are not going pass. Period. Obama is doing this so he can look like a liberal, because he knows it won’t pass. If he wanted this sort of policy, he needed to do it in his first few months. He didn’t and he doesn’t, this is re-election positioning. If you are treating it as anything else, you are being played.
Oh, and while I approve of the “Wall Street Occupation” it isn’t going to do a damn thing unless it costs Wall Street large amounts of money. Which would require different tactics than are being used. Still, it’s a start.
Z
Of course obama knows none of this is going to pass … funny how he didn’t try to do any of this when the dems had control of the house and senate or even when he had a lame duck congress … but now that it can’t, it’s time to pull out the ol’ sticking up for the little people bs. Maybe he’ll also make a push for passing efca now. Ha ha ha.
IMO, it’s also time to shore up the obama brand before he bows out of the 2012 race. He’s done enough damage to his re-election prospects by so gleefully pissing all over the third rail, aka ss, and now he can go back to acting like he really cares about anything other than himself and that he’s really trying to win the 2012 election when he wants no part of being president for another 4 years.
We’ll see …
Z
Notorious P.A.T.
No doubt. He’s in re-election mode so it’s time to sucker people again. “Hey, Obama says he wants to raise taxes on the rich! We need to take back the House so he can do it!” Sure.
Bill H.
What amazes me is that this works. In his first campaign there was no contrast because his national governance was so limited that no one could point it out. Now we have almost three years of him displaying in the most obvious way that he is pure corporatist, and when reelection time comes he engages in all of this meaningless populist posturing and it is widely enough believed to get him reelected. Where has all of this populist rhetoric been for the past three years? Where will it be once the election is over? Why do the American voters fall for this?
Z
Bill H.,
It works becoz most american voters are tribalists when it comes to politics. They want to believe that THEIR side is better than the other and that THEY made the right decision voting for their party’s candidate. And once people take a side they also have an emotional investment in defending it becoz they don’t want to admit that they were wrong.
Plus, the plutocrats have done a masterful job of characterizing and then manipulating the populace.
Z
Jean Paul Marat
Take over Wall Street is like any morning of October 5, 1789, a short stroll and the march of a few French peasants on Versailles.
anon2525
Oh, and while I approve of the “Wall Street Occupation” it isn’t going to do a damn thing unless it costs Wall Street large amounts of money.
There is no way for the protest to cost wall street a large amount of money (“a large amount” would be many billions of dollars — millions of dollars is not sufficient to change wall street). That can only be done through gov’t. means (courts, SEC, etc.). And wall street is even more impervious to protest than politicians. Wall street doesn’t care what the protesters think or what happens to them, it isn’t up for election, and there is no leader.
Just as with the London riots, if the protest doesn’t grow over time, then it won’t have any effect. The London riots didn’t “do a damn thing” because the rest of the population didn’t take to the streets to join it, unlike in Tunisia, Egypt, and Libya.
Will this protest last long enough to be joined by the coming Oct. protest?
Bruce Wilder
Bill H., Z
Plus, it is really painful and uncomfortable to back off your tribalist identity, and admit to your self and others, that you are, basically, powerless. As long as you identify with one tribe or another, and identify with the theatrics of their “desperate” struggle against the “other”, you feel like you are participating in power. I see a lot of people, who, of course, do not intend to do anything of substance, engage in wishful thinking about a third party, which is just a variation.
My evidence for this comes mainly from pressing some of my friends on their support for Obama. “What’s your alternative?” is the screech.
“That’s my point,” is my reply.
David
Agree that this is just to appeal to the dem tribalists. I think though it actually might
backfire with his corporatist supporters. Remember when Obummer backed off when the banksters did not like his anti-banker rhetoric, he called them “savvy businessmen”
when they complained. Even though Obummer has given them almost everything, the banksters have shown that they are so self-centered that at least some of them won’t like this talk and decide not to contribute money for his re-election. Already there are some indicators that Obummer may be having problems raising money such as his
half-price dinners.
Farlap
Anon2525:
It seems to me that the deciding factor in Libya was the air war. Egypt’s oil spigot dried up years ago, so its patrons in Washington had no reason to expend any particular effort to keep its government under the thumb anymore–compare Bahrain and Saudi. In all cases, I think its important to realize that “social media” sites are no more stateless in practice than credit-card companies, so use of U.S.-based sites like Twitter and Facebook to co-ordinate an uprising can only work if Washington approves of the rebels, be it tacitly or openly.
Bruce Wilder:
I’m honestly not sure what you’re trying to say here. Who is thinking about a third party in your example?
Bruce Wilder
Ezra Klein’s authoritative account says Obama’s new proposals are a change of tactics, not a change of strategy.
