You don't consider them your base.

How many times do left of center liberals need to learn the same lesson?

First we learn it through appointments.

Then we learn it through policy continuations and expansions that we vociferously disapproved of when done in a
Republican administration.

Then we learned it again in tepid reforms that mostly maintained the status quo.

Then we witness it as we see public education openly dismantled and teachers made scapegoats in order to open education
to priavte profiteers

Next we can anticipate the dilution and weakening of the social safety nets in order to once more channel public monies
into private coffers


The Democratic centrists/corporatists/neoliberal/DLC/New Democrats want NOTHING TO DO with anything even vaguely left or Old Dem/FDR/New Deal/pro-union/pro-labor/pro middle and lower classes/ pro fair -living wages/ pro REAL health care reform

It is clear that not only are they not appealing to the liberal left, they are going out of their way to rid the party of them/us. They will continue to move rightward and the faster they jettison us, the faster they can proceed with the New Democrat agenda. They're sick of our bitching and moaning about their as-little-as-we-can-get-away-with-and-still-call-ourselves-Democrats legislation and regulation.

How many times do you need to be handed your coat before you understand that the party is over and it's time to go elsewhere?

Message received. I get it.

K&R

Sickening, isn't it?

Indeed...

On the other hand, in our two-party system, every action (including staying home or voting third party) serves to help one of the two parties over the other (whether people like it or not). So it isn't like marriage in that sense.

The beauty of analogies is they don't have to be literal...

The only way you can equate the is in a world where you must be married to one person and there are only two other people.

n/t

n/t

They failed to deal with the most important issue of their day, and they went from electing presidents to not existing at all.

n/t.

And, it ain't gonna be a pretty thing to watch. No velvet, no attractive colors, no integration with the West. Just an awful destructive hideous trashing of the ruins of Imperial America and violent upheaval within and against a system of corporate injustice, mass brainwashing and exploitation.

We have always been slow to anger, but once aroused, Americans are a terrible and ruthless giant. Just ask Admiral Yamamoto. He knew what he did, and what was going to happen. I only wish the global banksters were so clear-minded.

Now that's an "old relationship"... like going after a GILF... as long as we're gonna keep up the analagy.



Hmm... so much for the theory of: ' "new relationships" are not possible'. Of course... there's also the example of the Federalists... though I suppose John Adams was only a fictional Federalist President... a product of the feverish imaginations of HBO writers? Ohh, and his wife... and the ghost writer of all the letters he wrote to his wife...

Or, maybe you're talking out of your ass... ?

and you're the mat

If this system gets in our way then we need to change the system. The two parties increasingly share things in common I don't agree with (not saying they are the same, just saying they are getting more and more corporatist). We need the mechanism to have our voices be heard.

What we have learned now is that we can no longer look to this WH to keep a majority of Democrats who actually represent the people, in power in November, unless we start now separating the WH from Congress.

The marriage between this WH and the Democratic Congress is what needs to be separated. If Congress distances itself now from a WH that they are already uneasy about as expressed in two meetings between the House leadership and the WH, they still have a chance of keep Republicans out of power in Novmenber.

If they do NOT do that, even though they have stated that they are tired of the WH bashing its own party, the WH will hand the Republicans a win in November.

This party we now know has been taken over by the DLC. That wing of the party has made its goals clear and has acted on them with reluctant support from Congress, something they now believe they will pay a price for in November. Which they will UNLESS they separate themselves from the WH starting now.

Congress can win back those they have lost. The WH cannot as it would be hard for them now to convince anyone that they ever cared about anything other than serving the interests of Corporate America.

Congress has immense power. Up to now, they were following the rule that you always support the president if he a member of your own party. In return, Congress usually gets something. This Congress now realizes (see Nancy Pelosi's two meetings with the WH on this issue) that they are getting nothing from this WH.

I hope now they realize that attaching themselves to this WH could cost them the election and US a Republican majority. That is not acceptable. We will see if the leadership is willing to do what is necessary. They must NOT support Obama's Republican led Deficit Commission and they must let that be known right away. Unlike the HC debacle, they WH needs to be told 'don't even try it again'.

We can still keep a Democratic majority and that majority can stop the DLC policies coming from the WH now that they know what the goals are.

about Gibbs's comments denounced Obama as being as bad as Bush?

Maybe he got the message that such people are not allies.

continuation of Bush policies pissed off his base. Oh, that's right, we're just the little people - not the wall street bankers who are his preferred allies. Hopefully the bankers are feeling happy enough with him to get him re-elected, because you've certainly pissed off the liberals.

his name-calling doesn't hurt me. his policies, however, do.

i'm happy as long as he's not being hypocritical. he's saying he doesn't want my vote.

okay by me. just don't come asking for it. don't let me hear any of you obamphiliacs
saying how important it is to get out and vote for him.

here's what will get me to vote for obama: an elaborated public apology to the left; an indictment
of bush/cheney for torture, illegal wiretapping, and illegal war; and a thorough investigation of 9/11.

we clear?

