We’re four Senators and one President away from Thunderdome. Still wanna primary Obama?
I’m doing one of those rare things where I repost another blogger’s work in full because I can’t say it any better, and I fear my head would explode were I to try.
I do want to draw attention to one thing in particular, and that is all the PRAISE ED bullshit on MSNBC this week. How dare he pretend like he’s some fucking working class hero when he was leading the FUCK OBAMA movement during the midterms?
I wrote extensively about how the left was shooting itself in the foot, not only by refusing to vote, but also by refusing to participate in any GOTV activities on behalf of Democrats because Democrats needed to be taught a lesson, that’s why!
Yeah, yeah, I’m an Obot. Do you know what being an Obot means? It means being fucking practical. It means not spending days on end looking for any way to attack Democrats and the Democratic leadership. It means not referring to Democrats as “house niggers.” It means not calling Obama a liar when he tries to get something done and is hamstrung by Congress (Gitmo). It means not expecting Obama to speak out for your little pet projects and stomping your foot when he doesn’t. It means stop looking to Obama to tell us what to do. It means stop trying to convince black people that Obama is fucking them over (I’m looking at you, Arianna.) It means stop expecting that your progressive utopia is going to shoot out of Obama’s ass. It means stop fucking lying and start fucking working.
We have to do it for ourselves. We need to organize at the community level.1
Sitting behind a keyboard typing about how many penises Obama took from you simply pushes the Teabilly/GOP takeover onward.
Seriously. We need to take this fight to the streets and to Fox News’s front door. Fox News is killing this country. It is brainwashing people into thinking that they should be attacking one another. They are dividing the middle class and then pitting the two sides against each other and they are doing it on behalf of the Tea Party and the GOP.
So enough already.
If you want to be a nihilist and talk about how we’re fucked and there’s nothing we can do about it, then go get your smelling salts and your fainting couch and get the fuck out of the way.
If you want to talk about “Well they got the leadership they voted for; you reap what you sow” then get the fuck out of the way.
We are 4 Senators and 1 President away from total fucking apocalyptic ruin. Let those of us who still give a shit go about trying to fix this mess.
The rest of you? GET OUT OF THE FUCKING WAY.
[from Eclectablog; reposted in full]
In Wisconsin. In Ohio. In Michigan. In Florida.
All across the country, the True Liberals’ efforts to teach Barack Obama a lesson are paying off in spades. Their plan could not have worked out more perfectly. After a year of shouting to the highest heavens about how much they were disappointed in President Obama and the Democrats, after a year promising to withhold their support during the 2010 Midterm campaign and, more importantly, at the ballot box, they got their wish: Democrats stayed home in droves. Huge numbers of Democrats across the country, many of whom had voted for the very first time in 2008, got up and went to the fridge instead of the polls that late Fall Tuesday.
Yesterday, in Wisconsin, the tea party Governor and his cadre of Republican Senators figured out a way to bypass Senate Democrats’ exploitation of a loophole that allowed them to put the brakes on a GOP effort to drive a stake into the heart of unions in their state. Most collective bargaining rights for teachers and public employees are now gone as if they were trash taken to the curb. Sure, Scott Walker’s favorables took a beating there for awhile. If it weren’t for that pesky quorum loophole, this would have all been taken care of weeks ago and his numbers wouldn’t have tanked so far. But that’s water under the bridge and now they are back on track. The unions have been squashed like bugs and they can go back to laughing at the protesters as they are frisked and searched and scanned just to enter a public building.
Barack Obama has really got to be smarting over that, eh? He’s really paid the price now, by golly.
In Michigan yesterday, the GOP-controlled Senate passed a bill that enhances the Republican Governor’s ability to declare financial emergencies in municipalities and appoint an Emergency Financial Manager (EFM). This EFM will have authority to do pretty much whatever they wish including suspending contracts with unions and other groups and even firing the existing elected officials. Rachel Maddow explained it very well the other night. There was a protest at the Capitol before the vote, of course. Over 700 people showed up, mostly union employees. Know what the Republican who introduced the bill said about the protest? “I don’t think it had an effect outside of the fact we had to talk a little bit louder today.” Ouch. They had to talk a little louder.
But that’s not all that is coming down the pipeline in Michigan. The Republican Governor’s budget taxes public and private pensions that helps the elderly. It eliminates the Earned Income Tax Credit that helps the poor. It eliminates a huge tax credit for filmmakers in Michigan, killing that job-creating baby in its crib. It eliminates tax credits for vehicle battery manufacturers, strangling a nascent industry before it even gets off the ground. It eliminates tax credits for redeveloping brownfield sites, ensuring that new industrial development will take place on undeveloped, pristine lands rather than on already-despoiled soil. Here’s one: there’s a union-busting bill in Congress to make Michigan a “Right to Work” state or, as the unions call it, a “Right to Work for LESS” state. All of this and businesses are getting billions of dollars in tax breaks, paid for by the elderly, the poor and whichever other down-trodden groups you can name.
“Eclectablog, what shall we do???!” I’m asked. “We can’t let this stand. We must protest. Where is OFA???”
What can we do? We can’t do ANYTHING! In Michigan, the Republicans control the House. The Republicans control the Senate. The Republicans control the Supreme Court. The Governor is a Republican. When we protest, they just talk a little louder. And after they get done redistricting our formerly solid-Democratic state this year, we’ll be lucky if our dog catchers are Democrats.
Protest at the Capitol? Sorry, I won’t waste my time.
But, I’ll tell you this: President Obama has surely learned his lesson. These union-busting, pro-business moves by the Michigan GOP have got to be chapping his britches something fierce.
It’s happening in Florida, too. Tea Party Governor Rick Scott is unstoppable. He’s solving his state’s multi-billion dollar deficit by cutting taxes on businesses by several billion dollars and he’s cutting teachers’ pay to do it. He’s rejecting federal funds to develop high-speed rail.
Take that, Obama!
How about Ohio? The Republican Governor there is assaulting the unions, too. And the only difference between Wisconsin and these other three states is that Wisconsin Democratic Senators had a quorum loophole they could use to stop a vote. Well, they could stop it for three weeks. Then the unions got their asses handed to them anyway.
Last night Rachel Maddow said her staff’s analysis shows there are Republican-sponsored union-busting bills in the Congresses of no less than SEVENTEEN states.
Ed Schultz has been on fire on MSNBC these past three weeks, hasn’t he? Nothing like pure, unadulterated union-busting by Republicans to get old Ed fired up and ready to go. A let’s not pretend Ed didn’t have a plan for this all along, right? Remember this from him last fall?
And I’m announcing today, I’m not going to vote in the midterms. I’m not going to do it. You can say it’s un-American. No, it’s rather revolutionary is what it is. I’m at that point. I’m checking out. I’m checking out of the Democrats because they are proving to me that they don’t know how to handle these big babies over on the right that say no. You know what you do? You get in the driver’s seat, you hit the throttle, and you run over them.
Un-American? Hell no, Ed! That’s as American as it gets. Hell, it’s practically Republican, it’s so American! Create a problem that you yourself can benefit from. Help make sure the GOP takes control by helping suppress the Democratic vote then watch your rating positively SOAR when you get to be on television almost non-stop when they start crushing unions like cockroaches.
Man, you sure showed them, Ed. Obama has really got to be feeling this now, what with all those union people getting crushed and taxes being cut on the backs of the poor and the elderly.
And, let’s make no mistake, it’s not just Ed who is teaching a lesson to Obama. Here’s part of an email I got recently from a friend, a liberal who is disappointed in the President. I had reached out to him to help us start organizing in our area so that we’re ready to really hit the ground hard for the 2012 elections. He was very active in 2008 so I had hoped that he and others in our area would be eager to help get Dems elected again in 2012 considering that they control everything in our state right now. Hah. Boy was I ever wrong:
Thank you and everyone for all the hard work you guys do and will be doing. I really enjoyed working with all of you a couple of years ago.
Unless there are some drastic changes in his policies over the next few months which I doubt I simply cannot bring myself to put forth my time and money to help this President. I thought we were electing someone who would fight for our ideals and yet he has managed to compromise on just about every campaign issue he was for. From health care which no public option was even fought for, to tax cuts for the top 2% that he instantly gave, Gitmo, etc. And the major issue is the fact we are bombing even more than the Bush administration in Pakistan killing innocent people. The economic and other issue I may be able to get past but this I can’t. Along with Rendition still going on.
President Obama will probably still get my vote as from what I see the other side will probably have someone even worse but that will be to the extent of my support for him.
It’s not just him. I’m hearing this from lots of Democrats. Hell, I see it on the progressive blogs like Daily Kos on a daily, even hourly, basis. They are going to teach Obama a lesson for not delivering everything they want by handing the keys to the kingdom back to the people who are most likely to screw them over.
So, I hope you like watching the unions getting squashed. I hope you enjoy watching business taxes being cut while taxes are raised on the poor and the elderly. I hope you enjoy watching environmental regulations done away with and health insurance reform rolled back. I hope you will enjoy it when even the modest regulatory reforms on Wall Street are sent to the dustbin of history and the improvements in our food regulatory system are done away with. I hope you will enjoy it when the reproductive rights of women are taken away and the rights of minorities are degraded; when same sex couples see their dream marriage sent down the garbage disposal and members of the LGBT community are put back in the military closet. We all need to start getting used to these things.
Why? Because all that stands between us and all of these things and more happening is four Senators and one President.
We have a choice to make and we better start getting on that because the first debates of the 2012 election are next month.
If Democrats stay home in droves next year, we’ll lose the Senate and the Oval Office, too, and what you’re seeing in Michigan will just be a microcosm of what will happen nationally.
But, hey, at least Obama will have learned a lesson.
Sometimes, I don’t even know why I care anymore. I have a J.D.; I make a tidy sum of money. When the shit goes down, I’m ready — plane ticket to New Zealand in hand. I’ll go work in my friend’s restaurant and watch the good ol’ US of A burn via remote satellite in sleepy Queenstown, New Zealand. Hell, if I don’t want to leave the country just yet, I could hide in my apartment and eat arugula salads and spicy mustard all day. But for some dumb fucking reason, I actually care about other people, even when they are too stupid to care for themselves. I’M NOT DONE YET!
Are you?
1 If you want to know how the Tea Party took over Wisconsin, you must read Abe Sauer’s Article A Blueprint for a Takeover: Wisconsin Republicans Lied While the Kochs Schemed posted over at The Awl. It is long, but at the end, you’re going to realize that we are being outsmarted by a bunch of fucking Teabilly idiots because we are wasting time arguing with each other.2
2 No, the irony is not lost on me.
[via Eclectablog]
[cross-posted here at Angry Black Lady Chronicles]
[I’m pretty sure this post might rightfully be described as “the nuclear option.” Enjoy. I have plans this afternoon and evening and won’t be back to take my licks until much later. If you really want to give me the old “how’s your father” the best way to reach me is, of course, at ABLC, which I will be checking throughout the evening. Have fun and try not to kill each other. -ABLxx]
Joe Beese
No, I don’t care about primarying Obama.
What I do want is to see him tried in the Hague for crimes against humanity and imprisoned for life.
I dream big.
Tom Hilton
The word A-motherfucking-men is wholly inadequate. Every word of that should be tattooed backwards on the foreheads of all the ‘progressives’ so they’re forced to read it every time they look in the mirror.
Calouste
And if you want more incentives, just read what Rep. Barton (R-Oil) has to say:
Yep, subsidies are necessary for the free market. Specially subsidies for companies that make massive profits and don’t pay any corporation tax in the US anyway.
Joe Beese
Meanwhile, the Big Man must be lacing up those comfortable shoes, eh?
No?
Joe Beese
Meanwhile, the Big Man must be lacing up those comfortable shoes, eh?
No?
Angry White Guy (Formerly liberty60)
More of this,please, ABL.
Look, there are no magic progressive candidates, but if anyone isn’t aware of which side they need to be on in this fight, they are the deluded ones; I was just reading the article about the hapless yups at NPR who brought a totebag to a knife fight ; Like the other thread mentioned, they thought they could stroke their…beards and pontificate about private schools while the forces that hate them with a fury encircled them.
A couple years ago I might have been in the “lets find a reasonable middle ground” area, but now I’m not; this is a war that is being waged on us, and there isn’t a middle ground.
August J. Pollak
Oh good I was wondering how it had been over an hour since a horrible right-wing corruption of democracy occurred and I hadn’t been blamed for it yet. I was worried this site got hacked or something.
stuckinred
@Joe Beese: you made your point ass hole.
Angry White Guy (Formerly liberty60)
dunno whut I said to be in moderation, but could someone please release me?
Uncle Clarence Thomas
.
.
It means being fucking lied to, among other things.
I notice these things because I love America too gawd-DAMM much.
.
.
The Dangerman
I posited on another thread today that the Republicans are fucking the Unions so they can get within cheating distance of beating Obama in 2012. Let’s face it, in 2008, a McCain/Palin victory would have smelled roughly like King Harbor in Redondo Beach, CA (google news it if you don’t know the reference).
I’ll repeat from that thread, I still think Obama wins, but another stolen election (2004 is arguable, but 2000 was stolen, not by the USSC, but by the removal of people from the voting roles that just happened to be voting while black) in 2012 means I start thinking the Mayans might have been on to something.
Doug Hill
Amen
Liberty60
More of this,please, ABL.
Look, there are no magic progressive candidates, but if anyone isn’t aware of which side they need to be on in this fight, they are the deluded ones; I was just reading the article about the hapless yups at NPR who brought a totebag to a knife fight ; Like the other thread mentioned, they thought they could stroke their…beards and pontificate about private schools while the forces that hate them with a fury encircled them.
A couple years ago I might have been in the “lets find a reasonable middle ground” area, but now I’m not; this is a war that is being waged on us, and there isn’t a middle ground.
Joe Beese
you made your point ass hole.
Yeah, sorry about the double post.
But since his blowing up brown kids doesn’t seem to bother you, don’t forget that he’s now torturing white people too.
Still gung ho for 2012?
jrg
Whatever. I’ve voted for Dems since ’06, and will continue doing so for the rest of my life, in all likelihood.
…but the bottom line is that people get what they vote for. Elections do have consequences. If you’re a union member who voted GOP for social reasons, you deserve to be fucked in the ass with a chainsaw. Most of us don’t deserve it, but a lot of morons just won’t get it until they’re eating cat food under a bridge, which is fine with me. A lot of people don’t have the cognitive ability to learn any other way.
JenJen
Oh, yes. This, this, a thousand times this:
I live in Ohio. And I do indeed point a finger at those I know (and those I don’t but know of) who sat out 2010 and delivered the Governorship in a shiny wrapped package to John “Heartland” Kasich.
stuckinred
@Joe Beese: How the fuck do you know what bothers me or anyone else?
punkdavid
You know, I totally feel where you’re coming from on this, and we certainly don’t need blowhards like Ed Schultz saying stupid shit like “I’m not going to vote”, but there were several response postings I read today to the Eclectablog post, and the good ones provided statistics that showed that mostly, it was the moderates who didn’t show up.
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2011/03/10/954794/-Pie-Fights-Need-Facts-Too
Maybe “moderates” isn’t the right term, but “independents”, as in my anecdotal experience, a great many independents I know are actually as left as I am, they’re just not politically engaged because they think the whole system is fucked and rigged.
I think Obama deserves some blame for the bad election results in 2010. I think the Democrats in Congress deserve MUCH more blame. They’re the ones who couldn’t get shit done.
I’m actually strangely optimistic right now though. I think that Obama and the Dems are going to CRUSH next fall, and hopefully they’ll have the courage to actually do something with their wins this time.
Either that, or the world is going to end, which wouldn’t be so bad either.
singfoom
Nuance, motherfuckers, how does it work?
Sure, I’m a card carrying firebagger who wants the Bush Administration investigated. Sure, I think that the Obama Administration’s record on civil liberties is VERY disappointing.
However, there’s no way I would support a primary of him. Yeah, let’s just ensure a Republican as POTUS. It worked so well for us 2000-2008, right?
No one is perfect and you can support a bigger cause while pointing out the bad at the same time. Jesus, are there actually large numbers of peeps who want to primary Obama?
Bob Loblaw
So, if I’m reading you right…Jane Hamsher lost Wisconsin? This is what happens when you forget an entire world exists beyond your computer screen.
Thirty million Democratic voters didn’t bother showing up in 2010 because of some blog called firedoglake. That’s vanity. Your “struggle” against them, ABL, is not part of a larger story. It’s just an insular slapfight.
Honestly, no genuine working class hero (not that Schultz is one, mind) would have anything to say to a President of the United States that couldn’t be broken down to some form of “Fuck you power man.” Even Saint Obama, blessings and peace be upon him.
Joe Beese
Did I mention he’s waging war in Yemen as well?
The next time he talks about “shared sacrifice”, ask him if that includes the Pentagon.
NR
It’s okay. We heard nonstop for the last two years that nobody can do anything without 60 votes in the Senate. The Repubs won’t have 60 votes in the Senate, so we don’t have to worry even if they win next year.
freelancer
You know who else had a Juris Doctorate…
General Stuck
It figures Joe Beese would show up first.
Anyways, my goodness ABL, you makes me swoon with this kind of talk. Of course it is likely giving Cole the shingles as his email lights up with all the butthurt progs. Carry on.
cg
Amen also, too.
jwb
@Bob Loblaw: You are just so fucking predictable, and once again showing a complete incapacity to read.
Fang
Here’s the way I put it to the people who whine about Obama, want to show him, want to try him in the Hague, whatever.
Show me your plan. Show me how you’re going to get us out of this mess. Show us a way that’s not some head-in-the-clouds, emo-tinged rant about how we’re going to get our country back. Show me the plan and tell me what to do, give me a blueprint and some directions and explain how it works.
I’m waiting. But I haven’t seen one yet from Obama detractors. Meanwhile a lot of people are organizing, getting involved, and getting off their asses as opposed to just whining. Sure their plan is “raise hell and connect” but it’s better than “whine and type.” It’s a start.
Too many liberal fell into a trap of focusing on the presdient. We felt Bush was a horrible choice, and so focused we were the focus *didn’t waiver* when Obama came into office. We’re still busy blaming the president and whining about it, and we’re missing the big picture. As bad as things are with the media, really, we did THAT to ourselves, it’s a pathology the whole nation falls into.
Well it’s not about the president, or congress, or anything else. It’s about everything, from the school board to the white house. Shut up, connect, and get active, and most of all, complain if you much, but don’t undermine anyone working to make the country better, or at least stave off the mess we’re in.
It’s all of us, on many different levels. The key is to stop bitching and start acting. We can decide who gets points later for being right about Obama or Clinton, or whatever. But I’d rather we’re all 90% productive rather than 10% busy looking for bogeymen.
Damn it ABL, you’ve got me fired up.
General Stuck
If you look down from the jet, and see a white boy paddling a canoe with a little dog, be sure to wave.
jl
I will be door knocking and phone calling and (to the limited extent that may be possible) giving money to the Democrats at the state and local level, and for Congress.
Hope that helps Obama win.
Like some one said in one of his townhalls, he has made it very difficult to defend his presidency. But, I promise I will think about how to do it.
It has to be defended some way because the alternative is dire. You can see it now.
Remember that old line about overly radical elements who probably will not play by the rules being allowed to participate in democracy? They want democracy and elections until they win, and then that is the last (honest) election.
Now look at Wisconsin.
I think the reactionary alternative IS that bad.
Certainly, primarying Obama is not the thing to do.
Maybe if Lincoln or TR or FDR or Truman were re animated in the next year, it might work. Otherwise it would be a foolish mistake.
Mike Kay (Ding-Dong-Broder's Dead)
Wait, I’m putting the butter on the popcorn.
okay..
GO!
punkdavid
I should say that the point about liberals not coming out to do the GOTV and other camapaigning in 2010 is totally true. I know I wasn’t feeling it the way I was in 2008.
That is about INSPIRATION. The Teabaggers had it in 2010. The Dems had NOTHING to be excited about, and if there’s one place that I think that Obama needs to pick up his game (because we KNOW he has it in him) is as the Democratic Party’s chief cheerleader.
