Actually, it’s true. If Mitt Romney had been president in 2009, we would no longer have an auto industry in Detroit. I know this because Mitt Romney said we should let Detroit go broke.
It’s not debatable.
IF General Motors, Ford and Chrysler get the bailout that their chief executives asked for yesterday, you can kiss the American automotive industry goodbye. It won’t go overnight, but its demise will be virtually guaranteed.
Without that bailout, Detroit will need to drastically restructure itself. With it, the automakers will stay the course — the suicidal course of declining market shares, insurmountable labor and retiree burdens, technology atrophy, product inferiority and never-ending job losses. Detroit needs a turnaround, not a check.
Nope. They needed a check. They got a check, and now they’re making better cars than they’ve made at any time since the 1970’s.
Anyone from Michigan or who has any connection to the auto industry should be very clear that they they are indebted to Obama and that Romney would have ruined their lives irreparably.
and yet, there was an article at Bloomberg about 6 weeks ago, about an auto supplier who didn’t think that the President was doing enough about being friendly to business.
I wrote a post about it entitled
” Black folks simply don’t have the Luxury of Delusion that White people have”.
http://www.jackandjillpolitics.com/2011/09/you-know-black-folks-simply-dont-have-the-luxury-of-delus
ion-that-white-folks-have/
And, I meant it. Cause only a White person in America would have the nerve to open up their mouth to even form the sentence to complain about the Black man that SAVED THEIR ASS. This man wouldn’t have had a pot to piss in, and he thought he could form his lips to criticize the President.
unfuckingbelievable.
Last week there were comments in The Detroit Free Press by some guy whose business was saved by the Stimulus the the effect “yes, my business was saved BUT I won’t vote for Obama because he did not bring any jobs to Michigan”.
Now, I doubt that this guy voted for the President in the first place and would not vote for him in the next election but it won’t be because he did not bring any jobs to Michigan.
We all know the real reson.
There were people who were absolutely sure that no matter what happened in ’08 with the election, they’d have been bailed out. Their feeling was, “Any knucklehead would bail us out. They had to.” Ergo, PBO gets zero credit.
No, they didn’t have to and if he listened to the GOP he’d know they wouldn’t have. What a sense of entitlement.
all elected Repukeliscum, after Obama kept the states from going entirely into the shitter?
There is a simple reason: Obama failed, again, to draw simple, clear lines. He never said “Democrats pulled your butts out of the fire, and Repukeliscum wanted you to crash and burn”. He NEEDS to get REALLY REALLY clear on this. It’s Democrats or nothing, and if he doesn’t make the case the Repukeliscum will not make the case for him.
This next GOP debate that’s suppose to be about the economy….betcha Mitt does not get a question about the auto bailout. He will not be given the opportunity to reaffirm or flip plop on this position.
First, he wasn’t on the ballot in 2010. Second, it’s not his responsibility alone to draw distinctions. How about the Dems who lost those governor’s races? How about the representatives and senatorial candidates??? It probably didn’t help that people like Aravosis, Hamsher, Ed Shultz and others on the left were telling people not to vote, not to donate, and not to volunteer in the run-up to the 2010 midterms, or that the online left was constantly tearing him down. The sentiment you evince is so typical of today’s left–why hasn’t President Obama done everything yet? You’re putting absolutely everything you can on his plate, and expecting him to be the one that does all the pulling. His failure is your failure–at what point does the dysfunctional left in this country realize that?
Yeah, Aravosis & Hamsher are so influential that I see them on the TV just as much as I see Cranky McSame and his two BFF’s, HolyJoe and Mini-me.
It’s easier to blame the left of the DP rather than to face some serious structural problems with our political system (e.g., the way these jokers are bought and paid for by corporate interests, etc.). And mark my words, if 2012 doesn’t go EXACTLY the way that the DP brass and its loyalists want it to, the party’s left will be expected to take more abuse. Seen this sad shit for way too long. History seems to repeat…
You folks are as simplistic and simpleminded as the Teabaggers sometimes. Honestly…it took the left 3 years to organize against Wall Street? It’s your own goddamn fault for believing or leaving it to the President and a dysfunctional Congress to solve everything (how different do you think it might have been if effort had been put into all of us collectively calling out that dysfunctional Congress?). For fuck’s sake, the crowd at Daily Kos had to be reminded that there were recall elections in Wisconsin (sort of like how they didn’t figure out there was a Massachusetts Senate race in 2009 until a week or so before it was held). You heard nothing about the effort to recall Snyder in Michigan (which failed). You hear nothing about the effort to recall Walker. You hear practically nothing about the effort to overturn Kasich’s initiatives in Ohio. You hear practically nothing about all the states enacting discriminatory voter ID laws. You certainly aren’t backing up the DoJ in going after those laws. You gripe for three years that Obama isn’t doing enough, and when he proposes a jobs bill that the vast majority of Americans support, you can’t keep focus on it for more than a week. The largest stimulus in the country is passed, but instead of arguing that while short of the mark, it had positive effects and should have been expanded. You were absent at the town halls during the summer of 2009. You let the Teabaggers surround the capital during the health care debate and create the perception of intense public opposition to any health care reform–and some how out of that sociopolitical atmosphere you’re dense enough to think that all the President had to do was force the Congress to pass a public option.
Where the fuck the does the far left in this country get off accusing others of failing at messaging, organizing, and fighting Republicans when they do a pretty piss poor job of it themselves? Its certainly not been leading the way for the last three years. I imagine what we have to look forward with the Republican administration in 2013, with a GOP Senate and House, is a lot of self-absorbed whining about why someone didn’t do something to prevent, huh? Correction: Why didn’t Obama do everything to stop it. Seriously…you leave everything up to politicians, they let you down, then you gripe about leaving it up to the politicians.
