At this point, I am about 99% sure that more than half my progressive blogging cohorts would absolutely insist, if they had lived through the 1930’s, that Franklin Delano Roosevelt is nothing by a center-right centrist who has nothing but contempt for the real Left. I am certain that they would say the same of every Democratic president since FDR. Maybe there is some secret history to this country that I am totally unaware of where Dennis Kucinich-Democrats ran everything and the consensus view of mainstream D’s was that we should have Scandinavian-style economic and social policies.
Now, don’t get me wrong…I’m not picking on Dennis, nor I am suggesting that we shouldn’t pursue policies that are in some areas further to the left than we’ve ever seen in this country. I’d be all for a mildly radical shift to the left. I’d be enthusiastic about it if Barack Obama refused to entrust anyone in government that had anything to do with either the Iraq War or the financial meltdown. But that’s not what Obama ran on, and that’s not how FDR went about solving our problems. That’s not how Lincoln went about solving our problems.
Obama’s agenda is farther to the left than anything we’ve seen since at least Lyndon Johnson, and Congress has never in its history seen a Democratic Party so united in its leftward tilt. It doesn’t matter whether Obama has centrists and moderate Republicans as part of his coalition. What matters is if he can unite (enough of) this country behind a common purpose to get things done.
People really need to stop whining and figure out how they can help.
I have not seen such whining since … well, I dunno when. Now, I’m not 100 % with Obama on all his decisions, but we GOTTA back the guy. HE IS OUR GUY. If he fails, the Dems will not come back for a while. We need to let him run with it. He ran a MASTERFUL campaign, and I am inclined to trust him. Within some limits, of course, …
Some here have used the term “house nigger” for Obama. Some people on this blog. I was and remain APPALLED at this term for Obama. This is a Limbaugh term. We should NOT be using it, especially over the reasonable choice of Hillary for SoS.
McCain lost the election. We won the election. Can’t we give OUR GUY BARACK a little slack, eh?
One, criticism is not lack of support. I just want him to appoint more progressives.
I don’t want to wait till he appoints right wingers to say so. Then it will be too late.
I am not convinced he is our guy.
So many of his people have made statements that they like the hurt progressives and piss progressives off, and that we are all to be given the sista soulja treatment. If you do that you can expect hostility.
Where would we be if McCain had won. I think Obama will get his agenda through Congress, it is his “team” that is in the Oval Office.
What worries me is that Gov’t is planning to rescue/bailout Citibank:
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20081123/ap_on_bi_ge/citigroup;_ylt=AmzOownV1jr02_9eXRze_TqyBhIF
But is refusing to give loans to the Auto Manufactures. A real double standard is Citibank employee’s being asked for wage concessions, limit fringe benefits, give up performance bonus?
The seemingly random decision-making about which entities are or are not considered deserving of a bailout amazes me. Are there any criteria beyond “I play golf with Hank Paulson”?
Of course, I think citigroup already got their handout back when that shitty bankruptcy bill got passed. Now that the world has figured out that the US financial system was made up out of imaginary money that got bought and sold repeatedly, they want another big giveaway? Puh-lease.
As far as the automakers go, they better flying fricking commercial the next time they got to DC to beg for money. And if they need help, why can’t it come in the form of single-payer healthcare, where the employess get some benefit, rather than the corporate picwigs who are already sitting on top of a pile of cash despite their poor business acumen?
WTFU. Who owns the government apparatus?
You think a $700 billion stimulus package puts Obama in the far left…new new deal column? How much of that sum will make it to Joe and Jill?
How do you expect the average Joe to help? This election proves we have no say. Oh sure, Obama asked for our, dollars, time, energy, and suggestions. Keep up the illusion that we matter..This election is all about you”
Pensions have been stolen. Interest rates are near zero and will remain there for at least 3 years. Credit card rates are near 32%
Obama is not in charge and his first priority is to Wall Street who engineered this toxic mess and they’ve seized the printing presses or keyboards at. our.expense.
Things are now out of control spiraling into a great depression. You’ll soon see…the next two months will be shocking and worst thereafter. The brown stuff has hit the fan. A Depression has no cure.
It’s a panic and the banksters (an FDR appellation) are trying to avoid Depression II. We have entered a collapse of confidence phase. Then comes Weiamerica.
Obama was never a progressive. He simply mouthed the words to get our help…while taking his marching orders from unelected men and women:
Steve Clemons has a most unusual scoop
Schummer.
