Must Reads

Elspeth Reeve: Sarah Palin's Incredible Shrinking Act Is Almost Complete

David Sirota: Why the anti-Obama tax spin?

Andrew Sullivan: Romney's Got Nothing

Matt Negrin & Jonathan Karl: The Bain Ad That Romney Should Fear the Most

Ron Sherer: Mitt Romney taxes show 'very high' charitable giving tied to Mormon church

Jonathan Capehart: Romney’s current Bain woes were planted two months ago

Eclectablog: OMG!!! Obama disses ALL businesses owners everywhere ever!!! EVERYBODY FREAK OUT!!!

Paul Waldman: Why "Knowing How the Economy Works" Is Not Enough

Kathleen Parker: Get Smart, America

Bill Moyers & Michael Winship: The NRA Has America Living Under the Gun

Must Reads

Michael Winship: The Right Manipulates Muslims – and Boy Scouts

Media Matters: Conservative Media Oblivious to Major Increase in Border Enforcement

Digby: Confederate Rump Strategy

driftglass: Tough Break for Handjob

Armadillo Joe recommends...

Capt. Fogg: Muslims Hate Dogs

Anthony Bourdain: The Original (Goodbye Splendor)

Chez Pazienza: Laugh'a While You Can, Monkeyboy

Ian Welsh: Netroots Schizo

Justin Elliott: FBI Releases 400-page Howard Zinn File

David Sirota: The Deception of Real-World "Inception"

Jon Walker: Conservatives Promote Feasting on a Dairy Cow

Taegen Goddard's Political Dictionary: Snollygoster

And an oldie but a goodie...

Steve Gilliard: About Yesterday

No Nuance

I've been doing a little more reading than writing on the blogs today, when my internet and cable wasn't out (DAMN YOU, TIME WARNER!!!) and it's pretty interesting, the blackness and whiteness of it all. No, I'm not comparing President Obama to the Senate. I'm reading the left ripping their hair out over the fact that they were duped by Mr. Hope and Change and this Afghanistan decision proves it. I'm reading the right throwing their feces at the arrogance of the Manchurian Candidate's timeline that includes a withdrawal date, because the enemy will just wait us out, even though since they live there, there can always wait us out.

Nuance has never been a forte of the far left or right. I had a conversation with someone regarding the President's speech and ultimate decision after almost three months of planning and thought. I expressed how I didn't like the idea, hated that we'd have to stay, how we've done nothing substantial there for eight years but that leaving now would be like the early 80s all over again, when we funded the Mujahideen in Afghanistan in their fight against the Soviets and then cut and ran when we needed to help them rebuild. I thought that a timetable for withdrawal was a good thing, making sure Pakistan's nukes didn't fall into Taliban hands was a good thing, how it's really no surprise as Obama has characterized Afghanistan as "the good war" as opposed to Iraq and how he voiced his opinion while still Senator to expand there.

And the response I got?: "So you're for the expansion of the war then?"

Fuck! No, I'm not for war expansion, who is? But what other choice does President Obama have? Are others privy to information behind closed doors at the White House that I am not, and can make a better decision than the President? I wasn't happy about President Bush's escalation when he decided to surge troops into Iraq either, but it seems to have worked out there and I was wrong. Obviously they know more than we do. And yet I see the left calling Obama a sellout and caving to the Pentagon. The same Obama that rejected every initial plan from the Joint Chiefs and told them to come back when they included an exit strategy.

Were they not paying attention when the President, then Senator, said he would escalate in Afghanistan during his campaign run? Or were they "duped" then too? And anyone supporting the President on this most difficult of decisions is now an Obama apologist, or has drank the Obama Kool-Aid. That seems to me to be the old Bush, "you're either with us or against us" black and white ideology. Has anyone been happy with the policies of a politician they voted for 100% of the time? Can't it be possible to still support a president for the things he's doing right and take a "wait and see" attitude with things on which you disagree?

I read things like, "This is not what I voted for" or "He's supposed to please his base." Well he's not supposed to please anyone, he's supposed to do what he thinks is right and what's best for the nation. It wasn't his base that won him the nomination, it was the independents. His base, who is now calling him worse than Bush and a sellout, were whining back them about how he was blowing the campaign by not addressing Rev. Wright immediately or letting the "pallin' around with terrorists" fester. And he kept showing us that he was smarter than any of us.

The title of David Sirota's column today made me wince. "How do you ask a man to be the last man to die for a president's political image?" Pretty clever, rephrasing John Kerry's question in front of a Congressional hearing during Vietnam, and in my opinion, pretty shallow to suggest that this decision was made based on Obama's image. But I would submit to Mr. Sirota that the same question could be asked had the President ordered an immediate withdrawal.

