European Tribune - Community, Politics & Progress.

Is the Left Being Too Easy On the President?

by danps
Sat Jul 4th, 2009 at 06:18:45 AM EST

Some of the president's supporters may be politely ignoring some of the issues involving him. Whatever the strategic benefits at the moment, doing so may not be in the left's long term interest.

For more on pruning back executive power see Pruning Shears.

No Associated Press content was harmed in the writing of this post

On Tuesday lambert pointed out something I had not noticed: Talking Points Memo had not covered Matt Taibbi's Rolling Stone article on Goldman Sachs, and its coverage of them has been very light in recent months. Caveats: TPM advertises itself as "Breaking News and Analysis" and it gets to decide what is news and what merits analysis; Taibbi's article was a lengthy narrative in a magazine and not breaking news, similar to Todd Purdum's profile of Sarah Palin in Vanity Fair this month; while a web site has nearly unlimited space to devote to news there are only so many hours in the day end workers to publish during it. There are any number of good reasons why a site like TPM would not have covered it.

It still seems a curious omission though. After all, Purdum's article got a brief mention and link on the front page. Financial scandals are covered there, and a search on Bernie Madoff brings up three pages of results. Like Martha Stewart before him Madoff seems to have become a synecdoche for the entire financial industry. Now, Stewart's crime was a half million dollar stock scam whereas Madoff's was a $50 billion Ponzi scheme, so the latter had a much larger impact. Still, it A) only affected private investors and B) is relatively small when compared to bailout, son of bailout and who knows what other giveaways we are only vaguely aware of at the moment. It seems that an article like Taibbi's would serve an important reminder as to what the stakes and who the biggest players really are.

Maybe some of the president's supporters prefer to turn a blind eye towards a scathing indictment of a company whose employees have lavishly funded the president and with whom he appears to enjoy a warm relationship. If so it is troubling. I am somewhat sympathetic to the view of politics as team sport. We have a long tradition of a two party system and it is easy to see them as opponents on a playing field. You don't harshly criticize your captain any more than you would take a shot at your own goal. That is what the opposition is for, and if it is not willing or able to do so then you are under no obligation to help them out. As Bobby Bowden once told Lou Holtz after a lopsided win, "it's your job to keep the score down, not mine."

Taking that approach may not be in the left's ultimate interest though. For one, it moves the dialog closer to the whole "who won the week?" mentality - where policy is trumped by process - that progressives found so objectionable during the Bush years. If they embrace it now that Democrats are in control they will lose the chance to distinguish themselves from conservatives in any substantial way. That not only opens the door for Republicans to come back once the political winds shift but it sets liberals up to be regarded with the same deep distrust that has put the GOP in such a hole at the moment.

Strict obedience to the president did not serve conservatives well in another way: Because they never allowed a vibrant opposition from the right to develop they became hitched to Bush and had no ideas to offer once he left. When you tie your fate so closely to a leader and the leader becomes deeply unpopular you become, well, the Republican party circa 2009. Instead of simple triumphalism liberals should see the current disarray on the right as a cautionary tale. George Bush looked unassailably popular not too long ago and supporting him without reservation seemed to be the surest bet in politics; couldn't that apply to Barack Obama too?

As a liberal, what bothers me most about what looks like an unseemly deference towards the president from the left is my belief that we are (or should be) more adversarial towards those in power. The idea of nearly automatic reverence for those in authority - what Taibbi called the peasant mentality - is an inheritance from conservatives. Seeing the press corps stand at attention (via) when the president walks in, or military trappings attending him (as Avedon points out - and we can never be told often enough - "The President of the United States is a civilian. You don't salute him. Ever. Even if you are in the military."), or what Glenn Greenwald rightly called creepy assertions that we are obligated to fall in line behind the president simply because he is the president: all of that should rouse the authority-hating impulse of the left.

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Is the Left Being Too Easy On the President? | 51 comments (51 topical, 0 editorial, 0 hidden)

Tip Jar (4.00 / 4)

by danps (dan at pruningshears (dot) us) on Sat Jul 4th, 2009 at 06:19:03 AM EST

Re: Is the Left Being Too Easy On the President? (4.00 / 3)

I think liberals are disappointed that Obama isn't doing what they expected him to do. They forget that he's being lobbied left and right and that the "base" needs to keep up the pressure not just before the election.

A man of words and not of deeds is like a garden full of weeds; a man of deeds and not of words is like a garden full of turds — Anonymous

by Migeru (migeru at eurotrib dot com) on Sat Jul 4th, 2009 at 07:49:54 AM EST

Re: Is the Left Being Too Easy On the President? (4.00 / 4)

I think liberals are disappointed that Obama isn't doing what they expected him to do. They forget that he's being lobbied ~~left and right~~ right and farther right and that the "base" needs to keep up the pressure not just before the election.

