I am doing this because a good friend wanted me to. So here goes:
Clinton promises to work for universal health care. Obama doesn't. Obama won't mandate health care coverage. Universal coverage won't work without mandating it. Health care is a right, not a privilege. Clinton is on record saying that health care is a right. It's time we make this dream a reality.
Clinton's approach relies on targeted tax cuts. She has proposed tax credits for all sorts of things, including health care, retirement, savings, and tuition. These targeted tax cuts are progressive. For couples making $60,000, a Clinton administration would match each $1,000 saved, whereas for those making between $60,000 and $100,000, it would match only 50 cents on the dollar. Obama simply advocates an across the board tax cut for 90 percent of the population. All that will do is drain the budget. It's a pointless exercise from a progressive standpoint. The evidence shows that targeted tax cuts work. The EITC, for example, which was expanded under Clinton, has been a highly effective anti-poverty program.
Clinton opposes No Child Left Behind and wants to end the mandate. This and health care are the two big issues for me. Obama wants to fully fund No Child Left Behind. Funding isn't the problem. The problem is the mandate.
Obama talks about how politicians and legislation can't fix the problem with the environment. What is needed, he says, is a mass mobilization of the public. But we already have that mass mobilization. What we need now are politicians and legislation that put the movement demands into action. Clinton's plan to sink wind fall profits into research and development is an actual strategy.
I trust Clinton to steer us through our economic troubled waters, because she has Bill and all those advisers who did such a wonderful job in the 1990s. I can't help feeling that Obama will be over his head on this one. The situation is dire. Clinton is smart enough to handle it. Obama's slick, but he doesn't have the command of facts and policies like Clinton. She is extremely sharp.
And it's not just what Clinton brings to the table - smarts, decent policies, experience - it's what's wrong with Obama overall. He's putting the rhetoric of unity ahead of reality - the reality that we are not united nor should be. We need a politician in the White House who knows there is a struggle going on and who will engage that struggle, not try to make Americans look beyond the struggle.
Sorry if this sounds like talking points, but it's true: Hope won't put food on the table. Change won't give us universal health care. Unity won't make the real differences go away. Obama's message is idealism, and while that may be attractive to people who desire to start over again (and there's a real messianic element to this), it lacks that practical and grounded substance needed to deal with the crisis we face.
Now don't go thinking I've confused Clinton with the type of progressive I really want to see lead this country. We are always dealing in the realm of constrained options with these major parties. Clinton is what she is, and I have a lot of problems with that. But of those left in the Democratic field, she is more the candidate of the ordinary working person than Obama. Obama is attractive to affluent Democrats who have the luxury of voting for lofty rhetoric.
Clinton promises to work for universal health care. Obama doesn't. Obama won't mandate health care coverage. Universal coverage won't work without mandating it. Health care is a right, not a privilege. Clinton is on record saying that health care is a right. It's time we make this dream a reality.
Clinton's approach relies on targeted tax cuts. She has proposed tax credits for all sorts of things, including health care, retirement, savings, and tuition. These targeted tax cuts are progressive. For couples making $60,000, a Clinton administration would match each $1,000 saved, whereas for those making between $60,000 and $100,000, it would match only 50 cents on the dollar. Obama simply advocates an across the board tax cut for 90 percent of the population. All that will do is drain the budget. It's a pointless exercise from a progressive standpoint. The evidence shows that targeted tax cuts work. The EITC, for example, which was expanded under Clinton, has been a highly effective anti-poverty program.
Clinton opposes No Child Left Behind and wants to end the mandate. This and health care are the two big issues for me. Obama wants to fully fund No Child Left Behind. Funding isn't the problem. The problem is the mandate.
Obama talks about how politicians and legislation can't fix the problem with the environment. What is needed, he says, is a mass mobilization of the public. But we already have that mass mobilization. What we need now are politicians and legislation that put the movement demands into action. Clinton's plan to sink wind fall profits into research and development is an actual strategy.
