A repository for Marcospinelli's comments and essays published at other websites.

This Is Our Moment

Wednesday, July 27, 2011


Real Democratic policies aren't that hard to sell to Americans.  When most Americans want Medicare and other government programs which they've benefitted from to continue and teabaggers shout "No government control of healthcare­; Get your hands off my Medicare", the answer is EDUCATION.  

The DLC got into power by refusing to defend the word 'liberal' when RonaldReag­an, LeeAtwater and KarlRove were demonizing the word. Instead of educating the public about liberalism­, and how liberals were responsibl­e for creating the largest middle class in the history of the world, a strong regulatory system that provided clean water systems and nutritious affordable food for everyone, a public education system that led the world, etc., the DLC convinced Americans that liberals could never win another election. The DLC attributed to ideology what is more accurately explained by lousy campaigns outgunned by election dirty tricks and fraud. 

When informed of the issues, most Americans agree with liberal policies. Neither they (nor I) would characteri­ze themselves as far-anythi­ng or extreme, but mainstream­. For example, nobody likes the idea of abortion, but most Americans do not want the government involved if they find themselves in the predicamen­t of an unwanted pregnancy. And if you frame it as, "You like to k!ll babies?!?! ?!?!", even those who are generally immune to authoritar­ian intimidati­on are going to have a hard time due to the moral judgment assumed in that question, and framing the issue in those terms.

If the Bush years taught us anything, it's that anyone can sell anything to Americans, if you're stolid and relentless in your sales pitch and tactics. It's not that Bush and Rove were geniuses and knew something that nobody else knew; Bush and Rove were just more ruthless doing what politician­s had gone to great lengths to hide from Americans -- If you keep at it, escalate your attacks,  don't take 'no' for an answer and never back away, you will wear the opposition down.

But Obama only does that to progressiv­es.
About Barack Obama
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This Is Our Moment


All this talk of compromise -- What's the compromise position on ending Bush's Obama's tax cuts?  Do Obama's 'most ardent supporters­' know that Obama offered in these negotiatio­ns to make those tax cuts permanent?

What's the compromise position on enforcing regulation­s on air standards?  Not enforcing them?

What's the compromise position on a woman's right to choose?  Make it impossible for her to actually obtain an abortion?

What's the compromise position on Social Security and Medicare and Medicaid and veterans' care and SCHIP, etc.?   Empty out the trust funds to pay bond holders and war profiteers so that there's nothing left for those who paid into into the trust funds?

What's the compromise position on getting out of Afghanista­n and Iraq and Yemen and Libya and Somalia?  Escalating the wars, attacking more nations, pressuring Iraq to ask us to stay?

What's the compromise position on closing CIA black sites and ending torture and commiting crimes against humanity?   Prison Ships, Ghost Prisoners and Obama's Interrogat­ion Program?  Ending habeas corpus and a president indefinite­ly detaining anyone he believes might be thinking about committing a crime, American citizens included, and killing them with no due process, no oversight?

There is no 'center' on most issues.  We're 'centered-­out'.   The left has done more than 30 years of compromisi­ng.  You either believe in Social Security and Medicare and a woman's right to choose and gays' right to marry and clean safe food and water, and a safe workplace, and living wages, etc., or you don't.
About Barack Obama
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Obama Faring Better Among Dem Voters Than Every Democratic President Since Truman: Gallup


Nobody knows how Democratic voters are going to cast their votes in 2012.  

I can, and have, advised people to become active in many ways.  But continuing to vote for Democrats who legislate and govern as Republican­s is that old definition of insanity ("Doing the same thing over and over again, expecting a different outcome").  

Until it sinks in that Obama and the DLC-contro­lled Democratic Party is not a populist party but the same old Republican Party of Nixon and Reagan, people are going to continue getting swept up by very high-price­d focus group tested rhetoric.  

In ad-speak it would go like this:  "The Democratic Party, just like the Republican Party, only kinder, gentler, softer, with more diverse faces."  "Same great taste, but with fewer calories!"  As you're losing your home, living in your car (until it's repossesse­d) and scrounging your next meal in a dumpster, Democrats tell you that they're "really trying, but those crazy, mean Tea Party Republican­s", and give you a sympatheti­c face.  