It may sound silly, but that’s part of the POTUS job description as well, not just running the country, which I feel Obama has been doing a fine job of, and which goes wholly unappreciated. It’s just like at your job. You can’t expect to get a raise and a promotion just by sitting at your desk and doing your best. You have to draw your bosses’ attention to your successes and deflect from your missteps if you want them to keep you on when it comes time to renegotiate your contract.
rikyrah
yeah ABL.
you are on the money.
Can’t argue with one word. Thank you.
Catsy
@Joe Beese: I can’t even get pissed off at you for posting that idiocy; it’s like getting pissed off at a raccoon for getting into your garbage–they’re just not intelligent enough to grasp the consequences of their actions beyond their immediate selfish needs.
I do wonder, though, how you manage to tie your shoes and produce human-like noise, let alone use a computer.
the fenian
OK, we don’t primary him.
But what, precisely, is he doing to counter what is pretty plainly a national campaign to demolish the middle-class, the institutions powerful enough to protect it, and the institutions without which he wouldn’t be president today?
Norbrook
The whole “let’s stay home and teach Obama a lesson!” crap was fucking stupid to begin with. I’ve noted elsewhere that for all the ranting they did, remarkably few Blue Dogs or “less than pure” Democrats drew a primary. In other words, they were full of shit when it came to making threats. Besides handing the House back to the Republicans, which would have been bad enough, they also handed control of state legislatures to them. Great, now, instead of focusing on one house of Congress, you have a lot of states you have to try to get back, and undo the damage. That doesn’t even begin to mention the little thing called “control of redistricting.”
jeff
Thanks for saying this so well ABL. I don’t like saying that the perfect is the enemy of the good. But still.
Citizen_X
Andrew Leonard makes the point here that unionism actually increases voter turnout and civil participation:
(My emphasis.) He doesn’t give any refs for the assertion, however. Anyone know where that’s documented, or question it or want to add points?
Mike Kay (Ding-Dong-Broder's Dead)
You know I wouldn’t respond to this post if I was innocent.
Responding only betrays a guilty conscious.
JWL
Organize? You mean coalesce in a giant electoral fist, as happened in 2008?
Been there, done that. We live in a Republic. If the leadership of a party consistently enables its opposition at the expense of the interests of its own rank and file, whatever rationalization said leadership might plead, what’s the use?
Svensker
@singfoom:
That’s two of us.
jl
Hey, Broder really did die, I notice from Yahoo news. People should stop with the mean comments. Jeesh.
Midnight Marauder
@punkdavid:
No, the President does not need to become a bigger cheerleader of the Democratic Party. People just need to start paying attention, engaging in the system, and acting like the stakes are as exponentially high as they are on their own accord.
If you are waiting on, or need, the President of the United States to help you out on the motivation front, then this whole operation is fucked.
eemom
I wuvs ya ABL, and of course I agree with the post…….and the kitty is teh awesome…..but this kind of post is like cheese to the rodents of this blog. (hey, maybe it’s a trap….?)
Tonal Crow
@Bob Loblaw:
This. This site’s received wisdom seems to consist of (1) Firebaggers are a tiny minority of Democrats; (2) Firebaggers are singlehandedly responsible for the debacle of 2010; and (3) Obama and Congressional Democrats are doing all they should to motivate Democrats to come out to vote.
That said, we’ve once again got to get out and work to roll back the teahadi insurgency.
NR
It’s been said before, but it’s worth saying again:
In 2006, the people voted out the party of endless war and corporate bailouts.
In 2008, the people voted out the party of endless war and corporate bailouts.
And in 2010, the people voted out that party of endless war and corporate bailouts.
If you want people to turn out for you, you need to give them a reason to turn out for you. Simple as that.
Elisabeth
@Joe Beese:
Funny that I agree with most of what you say and I still support the president in 2012 because the alternative is much, much worse. I’m not willing to sit on my hands and hope that someone else does the hard work of making sure we have a Democratic president, which means this president, or that we don’t have as many Congresspeople as possible.
different church-lady
Not terribly well, I’m afraid. Maybe the batteries are dead.
jwb
@Norbrook: Not to mention that with Citizens United the Dems at pretty much every level are going to be severely outgunned on the cash front.
Bob Loblaw
@jwb:
Six (six!) of her nine links are about FDL or Jane Hamsher. So you tell me.
It kinda hurts the broader sweep of her post to start off with some personal vendetta against a woman I don’t care about who writes for a blog I don’t read. Perhaps if I thought Jane Hamsher represented anything more than 1-200,000 people total in a country of 310 million, I might be more responsive.
currants
@freelancer: juris doctor, I’ve been told….
Svensker
@General Stuck:
That made me laugh. Charlie’d look cute in a canoe. :)
Tonal Crow
@Midnight Marauder:
Did you know that very many people do just that? And that they won’t ever read — let alone heed — your exhortation?
Tim
@Joe Beese:
Oh Joe Beese…how DARE you harsh on Angry Clown Lady’s masturbatory political organizing fantasy. It is simply not done here at BJ.
ACL’s crush on the O is downright masochistic. The pain of being lied to and deceived and shit on by Obama is SO worth the tingly feelings down there when she gets to talk about ORGANIZING AT THE COMMUNITY LEVEL. OMG, I just came…
That said, you are dead on about Obama. But I include Kerry before him. And Gore before him. All part of the same bullshit machine that runs this country…all while ACL writes cute little posts about how ANGRY she is dammit, and what a big difference that will make.
Because, the O, dammit, he CARES…despite all evidence to the contrary.
Her antics are educational though. I have been around to know how this will turn out, again, as it has all through history.
Chuck Butcher
While I don’t reccomend this as a political strategy I will point out that all this energy is the result of the RepubliKlan gains not the result of Democratic policies and political rhetoric. What you’ve gotten is outcomes you like and outcomes you don’t like and that means you have to do some balancing of how you got those outcomes.
That is exactly what was pomulgated as the stance of this blog in regards to things like ACA and DADT. But of course, that also involved kicking the “left.”
The Raven
You’re blaming the wrong people. Most of the left knows very well the difference between Obama and his opposition is, and will turn out for him, and even work on Democratic GOTV.
The biggest reason Obama and the Democrats lost the midterm is their failure to address, or even acknowledge as a problem, unemployment. The second reason is the failure to address the mortgage crisis. Both failures are tied to the administration’s economic and regulatory failures: an inadequate stimulus and a failure to regulate in any effective way the financial industry. If Obama had come out publicly for these things, used the bully pulpit, made it loud and clear, he might have lost, but he might have kept the voters. As it is, his administration and the Democrats now own the economic disasters.
A new problem may be participating in the defunding of the National Labor Relations Board.
“Hope and change” was an inspiring slogan. “Vote for me–I’m not as bad as the other guy” is not.
“I’m the Raven. Vote for me. I’m not evil.”
Midnight Marauder
@jl:
Some people will hold Broder just as accountable for the deleterious effects of his mealymouthed “journalism” in death as they did during his life.
And it is a perfectly valid position to hold.
jwb
@jl: Broder’s not getting off that easy. He helped create this hell, his name can damn well continue to be dragged through it whether he’d dead or not.
eemom
@jl:
sorry, but Broder’s death has been stalled by filibuster in the Senate. Not until his bipartisan dream has been realized can the poor man RIP.
Elisabeth
@Tonal Crow:
All those people in Wisconsin for the last several weeks don’t do just that. (According to some, they are out there despite the silence of the president.)
Midnight Marauder
@Tonal Crow:
Sadly, I am all too aware.
Fang
I wanted to add one more thought here.
The Republican party is about hierarchal authority – as much as they love to talk freedom, the Tea Partiers, the religious right, and so on are just following orders.
We’re the party of freedom not hierarchy. That means, however, we can’t wait for someone to give us orders or save our bacon. We have to do it ourselves, each one of us. Otherwise we’re just waiting for someone else to lead or tell us what to do, even if we won’t admit it.
Joe Beese
what, precisely, is he doing to counter what is pretty plainly a national campaign to demolish the middle-class
What, you didn’t catch his stinging rebuke to the Wisconsin treachery?
Oh, right… there wasn’t one.
Citizen_X
@NR:
Bullshit. In 2010, the people–the white, old, misinformed, lazily-to-screamingly-racist people–voted out the party of soshulizm, reparations and la reconquista.
The rest of the people stayed home because they were bored.
HBuellA
ABL You go girl!
Tonal Crow
@Elisabeth:
True. And I was one of them (though not _in_ Wisconsin). But that doesn’t address the point that very many people need Presidential leadership to get off their duffs and into action. That’s just how it is. And it’s up to Obama to lead them. We might be able to convince him of the need, and we should definitely try.
Rpx
Your rage filled screed has convinced me to side with you. Reasoning is hard. Yelling good.
General Stuck
Obama has a fifty plus job approval, Chomp Chomp. And Liberals approve of his presidenting at around 90 percent, Chomp Chomp. The mid term went like Ronnie Raygun’s first mid term, and most other presnits first midterm, and the rest was history. Yawn, pass the popcorn and let the whining commence.
jazzgurl
Yep, that is it,ABL. Tell ’em like it is. Give ’em hell!
Todd Dugdale
In Wisconsin, the Independents have turned against Walker, the Democrats are energised, and even the public employee unions that supported Walker have turned against him. PPP shows immense buyer’s remorse; Walker would lose today.
So, at the moment when the State wakes up and sees through the BS, when Democrats finally unite, when the Right is reduced to it’s hard-core, when Wisconsin is asking for our help…that is the time (in some people’s smirking opinion) for us on the Left to say “Too late, chump!” and turn our back on them.
Others seem to prefer giving Wisconsin a lecture on civics before turning their backs on the State: “This is what you get for not voting!”.
This is some kind of Grand Strategy to win voters over to our side? To alternate between “Tough shit!” and “Told ya!”? In what perverse distortion of reality is that persuasive?
different church-lady
@General Stuck:
Fixed.
Redshift
I’d say you struck a nerve, ABL!
I’d have more to say, but I have to go drive home through a monsoon now.
Ruckus
@General Stuck:
That’s a pretty long paddle. Worth every stroke btw.
Was thinking along these lines yesterday, wondering what can we actually do. Don’t have money to spare, time is taken trying to get more shekels under the mattress.
What can be done from a computer besides complain how politics sucks?
Anyone? Bueller?
Snaporaz
ABL you are the Clarence Thomas of Balloon Juice.
Shade Tail
@the fenian:
What do you *want* him to do about it? Seriously, I’ve never seen anyone get specific about that. So stop bitching and get specific. Is there something you think he could have done about, for example, Wisconsin? Or, for example, getting the Dem-controlled House to vote on increasing taxes for millionaires before the November election?
Here is something that has been eating at me for a while now. In the months prior to Nov. 2010 Obama was practically a broken record on how the Congress needed to undo the Bush tax giveaways-to-billionaires, and the House ignored him. It was Congress who screwed us over by refusing to end that shit, not Obama. And then five minutes after the election, disappointed democrats started re-writing history and pretending that Obama wasn’t pushing for that after all.
Seriously, give me some specifics on what you want Obama to do. Because I am fucking sick and tired of people who should know better whining that he isn’t doing anything.
Bob Loblaw
@General Stuck:
Right. But then according to Balloon Juice logic, that must mean that there was some right-wing Jane Hamsher of 1982 that should be blamed instead. So who was it? Pat Buchanan?
It couldn’t be that Americans of all political persuasions are fundamentally intemperate and jaded, could it? That would make it an “us problem” instead of a “you people” problem. And that’s no fun.
Master of Karate and Friendship
Yes.
Quiddity
@Tonal Crow: The Republican effort in Wisconsin indirectly targeted Obama, yet he was largely passive. People don’t know what he stands for, and that’s a major handicap in politics. Stop blaming the electorate.
Mike Kay (Ding-Dong-Broder's Dead)
@eemom: maybe they can drop a net on them.
Midnight Marauder
@Tonal Crow:
They may want presidential leadership, but I would dissent that they “need” it. The need to get involved should come from some kind of personal motivating factor; not because the POTUS told you to pay attention, get off the couch and join the action.
Mike Kay (Ding-Dong-Broder's Dead)
Number of comments posted to this post: I say 450
reader
Hahahaha….that pretty much defines your “contribution” to this blog. You offer extensive block quotes from other sources, set in between often meager amounts of text that abuses font and typeface options (bold, italics and
strikethroughaplenty, including often all of them), combined with embedded videos.A complete waste of front-page space. As always.
Southern Beale
Worth a read:
One voter explains why I support Scott Walker
The voter is unemployed since returning from her tour of duty in Afghanistan. Sad.
Quiddity
@Quiddity: I meant to say that others should stop blaming the electorate, not you Tonal Crow.
BTW, I cannot edit comments using the latest FireFox 3.6.15 on Windows 7. All I get is a black browser screen. Hence this reply to myself.
Joe Beese
Seriously, give me some specifics on what you want Obama to do.
About the wars and torture? Or about the destruction of the middle class?
Not cut a backroom sweetheart deal with Big Pharm. Not sign a bill making the Bush tax cuts effectively permanent. Not create commissions to recommend gutting Social Security.
But that boat has sailed, I’m afraid.
Master of Karate and Friendship
Bwa ha ha ha!
Once upon a time, there was a country where everyone voted for the best candidates and everything was cool. Then Fox News came along spouting reactionary propaganda, and half the country started watching it because–well, just because. And, since humans are blank slates, the absurdities pumped out by Fox News turned those people into Republicans, and the country was doomed. The end.
DonkeyKong
If the president continues to hide out in DC, give pep talks to the banks (please please pretty please with a cherry on top lend money.) and “meet” the republicans halfway it won’t matter what we do ABL.
I bet nearly 100% of the BJers here voted in 2010 straight ticket democrat.
It’s not manic progressives that are the problem my little hot house flower, it’s the white working class freakout.
Picture this in your head, Barak Obama at one of the many free health care fairs in a rural part of Pennsylvania or Wisconsin thundering in that righteous cool rage style I saw during the campaign on how these working class men and women are being pushed into the dirt.
Imagine him at both public and private union events talking about the dignity and rewards of work (much like Clinton did at his best)
A black man standing for the white working class. Holy shit!
If the president can’t do that then baring another loser ticket on the republican ticket (thankfully thats very likely right now)he loses.
There are just too few progressives in the swing states to matter.
I will donate, phone bank, and march as I’ve always done in the past and into the future. So will everyone else on this thread.
Just don’t try and sell me on Obama’s playing 3D chess and we all have to clap louder.
The last two years have been Obama bringing his 3D chess set to a head butting contest. That shit is old, and we’re all waiting for plan B.
So with that in mind, what is plan B?
JPL
ABL…We need a weekly reminder. Thanks.
Joe Beese
what is plan B?
Re-elect Obama in 2012 and then hold his feet to the fire.
Let us know how that goes.
General Stuck
@Bob Loblaw:
It’s not possible to know how much, or if at all folks like Hamsher and GG and all the other disappointed folks on the left have done damage causing other liberals to stay home and not vote. I personally don’t think it is much, and I only pay attention to those folks who get themselves on teevee and propound to speak for liberals and progressives delivering the view point of only a tiny sliver of the dem base, but giving impression they speak for many more.
The problem with this bullshit, is it directly injects into the news cycle disappointment, or discontent as coming from the liberal base in far larger numbers than it actually does. It is one reason why, other than it also pisses me off that I and I suspect others give so much grief to GG and Jane, and others.
They don’t get to speak for me without my response to their misleading bullshit, especially when I read at Politico, or some other MSM news outlet of trouble in demville according to Jane Hamsher, or GG.
Tonal Crow
@Quiddity:
The problem is twofold: in part it’s a plurality of the electorate that’s uninformed and lazy, and in part it’s elected Democrats — including Obama — failing to motivate their voters, both because of avoidable substantive shortcomings [1] and because of rhetorical failures.
[1] Alas, not all substantive shortcomings are avoidable.
Lurker
@the fenian:
I take it you’ve never met any Americans who’ve gone broke, sick or dead because they lacked health insurance or lacked enough health insurance.
I have.
Health insurance protects middle-class status, period. Without health insurance, one stroke of bad luck will knock an uninsured American out of the middle class and right into poverty.
Starting in 2014, a whole lotta Americans won’t be trapped in jobs they hate but must endure for the health benefits. That empowers the middle class.
Chuck Butcher
@General Stuck: Move along,nothing to see here…chomp
People bother to vote and vote “Party” for their own reasons. If you don’t give them that, then they will do what they do in another direction. It certainly does take money to get those words out, but it also takes those with a platform to participate, whether they be President, Congressmen, Governors, or State Party Chairs, or… (pick a platform)
If you bring a message that “I’m not as bad as …” you’ve given up on reaching into the motivation to vote much less vote for. Maybe the Democrats will get the idea that following the RepubliKlans right isn’t motivating. I’m not talking about the “left” as much as I’m talking about the entire spectrum from there to right middle.
Tonal Crow
@Midnight Marauder: Yes, people *should* get off their duffs by themselves. The fact is that many won’t. We can try to wish away that fact all we want, but facts are stubborn things, and the sooner we accept them, the better off we’ll be.
Suck It Up!
THIS. This is why I concluded long ago that the left, the professional left, don’t really care about the middle class or the poor. When they are presented with a post like this the first thing they do is to blame Obama for their unwillingness to GOTV. ‘Well if only Obama did X then maybe I would do Y’. As if the shit they hear from Republicans in congress and in the MSM is not fucking enough to get off their sanctimonious purist asses and save the American people from their selfish uninformed selves.
They’ve been doing this shit since first six months of Obama’s presidency. Complete frauds. Obama gets bashed on a daily basis for not caring about the middle class and yet those same critics won’t lift a finger (to help the middle class) until somebody else does something to inspire them or fulfills one of their pet projects.
Tonal Crow
@Quiddity: Open the “click to edit” link in a new window.
Dennis SGMM
Talk about readership capture… The usual suspects are going to be flaming each other for at least 200 comments.
Elisabeth
@DonkeyKong:
I would love to see that ~ I really would. My concern, though, is that the focus would turn to the president and away from the actual issues. Scott Fitzgerald is trying his damnedest to make these protests about Obama without him even being there. I cannot imagine the FNC-inspired uproar that would ensue should the president show up or speak out forcefully.
It seems to me that in Wisconsin at least the Republicans are doing enough to motive the Dems and Indies.
General Stuck
@Chuck Butcher:
Then why in hell are you responding to my comment. Especially when I think the same thing about your idiotic dogma regurgitated passing as fact based cogent analysis.
Master of Karate and Friendship
@Fang:
“Well it’s not about the president, or congress, or anything else. It’s about everything, from the school board to the white house. ”
I’m getting on the phone right now to tell my local school board to get us out of Afghanistan.
@Elisabeth:
“I still support the president in 2012 because the alternative is much, much worse. ”
Right, because if we get a Republican president we could be looking at endless war in the Middle East, increases in oil drilling that leads to environmental catastrophe, Wall Street stooges put in key positions of power like Department of Treasury, and the president saying he can kill any American he wants whenever he wants.
And since many of the regulars here are so fixated on FoxNew’s vote to cut help for the middle class that they have no familiarity with leftist thinking or proposals, here is “what I want Obama to do”:
http://www.ianwelsh.net/what-could-obama-have-done-and-what-can-obama-still-do/
Elia
Overall I guess I agree with the original post, but I think it’s so annoying the way this stuff gets broken into this rigid dichotomy. It is possible, you know, to consider Obama wildly preferable to the alternative AND to be often frustrating, disappointing, and, at times, downright bad. The gitmo thing, for example: I don’t think anyone with real sense would throw that all on his shoulders or discount that he was basically standing on his lonesome there due to the cravenness of congressional Dems; but that doesn’t mean you still can’t criticize him for deciding not to take a hit on Gitmo (not now so much as 2 years ago). Similarly, I don’t think he wanted a too small stimulus but, again, I think his decision not to be more aggressive was a serious tactical blunder, and the connection from that A to the midterm losses’ B is a lot easier to make than to blame the shadowy firebaggers who didn’t show up in November (something I hear about a lot, but have yet to see proven by anyone). I could go on, and some of it probably would be nitpicking, but the guy isn’t perfect and just because he’s not a raving psycho doesn’t mean everyone has this responsibility to fall in line ASAP. That’s not even helpful to him anyway; he needs a vocal and grumpy left-wing to pivot off of. I mean, it’s not like the New Deal was passed because everyone to the left of Hoover thought it was swell–Roosevelt used the significant socialist bloc in the country (and growing) to argue that his policies weren’t very radical to begin with and were necessary to save capitalism. So, yeah, I’ll vote, I’ll fundraise, I’ll advocate — but once the moment of truth has passed, I’ll also still tell anyone who asks that Obama’s main virtue is that he sucks the least.
