"I shall not seek and I will not accept the nomination of my party for another term as your President"Now if Obama would just say them! Finally Obama would bring hope to the masses!
A Left Wing Hierarchy
Posted by Tien at 9:33 AM
My focus in politics is electoral, not ideological or issue related. The time I devote to politics focuses on elections, voter education and messaging. Since President Obama first started campaigning for the office, volumes have been written about the people who oppose him from the Left. What is rarely explored is what chance, if any, is there to ‘change the minds’ of his Left Wing non-supporters about anything concerning politics. What are the best ways to cope with these people in an electoral environment? I’ve developed a rating system for the categories of non-supporters that I have thus far identified. With this rating system I hope to help people, either online or in the real world, interact with or at the very least emotionally cope with different levels of opposition.
The Narcissist
In brief the Narcissist suffers from a pathological need for attention; hypersensitivity to insults and criticism; an over-inflated sense of self-importance; unrealistic expectations and a preoccupation with success and power. It’s been fairly well established which particular ‘activists’ who claim the Far Left as their territory fit this description. These people live for the fight. Everything they do and say with regard to politics is about opposition. The more driven among them have developed strategies for making money from this opposition. These people have no allegiance to either Party. Their allegiance is to themselves and feeding the never-ending necessity for attention and staying relevant. They go wherever there is an opening. Their belief system is composed entirely of being against whatever “The President” believes in.
* Prospect for convincing them to support the current President: Non-existent.
* Strategy for coping with their behavior: Never make it personal. Always focus on what they do, not what they say or who they are.
The best way to undermine Narcissists is to ignore them and deprive them of the attention they crave. However, I’ve come to realize that very few people are actually capable of employing the tactic of responding in this fashion. The Narcissist counts on people ‘reacting’ to everything they say, and most people, particularly online, oblige them. That gives the Narcissist unearned power, but there it is. Trying to change their minds is an exercise in futility. Trying to correct their willful ignorance and misinformation campaigns is at best like skeet shooting. Sport. Calling them names only makes them dig in more and play the victim as performance art for their supporters. Focusing on what they do IS effective. And by effective, I mean undermining their ability to con their followers. Showing how a Narcissist uses his or her money, or fails to provide health benefits to their employees or gives support to the Republicans in some fashion builds a body of evidence that creates a credibility gap that can be used over and over to peel away their followers.
If for some reason, as an author or commenter, one feels compelled to respond to some printed or video misinformation in places other than where that information originated, do so without mentioning the source. Focus on the misinformation, not the personality of the individual who circulated the misinformation. By not crediting the source directly, it bleeds power (and links) away from it. Start your sentence this way: “I read (heard) some misinformation on a blog (TV or radio show) today that needs addressing.” Go straight to correcting the incorrect information and leave the personalities out of the message.
For those brave souls who believe it’s worthwhile to comment on the actual blogs where the misinformation and/or rumor was invented, do so politely and reasonably, bearing in mind that is how the President we’re defending would do it. Simply state the correct information and move on. Resist the temptation to defend the information. Defending is a losing strategy. Present accuracy for its own sake. The goal is educating the audience of the Narcissist, not the Narcissist.
The Anarchist
Anarchists and Narcissists have a symbiotic relationship. They both thrive on opposition and many of the Narcissist’s followers hail from the ranks the modern American Anarchists. The very nature of anarchy pretty much makes defining them impossible because there are almost as many variations of anarchy belief systems as there are people who subscribe to them. In general they fall into a few sub-groups who can be generalized as wanting to either seriously limit government or do away with government entirely. Anti-capitalism (anti-corporatist) seems to be more appealing to the Left; where profit motivated privatization characterizes the Right.
A friend once told me that Republicans don’t trust government and Democrats don’t trust corporations. I frequently encounter people spouting anti-corporation rhetoric in my neck of the woods. Bandying about words like corporatist and fascist is as common and accepted as talking about the weather. For this crowd corporations are governments and possess power that now exceed governments. Their opposition to our President, any President really, stems from the perception that the American government exists to protect corporations and to that end readily override the will of the people. If President Obama isn’t seen as actively working to disrupt corporations, then he is complicit in all that corporations do. He then is dismissed as being a corporatist and deserving of their lack of support.
* Prospect for convincing them to support the current President: Online: None. In the Real World: Marginal.
