Tag: Obama

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Rashomon:(the south entrance gate to Kyoto) no longer exists.  It fell into decay and suffered and crumbled under the ebb and flow of many civil wars centuries ago.  But I’ve been to where it was:  now just a stone marker in a small playground, about a 5-10 minute walk from Toji Temple.  

“Rashomon” was also a film by Director Akira Kurosawa.  

I discuss the “Rashomon Effect” below.

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 I used to litigate.  No more.  I still keep a hand in “traditional” law with Will drafting, contract matters, employment policy drafting and consultation, etc., but I focus more and more on international business matching and related work.

 I say all that (in the preceding paragraph) to say, well, I used to litigate (I’m thinking this comment may just get turned into an essay).  And in litigation one quickly learns the practical side of what everybody instinctively knows about the Rashomon Effect:  people can see and experience virtually the same thing and, yet, see and experience very different things!

 This is why we have trials:  two witnesses to a car accident standing next to one another and both looking at the light at the same time.  One swears it was yellow and the other swears it was read.  The outcome of the thing depends on who the jury thinks is more credible.  Neither is lying; they both believe they’re telling the utter truth. So we have to (for example, through cross examination) test their respective perceptions.

 While there were and are as many varied viewpoints of Barack Obama, among those who viewed him favorably, who supported his candidacy in the fall of 2008, I see two general views that emerged (I actually saw this back then and diaried to some degree or another several times on this over at orange; I feel that my conclusions then have been confirmed countless times since then, right up to today):

  1. The Gateway.  He is a vehicle through which desired changes will come.  A conduit by and through which reforms will be made.  He is bright and capable and should be given (it was right, perhaps, to have given him) a shot at effectuating real, substantive progressive changes in government, economic priorities, and even to the American zeitgeist.  He has the brains, the background, the skills needed and the motivation to bring about the desired (by progressives, Democrats) systemic changes.

  2.  The Gate.  He himself is a person to be followed and implicitly trusted and believed in.  Whatever setbacks or (perceived) failings that may occur along the way would be (are, have been) owing either (a) to other people failing him and/or failing to have faith in him; or, (b) a misperception among critics and cynics that he has failed, when, in fact, nothing he does falls short of the mark and that his wisdom and vision should not be questioned; that he “gets” the Big Picture in a way and to a depth that his detractors cannot begin to understand (how can an ant in Alabama understand how the Taj Mahal was constructed?).

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 Well, need I go further?  

 I was there in Mile High Stadium in Denver when he gave his acceptance speech.  I got choked up many times over, not so much in listening to Barack Obama, but in seeing the tens of thousands of people who believed that he would usher in a new and better day for the United States.  Little did I really, really “get” that I was not seeing a unified body (except unified in the desire and determination to get him elected).  I was seeing people who, individual variations notwithstanding, who either believed he was an agent for change, or that he was The One.

 The light was Yellow, no, the light was Red!

                             

With my camera pointed at the People, not the Podium.

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Were they looking at a Gateway, or a Gate?

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Obama Signals Willingness to Compromise.

                                                                          Primary the SOB.

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I’m done, totally done, with him.  

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http://www.nola.com/news/gulf-…

Yes, by god it looks all gone to me.

Thank you for your help, Mr Obama.  

When I first proposed that it was time for a Dump Obama movement, I argued that the immediate task was to build a movement. I did not want to focus on organizational questions, did not want to get hung up on questions of who the candidate would be. Build the base of support and the candidate(s) would follow.

I was immediately assailed by supporters and detractors alike who insisted that I had to have a candidate. At that time, I restated my position on building the movement first. Without passing judgment whether my original assessment was correct or not, it is now time to find that candidate (or candidates).

Taking into account overt Dump Obama, third party, throw-them-all-out, write-in Public Option, and abandon the Democrats sentiment in the aggregate, I’ll say that Dump Obama sentiment was greater than even I had thought. The Dump Obama concept has gone viral, the movement exists in nascent form, a topic on Democratic Underground and MyDD, among Democratic Party sites. A topic of speculation in mainstream venues. Not because we’re so mighty (I’d be a liar to pretend otherwise) but because Obama is doing so badly. So to echo Robert Redford from The Candidate (1972), “What do we do now?”

We indeed have to move to tactics. So let’s talk candidates.

