Declare War On the Dems: Make The President Dismiss the Catfood Commission

letsgetitdone writes:

If the President fails to dismiss that Commission before election day, then I urge that every real Democrat see to it that the Democrats get beaten very badly in the 2010 election, either by staying home, voting for a third party candidate, or even voting for a Republican if it comes to that.

I'm doing the first three things on your list already and most likely forever.

Shutting down the CFC would be necessary but nowhere near sufficient to rehabilitating the Democratic Party.

I, too, am doing these things now and forever...regardless of what anyone does with the CFC.

It's so liberating.

I don't think there is any kind of chance that commission gets disbanded; it's loaded with reliable votes for doing a hatchet job on social safety-net programs and I don't believe Obama gives a flying fig about losing Dem votes because (1) the recommendations will be voted on by a lame-duck Congress, and (2) going forward, he's likely to get more of the agenda he wants with more Republicans seated.

I don't even think he really cares if it sets him up to be a one-term president - he's done all the prep work he needs to ensure a lucrative post-presidency, with the next "contest" being about making sure to outshine and outearn Bill Clinton and take his rightful place as the Best Ex-President EVER.

I'm not saying we shouldn't try to, if not get rid of the commission, at least undermine and weaken it to the point where the recommendations it makes are meaningless - we absolutely should - but Obama has so far proved to be immune to the pressure to move left - and Gibbs' comments and his follow-up do not encourage me to believe Obama gives a rat's ass what the people want.

or a "progressive" or even a "liberal" or "professional lefty", or any of the other labels that imply a failed and watered-down political and ethical "value system". I am a Green that subscribes to the "Green New Deal" values, and I am done with the legacy parties. I am proudly running for US Congress, MI, District 12, against a Rep that keeps voting for war expenditures, and against pulling our troops out. There will be no change if we do not create it! IMO it is not enough to say I'm against something if I am not creating an alternative to what exists. I am proud to be associated with a group that has a vision for a better world. It is not enough to vote against one must have something worthwhile to vote for.

That's an easy pledge for me to take, it didn't even require the CFC.

But i wouldn't recommend holding the breath on this issue. Mr. Obama is a neoliberal, like everyone in his administration and just about everyone in D.C. The prescription is always the same in these cases of "problem deficits": austerity.

So this is not really about Social Security or Democratic politics as much as it is the standard World Bank/IMF game plan. We've been doing this to other nations for decades, regardless of which party controls the WH or Congress. Nobody really bothered to notice then, i guess because it was just brown people and whatnot half a world a way. Besides which, the US economy tended to benefit - even if only in a yellow, trickle down sort of way - from it.

But what comes around goes around three fold or more, and we won't be getting up off the killing floor. This is how our enlightened political class turns the US into just another perpetually developing nation...or, if you like, a third world country.

Ask a Haitian, or a Russian, or a Korean (though they had the good sense to do the opposite of what the IMF/World Bank recommend in the late 90's after it became clear that the prescription worsened the symptoms), or pretty much anyone who calls Africa home, or much of S. America, or large swaths of SE Asia...i'll stop there because i'm running out of world geography.

I'm with you, and have been in war mode for a while, like many here. The Health Whatever Bill just killed it all for me.

I'm also in agree with Vastleft. I would need a lot more from the Dems for me to go back there. I would expect them to fully adopt their own plaftorm and actually implement policies that advance that platform. You all know my issue is women's rights, because as Hillary said so long ago, "Women's rights are human rights." Want to stop poverty? Elevate women - 70% of the world's poor are female. Etc. etc. etc.

I would want them to pass the ERA, overturn Hyde, pass FOCA, rescind the Bush Conscience Rule, take back the Executive Order, and yes, enact freaking Canadian health care. After that, we'll see if they get my vote!

J)

I second everything madamab said, and add:

"No self-respecting woman should wish or work for a party that ignores her."
-- Susan B. Anthony, 1872

That goes for self-respecting men as well. "Our" party has ignored us, and the millions like us, for too long. Now it's our turn to return the favor.

The corporate PACs and shadow committees will more than make up for any loss in individual donations. This, of course, does not keep me from writing "not one dime!" on funding solicitations and returning them in the prepaid "business reply" (and how telling is *that*!) envelope. At least that way they have to pay for the return postage.

