Roseanne Barr goes there (albeit not completely seriously):
I first would allow the guilty bankers to pay, you know, the ability to pay back anything over $100 million [of] personal wealth because I believe in a maximum wage of $100 million. And if they are unable to live on that amount of that amount then they should, you know, go to the reeducation camps and if that doesn’t help, then being beheaded,” Barr said with a straight face.
As much it pains me to admit it, I think that having some people talk this way does move the, you know, Overton window in a way that makes raising the highest marginal rate seem like the centrist position that it actually is. I think that the McSudermans’ BFF puts it well:
Watching the growth of Occupy Wall Street solidarity protests around the country, it’s hard not to be reminded of the lost opportunity to mobilize a left-wing popular movement back in the winter of 2008-2009 and the spring of 2009. That was a time when Congress was psychologically prepared to address the issues of joblessness, the availability of health care and education, and the ecological sustainability of the global economy. But instead of hearing from a popular protest movement driving at roughly those things, the powers that be were faced instead with a mania for austerity and deregulation driven by racial resentment.
The problem at that point was the fundamentally paradoxical attitude of the Democratic Party leadership. On the one hand, they want to be in the center of American politics. On the other hand, they’re viciously opposed to the emergence of any kind of mass movement to the left of the Democratic Party leadership. This combination of preferences is simply not viable.
There’s something wrong with the simplistic “the left needs its own tea party” stuff people are throwing around. The left and right are too different in this country to make those kinds of comparisons. But, yes, if there’s no real hippies to punch, Villagers will decide that moderately conservative Democrats are hippies, just so they have someone on the left to punch.
BGinCHI
Um, no Doug. Conservative Democrats punch themselves in the face. The MSM just wander in and blame the victims.
MarkusR
I for one think we should have a far-left to movement just for punching purposes.
In fact, I’m willing to be part of it. I’ve got some things on my mine to express, and I don’t mind at all if some fellow libs go “Ok, he’s a bit out there, but there’s still a good argument for increasing taxes on the super rich”.
There’s nothing that the Villagers like to do more than say “but isn’t there some truth…” as long as they are still able to safely distance themselves from the ‘crazies’.
lacp
Roseanne Barr, Matty Wiggles, and Atrios in one post? The Singularity must be upon us….
Stooleo
Hmmm, Sully gave that Roseanne Barr quote a Moore Award today. He’s shocked, shocked I say..
Culture of Truth
For a moment is sounded like he was castigating the left, instead of the Dem leadership, Obama and Reid.
Big Baby DougJ
@Stooleo:
I only check him once every couple days now.
ChrisNYC
Congress was “psychologically prepared” for a big populist push in 2009? What the hell does that even mean? When I think 2009 I think extreme fear regarding the depth of the financial collapse and, oh yeah, there was that healthcare thing. Glad to see that when the left is winning the argument on taxes, for the first time since 1980, we’re going to start talking about 2 years ago and woulda coulda shouldas. Another brilliant plan. (Directed at Yglesias, not DougJ, by the way.)
Stooleo
@Big Baby DougJ: Yeah, I know the feeling. sigh.
beltane
@Stooleo: Sully must really hate the commentariat at Calculated Risk, where it is pitchforks & torches all day every day.
Enhanced Voting Techniques
Looks like with Anonymous and Occupy Wallstreet the Village ironically is bringing the Hippies back from the dead with all The Villages Hippie punching. After all you don’t attack something if you are not scared of it,..
EconWatcher
It’s kind of a tricky issue.
Having a left flank doesn’t always help the center-left capture the middle. I think the far left seriously damaged the prospects of conventional liberals in the late 60s. The far left helped Nixon defeat Humphrey, after all. But maybe the Vietnam era was a special case.
But ordinarily, it just stands to reason that you won’t have a good bargaining position if you start firmly in the middle.
Big Baby DougJ
@EconWatcher:
And some of the far lefties I know locally are, genuinely, nuts who I wouldn’t want put in charge of anything. So yes it is a tricky balance.
Davis X. Machina
@ChrisNYC: My feeling too. My first reaction was “Hey, not on my planet. That was Bart Stupak’s and Walt Minnick’s and Kent Conrad’s and Ben Nelson’s Congress. It wasn’t exactly the 1945-6 Labour House of Commons.
beltane
@EconWatcher: In the 60s it was more about the Culture War than the Class War, and that always works to the Conservatives’ advantage. If this movement really does become about the Class War we could be seeing a whole new type of dynamic.
