I see a whole lot of stuff about how crazy Michelle Bachmann is, a woman with such high negatives the Republicans would torpedo her before they’d throw the 2012 election (they’re letting her play the Howard Dean role for now, riling up the base).

Not so much about the defining issue of the 2006 election, which at the time got 24/7 coverage fueled with righteous indignation. Am I missing something?

*checks watch*

Nope. No epic shitstorm. *taps fingers on table*

Jane, your link to Greenwald’s piece reminded me – any sense yet of when the member forum with him might occur?

He usually hides his intentions behind a lieberman, a nelson, a baucus, or a bunch of blue dogs or tea partiers, but here he is front-and-center taking credit for trying to cut some very popular programs. It’s almost as if he is trying to do damn near everything he can to piss off the base.

After this is all done, he’ll probably lecture progressives again about not being appreciative enough for all that he’s done for them.

Z

IMO, time to target local OFA offices and events on a regular basis; just like we did with the National Day of Action.

He “offered” them because he knew they wouldn’t take the deal — and that’s how he protected the three programs, Jane. /s

Reports that the WH meeting had all ready ended.

My mother refuses to believe that nice young man would do such a dastardly thing. I’m sending her a link to this thread.

Eleventy-dimensional chess! Eleventy-dimensional chess!

is that snark, or what you think?

There are two other people in that forum, and we’re trying to coordinate their schedules now.

Jane. I give you credit. You were spot on long before most everyone else. There is no doubt that this has been his driving ambition. He wants his legacy to be the Democratic president (perhaps also as a Black?) who undoes the safety net that has defined this country for 70 and more years. IMO for him consequences to the nation and the ordinary people is irrelevant. He just wants something BIG. That’s how this man thinks. Do you think he can be convinced to do something else that is BIG that would be good for the country? Of course bombs are easier to make than roads and parks.

Yeah, it’s all eleventy dimensional strategizing. O is brilliant!!/s

Something else I just thought; we need Red White & Blue FDL T-shirts, besides the black ones.

Or some kind of design that when you are either alone or in a group of people wearing them, there is a pro-principle/not threatening look – take away the possibility of negative visual media.

It’s just stunning how quickly they’ve switched into “nothing to see here, move on” mode, isn’t it.

With all due respect, Mr. President, They don’t care what you offer them. They prefer you hanging from a tree. They represent the big club – and you (and most working class Americans) are NOT in the big club. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rsL6mKxtOlQ

Tweet from AlterPolitics:

Obama was willing 2 take food from the mouths of seniors, sick people, & the most vulnerable 2 make a deal happen #ThoseDamnedRepublicans!

why aren’t defense contracts–or at least a certain sum of defense contracts-labeled “entitlements”? Or if not so labeled–after all, what’s in a name?– included when what is being called “entitlements” are being cut (which they shouldn’t be in the first place)? I’m mean, I know the answer but I thought/hoped some time back that Obama would be the guy who would put THAT on the table–at least to some extent. As it turns out, he would never do that. That, he knows, would rile the middle of the road independent voters. Even though every poll (I bet) would show those voters support putting defense “on the table” with entitlements. Jerk. So pre-occupied with those independent voters and he’s tone deaf to them. Maybe he knows what they’re saying but figures he can bullshit them like in 2008. We’ll see.

You have got to be Kidding me. Right? Let me tell you something the Rethugs are at this very moment producing video ads telling Americans using his words against him for cutting SS, Medicare and Medicaid and the Democrats have lost their edge in their fight against the rethuglican plan to Kill SS.Medicare and Medicaid. So you see there is real damage done here.

It seems to me that many people haven’t protested in groups due in some part to a sense of “learned helplessness” in regards to the actions of the President or Congress, but, there will be consequences at the voting booth in the future. It will be VERY negative for the Democratic party. Because no matter what bipartisan game playing is done, the bottom line is what people see and feel in their lives. When they continue to see community programs cut due to a President who puts “austerity” before the citizens (as one of many examples), they will respond. The Republican party could bring forward the “rational” person for President and easily win. Congress and Obama have repeatedly ignored the historic Democratic Party platform and there IS a price to pay for that at a time of high unemployment, millions of foreclosures, and perpetual wars.

Why does he have a 70% approval among Dems? Or does he.

I am old enough to remember Reagan and even he would never ever have actually put these programs up for gutting. Obama is no Democrat and we desperately need a primary challenger.

I suppose that’s possible. But if so, then why did he continue to push for cuts last week after Republicans offered what was basicaly a clean bill? And if it’s what he’s doing, then that makes him worse than many thought. Because you do NOT gamble with other people’s lives and security. Just think of the mess they will be in if (when) Republicans take Obama up on his so-called fake offer.

I did not tell Obama that it was okay to play poker with my life.

He does not. Its a function of asking the questions.

Think in your mind about all the Republicans you know. Would you actually say you supported any of them? Of course people say they support Obama in these polls. Heck, even I do if the choice is Bachmann!

A better question that never gets asked is if Democrats would prefer a different Democrat.

Not so much about the defining issue of the 2006 election, which at the time got 24/7 coverage fueled with righteous indignation. Am I missing something?

where is matt stoller (Thereisnocrisis.com web campaign)?

My very favorite comment on BJ is this:

You know, for someone I’ve been reliably informed by FDL and GOS to be chomping at the bit to slash Spcial Security and Medicare, Obama seems to be putting up quite a fight. Doesn’t he realize the role he’s been assigned by his caucausian betters on the left?

What planet?

“Learned helplessness” is a novel way to consider how many liberals are silent. Many insist on protecting Obama and overly fixating on Boehner. Somehow we’re supposed to elect more progressives to the House and turn this around. That has consistently been tried and failed.

There needs to be a new set of plays. They may exist or may need to be developed but we’re doing the same thing over and over and over again and expecting a different result. That is the definition of insanity and it is no wonder this country is in the state it is in today.

What infuriated me most of all was his diatribe about hard working Americans who are supposed to be front and center (While he’s cutting their safety net) in the thinking of those at the bargaining table. WOW Sorry folks I have to look for the top of my head which just blew off again.

I don’t think so. I think that when all is said and done that Mitt Romney will be the candidate. But I think this will also make the Tampa Republican convention make Chicago 1968 and Miami 1972 dem conventions look mild.

The tea party will not go for this at all. And even if Bachmann somehow gets anointed, she will go down in flames just like McGovern did. The independents and GOB regulars will not go for her.

Just my guess.

can anyone say Estate Tax hike?
has this even been mentioned by our wealthy overseers?

Estate taxes are the lowest they have ever been.
It is long past the time when that should be on the table, along with the Bush Tax Cuts and lifting the SS cap.

But first, stimulus for jobs.

Obama truly has been the right-wing version of the Manchurian candidate, though he did tip his hand a bit in January 2008, with his hagiography of Ronald Reagan in Las Vegas.

Obama is no Democrat and we desperately need a primary challenger

Agreed. But who?

Ahh, just helping them sell Reaganomics then, I see. At least Peggy Noonan gave us “morning in America” not mushy peas.

No matter, at 60 there is no way I can afford to trust this guy with a second term.

Denial is no longer possible.

Yet we all know that even as we speak, there are legions of Obamabots thinking of ways that they aren’t really cuts after all or taking the Ezra Klein “it’s the best we can get” tack. Whatever happens, they’ll never forgive you for being right all along.

What do you think of Howard Dean ?

Headline of today’s LA Times:

Hope fades as debt talks break down

Exactly whose hope faded? The traitorous Obama’s?

Elizabeth Warren, if she’s available.

Look, this guy (Obama) is none too bright. And neither are we (myself included).

We’ve been giving unconditional support for a political party that steadfastly refuses to fight for: working people (mean income down flat/down for the last 40 years NOT including health care/college eduction in the price index); the environment (seen any greenhouse gas regulations, or speeches on climate change?); human and civil rights (no stand for = rights for gays, Gitmo and rendition to black sites still going on; Bradley Manning); a faithful execution of the laws (no prosecution for torture, rape and murder, no prosecutions for spying, no prosecutions for mortgage fiasco; more likely to prosecute whistleblowers than whistleblowees), etc.

Basic political theory. If you continually support a party that does not support you or your agenda, they have to reason to change. You will be taken for granted in favor of compromises for factions that WILL vote elsewhere (independents/conservative dems) while you have no leverage.

Our votes are the only leverage we have. I say it is long past time to use it effectively.

I figured out many years ago that the object of government had switched from governing for the good of the country to governing for the good of the upper elite. I knew that obumble would not be a good president, but I thought that he would slow the rush toward ruination that the repugs wanted. I did finally figure out that harry reid was a dino and nancy had lost her dim roots. My realization that obumble was a repug in dim clothing really came with the appointment of rahm and his desire to “look forward, not back.” I am sick with the realization that the country will be fully fascist by 2016. It is not for myself that I cry, but for my son.

BTW, I just read The Obama Syndrome by Tariq Ali. If you haven’t read it, you should (it’s short), and if Tariq has not been on Book Salon, he should be.

Warren would get the same treatment as Howard Dean got. Can’t have actual liberals in office now, can we?

Yup. The other line is that, in the end, Obama is beholden to the liberals in the Democrat party and they’ll never let him cut anything of substance. They were just trying to use this process to sneak in tax increases.

Worst of all, Obama uses the left to prove that he is trying to be balanced. Did you hear him proudly proclaim that he infuriated folks on his Left! I didn’t hear Boner make that kind of remark did he?

Call OFA headquarters @ 312-698-3670 and give them an earful.

They usually expect pushback at the White House numbers; but if you call the political arm and say no way in hell, no money, and especially NO VOTE that will surprise them a bit.

Will the U.S. public continue to tolerate this fraud? Will the tolerate the 2nd or 3rd World America he and the other MOTU want to create? If this were any European country the public would be outraged and in the streets. The lemmings in the U.S. think the guy’s a genius because he’s articulate. They have no idea what’s in store for their parents, their grandparents, their children, their neighbors.

It won’t happen unless we nominate one.

She’d never run against the President.

I agree and disagree. Disagree in this sense: Primary challneger a la Ted Kennedy ain’t happening. So Obama/Biden (don’t forget to save some invective for Joe)–that’s the ticket. Agree here: We do need someone else but it’s in the general election that the question, for me at least, becomes “who?”

Who we need is someone willing to fall on his or her sword for the principles and values that once defined the Democratic Party. The candidate won’t win so we need someone to do it because it’s the right thing to do.

Maybe the guy who wrote “Lies and the Lying Liars who tell them” would like to offer himself?

Obama is shaping up to be the Alexander Kerensky of U.S. politics. A place holder whose policies contributed to the country erupting into revolution.

Scary, but some people actually believe that. There was a post on dkos thanking Obama yesterday.

Neville Chamberlain just called the White House. He wants his playbook back.

“they’ll never forgive you for being right all along”

Driftglass had a graphic on his site that I would dearly love to have on a t-shirt:

The Left. Taking shit for being right since before you were born.

There will be no one who will primary Obama unless we get a Nobody.

Absolutely. The whole debt ceiling farce in which the primary goal is to institute austerity on the suffering poor, elderly, sick, and unemployed while the rich continue to prosper leaves progressives helpless. Our overlords can’t even honestly report what they are doing in the government and yet we are supposed to use the ballot box alone to build a progressive movement to stop the destruction of the social safety net that no one will talk about until the after the cuts are done.

We’ve got to reject the entire playbook that we have learned that keeps us helpless.

Barack Obama is a symptom, not the disease itself. He’s an alumnus of the Senate Democratic caucus, which has rolled over and played dead to the right wing so many times I’ve lost count. Caving in is part of their institutional DNA. It’s like Mike Royko’s ex-Cub factor: even when a player leaves Chicago, he retains his “Cubness,” which translates into bad baseball at the worst possible moment.

You’re being sarcastic, right? If you’re serious, you obviously haven’t been paying attention to what he’s been saying for almost two years and what he’s demonstrated he’s willing to do.

Thank you for closing the snark tag. (srsly)
Anyone unfamiliar with your actual POV could have mistaken you for one of our regular O-bot-trollz.
Or someone like me, with a tendency to skim, might have missed your “handle” and done the same.

I have long thought that jeb will be the candidate in 2012. He was probably holding back for 2016, thinking that obama could not complete his mission of destroying the dim party in four years. obama has been quite successful and will be out as a one-termer, so jeb will step in.

There’s no one on the Democratic Party roster with both the guts and stature to challenge Obama. Which speaks volumes about the incredible lack of talent on that roster. The question boils down to whether Capitol Hill Democrats are the 1962 Mets or the 1919 Chicago Black Sox of politics.

Just another fuckin’ neoliberal.

Yikes!

How do you stay sane after reading that factually challenged crap?

PS How does someone name their blog Balloon Juice? I can only think of two meanings for that title, and both involve disgusting bodily fluids

I see that’s the big push coming out of the Axelrod PR shop for 2012 — challenge Obama on changing a position he held during the 2008 campaign, which you still hold, and you think you are “better” than him.

From the Guardian article: “The president’s attacks on America’s social safety net are destroying the soul of the Democratic party’s platform.”

I am under the impression that the point of moving away from national political platforms and the planks that comprise them and instead turning elections into party focused, celebrity-style branding was to decrease the amount of popular democracy . . . ?

Threaten to send Lt. Dan Choi to their headquarters. That just might do it.

Jane, maybe some people believe in doing things a little more quietly?

Anger works when one needs to mobilize short-term. Pledges and statements can help to serve as a kind of historical memory.

But lasting change often occurs invisibly. Don’t imagine that because people are not rioting in the streets that they haven’t taken notice. What matters is if the people they talk to out of concern sound like a reasonable alternative.

Public fights between progressive groups are a sure ticket to division and disaster.

well, that’s one thing he’s being honest about

I agree that there needs to be a new set of plays because the old methods aren’t working. What I’m talking about are numerous people who talk with a sense of learned helplessness but specifically have stated they will not vote for Obama in 2012. I am running into far more people regularly who are no longer making excuses for Obama (I’m not referring to those on the internet, but those I speak too face to face). They may not be polled, they may not be protesting, but they are VERY unhappy with the President. Obama is decimating the Democratic party platform, the Republicans hate him anyway, and he comes across as more concerned with political game playing for a “win” than what is best for citizens. That is a very bad place to be for someone running as a Democrat.

Cool, thanks. (Sorry for going o/t)

Jane, you asked about the shitstorm. Jake Terpstra is an octogenarian who has led the fight for child welfare as a career administrator in both Michigan and Washington. He is widely known as an authority on the subject and his counsel is still sought by civic leaders and government officials, and the foregoing only begins to touch on his diverse career and staunch activism for old-line Progressivism.

Jake just forwarded me this letter, which he has sent to the president:

President Barack Obama
The White House
Washington, DC 20500

Dear President Obama,

Even though you are the president, you have NO RIGHT to dismantle parts of
Medicare, Medicaid or Social Security. These are the peoples’ programs, well
established for many years, and are life and death issues for many of us. They
also affect EVERY American who attains eligibility age.

If there were no good alternatives, and if Congress initiated legislation
because there were no good alternatives, it could be reasonable but not by a
president, one person, who uses our rights as bargaining chips, making a
unilateral decision to accommodate the republican agenda.

Why don’t you talk about alternative expense reductions, such as cutting
military spending by about a third, eliminating or reducing farm subsidies to
family farms, eliminating earmarks and tax subsidies to oil companies that
didn’t pay taxes in the first place. With the space shuttle program ended, those
costs now can be reduced.

You also seem weak on increasing revenue. For example, instead of wanting to tax
millionaires and billionaires at the starting rate at $250,000, increase it to
$500,000. You would frighten far fewer people. And why do many defense
industries that make huge profits from government money, and oil companies, pay
NO taxes at all.

Need I remind you that Social Security is NOT an entitlement program, and that
it not only does not affect the national debt. The GAO states that it will be
fiscally solvent until 2036. This is the peoples’ program not your bargaining
chip, or plaything.

I know that one citizen cannot cause you to act in the interests of the people,
but I hope that you will think about the consequences for your election if you
make life unnecessarily more difficult for most people.

We are frightened by a president who seems to be willing to be a traitor.

Very seriously,
Jake Terpstra

cc: Sen Levin
Sen. Stabenow

Bernie Sanders is considering a primary challenge and I believe he announced it on Thom Hartman’s radio show. It’s a start no?

Neville Chamberlain would be proud…

The Change to Win folks met with Senator “Lying Liars” to brief him on how they had been targeted by the Chamber, Hunton & William, HB Gary, Palantir and Berico.

The Senator said “oh, those are defense contractors. Nobody wants to mess with them.”

