Breaking up with Obama?
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Hell hath no fury like a progressive scorned. I haven’t seen jilted fans scream like this since they drafted Elvis.
Very well, let’s get it out of our systems. All together now: We hate Obama!
Barack Obama is a backstabber. He’s a closet Republican. He’s a corporate shill. He’s a coward. He’s a wuss. He’s a two-timing cheat.
The verdict is in, my friends. Barack Obama is a bad boyfriend.
We progressives say these things, because we’re happiest when betrayed and bawling about it, but we don’t mean it. Not really. It’s a bluff.
If we meant it, if Obama really was just another Republican with a better tan than John Boehner, we’d already have a half dozen serious primary challengers against him. We’d have a third party polling in double digits right now, because at least ten percent of the American electorate calls itself progressive.
And we wouldn’t care if we siphoned off enough votes to elect some Republican like Michele Bachmann because, what the hell—six of one, right?
But that’s not happening and it isn’t because the progressive movement doesn’t have an authentic bill of particulars against Mr. Obama. It’s because we know if we depose him, it’s all on us.
My fellow progressives, it’s time to put up or shut up. If we have a program to sell, we better learn how to sell it. Because right now, we’re failing miserably. We’ve been irrelevant so long we’ve forgotten our own history.
Why was there a New Deal? Was it because FDR was as much a saint as BHO is a devil? Nope, not even close. We got the New Deal because the people demanded it.
And why did the ruling class yield to what the peasants demanded after 150 years of cordially ignoring them? One word: Communism. They were scared witless by a dangerous idea. And the ruling class figured they’d rather part with a few bucks than their heads.
Nothing changes in America unless the people lead. And the powers that be only understand one thing: fear.
Why did we get out of Vietnam? Because the people demanded it. It took eight years of agitation and persuasion and about a thousand riots, but in end the people were persuaded to turn against that crime. And why did the military-industrial complex yield? Fear. The country was becoming ungovernable and they figured that maybe Vietnam wasn’t so important after all.
What didn’t get us the New Deal or Civil Rights or out of Vietnam or anything else of crucial, life-or-death importance, was a knight in shining armor, riding to our rescue. We got those things, we got every good thing we’ve ever attained in America because the people demanded it.
If I hear one more whine about how bad things are and how big a disappointment Obama is I’m going to effing hurl. We’re supposed to be democrats, with a small d, we’re supposed to persuade, yet we pine for a single man on a white horse to save us. And we cry when our champion gets jousted out of the saddle by the forces of darkness.
I’m not arguing that Obama couldn’t have done a better job playing defense. Bill Clinton did, though he never passed even a crappy health care bill and he punted on gays in the military.
What I’m saying is that it’s not up to Obama. It’s up to us. Read that a thousand times if you have to.
And from the paucity of good, positive, persuasive ideas coming out of the ranks of the progressives, I’d say we do.
“Obama sucks,” is not a rallying cry. You want a platform that might, over time, get enough Americans on our side to make an actual difference? Instead of, you know, electing a black knight on a white horse and hoping he brings back Camelot? Try these two words on for size: Economic Justice.
We need our best thinkers to figure out how we propose to achieve that, our best writers to put it in a manifesto, our best speakers to preach it all over the land, and our most telegenic personalities run for office on that platform: Economic Justice.
Or we can keep crying crocodile tears over the terrible, treacherous betrayal we got at the hands of Backstabbing Barack Obama, because he didn’t try hard enough to move the American people ever so slightly to the left.
Well, actually, he did, but they wouldn’t budge. And that’s on us.
Comment by Marty Connors on 18 April 2011:
Waste of time. Waste of money. Waste of energy. And if a progressive were ever to actually get elected president, how long do you think they would be allowed to live? The U. S. presidency - arguably the other branches as well - serves the rich, and given the exploitation and mastery of “free $peech” by the right, it no longer matters what progressives do to try and capture the office.
Our democratically elected Democrats have been ineffective at protecting us from the onslaught from the right, whether it be to counter-legislate Citizen’s United, enact public campaign financing, restore Habeas, throttle the Executive Branch, regulate speculation on oil or other critical resources, or in general act in the best interests of the vast majority of its citizenry. It’s gotten bad enough so that the usual democratic contributors can’t afford to, anymore. All their extra cash has gone toward buying food and fuel. Thanks for nothing, dudes.
