General Discussion
Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsCriticize the President? We should not even be having serious conversations about this.
Seriously.
Calls to refrain from criticizing our public servants, our elected representatives, should be met with scathing rebuff and ridicule. Period. When we hear this crap, it's time to pull out some good old-fashioned, "cut-them-down-to-size" American political cartoons and blowback to remind everyone watching that the politicians are accountable to us, not the other way around.
They are POLITICIANS, not deities. Let's not forget how this representative system is supposed to work.
There is a creepy authoritarian wind blowing in this country right now, and with it some very creepy, disturbing bids in the propaganda to trade away our American democratic concept of holding our elected public servants accountable, for a blind loyalty to and adoration of a Dear Leader.
It's important to mock and destroy propaganda that attempts to rhapsodize and deify politicians. Sometimes it seems trivial, and people get upset that you are raining on the "good feelings" of a puffy post....but when you have the very same people repeatedly posting adulatory, even deifying nonsense like this (all actual posts, mostly OP's, from the past few months), then it's important to deflate the puffery:
"That Clinton-Obama Chemistry (They Glory in One Another's Radiance)"
"A Glimpse of what Destiny Looks Like" (with a picture of Obama addressing an adoring crowd)
"They stayed delighted....he loved them, as only Obama can do"
"President Obama has issued a proclamation..."
"Fighting means letting your leader lead and supporting his method."
It's worth noting that these sorts of posts unfailingly come from the very same wing of the party that backs the surveillance state and ridiculously expanded executive powers and brutal crackdowns on protesters. It's the same group that has attempted to twist the meaning of election season (historically the time when public servants are supposed to be MOST responsive to public feedback) to argue, ludicrously, that the public must keep silent with criticisms so as not to disturb the delicate plans of "our Leaders."
And they will always use the word "Leaders." Not "representatives." Not "public servants."
We are hearing a lot of deifying nonsense lately in the informal message board propaganda that really isn't worded much differently than garbage coming out of North Korea. The creepily serious bids for fawning unquestioning obeisance to our "Leaders" and the vicious attacks on anyone who does not comply deserve LOTS of mocking, not for meanness's sake, but for the health of our democracy.
I'll say it again. There's a creepy authoritarian wind blowing in the country these days, and it deserves some good old American pushback: scathing, irreverent political cartoons and commentary to remind us that our very human, very flawed, sometimes even shamefully corrupt politicians require our constant oversight to make sure they are doing their jobs.
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forestpath
(3,102 posts)djean111
(14,255 posts)MotherPetrie
(3,145 posts)disconnected from reality.
xiamiam
(4,906 posts)is unsettling...I always wonder what other news they watch.. or how well informed those posters are. It makes the entire site a little less authentic
sabrina 1
(62,325 posts)criticism of their 'leader'. What happened?
A Simple Game
(9,214 posts)They used to have a daily picture thread.
I was invited into the BOG once a long time ago. The guy that spams his own picture a lot threatened to ban me by my third post. I wasn't even critical of President Obama, I was being critical of their treatment of another poster who merely mentioned an inconvenient truth about the President. Real nice people, remind me of Republicans. I got the impression they were kneeling while posting.
tblue
(16,350 posts)I know, right? Not good. I give up my voice for nobody.
JDPriestly
(57,936 posts)Life Long Dem
(8,582 posts)Thank you very much. And the OP? A bunch of words with no actual content. All BULLSHIT! Just another "The Sky Is Falling" thread.
Trying to link Clinton and Obama as authoritarian. 
sabrina 1
(62,325 posts)support any president who cuts SS benefits. They have no right to do that. But if you think politicians are more important than the American people, I guess supporting them no matter what they do is understandable.
Life Long Dem
(8,582 posts)
Melinda
(5,465 posts)You easily dismiss those who can't even currently make ends meet on SS as well as those who'll find themselves in the same place soon enough if chained CCPI comes into play. There's that 3rd way again; funny how often it pops up on DU these days.
Yes, as long as YOUR sky isn't falling, fuck those of us who get hit by the debris? Is that about it?
Egocentrism and public policy blows.
Life Long Dem
(8,582 posts)Money? Don't I wish. Your putting words in my mouth.
"You easily dismiss those who can't even currently make ends meet on SS"
I guess this is why I've been repeatably saying there are protections in place for the poorest elderly. I have been saying the poorest elderly, those living below the poverty line on SS would be lifted above the poverty line.
And I've been tagging this with "Fight the greedy, feed the needy". Yeah, so stop putting words in my mouth.
Melinda
(5,465 posts)"The sky is not falling with a cpi adjustment". The sky is not falling for YOU. Thought that was clear enough. People tend to fall on one of two sides in re this issue - those who have, and those who have not. Those who have clearly take the side you espouse, hence my response to your statement. 
If you want to fight the greedy and feed the needy, campaign to raise the SS cap, and not chain SS to CPI.
Chain CPI to SS benefits and those struggling to hold their heads above water now will slide down to the federal poverty level - or very close to it. Facts don't lie. Living at, below, or near poverty is not an economic level anyone should wish to aspire to. Fed poverty level for one person is $948 per month. You actually think those who receive benefits above that level can afford to lose benefits because they aren't counted as being in poverty? Someone receiving $1100 per month (my sister) which is above poverty level, should have her benefits tied to the CPI? How will this help her to pay for the medications she now can't afford when she's ABOVE the fed poverty level?
http://www.ocpp.org/poverty/2013-poverty-guidelines/
Some fun facts:
Think these figures will change if SS becomes tied to CPI? This is how important SS is to seniors:
http://www.ssa.gov/policy/docs/statcomps/income_pop55/2010/sect09.pdf
SS is not the cause of the deficit, SS is not insolvent, SS is not the problem. Trillions of dollars spent on wars with no end... and the budget is going to be balanced with austerity and chained CPI? The mind boggles how easily duped Americans can be. HAGD, thanks for the chat, I am off to enjoy the lovely Ca weather away from this keyboard.
Life Long Dem
(8,582 posts)Either exempting them from the CCPI or raising them above the poverty level.
sulphurdunn
(6,891 posts)for reneging on SS trust fund debt obligations did you miss?
Life Long Dem
(8,582 posts)"Carter" made an adjustment to the CPI in "1977". House, Senate, and Presidency, were all controlled by Democrats.
Lawrence O'Donnell explained it all the other night, and said "been there done that" already. Reagan, Clinton. and Nixon as well.
sulphurdunn
(6,891 posts)hadn't made that adjustment, SS benefits would be about 70% higher than they are today. Of course FICA taxes were not reduced, in fact, they were increased to compliment Carter's reductions by Reagan, who also ushered in taxation of SS benefits. Bill Clinton raised taxes again and proposed cutting benefits. The Bushes wanted to hand it to Wall Street. Obama is following the precedent set by those presidents. Nixon was, ironically, probably the last friend SS had in the White House.
Dragonfli
(10,622 posts)Why would we need protection from it if it is no big deal?
You talk about protections "that will be in place",
I think we should know exactly what is meant by such vague statements.
woo me with science
(32,139 posts)How surreal and Orwellian has the rhetoric gotten, when we are told a Democratic President should be praised for proposing legislation that people need "protection" from.
AnnaLee
(1,035 posts)and ditto!
Liberal_Dog
(11,075 posts)It reminds me of the "It can be fixed later" argument used in support of the ACA.
Why all the need to explain that it will be fine if there weren't a problem with the idea.
cui bono
(19,926 posts)How much will it help our situation?
Are there not other things that can be done rather than hurt the poor and elderly and working class?
Why don't we put this as a last resort?
Please answer all these questions if you respond.
ETA: Please provide comparisons of savings of CCPI as compared to closing tax loopholes, raising taxes on the rich, cutting defense spending, etc... if you are going to claim that CCPI is going to be substantial. I've seen you claim it will save billions, please provide factual information backing your claims.
magellan
(13,257 posts)I wonder if someone will finally provide a reasonable answer?....
Life Long Dem
(8,582 posts)Details are not out yet, but there is talk of having protections in place for the poorest elderly to lift them above the poverty line.
"rather than hurt the poor and elderly" With protections in place the poorest elderly won't have it as bad.
Last resort? As Dick Durbin said, "putting off a challenge until the last minute makes the task much harder to achieve."
"As I learned in 1983, putting off a challenge until the last minute makes the task much harder to achieve. However, if we make modest changes in the near future to ensure 75 years of solvency in Social Security, we can phase in adjustments in a responsible way that protects current beneficiaries and ensures the program will remain a key part of the safety net for future generations."
http://www.usatoday.com/story/opinion/2012/11/27/social-security-dick-durbin/1730633/
cui bono
(19,926 posts)sulphurdunn
(6,891 posts)drive up military spending? Maybe we need a CCPI for the Pentagon. Whadda ya think?
Veilex
(1,555 posts)Also, this:
One proposal for reducing the federal budget deficit is to substitute a new inflation measure (chained-consumer price index, or CPI) for the CPI-W measure currently used to make cost-of-living adjustments in Social Security benefits.
First endorsed by Republican congressional leaders, this alternative inflation measure is now included in President Obama’s proposed FY 2014 budget.
The attraction of the chained-CPI is that it consistently rises at a lower rate than the CPI-W. However, for older Americans who rely on Social Security for all or most of their income, the cumulative effect over time would be devastating.
The chained-CPI assumes that if the relative prices of goods and services rise, consumers will substitute less expensive alternatives. This assumption may be true for young and middle-aged adults, but seniors are far more likely to incur medical costs not subject to substitution. According to Social Security actuaries, pegging cost-of-living increases to the chained-CPI would cut seniors’ benefits by nearly 10 percent over a 30-year span.
The oldest and poorest seniors would experience the largest reductions in income and buying power. A dialog on how to restore Social Security’s solvency is necessary, but it must occur separately from deficit reduction talks and reflect the true costs incurred by older Americans.
|http://www.citizen-times.com/article/20130414/OPINION02/130412023/Chained-CPI-will-harm-older-Americans]
Chained CPI is a flat out terrible idea.
magellan
(13,257 posts)...why CCPI and all its "protections" are necessary in the deficit discussion in the first place.
cui bono
(19,926 posts)Life Long Dem
(8,582 posts)"As I learned in 1983, putting off a challenge until the last minute makes the task much harder to achieve. However, if we make modest changes in the near future to ensure 75 years of solvency in Social Security, we can phase in adjustments in a responsible way that protects current beneficiaries and ensures the program will remain a key part of the safety net for future generations."
http://www.usatoday.com/story/opinion/2012/11/27/social-security-dick-durbin/1730633/
magellan
(13,257 posts)What. Does. Social. Security. Have. To. Do. With. The. Deficit.
Life Long Dem
(8,582 posts)magellan
(13,257 posts)Pete Peterson, Alan Simpson and Erskine Bowles...The Catfood Commission? Are you serious?
I'll go with Krugman on this:
CCPI) is, purely and simply, a benefit cut.
"Does it make sense in policy terms? No. First of all, there is no reason to believe that the chained index is a better measure of inflation facing seniors than the standard CPI. It’s true that the standard measure arguably understates inflation for the typical household — but seniors have a different consumption basket from the young, one that includes more medical expenses, and probably face true inflation that’s higher, not lower, than the official measure."
(emphasis mine)
I think it's safe to say that when one considers the annual increase in drug and medical costs, seniors and the disabled do INDEED face inflation that's higher than CPI. That you'd describe it as driving up the deficit "unnecessarily" says nothing good about you.
