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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsBye-bye, fake liberals: The Warren Democrats are winning!
Bye-bye, fake liberals: The Warren Democrats are winning!The backlash against an inane Op-Ed bashing Elizabeth Warren shows that economic populism is the way forward
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..........President Obama gave his best economic speech yet, calling income inequality the defining challenge of our time.
Is something going on here? Id say yes. Wall Streets domination of the Democratic Party is facing a genuine and sustained fight, and thats a good thing for Democrats and the country.
.......................
................during Obamas first term his political fortunes improved when he strengthened his message of economic populism, and plummeted the more he preached about bipartisan deficit-cutting and shared sacrifice as defined by plutocrats. If Third Way and Bill Keller were right, wed be debating President Mitt Romneys new tax cuts for the wealthy right now.
Of course Third Way wasnt right. But there didnt used to be a penalty for being wrong in the service of Wall Streets agenda. Now its plutocracy-defending drivel is both debunked quickly and denounced by politicians even the one its trying to demonize.
That Elizabeth Warren is a great tonic for the Democratic Party is not news (although her decision to attack Third Ways donor base rather than quail at its attacks merits attention and more admiration). What seems new to me is a sustained feistiness among progressives. The push to expand rather than cut Social Security is already widening the debate and making it harder for any Democrat to fearlessly back even hidden cuts like the chained CPI. And the wave of fast-food strikes and Wal-Mart protests is channeling the anger and moral outrage that inspired Occupy Wall Street, and then seemed to dissipate, into a policy agenda.
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MORE:
http://www.salon.com/2013/12/05/bye_bye_fake_liberals_the_warren_democrats_are_winning/
MannyGoldstein
(34,589 posts)"The emperor has no clothes! None! And he's stealing all of your cash and trying to make you a slave, too!"
Except for the very serious people, of course.
wilsonbooks
(972 posts)The are scared and lashing out. They even have their minions on DU working over time.
rhett o rick
(55,981 posts)the progressive left, then just come out and say what's on your mind.
wilsonbooks
(972 posts)to the Washington pundits, DLC, third wayers. corporate hacks. It is a fairly common term for Washington insiders.
rhett o rick
(55,981 posts)Jasana
(490 posts)Idiots forget, they still need our votes and I'm feeling downright uppity.
Scuba
(53,475 posts)myrna minx
(22,772 posts)for Elizabeth~
WillyT
(72,631 posts)Hubert Flottz
(37,726 posts)This lady should be the first woman president. Elizabeth Warren is indeed the New Deal and the old school Dinos and DLC blue dogs need turned out of office to lobby for the corporations, that they have long ago sold their hearts, souls and allegiance to. We need to stop corporate media from killing the good candidates and leaving us nobody but corporate stooges to vote for. We need a new deal, not yet another raw deal.
blkmusclmachine
(16,149 posts)HereSince1628
(36,063 posts)from those convinces we should have a corpo-dem candidate.
Chan790
(20,176 posts)"When you say you'll never cast a vote for Hillary Clinton what about when she's the nominee?"
Because they don't realize that if enough of us vow to never support Hillary, her support base will disappear because she is "unelectable" and she'll never be the nominee.
HereSince1628
(36,063 posts)It isn't just about Clinton supporters.
The pattern involves claiming front-runner status, or greatest chance to win, based on little more than early media exposure for a duer's choice and then fighting like hell.
This time could be different but probably won't be.
FiveGoodMen
(20,018 posts)merrily
(45,251 posts)jsr
(7,712 posts)Ian_rd
(2,124 posts)The Republican Party has served them well for decades, but lately the Tea Party threatens to handicap the GOP and therefore threaten the privileged status of the rich. So now they're trying to muscle into the Democratic Party and support the so-called Third Way Democrats. But unfortunately for them, there is some resistance.
Go Warren!
HereSince1628
(36,063 posts)There is some small chance that the base will drive a return to social issues.
merrily
(45,251 posts)If you look at Jimmy Carter, he is really the one who started deregulating the federal government, not Ronnie. Though Ronnie did jump all over it. Also replaced the Bankruptcy Act that FDR passed after the Depression The 1978 Act took the pressure off crooked officers and directors and, in general, made filing for bankruptcy easier for corporations. Democratic majority in both houses then, too.
