GREENWALD: The imperatives of political pressure

[yurbud]

One of the best ways we can help Obama in this election year is to demand that he be all that he can be, which would serve two positive purposes:

• draw a sharper contrast between Romney and Obama, probably getting more people excited about the election and helping him win.
  
  
• a precedent making it at least a little harder for Obama to say his win was a validation of the DLC, corporate compliance without the lynch mob and religious nuts, way.

If we demand nothing, the Democrats will continue to chase the GOP to the right, and say that's what we voted for.

Throughout the Obama presidency, one of the most vocal and demanding factions in the Democratic Party base has been activists for gay and lesbian equality. They repeatedly protested at Obama events and even at the White House, complained loudly about Obama’s broken promises, and even threatened to boycott Obama’s re-election campaign by withholding donations. In light of that ongoing confrontationalism, as well as the importance of gay voters (and especially gay donors) to the Democratic Party, it’s no surprise that their agenda has been repeatedly attended to by Obama, as he engineered the successful repeal of Don’t Ask/Don’t Tell, ordered his DOJ to stop defending the constitutionality of DOMA, and then finally “evolved” to an Election-Year endorsement of same-sex marriage.

Latino activists have been as confrontational and unwilling to fall into line as good, compliant partisan soldiers. They publicly protested Obama’s record number of deportation, complained about his immigration policies, loudly accused him of “betrayal,” and expressed subsstantial disapproval for him in polls. Thus, five months before the election, we have this today:

Hundreds of thousands of illegal immigrants who came to the United States as children will be able to obtain work permits and be safe from deportation under a new policy announced on Friday by the Obama administration. . . .

These qualifications resemble in some ways those of the so-called Dream Act, a measure blocked by Congress in 2010 that was geared to establish a path toward citizenship for certain young illegal immigrants. The administration’s action on Friday, which stops deportations but does not offer citizenship, is being undertaken by executive order and does not require legislation. It was announced by the Department of Homeland Security. . . .

FULL TEXT

[leveymg]

1. GG gets it: if progressives don't push from the left, Obama just moves right.

The shocking thing is that this is so obvious, yet it seems so radical to some as to be nearly sedition.

[yurbud]

2. I think the problem is there's more than one kind of astroturf

There's the obvious right wing, Citizens for Smokers Rights, kind, but the other kind is seemingly progressive groups that identify the right problems but someone how channel people's outrage into a rathole or end up sidestepping obvious problems like Blue Dog and DLC Democrats who vote so reliably with the GOP on core economic and foreign policy issues that even if the Democrats had a filibuster-proof majority in the Senate, Republicans would still have a de facto filibuster proof majority on those issues, which is partly why the Senate kept their mouths shut during the Bush years despite epic crimes.

[leveymg]

3. We see a lot of it here on a wide range of issues. It's useful to have it aggregated

and distilled into nice, neat reliable propaganda line in one place. Always the same posters. Some of it is Blue Dog organization in origin, and some of it is freelance trolls.

Regardless of of the origins, it makes it easier to understand the general propaganda line in the MSM without having to go there. They're doing us a public service. Really, how many AP and CNN dispatches can you read each day without your head melting down into a puddle of American white cheese? (Wish we had that icon available)

Nachos, anyone?

[yurbud]

4. no shit. It must be tough to be a reporter, assigned and interesting beat, and then have to...

ask the equivalent of beauty pageant questions and pretend the answers mean something--except on the rare occasion you get a Sarah Palin, who can't even get the beauty pageant questions right.

[yurbud]

5. that is a great point! so in a way, the establishment trolls are doing their patriotic duty

by parroting asinine, indefensible pablum here.

I know I hate taking the time to watch TV news, and I've gotten pretty good telling what's going to be pointless to read, but if it's distilled to an unsupported catchphrase...

it is quite a time saver. Thanks, inside the beltway trolls!

(I wish there was a way to know which one of them alerts on this).