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– President Obama, in an interview with Noticias Univision 23. ABC News, 12 15 2012 http://abcnews.go.com/ABC_Univision/Politics/obama-considered-moderate-republican-1980s/story?id=17973080.
Too bad he waited until after the election to admit that and I’m not so sure about the ‘moderate’ part. Obama cultists and Democrats have four more years to get used to the political fallout of having supported Obama and other Democrats, right centrists moving right on every major issues. Now he’s accepting unlimited bribes from the corporations he fronts for.
“Obama’s acceptance of corporate cash for his inauguration activities criticized – President Barack Obama’s inaugural committee in charge of the president’s second inauguration has decided to accept corporate donations as it did not do four years ago for Obama’s first costly inauguration. The spokesperson for the committee likely spoke on Friday in an effort to solicit donations from corporations as well as to deflect growing criticism of the cost to the nation’s taxpayers for such an event in these rancid economic times.” The Examiner 12 08 2012. http://www.examiner.com/article/obama-s-acceptance-of-corporate-cash-for-his-inauguration-activities-criticized
In spite of the fact that we’ll have a spot in a parade, in lieu of passage of ENDA and repeal of DOMA, Obama the rightist if going to become more and more isolated from the GLBT communities as well as working people as a whole.
When Medicare and Medicaid get gutted, we’ll blame Democrats, Obama cultists and their Republican cousins – it’s their fault.
When retired workers die because they can afford meds but not food or vice versa they’ll blame Democrats, Obama cultists and their Republican cousins – it’s their fault.
When Obama and the Congress gut the Bill of Rights and expand repressive agencies the left, which does not included Democrats, we’ll blame Democrats, Obama cultists and their Republican cousins – it’s their fault.
When thousands of GI’s and civilians die in Libya, Palestine, Yemen, Afghanistan, Pakistan and elsewhere the antiwar movement will blame Democrats, Obama cultists and their Republican cousins – it’s their fault.
http://www.theliberaloc.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/04/feet-to-the-fire.jpg
33 Comments
Thanks. Rec’d.
None of us who voted for him in the past, I would imagine, voted for him because he sets his policies to be right in the middle of wherever the country at large happens to find itself at whatever time, as this curious quote seems to indicate. Anyone, no matter what their idea for good governing, would surely have been voting for leadership when voting for a president. Core values.
This person as he is saying here, has none. He rather steers what he imagines is a ‘middle’ course. In a society bombarded with violence as entertainment, beset with greed and bullying growing worse and worse as one seeker of notoriety after the other must perpetrate more and more horrifying murderous acts just to get noticed at all, gentleness and compassion are distorted into selfishness of ‘me first’ and ‘it’s all about me’ and sacrifice is visited upon the poor and weak and meek among us.
There will be no lifting up of our young people to aspire to better selves than the selves of the Blackberry, the I-Phone, the video game. There will be no real compassion for the parents of children born into this hell. You don’t believe in hell? Look carefully. It is all around us. And we are all, myself included, mentally disturbed by this.
Here is a truth from the past:
“…We evolved to live on this planet, and everything, down to our
very genetic code, is exquisitely tuned to that Earth. In this way
the landscape of the Earth is sacred…we carry a primitive mirror
image of this landscape in our very genes. If we transfigure the
Earth, we literally destroy something within ourselves.”
[Talking to the Ground, Douglas Preston]
His course is middle in his imagination only. The vast majority of the electorate is far, far to the left of him. Perhaps he is in the center of the money or the center of the Washington press corp, but he’s definitely not in the center of the American people.
And, by the way, “moderate Republican” is now an oxymoron.
Maybe this is how Obama’s statement should read:
Yes, wigwam, exactly. Yesterday, I, a person of very minimal income, was lumped in with ‘seniors are wealthy’ simply because most of the 1% inordinately wealthy are seniors. It is the same principle here. The ‘middle’ is not reckoned in terms of our individual best ideals for citizenship – it is reckoned by the current clamor of cultural ‘input’, the distortions already in place.
This middle ‘progresses’ unalterably downward. (We don’t look backward, remember?) The advantage to this is that we always have a measure. The huge disadvantage is that it will always be worse than the one we had previously, even back in the ‘good old years’ of Republican rule days – which were not good and we all knowingly despair at the comparison who lived through that time. It’s the relativism of ‘lesser evil’ in reverse, the only looking backwards permitted.
