Is bypassing Congress gridlock and appealing directly to the people the only hope Obama has?

[rick-day.livejournal.com]

 

Some fiery shit right here. Shuts them other suits right up proper.


Questions for the group: Is he right regarding Obama's (and ours, collectively) only hope of turning this around? Is Congressional election system so money corrupt that we, the people, must literally fire them from their jobs? 

Does anyone know anything about his references to previous presidents bypassing Congress LIKE A BOSS and going to the people, even at the risk of alienating his own party (even more than he has)?


And what about this new bank idea of his, loaning business capital @ 2%? Which side claims that idea?

EDITED FOR CLARIFICATION: Folks, checks and balances are not the issue here. Not is the abolition of Congress and establishing  Executive dictatorships. That is silly talk.

The issue is the speaker in the video suggests the POTUS, who is free to speak directly to the people, should rally the people against the Congress incumbency.

Some think he has to have Congressional oversight to do so. Er, no. He is not passing laws here, folks.

What the gentleman in the video is suggesting is that Obama talk directly to the people as our LEADER, to point the blame at the entire congress, including his party (80% of the country agree). He has the bully pulpit.

The purpose of the bully pulpit being to rally the people to purge Congress of incumbents, replace them with 'clean' legislators (read clarifications in my comments to those below who misinterpreted the intent), who will pledge to work in a non-partisan manner to get the country back on track (whatever that is; another post for another time)

Comments

[a-new-machine.livejournal.com]

He's requesting that we make Obama a dictator, allowing him to bypass Congress entirely? Yeesh. Pretty extreme.

[soliloquy76.livejournal.com]

I interpreted it as going to the American people without fear of political retribution and tell things like they are without worrying what corporate campaign financiers and special interest groups will think. He kinda did it during the health care and debt ceiling debates, but not to that extreme. He wanted to change Washington, and he can do it by using his voice to expose corruption in congress at the possible expense of his political career.

[sandwichwarrior.livejournal.com]

But don't you dare compare 'em to facists! ;)

[mrbogey.livejournal.com]

Hate it and ridicule it but here we are.

[dukexmachismo.livejournal.com]

If we could get rid of Congress, jury trials and similar fripperies, we could balance the budget and restore America to greatness!

[nevermind6794.livejournal.com]

Thank god we have 90-year-old comic book blurbs to explain everything for us. That's way better than anything we've learned since then!

Excellent! It needs links though

[montecristo.livejournal.com]

You've cited The Readers Digest Condensed version of Friedrich Hayek's The Road to Serfdom (http://www.iea.org.uk/sites/default/files/publications/files/upldbook43pdf.pdf) [PDF, 96 pages, with a nice little comic book style pamphlet at the end for the really text-phobic]

This is indeed where the situation stands. You can hear it in the political discussions everywhere, including in this very forum. People have a misguided religious faith in the power of collective coercion to achieve "unity" and "consensus." It is a fool's errand. Freedom escapes them entirely. They want a LEADER.

"What the common man longs for in this world, before and above all his other longings, is the simplest and most ignominious sort of peace -- the peace of a trusty in a well-managed penitentiary. He is willing to sacrifice everything else to it. He puts it above his dignity and he puts it above his pride. Above all, he puts it above his liberty. The fact, perhaps, explains his veneration for policemen, in all the forms they take -- his belief that there is a mysterious sanctity in law, however absurd it may be in fact. A policeman is a charlatan who offers, in return for obedience, to protect him (a) from his superiors, (b) from his equals, and (c) from himself. This last service, under democracy, is commonly the most esteemed of them all. In the United States, at least theoretically, it is the only thing that keeps ice-wagon drivers, Y.M.C.A. secretaries, insurance collectors and other such human camels from smoking opium, ruining themselves in the night clubs, and going to Palm Beach witn Follies girls. It is a democratic invention.

Here, though the common man is deceived, he starts from a sound premise: to wit, that liberty is something too hot for his hands -- or, as Nietzsche puts it, too cold for his spine."
— H.L. Mencken, The Disease of Democracy (http://www.ditext.com/mencken/democracy.html)

[policraticus.livejournal.com]

We have a Constitution with people exactly like Mr. Ratigan in mind. Thank God for that.

[rick-day.livejournal.com]

so you are an apologist for the status quo?

