There is definitely a full court press on right now by many of the major "left" wing blogs to attack those of us who have serious questions about voting for Obama.  We are being told over and over that we are just too much into our white male privileged selves and that we don't care about women, LGBT people, or about sick or old people because Obama got us something that FDR and LBJ couldn't get us together (although it hasn't completely started yet, but you just wait and see cause when it does it will be awesome and even though it isn't great it was the best he could do and ignore that he didn't try anything better, so there, also ponies).  Even Firedoglake (if you count Tbogg).  Although in reality Firedoglake or at least the front page seems to be kind of skitsofrantic (which appears to be the way that word is really spelled, who knew?) what with one or another front pager posting things about the awful stuff Obama does and then the ones just before and after them talking about how much worse things will be if Romney gets in.

 When serious matters are raised:  the drone attacks, Obama's attempt to crush dissent, the burgeoning police state, the gifts to Wall Street, and the Cat Food Commission, among other things.  We are told that Romney is going to be a disaster and Obama did many nearly great things: ACA, the end of DADT, and his refusal to defend the Defense of Marriage Act.   Most of these good things don't involve money being removed from the pockets of the wealthy, in fact I don't think any of the wonderful things Obama has done involved redistributing money in any direction except towards the wealthy.  So my deal breakers are not good enough, but theirs are.

Interestingly enough, there seems to be a lot of reliance on certain of Obama's campaign "promises or statements," but not all.  The very same thing they make fun of me for what they say I did back in 2008.  Although I didn't.  I was just scared of Sarah Palin and didn't think that Obama could be this reactionary and politically incompetent.  As an aside how can the first African American elected president be so politically incompetent?

So any way Obama has done great things for women's rights (or at least he hasn't gutted them like Romney says he will do) and LGBT rights, after he was dragged kicking and screaming into the positions he finally, kind of, took.  And, and what then?  A "stimulus" that was one of every four dollars as tax breaks to the wealthy, something I suspect the republican would have been forced into in one form or another.  A bail out of Wall Street to save our banks something we know the republican would have been happy to do and would have done.  The use of the feds to crack down of medical marijuana and whistle blowers, I wonder if there is anyone who thinks that the republican would have done it differently?

Past is prologue.  What will probably be the main domestic goal will be to deal with the deficit with cuts to spending with "everything on the table."  Including things like Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid.  So where does that leave us?

Damned if I know, no that isn't true.  I do think that I know.  Unfortunately choosing between Mr. Plutocrat and Mr. I Am A Happy Employee Of The Plutocracy doesn't strike me as much of a choice.

Updated in a couple of places to remove the incoherent parts, I hope.

Why Glenn Greenwald is Not Serious

Generally I don't write these kind of posts, or maybe I do but I forgot, however I got a little pissed off today.  Read Greenwald's thing about Ron Paul and how he is the only person taking certain positions that go against the entire establishment both "left" and right.  (One really must put "left" and "liberal" in quotation marks when referring to our political/pundit class, not so much with right or conservative.)  Its a brutal take down of Obama and what Greenwald calls tribalism from a real liberal perspective (no need for quotes here).   There is more (much more Greenwald is not known for his brevity) I suggest reading the whole thing.

I, in cruising the web later went to Lawyers, Guns and Money and they had a take on the whole thing that essentially, and I do think I am being fair here (read them), accused Greenwald of supporting Paul, ignoring Paul's horrible positions of women's rights among other horrible positions that Paul takes on other things like civil rights.  alcicublog also had something about it.

The comments at all the sites seemed more than willing to ignore the original argument: mainly that Paul forces discussion of the various issues he raises into the main stream and deteriorated into, but Paul wouldn't do what he said if he was elected and/or he is just a bad person concerning civil rights and women's rights and/or he couldn't do what he said and/or ........... In other words a horse race or this is my hero and I'm sticking by him (Obama) because he is just dreamy (OK that last is a little snarky, but why not its my blog?)

Given that I figure that most of the people who read these blogs are better educated and more informed then the average citizen (showing my prejudice here) this kind of response is kind of depressing. OK major depressing.

Oh well.

Just Crap

So ......... once again Obama and his tactics have proven to be brilliant now that the repeal of DADT has been stopped dead in it's tracks. Although they will bring it back in December when I am sure the senate will be more than willing to pass it after the democrats are decimated (possibly an entirely literal description of what will happen in November) in the coming election.

There seems to be an argument amongst those on the left (who count as opposed to people like me) as to who to blame for this specific fiasco as opposed to the fiascoes involving health care, the stimulus, financial reform, etc., etc., etc. I suspect that there is more than enough blame to go around myself. Also, when assigning blame one assumes that Obama wanted a different outcome than the one he got. If he got the outcome he wanted then clearly there can be no blame assigned to him. At least none concerning his abilities to get his programs through or prevent those he doesn't want to get through from getting through.

The democrat leadership in the senate has to be nailed to the wall for not aggressively attacking the rules that currently run that house. Do we blame the republicans for holding on to their power and attacking their enemies (or at least those they consider their enemies) I guess the same way one attacks any right wing reactionary, but they have accomplished just what they want to accomplish.