*Nothing* is going to make the Dems into a liberal/labor/anything-but-fauxgressive party again. And nothing is going to convince TPTB that SS recipients are anything other than "fully depreciated human resources" who need to be removed from the national/corporate balance sheet as quickly as possible.

"Fatcats get fancy feasts; we just get Fancy Feast"

I'll be impressed if even a small percentage of people who take these kinds of pledges stick them out to the end. The Democratic Tastemakers are so used to waving Palin handpuppets (or handpuppets of whoever the Rightie villain du jour is) and shouting "OOGA BOOGA!!11" to keep the base in line come election time. You know they're going to just do that again. It's always worked before, and quite well.

Still, it would be nice if this time everyone who threatened to turn their back on these creeps really had the nerve to actually do it.

swing in the breeze to get the point across. And the Big O didn't get it, so now we will try again. I will have nothing to do with the latest iteration of the Democratic party, I didn't listen to the Big O before the election and didn't vote for him (the first time in forty years I did not vote for president), and I will not vote for him next time, nor one of his enablers this year. We should take what we can use from the R's and I really like the idea of making our leaders fear us. And that's what this should really be about. "The Dems are dead to me" and I'm willing to wait til some one or more gets it and runs for office.

I've been saying the same thing for over a year, in the past DC said "not so fast", but I don't see him posting on this...progress.

Chris Bowers telegraphed the transition of the Democratic Party back in 2008 with his PBR/"changing of the guard" post. Political parties are malleable and shift over time. The beauty of the "legacy party" formulation is that it hints at using the past to identify with the present at the expense of all present facts, which is what is going on.

The Democrats have moved on, its time we should too. Its quite possible that Democrats may eventually get back to the party of FDR and LBJ, but I'd say its equally likely (at this point in time, sadly) that the GOP will adopt the FDR/LBJ policy view.

The use of "real Democrat" (big D) implies that the Democratic Party of today cares about "regular follk". It clearly does not and all the signs (Bowers, Obama praisin' Reagan, Donna Brazile's comments about a new Dem Party, etc.) are that the "real Democrats"--those who control the apparatus--don't have our same values anymore. In other words, use of "real Democrat" is an implicit way of holding on to a past Democratic Party, the legacy if you will.

to give up, or give in. I've already been doing those things, and will continue. The Democratic party is dead to me, as it stands, and it's going to have to completely reincarnate itself to get my vote again. I see no reason to let the catfood commission folks win because folks are apathetic or waiting for someone else to change.

Other than that, it's a good plan.

Here's what I sent to my Congressman. The next step-if he doesn't commit (which he probably won't) is to recruit a third party candidate to run against him. The SOB will lose too given his slim majority in the previous election.

Who the hell will vote for someone who voted to cut SS?

That's my strategy. What's yours?

Dear Congressman Murphy,

Your recent correspondence contained the following:

On Aug 12, 2010, at 4:53 PM, Congressman Scott Murphy wrote:

There are some who believe that social security should be privatized, and some who believe that it should be dismantled all together. I have made it my priority to ensure that that will never happen

Your constituents require an additional commitment from you: namely, that Social Security benefits will not be reduced and the retirement age not be increased.

A simple question:

Will you be willing to make this commitment to your constituents?

Best Regards,

John Halle

believe in social democracy the only way to achieve it is by voting for the Social Democrats NOT the Democratic party. The only way to take back the Democratic Party is BY voting for a third party. If the DSAUSA suddenly received almost half of the legacy Dems votes we would start to see some real change. Besides it would be great entertainment seeing all the cable talkers heads explode.

In weekly address, Obama returns to campaign chestnut: Warning of threat to Social Security

Reviving a scare tactic that Democrats have used before, President Obama said in his radio address Saturday that "some Republican leaders in Congress" want to privatize Social Security. ...

...Meanwhile, a coalition of 60 liberal groups and advocates for the elderly, including the AFL-CIO and MoveOn.org, are predicting a different threat to Social Security: the possibility that a bipartisan deficit commission created by Obama will propose slashing benefits to help dig the nation out of debt.

This is why Gibbs was attacking the professional left (if only we had one).

Vote third party.