Just like it took Nixon to go to China, it takes Obama to pass Republican policies:
The Obama administration is proposing to open vast expanses
of water along the Atlantic coastline, the eastern Gulf of
Mexico and the north coast of Alaska to oil and natural gas
drilling for the first time, officials said Tuesday.The proposal — a compromise that will please oil companies
and domestic drilling advocates but anger some residents of
affected states and many environmental organizations — would
end a longstanding moratorium on oil exploration along the
East Coast from the northern tip of Delaware to the central
coast of Florida, covering 167 million acres of ocean.
Change! Hope!
vastleft
“Only Nixon could go to China, and only Obama could go to Hell.” — Avedon Carol
The Raven
“Why are these Florida university students mad? They are being sold out by the Obama administration in a misguided attempt to curry political favor.” ***
Two questions come to mind: (1) where is Secretary of Energy Chu in all the hoo-ha over this? and (2) does Obama really think young voters are going to turn out for him in 2012?
John B.
This is really preposterous and mind numbing. I mean, WTF? What does he think he is going to gain from this?
LorenzoStDuBois
I’m just as mad as y’all, but I don’t get this.
Are you saying McCain Palin wouldn’t have done this?
Mad Hemingway
The only thing President Bozo didn’t run on was Compassionate Conservatism.
Ian Welsh
Lorenzo. They would have tried, but they would have been strongly opposed by Democrats and Dems might have won, when Bush tried to do this, he backed down. Same thing with the health care bill. That was essentially AEI’s 90’s proposed bill, if it had been pushed through by a Republican president, Dems would have opposed it all the way.
Dems can sell out liberal interests/ideology because they are Dems.
votermom
Note who voted, who donated, who got angered, who got pleased. In Philly we call this pay to play.
I hope at least some of the environmentalists get their eyes opened. Didn’t they just find out BO is declaring open season on the whales as well?
lambert strether
John B: “What does he think he is going to gain from this?”
Money, of course. What did you think?
Formerly T-Bear
So the Obama maladministration is to join
The Japanese attack upon Pearl Harbor
In the Hallowed Halls of Infamy
And reside with General Arnold’s traitorous renown
Weep stinging bitter tears!
The country’s once future, is past.
marku
I don’t get it. Do you really think Peak Oil is not a problem? We already drill all over TX OK and the interior of CA. Why don’t we drill offshore everywhere? Just because some populous states like FLA and CA have NIMBYs that we have to please? This is no different than Robert Kennedy working to stop an offshore wind farm off Nantucket b/c it might hurt his view, or the way coal plants and toxic waste dumps get put in poor neighborhoods.
If you want to drive a car, support offshore drilling. For sure, regulate it well for environmental safety. But to drive and then argue against drilling, is NIMBYism.
Emma
The key word isn’t “drilling”, it’s “compromise”.
The proposal — a compromise that will please oil companies
and domestic drilling advocates but anger some residents of
affected states and many environmental organizations — would
end a longstanding moratorium on oil exploration along the
East Coast from the northern tip of Delaware to the central
coast of Florida, covering 167 million acres of ocean.
If Obama is committed to anything, it’s compromise.
myiq2xu
Next up: Hunting spotted owls
alyosha
Next up: Obama Packs Debt Commision with Social Security Looters. If I were a Republican, what’s not to like?
sundogged
So, the Democratic Party is of the most to the nation when it is the minority party??
Cujo359
Actually, next up on the formerly Republican agenda is privatizing Social Security and Medicaid. “Fixing” these programs is the closest thing to long-term goals that Obama has discussed publicly.
The Republicans have finally found a way to get their agenda enacted – get the Democrats to do it for them. You can bet the same progressives who are now extolling the virtues of the health care bill will go along with the “fixes”, too.
bayville
More kabuki.
All the drilling off the Gulf Coast will result in maybe a couple of days’ worth of oil. As per usual, Obama has created some busy work just to keep from getting in trouble with the principal.
In this case, the principal is Exxon/Mobil et al.
