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mises
Joined: 05 Nov 2007
Location: retired
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 Posted: Wed Jan 20, 2010 8:05 am Post subject: |
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http://www.greaterfool.ca/2010/01/20/here-we-go/
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Tuesday night the ones who live in Massachusetts gave Washington the finger and elected a Republican senator � the first time in 60 years a Democrat and a Kennedy has not been in power. This stinging rebuke of Barack Obama means he loses the balance of power he needs to get his big-spending agenda passed, and has the potential to alter history. Millions of Americans are sickened by the trillions in bailouts, the rescue of banks they see as evil, the nationalization of GM and Wall Street, record debt and deficits and a massive swelling in the size of government.
The Mass thing (the guy who won drives a pickup and used to be Cosmo nude dude) could be the harbinger of a Republican avalanche later this year in the midterm elections. And this matters. Without the support he needs, Obama has no choice but to start dismantling the edifice of government. That means a slower economy, political uncertainty and a few more years of American real estate hell. |
Dylan Ratigan discusses the anger on MSNBC, without calling racist or sexist (as Emily Bazalon of Slate did on Friday):
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y5K_2TUoGhg
http://eyeonmiami.blogspot.com/2010/01/americas-narrative-and-obama-white.html
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America's Narrative and the Obama White House: what the Massachusetts election means ... by gimleteye
The voters of Massachusetts, who delivered a 26 percent majority to candidate Obama, have spoken: they are not a Republican majority but they sent a Republican to the US Senate yesterday. It is the one thing an election can do: send an up or down message. The message they sent is that they don't believe and they don't have confidence in the "jobless recovery". Much of the United States, and the northeast in particular, is mired in a Depression. It may not be The Great Depression, but it is not just A Great Recession (the moniker from the NY Times). Incumbents (and the mainstream media too) have a big stake in promoting positive narratives. Dismal narratives, like the ones we are glued to on this blog, don't sell advertisement. They are not good for business.
But voters can't be blamed for being sick and tired of getting less for more. While Obama, it is true, was dealt a horrendous hand of cards by his predecessor, he made a huge strategic mistake by not gathering energy around the core of the problem: the miscalculation of risk by Wall Street tied to unsustainable debt. That is what has created the greatest wealth divide in modern US history, piled enormous debt on taxpayers, deformed politics and turned Democrats and Republicans into a Unitary Party. Does President Obama have time, now, to go back and retrieve the only theme and narrative that can save the Democrats in the 2010 mid-term elections? He better work fast, because the same political interests who profited first from debt, fraud and this terrible economic crisis have put on wigs and fake beards: they are ready to roll. |
http://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2010/01/links-12010.html
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| I don�t see the Brown victory as being a repudiation of the health care reform as much as of Obama�s crony capitalist policies. |
So, is this theme right? It isn't about D or R, but a rejection of the status quo and corporatism? I think so.
Here's a great piece from Marketwatch:
http://www.marketwatch.com/story/dear-politicians-we-are-fed-up-2010-01-19
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Dear politicians: We are fed up
WASHINGTON (MarketWatch) -- The people of this country have had it up to here with the way our leaders are running our country.
And while the election of Republican Scott Brown to the U.S. Senate seat held by the Kennedy brothers for nearly 60 years is clearly a repudiation of the Democrats' leadership, Republicans shouldn't get so smug about this victory.
We are fed up with the lot of you.
You promised to change the way Washington works, but you didn't do it. Your answers to our problems are inadequate, or they make things worse. As usual, you're taking care of everyone but us. Despite the worst economic crisis in generations, nothing has changed.
This country is in trouble, maybe big trouble. Our economy doesn't work for us any more. Jobs are hard to find, health care is hit or miss, and the idea of a comfortable retirement seems a cruel joke. We legitimately worry that we're bequeathing our kids and our grandkids a life that's going to be much tougher than ours.
We did everything we were asked: We worked hard, we invested in Wall Street, we took off our shoes at the airport, we bought a house, and we borrowed and spent until we couldn't spend or borrow any more.
You don't get it. We don't care about your campaign donations. We don't care about your political fortunes, or those of your party. We don't care who posed nude, or who's the better candidate. We don't care about 60 votes. We don't care about the big companies or the special interests who fear the future. We don't care about Senate traditions, or what those idiots on TV say.
We care about results. Fix our problems, or get out of the way. We know our problems aren't simple. We know the answers won't come easy. But we also know that you don't understand. If you did, you'd hide your faces in shame.
