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The AP reports that after weeks of constant attacks by the right wing, Van Jones has resigned as Special Advisor for Green Jobs at the Council on Environmental Quality. Below is the letter he sent to chair Nancy Sutley:
I am resigning my post at the Council on Environmental Quality, effective today.
On the eve of historic fights for health care and clean energy, opponents of reform have mounted a vicious smear campaign against me. They are using lies and distortions to distract and divide.
I have been inundated with calls – from across the political spectrum – urging me to “stay and fight.”
But I came here to fight for others, not for myself. I cannot in good conscience ask my colleagues to expend precious time and energy defending or explaining my past. We need all hands on deck, fighting for the future.
It has been a great honor to serve my country and my President in this capacity. I thank everyone who has offered support and encouragement. I am proud to have been able to make a contribution to the clean energy future. I will continue to do so, in the months and years ahead.
On July 23rd, Glenn Beck began his crusade against Van Jones, calling him “a communist-anarchist radical.” He went on to rail against Jones approximately 20 times on Fox News in the past couple of months. Last Friday, Beck cited “former black nationalist, avowed communist Van Jones” as an example of “the true danger” of Obama’s “czars.” Prior to joining the administration, Jones had co-founded Color of Change, an organization that successfully convinced 57 advertisers to drop Beck’s program in just a matter of weeks after Beck called Obama a “racist.”
The right wing puke funnel never sleeps and liberals never fail to roll over like a puppy and piddle on their bellies.
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Yeah, it is really nauseating how these guys keep on cowering in fear of the right. They just don’t fucking get it, do they? They won the election, they need to get spines and start acting like it.
I really wish that he understood that the best way he could fight for others is by defending himself and refusing to buckle. Bullies don’t quit because you capitulate. They quit when you kick their ass and make it clear that will always be the result.
Color of Change is much better than pitchforks.
It’s the same weapon the corporate pigs have used on people of color since there have boon corporate pigs.
And, yeah, pink is a color too.
He let this guy get to him?
That’s just sad.
The Democrats should have expected Fox bullying. Giving in only gives them strength.
Fuck Glenn Beck. If I see him, I’m spitting on him.
Naw, fuck that. Why waste the spit?
Glenn Beck wasn’t the one who accepted Jones resignation. A gutless wonder did that.
Puke funnel, indeed.
Have we developed some kind of internet decibel-meter? Or is that some kind of military secret? Because it seems we have. You know: two squawks from Malkin is equal to three from Beck, is equal to 0.7 from LGF, and if anything reaches a particular cumulative threshold, then the adminstration backs off and acts guilty.
This adminstration is beginning to remind me of a joke, over three decades old, of some very early specialized hardware and software, wherein the error message was:
I am driving a nine inch spike into your skull. Would you like me to continue doing this, or would you like me to ask this question again?
Actually, I think Jones was right to leave and he did it gracefully, without shitting the sheets. Jones may have gone into the administration hopefully, but the emerged Obscamco is neither liberal nor progressive. The idea that Obscamco would have ever given him a meaningful defense is risible. No way he should continue lending his cred to the shitheads who, e.g., wanna make us buy shit private health insurance at unregulated prices and failing that, get whacked with a 2.5% surcharge on our taxes. Obama suddenly tries to turn it around (which I think is highly unlikely), Jones left him a clear track, without saying anything I just said. Or, in CEQ terms, talkng about, say, what a complete douche nozzle Obscamco has been on mountaintop removal coal mining. Jones was wise to go and he treated them better than Obscamco deserved. Those fucks woulda taken him off at the heels if there was a nickel in it for ‘em.
Van Jones, the communist, Black Panther, anarchist, revolutionary radical is gone! God Bless Glenn Beck and God Bless America! If it wasn’t for Fox News we would never know why this country turned to totalitarianism and socialism practically overnight, because MSM nor the other cable news stations ever report all the facts. Incidentally, if you don’t watch FOX, you are not an informed voter, because you are not getting a complete picture of the news. It’s the uninformed voters who got us into the mess we’re in now.
By the way, I wrote to 20 sponsors who were reported by Color of Change to have canceled their ads on Glenn Beck. Most of them responded that they had NOT pulled their ads. Most said they advertise on Fox and leave it up to Fox as to where to put their ads. I received NO responses acknowledging that they had pulled their ads from Glenn Beck. It’s just pretty damn hard to overcome facts.
and yet pre-renominating Bernanke to show confidence in him was important enough to break vacation for.
If I had to do it again, knowing what I know now, I would vote to put Nelson Rockefeller 2.0 into the White House all over again, because the alternative was just too dangerous.
That said, the only liberal in this situation I can see is Van Jones, and he may have piddle on his belly, but I very much doubt it’s his own.
Dammit! They are so proud of themselves but still don’t understand why they are despicable.