I trust Clinton to steer us through our economic troubled waters, because she has Bill and all those advisers who did such a wonderful job in the 1990s. I can't help feeling that Obama will be over his head on this one. The situation is dire. Clinton is smart enough to handle it. Obama's slick, but he doesn't have the command of facts and policies like Clinton. She is extremely sharp.
And it's not just what Clinton brings to the table - smarts, decent policies, experience - it's what's wrong with Obama overall. He's putting the rhetoric of unity ahead of reality - the reality that we are not united nor should be. We need a politician in the White House who knows there is a struggle going on and who will engage that struggle, not try to make Americans look beyond the struggle.
Sorry if this sounds like talking points, but it's true: Hope won't put food on the table. Change won't give us universal health care. Unity won't make the real differences go away. Obama's message is idealism, and while that may be attractive to people who desire to start over again (and there's a real messianic element to this), it lacks that practical and grounded substance needed to deal with the crisis we face.
Now don't go thinking I've confused Clinton with the type of progressive I really want to see lead this country. We are always dealing in the realm of constrained options with these major parties. Clinton is what she is, and I have a lot of problems with that. But of those left in the Democratic field, she is more the candidate of the ordinary working person than Obama. Obama is attractive to affluent Democrats who have the luxury of voting for lofty rhetoric.
18 comments:
Well it looks like the Obama "cult" is making inroads into the blue collar working class voter that Dr. Austin advocates for.
"In Wisconsin, according to exit polls, Obama placed ahead of Clinton among those who make less than $50,000 a year and those with less than a college education. He has now won working-class white men in Wisconsin, Missouri, New Hampshire, California, Maryland, and Virginia."
Slate Article
That's what happens when the corporate media hypes one candidate while relentlessly hammering his opponent. The corporate propaganda machine has incredible power, and it loathes Hillary Clinton in much the same way that it loathes Al Gore. It wants Obama. The media has greatly enhanced the bandwagon effect with Obama. It's Obamamania.
Well OK I guess we can always scapegoat the media.
Face it, Hillary Clinton ran a crappy campaign. Mark Penn is incompetent. If you want a perfect example of how poorly her campaign was managed take a look at her Texas operation.
"What Clinton aides discovered is that in certain targeted districts, such as Democratic state Sen. Juan Hinojosa's heavily Hispanic Senate district in the Rio Grande Valley, Clinton could win an overwhelming majority of votes but gain only a small edge in delegates."
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/02/17/AR2008021702461_pf.html
They just discovered Texas' delegate rules that have been available since August.
http://media.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/politics/documents/Texas_delegate_selection_plan_021508.pdf?sid=ST2008021702479
Hillary Clinton was supposed to be the professional-the experienced candidate. "Ready to go on day one" is her motto. This Texas fiasco has all the hallmarks of an amateur.
You really have that corporate media mentality, mrbold. You're making judgments based on style not substance. No wonder you're an Obama man. It's just like the corporate media types to talk about how terrible a campaign is being run rather than on substantive matters such as policies and experiences. I make my decisions based the respective positions and experiences of the candidates, not on who is running the better campaign.
Besides, Clinton couldn't possibly run a campaign that would prevent the corporate media operatives from savaging her. They have it in for her, just like they had it in for Al Gore. With Gore, we saw people blaming the way he ran his campaign as the reason for his failure to win Florida big enough to prevent the Supreme Court from installing George Bush as president. No, it was the corporate media's doing. They wanted Bush to be president, and even though he was a tough sale compared to Obama, they still managed to get Bush close enough. They're sinking Clinton's campaign the same way only it's more dramatic because Obama has mania on his side (have you seen all the people fainting at his rallies?).
I didn't know citing an example of clear campaign incompetency is the hallmark of someone with a "corporate media mentality". Thanks for info Doc.
I have to say I find that charge interesting coming from a guy who uncritically posted a David Brooks' screed adding the ol' "He nails it!" as a tagline and also uploaded the cover from TNR on his blog.
I hope that instead of falling for the corporate media meme of Obama as cult leader, you will do some research into what cults actually are and learn to discern the BS from the truth.
