Matt Stoller writes in The Progressive Case Against Obama on salon:
Under Bush, economic inequality was bad, as 65 cents of every dollar of income growth went to the top 1 percent. Under Obama, however, that number is 93 cents out of every dollar. That’s right, under Barack Obama there is more economic inequality than under George W. Bush. ... most of this shift happened in 2009-2010, when Democrats controlled Congress. This was not, in other words, the doing of the mean Republican Congress. And it’s not strictly a result of the financial crisis; after all, corporate profits did crash, like housing values did, but they also recovered, while housing values have not.
Stoller acknowledges the small window of time before this upcoming election. He recognizes the ferocious pressure on all progressives for “lesser evil” voting for Obama. How distasteful a Romney/Ryan administration is for progressives of all stripes.
Stoller recently debated the historically heroic Daniel Ellsberg on Huffpo live and argued AGAINST Ellsberg’s stance that if a progressive citizen lives in a swing state he MUST cast a “lesser evil” vote for Obama.
Stoller makes a strong case -- leaving off the very troubling Obama administration ever-escalating military dimension -- of why Obama is NOT the lesser of two evils and that a vote for a third party candidate may be the best way to go.
Stoller is no “hard leftie”. He was an advisor for the ActBlue organization that has raised in the past $300 million for Democratic candidates. He was also a producer at MSNBC.
Stoller appreciates very well the many apologetic "takes" on Obama’s plight as president. Obama is well-intentioned but blocked by Republican obstructionists! He is a “good man”, just too nice, not bold enough in temperament or confidence! Or, an “It’s the system, stupid” and “he’s doing his best, what do you expect?” stance. The argument that ANYBODY would be as mired and thwarted as poor Obama, especially after that hellish Bush administration!
Stoller contends that Obama has engineered and achieved EXACTLY what he intended. The fact that the citizenry is struggling and will continue to struggle is irrelevant to the real Obama. He is taking care of the elite, which he has done since he launched his presidency. His own role is as a “conservative technocrat”!
Stoller objects to the “shaping” of our society that he describes Obama as deliberately doing. Obama is CULTIVATING a nation that is AUTHORITARIAN and fast advancing to the status of a “petro-state.” An oligarchy-run system with an incredible double standard. The haves to have it all. The have-nots, to be exploited to the nth degree.
Stoller points out that thanks to Obama “corporate profits recovered dramatically and surpassed previous highs.” On the other hand, home equity levels stayed static.
Stoller can’t stress enough the significance of Obama as the first U.S. president who has managed to permanently break the link between corporate profit-making and a corresponding financial uplifting of average citizens. Corporations can now score obscene profits and these profits are not at all shared with citizen workers or the American society at large. As Stoller starkly puts it: “Obama has officially enshrined rights for the elite in our constitutional order and removed rights from everyone else “
The bailouts and the associated Federal Reserve actions were not primarily shifts of funds to bankers; they were a guarantee that property rights for a certain class of creditors were immune from challenge or market forces. The foreclosure crisis, with its rampant criminality, predatory lending, and document forgeries, represents the flip side.
Property rights for debtors simply increasingly exist solely at the pleasure of the powerful.
The lack of prosecution of Wall Street executives, the ability of banks to borrow at 0 percent from the Federal Reserve while most of us face credit card rates of 15-30 percent, and the bailouts are all part of the re-creation of the American system of law around Obama’s oligarchy.
Stoller points to the countless string of Obama broken promises since his election. For example, no help from Obama to raise the minimum wage, to ban the replacement of striking workers, to guarantee seven days of paid sick leave for workers, to challenge the monopolization of media by just a few mega-conglomerates, to renegotiate NAFTA, to end the persecution of whistleblowers, to pass the Employee Free Choice Act, to restore habeas corpus, to ensure labor protections in the FAA bill.
OBAMA TURNED HIS BACK ON ALL OF THESE!
Stoller maintains that Obama truly does believe he is doing what is best for society!
Obama believes, says Stoller, that conservative technocrats should run the “complex machinery of state” and “reap private rewards for doing so." The resulting RADICAL INEQUALITY -- politically and economically -- is absolutely fine with Obama!
THE REAL OBAMA.
Which of Obama’s autobiographies was it in which Obama bragged of playing a persona-vacuum for the optimistic projections of others? This gift seems to have been off the charts successful for him, and dooming for the rest of us. Creating eventual confusion, cognitive-dissonant confusion.
Stoller is calling out the REAL OBAMA for all of us progressives.