Tonal Crow
@Master of Karate and Friendship: Once upon a time, in a world far far away, no one used propaganda because it doesn’t work. People there had an unerring eye for the truth, and never deceived themselves with pleasant lies. Then…oh…sorry, I was dreaming.
Bob Loblaw
@DonkeyKong:
Bill Clinton joined forces with the people who impeached him gladly not twelve months beforehand to create a climate of unrestrained financial market fundamentalism that led to the destruction of trillions of dollars of global output. How on earth did that help the working man?
Barack Obama is not the problem. He isn’t always the solution, but he sure as shit isn’t the problem. What on earth is wrong with this blog? There is more to the world than blogs and internecine warfare over leader worship vs. iconoclasm.
Obama was elected to make sure that when the oligarchic few fuck over the country’s workers, they at least had the decency to wear a condom while they did it. And that’s what he’s doing. It involves epic compromises and sell-outs and abandonment of all sense and reason and morality. He’s not the problem.
The problem is the oligarchy itself. Because if they had it that way, not only would there be no “condom” (to maintain the metaphor), they would slit the American workers’ throats and steal and sell their organs on the black market too. Just because they can.
Davis X. Machina
@Mike Kay (Ding-Dong-Broder’s Dead): I’ll take the over.
Karen
I agree 100% ABL.
And the fastest way to make the public say “Who the fuck cares, they’re just limosene liberals” is to have Obama get involved with the unions. By having him stay out of it, it’s non partisan.
And good luck with primarying Obama. Be sure to bow to Queen Sarah Palin like good little subject.
Suck It Up!
@NR:
You don’t turn out for Obama and the Democrats. You don’t turn out to save THEIR careers. You turn out to save your future, this country’s future and all those poor and middle class folks that Obama is supposedly not helping. Those people you all claim to care so much for. I guess its conditional right?
David Koch
That Angry Black Lady is a piece of ass.
Elisabeth
@Tonal Crow:
What’s the counter to the news cycle turning any Obama involvement into something that’s all about him and nothing about the true nature of the union-busting/anti-Democratic Party movement? That’s my only concern.
Does it matter? I don’t know. I just see a whole lot of Koch Brother or Rove-backed money pouring in to make this all about Obama instead of about the potentially illegal, back door anti-middle class issues.
Cheap Jim
@Joe Beese: You got an alternative candidate, name it. Otherwise, aren’t you just blowing wind?
Tonal Crow
Do the guest bloggers here get a cut of the ad revenue? Just askin’.
Omnes Omnibus
@Quiddity: If Obama steps into the fight in Wisconsin, it will instantly become about Obama v. Walker. As it is, it is about Walker v. the People. OfA has been providing logistical and organizational support in the background, also too.
NR
@Karen: You’re such a sensible liberal, Karen.
Joe Beese
Meanwhile, from the Problems Which Affect Americans And Are Therefore Imiportant file:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/03/10/fed-reports-finds-no-wron_n_834010.html
Mike Kay (Ding-Dong-Broder's Dead)
This thread is like the blog version of “Escape from New York“
jacy
@reader:
Scrolling, how does it fucking work?
khead
@Dennis SGMM:
I will take the over.
Davis X. Machina
UK Labour went down this rat-hole, and may never come out
The leadership are not the parliamentary party.
The parliamentary party is not the unions.
The unions are not the workers.
The workers are not the people.
Midnight Marauder
@Tonal Crow:
Sure enough, and I accept the fact that a great deal of the American electorate is lazy and viciously uninterested in the state of affairs unfolding in their country. What I do not accept, however, is that this dynamic is immutable and that nothing can be done to break through to such people.
People need to wake up and realize that the decrepit state of the US is not the result of some kind of abstract, nebulous occurrence. It is the result of people having their interest and passion in fixing a broken system systematically drummed out of them. And if you can’t restore your own passion to go out there and fight to improve the country and world around you, then the POTUS sure as fuck isn’t going to be able to plant that seed.
NR
@Suck It Up!:
Great! Show me a party that gives a shit about the fact that the richest 400 Americans have as much money as the poorest 155,000,000 Americans and I will gladly turn out to vote for them.
Elisabeth
@Master of Karate and Friendship:
Right ~ the Obama = Bush argument? We’re at war in Iran? Libya? We’ve drilled in the Arctic Refuge? We’ve undone the EPA? We’ve unfunded Planned Parenthood and rolled back Roe v Wade until it’s meaningless? DADT hasn’t been repealed? (And, yes, according to several sites training has started in the Air Force and Marines.)
Obama is far from perfect but I’ll take him over anyone the Republicans will toss into the mix any day and twice on Sunday.
mk3872
Perfect, ABL, spot-on and AMEN!
Wag
@Tom Hilton:
I say tattoo it twice–once normal, so everyone who sees them can read it, on once as a mirror image, so they DON’T HAVE ANY EXCUSE NOT TO READ IT TOO!
gbear
Thank you for this post, ABL.
I’m not going to bother to read the comments on this thread. I know better.
Tonal Crow
@Elisabeth:
I dunno. There’s no guaranteed way to neutralize GOPaganda. We — including elected Democrats — can only try our best. And we’ve got to do it for an electorate that is as it is, not as we we’d like it to be.
Elia
@Bob Loblaw: Yeah, I agree with this view.
I think Obama’s certainly got more with which you can argue in his defense than Clinton. From today’s vantage point, Clinton sucks pretty hard.
bemused
@Southern Beale:
Wow. She really has no clue.
Tonal Crow
@Midnight Marauder: The POTUS is partly responsible for realizing the awakening you — and I — want to see. It’s not going to happen by itself. It just isn’t.
Joe Beese
Hey, check this out!
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/03/04/us/politics/04staff.html
Got that? Not only is the posturing sack of shit not joining the protesters, he’s actively undermining support for them.
God, how he must laugh at the gullible fools who support him.
Suck It Up!
@Quiddity:
Don’t blame the electorate for voting in Walker? are you serious?
And your advice is that Obama should have taken the bait of some no count governor and make him a national star for having pulled a fast one on the Kenyan president? Last night’s move by Walker should have squashed this nonsense. Which headline would be more motivating to you or voters? ‘Republican Governor Takes Away Workers Rights’ or ‘Walker Defies Obama’?
MB
Ah, another childish rant complaining about the childishness of others.
Master of Karate and Friendship
@Tonal Crow:
“This. This site’s received wisdom seems to consist of (1) Firebaggers are a tiny minority of Democrats; (2) Firebaggers are singlehandedly responsible for the debacle of 2010; and (3) Obama and Congressional Democrats are doing all they should to motivate Democrats to come out to vote.”
Haha ) Don’t forget “4) Most Americans are lazy, stupid, ignorant slugs who won’t vote for the best candidate. uh, except for when they vote for my guy, that is!”
khead
@Mike Kay (Ding-Dong-Broder’s Dead):
Missed this. 200 was free money but I’ll take the over here too.
Maryscott O'Connor
Right. It’s LIBERALS’ fault.
Keep singing that song. The lyrics are getting really fucking familiar. Hell, it’s the Obama Administration anthem.
Better that than placing the blame where it actually lies.
Chuck Butcher
@General Stuck:
Specifically in this case because you state the existance of a past event as somehow a reason for a current event. Events happen for a reason/s not simply because they exist. I’m not sure how to address the general trend in lower midterm turnout beyond moving voting to a Sat or vote by mail. I am damn sure that if you want to win elections you better give people reasons to vote and vote your way that they’ll pay attention to.
Suck It Up!
@NR:
let me guess? Gore, bush – all the same, right?
selfish. frauds.
JenJen
@Fang: Co-signed. Great post, Fang.
Southern Beale
@Calouste:
Like they’re not already leaving for the Cayman Islands anyway and if all they’re doing is sucking up our resources I say fuck ’em and good riddance.
Let’s nationalize this shit and see how they like it.
Midnight Marauder
@Tonal Crow:
I would say partially responsible only in the most miniscule of ways. The onus is, and always has been, on the people constituting the electorate to be more aware of the processes unfolding in their name and to make better informed decisions as to whom they elect to represent their interests.
The people of this country who continuously go out to vote against their self-interests, or sit out every election because the options are not good enough to meet their rigid standards, should no longer get a past from their politically-minded relatives, friends, neighbors, etc.
David Koch
@Maryscott O’Connor: Hey, are you still crazy?
Mnemosyne
@Joe Beese:
In other words, you wanted the healthcare system to remain unchanged, unemployed people to be cut off from income on January 1, 2011, and Republicans and Blue Dog Democrats in the Senate to form their own commission whose decisions would immediately become law.
Southern Beale
@bemused:
Well it’s important to know that these people are thinking and what they are thinking so we can counter them.
NR
@Suck It Up!: Pathetic, desperate straw man argument. Either address the actual issue or shut the fuck up.
Karen
@Suck It Up!:
The PUMA scum think they’re being slick but you can see their spots. With every single sentence they’re really saying “How dare you steal the election from Princess Perfect, Hilary Clinton!”
And Jane Hamsher climbed into bed with Grover Nordquist so that proves they care only about rich people like them. I expected it with Nordquist, not with Jane and co. They want their rings kissed, for Obama to bow before them and demand things of him they’d never demand out of a different Democratic President.
Of course, the PUMAs here would be trashing Obama if he cured cancer because he didn’t cure Alzheimer’s so no surprise there. If you really see no difference between Obama and Bush then you’re so deluded and batshit insane there’s no hope for you.
Tonal Crow
@Midnight Marauder: Once again, your diagnosis — an uninformed, uninvolved plurality of the electorate that’s easily deceived by propaganda — is right on target. As is your wish to see that change. Where you’re going wrong is believing that Obama (and, implicitly, Congressional Democrats) don’t have a central role to play in getting those people out and voting.
Little Boots
scotty must be destroyed
Master of Karate and Friendship
@Elisabeth:
No, we’re not at war in Iran. We’re at war in Yemen. And we’ll soon be fighting in Libya, the way it looks now. No, the EPA hasn’t been eliminated, just swamped by the largest environmental disaster in US history caused directly by Obama’s decision to expand offshore drilling and his fossil-fuel hack Salazar’s approval of the Deepwater Horizon project. And no, Planned Parenthood hasn’t been eliminated–just ACORN, thanks to the Democratic leadership’s lack of courage when faced with a two-bit punk in a half-assed pimp costume.
Roe v. Wade wasn’t overturned. Just cut back, thanks to Obamacare’s ban on most abortion coverage in insurance pools for the needy–a ban Obama put in without any pressure to do so. And why was DADT repealed? Because a Republican group filed lawsuits which caused the Pentagon to plead with Congress to overturn it first. It sure wasn’t because of Obama–ask the gay community if he has been an advocate for them.
jwb
@Snaporaz: Somebody paid you to post that? Lame ass of the lame ass. They deserve a refund.
Maryscott O'Connor
Right. It’s the LIBERALS who fucked it up. And liberals stayed home in droves to teach Obama a LESSON, because they’re THAT petty. That they stayed home is absolute nonsense, by the way, check your stats:
2006: http://www.cnn.com/ELECTION/2006/pages/results/states/US/H/00/epolls.0.html
Percentage of Electorate
Liberal 20 (87% voted for Democrats)
Moderate 47 (60% voted for Democrats)
Conservative 32
2008: http://www.cnn.com/ELECTION/2008/results/polls/#val=USH00p1
Liberal 22 (87% voted for Democrats)
Moderate 44 (61% voted for Democrats)
Conservative 34
2010: http://www.cnn.com/ELECTION/2010/results/polls/#USH00p1
Liberal 20 (90% voted for Democrats)
Moderate 38 (55% voted for Democrats)
Conservative 42
So, right there… full of shit.
But it’s so much easier to blame liberals. As we see — from the example of conservatives and Republicans. You’ve learned your lesson well. God knows the Obama Administration has — they sing this song every morning before saying the Pledge of Allegiance. “Blame Liberals” — to the tune of “Blame Canada.”
Horseshit.
Master of Karate and Friendship
@Mnemosyne:
“n other words, you wanted the healthcare system to remain unchanged, unemployed people to be cut off from income on January 1, 2011, and Republicans and Blue Dog Democrats in the Senate to form their own commission whose decisions would immediately become law.”
Because that or what we got were THE ONLY TWO CHOICES. Nothing else exists in reality. There are only two metaphysical possibilities.
Joe Beese
@Mnemosyne:
In other words, Obama only slapped your face. The Republicans would have kicked you in the balls.
Very inspiring. Be sure to use it when you go ringing doorbells for him next year.
David Koch
@Maryscott O’Connor: How’s the Thorazine?
Mnemosyne
@Joe Beese:
Fucking campaign laws, how do they work?
The Raven
Oh, and by the way, browbeating us lefties is a really effective way to get us to support you.
“Vote for me. I’m not evil.”
jwb
@Mike Kay (Ding-Dong-Broder’s Dead): Seems a bit high. Don’t think we’ll hit that by 11 pm, if someone puts up a new post soon. If no new post goes up, then it’s possible.
Mike Kay (Ding-Dong-Broder's Dead)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qXo3NFqkaRM&feature=related
Master of Karate and Friendship
@General Stuck:
LoL LoL LoL!
General Stuck, he of the “I don’t care what you say, and here’s a three-paragraph reaction to what you said,” is wondering why someone responded to him?
The lack of awareness on this blog is so profound it’s a wonder it doesn’t form a vacuum that pulls in heavenly bodies.
jwb
@Quiddity: If someone hasn’t already said it: right click or control click on the “click to edit” to open a new tab or window. That will open the edit window.
Wile E. Quixote
@Joe Beese:
Of course Jobese never dreams about trying Bush/Cheney/Rumsfeld et al at the Hague. Nope, just President Obama. Proof positive that Jobese is just a conservative troll.
General Stuck
Someday this Clown War will end.
Strandedvandal
@Master of Karate and Friendship:
Thank GOD you are here to enlighten us!
Master of Karate and Friendship
Obama Administration Will Ban Abortion Coverage In High Risk Insurance Pools
Remember folks: vote for Obama or the Republicans will cut back on abortion access. Which would be, you know, worse than what we, uh, have now. . . in some way.
Suck It Up!
I think these statements need to be repeated:
From December 7, 2010 Press Conference:
Questions: Where is your line in the sand?
I would rather take half loaves from this guy over the rancid bottle of whine I constantly get from the left.
stuckinred
Put up a dog thread.
CaliCat
Ed Schultz makes me sick. He’s nothing more than a craven opportunist. By harping on the president and other Democrats for months on end, he helped to create and perpetuate the “entusiam gap” leading up to last November’s elections. And yes, he even went so far as to tell people to stay home and not vote. Big Eddie needs to shut his big, fat, phony pie-hole before he does more damage. Idiot.
Midnight Marauder
@Tonal Crow:
“When the people lead, the leaders will follow.” — Mahatma Gandhi
You and I have a very different philosophical approach to solving this conundrum. As long as we’re still battling the same opponent, all is well.
Joe Beese
@Wile E. Quixote:
Hey, that suggests a good defense strategy if he ever gets hauled in…
“But they did it first!”
He can use it as the title of his prison memoir.
cat48
@Joe Beese:
Sorry to disappoint “about those shoes”, unlike you the Union seems to be pleased with the Admin:
“ABC News’ Rick Klein reports:
With organized labor under attack in the states, the president of the Service Employees International Union today praised President Obama’s role in the fight, saying the administration “has stepped up” to offer the full weight of their support.
“Our members in Wisconsin and Ohio were incredibly proud when the president spoke out about the real agenda in Wisconsin and Ohio being about eliminating workers’ voice and busting unions,” SEIU President Mary Kay Henry told us on ABC’s “Top Line” today.
“And that was a huge step forward. We then saw the Secretary of Labor issue a statement and then an op-ed and then do a speech that said union is in her family — that we have to have a way to solve problems at the collective bargaining table.”
“So we think the administration has stepped up in this moment. And that it’s up to us, the people all across this country, to hold our government accountable and get the private sector to reinvest in America.”
The state-level pushes to reduce the clout of organizing labor, she said, could have the opposite effect, with labor leaders hopeful that it will be easier for them to mobilize for political purposes moving forward.
“It allows for us to stand with all working people in this country,” Henry said. “It has allowed the American labor movement to join hands with the Sierra Club, with the high school students, with the college students, and say we want to be able to have a future in this country where I kids can do better than we have.”
Mama Lynn
@Suck It Up!: My apologies, but I thought that is what was done in 2008. We turned out to save our country and elected a man whom told us he would be different from the previous 8 years. Aside from a few token bills correcting grievous wrongs, I can’t see much. A Republican healthcare bill that does more for the insurance lobby than it does the people, and taxpayer dollars are being flushed down the toilet by the morons now trying to repeal it. Admittedly, more people would have come out in 2010 for the Dems, but they had a great leader rolling over everytime the Repubs threatened them so why not follow suit.
And ABL, were you trying to be ironic in pointing out how FOX encourages everyone to attack each other by attacking your fellow liberals?
Tom Q
@Master of Karate and Friendship: You’re not exactly a glass-half-full guy, are you?
In fact, you’re pretty much “The glass is almost overflowing, but, fuck, I should have got two glasses, and it should have been champagne, so the guy who filled it up for me’s a shithead”
Have there always been this many assholes claiming to be the Real Progressives? I’m speaking as someone who started with McGovern and haven’t voted non-Dem once in my life. So don’t try lecturing me.
Mnemosyne
@Joe Beese:
The Republicans have passed actual laws requiring me to shove a probe into my vagina so I can get medical care, but why should you worry your beautiful mind about reality when you can live in your fantasy world where True Progressives win all? Better to cling to your metaphors about being attacked than care when actual human beings are attacked.
What are you planning to call your book, Atlas Whined?
Master of Karate and Friendship
@Joe Beese:
“Got that? Not only is the posturing sack of shit not joining the protesters, he’s actively undermining support for them.”
But that’s better than the Republicans undermining them, because
Look over there! Glenn Beck! Megan Kelly! ! !
NonVoter
Convince Bradley Manning to vote for him. I’ll do what he does.
Midnight Marauder
@Master of Karate and Friendship:
No, we are not at war in Yemen. That word still has an actual meaning you don’t get to just casually ignore.
Master of Karate and Friendship
@Tom Q:
Is there a rational, mature, fact-based refutation of anything I wrote in our future? ‘Cause if not I have to go harvest in FarmVille.
Southern Beale
ON ANOTHER TOPIC:
A second tape has emerged in the NPR “sting” and there has been more one-sided reporting.
I know we don’t give a shit but still … just putting it out there.
General Stuck
@The Raven:
Who says we want you to support us? None of us are likely to run for public office. Who cares really what or who any of us choose to support or not? I personally would be pleased for you simply to stfu, but that is un american, so I don’t say it out loud. Free speech and all, I support, but that runs both ways, now doesn’t it.
The center of the democratic political universe does not orbit around internet liberals. We might make up a few grains of space dust in the larger scheme of things, albeit very loud space dust.
Chuck Butcher
Jayzus cripes on a fucking crutch … PUMAs? Teh “evul deluded left”?
Polling on issues without Party identification, phrased as personal social issues/attitudes, has for the last decade shown the American public to be “left” of the outcomes in Federal and State legislation. Once you digest that, you have to look at how it is that the country continues to drift “right.” Blaming Faux or the general MSM ignores the fact that public attitudes don’t reflect what is assigned to MSM.