Veilex
(1,555 posts)Chained CPI assumes the absolute lowest possible price for a good... except it doesn't account for medical costs, which commonly don't have a lower rate. Often, the elderly can only make ends meet by combining SS, medicaid and medicare. This usually leaves them with next to nothing... the lucky ones have a little in savings. What your proposing would strip away what little savings is available to seniors on SS. Frankly I find that rather despicable. Opting to change the system to something that will have a "fix" to protect poor elderly is simply not acceptable. You don't fix what isn't broken... and this part of SS isn't broken. What IS broken is the fact that the rich are not paying their share into the program. Fix that, then come talk to me.
Life Long Dem
(8,582 posts)"The federal government for the first time in its history had to borrow money in 2010 to cover Social Security benefits to retired and disabled workers — a trend that worsened in 2011 and will not change at any point in the future unless changes are made."
"...tax revenues no longer cover the cost of Social Security benefits. As a result, Social Security is adding to the debt."
http://www.factcheck.org/2012/11/durbin-again-denies-social-securitys-red-ink/
As you see it keeps adding to the debt.
"As I learned in 1983, putting off a challenge until the last minute makes the task much harder to achieve. However, if we make modest changes in the near future to ensure 75 years of solvency in Social Security, we can phase in adjustments in a responsible way that protects current beneficiaries and ensures the program will remain a key part of the safety net for future generations.
The best way to approach this is to create a commission, similar to the Simpson-Bowles deficit panel, charged with preparing a long-term strategy on Social Security. Then bring it to the Congress next year for a debate and a vote."
http://www.usatoday.com/story/opinion/2012/11/27/social-security-dick-durbin/1730633/
Veilex
(1,555 posts)from social security and they don't want to. Those politicians are running at deficits from funding all their individual pet projects and don't want to have to rob peter (their pet projects) to pay paul (Social security). The answer isn't to let them off the hook. They made the commitment to barrow against social security, now they have to pay it back. If politicians truly want to fix the issue, they'll raise the FICA limit quite a bit higher... its long passed time for rich folks to give back to the society they have derived so much from.
Life Long Dem
(8,582 posts)Republicans don't and won't pay it back. They don't want SS. They want to destroy it or privatize it as the last Puke demonstrated.
Veilex
(1,555 posts)Life Long Dem
(8,582 posts)Democrats need to fix it.
Veilex
(1,555 posts)substantially raising the FICA rates... a method we know without a doubt for a fact will resolve these issues.
Chained CPI on the other hand is a poison pill for those reliant on SS.
Life Long Dem
(8,582 posts)Chained CPI grows slightly more slowly than CPI. CPI overstates inflation and, drives up the deficit unnecessarily.
Veilex
(1,555 posts)If CPI-W drives up inflation, then by your logic, Chained CPI would be a slightly less increase the amount of inflationary force. This would be insufficient by your own argument.
The FICA cap needs to be significantly raised.
This would fix all these issues.
Also, I said nothing about skys or falling.
sulphurdunn
(6,891 posts)Are you suggesting that the CCPI will fix it?
dflprincess
(28,075 posts)Remember the public option?
Also, I understand these rates are tied to the minimum wage? If that's true & this stays in the bill it won't belong before they're back below the poverty line.
If Obama wanted to change how COLAs are calcultated to actually help seniors he'd be pushing to include things they actually spend money on in the calculations - medications would be a great place to start.
tblue
(16,350 posts)
for you, darlin'. You don't have to engage if you don't want to. I stopped arguing with people. I decided instead to encourage those with honest, open hearts & minds to speak truth to power instead of to weakness, and join with me in solidarity for meaningful action. Keep fighting the good fight. But let's you and me make a plan, and know I will have your back. 
SammyWinstonJack
(44,130 posts)in defending Obama no matter what destructive policies he pushes.
But good on you for trying. 
Katashi_itto
(10,175 posts)Life Long Dem
(8,582 posts)There are seniors who are on SS "today" living below the poverty line. CCPI will lift these seniors to above the poverty line.
Your scenario of being knocked down to the poverty level? - now here is the good part - Even if so, this would be better than where they were, which was BELOW the POVERTY LINE. What's so hard to get that there would be no more seniors living below the poverty line?
Progressive dog
(6,900 posts)CCPI cannot lift anyone up in income, it reduces all incomes to which it is applied. But here is the good part,it doesn't just apply to SS, it applies to just about every government program. Veterans benefits, medicare part D subsidy, SNAP, WIC, even Head Start.
This will cut consumer spending, slow GDP growth, hurt employment growth, reduce tax receipts and increase the deficit. It will continue to do this as long as it stays in force.
The only way that more seniors will move out of poverty under this plan is by defining the POVERTY LINE down. Oh, okay, I get it.
Dragonfli
(10,622 posts)published by friends of Pete Peterson, even if it is an interactive brochures like this one.
It is the brochures job to do only one thing, sell the crappy thing to as many fools as it can so it's publisher's can fleece as many rubes as possible.
We are all wasting our time with this advertisement.
bvar22
(39,909 posts)Propagandists and Marketeers have learned that, and use it.
<snip>
"But the most brilliant propagandist technique will yield no success unless one fundamental principle is borne in mind constantly and with unflagging attention. It must confine itself to a few points and repeat them over and over. Here, as so often in this world, persistence is the first and most important requirement for success."[/font]
---volume 1, chapter 6 of Mein Kampf (1925)
[font size=3] Ca...STAN.....Za[/font]
cui bono
(19,926 posts)[img]
[/img]
Veilex
(1,555 posts)Make short, simple, memorable statements.
Make those statements Counter the propaganda.
Repeat as long as loud as propaganda.
Wash. Rinse. Repeat.
woo me with science
(32,139 posts)Life Long Dem
(8,582 posts)Show me something saying CCPI "cannot" lift the poorest seniors below the poverty line to up above the poverty line.
Progressive dog
(6,900 posts)will not solve.
Life Long Dem
(8,582 posts)Just your opinion. And everyone has one.
Progressive dog
(6,900 posts)cui bono
(19,926 posts)sulphurdunn
(6,891 posts)Life Long Dem
(8,582 posts)Those children get a monthly SS check just as you or I would. Could be whatever the average is.
Veilex
(1,555 posts)Dragonfli
(10,622 posts)You do not understand what this specific adjustment will do, nor do you appear to understand it is not like past changes, I did notice you comparing apples to oranges using past Democrats, that was not as clever as you thought.
Educate yourself:
sabrina 1
(62,325 posts)want to.
Dragonfli
(10,622 posts)Melinda
(5,465 posts)You're being deliberately obtuse or you'd have read what I said in my 2nd (of two) posts addressed to you, and then truthfully responded to the information there.
Your position is clear, but your argument falls flat. I was hoping for something of substance from you, and all I got was regurgitated gruel. Damn, you couldn't have taken a few minutes to read the material? Go figure....
Veilex
(1,555 posts)CCPI assumes the absolute lowest possible amount to be able to purchase a bag of market goods... enacting CCPI
is the equivalent of forcing seniors, disabled veterans and handicapped to scrape the bottom of the barrel for their last penny.
Simply not acceptable.
Life Long Dem
(8,582 posts)Veilex
(1,555 posts)This switch is unneeded and unnecessary.
What is needed is a FICA cap raise.
That'd fix all these issues.
Life Long Dem
(8,582 posts)is not what Republicans wanted in a compromise. Of course now that they have it in the proposal, they say they don't want it.
No surprise there.
I know you didn't mention anything about the sky is falling. I meant it to reflect what I have seen on DU.
Without protection CCPI will get nowhere. And the FICA cap gets nowhere right now with Republicans.
Veilex
(1,555 posts)The people however, including those calling themselves republican, are far more interested in a FICA cap raise. In fact, were there to be a proper ground swell of support for it, the FICA cap could be raised through pressure on congress. And frankly CCPI requires protections to work in the first place... and requires trusting a political body (mostly Republicans) that has proven itself untrustworthy time and time again. No, I don't trust them to not take a cookie from the cookie jar after they have already put their hand in. You'd have an easier time of asking a weasel to guard a pen full of hens. Also, CCPI will get nowhere regardless of so called protections ... the Democratic leadership has already vowed to keep CCPI from happening... and rightly so.
woo me with science
(32,139 posts)Thank you.
bornskeptic
(1,330 posts)They bash him as though he were suggesting unmodified chained CPI, which he has absolutely rejected. I'm not enthralled with Obama's version, but it does have a few advantages. It would extend the solvency of the trust fund by a couple of years and it makes the system more progressive. It's crazy that people get so bent out of shape about it. It's not going anywhere, since neither Republicans nor Democrats will vote for it, and President Obama won't be running for anything. Boehner and McConnell end up looking ridiculous because they pushed Obama to offer chained CPI, and now that he did, they have to oppose it because it violates the Norquist tax pledge, and the benefit cuts mainly affect current retirees-a big part of what remains of the Republican base.
Life Long Dem
(8,582 posts)Sort of off topic. But the uproar did seem to come on faster than usual. He wasn't expecting that. I just wonder why. And their not letting much details out on this yet.
VA_Jill
(9,962 posts)...you are not 70 years old, on SS, and with a family history of living into your 90s. Then you would see it damn well is! Besides which, SS has NOTHING to do with the national debt.
Life Long Dem
(8,582 posts)A couple of years there wasn't even a COLA adjustment. And the last year was measly 1.7 percent increase. Sure it would be nice to have more from COLA. But it's not the end of the world. COLA goes up and down, and this adjustment won't hardly even be noticed. We could have some good years with COLA increases. That would certainly help with the little adjustment calculated with the CCPI. And if you happen to not lose a job before retirement, that would also offset any ccpi adjustment.
The sky is not falling.
VA_Jill
(9,962 posts)and I don't see how you can call yourself a lifelong Dem.
Life Long Dem
(8,582 posts)Jimmy Carter did the same thing in 1977
"Carter" made an adjustment to the CPI in "1977". House, Senate, and Presidency, were all controlled by Democrats.
Lawrence O'Donnell explained it all the other night, and said we have "been there done that" already. Reagan, Clinton. and Nixon as well. It's not just the CCPI, it's also what else is in the budget proposal that goes in the weighing of this.
Veilex
(1,555 posts)Raising the FICA cap will.
sabrina 1
(62,325 posts)because we democrats don't have the attitude that if we're okay, who cares about the poor elderly widow who is already struggling and for whom $20 is a fortune. That is why I am not a Republican. Is SEE the sky falling on those less fortunate than I am, every DAY.
As I said, I am glad we don't have to worry about you, sincerely. There are so many others that we will, if you don't mind, continue to worry about and fight so they get what is theirs and to keep the hands of selfish politicians off the fund, which they have no right to touch, that belongs to the people.
The sky doesn't fall when a house is burglarized either. Most of us don't even notice, unless it is OUR house.
Life Long Dem
(8,582 posts)Ignore the protections that would be in place for the poorest elderly. Your fooling no one.
sabrina 1
(62,325 posts)So YOU stop spinning please we are not ignorant here.
The SS fund is the most successful fiscal program ever and is NOT only NOT in trouble it, without any interference from politicians working for Wall St, has a TWO TRILLION dollar surplus.
This fund belongs to the PEOPLE. Not the Fed Govt.
Increasing benefits with their own money is all that needs to be done if someone is worried about helping them.
Please read this carefully because you don't seem to understand what is going on here.
SS beneficiaries have the money in their own fund to take care of any needs they have. They have more than enough. They do not need handouts from the Fed Govt.
The Fed Govt giving them 'handouts' , do you understand that this is not necessary, fulfills a right wing dream, it TURNS SS BENEFICIARIES INTO WELFARE CASES!!
So please stop the spin. We KNOW what is going on here and no amount of spin can change the FACTS.
Life Long Dem
(8,582 posts)I knew it. Call others not caring for the poorest elderly when it's really you.
