If Obama cuts Social Security...

The president indicates that funding for the hallmark Democratic program is on the table. Is this the last straw? David Sirota
Thursday, Jul 7, 2011
http://www.salon.com/news/david_sirota/2011/07/07/obama_social_security_cuts/index.html

Wednesday night, the Washington Post reported that on top of the big cuts to Medicare he's already proposed, President Obama is now considering endorsing cuts to Social Security. In making this announcement (which formally embraces the concept of Social Security cuts first proposed by Obama's debt commission), the White House has lost all credibility in arguing that its 2012 political problems are the result of unfair expectations, particularly on the left. At the same time, the White House has finally exposed the strategy behind what so many of its apologists insisted was deft "three dimensional chess" on behalf of old-school liberalism -- and as we see, these tactics have nothing to do with liberalism and everything to do with Orwell-ism.

To review: The Wall Street Journal reports that "across a wide range of measures -- employment growth, unemployment levels, bank lending, economic output, income growth, home prices and household expectations for financial well-being -- the economy's improvement since the recession's end in June 2009 has been the worst, or one of the worst, since the government started tracking these trends after World War II." In light of this miserable situation, it's no surprise that Gallup's Frank Newport reports that the president's job approval rating "has been hovering near the fault line between probable re-election and probable 'one-term' presidency."

For most of the president's tenure, he, his staffers and his devoted-but-dwindling army of sycophants have insisted that the political fallout from the crushing recession reflects unrealistic expectations of Obama in the wake of George W. Bush's destructive reign. It is, dare I say, an audacious claim, especially coming from a candidate who asked us all to have the "audacity of hope" -- and it's more than a little insulting. After all, much of the complaints about the president have been about campaign promises that he didn't just fail to fulfill -- but that he refused to even try to fulfill.

Indeed, when a political candidate promises to try to pass a public option to compete with private insurers, attempt to crack down on Wall Street abuse, do what he can to stop unfair trade deals, oppose extending his predecessors tax cuts and avoid initiating initiate costly new wars sans congressional approval, and then once in office works to kill a public option, refuses to prosecute Wall Street crimes, presses the rigged trade deals he opposed, supports the extension of his predecessor's tax cuts and starts a new war in Libya with no congressional authorization -- whose fault is it that he ends up in reelection trouble?

I'd say the answer is obvious -- I'd say that if such a politician wasn't in reelection trouble, it would be a sign that our democracy is in a deeper crisis than it already is.

But, then, merely citing this record brings accusations of treason, at least from Democratic staffers, pundits and activists in Washington. In an age of politics that has melded politicians with celebrity and activism with starfucking, to be a rank-and-file progressive and honestly examine a candidate's record during a reelection campaign is to risk being portrayed as a dangerous, seditious, ideologically zealous revolutionary.

After Wednesday night, though, the power of this kind of with-us-or-against-us partisanship will face it's ultimate test. Because while the intricacies of health care, Wall Street regulations and trade pacts can be muddled with esoterica and while Democratic presidents have shown a deft ability to soothe their base by conflating militarism with humanitarianism (the same trick, of course, that Republicans use for their militarist adventures), this Democratic president is aiding a new war on Social Security, the single most popular social program in American history, a program that the Democratic Party has -- both in principle and out of sheer self-interest -- long based its brand on. Whether Obama ultimately champions specific cuts or just floats the general possibility of such cuts, the larger news is that he has now legitimized them as a negotiating chip -- and importantly, he made such a move on his own, not because of circumstantial necessity.

To appreciate this reality, go back and read every Democratic Party press release during President Bush's 2005 failed assault on Social Security. Those press releases reminded us that Social Security is one of the most fiscally sound programs in American history, projected to run surpluses for the foreseeable future. Additionally, what problems it does face can be easily solved -- as just one example of a solution, the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities reports that had President Obama refused to extend the Bush tax cuts and instead worked to repeal them, that move alone would generate revenues equal to two and one-half times the entire Social Security shortfall over the next 75 years (yes, 75 years!).

And yet now, like that gruesome scene at the end of "Fargo," Social Security -- a pay-as-you-go embodiment of fiscal responsibility -- is being rammed into the grisly woodchipper of cynical debt-reduction politics. Only instead of a glowering Peter Stormare (or Mitt Romney) doing the pushing, there’s a cheery President Obama insisting that cuts are really just progressive efforts to "strengthen" -- the same Obama who chastised his 2008 Republican opponent for using the same pathetic spin to shroud cuts to the same program.

This is not real politik, it is not triangulation and it isn't even Bush-ism (that is, taking unpopular positions and then just arrogantly pursuing them without regard for public will). No, we are watching a sort of Orwellian dystopia. Indeed, it is a sight to behold: a regime that believes it can say one set of things over and over and over again, and then do exactly the opposite.

Inherent in that ideology is the assumption that Americans -- and particularly Democratic voters -- are either too stupid to see the heist in process, or if they do see the heist, are too entranced by their president's power/fame/celebrity/charisma to want to do anything about it, even if what's being pilfered is Democrats' Social Security crown jewel.

The assumption, in other words, is that ignorance and fealty will permit a president to serve as an accomplice to the very grand larceny he was explicitly elected to office to oppose. Should the assumption prove true -- should Obama now be cheered on for doing to Social Security what no Republican president has ever been able to do -- the date on the calendar may say 2011, but it will really be 1984.

David Sirota is a best-selling author of the new book "Back to Our Future: How the 1980s Explain the World We Live In Now." He hosts the morning show on AM760 in Colorado. E-mail him at ds@davidsirota.com, follow him on Twitter @davidsirota or visit his website at http://www.davidsirota.com/.

Obama Kicks Base In Teeth

From Salon.com:

Rachel Maddow last night issued a very harsh and eloquent denunciation of Obama's decision to try Khalid Sheikh Mohammed before a military commission at Guantanamo rather than a real court. At the end of her monologue, Maddow focused on the contrast between how the Republicans treat their base and how Democrats treat theirs, specifically emphasizing that the White House announced this decision on the same day it kicked off Obama's re-election bid. About that point, Rachel said this:

A Democratic President kicks his base in the teeth on something as fundamental as civil liberties -- he puts the nail in the coffin of a civil liberties promise he made on his first full day in office -- and he does it on the first day of his re-election effort. And Beltway reaction to that is. . . huh, good move. That's the difference between Republican politics and Democratic politics. The Republicans may not love their base, but they fear them and play to them. The Democratic Party institutional structures of D.C., and the Beltway press in particular, not only hate the Democratic base -- they think it's good politics for Democratic politicians to kick that base publicly whenever possible.

Only the base itself will ever change that.


How will that happen? How can the base itself possibly change this dynamic, whereby politicians of the Democratic Party are not only willing, but eager, to "kick them whenever possible," on the ground (among others) that doing so is good politics? I'd submit that this is not only one of the most important domestic political questions (if not the most important), but also the one that people are most eager to avoid engaging. And the reason is that there are no comforting answers.

One thing is for certain: right now, the Democratic Party is absolutely correct in its assessment that kicking its base is good politics. Why is that? Because they know that they have inculcated their base with sufficient levels of fear and hatred of the GOP, so that no matter how often the Party kicks its base, no matter how often Party leaders break their promises and betray their ostensible values, the base will loyally and dutifully support the Party and its leaders (at least in presidential elections; there is a good case that the Democrats got crushed in 2010 in large part because their base was so unenthusiastic).

In light of that fact, ask yourself this: if you were a Democratic Party official, wouldn't you also ignore -- and, when desirable, step on -- the people who you know will support you no matter what you do to them? That's what a rational, calculating, self-interested, unprincipled Democratic politician should do: accommodate those factions which need accommodating (because their support is in question), while ignoring or scorning the ones whose support is not in question, either because they will never vote for them (the hard-core right) or will dutifully canvass, raise money, and vote for them no matter what (the Democratic base). Anyone who pledges unconditional, absolute fealty to a politician -- especially 18 months before an election -- is guaranteeing their own irrelevance.

It was often said that Bush/Cheney used fear as their principal political weapon -- and they did -- but that's true of the Democratic Party as well. When it comes to their base, Democratic leaders know they will command undying, unbreakable support no matter how many times they kick their base, because of the fear that has been instilled in the base -- not fear of Terrorists or Immigrants (that's the GOP's tactic), but fear of Sarah Palin, the Kochs and the Tea Party. Rachel herself made this point quite well before the 2010 election:

I talked at the top of the show tonight with Gail Collins about how one way to motivate your natural base for an election is to make your base afraid of what the other side has to offer. And that is true. That works. That works on both sides. It works for conservatives about liberals and it works for liberals about conservatives.

But one less soul-sucking way to motivate your base and to win an election and to keep winning elections and to, frankly, have history look kindly upon you, is to get your base to cheer for you -- not just to cheer against someone else, but to see you standing up, not just to bad guys with worse ideas than you, but to see you standing up for what is right because you know it is right, because we know you know it's right, even though you also know standing up for it is hard.


It may be that this fear of Republicans is rational (or, given how many GOP-replicating policies and practices the Democrats embrace, maybe it isn't). But whatever else is true, one thing is for certain: dedicated partisans who pledge their unbreakable, eternally loyal support for any Party or politician are going to be steadfastly ignored (or worse) by that Party or politician, and rightfully so. If you spend two years vehemently objecting that certain acts so profoundly offend your principles but then pledge unequivocal support no matter what almost two years in advance to the politicians who engage in them, why would you expect your objections to be heeded? Any rational person would ignore them, and stomp on your beliefs whenever doing so benefited them...

