Tag Archives: Progressive

We’re Fucked

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By Jay Hansen

I won’t hesitate a second to burst everyone’s post-election bubble. Campaigning can make you forget a man’s flaws.

Election results are in! Obama just won a second term in office. So, needless to say, we’re pretty fucked. Yeah, we’re pretty darned fucked.

These aren’t my words, of course, they’re the words of Neil Barofsky, former Inspector General of TARP, and Christina Romer, former chair of President Obama’s Council of Economic Advisers. These two economic experts agree; Obama has done nothing to fix the economic instability in the system that caused the crash in the first place. Given how weakly the Obama administration is barley propping up most of the financial sector and the general economy, another crash is inevitable, and almost certainly in the next four years. Obama did “financial reform” that was an absolute joke that did nothing to regulate or prevent the same risky behavior that caused the crash, and yet Obama hangs the “mission accomplished” banner and walks away from the issue (and the financial sector still hates him for even trying to regulate them a teeny, tiny bit). Here’s Barofsky on Obama’s “historic” financial reform;

“The incentives are all still in place for the too big to fail banks to accumulate dangerous amounts of risk in the quest for short-term profits with the assurance that if their bets do not pay off, they (and most importantly from the perspective of market discipline) and their counterparties / creditors) will be bailed out by the government. Combine that with a lack of accountability for bad/fraudulent behavior, and you have a toxic cocktail that will bring about another crisis. Regulatory reform did nothing to change those incentives.”

Romney criticized Obama for this during the first debate, which made my blood boil, as it was inarguably Republicans in Congress (specifically Senator Scott Brown of Massachusetts) that watered-down financial regulation to prevent the abolishment of the policy of too big to fail. Given that, it’s impossible to say that Romney would have done any better, or done any more to stop this exact risky behavior. At least Obama faked trying to do something about it. A Romney Presidency would have not only done nothing to stop these problems or regulate and stabilize the financial sector, but he’d have undone what tiny little regulations Obama did create. So really, we were fucked either way, with either candidate; now we just now how we’re gonna’ get fucked.

The consequences of an Obama fucking, however, are far more damning. I’ve frequently drawn connections between this election and the one in 2004, but with the shoe on the other foot. Democrats are stuck with an incumbent they’re really not too keen on, while Republicans ended up with the vacillating, plastic-looking, flip-flop machine from Massachusetts. Because of this, it’s likely that come 2016 we’re going to see a repeat of 2008, but once again with the parties switched. Unless Obama really cleans up his act, which so far we’ve heard no promises of, it’s going to be a landslide election in 2016 for whoever the Republican candidate is. Even worse than that is that Obama has been branded by Republicans and the media as some left-wing liberal with a liberal ideology and liberal policies. In reality, almost nothing could be further from the truth. Obama identifies as a conservative, and is, at best, center-right on the traditional American political spectrum when talking about economic policy. Obama has great disdain for progressives and progressive ideology, accuses them of being overly critical and ungrateful for what little progressive policies and pocket change he’s given them, and surrounds himself with members of the establishment that are even further right-wing and think liberals are fucking retarded. Does this sound like a “progressive” politician to you? If you really looked at Obama’s core ideology, combined with the end results of his actual legislation and policies, it’s clear that he is far from a progressive, and much more deeply entrenched in conservative ideology. When his economic policies ultimately and inevitably fail, though, who do you think is going to get the blame ideological wise?

Of course; progressives. The media will go on and on about how Obama is a progressive, conservatives will distance themselves by running even further right and continuing the same baseless mud-slinging at the President that they always have, and both will agree that it was because of Obama’s PROGRESSIVE principles that everything fell to shit, even though he doesn’t have any progressive principles. Progressives will get blamed. I will get blamed. So when I restate the phrase “we’re pretty darned fucked,” I don’t just mean the American people, but progressives around the country. We have someone in office who is supposed to be officially representing our ideology that just isn’t, but the media doesn’t care. It’s too obsessed with maintaining the facade of false equivalency. Obama is a Democrat, therefore, he must be a progressive. That’s the fundamental assumption of the entire American media, and that’s exactly how they’ll report it when Obama and his plans go to hell in a hand basket.

I know, I know, I need to calm down the apocalyptic, end-of-days talk, but Romney’s finally left the room and it’s just me and Obama again. I’ve never been a fan of his economic policy, but it’s the only one offered that’s even remotely close to sane and mathematically sound. So, as someone who… believes in math, I had no choice but to vote for him, not to mention how disgusted I was at Romney’s stance on social and women’s issues.

Hope does spring eternal, however. The eternal optimist in me just keeps thinking there’s a teeny, tiny, microscopic chance that Obama will be better in his second term. Just typing that and I hear laughter in the back of my head, but nonetheless hope remains. If Obama doesn’t want to crash and burn, and sink his entire party’s future in 2014 and 2016, then there are a lot of things he must do and, more importantly, that he must realize. First and foremost, Mr. President, the Republicans are going to obstruct everything you do, now and forever. Why? Because they’re the FUCKING OPPOSITION; it’s literally THEIR JOB as they’ve stated it to oppose you. Yes, they’re going to block absolutely everything you do, from legislation to appointments… so? MAN THE HELL UP and DEAL WITH IT. Bush did it, and he was hardly the sharpest tool in the shed; I’m sure you can figure it out too. Bush got almost everything passed that he wanted despite not having a super majority, the right polling on his side, or in some cases not even controlling a branch of Congress. You’ve got more than the necessary tools at your disposal to get it done without surrendering to or excessively compromising with Republicans. The only reason you would is because you want to compromise with them, or your own advisors that you appointed pressured you to do so and you’re just a weak, weak, pitiful man. Both of which would be failures on your part, Mr. President, not the Republicans or your advisors.

