Originally posted by: Rainsford
Originally posted by: Craig234
Originally posted by: Rainsford
Originally posted by: Ocguy31
Anything that makes liberals upset is OK in my book.
:thumbsup: for Obama.
This liberal is all in favor of his picks. Unlike you people (and apparently your counterparts on the far left), I never bought the idea that Obama was some huge liberal. He's a reasonable centrist, which is exactly what we need right now.
We need a centrist now like we needed on ein 1933. I.e., not much.
Luckily, Obama has praised FDR's aggressive experimentation. We'll see if it's just words.
Centrist doesn't mean not doing anything, it just means that he's not going to aggressively experiment really far the left. I might be a liberal, but I don't think liberals are the ONLY people who are willing to try new ideas. When I say centrist, I don't mean halfway between the far left and GWB style bullshit...I mean someone willing to take the good ideas from both sides and come up with the best solution to a problem.
I don't think that's what it means; you seem to be conflating, the same way the ignorant right does, the conepts of 'liberal' and 'really far to the left' as if they're the same. You are doing it by equating 'centrist interad of liberal' meaning 'not doing things really far to the left', as if there's no thing such things as policies that are 'liberal' instead of 'centrist' that are not 'really far to the left'. This is the point where you might need to be clearer what you're saying and vague labels are inadequate with their definitions not understood.
Was FDR 'really far to the left'? Was he 'centrist'? What are the policies that fit each of those three labels? (Put aside the utter chaos of the definition of 'right' and 'far right' in these times of the Republican Party having lost its way and mixed up small-government conservatism with the corporate agenda).
The point with experimentation is to actually do the best policies the best experts suggest. How radical was it for FDR to do some of what he did? Very. His programs are controversial *today*, after decades of having been established - how much more so for him to break new ground in the whole history of the nation's approach to governing? But he had license - the whole industrial revolution wasn't all that old, and people had seen how badly the 'laissez-faire' approach had hurt the country and the peeople.
The right-wing has learned some political lessons, and has a massive propaganda campaign that makes many Americans highly resistant to any such efforts. If the (democratic) president so much as says a word beginning with "S", people are yelling 'socialism!' at him.
So is Obama limited to minor shifting around of the pieced within the basic existing structure, or can he do what the best experts he can find say will benefit the country?
That's the basic question I'm raising with 'experimentation'. I think the right answer is yes, he should be more than less aggressive, and one objection to that from right-wingers is that I see how the system has been radical in its embracing of harmful, bad policies of the corporatocracy, while right-wingers don't understand that, and think all those policies are 'good' and fear change.
What's funny is how the right-wingers are constantly advocating changes far more radical than what I think liberals are interested in but they're not rejected by many Americans as radical, even while their changes would actually serve the rich and hurt the average American, unlike the liberal policies.
As for 'liberal' versus 'centrist', Obama so far has been nearly a Republican light, with his failure to champion the liberal notion of actually taxing sufficiently to pay for our expenses, and instead embracing the anti-tax views by actually offering most Americans a *larger* 'tax cut' than the Republicans (all my comments about it being tax borrowing, not a tax cut, apply to Obama as much as they did to Bush).
Obama has failed to stand up for 'good government' much and counter the radical right's attacks on government itself. He's riding the 'not Bush' bus but that's a short ride.
What we need is a president with a liberal agenda, just as the progressives a century ago started to address the worst entrnched poverty and corruption of the rich controlling the government, and FDR's policies laid the groundwork for the middle class being strengthened, and the 60's led the way for battling racism and further reducing poverty and the many who lacked health care, we need a president who will do things, not simply 'govern from the midddle'.
What is the middle noow anyway, following 25 years of radical right governing? Is it where Reagan and W have taken the nation, or is 'centrist' to return the nation to the earlier times when things like taxing enough to pay for the budget and not allowing big business to run rampant and a double digit level of union membership were 'center'?
I don't understand your wording sometimes, Rainsford. You contrast 'huge liberal' with 'reasonable centrist'. The word 'huge' is usually not a compliment in the political spectrum, but you remove any doubt by cntrasting his being liberal with the word 'reasonable', implying that liberals are not reasonable. You usually do express liberal views, but you sound like a Joe Lieberman blue dog when you attack liberals as not 'reasonable', and it's confusing about who you are.
I'm not beginning to suggest you need to follow some 'liberal' doctrine - you should simply express your views whatever they are - but the wording is confusing between your describing yourself as liberal while at the same time saying that only the center is 'reasonable' and that the nation does not need liberal policies to fix the last 25 years of right-wing messes. Even some Republicans would admit that a bit of liberalism now might have its role in undoing some of the damage.
So, I thnk the discussion has muddied between the vague 'ventrist' 'liberal' and 'far left' terms.
We're in a historic time. Many experts are saying the US faces a permanently dimished leadership role in the world going forward. These are times that call for a great president to find the middle way in preserving America's - and more importantly, American's principles - strong role in the world, while not becoming the typical oppressor that such power brings, the sort of blind policies the right is fine with.
America has for the first time I'm aware in the last 25 years seen a terrible situation of the bottom 80% of Americans getting zero of the nation's growth after inflation while the concentration of wealth skyrockets; it's seen the nation's very political system undermined by the power of the corporatocracy and the wealthy in ways not seen since before the great depression, except that in the great depression the people were not to propagandized that they couldn't unite to demand 'real change'.
A centrist is going to not be able to do much about that. A liberal can.
'Far left' isn't even on the table, rightly or wrongly.
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