And that was the end of that.

So maintaining a principle consistently is bad, and not holding fast to a principle is good.

Who knew…

I read that when it first came out. Great book.

If Bernie Sanders is considering a “primary challenge,” you can be pretty sure he will come around in the end “for the good of the country,” drop out and endorse the President.

Come on, people. That’s the game. How many times do they have to run it before we memorize it?

Obama’s ego has overridden his intelligence. He wants to make the big deal at all cost. He simply has forgotten the “kiss” and “cya” principles. “Keep It Simple Stupid” and “Cover Your Ass”. If he would have maintained throughout a simple vote of raising the ceiling was best at this time with actions to draw down the troops he could have then made the repubs look unreasonable. Instead he has listened to his advisors and thrown the weak groups of citizens under the bus forgetting this is the group with the best memory at election time. The Big 3 have no business being bargained as part of the budget, except for the fact Obama and the repubs want to use money from this fund to pay debts they stupidly created. These programs are solid enough to go 25 more years so there is no immediate reason to discuss them. Strangely, I do agree with the repubs that we do need a constitutional admendment, however one that sets term limits for congress, eliminates pensions for congress, makes lobbying and accepting money from lobbist illegal, sets the pay rate for congress at 100,000 with the only raise the same as received by SS, and health insurance supplied by medicare. We would never hear the word cut used about these programs again. Just sayin’

All of this and now we hear that Amy Winehouse has died…at 27…it is all so depressing.

It just might!

You should totally put that up as a diary, Anthony.

And no worries about the O/T. I think you will be very very happy when you hear who the other two guests are, and say it was very much well worth the wait.

Sadly, I have to agree.

Public fights between progressive groups are a sure ticket to division and disaster.

They’re unavoidable where basic principles are involved.

What other option than primary challenge? Third party?

Jeb is perfect. The masters are going to leave Bachmann out there for awhile to placate the loonies and lure Obama ever further to the right. Then Jeb can come in and run to Obama’s left and save the day.

I can’t see how he’d lose.

Wonderful letter, wonderful. Too bad it will fall on deaf ears!

How are we going to nominate one? The second Dean won a primary, the msm invented the Dean Scream and the smear was on.

The U.S. public are very slow learners and have very short memories, an ideal scenario for evil to triumph.

Tariq Ali and David Harvey? *g*

That is just tragic. How terribly sad.

Dems won’t Primary him so third party candidate is the ONLY way. All we need is one uner-wealthy American who’s had enough & one celebrity with VERY low negatives who can read the lines.

Dunno if I agree he’s a neoliberal but he’s certainly a party partisan.

or envious.

You’re exactly right Jane, and we need to change that script by insisting that any challenger NOT do that, and instead throws their support to an Indie or third-party Progressive.

He’s Colonel Nicholson from Bridge on the River Kwai

Jeb is perfect.

He checks the unemployment rate every day.

Joplin, Hendrix, Morrison, Winehouse… what a waste….

Sorry new to this was just passing on information. I am writing in single payer for my vote in 2012 unless someone has a better idea.

Yeah, I know. You can’t exaggerate the absence of leaders. I don’t think there’s even a half credible Kennedy left.

Hey, sailor, come here often? *g*

At this point I think the two go hand in hand.

What do you think of Howard Dean ?

I think he’s terrific. I worked my ass off for him in ’04 — even rejoined the Democratic Party so I could vote for him in the primary.

The media would make a big deal of ‘the scream’ again, but they’ll do anything possible to pillory a viable liberal.

That being said, my impression is that he’s been hewing to the Obama line. Plus his wife can’t abide the political fishbowl.

Just to reinforce the ‘facts’, e.g., we are not making these cuts to SS, MA and Medicaid up in our imagination; here is snippet from NYTimes’ editorial, “They Can’t Say Yes.”

“Mr. Obama, in fact, had already gone much too far in trying to make his deal palatable to House Republicans, offering to cut spending even further than the deficit plan proposed this week by the bipartisan “Gang of Six,” which includes some of the Senate’s most conservative members. The White House was willing to cut $1 trillion in domestic and defense spending and another $650 billion from Medicare, Medicaid and even Social Security.

Much of that savings would have come from raising the eligibility age for Medicare benefits and reducing the cost-of-living increases that elderly people depend on when receiving their health and pension benefits. It could have caused significant damage to some of the nation’s most vulnerable people.”

What about Grayson? Doesn’t he also have a lot of $ to start a war chest?

DADT has been repealed. DOMA might be ‘repealed’. The numbers of states that allow medical marijuana keep growing (prescription-only synthesized THC is widely available).

These are astounding, historic transformations, and only very recent.

In the 1970s I was convinced that SS/MM would not be available when I reached retirement age and eligibility.

Sorry to interrupt. Carry on!

OT – breaking from UK Press Association

Amy Winehouse was found dead in her London apartment today. She was 27.

Talk about a sad story.

Cutting SS and Medicare is quite simply theft. What makes this robbery even shittier is that it hurts those with the least power and money the most. It is snatching a poor old ladies purse. It is knocking a child down the stairs. It is a criminal act.

Elizabeth Warren, if she’s available.

Wow. Excellent choice. But it isn’t clear if she even wants to run for Mass. Senate.

I am writing in single payer for my vote in 2012 unless someone has a better idea.

We do.

NewProgs.org

Is there anyone here that believes that if he doesn’t get this done this term that he’ll abandon efforts at these cuts in a second term?

Ah, if only Bernie would run…

Wow. Awesome.
Can we make this an online, open letter and collect thousands of names? Sign me up.
No, I don’t expect that would make a huge difference, but it’s yet another way to publicly hammer on the facts.

FunnyDiva

Those would make some pretty stark visuals in ads…..so true and so sick.

And let’s not forget that Obama reads FDL!

Hey SD. I’ve missed all of our times together.

It would’ve been a great start if Sanders hadn’t caved on HCR.

I’m not sure I believe that.

Econobuzz says, “[Public fights between progressive groups are unavoidable] where basic principles are involved.”

Actually, they’re not unavoidable. As one can see on the right, extreme libertarians and extreme theocrats coexist peacefully as long as they believe there is something more important at stake. It doesn’t mean they don’t fight. It certainly doesn’t mean they like one another. But when they fight, they usually do it privately.

Public criticism of Obama, even harsh criticism, is appropriate and necessary over bedrock issues like Social Security/Medicare, torture, and more. If people want to vow not to vote for him even before finding out who the Republican nominee is, well, that’s certainly their right.

But Jane knows what I am talking about when I speak of public conflicts between progressive groups. We do not want to end up as a John Cleese skit.

I guess my question is what do we do? Don’t mean to be negative but it seems no one has a solution. What is out goal here just want to be united with the message.

Bernie Sanders is considering a primary challenge and I believe he announced it on Thom Hartman’s radio show. It’s a start no?

That doesn’t sound right. For one thing, Sanders isn’t a member of the Democratic Party, so he can’t primary Obama. Secondly, he’s said in a fairly Shermanesque manner that he’s not running.

AND THE KILLIN’ GOEZ ON AND ON AND…

Citizen Hamsher:

“It’s just stunning how quickly they’ve switched to ‘nothing to see here, move on’ mode…”

Indeed, but the question now is what do we do about takin advantage of the vacuum in political leadership…but in fact there are insurgent movements organizin’on the ground in every major battleground state north of the Mason-Doxon line. I have said for months now that the only road to a progressive, populist politics begins inside the Democratic Party with the goal of makin’ Charoltte 2012 look like Chicago 1968. AND the issue of the wars and the economy must drive the movement.

The Minneapolis mornin’ paper had a featured article about $270,000 in pay raises to 35 school district administrators after cuttin’ 118 profressional teaching jobs. The recall efforts in Wisconsin are all about the slashing of jobs and pay for teachers and union workers under the cover of a phony budget crisis and citizens in Ohio and Michigan are orgaizin’ around the same issues while New Jersy is set to go bankrupt immediately if the federal government collapses. All that is necessary to link these insurgent movements to the more general fear of economic collapse is the unifyin’ issue of the wars. The organizin’ infrastucture is in place, the structural crisis of distribution of wealth is in front of everyone and the drain of blood and treasure continues.

Isn’t it time to turn up the heat on this administration…the idea of targeting OFA offices and bringin’ the heat into Obama’s kitchen is absolutely essential. Everything is in place to drive Obama out of office but we must use the wars and war spending to make ‘im use the LBJ alternative.

We must force a Constitutional crisis by makin’ ObamaRahma involk the 14th Amendment.

KEEP THE FAITH AND PASS THE AMMUNITION THERE IS NO MIDDLE GROUND IN A CIVIL WAR!!

Me too. If I hit the Lotto I’ll have to change that situation. *g*

Wow, this letter nails it.
I hope it gets around.

Know what’s a ticket to disaster? Obama/Biden.

He offered them because he didn’t offer them?

I didn’t go to Harvard, but that sounds like bs.

Who is he to offer cuts in people’s healthcare and retirement, so he can make a deal to keep some corporate Republicans happy? Real people will suffer because of this pompous potentate, who gives away his neighbor’s food so his pig friends have even more to eat.

As one can see on the right, extreme libertarians and extreme theocrats coexist peacefully as long as they believe there is something more important at stake.

Evidence refutes that; look what Rove has done to Palin, and what is currently happening with Bachmann.

Bernie Sanders

So far he’s been a fairly effective negotiater actually getting billions for free clinics during the health care debates. He’s also been fairly clear and articulate during the debates on taxes and whatnot that if given enough power that he’d stand hand in hand with the bottom 80% of us.

Bonus: He’s an Independant. Get rid of the idea that only 2 parties should be representing us, even if it means they do a poor job of it.

Norske!! haven’t beene here so much so I haven’t seen you around. Always good to see you, man.

/s means snark.

I’m not worried about his second term, yet. He still has between ten to twenty days to get a “deal” with the Republicans. And I suspect he will get a deal.

very sad news.

Remember when the Repugs told us that we must continue the Bush tax cuts because the economy could not withstand “uncertainty” ? Um, like refusing to raise the debt limit doesn’t create uncertainty>

I think the problem is more the choice of individual rather than the delivery method. Someone who has bought into the system and has capitulated every time he had the power to challenge it may inspire people who like his rhetoric, but it won’t inspire the kind of movement it will take to actually bring about change.

I know I’ve said it over and over again, but I keep going back to what Diane Wilson said during her book salon:

i was working hard to get those dang fishermen involved but they were depressed and believed they were seeing their last days on the bay so there was NO involvement from them. Then the day came where i took my own shrimp boat into the bay to sink it on top of an illegal discharge of formosa plastics that NONE of the agencies were doing one thing about. Well the coast guard got called out with three of their cutters and they were calling me an ‘ecoterrorist’ on the high seas…..well, something about what was happening touched those fishermen at the docks and EVERYONE of them got in their shrimp boats and steered defiantly passed the coast guard and demonstrated in front of formosa plastics and that action, with those fishermen, was actually how i finally got formosa plastics to go zero discharge of their wastesttream. So what spurred the fishermen was a spontaneous loner action….so you never know what will move people to get involved.

Once there is leadership and vision, the delivery mechanism can be chosen to best suit the vehicle.

Which is a short way of saying: anyone who wants to draw people into a movement right now, go sink a shrimp boat. Focusing on an abstract discussion of “best tactics” in the absence of anyone to motivate and fuel them is just not going to inspire people to snap out of their stupor right now.

Even if it means they’re the only ones who have the money to do it?

He managed to get money for free health clinics and his drafting a single payer bill clearly shows that if he were a leader the single payer group wouldn’t have been left out of the debate on solutions.

Afternoon, bro

Has there been any mention in the press or ads about how the Regressives forced cash-strapped counties to pay for an unnecessary primary election this week?

Great idea. This letter should be circulated.

Oh I didn’t mean that to be addressed to you Popeye. I’ve heard people really excited about that lately, and I understand why, because the field to choose from is so poor right now. But it just isn’t going to be an effective vehicle for real change. It’ll just siphon off people’s energies.

Yes but considering he’s now made it clear that the deal will include cuts that 80% of the country don’t want, I wouldn’t be holding my breath on what that deal will look like.

The President is the ‘adult’ in the room, he is being ‘serious’ and dealing with the harsh reality of the fake deficit crisis in the way most palatable to the ‘conventional wisdom’ floating around in DC.

What a fraud.

He couldn’t be bothered to fight for a public option on health care.

But he will get cuts to meicare, social security and medicaid at all costs.

He will get his cuts even with 80% of the country saying clearly DO NOT TOUCH these programs.

He can never be counted on to speak out in defense of these programs or any other legislative objectives he has claimed to support for that matter …….funny how He ALWAYS, shows up speak out in defense of his capitulation.

Even at this stage in the game, if he were to give just one honest and passionate speech in defense of what the American people want, calling out Republican insanity and chastising Blue Dog Dems, he would send them runing to for the hills, they nearly collapsed after the mild comments he made about Ryan’s Plan for crying out loud!

But he Won’t Do that. And that is all I need to know about the man.

If he’s fooling anyone now, it’s because they like being deceived

It’s a great question. “What do we do”

Okay, he put them on the table (which he never should have), they declined, now take these programs off the table – for good. They do not need to be part of the bargaining – plenty of ways to cut spending (defense anyone?) and raise revenues without hurting the MC, which simply cannot afford it!

Yep.

Does anyone know if there is any way to elect uncommitted delegates anymore?

Jane,

Obama’s admission wasn’t the big news from yesterday, it’s Kent Conrad’s “current law…” argument. He is talking about the GWB tax cuts. Since current law ends the GWB tax cuts (Dec2012), Conrad and Obama are offering to extend the GWB tax cuts in exchange for cutting Medicare, Medicaid, and SSI. Ending the GWB tax cuts for the wealthy results in $800B over ten years. If your initial response isn’t WTF? It should be. Obama is negotiating to end policy already set to expire automatically. Obama is negotiating with himself or offering social program cuts in exchange for nothing. But since Obama still wants to raise taxes on the rich, the Republicans wont agree. BTW, the GWB tax cuts are the biggest part of our current deficit/debt.

BFL, disasters come in large, extra large, and gigantic.

I have been critical of Obama since before he was elected.

But a deeply divided left with him or a Republican in charge is even worse, because then there’s not even the possibility of fighting back.

A transformational moment.

Public criticism of Obama, even harsh criticism, is appropriate and necessary over bedrock issues

As I wrote, this inevitably leads to serious conflict among progressive blogs. Maybe your point is that it need not be personal? Given human nature, I’m not sure even this can be avoided.

The problem, really, is what happens if we default? It appears Republicans might be quite happy to see this happen. So are the cuts being proposed, which could be reversed if Democrats ever win control of both houses again, more or less painful than a default?

You mean the money for the clinics that paid off Planned Parenthood so they wouldn’t make a stink about the Hyde Amendment being made permanent?

My favorite part is that Bernie is now running around pretending he got Audit the Fed passed, when he was the one the White House and the banks went to in order to water it down. It was important to be sure, and we found out only yesterday that the Fed shoveled out $16 trillion to bail out banks and businesses as a result:

http://michael-hudson.com/2011/07/save-the-gambling-bankers/

But Bernie was the weak link, not the hero:

http://fdlaction.firedoglake.com/2010/05/06/ron-paul-says-bernie-sanders-sold-out-sided-with-chris-dodd-to-gut-audit-the-fed/

I got it when Obama viciously attacked Bill Halter (& anyone who dared support him). Halter’s crime? Challenging an Obama minion who all polls could not win her reelection effort. Obama showed then it wasn’t about solidifying the Democratic majority in the Senate, it WAS about power – his power. This is the man Democrats STILL like?

Again I am just repeating what was said on another thread. He has shown interest in running against O. Maybe it is as an Independent. I don’t subscribe to the Thom Hartmann radio show so I can’t confirm or deny the story.

Citizen SouthernDragon:

It’s all about the wars…leadership will grow out of action, they’ve given us an “economic crisis” so now it’s time to shove that crisis right up their collective ass.

can’t carry his district and may not even win a primary to run against the incumbent. I don’t think he’s viable. I just don’t see a 3rd party or certainly not a primary. Unfortunately, I don’t see anything. Not a visionary so you can’t really go by me, I guess.

Votes matter.

Money helps but at the end of the day 80% of us manage to operate with very little of it.

I’m not going to pretend that it wouldn’t be hard to elect someone who didn’t have a large war chest. Worthwhile endevours are rarely easy though. I daresay it was hard for our founders to start this country or that it was hard for women to campaign for suffrage or for people of color to campaign for equality. No, it would be hard but incredibly worthwhile.