Which leads me to my next point; you’re not just the leader of the American people, you’re the leader of the Democratic Party. There’s time for sticks and there’s time for carrots, and now it’s definitely time for sticks. Get one out and beat your party in line (figuratively speaking, of course). Remember when you first came into office? You had crushing majorities in both the House and Senate and controlled the White House, and yet you still got bullied by corrupt, sellout politicians; primarily those within your own party! Mark Twain had no idea how right he was when he said “I do not belong to any organized political party. That is why I’m a registered Democrat.” The next time a party member decides to sell out to Republicans or special interest and vote against key Democratic legislation, you need to tell them that they do so at the risk of their seat. Tell them if they vote against it to not expect any help from the Democratic Party in their next election, financial or otherwise, or even threaten to kick them out of the party if they’ve been an annoying prick for too long. What are they going to do; become a Republican? They’re so radical that if you support gay rights, rape exceptions for abortion, or taxes just as a concept you’re not welcome. If the Republican Party got smart they’d be willing to take in these refuges, but that would involve actually diversifying their party slightly by tolerating new ideas. Besides, if someone in your own party is going to be persistent enough to vote against you every single time, they may as well be Republicans anyway!

I’m wishing, I’m waiting, I’m hoping against hope that Obama will change in his second term. It’s our only hope. It’s progressives’ only hope. Its Democrats’ only hope. It’s America’s only hope.

“Truth forever on the scaffold, Wrong forever on the throne, yet that scaffold sways the future.” – James Russell Lowell

This Is Your Brain On Politics

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By Jay Hansen

As a nation and as a society, we tend to focus on our differences rather than our similarities. Over time, I’ve accumulated stories and discussions regarding the differences between progressives and conservatives when it comes to just general mindset, rather than specific ideology, and gained fascinating insight. I’ve already shared my beliefs of libertarianism in my posts Libertarian Smoke (and Mirrors), as well as The Undermining of America, but now I’d like to start with a more general, top-down approach to the issues, starting with the very foundations of the human mind.

In late 2010, a British neuroscientist named Dr. Rees scanned the brains of college students and two Members of Parliament to see if there were any significant differences between conservatives and liberals in terms of brain structure. He did so mostly as a joke after an interview with Radio 4’s Today Programme. In his experiment, he discovered that conservatives had larger amygdalae, whereas liberals had larger anterior cingulated cortexes. The amygdala is the part of the brain responsible for primitive emotions such as anger and fear, which Dr. Rees believes can help explain why conservatives have more aggressive, simplistic policies and ideologies. The anterior cingulated cortex, however, is the part of the brain responsible for rational cognition, decision making, empathy, and other more complex emotions. Naturally, this would lead liberals to having more complex, nuanced, logic-driven ideologies and policies, whereas conservatives are much more emotion driven. This could also lead conservatives to be more susceptible to propaganda, and fear or war mongering. Think about it; spreading xenophobia against Muslims is all about making people afraid of them – so afraid of them they don’t use logic and adhere only to their emotions, acting irrationally. The same is true for war mongering; make people fearful of Iran’s stockpile of ballistic missiles, coupled with creating fear of their Islamic culture and promotion of the idea that they are going to attack us when there’s absolute no evidence of that, riles up conservatives into an aggressive fury, and once again, manipulates them into acting irrationally and wanting to strike at Iran based on nothing more than appealing to their emotions.

While this study isn’t very reliable given its sample size, it did fit well into what we already see in conservative and progressive ideology. It was a good discovery worthy of further investigation, which I hope Dr. Rees did, but not too long ago another story came about that reminded me of his research. A study was published in Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin that found the more someone drinks, and the more intoxicated they become, the more conservative and right-wing their ideology shifts. Essentially this theory was based on the same principle; liberal positions are complex, detailed, and logical, which, while often the better choice in the long-run, is too hard for the uneducated or emotionally-driven to understand. Chris Mooney wrote this exact thing in Rolling Stone, saying:

“In other words, you could argue that liberals are really the outliers here. They’re the ones in the position of having to spin out complex, nuanced explanations for their views – explanations that, to much of the populace, feel like so much fancy-pants posturing. And while this may work for academia and wonkland, it can also get in the way of political effectiveness and leadership.”

When you’re drunk, you don’t care for facts or details. You’re all emotion, and significantly more careless and less capable of empathy with others (which we learned from the first study mentioned in this article). If you were to ask two people; one sober, one drunk, about what we should do with increasing tension with Iran, what do you believe their responses would be? The sober person would (hopefully) lean towards diplomacy or non-military action, or at least put more thought behind his or her answer. The drunk person, on the other hand, would be much more inclined to just say “I don’t know, bomb them.”

Now, what are generally considered the liberal and conservative positions on the issue of Iran, or any foreign nation with which we are having a dispute? Liberals favor diplomacy, usually by pressuring the government with economic sanctions to be more reasonable in negotiations, often appealing to the United Nations and NATO for further diplomatic support, and using minimal military action such as in Libya, where we used mostly naval power to enforce a no-fly zone, allowing us to leave there without a single lost American life. Now, the conservative position on foreign tension? In the words of my good friend George Carlin, “They have bigger dicks [than us]? BOMB THEM!”

