Lewis Carroll wrote: "If you don't know where you are going, any road will get you there." Carroll was musing about Wonderland but his words apply to the White House, where the Obama administration has lost its sense of direction. The challenge for Progressives is to recalibrate the president's moral compass.
It's been a terrible year for Barack Obama and the nadir was his tax cut "deal" with Republicans. Among Democrats there are three schools of thought about what happened: some feel the president did the best he could, given difficult circumstances. Others see it as a complete sellout to the monied class. I'm in a third group that believes it's an indication the administration has lost its way.
For whatever reason, President Obama is adrift in the White House. As a consequence, major decisions are made in ad hoc manner, without any strategic coherence. That's what was wrong with the president's tax cut "deal." Obama should have seen the crisis coming months ago and made sure that it was a major issue in the mid-term elections. But because the administration was disoriented, they misplayed what should have been a political opportunity.
Barack Obama has lost control of the dominant political message. That's one reason why the Obama tax cut "deal" was a total disaster. Former Secretary of Labor Robert Reich observed, "the tax deal negotiated between the president and the Republicans... confirms the Republican worldview... Cutting taxes on the rich while freezing discretionary spending... affirms that the underlying problem is big government, and the solution is to shrink government and expect the extra wealth at the top to trickle down to everyone else." Neuroscientist Drew Westen agreed, "[Obama's deal] ...eliminates any possibility that Democrats could draw a distinction between themselves as the party of the middle class and the GOP as the party that takes care of the rich."
As we trudge into 2011, the grim political reality is that the GOP has its act together and the Obama administration does not. Republicans keep hammering on two basic themes: "government is the problem" and "trickle-down economics works." Neither contention is true, but voters tend to believe what the GOP says because they are consistent, while the White House lacks a coherent message.
It's not hard to frame the Progressive response: Republicans are waging a class war. They are hell-bent on replacing democracy with plutocracy, where the rich write the rules and receive all the profits. America is becoming a third-world country where there is no middle class.
Over the past thirty years, there's been a savage increase in inequality in the United States. In September, new Census figures showed that the income gap between America's richest and poorest was the widest on record: "The top-earning 20 percent of Americans -- those making more than $100,000 each year -- received 49.4 percent of all income generated in the U.S., compared with the 3.4 percent earned by those below the poverty line [15 percent]." It's a manifestation of what Senator Bernie Sanders calls "a war against the working families of America." The rich are getting a lot richer, while everyone else is sliding into the abyss.
Even though it's obvious what is happening, class warfare is a volatile theme. Nonetheless, there are three pillars of a positive Progressive message:
1. We're all in this together: In his celebrated speech to the 2004 Democratic convention, Barack Obama said: "It is that fundamental belief -- I am my brother's keeper; I am my sister's keeper -- that makes this country work. It's what allows us to pursue our individual dreams and yet still come together as one American family." The original motto of the United States was "E pluribus unum."
2. America doesn't work unless we all work: The American economy isn't healthy unless we all have discretionary income. Robert Reich, Joseph Stiglitz, Paul Krugman, and many other economists argue persuasively that the US economy depends upon steady consumption by working Americans.
3. American Democracy depends upon a healthy middle class. This was an essential concept of the founders, such as Thomas Jefferson , who wrote: "The care of human life and happiness... is the first and only legitimate object of good government." If we don't expand and protect the middle class, we risk social and economic chaos.
Barack Obama has the ability to deliver this compelling message. On September 8th, he gave an underreported speech in Cleveland that echoed these sentiments: "part of moving forward is returning to the time-honored values that built this country: hard work and self-reliance; responsibility for ourselves, but also responsibility for one another. It's about moving from an attitude that said 'What's in it for me' to one that asks, 'What's best for America? What's best for all our workers? What's best for all our businesses? What's best for our children?'"
It's this Obama that Progressives worked hard to elect. It's this Obama that's MIA in the White House. It's this Obama that must be rescued.
Ur gut reaction is good.But i've been a teacher for 30 years,and there's somethings i have learnt which are :
1st : all students ( all human beings ) are fallible. There are no perfect students, just as there are no perfect teachers.
2nd. We ALL learn by trial and error. we recognize bad and lament it ( if we're sane human beings ) we see Good and learn to pursue it. This type of accumulation of virtue goes back to Socrates and before ; and also way before that in other civilizations.
Conclusion thus far : Obama is a man ( fallible ) he makes mistakes ; he learns by trial and error.
Then, u can like ur student or not. As a private tutor, this is a grand and rare privilege. U don't have to cater to everyone. U choose those in whom u see good potential, those u have empathy for, those u want to help. But u make no time for arrogant, greedy, self-absorbed, conceited or very disturbed characters. U are corteous. U say ur agenda is past full already, that u'll call if something comes up ( of course u hav no intention to.)
When we pick a President, we usually pick someone who moves us the right way. But remember always, he's human, with all the foibles that come attached. i think the Prez was clear in his message - why he was doing what he was.i believe him.
Get with the program, Bob. Obama pleaded with Democrats to deal with BEFORE the mid-terms, and they refused.
and: "I think we're lost, but at least we're making good time." - Yogi Berra
Both fit
Conservatives have clear cut principles based on natural laws. That will trump wishy-washy liberalism in the long run.
Voters who will persist in the fiction that Democrats are willing to make a difference are the ones who don't have it together.
The tax cut fiasco is a perfect example. Contrary to your contention, "Obama should have seen the crisis coming months ago and made sure that it was a major issue in the mid-term elections," Obama DID push for the tax cuts to be repealed BEFORE the election. Only, a significant minority of Democrats in both houses of Congress refused because they were afraid of getting pounded in the election. (They did, anyways, as we all know.)
Republicans are the minions of the wealthy, and possess an admirable, if morally repugnant, ability to convince enough economically disenfranchised Americans that the government is the sole cause of their woes. Since we have more or less lost the press as any kind of meaningful independent watchdog, no one seems to be able to hold the GOP accountable to the facts.
Were you saying this at the time?
There are no new converts to goper orthodoxy simply because it's coherent and consistent.
Faith in the repugs has not increased. The repug voting base has been re-energized by the open expression of racist, creedist, and ageist hatred. They are pumped up with rage like never before. They are about at their peak right now in terms of participation and determination (to vote, protest, and other less conventional acts of strangeness). They can't really rise any higher than they are right now.
On the Dem side, we see that the people serving in Congress and the Administration aren't up to the task. Not because the message isn't coherent. Because I hear from Obama almost every weekend telling me how important bipartisanship is. It's pretty darn coherent. And bipartisanship is why we're not getting anywhere.
We take one step forward on one track and then capitulation to the repugs sets us all back one or two steps on another track. Dems are demoralized by the letdown, trapped by a decorum-obsessed President.
Our "leaders" don't have enough credibility to mount much of a comeback - even if the coherent message were rock-star good.
The mantle of Dem Party leadership is wide open right now.