This middle is always the middle of hell.
What is the answer? All I know is that cowardice is not an option.
You have to remember who was a “moderate” Republican in the 1980s to understand this. Here are a few of the names. Sen. Charles Percy (R-IL), Sen. Bob Packwood (R-OR), Sen. John Chafee (R-RI), Sen. William Cohen (R-ME), all from the 1984 Senate.
And these were the conservative Democrats: Sen. John Stennis (D-MS), Sen. Russell Long (D-LA), Sen. Henry Jackson (D-WA), Sen. Max Baucus (D-MT), Sen. David Pryor (D-AR), Sen. David Boren (D-OK), Sen. Howell Heflin (D-AL). And you could arguably toss Daniel Patrick Monyihan (D-MA) in with that bunch.
That’s a little bit of a hyperbolic stretch to get outraged about.
About the chained-CPI proposal:
So all Obama has done at this point is to say to Boehner, if you can get the votes for your caucus on your Plan B we might can deal. But I will have to float the chained-CPI point with the Democratic caucus to see about the Democratic side.
Boehner has his vote today. He has the numbers within his caucus to pass it without a single Democratic vote. There is no need for the President to twist arms on the Democratic side on a vote. Any statements by leadership should be read as “negotiating in good faith” kabuki lines.
Current bets are that Boehner can’t deliver his caucus. We will see whether that calculation is correct.
What bullshit. I see you didn’t comment in this thread, as perhaps the reality of Obama’s desire to CUT SOCIAL SECURITY is something you’re not willing to accept.
All of your posts of late indicate your defense of and support for the Democratic Party.
Business management classes from my college days ALWAYS stressed that STEP ONE of solving any problem is to correctly identify the problem. Until one accepts that the Democratic Party is part of the problem, one cannot be part of the solution.
> Obama didn’t offer up Social Security first.
> It was in Boehner’s opening bid.
You mean in 2008? I think Obama offered it up first — before he was sworn in.
The problem goes much deeper than one party or the other or any individual. The main event is changing the political culture that allows the dominance of parties and limits them to two, that makes money more important to legislation than the will of the constituents, and that takes place in an environment of emotional manipulation and misinformation.
Congress in that environment is incapable of solving problems. All it is capable of is posturing and doing just enough to keep the whole charade from collapsing into a steaming turdpile.
Keep you eye on the real issue and don’t get distracted by the noise. It doesn’t matter what Congress or the President wants to do. It only matters who makes them do what they have to do. And in the current culture, that is not ordinary people. And won’t be until there is enough unity among ordinary people to scare those in power.
And it’s very easy to forget that anything said now by either parties in the “fiscal cliff” negotiations does not necessarily express their real intent for the negotiated outcome.
Produce the quote from 2008 about offering up Social Security. And just expressing concern for it and saying that it must be fixed does not qualify as “offering up.”
Imagine that BP — Obama says this on 12-15-12
What? Obama was not willing to state this on 10-15-12?
Now that the WH is Obama’s until 2016 and with USA national/WH politics being what they be since Nixon got the boot in 1970′s I am speculating Obama likely may be telling us what Obama actually thinks and about Obama’s “the whys” in ways we did not see/get in 2007-2012.
I suspect Obama now doing this will be about/intent on leading to and setting up a tilt in/with the WH 2016 election in ways that would/will make Jeb Bush seem like a swell guy to pass Obama’s WH to. Only this time it will be the GOPBots doing what O/DBots did in 2012 to get Obama elected.
Jeb Bush will get Duopoly Bot Boost Mitt was not allowed in 2012.
Gosh — Obama only now telling us he actually is ObamaBush — imagine that.
Imagine this — The Duopoly Dem/GOP Kabuki seems likely headed this way with Jeb Bush.
I suspect/expect Obama may help set up Jeb Bush to make the WH a Bush WH in late 2016. Look what Clinton got post being POTUS by letting Al get Bushed. Billy Clinton is on Easy St. Obama helps the CIABushes B.H.Obama is going to land on Easy St. just like W.J.Clinton did.
Obama shields G.W.Bush and then Jeb Bush shields B.H.Obama. Can’t touch them about the WCs. 1%/10% Duopoly Wins/keeps winning. 99% Lose/keep losing as SS/MC is gutted out/ACA takes USians money to AHIP by law and USians not in the top 10% income/held wealth slots get to see what the global bottom looks like with USians being/getting paid lowballed global scaled wages.