The repugs have made it clear from the beginning there will be NO Default. That why this is an entirely made up issue and anexcuse to destroy the Big three!

Never underestimate the O-bots’ capacity for self-delusion.

Some divisions are just too wide to be easily bridged. He offered to raise the Medicare eligibility age AND cut Medicaid. Hello? I’m sorry but there’s no bridging that divide with me.

This drives me nuts. Why would any Democrat still be making excuses for Obama? He, not his advisors, not the blue-dogs, not the Republican House is THE problem. Period.

Brainstorming here…

I wouldn’t want to see anyone push a child down the steps or steal an old lady’s purse or set himself on fire, but it would certainly focus my attention if I did.

Some sort of macabre street theatre that could catch MSM attention?

Kelly, that’s a good point on how Bachmann and Palin are being taken down by forces inside the GOP.

But notice how quietly they’re doing it. Go over to Free Republic and you won’t find any identifiable pawn of Karl Rove trashing Bachmann or Palin. And when they’re done taking her down in favor of Rick Perry or Mitt Romney or whoever the establishment decides is going to be the nominee, they’ll make sure that both of them get book deals and TV gigs to keep them happy.

The left instead gets into public purity frenzies, and fragments itself. This is why ideas which a majority of the public supports end up getting minority representation.

LMAO! If you hit the Lotto, you’ll have to beat ‘em off with a stick.

I’d much prefer Gary Johnson, but against Obama I’d vote for Jeb in a minute.

Oy, we’re working on trying to do something Norske. We’ll be talking with Nancy Altman and Eric Kingson tomorrow about it, and we hope to be announcing more soon. It’s just an awful lot of work spread over too few people and way too few resources. But you’ve been great and really supportive, so thanks for all you do. Hope you’ll be on the call tomorrow:

http://fdlaction.firedoglake.com/2011/07/22/emergency-fdl-member-webinar-on-looming-threat-to-social-security-and-medicare-with-nancy-altman-and-eric-kingson/

If anyone is not a member and would like to join and be on the call, there is still room. We’re limited in the number of people we can have on the webinar because of the high cost — unfortunately, “virtual town halls” are still extremely expensive to put on. We hope the price comes down and we can make the technology available to everyone in the future.

https://members.firedoglake.com/join/

O Christ no

Two thirds of Tea Party say failing to raise the debt limit will have no negative consequences. 100% of TP freshman in Congress do not believe in climate change.

An oversimplification, methinks, but true nonetheless. Wars aren’t the only thing Empire engages in but it’s all interrelated.

Citizen Charlesli:

With all due respect, Citizen your analysis is bullshit…the only way there is change to the institutionalized power of wealth is to mobilze the majority against it beginnin’ with the sitting President. Transparency and knowin’ who the enemy is is what democracy is all about.

So who is your candidate? Let me know.

The trick is to keep one’s mouth shut.

Putting items on the negotiating table and actually cutting are two different things. Kent Conrad wants to cut Social Security (or used to; I don’t know where a retiring Kent Conrad stands on this). Kent Conrad extorted out the Catfood Commission as the price for passing a crappy health care bill the he helped make crappy.

Life looks different outside the Beltway, Jane. Take a reporting road trip and talk to people. Find out what the country really thinks about Republicans and the President and the Democrats and their Senators or members of Congress. Here’s a brief list of places to go: Whitehall, MT; Stanley, ND; Stevens Point, WI; Brillion, WI; Plymouth, WI; Paw Paw, MI; Van Wert, OH; Iberia, OH; Preston, GA; Vienna, GA; Cannon, GA; Sumter, SC; Inman, SC; Carthage, NC; Cumberland, MD; Hollidaysburg, PA. Talk to folks in the East Lake neighborhood of Atlanta, the East Garfield Park, Uptown, and Rogers Park neighborhoods of Chicago; the Mount Adams neighborhood of Cincinnati; Rockford, IL. Talk to everyone, but pay particular attention to what self-identified Democrats, self-identified progressives, and self-identified independents say.

Creating a progressive echo chamber to counteract the Great Republican Wurlitzer has its own dangers of groupthink. The political landscape is much more complicated than you, Glenn Greenwald, or any of the folks analyzing politics from a perch in DC think.

Blog commenters can be especially unrepresentative of what is going on because they are self-selected for any blog. Yes, that means take what I say as my opinion.

There are a lot of preconceptions that progressives have about the public, Democrats, and themselves that are not true. And that blindness can weaken a progressive campaign in 2012.

This is our great delima and Obama and his minions know it!

Planned Parenthood has to be responsible for planned parenthood’s actions. If they accepted hush money then shame on them. That being said, my community has a “free clinic” and it isn’t operated by Planned Parenthood.

If you don’t want me writing him in or advocating him as a write in candidate……give me a better alternative. Party A and B ain’t working for me.

I don’t know what went on in Dodd deals since voters are rarely let in on “closed door negotiations.” I do know that Bernie Sanders would likely prefer something that was “watered down” to nothing at all.

I’m not going to pretend I see Bernie Sanders as perfect. He’s a human being. By default that means he’s flawed, just like all of us. I will say this though as far as I’m concerned, at this point he’s the best chance that 80% of us have at actually getting a voice in government at this time.

Exactly. Obama used OFA to help Blanche Lincoln, who had zero chance of winning the general election. Why? To send the progressive wing of the party a lesson: we have enough money and clout to keep you on the sidelines, and we’re prepared to use it. I got the message and divorced myself from the Democratic Party.

Citizen SouthernDragon:

“Empire” is all about war and the purpetuation of war…there can be no peace in an empire, at least not for long.

This reminds me of Rayne saying that it’s the people who show up to work at the Democratic Party who run the show.

The Arab Spring started with a guy lighting himself on fire. Who knew where that would lead? Formosa Plastics changed its actions based on angry crowds, not the ballot box. Our playbook today says that progressives need to win at the ballot box to create change. Perhaps the ballot box is not the place to start because Formosa Plastics doesn’t care about voters. It cares about torches and pitchforks.

Explain his vote on HCR and I’ll back him. THAT was a real test of his leadership ability.

Well, some of the Republicans have done as you suggest, that’s apparent. The question is, is it enough?

I do agree that if conflict is over ideas rather than personalities, it’s less bitter and divisive. But even conflict over ideas can be destructive.

Maybe I should be explicit in an example. Theocrats believe in restricting choice on issues (like abortion) through government intervention. They believe in forced school prayer, no rights for gays, and lots of other issues.

Libertarians believe in allowing unregulated choice on abortion, prayer, sexuality, etc. The ideas are completely incompatible. One side or the other will win. They often hate each other with a passion that one rarely sees on the left. But they work together on issues they agree on. And they rarely if ever fight publicly.

The “/s” is often used to indicate that the preceding was “snark.”

I’m not even sure Jeb would be worse. If nothing else, he’s demonstrated that he knows it’s not all about him. He’s not the cult of one. He doesn’t need the Grand Bargain to validate his awesomeness.

But mainly I don’t think anything but defeat is going to teach the party anything. Barney Frank was talking about the invinceable ignorance of the tea party. We seem to have invinceable arrogance in the White House.

It is all so sad and foolish. There is no problem other than the one somebody invented and the democrats and Obama bought into. We can mint a coin, invoke the 14th, kick the can down the road, default or pay the ransom. Except for the last one, I’m for any one of the others. I’m really sick of listening to the endless debate. In fact, I find myself gravitating to wishing for a default so the tea party folks and Wall Street will get a taste of loss as well, especially Eric the Piss Ant.

CNN reports on crawl, drop in liberal support drops Obama approval to 45%.

Will Rogers: Never miss a good chance to shut up.
(Some days I’m able to follow that advice. :)

Also, the person sparking the crowd does not need to be an insider. It can be anyone…like in Tunisia.

One I’ve certainly never mastered.

ANYONE BEFORE OBAMA.

Uh,
maybe start with shaving-cream pies or throwing shoes?

Because I don’t think a Breitbartian thing where the li’l old lady is actually a paid actor and the child taking the tumble is actually a stunt-double would fly.

But I do understand. Trying to figure out how to “Sink a Shrimp Boat”, as Jane mentioned.

I know but it seems no one has any solutions. I want to be with majority of energy with this group. My energy is limited but I want to be a part of the solution.

There are a lot of preconceptions that progressives have about the public, Democrats, and themselves that are not true.

Interesting. What are the most important ones?

I agree. Obama showed he was just another sleezy politician. It reminded me of Lyndon Johnson going after Wayne Morse- but worse!

The political landscape is much more complicated than you, Glenn Greenwald, or any of the folks analyzing politics from a perch in DC think.

Just for the record, Glenn Greenwald’s perch isn’t even on the same continent as DC. And, so far as I know, Jane only moved there recently (within the past two years) to try to get a close-up view.

No offense taken :)

Maybe just the old fashioned pitchforks and torches. How close would we get to the WH before we were shut down, do you think?

The fisherman didn’t need the media to tell them to form an angry mob. It was a natural reaction. The MSM is not going to help. Twitter and social media is the way to spread the word, which is why the DOD is hot to seed social media with propaganda.

Urg. Sorry 168 sounds garbled. My edit got placed in the middle. The last line should read

If you don’t want me writing him in then give me a better and viable alternative. Party A and B ain’t working for me.

I’d like to add that not only are they not working for me but they appear to have a stranglehold on democracy. When you can repeatedly ignore the will of everyday Americans on FISA, social safety nets, war, taxes, etc, etc then it’s fairly apparent that “representative government” isn’t working very well. It’s time to try something different.

Way too many people believe Obama’s smart. How smart can he be? He’s clueless to the obvious fact the people he so desperately wants to please will NEVER let him in their club, never.

There is already a who. The greens will nominate somebody. I’ll be voting for Stewart Alexander cuz I’m all socialisty.

Do you think the country is fed up enough to be a powderkeg? I truly don’t know. No telling what might be the spark, and it might just fizzle. Or get so far out of control that we would long to go back to the manufactured debt crisis bitching.

I want to make sure I understand what you’re saying:

1) “Putting items on the negotiating table and actually cutting are two different things.”

He doesn’t really intend to cut Social Security and Medicare, he’s just using them as negotiating tactics. Okay, so if he does actually wind up cutting them, what will you say then? “The Republicans made him do it?” Because they didn’t. McConnell offered him a clean debt ceiling vote. Will they be the same thing if and when it actually happens?

2) “Life looks different outside the Beltway, Jane. Take a reporting road trip and talk to people….The political landscape is much more complicated than you, Glenn Greenwald, or any of the folks analyzing politics from a perch in DC think.”

How exactly does that relate to your original point 1)?? it just seems like a cheap shot in line with #61 above — attacking anyone who criticizes Obama’s mega-position shift on Social Security during the 2008 campaign as an “elitist” who is “out of touch with real Americans.” The same tack Al Sharpton took against Cornell West.

I can read a poll. The American people overwhelmingly do not want Social Security and Medicare cut. If you think that position is out of touch with the position of the American people, it’s going to take some effort beyond typing the names of a list of cities to prove it.

depends if we can make collapsible or sawed-off ‘forks and torches that would fit in, say, a violin case!*

IOW: not very far if they know we’re comin’

* that’s my personal silliness, not in any way an endorsement of actual violins violence.

You should totally put that up as a diary, Anthony.

Done: A Progressive Octogenarian Responds

Thanks, Jane!

I think this might have something to do with how connected the argument is to actual policy decisions. It got pretty heated — and public — when Turtle Man rolled out his alternative. The names he was called on the right were pretty hateful.

same here :)

Dems won’t Primary him so third party candidate is the ONLY way. All we need is one uner-wealthy American who’s had enough & one celebrity with VERY low negatives who can read the lines.

I seem to recall Donald Trump once had political aspirations.

“The worst thing you can possibly do in a deal is seem desperate to make it,” said Trump. But while he wants Republicans to stand strong on spending cuts, he doesn’t want anything cut from Medicare.

“House GOP wants to cut Medicare, Obama took $500 billion from Medicare for Obamacare. Both Wrong!” he tweeted [a week ago] Friday…
http://www.thenewamerican.com/opinion/sam-blumenfeld/8226-trump-is-right-republicans-are-stupid

the best thing for balancing the budget is to have a strong economy. And the economy can never come back if we are going to always have high unemployment.
http://mikenormaneconomics.blogspot.com/2011/04/beowulf-on-donald.html

Exactly!

Enough is enough. I look on some of the more ‘moderate’ left websites even those with a decidedly pro Obama slant, and even they are waning.

Ed Schultz has been very concerned about Obama’s antics lately, he went so far as to beg him to leave social security and medicare alone.

I think this debt limit deal will be the final blow, when the dust settles he will have shown his irrelevancy to anyone who is paying attention.

Next step, primary challenger, 3rd party candidate, focus on house and senate races.

The sooner everyone ‘unfriends’ Obama, the better

I can’t explain it, only he can.

I can try to justify his actions. He’s 1 in a body of 100 people and that body has to negotiate with a body of 435. The key word here being negotiate. That means sometimes after trying to get the others to adopt your ideas that you have to accept something less than perfect.
I do believe that Sanders probably thought that expanding Medicaid, getting money for free clinics, extending health care for those under 25 was probably better than doing nothing.

I will say this he did have a single payer bill and he did advocate for it. From this standpoint this tells me that a conversation with him at the head would be inclusive of those that advocate for a single payer system.

I can only speak for myself, and I am a self-selected commenter on this particularly outspoken activist blog (heh). I am pissed. off. I’m also trying to wrap my head around how to personally unlearn the “learned helplessness”. Change starts on a personal level, right?

To be even more clear than I have been: I am not saying that anyone should “bridge the divide” (whatever that means) with those who are willing to cut Medicare, Social Security, and Medicaid. People should always feel free to vote for whoever they like, and that includes the people who voted–in my opinion very stupidly–for Nader in 2000. If people don’t want to vote for Obama no matter who is running, that’s their right.

But I get the sense that not many people understand exactly how difficult change is. Running a presidential campaign is a very, very, very big deal. Name recognition alone is very expensive. Getting an independent on the ballot? Almost impossible. A Green, maybe, since they already have ballot access in many states. But even so, such a candidate might well be running a campaign in only part of the country, and would have to reach the people who are least well connected to the Internet–the poor, the elderly, and so on– to have a chance.

There are plenty of good people to support. Norman Solomon is one example. Bernie Sanders will have a more expensive race than usual. In deciding what I am going to do, I start from where I think I can be of most help. Helping or hindering Obama is just not that important.

Now, if Howard Dean could be persuaded to challenge Obama, that would be different. He does have name recognition, some familiarity with the presidential process, and a progressive record. But Alan Grayson? He’s a wonderful advocate for progressive causes, but would face hopeless obstacles to getting elected.

Any third party choice is going to have to work around the media. It’s owned by the top 1% that are perfectly happy with status quo.

And I say that as someone who thought Donald Trump was a terrible candidate.

LOL. Yeah, I should probably clarify my anger upthread too. Non violence a la the Egyptian Revolution is the only way to go.

No doubt we ofen drink our own bathwater. But so do the Tea Party. It is also true there are many places in this country who do not support progressive agendas. In the case of SSMM I am particularly worried that the Wurlitzer will split off the young. But these are fundamental democratic values we have fought to get for generations. And, at least at the moment, most voters seem to support those three programs. We simply cannot back off every time someone wants to take a chunk out of our social safety net, or pretty soon there will be nothing left. I am also incensed that they have chosen a phony issue, the debt limit, to undertake the attack.

Yes, and I, personally, am a weenie.

I thought about printing off some charts and fact sheets about the obscene distribution of wealth in this country along with information about what Obama wants to do with SS and MM. I was going to set up a little table in front of my local grocery store and talk with neighbors.

I totally chickened out.

TD’s ‘opinions’ are always interesting. OT: The other day Jane Hamsher suggested ditching the name ‘progressive’ (as a noun).

SIX HUNDRED AND FIFTY BILLION IN CUTS!?

Try this motherfucker for treason, then offer him a choice, he can choose between a firing squad in america or being arrested in the hague for crimes against humanity.

Maybe we need to stop thinking so much about the Presidential election. We aren’t getting anybody by Obama or the Republican, so I’d think there are much more useful things we could be doing.

Presidentialism, the idea of our savior on a white horse taking the Oval Office, seems completely backwards to me.

I didn’t say you should not advocate for Bernie or vote for him as a write-in candidate. I quite pointedly have not said anything about how I think people should vote in 2012, to the aggravation of many. It aggravated them when we wouldn’t take a position during the 2008 primaries either. That’s because we view elections as an opportunity to make candidates “earn our votes.” Once you sign on to someone’s campaign, you are put in the position of defending them, rather than asking them to compete for your support. As an activist I much prefer the latter position, because you have a lot more leverage.

