Spintested: 09/02/12

Barack Obama Promised A New Kind Of Politics, But Played The Same Old Game

Sunday, September 2, 2012

To those who are voted for Obama:

Did your vote for him mean you wanted him to water down legislation, make legislation Republican-like, cave to Republicans, play nice with them?

If Obama is re-elected, what do you expect out of him and Democrats in a second term? More of the same as we saw in his first term? Do you expect his positions on issues to change from how he postured in his first term? Obama put Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid on the table in his first term. Do you support that?

From the article:

Explaining this spring how he would manage to enact his agenda in a second term, Obama was still looking forward to sitting down and cutting deals. This time, he said, Republicans would be nicer because he’s not running for re-election.

Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

Barack Obama Promised A New Kind Of Politics, But Played The Same Old Game

Those 2 million aren't anymore worthy than the other millions, the many more millions, who are unemployed and have nowhere to turn for help.

What that deal did, and all deals like it, was to peel away just enough of the opposition to keep our course headed in a downward spiral.

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 Democrats and Republicans in the US have been up to. Hilberg set out to try to understand how and why so many J3ws 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 J3ws.

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 J3ws

&

Perpetrators, Victims and Bystanders by Raoul Hilberg
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

Barack Obama Promised A New Kind Of Politics, But Played The Same Old Game

I guess everyone but you knows 2010 was part of a deal...

====================

Yes, the budget deal cut in the lame duck session of 2010. Bush's tax cuts were scheduled to end after 2010. They were extended, making them Obama's tax cuts. He cut the deal with Republicans.
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

Barack Obama Promised A New Kind Of Politics, But Played The Same Old Game

“"your" and "their" both work...

========================

This is what you said:

1st, your not factual....

You either meant, "You are not factual", or "Your not factual (noun, some word that factual was describing)". Which was it?
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

Barack Obama Promised A New Kind Of Politics, But Played The Same Old Game

I'll riff for a minute on allwarisbad's comment.

The true nature of capitalism is that it seeks to eliminate all competition. Businesses strive to become monopolies, and that's one reason for regulating capitalism. Another reason is to prevent abuses of capital. To prevent your fear (communism), i.e., you don't have to resort to public ownership to prevent these abuses.
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

Barack Obama Promised A New Kind Of Politics, But Played The Same Old Game

Actually " your" works in my post...

If your worked in your post, then you left out the word that factual, an adjective, was describing.

And everyone knows 2010 was part of a deal.

Yes. A deal continuing Bush's tax cuts which makes them Obama's tax cuts.

January 2013, their will be no deal needed to let "YOUR"tax breaks expire...

There, not their.

And we shall see.

As I said earlier, the best predictor of future behavior is past behavior, and Obama's record is as a flip-flopper.
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

Barack Obama Promised A New Kind Of Politics, But Played The Same Old Game

Those 2 million aren't anymore worthy than the other millions, the many more millions, who are unemployed and have nowhere to turn for help.

What that deal did, and all deals like it, was to peel away just enough of the opposition to keep our course headed in a downward spiral.

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 Democrats and Republicans 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 by Raoul Hilberg
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

Barack Obama Promised A New Kind Of Politics, But Played The Same Old Game

First, it's you're, not your.

Second, Bush's tax cuts ran out in 2010 and were extended, making them Obama's tax cuts.

Third, they're going to be a bone of contention in the weeks after the election, during the lame duck session of Congress, and there is no telling what Obama will do about them. Obama has said that he won't sign a bill that extends them, but he's said that before. If history is any indication, what Candidate Obama says and what President Obama does are two different things.
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

Barack Obama And Bill Clinton's Quasi-friendship : The New Yorker

Two articles that speak that I think are must reads for Democratic voters are John Cusack's Interview of Law Professor Jonathan Turley About the Obama Administration's War on the Constitution and journalist Russell Mokhiber's Ten Reasons I'm Not With Barack Obama.
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

Barack Obama Promised A New Kind Of Politics, But Played The Same Old Game

I need you to take a position on what you think is needed NOW not a list of outrages explaining what's wrong.

=======================================

Read this, this, this and this, and then I'll never "make" you reading anything again.
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

Barack Obama Promised A New Kind Of Politics, But Played The Same Old Game

And the Clinton era forward New Democrats' slavish grasping for corporate campaign monies have certainly turned the party away from continuing what FDR's New Deal had only begun.