Are you saying the protections "don't" come from CCPI which saves billions of dollars?
sabrina 1
(62,325 posts)You simply do not want to accept the fact that this president has no right to take money from the Fed Budget to use as a 'handout' for SS beneficiaries thereby turning them into 'welfare' recipients, something the far right has wanted to so for so long, when all that needs to be done is to raise their benefits with the money that is there. And those raises can far excede the pittance he is talking about.
So you don't want to raise SS benefits for the poor? You want them to become welfare cases?
CCPI is stealing money from SS recipients to pay for the debts of Wall St criminals.
Why are you saying that this will 'reduce the defiict'???
SS DID NOT HAVE ANYTHING TO DO WITH THE DEFICIT!! Why should it have to pay the debts of those who caused it??
You know what, it's clear that either you have no clue about all of this or you don't want to.
But the spin is all coming from the right as it always has when it comes to SS.
Life Long Dem
(8,582 posts)They would rather the poor starve than fight the greedy to feed the needy. Exactly what you are doing.
sabrina 1
(62,325 posts)You would rather see people who earned those benefits lose their dignity and be given handouts from the Fed Govt when there is no need to do that other than the right's dream of being able, like Alan Simpson, to call them 'welfare queens'?
If Republicans you know want to raise SS benefits, could you introduce me to some of them please? I never yet met a Republican who didn't want to CUT BENEFITS and turn beneficiaries into Welfare Recipients so they could use it to attack the poor with.
Life Long Dem
(8,582 posts)How is it a "handout" if it is coming from the SS funds? The billions saved with CCPI mostly should go back into the poorest elderly for protection. Is that still a handout if it was ours to begin with?
sabrina 1
(62,325 posts)If that is the claim, then where will those savings go? To pay off Wall St's criminal debt, and Bush's.
No savings in SS can 'bring down the deficit' unless they are planning to transfer those savings into the Fed Budget.
The SS fund is not part of the Fed Budget. It had nothing to do with the deficit.
If they want to help reduce the deficit, then raise SS benefits. That will help stimulate the economy using money already there, and costing the Fed Govt nothing. It will help to create jobs as more people spend money that is currently sitting in a fund collecting interest on Treasury Bonds.
It makes ZERO sense to say that cutting SS benefits will 'help bring down the deficit'. The only way that can happen is if those savings are transferred into the Fed Budget. And that is just plain wrong.
Life Long Dem
(8,582 posts)But also the savings could be used for protection to seniors.
Dragonfli
(10,622 posts)sabrina 1
(62,325 posts)the gambling debts of the Bush administration and their criminal friends on Wall St.
It is unconscionable to even think of including this program for cuts in order to help those criminals in any way when what should be happening is they should be prosecuted, their ill-gotten gains returned to the people to help bring down the deficit they caused, and the Bush Tax Cuts completely rescinded.
Those tax cuts contributed over 2 trillion dollars to the deficit.
SS contributed NOTHING to the Deficit.
Why would a democratic president even consider asking people who had nothing to do with the deficit to help criminals to avoid paying back all the money they spent on illegal wars, on tax cuts for their friends and on the corruption on Wall St?
Not one dime of SS should even go to help bring a deficit that had nothing to do with it.
They are furiously looking around to find money to help get their Wall St buddies off the hook for the debts they ran up. No one in their right mind would have been looking at SS to do that.
And, you don't take money from the poor to try to help the even-more-poor. You take it from their very own fund because then no one is hurt and millions are helped. So to say that taking this money will help the 'poorest' means taking it from the slightly less poor and making THEM more poor. Take it from Wall St. criminals who have it hidden in offshore accounts, trillions of it. Or, give them their OWN money.
Life Long Dem
(8,582 posts)"The President has made clear that any such change in approach should protect the most vulnerable. For that reason, the Budget includes protections for the very elderly and others who rely on Social Security for long periods of time, and only applies the change to non-means tested benefit programs."
sabrina 1
(62,325 posts)the most vulnerable'. The SS Fund can do that without any interference from the president, or the Republicans who asked him to do it. This turns independent poor people into 'welfare cases'. What is so hard for you to get about this? He has introduced SS into Deficit discussions, this is, as his own spokesperson confirmed, only because 'Republicans asked him to'.
Democrats asked him NOT to.
I did not work to elect a Democrat so that we would get more rotten Republican ideas implemented. I did that to prevent these rotten ideas from being implemented.
Why do you think this President does what Republicans ask and ignores Democrats?
The SS fund has more than enough of a surplus to take care of the needs of all SS recipients. SS does not belong in any discussions, budget talks etc that have anything to do with the deficit and no amount of excuses are going to change that.
bread_and_roses
(6,335 posts)Raise benefits to fix the previous unconscionable cuts, LOWER the retirement age, and with it the age for for Medicare eligibility - since we were sold out on real health care reform.
If you cared about "the needy" or wanted to "fight the greedy" these are the things you'd be touting. And btw, who the hell cares if Carter did this or Clinton did that? Were they Saints? Infallible? Clinton screwed us nine ways from Sunday with his "Free" Trade and his Welfare "Reform" and his Banking "Deregulation" - so I'm supposed to think that because he did something it's OK?
Sabrina sounds like a Republican??????????? What utter and absolute nonsense.
As for your "protections" - we should not need "protections" - WE SHOULD HAVE NO POOR. This is a rich country. That so many - children, workers, seniors - are mired in poverty is a function of our so-called "Representatives," our so-called "Public Servants" - including this President - serving only the Banksters and Insurance Ghouls.
sabrina 1
(62,325 posts)Do you understand that? So how,as Alan Simpson, Republican, claims, can cutting benefits through COLA possibly help to reduce the deficit?
The only way they can make that claim is if they intend to steal money from the SS Fund.
So, yes, please stop the spin, if you didn't know it, it is coming as always from the right.
SS did not cause the dificit, and we sure as hell do not want to take one dime from that fund to help pay off the criminal debts run up by Bush's illegal wars and his tax cuts for the wealthy.
Life Long Dem
(8,582 posts)"Sen. Richard Durbin says that “Social Security does not add one penny to our debt.” That’s false. It was wrong 21 months ago, when Durbin said it once before, and it’s even more off the mark now.
The federal government for the first time in its history had to borrow money in 2010 to cover Social Security benefits to retired and disabled workers — a trend that worsened in 2011 and will not change at any point in the future unless changes are made.
It’s true that Social Security is “a separate funded operation,” primarily through payroll taxes and income taxes on benefits. But tax revenues no longer cover the cost of Social Security benefits. As a result, Social Security is adding to the debt."
http://www.factcheck.org/2012/11/durbin-again-denies-social-securitys-red-ink/
creeksneakers2
(7,473 posts)SS tax rates were down in 2010 and 2011, but have since returned to their previous levels.
hedda_foil
(16,371 posts)Of COURSE the fund is now starting to pay out more than it currently takes in. That big hike in premiums in '83 paid for by the boomers for the boomers has socked away $2.3 TRILLION in government bonds in surplus to cover both boomers and our parents generations. It's supposed to run through 2035 iirc and then revert back to pre-Reagan premium percentages.
What's obvious is that they don't want to make good on the full faith and credit of the US as far as we the people are concerned. There's no difference between this move and corporations failing to make good on pension obligations.
SammyWinstonJack
(44,130 posts)
Life Long Dem
(8,582 posts)
cui bono
(19,926 posts)You are fooling yourself.
duffyduff
(3,251 posts)However, the truth is the truth no matter how hard to you try to spin it:
President-elect Barack Obama pledged yesterday to shape a new Social Security and Medicare "bargain" with the American people, saying that the nation's long-term economic recovery cannot be attained unless the government finally gets control over its most costly entitlement programs.
That discussion will begin next month, Obama said, when he convenes a "fiscal responsibility summit" before delivering his first budget to Congress. He said his administration will begin confronting the issues of entitlement reform and long-term budget deficits soon after it jump-starts job growth and the stock market.
"What we have done is kicked this can down the road. We are now at the end of the road and are not in a position to kick it any further," he said. "We have to signal seriousness in this by making sure some of the hard decisions are made under my watch, not someone else's."
http://articles.washingtonpost.com/2009-01-16/politics/36899872_1_barack-obama-key-economic-priority-items-entitlement-reform
Deny it all you want, but he is repeating the garbage the far right think tanks like the Cato Institute have peddled for years.
He has every intention of gutting traditional Democratic Party policies.
He is NOT playing "chess," and he is NOT bluffing.
Life Long Dem
(8,582 posts)
sibelian
(7,804 posts)Ooooooh! That's exactly what Cheney said when people were getting antsy about Iraq...
Life Long Dem
(8,582 posts)
Laelth
(32,017 posts)-Laelth
magellan
(13,257 posts)Well, now everyone knows how much your opinion is worth.
woo me with science
(32,139 posts)That is EXACTLY what he is doing.
One of the greatest betrayals of this presidency was his taking what were previously only Republican/right-wing talking points, and transforming them into a BIPARTISAN NATIONAL NARRATIVE.
We will be fighting to undo this damage for years.
DhhD
(4,695 posts)Google more links; it is easy. The Social Security Clinton Ryan Obama Compromise. Google others.
Lizzie Poppet
(10,164 posts)...is a sign of severe cranio-rectal inversion.
Sure, a plutocrat's puppet is better than having an actual plutocrat in the office (the choice we were offered last year), but that doesn't mean we have so spread our cheeks and beg for it.
ExPatLeftist
(1,081 posts)It's that some of their supporters seem to support them without question, and seem to demean anyone that does dare to criticize them. That is not a diss on Clinton and Obama, it is a diss on some of their fans that seem to support them blindly and without question, and bully anyone that dares to criticize them. It creeps me the hell out, and IMO there is nothing progressive about it - it looks like personality worship, plain and simple.
PS Before you repeat yet again your mantra that the "sky is not falling", then I am no Chicken Little and there is not one word in my post, or in my thoughts as I write it, about CCPI.
tomp
(9,512 posts)...says pretty much all one needs to know about you, and bolsters the argument of the OP.
JoePhilly
(27,787 posts)That over the last 2 weeks or so, there have been an endless stream of OPs that attack not just the President's budget proposal, but President Obama personally.
Those threads have dominated DU's GD section, each with a very large contingent of angry posters. In those threads one can call Obama anything they want, they can threaten to start 3rd parties, threaten to never vote for a Democrat again, and call those who support Obama "sycophants" or even Republicans. I've yet to see one of those threads get locked.
Yesterday some one posted an OP in support of Obama. You don't see many of those posts on GD lately. That one burst into flames with those who are angry at Obama coming out of the word work to express their anger, some in a rather nasty manner. Ironically, that thread got locked.
So to summarize, here on DU, you can attack Obama endlessly, attack his supporters endlessly, threaten to leave the Democratic party, claim that you are going to support 3rd parties, with impunity ... AND then also claim that some group is forcing you to shut up.
Spitfire of ATJ
(32,723 posts).....heh.....
one_voice
(20,043 posts)zeemike
(18,998 posts)Cause I have not seen them...
I have seen the ones that attack him for cutting SS and other things we need but none of that is personal.
creeksneakers2
(7,473 posts)soembody called him a "plutocrat's puppet."
zeemike
(18,998 posts)That is all about his public actions...and opinion that he is acting like a puppet for the plutocrats....which has some facts to back it up.
woo me with science
(32,139 posts)That's a charge of working for the plutocracy rather than the people who elected him.
And that is exactly what he has been doing.
sheshe2
(83,712 posts)Thank you JoePhilly!
I believe we have a whole new meaning to "One Voice"!
Rex
(65,616 posts)Last edited Sat Apr 13, 2013, 04:56 PM - Edit history (1)
we call them followers and never expect anything from them but their vote.
