Friday, June 1, 2012

Down


I have to admit I'm starting to feel pessimistic, and it's not just the latest jobs report. It's the unrelenting lying, and the torrential flow of billionaire money into deceptive ads, the nastiness of which is just beginning. And, of course, it's the constant and undisguised propagandizing by the right wing's favorite "news" source.

But it's more than that. Many liberals are disappointed with Barack Obama -- because of policies that ought to have made the RWS™ deliriously happy and because of which their claims of terrorist-loving America-hating on the part of the president ought to have disappeared in a flashboom, like the leadership of al Queda: kill lists, citizen targeting, Gitmo, detentions. The list goes on.

And that's the point: Obama is the centrist he always was, and he's doing -- legally or otherwise -- what he thinks he needs to do to protect against terrorism; and he's done what he thinks he had to do, by way of compromising on important issues like health care and taxes and the stimulus, to get done what little the Rs have allowed. And yet, the RWS™ keep pushing the idea that he's a radical socialist, a weak-kneed terrorist appeaser; and the sheep lick it up like corn sugar.

As always, the bottom-line issue remains choosing between fiscal priorities that will allow us to pay for such frivolities as education, infrastructure, health care, safety nets, environmental protection, research, alternative energy, predict the weather, etc, etc, versus ones that will preserve and increase tax cuts for the wealthy and for businesses, increase military spending, and drastically and irreversibly cut the aforementioned government functions to make the numbers work (although they don't). (It's also a choice between foreign policies in which war is a last or a first resort.) But the seriousness of that choice is lost in the din. Which is partly because the Ds, as usual, are unable to maintain a coherent and focused message, but mostly because the right-wing scream machine is so loud and well-funded, feeling no moral need to attach to reality; and because its target audience is so uninterested in and incapable of hearing truth through the noise.

I know it's too early to draw conclusions, and I know summertime polls are notoriously non-predictive; but based on what's really at stake -- as opposed to the false picture drawn and paid for by the only group that stands to benefit from a Rominee presidency, ie those that have theirs and will be fine no matter how badly the country stumbles -- it ought already to look like a landslide for Obama.

It doesn't. Deliberate blocking of Obama's jobs programs by teabaggRs, followed by decrying (barely containing their glee) the lack of jobs. Unaccounted money and unbridled lies. An easily deceived public, their prejudices and paranoia carefully (and brilliantly) stoked nonstop. Ruthless and concentrated messaging untethered by fact, opposing discohesive, disorganized and limp response.

Yes, I keep giving money, and every time I do I get asked for more. But it'd take millions of me's (does that apostrophe go there?) to counter just one of the Rovians, and I don't get the sense that it's gonna happen. Obama is the left-leaning centrist I always thought he was, a fact disappointing to the further left, and ignored by the right to advance their greedy goals. In the elation of his victory, I completely underestimated the kind of reaction, from day one, there'd be on the right, nor foresaw how far right the entire Republican party would go, how willing they'd be to wreck the recovery for their political ends, and how unthinkingly their sheep would follow.

For a realist, which I am, pessimism seems to be the only logical state of mind.


11 comments:

  1. Dr. Sid,

    This should cheer you up....or not.

    http://www.humanevents.com/article.php?id=51870

    PT

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  2. And this should cheer you up, because if elected, he'll do the latter.

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  3. What makes you so sure? Did your magic 8 ball tell you that?

    I see two scenarios:

    1.) Rominee wins and governs as a MA moderate. (based on his quotes you recently posted, the fact that Repubs will have no better option to follow his moderate lead, his flippant comments about fox watchers as being "true believers", and his campaigns comments about etch-a-sketching; he can either become S t alin Jr. or go the other way and be more moderate)

    2.) O wins and, since there's no point in campaigning against him any longer and the healthcare law that was stuffed down the countries throat will have been ruled unconstitutional, the Repubs become more open to compromise and they get some stuff done.......unless the "I'll have more flexibility after the election quote" was nefarious, then all bets are off.

    PT

    p.s. thanks for the BB link. You'd love his Facebook page; hell hath no fury like a Reagan foot soldier scorned.

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  4. As I wrote recently, those who think Rominee will govern as a moderate are wrong.

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  5. P.S: By "stuffed down the country's throat" I guess you mean "passed by duly elected representatives in the manner prescribed by our constitution.

    Like you, I await the S.C. decision with curiosity; it's been upheld by several federal judges, but the S.C. is now fully politicized, with the R side being the most activist in decades.

    Funny thing, though: if it's disallowed, Rs, after taking a few victory laps, will be obliged to do something they've never done: come up with an honest and workable solution to our health care problems.

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  6. This comment has been removed by the author.

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  7. "IF" it's disallowed??????!!!

    Obamacare's goin down harder than George Foreman in Zaire, 1974...
    Lets see, an example you might remember..
    The "Hindenburg". It'll be like that, "Oh the Humanity!!!"

    and how' bout that latest jobs report?
    A Whole 69,000 NEW JOBS! YAY!!!!!!!!!
    thats like a whole 1,500 new jobs for each of the 57 States..
    and since Georgia has like 500 counties, thats like 3 per County.
    Basically, every Walmart added a janitor and 2 greeters.
    This election's gonna be "Close" like the 1980 election was "Close"...
    450-88 Romney, you read it here first.
    OK, maybe only 350. New York and Massachussets were more bi-partisan in 1980.

    Frank

    Frank

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  8. I take it back Sid. All I have to do is read Frank and PT, think about Rominee, and I want to suck on a bullet. Rational thinking and the morality that made this country what it is, is a thing of the past. Throw in the towel Sid, it's a losing battle, it's not worth it.

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  9. Well, Frankie, if your prediction comes to pass it'll mean that our democracy is as brain dead as you are. And that's what's got the doc here so depressed.

    And now for my prediction: If Scrooge McDuck does get himself elected, he'll reenact W's failed economic policies and crash the global economy. Again. Those who can't remember the (recent) past...

    Alternatively, the media will actually start covering policy, and maybe the majority of the voting public will have an attention span marginally greater than yours.

    You really must stop sampling your own wares.

    Painless

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  10. Dr. S: Don't give up yet; I am speculating, but voters (about 58% of US citizens in 2008)may decide they are more comfortable with "the devil they know" (Mr. Obama) vs the devil they don't (Mr. Romney).

    What prompts my pessimism is that our candidate choices are not optimal. This reality generates apathy; then less people vote, thus, the "winner" does not truly represent the majority. A deplorable state of affairs in a country that calls itself a democracy.

    Regarding the possible striking down of the the Affordable care act:such a move would create an administrative nightmare not to mention "voters" being unhappy when they can no longer carry adult children on their insurance or get insurance because of a pre-existing disease.

    DD

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  11. If it's any consolation, you brilliantly encapsulated the problems in your essay.

    For laughs, just think of Mitt panderin' on the ole campaign trail in his pressed mom jeans and singin' those painful and wrongly-attributed songs.

    Seriously, while we've all heard how "out-of-touch" with average "folks" Romney is, blaming his tactlessness on his wealth is oversimplified, if not ironic. To my knowledge, those loutish remarks made during primary tours were never viewed in the proper light and he, inherently lacking all but superficial social skills, will be unable to avoid other such trite and insensitive gaffs. Hopefully people will then take notice and dislike the idea of a boorish, oblivious, thoughtless president (even though it is unfortunate that at present many don't already seem to correlate lying and ruthlessness with ignoble character). Character means everything; not only what gets done (or proposed), but how.

    Donna

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