Obama is trying to mimic, Stoller asserts, a “Middle Eastern resource extraction based” economy. A “petro-state” if you will. Obama is shooting for the U.S. to be the “largest producer of hydrocarbons in the world.” Hang the environment! The basis of such a country is an authoritarian oligarchy, and in Stoller’s words, our country is becoming more and more “murderous toward the rest of the world and suicidal in our aggressive lack of attention to climate change.”
Stoller exposes some profoundly foreshadowing behavior of Obama’s immediately upon election. Too many of us have forgotten that Obama had “enormous leverage” with a dominant Democratic Party in Congress thanks to Obama’s 2008 election coat tails. Obama never seriously attempted to make use of this congressional leverage.
Stoller discloses that Bush’s own Treasury Secretary, Hank Paulson, offered a deal to Barney Frank to force banks to “write down mortgages and stem foreclosures.” Paulson offered this in exchange for the Senate to speed up releasing TARP money. Paulson demanded that Obama sign off on such a citizen-benefitting deal. To Franks’ surprise, OBAMA VETOED THE IDEA!
Stoller cites Neil Barofsky’s book “Bailout” which highlights Obama's role in fostering the “foreclosure crisis.” Stoller writes:
Tim Geithner said, in private meetings, that the foreclosure mitigation programs were not meant to mitigate foreclosures, but to spread out pain for the banks, the famous “foam the runway” comment. This central lie is key to the entire Obama economic strategy. It is not that Obama was stymied by Congress, or was up against a system, or faced a massive crisis, which led to the shape of the economy we see today. Rather, Obama had a handshake deal to help the middle class offered to him by Paulson, and Obama said no. He was not constrained by anything but his own policy instincts. And the reflation of corporate profits and financial assets and death of the middle class were the predictable results.
THE REFLATION OF CORPORATE PROFITS AND FINANCIAL ASSETS AND THE DEATH OF THE MIDDLE CLASS WAS THE PREDICTABLE RESULT!
Sounds like what a lot of strident “pragmatic” progressives are declaring would happen with Romney and Ryan!
Stoller declares, “The rest of Obama’s policy framework looks very different when you wake up from the dream state pushed by cable news.”
Stoller labels Obama hypocritical in relation to his escalation of the war on medical marijuana given his personal history. Stoller writes that Obama “helps keep a half a million people in jail for participating in a legitimate economy outlawed by the drug warrior industry.”
Stoller calls out Obama for quietly pushing Chinese investment in U.S. infrastructure and seeking to privatize public education, shackling union protection of workers (e.g. the FAA authorization bill) and for having inserted a provision into the stimulus bill ensuring that odious AIG executives got fat and profoundly undeserved bonuses (which he lied about doing). Rigging Wall Street markets, Stoller explains, Obama seems to minimize as clever and savvy business leadership, especially in the case of Lloyd Blankfein and Jamie Dimon. Obama praises them and actually blames their millions of victims as "irresponsible borrowers.”
Obama will not be protecting Social Security and Medicare acccording to Stoller. He claims Obama wants these programs ONLY for the “most vulnerable.” All American workers have paid into these programs. Why should not ALL American workers benefit from their own contributions, not just a “vulnerable base”, Stoller asks. Obama and Romney BOTH see basic needs and rights of average Americans as irrelevant.
Stoller takes on what most Obama apologists declare are the two deal breakers for supporting another Obama administration: women’s rights and Supreme Court nominations.
Obama is not a clean and clear advocate for women’s choice Stoller reminds us. Choice would not necessarily stay safe under the Obama administration and ended under a Romney one. Stoller warns privileged women progressives not to ignore the overall struggles of all women in so many dimensions, and not blindly cherry-pick this one, granted very important, issue to base their votes on.
Larry Summers, Rahm Emanuel and the rest of Obama’s power clique were not a women-mentoring cabal Stoller discloses. One female White House advisor, Anita Duncan, Stoller quotes as having called Obama’s WH a “hostile work environment” for women.
Stoller reminds us that Obama insisted that women under 17 should not have access to Plan B birth control. He overruled scientists and the FDA backing accessibility to that segment of the population, declaring endearingly but patronizingly that as a “father of two daughters” he didn’t want his daughters able to buy such drugs next to “bubble gum and batteries”. Of course, Obama’s glib, off-the-cuff dismissals of earnest, socially responsible policy proposals never embrace their serious, extenuating circumstances, as in this case, such as young women pregnant from rape and incest.
Stoller suggest that Obama’s healthcare bill is not as women-friendly as people would like to believe. Tax credits and Medicaid will be subject to the Hyde Amendment, which will prohibit use for abortion. Abortion services available via healthcare exchanges is still undetermined.