There really appears to be no leadership at all as far as the White House is concerned, unless as I say, Obama continues to get just the outcomes he is looking for. Although in that case I think that one could argue that he isn't doing a very good job since he is looking like an asshole and an incompetent. If his goal is to screw his base and get them to think he wasn't that doesn't appear to be working very well either.

So we are back to the age old question: Obama incompetent, corrupt, drunk, or all of the above?

UPDATE: Of course that leaves out a similar question concerning congressional democrats. Would that I could make money betting against them, but I don't think anyone would take the other side.

No Comment

More Not So Much Surprise News

How many times can I say I told you so.

Health Care

Oh my god. Is this guy real? Why yes he is. He is paid hundreds of thousands of dollars to be stupid and lazy. Pravda on the Potomac cannot self destruct too soon for me. Leaving only reactionary pieces of shit in it's place. Good better the enemy we all know than one that pretends to be our friend when it suits them!

The second point, is that I am positive that it will be better not to pass a health care "reform" that doesn't have a very strong public run by and completely owned by the government insurance package.

Stopping real health care reform by the blue dogs and republicans will not be Obama's Waterloo (depending of course on how he handles it), but to move our historic metaphors back a dozen or so centuries a Pyrrhic victory for the right wing corportists.

It should be obvious that we can run against those ass holes, using the fact that they kept us from getting decent health care. That is I am positive a better outcome than to try to get some piece of shit through that really helps no one except the incredibly wealthy insurance company owners. Because we are really not going to be able to "build" on a piece of shit legislation.

More Torture and Indefinate Detention

You know, does it really matter whether or not Guantanamo is closed ? We'll just move the prisoners to some super max in the U.S. Actually probably several super maxes in the U.S. and probably more than a couple in other friendly countries. That is friendly like to us, not like to justice.

Deep Thought -- AIG Contracts

You know I wonder if our president, who happens to be a constitutional law professor has seen these unbreakable A.I.G. contracts.

Does It Strike You As Strange or Where Are The Fucking Contracts

Now I've got you by the short and curlies

Does it strike you as strange that we have not seen any of these unbreakable contracts?

OK, maybe Clinton would have been better. Maybe (heresy) McCain would have been better. It is hard to imagine someone being worse. I would have expected that anyone would have tried to buy their friends out of this trouble. Anyone would/could have thrown money at the banks as easily as our Democratic friends are. Although I'm hoping that the Republicans would have had more fun (oh, that Henny Youngman).

As I said his brilliant political skills will only work if he produces. You can run and you can get elected, but then you have to produce --- if you are a Democrat I mean. For the most part Republicans still get a pass.

I would like to see the contacts, though. It is one thing to leak to various news media that the contracts are unbreakable, knowing that the "reporters" (scare quotes) we have now wouldn't even try to see them. It is another thing for congress and the white house to buy into it without looking at the contracts and then letting us see them. Unless they are all in on it (says that little voice in my head).

The more I think about this story the fishier it gets. All those people who are getting the bonuses are probably working at will. All can be fired. And replaced with people who are competent. Let us see these unbreakable contracts. Another question, do you think that given the choice of losing their jobs and foregoing a bonus most of these people would choose to lose their jobs? Aren't bonuses by definition dependant on doing something special? I would think at the vary least you would have to make the firm money not lose the firm money before you get a bonus.

Where are the fucking contracts?

Oh here they are:

So I guess this is what we now own.

Good News and Disturbing News

My congressman responded to my email asking him to support card check and said that he definitely does support it and will vote for it. That is good news since while he may not be a blue dog he is definitely a New Democrat.

However, this is really disturbing. I don't really care what he calls himself, but I don't like the idea of his triangulating like Clinton. We do not need more NAFTA, GATT, or giving the owners of our businesses the permission to send more jobs overseas at cut rate wages.

So if he acts in a pragmatic and practical way then I don't care. If all he is trying to do is calm the conservatives (although it won't work) then I don't care. But if what he is doing is sucking up to the wealthy again, and screwing up our chances for a recovery, then I do care.

The bank nationalization issue is the one where push is going to come to shove sooner rather than later. Right now Obama and his people are opposed to it for ideological reasons rather than any practical reasons. If he continues this kind of attitude then we are all screwed and we'll find that out sooner rather than later. If he does he will be another Clinton rather than another FDR, right now it looks like that is what he wants, but maybe not. I would think that he would want to be remembered as a hero, rather than a place holder. Maybe not though.

Am I Missing Something?

I'm in part four of Nassim Taleb's book The Black Swan . It is interesting, but still I think that he really doesn't say much except that we can't really predict and that life is controlled by luck. The answer seems to be diversify, so that when something blows up in your face you have another route open to save yourself.

Perhaps I'm missing something, but I all ways thought that you really couldn't predict what was going to happen next year let alone ten or fifty years from now. Is that really so hard to figure?

A second point is that you really have to act as thought you could predict somethings because otherwise you couldn't go to work tomorrow. Cause you have to figure what and where you are going. It does seem sort of obvious, but hell I didn't make a million in the market either.

I think that one must live as though there is a fairly good chance that one knows what is going to happen tomorrow or next year, with the understanding that one can't be sure. Of course, his point, I think, is that it is safer to understand that randomness and luck have more to do with life than all the planning and predictions we produce.