============================================

Add to what we can lay at Clinton's feet: The Telecommunications Act of 1996 (that, the elimination of the Fairness Doctrine and the FCC's deregulation and consolidation of the media is responsible for hate radio and failure of the news media to inform citizens, and the elimination of privacy our electronic communications), the Financial Services Modernization Act and the Commodity Futures Modernization Act (elimination of Glass-Steagall, etc.), and an extra-judicial assassination policy (bombing sovereign nations, drone attacks, etc.).

And what we can lay at the feet at all presidents beginning with Reagan is the privatization and corporate takeover of Americans' national resources and government. And in an incremental, sneaky way that has dumbed-down Americans so they don't even realize what's happening until it's a done deal: Broke, enslaved, in dead-end Dickensian-like lives.
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

Barack Obama Promised A New Kind Of Politics, But Played The Same Old Game

Obama has expanded Bush's wars and signed on to Cheney's 'Long War'. The wars in Iraq and Afghanistan continue, with mercenaries paid for with US taxpayer dollars. Nothing has changed.

Your gay friends can serve in the military because of Congress, not Obama. As a matter of fact, Obama could have facilitated the ending of DADT with an executive order re: Stop-Loss, but didn't. As a result, many gays, career military, were discharged in spite of DADT's imminent end.

Hate crimes legislation and overdraft fees? Are ya kidding? Despite the media campaign, hate crimes legislation is not a universally embraced idea among Democratic voters. It's an issue where liberals and conservatives find common ground - The idea of one group of Americans warranting special treatment over other groups is offensive. It's a slippery slope law, a thought crime. Is the murder of a gay person worse than the murder of a child or a woman, or an Episcopalian?

And the finance reform bill, which was supposed to prevent economic collapses like the one we're suffering, won't prevent anything. Not charging for overdrafts is the least we could hope Congress could do for us, but it isn't stopping banks from foreclosing or slicing and dicing and repackaging and reselling loans of all kinds.

We're doomed, and voters like you are the reason.
About Barack Obama 2012
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

Barack Obama Promised A New Kind Of Politics, But Played The Same Old Game

In claims against big business, Sotomayor (herself a former corporate lawyer) wrote the dissent in a 2-1 decision that ultimately favored victims' families. This was concerning the 1996 crash of TWA flight 800 off of LongIsland. Sotomayor wrote, "The crash hadn't occurred in US territorial waters, therefore victims' families shouldn't have had the right to sue for extra damages." She wrote that the judges who disagreed with her were ignoring legislative history and earlier case law," saying "their decision was a legislative policy choice which shouldn't be made by the courts".

That's conservative talk.

In 2002, on the issue of abortion, Sotomayor upheld Bush's 'Global Gag Rule' (the policy of withholding funds for international groups that offer family planning information and services, including abortion).

On the issue of discrimination, she frequently rules against plaintiffs. For example, in 2004, she ruled against African-American corrections' officers who said they were retaliated against for filing discrimination complaints.

Sotomayor certainly doesn't look at the law through the prism of how it serves the interests of the People.

And Sotomayor was with the Scalia-Thomas-Alito faction that boycotted the SOTU - Sotomayor was in Guam, addressing a group of students and swearing in new members of the Guam Bar Association, a first for a US Supreme Court Justice (are you kidding, Sonia, missing the most public showing of US democracy and the 3 branches of government by leaving the US for a 5 day trip to Guam?).

We need more Earl Warrens. What we don't need are politicians looking to avoid a fight, and want to work "in a bipartisan manner". Republicans declared war on Democrats years and years ago, while Democrats keep trying to "make nice". Democratic politicians have gotten fat and lazy, feathering their own nests while Republicans have made long inroads into furthering corporate interests.

Whether Democrats are inept or corrupt, the result is the same: They have failed to protect the interests of the 99%. And all that they're putting out this campaign season is warmed-over Republican-like policies when drastic populist steps need to be taken.
About Barack Obama 2012
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

Barack Obama Promised A New Kind Of Politics, But Played The Same Old Game

Obama's picks for the Supreme Court are nothing to crow about. Both Sotomayor and Kagan are to the right of the justices that they replaced (Souter and Stevens).