[raichu100.livejournal.com]

If the POTUS bypasses Congress, he is defying the constitution and breaking laws.

If he goes to Congress, nothing will ever get done and Congress will continue basking in its collective incumbency without feeling any real obligation to fix shit.

The root of the problem, if you ask me, is the apathy of the people.

[rick-day.livejournal.com]

The Congress does not have the authority to tell the POTUS to not speak to the people about the problems with Congress.

POTUS is, like any other citizen, free to speak. Fortunately, he has the ability to speak to the globe, if he chooses.

He is not remotely suggesting Obama arbitrarily pass any laws here....

[the-rukh.livejournal.com]

The root of the problem, if you ask me, is the apathy of the people.

I don't know if it's just apathy, some people are apathetic and just go about their days.

I think there is a combination of things that causes a very major problem, maybe all of them purposely caused to end up this way:

1) The US was not intended to be a direct democracy. We were supposed to vote on people based on their capabilities to make smart decisions for us. Hence the house of representatives, hence electors who were supposed to get together and vote for a president. We weren't supposed to vote for a) representatives that agree with our political views, nor b) electors who are bound to vote for who we personally think is best.

In these ways we have short-circuted our representative democracy in to somewhat a messy form of direct democracy.

Unfortunately: 2) The people are ill-informed. A democracy is only as good a system as the people voting in it. Our media is doing a terrible job making people informed. Much of it is for-profit, taking stories from PR firms that are payed to get the population to think a certain thing and vote a certain way.

These two things combined means that we vote in terrible people and get terrible results. The people who control the message make a lot of money.

[htpcl.livejournal.com]

And yet when people take to the streets they're called astroturf.

Transcript here (1 of 2)

[blorky.livejournal.com]

As a reference point for this conversation, the actual transcript of his remarks is as follows:


" Dylan: What are you talking about $4 trillion?

Karen: $4 trillion, I’m saying…

Dylan: We owe $70 trillion. [cross-talking 04:29] a $4 trillion solution, which is basically just a way for the Democrats to avoid dealing with this until 2017. I’m not here to talk about plans to deal with this till 2017. I’m saying we’ve got a real problem, and I’m tired of Republicans and Democrats who either want – Republicans who want to burn the place to the ground and Democrats, with all due respect, who want to offer a plan that gets it through the end of their second term of their presidency, and then screws me and my kids when it’s over! And until we do that, we have to deal with the extraction that is at foot, it is the reason the financial markets are behaving the way they’re behaving, it is a mathematical fact! This is not some opinion; this is a mathematical fact. Tens of trillions of dollars are being extracted from the United States of America. Democrats aren’t doing it, Republicans are not doing it, an entire integrated system, financial system, trading system, taxing system, that was created by both parties over a period of two decades is at work on our entire country right now. And we’re sitting here arguing about whether we should do the $4 trillion plan that kicks the can down the road for the President for 2017, or burn the place to the ground, both of which are reckless, irresponsible, and stupid. And the fact of the matter is until we actually, and I’m sorry to lose my temper, but I tell you what, I’ve been coming on TV for three years doing this, and the fact of the matter is that there’s a refusal on both the Democratic and the Republican side of the aisle to acknowledge the mathematical problem, which is that the United States of America is being extracted. It’s being extracted through banking, it’s being extracted through trade, and it’s being extracted through taxation, and there’s not a single politician that has stepped forward, Susan, to deal with this.

Susan: Yeah, but there’s only one right now, the leader of the free world, whether you like it or not, the President of the United States is arguably one of the most powerful individuals we have out there, and he’s our President.

Karen: But, Susan, what you’re saying is exactly the point that Dylan is making. It’s not about one guy; it’s about all of them.

Susan: No, I actually disagree. I think Dylan – it is about one guy.

Dylan: I agree with her. It is about one guy.

Karen: What would you like him to do? What do you want him to do?