Sigh. Just–sigh. I have no snark today. As stolen from another blog, the lesson Van Jones should learn is that if you want to say batshitcrazy stuff and suffer no repercussions, you better be a Republican.
So who’s next? Cuz, once they get that taste of blood, they’re not going to be content eating the same old dogfood.
So, to recap-
(1) Ignore warnings and have 3000 American civilians die on your watch – sorry, everyone makes a mistake.
(2) Lie us into an illegal/immoral war that kills/maims 100’s of thousands – sorry. everyone makes a couple of mistakes.
Want to see real investigations into (1) and (2) and see justice served? – EVILDOER WHO MUST RESIGN!!!!!
If the plan is to depress the Democratic Base into not caring what happens to this country, it seems to be working well. I’m beginning to kinda wish that McCain and Palin hadn’t lost – perhaps we’d have been better off in the long run if we just allowed this virulent strain of Republicanism to run its course and completely destroy the country. All we seem to be doing now is delaying the inevitable.
America will never be free until the last pundit is strangled with the entrails of the last pollster!
Flint on Sun Feb 03, 2008 at 09:36:05 AM PST
On the Great Orange Satan
yeah but then the Dems prove their toughness by sucker punching hippies . . .the circle of life
Van Jones was thrown to the wolves because he’s a genuine liberal who may still possess some (Gasp!) radical notions. That he is a best-selling author and a successful organizer meant for the wingers that he had to Go. The ever-conciliatory (To anyone but the people who elected him) Obama has accommodated the nutjobs because he doesn’t want his administration distracted from not-fighting for all of the other issues important to Democrats. I’ve concluded that Obama is slightly to the left of Bush and slightly to the right of Richard Nixon and that I wasted half an hour at the polls on November 4th, 2008.
i guess one could secretly hope that glenn beck would next set his sights on rahm emanuel to similar effect… but then, i’m a hopeless dreamer who momentarily believed the whole hopey-changey thing, too.
Over at Balloon Juice, someone posted this poem by e.e. cummings. I loved it:
the boys i mean are not refined
they go with girls who buck and bite
they do not give a fuck for luck
they hump them thirteen times a night
one hangs a hat upon her tit
one carves a cross on her behind
they do not give a shit for wit
the boys i mean are not refined
they come with girls who bite and buck
who cannot read and cannot write
who laugh like they would fall apart
and masturbate with dynamite
the boys i mean are not refined
they cannot chat of that and this
they do not give a fart for art
they kill like you would take a piss
they speak whatever’s on their mind
they do whatever’s in their pants
the boys i mean are not refined
they shake the mountains when they dance
“They shake the mountains when they dance”. Indeed they do.
I really thought that Obama was going to be better man than what he’s turning out to be. He’s just another spineless, sniveling Democrat, cringing from any conservative.
How banal.
Word on the street is that Valerie Jarrett is the next on the hit parade.
Wanna bet that if this is true, she’ll have tire tracks on her backside within a month?
Not always. Reagan’s Interior Secretary, James Watt, finally said one batshit crazy thing too many (in this case, a one-liner that managed to be racist, sexist, anti-Semitic, and offensive to the disabled all at once), and had to resign a few weeks later.
The Sainted Ronnie was not above tossing his appointees to the wolves. Nor did he have too many qualms about reversing course on many of the conservative “principles” that he campaigned on.
Recalling Obama’s words of admiration for Reagan last year, you have to wonder which predecessor BHO is really emulating.
If the plan is to depress the Democratic Base into not caring what happens to this country, it seems to be working well. I’m beginning to kinda wish that McCain and Palin hadn’t lost – perhaps we’d have been better off in the long run if we just allowed this virulent strain of Republicanism to run its course and completely destroy the country. All we seem to be doing now is delaying the inevitable.
You and I are in the same place, InnocentBystander. If the Obama administration doesn’t get its act together PDQ, I don’t give a damn who the rethug nominess is, I will not vote for Obama in 2012. It will be the first time in my life that I don’t vote for the Dem nominee, but by gawd I mean it.
Bring on Preznit Palin! Let her finish off the country, and maybe we can rebuild. If not, I love Canada, even the cold weather. I’m not a heat-and-humidity kinda gal.
Oh for fuck’s sake enough with the Lefty holier than thou, Obama is just like Hitler whining. Grow the fuck up.
Van Jones, another victim of the 9-11 Cover-up. He joins Sibel Edmonds, Coleen Rowley, Peter Lance, Benazir Bhutto, Pat Tillman, David Kelly, and of course any other victims of Darth’s death squads.
brenda,
I don’t have health insurance, because I started my own business. The business is doing very well, but I have not been able to find a decent option that I can afford. If I get sick, I will be wiped out, and my sainted 86 year old Mom will insist on paying my bills. Get the picture, brenda?