* Strategy for coping with their behavior: Engaging the Anarchist online can only result in defensive posturing. In the Real World what matters most is the ability to gauge the level of commitment to the anti-government stance. Theoretically the true anarchist is so against government that supporting any office holder is out of the question. Very few people, even the youthful vandals are that extreme. Even still, the amount of energy required to move someone who is hard-core anti-government into the supporter camp isn’t a wise investment. That energy can be better spent with swing voters. A time-saving tip: find out if the anti-government individual you’re trying to engage is even registered to vote. If not, move on.
The Elitist
At the core of an elitist’s mindset is ego. Self-described intellectuals for the most part who believe their evaluation of politics is superior to that of others around them. Elitists tend to concern themselves more with policy than electoral politics. I’m not as willing as some to write these people off because in more cases than a few, people who behave in an elitist fashion are often engaged in actual policy making. More than once I’ve seen, in the real world any way, that at times they are right. Their presentation lacks grace and can be characterized as condescending, which is off-putting to most people who don’t hail from their ranks. Unfortunately these people and people who pretend to be their peers frequently devolve into antagonistic adolescents once their fingers come into contact with a keyboard and a connection to the Internet. There is a strong parallel with computer geeks who look down on people who aren’t as good as they are with computers and code, but that doesn’t mean they don’t know what they’re talking about. They just lack social skills. Elitists tend to lack actual political skills. It is the ego and condescension that prevents them from identifying, and therefore communicating effectively, with regular people.
* Prospect for convincing them to support the current President: Online: Remote but not impossible; In the Real World: Achievable.
* Strategy for coping with their behavior: Basically the only effective way to engage an Elitist is to swallow your own ego and ‘become’ their student. This can’t be done in one encounter. Online an Elitist has a reputation to protect, so any challenge to their authority will be smacked down with malice. However the person who is willing to swallow any antipathy they might feel toward the Elitist’s arrogance can gain a foothold into their thought process by asking innocent questions. “I’ve been reading your comments about this topic. Could you please help me understand [insert specific] better?” When the Elitist elaborates, ask for specific examples (not proof). In time, once the Elitist thinks you’re listening, they relax their need to aggressively protect their stance. This is tricky to do in a comment section because other people can interject with insults and such, but with consistency and respect, things will improve. Once he or she relaxes, then you can gently offer your own examples of how you view the topic. Do so with NO expectation of success, but only the hope of guiding the conversation toward a softening of the Elitist’s stance. Keep the President out of the conversation; stay focused on the issue rather than the personalities and there is guarded hope that a softened Elitist might at some point be open to pulling the lever for the President. Of equal value is the idea that the Elitist will pull the lever for Democrats on the down ballot.
The Reactionary
These are the foot soldiers in the realm of Presidential opposition. Their opposition is a little softer than their rhetoric suggests because they have something entirely different at stake when they spout anti-Obama talking points. While the Narcissist has their entire personhood (and often livelihood) at stake, the Reactionary has at risk their place in the ‘society’ that is created for them by the actors higher up the food chain. It is the Narcissist, the Anarchist and the Elitist who create the blogs and generate the talking points upon which the Reactionary depends to help them fit in. Politics and Religion have an emotional context that rules the behavior and belief systems of pretty much everyone on the planet. The Reactionary has a heightened response to the deliberate emotional appeals from people trained to manipulate them. So far I’ve identified two specific triggers that make Reactionaries vulnerable to this handling: feelings of social inadequacy and the need for immediate gratification.
Reactionaries are not critical thinkers, but by the same token they’re also not the manipulators. They are followers, but followers with an agenda none-the-less. That agenda is fitting in with both the online and real world. Politics, like religion, is a topic that very few people study, so the door is wide open for anyone who sounds like they know what their talking about in any given conversation. Someone who can quote Bible verses sounds more authoritative than others who can’t. Talking points are the political equivalent of Bible verse. If they can be quoted verbatim from the source, then they become truth. The person who can quote them becomes an authority within their own circles. Whether it is the artificial social circle of an online blog or a real social circle, the Reactionary depends on easily repeated content to stay current and sound like they know what they are talking about. This is in part why they defend those above them in the hierarchy with such venom: to protect their source.
Within the world of politics Reactionaries are not results-oriented people. They are dependent upon their source for their fix that helps reinforce their constructed belief system. This is as true with the Left as it is with the Right. The biggest perceived danger to a Reactionary is someone who actually knows more about politics than they do.
* Prospect for convincing them to support the current President: Online: Remote but not impossible; In the Real World: Achievable.
