- A man who takes care of financial and other large corporate interests first and foremost, ordinary Americans second.
- A man who believes that the Fed doesn’t need to be audited, because they did such a swell job (and because that’s where much of the real bailouts of the financial firms are stashed)
- A man who said he believed in net neutrality but whose FCC declines to reclassify broadband so that it can regulate it.
- A man who did not stop the Bush-era raids on Hispanics even though he could stop the raids tomorrow.
- A man who did not fulfill his promises on gay rights, including on Don’t Ask, Don’t, Tell, even though he could stop DADT tomorrow with an executive order.
- A man who has killed more people with drones since he took power than Bush did in his entire reign.
- A Nobel Peace Laureate who has stated that he retains the right to nuke Iran if Iran responds to an Israeli attack with conventional means (don’t fight back while our buddy beats you bloody, or it’ll be so much the worse for you.)
- A Nobel Peace Laureate who expanded the war in Afghanistan.
- A man who is prosecuting whistle blowers that even the Bush administration declined to prosecute.
- A man who believes that the President has the right to assassinate any American outside the country without any trial at his sole say-so.
- A man who believes the President has the right to lock people up without trial
- A man who believes that “confessions” obtained by torture should be admissable in court.
- A man who believes that the accused does not have the right to see the evidence against him, or to face his accusers.
- A man who forced Americans to buy health insurance from private insurers without a public option or significant price controls.
- A man who sold out womens abortion rights to pass a health care bill which was essentially identical to a 1990’s Republican plan.
- A man who wants to cut Social Security and Medicare.
- a man who supports expanding charter schools despite the fact that studies show they produce worse results than public schools
And much more. Add your own in comments…
Lois
UGH UGH UGH. All so true. I wasn’t a supporter of his during the primaries (I thought he was too moderate) but he really got me excited in the general. What a pack of lies that all was. It was like he was playing that kid game “opposite world.” What I’m saying, I’ll actually do the opposite!
Add “A man who supports offshore drilling as the main part of his CLIMATE CHANGE bill”. Then stands by goofing off with DC reporters while the Gulf is poisoned.
bayville
In other words, he’s a modern day Progressive.
BDBlue
A man who orders predator drone attacks that have killed more than 100 civilians and then dressed up in a tux and jokes about it. (See http://www.tinyrevolution.com/mt/archives/003260.html)
anonymous
* A man who shows up at the Copenhagen conference, hijacks a meeting of countries that are discussing solutions, and subverts all attempts to address the single biggest problem life on the planet faces.
* A man of the status quo, not a man of change.
Lori
A president whose attorney general, in a brief for the Supreme Court, compares gay relationships to bestiality and incest.
John J Sears
-A man who builds and then dismantles the largest grassroots political operation in history as soon as he’s elected, teaching another generation to hate politics and disengage.
-A man who wants to privatize NASA so that we can bailout the defense contractors in the name of ‘exploration’
-A man who pledges to govern with transparency, then does all the real work in backroom meetings with Rahm and lobbyists.
-A ‘Constitutional Scholar’ who regularly violates all of its tenets, thus serving as an object lesson that knowledge doesn’t equal morality, nor wisdom.
-A man who backs the War on Drugs, ridiculing those who’d rather not spend billions locking up pot smokers.
-Joe Lieberman’s best friend and patron.
-Ditto for Ben Bernanke, Timothy Geithner and a host of other clowns.
-A man who gives flowery speeches to the Muslim world, then bombs their parties and sends special forces to murder their kids at night in their beds, so that no one gets the wrong idea about taking an American President at their word.
-A man who spends billions of taxpayer dollars whitewashing the oil and coal industries and funding pie in the sky technologies like ‘clean’ coal, carbon sequestration, and cars with giant lithium batteries (despite lithium being a rare and precious resource typically obtained via strip mines)
-A supporter of offshore oil drilling
-A man who supports the gutting of public schools (in favor of lucrative privately run charter schools).
-A man who blocks war crimes trials for murderers and torturers, the reason that John Yoo walks free today
-A man who operates an international system of dungeons we call ‘black sites’ outside of the rule of law entirely
etc.