To the Democrats: We elected you to accomplish things for us, not to give you lifetime jobs. We gave you an overwhelming majority in Congress: Use it or lose it.
To the Republicans: It might seem smart in the short run to just oppose everything, knowing that the wheel will turn and that eventually the people will give the power and the mandate to you. But it'd be much better for us if you'd actually stand for something other than protecting your own hides, or getting your own cable show.
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Ya-ta Boy
Joined: 16 Jan 2003
Location: Established in 1994
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| Posted: Wed Jan 20, 2010 8:14 am Post subject: |
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| Coakley was a lazy candidate with easily questionable judgment. |
That is undoubtedly and indisputably true...
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| It's time to stop blaming female failures on sexism and it's time to stop demonizing white males in this fashion. |
Why should they be immune to scrutiny?
If guys can't look at the guys around them and spot the sexism (far be it from me to encourage guys to take a look at themselves), well... No self-respecting dude would want to actually really vote for a penisless human? I know guys who quite openly admit they would never vote for a woman for anything other than maybe a pole dancer. Martha was dreadful, but in some circles a guy who allowed himself to be photographed nude, showing off his pubes, would have been verboten if not for compensating factors.
Nor would we want to look honestly and openly at the motives of evolved gentlemen who are uncomfortable with people of color--Glenn Beck: Obama is a racist. Limbaugh: Obama is far too quick on the draw to send support to Haiti so he can curry support from the, as Harry Reid would say, 'Negros'.
Seems reasonable to me to consider all the aspects of the situation and not give angry white guys a pass when no one else gets one. |
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Ya-ta Boy
Joined: 16 Jan 2003
Location: Established in 1994
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| Posted: Wed Jan 20, 2010 8:24 am Post subject: |
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So, is this theme right? It isn't about D or R, but a rejection of the status quo and corporatism? I think so.
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You may have inadvertantly stumbled across something with this one, mises.
There is enormous anti-incumbency in the land, and rightly so. (I read 'incumbency' as those who defend the money boys.) Unfortunately, the tea baggers have managed somehow to distance themselves from corporate interests while defending corporate interests. Pretty mystifying if you ask me. I figure Karl Rove is at the heart of it--figure out what your weakest points are and accuse the opposition of doing exactly that. Death panels, for example. |
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mises
Joined: 05 Nov 2007
Location: retired
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| Posted: Wed Jan 20, 2010 8:34 am Post subject: |
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| I know guys who quite openly admit they would never vote for a woman for anything other than maybe a pole dancer. |
Most of these "right wing" evil/sexist/racist white men would vote for Palin if given the choice.
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| Nor would we want to look honestly and openly at the motives of evolved gentlemen who are uncomfortable with people of color--Glenn Beck: Obama is a racist. Limbaugh: Obama is far too quick on the draw to send support to Haiti so he can curry support from the, as Harry Reid would say, 'Negros'. |
Beck and Rush were not on this ticket.
Ya-ta, find some new sources of information. And apply your standards equally. Partisanship is very unflattering.
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| Unfortunately, the tea baggers have managed somehow to distance themselves from corporate interests while defending corporate interests. |
If you only know of a group from the opponents of that group, you don't really know anything.
The appropriate (correct) way to look at the unfortunately named tea baggers is as the beginning of the divorce between religious Republicans and fiscal conservatives. |
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Sergio Stefanuto
Joined: 14 May 2009
Location: UK
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| Posted: Wed Jan 20, 2010 9:22 am Post subject: |
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The Meaning of Massachusetts
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Given the incompetent, spendthrift way Bush and his colleagues in Congress governed, they deserved to lose in 2008. But still, I couldn�t be more delighted that Ted Kennedy�s former Senate seat has fallen to the Republicans: it is precisely the one-year anniversary present that Barack Obama deserves. He ran as a pragmatic centrist but since taking office his true colours have shone through: he wants to turn the United States into a European-style social democracy.
