Obama Assault Weapons Ban Proposal Recalls Memories Of 1994 Battle

Thank you.  I hadn't read it, but it's excellent.  

I just take issue with the author's belief that the Democratic Party can be saved (turned populist, working in the interests of the People) from within.  I and many others have been where the author, L.R. Runner, now is for the past twenty years and the Republican-wing of the Democratic Party has more of a grip on the Democratic Party than ever.  

Even now, with all of Obama's betrayals, the cadre of progressives that gets media exposure supports Obama while expressing "disappointment" with him.  Obama doesn't give a chit about their "disappointment".  Their "disappointment" works in his favor.  They can stay "disappointed", it doesn't interfere with anything he's doing.  They should be calling people to hit the streets and march on Washington with torches and pitchforks.

Not a smooth segue, but I think Chris Hedges is the most relevant journalist around today.  See if you agree:

http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/once_again_--_death_of_the_liberal_class_20121112

http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/elites_will_make_gazans_of_us_all_20121119/
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Obama Assault Weapons Ban Proposal Recalls Memories Of 1994 Battle

Thanks.  That's a lot to digest.

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You're welcome.  And yes, it is a lot to digest and I applaud you for asking and being willing to consider what seems blasphemous to many Democratic voters, so they reject it out of hand without ever investigating for themselves.   

I come at this as an old OLD liberal Democrat, one who had been in government and party politics for many years.  I've never voted for a Republican (and never will), but I can honestly say I can't see myself voting for any Democrat again.  I come to my opinions based on facts that I include in my comments (see the colored text hyperlinks).  I can decipher legislative text with the best of them, translate political-speak (aka lawyer-speak, Bush-speak, the word-craft of the Frank Luntzes, etc.) although sometimes even I am lulled into believing their intentions are good and noble.  They're not; invariably in the days immediately following, some information will surface exposing their deception.  

Lily Tomlin was right: "No matter how cynical I get, it's impossible to keep up."
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Obama Assault Weapons Ban Proposal Recalls Memories Of 1994 Battle

It will be up to someone other president to get that passed.  And I know Obama isn't perfect.  But he's better than Bush, and certainly Romney.  And I know Obama isn't perfect.  But he's better than Bush, and certainly Romney.

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Single payer will never pass until voters like you get better informed about the true nature of both political parties (both wholly owned subsidiaries of corporations).  There is nothing that Republicans have done in the past 40 years that wasn't done without Democrats being on board.  Privatization, deregulation, all Democratic Party approved.   

And Bernie Sanders is one of your heroes?   Stop listening to the rhetoric and watch the actions.
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Obama Assault Weapons Ban Proposal Recalls Memories Of 1994 Battle

He NEVER would have gotten a "single payer" plan passed.

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Says who?  

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.
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Obama Assault Weapons Ban Proposal Recalls Memories Of 1994 Battle

Obama took single payer off the table BEFORE negotiatio­ns ever began.  Secretly.  Clandestin­ely.  Publicly he said he was staying out of the legislatin­g, saying that it was Congress's job (that was the same gambit he used when it came to letting Bush's tax cuts for the rich expire, and apparently Obama's 'most ardent fans' keep falling for it).  

Then Obama went and made a secret deal with the pharmaceut­ical, insurance, hospital industries­, the AMA, undercutti­ng all of the Congressio­nal committees working on legislatio­n except one -- Baucus's committee (the Senate Finance committee) which Obama disavowed for months.  Baucus's committee's bill was written by the insurance industry.

When word came out about the deal, the White House Iied it.

Obama 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.  Because single payer had to be off the table before negotiations ever began so that a public option (the only method for keeping costs down) couldn't be the "compromise" position.
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Obama Assault Weapons Ban Proposal Recalls Memories Of 1994 Battle

health insurance ≠ medical treatment

Conceived in the conservative think tank, the Heritage Foundation, 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.  Fercrissakes, it's RomneyCare.

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. 

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

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.

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.

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Obama Assault Weapons Ban Proposal Recalls Memories Of 1994 Battle

The DLC is the Democratic Leadership Council, aka the Republican/corporate wing of the Democratic Party.  When the blowback got to be too much (when the rank-and-file Democratic voter started catching on to their anti-populist ways) and made them ineffective, they morphed into the Third Way and No Labels.  In politics, the credo is "Keep low and keep moving".
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Obama Assault Weapons Ban Proposal Recalls Memories Of 1994 Battle

Let's look at another alleged progressive champion, Dennis Kucinich, who has found a new home (Fox), and they're welcome to him.

