Toward a Sustainable State of the Union: What President Obama needs to communicate tomorrow night

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Tuesday January 26, 2010 · 9:18 AM PST

2010/01/26 · 09:18

"What happened here tonight can happen all over America." So stated the new Massachusetts Senator Scott Brown last week after his election night takeover of Ted Kennedy’s seat. If the somnambulant Democratic Party leadership wants to avoid the fate of having Scott Brown’s prediction come true, President Obama and the Democratic leadership need to engage a fundamental transformation of strategy.

That process of transformation could begin tomorrow night with President Obama’s State of the Union speech. To avoid repeating the mistakes of President Hoover, on the way to a one-term presidency, this State of the Union speech needs to do three primary things:

Emphasize an inspiring Vision of Sustainable Recovery and Governance for a democratic nation of, by, and for the people, not corporations.

Demonstrate President Obama is taking up the role of a democratic national leader, rather than trying to be a technocratic political manager of the narrow Beltway consensus.

Define an assertive Progressive populist Agenda for which the President will fight, as leader of the American people.

Policybusters

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Wednesday January 20, 2010 · 10:10 PM PST

2010/01/20 · 22:10

From the depths of the Great Depression in March 1933 the poet Robert Sherwood posed a fundamental question to the new President Franklin D. Roosevelt on behalf of the American people:

"Are we sure that you have fixed your eyes on
A goal beyond the politician’s ken?
Have you the will to reach the far horizon
Where rest the hopes of men?"

After Tuesday's loss in Massachusetts, at this crucial historical juncture, the American people need to pose this same query to President Obama and the Democratic leadership:

Have you the will to reach the far horizon where rest the hopes of the people?

Policybusters

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Saturday April 25, 2009 · 9:32 AM PDT

2009/04/25 · 09:32

Contrary to the eternal obfuscations of politicians who would like to claim otherwise, Truth-telling about the Past directly serves the present and future needs of democratic government and policymaking for any Nation that wants to move forward after a period when its traditions of laws and democratic accountability have been betrayed and broken.

In a brief but eloquent editorial in yesterday's (4/24) NY Times titled "Reclaiming America's Soul-Why We Can't Let the Abuses Slide," Paul Krugman--who has emerged as our nation's truth-teller in chief--directly confronts and reveals the folly of the ad nauseam arguments being made in Congress and by the Obama administration (including the President himself) suggesting that seeking the Truth about the Past will somehow interfere with Moving Forward in the Present.

Krugman puts the pin to this big balloon of rhetorical obfuscation and political hot air:

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Laugh Them Out of Government: The Most Stupid Idea in the World Peddled by Market Fundamentalists

Policybusters

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Sunday November 16, 2008 · 1:51 PM PST

2008/11/16 · 13:51

After watching the continuing peddling of free market fundamentalist ideological stupidity this weekend on the corporate media talkshows by those who would like to allow the market to have its way with the Detroit car industry--without any concern for where such stupidity might take us-- I continue to be amazed at the gullibility and openness of the American political economy to self-destruction.

I suppose I have the kind of fascination for the stupidity driving current events that Melville had for Captain Ahab's pursuit of the great white whale. Except in our current circumstances, Bush's Moby Dick is free market fundamentalism, the continuing pursuit of which--in spite of all evidence of its destructive consequences--is drawing our current ship of state to the same fate as that suffered by the Pequod....

Policybusters

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Saturday October 04, 2008 · 1:13 PM PDT

2008/10/04 · 13:13

This past week, as the financial system teetered on the verge of collapse because of the Republicans' anti-government, anti-regulation, anti-tax laissez-faire ideology, we were offered the spectacle of Republican VP nominee Sarah Palin underlining the irrationality of this Republican ideology by arguing that raising taxes on the wealthy would be both unpatriotic and harmful to the nation.

According to the Republican logic of Palin and McCain, asking the wealthy to pay more taxes (as Joe Biden proposed) "is not patriotism," but is "about killing jobs and hurting small businesses and making things worse." (And McCain said the idea of asking the wealthy to pay more taxes was "dumb.")

It must be nice for those like Palin and McCain to think such things, as the Republicans continue to uphold a policy of protecting the wealthy from taxation while the middle class and poor are burdened with the explosive growth of the national bill for fighting unnecessary wars and providing gigantic trillion-dollar bail-outs....

Policybusters

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Monday September 29, 2008 · 12:40 PM PDT

2008/09/29 · 12:40

This afternoon both Democratic and Republican House leadership failed to guide the House to passage of a bill directed at keeping the U.S. financial/credit system from crashing. If anyone had any remaining doubts about the fundamental incompetence of both parties of the current Congress to address this Nation's urgent crisis, this absolute failure of leadership should remove all remaining doubts. The ship of state and the economy are headed toward the iceberg, and the captain does not even know how to steer.

This failure is due to the failed leadership of the White House and Congress, the continued partisanship of Pelosi and the Democratic caucus (who seemed more interested in praising each other for their development of this Bill, than they were in making sure it would pass), the ideological free market fundamentalism of many Republicans in the House, and the massive public misunderstanding of the meaning of this Bill for the immediate future of the US and global economy. And even now (3:15 pm) the Democratic House leadership (Pelosi and Frank) is making a terrible situation even worse by blaming the Republicans for this failure, without accepting their own share of the responsibility for this failure.