It may be time embrace the idea that this nation will henceforth be led by neanderthals in suits. Is there any choice but to take progressivism underground? Encourage the kids to flee the U. S. to a more civilized society?
We’re past the tipping point. Congrats, fat-cats, you won! Now, where’s the exit?
Comment by Chief Hypocrite on 23 April 2011:
Marty, I feel your pain, so after much contemplation I have a recommendation for the next candidate for President that you could be proud of. I truly hate to see you send our kids to a more civil society. The seating capacity of those societies which you did not name, may already have been reached and they might not want our huddled masses of oppressed people. Hey, let’s build a wall to keep people in.
Someone who stands for economic justice is who you are looking for, someone who believes as you do Marty, that any real progressive president will be assassinated at the hands of the likes of Soviet and Cuban wannabe Lee Harvey Oswald. The very same killer who anti US conspiracy promoter Oliver Stone very creatively and profitably converted forever in the minds of the ignorant or the ideologue to a right wing Republican, i.e. the opposition.
The same Oliver Stone who successfully followed in the documentary tainting steps of Michael Moore whose misrepresentations are legendary by those liberals and progressives who quietly let him continue his claim of documentary status while using the techniques of a standup comic who owes nothing to truth in a quest for laughs at the expense of anyone. Fairness is for fools, laughs and tainting the opposition with murder are where it is at. I am not recommending Oliver Stone however because there is someone better for you.
Yes, I have an even better candidate than even your John Edwards of Two Americas Fame, you know, “there are two Americas, the ones I can screw and the ones I can’t screw, yet”.
Yes indeed, since Progressive hero John is at least temporarily on sabbatical from any public screwing of his now dead wife and others, I give you Michael Moore For President. Progressive John will no doubt someday emerge with a tell all about Elizabeth.
Michael Moore has elevated himself above the average hypocrite, pretending to be for the little guy while actually eating the little guy, by his very adept style of screwing the public in both public and private and getting them to love it. Riches and awards galore.
The very one who advised East LA Residents on an anniversary of the Rodney King riots to head out along a white mans’ highway to the neighborhood that he and his map informed them is the home of then living Ronald Reagan and to be sure to burn down as many houses there as they can so that those from far away can see the smoke. Insultingly he advised them to burn that neighborhood down rather than their own neighborhood. Astute and non-nonviolent advice for sure.
Ha, ha, ha what a clever comedian. Yes I Can has always been the mantra of the anti US race baiting Michael Moore who hires mostly white people, who abuses the non profit system, who creates jobs in Michigan only because he gets corporate welfare tax credits, before that he only promised and reneged on promise to create jobs in Michigan to make up for GM factory closing. This promise was made and captured on film in his publicity tour of Roger and Me which was based on a lie that GM President Roger Smith would not meet with him so he had to hound him for an audience.
The same one who took the unusual step to publicly ban a very credible funny documentary about him in the town he owns in Michigan. The very same one who ignored an almost $5000 public full page ad in this company town newspaper to change the name of a movie about him to “Exposing Michael Moore” from “Shooting Michael Moore”. The later name he and his henchmen charged, intended to and would incite violence if shown on the marques of America’s theaters. Carmike Theaters immediately buckled like a broken kite in Katrina, removing the showing from their web site and refusing to talk about it, just days before it was scheduled to show in the afore referenced Traverse City, Michigan.
Before this public book burning, “Shooting Michael Moore” had been shown at a theater in Miami and one in Detroit to laughter and widespread audience appreciation and was being considered for a nationwide roll out in Carmike Theaters. Don’t underestimate the Mike in Carmike or the message he sent to every other theater owner in America and every film distributor here and around the world.
Michael Moore killed Shooting Michael Moore, not something anyone in the film distribution business will admit, rather the preferred term of art is “at this time the film just does not fit any creative slots in our lineup or catalogs”. Very interesting considering the millions of poor films that do and the absolute lack of anyone directly addressing any of the issues presented in this funny and credible and true independent documentary, other than with a two by four. Librarians for and silent of Michael Moore buy and provide free Michael Moore movies in their professed desire to have transparency, but no library is willing to distribute “Shooting Michael Moore”. If they saw the movie they might rightfully put it in the comedy section and the real documentary section.
Yes, and you will be juiced to know that the future President of the United States said that the makers of Shooting Michael Moore are of the ilk that assassinated progressives and liberals like JFK, Bobby, Martin Luther King and others. The FPOTUS said it was high time that someone stood up to these murders and if it has to be him then he will carry the mantle. His reward should be nothing less then the Office of the President of the United States. Very few Progressives are willing to step out, and only those not in the entertainment industry.
