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Per Barry “the poor dear” Obama:
Cap and trade was originally proposed by Republicans … now they say we shouldn’t even be thinking about environmental protection. … The individual mandate … originated as a conservative idea. … Now suddenly this is some socialist overreach. So, as all of you are doing your reporting, I think it’s important to remember that the positions I’m taking now on the budget and a whole host of other issues … [20 years ago] would have been squarely centrist.
So, he’s whimpering to us that, in spite of the fact that he sold us out to the GOP, those horrible GOP boys are still calling him awful names like “socialist.”
How would you like to have him as your lawyer? He’d talk you into pleading guilty and then complain that the DA still didn’t buy him lunch.
In fact, U.S. politics has become a perfect illustration of Hotelling’s theory of product differentiation, which is illustrated in economics classes by a scenario where two ice-cream vendors compete for business along a segment of beach: each gains the advantage of being the closest vendor to more beach-goers by moving closer to the center of the beach. Ultimately, there will be “no daylight between them.”
But, as Glenn Greenwald frequently points out, the two parties are nowhere near the center of voter opinion. Well, duh! The politicians are going not for the center of the electorate but rather for the center of the sponsorship, i.e., the center of the 1%. That fact appalls Glenzilla and the ACLU, but IIRC both favored the Citizens United ruling. Speech is free but getting heard isn’t.
IMHO, the only way to deal with our sniveling president is to Nader him, or better yet to convince him that we might.
31 Comments
Ha! Good one. (True, too.)
It’s third-party all the way for me.
I couldn’t vote for Obama or the Dem party that enables him any more than I could vote for a Republican.
Highly recommended.
If the Dims are allowed to behave as junior Republicans and suffer no pain at the polls then all is lost.
Third party is long overdue.
20 years ago nope before O was elected those ideas were the talking points of GOP pols straight from GOP think tanks.
Center nope those ideas were Right Wing think tank ideas. As far as having O as my lawyer hmm he seems to plea bargain/surrender before even looking at the facts of any case in order to get the case done.
Wigwam I think you just discovered O’s style as President burned out public defender.
So true! Ultra recommended.
There is more sniveling by our centrist corporate Republican President. He is playing eleventy dimensional Overton Window.
Obama is reframing Reagan, a dreadful President. This Reagan obsession is weird, but Obama is a dreadful President also. The meme is: Reagan could not be nominated in these radical days. I think not. Reagan was as rightwing as he wanted to be. Obama neglects the secret weapons deals, and secret wars and Reagan laid the groundwork for the Teabaggers.
But some sniveling is outrageous and is worse than the usual Obama eleven dimensional false quivalence. Obama says the Republican budget makes the Contract On America appear as ther New Deal. How ridiculous, how insulting to the people who suffered under the Great Depression. Obama has his own Depression. A New Deal would cure that but our Sniveler-in-Chief makes it clear that he opposes another New Deal.
I used to worry that someone might kill him. Now I worry that he might kill me. Change! Rec’d.
Great diary… agree 100%.
What we have to do is start ignoring him and the Dems completely, instead devoting all our energies to creating a viable, mass-appeal, third party with candidates running at all levels of government.
In the meantime, FUCK Zero and the DemoRATS.
I called a Minnesota “progressive” radio station yesterday.
It was about Romney and how bad he as doing. The DJ talked about Romnney pissing off the Repub base. He then stated “well OK now Obama has ‘some’ liberals a little miffed but they have nowhere else to go.”
I called in and pretended to agree. I started off by talking about Mitt Raw-Money and his problems. I then stated “But president Oily-Bomber has issues with his base. You said that people have nowhere else to go, That is false. Rocky Anderson, former Mayor of Salt Lake City is running for president. Why he has just…..”
I was cut off in mid sentence. The guy talked very briefly about how third parties would go nowhere. Then took the next call. It was some right wing guy. He got about five minutes to argue his point. I got five seconds.
