Looking from this side of the pond...

[oldironside]

... I am firmly of the opinion that Obama is more of a disappointment than Blair. We all had high hopes in 1997, but saw them dashed, due to vanity and egotism. Obama seems to be working from a play book. Who can I sell out next?

[muriel_volestrangler]

1. I don't think he's a sellout

but he's been planning on the assumption that the Republicans want to fix America's problems in a right wing way, and can be reasoned with to find a common solution. They don't, and can't - they want to remove all power from Democrats, and then rule in a right wing way.

[LeftishBrit]

2. The difference is...

that in Britain Blair dragged his party and country to the right, while in America the Republicans dragged the country, including Obama (like Bill Clinton before him), to the right.

Obama had limited options IMO, though as Muriel says he also made the big mistake of treating the Republicans as potentially reasonable negotiating partners, which the current Republicans are *not*.

I am not that disappointed in Obama, because I expected much less of him than many others did. He's an American politician, working within their system; and right now a Democrat surrounded by Republicans.

And another important difference between Blair and Obama: Blair defeated Major; Obama defeated McCain and Palin. Much as I dislike Major politically, McCain and especially Palin are several orders of magnitude more dangerous. It was absolutely essential to defeat them.

[non sociopath skin]

5. Much as I dislike Blair an the New Labour concept, LB ...

... surely it was Thatcher who dragged the country to the right, with the Blair phenomenon as one of the manifestations of that process.

I believe (no reference - sorry) that one of Thatcher's stated intentions was to create a British system mirroring that in the States with two strongly pro-Business parties jockeying for the "middle ground". Sadly, successive Labour leaders - with Blair by far the most enthusiastic - were happy to oblige. And to its discredit, the majority of the party was happy to follow.

Interesting that this was done in the name of the people - it was "what the electorate wanted" - even though Thatcher failed to ever muster anything like a majority of them for her neoliberal agenda.

Retournons a nos moutons, the GOP is claiming much the same thing with a Congressional poll rating which is among the lowest ever.

The Skin

[LeftishBrit]

11. True enough...

and though the USA was never as left-wing as Britain at the time of the 'postwar consensus', I'd also say that Reagan did a lot to drag them to the Right. The 80s were a wonderful decade - NOT!

[DavidDvorkin]

3. Blair had a majority in Parliament

A big majority, at the beginning. Obama never had anything equivalent to work with.

[non sociopath skin]

8. That's not strictly true, is it?

The Democrats had a majority in both houses to begin with.

The thought has occurred to me several times recently - if Obama and his party had used it to push through a full healthcare plan, raise taxes for the wealthiest, withdraw from Iraq and Afghanistan and close Gitmo, how much worse could things have got for him by now?

Just wondering ...

The Skin

[DavidDvorkin]

9. A nominal majority only

Many of the Democrats who made up those majorities were not Obama's supporters and opposed many of his policies.

Moreover, the opposition doesn't need a majority in the Senate to block bills and nominations. It only needs a willingness to filibuster and enough votes to sustain a filibuster.

[non sociopath skin]

12. So it sounds to me as if you're saying that the system - and the Party is broken ....

... and that Republican policies will inevitably triumph.

I have to say that I find that hard to swallow.

The Skin

[DavidDvorkin]

14. The system is inherently broken

I've read that the Senate was designed to be the place where legislation goes to die. Unfortunately, it's also sometimes the place where a minority can force its desires upon the majority, and I don't think that was intentended by the designers of the system.

I'm not saying that Republican policies will inevitably trimph. If they do, it will be due as much to Democratic spinelessness as to the brokenness of the system. I am saying that because of the nature of the system and that spinelessness, Democratic policies may not triumph even with a future Democratic majority in both houses. If they do triumph, it will be in a very watered down form, a form that includes many Republican policies -- an awful compromise required to get Republican votes so as to push something through Congress.

[non sociopath skin]

15. So why does this happen, then, in your opinion DD?

On visits to the States - I'm married to an American - I don't get the impression that you guys (especially in the cities - which is where most of you live) think anything like the Republican Right.

So why is it that a party of the Far Right, which would be lucky to get 10% of the vote in almost any other Western democracy, is able to call 100% of the tune, 100% of the time?

It seemed clear that the Democrats gained the House, the Senate and the White House because the majority were tired of Bush and his policies and wanted something more like a social market.

So why didn't they give it to them?

The Skin

[DavidDvorkin]

17. You're right that most of us don't think that way

Polls consistently show that the US public favors Democratic and liberal policies. But that's when they're asked about specific liberal policies vs. specific conservative ones, with no labels attached to the policies. When people are asked whether they consider themselves liberal, conservative, or somewhere between, the majority say they're conservatives.

I think it's because our media are under the control of conservative and plutocratic forces. The outlets from which most Americans get their news are now subsidiaries of giant corporations. The Republican party set out quite deliberately, decades ago, to undermine the independence of the press. They succeeded.

