From the Left – We’ve Seen This Movie Before

Watermark said:
Like FDR's new deal?

Look, the thing about always having a left and right wing government is that nothing will ever get done. Enshrining modern conservative fascism into the wall permanently may appeal to you, but it doesn't to most Americans.
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I understand what you're saying, but I disagree just a bit.

I believe divided government works best for this country and I don't think democrats are any better at complete control of government than republicans are.

Had McCain won there wouldn't have been much he could have done without passing it through a democratic congress.

With the bozos we have in elected office, sometimes the less they do is the best thing they can do for this country.
 
Maybe I think it should be less easy for these bozos to have complete and total power, but I would prefer it if the situation usually turned out with moderate parties checking more extreme parties, rather than a constant left-right split. Because the left and the right simply would never work together at all, and no change could ever happen.
 
Watermark said:
Maybe I think it should be less easy for these bozos to have complete and total power, but I would prefer it if the situation usually turned out with moderate parties checking more extreme parties, rather than a constant left-right split. Because the left and the right simply would never work together at all, and no change could ever happen.
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That is the beauty of having 3 or 4 parties instead of two. The extreme views of the right would be over-ruled by the other three parties. Same for the extreme left. Plus, as we stated, it would be harder for any one party to have complete control, which is what you just stated that you wanted.
 
Watermark said:
Maybe I think it should be less easy for these bozos to have complete and total power, but I would prefer it if the situation usually turned out with moderate parties checking more extreme parties, rather than a constant left-right split. Because the left and the right simply would never work together at all, and no change could ever happen.
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If we look for the system to change itself, you're right, it will never change.

But if real change is to happen, not the "change" Obama is peddling which amounts to changing the seats around on the Titanic, but real change will have to come from the American people.

How many more clues are required before we figure out that neither party works in our best interest? All they're doing is playing musical chairs and it doesn't matter who's sittting in the chair when the music stops.

How many more clues do we need before we figure it out?

These "bailouts" aren't clue enough?
 
It isn't just the American left alarmed by some of Obama's choices.

Jewish Left Pressing Obama On Peace

Inauguration Day is still two months away, but President-Elect Barack Obama is already being pressed by Jewish doves to fulfill his campaign promise to make Israeli-Palestinian peace a top priority from day one of his administration — despite a deepening economic crisis that has swept most other issues off the table.

Anxiety on the left was heightened after the recent appointment of Rep. Rahm Emanuel (D-Ill.) as White House chief of staff and amid rumors that Sen. Hillary Clinton could be appointed secretary of state. Both are seen by many on the left as too tied to hardline pro-Israel policies.

“The Jewish left has to keep up the pressure and to not concede that there are other issues that will keep Obama from fulfilling his campaign promises,” said Rabbi Arthur Waskow of the Shalom Center in Philadelphia

In a message to supporters last week, Rabbi Waskow wrote that “the serious possibility that Hillary Clinton might become secretary of state” has “alarmed many progressives who fear that as president, Obama will deliver not change but much the same foreign policy.”

more at link
http://www.thejewishweek.com/viewArticle/c37_a14073/News/National.html

Imagine that .. Jewish people getting anxious about the appointment of Rahm Emanuel .. and looking for Obama to fulfill his campaign promises.

Imagine that.

Wonder if they're anti-semitic?
 
blackascoal said:
If we look for the system to change itself, you're right, it will never change.

But if real change is to happen, not the "change" Obama is peddling which amounts to changing the seats around on the Titanic, but real change will have to come from the American people.

How many more clues are required before we figure out that neither party works in our best interest? All they're doing is playing musical chairs and it doesn't matter who's sittting in the chair when the music stops.

How many more clues do we need before we figure it out?

These "bailouts" aren't clue enough?
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Well black, I don't hate third parties. I am one of the biggest supporters of a multi-party system here, but it can't be done under the current electoral and structural system, and I'm not going to even waste my time pursuing it until that time.

There's a difference between plain "checks" and paralyzing gridlock. Gridlock will only be good for conservatives. If you'll notice, SF, Reagan dealt with a Democratic congress that basically rubberstamped many of his initiatives, because they were scared of looking liberal. The Republican congress in 94, similarly, was faced with a Bill Clinton running scared to right wing policies so that he could save his ass. We have never had truly "split" government these past thirty years - a truly leftwing presidency with a truly rightwing congress or vice versa. That's why the experiments in "split" government turned out as well as they did.
 