So, progressives and liberals are being offered a bit part as the boogeymen, who will help Obama win re-election, enact Republican and plutocrat-friendly policy, and, not incidentally, castrate the Democratic Party.
I don’t think it could be any clearer, if Ian wrote it up, himself.
There will be plenty of professional neo-liberals in the blogosphere urging those to their left to sign on to play in this farce. Apparently, no one feels obligated to offer even Special Appearance Contract rates, let alone Equity minimum.
Farlap
Bill H.: “Why do the American voters fall for this?”
Don’t count Obama’s chickens before they’re hatched.
Petro
It’s funny, reading around the blogs – everyone seems to be pointing out how cynical Obama’s maneuvering is, and what a shame it is that people will probably buy it. I see very little of this “buying it,” but lots of worry that it will be bought. But by whom, at this point? I think it’s time to just point and laugh – he’s toast. I don’t necessarily mean he’ll lose his office – and with the paucity of alternatives, this means absolutely zero – but his credibility is gone and unrecoverable.
@anon2525:
Yup. I am watching… I’m still smarting from the Iranian almost-was.
As to this question’s framing of the matter:
I don’t think that form of “growing” is what the doctor ordered. I hate to say it, but I think something, er, untoward needs to happen to snap the necks of a crowd, not just larger, but also a little less genteel than the well-meaning organizers of the Oct. event. And I really do hate to say that.
Bruce Wilder
Farlap: “Who is thinking about a third party in your example?”
thinking? Seriously? No one. I’m describing my theory about how some of my friends apparently manage their political identities and attitudes, as a means to manage their emotional sense of well-being and safety.
I think it is depressing and anxiety-producing to realize that the whole political and economic elite are against you and people like you, and there’s not a whole lot you can do about it, nor are there organizations or institutions you can trust and support to do something effective. That’s reality in America, circa 2011, but it is an uncomfortable reality, and an opportuntity for professional PR types to feed the political-rhetoric equivalent of mildly addictive drugs to the needy. One such drug is participation in a “good fight” of your tribe against the “other” tribe. An alternative drug is wistful musings on how great it would be if a third party would arise, which just happened to mirror all of one’s earnest, naive centrist wishes for political harmony. Call the first drug, the blue pill of false striving, and the second, the green pill of apathy — it doesn’t matter, because almost no one takes the red pill. The red pill puts you into reality, but reality is ugly, and you have to realize that “they” really are out to get you.
Bruce Wilder
“his credibility is gone and unrecoverable”
Among the 5%, who frequent the blogs, sure, but those, who occasionally watch cable news or the Sunday public affairs programs, or read an op-ed, or watch Charlie Rose and the NewsHour — the kind of people, who think Tom Friedman is the epitome of reasonable and far-sighted or like Maureen Dowd or David Brooks — I’m not optimistic.
“I think something, er, untoward needs to happen to snap the necks of a crowd . . .”
I don’t think we need to rely on the protestors for that. My admittedly uninformed-about-the-details intuition is blinking bright red: Our fearless leaders and Wall Street honchos appear ready to deliver a market crash, European default, second recession, and, maybe, major bank or corporate business failure. Something like the Bank of America Death Watch, combined with dark prospects for the Xmas season and scary news from Europe or China, could easily snowball into a national panic. The best ally the Left has, is still the systemic instability of what a corrupt and incompetent neo-liberal/corrupt centrist alliance has created.
The Left’s task isn’t to create a teachable moment; it’s to have something to teach, and a platform from which to teach, when the moment comes. Some counter to the Shock Doctrine and preservationist panic, that builds the fascist state.
Bruce Wilder
I apologize for too many comments. Over-caffeinated moment. I’ll stop now.
Petro
Nah, don’t stop.
Yes… I was actually thinking of a stupid blunder coming from the “establishment.”
gan1
Ian
Unfortunately, your assessment of the Wall street occupation is correct.
As I told a friend earlier today…. 1200 arrests protesting the tar sands pipeline.. ..that and $4 gets you a latte.
Until “the owners” fear losing something dear to them (money or otherwise), they will do little more than snicker at these displays. Actually, I think they probably enjoy the feeling of power in squashing the riff raff.
BDBlue
One hopeful way of seeing the demonstrations, which may or may not pan out to be an accurate way to see them, is as citizens beginning to stretch long dormant muscles. Given how sheep-like the American people have been, it’s a bit much to suddenly expect some incredibly effective anti-corporate movement. Rather, it’s more that people are beginning to feel the need to do something beyond simply voting (good) and they’re trying to figure out what that should be and how to do it. Maybe that grows and maybe it doesn’t. But it still has more potential to turn into something useful than rallying around the 2012 national election. And count me in on betting the elite do more stupid stuff. They’ve basically already committed to it.