Lex
And he recess appointed a “Chief Agricultural Negotiator”, who is currently a lobbyist at CropLife America, which represents agribusinesses like Monsanto. Siddiqui’s specialty is pesticide lobbying.
http://www.greenchange.org/article.php?id=5713
anonymous
The audacity of hope should have been called chutzpah. God teased us by almost choking W to death on a preztel. I’m gonna pray that the angle of death is baking up some unleavened grain products for that man’s wind pipe. Seriously, I’d rather hear chimpy’s babblings than that asswipe’s empty platitudes any day of the week
Mandos
*raises eyebrow* So are we to guess that answer is that the USA should have elected McCain then, is it?
Z
Mandos,
The answer is neither … and that’s our biggest problem.
Z
Mandos
Indeed it is a problem, but you don’t have a choice not to make the choice, is the point.
myiq2xu
Gee Mandos, isn’t it all about the meta?:
http://www.correntewire.com/on_occasion_its_better_for_everyone_if_you_forget
Mandos
You’ve quoted that post before here, and I don’t understand why. I’ve continued to say exactly the same things I said then, so it’s not like I’ve been inconsistent or self-contradictory. No one has managed to demonstrate I wasn’t right: Obama sucks, but you have to vote for him. Unless you thought I was serious about electing McCain up there, in which case you are sarcasm-impaired.
Meta matters. Do your market research.
myiq2xu
Yes, he does suck. But I didn’t have to vote for him. So I didn’t.
I agree that you have been consistent, but that doesn’t make you right.
Mandos
No, I have been right. I said, in a nutshell, that Obama was the least worst candidate who had a chance of winning, and that there was no “good” candidate who could also win, on Nov 4. The same situation continues to this day.
Another thing I am right about: single payer or Medicare for All or whatever may poll well if the question is asked the right way, but this has no relevance to the ballot box itself. I’d be doubly validated if the Dems kept the House in November, but even if they didn’t, I’d still be correct, because they would lose to Republicans, not the Single Payer Party. (Perhaps the latter case is the “doubly correct” case, actually.)
And the reason why this is true was elucidated to you by no less than the oft-ridiculed Celinda Lake.
myiq2xu
What color is the sky in your world?
Mandos
*shrug* You’ve been consistently unable to identify a particular in which I have been wrong, so if you want to insult me we can take it elsewhere rather than do it on Ian’s blog.
Realist
Mandos – although I can see how you could rationalize you _might_ be right before the election (even though it was obvious you were wrong) by now it’s obvious that your horse (pony?) isn’t even a whole 2% less evil. In fact, the more he does the _worse_ a choice he seems to have been in retrospect.
While I see the merits of None Of The Above – for the signal it sends – with the benefit of hindsight it seems as we go on that McPalin may have been (shudder) a better choice. You see, while the policies would have been as bad (perhaps slightly less so, on balance – your guy is just getting started, after all) at least there would have been some solid opposition that could have stopped or at least weakened said corrupt policies, even if it was motivated by pure cynical politics. Instead, we have people like you saying we should be grateful for the shit sausage because it has a “nicer” label.
IIRC, you commented in a recent thread here that, like Ian, you expect collapse, but that it’s important to slow it down as much as possible because of all of the suffering collapse will entail (I’m paraphrasing.) Well, how does the first rule of holes go? Stop digging! The guy you oh-so-reluctantly support is _accelerating_ our descent towards collapse.
You keep saying something to the effect that you support corrupt dems because there is no better alternative. In fact, withdrawing support from corruption will make it no worse and at least leaves the _p0ssibility_ of improvement. Supporting corruption, independent of the label and independent of perception will only bring forward the collapse you declare you’re hoping to postpone. If you jump off a bridge, the consequences will be the same, regardless of your perception, the labels you use or the false prophets you in effect support (even if it’s because “you have no choice!”)
myiq2xu
Mandos likes his bread buttered on both sides. He thinks he is clever because he has taken the pose of a wise cynic – “Obama sucks but he is not as bad as the alternative.”
