dagblog - Comments for "Debt Ceiling Dumb Show"

I totally agree. I think most

JDignum — Tue, 09 Aug 2011 01:26:54 +0000

I totally agree. I think most political and market processes are dumb show in order to manipulate the public into agreeing to the maintenance of the status quo of the elite. We have to keep counteracting with truth.

Yes.

Peter Schwartz — Sun, 03 Jul 2011 17:40:51 +0000

In reply to Can't remember where I read

Yes.

It's the electorates fault,

Resistance — Sun, 03 Jul 2011 17:35:39 +0000

In reply to Would it be a fair criticism

It's the electorates fault, we elected a boy, to do a mans job.

I didn’t think we were going to have to wait for him to grow.

We were told he was wise beyond his years.

All you had to do was listen to him, listen to him tell, the workers in Ohio and Pennsylvania, he understood NAFTA type trade agreements, was hurting American Jobs

If it hasn’t dawned on the peasant class yet, WE ARE IN A CLASS ~~WAR~~ STRUGGLE.

FDR knew his opponents enemies he didn’t hope his opponents would come to reason with him, or that the opposition having lost the Presidency, would now lay down their arms, ready to embrace FDR socialism.

The opposition wasn’t about to let the Socialist Obama, turning back the gains made during Reagan and Bush.

Obamas talk of Bi partisanship emboldened the opposition, The Socialist leader was perceived as weak.

The opposition recognized “Go for the jugular, he doesn’t know how to use his army, we can pretend to sit across the table, in making a fine gestures,, keeping him preoccupied with his fantasy of “cant we all just get along”

Some fairy tale Obama keeps repeating “the people sent us here, to work together”

Where he got that idea? The opposition never saw that as the goal. The only goal the opposition saw was how to diminish the losses incurred from losing the Presidency. Looking for the opportunity to regain the POWER, this fool doesn’t know how to wield.

While Obama sits on the other side of the Potomac, HOPING the battle is now over. Hell the war continues, Fool

Why should the opposition sit across the table from Obama, As though they’ve all come to see the light from Obama the messiah? The lamb shouldn't be looking to lie down with the lion yet.

The man is delusional. Obamas hope for bipartisanship was not reality based.

We didn’t need an angry looking President; we needed a President hell bent, on taking it to the opposing side. We needed a Sherman like General, WANTING to destroy the opposition’s lines of support. No remorse in trying to return the Nation back from the evil course, of trickle down slavery.

The Nation wanted some butt kicking, not butt kissing

You may be right, Dreamer,

stillidealistic — Sun, 03 Jul 2011 17:06:56 +0000

In reply to Would it be a fair criticism

You may be right, Dreamer, but consider this, as well. When you are setting out to CHANGE the way things are done, and I mean seriously change them, do you go back to the way they were done before when you meet opposition to doing it the new way? Or do you repeat the behavior over and over until the opposition finally believes this is the way it's going to be? By falling back on the old behavior, aren't you, in essence, admitting defeat, and confirming that the old, nasty way of doing things is the way it will forever be?

As a mother, I know that when things got out of control and I was going to effect change, it didn't happen overnight. It took repeated demonstrations of the way it was going to be for my kids to believe I was serious about the change. Now, theoretically, the repubs are not children (although you'd never know it by their behavior) and the President does not have the ability to, by himslef, unilaterally decree that change WILL happen, the way a mother can. But can't some kind of a parallel be drawn?

The deck has been stacked somehow, and I'm not exctly sure how it happened. It feels like it happened very quickly, although it may have been a gradual thing (the boiling frog theory.) We find ourselves in a position I don't recall having been in before, where the minority party has been able take over (which is whole different kettle of fish, perhaps best saved for another discussion.)

There is sooooooo much wrong with this country at the moment, that all the bandaids we're slapping on aren't doing the trick. It needs to have a fundamental change in the way it is operated, or it is going to bleed to death. But the repubs are not only not helping to stem the bleeding, they are inflicting new wounds every chance they get. They are a cancer who kills the host, rather than a parasite that merely uses the host, but allows it to live.

I don't know if the President has the ability to effect the change. But I do know it will take more than 4 years to do it, and most likely more than 8. I'm still willing to give him time to try it his way.

Would it be a fair criticism

AmericanDreamer — Sun, 03 Jul 2011 14:33:04 +0000

In reply to "Hope" and "change" mean

Would it be a fair criticism to say that he misjudged the situation, badly, in vastly under-estimating how much partisan opposition he would encounter? Is it unreasonable for those who voted for him to want and expect him to adapt to the situation as he finds it, rather than the situation he expected and hoped to encounter? Isn't it a part of maturity not just to refrain from mindless, angry and ineffective if not self-destructive lashing out as an MO, but also to recognize a situation for the reality of it and work to adapt?

I don't think that entails changing entirely who he is, which in any case rarely happens. If I sound sometimes and lately as though I want him to confront Republicans constantly, as an MO, not so.

First, I think as President one always has to listen, to be not only open to but seek out signs of potential agreement and cooperation, even if on a limited basis, from his political opposition. I thought his meeting with GOP members of Congress back in, what was it?--maybe early 2010--was a great idea, especially having it televised. Because it advertised how reasonable, how open, how receptive Obama is while also showing him rejecting a lot of what was being said as unreasonable , uninformed, or unworkable. I don't think it's an accident the GOP has declined to do anything like that since then. They looked really, really bad. And they knew it.

