Month: April 2011

Sometimes our early take on a man is the best. In 2006, I wrote “I believe Obama“. (Re-repost, because it seems… appropriate.)

One of my rules of analysis is that I believe people when they tell me who they are. That doesn’t mean I believe everything they say – I never believed Bush was a moderate, for example, because I believed what he told me when he refused to correct obviously false budget numbers. His budget plan spent the surplus twice, and I believed that’s what he would do. And, needless to say, I was right (well sort of, he spent even more than that, but you get the point.)

People tell you who they are all the time, all you have to do is listen, separate out the noise intended to distract you, and then believe them. Bush’s record of failure at everything he did, for example, was clear. His slurring of words and inability to talk coherently was clear. His code-speaking to the Christian right was clear. All these things were there to see in 2000.

So, let’s talk about someone else. Obama. I’ve been listening to Obama and I’ve been hearing what he has to say. He’s been pretty hostile to the netroots, contemptuous and dismissive, and I’ve heard that and I believe it. Obama is telling me he has no respect for the sort of people who make up the netroots. I think he’s sincere – I don’t think it’s “just” a tactical move. He genuinely dislikes people getting worked up over issues. It makes him uncomfortable. He wants everything and everyone to be “nice”. I believe him when his words and actions tell me that, just as when he backed down from McCain when McCain unfairly attacked him, I believed what that told me about his spine and about the fact that he prefers peace to conflict, even when he’s in the right. I believe him when he says he admires John McCain and that he admires Joe Lieberman and I understand what that says about him (because, of course, if you actually follow McCain and Lieberman you know they aren’t even close to men of their word. And Obama knows that.)

Obama has told me who he is, and I have listened. If he gets into power he will compromise/compromise/compromise, because he believes in it – not as a means, but as an end. He will shy away from big fights, because he doesn’t like fighting. He may “believe” in universal healthcare, but he believes in compromise more. And I’m betting I know which belief will win out.

I’m sure many will disagree, but when people tell me who they are I listen. Obama has spoken, I’ve listened, and since I don’t believe that compromise is an end rather than just a means, he’s not the person I think should be president.

When Medicare is destroyed is only a matter of when

By Ian Welsh

On April 5, 2011

Comments

Folks, this won’t pass this year, but a version of it will pass:

That plan would transform Medicare from a government insurance program to one in which seniors would chose from private, federally subsidized coverage. Americans 55 and older would stay in the current system.

Remember, Obama’s health care reform was essentially the Republican plan from the 90s. The Republicans, whom everyone was sneering at for running crazies, have put in place a team of hard right ideologues, who have moved DC significantly to the right even of where it was. At some point they will pass this, because they want it badly, and the Democrats have no alternative vision other than “right wing, but not as right wing”, which goes nowhere.

I’ve said this before: get out. If you can’t get out, get your kids out. This is not going to end well. Obama has institutionalized Bush rather than rolling him back, and in some areas, such as civil liberties and unilateral Presidential war powers, has actually moved further to the right than Bush was. It is not impossible that this will get better in the next couple decades (as 5 year old Ian once argued, almost nothing is impossible), but it is unlikely. Americans spent the last 35 years spending their retirement, their children’s retirement and running infrastructure and capital into the ground, and they were good with that. Every effort to repeal Prop 13, for example, failed miserably. America is the culture of the free lunch, what Americans don’t realize is that they’re the free lunch.

That doesn’t mean the US couldn’t fix its problems, in theory, but the point is that socially and politically, the US does not want to fix its problems. It wants to continue to make them worse. Yes, a majority of Americans may prefer different policies on some issues, but they aren’t willing to MAKE it happen or to actually pay for it (see Prop 13 above). They aren’t willing to die for it, and at this point, that’s what it would take because your elites see no reason not take everything you have and turn you into slaves in all but name. You will be debt slaves, who own almost nothing, not your house, not your phone, not your car, not your books. Anything which can be rented to you, rather than than sold, will be.

Welcome to the Repo culture. Everything you have, everything you are, can be taken away from you, and you are nothing but a series of revenue streams to your lords and masters. Fail to pay, and you won’t even be allowed to be a debt and wage slave, you’ll be in a cardboard box or a debtor’s prison.

Modern Americans are mostly descended from people who didn’t say “this pisshole country is worth fighting for”, they’re descended from people who said “screw this, I’m outta here”. Emulate them and leave, if you can’t leave do the other thing they were willing to do: prepare for a revolution and be willing to die in it.

Or accept your fate as slaves.

Your choice.

The horizon is not so far as we can see, but as far as we can imagine

Month: April 2011

In Light of the Budget Deal: Obama’s Personality

When Medicare is destroyed is only a matter of when