Meanwhile, Obama, who campaigned on health care reform, is busy being “bipartisan”, and selling out to the fucking insurance companies. He could get this done, if he wanted to. I’m not wasting another vote on a weak, sniveling, cowering-in-the-corner Dem.
No, Obama is not Hitler, but he is just another Dem “centrist” weenie that will not stand up to the stupid rethugs. Name one thing he has done that you can be proud of. He’s worthless.
Give enough monkeys enough typewriters, and they’ll eventually come up with a line like this:
“Obama is just like Hitler whining.”
Remember when Democrats said things like “We have nothing to fear but fear itself”? Now they apparently say things like “Jesus Christ, did you hear what Glenn Beck said? I just wet my pants with fear!”
While I still like the fact that we have a President who can speak in complete sentences extemporaneously, I yearn for a leader with courage and conviction, not just calculation and computation.
I didn’t realize that holding the President to the promises he made constitutes “whining”.
I’m tired of being sold a bill of goods, and then expected to jump on the bandwagon when election season comes around.
I, too, have a small business and I do have private health insurance. I get to pay about $1000.00/mo so we can fight the ins. company when they decline and/or limit our claims – whenever we try to collect on it.
If all Democrats can’t rally around healthcare for all, what’s the point of being a Democrat? I hate Republicans, but at least you know who they are. ‘Democrats’ who can’t support our agenda are on a rung just below the GOP.
All the “Obama is Hitler” noise is utter horse shit. I think he’s clearly shown that he’s more of a Neville Chamberlain than an Adolph Hitler. Hitler wasn’t a weak kneed pussy.
Thanks I80bug…it is inconceivable that the Secret Service let an avowed Communist and defender of cop-killers even in the door of the White House. It’s about time that all the folks who think like Van Jones should exit the stage…of course, then the White House would be empty, because Obama himself would have to go.
so….you want Obama to be more Hitlerlike? Hmmmmmmmmmmmmmm……
Obama seems to be runny a shody ship that is sinking fast.
I have read all the charges, but the one that I can’t get my head around is the signing of the petition to have Mumia Abu-Jamal’d’s death sentence reversed.
I was a Philadelphia resident at the time and my brother was a rookie with the same first name working in the same area as the officer who was killed. It was a long half hour until we found out his last name. There was no doubt he was guilty until goofballs like Ed Anser and other actors used him to stop the death penalty.
His own brother who was at the scene wold not testify for him.
Bush virtually said “Fuck You” we are going to war. Where are Obama’s balls?
We elected him to clean those idiots out, but all we have received is a load of “turn the other cheek.”
He better start kicking some ass and soon or we are doomed once again.
Good. Why don’t you and those who agree with you take yourselves to Canada and leave the USA to those who believe in the Founders and Sarah Palin, Gen. Petraeus and the rest.
Nazis translated: German National Socialist German Workers Party. A political class system that created it’s own civilian defense force (exactly as Obama decreed) seized the countries banking system, automobile industry, freedom and health care, forcing an entire country to depend on it’s big brother to exist.
All of the above is exactly what the conservative movement is forcibly against.
All of the above is exactly what the Progressive movement (Progressive word is disguised as Communist) is advocating.
Only to the extent that I wish he wouldn’t piss himself at the first shriek of one of you shit flinging howler monkeys.
But then again , there are times (like now) , when the idea of ridding society of useless inbred half-wits,(like YOU ) , does have its appeal.
Why would we want to leave a perfectly good country to assholes like you who’ll just trash it up? Oh, and since you been sockpuppeting here under various names…bye bye.
Holy fuck , what toilet overflowed and washed you idiots in?
“All of the above is exactly what the conservative movement is forcibly against”
Were you in a coma for the last 8 years? You ‘tards never saw a government over reach you didn’t blindly support when
BushCheney was in charge.You know, if there’s one thing I’d like to see come out of this long series of dispiriting decisions from Congress and the White House, it would be for the Jergens griefer brigade that made the primaries the edifying experience we all enjoyed so much to pull themselves away from Larry Johnson’s comments and start whacking on random progressives in blog comments for not gratefully fishing the cigarette butts out of the glass half full.
You go, girl. I suggest Sadly, No or Roy’s place next.
where do these effing idiots come from? “Obama is just like Hitler.” Puhleeze, folks, you’re not fooling us. “Obama is a Neeeeeeeeegro!” is what you really mean, and if you ever got your heads out of your asses and faced your own bigotry and meanness, both you and the country would be much better off.
I comment at SadlyNo and I like their take on it so far. I rarely comment here though I do read. I get frustrated by libs who complain about how Obama is just like Bush. I see that a lot at DailyKos and other lib blogs, I’m sad to see it here.
I think liberals have this unfortunate tendency towards hand-wringing. There also seems to be this “Why won’t Big Daddy Obama crack his whip?” meme going around that I personally find repugnant.
