what are barack obama's flaws?

If you're just looking for a history of the outsized influence enjoyed by the wealthy and powerful even in a democracy such as ours, there's Kevin Phillips' engaging book Wealth and Democracy. In particular the part about how late-stage empires tend to see a flourishing of finance at the expense of more tangible industries is sobering (prior examples include Spain, Netherlands and Great Britain).

Shh- Not sure I understand the "giving" vs "taking" distinction you're making.

It is inevitable that powerful people will try to influence policymakers. It is not inevitable that they are influenced.

Especially that last paragraph makes it seem like politicians are just leaves subject to whoever has the most powerful blower. In which case I vote maple.

Pretending that if Obama were more <S>liberal</S> principled that the government would suddenly have tools to oppose these interests is <S>wishful</S> thinking. These problems are systemic and <S>not</S> attributable to any individual

ARGH!
Pretending that if Obama were more liberal principled that the government would suddenly have tools to oppose these interests is wishful thinking. These problems are systemic and not attributable to any individual

<S>not</S>

thread saved

I like "swishful" - a great replacement for the sometimes overlong "light in the loafers".

bad pun kills thread sorry.

Hey, guys, hot off the press:

WASHINGTON — Senate Democratic leaders said Monday that they were prepared to drop a proposed expansion of Medicare and make other changes in sweeping health legislation as they tried to rally their caucus in hopes of passing the bill before Christmas.
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Recent developments on the struggle over health care with background, analysis, timelines and earlier events from NYTimes.com and Google.

After a tense 90-minute meeting on Monday evening, Senator Max Baucus, Democrat of Montana and chairman of the Finance Committee, was asked if Democrats were likely to jettison the Medicare proposal.

“It’s looking like that’s the case,” Mr. Baucus said, indicating that the provision might be scrapped as a way of “getting support from 60 senators.”

Under the proposal, uninsured people ages 55 to 64 could purchase Medicare coverage. The Senate Democratic leader, Harry Reid of Nevada, floated the idea about 10 days ago as a way to break an intraparty impasse over his earlier proposal to create a government-run health insurance plan.

The signal from the party leadership came after the closed-door session to gauge sentiment for moving ahead with a pared-back measure that would not contain elements that liberal lawmakers had sought, particularly a public health insurance option.

Lawmakers and top aides said that the overriding view at the session held just off the Senate floor was that they had come too far in the health care debate to give up and that they should forge ahead with some legislation even if it was not all that they wanted.

After the meeting, lawmakers said they believed that chances were increased for completing a health care bill and that a final product would be a substantial improvement over the current system.

“If you compared it to the alternative, it looks good,” said Senator Sheldon Whitehouse, Democrat of Rhode Island, about the prospect of moving ahead with a measure that does not have a public health insurance option. “If you compare it to the possibilities, it looks pretty sad.”

I am too tired of arguing with people I respect about this stuff. I support this bill now no matter what it says. Something is better than nothing. That's politics. Idealism is for the stupid.

http://manuelhernandeziglesias.files.wordpress.com/2008/12/martin-luther-king1.jpg

I am too tired of arguing with people I respect about this stuff. I support this bill now no matter what it says. Something is better than nothing. That's politics. Idealism is for the stupid.

― a full circle lol (J0hn D.), Monday, December 14, 2009 8:37 PM (7 minutes ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

your assumption that we're not super depressed about this is wrong so plz quit caricaturing

I was actually speaking from the heart, that is how I feel tonight about this stuff.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zzcYajuigHk

http://www.glatuc.org.uk/images/uploads/b1.jpg

There should be massive protests happening right now, for this and climate change. Seriously, nothing would be better than
for my building in DC to be surrounded by health care and climate change protesters in a crowd stretching all the way to the capitol and the white house.

Why there isn't a sustained, strong protest is probably better left for another (already existing?) thread.

dude I don't have the money to take time off and fly to DC to get arrested I hate to say it

I will pay to have you arrested Shakey Mo, always happy to help

j0hn d otm in an obama thread

i would be in dc in a heartbeat to protest for healthcare and climate change action. i dont know why no one is organizing for these things.

MUSTNT WEAKEN OUR GUY

yeah, that's not really what anyone's here's been arguing. but hey, don't let that stop you from saying I TOLD YOU SO for the nth time.

I am enjoying it, and hating it.

Shakey, I'm sure you can find a way to get arrested in SF.

speaking of protests:

President Obama came into office with the backing of progressives, but they are not happy about the recent developments in health care, and they plan to show it: MoveOn.org will host a protest outside the White House at 1 p.m. today calling on Obama to oppose a compromise with Sen. Joe Lieberman (I-CT) on health reform.

Cutting a deal with Lieberman would mean dropping the Senate bill's provision to let 55-64 year-olds buy into Medicare. Politico reported yesterday that the White House has urged Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid to make such a deal.