Dragonfli
(10,622 posts)The Battle for Your Mind: Brainwashing Techniques Being Used On The Public By Dick Sutphen
Egalitarian Thug
(12,448 posts)topic. He was of the opinion that that is the best any of us can hope for. That we are, and should rightly be helpless once the ballots are cast. Of course, I disagreed. We drew such a crowd that people that became an audience bought us more drinks & cigars, passed us notes with talking points, and sat there cheering and jeering to keep it going.
And just like DU on it's good days, in the end we all had a stimulating evening and ended up accomplishing nothing at all.
tomp
(9,512 posts)one_voice
(20,043 posts)How about the meanness shown to people that choose to support the president? That's a-ok?
Let me first say, I have a huge problem with the SS issue. I think Obama is DEAD WRONG on this. I do not support what he wants to do. Maybe Biden or Michelle can "Gibbs slap**" some sense into him. Cuz this is just so very wrong.
Having said that, I don't think that criticizing him includes, saying he's worse than Hitler, calling him 'dear leader'--BOTH of those a favorite of the right, in fact until just recently that's the only place I've ever seen it--calling him a motherfucker or saying 'fuck Obama'--plus a few others.
The above things are not criticizing or holding his feet to any fire, but teabagger/right wing rhetoric. IMO. Again, this is MY OPINION, something I'm allowed to have.
If people want to continue to use those names I associate you with what those names go with...
**NCIS reference.
sabrina 1
(62,325 posts)to alert on that right away.
one_voice
(20,043 posts)cherokeeprogressive
(24,853 posts)The system works.
sabrina 1
(62,325 posts)that post which was, as it should have been, alerted on.
So where are the DUers who are here, as you implied, calling this president 'hitler'? Apparently it is not tolerated here, so if someone is still doing it, they need to be alerted on. Otherwise it appears that it is not a problem here as you implied.
one_voice
(20,043 posts)And was a DU'er for 6 years.
What the hell? They were a DU'er BEFORE they were banned. You have to be a DU'er BEFORE you can be banned.
If this doesn't qualify as a DU'er than I don't know what does
Account status: Posting privileges revoked
Member since: Sat Jan 13, 2007, 12:57 PM
Number of posts: 1,361
Number of posts, last 90 days: 278
Favorite forum: General Discussion, 115 posts in the last 90 days (41% of total posts)
Favorite group: Photography, 16 posts in the last 90 days (6% of total posts)
Last post: Sat Apr 13, 2013, 10:33 AM
Star member: +40
You're active BEFORE you're banned. It's a problem when a long term person does it. WTF?!?! I never implied Skinner allowed it. Stop putting words in my mouth.
edited to add: exactly what I said happened, happened. A DU'er said 'Obama was worse than Hitler'. A six year member, was banned this morning for saying exactly what I said they said.
sabrina 1
(62,325 posts)reveal themselves as right wingers until they did.
You implied, incorrectly, that DUers were here making a comparison between this president and Hitler. They are not. The one person, ONE person who did so is gone. So where are the others?
one_voice
(20,043 posts)any such thing. You assumed, incorrectly that was speaking about multiple DU'ers. See how that works.
This is what I said...
If YOU thought I meant more than one person that's on you. You could have asked if it was more than one but you didn't instead you're now trying to make me out to be dishonest. I simply stated some of the things I've seen. I did see Obama compared to Hitler. I didn't lie or imply that it was more than one person, that's what you decided I meant.
I find it odd you're stuck on the Hitler thing, guess it's ok that's he's compared to some fuckwit that's playing around with nukes. Dear Leader indeed.
I didn't imply anything, you read into something that wasn't there.
I'm done playing your goddamn game.
santamargarita
(3,170 posts)work for. If they break campaign promises, it's our right to complain not be demeaning or personnel attracts.
Not speaking up enough is why they think they can do what they want.
It's out job to "make them do it". I think FDR said that.
Of course I'm not just talking about President Obama (I Worked hard to get him elected), it's all elected officials.
Little Star
(17,055 posts)It can get pretty nasty here regarding how our president is talked about. Criticism is one thing but bad mouthing is another and most of us can tell the difference. Fuck that childish, ignorant shit!
Response to one_voice (Reply #8)
Post removed
Response to one_voice (Reply #8)
Post removed
one_voice
(20,043 posts)Fuck me?
Thanks...
Y'all wanna dish it but can't take the slightest push back.
You have a nice day now.
quinnox
(20,600 posts)left wing. At the same time, ironically, I can see why its necessary to have these types on your side. They are useful in that they are very loyal and will support the official party enthusiastically. So there are some shades of gray involved. Still, the sheep-like mindset of the "leader" always being correct is something that will always be foreign to me. And I think people who think like we do are very much in the minority, and the big majority of mankind is the types I referred to. Not sure why, but that is how it is.
JEB
(4,748 posts)I do believe that it is my right advocate for positions and policy that my conscience guides me to. Thanks for the post.
avaistheone1
(14,626 posts)k&r
grahamhgreen
(15,741 posts)
kentuck
(111,074 posts)..when the rabble rousers were criticizing King George III? "I trust my leader" was what a lot of people said when they moved to Canada.
Fuddnik
(8,846 posts)Thank you.
A call for critical thinking.
As a former lifelong Democrat, and DEC member, I finally got fed up with the party when they (against all promises) continued funding for the Iraq war in 2007. I resigned in protest. I changed to "No Party Affiliation", when they voted for telecom immunity and gutting FISA in 2008.
Here's how bad it's gotten. This was sent out by a friend of mine, a former twice Democratic nominee for Florida's 5th District. He was recruited by Nancy Pelosi to run. Then the FDP and DCCC undermined his campaign. It went to most of the FDP's mailing list.
"There is but ONE party... "The MONEY Party!" The continued existence of the Democratic Party perpetrates a fraud upon those who still wish to believe... To wish that the reality before them were rather some kind of play. How different are the policies of Obama from those of George Bush? Bush was less of a threat! You folks heard of The Trans Pacific Partnership that Obama said he was going to ratify? NDAA? NSA? KeystoneXL? Drones? Wall Street? AND You genuflect for Wasserman Schlitz! Instead, WE ALL lose with a collection of syncophants who faint at every word spoken by the wunderkind Obama the CORPORATIST, while trashing anyone who actually stands up and criticizes the present while offering real solutions for a better future.
The Democratic Party is an absolute menace to society. The SILENCE of the flock is deafening against the FASCIST lot in Tallahassee... AND D.C. Your bozo minority leader who asks Democrats to lay off Weatherford (The Speaker who NEVER had a REAL job), is on the ropes! How quickly the sheep embrace an enabler of Bush as your leader which can only be characterized as "The Last Straw" as the flock of Neville Chamberlains take the whole lot of us figuratively, if not literally to the gallows politically. I cannot be associated with people so lacking in character, vision, constitution or integrity! Think of the children as the Florida Public School system is decimated by Will the Shill, Corcoran, Legg et al over the next 18 months or so... Think of the consequences for being so docile! "People will vote for strong and corrupt but never weak and corrupt.""
They offer us lip service and stab us in the back. Daily.
jsr
(7,712 posts)Thanks.
ljm2002
(10,751 posts)elias7
(3,997 posts)Most who support Obama on DU are not nearly as delusional as those who criticize them intimate. If you want to cherry pick a few choice symbolic moments and interpret them in the worst possible light as the OP does, then go ahead.
Most DU'ers are more intelligent and nuanced than those who make cracks about 11 dimensional chess give them credit for. Ironically, it is my opinion that the anti-Obama crowd dumbs down the discussion by throwing ad hominems or ad hobamanems.
Best to stop assuming someone pro-Obama is star struck; rather, assume a more sophisticated reason for support and seek real discussion on those issues. Otherwise the threads deteriorate into nonsense....
Doctor_J
(36,392 posts)Worshipers not realize the damage he's done to the party and thus the nation with this
green for victory
(591 posts)
GMO Donkey kick+r
Love is for people one knows
Respect is earned
Trust Me, I'm from NYC
DC is supposed to work for US not the FDA, FED Reserve, MONSANTO, PHARMA, INSURANCE, WALL ST
Babel_17
(5,400 posts)"The President is merely the most important among a large number of public servants. He should be supported or opposed exactly to the degree which is warranted by his good conduct or bad conduct, his efficiency or inefficiency in rendering loyal, able, and disinterested service to the Nation as a whole. Therefore it is absolutely necessary that there should be full liberty to tell the truth about his acts, and this means that it is exactly necessary to blame him when he does wrong as to praise him when he does right. Any other attitude in an American citizen is both base and servile. To announce that there must be no criticism of the President, or that we are to stand by the President, right or wrong, is not only unpatriotic and servile, but is morally treasonable to the American public. Nothing but the truth should be spoken about him or any one else. But it is even more important to tell the truth, pleasant or unpleasant, about him than about any one else."
To be fair, TR makes a good point about respecting those who fight the good fight.
"It is not the critic who counts: not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles or where the doer of deeds could have done better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood, who strives valiantly, who errs and comes up short again and again, because there is no effort without error or shortcoming, but who knows the great enthusiasms, the great devotions, who spends himself for a worthy cause; who, at the best, knows, in the end, the triumph of high achievement, and who, at the worst, if he fails, at least he fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who knew neither victory nor defeat."
"Citizenship in a Republic,"
Speech at the Sorbonne, Paris, April 23, 1910
Below are additional quotations related to the more famous and later quote. These quotes taken from a cdrom - The Works of Theodore Roosevelt - National Edition, A PRODUCT OF H-BAR ENTERPRISES COPYRIGHT 1997
"...the man who really counts in the world is the doer, not the mere critic-the man who actually does the work, even if roughly and imperfectly, not the man who only talks or writes about how it ought to be done." (1891)
"Criticism is necessary and useful; it is often indispensable; but it can never take the place of action, or be even a poor substitute for it. The function of the mere critic is of very subordinate usefulness. It is the doer of deeds who actually counts in the battle for life, and not the man who looks on and says how the fight ought to be fought, without himself sharing the stress and the danger." (1894)
http://www.theodoreroosevelt.org/life/quotes.htm
kentuck
(111,074 posts)Well said, Teddy.
Laelth
(32,017 posts)It still applies today (as it always has in this nation of the rich, by the rich, and for the rich).
“Behind the ostensible government sits enthroned an invisible government, owing no allegiance and acknowledging no responsibility to the people. To destroy this invisible government, to dissolve the unholy alliance between corrupt business and corrupt politics is the first task of the statesmanship of the day." -Theodore Roosevelt, 1912.
-Laelth
woo me with science
(32,139 posts)I've already stolen it for another thread.
Laelth
(32,017 posts)-Laelth
woo me with science
(32,139 posts)Thank you!
Spitfire of ATJ
(32,723 posts)Republicans vote for a leader they can follow. Often they do it in a frenzy and then trust them enough to ignore politics except for when they hear he's done something that pisses off the Liberals just so they can poke their head in to laugh at our pain.
Democrats vote like it's for a Union Stewart. They follow what he does looking for any evidence that he's a sellout and often overreact to the point where they become the drama queens we see on the Right.
BTW: Ever notice with all the tossed around furniture the chandelier we swing from during sex never gets hit?
theaocp
(4,235 posts)There is no way in hell I could express myself nor my feelings as well as you just did. May my jealousy be forever transparent. Kudo-lades.
WorseBeforeBetter
(11,441 posts)That's why they're lashing out... and furiously searching the Internet for every Crap Blog they can find to back up their position(s).
woo me with science
(32,139 posts)And it's damned refreshing.
Thanks.