Greg L
I was reading today how Obama’s proposed tax on the rich is being call the “Buffet Tax” and shortly thereafter I ran across a picture of Obama pictured hunched over with Buffet as if to denote that he had been given permission by Buffet to tax him more and that’s really my impression of this proposal. Basically, the elite have given Obama permission to run with this is a feeble attempt to salvage his presidency by putting in a populist appearance. This pandering is so obvious that I can’t imagine that anyone would fall for it, but I suppose his core constituencies will as they now look for an excuse to vote for someone that causes them some measure of disquiet if they take an opportunity to actually stop and think. This transparent pandering is only going go so far and Obama’s only possible saving grace is his default status as a choice measured largely by the polls ratings of the republicans being far worst than his.
The tragedy of the American political system is how it disgusts many and that has the effect of actually shrinking the electorate by discouraging participation and increasing apathy. That’s the only logical outcome when the system is no longer relevant for vast numbers of people. The electorate is wholly made up of partisans and people like me are no longer wasting time dealing with the farce. But if truth be told, that’s actually by design and that’s why we have either default choices or none at all.
Jonathan versen
The new theory goes something like this: The first-best outcome is still striking a grand bargain with the Republicans, and it’s more likely to happen if the Republicans worry that Democrats have found a clear, popular message that might win them the election. The better Obama looks in the polls, the more interested Republicans will become in a compromise that takes some of the Democrats’ most potent attacks off the table.
Thanks for quoting this Bruce Wilder. Ezra Klein is undoubtedly very bright, but you have to wonder how much of this crap he actually believes.
The Republicans don’t have to do a damn thing between now and November ’12 but fill their war chest. They have their super-committee, which BHO certainly seemed eager to give them, and they will do their dirty work during the lame-duck session. Even if the dems win back the house and Barry is re-elected, they will say their hands are tied and that if they don’t do exactly what the departing super-committee says, something even scarier will happen.
guest
Obviously this has no chance of going anywhere. But I just took this as an opening gambit in his next attempt at a disastrous Grand Bargain. It never occurred to me that there was anyone left in the US who would regard a tax increase (even a small one on the obscenely rich) as anything besides political suicide. So that’s something to think about. I’m a bit surprised that he even had the guts to propose this little gesture. It really seems like progress that tax are even being discussed. Not that I would trust that smug POS to follow thru on tax hikes if he had the chance, but maybe this might prepare the ground for taxes on the rich in the future. On the other had, if Obama loses next year the post mortem will be that this is what did him in, and so nobody better ever whisper about raising taxes ever again.
Ian’s conclusion that this is just a fake out to get liberal votes makes a certain amount of sense, but at this point I don’t see how that works. The informed will never trust him. The disinformed are so hidebound to conventional “wisdom” that this probably scares them.
jcapan
“I’m describing my theory about how some of my friends apparently manage their political identities and attitudes, as a means to manage their emotional sense of well-being and safety.”
My long standing variation has the tribes as churches, with their respective gospels and faiths and longings for a pleasant afterlife.
“What’s your alternative?” is the screech.
“That’s my point,” is my reply.
Exactly, our will to believe is an all consuming force. Especially if you’ve got nothing else to offer them, to stand in for the fairy tale. Fuck, at least when Santa Claus disappears from innocent children’s minds, their parents take over the materialist task.
The Raven
As far as I can tell, in Obama’s mind getting re-elected is more important than 15% unemployment.
How did we manage to elect such a vain man?
Like you, I have thoroughly mixed feelings about the Wall Street occupation, and those are made more mixed by its invisible leadership–just who started this change, anyway? And are they someone I’d like to be following? And yet, at least they’re doing something.
John B.
Does anyone know if BO has made a decision on the tar sands pipeline issue yet? Thanks…
zot23
I would say the tax increase talk is a start too. Start getting that in the public discourse, expand the lexicon of DC a bit, who knows who we’ll have in the future.
It also shows that Obama KNOWS what the dems want to hear, he just doesn’t want to do it. If he was tone deaf to our desires, this offer wouldn’t be happening. So he knows, he just didn’t care to push this meme when it could have mattered (like when the Bush tax cuts were extended while he rolled over and showed his belly.)
Gaius Sempronius Gracchus
Actually, it’s part of a deal that includes cuts in Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security every liberal has objected to.
So I would say he’s doing this so he can look like a moderate Republican rather than a conservative one.
