"This is a knife-fight."

I don't know what Booman means by his title or calling Krugman K-Thug, but the gist of this little article is spooky and all too possible.

http://www.boomantribune.com/story/2011/8/29/105933/417

K-Thug Finds an Acorn

by BooMan
Mon Aug 29th, 2011 at 10:59:33 AM EST


K-Thug finds an acorn:



I don't know. I think we just experienced eight years of this kind of rule, and I was terrified the entire goddamn time. It took years off my life. It radicalized me. It literally changed my life and all my priorities. It was a thing I felt compelled to fight every single day. That didn't change for me when we won back the House and Senate, and it didn't change for me when we won back the White House. Why? Because I know that one of these years, these yahoos will gain total control of our government unless we have people willing to fight them every single day.

I think Krugman knows this, and I think he does his part. But I also think he employs his own form of magical thinking a lot of the time. Namely, he acts like the world will conform to what reason dictates and that rational decisions will be made if only someone makes a rational argument. No. This is a knife-fight. Reason plays a part, but it isn't decisive.

Obama: “If they bring a knife to the fight, we bring a gun”

http://www.politicususa.com/en/Obama-Philly

... but allowing the Senate to filibuster hundreds of bills, and not smacking heads together, I'm not seeing the gain.

Politics is the art of the possible, but you can't give EVERYTHING away.

I would argue the opposite.

Right now at the rate he's going he will be at 20% when 2012 comes around.

With all his hopey change bipartisanship.

I guess you haven't seen the poll where most people want him to stand up to the Republicans.

Even Republicans.

You must ignore polls like him.

If you look at the polls from healthcare to taxes they are on Obama's side.

Unfortunately he keeps being the Republicans bitch time and time again.

were dismissed as irrelevant. Attacks on Conservative Dems in the Senate was more of a question of whether it would be counterproductive.

I guess every Republican pres needed 60 votes yet none have had it in my 40 year lifetime. Didn't stop any of them.

Up and down vote. How many times did you hear Bush request this and get it.

If they won't give it to you then the Dems had the power to get rid of the filibuster.

Since the Dems barely used it against Bush and when they did they found a way to let him have his votes they might as well have got rid of it anyway.

The Dems didn't obstruct or impeach the worst president in our history. Yet they allow a Dem President who was elected with the biggest majority in decades to be obstructed. That's insane.

You would think they would do everything they could since they inherited the country in it's worst position in 80 years.

While the GOP stated what their #1 priority was. For Obama to fail.

That leaves Obama and the Dems with one choice. Destroy the GOP.

Who extends their hand time and time again to someone that want's you to fail.

If that was their position Obama should have given them one chance to help the country they destroyed.

When they smacked his hand down and spit in his face "You Lie".

He should have set out to destroy them.

Instead he keeps trying to work with them to the point they used the debt ceiling to take the entire world hostage.

After they already tried to destroy us 3 years earlier.

Instead of a gun Obama brought a finger nail clipper to the fight.

you should be more pissed off that reid didn't change the rule in 2010 when he could have.

Various procedures could be used to circumvent that but they choose not to.

NGU.

with Kevin Costner and Sean Connery.

The line finishes with "...if he sends one of your guys to the hospital, you send one of his to the morgue".

He left that part out.

It's all about message and framing.

NGU.

and until they challenge the RW talk radio megaphone they shouldn't waste too much time thinking about it

george lakoff has the technique but the left lets the right dominate delivery- and doesn't know it.

You don't win this sort of thing with words alone. "Pressure" does not help either, it is like threatening the death penalty for suicide bombers, they remain unimpressed because they had already decided to die in the act.

These guys are perfectly willing to bring the economy down to win. The only chance for victory is to take them out at the polls, all of them. It needs to be clear that this sort of thinking and politics will not be tolerated.

But the loony right is a small minority. There are vast numbers of people on the fence, as well as people who aren't even aware there's a conflict, young people only now becoming aware of politics, and those disenchanted with the right after eight years of Bush. To say the President has no value in spreading our ideals is odd.

but no actual progress would have arisen from it. Lots of people apparently already support progressive values. The numbers are posted here all the time. They just don't get elected to congress. The tea party is a tiny and apparently shrinking minority that currently possesses outsized power. This can be fixed, but it will require a very successful election to do it.

"There is plenty of value in it" then say "but no actual progress would have arisen from it." That doesn't even make any sense. O_o

Why does the tea party have "outsized power?" Here's a hint: It isn't because they tell their members to shut the fuck up and quietly work to elect Republicans. From the lowliest internet kook to the Speaker of the House, they won't close their idiot mouths, thereby dominating the national conversation. The President has historically had the ability to be heard above the noise. W and Reagan did it for the dark side, or at least their speechwriters did. Clinton, LBJ, Kennedy, Eisenhower, Truman, FDR, Abraham BY GOD Lincoln all did it for the side of the angels. Their words, just their cost-free blessed words, changed the course of history on more occasions than I can count.

Unless the President had an unfortunate accident that extirpated his Broca's area, there is no reason for him not to expound the truth. We know he can do it. He's done it before. Why not now?

because the republicans are bomb throwers and have an interest in avoiding any sign of progress. All the other Presidents you mention have one thing in common, a minority party that was not interested in completely preventing all and any progress by whatever means available. Our form of government is set up to protect the rights of the minority, but this was done under the assumption that the minority would act in the best interest of the country when it came down to that.

It is a perfect setup for a minority veto when they choose to act in bad faith. In such times there is no structural relief from the damage they can do.

There was a woman being interviewed on the radio who knew Malcom X as a friend. She wasn't very political, and had never been to one of his rallies, so she went to see him give a talk one time. Afterward, she asked him why he repeated the same words, phrases, and ideas over and over again in a single speech. He told her that it was necessary in order to make sure that people remembered the principle points he was trying to make. If you google "Malcom X repetition", you will find several analyses of his speeches that exhibit this aspect of his style. Modern psychological research bears that out too, and the result is the repetitive drone you hear from marketers and Koch-funded conservative "activists." An unfortunately successful drone.

If the President says something once on a Youtube video or at a town hall, it is almost meaningless. But, if he will engage the people on a regular basis and drive his points home forcefully, over and over, he will be heard.

perhaps this disproves the theory, but I don't think so. Education requires an audience that wants to learn, and then repetition helps. When I speak publicly, I always state, explain, then restate. It is the same with writing, executive summary, body, and restate in conclusion. No rocket science here.

...convince the diehards. You're talking to convince the fence-sitters.

In other words, Obama doesn't need to use the bully pulpit to convince the Rape-Publicans. He'll never convince them. He needs to use it to rally the American people behind him and urge them to support good progressive values.

NGU.

after an election that produces a progressive Senate and House of Representatives. The only fence sitters there were democrats.

they allow it by ignoring talk radio while it kicks their internet ass.

it doesn't matter what obama does or says (same for all dem presidents- more for a 1/2 black president) if the think tanks can blast the country with their distortions and lies and excuses and swiftboating alll day long and the left just walks on by with their ipods on.