Maybe, just maybe, the failure is to take clear stands with the public and to clearly state how and why. That would be a fairly general case with the Democratic Party with some notable exceptions.
Nick
@Joe Beese:
even more so now
Bill Arnold
@Suck It Up!:
The professional left, are, objectively, Republicans. Do people seriously think that Obama post 2010 election wanted the nasty compromises he had to make with the Republicans to get Stimulus 2 passed before the crazies took over in January?
If you don’t vote, you are, approximately, irrelevant to elected politicians unless you directly influence the votes of at least a couple of other voters. (Yes, this means that voter suppression is relevant.)
For instance, if several hundred more people had voted for Al Franken in 2008 the Senate might have passed more/better legislation. If progressives/Democrats had shown up to vote (the turnout was in the low 40s) in 2010 then the unhinged party wouldn’t be doing nearly as much damage as they are doing and will do for at least the next two years.
Master of Karate and Friendship
@Midnight Marauder:
“No, we are not at war in Yemen”
Google tells me otherwise.
Nick
@Bob Loblaw:
Jane Hamsher is worthless. She couldn’t lose Wisconsin if she had it on a key chain.
That said, Democratic turnout was down in Wisconsin last year, too bad there wasn’t a true blue progressive candidate on the ballot like this guy. to excite “the bsae”
amirite!?!?!
Tom Q
@Chuck Butcher: Or maybe it’s the fact that the way Congressional districts are drawn — and the fact that each state gets two Senators whether it’s California or Wyoming — gives a tilt to Congress that isn’t reflective of national opinion polls, and makes a president need to deal with elected officials who have trouble selling a full-on progressive agenda to their voters.
Nick
@The Raven:
It’s not like you’re going to support us anyway, so why not give it a shot?
Mnemosyne
@Master of Karate and Friendship:
Good thing there hasn’t been a Hyde Amendment governing abortion at the federal level for the past 35 years or you’d look like a completely ignorant idiot right about now.
This really just proves to me that you guys aren’t upset because Bush broke the law, you’re upset because Obama isn’t breaking the laws you want him to.
(Edited to put a missing phrase back in.)
jwb
@Elia: “Similarly, I don’t think he wanted a too small stimulus but, again, I think his decision not to be more aggressive was a serious tactical blunder, and the connection from that A to the midterm losses’ B is a lot easier to make.”
Haven’t made it through all the comments yet, but I’d venture to guess that most everyone here would accept this particular criticism of Obama, and it’s why Bob Loblaw is so offbase in his harping about deification.
JenJen
@Maryscott O’Connor: But those are exit polls which show the percentage of the actual electorate which turned out to vote. An exit poll, by its very definition, doesn’t take the pulse of voters who chose to stay home, and doesn’t tell us anything about depressed turnout. And you’re citing the “ideology” portion of an exit poll, which doesn’t tell us as much as other demographics do.
According to the Center For American Progress, the youth vote was notably depressed in 2010, comprising about 12% of the electorate (that number hit 18% in 2008). This group has become a reliably liberal voting block. Senior turnout (recently more reliably conservative), on the other hand, was up 5 points from 2008.
Similarly, minority turnout was down 3 points from 2008. Again, a reliably liberal voting block.
2010 voters were whiter, older, and more conservative than their 2008 counterparts. That’s a statistic that shouldn’t be ignored, either; there is an abundance of evidence that shows liberal voter turnout was depressed in 2010.
Suck It Up!
As a double minority, I am so happy that those that came before me didn’t need to have their hands held in order to go out and fight for their rights and for a better life. I am so happy that enough people saw what was happening around and stopped waiting for The One to save them.
Try following the people of WI sometime. Sure some of them voted for that ASS but they didn’t wait for Obama to do something for them first before they took up those signs. They were out there in the cold all day and night for more than two weeks – all without Daddy O’ because they were genuinely interested in protecting themselves and this country from Koch suckers.
Wile E. Quixote
@Uncle Clarence Thomas:
What’s your solution? Seriously. What’s your solution? Do you have one? You, Jobese and BlahBlahBlah are all completely and totally worthless. You wankers are the equivalent of those wankers in the RedState Strike Force. They talk a lot of shit about how great the US military is and how great the war in Iraq is but somehow never manage to actually join the military. You wankers sit and bitch about how bad Obama is but never do anything to actually advance the progressive causes that you claim to believe in.
Have you guys ever considered some sort of mutual suicide pact? C’mon, you could do it as a protest of the Obama administration. In fact here’s a deal for you guys. If you all drench yourselves in a mixture of number 2 diesel fuel and polystyrene packing peanuts dissolved in gasoline and set yourselves on fire in front of the White House I promise to work for a Democratic primary opponent to President Obama in 2012. Really, I promise. You want to make a mixture that’s 20 percent diesel, 50 percent gasoline and 30 percent polystyrene by volume. Use at least a gallon on each of you and wear absorptive fabrics.
David Koch
That cat pictured in the top of the post is one good looking puszy.
Nick
@Chuck Butcher:
which, of course, is why half the country likes torture and doesn’t think Muslim-Americans love America.
Those notable exceptions being whom? Russ Feingold? Alan Grayson? Raul “wow, I almost lost to a teabagger in a district drawn for a Mexican” Grijalva? Anthony “How did I do worse than Al Gore in my district” Weiner?
Midnight Marauder
@Master of Karate and Friendship:
You will, of course, post the United States declaration of war against Yemen now, won’t you?
Or is this just a nifty rhetorical trick using the trite phrase “The War on Terror?”
Ajay
We did this in 2008. It doesnt seem to matter. Rs come right back no matter how they screw up.
Problem is not who is in power rather the population. A common person in this country is essentially a moron with almost no knowledge of anything of any consequence.
Master of Karate and Friendship
American missiles were used in an attack that killed 55 people, including 41 civilians, in southern Yemen, Amnesty International said Monday.
Just think how much more dead those innocent people would be if a Republican had ordered that attack!
Nick
@JenJen:
which was the same as it was in 2006 when Democrats won Congress, and among the highest ever recorded for a midterm.
Tom Q
@Master of Karate and Friendship: If you had written anything fact-based to begin with, I’d have given it that courtesy. But all you had was alarmism (not at war with Yemen, except in your head), bullshit (the anti-abortion language in the House bill, which is more rhetorical than the onerous burden you seem to imagine, was necessary to get the bill the few votes by which it passed), and failure to give the least bit of credit (ok, he did get Don’t Ask Don’t Tell repealed, but he didn’t do it fast or loud enough, so he mustn’t have really wanted it). Seriousness begets seriousness.
DonkeyKong
The beatings will continue until morale improves!
Karen
@NR:
No. I’m a pragmatist.
Next?
jwb
@jacy: Who the fuck bothers with scrolling? Just hit next post.
Master of Karate and Friendship
@Mnemosyne:
Did you see the follow-up I posted? Feel like retracting anything?
Cain
@DonkeyKong:
My plan b is to tell the rest of you to turn your goddam tv off. Turn off 24 hour news and make advertisers eat it in the shorts. We fund these fucks by keeping our eyeballs glue. Let’s at least take away the tools that disseminate talking points from so called pundits who lie to us or give dog whistles to other people.
Starve them.. make GE fear. You don’t have to do a goddam thing other than that. You start doing media blackouts, washington will get the message. You don’t even have to march… 2 day media blackout, that’s all I’m asking. That’s a shit load of advertising dollars that’s lost.
ellie
That cat’s face looks like a human face. It’s freaking me out a little.
DonkeyKong
Could y’all picture Stuck sayin this?
Are you smoking this shit so’s to escape from reality? Me, I don’t need this shit. I am reality. There’s the way it ought to be, and there’s the way it is. Manic progressives are full of shit. Keith Olbermann was a crusader. Now, I got no fight… with any man who does what he’s told. But when he don’t, the machine breaks down. And when the machine breaks down, we break down. And I ain’t gonna allow that… in any of you. Not one.
Nick
@Master of Karate and Friendship:
Funny how the professional left complain Obama didn’t get involved enough with HCR, except, of course to ban abortion, then he was all over that.
What morons.
Chuck Butcher
@Nick:
Did you bother to watch anything leading up to the 2010 election? Sen Democrats ceding the ACA argument to GOPers/teabaggers and giving them time to do it?
As for Senate distribution across states, there are reasons that WY votes counter to its own interests.
jwb
@David Koch: Dave, baby, you should definitely put her on your payroll.
Wile E. Quixote
@Jobese:
And what’s your plan Jobese? Do you have one other than dressing up in black, cutting yourself and running away from home with a bad boy to get the attention you so desperately crave?
Master of Karate and Friendship
@Midnight Marauder:
“You will, of course, post the United States declaration of war against Yemen now, won’t you?”
Oh, that’s right: absent an official declaration of war, innocent people killed by US missile strikes come back to life in a year, like in Pac-Man when you get extra lives.
Obviously isn’t how it works. If you care more about which paper is signed by whom, and filed in which drawer, than about actual human lives taken and lost, your moral compass is bent at such a fundamental level I doubt anyone’s words can reach you.
DonkeyKong
Day by day I struggle to maintain not only my strength but also my sanity. It’s all a blur. I have no energy to write. I don’t know what’s right or wrong anymore. The morale of the men is low, a civil war in the platoon. Half the men with Angry Black Lady, half with Jane Hamsher. There’s a lot of suspicion and hate. I can’t believe we’re fighting each other, when we should be fighting them.
Bob Loblaw
@jwb:
What possible thread are you reading?
95% of the comments have been about Obama, Obama, and a little more Obama after that. That’s what all this is about. ABL, Joe Beese, it’s all Obama, all the time. It’s all so reactionary and singleminded.
If Americans didn’t have a pathological need to turn their heads of state into religious totems, which in this case is exacerbated by the legitimately social noteworthiness of this President as a man alone, this would be so much easier.
It’s impossible to have a real conversation about the President, and it’s impossible to have a real conversation about anything but the President. Thus, this thread.
jenn
Hey, can anyone point me to where I can find the newest version of cleek’s pie filter for the site revamp? With m_c gone, I’m nominating Joe Beese as “Commenter most likely to make me shove a fork in my eye”, and I’d really like to avoid that eventuality, if at all possible. Thanks!
David Koch
@jwb: you mean, straight jacket.
Nick
@Chuck Butcher:
Yeah, good thing they did too, otherwise the Senate Democrats who ceded the ACA argument like Harry Reid, Patty Murray and Michael Bennet would have faced the same fate as Russ Feingold.
Cain
@DonkeyKong:
My plan is to encourage a 2 day media black out. You don’t have to march, you don’t have to protest, you don’t have to do any of that. Just don’t watch tv for 3 days. Three fucking days. You know how much advertising dollars that is? Networks like MSNBC and CNN will get the message very quickly.
You’ll make the news about washington elites not horse race. They’ll be forced to examine themselves because their product is no longer selling.
Take away the tools that allows wingnuts to disseminate information to other wingnuts. Stop the money going to dishonest pundits. There is an entire corrupt system going on around the 24 hour news system that are not giving the proper information to citizens. You break the media, you got it golden.
STOP THE MADNESS. 3 day media boycott! Organize on twitter, let’s go! If muslims can do it, so can we. It’s us vs the media. Bring it.
cain
Master of Karate and Friendship
@Nick:
“Funny how the professional left complain Obama didn’t get involved enough with HCR, except, of course to ban abortion, then he was all over that.”
I think you’re saying that it was either “Obama stay out of health care reform” or “he get involved and sign a much more restrictive abortion policy than he needed to to get it passed”. But obviously, in the real world, there were other possibilities.
jwb
@Southern Beale: I know I’m shocked, shocked to learn this.
Mike Kay (Ding-Dong-Broder's Dead)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lmUZGdi7Ty4&feature=related
NobodySpecial
@Maryscott O’Connor: Way to harsh their narrative. They might cry now.
jwb
@Nick: I’m sure Loblaw will point out how this just shows you are deifying Obama.
Nick
@Master of Karate and Friendship:
No, he absolutely should have vetoed HCR. Bart Stupak would have done whatever he said.
Also, in the real world, elephants are pink and the pope marries gay couples.
Ed Marshall
99% of Obama voters who didn’t vote in the midterm have never heard of Firedoglake, and I bet 95% if them couldn’t identify Ed Schultz or give a shit if they could. The fundamentals were bad, the economy sucked, the democrats were in power and the other side was completely locked out of power and desperate to take back control.
If the Senators were all up for election, we would have been well and truly fucked. The only reason democrats kept that body is that there weren’t enough seats up for grabs in the cycle.
Get out there and vote (and yell at stupid ass firebaggers if it makes you feel good, I don’t have time for them), but don’t misunderstand the political landscape.
liberal
Well, if the pussy Dems in the Senate would take advantage of extant rules and filibuster when the time comes, this isn’t actually true.
jwb
@Nick: Oh, now you’ve gone and hurt their fee-fees.
Lee Hartmann
ABL: maybe the last election was so catastrophic for the Dems not because the vanishingly small number of DFHs like myself sat home and did not vote (I did, for instance, despite my profound disillusionment with Obama) but because the economy sucked and Obama’s brilliant team didn’t, you know, do enough stimulus and thus INDEPENDENTS went R.
Plus the Dems got health care hung around their necks and didn’t fight back strongly enough to counter the lies.
just a thought.
Master of Karate and Friendship
@Cain:
Obviously the world would be a better place without FoxNews.
But, in the past year or so, Glenn Beck has lost a third of his audience. In that time, things have gone pretty well for the right wing, haven’t they?
The media are not the prime mover.
Nick
@Lee Hartmann:
Well, sure, a $2 trillion deficit and 8 percent unemployment would have sent Independents flying into Democratic arms.
Mnemosyne
@Master of Karate and Friendship:
Explain how your follow-up invalidates the Hyde Amendment.
Johannes
Amen, ABL. Here endeth the lesson.
Nick
@Master of Karate and Friendship:
Actually, he’s lost that in the past few months, which, oddly enough, haven’t been so great for the right wing. Meanwhile, he’s still the highest rated show in his time slot. Fox is still breaking records, as are Rush and Hannity, and MSNBC goes through show hosts like Charlie Sheen goes through crackpipes.
Master of Karate and Friendship
@Lee Hartmann:
No, it was because FoxNews said “vote Republican” and its legions of automatons said “yessss masterrrrr”.
Shoemaker-Levy 9
@Bob Loblaw:
Not to mention the jaw-dropping incoherence of a blog post which calls on the left to organize and unite by railing against segments of the left.
BJ is an interesting place.
Midnight Marauder
@Master of Karate and Friendship:
No. It just means that your claim that the United States is at war in Yemen is nonsense. I don’t think anyone would dispute that the United States is militarily active in Yemen, but calling it war does not make it so.
Or maybe I was just focused on highlighting your disingenuous word choice. That action in no way reflects the direction of my moral compass nor does it betray my feelings about the loss of life resulting from such conflicts.
But keep patting yourself on the back while you stake out the moral high ground. I’m sure the view must be mighty nice for you to be so desperately scrambling to get up there.
Master of Karate and Friendship
@Mnemosyne:
“Explain how your follow-up invalidates the Hyde Amendment.”
Obama’s abortion restriction–stricter than what he needed to get Blue Dog support–prohibits people in the high-risk pool from using even their own personal money for a plan that covers abortion. Thus the Hyde Amendment, covering federal funds, is irrelevant.
PTirebiter
Amen. Cenk Uygur was badgering Sherrod Brown today for saying Obama would use the bully pulpit for labor when it was appropriate. Cenk just wouldn’t let it go – musing about Obama’s week long silence about WI.
Apparently Cenk thinks it would have been valuable for Obama to give Republicans an opportunity to derail Walker’s public suicide.
Master of Karate and Friendship
@Midnight Marauder:
“Hey dead Yemenis, according to my dictionary there is no warfare going on in your country, so get out of your graves! Dead Yemenis? Dead Yemenis?!? Can’t you hear me?”
I’m going to say this one more time: If human death and suffering doesn’t bother you because A) there was no Official Declaration of Hostilities, and B) YOUR GUY ordered it instead of their guy, then you have very deep problems.
Cain
@Master of Karate and Friendship:
I’m not really talking about FoxNews I’m talking about the entire establishment. The whole system is corrupt. For instance, how much coverage did these networks show for what was going on Wisconsin? Complaints basically said “not much”. So why should we support these pricks.
I don’t really believe in revolution so much as just shutting off things that make these fools make money. If networks can no longer afford to pay these people’s outrageous salaries that might be a good thing. I just feel that part of this whole mess is that the media no longer does their job. Everything has turned into a tabloid. We worry more about Charlie Sheen than we do worker’s rights.
No. It must end.
cain
jwb
@Cain: Um, if you are going to do this and try to get folks to sign on, you should think about circulating the call for a boycott with some proposed dates attached. I think beginning or ending with May 1 would be wise, May 1 being a traditional workers holiday and all.
Mnemosyne
@Master of Karate and Friendship:
Because the US never sells its missiles to other countries, so the only possible explanation for a US-made missile being used is that the US secretly bombed Yemen without Yemen’s government knowing about it.
Nick
@Maryscott O’Connor:
You know, I don’t think liberals staying home caused Democrats to lose, because they’re such an irrelevant number of them, it doesn’t matter what they do. I think the fact that this country believes every right wing lie told to them is what caused the bad election outcome.
Master of Karate and Friendship
@PTirebiter:
“Apparently Cenk thinks it would have been valuable for Obama to give Republicans an opportunity to derail Walker’s public suicide.”
What do you mean by that?
Nick
@Master of Karate and Friendship:
what is your proof of this?
Master of Karate and Friendship
@Mnemosyne:
Read the article.
Brother Shotgun of Sweet Reason
Jeez, I tune in because I need a break from work and look at the mess of a comment thread we have here. Anyway, just dropped in to say:
in 2004 I wrote checks, knocked on doors, and worked the polls
in 2006 I wrote checks and worked the polls
in 2008 I wrote checks, knocked on doors, and worked the polls
in 2009 I wrote checks, knocked on doors, and worked the polls
in 2010 I wrote checks, knocked on doors, and worked the polls
And I’m an introvert. It ain’t that hard.
In South PA, in 2010, we got overwhelmed by Angry Old White People. I don’t know that there was any kind of check-writing, door-knocking, or poll-watching that could have overcome all of those assholes waking up and smelling the tea.
Bob Loblaw
@Lee Hartmann:
This is what I’m talking about. Putting the President on high like he’s magic or something.
Why would you be “disillusioned?” Disappointed, sure. Disappointment is easy and logical and understandable. But disillusioned?
The Obama administration is outperforming competing Western governments right now on policy, sad as that it is to say. They’ve outperformed their immediate predecessors in this country by a substantial margin, going back decades.
They aren’t forces of pure goodness and majesty. They’re just dedicated technocrats who desired power within a corrupted system because they thought they could improve the general welfare of the people with it. That’s all. They do good things. They do bad things. They do abhorrent things. They lie. They don’t lie. They steward the empire. They reform the empire. It shouldn’t be “subversive” to be plain about this.
They’d sooner take a belt sander to their collective testicles than ever reform corporate structure or governance, or the military, or the real avenues of power and influence in this country. They’re gradualists looking out for themselves at all times.
Carl Nyberg
I get out to help progressive Democrats. I volunteer to GOTV in the general.
But we’re playing in a rigged game.
While running a primary challenge against Obama isn’t the answer, simply continuing to play the rigged game isn’t the answer (by itself) either.
Jennyjinx
Dear John Cole, ABL, et al.,
Might I suggest a plugin called “WP-Footnotes” for the footnotes? It adds the sup styling as well as an inline link between the footnote reference and the notes. I’ve been using it (usually for nothing more than my own enjoyment) for a long time. It’s especially good for posts such as this One. And, um, there’s that live comment preview thing that is awesomely bomb-diggity. Just throwing that out there.
I’d like to point out to Maryscott that Kasich won Ohio by 2% points. 2. Who’s fault was that? According to a study done by the University of Akron:[pdf]
[Emphasis Mine]
There is plenty of evidence that this was the pattern around the country. This was why we lost so heavily.
