“Why are Obama and the Democrats so incompetent/such wimps/such ‘pussies’? They control the White House and both houses of Congress, yet they haven’t even managed to [insert embarrassingly modest and/or reformist liberal/progressive goal here, e.g., “pass health care reform that includes a public option”, “end the Iraq war”, “enact strict regulations on Wall Street”, etc.]! Obama needs to ‘grow a pair’ and start acting more like the Republicans did when they were in power! You know, like a man. I mean, Bush never cared about bipartisanship and consensus-building when he was president. He was willing to use his power to enact his agenda, and he did so without giving the Democratic opposition in Congress a second thought.”
The Left’s™ persistent broadcasting of variations on the Democrats-as-incompetent-“pussies” (Bill Maher’s word, not mine) meme reeks of a highly sophisticated and finely-tuned advertising campaign. The corporate owners of Brand Left™have so thoroughly saturated the nation with this message that even Apple’s marketing department has started taking notes.
Of course, it is unsurprising when Brand Left’s™ corporate mouthpieces help spread such a patently false characterization of Obama and the Democrats. The Leftists™ that have been anointed by our capitalist dictatorship — Rachel Maddow, Keith Olbermann, Michael Moore, Ariana Huffington, and Bill Maher (to name a few)- have each done their part to perpetuate this dangerous lie about Obama and the Democrats. One should expect nothing less of such a distinguished cadre of amoral hypocrites.
Despite their faux-leftist rhetoric, they are cut from the same rotting, moth-eaten corporate cloth as Certainly Not News and Fox. The plutocracy has allowed them to express their “left wing” convictions for one primary reason: A few advertising firms conducted focus groups to figure out what kind of programming would best attract a coveted demographic to various media sources where they could be subjected to target marketing (i.e., mostly white limousine liberals who constantly reiterate their love for National “Public” Radio whenever they are going for progressive realness). Likewise, The Jersey Shore was created so that advertisers could target an equally repugnant demographic.
I am frankly unconcerned about the born-again Democrats who actually buy into this transparent lie. There is no hope for such fools. However, I am concerned about folks who claim to be to the left of the “liberal Democrats” and have still fallen prey to such dangerous propaganda. I am referring to the Greens, social democrats, socialists, and “independent” leftists who actually believe that Maher, Maddow, Olbermann, Moore, Huffington et al. are pinko-commie revolutionaries whom they adore with the same reverence one would expect from a bunch of Catholics praying the rosary in front of the Jesus cracker. They somehow cannot see that their favorite Leftist™ media personalities are carefully crafted corporate products designed to sell Snuggies to champagne socialists and perpetuate the status quo by narrowing the range of “acceptable” political discourse in a way that invariably favors the economic interests of the ruling elites.
The aforementioned media products are no better than the corporate media, because they are nothing but performers in the corporate media’s Left-wing™ drag show. Consider how these personalities frame Obama and the Democrats as wimps in light of the following segment from Certainly Not News. CNN is so brazen in its effort to limit the range of acceptable political discourse that it might as well have changed the ticker during the segment to read “Chomsky totally underestimated our desire and ability to define national political discourse in Manufacturing Consent“.
Now consider that this is the same network that just published an editorial by “journalist” Roland Martin entitled, Time for Obama to Go ‘Gangsta’ on the GOP. Here are a few choice quotes from Martin’s editorial:
- “I’m sick and tired of Democrats having power and being unwilling to use it. I’ve always respected Republicans when they had power because they were willing to use it and maybe apologize later.”
- “… the president needs to show his toughness and just do it. Forget the threats. The actions of Sen. Richard Shelby, R-Alabama, and other Republican obstructionists will continue if President Obama allows them to run roughshod over him. When you’re the top dog, you do what you have to do to govern.”
- “This president got rolled by the Senate over health care. His team made some boneheaded mistakes, and now they are paying for them. Continuing to play footsie with opponents will only get him into more trouble. “
- “Obama’s critics keep blasting him for Chicago-style politics. So, fine. Channel your inner Al Capone and go gangsta against your foes. Let ’em know that if they aren’t with you, they are against you, and will pay the price.”
I can already hear some of you starting to retort with “but Roland Martin isn’t a progressive!”
No shit.
But he is not the only person to question Obama and the Democrats’ manly resolve while praising the Republicans for “at least” having the cojones to fight for what they believe in. Your fellow “progressives” Bill Maher and Michael Moore may have beaten ol’ Roland to the punch (see the above links if you haven’t already). Maher went even further and demonstrated that he had the biggest cock of the whole Progressive™lot of them by using the word “pussies” to describe the Democrats’ supposed cowardice and (somehow vaginal?) incompetence when it comes to governing. Ariana Huffington made almost the exact same statement, but she phrased it in a manner befitting someone of her caste. Maddow, Olbermann, Jon Stewart and other corporate products have all been singing the same refrain, at least when they aren’t praising Obama in a fit of ecstasy after an “anonymous source” informs them that he remembered to put the toilet seat back down at the White House last night.