Stoller emphasizes that women’s rights go far beyond the abortion issue. Women are impacted by “predatory lending and foreclosures” in disproporationate numbers. Their families are impacted by the double standard and racist "war on drugs" and resulting incarceration of hundreds of thousands of young people. Stoller asserts that 1.6 million more women are now in poverty. 1.2 million migrants have been deported by the DHS. Obama’s mass teacher layoffs have impacted women in staggering numbers in that particular profession.
Stoller's indicting conclusion about Obama's policies in relation to the current plight of American women: “Oligarchies in general are just not good for women.”
As for the Supreme Court argument for voting for Obama, Stoller discloses that Obama did not want liberals such as Sen. Patrick Leahy to block Sam Alito from the Supreme Court appointment.
Stoller also reminds us that Sonya Sotomayer in her history has ruled to limit abortion access for women and that Elena Kagan’s position is still not even clear.
Stoller stresses that Obama and Romney have no ideological commitment to women’s rights issues. They are useful to them mainly for campaign propaganda.
Stoller declares that those considered “purist” progressives who get condescended to by more so-called “pragmatic” progressives should not be pressured to voting for Obama even in swing states.
If fear of Romney authoritarianism induces progressives to vote for Obama is so strong, Stoller accepts that. Stoller admits that Romney would be readier to attack Iran than Obama, more than likely, but that does not mean Obama would not attack Iran.
Stoller sees Obama as more dangerous. Stoller is gravely troubled by an Obama administration that instead of championing civil liberties has helped to normalize such horrors as torture, drones, war and general state authoritarianism!
Stoller concedes that though Romney may be just as anti-democracy a leader as Obama, more so-called progressive citizens under Romney would be more awake and put constraints on him. The progressive community would unite more and one large segment, as with Obama, would not cut Romney the same enormous amount of slack Obama was so often granted, only to have been betrayed over and over by an Obama who never felt responsible to explain himself. To be accountable for anti-democratic, anti-citizen welfare decisions.
Stoller declares that Bush may have “popularized” a “thuggish political culture” but Obama has “solidified” it!
Stoller praises third party efforts and those willing to say no to political, governmental “EVIL”. He has high praise for third parties and third party voting. He writes:
Well, voting third party or even just honestly portraying Obama’s policy architecture is a good way to identify to ourselves and each other who actually has the integrity to not cave to bullying. Then the task starting after the election is to build this network of organized people with intellectual and political integrity into a group who understands how to move the levers of power across industry, government, media and politics. We need to put ourselves into the position to be able to run the government.
After all, if a political revolution came tomorrow, could those who believe in social justice and climate change actually govern? Do we have the people to do it? Do we have the ideas, the legislative proposals, the understanding of how to reorganize our society into a sustainable and socially just one? I suspect, no.
When the next crisis comes, and it will come, space will again open up for real policy change. The most important thing we can use this election for is to prepare for that moment. That means finding ways of seeing who is on our side and building a group with the will to power and the expertise to make the right demands. We need to generate the inner confidence to blow up the political consensus, against the railings of the men in suits. If there had been an actual full-scale financial meltdown in 2008 without a bailout, while it would have been bad, it probably would have given us a fighting chance of warding off planetary catastrophe and reorganizing our politics.
Instead the oligarchs took control, because we weren’t willing to face them down when we needed to show courage. So now we have the worst of all worlds, an inevitably worse crisis and an even more authoritarian structure of governance.
At some point soon, we will face yet another moment where the elites say, “Do what we want or there will be a meltdown.” Do we have enough people on our side willing to collectively say “do what we want or there will be a global meldown”?
This election is a good mechanism to train people in the willingness to say that and mean it. That is, the reason to advocate for a third-party candidate is to build the civic muscles willing to say no to the establishment in a crisis moment we all know is coming.
Stoller recognizes how “lesser evilism” reactionism negatively impacts the progressive community. It fosters cynicism, hopelessness and surrender.
We as progressive Americans need to be courageous and fight a malevolent elite, profoundly sponsored and enabled by the Obamas and the Romneys. We need to defiantly cultivate an American society that is just and sustainable for ALL CITIZENS, not continually strengthening a sociopathic and capturing financial aristocracy!
[cross-posted on correntewire]
-----------
One man's pragmatist is just about anyother's hypocrite. R&R ;-)
We as progressive Americans need to be courageous and fight a malevolent elite, profoundly sponsored and enabled by the Obamas and the Romneys. We need to defiantly cultivate an American society that is just and sustainable for ALL CITIZENS, not continually strengthening a sociopathic and capturing financial aristocracy!