Now, I just have facts and figures for Ohio. I’m not going to hunt them down for every state in the Union. However, Ohio seems to be a bellwether state, from what my naive little brain has been able to ascertain (mostly because the people that know kept saying it). Plus I live here. So, I figured I throw that little tidbit into the mix.
You’ll note, also, the report compared 2006 and 2010. Maybe because of the mideterm thing, but I’m probably wrong or something.
Mnemosyne
@Master of Karate and Friendship:
Weirdly, the Blue Dogs disagreed with you, arguing that if a woman was getting federal funds for the rest of her healthcare, it would count as the federal government “funding abortion” since she would then have extra income to spend on getting separate abortion coverage. In other words — Hyde Amendment.
Though I have to say that I admire your optimism that Bart Stupak would have totally backed down and not derailed the entire piece of legislation if only Obama had used the bully pulpit. Never change.
jwb
@Nick: I actually think you are wrong on this. The losses would not have been nearly as steep with 8% unemployment. In any case, the larger stimulus was never in the cards. But the administration did have the possibility to offer the argument, which they knew very well, that the original stimulus was hardly likely to be adequate. Instead, they chose to pretend that the package was perfectly calibrated to the situation. That was a profound political miscalculation.
JenJen
@Nick: Right. But youth turnout in the 2002 midterms was about 10%, and I think we all remember how that turned out. You’re right that turnout went down from 18% in 2008 to 12% in 2010, and that 12% is in line with 2006 turnout. But are you forgetting that the gains were even bigger in 2008 than 2006, and that it’s not much of a stretch to attribute that to huge youth and minority turnout in 2008?
In 2012, 12% wasn’t enough to hold the House, and it certainly wasn’t enough to close the gap in the tighter Statehouse races (like in Ohio).
@Jennyjinx: Pretty much what I’m trying to say, too. And I also live in Ohio. So there’s that. :-)
NR
@Nick:
Hey, what do you know? A statement I can agree with.
Now it would be useful to start talking about why the supposedly “liberal” party does nothing to counter these right-wing lies. (See, for example, back during the health care debate. Chuck Grassley says “This health care reform bill is going to pull the plug on grandma” and just a couple of days later Obama praises him and says he’s negotiating in good faith.)
Nick
@jwb:
They absolutely would have, because we never would have known 10% unemployment and the 8% would have been treated as “OMG, JOBS FAIL!” just as 10% was.
On top of that we would have had a much larger deficit that the media would have been concern trolling like hell.
The losses might have worse actually.
Mnemosyne
@Master of Karate and Friendship:
So your contention is that if the US acts inside a country at the request of that country’s government, that’s the same as declaring war on that country?
You did know that little detail about the government of Yemen requesting US help, right?
Jennyjinx
And apparently the WP-Edit comments plugin is still fuckered up. Damn you, WordPress!
Sorry. I just took a break from messing with my site and…here I am. o.O
Nick
@NR:
Because everyone who does counter those right-wing lies because their ass kicked for not being “bipartisan” enough, or did you NOT see what happened to the dude from Florida?
Carl Nyberg
@NR: Why vote for the Democrats? Why give to the Democrats? Why volunteer for the Democrats?
Because the Republicans suck worse?
Part of the reason the Republicans suck is because the Democrats have chosen not to hold Republicans accountable for sucking.
FactChecker
A few notes for historical accuracy.
According to the last ten polls recorded at Real Clear Politics Obama’s average approval rating is 47.9% in favor, and an average of 42.4% against. However, in five out of the ten approve and disapprove are either equal (1) or disapprovers outnumber approvers (4). Only two out of the ten actually give Obama an approval rating at or above 50%.
Republicans lost 26 seats in the House in 1982 (Dems gained 27). In 2010 Republicans gained 63 seats in the House and Dems lost the same number. The magnitude of the Democratic losses/Republican gains was abnormally large, not typical, as the commenter states.
In the Senate the Dems lost 6 seats in 2010, while in 1982 the GOP actually picked up a seat.
Add to those losses the changes in state legislatures and gains for Republican governors and the losses for Democrats and gains for Republicans are far greater than normal.
From an article about the 2010 elections on the PBS Newshour website:
Conclusion: characterizing the Democratic losses and/or Republican gains in the 2010 mid-term elections as typical is, at best, a case of extreme wishful thinking.
jwb
@Bob Loblaw: See, I like it when you talk like this. You make sense.
Geoduck
@Midnight Marauder:
The US hasn’t officially declared war on anyone since 1941, but we’ve fought one or two of the things anyway. Call it what you like, the American government is shooting missiles at people in Yemen.
Master of Karate and Friendship
To make a long story short:
http://www.newsweek.com/blogs/the-gaggle/2010/07/30/why-did-the-obama-administration-ban-most-abortion-coverage-in-high-risk-health-insurance-pools.html
Marc McKenzie
@Cheap Jim:
Of course he does, Cheap Jim.
It’s Ralph Nader. Or Dennis Kucinich (sic). Or Ron Paul.
Or….someone.
Nick
@Carl Nyberg:
which they should do how? kill them?
Master of Karate and Friendship
@Carl Nyberg:
“Part of the reason the Republicans suck is because the Democrats have chosen not to hold Republicans accountable for sucking.”
Well said.
Midnight Marauder
@Master of Karate and Friendship:
This is just unfailingly moronic. Again, you know nothing about my position on the matters you keep harping on, so I find it weird that you have somehow extrapolated the fact that casualities in military conflicts not involving an official declaration of war do not concern me, when I have no made an argument resembling that in the slightest.
You are pretty much arguing against yourself at this point.
Master of Karate and Friendship
Here’s more:
http://www.rhrealitycheck.org/blog/2010/07/15/obama-administration-applies-stupak-amendment-high-risk-pools
Marc McKenzie
@Mnemosyne:
Nah…don’t think he did. Better to put it a “Obama’s a war criminal just like Bush, and there’s no difference between them.”
(To be fair, though, I didn’t know that either. Thanks for informing us.)
Of course, a cursory look at the records of both administrations would blow that crap to rats**t, but hey, who wants to do that when it’s just so much easier to cry “They’re all the same!!”
jwb
@Nick: No, I disagree—not about the media’s concern trolling over the deficit, which you are certainly correct about, but over the difference between 10% and 8% unemployment, which is a very large difference both economically and psychologically. A larger stimulus would probably have also been better timed in terms of the electoral cycle.
Mnemosyne
@Master of Karate and Friendship:
Ah, selective quoting. I love it:
So the Obama administration said that the Hyde Amendment applies because only federal funds will be used for the pools. Activists thought they should have used a different funding mechanism to get around the problem — that’s what this part means in your pullquote:
Yes, clearly the administration’s decision to fully fund the high-risk pools with federal money rather than splitting the costs with the state was aimed at keeping women from getting abortions. You sure got me there.
Master of Karate and Friendship
@Mnemosyne:
But they are fools, so who cares what they think? They wanted Obama to do X in order for them to get their votes, but he did X+1. That does not speak well of him.
@Mnemosyne:
When did I mention the bully pulpit? Sheesh.
Argue against what I’m saying if you want. But don’t argue against what I’m not saying. That wastes both of our time.
Nick
@jwb:
I don’t think there would have been a difference psychologically, because we wouldn’t have known anything else. 8 percent would have been considered high because we never would have known 10 percent unemployment.
Litlebritdifrnt
ABL I love you. Your rants are righteous. That is all.
Master of Karate and Friendship
@Midnight Marauder:
“Again, you know nothing about my position”
Well, I do know that no matter how many times I mention “dead civilians” all you respond with is “but there was no according-to-Hoyle declaration of war”. Forgive me for thinking you care less about human life than legal niceties.
Marc McKenzie
@PTirebiter:
Hmmm…I like Cenk (well, sometimes) but perhaps he should be reminded that Obama is not a magician, not a King, and he’s not wearing a costume under his clothes with an “S” on them.
He’s a pragmatic President who has screwed up at times but has done a hell of a job, even though his achievements have gone ignored by the media and by many of us who call ourselves liberal (I include myself in this).
Even if Obama went to WI or pounded the “bully pulpit”–what then? What if Walker decided to pull a “F**k you!!” and just do his thing and get his way? Then what? Did Cenk–hell, has anyone–bothered to consider this?
Just sayin’.
virag
i have a nightmare: abl is paid her tidy sum to save my children, and then i remember crap like this post. omfg. who is really foolish enough to think that obama, who has sided with republicans on every issue that reaonable, intelligent libs/progs care about, war, national health, gitmo, torture, financial reg, labor & unions, would be any better in any substantive way, than mittens or whatever other piece of human filth sits in the oval office.
bho had the chance to be that transformative president, at a time when not only the united states but the whole world absolutely needed it, and he pissed it away because he was only really interested in getting his ass kissed and being a tool of the man. well, he’ll always have abl and other morons to kiss that ass, so it’s all good. oh, and that mandate for change, national health, reasonable rates of taxation, regulation, well, he pretty much never gave a fuck about any of that nonsense to begin with.
Master of Karate and Friendship
@Mnemosyne:
“So your contention is that if the US acts inside a country at the request of that country’s government, that’s the same as declaring war on that country? You did know that little detail about the government of Yemen requesting US help, right?”
Yes, I know that Yemen’s government claims to have asked for help.
But what’s the difference if they did? We’re still blowing up innocent people in Yemen. And people like you would be upset at this if “Your Guy” hadn’t ordered it.
Marc McKenzie
@Suck It Up!:
Amen to that. Good post.
Nick
@Marc McKenzie:
Of course he did. It’ll be like tax cuts for the rich where we ignore Obama ever said anything and pretend he didn’t.
Master of Karate and Friendship
@Mnemosyne:
see also #255.
Master of Karate and Friendship
@virag:
No he didn’t, because FoxNews had more votes than he did! ! ! ! !
I’m sorry, I just can’t get over how ridiculous this media obsession is.
Mnemosyne
@Master of Karate and Friendship:
Sorry, I inferred that from your confidence that Stupak would have totally backed down if Obama had … sorry, what was it you said would have made Stupak back down but Obama didn’t do it? I think you forgot to mention it.
Tom Q
@virag: Wow. It’s not easy to come in so late on a thread with plenty of stupid postings and still vault yourself into contention for Least Informed Most Vapid Comment. Congrats.
Master of Karate and Friendship
“But the government of Yemen wants us there!”
Nerve Agent Fired at Yemeni Protesters, Doctors Assert
Clearly a regime that we should be getting close to.
CaliCat
Reply to Joe Beese:
“Not only is the posturing sack of shit not joining the protesters”
Looks like Dirty Firebagging Hippies also have filthy mouths…a common trait I’ve noticed.
Mnemosyne
@Master of Karate and Friendship:
Wait, what? Now governments aren’t allowed to request assistance from other governments because people could die? When did you come up with that rule?
Master of Karate and Friendship
@Mnemosyne:
“Sorry, I inferred that from your confidence that Stupak would have totally backed down if Obama had … sorry, what was it you said would have made Stupak back down but Obama didn’t do it? I think you forgot to mention it.”
I have no idea what you are talking about, and will not defend things neither I nor anyone else said.
The article quoted in post #255 jibes closely with my feelings on the subject.
Carl Nyberg
@Nick:
Prosecute Bush administration for violating the law?
Prosecute banksters for crashing the economy and violating the law?
Master of Karate and Friendship
@Mnemosyne:
“Now governments aren’t allowed to request assistance from other governments because people could die? When did you come up with that rule?”
I didn’t. You sure enjoy attacking things people did not say. I can’t help but think it’s because you can’t defeat what they actually say.
Master of Karate and Friendship
@CaliCat:
“Looks like Dirty Firebagging Hippies also have filthy mouths…a common trait I’ve noticed.”
Oh, please! You think the other side doesn’t curse?
jwb
@Nick: It’s not that folks say, “Well, 8% is a lot better than 10% so I’m thankful for that.” It’s that 8% unemployment is objectively better than 10%, people feel the difference in their gut, and so folks are not quite so ready to pull the lever for “anything’s got to be better than the status quo.” Fewer of them do pull the lever (and perhaps a few more of the alienated Dem voters show up), so the Dem losses are smaller. But I also don’t believe the media is as big a factor as you do. The media can certainly ignore a story and make it exceedingly difficult for it to take root. The media can also take a sad story and make it worse or a horrific story and turn it into the apocalypse. But they can’t really make a sad story directly into the apocalypse.
Mnemosyne
@Master of Karate and Friendship:
Moving the goalposts, I see. Now you’re trying to claim you what you really meant is that the Yemeni government are bad people we shouldn’t be helping.
You did notice those are two completely different arguments, right? I happen to agree with you about us giving assistance to Yemen because their government does suck, but to claim that we’re “at war” with them when we’re there by the government’s request is absolutely moronic.
different church-lady
@Tom Q: the word you’re looking for is “platitude”
Omnes Omnibus
Okay, if the Obots concede for the sake of argument that that there is a whole shitload of stuff Obama fucked up and there is another shitload and a half that he could have done better, now what? We are where we are today. What is the way forward? I presume Obots and Firebaggers want roughly the same policies. How do we get there from where we are right now?
Nick
@Carl Nyberg:
Oh yeah cause that’ll stop them. It’s not like the Koch brothers are going to a buy their pardons or anything.
different church-lady
@Omnes Omnibus:
They find more shit he fucked up. Duh.
Mnemosyne
@Master of Karate and Friendship:
Then you have a very peculiar idea of what “at war” means since you seem to think that military assistance to a government means we’re “at war” with them.
mikefromArlington
Ditto.
I’ll just repost what I posted yesterday in response to WI.
“mikefromArlington – March 9, 2011 | 8:53 pm · Link
What scum.
He just stole food off the table of teachers to give to Koch.
Congratulations lazy Dem voters and those thinking they were teaching Obama a lesson by not voting.
The crazies are now in charge.”
The fDL’ers freaked when I posted that there and someone here called bs on me. Those morons gotta get it into their heads that when you attack the top of the ticket and party you demoralize folks.
If Shultz is so f’in sure his politics are so effective then he should run for senate in his home state. Until then, his opinions of how the pres should govern mean jack.
Nick
@Omnes Omnibus:
LOL, firebaggers want policies?
LiftingTheWool
Let’s be smart about this. What’s our objective? To NOT let the wingnut right ruin this country anymore than they already have. Infighting DOES NOT accomplish that. Period. People can make all the it’s-the-principle-of-it arguments they want and it’s not going to make a damn bit of difference to Republicans. They’ll be more than happy to take over this country, whether they’re swept into office on a wave of right-wing anger or left-wing apathy.
We ALL need to go vote Democrat … and more than that, we need to give our time to make sure that happens, whether we’re in love with the candidates or not. Because that’s our objective. Let’s suck it up and make it happen, people.
Marc McKenzie
@Nick:
Good point.
Master of Karate and Friendship
@Mnemosyne:
“Then you have a very peculiar idea of what “at war” means since you seem to think that military assistance to a government means we’re “at war” with them.”
Just stop. For your sake if no one else’s.
virag
@Tom Q:
thanks tomq. i always relish the opinions of people who clearly have their head up their ass. nice way to make a point, moron. oh, wait, you don’t have a point.
name one thing that a reasonable lib/prog cares about where pres. o took a stand anywhere to the left of center-right?
come on, just one you sorry bastard.
i’m kinda surprised that you can spell ill-informed.
Master of Karate and Friendship
@Nick:
“LOL, firebaggers want policies?”
Ian Welsh: What Can Obama Really Do?
eemom
meet the new thread
same as the old thread
hey, that’s ORIGINAL, innit?
celiadexter
ABL, I am totally with you on this. Thank you!
Omnes Omnibus
@different church-lady:
@Nick:
I am trying to drag this out of the typical gutter that these threads end up wallowing in.
Tom Q
@jwb: Yeah, I’ll back you up on this. Not that 8% unemployment is anything any administration wants to tout on Election Day, but the intensity of the suffering would have been less, and might have saved 10-20 House seats, at least those two Senate squeakers, and very possibly those midWestern governorships that are causing most of the trouble right now. I also think the sharpness of the decline in unemployment would have been more obvious — it would have shot up to begin with, but with substantially greater stimulus the drop-off would have been noticeable. (Of course, this all presupposes living in a world where Susan Collins isn’t a prima donna, or where a handful of other Republicans at least feared opposing a bill aiming to put American to work)
Nick, I also have to disagree that the size of the deficit would have mattered much. I think the media would certainly have played it big, but I’ve never seen any evidence in 30+ years that ballooning deficits hurt or smaller deficits help in politics. It’s strictly a Beltway obsession.
virag
@different church-lady:
i just want one of you obot buffoons to find one time when obama took a position that didn’t make folks with a higher than room temperature iq die a little bit inside.
i’m pretty sure that you don’t know what platitude means.
Nick
@jwb:
That’s what the media does, take a sad story and turn it into the apocalypse.
different church-lady
@Omnes Omnibus: I’m not helping the tortoise. Why aren’t I helping, Leon?
Nick
@Omnes Omnibus:
to do that, you have to assume firebaggers are serious people…they’re not.
Nick
@Master of Karate and Friendship: so you link Ian Welsh, who peddles this bullshit
Like i said, firebaggers don’t want policies, they want to fling shit. They do it by promoting bullshit they know is a lie.
different church-lady
@virag: You’re cute. Annoying, but cute.
virag
it’s always a best of the bad bunch situation. but it’s scary to see that people who think they’re profound and informed don’t or won’t or can’t understand the basic fact that it’s a bad bunch.
we are doomed.
virag
@different church-lady:
and you’re sad and can’t find that one thing! hah.
different church-lady
@Nick: I disagree. They do want policy. They just have this warped idea that flinging shit is the way to get it.
Nick
@Tom Q:
1978 and 1994…you know the scoop, deficits only matter when Democrats are in the White House.
wengler
Under Obama, Republicans have tied Democrats on the question ‘Who is more concerned with protecting Social Security?’
This isn’t just a propaganda problem, this is Obama’s mediation-approach giving away the farm. He’s not supposed to be the mediator, he’s supposed to be both a)the head of the country and b)the leader of the party.
If he conspires with Republicans to cut SS benefits, he sure as hell should face a primary challenge.
Nick
@different church-lady:
No, they don’t, otherwise they wouldn’t be taking policies that have been passed and shitting all over them.
Bob Loblaw
@Omnes Omnibus:
No, the first step is to get people to stop wearing words like Obot and firebagger as an emblem of pride. The first step is the same first step always: reducing tribalism.
It doesn’t take intellectual courage to support the administration. It doesn’t take intellectual courage to criticize the administration. It doesn’t take intellectual courage to huddle up in a pack and snarl at everybody who speaks out differently than you.
If all you have to define yourself is a scorecard over who supports/hates the President more, then you’ve given up the ability to make critical distinctions. It shouldn’t be a “sacrifice” to say that there are places where this administration has done wrong. Nor should it be one to say that this administration has done much right and good. It should be patently obvious that both are true without conflict.
@mikefromArlington:
Out of curiosity, when’s the last time you ran for Senate, mike?
/waits patiently for you to miss the point
Citizen Alan
@Nick:
Personally, I’m no longer averse to that.
different church-lady
@Bob Loblaw:
You, sir, have won the internets for the month.
Wile E. Quixote
@Nick:
Are you referring to Alan Grayson? If you are then you might want to read this piece by Dan Savage:
http://slog.thestranger.com/slog/archives/2010/11/02/confidential-to-alan-grayson
Grayson won in a conservative district because the incumbent he was running against was a fuck-up and he ran in 2008 when the Republican brand was incredibly toxic. He lost in 2010 not because he wasn’t “bipartisan” enough but because he was running in a midterm election year with an incredibly shitty economy in a district full of rednecks who were stoked to the gills on crystal meth and Obama hate.
The media in this country is incredibly corrupt and in the tank for conservative interests. Given that there’s no reason for Democrats not to call out the right wing for being a bunch of filthy, lying teabagging kochsuckers every chance they get and Grayson did a lot of good just by doing that.
rikyrah
I don’t know why it’s not obvious that the President isn’t in this.