Now, if the President backs off on the withdrawal date, whether the situation on the ground dictates it or not, then I believe he may be in trouble. We might then see a one term President and I'm sure that Obama knows this. The real thorn in Obama's side isn't Afghanistan, but slow job recovery and the economic downturn. If those factors don't turn around by mid to late 2011, it might be one and done.

But there is one thing I can believe: this decision from this President was not made lightly. And I believe he made it because he thinks it's the best decision for the country.

Must Reads - UPDATED

Dan Froomkin: Cheney Still Manipulating People -- Now In Public

Bob Cesca: The Public Option is Popular, Moral and Inexpensive, Therefore it Must Die

The Rude Pundit: In the Realm of "You Have to Be Fucking Kidding": Obama's School Speech Makes Conservatives Cry

Michael Winship: Coming Soon to a Democracy Near You...

David Sirota: Progressives Pay the Price for Confusing a Party With a Movement

John Nichols: Give States an Option to Lead on Single-Payer

Richard Wolf: White House to reveal visitor names

Megan Tady: Will ‘Astroturf’ Groups Block Net Neutrality Reform?

MUST SEE: Anthony Weiner Blasts Critics of Health Reform VIDEO (You can catch a ton of other Weiner videos as well.)

Armadillo Joe recommends...

James Moore: The Lies of Texas Are Upon You

ADDING...

Davenoon, LGM: While we're at it, let's privatize the fire department, too

US Dept. of Labor: The History of Labor Day

Must Reads

Joan Walsh: "Beer summit" won't stop racists like Limbaugh

d r i f t g l a s s: When Harry Met Crazy

Glenn Greenwald: More detainee victories and what a majority of Congress tried to do and GE's silencing of Olbermann and MSNBC's sleazy use of Richard Wolffe

Bob Herbert: Anger Has Its Place

Danny Schechter: AS OBAMA’S SUPPORT ERODES, THE RIGHT IS RESURGENT - Will Progressives Respond To The Attempt to Overthrow The President?

David Sirota: Health Care Tyranny by 13 Obstructionists

Gore Vidal: America the Great ... Police State

Frank Rich: Small Beer, Big Hangover

Must Reads

The Rude Pundit: Torture and the Permanent Republican Majority & A Long Quote to End Torture Week 2009 (Probably Just the First of Many)

Mark Seibel and Warren P. Strobel: CIA Official: No Proof Harsh Techniques Stopped Terror Attacks

Sarfraz Manzoor: How To Tell I'm Not a Terrorist

Armadillo Joe recommends...
James Scurlock: The TARP Queen - Why we should all bow before Elizabeth Warren (even if you've never heard of her).

David Sirota: Don't Pooh-Pooh Populism

Mahablog: Devolved

Digby: Nobody Said This Was Going To be Pretty

Double Standard

by Armadillo Joe

That uneasy feeling of a double standard I referenced in my previous couple of posts about the sanctity of the budget-busting contracts in the AIG bailout situation as opposed to the flippant expendability of the UAW contracts in the GM/Chrysler bailout situation was given voice last night by none other than David Sirota on The Rachel Maddow Show:

Because the guy Obama decided to put in charge of the auto bailout is a real-life Gordon Gekko:

President Obama appointed [Steve Rattner] to head the White House team now overseeing the auto industry (and don't say you weren't warned).

As the Wall Street Journal reports, Rattner's strategy is to use the government's leverage to try to specifically crush auto workers and force them to accept even more contract concessions than they've already agreed to:

DETROIT -- President Barack Obama's recovery plan for General Motors Corp. and Chrysler LLC appears to take aim at union retirees, a usually reliable Democratic constituency. After studying the plight of the companies, the president's auto task force concluded GM and Chrysler's survival is dependent on greater concessions from the United Auto Workers union.

[...]

when you put Gordon Gekko in control of government policy overseeing an industry, you are inevitably going to get a policy that assumes workers are the big problem. If you had a different kind of team, you may have a policy that says, for instance, we have to create a robust universal health care system before throwing retirees off their existing health care.

As I said, the way in which all of this is being handled speaks volumes about the priorities of the Obama Administration. Even if the intent is somehow fundamentally honorable (and I'm not convinced it is), the net result out here in the world outside the Beltway is that this government is simply viewed as more of the same, especially when so many people are being pushed out of their houses by law enforcement personnel while the Wall Street Masters of the Universe who created this mess get to not only keep their jobs, but get bonuses amounting to orders of magnitude more money than most American will ever make in their lifetimes.

Definitely not a government By, Of and For The People.