“It’s a little like having a new New Deal, but you have to do it before the Depression. Not after,” Schumer added.
WSJ: Obama Favors Republicans With Scowcroft Ties
The Bush’s tax cuts remains, btw.
And then there are the Clinton re-treads.
Nothing to cheer.
Just exactly what was meant by this in the “Clinton as SoS” comments?
Why would anyone on this blog call Obama a “House Nigger”
Absolutely offensive. I want to see an apology for that one.
I don’t know who said this. I certainly would never use such a term.
But Obama’s actions have caused me to wonder if he has any convictions at all. And I wonder if this was just an end run around the Constitution to allow Bill Clinton to have a third term. With his wife as SoS and himself as “adviser”, I feel he has set himself up as Cheney to Obama’s Bush.
idredit said it in the “Clinton as an SoS” diary and comments.
That’s why I asked idredit what he meant by it, and why he would say such a thing. This is not RedState, after all. We have standards, and not the Weakly Standard.
That’s right: why don’t you lower our “standards” by degrading the discussion with bogus PC complaints.
I’ve had it with liberals who get bamboozled election after election, without even being able to understand what happened after the fact. I’m going to watch a TV program about a real American—Jack Bauer.
Are you in agreement with that characterization?
A term like H.N. – House Nigger – is a very powerful term. If you agree with it, you have no place in a progressive blog.
Come on, the term “nigger” isn’t taboo any more, since blacks (or should I say “African Americans”) appropriated it, in the way gays appropriated “queer”.
If blacks can use the term “nigger”, I don’t see why progressives can’t, when they are using it to make a point. Obviously, if a racist uses the term, he should be condemned for doing that.
By saying what kind of people and what kind of language “has a place in a progressive blog”, you are showing your true colors. Being liberal, progressives give each other as much leeway as they can. Instead of doing that, you prefer to suppress speech.
Just what do you think you’re missing by not using this slur? What kind of itch are you dying to scratch?
Yeah, it’s completely unacceptable, and you can spare me your “free speech” tripe. This is about respect and decency. If you can’t be bothered to make your points and criticisms without the crutch of using racial slurs, then it is you who are showing your true colors.
Calm down. I have no (racist) itch to scratch. I was just defending idredit for a post that dataguy had blown way out of proportion.
If you can’t keep up with the posts that are made at this blog, the polite thing to do is to keep quiet.
Try to be more condescending, please!
I want to see the world record broken.
Sorry. I’m doing the best that I can.
What is your point? Whose side are you on?
The meme that seems to be developing here at Booman Tribune is that anyone who criticizes Obama from the left must be a racist.
Can you keep your eyes on the ball, please, as opposed to random distractions?
Bullshit. The “meme” is that calling Obama a house n*** is unwarranted abuse.
If you look around on this very site on this very day you will find I’m ready to criticize Obama.
You do give one very good piece of advice: to ignore random distractions.
Acknowledged, over and out.
I discuss the criticism. I am not so critical as some of you.
But I simply cannot understand why someone would say as irdedit did that “Obama is a H.N.”
That is unacceptable. An apology is needed.
We need to retain our balance, and not look like morons.
I quite clearly responded to what you had to say. And if YOU can’t quite make an argument without resorting to insults and idiotic, thinly racist tripe, then it’s you that should be quiet. There are plenty of places I can go to see that type of gutter language bandied about; here ought not be one of them.
And though dataguy may not be your favorite person, he’s got some great advice: We need to retain our balance, and not look like morons.
I’d only add that we should not act like morons, either.
To answer your question, I think that Clarence Thomas and Condoleezza Rice are “house niggers”, but I don’t think that by any stretch of the imagination Obama can be considered to be one, if for no other reason than that he was not raised in a black American family.
Which is not to say that it is completely unacceptable to accuse Obama of being that for rhetorical purposes.
Calling Obama a “house nigger” is unacceptable. Sorry. That’s crap from RedState or Limbaugh. It’s unacceptable, and only countenanced by assholes.
Well, at least you didn’t say “completely unacceptable”. I am willing to split the difference.
fine with me
Thanks for the clarification. I don’t know idredit’s background. No white person should use that term. I would use the term “front man”, but that does not have the racial overtones nor the the opprobrium. A front man is not necessarily despicable. He is merely not an independent actor. The H.N. term connotes dishonor and cowardice. Much different.
“Obama is not in charge ….”