The President knows to STAY OUT OF THE WAY of a BOTTOM-UP happening.
This was organic. This wasn’t any astro-turfing organized by shady billionaires. This was THE PEOPLE coming out and fighting for themselves.
The President has been so smart in not getting involved, that, SUDDENLY, you hear that mofo Fitzgerald talking about The White House being behind the recalls, and WHO is the star of Karl Rove’s commercial? POTUS.
THEY are trying to bring POTUS into this, because they’re trying to make this about the big, bad feds picking on the states. The Black Bogeyman.
Cause, all I see on my tv screen are bunches and bunches middle-class looking White folks (no dirty fucking hippies here) demanding justice from a bunch of overreaching White villains ——-nary a Black or Brown face to blame for ANY of this, which is what the GOP does best.
No, the villains of this are right out of GOP Central….and they know it.
The President does not need to get involved in this.
Nick
@Citizen Alan:
well then, bring on the civil war.
virag
fracking is the best energy policy related term in the past 1000 years. if only that stupid show had had a larger audience, we’d have a better chance of formulating a helpful energy policy.
stupid ronald d. moore.
jwb
@Nick: No, I don’t think the media can turn a sad story straight into the apocalypse, Nick. I think the media thinks they can do this, I think the Republicans think they can do this, and that is one, among many reasons, that the media has so much love for Republicans. Republicans tell the media that they are supremely powerful. But they are wrong. The media has a lot of power, there is no doubt about it. But they can’t in fact turn black into white or up into down, and whenever they try to do so—and they try it often—they run into reality. What do the actual audience numbers for news media look like these days? They aren’t pretty, are they? And those numbers are getting worse. The media beast is dying and it’s killing itself.
Odie Hugh Manatee
I repaired a laptop for a California prison guard last night and he picked it up today. I decided to ask him a few questions about what Walker pulled in Wisconsin to get his opinion on it. What was his first response?
“Well I’m of two minds on this. While unions have done a lot of good they have also caused some problems for states.”
From that launching point I laid it out to him. BTW, he is a solid religious conservative (Mormon) and backs the Republicans because they “believe in what I believe” (exact quote). Right away he tried to go off on Obama and I pointed out that the Executive does not write the laws, our Congress does, and that he has fallen for the BS that his party wants him to. That ‘everything that’s wrong in this country is the fault of Obama and the Democrats’. I gave him a basic lesson in government, that the legislature legislates and the executive signs it into law or vetoes it. That the office of the president is not a king or a dictator.
I pointed out that the tactic is called “divide and conquer”, with the objective of having us citizens divided, angry and at each others throats while they loot the fuck out of the country. He knows me well and knows that I’m no raging liberal and that I (and my wife and daughter) am registered as an independent. I pointed out that what happened in Wisconsin can happen in California and that his pay and benefits may be on the line if Jerry Brown wanted to emulate Walker and strip the collective bargaining rights from him and his fellow prison guards.
That got his attention like nothing else I said to him. I pointed out that once the budget is “balanced” on the back of everyone but law enforcement and it isn’t enough, guess who would be next on the Republican shit list. He tried to point out that it would never happen like that in California because they would be voted out of office (or even recalled). I pointed out that he lives in Oregon and he does not have a vote in California so good luck with that.
I brought up the phony call to Walker from ‘David Koch’, which he said he hadn’t heard a thing about. I told him to look up the clip on YouTube, listen to it and then come look me in the face and tell me with a straight face that Walker hasn’t sold out the people of Wisconsin to a couple of rich bastards. I told him how Walker claimed that the move to strip collective bargaining was necessary to fix their budget and then claimed yesterday that it didn’t have any fiscal impact, allowing them to pass the measure with a simple majority and without a single vote from a Democratic officeholder. And how today Walker is once again claiming that this will help to fix their budget. He wants it both ways to get what he wants over the objections of the people of Wisconsin.
I pointed out that Walker and the Republicans are boldfaced lying to the people of Wisconsin with their sole goal of busting the unions to strip the last bits of financial support from the Democrats and give Republicans a huge financial edge in raking in the bucks from the rich while the Democrats get little to nothing now that the unions are under assault and being deliberately weakened for their personal gain. I pointed out that of the top ten political contributors, seven of them are from the wealthy to the Republicans and three are the unions giving to Democrats. That this will kill Democratic fundraising, giving the Republicans all top ten contributor positions. I pointed out that the “wingnut welfare” (he thought that name was pretty funny, even after I explained it to him) system is set up to reward prominent officeholders who deliver the goods to the wealthy while they are in office, giving him several examples of it to chew on.
I pointed out that Walker has crap in his bill that will allow him to literally give away public works to private entities for no bidding. He can decide who gets the goods and nobody can argue with him, and that once the for-profit companies get their hands on it they will rape the public in the name of good ol’ capitalism.
We talked for almost an hour while I was installing his anti-virus program (he had a cd that he brought over), showed him what had caused his BSOD’s and the updates I installed (talk about multitasking! ;). While I will not fool myself into thinking he would vote Democrat I know I did get through to him somewhat. It showed in his eyes, he knew I was telling him the truth.
I ended it with ‘they want you and I to be at each others throats, they want us fighting each other and distracted from what they are doing. That the wealthy and powerful have bought the Republican party and enough Democrats to cripple our government to their benefit. They want us to hate each other, to divide and conquer us, and that they are succeeding.’
I again asked him to go check out the Walker/’Koch’ phone call and listen to what is really going on. I don’t know if he will but I am going to keep working on him and the other guards whose computers I service. I live in a little town out in the middle of nowhere but I am determined to do what I can to counter the divide and conquer bullshit from the right and to try to get some of these marginally informed voters to understand what is really going on.
ABL, thank you very much for your rant and the inclusion of what was said at Eclectablog. While I’m not religious at all, (r)AMEN!
Master of Karate and Friendship
@LiftingTheWool:
You’re saying two things that contradict each other. First you say we don’t want the right wing to take over America. Good start, that’s the ticket. Then you say the way to do this is to vote for Democrats. But so many Democrats either refuse to fight the right wing or affirmatively accept many of its precepts that there’s no point in supporting them as a hedge against right wing advancement.
“Hey, I’m 3% better than the worst Republican!” isn’t much of a stance. How long do you think it will take the right wing to make up that 3%? If nothing else, all they have to do is slide to the right by 3% on their own and moron Democratic candidates will clamber to stay 3% better than they are.
Look at the debate going on right this minute in D.C. You have the Republicans saying “we need to cut federal spending by a lot”. Then you have the Democrats saying “we need to cut federal spending by a moderate amount”. Both are wrong. The only way to get out of this depression is for the federal government to act as spender/employer of last resort and increase spending on things we need. Once they cross the Rubicon and advocate less spending, they’re on the side of wrong. Who cares if they’re “not as wrong” as Mike Huckabee or Tim Pawlenty? They’re still moving us in the wrong direction.
Have a good Democrat senator or representative? Great, support’ em. But don’t tell me Barack Obama–who craves nothing as much as he craves Republican acceptance, and will revere any Republican to get it (such as Ronald Reagan) and repeat any REpublican lie to get it (FDR mishandled the Great Depression) and pass any Republican idea to get it (RomneyCare, tax cuts for millionaires)– is either good enough or the best we can do.
Wile E. Quixote
@Nick:
Hey look everyone. Emo Nick is back! How long before he starts cutting himself to get us to pay attention to him?
jwb
@Bob Loblaw: Hey, another good post that I more or less agree with. And you’ve abandoned your cynical posturing as well. That’s good to see as well.
Nick
@jwb:
They do it all the time. That’s why Americans believe lies. Death panels? Birtherism? WMDs? Saddam Hussein=9/11 link? They do it successfully all the time.
for everyone except Fox, New York Post, and Rush Limbaugh.
Omnes Omnibus
@Bob Loblaw: This is actually along lines of what I was trying to get at. I may be happier with Obama than, for example, you are, but right now, leading into 2012, the realistic choices for president are Obama and whatever crazy ass fuck the Republicans nominate. So how do we reduce tribalism? I am not being snarky; what will work?
eemom
@Omnes Omnibus:
it’s a noble endeavor, and you are a good man. But I do think there are more worthwhile uses for your good abilities.
Master of Karate and Friendship
@rikyrah:
“The President has been so smart in not getting involved”
Then he was brick-stupid to promise otherwise:
http://www.correntewire.com/shoes_barack#more
punkdavid
@Midnight Marauder:
I may or may not need inspiration, but I certainly have no faith in my average citizen comrade to pay attention or engage in the system. You’re right, of course, that that is what needs to be done. But unfortunately, you have to go into elections with the electorate you’ve got, not the electorate you’d wish to have.
DFer
@Wile E. Quixote: You know, as someone who lost a friend to cutting, I personally resent that.
Especially coming from you.
Nick
@Master of Karate and Friendship:
Good thing he never promised otherwise.
Wile E. Quixote
@Master of Karate and Friendship:
Really. Could you name the wonderful progressive who was running against Barack Obama in 2008 who would have done all of the wonderful things you want and could have won the election. Was it John Edwards. Hillary Clinton? Mike Gravel? Or perhaps you have one in mind for 2012.
Nick
@punkdavid:
Obama isn’t going to help much there. If people don’t want to get involved, Obama isn’t going to make them do it, especially not after he’s already won an election.
jwb
@Nick: What do Fox’s numbers look like? Last time I checked they were doing better than the others but not increasing in absolute numbers and they have the ticking time bomb of a very old demographic.
lacp
“Hey, Jude, don’t make it bad
Take a sad story and make it apocalyptic…”
Naw, doesn’t scan worth shit
This is a great thread: ideology purists vs. pragmatism purists. It’s a Purity Ball!
Nick
@Master of Karate and Friendship:
Well I’m telling you he’s the best we can do, whether you want to hear it or not…and America told you that in 2008.
jwb
@lacp: With color commentary by driveby impurists?
lacp
@jwb: I prefer the term “unclean.”
Nick
@jwb:
Fox’s ratings are about where they were since 2009, still higher than 2008.
Shade Tail
So from what I’ve gathered, people’s replies to my comment would amount to the following:
“Durr hurr, talk more and wave his magic wand.”
I’m paraphrasing slightly.
LiftingTheWool
@Master of Karate and Friendship:
It’s not that complicated. If you’re a Democrat, you obviously don’t want people like Scott Walker and Michelle Bachmann representing you. In an election with a Democrat and a Republican running, you have two options.
1) Support the Democrat by voting for him/her.
2) Support the Republican by not voting (assuming you would never actually vote FOR the enemy).
That’s it. That’s all there is to it.
Bob Loblaw
@Omnes Omnibus:
Improving material welfare. It should be the only goal. Not creating superior messaging, not installing political dynasties, not paying lip service to tinkering, gradualist narratives that sacrifice entire generations to “the long run.” It’s the only thing that has ever worked. And it doesn’t even work that well itself, unfortunately.
When people’s well being isn’t directly under attack, it’s easier to get them to open up to new experiences and new modes of thinking and as a result, new acceptances. We could obliterate entire swaths of poverty if one single generation of politicians was willing to take that personal risk of failure. It’s been done before. It’s being done right now across the globe. It means staring into the darkest parts of the American psyche and telling them to go fuck themselves. And then weathering the fallout.
Jay in Oregon
A-fucking-men! I was hoping that I didn’t hallucinate that whiny bitchfest that Electablog quoted. Glad to see that I was not.
Mike in NC
ABL is absolutely on the money here. We’re staring into the abyss.
Funny how so many people have forgotten the bullet we dodged in ’08. Had McCain/Palin come out on top, we’d be looking at about 30% unemployment, a full blown Great Depression 2.0, a virtual police state here at home, and wars abroad with Iran, China, Russia, and North Korea.
So dream on about dumping Obama and welcoming your liberators: Majority Leader McConnell and President Huckabee and the clown posse they’ll bring to DC. How does Scott Walker for Secretary of Labor grab you? We’ll all be nostalgic for that moderate bridge-builder G.W.Bush. Some assholes never learn.
LiftingTheWool
@Mike in NC:
EXACTLY!!!
Noriko
@rikyrah:
Yes, and today I asked someone I know who is participating in the protests in Madison, and he confirmed that the local feeling is indeed that President Obama should stay in the background. Not out of ill feeling, but to keep the focus on the immediate issues at hand.
Omnes Omnibus
@Bob Loblaw: I like the thinking here. Again, it leads to the next question of where to start. I would go with raising taxes to Clinton levels, scaling back Iraq/Afghanistan as quickly as possible, and investing the money in trains and related infrastructure.
Tim
@Joe Beese:
Joe Beese, I just read your link. Obama is in many ways far more of a cynical SOB than I imagined when he was running for the nomination. STunning.
Quiddity
@Tonal Crow: Thanks!
Josh
Yes, Shade Tail, that’s exactly what Ian Welsh said. Wow.
Yesbutwehavenobananas
“Just shut up and get to work.”
“The creatures outside looked from pig to man, and from man to pig, and from pig to man again; but already it was impossible to say which was which.”
manual
Your posts are so formulaic and fucking boring. Screeds about supporting Obama. Wow. That’s organizing. You see, I have actually done labor organizing and political organizing, and screeching about this shit means nothing. Find an issue. Find some people. And organize. Stop blogging!
gizmo
Angry Black Lady,
Can’t we walk and chew gum at the same time? IMHO, Obama is a putz, a small man who is a caretaker President at best. Not only is he not fulfilling the promise of his campaign– he isn’t even trying. But my profound disappointment with him doesn’t preclude my determination to continue working toward progressive goals.
Omnes Omnibus
@manual: You are aware that, if you do not like the posts of a particular blogger, you are free to skip over them, right? It would give you more time to do more valuable things.
Cain
@jwb:
Works for me.. maybe I can hit twitter and see what people think?
cain
Omnes Omnibus
@Cain: Go for it. Pick days when the Packers aren’t playing and I’ll join.
Cain
@eemom:
No shit.. I gave people an actionable thing to do. Only jwb gave me a useful feedback of attaching some dates to the call. They’re still arguing the same old shit. Nobody is going to be doing shit.. we’ll all still be talking shit while the republic keels over.. sigh. We liberals truly are ungovernable.
General Stuck
@manual:
You can’t elect an issue, nor get it reelected. We elect human persons who are not perfect, and if we don’t get them elected the republicans get elected instead. If you care more about ideology and political movements, and not about governing, then that is okay, but your smug criticism of those of us who do care about actual politics is returned to sender.
Here is a universal truth about presidents. Their power comes from support, and especially their base supporters. It is all about perception of support that leads to a president getting his agenda through that other equal branch of government called congress, and almost always with compromise, whose members, even of a same party have their own competing agendas, and in a democracy it is always about doing stuff with the consent of the governed.
Wild and self serving criticism does not help. Focused criticism is fine, so long as it doesn’t remove that needed support. When that happens, you become a republican’s ally, even though you may have a D by your name.
Cain
@Wile E. Quixote:
So how about that idea of just doing a mass turn off 24 hour news. Go watch re-runs of Kojak or something?
PTirebiter
@Marc McKenzie: @Marc McKenzie: that was my point, it could only have been counter-productive. Walker was losing the debate daily, why give the wingnuts a chance to change the story’s focus? It would have instantly become Obama vs. Walker. White House Goliath vs. WI David. Obama had the sense to stay out of the way.
Cain
@Omnes Omnibus:
If you’re in wisconsin you could just attend in person? :-) Besides, I said get off of 24 hour news, not completely break tv. I guess that would be hard for some of you sports fan. (although really, don’t ya think the republic is more important than sports? there is always going to be some sports game going on.. ) I wonder if the Egyptians had this problem.. hah.
cain
cain
Tyro
We are 4 Senators and 1 President away from total fucking apocalyptic ruin.
True. But if Obama doesn’t care, I can’t be that motivated to care, either.
Seriously, it would be a fucking catastrophe if the Republicans took over the House, and the Democratic party knew it. Did they do anything about it? No. They just whined that we weren’t enthusiastic enough for them.
joe from Lowell
Angry Black Lady,
(If, for some reason, you’re still here).
This fight is only happening on the internet. Obama is wildly popular among liberals, progressives, the left, or whatever you want to call them. It is only a loud, attention-seeking sliver of a faction of a fringe of a minority that’s making all this noise, and they amounted to somewhere between jack and shit in the last election.
Obama, even as moderate and bipartisan as he is, lost vastly more of the middle than the left during his first two years.
Consider this: on Daily Kos – on Daily Kos! – in the diaries that were written during the great health care debates in 09-10, the polls consistently went 2:1 in favor of the Obama position than the opposition position, even in diaries written by ferocious firebaggers, featuring absurdly biased questions. It got to the point that people whinging about the PPACA simply stopped including polls in their diaries at all. This was on Daily Kos, meaning that the results consisted of people who read Daily Kos health care diaries and voted in the polls.
And yet, if you looked at the comments, they were dominated by fiercely anti-Obama voices.
Lesson: loudmouths on the internet aren’t even representative of high-information, politically-active lefty types on the internet.
So don’t worry about it.
rcman
Look, Obama is a very nice, honorable man and a very ineffective president. The way I see it, I can stay at home and get screwed by the Republicans in the harsh light of day or help GOTV for Obama and have him veil the screwing with his wily pre-fight capitulation and battlefield compromises.
Everyone keeps saying that if I thought Obama would be a progressive fighter I didn’t understand him. Fair enough. Its just now that I understand, I don’t feel that motivated. I’d fight for a fighter. But for a serial compromiser who mocks the left ? Meh.
Omnes Omnibus
@Cain: Do you have any Idea how hard it is to get tickets? I can get to maybe one game per season, and I know people.
I was being facetious. I think it is an interesting idea, but, in order to be effective, it would really need a metric shit-ton of promotion and word of mouth. I say run it up the flagpole on Twitter, Facebook, etc., and see if it starts to take off. I would pass it along.
General Stuck
@rcman:
Who do think would be a good dem president?
jwb
@Cain: No, get off all corporate news and entertainment. Cable, over-the-air, radio, internet, everything.
Ash Can
I refuse to actually read this entire thread, because as always with these threads, there’s never enough reasonableness and way, way too fucking much sheer, unadulterated, industrial-strength stupid. The people who are incapable of understanding how our political system actually works aren’t going to grow brains overnight, so it’s far better to just blow them off.
ABL, I can’t applaud this post enough. It’s well-said, it’s necessary, and it’s uplifting. Thank you, thank you, thank you.
Nick
@rcman:
It stuns me that someone who got as much done as he had is considered “ineffective”
Who the hell is “effective” then?
Joetpa
Great job ABL….anybody who makes the decision not to vote puts people like Rick Scott and Scott Walker in charge of making decisions. That does not hurt Obama ..it hurts US
Nick
@General Stuck:
Why my fantasy FDR, that’s who
Mike Kay (Ding-Dong-Broder's Dead)
heheh
you guys are still at this.
cat blogging
Nick
@Tyro:
What could they have done about it? You have some magic switch that would have turned a 63-seat loss into 2?
Omnes Omnibus
Well, my attempt to use this to stimulate actual discourse got one real response from a non-Obot.
Mike Kay (Ding-Dong-Broder's Dead)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I1edDfzluXE
Cain
@Omnes Omnibus:
I had a feeling you were, but I was covering my bases while still trying to be respectful. ;)
@jwb – agreed.. I’d say start with reddit and digg..
cain
General Stuck
@Omnes Omnibus:
Try porn next time
CaliCat
Reply to gizmo:
“Obama is a putz”
Lol. Talk about classic projection. Sorry you have such low self-esteem, giz. Good luck with that.
Omnes Omnibus
@General Stuck: I said stimulate discourse.
Linnaeus
I’m all about the “get to work” part of this post. It needs to be not only within the Democratic Party, but independently of the party as well. The latter is necessary to move the party in directions it may not want to go initially because it’s too rooted in the present order of things.
