to write anything coherent or thoughtful or informative today.
I will say Obama is a failure as a President.
He failed to provide real reform to prevent the mortgage fraud and illegal foreclosures the banks are pulling off as we speak.
He relied on the the worst possible advice of Wall Street Whores like Geithner and Summers and Bernanke.
He caved into the Republicans time and time again when he held the upper hand by pushing his naive (or worse, knowing) message of bipartisanship that simply didn’t exist.
He’s caving more now to that rancid excuse for a party, the GOP, since his failures led to massive losses in the midterm elections.
Our economy is not recovering; it is barely keeping its head above water by standing on the heads of people who are underwater and drowning.
Corporate profits are up and so is the unemployment rate. What does that tell you?
The wars continue, and continue, and continue …
Social Security is being prepared to be gutted by the latest “tax deal” and some people defend that as a valid compromise.
The physical infrastructure of our country is decaying rapidly and will soon rival that of Cuba yet no one is doing anything about it.
Bright intelligent college graduates in the US can’t find jobs.
I spent time today chatting with a smart, skilled and very nice lady in India to fix a software problem with my security suite. I bet she’s getting paid very little for what she does. I bet there are people who are capable of doing her job here in America, and will be doing it just as soon as the unemployment rate drives salaries for such jobs low enough to be comparable to those in India.
I believe the future of my children is at grave risk from the policies of the Republicans and the Democrats both, and with the exception of the Progressive Caucus in Congress, no one gives a damn.
I think we will see a Putin style authoritarian leader (or worse) in our lifetime.
I think I will die of health complications at an earlier age than my parents because in 20 years or less the “health reform” passed last year (bad as it was) will be eliminated and I won’t be able to afford the care I need to survive.
I believe a lot of other people will be in the same boat as me.
I’m burned out on trying to get otherwise intelligent people to accept that the growing crisis of climate change is real despite the mountains of evidence and data which supports it.
I think its a bad omen when Glenn Beck and Sarah Palin, two of the stupidest, most ignorant demagogues I have ever seen in my lifetime, can get TV programs to push their lies and propaganda despite bad ratings and advertiser reluctance to sponsor their “programs” (except racketeers like Goldline).
I’m ready to primary Obama, but then I ask myself, who do I trust among the likely Democratic contenders who would actually stand up for the poor and middle classes against the oiligarchs (yes that’s intentional) the banksters and all the other corporate interests that own our government lock, stock and barrel.
I believe things will get worse, much worse by 2012 and every year thereafter.
Treat this as an open thread.
I will say, amongst all the damaging things the Bush Administration did, the worst might be getting people to believe we have a unitary executive who can wish things into existence. Maybe John Yoo was on to something, because it certainly seems that the President is getting the blame for the distasteful actions of a few Senators.
To wit: didn’t Bush’s tax giveaway involve a tie-breaking vote by Cheney? As in there was no filibuster and it was a 50-50 split?
Not to say that Obama has given his full effort, but still.
I believe that the legislation was introduced in reconciliation, thus no need for cloture (and also the reason that the provisions were not ‘permanent’ and expire now).
And that’s why I lay the need to compromise on the doorstep of the unimaginative Democratic manueverers, and not the President.
It’s kind of funny, but the other day I was discussing jobs with my Republican friend. He’s an engineer who’s graduating this winter (in like one week from this weekend). He hasn’t found a job yet, but provided some insightful words about the economy:
Him: “I feel like employers aren’t hiring because they have no need to. Like, they are doing fine as it is and don’t need more employees to do the jobs. So why would they hire more people?”
Me: “Right, they can meet demand as is. That’s exactly the problem.”
Him: “Right, that’s what I mean.”
I’m not sure if he logically jumps to the next step of “Republicans don’t believe that and they only ever believe the problem is supply of capital” or not, but I tried implying it. I didn’t want to debate politics lol. He’s a reasonable fellow, but sometimes, like most Americans, he just doesn’t think through the motions of why he’s voting Republican other than “they’ll lower my taxes!”
