Facing Down the Tea Party
This year is, as every American must know by now, the 150th anniversary of the outbreak of the Civil War; after a century and a half, the conflict still seems far from over. In fact, there is a striking similarity between the events that led up to the attack on Fort Sumter and the current war of the Right on the Federal Government. Now as then, an intransigent block of political and social reactionaries has committed itself to ending governance at the national level unless it is allowed to dictate policy in every particular.
The response of President Obama to this challenge has been utterly different from that of President Lincoln. Obama let the reactionaries dictate the agenda for negotiations and this week he surrendered -- unconditionally, if the truth be told.
He, understandably, was unwilling to confront the kind of crisis that a stronger response would have precipitated.
Abraham Lincoln was not, and what ensued is instructive. The 37th Congress, the one that sat from March 4, 1861 to March 4, 1863, was arguably, the most progressive in our history. During these two years Congress passed bills which went far toward setting the stage for America's extraordinary national expansion over the next century. It was the 37th Congress that passed the Homestead Act, which eventually transferred 270 million acres of public lands into the hands of farming families and helped to make our nation's food supply the most bountiful in the world. The 37th Congress also established a Department of Agriculture to provide these farmers with improved crop varieties and conduct research into more effective agricultural tools and techniques. This same congress voted to fund the transcontinental railroad, which bound together east with west and gave birth new communities and industries across the continent; it also passed the Morrill Land Grant Colleges Act, which established our system of state universities, making higher education available to ordinary citizens. Not content with these revolutionary initiatives, this dynamic legislature also created the foundation for our first truly national currency, the underpinning of a modern economy.
Similar legislation had been introduced before 1861, but had been blocked every time by an intransigent block of reactionary representatives and senators from the South. When the nation rejected the reactionaries' agenda through the election of Abraham Lincoln, they made good on their threats and plunged the country into a hugely destructive crisis. But it was this crisis that enabled the nation to break free from the social and political gridlock of the prewar years and realize its true potential.
If we are ever to confront such crucial contemporary challenges such as unemployment, the need for health care reform, and global climate change, we need to face down the minority that is using parliamentary chicanery to block constructive debate and legislation. The Tea Partiers may make good on their threats to bring on a crisis. But perhaps, as in 1861, that is the only road to a political recalibration and national progress.
Let them go form their third world theocracy where a few wealthy families hold all economic and political power, "Rev." Pat Roberston is named Secretary of Religion, and education is very low but everyone owns a gun.
Yes, he capitulated on this issue just like he has every single time there has been stout opposition, starting with taking the public option off of the table in very beginning of the health care fight, rolling over and playing dead on the Bush tax cut extension, not requiring that there actually be some revenue increases in the debt bill, etc. The TEAvangelicals know that all they have to do is wait him out and he will cave. The man has no backbone!! He tries too hard to get concensus, and then refuses to draw a line in the sand. As on of the other comments notes, you sometimes have to get a little bloodied in fighting back. President Obama won't. And the middle class pays the price.
Also you suggest we need health care reform (along w a few other issues listed in the article), didn't we get that w ObamaCare? I think not, just a bunch of new taxes, fees and now the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services
Democrats solution to improving health care in the US - NEW TAXES:
Obamacare cost to taxpayers over 10 years: $210 billion
-2013 is a 2.3% excise tax on medical device manufacturers and importers
-this year, new annual fee on "branded" drug makers and importers, which will raise $27 billion
-$15.2 billion from raising the floor on medical deductions to 10% of adj.gross income from 7.5%
-2018 40% "excise tax" on high-cost health plans (for those who can "keep" their existing plans, remember that promise?)
-new annual fee on health insurance providers starting in 2014, estimated to raise $60 billion. This tax, like many others on this list, will be passed along to consumers in higher health-care costs.
After this statement he began to be the President that is remembered in history he allowed the enlistment of the first black regiments in the US Army and emancipated the slaves . What I'm saying is that it is time for the Democrats to get behind the President and support him openly even if they feel that he doesn't support them.'They must form bridges to the Republicans who will talk to them to form legislation to help this country but most of all they must put the Tea Party on the Defensive so that the President can lift their boats along with his and win his reelection in the 2010 elections along with the reemergence of the Democratic Party. They must disenthrall themselves then they can save themselves.
I want him to move on.
Pres. Lincoln was faced with a terrible and awful choice to make, but it was a choice that he needed to make and did so, even while knowing that doing so would lead to a level of war that he likely couldn't comprehend. Arguing over debt, as far as I'm concerned, will never be grounds to throw a country into similar circumstances and ought never to be.
You're "disappointed", hoping for the POTUS, who currently polls at 70% within the Democratic Party, to be primaried, because Pres. Obama took the stand that forcing the U.S. economy into conflict, that could be paralleled to the impact that the Civil War had on our country, was something that he refused to do.
No criticism for Congress, Speaker John Boehner(R-OH), the "Main Street Republicans", or anyone else who had a vote, an actual say in the matter. In the race to 218 votes in the House, even if you ignored all of the teabaggers, you still had ~150 Republican votes and 195 Democratic votes in play.
And yet, rather than doing the complicated work of actually laying the blame where it ought to lay, with Congress, specifically the Republicans, clowns come to this site, crying about the POTUS refuse to act by fiat, laying the very grounds for impeachment proceedings, which some of these same folks, calling for "executive action", will join the effort to impeach him for.
hilarious
Whoa! You had me there for a minute. I thought you were serious! You're quite the kidder, scip.
The game, if we ought to call it that, is a rather simple one; if you get 60 votes, to end debate in the Senate, 51 votes, to pass a bill in the Senate, and 218 votes, to pass a bill in the House, you win. It's not rocket science.
You point to Pres. Lincoln's response to, what you openly call, a similar scenario, but you openly ignore the fact that Lincoln's decision, to fight an "intransigent block of political and social reactionaries", ended up costing the lives of over 650,000 soldiers, with the total number of casualties likely surpassing 1 million, once civilians are counted.
According to John Huddleston, per Wikipedia, that amounted to"ten percent of all Northern males 20–45 years of age died, as did 30 percent of all Southern white males aged 18–40."
Even with that, as a comparative event, the case could be made that our current situation is, in some ways, even graver.
The president cannot do it by proxy.
The news media cannot keep saying "they all act like spoiled children," equating the actions of responsible politicians with the blackmail and bullying of the extremists.
Until the people demand honesty in the news and governing ahead of ideology on the part of the politicians, we will continue to get the same old stuff.
Charlie