Dylan: I would like him to go to the people of the United States of America and say, “People of the United States of America, your Congress is bought, your Congress is incapable of making legislation on healthcare, banking, trade, or taxes because if they do it, they will lose their political funding and they won’t do it. But I’m the President of the United States, and I won’t have a country that is run by a bought Congress. So I’m not going to work with a bought Congress and try to be Mr. Big Guy, ‘I’m working with a bought Congress’, I’m going to abandon the bought Congress like Teddy Roosevelt did, and I’m going to go to the people of the United States and I’m going to say, ‘You’ve got a bought Congress,” and until we get rid of the bought Congress, which is Jimmy Williams constant point, which is get the money out of politics, and until a President says that’s the problem and says he’s going to fix it, there is no policy that I can possibly see no matter how brilliant your idea may be or your idea or my idea or her idea or your idea at home, is that idea will not happen as long as there’s a capacity to basically fire a politician who disagrees with me by taking funding away from him. Is that a fair assessment?
"

Transcript here (2 of 2)

[blorky.livejournal.com]

"Jimmy: Money in politics is the root of all political evil. It is corruption at its worst. And until we step up and kick that out of the park, it’s going to be the same system all the way.

Dylan: And only the President can do that.

Jimmy: No, no, no, Congress has to do it, too. Congress has to do it, too.

Dylan: But I’ll tell you what, how bad does it have to get? How much money has to be extracted? How many things have to be heard?

Karen: [cross-talking 07:59] tax. Okay, physically, what do you do?

Dylan: You go and give a speech to…

Karen: Right now.

Dylan: Yeah, right now. You say…

Karen: And then what happens tomorrow?

Dylan: Tomorrow, what happens is you begin the process of actually investing in solving the problems, so I come out and I say, “How?” I create an infrastructure bank with 2% blending immediately. There’s – once I explain to people the problem, once I explain to you that you have cancer, once you understand how screwed up your trade, tax, and banking policies are, believe me, you will have no issue when I incorporate an infrastructure bank that I fund with repatriated offshore money that I bring in and then use to create 2% direct lending to every business in America because when you realize that the banking system is fully corrupt and defrauding us, and I come out and say that, which is what I want my President to do, then at that exact moment I say, “You know what, we’ve got a screwed up situation here, people. You all know it, and now I’m going to admit it.” And as a result, not only have I admitted it, but we’re going to begin the process of solving it like grown ups. They did in World War II, they did it after the Civil War, they did it in Latin America with the Brady Bond; we are not seeing it happen now.

The panel stays a little more emotional than I anticipated getting at work this afternoon, but what am I going to do? The middle-class attempting to fight back in Wisconsin…what today’s big recall election in Wisconsin tells us about the mood in America; Ed Shultz joins us. And then Wisconsin, the jumping off point for our latest blog on DylanRatigan.com, as Wisconsin is a state where two-thirds of corporations pay zilch in taxes, while teachers and cops pick up the slack. That doesn’t sound like fun. Check that out on DylanRatigan.com after the show. Remember, you can always weigh in on Twitter or at DylanRatigan on Facebook. "

Re: Transcript here (2 of 2)

[hikarugenji.livejournal.com]

I think it's the "infrastructure bank" part that's a little misleading; I'm not sure whether he believes there is a way that Obama can directly create that bank without Congress or whether that's the idea he should put forth and pressure Congress to do it.

Re: Transcript here (2 of 2)

[policraticus.livejournal.com]

Jimmy: Money in politics is the root of all political evil. It is corruption at its worst. And until we step up and kick that out of the park, it’s going to be the same system all the way.

Dylan: And only the President can do that.

Barack Obama has something like $1,000,000,000.00 campaign war-chest. The cognitive dissonance/partisan hackery on display here is staggering.

[allhatnocattle.livejournal.com]

Yes, the POTUSA ought to make a speech.

The problem is he's made speeches. Another speech probably won't make much difference. It won't matter how harsh, how critical, how pleading he is if it is just prone to fall on deaf ears like all the other speeches.

Maybe if the President dropped the F-bomb a few times to ensure the American press (and thereby the prublic both American and Global) actually took notice and paid full attention to the content of what he was saying.

I already said in my post a few days ago, I am too much of a simpleton to get why Obama is not on TV asking Americans (and the world) to make sacrifices. I understand his re-election is doomed if he told us to pay more and expect less. But seems like we're doomed if he doesn't. (http://talk-politics.livejournal.com/1115787.html?view=comments), which is along the lines of Kennedy's "ask not what this country can do for you, but what you can do for this country"

But more this this he needs to stop the bullshit in congress and get them on the right track. If Obama can achieve this in a speech, then power to him. I doubt this will be forceful enough.