If it makes you feel any better, I still think Obama is not only the most successful but the best president of my lifetime. Since I was born in 1969 and not 1968, this isn’t even a close contest. It’s Obama in a walk against all presidents since LBJ, and he still has a better than even chance to be better than Johnson.
I agree, even if I am extremely frustrated with him now. My daughter had to talk me don yesterday when I was railing that “Obama has to call out republicans for what they are.”
The reality is that a lot got done in the last two years, probably the best that could have been done with the congress we have.
But Obama needs to figure out how to be more effective at selling that conservative policies have failed utterly.
Is he totally untouchable now?
hey blksista!
can I just say i just visited your page, and I love that you like the carolina chocolate drops?
can I also say i have a bunch of original black string band music, the stuff they learned from, and that I can send it to via sendspace? let me know if you’re interested.
someone’s gonna call you a racist.
Naw, I’m not going to call him a racist. In fact, I’m going to say thanks. You have no idea how comical this shit is to Black folks. I can’t wait to read this one at the hairdresser on Saturday. In fact, I’m about to email it around. Oh and I really can’t wait for Chris Rock’s next HBO stand-up. He’s going to have a ball with white liberal despair. I can just just imagine him comically juxtaposing Black folks endurance of American slavery and apartheid and Japanese internment to white liberals jumping off of buildings and sh*t over the public option and tax cuts. Please don’t stop! This is pure theatre for us!
Gee thanks a lot. Laugh all you want.
seems a shitload of black liberals agree with me:
yup, just a bunch of candy-ass white liberals who want the president to fail, and don’t understand what his success means to black people. the nerve of that white John Conyers! the nerve of noted white guy John Lewis!
say, how do those words taste?
What would you wanted Obama to do?
Why didnt the congress vote on this before the elections.
I think you will be surprised at the results.
I’ve read some corny sh*t on liberal blogs, but this has to be by far the corniest (and whitest) sh*t I’ve ever read. I bet you cried yourself to sleep last night–but naked–after ripping up Obama’s campaign poster in a fit of hysteria. It has to be killing Dave Chappelle that he left his show.
i know, steven’s a total racist for having given up on the democrats. who are certainly looking out for everyone, black people, white people, as-long-as-they’re-rich people.
of course if you turn off the whole american Idol worship, you notice that his deals with the Republicans and his policies have left a few million (his own words) unable to afford insurance, lead to social security cuts, hurt public schools, and have not put people (of any color) back to work.
I realize it’s easy to boil everything down to white racism, but for a lot of us who voted for Obama (no matter what our color) we’re seeing our lives get worse, not better. And we’re seeing continuity, not change.
I’d feel the same way if Obama was a white guy. I abandoned Bill Clinton in 1996 for the same fuckery.
Do you have any historial perspective at all? Step outside of your comfortable white liberal shoes for just a moment, and look at this from the perspective of African Americans whose ancestors had to endure slavery and parents had to endure apartheid and NEVER adopted this level of hysteria and despair. When my grandfather couldn’t vote and risked being lynched on a daily basis, he still joined the military during WWII because he wanted to do his part to fight for his country against the Nazis. He was only allowed to be a cook and was regularly called a nigger by white soldiers, but he still served his country in silent dignity. My grandmother cleaned-up after white folks her entire life in silent dignity and supported EVERY white Democratic President. Black folks have loved this country when it didn’t love us back! When we had absolutely no reason to, we voted for every Democrat since we were given the right to vote. Compare that today when white liberals like you who haven’t had to endure a mutha fuckin thing crying yourselves to sleep and threatening some sort of crazy ass white liberal slavery rebellion because the Black President didn’t give you a damn public option or compromised on a tax deal. Do you really know how ridiculous you all sound? Hell yes, we are laughing at your crazy, arrogant and self-serving asses!
Congratulations on your stoicism. Well, not yours, of course, because you are ranting more shrilly than anyone else here. But the stoicism you claim to be heir to, that would be pretty good if you got some.
hi, and maybe if you’d step out of YOUR aggrieved shoes for a moment, you’d understand that this isn’t about historic injustices.