The impotence of the loyal partisan voter
Glenn Greenwald
Tuesday, Apr 5, 2011
http://www.salon.com/news/opinion/glenn_greenwald/2011/04/05/democrats

Jim Webb Won't Seek Reelection

The Democratic Party's job in 2012 just got more difficult, as Virginia Senator Jim Webb announced he wouldn't seek another six years. The loss to the Democrats is less than the loss in political integrity: Webb, though conventionally viewed as a conservative Democrat, was a harsh critic of the Iraq War (which inspired his run for office) and one of the few politicians to talk about growing economic injustice. As noted in November in Salon:
Webb's one of the last FDR Democrats. An economic populist. Liberals also admire the populist Webb. The same cannot be said for the Democratic establishment. Webb has pushed for a onetime windfall profits tax on Wall Street's record bonuses. He talks about the "unusual circumstances of the bailout," that the bonuses wouldn't be there without the bailout.

"I couldn't even get a vote," Webb says. "And it wasn't because of the Republicans. I mean they obviously weren't going to vote for it. But I got so much froth from Democrats saying that any vote like that was going to screw up fundraising.

"People look up say, what's the difference between these two parties? Neither of them is really going to take on Wall Street. If they don't have the guts to take them on, and they've got all these other programs that exclude me, well to hell with them. I'm going to vote for the other people who can at least satisfy me on other issues, like abortion. Screw you guys. I understand that mindset."

With Jim Webb retiring, 2012 Senate prospects get harder for Democrats
Linda Feldmann
February 9, 2011
http://www.csmonitor.com/USA/Elections/Senate/2011/0209/With-Jim-Webb-retiring-2012-Senate-prospects-get-harder-for-Democrats

Jim Webb on Democrats and Wall Street
Glenn Greenwald
Tuesday, Nov 9, 2010
http://www.salon.com/news/opinion/glenn_greenwald/2010/11/09/webb/index.html

Tax cut fight highlights Democrats' missing convictions

Eugene Robinson Washington Post
Friday, December 3, 2010

Why did Republicans go to the trouble and expense of winning the midterm elections? It looks like they're about to prove, once again, that you can get your way in Washington without a congressional majority - if you have a firm sense of purpose. Maybe the Democratic Party will find one someday.

Or maybe not. Sigh.

What has me exercised - okay, frothing - is the ongoing fight over the Bush tax cuts for the wealthy, which are set to expire at the end of the year. By all rights, this shouldn't be a fight at all. The Republican position is so ludicrous that it beggars belief.

Here's what they argue: Extend the tax cuts for the richest Americans - in fact, make them permanent. Doing so would increase the deficit by $700 billion over the next decade, but this doesn't matter. We did tell you that we're the party of fiscal responsibility, however, so to prove it we'll block the extension of unemployment benefits for millions of jobless workers. Three weeks before Christmas.

In other words, there's no additional money in the national coffers for the victims of the most devastating recession since the Great Depression. But to help investment bankers start the new year right, perhaps with a new Mercedes or a bit of sun in the Caribbean? Step right up, and we'll write you a check.

And there's more: Republicans contend that whatever the long-term impact of extending those tax cuts, it would be a mistake to let anyone's taxes rise when the economy is still struggling to find its legs. Some economists agree. But it's hard to find any economist who believes that ending jobless benefits is a good idea, since this money gets spent almost immediately - recipients, after all, are without other income but still have to pay for housing, food, clothing, transportation and other necessities. That's why unemployment payments pack such a stimulative punch. Tax savings for the rich, by contrast, have a much weaker economy-wide impact; the well-to-do, whose basic needs are already met, may decide to skip the new car or the vacation and just put the money in the bank.

So why is there even an argument? Certainly not because of any statement "the American people" might have made in last month's election. Every poll I've seen indicates that the Democrats still have public opinion on their side. They also hold the presidency and big majorities in Congress - and even in January they'll still control the White House and the Senate. Yet not only is there an argument over the tax cuts, but Republicans are also seen as having the upper hand.

That's because the GOP has been disciplined and purposeful in pursuit of its goals. I happen to think those goals are cynical, situational and ultimately bad for the country: Block the Democrats whenever and wherever possible, try to limit President Obama to a single term, and prevent any meaningful departure from the trickle-down economic philosophy that has left the nation's finances in such a parlous state. It's an agenda that may lack nobility, but not clarity.

What is the Democratic Party's bottom line? Who knows?

The White House, for the umpteenth time, has approached a negotiation by signaling in advance its willingness, if pushed to the wall, to make major concessions - in this case, a temporary tax-cut extension for the rich. It doesn't take a genius to recognize this as a flawed bargaining strategy. Voters may want more bipartisan cooperation in Washington, but I believe they also want their president to fight for the principles that got him elected.

Democrats in Congress are all over the map. Speaker Nancy Pelosi and the House leadership, predictably, are ready to have a fight on what they see as favorable political terrain. In the Senate, Democrats have to parse the implications of a GOP threat to halt all business until the tax cut issue is dealt with. And everyone wonders whether the White House intends to stand tough, or has decided to give in, or has already caved - or, perhaps, has a specific preferred outcome in mind. If so, the White House doesn't seem to have made clear what the objective is, much less how to get there.

Power without purpose, in fact, doesn't get you anywhere.

eugenerobinson@washpost.com

New poll: Dire results if Social Security cuts happen with Dems in power

http://crooksandliars.com/john-amato/new-poll-dire-results-if-social-securit

November 20, 2010
New poll: Dire results if Social Security cuts happen with Dems in power
John Amato

I was being interviewed by Cenk on the Young Turks the other day and we spoke about the Cat Food Commission. I told him that it's unfathomable if any cuts to Social Security benefit cuts happened while a Democratic President was in charge. He agreed completely. It would be devastating to the American population and to the Democratic Party.

mcjoan@Dkos has a post up about a new poll conducted by Lake Research Partners on The Cat Food Commission and Social Security..

Overall, of the 1,200 likely voters surveyed, 82% of respondents oppose Social Security cuts to reduce the deficit, including 83% of Dems, 78% of Independents, 82% of Republicans, and 74% of Tea Party supporters.

The implications for Democrats are serious.

•According to national exit poll data, Democrats lost seniors by historic proportions—21 points—in the November mid-terms. Even in 1994, Democrats only lost seniors by 2 points.

•The survey reveals Democrats no longer have the advantage they traditionally have enjoyed on Social Security. However, candidates who made Social Security an issue often saved their seats, and voters who say Social Security was a top voting issue voted more for Democratic candidates.

•As we have seen in previous work, voters see little relationship between the deficit and Social Security.

•Voters strongly oppose cutting Social Security benefits, even under the rationales of reducing the deficit or making the program more solvent in the long run. They strongly oppose cutting benefits for those earning above $60,000, and they strongly oppose raising the retirement age to 69 years-old. This includes voters of all ages and partisan groups, including Republicans and Tea Party supporters.

•There is also strong bipartisan support for lifting the cap to impose Social Security taxes on all wages above $106,800. Support for this is stronger when both employers and employees are taxed.

...Social Security was a particularly important voting issue for independents who voted for a Democrat in this election, voters aged 65 to 74, and older voters who are women, independent, moderate, white and African American.

Democrats cannot afford to lose these demographic groups. That's the simple political calculus. The policy calculus, is that Democrats cannot betray their moral center and be the party responsible for consigning Americans to an old age of poverty and struggle.

The American people of all political stripes want one thing for certain. Their Social Security and the deficit be damned. If this were to actually take place, no matter how many Alan Simpson gasbags that the administration wheeled out from the right to praise the courage it took to cut Social Security to reduce the federal debt, the right wing noise machine would suddenly pivot and become the party that always believed in it and actually created the program. They would hijack the greatest social program ever created under FDR and the Democratic Party would be in ruins. I'm sick even having to discuss this thought.

Tags: deficit commission, Social Security

Jim Webb on Democrats and Wall Street

http://www.salon.com/news/opinion/glenn_greenwald/2010/11/09/webb/index.html

Tuesday, Nov 9, 2010
Jim Webb on Democrats and Wall Street
Glenn Greenwald

In an interview with Real Clear Politics, Democratic Sen. Jim Webb provides just the latest whiff of what the Democratic Party has become:

Webb is a Reagan Democrat who returned home. He was Ronald Reagan's Navy secretary. Almost two decades later, he was the Democrat who scrapped out a win in Virginia.

Webb seems less at home today. He identifies himself as a Democrat. But he has few Democratic leaders to identify with. . . .

Webb's one of the last FDR Democrats. An economic populist. Liberals also admire the populist Webb. The same cannot be said for the Democratic establishment. Webb has pushed for a onetime windfall profits tax on Wall Street's record bonuses. He talks about the "unusual circumstances of the bailout," that the bonuses wouldn't be there without the bailout.

"I couldn't even get a vote," Webb says. "And it wasn't because of the Republicans. I mean they obviously weren't going to vote for it. But I got so much froth from Democrats saying that any vote like that was going to screw up fundraising.

"People look up say, what's the difference between these two parties? Neither of them is really going to take on Wall Street. If they don't have the guts to take them on, and they've got all these other programs that exclude me, well to hell with them. I'm going to vote for the other people who can at least satisfy me on other issues, like abortion. Screw you guys. I understand that mindset."

Undoubtedly, some of the motivation for this complaint is political: Webb barely won in 2006, and just watched as his state, which voted for Obama a mere two years ago, turned almost completely red in this last election. He obviously knows that he has no chance of being re-elected unless he seriously separates himself from the Party and the White House. Still, what caused Jim Webb to switch in the first place to the Democratic Party was (1) his vehement opposition to the Iraq War and (2) his perception that the GOP had become the party-servants of Wall Street and was ignoring (and trampling upon) the interests of working class Americans. That he is now emphatically complaining that Democrats are just as guilty of (2) ought to be taken quite seriously.

