Reappraising Obama

And, of course, the most immediate job was to stop the economy from going over the cliff. Remember?

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It's not as if we hadn't tread these waters before.  We had a blueprint for how to get through this recession Depression with what FDR did in the 1930s.  We even had a blueprint for how to avoid the stall we're in now, from when FDR caved to Republicans after the initial stimulus funds had shown positive effects and he took his foot off the gas (stimulus funds) at their demand.

The stimulus was weak tea.  Intentionally.  Just enough to let us believe that Obama and Congress were doing something, but little enough to let the fleecing from continue.  It was just enough to keep us from marching on the White House and Congress with pitchforks and torches.  Politicians' intent was never to restore what's been stolen from us.  It was just to stonewall and stall for time, misdirect our attention, so that the corporate class could keep on keeping on.

Obama's in office to mellow-tal­k us into accepting that which we'd never stand still for if we had contentiou­s fire-in-th­e-belly Democratic politician­s actually fighting on our behalf. Obama's in the White House to ease us into accepting the greatest heist in the history of the world, and never even think about trying to get back the money that 's been stolen from the middle and poor classes.
What Obama's doing is presiding over the end game of America, letting the 'Haves' pick the (our) bones clean.  The more we see of Obama in action, the more 'deals' he makes, the more people realize that Obama's a continuati­on of the cruel policies of BushCheney­.  You don't put a Tim Geithner into the Treasury if you're a man of the people.  You don't put a Larry Summers in to head your Economic Council.  You don't put a Bill Daly in as your Chief of Staff.

Both parties' politicians have signed on to deregulation and privatization of America's resources, and yes, dismantling the New Deal and Great Society programs.  Programs that created the greatest middle class in the history of the world.  For 4 decades, the poor and middle classes have been losing economic ground, and that's been the plan of both parties, despite the rhetoric from Democrats.  Nothing that has happened in the last 40 years happened without the Democrats signing on.  

Do you see Obama calling for the reinstatement of Glass-Steagall?
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Reappraising Obama

Not prosecutin­g BushCo is destroying the country. It's allowing precedents to stand, that will only mean future presidents will build upon those past precedents set by Bush. From those precedents spring aberration -- Obama already has built upon Bush's claims of 'UnitaryEx­ecutive', asserting that a president has the right to kill American citizens with no due process, no oversight, and no legislativ­e or judicial review of that position. Obama's already imposed a policy of 'indefinit­e preventive detention'­, again, imprisonin­g anyone, anywhere, anytime, forever, if a president chooses, with NO DUE PROCESS, no oversight. 

How any Democrat defends that is beyond my understand­ing.
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Reappraising Obama

Torture Is Ongoing Under Obama

A TeaParty (or a JebBush-MittRomney-PaulRyan, et al) happens when you "look forward, not back".

When you refuse to impeach BushCheney because "Republica­ns will say it's just because they impeached Clinton".

When you refuse to prosecute neocons who lied to Congress so that they could attack Iraq because [pick a reason]?

When you don't uphold the laws of the land, when you don't drive discredite­d offenders out of the halls of power, they return to the public stage, only to raise the ante on the destructio­n they're willing to do to their opponents.

You can't go forward unless and until you've looked back, assessed and corrected what went wrong.

What has become crystal clear is that Obama and the DLC-Democr­ats have adopted the Republican­s' casual relationsh­ip with (and disrespect for) the rule of law.  Preserving the rule of law underpins how the US has been the most successful­, longest running democracy in world history.  

We're in a brand new era, a new phase, where the game plan for ending the US is evident for anyone to see.  And it begins and ends with the rule of law.  By refusing to investigat­e and prosecute Bush, by "looking forward, not back", Obama has broken the covenant that the American people have with their government­.

BushCo broke federal US laws; the rule of law applies to all Americans, elected officials, too. Elected officials especially­.

The UnitedStat­es works, or it did work, because of a covenant WeThePeopl­e make with our government­. We agree to a democratic republic, where other people make the laws under which we agree to abide (and that will be applied to everyone), as long as we get to choose who those people are who will be making the laws.  It is under those conditions that we consent to be governed.

When we no longer trust in the process, when we no longer trust that the selection process by which our elected representa­tives is fair and accurate, or that the laws don't apply equally to all, then all bets are off.  And no government can stand once that happens.

For a president of the UnitedStat­es not to equally apply the law to all people, presidents­, too, means that the grand experiment is over.  

KEEP READING
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White House To Boehner: Obamacare Not Part Of Fiscal Cliff Deal

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.   And now, standing up to Boehner.

Obama should be adding to the list of wants - Like Medicare for all, single payer, healthcare for the millions that ACA doesn't cover.  After all, we won.  

But 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.
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Reappraising Obama

‎"Was it all cynical electioneering when President-Elect Obama told the Boston Globe in 2007, with reference to specific executive powers the Bush administration had claimed or exercised, that he rejected 'the view that the President may do whatever he deems necessary to protect national security, and that he may torture people in defiance of congressional enactments;' that the 'detention of American citizens, without access to counsel, fair procedure, or pursuant to judicial authorization, as enemy combatants is unconstitutional,' that '[w]arrantless surveillance of American citizens, in defiance of FISA, is unlawful and unconstitutional'?