Rather than use David Brooks rhetoric without attribution, I cited him. I guess I could have Obamed it and just lifted Brooks' rhetoric without attribution, but I was always taught that to use somebody else's ideas without attribution is unethical.
The cover of the New Republic conveyed my feelings on the Obama subject, so I shared it. I guess I could have photo-shopped a picture of Obama with a halo, but (a) I don't have time and (b) my photo-shopping abilities are probably pretty bad. So I borrow the New Republic's image.
What is associated with the corporate media mentality is making an argument against Clinton based on characterizations of her style rather than her substance. That's what you're doing.
Here's my question for you: How committed are you to posting petty bullshit on my blog? Because if this is your new approach to participating on my blog, I am going to delete your posts. I am a strong believer in reducing noise-to-signal ratio.
Wow this guy is sounding like the very Paultards he despises. I guess corporate media sounds less conspiracy laden than saying the MSM like the Paultards do.
Oh we've entered serious snark infested waters now.
Please by all means Doc tell me how pointing out an example of campaign incompetence in Texas a statement on Mrs. Clinton's style.
You are the one engaging in smears based on style. Labeling something a "cult" is a statement on style. I've offered you two concrete examples of recent demonstrations of Mrs. Clinton's unfitness for the office-
1) Her poor choice of guys like Mark Penn who screwed up their Texas organizing effort.
2) Her lie about who started the Obama as Plagiarist smear.
You close by asking me how committed I am to posting petty bullshit on your blog. Well I thought responding to accusations of plagiarism and cult like behavior was a bit above "petty bullshit". But go ahead Dr. Austin delete my comments. They're all preserved in my email.
And going forward Dr. Austin, I ask as a Democrat, let's not help along the circular firing squad our party always seems to engage in during the election cycle.
Peace out.
mrbold, I am not going to engage in an irrelevant discussion on how campaigns are run. This whole business of stage-managed elections represents one of the worst aspects of bourgeois politics. I am interested in consequence and substance. I criticize Obama because he lacks substance. To admire a candidate because he or she runs a slick campaign is absurd. That's one of the big problems of this campaign.
Furthermore, I'm not a Democrat, and I have no earthly idea how you could read my blog and somehow think that I would be a member of a bourgeois political party. I have never belonged to a mainstream political party and I likely never will. I am a libertarian socialist. My purpose in talking mainstream politics is to help people get their hands on information they can use to convince those around them to keep out of office people who would be worse for our country than others who are likely to be elected. I vote for Democrats, mrbold, only because Republicans are cryptofascists. It's a one-day-every-four years moment to help keep my country from sliding off into complete authoritarianism. I don't even like Clinton. I like her husband even less. When he was president I published a scathing critique of his policy in the Balkans. My anti-Clinton bona fides are in proper order. If Obama wins the nomination, and it is likely that he will, I will vote for him only because John McCain would be a complete disaster for working people. I would rather have Clinton than Obama because (a) she's smart and experienced and (b) she's not Obama. So during this primary season, I am promoting her over Obama. I was promoting John Edwards before, but then he dropped out of the race. If Obama becomes the nominee, I will promote him.
Your remark about "circular firing squad" is still. It sounds like you love the concept of party unity over debate of ideas. It sounds like you want a process where the leader is already picked and we all hold hands and say nothing ill of the leader. Are you really that kind of sheep? No, mrbold, in a democracy you have vigorous debate. You draw the contrasts. You fight it out. You don't advocate shutting down debate and criticism "for the sake of the party." That type of thinking is associated with cults of personality and authoritarian rule. Why would you want to dampen the turn out? It's because this is a contest - for once in a long while - that so many people are turning out to vote. It's great. Millions of young people are getting turned on to the idea that they can have an impact on the world.
No, mrbold, let the primary contest continue. Let Clinton and Obama go after each other. Let their be disagreements, criticisms, and debates. But let these be about the issues that matter: policy and experience. Of course, Clinton wins on those grounds, and so that's not what will happen. What will happen is what you are engaged in, namely blaming the anti-Clinton effort on poor campaign strategy. It's clear throughout this discussion, that how these candidates stand on the issues is of no concern to you.