Never mind clear evidence to the contrary. Creativity is it’s own reward and virtue if it makes money. Progressives indeed are fond of money too.
So I wish you the best in electing your Progressive, god forbid he or she - if you do not accept my nominee - might live to fulfill their term because then, like now, how could you continue to make the ignorant blanket charge of murder and worse, by the opposition, which might seem to you, like everyone not self identified as a left wing nut liberal. But first you might want to get clean and stone cold sober and ask your Progressive Cubans, Venezuelans, Bolivians, yes even the Iranians, all of whom overthrew tyrants and further enslaved themselves, yes think about it, how did that work for them? The price of bribes in bolivars has quintupled recently according to my Venezuelan friend and the bribee still has less to show for it. Yes send the kids there by all means.
By the way, who shot Liberty Valence or Ronald Reagan or Gerald Ford or others you might not deem to be human or progressive? No doubt a non progressive with a handle to demonize, but wait there was deception there, was it the future politician? Who knows, who cares, what matters is “what will slime the opposition”. Truly, who cares other than a producer pitching it to Oliver Stone as a great theme to create history about a Neanderthal non Progressive killing a Progressive.
Oliver, here’s a twist, the real murderer can be an ancestor of whoever heads the next ticket for the opposition. If it plays, it pays and could very well change history.
Just like Traverse City citizens (actually a non profit organization abusing the spirit of such, if not the law, as Michael Moore is a master at) under the spell of FPOTUS relegated the truly independent, competent and funny film “Shooting Michael Moore” to the dustbins and dungeons for political victims, in chains that are a mere extension of the viciousness and narcissism and abuse of economic power that is Michael Moore.
Here’s another twist, the filmmaker, Kevin Leffler, was then and today remains a Democrat, proud supporter of Obama and former colleague of Michael Moore. Naaaa, the film will never play if Michael Moore has his say, which he already has. And who cares?
Eat your own, boys. When money and power are involved, the insincerely worn banners of idealism, fairness, free speech and transparency, go on, insert your own favorite overused phrase to fool people, is no impediment for erstwhile greedy but utopian Progressives who give true progressiveness, a very regressive smell.
I am progressive but not a Progressive, pure play ideological types are those who refuse to throw away or admit that some progressive ideas have not worked. They will be kept in the hearts of the Utopiers. Sure I can admire their stated intentions but not how they “help” the weakest amongst us with their failed ideas. Move on.
Comment by slowsmile on 26 April 2011:
Here you have a grand situation, where the American economy is busted, running on three flat tires and two cylinders — without any change likely soon, yet still all those devoted politicians amongst us waste time ranting about “their side”. How ridiculous is it to expect ANY politician — whether Democrat OR Republican — to know ANYTHING about proper economics or to give a damn? Let’s face it, all they care about are policies that make them electable, that’s why they always pander to the citizen’s wishes, which, in general, is NOT good economics. But this has always been the nature of American economic policies wrt elections — simplistic psychology in overdrive which always seems to work, that’s why you’ve been suckered by your own desires.
How many here believed Obama’s “Hope and Change” propaganda and has it materialized? No, the situation is just as bad as it ever was because of bad economic policies. So, instead, these clever politicians blame China, Russia, Brazil — anyone but themselves — to deflect you away from the crass stupidity of their own dumb economic policies.
And that’s why you’ve been suckered.
Let’s look at the Fiscal Debt as an example. Very simple arguments here. Big fanfare over Ryan’s Magnificent Plan, so let’s compare that one to Mr Inaction himself — Obama’s Rescue Plan. In order to pay back the Debt let’s assume interest on this debt of 5%.
So that’s an accrual of $3.25 trillion a year interest on the Fiscal Debt alone. Don’t forget that trillion part. There was a huge and adoring fanfare over Ryan’s Magnificent Plan — a proposal to save $61 billion a year which represents precisely 0.093% of the Fiscal Debt — which wouldn’t payback even the interest on the interest of the Fiscal Debt. It would take about $4 trillion A YEAR SAVINGS to payback the interest plus a teensy bit of the principal. Don’t make me laugh. And I won’t even mention Obama’s hapless Sad Economic Plan, another outright bluff, which will have even worse outcomes.
