NONE OF THEM Get It

[filkertom]

An Associated Press piece tells us that Obama gets the message, and it's "Jobs, jobs, jobs":

The White House in the new year already had begun focusing greater attention on the nation's angst and anger over a range of economic issues, including unemployment persisting near 10 percent, government expansion, Wall Street excesses and federal deficits.

Officials said Wednesday that that shift will intensify now, an acknowledgment that Tuesday's stunning Senate election of Republican Scott Brown in the Democratic stronghold of Massachusetts requires at least some course correction in Obama's still-young presidency.

Brown's election to the seat that had been held by Democratic Sen. Edward Kennedy meant the end of a filibuster-proof majority for Obama's party in the Senate and suddenly imperiled passage of the president's marquee domestic agenda item — a sweeping health care overhaul. It also leaves the fate of other key Obama priorities unclear and prompted a series of questions about the president's political judgment, clout and popularity.

Obama and his top aides huddled with each other and Capitol Hill allies throughout Wednesday to plot how to rescue the health care legislation and to start mapping a way forward leading into this fall's midterm congressional elections.

Their conclusion was that the economy — jobs specifically and the broader topics of the nation's fiscal and financial health — must be priority No. 1.

Y'know, I've got a possible message that Obama should've got. Two parts to it.

First part: DO SOMETHING.

Do the stuff you keep talking about doing. Do what we elected you to do. Don't make "bipartisanship" your be-all and end-all. "Jobs, jobs, jobs" is part of the problem, yeah, but the grand bulk of the problem is that, and health care reform, and two and a half wars, and bankers taking their insane bonuses a year after they came begging to the government, and the perception that after all this bullshit about giving the Dems the power to do something for the people of this country the Dems don't actually know what the fuck to do.

It's not just "jobs", it's helplessness. People don't know what to do. They see jobs going away, incomes dropping on the ones left, factories and businesses closing up, health insurance companies getting more and more of that reform pie, financial institutions crowing about how great everything is while so many people have lost their homes to foreclosure. They have kids who have to eat or go to the doctor. They watch as local governments, shredded by the states who were shredded by the fed, cut police and fire protection, garbage pickup, snow removal, the shit you need for day-to-day, because there simply isn't any money left, at least not for the lower end. And they see Ben Nelson or Joe Lieberman or Olympia Snowe holding up everything for months, and Harry Reid shrugging as if he's helpless. He has no idea about real helplessness.

A number of editorials the past day or so have congratulated the Repubs on their 41-59 majority in the Senate, and that's what the people see and they have no idea what the fuck is wrong with the Old Boys' Club. What's wrong is that it is an Old Boys' Club, and none of the old boys remember -- if they ever knew -- what it's like to live paycheck to paycheck, or to not have a paycheck at all.

Second part: IGNORE THE REPUBS. Especially the ones who are whining, holding their breath, and stamping their feet:

Republicans were ready to strike back. "Stop the arrogance and start listening to us," Rep. Eric Cantor of Virginia, the House Republican whip, said on CNN, assessing the voter message from Massachusetts. "I think this is the theme that we will see continuing to play out unless this administration and the majority in Congress begin to respond to the people."

They want Dems to "start listening" to them. Yeah, well, in spite of their completely destroying the fucking economy, deep-sixing the Constitution, and basically being miserable excuses for intelligent life forms, let alone legislators, the Repubs were aggressively courted last year by Obama, the Dems, and certainly the news media. All for the sake of "bipartisanship". And all the Repubs did was say, "No", over and over and over again.

The Dems did listen to you, Cantor. And all you wanted was for them to fail politically, not caring that doing so meant the people of this country failed economically.

So fuck the Repubs. Get back reconciliation, quit pretending that every vote has to be a supermajority, fuck bipartisanship, do your damn jobs and help people. Government is doing collectively what we can't do individually, but you fuckers are holding the purse strings. Open 'em.

But they won't.

They don't get it. They can't. Their jobs are at risk if they get it. The idea that public service means actually serving the public escapes them.

I am not one to advocate violence, and I'm not doing so now. I don't want it; I want our lawmakers to do the right thing, and actually help the country. But I can damn sure see that, between the fear on the right and the frustration on the left, domestic violence on a very large scale may be closer than we think.