I exaggerate, but nonetheless you get my point. More than that though, conservatives view this complex positioning of liberals as “weak” because they try as much as possible to avoid a physical altercation. Again, this feeds in perfectly to these two studies; conservatives are less likely to use logic, and telling someone that their idea is weak or stupid is somewhat cathartic because it feeds into a person’s emotional desire to be right. Whether consciously or unconsciously, conservatives may be more likely to not want to take the time to understand how they can be wrong because it’s emotionally displeasing to be wrong. So why would they go to the lengths of understanding your highly complex, detailed idea if that only means they will prove themselves wrong? This could be why conservatives dislike complexity entirely, and use it as an excuse to demean liberal ideas. In their instinctual mind (which some human beings don’t think much further beyond), complexity is nothing more than someone making up excuses because they don’t want to go to war, or get into a fight, and therefore, appear to conservatives as weak and cowardly.

The studies I shared in this piece are very informal and arguably unreliable, but given how well it fits the molds of conservative and liberal it wouldn’t shock me if there is some truth behind them. Despite this, reading over them and analyzing them has brought me to the interesting realization about why conservatives don’t like complexity. If you think about it, a great deal of conservative ideology is very simple-minded, even for the more complex issues. The primary one that comes to mind is the income tax. Many Republicans and Libertarians oppose the income tax altogether, and one of their primary arguments as to why it should be done away with is because it’s too complicated; figuring your annual income, total asset worth, factoring in deductions, how much in what account warrants reporting to the IRS, and if you’re off by one penny you risk an audit from the federal government which is exceedingly more complicated. This is part of (but not entirely) the reason why many conservatives, particularly the uneducated, favor a sales tax or a flat tax rate. Flat tax rates could allow someone to figure out how much they owe the federal government on a single piece of paper and a few punches of a calculator, and a sales tax takes all calculation responsibility off taxpayers entirely and leaves it in the hands of businesses. Many conservatives (again, especially among the uneducated) would actually prefer these systems despite the fact that doing so would dramatically raise taxes on the lower and middle classes by forcing them to sacrifice significantly more of their annual income than the wealthy, expect the poorest citizens to contribute equally the same amount as those that are more than capable of giving more and still having a huge chunk leftover for themselves (not to mention eliminate or greatly reduce the number of deductions for taxpayers).

This is perhaps the fundamental flaw with how conservatives think. They do everything they can to avoid complexity, and keep issues black and white. The obvious problem with that way of thinking is that nothing in this world is black or white, and increasing complexity is inevitable. As humans become more accepting and inclusive of people, cultures, and lifestyles, we grow more complicated as individuals as we find out who we are and where we belong. Families are constantly growing more complicated as homosexual couples, or single parents, raising children increase, or as families expand to include more and more people, each one helping one another to accommodate for the rising cost of living and stagnating wages of the middle class. Governments must keep up with an ever changing society growing ever more complex to better protect and provide equal opportunity for all citizens. Conservatives don’t want things to change. They want them to stay the same, at their relatively simple levels, or even revert them to ages past where things were even more simplistic; white Christians good, everything else bad. Women weak, men strong. Homosexuality bad, heterosexuality good, but only for procreation. Having sex for any other reason might actually complicate society a little bit (what is considered decent, children born out of wedlock, re-defining the family, etc.), so ultra right-wing conservatives are against it.

Even when conservatives try to be simplistic, due to the complicated nature of man and society, it sometimes ends up in a train wreck of complexity that doesn’t even solve the problem, unlike liberal complexity. Consider Herman Cain’s tax plan when he was still running for President; he summed up his entire plan by saying “999.” It was short for 9% income tax, 9% flat tax, and 9% sales tax. It was short, sweet, had a nice emotional ring to it that appealed to conservatives, but in reality the entire plan didn’t even work. Economists literally didn’t understand how the plan would work to solve the horrible deficit problem in America, while at the same time it kept in place the complexities of the income tax and established two other new forms of taxation alongside it. Why? To this day I don’t understand Cain’s logic behind the plan, and can’t answer that question. All I know for a fact is that it sounded emotionally appealing because it sounded so simple, appealing to conservatives, when in reality it was anything but.

Complexity is inevitable. Progressives know this, and using logic and other forms of rational cognition they do their best to think of the big, long-term picture. They are better capable of empathy, making them more capable of defending the old adage “injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.” At the same time though, Mooney was also right on the political drawbacks of this way of thinking. People don’t care for specificity, long-winded logic, and long-term solutions. They want quick fixes, and respond to emotional appeals, at which conservatives are significantly better, reaping more political victories for them, even if not ideological or policy ones. Again, let’s just look at taxes. Conservatives are always calling for more tax cuts, claiming that it puts more money in the pockets of individual citizens and businesses; an immediate gratification, but what about the long term implications? Tax cuts mean less revenue for the government. Less revenue for the government means an unbalanced budget and the creation of deficits. Deficits lead to spending cuts. Spending cuts lead to fewer programs to assist the lower and middle class. Fewer of these programs mean a higher cost of living for people of these classes. Higher cost of living is a long-term issue for the working class that suddenly makes the short-term benefit of the tax cuts you got years prior not so worth it, and ultimately sticks you with a net loss. Worse yet, because there are sometimes years between the tax cuts and the spending cuts, people don’t even connect those two dots.