Mandos
* An American president who does what American presidents do.
Maria
A man who is owned by the mega-wealthy and powerful that run the U.S.A.
A man with a VP who will make sure he sides with the right ‘agenda’. We could write lists as long as our arms for past POTUS, VP’s, Congress, etc who do not have the best interests of the American people in their hearts.
A man who knows beyond doubt he will be JFK’d if he veers off their wishes.
Mandos
* Elected.
John J Sears
Actually, no American president before Bush ever dared do a lot of this stuff. International gulags? That’s a new one for us. Institutionalized torture, an elaborate system of extrajudicial show-trials? Again, new. We’ve done a lot of this stuff one-off, of course. But to make it officially part of our culture and our laws is a whole other matter.
Nixon never dreamed, in his wildest, happiest, sweaty paranoid dreams, of having the kind of power Obama has claimed and retained for himself.
Being elected confers a duty to uphold the Constitution, which of course, Obama is not doing. Whatever else we could argue about, it’s beyond obvious to state that he is not living up to his oath of office in that regard.
The Raven
A conservative.
I think you’ve earned “croak of the day” again.
Mandos
Sears: But consider the trend.
anonymous
> -A man who supports the gutting of public schools
> (in favor of lucrative privately run charter schools).
* A man who calls for “accountability” for teachers, but who “looks forward, not back” at war crimes and domestic corruption by political figures.
Ian Welsh
Impressive John. I am especially sad that I forgot the charter schools bit, (adding it now as “a man who supports expanding charter schools despite the fact that studies show they produce worse results than public schools”
anonymous
> -A man who blocks war crimes trials for murderers and torturers,
> the reason that John Yoo walks free today
* A man who blocks war crime trials for what the Nuremberg trials called the highest crime: a war of aggression, for without that crime none of the other crimes would be possible.
Bush ordered the assault of a country that had not threatened his and that could not threaten even if it had wanted to because it had no arsenal with which to attack. This is still the largest crime of those eight years.
anonymous
Why are Bush&Cheney not in prison?
– Because Pinochet was not in prison
– Because Reagan & Bush were not held accountable for the Iran-Contra crime
– Because Kissinger was not held accountable for his war crimes
The political class is not held accountable for its actions in the U.S., Watergate notwithstanding.
The common thread in the Obama actions is that he will always act to protect his socioeconomic class. Ian Welsh pointed this out in his comment weeks ago about the protection of the rentiers.
vastleft
“Public option” was such an amorphous goal that some have claimed ObamaCare does have one.
His sin on HCR was railroading us toward forced buying of private insurance in ways that included censoring single-payer advocates and taking that proven approach off the table (despite his one-time claim that he supported such a plan) throughout the “open and transparent” process, making secret deals with Big Pharma and the hospital lobby, etc. Please don’t cry for “public option,” a fake goal that was “insurance” to ensure that no decent plan would emerge, no matter what.
lambert strether
* A man who needs no introduction.
anonymous
> His sin on HCR was railroading us toward forced buying of private insurance in
> ways that included censoring single-payer advocates and taking that proven
> approach off the table
That Obama did that was not a surprise, at least not past the spring of 2009. By then he had made clear that he would protect political office holders for their actions, the FIRE sector for its actions, the weapons makers & mercenary contractors for their actions, and the drug makers, medical equipment makers, hospital owners, health insurance companies for their actions.
What was a surprise and disappointment is that the sixty+ congresspeople who said that they would require a “robust” public option in order for them to vote for insurance reform simply voted for their perceived political self-interest instead of the public policy principle that they ran for office on. A lot of attention was paid to Kucinich, but he was not alone. And without those sixty+ votes, Obama has nothing to sign into law.
There is no working representative democracy in the country. A working representative democracy requires that when people are elected based on their public positions, those politicians follow through on those positions. If they do not, then there is no way for the voters to exercise their will through the representatives. Over the past two elections, people voted for a change to the status quo that protects Obama’s socioeconomic class, but he and his class have thwarted that change. It does not matter who you vote for among the incumbents. Unless you are among their class, they will not be working for you.
jawbone
Third point typo alert: FEC is Federal Election Commission — this should be FCC, Federal Communications Commission.