Look, I have been seeing this “you white people are racist for being upset with Obama” coming up everywhere. As a jewish guy who used to have the shit beaten out of him for being jewish, my own ears are pretty damned attuned to bigotry as I’ve been on the receiving end myself (albeit certainly nowhere near the extent that black people have). i remember my mom chasing our neighbor off the porch because the bitch was passing around a petition to get the black family that moved in down the street evicted.
As i wrote earlier, i finally cut bait on Clinton in 2008 because of her race-baiting. And I abandoned her husband in 1996 because of his welfare reforms and NAFTA, which fucked a lot of poor people and a lot of blue collar people of all colors.
here’s where I get perplexed, NMP. To me, it’s not about the color of the guy in the oval office: if it was i would have been a clinton or mccain voter. But I see Obama doing things that will hurt people, especially low-income black people. I can point to a number of issues, all embraced by the president: cuts to social security, which allows low-income people to have a semi-dignified old age; “race to the top”, which undermines public schools; tax cuts for the wealthy, which will require that cuts are made elsewhere, most likely to social programs that benefit poor people.
These are not good things, NMP, and as someone who’s spent the past 6 years raising funds for nonprofit human services organizations that help the Philadelphia’s poor, the majority of who are black, i gotta speak out. These policies and deals put the people I work with, most of who are black, in a much worse place now and in the future.
So if you think it’s “arrogant” and “self-serving” for someone like me, who last year spent most of his free time working in a multi-cultural coalition to save libraries, public pools, and rec centers in his low-income, majority black neighborhood from brutal cuts proposed by our mayor, to object to policies that hurt the poor, you go ahead. It makes you sound like you think it’s OK for the poor to get fucked again, as long as the person doing the fucking is (for once) a black person.
is that how you feel?
Never mind. I’m either a racist or a whiny white liberal having a panic attack and providing entertainment to people.
That’s show biz.
those PUMA people have not been helpful at all. A lot of them really ARE racist, and deserve all the scorn they get.
What i object to is this “you’re mad at Obama, you MUST be a racist” crap. Treat people like the individuals they are, which I assume is how YOU NMP would prefer to be treated. Or would it be fair for me to respond to your “you’re just a racist” with “of course you support Obama, you’re black. That’s the only reason you support him”?
Would that be fair?
To both Brendan and Steven: I think the critique may not be that you are racist for critiquing a (or rather the) Black President. The point may well be that for a huge swath of middle class (and above) white liberals, these debates are in a personal sense intellectual or even aesthetic. The white liberals’ personal situation is relatively secure under both Democratic and Republican administrations. To working class people–and class and race are as we know completely intertwined in this country–the things that Obama gets in his compromises make, as the President stressed, the difference between making rent and entering a shelter.
It takes a great deal of privilege to object to a deal that preserves, to take one example, a tax policy that, were it not in place, would cost a few thousand dollars to working families. It means that you can afford those few thousand dollars. A lot of people can’t. And when we talk about privilege in this country, front and center is white privilege.
There was an interesting bit in the documentary, “standing in the shadows of motown.” One of the musicians, I forget who, was pointing out that a lot of the white countercultural youth in the 1960’s were looking to drop out, so to speak, give the finger to the types of jobs their parents had. The musician pointed out that, in Black Detroit, people would have been very pleased to have those jobs.
My situation is tenuous at best. As is that of many people I know, black white gay young old.
So don’t label me some “effete liberal intellectual” because that’s a stereotype that just doesn’t apply to me and most people I know.
And it isn’t the tax deal that bothers me, its been the administration’s policies all along. The failure to push for a bigger stimulus bill. The compromises on health care reform that didn’t have to be made. The refusal to prosecute the crimes committed by the Bush administration. The failure to address global warming. The half-assed HAMP program for mortgage relief that did no one any good except a few banks.
