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Out-Republicaning the Republicans: Obama Revives Clinton's Disastrous Triangulation Strategy
"It was Bill Clinton who recognized that the categories of conservative and liberal played to Republican advantage and were inadequate to address our problems," President Obama wrote in his book The Audacity of Hope. "Clinton's third way...tapped into the pragmatic, non-ideological attitude of Americans."
Clinton's "third way" was "triangulation," a term and strategy invented by his pollster Dick Morris. Triangulation is a candidate's attempt to position himself above and between the left and the right. A Democrat, Clinton insulated himself from Republican attacks by appropriating many of their ideas.
Obama is even more of a triangulator than Clinton.
Triangulation can work for candidates in the short term. Clinton got reelected by a landslide in 1996. (It failed, though, for Gore in 2000 and Kerry in 2004.) But triangulation hurts parties, which sell an ideological point of view. Clinton worked so hard to out-Republican the Republicans that he forgot he was a Democrat. He also forgot that Democratic voters expected to see liberal policies.
Clinton's greatest achievements ended up being Republican platform planks: free trade deals like NAFTA and the WTO, welfare reform, balancing the federal budget on the backs of the poor and working class.
By the way, Dick Morris is now a Republican. Maybe he always was.
Because of Clintonian triangulation, the liberal base of the Democratic Party saw the 1990s as a squandered opportunity: eight years of unprecedented economic expansion with not one new social program, not even national healthcare, to show for it. They got the message: voting Democratic doesn't guarantee Democratic policies. Unenthused, liberals stayed home or voted for Ralph Nader in 2000. Liberal disgust for triangulation (they called it "selling out") sufficiently reduced Al Gore's margin of victory to allow George W. Bush to steal Florida and the national election. It took the Democrats six years to begin to recover.
Obama ran as a centrist. It would come as little surprise if he were governing as one.
But he's not a moderate president.
Obama is a Republican.
A right-wing Republican. Thanks to triangulation gone wild.
In his first year Obama chose to continue numerous Bush Administration policies, many of which originated in the far extreme wing of the GOP. Each of the following asterisks represents a broken campaign promise:
- Keeping the Guantánamo torture camp open*
- Continuing the war against Iraq*
- Expanding the war against Afghanistan
- Renewing the USA Patriot Act*
- No-string bank bailouts
- Continuing "military commission" kangaroo trials*
- Reserving the right to torture*
- Continuing the NSA's "domestic surveillance" program of spying on innocent Americans' emails and phone calls*
It took over a year, but Obama can finally point to two legislative achievements: healthcare reform and reducing private banks' role in the issuance of student loans. The student loan bill, though a step in the right direction, is liberal but too modest. Student loans ought to be replaced by grants. Ultimately, universities and colleges will have to be nationalized.
Obama's revamp of healthcare, on the other hand, goes too far, perverting the liberal desire to provide healthcare for all Americans into a transfer of wealth from poor to rich that the hard right never dreamed of.
Buying into the classic, flawed, American assumption that a bad system can't get worse (ask the Iraqis and Afghans), ObamaCare entrusts 30 million new customers, to the tune of roughly ten grand a year each, to the tender mercies of private insurance companies.
ObamaCare pours hundreds of billions of dollars, some from taxpayers, the rest from poor people, into the gaping coffers of giant corporations. Once people find themselves paying even more for visits to the same crappy doctors and hospitals they can't afford now, they'll hold the Dems responsible at the polls. If Republicans stopped to think, they'd love it.
And if Democrats stopped to think, they'd hate it.
Most Americans, and almost all liberal Democrats, want socialized medicine. Like they have in the rest of the world. Failing that, they were willing to settle for single-payer. When Obama let it be known that Mr. Audacity was going to lead as anything but, they prayed for a "public option."
What they got: zero.
Actually, less than zero: We were better off before. Taxes will go up for the already insured. For those about to be forcibly insured, they'll have to pay more. And here's the kicker: not only will the insurance companies be making higher profits at our expense, so will the federal government.
The Congressional Budget Office, invariably described in pieces like this as "the non-partisan Congressional Budget Office," projects that the U.S. Treasury will come out ahead by $130 billion over 10 years.
