[Cross-posted at The Left Coaster.]
Readers of Hullabaloo have been reminded many times that amid all the ridiculous bleating about the deficit in DC the House Progressive Caucus has had a perfectly reasonable plan for years that neatly shelves the issue in good alignment with public opinion. Paul Krugman noted last week that renowned hippie Fed Chair Bernanke--reeking of cannabis and patchouli but testifying coherently before Congress nonetheless--possessed a blessedly calm, beautifully Keynesian approach to stimulating the economy, but DC, our laughable journalism corps and the Obama Administration completely ignored both in their brutal self-induced recession hangovers of squabbling inanity.
Why? These are allegedly issues of screaming urgency and excellent solutions are offered by some of the best and brightest we have, yet blithe callous indifference is the only reaction from leadership and the press. Bernanke and the House Progressives have excellent policy solutions, but they’re true-blue tie-dyed liberal tactics, of course, our David Brooks journalism corps and the Obama administration want nothing to do with that.
Joan Walsh of Salon noted last week that funny, after the shellacking in the 2010 midterms presidential advisor Plouffe vociferously insisted the negative results meant the Left should be punched out of the Obama agenda, same thing he said after the Left contributed to such victorious results in 2008. Antipathy and rejection of liberal politics and solutions by the Obama team cannot be overstated, from the very beginning Obama disavowed liberalism and amusingly (in one way) stated himself above it all with political wizard abilities to make Republicans his allies in kumbaya political bipartisanship harmony. Heh.
Anyway, not only was liberalism vocally rejected, the Obama team then viciously used their own people in triangulation games, cherished liberal positions that had serious records of sacrifice and energy chucked to the winds for mere centrism politics. Issues like cannabis, ozone rules and Plan B contraception were brutally abandoned—inflicting real harm on our people and planet in real time—simply for the political tactic of being able to proclaim we're not liberals. No worries, we’ll scare them enough to keep them in the tribe for the 2012 general election.
Our vapid press corps purposefully has no memory in its corporate stupidity and the Obama administration has a fatuous infatuation with the mental concept of ever looking forward in convenient childish consciousness, okay, but I don’t forget.
At any rate such tactics left the absurdly self-satisfied Obama administration two national wins but very unfortunately no ability to embrace and fight for liberal causes, even when they make such plain popular sense and are so desperately needed by the country and the little people.
Remember that pathetic call to raise the minimum wage to $9 an hour, when it should be $15? Gone with the wind, utterly forgotten by DC. All the Obama administration has to do is fight for 30 House Republican votes just to get an offensively measly $9 an hour, but they will not do it, that’s a liberal fight for the little people, just forget it.
Centrism got the Obama administration two national wins on their political terms in this particular American political environment, but it’s a laughable proposition to state those wins automatically mean good policies for the country or the little people, obviously. We are in a disastrous failing war overseas with heinous 8% unemployment, DC currently making a god of Herbert Hoover, inanity is indeed a courteous, charitable word for such failure.
Not only that, the centrist Obama administration has dick for a second term agenda, are we seriously supposed to expect gun registration as the sole political goal for our people and Party in a four year term? Again, an aggressive agenda that solved problems—single payer, a $15 minimum wage, $400 billion in public works stimulus—is so very much a liberal agenda, our corporate journalists and President Obama want nothing to do with it, they won’t touch it.
Hope and optimism are vital mental tools for productivity and health, fatalism breeds failure, baseball is almost here, all very true, but from a little people Democratic Party political perspective this looks pretty bad. With no agenda except some chickenshit political boxing with the press and Herbert Hoover tactics the Democratic Party is going to get a shellacking in the 2014 midterms, history and their cruel indifference guarantee it.
Then what small window was open for little people progress will be slammed shut even more. Until the Democratic Party leadership unabashedly embraces liberal politics and solutions the country and the Party are going nowhere. If we’re lucky.