Back to the future!

[KaskadskyjKozak]

In Polls, Much Opposition to Health Care Plan Is From Left

 

So PP, did you figure out the difference between 'independents' and 'middle'? In any case, you'd better straighten yourself out on that score before you treat us to another of your brilliant poll analysis.

 

as if you know the difference, you myopic left-wing nut job

[j_b]

[Kimmo]

Obama's Big Sellout

The president has packed his economic team with Wall Street insiders intent on turning the bailout into an all-out giveaway

 

MATT TAIBBI

 

Posted Dec 09, 2009 2:35 PM

 

Barack Obama ran for president as a man of the people, standing up to Wall Street as the global economy melted down in that fateful fall of 2008. He pushed a tax plan to soak the rich, ripped NAFTA for hurting the middle class and tore into John McCain for supporting a bankruptcy bill that sided with wealthy bankers "at the expense of hardworking Americans." Obama may not have run to the left of Samuel Gompers or Cesar Chavez, but it's not like you saw him on the campaign trail flanked by bankers from Citigroup and Goldman Sachs. What inspired supporters who pushed him to his historic win was the sense that a genuine outsider was finally breaking into an exclusive club, that walls were being torn down, that things were, for lack of a better or more specific term, changing.

 

Then he got elected.

 

What's taken place in the year since Obama won the presidency has turned out to be one of the most dramatic political about-faces in our history. Elected in the midst of a crushing economic crisis brought on by a decade of orgiastic deregulation and unchecked greed, Obama had a clear mandate to rein in Wall Street and remake the entire structure of the American economy. What he did instead was ship even his most marginally progressive campaign advisers off to various bureaucratic Siberias, while packing the key economic positions in his White House with the very people who caused the crisis in the first place. This new team of bubble-fattened ex-bankers and laissez-faire intellectuals then proceeded to sell us all out, instituting a massive, trickle-up bailout and systematically gutting regulatory reform from the inside.

 

How could Obama let this happen? Is he just a rookie in the political big leagues, hoodwinked by Beltway old-timers? Or is the vacillating, ineffectual servant of banking interests we've been seeing on TV this fall who Obama really is?

 

Whatever the president's real motives are, the extensive series of loophole-rich financial "reforms" that the Democrats are currently pushing may ultimately do more harm than good. In fact, some parts of the new reforms border on insanity, threatening to vastly amplify Wall Street's political power by institutionalizing the taxpayer's role as a welfare provider for the financial-services industry. At one point in the debate, Obama's top economic advisers demanded the power to award future bailouts without even going to Congress for approval — and without providing taxpayers a single dime in equity on the deals.

 

How did we get here? It started just moments after the election — and almost nobody noticed.

 

[..]

 

more: http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/story/31234647/obamas_big_sellout/print

 

obama's a self-avowed capitalist: i dont think there is anything so grandly surprising in anything above (beyond the emotive grandstanding and superlatives of the author).

 

while he toots his populist horn, i think anyone with a clear mind saw that no deep structural changes would come about as a result of his presidency; while i don't doubt he might feel morally driven to pay lip service to the sins he sees around him (something the republicans won't even do), i just don't think he has the wherewithal or fortitude to deliver.

 

that's why my conscience drove me to vote for nader.

[j_b]

While I don't disagree with the sentiment of your post, your statement that Obama is a self-avowed capitalist which'd prevent him from delivering the needed changes isn't supported by the evidence IMO. There are many self-avowed capitalists, such as Warren Buffett, George Soros and others, who argue for structural changes in taxations and regulations because they are needed to make it work; yet, Obama won't deliver.

[tvashtarkatena]

 

If that was directed at KKK, that's an insult to simians everywhere.

[Kimmo]

While I don't disagree with the sentiment of your post, your statement that Obama is a self-avowed capitalist which'd prevent him from delivering the needed changes isn't supported by the evidence IMO.

 

i suppose we could argue about the reasons why he "hasn't delivered".

 

i would suggest that "capitalists" have differing relationships to "capitalism" itself, but in the end, any form of proposed structural change to a system is of course limited by one's allegiance to that particular system. in other words, the system's existence itself must be protected, which opens the door, i believe, to the behaviour we are witnessing now inre obama (BECAUSE of the fact that he identifies himself as a "capitalist").

[tvashtarkatena]

Any time you're arguing that an 'ism' is the problem, you've taken yourself out of the solution process.

 

You can have an ecological shithole or a sustainable culture under 'ism'. The values of the culture itself, backed up by daily individual action and habit, are what drives the ship either into the iceberg or into the clear.

 

America's values?

 

Yeah, we are so fucked.

[tvashtarkatena]

Personally, I'm a big fan of capitalism in a reasonable form. What we have here is a corporate cock sucking machine that shits on small business.

 

But than again, I'm also a fan of anarchy in a reasonable form.

Edited December 11, 2009 by tvashtarkatena

[j_b]

What we have is "laissez faire" capitalism, which had been shown to be a dead end at least already once before. It reeks of a last free for all (at least those who can) before the constraints of resource and environmental system services limits clamp down on this runaway train. The bigger the overshoot, the greater and the harder the fall.

[j_b]

and I apologize to simians everywhere, it was the first picture of a knuckle dragger I found.

[Kimmo]

Any time you're arguing that an 'ism' is the problem, you've taken yourself out of the solution process.

 

i'm not sure what the above is exactly addressing, and rarely is one single event/thingamajig the problem, but certainly many (all?) "isms" present a problem, because they seemingly become more important to their followers than the facts and realities on the ground.

