Has Obama sold out?

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deleted15807

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Approval Rating | CentristNet Remember that health care overhaul?

Why you even bother posting something as old as that stuff I don't know.

Anyway the healthcare law is no where near being fully implemented.

Provisions of the Affordable Care Act, By Year | HealthCare.gov

Read it and weep:
Even though its favorability may not be high, some key individual components of the law are highly popular.

Americans Dislike Health Care Law, Want Congress to Keep it

As far as both parties being corrupt you can blame the parties all you want. The true fault lies in the people who elect them. If a company has rude incompetent people it's not the employee's fault. The public sucks. That's the bitter truth.
 

B_enzia35

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[/INDENT]As far as both parties being corrupt you can blame the parties all you want. The true fault lies in the people who elect them. If a company has rude incompetent people it's not the employee's fault. The public sucks. That's the bitter truth.

You are right on the money there.
 

SilverTrain

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We meet again, Sargon!

Good thing I'm around to balance out your rampant article bombs ;)

Time to say it again...

PolitiFact | The Obameter: Tracking Obama's Campaign Promises

That's 31% of what he set out to do.

And you point to America selling out to Wall Street years ago as some sort of justification for Obama? Is that supposed to be a legitimate point that we are supposed to be O.K. with? I guess you could try to make that point if you have never criticized any other President for doing similar things but I doubt that's the case.

Speaking of things shoved down our throats... Approval Rating | CentristNet Remember that health care overhaul?

I'll say it again, you have corruption, ineptness, and corporatism on both sides of the aisle. To point out one is simply ignoring the entire picture. One is NOT better than the other. Reps and Dems are too entrenched, as a whole, in the political methods and policies of the past 20 years or more and America is becoming more and more a corporate conglomerate controlled by big business money and special interest groups.

So cry calamity as your party loses power and the other gains it and further damages the people, and shout rapture as your party gains power and the other party loses it and damages the people further. In the end, We The People still lose.

[**Oh, yippee! I love espousing this highly intellectual POV. I get to act high-handed toward everyone, and push them all onto the defensive, without ever having to take an actual stand on the difficult realities myself. Everyone sucks. Except for MEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!!!!!!!**]
 

Drifterwood

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Sell out may be an easy phrase, but technically the banks have regrouped, swallowed up by take over and emerged stronger than before. They really are too big to fail. This has happened under Mr. Obama and he appointed the same crowd as before to neither regulate the system nor address the systemic imbalance in US wealth crestion.

I appreciate that in the home reality it will boil down to a choice between two, but as an outsider, I am just taking an objective view of what has and has not happened.

I admit that I tend to look at things simply sometimes, but you aren't going to repay debt with money from people who haven't got any.
 
D

deleted15807

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Sell out may be an easy phrase, but technically the banks have regrouped, swallowed up by take over and emerged stronger than before. They really are too big to fail.

The only option then is to break them up. You either stick them with new regulations to make failure less likely or you split them up. Is that what you're proposing?
 

Drifterwood

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The only option then is to break them up. You either stick them with new regulations to make failure less likely or you split them up. Is that what you're proposing?

Really I am asking whether you would have expected Mr. Obama to have done anything? What he does seem to have done is put their management on a governmental level in the hands of the people who were deeply involved in the previous system that has led to world financial crisis. They have made Wall Street even more unassailable in terms of control and social responsibility.

I would not have expected this from Mr. Obama.
 
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deleted15807

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^ I don't think Mr. Obama is anywhere near as liberal as he is made out to be. He has always been more conservative stay-the-course than he's made out to be. Many people he chose are carry-overs from the last democratic White House. I did expect more but one has to manage your expectations if you understand the democratic party and it's extreme sensitivity to republican party criticism.
 

Bbucko

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I will vote for Obama. No question.

Yes, the Democrats blew it big time between 09 and 10. It was a huge mistake to try to win support from the right. If anything, the conservatives have shown that they believe it is their way or the highway and THAT is NOT America. They would bring the country down just to sway voters away from supporting Obama.

No one is perfect and Obama is a much better choice than any from the dog and pony show of late

Anyone discussing Obama's first two years without recognizing the presence of Blue Dogs (who represent conservative districts and who are frequently, themselves, very conservative) is having a case of collective amnesia. Democratic infighting virtually defines the party; there is no corresponding version of Reagan's 11th commandment on that side of the aisle and there never has been.