There. Fixed it for ya.

- Jake

"Terraforming your own planet to make it uninhabitable hardly counts as epic win." - ThatBritGuy

by JakeS (JangoSierra 'at' gmail 'dot' com) on Sat Jul 4th, 2009 at 02:54:39 PM EST
[ Parent ]

Re: Is the Left Being Too Easy On the President? (none / 1)

I knew somebody would make that correction...

A man of words and not of deeds is like a garden full of weeds; a man of deeds and not of words is like a garden full of turds — Anonymous

by Migeru (migeru at eurotrib dot com) on Sun Jul 5th, 2009 at 02:59:00 PM EST
[ Parent ]

Re: Is the Left Being Too Easy On the President? (none / 0)

Are you calling me predictable ;-P

- Jake

"Terraforming your own planet to make it uninhabitable hardly counts as epic win." - ThatBritGuy

by JakeS (JangoSierra 'at' gmail 'dot' com) on Sun Jul 5th, 2009 at 04:01:14 PM EST
[ Parent ]

Nitpick (none / 1)

"The President of the United States is a civilian. You don't salute him. Ever. Even if you are in the military."

The President is the commander in chief. That means he's not a civilian. Just like the Swedish prime minister is a civilan as he's not the commander in chief of the Swedish armed forces. The guy who's CINC around here is the Supreme Commander, our only 4-star. That is, beside the King, who is both a 4-star general and a 4-star admiral and who, hence, is not a civilian.

Soldiers salute the King and the Supreme Commander, not the prime minister.

Peak oil is not an energy crisis. It is a liquid fuel crisis.

by Starvid (arvid.hallen at gmail.com) on Sat Jul 4th, 2009 at 05:22:29 PM EST

Re: Nitpick (none / 1)

That may be true for Sweden, but the framers of the American constitution made a deliberate political point of making sure that the president was CIC without giving up his status as civilian.

It may be a contradiction and it may not fly under international law either (for instance, the POTUS might arguably be a military target during war), but as a matter of protocol its symbolic significance should not be neglected.

- Jake

"Terraforming your own planet to make it uninhabitable hardly counts as epic win." - ThatBritGuy

by JakeS (JangoSierra 'at' gmail 'dot' com) on Sun Jul 5th, 2009 at 02:47:10 AM EST
[ Parent ]

Re: Nitpick (none / 1)

See wikipedia:

During the War of 1812, President Madison was under enemy fire on August 24, 1814, when American forces were routed by British troops in Bladensburg, Maryland. ...
During the American Civil War, President Abraham Lincoln ... actually came under enemy fire in 1864 during the Confederate attack on Fort Stevens in the District of Columbia, but did not exercise battlefield authority as commander-in-chief at any time.

Modern-day American Presidents and Presidential hopefuls just have their picture taken inside military vehicles, like Michael Dukakis or Bush the Lesser.

A man of words and not of deeds is like a garden full of weeds; a man of deeds and not of words is like a garden full of turds — Anonymous

by Migeru (migeru at eurotrib dot com) on Sun Jul 5th, 2009 at 04:50:33 AM EST
[ Parent ]

Re: Nitpick (none / 1)

Not exactly true. Lincoln made great efforts to become a competent military strategist after the war began, and while he may not have actually led troops on a particular battlefield, there is no doubt that he exercised his authority as CIC. Example.

From page 136 of The Story of the Confederacy by Robert Selph Henry regarding General George B. McClellan's army in 1862.

There can be no better example of what the relations between a military commander and his civilian chief should not be, than those of McClellan and Lincoln. There was fault on both sides: McClellan was secretive with his chief, and condescending; he was without any conception of the importance of the political side of war; he lost sight of the necessity for keeping the government behind his plans. Lincoln and Stanton, his Secretary of War, interfered often and unduly with the plans of the young General to whom they had intrusted chief command, and frequently without so much as notifying him of what they were to do.
Wearying of inaction, Lincoln during the winter issued his President's General War Order No. 1, directing that all the armies of the Union advance on all fronts on February twenty-second, presumably as a patriotic gesture on Washington's birthday. Later, in March, was issued another order from the President, peremptorily ordering an advance by McClellan's army before the eighteenth of the month, distinctly threatening in tone. On March eighth, without discussion with McClellan, the President divided his army into corps and assigned commanders to them. On March twelfth, while McClellan was with his army, he saw in the newspapers the order relieving him from command of all the armies, and confining him to the Potomac Department - his first intimation of the change.

I can swear there ain't no heaven but I pray there ain't no hell. _ Blood Sweat & Tears

by Gringo (stargazing camel at aoldotcom) on Mon Jul 6th, 2009 at 10:01:23 PM EST
[ Parent ]

Re: Nitpick (none / 1)

Nitpick point two. The President of the US is saluted by members of the American armed forces and he may return a salute.