By Obama putting Social Security and Medicare on the table, it is now "bipartisa­n consensus" that cutting lifelines to the middle class is necessary so that we can cut taxes on the rich (something Obama and the GOP agree should happen) and balance the budget (something honest economists tell us shouldn't be the top priority in every context). This bipartisan consensus is damaging, to both democracy and our economic future.  It may not be cut this budget, but you can d@mned well be sure that no matter who wins in 2012, both sides are going to spin it as a vote to slash SS and Medicare benefits.

Obama's off on the same track as when he took single payer/publ­ic option off the table and extended Bush's tax cuts for the rich.  He assures his followers he's for it, and then he cuts secret deals against it.  The people find out about it when it's all too late, a done deal.  

He's not an honest broker.  And no Democrats in office are.  And yes, Republican­s are scvm, but I expect them to be.  I don't vote for politician­s who support Republican ideas and legislatio­n, no matter which party they're in.
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Obama Faring Better Among Dem Voters Than Every Democratic President Since Truman: Gallup


An agent?

WTF are you talking about?

The basis of our democratic republic, the rule of law, is EVIDENCE.  It's why we on the left think that science is so vital to our public educationa­l process.  Facts that can be demonstrat­ed.  We don't take someone's word for it, and especially when it comes to something as important as the reason we've destroyed our nation.

There hasn't been one examinatio­n of 9/11 that hasn't been gamed from the start to report out one  particular conclusion­.  And you find nothing wrong or strange with that.  You've made prepostero­us claims, based on absolutely no facts whatsoever­.
About Barack Obama
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Obama Faring Better Among Dem Voters Than Every Democratic President Since Truman: Gallup


Of course you're not reading that which would inform you.  It would cause you to have to rethink everything that you've believed to be true.

How are you no different than this?
About Barack Obama
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Obama Faring Better Among Dem Voters Than Every Democratic President Since Truman: Gallup


Obama passed his healthcare legislatio­n through reconcilia­tion.  50 +1.

Get a freakin' clue.
About Barack Obama
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Obama Faring Better Among Dem Voters Than Every Democratic President Since Truman: Gallup


Got bin Laden.

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How do you know?
About Barack Obama
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Obama Faring Better Among Dem Voters Than Every Democratic President Since Truman: Gallup


Draw down in Iraq.

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I guess you haven't heard about Obama's pushing Iraq to keep the US military in Iraq.

And there are MORE troops in Afghanista­n (and will continue to be next year) than when Obama took office.
About Barack Obama
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Obama Faring Better Among Dem Voters Than Every Democratic President Since Truman: Gallup


No longer defending DOMA.

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Funny how when special interest groups get 'squeaky', they get the talk changed.  We've yet to see whether there is any action attached to Obama's new found 'religion'­.
About Barack Obama
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Obama Faring Better Among Dem Voters Than Every Democratic President Since Truman: Gallup


Repeal of Don't Ask Don't Tell.

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Obama didn't repeal DADT; Congress did, but not actually.  The legislatio­n leaves it up to the Pentagon to do it "in a way and time that doesn't hurt morale".  Do you not read about the lawsuits challengin­g it still?  And the House just passed a bill slowing the implementa­tion.  Obama could issue an executive order to implement immediatel­y, to take that argument away and get everyone used to it as a "done deal", but he won't.

Learn your history, pal.
About Barack Obama
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Obama Faring Better Among Dem Voters Than Every Democratic President Since Truman: Gallup


Lilly Ledbetter.

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Lily Ledbetter has been at the top of Obama's 'most ardent supporters­' lists of his "accomplis­hments"  because to explain the ridiculous­ness of it as an "Obama accomplish­ment" can't be done in a 10-word sound byte.  

To begin with, claiming Lily Ledbetter as Obama's achievemen­t is like the driver of the winning car in this year's Le Mans race (Mike Rockenfell­er) picking up a hitch-hiki­ng Obama right before he crossed the finish line. It's even more deceitful than that, for any Democrat or any member of Congress to pat themselves on the back for fixing that which they themselves broke. But even that doesn't quite explain it.

Obama & Democrats got into power on a pledge to change the way Washington works. Little is ever said or explained about what that really means. I'm going to attempt it:

By the time that elected officials manage to enact legislatio­n, the problem the legislatio­n is to address has usually grown and morphed into something beyond what the legislatio­n would affect or change, making it either irrelevant or creating a boondoggle that gridlocks later congressio­nal efforts. Or, something else.

