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To date, this is how the very few interactions I've had with Never Trumpers have gone, because I want to talk about the Befor...
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* (I will rarely do a modification to an existing post, but this seemed too sadly appropriate not to add.) This is a graphic-intensive post,...
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Check out this asshole David O. Atkins at Digby's blog. His theory is that Obama would love to crush Obamacare, Social Security, and Medicare, and the only reason he's standing up to Republicans now is because they're threatening his power as president to be a totalitarian despot, worse than George W. Bush.
Really, he says that.
This should logically mean David O. Atkins supports the Republicans, since they are acting in this case as freedom-loving libertarians neutering the out of control tyrant president. But somehow he manages to avoid explicitly making that case. He goes to all the trouble to set up the argument, and then mysteriously fails to draw the obvious conclusion.
I swear, assholes like this guy are every bit as bad as Ted Cruz anew Newt Gingrich.
I think I prefer this as the new Tea Party anthem...(NSFW)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=isTLd2tFP7w
Bingo. Atkins, you will not be surprised to learn, is a kossack who posts at dailykos.com
under the handle thereisnospoon.
He runs there with a pack of fellow hysterical ninnies who consider President Obama to be worser than Boosh. They have ritual theatrical performances where they denounce him as a baby killing granny starving tyrant who wipes his butt with the Constitution as he reads classified NSA spy reports on the intimate habits of radical leftist heroes such as themselves.
Their proffered remedy is to with hold votes, lest they sully their hands with positive votes for the despised Republicans, in the hope the Republicans will come to power and teach the corporatist authoritarians a lesson. After things become sufficiently screwed up, the People will leapfrog over the corrupted Democratic Party and lift the radicals into power by acclimation.
What puzzles me is how they can believe claptrap after the debacle of 2000 and the consequent Bush administration. They evidently have their slate of comforting fairy tales that explains how nothing was their fault; the plan is flawless and too bad that it has never been tried.
Very interesting, Horace. Thanks for the background. Beautifully written post. (Loved "After things become sufficiently screwed up, the People will leapfrog over the corrupted Democratic Party and lift the radicals into power by acclimation.")
I had no idea Atkins was a monumental asshole over at Daily Kos, too. I've only been lucky enough to read his lunatic, Digby-sponsored raving at Digby's place -- and then only infrequently, as I really had to stop reading Digby when she, too, started foaming at the mouth about Obama-the-worse-than-Bush-baby-killer.
What you go on to describe - withholding votes from the Democrats so things get really, really bad -- is a point Driftglass refers to as "crashing the system" to force a backlash in the desired direction. The problem, as Drifty has stated so effectively so many times, is that the backlash never comes -- or at least there will be no guarantee of it. Instead we will just keep sinking deeper and deeper into libertarian hell. I reflect on the fact that slavery existed on this continent for 350 years, and was followed by 100 years of slavery. Women were denied the right to vote for centuries. Workers didn't have basic organizing rights until the early 20th century. Things can suck for a really, really long time with no "backlash" or magical cure to pole vault the good guys back into power. It takes staggering ignorance to expect otherwise, and a dangerous degree of hubris to risk all of our lives with their gamble that "crash the system" will be followed by "something something magic pony something good guys take over."
Digby and Atkin and all their apologists and enablers risk throwing us all into a cauldron from which we might not escape for generations. I don't think you can let the Koch Brothers and the other billionaires run the table and take control of everything with any expectation that it's all going to magically fix itself the next day.
These people -- Atkins et al. -- are every bit as dangerous to our liberty and our Republic as the Kochs, Pauls, Greenwalds, Cruzs, Limbaughs and Becks.
Thanks, Jack. Upon reflection I see that I meant acclamation rather than acclimation. Stupid homophones.