Policybusters

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Friday September 26, 2008 · 8:04 AM PDT

2008/09/26 · 08:04

Politicians and talking heads in the corporate media repeatedly refer to the current crisis as the "greatest crisis since the Great Depression." This puts the cart before the horse, and confuses both history and understanding of the current crisis.

Before there was a Great Depression, there was the great financial crisis and crash of 1929, which delivered the world into the Great Depression. The Great Depression was not a financial crisis. The Great Depression was the economic fallout that resulted from the failed efforts at dealing with the financial crisis that precipitated the great crash of 1929 and the continuing economic turmoil of the years that followed.... And now that the House Republicans seem to have taken control of the ship of state in Washington, we seem to be on the Titanic heading full steam into the iceberg of free market fundamentalism that sunk the ship in 1929.

Policybusters

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Sunday September 21, 2008 · 10:40 AM PDT

2008/09/21 · 10:40

After a generation of near totalitarian ideological rule, the fiction of the unfettered free market--which was used as a blunt weapon to weaken or destroy almost all forms of market regulation--and the Bush administration's Coolidge-like economic policies, have brought the capitalist financial system to the brink of a collapse similar to the days before the great crash of October 1929.

The current crisis has forced the Fed to rediscover the need for the firm hand of market regulation and intervention to restore order and trust in a market system collapsing under the destructive weight of laissez-faire ideology. The current crisis has served to pull back the curtain of our political economy to reveal the manipulative wizard hiding behind the fiction of a laissez-faire capitalist ideology that assumes THE MARKET can function free of the structuring hand of human regulation and decency.

Policybusters

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Tuesday August 26, 2008 · 2:16 PM PDT

2008/08/26 · 14:16

While the Media Class--with its usual flair for normalizing the most horridly racialized assumptions via blandly innocuous-sounding language--framed the drama of last night’s opening of the Democratic Convention around the question, "Will Michelle Obama be able to 'humanize' Barack Obama for the American public?", Michelle's brilliant speech not only put to shame the racialized assumptions supporting this media framing, but turned these assumptions on their head.

Policybusters

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Friday May 09, 2008 · 1:35 PM PDT

2008/05/09 · 13:35

Or, How the Clinton Campaign Betrayed Bill's Honorific Title of "First Black President"

There is a clear pattern emerging from the Clinton campaign, but it's not the one Hillary Clinton wished to suggest.

Hillary's recent words underline a clear pattern in the way both the Clintons have been using race in this campaign. However poorly phrased, Hillary's recent words suggest the fundamental reason the Clintons have betrayed the honorific title of "first black president" once bestowed on Bill Clinton by the great American writer Toni Morrison:

Policybusters

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Friday July 21, 2006 · 12:08 PM PDT

2006/07/21 · 12:08

According to the overwhelming majority (84 percent) of top foreign policy experts surveyed by Foreign Policy magazine and the Center for American Progress, we are losing the war on terrorism.

Of course, the majority of US citizens realized this a long time ago--But given this overwhelming agreement of the policy "experts" with American citizens, the only question for the Democratic Party is: How much longer will Congressional Democrats continue to allow Republican rhetoric about "cutting and running" to cow them into a defensive strategy?

When will Congressional Democrats turn this deceptive Republican rhetoric around and put the emphasis where it should be: On the fact that the Republican Strategy is one of keeping American Soldiers in Iraq to "stay and bleed" while the Bush administration continues to act without any clear policy whatsoever for decreasing the violence in the Middle-East or successfully fighting its so-called "war on terror." Read More

Great Program on Joseph Wilson & Valerie Plame Civil Suit Against Bush Administration

Policybusters

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Monday July 17, 2006 · 10:04 AM PDT

2006/07/17 · 10:04

For update and background on the civil suit of Wilson and Plame against the Bush administration, listen to the excellent Diane Rehm program from this morning, which featured Wilson, here.

Since Congress has not been fulfilling its constitutional responsibility to hold a run-amuck executive administration in check, perhaps civil suits by courageous citizens like Joseph and Valerie will help to defend the democratic rights of the citizens of this country. Wilson and Plame are filing this suit in defense of the rights of all American citizens, as Joseph Wilson made clear at the very beginning of his interview with Diane Rehm this morning.

Cheers to Joseph Wilson and Valerie Plame for pursuing this course of action! (More below the fold)-- Read More

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Toward a Sustainable State of the Union: What President Obama needs to communicate tomorrow night

Query to Obama: "Have you the will to reach the far horizon where rest the hopes of men?"

Thank you Paul Krugman for Demanding Truth, Accountability, and Justice from Politicians

Laugh Them Out of Government: The Most Stupid Idea in the World Peddled by Market Fundamentalists

If Taxing the Wealthy is Unpatriotic (says Palin), Who Will Palin/McCain Force to Pay the Bills?

Failed Leadership and a Vote for Beginning the Next Great Depression

The Iceberg of Free Market Fundamentalism: Are House Republicans Repeating the Mistakes of 1929?

Current Financial Crisis Unmasks the Dangerous Fiction of the Laissez-faire Market

The Burden of Michelle Obama on the First Night of the Convention (according to a racialized media)

"There's a Pattern Emerging Here"

Bush Administration Policy of STAY and BLEED in Iraq is Losing the so-called War on Terrorism

Great Program on Joseph Wilson & Valerie Plame Civil Suit Against Bush Administration