Mnemosyne
@PTirebiter:
They’re desperately trying to discredit the protesters in Wisconsin by claiming that the whole things is being secretly coordinated by the White House.
So, yes, until there’s some kind of definitive moment that requires the president to make a statement (like, say, Walker calling in the National Guard on his own citizens), I want Obama to stay the fuck out of it.
Omnes Omnibus
@Linnaeus: I think this is true and this may be a way in which the two factions we seem to have here can actually work toward common goals.
Donald
“I happen to agree with you about us giving assistance to Yemen because their government does suck, but to claim that we’re “at war” with them when we’re there by the government’s request is absolutely moronic.”
One of the positions being taken in this thread is just unbelievably freaking stupid. I refer to the one above. Our government has used missiles to blow people up in Yemen. In one of the wikileaks revelations, the US blew up some civilians and got the government in Yemen to agree to take the fall.
Now by any normal standard, when you use missiles to blow people up you are at war with someone in that country. This isn’t hard to understand. We were in South Vietnam with the permission of the South Vietnamese government (which we helped install) and yet we still managed to kill hundreds of thousands of South Vietnamese. Most people would call that a war. I assume that the posters who deny that missile strikes are acts of war take this position because otherwise they’d have to concede some validity to a point made by one of their dreaded internet foes. Well, that’s perfectly understandable. Nonetheless, sometimes a government is at war with some of its own people. I’m sure we’ve all heard of things like that. And sometimes the US steps in and helps kill some of those people, or alternatively, it helps kill members of the government. We normally say that the US is involved in a war when that happens.
Anyway, carry on. This is fun. Stupid and pointless, but fun.
Linnaeus
@Omnes Omnibus:
The frustrations we’re seeing here from all sides (although as we all know, one shouldn’t extrapolate too much from Internet blogs) are coming about because, ironically, there is a shared notion of crisis. Something, or should I say some things, seem to be going wrong, and this is manifold: economic change, political turmoil, etc. Our current institutions seem to be able to do little or nothing about all this, and in some cases are even contributing to these problems.
So there has to be some serious institutional change, and that will require on one hand some (troubling) honesty about the role of these institutions (like the Democratic Party) in creating the current state of things and on the other hand, some (troubling) honesty about the (not very fun) work it will require to remedy the current state of things.
Angry Black Lady
So what’d I miss? :)
Without reading the comments, I’ll post my response to this comment on my blog:
you’re absolutely right. i by no stretch agree with everything obama has done. i find his extension of the bush policies re: detention and enemy combatants to be deplorable. i find the fact that we are in afghanistan disgusting. it pisses me off that wall street is rolling in dough while the rest suffer.
the “shut up” is the equivalent of what you said (except i’m far more flip — it’s my nature). there’s a segment of liberals who don’t advance their policy agreements in a manner that opens discussion. there’s a segment of liberals who cry “hippie punching” and lay the blame for all of the country’s ills at his feet. that is what i take issue with. it’s our responsibility to hold him accountable for what he actually is accountable for.
by all means, hold him to a higher standard. but doing so does not mean screaming about how we should primary him. that’s folly. full stop. and the constant OBAMA SUCKS drumbeat does nothing but alienate those who want to have a real discussion about his policy failing without it devolving into “Obama is a pussy and he’s no different than Bush.” that’s not true and it’s a stupid statement.
and it would be nice to be able to have a real discussion without being told that “obots worship their leader” or other such bullshit.
we can work to get out the vote and make sure dems retain control and then fight those dems who don’t advance progressive policies. obama is one guy heading a big tent party.
this divide is only going to worsen conditions in our country. we need to hold his and the dems’ feet to the fire.
Odie Hugh Manatee
@joe from Lowell:
The point of the manic progressives is to drive down Democratic enthusiasm and voting. They think that they are right and everyone who disagrees with them is very wrong. The only way they see to try and get what they want is to spread shit around and hope that it drives voters away from Democrats in a short-sighted attempt to punish the Dems for not hand delivering their pretty ponies to them on a platinum platter.
While they aren’t Republican ratfuckers (though I do believe that the ratfuckers are exploiting them for the purposes of divide and conquer), they are ratfucking Democrats in the hope that they get the same results the teahadists desire; killing support for Democrats in polls and at the voting booth. They want to drive the country off of a cliff to punish everyone for not seeing them as the wise policy sages that they think they are.
The two most popular diaries on the GOS Wreck List are slagging Obama as weak and ineffective and slagging those who are calling them out for the petulant purity asshats that they are.
Nothing they say will change my mind. Republicans are evil and sitting back to let evil win to punish the Democrats is not an option for me. They don’t give a shit about anything but their purity positions. Trying to convince them that they are wrong will fail because they have the reasoning skills of the teahadists. Fuck them and the ponies they want to ride. Let them flail away, they are inconsequential because they are marginalizing themselves and doing a good job of it.
When someone views losing as a win then you know that their head is firmly up their ass and superglued in place.
Chuck Butcher
If the DPO (Dem Party OR) membership were to read this blog and take to heart all the dirty firebaggers/evul left crap 85% of them would just quit and it would become meaningless. As it is the DPO and associated County Parties work like dogs to elect Democrats even though they are by huge percentages well left of those pols.
Those who’d like to throw responsibility for the ’10 failure on the left/progressives need scapegoats and not solutions so writing this is mostly an exercise in pointlessness.
Angry Black Lady
@joe from Lowell: hey joe. i’ve come to that realization, but given that i spend a lot of my time among the manic progressives, i can’t help but rant about them sometimes. and it saddens me to see folks who could be doing what they can to help actively doing what they can to undermine democrats, and then dare to call those of us who support obama more than not be deemed “worshippers.” as if we all blindly follow him and have no minds of our own.
i can’t help but rail against these people every once in a while. and after sitting stunned watching the shit going on in wisconsin, i felt that i had to rant today.
i’m not worried about the ratfuckers and those who harbor them, but that doesn’t mean i don’t wish they’d shut the fuck up.
cheers!
Angry Black Lady
these are the types of people i wish would shut the fuck up. an ineffective president? that’s dumbassedness is what it is.
Angry Black Lady
@jrg: you should read the article from the awl that i linked. the teacher’s union in sauk county straight up asked the GOP candidate if he would vote to undo CB rights. he said no.
now, whether you want to call voters stupid for believing him is a different question, but “reap what you sow” doesn’t work when you’re being lied to.
AxelFoley
@Joe Beese:
I wanna see my foot up your ass.
I don’t dream, I make that shit happen.
Motherfuckin’ troll bastard.
Oh, and again, righteous rant, ABL. I want to have your babies, but I don’t think I’m worthy of such an honor, milady.
Mnemosyne
@Donald:
That is not the same thing as being at war with that country. You could maybe say the US is “at war” with rebel groups in Yemen, but even that’s a pretty stupid way to phrase it.
I really can’t understand people who see absolutely no difference between invading a country to overthrow its government and assisting a government that requests assistance.
ETA:
And yet that’s not what the original poster said, is it? Go back and double check. He was drawing an equivalence between Iraq and Afghanistan — two countries where we invaded and overthrew their governments — and Yemen. Do you honestly see no difference between the two situations? None at all?
Chuck Butcher
@Angry Black Lady: Stupid for believing the RepubliKlan?
I’d say serially stupid is the case.
Chuck Butcher
@Mnemosyne:
I’d say blown up people are blown up people. The question is did you have a real goddam good reason for blowing them up? When it comes to blowing people up I’d think you need a reason that isn’t much of a close call. I say that as someone who owns guns, quite plural – guns.
Mnemosyne
@Chuck Butcher:
That’s not the argument the original poster was making. He was arguing that there is absolutely no difference between McCain starting a war with Iran and what’s going on in Yemen, so therefore Obama is doing the exact same things that McCain would have. Oh, and that we shouldn’t even consider trying to intervene in the civil war in Libya, because that, too, would make Obama just like Bush.
I maintain that there is a difference between invading and overthrowing the government of a country and fighting there. Frankly, what we did in Iraq was far worse than what we did in Vietnam — at least the Vietnamese didn’t have an established government and a stable (if repressive) society that we decided to mow over.
Chuck Butcher
@Mnemosyne:
That assertion is open to quite some debate. As for the rest of it, I didn’t address either POV and didn’t call you out about anything.
Brother Shotgun of Sweet Reason (formerly frosty)
@Ash Can:
Well, who better than Ash Can, M-80 and Bottle Rocket? Go to town, gang!
AxelFoley
@NonVoter:
So, you’ll pass classified information to some foreign blogger, too?
Angry Black Lady
@reader: still sad john hasn’t given you a handjob or a front page gig, i see.
i’d link you to my hundreds of posts that don’t quote other material heavily (since i’ve been blogging for three years and posting here for about six months), but i know there are tumbleweeds blowing through the space where your brain used to be, so instead i will drink my wine, play angry birds, and relish the fact that john has confidence in me and doesn’t give two angry fucks about you.
have fun storming the castle.
Chuck Butcher
@Chuck Butcher:
I didn’t address either POV for the simple reason that I see the issue of use of force to be highly individual and specific to a case. I’m sure that in light of ownership of those guns I mentioned you’re happy I believe that. I am conditionally pacifistic – I don’t believe the use of force does any more than make it dangerous to fuck with me enough to get it. I don’t think it persuades, changes minds, or any such – I think it breaks things and kills.
Angry Black Lady
@Tim: stop trying to make angry clown lady happen. it’s like “fetch”; never gonna happen.
first, it’s not at all insulting, second, i thoroughly trounced corner stone in that thread, and third — i don’t have a third. i’ll just go with “you’re a fucking idiot.”
-ACLxx
Mnemosyne
@Chuck Butcher:
In that case, I will say that I mostly agree with you: dead people are dead people, and their friends and relatives aren’t going to care much about the domestic US politics of why they’re dead. They’re just going to be pissed off that we’re killing their friends and family.
It was the original poster’s bringing up Yemen in the context of “Obama is doing the exact same things McCain would have done!” that annoyed me. Because of course McCain would have spent 18 months getting a healthcare bill passed, negotiated a stimulus package that required government spending, and kept DADT repeal on the front burner. You betcha.
Quiddity
In terms of long-term politics, having a conservative Democratic president make cuts in Social Security is much worse than having a Republican do it. It totally destroys the decades long alignment of Democrats with social insurance programs. Once that is gone, reestablishing trust is very difficult, if not impossible.
I know several people who don’t read blogs and they are disappointed in Obama because they don’t see him fighting very hard for progressive interests. Or even using the bully pulpit. I fail to see how progressives reading/commenting at this blog are responsible for that fall-off in support. They aren’t part of the 50 million that didn’t vote in 2010 (compared to 2008).
FlipYrWhig
Chiming in super late:
I think anyone who uses any form of the word “profound” in proximity to any form of the words “disillusion” or “disappointment” is a leftier-than-thou emo dipshit who has more invested in showing off to the gallery than in, you know, actual fucking politics. Stuff sucks. Stuff could be better. Obama is leaps and bounds better than any Democrat who’s come remotely close to the presidency in my nearly 40-year lifetime. Lay the fuck off already.
Angry Black Lady
@eemom: i like to shake things up. i also like to watch the same ten people shriek at me. it amuses me.
@Fang: THIS.
and with that, check y’all later.
Mnemosyne
@Mnemosyne:
Oh, and it also annoyed me that the OP was acting like the fact that the US is in Yemen is some big secret when I first heard about it at least six months ago, and probably closer to a year ago. It’s like, dude, maybe you should read the news more often if you only just found this out.
FlipYrWhig
@AxelFoley: Or, worse, willingly spend time with Jane Hamsher and Glenn Greenwald.
Mnemosyne
@Quiddity:
You let us know when that happens, ‘k? At the very least, point us to Obama’s proposal for making cuts in Social Security so we can read what’s he’s proposing for ourselves.
FlipYrWhig
@Quiddity:
I know several people who are very disappointed that Eliza Haywood isn’t taught in more rise-of-the-novel courses. That’s because we care about things that are very interesting to a teeny tiny minority of like-minded people, things that the vast majority of people don’t have any fucking idea about.
Chuck Butcher
@Mnemosyne:
You won’t ever have found me arguing that Obama = GWB = JSMcC. I have had specific disagreements with the Pres, much more with the past Senate, and some with the House but I’ve never been stupid enough to equate GOP and Dems, I’m not happy with the difference which is another thing altogether.
WyldPirate
Wow..Imagine this..the same old milquetoast bullshit defensiveness of our milquetoast President who is slightly to the right of Richard Nixon.
Krugman nails Obama in his column today:
You Obots are every bit as bad–and blinded by the horseshit– from the Obama administration as Dubya’s defenders were.
Obama has no “convictions” other than getting re-elected and he sure as shit doesn’t have the interests of the people first and foremost in mind.
The Populist
@Joetpa: Perfect and very true.
The Populist
@WyldPirate: Fine but honestly I’ll take him for four more years (His choices for the Supremes have been perfect) than hand over our country to the inanity of Chris Christie or Mitt Romney. Sorry, I agree to some extent but the shit we are now being put through in the name of the GOP’s promises to put America back to work are the height of atrociousness. Sorry man, I’ll vote for a milquetoast Dem before I give the keys to the likes of fucking Chris Christie, Palin or any of those assholes who seem to exist to take away everything us hard working Americans have left.
Odie Hugh Manatee
@WyldPirate:
Somebody want to bump the record player?
The needle is stuck on a scratch.
Marc McKenzie
@Mnemosyne:
Funny thing about that…they never seem to be able to put in the link!
Of course, they’re er, certain that Obama will do that because….hmmm…maybe because a little birdie told them?
Mnemosyne
@Odie Hugh Manatee:
You have to admire the tunnel vision, though — he can read 14 paragraphs about how the Republicans are fucking things up and zero in on the 3 that talk about Obama to find any nugget of criticism that he can.
Marc McKenzie
@The Populist:
This.
And hell, I LIVE in NJ–Christie’s home central.
I’m sorry, but I really do not understand the logic behind not voting for Obama because you’re pissed off and then sitting back in smug satisfaction as the Repubs proceed to give it to the country right in the keister with no vaseline.
I mean, does WyldPirate really understand what could and would happen if we get Pres. Romney, Palin, or Gingrich or some other unholy GOPer in 2013?
Or…does WyldPirate even give a damn, because they are so frustrated at Obama that all else doesn’t even add up to the proverbial hill of beans?
Just askin’….
anon
IDK ABL. I think this post is bullshit. I canvassed for Obama, believed it was a moment in history, unique, and raised a lot of hell for Dems (in a good way) during that election and I got shit to show. Most noticeable of the shit I got to show is a party figurehead who straight acts against what he said he was about. Take war. Take standing strong with unions and ‘being the first to join them in line’ or whatever ridiculous fantabulous bullshit he mouthed on the campaign trail. !000 disappointments and pussy footed cave-ins to a crew who would just as soon seen him gutted, not one single visible improvement in my life. Poverty still, poverty forever I guess.
Marc McKenzie
@Mnemosyne:
Yep. And remember to some, Obama is Bush’s third term as well.
I wonder…did Bush even give a sh*t about healthcare reform, fixing environmental regs and…
…nah, I should stop. Just trying to understand how anyone could think that this is “Bush’s third term” just might cause a complete and utter shutdown of my mental facilities.
Mnemosyne
@Marc McKenzie:
I have a little bit of sympathy towards the Social Security paranoids, because almost all of them are in a specific group: they’re people in their 50s whose 401(k)s lost over half their value in the crash and they themselves were either laid off or came very close to it. Short of winning the lottery, there’s no way they’ll be able to replenish their 401(k) enough to be able to retire when they’d planned to.
They’ve realized that Social Security literally is the only thing between them and living on cat food, so of course they’re freaked out and paranoid that their SS money is going to disappear the same way their “safe” 401(k) money did.
I wish they wouldn’t react by directing their paranoia at the Democrats, but I can understand where the paranoia comes from.
Odie Hugh Manatee
@Mnemosyne:
I picture it as more like a horse wearing blinders. Ok, in the case of WyldChyld it’s a horses ass wearing blinders.
They’re backing up and calling it moving forward.
baxie
I don’t vote for torturers, period.
Y’all rationalize your support for Obama however you like, but I’m not crossing that line.
Ruckus
That went fast in a bad direction.
Sid M.
ABL, you’re wrong and your repost is wrong. The Democrats must learn that our support is conditional, even if it means a few tactical defeats in the short term. You’re freaking out now means you don’t have the guts for this long, long fight, so maybe you should get out now.
LTMidnight
@baxie: Then stay where you are and shut the fuck up.
LTMidnight
@WyldPirate:
Holy crap, some other guy said the exact thing. Where are you Obama Derangement Syndrome queers getting your talking points from?
Carol
@Mama Lynn: A Republican health insurance bill that was never passed in 8 years even with all three branches in Republican hands. I don’t even think there was even an effort at all. Obama not running into the same buzzsaw as Clinton by agreeing to let the insurance companies play a part, and not running into the second buzzsaw regarding abortion.
i think the real problem is that Democrats have neglected to create a sound machine equal to the Republicans. While radio stations have been expensive to buy and support, and just now are we having some think tanks, what we can do is use the results we have due to the new technology to spread the word on a local level.
Obama has done his share. He has videos on his site-he broadcasts his own events. He visits schools and gets local governments. What’s needed is local stuff to reach local people.
Jrod the Cookie Thief
@LTMidnight: Seriously? Using queer as an insult?
Eat shit and die, bigot.
Van
I think what a lot of people don’t realize is that the liberal blogs are probably crawling with Republican ratfuckers. so many Liberals suffer from LDS(lefty derangement syndrome) they make it easy for them. In fact in the comment section of this post I’ve read several comments that I’m pretty sure are written by Teapublicans. The language they use to describe Obama and the Democrats is amazingly similar to postings I regularly read from rightwingers on other sites.
Luci
Well, one thing I think you have right ABL, is that it IS time and past time to get moving and DO something. We can gripe and complain all we want, and I actually think what we’re doing by all this talking is hashing things out and working towards where we are going to eventually go, but there is no substitute for getting out there and doing stuff. Also, I think it’s important to remember that we might not agree with Obama on everything, but he and other Dems will be more open to moving our way than any Republican would be. In other words, we CAN have influence with him if we work it hard enough, but any Republican president… they’re gonna listen to their base more. Remember how W ignored all the protests before the war… He got away with it too, as he was more interested in what the Republicans wanted.
agrippa
Organize.
Recruit competent and honest progressives to run for Congress. They can come form state legislatures and city councils. Get them nominated in the primary.
Get them elected in the general election.
If you want progressive legislation passed, you need a progressive majority in Congress. A Democratic president will sign it.
Vote and get out the vote. 40 to 60% of eligible voters do not vote.
Organize. And do the above.
agrippa
It is immaterial to me whether Schultz votes or not; it is not my business. If he thinks that he is acting logically, he does not know his headquartes from his hindquarters.
Organize.
Elect progressives to Congress. Vote. Do not sit home.
Odie Hugh Manatee
@Van:
I’m sure that more than a few of the “liberals” here are anything but that. The real liberals who spout this bullshit are acting as useful idiots for the ratfuckers.
The ratfuckers may find them useful, I find them useless and not worth engaging.
Ridiculing is another thing though…lol
aamom
ABL….you make my heart sing.
Corner Stone
@Angry Clown Lady: The fuck you did you clown.
kay
Well, you’re all wrong about OFA-Wisconsin.
Which you would know if you knew any actual OFA activists.
But, you don’t. So you read the WH submission to the NYTimes.
kay
And here’s my near-daily correction to Wyld Pirate, who continues to insist Obama tiered wages in the UAW, although that actually happened in 2007.
By Michelle Krebs November 18, 2007
By Joseph Szczesny Uaw_ford_ford_gettelfinger_200
After nearly four months of earnest talk, surprise strikes at General Motors and Chrysler LLC and some creative wheeling and dealing, American carmakers finally have new labor agreements — ones that almost wipe out the cost advantage enjoyed by Asian rivals operating in the U.S. without union contracts. Sean McAlinden, vice president of research at the Center for Automotive Research (CAR) in Ann Arbor, Mich., said it will take U.S. carmakers two to four years to reap the benefits of all the changes embedded in their new contracts with the United Auto Workers.But the cost savings are genuine and substantial, he said.