~
the empire is centuries in the making and one man cannot
hold back the tide.
even Lincoln now would be at a bit of a loss:
"I shall do less whenever I shall believe what I am doing hurts the cause, and I shall do more whenever I shall believe doing more will help the cause. I shall try to correct errors when shown to be errors; and I shall adopt new views so fast as they shall appear to be true views.
I have here stated my purpose according to my view of official duty; and I intend no modification of my oft-expressed personal wish that all men every where could be free."
flip flopper, i might say , facetiously.
~
oligarchs are entrenched. but due to media,
they hate bad publicity. and this is the key................
~
the empire is centuries in the making and one man cannot
hold back the tide.
even Lincoln now would be at a bit of a loss:
"I shall do less whenever I shall believe what I am doing hurts the cause, and I shall do more whenever I shall believe doing more will help the cause. I shall try to correct errors when shown to be errors; and I shall adopt new views so fast as they shall appear to be true views.
I have here stated my purpose according to my view of official duty; and I intend no modification of my oft-expressed personal wish that all men every where could be free."
flip flopper, i might say , facetiously.
~
oligarchs are entrenched. but due to media,
they hate bad publicity. and this is the key................
Hello libbyliberal, The Red Man and Slow and Pretty and the rest of the gang are worried about you in NYC tonight. We are sending our best thoughts eastward and hoping you will be safe. Stay safe, ok? We have had difficulties with OS lately - not sure why - but couldn't get access...
I read his article in Salon and overall it read to me more prosecutorial than critically analytical. I'm not one for lengthy comments so I'll just focus on the Supreme Cort appointments.
It's early days to assess Kagan but Sotomayor has generally voted with the court's "liberal" wing. Romney's website states that "As president, Mitt will nominate judges in the mold of Chief Justice Roberts and Justices Scalia, Thomas, and Alito."
And look at the damage one errant nomination can do. In 1988 with Dukakis versus Bush Sr., that was probably the race where there appeared to be the fewest differences between the main parties. But look what a difference Bush's nomination of Thomas has made. Look at all the 5-4 votes like Citizen's United where a different justice would have had profound and lasting effects. As it is, that one decision has likely set back progressive causes by many years.
I appreciate that you'll vote Green and as in the case of my California friends, it doesn't much matter, so long as you don't persuade too many other to do the same. I suspect we agree on many more issues than we disagree and we're probably pretty close on disliking the increasing corporatization of public policy. In my view, voting 3rd party in the hopes that by the 2030s or so we might see a more progressive President (and a similarly composed Congress) is at best the long way round.
I don't agree that a Romney presidency will be much the same as another term for Obama and I think there would be damaging effects that live on well after his term in office.
It's early days to assess Kagan but Sotomayor has generally voted with the court's "liberal" wing. Romney's website states that "As president, Mitt will nominate judges in the mold of Chief Justice Roberts and Justices Scalia, Thomas, and Alito."
And look at the damage one errant nomination can do. In 1988 with Dukakis versus Bush Sr., that was probably the race where there appeared to be the fewest differences between the main parties. But look what a difference Bush's nomination of Thomas has made. Look at all the 5-4 votes like Citizen's United where a different justice would have had profound and lasting effects. As it is, that one decision has likely set back progressive causes by many years.
I appreciate that you'll vote Green and as in the case of my California friends, it doesn't much matter, so long as you don't persuade too many other to do the same. I suspect we agree on many more issues than we disagree and we're probably pretty close on disliking the increasing corporatization of public policy. In my view, voting 3rd party in the hopes that by the 2030s or so we might see a more progressive President (and a similarly composed Congress) is at best the long way round.
I don't agree that a Romney presidency will be much the same as another term for Obama and I think there would be damaging effects that live on well after his term in office.
Stoller lays out some solid arguments.
Check out Chris Hedges latest column on Truthdig titled "Why I'm Voting Green." He interviews Jill Stein who lays out many of the same arguments as Stoller. Hedges argues that we need to resist the corporate duopoly and voting 3rd party is one way. Refuse to participate in their charade. While the masses argue over which corporate candidate they will vote for, they are diverting their energy away from building a resistance to the corporate controlled State. The likes of Cordle, Apisa, Kosher, & O'Rourke should be allies in the fight against corporate dominance, but they end up supporting it with their energy focused on this meaningless election instead of fighting to build a movement to resist.