There's nothing conspiratorial about the reality that the corporate media shapes popular attitudes, Anon. It's a vast propaganda apparatus. It is designed to manipulate the public. There nothing secret or hidden about that. Do I need to supply a bibliography for you so you can read for yourself the vast social scientific literature on this subject?
I have already argued on this blog that the corporate media would always make sure that Ron Paul never took off during this primary season. They promoted him just enough to help him mainstream his white nationalism, since this is useful. But whenever he built up a bit too much steam, the corporate media tamped him down. There are too many other aspects about Ron Paul that are harmful to corporations.
Ron Paul fans weren't wrong in sensing that the media was suppressing Paul. The media clearly was. What prevented Ron Paul devotees from properly explaining what was happening is that Ron Paul supporters do not think critically.
Well Dr. Austin, I'm just a plain ol' Liberal/Progressive. You say you stand against the crypto-fascists ("what a git" Lister-Red Dwarf) but then buy into their framing of Obama as a cult leader. It's one thing to say he lacks substance, like the crypto-fascist David Brooks does, it's another to throw around the word "cult". That's what I am reacting to sir.
So far the only proof you offered for that allegation is people fainting at his rallies. It's just not terribly convincing.
You also regurgitated the Clinton allegation that Obama plagiarized, as further proof of the vacuous nature of his message. That's pretty well been shown to be a baseless smear, judging by the fact Clinton wouldn't own up to making the allegation.
It's those two negative threads that you've posted that I think is making your fans, like myself, scratch their heads wondering where the Hell you're going with these arguments. And these points you made don't exactly square with your desire to debate real issues.
The reasons why Obama is doing well and Clinton is not is not due solely to Clinton's treatment at the hands of the press. It is her stand on the issues. On Iraq, Clinton spouted the neo-con logic for years. At the time of her vote, she conflated Iraq with 9/11. And she still does. That's crypto-fascist sir. So is her anti-flag burning legislation she introduced. That too is crypto-fascist.
You mentioned two issues that seemed most important-Health Care and NCLB. You and Clinton assert that health care for everyone will only succeed if it's mandated. Well the American public is not too keen on being forced into something. This is where Obama is better. Obama talks about choice and expanding current successful government systems.
On NCLB, you say the problem isn't funding but the mandate. Well funding is the major gripe coming from states. And Obama has a lot more planned for education that just funding NCLB. He's going to reform it so that instead of punishing schools, he will reward them. He also is going offer scholarships and residency programs to incentivize becoming a teacher. I could go on or you could just check out his website.
I agree with you that primaries are great. It's been a lot of fun and very uplifting as a Liberal to have two candidates I like. But this last week with Clinton, well- it just turned ugly.
I'm not a cult follower Dr. Austin. I've studied a cult as a part of an anthropology thesis. Obama's movement-and it is a movement-ain't it.
Thanks for you time and I look forward to your further attempts to make friends with Cuban exiles.
Regards,
MrBold
Like Obama, mrbold gets carried away with rhetoric. He suggests I'm paranoid for talking about the crytofascism of the Republican Party, yet he claims that Clinton is cryptofascist. Why? Because she voted to authorize the use of military force against Iraq. If this is cryptofascism, then Lyndon Johnson was a cryptofascist. Suddenly, the word doesn't mean anything anymore. Is Johnson's Great Society to be condemned because of the Vietnam war? Johnson lied to take the country into Vietnam. To be sure, Clinton is to be condemned for signing on to the resolution to use military force (so is John Edwards, whom I originally supported for president), but she is not the president and she did not order the invasion.
You talk about health care being a choice. Hillary is aiming to make it possible for EVERYONE. Appealing to the argument that people want to "choose" to be without health care coverage is like arguing that people choose to be poor or unemployed. That's the argument that conservatives make, not progressives. If health care is a right not a privilege this means that EVERYBODY must have it.
Then the right wing is going to call it Nanny State and Socialism. Hysteria will be whipped up. In 2010 the Second Contract with America will drop. There will be a Republican landslide and you'll be left saying, "Dude those Liberals are so namby pamby."
