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Now, it looks like I’m attacking the president from the left since I say he should be more progressive. And I have written in the past about the value of doing just that. But the reality is that this isn’t about left or right. That whole paradigm is wrong.
If I was more of a liberal, I might have been ecstatic about the 30 million new people that will have health insurance under Obama’s reform. That’s basically lower income people getting government subsidies.
If I was more of a liberal, I might be mad at Obama for dragging his heels on fixing Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell. But I know he’s getting to that. As annoyingly political as his split the difference stances are on this issue and gay marriage (which he is comically opposed to), I can live with slow progress as long as we’re on the right road.
If I was more of a liberal, I might be mad at the amount of stimulus spending. They think it’s way too low. I’m a real deficit hawk, so I’m torn on that issue.
This isn’t about whether Obama is liberal enough. It’s about whether he’s actually going to challenge the system or just be a clog in it. The system is fundamentally corrupt. Our politicians and their staffs are bought by the highest bidder. They then use the government to funnel taxpayer money to the people who bought them. Conservatives are just as angry about that as liberals are.
So, that’s why so many of us are mad that the president didn’t fight for the public option. It wasn’t that the public option is some sort of liberal magic cure-all. It’s that it would have provided real competition to the private insurance companies. Instead Obama not only left the system exactly as it was, but instituted a mandate that would funnel even more people into the arms of those same companies.
The public option was a bellwether. It signaled which direction he was going in – and that turned out to be in a corporatist direction that leaves the system wholly unchanged.
We got more of the same when the drug companies got the same deal as they did under Bush – the government cannot negotiate prices with them and we cannot import drugs from other countries (i.e., another unnatural monopoly imposed by the government).
We got more of the same when the big banks got out of financial reform relatively unscathed. They’re still too big to fail. They’re still doing risky bets with taxpayer backed money. They’re still in charge.
The large defense contractors are also just as large as they were before. Actually, they’re bigger because Obama not only escalated the war in Afghanistan, but increased the already record breaking Bush budgets at the Pentagon. And the game remained the same.
Do you see a pattern here? Corporate and special interest money always wins out. That’s what we’re worried about! That is what we’re challenging Obama on – because that is not the change we voted for.
I guess the president and his staff think they’re clever because they played the same old Washington game a little better. I guess they think they couldn’t have done any better. I guess they think that this is the best they could do given the state of Washington. But that’s the whole point. We didn’t elect them to accept the Washington status quo as reality. We elected them to challenge and ultimately change that reality. And it seems like, on that count, they didn’t even try. That’s what we’re so disappointed by.
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17 Comments
If I was more of a liberal, I might have been ecstatic about the 30 million new people that will have health insurance under Obama’s reform. That’s basically lower income people getting government subsidies.
uh…you lost me there.
If I was more of a liberal, I might be mad at the amount of stimulus spending. They think it’s way too low. I’m a real deficit hawk, so I’m torn on that issue.
uh……..I changed my mind about the guest hosting gig- you’re perfect for cable news.
Cenk,
That was a perfect rebuttal to Gibbs, and I’m so thrilled that you’re now getting a bigger platform on MSNBC to give those of us on the Left a greater voice.
Congrats on all your recent success! I feel like your ascension is a victory for us all.
I agree! All in all I think Cenk very accurately expressed how many of us in the Anti-Corporatist sector of the political world feel these days. I also wish him well.
I’m not anti- corporations. Too negative
I am pro-people. I do believe corporations should be accountable and executives personally liable for injuring people.
“So, that’s why so many of us are mad that the president didn’t fight for the public option. It wasn’t that the public option is some sort of liberal magic cure-all. It’s that it would have provided real competition to the private insurance companies. Instead Obama not only left the system exactly as it was, but instituted a mandate that would funnel even more people into the arms of those same companies.”
Hit the nail on the head. Although I had watched Obama in the Senate too closely and wondered what everyone was so excited about. Always seemed to play it safe.
But the message Obama came right out and shared at his live broadcast at Netroots is keep pushing…make them do it. Although many of us are damn tired of pushing so hard. Throw us a bone. Niger Documents, illegal wiretapping, rendition, something having to do with real accountability
mr. uygur, pardon my pedantry but i think you meant “cog” (as in passive kinetic transmission link) not “clog” (as in sabotage, the venerable resistance tactic of throwing one’s clog (french “sabot” meaning wooden shoe) into the pitiless drive train of industrial exploitation)
actually, as i see it, sabotage is all we got now, so let’s “help” the pathetic centristic demmys with their historic task to blow their popular mandate by (unintentionally, in their case) revealing their corporate and militarist-imperial pandering!
bunch of losers deserve to lose big time in november… then we can try again, hopefully with fewer illusions about who represents who, in time for 2012.
LOL!! Your right he got his cogs mixed up with his clogs. Interesting, Freudian slip though. Personally, I feel like throwing my clogs at him.
“Conservatives are just as angry about that as liberals are.” Really? I disagree, I don’t think Conservatives are angry @ all from what I can see from how they vote in Congress. Maybe, once they acted like they were but, in recent times it appears that they are solidly Corporatist once again. They got a bit confused in fall 2008 when half the party found itself voting for the Wall st. robbery orchestrated by Paulson and his Dimocrat allies ( including Obama). Conservatives seem more angry about the President’s race and nationality these days. Why should they be unhappy about his economic plan when it’s largely just a re-has h of their own?