Most of all I find his attempt to appear “bipartisan,” either assuming the GOP would cave or he would look like the good guy when crappy legislation like the Financial (cough, cough) reform bills were passed, to be a major failure. He always seem to be negotiating against himself, allowing Repubs and Blue Dogs to seize the initiative and water down even further policies that he knew gfoing in (as with the stimulus) would be insufficient.
In short, he failed our country because he wasn’t audacious enough when he had the chance. He relied on the old boy Wall Street insiders to develop his domestic policy and on people like Rahm Emanuel (who only knew how to play rough when he’s fighting other Democrats) to get progressive dems in line.
Is he better than McCain? That isn’t the point. He wasn’t better than he could have been. And his party wasn’t either.
Is Obama all to blame for this? No, he had help, but as the President he is also the person who is most accountable.
Just to clarify a few things:
If you’ve read me here over the years you know my situation. Here’s the shorthand version: I’m disabled, with a chronic autoimmune illness but was turned down for duiability because I had conflicting diagnoses. Wife on disability for pancreatic cancer, Type 1 diabetes, and cognitive functionality loss due to chemotherapy. Daughter with ADHD and anxiety disorder. Our sole income is my wife’s disability.
I can’t provide a bio every time I post something here. That would get old real fast.
Best not to make assumptions or rely on stereotypes.
#1: good luck, i hope you get something permanent.
#2: You’re right, I used the word “racist”. i was responding to comments like “But of course you’re waiting for Super Negro to fly in and save the day”
and
But I can tell you what this Black woman and the vast majority of African Americans think about Keith Olbermann, Rachel Maddow and the rest of the President’s white liberal critics….Try EVER winning a national or statewide election in any so called blue state again if you try to push OUR President out of the White House. You’ve all made the mistake of thinking some paid Negro loud mouths on a few liberal blogs represent African American opinion of our President. You are highly mistaken. We will fight toth and nail for this man because he’s an extension of US
…which to me might as well be saying that white liberal critics are racists. Maybe I’m taking it the wrong way.
#3: there are certainly problems with white liberalism. Do not get me started.
#4: true enough, but you also can’t make blanket statements like those quoted above and not expect someone who doesn’t fit your preconceptions to object loudly. It wasn’t me who immediately jumped to “super-negro” and “You’ve all made the mistake of thinking some paid Negro loud mouths on a few liberal blogs represent African American opinion of our President.” That wasn’t me. (i also like delonjo’s response to NMP’s diatribe: the fact is, no ethnic/racial group is a monolith.)
Maybe that’s why I see it differently. I am de fact poor.
I have a job, but it barely covers my expenses. Every year when we get to choose health benefits, I have to choose the junk plan because i can’t afford better. I don’t have the luxury of paying for an AFLAC long term illness plan, I can’t afford that. I went without heat for about half the 2009 winter because my bank wouldn’t give me a loan to replace the heating system (I borrowed from family, and pay out a chunk of my salary every month to pay it back). i haven’t been on a real vacation since 2003, because I can’t afford it. Don’t get me started on the car, which at 250K miles needs a tie rod i can’t afford, a gasket i can’t afford, and an oil change i’ve put off for months. if it wasn’t from a gift card my employer gave me in lieu of a bonus (I’ve never gotten a bonus in my life), I wouldn’t be able to afford christmas this year.
none of this is “oh woe is me”. I may be white, but my personal situation is the opposite of secure. I got paid today, for example, and it’s already spoken for. all of it. My bills are persistently late, because I’m always robbing peter to pay paul. I can’t afford those few thousand dollars either: but as a 40 year old man who wants to retire with some kind of dignity, with no pension and a 401K that’s worth basically nothing, I see something that might cut my future SS benefits and say “fuck that.” i see a huge giveaway to the rich when people in my neighborhood need it more, and say “fuck that”, because I know a lot of my neighbors have it as bad as me or worse.
anyone who can look at this chart and think the “deal” is ok is a moron.
It’s really funny.
All people like me have done is give the white liberal blogosphere a friendly reminder that African-Americans still exist in this country and that we as a whole still support President Obama, and you accuse us of calling you racists.