The main practical effect of this election result is to land Obama�s efforts to reform US healthcare in extreme difficulty. This too is a very welcome development. It�s not that the US healthcare system doesn�t need reform � it does � but rather that the Democrats� plan takes entirely the wrong approach. The ambition of reform should not be to use government coercion to expand coverage, but to reduce costs by allowing greater competition and consumer choice � that is, by having stronger market forces. |
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pkang0202
Joined: 09 Mar 2007
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| Posted: Wed Jan 20, 2010 9:24 am Post subject: |
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| Fox wrote: |
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| Fox wrote: |
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| This is a close race. Miracle would not be even remotely close to describe the race there. |
It being a close race is part of what's being called a miracle. We're talking about a pretty blue state here. |
A miracle would be an event that happens against ALL ODDS. |
And this happened against all odds. Why do you have such trouble with basic colloquial usage of this word? Sometimes we even say things like, "It's a miracle my house didn't burn down," if we leave the oven running, even though the likelihood of your house burning down because you left your oven on is actually very low.
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| It doesn't matter how long Mass. was a Blue state. That is irrelevant. |
No it's not. It's decidedly relevent when considering how unusual it might be for a Republican senator to be elected.
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| What WAS relevant was for days before CNN wrote that article, polling numbers showed Brown and Coakley at a dead heat. Many polls shows Brown was a lead. |
That was part of what was being called a miracle.
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| So, in a dead heat Senate race, the Republican can only win if they get a miracle? |
Rather, it's was being said it was a miracle that it was a dead heat race in the first place.
| pkang0202 wrote: |
| So, Brown won the Senate race, not because 52% of Mass. voters voted for him. No no. That woudln't do for CNN. He won because he got a miracle. It took an act of God for him to win. He couldn't just win because he was the better candidate. |
I'm pretty sure CNN wasn't using miracle in the sense of an act of God, but rather using a rhetorical device to talk about an unusual occurance. |
Mass. isn't as "blue" as people think. They DID have a Republican Governor for 16 straight years. They have more Democrats than Republicans, but they also have a crapload of independants.
Just like how Virginia went from Republican Senators to Democrat. Was Jim Webb's election victory a miracle? Was Mark Warner's vistory a miracle? Both of those were come from behind victories over favored Republican candidates. |
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Hater Depot
Joined: 29 Mar 2005
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| Posted: Wed Jan 20, 2010 10:23 am Post subject: |
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| Oh yeah! 41-59 GOP majority, baby. High fives all around for sure. |
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mises
Joined: 05 Nov 2007
Location: retired
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Street Magic
Joined: 23 Sep 2009
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| Posted: Wed Jan 20, 2010 2:10 pm Post subject: |
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| bacasper wrote: |
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Then you have your Martha Coakley's who not only tar innocent folks with sex offender labels and send them away to prison for as long as she can get away with, but also go that extra step further and petition against clemency in spite of the unanimous 5-0 decision to commute from what has been arguably the most conservative pardons and paroles board in the nation...
Martha Coakley is a vindictive pro-prosecution McCarthyist who will fight to the death to keep her targets suffering so as to satisfy her angry soccer mom supporters that all the bad Grinch people like sex offenders and drug users are getting theirs. |
If that is the case then I am glad she lost. Perhaps it is a sign that people are becoming aware of the insanity and witchhunt nature of America's unjust sex laws. Let's hope that was a deciding factor. |
Judging by the Daily Show or even the responses in this thread, that election had very little to do with the right reasons to be against Coakley. I'm doing my best to spread the word about her life ruining political antics as district attorney, but I seem to be getting drowned out wherever I point out her history by stock debates about health care proponents stealing our freedom/health care opponents killing poor people. At best, someone will mention how Coakley called Curt Schilling a Yankees fan or how Scott Brown made an ad about his truck.
On the plus side though, you could call it a victory against the sex crime hysteria in that no one really tried to promote her campaign by going on about how she was tough on "sexual predators." |
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Fox
Joined: 04 Mar 2009
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| Posted: Wed Jan 20, 2010 3:19 pm Post subject: |
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| pkang0202 wrote: |
| Mass. isn't as "blue" as people think. They DID have a Republican Governor for 16 straight years. They have more Democrats than Republicans, but they also have a crapload of independants. |
You're just being silly now. Almost every state has had a mix of Reublican and Democrat politicians. Wisconsin is quite blue but we had a popular Republican governor. California is blue, but they've had Republican governors. If your definition of a blue state is a state that's never elected a Republican to a prominent position, then there are no blue states. Back in reality, where we don't define blue and red states that way (because it would be stupidly meaningless), Massachusetts is a very blue state.
