Question: Is the Obama administration as "liberal" as we are EVER going to see?

[old mark]

It this as good as it gets? Seems like the msm is determined to paint Obama as a super liberal - RWers compare him to Mao and Stalin. Many "real" people think this administration os somehow "experimental" or extreme, thus reenforcing Obama's tendancy to go to the right.

Just your opinion - not promoting a position...is this as good as it will get?


mark

[rucky]

1. The Grayson Administration will be much better.

[EFerrari]

2. There seems to be a global outbreak of right wing nuttery.

[DrDan]

3. you know . . . when the RW gets vocal . . . we see a tendency to move to the right

when the LW gets vocal . . . nothing seems to happen.

Now why is that? Why is this administration ignoring the voice of the left?


oh wait . . . I think I know the answer to that.

[madrchsod]

4. old time eastern liberal republican

he`s not a liberal.

[HughBeaumont]

5. YARP:

http://journals.democraticunderground.com/HughBeaumont/113

Barack Obama is the closest thing you're going to get to a progressive in the White House. The likelihood of America having a progressive president (a la Dennis Kucinich or, let's be more realistic, Sherrod Brown) is slim to NONE.

I know us folks on the left don't want to hear that or believe that, but there it is. And unlike many on the left (which I'm firmly a part of), I'm still willing to give him a chance.

Don't believe me? Take a look at the 1 . . . 2 Democratic Presidents we've had prior to Obama in 43 YEARS. Both Southern Christian males, both semi moderates; socially moderate but economically, very much in line with "TEH FREE MARKETZ" dogma. Both very much in tune with the MIC and their needs.

This especially holds true for Clinton; while lots of jobs were created on his watch, lots of "Free Traitor" agreements also occurred under his signage. Lots of deregulation ALSO happened on his watch. You gotta wonder how many of those jobs were either very low paying that adults and students had to have two to survive or were had as a result of economic bubbles. Either way, the blue collar exodus was well underway, and the white collar job exodus began during the second Clinton term.

I knew exactly what I was getting when I voted for Obama in the primaries and general, because I knew the alternative (stay at home or vote Green) was far less efficient and far more disastrous.

This doesn't mean I have to agree with President Obama on everything, because I don't. I need to start seeing some troop withdrawl from Iraq. I need to see the torture houses shuttered. I want to see the damaging Bewsh II tax cuts sunset, without fight or hem or haw.

I want to see more financial regulation and less crying from bitch-ass old men with their own planes telling me how much Obama "hates" them and how they and their businesses will be hurt by these new rules.

You can go on and on all day about how no vote is a wasted vote, but when it comes right down to it, numbers matter.

America cannot afford another Arch-Rightist, corpro-religious-addled Republican presidency. We've had 28 years of that already, it damn near killed us, and it's going to take at least 2 to 3 more Democratic presidents to fix it.

Progress, even an INCH, is achieved through small victories. That's all we can hope for in this country anymore. With a Democrat, you at least have a glimmer of hope that something will improve for the middle/working/poor, whether it be the job situation, their retirement, their health or their futures.

With a sociopathic Republican gatekeeper, you have absolutely NO HOPE WHATSOEVER. It's every sumbitch for themselves and the nation becomes one giant Pentacostal church. And that party is only going to get worse and far more arch-rightist extreme as time goes on, not more moderate. These aren't your great-grandpa's Republicans.

(snip)

We could be incredibly dangerous if we joined forces. I think it's because America allowed itself to get this bad in the first place that such a notion of true American benevolence and progression can either be achieved through decades and decades of weeding out, or an all-at-once teardown of this rotted system that would result in collapse and massive rebuild.

That is, if the ones that come out of the rubble aren't as greedy and self serving as the ones who were destroyed in it.

[zipplewrath]

7. I tend to agree

Let us not forget though, that Gore actually won, and handily won the popular vote. We very well could actually move left after Obama. Will we ever get Kucinich? No, but the conservatives never really got the conservative they always wanted. The Got two Bushes and Ronnie, whose actualy actions while president wouldn't meet ANY of the litimus tests for conservatism (save lowering the top income rate, everyone forgets he also removed a bunch-o-exemptions so folks still paid higher taxes, they only avoided the highest taxes).

And there is a problem in the "anything for an inch" strategy, as we have seen. The GOP can undo it all in one administration. They can appoint SC judges that last a generation. It is more than an inch that is needed. Transformational change to the degree that it can't be undone is what is needed. Programs like SS which is effectively entrenched is what is needed. A program like HCR that is nothing more than incremental improvements in existing structures, can just be watered down through regulation or small changes over time via the lobbying process.