* Strategy for coping with their behavior: Learn the talking points that they subscribe to. Generally if the action is sure to be politically disastrous to the President, then it is something that has been promoted by the ‘pundit’ class that Reactionaries use for reference. When you hear or read these talking points being repeated in conversation or online, then you know that you’re dealing with a Reactionary. Do not challenge their beliefs in public. It embarrasses them and makes them feel like they’ve been downgraded socially, which causes them to dig in more resolutely. These are the people who benefit from the use of the pivot. Once the stash of talking points is exhausted, they have nothing beyond irrationally defending these talking points. In a social gathering or a comment section, it is the audience who matters most. Guiding the conversation to more results oriented context helps give everyone, even the Reactionary, a chance to hear a different viewpoint in a non-combative environment. Down ticket support for Democrats in general isn’t as frowned upon by Reactionaries, so is to be encouraged in the absence of willingness to vote for the President.
Making the Shift
It’s been my experience that people who subscribe to the Left Wing anti-Obama talking points aren’t as likely to suffer from cognitive dissonance when they hear a rationally well-presented option to their belief. My personal observation is that this stems from the lack of religious ideology within liberal circles. Liberal belief systems tend not to be faith-based and are therefore more flexible.
The true key to helping people soften their attitude regarding the President is respect. There is precious little of it online, but we are in a position to change that, and we have no better role model than the very President we support. Anyone who works with voters on a regular basis will happily remind us all, that people in the online communities that follow politics are potential voters. As someone who has knocked on some doors and spoken directly with voters in person, I can tell you that the only way to promote the President is by making ourselves people who show everyone respect, especially those who disagree with us. We need to ask ourselves this: if we knock on a stranger’s door would we call that person to their face a moron, or make a barnyard reference to their sexuality if that stranger told us they didn’t support the President? If we won’t disregard the feelings of a total stranger in real life, why do we do it online? Why are we willing to create the impression that people who support the President don’t listen, are rude, mean, treat people poorly, etc.? That kind of behavior alienates people and keeps them from giving support to the one person for whom we want to secure a vote.
At some point this internecine bickering has got to stop. They won’t stop it, so we must. We’re coming up the time when we will be asked to start working in earnest for the President’s re-election. Now is the time for us to begin the practice of treating our fellow voters how we ourselves wish to be treated.
RESOLUTION in SUPPORT of a POSSIBLE 2012 DEMOCRATIC PRESIDENTIAL PRIMARY CHALLENGE
Passed July 30, 2011
Anaheim, CA
WHEREAS, the Progressive Caucus of the California Democratic Party recognizes the challenge presented by President Obama’s negotiating away Democratic Party principles to extremist Republicans, we are challenged by President Obama in the following ways:
• His unilateral closed-door budget offer to slash Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid, which endangers the New Deal and War on Poverty safety nets.
• His determination to escalate U.S. militarism through illegal secret CIA drone attacks and unauthorized wars.
• His willingness to extend the Bush tax cuts for millionaires and bail out big banks without ending the foreclosure crisis that displaces American working families.
• His insistence on pushing a health insurance bill which enriches private insurance companies while ignoring growing support for single-payer health care or robust public options.
• His continuance of President Bush’s assault on civil liberties with an extension of the repressive Patriot Act.
• His failure to restore due process, including the protection of whistleblowers and habeas corpus.
• His numerous failures to adhere to international law.
• The continuing practice of nationwide FBI raids of anti-war progressive protestors.
• His decision to increase the arrests and deportations of undocumented workers.
• His facilitation of the privatizing of the public sphere, which includes education and housing, among others.
• His disregard of his promises to the Labor movement.
• His failure to adequately protect the environment and adequately address climate change.
WHEREAS, the Progressive Caucus of the California Democratic Party recognizes the historical significance of the Eugene McCarthy/Robert F. Kennedy anti-war challenge to President Lyndon Johnson. The challenge followed President Johnson’s decision to escalate U.S. military involvement in Vietnam, betraying his campaign promise to end a war that polarized America. Similarly, we recognize the danger and betrayal that the current “Grand Bargain” represents to the legacy of Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s signature gift to all Americans, Social Security and the New Deal, a point of pride for all Democrats.
WHEREAS, the Progressive Caucus of the California Democratic Party is committed to the understanding that an interest in a 2012 Democratic presidential primary challenge will not interfere with President Obama’s ability to govern and not limit his ability to do so in ways that include invoking Constitutional options, we recognize that this will, in fact, raise debate on important issues without risking the ability to mobilize and energize the base of the Democratic Party to elect a triumphant leader to counter the far-right agenda.
THEREFORE, BE IT RESOLVED, to make our views heard, the Progressive Caucus of the California Democratic Party will begin the process of contacting other Democratic organizations, Democratic Party members and public organizations that share our views on the issues and which seek to alter the course of history by exploring other steps to effect a necessary change, including a possible primary challenge to President Obama.