One other point about this article: the author (David Paul Kuhn), previously of Politico, included this exceedingly strange though revealing and typical passage:

Yet liberals often seem to view Webb's breed of Democrat more like frenemies. There was Glenn Greenwald, typical among many liberal writers the morning after the election, explaining why he viewed "last night's Blue Dog losses with happiness." This is par for partisan flanks. We saw it on the right this year, when tea party activists savored the defeat of Delaware moderate Republican Mike Castle, though it cost Republicans a critical Senate seat.

Leave to the side the fact that Webb is one of the politicians I've most lavishly praised (see here: "There are few things rarer than a major politician doing something that is genuinely courageous and principled, but Jim Webb's impassioned commitment to fundamental prison reform is exactly that" and here: "in a rational or honorable world, those who knowingly subjected themselves to an onslaught of vicious attacks from all corners for having been so right, such as Jim Webb -- and Howard Dean -- would be heralded as the serious and wise leaders whose judgment can be trusted"). Also leave to the side the trite, anti-democratic Beltway contempt for supporting only those politicians who advocate views one likes, while opposing those with views one dislikes, regardless of party identity (ironically, the willingness to oppose such politicans from "one's own party" -- such as Blue Dogs -- is the exact opposite, by definition, of what those on the "partisan flanks" would do); that's more or less the topic I hope to discuss with Lawrence O'Donnell tonight if he can free himself from the type of substance-free, self-centered, personalized drama in which he seems to be wallowing.

What's most notable and bizarre about this passage is that Kuhn equates Webb's anti-Wall-Street economic populism with "Blue Dogs," and thus understands "Webb's breed of Democrat" to be Blue Dogs. Blue Dogs are the very opposite of that. They are not moderates or centrists or even conservatives; above all else, they are Wall Street and corporate servants, loyalists to the lobbyist class, which is why they've been so well-funded. Jim Webb's anger with the Democratic Party for being so servile to Wall Street doesn't make him a Blue Dog; it makes him an anti-Blue-Dog. Webb's grievances with the Party's economic policies are grounded in everything the Blue Dogs (though by no means only them) represent and do. To equate Webb's anti-Democratic-Party critique with the "ideology" of Blue Dogs is to evince an extraordinary (though quite common) confusion about the debates and divisions within the Democratic Party.

Obama's Cheerleaders Fall on their Faces

http://www.commondreams.org/view/2010/11/03-10

Wednesday, November 3, 2010 by CommonDreams.org
Obama's Cheerleaders Fall on their Faces
John Stauber

The electoral debacle suffered by the Obama Administration and its Democratic Party will be blamed on many things, especially the secret wealth behind the myriad of coordinated campaign front groups dominating TV advertising in the wake of the Supreme Court's horrific decision in the Citizen United case, a Right Wing coup that essentially drove the nail into the money coffin encasing American democracy.

But let the blame be laid instead with the Obama Administration itself, the phony rhetoric of change and populism it embraced to win in 2008, and the betrayal of its promises of fundamental reform, openness and peace, ideals that so excited new and independent voters just two years ago. I've been writing since 2007 about the sell-out of the peace movement by MoveOn and its co-option as a campaign tool by Democratic Party. Web-centric, navel-gazing fundraising operations such as MoveOn and the liberal millionaires behind the Democracy Alliance fooled themselves into thinking that the election of Obama meant the Republicans were vanquished. But the pro-war, pro-Wall Street, anti-Single Payer reform antics of Obama and the Democrats undercut their reform rhetoric and revealed the hypocrisy of Democratic corporate liberals, or "progressives" as they have come to be called.

Obama's great email list of over ten million contributors, controlled by the Democratic National Committee and renamed Organizing for America, and the five million strong list of MoveOn, and the hundreds of millions spent in the past half decade by the elite wealthy funders behind the Democracy Alliance, were futile in this election. The phony health care reform bill and the idiotic and suicidal ratcheting up of the war in Afghanistan, a war doomed to failure in the years ahead, sealed the fate of the Democrats as they labored to paint lipstick on the pig that is the health insurance law, while sitting on their hands in the face of the counterproductive escalating war. The economy was put in the hands of Larry Summers and Tim Geithner, a bit like handing Bonnie and Clyde the keys to the bank vault and a new get away car.

Rather than building a progressive movement for real populist change, MoveOn and the other cheerleaders for the Obama Administration led the parade right off the cliff, and all the liberal hucksterism could not convince the base of youth and Black and independent voters who rose up in 2008 that this Administration and its Party are what it claimed to be then, on the side of fundamental change and reform for typical Americans.

It will be interesting to see if anything changes in the next two years remaining in the Obama presidency, if inside the shells of these failed liberal lobbies there is any intelligent leadership that is really able to connect with the alienation, anger, hopelessness and hatred of government that ruled the day on November 2, 2010. Is there anyone home in these organizations who really understands, as the Right does, that there is a need to organize at the grassroots around fundamental principles, and to mobilize the anger that is felt by ones base?

I doubt it. I don't see it. The 'rally around Obama' crowd will probably learn exactly the wrong lessons out of the electoral debacle suffered November 2, 2010. Obama 2012? That will sell about as well as a failed economy and endless war.

John Stauber is an independent author and activist who co-authored Toxic Sludge Is Good for You and Weapons of Mass Deception. He lives in Madison, Wisconsin.

After the elections: Behind the Democratic debacle

http://wsws.org/articles/2010/nov2010/pers-n04.shtml

After the elections: Behind the Democratic debacle
4 November 2010
Joseph Kishore

Only a day after the midterm elections, the US media quickly coalesced around a narrative, accepted by everyone in the political establishment, that the victory of the Republican Party was a popular repudiation of the supposedly left-wing policies of the Obama administration. In his press conference on Wednesday, Obama himself adopted this analysis, pledging to work closely with the Republican Party, find some compromise on tax cuts for the wealthy, and improve his relations with corporate America.

Underlying this claim are two premises, both of which are false: 1) that Obama has carried out an anti-corporate program during his first two years; and 2) that the population as a whole has used the election to give a rousing affirmation of capitalism and big business. These premises are not only absurd, they clash with the basic facts.

In the flood of political commentary, no one in the mainstream media has suggested a far more plausible explanation: After coming to power by posing as the tribune of “hope” and "change you can believe in," Obama, through his pro-corporate and pro-war policies, has succeeded in alienating and politically demoralizing large sections of the population that had voted for him.

The event that secured Obama's election was the spectacular collapse of Wall Street in September of 2008, which shattered whatever was left of the credibility of the Bush administration and deeply discredited the capitalist system itself. Obama came into office with an overwhelming mandate for radical reform.

The response of the administration was to rush to the defense of the banks. Even before coming to power, Obama expressed his unconditional support for the bailouts, which he subsequently expanded. He assembled an administration dominated by the interests of finance capital, symbolized by economic adviser Lawrence Summers and Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner.

The administration opposed any constraints on executive compensation and rejected out of hand sanctions against or the prosecution of those responsible for the economic catastrophe. Over the past two years, the wealthiest individuals have vastly expanded their share of the national income and the largest banks are expected to hand out record compensation packages.

The economic crisis has led to a jobs crisis unlike anything seen since the Great Depression. The administration has rejected any government hiring programs. Throughout the crisis, Obama has endlessly repeated the claim that employment levels are a “lagging indicator.”

After bailing out Wall Street, Obama oversaw the forced bankruptcy of General Motors and Chrysler, demanding that workers accept deep cuts in jobs, wages and benefits. As a result, profits for the auto giants have soared while the assault on auto workers’ wages has become the model for wage-cutting in every economic sector and in every part of the country.

The consequences can be seen in the collapse of support for the Democratic Party in the industrial Midwest, the site of half the seats lost by Democrats in the House of Representatives. In Michigan, a center of the auto industry, the Republicans swept state and local offices, amid a turnout of only 45 percent. In Detroit, which had voted for Obama overwhelmingly in 2008, barely one in five voters showed up at the polls.

The principal domestic program for which Obama is associated is the overhaul of the health care system. The bill was entirely tailored to the interests of insurance companies and giant corporations. For the sake of “bipartisanship,” Obama abandoned anything that hinted of progressive reform, including the “public option.” Elderly voters, in particular, quite correctly saw the entire measure as a step toward cutting Medicare benefits and rationing care, resulting in a significant electoral swing to the Republican Party, which recorded an 18 percent advantage among voters over 60.

On foreign policy, Obama came to power on a wave of opposition to war. In the Democratic primaries in 2008, his main argument against rival Hilary Clinton was that he had not voted to support the Iraq war. On assuming office, Obama quickly moved to reappoint those responsible for the war under Bush, including Defense Secretary Robert Gates and General David Petraeus. His administration has continued the occupation of Iraq, vastly expanded the war against Afghanistan and Pakistan, threatened new wars against Yemen and Iran, and deployed CIA drones to kill people all over the world.

In every election since 2002, the issue of war has played a dominant role. Through the actions of the Obama administration, however, it is becoming clear to millions of people that it is impossible to end war by voting for the Democratic Party. Among young people, where opposition to war is particularly strong, turnout on Tuesday fell precipitously. Whereas voters aged 18 to 29 made up 18 percent of the electorate in 2008, they comprised only 10 percent this election.

To the list of right-wing policies in Obama's first two years must be added: expanding the attack on democratic rights and opposing any prosecution of those responsible for torture and domestic spying; defending the profits of energy giant BP, responsible for the greatest environmental disaster in US history; and rejecting any moratorium on home foreclosures, despite evidence of massive fraud carried out by the very banks that are throwing millions out of their homes.

