Their goal is a new progressive era that builds where the New Deal left off, surpassing it and LBJ’s Great Society to move towards a new age of social-democracy for the 21st Century. They point often to Western Europe’s closer movement to such a goal, ignoring at their own peril the growing bankruptcy of the these social-democracies, and the major economic and social problems in economies like Germany, France and Sweden.
As of now, the activists who worked hard for Obama are trying to contain themselves until he takes office, hoping through lobbying to obtain appointments on lower levels to their liking, and that Obama as President will “be the driving force for the change they seek.”
Certainly we must be ready for the appointment of some of these progressives to positions in his Administration. Raul M. Grijalva, an Arizona Democrat who heads the Congressional Progressive Caucus, is being considered for Secretary of the Interior, and some on the Left are making his appointment a symbolic litmus test for whether or not Obama will consider their demands at all.
Others are concentrating instead on developing major government programs they hope the new President will adopt, including a massive jobs program and even, as Mark Pinsky suggests at TNR’s website, a resurrection of the New Deal era Federal Writers Project that will hire unemployed journalists, writers and creative artists. He presents strong arguments about the contributions the old FWP made to our culture, and to the lifeline it handed out to future major writers like Saul Bellow, Richard Wright, John Cheever and others.
Some might consider it a good idea, since not everyone is suited to be put to work building bridges, roads and schools. But in our contemporary world, writers get appointments to major universities, an option that did not exist in the 1930′s. And Government agencies like NEA and NEH already fund programs of the kind Pinsky favors. Moreover, this is not the era of the Popular Front culture of the 1930′s, and it is as passé as its late practitioner, Studs Terkel, whose death last month symbolizes the end of that era.
In the meantime, the liberal/left is seeking a “philosophical balance,” lobbying behind the scenes for appointment of their preferred candidates to the remaining second and third tier jobs in the new Administration. Yet, Baker quotes Tim Carpenter, director of Progressive Democrats of America, who openly says to date “everybody he’s bringing is it to the right of him.”
There are two theories about this. One is that these appointees are a fig leaf to put over a left-wing turn that Obama privately favors; the other is that you don’t appoint centrists and moderates who know where they stand to implement a program they would never support. As Larry Haas says in his “Letter from Washington,” “pragmatic centrism is in; aggressive liberalism is not.” And, Haas adds: Obama “will preside over an electorate that is less ideological than pragmatic, less interested in philosophical purity and more interested in practical solutions. He is assembling a team that is appropriately centrist and pragmatic.”
I think Haas is right. So we have no choice but to wait a few more weeks to see where our new President seeks to move the nation. It will be a very interesting four years.
“Their goal is a new progressive era that builds where the New Deal left off”
Do you know what this means in the real world? “Intellectuals” seek power and well paying jobs. The free market, however, is not kind to such individuals. That is the number one reason why they reject libertarian economics. Rational argumentation per se has virtually nothing to do with it. The New Deal did enormous damage and delayed economic recovery for a number of years. LBJ’s Great Society also caused a lot of destruction—but both programs allowed ego tripping lefties to run things into the ground.
The most interesting part will come in a year or so when the American people look back and see that the Dems were really in charge of the economy for nearly three years. The results, by then, are likely to be further recession coupled with rising and out of control inflation caused by the various bail outs and out of control government spending. Efforts, to be sure, which the Dems will claim were aimed at heading off a depression. However, given today’s economic base, a depression in not in the cards.
“…the Left’s anguish”
Music to my ears.
Wouldn’t it be nice if the Leftists had the integrity to just move to Europe instead of trying to impose their dystopia upon freedom loving people? But then again, narcissistic totalitarianism is a defining characteristic of leftists, so were they to respect individual liberty, we’d have call them something else. The definition could no longer apply.
The problem for Obama supporters and opponents is that this candidate promised everything to everyone, and presented himself as whoever you wanted him to be. Unfortunately, this is usually the method used by scam artists and always leaves their victims feeling cheated and used. Barak Obama has no history, he has no record, and he has never done anything on his own. He has however, shown a remarkable sense of expediency and cynicism, witness the way he tossed aside his spiritual mentor of twenty years, the Rev. Wright, when the good reverend became more of a liability than a benefit. And how he has built his administration around the same tired old Clinton faces, party apparatchiks, why he even hired his nemesis Hillary Clinton for one of the most important and public posts in his government. Mr. Obama is now the scam artist who has been caught, and frankly none of his scams works anymore.
