Entity: The Obama Administration

[Andrew.]

and this is what gets me about obama. during his campaign, he certainly encouraged those who felt he would really "change" things. and now that he hasn't, all we get is this bullshit from his enduring supporters in the center about what he didn't actually, technically, *promise* in his campaign, as if his campaign didn't fully encourage the then-popular notion that it would be a whole new day with a whole new kind of president.

I guess I agree and I don't. I personally know some former Obama enthusiasts who've since moved significantly to the left as a result of their bitter disappointment. I respect them. Those who still act as little independent White House Press Secretaries are truly pathetic though, for sure.

I once said:

if there was something truly important in Obama’s oratory and his campaign of “Hope” and “Change” it had nothing to do with the individual politician but must be located at the level of the social imaginary. Obama’s campaign appealed not to the worst in people (with scapegoating, fear mongering and trite free market ideology), but to a desire—an aspirational longing—for a more just and equitable society. And while the figure at the center of this appeal, this expansion of political possibility, was a deeply cynical and calculating shill who abandoned his progressive base and embraced Wall St on taking office, I think the desire channeled by Obama’s campaign, the desire of millions of people for an end to Bush’s policies and more broadly for greater equity and social justice, was real.

Which is why a lot of well-intentioned liberals and Obama voters in the US are not just disappointed, they are pissed off. And the difference between being disappointed and being fucking angry is the difference between dejection and action.

http://www.thepaltrysapien.com/2011/05/ ... -is-anger/

The Obama supporters who appeared to really believe, but haven't since gotten angry, spoken out, and/or connected with OWS? Superficial people.

[Andrew.]

CIA veteran John Kiriakou has become the sixth whistleblower charged by the Obama administration under the Espionage Act. That’s more than all past administrations combined. In 2007, Kiriakou gave an on-camera interview to ABC News in which he disclosed that accused al-Qaeda operative Abu Zubaydah was "waterboarded" and that waterboarding was torture. Kiriakou was one of the first CIA officers to label waterboarding as torture. He is also accused of leaking classified information to reporters. This is part of his 2007 interview with ABC’s Brian Ross.

John Kiriakou: "At the time, I felt that waterboarding was something that we needed to do. And as time has passed, and as September 11th has moved farther and farther back into history, I think I’ve changed my mind. And I think that waterboarding is probably something that we shouldn’t be in the business of doing."

Brian Ross: "Why do you say that now?"

John Kiriakou: "Because we’re Americans, and we’re better than that."

http://www.democracynow.org/2012/4/6/headlines

Prosecuting the bankers whose rank crimes helped topple the entire economy? Not on Obama's watch.

[Andrew.]

Must feel very empowering to be able to choose between Obama and Romney. Just like Clinton was awesome.

[seanurban]

All good points I guess. But why wait 17 years to criticize welfare reform and not have some more solid data to back it up?
Seems like a strange time to be doing that.

[connor]

Paraphrasing a friend of mine:

It's bizarre how many Obama and Democratic party apologists are out there on the internet. I haven't encountered people like that since college. They're strange people. I "get" the old Stalinists who spent years making apologies for the USSR. Especially the ones who were around for the promise of the Russian Revolution of 1917 or watched as the Soviet Union took most of the casualties in the fight against Nazi Germany. Or the American Communists who participated in labor strikes and organizations. These people, I totally understand. And I feel for them. But making excuses for Democrats and Obama? In 2012? I don't get it at all.

[Marsupialized]

People would rather have the less horrifying Democrats than the unthinkable, which is to have Republicans in power, what's so hard to understand?

[Andrew.]

These people, I totally understand. And I feel for them. But making excuses for Democrats and Obama? In 2012? I don't get it at all.

In some respects I don't find it so surprising. If one grants how truly wretched this admin has been, the entire political edifice of the liberal worldview begins to topple. A defense of the Dems is part of a defense of a paradigm, an entrenched system of thoughts and beliefs. The irony is that as things get worse - as evidence mounts - some people cling all the more tightly to their illusions.