Under the peculiar conditions of American politics, which excludes any opposition to the two parties of big business, mass disaffection with the Democratic Party found expression in the victory of the Republicans. In addition to capitalizing on the collapse in voter turnout for Democrats, Republicans were able to exploit the fact that all of Obama’s betrayals and his lack of principle exposed the insincerity and duplicity that permeates the Democratic Party and its liberal backers. The rhetoric of the Republicans resonated in sections of the population that felt they had been duped.

The failure of the Obama administration is not simply failure of one individual. It is one expression of the failure of an entire political and economic system. Under conditions of long-term economic decline, American capitalism has no response to the capitalist crisis outside of an ever-expanding attack on the working class.

The trade unions and the array of liberal and middle-class organizations that promoted Obama will point to the victory of the Republicans to insist once again that the Democrats must be supported. This is utterly bankrupt. The claim that the growth of extreme right-wing forces can be stopped by the election of Democrats is the opposite of the truth. The promotion of the Democratic Party facilitates its own anti-working class policies while creating the conditions for even more right-wing forces to come to the fore.

The elections must be seen as a warning. The political system, including both parties, is moving ever further to the right. The aftermath of the elections will bring a deepening of the attacks on jobs and wages, a further erosion of democratic rights, and an expansion of war, including preparations for a global conflict with unimaginable consequences.

In the midst of this crisis, American politics takes on a diseased character. Like an impacted tooth that leads to infection, the anger and discontent felt by millions of people are denied any genuine expression. So long as the working class remains trapped within the framework of the Democratic Party and the capitalist two-party system, it is the right wing that will exploit the situation to its advantage.

Workers and young people have to seriously think through the implications. There is no way forward through the Democratic Party and capitalist politics. What is necessary is the building of an independent revolutionary movement of the working class in the struggle for socialism. This is the perspective that the Socialist Equality Party is fighting to bring to the broadest sections of workers and youth.

Obama’s Health Care Bill Is Enough to Make You Sick

http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/obamas_health_care_bill_is_enough_to_make_you_sick_20100712/

Jul 12, 2010
Chris Hedges

A close reading of the new health care legislation, which will conveniently take effect in 2014 after the next presidential election, is deeply depressing. The legislation not only mocks the lofty promises made by President Barack Obama, exposing most as lies, but sadly reconfirms that our nation is hostage to unchecked corporate greed and abuse. The simple truth, that single-payer nonprofit health care for all Americans would dramatically reduce costs and save lives, that the for-profit health care system is the problem and must be destroyed, is censored out of the public debate by a media that relies on these corporations as major advertisers and sponsors, as well as a morally bankrupt Democratic Party that is as bought off by corporations as the Republicans.

The 2,000-page piece of legislation, according to figures compiled by Physicians for a National Health Plan (PNHP), will leave at least 23 million people without insurance, a figure that translates into an estimated 23,000 unnecessary deaths a year among people who cannot afford care. It will permit prices to climb so that many of us will soon be paying close to 10 percent of our annual income to buy commercial health insurance, although this coverage will only pay for about 70 percent of our medical expenses. Those who become seriously ill, lose their incomes and cannot pay skyrocketing premiums will be denied coverage. And at least $447 billion in taxpayer subsidies will now be handed to insurance firms. We will be forced by law to buy their defective products. There is no check in the new legislation to halt rising health care costs. The elderly can be charged three times the rates provided to the young. Companies with predominantly female work forces can be charged higher gender-based rates. The dizzying array of technical loopholes in the bill—written in by armies of insurance and pharmaceutical lobbyists—means that these companies, which profit off human sickness, suffering and death, can continue their grim game of trading away human life for money.

“They named this legislation the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, and as the tradition of this nation goes, any words they put into the name of a piece of legislation means the opposite,” said single-payer activist Dr. Margaret Flowers when I heard her and Helen Redmond dissect the legislation in Chicago at the Socialism 2010 Conference last month. “It neither protects patients nor leads to affordable care.”

“This legislation moves us further in the direction of the commodification of health care,” Flowers went on. “It requires people to purchase health insurance. It takes public dollars to subsidize the purchase of that private insurance. It not only forces people to purchase this private product, but uses public dollars and gives them directly to these corporations. In return, there are no caps on premiums. Insurance companies can continue to raise premiums. We estimate that because they are required to cover people with pre-existing conditions, although we will see if this happens, they will argue that they will have to raise premiums.”

The legislation included a few tiny improvements that have been used as bait to sell it to the public. The bill promises, for example, to expand community health centers and increase access to primary-care doctors. It allows children to stay on their parent’s plan until they turn 26. It will include those with pre-existing conditions in insurance plans, although Flowers warns that many technicalities and loopholes make it easy for insurance companies to drop patients. Most of the more than 30 million people currently without insurance, and the 45,000 who die each year because they lack medical care, essentially remain left out in the cold, and things will not get better for the rest of us.

“We are still a nation full of health care hostages,” Redmond said. “We live in fear of losing our health care. Millions of people have lost their health care. We fear bankruptcy. The inability to pay medical bills is the No. 1 cause of bankruptcy. We fear not being able to afford medications. Millions of people skip medications. They skip these medications to the detriment of their health. We are not free. And we won’t be free until health care is a human right, until health care is not tied to a job, because we still have an employment-based system, and until health care has nothing to do with immigration status. We don’t care if you are documented or undocumented. It should not matter what your health care status is, if you have a disease or you don’t. It should not matter how much money you have or don’t, because many of our programs are based on income eligibility rules. Until we abolish the private, for-profit health insurance industry in this county we are not free. Until we take the profit motive out of health care we cannot live in the way we want to live. This legislation doesn’t do any of that. It doesn’t change those basic facts of our health care system.”

Redmond held up a syringe.

“I take a medication that costs $1,700 every single month,” she said. “I inject this medication. It costs $425 a week for 50 milligrams of medication. I would do almost anything to get this medication because without it I don’t have much of a life. The pharmaceutical industry knows this. They price these drugs accordingly to the level of desperation that people feel. Billy Tauzin, the former CEO of [the trade organization of] Big Pharma, negotiated a secret deal with President Obama to extend the patents of biologics, this new revolutionary class of drugs, for 12 years. And Obama also promised in this deal that he would not negotiate drug prices for Medicare.”

Obama’s numerous betrayals—from his failure to implement serious environmental reform at Copenhagen, to his expansion of the current wars, to his refusal to create jobs for our desperate class of unemployed and underemployed, to his gutting of public education, to his callous disregard for the rights of workers and funneling of trillions in taxpayer money to banks—is a shameful list. Passing universal, single-payer nonprofit health care for all Americans might have delivered to Obama, who may well be a one-term president, at least one worthwhile achievement. Single-payer nonprofit health care has widespread popular support, with nearly two-thirds of the public behind it. It is backed by 59 percent of doctors. And it would have helped roll back, at least a bit, the corporate assault on the citizenry.

Medical bills lead to 62 percent of personal bankruptcies, and nearly 80 percent of these people had insurance. The U.S. spends twice as much as other industrialized nations on health care, $8,160 per capita. Private insurance bureaucracy and paperwork consume 31 percent of every health care dollar. Streamlining payment through a single nonprofit payer would save more than $400 billion per year—enough, PNHP estimates, to provide comprehensive, high-quality coverage for all Americans.

Candidate Obama promised to protect women’s rights under Roe. v. Wade, something this legislation does not do. He told voters he would create a public option and then refused to consider it. The health care reform bill, to quote a statement released by PNHP, has instead “saddled Americans with an expensive package of onerous individual mandates, new taxes on workers’ health plans, countless sweetheart deals with the insurers and Big Pharma, and a perpetuation of the fragmented, dysfunctional, and unsustainable system that is taking such a heavy toll on our health and economy today.”

“Obama said he was going to have everybody at the table,” Redmond said, “but that was a lie. Our voice was not allowed to be there. There was a blackout on our movement. We did not get media attention. We did actions all over the country but we could not get coverage. We had the ‘Mad as Hell Doctors’ go across the country in a caravan, and they had rallies and meetings. If that had been a bunch of AMA Republican doctors, Cooper Anderson would have been on the caravan reporting live. NPR would have done a series. Instead, they did not get much coverage. And neither did the sit-ins and arrests at insurance companies, although we have never seen that level of activity. They turned us into a fringe movement, although poll after poll shows that the majority of people want some kind of single-payer system.”

Our for-profit health system is driven by insurance companies whose goal is to avoid covering the elderly and the sick. These groups, most in need of medical care, diminish profits. Medicare, paid for by the government, removes responsibility for many of the old. Medicaid, also paid for by the government, removes the poor people, who have a greater tendency to have chronic health problems. Hefty premiums, which those who are seriously ill and lose their jobs often cannot pay, remove the very sick. If you are healthy and employed, which means you are less likely to need expensive or complex treatment, the insurance companies swoop down like birds of prey. These corporations need to control our perceptions of health care. Patients must be viewed as consumers. Doctors, identified as “health care providers,” must be seen as salespeople.

Insurance companies, which will soon be able to use billions in taxpayer dollars to bolster their lobbying efforts and campaign contributions, know that single-payer nonprofit insurance means their extinction. And they will employ considerable resources to make sure single-payer nonprofit coverage is denied to the public. They correctly see this as a battle for their lives. And if human beings have to die so they can survive, they are willing to make us pay this price.

The for-profit health care industry, along with the Democratic Party, consciously set out to confuse the public debate. It created Health Care for America NOW! in 2008 and provided it with tens of millions of dollars to supposedly build a public campaign for a public option. But the organization had no intention of permitting a public option. The organization was, as Dr. Flowers said, “a very clever way to distract members of the single-payer movement and co-op some of them. They told them that the public option would become single payer, that it was a back door to single payer, although there was no evidence that was true.”