The truth is that there is nothing stopping Democratic voters from nominating someone that agrees with you on every issue.

That is, except the vast majority Democratic voters, who primary after primary seem to choose someone that you don't like.

There are only two parties that will ever get elected. This is true regardless of whether people are thrilled about it or not.

You're ability to completely ignore previous lessons is "uniquely American". Good luck with that...
:rofl:

and options are possible.

We live in a mathematical two party system. For that to change, you would need to change the Constitution to remove winner take all elections.

No, he didn't win, but there were THREE choices at the top of the ticket. Facts are facts, regardless of how you wish to distort them.

Ross did not win, right? Of course you do, you put it in your thread. So let's evaluation what happened in that election, from rhe republican perspective ... shall we?

Voting for Perot's resulting in the defeat of Bush the 1st, a sitting president, and the election of Clinton. That was the worst possible scenario for republicans. Is that what you want to see?

Why? Because of our winner take all electoral system. Thank you for proving my point.

was in the reform party

Historically parties rise and fall and are sometimes the result of third parties or recombinations of big movements.

that completely disproves your premise.

You are somewhat confused. The example 20 years ago PROVES my point. Not disproves it.

You proved your complete lack of intelligence when you falsely claimed that Galbraith said "deficits don't matter" and then ran away when I quoted his actual words.

were thoroughly and completely made a fool of.

I think someone is not very intelligent in this conversation. But it isn't me. You should think more before you type.

You are somewhat confused. The example 20 years ago PROVES my point. Not disproves it.

Which 19,000,000 votes would you like Obama to give up in 2012? Some from PA, OH, FL maybe?

You are proving my point once again. The only purpose of left leaning third parties in this country is to be used by purported "progressives" to aid and abet Republicans being elected.

the threat of a progressive primary challenge or 3rd party from the left will force Obama to take progressives seriously. He would have to get some progressive policy victories (or at least fight for them) to prevent us druggie retards from defecting.

actions, up close and personal. Self-inflicted political pain can be a powerful motivator to become rational.

I don't think Obama is so stupid that he thinks there is any other way.

'Vote for a Democrat or get a Republican!'

Sorry buddy, all living beings die. I do not live in a state of fear and life will go on someplace.

he will have to fight for more progressive policy positions to win our votes back. The challenger doesn't have to win, only be feared! That's politics, baby.

I'm starting to believe now that both parties may go the way of the Whigs...

1. What, are you 15? Nothing is forever. People write stuff down before they die, and if you look just a wee bit past the scope of our lifetime you'll see that political parties come and go.

2. If they don't, if we're going to have the same two political parties FOREVER and neither of them will ever represent the interests of the people of the nation, well what kind of Orwellian distopia do we live in and what can we do about it? Nothing?

And many will. Not me, but then I'm looking forward to some unspecified third-party voting this November.

he was elected when people were unhappy ..enough..

You have the narrow-minded libertarian tea party on one side and now we have an emerging progressive group called "Coffee Party USA" that, if it gains traction and quick, can be a rallying catalyst for progressive candidates in the upcoming elections.

I'd like to see how many progressives it can attract and grow to make it a force that must be reckoned with by Dems who wish to keep their jobs.

Check your history. Political parties have come and old ones have died off.

Some people seem to be very invested in assuring us that we have and will continue to have only 2 choices:
Horrible and Not as Horrible

I personally reject that premise.

There is a vacuum and that vacuum WILL be filled by a person or party who takes seriously the pain that is being felt throughout our society.

The future is calling.

when in reality, it isn't. If the vacuum were of non-neligable size, 85-90% of liberal democrats wouldn't approve of Obama as they do today, and Kucinich would get more than a few percent of the vote in a few states.

In fact, if the vacuum were as big as you say, the Democratic party itself would fill it. That's what a primary is. Your real complaint is that you can't get most Democrats to agree with you (even if you don't realize it).

:rofl:

Right now we have MAYBE 85-90% of ALL democrats going along with Obama, whether they approve or not of his DLC policies. Liberal democrats? I'd suggest MAYBE 10%.

You are mistaken in 1) equating all democrats with liberals; 2) equating cooperation with approval.

When the Democrats and Republican officially merge, in 20 years or less, as the Democratic Republicans or some such nonsense, there WILL be a progressive party to take the place the DLC democrats are abandoning. Then, the corporations will start in subverting it, too.

Both Gallup and PPP have Obama's approval among liberal democrats in the high 80s. That doesn't sound like a group that wants to go elsewhere.

If a huge percentage of the Democratic party were really pissed off at the direction of the Democratic party, they would nominate someone that adhered to their views. All of this talking about "going elsewhere" is really just a tantrum that they can't convince even a non-negligible portion of the Democratic party to agree with them.

Starting with becoming a nation independent from England. Are you not in favor of such progressive social movements as the founding of the nation, women's suffrage, civil rights, anti-Vietnam War movement, just to name a few?

browbeat us, is there?

And, then it will be too late.

