Obama the Appeaser: Wooing the Economic Royalists

[Better Believe It]

Obama the Appeaser
Wooing the Economic Royalists
By NORMAN SOLOMON
Solomon is longtime associate of the media watch group Fairness & Accuracy In Reporting (FAIR). He is the Executive Director of the Institute for Public Accuracy.
November 18, 2010

In his first term, President Franklin Roosevelt denounced “the economic royalists.” He drew the line against the heartless rich: “They are unanimous in their hate for me -- and I welcome their hatred.”

What a different Democratic president we have today.

For two years -- from putting Wall Street operatives at the top of his economic team to signaling that he’ll go along with extension of Bush tax cuts for the wealthy -- Barack Obama has increasingly made a mockery of hopes for a green New Deal.

The news from the White House keeps getting grimmer. Since the midterm election, we’re told, Obama has concluded that he must be more conciliatory toward the ascendant Republican leadership in Congress -- and must do more to appease big business.

Fifteen days after the election, the Washington Post reported that Obama -- seeking a replacement for departing top economic adviser Lawrence Summers -- “is eager to recruit someone from the business community for the job to help repair the president’s frayed relationship with corporate America.”

The last thing we need is further acquiescence to the economic royalists. What we need is exactly the opposite: leadership to push back against the Republican Party’s right-wing ideologues and the forces they represent.

Please read the full article at:

http://www.counterpunch.org/solomon11182010.html

[Donnachaidh]

1. kick and Rec! n/t

[ProSense]

2. Setting the Record Straight on Roosevelt

Setting the Record Straight on Roosevelt

President Obama is right to hold Congress accountable for the shortcomings that many progressives have identified in his legislation to date. He is also correct when he says that the unprecedented use of the filibuster in recent years has had a profound negative effect on the workings of our democracy. Given the nature our political system, the demise of the liberal republican, and the willingness of the Republican Party to pursue an obstructionist political strategy, his passage of the stimulus package, the health care bill and financial reform deserve at least a measure of qualified support among the progressive community.


<...>

Unfortunately for all of us, but especially for President Obama, who is no doubt sincere in his desire to move the country toward a shared sense of economic prosperity, the Congress he inherited in 2009 was nothing like the Congress that FDR faced in 1933. In FDR’s day, some of his strongest critics were conservative Democrats, while some of his strongest supporters were liberal Republicans. Congress also understood and agreed that the country was indeed facing an “unprecedented national emergency,” and as such tended to put the needs of the nation ahead of partisan political interests. In this much healthier political environment, the filibuster was a rare event and it was not only possible, but fairly common, for New Deal legislation to pass with both Republican and Democratic support. That is something for which all of us can be thankful, as many of the measures passed by Congress and the President more than seventy years ago have helped stop today’s Great Recession from becoming a second Great Depression.

Easy to use bullshit name calling to spin nonsense.

[Vincardog]

3. K&R

[Poboy]

4. recommend

[Better Believe It]

5. So who is actually in charge?

[Poboy]

6. .