Reply #647: Jumped into a bit of a boiling pot on this one old pal... [View All]

[MessiahRp]

"The split is emphatically *not* progressives vs centrists. The split is, roughly speaking, idealists vs pragmatists."

I couldn't disagree with that assessment any more.

Let me say it this way. I have served a couple of terms here as a Mod under Skinner. Including during the rather heated Dean vs. Kerry primary debates in 2004. I always have thought you were an incredibly patient and fair person... especially considering the heated climate that tends to exist on these types of boards. Many of us may not even realize how difficult it is to decide on whether a post warrants removal even when there are 20-30 alerts on it. Sometimes the outlines of the rules and basic courtesy of free flowing discussion makes it hard to see a post removal as a simple slam dunk.

However I don't think the crux of this disagreement is pragmatists vs. idealists at all. Many of Obama's policies are not pragmatic in the least. Nobody twisted his arm to keep Bush's wiretapping in place. Nobody forced him to start the Health Care debate in the center so he had nowhere to go but to the right. Nobody asked him to continue the wars and pretty much Bush's military policies.

Sure, on some bills compromise seemed pragmatic. Not on all of the things that get heat here. He makes many of these choices without even caring to consider a left wing or dare I say usually Democratic alternative.

Those you would call "pragmatic" seem to circle the wagons to protect his every move. We know their names. They're in every thread proclaiming every thing he is doing as the right move and flushing any policy critiques with the same sort of blind cheerleading dismissal that Bush Supporters gave.

Asking for an alternative is not "idealist", it is actually practical considering the electorate purposely voted for change. Also Obama didn't even try to move the needle on those aforementioned issues to the left. He started at the Republicans (and most notably corporate lobbyists) most acceptable position and ended up giving them more and more of what they wanted until he had botched the whole thing in some cases. That isn't pragmatic. That's capitulation to corporate interests who just happen to be aligned more closely with Republicans. And thus the Hope and Change President becomes the Status Quo Continuation.

Pragmatism doesn't mean recognizing that Washington is tough and will require compromise so we automatically give in on all demands. Pragmatism is recognizing that we want certain things and if we start with everything we should totally want, negotiating our way back to the middle gives Americans a much better bill in almost all cases. Not to mention it will ultimately cost us less due to the miserable failures we're likely to endure with the poor structure that is intact to protect the Corporations that won the lobbying war.

That's it in a nutshell to me.

Nobody said passing a damn thing in Washington is easy. It just would work a lot better for our side if we didn't automatically give in to the Right on every negotiation for fear of conflict because that my friend, is not pragmatic in the least.

Rp