Those of you who consider yourselves to be leftists must stop participating in this charade. It is factually inaccurate to state that Obama lacks courage or that he is incompetent for two reasons. First, the statement wrongly implies that Obama secretly desires to be the pied-piper who will lead us all into a Scandanavian-style Utopian fairyland of free health care, legal pot, immigration laws based on kindness and fairness, and a foreign policy grounded in pacifism. He is just too gosh-darned incompetent, and/or both he and the other members of his party in Congress lack the courage of their convictions.
Please.
If we define “competence” as “governing in a manner that gets things done”, Obama is perhaps among the most competent US presidents in history. In just over one year he has signed legislation to fund the escalation of the wars in both Iraq and Afghanistan, extended and expanded upon the Patriot Act, presided over the biggest heist in recorded human history (i.e., the bailouts or “TARP”), silenced the anti-war movement, agreed to sign a bill into law that would effectively eliminate a woman’s right to choose, intentionally led Congress to a point where it will soon provide him with a bill to sign that will result in record profits for the health insurance industry…I could go on, but I suspect that you, dear reader, already know all of this.
Second, someone needs to inform Michael Moore, Bill Maher and Roland Martin that they can take refuge in the fact that Obama is behaving precisely like a courageous, manly Republican….oh, and that they can shut the fuck up already. Obama has ratcheted up the butchering in the Middle East despite presenting himself as the anti-(Iraq) war candidate, announced a proposed spending freeze on virtually every “government program” except the fucking military, enacted policies loathed by his “base” and teabagger-types alike, promoted the use of nuclear fucking energy (what happened to all of those “green jobs” that were supposed to materialize when the windmills needed to be erected from sea to shining fucking sea?), and fixed the economy–well, at least the economy on Wall Street.
Have people forgotten the way this man campaigned for the presidency? He practically managed to convince liberals and progressives that he was a barefoot anti-war vegan organic farmer and labor activist. Of course, he never came right out and said that, but his campaign sure did imply it in a lot of ways. He went from a gaysbien-friendly intellectual tree-sitter named Daffodil to a cross between Karl Rove and that serial killer from Saw in the course of 24 hours. This man who presented himself as the anti-Bush made Bush seem like a friendly little stray poodle starting the day he was fucking inaugurated. And he didn’t even pretend to try to hide it. There are a lot of words one could use to describe such behavior, but “cowardice” is certainly not one of them. Now, Obama didn’t really have to hide the fact that he was a neo-conservative in Birkenstocks because most liberals and progressives were (and are) under the spell of his Hope bomb.
So you see, when you perpetuate the myth that Obama really is a progressive Bodhisattva at heart who just lacks the courage or ability to implement the Venezuela-style economic reforms we all know he favors, or that he is just too darn nice because he wants to reach consensus with his ideological foes in the other party so as not to hurt their feelings (and don’t you go straining your little head trying to reconcile the fact that the Dems have a large majority in Congress– and that the American public actually favors the “progressive reforms” they thought the Dems would usher in–with the fact that they have done more to advance many portions of the Republican platform in one year than Bush did in eight), you end up with sad, pathetic ads paid for by progressive/liberal groups like this one:
No, that is not a parody, nor is it something I created. Those people are serious. They “still believe” in Obama despite everything that has been unfolding in front of their own fucking eyes. Why? Because deep down, they know the real Obama wants to give everyone free health care, a coke, and a smile. He’s just too nice/incompetent/cowardly to do so. That’s what the Left is saying on TV/the internet, and their progressive friends all agree on this diagnosis. I guess that means a little begging and pleading are in order.
Well, I hear Obama is currently reading Thich Nhat Hahn’s book Cultivating the Mind of Love, so who knows? Maybe the lotus flower in his heart will touch the lotus flower in their hearts and he will drink their suffering deeply and feel compelled to act.
Call me crazy, but I think the reality of what Obama is doing warrants raucous nation-wide protests that will make the most militant and rowdy demonstrations that took place in San Francisco under Bush II prior to the invasion of Iraq seem even more benign than a protest by Code Pink. Obama is a war criminal and should be prosecuted as such alongside every other living former US President. He does not care about you or your loved ones, and the only change you can believe in is that he will help corporate America privatize the fucking air if they can come up with a way to do so. He’s already got his eyes on your kids’ schools.
The sooner people are able to free themselves of their cherished illusions about the DaliObama and face the awful truth, the more likely they will be to begin taking action to defend themselves and the innocents he is slaughtering on their behalf in Middle East (note that I said “more likely”…don’t worry, I am not harboring any false hopes of my own). The danger of the Democrats-as-“pussies” meme lies in the justification it appears to provide for docility and inaction (and voting doesn’t count as action…sorry). It also allows people on the left to hold on to the irrational belief that fundamental change will take place as soon as we find that Democrat messiah with “balls”.
What do you think is in order? What you saw in the above video, or something along these lines (but perhaps a tad more, um, spirited…yeah, “spirited”):
“When in the Course of human events it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another…”
I had to stop there because the rest of the document is full of all this God bullshit, and the fuckers who wrote the piece of trash were a bunch of rich, white, slave-owning wastes of skin. But what’s good for the corporate goose…
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“Release the {new torture} Photos” was all the rage, March, April, May 2009… Those of us hoping to see Justice from the Obama admin thought things were moving along… then he … he blocked it. Fiercely. Adamantly. Craftily. Mightily.