I can swear there ain't no heaven but I pray there ain't no hell. _ Blood Sweat & Tears

by Gringo (stargazing camel at aoldotcom) on Mon Jul 6th, 2009 at 10:12:26 PM EST
[ Parent ]

Re: Is the Left Being Too Easy On the President? (4.00 / 5)

As a liberal, what bothers me most....

As a liberal, what bothers me is that every policy he's promulgated preserves the status quo ante and he's bent on "building consensus" with a bunch of Reponazis who wouldn't agree with him if he said the sky was blue and with a bunch of Blue Dogs who are only interested in making liberals dance like trained monkeys. In other words he's doing the usual liberal "Kumbaya" instead of taking a flame thrower to these people.

But as for Avedon, what he doesn't know about the UCMJ is just about everything.

by rifek on Sun Jul 5th, 2009 at 03:10:27 AM EST

Re: Is the Left Being Too Easy On the President? (4.00 / 2)

If the Avedon posting there is the person I think, she's here.

A track record long as yer arm on civil rights and government law.

keep to the Fen Causeway

by Helen (lareinagal at yahoo dot co dot uk) on Sun Jul 5th, 2009 at 08:31:54 AM EST
[ Parent ]

Re: Is the Left Being Too Easy On the President? (none / 1)

I used to be a government attorney. Being one does not translate to knowledge of military law.

by rifek on Sun Jul 5th, 2009 at 11:14:57 AM EST
[ Parent ]

Re: Is the Left Being Too Easy On the President? (4.00 / 2)

What would "taking a flame thrower" involve in practice?

To me, the "leftist" critiques we see of Obama only validate the total dominance of the corporatist/military-industrial ideology in the USA. If you take the position that the US government is not a representative democracy operating as it says in civics books, but is actually the usually run by dominant economic and military elites, the idea that a President could simply stamp his feet and get results seems implausible.

by rootless2 (redacted) on Mon Jul 6th, 2009 at 12:08:39 PM EST
[ Parent ]

Re: Is the Left Being Too Easy On the President? (4.00 / 4)

I was worried at the moment that Obama appointed Summers and Geitner, he could well have a failed presidency. I'm even more worried now.

Hey, Grandma Moses started late!

by LEP (rafifoon@yahoo.com) on Sun Jul 5th, 2009 at 04:52:34 AM EST

Re: Is the Left Being Too Easy On the President? (4.00 / 7)

Matt Taibbi (rapidly becoming the Molly Ivins of the Obama era) diagnosed all this a couple of years back

As far as political positioning goes, his strategy seems to be to appear as a sort of ideological Universalist, one who spends a great deal of rhetorical energy showing that he recognizes the validity of all points of view, and conversely emphasizes that when he does take hard positions on issues, he often does so reluctantly. He is a black man from Chicago who gets away with praising Ronald Reagan, which is not an easy task. His political ideal is basically a rehash of the Blair-Clinton "third way" deal, an amalgam of Kennedy, Reagan, Clinton and the New Deal; he is aiming for the middle of the middle of the middle.
In short, Obama is a creature perfectly in tune with the awesome corporate strivings of Hollywood, Madison avenue and the Beltway -- he tries, and often succeeds, at selling a politics of seeking out the very center of where we already are, to the very couch where we've been sitting all this time, as an exciting, revolutionary journey into the unknown. And while most of what he says and writes is basically some version of the same old tired clichés about family and faith and hope and optimism and "working together" and "getting involved," he adds to those clichés real literary flair, wordsmithing far beyond the range of most politicians.

keep to the Fen Causeway

by Helen (lareinagal at yahoo dot co dot uk) on Sun Jul 5th, 2009 at 08:46:29 AM EST

Re: Is the Left Being Too Easy On the President? (4.00 / 3)

Oh, that's a sweet quote. And I was saying before the election that he was being all things to all people, and that his job is sales, not policy.

But that was then. This is the first sign that some of his former dedicated fans are starting to get just a little bit suspicious that they've been screwed, and that when he said 'Hope' and 'Change' what he meant was 'Green Shoots' and 'Business as Usual.'

by ThatBritGuy (thatbritguy (at) googlemail.com) on Sun Jul 5th, 2009 at 09:04:27 AM EST
[ Parent ]

Re: Is the Left Being Too Easy On the President? (4.00 / 5)

his job is sales, not policy

The selection pressures in the political process select for a set of abilities that have nothing to do with policy, or governance.