There were no other progressive callers on the show. The woman DJ before him, also a shameless Dem Party and Obama apologist complained that she was getting no-one to call in to her show.
Enough said.
There you go. Exactly. Not the change we wanted, but it is change. Mission accomplished, as W would say.
Hell, I’d prefer death to rendition any ol’ day.
Oh, and rec’d with glee. ;o)
What the corrupt Democrats and corrupt Republicans FEAR more than anthing else… is an ALTERNATIVE.
As for being cut off… whell it’s obvious that Democratic and liberal/progressive media practice censorhsip and blacklisting… just like Republican-conservatives. Just another glaring example of the fact that there is no difference between the blind followers of the two corrupt partys.
Those committing censorship and blacklisting… FEAR the truth.
Before: “I am absolutely certain that generations from now, we will be able to look back and tell our children that this was the moment when we began to provide care for the sick and good jobs to the jobless; this was the moment when the rise of the oceans began to slow and our planet began to heal; this was the moment when we ended a war and secured our nation and restored our image as the last, best hope on Earth.”
After: “Please don’t hurt me when I try to institute failed Republican policy regurgitations from the 90s. C’mon guys, you knew what you were getting.”
Aaarrgghhhh!!!!
Nailed it.
In U.S. politics pandering and blame shifting are the only games in town. The Dems and the GOP compete to attract sponsorship from the 1% and to get the 99% to blame the other “party.”
O has the gift of making us feel as if we are part of something smaller than ourselves.
Man, that is so spot on. Sometimes I wonder if we have some magic telepathic connection because your comments come straight out of my brain. Cheers!
its all about choices,in America there are dwindling choices for most anything important,we are white mice in a maze
((figaro)) You don’t show up often, but you always make me glad when you do. ;-)
Oh look. The problem.
Now look again. The solution.
Rocky Anderson
If we make that choice.
The only thing liberals hate more than conservatives are actual liberals.
Bunk
“Look what a Republican I am!”
Jesus fuck. MOST people would be ashamed to admit they were trying to implement the other party’s programs, you know. I just can’t decide if Obanka really is such an idiot that he didn’t realize that “taking the Republicans’ issues away from them” would drive the Rs further right…or if that was the whole plan.
On the one hand, I can easily believe that he’s a corporate asshole working to destroy everything decent about America.
On the other hand, I can also believe that he’s a deluded moron who can’t believe that everyone isn’t kissing his ass 24/7/365. Which to choose, which to choose?
(And my thoughts on Rocky Anderson are something I’ve written about before. Third Party is not necessarily *that* third party, I repeat.)
So I guess that no one is interested in the Rocky Anderson interview.
Better to curse the darkness than to light a candle, I suppose.
No, I read it, recc’d it, and commented it. (Admittedly after my comment here, but still.) I just feel the need to push back against the automatic equating of “third party” with “Rocky Anderson”. There are multiple minor parties out there, and I would think we should be building a movement around a party, not one man, anyway.
Call me crazy, but after being burned by “The One”, I’m not so much looking for “The Next One”. JMO.
Vote- Agreed 100%
Those of us who are serious about facing the corporate corrupted two party system SHOULD be working together. Oh and I never fell for “the One.”
That caused me to be booted off of countless “progressive” blogs, media and groups.
The Democrats have not reciprocated our love. So, now I’m looking for love elsewhere. And, wherever I find it, that’s where I’ll vote: Jill, Rocky, whomever. I’d even vote for Ron Paul before I’d vote for Obama the sniveler.
Same with me. I don’t think the task is so much finding a third party alternative as convincing people to remain steadfast in refusing to vote for Obama and the Democrats. Whichever third candidates rise to the top come election time are the ones who will siphon off votes from Obama and the Democrats. Right now it’s a matter of just curing people of their two-party addiction by telling them it isn’t healthy to reward those who betrayed them. Withdrawal isn’t easy for some.
Word.