Thanks for the “nice” list.
b.
A dishonest, arrogant man who is guilty of aiding, abetting, covering up torture and illegal war, and quite likely of continuing to facilitate torture, a proponent of “extraordinary” rendition, “indefinite” detention, “enhanced” interrogation, “extralegal” assassination, and JIT commissioning “comissions” to judge “war crimes” that are not war crimes under international and domestic law – much unlike the crimes he, his subordinates, and his predecessors committed and continue to commit.
A bloodless prick intiating the first child soldier prosecution against somebody accused of the newly-minted “war crime” of successfully fighting back against US troops, while continuing to commit teenage “volunteer” forces to pointless occupation.
An apparatchik who is using every tool at his disposal to codify Bush era crimes into a new “legal” and “constitutional” frame-work compatible with our “values”.
A corrupt liar who has every intention of preventing tax revenue to be committed to repay Social Security Trust Fund IOU’s.
A pretentious snake oil salesman regarding nuclear proliferation and nuclear posture review, who has come as close to committing the US to a nuclear first strike policy against nuclear threshold states without nuclear weapons as no other president beform.
A detestable, tone-deaf buraucrat who can utter 3rd party written “jokes” about assasination by drone.
A master of Bermuda Triangulation so stupid he gets himself into Katrina: The Big Oily Sequel.
A schemer so inept it takes him almost a year to deliver on his closed door Pharma / Insurance Bailout insider deals.
A hollow man who shamelessly plagiarised Che, MLK and the “Yes We Can” slogan of Latin American migrant workers to sell his fraud to an electorate that was becoming vaguely aware of having been ripped off for three decades, while being financed by the ‘stablishment to bail out their unsustainable exploitation one more time.
On the plus side, Bygones “Opportunist Cost” Obama is doing us all a public service by revealing the vast bulk of the career progressive movement and the bleeding ass libertines in Congress as the complete and utter frauds they are. There is no a single incumbent worthy of re-election, few organziations worth funding, and the published opinion, by and large, is as sectarian as the tea party loons, with less balls and less intellectual honesty. I, for one, am grateful to see this proven beyond even the most unreasonable doubt.
anonymous
* An American president who does what American presidents do.
When you can’t justify it, rationalize it!
lambert strether
Anonymous: There is, and was, no such thing as a public option, robust or not. Wishful thinking will not make it so. There was a public relations slogan that was a moving target in policy terms, but that’s all there was.
Please, please, please can we lay the public option zombie sparkle pony to rest, at long last? Thank you!
Mad Hemingway
So what.
Until the American public gets a clue, it’s all a moot point ain’t it.
If I were a crook, I’d do it too.
myiq2xu
Obama is a post turtle:
David H.
* A man paving the way for President Rick Perry.
anonymous
There is, and was, no such thing as a public option, robust or not. Wishful thinking will not make it so. There was a public relations slogan that was a moving target in policy terms, but that’s all there was.
Please, please, please can we lay the public option zombie sparkle pony to rest, at long last?
Certainly it is difficult, if not impossible, to dispute what you’ve written given that the bill has been signed into law and given the way the self-styled progressive caucus voted. Still, they did make a public stand about what their position was. That was all public relations? They never meant any of it? If so, it was very poorly-done public relations. Taking a public stand on something and doing the opposite relates quite poorly to this member of the public.
Not to be too picky about it, but a “pony” is supposed to be a large gift. Putting in place a public option or a single-payer insurance plan would not be a gift to all of us. It would be ending a parasitic enterprise that transfers wealth from the productive economy to the non-productive parasites. When I pull off a blood-sucking tick, I don’t think “Oh, my goodness! Such a gift! Is it my birthday?”
TaosJohn
This is all right on the money. After 44 years of voting for Democrats, I don’t mind people calling this guy the anti-christ. He certainly is the DEMOCRATIC “anti-christ”! The polar opposite of everything I thought I was voting for. I can’t recall any administration in the past that has so egregiously ignored what it campaigned on or so brutally shat upon its supporters.