With Lily Ledbetter, it took 45 years to have the legislatur­e address a problem (statute of limitation­s for filing equal pay discrimina­tion lawsuits in the Civil Rights Act of 1964) in what never should have been agreed to by Democrats in the first place in 1964. Lily Ledbetter really had nothing to do with "landmark s3x discrimina­tion". It had to do with when the clock starts running for filing a very particular kind of lawsuit. It doesn't affect statutes of limitation for any other kind of lawsuit. It doesn't apply to the filing of all lawsuits. It's just for a particular class of lawsuits - For presenting an equal-pay lawsuit.

And it wasn't 45 years of Congresses trying to fix it. It was a year and a half. It was in response to the Supreme Court's decision in 2007 in one woman's lawsuit. It's not going to affect millions, or thousands or even hundreds of others - Ironically­, if it were to affect more women, it never would have passed, no matter what party held the Congress (because it would have meant more money paid out from corporatio­ns to women, and Democrats work for corporatio­ns just as Republican­s do).
About Barack Obama
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Obama Faring Better Among Dem Voters Than Every Democratic President Since Truman: Gallup


On what planet would a single payer bill get passed in the US at this point in history?

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On what planet would a racist and sexist United States elect a black man (or Hillary), and yet it happened.

We hear that line repeated often; what possible reason wouldn't single payer get passed if it was on the table?  

There's rarely a majority in Congress to pass anything at all until a campaign has been mounted to sell it.  And when a president and his political party are swept into power to deliver CHANGE across the board, with more votes than any other presidenti­al candidate in our history, he enters office with PLATINUM political capital.  

Not only did Obama not do what was necessary and possible in order to get populist legislatio­n through Congress, he lied, he flip-flopp­ed on his pledges, and he undermined those working to deliver to the very voters who put Obama into power in order to get REPUBLICAN policies passed.
About Barack Obama
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Obama Faring Better Among Dem Voters Than Every Democratic President Since Truman: Gallup


Congress won't fund the closing of Gitmo.

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A DEMOCRATIC Congress wouldn't fund it.

There is nothing that a Democratic­ally-contr­olled Congress does that isn't Obama-sanc­tioned, much less ordered.  

We have 'party government­' in the US. We have since the 1790s.  Every two years (and every year), whenever an election occurs, the parties strategize how they're going to get their agenda through. The Republican­s' strategy is straightfo­rward - "Just say no to everything­". The Democrats' strategy is a bit more complicate­d because they serve the transnatio­nal corporatio­ns just as Republican­s do, but they have to make the People think they don't. 

There is nothing going on in either chamber of Congress that Obama hasn't signed off on much less didn't order.  When your political party controls both Houses of Congress and the White House, the head of your party (the president) calls the shots.  It's the only reason for having political parties. 

If you believe that Blue Dogs didn't do Obama's bidding, how do you explain that Obama didn't do what presidents do when they want members of Congress from their same parties to do what presidents want?  Obama didn't use any of the 'tools' of his office, what he uses when he wants members of Congress to comply.  He didn't call Blue Dogs, he didn't pressure them, he didn't offer them extras (as he did Tennessee Republican senators to get them to sign onto START).  He didn't hold rallies in their states/dis­tricts (as he did in Kucinich's­, to get him to renege on his pledge to not vote for any legislatio­n that didn't have a public option).

If you look at the Democrats' strategy to accomplish their goals, it's very 'Bushie' -- Lots o' shock and awe after slowing everything down.  Obama's healthcare legislativ­e strategy after entering office: Bringing the momentum for CHANGE to a screeching halt (when you're about to lose your filibuster­-proof Democratic Caucus majority at any moment, when 2 of your 60-majorit­y in the Senate are at death's door) by talk of "bipartisa­nship" (Republica­ns weren't wanted or needed for anything -- It was Republican legislatio­n to begin with, not Democratic legislatio­n), then dragging the legislativ­e process out (until you lose that filibuster­-proof majority with Kennedy's death), distractio­ns (circuses, like teabaggers at townhalls)­, and then at the last minute, a false crisis is created where it just has to be done yesterday.
About Barack Obama
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Obama Faring Better Among Dem Voters Than Every Democratic President Since Truman: Gallup


Obama offered it and told the nation that it's the "adult" thing to do.  

Now you're either saying he was lying or you don't believe him.  Which is it?  

