Man who bailed out wall street, bombed Libya and implemented a Heritage Foundation healthcare plan, worries that the dems are going too far left
vox.com/policy-and-politics/2019/4/6/18298287...
vox.comPosted Apr 7, 2019, 3:25 PM UTC
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vox.comHaha. Indicating his inevitable Biden endorsement, no doubt. Slick Barack does it again.
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He was his vp. What else would you expect?
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I was thinking he would just sit it out and not endorse anyone.
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...why?
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IIRC, he didn't endorse Hillary until after the convention. So he'll probably wait until then.
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That's exactly what he will do officially until the convention that is.
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Obama cares about beating Trump. He's going to endorse the person with the highest chance of beating him, which is likely Biden at this point.
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Is this a bit?
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the highest chance of beating him, which is likely Biden at this point.
lol
Trump won because he inspired people and because he got Republicans (and others) from typically low-turnout states to go to the voting booths. A standard, run-of-the-mill Democrat can't do that, and they sure as hell can't beat Trump, despite what your television tells you. Sanders on the other hand can go into Trump-country and get a standing ovation for M4A. He will win, Biden won't.
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I'd put my money on Beto for the Dems. Young and sexy and almost beat Cruz in Texas.
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Some people expect others to learn from their mistakes and correct for them, which is something we should encourage.
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Surprised OP didn't mention his expansion of the NSA programs. That's arguably more egregious than the healthcare plan.
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It did slip my mind, but you're right. The deep state is out of control with wiretapping and privacy violations, and Dems do nothing. Now it's controlled by Trump.
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The deep state is out of control with wiretapping and privacy violations, and Dems do noth
Lol they actually expanded then under Trump
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Within tech industry circles, privacy is considered the most urgent political issue, and outside of tech industry circles, it’s the least urgent. I think there are a lot of reasons why this is, and most are understandable, but dammit if Obama didn’t fuck this up too.
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People who are technically informed know just how pervasive the implications are. That's the main difference, from what I've seen.
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“We have to be careful in balancing big dreams and bold ideas with also recognizing that typically change happens in steps,” Obama said, taking two large strides backwards.
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He’s a lawyer, people forget this.
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As an expert in constitutional law, Obama did an exceptional job of treating the constitution as a lawyer would while he was in office.
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As an expert in constitutional law
My condolences.
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What do you mean by that?
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Lawyers are notorious for attempting to bend the system to the interests of their clients. Obama is an expert in constitutional law. He represented his "clients" — big business, the military-industrial complex etc. — as best he could in spite of the constitution.
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Probably that he talked around it to his clients' benefit.
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typically change happens in steps
It, quite literally, does not. Even the vaguest familiarity with history will make it blindingly obvious that history is more "sudden rapid shift, entrenchment of the new order and slow, grinding changes one way or the other, rinse and repeat."
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Equilibrium punctuating intensifies
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Backward lunges
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Lol, no duh he thinks this way now. He’s got hundreds of millions of dollars and doesn’t want to lose it.
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He has always been a fraud. One of the first decisions in his presidency was bailing out the bankers and protecting them from any criminal charges. This fuck is just very good at acting as a caring politician even though the vast majority of his actions show a sociopathic piece of shit and compulsive liar.
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Yeah, the recession should have led to guillotines
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How about prosecutions, bank nationalizations first?
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Banks are inherently a capitalistic evil, so nationalizing them does literally nothing for us but shift the power from one group to another.
The prosecutions would have been the guillotines though...
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Eh, I don't think this is it. He was basically a socially liberal rockefeller republican but I don't think he was some fiendish cartoon character like people now seem to think he was.
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I'm saying that's what he is now... he's a cog in the neoliberal machine
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I don't really have an opinion on that. He doesn't talk very much.
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Hope my fucking ass
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I don't mind the bailing out of wall street. Inaction would have led to much more disastrous consequences for common people. The reason no arrests were made is because of the laws at the time. I will fault Obama for not pushing to change those laws after the fact.
What i do fucking mind though is this preaching of incrementalism when all the little steps of the last decades have been in the wrong direction. If we were somehow on the right track i would fully agree that things take time but we aren't on that track and i don't see it changing soon.
International capital doesn't give a shit about borders, people, cultures or life outside work. Who cares if there is only a lower class and a small elite upper class as long as the lower class isn't screaming at brown people and the elites are diverse. Pathetic.
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Agree with the gist of your post, but there absolutely were laws in place that Obama's DOJ could have used to pursue criminal charges against executives. See one of the more egregious examples of lawlessness: https://thinkprogress.org/bank-of-americas-robo-signer-comes-clean-i-had-no-idea-what-i-was-signing-4008a53d3533/
There's also pretty overwhelming evidence, documented very thoroughly by journalists like David Dayen, of criminal foreclosure fraud in the California real estate market that went unpunished both at the federal level and by state AG and Dem heir apparent Kamala Harris.
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I don't mind the bailing out of wall street. Inaction would have led to much more disastrous consequences for common people.
