If there are any doubters that Barack Obama was a member of the New Party in the 90s, this may clear it up.
From the New Zeal blog, here is a screen capture of the newsletter announcing the success of New Party member Barack Obama in his state senate election. Note the quote…
Socialist Bernie Sanders approved as you can see. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) has a less liberal voting record in the Senate than does Obama.
I am not trusting enough to think Mr. Obama will cast aside his far left mentoring and govern from the center, especially if he gets majorities in the House and Senate.
22 thoughts on “Show and tell: New Party newspaper”
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Evan
Yeah it could be. People go back to a more “normal” life when they don’t have excess money. I read on a blog that during the Great Depression the health of the average American actually improved.
If you saw how fat many Americans have become over the last 10 years it’s pretty obvious that a severe recession might do the same thing again. A few less trips to the restaurant each week isn’t going to hurt. 😎
Drowssap,
RE: Music & Economy. You know, I think it happened in your country too in the early 80s when Detroit’s auto industry collapsed and people took to going to parties where DJs were playing the new techno music. In times like these, people go back to what makes them connect and think about the future.
Legolas
Economic dips in Britain correlate with release of AC/DC albums
Thanks for this Scott.
I think this may be another way of avoiding something that is vague. I posted recently that New Party endorsed candidates had to sign a contract saying they committed to an active relationship with the party.
Also, I am not sure I agree that the New Party was not about public control of production. I am researching this a bit more before I post on it but I think there may be some fudging here.
Also, some would say with reason that universal health care could be a public control of means of production. Would private insurance still be available in their scheme?
More information regarding the New Party from the right leaning Politico.com
Here.
Jayhuck
2007 Federal Budget, $2.7 Trillion
Social Security, 21%, $581 Billion
Medicare & Medicaid, 21%, $561 Billion
Defense, 20%, $549 Billion
Other Discritionary, 18%, $493 Billion
Other Mandatory, 11%, $309 Billion
Interest on Debt, 9%, $237 Billion
We are in two wars and the Defense budget is only 20% of the total. Paulson’s $700 Billion Bailout program is larger than any single expenditure in the entire Federal Budget.
All I’m saying is that our Defense Budget is only $549 Billion out of $2.7 Trillion.
Ann,
Yes…but in Clintonian terms, it depends on what the phrase “defend our Country” means. The Pres as commander in chief of the military can direct them to do what he or she wants. But only Congress can declare war and fund it. According to the war powers act the President can immediately send out the troops if we are attacked. But if he or she sends the troops out to, oh, I don’t know, topple a dictator or prevent soviet hegemony or stop a genocide or make sure the spice will flow, he or she only has 60 days until congress has to ratify it with either a declaration of war or authorization to use force. So what constitutes a defense of our country? If a stateless entity declares war on us, where do we send the troops? What happens if your intelligence tells you you need to act before something really bad happens? What if the intelligence turns out to be wrong or incomplete? What happens when we send the troops, and we don’t fund them? What happens when you vote for something, and then vote against it?
The Pres. (or rather the adminstration) also does other things like negotiate treaties (which the Senate must ratify) and appoint judges, officials and cabinet members, many of which, of course must be okayed by Congress…
We the people may vote a person into an office. What he/she does when he/she gets there is something entirely different than for what we voted.
Why do we have representatives when the internet allows us to proactively review policy, legislation, etc… within minutes? Can we now begin to have the people voting (not voting for reps to vote/gamble their careers/ make backroom deals/and trade horses) on our own behalf.
Holden Magroin,
Isn’t the only decision a president can make unilaterally is to send our armed services out to defend our country? Everything else goes through the channels you just noted and in the order you noted. That is why it is crucial “we the people” choose our representatives and senators CAREFULLY and then there still isn’t any guarantee they will “represent” what they promised us when they wanted our vote.
Keep it up everyone. The fact that people argue over which party is to blame just plays into “their” hands. All spending bills start in the House of Representatives (there’s an oxymoron!) and laws are passed by Congress. Presidents don’t make them, they either have to sign the whole bill or not. Bush didn’t cause our fiscal situation by himself. He couldn’t have. Switching out a Republican administration for a Democratic one is just turning over to the other side of the same coin. Oh, they want us to think they are different, but they are not. They may favor different special interest groups but the bottom line is that they are all about getting and keeping power and our money. The real struggle is between ordinary citizens and the political class, and so far we are losing.
The solution?
Well, to begin with, unfortunately we can’t do what Shakespeare suggested and kill all the lawyers, but we can not vote for them. So I have been going around telling everyone to not vote for lawyers, or as they should be known, LIEwyers.
Drowssap,
The problem is that our “entitlement expenditures” as you call them are NOT the reason we are so far in debt. If you’ve ever seen a pie chart reflecting where are money goes, the VAST, VAST majority of it goes towards defense, or the tax refunds that Bush has pushed through for several years. It is a ridiculous amount – so much so that, if memory serves, getting rid of ALL “entitlement programs” would hardly make a dent in our rapidly accumulating debt. Besides, there are some great programs out there that, despite the people who take advantage of the system, really do help those in need. Getting rid of those would only create more “tent cities” I suspect.
