Tag: Coakley

Democrats suck.  They do not learn that good policy is good politics.

As Ian Welsh says,

The Democratic reaction to losing Kennedy’s seat will be to do exactly what voters were punishing them for.

From a perspective of operant conditioning or other theories of what constitutes rational behavior i.e., the theory of learning to “earn rewards” and “avoid punishments,” the behavior of Democrats is what behavioral learning theorists refer to as “misbehavior,” because it doesn’t fit their theory of what rational behavior should be like, dammit!, assuming, of course, that behavior is rational in the first place.  In plainer, descriptive language this behavior might more simply be called “working for pain” or “earning pain.”  Earning pain is a real phenomenon in both rats and humans.  And can be downright amusing to watch in the human case.

Struggling against a sea of troubles, a once-in-a-lifetime president having a once-in-a-lifetime mandate for real change, Barack Obama, has made the counter-intuitive and unpopular decision to stay the course.  

On war, health care, the economy, on justice and accountability, on the rule of law itself, Barack Obama, and Democrats more generally, have opted to stay the course.  They view staying the course as the safe option.  Freeze when Republicans are in power, and run to electoral safety when they are out.  Just like rats irrationally yet repeatedly running between electrified grids and freezing after each shock, in various states and fits of fear, if I may deign to notice.

Following an epidemic of fraud, a tsunami of foreclosures (with a second tsunami in short order), and record gambling losses transferred to the public balance sheet, former Fed vice-chairman Alan Blinder is scared:  

My fear is that a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to build a sturdier and safer financial system is slipping away.

There will be no consumer protection legislation.  No clawbacks of ill-gotten gains.  No regulation of on- or off-balance sheet financial instruments.  And no prosecutions of fraud.

Scott Horton’s expose of obvious war crimes will also go unheeded.

Barack Obama will not be content to simply re-arrange the deck chairs, he’ll say.   Americans do not run from their troubles, but take them head-on, he’ll say.  What he means is,

All ahead flank!

And all ahead flank it will be.

Well, it’s all over. The fat lady sang the aria, Coakley-the-patsy conceded and Dems lost Teddy’s seat to a Repuglican. Huh.

It’s bound to be gnarl after rehashed gnarl over at GOS for days, but I’ve hung out in Boston. I know Massachusetts. They love them some Kennedys, even Caroline could’a won this hands-down, they (with Rahm still calling shots, don’t bet he’s not still got his tentacles everywhere) ran the weakest they could find. And lost, as they intended to do all along.

Now, don’t get me wrong. I LIKE my government divided. It’s just that after GWB, we were fairly desperate. So we gave them 2/3 in the House. 60 in the Senate. And the White House. After a year, we see how non-effective that was. So yeah. I’m back to my usual ‘House Divided’ screenplay, where they’re so crippled by their partisan bullshit that they accomplish nothing at all. Because sometimes it’s better to have nothing at all than anybody’s ridiculous partisan agenda.

Wow. Just wow, since it’s so absolutely mind-boggling they could have lost Kennedy’s seat. I know that nothing in politics happens by accident, and I’m highly suspicious of coincidence across the board. What does this mean for November???!

While it is true that our system has a winner take all voting system, which means the candidate with the most votes wins irrespective of whether they have even 50% of the vote, and it is true that by voting 3rd party the candidate you least like might win, it doesn’t mean you are not having any effect. You can still use your third party vote to purify the major party of a corrupt candidates, which can make a difference in the long run. Also if enough people vote for the third party it can replace one of the two major parties which is what happened in the 1850’s with the republicans replacing the whigs. Third parties can also win. Look at Jessie Ventura.

It is true that you can agitate to change the voting system, but you must go through politicians that were successful with the old way to get something new. Not a likely prospect in my view.

It is true that you can technically run primary challenges, and get some changes, but if those are so easy to run, why hasn’t anyone run them on a mass scale, that I believe is needed to get reall changes? In reality there are tremendous structural barriers to runnng any kind of primary fight, otherwise people would do more than talk and threaten them. This talk of running primaries has been happening for ten years, and nobody in the final analysis does them.

The people who voted Nader in 2000 may not have helped but they didn’t hurt anything either. The war probably would have happened either way. Lieberman was Al Gore’s pick for vp. Martin Peretz was Al Gore’s mentor. Many dlcers like Gore voted for the Iraq war resolution including Hillary Clinton, John Kerry, and John Edwards. Obama claimed he would have voted against the resolution, but Obama has claimed to be for, or against many things, that didn’t pan out in reality, because of his commitment to dlc policies. For instance, during the campaign, Obama claimed to be against mandates and excise taxes on cadillac plans. How did that work out in reality. He claimed to be against fisa but voted for it. He claimed to oppose corporate lobbying, and the revolving door, but hired a bunch of Goldman Sachs employees to serve him in his administration. He also claimed to be against the Iraq war, but never missed an opportunity to vote for war funding.

Nader voting changed nothing, in my view, but it did offer and opportunity to vote for someone who told the truth. I so wish I hadn’t bought the lesser evil bs and wasted my vote on Gore, than Kerry and now Obama. The democrats have mislead people for far too long. Obama proves Nader was completely correct, and those of us who sympathized with Nader literally wasted 8-9 years working our butts off for democrats who hate us, and think we are idiots.

While it is true that Lieberman is a leader of these bad dems, it is not true, that lessor dems like Coakley who take money from the insurance companies, and who support mandates bare no responsibility. By only targeting the big sharks, you let little sharks like her off the hook and they continue to vote for the wrong things. You partisans claim that not giving them a 60th seat will be permission to move to the right, but they are already moving to the right so it looks like the mere act of putting right leaning dems in office is permission enough. You claim we don’t vote for Coakley we wont’ have another shot at reform for a generation, yet we are suppose to believe you will come back and improve the bill later on? Come on! We aren’t self-defeating. We are beaten down by corruption! Beating us more won’t help!

reposted from my blog http://dameocrat.blogspot.com