It's about the framing Doc.
mrbold opposes universal health care because it will give the Republicans a talking point. I call this "paralytic liberalism."
You want to know why Republicans have been so successful over the past thirty years despite the fact that their politics stand contrary to the interests of the majority? One of the main reasons is that, unlike liberals, they have the courage of their convictions. Most Republicans are are proudly conservative, whereas most Democrats run from the label. To be sure, conservative convictions are shit, but they don't run from their politics the way liberals do.
I am responding to this bit:
"mrbold opposes universal health care because it will give the Republicans a talking point. I call this "paralytic liberalism."
Yup it's true. I don't think you win moderates by using radical left frames on issues. I prefer to let the conservatives be the wack-a-doodles.
Universal health care is a "radical left frame issue"? Every advanced capitalist democracy has some form of universal health care.
Dude, you aren't what you say you are. "Boldly liberal" my ass! LOL!
Whatever Doc-you've chopped up my arguments and accused me of being a racist, sexist and holder of the corporate media mentality without basis.
Hillary's health care plan, according to Michael Moore, will be a boon for the insurance industry. So you are lining up with the fascists on this issue Doc.
You're not a Liberal Doctor-you're just another sucker...
You're lying, mrbold. I haven't chopped up your arguments. The blogger program doesn't allow users to edit comment, only accept or reject them. Why should I continue accepting comments from a liar?
I have not accepted some of your comments because they are off topic. Your remarks are often contrary to the goals of rational debate, so I am having to moderate them. This is why we have a moderation function. I am accepting some of your comments when I really ought to reject them because I am trying to be generous with you and give you a chance to make something resembling a rational argument. My patience does have limits, though.
I did not accuse you being a racist. I said that I was offended by your tactic of defending Obama's plagiarism by appealing to the black tradition of jazz.
I did call you a sexist for a very good reason: you said Clinton is running as the wife of a former president. This is mysogonistic rhetoric - the general assumption here being that a woman's worth is determined by her husband's. You said this in the face of facts that she has more public service accomplishments than Obama. Did you apologize to the feminists who read my blog for this sexist remark? No, you didn't.
Your arguments do reflect the corporate media mentality, albeit at a much less sophisticated level. To be frank, you don't know a whole lot about these subjects. Yet you have recklessly jumped into public discussion face first. To be sure, quality control is not one of the Internet's strong features.
I have a great deal of respect for Michael Moore. My son's middle name is Michael because my wife and I appreciate what Moore does in enlightening people about many of the wrongs in the world. But I don't believe X because somebody I admire says X. I think for myself. If Moore stands by and defends Obama while Obama uses health insurance company propaganda tactics against Clinton, then I have even less reason to listen to what Moore says on this subject.
Now, what on earth does this have to do with fascism, mrbold? You accuse me of lining up with the fascists. Your credibility take huge hits when you say stupid shit like that. I am a dedicated anti-fascist. If I wasn't, I wouldn't resort to the tactic of supporting Democrats in general elections. Surely you aren't implying that Hillary Clinton is a fascist....
You're right about one thing, though, I'm not a liberal. I have never claimed to be. I am libertarian, because I am strongly committed to civil liberties and rights, and I am socialist, because I believe that people who make society happen ought to own and run it. To be fully realized, the former depend on the latter. Civil liberties and rights will always be constrained in capitalist society - the more capitalist, the more constrained.
Liberalism, whether it's classic liberalism's unabashed commitment to capitalism, or modern political liberalism's commitment to being Republican lite, is not my cup of tea. I only vote for liberal politicians of the latter stripe to keep those of the former (as well as the crypto-fascists) at bay. I don't suffer any illusions about the US political system. Nor do I suffer any illusions about Clinton. I am not a fan. I simply want the mainstream party candidate that will do the least harm and will advance some pedestrian programs helpful to ordinary people. Obama's failure to advocate universal health care has already shown me that he doesn't fit the bill as long as Clinton is still in the race.
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