See here, here, here, here, here, here, here and here.

ElenaKagan is the GoldmanSacks seat, not to mention that she was the 5th vote in rolling back Miranda a few weeks ago, and she joined the conservatives on the Medicare portion of ACA (that states may opt out) a couple of weeks ago.

Obama's spin when trying to get both Kagan and Sotomayor (a lackluster intellect if ever there was one) confirmed was that they'd be effective at countering the conservatives arguments when it came to trying to pull Kennedy over. It hasn't happened; Roberts, Alito, and Scalia wield far greater political warfare skills. And it was Kennedy who worked on Roberts for weeks, to bring Roberts over to the conservative side on ACA??

KEEP READING
About Barack Obama 2012
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

Barack Obama Promised A New Kind Of Politics, But Played The Same Old Game

health insurance ≠ medical treatment

Obama's healthcare legislation doesn't control costs and doesn't deliver medical treatment to everyone (not even those who think they're going to get it). Insurance companies are not required to cover anyone's preexisting condition gratis. And between increased premium costs, deductibles and co-pays, ACA Unlikely to Stem Medical Bankruptcies

People who voted for Obama/Democrats voted to get affordable, quality medical treatment. That was NOT a vote to protect and further enrich the insurance and pharmaceutical industries. Voters didn't send Obama and Democrats into power to entrench the insurance industry as the gatekeepers to being able to get medical treatment. Voters did NOT send Obama and Democrats to Washington to continue tying insurance benefits to their employment.

Yet that is precisely what Obama and the DLC-controlled Democrats did.

Meet The New 1%: - Healthcare CEOs replace bankers as America's best paid:

Pity Wall Street's bankers. Once the highest-paid bosses in the land, they are now also-rans. The real money is in healthcare and drugs, according to the latest survey of executive pay. One example is Joel Gemunder, CEO Omnicare, who had a total pay package in 2010 worth $98 million.

Obama's healthcare legislation is nothing more than a massive giveaway to the health insurance industry. It is one of the most corrupt pieces of legislation ever enacted by our government.

The health insurance industry provides no real service. All it does is take money out of the system. It's nothing more than a blood-sucking middleman.
About Barack Obama 2012
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

Barack Obama Promised A New Kind Of Politics, But Played The Same Old Game

Ultimately it boils down to the simple fact that the GOP is much more disciplined than the Dems. If THEY did HCR, it would have been done in a month or less, it would have been the most ideological extreme, uncompromised version of it, dissenters in congress would have been brutalized by the right-wing media until the point they pathetically crawl back in line and it would have been signed and over and they never would have thought even one nanosecond on whether the Dems liked it or not.

===========================

Talk of Democratic politicians having no spines are greatly exaggerated, just like Obama's timidity is myth: He's plenty tough when it comes to standing up to the Democratic base.

Democratic voters have mistakenly believed that Obama and Democrats want what they want. The DLC-controlled DemocraticParty gives lip service to all populist issues (like jobs, civil rights protections, restoring habeas corpus, ending the wars, public healthcare, WallStreet reform, environmental and energy issues, etc.).

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 in doing what politicians and the parties had gone to great lengths to hide from Americans -- If you keep at it, escalate your attacks, don't take 'no' for an answer, never back away, you'll wear the opposition down.

Obama didn't get to be the first black president, vanquish Clinton's machine (to get the nomination) and the oldest, most experienced politicians in US history (including the RoveMachine) by not having mastered these skills. Nor do Democratic politicians (more incumbents than ever, in office longer) not know how to do it. How do you think Democrats managed to keep impeaching BushCheney off the table, have us still reelecting them, not marching on Washington with torches and pitchforks?

Obama and Democrats know how to do it -- They don't want to do it.

The trick for them has been to keep the many different populist groups believing that they really do support our issues, but they're merely inept. And to get us to keep voting for them despite their failure to achieve our alleged shared objectives.

Getting Democratic voters (and Obama's 'most ardent supporters') to understand that Democratic politicians have been taking us all for suckers and patsies is the most immediate problem and the challenge.
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

Barack Obama Promised A New Kind Of Politics, But Played The Same Old Game

Democrats also have refused to exercise the discretion that Rule 22 allows: Making Republicans actually filibuster, instead of just threatening to do it.

