Right-Wing Sock Puppets Pretending to Be Liberals Assault Progressive Websites
Ignorant, peevish, narrow-minded, misinformed, livid, intolerant, they are an army of everything that's wrong with America, denizens of a weird trickster God who speaks to them with words they don't completely understand, or tints their natural interior wrath with righteous anger conferred by snake-oil preachers or haughty cable charlatans either crass or crazed, or just slyly in it for the money, or all of the above.
This minority wouldn't matter much except they are whipped into a frenzy and 'played' by cynical manipulators like Frank Luntz, Rush Limbaugh and Glenn Beck who, in turn, wouldn't have much impact without the billions of dollars spent to spread their fetid message from such right-wing corporatists as Fox News owner Rupert Murdoch and the Koch brothers.
But beneath the second-tier video fictions of James O’Keefe and Andrew Breitbart, and the hollow-headed bleating of the various ozone-inhabiting creatures who will never be president like Michele Bachmann and Sarah Palin, and even in the shadow of the disingenuous theocratic mushpile that is David Barton’s twisted view of our history, exists a well-funded Republican netherworld of PR propagandists and marketing hucksters busy dreaming up unethical new ways to undercut Obama and the Democrats.
One of these is Doug Goetzloe, an anti-tax right-wing talk show host and former Young Republican who heads up Advantage Consultants. Here is the copy from one of his ads advising his conservative clients to ‘flood the zone’ on progressive sites:
“Are you ready for a blog attack?
“Get ahead of your opponent with Professional Blog Warriors.
“Be prepared to ‘flood the zone’ with comments from professionals who are ready to put your talking points on the blogosphere 24/7.
“Whether it's defense or offense, Advantage Consultants has a dedicated team of experienced blog warriors ready to advance your candidate or campaign.
“Why wait for the attack? Launch your attack with a battery of blog and forum comments aimed at all media and blog sites in your district.
“Contact us today and let us show you the Advantage in professional blog warfare.”
-- See the Advantage Consultants ad at:
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=389x6266805
Then there’s Chip Griffin, head of the now defunct NetVocates that planted comments as Advantage Consultants does back in 2005, and still a Republican activist and PR man who was once associated with the far-right TownHall.com. Griffin is no doubt back on the scene as a sock-puppet master for the 2012 elections -- it’s what he does for a living.
A poster named TomCADem recently made these points at Democratic Underground:
“However, what is often ignored are right wing/corporate funded political operatives generating attacks on Democrats from the ‘left’ while giving Republicans a free pass. Of course, these operatives do not announce their intentions, but instead simply launch attacks on Democrats from the left while largely ignoring the far more extreme positions of Republicans or suggesting that there is no difference between Democrats and Republicans. However, occasionally, such operatives are caught engaging in these fraudulent acts.
“The question in 2012 with Republicans and corporate American intent on taking back the White House, killing unions, and privatizing Medicare, [is] how far will Republicans and corporate propaganda groups go in their efforts to organize sock puppet attacks on Democrats from the left in order to undermine support for Democrats among liberals?”
-- Posted in “‘Liberal’ Sock Puppets – Right Wing/Corporate Operatives Attacking Democrats From The ‘Left’,” April 26, 2011.
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=439x967422
How far? The GOP is desperate to enact their anti-democratic corporate agenda as quickly as possible as they know the general public is catching onto them -- they will go as far as mountains of corporate money and a total lack of conscience or ethics will take them.
Some on the progressive side are already well aware that the GOP is, and has been at least since 2005, mounting a large and well-funded campaign to plant phony 'progressives sick of the Dems' comments on various liberal sites to split the vote. Their masters know the psychology well: a percentage of the population, no matter what their politics, is 'suggestible,' meaning if they read a string of comments excoriating ALL Democrats as frauds and liars, that will become their opinion, if nothing to the contrary is offered. These 'suggestibles' are not necessarily stupid, but they do readily conform to whatever opinion is dominant. That's why the GOP, through their paid operatives, flood progressive sites with so-called 'former Democrats' and 'angry progressives' who do nothing but harp on how horrible the Democrats and Obama are. It's insidious and underhanded, but look at who's doing it -- the party of Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker, Michigan Gov. Rick Snyder and Ohio Gov. John Kasich. All of them were elected on a promise of jobs and better times, only to use their office to reward the wealthy with tax cuts and lucrative contracts privatizing public services at the expense of middle-class families who work for a living.
At one time, some of the 'tells' of the right-wing ‘sock puppet’ troll was their use of terms such as 'DemoRATS' or ‘Demonrats’ for Democrats, and their repeatedly calling Obama 'Obummer,' 'Obomber' or 'Obomba.' But they've mostly changed that language as actual progressives began to notice those repeated constructions and the fetid and simpleminded opinions attached to them. Some current 'tells' are when they don't mention the GOP at all, or claim both parties are just as 'evil,' or try to shut down the conversation with insults, or push readers to vote for any third party, or say that they'd rather vote for a Republican than a Democrat, or make statements with no factual basis, or refer you to a right-wing website to ‘confirm’ their assertions.
Incidentally, there is no comparable effort by the left: if you try to post comments opposing the GOP or corporatists at right-wing sites, in most cases you will quickly be banned from posting there and your comments removed. They aren't about to let the other side play their game on them, even if we had the money to fund such slimy baloney and the inclination to do so.
Our only protection against such ersatz assaults is to use our heads and common sense: if someone is a little ‘too’ enraged at Obama and the Democrats, be suspicious, especially if they never talk about Republicans. Ask them a couple of polite intelligent questions on the comment thread’s topic; if they respond by condemning or insulting you for questioning them rather than engaging you, they’re likely a sock-puppet troll; it’s in their nature to consider any question or disagreement as tantamount to treason. Also, if they keep reposting basically the same idea in one comment thread, they’re probably a sock-puppet troll; they’ve been instructed by their masters that repetition works. And don’t be swayed if they accuse you of being a ‘shill’ or ‘troll’ for questioning them -- they are trained to do that.
Finally, always remember: you can pretend to be a progressive, but you can’t pretend to be smart, and these paid ‘blog warriors’ decidedly aren’t.
"The key point is that ever since the Reagan years, the Republican Party has been dominated by radicals - ideologues and/or apparatchiks who, at a fundamental level, do not accept anyone else’s right to govern."
-- Paul Krugman, "The Politics of Spite," NY Times, Oct. 5, 2009.
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/10/05/opinion/05krugman.html
© 2011 RS Janes.
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Googling "Pretending to be Liberal" led instead to other articles,
The following site mentioned five example of what you are refering to,
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=439x967422
One exampe is "Latinos for Reform"
They always give themselves away.
It's strange how people perceive movements. E.G. I have never understood how U.S. Christians can feel they are 'under attack'.
It's disgusting.
“I want you to know that the fundamentalist political movement is the beginning of a cultural revolution that will take our nation to a very dark place. You have to understand that this has been methodically planned and is being carried out with the utmost vigilance. In accordance with their worldview, my old friends do not in the least care about what you think. They are against democracy, and they are seeking to end the rule of the majority in our great country.