Lysana
I have a friend who is a dyed-in-the-wool communist. She leans toward Trotskyist sentiments. She makes Roseanne’s remarks sound closer to center when we get on an “unrealizable fantasies” tear together in discussing how much the 1% piss us both off. So I see Barr’s comments and shrug. Though I’d love some of that redistribution in my pocket. As would my landlord.
Yevgraf
@ChrisNYC:
When I think of 2009, I think about moderate dems trying to hold informative townhalls, the complete absence of progressives at those events, and the utter domination by overcovered teatards. The teatards shouted down the well meaning, all while paid activists like slinkertwunt and nyceve were sitting at their computers pre-emptively whining about being sold out.
The left was fucking AWOL that year, something I won’t forget or forgive. If the teatards get their way in 2012, as a white southern guy, I may as well go whole hog and vote to criminalize gay thoughts, feed crippled children to the dogs of the wealthy, and to crush the voting rights of wymyn, just to get in the good graces of the PTB and to get some goodies for me and to make the DFHs cry.
cleek
so what?
who the fuck consults with Harry Reid when deciding to go march in the street ? and did the teabaggers need to get Boehner’s approval before donning their tricorners?
Bobby D
There needs to be a Balloon Juice “Sully Award”. The specific criteria I’ll leave to ya’ll to work out, god knows there is a boatload of exasperating behavoir out of RandyAndy to work with.
Chuck Butcher
“The Left”, what a laugh – there is actual leftism in the world and a whole handful of them here. It is, however, important to have some Hippies to punch even if they couldn’t pass muster as a kindergarten version of it. Hell, I’ve called myself left simply because there isn’t any other American political word for it – not because it has reality.
‘Coulda, woulda, shoulda 09″ kinda misses the 40 years of it. But … ACA, DADT…
I doubt the American electorate is going to figure spit out until they’ve had Prez Perry and the Ryan/Paul Congress and then they’ll probably opt for a Hitler minus the Jew thing…
I have no idea why I let myself veer back into the political morass, sorry.
EconWatcher
@beltane:
There has never been a better target for leftie populists than bankers right now. I think they’re an even better target than two years ago (although YMMV), because the shock and fear of total collapse were so intense then that they drowned out the righteous anger.
So maybe you’re right. We’re in uncharted waters.
Kilkee
In other news, Amanda Knox has been freed.
joes527
Roseanne Barr is too fat to be president.
BGinCHI
@EconWatcher: Let’s see if the Koch Bros doing biz with the Iranians (etc.) will get anyone to notice that the right will do anything for power and money.
Anyone see any analysis of this outside the leftosphere?
BGinCHI
@joes527:
Fixed.
PeakVT
That was a time when Congress was psychologically prepared to address the issues of joblessness, the availability of health care and education, and the ecological sustainability of the global economy.
On what planet? What I saw starting in January of 2009 was conservative Democrats eagerly jumping in front of every camera to say whoa, we better slow down with all this talk of fixing stuff because those damn liberals Democrats who control the party are just too liberal, etc. Maybe, just maybe, they could have been bullied into more reforms if some kind of left-wing mass movement had emerged. But it would have been hard given how quickly some Democrats wanted to distance themselves from the President.
ThatLeftTurnInABQ
Alex, I’ll take the category “The fall of the Soviet Union did incalculable damage to global capitalism in general and the US in particular, by unleashing our most self-destructive impluses from any restraining sense of external or internal threats or of negative consequences flowing from the crassest folly and stupidity“, for $14 trillion dollars.
Chuck Butcher
@Yevgraf:
Huh, I seem to remember a real big Fuck Off sign posted around that prior to the Teabaggers… Oh yeah, “politically impossible blah blah” and your selective fucking memory. Yep, find a hippie…
Svensker
I had forgotten why I used to like Roseanne. Hah!
And poor Andrew Sullivan thinks she’s rude and ungracious. Vapours!
aisce
but what about baader-meinhof and the winter of 1917?
these are serious issues that serious people must take seriously, dougj. you know that better than any of us.