Physicians for a National Health Plan attempted to fight back. It worked with a number of organizations under a coalition called the Leadership Conference for Guaranteed Health Care. The group, which included the National Nurse’s Union and Health Care Now, sought meetings with members of Congress. Flowers and other advocates asked Congress members to include them in committee debates about the health care bill. But when the first debate on the health care reform took place in the Senate Finance Committee, chaired by Sen. Max Baucus, a politician who gets over 80 percent of his campaign contributions from outside his home state of Montana, they were locked out. Baucus invited 41 people to testify. None backed single payer.

The Leadership Conference, which represents more than 20 million people, again requested that one of their members testify. Baucus again refused. When the second committee meeting took place, Flowers and seven other activists stood one by one in the room and asked why the voices of the patients and the health care providers were not being heard. The eight were arrested and removed from the committee hearing.

Single-payer advocates were eventually heard on a few of the House and Senate committees. But the hearings were a charade, part of Washington’s cynical political theater. It was the insurance and pharmaceutical lobbyists who were in charge. They dominated the public debate. They wrote the legislation. They determined who received lavish campaign contributions and who did not. And they won.

“We are talking about life and death, about the difference between living your life and dying,” Redmond said. “And once again it came down to the Democratic Party trumping the needs of the people.”

Cenk Uygur Debates 'Wingnuts' Author John Avlon

http://videocafe.crooksandliars.com/heather/cenk-uygur-debates-wingnuts-author-john-av

Cenk Uygur Debates 'Wingnuts' Author John Avlon
Heather
Sunday Jun 27, 2010

Cenk Uygur took on one of my least favorite pundits, John Avlon, in this segment on The Young Turks and did what you never see anyone in the our "mainstream media" do when allowing this hack to come on their shows, which is to call him out for the fact that there is no one on the left that you can honestly compare to the ultra-crazies we have on the right side of the aisle right now. The best Avlon could muster without going back to the 60's was to call unions left wing extremists.

Cenk made some other really great points like just how far to the right our country has moved when it comes to what you'd call a "centrist" these days and does a good job of attempting to explain to Avlon that what he calls "centrist" is actually "corporatist" and that when it comes to the issues that really matter to most Americans and what is causing to get hammered economically, unlike the wedge issues that get everyone riled up, people on the left and progressives are losing those battles, whether it be the bank bailouts, health care reform or tax breaks for the rich and for corporations. He also did a really good job explaining just how far what used to be called the center has shifted to the right where the positions of those on the left are what used to be considered moderate and that a lot of Republicans from past eras would be run out of today's Republican Party.

My only quibble with Cenk about this interview would be that he allowed Avlon to filibuster him a bit too often. He did finally have enough of it later in the interview and stopped him so he could make his points. He also allowed him to be portrayed as "independent" and didn't point out to his viewers that he worked for Rudy Giuliani.

That said it was a breath of fresh air to see this guy get challenged in the manner he deserves for once and premise of his book, which tries to paint people on the left as extremists when they're not and that calls centrism giving corporate America anything it wants, called a bunch of nonsense, which it is. Avlon finally showed his true colors with being an anti-union zealot in this interview with Cenk. It doesn't surprise me one bit but makes me dislike him even more than I did before listening to him call us "extremists" who are destroying America and the Democratic Party.

It's a long interview, over twenty minutes but if you've got that time to spare it is well worth is watching the king of the false equivalencies get his talking points taken apart for once. Good for Cenk. It would be nice to see MSNBC give him a job if they allowed him to do the type of interviews he just did here instead of just having him on Ratigan's show to debate wingnuts in a five minute debate box with Ratigan controlling the narrative. I'd say this interview ranks right up there with his take down of S.E. Cupp and Wayne Allyn Root.

To view the video:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pbrkvbsUfYw

Obama's Deficit Panel Draws Ire from Liberals

http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-503544_162-20008479-503544.html
June 22, 2010
Obama's Deficit Panel Draws Ire from Liberals
Stephanie Condon

House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer said today that Congress will not pass a traditional budget resolution this year because long-term deficit questions are better left to President Obama's bipartisan deficit commission, an 18-member panel charged with creating a plan to bring down the deficit to 3 percent of the economy by 2015.

"It isn't possible to debate and pass a realistic, long-term budget until we've considered the bipartisan commission's deficit-reduction plan, which is expected in December," he said. "I believe that Congress must take up and vote on that plan."

To the Democratic Party's liberal base, however, the majority leader's full-throated endorsement of the deficit commission is simply confirmation that the president and Congress are seeking to scale back Social Security and Medicare -- and avoid accountability by ceding responsibility to an unelected group.

Liberal activist David Swanson, who runs the site Democrats.com,attended Hoyer's speech this morning to protest the prospect of seeing Social Security benefits cut while Congress continues to fund the Afghanistan war. He characterized Hoyer's statements this way: "We're going to wait for the guy [Mr. Obama] whose constitutional responsibility is to execute the will of the Congress to tell us what to do."

"And then we're going to do what his commission says," Swanson continued, "and everybody knows what his commission is going to say."

Opposition to Mr. Obama's deficit commission has reached a fever pitch among liberal activists, who have even adopted some of the most notorious rhetoric conservatives used during the health care debate to relay their concern. Two of Mr. Obama's own presidential campaign and transition team members last month penned an article entitled, "Has Obama Created a Social Security 'Death Panel'?"

The article's co-authors Nancy Altman and Eric Kingson, now co-directors of the group Social Security Works, point to the clear interest among some commission members in rolling back Social Security.

"We're going to mess with Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security because if you take those off the table, you can't get there," commission co-chair Erskine Bowles, former Clinton White House chief of staff, said in a March speech. "If we don't make those choices, America is going to be a second-rate power and I don't mean in 50 years. I mean in my lifetime."

Altman and Kingson also point out that if the Treasury were to repay the billions it has borrowed from Social Security, the program would pay out the full benefits owed for more than another 25 years.

"So what is the rush?" they write, blasting Congress for giving the commission so much deference. "What is the need for such an unaccountable, fast-tracked process when one has never been needed before?"

Liberal economists like the New York Times' Paul Krugman have accused deficit commission co-chair Alan Simpson, former Senate Republican whip, of perpetuating zombie lies when he warns that Social Security will be bankrupt in a matter of years.

Nevertheless, many contend entitlement programs, which make up the government's largest expenditure, need to be reformed.

"We're lying to ourselves and our children if we say we can maintain our current levels of entitlement spending, defense spending and taxation without bankrupting our country," Hoyer said today.

Concern over the deficit has, in fact, hamstrung debate in Congress over the budget, as well as extending unemployment benefits. Both Democrats and Republicans have expressed concern that within just 10 years, the debt could reach unsustainable levels, according to the Congressional Budget Office.

Hoyer today outlined the type of entitlement reforms the deficit commission could recommend.

"On the spending side, we could and should consider a higher retirement age, or one pegged to lifespan," he said, "more progressive Social Security and Medicare benefits; and a stronger safety net for the Americans who need it most."

Swanson, meanwhile, said that the commission should start by "dropping the pretense that Social Security is broken already and dropping the pretense that the public wants to cut back Social Security."

Jane Hamsher, founder of progressive blog FireDogLake, contends that "the Obama White House has been interested in cutting Social Security right out of the gate" and has pressed for more transparency from the deficit commission by running a live webcast on FireDogLake of the closed front door every time the deficit commission meets.

In one such recording, the man behind the camera, Alex Lawson of Social Security Works, engaged in a testy exchange with Simpson, who raised the ire of the left even further with references to the "lesser people" who rely on Social Security. The video prompted the liberal grassroots group MoveOn.org to start an e-mail campaign asking for Simpson to step down from the commission.

The commission has all year to consider recommendations, and 14 of the commission's 18 members must agree to a proposal before it is included in the final package of recommendations Congress will vote on. Commission members say adjusting Social Security benefits is a likely point of consensus, the Washington Post reports.

Tags: deficit, Social Security, deficit commission, Democrats

Topics: Democrats, Domestic Issues, Congress

Democrats silent on possible ballot tampering in South Carolina primaries

http://wsws.org/articles/2010/jun2010/scar-j15.shtml
Democrats silent on possible ballot tampering in South Carolina primaries
By Jeff Lassahn
15 June 2010

Many questions have emerged about the bizarre results of a June 8 Democratic primary election for one of South Carolina’s US Senate seats. The expected winner was Vic Rawl, an establishment Democratic Party figure who has served as a South Carolina congressman and judge. Instead, 59 percent of the vote went to Alvin Greene, an unemployed military veteran who ran a minimal campaign.

The controversy surrounding the election results has focused heavily on the peculiarities of Greene as a candidate. Little mention, however, has been made of the voting process itself, which involved the use electronic ballot machines that leave no paper trail and have been outlawed in other states because they are vulnerable to hacking and manipulation.

While Democratic Party officials have charged Greene is a Republican “plant,” they have avoided any suggestions that the results were fabricated. To do so would call into question other controversial results, including the 2004 presidential race, and the legitimacy of the US election system as a whole.

Alvin Greene lives in the small town of Manning, South Carolina, and after graduating with a degree in political science of the University of South Carolina, he served in the Air Force and Army National Guard. He has been unemployed since an involuntary honorable discharge from the military in 2009 and has no record of a public political position.