“They truly believe that if you have not been ‘saved,’ you are living under a curse and are incapable of knowing what is best and that because of this you should be ruled over. You should also know they do not believe that even centuries-old Christian communities (Catholics, Anglicans, Greek Orthodox, etc.) are ‘saved,’ only those who think like they do.”
-- Jason Childs, “I Was a Right-Wing Evangelical Pastor -- Until I Saw the Light,” May 21, 2011.
http://www.alternet.org/story/151034/i_was_a_right-wing_evangelical_pastor_--_until_i_saw_the_light?akid=7030.143085.kTYLtN&rd=1&t=12
Unfortunately, while they may deserve to be duped, they vote and influence other voters to be duped.
The posters on DU who are from the right are apparent to me because I have spent time on web boards where both sides engage in arguments. Whether the right leaning DU posters are paid or not I don't know. But I think it's harmful to Democrats to be marginalizing progressives, this time through paranoid speculation.
As for your contention that right-wingers would never be dumb enough to use 'DemoRATS' in a post while pretending to be a liberal, just remember than many of these people aren't very bright and I have seen this word posted at another site years ago by someone who eventually admitted they were anti-choice and not really all that progressive after all. There were other very suspicious posts at that site, supposedly by 'liberals,' that also used this word for Democrats. Of course, the GOP marketers have gotten much better at what they do, so you won't see such 'slips' these days.
That however doesn't mean that maybe the vote for some Democrats shouldn't be split.
We are now at war in (at least) 6 countries: Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Somalia, Yemen, and now Libya.
These multi-trillion dollar commitments so far from us will surely unplug us if we do not unplug them first, all questions of the morality of the suffering we are inflicting aside.
So any Democrat (or Republican) who is only opposed to wars started by the other party (or maybe not even that) is not promoting our survival.
And as far as Obama goes --- he will win by a huge landslide in 2012 because he is very smart and has the support of the neocons in every newspaper from the NYT down. The neocons realize that only a masterful speaker like Obama can keep a little domestic tranquility while every dime of our assets goes down the drain in the wars.
So my prediction is no matter how many bloggers are paid to split what, the Obama vote will not be very split, and we will still have vast bases and giant embassies in Iraq and Afghanistan in 2016 ---- but we will be decidedly poorer, and people around the world will hate us, deservedly, more.
BTW, Obama is also faced with something FDR never had to contend with -- a mass media that is 80 percent owned by six massive GOP-friendly corporations.
If you were in Obama's shoes, what would you do? And please try to be realistic -- he's not a king, after all.
"If people are truly getting their political information from comment sections then they deserve to get duped, be they Liberal or Conservative."
- The problem is to win we need the votes of these "duped" folks. If the comments persuade them to either change their vote to R or keep them from bothering to vote we are stuck with the crappy results at the polls - think Nov 2010 - we live with those results now in many places.
All hail the New Boss, same as the Old Boss....we won't get fooled again.
In point of fact, it's YOU that sound like individuals the article refers to. Did you respond to ANY of mtnview's examples of why some of us might have problems with Obama and Democrats? To answer: you did NOT.Instead you simply attacked much as described in the article.The author of this piece states,
"if someone is a little "too enraged" at Obama and the Democrats be suspicious, especially if they never talk about Republicans." Republicans as they stand today are political vermin.I've said it many times and so has mtnview.But Democrats HAVE continually shifted right for the last 30+ years.There is NO ambiguity about that. Please define what EXACTLY "too enraged" constitutes. We ARE engaged in 3 wars. Obama HAS suggested cutting nutritional subsidies to low income children and govt. assistance to low income seniors to pay winter heating bills.He HAS agreed to two more years of f*****g obscene tax breaks for the wealthiest Americans.Not ONE Wall ST. thief is in jail. Bradley Manning WAS tortured for 10 months. Guantanamo is STILL open.No CIVILIAN trials as promised.He IS advocating deep water drilling after Gulf spill.cont.
1. We are not in 3 wars. We are in one full-blown war in Af-Pak; we are winding down in Iraq; and our participation in the Libyan revolution is limited and part of a UN approved mission to stop a dictator from slaughtering his own people. As to the last, would you have preferred we stay out of it and watch thousands of Libyans massacred? What would you say of Obama then?
2. Obama 'suggested' something -- he didn't act on it.
3. He agreed to 2 more years of tax breaks for the rich in return for an end to DADT and extending unemployment benefits for millions of Americans.
4. Did you know the president can't prosecute anyone? It's true. Such prosecutions are made by the Justice Dept. which is, and should be, independent of the White House. On that point, Dems in Congress just provided new evidence to the JD.
5. You'll get no argument from me on the Manning imprisonment. That was wrong. Under a Republican president he might be dead or waterboarded.
6. Gitmo is still open until Congress acts to close it.
7. There have been civilian trials of terrorist suspects. Google it for yourself.
8. I have not heard Obama advocate for more deep-water drilling. Where did you get that idea?
I think it's time you started paying attention and connecting the dots: what's happening in the Rust Belt states is a preview of the GOP plan for America if they win in 2012, and I'm pretty sure you are not going to get what you want from the Republican Fourth Reich. Or maybe you will.
A mass movement of working people has taken to the streets in Wisconsin, Ohio, Michigan and elsewhere and I'd be willing to bet Obama is paying close attention to those protests and will act accordingly, if for no other reason than his political survival.
What we need is more States like Pa to allow third parties in. Sorry but democrat even split their own party with a Dems for change..where is the change being bush like? That is scary. If OBama is so great than why am I so angry that he and the so called righteous Democrats not clean out Washington when they went marching in?
I believe in Hope for America but not in either Party we have now
There are just enough progressive Dems to keep the GOP from going 'full Michigan' and Obama, of course, controls the veto pen. A Republican president and a half-dozen more Republicans in the Senate and the entire country will be like Wisconsin, and that's no exaggeration. All of that crap the GOP has been passing out of the House will be rubber-stamped by the Senate and it's all over but the shouting. There won't be any room for a third party or even progressive Dems, although they'll keep a few around to make things look good.
The GOP knows their corprocracy dream is coming apart at the seams and that's why they are cracking down in the Rust Belt states -- those are test labs for launching the whole scheme nationwide and they know this election is likely their last chance.
Obama spent all his energies strong-arming people like Kucinich and Sanders to support his corporate welfare "health care" bill instead of strong-arming the Blue Dogs to accept a public option.
LBJ managed to get a Civil Rights Bill passed that alienated half the country, but it was still the right thing to do.
That's what real leaders do. They lead through persuasion and bargaining instead of following the path of least resistance or defeating themselves with unnecessary compromises.