Roberto
This woman is terrible. I will never support Barack The Torturer no matter how much she screams at me.
kay
@cat48:
Why are you listening to the president of the fastest growing union in the US, cat48?
Listen to Joe Beese, online union organizer extraordinaire.
agrippa
@kay:
kay: post 439.
Your post is true and accurate.
kay
@agrippa:
There’s plenty to be unhappy about without making stuff up.
I’m reading a long article on the Gulf spill, and I read the committee report that came out about a month ago.
It’s difficult to even parse truth from fact, so much utter bullshit was spewed there, from BOTH Left and Right.
madmatt
Why yes look at all the good they did with 60 dems…oh thats right they totally let the blue dog scum set the agenda…hell harry reid couldn’t even be bothered to threaten lieberman or nelson with the loss of their committee seats. Baucus LET a whore from Willpoint WRITE the healthcare bill and you wonder why it sucks.
Barack and sebelius just let a goldman sachs owned insurance company continue to take 35% OFF THE TOP of every dollar because they are to inept to survive on less.
FUCKEM ALL lets give it to the GOP and then burn this piece of shit country to the ground.
El Cid
Lot of comments in this thread.@Carol:
They actually played a huge part. When the first big meeting took place to plan the general shape of the Clinton’s HCR package, in the Jackson Hole retreat, I think it was 3 of the nation’s biggest insurance companies represented there. That was the entire aspect of “managed care”.
Paul in KY
@Odie Hugh Manatee: Good job, Odie. Hope you removed the BS from that person’s eyes.
Soullite
You can be a whole shitload better than the Republicans and still be bad enough to ruin this country.
That is the problem with the ‘lesser of two evils’ arguments.
Stop blaming other people because voters didn’t like your policies. Stop giving shit-tons of money to bankers, and maybe your average voter won’t completely hate your guts.
Ghost Wheel
Seriously. We need to take this fight to the streets …
Seriously? You mean like the WTO protests? Which the far left has been getting tear gassed, fire hosed and rubber bulleted at for the past two fucking decades while your centrist ass was busy voting in more god damned crooks and screws?
… and to Fox News’s front door.
Fox News? That’s fucking it?
Typical. Centrist. Shit.
agrippa
@kay:
I know kay.
Pococurante
@Mike Kay (Ding-Dong-Broder’s Dead): Almost to 450… quick, spam three more…
eemom
16 hours and 448 comments later, and all the usual full-of-shit-ers are still full of shit.
I have just one point to pick. Anyone who does not vote is worthless scum, pure and simple — and anyone who doesn’t accept that reality after the horrors of the last several months is too fucking stupid to exist.
different church-lady
@Odie Hugh Manatee: No, no, no… they don’t want to destroy the country, they just fervently believe that if they can wrathfully smash all the
ex-spouses… er, sorry, I meant spineless non-progressive democrats then a herd of flying magical purple unicorns will arrive bearing a bunch of true progressive candidates.No, wait, I’m putting too much thought into this: they’re all acting like four year olds who got the wrong kind of firetruck for Christmas.
Mind you, I’m not saying they got a firetruck — I’m saying they’re acting like that. If they acted like adults maybe someone outside of the internet and cable news freak show producers would actually listen to them.
Sister Machine Gun of Quiet Harmony
@JenJen:
That’s right. When you sit out an election, you also reap the consequences of what you sow. If you allowed it to happen, this is partly your fault.
Just Some Fuckhead
Geez, what a retarded post. You Obots never miss an opportunity to turn everything into a royalty loyalty test.
Sister Machine Gun of Quiet Harmony
@Sid M.:
What the Democrats have learned is that, when the chips are down, you folks can be counted on just as much as Marcus Brutus or Judas.
Mike Kay (Ding-Dong-Broder's Dead)
@Mike Kay (Ding-Dong-Broder’s Dead):
WINNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNER!
kay
@agrippa:
Sorry to be so cranky. I’m changing my office phone system and I already hate my new provider as much or more than I hated my old provider. I don’t know why I started this. It’s taking so long, I’ve forgotten :)
Mike Kay (Ding-Dong-Broder's Dead)
@Pococurante: You nailed it.
Mike Kay (Ding-Dong-Broder's Dead)
@jwb:
[tapping my fingers]
lawnorder
Oh ffs, you think getting rid of the canary will make your coal mine safe ?
ABL, people who post on political blogs vote. Is the ones who don’t bother with criticizing that don’t vote.
We are just not willfully blind enough to deny there are people feeling disappointed, and that they have specific, fact based reasons.
But go ahead, mute us, put your hands on your ears and sing “la-la-la I can’t hear you”. worked pretty well last year, didn’t it ?
cyntax
What I don’t like about this post is that it conflates all the possible reasons for lowered voter turnout into one category: liberals who stayed home. Obviously that was some of it, but there were probably a lot of lower information voters that simply weren’t enthused about how things like the economy were going and thought it didn’t matter.
So ABL sets up what I see as a false dichotomy (either you voted or were a high information voter who choose to punish the party) and we get 450+ posts of people talking past each other. Meh.
different church-lady
@lawnorder:
Are we talking about canaries? Or are we talking about the guy in the corner wailing “WE’RE ALL DOOMED!! WE NEVER SHOULD HAVE COME IN HERE IN THE FIRST PLACE!!!” while the rest of the miners try to figure out how to dig out the collapsed section of the mine?
JC
cyntax gets it right, I think. It’s not liberal voters staying home in 2012 that are going to return the GOP to the Executive. Most of them will vote for a pro-war, pro-police state, pro-Bankster Dem candidate just because they are conditioned to believe they have no other choice.
The real problem for the Dems are the large number of people who consider themselves “independent” or “moderate” (actually, wishy-washy and/or just plain mis/uninformed). They are going to look at the Dems record and see a party that is clearly not doing anything about the problems they are most concerned about. Some of these perceived “problems” are the results of smoke and mirror propaganda spewed out by both parties (like “the deficit” and the “need for austerity” during a fracking Depression). But the pro-Bankster, screw everyone else policies that Obama and the Dems have fostered since the 2009 inauguration, including the feigned “powerlessness” against a GOP minority, that is going to come home to roost in 2012. No matter how misguided or misinformed they may be a lot of “independent” voters are not going to support that.
I may hold my nose and vote for the slightly “lesser” of two evils in 2012, but this country is not ever going to return to being a democracy until we create viable alternatives to the deeply corrupt, corporate-owned state kleptocracy we endure at present.
— JC
TheOfficer
@Van:
@Odie Hugh Manatee:
Could it be that your method of analysis — viewing US politics solely through a left/right, Dem/Repub (or “teahadist/progressive”) lens — has constrained your perspective? Politics are not one-dimensional so it is perfectly reasonable for a tea-partier and an actual liberal to express the same opinion on certain issues. Let that sink in.
Before you ask, by “actual liberal” I mean someone that 1) possesses strong guiding liberal principles and 2) has not diluted them to the several parts-per-million level required to actively support the pro-war/bank/corporate Democratic party _for any reason_.
Protip: Read more than just the Shoes for Barack post over at Correntewire. Because let’s face it, “SHUT THE FUCK UP” is not a substantive discussion.
Sentient Puddle
@Mike Kay (Ding-Dong-Broder’s Dead):
Not at all. You fucking underestimated it!
The Populist
@anon: Fact – Not voting means what? We get somebody like Walker who will just make things worse. SURE, I am disappointed in Obama but was also disappointed by Clinton as well. At least these guys won’t fuck us the way these GOPjerks are. Anybody not voting for a dem or even not voting at all wants the GOP to finish off the middle class.
SURE the dems are not to be fully trusted at times, BUT if we get in their faces, they will at least bend compared to the GOP who could care less what any of us 99%ers think.
AAA Bonds
These stories are painful to glance at, much less read. Please tone down the caps, bold, etc.
The Populist
@Marc McKenzie: AMEN BUD. The fact Obama DID try to fix things only to have the GOP shut him down time after time tells me he’s NOT the bad guy he’s made out to be by many libs. The fact he took a risk and got rewarded by seeing the GOP take the country back! THE SAME F-ING PARTY THAT PUT US IN THIS MESS!!!!
Argh, I am tired.
rcman
ABL , “Your’re stupid now STFU” is such a compelling argument that you’ve convinced me that Obama is awesome. Thanks, now back to your 3d chessboard.
AAA Bonds
@The Populist:
I agree that we’re in an enemy-of-my-enemy scenario here, which is probably while I’ll even vote for the guy.
But as I sit here and watch him purposely ignore the real reason for gas prices (unregulated speculation), because of aspects of our system that have been explained by documentary after book after article, it’s unlikely I’ll extend that cliche all the way to “my friend”.
I’m no longer surprised when Bloomberg and Forbes are more liberal on financial issues than the President. I’m just coming to accept that the White House is always going to be crooked.
AAA Bonds
Every time I see Jake Tapper in a press conference I think “Is . . . is that Chris Parnell?”
Corner Stone
@AAA Bonds:
But what do you expect him to doooOOooOOooo?
Corner Stone
@AAA Bonds: Personally I just can’t watch Jay Carney.
Just a slow motion, hesitant, unprepared, demure, train wreck.
different church-lady
@JC:
You’re saying there IS another choice?
And the GOP IS doing something about those problems?
And the GOP is ANTI-bankster?
I continue to fail to understand “analysis” from the left that focuses entirely on democratic failures while ignoring the fact that the only other viable choices in the voting booth are not only not going fix these things, but are going to enable them even more. And then act like people can figure out that dems won’t do it, but somehow can’t figure out that republicans won’t do it either. Why do you think moderates are going to draw these conclusions about democrats, and then just throw that entire thought process out the window when it comes to the other guys?
FlipYrWhig
@different church-lady: Because the point isn’t to _do_ things differently or _think_ things differently. It’s mostly to project how you’re dissonant and dissident and uncompromising and special. Same reason why people were fans of Fugazi.
different church-lady
@FlipYrWhig:
Point taken, but maybe it’s more like an even sub-ier subgroup who are dedicated to proving that Fugazi sucks, and they’re not ACTUALLY dissonant and dissident and uncompromising and special, and when you get right down to it they’re no different than the Bee Gees, and if I make a lot of noise about how I won’t buy their next record they’ll record something I like better.
agrippa
Well, if idiots continue to run for office , and continue to get elected, we will continue to get idiotic government.
You want non idiotic government? Find non idiots to run for office and elect them.
brantl
@jl:
Why, because he’s just as smart dead, as he was alive? And just as stimulting? I rejoiced when Nixon died, I just wish he’d suffered a miserable, life-wasting desease, as was his just reward, for the kind of scumbag he’d been.
agrippa
@kay:
your 457
Not to worry. Cranky is the order of the day.
The TP is cranky to the point of pitching a conniption fit. The ‘left’ ( there is no left left) is doing the same thing, with Obama derangement syndrome.
It will play out as it plays out; american politics has been seinfelded.
Common sense is a misnomer.
Soullite
I get the feeling that a lot of the so called ‘pragmatic’ and ‘fact-based’ folks here never bothered to actually study human psychology, or game theory, or any other discipline that might make it clear to them how ignorant they sound.
This shit isn’t hard. It just isn’t. Politics is a zero-sum game, and you seem to get that much in you ‘lesser of two evils’ arguments. However, you seem to have completely glossed over the way humans interact in a zero-sum game like this (hint: humans are not rational machines. They are animals who operate on emotion-based instincts). Also, the human response to frustration (repetition, variation, violence).
But hey, I’m sure if you keep pining for that vulcan electorate, it’ll descend from the stars sooner or later.
xian
posting after everyone stopped reading, i’m sure…
people don’t seem to get that across a whole wide range of issues there is a compromise “truce” position, often considered the beltway consensus and sometimes written into law (cf. Hyde amendment). Republicans are actively seeking to push across that compromise line in various areas (cf. union busting). Liberals and Democrats also have issues where they want to go beyond the compromise position, but they tend to be much less aggressive about it.
Running for president, on every issue, you can stake out an ideological position about where it should go, but when governing, you can’t really declare war across every fault line. you have to pick your battles and you end up with the compromise or worse in some of those areas.
Bilbo
you shut up
Barry
I totally agree with you on the part about “We have to do it”. You’re right. Our (Democratic) political leaders are mostly incompetents and cowards. I disagree with the bullshit idea that it’s the left that stayed home in the 2010 elections.
Lot’s of us that blow hard and shriek shrill always go out and vote democratic. The people who stayed home are the ones who don’t like thinking too much about it and just follow big movements. Dems in Congress and the White House haven’t really been inspiring in a time when the country desperately needs inspiration. So the Dems lost (like in 2002).
Tony Wikrent
Eclectblog’s and Angry Black Lady’ arrogant, elitist bullshit was almost immediately rebutted after it appeared on DailyKos: This whole “Appease Republicans” thing is working out so perfectly isn’t it?, and Lies and Strawmen Prevail: No One Was “Teaching Obama” Anything, pointing out that in the 2010 elections, turnout and votes for Democrats among liberals and progressives was not that much different than in the 2008 elections. Where the really big difference was, and which decimated Democrats, was among moderates and independents. Now, you can argue this shows that Obama is right to try to track to the right to regain that lost support, but issue polls have consistently shown that on almost all issues, a majority of voters prefer more progressive solutions than Obama has even considered the past two years.
On issue after issue, from the stupidity of hiring Larry Summers and Tim Geithner, to the escalation of war in Afghanistan and Pakistan, Obama and his remaining supporters have been WRONG, and the “dirty fucking hippies” of the “professional left” have been correct. I think given the results of 2010, it’s past time for Obama and his remaining supporters to SHUT THE FUCK UP and start listening. But I don’t think they have the cajones to admit they’re wrong.
FuzzyWuzzy
Primarying Obama could be the best thing ever to happen to him and us. If the squeaky wheel gets the greasing, then how much squeakier could you get than running against Obama? The GOP has nothing and nobody to run against him as of yet, and giving BHO the public opportunity to tack left for once would be a fine opportunity. Bernie Sanders, say, runs, makes his point, shootout with BHO culminating in a big debate, then huggybear kissyface with BHO taking the hint and the primary with a mandate to do what he promised last time.
Probably only to demonstrate more of the same halfway not quite too soon policy we’ve seen so far. Probably ending the same as W: scared to leave the country for fear of prosecution for war crimes and crimes against humanity.
Surefoot
@General Stuck:
“Here is a universal truth about presidents. Their power comes from support, and especially their base supporters….Wild and self serving criticism does not help. Focused criticism is fine, so long as it doesn’t remove that needed support. When that happens, you become a republican’s ally, even though you may have a D by your name.”
I agree with almost everything you say, but I have a question. Does Obama and his staff bear any responsibility for this lack of support? If this is true, why have they gone out of their way to alienate their base? I could give you many examples but here’s just a couple. Before the fall elections, Eric Holder made a point of announcing no matter how California voted regarding cannabis, they were going to vigorously pursue federal prosecutions on pot. They could have remained neutral on the issue, but the administration could not resist showing the country how tough they are on pot. What a way to garner support from the base, tell them that you will arrest them! Cynical hippie punching, (they know better), in an attempt to woo voters who are never going to support him is a failed strategy. This is all in the context of giving the Wall Street crooks who destroyed our economy a free pass, the priorities are absurd.
How about Rahm’s, “Fuck the UAW!” – nice way to rally your base. I know that both of those actions severely pissed off a lot of people and dampened support. So from your perspective, are Rahm and Holder Republican allys because they are removing needed support of the base? I’m not trying to be an asshole, I’m really trying to understand your (and others) perspective.
I donated and worked for Obama but feel shit on, is that entirely my fault? Are you saying that I’m wrong to feel this way and its all my doing? Having said all this, of course I will support Obama in 2012 and would never consider voting for one of those Republican assholes, but telling me I just need to clap louder makes me want to puke.
scott
Not an orginal sentiment on this thread, but I’ll add my two cents – you shut up. Obots like you have enabled the most disatrasously weak and regressive Democratic president in our lifetimes, forfeiting a once in a generation political opportunity, and it’s our fault for pointing it out and wanting something different? And we get scolded for it? Good luck, and goodbye!
mclaren
FuzzyWuzzy is asbolutely correct. What better time to primary Obama?
The delusional notion pushed by ABL and other obots seems to be that Obama is so fragile and so hated by the American people that if he gets primaried, his re-election will fail.
Yet ABL herself and many other Obots swell with pride like weenies on a grill when they point out the huge margin by which Obama won in 2008. And they’re right. Obama won running away in 2008. Moreover, Obama’s approval numbers are still stellar — they’re better than Clinton’s at this point in his first time and better than Reagan’s than the equivalent point in his first time.
And what have the Republicans got to run against Obama? Gingrich? Please. Palin? C’mon. Huckabee? Yeah, right.
The only function primarying Obama will have at this point will be to force him to the left — which is where polls show the Americanpeople are at right now.
The only thing politicians understand is a threat of being driven out of office. Primarying Obama will force him back from his current far-right position toward the center and the constitution, which is where the American people are.
SocraticGadfly
I don’t wanna “primary Obama.” Rather, as I did in 2008, because I saw through him by the end of 2007, I’ll be voting Green again. Other than possibly Kucinich (who is good at times, but who is myth at times, too) no Dem on the primary ballot in 2004 was that appealing.
SocraticGadfly
Oh, let me add to “angry blog writer” — you elected a community organizer president and you got punked when the movement got rolled up into the mainstream of the Democratic Party and simultaneously ignored by a president who opted out of public campaign financing. Get a fricking clue.
JC
@different church-lady: Short answer. Because Obama took office with a majority of both the House and the Senate and somehow couldn’t get anything done that really matters to them, somehow couldn’t stop himself from handing the Banksters a Get Out of Jail Free card, somehow couldn’t stop his own Justice Dept from continuing to shred the Constitution, couldn’t get us out of any wars, couldn’t even begin to address trivial issues like global warming. It amazes me that you are so amazed at these sentiments.
the pair
Wow. If this is satire, it’s decent. If you’re serious, then please do put your yuppie ass on a plane to New Zealand STAT because the last thing this country needs is another ignorant and narcissistic (cat) blogger telling everyone to ignore the blood soaked, child killing, banker fellating, social security gutting, arms dealing, oil stealing bourgeois c#nt behind the curtain. Go ahead and be a good little lemming and run off the cliff – I have better things to worry about than the future employment of a war criminal.
Is there ANYTHING Obama could do to get it through your thick heads that he HATES you? If he ate a live Afghan baby during the Superbowl halftime would you make an excuse for it? Probably. And do people STILL think that Obama is any better than the Mitt Romneys of the world? Why? His mocha smoothness and way with words? Piss off. The only difference between DemoCrips and ReBloodicans is that the latter own dicks; and even that is a marginal distinction since it just means they get a reacharound while Wall Street plows their ass.
MMonides
Blog comments: not getting any smarter.
Angry Black Lady
@the pair: wow, the lunatics are still going at it over here, i see.
obama hates me, personally or he hates america?
his mocha smoothness? does he drink couvoisier?
democrips and rebloodicans (ok… interesting choice of words). i’m not going to use the r-word… i know how you people hate the r-word.
and the finale is, of course, steeped in homoerotica.
y’all are nothing if not predictable.
@Bilbo: “no you shut up.”
classic.
i know i should stop myself from reading the comments since i tapped at around 380 (i think). I already know what they say: “Fuck you! No fuck you!” sums it up, yeah?
I’ll leave you with this, also from eclectablog: Hitting the Soft Spot of True Liberals.
Cheers,
ABL/ACL (are we still trying to make the clown thing happen?)
::winks::
Angry Black Lady
@Sid M.: THIS may be the dumbest fucking thing I’ve ever read.
(Dammit, stop reading the comments. Just stop it.)
Corner Stone
@Angry Clown Lady:
With every one of your posts, apparently.
Angry Black Lady
@Corner Stone: oh good. just trying to keep apprised of the progress!