A man of words and not of deeds is like a garden full of weeds; a man of deeds and not of words is like a garden full of turds — Anonymous

by Migeru (migeru at eurotrib dot com) on Sun Jul 5th, 2009 at 09:13:37 AM EST
[ Parent ]

Re: Is the Left Being Too Easy On the President? (4.00 / 2)

It's funny how through the entire primary and election, as an Obama supporter I was repeatedly assured by masters of hegemonic theory that contrary to what they had concluded to be my opinion, Obama was not a revolutionary messiah. I responded that he was indeed a centrist, but a relatively human and intelligent one who would at least slow the US transformation into a police state, but this response was ignored as not matching theoretical considerations. Now, often the same people are explaining that he's actually turned out to be a mushy centrist. Well, we're duly shocked and chastened. Should have listened to older and wiser heads and let Palin/McCain win the election, I guess.

by rootless2 (redacted) on Sun Jul 5th, 2009 at 09:27:58 PM EST
[ Parent ]

Re: Is the Left Being Too Easy On the President? (4.00 / 3)

The conclusion does not follow from the premise.

It is quite possible to support Obama in the general election, on the theory that on balance it's better to have a corporate whore in the White House than a belligerent cold warrior with a fundagelical sidekick, and still blast Obama today for promising changes that he never intended to deliver. Indeed, the American left - such as it is and what there is of it - needs to keep the heat up on this guy, and especially his little creep of a Treasury Secretary.

They need to pretend that he did promise, in so many words, to realise their agenda to the last comma. And then cry bloody murder whenever he wilfully deviates from it. Make him fear a primary challenge from the left. And boot out all the fucking blue dogs in the next midterm primaries, to show that you people mean business.

Because "better than McCain and Palin" is not a party programme.

- Jake

"Terraforming your own planet to make it uninhabitable hardly counts as epic win." - ThatBritGuy

by JakeS (JangoSierra 'at' gmail 'dot' com) on Mon Jul 6th, 2009 at 02:05:35 AM EST
[ Parent ]

Re: Is the Left Being Too Easy On the President? (4.00 / 3)

In fact I think Biden's comment may have been made in good faith. No one has ever doubted Obama's oratorical gifts, but there was always an excellent chance that as a manager he'd be somewhere between poor and mediocre.

There's never been any evidence that Obama understands economics, and especially not the politics of economics. So when Geithner and the rest said 'Let's jump off that cliff' he was happy to follow their 'expert' lead, because he very likely believes that they truly are disinterested experts.

If Biden is now saying 'Oopsie', that could be a suggestion that questions are being asked. But I still doubt that Obama has what it takes to turn around the economy, because he'll be coming at it as a complete novice - someone who doesn't just fail to grasp the issues, but also fails to understand the people, and is probably too congenitally centrist to make intelligent decisions.

I suspect Obama secretly considers Krugman a left-wing extremist, and the last person in the world he should listen to.

More than that - Obama's chief interest is in playing Obama as president. It's a theatre performance with some fine quasi-Shakespearean speeches and a chance to influence some Big Issues. Mundane crap like failing banks just isn't sexy enough to capture his vast statesmanlike attention.

by ThatBritGuy (thatbritguy (at) googlemail.com) on Mon Jul 6th, 2009 at 05:57:39 AM EST
[ Parent ]

Re: Is the Left Being Too Easy On the President? (none / 1)

Actually, Obama's economics has differed from Krugman's mainly in that Krugman, as one would expect from an entirely orthodox neoclassicist, thinks finance is the core of the economy, while Obama has been stalling banking to try to pump manufacturing and R&D. Is that more right wing?

by rootless2 (redacted) on Mon Jul 6th, 2009 at 09:27:19 AM EST
[ Parent ]

Re: Is the Left Being Too Easy On the President? (none / 1)

"Better than McCain/Palin" is, in fact, an excellent party platform. If the German left had been as smart in the late 1920s instead of rejecting the mushy centrism of the SD, they would have had better results.

As for who to "pressure", the Obama administration is well to the "left" of the US Senate, state legislatures, and so on, but the "celebrity politics" habit of US Left is such that the tedious slog of actually pressuring people who can be influenced, or worse yet, building real political strength is anathema and rejected in favor of fruitless efforts to force a centrist president to, by fiat, overthrow pervasive corporatist power.

by rootless2 (redacted) on Mon Jul 6th, 2009 at 09:41:16 AM EST
[ Parent ]

Re: Is the Left Being Too Easy On the President? (none / 0)

"Better than McCain/Palin" is, in fact, an excellent party platform.

Nobody will remember McCain and Palin in 2012. Bush will be a recollected only hazily. If your only platform in 2012 is "we weren't as bad as Bush/McCain/Palin" then you're going to get your asses handed to you, and you won't even realise what hit you.

If the German left had been as smart in the late 1920s instead of rejecting the mushy centrism of the SD, they would have had better results.

On what do you base that analysis?

And even if it were correct (which I seriously doubt), there is some difficulty in translating political strategy Weimar style into practical application in today's America. Even if you were to contend that the economic situation is similar (which in some respects it is), the electoral system and constitutional balance of power is rather different.