LBJ got the Civil Rights bill passed in a different era when there were actual liberal and moderate Republicans, such as Margaret Chase Smith, who voted for civil rights bills. There was no Fox News or Limbaugh in those days, and what if Obama tried twisting arms as LBJ did and the Blue Dogs left the party and became Republicans? Then the GOP would have even larger numbers in the Senate. Obama faced a solid wall of GOP opposition, and the Blue Dog Dems and Lieberman -- it's lucky he got anything passed at all.
The Blue Dogs ARE Republicans. I live in Florida and the BD's used to be called Dixiecrats. They SHOULD leave and join the Republican party but they know that they couldn't get elected in Democratic areas.
http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=Moby
She would then broadcast this to her 18000 followers. She also has sites on the internet. I found my name in big letters on one of them, but I had blocked her by then, so there was no content. Could this be what you are talking about?
What I was talking about were comment threads such as this one, where someone pretends to be a liberal Democrat/progre ssive who is now so disenchanted with Obama and the Dems they're telling people to vote for either the GOP or a third party or sit out in protest. Since there are honest progressives who feel this way, I was trying to provide some of the 'tells' of the right-wing trolls who are paid (or, in some cases, volunteer) to insidiously pretend to be progressives to undermine support for the Dems, rather than legitimate progressive posters.
Libertarians were Social Elite who wanted to show people they could be kewl...however, they flip flop on too many issues esp towards the rich whose parties they like to drink at. I have had to put up with them for 25 years flip flopping on Environment some ripping off Bethlehem Steel.
Greens, Independents have a right to run for office but in some States esp Pa, they need to get hundred times the signatures on petitons as the socialist two.
These creeps do a lot of the cut/splice because they cannot follow up on intelligence. Glad you were able to block
http://motivatedinohio.blogspot.com/
Many legimitate reporters didn't believe the evidence in 2000 that Bush campaign officials rigged the Florida vote and, in a fair statewide recount, Gore would have won FL; by the time that 'proof' materialized, 9/11 had happened and the story was buried in the back pages.
Of course, you're free to wait until whatever evidence you require materializes, perhaps while President Mitch Daniels does to the country what Scott Walker is doing to Wisconsin.
Some of us would like to be a little more 'pro-active' to prevent that disaster.
Better yet, you can acknowledge that the president's critics have valid points. One needn't be a sock puppet to acknowledge, say, that the president broke his pledge to stop raiding medical marijuana dispensaries, or to acknowledge that he has continued or even expanded the Bush administration' s warrantless wiretapping program, or that the Obama administration is far harder on whistle-blowers than any previous administration despite the fact that during the campaign he called whistle-blowers "often the best source of information about waste, fraud, and abuse in government." After all, there's actual observable evidence to support those things.
Go with the evidence, not convenient conspiracy theories. Otherwise, you're the Left's version of the birthers.
This is not some 'conspiracy theory' without basis in reality as is the birther nonsense. As you can see just from the comments on this page, others have encountered this situation as well.
And, seriously, do you think members of the party that contributed money to Ralph Nader in 2004 to split the Dem vote (you can Google that), and employ Frank Luntz to find comforting words to describe destroying the environment and deporting American jobs would draw a line at placing phony liberal posters on progressive websites?
If so, you're being naive.
Again, there's no evidence that they've encountered it, just suspicion. As I said, it's a defense mechanism against the reality of the Democrats' rightward trajectory. Rahm Emanuel really said "Fuck the UAW." He really did call liberals "retarded." There's actual evidence for that. Focus on the evidence, not on baseless suspicion.
Are PR firms employing faux liberals to hijack comment threads? Probably. If you can think of it, someone has tried it. But it doesn't have the effect you think it does. If progressives are so easily swayed by comments at a blog post, then they deserve to lose anyway.
The real culprit behind the mid-term trouncing is Gibbs and Emanuel. Who insults their base right before an election? If you like conspiracy theories, which this article demonstrates, here's a much more likely one for you: Gibbs and Emanuel WANTED the Republicans to win the mid-terms so that the bankster agenda they serve would be advanced. The Obama administration works for Wall Street. Look who's in all the key positions. Chief of staff Bill Daley: JP Morgan Chase; Tim Geithner: Goldman Sachs; Penny Pritzker: TransUnion; Gene Sperling: Goldman Sachs; Larry Summers: All around piece of shit; etc.
I'm no fan of Rahm Emanuel or Robert Gibbs, but Emanuel is now making the lives of Chicagoans miserable and Gibbs does not have the national media attention he once had. (Aside from that, Gibbs is now chomping at the bit to go to work for Facebook and become a millionaire.)
Obama is not, and never was -- listen to his speeches in 2007 and 2008 -- the perfect progressive candidate, but he was the best we had that could win. (Do you doubt McCain/Palin would have been a disaster?) And he has accomplished some good things, aside from finally breaking the color barrier of the presidency, such as getting rid of DADT and the Huddie Ledbetter act codifying equal treatment for women, despite the rhetoric to the contrary. (If you'd like me to list more, I will, but for the sake of brevity, I'm leaving them out for now.)
I'm not defending Obama's choices for his cabinet and advisors, but Tim Geithner definitely beats McCain's choice of Phil Gramm for Treasury Sec'y and Biden is Tom Paine compared to Sarah Mooselini. You might add, BTW, that Obama named Elizabeth Warren as one of his advisors and wants her to head up the CFPB; he put Elena Kagan and Sonia Sotomayor on the Supreme Court; and he has center-left economists Austan Goolsbee and Jared Bernstein on his staff. (Bernstein recently left.)
And, as we've seen in the Rust Belt states, Obama, for all of his faults, is no Scott Walker, John Kasich or Rick Snyder.
As ChasR commented earlier in this thread, we have to defeat the pernicious GOP first and take care of Dems like Gibbs and Emanuel and the Blue Dogs later.
I can think of no third party challenger who can realistically defeat the Republicans, so that leaves Obama and the Dems. Better half a loaf than nothing and -- trust me -- we'd get nothing under the Republicans. Or worse than nothing.
Yes, Grandpa McCain and Caribou Barbie would've been embarrassingly bad. But that doesn't change the fact that Obama has reversed himself on a bunch of campaign positions. If you order a beer and get a diet coke, you have a right to complain. We voted for a center-left candidate, which for many progressives was compromise enough after eight years of George W. Douche. But instead of a center-left president, we have a center-right president who's continuing or expanding most of Bush's worst policies. What's this domestic drilling shit? Isn't that "drill, baby, drill," Palin's policy? What about indefinite detention? That's straight out of the Dick Cheney playbook. Progressives should be complaining about that instead of spinning yarns about sock puppets.
As far as the rest of it, Obama isn't done yet and two years isn't long enough to reverse eight years of Junior, let alone the 30-year slide into conservatism we've experienced. I'll reserve judgment until the end of his presidency. Aside from that, the fact is either a Republican or Democrat is going to be elected president in 2012. If you've read my other comments, I don't think we have much choice this time around -- Romney, Daniels, Pawlenty, Gingrich (!), Bachmann (!!) -- do you seriously think any of them would be better than Obama?