It’s not about the “professional left” … it’s about the “professional liars” in the White House and in Congress.
I have had this game played on me by bullies in my life.
THEY *offered* to change the game in Washington. WE took them up on that offer. Now they make it look like we are asking them to do something that was OUR idea.
IT was THEIR idea. And now they have reneged. And they want to blame US.
Bastards. Rat-f*&^ing Bastards.
Good point, and one that’s been made in different ways. Even KO last night had clips of what Candidate Obama said, which is as you indicate: he offered to change the game in Wash DC, to be more transparent, to look for a health care change that was more like the Canadian system. Plus both Candidate Obama and Pres Obama has asked us over and over to “hold his feet to the fire” and “make him do what’s right.”
And so… now we’re verbally attacked for: a) believing that BHO would at least try to make good on some of his campaign promises, b) be upset when BHO renigs on almost all of them, and c) hold his feet to the fire.
WTF?? So wrong on so many levels, but they are crooning the songs that their corporate masters tell them to sing. Punching hippies is their favorite game because it plays so well with the GOP, the rightwingers and the corporations.
Well, I am pretty much a dyed-in-the-wool liberal, and I’m just as disappointed as you are, Cenk!
Regardless if it is ‘professional this or professional that’…the labels they are so enamored of using all leads to deception, bullshit, and ‘let me smear this in your face, fuckin hippies’. No difference. They are so anxious to let us know, openly, that if we question their governance or power in any way whatsoever, we will be diminished and purged from their ‘fav’ list…until they need mo money!
As been stated countless time before, this has RahmBug slime all over it…Gibbs is just the marionette…and that slime trail that the Bug leaves goes all the way back to HopeyChangey Clowney!
Keith Olbermann said it best: When you negotiate, you start with what you know you won’t get so you can get what you really want. You don’t start just left of center and move right.
Start with single payer and we get a public option. Start even without a public option and we get what we got.
POTUS needs to tune out his Chief of Staff and listen to his base.
I had my own take on this.
http://www.brainspank.org/2010/08/if-thine-eye-offend-thee-pluck-it-out/
Ding, ding, ding! That is it, exactly. Every.Single.Time. Health care, financial reform, nominatons. Every.single.issue.
I felt my hope draining away with each failure to even try.
Part of my problem with Obama is that he has allowed himself and his administration to appear weak and indecisive, and when he does make a decision, it always seems to go to the line of least resistance. Mr. Hope and Change is not as brave as Truman or Carter, is not as dynamic as FDR or LBJ, is not as principled as JFK nor is he as bold or scrappy as Clinton. He’s far too willing to compromise with all the wrong people and he doesn’t seem to be able to distinguish friends from enemies. He’s a terrible negotiator, and he picks people for his cabinet that don’t have much in the way of scruples or convictions.
It’s totally beyond me why you would pick someone for your financial advisors that have been major players in crashing the economy to begin with, why you would leave so many holes in your appointments to some key positions in your administration, especially the Justice Dept., or why “suck ups” seem so appealing, and there are no repercussions to utter failure, although if an appointee is soundly criticized by the public (especially Rethuglicans) or Congress, they will be thrown under the bus.
We may not be the only ones that are starting to see Obama as an empty suit. Does it seem odd to anyone else that Michelle Obama would go away to Europe for weeks and leave her husband on his birthday? I wouldn’t be a bit surprised if the Obamas were to be the first couple to split as soon as his term of office is over. It just may be that he’s lied to her and failed to follow thru on promises as many times with her as he has with us. Some people never learn.
Cenk,
Even if you are a fiscal conservative (you’ll come around in time), you have made an important impact on the Cable news industry over the last couple of months. You are right-on when you say that we are most disappointed with the Administration’s unwillingness to engage the right from a progressive philosophical underpinning (did you say that or did I?). Unfortunately, and you are coming to see this too, Obama is not a progressive and from Gibbs’ comments we can glean that he and his bunch actually find progressive ideas detestable. Why else would Gibbs treat the quest for universal health care in this country with such contempt? I guess you can continue to entreat Obama to come out of his shell and save his presidency by challenging the system, but you will be wasting your time. Obama is a prideful man (a fatal weakness) and he cannot reverse course now. His quest is to prove HE was right, not to admit that WE were. We should have known this when he dropped the FISA issue, but those who have not followed his career closely should no longer be fooled by his false image. His campaign was one of cynical exploitation of liberal ideas. You could see it on the dower face he showed on inauguration night. He is the worst possible president for our times and our chance for progressive change has been squandered by this hollow tool of a man. As your rage wells in the coming months I hope you will remember the simple truth of Obama’s betrayal and of the pathetic performance of the Democrats since 2000. They have transformed and corrupted the Democratic Party into a corporate Disneyland and things will not begin to improve until the party crumbles and something new emerges. We will not get the kind of change we need in this country from the Democratic Power Structure, it serves another master.