Ian Welsh

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

Category: Barack Obama Page 7 of 13

Catching Up with the Obama Dilemma

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On June 21, 2010

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I haven’t had much to say the last bit, because the rest of the blogosphere and even mainstream pundits are catching up to where I was a while ago.  Let’s see where we are, and where we’re going.

To recap:

1) the stimulus bill was neither big enough, nor well enough put together to do the job.  However many jobs it “saved and created” they weren’t enough.

2) Obama is not in the least interested in doing progressive things unless great pain is inflicted on him, personally.  This is most likely because he is not a progressive.

3) On civil liberties, Obama is probably actually worse than Bush.  Yes, that’s quite an accomplishment, but there you have it.

4) He’s an incompetent leader, who over-centralizes decision making, refuses to delegate, then makes decisions slowly and badly.

5) His courtiers are not the problem (although they’re almost all scum), he is the problem: he chose them.

6) The spring job recovery is already petered out, and around the world virtually every major economy other than China is turning to austerity, including the US.  US cities and States are in a horrible state, gross income is down, and bank lending is still not recovering.  The US economy has become more oligopolistic and more sclerotic than ever before, with the major firms who run the economy making their money by squeezing little people who have nowhere to turn.  Thanks to Bernanke, Paulson, Geither, Bush and Obama’s bailouts, and refusal to engage in meaningful restructuring of the economy or the financial industry, their profits have recovered.  That means, to them, that the crisis is over.

7) Election results in the midterms are looking really bad.  I was warning about this in beginning of 2009, because if Obama’s economic policies didn’t work, and if he continually alienated the base, it was going to cause problems.  The only thing Obama and Congressional Dems have going for them is how bloody awful the Republicans are.  But being the lesser evil isn’t always enough.  Liberals and progressives can’t vote Republican, but they can refuse to donate, not volunteer, and in many cases, not vote.

Going forward Obama is faced with a choice.  He won’t do enough to make the base happy, because he genuinely doesn’t believe in any progressive ideals.  What he can do, however, is goose the economy. He has most of the TARP slush fund to play with.  He could dump it into the economy post-haste in order to rescue the mid-terms.

Whether to do so is a dilemma for him.  On the one hand standard methodologies are still showing that the Dems (barely) hold onto the House, and keep the Senate.  But it isn’t much of a stretch for the Republicans to win the House.

If they do so, Obama’s presidency is effectively over.  The Republicans will Clintonize him, tying him down in a blizzard of subpoenas and fake scandals.  He will get nothing done for the next two years, and will probably lose re-election.

On the other hand, if he spends the money in 2010, it won’t be there in 2012, and after all, Dems might squeeze through without it.

Choices, choices…

I’d feel sorry for him, but he’s made clear that he isn’t a Democratic president, and he isn’t a liberal or a progressive, so I see no point in wasting any angst on personal problems he himself created.  All of this was totally predictable, and was, in fact predicted by multiple people.

Obama never made a sincere effort to fix the economy, to end the wars, to stop civil liberties abuses or to revamp the financial industry.

As he reaps, so he sows.  It is unfortunate Americans have to suffer even more than he does (he’ll be taken care of after he leaves the Presidency, never fear), but such is life.  Maybe it’s time to stop voting for people who say they love Reagan and that they don’t believe in Democratic solutions to problems.

Coming up…

We’re still in a Depression

and

Why it is never in Congress’s interests to look after Americans

America’s Future Now: We have to get the public to support us to make Obama do the right thing

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On June 7, 2010

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The interesting thing about the conference so far is the message: if only we organize, we can change what the public thinks and with the public behind us make the President and Congress do what we want.

This was epitomized by a “debate” between Darcy Burner and Deepak Bhargava, where they both agreed that the key to progressive change is organzing: get the public behind us, and change can be made to happen.  FDR wouldn’t have been FDR without the movement behind him.  LBJ wouldn’t have been behind civil rights without the movement.  And so on.

What the evidence, though?

70% of the public supported the public option. Calls against TARP ran from 100:1 to 1200:1.  Obama through the public option under the bus, and whipped hard for TARP, which would not have passed without him.

The evidence that Obama will respond to pressure to do things he really doesn’t want to do (ie. progressive things) is minimal.

Now that’s not to say there’s no reason to pressure him.  Really serious pressure, like the gay lobby pushed on him where they cut off donations, heckled him everywhere, and chained themselves to the White House fence.  Note, however, that this wsasn’t about public opinion, this was about making Obama miserable.

Now, the unions are sending messages through Democratic primaries.  Almost every serious Democratic primary challenge this year has been backed by union muscle and money.  So, whatever is being said here (and CAF is a union proxy), the unions have put a message across Obama’s bow.  Nor is the mood here happy with Obama, the assumption now is that he’s either too spineless to do the right thing, or that he doesn’t want to to do the right thing.