Coverage of politics by the US press is scandalously biased. The outcome of the congressional election of 2010 is the sort of thing that results.

Oh, and that's even without another terrible, terrible problem: the use of voting machines that are almost certainly being used to deliberately report false election results and throw elections to Republican candidates.

[DavidDvorkin]

18. By the way, I apologize for partially hijacking your conversation

and turning it into a discussion of American politics. Even though I'm an American and therefore tend to make everything about the US, that wasn't my intention.

[non sociopath skin]

21. Don't think there's anything to apologise for.

This was a discussion of US politics and I, for one, have no problem with you contributing.

The Skin

[oldironside]

26. Well, I started this bloody thread...

... and I don't feel you've hijacked it at all. This is probably the most constructive thread I've started in a long time. It is an honest exchange of views, rather than...
a. people trying to show they are cleverer than the other posters
b. the choir clapping the minister (we all basically agree anyway)
c. a bitch fest for the sake of it.

In case your interested, I'd been up the Reeperbahn, came back feeling (a) emotional and (b) depressed. I vented spleen and regretted it the next morning. Now I don't.



(I was in the pub behind the girl in the pink jacket, if you are interested)

[LeftishBrit]

19. As you'll probably know..

excessive RW control of media and thereby of government is a problem in the UK too, and one of the key players is the same in both our countries: Rupert Murdoch (& his entire empire). Do you think that if the Murdochs and NewsCorp go down, this will improve things in American politics; or do you think people just as bad will take their place?

As regards the voting machine problem: one good thing here is that Britain still uses paper ballots and I hope it always will!

[DavidDvorkin]

20. I'm not sure that the fall of Murdoch would make much difference

We've already seen our other "news" networks imitating Murdoch's Fox News. If Fox went away, one of the others would take its place as the most rightwing of them all.

The deeper problem -- lack of media independence and competition because they're all owned by giant corporations -- would still be there. The only solution to that would be for the FCC (Federal Communications Commission) or the courts to force those corporations to divest themselves of the news outlets they've bought. But the FCC would be stymied by Congress, and the Federal courts are dominated by conservative judges appointed by previous Republican presidents.

I've become quite pessimistic.

[non sociopath skin]

22. I think there might be one more problem.

I read somewhere lately - maybe you could help me with it - that a recent poll had found that Americans liked Democratic policies but didn't trust the Dems to implement them.

Now THAT one is fixable ...

The Skin

[DavidDvorkin]

24. I think that comes from this article

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/07/31/opinion/sunday/tuning-out-the-democrats.html?_r=1

[LSdemocrat]

4. The biggest problem with Obama is that he really isn't at all a left-winger

His only left-wing/liberal credential in the 2008 primary race was that he was "right on Iraq at the beginning". Nothing else. For whatever reason, liberal activists somehow decided that he was some sort of liberal lion despite the total lack of any liberal/left-wing credentials and his constant cooperation and consensus based rhetoric that have been his major themes since his keynote address at the 2004 Democratic convention.

In Blair's case, well, you guys just completely sold out because you were so freaking desperate to win. Did you really something different was going to happen when you made your most right-wing shadow cabinet member party leader? The bigger tragedy is just thinking "what could have been?" if only John Smith hadn't died.

[T_i_B]

6. Never liked Blair in the 1st place

I don't think I was ever convinced that Blair believed in anything other then grabbing power at any cost.

As to Obama, he's got a heck of a lot to do to live up to his election rhetoric. He may be disappointing a few people but I still think that he means well much more then Tony Blair ever did. It may be the case however, that his best hope for re-election is that the Republicans select a blatant lunatic to run against him.

[oldironside]

7. They have got...

... an army to choose from.

http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-XN5JYmKWRqs/TieOhQieBXI/AAAAAAAACWc/RNP3G8ocvQg/s1600/MICHELE-BACHMANN-CRAZY+EYESarge300.jpg

[LeftishBrit]

10. That should have come with an X rating!

And I thought that such films as 'The Silence of the Lambs', 'American Psycho', and 'The Texas Chainsaw Massacre' were scary!

[oldironside]

16. You'll never believe how long it took,...

... to find those scary pictures. About 22 seconds while I was also doing something else.

Seriously though, the Palin picture really sums her up. Total air head who gets by on her looks.



And before you ask, no I wouldn't, but I know a Texan who would.

[non sociopath skin]

23. The question is, have you ever met a Texan who wouldn't?

Tha ... tha ... tha... that's all folks.

The Skin

[oldironside]

25. Well...

... I only know one Texan, but I can't shut her up about the VPILF.

[non sociopath skin]

27. They look like stills from American Psycho 2

The Skin

[non sociopath skin]

13. But if our friend DavidDvorkin above speak true ...

... then blatant Republican lunacy has a lot more chance of succeeding in the States than moderate social market-ism.

Not sure I agree with him, though.

The Skin