Even this event didn't occur because Massachusetts is somehow "turning redder." It happened because Croakley was an attrocious candidate, so bad that even Massachusetts rejected her.
| pkang0202 wrote: |
| Just like how Virginia went from Republican Senators to Democrat. Was Jim Webb's election victory a miracle? Was Mark Warner's vistory a miracle? Both of those were come from behind victories over favored Republican candidates. |
Yes, one could probably use the rhetorical device of calling those events "miracles" if one was so inclined. If I heard a Republican calling these miraculous victories, I certainly wouldn't start taking issue with it. |
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Fox
Joined: 04 Mar 2009
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| Posted: Wed Jan 20, 2010 3:26 pm Post subject: |
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| bacasper wrote: |
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| If the Dems had any guts (which they don't), they'd say f it and finally ditch the filibuster. What does it take to get rid of it? Enough is enough. |
No, not that!
Anything which keeps them from passing even more laws is a GOOD thing. |
Partisan negotiations are part of what is responsible for making so many of our laws so bad. A lot of the ideas Democrats had for health care reform bills, for example, were actually quite good. They could have helped our nation a lot, and would probably have been passable with a simple majority. Because the potential for a filibuster required them to have 60 votes rathr than 50, though, they were forced to compromise with corporate sell-outs. This changed the bill from reform to insurance industry bailout.
So in the end, this doesn't really stop laws from being passed. Rather, it just ensures the laws that are passed are garbled, messy, ineffective things who were in part crafted by people who actively want governmental programs to fail to justify their political platforms and appease their contributors. How can that be a good thing? |
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Fox
Joined: 04 Mar 2009
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| Posted: Wed Jan 20, 2010 4:05 pm Post subject: |
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| Ya-ta Boy wrote: |
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| It's time to stop blaming female failures on sexism and it's time to stop demonizing white males in this fashion. |
Why should they be immune to scrutiny? |
They shouldn't be immune to scrutiny. But in a state which has proved itself willing to vote for a black man over a white man (Obama vs McCain), and a white woman over that same black man (Clinton vs Obama), trying to blame Croakley's loss on "angry white guys being sexist" is about as stupid as you can get.
They shouldn't be immune to scrutiny, but in this case, there's little to scrutinize. Not everything is about sexism. Sometimes, women who fail in politics fail purely on their own lack of merit. Croakely is one such woman. An individual with a history of abusing power, running an ineffective, lazy campaign, with a clear sense of smug self-entitlement with regards to obtaining this seat, who has her staffers blame the white house for her loss after she loses. There's no need to appeal to sexism in an attempt to explain her well deserved loss.
| Ya-ta Boy wrote: |
| I know guys who quite openly admit they would never vote for a woman for anything other than maybe a pole dancer. |
Yes, and I know some women who would never vote for a man. Women who are so thoroughly "pro-female" that they literally invent their own personal religions so they can worship a female god instead of a male one.
So what? I'm not going to appeal to those extremists anytime a woman beats a man in an election.
| Ya-ta Boy wrote: |
| Nor would we want to look honestly and openly at the motives of evolved gentlemen who are uncomfortable with people of color--Glenn Beck: Obama is a racist. Limbaugh: Obama is far too quick on the draw to send support to Haiti so he can curry support from the, as Harry Reid would say, 'Negros'. |
Okay, and let's compare this with some of the hysterics (to borrow a very accurate word from mises) coming from the other side. We have Olbermann trying to link Croakley's rejection to racism in the Mass. voting base, and now we have you and your article writer trying to link it to sexism in the Mass. voting base. I don't see how that's any better; rather than just accusing one man (Obama), you're accusing an entire State's white male voting base of sexism and racism. All because one Democratic female candidate -- who you yourself admit didn't run a good campaign -- lost.
It's time to cut the hysterics and get real. She lost because she was terrible. Sexism didn't lose it for her, racism certainly didn't lose it for her, health care didn't lose it for her, the White House not criticizing Wall Street enough didn't lose it for her. Croakley lost it for herself.
| Ya-ta Boy wrote: |
| Seems reasonable to me to consider all the aspects of the situation and not give angry white guys a pass when no one else gets one. |
Dude, pretty much everyone except white guys gets a pass on voting preferentially for their own demographic. Only white men are condemned for voting for white men. Blacks voted for Obama at as close to a 100% rate as any candidate has likely gotten in history, and it barely got talked about at all. Clinton did exceptionally well with women in many states, but no one mentioned it. It's only white guys that have to take this bullshit again, and again, and again. When Clinton was clearly losing the primary, plenty of women were saying things that could easily be classified as angry. But I didn't see much about "Angry women and their sexism." |
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mises
Joined: 05 Nov 2007
Location: retired
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| Posted: Wed Jan 20, 2010 7:33 pm Post subject: |
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| Dude, pretty much everyone except white guys gets a pass on voting preferentially for their own demographic. |
For reference, see the convulsions some have been having due to the possibility that Atlanta and New Orleans might have white mayors. Or when New Orleans was to remain a "chocolate city".