Dennis Kucinich proved himself to be irrelevant years ago­. 

In the closing days of the health care debate and legislatio­n when getting change in our healthcare system was possible, Obama pulled that stunt (a Brooks' Brothers-t­ype rally in Kucinich's state) after all of the progressiv­es who had pledged to not vote for a bill without a public option had caved -- Obama didn't need Kucinich EXCEPT to break the back of the call for a public option, to break the momentum of the left's call for it. 

And what Kucinich did was even more treacherou­s, carried even more betrayal than the other progressiv­es who had caved. What Kucinich did was equivalent to "Et tu, Brute?"

For those who still defend Obama and believe he really wants single payer or a public option, where was that same single-mindedness that he used on the Progressive Caucus (and is now using against the NRA) when it came to going up against Joe Lieberman, Blanche Lincoln, the other Blue Dogs and even Olympia Snowe? If the president of the United States had used the bully pulpit against them and still failed, a lot of progressiv­es would have respected that and said, "You tried your best". But Obama didn't try. He cut a corporate-welfare deal. Months earlier, cutting the will of the People off at the knees. The public was powerless in the backroom deal.

By the way, what the Kucinich-t­ale shows us is how selling out, how caving to save yourself ("to fight another day" is how he tried to sell it) never works: He was redistricted out of a seat and the White House put its weight behind anti-choice Democrat Marcy Kaptur.

And in the closing days of his career in Congress last month, Kucinich voted for that corporate-pork laden "Fiscal Cliff" deal.
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Obama Assault Weapons Ban Proposal Recalls Memories Of 1994 Battle

Under Obama:

Secret Law


This is just the latest example of the Obama administration trying to interpret public laws in secret without adequately informing its citizens. Currently, EFF is suing the government for its secret interpretation of the Patriot Act Section 215, and for secret FISA court opinions that could shed light on the NSA warrantless wiretapping program. In addition, the ACLU has sued the Obama administration for its legal opinion stating it can kill US citizens overseas, away from the battlefield.

Of course, law enforcement needs the ability to conduct investigations. But explaining to the public how it generally conducts surveillance puts no one in danger, and compromises no investigations. After all, criminals have known the FBI has been able to wiretap phones with a warrant for decades and it hasn’t stopped them from using wiretaps to catch them.

This information is vital to know if law enforcement is complying with the law and constitution. As we’ve seen with GPS devices, and we are now seeing with cell phone tracking and the use of Stingrays, law enforcement will push the limits of their authority — and sometimes overstep it — if they are not kept in check by an informed public.
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Obama Assault Weapons Ban Proposal Recalls Memories Of 1994 Battle

Let me exemplify the problem that I, as an old liberal Democrat, have with the state of our government and elections.

You would think that Democratic politicians would be for the same things that I, as a liberal Democrat, am for -- Smart, progressive policies.  Even just the basics, what might be called "compromises", like leaving marijuana illegal, but just rescheduling it.  Or leaving it illegal for recreational use, but leaving medical marijuana dispensaries alone.  Like (on another topic), forget about stopping GMOs from getting into the food supply (oh how I wish), but at least allowing states to permit the labeling of GMOs on food so that I can make a choice whether I want to put GMOs into my body and my children's and grandchildren's bodies.  

Here is the roll call vote on the 6/21/2012 US Senate vote on a bill to permit states to require any food, beverage or other edible product offered for sale have a label on it indicating that it contains a genetically engineered ingredient.

Guess who else voted against this?

Democratic senators Al Franken, Sherrod Brown, Chuck Schumer, Dick Durbin, Ben Cardin, Jeff Bingaman, Tom Harkin, Debbie Stabenow, among other Democrats. Monsanto has bought and paid for them.  I'm told they're referred to as "The Monsanto Senators".

Al Franken, fercrissakes.