The conservative wing did not incorporate the DLC until 1985, that is so. However, it's always been there. The huge re-election victories of Nixon let them make a lot of headway. The huge election victory of Reagan handed them the Party.
merrily
(45,251 posts)rhett o rick
(55,981 posts)currently carrying the fight to the bastards.
At some point the progressive left needs to draw a line and fight. No more of "The Lesser of Evils" bullcrap.
Rockyj
(538 posts)blue14u
(575 posts)I get beat down here on DU everyday for doing so too!
I shall keep on speaking out, if we don't say anything, or we don't fight
back, we will never get our party, and this Nation back on track.
There is a lot of support from the progressives, there are just a handful
of foot soldiers screaming for messiah HRC that I can see.
Carry on, keep working at it. They are seeing our efforts and I for one think
they are scared that we will take our party back...
BlancheSplanchnik
(20,219 posts)This is an excellent read--thanks!
silvershadow
(10,336 posts)Phlem
(6,323 posts)She's my rock!
-p
:kick:
upi402
(16,854 posts)We get Hillary or another Obama and it's game over for climate change.
Nevermind democracy in this war machine...
jeff47
(26,549 posts)For example, humanity won't go extinct from climate change. Sure, we'll lose several billion, but that still leaves a few billion people.
So it's only a "charcoal" kind of future, not completely black.
FiveGoodMen
(20,018 posts)Laelth
(32,017 posts)-Laelth
cali
(114,904 posts)sendero
(28,552 posts)... in real life for bouts of optimism, I don't agree with every conclusion here but I do see small signs that people are shrugging off the basic economic message of Reaganism in favor of something a bit more progressive.
The Reagan philosophy had sucked up the right wing like a Borg and infiltrated the left to the extent necessary to have a serious legislative and popular opinion advantage. Americans, never too fast to catch on to anything, after 6 years of epic economic fail, are finally questioning this basic philosophy for the first time in 30 years.
Since I don't see the economy improving in any real way over the next few years, I expect this realization to gain momentum. It's all about people thinking that something is working for them, many were fooled for a long time but destitution is a harsh mistress.
ProSense
(116,464 posts)by Ian Reifowitz
Barack Obama knows how to tell a story. One of his great strengths is his ability to craft a narrative of our history that resonates with Americans and advances a progressive understanding of who we are as a people. Obama's telling of that history always features both progress as well as our failure to live up to the ideals of equality we lay down at the country's founding. His American history narratives have long centered on two purposes.
The first is to encourage Americans across every possible group line to recognize one another as being part of a single community of Americans based on our shared membership in the civic nation. The President's placing of Seneca Falls, Selma, and Stonewall among the pantheon of the great events in our history is perhaps the best known example of this, among countless other occasions where he has done so throughout his career.
The second, one that featured prominently in yesterday's speech on economic inequality, is to emphasize the long-standing rootsas well as the moral superiority and greater effectivenessof a common good-centered, progressive economic philosophy. I've never heard President Obama do this better than he did yesterday. He told the story of our country as one in which we moved closer and closer to being a society built around equal opportunity and a notion of the common good that provided a basic safety net for those of us who faced hard times.
Until, that is, we inaugurated President Ronald Reagan. Obama also rightly noted the impact of globalization on our economy, but then specifically highlighted the crucial role of right-wing economic thinkingcalling out Reaganite "trickle-down ideology" on taxes and on the lack of commitment to invest in our country's resourcesin moving us away from the path on which we'd been traveling for over a century thanks to progressives in both parties.
This is the kind of historical narrative that people can connect with. It is a story that has a clear good guy and a clear villain, the kind of story that, in raw political terms, helps frame the debate in a highly effective way. More broadly, the speech provided an exceptionally strong philosophical and factual underpinning for the progressive ideals we hold dear.
Below the fold is the excerpt of the speech in which the President lays out his narrative of our history.
