Category: progressives
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Ta-Nehisi Coates runs interference for Paul Ryan: updated
Racism has always been the not-so-secret engine of American politics. Generations of politicians have been able to mobilize white voters by appealing to their fears and prejudices. As open racism became less acceptable, these politicians have become adept at dual messages: explicit enough to galvanize the open racists, smooth and…
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The politics of Matt Tabbi’s big con
Aside from racism, the most important source of political power for the far right in the United States is apathy and despair. The same political forces that murdered people for registering to vote in Mississippi just a few decades back and that are still desperately working on voter suppression tactics…
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Please take your disappointment with President Obama and have a fucking seat
If you are disappointed that President Obama always speaks civilly and keeps reaching out to the ill-mannered, ignorant, and often badly intentioned racist Republicans, grow the fuck up and put a sock in it. President Obama repeatedly explained that this would be his strategy from the day he ran for…
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Criticism from the left
Suppose you were a left liberal, what we used to call a “progressive” writing about President Obama’s proposed 2014 budget. You might write something like this: The 2014 budget makes some steps towards: fixing the economy, with a $50B infrastructure investment fund, to a healthier society with things like universal…
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Who is naive?
Previously published in the People’s View. and then in the DailyKos. You know, if you care about making investments in our kids and making investments in our infrastructure and making investments in basic research then you should want our fiscal house in order so that every time we propose a…
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Matt Taibbi’s big con
Matt Taibbi is so good at whipping up indignation about the evil bankers that it’s easy to overlook the crackpot and diversionary nature of the story he is telling. It would be useful if there was public pressure, for example, to provide a postal bank that would give people an…
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Cynicism of the naive
Watching the discussions of lefty pedants on line is an education in naive cynicism. Consider Michelle Obama’s speech at the Democratic Convention. Here’s Corey Robin: Last night at the Democratic convention, Michelle Obama defined “the very best of the American spirit” as “teachers in a near-bankrupt school district who vowed…
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Coates, Drones, Race, Empire
There’s a mention of drones way down in Ta-Nehisi Coates’ fascinating article “Fear of a Black President”. Despite the other strengths of Coates’ writing and analysis, this passage exhibits the crippling effect of the “progressive consensus” Barack Obama came into office promising to wage war on Al Qaeda. He has…
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The Nation: condescension watch
Mike Konzcal’s contribution to the world of Obama condescension appears (where else?) in The Nation and takes the standard form of a finger wagging lecture as if from an exasperated teaching assistant to a particularly dim undergraduate. There’s an implicit presumption in these lectures that Barack Obama stumbled into the…
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How the progressives are killing environmentalism
Every Democratic President for the last 40 years has had to face the problem that a significant part of the actual Democratic Party base is, at best, conflicted, on the environment. The UAW and Democratic Senators from Michigan have fought to limit auto emission standards in the name of jobs.…
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