People like me are letting you know it’s not the “calling President Obama on his shit” that we have an issue with. It’s the “painting his entire presidency as shit” that we have issues with, and you accuse us of calling you racists.
People like me are letting you know that we don’t appreciate how the “critiques” of Obama and his supporters from the left in recent months have turned nastier, more personal, and more dehumanizing. No different from the crap coming from the other side, and you accuse us of calling you racists.
People like me are warning you that primarying the first African-American president will not sit well with the vast majority of the most loyal voting block of the Democratic party. Not because we’re fixated on the fact that he’s African American, but you guys have yet to give a reason for not supporting him that can’t be summarized as “He didn’t do what I wanted him to do in the way and time I wanted him to do it”, and you accuse us of calling you racists.
People like me, whenever you point to some Black guy like Clarence Jones, why supports a primary, as proof that it wouldn’t be racial, we point you to a Black guy that claim African-Americans were better off under segregation. So by your logic, that must mean Jim Crow was just fine, and you accuse us of calling you racists.
Rather than worrying about whether someone is calling you a racist, why don’t you wonder what would happen to your agenda if the most loyal Democratic voting block was no longer on your side. Why don’t you think about the fact that at no time in recent history have you been able to get a majority of White Americans on to your cause.
How about concentrating your anger and frustrations on the true problem and obstacles of the progressive movement. Republicans and the broken Senate. Rather than waiting for the president to give you feel-good, comfort food, ideologically rhetoric, how about helping to organize progressive offices in Red States for the long term goal of selling progressive causes in these areas.
That’s all.
I’ve worked for Democrats in the 2004, 2006 and 2008 elections.
Worked at Election protection to ensure that all people regardless of race or ethnicity would have their votes counted. In fucking Cleveland Ohio.
Went knocking on doors in projects in Cincinnati to try to get African Americans to vote for Kerry.
I;ve posted reams of front page stories here attacking the racism and bigotry of Republicans and White Supremacists.
I don’t think criticizing Obama and the Democrats above is out of line or off base.
So I don’t need a fucking lecture from anyone about what I should do.
Actually you do because you missed the whole point of what I said. You could’ve given birth to a black child for all we care. The point is your fixation on the belief that primarying the first African-American president (which 90% of African American approve of the job he’s doing) and thinking there will be no resistance from the African American community is arrogant and stupid.
You appear to be black and support Obama because he appears to be black.
That would appear to be the definition of racist thinking.
Except I said no such thing. This is nothing more than arrogant liberal dismissing what’s been brewing for months because you don’t see it in your personal bubble.
excepting an equally arrogant black liberal or whatever saying that he/she is talking for the entire black community.
Lot of arrogance floating around tonight.
Except I never said that either. I am speaking as a member of the 90% of African-Americans who support President Obama.
I am also specking as a member of a group whose support liberal can’t win so much as a pie-eating contest without.
this is worth posting twice:
the following multi-colored group of progressives said no:
So, you wanna tell me that John Lewis and John Conyers have no historical perspective? Cus they seem to be in agreement with people like me that this deal sucks. What about Sheila Jackson Lee, or keith Ellison, or Raul Grijalva, or Jesse Jackson? None of them have any sense of historical perspective?
please.
still waiting for that “oops, I guess i spoke too soon”, NMP.
I’ll be here.
yup, just a bunch of whiny white progrerssives who have it in for Obama:
Still waiting NMP, for that retraction you owe me.
Jesus, you are a racist, pure and simple. He’s black, so you support him. That would be the DEFINITION of racism.
So fuck that racist shit.
I’m sticking with Martin Luther King, and judging the mofo by the “content of his character”. He’s a chickenshit cowardly eunuch, as far as I can tell, and his character is one of giving in to terrorists at the drop of a hat.
That’s what I always thought black folks wanted – to be judged by what they did, not what they looked like. Or am I wrong?
I am a black male voter and I say that Obama is a complete failure as president. And what?! However, he is an amazing success at self-promotion and self-martyrdom. CLOWN!
Don’t blame me, I voted for Hillary.