Don’t like it? Quit and die.**
Obama will be on Easy St. SS/MC gutting? ACA? Obama ain’t getting touched by these.
You and me? We got Obama’s Hope and Change BS to cling to. O/D/LO2E/Bots? Happy now?
** Said with some jest in mind — a small jest tho all things seen and known as they be in late 2012.
I think it does, as it accurately foretold his actions. (Did you not hear about his 2011 backroom dealmaking offers on SS?) This is how this depraved sociopath operates. There is 0 reason to give him the benefit of any doubt, as you would do.
O Obama, Obama! wherefore art thou Obama?
Deny thy party and refuse thy name;
Or, if thou wilt not, be but sworn my leader,
And I’ll no longer be a Democrat.
Obama has been pushing hard since at least mid-2011 for cuts to Social Security and changes to Medicare and Medicaid that would in the case of Medicare at least push more of the costs onto recipients without cutting costs in total.
Obama has been pushing hard since at least mid-2011 for cuts to Social Security.
And before Obama was inaugurated the first time in 2009, he had lunch with some media types and told either David Brooks or George Will (I forget which) about plans he had to reform Social Security. No surprise, every plan we have heard up means “cut” not fix or reform.
So stop clinging to little stems in the river of proof that this guy is basically an uncaring sociopath and that all your national Democratic politicians are just fine with that.
And in other news, the Atlantic ocean is still wet.
“Bottom line: Don’t believe the headlines. Both Obama and Boehner, the Democrats and the Republicans, are using the mythical “debt crisis” to do the bidding of the upper .1% income group. Their “good cop, bad cop” act is just that: An act.
Had they merely come out and said, we are going to cut the spending that benefits the lower 99.9%, you would have been outraged. But by making the results a “grand bargain,” a hard-fought “compromise” to “solve a serious problem,” they make you feel all is fair — grateful even.
Of course, since deficit reduction (also known as “austerity”) not only is unnecessary, but very harmful, and since that austerity always hurts the 99.9% more than it does the .1%, every outcome will push you down further.
And as for that proposed top rate tax increase on the rich: They never pay the top rate. Just ask Warren Buffett, whose tax rate is lower than his secretary’s. Ask Mitt Romney, who has parked his money overseas, and had to fake his tax return, just to get his rate up to 14%.
It’s all Kabuki theater that damages you and America. I hope you enjoy the show. You’re paying for it.
Rodger Malcolm Mitchell” from
http://rodgermmitchell.wordpress.com/2012/12/18/are-you-enjoying-the-good-cop-bad-cop-kabuki-theater-of-the-absurd/
There is a plot of GINI index in this blog which shows how income inequality has been rising with time from 1965 to 2010.
No. Obama has done far more than just “express concern” for Social Security. He has made it abundantly clear that he is open to CUTTING Social Security by even allowing it to be one of his “options on the table” in deficit negotiations, when the program has absolutely nothing to do with the budget deficit.
The Social Security Trust Fund is just fine, and any future problems can be solved simply by lifting the cap on Social Security taxes. The fact that Obama has never once even hinted at that proves that he is a corporatist or a fascist. But I repeat myself. In any case, he is definitely NOT committed to protecting the interests of the vast majority of the American people.
He’s a fascist.
And the Pacific ocean is wide, and the peak of Mount Everest is above sea level.
& UCT1 @13
I followed the reports of backroom dealing during the summer of 2011 very closely. I also saw what the Democratic caucus was doing, especially Kent Conrad, Max Baucus, Ben Nelson and Joe Lieberman. And I followed the SuperCongress negotiation in December.
Here is what happened. President Obama and the Democrats put all of the entitlement cuts and spending cuts on the table but insisted on additional revenue and cuts to military spending. Republicans would not deal. Which is how we got the sequester. And how a lot of folks figured out what the Republicans were up to. Those folks are why Obama won in November.
Where are the Social Security and Medicare and Medicaid cuts out of that backroom dealing? Even fewer of them are on the table now.
And it appears you think that David Brooks and George Will are objective and credible reporters.