While you may be true that any warm body was better than Caribou Barbie, saying that Geithner beats Gramm is no different than saying that Willie Sutton, the famed bank robber, beats Al Capone. Both Geithner and Gramm are crooks and had a large role in causing the financial meltdown. Given the several progressive economists available to Obama, i.e., Krugman or Stiglitz, the appointment of Geithner, a neoliberal in Obama's mold, to deal with that mess was like fighting a national crime wave by appointing Al Capone FBI director.
Obama has also been advised on the economy by the slightly left-of-center Austan Goolsbee, more left-of-center Jared Bernstein, and progressive Elizabeth Warren. I agree that Krugman, Stiglitz or Dean Baker would be a better choice but, don't forget, he doesn't necessarily take the advice of his cabinet members. I knew about Obama before he was a national celebrity since I live in his state and have met him on a couple of occasions. He was, and is, a 'pragmatic progressive' -- he doesn't bother to propose bills -- such as Universal Single-Payer health care -- that he knows won't be passed. In Illinois he got two bills passed that the pundits said would never get through the statehouse: one eradicated the 'gifts' state officials received, and the other mandated videotaping all interrogations of suspects charged with a capital crime to prove whether the accused was tortured into a confession. He also has a history of lulling the opposition into thinking he agrees with them or that he's soft, and then entrapping them by their own actions or words. And, yes, he does believe in compromise to get things done. Do you seriously have a better plan?
True, there are some Obama-trashing posters who actually think they are "holding his feet to the fire" here, but they are just stupid, and Bud's not that stupid. Is he.
I think it's also interesting that Bud hasn't responded to any of your comments yet.
I'm not a "paid poster," I am truly a progressive. Bud's neither stupid nor naive. He's right on about Obama. In my mind, we're getting Dubya's third term. Get it, Obama is taking this country off a cliff, but because of his empty pretty words, millions (like you, probably) feel tranquilized into believing that that is not what is happening. A punk like Scott Walker, on the other hand, makes that very clear, so clear that thousands of Wisconsin butts lifted themselves off the couch and into the streets. Just think what Walker could do for the whole country. And again, I don't "support" Walker or the Rethugs. It's just that they do a much better job than President Kumbaya of arosing the vast apothetic body that is the American people, especially after Kumbaya sold out the millions who voted for him in '08. Clearly, Obama's empty "leadership" isn't, as they say, sustainable. A social movement even bigger than the 60's has got to happen real soon or this country is doomed to facism. That's not going to happen so long as Mr. Gladhander is at the helm.
http://www.commondreams.org/views04/0306-04.htm
"On November 7, 2003, a strange new group no one had ever heard of called "Americans for Jobs & Healthcare" was quietly formed and soon thereafter began running a million dollar operation including political ads against then-frontrunne r Democratic presidential candidate Howard Dean. The commercials ripped Dean over his positions or past record on gun rights, trade and Medicare growth. But the most inflammatory ad used the visual image of Osama bin Laden as a way to raise questions about Dean's foreign policy credibility. While the spots ran, Americans for Jobs�through its then-spokesman, Robert Gibbs, a former Kerry campaign employee�refuse d to disclose its donors."
BTW, Bud, do you consider yourself a true progressive?
And to answer your silly question, yes, I consider myself a true progressive. I worked for Greenpeace for three years. I campaigned for California's Big Green ballot initiative back in 1990 and similar initiatives in Oregon. What have you done?
So the reason I suspect so many comments posters to be trolls posing as progressives is that if they are literate enough write a coherent post, they can't possibly be so stupid as to make absurd comments like, "Obama's no better than Bush." No one can be that politically clueless, so they simply have to be trolls. And, as it turns out, they usually are. Thank you RSJ, for this excellent article bringing to light this serious issue. There has to be a solution. I don't know if it is to require posters to reveal their valid email addresses or what, but it has gotten completely out of hand. Karl knows that the Internet is one of the left's greatest tools, for organizing and fundraising and communication. And he knows that an effective warrior neutralizes his opponent's strengths. And that's just what these ratf_cking sock puppets are out to do.
I don't think it was a silly question to ask your political leanings and good for you for your activism, but, to answer your question, what I have done is march against the draft, racism and the Vietnam War in the '60s and was chased by cops who wanted to beat my head in and eventually busted for availing myself of my right to protest. I also worked for awhile in the alternative or 'underground' press in the same time frame. Although I'll never regret what I did in that era, I have come to the conclusion, based on the history that has come out since, that we would have been better off with Humphrey than Nixon; that the McGovern folks were naive to not expect the vicious, underhanded attacks from Nixon's GOP and the media; that we would have been better off with Carter than Reagan; and that -- and it pains me to say this since I supported Nader in 2000 -- we would have been much better off with Gore than Little Bush. Similarly, I'm supporting Obama and the Dems because we'll be better off, if not perfect, under his government than the Koch corporate fascism of the Republicans, as displayed in Wisconsin, et al. I would like to vote for a real progressive in 2012, but there isn't one out there who has a chance of winning -- those are just the facts, whether we like them or not.
But thanks for bringing up that era. It reminds me of another famous quotation, this one from Paul Harvey: "In times like these, it is helpful to remember that there have always been times like these."
I talked to a few McGovern people at the time -- they were totally unprepared for Nixon's dirty tricks.
As to Humphrey, Hunter may have been right, but HHH as Sen and VP had been instrumental in passing civil rights legislation and had brokered a deal to end the Vietnam War in 1968 which Nixon illegally undermined by sending Kissinger to tell the North Vietnamese he'd give them a better deal. I trust you've read about nixon -- if you think HHH was bad have you've read Hunter's opinion of Nixon? HHH was a piker compared to RMN. Some quotes from HST:
"For years I've regarded his existence as a monument to all the rancid genes and broken chromosomes that corrupt the possibilities of the American Dream; he was a foul caricature of himself, a man with no soul, no inner convictions, with the integrity of a hyena and the style of a poison toad."
"He was a swine of a man and a jabbering dupe of a president. Nixon was so crooked that he needed servants to help him screw his pants on every morning."
"...and all the dumb bastard can show us, after five years of total freedom to do anything he wants with all this power, is a shattered national economy, disastrous defeat in a war we could have ended four years ago on far better terms than he finally came around to, and a hand-picked personal staff put together through five years of screening, whose collective criminal record will blow the minds of high-school American History students for the next 100 years."
Nope, Humphrey was no Nixon -- not even close.
So I suggest we all get up from our computers and hie ourselves down to the local Democratic headquarters and help make the party as progressive as we want it to be.
You can either wake up or be like the leftists in Germany in the 1920s and argue ceaselessly among each other while the Nazis seize power. Tell me, did you expect Walker, Kasich or Snyder to do what they did in their states? That's what's in store for the country if the GOP wins -- it's that serious and it can happen here. (It IS happening here.) There are Blue Dogs Dems, but there is also Al Franken and Bernie Sanders, et al, in the Senate and a long list of progressive Dems in the House. The GOP is the wholly-owned predatory capitalist party; the Dems only halfway.