Deficit negativity helped score votes among Democratic deficit hawks in Congress. But again, think about it: If the healthcare bill is making a profit for the U.S. government, where is that $130 billion coming from?
Correct: you and me. Our taxes will be higher than they should be, our health benefits will be less.
Obama, the media and many of us have forgotten what the problem was in the first place. Healthcare costs were too high. Thanks to this monster of a bill, they'll go even higher.
The government should not make a profit off sick people.
Even the Republicans wouldn't propose a tax this regressive.
Now Obama is echoing Sarah Palin, right-winger-turned-Tea-
Democrats will lose seats in Congress this fall. It may already be too late for Democrats to keep the White House in 2012. But if they continue to follow the Clinton-Obama triangulation strategy, they could destroy themselves for years to come. They might even expose the overall bankruptcy of our two-party pseudo-democracy.
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102 Comments so far
Show AllMolly Ivins (deja vu)
"I'd like to make it clear to the people who run the Democratic Party...
Enough. Enough triangulation, calculation and equivocation. Enough clever straddling, enough not offending anyone...
What kind of courage does it take, for mercy's sake? The majority of the American people (55 percent) think the war in Iraq is a mistake and that we should get out. The majority (65 percent) of the American people want single-payer health care and are willing to pay more taxes to get it. The majority (86 percent) of the American people favor raising the minimum wage. The majority of the American people (60 percent) favor repealing Bush's tax cuts, or at least those that go only to the rich. The majority (66 percent) wants to reduce the deficit not by cutting domestic spending, but by reducing Pentagon spending or raising taxes.
The majority (77 percent) thinks we should do "whatever it takes" to protect the environment. The majority (87 percent) thinks big oil companies are gouging consumers and would support a windfall profits tax. That is the center, you fools. WHO ARE YOU AFRAID OF?
I listen to people like Rahm Emanuel superciliously explaining elementary politics to us clueless naifs outside the Beltway ("First, you have to win elections"). Can't you even read the damn polls?
...Oh come on, people -- get a grip on the concept of leadership. Look at this war -- from the lies that led us into it, to the lies they continue to dump on us daily.
You sit there in Washington so frightened of the big, bad Republican machine you have no idea what people are thinking...If Democrats in Washington haven't got enough sense to OWN the issue of political reform, I give up on them entirely.
...Do not sit there cowering and pretending the only way to win is as Republican-lite. If the Washington-based party can't get up and fight, we'll find someone who can."
http://www.commondreams.org/views06/0120-30.htm
Same DLC sh*t....newly unmasked "DLC" president
Republican-lite?
No, Obama et al are full blown Repugs!
The polls Molly Ivens cites show that the majority favors policies traditionally associated with the Left, no matter how they self-identify. We're the new "silent majority."
Yet, neither the Republican Party nor the Obama-led Democratic Party supports any of our agenda. Neither will end the wars, reduce Pentagon spending, protect the environment, provide single-payer health care, put windfall profits tax on oil companies, or repeal the Bush tax cuts for the wealthy (or the Reagan tax cuts for the wealthy, for that matter).
Since Ivens wrote her essay, we can add that the majority also favors ending "too big to fail" Wall St. bail-outs, and wants new financial regulations and consumer protections. Both parties oppose these changes as well.
Yet, despite our majority, we're paralyzed by the rhetoric of Obamabots, Republican operatives and now the despicable Democratic loyalists who advise that political actions by the Left are futile. Just shut up and take it, they advise. Don't vote third party, because they can't win. And, don't take to the streets, because we'll call you extremists and "nuts."
We're the majority, and we must act with courage. Thanks, Molly.
A rather minor and incompetent official in the Roman government once opined, "...nattering nabobs of negativism..."! He would have been proud reading these many hyper-blown, astutely inane, and self-aggrandizing posts. Yo, people, tone it down, give the dude some ....
Peace
Obamabot?
Ya people, tone down the criticism of torture.
Tone down the criticism of war.
Tone down the criticism of corporatism.
Tone down the criticism of the patriot act.
Tone down he criticism of the wire tapping.
