By Steve Hynd
As our tireless researcher Kat writes in passing this along, there's not enough tar and feathers in the world for all those who deserve it. Glenn Greenwald wonders where the pitchforks are:
Before he was even inaugurated, Obama echoed the right's manipulative rhetorical tactic: that (along with Medicare) the programme was in crisis and producing "red ink as far as the eye can see." President-elect Obama thus vowed that these crown jewels of his party since the New Deal would be, as Politico reported, a "central part" of his efforts to reduce the deficit.The next month, his top economic adviser, the Wall Street-friendly Larry Summers, also vowed specific benefit cuts to Time magazine. He then stacked his "deficit commission" with long-time advocates of social security cuts.
Many progressives, ebullient over the election of a Democratic president, chose to ignore these preliminary signs, unwilling to believe that their own party's leader was as devoted as he claimed to attacking the social safety net. But some were more realistic. The popular liberal blogger and economist Duncan "Atrios" Black, who was one of the leaders of the campaign against Bush's privatisation scheme, vowed in response to these early reports:
The left ... will create an epic 360-degree shitstorm if Obama and the Dems decide that cutting social security benefits is a good idea.
Fast forward to 2011: it is now beyond dispute that President Obama not only favours, but is the leading force in Washington pushing for, serious benefit cuts to both social security and Medicare.
This week, even as GOP leaders offered schemes to raise the debt ceiling with no cuts, the White House expressed support for the Senate's so-called "gang of six" plan that includes substantial cuts in those programmes.
The same Democratic president who supported the transfer of $700bn to bail out Wall Street banks, who earlier this year signed an extension of Bush's massive tax cuts for the wealthy, and who has escalated America's bankruptcy-inducing posture of Endless War, is now trying to reduce the debt by cutting benefits for America's most vulnerable � at the exact time that economic insecurity and income inequality are at all-time highs.
Where is the "epic shitstorm" from the left which Black predicted? With a few exceptions � the liberal blog FiredogLake has assembled 50,000 Obama supporters vowing to withhold re-election support if he follows through, and a few other groups have begun organising as well � it's nowhere to be found.
Glenn goes on to explain that once both parties apparatchiks agree on something - like no prosecutions for torture, or the value of bombing brown people - it gets removed from the national debate and becomes "bipartisan consensus". And the DFH's end up being labelled as "fringe" for not supporting it.
I went to Eschaton to see the 360 degree shitstorm. Duncan Black is probably working on which degree he will be manning.
ReplyDeleteYou'd be surprised at how much of the American public thinks Social Security needs "reform." (Anecdotal.) They imagine that makes them sensible and bipartisan.
ReplyDeleteIt is a bit depressing that there appears to be no organized group representing the vast majority of Americans. Without any it will be a consistent slide downward towards, I suspect, a more dysfunctional society but one which is easy to control with militarized police and private security firms. The Obama champions seem just foolish or maybe they are actually happy with what he is doing. I suspect it is the latter. I think it was Doug Henwood who reminded some of Obama's apologists that when they see people who consistently appear to behave in an irrational way - going against what the majority wants - they may be missing the rationality behind the behaviour. Guess everyone should wait with baited breath for BO's newest big excuse and the inevitable justifications from the true believers, pundits, spin doctors, corporate media, etc. etc. etc.
ReplyDeleteHe gets no mercy from me - ever!
ReplyDeleteCome on, Cernig. You know The Great Middler has a solution to this hostage crisis. Shoot the hostages.
ReplyDeleteWho can oppose the nation's first black President? Who WANTS to oppose the nation's first black President? Certainly no one on the Left, who've been trained dutifully to swallow everything Obama throws at them, no matter how Republican it is at its core. Obama has carried on every single Bush and/or Republican policy except for DOMA and DADT.
ReplyDeleteIt is time to face hard facts. The nation's first black President is a dutiful Republican. And many Democrats will vote for him again simply to participate in the history of re-electing our African-American Republican President. It's so thrilling!
I think Obama simply has us all by the junk. I'm disappointed with the same Republican-ish decisions that you've listed above, but what am I going to do in 2012? Vote Republican? It's not an option.
ReplyDeleteUnless a viable third party candidate (who will have to be extraordinarily wealthy and probably a Republican himself) steps up to run in the next few months, I'm going to have to hold my nose and vote for Obama again. Any threats I have to the contrary are empty.
And so although there is a new outrage every day, I am numb. Other than launching a blog to bear witness and regularly sharing my thoughts with my representatives, I don't know what else I can do.