As far as building an alternative, that's great, but it's not going to happen by election day 2012. In the meantime, we have to deal with the reality of our situation: if the GOP wins in 2012, IMO, it's game over for progressives.
The tea party may still be noisy, but it is waning, not waxing. Many people drawn to it out of frustration are themselves waking up.
If we continue to excuse the Obama administration on the threat of a Nazi putsch extrapolated from Walker, Kasich, and Snyder, we are liable to wind up with his renomination. And we will have to vote and campaign for his faux-liberal administration. Then it really is game over for progressives, since we will have added nothing to the process. Past is prologue; wars will continue, the gap between rich and poor (now the greatest in any industrialized country) will grow - both preexisting trends which accelerated under the current administration. That is a more credible extrapolation than the one giving you those nightmares.
Incidentally, Bernie Sanders is no Democrat. Rather, as an independent socialist, he personifies initial steps needed to build a true alternative. You are right, this will take more than a year and a half, but if we do not start now, then when? How much worse do things have to get to interrupt our nightmares? As Bernie Sander's Vermont progressives did next door, we are now trying to start organizing New Hampshire progressives: http://www.nhprog.org/
Criticize Obama all you want, but if we end up with Jeb Bush in the White House in 2013, my guess is that there won't be much of a progressive agenda happening.
The White House
1600 Pennsylvania Avenue NW
Washington, DC 20500
Please include your e-mail address
Phone Numbers
Comments: 202-456-1111
Switchboard: 202-456-1414
FAX: 202-456-2461
However, Donald, you ARE continuing to excuse the Obama administration, and I hope the DLC is paying you well for it. Jobs are scarce. Meanwhile, the Democratic primary is still a distance ahead, so you can stop polishing that tarnished crown until then. It bores us; besides that, the rest of the world only coronates figureheads, not putative progressive leaders.
We just returned from Sweden, where private and corporate contributions to political parties are outlawed. The government funds any party with over 1% of the vote in proportion. Instead of "winner take all", they have a democratic parliamentary system. Plus 200 years without war and a much higher mass living standard. This came through struggle, not accommodation. We can do better here; we must.
As to a third party, we can start building an alternative party (and the Greens in some states are doing this) by getting more progressives elected on a local level and move from that to state and federal offices. As we've seen, without a firm foundation and money every run for the presidency is just an exercise in futility -- the Electoral College elects the president, and that is made up of Reps and Dems. In a few states, the electors have to vote the will of the majority, but not in enough to secure a third party victory. As a protest vote, frankly, no one cares much, except the GOP knows that every vote for a progressive third party is a vote that won't go to the Dems. It will take a decade, at least, to build any kind of real third party in this country, what with the laws making such challenges nearly impossible. In the meantime, it would be much easier to take over the Dems -- that, too, would take time, but you wouldn't be reinventing the wheel as you are with a third party. Either way, it's just not going to happen before election day 2012.
Why is the prospect of a more progressive Democratic nominee not mentioned here? Kucinich, Feingold, and others have opposed the endlessly increasing wars and bogus health care reform (PPACA), at least until pressured by the administration. As it is, the Obama magic may not work twice - the public, not just us, has already been sadly disappointed, and they do the critical voting, not the lefts or the Obamabots.
BTW, if you find the perfect progressive candidate who will never disappoint, and can get elected in 2012, let me know and I'll vote for him or her. In the meantime, it's Obama and the Dems or the GOP's neo-fascist Klepto-Corprocr acy.
BHO has yet to begin steps to follow through on his campaign promises to pattern his presidency after the FDR "New Deal" and to end the wars especially when originally based on true lies. If truly honest, our President must begin dismantling of the Corporate monopolistic empire of fixed enterprise based on cheap labor. This is a must to bring true meaning to the Preamble of our Constitution: "WE THE PEOPLE of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves, and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America."
The right wing are busy destroying the public schools which will keep people stupid and easily persuaded by any kind of nonsense. Unfortunately for them as the economy deteriorates so will their assets. They don't understand that one can't have a viable economy without government services such as education, decent healthcare, scientific research and a viable infrastructure. During the Eisenhower era with high marginal tax rates we built the freeways and invested, for example, in education and research. The increase in the country's prosperity was uncalculable. Now we can't afford to maintain all that was built up due to inadequate tax revenues. A proper steep progressive income tax will benefit the rich because it will enhance the value of their assets which will more than make up the extra taxes they might have to pay.
The rich are our greatest enemies, not Jihad, because they suffer from short term greed and faith based economics.
For my liberal two cents, Obama is way better than ANY conservative candidate and most Democrats. He may not have changed the country overnight (did you really think anyone could?) but I really doubt if anyone else could do better considering the dysfunctional political and media system being manipulated by the uber-rich conservatives and corporations.
But if the sock puppets can dissuade one progressive Dem from voting or contributing or volunteering, then they have succeeded, and they are that much closer to putting Jeb Bush in the White House in 2013.
http://blackagendareport.com/top_ten_excuses_4_obama_failures_betrayals
"Obama has accomplished more in LESS than two years than all other presidents, with the possible exception of LBJ and George Washington."
-- Josh Hammond, Dec. 10, 2010.
http://bestoftheblogs.com/blog/JoshHammond/site/posts/?bid=35308
And there's this:
"[108] Things Obama Has Done"
http://www.bspcn.com/2010/10/18/things-obama-has-done/
And this:
Snopes Debunks 50 Lies About Obama
http://www.snopes.com/politics/obama/50lies.asp
I am a decades long peace, justice and media activist who has been banned from many "progressive sites, including TruthDig, Op Ed News and Common Dreams.
For daring to speak the truth about president Oily-bomber and the complicity of the Democratic Party in a long list of betrayals.
I am no right winger. Far from it.
The deliberate suppression of voices of dissent by Democratic Party apologists has been stunning, to say the least.
http://www.rall.com/rallblog/2011/05/16/syndicated-column-rise-of-the-obamabots
"Obama is the one they ought to be blackballing. He has been a terrible disappointment to the American left. He has forsaken liberals at every turn. Yet they continue to stand by him. Which means that, in effect, they are not liberals at all. They are militant Democrats. They are Obamabots."
It's an excellent read. It shows how petty and vindictive Obama and his followers have been, not unlike some of the commenters in this thread. I suppose Donald Kehoty thinks Ted Rall is a secret right-winger who has been cleverly drawing liberal cartoons all these years as a disguise.
Seriously, Bud, no matter if you refuse to acknowledge that Obama has managed to accomplish a whole hell of a lot in spite of unprecedented opposition (see link below), the reality is this: he will not be primaried. He's done too good a job. He is the Democratic candidate for president in 2012. He will face a Republican candidate. Probably Mitt or Jeb, as it looks now. Whom do you prefer? It's really that simple, Bud.