Progressives, on the other hand, believe that taxes should actually be raised. Yes, in the short term, it will hurt and cost money to everyday Americans, but in the long-term, the government will have more money, allowing it to balance its budget, provide more living assistance programs to the working class to lower their cost of living, which would then in turn give even the poorest citizens equality of opportunity (without giving them equality of wealth). On top of that, higher taxes could incentive business owners to re-invest in their company, rather than horde excess revenue as profits, to avoid that money being taxed, which then causes private industry to expand quite rapidly. So years down the line after tax increases, through the complexities of economics and government, citizens would actually have a net gain, making the increased taxes an investment, and not a burden (though I am aware there’s the question of how government spends our money, but that’s another issue entirely that I’ll save for another day). Despite this, how many politicians do you hear these days openly admitting they want to raise taxes? None. Why? It’s bad politics. Americans have been dumbed-down to the point where a significant majority (at least significant enough to influence elections) are incapable of thinking long-term, or with this level of complexity.

So the next time you’re thinking about how to vote, don’t just think about the implications of your vote tomorrow, next month, or even next year. Don’t just think about yourself and your bank account. Think about your neighbor, your parents, your children, and your friends. Think about the janitor at your child’s school, the small business owner across the street, the soldier soon to be deployed to the next war in the Middle East or the veteran disabled from the last. Think about the implications of your vote years and years down the line; will it be to the benefit of all people then? Will it still protect freedom, and create equality of opportunity far in the future?

Think about it, and think about it long and hard. Consider all angles, all variables, and all possibilities. Even if conservatives are hardwired one way, and liberals another, that’s still no excuse to not do your civic duty and vote in the best interest of your fellow American, and not just yourself.

Obama’s First Term – the Good, the Bad, and the Ugly

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By Jay Hansen

The circus that is the Republican Primaries will soon be winding down, meaning we won’t have the same clown acts to keep us distracted from the real decision in 2012 any more. The question will finally be about Obama vs. Romn… I mean, whoever wins the Republican Primary. So, I’ve started reflecting on the past few years and Obama’s accomplishments. I criticize him a lot, but he does deserve credit when credit is due. At the same time, he deserves scorn where it is due too. That is when I came up with this article: President Obama’s First Term – The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly. Like I said, he did do many good things, but there are other situations and issues he handled poorly or he displayed questionable behavior during deliberation of the issue. To his credit, he still at least tried on most of these issues, unlike the ugly. The Ugly column refers to the ugly facts we’ve come to learn about Obama during his first term, including the issues on which he didn’t even try to fight.

Due to the limitations on size and organization for this graph, I have to skip a lot of the specific details for the longer accomplishments such as the Affordable Care Act of 2010. Many of its smaller details, or the more minor accomplishments of Obama’s first term, can be found on see this list.

Forgive me if my sources seem a little sloppy on this one. There was a TON of information hunting involved for an article created on such a simple idea.

The Good

The Bad

The Ugly
Nominated two liberal Supreme Court Justices – I ultimately decided to put Obama’s two liberal appointments to the Supreme Court on the good list because it’s by far the most important reason why I’ll be voting for him in 2012. Really though, complimenting him on this is like thanking someone for going to a grocery store and not stealing anything. Obama ran as a liberal. He’s supposed to appoint liberal justices. Nonetheless, it was a good, vitally important move to the health of our democracy. The Supreme Court is dangerously corporatist right now, and Ruth Bader Ginsberg, possibly the most solid liberal on the court, is 79 years old. If a Republican wins in 2012, it’s possible she could be replaced with yet another corporatist, meaning we won’t see campaign finance reform or any degree of cleaning up our government for literally another lifetime, and I honestly don’t know if America can wait that long. The War in Iraq – While it’s very good that Obama ended the war in Iraq, he can hardly be credited for that. He was only following the Status of Arms Agreement as laid out by President Bush. The reason this is in the “bad” category, however, is because for a time Obama was showing signs of possibly re-considering following the Bush timetable of leaving Iraq and staying for longer. The simple fact that he showed signs of re-considering is extremely troubling. We still ended up withdrawing thankfully, so ultimately Obama made the right decision, but it was such an obvious one even minor reconsideration draws his thought process into question. Expanded executive power and violations of civil liberties – Obama has changed little about the violations of civil liberties largely done by unjust expansion of executive power enacted by the Bush Administration, especially outside of torture. We still do warrantless wiretapping, searches, and seizures, shredding the 4th amendment. Plus, after becoming President, Obama suddenly began supporting the Patriot Act. Worse yet, in many ways, he’s greatly expanded violations against our civil liberties. Under Obama, the US Department of Homeland Security has begun testing FAST (Future Attribute Screening Technology), a program created to judge people’s intent for future crimes. It has also recently been revealed that the United States President and Military hold the authority to take military action against a cyber attack, opening the possibility of simple computer hackers being labeled as terrorists. With the passage of the most recent National Defense Authorization Act, we learned more about Obama than anything else. This Act enabled the military to operate within the United States, violating the Posse Comitatus Act which forbade the US military from policing the streets and instead left it up to local law enforcement over 130 years ago. It also shredded the 5th and 14th amendments and Habeas Corpus by allowing indefinite detentions of any “enemy combatants” without trial, and with the military determining who is and is not a military combatant with no outside jurisdiction, and they may do so to US citizens. In other words, Obama has signed into law a bill that allows the military to detain whomsoever they want, American citizens on American soil included, without the authority of the government or law enforcement for whatever reason they want without any evidence for however long they want without a trail. When Obama signed it into law, he defended it by saying “MY Administration will interpret section 1021 in a manner that ensures that any detention it authorizes complies with the Constitution, the laws of war, and all other applicable law.”

While Obama’s administration may not use the bill for this purpose, the bill establishes that power for the President, and Obama won’t be President forever. It’s not that we’re necessarily worried about President Obama; it’s future Presidents who will now have this authority.