RossInDetroit
@BGinCHI:
Example
clinched person a/k/a harlana
when you think about how republicans pander(ed) to the tea party radical right, you kinda shake your head on this one. but the teabaggers were well funded and most hippies aren’t, excluding some big celebs, Soros and Gates, maybe. we are a different animal from what i believed growing up, i lost my innocence about the Dems during the Bush presidency. And their reticence continued to wear me down into compliance but not always complicity, i hope.
MikeJ
@Kilkee: Justice works the same way everywhere. Rich people don’t go to jail.
geg6
I know a lot of people hate her, but I find Roseanne hilarious and quite entertaining. Especially the last few years. I read Sully’s post on her Moore Award (I went there specifically to see if he had seen this video) and laughed my ass off. She tells it like it is, does Rosie. Her show, Roseann’s Nuts, on Lifetime is a hoot.
clinched person a/k/a harlana
@Svensker:
wow, i think i like her now
Litlebritdifrnt2
As I have said before I am perfectly willing to contribute to a torches and rusty pitchfork fund. I was listening to Laura Ingram this morning and the venom in that bitch’s voice when she was speaking about the protesters, particularly a guy who said he could not pay his student loans, it was evil.
The Snarxist Formerly Known As Kryptik
I think you’ve fundamentally misunderstood the concept of ‘Hippie Punching’ as it’s usually used here, Doug. The whole point of ‘Hippie Punching’ isn’t to punch the actual hippies. It’s to paint people as Hippies and THEN Punch them in order to paint everyone left of them as even worse hippies, thus unserious, and thus absolutely dangerous and fundamentally unfit to run America. They don’t need to punch actual hippies as long as they can punch folks like Nelson and Lincoln (who assist by punching themselves) so not only do THEY look like crazy hippie monsters, but everyone to their left are even more so, making folks like Beck and his ilk somehow the ‘Fundamental, All-American Center’ and bulwark against the dangerous hippies like Max Baucus and on-again, off-again reformed hippie Lieberman.
clinched person a/k/a harlana
@Big Baby DougJ: i have to agree, all the ones i’ve met are a little off and that’s not a good thing coming from someone like me. they seem like aging flower children, a little disconnected from reality.
ChrisNYC
@Yevgraf: I’m not sure I’d say AWOL. There was a huge amount of effort expended toward slamming everything the Dems did. That was very helpful.
But still, winter 2008/spring 2009? That was some scary few months. Obama had just taken office. Nobody even knew what the hell was going on and Yglesias is saying there should have been a massive popular movement pulled together? Because Congress was “psychologically prepared” to be bold? Bizarre.
Also, his sentence “This combination of preferences is simply not viable,” is just terrible terrible writing.
Davis X. Machina
@aisce:
The first wasn’t big enough to pull off a repeat of the second.
Go big, or don’t go. Or go into parliament.
Alex S.
Her sitcom was one of the few TV shows to portray a working class family. Not many writers seem to care.
Cat Lady
Rosanne Barr is shrill.
Zifnab
@Yevgraf:
Wow, you and I were in totally different 2009s then, because I remember the left being incredibly hyped up and motivated from the ’08 landslide and gearing to get stuff done in House and Senate.
I remember Krugman hollering for a $1 trillion stimulus package. I remember DKos proposing an immediate end to Bush Era Tax Cuts. I remember Atrios with a big sloppy grin talking about all the Supertrains we could build. I remember fervent calls-to-action on health care, and getting engaged with my Republican Congressman hoping I could wiggle him loose, and angry rants at Joe Lieberman and Bart Stupak. I remember people bemoaning the missed opportunity that was Bill Frist’s nuclear option as the filibuster count started mounting, and I remember a large effort in Minnesota to make sure all the votes got counted.
I remember a whole lot of activity in 2009 and 2010, with the House gearing up to pass not only the stimulus and health care but climate change legislation and immigration reform. And I remember all the wailing and screaming and nashing of teeth when bill after bill fell dead in the Senate.
Maybe you didn’t see that 2009, but I sure as hell did.
JPL
Headlines in all major papers.. John Galt pays 25 million in Taxes and the liberals say that is not enough
After several paragraphs in which it describes how many hundreds of employees John employs, it ends with John Galt earned 200 million.
The repubs and the media also have a better story. It’s just the way it is.