It's disgusting and the Ruling Class should be more afraid of us.

Must Reads

driftglass: Man Is A Rope

Paul Krugman: Failure to Rise

Mark Morford: Death By Moron

David Sirota: Addicted To Fake Outrage

The Bobblehead Translations: Obama Press Conference, February 9, 2009

Adding...

Elvis Dingeldein: Freedom From Fear

Pitchforks & Torches (UPDATED)

guest posted by Armadillo Joe

I know that Obama has an army of monied interests ranged against him and against the implementation of the ideals of the people who've come to power in his wake and that limits all of their options. I know that everything can't magically change overnight. I know times of epochal change like the one we're living through right now are usually frought with violent and bloody back and forth before the new age becomes evident and the old guard fades into oblivion or dies off. I know all of that, but depending on which side of an historical conflict a society plants its flag and deploys its resources, the resolution of the conflict can and usually does mean the end of one civilization's hegemony for ascension of its opposition.

OK, time to stop being vague.

The history of human conflict has always been about the clash between the haves and the have-nots. This conflict is scalable and operates at every level from the micro to the macro from interpersonal to international from the beginning of time to right now, from two cave-men duking it out fireside over a leg of mammoth meat or a beautiful, curvy cave-girl all the way up to our invasion of Iraq to sieze control of their oil fields. In recent centuries, we've come to describe this conflict in terms of left and right, liberal and conservative, blue and red or what have you. But the conflict is always the same. It is always between those who want to restrict citizenship (i.e. - power and wealth, meaning agency over one's own fortunes) and those who want to expand citizenship to the masses (i.e. - "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all Men are created equal...", itself imperfect, or "From each according to his ability, to each according to his need").

And right now, I think Obama and company's fetishization of bi-partisanship puts him on the wrong side of history.

The last eight years have been the culmination of a decades-long program of willful destruction of the mechanisms of equality by the wealthy ruling class of this country. From 1776 forward, they were never really on board with that whole "democracy" thing anyway and only tolerated it to the extent that it was good for their personal fortunes. In flush times, the more prosperous the non-rich became, the more the ruling-class saw their power erode because -- unlike wealth, which can expand for the benefit of all people in a society -- the question of who wields power in any society is truly a zero-sum proposition: winning means someone else has to lose, because we can't all have everything we want all the time.

By the time ruling class' on-again/off-again program for total domination of the American economy had again failed more spectacularly than ever seen before in the 1930's, their power was probably at its lowest point in human history. That is why FDR was so often called a traitor to his class, because he could see the grand sweep of history and knew his breed were not unlike dinosaurs. Ever-expanding material wealth and the power it accrues cannot be limited to the priviledged few forever, just ask the Romanoffs. Afterall, royalty is just wealth so old nobody remembers the crimes that built the fortune.

But FDR's correcting of the societal tally sheet couldn't be allowed to stand by the wealthy families who had to surrender power, fancying themselves as they did as a kind of unaccountable American royalty (again, bad plan - just ask the Romanoffs). If FDR's New Deal hadn't been responsible for the widespread middle-class prosperity that followed our victory in World War 2, we might have seen a return to a kind of corporate feudalism much, much sooner. Afterall, the ruling class did try to oust Roosevelt-the-Traitor in a coup, including 43's grandpappy (he was never punished, obviously). So, instead of a swift and merciless overthrowing of the lefties, our country's ruling class had to take their time. Decades, in fact. Through Nixon's Southern Strategy and Saint Ronnie of the Ray-Gun's "Revolution" and the impeachment of a popular president for a blowjob and the theft of an election (or two) and, most of all, the selling-off of America's vast resources -- natural, industrial, human -- have been the preferred modes, means and methods of buoying the wealth at the top end while eroding the buying power of everyone else.

It almost completely worked. They were almost done. And then the bottom fell out of their plans this last September, before they could snatch another election.

They had to do something, and fast, before anyone could figure out what was happening.

From day one, the TARP was obviously a massive, last-ditch smash-and-grab for all the shit that hadn't already been gutted from Treasury (part of that "starving the public sphere for the sake of the private" thing I wrote about yesterday) and I said so at the time on my old blog:

The bailout, which is SOOOO last week I know, is (as Mr. Sideshow wrote a couple of weeks ago), long before Hank "The Donald Rumsfeld of Economics" Paulson's "Give-Me-All-The-Money-And-Don't-Fucking-Ask-Me-Any-Questions-Or-The-Economy-Gets-It" three-page plan was scuttled in The House - the People's Chamber - by the "Tru-Believers" in the Rethugli-bot coalition (before being rescued by The Senate - The Plutocrat's Chamber) because - weaned on the poison milk of the Reagan Revolution as they are - they never understood that all that free-market rhetoric was just so much malarky spread by the Ruling Class to get their signature pet policies package-dealt with all those the Culture War rostrums that get the shrieking wingnut brigades nice and agitated for the end result of election victories that translate via Abramoff and Delay and the like into more money in the pockets of the Monied Class.