Comments

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[poltr1]

I don't get it. What does this have to do with the topic?

[cscottd.livejournal.com]

Second part: IGNORE THE REPUBS. Especially the ones who are whining, holding their breath, and stamping their feet:

And while they're at it, they need to tell Democratic representatives and senators to make up their mind who their constituents are: the lobbyists who line their coffers or the people who elected them to office.

Let's face it, the Republicans are going to pretty much say no to anything and everything that President Obama tries to do. The ones who are really standing in the way of getting anything done are the Democrats who keep voting with their corporate masters, instead of their party and (more importantly) the people they're supposed to represent.

Personally, I'd like to see the media stop referring to senators and representatives by their party and state, and start listing their largest campaign contributors instead.

I think it might reveal a lot about why some of them vote the way they do.

[filkertom.livejournal.com]

Definitely works for me. As I say, when the hell did public service stop meaning "serve the public"?

[dornbeast.livejournal.com]

I'd like to see the media stop referring to senators and representatives by their party and state, and start listing their largest campaign contributors instead.

I'd like it if somebody campaigning for public office or acting in such a capacity was required to wear a jacket or shirt with all his sponsors' logos on it. It's like NASCAR, for politics.

[lariss.livejournal.com]

Oh absolutely. I just LOVE hearing reps talking about "what the voters don't want," and ONLY hearing things that companies don't want.

I want ALL the stuff they are saying i don't - a public option, rigorous separation of church and state, abortion rights, gay rights...


But no one asked me.

[maiac.livejournal.com]

Much of the "stunning reversal" for Obama is media hype. Yes, it's a big thing and a very bad thing that a teabagger won the Massachusetts Senate race. But the significance of losing the "supermajority"? Pfffft. What supermajority? They were already getting nothing accomplished. The Democratic leadership couldn't count on Democrats voting for the Democratic agenda.

The Democrats need to look both at the races they won against expectations and the races they lost. If they do, they'll see that the victory went to the progressives. Not to the people who tried to appease the teabaggers. And they won't see that, because they don't want to.

[filkertom.livejournal.com]

Exactly. Someone wrote over the past day or so that it was no big deal for the Dems to lose their supermajority, 'cause, hey, they weren't using it anyway.

[morpheus0013.livejournal.com]

I was being driven insane this fall by the continued mantra on the cable news networks of "60 is the magic number, the Democrats need 60 votes." They Do Fucking NOT. I am no math genius, but last I checked, 51 is the majority of 100.

[admnaismith.livejournal.com]

Couldn't count on Democrats voting for the Democratic agenda? Heck, they couldn't count on Democrats not filibustering their own agenda!

Someone explain to me why we need a Republican party, even one GOP member of Congress. Democrats make a more effective opposition party to themselves than the GOP ever did. In fact, it's maybe the only thing they're good at.

[morpheus0013.livejournal.com]

Have you, by any chance, read this (http://www.tnr.com/article/politics/panic?page=0,0)?

And yes. IGNORE THE REPUBS. It is fruitless to try to extend a hand to people who only want to stab you in the back, and I have for months now been flabbergasted that the administration has continued to try. It's all well and good to reach out and try to work with people; that's as it should be. After the fourth or fifth time, when it becomes apparent that they are NEVER GOING TO AGREE WITH YOU, for no reason other than you're a Dem? FUCK THEM. That's when you pick up your toys and you say, "We tried being nice. You're a dick. And we do not need you."

Unfortunately, the Obama and the Ds may have missed their chance of that being true. And unfortunately, I don't think they learned anything from the experience.

[antinomic.livejournal.com]

Historically, this country wants to centrist. When Bush swung far right, the Repubs were rightly kicked to the curb. Obama ran (mostly) as a centrist, then tried to govern from the left. So his folks are being defeated.

If he actually did what he campaigned to do, fiscal conservatism, scaling back the wars, and so forth, there might have been a different outcome. The house is now running scared of defeat next November, so they won't pass the Senate bill. Without it, Obama is looking at a failed presidency. Ah well, it proves we have racial equality when a black President can suck as mightily as a white one. Pity, that.

The Dems saw Obama's election as a mandate, when it really was just a rebuke of Bush. Neither party has a mandate.

Keep on preaching, Tom!

[filkertom.livejournal.com]

Thanks for the vote of confidence. But I do have to differ with a few things.