In the context of widespread hostility to the Democratic and Republican parties, their failure to address unemployment, the Gulf oil spill, and continuing wars in the Middle East, it is not implausible that Greene’s lack of affiliation with the political system could bring him popular support. Yet his candidacy was quite a mystery. After the election, the media scrambled to even find out who he was. He had no campaign website, TV or radio ads, lawn signs, or published speeches.

In interviews after his primary win, Greene also stated that he never held any official campaign events or even a fundraiser, nor did he attend any Democratic events or rallies. Pressed repeatedly about how he even reached people, he stated it was “simple, old fashioned campaigning” of going door-to-door all across the state. In total, he spent “less than $2,000” on campaigning for the primary election.

In contrast, Walter Ludwig, the campaign manager of defeated candidate Vic Rawl, noted that the Rawl campaign applied the typical techniques of a multimillion-dollar American election campaign, using a quarter-million robocalls, sending 300,000 e-mails, and driving nearly 17,000 miles to campaign events statewide.

Along with the mysterious campaign, Alvin Greene has provided very little information on his own political views. Responding to accusations that he is a Republican plant, he stated he is “a lifelong Democrat.” Otherwise, Greene has provided only generic comments on issues, and so far has no campaign literature or website to confirm these views.

The media treatment of Greene has ranged from frustrated to offensive. Anchors from Fox News, CNN, and MSNBC all became visibly annoyed when interviewing Greene over his simple answers and simple explanations of how he beat a well-funded candidate. Greene himself seems curiously hesitant and restrained in interviews, to which CNN’s Don Lemon contemptuously asked, “You’re mentally sound, physically sound, you’re not impaired by anything at this moment?”

Despite this, in the primary Greene gathered 100,000 votes statewide compared to 70,000 for Vic Rawl. Among the fairly implausible explanations for his victory are by being number one on the ballot he gathered more votes, his name was associated with popular soul singer Al Green, or that “Greene,” as a popular African-American surname, gave him a boost in name recognition.

So far, the only investigation of voting irregularities has been conducted by volunteer analysts on behalf of Vic Rawl. His campaign manager Walter Ludwig reports that in Spartanburg County, there are 25 precincts where Greene obtained more votes than cast, and another 50 where votes are missing from the final tally. In Lancaster County, Rawl won 84 percent of absentee ballots, but Greene obtained 67 percent of the votes on Election Day. Of 46 counties in the state, 10 have a disparity greater than 10 percentage points between Election Day and absentee ballots. In one seventh of precincts statewide, Greene won 75 percent or more of the votes, which is higher than many incumbents achieve.

The primary reportedly used paperless Election Systems & Software voting machines. Technology and public policy blog Techdirt provides this summary of ES&S machine problems: “ES&S machines have lost votes in Florida. The company gave California machines that were not certified. In one election ES&S gave the vote tallies to a totally different election. People using ES&S machines have found that they voted for the wrong candidate.

“It’s also quite easy for anyone to recalibrate certain ES&S machines, so that it’s easier for people to make mistakes while voting. In South Dakota, ES&S machines added thousands of phantom votes. And then there’s Kentucky, where officials were recently arrested for using the confusing interface of ES&S e-voting machines to get people to leave the polling place before submitting their votes, so those officials could change their votes.”

On Monday, Rawl filed a formal protest challenging the results, saying he has heard from numerous voters and poll workers who reported “extremely unusual incidents” during the June 8 election. “These range from voters who repeatedly pushed the screen for me only to have the other candidates’ names appear, to poll workers who had to change program cards multiple times to at least one voter in the Republican primary who had the Democrat US Senate race appear on her ballot.”

He added, “It is worth noting that these machines were purchased surplus from Louisiana after that state outlawed them. These are touch-screen computer-operated voter machines. There is no independent paper back up for any of them.”

In general, however, the Democratic Party has avoided any mention of the damning record of voting machines and the possibility that the election was rigged. Instead, state Democrats have seized on news that Greene faces a felony obscenity charge for showing a pornographic image to a University of South Carolina student, and asked him to resign, while refraining from commenting on the voting results.

Democratic South Carolina Representative Clyburn suggested Greene was a plant. There is no question the Republicans stand to benefit from a discredited Democratic candidate. It is also unclear whether Greene, who holds a degree in political science and worked for military intelligence, is deliberately misrepresenting himself.

On Sunday, senior White House advisor David Axelrod stated casually that “how [Greene] won the primary is a big mystery, and until you resolve that I don’t think he can claim to be a strong, credible candidate.” Axelrod made no clear demand for an investigation into voting irregularities, despite the upcoming national elections in November.

How Greene obtained such a large margin of victory is unresolved, but the reported vote totals from the ES&S electronic voting machines warrant an independent investigation. If they were tampered with or malfunctioned, it would only be the most recent example of voting irregularities in the United States. In case after case, from the theft of 2000 elections to the disputed results in Ohio and other states that returned Bush to the White House, the Democratic Party has opposed any serious fight against the trampling on voting rights.

The chicanery of the Democratic Party foxes

http://onlinejournal.com/artman/publish/article_5753.shtml

The chicanery of the Democratic Party foxes
By Larry Pinkney
Online Journal Guest Writer
Apr 1, 2010

A rotten, poisonous, stinking pie is far worse than no pie at all. Yet, this is precisely what the corporate Democratic Party and corporate “news” media have repeatedly forced down the throats of the ‘American’ people, cloaked in the deceptive rhetoric of “change” and “reform.”

The Democratic Party foxes and the Republican Party wolves are not in the least bit interested in breaking their insidious feeding frenzy with the corporate Wall Street / military industrial complex. However, at this stage in history, it is the Democratic Party foxes who have taken deception, authoritarianism, wars abroad, a de facto police state at home, and constant subterfuge to the lowest depths of political cynicism and manipulation yet to be experienced by this nation.

The authoritarian and discriminatory, so-called health care “reform” of Barack Obama and his confederate Democratic Party foxes is a horrible sham. It is a big, fat financial gift to the corporate elite, which is exactly why back in August of 2009, Barack Obama cut a back room deal with the lobbyists of the pharmaceutical, insurance, and hospital industry’s to kill the “public option”; despite the fact that the overwhelming majority of people supported this option. In relative short order the hurting peoples of nation may come to realize that they have once again blind-sided and economically pimped by the systemic politicians and their scurvy media allies.

It is apparently not enough that everyday Black, Brown, Red, White, and Yellow people in this nation, as well as people in other nations, are being brutalized by the murderous and unjust U.S. wars in Afghanistan, Iraq, Pakistan, and elsewhere. No! Corporate brand Barack Obama, the Democratic Party, and his media cohorts cynically engaged in diverting the attention of the people from these horrors to a fake, one-sided monologue re alleged health care “reform” which was in fact never intended to include what the vast majority of people most need and want, i.e. the single payer universal health care public option. As is Obama’s practice, using deception and rhetoric, he cynically utilizing the terrible pain of everyday people against everyday people themselves all in the fallacious name of “reform.”

Moreover, it is apparently not enough that Barack Obama gave a big, fat bail-out gift [of trillions of dollars of the people’s money] to the very corporate Wall Street barons who manipulated, blood-sucked, and brought about the financial melt down that is most impacting everyday Black, Brown, Red, White, and Yellow people who are simply trying to survive this economic horror. Think about it. Obama’s “change” is more of the same only sneakier.

In this, the second year of the Obama / Biden / Rahm Emanuel travesty, even as the U.S. wars in Afghanistan, Iraq, and Pakistan rage on and economic conditions steadily worsen for everyday people right here at home, the Obama [so-called] Democrats intensify in engaging in meaningless rhetoric and political, smoke and mirror trickery. The people in those aforementioned nations continue to die, even as the body bags containing the remains of U.S. military personnel just keep on returning from the U.S. wars abroad. The sorry and pathetic corporate media, in fact, continues to be complicitous in beating the drums of war, while fathers, mothers, sons, daughters, brothers, sisters, uncles, aunties, and friends die, are wounded or are psychologically damaged scarred as the cannon fodder of corporate capitalism and deceit.

Led by Barack Obama, the Democratic Party foxes and the Republican Party wolves are busy revitalizing and retooling the extremely dangerous and unnecessary nuclear power plant industry in this nation. This is being done to further enrich the coffers of the corporate elite, not to protect or serve the everyday people throughout this nation. This course of action is utter insanity. Some conscientious serious, informed, and concerned environmentalists have sounded the alarm about this, but relatively few people thus far are aware of what the Republicrats [i.e. Democratic and Republican Party politicians] are up to in this arena. The only thing truly green about Barack Obama is money, his insatiable appetite for more of it, and his corporate envy. Once more, the everyday people be damned.

With the complicity of the corporate media Obama, via his current U.S. Secretary for Education, stealthily goes about the business of privatizing public education and breaking the back of teacher’s unions. This privatization of education negatively impacts economically poor people of all colors, but its most severe debilitating affect is upon Black, Brown, and Red students, not to mention teachers / educators across the academic spectrum.

Rest assured that it is only a matter of time before Barack Obama, the Democratic and Republican Parties, and their corporate puppet masters set out to seriously dismantle and destroy Social Security, further negatively impacting the everyday people of this nation and most particularly disabled people and the poor. The recent authoritarian Obama / Democratic Party sham health care “reform” package has in essence already begun this process. Once again, misleading & deceptive rhetoric and fear tactics will be vigorously employed by these cynical rascals, unless they are exposed and stopped.

The Obama Democratic Party foxes have already overwhelmingly supported the trillion dollar criminal bailout of the Wall Street corporate vampires at the expense of everyday people. They have already overwhelmingly supported the extension of the unconstitutional and police-state ‘Patriot Act.’ And they have overwhelmingly and shamelessly supported both the extension and broadening of illegal U.S. kidnapping and torture under the auspices of what is known as ‘Rendition.’ The everyday people of this nation are in serious trouble.