I just think it’s unrealistic to expect that Bernie will present a real challenge to the current system when he never has before.

Obama is Third Way all the way – a true believer that the smart folks know more than the “lesser people.” Truth is that the rich are much smarter than the politicians, and they know how to hire the best intellectuals to frame their case and endorse their cause.

There is still plenty of time between now and 2012 and it seems so far you’ve ruled out being a victim. I don’t think that should be something to apologize for. The two major parties seem to have proven over and over again on a myriad of issues that they don’t care about 80% of us. I don’t see how they start caring if the bulk of us continue to aid and abet them by voting for those 2 choices.

Technically the epic shit-storm kind of started a week or so back when it became clear that this had been done. To their credit, even most O-Bots went through the roof on this one. I imagine if Obama ends up being thwarted the OB’s will adopt an explanation nearly identical to Econobuzz @ 5 (without irony).

At this point, Obama’s explicit acknowledgement is more of a codetta than a revelation.

The next presidential election is shaping up to be a non issue. IMHO I think we should concentrate on retaining control of congress to block whatever nasty shit they want to tack on after 2012.

Perhaps that is *exactly* the kind of action that led to Fisherman’s Revolt, though. It’s unpredictable what could cause the spark, but fearlessness seems to be extremely important. And I’m a weenie too.

Great points Jane.

In addition, no matter his intent, simply by putting the cuts on the table Obama has emasculated the Democrats running for office in 2012 by taking away the most important issue.

I happen to believe this is also intentional. I don’t think he wants a strong progressive Democratic party or even presence. Republicans serve his purposes just fine. He is IMO an authoritarian who seeks to create an Obama cult.

The right really runs on hate, doesn’t it?

What you saw was the right-wing grassroots trashing McConnell. But there was no public fight within the grassroots.

That’s what I am talking about when I caution about fights within the left. Firebaggers vs. Great Orange Satan is a very bad idea. As for Obama, he’s a big boy. If you want to trash him, go ahead. I guess I figured him out so long ago that I don’t get excited any more.

I understand the diffculty. I remember the McCarthy campaign. I remember Bobby. I remember casting my first vote for McGovern. But things have gotten much worse, partcularly economic inequality, since then. Broadly, my 40 years of voting for Democrats has been a disaster so it makes no sense not to try something new. Specifically, that Medicare age increase and the Catfood COLA just puts a vote for him off the table for me. I mean it would just be insanely self-destructive at my age to vote for him.

I’ve done door knocking on my block of graying haired boomers in the past. Should I knock and warn them about the Medicare age thing and hand them a Democratic sample ballot?

I’m thinking along those lines, too. Let’s keep a good candidate handy, though. When voting time comes I still want a candidate to represent me.

I’ve been saying for a long time that I think activism against corporations may be a more effective use of our energy, rather than playing in a rigged election game. I know that doesn’t make people happy either, because elections are where the majority of the media theater takes place. But around the world, it is unquestionably the bold actions of people like Diane Wilson who are willing to sink shrimp boats that are rallying people — not elections, which corporate America has clearly learned to dominate with ease just as they have across the globe.

It looks like Standard and Poors and Moody’s are really going to go for it and cut the bond ratings of several states, if not the US. That could force a huge crisis, particularly with the pension funds, if they have to divest quickly because they can only hold AAA rated bonds. My first thought was to call for a Congressional investigation, but then I’m thinking, that’s like having a codependent 10-year old investigate their mom. On allowance day.

Maybe we just have to sit outside Standard and Poors and eat catfood.

Hey guys, I read a great comic on the reccommendation of a youtube friend

“Transmetropolitan” you can probably download it online somewhere

It’s set in the distant future where americas pretty much gone to hell because of a greedy violent douchebag who was a “take that” at Nixon who gets replaced by a take on one of the kennedies called “the smiler” who pretends to be a nice caring leader but instead of being an example of “evil of laziness and apathy” like “the beast” but is actively trying to destroy the people and groups who make him angry

I just thought I’d reccommend it because the situation in the book was meant to be a take on the 60s or 70s but feels a lot more like Obama (the smiler) replacing bush

I’m sorry if this blog is the wrong place for something like this

I was thinking about obama, and what might being going on in his pointed head and i think your kind of on to somehting. I think he believes (and this belief is almost certainly, constantly reinforced by those sychopahnts around him) that he “was born” to do what he is doing. That his half black-half white reality has made him some kind of Hermes, a Winged Mercury to fly between the bitterly divided factions in America and bring the (self imagined) wisdom and decrees from Olympus. In fact all he has acomplished is to (deliberately) weaken the faction he was elected by, to represent first, and create even more and worse bitterness and division.

I appreciate the clarification and the fact that you have made this an issue oriented site. Policy is incredibly important.

Even though I have a streak of idealism a mile high and at least that wide when it comes to policy I tend to be a realist when it comes to people. Even the best of them will disappoint you at some point or another so the trick is to find one that you think will disappoint you the least and then work from there.

I don’t know that Bernie will challenge status quo but I know unequivocally that Barack Obama and whoever the GOP nominates won’t challenge them either. This avenue seems better than voting for someone who I know won’t change anything for the bottom 80%.

Thanks for all you do.

Thanks, Anthony. That really reflects what I hear from people when they called in to CSPAN or write me and say how scared they are that their benefits will be cut, and they don’t know how they will support themselves.

Fully agree, great idea!

Everyone has to do according to his/her conscience, greenbell. I didn’t knock doors (or do anything else for Obama) in 2008, and I don’t at the moment see why I would change that this election.

But as screwed up as the Democratic Party is–and always has been–there are always some good people in it, some muffled voices urging that we do something better.

For decades and centuries, it has been those muffled voices that made the difference between muddling through and not.

Thanks as I said I am new to all this and I have changed my thinking since 2004. The 2 party systems is broken and there is only one party corporatist.
I dob’t think we can go rogue but I am certainly not voting for the current system. I have learned my lesson.

You are assuming the “Great Orange Satan” is progressive. The problem is that there are people who call themselves “progressive” who have embraced the neo-liberal agenda of the President which is not remotely progressive. The neo-liberal agenda is the “free market” equivalent for those Democrats who want to promote the business interests first. That is not the historical progressive agenda for the citizens. Maybe it IS time to change the terminology used as “progressive” has been hijacked.

Well said, Jane, the corporate structure, comprised of individual corporate actors, though often tied together through internectine “connections”, the oligarchic “network” is the appropriate target of our collective concern, for they are, indeed the ones calling the “shots” and pulling states, that is national governments, into Their orbits and domination.

The decision of SCOTUS in “Citizens United”, should unite all citizen of the world in a clear understanding of the true seat of power and sausion.

Those “places” which “accummulate” wealth through the debasement of human life and possibility have also accrued power through the simple expedient of buying it.

The most powerful are, often, anonymous, that is, unknown to the majority of people whom those powerful affect and control.

Ironically, the best protection and method of success avaliable to those who would challenge the corporate elite is widespread noteriety.

DW

Thanks for the affirmation and great symbolism. . I really feel pretty confident that is close if not full on. He still surprises me with how little attachment and concern he has for ordinary people, in spite of some of his words being appropriate. It is like BIG is an excuse to not have to bother with others.

The only salvation for this country is in the CONSTITUTIONAL AMENDMENT for public financing of elections. No private money for any politician. That is why people like Obama get elected. No legislative solutions are possible in this country, as SCOTUS will always declare any legislative solution unconstitutional.
At least, finally, emperor has no clothes, Obama finally stands there exposed. He can’t hide anymore behind bullshit such trying to make a deal. We see him for a fraud he is, since he was the one willing to make a deal at greater cuts than even Republicans had in mind. He was put into the WH in order to destroy the Democratic party. I can’t see giving this guy any benefit of the doubt. He is the problem.
At the same time it will be impossible to win in this country with a third party. The 3rd party will have difficulty getting its message out, as the other parties control access to the media. Or whoever is nominated, is going to get assassinated. This is always the case, and, of course, the culprit will never be found. In my mind one of the most dangerous agencies in this country is CIA. I am sure they participated in every assassination that took place here, because they are the only ones who possess the means to cover things up. But you have basically all the institutions here in bed together, the military, the politicians, courts, you name it, the BIG MONEY controls them all.
The only way to neuter them all in one fell swoop is a CONSTITUTIONAL AMENDMENT.

With all due respect Citizen Norske,

…if Charlotte 2012 becomes like Chicago 1968, we lose another 40 years and most likely a bunch of good progressives. There are a small bunch of loonies in NC (just like in California or Kansas) who would love the excuse to be like Anders Behring Breivik. And you don’t diss a black Democratic mayor who beat a Republican after Democrats being in the wilderness in Charlotte since Sue Myrick beat Harvey Gantt (20 years). Especially one with a decent police department. Or the first female governor (a Democrat) in an election year in which she is running for re-election and who has the North Carolina National Guard at her disposal.

That is the way progressives reinforce stereotypes; that is not the way progressives win. That is high-stakes kabuki that you will lose. Not the Presidency. The Congress. And possibly the progress you have made in Wisconsin as well. We do not need the baby elephants building their resumes. We need progressives building theirs.

In 2012, Congress is the main game at the federal level. Obama-fixation can lose that. Reward or punish Obama with your own vote as you wish. You most likely will not sway the election. As usual. Aren’t we used to that by now.

Geography and stereotyping are the enemies of the progressive movement right now. And we still act as if there is nothing to be done about the first and willingly play into the second. No wonder the “punch a hippie” strategy is so tempting to DC politicians; the hippies play to the stereotype with their outrage. It might feel good, but we don’t win that way. In 1980, every single flaming nitwit Republican played against the crazy Goldwater supporter stereotype. Ronald Reagan: “I don’t have horns and a tail.” There’s a tactic that we’ve never tried.

Geography and stereotypes are also the key elements of the multi-billion-dollar media blitz that is coming to attack Democrats as “progressive extremists”. No one hears us say “No, they’re not.” if we act out that role at the Democratic National Convention.

It’s time we learned the Southern habit of “nicing people out”. You want to see it in action; watch Martin Luther King or Fannie Lou Hamer. And if you remember, in 1964, LBJ capitulated to the Dixiecrats and failed to seat the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party instead of the establishment.

Hamer’s response to Hubert Humphrey’s announcement of the decision:

“Do you mean to tell me that your position is more important than four hundred thousand black people’s lives? Senator Humphrey, I know lots of people in Mississippi who have lost their jobs trying to register to vote. I had to leave the plantation where I worked in Sunflower County, Mississippi. Now if you lose this job of Vice-President because you do what is right, because you help the MFDP, everything will be all right. God will take care of you. But if you take [the nomination] this way, why, you will never be able to do any good for civil rights, for poor people, for peace, or any of those things you talk about. Senator Humphrey, I’m going to pray to Jesus for you.“

Fannie Lou Hamer, after two failed attempts to run for Congress, was a delegate of the Mississippi Democratic Party in 1968 and was a vocal critic of the Vietnam War.

Hamer is considered a civil rights hero today who stood up for her principles. And no doubt she did pray to Jesus for Hubert Humphrey’s soul.

What would it mean to have progressives who are existing registered Democrats and who supported Obama in 2008 but are critical of him today run as convention delegates and for the slate of electors. On the platform of taking the convention back from being a TV ad to being a real convention in which issues are aired?

What would it look like to have 500,000 labor, progressive, and other groups that feel shut out of Obama’s policies to assemble at the convention, with labor (for example) negotiating so that the group is not confined to “free speech zones”. With a disciplined campaign of pressure during the convention. It’s too hot in August in Charlotte to wear business attire, but some neatening up certainly would play against type in the local coverage (which by the way includes a significant part of South Carolina).

Inside game-outside game. It’s how Van Jones and Elizabeth Warren do it. Come to think of it, they could be part of that coalition.

Focusing on an abstract discussion of “best tactics” in the absence of anyone to motivate and fuel them is just not going to inspire people to snap out of their stupor right now.

*G*

Much ado, about nothing, indeed . . . well said ma’am.

Show me a candidate, a bank account . . . all the Ph.D/MA crafted table plans, committees and rhetoric is quite uninspiring.

;-)

Maybe we just have to sit outside Standard and Poors and eat catfood.

Have you forgotten there’s always the Jesse Jackson/Jimmy Carter intervention solution?

Yes. It is the power of money that is ultimately calling the shots. It makes sense to me to lift the mask of their so called virtue and take on defining them as they are. Greedy powerful men manipulating to extract all the resources of the planet for themselves.

I would even go so far as to suggest eliminating all corporate taxes on profit and apply the cost for what they take on the human men and women who profit. It would take away many of the ways the movers and shakers obscure their behavior and place personhood where it belongs — on the persons. Forget NewsCorp — tax the hell out of the Murdochs.

So, basically either you want to keep the Dim Party dirty laundry a secret or you want everyone to have rainbow glitter come out their butt and make happy.

Yer so centrist . . . allies like you who needs right wing enemies.

Harumph.

I don’t disagree with any of that, and appreciate all you do too, cwaltz.

;)

Your going to continue to have the problem if you continually worry about the label defining you.

The minute you call yourself something, someone else is going to attempt to define you or others that don’t think exactly as you do may enter your group with the intent of influencing said group.

It’s just easier to worry about your core values then it is to worry about a name.

For the record, I still go with the term liberal. Sure there are folks out there may attempt to portray me as some hippy with unrealistic expectations but that is there problem more than mine. I know who I am and what I believe.

Yeah, and there’s the issue of the bank account and financing, enough to beat the DCCC, DLC, DNC . . . but they have GREAT committee’s and platforms . . . /s

That progressives are the base of the Democratic Party.

That progressives are the base of Obama’s support.

That public opinion nationally affects all Congressional elections and the Presidential election. In fact, public opinion in states affects Presidential and Senatorial elections; public opinion in Congressional Districts affects Congressional elections. That is, a nationwide poll of voters tells you very little until you have the state and CD detail fed into the model. So in July 2011 any assertions about “the public” are a WAG, a big WAG.

That progressives can hurt Obama’s re-election by withholding support. My guess is that if FDL came out this early with strong support for Obama, that would be more likely to hurt his re-election. Not because of FDL but because of how that support would be spun.

Wow, way to lecture the pro’s, you should be in corporate consulting, you’d make a fortune . . .

Agree.

Exactly. They must be cheering ! Rove and his gang must be over joyed at his stupid statements. That he doesn’t even understand how these statements are going to be used against him is shocking! Maybe, he thinks they’ll play well to the Indies? He’s obviously been told he can kick and abuse his base and they will still vote for him no matter what. Battered wife syndrome big time. His activist base though is bailing or has already bailed long ago.

Reward or punish Obama with your own vote as you wish. You most likely will not sway the election.

STILL with this shit??

Should I go back and find quotes of yours prior to the 2010 elections and post them here again???

What, 2010 didn’t happen???

Obama’s going down, and it will be a DIRECT result of his own doing and our holding him accountable for that.

See ya in 2012!! (Funny, that sounds oddly familiar doesn’t it??)

I second that.

I dont know who they are polling but were I live no one believes in Obama any longer and some of our associates campaigned for him.

I know he is change I can not believe in.

He changed the democratic party into the new conservative party and I can no longer support this movement

Mr Obama as president is everything he campaigned against:

1 He indicated his would be completely transparent – note all his negotiations are private

2. He promised to stand by labor. He stands as far from labor as he can.

3. He promised affordable health care yet let the insurance lobby write the bill – ever since my on the job health care premiums are rising now by over 60%

4. He promised to remove the influence of the lobby groups. His entire cabinet of advisors are Wall Street.

I know his disdain for the left and Im beginning to return the favor.

And more of the same shit again.

Yep, 2010 obviously didn’t happen.

Super analysis Tarheel. It is I think by far the best strategy. To just create a Woodstock in Charlotte would indeed be throwing ourselves under the bus.

For my state at least the Democratic Party is so small and still dominated by Blue Dogs.. As you have likely read in my posts I have for some years tried to do my part in recruiting and inspiring the several if not many liberals in my area of the state but still have many brick walls to gaining much power or hope. I do see this latest Obama betrayal as having a negative impact on folks I never thought would question — so maybe there is more hope than I feel.

Yes, TS, and superbly spot-on.

As Dickens suggested, in essence, a “corporation” is merely a “company of proprietors” banded together, for the benefits of legal protections afforded so-called fictious persons under the law.

A law not very different from the law which permitted and protected slavery, to the vast enrichment of an elite and careless few.

DW

I wonder how much money the Democratic Party had in its bank account a couple months after it was founded? Oh, well. They never made anything of themselves either :)

Obama is a wannabe. I’ll let you all fill in the blanks.