Rule 22 gives the SenateMajorityLeader the discretion to actually make the call. Filibustering is hard on those soft, pampered bodies. HarryReid has refused to make them do it, letting them merely threaten. He should. Americans love reality TV. 'Survivor-Washington, DC'. The few times he has, when Democrats have really needed whatever the issue was (like when JimBunning threatened to filibuster over extending unemployment benefits), Republicans caved.

The DLC-controlled Democrats aren't forcing filibusters, and Obama isn't taking to the bully pulpit because it might actually work to get Democratic voters' legislative agenda made into the law of the land and do good for the People. And that's not what Obama and DLC-controlled Democrats are there for. They are there to do the work of the transnational corporations, and preventing that are the liberals, who Obama has shut out from his administration.

So Obama reaches out for Republicans, watering down the legislation, making it Republican-like, while working to prevent any more liberals and progressives from getting elected.

There's more than just one way (or even two or three or more ways) for Democrats to get bills passed despite Republicans' obstructionistic tactics. But first they have to want to do it, with the fierce urgency of now (don't click on that link, don't watch it, if you aren't prepared and can't bear to have your cherished illusions about Obama destroyed).
About Barack Obama 2012
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

Barack Obama Promised A New Kind Of Politics, But Played The Same Old Game

Again the old "Republicans are the problem" and "the GOP filibuster everything" excuse, so Obama's solution is to gut his own party's positions, get tough on Democratic representatives in Congress?

Obama and the DLC-controlled Democrat would love for their supporters to believe it's all the Republicans' fault.

Yes, Republicans are scvm, but the fact is that Democrats didn't need Republicans for passing anything. Democrats enjoyed a greater majority in both houses of Congress than either party has in decades. Even without 60, although the DemocraticCaucus in the Senate had 60. But one example is that Obama didn't need 60 to pass real healthcare reform. All Democrats needed was 50 plus Biden (reconciliation), which is what they did in the end anyway, but for a corporate-pork-laden bill with no cost constraints that doesn't provide affordable quality medical treatment for everyone.

But Democrats didn't do that.

KEEP READING
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

Barack Obama Promised A New Kind Of Politics, But Played The Same Old Game

Republicans haven't been filibustering anything; they've only been threatening to filibuster. Reid could've actually forced Republicans and turncoat Democratic senators to filibuster. He didn't (and doesn't).

Harry Reid has had no problem forcing the GOP to actually filibuster when it's something that the DLC wants and perceives it needs. For example, when Democrats needed unemployment benefits to continue because the masses were becoming 'critical', Reid had no problem calling Republican Jim Bunning's bluff to filibuster. Reid said, "Bring in the cots, do it" and Bunning and the GOP caved. Benefits for unemployed workers continued.

Democrats could even have changed the supermajority rule (it does NOT have to be done at the beginning of a new Congress, as some argued). It can be done at any time (see page 6 - http://fpc.state.gov/documents/organization/45448.pdf ].

But Democrats put off their critics for not forcing the Republicans to actually filibuster and changing Senate Rule 22 during the session by assuring fed-up Democratic voters, "We'll change the rule come the beginning of the next Congress".

They didn't.

There's not just one way (or even two) for Democrats to get bills passed without Republican votes.

http://www.senate.gov/CRSReports/crs-publish.cfm?pid='0E%2C*P%2C%3B%3F %22%20%20%20%0A

http://yglesias.thinkprogress.org/2009/08/hertzberg-on-the-constitutionality-of-the-filibuster/

But Obama and the DLC-controlled DemocraticParty didn't and aren't doing that. Because it might actually work to get Democratic voters' legislative agenda made into the law of the land and do good for the People. And that's not what Obama and Company are there for. They're there to do the work of the transnational corporations. Along with the Republicans, as was clearly evidenced the time that Harry Reid kept the Senate open (pro forma) so that Obama couldn't make recess appointments, collaborating with Republicans to keep progressives and liberals out of government. It was another tag-teaming by Democrats with their partners across the aisle to scr3w over the American people on behalf of the corporations.

Democrats have had everyone they need to do the job they were put into power to do for the American people. They don't want to do it.

KEEP READING
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

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