The majority of libruls are pissed at Obama. Citing some Gallup approval poll (which you didn't, you just made the claim without evidence) means nothing. Ask libruls if they are disappointed in Obama, and there you'd get the real answer.

"If a huge percentage of the Democratic party were really pissed off at the direction of the Democratic party, they would nominate someone that adhered to their views."

We did. His name was Obama. He talked about single payer and the public option. He said he was going to close Gitmo. Then he sold us out.

the Dem party will be in the same shape.

... than a wolf in sheeps clothing. I'm done with the DLC dems.

and turn it into a submissive branch of the republican party. They've succeeded.

I can take a hint. I can give one as well.

Gibb's took shots at some loony, dead enders who think Obama=Bush. The people online who are bailing on Obama were only deluded in thinking THEY were his base.

Obama's actual base remains solid and supportive.

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

and actually did something worthwhile, you wouldn't have all this spare time to whine on the internet.

left, that Gibbs thinks are loony dead enders who think that Obama=Bush.

Or get out your favorite crayon and write him a nice letter. Because of course, his first and foremost duty is mollifying you.

is not the folks who equate Obama and Bush. Those folks are not the base of anything. If they were, the party would look like this:



That is an unstable configuration, that will topple with the least movement.

... until morale improves!

LOL. Keept telling yourself that.

Poor poor you.

BTW, that was my point passing over your head at supersonic speeds, in case you missed the "wooooooosssssshhhhhhh"


LOL.

And all insulted. :rofl:

... now you have entered the realm of the sad.


Basically your brain is in auto pilot mode, you have no clue what is going on, you have absolutely no comprehension of what I said in this exchange, and in true reflex mode you assumed having the last word and putting an emoticon was the only proper way of establishing a retort. "Clueless" does not even begin to reflect the measure of how you are simply not understanding what is going on in this subthread.

Sad, really sad. And yet so funny at the same time. LOL.

Pretty steady in fact. The whiners on DU for the most part were never supporters or the base.

brother and father are mechanics, mom works at a flower shop sister and i are teachers and we are all dissatisfied with the health care reform, the wars, the patriot act, what obama is doing for jobs and nclb we all know mccain would have been even shittier but none of us are fooled into thinking that obama is looking out for us, he is looking out for big business and wall street, the base is made up of actual people who go out and vote and i honestly have not been coming into contact with people who are genuinely happy about what obama is doing as president on many issues. insulting people like myself and my family because we want national health insurance and know it is viable and can easily be put into place is not a way to motivate me to vote for the democrats

which base is that? His wall street buddies? He'd better not let those tax cuts expire then...

Pathetic.

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

The banks/investment firms are indicated with asterisks.

University of California $1,591,395
*Goldman Sachs $994,795
Harvard University $854,747
Microsoft Corp $833,617
Google Inc $803,436
*Citigroup Inc $701,290
*JPMorgan Chase & Co $695,132
Time Warner $590,084
Sidley Austin LLP $588,598
Stanford University $586,557
National Amusements Inc $551,683
*UBS AG $543,219
Wilmerhale Llp $542,618
Skadden, Arps et al $530,839
IBM Corp $528,822
Columbia University $528,302
*Morgan Stanley $514,881
General Electric $499,130
US Government $494,820
Latham & Watkins $493,835

http://www.opensecrets.org/pres08/contrib.php?cycle=2008&cid=n00009638

follow that money!

How many prominent progressive academic economists are on his economic team? And how many former Goldman Sachs executives?

What was the 'slur'?

I would argue that to charge someone with uttering a "vapid slur" is in itself a vapid slur.

You, on the other hand, RaleighNCDUer, made an excellent point.

Nuts much?

Gibbs said "left"

obviously the White House is not left and does not appreciate the left. This is not the first time it's come out like this.

""Obama's actual base remains solid and supportive.""

BS, why would Gibbs be cracking like this then?

WHILE they say they're not like the right and the comparison is crazy. It's :crazy: making.

Ingrid does finally wake out of her stupor in that movie.

It's not you, Ingrid! And it's not us either, liberals!

Obama, Rahm, and the rest of the DLC crew are moderate conservatives having to deal with a slightly more broad base... some of which is composed mainly of progressives, labor, etc.

So I think it must be taxing having to pretend to care about a political platform they want nothing to do with, but have to cater to during election time due to their need for votes. You can maintain that facade of pretension for so long, until you slip out and in true Freudian fashion the disdain comes out in full technicolor glory.

And standing up for those who have been WRONG about everything is not a smart move by Mr. Gibbs.

Film at eleven

The base is the most reliable segment of voters.

....union households, African-Americans, women....

Some of whom qualify as the 'professional left', many who don't, and many more people still who, if they came here, would be confused beyond comprehension.

Look at the recs to see who the "left" base is on DU

pro Gibbs threads ZERO recs

anti Gibbs threads hundreds of recs

Same MO as when the GOP get their talking points in unison "mothership" style. Reeeeeaaaaalllly freaky seeing so many people using the exact same strawman argument, even in contexts where it makes little sense.

