Here they go again..calling liberals "elite", saying we have no leverage over Obama.

I thought we were getting a respite from insults and name-calling toward those of us who proudly place ourselves on the left of the party. They have done this for so very long, and you would think they would realize we have caught on.

Now it's Ed Kilgore of the PPI posting at Salon to lecture the liberal elites. He used to be one who was not quite so insulting, but this column is upsetting.

Why the liberal base has so little leverage with Obama

He even talks about elite and non-elite progressives.



Talk about judgemental and condescending?

But wait, it gets even more that way.



He then says that even though we may regret having voted for him in 2008, that we will be on board in 2012. Why? Because we are liberals.



Oh, gee, I had to look up heresiarch

Here's the most important message from that last paragraph...in just a few words.



And I guess the PPI or whatever centrist had Ed Kilgore's ear at the time....decided we needed to hear that right now.

I wonder why that is necessary.

if it weren't he wouldn't continue to appease Boner.

"In the meantime, liberals will mostly have to bury a sense of cold fury that they have been "had" by a politician who in the course of less than three years has devolved from being the left’s great hope for a "transformative" presidency to a heresiarch over whom the Left has virtually no leverage."


In other words, they will do what they want...and we are to bury our anger and swallow it.

Im not going to swallow, I will spit my anger back in their faces come next election.

I believed he would be a corporate tool and the instant he nominated
his Cabinet, my beliefs were confirmed.

Tesha

JEeze I wish I was an elite...But I'm just an ordinary fellow, so my opinions don't matter to those on the Olympian heights that Mr Kilgore works for.

We're "unneeded" and "unnecessary" till Election Day, and then, we'd better vote for whom we're told to.

I wonder to myself what would happen if the "Left" decided to sit this one out. After all, we're (and our votes, and our contributions,) not needed, are we?

Like the results?

..but he seems to have nailed it as far as how I'm feeling about President Obama. The 'cold fury' description is dead on.

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

should be identified the factions they fall in within the larger political parties. For example, Dennis Kucinich, Liberal Democrat or Michele Bachmann, Christian Republican.

Doing this would case these groups to coalesce and become more identifiable to the general public. It might also eventually lead the major parties to break into smaller identifiable parties. That would be a good thing IMHO. The fuckers would be forced to work together to build coalitions.

Not likely to happen. We live in a red and blue nation that has little tolerance for purple.

It can be repaired, but would take substantial effort on the part of the nation. This effort is likely to come after the existing system decays into irrelevance.

thrown at Caroline Kennedy when she considered running
for the House. She had not voted in years. I have a
theory that many better off Dems know they will do very
well under Republicans and simply do not vote.

Which means that all we get is a sore nose and another Third Way, Blue Dog, New Democrat, administration that ignores us.

You know what they say...we have nowhere else to go.

to be writing things like this that divide the party. We are going to need this minoritys votes come election time. We should be respecting each others views and working together.

I will point out anything like this because it needs to be done. And they should show some respect for the people of their party instead of labeling us.

If he writes something else, I will post about that as well.

I am an intelligent educated person, and I am tired of being insulted.

And I don't blame you for feeling insulted at all. Heck, I am a moderate Dem and I think its an insult.

I am also glad that you post stuff like this. Helps in fighting for unity.

They know it's a two party system and there's no viable alternative. Just read many of the posts around here accusing anyone not cheerleading the gutting of what used to be core Democratic principles as "Bachmann Democrats."

African American support for Obamam at 50%.

liberals/progressives are the minority of the Democratic Party.

Since when are outsiders "elite"?

According to this fellow, the political establishment and business community are the mainstream, and "elites" are anyone who doesn't think the Treasury should be grafted onto Wall Street, or Social Security cut to hand bigger tax cuts to the wealthy.

Maybe we need a crash of some sort. That is an amazingly thick bubble these people seem to live in.

I have wondered why they have found it necessary through the years to treat us with contempt?

I've noticed DLC sorts do this sort of thing a lot around election time. It used to really confuse me-- I mean, why would you choose election season to intentionally tweak your base? Then I realized, they're going after business support, not liberal support. They can rake in corporate cash by proving their neoliberal bona fides, and just target those oblivious "moderates".