Tone down the criticism of the continued arms sales to Israel.
Sorry Peace has nothing to do with Obomber and his policies.
And by the way nattering nabobs of negativism was last used as a serious phrase by Spiro Agnew.
Barack Obama-- the first African American REPUBLICAN President.
Time to move-out of the Dem Party and get wise to Move-on and
the Billionaire backers who support Barry for their need for power. Our only power of protest is in the next election.
Vote all incumbents out. Drill baby Drill is taking the pressure of the other phony democrat, Bill aka Bubba Clinton and Nafta and the sellout of our industrial base to China.
i'm fairly sure most people around here have figured out a long time ago that our country is run by a corporatocracy. That's where decisions come from.
but maybe some of us have been surprised at what stifling control it really has. they probably told obomber, around the time his election seemed likely "we like your speeches Barry- don't change them. but remember that when you take that oath, you will be vowing to become our faithful frontman..."
obomber has never really been "president". he's the chief executive, the CEO of U.S. Inc. it's pointless to complain about his "broken promises". he's not the decider.
Dear Mr. Rall,
You a doing no one a favor when you try to put all of the blame on Obama. He is certainly the most visible fraud, but while he is doing his George W. Bush and Ronnie Ray-gun impersonations, it is the democrats as a whole who are milling through the crowd picking pockets and telling lies about how much they care.
This article is deceptively trying to portray the democrats as being better than Obama.
One need look no further than the now-phoney protestations of Dennis Kucinich. Sure, he (and his cohorts) will say all the things progressives want to hear as long as there is little chance of the ideas becoming reality. On almost any issue nowadays, when the time comes and the democrats can make a difference, they will find a way to NOT make it happen.
The democrats and the republicans are the same party. They belong to the corporations and so-called "free market" capitalism is their religion.
Wow there partner. You didn't deny or refute any of the items that Ted Rall entered on his Obama accomplishment list. Yes Obama is to blame. And what's your point for dragging Kucinich into the thus far abysmal Democratic primacy. Kucinich got exactly zero help and leadership from the Dem Administration. I for one intend to vote third party rather than whine about the Democrats, I don't considered myself a supporter of that party. There will be no ill consequences for me.
Kucinich must cater to the Democratic enforcement of its will, it's either that or his voice of reason will be lost from the US Congress. I'm glad the distraction of passing this abomination of a health bill is over, it just wasn't worth continuing. I'm also glad Kucinich caved, it's the only sensible thing he could have done.
Kucinich is worthless mouthpiece for the party--all talk.
He gave the "hope" for progressive reformed and then he caved.
If in the end you can't vote on your issues, you're a paper tiger.
I used to respect him--not anymore.
Chelsey is referring to the Obamacare package that Kucinich kowotowed to in the end I think.
"richsmith2"
Let's see, the bill is an "abomination", but Kucinich (who had made the strongest arguments against the bill) is "sensible" when he helps it become LAW.
Here is my analogy. A house is on fire. Kucinich keeps saying we need more water. Then, his fellow democrats tell him he had better throw some gasoline on the house. So, he does it because he needs their acceptance.
I voted for Nader (and I had voted for McKinney in the primary of 2008, but I was not impressed by Rosa Clemente's narrow focus on hip-hop culture).
Richard Nixon was recognized as a staunchly conservative president. Interestingly, looking back on things Nixon wrote and said, he would be regarded as a solid liberal today, perhaps most especially when it comes to social policies. Many of Nixon's views and policies are well to the left of today's Democratic Party leadership. Since Reagan, our government can more accurately be called "reactionary" than conservative.
Another interesting point is that the Democratic Party leadership (esp. under Clinton and, apparently, now under Obama) has enacted harsher conservative policies than the Republicans. It was a Dem president who took an ax to the New Deal. A topic that is largely ignored isn't just welfare "reform" in itself, but how these policies have been a powerful tool for suppressing wages, crushing unions and wiping out labor rights and protections. Fortunately (for the pols), Americans have largely lost the ability to understand things like how the policies that impact one segment of the population inevitably impact another.