I won’t be voting for any national candidates this year or in 2012, unless I see a way to send a very clear message to the S.O.B.s I thought were on my side!
Pepe
He is a trojan horse, to quote Yves Smith.
Ian Welsh
Thanks Jawbone, fixed.
gmanedit
A sower of division and racism.
anonymous
After 44 years of voting for Democrats, I don’t mind people calling this guy the anti-christ.
I won’t be voting for any national candidates this year or in 2012, unless I see a way to send a very clear message to the S.O.B.s I thought were on my side!
– A man who has made Ralph Nader correct:
– The two political parties have a lock on the ballot, and there is no appreciable difference in the policies they pursue and put into place
– The two political parties are owned by the corporations
These claims weren’t nearly so true in 2000 as they are now. I think that it is still reasonable to say that eight years of Gore would have been substantially different and better than what took place. But if history were different, and it had been Obama that Scalia, Rehnquist, et. al. had stolen the election from, only to have Obama take office in Jan. 2009, then I would not argue with Nader’s historical claims.
tsisageya
Yes, well, optimism is full of shit isn’t it?
The Dance is shit. I get it.
I have no energy anymore to say otherwise. Let’s get this over with.
It’s about time.
dandelion
a misogynist who uses women’s rights as bargaining chips
lambert strether
Anonymous writes, of the so-called “public option”:
Still, they did make a public stand about what their position was.
No, they did not. They could not have, since the actual policy was a constantly moving target. There was no position for them to take a stand on. I don’t quarrel with the idea that the PR was bad; these are, after all, career “progressives” we’re talking about.
On “pony,” see here. That was the meaning of the word in the 2008 primaries…
Celsius 233
This is all well and good and I suppose one needs a place to vent; but without action isn’t this all moot?
anonymous
No, they did not. They could not have, since the actual policy was a constantly moving target. There was no position for them to take a stand on.
OK. Yes, I agree that other than the phrase “robust public option,” there was no detailed specification of what that meant. Is it arguable, however, that it did not mean “no government plan that citizens can pay into”? Is is arguable that it did not mean “mandated to buy insurance from a private company”? I think that the amorphous phrase “robust public option” does not mean either of those outcomes. And since those were the outcomes that the bill signed into law contains, they did something that they said they would not.
Progressive Caucus: “We will not vote for a bill that does not contain a robust public option.”
Question to P.C.: “How about a bill that contains no government plan that citizens can buy into and which contains a mandate that citizens must buy insurance from a private company? Would that meet your definition of a public option, robust or otherwise?”
P. C.: “Yeah, we can vote for that.”
Citizenry: “Huh? Um, no, I am not fooled. Angry, but not fooled. Which one of you in the P.C. would like to pay my 35% insurance premium increase?”
On the ‘pony’ definition, I had not seen that.
Pony
n. 1. An intensely desired but extremely unlikely outcome.
Isn’t describing something as “extremely unlikely” simply pre-compromising? (I know that’s in vogue with the stealth republican obama as he “negotiates,” but does the progressive caucus have to do that, too?) It was within the hands of the progressive caucus (and should have been in the hands of the majority of the Democrats in the House&Senate) to tell obama that the “extremely unlikely” public option was either in the bill or there would be no bill. It was only “extremely unlikely” because they chose to make it so.
Progressive Caucus: “We declare that we support crossing the road!”
Chicken: “So, you’re going to cross the road then?”
P.C.: “Yes, we’re in favor of crossing the road! But we should warn you that it is extremely unlikely that we will cross the road.”
Chicken: “??? You want to cross the road, cross the road. Here watch.” (crosses road)
(months pass)
P.C.: “We won’t be crossing the road. We do support crossing the road, but we did tell you that it was extremely unlikely that we would be crossing the road, and therefore, because we told you that it would be extremely unlikely that we would cross the road, that is the reason that we are not crossing the road. Because it was always extremely unlikely that we ever would. Will you still like us?”
Chicken: “I don’t want anything to do with you people.”