No, actually George Bush is in charge. Obama isn’t in charge until January 20th, 2009. Do you think you could hold off til then? Or, if you’re really feeling like a mensch, maybe you could give him a week or two to solve all this country’s problems?
his right hand before tearing him to shreds.
There are people who believe that calling him a “house nigger” is perfectly acceptable. Astonishing.
People on a leftist blog. Can you believe that?
People who actually discuss whether or not the term “house nigger” is an acceptable term.
It shocks me, truly. Appalls me as well.
Obama’s agenda is farther to the left than anything we’ve seen since at least Lyndon Johnson
Give me a break. Nixon instituted wage and price controls! He also created the EPA, and wanted to introduce a negative income tax.
There is no question that Obama is to the right of Nixon, and I’m not even sure if he’s to the left of Carter.
I think Greenwald is being a bit disingenuous. No one was expecting Obama to pack his administration full of progressives. Obama promised change, and putting a Clinton into a prominent cabinet post is a brazen reneging on that promise. It is showing a Clintonite contempt for the electorate: and that has nothing to do with whether one is left, right, or centrist.
Furthermore, when it comes to both foreign policy and economic policy, Obama is appointing people who were wrong on the two most significant issues: whether we should invade Iraq, and whether we should deregulate. Again, that has nothing to do with whether you are a progressive or a “centrist”. It is an issue of competence, of whether an official has a good understanding of the real world.
Greenwald approvingly quotes Digby:
But that is a complete misrepresentation on Obama’s part. Here Obama is being “pragmatic” in the way the Village views what is “pragmatic”. Recklessly projecting US military power across the globe without concern for blowback is pragmatic; letting markets “regulate themselves” is pragmatic.
In actuality, both these positions express not pragmatism, but deeply flawed ideologies: US imperialism—the idea that the US shines light on the whole world and can do no evil—in the one case, neoliberalism or what George Soros calls “market fundamentalism” in the other.
It’s all about Eugene Debbs, biotches!
[/snark]
If Obama can unite the centrists and what’s left of the moderate GOP to assist his agenda, then you are right.
But what I fear is that the agenda itself will become co-opted by those who have their own designs, or increasingly compromised for the sake of political expediency, or both.
And my fears would be much lessened if Obama hadn’t spent the last two years doing exactly that.
Obama had to do what he had to do to get elected in order to execute his agenda, as you have said earlier. He will continue to do what he has to do in order to maintain the political capital to enact it, as you say now.
Should he delay his agenda or even chart a new one even before he is sworn in, why that’s just the reality of the situation.
And the reality is we’ll continue to support him even as he continues to disappoint us, because the GOP alternative is worse. I can accept that.
But Greenwald is right. There are no consequences for Obama to sacrifice whatever part of his agenda that he needs to in order to do “what he has to do”. Not from the left.
The question is only how much he will sacrifice.
I don’t agree. Roosevelt appointed people who were identifiably progressive to his Administration. Henry Wallace, Harrold Ickes, Francis Bittle, Frank Murphy. There were several.
Granted Communists and Anarchists wouldn’t be happy with this bunch but the progressives would be happy if such progressives were appointed.
NYT:
Daley is rich and so are all his confederates. So is Bill Clinton. The Bush tax cuts will never be repealed. However, I do predict that Social Security taxes will be raised and benefits cut because of the Depression caused by the collapse of the auto companies.
be rich.
But the decision was Obama’s.
I can’t say I’m entirely surprised by all the liberal outrage about Obama’s staffing choices, but I agree it’s a little bit tiresome.
But there’s a whole spectrum from the quasi-PUMA end of the spectrum (Corrente), then I’d say Greenwald then Digby and then you get to the more pragmatic mainstream that hasn’t been really pissed at Obama since the FISA thing.
There seems to be several storms approaching us in the very near future; economic, cultural, military and now, political, even among Obama’s supporters. For balance, methinks, he better start selecting some progressives for his cabinet or risk losing the support of those left of center.
Once the mass suffering hits a certain velocity, things will really start rocking. Perhaps, then, it will be time to consider a new political organization, one that represents the interests of common, ordinary Americans.
I agree, cut Obama some slack. But, judging from his appointments so far, he needs close watching. I think the nation is on the edge of massive changes especially when the big meltdown hits both our financial and industrial bases. A formula for change is just a little too vague and unspecific at this point.
I certainly don’t expect the establishment whose blind addiction to money got us into this mess to be the ones who lead us to the promised land of prosperity.