I understand that many of us would want Obama to govern in a more progressive direction. But, check me on this, Bud: I don't think Mitt or Jeb will govern very progressively. Do you?
You seem like an intelligent enough guy, Bud. If you want a more progressive government, what do you (and Mr. Rall) think is the best way for us to achieve that?
http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/promises/obameter/rulings/promise-kept/?page=1
I like some of Ted Rall's 'righteous' cartoons, but his take on Pat Tillman (and he now admits he got it wrong) was extremely offensive. Aside from that, why should The Nation or any other left-wing blog or publication run cartoons or other content with which they don't agree? I suspect some of Rall's problems can be traced to his erroneous defaming of Tillman rather than Obama. Ted's made a career of being purposely inflammatory and contrarian to get attention and sometimes that backfires.
BTW, if you want to see real suppression of dissent, go to Fox Nation, Free Republic or another hard-right blog. On second thought, you wouldn't be suppressed there -- they wholeheartedly agree with you.
But they do agree. Read the article:
"A sample of recent rejections, each from editors at different left-of-center media outlets:
• “I am familiar with and enjoy your cartoons. However the readers of our site would not be comfortable with your (admittedly on point) criticism of Obama.”
• “Don’t be such a hater on O and we could use your stuff. Can’t you focus more on the GOP?”
• “Our first African-America n president deserves a chance to clean up Bush’s mess without being attacked by us.”
"I have many more like that.
"What’s weird is that these cultish attitudes come from editors and publishers whose politics line up neatly with mine. They oppose the bailouts. They want us out of Afghanistan and Iraq. They disapprove of Obama’s new war against Libya. They want Obama to renounce torture and Guantánamo."
So why shouldn't The Nation or any other left-wing blog or publication run cartoons or other content with which they do agree?
1. The editor says the readership would drop off if they published Rall's cartoons. Is there a rule that progressive publications must lose readers and money to satisfy Ted Rall's need to earn a living? Rall has freedom of speech, but not the freedom to be published wherever he sees fit.
2. It doesn't seem the editor here agrees with Rall, telling him not to hate Obama so much. Rall has cartoons that don't attack Obama -- why doesn't he send those instead of whining?
3. Again, where is the agreement between the editor and Rall on Obama in this sentence? Rall thinks Obama has had enough chances already; the editor doesn't. (In fact, if I recall correctly, Rall was criticizing Obama in the spring of 2009, not long after his inauguration.)
As I've said elsewhere in this thread, Rall has made a career of being inflammatory and contrarian and sometimes that backfires. Instead of living with his own decisions, he would rather blame 'Obamabots' for his inability to earn the same money he was making before. Listen, I know some free-lancers who do what Rall does -- the entire publishing industry is down compared to the 1990s; it's the economy, stupid, not Obamabots.
As far as the other bullet points go, you are reading selectively. I urge you to read the entire article. Rall makes the point that these same editors gladly accepted material that was critical of Clinton -- another neoliberal faux progressive.
The Obama White House already has a history of punishing critics. I suspect these editors are more concerned with losing access to the White House than they are with discomforting their readers.
Aside from that, Rall doesn't just criticize Obama, he makes him out to be a bloody monster. That may be his and your opinion, but it's not that of the majority of the readers of The Nation or other progressive publications. As I say, they are under no obligation to pay him to produce work they don't want to print and he should stop crying about it. End of story.
As to Royko, he had more integrity than Rall -- he quit the Chicago Sun-Times when Murdoch bought it. If Rall doesn't like the pro-Obama slant of these places where he submits his material, he should quit submitting material to them.
I would like to know the history of Obama 'punishing' his critics, and be specific. I would also like to know who has been denied access for criticizing Obama. That happened under Bush, but, of course, you can't see the difference between the two.
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2011/04/29/MNA51J994T.DTL&ao=all
"White House threatened Thursday to exclude The San Francisco Chronicle from pooled coverage of its events in the Bay Area after the paper posted a video of a protest at a San Francisco fundraiser for President Obama last week, Chronicle Editor Ward Bushee said. White House guidelines governing press coverage of such events are too restrictive, Bushee said, and the newspaper was within its rights to film the protest and post the video."
I was responding to the bullet points you selected and I'm 'reading selectively'? Good luck with that one, Bud.
Any time you go onto one of the liberal blogs if you say ANYTHING negative about him at all you are accused of being a troll.
I have seen the blogs such as C&L go so far over the line that they have become the opposite of the Tea Parties in their extreme views.
The truth is that he has become a corporate tool. He wants to be a bipartisan president. The Republicans will not move an inch so he starts negotiating where they draw the line and the result is that their shit is getting passed. Anything needed for we the people is watered down.
I don't know that the answer is to elect a Democratic majority again in 2012 since nothing was accomplished when they did have the majority, Republicans still ruled.
I think they all have to go and we need to start from scratch. First ones to go should be the corrupt supreme court judges!
I don't know what is to be done about this Rovian ratf_cking, but I console myself with the thought that the effectiveness of this psy-ops campaign will be minimal at best.
That Republicans have to resort to this kind of tactic just shows you: they have nothing to sell.
Reponding to this nonsense at least gives the impressionable reader, who often doesn't comment, an option that will, hopefully, make them seek out the truth or see the weakness in the logic of the anti-Obama contingent and their misapplied hatred. The major subdivisions of this attack boil down to:
1. Really, you're a progressive who hates Obama and the Dems so much you'd rather see Republicans elected with full knowledge of what they're doing in the Midwest? (That'll teach Obama!)
2. Really, you're going to elect progressive third party candidates to the presidency and Congress (because the president can't get much done without Congress on his or her side) when ALL third parties COMBINED got less than 2 percent of the vote in 2008? (Wow, do you own a unicorn, too?)
The head-slapping stupidity of this thinking is as obvious as a steaming load of bullcrap on fresh-fallen snow but, unfortunately, we have to keep pointing it out to our true friends who are understandably having a hard time facing reality. In America, Big Myths and Huge Delusions, particularly those promoted by the right to achieve their screw-you corporate agenda, die hard.
The truth is, if Obama were the corporate tool you believe him to be, the US Chamber of Commerce and Karl Rove's Crossroads group would not be collecting hundreds of millions of corporate dollars to oppose him and his programs. So far, I have asked this question several times and none of you anti-Obama 'progressives' can answer it: Why is Corporate America spending so much to get rid of their 'tool' Obama?
As far as negotiating, Obama traded two more years of tax cuts for the rich for extended unemployment benefits and the end of DADT. Perhaps that's not important to you, but it is to millions of other people.
The only way the Dems had the 60-votes in the Senate needed to break a GOP filibuster was if McCain pal Lieberman and the Blue Dog Dems all voted, and some things were accomplished, like health care reform, far from perfect as it is. Since I don't have the room to list them here, go Google it for yourself.
You have an interesting take on SC judges -- we should get rid of the corrupt ones by -- what -- electing Republicans?