Political discourse is so degraded and parochial in the US. It takes a relatively independent mind to get beyond the msnbc-to-Fox spectrum of "opinion."

And Obama is a celebrity. He's attractive and charismatic (when he wants to be). That goes further than most want to admit, I think.

[connor]

People would rather have the less horrifying Democrats than the unthinkable, which is to have Republicans in power, what's so hard to understand?

But if that's all it is, why apologize for Democrats/Obama? Why act as if there's something redeeming about them, other than "well, they're not those guys!"

If that's what we all go by, that means both parties can just get worse and more gruesome as long as one party is slightly less gruesome. I mean, to me, that sounds like the perfect fucking scam. Where's the line? If there isn't a line, we don't have any principles.

"Growth of Income Inequality Is Worse Under Obama than Bush"

It's kind of like the political debates in the UK around the late 19th century. Today, we can barely tell where one party begins and the other ends. But back then, folks thought there really was some holy, righteous war between Liberals and Tories.

Think about the "battles" going on now: whether or not to raise the top marginal tax rate by 5%. Whether we should eviscerate labor unions or just choke them off. Should we cheer when we bomb brown people or shrug.

Principles!

[Andrew.]

Should we cheer when we bomb brown people or shrug

[Marsupialized]

So, a solution? A way to kick them both out and start anew that is not fanciful nonsense, let us hear it and guide us to a brave new world.

[Zorg]

But if that's all it is, why apologize for Democrats/Obama?

Because people like to root for a team and win at any cost. I think it's as simple as that.

[connor]

So, a solution? A way to kick them both out and start anew that is not fanciful nonsense, let us hear it and guide us to a brave new world.

Sure. But the answer is boring as fuck. The thing is, it's the only fucking one that's ever worked:

Agitate, educate, organize.

That's about it.

At this point, talking about this shit with your friends and family is almost certainly a more meaningful act than voting.

If people wanna vote for Democrats, sure thing. Who cares. Go for it. (Hell, I'll say this: Obama's NLRB appointees are certainly better than whomever the GOP would've picked.) Just don't get trapped into thinking "well, my job is done and those dudes are the best we can do." Politics is about a shit-ton more than voting.

You're a Lincoln guy. Same here. But the formation of the Republican party and the election of Lincoln was the direct result of about 30 years of radicals giving speeches on streetcorners, churches, starting up anti-slavery societies, publications, pamphlets, etc.

In 1835, abolitionist William Lloyd Garrison narrowly escaped a public lynching in Boston.

Two decades later, Bostonians took to the streets en masse to protest fugitive-slave Anthony Burns's forced return to Virginia. They even stabbed a US Marshall in a last ditch attempt to free Burns.

On June 2 the troops marched Burns to the wharf through streets lined with sullen Yankees standing in front of buildings draped in black with the American flag hanging upside down and church bells tolling a dirge to liberty in the cradle of the American Revolution.

What happened in those two decades? Certainly not "voting for the less gruesome party."

[jimmy two hands]

Just don't get trapped into thinking "well, my job is done and those dudes are the best we can do." Politics is about a shit-ton more than voting.

Does anyone honestly believe voting is the only thing that matters? I think debate and discussion in the general public is more important than voting, personally, but who is in office matters. As shitty as the democrats are, it's possible to shame them into doing something positive, whereas the republicans actively delight in seeing people suffer.

[whoisalhedges]

Just don't get trapped into thinking "well, my job is done and those dudes are the best we can do." Politics is about a shit-ton more than voting.

Does anyone honestly believe voting is the only thing that matters? I think debate and discussion in the general public is more important than voting, personally, but who is in office matters. As shitty as the democrats are, it's possible to shame them into doing something positive, whereas the republicans actively delight in seeing people suffer.

You're not wrong, but left-of-center America has fallen asleep at the wheel.