Unless and until there is drastic and uncompromi­sing change to our campaign financing system, until corporatio­ns are no longer 'persons' and are prohibited from participat­ing in elections and politics, all efforts to reform government are useless. But that is NOT going to happen under Obama or the DLC-contro­lled Democratic Party as we'd hoped when we put them in power in 2008; it's not even on their 'To Do' list.  Both parties are corrupt to the bone.

This liberal Democrat is done with the Democratic Party.
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Obama Assault Weapons Ban Proposal Recalls Memories Of 1994 Battle

Democratic politician­s in liberal districts get to talk a good game about being champions of the People, but when push comes to shove, if their votes are needed to cross over and kill liberal legislatio­n (like a public option or access to ab0rtion), the DNC will make sure they are covered come election time, with massive infusions of money into their campaign war chests and crushing any principled challenges to them from the left in their primaries.

The Kabuki theater that Democrats performed over promises like a public option and ending the wars (they're not ended; they're expanded and being fought with mercenaries paid for by you and me) are two great cases in point.  

Let's look more closely at the Progressive Caucus, what charlatans they are, and how they tag-team us.

As the head of the Progressiv­e Caucus, Lynn Woolsey led 79 of the 82 members of the caucus to pledge that they would not vote for any healthcare reform legislatio­n that didn't include a public option.  
Woolsey then led the 79 to renege on the pledge.

Lynn Woolsey likes to brag that she was the first to bring a resolution to end the war in Iraq.  She, and congressio­nal Democrats (and Obama) ran on ending the practice of paying for the wars through supplement­al emergency spending bills, and putting the wars on budget (see why that is significant here).

Democrats have had the ability to accomplish putting the wars on budget (and thus end the wars) since they took over control of Congress in 2006 and didn't it.  They didn't need Republican­s to do it.

Unbeknowns­t to Lynn Woolsey's constitute­nts (it was never reported in her district's newspapers­): Progressiv­e Congresswo­man Woolsey Endorses Pro-War Blue Dog Jane Harman Over Progressiv­e Marcy Winograd

'Progressi­ves' like Woolsey have let Obama continue with just about all of Bush-Chene­y's policies, and wars, and let Obama go Bush-Chene­y even better, by letting Obama assert, unchalleng­ed, that presidents have the right to kill Americans with no due process or oversight, push for 'preventiv­e detention' and no transparen­cy of anything a president asserts should be his secret.

KEEP READING
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Obama Assault Weapons Ban Proposal Recalls Memories Of 1994 Battle

As we all know, politicians say many things; the proof is in their actions.  When it comes to Democrats, they talk trash to their constituents better than Republicans to theirs.

Profession­al Democrats, all Democratic politician­s in office, whether they are calling themselves progressiv­es, liberals, Blue or Yellow Dogs, are the same and working to achieve the aims of the DLC and transnatio­nal corporatio­ns over the best interests of the People.  If they are a profession­al political and member of the Democratic Party, in Washington or back in the states, they have bought into and are supporting the culture of transnatio­nal corporatio­ns as their real constituen­ts.  
 
Democrats in both chambers of Congress work as a team. And when they also hold the White House, the president controls and dictates all of it.  They identify what they hope to achieve (pro-corpo­rate legislatio­n) and then strategize how to get it while saving each other's hides with constituen­ts come election time.  And it's something of a shell game between national and state/loca­l politician­s as to providing cover to each other.  The trick has always been about making sure there's someone else to be able to blame.
 

KEEP READING
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Obama Assault Weapons Ban Proposal Recalls Memories Of 1994 Battle

As predicted, any effective changing of the filibuster rules will not happen - HarryReid Doesn't Plan To Advance Talking Filibuster.

And Republicans haven't been filibustering; they've been threatening to filibuster. HarryReid could have forced them to actually do it, filibuster, at any time. That is at the discretion of the SenateMajorityLeader (HarryReid). SenateRule 22. When it serves something that the DLC-contro­lled Democrats want, HarryReid can (and has) require the GOP to actually filibuster (stand and talk without end). 

HarryReid 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 JimBunning'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 SenateRule 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 or three) for Democrats to get bills passed without Republican votes.

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.

Obama and Company are there to do the work of the transnatio­nal corporatio­ns. Along with the Republican­s, as was clearly evidenced the time that HarryReid 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 screw 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.
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Obama Assault Weapons Ban Proposal Recalls Memories Of 1994 Battle

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.    

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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