Rachel Maddow - The Obama Paradox 1 (or Why we Sheeple are Blameless) - Anthony Weiner

[NJmaverick]

Run time: 10:54 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kOjFtcPb_2c   Posted on YouTube: July 24, 2010 By YouTube Member: StartLoving3 Views on YouTube: 916   Posted on DU: July 25, 2010 By DU Member: NJmaverick Views on DU: 1501

 
Rachel hits at the heart of the issue.

[burnsei sensei]

1. Overall, I approve of Obama's performance.

There are just a few areas though, in which the man is completely cowed.
1. Health care reform.
The great policy and structural shift that wasn't.
2. Financial reform.
Reinstatement of the Glass-Steagall Act or a variant to create safe spaces in the economy and banking would have been wise, thank you.
3. The Deficit Reduction Commission.
A committee of elite political operatives working in secret on social and economic problems in the larger country ostensibly to lower the deficit. Need I say more? We know who they're working for. And we know who they'll disembowel with their deficit-cutting.
4. The foreclosure of empire and the re-negotiation of American commitments around the world.
Again, an inertial foolishness trumps the wiser course of action.

[NJmaverick]

2. Disagree

1) Historic reform that has been tried and fail (until now) since Teddy R

2) Reforms of this magnitude have not been enacted since the Great depression, plus the consumer protection agency is a huge win for the people.

3) Your use of "elite political operatives" cancels out any valid points you might have.

4) You have so over simplified complex international issues (that needed to be looked at individually) that you comments become meaningless.

[iamthebandfanman]

3. i may be crazy but

id imagine people on DU want better answers than 'hey it passed !'

what the hell does time matter if the actual change isnt much?
anything is not always better than nothing...


the substance of the bill is whats important,
and while i would agree there are some good things that were passed, the majority of the bill was not.

it was a sell out to insurance companies with some 'shut the fuck up' parts added to keep some of us quiet and spout things like 'BUT NOBODYS REFORMED SINCE TEDDY OMFG!'


stop acting high and mighty, ( 3 and 4 sound so pompous ) you are just as pointless.

[NJmaverick]

4. It's a matter of being realistic. It seems to me that many that are not satisfied

don't appreciate exactly what was passed and the very real and very difficult obstacles that were overcome. It's easy to spell out exactly what you wish for and then get mad if you don't get exactly what you wished for. It is more challenging to see what is possible and then adjust what is considered a success based on what is and isn't possible.

Oh and insisting on critical thinking and intellectual honesty is not being "high and mighty", it's called being mature and thoughtful.

[madmax]

6. +1

[hourglass1]

11. good gawd ... wake up

overcome? what was overcome were progressive, practical, common-sense legislative solutions to address the problems and not exacerbate them!
like the coup de tat circus we've witnessed since bush v gore, common sense was off the table!

[breadandwine]

15. The whole party is quiet as mice.

There is no fire. No brimstone. No anger to appeal to the angry public. And no fighting back vocally. It's all about being polite and collegiate. A party of wimps is the problem.

They shout. We whimper.

[burnsei sensei]

5. They are elite political operatives

because they are not economists or experts in actually weighing risks and benefits of specific policies.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/03/12/AR2010031204287.html

Here are the people that the president decided to trust.

Quote:
Created by a presidential executive order, the commission is tasked with reducing budget deficits that are projected to hover around $1 trillion a year for much of the next decade. If 14 members can agree on a plan to raise taxes, cut spending and reform costly entitlement programs such as Social Security and Medicare, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) and Senate Majority Leader Harry M. Reid (D-Nev.) have pledged to bring it to a vote in Congress before year's end.
end quote.

There is a short summary of the objectives of the deficit reduction commission.
They call Social Security and Medicare "costly entitlement programs" when they are running surpluses.
They are much better managed than any private pension or insurance program.
The proof of that has been ignored even though it is in plain sight.

The committee members will end up not working for any public good.
Their political differences are so profound that what we'll end up with is a package of ideological compromise instead of policy made on empirical grounds.

[NJmaverick]

7. Labels like that are designed to stop any and all critical thinking or even just thought in general

it's never a good idea to paper over critical thought and intellectual honesty with a bunch of useless labels. The Republicans have done that for decades, much to the detriment of the well being of our nation.

[burnsei sensei]

8. Well, I suppose I could call

their Republican members class warriors.
There's something more blunt and I think, more truthful.

[azmesa207]

9. Maddow may be

talking a good game now but she was at the forefront along with Obermanm in critizing Hillary Clinton when she warned us all that oObama was not up to battling Fox News and the right wing smear machine . Democraticunderground people were right there critizing her as well so live with it and hope it not to late for him to grow a pair .

[NJmaverick]

13. With the power FOX has the fact of the matter is no President

can effectively deal with a 24X7 Republican propaganda machine that has millions of blindly stupid followers.

[watajob]

10. Yes, he has gotten some good things done ...

... however, the reality doesn't match the rhetoric. HCR is weak sauce along with FinReg. Climate bill is DOA. Gitmo is still open, Iraq is somewhat improved but is more than made up for by Afghanistan. EFCA is long gone and DADT is, for all practical purposes, up to the military, (read: window dressing). Most of his team are proven corporatists or worse, ("F$%#in' re(@%$+!). Torture, warrantless wiretaps, etc. in the same breath as prosecution makes the administration break out in the hives. The political reality is, (no, was), that they had the Senate, the House and the presidency but the electoral strategy of getting someone, ANYONE, with a "D" after their name resulted in an unruly horde that couldn't be whipped to vote for Obama's agenda. So, here. We put a few field goals up on the board, Now, sit down, shut up and write the check. KTHXBY!

[Overseas]

12. Great commentary! K&R! //nt

[LBJDemocrat]

14. It's the poverty, stupid.

Maybe a bit hard to see from your Manhattan newsroom, but a lot of people in this country don't care about legislative victories. They don't follow politics as if it were a sports match. What they care about is food on the table and paying their bills, and Obama has done very very little here.

This clip is unwatchable state propaganda, as reprehensible as when ostensible conservatives kissed Bush's rear so that he could warrantlessly wiretap, wage aggressive war, and waste away the budget surplus.