No matter how bad Obama is, Mandos cannot be “proven” wrong because he can say “McCain would have been worse.” Had McCain won the election no matter what he did Mandos could always claim “Obama would have been better.”
Despite his frequent verbose comments Mandos contributes nothing but distraction and dissension. He does not enlighten nor inform, and his advice is useless.
lambert strether
The owners of the legacy parties permit policy options that vary only marginally; marginal is not insignificant, and it was entirely rational to vote D on the assumption that some concrete material benefits were to be gained — close call though it was. (the R aristocracy tortures animals, and the D’s doesn’t (although both do torture humans). Reason enough to vote D in 2008, so I wrote in Hillary.)
Back in 2008, however, I also felt that there was some impulse toward good somewhere in the Ds, which could be encouraged — even under Obama. As HCR (Higher Corporate Returns) played out, I gradually abandoned that idea. The spectacle of progressive baseline Dennis Kucinich actually whipping for the HCR bill he’d opposed on principle just the day before should put paid to that notion finally and forever.
As it turns out, the Rs are totally out front: They want to kill The Other (the old, the poor, the non-white, the working class, the weak, the sick).
The Ds have the same policy goal, but they attribute its achievement to impersonal forces that they can neither name nor control. This is called “pragmatism.”
DancingOpossum
Mandos is an Obamabot, which is why he consistently twists himself into rhetorical pretzels to justify his support for the Empty Suit Boy King. There’s no point arguing with him, it’s like trying to get a Scientologist to think critically about the Thetans.
I didn’t like either candidate or either party, so I didn’t vote either one. I voted for a third party, which is still a legal option whose existence seems to escape the notice of many voters– although I think the time is ripe for them to finally start taking notice. The Democrats have played the “you have nowhere else to go so hold your nose and vote for us” card for some time and to good effect, because the Repugs really were batshit nuts, but I think the playing card is wearing thin. Personally I don’t care what happens to the Democratic Party or the GOP and I hope that both go down in flames. If the Dems go first, oh well, c’est la vie. It’s very liberating not to feel that my fortunes are in any way tied with theirs.
Z
Mandos,
Yes, you do. I didn’t vote for either one of them … that was my choice.
And I’m not completely convinced that a mccain presidency … with a democrat congress … would have been much/any worse than what the obama presidency has turned out to be. It is not an impossibility …. it is not a law of nature … that a democrat can be just as bad or worse than a republican.
Z
Lex
Heh, if Palin hadn’t been on the ticket (a fact that in my estimation just about guaranteed that poor John would have a mysterious stroke about nine months in), then a McCain presidency with a Democratic congress might have been our best option.
Mandos
Dunno how many of my detractors are still reading but here goes.
This is nothing less than claiming that we cannot assess the consequences of our political choices. The truth of “McCain would have been worse” can be assessed from what he has said in the past, what he says now, and what political trends exist then and now. If we cannot make these kinds of judgements we have no basis on which to vote for anything at all.
But political judgement has never exactly been the PUMA strong suit.
Mandos
Realist:
This is at least a coherent and defensible position; that actually electing McCain really would have been better, even in terms of implemented policy. It’s at least not the weird “dimestore Marxist” political nihilism I see on proud display from certain others. I thorougly disagree for a boatload of reasons, but let’s say for the sake of argument it is true.
What then?
The Democrats have never responded by moving to the left, and third-party movements are strongest when the Democrats are in charge, not the Republicans.
In this case it’s really a question of slower or faster digging, because we’re not going to stop digging either way. The question is whether McCain would have been faster digging or slower digging. In opposition to a Democratic Congress, in a single term, it’s possible he may have represented slower digging (again I don’t agree but whatever). But we know from history that he would have represented much stronger lock-in, he would have been followed by a much more right-wing political discourse. As 8 years of Bush have given us.
I guarantee you that 4 years of Obama won’t give us as much rightward drift as even 4 years of Bush did.