Baud
I’ve come to hate the Overton Window theory of politics. I just doesn’t work in the real world.
cleek
@ChrisNYC:
and that the Dem leadership prevented it from happening. somehow.
pragmatism
ot but hank williams jr. wants to know, “ARE YOU READY FOR SOME GODWIN?” http://espn.go.com/espn/story/_/id/7056003/espn-pulls-hank-williams-jr-ready-opening-mnf
arguingwithsignposts
MattyY is a member of the Juicebox Mafia Village Day Care. He has no connection with the real world most people live in. So for him, 2009 was some sort of psychological “moment” for Dems. Whatever. And the same goes for Sully.
ThatLeftTurnInABQ
@Zifnab:
Co-signed.
Chuck Butcher
MSNBC is supposed to have some kind of debate about whether Obama should run “left” or “center” and maybe I’ll watch it to see what those are supposed to be, or their debators think they are. Maybe I’m confused as to what center is more right than Obama has been as Prez? (or more correctly … less left???)
Davis X. Machina
@ChrisNYC: The House had turned down TARP on its first attempt to pass it only a few months earlier.
While 2008 saw a ~5% +D swing in House seats over the 2006 House, the swing in the overall vote was ~2%. It wasn’t demonstrably more ‘psychologically prepared to address the issues of joblessness, the availability of health care and education, and the ecological sustainability of the global economy.’ It was, if anything, the Blue Dogs’ high-water mark.
BudP
Papa Bush renamed their hunting ranch Affirmative Action Land after Lee Atwater memo’d
Martin
The sooner people figure out that 18-35 year-olds are generally not going to behave like 55-70 year olds, the sooner these sorts of grass-roots comparisons will end.
The problem with Obama’s base (18-35 year olds) is that they don’t vote in midterms. The advantage of Obama’s base is that they’re generally easier to reach and when they show up, nobody is going to see them coming (again).
Mnemosyne
@Zifnab:
How many of those people showed up at their local townhalls to argue against the teabaggers?
I notice that everyone is ignoring Yevgraf’s specific complaint: while the teabaggers were all over TV raising hell at townhall meetings across the country, people on the left sat at home and watched it on YouTube.
Sure, bloggers and columnists talked a lot, but where were the ordinary people to push back against the teabaggers and try to change those pictures on teevee?
FlipYrWhig
@ChrisNYC: I don’t get the “psychologically prepared” thing either. It’s true that that was the season of TARP, the auto bailouts, and the first stimulus — but neither of those went down smoothly either. Maybe the various segments of Democrats were hanging together better at that moment, but, still, my view is that stim + auto + TARP were unlikely to be bigger than they were, and that the Hair On Fire Crisis Card can only be played a limited number of times.
FlipYrWhig
@Martin: Agreed (he said with a measure of hope and nervousness).
Southern Beale
Jesse LaGreca is a liberal Joe The Plumber, and being liberal that means he won’t get catapulted into overnight fame and fortune and radio shows and book deals. But man, he’s articulate and thinks on his feet.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
Please. Obama hadn’t even been inaugurated when Evan Bayh was trying to form an official Blue Dog Senate caucus, with the (IIRC) stated objective of reassuring the Fortune 500 that the Democratic Party was not a bunch of hippies.
Rosali
Here’s a nomination for the Sully award: Sully himself. This morning he posted a couple of examples of the word “nigger” to explain how it was common usage to describe flowers and nuts. He used it to argue that Perry’s non-action on the ranch thing did not mean that Perry is racist. He tried to justify it by linking to TNC.
David in NY
@arguingwithsignposts: Yglesias-Sully — never thought of it, but truly a two-headed beast.
Raven (formerly stuckinred)
I emailed ESPN after Hank Williams Jr compared Obama to Hitler.
Here’s their response:
Thanks for contacting ESPN.
“While Hank Williams, Jr. is not an ESPN employee, we recognize that he is closely linked to our company through the open to Monday Night Football. We are extremely disappointed with his comments, and as a result we have decided to pull the open from tonight’s telecast.
Sincerely,
Candice
ESPN Viewer Response”
David in NY
@Chuck Butcher:
Do report back. What, pray tell, will they think of as “left”? I couldn’t bear it (even if I did have cable).
wrb
@ThatLeftTurnInABQ:
It’s all there
Martin
@Raven (formerly stuckinred): I bet Candice can’t hit that send button fast enough.