Here is my prediction, 1) We will get healthcare reform with the public option. 2) This little incident with some low level appointee I never heard of till this week will blow over and the administration will go on just fine without him.
Meanwhile the GOP is amping up the crazy and showing the world they should never be trusted to wipe their own asses let alone govern and Glenn Beck is now the face of the GOP. YEEHAWWW!!
That said I absolutely want Beck to pay. The way we do that is expose him for the piece of shit nutcase he is. He seems to be co-operating with that. People worry that Beck is the new McCarthy. I think he’d like to be. Notice though how it isn’t playing out the way it did in the 50’s? People will not be buying his shit, just a very very few.
Still, we need to do our part. Obama is NOT an authoritarian. He leads from the middle and that means he expects us to do some of the heavy lifting.
TBogg- I love ya more than I love Wade Phillips but fer’ the love of Jeebus tap the brakes turbo. Couple of points: first, these idiots are emboldened solely by their own shamelessness and nothing is going to change that. Obama knows that anything he does that’s designed to provoke a rational response from an irrational mob is a waste of time and likely counterproductive.
Second, it would seem that Jones has revealed, at best, an impetuous nature and at worst, a serious lack of judgment. I would guess that in filling out his application, he was less than forthcoming. If and when the administration decides to finally gut punch these pricks, I want it to be long, painful and televised around the world. And if it really counted for something, that would be great also. I’m really growing weary with all the petty crap being thrown at the only winner we’ve had in years.
If and when the administration decides to finally gut punch these pricks
And therein lies the problem. We have people like Dawn Johnson frittering away while the White House is fucking around doing…what exactly? I’m tired of being told the White House is playing rope a dope. Not long go Obama said “I won.” Isn’t it about time he fucking acted like it?
“Some” heavy lifting is fine, but right now it feels more like the progressives have to drag Obama kicking and screaming into doing what he campaigned on.
Why don’t you learn that when you lose an election it means you LOST. Your party’s agenda was REJECTED.
If you don’t like what America showed it wants in the 2008 election maybe you should move to freetopia or whatever fantasy land you believe in. Here in America elections have consequences.
As a graduate of the Fred Dryer School of Subtle, I wasn’t playing the rad card here. I just don’t think screaming cowardice and betrayal at every turn makes any sense. In all our self generated commotion, we seem to be forgetting just who it is the GOP really is trying to lynch. I think our first reaction should be to viciously protect our own, our woodshed should be a lot more dangerous for the GOP than it it for ourselves.
Since my mind reading abilities are still hampered by lack of coffee this morning, it’s hard for me to determine if Jones is resigning because he personally wanted to, or he’s being forced out by Rahm-bo at dagger-point.
I tend to believe the former. After all, I wouldn’t want to deal with the endless tide of bullshit and noise either. I mean, life’s short, and at some point “taking one for the team” loses it’s appeal.
“Come on, Van! Lawyer up, cancel the rest of your life, tell your friends and family you’ll be too busy fighting investigations and ducking wing-nut “reporters” for the next six months-to-a-year-or-so to spend any time doing anything else. We can’t let Glenn Back WIN, fercrissakes!”
He also said “I want to do it, now make me do it”. They way I translate this is that Obama does NOT lead in the way that many expect him to. Much has been written on his activist roots and the strategies advised by the likes of Saul Alinsky in his rules for radicals. Therefore the above is exactly what you should expect from him. Obama expects you to drag him into what you want him to do.
But some people on the left seem to be authoritarians who want to be told how to shit, when to shit and what color. They will never ever be satisfied with Obama. So when I see that kind of attitude displayed I will push back because I think it is a strategic error.
I believe that Obama is playing a different game than most people, left or right, are used to seeing and that this is at least part of the problem.
Brenda: I wish you were right. I wish it was a hysterical tone that characterizes the growing discontent with Obama from his supporters. But you’re not. Track down Matt Taibbi’s recent take on the health care “debate” and our dysfunctional governing class (at Common Dreams.org). Read the chilling reports of Glenn Greenwald (at Salon.com) on the continued assaults on our Constitutional liberties (the most recent posted Friday). Lord knows a person must seek to find such journalism, but it can be found. The Van Jones dismissal was a friendly accommodation to the sinister demands of a radically dangerous political movement. A movement whose corrupt alliance extends like a rot throughout the democratic party, and into the White House itself.
From the Great Glenzilla: “…Ashcroft used [the “material witness] statute as a pretext for arresting American Muslims where there was insufficient evidence to establish probable cause they had committed a crime (the standard required to justify their arrest). In other words, Ashcroft’s DOJ would pretend that they wanted to detain Muslim citizens because they were “material witnesses” to a crime, when the real reason was that they suspected them of Terrorist connections and wanted to arrest and investigate them but lacked the evidence required by law to justify an arrest — i.e., they wanted to “preventively detain” them in the absence of any criminal wrongdoing.
