From HP:
With time growing short, President Barack Obama said Wednesday night that he remains confident that a government shutdown can be avoided this weekend if negotiators can build on constructive talks held at the White House.
"It's going to require a sufficient sense of urgency," Obama said, "to complete a deal and get it passed and avert a shutdown."
Very optimistic.
But optimism and naivete have no place in this negotiation - and they will continue to destroy us.
As I pointed out on Monday (and many months before) this is a turning point for this Presidency. For those who were not paying attention during his surrender to the Bush tax cuts, this showdown will inevitably make an impression.
So, the only question at this point, democrats, is:
What side are you on?
I'm not talking about siding with republicans. That has no place in this discussion and never will. But appeasement of this President has gotten us NOWHERE. And there are too many out there who are SO WILLING to cut this man slack at every fucking turn so you can revel in the few small morsels he's able to throw at you, all the while claiming victory on every front.
So, what kind of democrat are you?
Are you going to continue to praise and support this President at every turn and pretend that the last battle meant nothing to you? That the loss of tax revenue from the rich on the backs of the poor and middle class isn't an affront to everything we as democrats stand for? That his failure to produce robust health care reform (which may not even be funded if he folds on this budget) or real financial reform is just a nick in the road on the way to something much better he has planned.
To you people, the one's who appease, I have one thing to say: OPEN YOUR DAMN EYES
There is no multi-dimensional chess going on here. This IS your President. We needed a man who could pull back the rubber band of the political center that Bush and the republicans have been successful in pulling so far to the right that the center today is what the radical fringe was to Nixon. Imaging that. A day in our political history when democrats can pine for the politics of Nixon because their own party isn't strong enough to fight back and reclaim the center.
And no, the public ISN'T far right. They ARE where we are. They believe gays should have equal rights, including marriage. They want Medicare and Medicaid to remain untouched. They believe the rich should be taxed more and corporations should be regulated more. The numbers show, as they had during Clinton, that the political center REALLY IS the center between the two extremes of the parties.
But Obama has acted as if the republicans are the political center and everything he does is an apology to them. I'm so damn sick of that surrender attitude, I can't tell you.
As a result, we as democrats aren't fighting for democratic values anymore, WE ARE FIGHTING FOR WHAT IS LEFT OF THE PARTY.
Let me tell you what that means. It means we are fighting to keep Medicare from going private - and social security from disappearing. We are fighting for union and individual rights to have ANY PLACE at the table. We are fighting to make sure the rich get a TAX INCREASE because, without that happening we, the middle class, will continue to fall further and further until we are unsupported surfs.
This President ISN'T fighting for our party. He has shown in two years that he either has no idea what the democratic party is or he is such a weak individual that he cannot summon the energy to fight for anything he believes in (if he truly believes in anything).
This is not the point any of us expected to be in two years down the road from such an optimistic election. And yes, the congress and senate democrats have been pathetically weak and have capitulated to the republicans at every turn.
But it is the President who is supposed to use the strength of the bully pulpit to turn the tide of this country and this President has been scarce. If he believes anything, it's that he shouldn't have to insert himself in negotiations unless the situation gets dire. That's not leading. Call me a troll if you want to (my two years of history on this site counter that), but I'm at my wits end on this. Whatever we're doing, it's not enough to make him and the rest of our party scared enough of us to actually listen to us.
A separate division within our party is THE ONLY WAY we can win back the political center. The republicans did it with the Tea party - a group of whackos who don't even have enough votes to create legislation on their own but are willing to vote in blocks in such a way that they have scared the republican party into listening to them.
All we need to do is pick ONE ISSUE. One issue that can hit people emotionally. One issue that EVERYONE can understand. One issue that every disenfranchised Democrat (and centrist) can agree upon. One issue that will secure the funding for everything we believe in. That issue is, and has always been, TAX THE MILLIONAIRES. Hell, we could even say TAX THE BILLIONAIRES. If we up their tax burden from 35% (which most of them pay for their taxable income) to 39%, that would do it. It's a simple idea. Everyone agrees with it. BUT OUR PARTY NO LONGER TALKS ABOUT THIS. They have conceded to the republicans and the conversation is moot.
One issue. That's all an offshoot needs. That's really all the tea party had to bind them (cut government spending). This is OUR issue. And if we don't gather around it, it will be lost for a generation.
And as far as the whining about not having the Koch brothers money to support this offshoot, well, the tea party started before they got involved. Donors will appear if the message is clean. Our party thrives on messages that are muddled, full of numbers and all over the place. That is why we consistently lose in the sound-bite battle and always will UNTIL WE GET A CLEAN, SIMPLE, EMOTIONALLY SOUND MESSAGE.
If we do not have a political arm that can do that, we're doomed.