None of these dangerous and despicable things could have occurred without the complicity of liberals, fake progressives, and phony leftists. These politically putrid, pontificating pundits of profundity are ushering in a bizarre form of 21st century authoritarianism / fascism whose clutches are already upon us. Indeed, as liberals, fake progressives, and phony leftists persist in being the willing, silent and/or groveling supporters of corporate brand Obama and his Democratic Party foxes it must be remembered that ultimately “the [proverbial] chickens will come home to roost.” Increasing joblessness, homelessness, home foreclosures, ongoing U.S. wars abroad, coupled with the very real and growing police-state in this nation are reaching a boiling point--despite the corporate media’s omissions, denials, and constant disinformation & rhetoric to everyday people.

What we must do

The very first thing we must do is to mentally and in deed divorce ourselves totally from the death grip of both the Democratic Party foxes and the Republican Party wolves. We must stop falling for the rhetoric of these corporately controlled, blood-sucking conjurers.

We must boldly form, build, and invigorate third parties [plural] outside of and away from the foxes and wolves of the Democratic and Republican parties [the Republicrats]. We must not wait for a local or national election; we must begin this process in earnest NOW! We must disregard the claims of those who say that real change can only be brought about through the Democrat or Republican parties for they are in fact acting as the gate-keepers for this politically bankrupt and amoral system.

We must organize for fundamental systemic change that really serves the daily needs of everyday people. This means starting locally where we live and/or work.

We must educate ourselves and each other, always remembering the corporate controlled and/or corporate-sponsored media is unwilling and incapable of biting off the corporate hand that feeds it.

We must audaciously, and in the clear, down-to-earth, understandable language of everyday people, expose the lies and subterfuge of the Democrats and Republicans.

We must break the habit of relying, solely and without question, upon the corporate or corporate sponsored media for honest news and information. In breaking this habit we will not only feel better but we will think clearer. Give much credence to your common sense.

We must become our own media, disseminating first hand information to our community locally, and to persons of like mind nationally.

We must learn to encourage one another and to remind each other that every defeat and/or set-back that we experience can become a prelude to an important future people’s victory in our community or indeed nation-wide.

We must be organized and serious, not haphazard and/or lethargic in this people’s struggle.

We must expect subterfuge, agents, and/or agent provocateurs but never be deterred by them. Learn from the experience, make the necessary adjustments, and continue in the struggle. Remember that our actions (large or small), coupled with persistence and patience are revolutionary virtues and we must be creative revolutionaries.

We must believe in ourselves and each other and when or if we stumble, reach out to those who inspire and motivate us, as we do them.

We must develop, as Ernesto ‘Che’ Guevara put it, “the faith of the revolutionary,” and actualize that faith by what we do.

The Democrat[ic] and Republican Parties have demonstrated time and time again that they are the enemies of the people---the enemies of real systemic change on behalf of the teeming masses of everyday people. The systemic terrorism and disinformation against everyday people will continue unless we collectively do something about it. We do not have to accept this rotten, poisonous, stinking systemic pie.

Each one teach one! There is much to be accomplished. Onward then, sisters and brothers! Onward!!!. . . .

BlackCommentator.com Editorial Board Member Larry Pinkney is a veteran of the Black Panther Party, the former Minister of Interior of the Republic of New Africa, a former political prisoner and the only American to have successfully self-authored his civil/political rights case to the United Nations under the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights. In connection with his political organizing activities in opposition to voter suppression, etc., Pinkney was interviewed in 1988 on the nationally televised PBS NewsHour, formerly known as The MacNeil/LehrerNewsHour. For more about Larry Pinkney see the book, Saying No to Power: Autobiography of a 20th Century Activist and Thinker, by William Mandel [Introduction by Howard Zinn].

Wall Street owners angry with their purchase

http://www.salon.com/news/opinion/glenn_greenwald/2010/02/08/wall_street/index.html

Monday, Feb 8, 2010
Wall Street owners angry with their purchase
Glenn Greenwald

Political science professors could require students to read this article from today's New York Times and little else would be needed to convey the essence of the American political system. The article describes how Wall Street -- which poured massive amounts of money into the Obama campaign and the Democratic Party over the last several years, ensuring unparalleled access and influence -- is now threatening to support the Republicans if Obama keeps saying mean things about them. Wall Street executives are angry that, after duly purchasing the Democrats (they have receipts and everything), the Obama White House is now rousing the dirty rabble with their anti-banker rhetoric:

Republicans are rushing to capitalize on what they call Wall Street’s "buyer’s remorse" with the Democrats. And industry executives and lobbyists are warning Democrats that if Mr. Obama keeps attacking Wall Street "fat cats," they may fight back by withholding their cash.

"If the president doesn’t become a little more balanced and centrist in his approach, then he will likely lose that support," said Kelly S. King, the chairman and chief executive of BB&T. Mr. King is a board member of the Financial Services Roundtable, which lobbies for the biggest banks, and last month he helped represent the industry at a private dinner at the Treasury Department.

"I understand the public outcry," he continued. "We have a 17 percent real unemployment rate, people are hurting, and they want to see punishment. But the political rhetoric just incites more animosity and gets people riled up" . . . "If the president wanted to turn every Democrat on Wall Street into a Republican," one industry lobbyist said, "he is doing everything right."


There are numerous points to note about all of this. First, there simply is no more odious faction inside the U.S. than Wall Street bankers -- and that's saying quite a bit. Just over a year ago, they almost caused a complete global economic collapse -- and did cause extreme economic suffering around the world which continues to this day -- with their sleazy, piggish and lawless behavior. Yet barely a year later, they now turn around and threaten their purchased politicians with punishment if their behavior is meaningfully restricted or even if they're publicly criticized. In light of what they did -- and are still doing -- they should consider themselves lucky that the public hasn't stormed their homes and offices in mass rage. Far less pernicious behavior has triggered such uprisings in the past, and if the American public hadn't been as ingrained with the passivity and learned helplessness they've been trained to accept, one would certainly have seen some of that. In a rational, democratically engaged society, multi-million dollar taxpayer-enabled banker bonuses, combined with mass unemployment and home foreclosures (combined with establishment threats to reduce Social Security and Medicare), is not the ideal means for maintaining social order.

Second, stories like this ought to put to rest forever the notion that the Republican Party is some sort of haven for populist anger. As subservient as the Democrats have been to Wall Street -- note that, more than a year later, Wall Street can only complain about "rhetoric," not any actual legislation that has been passed -- the Republicans are out there promising Wall Street to be even more loyal servants if they're given the dog treats that have recently been going to the Democrats:

Senator John Cornyn of Texas, chairman of the National Republican Senatorial Committee, said he visited New York about twice a month to try to tap into Wall Street’s "buyers’ remorse." "I just don’t know how long you can expect people to contribute money to a political party whose main plank of their platform is to punish you," Mr. Cornyn said.


So the GOP is out there successfully pretending in front of the angry tea partiers that they, too, are furious about Wall Street's gorging and domination of Washington, all while simultaneously crawling to Wall Street and pledging to be good little boys and girls -- and to keep the agitated masses at bay -- if Wall Street once again purchases them rather than the Democrats. The only thing more absurd than the Democrats' pretending to be the Populist Party of the People is the Republican Party's doing so.

Third, that Wall Street is dissatisfied with the Democrats and the Obama administration reveals how extreme are their expectations of control of the Government. The second-highest-ranking Democratic Senator, Dick Durbin, recently conceded of the Democratic-controlled Congress: "frankly, bankers own the place." It's impossible to find a more loyal and attentive servant to bankers than Obama Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner. As the NYT article this morning details, Wall Street executives and their lobbyists have virtually unfettered access to the administration and to the President himself. You would think they'd be satisfied with the state of affairs in Washington. Yet so extreme are their perceive entitlements of control that even mere symbolic and rhetorical disobedience from the politicians they own -- he said some mean things about us -- creates a sense of righteous grievance: our government employees do not behave this way toward us and will be punished if it continues.

Finally, marvel at the cowardice, as well as the journalistic shoddiness, evident in these anonymity-based passages:

The expectation in Washington is that "We can kick you around, and you are still going to give us money," said a top official at a major Wall Street firm, speaking on the condition of anonymity for fear of alienating the White House. "We are not going to play that game anymore." . . .

"If the president wanted to turn every Democrat on Wall Street into a Republican," one industry lobbyist said, "he is doing everything right."


In essence, Wall Street executives said to David Kirkpatrick, the NYT reporter who wrote this story: "I want to threaten and criticize the President, but I'm too much of a coward to do so with my name attached, so will you let me do it in your paper anonymously"? And Kirkpatrick replied: "Oh, absolutely; that's what anonymity is for: to let the country's most powerful people spew venom and issue threats while being shielded and protected by journalists from accountability." Perhaps one of those nameless executives might have inquired of Kirkpatrick: "but didn't your newspaper publish very stringent guidelines limiting the use of anonymity in the wake of the Iraq debacle?", to which Kirkpatrick could easily and truthfully have replied: "oh, those? Please. Nobody worries about that, least of all us. That's just there to placate the same angry rabble whom you're now ordering your political property to more efficiently pacify."

The Overton Window, Illustrated

http://www.correntewire.com/the_overton_window_illustrated

The Overton Window, Illustrated
Tue, 05/01/2010
shystee

Definition and discussion of the concept is below. The main points I want to convey with this image:

- There is, or there should be, a constant tug-of-war on the edges of the Overton Window on any issue.

- There is a place for everyone and anyone along the Left side of the rope, as long as we're all pulling in the same general direction.