"Elite" in this context has almost no meaning. It's an all-purpose smear word made effective by decades of repetition, mostly by the GOP. So now "centrist" Democrats are using it the same way.

:hi:

elite =

(1) Anyone who has graduated from high school and is smart enough to follow legitimate news sources.

(2) scumbag WallStreet, etc. type.


At least, that's the way the term seems to be used nowadays. It is always derogatory.

The establishment is the enemy of the people.

Seems pretty clear cut.

Insulting liberals is second nature to him. He's just doing the work of the DC DLC types. We've been insulted, ignored & excluded pretty nonstop over the past 3 years by a wide variety of executive office personnel (including the president), DLCers/neo-Dems & blue-dog types.

What Ed Kilgore says carries as much weight with me as what Cantor, Boehner & Bachmann say.

He just offers up the store and calls it "pragmatism". However he *is* lucky enough to enjoy and even crazier counter part in the House.

Answer: At the same instant American voters decided they preferred leaders who were "average" and "mediocre".

I was going to mention that actually. I mean, it's like being "elite" is a bad thing.

I recall Bill Maher saying that we want elite doctors, lawyers, and teachers -- so why not "elite" politicians who actually know what they're talking about?

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

Sub-thread removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

Civil liberties - check.

Wars - check.

Single Payer giveaway - check.

Bush tax cuts - check.

Entitlements on the table - check.

Cold fury - check.


My position on voting for Obama in 2012 - evolving.

My position on voting for Obama in 2012 - evolving.


Right there with you.

Voting for the lesser evil validates our political system as "democracy." Then we have nobody to blame but ourselves while the looting continues.

Only way I can understand why he would say such things...

What the hell does he mean "elite" and "non-elite" Progressives? Those who have lots of $$ and those who don't? What the f***!

Well here's a word I hope they know the meaning of: hubris.

Hubris is right.

I've seen it a few times around here, but I have no idea what it means? thanks for any help. b&r

Well I am very emotional when they start talking about harming seniors and the needy and let the billionaires off easy.

He correctly lists the reasons why sane people are angry at this president, then admits that this president doesn't care about those issues.

Finally, he uses his crystal ball to predict that despite their 'cold fury' they will vote for this President 'because they have nowhere else to go'.

What exactly is the point of this article?

Aside from going 'nyah, nyah, nyah, nyah Obama doesn't care about YOU'? Did he think this was some kind of revelation?

Poor guy, I guess he doesn't get paid if he doesn't produce something, anything. And bashing 'liberals' is always popular with the people with money.

Seems to me they're scared of teabaggers. DLC type democrats just keep on insulting progressive/socialist/liberal democrats. Why is that? Because they're actually Republicans?

to get them to listen is to make them scared of us. That may very well happen in 2012, if enough of us get enough guts to do some creative voting.

a real Democrat.

Yeah, I'm a "liberal elite". I live in the woods in a 20' x 32' cabin with no running water. I'll be 62 in November hoping like hell I'll be able to possibly retire someday before my body and/or mind gives out, counting on Social Security because it's the only retirement income I'll have.

Silly me, I actually once believed that unfailingly voting for Democrats would safeguard the cash money that's been taken out of every damn paycheck I've ever earned.

Thanks, Obama, I've now learned otherwise.

sw

40-plus years of unfailingly supporting Democrats with my money, my votes, and my time, and I feel like I've been kicked in the cajones.

My fault really because I was so full of HOPE that I stopped listening carefully to some of what Candidate Obama said.

Now I'm listening very carefully to everything he says and, more importantly, I'm watching what he DOES. What I SEE is a Democrat who is pushing the Republican agenda. Initially I could not believe my eyes but now I see it clearly.

I too will not vote for this President again. I will write in or leave it blank. Progressive LIBERAL Democrats will get my vote. Others, NO.