On October 7, OpenLeft ran a most charming piece by Mike Lux, Obama comes through on foreclosure issue: what’s next?

But then, that most delightful and rare of Washington moments happened: the system worked. Consumer advocates started raising hell on the blogs and in traditional media, the White House started looking more closely at the issue, and literally within a matter of hours, Obama announced that he was not going to sign the bill … As soon as the issue was raised, the White House team focused on it, and made the right decision quickly …

But I think it is fair to ask ourselves what happens next and how the progressive community should respond to it … The question now is how progressives respond if Obama does start to move in a more progressive direction … progressives should be ready to move to meet the President halfway and work with him in the areas where he does move our direction, and we shouldn’t always assume the worst. We should keep our healthy skepticism, push hard when we need to push, but be ready to engage when a door is opened to us to engage on.

In other words, the entire episode is a validation of the incrementalist, cooperative liberalism that has brought the progressive forces to the sorry state we are now in.  More tactically, it is a plea for us now to go full steam with the Democratic GOTV operation.

I’ve been thinking about that insanity definition. This has not been the first time the White House has taken the left out behind the woodshed. Repeating the same mistakes and expecting different results in a common action found in many places but there is one group that most often comes to mind.

The underlying message from a president that once said “Make me do the right thing” has become “Leave me alone.” The classic case of a person calling for isolation from loved ones is a very common form of denial. “Don’t tell me what to do. I’m doing fine. Go take a look at your own shit” is what is often heard by family members of sick and suffering addicts.  

To the casual observer it would seem like this man is trying hard to get into “Presidents Anonymous” but the sad fact is that there is no 12 Step Program for president’s in a nation where all elected officials are prowling the back alleys of K Street and mainlining enormous amounts of special interest cash. Sadly there isn’t even an Al-Anon for progressives so we don’t have a clear definition on how to address this.  

Nick Egnatz, is a VietNam vet, who has written an essay and is someone with whom I have rallied with, from time to time, here and there.  I am showing the entire essay, because the “thought content” may become lost were I not to do so!  

I reserve my personal comments or thoughts (and, frankly, I’m still mesmerizing over the thoughts he portrays in his diary)!  

I must say, up-front, I do not disagree with the accuracy of the circumstances, as he portrays them to be!  Nor, do I think his solutions absurd, but . . . . . !  We all search for remedies — maybe, Nick’s right and maybe, he’s wrong!  What do you think?

The Progressive Dilemna

The Progressive DilemmaSubmitted by Nick Egnatz on Wed, 2010-09-29 19:49

A self described representative democracy in which the only two political parties are both funded and controlled by elite corporate interests is a contradiction in terms. Control of the population through government propaganda and a monopoly corporate media have made the domination of the American working class and poor by the wealthy corporate elite consensual. The enormity of the crime against true democratic values is so complete that substantive reform of the present system is an impossibility.

A dilemma is a situation in which one is forced to choose between equally distasteful options. That has always been our consignment as Americans when we venture to the polls (either vote for a wishy/washy Democrat or let the even worse Republican win). Every two years we are told that the fate of our democracy rests on our decision. Well it doesn’t because we don’t have a democracy, representative or otherwise. We have a plutocracy (rule by the wealthy). Our two political parties answer out of necessity to the corporate world. No one represents the people and the monopoly corporate media will not allow for a discussion of democratic alternatives.

The chickens have come home to roost from the last 30 years of economic neoliberal globalization policies championed by both political parties. Supply side economics of massive tax cuts for the wealthy and deregulation of the very modest checks on American capitalism necessitated by the Great Depression have made us the most unequal industrial democracy on earth. Imperial wars of aggression and massive bailouts of the very speculators who engineered the financial collapse leading to the Great Recession have allowed both corporate parties to take the stance that there is no money left for the people’s needs. This is poppycock. How can a consumer driven economy recover if the working class and poor have no jobs or money?

To cut spending on social programs with political cover, Obama came up with the brilliant idea of a Budget Deficit Commission made up of bipartisan hacks from both our two corporate parties, representatives from the corporate world of greed and a single union president. Green Party and socialists need not apply and in fact there are no even mildly progressive Democrats (an oxymoron if there ever was one) on the commission. The Commission is not a result of legislation from our Congress. It was formed by Executive Order. This is the way dictators govern, but that’s another issue. The Commission is charged to cut the Budget Deficit by cutting social programs only and leaving the military spending intact. If and when 14 of the Commission’s 18 members agree on policy it will go straight to Congress for a vote with no amendments allowed.