BTW, Common Dreams has plenty of anti-Obama comments; you'll fit 'right' in.
Of course, a lot of this comes from eliminating civics courses and the like from public schools in return for the dumbed-down 'No Child Left Inside' test.
That beautiful begining to the article - "Ignorant, peevish, narrow-minded, misinformed, livid, intolerant," says it all, and is borne out repeatedly throughout the article - it looks like pure projection - seeing others as we are. If we are to reclaim the moral high ground surely we need to do better.
-- Chris Hedges
http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/why_prophets_like_cornel_west_make_liberal_sell-outs_attack_20110523/
I guess Chris Hedges is a right-wing sock puppet too, eh? And Cornel West?
I don't think you're getting it. We're not calling you a sock puppet, there is a distinction between progressives who are genuinely disillusioned by the lack of progress they expected in giving Obama their vote and those posing as liberals/progre ssives whose goal is to feed the anti-obama machine. I think its disingenuous to be selectively obtuse to the fact that if Obama is not re-elected, we will be even farther from progressive's goals. Don't you see that? You have to admit that there ARE sock puppets out there (some even paid) who do NOT want the progress that you seem to genuinely want for this country. I do believe in voicing dissent but not tossing the baby out with the bath water.
I reiterate: the snake is more dangerous than the lion; the betrayer is more contemptible than the belligerent.
"Beck’s desperate guilt by association: Obama’s mom, Geithner’s dad, a bank ... and hamburgers?"
-- Media Matters, May 20, 2010
http://mediamatters.org/blog/201005200059
With this desperate attempt to bash Obama using right-wing conspiracy theories, you've invalidated your claim to be a progressive -- real progressives don't believe nonsense from raving wingnuts like Glenn Beck.
Incidentally, if Obama had such an 'in' with Wall Street, why was he working as a $12,000-a-year community organizer in a poor neighborhood in Chicago for 3 years, and why did he pay for his college tuition through student loans and scholarships? Odd things for a soulless Wall Street 'Fortunate Son' to have done, to say the least. (Wait, I know -- he was being 'groomed' to be our first black president way back in the early '90s, about the same time 'they' were planting his fake birth certificate in Hawaii!)
Here Snopes outlines Obama's financial background:
http://www.snopes.com/politics/obama/money.asp
But I'm sure you can refute that with some more baloney from a right-wing site. Try WorldNetDaily this time, Bud.
http://philanthropy.com/blogs/government-and-politics/ford-foundation-links-parents-of-obamatreasury-secretary-nominee/10851
And who are you to criticize conspiracy theories. Your article advances a loony one, that progressives criticizing Obama must surely be "sock puppets."
And doing volunteer work or low-wage charity work is a common step for people with political aspirations. Looks good on the ol' resume, you know?
You wrote: "And who are you to criticize conspiracy theories. Your article advances a loony one, that progressives criticizing Obama must surely be "sock puppets."
Except I never said progressives who criticize Obama are sock puppets. Read the article again and stop imagining things.
As to your third paragraph, you're convinced -- because you just viscerally hate Obama so much, as much as any Teabagger -- that in the '90s when he was helping poor people on Chicago's South Side for 3 years the only thing in Obama's head was his resume? Bud, you realize you've now moved into the arena of reading the mind of someone you don't even know and you're calling me loony? Your posts are becoming a comedy of the absurd.
BTW, Bud, when are you going to criticize a right-wing Republican for a change? Or can you?
I reiterate: the snake is more dangerous than the lion; the betrayer is more contemptible than the belligerent.
Sarcasm aside, I like much of what Hedges has written and generally agree with him, but I think his take on Obama is way too narrow.
BTW, that is not an obtuse take on Cornel West -- it actually comes from someone who was at a White House party that West attended who I happen to know. (BTW, this person is not a member of Obama's staff or gov't employee.) It was obvious that he was burning up with envy of Obama and angry that he wasn't carrying out West's agenda to the letter. But, then, West isn't president of all the people of the US and Obama is, and he doesn't have to deal with Congress, facts that West isn't taking into consideration. I like much of what Cornel has written as well, and he has the same option as Hedges -- run against Obama in the Dem primaries if you don't like him.
My, my, Bud, look at all of the posts you've made in this thread with nary a criticism of the GOP? What's up with that?
http://www.pollingreport.com/afghan.htm
For any politician to recommend withdrawal it would be a slam-dunk with the public. But the only ones recommending withdrawal are marginalized pols like Dennis Kucinich and Bernie Sanders. Oh. And Ron Paul. Obama is actually going against this slam-dunk by escalating the war in Afghanistan and expanding it into Pakistan. Why? Because he received over $800,000 in campaign contributions from defense contractors.
http://www.time.com/time/politics/article/0,8599,1855478,00.html
As I said in a previous post, I have some experience with Time-Life -- at least enough to not consider them a good source of untainted news. That said, we'll have to see, following the killing of bin Laden, if Obama decreases our involvement in Af-Pak. One of the reasons we have a large number of troops there is a valid one: If the Pakistani gov't falls to a fundamentalist Islamic sect they will have access to nuclear weapons, despite the Pakistani generals' assurances that they will secure the nukes. How would you feel if some crazy mullah types had access to nukes and delivery systems? Even if their use was confined to India or Israel, it would affect us greatly -- we would be in an all-out war in South Asia. If the choice is between a nuclear holocaust and war, or sending in our military to secure the weapons, I think the choice is obvious to any sane person. This, of course, is not something usually considered by Obama's critics on the left.
That should read: "That leaves us with a choice of either CORPORATE Obama and the CORPORATE Dems or the corporate GOP." And that's no choice at all. If you truly consider yourself progressive, then every one of your articles should focus on that fact rather than this childish everyone-who-cr iticizes-the-pr esident-must-be -a-PR-hack hokum.
Speaking of which, point me to the PR companies who pay to criticize the president, because I've been doing it for free. But actually, what I criticize is dishonesty regardless of who the president is. When the president lies, it is the patriot's duty to say, "but - but what about when you said..." You're not supposed to mindlessly wave your foam rubber finger in the air like a college football fan. And that's the problem with politics today. It's like a team sport. If the policy in question comes with a (D) behind it, then just yell and cheer. Then later, when that very same policy has an (R) behind it, then boo lustily. Don't look at the actual policy; just look at the initial after it. Build your ideology around principles, not partisan loyalty.
To reiterate: the GOP is completely corporately-own ed; only about half of the Dems are. Again, look at the Rust Belt states, Florida and New Jersey. Do you seriously think Dems would do what the Republicans are doing there? That is the corporate agenda for the country, should the GOP have a majority in Congress and the presidency next election. It's that simple, but you apparently refuse to see it.
Besides, you offer no answers save 'hate Obama' even though I've asked you what you would do to realistically advance a progressive agenda next election.
Principles without action are useless, and griping at me about how bad Obama and the Dems are is not going to improve the situation one iota. So, what's your big solution, Bud?