Baud
@David in NY: Mark Penn and Michael Moore are the debaters. Best to skip, or shoot yourself in the head.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
I believe internet tradition demands both a “huh” and a “heh”:
ETA: okay, I need my snark-o-meter adjusted. But still, you’d think MY was aware of what he reported and snarked on not three years ago.
pragmatism
@Raven (formerly stuckinred): that’s their boilerplate response. its quoted in the story i linked above. now the question will be whether they pull it from all mnf games. it has a 20 yr history which carries a lot of branding and tie-ins.
The Bobs
“Barr said with a straight face.”
Uh, realclearpolitics that’s how you tell a joke. Note: if you are laughing at your own joke, it’s because you suck at it.
Chuck Butcher
@Mnemosyne:
Doing what ordinary people do; which isn’t going to politcal brawls. They’re ordinary, remember? If you’re referring to those activist types – maybe you don’t get them out fired up by starting from a decade old GOP position… Maybe if you want people to give a damn you should act as though you give a damn about what they do. Just don’t expect the Dancing With The Stars crowd to show up – ever.
Suffern ACE
@Mnemosyne: Ummmm. So what was the healthcare proposal of the Summer of 2009? Congress was dithering, it was not clear whether we were going to be arguing for coops or exchanges or medicare for all. And where exactly were we to go to get information? What what exactly were the hospital and pharma execs agreeing to do? And the short one (Reich) was announcing that there would be a march in September, no wait, October, well, maybe October/September, and then it was called off.
I don’t want no socialist medicine and death panels were easy to spread.
David in NY
@Baud: OMG!!!! I’d watch professional wrestling first!
Countme In
I’m with Roseann all the way on this, as long as she realizes I’m raising her top marginal tax rate too.
Josie
Someone has a very short memory and his initials are M.Y. The senate was never disposed to give Obama what he needed to solve the economic crisis. They gave him just enough to keep us from going over the edge and to show that it didn’t work. He had to beg and bargain for every victory he got, and the “reasonable Republicans” and the blue dog Democrats are responsible for the mess we are in. Yglesias and Sullivan are full of shit and talking big for people who were never in the arena.
Mnemosyne
@Chuck Butcher:
Waah. The mean ol’ Democrats didn’t hold their hands and walk them to the front doors of their representatives’ town halls, so therefore they couldn’t possibly be expected to get up off their asses, quit bitching, and actually accomplish something.
Sorry, but I have zero sympathy for people who claim to be activists and yet whine that if they didn’t get specific instructions about what to do, they couldn’t be bothered to figure it out. (Hey, maybe if your rep is having one of those townhall thingys you keep seeing on YouTube, you could show up for it? Maybe?)
If you can’t get self-motivated to take action, you ain’t much of an activist, are you?
FlipYrWhig
@Chuck Butcher: You know better than most anyone here, of course, that there is conflict between what gets activists “fired up” and what stands a chance of surviving a gauntlet of special interests. E.g., single-payer universal health care would get activists excited, but then the insurance co’s, the AMA, and Pharma would team up to wreck the whole thing like they did the last time — and then the whole up-firing phenomenon would be squandered anyway.
JC
I wonder when people will start pointing out, that there are significant costs to the 1% getting richer and richer, and less money for infrastructure, investment, jobs that can pay bills?
It’s second order costs, but, off the top of my head:
a. Medical deaths – people die because of lack of insurance
b. Accidental deaths – roads not paved, or badly, people die. Electrical grids offline – heart monitors go out, food spoils, blowups like what happened in the south Bay, with the explosions, etc.
c. Depression, suicide, etc.
Thing is, there is a certain basic regulatory, infrastructure, and universal medical coverage, needed so that people won’t die.
so that people won’t die.
Is it wrong to point out that when finance and number whizzes create formulas, that ‘cut costs’, and give tax breaks to rich, well connected people and companies, a 2nd order effect is, people die?
We’ve got to catch, prosecute, and bring to justice, Spreadsheet Serial Killers.
That’s just common sense.
Chuck Butcher
Penn wants him to go right, I guess to be the Huntsman GOPer. Moore oddly wants him to go to where he was in 08. I’ll be damned if I can figure Penn out, “bring them all together” is the mantra but what it means in concrete terms I have no idea – other than taxes won’t work. Moore wants activists out bring in 10 people each.