Obama campaigned as a slightly-left-leaning pragmatist. And then he governed, and governs, from the slightly-right-leaning center. But he keeps talking like a slightly-left-leaning pragmatist, and his problem is we can see he's still governing from the slightly-right-leaning center.

He didn't campaign so much on fiscal conservatism as in fiscal responsibility. The stimulus package was not as big as we needed. Moreover, the Repubs made, and continue to make, huge amounts of noise about the Terrible Terrible Budget Monster We Can't Afford Oh Woe when they spent eight years going along with Dubya's insane tax cuts, two wars off the books, deregulation of the financial industry, encouragement of hard industries to go offshore, and literally calling any who said Hey Slow Down A Minute What The a traitor.

Pay-as-you-go is indeed the way to go, no question... when you can. But right now we're trying to rebuild our economy from the ground up. For myself, I still think the best idea is rebuilding infrastructure -- not just road repair, although that's done a lot, but cable, fiber optics, power, etc., etc. Remaking the country green as we patch the broken hardware would be a huge added benefit.

Definitely wish he'd scale back the wars. Very very soon, please. How many tours are some of those people on? Fifth? Sixth? More?

And, one more thing. If the election was a rebuke of Bush, then, by definition, it was indeed a mandate, if for nothing else than to stop doing what Bush did.

[admnaismith.livejournal.com]

Obama did NOT try to govern from the left. We spent most of the last political year agonizingly watching nothing after nothing happen, as he and the Democratic Congressional leadership bent over backwards trying to include and appease Republicans, who responded like the old-style Soviet diplomats during Brezhnev-Era United Nations talks: Nyet, Nyet, Nyet. The Gop demanded, and received, concessions merely for agreeing to sit at the bargaining table.

And that happened over and over and over. Like clockwork.

Here's what the left in America wanted and hoped for: an immediate end to the war in Iraq; the closure of Guantanamo Bay; the repeal of the "Defense of Marriage" act, some support for same sex marriage; a New Deal revival that gave stimulus money to the working class and the down and out instead of shoveling our tax money at the giant corporations whose bad decisions caused the economic troubles in the first place; and oh yes a Canadian style Single Payer health insurance system.

Regardless of whether those are considered good things or not...when did Obama and the Democratic Congress pay any attention whatsoever to those requests? Did it happen for a moment while I was in the bathroom or something, and I missed it?

The fiction that "Democrats are in trouble because they are governing from the extreme left" is probably the most frustrating political untruth I've seen in a decade of doozies. It's not WWII theyr're trying to rewrite here. The truth is extremely fresh in our memories. We all saw it. The scars ain't even scabbed over. And the media noise machine just doesn't care.

[umbran.livejournal.com]

Second part: IGNORE THE REPUBS.

The thing is, they can't just ignore the GOP under current rules. If they try to do so, they'll fail. Back in the time when they were not so monolithic, filibuster would only be an option on a small fraction of the bills, but they've made it clear that obstructionism is going to be the rule of the day.

[maiac.livejournal.com]

The big problem is (as I've commented above), they don't filibuster. They only hint that they want to filibuster, and the stupid gutless spineless Dems let them get away with demanding 60 votes with no cost to the Thugs. If the Thugs had to go in front of the cameras and the reporters and make long speeches (with no bathroom breaks!) and go on record as being opposed to the things this country needs every time they wanted to oppose the agenda, maybe they'd be a little likelier to get out of the way of progress. But they get their way with no effort on their own part. It's stupid.

[lemmozine.livejournal.com]

Back in 1968, I remember my guitar teacher going off to a protest march after my lesson, with a homemade button made of cardboard with a red-white-and-blue flag motif and lettering that read simply "Fuck War."

I'd like to see a million people march on Washington carrying similar buttons and signs, all saying "Fuck Bipartisanship."

Sure, sometimes compromise is a strategy - but it can't be the only strategy, and certainly not with the opposition clearly unwilling to participate and making a mockery of the process. How about a new strategy that goes something like, "We're getting our act together and we're gonna stomp all over you and do what we want."

And to the blue dog democrats: life isn't ALL about being re-elected. Sometimes it's about doing the right thing.

Tom, thanks again for your opinions. You are a harbinger of sanity.