 

You can have an ecological shithole or a sustainable culture under 'ism'. The values of the culture itself, backed up by daily individual action and habit, are what drives the ship either into the iceberg or into the clear.

 

yes, but it does seem that the "values of the culture", along with the "daily individual action and habit" are both dramatically affected by the "isms" that both they and the leadership profess to follow. note the effects of "freedomism" and "choicism" on the current domestic narrative of health-care reform.

 

America's values?

 

Yeah, we are so fucked.

 

a little overly dramatic, considering historical events and struggles.

[Peter_Puget]

While the liberal clerics here on cc.com continue to avoid reality progress moves on.....

 

The Rasmussen Reports daily Presidential Tracking Poll for Monday shows that 24% of the nation's voters Strongly Approve of the way that Barack Obama is performing his role as President. Forty-two percent (42%) Strongly Disapprove giving Obama a Presidential Approval Index rating of -18.

That’s a one point improvement from yesterday when Obama’s Approval Index rating fell to the lowest level yet recorded. Prior to the past three days, the Approval Index had never fallen below -15 during Obama’s time in office (see trends).

[StevenSeagal]

While the liberal clerics here on cc.com continue to avoid reality progress moves on.....

 

The Rasmussen Reports daily Presidential Tracking Poll for Monday shows that 24% of the nation's voters Strongly Approve of the way that Barack Obama is performing his role as President. Forty-two percent (42%) Strongly Disapprove giving Obama a Presidential Approval Index rating of -18.

That’s a one point improvement from yesterday when Obama’s Approval Index rating fell to the lowest level yet recorded. Prior to the past three days, the Approval Index had never fallen below -15 during Obama’s time in office (see trends).

 

Great, thanks! Please keep up to the minute tabs on this and let us know when it hits zero later today.

 

Is the teabag revolution scheduled for tonight, or tomorrow? I'll bring the gasoline if you bring the pitchforks!

[StevenSeagal]

In any case the worse off the country is the better the prospects for getting a real American back in the white house. Let's hope things keep tanking!

[Peter_Puget]

Of course Reid and Pelosi are even worse:

 

A Senate Democratic aide, perplexed by Mr. Lieberman’s stance, said, “It was a total flip-flop, and leaves us in a predicament as to what to do.”

 

linky

 

 

Elsewhere Marshall Wittmann, Lieberman’s spokesman:

 

“Contrary to the claims of anonymous aides, Senator Lieberman told Senator Reid on Friday that he had a problem with the Medicare provision. This position was also told to negotiators earlier last week,” says Wittman. “Consequently, Senator Lieberman’s position came as no surprise to the Democratic leadership. Any contrary charges by aides who cowardly seek to hide under the cloak of anonymity are false and self-serving.”

 

I had the unforunate pleasure of shaking Pelosi's hand a few months ago. ( I gelled immediately afterwards) I was struck by her coldness and oddly how much she resembled my grandmother had my grandmother been a vampire.

Edited December 14, 2009 by Peter_Puget

[olyclimber]

try to contain your hate. you are what is wrong with america.

 

merry xmas!

[j_b]

At least 2/3 of Americans want a strong public health care option, similar numbers do not want an escalation in Afghanistan, want serious financial reform to reign in the banksters and their associates on wall street, want policy to bail out the real economy, etc ... Americans, and Obama's base in particular, increasingly disapprove of Obama and Democrats not delivering on the changes they promised during the electoral campaign and selling them down river to corporate interests. Meanwhile, impotent conservatives applaud this betrayal of democracy by the Democrat wing of the corporate party and pray this will lead to lower turn out during the next elections.

 

and PP apparently still doesn't know the difference between 'independent' and 'middle'.

[Peter_Puget]

try to contain your hate. you are what is wrong with america.

 

merry xmas!

 

Don't forget Happy New Year...and it will eb a good year =>In Z We Trust!

[Peter_Puget]

At least 2/3 of Americans want a strong public health care option, similar numbers do not want an escalation in Afghanistan, want serious financial reform to reign in the banksters and their associates on wall street, want policy to bail out the real economy, etc ... Americans, and Obama's base in particular, increasingly disapprove of Obama and Democrats not delivering on the changes they promised during the electoral campaign and selling them down river to corporate interests. Meanwhile, impotent conservatives applaud this betrayal of democracy by the Democrat wing of the corporate party and pray this will lead to lower turn out during the next elections.

 

and PP apparently still doesn't know the difference between 'independent' and 'middle'.

 

Right on brother!

[j_b]

People disapproving of corporate Democrats doesn't make them any closer to supporting conservative failed policies that took us to the brink, despite your pretending otherwise.

[Peter_Puget]

I am not cooking the books! Read the updates!

[j_b]

Right, why wouldn't they vote for a little more Trickle Down Goodness and Perpetual War for Freedom

 

"please, pretty please, make it a low turn out so that our 25% can win"

[Peter_Puget]

Blah Blah Blah.....

 

 

Do you think Democrats in Washington have too much power right now?

50% Yes, 40% No

Link to poll

[kevbone]

Obama is a pussy.

[j_b]

Blah Blah Blah.....

 

 

Do you think Democrats in Washington have too much power right now?

50% Yes, 40% No

Link to poll

 

Darn logic still escaping you: disapproval of A doesn't imply approval of B (disapproving Democrats doesn't imply approval of Republicans). As shown by the same poll with approval rating for Republicans in congress worse than Bush at the end of his 8-yr reign of doom.