I’d say I’ve touched a bit of a nerve there. I just love the smell of defensiveness in the evening.
No, he’s right, every word of it. You didn’t “touch a nerve”, other than the usual optic/auditory complex involved in the reading process; you merely personified to a T his well-considered and eloquent complaint.
By the way, my own personal favorite is this:
“You gripe for three years that Obama isn’t doing enough, and when he proposes a jobs bill that the vast majority of Americans support, you can’t keep focus on it for more than a week.”
Well, of course not — because it’s “too little, too late.” Amirite?
Well considered and eloquent? Hardly. Inadequate, belligerent drivel would be a considerably more accurate assessment of jaywillie’s screed. I would offer that if one were willing to look at something other than CNN, FauxNews, and Memeorandum, one might find plenty being said about the various efforts around the country to undo the damage that was done earlier this year by various right-wing legislatures and governors. I will also offer that it has been far more often the case that it is members of the same “far left” that you probably cannot stand who have given a voice to those efforts, shown up to do the grunt work, and donated whatever hard-earned coinage they might be able to spare to give such efforts a fighting chance.
One can complain about the townhall meeting spectacle of 2009 – but those received tons of media coverage. Similar attempts this past summer provided powerful moments, but where were the media outlets, save perhaps occasionally for MSNBC? Nowhere to be found. But hey, follow twitter, Facebook, and YouTube and one might find that more was done than met the rather superficial eye – and devoid of the millions of corporate dollars availed to astroturf organizations two years previously.
OWS is something that arguably would not have been possible in the context of 2008 or even 2009 – especially in a nation with a media and political culture that is highly hostile toward mass demonstrations. It is a moment made possible in part by events on the ground in the Middle East, in Madison, and in parts of Europe earlier this year; and a moment made possible in part by the reality that for a large proportion of us, we are for all intents and purposes in a depression – one in which more of the same neoliberal formula will do little to assuage. Rebuilding a left in this country is a long-term undertaking – we’re not talking in terms of 2-year election cycles, but over a considerably longer haul with a great deal of effort. And I can guarantee that if enough of the DP and you, the loyalists, want to be seen as irrelevant to us, all I can say is knock yourselves out.
As for Obama, I’ll simply say this: he’s performed well above my expectations. For those who were willing to look beyond the hype, the guy has led precisely the way he said he would. Bully for him, and bully for his loyalist who think that’s so goddamn wonderful. The corporations and their loyalists who are complaining the loudest about their profit margins and such really don’t realize who good they have it.
They have a great deal of influence with the online left community. You really can’t deny that. You really can’t support people who say not to organize and mobilize and then bitch about nothing happening. The Tea Party dominated the health care debate because they got in the faces of politicians and screamed their bloody heads off. The left sat on its collective ass and whined about why the President hadn’t made it happen, because activism through a blog is so much easier. You’re more interested in sanctimonious, sarcastic sniping in online forums than lifting a finger to bring about the change you want. As much as Obama has failed, we’ve failed to. We really shouldn’t go around patting ourselves on the back for being incompetent at organizing towards our goals and adopting effective strategies to make them a reality.
But you folks don’t even remember who you’re political enemies are at this point. At least Booman makes a fucking effort to attack Republicans, while most of the online left wallows in sanctimony, complaining about why no one is doing anything instead of doing something. And you still don’t address the point–the left ceded the playing field in 2010 and they’re about to do it again in 2012. And you’ll sit here and say it’s all Obama’s fault, without acknowledging that destiny is in your hands.
Christopher Hitchens said a long time ago that there’s nothing like a functional left in this country and as time goes by, the more that becomes apparent.
No, there is a functional left. We see it in Wisconsin, in Ohio, in Michigan. I’d have to include OWS too, whether they knew what they are doing it or not, at least they did it, and the country was so desparate for some collective response to Wall Street that it’s having phenomenal resonance. Not to mention the grass-roots organizing going on across the country every day by hard-working, unsung people.
It’s just that the dysfunctional left either disregards the functional left or misunderstands it.
Obama also required GM to declare bankruptcy when all they wanted was a loan like Citibank, BoA, and the other banksters got.
Bankruptcy was neccessary to break the Union contract, because, as you know, Unions are the reason for the downfall of American industry, not greedy CEO’s and jackass politicians.
Bankruptcy was necessary to stiff the corporate creditors and bondholders. Did you forget about them?
Last paragraph was snark. My own (lousy) union contract is about to be busted, so I’m feeling pretty crappy about Dem support of unions.
“Without that bailout, Detroit will need to drastically restructure itself.”
Actually, Detroit — especially Chrysler — hadn’t been able to drastically restructure itself for decades despite different CEOs, different ownership, union compromise and lots of investment.
If you talked to people in the business over the last 20 years (I have)they knew why their cars sucked and why their business was bloated and uncompetitive. They just weren’t generally allowed to do the right things by their own management and investors.
When the government became an investor they demanded they do things like cut unprofitable dealers and models.
In Chrysler’s case too don’t underestimate the importance of FIAT and their CEO who has taken a personal passion to improving product design and demanding quality.
Indeed. It’s notable that the very things – restructuring, becoming smaller and leaner – that the market fetishists assured us could not happen under government control only happened when GM was put under government control.
It’s actually quite funny to watch these people flip-flop from “throwing money at the automakers won’t save them” to “OF COURSE giving the automakers a cash infusion saved them. That’s nothing special.”
pfft. Like the truth matters.
Obama will still be black.
And “progressives” will continue teaming up with republicans to push the “Obama is a failure” narrative.