- The current location of the Overton Window is so far to the right of any objective political spectrum, that what are now considered Extreme Left Positions are really not extreme at all.

Definition, Review:

This is old hat to a lot of folks in the blogosphere, but defining terms is a good thing. Wikipedia:

The Overton window is a concept in political theory, named after the former vice president of the Mackinac Center for Public Policy, Joe Overton, who developed the model. It describes a "window" in the range of public reactions to ideas in public discourse, in a spectrum of all possible options on an issue.

The lower line with various notches represents this full spectrum in the chart above. The black brackets represent the Window itself, which contains the smaller range of policy that is acceptable to the public at any given time.

Overton described a method for moving that window, thereby including previously excluded ideas, while excluding previously acceptable ideas. The technique relies on people promoting ideas even less acceptable than the previous "outer fringe" ideas. That makes those old fringe ideas look less extreme, and thereby acceptable.

Delivering rhetoric to define the window provides a plan of action to make more acceptable to the public some ideas by priming them with other ideas allowed to remain unacceptable, but which make the real target ideas seem more acceptable by comparison.

The way to shift the Overton Window is by moving the edges, by pushing ideas that are even more extreme than what is actually desired.

As the Overton Window shifts along the spectrum, a specific policy (a notch in the graph) goes through the following phases of public acceptance:

- Unthinkable
- Radical
- Acceptable
- Sensible
- Popular
- Policy

The Importance of "Extremists"

Responding to "progressive conventional wisdom" that says the Democratic Party plays too much to the elusive Middle, Kos Diarist Thereisnospoon:

On the contrary: the GOP knows that the middle DOES matter. They know that by playing to their base in very well-crafted ways, they can shift the very definition of what the middle is. By introducing radicalism into the public discourse (and taking initial heat for it), whatever used to be radical within this context becomes moderate by comparison.

Eliminationist Right-Wing Blogs and Fox News screechers may look like clowns, but that is their function. To stretch the Window so far to the Right that anything short of nuking the Middle East seems acceptable.

Or take the Abortion issue. The prominence (way out of proportion to their actual numbers) of Fundie Whackaloons who want to outlaw abortion completely, has made it acceptable that some procedures have now been, in fact, outlawed.

So non-insane fundy voters can say to themselves "Well, at least abortion isn't completely illegal. Phew!" As if it were even something a modern society that believes in a woman's right to control her uterus would even consider!

The truth is that we need to do both. It is not an either-or scenario. We cannot achieve victory by playing to the base and ignoring the middle, nor can we win by playing to the middle and ignoring the base. We need to do both--and the GOP understands this. ...

To win, we must sway the middle by playing to the base--and we must understand that this is a difficult and heavily calculated process that requires time, money and manpower.


I'm not sure if I agree completely with Spoon, but they're on to something.

The discussion of the Overton Window is completely abstracted from Reality. It assumes that anything can be made acceptable through this technique.

While the Bushies and the Neocons have done a smashing job of proving this point, recent events have shown that Policy which is not based on Reality, and that goes against the best interests of the country tends to fall apart at some point.

Blame the all-powerful left!

http://www.salon.com/news/opinion/glenn_greenwald/2010/01/20/left/index.html

Wednesday, Jan 20, 2010
Blame the all-powerful left!
Glenn Greenwald

I have a contribution this morning to the New York Times examining the Scott Brown victory, and I'll post the link to it once it's up. But for the moment, I want to address two equally moronic themes emerging over the last couple of days which seek to blame the omnipotent, dominant, super-human "Left" for the Democrats' woes -- one coming from right-wing Democrats and the other from hard-core Obama loyalists (those two categories are not mutually exclusive but, rather, often overlap).

Last night, Evan Bayh blamed the Democrats' problems on "the furthest left elements," which he claims dominates the Democratic Party -- seriously. And in one of the dumbest and most dishonest Op-Eds ever written, Lanny Davis echoes that claim in The Wall St. Journal: "Blame the Left for Massachusetts" (Davis attributes the unpopularity of health care reform to the "liberal" public option and mandate; he apparently doesn't know that the health care bill has no public option [someone should tell him], that the public option was one of the most popular provisions in the various proposals, and the "mandate" is there to please the insurance industry, not "the Left," which, in the absence of a public option, hates the mandate; Davis' claim that "candidate Obama's health-care proposal did not include a public option" is nothing short of an outright lie).

In what universe must someone be living to believe that the Democratic Party is controlled by "the Left," let alone "the furthest left elements" of the Party? As Ezra Klein says, the Left "ha[s] gotten exactly nothing they wanted in recent months." The Left wanted a single-payer system, then settled for a public option, then an opt-out public option, then Medicare expansion -- only to get none of it, instead being handed a bill that forces every American to buy health insurance from the private insurance industry. Nor was it "the Left" -- but rather corporatist Democrats like Evan Bayh and Lanny Davis -- who cheered for the hated Wall Street bailout; blocked drug re-importation; are stopping genuine reform of the financial industry; prevented a larger stimulus package to lower unemployment; refuse to allow programs to help Americans with foreclosures; supported escalation in Afghanistan (twice); and favor the same Bush/Cheney terrorism policies of indefinite detention, military commissions, and state secrets.

The very idea that an administration run by Barack Obama and Rahm Emanuel and staffed with centrists, Wall Street mavens, and former Bush officials -- and a Congress beholden to Blue Dogs and Lieberdems -- has been captive "to the Left" is so patently false that everyone should be too embarrassed to utter it. For better or worse, the Democratic strategy has long been and still is to steer clear of their leftist base and instead govern as "pragmatists" and centrists -- which means keeping the permanent Washington factions pleased. That strategy may or not be politically shrewd, but it is just a fact that the dreaded "Left" has gotten very little of what it wanted the entire year. Is there anyone who actually believes that "The Left" is in control of anything, let alone the Democratic Party? The fact that Lanny Davis -- to prove the Left's dominance -- has to cite one provision that was jettisoned (the public option) and another which the Left hates (the mandate) reflects how false that claim is. What are all of the Far Left policies the Democrats have been enacting and Obama has been advocating? I'd honestly love to know.

And then there is the "Blame the Left" theme from Obama loyalists, who actually claim that the Democrats' problems are due to the fact that the Left hasn't been cheering loudly enough for the Leader. I recall quite vividly how Bush followers spent years claiming that the failings of the Iraq War were not the fault of George Bush -- who had control of the entire war, the entire Congress, and the power to do everything he wanted -- but, rather, it was all "the Left's" fault for excessively criticizing the President, and thus weakening both him and the war effort.

To insist that the Democratic Party's failures are not the fault of Barack Obama -- who controls the entire party infrastructure, its agenda, the news cycle, and the health care plan -- we now hear from Obama supporters a similar claim: it's all the Left's fault for excessively criticizing the Leader. A couple of days ago, Josh Marshall promoted -- and Kevin Drum endorsed -- a post that made this claim:

And we can look no further than Howard Dean, and MSNBC, and Arianna Huffington, and, yes, some columnists at the Times and bloggers here at TPM--you know, real progressives--who have lambasted Obama again and again since last March over arguable need-to-haves like the "public option," as if nobody else was listening. They've been thinking: "Oh, if only we ran things, how much more subtle would the legislation be," as if 41 senators add up to subtle. Meanwhile the undecideds are thinking: "Hell, if his own people think he's a sell-out and jerk, why should we support this?"


The reason "the Left" criticized the Iraq War was because . . . they thought it was a bad thing and thus opposed it. The reason some on the Left have been criticizing the health care plan and other Obama policies (the ones I listed above) is because . . . they think they're bad things and thus oppose them. For instance, health care opponents believe that forcing Americans to buy private insurance that they can't afford and/or do not want is bad policy and will harm the Democrats politically. That's what rational citizens do: they support proposals that they think are good and oppose the ones they think are bad. What are people on "the Left" supposed to do: go on television and into their columns and lie by pretending they support things that they actually oppose, all in order to sustain high levels of affection and excitement for Barack Obama? Someone who would do that is what we call a dishonest propagandist and party loyalist, and, in any event, is unlikely to have any credibility with anyone beyond already-converted, fellow Obama admirers.

A political party is actually much healthier and stronger when criticisms of the Leader are permitted. Ask the Republicans circa 2005 and 2006 about how a party fares when party-loyalty and leader-loyalty trump all other considerations. Moreover, if a political party adopts a strategy of ignoring its base, as the Democrats routinely do, it's an inevitable cost that the base will become dispirited and unmotivated. As Darcy Burner put it yesterday: "Perhaps if the Democratic base doesn't show up to elect Coakley, party leadership should consider *trying to appeal* to the base." There's a reason it's called "the base" -- it's because it's the foundation of the party -- and, as the Republicans never forget, there is a serious cost to ignoring or spurning them.

As I note in my NYT contribution today, the reasons for the Democrats' failings generally -- and the Scott Brown victory specifically -- are complex, and shouldn't be simplified in order to declare vindication for pre-existing beliefs (Obama loyalists: it was all about Coakley!; right-wing Democrats: it's all the Left's fault!; Republicans: it's a rejection of liberalism!). But whatever else is true, the Left, as usual, has very little power, both within the Party and in general. Blaming them for the Democrats' failings is about as rational as the 2006 attempt to blame them for the collapsing Iraq War. The Left is many things; "dominant within the Democratic Party and our political discourse" is not one of them.

All that said, and as horrible as the Democrats have been all year, the most amazing -- and depressing -- aspect of all of this is how Americans have so quickly forgotten how thoroughly the Republicans, during their eight-year reign, destroyed the country. Whatever the source of our national woes are, re-empowering that faction cannot possibly be the answer to anything.