I truly believe that Obama has gotten as much done as possible given the toxic environment in Congress; if I'm not mistaken, his 'supermajority" in the Senate included Joe Lieberman, who really should have been McCain's VP pick. He's hardly a doctrinaire Dem, and in fact was reelected as an Independent).

Ain't that sad that we have to vote for the lesser of two evils, on either side?

I cannot recall it ever having been otherwise. Even if I hadn't been a firm Obama supporter (and I was), Palin's presence on the ticket precluded McCain from any serious consideration on my part. That's a double shame because I really wanted to be able to vote for him in the generals in 2000 (versus Gore), but Karl Rove saw to it that that didn't exist as a possibility.

That entire election would have played out completely differently had McCain been the GOP's offering. But party orthodoxies saw fit to limit my choice to two men whom I found unremarkable (except for their flaws). A Bradley vs McCain race would have been an altogether different kettle of fish.

I swear that American politics are uniquely ugly so as to minimize the turn-out, especially when the scorched-Earth, hideously negative ads start swinging.

Really I am asking whether you would have expected Mr. Obama to have done anything? What he does seem to have done is put their management on a governmental level in the hands of the people who were deeply involved in the previous system that has led to world financial crisis. They have made Wall Street even more unassailable in terms of control and social responsibility.

I would not have expected this from Mr. Obama.

Putting someone like Paul Krugman in such a position of power would have been a no-starter, even with the Dem "majorities", again, because such decisions are largely determined by the national parties (and Krugman, despite his Nobel is considered an iconoclastic outsider). The illusion of complete Presidential autonomy has been a fiction for decades, most probably beginning with Ford, who was appointed (IMO) based entirely on his promise to pardon Nixon.

As the nominees were increasingly a product of establishment-rule from the parties, we were given Carter, Reagan, Bush I, Clinton, et al. He who pays the piper, and all that. This is not a conspiracy theory in full bloom, it's a recognition of realpolitik.

It's been decades (if not scores thereof) since we had a truly grass-roots candidate break through and actually get sworn in. I think that was George Washington's chief reason for loathing political parties: famously, he not only refused to join one but actively pronounced them evil. I'm tempted to agree.

I loathe all this "enemy of my enemy" bullshit, especially when I'd prefer to not have any enemies. Yet there are socially "conservative" forces that would, had they the finger(s) on the button(s), declare me an outlaw in my own home: an enemy of "the state". As this is my life-long home and country of birthright (and heritage back to the 17th century), I find being made a "wedge" uniquely, especially, absolutely contemptible.

Though I do not deign to be awarded a "special" place at the table, I find (and have always found) that being labeled a pariah for living the life I was born to live within my own historical home to be an especially, aggrievedly unacceptable designation. Remembering how much we pride ourselves on being an aggressively individualistic egalitarian meritocracy I find the appellation most especially denigrating.

The US currently have several cultural biases: racial, religious, linguistic, monetary, regional, educational, etc. We also have strict, and highly condescending biases based on one's presumed infirmity/disability and, beyond that, in one's physical affect when casually compared to an arbitrary norm. There's a strong Anglo-Saxon thread running through our fabric which rates one's intrinsic worth based on vigor, desirability and youth, with a dismissal to all who appear lacking. This is seen both as an inevitably and (hypocritically) as a prejudice. But redress is almost never the remedy, as proof is so very hard to assess, verify, prosecute and redress.

Despite laws to the contrary, one's fitness to work (let alone lead) is based on a very short list of criteria, filtered through which fewer and fewer Americans are encouraged to apply. A spectacular resume is meaningless when one's outward appearance works "against type" for the presumed employer. And as there are hundreds (if not thousands) of candidates submitting applications to (fewer and fewer) jobs, these criteria become further and further set in stone.
 

Drifterwood

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Very very interesting Bb. Thank you.

I feel that Mr. Obama seduced us with the hope of change and was given that mandate. Effectively then, you are saying that the democratic process is fundamentally flawed. Let the people vote, but fuck me if we will actually do what voted for.

On a personal note, you may pop into the Euro debt thread. It seems that Europe wants to regulate banking and likes to blame the UK and the US for their banking woes. However, there appears no way now that Mr. Obama could or would regulate the US banking system even though I believe he promised this. Europe has every right to do what it wants, but a very powerful US lobby will not be happy. I guess this is partly why Mr. Obama has turned from the Atlantic to the Pacific.
 

TheBestYouCan

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Why you even bother posting something as old as that stuff I don't know.

Because it was pertinent to the point that at the time it was passed the Healthcare Overhaul was unpopular with the public and was in essence crammed down our throats through political maneuvering and subversion of the system. You gave an example of one side shoving something down our throats, I have an example of the other side.