Self
Thx for the Ezra alert Bruce, a little extra context makes it look more strategic than desperate. MSNBC is flippin hard but it’s such a wave it is most certainly a propaganda push. Ok, watching MSNBC is sad but I’m using some weak Zizekian cultural analysis to make it tolerable.
Anyone interviewing Feingold these days?
Notorious P.A.T.
“The better Obama looks in the polls, the more interested Republicans will become in a compromise that takes some of the Democrats’ most potent attacks off the table.”
That’s Obama for you: his motive for achieving a strong position is so he can give it away to his friends in the Republican party.
grs
Obama and the Houses couldn’t even let the Bush tax cuts expire. How would actual tax increases get pushed through?
Self
Damn you Feingold!
Notorious P.A.T.
>>>”I strongly disagree with Ralph Nader. As I’ve said many times before, I believe that re-electing President Obama is an absolute imperative for our economy, our judicial system, for progressives and for our country,” said former Sen. Russ Feingold<<<
Well, that much is obvious! Look at all that Obama has done for our economy, our judicial system, and the progressive movement already!
It's one thing for people like this to not want to save their country. But don't they at least want to save their party? It is their meal ticket, after all.
David Kowalski
Obama has a disapprovl rating of 55%. That is not a lot different from the 57% FDR pulled agai8nst Hoover.
He always runs using another image. Lincoln, semi-FDR while attacking the New Deal. Reagan. It’s obvious, his next campaign is going to copy Harry Truman while relying on Wall Street money. Inconsistent and without the slavish support of the media an impossible task.
Do nothing Republican Congress. Check.
Whistle stop tour. Coming.
Identify with the little guy. Check.
Balanced budget talk. Check.
Reality? No civil rights initiatives.
Foreign war(s). Check.
anon2525
”I strongly disagree with Ralph Nader. As I’ve said many times before, I believe that re-electing President Obama is an absolute imperative for our economy, our judicial system, for progressives and for our country,” said former Sen. Russ Feingold.
On this, Feingold and I will disagree. Too bad that he does not explain his reasoning.
chicago dyke
i can say this on this blog: the only cost that will matter to Wall St is when they can’t safely take a limo up to the Hamptons on the weekends after a brisk week of fleecing and raping the rest of us. sustained protest does actually work, but amurkins are too drugged and addicted to TV to do that right now. that’s the problem. things will change when the money runs out for things like HBO, mind and will deadening happy pills, and HFCS laden foods. and not until then.
and no, i don’t believe O will institute a significant tax increase. even if he “does,” it will come with the ‘bipartisan’ package of complete gutting of social programs or worse. this man does nothing that doesn’t at least in part please or concede to rethugs. ever.
dcblogger
Obama’s Black support is dropping, the dam is breaking
http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/obamas-ratings-among-blacks-falls/2011/09/21/gIQAqzJdlK_story.html
you don’t need to read blogs to know that you don’t have a job and/or that you have been foreclosed on.
you don’t need to read blogs to know that your child is living in your basement because even though they managed to find a job, they have to use all their income to pay off their loans.
you don’t need to read blogs to know that this is the worst economy since 1932.
Celsius 233
Warning; off topic…maybe not…?
I’m feeling physically ill today over the execution of Troy Davis an hour or so ago…
I’m looking around and can’t fathom the importance of taxes, politics, the flag, and all the daily distractions while we impotently watch the the destruction of the last vestiges of what I always considered our core values.
Maya; it’s all Maya. There was never anything real; just Maya…
anon2525
I’m feeling physically ill today over the execution of Troy Davis an hour or so ago…
The slogan “I am Troy Davis” is apt. There is substantial reason to think that an innocent man was executed. So, anyone of us who is innocent of a crime could have been the person executed. We would be just another statistic, another person caught up in the justice system bent on having someone to blame for someone else’s killing.
anon2525
I see from Ian Welsh’s twitter feed that he is suffering from a multi-day headache. I cannot imagine how bad that is. Here’s hoping that he’s better soon.
jcapan
Celsius,
“Maya; it’s all Maya. There was never anything real; just Maya…”
That reminds me of:
“Our nada who art in nada, nada be thy name thy kingdom nada thy will be nada in nada as it is in nada. Give us this nada our daily nada and nada us our nada as we nada our nadas and nada us not into nada but deliver us from nada; pues nada. Hail nothing full of nothing, nothing is with thee.”
From Hemingway’s “A Clean, Well-Lighted Place”
Celsius 233
anon2525 PERMALINK
September 22, 2011
The slogan “I am Troy Davis” is apt. There is substantial reason to think that an innocent man was executed. So, anyone of us who is innocent of a crime could have been the person executed. We would be just another statistic, another person caught up in the justice system bent on having someone to blame for someone else’s killing.