[umbran.livejournal.com]

I'd like to see a million people march on Washington carrying similar buttons and signs, all saying "Fuck Bipartisanship."

Better would be a million people writing their Congresscritters and saying that. I refer you to the logic of one of the Massachusetts representatives, Barney Frank:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XHjPcgb0pZI

[technoshaman.livejournal.com]

OK, I'm gonna start banging this drum, and if you don't want me banging here, I'll go bang somewhere else, but I'm gonna keep banging it until I keel over in my Cheerios, somebody gives me a case of high-speed lead poisoning, or, good heavens, something *good* actually happens.

The cake is a lie.

If you've been paying attention, what Obama and Reid and Pelosi have been doing on important topics - war, torture, domestic spying/FISA, GLBTF issues, and, yes, healthcare - is the same damn thing the Bushies were doing for the last eight years.

Go read Andrew Sullivan, and the stuff he links to, and try to tell me I'm wrong. Just, take your blood pressure meds before you do.

The whole business with Democrats and Republicans is a big fat freaking lie. They're ONE PARTY, bought and paid for by faceless corporations and other governments. Big Pharma, Big Oil, the bankers, the sheiks.

WE HAVE BEEN 0WN3D.

BUT.

We still have this. We still have our keyboards, our voices, our feet, and, mostly, our wallets.

STOP SUPPORTING PARTY ORGANIZATIONS.

Give to organizations that support the *issues* you care about. EFF. ACLU. But *cut the purse strings* of these fat liars that dangle the "we can fix this if you give us enough money" carrot in front of you. It's bovine scatology, it's a monkey trap, and you have the brains to break the chains and walk away free.

Support your LOCAL business, your LOCAL public servant (and make sure s/he's that, and NOT A POLITICIAN - make sure s/he serves YOU, and not the fat cats!), and to *hell* with these 538 liars in the other, phony Washington that are trying to suck us dry. Let'em starve!

I don't advocate violence either, unless somebody else starts it. But to the extent we can raise hell *without* violence? Let's be about it.

(This may well come off as a total ramble, but I'm more than willing to take questions; Tom may prefer you do it directly, or he may want to get the idea out in the open, I dunno. His journal. But I just hadda say something.)

[umbran.livejournal.com]

Some information that may give some perspective here.

The special election in Massachusetts is what started this off. Note that 50% of our voting public are not allied with any party. Roughly 16% of us are Republican, and 34% Democrat.

And still, a Republican got elected to a Senate seat. It is not clear that failing to support the machines is sufficient.

[dornbeast.livejournal.com]

The idea that public service means actually serving the public escapes them.

I sometimes think that they use the definition of "service" that goes with, "I paid to have my cow serviced by his bull."

[antinomic.livejournal.com]

And we the people get to be the cow. Very apt. And udderly cute.

[nagasvoice.livejournal.com]

It ain't the fact that you can buy a representative that's the surprise. It's that they come so cheap.
And to those commenters who said, forget your donors and serve the people--ain't gonna happen. You do that one time when it counts, and it's game over. (And political egos need that big leather office, oh yes.) Nobody has long memories like conservative industry lobbyists.
So the actual surprise to me (cynic that I am) has been the actual impact of the populist fundraising and organizing efforts that got Obama elected.
What does surprise me is why big banking and big insurance fails to see that resolving some of the issues are not good for their long-term investments. Laying off the insurance on flooded coastline property due to global climate instability for instance is no good for the industry as a whole.

[banjoplayinnerd.livejournal.com]

re: your last paragraph: I'm afraid you may be right. I'm hoping for the best but preparing for the worst.

[tcgtrf.livejournal.com]

The Massachusetts election pointed out something important.

A fellow political pundit who writes occasionally for the Huffington Post asked me in email for my take on the election and rather than write an entire new commentary, I'll paraphrase part of my reply...

(start excerpt)

"It is pretty silly that Coakley called Curt Schilling "a Yankees fan" but her incompetence was not sufficient to cause all of the precincts of Hyannis Port itself going for Brown.

And angry voters? Why is it that when a small-L libertarian wins, people talk about anger and when a liberal wins, people talk about joy and singing Kumbaya? I'll bet that the voters of Mass were joyous to be voting for a guy like them who had a truck with 200k miles on it. I spent a lot of time in Mass during the early years of the 21st and there's a lotta working Joes out there that I am sure were smiling when the returns came in. 'Guys in Boston believe in labor unions, not civil unions.'

