The people who bought Obama the Oval Office are delighted with his performance

matt taibbi...

The popular take is that Obama is a weak leader of a weak party who was pushed around by canny right-wing extremists. Observers like pollster Sydney Greenberg portray Obama and the Democrats as a group of politically tone-deaf bureaucrats who fail because the public associates them with a corrupt government that benefits the rich and connected.

The Democrats, Greenberg argues, could change their situation by showing the public that they genuinely represent the interests of ordinary working people. In his piece, "Why Voters Tune Out Democrats," he offers a list of things Democrats could do to turn things around:

What should Democrats do?

The Democrats have to start detoxifying politics by proposing to severely limit or bar individual and corporate campaign contributions, which would mean a fight with the Supreme Court. They must make the case for public financing of campaigns and force the broadcast and cable networks to provide free time for candidate ads. And they must become the strongest advocates for transparency in campaign donations and in the lobbying of elected officials.

IF they want to win the trust of the public, Democrats should propose taxing lobbyist expenses and excessive chief executive bonuses and put a small fee on the sale of stocks, bonds and other financial instruments. By radically simplifying the tax code to allow only a few deductions, the Democrats would generate new revenue and remove the loopholes that allow special interests to win favorable treatment ...

I think everything Greenberg says is true -- except for the part about it being possible. His list of solutions would make sense as advice to a real political party.

But to a bunch of hired stooges put in office to lend an air of democratic legitimacy to what has essentially become a bureaucratic-oligarchic state, what good does such advice do? Would it have made sense to send the Supreme Soviet under Andropov or Brezhnev a list of policy ideas for enhancing the civil liberties of Soviet citizens?

The Democrats aren't failing to stand up to Republicans and failing to enact sensible reforms that benefit the middle class because they genuinely believe there's political hay to be made moving to the right. They're doing it because they do not represent any actual voters. I know I've said this before, but they are not a progressive political party, not even secretly, deep inside. They just play one on television.

For evidence, all you have to do is look at this latest fiasco.

The Republicans in this debt debate fought like wolves or alley thugs, biting and scratching and using blades and rocks and shards of glass and every weapon they could reach.

The Democrats, despite sitting in the White House, the most awesome repository of political power on the planet, didn't fight at all. They made a show of a tussle for a good long time -- as fixed fights go, you don't see many that last into the 11th and 12th rounds, like this one did -- but at the final hour, they let out a whimper and took a dive.

We probably need to start wondering why this keeps happening. Also, this: if the Democrats suck so bad at political combat, then how come they continue to be rewarded with such massive quantities of campaign contributions? When the final tally comes in for the 2012 presidential race, who among us wouldn't bet that Barack Obama is going to beat his Republican opponent in the fundraising column very handily? At the very least, he won't be out-funded, I can almost guarantee that.

And what does that mean? Who spends hundreds of millions of dollars for what looks, on the outside, like rank incompetence?

It strains the imagination to think that the country's smartest businessmen keep paying top dollar for such lousy performance. Is it possible that by "surrendering" at the 11th hour and signing off on a deal that presages deep cuts in spending for the middle class, but avoids tax increases for the rich, Obama is doing exactly what was expected of him?

damn... how badly i wish i didn't agree with matt... we are so-o-o-ooo screwed...

Submit To Propeller
Tweet

[Permalink] 0 comments

Exxon John

pretty much sums it up, dontcha think...?

Submit To Propeller
Tweet

[Permalink] 0 comments

"We've gone from being screwed to being fucked. [...] Both would-be presidents have already sold us out."

matt taibbi in rolling stone via alternet...

The truth is that the campaigns of both Barack Obama and John McCain are being inundated with cash from more or less exactly the same gorgons of the corporate scene. From Wall Street to the Big Oil powerhouses to the military-industrial complex, America's fat-cat business leaders know that the Animal House-style party of the last eight years that made almost all of them rich with bonuses, government contracts and bubble profits is about to come to an end, and someone is going to have to pay to clean up the mess. They want that someone to be you, not them, and they've spared no expense to make sure both presidential candidates will be there to bail them out next year.

They're succeeding. Both would-be presidents have already sold us out. They've taken the money and run -- completing the cyclical transformation of the American political narrative from one of monopolistic Republican iniquity to an even more depressing tale about the overweening power of corporate money and the essentially fictitious nature of our two-party system.

In layman's terms, we've gone from being screwed to being fucked. Who knows -- maybe Barack Obama will surprise us if he wins the election. But if you look at the money, it doesn't look good.

brother tim and i have been discussing our rapidly declining confidence in obama for several weeks now on our blogtalk radio show... i've heard a lot of people say that he's only doing what he has to do in order to be elected and that, once he's in office, he'll do what so desperately needs to be done because, after all, how could ANYONE in this day and age hope to be elected to the presidency by speaking and acting the truth...? lord help us, i would LOVE to believe that and, maybe, just maybe, it's true, but there's absolutely NOTHING in the last 50 years of american leadership that gives me any reason to be optimistic...

Submit To Propeller
Tweet

[Permalink] 0 comments

Don't kid yourself about what's happening here

so instead, our corporate/government plutocracy offers up indistinguishable candidates, all bought and paid for, attempts to suppress the votes of those who are likely to cast them for the "unapproved," and essentially insures that those with the money and power to decide our fate keep a tight rein on that money and power...

cool, huh...?

Submit To Propeller
Tweet

[Permalink] 0 comments

2008: "We don't have an election anymore, we have an auction"

not that we didn't know this, but it's ALL about money... ALL ABOUT MONEY...!

check this dan rather-anchored video clip, interviewing bill hogan of the center for public integrity...



visit the center's site, the buying of the president 2008...

Submit To Propeller
Tweet

[Permalink] 0 comments