RECOMMEND this thread even thought the content really pisses me off.

other thing I'll be doing is going after the tea party republicans. Good luck to you. Unfortunately, we have no country anymore. The public will come after those who destroyed it in real not nice ways. This is why Bush reversed posse comitatus (sp), so the military can be sent to major cities. But Philadelphia and Chicago will not be Baghdad and Tikrit.

I'm not going to be suckered anymore. All the president does is normalize what use to be the enemy's platform, which allows the enemy to move further right and therefore to move our country further right. This president is a travesty, a bait-and-switch. All politicians lie during campaigns but his was a massive front. The loyal opposition is just as guilty as the enemy. If you hate Republicans but not their ideas, what exactly is it that you hate?

That's the power behind the candidates who end up in the White House if

they're willing to deliver what they want --

It's also a message that our votes are meaningless -- huge amounts of money

will spread rw propaganda and confusion -- and computers will take care of the rest.


But -- REMEMBER -- this all happens because this is a consdervative nation ---



:rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl:

Like many others I'm not very inclined to vote for Obama again for the exact reasons that he outlines. Kilgore and his ilk do a very poor job of explaining why progressives should vote for him.

It is no more productive to say moderates are not Democrats at all, or to call us "Republican Lite".

Isn't it time for all of us to stop the name calling and to at least attempt to look at all sides of any issue?

there is no need to call names when their words are pretty doggone clear.

I find it intolerable that for years the group in our party (maybe in our party) calling themselves the center, the sensible center, the centrist....use such insulting words toward us.

It's sickening, and I can see why it would make someone on the left fight back about it.

The name calling was really bad back in 2003 when we were called the "activist fringe" and treated like we were ignorant. It has gotten worse since.

There have been a lot of posts talking about "real Democrats", "Repub lite", and, of course, absolutely demonizing the dreaded DLC, and anyone who even comes close to expressing agreement with anything that came out of that organization.

All I'm saying is that it is happening to all of us, when, in actuality, we should not be sniping at one another, but joining forces to overcome the true destructive elements in our government.

it's hard to join forces. They insult because they don't think they need us. I can see why people would be angry enough right now with party leaders who ARE going along with Republican ideas.

with calling centrists names, just don't just don't do it to anyone considered to be further to the left. Got it!

Is the arrogance of the sensible center showing?

I'm so elite I have no cell phone, no land line, no cable TV and an apartment in a house that will most likely be foreclosed on this winter. I am disabled. I have no idea where I will go.

I voted for Obama with joy in my heart. Fooled by that hope/change rhetoric I guess when I should have been watching things more closely. I will not be fooled again. I am seriously thinking of writing in a candidate in the 2012 election. If I'm going to crash and burn, I'd like to send a nice, nasty message to Obama in doing so. I was part of his base. It's not looking that way this time around. Enough is enough. Will this thick headed chess-player ever get the message? MOVE LEFT MORAN!

:hug:

I am so sorry. That should never happen in this country. Another :hug:

I have been watching your posts for the couple of months. All that stuff you report about the teachers... infuriating! Especially for an old union executive chief steward like me. I thought that kind of crap was just going on in Wisconsin. Obviously not. Since I've been sick, I really feel out of the loop of information. Then the posts about the Hamilton "Democrats"... outrageous! I get more and more educated every time I read you. Keep the reporting up. Good work!

for those words. I am getting too old to get as angry as I am lately. I am angry at a party that has sold out its most loyal constituents for money.

I am glad I am retired as a teacher because I would get fired now for speaking out.

Best to you. :hug:

moneyed ones--like those at the Aspin Institute
recently.

"Liberal voters are precisely the least likely Democratic-leaning segment of the electorate to sit on their hands in 2012, no matter how they feel about Obama.

And that reality, I suspect, is contributing significantly to the anger and despair expressed by progressive elites about Obama. They may now regret his nomination in 2008, or even (on strategic grounds) his election. But they know in their hearts they will be voting for him in 2012, and for the most part, speaking out for his re-election. Next time there is an open Democratic presidential nomination contest, the organized left will almost certain to make far greater ideological demands on candidates, and make a far less speculative choice of a favorite, than it did in 2008. In the meantime, liberals will mostly have to bury a sense of cold fury that they have been "had" by a politician who in the course of less than three years has devolved from being the left’s great hope for a "transformative" presidency to a heresiarch over whom the Left has virtually no leverage."