Worst of all, Obama has normalized these things. Bush introduced them, but instead of saying “oh, he was all wrong,” Obama accepted them as normal and went on about his business. These violations of our privacy and liberties have been standardized into American life by President Obama now, after running his campaign on “change,” and will be extremely difficult to stop.
Health Care Reform – Health care reform was such a mixed bag I put it in here and in “the bad.” There were dozens and dozens of small, beneficial aspects to the Affordable Care Act of 2010, but here are a few highlights:

  • Required insurance companies to cover those with pre-existing conditions
  • Lets children stay on their parents’ health insurance until they’re 25
  • Closed the doughnut hole in Medicare prescription drug plans, and cut the “wasteful spending” of the Medicare Advantage plan.
  • Created tax credits for those who need help paying health premiums
  • Required health plans to disclose how much of the premium goes to patient care

In addition to the Affordable Care Act of 2010, Obama also expanded the SCHIP program by increasing eligibility for it, covering an additional 4 million children and pregnant women. Obama also expanded eligibility for Medicaid.

 The STAR Treaty – Like many things in this column, the STAR Treaty was a very good deal to help prevent loose nukes from spreading around Russia and the rest of the world. It was so good, as a matter of fact, that there was no reason to oppose it. Republicans only opposed it because they took every issue hostage that they could to see what they could get out of Obama as “compromise,” because they knew Obama would not fight them on it. Thankfully, Obama did not fail as hard on this issue as others, as he did not compromise despite Republican efforts to do so. It’s good that he got the treaty passed, but the passive way he got it passed earned him a spot in the “bad” list. Extended the Bush Tax Cuts and passed more tax cuts of his own on top of them – One of Obama’s biggest campaign promises was to end the disastrous Bush Tax Cuts, yet he completely and utterly broke that promise and extended them for another two years, opposing the wishes of a majority of his own political party and American people as well. His stimulus bill contained massive tax cuts, he fought tooth-and-nail for the payroll tax cuts, and he has even shown support of cutting the corporate tax rate. Even his own jobs bill, before compromising with Republicans, was 56% tax cuts. He hasn’t fought once to stop tax cuts, let alone raising taxes on the rich, defying a key reason why so many voted for him in 2008 and more importantly what this nation desperately needs right now to save our economy and budget.
Student Loan Reform – The government now provides student loans instead of banks, cutting out the “middle man,” and saving the nation $61 billion a year. Also:

  • Students can reduce their monthly payments from 15 to ten percent of their discretionary income as of 2014
  • The balance of students’ debt would be forgiven after 20 years of payments rather than in 25 years
  • Enables recent graduates to consolidate their loans and achieve lower interest rates
  • Set up a program aimed at helping students better understand their options when taking out loans.
 Killed Awlaki – First of all, the principle of this issue alone is downright ugly. Obama ordered the execution of a US citizen without even charging him with a crime, let alone a trial. There’s little to no concrete evidence that he actually plotted terrorist attacks, or that he was involved. In fact, he had been cleared of charges regarding involvement with the 9/11 attacks. Since it wasn’t without its good reasoning, however, I counted it only as “bad,” as it was still a dangerous precedent to be setting for future Presidents by establishing that the President has the power to order the execution of US citizens abroad without a trial. Supports the war in Afghanistan – Despite initially asking for an exit strategy, and massive public opposition to the war, President Obama will have twice the number of troops in Afghanistan by the end of his first term than the day he entered office. Initially the war had good intentions – capturing and stopping those responsible for the September 11th attacks. Now, Osama bin Laden, the orchestrator of the attacks, is dead (whom, by the way, after invading Afghanistan and Iraq, we caught in Pakistan), and there could be less than 50 members of Al-Qaeda left in Afghanistan today. Isn’t that mission accomplished? No, instead, now military leaders indicating we may be staying indefinitely. What are we still doing there?
Stimulated the economy – As in the Great Depression, Obama aimed to fight economic troubles by re-investing in the country. This stimulus plan focused on job creation and prevention of job losses, primarily by the federal government giving more money to law enforcement, education, transportation projects, energy projects, modernization of technology, and subsidies families and states designed to help struggling families under hard economic times. The stimulus included, but was not limited to:

  • Extending unemployment benefits
  • Increasing food stamp benefits
  • Highway and bridge construction and repair
  • Mass transit rail projects
  • Public Housing Improvements
  • Clean drinking water projects
  • Modernization of health information technologies
  • Increased education funding to Pell Grants and Head Start
  • Renewable, “green” energy projects
  • Cleaning up nuclear weapon production sites
  • Funding for law enforcement to hire new workers and purchase new equipment
  • Funding for new airport screening equipment
 Financial Reform – Obama’s financial reform was an absolute joke. The bill; did nothing to regulate the derivatives market or risky financial practices that sank the economy in the first place, kept the policy of too big to fail intact, did nothing to fix the corruption of the rating, allowed the banks to continue gambling with client’s money, banks are still allowed to do mark to market, and let the federal reserve continue pumping money into toxic assets, letting financial institutions privatize their gains but socialize their losses onto taxpayers. The one really good part of the legislation was the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, to which Obama took nearly a year and a half to make an appointment because of his inability or unwillingness to fight Republican opposition, and even then still had to be a recess appointment, and EVEN THEN didn’t pick the best person for the job. The bill was so watered down it was almost useless, especially when given how unwilling Obama was to really fight for the bureau. The economy is still in just as much danger now as it was before the legislation, and that’s the best way to measure its effectiveness. Failed to pass or even attempt campaign finance reform – Despite both making claims that he would support campaign finance reform when running in 2008 and this issue by far being inarguably the most important issue to clean up our government and get it working for the American people again, President Obama has done absolutely nothing to promote campaign finance reform. Obama has actually raised record amounts of money from private donors because of the lack of campaign finance laws.
Overhauled the food safety system – Obama increased the power of regulators to inspect and recall unsafe foods. It emphasizes prevention by requiring food manufacturers to prepare detailed food safety plans and to tell the Food and Drug Administration what they are doing to keep the food safe at different stages of production. Health Care Reform – Now that I’ve listed the good parts of the bill, there’s three major parts that are bad. First and foremost is the mandate without public option. I wouldn’t mind the mandate nearly as much if a public option, a non-profit insurance provider, had been in the legislation, but it wasn’t. As a matter of fact, it now turns out that Obama fought against the public option behind closed doors despite the massive public popularity for the program. So now people are forced to become customers of an industry famous for unethical behavior and cut-throat profit seeking. This, of course, is the worst problem with the bill; health care “reform” did nothing to reform the actual system. It implemented a few new rules, but our system is still entirely privatized and for-profit. It was a huge-ass band-aid, but band-aids don’t do much good when the problem is an underlying cancer slowly killing the American people. So long as profit is still the leading motivator in the health insurance game, compassion and care for clients will not be a prime directive for providers. Just like with financial reform, though, since Obama has raised the “mission accomplished” banner on his self-proclaimed “historic” health care reform, odds are we won’t becoming back to it any time soon, which is the third problem. Why should we reform health care again if Obama just did it? And if we’re not re-visiting it, what’s going to fix the massive problem we still have with a for-profit system? Sadly, right now, it looks like nothing. MASSIVELY failed in the 2011 & 2012 budget debates – Obama’s absolute worst trait is his complete and utter lack of negotiating skills. He continually pre-compromises his own side of the argument before negotiations even begin in some vain hope of looking like the “good guy” and his adversaries will do the same, even though it completely defies how compromise, and thus, democracy, really works. In 2011, he failed so hard at negotiating over the budget that Republicans literally got over 100% of what they initially asked for in the negotiations, and cut more spending than any modern US President. Nearly all of it came out of the middle and lower classes; the defense budget and wealthy were virtually unscathed. Because of the debt ceiling, the entire 2012 budget debate was fake, and Obama played along with the Republicans holding the debt ceiling hostage, despite the fact that it’s been raised without question or debate 74 times since 1962, five times under George Bush by many of the same Republicans that opposed raising it in 2011, and 235 economists, 6 of whom were Nobel Peace Prize winners, were publicly and vehemently opposed to any notion of not raising the debt ceiling. On top of that, we got stuck with the Grand Bargain, of which Obama was a fervent supporter, that cuts entitlements and raises taxes on the middle and lower classes while cutting them for the upper class and corporations. This rightfully earned Obama significant scorn from his supporters – both fellow lawmakers and constituents. Obama is so terrible at negotiating, and gives Republicans so much of what they want and more in budget negotiations, it’s hard to see how he doesn’t want the Republican agenda on taxation, spending, and the budget, because I refuse to believe he’s that woefully incapable of negotiating. If all of that wasn’t enough to make you cynical of Obama and his ideology of the budget, consider the fact that he personally created the Simpson-Bowls Commission to address the 2012 budget when the debate first started, which tried to rob the middle class and tie Social Security into the general budget. Obama himself made each and every appointment to the commission, yet 14 out of the 18 commission members were fiscal conservatives. The co-chair to this commission was Alan Simpson, who said that all people on Social Security are leeches, that Social Security is insolvent, which is factually untrue, and said, I quote, “[Social Security is] a cow with 310 million tits.” On top of that he also wanted veterans to give up their disability benefits so he can afford more corporate tax cuts. Even now, Obama is preparing another budget proposal, and is going around to all of his supporters and constituents preparing them to be massively disappointed. I could go on, believe me I could go on, but for the sake of this chart I have to end it here. Long story short; Obama is either nightmarishly incompetent when it comes to the budget, or he’s secretly a conservative. There’s no other way to explain it.
Stopped torture – Obama stopped the practice of waterboarding, calling it torture and “contrary to America’s traditions.” Women’s right to choose – While the Obama Administration does believe a woman has a right to have an abortion if she chooses, they sure as hell aren’t doing much to convince us of that. Obama even signed an executive order that would make abortions more difficult to obtain for some women. The real reason why Obama is failing so hard at defending a woman’s right to choose is because he does nothing and says nothing about the heinous assault against women’s reproductive rights at the state level by Republicans across the country. I highlight a lot of these attempts here. The worst of these cases involve women being imprisoned on charges of murder for miscarrying a child because, in accordance with South Carolina law, the baby is “alive,” and the woman’s body just killed it. Already over 300 women have been arrested in South Carolina because of this legislation, and other states are pushing for the same. While Obama has done little to nothing to damage a woman’s right to choose, he sure as hell hasn’t done a damn thing but stand on the sidelines and watch as the right to choose is literally banned in dozens of states across America, despite the unconstitutionality of such legislation. Continually got advice and administration officials from the Washington establishment – Picking up where I left off, Obama continually picked questionable people for his cabinet and advisory positions, especially for a so-called “liberal,” which he really isn’t (see the next point). Alan Simpson from the last point was just the tip of the ice berg. Tim Geithner, Obama’s Treasury Secretary, basically is a Republican. He “left” the party, but never re-joined another, and is still a solid corporatist / conservative. The banks refer to him as “their man in Washington.”  He has been involved with corruption case after corruption case. Obama’s Attorney General, Eric Holder, has not prosecuted a single person responsible for the financial collapse, despite Obama promising to on the campaign trail, nor has he investigated any of the countless wrongdoings of the Bush administration. Larry Summers was originally Obama’s Chief Economic Advisor, and he was one of the biggest Democrats responsible for promoting the deregulatory practices that lead to the economic recession, and still continues to support today. Now, Obama is considering Summers to be the Chief of the World Bank. His first Chief of Staff was Rahm Emmanuel, who stated that liberals are, quote, “fucking retarded.” His second Chief of Staff William Daley may have been largely responsible for a lot of the Administration’s concessions to Republicans, causing a lot of Democratic leadership to turn on him. Let’s not forget Daley also had an awkwardly honest interview with Politico where he did nothing but focus on how horrible Obama’s first three years had been. Most of all though, Daley was the primary one responsible for telling the President he wasn’t friendly enough to businesses and the big banks despite massive public opposition to such a notion. Now his third official Chief of Staff is Jack Lew, who has received millions from CitiGroup and whom the Republicans absolutely love. These people are Obama’s appointments; he doesn’t have to compromise on them, and yet he keeps picking pro-establishment, pro-banker, conservatives. Why else would he do so, if he wasn’t secretly pro-establishment, pro-banker, or conservative himself?
Killed Osama bin Laden – Largely self-explanatory. I’d say I don’t want to hear conservatives criticizing Obama for being “weak on terror” ever again, but I know I will… Guantanamo and off-shore detention – Obama tried to close the prison at Guantanamo Bay, but failed. He did not fight passionately for his side of the argument, and when you don’t do that you lose. Yes, the Republicans were ruthless in their opposition to his plans, but it’s a yet another classic example of how Obama doesn’t know how to fight for his ideas. The simple truth is he didn’t carry out his promise, we didn’t get the outcome we wanted, and therefore, this falls under the category of “bad.” Disdainful of his own constituents – On many occasions, Obama and members of his administration have expressed disdain or even disgust for liberals and left-wing ideology. Chief of Staff Rahm Emmanuel called liberals “fucking retarded.” Press Secretary Robert Gibbs sarcastically mocked liberals, calling them crazy, unrealistic, falsely accusing liberals of holding radical ideology of wanting to abolish the pentagon, and saying they all need to be drug tested (and all just before an election too, when Democrats actually need their liberal voters supporting them). Obama himself derisively told Senator Sanders (while pointing to a half-filled glass of water), “that’s the problem with YOU PROGRESSIVES; you see this as half-empty.”

