Category: Barack Obama

Original article, by Ralph Nader and subtitled Liberals Begin to Bail on Obama, via counterpunch.com:

Those long-hoping, long-enduring members of the liberal intelligentsia are starting to break away from the least-worst mindset that muted their criticisms of Barack Obama in the 2008 presidential campaign.

C’mon.  Let me get in one more shot before the year ends.  

This President is an absolute disgrace.

With President Obama being a major disappointment in some corners, it was perhaps inevitable that Hillary Clinton loyalists would exercise their right to second-guess the inevitable nominee.  Anne Kornblut’s column in The Washington Post entitled, “When young women don’t vote for women” is but the latest effort to chastise young feminists and young women in general for not being more supportive of the first female candidate to make a serious run for the White House.  The column, regrettably, also invokes the counter-productive liberal guilt complex construct of the Oppression Olympics to make its point, which is something I thought we had recognized does nothing to unite and everything to divide.  Pitting women against African-Americans in some kind of twisted priority system has been the demise of many worthy organizations and the beginning of arguments that inevitably lead to raised blood pressure.

Crossposted at Daily Kos

Update #2: It has been brought to my attention that my initial analysis on the subject of this diary, originally titled “SCOTUS legalizes TORTURE and creates legal ‘unpersons'”, and then edited to state 9th Circuit . . .  is factually incorrect. I apologize for the confusion and will be writing a thorough dairy tomorrow based on the facts of the ruling by the 9th Circuit court.

    I have left the full text of the original diary intact below the fold and will be glad to be further corrected. I seek to learn as well as to share what knowledge I have.

    But I will ask this: When? When do we start to see accountability, for the super rich, for the Corporations and their CEO class, and for the crimes and other excesses of the politically powerful. When?

Thank you, and apologies to all.

Cheers

It’s official.  The USA Patriot Act is no longer the greatest social achievement of our time.  The Baucus/Lieberman Perpetual Serfdom Act has just been awarded that distinction.  Obama is immensely proud of it.  “Pragmatic” progressives are saluting it.  They’re telling us we should be grateful for the crumbs Democrats toss us, they’re ridiculing us for taking a stand on principle, they’re calling it “wanting our ponies”, they never shut up, their condescending lips are always flapping, their lips never stop flapping until police state decrees like this are issued from on high . . .

After hearing passionate arguments from the Obama Administration, the Supreme Court acquiesced to the president’s fervent request and, in a one-line ruling, let stand a lower court decision that declared torture an ordinary, expected consequence of military detention, while introducing a shocking new precedent for all future courts to follow: anyone who is arbitrarily declared a “suspected enemy combatant” by the president or his designated minions is no longer a “person.” They will simply cease to exist as a legal entity. They will have no inherent rights, no human rights, no legal standing whatsoever.

Every time Obama channels Cheney and goes all medieval on us, his Obamabots fall silent. All we hear is crickets.  Until the next greatest social achievement of our time is announced. Then the festivities begin anew and anyone who doesn’t join in gets burned as a witch.  

For corporate fascists keeping score at home, that’s two great social achievements in one week!  For “pragmatic” progressives, it’s one great social achievement and a minor disappointment.  Nothing to dwell on.  Clap louder and it’ll go away.  For actual progressives, it’s the final evidence that we no longer have any choices left.  There is only one way to fight back now.  We have to boycott the major parties in the 2010 Midterms. Vote 3rd party. Vote for a write-in candidate.  Take electoral action in whatever way you think is most effective.

Iranians can die for democracy . . .

But we can’t even boycott an election?  

Don’t argue about it.  Do it.  Call it what you want.  Get to work organizing it.  Get to work publicizing it.  Help in any way and every way you can or get the hell out of the way.    

Democrats told us they couldn’t Impeach because “we don’t have the votes”.  They told us they couldn’t pass single payer because “we don’t have the votes.”   They told us they couldn’t give us a strong public option because “we don’t have the votes.”  They told us they couldn’t even give us a watered down public option because “we don’t have the votes.”  

When progressives boycott the Midterms, Democrats will discover the true meaning of “we don’t have the votes.”  They’ve been using it as a bullshit excuse, we’re going to use it as a warning, as a nationwide declaration that we will no longer tolerate betrayal.    

“Pragmatic” progressives will freak out, we’ll be lectured about “reality” by people who think that gutter they’re crawling in is the Yellow Brick Road to Incremental Change.  They’ve been crawling in that gutter of “political reality” ever since their anti-Impeachment days.  They weren’t worth listening to then and they never will be.    

We’ve supported Democrats over and over again, election after election, but nothing ever changes. Doing the same thing over and over again expecting different results is insanity.   It’s insane to keep reelecting corrupt politicians who keep betraying us.  

Inky99 has everyone riled up with his chart-topping post denouncing Obama’s recent embrace of torture.  In “3/5 of a President,” Inky99 declared,

“The United States is now legally free to torture whomever it wants, thanks to the Supreme Court of the land, and the political power weilded (sic) by Barrack Hussein Obama.”

So angry was Inky99 that he took the opportunity to post a racist picture and declare, “I hate Obama…because Obama IS Bush,”.  Much invective ensued.

Inky99 badly misrepresented what actually occurred.  I followed the path back to the beginning, reviewed the actual sources, and will explain below the fold why Inky99 is wrong about what happened, and is also wrong to be angry about what actually did happen.

I will then suggest that this kind of false hysteria reflects poorly on us as blogging community, and keeps us off the path to making real change.

