"... President Obama's first year has been for the most part to try and save the country from conservatism and then try to pass health care. We might terribly dislike the approach he's taken towards these problems, but that's it in the nutshell."Saving the country from conservatism is what Obama is trying to do? That is what John Amato thinks Obama is trying to do?
Who is in Unity 09? According to Ben Smith:
Everybody is a Economist nowWanting Obama to win, and being very afraid to honestly criticize any of his actions, is certainly putting a damper on the brain cells of progressives at the moment. Makes the progressive blogs look more and more like the professional media.By: John Amato @ 5:00 PM - PDT
Have you noticed that every person suddenly knows everything there is to know about how the economy works? Wow, it’s all so simple. Activists now know all there is about the dollar and oil prices and mortgages. I wonder why they never chimed in before…I started asking people for their stock tips since they are all experts now. We will all get rich quick. Right?
As much as I didn’t like the bailout bill that lost on Monday, I do recognize that we must do something. For those screaming, “NO! Let them fail!” that’s all well and good for you, but the ramifications are far-reaching. How many of you own small business that rely on lines of credit to pay employees? Or are you employed by a small business owner who uses LOCs? How many of you have children who need a student loan to go to college? How many want to buy your first home or sell the one you have before it’s foreclosed upon? All of these very common scenarios require loans and lending is at a standstill right now. Not to mention that lack of confidence in our fiscal situation is causing financial worries all over the world. It’s a poison pill, but I believe we HAVE to do it, or suffer the same scenarios that our parents and grandparents did during the Great Depression.I said yesterday that I hope that the Democrats use this opportunity to do a progressive version of the Shock Doctrine (i.e., pushing for legislation that rather than works against individuals’ interests works for them), a concept that Digby agrees with me on. “Progressive Shock Doctrine”
In other words, I would like our inept Congress to do something intelligent for a change, but I'll accept anything the Thugs throw at me. Just don't scare me anymore. Please!
... Posing, posturing, pretend progressives prevent progress...
... This is simply the way the American elite have always functioned. Ideology, morality, patriotism, law – all must give way to the relentless and ruthless pursuit of wealth, and the power and privilege and dominance wealth brings. Prescott Bush traded with the Nazis, even when they were killing Americans, because there was money in it. For the same reason, his son, Prescott Jr., has long been a leading figure in trading with the repressive communist regime in China (as have Dubya's brother Neil -- and Don Rumsfeld too, for that matter.). For the same reason, Prescott Senior's other son, George Herbert Walker Bush, and his son, George Walker Bush, have long had extensive and intimate business ties with the violent religious extremists in Saudi Arabia, and with a number of other tyrants throughout the Middle East and around the world. ... you told them that American Democrats are Nazi sympathizers and in an act of sheer indecency, the right wing Likud party orchestrated the greatest applause you ever got. For shame!Working together with the State, the U.S.-bound media will distort the reality themselves. The American government will tell them the fight has happened because the smugglers are growing frustrated with the outstanding control of the U.S.’s border with Mexico. The correspondents of the American papers working in Mexico will know better but their shouts will go unheeded for the faster, easier story. Some truths are more comfortable than others.
... Why is the ACLU seemingly alone in calling for a Special Counsel to investigate clear war crimes by this government? 
In cov’rage quite sloppy at best,
This is the behavior of a sick child, not one of the most powerful and privileged men in the world, but Glenn and Joan must watch with daily fury as the truth is blatantly ignored, the US propaganda corps has its marching orders and by God they will be enforced, no matter what happens, no matter how many die, no matter how stupid, unlawful, childish or grossly offensive the episode the result is always the same: ignore it, hide it, confuse it, the Republicans are in power, don’t take the country down. Pollan claims that in the Western diet, good old food has been replaced by nutrients, mom's good advice by nutritional experts, common sense by confusion, and for most, a relatively good diet by a bad and dangerous one. ... 
We have tended to segment health care into periods of life, but are now beginning to wake up to the fact that disease and disability are cumulative, and build over a lifetime. If this were simply a story of an airline trying to cut corners, and in the process putting passengers at risk, it would be startling enough. But in this case, we’re talking about federal inspectors who were pressured by their superiors to allow an airline to put passengers at risk. ... To me, the 2008 Democratic primary campaign is a watershed event in the history of the progressive blogosphere. It has revealed that some of the alleged "progressive" bloggers are fundamentally no different than the media and the deranged right-wing bloggers they have long claimed to detest. The Trina Bechtel incident is the "crowning" event on a sickening trend in this election campaign - where Gore was replaced by Clinton and the "media" was supplemented by an influential portion of the allegedly "progressive" blogosphere. I can easily see an entire book being written on the work of these jokers who have turned the credibility of the blogosphere to dust because of their Clinton-hatred. There used to be a time when bloggers like Glenn Greenwald and Atrios used to write again and again about how the right-wing blogosphere was almost always wrong, especially in their attacks on Democrats. Today, it is clear that such blog posts could equally well be written about a prominent section of the formerly "progressive" blogosphere.
The death of American soldiers may be happening abroad, but some are fighting a very real war for the United States of America here at home: ... that some sort of attack piece is coming against me, Scott Horton, and anyone else writing about Siegelman and the Riley camp. [ ... and ...] They portend, in conjunction with previous work, a coming crisis in water supply for the western United States. ... Arizona continues digging up the desert and planting new homes. Arizonans must plan on sharing their pain (not to mention thirst)!
Those arguments against doing the right thing for college veterans are, in the case of our “wartime president,” about what I’ve come to expect of a man whose support for our troops has never extended past strutting through the latest photo op on a military base or an aircraft carrier. ... the goal in life of a Conservative is to take advantage of others.
Liberal Manifesto
I hope I’m just a cynical baby boomer who has never really trusted any politician since 1968. But I just have a very bad feeling about the way things are going. -- So do I, so do I! In fact, I'm going to use this opportunity to point out that it is rather fitting that some of the leading lights of the "progressive" movement now have a lot more in common with Lieberman/DLC shill Dan Gerstein ... -- I've been responding to e-mails from 'progressive' organizations for days now with the comment that they sound like Republicans (among other things). Of course, being the new 'insiders' it's unlikely they read their mail. 
And even more about torture in Bush's Torture Capital ... For the Europeans as for Bush, the organizing principle was that torture, being unacceptable to polite society, needed to remain invisible. ... -- While Bush and his cronies secretly make the US a 'Torture State' even after the evidence started to emerge too many in this country have been more that willing to either look the other way or to support torture. 
According to new research Monkeys have a brain region that responds selectively to the voices of other monkeys ... Last Tuesday, CNN fired Chez Pazienza, a producer for American Morning, for maintaining a blog. Yes, that's right. CNN, a leading news channel, sacked one of its journalists for exercising his First Amendment rights. ... Just remember, Corporate America doesn't recognize your civil right unless forced to. They consider you a slave (they just don't use that particular word). Instead of laws ensuring your servitude they have 'contracts' which the US courts will use as an excuse to deny you any justice at all. US courts used to understand that US citizen should not be required to sign away their rights in exchange for a paycheck. But now the country is run by Republicans and pseudo Republicans and every one of us is fair game for corporate greed-heads.