Now, the premise that were all created equal is the opening line in the American story. And while we dont promise equal outcomes, we have strived to deliver equal opportunity -- the idea that success doesnt depend on being born into wealth or privilege, it depends on effort and merit. And with every chapter weve added to that story, weve worked hard to put those words into practice.
It was Abraham Lincoln, a self-described poor mans son, who started a system of land grant colleges all over this country so that any poor mans son could go learn something new.
When farms gave way to factories, a rich mans son named Teddy Roosevelt fought for an eight-hour workday, protections for workers, and busted monopolies that kept prices high and wages low.
When millions lived in poverty, FDR fought for Social Security, and insurance for the unemployed, and a minimum wage.
When millions died without health insurance, LBJ fought for Medicare and Medicaid.
Together, we forged a New Deal, declared a War on Poverty in a great society. We built a ladder of opportunity to climb, and stretched out a safety net beneath so that if we fell, it wouldnt be too far, and we could bounce back. And as a result, America built the largest middle class the world has ever known. And for the three decades after World War II, it was the engine of our prosperity.
Now, we cant look at the past through rose-colored glasses. The economy didnt always work for everyone. Racial discrimination locked millions out of poverty -- or out of opportunity. Women were too often confined to a handful of often poorly paid professions. And it was only through painstaking struggle that more women, and minorities, and Americans with disabilities began to win the right to more fairly and fully participate in the economy.
Nevertheless, during the post-World War II years, the economic ground felt stable and secure for most Americans, and the future looked brighter than the past. And for some, that meant following in your old mans footsteps at the local plant, and you knew that a blue-collar job would let you buy a home, and a car, maybe a vacation once in a while, health care, a reliable pension. For others, it meant going to college -- in some cases, maybe the first in your family to go to college. And it meant graduating without taking on loads of debt, and being able to count on advancement through a vibrant job market.
Now, its true that those at the top, even in those years, claimed a much larger share of income than the rest: The top 10 percent consistently took home about one-third of our national income. But that kind of inequality took place in a dynamic market economy where everyones wages and incomes were growing. And because of upward mobility, the guy on the factory floor could picture his kid running the company some day.
But starting in the late 70s, this social compact began to unravel. Technology made it easier for companies to do more with less, eliminating certain job occupations. A more competitive world lets companies ship jobs anywhere. And as good manufacturing jobs automated or headed offshore, workers lost their leverage, jobs paid less and offered fewer benefits.
As values of community broke down, and competitive pressure increased, businesses lobbied Washington to weaken unions and the value of the minimum wage. As a trickle-down ideology became more prominent, taxes were slashed for the wealthiest, while investments in things that make us all richer, like schools and infrastructure, were allowed to wither. And for a certain period of time, we could ignore this weakening economic foundation, in part because more families were relying on two earners as women entered the workforce. We took on more debt financed by a juiced-up housing market. But when the music stopped, and the crisis hit, millions of families were stripped of whatever cushion they had left.
And the result is an economy thats become profoundly unequal, and families that are more insecure. Ill just give you a few statistics. Since 1979, when I graduated from high school, our productivity is up by more than 90 percent, but the income of the typical family has increased by less than eight percent. Since 1979, our economy has more than doubled in size, but most of that growth has flowed to a fortunate few.
The top 10 percent no longer takes in one-third of our income -- it now takes half. Whereas in the past, the average CEO made about 20 to 30 times the income of the average worker, todays CEO now makes 273 times more. And meanwhile, a family in the top 1 percent has a net worth 288 times higher than the typical family, which is a record for this country.
So the basic bargain at the heart of our economy has frayed. In fact, this trend towards growing inequality is not unique to Americas market economy. Across the developed world, inequality has increased. Some of you may have seen just last week, the Pope himself spoke about this at eloquent length. How can it be, he wrote, that it is not a news item when an elderly homeless person dies of exposure, but it is news when the stock market loses two points?
But this increasing inequality is most pronounced in our country, and it challenges the very essence of who we are as a people. Understand weve never begrudged success in America. We aspire to it. We admire folks who start new businesses, create jobs, and invent the products that enrich our lives. And we expect them to be rewarded handsomely for it. In fact, we've often accepted more income inequality than many other nations for one big reason -- because we were convinced that America is a place where even if youre born with nothing, with a little hard work you can improve your own situation over time and build something better to leave your kids. As Lincoln once said, While we do not propose any war upon capital, we do wish to allow the humblest man an equal chance to get rich with everybody else.