Because, you see…
…I don’t actually believe that collapse is inevitable, merely highly likely. But it takes time not measured in election cycles for alternatives to emerge if they are to emerge at all. Jumping off a bridge is the wrong analogy, it’s a lot more like drowning, and some ways of reacting to drowning will kill you faster than others.
I think it’s ridiculous to say that “withdrawing support from corruption will make it no worse and at least leaves the _possibility_ of improvement”, because corruption doesn’t actually care that you “withdrew support” from it. Where do you withdraw to, exactly? A commune in the desert? Go ahead…
There’s actually worse and better corruption. As I have said before, corruption is better than malice. And there’s no doubt that however venal the Democrats are, the Republicans are more malicious.
Mandos
DancingOpossum:
I guarantee you that in the alterverse in which Hillary Clinton won the (D) primary and the general election, you’d have seen a proliferation of “Obamabot” blogs decrying her inability to deal with the ongoing crises, coupled with angry resentment at the racist party that allowed Florida’s and Michigan’s votes to count even when they had clearly violated the rules, etc, etc. There’d probably even have been someone calling him/herself GyratingChipmunk or whatever calling me a Hillbot.
And I would have been telling them the same things that I am telling you. The point is, what ideological clusters are reinforced in the minds of the people by which outcomes.
Art
I’m surprised none of the resident geniuses can see this for what it is, a ploy to divide the GOP withing GOP controlled states while simultaneously energizing Dems.
Works like this: Big oil pressures GOP to open leases. GOP turns to Big Oil and says we will try but we are going to need more money to gain a decisive GOP majority and presidency. BO says fine, here a wad of cash.
Obama allows the leases to go through. BO with a SEG tells GOP that it got what it wanted. GOP that lives in the state, mostly retired folks who live near and enjoy the beach like the idea of drilling, but dread the idea of drilling off the coast of their state. They are all for free markets as long as it benefits them but costs them nothing. Ugly drill rigs and nasty oil washing up would ruin the aesthetics of their beach side home.
This causes a divide between the national GOP which wants drilling and the local GOP that loves it, but only if it is not near them.
Also note that the states can, on their own, do a lot to stop the drilling. Many states have essentially outlawed drilling offshore even though leases are sold. Having a lease doesn’t mean you can drill. One of the main players in this state decision is the governor.
Now the decision for the GOP is either to run a pro-drilling governor or an anti-drilling one. If they run an anti they are less likely to get BO funding for them. If they don’t they risk having the NIMBY contingent of the GOP fail to come out and losing the race.
Coastal oil drilling is a live grenade. By allowing leases Obama transfers that grenade to the states concerned. Notice he allows leases only off GOP controlled states. Now we sit back and see how the GOP handles the grenade. No matter which way they play it they lose something.
This also energizes the Dem base. With the governor and state legislators deciding how this shakes out local Dems have more motivation to go to the poles. Florida was slightly pro-GOP. If only a small number of the NIMBY contingent of independents and GOP vote for Dems it is up for grabs.
And no, this really doesn’t advance the possibility of drilling much. Oil leases have been owned for twenty years near some of these areas and they haven’t been drilled. In part because BO uses them as paper ‘reserves’. Actual drilling would show there is far less there than apparent. They claim it is ‘big government’, federal and state, keeping them from drilling but anyone looking at the situation knows better.
This is a fine political play by Obama. He is willing to take the temporary political heat to get the payoff down the line.
Realist
Art – I’ll see your 11-dimensional chess move and raise you:
During the campaign, Obama established a secret code with those he felt were sophisticated to understand it in order to throw off the opposition. Whatever he appears to do and say, to those that understand him he is actually doing and saying the opposite. With oil drilling this means he just double-banned it (but, you knew that, of course.)
With the health insurance company bailout, he just got single-payer passed and is in the process of implementing it (but you knew that too, of course.)
He has long since release the many innocent detainees that Bush tortured and has long since closed Guantanamo and Bagram. The Afghan war is quickly winding down. etc. and so forth.