Check out Chris Hedges latest column on Truthdig titled "Why I'm Voting Green." He interviews Jill Stein who lays out many of the same arguments as Stoller. Hedges argues that we need to resist the corporate duopoly and voting 3rd party is one way. Refuse to participate in their charade. While the masses argue over which corporate candidate they will vote for, they are diverting their energy away from building a resistance to the corporate controlled State. The likes of Cordle, Apisa, Kosher, & O'Rourke should be allies in the fight against corporate dominance, but they end up supporting it with their energy focused on this meaningless election instead of fighting to build a movement to resist.
I forgot to mention to stay safe during the Frankenstorm and wanted to let you know I have seen your posts popping up on Info Clearing House lately. The latest one is your post on the Disposition Matrix. Way to go, although I doubt they pay you for posting, at least it gets wider readership so you can get your ideas out to a larger audience.
jmac, terrific summation! thanks for commenting. have been struggling to get onto os! appreciate as always your take! :-)
james, so grateful for you comment. i thought this was such a strong and documented article by Matt Stoller, I learned a bunch of things, to write about but maybe open salon has reached a saturation point with me and my pressure for Jill Stein and against Obama as much as Romney!
Thanks for reminder of how formidable the power of the rat bastards of the universe is.
Oligarchs seem to be making their own publicity, James, since six mega-conglomerates worldwide monopolize ALL the "disinformation" mainstream conduits to us average citizens. I am sure they are trying to pull the plug on honest information via grassroots activism.
hope you are okay with the storm! I have been a lucky New Yorker. Home and safe with power! So far...
best, libby
james, so grateful for you comment. i thought this was such a strong and documented article by Matt Stoller, I learned a bunch of things, to write about but maybe open salon has reached a saturation point with me and my pressure for Jill Stein and against Obama as much as Romney!
Thanks for reminder of how formidable the power of the rat bastards of the universe is.
Oligarchs seem to be making their own publicity, James, since six mega-conglomerates worldwide monopolize ALL the "disinformation" mainstream conduits to us average citizens. I am sure they are trying to pull the plug on honest information via grassroots activism.
hope you are okay with the storm! I have been a lucky New Yorker. Home and safe with power! So far...
best, libby
S- thanks so much for checking in on me. Sorry to be so remote. NYC was going through more than I realized. I have survival guilt being home and safe with lights and power and dry. The wind outside howled like a freight train for hours. 90 mph winds. At times my lights flickered and I wondered if I would be plunged into darkness and de-interneted without phone, etc. but it hasn't happened at least not yet. I am one of the luckier ones. Some were evacuated early or were told to evacuate and didn't and got stuck.
700,000 people in NYC lost power apparently and they don't know when it will be restored. I had been without power for a couple days and no fun years ago.
My workplace had the nerve to insist I try to work on computer at home (I assumed my "snow day" from work so to speak) but system at work kept crashing so not much work for those of us at home. Also workers were losing power, some.
Take care. I hope you and yours are doing fine. Will try to catch up. I of course am on my political mission as always.
Access to open salon is a struggle or impossible so often lately. So appreciate your check in!
Love, libby
700,000 people in NYC lost power apparently and they don't know when it will be restored. I had been without power for a couple days and no fun years ago.
My workplace had the nerve to insist I try to work on computer at home (I assumed my "snow day" from work so to speak) but system at work kept crashing so not much work for those of us at home. Also workers were losing power, some.
Take care. I hope you and yours are doing fine. Will try to catch up. I of course am on my political mission as always.
Access to open salon is a struggle or impossible so often lately. So appreciate your check in!
Love, libby
Abrawang, how great to see you. thanks!
Stoller sure is critical but he brings up stuff I didn't know about. My exasperation with Obama is off the charts so stoller just added fuel to that fire. I feel I have been staring at Obama's little finger for 4 LONG years waiting for him to lift it even modestly to help the average citizens or lower. Remember when he said to "make him"! to keep his feet to the fire. what bullshit that was.
Yes, Kagan and Sotomayer. Glad to hear Sotomayor so far so good. Yes, Alito and Scalia and Roberts, they are scary. But look at Obama protective of Alito and his appointment! Beneath Obama's rhetoric and the assumptions people make about him is someone not morally committed and very disconnected from progressives and their issues! Talk about exploiting and taking for granted a constituency. It is sickening.
Abrawang, I have as many issues with my fellow "pragmatic progressives" as I do with obama. where is the outrage? why is Obama our choice for re-election when to me he deserves impeachment for his trashing civil liberties and his war waging and droning. Dear God! I am so disgusted with the war crimes. And the sell out so early on so many things, but especially universal single payer health care.