Dear Michael,His stated rational is fabricated processed bullshit. The real reason he pissed on the base is that he's running for Senate and needs to prove to Wall Street, the Big Banks and the DC Corporate Dem Elites that he's their guy and will be there for them when the going gets ruff. They don't have to take the progressive stuff too seriously - he will sell out the base whenever its handy. A token of his loyalty to the Corporate Overlords, like kissing the golden ring, so they will write the big checks to fund his campaign. It might also be to give cover to Jeff Bingaman and Tom Udall when they cave. I can't imagine he voted for this without consulting them first.
Today I voted for a bill to raise the debt ceiling. This was a tough choice between a flawed bill that increases the debt ceiling or plunging America’s economy back into recession.
It's clear that Tea Party Republicans care more about winning the next election by scoring some cheap political points, then creating jobs and improving our economy.
However, I was elected to Congress to make tough decisions, and today I did so for the good of our country.
We needed to pass this bill in order to avoid a global financial meltdown, and I voted to make sure that did not happen.
With the debt ceiling behind us, we can now turn our full attention to the issues that matter most to New Mexicans: job creation, strengthening Medicare, shoring up Social Security, ending the wars abroad and bringing our troops home. If we can get this done, our economy will be the better for it.
That is my focus. And that is what you deserve.
Sincerely,
Martin Heinrich
Mark Mellman, a Democratic pollster, said polling data showed that at this point in his term, Mr. Obama, compared with past Democratic presidents, was doing as well or better with Democratic voters. “Whatever qualms or questions they may have about this policy or that policy, at the end of the day the one thing they’re absolutely certain of — they’re going to hate these Republican candidates,” Mr. Mellman said. “So I’m not honestly all that worried about a solid or enthusiastic base.”With this the Establishment at the New York Times seems to be saying - don't worry in the end the Republicans will scare the Democratic base back into line.
"As this is written, the White House seems desperate to be seen as consequential. They're trotting out Press Secretary Jay Carney, who stands there looking like a ferret with flop sweat as he insists President Obama is still at the table, still manning the phones and calling shots. Much is uncertain, but the Republicans have made great strides on policy. If they emerge victorious, they had better not crow. The nation is in a continuing crisis, our credit rating is not secure, and no one's interested in he-man gangster dialogue from "The Town." What might thrill America would be a little modesty: "We know we helped get America into some of this trouble, and we hope we've made some progress today in getting us out of it."Why no one at the New York Times can see this is beyond me. Perhaps they are so co-opted by the Democratic Establishment that they can't see clearly? Who knows. However, it is sad that we have to go to the pages of a radical right rag, the Wall Street Journal, to get some decent analysis of the disaster known as President Obama.
But that actually is not what I want to talk about. I want to talk about something that started to become apparent to me during the debt negotiations. It's something I've never seen in national politics.
It is that nobody loves Obama. This is amazing because every president has people who love him, who feel deep personal affection or connection, who have a stubborn, even beautiful refusal to let what they know are just criticisms affect their feelings of regard. At the height of Bill Clinton's troubles there were always people who'd say, "Look, I love the guy." They'd often be smiling—a wry smile, a shrugging smile. Nobody smiles when they talk about Mr. Obama. There were people who loved George W. Bush when he was at his most unpopular, and they meant it and would say it. But people aren't that way about Mr. Obama. He has supporters and bundlers and contributors, he has voters, he may win. But his support is grim support. And surely this has implications.
The past few weeks I've asked Democrats who supported him how they feel about him. I got back nothing that showed personal investment. Here are the words of a hard-line progressive and wise veteran of the political wars: "I never loved Barack Obama. That said, among my crowd who did 'love' him, I can't think of anyone who still does." Why is Mr. Obama different from Messrs. Clinton and Bush? "Clinton radiated personality. As angry as folks got with him about Nafta or Monica, there was always a sense of genuine, generous caring." With Bush, "if folks were upset with him, he still had this goofy kind of personality that folks could relate to. You might think he was totally misguided but he seemed genuinely so. . . . Maybe the most important word that described Clinton and Bush but not Obama is 'genuine.'" He "doesn't exude any feeling that what he says and does is genuine."
Maybe Mr. Obama is living proof of the political maxim that they don't care what you know unless they know that you care. But the idea that he is aloof and so inspires aloofness may be too pat. No one was colder than FDR, deep down. But he loved the game and did a wonderful daily impersonation of jut-jawed joy. And people loved him.