WorseBeforeBetter
(11,441 posts)You'd think all these adults in the room would admit the White House fucked up (royally), and offer suggestions to mitigate the damage. Instead, it's non-stop worship and predictable bashing of the nasty ol' left. I do question their *allegiance* to the Democratic Party they so vociferously claim to support. They read more like Republican trolls, Third Way triangulators, and folks so enamored with Obama they'd change their party affiliation to "R," no questions asked. That's a huge part of the problem: No questions asked. And unwavering trust of a politician. Dangerous combination...
whatchamacallit
(15,558 posts)Cleita
(75,480 posts)children when we dared criticize the President when we were at war? Well, who started those unnecessary wars to begin with? I would not be shushed. Nor will I be shushed when this President makes a mistake. He needs to be able to face our criticism and even welcome it, if he wears a "D" after his name as a party affiliation.
JaneyVee
(19,877 posts)xiamiam
(4,906 posts)JaneyVee
(19,877 posts)Marr
(20,317 posts)Much of his actual agenda is quite unpopular.
BrotherIvan
(9,126 posts)Seriously?
boilerbabe
(2,214 posts)
limpyhobbler
(8,244 posts)"They Glory in One Another's Radiance" LOL
oh my. What have we come to.
zeemike
(18,998 posts)Adversity seems to bring out the best in some people.
And thank god for it....not the adversity but the best in people.
Broward
(1,976 posts)This reflexive defense and unwavering loyalty to "leaders" no matter what they say or do is unfortunately wired into many people's brains.
TheKentuckian
(25,023 posts)and leave those inclined toward sovereign citizenship in peace. I sure as hell cannot logically operate in the same political party as them, I'm not tolerant of authoritarianism.
We are too far apart on the purpose and structure of government, even if there is passing agreement on the role and scope to row in the same direction. It would seem their disagreements with other flavors of authoritarians would be easier to negotiate than reconciling with folks who cannot tolerate their basic premise of rule by betters.
broadcaster75201
(387 posts)nt
indepat
(20,899 posts)reasoning, and grasp of reality. Please keep it coming, for imo a hostile takeover of our government has occurred: it is now basically a wholly-owned subsidiary of the plutocrats and oligarchs that acts almost solely in their interest and, consequently, to the detriment of all others except for occasionally throwing the masses few crumbs. 
Laelth
(32,017 posts)... just as, perhaps, it has always been their country, and by "them" I mean the plutocrats and oligarchs you mention. You know, these guys:
One nation, of the rich, by the rich, and for the rich.
Perhaps there never was a coup. Perhaps it has always been this way. If so, what should we do?
More here: http://laelth.blogspot.com/2011/01/turning-american-ship-of-state.html
-Laelth
indepat
(20,899 posts)
Laelth
(32,017 posts)Of course, they also agreed to count slaves as 3/5 of a person for the purpose of allocating representation in the House, so I don't want to give them too much credit, but it is true that their lofty ideals (which, for many of them, amounted to much more than lip service), have provided a great deal of stability and continuity in government. Whether government, in practice, can ever achieve the egalitarian ends sought by some of the founding fathers remains to be seen.
-Laelth
WillyT
(72,631 posts)
Marr
(20,317 posts)It's unbelievable. I've been floored by depths of servility on display in our authoritarian wing.
99Forever
(14,524 posts)I idolize NO human being, including (perhaps. least of all) a politician, ESPECIALLY one that lied to me.
The Straight Story
(48,121 posts)We hired people to work for us.
We can call them leaders but only so much as they are hired to lead the battle for the ideals/laws we hired them to work on.
When the employee does well, praise for a good job. When they don't, well pull em into the office and explain they need to do it better.
Now...one of the problems I see are the people pulling Obama and others into their office are Jamie Dimon, Wall street, etc.
They don't read DU all that much I am sure Some probably do (as well as many other places) to keep up with the pulse of things (well, they probably have someone read it for them).
Many worked hard to get their employee the job. We had national elections, billions spent, countless hours invested.
Our job now is to make sure that those we have employed work together for our goals and call them out in anyway we can to get their attention when they don't.
***This is Different*** than when the people who didn't want our people to have the job call them out. Their goal is to set up their next employee to replace ours when the time comes for rotation. Their goals differ greatly from ours and they will use anything they can to spread fear/anger/etc because they believe it will affect the next choice (which is why we might be harder on their employee than our own).
We balance the need to complain about many things because it only adds to the overall critique of our person. So while pointing out the bad we also tend to spend more time pointing out the positive as well to get a truer version of the overall performance.
Apophis
(1,407 posts)More people here need to read this.
DarkLink
(52 posts)We need to go on the offense- look at these stories together:
Three days ago we found out that the Feds Sent Insider Info to Goldman Sachs, Barclays, JP Morgan, CITI, HSBC, UBS and Congress
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2013-04-10/fed-releases-names-early-fomc-minutes-recipients-include-employees-goldman-barclays-
and now today we find out
'Congress Repeals Financial Disclosure Requirements For Senior U.S. Officials'
http://www.democraticunderground.com/1014452676
These criminals are insider trading, all of them are working together, and this repealing of the disclosure requirements is for a very specific reason.
Laelth
(32,017 posts)Thanks for the post, and welcome to DU.
-Laelth
KG
(28,751 posts)woo me with science
(32,139 posts)just1voice
(1,362 posts)that they are incapable of anything but blind loyalist chanting and keeping up the facade that they're democrats. The current era of corruption we're living in wouldn't be possible if not for the blind loyalists whom take all accountability "off the table".
They make me sick in the exact same way bushbots did, they all suffer from massive psychological syndromes built on layers of denial.
ChairmanAgnostic
(28,017 posts)"Of course I support bush. He's the president!"
Bobbie Jo
(14,341 posts)What exactly is a "bimbette?"
I'd like to play along with your question o'the day.
It doesn't sound very smart at all. Am I close?
ChairmanAgnostic
(28,017 posts)A child singer/dancer with no voice. Sex tape. Collapse. Trying to reemerge as someone with talent, while sadly lacking all talent.
xiamiam
(4,906 posts)what the 'team' as you call it accomplishes..is to derail. Nobody even posts on a gitmo news thread. where god knows what is the fate of prisoners cleared to leave...but numerous threads like ..i love Obama, check out these pictures of the president smiling, Obama is the best president ever..etc etc. have dozens of responders. Like I said upthread, it just diminishes the relevance of a site like this. The same kind of site we used to make fun of here...freeperville..remember? Oh well..
boilerbabe
(2,214 posts):shudder:
SammyWinstonJack
(44,130 posts)
LiberalLovinLug
(14,168 posts)Bushes get elected by promising more moderate positions like...Bush senior with his "compassionate conservatives" and "a thousand points of light". Or Bush junior with his promise not to invade other countries for the sake of "nation building".....and then once elected they veer into extremist right wing territory and do whatever the bidding of the moneyed elite tell them to do.
Obama balanced his positions like insisting on an increased presence in Afghanistan, a "looking forward" to past administration war crimes, a lackluster response to big bank fraud....with promises like closing Gitmo, pushing for a public insurance option, and of course not touching SS, and a few other progressive promises.
While the Republican candidate,once in, shifts to the hard right, knowing his base will out-shout those on the moderate/left that feel betrayed, a Democratic President Obama doesn't do the mirror opposite and shift left and rely on supporters to lift him up, he maddeningly for us, shifts also to the right and simply drops many of his progressive promises. That is what is frustrating for many of us. After a decade of failures on Wall Street, and militarism abroad, he doesn't even give the progressive wing of the Democratic party a CHANCE. Ignoring Nobel winning economists like Krugman to have a say, and instead appointing Goldman Sachs executives to mold new policies.
Frustrated that in spite of his election mantra of "change", he has dived right into the pool of sharks and is now even forming his own fin in some kind of attempt to fit in. Hoping that he can convince them to swim over to his side...no?....ok a little more to the middle....no?...ok...towards their side....until eventually his place and theirs mingle to the point of coalescence way back on the right side of the pool
.....or was he always a shark in dolphins skin?
Laelth
(32,017 posts)The cause of the right-shifting phenomenon you describe is unclear to me, but I have a theory on it, here:
http://laelth.blogspot.com/2010/12/kissing-butt-and-taking-names-obamas.html
-Laelth
kentuck
(111,074 posts)Our elected representatives need to know that they will be held accountable. Silence and cowardice cannot be tolerated. We need people that will speak up for traditional Democratic principles. This would include speaking up for the "poor and needy". Those are words that seem to have escaped the Democrats' vocabulary for the last several years. Who knows, once the Republicans see that we are holding our leaders accountable, they may do the same??
amborin
(16,631 posts)
sofa king
(10,857 posts)I'm a former legislative analyst. I have watched with enthusiasm and amazement as the President has repeatedly found ways to turn Republican nastyness against themselves.
You know what I think about Chained CPI? I don't think jack shit has happened with it yet. I think a proposal to mess with it is more likely a tool, or a weapon, than a serious proposal. Show me a bill reported out of committee that makes it serious. Show me the public law that means it happened. A proposal is not a bill which is not a report which is not engrossed which is not a public law. If it's none of those things, it's crap.
Most of the rantings and ravings of betrayal about the proposal seem to me to be counterproductive and perhaps even counter-inspired in some cases--but I won't go there. Most of them seem to incorporate a completely fallacious and unwritten assumption that something has, or even can happen on the issue.
Here, look at what I said in 2011, and compare it to all of the hot air others blew off for years, over the Debt Committee mockery, for example, or tax cuts for the rich. (I am also wildly, famously wrong about things sometimes, but not about those above.) All that hand-waving and sky-falling bullshit because the echo-chamber of disaster shouts louder than the whisper of facts.
That is because, exactly as I noted in those links, few care about the actual procedure by which these things happen. None of you. Or so it seems some days. I see others like me, snidely nipping at the fringes of discussions like these with glimpses of insight, but too many of you just don't seem to want insight. You want to feel something about it, or trigger emotional responses in others about it.
Ultimately, I see a majority of you wasting time dividing a tomato not yet ripe on the plant. And I'm sorry if that pisses you all off, but you need to hear it.
Hissyspit
(45,788 posts)He's being "unfair" to people who actually know all that stuff and STILL find fault with the strategy and think it ineffective, counterproductive, or unnecessary.
randome
(34,845 posts)Ultimately, I see a majority of you wasting time dividing a tomato not yet ripe on the plant.
GeorgeGist
(25,318 posts)Laelth
(32,017 posts)It's still bad politics, I think, for Obama to even propose it. If this is a political stunt (or, as you call it, a weapon), I want to know what he hopes to accomplish with this proposal. To me, it looks like nothing more than bad policy and bad politics. Furthermore, it makes me look bad as a Democrat, and I am not happy about it.
-Laelth
sofa king
(10,857 posts)It's a bad move in that one side is clearly taking advantage of public perception and using it to sow division amongst ourselves, and to score negative points against all Democrats. This is the very least important political season of any four-year cycle, though, so the damage can be repaired.
The policy itself sucks, too, but others above and elsewhere have pointed that out far better than I can.
My beef is with people assuming this is a done deal, or that the President's proposal has any actual force of law, regulation, or even current and future policy.
I have no idea what the President is really up to on this, I won't lie. But we know that The President's plans are rarely revealed in their entirety until they are locked down so tight that they cannot be dismantled. So we can guess with a lot of accuracy that whatever is going on... is still ongoing. And that's about all we really know.
My best guess right now is that the President is making the best of being a lame duck and playing wounded. Something that is certainly factored in to the plan--and I hope to hell there is a plan--is that a large proportion of Republicans are proud of an unblemished record of opposition to everything the President proposes, so tactically, publicly proposing chained-CPI probably eroded votes for it in Congress. Perhaps the President is trying to deny the idea as a future compromise, but it's an awfully high price to pay for just that.