[/INDENT]As far as both parties being corrupt you can blame the parties all you want. The true fault lies in the people who elect them. If a company has rude incompetent people it's not the employee's fault. The public sucks. That's the bitter truth.

I "bothered" because it was pertinent to the point that at the time it was passed the Healthcare Overhaul was unpopular with the public and was in essence crammed down our throats through political maneuvering and subversion of the system. You gave an example of one side shoving something down our throats, I have an example of the other side. How old was that McCain/Palin ticket you were shuddering about?

And I'd agree with you that the public sucks...but I'd say both suck. The system and those who maintain it (the public). The public let's itself be fooled time and time again. Both the machine and the operator are flawed. You seem to blame one side more than the other. Again, it's both and it's us. Republicans have been no more harmful to the nation than dems.



[**Oh, yippee! I love espousing this highly intellectual POV. I get to act high-handed toward everyone, and push them all onto the defensive, without ever having to take an actual stand on the difficult realities myself. Everyone sucks. Except for MEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!!!!!!!**]

You're an ass.
 
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FuzzyKen

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What I see is not really "sell out" but more a "compromise out" and to the point that Obama not only shot himself in the foot, he took the same compromised thinking and shot the other foot as well. He went on and an on trying to think that he could win via negotiation and proved unfortunately that he lacked the courage to throw back what had been thrown to him. The GOP loves the man, they get their way from the other guy and that is it and they do it simply by stonewalling.

I think that if he manages re-election there will be a very different Obama and I think at that point that the gloves will come off and the actual fight will start. At that point he has nothing to lose because in his second term he is not running for re-election and he doesn't have to care if he makes "friends" anymore.

The only thing that Obama has going in his favor is that the GOP candidates all have so many skeletons in their closets that there are candidates running that even other GOP members do not like.

If there were a really good strong moderate conservative Obama would be toast. Right now the whole thing could still go either way.
 

bobbyboyle

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Sell out may be an easy phrase, but technically the banks have regrouped, swallowed up by take over and emerged stronger than before. They really are too big to fail. This has happened under Mr. Obama and he appointed the same crowd as before to neither regulate the system nor address the systemic imbalance in US wealth crestion.

I appreciate that in the home reality it will boil down to a choice between two, but as an outsider, I am just taking an objective view of what has and has not happened.

I admit that I tend to look at things simply sometimes, but you aren't going to repay debt with money from people who haven't got any.
You are exactly right. I'm interested as to whether you've seen "Inside Job". It shows the extent of this continuity in those at the top of Wall St, something I hadn't realised.
IMDb - Inside Job (2010)
(It's currently on BBC iPlayer for any Brits interested).

Despite most or all having been directly involved in what was essentially defrauding mortgage and insurance policy holders, they're still there involving themselves in the workings of government. The scenes of them squirming and lying were awful. The sense of injustice I felt watching that film was acute. Bastards.
 
D

deleted15807

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If there were a really good strong moderate conservative Obama would be toast.

I doubt that. The 'base' of the Republican Party has zero interest in a moderate. The rise of Sarah Palin, Michelle Bachmann, Herman Cain, et al. was no accident. Huntsman is a good moderate conservative that consistently ranks near the bottom.
 

rawbone8

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Obama is typical of virtually all politicians, whether they be President, Congressman, Senator or Governor - totally dependent on raising obscenely large amounts of money to run and maintain office. The government is already sold from day one. Any illusion of democracy is theatre.

Politicians spend inordinate amounts of time on fundraising and any policy decisions are done with that in mind.

The only way to regain the government by the people and for the people is to create and enforce term limits and radically change the funding of politics to make donations severely limited. I don't think it will ever happen.
 
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rawbone8

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:frown1:

I would pay a campaign tax of $x per $Million turnover to pay for the necessary democratic process and ban any other form of donation other than personal time.

If we want democracy, we should pay for it, evenly.

I agree. I don't mean to hijack the thread but ...

Lawrence Lessig has some thoughts on the money reforms needed.

Watch this interview with Lessig on Jon Stewart's Daily Show.

http://watch.thecomedynetwork.ca/the-daily-show-with-jon-stewart#clip585622

http://watch.thecomedynetwork.ca/the-daily-show-with-jon-stewart#clip585623

An interview with him (about his book) in Rolling Stone:
Lawrence Lessig on How Money Corrupts Congress - and How to Stop It | Julian Brookes | Rolling Stone