Ted Rall, you and the rest of the tiresome Obama bashers need to get over yourselves. The U.S. government wasn't established to cater to your every need. I'd like to see any of you doing a better job than Obama, considering that his opposition devotes all its time and efforts to delegitimizing his presidency and obstructing his every attempt to bring about the kind of change he campaigned on. He's not a dictator (like Bushboy) and faces constraints of a political system geared toward inaction.
Obama ran as a centrist. It's only the ultra-liberals that have tried to superimpose their wishful thinking on him. Surprise! He's governing as a centrist.
Winter, nice name, cold and heartless. Take a long hard look around you Winter, you actually believe that Obama is doing right by the American people?
I think Obama IS trying to do the right thing for the American people, but many are too shortsighted to see the long-range benefits of his policies. I suppose if he'd come in with a surplus, booming economic times and an opposition party willing to work with him, he could have accomplished a lot more by now. Short-term memory loss seems to accompany shortsightedness in those who would ceaselessly denigrate Obama.
Hey Winter, I've got a bridge in Brooklyn I'd like to sell you.
Obama has never tried to do anything that would benefit the people at the expense of the corporations.
He received more than any other candidate from Goldman Sachs and Wall Street in general. He knows who butters his bread.
I would love to be proven wrong in the future, but his first year in office demonstates that he is just another corporatist war monger.
An enemy of the people!
Then tell that to the "centrists" in NJ and MA who burned the Democrats in the recent elections. Obama is not even a centrist. Would a true centrist do everything Bush did and worse? Moderates and independents are leaving the Obama building en masse even as we speak and they don't like Obama's selling out and betrayal. Why are you bashing only the liberals anyway? You want Obama to be a rightwinger calling himself a "centrist" in disguise? We already got that and the public is ready to shut him down for it even if that means putting a Republican in his place.
You betcha he ran as a "centrist."
THIS IS THE CENTER, YOU FOOLS! (says Molly Ivins):
"...The majority of the American people (55 percent) think the war in Iraq is a mistake and that we should get out. The majority (65 percent) of the American people want single-payer health care and are willing to pay more taxes to get it. The majority (86 percent) of the American people favor raising the minimum wage. The majority of the American people (60 percent) favor repealing Bush's tax cuts, or at least those that go only to the rich. The majority (66 percent) wants to reduce the deficit not by cutting domestic spending, but by reducing Pentagon spending or raising taxes.
The majority (77 percent) thinks we should do "whatever it takes" to protect the environment. The majority (87 percent) thinks big oil companies are gouging consumers and would support a windfall profits tax. THAT IS THE CENTER, YOU FOOLS! WHO ARE YOU AFRAID OF?..."
- Molly Ivins
It was then, it's more so now. So I'm not sure how you are "defining" centrist....THE Corporatist DLC Republicon way - that doesn't really exist? Moreover, notice how CNN finally shares a similar "epiphany" about the "center" (Glenn Greenwald reference)! Oh my, and not by coincidence - conveniently AFTER, sham-HCR passes:
NOW THEY TELL US
"CNNs Rick Sanchez was all confused about why so many people might suddenly be in favor of the HCR bill when they thought it was a bad idea before. Blitzer explains:
'Well, you know, when people are asked, we did that poll CNN Opinion Research Poll, that said, "you like this health care bill or not like it", we just assumed, a lot of us, that the people who said they didn't like it didn't like it because it was too much interference, or too much taxes or whatever.
But if you take a closer look at people who didn't like it, about 12% of those people who said they didn't like it they didn't like it because they didn't think it went far enough. They wanted a single payer option, they wanted the so-called public option, they didn't like not from the right, they didn't like it because it wasn't left or liberal enough.
That's how you got 50% of the American people who said, "we don't like this plan." But only about 40 or 38% were the ones who said it was too much government interference.'
That's so interesting, don't you think? Maybe Blitzer should put something in the suggestion box about that.
All we've been hearing for months now is that the "American people" don't like the bill because it's a government takeover. The Republicans turned that into their entire rationale for opposition, claiming that the Democrats are going against "the will of the people" and somehow usurped the Democratic process. And here it turns out that it's only the Republicans and a few conservative "independents", 38% or so of the country, who think the bill is a government takeover.
