Late to the party…
Indignant Desert Birds
Class Warfare and Video Games
Just as a reminder: in 2000, the United States elected a president who would go on to torture people, and do so in the name of the American People. In 2008, I worked to elect a man who promises to end that practice, and close down the factory in which we do so.
Barack, you’re on the hook now. You need to begin shutting this place down before 100 days have passed. Do that and I’ll forgive much. Don’t do that and, well… I don’t like your chances for reelection..
I was chatting with Harold Goldstein* a couple days ago. He, like many liberals, is sort of terrified that if Obama is successful at getting a liberal agenda passed, there will be a backlash, causing us to lose power.
This may be true. We liberals got our agenda passed in 1964 and “[lost] the south for a generation”. In 1932, we created a whole “New Deal”, which conservatives have been running against for 70 years.
The thing is, most of the Liberal Agenda is pretty popular. We’re offering people Health Care and an end to the war. If we can get just those 2 things, there can’t be a backlash powerful enough to actually matter. The point of “power” is not some mindless holding of the same, but rather it’s the ability to achieve things. Obama has the ability to achieve things that would really make the world a better place.
We should not fear the backlash. We should fear children dying because the richest country on Earth cannot properly allocate resources. If we save lives and lose elections, it’s a small price to pay…
*around my family, we call him “Uncle Harold”, since my father had the good sense to marry his sister a decade or so ago.
This rather good article in the Politico about Pelosi gives me a good excuse to mention a few thoughts about what the Rahm Emmanuel pick means for the Obama Whitehouse
Until a few months ago, there were basically 2 centers of power within the Democratic Party. Howard Dean’s office and Pelosi’s Office. Reid, near as I can tell, was a non-player. Rahm Emmanuel was Pelosi’s Chief rival. Near as I can tell, he was trying to take credit for the 2006 election since roughly 5 minutes before any results came in.
Now: Obama wins the Whitehouse. Suddenly there are 3 people who can claim to be the power in the Democratic party. This is going to be trouble for everyone. Dean announces that he is going to step down– as he had always intended to do. And Obama takes Pelosi’s biggest rival and makes him Whitehouse Chief of Staff. This removes a sore spot in Pelosi’s leadership team, and puts a major power player on the Obama Staff.
What does this tell us about an Obama administration? He’s a shrewd, shrewd man who will do what it takes to get his agenda passed…
As you may know, 2/3 of this blog headed out to Ohio to work for Obama. As you damned well better know we turned Ohio blue. Now that the media blackout has been lifted, we can resume blogging.
“I have a dream that one day, [...] little black boys and black girls will be able to join hands with little white boys and white girls as sisters and brothers.”
Under the McCain plan, the rich get richer, and everyone else gets… All their services cut to pay for rich-folk taxcuts. And since the economy depends on everyone not-rich pooling their resrouces to defend themselves against the depredations of the rich, we’re screwed under McCain’s plan.
Unless anyone thinks the traders at Lehman Brothers, brokers at Enron etc couldn’t have spared a few hundred thousand of their millions.
Of course, under Obama’s plan, all but the top .1% of income earners do better than today. For the other 99.9% of us, Well, we get to buy things to fuel the economy. Neat, huh?
2/3rs of this blog’s writers are off to Ohio to work for Obama. Posting may be light. Patriotism will be high…
Ted Kennedy:
And Hillary Clinton:
Living in a State that is reliably blue– a City that is pretty much synonymous with “Liberal”– we don’t get campaign ads. This one strikes me as pretty good.
Remember: Republicans are bad for the economy. Consistently, historically, thoroughly. If your goal is to destroy government credibility, that you would naturally support Republican politicians. If your goal is the welfare of the American People, however, you’ll be voting for the Democrat…