It started with the Inaugural Prayer. Oh I didn't want to believe it at first, but by the time they started sabotaging their own health "care" reform, there was really no point anymore in not getting it.

If those potshots had been genuine, gratuitous-brand potshots, they wouldn't have been quite so nonsensical. Insist on only gratuitous-brand potshots for the finest in insults and alienation. If your grocer tries to steer you to another brand, kick him in the nads. Go gratuitous or don't go at all.

It would have been nice to see Gibbs direct that kind of comment to the Republicans and not members of his own party.

-PLA

only to progressives.

but you know, they're sane :crazy:

they know it..they can say anything they want about us now..most of america can be united against this war..those opposed..including those who do the bidding of the mic can stand down when a couple hundred million of us tell them that is what we want..its our opportunity to make a stand..i think politics is tied up and we are not invited..that is clear..but we can approach this differently..we must..

----> * http://publicpolicypolling.blogspot.com/2010/08/obama-and-liberals.html

The 12% just make a lot of noise:

You must really have nothing.

There aren't enough LGBTs to make a difference come election time, either -- until the Dems lose, and then it's all our fault.

notice the front page... no of course you don't...

Or listen to liberal talk shows or cable show?

DU is actually muted in comparison to many places.

Not any worse than DU.

that Obama is just as bad as Bush treated as a credible claim rather than lunatic shrieking.

Other than, oh, what would you call them...trolls is it, gt? is that the term, geek tragedy...troll?

... you guys have nothing but contempt for us liberals, but seem to know where we stand better than ourselves do. Must be a fascinating existence to operate with such superpowers.

LOL.

The 12% composed of mostly anarchists and perpetual malcontents.

Their idea of activists is: Make as many donations to the party
as possible. Go out and vote for us. Otherwise, sit down and
shutup until the nexr election. Let us run the d---country
the way we Fake Republicans want to run it. We know what is best.

Like another thread showed.... it's a bell curve.


If your base is far left or far right... you'll lose.

lol! The base is the base and the center is the center. The base is not the center and the center is not the base. The base have strong beliefs and the party has to capture them because they are the ones who go door to door in the rain and snow to convince the center to vote for their guy/gal. No party can win without its base, as we will see, painfully, in November.

Thanks for the thread, Phoebe Loosinhouse.

Excellent post Phoebe Loonsinhouse I couldn't have said it better.

I wish the Peach & Freedom Party was at least as big as the Green Party. Nevertheless they both seem to be more Democrat than most Democrats these days.


Peace,
Xicano

overwhelming.

Time and time and time again.

Personally, I agree with the poster who stated that the DLC has made the Democratic Party a subsidiary of the Republican Party, with a few exceptions.

This should not be surprising, it was pretty much the stated aim of the Watergate Conspirators, who made their dreams come true.

Of course they hate us, but they have to pretend and hold up their end of The Reality Show. I mean, could Obama have gotten elected as a Republic? I think not. So he had to rebrand as a Democrat in order to be allowed to placehold the throne between Imperial Bushies.

As I have said before: it doesn't matter if it's a Grand Conspiracy or just skillful alteration of the "center of gravity", as our COIN boys put it when their Ops are utilized in foreign lands instead of against Americans. The RESULT is the same.

The DLC Democrats are, in fact, a subsidiary of the Republican-Bushie Party. They even talk about their own base in almost identical terms to the Bushies.

That's the long and the short of it.

For me it was the day O called for opening up more offshore areas for drilling. It was then I recognized this new "Democratic" party was a completely differant
animal then the one I though I belonged to.

It was a sad, sad day for me.

Message recieved, loud an clear.

They're teabaggers.

You intimate that your strawmen of the left love Bush?

Also, for those of you not bound by angry ideology or pay to respond in seriousness... read this post with a dirty mind. Man what material they give us to work with. Teabaggers, Boner, Bush, Dick. Come on. I swear all we need to do to find the R's 2012 nominee is find the one with the name most susceptible to misuse.

K&R

K%R

They never were, never will be. They're the enemy, not an ally.

Strawman squared? LOL

that Obama=Bush. I can point to several with links. Would you like?

and for you to continue to push that bs is insulting and destructive no matter how right it makes you feel personally.

you are trying to imply everyone in the left claims Bush and Obama are the same, for among other things point out how Obama has not only embraced Bush's policies, but has gone as far as extending many of them. That is a factual statement, which undermines in a big deal all the PR bullshit the DLC et al have tried to get away with. And thus that glorious strawman is trying to neutralize that fact, by simply trying to squash dissent regarding Obama's policies via a fairly lazy ad hominem.

It is just sad to think that is the best talking point the DLC et al can come up with. LOL. Seeing how a lot of these moderate conservatives and DLC types spend more time attacking liberals, as witnessed by the past 24 hours, as they seem to invest in neutralizing the GOP and their sandbagging of the Obama presidency leads me to realize how out of whack some of your priorities are. With allies like you "moderates" who needs reactionaries to bash the left?