Obama is not a liberal. Both his words and actions as President, particularly when it comes to administrative and advisory appointments, he just can’t be. In fact, he seems to have great disdain for liberals and progressives.
Repealed DADT – By repealing Don’t Ask Don’t Tell, the military can no longer discriminate against enlistees based on sexual orientation. Obama’s Pocket Change – As I listed in the “good” column, Obama did make tiny, incremental changes here and there to some programs. The problem was he ran his entire 2008 campaign on “change,” and not just petty “pocket change,” like I wrote about in my very first piece on this website. He campaigned on changing the very system on which America operates. He knew it was a broken system, and he knew people would get excited about fixing it, as they did. Turns out, Obama loves the core system as it is, which I address further in the “ugly” column. I know change is slow, but slow is one thing; not even trying is another entirely. Obama cannot bring the change he promised until he at least learns to fight for it properly, assuming, of course, that he ever intended on fighting for progressive principles in the first place. Failed to pass Immigration Reform – Obama has done nothing to reform immigration. He attempted, but failed, to pass the DREAM Act, which would allow children brought here illegally (and non-consensually, given that they were children) to have a pathway to citizenship if they either went to college or joined the military. The Act failed because of opposition within the Democratic Party. Obama has actually drastically increased deportation of illegal immigrants since becoming President.
Stopped defending DOMA – Obama stopped the Justice Department from defending the Defense of Marriage Act, which prohibited states from being forced to recognize same-sex marriages from other states. Obama will, however, still be “enforcing” the Act.   Failed to protect unions and worker’s rights – During the Wisconsin labor disputes, Obama and the White House would not support the workers protesting over their rights to collectively bargain being taken away almost entirely because of Republican criticism. Ultimately, the White House would not even send a single person to help, despite the protestors asking for it from the President, Vice President, and even the Secretary of Labor. This is despite the fact that Obama directly promised during the campaign to support protesters whose rights specifically to collectively bargain become jeopardized. It is because of this and similar actions (and inactions) on the part of the President that the unions, the largest supporters of the Democratic Party by far, are now turning on Democratic Party establishment entirely.
Expanded the definition of hate crimes – Under the new definition of a hate crime, those committed against someone due to gender identity or sexual orientation would also count as federal offenses.   Increased off-shore oil drilling – President Obama introduced a bill to increase off-shore oil drilling, one of the primary points on the Republican agenda and primary issues liberals oppose. He did so less than a month before one of the worst oil spills of all time.
Supported NATO in Libya – Many liberals questioned Obama going into Libya, especially after so vehemently opposing the Iraq and Afghanistan Wars, but Libya was very different. First and foremost, it wasn’t our idea. Our allies in NATO asked for our help, meaning we weren’t going in alone, nor were we the ones leading or investing the most effort. The Libyan rebels also asked us to come, which the Afghani and Iraqi people did not do. Finally, we did not send in ground troops – we simply enforced the policies and rulings of the United Nations and NATO. For our actions in Libya, the world’s longest-ruling dictator was deposed, and our commitment to NATO and the international community was strengthened.    
Bailed out the Auto Industry – While some may question the ethicality of bailouts on principle, the Auto Industry Bailout was the right way to do one if a bailout is to be done. The companies bailed out through this package supported unionized labor, meaning that workers’ rights would not be sacrificed, and more, Speaker Pelosi and Senate Majority Leader Reid imposed strict “strings” attached to the bailout that required CEOs to suffer pay cuts, protect the taxpayer’s investment, and general means to prevent abuse of the emergency funds allocated to them. Given that, the Auto Industry Bailout is the only bailout that may have actually saved jobs and helped the average American worker. Ultimately, this bailout saved as many as 3 million jobs.    
Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act – Allowed lawsuits against employers over discriminatory pay to have the 180 day statue of limitations on filing the lawsuit applied to the date of the most recent discriminatory paycheck, instead of the first.    
Opposed SOPA and other similar legislation – This is an extremely recent development as of the creation of this graph, but the White House has come out and denounced SOPA-like legislation such as PIPA and the PROTECT IP Act.    
Blocked the Keystone XL Pipeline – Obama blocked the creation of the Keystone XL pipeline that would route tar sands petroleum from Canada to Texas, posing a huge environmental risk and running an oil pipeline through America’s largest fresh water aquifer. Some may question if this was right or not, but it did show a rare sign of strength on Obama’s part in just making a decision with such opposition towards blocking it.    
Various other “Pocket Change” – Obama did a great number of other very minor changes throughout his first term. A good list of them can be seen here at PolitiFact.    

