the Democrats are now petrified that corporations will start giving millions upon millions of dollars more in legal bribes to Republicans in an effort to bury the Democrats once and for all. Even a fellow traveling reactionary like Obama is too much for these sadistic megalomaniacs. The Daily Show played the clip of Obama saying that he was convinced the USA's best days are ahead. I did not suspect that a loser like Obama would actually would be foolish and tone deaf enough to utter such tripe. But he did.
"I did not suspect that a loser like Obama would actually would be foolish and tone deaf enough to utter such tripe. But he did."
You didn't think Obama could get elected, either .... but he did. Did you think he got all that money just to pull the rug out from underneath his donors?
Obama undoubtedly has more surprises in store for us. That's the beauty of the "Obama phenomenon." He's the proverbial shell game in a human body. That's the essence of the "tripe" we're hearing from him.
If the economy hadn't tanked so spectacularly , McCain would have won by a couple of points. I still believe that.
Yes. The vote was 52% to 46%, which means a shift of 3%, just 1/30, would have swung the election the other way. Without the Lehman collapse and the Palin monstrosity, McCain probably would have squeeked by.
BOLLIX, The plan is obvious, and it is working perfectly.
Why does this NYT stooge keep insisting that we live in a domain of error, half measures and unmet goals.
The administration has acheived ALL the real and stated objects, with full support.
STOP PLAYING DUMB.
Scatter shot grasping desperation from Frank Rich. As David Michael Green put it, (paraphrasing); Howard Zinn did not die from a heart attack ... he died from a broken heart. Frank Rich's screed sounds like the dribblings of a bipolar panic attack.
If Obama wants to get down to business he needs to fire Tim Geithener, most of the Goldman Sachs treasury department, Larry Summers and Rahm Emanuel ... These fools give Obama the wrong advice almost all the time while insulating and rewarding their friends. These firings would signal a real change and give people real reason for another look at Obama.
To replace Geithner ~ Volcker, to replace Summers~ Stiglitz, Krugman or Galbraith, to replace Emanuel~ Hillary Clinton. Volcker would clean house at treasury, the new economist would give Obama good advice and Hillary would take Reid by the balls and body slam him.
Unless and until Obama shows he can be as tough in deed as he is eloquent in his speeches, he will get nowhere in a town of cut throats, mobsters, racketeers and knuckle draggers ... Obama throwing Geithner, Summers and Emanuel under the bus would get some much needed respect and instill some much needed fear.
Geithner, Summers, Orszag, Emanuel, Bernanke . . . all these people are extensions of Obama, as he is an extension of them. This is not a question of Obama getting bad "advice". Obama and the Democrats are owned outright by the same forces that own the Republicans. You can hold your breath for the next three years, waiting for Obama to do the right thing. It will never happen. The Democrats' only move is to the right . . . which they must disguise as a move to the left. With powerful thieves and cynics like the people mentioned above, that shouldn't be too difficult.
I know ... I don't give it much chance of happening ...
With foreclosures accelerating, commercial real estate melting down and states, local government and schools going into shut down mode it won't be too long before the real drop in the economy begins.
If you aren't willing to sacrifice your life in the course of executing the job of the Presidency of the United States, do the nation a favor and DON'T BOTHER RUNNING..
We expect our military troops to accept possible loss of life as a condition of their jobs, why should it be any less for the Presidency?
We cannot have a compromised President.. Either man-up or resign.
RAH-RAH, SIS-BOOM-BA, OBAMA,OBAMA, RAH-RAH-RAH! Really now Mr. Rich is that the best you can do? I expect something like that from Stuffy Miller or Bill "Brain" Press, not from a great NYT columnist like yourself! (Cough, Choke, Sputter, Gag)
Rich gave us exactly what can expected from an NYT columnist--hooey.
Cognitive dissonance is not a pretty thing, is it?
Imagine what Rich--or, for that matter, anyone at HuffPo or Democratic Underground--would be saying if Hillary were President and had f*cked up so badly.
The Chronicles of Rahm:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zVYugB5uy-o
For an analysis of Obama's SOTU speech that is far easier to read and understand, read Joe Bageant's "The Annotated Obama."
So funny it's sad or maybe the other way around.
http://www.joebageant.com/joe/2010/01/the-annotated-obama.html
For my money (which I don't have any of anymore) Joe is dead on the money here, as he is IMHO with all his writing, even though he was raised around the reddest of the rednecks.
My own state of the disunion address:
I watch a tea-bagger movement grow in strength and momemntum in this country. Nothing more than a thinly veiled nazi movement. It has all the basic ingredients we saw in nazi Germany prior to Hitler's rise. Xenophobia and racism at the core. How else do you explain the anti-immigration compulsion, the obsession with the WOT, the patriotic flag waving and most importantly, the advancement of white American exceptionalism. Make no mistake, that rising stench of rotting fascist garbage is starting to fill the nostrils of every American in the country. This is a movement playing to the emotions of fear and greed. The terrorists are going to get you. We don't need taxes, that is MY money. As in nazi Gemany, the masses flock.