And meanwhile the Republicans and Democrats toss out political bones for all the citizens to fight and wrangle over, nicely distracting them from any real economic thinking or solution. And all the while the politicians accumulate all those “gifts” from their Wall Street “sponsors”. Hey man, it’s payback time….!! Yipee !!
So you’ve been suckered outright whether your a Democrat or a Republican. Again.
Think logically, not politically. It’s the only way to understand any problem. There can only be good and effective economic policy or bad economic policy. Politics shouldn’t even come into it.
Comment by Chief Hypocrite on 27 April 2011:
Amen.
Pingback by Obama in Trump of Birthers | Hypocrisy Reigns Supreme on 27 April 2011:
[...] Rollover Birthers, anything more and you will rival the Utopiers. [...]
Comment by slowsmile on 27 April 2011:
Obama’s Plan will save $4 trillion over 12 years.
Ryan’s Plan will save $6 trillion over 10 years.
Just the interest required on the $75 trillion Fiscal Debt at 5% over 10 years will be $32.5 trillion.
How dumb do these economic policies look now?
You’ve been suckered.
Comment by Richard Cochrane on 28 April 2011:
FOOLS LEADING THE FOOLISH.
Comment by Chief Hypocrite on 28 April 2011:
slow - Treasury is currently paying interest on about 14.3 trillion, when do we get to 75T or are you including other debt and obligations?
Regardless, the economy will have to grow quicker than recent estimates by large multiples just to pay for part of the increasing debt service and to reduce it’s growth.
One thing the tardy barn door closer policy wonks could do right now to help stabilize the economy and create jobs is to open those barn doors back up and start making common sense loans to home buyers if they want to stabilize housing, always a major driver of the US economy.
Absurdly rigid lending rules today are as dangerous as the last decade of mis-priced risk and faux rules. The only difference is the time honored sound of chest beating rule makers promising to never let this happen again, utter hypocrisy.
Without common sense lending the overhand in housing will linger like the hidden bad loans in Japanese banks during their lost decade. Saving too many from foreclosure pain generally is causing the pain to last longer and total pain will be more calculated all in.
Like nature, which wipes out excesses without politics or humane action, economic excesses such as our current but unnecessary perfect storm, are better left to the imperfect cleansing of the established legal system, which after all is our best re-cycler of overpriced assets from the overextended to new owners at lower prices. Price discovery is not just a funny term it is as necessary as bacteria in the gut.
Foreclosures that are delayed hurt everyone else. If the government were creative it would have enacted my recommended New Homestead Act of 2008, but anything short of this is doomed to fail and quick foreclosure as painful and unfair as they are to innocents, is the best medicine.
Yes, the truly guilty should pay big time, but remember, the guilty belong to the same cabal as the lawmakers and the laws are ineffective at real justice much of the time except for the crimes most of us are in a position to commit if we are so inclined. The recent perfect storm was not created on the ground by the likes of you or me or even the over demonized loan brokers, the crimes were committed in rarefied offices by the likes of the overly praised Clinton Treasury Secretary Rubin, indirectly by Warren Buffet through his Moody’s and Goldman investments, many others’s in high places who could have but did not say “whoa” and by both Republican and Democrats who passed laws that allowed insurance risk products to be shielded from the New York Insurance regulator legally, although that regulator could have intervened if they thought there was something of systemic risk going on. They looked the other way.
Laws are written by those who also want protection and who want (them selves or their old or future law firms) to be paid to be on either side of the infraction in their trial lawyers phase. Complicated by design.
Comment by slowsmile on 29 April 2011:
Fiscal Deficit occurs when a government’s total expenditures exceed the revenue that it generates (excluding money from borrowings — which is the National Debt). Fiscal Deficit differs from Fiscal Debt(Total Debt), which is an accumulation of yearly deficits through the years. The US Government never ever talks openly about this horrific Fiscal Debt — they only ever talk about the Fiscal Deficit.
My calculations are based on Fiscal Debt + National Debt and is perhaps best referred to as Total US Debt for understanding.
The worst US debt marker to consider is the Fiscal Gap which has been proposed and accepted in 2006 as a viable economic debt measure by Auerbach and Kotlikoff and is defined as the Fiscal Debt plus all promissory government expenditure in the future. Which is the proposed future spending on Social Security, Pensions, Medicare, Medicaid etc. Kotlikoff has already calculated that the Fiscal Gap now stands at $202 trillion.
Which would make both Ryan’s and Obama’s current fiscal rescue plans look even more ridiculous and laughable.