There is also an unusual historical precedent for this, which is that after Shrub stole Ohio, he took the flak all the following winter and spring, trying to steal Social Security by shoveling it in to the soon-to-fail markets. In the meantime, Congress was delaying two dozen investigations and writing blank checks to defense contractors while the media followed the President. Perhaps there is a reason why lame duck Presidents mess with Social Security--there are no political repercussions for them, personally, is one reason I can see.
Anyway, these snakes have a lot of twist left in 'em, is all I'm saying. I think it will be a long, long time before anything of substance actually happens on it. President Obama is still going to be an annoyingly centrist Democrat until then, and afterward, too. But he's probably not selling us out.
Probably.
Laelth
(32,017 posts)Chained CPI is not the law yet. We shall see what we see. I appreciate your insight.
-Laelth
treestar
(82,383 posts)They do not want any insight, or ironically and critiques of their criticisms. They want to be agreed with, plain and simple, and will not consider any issue or insight or the procedure by which these things are done.
cui bono
(19,926 posts)Saying people should be allowed to criticize the POTUS policies is unfair to you? WTF?
What country is this???
Number23
(24,544 posts)Don't you know that the only people who support this president and are not filling this web site with the most moronic panicking posts and OPs imaginable are just WORSHIPPERS!??! Haven't you seen the threads criticizing MSNBC, Lawrence O'Donnell, Mathew Yglesias and every other thinking person -- especially a LIBERAL thinking person -- that hasn't already doused their heads in kerosene and set their heads on fire over these proposed cuts??
Most of the rantings and ravings of betrayal about the proposal seem to me to be counterproductive and perhaps even counter-inspired
Join.The.Club.
All that hand-waving and sky-falling bullshit because the echo-chamber of disaster shouts louder than the whisper of facts.
Ultimately, I see a majority of you wasting time dividing a tomato not yet ripe on the plant. And I'm sorry if that pisses you all off, but you need to hear it.
I think I may love you. Just a little bit. Doesn't all of this remind you of that episode of The West Wing when CJ practically screamed at Josh about talking to people on the Internet? CJ to Josh: "The people on these sites? They're the cast of "One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest."
deutsey
(20,166 posts)I feel trapped.
I feel trapped in a political and economic system that does not serve my needs or the needs of the people in my life (I'm from the working class and am barely hanging on to the shrinking lower middle class).
I feel trapped in a dead-end job with stagnant wages while just about every other day I hear how smashingly well the well off are doing after they fucked up the economy and got rewarded with a bailout for it.
I feel trapped in helplessness as I watch my children grow up to face a frighteningly uncertain future of austerity, a crumbling infrastructure, intensifying global climate change, the probability of more wars.
And I feel trapped in a growing sense of apathy as I watch whomever I vote for or against fall all over themselves to make damn sure the rich and powerful elites get the lion's share of our country's wealth and resources while tossing people like me the scraps of what ever is left over...if we're lucky.
That's how I feel...I know it would be a helluva lot worse if Romney or McCain had won and, honestly, if Obama's gamesmanship is tripping up the GOP agenda in some kind of Game of Thrones they're all playing in DC, I'm all for that.
But in all honesty, I'm watching the quality of my life continuing to decline and it isn't because I'm not doing my best to "play by the rules" or whatever.
It's because, it seems to me, the game is rigged against people like me no matter who currently has the throne.
woo me with science
(32,139 posts)grow very, very angry...
myrna minx
(22,772 posts)sofa king
(10,857 posts)I also agree with you that the game is rigged--that becomes plainly apparent within a couple of weeks of watching Congress.
But the rigging is a human mechanism and humans can undo it, too. Democrats have done it before, under circumstances rather similar to these. I see Harry Reid and President Obama working hard to change things, though I know a great many of you do not see that at all.
Republicans are getting older, greedier, and less able to keep up with social and technological trends. The President has done an excellent job of locking them in a room with their own most virulent and unsustainable positions, to which they obstinately cling.
Republicans are also the most powerful agents of social change where I am, unfortunately negative change, but permanent change nonetheless. Their policies are uprooting suburban and rural Republicans as they lose their homes, jobs, and health care, and those people are flocking to the cities in order to take advantage of affordable housing, public transportation, and limited free health care. They're coming to the cities to die, some of them; all of their votes are instantly absorbed by the strong Democratic presence in the cities. In their places are moving young, well educated people who work remotely and who will likely look to knock off local Republican politicians if they want to change anything. They'll have the money, the sophistication, and the connections to do it, too.
So things are changing, not in a helluva hurry or in any way I would have wished to see, but they are improving in some ways.
deutsey
(20,166 posts)Reaganism, in all its various mutations and manifestations, continues enriching and empowering the ruling elites at the ever-growing expense of the rest of us.
I appreciate what you say here, but I'm not confident at all that thwarting and uprooting this trend is going to happen any time soon. In fact, just the opposite seems to be happening. It's becoming more firmly entrenched.
Believe me, I really hope I'm wrong and that that these small ripples of apparent change will eventally coalesce into a tidal wave of substantial change (to paraphrase RFK).
It sucks being a gloomy gus.
JackHughes
(166 posts)Sofa king is right. Since House Republicans will never agree to Obama's tax hikes, his budget proposal is just political theater designed to expose Republican intransigence on spending, taxation and the debt. It's a strategy to facilitate the Democrats taking back the House in 2014.
Obama is playing for larger, more important, stakes than chain CPI.
MissDeeds
(7,499 posts)K&R
Tierra_y_Libertad
(50,414 posts)They will gladly inform you of how good it is for you no matter how despicable it really is.
AverageJoe90
(10,745 posts)Response to AverageJoe90 (Reply #113)
carolinayellowdog This message was self-deleted by its author.
krispos42
(49,445 posts)Then the critic is an NRA troll.
Obama is right of center. DU is a good distance left of center. Therefore, he will be criticized for what he does, as it should be.
ProSense
(116,464 posts)Seriously.
Calls to refrain from criticizing our public servants, our elected representatives, should be met with scathing rebuff and ridicule. Period. When we hear this crap, it's time to pull out some good old-fashioned, "cut-them-down-to-size" American political cartoons and blowback to remind everyone watching that the politicians are accountable to us, not the other way around.
They are POLITICIANS, not deities. Let's not forget how this representative system is supposed to work.
There is a creepy authoritarian wind blowing in this country right now, and with it some very creepy, disturbing bids in the propaganda to trade away our American democratic concept of holding our elected public servants accountable, for a blind loyalty to and adoration of a Dear Leader.
It's important to mock and destroy propaganda that attempts to rhapsodize and deify politicians. Sometimes it seems trivial, and people get upset that you are raining on the "good feelings" of a puffy post....but when you have the very same people repeatedly posting adulatory, even deifying nonsense like this (all actual posts, mostly OP's, from the past few months), then it's important to deflate the puffery:
...what self-righteous drivel shrouded in victimization. I mean, there are up to a dozen posts or more criticizing the President every day, calling him everything from a complete disaster to a MFer.
Whenever anyone disagrees on point, you get "a blind loyalty to and adoration of a Dear Leader."
Do whatever the hell you want. Criticize, mock, reject, play the victim, but don't pretend that people disagreeing with you is the end of democracy.
Puglover
(16,380 posts)Really? So you call flinging around terms like "hater" disagreeing on a point?
I'd love to see some disagreement without all of the histrionics however the second someone drops a moronic pejorative like that I stop listening.
To your credit I have never seen you indulge in such ridiculous bullshit.
DrDan
(20,411 posts)"rhapsodize and deify" - pretty well describes this group
stupidicus
(2,570 posts)and I'd guess and bet, that in my short time participating here, that a very disproportionate amount of my time and text investments have been in response to/posting about exacty what you've addressed here. It is in some respects more important then the issues themselves, because it could well make for a difference between what we want and what we get as far as those issues are concerned.
It's almost like some around here (and elsewhere of course) bought into the "messiah" label the rightwingers assigned to BHO for us, and we imperfect ones have been insulting perfection or something.
As I noted in response to this, http://www.democraticunderground.com/?com=view_post&forum=1002&pid=2664259 which captures your message as well as it can be imo, it's bad enough that those you're indicting here have refused to do their duty for whatever reason, but their treatment of others who have sought to has really burned my ass.
I'd bet all of my "hidden posts" and those who've put me on "ignore" are all tied to this issue.
good post dude, and thanks for fighting the good fight
Arcanetrance
(2,670 posts)Laelth
(32,017 posts)-Laelth
carolinayellowdog
(3,247 posts)This brief article The Authoritarian Personality gives a brilliant insight into the dynamics of the "leader can do no wrong and must not be questioned" mindset. Four paras selected as most relevant to this thread:
More difficult than understanding the passive-authoritarian, masochistic character is understanding the active-authoritarian, the sadistic character. To his followers he seems self-confident and powerful but yet he is as frightened and alone as the masochistic character. While the masochist feels strong because he is a small part of something greater, the sadist feels strong because he has incorporated others — if possible many others; he has devoured them, so to speak. The sadistic-authoritarian character is as dependent on the ruled as the masochistic -authoritarian character on the ruler. However the image is misleading. As long as he holds power, the leader appears — to himself and to others — strong and powerful. His powerlessness becomes only apparent when he has lost his power, when he can no longer devour others, when he is on his own.
However, we can hardly close the topic of the authoritarian personality without talking about a problem that is cause for a lot of misunderstandings. When recognition of authority is masochism and its practice sadism, does that mean that all authority contains something pathological? This question fails to make a very significant distinction between rational and irrational authority. Rational authority is the recognition of authority based on critical evaluation of competences. When a student recognizes the teacher’s authority to know more than him, then this a reasonable evaluation of his competence. The same is the case, when I as the passenger of a ship recognize the authority of the captain to make the right and necessary decisions if in danger. Rational authority is not based on excluding my reason and critique but rather assumes it as a prerequisite. This does not make me small and the authority great but allows authority to be superior where and as long it possesses competence.
Irrational authority is different. It is based on emotional submission of my person to another person: I believe in him being right, not because he is, objectively speaking, competent nor because I rationally recognize his competence. In the bonds to the irrational authority, there exists a masochistic submission by making myself small and the authority great. I have to make it great, so that I can — as one of its particles — can also become great. The rational authority tends to negate itself, because the more I understand the smaller the distance to the authority becomes. The irrational authority tends to deepen and to prolong itself. The longer and the more dependent I am the weaker I will become and the more I will need to cling to the irrational authority and submit.
Liberalynn
(7,549 posts)Criticism is part of a healthy Democracy.
jannyk
(4,810 posts)
Lady Freedom Returns
(14,120 posts)WOW! 
Occulus
(20,599 posts)and that's why you rightly get the criticism you do.
Blue dogs like you are what most of us oppose.
treestar
(82,383 posts)Any issue raised by a supporter is ignored. There are posters obviously determined not to look into the issue further, lest it be found that things are not as they claim.
Says you that it is blind, too. I can see Republicans. Most of the bashers seem to think they don't exist and aren't elected to a majority of the House.
woo me with science
(32,139 posts)and that is a ludicrous charge. Read the responses in this thread. Many of them acknowledge the bones we have been thrown. However, the constant, overarching, overwhelming direction of this administration has been corporatist, and the anger about that is wholly justified.
On education policy, on health insurance, on the wars, on the police/surveillance state, on private prisons, on austerity, on drilling, on trade, etc., etc, etc. Every single day there is news posted of new policies, actions, or appointments by this administration that favor the one percent. And massive new corporate betrayals are always on the horizon. What are we expecting now in trade? The Trans-Pacific Free Trade Agreement. What are we expecting in energy? The approval of Keystone. When we ask about the liberal vision of this presidency, we still get the same stale, short list from years ago: Lilly Ledbetter, DADT, and disingenuous descriptions of a Heritage Foundation mandate to buy exorbitant bronze health insurance as a "liberal" triumph.