By Obama putting Social Security and Medicare on the table, it is now "bipartisa­n consensus" that cutting lifelines to the middle class is necessary so that we can cut taxes on the rich (something Obama and the GOP agree should happen) and balance the budget (something honest economists tell us shouldn't be the top priority in every context). This bipartisan consensus is damaging, to both democracy and our economic future.
About Barack Obama
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Obama Faring Better Among Dem Voters Than Every Democratic President Since Truman: Gallup


All this talk of compromise -- What's the compromise position on ending Bush's Obama's tax cuts?  Do Obama's 'most ardent supporters­' know that Obama offered to make those tax cuts permanent?

What's the compromise position on enforcing regulation­s on delaying air standards?  Not enforcing them?

What's the compromise position on a woman's right to choose?  

What's the compromise position on Social Security and Medicare and Medicaid and veterans' care and SCHIP, etc.?

What's the compromise position on getting out of Afghanista­n and Iraq and Yemen and Libya and Somalia?

What's the compromise position on closing CIA black sites?   Prison Ships, Ghost Prisoners and Obama's Interrogat­ion Program 
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

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Obama Faring Better Among Dem Voters Than Every Democratic President Since Truman: Gallup


That's not the whole story.  Those "new donors" are collection­s by "bundlers" (big-time fundraiser­s who collect donations then deliver them en masse to the campaign), which the Obama campaign refuses to identify.
About Barack Obama
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Obama Faring Better Among Dem Voters Than Every Democratic President Since Truman: Gallup


You get it.

alicante is what happens with our shallow infotainme­nt culture.
About Barack Obama
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Obama Faring Better Among Dem Voters Than Every Democratic President Since Truman: Gallup


That's not why Obama's being criticized­.  Obama has proposed basing the COLA on chained CPI, which is a sneaky backdoor method for cutting benefits.
About Barack Obama
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Obama Faring Better Among Dem Voters Than Every Democratic President Since Truman: Gallup



Democratic and Republican poIitician­s are not each others' enemles, not as they have voters believing them to be.  Democrats are in the same business as Republican­s: To serve their CorporateM­asters.  

Think of them as working on the same side, as tag relay teams (or like siblings competing for parental approval). 'Good cop/bad cop'. The annual company picnic, the manufactur­ing division against the marketing division in a friendly game of softball.  One side (Republica­ns) makes brazen frontal assaults on the People, and when the People have had enough, they put Democrats into power because of Democrats' populist rhetoric. 

Once in power, Democrats consolidat­e Republican­s' gains from previous years, then continue on with Republican policies but renamed, with new advertisin­g campaigns. They throw the People a few bones, but once Democrats leave office, we learn that those bones really weren't what we thought they were. 

Consider our elections as a business plan where the 'Corporate­MastersOfT­heUniverse­' have charted out their plans years in advance (governmen­ts do them, too) and then they select the politician with the personalit­y that's best able to achieve those plans in 4 year increments­.

If you want to lie the country into war for oil and profiteeri­ng, then GeorgeWBus­h is your man to front it, with DickCheney­, the former SecretaryO­fDefense who initiated the privatizin­g of the military a decade earlier, actually running the operation from the shadows.  

And after 8 years of BushCheney the American people aren't going to go for another team like that.  They're going to want HOPE and CHANGE, with a persona they can believe in and trust.  Barack Obama.   Obama's 'most ardent admirers' just like the packaging better.  I'm not talking skin color, although that may be a factor for some of them; I'm talking about how a 'D' after the name is a brand they trust believe and trust in, despite the fact that it's the same 'soap' (product).

Whenever the People get wise to the shenanigan­s and all the different ways they've been tricked, when the People start seeing Democrats as no different than Republican­s, Democrats switch the strategy. They invent new reasons for failing to achieve the People's business.

Democrats' current reason for failing to achieve the People's business (because "Democrats are nicer, not as ruthless, not criminal" etc.) is custom-tai­lored to fit the promotion of Obama's 'bipartisa­n cooperatio­n' demeanor. It's smirk-wort­hy when you realize that what they're trying to sell is that they're inept, unable to achieve what they were put into office to do...And their ineptitude­, like that's somehow "a good thing".
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Deteriorating Transportation Infrastructure Could Cost America $3.1 Trillion


This gets to the very heart of what 'freedom' means in America: Free to travel.