…The real significance of this case is that it highlights the dangers and evils of preventive detention — an issue that will be front and center when Obama shortly presents his proposal for a preventive detention scheme, something he first advocated in May. What Ashcroft is accused of doing illegally is exactly the same thing
Obama wants legal power to do (except that Obama’s powers would presumably apply to foreign nationals, not citizens): namely, order people imprisoned as Terrorist suspects — “preventively detained” — where there is insufficient evidence to prove they committed any crime.
…Anyone who supports Obama’s call for a preventive detention scheme is, by definition, supporting things like this (though, if anything, what happened to al-Kidd — as horrible as it is — is short and innocuous compared to what a “prolonged detention” scheme would permit: years of indefinite, charge-free imprisonment)…
There are few powers more anathema to our system of government than the power to imprison people in the absence of proof that they committed a crime. Yet when Obama advocated that Congress enact a preventive detention scheme, that is exactly the power he sought for himself…”
We shouldn’t have to “make” him do what he says he wants to do – that’s not leadership, that’s management.
Well, what would suggest the Left do besides keep pushing Obama to do what we want him to do, as Brenda suggests?
Would putting a bullet though our heads be the appropriate response, or is that too dramatic? Maybe quietly slitting our wrists in a warm bathtub? Hanging ourselves with bedsheets, with “GLENZILLA WAS RIGHT!!!” scrawled on the walls in our own shit?
Or maybe vote for Ralph Nader again? THAT sure did work great last time.
I’m looking for ideas here, Grape. Obama, according to you, is a lost cause, no better than Bush. So what do you suggest?
Actually, I believe it was Digby who pointed out that Roosevelt said that, and suggested that it might be a good model for dealing with an Obama administration.
You can find me a cite, of course, but I’m pretty sure Obama never actually said that.
Actually, I call it “democracy”. What you’re calling “leadership” I call “authoritarianism”.
BTW, it’s called “Chief Executive” for a reason – it’s called “management”. I want to get OUT of the mindset of “the big daddy President is going to fix everything for us” that typified the Bush years.
Well…YEAH!!!
At’s notta trick question, is it?
Sorry, but the old adage applies here: lead, follow, or get out of the way. Obama is not doing either of the first two. There is overwhelming public support for the public option and “the left” has been doing everything in their power to “make him do it,” but he just ignores us. At this point he has become the biggest obstacle to fulfilling his campaign promises.
I do not believe he is “just like Bush” and very few here have said that. I never had very high expectations of him (I always knew he was a very moderate centrist with corporatist tendencies), but even so he has profoundly disappointed me. I can point to very little that he promised that he has delivered on. Whether he likes is or not, he is the leader of the Democratic Party with a strong personal mandate and large majorities in both houses of Congress. He needs to get off his temporizing ass and fucking lead.
I can’t find you a cite right away, but I actually HEARD him say that, in person, at a campaign fundraiser in San Francisco, with my own two ears. He even described the set-up of civil rights workers visiting Roosevelt and asking him to back civil rights legislation.
I could be lying or delusional, of course…
Bullshit. How many mass demonstrations are being held to counter the teabaggers? How many progressives are busing in to town hall meetings to make just as much noise? Where’s the mass marches? What exactly has the Left done to make him do it, besides whine on blogs that he’s not doing it?
“The Van Jones dismissal was a friendly accommodation to the sinister demands of a radically dangerous political movement.”
Grape, your characterization of Jones’ resignation as a friendly accommodation pretty much puts the hysterical in hysterical tone.
Here’s your cite, Julia:
http://www.paxamericana.net/20…..do-it.html
Hmmmm. Joe, we are not supposed to have to stage “mass demonstrations” to force the president we elected to fulfill his campaign promises. He is supposed to do that as a matter of course. Anything else constitutes a kind of electoral fraud, which I think is what many here are beginning to suspect happened. There have been petitions and letter campaigns and other forms of action appropriate to the assumption that the president is on your side (he said he was and talked a good game). And just what have you been doing besides bashing the left in blogs?
Google “Obama and Universal Healthcare” and spend an hour or two reading all of the quotes from BO assuring us that was his agenda. But you think it’s our fault because we aren’t in the streets? FUCK THAT! How about he keep his promise? Universal Healthcare was off the table before the debate even began!
I campaigned for Obama. I sent him money that I didn’t have. Fuck him and the horse named Rahm that he rode in on.
I admire this discussion (except for the two trolls, who are beneath contempt). I find myself agreeing with Brenda and also with those who disagree with her.
Does anyone think that the final evaluation of O will come when we see what the final health care plan looks like? “By then it will be too late,” yes, but still. Is is naive to think (or hope) that there are strategic calculations that go into dealing with Congress, and behind-the-scenes machinations, that they know and we don’t? Which of course must be true.