I have no idea what President Obama wants to do. I just know that none of that has happened yet. And that Obama took a credit rating downgrade to avoid doing it. But maybe his eleventy-dimension chess is working and it gets sprung on us in January after the sequester and expiration of the Bush tax cuts. I don’t know. This is the most uncertain political moment I’ve seen since the election of 2000.
I know it’s much easier to believe that politicians are uncaring sociopaths than self-interested guys and gals who know how to work a corrupt system. I’ve been there and to some extent still am. But it is clear to me after the summer of 2011 and the experience of Occupy Wall Street that thinking we can vote somebody in to change things is an illusion. There are fundamental structural and cultural changes required before any elected official can, even if they sincerely want to, make a difference. No matter what party they are from.
Now we can focus on Obama and the Democrats and spend our time venting our outrage at that part of the system. Or we can start moving to do something more fundamental that requires building a movement outside electoral politics. It’s a personal choice of strategies.
Another chorus of the anti-Obama mantra does little. Believing Politico, George Will, or David Brooks about what Obama’s plans and motives are is just as nonsensical as believing Jay Carney. Skilled politicians don’t telegraph their motives and plans. It is all strategic speech. None of it has any face value at all. That’s just the way it is right now.
Can there be transparency of motives and plans in politics? No one really knows yet because no group or society has demonstrated its possibility when tackling contentious issues. Even attempts at it like Occupy Wall Street have to contend with reading and interpreting strategic speech.
“I have no idea what President Obama wants to do.”
I do. It’s not very hard to figure out. He wants to start cutting Social Security and then find a way to “save” it by turning it over to his friends on Wall Street so they can loot it. He wants to do the same to Medicare, and he has ALREADY cut food stamps for millions.
I believe he does want to raise taxes on at least part of the top 2%, because he would lose all credibility if he didn’t. And he wants to extend unemployment benefits for awhile so mobs don’t storm the Capitol and the White House.
He definitely does not want to go over the grossly misnamed(by the Bernanke) fiscal cliff. That might cause Wall Street stocks to drop. Can’t have that. Wouldn’t be prudent. Neither does Boehner, so some sort of deal will be cut.
You’ll see soon enough whether I’m right.
Pretty close. But you miss the part that the Democrats and Republicans are competing against each other for the attention of the 1%. Therefore, they can’t play the classic good cop-bad cop routine. They have to keep one eye out for the audience. And they have to bring their caucuses along, which is more contentious than it seems because each member is beholding to a different subset of the 1%, of which there is conflict on specific items. Simple example. Corporations would like to see a simple tax code (except for the deductions specific to their industry). Tax accountants and tax lawyers would very much like a complicated code. Conflict within the 1%. So the vote on any one specific legislative package is unpredictable even within an generalized kabuki-like agreement. And the President is testing out the Republican leadership to see if they can hold their caucus together and deliver the votes; Republicans are testing the Democrats to see if the President can hold his caucus together.
The question “Are you enjoying the kabuki?” is a pretty apt one because institutionally both Congress and the President have insulated themselves from detailed informed comments and advocacy from ordinary members of the public. It is embedded in the way they implemented their communications technology and the way they use polling for messaging in and town halls, speeches, and appearances solely for messaging out.
You are claiming to be a mind reader. Not credible. You are inferring from limited data and drawing a conclusion. You absolutely do not know what the President wants to do on Social Security because he has been intentionally vague about what reform and prolong the life is.
He hasn’t cut food stamps because there has been no farm bill out of Congress. Medicare is a complicated matter, given the fact that Americans pay twice as much as other nations for poorer health care service. It is in fact conceiveable to get better Medicare service and have it cost less. And you have to remember that food stamps is primarily an agricultural and food industry subsidy, instituted because delivery of surplus food products got too cumbersome during the 1970s.
I agree with your inference about ending the tax cuts for the 2%. You have to do something to increase revenue. I’m not sure that folks on extended unemployment benefits would be storming anything; they aren’t typically the folks who do that sort of thing. But history is unpredictable; this time they might.
The only reason I think we will go over the fiscal cliff is that Boehner is not in control of his caucus and cannot get any tax bill that does not also apply to the 2%. But this is an inference as well.
Your probability of being right is about as good as mine. So here are my predictions.
Tax cuts automatically expire and sequester occurs despite last minute negotiations. (This is the public’s expectation as well. And Wall Street’s. So no major panic there.)