The stated mission of the protest is to remind Obama that the country elected him, not Lieberman, to fix health care. (Exit polls, by the way, showed health care as the top concern of voters in the 2008 presidential race--so they may have a point). From MoveOn's press release:

Today, MoveOn.org members will hold an emergency rally outside of the White House telling President Obama to not allow Senator Joe Lieberman to hold health care reform hostage, and to urge the President to fight for real reform with the public health insurance option. MoveOn members want to remind the President that the country elected him, not Joe Lieberman, to fix our nation's broken health care system.

not really sure what it does to oppose a compromise with lieberman, to be honest, besides kill healthcare for the next 25 years

Shakey, I'm sure you can find a way to get arrested in SF.

lolz yeah but protesting in SF is so thoroughly pointless, no one gives a shit what we do here in librul-lala-land

perhaps the folks at moveon have figured out a way to get the bill through the senate without going through lieberman. i'm all ears!

not really sure what it does to oppose a compromise with lieberman, to be honest, besides kill healthcare for the next 25 years

they go the reconciliation route and piss off the Republicans even more - but since the GOPers are being such intransigent, uncooperative idiots anyway its hard to imagine how they could possibly be any MORE uncooperative. fuck 'em says I. go hard or go home, Reid.

fwiw the reconciliation route is currently still "on the table" but is not being considered as the best alternative

i think dems are more worried about the "optics" of reconciliation, and how easily it allows the GOP to stay on-message about the democrat party cramming healthcare reform down grandmas throat

oh noes Democrat Party unable to control narrative SHOCKAH

yeah well democrats are a bunch of big wusses i knew that when i joined <shrug>

if they actually had a good plan maybe they wouldn't mind taking sole responsibility for it

what 'they' would that be

if they actually had a good plan maybe they wouldn't mind taking sole responsibility for it

You seem to fundamentally misunderstand the nature of the Democratic Party.

hee hee

"they" = the senate

and by "sole responsibility" i mean using every dirty trick between the lines of robert's rules of order to effect their vision

Sorry.

You seem to fundamentally misunderstand the nature of the Senate. *rimshot*

there are times when what the white house "wants" is important but health care is not one of them. oh, the bill is bad, it's taking forever, they must not want this bad enough.

on torture, there's really no other explanation, because there are no other decision makers acting other than the WH and DoJ. no, they don't really want to go there. and on economics, nobody but obama put larry summers in the lead position. (on new bank regulation, there's a good House bill that the white house is pushing, the GOP and the banks hate, and looks shaky in the senate. kind of a pattern)

but on health care? the senate is a horrible institution to begin with, and the GOP filibuster mania has made it a thousand times worse. that's true no matter what obama wants, or how badly he wants it. it also seems true to me that obama wanted to spend as much time and as much of his own popularity as it took to get as good a deal as possible. we're still at it, and we're farther along than anyone has ever been since LBJ.

ben nelson has been a pro-life creep forever, joe lieberman has been a crabby asshole forever, susan collins and olympia snowe have been unreliable weather-vane centrist feebs forever -- these are the people that were always going to be making the decisions about major legislation. they are the outer edge of any successful coalition of yea votes. one or a few of these people are the eye of the needle that the fucking camel has to fit through. i really want it to be different. what are the chances it will be?

not really sure what it does to oppose a compromise with lieberman, to be honest, besides kill healthcare for the next 25 years

it is good to be reminded of the advantages of even the shittiest incarnation of the bill - insuring the uninsured - but caving to lieberman, rather than making a reckless and divisive attempt to get a worthier bill passed, seems like the most resigned capitulation to coercion and obstruction imaginable. i know they should concentrate on the war rather than the individual battles but this would be so hard to live with.

imo not as hard to live with as no healthcare reform at all

I think the best-case scenario that would take the concession into account without making it feel like resigned capitulation would be to approve the bill with Lieberman's provisions, then strip him of all of his positions and standing with the Democratic Party and remove campaign support from him. And then have every senator line up and punch him in the face one by one.

rather than making a reckless and divisive attempt to get a worthier bill passed

why is everyone so certain that this is a gamble that would succeed? what is better, 60-70% of a good bill, or 0?

remove campaign support from him.

ha ned lamont did this three years ago

the most resigned capitulation to coercion and obstruction imaginable.

ie politics.

anyway as much as i like to see the scumbag humiliated, lieberman wont lose anything, hes working on a lot of legislation thats important to democrats and its not clear if theyre ever going to get any republican support for anything for the next four years

this is how i feel

http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/12/15/paying-the-liebergeld/

its not clear if theyre ever going to get any republican support for anything for the next four years

it's abundantly clear that they are NOT so they should stop fucking trying

why is everyone so certain that this is a gamble that would succeed?

because they only need 51 votes to do it and that way the Dems can let Nelson and Lieberman and the other fucknuts walk away from voting for it

dude--they actually cant get everything passed through reconciliation

I'm aware they'd have to alter the legislation, but if they could keep some version of the public option...

it's abundantly clear that they are NOT so they should stop fucking trying

I disagree with that tactic.

They should not expect any Republican support but that doesn't mean they shouldn't continue to offer the opportunity to give it. Also, there is some merit to the idea that an opposing viewpoint can help you identify and shore up the weak points in your ideas. I think the Democrats are swinging WAY too far to the center in reacting to criticism but the idea of successfully rebutting/refuting objections shouldn't be thrown out just because the Republicans are being stubborn.