Yesterday while perusing Chris Bowers' and Matt Stoller's Open Left I ran across a video of Obama Stoller had posted where he was addressing the editorial board of the Reno Gazette. Imagine my shock and anger as I watched in complete dismay Obama tell me, a liberal who had to sit and endure Ronald Reagan pointing at ME and telling the American people my liberal values were the problem [i.e. '60's and '70's excesses] and they should be afraid of it. He did't offer any damn solutions but he took what would become the standard GOP ploy, telling the American people so and so [i.e. "dirty fucking hippies] is your problem and you should be afraid of them. Fortunately, Matt Stoller recounted the vile misreading of American political history spilling out of Obama's mouth:
I don't want to present myself as some sort of singular figure. I think part of what's different are the times. I do think that for example the 1980 was different. I think Ronald Reagan changed the trajectory of America in a way that Richard Nixon did not and in a way that Bill Clinton did not. He put us on a fundamentally different path because the country was ready for it. I think they felt like with all the excesses of the 1960s and 1970s and government had grown and grown but there wasn't much sense of accountability in terms of how it was operating. I think people, he just tapped into what people were already feeling, which was we want clarity we want optimism, we want a return to that sense of dynamism and entrepreneurship that had been missing.
Then, in an act that nearly furthered my descent into madness, it looked as though for a mament Stoller was going to agree with him. And Matt, I hope you are listening here, you are dead wrong about why progressives should find anything to admire about that "B" actor who dozed his way through two terms telling America why people like me are a peice of shit, and to repeat here, and be afraid of me, couched in bromides designed to be disarming. But fortunately, Stoller regained his senses pulling me back from the abyss and called Obama on his bullshit:
There are many reason progressives should admire Ronald Reagan, politically speaking. He realigned the country around his vision, he brought into power a new movement that created conservative change, and he was an extremely skilled politician. But that is not why Obama admires Reagan. Obama admires Reagan because he agrees with Reagan's basic frame that the 1960s and 1970s were full of 'excesses' and that government had grown large and unaccountable.
Those excesses, of course, were feminism, the consumer rights movement, the civil rights movement, the environmental movement, and the antiwar movement. The libertarian anti-government ideology of an unaccountable large liberal government was designed by ideological conservatives to take advantage of the backlash against these 'excesses'.
Then my journey to madness began again when I read in the comments section the misty-eyed defenders giving textbook examples of ignorance of American political history trying to reassure everyone what Obama really meant. That's when my madness took over and I just fucking leaped off the edge in the comments section:
Excuse me people...
...for the one's defending Obama's peaen to Mr. Raygun short memories seem to be a monumental affliction. Forget koolaid, this is just delusional denial. Movement? No, the movement you are refering to was started by Barry Goldwater. Reagan just bent down and picked up the torch after it was kicked out of Goldwater's hand by Lyndon Johnson. The 1965 Civil Rights bill was signed after the Democratic party committed national political suicide and became a regional party by falling on ther sword to stand for the right thing to do.
Later, like Zeus on Mt. Olympus Reagan would beget the likes of pea brains like Grover Norquist. Mr. Norquist is in fact the embodiment of Reagan's so called "movement." I guess Mr. Obama forgot where Reagan began his campaign in 1980? Philadelphia, Mississippi? Ring any bells? This wasn't a dogwhistle stop here - - this was a slap in the face to all that died for that break the Democratic party made from their racist past to finally take up the mantle and do the right thing. Bullshit to Mr. Obama. I don't care how many damn street he walked in Chicago, the people who gave their lives for civil rights in those "excess years" of the 1960's are still freakin' dead.
Norquist and his crowd weren't heeding the siren call of a some damn dogwhistle. They responded to Reagan's bellicose indictment about "government being THE problem." This spawned a generation of blowholes and idiots following Reagan's lead with opium like highs about killing "The" problem. And the line they used? "I don't trust the government, I trust the American people." Jesus, folks, that was the damn dogwhistle. Lincoln died reminding us in the Gettysberg address what Jefferson and Madison somehow never spelled out for us common folk the very thing they alluded to in the abstract: [...]we are a government of the people, by the people, and for the people". Reagan, that son of a bitch knew that. The "government" is the people. The American people those yammering blowhards were always defending were the large corporations filled with their American people. Get it? That's who they were telling you they trusted.
This video has really pissed me off. I don't mean to be cryptic by stating the obvious here. I'll post about it in a more sobering fashion later this evening on my blog when I've cooled down. But seeing this peice of drivel uttered by Obama pandering to those cretins making up the editioral board for the Nevada paper I can't even bring myself to mention makes me want to beat the crap out of something. I've taken years of bullshit "partisanship" speeches from the right when it only suits them and people telling me my liberal views represent everything wrong with America. I've never suffered fools uttering that bullshit and Obama can take his "unity" speech and shove it.
Jesus, the misty-eyed defense of this bullshit spouted by Obama makes me want to wretch. If I'm John Edwards I'm playing this damn video on a loop everywhere and as long as my money would last. I'm not a Hillary supporter either but she is infinitely more palatable than this charlatan. And Markos voted for this blowhard? Christ.
Here is what I didn't say that I wanted to in retrospect regarding Obama's basis for his campaign - Unity and coming together to solve our problems. In the Nevada debate the other night Russert tried to nail Edwards on his vote for the failed 2003 Bankruptcy Act that turned out to be a precursor to the odious 2005 Bankruptcy Reform Act that did pass. Sometimes when I back a candidate I want to reach down their throat and pull out the words that for some reason they aren't saying even though they are infering it. Edwards did that in the debate when Russert tried to nail him asking him was he wrong to vote for it. Edwards, to his credit said he was then said why by connecting the core reasons for bankruptcies being catastrophic illnesses causing financial collapse of individuals and thier families. Lost in all of this</b. was the dynamic around that vote and why Edward <strong>did</b. vote for it. The bill held a provision for a hike in the federal minimum wage. In an attempt at <strong>partisanship Edwards took a shot at it because of the badly needed hike and the GOP's efforts, up to that time, to block every move for it. The bill eventually died in committee, as Clinton stumbled around trying to clarify why, and the reason was the right's aversion to that hike and partisanship be damned.
What Edwards should have done and said in that debate is point that out and tell Russert the GOP set up the democrats like lucy's football and put them in a no-win situation. He should have told Russert that now he's sitting here awnsering your question of got'cha that would have been as effective no matter what his vote was which would have been damned if he did (the GOP pointing at his vote and saying he voted down the minimum wage hike making him a flip flopper) and damned if he doesn't (voting for the bankruptcy act and therefore is a flip flopper when he spreaks out against it). GOP SOP when it comes to "partisanship."
So now we know what Obama's moment. If he wins the nomination there is no doubt after watching that video what his campaign will be as he wraps his arm around every GOP talking point to prove his position of "unity." And what will the GOP nominee do? The same ol' same ol. He will kick Obama's ass around the country telling everyone how weak he is and that his concillitary tone denotes that weakness, then tell them what some of his "liberal values" are and explaining to the American people that's the reason to be afraid of him.
That's what Edwards should have explained and shown that the GOP will never be a party to reach out to for compromise. Edwards' message is right. That whole dynamic the GOP is defined by has to be smashed into obliteration. Besides, why not give Americans a pointed difference in solutions and hope and let them decide them on their own merits instead of some washed out vagueness of "let's come together."
Markos has told his blogging community, and this was the main reason I came flocking to his site, that all along, "it is not about ideology, it's about partisanship.. Remember?
Again, I ask the question: And Markos voted for this blowhard?
Chirst all mighty.
TrumanDem
Truman's Conscience