Then again, that’s no excuse for not LEADING, for publicly declaring an intention, marshaling your allies, and seeking to defeat your enemies. As opposed to hoping they’ll meet you halfway. Surely O and his people realize that the Republicans will never bargain in good faith, never acknowledge that the Dems have the mandate, and never not lie and smear via the promotion of demagogues.
I would love for O to go on tv and say, “First, yes, Republicans ARE assholes. Second, Glenn Beck, go fuck yourself. Now, where were we…?” But absent that, I’m hoping that what proved true during the campaign will prove true here: O and his people know everything we’re saying, and they’re dealing with it. I’ll certainly take a substantive legislative achievement over bully-pulpit red-meat-feeding.
I’m a union steward at UC Berkeley, so I’ve been preparing for a one-day strike in a few weeks to protest the furloughs and cuts to health benefits, so my Leftie organizing time is a bit full right now. My wife and I have both sent snail-mail letters to our congresscritter, but since she’s Barbara Lee there’s not a lot of pressure we need to put on her to support the public option.
I’m not “bashing the Left”, DrDick – or put more exactly, I’m slapping the Left on the cheek and saying, “quit yer fookin’ whining and DO SOMETHING!”
And yes, Lori, it is “our fault” we’re not in the streets. Remember the Terri Schiavo debacle? It didn’t work out the way the wingnuts wanted, but they had Bush vocally backing them, Congresspeople vocally backing them, passing goddamn resolutions to give them what they wanted, and they STILL were out in the streets.
The question is, does the Left want it as bad as the Right? It’s that simple.
Um. OK.
Leaving aside that a few things changed after the primaries ended, and a few more after the general, and that “make me do it” is, politically, not the answer I’m comfortable hearing from a politician discussing the situation in the middle east.
So WADR, if mass demonstrations and brute political force are an appropriate response, what’s with the thread-nannying about expressing dissatisfaction and the crazy talk about Hitler and Bush?
And should we care? Has she done anything that would make it worthy of defending her?
Looks like only ONE monkey needed a typewriter to get the Hitler line.
I would say that we have “done something” other than whine. In addition to the actions I mentioned, there is the Act Blue fund raising for progressive candidates and the ads we have been running against blue and other running dogs (to which Obama’s response is, “stop trying to make me do what I told you to make me do.”). We may well be getting to the point of mass protests, but they really should not be necessary against the man who claimed he was our candidate. It has only been nine months and it takes a bit of time to assess whether he is going to come through on his promises, especially with having to deal with the financial meltdown (which was also handled poorly IMHO). Not all of us have a full governmental meltdown like Cali to mobilize support and action.
This tells us how much attention you pay to anything other than the robo-e-mails from Obama headquarters that you ceaselessly quote.
Anybody who thinks this will “blow over” has not been paying any attention to the modern rightwing movement. This is blood in the water and they will now go into a full blown feeding frenzy, going after everyone that they can. You cannot give them even an inch or they will completely run you out of town.
OK, I vote for Democrats because I don’t like Republicans being in charge. If these guys are going to roll over the minute these lunatics get a little whiney then there is essentially no difference between them and Rethugs. This sort of thing really is bullshit. Why should the entire country be governed based on the psychotic opinions of 29% of the population?
“Grape, your characterization of Jones’ resignation as a friendly accommodation pretty much puts the hysterical in hysterical tone”.
And yet, I’ll calmly stand by it. I suppose “craven capitulation” would have sufficed. But it would have failed to illustrate what I hoped was my obvious point. That is, the defenders of a corrupt status quo are embedded within the highest echelons of the democratic party. Jones was dismissed by the allies of a deranged political establishment.
I beg your pardon?
I’m getting quite tired of being told that the problem is “me” – the right tells me that all my woes are my own fault, so I don’t need people ostensibly on my side of the argument telling me the same thing.
This is the kind of thing that makes people want to quit being politically active – being told that if you aren’t living and breathing politics you’re just a lazy whiner.
Unlike JoeMax, most of us are not paid to mobilize collective action and so have conflicting obligations.
Politico
So Republicans had czars, who they called czars (my favorite: Liz Cheney had the marvellously orwellian role of “democracy czar”). Obama, on the other hand, has people he appointed without Senate confirmation, and we’re going to call them czars. Obama has a czar problem, and Republicans are going to address it.
Not sure exactly how slapping the left upside the head is going to address that.
Yep. There is also the problem that the intensity that is mobilizing the right at present (and also did so in the Schiavo fiasco) is insanity. Kind of puts us at a bit of a disadvantage.
