You know what really pisses me off?

[Mythsaje]

The fact that, through manipulation and media complicity, the Republicans set the tone for the past decade or more by altering very landscape of the discussion. They didn't approach the opposition on bended knee asking "can we have this one little thing, please? They told everyone "This is what we're going to do," leaving the opposition in a weakened position trying to defend against it, knowing that they'd have a hell of a time blocking all but the worst excesses. When they went after Social Security, they had to have known they'd never accomplish their objective. But they managed to get everyone to agree to their idea that it was insolvent and needed to be "fixed."

Now that I've had a while to consider it, I'm actually rather amused by the "Waaah, I didn't a pony" crowd. It's not so much not GETTING the pony that's the problem, it's the fact that we never even bothered asking for the fucking thing in the first place. In fact, if we'd really wanted a pony, we should've asked for the whole Budweiser team we see every Christmas on TV. But no. The best we can ask for, apparently, is a stuffed pony so we can eventually get one of those sticks with a stuffed horse-head on top. And even THAT much comes with a knock-down drag-out fight attached.

Politics is the art of compromise. Well, no shit. But that doesn't mean we should come to the table asking for the very least we can possibly get. That's not compromise, that's surrender. "Oh, but they might oppose us with strong words." I hate to say it, but those assholes would oppose a measure to declare the sky blue if a Democrat proposed it. That sure as hell shouldn't stop us. It shouldn't even make us hesitate. "The sky is goddamned blue and if you don't like it you can shove it!"

So what does early capitulation gain us? Nada. The damn Repugs STILL wanted to rename us the Democrat Socialist party or some such nonsense. Bipartisanship my pale white posterior. All that really means, apparently, is surrender before the battle even starts.

You know what I think? I think our party is full of chickenshits. They might be called a bad word. One worse than "chickenshit," even. Or a word that has been ALLOWED to become bad--like "leftist." Or, worse yet, "far-leftist." Clue alert--"far leftists" have no voice in this country. At all. It's getting so bad that even the center-leftists have little more than a breathless whisper.

We need bold leadership and we get milquetoasts. "We wouldn't want to offend anyone." Oh, fuck that. They've been offending us with impunity for HOW long? And why should asking for the moon offend anyone in the first place? What--that's only a Republican option?

In the end this victory was a coalition effort. It involved center, center-left, and left-center Democrats, not to mention a few of us weird left-libertarians. We wanted change so badly we jonesed for it like a junkie for his next fix. What we got was a badly diluted product. And people wonder why some of us are just a LITTLE upset?

Now give me that fucking pony.

[Deja Q]

1. Well, if you don't get your pony spayed or neutered...

[Mythsaje]

3. Why? Do we have a stray pony problem I'm not aware of? n/t

[laststeamtrain]

2. "But that doesn't mean we should come to the table asking for the very least we can possibly get."

Centrist is where you end up after a negotiation not where you start.

Establishment Democrats suck more & more as time goes on.

I'm too old for this shit.

[Fire1]

23. Hang around til about 2020. The progressives will be in full

swing by then. Now THAT will be the change you're looking for. Obama is the beginning.

[jgraz]

4. What's amazing is how many people are proud of not learning from experience

After Reagan, Bush I, Clinton and Bush II, this should no longer be a difficult concept to grasp.

[Mythsaje]

6. You'd think...

But you'd be wrong.

[jgraz]

16. Well, I appreciate your thoughtful posts on the subject

Right now, I can't manage a coherent essay. The whole topic makes me so angry I can't think straight.

[Mythsaje]

18. Thanks...

I feel like I'm beating the skin right off the drum, but this stuff really has me pissed off. And it's not as though I'm just complaining--I'm offering alternatives. STOP letting them run the show. TAKE bold action. COMMUNICATE effectively. FRAME the issue. No one can say they don't know what to do or how to do it better.

[jgraz]

20. I made a post the night Obama won

It said something to the effect of, "now the real work begins." Many people agreed who are now anything they can to shut down the debate. I just don't get it.

[Mythsaje]

24. I think I wandered through that night

and saw that post. No truer words have ever been typed. Too bad there are so many who don't understand what that means.

[Echo In Light]

8. Amazing that otherwise intelligent people continue to buy the BS over and over and over and over

[napoleon_in_rags]

5. Yeah. The recipe is so simple. Define the terms of the debate.

So the popular president of the US is debating with a highly unpopular Ex-VP as an equal in the eyes of the media about whether or not torture techniques from the inquisition should be applied in violation of the constitution, while the next bill goes through congress ramping up the wars in the middle east, and OUR money is being handed out to bankers. The debate is being framed on issues so absurd that travesties roll by unnoticed in the background.

[nichomachus]

7. This looked like a good post, but

I stop reading when I get to "didn't get a pony" or "waaahmbulance" or any of the other bullshit terms used to put people down.

Too bad you used it.

[Mythsaje]

9. Yeah, I used it.

Steal its power and it's yours. Now when people use it, just say "Give me the fucking pony" and refer them to this post.

Easy.