Now, let's see your links....

peace~

and well said. I've had that feeling for a while but could never articulate it. I think I'll post this on facebook page if you don't mind.

-p

:kick:

If they want my vote, they have to start earning it. I wont let my support be taken for granted any more.

Associated with Obama and the Democratic Party. And I told them why. If the Obama White House insiders think they can keep insulting the left, liberal, progressive wing of the party and not have any consequences, they are the ones who need to be drug tested.

Oh well, this will clean out some of the crap in my Inbox.

Are you kidding me? His REAL base isn't logging on to DU and various other sites and shitting on him every chance they get and empowering republicans. :eyes:

Many Democrats (and Independents) are criticizing the president's ACTIONS, not bashing the president personally.

Looking at the poll numbers, the White House needs to start paying attention to the messages being sent before it's too late.

And for the last 25+ years I voted democratic. Does that make me part of "the base"? I'm past angry.

if Republicans take control of Congress in 2010.

wouldn't they?

Good thing they'd never do a thing like that, isn't it?

Gibbs' comment was spot on and sounds familiar.

It's not unusual for a President to call out his most vehement critics.

and who clicks those hyperlinks? no one.

and we'll either have to try and change the Dem party BACK to a party of the people, or we will have to move on. i can not continue to support DLC pro-corporate Dems when their policies are so disastrous and any lip service they give about progressive values is just that - words, not actions. AND they choose to attack us?!?!

the time for change is now. we thought Obama was that change. guess we'll be doing the changing without him unless he does some kind of miraculous 180 between now and 2012. just cause the Obama admin has abandoned and failed us doesn't mean we have to give up - but we should stop looking for real answers from them - they are not the leaders we are looking for.

Silly me.

They parade the D around, but are what we call "all hat, no cattle".

BIG difference

Are you suggesting there are "right of center liberals"??????

Usually, the terms "left of center" and "right of center" are used to indicate being CLOSE to the center.

Then you invent a bunch of undefined terms ... "Democratic centrists/corporatists/neoliberal/DLC/New Democrats" ... and "Old Dem/FDR/New Deal/pro-union/pro-labor/pro middle and lower classes/ pro fair -living wages/ pro REAL health care reform"

And then later, you refer to the "liberal left" ... which made me wonder ... are they "right of center liberals" .... or are they even further to the left .... and which of the other labels you mash together do they fit.

You are ranting ... and inventing new label combinations as if they actually had meaning as you rant.

btw ... this week, Obama and the Dems in congress provided money to the states to save the jobs of teachers. Wow ... he must hate them.

Until the last couple of years, I would have laughed at the idea of "right of center liberals."

Until an obviously "right of center" primary candidate collected all those liberal votes because "he's not DLC."

Until I paid closer attention to the DLC framing of the terms "liberal" and "progressive."

Until I noticed so many right-of-center people referring to themselves as "left" and "liberal."

The re-framing of labels makes right-of-center the "new" liberal, and allows the "new" Democrats some faux "liberal" credibility.



BTW: This teacher disapproves of cutting food stamp money to fund teachers' jobs. This teacher approved of Obey's plan to use Arne's RTTT Billions. Obama would rather see food stamps cut than cut his fund for privatization and union-busting, though. He threatened to veto any bill that moved RTTT funds to actually making sure classrooms were staffed. Priorities are clear.

First, in the media, being a liberal is a swear word, a slur. People, and candidates avoid using it. Probably why when polled, only about 20% claim to be liberal.

Second, if you go back to the primaries, and you look at the candidates, and then position them from "right most, to left most" ... what would you end up with? Hillary, Biden, Obama, Edwards, Dennis maybe? Then add McCain and the GOP candidates to the picture, because those were your choices. Obama ran as a moderate who was going to work for bipartisan agreement.



I have always seen the GOP as being comprised of 4 roughly overlapping groups.

1) Extreme Corpratists
2) Extreme Neo-cons
3) Fiscal conservatives
4) Social conservatives

An individual on "the right" may identify or be farther to the right on anyone of these. For example, a libertarian is usually considered to be "on the right" ... and yet, they tend to identify or hold a more extreme positions only with groups 1 and 3. Libertarians are often against US military engagement, and socially liberal (usually).

If you apply similar categories to describe "the left", what do you get ...at the extremes you get ...

1)The "all corporations are evil" group
2)Pacifists
3)Government has to provide all basics
4)Social liberals

People on "the left" will similarly vary across these dimensions. And yet here on DU, what I see is that folks seem to think you have to be at these extremes in all 4 cases be considered "on the left", or "liberal", or "progressive.

I was in a thread the other day in which it was proposed that a "true liberal" is against private property. You agree with them? Because that's what it seems to have come to ... every issue is a litmus test.

A complicit media and corporate funding, for example.

Not saying we couldn't overcome that, all polling shows we've got the numbers on the issues, but we're definitely swimming against the current on this.

I knew it under Clinton, but now it is crystal clear. It is really time for change!! The kind I can believe in.