One is going to have a hard time convincing me that Obama even wants the public option when he asks the progressive caucus on a conference call how far they are willing to compromise on the public option. The public option is the compromise, you dipshit. Also too, anybody notice on the lobbyist list released by the WH on Friday there were no single payor/public option advocates. There was Billy Tauzin, architect of Medicare Part (screwe)D, the CEO of UnitedHealth, the AHIP person, the AMA guys but no single payor people. Amazing how the Obama WH did a perfectly decent job selling bank bailouts but somehow the whole WH and Senate PR falls apart when it comes to something that might negatively affect their corporate donors. Can we say designed to fail?
“…I’m looking for ideas here, Grape. Obama, according to you, is a lost cause, no better than Bush. So what do you suggest”?
I would first purge the most incorrigible blue dogs from the democratic party. I’d turn the “where are progressives going to go” argument upside down. Where would the blue dogs go? To a bat-shit crazy GOP? Get real. The days of southern strategy, in which reactionary democrats were welcomed by republicans with open arms, are over. And if Baucus, Nelson, Landrieux, and all their ilk choose to defect, good riddance. There are quite enough excellent people still willing to fight for professed democratic party ideals who can be nominated to challenge them, and WIN.
But I don’t see that happening. Arrogant, self styled masters of their own real-politic domain, entrenched within that party, will never permit it. And, yeah, I’m looking at Obama and Emmanuel when I write that. Neither gentleman has ever extended their kudos to Howard Dean for his essential role in the party’s resurgence. On the contrary, Emmanuel claimed the lions share of the credit. And Emmanuel is a blue dog’s blue dog.
So, barring a purge, what then? Well, I made up my mind last year. In the wake of Obama’s treacherous FISA betrayal, I finally turned my back on the democratic party. Gave my democratic congressional reps ample warning, too. With many calls and e-mails over the course of 8 months, while Obama talked the talk during the primary’s, I contacted them and made clear my intent if FISA passed. When Obama back flipped, and announced his intention to support the legislation, it proved the final nail. I still voted, mind you, as I always have and will. But I cast my vote for the Peace & Freedom party, or the Green party, or the What The Hell party. I honestly don’t remember. And lest anyone say that disqualifies me from criticizing the president and/or his party, I’ll say only: think that through, and get back to me.
Of course, I’m just an individual. But then, that’s all political organizations (political clubs, if you will) are comprised of. Absent an outright purge, therefore, I suggest the formation a new party. In this day and age, I think it eminently do-able. But the impetus will need come from congressional democrats fed up with those party colleagues who continually subvert the will of the majority. That is, I won’t be forming my own party (although there is a nice beer cellar not far from my house).
Finally, I’m no wild eyed absolutist. For decades I turned my back on the transgressions of that party. I was a charter member of the Lesser Of Two Evils club. I voted for John Kerry, for example- the only vote in my life of which I’m ashamed. But those days are over. To echo Saint Dutch: the democratic party left me, I didn’t leave it. And until a viable third party emerges-and I believe one will-I will continue to vote for the non-viable ones. Simple pride and common patriotism have left me no choice.
In the meantime, I’ll continue to agitate in my own small way. I’ll still contact my reps and the White House with advice and counsel. I’ll still write my local papers, and post comments in my favorite blogs. If that’s not good enough for some, that’s OK with me. But refusing to support either major party does not constitute a dereliction of a citizen’s duty to country and Constitution.
I understand and respect your position here, but that will not work as a broader strategy for winning elections and changing the course of the country.
“..but that will not work as a broader strategy for winning elections and changing the course of the country”.
When enough people in the “lesser of the two evils” boat likewise abandon ship, it damn sure will. And to repeat myself, I expect to live long enough to see it happen.
Ain’t that the truth? As for being told that we have to “Make Obama do it” , just what the fuck else are we supposed to do? Write even MORE letters to our Congresscritters , or letters to the White House that never get past some low level staffer? Given the way things seem to work in this WH , I think the only way we can “make” them do anything would be to deliver several huge boxes of unmarked cash to Rahm’s office that outpace what the insurance companies are ponying up.
With all of the new voters that the Democrats registered in the last few years , they are in the position to kick the GOP’s asses for years to come. But that’s not going to happen if you piss those voters off to the point that they don’t want to bother any more.
From Speedy above:
http://narcosphere.narconews.c…..ont-get-it
Same as it ever was…same as it ever was.
I rarely miss an obvious point, hysterical or otherwise. But while you’re calmly standing by, I would suggest you consider some of the more obvious, albeit less perfidious, forces that may be in play here. Then again, fuck it, their lack of theatrics are bound to disappoint.
It’s late to the game, DrDick, but I should say for the record I’m not paid to be a union shop steward. It’s a voluntary, elected position. (UPTE Local 1/CWA 919, AFL-CIO) I’m paid to be a technician. But I represent my shop and the workers in it.
