Monday, August 01, 2011
Yay, Nobody Wins
Blaming the payers of the ransom instead of the hostage takers for a hostage situation is pretty stupid, but also pretty stupid is pretending that assigning this blame in the obviously correct way amounts to a celebration of the resolution of the hostage crisis. Nobody wins these things, it's stupid all the way down.
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2 comments:
Really?
So pointing out that at any of several points in the past two years, Obama could have called out the Republicans on the very stupidity of the policies they demanded is stupid?
So pointing out that Obama and the Democrats should have never accepted the premise that economic policy in 2011 was about deficit reduction rather than job creation is stupid?
So pointing out that Obama could have avoided paying this ransom by invoking the 14th Amendment is stupid?
In other words, do you really believe people like Paul Krugman are stupid when they point out these truths while simultaneously condemning the hostage takers?
I understand and appreciate your positioning as one of the "voices of reason" within the progressive movement working to prevent left-wing criticism of Obama and/or Democrats from becoming counter-productive and even toxic but there has to be a threshold (beyond the Obama administration letting you on LGBT issues a year or so ago, which drove you to trembling in anger) where even an exemplar of patience like you has to say "Enough is enough! You've let us down for the last time".
Obama actually did call Republicans out for their stupidity on several occasions, every time precipitating an hysterical hissy fit on their part and no discernible improvement in his standing from progressives or anybody else -- you certainly let it go in one ear and out the other, why should he try to reach an ingrate like you? you clearly can't be counted on for anything when the chips are down!
I agree that the post-midterm Plouffe engineered pivot to deficits was ugly and dumb, but I don't agree that it would have made as much of a difference as you seem to think not to make it. The GOP doesn't want to make jobs, it likes the divisiveness of a jobless environment.
The fashionable enthusiasm for the 14th Amendment (I joined in the fun myself) has a lot of people in the peanut gallery pretending to be constitutional scholars who aren't. I actually don't know that a constitutional crisis with this gang in office and given our scary Supremes is really a better way to go than where we went. I know you're sure, but I doubt you have any real reason to feel so sure.
Beyond all that, what I actually said in the post to which you are presumably responding is that it is stupid to blame the payer of the ransom instead of the hostage taker. That is far from the same thing as claiming you can't offer up reasonable criticisms of vicissitudes in this whole idiotic process. Yet, to ignore the completely constitutive role of the lunatic GOP in this and focus all your ire on the President's possibly not always optimal response to their madness is, indeed, unquestionably, obviously, totally stupid.
Paul Krugman is a great economist and a great popularizer of key economic views and policies. I've read all his books. He is also right to write from principle rather than from weedy policy pragmatism else he would not always be able to clarify the economic principles that are his area of expertise. One of his strengths is the ability to illustrate principle with everyday examples but this isn't actually the same thing as doing what Steve Benen does much better, for example. To the extent that Krugman indulges in Blame Obama First games he is as silly as everybody else who does it, in my opinion, and also not making a case from his expertise. He's still awesome though.
When you say "Enough is enough! You've let us down for the last time" what the fuck is that supposed to mean? You want Obama to be impeached? You want to vote for the Republican next time around or to do the equivalent by not voting at all or pretending a third party candidate in a winner-take-all election system isn't a spoiler? What the hell is the actual substance that presumably makes anything better about anything you claim to care about that connects to your little snit?
I hate all this bullshit too -- but I fully expected this when we lost the House in the Mid-Terms. This is what we got because people didn't go to the polls, because they were too fucking apathetic, stupid, or self-indulgent to grasp what it would mean.
Unless your "impatience" translates to actual campaigns at the local level or some revolutionary organizing at the national level then you're just spouting off as usual, you big baby, you bullshit artist. Patience is required for change at the pace of reform rather than the pace of pulling ideas out of your ass.
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