As for who to "pressure", the Obama administration is well to the "left" of the US Senate, state legislatures,

So what? Does primarying blue dogs in the Senate and defeating Republicans in state elections preclude primarying Obama in the next Presidential election?

- Jake

"Terraforming your own planet to make it uninhabitable hardly counts as epic win." - ThatBritGuy

by JakeS (JangoSierra 'at' gmail 'dot' com) on Mon Jul 6th, 2009 at 11:40:22 AM EST
[ Parent ]

Re: Is the Left Being Too Easy On the President? (none / 1)

"So what? Does primarying blue dogs in the Senate and defeating Republicans in state elections preclude primarying Obama in the next Presidential election?"

I see no evidence of an organized effort to do the first. Just a lot of yelling.

by rootless2 (redacted) on Mon Jul 6th, 2009 at 11:48:21 AM EST
[ Parent ]

Re: Is the Left Being Too Easy On the President? (4.00 / 3)

Regarding the Communists and the SPD in Weimar, one could argue that had the communists supported Marx as president in 1925 he would have beaten Hindenburg and then probably Hitler in 1930, making Marx president during the bad years in the early 30'ies. (Though that would probably also have developed into a dictatorship, and possibly even a nazi one.)

On the other hand one could just as easily argue that had not the SPD gone along with governments harsh punishments for the radicals of the left and lenient treatment of the radicals of the right, Hitler could have been executed for the putsch attempt in 1923. Or at least wasted away in a jail cell for the rest of his life.

A vote for PES is a vote for EPP! A vote for EPP is a vote for PES! Support the coalition, vote EPP-PES in 2009!

by A swedish kind of death on Wed Jul 8th, 2009 at 06:11:51 PM EST
[ Parent ]

Re: Is the Left Being Too Easy On the President? (4.00 / 2)

The best way to ensure a return of right-wing Republicanism to power in 2012 is for President Obama and the Democratic Congress to fail to implement a thorough program of change for this country. "Better than McCain/Palin" is a losing platform, because at best it merely forestalls disaster for four years (eight at the most).

Bill Clinton governed as "better than Reagan/Bush" for eight years and was unable to prevent something much worse than Reagan/Bush from taking power in 2001.

And the world will live as one

by Montereyan (robert at calitics dot com) on Mon Jul 6th, 2009 at 07:35:46 PM EST
[ Parent ]

Re: Is the Left Being Too Easy On the President? (4.00 / 3)

Helen:

at selling a politics of seeking out the very center of where we already are, to the very couch where we've been sitting all this time, as an exciting, revolutionary journey into the unknown.

shamanism 101...

what people want to believe is greater than what they see. his rhetoric was calibrated with perfection, milking history, lincolnism, humanist idealism, and a pinch of preacherman, with a disarming, aw-shucks grin, couched in very studiedly spontaneous post-cool body language.

brand new bottle, same old wine?

we overlooked the cult of personality, because the goals seemed worthy, if they aren't followed through all the love will backfire.

but he will be a hero no matter, and retire with great wealth, scribing some well-written memoirs about how he tried to take on the status quo with a pebble in his hand, and failed because people went back to sleep once he got elected, or believed the middle of the middle of the middle was a better place, instead of being hit by traffic from both sides of the road.

people-pleaser... perhaps if he had had better advisors...

"Two wrongs don't make a right, but three lefts do." Jim Hightower

by melo (melometa4(at)gmail.com) on Sun Jul 5th, 2009 at 04:06:47 PM EST
[ Parent ]

Re: Is the Left Being Too Easy On the President? (4.00 / 2)

people went back to sleep once he got elected,

I wonder if the regular apathy, after a year-long road show, has put the eleventh-hour lefties back to sleep. Some took up to 7 years to wake up, deep in debt, losing jobs and in a mounting economic depression, with third world economic conditions in many cities around the country. In a semi-lucid state people fell for the mirage, forgetting an election is only choosing the best of the worst and not another instant solution.

A lot of people are forced to mind their urgent needs, and/or think political activism is only for the road shows, but at least the practice of internet discourse has grown exponentially this decade and it should be a positive lasting effect.

It happens 'everywhere' in stages and I can see it in the Spanish socialist party right now, which seems to me inattentive and blinded by gurus, if not dormant. The PP here could qualify as a divided, floating corpse, but their machinery and chorus never stops, while united left, IU, which has high activism on the net, can't win for losing due to their internal divisions.

