Republicans will make US 'Third World' nation: Obama

[cali]

by Mira Oberman Mira Oberman – Fri Apr 15, 12:57 am ET

CHICAGO (AFP) – US President Barack Obama accused Republicans of wanting to turn the United States into a "Third World" country as he rallied support for his reelection campaign.

The attack came a day after Obama savaged Republican budget plans and unveiled his $4-trillion deficit reduction drive that aims to raise taxes on the wealthiest Americans in order to preserve key social services.

The debate over fiscal policy will prove critical to the 2012 campaign and Obama sought to frame it as a "stark choice" between investing in the future or watching the country fall apart.

"Under their vision, we can't invest in roads and bridges and broadband and high-speed rail," Obama told a select group of the Democratic faithful at the second of three fundraising events in his hometown of Chicago.

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http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20110415/pl_afp/usvote2012obama_20110415045805

[Drale]

1. Its about time people at the top started stating the obvious

[BeyondGeography]

2. Keep punching hard, Prez

It's what they've been doing for 30 years. Difference is, you're telling the truth.

[leftstreet]

3. He didn't know this when he was 'reaching across the aisle' to them?

[Drale]

7. I think he was trying to please everyone and that just doesn't work

[Vogon_Glory]

22. Trying To Please Republican Reactionaries Is Impossible

It's impossible for Democrats to please right-wing Republican reactionaries short of turning their backs on every value and political position that progressives and moderates hold dear. Even that wouldn't be enough to please right-wing reactionary purists, because the reactionaries would still have it in for Democratic and ex-liberal turncoats for having been progressives and Democrats in the first place.

Democrats should give up on the notion of playing nice with the Flurry With The Fringe On The Top (aka The Republican Party).

[Gregorian]

4. I kept wondering if Obama was playing rope-a-dope for the first term.

Giving the Republicans what they wanted, even at the cost of offending his supporting base. It may be that he gains more support in the long run by doing this, if it's true. He can say he did it their way, against all he stood for. And it didn't work. He can always pick up his supporters, even if what he has done is wrong.

I'm hoping that if this is the case, and we are now seeing the second phase where he does an about face from the ropes, we're going to see some swinging. I want to see some heads roll.

Just guessing.

[Scuba]

6. I hope you're right, but don't recall Ali doing the rope-a-dope for the first nine rounds. n/t

[Solomon]

13. Actually it was 8 rounds.

Given that the fight was 15 rounds long that's over half. Obama's only three rounds in out of 8. He's ahead of Ali.

So there. LOL

[Scuba]

17. Ali never would have made the 5th round if he'd rope-a-doped the first three.

[yodermon]

11. His chessboard is 8 years long.

We're seeing the opening salvos of the mid-game.
His opening moves left a bad taste in a lot of liberals' mouths. Pawn sacrifices I guess.

End game = his 2nd term, and by then the tea party will have obliterated the republican party. They are moving out their big pieces to the middle of the board too early.

Mate in '14 with the midterms, and then all the liberal policies we've been dreaming of will come flowing down like manna from heaven (or something).

[Gregorian]

18. Am I sensing sarcasm.

Every time I try to feel optimistic about this, I get a shot of realism. If you are not being sarcastic, then I feel great right now. Otherwise I'm still depressed, wishing we had an educated voting population.

[leftstreet]

20. Maybe we DO have an 'educated voted population.' Could be why 1/2 don't vote

It's just possible...

:-)

[yodermon]

25. you know what.. I am so ambivalent.. i didn't start out

to be sarcastic but by the end I no longer believed my own bullshit. take it as you will :/

[Lugnut]

30. I don't know if it's rope-a-dope.

He certainly gave them enough rope to hang themselves.

[notesdev]

5. Too late

we're already there, we're just waiting for the rest of the facade to wear off.

[Newest Reality]

8. We are well along the way

in the turning. The GOP is just working on the finishing touches.

Instead of worrying about what the corporatists are turning America into, we are so far along on the journey that the framing should be about reversing the process, not prevention of what is already well established and nearing its culmination.

We are talking deep, long-term, systemic policies and perceptions that would require boatloads of major, progressive transformations. There is a deeply entrenched financial and power-based structure that is standing firm -- while holding firmly and stubbornly onto huge segments of wealth and resources -- in the preservation of its Status Quo, while it builds political firewalls and advances its agenda aggressively.

What we are fighting here is a conglomeration of vested interests who have already won most of this bloodless battle by embezzling the sum total of wealth produced by our labor while simultaneously devouring our individual and collective power. That power is not theirs and they do not make it out of thin air. It is proportional to the amount of control we have been conditioned to allow and accede to, conveyed with the manufacturing of consent via corporate media and various other channels that function to manage and shape perception.

[Uncle Joe]

9. Kicked and recommended.

Thanks for the thread, cali.

[KamaAina]

10. Oh yeah! He went there!

:thumbsup:

[OHdem10]

12. Thank God. Seriously if you want to see where the GOP will take

us--Just look to our poor Sister to the south, Mexico.

A Group of Rich people at the top cluthing their money
to their chest and refusing to contribute to the building
of a strong nation by paying taxes, then the masses and
huge group in abject poverty.

There is no way we can do any differently if GOP maintain
their same policies.

[Marblehead]

14. I could have told him that..

3 years ago

[BlancheSplanchnik]

15. What's this?? Yahoo NOT spinning Right?

Miracles! FINALLY!

[reformist2]

16. The US is worth $60 trillion. Don't tell me we can't fund a $3 trillion government!

The Republican line that "we're broke" is the Big Lie. It's amazing anybody believes it.

[Cali_Democrat]

19. Obama? Is that you?

It's about damn time he starts calling them out.

[Vogon_Glory]

21. About F'ing Time He Did!

It's about time (or past time) that President Obama calls out the Republican reactionaries on their plan to turn the US into a second-rate Third World country. Even before Ronald Reagan got elected, we've seen an almost non-stop right-wing effort to turn the US into a dysfunctional class- and race-riven country with the wealthiest of the wealthy controlling most of the economy, a much-shrunken middle class, and a huge, impoverished techno-peasantry bound by dismal educations and mountains of debt.

Class warfare waged from the top down on the rest of us is still class warfare, regardless of the spin from Faux Noise propaganda, EIB, and other right-wing propaganda organs.

:grr:

[Lorien]

26. Oh, this'll last up to November 2012

then it will be back to compromising as usual.

[Pirate Smile]

28. That is his last election. He wont need to run for re-election after that. I would think that could

be somewhat freeing.

[progressoid]

29. True. Unfortunately a lot of Senators and Reps will be up for re-election.

They may not feel so as "free".

[TheKentuckian]

23. About time! Plainly telling the truth about these dumpsterfucks can work miracles.

[FiveGoodMen]

24. Well, fight them, Mr. President!

[animato]

27. I find it amazing that Obama has to deal with such a destructive group n/t