That was about when it became glaringly obvious to me.
You’re spot on here, EM.
You won’t be called pussies…
And the rest of the Democrat’s are just like him. All talk and no go. Instead of worrying about what the left is saying, he ought to quit shooting the messenger and decide whether or not he wants our votes. If he doesn’t start doing for Main Street what he did for the banks, it’ll be a cold day in hell before I help him and the rest of the so called Democrats. He ran as FDR and turned out to be Bill Clinton, or do I mean George W. Bush.
I haven’t seen anything like this since the airstrike on Colonel Kurtz’s compound at the end of Apocalypse Now.
Yes indeed. Bill Maher, Rachel Maddow and Keith Olbermann while worshipped by the silly wishy washy butterflies and zebras and moonbeams and fairy tales liberals are nothing more then corporate rats and propagandists much the same as their counterparts Beck and the rest of the assclowns on FOX.
Tell me, when was that last time that any of the three criticized Israeli war crimes or the Military Industrial Complex or advocated cuts in military spending.
They stick to the gay marriage jihad or making fun of the bigger buffoons on the right and in Olbermann’s case have transcended into sheer childishness with snarky sexual innuendos and falsetto voices…what a joke.
When and only when the ‘left’ gets it that they are being played for chumps just like the teabaggers are will there be any sort of change. But I doubt that happens, anyway just for the hell of it I joined one of the local teabagger meet ups and this is the sort of moronic drink the kool aid type that exists there:
I really dig the “Glenn just requested”, if Glenn were to request that they all eat a bowl of fresh dogshit I would wager money that at least 98 percent of them would do it.
Morons all, anyone who follows the corporate clowns in the media are only an impediment to change and an accessory to the destruction of America.
EE
to my latest post?
If it is, it’s misplaced. When I referred to the left, I wasn’t even remotely including Obama or the Democrats.
Not only do I agree with the sentiments expressed in this diary, I have been making the exact same argument for years – they are not weak, incompetent, or fools. They are doing what they were selected to do. Protect the interests of the Oligarchy.
I agree with most of it. Pertinent points could have been made in about three paragraphs.
I don’t like the disparaging attitude toward “drag shows”. What kind of clothes someone chooses to wear is morally neutral.
Essay reminds me of some of the fire-breathing student “revolutionaries” I heard in the late sixties-early seventies, lots of histrionics and flailing of arms but not much content.
……. Respectfully.
These Diaries are complementary, both expressing the same thing with different tone and imagery. The structure of “commentary follow up” is by necessity linear and cannot be dialogic, as there are no gestural or tonal components, among other things.
Can we make superior, non robotic, political commentary here? I think so, but it will evolve. Spontaneity is more often than not temporally impossible, but effective responses can still be made, nothwithstanding the inherent limitations of the format. Misunderstanding will often result, but ironically provides impetus for continued discussion.
People often lament/criticize the lack of “authentic” political action produced by (Left) political blogs. IMHO, at the moment there is at least “authentic” political discussion, albeit limited. But there is interaction, and that is awfully good [to start]. We’ll see what happens.
I mean Baron Rothchild, Rockefeller and their ilk to ensure your own survival what populations would you take out first.
The ones which consume the most, perhaps?
And the “God” thing. I happen to like the Slave Species of God theories. We are a zero order species, we have been wiped out four or maybe five times already and the InterGalactic Federation must decide to end it all or not.
And with a cabinet full of Bilderberg/CFR globalist parasitic assholes Obama should be taken as the Third Anti-Christ instead of the messiah.
My great concern has always been the attitude and actions Obama would take regarding the big banks and financial regulation. That determines the context for all else. I never trusted Obama to be more than a suave, intelligent poseur, though I hoped I would be wrong. I thought and still think that Hillary Clinton would have done a better job on Health Care and in general than has Obama. But I did consider him to be better than McCain, and I hoped he would do something effective about the banks, given the once in a century opportuinity that the GFC presented. And he did. He continued and doubled down on Paulson’s policy of mouth to mouth resuscitation for those who created the GFC and has pretty effectively opposed any investigation, let alone prosecution, of those who brought this about. Now it is safe to make some half-hearted attempts so he can claim he tried.
His strategy of allowing and encouraging his potential supporters to project onto him what they wanted to believe on the theory that he shouldn’t give his opponents ammunition to use against him in the general election was also brilliant, especially in that it discredits a strategy that might have worked for one who actually wanted to bring about change. But he is better than Bush 43, mostly on tone and social issues.
I also consider it silly to dismiss Olberman, Maddow and Maher for not taking on Israel and the whole US military adventure in Af-Pac. They have been on target much more than most who have public pulpits. When they are right they are right, when they are not they are not. Working for publicly traded companies that are in trouble makes it hard to take on economic issues that could bring retaliation from vested interests against their employer. Same with Israel. All leashed dogs are not alike.