Sad indeed what has happened to Digby, who I have been reading since the days when everyone assumed this new blogger was a guy. I suspect that after six years of unbroken success the acid pen criticism of Bush she had difficulty shifting into a constructive criticism mode, to help the Democrats govern effectively. Much easier, I am afraid, to pay up your membership in the Purity Caucus and to snipe from the margins without taking responsibility for anything. still read daily, but with a critical eye and a willingness to flush the purity gibber down the KYBO.
For you are exactly correct that things can suck for a very long time indeed. In my neighborhood there are many kids who don't remember the Reagan era, and thus are easily conned rubes when confronted with fairy tales about Supply Side Economics and the Magic of Free Markets. Well I was there, and I remember the nastiness. I remember how SSE was smoke to cover the heresy of fiscal stimulus using two trillion borrowed dollars that were pumped through the national security apparatus. Military keynesianism is still keynesianism, even if you pretend that all those ships and tanks and planes were paid for with magic pixie dust.
Thirty years later we are still living with the disastrous consequences of those decisions. In particular, as you suggest, Unionism suffered a heavy blow. This action stripped away one of the principle tools the middle class had for protecting itself, and thirty years later the middle class is in a really hard place.
So I don't want Digby or Atkins or bobswern or JesseCW or DeadHead running anything more consequential than a second hand matchbook shop. Anything else they might screw up to the detriment of us all.
Hey David Atkins here. Normally I wouldn't "punch down" like this, but I feel to compelled to respond to this nonsense.
I'm a County Dem Party Chair in a competitive district. I was a precinct and caucus captain for Obama in 2008. I spend countless hours getting Dems elected, and I think Obama is a million times better than Bush. Also, better than Hillary.
But he's also frustratingly third way centrist on a number of issues, including "entitlement reform", which is just another way of saying "cutting medicare and social security."
Ultimately, we need to elect a President with the vision of an Elizabeth Warren. We don't get there by just clapping louder even when Obama does things that are far too conservative.
Criticizing the President from the Left doesn't mean letting Republicans in power, or "crashing the system." "Crashing the system" is an insane, stupid idea. The whole idea that we lost 2010 because liberals stayed home is a myth that has been disproven countless times.
If you don't criticize the President when he pushes to offer Chained CPI, you'll get Chained CPI. And then your next president will do likewise.
This isn't that tough, folks.
LOLOL. I would say great minds think alike, but there is only one in this balance that qualifies, and it ain't the one that comments.
:)
Now that is interesting.
I begin to think that the ninnies may well have a very good reason to become hysterical at the thought of the NSA.
Perhaps they look on the networks of sneaks and snitches and infiltrators and disruptors that they run, and they look on the capabilities of the NSA, and they project upon the NSA the darkest fever dreams of what they would do to their enemies if they possessed such powers.
And they tremble fear that the NSA will stick it to them before they can stick it to the NSA, for they have but little respect for the Truth and less respect for the Rule of Law. The idea that the Law can bind men of integrity and restrain a dangerous servant is a non sequitur to them.
This lack of respect for the Rule of Law is the single most compelling reason that they must be kept away from the levers of power in that golden future when the teabaggers have been crushed.
Hi David,
I appreciate your stopping by, and your civil tone in response to my own rather intemperate remarks. I'd like to respond to you more fully, but I'm just getting home and have to be up in a few hours for work. I'll try to respond to you tomorrow. Until then I'll just add a "thank you" for your work in the Democratic Party. Although I find nearly everything of yours I've ever read to be incredibly destructive, I have tip my hat to your civic spirit; this whole thing only works if we have citizens willing to invest their time and energy building that better world we all want.
Horace,
Lately I've been back to reading Digby daily as well. It has been interesting to see her tone shift a little bit as the Republicans regain certain stage and remind everyone about the *real* danger to our civilization. And like you, I have been a fan of and a follower of hers since the very earliest days. And she remains an incredibly effective writer and thinker. Some of her recent posts have been brilliant. Unlike David, she has the ability to write posts condemning the Republicans that aren't laced with the poison of Obama hate and constant reminders that "he, too, is a monstrous devil."
Anyway ... talk to y'all later.
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