Progressivism is going to see its best success over in congress. This "all or nothing" strategy of the presidency isn't going to be the most fertile ground. And picking races in relatively "red" states is a losing strategy as well. I wanted to "hold the line" with Halter, but a bit like Sestak, he wasn't exactly the "progresssive model" anyone really wanted. We need to find more Grayson, Feingold, and yeah even Kucinich like candidates. Get them in office, get them in cabinet positons, get them "IN". It's what the DLC did.

[HughBeaumont]

13. Reagan and the Bewshes were neo-fascists.

Do responsible fiscal conservatives ring up over 70% of the National Debt? Do "small gov" conservatives raise taxes on the middle class while lowering the TMTR and keeping it there? Why is it that when Democrats institute social programs, it's called "tax-n-spend", but when conservatives "borrow and waste" (as those two asshounds did), no one calls them on it? Why is it that conservatives call themselves "the party of FREEDOM", when in reality, they keep us enslaved to corporations/the MIC and spy on us at every chance they get?

Reagan and Bush II acted like they loved working families when they really loved their corporate handlers and almost tripped over themselves to nurture them in every way possible at the price of everything else.

This is why I cannot stress with enough fervor that if there were to be another Republican presidency, it would kill this country DEAD. Any "they're all the same" yappers aren't even beginning to understand how horribly bad things will be if a candidate that makes Bush II look like Eisenhower gains the White House again. No one seems to get it until it's way too late. Yes, we do have to make sure progressives get in on the local level ground floor.

[zipplewrath]

22. But you're in danger of going there, just slower

If you just get focused on "us winning" and "them" losing, you just slow down the rate of destruction. We're already hearing that "Obama can't fix all this in one presidency". You HAVE to strive for LARGE changes. This incrementalism is defeatism disguished as progress. One step forward, three back. Just slamming on the brakes and declaring you're not going off the cliff as fast really isn't accomplishing anything in the long run.

[RedRoses323]

8. +1

[Scuba]

11. publicy financed elections would help...

...without them we will never have a clean gov't

[madokie]

6. Yes as long as we have the current crop of main stream media

the media is our problem in this country now.

[old mark]

9. I KNOW that Obama's crowd supports Lincoln and other DINOs because they

believe them to be more electable in November...the rationalle I guess is it is better to hae the numbers in congress than the quality. The Democratic Party is so very much more conservative than it was 40 years ago it is not recognisable...they are the GOP Lite, yet the extreme right acts like Democrats are some terrible communist radicals....It would be very funny if so many people didn't actually believe it.

I am coming to believe this may be the top of the roller coaster and the long downhill ride is coming...


mark

[hayu_lol]

10. He never was a liberal...

his political and private past revealed that. His present shows that he hasn't changed his spots.

[freddie mertz]

12. Not by a long stretch.

He campaigned as a change-agent, which implied a much more progressive and innovative agenda than we ended up with.

I think that suggests that a more progressive candidate could indeed win in the future.

If not, we are in for a very bad time.

[mucifer]

14. He campaigned on EXPANDING the war in Afghanistan. He campaigned on compromising

with republicans. He also broke a lot of other campaign promises. It's so disappointing.

He's gonna have some problems if no union members go door to door in his re election campaign. But, I guess that's ok with him.

[freddie mertz]

18. That was just one aspect of the campaign.

As you say, he broke or compromised enough promises after getting in.

Too bad he decided to take that one seriously.

[Stinky The Clown]

15. If it is, we're in deep shit

[Kokonoe]

16. Its as good as (the right wants you to think) it will get.

Current administration included.

[Rosa Luxemburg]

17. Presidents are never allowed to be too Liberal or else...

[treestar]

19. 48% of the population voted for Gramps/Caribou Barbie

It will change over time, but right now, thinking there will be a progressive paradise soon is out of the question. I don't know how a person can fail to see this unless they live in a very blue state and just don't meet people who are right wing. Or avoid the media so much that they don't appreciate it.

We are in fact in danger of Republican administrations and Congresses still. I don't understand those who think we have the luxury of abandoning the Democrats. It has to be staying in too much of a cocoon. And easily forgetting the Cheney Administration and how much support it had until the economy went south. If the economy improves we could be in even more danger if we allow other things to defeat the Democrats.