No, I don’t feel more informed.
Marc McKenzie
@Yevgraf:
Sadly, you are definitely right about what happened in 2009.
Some seem to have already forgotten…..
Chuck Butcher
@Mnemosyne:
“Fuck off” isn’t motivational. Teabaggers weren’t the only ones there, simply the least polite. So you were there out screaming the Baggers?
Me, I was there – and it may surprise you, pretty damn polite. But then, my name and Wyden’s were fairly well connected in political circles and standing up and being a fucking jerk wouldn’t exactly redound to Wyden’s credit.
Marc McKenzie
@Mnemosyne:
“If you can’t get self-motivated to take action, you ain’t much of an activist, are you?”
Yowch!! But spot-on!
wrb
@David in NY:
“In the vigour of his age he married Gargamelle, daughter to the King of the Parpaillons, a jolly pug, and well-mouthed wench. These two did oftentimes do the two-backed beast together, joyfully rubbing and frotting their bacon ‘gainst one another”
Chuck Butcher
Rendell and Sanders – I still have no idea what this “Center” is except Obama isn’t there. ok.
Villago Delenda Est
@pragmatism:
Good fucking riddance.
Chuck Butcher
@Marc McKenzie:
Aren’t you two really clever? So you regularly go out and raise hell for something you don’t like? Uhuh. ok.
Chuck Butcher
Walsh and Page, she wants a populist campaign. Page thinks the reality of Obama and the rhetoric of Obama didn’t match up enough or rather that not enough got actually done it seems for “regular” people.
Walsh, go to war with Wall St and not compromise with Boehner.
Page, seen to be trying to get something done – ie appearing to try to work with GOPers. I suppose that qualifies as Center?
Chuck Butcher
Sorry no more reporting on MSNBC – tired of it. One side use FDR rhetoric the other appeal to the “moderate GOPers” of the “Independents”.
I haven’t tried to quit politics over disgust with a particular personality like say Obama or Lieberman or… but out of disgust with the American electorate’s stupidity in electing the people they do. I see nothing to persuade me that stupidity won’t rule until it becomes too painful to continue and that isn’t real soon.
I have to admit that I’ve seen some signs that Obama won’t run on the “not as bad as the GOP” though getting around that without going FDR or something seems pretty hard.
Dee Loralei
@JC: I love that name Spreadshit serial Murderers. That needs to become a meme.
Suffern ACE
@Chuck Butcher: Penn wants everybody to move right. Always has. He also wants someone to hire him. Always has. He is not too hard to figure out at all. (BTW – if and when we get our radical moderate “no labels” dream candidate, look for Penn to be first in line to the feeding bowl.)
Mnemosyne
@Chuck Butcher:
If the alternative is even worse than the thing I don’t like? Hell, yes.
Though I think my phrasing in my previous comment was more personalized than I meant it to come across — I didn’t mean “you” as in “you, personally, Chuck Butcher.” It was meant as a generic “you,” as in “all of the people on the left who were whining about the teabaggers taking over the conversation but not doing anything to counter it.”
ETA: I know that you are/were actually involved in electoral politics in your county/state. The vast majority of the online bitchers were not.
AA+ Bonds
Wicked awesome
Chris
@The Snarxist Formerly Known As Kryptik:
Think of “hippie” as the new “Nazi.”
You know, how in Hollywood Nazis are the one absolutely unambiguous villain that everyone keeps putting in movies because they’re the only guys everyone feels good about killing? They’re the only people who can be beaten to death with a baseball bat, fried by the Ark of the Covenant, stabbed to death by mutants and still elicit nothing but a “hell YEAH!” from the audience?
Yeah, as bad as this sounds, I feel like “hippies” are the political version of that and have been for decades. Punching them has no political downside, nothing but upsides. If you’re a conservative, you can rile up the base by punching Fucking Left Wing Muslim Loving Homosexual Agenda Promoting Hippies. If you’re a moderate, you can show off your moderation by punching those dangerous left-wing extremists. If you’re a liberal, you can show that you’re not that kind of liberal by punching those lazy, useless, unpatriotic losers.