The secret of Mr. Obama is that he isn't really very good at politics, and he isn't good at politics because he doesn't really get people. The other day a Republican political veteran forwarded me a hiring notice from the Obama 2012 campaign. It read like politics as done by Martians. The "Analytics Department" is looking for "predictive Modeling/Data Mining" specialists to join the campaign's "multi-disciplinary team of statisticians," which will use "predictive modeling" to anticipate the behavior of the electorate. "We will analyze millions of interactions a day, learning from terabytes of historical data, running thousands of experiments, to inform campaign strategy and critical decisions."
This wasn't the passionate, take-no-prisoners Clinton War Room of '92, it was high-tech and bloodless. Is that what politics is now? Or does the Obama re-election effort reflect the candidate and his flaws?
Mr. Obama seemed brilliant at politics when he first emerged in 2004. He understood the nation's longing for unity. We're not divided into red states and blue, he said, we're Big Purple, we can solve our problems together. Four years later he read the lay of the land perfectly—really, perfectly. The nation and the Democratic Party were tired of the Clinton machine. He came from nowhere and dismantled it. It was breathtaking. He went into the 2008 general election with a miraculously unified party and took down another machine, bundling up all the accrued resentment of eight years with one message: "You know the two losing wars and the economic collapse we've been dealing with? I won't do that. I'm not Bush."
The fact is, he's good at dismantling. He's good at critiquing. He's good at not being the last guy, the one you didn't like. But he's not good at building, creating, calling into being. He was good at summoning hope, but he's not good at directing it and turning it into something concrete that answers a broad public desire.
And so his failures in the debt ceiling fight. He wasn't serious, he was only shrewd—and shrewdness wasn't enough. He demagogued the issue—no Social Security checks—until he was called out, and then went on the hustings spouting inanities. He left conservatives scratching their heads: They could have made a better, more moving case for the liberal ideal as translated into the modern moment, than he did. He never offered a plan. In a crisis he was merely sly. And no one likes sly, no one respects it.
So he is losing a battle in which he had superior forces—the presidency, the U.S. Senate. In the process he revealed that his foes have given him too much mystique. He is not a devil, an alien, a socialist. He is a loser. And this is America, where nobody loves a loser."
So he is losing a battle in which he had superior forces—the presidency, the U.S. Senate. In the process he revealed that his foes have given him too much mystique. He is not a devil, an alien, a socialist. He is a loser. And this is America, where nobody loves a loser.is sadly spot on. That one fact more than anything else will nail him in 2012.
wget -mk http://www.thirdway.org/
Third Way Honorary Co-Chairs
HOUSE
James Clyburn
John Dingell
Ron Kind
Joseph Crowley
Allyson Schwartz
Gabrielle Giffords
Jared Polis
SENATE
Thomas Carper
Claire McCaskill
Mark Udall
Jeanne Shaheen
Kay Hagan
Chris Coons
EMERITUS
Kathleen Sebelius
Ken Salazar
Ellen Tauscher
Blanche Lambert Lincoln
Evan Bayh
Jane Harman
Mark Pryor
Melissa Bean
Artur Davis
The Board of Trustees:
Trustees currently/previously involved in Banking & Finance
John L. Vogelstein - Chairman
Bernard L. Schwartz - Chairman Emeritus
David Heller - Vice-Chairman
Dwight Anderson
Lewis Cullman
John Dyson
Robert Dyson
Brian Frank
Derek Kirkland
Ronald A. Klain
Daniel Loeb
Thurgood Marshall, Jr.
Michael Novogratz
Andrew Parmentier
David Roberts
Howard Rossman
Barbara Manfrey Vogelstein
Joseph Zimlich
Trustees I don't think are involved in Banking & Finance
Georgette Bennett
William D. Budinger
Jonathan Cowan
Peter A. Joseph
General Claudia Kennedy
Susan McCue
Herbert Miller
Tim Sweeney
Ted Trimpa
Mr. Marshall is a partner at Bingham McCutchen LLP, and a Principal of Bingham Consulting Group. Mr. Marshall counsels and devises strategies for advancing clients’ interests before Congress, the executive branch and independent regulatory agencies. He provides guidance regarding ethics compliance and corporate governance. He has developed legislative and regulatory strategies for clients involved in corporate mergers, professional and amateur sports, commercial aviation, utility and banking regulation, and legal process reforms.(emphasis mine)
"Mr. Marshall counsels and devises strategies for advancing clients’ interests before Congress, the executive branch and independent regulatory agencies."pretty much says it all! All we need to do is replace "Mr. Marshall" with "Third Way" and there you have it:
Third Way counsels and devises strategies for advancing clients’ interests before Congress, the executive branch and independent regulatory agencies."