I just think it’s unrealistic to expect that Bernie will present a real challenge to the current system when he never has before.

Every. Single. Elected. One.

City to county to state to fed.

If not corrupted or compromised to start, they are corrupted and compromised quickly once let into the club.

A very fatal problem with a disinterested electorate fighting for income, shelter and food . . . and education, and hope for a future.

Really liked seeing you put that out there ma’am . . . solid.

I’ve been in favor of removing all corporate taxes as well (which I know loses my progressive cred) but the only way it should happen is with a return to higher top rates AND a new mechanism that ensures corporate expenses that are a direct benefit to it’s officers are also counted as income for those officers.

But yeah, I don’t think you’re the only progressive that’s thought about ending corporate taxation. (INCOME taxation. Corps should pay all the other taxes though IMO.)

Yeah, I didn’t realize the change O was talking about was going to be to SS and Medicare.

Ah, yes. Purity tests. No one is pure except me and thee, and I have my doubts about thee.

Look, if Jane can team up with Grover Norquist on certain issues, Firebaggers can work with Orange Satans on others. You don’t have to like people to work with them.

Don’t expect a shit storm, at least not against Obama nor immediately. The changes are intentionally gradual so people won’t necessarily realize it right away. If they happened and it became a major issue in the media, both parties would blame each other to confuse the public who only knows how to respond through elections and voting for their team or sitting out. Even if it doesn’t break into mainstream media discussion, people still have nowhere to turn as they got screwed by both parties who have a duopoly on the government.

Now, this is the sausage making phase, so most of the public has no clue what is going on. They have no clue as to where Obama really stands and what he has and hasn’t pushed for. They know brand Obama, the amazing hero who won the 2009 elections.

For those few paying attention, you have a large portion who want to believe he is on their side and this was all his master plan. Read most of the comments, diaries, and front page updates at Daily Kos yesterday during and after the press conference to see what I mean, if you can stomach it. An even smaller portion are judging him by face value (he says he offered these and he means it, it wasn’t an 11th dimensional chess move), like you see with Green Greenwald, most who post on this site, perhaps a growing number of Democratic politicians. I’m definitely in the latter camp. Even if he was playing a game for 2012 political points as his strong supporters argue, it is an extremely sick and cruel one for anyone on social services.

Superb, Larue, superb!!!

Powerful hard-hitting truth.

DW

Presidentialism, the idea of our savior on a white horse taking the Oval Office, seems completely backwards to me.

I’m with you.

“Presidentialism” – great word for it. This would make a very good diary.

Structurally I do not understand how you can focus myopically on winning a race (“let’s get the fastest horse”) when the underlying system for determining the winner of that race has been rigged. And I don’t mean Diebold (or just Diebold, anyway). I mean the whole party, gerrymandering, election financing etc. structure that is carefully crafted at every point to reach a predetermined end.

“When the student is ready, the teacher will come.” Leaders emerge when conditions are right for them to emerge. Nobody can say when that will be, but jamming any leader into prefit mold cast by a Presidentialist mindset would be a great way to disempower and neutralize their impact by channeling everyone’s energies into a contest they were destined to lose. At least at the present moment. I just think there’s a lot of work to be done on the system itself before there can be any real hope of having any impact that way.

THe more I think about the possibility of Bernie Saunders primarying O, the more I think Jane’s assessment is probably right. Dammit.

But thinking back on some of the things he’s said at the times he’s said them, I think that is EXACTLY how it would end. Dammit dammit dammit dammit.

This is so depressing.

When push comes to shove, we aren’t going to change the way Repugs vote, we aren’t going to change the Blue Dog vote, we aren’t likely to force Obama into much change.

Is the Progressive Caucus the place to put the pressure? By just saying NO, they can affect more change than anyone else, it seems to me.

Do any of them really give a crap, though? When they are out, they go to cushy lobby jobs. What leverage do we actually have?

That’s a look at our problems I hadn’t thought of. I always have lumped activism towards corps as I lump activism towards politics.

Hmm, focus only on corps . . . I got that danged Citizen v United stuck in my craw tho . . . but it’s the corps who buy off all the erected offals . . . hence yer posit is soundly solid . . . hmmm.

Like an electorate, I guess if we get complacent about either, they run us over . . . which is about where we are at with either corps or the erecteds n annointeds.

Aw shit, FDL is the true beginning of the perfect storm.

DW

Absolutely there would have to be adequate locked in progressive taxation of income of the wealthy before dropping corporate taxes.

Maybe that’s a BIG enough thing that Obama could do. :-)

Perhaps, TS, if Obama were to become aquainted with FDR’s 1936 Madison Square Garden speech, then he might begin to grasp the notions of better angels?

Maybe a virtual fireside chat, between FDR and Obama, could be arranged in that Oval Office?

DW

What exactly are we supposed to work together on?

You are talking in abstracts about the dangers of a circular firing squad. The reason we could work with Grover Norquist and Ron Paul on Audit the Fed is because we agreed with them on that one issue (and little else).

Exhortations to feelgood-ism are fine. When we agree on an issue, we will work the people who feel likewise. When we don’t, we won’t. If you are on a thread discussing unhappiness with Obama’s position on Social Security and Medicare and asking people not to fight with someone who may disagree with that, it doesn’t matter where they come from or how they identify themselves. The issue is larger than any abstract principle at the moment.

Look, calling it “purity” tests might make you feel “adult” in some way, but for a lot of us we call them “reality” tests.

How can you work with, converse with, or be on the same page as someone who lives in a different reality than you??

If you don’t see that the Democratic Party is just as paid for as the Republican Party then you’re not seeing reality. It’s not purity, it’s reality. If you don’t believe global warming is happening you’re not seeing reality, it’s not purity. If you insist the earth is 6000 years old you live in a different reality.

When the reality is that the fantasy we’re talking about is directly responsible for destroying everything you’re working for, then trying to work with them in that fantasy is fruitless. You need to first make them see reality.

Right winger globabl warming denialists will NEVER agree to anything UNTIL they first see the reality that it’s happening. It just won’t happen.

Likewise, OBOTS and other D-Party defenders sill NEVER agree to work toward goals that will get us out of this mess UNTIL they first see the reality that the D-Party is part of the problem. Step ONE in all problem solving schematics is IDENTIFYING the problem.

The “purity,” look at me I’m the adult in the room, shit is wearing thin when it’s apparent to all that’s willing to look that everyone claiming to be the adult in the room is directly responsible for sailing this ship into the iceberg.

Kobe is working his magic.

;)

Forget the middle man. Channel Eleanor. :-)

“Presidentialism, the idea of our savior on a white horse taking the Oval Office, seems completely backwards to me.”

Me too. In suggests a perverse notion of representative democracy and an effective balance of power within a republic. It is in the ballpark of Neoconservativism/Fascism in that it relies on a combination of hero worship and authoritarianism. If one is opposed to the recent abuses of the executive branch (e.g. torture, increased perpetual war that can’t even be called war, getting rid of habeas corpus, etc.), then deferring to a savior in the White House seems like an expression of identification with one’s oppressor in that it affirms the idea that the executive is the law, and as such can therefore “get things done.”

Obama is extremely dangerous. Be afraid, be very afraid of what the next two years will bring with Obama at the helm. Things will be EVEN WORSE if we give Obama four more years because he makes deep and radical changes that Republican presidents cannot.

The problem with Obama is one of character. Obama is effective because he is extremely aggressive, ruthless, uncaring and devious. Obama knows he is bad, and he revels in being bad, because he knows he is doing all it takes to better…himself. In other words, Obama is a classic villain. Obama has the social safety net in his sights and he is intent to tear it down even beyond what the Republicans ask for.

eg. Obama cut contributions to ss by 30%
eg. He is not intent with one of the plans that asks for no tax increase and no cuts in entitlements. He repeatedly puts cuts in ss, medicare and medicaid back on the table even when it is not asked for. And he admits ss does not contribute to the federal deficit, so he is not better than GWB in wanting to attack ss needlessly.

Make no mistake, Obama is a radical, even more radical than GWBush, because Obama is more effective in accomplishing goals that go even beyond GWBush. Obama is a neoliberal, a radical Jacobin, in the same party as GWBush.

What a total DISASTER it has been for idiotic Democrats to have elected Obama. Obama needs to be defeated at the next election as a lesson to all future Democrats, at the cost of having a Republican president for a few terms. (Next to Romney, Obama looks like a scoundrel, an undependable, uncaring, reckless and dangerous adolescent. Romney looks like a compassionate Man. Sometimes, you cannot help your rotten spirit from manifesting itself in the way you look.)

Following up on the t-shirt suggestion, and in the context of Amy Winehouse’s passing, I see a piano keyboard with red/white/blue keys, and the following text.

“I’m a piano player, and we were hired to play some tunes.
If you have any suggestions, I’m listening.
But I want to play a real tune,
not just bang on the keys
and make noise.”

Most undeniably so, Jane.

;~DW

The best way to hurt the puppets in DC, is to attack their masters

Corporation have 1 major weakness? they only exist to make money! that is it.

If you drive the bottom line number down by boycott, and other tools, you will probably see executives lose their jobs.

Tie the Corporation with the Congress Person, Corporations don’t like getting nasty letters from customers, they just don’t = this causese managers to get fired.

Who pull the rug out from under OBAMA? that is the question

The GOP only wants to win the WH in 2012? David Plouffe and Obama gave it to them.

The GOP strategist are laughing their heads off! Obama and David Plouffe are on the record for wanting to cut Social Security, Medicare, and Medicade, and the GOP is now developing ads saying they save Social Security from OBAMA? for LOL

David Plouffe and OBAMA are both morons, and neither understands the politics of Race very well.

Ben Nelson and other Dem senators are still in big trouble, If I was the GOP I would hang OBAMA around BEN NELSON neck and laugh.

Who is coming to BEN NELSON rescue? the Left? yeah that is going to happen, when cows fly

David Plouffe and Obama always thought they won in 2008, because of OBAMA? No it was all about BUSH.

I can see the Ad now Ben Nelson and Obama wanted to cut your Social Security, do you still think Old Ben is on your side? this is to easy.

Dem Senators and others in DC, keep ignoring the color of the GUY in the WH, they should not do that, because the GOP will not.

Few to no black candidates get re-elected in statewide elections, and most stay loyal to their liberal base.

Obama? Obama? I have no earthly idea how he can win in 2012? the “You Progressive” comment another big mistake by OBAMA

the politics of Race require that your candidate makes little to no mistakes, and always takes care of their base. Obama has went against this principle big time.

I agree with Jane, attack the corporations, you don’t have to attack many, Corporation Financial Statements are BIBLE! no CEO can survive a lot of Red Lines on his or her financials

the supreme ct is going to wish they kept corporations out of politics. they are way to easy to attack, because they all run on greed, they hate any bad press.

Target vs Wal-Mart is real, neither wants the other to gain an advantage.

;~DW

“I’ve been saying for a long time that I think activism against corporations may be a more effective use of our energy, rather than playing in a rigged election game.”

Ding! Why go after the shadows they project on the screen?

USA Uncut would be a good resource.

Even if he was playing a game for 2012 political points as his strong supporters argue, it is an extremely sick and cruel one for anyone on social services.

Spot on. If this doesn’t give you a sick feeling in your stomach I don’t know what will.

Well I am one of the idiotic Democrats. But I have learned and you are I think on target with your observations. Though I don’t know what he is conscious of ie if he thinks of himself as “bad” rather I would suggest powerful and power makes virtue. Either way he is extremely dangerous IMO and I will vote for a Republican for President in 2012. As I have siad, at least having a GOP president would free the Democrats in Congress and the Senate to act like Democrats.

As awful as a GOP president would be, look what happened in Wisconsin. The straw finally broke the camel’s back.

OFG, obviously you missed some key element of the conversation you are commenting on. I called it a “purity test” because speakingupnow called every person who posts on Daily Kos a neoliberal.

This is what the John Cleese skit is about.

This guy, Stephen Marche, has serious issues

Before the fall brings us down, before the election season begins in earnest with all its nastiness and vulgarity, before the next batch of stupid scandals and gaffes, before Sarah Palin tries to convert her movie into reality and Joe Biden resumes his imitation of an embarrassing uncle and Newt and Callista Gingrich creep us all out, can we just enjoy Obama for a moment? Before the policy choices have to be weighed and the hard decisions have to be made, can we just take a month or two to contemplate him the way we might contemplate a painting by Vermeer or a guitar lick by the early-seventies Rolling Stones or a Peyton Manning pass or any other astounding, ecstatic human achievement? Because twenty years from now, we’re going to look back on this time as a glorious idyll in American politics, with a confident, intelligent, fascinating president riding the surge of his prodigious talents from triumph to triumph. Whatever happens this fall or next, the summer of 2011 is the summer of Obama.

http://www.esquire.com/features/thousand-words-on-culture/loving-obama-0811

WOW. This cult of personality is scary. How people can ignore facts, and base decisions on emotion is stunning. We’re heading straight for the precipice and these people are telling us to clap louder

Maybe the Mayans were right

I gotta split but HAVE to say the following:

That comment was one of the most profound, informative, insightful, enlightening comments I’ve read . . . as good as any diary by anyone.

I can’t wade thru it (no time now) looking for quibbles, and I won’t because as it stands it greatly moved me.

I’m very, very impressioned by it . . . and your knowledge of the subject and events and people.

A hearty well done to you and well deserving of my admiration for it.

Thank you.

It’s been seven years since I said the next Democratic president would destroy Social Security. Once I saw the first black nominee, and a Democrat to boot, I knew the oligarchs had found their man.

Barack Obama, the first white man to govern in black face.

uh, well, look at the end of the comment. /s

It’s a usual use of HTML…. here.

/s = off snark

He doesn’t really intend to cut Social Security and Medicare, he’s just using them as negotiating tactics. Okay, so if he does actually wind up cutting them, what will you say then? “The Republicans made him do it?” Because they didn’t. McConnell offered him a clean debt ceiling vote. Will they be the same thing if and when it actually happens?

When and if it happens…the Democrats made him do it. The idea that Obama controls the Democratic caucus against their own inclinations seems to me to be an illusion. McConnell did not offer him a clean debt ceiling vote anyway; there were quid pro quos in what McConnell offered. Policy quid pro quos and political quid pro quos. If there is still negotiation on McConnell’s offer, it is about those quid pro quos.

What will you say when the process passes the August deadline because Obama held firm to not cutting the big 3, to insisting on some minimum tax loophole closures, and to getting a debt ceiling into 2013? Right now that is still likely because Boehner cannot get his caucus together and any sweetener for additional Democratic votes loses more Republicans than it gains Democrats. I predict a “guns of August” scenario in which there is stalemate in Congress.

How exactly does that relate to your original point 1)?? it just seems like a cheap shot in line with #61 above — attacking anyone who criticizes Obama’s mega-position shift on Social Security during the 2008 campaign as an “elitist” who is “out of touch with real Americans.” The same tack Al Sharpton took against Cornell West.

I can read a poll. The American people overwhelmingly do not want Social Security and Medicare cut. If you think that position is out of touch with the position of the American people, it’s going to take some effort beyond typing the names of a list of cities to prove it.

I don’t disagree with your assertion that the American people overwhelmingly do not want Social Security and Medicare cut. What I disagree with is your and Glenn’s analysis of how that will play out if it comes to pass. And that depends on exactly what the details of the cuts are. I know a lot of 30-50 year-olds who will say, “Yeah I knew it was coming sometime” just because they have been hearing that from the annual 401(k) sign-up presentation. They are not going to be moved much politically as result, one way or the other. It relates to my original point in that you should not expect an epic public shitstorm from the items now on the table.

As to the list of towns. In the 1970s, I did presentations in all of those towns or neighborhoods, and they were substantial numbers of Democrats, even Democratic majorities there then. Some of them strong progressive communities and neighborhoods. The plain fact is no one knows what changed (if it did) for these folks that you have the Congress we have. And no poll can get a sense of where the heads of these people are today. They are no more or less “real Americans” than you, I, Al Sharpton, Cornel West or Barack Obama. But there are a lot of political analysis going on and a lot of political strategies being framed without understanding that there is political change going on. And old assumptions and preconceptions are not quite as valid.

And…no one in the Beltway looking at politics has any idea how fluid the situation is. I was pointing out an opportunity to undo some of the established Beltway narrative. In a way that might be helpful to progressives. That’s all. The folks who talk about “real Americans” really don’t know how all over the lot we are.