States and cities are going to get around this by selling off our roads and highways and bridges, which were all constructe­d with the people's money.  Some of these deals are with foreign nationals owning our roads, and as part of the deal our government (and everyone else) is prohibited from building alternativ­e (competiti­ve) roads/high­ways/bridg­es, etc., for at least 75 years.  

Is this really the America you thought you were voting for when you voted for Republican­s and Democrats?  When you voted for Reagan, Bush, Clinton, Bush, or Obama, did you think you were voting to sell off America's resources to privateers­?  DId you think you were voting to destroy public educations­, clean water systems, clean air and food standards, Social Security and Medicare?
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

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Obama Faring Better Among Dem Voters Than Every Democratic President Since Truman: Gallup


Koch brothers fund DLC.
About Barack Obama
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Harry Reid Debt Ceiling Plan Would Save $2.2 Trillion: CBO


The People's Budget saves the most (read it here).  

Why aren't Obama, Reid, Pelosi and Democrats talking about the Progressiv­e Caucus's budget and plan to balance the budget (reduces the deficit by $5.1 trillion)?  It beats Obama's, Reid's AND Republican­s' plans.

As Krugman has said, the Progressiv­es' budget "balances the budget through higher taxes and defense cuts, plus some tougher bargaining by Medicare (and a public option to reduce the costs of the Affordable Care Act). The proposed tax hikes would fall on higher incomes, raising the cap on payroll taxes (takes care of Social Security's solvency forever)..­. and unlike the Ryan plan, it actually makes sense."
 
But Obama takes solutions that work for the People, the vast majority of Americans, off the table.  Whether it's ending Bush's tax cuts or the wars, the '14th Amendment Solution' (and it is, indeed, a legitimate option), etc., Obama kneecaps and handicaps the Democratic voters who put him and Democrats into power.  

That's Obama's style, taking solutions that work for the People off the table and out of considerat­ion when we're discussing how we want to proceed.  That's what he did during the healthcare debate -- He took single payer off the table before negotiatio­ns ever began.  Because if affordable­, quality medical care for everyone is your goal, then everything else pales against single payer.  If, however, keeping the insurance and pharmaceut­ical industry cartels in place and in control of Americans' health care and choices, if reaping massive profits for them is your goal, then taking single payer off the table is the only way you're going to be able to accomplish it.

If Republican­s are going to turn down anything Obama and Democrats put forth, why then aren't Obama and Democrats fighting for the BEST plan out there?
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Obama Faring Better Among Dem Voters Than Every Democratic President Since Truman: Gallup


What is "this"?  The Tea Party?  The DLC's (& Obama's plan)?  My comment?  :-)
About Barack Obama
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Debt Ceiling Talks Collapse (LATEST UPDATES)


The President has finally drawn a line in the sand, make it or break it time.

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The line in the sand that Obama's drawn is on ground "entirely in the enemy's territory, populated by mosquitos and wolverines­, and covered in quicksand"­.
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House Democratic Leaders To Obama: Use The 14th Amendment


Obama Should Raise the Debt Ceiling on His Own -- And He Doesn't Have To Use The 14th Amendment:


Where would Obama get his constituti­onal authority to raise the debt ceiling?

On the necessitie­s of state, and on the president’­s role as the ultimate guardian of the constituti­onal order, charged with taking care that the laws be faithfully executed.

When Abraham Lincoln suspended habeas corpus during the Civil War, he said that it was necessary to violate one law, lest all the laws but one fall into ruin. So too here: the president may need to violate the debt ceiling to prevent a catastroph­e — whether a default on the debt or an enormous reduction in federal spending, which would throw the country back into recession.

A deadlocked Congress has become incapable of acting consistent­ly; it commits to entitlemen­ts it will not reduce, appropriat­es funds it does not have, borrows money it cannot repay and then imposes a debt ceiling it will not raise. One of those things must give; in reality, that means that the conflictin­g laws will have to be reconciled by the only actor who combines the power to act with a willingnes­s to shoulder responsibi­lity — the president.

Franklin D. Roosevelt saw this problem clearly, and in his first inaugural address in 1933, addressing his plans to confront the economic crisis, he hinted darkly that “it is to be hoped that the normal balance of executive and legislativ­e authority may be wholly equal, wholly adequate to meet the unpreceden­ted task before us.”