And, much like movie Nazis today have more in common with vampires and werewolves than actual Nazis, “hippies” have turned into near-mythical beings – no one’s actually quite sure what they are, but they ARE sure that they suck. And should be punched.
And, again like Nazis, there aren’t many of them left to attack, but it’s an awesome label with which to smear your political enemies, no matter how unrelated they may be to what you’re calling them.
Kola Noscopy
I am writing in Roseanne Barr for president.
wrb
@Kola Noscopy:
A $100m maximum wage?
You have a low bar if you support such a high bar.
Kola Noscopy
@wrb:
yeah you’re right…
marginalized for stating documented facts
I love the way they use that innocuous phrase “lost opportunity.” Yeah, the opportunity was mysteriously “lost.” It just happened. Like bad weather. “Mistakes were made.” But nobody actually made them. It’s just, sort of, a confluence of regrettable and completely unpredictable events. Like a thunderstorm. Hoocoodanode?
We can’t ever actually say OBAMA SOLD US OUT AND VIOLATED ALL HIS CAMPAIGN PROMISES. No, no, no, nooooooooooooooo, we can’t ever say that. Because that would be, like, racist. Right? Anyone who criticizes the first black American president must be a closet Klansman. There’s no middle ground. Either you approve of every last one of Obama’s policies, no matter how insane or foolish or self-destructive or incompetent, or you’re a racist.
No, let’s stick with “opportunities were lost in 2008-2009.” Those opportunities for Hope And Change just mysteriously disappeared, like one of a pair of socks that somehow just gets misplaced. No one’s to blame. You know, it just…happens.
Fuck.
I’m not voting for Obama in 2012. At this point I had planned to write in Russ Feingold, but I may write in Roseanne Barr instead.
And for those of you who yodel the infantile coward’s chorus of “Things can always get worse!” and “We have to choose the lesser of two political evils!” well, buckaroos, that’s how you wind up with Pol Pot.
We have to choose the lesser or two evils, and John McCain is better than Hannibal Lecter. So you vote for McCain. And then Michelle Bachmann is better than Rick Perry, so you vote for her. And then Genghis Khan is brutal and ruthless but he’s not completely insane, like Caligula, so you vote for Genghis. And you get him as president. And then when the public impalings and the slaughter of infants and women begins, remember — “It can always get worse!” You certainly don’t want Caligula in the White House, do you?
So you reluctantly vote for Pol Pot. And then when Year Zero begins and the Khmer Rouge start prodding you at bayonet point out into the killing fields, people like me will mutter “This is what you get when you keep choosing the lesser of two evils, you dumb fuck.”
Alex S.
Well, of course you can say that. But some people, like me, will point out that you’re wrong.
Chuck Butcher
@Mnemosyne:
“Not As Bad As” really sucks as a recruiting poster particularly after you’ve been told “you suck.”
Goddamit, it isn’t all that difficult to understand that getting enthusiasm includes giving some reason for enthusiasm – not fucking tolerate something just because.
piratedan
well I guess all we need a new rendition of that Jerry Jeff Walker standard….
He was born up in the Hamptons
His wife’s name is Monica Helmsley Tate
He’s not responsible for what he’s doing
because his Party made him what he is
So its up against the wall, you Wallstreet Bankster
Those bastards who steal homes with a pen
He’s forty-four and living it up on easy street
Just stealin’ Daddy’s pension and raisin hell!
lawguy
Jumping into the WayBack Machine I seem to remember the important people in the democratic party activily discouraging that sort of that thing in 2009.
lawguy
@Alex S.: Well you are right, he has kept us in Afghanistan, like he promised.
Alex S.
@lawguy:
Yep, also his attempts to compromise with republicans. He promised to do so.
Anne Laurie
@Chris:
Brilliant! I may have to steal this… giving you credit, of course.
Mnemosyne
@Chuck Butcher:
Actually, I was pretty goddamned enthusiastic about ACA. I faxed my senators. I faxed my Congressman. I argued about it here until I was blue in the face, and you know what? I still think it was an amazing accomplishment that gives us a foundation so we can work towards getting single payer healthcare.
But I can stand here on my little soapbox and scream about it all I like and I will be drowned out by the Eeyores who shrug and say, “Eh, it didn’t make any difference.” And the biggest part of the problem is that a lot of those Eeyores are fucking Democrats in Congress who weren’t even willing to stand by their own goddamned legislation and be proud of it.