John J Sears
We can also add: -A man with a piss-poor sense of humor (thanks to the Correspondents Dinner and his predator drones joke)
I mean, if it was me, I’d feel at least a little awkward joking about my favorite tool of institutionalized murder.
anonymous
without action isn’t this all moot?
Yes, without action this is all moot.
We should not forget, however, that many of us have taken some action in the form of voting and winning elections, which is how peaceful change is supposed to happen in this country. The reason for the venting is that the promised changed has not happened and, in fact, has been thwarted.
Why people haven’t reconstituted the Bull Moose Party, well, these things take time.
I expect that the result of what has taken place in Congress and what Obama has done, as listed above, is that many supporters of Democrats will choose not to vote, except possibly as an anti-incumbent vote. This is what, it appears to me, happened in Massachushetts, and even earlier, in the November 2009 election in Virginia, and possibly New Jersey.
Needless to say, such an outcome will be deliberately misinterpreted by the two parties and those in the country who are favored by the status quo.
anonymous
We can also add: -A man with a piss-poor sense of humor
One more reason to call the current term Bush III.
Bush: “Those weapons of mass destruction gotta be somewhere.”
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nKX6luiMINQ
Bush: “This is an impressive crowd — the Haves and the Have Mores. Some people call you the Elite. I call you my Base.”
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mn4daYJzyls
Bush: “We must stop the terror. I call upon all nations to do everything they can to stop these terrorist killers. Now watch this drive.” (goes off to do everything he can: hit a golf ball)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z3p9y_OEAdc
Formerly T-Bear
Stated in short:
Bottom line
At the end of the day:
Obama, a lie*, in the process of happening.
*From Chambers (dictionary):
-n a false statement made with the intention of deceiving; anything misleading or of the nature of imposture; (with the an accusation of lying.
-vi to make a false statement with the intention to deceive; to give a false impression: (…)
-noun liar a person who lies, esp. habitually.
-adj lying addicted to telling lies.
(reproduced just so the same language is understood, cannot be too careful about assumptions).
Celsius 233
anonymous
without action isn’t this all moot?
Yes, without action this is all moot.
Okay; so the action presented doesn’t work. Isn’t it time to define and implement a different action? Doing the same thing over and………blah, blah, blah.
The fact is; U.S. citizens are cowards and will bear more and more abuse until what?
Not to go rhetorical, but just what will it take? Or, as I think; it’s too damn late.
Celsius 233
I wish there was an edit feature here.
What is Obama? It isn’t even the right question! It doesn’t matter who/what Obama is, any more than it mattered who Bush was; the only thing that matters is; what are we going to do about the constitutional violations? And the myriad other crimes being committed as this is written? Crimes committed in our name!
Without a good answer to that, what’s the point?
Barry
– evidence that voting for candidates based on whether they can beat Republicans in elections is insufficient for achieving progressive goals (or for saving our constitutional system of government for that matter).
anonymous
the only thing that matters is; what are we going to do about the constitutional violations? And the myriad other crimes being committed as this is written? Crimes committed in our name!
The crimes are not the only thing that matters. There are many problems included in the list, not all of them are crimes.
Many crimes are going unpunished that were committed before Bush/Cheney/Obama were in office. They took many years (decades) to bring to justice. Some recent examples:
– Crimes committed during the civil rights era in the 50s and 60s
– The internment of Americans of Japanese descent during the second world war.
Many people have documented the war crimes of Kissinger, who now has to be careful about where he travels in the world, but nothing is being done about them by any american prosecutor. McNamara pointed out that LeMay had said that if the U.S. hadn’t win the war, they would have been prosecuted for war crimes (fire-bombings of Dresden and Tokyo, atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki). Not only were they not prosecuted, but most americans don’t even consider those actions to be war crimes. Three centuries of slavery were ended without any reparations being paid. A whole continent was taken without any payment to the people who lived there.
What should we do?
– Be aware of the crimes
– Don’t forget them
– Talk to other people to make them aware
Without a good answer to that, what’s the point?