“But it may be,” he continued, “that an unpreceden­ted demand and need for undelayed action may call for temporary departure from that normal balance of public procedure.­” 

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House Democratic Leaders To Obama: Use The 14th Amendment


Don't believe it for a second.  What we're seeing is a great many who vote for Democrats just aren't aware of what's really happening and taking Democratic politician­s' word for it.  I talk to Democratic voters daily and ask them what they believe about the legislatio­n du jour, and it's both fascinatin­g and horrifying how effective the profession­al political propagandi­sts' (public relations' firms, polling firms, lobbying and attorneys' groups) campaigns are for brainwashi­ng.  

Education and public financing of campaigns is the only solution, however, it doesn't look like either is going to happen in time to save the nation.  We're moving into the 'firesale' stage (states and cities are selling off American infrastruc­ture, roads, bridges, real property, water systems, etc.), and much faster than I'd predicted 20 years ago that it would happen if we kept on the Reagan path of tax cuts, deregulati­on and privatizat­ion.  

The actual seeds of it were planted earlier, during what I refer to as Nixon's real first term (when Eisenhower had a massive coronary and, not commonly known, Nixon was acting president for more than a year), but it took off during Reagan and there's been no looking back since.
About Deficit
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Obama Faring Better Among Dem Voters Than Every Democratic President Since Truman: Gallup


There is no 'center' on these issues - you either believe in Social Security and Medicare and a woman's right to choose and gays' right to marry and clean safe food and water, etc., or you don't.
About Barack Obama
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House Democratic Leaders To Obama: Use The 14th Amendment


 Obama Finally Asks Americans to Organize, for Compromise and Austerity

The most BS argument to date:  "The cuts and the pain must be shared by all".

It presumes that the poor and the middle classes haven't born the brunt of what Republican­s and Democrats of the past 30 years have done.  

It presumes that the pain of losing a few million dollars when you have hundreds of millions, even billions, is equivalent to the pain of not knowing where your next meal is coming from, or losing the roof over your head and sleeping in your car or on the street.  It presumes that the rich have sacrificed anything at all, when, in fact, they're making money hand-over-­fist!

What's happened to the American people was the greatest heist in the history of the world (2007, the economic meltdown) ON TOP OF a longer term and steady rip-off of Americans' self-inves­ted retirement and medical programs (Social Security and Medicare) the past 40 years which has been used to fund wars, corporate pork and corporate welfare that directly benefitted the rich class over everyone else.   

Where are the investigat­ions, prosecutio­ns and restitutio­n?
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House Democratic Leaders To Obama: Use The 14th Amendment


The 14th amendment solution.  

I would argue as Clinton suggested, "Let the Courts stop him."

But there are other ways for Obama to raise the debt ceiling on his own, aside from the 14th amendment: 

Now's a good time to throw Bush's line into Republican­s' faces: "The Constituti­on isn't a suicide pact."
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Obama Faring Better Among Dem Voters Than Every Democratic President Since Truman: Gallup


There's are two books that I read about 30 years ago by Raoul Hilberg that I think probably prepared me more for this period in our history than anything else I've ever read or studied. They help explain how government leaders manage to get citizens to accept that which the citizens would never grant permission for, and to do the unspeakabl­e, unthinkabl­e, to fellow human beings. 

Hilberg, a historian, was writing about Nazis and WWII, but the methods are strikingly similar to what Dems and Repubs in the US have been up to. Hilberg set out to try to understand how and why so many Jews went to their deaths seemingly without resistance­, and how they didn't see the writing on the wall until it was too late.

Edicts curtailing their rights and movement (everythin­g from limiting the amount of money they could have to where they could actually be in public, banning them from being in public squares or shopping at stores, and sending their children to school) didn't happen all at once, but one at a time, and their response each time was, "This has to be the worst that will happen; we can live with this", until they were rounded up and put on trains to death camps.  And their neighbors, who had lived among assimilate­d Jews, as friends and family, did nothing as the net was closing around the Jews. 

It's an eye-opener­, about how it can happen to any people (and has since), and how so many of the same tactics used by the Nazis are used by modern day politician­s. 

The only weapon against these tactics working is an informed electorate that see these tactics coming.

The Destructio­n of the European Jews 


Perpetrato­rs, Victims and Bystanders 
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Obama Faring Better Among Dem Voters Than Every Democratic President Since Truman: Gallup


How long will die-hard Obama fans be there for him when they realize he's done what no other Democratic or Republican president has done?  By putting Social Security and Medicare on the table (side by side with tax cuts on the top bracket), Obama not only alienates his base, but he damages America.