The only political change that is occurring is that the Democrats are finally showing their true colors and are revealing themselves as the left-wing of the money party. Obama was selected for this job by CFR member, Zbigniew Brzezenski, while he was at Columbia. He’s a Manchurian candidate only they don’t have to use cards or code to trick him into fucking over the American middle and working classes, it’s encoded in his DNA.

Mr. O is far right of Reagan. People really need to start asking exactly what might a 2nd term look like when no re-election bid is in his future. Such a scary thought given all of his lies and betrayal already.

I can cheer for this. If the GOP is going after labor, we can go after K Street and the corporations that love them. That strikes at the problems in both the GOP and Democratic parties.

I agree with your view of rigged electoral politics in part. There are enough other folks who will be working that. But a major part of the rigging is the money.

From my experience with cats, Fancy Feast beef slices and veal slices in gravy would go well with rice scavenged from dumpsters behind Chinese restaurants.

Naw, I’d go broke…

Folks don’t like grumpy geezers who say what they think.

Because we’ve been playing by the rules that they have set. If we stop following the script they’ve set for us and start acting directly against the players instead of the shadows, we are no longer helpless.

Maybe I’m starting to “get it”.

I suspect Sanders couldn’t change things if he wanted to. There is a frequent misconception that a system can be changed by operating within it. But in order to do so, one must adopt the ideas, behaviors, and protocols of the system, and so they end up being the only thing that gets changed. Or, if you are dealing with a sausage machine and hope to get something better than sausages out*, all the tweaking, diverse expert opinion, new parts, etc. isn’t going to change the reality that every time you crank the handle, out pops a sausage. If one doesn’t want sausages, they have to get a different machine. All of us can start participating in our own little way be refusing to eat the sausages.

*In fairness, I’m at a loss to think of what might be tastier than sausage. Also, I stole the sausage analogy from Tim Wise.

This is my all time favorite:

“Don’t call my bluff, Eric.”

Nobodies of the world, unite!

Well, we fellow curmudgeons will pay you the attention you deserve, even if your advice and observation has the sting of truth, well-aimed, within it, TD.

;~DW

What will you say when the process passes the August deadline because Obama held firm to not cutting the big 3, to insisting on some minimum tax loophole closures, and to getting a debt ceiling into 2013?

This is snark, right?

In a country with over 13 million unemployed for the third straight Labor Day, that’s a big fat shrimp boat – and the NPA will be sinking it in the coming weeks…

Oh, 2010 happened all right, but not because progressives stayed home. Unless you have an example of how progressives tanked a candidate. In fact, some progressives outperformed but still lost; I think of Tom Perriello, who lost narrowly.

I might have been wrong about 2010. I’ve been wrong in the past.

But what I am seeing is that 2012, not 2008 is the watershed election. And right now it seems pretty unpredictable. It is either like 1980 or 1984. Or 1984. Choose your poison.

Thanks! I’m reading their website now.

At first I thought you might be suggesting I watch a film with a cast of all male, uncircumcised Marines. Patriotic porn?

It could be if you and the other folks here are right.

But I’m still thinking that the process has gotten out of control. That only “default” on Obama’s watch will satisfy the House GOP caucus.

You’re probably right about folk 30-50 but it’s no great shakes that they’re simply demoralized. He’s vulnerable with those of us 50-65.

Hypothetical questions: The House passes a two-month extension with expenditure cuts equal to the debt limit increase. And Boehner states that this is all that will pass.

Does the Senate pass it?
Does Obama sign it?

Y’all realize that Jane is successfully using this thread as a jumping off point for tommorrow’s very expensive town hall speak. Very smart of her. Such an intelligent and sassy gal.
Kudo. Time well spent, Jane.
I may be a pain in the ass sometimes, but I do admire you.
Brindle gives Katie a slobber kiss.

Sanders can not “primary” Obama because they aren’t part of the same party.

That being said he could run against him in the general.

Is Penny Pritzker in the club?

Indeed. It’s hard to wade through all the bullshit in order to see clearly and try to make some honest analyses.

A small suggestion that everyone can do: Stop participating; stop accepting the rules; stop being afraid of the supposed consequences. Step 1: Turn off the TV. Propaganda and The Two Minutes Hate is only good for those behind the curtain. For the rest of us, it just replaces Right Answers in the places where our own thinking aught to go. The other stuff will follow much easier once the propaganda is shut off.

*G* Does sound pretty bad, doesn’t it?

The conservatives have been brainwashing the people for 60 years and more that Social Security will not be there for them while selling the notion of giving Wall Street access to the huge pot of gold of retirement funds. (Of course their figures lied and the private funds of people in my generation discovered 401Ks that did not grow as promised and indeed had fallen to half the once maximum value at the time they were needed.)

Sad to say, I agree with you that most younger people accept this bought and paid for new reality. They have been immensely successful. I think Social Security will go down without a whimper. The only hope is that those like me who must have it to survive would not be affected by any changes. The 10% cut proposed by the Obama people is the only shock.

Even more than medical care programs, when they undo SS the conversion to Bananna Republic will be complete and the riivh will move onto Asia and Europe

The problem in this case isn’t the candidate per se, we all operate to some extent, out of self interest.

The problem is with a disinterested and apathetic electorate. And it seems to be getting worse. More and more I hear people saying they aren’t going to vote. They think their voice doesn’t matter (and who can blame them when you have an issue where 80% agree and the elected are ignoring us.)That is a real problem. Democracy is participatory.

I may be wrong but I’m a strong believer in multitasking. We’re a large enough group that I don’t think it is unrealistic to do both well.

so helping or hindering Obama isn’t that important, but it was stupid to vote for Nader in 2000….ah, now who is stupid?

We really need both. Torches and pitchforks are just the beginning. We still need the political wing of the movement if we want to live in a democracy.

I agree and disagree. ;)

We are sometimes changed by the experiences we have and they certainly affect how we do things. That being said people of charecter most often have core values that they can choose not to compromise.

Furthermore in the real world even after you elect someone that isn’t supposed to be the end of things. You’re supposed to still continue pushing for representation. That’s the nature of Democracy.

I agree with you there – going after the TBTF bailed out banks and the ratings agencies is good. Need to find a method for spreading the word which bypasses the MSM because they will not touch this stuff.

As far as Obama, I’ve come to the conclusion that having the Republicans win in 2008 would have resulted in a better Democratic party which blocked all the crazy stuff rather than having Obama put it on the table as a bargaining chip for Wall St. Certainly no reason to vote for him in 2012 at all. Better to work at driving a wedge between him and the rest of the Democratic party that will be left after the smoking hole in the ground he creates for our country and the Democratic party.

“But yeah, I don’t think you’re the only progressive that’s thought about ending corporate taxation. (INCOME taxation. Corps should pay all the other taxes though IMO.)”

Right, both Bill Vickrey and Beardsley Ruml wished to repeal entity-level taxation on C Corporation. And of course, the almost astounding tax professor Calvin Johnson proposes we replace it with a stock market tax. If haven’t already, please do read Johnson’s paper, “How to raise $1 trillion without a rate hike or a VAT” (and yes he means per year). It will make you appreciate all over again how much Obama sucks. Instead of allowing Republicans to move the goalposts to their locker room with the stipulation that revenue hikes must be used to cut tax rates, The President could have set the agenda by promising only “no VAT, no rate hikes”. This would’ve let him give up the stupid individual mandate in the process… if he had any imagination (and wasn’t a sellout of course).

Here’s what I mean; the CBO priced Medicare for All at $1 trillion a year, now if only there was a way to come up with that sort of money– ideally with no VAT and no rate hikes– there’d be no need for individual mandates, insurance subsidies or — to give Republicans something to smile about– most of the nation’s personal injury lawyers (a hugely neglected benefit of Medicare for All– most PI and workers comp claims would go away if a single payer system were paying the medical bills in any event).

Interesting hypotheticals. That seems to be getting some traction among financial observers. My guess is that if Boehner gets it through his caucus, the Senate would vote for it (unless there is revolt from both ends of the spectrum), and if the Senate approved it, Obama would sign it, claim victory, allow Congress to go on vacation and start the same fight all over again over the FY 2012 budget. But that is a real WAG because of having to accept the premise that Boehner can get it done.

I truly think that alot of people may not realize this.

No, the President isn’t supposed to be a white knught where you elect him and then for 4 years you get to go on your merry way. Choosing someone and then getting them elected is only the beginning. You still have to push for policy even after you get your guy elected because it’s a guarantee that the other side (in this case the side with the wealth) will be pushing.

That being said gnashing our teeth will only get us so far. In a representative government at some point you have to choose your representation, and accept them flaws and all. The trick is to pick what you consider the least flawed.

Yes, but I think the trick is to understand your own core values so you know when it’s time to draw the line. We don’t all prioritize values in the same way. The enviroment isn’t at the top of my list. I wouldn’t break with a politician on that. I’m conflicted on immigration. Education is important but not at the top. But you can lose me forever on the safety net and war. Those are my “life” issues and I have my own line that I won’t cross.

You say:

OFG, obviously you missed some key element of the conversation you are commenting on. I called it a “purity test” because speakingupnow called every person who posts on Daily Kos a neoliberal.

What speakingupnow actually said:

The problem is that there are people who call themselves “progressive” who have embraced the neo-liberal agenda of the President which is not remotely progressive.

If you have to distort what someone else says to make your point, you probably don’t have a worthy one.

Katie kisses Brindle back.

“The problem, really, is what happens if we default? It appears Republicans might be quite happy to see this happen. So are the cuts being proposed, which could be reversed if Democrats ever win control of both houses again, more or less painful than a default?”

– This is the first sensible approach to the dilemma I’ve encountered on the FDL site. Not that Republicans would be happy to see a default happen, but they’re comparing the evils of a default to the evils of the status quo as well as to the evils of the compromises they believe are possible. That’s what Democrats should be doing, too.

I have internalized the dictates of Capitalism to such a degree that I was only thinking in terms of efficiency. :)

HEh, n right there’s the great proggy divide folks whine about.

;-)

In response to TaheelDem who said:

1) “Putting items on the negotiating table and actually cutting are two different things.”

A Democrat who has working people’s interests at heart will play defense and keep vulnerable programs such as social security, Medicare and Medicaid off the table so that they are less subject to cuts. He will protect these programs by not mentioning them, not expose them. But Obama is not that person. Obama exposes these vulnerable programs, rather than protects them.

For Obama to take these programs and put them on the table shows that he does not have working people’s interests at heart. In true villainy form, Obama, like the Batman Joker, pulls these cherished and vulnerable programs and places them on the table where they are exposed.

So for Obama to repeatedly put these items on the negotiating table is immediately suspect, contrary to what TeheelDem say. It seems to indicate Obama wants to cut them. And indeed, we know they will be cut, so TaheelDem is wrong. TaheelDem seems to be an apologist for Obama–are you a paid Obama blogger?

In any case, Obama has STATED he wants to cut these programs. And he even finally admitted that ss has nothing to do with adding the the federal deficit. What a villain.

Hey, it was that foul mouthed fem nazi who started it, not me!

*G*

So are the cuts being proposed, which could be reversed if Democrats ever win control of both houses again, more or less painful than a default?

The notion that these cuts could or would be reversed, when there is a Democratic President and a Democratic Senate who clearly want them, is beyond absurd.

1 — Mitch McConnell offered a clean debt ceiling increase. The President rejected it.

2 — The President can use the 14th Amendment.

Asking old people to go without food or health care because someone constructs an imaginary “ugga bugga” world full of GOP master villains who are pulling all the strings is intellectually dishonest. Moreover, it’s profoundly immoral.

“Foul mouthed femblogger” I think it was.

I fully concur and support your every word DW.

This place is singular and very, very essential and special to me.

Hell, they let ME run my mouth, now THAT’S special!

*G*

Fair enough. And the analogy is a simple overstatement. However, it appears to typically be the case that when someone has a conviction about which they will not compromise and that conviction is at odds with the interests of the system in which they operate, that person does not last long in the system because one of the two rejects the other. Oddly, it is sometimes the results of such rejection that help the cause of either party (the CIvil Rights movement comes to mind).

My bias is that if a system is not producing the expected results, the problem is most likely not a particular individual within it but the system itself, and it is time to look for a new system. In the current climate, I’m trying not to be a fundie about this theory, but it is hard. :)

Heh, short term memory loss, ma’am . . . ;-)

My first or earlier visit here had a pic of you n Mz. WHeeler on the steps outside the LibbyGate . . . . live blogging, I thot, how kewl that is. Hey, them women look n sound serious, I best check this out more.

This place is VERY special to many, many folks, Mz. Hamsher. Thank you for all you have done and do . . .

Vituperative!

I left out the most IMPORTANT PART!!!!!

LeSigh, what memory . . . lol

This makes for an interesting read.
http://www.lanna-website-promotion.com/moonhoabinh/Unrevolution.html

On a lighter note I have not gotten any cola for two or three years, I would assume they are renting my money for nefarious ends that benefit no one but the undertaker .

It was asked above if this was the Mets the Black Sox. We both know the answer.

Jake Terpstra..well said Anthony.

Amy Whinehouse just makes me sad. her family lost a daughter, a loss I cannot imagine having to go through. She was a great jazz singer and it pisses me off that she did this to herself..this said by one with knowledge of the process.

The stiff and the hard are companions of death,
The tender and the weak are companions of life.

There is nothing softer and weaker than water,
And yet there is nothing better for attacking hard and strong things.

Read more: http://meta-religion.com/World_Religions/Pantheism/lao_tzu.htm#ixzz1SxfDCOy3

In our present state these words are difficult to live by but they help me.

You all discussed the nuts and bolts..I just go with how I feel.

When children’s lemonade stands get shut down by cops and cops tazer kids and old ladies. When people meet in a park and get attacked by their opposite inclination it is time to change. The scales will be balanced. Either by us, humanity, or forces outside of ourselves. This path we have taken, this society, is so wrong and backwards that it cannot exist for much longer. I am OT but this is what this post makes me think of. It is not just America, but the whole world…we are approaching a paradigm shift to our reality. I am not talking about doom and gloom but the realization of humanity that we live in a web of consciousness and our planet is not inert but alive. everything we do, say, or think is a part of that web and has consequence.

Beautifully done!

*G*

You can say “hike the estate tax” all you want. But before you waste your breath, you should be aware that Obama threw in a permanent reduction of the estate tax in his December 2010 “deal”…without even being asked for it by the Republicans. Republicans came away from that “negotiation” stunned that the president’s strategy was to give them not just everything they asked for but more besides.

I’m probably misreading you, but it looks like you still see the two major parties as having two distinct, different, and polar opposite philosophies at the national level on the major issues

FWIW I think that prototype is an ancient anachronism

It might have been true as recently as 10 years ago, maybe 20 or 30 years ago, and definitely 40 years ago. But now …

Things definitely started turning when Clinton was in the WH. Clinton had a deal on the table with Gingrich to gut SS, but things got sidetracked by the Republican impeachment frenzy

To go off on a tangent. This shouldn’t even be an issue with a Democrat in the WH. To even suggest that a Democrat would be the one to do this would been unheard of 30 years ago. Anyone who did this would have been told in no uncertain terms that their political career would be in serious jeopardy if they even mentioned this as a joke

YMMV

Hey, I was a bit harsh, it’s a tendency I have you prolly noticed over the years . . . yer subsequent missive really moved me. Just read it again . . . (had to go out for a bit). N thanks again for it.

Your experiences are quite . . . soulful is a word comes to mind.

Well done.

Vulnerable? He’s effin toast!!!

They will have to run Shilary he’s so far gone at this point.

But, if Jeb runs, it won’t matter. Cuz one more Bush will be Diebolded into office, end of story.

YOU oh insightful one, should be on her staff.

*G*

We all are going to have our own individual lines.

That’s why I suggested that rather than worrying about a label the first step should be to figure out collectively what your core values are(which lines can’t be crossed) and spend less time worrying about the label you or others put on it.

My biggie is equality and fairness. I didn’t vote for Barack Obama in 2008 because of how the primaries went down. I might have been able to vote for him in 2012 if he had demonstrated that he believes in these values but I’ve watched him put females repeatedly under the bus and I’ve seen him allow the rich and powerful to get away with murder while asking the middle and the poor to engage in “shared sacrifice.” so he won’t be getting my vote in 2012 either. A woman’s gotta have a line. :)

I did call; then was onhold forever. Maybe they are getting an earful….

As more and more people give up participating in the faux political process, they will participate more and more in saving their own asses. Out of need, frustration, or rage.

I’m not too concerned, either I live or I die on any given day.

But one thing is certain as death and taxes:

This mess will choke and collapse of its own volition.
This mess will get hit so hard by mama nature there will be nothing we can do (no food, no life in oceans, poisoned air, etc).
This mess will erupt in the streets from border to border.