The problem is that alongside increased inequality, weve seen diminished levels of upward mobility in recent years. A child born in the top 20 percent has about a 2-in-3 chance of staying at or near the top. A child born into the bottom 20 percent has a less than 1-in-20 shot at making it to the top. Hes 10 times likelier to stay where he is. In fact, statistics show not only that our levels of income inequality rank near countries like Jamaica and Argentina, but that it is harder today for a child born here in America to improve her station in life than it is for children in most of our wealthy allies -- countries like Canada or Germany or France. They have greater mobility than we do, not less.
The idea that so many children are born into poverty in the wealthiest nation on Earth is heartbreaking enough. But the idea that a child may never be able to escape that poverty because she lacks a decent education or health care, or a community that views her future as their own, that should offend all of us and it should compel us to action. We are a better country than this.
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2013/12/05/1260417/-Obama-s-inequality-speech-telling-the-progressive-story-of-American-history
Transcript: http://www.dailykos.com/story/2013/12/04/1260116/-President-Obama-s-remarks-on-economic-mobility
Doctor_J
(36,392 posts)what does he plan to do about it? besides call for bipartisan accord?
Enthusiast
(50,983 posts)The President should recognize that by now. Duh.
Nye Bevan
(25,406 posts)I guess primary season is getting close.
G_j
(40,367 posts)on Warren (who is a Democrat, btw)
RedstDem
(1,239 posts)about 99 more of her in the senate will do...
I have had my fill of NeoLiberals, "New Democrats", Centrists, Reagan Democrats,
and anybody else who promotes "Free Trade", "Free Markets" and an Invisible Hand.
None of those exist.
The RICH made that shit up
and used smooth talking politicians to sell that shit to a gullible America.
[font color=firebrick][center]"There are forces within the Democratic Party who want us to sound like kinder, gentler Republicans.
I want a party that will STAND UP for Working Americans."
---Paul Wellstone [/font][/center] [center] [/font]
[font size=1]photo by bvar22
Shortly before Sen Wellstone was killed[/center][/font]
You will know them by their [font size=3]WORKS,[/font]
FarCenter
(19,429 posts)It's more influenced by big city real estate interests, real estate developers, construction companies and public employee unions.
L0oniX
(31,493 posts)TARP was so old school.
FarCenter
(19,429 posts)NobodyHere
(2,810 posts)In the House, H.R. 1424 passed with the following breakdown of votes:
Democratic 172 Yea; 63 Nay
Republican 91 Yea; 108 Nay
Total - 263 Yea; 171 Nay
In the Senate, H.R. 1424 passed with the following breakdown of votes:
Democratic 41 Yea; 10 Nay (Including Senator Obama
Republican 33 Yea; 15 Nay
Total - 74 Yea; 25 Nay (Sen. Kennedy was in the hospital and did not vote.
FarCenter
(19,429 posts)socialist_n_TN
(11,481 posts)KNOWING that it had NO controls over how the taxpayers money was going to be spent by Wall Street and the banks.
L0oniX
(31,493 posts)Doctor_J
(36,392 posts)Turn off Hate Radio for awhile. Come back to reality
FarCenter
(19,429 posts)socialist_n_TN
(11,481 posts)NO union has more sway over ANYTHING political than Wall Street.
L0oniX
(31,493 posts)End of the dream. Somehow I just don't have too much confidence that any competitive political party will get anywhere without money. Warren/Hillary ...oh yeah ...right ...couple a centrist with a populist and what do you have ...a centrist.They don't mix well.
Enthusiast
(50,983 posts)Next Elizabeth should come out in favor of HUGE cuts to the bloated military.
mother earth
(6,002 posts)SOON, because we can no longer afford fucking around with centrism, the failed past...now everyone can wake the hell up.
If we don't progressively engage, we are part of the problem.
cantbeserious
(13,039 posts)eom