It’s time for all the lefties out there that worked so hard for Obama to admit they have been betrayed. After all, he wouldn’t have even gotten the nomination if it hadn’t been for all of you supporting him over Clinton. Remember the famous words after the 2004 election? “It’s our party, we bought it and now we own it?” You are getting change alright, from a bunch of Republican insiders to a bunch of Democrat insiders. Lobbyist money still rules. Under the bus guys, under the bus. If you think about it you are beginning to feel like a lot of us fiscal conservatives came to feel about George Bush only it’s just happening quicker. Betrayal is a harsh word.
——————————————-
By the way, I hope all you rich liberals out there are going to pay a bunch of taxes because Joe Biden said it’s your patriotic duty to do so and I am waiting for my share of the free stuff Obama promised me.
O.K. folks, remember this: Barack Obama has one goal – getting reelected in 2012 — and he is smart enough to realize that the loony tunes who voted for him last month will not be hoodwinked again. So his support base has to be the people in America who actually make things work, not a bunch of pie-in-the-sky adolescents. He will govern from the center because he knows damn well that fringe kooks will simply bring him grief.
Yep. One of the devotees to Obama that I know is getting pretty disgusted with the appointment of all the ol’ Clinton folks.
Apparently hopenchange really just meant rinsenrepeat.
Think of the bumper stickers:
“Chimpy the Kenyan Lied;
Progressive Hopes Died!
Just like the nation he conned the left wing to believe. He only wants the power and presdige of the office and his name in the history books.
Much liking for liberals and lefties I don’t have, yet I began pitying them lately – so many dreams broken, so many opportunities to better America, nay! what I am saying, the planet, nay! what I am saying, the planetary system! nay! what I am saying, the universe itself! – lost!
Bemoanning and wringing hands is still subdued, I think, since having not heard much lately about the Obama team denouncing the Patriot Act, I expected the HuffPo or MoveOn.Org types to crucify them for that monstrosity – or have liberals suddenly acquired a different understanding of the world’s (nasty) way?
Confused in Los Angeles -
Der Fuehrer’s face tells me to defend him .
If we must drink the bitter KOOL-AID to reach
the goal , so be it . Yes we can believe in
change and hope .
KEEP INFANTICIDE LEGAL
THIRD TERM FOR OBAMA
MAKE POCKET KNIVES ILLEGAL
I am less interested in the leftist’s temporary state of discomfort than I am in the center’s temporary state of hypnosis.
A few pre-inauguration appointments and all is forgotten? Things that make you go hmmm.
This is not a time for the left wing of our Party to draw conclusions about the Cabinet and White House appointments that President-Elect Obama is making…
I agree. It is also not a time for the center, attached strongly to neither party, to draw CONCLUSIONS about the Cabinet and White House appointments.
At most, one can draw inferences. Conjectures. Use history to gauge future events. (not a profitable exercise in many, if not most instances)
Anyone expecting President-elect Obama to assemble a team of visible anarchists and “small c” communists to implement his policies, doesn’t understand how a frog is boiled.
Our state department, our Central Intelligence Agency, …in point of fact, ANY AND EVERY one of our major policy agencies, have at one time or another not been reflective of their titular heads, and sometimes, even of the sitting President. In ways and in actions that have not easily come to light, even now.
The sub rosa “sausage making” that takes place within them, far removed from the prying eyes of an uninformed citizenry (made even more uninformed by a complicit and nefarious entrenched media) is akin to the inner workings of a distant galaxy.
We can see that it exists, we can make scientific “educated guesses” as to why it may be similar in chemistry, physics, biology as our own world. But in a moment of pure candor, we simply don’t know. We can’t know.
Call me a doubting Thomas. Perhaps a cynic, although I don’t feel I’m one.
But a handful of appointments vs. a lifetime of associations is a hard bridge to connect. Yet, anyway.
One pocketful of promises vs. one pocket full of pragmatists. And a demeanor that allows for looking natural with a winsome smile, leaning back and hands in both pockets.
I keep looking in the telescope to see that distant galaxy and wonder what might take place there. Perhaps that’s my problem. Perhaps it’s not the telescope, but the microscope that would be my better instrument.
When lefty eyes are crying,
Sure the lefties are dismayed.
And when lefty hearts are broken
all their plans to rest are laid.
(sung to When Irish Eyes Are Smiling)
Obama has chosen, mostly, Wall Street promoters and corporate lawyers to be in his cabinet. He hasn’t included anyone who knows how to interact and relate with everyday American citizens, and then report back to him concerning: (1) what the people need, and (2) whether his administration’s new initiatives are working. During the Great Depression, Eleanor Roosevelt fulfilled this role for President Franklin D. Roosevelt. I nominate Senator John Edwards for this role. John Edwards would be a refreshing change. Is not change what Obama s supposed to be about? As a rival of Barack Obama, for the Democratic Party Presidential nomination, John Edwards, consistently spoke up for average Americans, i.e. Main Street, not Wall Street. During his “Road to One America Poverty Tour” John Edwards demonstrated that he is uniquely qualified for this role.
