Here's a beaut that made the Rec List. Remember, this is a disillusioned Obama Fan:
I didn't want to believe it. I didn't want to believe this transformational candidate would turn into a transactional president.
But what I don't get, and can never forgive, is why the greatest social movement in the last 25 years had to be been ground down the moral equivalent of Disney Land - bland, non-offensive, and complete fantasy.
Hmm, 25 years. So, 2008 - 25 = 1983.
So, Axelrod's 2008 astroturf operation is greater than Gay Rights?* Greater than Act Up? Greater than feminism? Heck, greater than moving the Christianists into politics as Rs?
Please. I know I should be working on solidarity here. I get that. But [pounds head on desk].
Oh, and the action item is... Working the phones for DREAM. Why not send money to the Greens?
NOTE * Non-violent, I might add.
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The last big push for "solidarity"
Was to support The Big O tirelessly and unquestioningly.
It's well worth noting that solidarity isn't a principle, especially if it's not centered on clear policy objectives.
So when people, even those I admire, call for solidarity, my answer is "around what, exactly?"
Oh good grief
I know, the poor dear has been disillusioned (sort of, still thinks Obamamania was a great social movement, bwahahahaahaaah). But.....
Obama is exactly who he said he was in the campaign. I have yet to be surprised or disappointed by him. Of course I voted for Cynthia McKinney, so maybe I'm just one of those low information types that people like the poor dear above whined about all during the campaign and health care debates.
If it votes like a Republican and passes bills like a Republican and signs Executive Orders like a Republican then is must be...................a Democrat
Also, Obama is not a transactional president
at least not for anything progressive or liberal. So there's still a category error (tm VL) as to who and what Obama is.
As others have noted, he had bigger majorities and couldn't even reinstate Clinton's tax policies. His tax package is actually even more regressive than W's. To the extent he's a transactional president, he's a conservative one. But I'm not even sure he's that. Essentially, he seems to simply agree with GOP policy and then gets enough Dems to vote for it so it passes because he's a Democratic President and says so! That's not the same as giving a few things to get a bigger ticket bill passed. Of course, in many areas, he's largely avoided congress - instead enacting largely regressive and conservative policies, often on a grand scale see his current war making and claims of executive secrecy, through fiat. When something progressives want done - stopping DADT - could be done by fiat, it never is.
If Obama were a transactional president, we'd have gotten something in exchange of bailing out the banks beyond more fraud and record corp profits. We didn't because he isn't interested in getting anything for our interest. The entire transaction is one sided, in his mind, pro-elite.
"Do what you feel in your heart to be right -- for you'll be criticized anyway. You'll be damned if you do, and damned if you don't. " - Eleanor Roosevelt
What? NOT a Dem principle to cut taxes for the rich and raise on
the lowest earners in the nation?
In this instance at the very least Obama has truly been a transformational president of the worst order and direction. He's transforming the Democratic Party into a weaker and less effective political organizaton. He's pushing it to become a shadowy Republican Party, economically. He's bringing out the worst of its corporatism.
Because he is not a Democrat, in princdiples or actions. What is he?
All together now: "He's a conservative!"
And now the whole thing is being sold as...
"Tax cuts save the average American $3000...."
Actually, the only way out is to replace austerity with MMT
.... The Ds are useless since they're ideologically identical to the Rs, and in fact the "soft austerians" (the deficit is important, just less important than now) are more dangerous than the Rs, just as in the HCR
, because they obscure the issues and postpone the ultimate reckoning.
First they ignore you, then they ridicule you, then they fight you, then you win. -- Mahatma Gandhi
Numbers are dangerous in the wrong hands.
You know, I've been seeing this figure bandied about all over the place but haven't been able to find how it was derived. To be polite, I'll say I'm "skeptical" about its relationship to reality (translation: it's bullshit for the rubes). My wife and I are solidly in the third quintile with respect to household income. In other words we're average. But I sure don't remember my taxes going down $3000 when the Bush cuts went into effect.
That doesn't mean the $3000 figure isn't mathematically accurate, it's just that averages are funny things. If Bill Gates walks into the bar where I'm sipping my drink, the average personal net worth for everyone in the room goes through the roof. That doesn't make me a billionaire. Likewise, the Obama extension of the tax cuts isn't likely to make me or the vast majority of taxpayers $3000 better off.
Wouldn't it be nice to see this fact elaborated on in the media? Wouldn't it be nice to hear that since income is not normally distributed "average savings from a tax cut" doesn't have a whole lot of meaning. If anything proves the parrot-like nature of our press corps, it is the way they pass on numbers with no understanding of what those numbers mean.
Median tax cut would be more important, since a huge number will
get nothing, actually pay more (and the less people earn, the more their tax increase will be -- What a Christmas present, Pres. DINO
!).
We know that 25% of tax cuts will go to the top 1%, which is stunning in itself, and leaves 99% going after the remaining 75%.
There's this from a Dec.8 article in the NYTimes:
Interestingly, when I was googling for median income tax cuts, not that many articles came up addressing this. Not popular among the Versailles
crowd, those median numbers?
There you go.
Since my wife and I are child-free, we never saw any of these savings. Thanks for the link.
Very acute, BDblue
If the only answer to "And we get?" is silence, then there's no transaction going on.
Thank you for informing my slogan with the proper level of abstraction.
First they ignore you, then they ridicule you, then they fight you, then you win. -- Mahatma Gandhi
Actually, Disney Land at least gives you something
for your money, and is pretty explicit about being a big fat fantasy.
I was going to remark that woe to those who are only now realizing it was Disney-land-bland all along, but Obama et al weren't even that.
Because the problem is not that we have too little condescension from our tribe. -- okanogen
One of the comments I found interesting
was someone remarking on the fact that Obama got health care reformed - something Clinton couldn't do. The fact that Obama passed the plan put together by the opposition to Clinton's already conservative health care proposal seemed to pass this guy entirely. What he knows is that Obama got a bill passed that related to health care for everyone - even if it doesn't actually provide that - and Clinton couldn't. The actual policy seemed irrelevant.
"Someone needs to point out that elephants produce infinitely more shit than donkeys." Brad Mays
US cables show Castro disappointed by Obama as well as many
Americans (well, at least Castro felt "betrayed" and disillusioned).
From The Guardian, which covers the WikiLeaks cables while the NYTimes does not.
greatest social movement in the last 25 years?
Have we forgotten Hands Across America so easily? For shame! :o)