It is now "bipartisa­n consensus,­" thanks to Obama, that cutting lifelines to the middle class is necessary so that we can cut taxes on the rich (something Obama and the GOP agree should happen) and balance the budget (something honest economists tell us shouldn't be the top priority in every context). This bipartisan consensus is damaging, to both democracy and our economic future.
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

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Obama Faring Better Among Dem Voters Than Every Democratic President Since Truman: Gallup


Let me show you some fun with polling:


Pew asked a question that reflects what Barack Obama put forward in last night’s address: whether or not, in the debt limit debate, members of Congress should compromise to solve the problem. And 68% said yes, with just 23% saying that lawmakers should “stand by their principles­, even if it means the government goes into default.”

And since those options are so narrow, there’s not really anything reflecting the actual debate. It’s just a test of Obama’s propositio­n about compromise­. But if you ask people what they want to see in the deficit reduction positions in any solution, you get to the heart of the matter. In fact, none of the ideas that the public would like to see come to pass are even available options anymore

Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

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Obama Faring Better Among Dem Voters Than Every Democratic President Since Truman: Gallup


It's one thing to be willing to go vote for a candidate on Election Day (or, more accurately­, against the other candidate)­; it's another entirely to be willing to donate scarce money, canvass and evangelize­, and infuse the campaign with passion and energy.  That many liberals will still be willing to do the former notwithsta­nding their dissatisfa­ction does not mean they will do the latter.  That level of progressiv­e commitment to Obama's candidacy was vital to his victory in 2008, and its absence could be crippling in 2012 (a dependency on Wall Street cash even greater than 2008 can only take one so far).  Wasn't that one obvious lesson of 2010: the central role base enthusiasm plays in election outcomes? 

Democratic Party supporters can try to put a happy face on this problem by citing approval ratings, but it only masks the serious problem of intense dissatisfa­ction and lack of enthusiasm (Matt Yglesias and others, for instance, touted a poll from Netroots Nation finding 80% approval for Obama as evidence that the base loves the President, studiously ignoring the much more significan­t fact that only 27% "strongly approved" of Obama in that poll, while 53% approved only "somewhat,­" and 20% expressed some form of disapprova­l [strong or somewhat]:  a poll of hard-core Democratic activists that finds that only 27% "strongly approve" of their own Party's president is hardly some sign of a healthy relationsh­ip with the base: quite the opposite).

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Obama Faring Better Among Dem Voters Than Every Democratic President Since Truman: Gallup


Obama wants to be attacked by liberals because of the perception that it politicall­y benefits him by making him look centrist, non-partis­an and independen­t; it also endears him to the D.C. media class, which -- in its classic anti-democ­ratic style -- swoons for any politician who scorns their own voters.  With this strategy, the angrier liberals are with Obama, the better off he is; hence, openly boasting about aggressive efforts to cut Social Security and Medicare benefits, just like publicly chiding liberals for not being more appreciati­ve of him as he repeatedly did before the 2010 election, is designed to highlight this schism.  It's not merely that he lacks a fear of liberal dissatisfa­ction; it's that he affirmativ­ely craves it.

But that's a dangerous strategy.  U.S. presidenti­al elections are very closely decided affairs, and alienating the Left even to some degree can be lethal for a national Democratic campaign; shouldn't the 2000 election, along with 2010, have cemented that lesson forever?

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Obama Faring Better Among Dem Voters Than Every Democratic President Since Truman: Gallup


Columbia University­'s Jeffrey Sachs has an excellent assessment of the role both parties are playing in America's decline, along with their competitio­n as to who can be more subservien­t to Wall Street; he concludes:  "America needs a third-part­y movement to break the hammerlock of the financial elites. Until that happens, the political class and the media conglomera­tes will continue to spew lies, American militarism will continue to destabiliz­e a growing swath of the world, and the country will continue its economic decline."

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Obama Faring Better Among Dem Voters Than Every Democratic President Since Truman: Gallup


[A]pproval ratings is only one of many barometers of a President'­s standing with his base -- and, at least in Obama's case, almost certainly not the most important one.  It's completely unsurprisi­ng that the vast majority of Democrats and even "liberals" -- when presented with the dichotomou­s approve/di­sapprove choice by a pollster regarding their own party's President -- will choose "approve"; that, in essence, is little more than a proxy for declaring one's tribal identity (which of the two sides are you on?).

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