Original article, by David Lindorff and subtitled An Afghan Christmas, via counterpunch.com:

‘Twas the night before Christmas and all through the land

Not a creature was stirring in Afghanistan.

The bedrooms were bunkered with piles of hard stones

To protect from attacks by the Predator drones.

The children were huddled, afraid, in their beds

While visions of night raiders danced in their heads.

Unfortunately appropriate for the season.

Attorney General Henry McMaster said he and his counterparts in Alabama, Colorado, Michigan, North Dakota, Texas and Washington state – all Republicans – are jointly taking a look at the deal they’ve dubbed the “Nebraska compromise.”

“The Nebraska compromise, which permanently exempts Nebraska from paying Medicaid costs that Texas and all other 49 states must pay, may violate the United States Constitution – as well as other provisions of federal law,” Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott said.

Ramsey, McMaster and Michigan’s Mike Cox are running for governor in their states.

“Whether in the court of law or in the court of public opinion, we must bring an end to this culture of corruption,” McMaster said. The negotiations “on their face appear to be a form of vote buying paid for by taxpayers,” he said.

Video

 Health care reform will be an Obama victory

 Dec. 22: When Senate health care legislation finally passes, it will be a win for the president. NBC’s David Gregory offers analysis.

Nightly News

‘We’ll assist anyone’

McMaster is encouraging a South Carolina citizen to step forward to sue to challenge the measure if it is signed into law. “We’ll assist anyone to the extent that we’re able,” McMaster said.

Also Tuesday, U.S. House Majority Whip Jim Clyburn, D-S.C., said Republicans need to stop complaining about deals their colleagues made.

“Rather than sitting here and carping about what Nelson got for Nebraska, I would say to my friends on the other side of the aisle: Let’s get together and see what we can get for South Carolina,” Clyburn said.

For instance, Clyburn expects states will get more help covering Medicaid expansion costs. Critics say the federal government’s coverage of 91 percent of those future costs will disappear, leaving states with huge holes in their budgets. Clyburn says the legislation the federal share should be 95 percent, with states picking up no more than 5 percent.

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“I don’t think the White House recognizes how much trouble they’re in,” said one former Democratic official. “I think they’re miscalculating what’s happening with progressives and the left.”

Failing to understand the intensity of progressive anger, dismissing it with condescending arrogance is bad enough, but that’s not all they’re miscalculating.  Obama and Democrats seem to think they’re securing the long-term support of the corporate establishment, they think they’re consolidating their power, but they’re walking right into a trap.  They’re being set up to fail, they’re being set up to take the blame when everything implodes.  The corporate masters of America and their GOP enforcers expect that this trap, this setup will result in a Presidency so disastrous and unpopular, in a Congress so despised, in a political system so divisive and dysfunctional that when General Petraeus arrives on his white horse to save America in 2012, he will win every state, Republicans will take Congress back, and the Permanent Republican Majority will be here to stay after a rather unsuccessful first attempt.

If that doesn’t happen, it won’t be because the designated scapegoats with the (D) after their names in the White House and Congress didn’t play their assigned roles.  They are.  To clueless, halfwit, suicidal perfection.  Democrats are jubilant that they’ve managed to clusterfuck their way to 60 votes in the Senate, but they won’t be quite as jubilant when the healthcare crisis keeps intensifying and unemployment keeps getting worse and banks keep failing and the dollar tanks and the war in Afghanistan keeps getting bloodier and the commercial real estate market implodes and takes what’s left of the economy down with it.        

Obama isn’t playing 12 dimensional chess, he’s playing Russian Roulette with a bullet in every chamber.  

He loaded the Wall Street Bailout bullet, he loaded the not enough stimulus bullet, he loaded the Bernanke back to the Fed bullet, he loaded the deficits are bad bullet, he loaded the Afghanistan escalation bullet, he’s loaded every bullet the corporate masters of this country handed him and keeps pulling the trigger.      

There’s a coalition of “progressive” unity-schtickers lamenting the sudden loss of support for the President and his policies.  United we stand, divided we fall, they say, and all that crap we have been hearing since well before Democrats took Congress.  These Democratic appeasers are united behind a person and party, not the issues, and therefore take issue with those who prefer the “principle” to the “man” or “tribe.”  To them, people like myself are purity trolls, like Republican Tea-baggers, regardless of what the tribe stands for.  Thus, they will tolerate any and every thing, as long as it’s served up on a plate.

This rapid loss in support for Obama has occurred for several reasons.  First, this was a very important election after eight years of neoliberalism on acid.  Second, due to a certain psychological pre-eminence of various crises at this particular time in history, we have been keenly aware of the importance of all this promise for hope and change, including the specific issues and policies that would indicate change.  Third Barack Obama has signaled in all major areas of crisis, from warfare (Iraq, Afghanistan, Somalia, and now, Yemen), the political crisis off giving welfare to deranged profit-takers ($12 trillion dollars and counting to casino gamblers), social welfare (this fucked health care bill), the Unitary Executive and civil rights (blocking judicial activity surrounding Bush era war crimes, torture, human rights, etc.), to environmental degradation (Copenhagen), and boy howdy that’s a lot of signals, that his promises of hope and change are full-on bullshit.  If you want to call questions of war & peace, basic human rights, clear-cut questions of law, rampant and encroaching crony capitalism and fascism,  and environmental crises “purity tests,” be my  guest, you retarded fucking gink, but it shows zero intellectual honesty.