BAC you are the flip side of the Dixie coin. You want an extreme left policy from the dems that the right wants from the republicans. I have said it a thousand times, first party to jetison its extreme wins for the foreseeable future. hell maybe both parties could jetison their fringes and then we could have a large centrist party. No one wants tax policies that equalized the classes and no one really wants gays to be ostrasized or women to forced to carry their rapists children to term. I encourage you and Dixie to push hard for the extremes to leave their respective parties and form third parties that will dissolve away to the pages of history books.
 
If the Democrats jettison their sane wing they lose the northeast and the west and become a second Republican party.

With the right wingers splitting the vote amongst each other we'll dominate for decades to come.
 
Socrtease said:
BAC you are the flip side of the Dixie coin. You want an extreme left policy from the dems that the right wants from the republicans. I have said it a thousand times, first party to jetison its extreme wins for the foreseeable future. hell maybe both parties could jetison their fringes and then we could have a large centrist party. No one wants tax policies that equalized the classes and no one really wants gays to be ostrasized or women to forced to carry their rapists children to term. I encourage you and Dixie to push hard for the extremes to leave their respective parties and form third parties that will dissolve away to the pages of history books.
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You keep making the same false argument in order to give you an argument to make. I'm not looking for any "extreme left" from democrats .. unless you call looking for a few voices from the left at Obama's table "extreme." That's a long ass way from being extreme. Or, perhaps you call expecting a politician to fulfill their campaign promises is "extreme" .. or is it "extreme" to expect a politician to address the concerns of the political faction that played a huge part in getting that person elected "extreme?"

And I don't care how many times you say it, centrist politics is for losers. The Democratic Party IS centrist .. yet democrats have served a total of 3 terms in the White House in the last 40 years .. the democrats have control of Congress and their approval rating is lower than George Bush.

Have you somehow missed the election failures .. embarrassing FAILURES of the DLC. How much more "centrist" can you get than the DLC? You keep talking this crap about centrisim in the face of reality.

Republicans aren't centrists. When they get into office they address the concerns of the constituents who elected them .. and even with the losses they suffered in the last election, they can count on centrist democrats to open the door for their return.

The right of gays, women, blacks, seniors, children, the handicapped, veterans, and everybody else comes from the left, not the goddamn center. Medicaid, Medicare, universal healthcare, the antiwar movement, regulation of corporations and banking .. all come from the left, not the goddamn center.

The center is groundless, baseless and only moves when the wind blows. Thankfully for those who've supported the issues I mentioned, there was the left.

The Democratic Party IS the centrist party you pine for and their percentage of party identification isn't much better than republicans.

Without the left, there would be no Barack Obama. African-Americans and the antiwar movement are decidedly on the left, not the goddamn center. Without the left, John McCain is your president.

Left Out

I know everyone is obsessed with the "team of rivals" idea right now, but I feel incredibly frustrated. Even after two landslide elections in a row, are our only governing options as a nation either all right-wing Republicans, or a centrist mixture of Democrats and Republicans? Isn't there ever a point when we can get an actual Democratic administration? Also, why isn't there a single member of Obama's cabinet who will be advising him from the left? It seems to me as though there is a team of rivals, except for the left, which is left off the team entirely.

Not a single, solitary, actual dyed-in-the-wool progressive has, as far as I can tell, even been mentioned for a position in the new administration. Not one. Remember this is the movement that was right about Iraq, right about wage stagnation and inequality, right about financial deregulation, right about global warming and right about health care. And I don't just mean in that in a sectarian way. I mean to say that the emerging establishment consensus on all of these issues came from the left. There's tons of things the left is right about that aren't even close to mainstream (taking a hatchet to the national security state and ending the prison industrial complex to name just two), but hopefully we're moving there.

And yet, no one who comes from the part of American political and intellectual life that has given birth to all of these ideas is anywhere to be found within miles of the Obama cabinet thus far. WTF?
http://www.thenation.com/blogs/jstreet/385427/left_out?rel=hp_currently

You seem to think this is "extreme."
 
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