He has no moral vision. He is purely political and a technocrat who didn't campaign as one so the vetting Dem party stabbed us in the back as much as Obama. And the Dem Party has gone corporate and can't serve 2 masters. So they serve the other America of privilege and let us twist in the wind, in the winds of a Sandy-like economic hurricane!
You sound like you trust Obama is going to do something about the corporatization of America. He is its greatest catalyst. People are trying to protect Obama's power which he in turn uses for oligarchs.
I think we are screwed with Romney or Obama. But Obama has seriously got to be ousted. How many years of betrayal does he get to commit.
I think the more we build up the third parties the better. I know plenty of people are calling out Romney. I am calling out Obama whose amorality is minimized and excused by my fellow progressives to an extraordinary degree. Who should have been squawking about Obama betrayals as they were happening. Instead, excuses were being made for obama and MSNBC was blathering their team Dem propaganda. Unbelievable.
On that note, I thank you for wading through this long blog and commenting and giving me your take and enduring my ranting! Your take far more popular, I know, than mine!
best, libby
Stoller sure is critical but he brings up stuff I didn't know about. My exasperation with Obama is off the charts so stoller just added fuel to that fire. I feel I have been staring at Obama's little finger for 4 LONG years waiting for him to lift it even modestly to help the average citizens or lower. Remember when he said to "make him"! to keep his feet to the fire. what bullshit that was.
Yes, Kagan and Sotomayer. Glad to hear Sotomayor so far so good. Yes, Alito and Scalia and Roberts, they are scary. But look at Obama protective of Alito and his appointment! Beneath Obama's rhetoric and the assumptions people make about him is someone not morally committed and very disconnected from progressives and their issues! Talk about exploiting and taking for granted a constituency. It is sickening.
Abrawang, I have as many issues with my fellow "pragmatic progressives" as I do with obama. where is the outrage? why is Obama our choice for re-election when to me he deserves impeachment for his trashing civil liberties and his war waging and droning. Dear God! I am so disgusted with the war crimes. And the sell out so early on so many things, but especially universal single payer health care.
He has no moral vision. He is purely political and a technocrat who didn't campaign as one so the vetting Dem party stabbed us in the back as much as Obama. And the Dem Party has gone corporate and can't serve 2 masters. So they serve the other America of privilege and let us twist in the wind, in the winds of a Sandy-like economic hurricane!
You sound like you trust Obama is going to do something about the corporatization of America. He is its greatest catalyst. People are trying to protect Obama's power which he in turn uses for oligarchs.
I think we are screwed with Romney or Obama. But Obama has seriously got to be ousted. How many years of betrayal does he get to commit.
I think the more we build up the third parties the better. I know plenty of people are calling out Romney. I am calling out Obama whose amorality is minimized and excused by my fellow progressives to an extraordinary degree. Who should have been squawking about Obama betrayals as they were happening. Instead, excuses were being made for obama and MSNBC was blathering their team Dem propaganda. Unbelievable.
On that note, I thank you for wading through this long blog and commenting and giving me your take and enduring my ranting! Your take far more popular, I know, than mine!
best, libby
AP, thanks so much for coming by. I thought I had jumped the shark with my high pressure against the Obama regime and lost readership dramatically but I hoped that this summation of Stoller's blog got a read because he makes points I was not aware of and have not addressed.
Thanks for head's up re Hedges. He is so heroic to me.
We need solidarity and we need a RESISTANCE!!! that is the word, AP!
We have been having this battle of the progressives since the health care issues and before. Why I left FDL that has travelled more left since I left but not as far as me. It breaks my heart the progressive community division and continues to confuse the hell out of me. But I stand by the idea that fundamentals can't be compromised on and Obama jumped that shark and thus those enabling him!
AP, thanks for asking about Frankenstorm. I am one of the luckier New Yorkers. Did not lose power, but had the lights flickering and making me hold my breath! 700,000 people were not so lucky at least. We shall see what the clean up will be like, since the NYC infrastructure itself has been failing incrementally. Now this!!! I thank God so far so good. Safe and dry.
Thanks for mention of last blog. I am always thrilled when info clearing house picks up one of my blogs. I think this is the fourth! I notice one commenter was calling me out for ranting. Different temperaments. Different voices are called for and mine appeals to one segment of people and not others. So be it. Your encouragement was a nice antidote to my fretting I let my feelings leak too much in that one. Leak? Hah! More like explode.
You take care, AP! Thanks for the lift!
best, libby
Thanks for head's up re Hedges. He is so heroic to me.
We need solidarity and we need a RESISTANCE!!! that is the word, AP!