So, yeah. Let's make the obvious comparison. Think Portland or Denver. Etc. |
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bacasper
Joined: 26 Mar 2007
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| Posted: Thu Jan 21, 2010 8:23 am Post subject: |
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This Obama voter was a witness to the terror plot. Here is her take on the election:
By Lori Haskell
For the past year, I have avoided "politics". I detest the "game". I only supported Obama because I could not stand Sarah Palin. I hate how it's never really about the issues, and always about something behind the scenes and who pays what into a campaign. I hate how politicians never seem to be honest, and always use "legal" language to talk around actually answering a question.
Those who know me know I generally lean left in my social thinking. Kurt and I both do really.
I have been just LIVID since Obama's "speech" and nonreaction to Flight 253. I was almost blown up, and he stays in Hawaii on vacation with his family. When he finally does come back to Washington, he delivers a speech which "kind of" places blame on himself and Washington, but does not place specific blame on ANY agency or person, he fires NOBODY, and he says the places will deal with this "internally". To translate, he will "sweep this all under the rug until everyone forgets about it". (Oh, and right after the speech, he went golfing).
I call BULLSHIT. Do your effing job, Obama. You KNOW who screwed up. I am not buying you are stupid with your pretty Harvard law school degree hanging in your office. Stop being so nonchalant about anything and everything. When Obama was running, I loved his laidback, never stressed out demeanor. Now, I would like him to actually dispay some sort of his passion for Americans and their well-being. For something that is not politically based (i.e. healthcare bill).
Obama lost the election for the Democrat in MA. Notice her huge drop in the polls AFTER the December 25 attack. I do not think it's coincidence. I don't know that I would have voted for the Democrat, and I don't think I have voted Republican once in my life.
So, yes, Obama, I want change. Desperately. I want politics to be about honesty, and people being forthright. I want the truth. I want passion. And if I have to start looking to other political parties out there to get that, I will. I am not going to continually support someone who very obviously could care less about me and other Americans' safety. |
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Fox
Joined: 04 Mar 2009
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| Posted: Thu Jan 21, 2010 3:31 pm Post subject: |
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| bacasper wrote: |
| I have been just LIVID since Obama's "speech" and nonreaction to Flight 253. I was almost blown up, and he stays in Hawaii on vacation with his family. When he finally does come back to Washington, he delivers a speech which "kind of" places blame on himself and Washington, but does not place specific blame on ANY agency or person, he fires NOBODY, and he says the places will deal with this "internally". To translate, he will "sweep this all under the rug until everyone forgets about it". (Oh, and right after the speech, he went golfing). |
This is fairly inane. I don't think it was unreasonable for Bush to wait to respond to the shoe bomber, and I don't think Obama taking some time to respond to the underwear bomber is unreasonable either. These aren't really time-sensitive issues. A crime occured; that isn't going to change whether the President speaks up about it one minute later or one week later.
| bacasper wrote: |
| I call BULLSHIT. Do your effing job, Obama. |
I don't really think this matter is the President's job. In fact, I'd personally much prefer it if the President stayed out of matters like this entirely. In fact, it would be nice if the whole government kept out of it. Keeping the pilot's door locked at all times during flight is sufficient to stop a plane from being hijacked. That's the most we need to do. Sure a terrorist could try to blow up a plane, but he could just as easily try to blow up a city bus, or a church, or just drive a car through a crowd. And I wouldn't blame the President for any of those things either.
Obama should do his job, and that's sticking to the actual duties of being a President. He should give up a lot of the expansions of power that occured under Bush, and put things right.
People like this hysterical woman are part of what's wrong with the country. All it takes is one terrorist attack -- even a failed one -- and suddenly she wants a passionate President who dictates to us to keep us safe. Yeah, no thanks. The only thing she's right about is that people should be being fired, starting with the entire TSA. Somehow I don't think that's what she means, though. |
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