Our knowledge has surpassed our wisdom. -Charu Saxena.

by metavision on Mon Jul 6th, 2009 at 07:16:07 AM EST
[ Parent ]

Re: Is the Left Being Too Easy On the President? (none / 1)

metavision:

while united left, IU, which has high activism on the net, can't win for losing due to their internal divisions.

ditto italy, the differences between franceschini and di pietro are minor, it appears, yet they have to have two separate parties, it's insane!

whereas berlu and bossi have lots of differences, yet unite effectively when it comes to keeping a hold on the levers of power, their ideals mainly revolve around victimising others, so they have strong agreement on that...

it seems like leftist platforms tend to be more like vapourware. big on noble wishes, petty on policies.

"Two wrongs don't make a right, but three lefts do." Jim Hightower

by melo (melometa4(at)gmail.com) on Mon Jul 6th, 2009 at 05:11:00 PM EST
[ Parent ]

Re: Is the Left Being Too Easy On the President? (4.00 / 2)

Typical of American "progressives" who are, like other members of the elite, uninterested in stupid shit like labor unions and manufacturing, and are obsessed by surface issues.

by rootless2 (redacted) on Sun Jul 5th, 2009 at 06:36:50 PM EST
[ Parent ]

Re: Is the Left Being Too Easy On the President? (none / 1)

isn't that also the unions' fault?

for all the great benefits unions have brought since the thirties, by the mid sixties they were as corrupt as the governments and the bosses, and fouled their own reputations.

i'd like to think they're important again, and that leftist thought could coalesce behind them, but with the de-industrialisation process going on in the western democracies with global outsourcing, their rank and file hardly have jobs any more any more, let alone the wherewithal to create and maintain the enthusiasm for unions.

it is a great pity, but perhaps the silver lining is that the satanic mills model is leaving our shores, to emerge in china, which is in its dickensian period. (no rights). tough for them, but they're just repeating the same choices we made 100 years ago.

we have no choice other than to invent something new, as a way of contributing to the world.

my guess is that it's (post-industrial) cultural memes, many embedded in the arts, already mightily appreciated in japan, but still not really cracking the vast, oceanic chinese markets.

i can't think of a country less likely to produce a new politically revolutionary thinker than present day china, if marx were reborn there he'd be a political prisoner in no time...

but i bet in 20 years many western jazz musicians will be touring there and pulling down great pay, likewise dance, multimedia, and movies, ditto iran, india...

our educated classes have been appreciating the manifold cultural gifts from the orient for centuries, they are just beginning with ours, and they're eating them up...

"Two wrongs don't make a right, but three lefts do." Jim Hightower

by melo (melometa4(at)gmail.com) on Mon Jul 6th, 2009 at 05:40:58 PM EST
[ Parent ]

Lambert is a fool and a liar (4.00 / 2)

This is the guy who two weeks before the election was posting RedState insinuations that the Obama campaign was a money laundering exercise, who refused to vote for Obama, who refused to vote for a Democratic Senator, who turned his web site into a meeting place for klan members to discuss the "get whitey" tape.

Many white "progressives" have a hard time with a black President. Too bad for them.

by rootless2 (redacted) on Sun Jul 5th, 2009 at 06:34:25 PM EST

Re: Is the Left Being Too Easy On the President? (4.00 / 6)

The thesis is overstated. Certainly there is a significant segment of Obama's supporters who are not willing to accept criticism of him - but I would posit that many of those folks aren't actually on the left, and are quite comfortable with his corporate centrism.

That being said, many on the American left have been vocal about their criticisms of Obama. Taibbi's article was the subject of numerous diaries on Daily Kos, several of which made the rec list. It's been linked on many other sites within the left blogosphere.

The left's lobbying organizations, such as MoveOn.org, are playing this strategically. They're not happy with Obama, but are holding their fire for the time being, preferring to focus on the Democratic Congress (which is just as much a part of the problem as Obama). Or they are taking on Obama ever so carefully - asking him to uphold his promises, without launching into an overt attack. In short, those on the left who are upset that Obama is even more of a corporate centrist than we thought are preferring to organize to push him to do the right thing than to criticize.

The moment of truth will come later this year with the health care bill. If Obama sits on his ass as he's currently doing, lets Congress pass a crappy "reform" that is little more than an insurance industry bailout, and then signs it - then you will see very overt anger coming from a much broader segment of the American left, as well as from Obama's base. Combined with a prolonged recession, including high unemployment, this would signal a rough 2010 for Obama and the Dems. Which, of course, they'd be bringing upon themselves.

And the world will live as one

by Montereyan (robert at calitics dot com) on Sun Jul 5th, 2009 at 09:56:33 PM EST

Re: Is the Left Being Too Easy On the President? (4.00 / 2)

I'm amazed by: "f Obama sits on his ass as he's currently doing" because I don't think we've seen an example of tough and smart application of Presidential lobbying for social reform since Lyndon Johnson left the white house. What many "left" critics seem to mean by such criticism is that Obama is not making belligerent public statements, drawing a line in the sand, on this issue. But that is not his style and there is no evidence it is effective.

by rootless2 (redacted) on Mon Jul 6th, 2009 at 09:48:27 AM EST
[ Parent ]

Re: Is the Left Being Too Easy On the President? (4.00 / 5)

For all intents and purposes there isn't a US Left.