The First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution is the first for good reason. If people cannot discuss ideas and events without restrictions, they’re not free and they cannot govern themselves. The “point” is to discuss this, to make people aware, to get criticism of ideas that are flawed. Action doesn’t come from nowhere.
Cujo359
Long before the election, I characterized Obama as a con artist. It still seems the most appropriate short description of him, though it’s possible that it will seem a mild one in a few years.
Formerly T-Bear
@ Cujo359
Sinclair Lewis’ “Elmer Gantry” in a political form works as well. Definitely a demagogic career path, all talk, no substance.
Zach
Bush in blackface — the penultimate pitchable product, our Rentier’s most glorious wet dream.
The Preciousssssss.
Sorriest sonofabitch ever to shit behind a President’s good shoes.
marcopolo
An object lesson in the case for mandatory public campaign financing.
David H.
Celsius 233 — Re: why stupid Americans haven’t risen up to throw off the yoke of their oppressor, so to speak — in my humble estimation great change, revolutions, if you will, from the bottom come about when a put-upon group has nothing left to lose.
Say what you will about declining standards of living, the fact remains that the US is still, relatively speaking, a wealthy country. In general all but the lowest, most impoverished Americans, even if they aren’t too bright or not very well-informed, still have much to lose, and aren’t willing to risk it.
Only if/when the middle class begins falling into poverty en masse will there be any kind of mass uprising pushing for real and serious change in the US. And of course the “uprising” needn’t be violent, nor is it likely to be in the US.
While I’d like that change to come sooner rather than later, I find it hard to hope for the misery necessary to put the wheels of change in motion.
Apologies if my contribution is way off topic. Everyone’s comments are, as usual, fascinating and as much of the attraction of Ian’s site as his commentaries.
Celsius 233
anonymous May 5;
The “point” is to discuss this, to make people aware, to get criticism of ideas that are flawed. Action doesn’t come from nowhere.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
I appreciate your considered response.
The problem as I am seeing it is this;
We’ve been discussing this (Iraq for example) for over 7 years; and there is/has been no meaningful (effective) action coming out of these myriad discussions. If the majority truly want out of Iraq, Afghanistan, and the rest of our war-like behavior in Asia, then what are we still doing there?
Our government is ignoring the people because the people have failed to come up with and implement meaningful action. I know what it takes; the same thing we (and by we, I mean me and others) did during the Viet Nam war.
This tremendous failure to exercise our democratic rights is the death of those very rights.
This should be so very obvious; but apparently I’m wrong. Meanwhile the rhetoric just goes on and on. The best way to stop action is to talk about action.
Celsius 233
David H.
You’re probably right about the material end of things; but I was thinking along the human rights end of things. All the goodies won’t look too cool when one is afraid to open ones mouth against the company line, so-to-speak.
I live in a country that suppresses free speech and printed material as well. I’m American though and frankly, I’ll stay here. It’s easier when one knows the score coming in; and it’s too painful to witness these things being taken without a whimper and in some cases willingly making the choice for security. How sick is that?
anonymous
We’ve been discussing this (Iraq for example) for over 7 years; and there is/has been no meaningful (effective) action coming out of these myriad discussions. If the majority truly want out of Iraq, Afghanistan, and the rest of our war-like behavior in Asia, then what are we still doing there?
The U.S. is still occupying Iraq and Afghanistan because it is a jobs program. A wasteful, criminal, unproductive jobs program. It employs weapons makers, mercenary contractors, members of the military, their lobbyists, and elected members of congress (AKA, the military-industrial-congress complex). Essentially all of the money budgeted for the invasions and occupations is paid to companies in the U.S. Only a small fraction (1%? 2%) is put into the hands of the governments of the two occupied countries.
Our government is ignoring the people because the people have failed to come up with and implement meaningful action. I know what it takes; the same thing we (and by we, I mean me and others) did during the Viet Nam war.
Yes, the people, despite changing party control of both the legislative and executive branches, have “failed.” If by “failed” you mean “have had their will thwarted by a socioeconomic class” despite their expressed decision, via the polls, to end the occupations.