Still, the type of pressure Obama responds too isn’t public opinion, it is when you embarrass him and cost him money that he responds.  Mind you, gays didn’t get everything, but they got something.

Pain.  Obama responds to pain.  You can’t ask nicely, because he won’t listen unless y9u’re hurting him.

What Left?

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On May 22, 2010

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David Sirota nails it:

Behold, for instance, major environmental groups’ attitude toward the Gulf oil spill.

We know that before the disaster, President Obama recklessly pushed to expand offshore drilling. We also know that his Interior Department gave British Petroleum’s rig a “categorical exclusion” from environmental scrutiny and, according to the New York Times, “gave permission to BP and dozens of other oil companies to drill in the Gulf without first getting required [environmental] permits.” Worse, we know that after the spill, the same Interior Department kept issuing “categorical exclusions” for new Gulf oil operations, and Interior Secretary Ken Salazar still refuses “to rule out continued use of categorical exclusions,” as the Denver Post reported (heckuva job, Kenny!).

Undoubtedly, had this been the behavior of a Republican administration, “the left’s” big environmental organizations would be scheduling D.C. protests and calling for firings, if not criminal charges. Yet, somehow, there are no protests. Somehow, there have been almost no calls for the resignation of Salazar, who oversaw this disaster and who, before that, took $323,000 in campaign contributions from energy interests and backed more offshore drilling as a U.S. senator. Somehow, facing environmental apocalypse, there has been mostly silence from “the left.”

So true.  On virtually everything.  Principles which change depending on who is in power are not principles.

But don’t think this gets donors and readers off the hook.  I can’t tell you the number of times I have been told “we can’t run with that, our readers won’t tolerate it.  They /want/ to believe in Obama.  They need to believe in Obama.”  (Well, actually, who knows if it gets them off the hook or not. I never believed it.  I believe you can tell people the goddamn truth and still get traffic.)

That has waned somewhat, but in early 2009 the number of things I wanted to say that I couldn’t either get published or front paged was rather extraordinary.  What happens in such situations is that writers, even when not explicitly edited, start self editing.  “Everyone knows” certain things, but hardly anyone says them, which is why you get the weird sight of people saying “everyone knew”, but then you look into the person’s archives and find they never said what “everyone knew”.

Of course, everyone didn’t know, but even before Obama took office, and especially in the month after, those of us whose jobs it was to watch closely say who he was appointing, and with a few exceptions, his appointments (or lack of appointments, as when he left Bush USA’s in office, something no other President had done) told the tale.  At that point anyone whose need to believe wasn’t Hindenburg sized, knew that liberals were about to get royally screwed up by Obama.

Oh well.

Discretionary Budget Priorities

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On May 20, 2010

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What does the President really prioritize?  Well, the folks at the National Priorities Project have a nice little chart of the proposed discretionary budget for 2011.  Take a look for yourself…

Proposed 2011 Federal Discretionary Budget

Proposed 2011 Federal Discretionary Budget

Meanwhile, in the non-discretionary budget, Obama has sponsored a commission whose real mandate appears to be to figure out how to cut Social Security (and probably Medicare).

Priorities, priorities…  Blowing Afghanis into a find fine red mist is a priority…

Obama, Congress and Bernanke did not save the world from a Great Depression

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On May 14, 2010

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Sorry, they simply did not. The baseline IMF forecast before the bailouts and before the stimulus bill tracks almost exactly what happened.

The bailouts were an actual net drag on the economy.  Instead of cleaning up banks balance sheets, they allowed zombie banks to continue to exist, banks which are crippled when it comes to lending.  In order to make sure these banks can pay down their bad debts, the Fed not only had to take on huge amounts of their paper at par when it was worth 20 cents at most, it has had to lend to them at concessionary rates, pay extra interest to them, and let them leverage that to make obscene profits from what lending they are doing (why did your credit card rate go up, that’s why?) and from trading on a captive market.

As best I can figure the stimulus was large enough to counteract the negative effect of the bailout.

The net, is a wash.

Furthermore, there were far, far more intelligent things which could have been done.  The crisis was, as the tired phrase goes, also an opportunity to break the power of monied interests, so that ordinary Americans could prosper again and could reclaim their government.  The stimulus was an opportunity to restructure the US economy to allow real, widespread growth in the future.

Both those opportunities were wasted, and they were wasted by Obama.  TARP would not have passed without him, and once he was in power he could have demanded that Bernanke do as he commanded (break the banks) or step down, if Bernanke wouldn’t, he could have easily impeached him.  The stimulus was his stimulus.

Obama, Congress, Bernanke, Geithner, Paulson—none of them saved anybody except the banks and the rich from apocalypse.  I understand that partisan Democrats want to pretend Dems saved the world, but they did no such thing.