That's quite a different story don't you think? One that might have been told before now by the news networks? It might have changed the whole damned debate, actually.
Blitzer admits that they just "assumed" that everyone in the country held this wingnut view. After all, the pictures showed a bunch of angry middle aged white people screaming about socialism, and they look like their perception of Real America, so why bother to drill down into the numbers any further?
This is a perfect example of the village advancing its narrative of a great conservative majority that doesn't exist. It's a pathology with these people.
Update: To be clear, I was aware of this. I wrote about it. The fact that Blitzer and the gang failed to make this clear to their audience is the problem. It may come as a surprise to people, but I don't reach as many people as he does."
- digby
http://digbysblog.blogspot.com/2010/03/now-they-tell-us-by-digby-cnns-rick.html
Blitzer still gets it wrong.
The poll question he refers to asked people,"Do you oppose that legislation because you think its approach toward health care is too liberal, or because you think it is not liberal enough?
Too liberal: 43%
Not liberal enough: 13%
But, the Tea Party types have their own unique definition of the word "liberal." To them it means big, bad government screwing over the little guy. What the Right calls liberalism, or socialism, the Left calls corporatism. Essentially, we all object to the same thing.
Suppose CNN had asked the question unambiguously: "Do you oppose that legislation because you think it's wrong for government to require people to buy health insurance from profit-driven insurance companies, without any cap on price, and to be fined if they refuse?" The "Yes" response would have been at least a combined 56%, and probably more like 75%.
It's said that pollsters can engineer any outcome they want through careful wording of poll questions. CNN's poll is an example of that.
http://i2.cdn.turner.com/cnn/2010/images/03/22/rel5a.pdf
What the fuck are you babbling about?
War in Afghanistan? Illegal wiretapping? Torture/rendition? Complete rejection of single-payer? Back-room deals with Big Pharma? Refusing to prosecute admitted War Criminals (which is itself a war crime, eh?) and on and on. Offshore drilling in the East and in AK?
If that's "centrist" than y'all oughta be shot.
And under Obama's interpretation of law, you could be. [You knew he says he has the right to kill (via executive power) anyone he thinks might be supporting terrorists?]
That's right, punky. Just 'cause he says so.
I voted for Obama, but I am not a blind sycophant.
HST was right.
This country's finished.
Suggestion: Vote for a radical right-winger next time.
He said he did that the last time. He voted for George W. Bush in a Teflon suit.
Then he can vote for another George W. Bush in a Teflon suit, and later come back on this site and receive strokes from like-minded zealots and stroke others in return.
Good God, man.
I'm an Anti-Torture Zealot.
I didn't know....
Hey! I'm one of those too
I guess I was brainwashed by my time as an Amnesty International chapter prssident. It has blinded me to the brilliance of our exalted leader's torture policies.
Sorry Winter, my bad. I'll support torture from now on because I want to love and adulate Obama as much as you do.
While I started out with (IMHO totally appropriate) a bit of profanity, I note that you make assertions w/o any facts to back them up.
Color me astonished.
There is little O has done that requires "waiting to see" and "giving time to take effect."
I listed them.
Even if HCR was single payer, like the vast majority wanted, the other items (torture, etc.) make BHO as much a war criminal as his predecessors.
As I've said many times here: The conflict in ideology is not between Democrats and Republicans.
It is between humans and corporations.
You must be comfortable, and busy, because you see no need or have no time to pay attention.
Like 0bama?
Let's look at this.
- Active war in Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Yemen, Somalia.
- Active threats against Iran. Buildups in Colombia and the Philippines.
- Increased military spending.
- Reduced social spending.
- Regressive finance policies to puff up the income of the financial sector and the insurance sector.
- Regressive energy policies to burn more hydrocarbons in order to achieve imperial monopoly in an energy endgame that can hardly be anything but catastrophic for almost everyone.
Now, we may have different definitions of "right" and "left." The above is certainly not a Ron Paul strategy. But Paul is only "right" in terms of property, which he conceives (incorrectly, IMO) as apart from governmental enforcement of property. Most of the people usually referred to as "the right" are radically centrist and statist, and their claims of "small government" do not merit even a first sniff.