At the other end of the spectrum, I see a flaccid left in this country feeding on pablum soaked dictates of the Beatles and holding Buddhist-like attitudes of ambivalence. You say you want a revolution...well, no, not really. This defect of logic, this absurd notion that you can play nice with people who drone bomb children in far-flung regions of the world, who hire thousands of mercenaries at a cost of billions to the country's treasury, is specious at best. We're going to love them into defeat. God bless Howard Zinn but the preoccupation with celebrity is really part of the problem. How can the left have sacred cows when the track record of the last thirty years has displayed a series of failures so vast and thorough, Howard Zinn should be hanging his head in disgrace. How do you explain his last endeavor, a celebrity soaked parade of people who drink at the fountain of this corporate fascist pyramid of wealth. Matt Damon, Morgan Freeman, Bob Dylan, Bruce Springsteen, Eddie Vedder, Viggo Mortensen, Josh Brolin, Danny Glover, Marisa Tomei? They eschew wealth but continue to accumulate it? Where was Zack de la Rocha in Zinn's parade of celebrity. Where were the more radical voices? School teachers taught Zinn and his leftist works were required reading for many school children in the 80's. Given the current state of affairs, should I view that as a good thing or a bad thing? Is his watered down version of leftist ideology just something to make us feel better? Would I have been better served if my children had been exposed to Abby Hoffman's Steal This Book instead of this watered down exercise in feel good? Ralph Nader? He holds millions in stock investments and he holds the path to ending this corporate fascist tyranny. What leftist accomplishments do these people really have? What workers cooperative have they funded? What are they really doing or not doing with their money?
Frank Rich is nothing more than a wrestling mania type facade trying to convince us that there is some sort of real contention between these two parties. It is beyond obvious that Obama will do nothing to stem this tide of corporate fascist tyranny. It is quite the opposite. He is doing all he can to further cement this elite, imperialist, war mongering rule. The true left in this country has no party, no representation. FDR is dead and long gone.
Not only are we being defeated in the here and now, the doors are being shut for the future. Many a pundit will point out that decisions like the one the SCOTUS just made are slamming doors shut. I am watching a tea-bagger movement rise up in this country that fuels fear and greed. People are turning their backs on the principles of justice, fairness and civil society. No good will come from this. I don't want anyone to think I'm talking down on anyone. I am as alientated and hypersensitive as the next person in this country. I too will wet my pants when America's version of the gestapo comes knocking at my door.
I agree with much of what you write, but where I part ways is with your characterization of the tea-bagger movement. I live in Texas and have most of my life and know quite a few who are in, or could be in, that movement -- non-elite, not well-educated, white Southerners. These are people who could have voted for FDR and whose grandparents surely did. They do not have any special affection for large corporations, banks, or Wall Street. They are conservative because of the social/cultural issues and their hatred of "liberal intellectuals" from "up North" and over in "Kalifornicate" telling them what to do and how to live their lives. The only reason that they go along with the Republican Party on the economic issues is that they are told to by the people they trust, those who appear to agree with them on the social/cultural issues, such as Limbaugh, Hannity, Beck, etc... It is all part of a clever divide-and-conquer election strategy that Republicans first adopted in the 1960s with Nixon.
Social progressives can always be divided from the impoverished and poorly educated using social/cultural issues because the latter group will always be behind the curve in social evolution and will cling to relics of the past to make them feel more secure. The plutocrats apparently know this and have for some time.
You are right, and Lefty is right. The tea-baggers are deluded and fools to listen to right-wing pundits who push their fear-ridden buttons; but, there is an frightening element of hatred there as well; atred of the government and its leaders (which is rather justified, but dangerous), hatred of new-fanged ideas, hatred of supposed "socialism" (read "liberal" in ditto-talk), and hared of others in a disgusting xenophobia which leads to immigrant and gay and radical bashing.
Lefty is also right that this combination of fears and hatreds are the core of what Hitler manipulated to gain power. He fed that hatred, gave them enemies within the "Fatherland" (read "Homeland") and enemies without. He fed the confusion over causes of their distress and the why of their economic conditions.
A Huey Long could well arise from the grassroots, especially a group like the Teabag Party which is having a convention where they may appoint a leader.
Imagine a Rush Lunkhead as a candidate for the highest office! It could happen folks. It may well happen.
Gary
"Communism and fascism or nazism, although poles apart in their intellectual content, are similar in this, that both have emotional appeal to the type of personality that takes pleasure in being submerged in a mass movement and submitting to superior authority."
-- James A. C. Brown
It is outside my knowledge to try and accurately psycho-analyze an entire nation. I will say this: Texans never treated Mexicans all that well. Up here in the north, racist attitudes persisted after the civil rights movement. Whether down south or up north, I see a real resurgence in racist ideas and this tea-bagger movement is the spear head of that resurgence. Islamophobia and anti-immigration are solid planks in their platform.