(Addendum. See Rosenbert here (h/t Sean-Paul):

There are classic signs indeed that the recession in the U.S. ended last summer — output, sales, etc. But the depression is ongoing and the reason we say that is because real personal income, excluding handouts from the government, has barely budged. In fact, real organic personal income is nearly $500 billion lower now than it was at the peak 16 months ago and this has never occurred before coming out of any technical recession. It is a depression, as the chart below attests — that is the trendline for real household incomes, until the government comes in to top them off with handouts, subsidies and extended jobless benefits . . .

Real consumer spending is up $200 billion over the past 16 months and everyone believes we have a sustainable recovery even though organic income is down almost $500 billion. Think about that for a second because once the stimulus wears off, and with a 10% deficit-to-GDP ratio and concerns surfacing everywhere about sovereign credit risks, there is little out there to support future growth in consumption.)

Oh Bullshit, Gay is not “something you call yourself”

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On May 11, 2010

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So, we have Digby approvingly quoting this:

I don’t know if Elena Kagan sleeps with women or men. I don’t know if she sleeps with anyone at all. I don’t care. What I do know is that she has never claimed to be a lesbian, that she’s never spoken out in the first-person as an advocate of gay rights and that she has never publicly discussed a romantic relationship with a woman. Gay isn’t some genetic or soulful essence; it’s a name you call yourself–and Kagan has not done that. So in my book, case closed. Elena Kagan is not gay. Is she straight? I don’t know, and again, I don’t care. Why does she have to have a sexuality at all?

No, gay is about who you have sex with.  If you have sex predominantly will adults of the same gender, you’re gay.  Unless, of course, you want to say that all those male Republicans screwing other men aren’t gay, I guess.

Now, I don’t personally care if Kagan is gay, what I care about is that she has almost no record which will indicate how she’ll vote and much of what we do know, isn’t good.

What I do care about is that Obama’s word is not “good enough” for me, nor should it be good enough for anyone, given his record on civil liberties and his constant actions against liberal interests.

If the left had any balls at all, it would attempt to sink Kagan, insisting on the left wing equivalent, ideologically, or Scalia or Roberts—someone whose legal philosophy we don’t have to guess about.  But it’s true that Kagan isn’t like Miers, because the left isn’t like the right—its leaders have no guts.

Which is to say, all hail Justice Kagan.

Aka: a pig in a poke.

The Lack of Netroots Enthusiasm for Progressive Candidates in Primaries

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On May 6, 2010

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An acquaintance noted that compared to prior years, Netroots progressives have not gotten behind progressive challengers in primaries this year with any enthusiasm.

All I can say is that while various individuals may sound like good candidates, unfortunately, the netroots is depressed overall about the utility of primaries and elections, and that part which isn’t depressed is busy pushing Obama’s initiatives and defending Obama, not pushing candidates the Obama machine isn’t behind.

This is unfair to the good candidates, no doubt, but it is understandable.  Also, for most of a year, everyone’s energy was completely sucked into the never-ending health care debate, and many progressives regarded how it ended up as a demoralizing defeat, a defeat made worse by the fact that it was a betrayal from what many thought was “our own side”.

There’s a massive trust issue.  Many readers have a hard time believing in candidates any more, especially after the way so many “progressive heroes” have repeatedly caved in the last year.

Again, that’s probably unfair, but when even Dennis Kucinich can’t be counted on to stand up and vote the way he said he would, against a bill that he himself says is bad, and when every person who said “no public option means a vote against”, caved, well, sorry, there’s an enthusiasm gap on our side.

Betrayal has consequences. New candidates may not have betrayed anyone, but the people whose footsteps they’re following in did.

I am unsure how to fix this.  It seems virtually no one in DC on the Progressive side can be trusted to stand up to heavy pressure (or perhaps to mean what they say, not sure which it was).  Don’t know why, but it is the case.

And, sadly, it has consequences for good people.

Some folks are trying to fix this by saying “look at all the good things Obama and this Congress have done” or “really, the Health Care bill is still better than nothing”, but the hard core progressives, who are a significant chunk the people who give, who volunteer and who are willing to be massively enthusiastic, well, they aren’t buying it.  They were promised better on any number of issues (bank reform, healthcare, gay rights, abortion, etc…) and having been repeatedly betrayed (as they see it, and I agree) they find it hard to care.

So, honestly, if people want the progressive money and enthusiasm machine revved back up, I suggest they find a way to get some high profile wins, or they go down really visibly swinging on some issue in a way that doesn’t look like Kabuki.

A pity, as I say, but there it is.  Failure to come through on promises made makes people not trust future promises, even by new candidates.

Some might say that this is rational, others might say that it constitutes giving up and as such is the wrong thing to do.

But if progressive candidates—if progressive politicians in DC or who want to go to DC, want money and volunteer time and enthusiasm it’s really up to them to do something which makes netroots progressives believe in them again.

What is Obama?

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On May 4, 2010

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  • 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…

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