I think that the results are indicative of a problem that the Democrats have that they don't realize they do.

The debate on Health care isn't between Democrats and Republicans or even really between liberals and conservatives. It's between the people with really good health care plans and those without any (or with plans that truly suck). The difficulty comes when you realize that those with the best health plans currently are: 1) Union workers and pensioners 2) State and Federal government employees (and pensioners) 3) Seniors on Medicare (which everyone except doctors loves)

Those three constituencies are traditional Democrat strongholds. This is exacerbated in Massachusetts because between 96 and 98% of its population are already covered by its state health plan (which, by the way, is going broke at an alarming rate). This means that the voters of Massachusetts (who knew that this guy would remove the Democrats 60-vote lock in the Senate) would gain absolutely no benefits if the Senate or House health care proposals passed and would very likely have new taxes to help the folks in Nebraska and Mississippi pay for their new-found care. In other words, independents voted as a bloc and Democrats crossed-over because they realized that they would lose big-time if either bill passed as it is.

The same three constituencies will, across the country, vote as a bloc against Democrats (or a Republican who compromises) to keep health insurance as it is now.

So, I still expect the bills to die (and for you to pay me the $50 I bet you last January), but the Democrats, if they don't panic (which they apparently are doing) and address the concern of the interest groups I mentioned, could still pull off something. John Stewart http://www.thedailyshow.com/watch/mon-january-18-2010/mass-backwards was hilarious on Monday night and I agree with him 100%."

(end excerpt)

The Senate and House health-care bills are so bad that even if either had been passed, they would have been repealed after the 2010 mid-terms (when the anti-Democratic backlash would have made the Mass election look minor).

It is no longer possible for the United States government to serve the needs of its people. There comes a point in the lifetime of any organization when a typical member thinks first of maintaining his/her position within it. All other considerations become secondary to that purpose.

I don't expect any further help from the government for our problems out here in "flyover country." Time to figure out how to solve them ourselves before we become a Third-world nation.

Tom Trumpinski

[unclelumpy.livejournal.com]

And angry voters? Why is it that when a small-L libertarian wins, people talk about anger and when a liberal wins, people talk about joy and singing Kumbaya? I'll bet that the voters of Mass were joyous to be voting for a guy like them who had a truck with 200k miles on it. I spent a lot of time in Mass during the early years of the 21st and there's a lotta working Joes out there that I am sure were smiling when the returns came in. 'Guys in Boston believe in labor unions, not civil unions.'

Just another freedom-loving libertarian telling me who I can and can't marry.

Good observations

[catamariner.livejournal.com]

Thanks for the reality check (no, seriously, it didn't bounce). Sometimes it's good to read that so many other people - and you have great friends, Tom! - are seeing this the same way I do... nice to know that what the various organizations which want my money are telling me about the meaning of this defeat is exactly crap; I was wondering whether wanting single payer - and absolutely wanting the Dems to stop whining and manage to do as much with their resources as the Republicans did with a smaller majority - really was some kind of dinosaur-ism. It's not. But the smooth talkers who raise funds seem to want to divert our attention from the real problem, which is Dem lawmakers trying to maintain cordial corporate relations, especially now that the Supremes have given the corporations free rein to run the most expensive ad campaigns they like for or against a candidate -- in the name of free speech. Nothing "free" about it, that was the point.

[unclelumpy.livejournal.com]

1. What did you expect? We elected a community organizer, a man who made his living trying to win people over to get them to work together. You don't send a comminuty organizer into a battlefield.

2. Maybe this will be a good thing. By focusing on "jobs, jobs, jobs" it won't seem as though there's too many fires to put out while everyone's arguing where to get the water from.

3. Perhaps you haven't noticed, but while we have our flashes of brilliance and forward thinking, Americans tend to be a very frightened and gullible people. That's why we keep lagging behind socially. We lagged behind when it came to slavery. We lagged behind when it came to the draft. Now we're lagging behind when it comes to health-care and marriage equality.

But we'll get there eventually. I still have hope.

[brigidsblest.livejournal.com]

Yes, this. (http://brigidsblest.livejournal.com/804425.html)