...to be a base for anything. They think they are a base because they all agree to agree with each other that they are a base. It's really just a highly selective mutual admiration society based on shared folly. They need something to snap them out of it from time to time.

You can't have it both ways.

There has never past enough time to cast a negative evaluation of Obama's performance, yet enough time has passed to claim how in less than 18 months Obama has accomplished more than FDR, Truman, and LBJ combined (it is a joke). Idealism was great during the campaign, but now that Obama is president there is no worse thing as the DLC et al are now the sole proprietors of the capacity for being realistic. Obama wants the left to push him to do the right thing, but we are not allowed to express dissent to actually push him to do the right thing. And on, and on...

The issue is that up to now, there has been a clear divide between what Obama has said and the actions of his administration. The breakthrough from Gibb's snafu is that what this administration has said on the record and what they have done have is coinciding for the first time. Thus making Obama's main weapon, rhetoric, useless... and thus witness the desperate damage control of the DLC et al.

The doublethink and general logical dissonance is such, that as you pointed out they are now arguing that liberals will be held responsible for any loss the Dems experience in the next electoral cycles... even though our votes are supposed to be "irrelevant."


It just boggles the mind really...

.. that it is as obvious as it is denied by so many here. We are on our own.

distractions to the work at hand. He has let people go who have attracted unwanted attention or who are lightening rods. Bunch of em...mostly when the RW makes a stink. So here's someone who has been a focus of the left's criticism today...will he go?

I'll take my efforts/$ elsewhere. I will even leave a few races w/o votes.

...and what more worthwhile sector to invest in.

*

Got all excited about my 21st Century Green FDR dream.

Thought that surely, with the Bush Crash and Torture and eliminating habeas corpus, surely this time things had gone so far that very deep change was inevitable.

Feel like a naive little Pollyanna.

someone who "Had a Clue!"....but it seems that whether he was corrupted by the "PTB" or his own Ambition or Lack Of Ambition" ...we Dems are now left to "sparring with Robert Gibbs" who was intstrumental in taking down Howard Dean when he ran for President. And, if Obama had some good radar/Sensitivities he would have known that to place Howard Dean in his Administration would have guarenteed "some GOOD WILL" for at least TWO YEARS from his LEFT!

Instead we get "Triangulation" where Obama goes "Far Right" and panders, and twists arms on the RIGHT and the DINO's and we get Weak and Watered Down Policy. We get "Leaders for Dem Party" who are so inneffectual that they lose TED KENNEDY'S SEAT and other Senate and House Races around the Country outta the "Starting Gate."

NOW we are facing "Mid-Term Elections" and what does Obama and his appointed "Political Pals Do?" They send GIBBS OUT TO TRASH LEFTY DEMS! :eyes:

Yet...We "ON THE LEFT" are "BLAMED" for why Obama had to go "RIGHT" AFTER THE ELECTION.

I find this all very convoluted......

Here is an O-ED posted on this website some time ago: the email i will probably regret sending--edited with thanks and some responses
by NearlySomebody