I do resent being called elitist when I can barely buy dried peas for supper.

They have us where they want us...helpless.

If you don't like the word being used against you, all you need do is to return the favor by calling your enemy elite and illustrating how the word fits. Unfortunately, liberals all too often turn the other cheek rather than swing back. It's your choice - fight back or get hit again and again.

you still think we do?

Neocons, by another name. :puke:

http://www.rightweb.irc-online.org/profile/Progressive_Policy_Institute

The Progressive Policy Institute (PPI)—together with its related web-based project the Progressive Fix—is a Democratic Party-aligned policy shop that promotes a “liberal hawk” line on foreign affairs similar in many respects to that pushed by neoconservatives. PPI’s website states that its “mission is to define and promote a new progressive politics for America in the 21st century. Through its research, policies, and perspectives, the Institute is fashioning a new governing philosophy and an agenda for public innovation geared to the Information Age.”<1> The organization claims to have “a distinctly progressive point of view grounded in a spirit of radical pragmatism.”<2>PPI was founded in 1989 by Will Marshall and Al From as a project of the Third Way Foundation.<3> Closely associated with the Democratic Leadership Council (DCL), a prominent supporter of Sen. Joseph Lieberman (ID-CT), PPI says its mission "arises from the belief that America is ill-served by an obsolete left-right debate that is out of step with the powerful forces reshaping our society and economy." PPI claims to advocate "a philosophy that adapts the progressive tradition in American politics to the realities of the information age and points to a 'third way' beyond the liberal impulse to defend the bureaucratic status quo and the conservative bid to simply dismantle government."<[br />
snip

The core principles of the "third way movement" are set forth in the DLC/PPI's 1996 publication, The New Progressive Declaration: A Political Philosophy for the Information Age. In it they argue that enduring progressive values must be adapted to include uncompromising support for free market and free trade economics, a strong military with a global presence, an end to the politics of entitlement, a rejection of affirmative action, an embrace of competitive enterprise, and a reduction of the government’s role in development policy.<6> Expressing the opinion of many progressive Democrats, Robert Kuttner of the American Prospect wrote that the political approach of the DLC amounts to "splitting the difference with a Republican administration."

FUCK THE "PROGRESSIVE" POLICY INSTITUE WITH A CHAINSAW!

Elitist and PROUD in my case. Noblesse oblige and all that stuff.

I have more than some, so it falls to me to assist those where I'm able to do so.

Why yes, I'm disabled.
I deal with mental illness, chronic pain and mobility issues. I'm on disability and only able to work part-time (20 hrs a week).
I'm still able to help out those less fortunate than myself, and as a liberal elitist, I'm obligated to do so.

And ya know what? I consider it a PRIVELEGE.

Been broke, jobless, thisclose to homeless...so I appreciate where I am now, and the kindness people can show to those less fortunate than themselves.

that all Republican propagandists have learned: Identify your own worst faults, and assign them to the opposition.

It was also a Joseph Goebbels technique, and evidently Karl is one of his greatest disciples.

Rove's group is running ads against Bill Nelson in FL already, claiming he is a spendthrift and raises taxes. Nelson is a New Dem who is so centrist he tips to the right...but the ads have started already and are nasty.

The media is pro-Obama (certainly more than being pro-Progressive). Obama has chosen a re-election strategy of triangulation (ala Clinton) and it means saying that his base is as unreasonable as right-wingers, with the media doing whatever it can to support it. We are going to be used as a prop in the coming election and we will have a choice to make. I am not saying "don't vote for Obama".....just that we will all need to make a decision with which we can live. Obama is betting that most of his base will still be there November 2012. Whether he is right or wrong, I believe this is our new reality.

p.s.....the "transformative presidency" was gone a long time ago......IMHO.

It was a highly condescending article but that said, there was much truth in it.

Since the GOP is saddled with Teabaggers, why not spread the misery?