By 'US Left' I mean, "A large, organized, movement with a coherent ideology critical of the status-quo giving a practical alternative to the status-quo." The organized movements aren't large and the large movements aren't organized and neither offer a coherent ideology or practical alternatives.

No one could have predicted

by ATinNM on Mon Jul 6th, 2009 at 11:34:45 AM EST
[ Parent ]

Re: Is the Left Being Too Easy On the President? (4.00 / 5)

I think you are just promoting a rightwing myth with that kind of logic.

You can truthfully say there is not a large, organized US left with a coherent economic ideology critical of the status-quo giving a practical alternative to the status-quo, but there is a US left. And you're doing them no favors by playing the Establishment "if I can't see you from my womblike existence then you don't exist" card. The fact that you don't see them doesn't mean they do not exist. It simply reflects the fact that a leftist economic ideology doesn't lend itself to buying lots and lots of media and politicians in order to promote their agenda. Bit of a problem that. I was in a bar with 100 people and our State Treasurer the other night, and he said that the supporters of the public option don't want put private insurers out of business. Someone in the room said, "Yes we do," and was met with a thunderous applause.

There is a large, organized US left with a coherent social ideology critical of the status-quo giving a practical alternative to the status-quo.

Actually - nix that. "Coherent" is a strawman.

"Pretending that you already know the answer when you don't is not actually very helpful." ~Migeru.

by poemless on Mon Jul 6th, 2009 at 11:53:26 AM EST
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Re: Is the Left Being Too Easy On the President? (none / 1)

I don't see it either if you mean some "left" that is outside of the coalition that elected Obama: the trade unions, move-on, OFA, ACORN, and so on.

by rootless2 (redacted) on Mon Jul 6th, 2009 at 12:04:38 PM EST
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Re: Is the Left Being Too Easy On the President? (none / 1)

And they are so affective on policy:

Detainees, Even if Acquitted, Might Not Go Free

The Obama administration said Tuesday it could continue to imprison non-U.S. citizens indefinitely even if they have been acquitted of terrorism charges by a U.S. military commission.

No one could have predicted

by ATinNM on Wed Jul 8th, 2009 at 10:26:26 AM EST
[ Parent ]

Re: Is the Left Being Too Easy On the President? (none / 1)

poemless:

The fact that you don't see them doesn't mean they do not exist.

I'm willing to bet you that ATinNM does see them.

We're talking 5% of the population, just about, aren't we?

A man of words and not of deeds is like a garden full of weeds; a man of deeds and not of words is like a garden full of turds — Anonymous

by Migeru (migeru at eurotrib dot com) on Mon Jul 6th, 2009 at 12:04:39 PM EST
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Re: Is the Left Being Too Easy On the President? (4.00 / 3)

I have no clue what percentage of the population it is. How would anyone know? Half of the public doesn't even vote. Still, even if they only comprise 5% of the population, so what? Only 1% of the population holds about half of all American assets, and we don't really question their existence, now do we?

"Pretending that you already know the answer when you don't is not actually very helpful." ~Migeru.

by poemless on Mon Jul 6th, 2009 at 12:41:08 PM EST
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Re: Is the Left Being Too Easy On the President? (none / 0)

It depends on what the meaning of "large" is...

A man of words and not of deeds is like a garden full of weeds; a man of deeds and not of words is like a garden full of turds — Anonymous

by Migeru (migeru at eurotrib dot com) on Mon Jul 6th, 2009 at 01:01:51 PM EST
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Re: Is the Left Being Too Easy On the President? (none / 1)

What depends on that?

"Pretending that you already know the answer when you don't is not actually very helpful." ~Migeru.

by poemless on Mon Jul 6th, 2009 at 01:04:42 PM EST
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Re: Is the Left Being Too Easy On the President? (none / 0)

We're debating whether "there is a large" US Left. Or at least I thought so.

A man of words and not of deeds is like a garden full of weeds; a man of deeds and not of words is like a garden full of turds — Anonymous

by Migeru (migeru at eurotrib dot com) on Mon Jul 6th, 2009 at 01:07:12 PM EST
[ Parent ]

Re: Is the Left Being Too Easy On the President? (4.00 / 2)

I wasn't debating the size. I was simply responding to the bogus assertion that, "For all intents and purposes there isn't a US Left."

"Pretending that you already know the answer when you don't is not actually very helpful." ~Migeru.

by poemless on Mon Jul 6th, 2009 at 01:15:49 PM EST
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Re: Is the Left Being Too Easy On the President? (none / 0)

Please provide evidence I ever stated there are no US leftists.

