June 16 at 11:19AM
Bill Maher Thinks Barack Obama Needs a Little George Bush in Him
Well, the honeymoon is certainly over. Bill Maher joins a growing collection of liberals and Obama-supporters who are starting to get a little tired of waiting around for the guy they thought they were electing to show up to work…
PERMALINK:
RSS
and I'll add, that Maher was one of those Naderties, who along with Michael Moore, got me so annoyed with their "they're the same" BS, that the first message board I ever posted on, was the Politically Incorrect board, back during the 2000 election.
I blasted him for hawking Nader and helping Gore lose, and maybe Gore would have "lost" anyway, considering the vote rigging that was going on, but at any rate, the Naderites really bugged me with their idealism being the enemy of the lesser evil.
Whatever Gore was, he was not as bad as Bush. I knew Bush would be bad, I had no idea he'd run our country into a ditch so damn deep.
I've often wondered if Maher wasn't a bit of the self hating jew type. His mom is Jewish, but his Dad had him raised Catholic, or so I think goes the story. At any rate, while he's progressive enough, he often beats his chest just a little too much in an effort to prove how moderate, or how un liberal (read wimpy) he is.
While I dont think he's consiously a misogynist, he does come across that way at times….poor guy. I seriously don't think he means to. LOL.
And while I agree with Maher on principle, that Obama shouldn't give a rat's ass about what the redbaiters say, and that he should press on, and to thine own conscience be true and all that, I disagree with Maher, that Obama should suddenly become the arrogant ramrod that Bush was. Bush's arrogance, is what got his party, fired.
At any rate, this self hating liberal scenario is a problem.
Let's hope Obama doesn't fit into this category.
Okay, to us liberals, he's a moderate, centrist, and even leans right. To him, maybe he buys into all the BS being spewed constantly, about how liberal he is, so he's out to prove just how moderate and centrist, or even right wing he can be.
Clinton did that, but he was Bubba, and he got away with it. Gore tried it, and he was largely abandoned by the Naderites and Dems were accused of being "the same" as Republicans.
For Bush's part, he played to the center left, with the "compassionate conservative" BS, and the Bush v. Gore subtext was that Clinton had gone so far right and Gore's prudishness about not letting Bubba strut his stuff after the Lewinsky debacle turned the left off even more.
Obama didn't win this election, by seeming like he compromised his ideals. We voted for him because we thought he truly believed the stuff he was saying. We thought he'd really be change. Not in the pocket of lobbyists and industry, like Bush was.
We thought he truly would fight for the American People.
The right is championing outsourcing, redbaiting, fomenting failure and recklessly pretending industry can police itself. Who is going to stand up to these bullies, who have been ripping off the consumers and manipulating the market, as our economic back is broken again, and again by high gas prices.
We were promised green jobs, we were promised a cracking down on Big Energy, and Big Oil's handouts and corporate welfare.
For him to falter on some of those principles, or at least be seeming to, in an effort to be "bipartisan" or to appear less liberal, also has the potential to backfire.
We don't want another Republican in office. We want Green Jobs, we want health care, we want the things he promised.
Water down your ideals at your own peril, Mr. President. The right is chip chip chipping away at you and trying everything in the book, to turn you into the next Carter. Show some stones and don't let them get away with it, Be bold, and be brave.
All their redbaiting and BS won't mean a damn thing, if you turn this economy around, bring us energy independence, and find a way to have decent, affordable health care.
The country will hum with productivity, if you put us to work and have the kind of guts FDR had. Never underestimate, the power of morale. Confidence, and the good old American work ethic. You don't have to actually be the employer, the govt. can stimulate growth by helping entrepreneurs grow business and help America bring to market the things we invented, instead of the Chinese beating us to the punch and selling more wind turbines than we do.
Let the redbaiters call you whatever names they want, remind them that until every Republican marches to the "abolish Social Security!" slogan, they are socialists, too, so STFU.
We are a capitalist system, but social programs are the safety net, when capitalism eats itself alive. The free traders almost killed capitalism, by pretending they could police themselves.
Competition, and actual supply and demand drive markets. Market manipulation, and monopoly, crush the air out of the free market.
Not to mention the damage on global economy, by outsourcing our jobs.
The American worker is systematically being eliminated. I blame Clinton for kowtowing to the right and letting them run rampant with NAFTA.
Unions take blame, too, for being short sighted, and going with the easy SUV buck, instead of helping to bring better, more efficient products to market.
Give the UAW a crack at owning the damn company, and let's see what kind of sacrifices they're willing to make for GM. I'd bet, if they stepped into an ownership role, they'd see farrther than just their next paycheck.
Any good business owner knows, you might not make a profit in the first 5 years. You keep investing in your company, keep making better products, and hopefully, your foresight and good decisions will pay off.
But pandering to those who wish you to fail, or think letting America's car culture and legacy, which has driven our economy since its inception, should fail, or that the American Worker should fail, wants America to fail, too.
Until there is fair trade, or even the tiniest bit fair-er trade, outsourcing will continue to kill the Golden Goose – The American Consumer. Without a job, we can't buy squat.
Offshore huggers can get all up in arms about "protectionism" and maybe they don't care about the American Consumer. Maybe they don't give a damn whether we can buy their products anymore. They should, considering that our spending habits are what has driven global economy for how long?
So please, don't be a self hating liberal – being centrist is great, but heed the mistakes of Gore and others, who tried too hard, to please the right. They're too power hungry, to let you fully shine.
Bring the Volt to market. If you can stimulate the damn economy by helping turtles cross the road, why isn't that money being spent to help us get off middle eastern oil? Give tax breaks directly to the consumer and taxpayer and making it easier to get a plug in hybrid. Or install a solar or wind farm in our own backyard.
GM plants could be retooled to build solar/wind/clean coal parts, and not only would Americans be put back to work, but we'd be building stuff that could also sell on the global market. Other countries could benefit by building more self reliant buildings, too.
Lowering our home energy demand by a quarter percent, is nothing to sniff at.
Lowering our demand for gasoline from 8 tanks of gas a month to just 2 tanks, or less a month, ain't chump change.
Idling in traffic and wasting gas means 0mpg.
We want efficiency, we want plug in hybrids, and we want cleaner, greener, energy.
If coal CEO's want to say they're "environmentalists" now, that's fine, if they can make coal clean, that's great. But I'm also wary of another 10-15 year shuck and jive, and they want taxpayers to pay for the cleaning up of the coal.
Those who don't hide their contempt for anything "green" and attack the Eco Economy, or champion waste and wish to kill any competition to their monopoly
will just have to deal with the will of the American People. That is, if we still have the representative we elected, who we thought would finally listen to us.
Yes, we can. Can you?
Can't beat 'em, fuck 'em. Buy Canadian insurance, then cross the border for medical care. Hell, we got Nafta.
Meanwhile the rest of us are glad he hasn't been as far left as we had feared. His socialist agenda is bad, but it could have been worse.