What separates the Texan or Michigander tea-bagger of today from the guy who voted for FDR in the 30's? Eating out of garbage cans transcends politics. The leftist role in American politics should be to head that off at the pass. We are failing miserably.
FDR was no racist, but if the great majority of racists had voted for his opponents, he would have never carried the South. The Republicans started with Nixon's 1968 campaign to use race because Johnson had passed so much civil rights legislation. After Roe v. Wade, the Republicans added abortion to the list of issues to divide progressives from poor/working class whites. Then they added guns and gays to their issues for demagoguery as they realized progressives, as mostly educated urban sophisticates, would almost always have radically different ideas about social/cultural ideas from those of insecure and undereducated poor/working class whites and that offered great opportunities for division. Then they enabled their best sophists and snake oil salesmen, certainly including Mr. Limbaugh, to grow the chasm as wide as possible. After that, the Democrats became so weak that they became as dependent on corporate money as the Republicans and we ended up with what we have today -- a money party with two right wings.
Absolutely right Kivals.
Whether you want to admit it or not, the left in this country has been flaccid and weak. This is the cherry on top of your corporate fascist cake. When is enough enough? When do you stop analyzing why and start defining what?
Sioux Rose
KIVALS: Case well argued, counselor. If only the jury didn't have its share of drunks along with the seminally deluded. (* My concept of the jury here = the American public.)
What I mean when I suggest that the Tea Party movement is nihilistic is that they are not out to build, fix, or create anything. They want to "cut big government off at the knees". They have no solutions and they likely never will, because rightwing political and economic orthodoxy is fundamentally not about fixing anything other than the odds for a handful of rich and powerful men.
Yes, they are swayed by social/cultural issues and brainwashed (to some extent) by the likes of Beck, Limbaugh and Hannity. The rightwing establishment has been systematically working to indoctrinate folks like these friends of yours for the last 40 years. They have been taught that the malefactors of great wealth are actually great men, that taxes punish sucess, that massive military spending makes us safer, that wealth trickles down, that academics are corrupt and venal, that social programs for the poor make people into dependent slaves to liberal politicians, that liberals want to take away their guns, that trial lawyers are satan's henchmen, that health reform is a communist plot and that gay marriage will destroy the foundations of our society. No, the folks who have bought this bill of goods are not bad people, but the Tea Party movement they are signing onto is as devoid of solutions as the Republican party. Worse, they are being led by the most regressive troglodytes in America today.
No Beatle fans or Buddhists allowed on the glorious revolution team, huh? Nice.
They're allowed, they'll just never show up. Too busy at the ashram, too many insurance bills to pay.
What serious subject do you teach BTW? What bank answers the phone at the financial aid office nestled in your public institution of higher education?
I can't answer until you make even more stupid personal comments, O font of revolutionary wisdom. Maybe throw in a couple more stereotypes. Yeah, that'll demonstrate real lefty street cred. How I burn with envy.
Thanks for your forthright answers professor. We wouldn't want you to go too far out on a limb, you might end up like Ward Churchill and have to hire a lawyer. I guess I hit a little too close to home with my analysis? Perhaps you should kick off your Birkenstocks, cue up the White Album on your turntable and crack open a Howard Zinn book. There really aren't any racists in this country and you have nothing to worry about. I was just kidding around.
Pause from your fantasies of accuracy until after producing your "no play" list like those kindred spirits over at ClearChannel.
Where you going with this professor? You remind me of a dog chasing its own tail.
Sioux Rose
SERIOUS PROF: I believe it was RICH M who took "Lefty" to the mat in a discussion on what actually constitutes socialism, and how the left views the issues of our time. Given this individual's attempts to blame the left and make spurious assaults on your posts/integrity, he would fit the pattern of one operating in this forum specifically to cause the very same dissension he appears to otherwise rail against.
Yeah, I know the drill. Next I'll be knocked for bringing up mystical concepts in this forum. Discredit those who see or smell a rat, a time-honored tradition that does not belong to progressives. It does get tedious, almost as if one must redundantly reinvent the wheel, to repeat the same arguments as refutations to the claims some posters repeatedly make.
I'd like to see people locked into ONE screen name, so that the handful who have used all sorts of names to repeat the same confused or confusing messages are forced to OWN what they said, as opposed to hiding behind other screen names to give the illusion that there are more that think as they do. While some in this forum are retired or are recovering from illnesses which impede the time that would otherwise go to orthodox jobs, I find it curious to see certain names posing in every thread. They seem to have all the time in the world! Homeland Security is probably a reliable niche for job hunters in an otherwise depressed economy. Likely, a few of its embeds are here in our midsts. Another favorite with them is to discredit those who raise alarm bells about 911, or speak too honestly about the duopoly that's made a mockery of our elections by increasingly morphing both candidates into ONE entity that exclusively serves the corporate states.