I agree that the Obama administration is the most “liberal” in quite a while. But this simply masks how far righ the country has drifted since Reagan.
I did a lot to support the Obama campaign, but I never for a second believed that I would get a real leftist. I think some McCain supporters believed their own propaganda, but that’s another issue altogether.
Here is a list of a basic, minimalist progressive agenda: you will note I’m not even coming close to nationalizing industries and establishing a committee of Soviets to run the new worker’s state.
Single payer health insurance, cutting the military budget in half, reorienting U.S. foreign policy away from domination by the military industrial complex, limiting CEO compensation, repealing sections of Taft Hartley, ending the prison industrial complex, establishing a national, high speed rail network run as a public service, 2 trillion invested in infrastructure (paid for by reorienting away from the military industrial complex)…and I’m only getting warmed up.
What chance is there that one single item on my agenda will get considered? I think the chances can be precisely quantified.
To be honest, I think FDR was a moderate. Liberals used to be recognized and viewed as centrists. Instead, moderate conservatives are now called centrists and wackos are called conservatives. Liberal, pragmatic centrists are labeled as “left wing”.
I’ll continue supporting Obama when and where I can only because I will always support the center against the wacko right.
Citizen Rat, I am with you all the way and if you want to know what FDR thought about the moneyed class of his day, then his acceptance speech of the presidential nomination (Philadelphia, 1936) is must reading. It can be found on Google, under FDR Accepts Democrat Presidential Nomination, 1936. I am still working on how to get the URL in a Booman post.
Here’s the link to that magnificent speech by FDR in 1936 at Philadelphia. Boy, does he hit hard, and from left of center.
http://www2.austincc.edu/lpatrick/his2341/fdr36acceptancespeech.htm
That’s a great and true speech. And then he appointed Republicans to be his Secretary of War and Navy and let Hoover run roughshod for his entire 11 years in office.
It isn’t the appointment of republicans, which has got us mad. It is the fact that he has appointed no progressives, and you can’t claim that Roosevelt appointed none, because I have already shown this to be false.
Besides a republican in that day and age wasn’t necessarily a conservative.
There was a very progressive wing of the republican party led by Lafollette and they tended to become New Dealers.
He has appointed progressives. He just hasn’t appointed one to be Sec. of State or Treasury.
Daschle and Richardson are not what I would call progressives exactly, but Daschle’s recent work on health care is a good start and Richardson was an early supporter of ‘no residual forces in Iraq’.
We still need to see the appointments at HUD, Labor, Education, Veteran’s Affairs, EPA, Interior, etc. It’s a little early to conclude that there will be no progressives in the cabinet. And they’re being hired at lower levels, especially in the communications shop.
both subscribed to neoliberal doctrine on the economy however. Daschle being a promoter of the bankruptcy bill. He comes from a credit card state, and his wife was a lobbyist for city bank, and Richarson is a well known advocate of Nafta.
AMEN. I am not crazy about some appointments, but I want to give Obama a little leeway as we get going. I think he will be the best president we’ve had in my lifetime so far, which isn’t to say I’m expecting much! 😉 But I also know if he is to be successful, he’ll be walking near the middle of the road.
But other presidents were taking us over various cliffs. I do not believe Obama will even let us see over the edge.
Btw – I’m reading a biography of FDR right now (it’s supposedly the best single-volume bio out there) and Booman, you called it. The progressives didn’t initially think he was one of them, especially during the transition period. I’m not up to the first 100 days yet but during the transition FDR spoke with centrist-conversative sentiments, even while formulating the start of what would eventually become a very progressive plan.
He also initially thought the economy could be corrected with small government moves. He was wrong. It was going to take big moves, as he eventually found out.
Booman,
I couldn’t agree with you more. I’m a dyed-in-the wool liberal, whose heart was broken when Robert Kennedy was assassinated, who protested in Chicago in 1968, and who worked her butt off for Senator McGovern’s campaign in 1971 and 1972. The past 25+ years have been painful, and I know, as well as I can know anything, that Obama is the person who will bring this country around. While campaigning for him, I met people who have known him for a long time, and the stories they told were of a man with qualities we are not likely to see in a president for another couple of generations. Those of us who are whining (or whingeing, which sometimes seems so much more appropriate) need to stop, and take a good hard look at where we’ve been for so long. And there are many, many ways that they can help. If they truly want to contribute more than the whingeing, they will know how to find them.