A lot of people were willing to suffer as long as the banks suffered. Also there was no bailouts or relief for the common population who weren't capitalist parasites. At least nationalize the banks,
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But guys! He was so presidential unlike the Cheeto in Chief Drumpf! Isn’t that enough!? Why are y’all so racist!
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After reading this, I have to say I agree with a good bit of it. I think he’s attacking the radlibs here, but from a neolib perspective. I think he’s right that the radlibs create the circular firing squads and don’t help the left at all with their purity tests. I think he’s using this criticism as a way to cover for the DNC’s utter weakness and constant capitulation to the RNC, but it doesn’t invalidate the idea in itself.
Some “purity tests” are good, such as support for single payer, worker control of industry, protection of democratic rights, etc. But the radlibs have purity tests based on idpol, which necessarily cannot be met by the majority of people with IQs above single digits.
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Agreed, I think people are taking the opportunity to go off on all the things they hate about Obama but I don't think he's criticizing medicare for all here in any way. In fact I think he's likely for it as a generalized ideal.
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I've only been lurking here for a week but it sort of seems like his point about the left being a circular firing squad is entirely the basis of this sub?
Basically everything on here is (reasonably) mocking "leftists" who are just basically vain idiots trying to gain left points by slandering other leftists... Like soon we'll have no left, just a bunch of sad people who have been driven into crazier niches of abstract leftism by people who would essentially vote the same as us, both in a two-party system or otherwise. I don't think you need to like Obama, but this point is sound, & I'm surprised to find disagreement here. Infighting in the left is basically the only reason I can see for Trump, Brexit, the rise of the alt-right etc, & mocking Obama for having signed off some bad things, surely counts as infighting in the left?
By the way I generally agree with the sentiments in this sub which is why I lurk here.
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Depends on what you see as the left. The only left Democrats represent is the "left" of neoliberalism, which isn't normally viewed as the left per se. It has nothing to do with communism, anarchism, or socialism generally, at least, and is rather part of the political tradition (i.e. liberalism) opposed to the left. Adding on a few New Keynesian policy prescriptions and identitarian "culture war" issues does not change that fundamental orientation.
Infighting on the left isn't the reason for Trump, Brexit, or the rise of the alt-right, though. The underlying reasons for these are mostly economic: the recession and how the recovery proceeded, austerity policies promoted by the EU, and the increasing power of multinationals and opposition from smaller nationally-based businesses (one of the central dynamics in both Clinton vs. Trump and Remain vs. Brexit), etc.; the left's squabbles reflect more its general weakness in the current environment.
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There's absolutely no left organization anywhere and any organization that does happen, immediately gets torn down by other leftists. Probably on purpose, fueled by cointelpro persona management programs. I personally theorize that the rise of idpol in its current drop everything manner was manufactured to create massive division.
Alien Dolphin Nukes may actually be the only way forward.
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The Vanguard Outside Of History 👽🐬🛸☢️
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I've only been lurking here for a week but it sort of seems like his point about the left being a circular firing squad is entirely the basis of this sub?
Yes, which makes the number of unthoughtful responses in here a bit worrying.
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Lol really makes you think
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He’s not wrong. Most people on the left couldn’t tell you what the president can actually do
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Those who “could” tend to have a juvenile conception of the powers of the media, the limits of public consciousness, and political history.
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It's called the constitution.
The President can't pass laws. Congress passes laws. Why would you vote for a candidate whose big ticket item will require legislation, something he has little power to control. (Bernie)
Vote for a candidate who knows how he wants to deploy the executive branch to accomplish progressive policy goals. Vote for senators who support progressive legislation.
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Barack Obama warns against a “circular firing squad” over ideological purity in politics
Basically what this sub is about but not the exact right angle therefore he's malicious /s.
Kind of proving his point. There's going to have to be some compromise. None of us are going to get exactly what we want, ever, in anything.
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im not on obama's team. hes a right winger
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Hillary did, idk how its fashionable to talk abt Obama as if he had the exact same foreign policy compared to his immediate predecessors
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He drone bombed American citizens without a trial?
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that was new
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If you haven’t yet, check out the essay Obama No, a critical piece penned by eternal chairman Adolph Reed Jr., and released during Obama’s inaugural 2008 presidential campaign.
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Part of what makes this so egregious, is that it's clearly the dem establishment trying to shift blame for their shitty radlib tactics, onto the Bernie wing. The establishment that have repeatedly accused Bernie of not being a real dem, criticized him for going on fox or whatever, and in general acted really personal and petty. Yet even after the reparations farce, constructed and deployed entirely to act as a wedge, somehow it's the Bernie wing with the firing squads.
I mean he’s clearly also trying to shift blame onto Sanders to some extent but the immediate point he’s making is sound, the left loves to engage in destructive infighting in lieu of engaging the facts. I and I’m sure many other people here have used precisely the phrase ‘circular firing squad’ to describe this kind of behavior. This was true long before Bernie and it’s self-evident to most people not on the left.
I've never heard that term before, it's really fitting too. I dig it.
Obama did it first.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=URJUSlfTgGU