It’s easy to tell who wasn’t in on this secret code: anyone who criticizes him. Those are all people he, in his infinite wisdom, deemed incapable of understanding his sophisticated ways. We should feel compassion towards them.
It’s nice of you to try to educate the mentally impaired among us, but sadly, you’re wasting your time – if it was possible, Obama would have obviously clued them in.
All hail our all-knowing Dear Leader.
Also, thanks for demonstrating that it is possible to avoid blind faith and the rationalizations it requires when reality presents itself. You are clearly a superior being.
Realist
Mandos – since you prefer the drowning analogy, the other side is telling you to go to hell as you call out to them for a lifeline, while your side waves at you and encourages you to swim towards them as fast as you can as they move further and further from you. You’d have a better shot if you looked around for the far fewer third parties.
You seem to miss (deliberately?) that with your approach we are guaranteed to lose as the other side ratchets in one direction and “our side” continues to follow them while pretending they are offering an ever so slightly less evil alternative (look up “ratchet effect”). Meanwhile, with your approach, most opposition is neutralized. Good luck with that.
All of this assumes, arguendo, that you’re not just shilling.
Mandos
I was just counting the minutes before Art got the 11D-chess response. *rolly-eyed smiley*
As for my shillitude, I do hereby swear on a stack of holy and secular books that I do not work for a political party, a lobby group, a politician, a marketing company, or anything of that ilk. Money is periodically paid out to me by businesses and government (as it is for most people), so I am a shill to that extent…
Mandos
Anyway, Realist, this thread’s likely to drop off the front page aaaany time now, so I’m going to keep it Mandos-brief.
I disagree about the either/or of progressive opportunities for various reasons, but in particular I’ve come to a different view of reasons for the lack of third party traction. You can either say that third parties haven’t succeeded because the American left is too stuck on the Democratic party, or you can say that third parties haven’t succeeded because the American public doesn’t want to vote for them.
Like, actually doesn’t.
I used to believe the former, but now I’m strongly leaning towards the latter. So what if the majority of e.g. Nader’s actual views individually poll well in the American public? The voting public is fully aware that it can vote for someone else, it merely chooses not to. Until we understand that, the lesser of two evils is what we’ve got.
My opinion, incidentally, started changing after I moved to the USA in 2004. In Canada, saturated with US media of course, and with (in my case) access to lots of US political web sites, I had the arrogance to believe that I basically understood what was wrong, and what was wrong was that the left was too hooked onto the Democratic party. I won’t say it’s the only reason for my change of opinion, but actually living in the USA and talking to American liberals at work and in the neighbourhood had a big effect.
Realist
I _wasn’t_ counting down the minutes for the sort of masterpiece by Art. I thought we were way past such silliness, especially in a place like this. Silly me.
Your hope (heh) for a lesser evil has proven to be false. It’s the same evil. Even the facade has worn quite thin.
None of us is compelled to follow past voting patterns of others (or our own.) The approach you prefer, if enough people continue to follow it, guarantees the result you say you want to avoid.
Mandos
And the reason why this is is the culmination of a lengthy history far longer than the 1.5 years it has taken us to reach this point. I get the impression that some people thought that the 2008 election would be a serious opportunity to set the ship of state on a different course. Why they thought that when American policy has been a continuum for 30-40 years is beyond me.
Given the politican trends and susceptibilities in the American situation, you’ll need at least 8-16 years of Democratic administrations to see any real change in direction on that front. Either that or a viable third party. Come back to me when you’ve found the magic beans.
Realist
Let me get this straight: another 8-16 years of the _same_ corruption (this time with the same ever-thinning veneer) will lead to a “real change in direction”?! And you suggest that _I_ look for magic beans?
You seem to be running on vapors. You _do_ have a choice – should you ever give up your delusion built on empty talking points (lesser evil, perfect enemy of the good, it takes time, 11-dim chess, etc. and so forth…)
Mandos
*shrug* If you want change by legislative means (and you do), you have to get elected. Whatever is more likely to get elected is therefore the more plausible hypothesis for political reform.