[mikeyxw.livejournal.com]

I guess that as long as he is just talking and not acting when he "bypasses" congress, this is fine. I'm just not sure how much good some more talking will do.

I'm certainly not going to defend congress, they've failed at their job of managing the country's finances. I don't expect that a new group would do much better. The fundamental problem is that people like getting services from the government and don't like paying for them, all our representatives have done is to give the voters what they want. Medicare costs are one of the biggest drivers of future deficits, an incumbant who suggested ways to slow spending was depicted throwing wheelchair-bound seniors off a cliff and fired.

Suppose the problem is the voters? Is the president brave enough to say that we need to pay more and get less? He is the most effective fund raiser in history, is he taking on the money that is corrupting the system? Is he willing to say that people who make less than $250,000 per year will need to pay more taxes as well? Half of the households in the US don't pay any income taxes, will he change that?

If not, this would look a lot more like fingerpointing than an effort to fix our government's problems... and fingerpointing is something we already have enough of.

[the-rukh.livejournal.com]

I don't expect that a new group would do much better.

I agree. This is the little distraction we always fall for. Things not working? Get new people! But it's the same system that got the old people. Heck, we just got in these new people. Changing them again isn't going to change the system.

Encourage this president to do those sorts of things?

[montecristo.livejournal.com]

That's actually a very funny joke. I like the part where you indulge the fantasy that the president is on "our side," whatever that is. Half of the people rooting for the occupant of the Oval Office want to blame Republicans for cutting too much in the recent budget deal! Leadership isn't the issue. The politicians in Washington believe that they are leading. They think they are working the system and preserving it for all the right people. They don't see anything wrong with their leadership.

The problem is one of power, not leadership. The politicians in Washington have usurped entirely too much of it. Five hundred people in the imperial capital's echo chamber cannot successfully comandeer the lives, fortunes, and sacred honor of three hundred fifty million people across a three thousand mile wide continent to the outrageous extent that they have without causing all sorts of corruption, dysfunction, and conflict. If anyone wants to fix that problem, the federal government needs to be dismantled, before it collapses anyway. I can't see many people being ready to do that, despite the fact that a recent poll shows that most of the population has lost faith in the federal behemoth.

Re: Encourage this president to do those sorts of things?

[rick-day.livejournal.com]

Thank you so much for being an apologist for the status quo, and the demonstration of your knee-jerk response to anything remotely suggesting Obama loves his country more than he loves his corporations.

[mahnmut.livejournal.com]

Pratchett knows it right, baby (http://talk-politics.livejournal.com/423162.html)!

Technically, the city of Ankh-Morpork is a Tyranny, which is not always the same thing as a Monarchy, and in fact even the post of Tyrant has been somewhat redefined by the incumbent, Lord Vetinari, as the only form of democracy that works. Everyone is entitled to vote, unless disqualified by reason of age or not being Lord Vetinari.

And yet it does work. This has annoyed a number of people who feel, somehow, that it should not, and who want a Monarch instead, thus replacing a man who has achieved his position by cunning, a deep understanding of the realities of the human psyche, breathtaking diplomacy, a certain prowess with the stiletto dagger, and, all agree, a mind like a finely balanced circular saw, with a man who has got there by... being born.

A third proposition, that the City be governed by a choice of respectable members of the community who would promise not to give themselves airs or betray the public trust at every turn, was instantly the subject of music-hall jokes all over the city.

[nevermind6794.livejournal.com]

That's fantastic.

[underlankers.livejournal.com]

No President has ever done this, and President Obama as a constitutional law scholar would know better even than to try.

[kylinrouge.livejournal.com]

Wasn't LBJ known as a 'get shit done' sort of guy?

[kylinrouge.livejournal.com]

We're not going to have any real change in this country until we get the money out of politics. Unfortunately, that system is so entrenched that I can see nothing short of massive social unrest to get it done.

Glad someone bothered to listen to the actual point of the video.

[squidb0i.livejournal.com]

Instead of going off on some ZOMG SLIPPURY SLOAP tangent.

Gee, what a rant!

[sophia-sadek.livejournal.com]

I made a double take when I realized it was not Faux News. It reminded me of Jon Stewart's interview with Dick Durbin (http://www.thedailyshow.com/watch/thu-august-4-2011/dick-durbin?xrs=share_copy). Durbin calls for campaign finance reform to correct the corruption in Washington.