You know, there are an awful lot of responses here to your generous offer to rhetorically assault us into right thinking. You care to share your thoughts on any of them?
P. Tirebiter: Huh?
Grape:
There must’ve been a point when you & I passed each other like ships in the night, because back around 2001, I was talking just like you. While you were dutifully voting for Gore (you didn’t say so, but I assume) & Kerry like a good Democrat, I was voting for Nader. Even now I’m still a registered Green, and–because I live in NY, where nine times outta ten I could vote for a Republican, a Green, or write in “my biggest toe” & the Democrat would still sweep the state–I still often vote third party.
But the thing is, I can. As long as electoral politics is a state-by-state, winner take all game, my vote won’t count, except as a message that I want more liberal candidates, and I’m prepared to vote for ‘em. I’m damned proud to send that message, and to vote strictly according to my values, with no thought to electoral gamesmanship. As long as I’m convinced that a Republican (or other conservative) will not win the office, I’m free to do my thing and electorally voice my support for whatever third party liberal/socialist/commie/ progressive people or platforms I like.
The same isn’t true in Louisiana & some of the other states where these friggin’ Blue Dogs are from. I don’t know if they’re the best we can get from these places, but I do know for sure that the folks I believe the whole Democratic party ought to be populated with (Wellstone, Kucinich, Sanders, Nader) ain’t gonna get elected in those places. As long as it’s either them or some ass from the republic party–who would surely support less of the things that please you than even these blue dogs, and not even count toward the majority count for Dems, besides–I don’t think folks in those states should pick up their marbles and try to start a new game somewhere else, electorally. In a whole lotta places, you don’t have the luxury of voting your heart, once you get past the primaries, because if you do, the other major party will likely win the seat and you will be left with nothing.
I’ve little doubt that if Obama continues the way he’s going, there will be more disgruntled Democrats registering/voting Green in upcoming elections, just as happened during/just after Clinton, (who to my way of seeing things, was kind of azure & fleabit, himself. And I’m sure you don’t now need me to tell anyone what I thought of Gore’s running mate…) I still believe there may come a time when the Democrats become the centrist party, between the batshit crazy, Palinesque Republics on one side, and the uber-progressive Greens on the other. But until that happens, you have to accept that there are places where blue dogs are the only kinda Democrats that stand a chance of being elected and–while I’m fully in favor of riding their asses, educating them in progressive values, and doing all one can to squeeze better thinkin’ out of ‘em–tossing them out of the Democratic party in the name of ideological purity will only result in more Republicans in office from those “blue dog” states. (Lieberman, on the other hand, is worthy of purging. When you campaign for the opposing side, you overstep the bounds of even blue dog-ism. He already is a Republican, so there’s nothing there worth saving.)
(There’s a small group of Democrats who I used to debate in a few egroups/yahoogroups, circa 2001, who’d be so proud, if they read this… 8>)
(PS: And if this message comes out like the preview, y’all ought to be impressed that I’m replying to Grape’s message three days shy of two years before he actually wrote it. That’s some trick!!)
Repsac3: Thanks for the considerate response. I’m a native San Franciscan, and have never lived more than 60 miles from the Golden Gate bridge.
I think you mistake my disenchantment with the democratic party as recent in vintage. It’s not. The Vietnam war, civil rights, insurrection, and assassinations were on my young radar growing up. I was paying attention, albeit with a child’s comprehension. My father, whose life was saved by the New Deal, patiently explained to the teenaged-me (circa ‘72) that the political realities of San Francisco and the Bay Area bore no resemblance to the rest of the nation. It was a revelation, but as I grew just a bit older I understood it perfectly. I grudgingly bought into the ‘lesser of two evils’ school of thought, and voted accordingly for decades. Hereabouts republicans are outnumbered by democrats (by about 100 to one). But I never voted for a third party. I proudly cast a vote for Nancy Pelosi in her first congressional race, and Barbara Boxer before her. I also voted for Walter “I’m Going To Rise Your Taxes” Mondale, and Michael Dukakis. Need I say more?
I turned my back on democratic transgressions with increasing regularity from 1980 on. But 9/11 did change everything, beginning with that party’s overwhelming support of the ‘Patriot Act’. Even then, I managed to stomach them. I voted for John “Reporting For Duty” Kerry in 2004, knowing perfectly well he chose to support the Iraq war for reasons of wicked and sordid political calculation. As I mentioned up-thread, it remains the only vote I am truly ashamed of having cast.
You get my drift. By my lights, the democratic party has traveled beyond the pale. Their general political ineptitudes or their blue dog constituency had very little to do with our divorce. It is on matters fundamental to my own sense of patriotism, of love of country, of decency, that drove me from its ranks.
Wow. I just re-read that. It’s quite a speech. Speaking of which, It will be interesting to hear what Obama has to say Wednesday night. For the sake of the country, I hope he stands tall.