[MineralMan]

20. Probably so. Presidents have to be elected.

We don't have a society that's likely to elect anyone who is extremely liberal. It just isn't happening. So, as long as we choose our President and other leaders by election, your assessment is probably accurate.

[sinkingfeeling]

21. Probably. The entire country has made a major shift to the right since the end of WWII.

[zipplewrath]

23. Huh? Since 1947?

The end of discrimination in many forms? The entire civil rights movement? The GI bill, medicare, medicaid, WIC? Heck, the entire "great society" programs. "Liberalization" of everything from hair, to clothes, to the sexual revolution?

If there's been any "retrenchment", it's been since the late '70s. I might even extend it back to '68 and '69 with Kent State and the Chicago riots. No where near the late '40s and early '50s though.

[sinkingfeeling]

24. Think the last great show of support was for the New Deal. Yes, many things have been accomplished,

but not sure the majority supported them, i.e. Medicare and 'great society'.

[old mark]

25. YES!!! I think a lot has been done DESPITE "public opinion" created by the

rich-owned media. The extremely rich have been manipulating politics here forever-manipulating when not owning it outright....even Social Security and an 8 hour day were regarded as socialism in the good ol' USA, land of the free.


mark

[ieoeja]

26. I agree with you.

We laughed *at* Archie Bunker in the 70s. Today, we would laugh *with* Archie.

I was in high school 76-80. I had an older sister and brother. And I knew my class was nowhere near as liberal as theirs had been. Liberalism had become the status quo, so that our youthful rebellion against status quo became a rebellion against liberalism.

Actually, my class was a transitory one. The contrast between the class two years ahead of me and those two years behind was shocking.

In college, even more so. In 1980, I joined a college full of long-haired guys and gals in flip-flops and cutoff shorts walking into classrooms. In 1984, I left a college full of underclassmen wearing suits to their classes!

[Donald Ian Rankin]

27. History suggests either "yes" or "close to".

There has not been an administration significantly more liberal than Obama's in the US for at least 40 years and arguably 60.

It's *possible* that the US will move further left than that in the future, but the odds are against it.

[ArmajaDasComatose]

28. haha

[Cresent City Kid]

29. This is as good as it gets

We're going to have republican presidents like Reagan or the Bushes, or Democratic presidents like Clinton or Obama into the foreseeable future. Even if a full blooded progressive sneaks in to the White House, he or she will be hamstrung by the Congress and/or the Supreme Court. The odds on a left wing utopia in the US are about the same as with peace in the Middle East.

The key to fixing this is education, but that's an uphill climb. If eight years of Bush, six with a republican rubber stamp Congress didn't teach the masses what damage they can do, then what will?

[Enrique]

30. if you mean from him, yes, he won't become more liberal

but yes, we could get a more liberal president in the future, maybe even in 2012.

[VMI Dem]

31. A right leaning centrist as liberal as we will see?

I hope not.

[HiFructosePronSyrup]

32. Obama is as liberal as it gets.

If Dennis Kucinich, for example, were president he'd be a lame duck.

[old mark]

33. I am thinking that we are just talking to ourselves here and that

this is all pretty much a pointless exercise.

I have better uses for my time.

Fuck Obama, Bill Clinton and the Democratic Party.


mark

[SteppingRazor]

34. "ever" is an extremely long time.

I don't believe we'll see anything a great deal more liberal than Obama in my lifetime. (I'm in my early 30s) But I think it's silly to suggest that America will NEVER have a more liberal president than Obama. We can't know what the voting public will be like in 100 years or 200.

[old mark]

37. Well, I don't expect to live another 100 to 200 years myself - how about

linmiting the discussion to the forseeable future?

We may not even have "voting" in another 100 to 200 years in whatever this country has become by then...


mark

[Tierra_y_Libertad]

35. When did the Obama administration become "liberal"?

I must have missed it because all I see is is a continuation of right wing policies in education, foreign policy, union busting, gay rights, women's rights, and the economy.

[old mark]

36. I am thinking that the administration is distancing itself from "progressives" and even "liberals"

and now from labor unions and working people...I guess they are counting on all those centerists,blue dogs,converted republicans and independents I keep hearing about on TV.

I WILL support specific Democratic candidates, but I will be voting selectively and NOT for Blue Dogs---or for ANY republicans.

mark

[old mark]

38. Lots of unrec's this morning - I hope it's not personal......

:rofl:

don't you assholes have me on ignore?



mark