But I am repeatedly frustrated to read of the above Cheney-0bama-style policies as referred to as "centrist" -- not that I don't recognize that you're adopting common usage. But this violates all usages of center that imply moderation or a middle or lack of extremity in some sense.
Oh those damn unrealistic ultra liberal retards.
I guess the tea party is right, they are ruining the country.
reposted above.
Obama positions himself away from the DLC (i.e. Republican wing of the Democratic Party) and explains why:
http://www.blackcommentator.com/48/48_cover.html
Furthermore, Obama writes: "You are undoubtedly correct that these positions make me an unlikely candidate for membership in the DLC. That is why I am not currently, nor have I ever been, a member of the DLC."
However, it seems that since then and his election, Obama HAS shown SOME real change we can believe in by watching his recent 180 shifts in all positions and policy(s), his abandonment of all genuine progressive reform, his banishment of all genuine progressives from his DLC cabinet and administration (progressives he surrounded himself with during his campaign - the progressives who crafted his campaign policies and platform), and his newly admitted status AFTER his inauguration, "I am a New Democrat." ("New Democrat" being the DLC label for themselves.)
See: http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0309/19862.html
Note, those are NOT the change(s) that "we believed in" or wanted - or the ones that he campaigned on or that we voted for.
"This is [ANOTHER] perfect example of the village advancing its narrative of a great conservative majority that doesn't exist. It's a pathology with these people."
- digby
http://digbysblog.blogspot.com/2010/03/now-they-tell-us-by-digby-cnns-rick.html
Winter April 2nd, 2010 2:23 am
You seem to think that Obama is trying to do a better, but the opposition if too stiff.
Can you name any policy that he has fought for as president that he hasn't achieved? I can't.
It appears he gave us the health insurance privatization bill he wanted. He said straight out (speech to Joint Session of Congress on Health Care) that he had "friends and neighbors" in the insurance business and had no desire to "put them out of business" with single-payer.
Escalation of Afghanistan/Pakistan was his choice. Continued torture was his choice. Increasing both the size of and expenditures for the military were his choice. Offshore drilling was his choice. New nuclear power plants were his initiative. His appointments of industry hacks were his choice.
What progressive reform has he fought for that he was "constrained" from achieving?
Both corporate-sponsored parties keep moving right, pandering to every wish of their corporatist, militarist donors.
Ditch both corporate-sponsored parties and get active with the Green Party today.
If you don't support a party that shares your values now, then when will you?
"If you like your Health Insurance you can keep it. All want to do is lower your premiums." The public ate it up and now the public will have to vomit out before we get real reform. Time will show the falseness of this premise as premiums rise, coverage becomes more expensive and the number of people insured drops because they chose to pay the fine. How much time? How much will people have to suffer from this sham reform before they wake up? Encountering the stupidity, callousness and self righteousness of those opposed to Single Payer-- My guess is that the US citizenry will have to suffer quite a bit more. The "me first" attitude still prevails and I suppose that we as a nation will have to take a big fall before we really start to rethink this and ask again what we really have a nation for.
I did that little exercise 6 or 7 years ago. Why are we a nation? Why have we (our ancestors actually) come together to declare ourselves a nation? I began to think of the constitution... what's the big deal with it? I read some contrary commentary on how the PREAMBLE is actually the most important part of it; how it is the MISSION STATEMENT of our nation & the rest is just the details of how to carry out the mission;how the details can be changed (ammended) to carry out the mission, but the MISSION (preamble) doesn't change. I finally read it & it's right there in the preamble: promote the general welfare, establish justice, provide for the common defense. These three things will enable the forming of a more perfect union &, thru STRENGTH IN UNION, secure the blessing of liberty & domestic tranquility. To me, "promoting the general welfare" is the modern, practical, real-world version of the golden rule, or Jesus's 2nd commandment to love one another. Also, the gov't reps we give our consent to, & allow to, govern us must be about THIS business, or they forfeit their authority to rule. It cleared away all the crap about superiority of free markets, bottom lines, economic darwinism,individualism/anarchism=liberty crap, etc...