Co-chairman of the Commission Alan Simpson, former Republican Senator from Wyoming received some notoriety recently by referring to seniors on Social Security as “lesser people”, calling Social Security a “cow with 310 million tits” and asking the question of Vietnam veterans “what have they done for us lately?’ None of this bothered our President enough to ask for Simpson’s resignation. Their recommendation is due in December, after the election.

We are expected to accept the government propaganda that the unemployment rate is 9.6%, when that figure does not include those no longer receiving or who never received unemployment compensation, part time workers desiring full time work or workers disdainfully referred to as having given up looking for work. Including all these would bring the unemployment figure to 22%. But that still doesn’t count those working for less than a livable wage, this would easily bring the figure well beyond the 30% range. This assault on the working class has been the goal of the neoliberal globalization policy accepted as gospel by both corporate political parties since Ronald Reagan started selling it in the 70s and 80s when he set out to save the country from the scourge of a prosperous working class. The Great Communicator pushed his dogma of bad government/good corporations with the same smile he used to push Twenty Mule Team Borax soap to TV viewers years earlier.

More than three million families have already been foreclosed and torn from their homes. Another 11 million families are “underwater” (owing more that the home is worth). Research firm First American Core Logic reports that Nevada with 65% of home mortgages underwater, Arizona with 48%, Florida with 45%, Michigan with 37% and California with 35% lead the nation in this foreboding statistic.

The Republicans propose fiscal austerity for the poor and working class and continued tax cuts for the wealthy corporate class to find our way our of the Great Recession. Obama and the Democrats say that economic growth will do the trick. Both so called solutions are illogical. We are expected to believe that if the big bad bankers would just pretty please start loaning money to businesses, the economy will start humming and everything will be hunky dory?

I’m not an economist, but I have been a small businessman and I have been told on more than one occasion that I have half a brain. The road to recovery is both simple and difficult. For businesses to thrive, for the economy to hum, the business owners simply need customers with money in their pockets. The first step is to put our citizens back to work at a livable wage and the economy will flourish. It will be difficult, to the point of impossibility, for corporate politicians to consider the people at the bottom first, but that is what needs to be done.

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 The utter nerve of President Obama.  The gall of this guy.  Scolding rank and file Democrats for being down and disgusted with the Administration, disgusted with the Democratic Party, when it was the Administration and Democratic Party that’s made rank and file Democrats so damn disgusted.

 Since taking the oath of office Obama’s time and time and time and time again bent over backwards, demonstrated all manner of contortions, to make nice with the very Republicans who have it in for him and have done all in their power, and then some, to undermine whatever tepid initiatives he’s put forth.  But when it comes to the Democratic base, the very ones who put him into office, we get:

. . . watered-down proposals (Single Payer off the table, the Public Option under the bus . . . all to appease Republicans who worked overtime to fuck-over America anyway); we get the same-ol’ same-ol’ when it comes to Justice (why hasn’t the Justice Dept dropped all charges against Don Siegelman and started seriously investigating the chicanery of the Bush BFF’s who persecuted him?); we get Rahm Emanuel calling liberals “fucking retarded”, apparently with Obama’s blessing (no public dressing-down, let alone firing); we get the just-as-petulant Robert Gibbs scolding “the professional left” (where’s my paycheck? I could damn well use one!); and on and on and on . . .

  And rather than taking his own advisers and other hangers-on to “the woodshed,” rather than even considering that we’re disappointed in his obsession with genuflecting to the Great God BiPartisanship (while sticking it to Americans in the process and refusing to FIGHT for the Middle Class), rather than declaring anything like:

 “I messed up.  For a year-and-a-half I actually believed that Capitol Hill Republicans also wanted what was best for America and Americans, just that they advocated a different way of getting there.  Now I realize that I was wrong and they want what’s best for the wealthiest and most mean-spirited of Americans.  I won’t make that mistake again.  Today, I fight them, and fight for the United States of America and her citizens.”

 

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 . . . or rather than saying, with crystal clarity:

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. . . rather than any of that, we get scolded.

Screw it.  Oh, and what Bartcop says.*

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* h/t to lotlizard; and h/t to nightprowlkitty