===============================
This old man is in the autumn of his life and all he can think is what could have been. As said in the movie “Cast Away”; “the most beautiful thing in the world, is of course, the world itself…”
And then there is us; it’s not a good time for us…
Celsius 233
jcapan PERMALINK
September 22, 2011
“Our nada who art in nada, nada be thy name thy kingdom nada thy will be nada in nada as it is in nada. Give us this nada our daily nada and nada us our nada as we nada our nadas and nada us not into nada but deliver us from nada; pues nada. Hail nothing full of nothing, nothing is with thee.”
From Hemingway’s “A Clean, Well-Lighted Place”
=========================
Thanks for that…
Celsius 233
anon2525 PERMALINK
September 22, 2011
==========================
You make very good points; I am Troy Davis!
I never thought of the meaning beyond a sloganeering sort of thing;
but, yeah, sure as hell, we are Troy Davis, and that should scare the holy bejezus out of every man, woman, and child in the Kingdom of USA. Cheers.
Celsius 233
Ian, I’m sorry for a mini-jack of your thread; but damn it I just had to say something.
Don’t normally stray too far from the point.
Hope this post finds you with out a headache and in good health…
Verne
Lisa Simeone
Exactly. You can’t expect a few thousand — even many thousand — people with signs and sleeping bags to suddenly upend 30 years’ worth of systematic raping and pillaging by the most powerful forces on earth. None of us are that naive. But just getting people to give a shit, and willing to put their bodies on the line, is an accomplishment.
The Wall Street occupation isn’t the end. Neither will the October occupation be. They are the beginning.
Oh, and answer to the person who asked about whether Obama has made a decision on the XL Pipeline yet: no.
Whatever he decides will, of course, be entirely predicated on how many votes he thinks it will get him.
Shoes4Industry
Coming late to the Troy Davis debate, but it seem Obama should have staid both his and that white supremacist dude (and every other execution going forward during his administration), in response to the Tea Party blood lust at he last GOP “debate”. That’s how you show leadership, convictions to moral values and win elections.
anon2525
If he wanted this sort of policy, he needed to do it in his first few months. He didn’t and he doesn’t, this is re-election positioning. If you are treating it as anything else, you are being played.
As far as I can tell, obama has not changed his position at all. From his public statement a few days ago:
“I will not support any plan that puts all the burden for closing our deficit on ordinary Americans, and I will veto any bill that changes benefits for those who rely on Medicare but does not raise serious revenues by asking the wealthiest Americans or biggest corporations to pay their fair share. We are not going to have a one-sided deal that hurts the folks who are most vulnerable.”
(Emphasis is mine.)
Many people listening to this think “wow. obama’s fighting back. He’s fighting for us.” But he’s not saying anything different than he has said since January 2009 when he said that he believes in “entitlement reform.” Three times in his statement, above, he said–as quietly as he could–that he wants to change Medicare. People who didn’t hear that need to listen to or read more closely what he is saying.
Also, in keeping with his neo-liberal viewpoint, he proposed $2 of tax cuts for every $1 in spending. Had he actually changed, his stimulus proposal would have been entirely spending on hiring people in gov’t. programs.
anon2525
The Wall Street occupation isn’t the end. Neither will the October occupation be. They are the beginning.
They are growing. A positive development has been the sprouting of new protests in other cities. Let’s see, there’s OccupyChicago, OccupyCleveland, OccupySF, OccupyBeantown (Boston, of course), OccupyLA, OccupyMN (Minnesota?), OccupyWashington, OccupyAtlanta,… Discussions, so far. Let’s hope that people show up in these cities.
lambert strether
On Obama: If this were going to happen, it would already have happened.
I Give Up
If you want to seriously fix the economy and the jobs crisis, (if anyone actually WANTS to do so) you would lower the eligibility age of SS and Medicare to 60. Flush out the baby boomer, aging workers who are clogging up the jobs market and only holding on until they are 65 to qualify for both. Middle managers move up, new younger, healthier workers move in, start paying taxes and FICA. Remove the cap on SS contributions to pay for this. Problem solved.
While it’s encouraging to see young folks protesting wall street greed, it would be better for them (and everyone else), to be gainfully employed and paying into the system long term.
anon2525
While it’s encouraging to see young folks protesting wall street greed, it would be better for them (and everyone else), to be gainfully employed and paying into the system long term.
I’m guessing that those who are protesting would agree that it would be good for them to have a job. Their protesting is trying to be a catalyst to make that happen, or to make anything beneficial, such as your SS and MC proposals, happen.