Now, Obama's Money Boy -- Tim Geithner -- and all the other "serious" people who got us into this mess in the first place but somehow merited a job in the new administration anyway (bi-partisanship, I guess) have decided to go ahead and give away the rest of the money anyway with no additional strings or oversight, because why would we want to demand accountability from the Wall Street Masters of the Universe who got filthy, stinking rich putting the rest of us in this mess in the first place?

From the New York Times online:

The new financial industry rescue plan, to be outlined in broad terms on Monday in a speech by the Treasury secretary, Timothy F. Geithner, will not require banks to increase their lending. That is despite criticism that institutions that already received money from the Troubled Asset Relief Program, or TARP, either hoarded it or used the funds to acquire other banks.

The incentives to investors could be in the form of commitments to absorb some of the losses from any assets they purchase, should their values continue to decline. The goal is to relieve the banks of their worst assets so that private investors might then provide more capital.

And I agree with David Sirota's assessment of that cozy arrangement:

...in a nutshell, banks get more taxpayer cash, but taxpayers will not force the banks to lend more, nor will taxpayers have the leverage to throw out the economy-destroying management of the banks that we now own. Instead, our money will be used to ensure that huge private investors that put money into those banks don't lose any money on their risk.

[...]

Taxpayer money is being handed over to the Manhattan millionaires who created this crisis, and we get absolutely nothing in return - not even the illusion of anything, really.

[...]

They've turned this moment of political change and economic meltdown into an opportunity to distill kleptocracy into its most pure form.

I will make this prediction: No one responsible for this mess will every suffer any punishment. Ever.

Now prove me wrong.

Just like I'd like to be proved wrong about punishment for the lies about WMD in Iraq, Justice Department corruption and torture. I won't hold my breath.

UPDATE (2/8/09 12:30pm):

In the comments, Michael says:

I think you have seriously missed here. Obama cannot simultaneously be the good guy you imply in your first paragraph, and then do all the things you say in the rest of the article. It's time to face the music: the reason the administration is filled with the thugs who ruined things and continue to do so is because they are the people Obama supports and hires. Blaming bipartisanship is bullshit. He had choices, and he made them. He's not a good guy; he's one of them. It's bait and switch, yet again.

And I take his critique to heart. He's right, Obama cannot be both the crusader for good in the first paragraph and the typically-corrupt Washington politician in the remainder at the same time.

My writing was unclear.

Now, I have been called out before for making a claim just like Michael's ("Meet the new boss, same as the old boss") -- by the proprietor of this website, as a matter of fact -- back over at my old place, so I am not unfamiliar with feeling like Obama could prove to be part of the same hypocrisy. With that said, though, I want to clarify my train of thought in building the above post.

I believe Obama is fundamentally a good man, well-intentioned with the sort of strong moral compass that grows from seeing real human suffering up close and personal (something most of our monied class has no idea about). I also believe that Obama is a wily politician with a finely-tuned social radar from growing up never fully belonging to any one social group (being mixed-race when America was ripping itself apart over racial issues) and the same chameleon-like ease of movement one learns when moving up through the Ivy Leagues and on into the corridors of power from the lowest of the lower classes in this country. Bill Clinton, going from poor, fatherless Arkansas white-trash to President of the United States, had the same skill-set for many of the same reasons.

In many ways, Obama's background makes him the anti-Nixon. Nixon also grew up poor, but his class-consciousness didn't broaden his horizons and open his heart to human suffering, instead it rotted his soul, made him bitter about his upbringing and ultimately gave this nation the myriad petty and high crimes of his administration, derived as they were from the paranoia of a fundamentally sick, wicked man, surrounded by cronies equally twisted.