The only real noise that was made between the election and OWS came from the Tea Party fucks. The vast majority of those who are not racist, gaybashing, women-hating, poor-mudering, brown-people-bombing, proto-fascist, feudalist fucks kinda just laid back, sighed, and said "yay, we won."

So, the extreme right set the terms of the deabate.

COULD left/liberal Americans have held Washington's feet to the fire during HCR? Sure, after all, there were 60 members of the Democratic caucus in the Senate, the House was in the hands of Democrats, as was the WH -- but did we? Fuck, no. WE DID NOT WIN. Obama has faced virtually no real pressure from the left, so he's crept ever rightward. I can't even blame him for that; after all, who's supposed to be watching the watchers?

There are a lot of people in this country who think we should all have health care, as a human right. Plenty who think the rich are undertaxed. Plenty who think people are people and deserve equal treatment even if they're gay, black, Irish, Jews. Plenty who think that being poor is not a moral failing. There are MILLIONS of us. Unfortunately, there hasen't been anything like an ORGANIZED American left in many decades.

I don't believe that the two-party hegemony we have in this country is right. I'd love to have something along the lines of proportional representation, BUT THAT AIN'T GONNA HAPPEN. We've only got what we've got. The other thing that's NOT gonna happen is the Democrats moving to the left of their own volition. That's why it's up to us to pull one of the major parties (will probably have to be the Democrats by default) further leftward.

They will not come to us; we should not go to them. We need to force their hand. Just as Tim McVeigh types have taken over the Republican Party, we need to take over the Democratic Party. Otherwise, there is and will be no "hope" of "change."

[Andrew.]

The president recently went to Colombia. He signed a free-trade agreement that will likely work very much like all free-trade agreements work — namely, jobs will flow to a country where people pay five cents a week and murder labor leaders while we get cheaply made crap in return that we can increasingly not afford because people got no jobs, people got no money.

The horrific Columbia “Free Trade” Pact was signed at the Summit of the Americas, to ho-hum notices in the press. Some ho-hum. Rewarding a nation that murders union organizers (“unofficially,” of course but always by “right-wing” paramilitary groups) and “disappears” thousands with preferential access to the US market is an interestingly “liberal” approach to foreign policy, especially as the said treaty is only estimated to cost US workers 83,000 jobs. I mean, it’s not like we need jobs or anything here, right? Cui bono? Well, obviously we need to go to the business press and not the so-called political press to suss that out: ”A free-trade deal with Colombia could boost U.S. exports by $1.1 billion. Caterpillar, GE, Wal-Mart, and Citigroup would be big beneficiaries.” Well, that’s a surprise!–the top outsourcers in the US economy. And that list has ties to Obama. Again, who would have guessed? I suppose that guy who promised to revisit NAFTA, revisited it and decided it wasn’t extreme enough in dealing with pesky union rights–let’s go straight to the death squads. But then again, assassination is this administration’s style.

http://www.thepaltrysapien.com/2012/04/ ... -columbia/

[connor]

But Andrew....he's so cool and youthful and young and with-it and just like us and his family's cute and...

[numberthirty]

But Andrew....he's so cool and youthful and young and with-it and just like us and his family's cute and...

So, they finally got to you?

Edit: Mitt being a T-800 doesn't help.

[connor]

[MWilke]

So, a solution? A way to kick them both out and start anew that is not fanciful nonsense, let us hear it and guide us to a brave new world.

Sure. But the answer is boring as fuck. The thing is, it's the only fucking one that's ever worked:

Agitate, educate, organize.

What a vague, cop-out of an 'answer' with no practical meaning in the real world once the realities of human psychology are factored.

[connor]

So, a solution? A way to kick them both out and start anew that is not fanciful nonsense, let us hear it and guide us to a brave new world.

Sure. But the answer is boring as fuck. The thing is, it's the only fucking one that's ever worked:

Agitate, educate, organize.

What a vague, cop-out of an 'answer' with no practical meaning in the real world once the realities of human psychology are factored.

Are you fucking kidding me? It's the only answer that's ever existed.

Go read a fucking book.