This is the future of the USA. In 20 years our entitlement programs will be bankrupt and the tax base will be stretched past the breaking point.
Shanty towns will spring up around every major city. They’ll be populated by thousands of the elderly or disabled who can’t get significant government assistance and have no family.
A version of this is happening right now.
BBC report, Tent Cities Spring Up In LA (1:33)
jayhuck
You’ve got to understand something. This downturn might not be temporary. There is a real chance the nation will never fully recover. It may take 10 years to clean up this mess. The problem is that we have an even bigger problem just starting to burst. About the time this crisis smooths out our entitlement expenditures might begin to drag us under for good.
Save your money, you are going to need it.
jayhuck
Yes I have paid attention to that but it didn’t start with Bush. Reagan and the Democrat congress let deficit spending get out of control in the 80s. Since then both parties spent as fast as they could. Sometime in the 90’s the average American joined in on the party.
Now it’s all over. The country is flat broke and we’re headed into a deep recession. It will probably take 10 years to completely sort out this mess.
Drowssap –
Have you paid attention to the fact that it is the REPUBLICAN administration that has driven us into trillions of dollars of debt over the last several years? I’m just curious. Or do you think that debt doesn’t matter?
Minty
Obama’s economic team includes former Treasury Secretary Paul O’Neil.
Obama voted for the $700 Billion Wall Street bailout. In fact he campaigned for it.
However O’Neil called the scheme “crazy” with potentially “awful” consequences for the nation.
Paulson Bank Rescue Proposal Is `Crazy,’ O’Neill Says
O’Neil is absolutely correct. The bailout is crazy and it won’t fix anything. But regardless of that I don’t know if Obama is on the same page as his advisors. I wish he was because O’Neil is a smart guy.
Legolas
I’ve heard about the Dem/GOP growth correlation before. To be honest I have no idea what it means or if it even means anything at all.
John F. Kennedy and Bill Clinton supported tax cuts and George Bush pushed through prescription drug benefits for seniors. Both sides do plenty of everything. Morover what it means to be a Republican and Democrat has evolved since WW2. JFK would be a hawkish Republican by today’s standards. Unless somebody comes up with a mechanism it sounds a lot like…
“In years where the AFC wins the superbowl Democrats win the presidency 90% of the time.”
Kevin Drum argues that if Obama turns out to be a socialist-leaning “tax and spend” liberal that might not be such a bad thing.
Members of Obama’s economic team, SOCIALISTS every one:
http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0908/13606.html
Members of Obama’s foreign policy team, RADICAL JUNGIANS every one:
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/07/18/us/politics/18advisers.html?partner=rssuserland&emc=rss&pagewanted=all
Look, we’ve had eight years of a compassionate conservative “reformer”. We’ve seen what happens. In my opinion, we’ve entered some sort of weird Hell-verse, like in one of those alternate reality Star Trek episodes, where we torture people and are engaged in an endless war with 5 million refugees and hundreds of thousands dead.
And McCain’s foreign policy advisors are worse. Robert Kagan, William Kristol, Randy Scheunemann, neocons galore. His economic team includes Phil Gramm and Donald Luskin, who do not inspire confidence:
http://www.brendan-nyhan.com/blog/2008/09/donald-luskin-i.html
In the debates, Obama revealed a calm, sharp mind like a forcep. McCain was out of league and past his peak.
minty – Not sure how that relates to what he will do as President. He was a journal editor, not a policy maker. Good for him that he got his role correct, and that is the first thing I have heard that puts him that light. However, he must make decisions as President that reflect policy, not be fair to all.
“I think Barack took 10 times as much grief from those on the left on the [Harvard Law] Review as from those of us on the right. And the reason was, I think there was an expectation among those editors on the left that he would affirmatively use the modest powers of his position to advance the cause, whatever that was. They thought, you know, finally there’s an African American president of the Harvard Law Review; it’s our turn, and he should aggressively use this position, and his authority and his bully pulpit to advance the political or philosophical causes that we all believe in.
And Barack was reluctant to do that. It’s not that he was out of sympathy with their views, but his first and foremost goal, it always seemed to me, was to put out a first-rate publication. And he was not going to let politics or ideology get in the way of doing that. …” – Bradford Berenson
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/choice2008/obama/harvard.html
Whelp… I hope socialists are good for the economy.
Let me thumb through my history book….. hmmm….. nope they aren’t.
If Obama wins I hope economists set him straight on this nonsense and he doesn’t try to turn the USA into a workers paradise. Who knows, maybe he’ll surprise us.
In the short term (next 2 years) I don’t know what the best sollution to the crisis is.
But in the longterm we HAVE to cut taxes and spending in big ways. Like it or not the party is over. We can print all the Pesos we want but it won’t make us any richer. We have to save and invest, not spend and borrow.