Please provide evidence I ever stated there are no US Left organizations.

Speaking of that ...

The most effective¹ Left Organization is the Democratic Socialists of America a splinter (Harrington's faction, mostly) of the old Socialist Party. But they are tactically and strategically an externally organized pressure group to function within the Democratic Party. I'm sure they wouldn't mind if they had millions of members; not on their To Do list, tho'.

¹ In terms of affecting government policy

No one could have predicted

by ATinNM on Wed Jul 8th, 2009 at 10:52:06 AM EST
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Re: Is the Left Being Too Easy On the President? (none / 1)

Fine.

Give me three accomplishments the US Left has pushed through in the last 20 years to roll back concentration of political and economic power of the Ruling Elites.

No one could have predicted

by ATinNM on Wed Jul 8th, 2009 at 10:10:52 AM EST
[ Parent ]

Re: Is the Left Being Too Easy (4.00 / 6)

The reason why I am very easy on Obama (an why I think the US left is also generally easy on Obama) is the following:

never, never, never in the history of Earth, sitting Empire hasdecided to stop torturing. The US has tortured, finance killers, and launch mass killings for the benefit of a single company. Now, Obama is withdrawing from Iran, not supporting an Honduras coup, beign reasonable on Iran, engaging Russia.. so I am going to be very easy on him about infinite detention policy becasue this is something the CIA has done all along the way.

The only thing I would be worried about is massive intelligence gathering.. it never existed before, now it is possible to do... will the state hear everything we say?.. probably .. anf Obama is not going to stopthat, so shame on him on that, but compared with the 60's or 80's or W Bush.. this is heaven.

-And on national policy I think he is going to get heaath care right.. and the left senses it...And I really think this is what prevents the left from launching a massive assault against him. The american left is not so engaged with global warming... so it is strange that a not-very-bad-bill on global warming is better than nothing for them.. becasue eventually it is up to the people to decide if it worthy to update it... The framework against global warming will be there and ready to be strengthened whenever the electric and wind lobby can beat completley the oil lobby.

And finally, the only real reason to be tough on Obama is economics... And that's where the american left is firing constantly... economists, left-wing are the only realible source of cosntant denigration , from Krugman to the Daily kos, from De-Long to the washinton post...a new 1 trillion government spending package now!! it is the fact that he is not listening to the ones that matter here that has the americna left angry... and here it is where people on the left are really being tough.. Obama is playing with its presidency..

In other words, I think the left lobby is acting very smartly, they are doing what I think they should do. Be with him on health care, not get angry for a mild global-wartming bill, support him on torture and foreign policy, make a small fuss about intelligence gathering and cry hell only about his center-right economic policies...in other times center-right economic polciies are fine.. not now.

A pleasure

I therefore claim to show, not how men think in myths, but how myths operate in men's minds without their being aware of the fact. Levi-Strauss, Claude

by kcurie on Mon Jul 6th, 2009 at 10:14:28 AM EST

Re: Is the Left Being Too Easy (4.00 / 3)

I meant the "few left-wing articulists of the Washington Post"... and also I meant that "it is NOT strange that a not-very-bad-bill on global warming" is good enough for the american left.

I should add that MSNBC and daily kos also presses Obama on gay rights..,. which shows that my theory does not explain everything.

A pleasure

I therefore claim to show, not how men think in myths, but how myths operate in men's minds without their being aware of the fact. Levi-Strauss, Claude

by kcurie on Mon Jul 6th, 2009 at 11:52:14 AM EST
[ Parent ]

Re: Is the Left Being Too Easy On the President? (4.00 / 3)

I saw the otherwise annoying Cornell West make a very keen observation about Obama on Bill Moyer's Journal:

There is a reluctance of Barack Obama to step into the age of Barack Obama.

"Pretending that you already know the answer when you don't is not actually very helpful." ~Migeru.

by poemless on Mon Jul 6th, 2009 at 10:57:02 AM EST

Re: Is the Left Being Too Easy On the President? (none / 1)

i was just listening to that on the way home from work today!

man i loved his way with language, part bullshit part prophet, serious wordsmith, good command of history.

great stuff about how christians should welcome secularism and the complete unwinding of the churches' power, how it's only then that it can be reborn.

the other two interviewees were great too, serena someone, and the other guy who was more into economic democracy.

that was some powerful shit they were laying down, i was getting good liftoff from the combo riffing between themselves, with bill gently egging them on.

bill moyers is in his full power in this crisis, his podcasts rays of light and reason...

"Two wrongs don't make a right, but three lefts do." Jim Hightower

by melo (melometa4(at)gmail.com) on Mon Jul 6th, 2009 at 05:23:10 PM EST
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Is the Left Being Too Easy On the President? | 51 comments (51 topical, 0 editorial, 0 hidden)

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