I just don’t see the point in pinning all of the blame for Democratic apathy on the president when there’s plenty of blame to go around to both elected and unelected Democrats who were unwilling to stand up for the achievements of their own goddamned party. When you’re the only one cheerleading for something, everyone else starts to suspect you’re an asshole who doesn’t realize how bad that thing really is even if you’re cheering for universal goddamned healthcare.
(And, again, for clarity, I am not accusing you of the above.)
Mnemosyne
@lawguy:
Name three. Kthxbai.
OzoneR
@Davis X. Machina:
you obviously missed Stupak’s stance on banks and corporations.
Mnemosyne
@marginalized for stating documented facts:
Wait, you think Pol Pot was elected? In what freaky-ass universe did that happen, because it didn’t happen here on Planet Earth.
You’re not marginalized for stating documented facts — you’re marginalized for making shit up out of whole cloth, you fucking retard.
maya
@Kola Noscopy:
That should force the Wingnuts to draft Tom Arnold.
Wingnut chess is fun.
OzoneR
@Chuck Butcher:
that’s what’s supposed to be firing them up.
This is where the left fails at activism. Did conservatives sit down when Republicans chose Eisenhower over Taft? Did they sit down when Goldwater desperately tried to tell people he really loved Social Security. Did they sit down when their party chose Ford over Reagan?
But for some reason in order for progressives to get serious about achieving a goal, they must already be AT the goalposts.
OzoneR
@marginalized for stating documented facts:
If you’re that wrong, there’s got to be an ulterior motive to your criticism. No one with brains is that wrong.
marginalized for stating documented facts
@Alex S.:
Name me one campaign promise Obama didn’t violate.
Name one.
marginalized for stating documented facts
Incidentally, if you want a look at the economy really works, take a look at this:
Source: DesMoines Register, 1 October, 2011.
Welcome to your marvelous new Friedmanesque world. Take poison now and cut your losses.
WeeBey
@marginalized for stating documented facts:
http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/promises/obameter/rulings/promise-kept/
YellowJournalism
Love Roseanne. I think she isn’t credited enough for making a show as iconic and deft in its political and social commentary as All in the Family was in its day. Roseanne was the Archie Bunker of the 90’s.
Dr. Morpheus
@Enhanced Voting Techniques:
Sure you do, it’s the primary motivation of contempt.
Dr. Morpheus
@Alex S.:
Doesn’t King of Queens count?
handy
Great. Now I’ve got that Toto song stuck in my head.
Chuck Butcher
@OzoneR:
Yeah and 35yrs of telling them and writing and etc resulted in … a previous decade GOP. At the goal posts my ass, how about in the fucking stadium?
This is the bunch that was elected over the years, not to say that some other powers didn’t have hands in the choices, but voted for and elected. I’d be hard put to tell you which I have more disdain for; elected officials or the electorate. It isn’t going to improve with starting with a 60% participation (good years) and then disenfranchising a bunch. It also isn’t going to improve with small state (pop) Senators paid for and stupid House electoral kneejerking elections. There also isn’t much chance it will improve with the media consolidation and media … um, degeneracy. Nor is it going to improve with ensconced officials beholded to other than the public good.
Finally it isn’t going to improve because settle for shit without bread is the mantra about this sandwich making process. It debases the word compromise to call the last thiry five years of Democratic politics that.
The electorate throws an “ing-bing” every few years about how shitty govt is but they will be damned if they’ll go anywhere near something that would actually address what they’re suffering.
It’s always “ponies and rainbows” and it will always be that way because that is the starting point and ending point. It will stay that way because it is predefined in the minds of … oh hell, look around here.
boss bitch
@Zifnab:
you’re talking about what the left SAID on BLOGS. The Tea Party got out the house and got in their reps faces. They left the house and held protests. You’re talking about liberal bloggers who just talk to their own in their bubble. The tea party went out and pulled in their neighbors and co-workers. People who didn’t follow politics. The left did nothing but TALK on BLOGS.
boss bitch
Since its a bold face lie then you might be a racist, or stupid, illiterate, ignorant, a pathological liar. Could also be that you are an incredibly selfish person who only cares about issues that affect you personally and fuck everyone else. Whatever the reason, you don’t look good making a false statement like that.