[DireStrike]

11. You should probably read the surrounding sentence. Possibly even the paragraph.

[rufus dog]

10. The Pukes and Media control the agenda

Negotiations and debates are set up between the radical pukes on the right and centrists. We have chEENey leading the charge and getting the press. It would be equivalent to giving Kucinich hundreds of hours to frame the debate. Thus what occurs is a media masturbation regarding water boarding and setting up a "debate" between Obama's and chEEney's positions. If it was reported correctly the focus would be on what type of penalties should be handed out, as opposed to the ridiculous, is water boarding torture. And chEEney would be sent to a dark corner.

[Mythsaje]

12. Therein lies my primary criticism of Obama in this regard:

The media CANNOT ignore what he has to say. They have to report it. So if HE were boldly framing the debate (which he isn't), we'd have considerably more leverage.

[leftstreet]

13. Then why did the 'pukes and media' let Dems swing the 2006 midterms?

:shrug:

Remember how the Democrats (especially Murtha) dominated the news cycles with the antiwar message that gave them the majority in 2006?

Whaa' happened?

[Echo In Light]

14. Evil fuckers are smart enough to know when to throw The People an illusory bone

"We got a kinder, gentler, machine gun-hand." ~ Neil Young

[Javaman]

15. sorry, but the pony is dead. nt

[Mythsaje]

17. Obviously didn't have health insurance...n/t

[abq e streeter]

19. Once again, you've spoken for me--wish I could've said it half as well...

you're right on the fuckin money... and each day I feel less and less hope that America will ever find its way out of this wilderness. The Democratic "leadership" will, on a good day, tinker around the edges of this corrupted system and that makes them preferable to repubs right there, but my fears ,which I'd expressed to all who'd listen in the last couple of years, that no politician who really wants to get at the rotting core of the system will ever be allowed anywhere near real power, were, I believe, fully justified. My god, how I still hope that somehow you and I will be proven wrong about Obama and our party's "leaders". But the spinelessness and complicity has been going on long enough that I'm running pretty low on hope these days.

[debbierlus]

21. Pssssssst...You want to know why you should be REALLY pissed off?

Because the dems are not 'chicken-shit' at all...

The dems are nothing more then 'good cop' to their 'bad cop'...

The vast majority (and we all know the handful of great politicians, aside, such as Mr. Kucinich) don't give a chickenshit or rat's ass about the people. Dems or repukes.

They are part of the corporate fascist machine. They are worse then cowards. They are, out and out, TRAITORS!

How much longer are we going to play along with their game of pretend?

[Mythsaje]

22. That's a very serious charge...

Absent direct evidence to the contrary, I'd prefer to call them chickenshits. That's just "best case scenario."

And people say I'm not an optimist.

[JeffR]

25. K & R

because there isn't time to say "Oh, we won" and "Obama is going to turn everything around". He might turn a lot of things around if people who really understand just how seriously screwed up things are keep pushing him and the Congress to do it. If we don't, it will be more our failure than Obama's.

[Mythsaje]

26. Absolutely...

The more noise we make, the better. But it should be about what we expect out of them, not that they suck, or that they're traitors, or whatever else. It needs to be critical, but constructive as well. "Fight like you mean it, damn you."

[JeffR]

27. Yes, and if they don't have the stomach for the fight

we leave them at the roadside and press on without them. Or there's no point in the effort at all.

[Kitty Herder]

28. K&R I keep thinking the same thing.

Surrendering before the battle has begun is NOT compromise and not bipartisanship.

[lib2DaBone]

29. Well said.... K&R

This crap has been going on for over 40 years. Republican.. the moral majority... holier-than-thou hypocrites toe-tapping in the mens room...while America crumbles.

It is sickening.

[Senator]

30. K&R

[Fumesucker]

31. Yeah, but you still have somewhere around half of DU that disagrees with you..

I really have to wonder if any of these "moderate centrists" have ever negotiated for anything in their lives, if they did they got taken to the cleaners.

It seems to me that these are the type of people who go into a car dealer and pay the full asking price on a full sized SUV these days.

The political leadership is a different matter, they know exactly what they are doing and they end up where they want, with their corporate sponsors getting ninety plus percent of what _they_ want.

I really wish more Democratic voters would see through this and move over to the far left, that's really the only way we can begin to move back toward the center while the Repubs are screaming and crying to move to the far right. This is a tug of war and one team is putting their entire weight to move the rope in their direction while half the other team is just holding onto the rope with one hand and giving a slight tug.

And yeah, it pisses me off too. Nice post, rec'd.

[bvar22]

32. "Centrism"....because its so easy!

You don't have to STAND for anything, and get to insult those who do !

Whatever is in the Middle of the Road is good enough for me !

[Mythsaje]

33. Hah!

Notice that the usual suspects pretty much stayed out of this thread? Maybe because they really had no way to refute it? Anyone with any wits at all can grasp the point, and see exactly where our Congresscritters are going wrong. Now we can debate whether it's cowardice or complicity, but the fact remains that they're doing a particularly shitty job.

[Fovea]

34. Rip off the Tu-tus

strap on the Titanium knee pads.
Kick them in the nads til they remember 'please' and 'thank you.'

I want the whole freakin Vienna Spanish Riding Academy stable!