As for CWest, his recent attacks on Obama seem like tantrums for attention considering he supported Obama's run and is suddenly attacking him after his perceived snub at the inauguration and unreturned phone calls. BOs choice of Geithner, etal was a smart move considering his in-depth knowledge of the financial markets and connections therein. TARP was a last ditch effort to stabilize the markets and if it hadn't gone through, we'd all be standing in breadlines about now. It was essential to get the big banks to accept TARP and putting restrictions on how they used the funds would have killed the deal. Its sickening, but it would seem there was no alternative, we were on the brink of complete and utter financial collapse. I don't see a progressive candidate who can win at this point (considering the roadblocks by the GOP on the most centrist policy changes, imagine a progressive with a far-left agenda), and having a republican in office would be the ruin of us all. I hope to have a progressive in office, but realistically, won't happen before 2016.
Excuse me but the crisis began with REAGAN.
"Fascism should more appropriately be called Corporatism because it is a merger of state and corporate power."
This is where the Republican Party is today, Godwin's Law be damned.
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/warning/view/
It is still my hope that BO intends to take some kind of action beyond Dodd-Frank to regulate the derivatives market, even banning naked credit default swaps, etc.
Clinton's biggest mistake was trusting Rubin's advice on how to deal with Wall Street; Clinton thought if he gave them a good taste, they'd stop asking for more.
BTW, here's a quote from the Frontline piece you cited:
"And even though Bill Clinton was someone who believed in government and wanted to use it, he was kind of forced into that Reaganesque ideology because that was what people wanted to hear."
Clinton is a politician and responded to his times, for better or worse. It's a mistake to ever put a politician, including Obama, on a pedestal -- you'll always be disappointed if you do.
BTW, you're wrong; Hank Paulson never worked for Clinton:
"From 1990 to November 1994, he [Paulson] was co-head of Investment Banking, then, Chief Operating Officer from December 1994 to June 1998..."
-- From Wikipedia.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henry_Paulson
And your Clinton pull-quote illustrates my previous assertion, "Clinton and others who sort of sold their souls for political expedience..." Clinton embraced the neoliberal ideology more or less against his actual preference. Obama, on the other hand, fully embraces neoliberalism. He isn't doing it merely for short-term political gain, he actually believes the doctrine. Look at his schools policy. He is intentionally alienating the teachers union by advancing a neoliberal agenda. This demonstrates two things: One, he will go to the mat if he has to; and, two, he only goes to the mat on issues that advance the neoliberal agenda. Look at all the things he has not gone to the mat on: Pharma buy-back program, the public option, net neutrality, ending the Bush tax cuts, the Patriot Act, warrantless wiretapping, indefinite detention, Libya, Bradley Manning, etc. Actually, I'm wrong. He HAS gone to the mat on these things. He goes to the mat to oppose the "retarded fucking liberals" he hates so much.
On to your other points: part of the things you mentioned, such as the Patriot Act and net neutrality, are not in Obama's power to change -- Congress has the authority there. The pharma deal was struck to get some kind of health care reform passed, as was dropping the public option. Libya I've already covered -- we're not in a ground war in, nor occupation of, that country, no matter what some hysterics say. We're participating in a UN-sanctioned action to stop a dictator from slaughtering his own people. Maybe you think a massacre would be better, but I don't.
The Bush tax cuts were extended for two years in exchange for extending unemployment benefits and the elimination of DADT. I think that was a good deal. Or would you rather millions go broke and gay people still be subjected to discrimination in the military?
Obama unfortunately thinks Manning committed treason, one of his flaws, but his public pronouncement of guilt may also lead to a mistrial.
I'm willing to wait for the final word on wiretapping and indefinite detention; I have heard he's against both, but he's fighting a Washington establishment that loves them.
http://www.thenation.com/article/159577/obamas-enforcer
"'It was a major harbinger to me, when Obama hired him, that we were not going to get 'change we can believe in,'' says Ken Toole, a former Democratic state senator and public service commissioner in Montana. 'Messina has a lot of talents, but he’s extremely conservative in his views on how to do politics. He’s got a tried-and-true triangulation methodology, and that’s never gonna change.' The Democratic National Committee declined to make Messina available for an interview."
Did you know FDR had a 'hatchet man'? Actually two: their names were Harold Ickes and Louis Howe and their function was to get FDR's programs passed and help with with selling ideas like the WPA and Social Security to the public. Lyndon Johnson also used arm-twisters to get the civil rights laws and Medicare passed, so 'hatchet men' are not always a bad thing for a president to have.
Hey, Bud, did you read the GOP is running sock puppet primary challengers against the Dems in the Wisconsin recall elections? Or do you think it's just ridiculous to think the Republicans would ever do such a thing?
Pressure from the Left works. If you truly consider yourself a progressive, then you should be writing articles that hold the president accountable, rather than lame, woe-is-us conspiracy theories.
Ken Silverstein of Harper's
http://harpers.org/archive/2006/11/0081275
Adolph Reed, jr. of The Progressive
http://www.progressive.org/mag_reed0508
Ari Berman at The Nation
http://www.thenation.com/article/159577/obamas-enforcer
BTW, if you asked Silverstein, Reed or Berman if they'd rather have Obama as president or a Republican like Romney or Bachmann, I'm sure they'd support Obama, warts and all.
Cadan, there really is a difference between republican and Democrat.
I am scared for what is happening in our country. I always believed this hate speech was just rhetoric. Until I realized that these people are serious. The are the confederate south looking for their Jefferson Davis. They behave as if Conservatism is their religion, and if you are not a " true conservative, then you are " the enemy" I hope this is all Just people working themselves up to rant and fume and vent. because if it's not... I Just wonder how much more they can " suffer" before they go nuts.
I'm a bit late to this party, but for the sake of posterity, here's a link to a redstate.com post schooling right-wing trolls on how to infilitrate news sites and progressive blogs as "progressives" in order to spread misinformation and sow Obama-hate among Democrats:
"Weakening the Democratic Base, Part 5: Liberal Netroots | RedState"
http://www.redstate.com/davenj1/2011/05/15/weakening-the-democratic-base-part-5-liberal-netroots/
Google "Weakening the Democratic Base, part 4" for a search result of all sorts of tea bagger tips on infiltration, subversion, and propaganda dissemination posted by diarisrs at redstate.com.
Note that redstsate.com is partly responsible for the dissemination of the religious fundamentalist (Tea Party) "Obama Anti-Christ" meme, among others, including the NDAA "indefinite detention," Obama failure to close Guantanamo, declaration of "war" on Libya memes because they know how to get to liberals with fact free outrage peddling on issues close to our hearts (like our anti-war positions), mostly through Ron Paul and Libertrian blogger Glenn Greenwald.
"Obama Anti-Christ": http://archive.redstate.com/blogs/franklucia/2008/jun/28/is_barack_obama_the_anti_christ_as_portrayed_in_the_book_of_revelation
Looks like you're not paranoid after all:)
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