We were promised hope and change and representation, but every day our interests are put secondary to the banks and corporations. That's simply a fact.
senseandsensibility
(16,976 posts)What should be obvious just isn't to some people. They will continue to rail against any and all criticism of PBO however, no matter how factually accurate and calm it is.
russspeakeasy
(6,539 posts)
treestar
(82,383 posts)But that does not mean we have to agree. It also would be nice to see Republicans criticized for once. The Republicans are mean nasty people who want these types of cuts or they refuse to pass a budget. They would love to cut or eliminate all social programs. They know President Obama would not sign any bills they pass cutting all of it and declaring war on wherever, so they simply refuse to pass any budget. Not if they don't get their way. Unfortunately the separation of powers and their having a majority lets them do this.
I'm a little suspicious where there are posters who criticize the President only, and don't criticize the Republicans.
If you were President, I guess you would just have no budget pass at all in this situation. No one says what they would do in that situation or admits what the consequences would be.
h2ebits
(643 posts)I also find it creepy that no matter what the majority want--it seems to be ignored. We really need to get serious on pushing back--more in the street demonstrations--more regular people running for office at all levels who genuinely wish to serve their constituents.
On and on. . . . .
DirkGently
(12,151 posts)
Oilwellian
(12,647 posts)K&R Thank you!
zbdent
(35,392 posts)Has the "liberally-biased media" ever been to a liberal site?
Every f*cking time Obama kissed the Republicans' ring for a crumb ...
(like the >400K tax break that the Repugs scream that they "caved" on ...)
just1voice
(1,362 posts)whom have sat around for years posting ad-hom attacks such as "another foul gas cloud" which was just posted to me, LOL!
I guess the loyalists are completely happy supporting torture camps, stealing Soc. Sec., corrupt for-profit health scams, letting war criminals go, poisonous pipelines, killing civilians, rigged markets, too big to prosecute banks, cronyism, whistle blower retaliation, propaganda networks, illegal wars, etc...
I'm not happy with them at all and no American should ever be.
L0oniX
(31,493 posts)manipulated by some loyalist channel mods. Good luck trying to shame a DU member for being a loyalist lock step brown shirt ...you'll just get alerted on.
Jasana
(490 posts)as a retired accountant, this CCPI looks like a shit sandwich so anybody who proposes it should be criticized. And by the way, this bears repeating... SS has nothing to do with the deficit. Even Saint Ronnie knew that.
We need jobs. Jobs with decent wages. That will help with payroll taxes (which never should have been cut so low for so long to begin with.) Capital gains taxes. A financial transaction tax. Glass-Steagall put back in place. Medicare needs to be able to negotiate drug prices. This is just some basic common sense stuff I'm throwing out here.
It seems we are stuck with a bunch of Repubs who would rather tear the whole country down than see PBO succeed at anything. I feel for him but proposing CCPI does not make him look good. It does not make the democrats as a whole look good.
Laelth
(32,017 posts)Welcome to DU. With opinions like those you expressed above, you'll fit right in.
-Laelth
L0oniX
(31,493 posts)where they are not such empty humans in need of putting themselves into the latest American Idol or Hollywood star or race car driver of football "hero". What is very sad is that they can't recognize their emptiness. So we get those stupid ass ops of pictures of whoever ...like its something to fawn over, adore and admire. If I hear that fucking "Camelot" shit on tv again I'm gonna spew chunks. Bottom line is that for me it doesn't matter what any worshipper says ...I will reject it. It's not worth reading anything a worshipper has to say.
MrModerate
(9,753 posts)I think you're mixing up charisma with authoritarianism. Yes, people adore politicians because that's how human beings respond to those they identify as 'leaders.'
Unsurprisingly, this adoration has caused untold human misery throughout our history. It's made worse by modern campaigning methods which — as you rightly identify — have made elections into exercises in marketing politicians' supposed virtures rather than humbling experiences where they need to appeal to the people to keep their jobs.
But I see no serious pushback against critcizing politicians — quite the contrary. With the Internet now the most significant battleground where public political battles are fought, the criticism of politicians (and everyone else) has become almost deafening.
Scathe away at venal politicians — you'll be in good company.
In Truth We Trust
(3,117 posts)JimDandy
(7,318 posts)Nicely said.
Skittles
(153,138 posts) 
Skip Intro
(19,768 posts)fascisthunter
(29,381 posts)It's just pre-packaged over marketed tactics they use to try to shut you down. It's obvious what they are doing here.
slipslidingaway
(21,210 posts)creeksneakers2
(7,473 posts)"The creepily serious bids for fawning unquestioning obeisance to our "Leaders" and the vicious attacks on anyone who does not comply..."
I read persecution fantasy threads here all the time but have almost never seen someone being told they can't or shouldn't give their opinion. I certainly haven't seen anything like "North Korea." Opposition to chained CPI is almost unanimous here. Those who defend Obama generally don't do so by supporting chained CPI.
Lot's of people like to believe they are heroic somehow. I hear righties on the radio making the same claims, that they are persecuted somehow for their beliefs.
If anybody gets angry responses here, its the few devoted Obama supporters, who by the way, don't believe Obama is a god.
Response to woo me with science (Original post)
Post removed
BrotherIvan
(9,126 posts)
uriel1972
(4,261 posts)I loved the fact that someone other than an old white guy made it there. However since he's been there I have had trouble with a number of his policies and I feel it is legitimate to criticize them.
I am offended by your implication that I am racist and your allusion to Nazi Germany in the purity statement wasn't very nice either. Not to mention that you put the liberal in quotes as if I am some sort of faux liberal or the broad brush smear against atheists.
Are there any more names you want to call me or imply I belong to the KKK or something?
You really are a piece of work and I am glad you don't think I am on your side.
On edit: I have alerted on your post. Congratulitions my first ever alert was on you
G_j
(40,366 posts)cause this person could use one
Arugula Latte
(50,566 posts)Someone has issues. Major issues.
ProSense
(116,464 posts)how about pushing some proposals: http://www.democraticunderground.com/10022670043
ReRe
(10,597 posts).... and the real Democrats see straight through it and scream to high heaven about it, THAT'S when the wind starts blowing on DU. This is NOT the Republican party. We do not follow our dear leader over the effing cliff. We all love PO, but Democrats do have a bottom line. That's all I can say about this issue for now...
erpowers
(9,350 posts)On every issue we should have discussions concerning what effects proposed policies will have on Americans. If people do not support a politicans idea(s) then, yes, they should criticize that politican.
sendero
(28,552 posts).... to refrain from criticizing our public servants, our elected representatives, should be met with scathing rebuff and ridicule"
that's pretty much what I do. that shit is for idiot Bushbots and various other flavors of pathological Republicans.
Yo_Mama
(8,303 posts)In fact, it pretty much frustrates the whole point of our representational system. If we don't let our elected officials know that we think they are on the wrong path, how will they do a good job of representing us?
This should be even more true of one's "own" party.
However people who just hurl BS at the president do irk and offend me. People who are arguing about a policy with which they strongly disagree are really supporting the party and the president, IMO.
Good post with many good points.
Autumn
(45,034 posts)They're elected officials and citizens have the right to do either. Good post
still_one
(92,116 posts)no public option was offered.
You are right on, we are a representative government, and if are representatives do NOT represent us, you are darn right we should criticize them
JackHughes
(166 posts)Too bad Obama can't govern by presidential decree instead of having to deal with a Republican House and a feckless Democratic "majority" in the Senate.
Want to do something actually constructive? Elect more -- and better -- Dems to Congress in 2014.
Odd Won Out
(85 posts)that I've read in read in years. Great job Woo me with Science! Of course if this was 2 years ago, you would have been banned during the great dissenters purge that DU had. Its good to see DU allowing more opinions other than "support the president or find another forum" policy.
Obama has done some great things, but he is not the deity that most DUers insist we support no matter what.
I hope this doesn't get me banned.
xchrom
(108,903 posts)
TekGryphon
(430 posts)As I said in another thread, I cannot agree with so many of you on your outrage over Chained CPI and I believe you're doing a great disservice to the Democratic party and the nation.
Obama effectively destroyed Chained CPI as a possible agenda item for the GOP. For years they've been trying to get it put into effect through backroom negotiations. By taking the issue and putting it front and center on the public stage he has forced all sides, including the 4th estate, to review it and to recognize its grievous flaws.
He was a lame-duck President making a fake compromise on a bill that was 100% guaranteed to be rejected to a party that opposes any stance he makes on principle. In doing so, Obama destroyed Chained CPI in a way that was utterly predictable (my friends and I called it on Facebook within the hour of its announcement) to everyone but the angry right and the angry left.
It was not 4th dimension chess. It was an obvious solution that I cheered wildly for the moment I saw it, and cheered even louder when I saw the GOP and corporate media fall right into their predetermined rolls. The only thing that took me by surprise was the left who, instead of opening their eyes and watching the destruction of Chained CPI, decided to use this as a chance to express their misgivings over their party being in ascendency in the American mind.
G_j
(40,366 posts)people who I've trusted in the past that have swayed me.
TekGryphon
(430 posts)Bernie Sanders did an excellent job championing our moral opposition, but Paul Krugman has taught us the economic folly of actions like this long ago.
We need our seniors to be solidly in the middle class. Every dollar invested in them is a dollar that goes straight back into the economy. Every dollar invested in them provides economic relief for their families who don't need to burden themselves financially. Every dollar invested in them ensures they stay retired and opens the workforce to hungry young workers.
It's one of the smartest investments we can make, and Obama knows it.
Laelth
(32,017 posts)Your lack of sympathy for the "angry left" tells me all I need to know about what you think it means to be a Democrat.
That said, I hope you are right and that Chained CPI is off the table for good. I doubt it. I think it was bad politics to even propose it. It makes the Democratic Party look bad, but I still hope you are right.
-Laelth
randome
(34,845 posts)And the outrage at DU does not seem to match that of the real world.
It seems like a bad idea for Obama to have even offered this but he has given indication time and again that he knows what he's doing.
Babel_17
(5,400 posts)can be seen as being up for debate, imo. The 4th estate recognizing its grievous flaws is due in part to that being a story that sells. Thank Senator Sanders and many others for that being the case.
If Chained CPI is destroyed why are prominent supporters of the administration arguing its reasonableness?
I know that our side loves to run ads showing the other side going back on what they once said. Did you see the video of Reagan saying, leave SS alone, it doesn't contribute to the debt?
Well, the Republicans now have lots of stuff to add to their archive.
Plus, btw, what do you think of the argument floating around that the Chained CPI is a good thing because trading it buys us some great things? Going with that argument is that the Chained CPI is reasonable, and not having grievous flaws and that we should get behind it?
I get where you're coming from, I think, and I know there's a cost to dissension. But, with respect, all the heated rhetoric might have you missing the arguments from the other side.
P.S. Congratulations on official membership.
TekGryphon
(430 posts)You're right in that this may have given Republicans some talking points about Social Security.
Who cares? Honestly?
Do you really believe anyone takes Republicans at face value when they say THEY'RE the party that opposed slavery? Do you really believe anyone is going to take them any more seriously when they say THEY'RE the party trying to reinforce entitlements?
Bernie Sanders, Paul Krugman, and plenty of other subject matter experts are out there doing exactly what they need to be doing - presenting the left's viewpoint that Chained CPI is as big of an economic disaster (reduced aggregate demand, more seniors in an already struggling workforce, etc) as it is morally.
We should be echoing those points, talking to friends, family, coworkers, and neighbors and helping them understand that putting seniors on the streets doesn't just hurt seniors, it hurts all of us.