"Any word on what's up with the Greens for the 2012 presidential election?"Sadly from what I can see they are nowhere to be found!
Obama has been telling us that he will happily gut Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid for years starting with the filthy creeps he appointed to his Deficit Commission.
He is a coward that doesn't care about anything but making peace with the Republicans who hate him. He has bowed and scraped before them and is foolish enough to think that they will be responsible in the end. What an idiot!
The Repubs have been wanting to kill Social Security for years and now they have Obama to do their dirty work. Obama has already started to defund it and we can only guess what is next.
When will KOS and Company stand up to his betrayals and call him our for what he is - a coward and a traitor to the Democratic Party and its most basic principles!
Maybe the Greens will run somebody so I can vote - I won't be voting for Obama.
I'm sorry to point this out to you but this is racism and this is hate and it occurred in Georgia. The fact that those two issues are such a large part of that state should shock no one. As the old line goes - "Atlanta, not bad for Georgia" but it is still part of Georgia and racism comes with the territory.The thing that is great about this article is that it shows how Corporate interests are behind the law in Arizona and now in Georgia and how they will profit from its passage:
One thing to note though - for all the racist, crazies running around in a place like Texas this legislation hasn't passed there. Why? Simple economics of course - they need the Mexican labor to build their barns, pave their roads and cook their food. What would TexMex be without the Mex? Georgia got sucker punched into this because the Republicans there are too stupid to realize what they have just done to their economy. Say good by to the chicken industry there - I'm gonna predict there will be more and more empty chicken coops in the Georgia country side. The undocumenteds left Arizona after they passed their law and its economy suffered. I expect Georgia will suffer the same fate. And that's just - racism, hate and ignorance should have a cost.
Meanwhile, supporters of the bill are celebrating, including the right-wing Republican base that supported the bill, as well as the for-profit prison corporations which stand to profit from the massive influx of suspected undocumented immigrants through the private prison system.We will see if the same law gets anywhere in Texas. I doubt it but you never know. The same State that elected and has now re-elected Rick Perry can't be too bright.
"Corrections Corporation of America (CCA), we know they have lobbyists here [at the legislature]," said Larry Pellegrini of Georgia Rural Urban Summit. CCA is one of the largest for-profit prison corporations in the U.S.
"They [CCA] will benefit by the legislation. They have a corporate stake in it around the country," Pellegrini told IPS.
Pellegrini also noted that the lobbying effort to pass anti- immigration laws in Georgia was part of a national effort.
One national lobbying group that was instrumental in bringing together business interests and lawmakers was the conservative American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC).
It was an ALEC task force, which included a representative from a private prison - along with lawmakers from Arizona and other states - who helped draft Arizona's immigration bill, which became a template for Georgia's law as well.
According to CCA reports obtained by National Public Radio, the corporation believes that immigration detention is its next big growth market.
CCA's earnings were up 15 percent in the first quarter compared to the same period a year ago.
CCA reported earnings of 40.3 million dollars, or 37 cents per share, on revenue of 428 million dollars in first quarter of 2011, according to the Nashville Business Journal newspaper. CCA's revenue for 2009 was 1.7 billion dollars.
The federal government pays over 60 dollars per detainee per day to house men at CCA's Stewart Detention Center, the largest immigration detention centre in the U.S., located in Lumpkin, Georgia.
CCA's top management in Tennessee contributed the largest block of out-of-state campaign contributions received by Arizona's Republican governor, Jan Brewer. Brewer employs two former CCA lobbyists as aides who assisted with signing Arizona's SB 1070 into law.
Welcome to 1948
Here we go again, and here we'll remain, I suppose, until President Obama's friendly detractors and nasty allies see the White House's white-flag strategy unfurled in radiant, fighting colors -- the here, this morning, once again surging in Frank Rich's always excellent writing and momentarily mistaken analysis. (OK, so I'm beginning to feel like a besieged evangelist; Lord, I sure hope I'm right).
Observes Rich, Obama is suffering from Stockholm Syndrome, and "The captors will win this [tax-cut] battle ... because Obama has seemingly surrendered his once-considerable abilities to act, decide or think."
A peculiar criticism, I'd say, since what could be more decisive than for Obama to rebuff his base in the midst of so much Democratic-activist discouragement and disappointment? It seems to me the easiest, partisan act for Obama to execute would be to relentlessly hammer Senate Republicans on their fiscal recklessness and dig in his heels with a veto threat.