Fri Jul 23, 2010 at 11:53:02 PM PDT
Wish I could write something in anger and disgust EVERY morning at 2AM then wake up at 7 and have my wife tell me I am on the rec list. Glad you all find this useful. I am just sick and tired of pussyfooting around HOW WE GOT INTO THIS MESS. For those of you who object to the salty language, my apologies. Please take it out, rinse and repeat. For those of you who asked about how it will affect my relationship with my family, worry not. My family, though politically divided, is big on love and understanding of each other. I have an awesome family. For those who asked if they could use parts of it, by all means, take it away.
For the past few years I have been getting email forwards from my dad. He always asks if they are true, and I always do a little bit of research and debunk them. And that was ok, if annoying. But I finally sent the email I have been fearing I would, and now I wonder about the repercussions.
• NearlySomebody's diary :: ::
•
The email came to my box with the note, "This will probably piss you off..."
Thanks for sending it then; I really love to be pissed off.
The video was some asshat out in Vegas who runs a casino and wants to tell us how badly the American government has failed...and of course, the usual suspects from my dad's email circle all had to chime in and say how right he was and how bad Obama is, etc... ad nauseum... So I replied...
So let me get this straight, the great recession is government's fault, the uncertainty of the American business climate is government's fault, the fact that we are pissing away 12 billion a month in an illegal war for no good reason other than to make money for oil companies is Obama's fault, the fact that when Bush took over we had a record budget surplus and in his 8 years he LOST net jobs (as compared to population growth) and ended up with more deficit in 8 years than we had had in the previous 200...and somehow this is Obama's fault? Jesus Christ. If you sat through the last 8 years and watched the Constitution shredded, our treasure wasted on a war we were LIED into, and the wages and wealth inequity gap get just as big as it was before the Great Depression and then you get mad at liberals, there ain't much I can do for you.
But for starters, what do YOU THINK is going to happen when the top 1% own 33% of everything in America and the top 10% own approximately 65% of it? Who is left to buy all the useless shit that we have to consume just to prop up the economy? Through the combination of union busting, outsourcing, and the ever-shifting tax burden from the rich to the middle class over the last 30 years, the middle class has had to borrow money for the last 3 decades to keep up with the cost of living. Inflation outpaced job earnings over the last 30 years. Think about that. If you don't see that there have been systematic problems in the country for almost as long as I have been alive, you need to start paying attention. They engineered policy to keep interest rates low to make it cheap to borrow money, and that's how we ran America...that's how we HAD to run America because working people were not making enough to make ends meet. So we borrowed and borrowed and borrowed. And then the bill came due. Hey, this is kind of funny! Did you know that Bush raised the debt ceiling 7 times while he was in office? That's like...almost every year he was in office,right? And you want more of that?
So to recap, Bush financed two wars on a credit card by selling debt to China...and NOW you are pissed off about government spending? Bush LOST net jobs...and NOW you are pissed off about jobs? Bush and the republican congress drove the car into the ditch and Obama tried to pull it out, and NOW you're mad? Now? You sleep-walk through the destruction of habeas corpus, through tax dollars spent on torturing people, through illegal and unconstitutional wire-tapping of America citizens, (and this shit is still happening because now it is JUST THE WAY WE DO THINGS HERE. THANKS!) through illegally outing an American spy for a political grudge, through the deregulatory enabling of Enron, Worldcom, and the shredding of Glass-Steagall (when they did the same thing with savings and loans we got the S&L implosion of the 80s...so we deregulated banks and got the banking implosion of the aughts. Which part of that is difficult to understand?) Your email circle slept through all of that, and NOW they get mad. Unfuckingbelievable.
Here, have some fun facts about wages in America: http://www.businessinsider.com/... Look through the slide show and tell me what you see. Rich getting richer, everyone else getting poorer.
Now some dipshit who owns a casino is going to lecture me about financial responsibility? A casino owner is going to lecture me about the proper use of my money? Really? Some asshole who is moving his corporate headquarters to China so he won't have to pay any taxes to America, a system whose government-subsidized roads and airlines supply him with an endless supply of morons who will gamble away their money at his resort? Give. Me. A. Break. If it were not for federal and state money supplying them with water, do you think they could even live out there in the FUCKING DESERT? Fuck him.
The reason we have an oil spill in the gulf, the reason the economy collapsed, and the reason we have wasted so much money in Iraq (did they find those WMDs yet?) is because government did NOT do its requisite job of oversight and regulation. The market is not rational...PEOPLE are rational. That is, if you are the guy who realizes that he can rip people off for billions of dollars and not get in trouble for it, you will, every single time. That is a cold, rational decision, the products of which we are suffering through right now. When you give regulators jobs to "regulate" and then tell them sort of tacitly that the market is infallible and that they should not interfere, you get this: http://www.dailytech.com/... People making 200k a year (paid by taxpayers) to watch porn in their offices instead of doing their jobs. Then, the failsafe for republicans is they can turn around and say, "See! Government doesn't work!" Right, because those assholes are systematically trying to destroy it. You drive the economy into a ditch we have not seen since 1930, and then you bitch about Obama spending tax money to try to fix it? Where is the disconnect here exactly? Do you think McCain would have done a better job? Sarah Palin? For fuck's sake, if she is our savior we're in big trouble (even though she does read ALL OF THE MAGAZINES). Drill baby drill? That's your platform? HA! Then Bobby Jindal is going to bitch because the federal government is not helping them enough? Just drill some more and remember when you said this: "We oppose the national Democratic view that says the way to strengthen our country is to increase dependence on government. We believe the way to strengthen our country is to restrain spending in Washington, to empower individuals and small businesses to grow our economy and create jobs." Yeah, Bobby, this is deregulation come home to roost. Suck it.
Then to cap it all off, every email forward your friends have sent in the last 8 years has been false. (Remember, these are the "rational" republicans, not the naive and emotional democrats!) I mean, republicans are entitled to their own opinions, but not their own realities. Everything that you guys are passing around and getting all worked up about is, you know, pretty much a lie created specifically to manipulate you into being angry.
Do I seem pissed? I have to tell you, it is not just because of some douchebag casino owner. It is because there seems to be two kinds of people in America: people who try to make America better for the greatest number of people on one side and people who lie, deny scientific evidence, and try to kill you for being a democrat on the other. In case Fox hasn't been covering it, there was yet another murderous patriot last week on the hunt for liberals. He was going to go shoot up the ACLU in San Francisco because Glenn Beck put it in his mind to. He was going to go kill liberals...liberals like me. And every time your friends fire off another email full of lies, the world gets a little less safe for people like me. And that is why I am pissed.
There, rant done.