As usual though, I spend a week working on an awesome article like this only for Cenk Uygur to come in and beat me to the punch. On yesterday’s episode of The Young Turks, Cenk did a breakdown of nearly everything I discussed in this chart. Here’s the primary video, with two subsequent ones. Damn you Uygur and your awesome team at The Young Turks; damn your efficiency I say!

Progressive vs. Liberal

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By Jay Hansen

We are BACK everybody, with a new look and feel! Regeneration cycle is nearing completion!

(And yes, that was totally a Dr. Who reference)

Now I know, I know, what horrible timing to take the site down for a week. The Iowa Caucuses were this past week and dear God that was a close race. It was by far the closest race in terms of actual votes separating the winner and losers in my lifetime. Mitt Romney won by only 8 votes against Santorum, who came in second pretty much entirely because of the “musical chairs” effect this primary has had, and he just got lucky enough to be in the hot seat when the right hour arrived (see 10 of Santorum’s most outrageous claims, or this classic Young Turk clip to remind you of just how stupid and deplorable he is ). Paul came in a close third, still earning over a fifth of the vote. Bachmann dropped out, Perry “suspended” his campaign for about a whole six hours, only to jump back in upon hearing the news of Bachmann, and Huntsman wasn’t even running in Iowa (and we all know he’ll be out after New Hampshire anyway). It was a busy week!

But hopefully now soon we can get back to business here at inthereddest.com. I’ve got all the old articles up, and new ones are finally poised to come in, but there are still some sections of the site under construction. The Links, Contact, and Featured Articles pages are all still missing, as well as most noticeably the headlines. I’d also still like to mess with the theme a little if I can, and I may get rid of the “Recent Works” section now that I have a handy-dandy sidebar for that. I do plan to start archiving my news entries, though, if I have the time and actually remember to. Plus, if you notice, we have a search bar now, and each article has tags and categories by which to search. Best of all, THERE ARE COMMENT BOXES! I’m yet to experiment with them a lot, but I know we’re gonna’ have some fun with them!

Despite all of this, the first thing you might have notice that’s different is the sub-title to the website. Used to, it read “In The Reddest.com – the liberal perspective on life and politics from deep within the reddest state of the union.” Now, I’ve replaced the word “liberal” with “progressive.”

I thought long and hard about that switch, even back when I was first making the website and choosing which word to use upon initial launch. A new poll came out just before I decided to switch web hosts, however, and revealed that “progressive” is the most positively viewed political classification or label in the United States with a 67% positive reaction and only 22% negative. For those of you that don’t know, a little over a decade ago conservative media started a war against the word “liberal” to turn it into a dirty word. Some people who listen to FOX News and conservative radio turn downright rabid at the mention of the word, with hosts like Rush Limbaugh and others, as well as right-wing politicians, stating liberals should be killed, and some crazy people tragically acting upon it.

Despite the endless attacks and demonization of the word “liberal,” it still has a 50% positive reaction and only 39% negative, which is pretty amazing considering no one is defending the word “liberal,” not even our supposedly “liberal” president. It is this exact reason I chose to originally go with the word “liberal” on my website; I wanted to do what little part I could to help “reclaim” the word, which is rightfully ours and unjustly tarnished and smeared by the other side. I will still fight for, and certainly use, the word liberal all the time, but I am not one to grate against harmless cultural change. If more people in society would rather view us as “progressives” than “liberals,” despite there being little to no difference between the ideologies therein, then so be it. I don’t have a problem with it.

For many people there is a difference in the two words’ connotative meanings, but these differences are pretty much entirely subjective. In other words, we each make our own meaning for them in terms of how they’re used colloquially. To me, I don’t see much of a difference. The difference I do see, though, as shallow as it may be, reflects more positively on progressive because of the word “progress.” Progressives seek to make progress in society instead of regress to the past, be it in terms of social norms, taxation, foreign policy, domestic policy, or other issues in a constantly changing, constantly progressing, world.

So, allow me to finish by saying welcome to In the Reddest.com, the progressive perspective on life and politics from deep in the reddest state of the union.

Cheers!