The video evidence follows:
He has walked with and comforted people whose homes were being foreclosed:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9i_GWrYkcCI
Defined the “Great Moral Test of Our Generation”:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eS1x88ZmohM
He has visited workers employed in the new renewal energy economy:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=50yOR5bvMV0
John Edwards is, also, the only candidate for President that actually went down to New Orleans on several occasions and worked along side those striving to try to bring back the areas that remain so devastated from the effects of Hurricane Katrina:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xAqktFnA4nk&feature=PlayList&p=EB1EC8919DC5DC52&index=0
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7DaofQCkbA8
Earl Hutchinson has a good piece today, which echoes what most rational types thought all along. Obama never hid the truth that he was pretty much of a centrist. A glance at his voting record and at his shifting statements, vote on FISA, etc., gave the left the information they needed.
They ignored reality.
Simply put, I don’t trust this guy (Obama).
At best, he’s pulling wool over the centrists/right-wingers eyes.
Funny how so many of my fellow Hillary Clinton supporters and I saw not a whit of policy differences between her and Obama. The Iraq war? Give me a break. The only difference is that Obama is a better politician and accomplished liar. Although I’m unhappy that the bamboozler-in-chief won the nomination, I’m not complaining too much about his governing style thus far.
Surprised? Obama voted ‘present’ more than Yes or No. No commitments.
Me, either, Citizen. Although I still privately nurse a grudge. He switched to her policies and programs, and I still think it should have been HER who bamboozles us.
These naysayers are just Trotskyites, newcomers and Mensheviks all, who believe in the erroneous concept of “permanent revolution.” Obama understands, like his predecesor, that Change can and must begin at home, working with various factions to gain territory in the revolutionary struggle and glorious change.
All these far Left progressives should be exiled to Mexico City and be dealt with there.
All I can think is, it couldn’t have happened to a better guy. He who was willing to ride the discontent of the angry left to win the early caucuses and primaries had better be prepared to face their wrath when they turn on him.
I think we celebrate too soon friends. I’m withholding my told-you-so speech until after his anointing when he will show his true colors. I’m hoping against hope that he is as weak willed as we are all believing him now to be and that he won’t suddenly bring out the liberal fangs. Hopefully he’s not lulling us all into a false sense of security and will then bite us all in the butt by signing the card check act into law or somthing even more heinous. He DID come out of that Illinois school of government and we now see how that runs with one of their own being arrested today.
It will be a very interesting four years.
Remember that “may you live in interesting times” is a curse.
NATIONS UNITED AGAINST THE WEST
The UN is not worth the investment, effort or real estate. It’s time to move on:
http://greensrealworld.blogspot.com/2008/12/un-only-united-against-west.html
Presidents don’t have the luxury of pie-in-the-sky childishness, which is all leftism is. The left should take this moment to reflect on how they’ve wasted their lives in the service of fairy tales. Time to grow up, little leftist boys and girls. Mommy and Daddy aren’t around to tell you how great you are anymore.
SURPRISE!
The only one who looks stupid by this story is the conservative nuts who repeatedly accused Obama supporters of being dupes, blindly following their leader.
I voted for Obama because I thought he was a centrist. Guess what? HE IS! Look at what he’s done since the election. You guys should be happy. At least he’s not Bill Clinton.
Obama the “Great Uniter” strikes again. Weehee, it’s payback time.
In case, you haven’t figured it out by now, we’ve elected someone who ran Pat Paulsen’s campaign.
Someone75 writes:
“Look at what he’s done since the election. You guys should be happy. At least he’s not Bill Clinton.”
..just wait, NoOne75, he’s working on it and will probably have him beat somewhere around year 1.5 or so.
Pffft. We are so screwed! Sold out by congress, both sides! McCain could not win because he is a libtard dressed as a conservative. Notice how Obama had to switch lanes toward the center to win moderates? But either one is the same. We are Rome, and Rome burns!
OBAMA TAX PLAN KEEPS POOR IN POVERTY
Raising tax rates on those in a position to invest will further impoverish the poor:
http://greensrealworld.blogspot.com/2008/12/obama-on-taxes-doctrine-vs-fact.html
Wouldn’t it be nice if the Leftists had the integrity to just move to Europe instead of trying to impose their dystopia upon freedom loving people? But then again, narcissistic totalitarianism is a defining characteristic of leftists, so were they to respect individual liberty, we’d have call them something else. The definition could no longer apply.
nah, they’ll sully our muslims
Two Words:
“Buyer’s Remorse”
IS LIBERAL CALIFORNIA THE TIP OF THE ICEBERG?