The difference between those of us firmly
on the left and those firmly on the right is we are smart enough to know when our "own" are fucking is over . :grr:

What's really sad is the Democratic Centrists and DLCers have completely bought into the rightwing framing of politics in the United States. The framing goes something like 'elections are decided by the independents and they are center-right in their leanings therefore you must reject the left (who else are they going to vote for but Democrats) and move your policies to the right or you won't win national elections'. A couple of problems with buying into this. One the Republicans keep moving further and further to the right so what seems to be the political center is actual over on the right of the spectrum. So now not only do you have to reject those on the far left but those on the solid left start to look iffy as well. Two, what the American electorate really likes is a party and politicians that stand for something other than getting reelected. They appreciate somebody that stands for something and is willing to fight tooth and nail to implement their agenda (and no agenda is not necessarily a bad word). They see compromise in order to look 'bipartisan' as weakness and if there is anything they want it is a strong leader (or at least somebody they perceive as strong). Lastly if your idea of 'bipartisan' is to start in the middle and then compromise from there with the rightwing Republicans you are doing this nation a great disservice. As any good deal maker knows you start out asking for way more than you think you can get, in this case honor some of the left wing ideas that brought people to your party in the first place. Start by taking a strong progressive stance, you can still compromise and try to show you can work with the other side but what you end up will be 'true' center/left rather than right/center.

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2010/8/10/891907/-Being-wrong-while-being-right
Being wrong while being right
by blackwaterdog

Tue Aug 10, 2010 at 04:28:34 PM PDT
• blackwaterdog's diary :: ::
“Gibbs did a stupid thing, he should have known better, but he told the truth. And those who actually read all his comments know that he was NOT talking about the grassroots, about people who worked hard to get Barack Obama elected, not to mention the 90% approval he's got among Liberals - it's a bad spin - he talked about the same people Michael Moore once called "The Professional Left", those who makes very good money from their job as "Lefties", regardless the reality, regardless the damage they inflict.
It's about joining the Right Wing in creating a narrative of failure around a very good Liberal president. It's just amazing. In 18 months of some of the most toxic political environment in history, the man did more to promote the progressive cause than anyone but two other presidents, and he's "Like Bush"?
You can't just criticize him ALL THE TIME, never have his back, and then insist that it's about keeping his feet on fire. No one except Rachel Maddow even bother to mention most of the great progressive stuff that he has done. There's a whole new criteria for this president - Do twice the job for half the credit.
When the most Liberal president in decades is labeled as "Bush" 24/7 by the "Liberal media", when Right Wing talking points being used as weapon against him from the left - then it doesn't matter much who will win this November. Or in 2012 – and i'm almost ready to bet that it won't be Barack Obama, that he'll take the family and go home. I'm pretty sure that Bill Maher can win the election.”
The right wing must be very happy at the reaction of the left; welcome to the tea-baggers wagon US lefties! We sure deserve all the shit that we get from the “right”!

:crazy:

:rofl:

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2010/8/10/891907/-Being-wrong-while-being-right
Being wrong while being right
by blackwaterdog

Tue Aug 10, 2010 at 04:28:34 PM PDT
• blackwaterdog's diary :: ::
“Gibbs did a stupid thing, he should have known better, but he told the truth. And those who actually read all his comments know that he was NOT talking about the grassroots, about people who worked hard to get Barack Obama elected, not to mention the 90% approval he's got among Liberals - it's a bad spin - he talked about the same people Michael Moore once called "The Professional Left", those who makes very good money from their job as "Lefties", regardless the reality, regardless the damage they inflict.
It's about joining the Right Wing in creating a narrative of failure around a very good Liberal president. It's just amazing. In 18 months of some of the most toxic political environment in history, the man did more to promote the progressive cause than anyone but two other presidents, and he's "Like Bush"?
You can't just criticize him ALL THE TIME, never have his back, and then insist that it's about keeping his feet on fire. No one except Rachel Maddow even bother to mention most of the great progressive stuff that he has done. There's a whole new criteria for this president - Do twice the job for half the credit.
When the most Liberal president in decades is labeled as "Bush" 24/7 by the "Liberal media", when Right Wing talking points being used as weapon against him from the left - then it doesn't matter much who will win this November. Or in 2012 – and i'm almost ready to bet that it won't be Barack Obama, that he'll take the family and go home. I'm pretty sure that Bill Maher can win the election.”
The right wing must be very happy at the reaction of the left; welcome to the tea-baggers wagon US lefties! We sure deserve all the shit that we get from the “right”!

a Democratic Party almost completely eaten away by the DLC-corporate agenda from

INSIDE the Democratic Party!

K&R!!!

For whatever reason, Obama administration seems to think some of them are their base, too.

Republican strategists have GOT to be loving this.

Can we please let this story die. They have already apologized for it, now lets see how they proceed from here. Thats my 2c

I thought Kucinich was the holder of the flame of the left.

I thought the base were pragmatic Dems.

:shrug:

this is the base:
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=389&topic_id=8914500&mesg_id=8918289

need 'drug tested', and all... sheesh

all the TV blindered Obama sycophants are getting a wake up call,

look at the recs on posts like this compared to the unrec's on posts supporting Gibbs

a majority of the left is waking up to the fact that this White House is continuing to screw them over

You said it all: "How many times do you need to be handed your coat before you understand that the party is over and it's time to go elsewhere?"