But then what? What then when Senate Democrats inevitably capitulate to the minority-as-majority? There Obama would stand, all alone, with only two dreadful options: Admit defeat and look weaker than ever, or single-handedly outlaw tax cuts for millions of middle-class Americans and do horrifying harm to an already crippled economy. Not a pretty vision.
"[T]he real problem," continues Rich, "is that he’s so indistinct no one across the entire political spectrum knows who he is. A chief executive who repeatedly presents himself as a conciliator, forever searching for the 'good side' of all adversaries and convening summits, in the end comes across as weightless, if not AWOL."
I find that a curiously blended criticism, although its inherent progressivist projection is rather graphic. It's true that ideological progressives find Obama "indistinct," and to some calculated degree he is. But what they simultaneously neglect is that it was his deliberate indistinctiveness that got him elected in the first place: Independent voters love ambiguity and rhetorical mush, with which their own mushiness can identify.
But there are limits, even for independents, who will determine 2012's outcome. Those limits, however, cannot have been reached for independent voters within only a few weeks of the "game-changing" midterms and before the new, half-Republican Congress is even sworn in. Obama knows this, in both his belly and brain, and with a monumental patience unnatural to pugilistic activists he's biding his time to strike. "In the end [he] comes across as weightless," says Rich, somehow forgetting that this is not the end.
I'll concede one point to Rich, though. President Obama is perhaps too stoically cerebral for today's hyperpolarized, bloodbath politics of adolescent tribalism and elementary regurgitation. He seems to think that speaking his mind and making his position known once, twice, three times or twenty is sufficient for the body politic's comprehension; to wit, his by-now countless and unmistakable declarations on the Bush-era tax cuts, only to hear hyperpartisans such as Frank Rich write that "No one expects Obama to imitate [New Jersey Gov.] Christie’s in-your-face, bull-in-the-china-shop shtick. But they have waited in vain for him to stand firm on what matters to him and to the country."
Obama of course did stand firm on upper-end tax cuts throughout the 2008 campaign and continued standing in like manner as president -- until, that is, it became all too obvious that success in Congress was not an option.
The timing of Obama's D-Day offensive against the recalcitrant GOP remains precarious. My initial thoughts were, for reasons explained, that he'd dismiss the tax-cut issue as his artillery-opening opportunity, but use it to assault Republicans when they then denied him a vote on New Start. Some reasonably lengthy demonstration of presidential good faith is incumbent on Obama in order to persuade independents that he's the reasonable One; and, it seems to me, on tax cuts Republicans are playing right into his carressing hand.
Yet, as I noted earlier, such timing might be aggressively premature. Obama might yet delay his assault well into 2011, and, my guess, initially over some relatively insignificant piece of legislation (for what else will we see next year?) -- a political skirmish on which he can build, more and more thunderously, more and more Trumanesquely, heading into 2012.
Progressives, for your own good, it's my duty to point something out to you: the president's just not that into you.
.....
I get that the progressives, and the activists, and the young people who voted for the first time, and the disillusioned voters who returned to the polls in '08, feel slighted by the president. You thought you had a special connection with him, but it turns out he'd rather hang out with Larry Summers, flirt with Olympia Snowe, or play war games late into the night with David Petraeus. Face it: he just isn't that into you. But, in the end, it doesn't matter where the president's heart is -- it matters what he does. LBJ wasn't that into the National Voting Rights Act until Martin Luther King and the Selma march pushed him into it.
If Obama is going to do the right thing for America's middle class by sticking to his promise to start winding down (for real) the war in Afghanistan in July 2011, and by prioritizing jobs over the long-term deficit, the passion is going to have to come from outside the White House.
This is a must see folks.
Cenk Uygur puts the Chair of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee (DCCC), Representative Chris Van Hollen, in the “corner” on cuts to Social Security and the guy will not say he opposes cranking up the retirement age to 70. Cenk did a great job pushing him on this but he would not say he would oppose raising the retirement age to 70. All Van Hollen could mumble was something about its gonna be part of a big package and he would have to see what’s in there.