To be honest I doubt Hilary would have been any better.
I keep telling myself that, too. But this deal may tip the balance for me.
Soooo anyway (putting aside the indignity trolls)… we are more fucked, and sooner, than anyone is saying. If and when the GOP refuses to raise the debt ceiling (and why wouldn’t they?) the economy will crash and the social safety net will be torn apart. Because Obama isn’t going to be able turn around and undo this budget-buster, the Republicans will have all the leverage. Hello 17% unemployment, hello doubled or tripled poverty rate, hello President Palin and filibuster-proof Republican Senate.
God save us from this stupidity/fecklessness/whatever.
You know, I think people forget what country we live in and what country Obama is the President of. He has never suggest he was going to do anything other than work within the system. What is that system? Capitalism, stabilized by racism. Any disagreement on that? How do you think such a system works? Do you really think this system is going to produce anything resembling justice, equality, or human freedom? That’s not what capitalism is for.
At some point, people are going to have to get back to a coherent critique of capitalism if they want justice, equality, and human freedom. Until that point, I can’t see how one can expect better than a skilled compromiser, like Obama.
Steven D, I give you points for being honest about your feelings of despair. We all have our “dark nights of the soul”, so there’s no shame in that.
I want to echo what a few commenters wrote earlier, and reframe it as a plea to you, and to some of the other self-identified progressives who are filled with despair and with anger towards Obama.
The plea is to take more seriously the significance of Obama’s identification with the African-American freedom struggle, and adoption of the survival skills honed during that struggle.
When Obama says “my job is to make sure that we have a North Star out there”, it’s relevant information that
the North Star was Harriet Tubman’s GPS, as well as the name of Fredrick Douglass’ newspaper.
When he says “This country was founded on compromise. I couldn’t go through the front door of this country’s founding. And you know if we were really thinking about ideal positions, we wouldn’t have a Union”, he’s giving a relevant history lesson about the cold hard facts of our oft-romanticized revolutionary history.
When he says “I’m keeping my eye on the long term, and the long fight”, he’s saying (politely, because his mama raised him right) to “liberal purists” that he thinks you’re the ones who are underestimating the threat posed by the radical right.
Here’s the thing about dark nights of the soul. Eventually, morning comes. If you’re lucky enough or blessed enough, you have a sufficient portion of health to get out of bed. And then you have to face the day—a day that has all the same problems and all the same enemies you dealt with yesterday.
The question then is—what survival skills do you have to get through another day? In the 400 year history of Africans in America, that community has learned a vast array of skills to survive, to overcome and to thrive. Now we’ve got a president who is regularly giving us examples of how to use those skills. Those of us who consider ourselves his allies would do well to pay attention.
(All quotes from Obama’s press conference earlier this week.)
I think this gets to the heart of the division here. White people have been secure enough for long enough that they have expectations of security. Which leaves them free to be intensely meritocratic: within-group competition only works when the losers can still have a passable life. Otherwise they step outside the social contract and become a threat. So white liberals expect competence, honesty, and a sense of social justice and punish the lack of it. Since Obama is personally financially secure (and is totally networked with the powerful), we don’t worry about the personal consequences and his performance becomes all that matters. Now, Republicans don’t hold their leaders accountable, because Republicans are all about tribalism. But liberals (not only white ones, of course) have always done this and always will. African-Americans, of course, have less expectation of security, and so tend to be less harsh, and also have a strong personal identification with the President. A black President who is an impressive individual both in intellect and manners (Obama clearly meets those standards) is going to make their lives a little easier and happier just by the reflected glow. And I think everyone in the Democratic Party views this as a good thing.
So what is happening right now to split these essential parts of our party? Well, it’s pretty much what people have been saying: Obama has been a mediocre negotiator (and terrible on this) and a poor leader. Attacking your base in an non-Presidential election year, for instance, is moronic. But he hasn’t been a bad guy or been surrounded by any scandal. If he just starts making better decisions, like choosing to fight on some core issues, all will be right with the party again.
I hope.