dagblog - Comments for "Open Thread: What's the Matter with Washington?"

I do enjoy reading your

Resistance — Thu, 14 Jun 2012 18:51:29 +0000

In reply to Obama is doing what

I do enjoy reading your reasoning on matters.

I enjoy it when Carville tries to tell Obama, what many on the left have been saying for along time.

Maybe Obama will listen to Carville, when he wouldn't listen to us common folks?

Listening to the link I provided the Sperling interview; it's the same excuse. "Obama inherited the crisis"

That may be, but were not interested in excuses, What is your plan President Obama? More help to the banker class?

The same banker class that's trying to stick the screws to the middle class?

I know its too late, but I believe we should have primaried Obama; to force all the candidates to address the problems we face.

Now all the republicans have to say is LOOK and all Obama has is excuses. He inherited a mess and under his administration the mess is still here.

The Great Plan, time heals all wounds unless the victim bleeds out? Then we don't need a plan, the victim is dead.

Obama should have realized you don't kill the goose that lays the golden eggs.

Detroit saved; amounts to tinkering when most Americans lost over 40% of their pre Obama worth.

Obama can count on Detroits vote? But as for the rest of the nation, I'm not sure his base is excited by his performance to date.

Helping the homeowners was the key to both the middle class and the reelection of Obama.

Obama is doing what

AmericanDreamer — Thu, 14 Jun 2012 14:32:44 +0000

In reply to Is Obama in collusion, to

Obama is doing what politicians do, which is trying to survive. I don't see the presidential race in the way you wrote of. Rather, I view the choice as which of the candidates would I rather have making the sum total of all the decisions a president makes, and which of the candidates is the kind of mass mobilization and pressure that alone in my view can begin to break the grip today's money power has on our economy and our political system is more likely to yield some results. In both respects, that choice is for me an obvious one. For me, it's a matter of picking my poison, and one is far worse than the other. I understand that others see it differently but am weary of these discussions and am not interested in participating in them at this point.

BTW, you might be interested, R, I just finished reading Halberstam's 1999 book The Children. Highly recommended. For who believe that the political elites at that time were fairly actively looking for their opportunity to do something on civil rights in the 1960s, Halberstam's recounting of the events from 1960-1965 suggests very much the contrary to me. A small number of almost unbelievably courageous young people had to risk their lives and make great and very intelligent sacrifices to execute a brilliant strategy to make any of that happen. And it still wouldn't have happened unless Jim Clark and Bull Connor and their ilk hadn't created openings by their cartoonish--if one wasn't on the receiving end of clubbings to the head by enraged police officers, that is--over-reactions.

I do not see any possibility of us as a society getting out of the noose--the increasingly dysfunctional economy and political system--without a major ramping up of creative, well thought-out and executed mass mobilization strategies. The window for getting out continues to shrink. There is simply a lack of anything that looks like a plausible, coherent economic plan that stands a decent chance of working, for starters, coming from the incumbent. As Krugman puts it, there is a lack of intellectual clarity at the top leadership levels in our society--and this goes far beyond the WH in my estimation--about our current predicament.

I can and will continue to make the arguments with people I encounter that things would be far worse if one candidate wins the presidential rather than the other. I will help Tim Kaine try to defeat the grotesque George Allen to prevent a lost Senate seat, and Kaine is someone I have a good opinion of, who I would have some hope would contemplate the kinds of federal action his retiring predecessor, Jim Webb, regrettably turned out to be unwilling to contempate, and that Virginia's other Democratic senator, Mark Warner, is showing no signs of contemplating.

But at some point arguments that amount to saying, look, there are no particular grounds to expect things to get much better any time soon given what is being said to this point, but the other guys are far worse are not exactly the kind that galvanize aggrieved and often by now cynical people to get out to the polls.

Is Obama in collusion, to

Resistance — Thu, 14 Jun 2012 14:04:11 +0000

In reply to No kidding?

Is Obama in collusion, to this scam by the banker class?

http://slackwire.blogspot.com/2012/06/pain-is-agenda-method-in-ecbs-madness.html

A vote for either candidate tightens the noose?

No kidding?

AmericanDreamer — Thu, 14 Jun 2012 13:51:28 +0000

In reply to Top Democratic Strategist

No kidding?

Top Democratic Strategist

Resistance — Thu, 14 Jun 2012 07:05:17 +0000

In reply to Open Thread: What's the Matter with Washington?

Top Democratic Strategist James Carville says Obama's economic message is not working

Democratic Strategist and CNN Contributor James Carville says President Barack Obama needs a new economic message.

Or possibly this."....The

cmaukonen — Sat, 27 Nov 2010 05:14:38 +0000

In reply to Your point being....that we

Or possibly this.

"....The answer was not in the Pentagon, or even in the White House. I’m looking elsewhere. One place, here.” He tapped Gibbon. “There are odd similarities between the end of the Pax Romana and the end of the Pax Americana which inherited Pax Britannica. For instance, the prices paid for high office. When it became common to spend a million dollars to elect senators from moderately populous states, I think that should have been a warning to us. For instance, free pap for the masses. Bread and circuses. Roman spectacles and our spectaculars. Largesse from the conquering proconsuls and television giveaways from the successful lipstick king. To understand the present you must know the past, yet it is only part of the answer and I will never discover it all."

See Crisis of the Third

cmaukonen — Sat, 27 Nov 2010 04:33:59 +0000

In reply to Your point being....that we

See Crisis of the Third Century.

Give me a clear way and means

LisB — Sat, 27 Nov 2010 04:06:26 +0000

In reply to It would seem to be you who

Give me a clear way and means of fighting the powers that be, and I'll fight.

It would seem to be you who

SleepinJeezus — Sat, 27 Nov 2010 04:00:12 +0000

In reply to And you seem to be making a

It would seem to be you who has drawn the line in the sand.

"Yes, it would be nice to take charge and fight in the political arena for justice against the oligarchs," you seem to say. "But it comes at risk that they might commit violence against us, and therefore we really don't want to step over that line."

Fuck 'em, I say! I'm still in the fight.

You?

Well, if you wanna run for

LisB — Sat, 27 Nov 2010 03:50:04 +0000

In reply to Hell, I'm the first to admit

Well, if you wanna run for President, you'll have my vote.