That class continues to benefit from the jobs program described above. If the money that is sent to their class was to be directed instead as direct economic aid to the two occupied countries to spend as their governments decided, then the class would rise up against the aid and end it in short order.
Notice how obama was able to make quick progress on his nuclear arms negotiation recently, while taking over a year to negotiate insurance reform (AKA, “health care” reform — where’s my George Orwell dictionary of double-speak?). There was essentially no money involved in this negotiation. But in the insurance reform, a long play had to be presented to the lower class (that is, you and me) to hide the fact that obama and congress members’ socioeconomic class was not going to end its transfer of wealth from you and me to their class (to the contrary — the law increases the number of people required to contribute to the transfer). Similarly, the “financial reform” bill is still on-going because actual reform would cause a loss of wealth (or future profits) for that class.
Finally, the people’s response to the Vietnam war was proportional — there were young people from teenagers to their 30s out protesting because their lives, their family members, and their friends were at risk. Because of this, they all made common cause and protested. That is not the case today (and argues for bringing back the draft, although what ought to be done is to reduce the military budget to a small fraction of what it is so that there is no political/economic interest in military actions).
Celsius 233
2010 MAY 6
anonymous;
That is a pretty good summation of our present reality, which I might add, doesn’t give one much reason for optimism.
I’ve all but quit posting because the momentum of U.S. society doesn’t favor change; at least not a positive change that would actually improve the lot of the underclass (90% of “us”). I’ve got a front row seat here watching the same scenario unfolding as an underclass is manipulated by money, class, and the military.
Anyway, nice chatting with you.
Comment
The first time that someone lies to you, they are simply seeing how much shit they can sell you. Beck, Obama, Limbaugh, McCain, Palin, Lieberman, and on and on and on are simply pathological liars. They peddled crap and people bought it. They keep upping the ante.
What truly amazes me is that the oligarchy actually believes that the thieving, lying, bribing and just plain evil are going to produce meaningful results for the rentiers. They totally ignore the simple fact that destroying the planet and society is going to be bad for them.
I’ve read Marx’s Kapital several times and I still have trouble believing what the “capitalists” will do for another damned dollar. He pegged it for the time that he lived. The logical conclusion from his work was that when one person owns everything and everybody then there will be no point to accumulation. Then there would be communism.
Marx was an optimist.
What he never conceived was that the last person would have murdered everyone else to have it all.
That is the only serious fault than I have ever found in his work.
anonymous
* A liar
The first time that someone lies to you, they are simply seeing how much shit they can sell you. Beck, Obama, Limbaugh, McCain, Palin, Lieberman, and on and on and on are simply pathological liars.
In January 2008, candidate Obama had made a promise to filibuster any bill that attempted to give retroactive immunity to the telecommunications companies for their role in the illegal (and unconstitutional) domestic spying that Bush had ordered.
In July 2008, party nominee Obama not only did not filibuster the bill that contained retroactive immunity, he voted to prevent any other senator for filibustering (“cloture”), and then voted for the bill, which bush later signed. Simply, he lied.
At that time, I proposed to people I knew that Obama should have been dropped as the party nominee, and the convention delegates should have picked someone else. Of course, nothing came of that proposal.
Since that time, a lot of people have come to see that he will lie again and again. And when they finally get to that realization that he lies, they’re pretty angry with him, as many of the comments above illustrate. If only more people had been aware of and taken seriously what happened in the U.S. Senate in July 2008.
David H.
Celsius 233 re: How sick is that?
No more so than certain Soviet citizens who, when offered the chance, did not leave the USSR. It was their home. It’s not sick to not want leave your home, no matter how much you dislike your govt. Your govt is not your home.
johnfarmer49@msn.com
A man who didn’t have Joe Lieberman thrown out of the democratic caucus and stripped of his chairmanships’ even after Joe campaigned for John McCain and trashed Obama as a potential president.
johnfarmer49@msn.com
A man who said he intended to be the last president who would ever have to deal with fixing our health care/health insurance system, and then signs a POS bill that does nothing except make the death by spreadsheet insurance companies even richer, and will still leave as many as 24 million Americans without insurance in 2019.
Zach
The
Last
Democrat.