Obama sees the precipice this nation has either gone over or is about to, I feel certain, but I fear his inclusion of so many of the guilty parties in the effort to fix our condition comes not from corruption as much from naivete, trust and hopefulness. But it may be too late. The glorification of greed and acquisitiveness in the English-speaking world since Saints Maggie and Ronnie clawed their way into power three decades ago means that now "the lack of scruples in America and Britain has gone beyond the tipping point, and is going to exact high societal costs. The parasites are eating the host." (H/T C&L)

I am not confident that Obama can do much about our problems without some widespread suffering pulling down the forces that got us here, and those forces have money and the instruments of governmental power to protect them. We need us some good old-fashioned, people-powered populist politics to force out the kind of comfortable corruption that has become the norm in Washington D.C., which Obama must tolerate to get anything done. I think he is very much the outsider still. It remains to be seen whether or not he'll be frozen out by the permanent social classes of Washington the way "Billary" was 15 years ago. The way the Senate bill went down this week at the hands of a few squishy-centrists is but a small window into the smug self-righteousness that is the true heart of the "bi-partisanship" he fetishizes (along with the rest of the D.C. Villagers) and I hope the ugliness of what happened in the Plutocrats' Chamber will be a lesson to him and his people about what actual bi-partisanship actually means.

That's what I meant by pitchforks and torches in the title. I believe he can lead us out of this morass, but we the people must make him do it, even as our ruling classes scream and howl at the injustice of it all. Frank Rich writes about this exact topic today.

Obama can lead us, if we call him to it.

Must Reads

Paul Krugman: Bigger Than Bush

Glenn Greenwald: More oddities in the U.S. "debate" over Israel/Gaza

David Sirota: FDR prolonged the Great Depression? Really?

Christopher Cooper: Go Upright And Vital And Speak The Rude Truth In All Ways

Rude Pundit: End of the Year Haiku, Part 2 (Rude Readers Get Poetical) where a submission by yours truly was included. A shameless plug, I know, but something of which I'm proud.

On Glenn Greenwald's Post of 11/23

On his Salon blog today, Greenwald wrote about the disappointment progressives are feeling with the Obama appointments so far. Give it a looksee.

For the most part, I agree with Greenwald. Obama never presented himself as a Progressive, and according to Greenwald, although Markos Moulitsas suggested that "progressives refrain from endorsing or supporting any of the Democratic candidates unless they work for that support, make promises and concessions important to the progressive agenda," progressives ignored that advice and just assumed that Obama was on our side because he is the antithesis of the Bush Administration.

But here's the thing. If you wanted a true progressive candidate, Dennis Kucinich was your man. Am I wrong on this? But Kucinich couldn't raise two nickels to rub together. I am on the Kuchinich list and he had a fundraising plan. To raise $50 million, he sent out a campaign message asking one million people to donate $50. I thought this was a great plan. Surely, there are many more than a million progressives in the country - $50 million should be easy. I sent him $50.00... and then never heard a word about it. There was no fundraising thermostat, no talk about it during his few appearances with the mainstream media. Nothing. Kucinich never got the support of the progressives, at least not monetarily.

So the liberals and progressives who thought that in Barack Obama they were going to get a popular Dennis Kucinich, they were just fooling themselves. Not to say that Obama doesn't have any liberal tendencies. And this is where I disagree with Glenn.

"...Barack Obama is a centrist, establishment politician. That is what he has been since he's been in the Senate, and more importantly, it's what he made clear -- both explicitly and through his actions -- that he intended to be as President."

While it may be true that Obama didn't let the "left" dictate his moves as McCain let the religious conservative wing call all the shots (as qualified by his decision making processes), I don't believe that Obama is a centrist. He may lean towards the center, but I truly believe it's from the left side. And I completely disagree with David Sirota's following statement:

"...we live in a culture that now organizes around celebrity - and Obama knew it, and knew that lots of left organizations aren't really ideological - they are, if anything, organized around the Democratic Party and Bush hatred. So he basically figured out that if he could become a celebrity - and a Democratic Bush-hating one - he could swallow up a huge part of the 'progressive infrastructure' and organize it around him..."

To come to the conclusion that Obama's campaign strategy was to be the celebrity candidate and dismiss basically every speech he gave, every policy plan he articulated, is so cynical that it's too much for me to accept. Is Sirota saying that McCain's "celebrity" ads were more grounded in truth than previously thought? I find that ridiculous.

There will always be someone who is disappointed in decisions that the future administration will make, but when has any administration ever been able to please everyone? And you'd think after reading the blogs these past three weeks since the election and listening to the pundits, that it's all over for Obama even before he takes office.

Now maybe I'm being naive, and Greenwald and Sirota are far more intelligent than I'll ever be, but as I was saying to a friend of mine during one of our many glass half full/half empty debates, it's going to take a long time to reverse the destruction left in the wake of Hurricane W. And for the pendulum to swing back to the left, it's going to have to travel through the center. Once the moderates see that leaning to the left may actually work, they may be more inclined in that direction as well. It's the boiling frog theory. If we slowly move back to the left with a ride through the center along the way, a lot more may be accomplished. But if we try an Evel Knievel rocket launch toward the left, we might just fall into Snake River Canyon.