Second, while it may be ok or even effective for a President to show anger on occasion, that can't be the regular or primary stance. The public will read it that he's frustrated, he's lost his cool, he doesn't know how to manage the situation he faces. And they'll feel uncomfortable with that because they observe their President's discomfort.

But a President does not need to confront his opposition in an angry way. Bill Clinton, again, figured out how to do just this when the Gingrich Congress was jerking him around, playing hardball with him on the budget. He trounced them.

Now in a world where one of the major political parties does not have an emotional center of gravity comparable in mental outlook to that of an 8 year old boy, things might have gone better than they did for the rest of his time in office. And it's also true that if Clinton had been disciplined in his own personal behavior, he would not have been vulnerable to government-by-impeachment. But the situation was what it was.

The part where he faced them down, calmly, never losing his temper, over the budget showdown, and trounced them--Obama could learn a lot frrom that. What it required with Clinton, and what it will require if Obama is able to master situations which require him to confront his adversaries, was a sure sense of which arguments ("balance the budget while preserving our values") and which behaviors (giving Gingrich an opportunity which Gingrich seized to sulk on Air Force One, with media all over the place, over where he was seated, and claim unambiguously the vain, petty ground for himself) will clearly prevail in the court of public opinion, and use a sure sense of public opinion to win when the GOP goes too far.

I'm not remotely holding my breath that Obama will develop, grow, rise to the actual challenges he faces rather than the ones he wanted to face and thought he'd be facing, in these ways. But neither can I, or do, rule out any possibility he will do that. In any case isn't waiting and hoping that will happen mainly a distraction from what someone in my position, and the position of most of us here I surmise, could more productively be doing?

It's an unfathomably hard job he has, after all. Learning and improvement can, and sometimes does, take place. Even 2 1/2 years into it. Bridge building will always be his preferred MO and in any case may need to be the predominant stance of any President. But he badly needs to supplement his game by learning how and when he can confront and win, without coming off as just frustrated to the point of impotent anger.

None of us ordinary folks gets to deal with the world we want. We must deal with the world the way it is. It's not unreasonable, unfair, or hyper-critical to hope and expect our President to do likewise. Although we, too, must deal with the reality of our quite human President the way it is, not the way we might want it to be or thought it would be.

Exactly and very, very well

Barth — Sun, 03 Jul 2011 14:09:15 +0000

In reply to "Hope" and "change" mean

Exactly and very, very well put

I will not claim to have seen the level of opposition: The blogosphere has recorded some of my optimism that the lessons of the eight years of politics against reason had been learned. I was wrong.

On the other hand, when our side was already in panic over some of the President-elect's appointments in the winter of 2008, after the election and before the inauguration, a thought that might calm these demands of royalty or deism on our new president, seems worth repeating today:

The President-elect's promises are to propose the middle class tax cuts and to urge the many things he discussed during the campaign, and the platform he will ascend to on January 20, will certainly give him a leading role in achieving those ends, but, my fellow Americans, do not fall into the trap of thinking that whatever he says will become law. And if everything he thinks should happen, does not, it does not mean he "broke his promise." It means he is not as good at convincing members of Congress that he is right, as we had hoped or he had thought.

That's how it works. I suspect he would like to do something now to help the auto industry and the current administration now sounds as if they want to do something, too. Yesterday's Times suggests that there is substantial opposition to this proposal, though, so notwithstanding the support of presidents present and future (I think the current president's support is a bit tepid), it may not happen since presidents----repeat after me---neither "rule" nor "govern."

Most importantly, they've

Peter Schwartz — Sun, 03 Jul 2011 13:53:44 +0000

In reply to I buy a lot of what you are

Most importantly, they've convinced a lot of ordinary Americans across the political spectrum.

He may also feel that he

Peter Schwartz — Sun, 03 Jul 2011 13:51:12 +0000

In reply to Who says that he sees what to

He may also feel that he CAN'T crush them. I'm not sure this is true, but...

And need we remind folks that

Peter Schwartz — Sun, 03 Jul 2011 13:49:45 +0000

In reply to I didn't say hope. I said

And need we remind folks that this was a massive piece of his appeal since his 2004 convention speech? He has to figure out a way to be partisan-tough whilst appearing to be bi-partisan. Now THAT is a challenge.

Probably needs to use surrogates more effectively--good cop/bad cop.

I buy a lot of what you are

Barth — Sun, 03 Jul 2011 13:26:00 +0000

In reply to Debt Ceiling Dumb Show

I buy a lot of what you are saying, but what one set of actors has done is made their own chorus into rabid dogs: they believe what is being said, even if what is beign said is not serious. So there are now all sorts of high strung people convinced that since "Congress spends too much money" they are unemployed or having their own financial difficulties. It makes no sense, but that is not the point.

These rabid dogs will not be settled down because their masters have changed course and recognized the need for the country not to go into default. Their howls, amplified by those who want to amplify them, will be loud, louder and loudest.

They have already convinced the smirking wise asses of the beltway press (the ones who were certain that Iraq was about to attack with WMD) that the cause of our financial problems are "entitlements" and the "budget deficit" when the causes were, in fact, the deregulation the same wise asses trumpeted as what "eveyone knows" when President Clinton took office in 1993.

Turning this daily trumpeted message of greedy poor people wanting food and health care ruining our economy thanks to the public sector untions, into the reasoned settlement of a always previously technical and non controversial "issue" will be very difficult.