The country might be able to preview it’s future in the current mess on the left coast:
http://greensrealworld.blogspot.com/2008/12/california-liberals-utopia.html
Where did the notion that the Left are NOT freedom-loving people? That’s towering hubris. Not to mention an admission of profound bias.
The very idea of saying that leftists should move to Europe and leave America for those who love liberty is a vile and malevolent thing to say.
Yet it reflects the many vile and malevolent attitudes of the right. I see more of that in right-wingers than left-wingers. More foul language, more circular logic, more bigotry and mental leapfrog. More ignorance.
Of course, Obama is going to have problems from Congress – not just on the right, either. ALL of those people have been steeping in lobbyist juice for decades – they don’t know ANY other way to be. They’re partisans, on both sides, but even more, they are BOUGHT. Both sides. It’s hard to deal with people whose partisanship isn’t your own, but it’s far worse to deal with people who have been bought – of whatever stripe.
THAT is part of the change he intends to make, to keep the people who buy politicians from doing it any more. And whether you’re on the left or the right, you should WELCOME that idea. Many on the right won’t, of course, because those lobbyists serve their private agendas (guns, racism, theocratic zealotry, mega-wealthy), and those count more than the country does. But the right doesn’t own all the culpability for that. Left politicians are bought, too, by other groups.
Obama’s landslide was, in a way, a public referendum to END lobbying and buying of influence in our government.
Obama fought, tooth and nail, to keep lobby money and influence at arm’s length. And did a better job of it than any politician, to date. He did it for the sole purpose of having a free hand to eliminate the “behind closed doors” influences on our government that serve private interests at the expense of the public ones. FOR A CHANGE.
Can he pull it off? He intends to, but keep in mind that, once in office, he’ll be in a room full of alligators when dealing with Congress, and not all of them are Repubs.
Remember? He said he wanted to change “how business is done” in Washington. He meant it.
Getting rid of private influence for gain and personal agendas should be a truly bipartisan subject. Perhaps we should have a national referendum to eliminate ALL lobbyists. It’s hard to imagine ANY American who would not want OUR needs to come first.
And that’s what Obama IS trying to do. You can’t hope to unify the country by leaning too far either way – centrism is the moderate way to go, and is the only sensible place from which to run a country. Flexibility is almost unknown at the far left and right. But flexibility is what can HEAL America.
Of course he can’t unify us all – Obama is, if nothing else, a solid realist. THAT will also bode well for us, if he uses it properly. I think he wants to. Whether he can or not will depend on reining in some in his own party to act against their “owners.” And before you get haughty about Dems having owners, I’ll point out that the right has more of them – and they’re more powerful, too. Nobody is clean. Obama wants to clean out the Augean Stables, not just of the vile Bush administration, but wherever the doodoo exists in Congress, too. Even Hercules would be overwhelmed at the task before Obama.
I only know one thing about him for sure: he is going to give it all he’s got. But even THAT makes him remarkable and one of a kind among politicians. So let’s give the dude his headway. Patience. If he can solve even ONE of our gargantuan problems, it’ll be an astonishing accomplishment for him.
Hey, Thinking Person? Maybe you think, but you don’t learn, don’t do your homework. Junk in, junk out.
Obama DOES come out of Chicago Politics. Not by being a part of the corrupt Daley Machine, but because he cut his political teeth thwarting them. He played on THEIR turf, with ALL of them against him – and he won, fair and square. He challenged the Daley-candidate’s signatures on her petition, then challenged the bad ones – of which there were many. Daley-candidates presume they’ll win, because they always do, so they got sloppy about signatures. After the challenge, she didn’t have enough signatures to get on the ballot. I grew up in the area, and know the scenario there.
Fair and square. But to claim that Obama is a Chicago politician in the manner of the Daley machine (i.e., corrupt) is the purest ignorance.
He beat the Daley Machine honestly and fairly, and they HATE him for it. He also won the nomination, over a stellar shoe-in like Hillary. Then he went on to win the election against long-time insider and “war hero” John McCain. Does anyone think he could have done ALL of that without some brains and savvy?