Its so obvious – the deal is done – its like the public option in Health Care Reform. Insiders in DC knew that Obama had promised it away early on in the process so it never was going to happen. It was just a matter how to tell us - the little people - that we could stuff it. They are using their classic tactic of Kabuki Theater yet again and trying to focus our attention on one issue while selling us out on another. The whole road show Obama and the DC Dems are orchestrating right now, about privatizing Social Security, is a smoke screen to cover up what they really want to do – raise the retirement age to 70. Republicans aren’t talking about this – its the Dems that are pounding the drums of privatization and its not just to scare us but also to hide reality from us. The Dems do so because its an essential part of the charade they are playing out - first they elevate the possibility of privatization then to save us from that they agree with the Republicans to raise the retirement age to 70, that's the age you must hit before you receive full Social Security benefits. Its a sick and beautiful plan - first you create a crisis and then solve it with your intended outcome - a classic example of the crisis creation/crisis management process. No doubt Rahm E. would approve - its simply a logical extension of his observation that you should never let a crisis go to waste. This time however the crisis can be shaped by its creator to promote the desired outcome. For the Republicans its yet another win-win situation - they won't have to lift a finger to get it done - the Dems will do it for them. This is what the Bankers and Wall Street want and since Obama and the Dems are their most loyal servants that's what they will get!
Sadly this is a prediction you can take to the bank!
((found via Scarecrow's post at FireDogLake))
On the Rage of Gibbs
White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs has been slapped around silly by commentator after commentator, decrying his anti-Lefty rage. But as I read the battle, it seems to miss a pretty fundamental point:
It's certainly not fair to criticize Obama for not being a Lefty. He wasn't ever a Lefty. He didn't promise to be a Lefty. And there's no reason to expect that he would ever become a Lefty.
But Lefties (like me) who criticize Obama are not criticizing him for failing our Lefty test. Our criticism is that Obama is failing the Obama test: that he is not delivering the presidency that he promised.
When Candidate Obama took on Hilary Clinton, he was quite clear about what he thought about the way Washington works. And he was quite clear about why he was running for President. As he said:[U]nless we're willing to challenge the broken system in Washington, and stop letting lobbyists use their clout to get their way, nothing else is going to change. And the reason I'm running for president is to challenge that system.Read it again: "The reason I am running for president is to challenge that system."
Or again:[I]f we do not change our politics -- if we do not fundamentally change the way Washington works -- then the problems we've been talking about for the last generation will be the same ones that haunt us for generations to come.Or again:But let me be clear -- this isn't just about ending the failed policies of the Bush years; it's about ending the failed system in Washington that produces those policies. For far too long, through both Democratic and Republican administrations, Washington has allowed Wall Street to use lobbyists and campaign contributions to rig the system and get its way, no matter what it costs ordinary Americans.Or again, as he asked, again and again:Do we continue to allow lobbyists to veto our progress? Or do we finally put our national interests ahead of the special interests and address the concerns people feel over their jobs, their health care and their children's future?Or again, as he explained:We are up against the belief that it's OK for lobbyists to dominate our government -- that they are just part of the system in Washington. But we know that the undue influence of lobbyists is part of the problem, and this election is our chance to say that we're not going to let them stand in our way anymore.Or perhaps put best:We need to challenge the system... And if we're not willing to take up that fight, then real change -- change that will make a lasting difference in the lives of ordinary Americans -- will keep getting blocked by the defenders of the status quo.Once Obama clinched the nomination, however, his rhetoric changed. And as he came to office, his focus, as a senior administration official explained, was to clean up the Executive, and leave to Congress the problem of cleaning up Congress (begging the obvious question: Does the president believe the problem with Washington is the presidency, and not Congress?)
Since coming to power, Obama has pushed just one piece of legislation that would have any effect at all on the power of lobbyists over Congress. That bill has not passed, and even if it had, it would have changed nothing in the lobbyists' power. He has not even indicated that he would support the only substantial reform of lobbyists power with support in Congress today -- the Fair Elections Now Act. Indeed, "congressional reform" doesn't even merit a mention on the "Additional Issues" page of whitehouse.gov (though "sportsmen" does).
Obama's strategy as president has not been to "change the way Washington works." Rather, he has pushed reforms in the same old way, with the same old games. As Glenn Greenwald put it, speaking of health care:The way this bill has been shaped is the ultimate expression -- and bolstering -- of how Washington has long worked. One can find reasonable excuses for why it had to be done that way, but one cannot reasonably deny that it was.Now I'm not sure whether it is leftist, or rightist, or centerist to govern through special interest deals. It certainly is Clintonist. It's precisely the administration that Hillary "lobbyists are people, too" Clinton promised. And were she president, and had she done exactly what Obama has done, then no one, I included, would have any reason to criticize her.
But beefed up Clintonism is not what Obama promised. He promised to "take up the fight." His failure to deliver on that critical promise -- the promise that distinguished him from his main primary rival -- or even to try, is a failure that everyone, Lefties included, should be free to complain about without suffering the rage of Gibbs.