All empires die, because they no longer serve the needs of the masses.

This one, is woefully close to that point, IMHO. Factor in mama nature and, well, an end of SOME sort is inevitable.

That’s MY base starting position . . . ;-) I got NOTHING to lose, given that. Every day is a good one above ground . . . and might be the last one.

Hence, no reason for me to negotiate much of anything anymore.

;-)

Well, systems are filled with flawed individuals all motivated by their own self interest so they aren’t going to get perfect no matter what you do.

That’s why I really think you have to have a multi pronged approach to politics.

You have to accept some limitations while continually pushing for what you can do within the system while continually pushing from outside it as well.

A pretty cushy planet?

From where I’m sitting (at another person’s computer, getting my big 9K a year in disability which will be cut down to perhaps around 7K when these cuts are all done), Obama is basically ready to kill off a bunch of people to make bipartisan points with groups of people that will never vote for him.

People like me, the disabled, the working class, and yes, THE GODDAMNED POOR (yes, I used the “P” Word!) that are terrified now and not *valid*. We must be racists.

Um, no. I’ve news for those who think so – I’m of mixed race.

So many seem to be wondering WHY-O-WHY are the dems and Obama acting like this?!?

Simple answer. Because they want to. He announced he would do this right fom the get-go, but now it’s all an eleventy-d chess mystery.

“He’s a Wall Street Democrat, which we used to call Republicans.”
– michael-hudson.com

(I am hearting that guy right now!)

http://www.democracynow.org/2011/7/22/pushing_crisis_gop_cries_wolf_on

You greatly miss the point this hasn’t been a democracy since 1980 or so.

It’s a corporate run fascist oligarchy governed by those chosen by the corp elite and 1% wealthy to do their bidding.

You can’t shave, trim, cut, or belabor that in any way, shape or form.

If you don’t accept that, your reality is greatly constrained from what most are living . . .

Sorry, YSD but that’s the reality I see . . . I don’t see the pony with the horn on its head like you do. I just don’t see it.

I find that folks who have a lot of um, security/wealth trend to that position. Those of us with much less, most with less than I have, trend to a belief the man has fucked us completely, top to bottom, in every way. To coin an old 60′s phrase ‘the man’ . . .

I’m sorry, Pam Geller doesn’t blog at this site.

Yer lost in the toobz it would seem.

Thanks for posting that. I’ve had NO luck getting through on the WH line all week.

I’ll be using the # you posted now!

Look Chef…….Be critical of O …I agree with you but when you make reference that GW and Romney look like two little white lambs in comparison thats where you loose me….sorry.

Well part of my concern is that I have 4 babies (okay 3 with it heading towards 2 in January when my daughter hits 18). I can fend for myself on any given day. Anyone under the age of 18 doesn’t have that luxury and I worry for them.

Mine blew off last year some time, and I’ve yet to find it. Problem is, no one I know is getting excited about this, even a woman I work with whose husband is on disability. She already talks about how little it is, and I wish she would realize that it’s going to be even less going forward if this President has his way. Too many are clueless, and too many others are just overwhelmed with other, more urgent problems, like making their food money last the week. Sickening.

I heard that guy yesterday…he was great. Thanks. I had missed the name.

If I had children dependent on me I’d be even MORE militant and less willing to negotiate for what’s been accepted and legislated for the betterment of our social constructs.

Ma’am.

If you are interested, a couple of authors I’ve been reading lately whose ideas relate generally to the issue here and help my own understanding are John Ralston Saul and John Holt. Holt is concerned with the institution of public education, but his thoughts are applicable elsewhere.

Who said we have a real democracy now? Not me. I said that perhaps we need to fight the powerful money interests who make shadows (that would be politicians) that we currently fight.

If, however, we want to live in a democracy — a real one — then a political wing of a progressive movement is the only way to get and keep progressive policies in place.

What is this pony with a horn of which you speak? The D Party?

+1

He would have dearly loved to have done it but realized it would never fly. That was 1980, and things are decidedly different now. People are beaten down and a lot less able to fight. Besides they’ve had thirty years to make progress convincing younger people that SS will never be there for them.

Great diary, incredible just INCREDIBLE comments thru and thru.

See you folks tomorrow, or hear you, I hope, at the webinar.

I’m really looking forward to it . . . I just discovered my MAC has a built in mic! So, if all goes well, all y’all are gonna hear my voice.

*G*

N I’m REALLY excited about hearing YOUR vioces . . . helping to match a voice to fonts is just SOOOO kewl, not to mention the incredible guests coming and the topic at hand.

Incredibly invigorating and stimulating Mz. Hamsher, this whole FDL thing and now the webinars . . . especially for someone like me who can’t or doesn’t do local activism as much as he’d like to . . . it really makes me feel like I’m engaged, and DOING something . . . wish Kelly lived near me, I’d have someone to kick me and tag along with in the fight . . . ;-) but for now, I visit and support FDL.

Rawhk on proggies . . .

It’s kinda like a wish sandwich YSD.

;-)

Bless ya . . . hope to hear yer voice tomorrow afternoon at the webinar.

Hug ‘em close . . . on we rabble rouse . . . ;-)

*acknowledge*

Now I gotta git, stuff to do . . . thanks . . .

I haven’t read all the comments, so pardon me if this has been mentioned.

But, even if cuts to SS are prevented, Obama will still have shafted us royally by not only reinforcing the misconception that SS contributes to the debt, but also by successfully creating a bogus link between cutting SS and the debt ceiling.

Please be explicit about the wish sandwich because you seem to have badly misunderstood my point. We seem to agree about the wealthy running the sham process, yet I have a wish sandwich? I am confused.

That reminded me of this:

“ Writing about war resisters in The Nation in 1970, Milgram noted, “Americans who are unwilling to kill for their country are thrown into jail. And our generation learns, as every generation has, that society rewards and punishes its members not in the degree to which each fulfills the dictates of individual conscience but in the degree to which the actions are perceived by authority to serve the needs of the larger social system. It has always been so.”

But while Milgram so effectively demonstrated the challenge of defying authority, he also showed that subjects were far more likely to do it when they saw other people doing it. He wrote in The Perils of Obedience, “The rebellious action of others severely undermines authority.” ”

[snip]

“ Put in a political context, this is perhaps the most important lesson Milgram has to teach us. The best hope people have of resisting an oppressive system is to validate their experiences alongside other people. There is no more basic antidote to authoritarianism than support, solidarity and community. ”

which came from here – http://www.alternet.org/module/printversion/126492
via here – http://www.correntewire.com/11_dimensional_chess_101

Excellent point that I don’t think has been mentioned. Indeed. Obama’s framing of SS in this way is at least as bad as making cuts to it and certainly betrays what he thinks of it, no matter what the outcome is. How can you ever pretend to safeguard what amounts to a collective savings account if you insist that it is something else entirely and therefore up for grabs? In doing so, you have already undermined its purpose.

WTF?!

T Carlson said Bachmann was a pill-popper unfit for office!

Yes.

He has created a template for all future debt ceiling battles whereby SS will not only be viewed as a legitimate target, but will also be focused on to the exclusion of the real budget busters.

Eventually, he will prevail.

Obama is quite the snake-in-the-grass.

NorskeFlamethrower July 23rd, 2011 at 10:34 am 170
In response to SouthernDragon @ 162 (show text)

Citizen SouthernDragon:

“Empire” is all about war and the purpetuation of war…there can be no peace in an empire, at least not for long.

And there can’t be any democracy in an empire for long either.

Chalmers Johnson wrote three huge books about it.

Think the focus of the point I just made was in Nemesis, though…

Since SS is going to be stolen, what I would like–pure fantasy, of course– is to get back every cent that I’ve paid into SS so that I could give all those funds directly to folks who need them. Unfortunately, because SS is automatically taken directly out of my paycheck, I can’t even engage in an Emerson-like act of civil disobedience and withhold those funds myself.

completely agree

When the recount was finally allowed and done, Gore won. How is Nader to blame for Gore prematurely handing the presidency over to W?

Greg Palast has a tremendous amount of coverage on the subject. Look it up.

(No, I did not vote for Nader, but wished I had when Gore crumbled in a flash, ’cause oh garsh – People were calling him names!)

Along with the sham of explaining the necessity/ruse of the cuts….He has shown not only a callousness but an ease of lying, it seems.

Bless You!

(small note: they come at a way cheaper price for the same vote.)

I consider myself a pragmatic idealist. I haven’t felt what has been negotiated for has been done in good faith. That being said I haven’t come to the point where I’m ready to get out the pitchfork yet. While the two parties that represent have long past crossed my proverbial line, I haven’t given up on the system once adopted by our founders but now corrupted by monied interests.

I’ll have to look them up. Thanks.

Jane, this is a false accusation, and I resent it.

A conversation consists both of content and context.

My full comment was, “The right really runs on hate, doesn’t it?

That’s what I am talking about when I caution about fights within the left. Firebaggers vs. Great Orange Satan is a very bad idea. As for Obama, he’s a big boy. If you want to trash him, go ahead. I guess I figured him out so long ago that I don’t get excited any more.”

Your complaint is that I interpret speakingupnow’s comment “The problem is that there are people who call themselves “progressive” who have embraced the neo-liberal agenda of the President which is not remotely progressive “as referring to “…fights within the left. Firebaggers vs. Great Orange Satan…”

In context, it certainly sounds like an attack on DailyKos as being all neo-liberal toadies to Obama. There have been some stupid, petty, self-destructive quarrels between the two sites lately, so forgive me if I was mistaken in thinking this was another one.

“It’s been two and a half years since we first said Obama was trying to cut Social Security. Denial is no longer possible.”

Even after the President’s press conferences the past couple of days, there were people still calling in to Thom Hartmann, Ed Schultz, and Mark Thompsons’ shows covering for Obama with that same ole tired axiom, Obama’s playing chess with the GOP. That he didn’t really mean it. This after the man said it out of his own mouth he put the cuts on the table as part of the debt deal package. Bush supporters would be proud of these morons. This is a large part of what’s wrong with the progressive base, this blind loyalty to a man who’s proven time and time again he has no allegiance to core Democratic values and policies. For this man to put the big 3 on the table speaks volumes to me!

A-Yup.

Posted this also over on Scarecrow’s thread. (Emphasis on the opening sentence is mine.)

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/07/22/obama-debt-ceiling-talks-boehner_n_907502.html

HuffPo — 7/22/2011 — by Jennifer Bendery, Ryan Grim, and Sam Stein

Obama: Debt Ceiling Talks Fell Apart, Boehner Walked Out

WASHINGTON — Social Security and Medicare may have been saved by the Tea Party’s refusal to accept President Barack Obama’s “grand bargain.”

On Friday evening, Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) walked away from the latest offer on the table by Obama, who summoned congressional leaders back to the White House on Saturday for an 11:00 meeting to hash out a Plan B. The most viable option left for addressing the debt crisis, crafted by a bipartisan pair of Senate leaders, calls for much smaller cuts than the ones the president was willing to make.
—————
You can’t make this shit up. At one time a sentence like this wouldn’t have passed the laugh test in “Alice In Wonderland”. Now, it’s the harsh reality we face.

Yep the whole Nader/Gore 2000 thingy was nothing but pure D Party propoganda. It worked fairly well. (Nevermind that more registered Dems in Florida voted for Bush than Nader’s total for the state is one example, and Gore didn’t even win his home state.)

“Obama: Debt Ceiling Talks Fell Apart, Boehner Walked Out

WASHINGTON — Social Security and Medicare may have been saved by the Tea Party’s refusal to accept President Barack Obama’s “grand bargain.”

I wonder if the HuffPo commenters can digest this fact.
Lots of kool-aid tippling Obamabots over there. I stopped visiting recently,
too depressing.

I really terrifies me that they still don’t get it.

Nite y’all. Lightning storms….in 115 (F) weather and muuuuuuggy!

OK – there are some BIG ISSUES that libertarians and Theocrats agree on – like no taxes on the rich

What are the BIG ISSUES that the progressive groups AND OBAMA agree on?

It appears Obama is part of that libertarians and Theocrats coalition – he is not a progressive, not a Hillary, not any kind of Democrat – not even a Blue Dog – action on gays was forced and in any case pleased that libertarian side he has.

The progressive support he has is the “look at the other guy who is so much worse” and the “he is such a nice man” cult of personality.

Oh, don’t worry – that is enough to get him re-elected as voters will vote on the 2008 first impression because none of the betrayals are getting media hype from our GOP controlled media.

I’m really late to this discussion, but FWIW want to insert my two cents.

With all due respect, Jane, I think that’s the wrong end of the stick. Without getting some reform into government, any small victories won against corporations will be almost meaningless. I agree that concentrating on the presidential candidate/election is not realistic, but local politics and congressional races are more doable. A strong Congress with at least a core of dedicated, fairly uncorrupted members is much more important than who sits in the White House. Election reform could help accomplish that. Until our Constitution is completely overthrown, individual states still have rights, and we may be able to accomplish things on a state-by-state basis that would not be possible on a national level.

Corporations have already given up on America–their entire thrust is the overseas markets in the emerging world. Their only interest in the the American market at this point is in draining the little energy still left in it while they are building their new markets. I’m pretty sure most of them are already formulating their plans to pretty much pull out of America within, say, the next 50-75 years. Indeed, I think they will become in actuality what they already are in spirit–stateless, international entities with no allegiance to any country. It wouldn’t surprise me to see some of them actually take over some failed state and establish themselves there geographically. There’s just to much to grasp to fight them effectively, except for very small, targeted issues.

Governments are the only chance of holding corporations in check. Right now, they own the governments in many countries, so they’re in charge, and that’s what has to change. If it doesn’t, that’s the end of the game anyway.

It’s like Mike Royko’s ex-Cub factor: even when a player leaves Chicago, he retains his “Cubness,” which translates into bad baseball at the worst possible moment.

Ah, how I miss Mike Royko! Wouldn’t it be good to have him around now?

I did the FIT pension filing for so many “corporations” that were shells that took care of the rich – the “small business persons” that the GOP talks about that need the corporate tax to end – and so many hid every living expense in that corporation, with payments to off shore suppliers that were other corporations they owned – payments that were their wages, that ending corporate taxation makes sense only if you end corporations and give business owners limited liability as partners, treating “shareholders” as partners. The small shareholder is ignored and used for political purposes only. You do not raise capital from small shareholders.

That is why the Congress after 2010 killed the 2008 Congress’s law that required reporting of all payments made to other corporations. No one wants a trail of the corruption and tax evasion.

nice

anyone who wants to draw people into a movement right now, go sink a shrimp boat

Ah, that is the key, isn’t it?

Perhaps – maybe by ignoring W-2 and 1099 reporting that is easily legally faked, and just asking about increased net worth and cost of life style.

Bernie was the weak link, not the hero

Dagnabbit, Jane! You won’t leave me with any heroes at all, will you?

* Sigh *

The sooner everyone ‘unfriends’ Obama, the better

Yes.

I think activism against corporations may be a more effective use of our energy, rather than playing in a rigged election game

Well said, sadly.

Obama has vacillated enough that one can argue that there’s not much common ground between Obama and progressives, papau. But one can make the case that there’s something like, say, a 2/3rds overlap between what Obama wants and what progressives want.

First, let’s set aside the current negotiations for which we don’t have the details. (For example, did Obama propose cutting Medicare benefits to the top 5% and not for anyone else or did he propose an across-the-board cut? I don’t know, and it would make such a big difference on how I rate him that I’d rather not jump to conclusions just yet).

But here are two areas of common ground:

Obama: health care should be (nearly) universal and affordable, covering people who work, the elderly, children, and the disabled.
Progressives: yes, but it should also cover those who don’t work, and it should have cost control through single payer.
Republicans: Anyone who can afford healthcare should be able to buy it. Anyone who can’t buy it should get charitable assistance, not help from the government.

Obama: Government spending does employ people, but should only be used sparingly, as a last resort as a means to protect the broader economy. Useful areas of government spending are research, frontier technologies (eg green jobs), and infrastructure, i.e. areas where markets don’t function, and middle class tax cuts/rebates.
Progressives: Government spending employs people and should be used for that purpose and on large scale. Research, frontier technologies, and infrastructure are fine, but government should also reach into the inner cities and employ people simply to give them hope and skills and otherwise use stimulus directed at the consumer economy.
Republicans: Government employment produces no or negative economic growth and should only be used for defense, law enforcement, and corporate subsidies.

In those two areas, there’s strong overlap between progressives and Obama, and almost zero overlap between Obama and Republicans.