Yet many here think he’s now going to be a mental slave to former Clinton appointees, or caving in to certain other groups. From WHERE was he supposed to select his cabinet? From the general population? He needs EXPERTISE in those fields, all of whom have been in other administrations. In his vetting of them, you can bet he has ascertained that they will cooperate with him wholeheartedly in his efforts. If they don’t, he can replace them. He’s nobody’s fool, and I see no hint that he’s wazooing us, as many here claim. That’s just sour grapes from the far right. I guess they don’t WANT to believe the dude is for real.
And since when is “savvy” a virtue when the candidate is in YOUR party and deviousness when it exists in the other? It’s the lightswich mentality – a thing is either on or off, good or evil, no gray areas. I’d hate to have a mind as limited as that.
Of course he voted “present” on many bills. Because many bills are loaded with pork and other issues are addressed in a partisan fashion which are NOT the subject of the bill. He didn’t like the bad stuff, tho he might have voted for the bills without it.
People who REALLY THINK understand that a “present” vote is a form of protest about the bill’s CONTENTS. It’s saying, “I could vote for this bill, but not with all that other JUNK in it.”
When did Americans decide to be so ignorant and proud? Thinking isn’t enough, chum. You gotta know how to feed solid information into your brain, before you can think about anything.
One good thing about the Internet. It is showing us just HOW many people think, from which we can be better able to recognize attitudes from opinions. I read LOTS of attitudes here, and they’re all dead giveaways because of the lack of solid facts to support them. Assumptions are made based on other assumptions, and lots of people see nothing wrong with that. Except people who really DO think, those who do some homework once in a while.
Obama isn’t even president yet, yet many are already dissing him. With all he has to deal with, he’ll make a LOT of people angry with him. Nobody else could avoid that. Virtually NONE of our problems can be solved painlessly for all. No matter what he does, people will be all over him like ugly on a sow. But he knows that, too.
America chose BRAINS for a change. REAL Americans are the ones who want to see our nation healed, and it matters little who brings it about, and who gets credit for it. It just matters that it gets DONE.
Give the guy a break.
Of course Obama is appointing grow ups to posts in his Administration.The “progressive” moon bats that formed his core constituency certainly aren’t competent to fill them
personally, i like presidents who shake their fist and threaten crazy fascist nations who defile us with words. i like them even better when they throw the foreign “students” the hell out of our country. who knows what obama will bring to the presidency. obama himself doesn’t know. it isn’t just a hard job it’s a tough one. no matter what you do it’s wrong to half the population. several hundred million people think you’re shyte.
i have to laugh when i hear the new mantra from the republicans. the one about the new deal not working out. (if it has to do with people being supported instead of stepped on, or workers getting their fair share they consider that “not working out”)
in fact, FDR brought unemployment down from 25% to 9%. he also provided social services, work for artists otherwise totally unemployable, country campgrounds for those youngsters who might have been criminals instead of just without resources, social security pensions with no means testing so no one felt they were on the dole, job loss insurance so we wouldn’t starve to death looking for a new gig, and welfare to secure the poorest of the poor, revenue sharing that brought free higher education to those with merit, and of course, eleanor roosevelt.
it worked out.
“in fact, FDR brought unemployment down from 25% to 9%.”
Yeah, drafting 16,000,000 people into the armed forces will tend to do that.
Unfortunately, 400,000 of the people FDR “employed” wound up getting killed, which usually isn’t considered to be a desirable aspect of one’s employment…especially when the employment is under duress.
“Obama isn’t even president yet, yet many are already dissing him.”
Funny thing, but I don’t have too much respect for a guy who belonged to a church that demanded a non-negotiable committment to Africa, and at the same time called on God to damn America.
I also don’t have too much respect for a guy who enters into ventures with America-hating, communist, traitors like Bill Ayers.
As a matter of fact, I don’t respect one damned thing about Barack Hussein Obama, or the political party he belongs to, and I intend to disrespect him pretty much 24/7 for the next four years.
“Obama DOES come out of Chicago Politics. Not by being a part of the corrupt Daley Machine, but because he cut his political teeth thwarting them. He played on THEIR turf, with ALL of them against him.”
Utterly false. He played along with the political machine, and in those few cases where, as a legislator, he had to opportunity to cast a vote in opposition to the machine he instead voted with it.
I still can’t get past the sense I had all during the endless campaign–that he’s just playing a role. Back then, the role was “I’m acting like I’m running for President!” Now, it’s, “I’m playing the role of the President-elect!” After January it will be, “I’m pretending to be President!”
Watch his body language and his eyes; listen to his intonations. Very, very little of what he does has any spontaneity or ring of authenticity to it. So many times, when he’s speaking off the teleprompter, almost every line he speaks is like a joke that falls flat: the audience (press or whoever) goes dead silent and still, like they don’t know what their response should be.
He’s just roleplaying.