That’s the limits of my crystal ball because thereafter it depends on what happens in the early days of the next Congress. (1) Does filibuster reform occur in the Senate and how extensive is it? (2) Does John Boehner get replaced as Speaker by, say, Eric Cantor? Or does a dark horse Speaker get selected by the GOP caucus? (3) Does the GOP pursue the tack of holding the debt ceiling increase hostage again? (4) Will the President’s 2014 budget released in February be an austerity budget and if so, how austere?
Well, that’s pretty damned accurate. It’s not what you say, sometimes, it’s just how you say it or maybe the “Dem” in your name that provokes certain responses.
You clearly no longer support the corporatist Democratic Party, so why hold on to the label? Just curious.
No, he HAS cut food stamps, by 25%, for lots of people. I detailed it here:
http://my.firedoglake.com/ohiogringo/2012/11/13/post-election-progressive-scorecard-kasich-1-obama-0/
As it turned out, his Administration backed down a little, but he cuts are very real.
And I don’t claim to be a mind-reader. This is just inductive logic. No supernatural powers required.
The only quibble I’d have with the statement is the word “moderate” unless the Republicans have gotten more progressive in the last 40 years
Let’s look at a inarguable conservative Republican
Link >>> That President was named Richard M. Nixon
I’m not saying Nixon wasn’t what everyone thinks he was. My point is to contrast Zero’s use of the word “moderate” with a person everyone agrees was a conservative
Oh, and “mainstream”
Cripes, I’m not gonna make a list of all the policies he has, that go against the “mainstream” (progressive) wishes of the American people
Richard Nixon was not a conservative Republican. He was a moderate anti-communist Republican who had to deal with a hostile Democratic Congress. And a Supreme Court that overturned some of his more conservative moves (like sequestering the funds of the Office of Economic Opportunity).
A lot of what folks remember as Nixon’s more progressive actions were in fact forced on him by the Democratic Congress.
While “progressive” might be mainstream in Sacramento, it is not in a lot of the rest of the country. In North Carolina, for example, our new budget director appointed by a newly-elected Republican governor is one of the directors of Americans For Prosperity, the Koch Brothers PAC run by NC’s Art Pope.
“this curious quote” It’s only curious because for once in a long time he told the political truth.
Exactly. The leaders of the AFL-CIO and CTW are in the same boat. They have bankrupt politics and nowhere to go but further right.
Obama, like all others you mentioned, is a right centrist moving further right and dragging Democrat behind him. Pelosi, a gazillionaire who is the best the Democrats can offer now supports Obama’s plans to gut the COLA provisions of Social Security.
Actually Obama is far to the right of Nixon in terms of busting unions and gutting social spending and on a par with Nixon in terms of wasting the lives of GI’s and murdering civilians from Morocco to Indonesia and gutting the Bill of Rights.
People who voted for Obama voted for war, anti-gay bigotry, the malign neglect of people of color and attacks on unions and the standard of living of working people and the unemployed. Obama has always been a rightist. “He was the bankers’ guy in the Democratic presidential primary race. Among the last three standing in 2008, it was Obama who opposed any moratorium on home foreclosures. John Edwards supported a mandatory moratorium and Hillary Clinton said she wanted a voluntary halt to foreclosures. But Barack Obama opposed any moratorium. Let it run its course, said candidate Obama. And, true to his word, he has let the foreclosures run their catastrophic course.”
Do people who support Obama do so because they support wars, austerity, union busting?
The Democrat tells us that “The problem goes much deeper than one party or the other or any individual.” All Democrat and Republican pols are political prostitutes in the pay of the rich. That’s how deep it goes.
Normally I don’t go through old posts, but today I did
TD I don’t know why you’re fixated on this parochial regionalism. You made a comment similar to this some months ago, and I didn’t know why you did it then and don’t know why you’re doing it now.
IMHO progressivism has nothing to do with a geological region when you get right down to the nuts and bolts of how people really feel about issues that effect their own lives. To be conservative is a status symbol – but most people want progressive policies. If you don’t believe me read this paper by co-written by James A, Stimson of UNC Chapel Hill
http://www.unc.edu/~jstimson/Working_Papers_files/Pathways.pdf
I agree with most of what you write in your comments — more than you might think — but, I don’t understand why you seem to have a preconceived notion of who, or what I am, or think, simply because of a geographical location.