There are lots of areas where Obama has bought Republican policies hook, line, and sinker. The idea that war is a tactic suitable to fight terrorism, for example is an incredibly stupid one. But there are a number of areas where progressives, frustrated by what he failed to do, don’t recognize that his policies are closely in common with what they want.

If we had a Democratic Congress now, for example, they could easily tack on a public option that would make the Obama plan genuinely progressive. They could add stimulus to the stimulus that he did provide. It’s unlikely that he would object, since in fact he helped leave the loophole that Vermont is now using to try to make healthcare single payer in their state. He also proposed more stimulus than the Congress enacted.

There are some areas of common ground.

Johnson’s paper, “How to raise $1 trillion without a rate hike or a VAT” is a combination of reasonable ideas (gas tax, carbon tax, and an asset tax to replace the corporate income tax) and he does reject nonsense like a consumption tax (Fair Tax) – unusual coming out of Texas where they think not having an income tax but having a high sales tax and near zero social services is doing the poor a favor because the poor can now “budget their tax” and control it and lower it to fit that budget by just spending less (the latter was said a few dozen times when I was in Austin during the funeral for Molly Ivins in 2007).

Thanks for the reply – I do see your point – but the nuance of corporate welfare in health care – a Republican idea in a plan that was originally a Republican idea – sort of kills that “overlap”. Indeed the GOP position is the Obama position – what you label as the GOP health care position is the libertarian view held by a few Tea Party types. Indeed Obama demanded the public option be killed when we had the 50 votes to pass it, so I do not see the hope of a new Dem Congress getting under a second Obama term.

As for Government jobs, again the Obama position is the GOP position of pretending you are holding down the growth in government jobs as you sell off government functions and jobs via contracts (my daughter used to write the speeches for various Secretaries in the Reagan Cabinet as a college job during the Reagan Administration as she worked for what I thought was a military contractor. Reagan kept the head count down via contracts for such office services – a practice that stop increasing under Clinton but then went wild under GW Bush and continues at that high rate under Obama. But here we are closer to agreement – the GOP do want whole areas of service ended in the government and Obama has – not yet – proposed such changes. So yes we do have some overlap.

But as Jane has shown, we overlap with Grover Norquist on the Fed audit. That is not enough to get me to stop being critical of Grover.

Recruitment efforts have begun, and will go into hyperdrive in about a week, building strongly up to Nov. 1.

Why not volunteer and help us?

Wall Street should be the target. As has been said…..”they own the place.” I believe it was Sen. Durbin? Why go for the puppet? They will just recruit another puppet.

Amen.

Does the Billy Goat Tavern (Royco’s hangout) still exist?

Why not consider someone who is actually willing to lead in the direction of the people? Why not Gov. Mark Dayton of MInn.? He went after the corporations.. with a draft from all of us.. with a movement to unseat O for bad faith policy- he could become a strong symbol.

Obama is no Democrat. No hope. No vote. No money. I am sure he already knows this. It is more likely he wanted to be a one term president as his hard work will be accomplished.

Others? Robert F. Kennedy Jr. Very hardworking for the planet and his country. We would be honored if he would lead us.

Elizbeth Warren, superior too! Any of these people represent the BEST in America! Look for actions.

He had two years of a Dem Congress. stop the sillyness.

Nor should anyone stop being critical whenever they feel like it, papau.

I just see the mood at FDL, and I recognize it as the kind of mood that precedes the collapse of a movement. It’s a directionless anger that vents itself almost randomly against anyone who isn’t in lockstep.

This kind of anger is not a good long-term basis for a movement. It either exhausts or corrupts the movement. Progressives with any sense of history know that this fight has gone on for decades, for centuries. Even if we fail and the legacy of the New Deal is destroyed, it will be back, because caring for one another is the right thing.

On substance, it’s not quite fair to call Obama’s health plan “a Republican plan.” It’s what Mitt Romney passed in Massachusetts. If he had proposed what he’s running on (Make health care more like a market and less like a government program, Reform the broken medical liability system, federal regulation of health care should be limited and focused), the Legislature would have laughed him off.

BTW, your criticism that my paraphrase of Republican policy is simplistic is a fair criticism. But my posts are too long anyway, and these are positions you would hear at many Republican leadership gatherings or on the 700 Club.

Sanders could register as a Dem. Problem solved.

Btcaltech, the fact is that Obama proposed more stimulus that the Congress passed. The fact is that Obama deliberately left in a loophole that Vermont is exploiting to try to create a single payer system.

Either refute those facts or apply the “sillyness” comment to yourself. Calling names is not discussion.

How about Ted Turner or Alec Baldwin? Rich, Mad, and Progressive.

I just see the mood at FDL, and I recognize it as the kind of mood that precedes the collapse of a movement.

I directly challenge you for evidence of that; what “mood” measures do you have available and what movements collapsed by such “moods”?

Because if anything there is a brisk up-tempo in activism here, in case you hadn’t noticed the 2700 people who marched into offices last week.

While perhaps not a movement yet, certainly there were not 2700 individual commenters here today, or Friday, or Thursday. How do you measure their “mood” Charles?

You do not get to co-opt language, define terms or movements. You don’t have to like activism either, but people are engaged, and you approving of them or disapproving of them matters little to them.

I would love too. I am disabled but I will do what I can. Let me know how I would be able to help. I have read your website before. I live in Missouri probably a red state again in 2012. Hope to hear from you. To be clear you have no candidate at this time?

Oh, c’mon Kelly.

I can name a half dozen movements that have collapsed or gone into serious decline just in the last 35 years. They range from the anti-war movement to various ethnic movements to the union and environmental movements.

Let’s pick one of those, the movement for equality in the African American community. There were always strains between the black nationalist wing and King’s movement. But after King’s assassination, the radicals fragmented the broader movement by imposing impossible demands. There was, as I termed it, a directionless anger that emerged not just in riots that burned down the neighborhoods people were living in, but also in senseless antagonisms of Anglo and Chicano allies.

How do I measure this directionless anger on FDL? By so many nasty exchanges on this site, accusations by members against members of being “willfully stupid,” “concern trolls,” and so on. By the enmity declared against Daily Kos. By one particularly virulent post on this thread by a member who has advocated violence in other posts. Those all represent self-destructive tendencies within this movement.

I am delighted that people are volunteering for FDL.

Personally, I’ve been putting in several hours a day, and as much money as I could spare ever since I realized that the nation was heading into deep waters. That was October, 1994.

As I recall, FDL wasn’t around then.

I helped to create some of the first political mailing lists on right-wing extremism and helped to pioneer online political discussions of the kind FDL holds for books. When 9/11 happened, I wrote two articles that helped many people not let themselves get pushed into a blind response. You can still read them here and here, if you care to. I think they were remarkably prescient, considering that they were written as the World Trade Center was still smoldering. These are just a few of the things I have done.

So, please don’t tell me what you can do. Show me.

Lotta words – not one shred of proof. Link to a myFDL I-hate-Kos diary here in the last 90 days. One. If you can find it, I’ll show you a dozen at DK that do what you are griping about. Perhaps your gripe is really with them.

And FDL is not the sum of just one or two rude or nasty commenters, just as no blog is, and you know that perfectly well.

The proof is in the 2700 activists, and counting; nothing that you’ve offered. There is no mood and movement collapse here – that’s just something you want to believe.

Really? That was a protective move?

Then what was his setting up the Pete Peterson Cat Food Commission all about?

Uh oh, I missed the snark tag!!!

Kelly, you don’t want to hear.

So why ask me to speak?

If you really care about turning FDL into a functioning movement, you’ll take the issue of how members treat one another as one of the very most important there is. It’s called solidarity, and its probably the single most important indicator of whether movements stand or fail.

On the contrary, I’m all ears. It’s evidence of your claims you don’t have, or can’t provide.

I’ll take solidarity with those who were active and went to the CongressCritters offices, rather than other flavors of the commentariat here or anywhere who did and do nothing.

Despite your “mood” and “movement failure” claims, I’m convinced that more people will do more as time goes by, despite your demands for some kind of polity which doesn’t exist in the real world.

That’s the end of the energy I’ll expend on this for the present.

YOU initiated talking about “firebaggers” vs. the “great orange satans” on this thread. YOU said in a number of comments that the “left” and “progressives” should all quietly just get along. So, I responded that maybe those you called “progressive” aren’t truly progressive if they promote the Presidents neo-liberal policies. After which you accused me of requiring “purity tests” and saying everyone at Daily-Kos is a neo-liberal. No, everyone at Daily-Kos who insists on making excuses for the President and goes along with his neo-liberal policies is a neo-liberal. If it walks like a duck, quakes like a duck, maybe it is a duck. There also happen to be a number of fine people who write diaries and comment at Daily-Kos who are willing to use critical thinking skills in regards to the President.

This much I can tell you, a mandate to purchase PRIVATE insurance is NOT a progressive action. It just puts even more money and power in the pockets of private health insurance companies. What good is “universal” health care insurance, (which is “universal” because everyone is mandated to purchase it), if the policies provided by those ever more powerful insurance companies provide very little actual “health care”. Great for the insurance companies, not so great for citizens, regardless of whether they are Democrats, Independents, or Republicans.

And, ANYONE who suggests that Billions in cuts to programs such as Social Security (which is unrelated to the debt ceiling issue) and Medicare are acceptable, definitely is not a “progressive” or from the “left”. That is not a “purity test”, that should be obvious.

As for your credentials espoused, I also found it interesting that you spent a great deal of time commenting on “movement failure”. Did you ever consider that your suggestion to “quietly” get along may have been part of the reason why the Democratic party moved to the right. This is not a time to sit back and quietly reflect, this is a time when our country needs a new direction for ALL of the citizens FIRST.

Anyone challenging Obama in the primaries becomes a somebody by dint of doing so.

Did you ever consider that your suggestion to “quietly” get along may have been part of the reason why the Democratic party moved to the right.

Bingo!

Here is a Tea Party Nation email from 7/18/2011, entitled TEA PARTY RIPS “BOEHNER-McCONNELL RINOS” FOR DEBT CEILING CAVE-IN. They are plenty aggressive, and may (it’s not 100% clear) even have made the next logical step of upping their aggressiveness, to the point where they are willing to throw Republicans under the bus during a GENERAL election (by doing more than not voting for them, which is more like throwing them under a motorcycle :-) ). I’ve been meaning to write a diary, inviting the Tea Party to be even more aggressive – the main reason being so that progressives would read the diary, and get a clue. On account of what you’ll read below, I’m to late to write that diary, exactly, as it appears that the Tea Parties (at least some of them) are taking things to the next level. (AFAIK, they’ve limited their willingness to punish Republican candidates to the primaries.)

TEA PARTY RIPS “BOEHNER-McCONNELL RINOS”

FOR DEBT CEILING CAVE-IN

TEA PARTY NATIONAL CONVENTION

TO RECRUIT HOUSE GOP PRIMARY CHALLENGERS

Candidate Scorecards: “Zero or 100%, nothing in between.”

(WASHINGTON, DC – July 19) As House Republicans prepared a Tuesday vote for $2.4 trillion in new national debt, Tea Party leaders ripped Speaker John Boehner (R-OH) and Senate GOP leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) for betraying the movement that put Republicans in charge of the lower chamber last year.

“Boehner and McConnell are the predatory credit card issuers of the Entitlement State, they’re about to renew Obama’s cancelled Mastercard, and they want to saddle America’s grandchildren with all of the bills,” said Judson Phillips, founder of Tea Party Nation (www.teapartynation.com), the country’s oldest, largest and most active Tea Party umbrella group.

Phillips said the Tea Party National Convention he’s chairing this fall “will focus on recruiting conservative primary challengers to House GOP RINOs and frosh complicit in any giveaway of more borrowing authority to President Obama. The Tea Party’s 2012 scorecard for this Congress will have just one issue: Did the Member vote for the McConnell-Boehner cave-in or for any cheap giveaway of more national debt?” In Tea Party parlance, “RINO” means “Republican-In-Name-Only.”

Allen Unruh, founder of Tea Party South Dakota and director of the Tea Party Founding Fathers, added that “RINOs voting wrong will win a big, fat zero on their Tea Party credit rating. Their FICO scores will crash along with their careers as we push Tea Party-backed opponents in the primary, the general election or both. Meanwhile, Members who don’t vote wrong will win a 100% score plus the fervent loyalty of our people in their district. It’s zero or 100%, nothing in between.”

Phillips announced that the 2011 Tea Party National Convention, originally scheduled for Kansas City, KS with his support, has been reset for a new state based on strategic electoral considerations and the desires of a new group of funders. Phillips said, “We and our capital sources felt that Kansas was the wrong place for our movement to gather this fall because it’s not an early primary state, not a swing state, and not blue-state territory where Tea Partiers might recapture turf from the left. Instead, the new, currently-secret location we’ll soon be announcing for our late fall event will empower our movement to slingshot into 2012 for the same kind of impact we had in 2010.”

Phillips said, “House Republicans can’t let Obama keep borrowing 40 cents on each dollar of federal spending. The ratings agencies have clearly said Congress must cut back on the federal credit card.” He said Tuesday’s planned House vote to condition a debt hike on sending a constitutional Balanced Budget Amendment to the states was good, but that “voting for the ‘Cut, Cap and Balance’ plan won’t save you from the Tea Party’s wrath if you ultimately vote for a cheap giveaway of more debt to Obama, as McConnell and Boehner are planning.

“A failed CCB bill gets you no cover. The ONLY way any Republican may get forgiveness from us is if he obtains a high price tag like $500 billion in 2012 first-year cuts, defunding of Obamacare and Planned Parenthood, sweeping reform of all health care entitlements such as Medicare, and actual Congressional passage of a Balanced Budget Amendment,” Phillips said.

Phillips founded the country’s first Tea Party umbrella group in early 2009 and hosted Sarah Palin at the original Tea Party National Convention at Nashville in February, 2010. According to web metrics from Alexa, Tea Party Nation’s website leads all other Tea Party websites for traffic. Phillips said he is inviting William Temple, chair of the Kansas-planned event, to serve as a spokesman for the 2011 Tea Party National Convention now to be held elsewhere. “Upon final approval of this strategic new location by our funders and convention board,” said Phillips, “we’ll be unveiling an amazing, technology-based strategy for hunting RINOs and defeating Democrats in 2012, starting with this fall’s Tea Party National Convention.”

(emphasis mine)

Progressives were not willing to excoriate Obama for his healthcare backstabbing deal with Tauzin, or much of anything else. No progressive group demanded an apology from Obama – and in failing to do so, basically gave a green light to further duplicity from him.

Progressives can choose to be wimps, or choose to be aggressive. They can choose to make electoral threats, or not. They can choose to crash Republican primaries, or not. (See here, also).

Hopefully, they will choose to be aggressive and muscular, and not settle for crying into their blogs, or signing an occasional petition which “tells” a Congress critter what to do, with no explicit electoral consequences threatened, ever.

we have several good prospects, but even if we had one would not announce it yet. It would be ignored at this stage. We don’t have to like, but accept, that the electoral clock is dictated by the MSM, and it doesn’t begin until about mid Nov, when NH sets its primary date.

To contact me, just write tonyn_at_newprogs_dot_org

CharlesII:

If you really care about turning FDL into a functioning movement, you’ll take the issue of how members treat one another as one of the very most important there is. It’s called solidarity, and its probably the single most important indicator of whether movements stand or fail.

That comment has historical tone. I know a peace historian who wrote a book which focused on that exact point regarding peace movements. The book was an analysis of the peace movement(s) in the 70′s. A very good book BTW.

I have sent you an email and I look forward to your response. Thanks for your sincerity.

I think about the attack on Social Security. Now today, S & P launches an attack on the US and this will have devastating effects on bond ratings. Some sickos out there are willing to create “invisible death panels” for the retired one way or another.

I see these “plays against citizens” as creating conditions that will starve the elderly and denying healthcare.

Imagine how successful a true populist for the people would be! Obama would not risk/want that- just like he did not want his victory at election to bring change.. he dumbed it all down to disillusionment of his supporters.. the Great Bargain and Promise of Obama was BUSTED.

Who owns these men? Disgusting.

Didn’t call you names, said it was sillyness to imply Obama w/ a dem congress for two years did all he could have done. Stick to the topic.

Progressives were not willing to excoriate Obama for his healthcare backstabbing deal with Tauzin, or much of anything else. No progressive group demanded an apology from Obama – and in failing to do so, basically gave a green light to further duplicity from him.—–

Totally true and THE problem. We need to declare his reign OVER and his policy as failing. AND champion those leaders who deserve our attention.

Forgive me, but this is just a test to teach me the system better!
blah boy go bling bang

Again, forgive me one more time, but this is just a test to teach me the system better!
blah boy go bling bang