We have been having this battle of the progressives since the health care issues and before. Why I left FDL that has travelled more left since I left but not as far as me. It breaks my heart the progressive community division and continues to confuse the hell out of me. But I stand by the idea that fundamentals can't be compromised on and Obama jumped that shark and thus those enabling him!
AP, thanks for asking about Frankenstorm. I am one of the luckier New Yorkers. Did not lose power, but had the lights flickering and making me hold my breath! 700,000 people were not so lucky at least. We shall see what the clean up will be like, since the NYC infrastructure itself has been failing incrementally. Now this!!! I thank God so far so good. Safe and dry.
Thanks for mention of last blog. I am always thrilled when info clearing house picks up one of my blogs. I think this is the fourth! I notice one commenter was calling me out for ranting. Different temperaments. Different voices are called for and mine appeals to one segment of people and not others. So be it. Your encouragement was a nice antidote to my fretting I let my feelings leak too much in that one. Leak? Hah! More like explode.
You take care, AP! Thanks for the lift!
best, libby
libby i am fine. no power outage here in my town.
all around me, in new england, and the mid atlantic states,
from which the Republic sprang
so long ago...devastation.......
~
oligarchy will rule til the end of times.
someday 1. we will have a 'marxist' sort of conglomeration of workers
all sharing the same ideals, no matter race, creed or color.
or
2. anarchy.
or
3. a new party. but a new party needs the charismatic leadership
of a clinton/hitler/ fdr/kennedy hybrid, i fear. he or she may
be born in our lifetime..let us hope for yet another american
saviour..we have had many..................xo
all around me, in new england, and the mid atlantic states,
from which the Republic sprang
so long ago...devastation.......
~
oligarchy will rule til the end of times.
someday 1. we will have a 'marxist' sort of conglomeration of workers
all sharing the same ideals, no matter race, creed or color.
or
2. anarchy.
or
3. a new party. but a new party needs the charismatic leadership
of a clinton/hitler/ fdr/kennedy hybrid, i fear. he or she may
be born in our lifetime..let us hope for yet another american
saviour..we have had many..................xo
Libby, I’d like to know more about the context of the Alito remark. He was nominated by Bush the Lesser in the fall of 2005 at which time Obama had been a Senator for less than a year. He wouldn’t have been the least bit influential, he himself hasn’t nominated anyone like Alito and it sounds like there’s more to the story than the implied support for Alito. Also, I’m almost certain that Obama voted against his confirmation. So I give this one no weight.
Off to the office now. I’ll reply to a couple of other points this evening. Hope you stayed dry and undamaged.
Off to the office now. I’ll reply to a couple of other points this evening. Hope you stayed dry and undamaged.
James, Stein has the charisma and the smarts which is why she has been so earnestly separated from the people via the corporate media tools. The oligarchs are shameless and the American citizens go after messengers and spiritual leaders as if they are their worst enemies because they don't want their glass jars of denial messed with. It is heart-breaking and crazymaking to the rest of us doomed because of them.
Abrawang, so do consider the Supreme Court wobbly hope for Obama overwhelmingly important and all that Obama is doing NOW that is in your face anti-constitutional and evil and murderous -- drones and war and anti-due process detention -- and then giving ALL white collar mass crime immunity and calling such behavior "clever" and victims of his BFF perpetrators "irresponsible investors", his preparing to cut into Medicare and Social Security soon, but as long as he SUGGESTS he will support choice and will assign a non-racist pro-women (and considering what Obama administration is doing to so many blacks and women it is stunning) Supreme all is right with you? He gets a blank check for EVERYTHING AND ANYTHING else? He gets a vote, an endorsement to carry on?????
You pick this narrow narrow range of argument, yes, important to America's FUTURE, but not factoring in how grotesquely Obama is committing such HIGH CRIMES AND MISDEMEANORS of the present.
It makes me want to bang my head against the nearest wall, the willful cherry-picking denial of the Obama apologists and minimizers!!!
I say, wake up and smell the Obama fascism!
best, libby
Abrawang, so do consider the Supreme Court wobbly hope for Obama overwhelmingly important and all that Obama is doing NOW that is in your face anti-constitutional and evil and murderous -- drones and war and anti-due process detention -- and then giving ALL white collar mass crime immunity and calling such behavior "clever" and victims of his BFF perpetrators "irresponsible investors", his preparing to cut into Medicare and Social Security soon, but as long as he SUGGESTS he will support choice and will assign a non-racist pro-women (and considering what Obama administration is doing to so many blacks and women it is stunning) Supreme all is right with you? He gets a blank check for EVERYTHING AND ANYTHING else? He gets a vote, an endorsement to carry on?????