Instead we're spending a seemingly inordinate amount of time black balling the President for finally doing what we've been trying to do for years - get Chained CPI into the public's attention so we can destroy it as an idea once and for all.
In my mind Obama learned from the Individual Mandate. Had it been proposed by a lame-duck Democratic President sooner (say Bill Clinton circa 1999) as a compromise during a time when health reform wasn't really on the table, we might actually have had the Public Option in the ACA, because the public would have already got a good glimpse at the Individual Mandate and decided it wasn't the right solution.
woo me with science
(32,139 posts)All of us, the people, need to get out there and talk to friends, family, coworkers about how the Chained CPI is an economic disaster and a scam,
but, the President, WHO HAS A BULLY PULPIT, should not be criticized when he has spent the past four years taking what used to be Republican talking points about the economy and the need to cut Social Security and transforming them into a bipartisan national narrative.
Good grief.
TekGryphon
(430 posts)... you'd understand. You're right, Obama SHOULD be against cutting social security. He SHOULD be for strengthening it.
Guess what? That's exactly what he's done. His last term was littered with ways he has fought for the elderly, and the closing of the doughnut hole was one of my favorite.
And after years saying that social security was too vital to our seniors and our economy to afford Chained CPI he comes out and says "Republicans refuse to raise additional revenues unless I agree to this ghastly Chained CPI, so I'll put it in the budget". He says it knowing full well that budget has a ZERO percent chance of passing.
His timing and his delivery were perfect. Everyone knew it was a compromise, everyone knew it was there to appease Republicans, and everyone knew that Republicans were monumental dicks for refusing to work on revenues unless they got it.
Except a certain segment of the Democratic party didn't want to join in on destroying Chained CPI. They did what they always do - dog pile on Obama and take vicious glee in ripping apart his image and the image of their party.
So now the middle 90% of the country knows what's up: Chained CPI is bad and the Republicans wanted it. There's only 2 groups who deny it. The extreme idiot right, made up of Bacchman and others, who now want to reinvent history and pretend Republicans didn't want Chained CPI, and the extreme idiot left, who want to act like Obama put Chained CPI in the budget because he wants it.
woo me with science
(32,139 posts)Nice.
I am always amused by this line of argument: that making this formal proposal yielded the awesome benefit of showing America how extreme and unreasonable Republicans are.
We all know that polls showed for months and even years now that America *already* considered Republicans to be the more extreme and unreasonable party. In spades. That was the atmosphere in which Obama entered these negotiations.
So what did he do? He offers it, FORMALLY. And Republicans decline. So he took a situation in which Republicans were clearly and unequivocally considered the extreme and unreasonable ones, and he turned it into a situation in which Republicans can now run on the FACT that Democrats proposed to cut SS benefits, and they protected them. And they will. And don't think it won't work.
"Idiot Left," indeed.
The spin you are offering here is absurd. It is also nothing new, having been repeated ad nauseum by others here who shift almost on a daily basis in their rationalizations for this administration's repeated betrayals of the 99 percent.
If you think we have seen the last of the Chained CPI, you are living in a very pleasant alternative to reality. Because of Obama's behavior, we will be fighting this battle for a long, long time.
Barack Obama: "This is not a bloodless process."
Barack Obama: "Too many of us have been interested in defending programs as written in 1938."
More here: http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=439x1540315
TekGryphon
(430 posts)The Individual Mandate was championed by the think-tanks on the right for decades and we allowed them to make their compromise during the backroom deals of the Affordable Care Act. That kept it out of the public's eye until Obama signed it into law.
Had Bill Clinton proposed the Individual Mandate as a compromise solution during 1999 when Health Care reform wasn't seriously on the table and Republicans were opposing everything he did for spite (sound familiar), the public would have had a discussion on it and concluded it was a shitty idea compared to the Public Option.
Obama took Chained CPI and dragged it, kicking and screaming, into the very front of the stage. Every news organization is discussing it. Every economist is considering it. Every neighborhood is talking about it.
Everyone hates it.
Republicans now have as much chance of getting Chained CPI passed as they do of reimplementing segregation.
woo me with science
(32,139 posts)He had to enter Chained CPI into the negotiations, in order to eliminate it from the negotiations. It wasn't on the table, so he had to put it there, in order to get it off.
I suppose it was inevitable, if the one percent needed to shift our party into a purveyor of predatory corporate legislation, that the propaganda would have to reach this level of absurdity.
Blaming Republicans or blaming the voters for Democratic betrayals only works for so long, and becomes progressively less believable as these excuses are applied to situations in which the Democrat exercised full and sole discretion.
So in order to claim fidelity to traditional Democratic values, there is no option for messaging other than to argue that the President proposes predatory legislation...because he actually opposes it.
The rationale for this sort of Orwellian spin makes perfect sense, but it is still chilling to watch.
So now we have:
War is Peace.
Freedom is Slavery.
Ignorance is Strength.
Chained CPI is Superlative.
Drone Murders are Legal, Ethical, and Wise.
and
Obama proposes Social Security Cuts because he Opposes Them.
Thank you for your insight.
Babel_17
(5,400 posts)So, there's a case to be made that it is smarter to not ignore that and instead do it and let Boehner choke on it.
I'd argue otherwise, but there is a case imo.
But I've yet to see any Democrat explain why, if it was a trap, the administration has been making the case for the Chained CPI being fair. Why are administration supporters also arguing its fairness?
If you bait a trap with poison, you don't neutralize the poison.
And one more thing.
We now have to come up with another budget proposal, unless we insist on the one with the Chained CPI.
Are we now going to get tough or is our next proposal going to offer red meat to Boehner in exchange for taking the Chained CPI out? Will we have just negotiated with ourselves again? And that after starting off with a compromise budget?
I really hope our party has girded their loins for selling the idea, in a big way, that the Republicans are being bigger anarchists than usual. If not, we aren't off to a good start in the negotiations.
If we don't get Boehner to submit something without a Chained CPI, then things could get really antsy.
If Boehner submits a budget with a Chained CPI we can either hope for a public groundswell against it, along with the media deriding it, or we end up having to attack the inclusion of a Chained CPI because it's just wrong. That could be a harder challenge than we ordinarily might expect.
TekGryphon
(430 posts)Obama did not "propose" Chained CPI. The Republicans demanded it.
What Obama did was put Chained CPI into the very first round of (very public) negotiations as a compromise. That was the part you don't seem to get, and that's the part the rest of us do.
Republicans are furious now. Chained CPI is being attacked from all sides. Democrats hate it for moral and economic reasons. Tea Party zealots hate it because Obama said it. Media hates it because they can't find anyone to play their false equivalency game.
Chained CPI is DEAD thanks to Obama dragging it out on Day 1 of the "budget story" instead of waiting until Republicans put it in themselves during backroom negotiations.
woo me with science
(32,139 posts)I will let that remarkable sentence sit all by itself as the conclusion, and exquisite representation of, this surreal exchange.
TekGryphon
(430 posts)I know it's hard to remember all the way back to December 2012. So long ago. How can anyone expect to keep up?
Sorry to derail your revisionist train, though. Feel free to ignore that article and flail around getting it back on track.
Babel_17
(5,400 posts)Passing it would say that they have been right all along, "Big Government has been printing money and running up our debt to prop up a failed program, individual retirement accounts for all, yay!"
It would be the nose under the tent.
Also, they'd want to tinker with it and neutralize any effects of increasing the income tax. They'd take credit for that.
Serious People in the media like it.
I think you're right about the Tea Party. Lots of them will despise seeing their benefits go to anything else. And of course, there's the tax hikes. So the Republicans would have to spend lots of effort dealing with them.
Babel_17
(5,400 posts)The MSM is owned by and edited by and mouthed by a class of people that is loyal to the establishment.
In this Twilight Zone the goal posts are moved around by Serious People. Middle of the road is defined by a right that is perpetually wandering to an ever more extreme position on the map while the Democratic Party passively watches the media chase after them. The Serious People shout to us from the distance and say, "Here's the middle ground."
That's the world we live in and you don't give them a pass on any of their insane ideas.
The administration didn't just tuck in the language for the Chained CPI into the budget. The administration has been arguing its fairness. Administration allies have, in coordination, been arguing its fairness. On these forums people have been arguing its fairness.
Explaining to the public that this was just political jujitsu? Not in this Twilight Zone, nope.
Now, politically things can go our way in 2014 and even 2016. Maybe even it will be the case that the Chained CPI will be part of the Republican overreach that brings us those victories.
That won't make tarting up the Chained CPI any smarter of a move in the long term and it could possibly even be a Pyrrhic victory in the shorter term; If we are judging success by a measure that highly rates preserving SS benefits. If not, then by that metric, bravo, there might be a victory ahead.
The Second Stone
(2,900 posts)Obama is a mediocre leader at best. He may be all we've got and better than the Republicans, but I'm certainly not going refrain from criticizing his administration when it is due. I'll offer praise when that is due. He has made come good judicial appointments.
jazzimov
(1,456 posts)based on actual FACTS, then I would be willing to discuss it with you.
However, when you continue to make accusations that are based on non-factual information, then people like me will continue to call you out on it.
Some people continue to be "anti-Obama" no matter what the argument may be or how flimsy it may be, as long as they can score political points. I have to wonder about those consistently anti-Obama posters and their ultimate goals.
We do know that there are are professionally- paid posters whose only intent is to spread dissent among sites like DU.
I am not saying that you are one of these, but that there are those who do so intentionally and for paid compensation.
Redlegjumpmaster
(4 posts)I have opposing views to a variety of concepts from all political parties. Does that take away my citizenship status?
woo me with science
(32,139 posts)and I'd love you to link to any false information I've given out. If you know me as well as you seem to claim to (I'm not that familiar with you), you won't deny that my posts are usually heavily linked to support factual claims I make. Not only that, I actually try to make *my* blue links *relevant* to the topic at hand. My opinion posts tend to assume a certain level of background knowledge on the part of the reader, as most opinion posts around here do.
Nobody pays me or employs me to post, nor is any of my posting, or the fact that I post here, connected in any way to any organization, group, or person other than myself. Since you brought it up, it might be interesting to see who around here can make that definitive statement, and who can't. I have always said that I believe advertisements should be clearly labeled as such.
Redlegjumpmaster
(4 posts)A citizen should never be told that a government should be followed without question, without checks and balances. A citizen should never be stripped of his or her rights under the constitution by elected officials. It is actually a citizen's civic duty to be a voice of critical discussion on matters that affect our communities and nation as a whole.
Example:
I have yet to see the victims and or family members of victims of all the mass shootings crying for the justice system to punish the criminals whom pulled the triggers of the "Guns" that so many have jumped on the banned wagon to regulate or ban. If as much effort were put into the proper enforcement and execution of the laws we already have written and the budgets supported for the execution of the processes in place, justice would already be served and proper remedies in place to curb similar incidents.
The only person you can trust is the one whom you can personally control. That would be you, all others are suspect and motives and agendas are to be questioned. More so even for public servants.
truebrit71
(20,805 posts)This cult of personality coupled with blind obedience is actually rather worrying...there are quite obviously paid operatives here that try their damnedest...but their links and their bias is easy to spot...me, I judge them by how their words translate into deeds...and call them out when they don't match...
woo me with science
(32,139 posts)Gravely so. There are far too many signs of creeping authoritarianism around us, not just beginning, but in many cases already here.
And the propaganda is getting really bizarre and creepy.
truebrit71
(20,805 posts)..and that is NOT good at all...
woo me with science
(32,139 posts)We are well into Orwellian territory now.
http://www.democraticunderground.com/?com=view_post&forum=1002&pid=2674198