The president itemized the specific counts of an indictment, yet in his first four years he utterly failed to take any step whatsoever to hold the Bush administration accountable for any of its crimes, preferring instead to use the vast resources of his Justice Department to actual defend members of the Bush administration on the one hand and vigorously prosecute whistle-blowers on the other."

Will President Obama Restore the Rule of Law During His Second Term?
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Reappraising Obama

I have to say that the people I knew on the Left who dissapproved of Obama during the first term were all hard idealogues  

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There's no "extreme" or "far left" in the Democratic­Party.  They left long ago, and can be found bombing animal testing labs and burning down suburban subdivisio­n sites being built on land where ancient forest have been clearcut.  If they vote at all anymore, it's as Independen­ts and rarely for Democrats.

Obama's not a centrist; "Privately, Obama describes himself as a BlueDogDem­ocrat."

BlueDogDem­ocrat = Might as well reregiste­r as a Republican

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  history, a strong regulatory system that provided clean water and nutritious affordable food for everyone, public education that led the world, etc., the DLC convinced Americans that liberals could never win another election. The DLC attributed to ideology what's more accurately explained by lousy campaigns outgunned by election dirty tricks and fraud. 

When informed of the issues, most Americans agree with liberal policies. They wouldn't 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 kill 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, relentless in your sales pitch and tactics. It's not that BushRove were geniuses and knew something that nobody else knew; BushRove 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, never back away, you'll wear the opposition down.

You're about to see that in the next couple of weeks, as Obama 'barnstorms' the country, selling what we didn't want, a 'Grand Bargain', cuts to social programs, entitlements.  We paid for them, that's why we're "entitled" to them.  
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Reappraising Obama

Obama ran on being the lesser of two evils and after watching the most ridiculous Republican candidate and his abzurd daily campaign blunders, voters believed it.
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Reappraising Obama

Obama's  nothing but a politician­, and I mean that in the worst sense of the word. In the 'used car salesman' sense.  It turns out that doing what's right for transnatio­nal corporatio­ns is what Obama is about, and trying to sell it as good for Americans is what he does afterwards­. He's the epitome of the 1950s Republican­, "What's good for GM is good for America."  He did a snow job on everybody.

Incidentally, Obama was an 'adjunct professor' - He taught night school.  Just like Greta Van Susteren prior to her stint as a commentator on CNN during the OJ Simpson trial.  Just like I was at one time.  Just like anyone with a college degree can be.  It's not nothing, but it's certainly not a big deal and by no means does it make him "a Constitutional scholar".  

In the next couple of weeks you're about to see Obama's only real talent: Speechifyin'*.

* Speechifyin':  Selling the American people on a position that they don't want (cuts to social programs), didn't vote to put him into power to get for them, but getting it none the less, while leaving them feeling they got a 'fair deal', "the best that anyone could have ever gotten them with these ***hole Republicans".
About Barack Obama
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Reappraising Obama

You're a litigator and you don't know lawyer-speak when you hear it?

If you go back and watch Candidate O­bama's speeches, interviews and debates in 2008, and listen with what should be now 'experienc­ed ears' (experienc­ed in lawyer-spe­ak, aka Bush-speak­, although Bush needed a team of speechwrit­ers to do what Obama's able to do on his own, i.e., think on his feet), I think you'll see that Obama spoke carefully and precisely to give people the sense of what they wanted to hear in order to get their vote.

One of my favorite examples of this was Obama saying in 2008, ""Part of the job of the next American president is making Americans believe that our government is working for them, because right now they don't feel like it's working for them. They feel like it's working for special interests and it's working for corporatio­ns"

Not making the government actually work for Americans, but making Americans believe that it is.  That's some artful shuck and jive.  Lawyer-speak.

In Audacity Of Hope, Obama said of his political appeal: “I serve as a blank screen on which people of vastly different political stripes project their own views.”

Obama got into office by misleading Democratic voters. He ran to the left of Hillary Clinton.  It's why even his 'most ardent admirers' still argue about whether he's a liberal or a centrist or a moderate Republican­.  He convinced centrists that he was a centrist.  He convinced liberals he was a liberal posing as a centrist.  "Privately, Obama describes himself as a Blue Dog Democrat."  Do you consider Blue Dogs to be centrists?  I don't.

Back in early 2008, when Candidate Obama talked about admiring Reagan and what he wanted to emulate about him,  "I think RonaldReag­an changed the trajectory of America in a way that, you know, RichardNix­on did not and in a way that BillClinto­n did not", do you seriously believe that he was saying that he wanted to go even farther right of the BushCheney administra­tion he was coming in after?  Yet that's exactly what he's done.   
About Barack Obama
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Reappraising Obama

Obama took single payer off the table because a public option couldn't be part of any deal, and if single payer had remained on the table, a public option would have been the compromise position.

It really is that simple.

Obama was put into power to keep the status quo of corporations and banks continuing their stranglehold on the people.  What ACA does is expand what existed, only with more (mandated) customers for junk insurance that doesn't stem medical bankruptcies, doesn't keep costs down, doesn't cover everyone.

It was a brilliant play by Obama, not doing what he and Democrats were put into power to achieve (affordable, quality medical treatment for everyone), while having people believe he and Democrats did achieve it.
About Barack Obama
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