You pick this narrow narrow range of argument, yes, important to America's FUTURE, but not factoring in how grotesquely Obama is committing such HIGH CRIMES AND MISDEMEANORS of the present.
It makes me want to bang my head against the nearest wall, the willful cherry-picking denial of the Obama apologists and minimizers!!!
I say, wake up and smell the Obama fascism!
best, libby
Libby, it’s not so much that he gets a pass on everything else; it’s that Romney will bring in worse policies and appointments. This is where we’ve of two different mindsets. For me, as I suspect several others here, politics is the art of the possible and while I’d have liked to see more progressive policiesthat’s unlikely to happen in a political environment where those who think he’s a foreign born, Muslim socialist outnumber folks with your outlook around 15:1. I’ve had similar discussions with my dearest friend who has voted Nader three times and will vote for Anderson or Stein this year. Suffice to say that after many years and many hours of discussion, neither of us has brought the other around to their way of thinking.
Although most of us supporting Obama or Stein would agree on most big issues (e.g. sharply higher taxes on the riches, sharply reduced military spending, ready access to reproductive services, more action to combat global warming), we do fall into two camps in how we look at the current situation. I think it’s better to avoid the worst outcome (Romney kowtowing to his rich friends and the tea party dominated congress) while trying to persuade Obama and the Dems for better policies. My friend, and maybe you (I hope I’m not mis-characterizing) seem to take the view that enough disagreeable policies disqualifies someone without consideration of who else might get elected. As I said, there seem to be two distinct mindsets and I can’t think of some meta-principle to appeal to that might resolve the difference.
Although most of us supporting Obama or Stein would agree on most big issues (e.g. sharply higher taxes on the riches, sharply reduced military spending, ready access to reproductive services, more action to combat global warming), we do fall into two camps in how we look at the current situation. I think it’s better to avoid the worst outcome (Romney kowtowing to his rich friends and the tea party dominated congress) while trying to persuade Obama and the Dems for better policies. My friend, and maybe you (I hope I’m not mis-characterizing) seem to take the view that enough disagreeable policies disqualifies someone without consideration of who else might get elected. As I said, there seem to be two distinct mindsets and I can’t think of some meta-principle to appeal to that might resolve the difference.
Why should we actively support Obama? If Romney's agenda of lower taxes
for the wealthy and less regulation of industry, that fact that 17 of his 24 foreign
policy advisors are the same neo-cons who ran our foreign policy under
Bush/Cheney and that he intends to privatize Medicare, defund Planned
Parenthood and work to overturn Roe vs. Wade is not enough to convince you
that the future of our county is in play in this election, one issue alone
should motivate you to do your part to insure President Obama's
reelection. It happens to be one of the few enumerated powers of the
Presidency: the appointment of Supreme Court judges.
This is often the longest lasting legacy of a Presidency, as demonstrated by George W.
Bush, whose appointments of Samuel Alito and Chief Justice John Roberts
brought us Citizens' United. This is a court poised to reshape this
county, eviscerating rights and protections that so many have struggled,
and even died for, to win for all of us over the last two hundred years.
While we'll get another chance in four years to vote out who ever wins
the Presidency, we will be forced to live with their Supreme Court
appointments for generations.
Romney has stated unequivocally that he would appoint Justices who would
vote to overturn Roe vs. Wade, and you can be sure they'll continue to
give unfettered power to the 1%.
for the wealthy and less regulation of industry, that fact that 17 of his 24 foreign
policy advisors are the same neo-cons who ran our foreign policy under
Bush/Cheney and that he intends to privatize Medicare, defund Planned
Parenthood and work to overturn Roe vs. Wade is not enough to convince you
that the future of our county is in play in this election, one issue alone
should motivate you to do your part to insure President Obama's
reelection. It happens to be one of the few enumerated powers of the
Presidency: the appointment of Supreme Court judges.
This is often the longest lasting legacy of a Presidency, as demonstrated by George W.
Bush, whose appointments of Samuel Alito and Chief Justice John Roberts
brought us Citizens' United. This is a court poised to reshape this
county, eviscerating rights and protections that so many have struggled,
and even died for, to win for all of us over the last two hundred years.
While we'll get another chance in four years to vote out who ever wins
the Presidency, we will be forced to live with their Supreme Court
appointments for generations.
Romney has stated unequivocally that he would appoint Justices who would
vote to overturn Roe vs. Wade, and you can be sure they'll continue to
give unfettered power to the 1%.
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