I believe in being a constitutional fundamentalist (the f*ckin words mean what they say), & if something in the constitution isn't working to fulfill the mission statement, ammend it. I'm convinced that we are either totally about the PREAMBLE, or we are NOTHING (turn out the light & shut the door).
Recommended, both volumes, of which this is the first:
The Debate on the Constitution : Federalist and Antifederalist Speeches, Articles, and Letters During the Struggle over Ratification : Part One, September 1787-February 1788 (Library of America) by Bernard Bailyn (Hardcover - June 1, 1993).
Having the religion of American nationalism so deep that probably neither my investigations nor the ongoing psychopathy of the leadership will ever truly burn it from my cerebral folds, it is interesting to read all the racist and elitist tripe in these debates, especially the profoundly sincere fear of what we call "the common man" that resounds through almost all of it.
Our ruling classes are very much descended from royalists, if not royalty. There's a reason the Bill of Rights was tacked on as an afterthought and the Preamble, for many, as window dressing: few "representatives" wanted such a thing.
I believe ALL countries are bundles of MANY factions, some allied or cooperative, some opposed & out-right enemies. The factions of our revolution that were actually revolutionary were probably few. Some were out-right agents of empire (tories), some were utterly neutral & uninvoled (settlers, family types unconcerned beyond their own plot of ground & their Maker),even among the patriots,as you said, some, perhaps most were only seeking a "revolt of the Barons" so-to-speak.I note how the Preamble is ALWAYS dismissed as a sort of "throat-clearing" part of the Constitution & not to be taken seriously, (not-to-mention some office holders dismissing the whole thing as a "goddamn piece of paper" while being sworn to uphold & protect it). But there they are; those words.Funny to think they didn't know what they were starting (& I believe the agents-of-empire, who are now-a-days all economic royalists, STILL intend to destroy us for all of it,hence all of the policy blunders in our history which are CLEARLY not in our own interest).
All of this makes it all the more amazing (to my mind),that we got as far as we did (even FDR spoke of american tories & economic royalists).I truely wonder now about "Annuit Coeptis Novus Ordo Seclorum" on the dollar bill (God favors our undertaking). It's as if the Creator wants to get some kind of work accomplished, DESPITE the sorry-ass condition of the workers that the Creator has utilized.
I miss Ted Rall’s concise and hard-hitting comics that no longer post in the New York Times.
Perhaps the only way for major change to happen is to make individual choices like growing your own food, nurturing and educating your children, forming community alliances, using barter for labor and goods, and as much as possible getting off the corporate treadmill.
If you think about it, we owe mammoth reparations to the rest of the world and Gaia for our past plunder and continued ‘neo-liberal colonialism that feeds our fat life style.
Mating choices, money and status all feed the inertia of our monied corporate rule.
"ObamaCare entrusts 30 million new customers, ... to the tender mercies of private insurance companies."
I'm sorry Mr. Rall, but that is a lie, which is being repeated over and over again in the progressive blogosphere. Half of those 30 or 32 million newly insured will NOT be assigned to private insurance companies but to MEDICAID, which is a single payer system.
And Medicaid, thanks to the House bill passed by reconciliation, will be upgraded. Payment to doctors will be raised to the level of Medicare, increasing the number of doctors who will accept it; and Federal payment to states will also be increased. Do you seriously believe that the Republicans would have done that?
You are exaggerating the rightward tendencies of the Democrats in just the same way as the Tea Party is exaggerating their "socialism," and for the same reason: to further justify your disgust.
There is plenty to deplore about Mr. Obama. But unless you stick to the truth, you lose credibility.
Stupid. We go back in time. NOTHING INNOVATIVE HERE.
Again, joke is on those who voted him in. Our people suffer the greed of big money politics. Obama is a huge let down- all the Democrats- what of our people?
Policy to move us to the right-no benefit to real people- just OBAMA doing what his handlers want. Republican. Screw the little guy (especially those with no voice.)
Our tax dollars? To us- our kids education, our medical care (not for profit), our environment (no damn oil subsidies and exploration on the coast) our infrastructure, OUR country.
Out of Iraq. Out of Afghanistan. Out of corporate welfare. Radical left policy is what we need.