Wednesday 2 July 2008

::> Obama and the Overton Window: Democrats shifting right.
Leopolds Ghost Donating Member (1000+ posts) Click to send private message to this author Click to view this author's profile Click to add this author to your buddy list Click to add this author to your Ignore list Tue Jul-01-08 07:47 AM
Original message
Obama scheduled a whole speech to reject and denounce Clark...he & we are officially fringe leftists
Edited on Tue Jul-01-08 08:36 AM by Leopolds Ghost
Clark is officially too far to the left to serve in an Obama administration.

When a party (GOP) collapses in on itself due to national crisis on
its watch, one of TWO types of political realignment always occurs.

Obama is merely the instrument of that realignment, its chosen vessel.

We are witnessing a "permanent assimilation of the central planks of
the center-right opposition platform" realignment election.

NOT a "transformational upheaval from below" realignment election.

The Dems (Obama/Clinton) have become the party of Reagan

and will go up against a Hitlerian, fundamentalist opposition in 2012
after McCain loses.

The Overton plan (the one DUers never talk about, it is all around you)
worked.

As mentioned, there are two types of party realignment.

When a transformational upheaval from below is happening,
isolating and discrediting the forces in power and all
those connected to it, who can't get jobs when it is over.
which is one type of realignment.

Or merely the fundamental political power of the "bosses"
has lost confidence in the nominal party of the right and
moves its alliegance to the nominal party of the left, thus permanently
securing and enshrining all the gains it made during boom times
for the initial junta it supported (e.g. welfare reform.)

Totally different sort of realignment.

Like when the Repubs absorbed the Dixiecrats, or the
Democrats absorbed the Populists & Progressives (thru
a process that destroyed American populism) or the
Jeffersonian Democrats absorbed the Federalists,
their supporters, and their principles. Assimilation
into the dominant ("pro-wealth") political discourse.

By turning the nominal party of the left into the new nominal party
of the right -- the new baseline, going up against a permanent
minority opposition that is newly freed to be ever more radical.

In Right Wing media circles, this is called "moving the Overton Window".

http://www.swordscrossed.org/node/53
http://correntewire.com/the_overton_window_illustrated

It is what their entire information warfare apparatus in partnership
with the national and global security organizations and the 5 major
media corporations is designed to do. (Move the Overton window.)

Consolidate its gains under the next "liberal" President, making
those gains unassailable, making certain thoughts and words (e.g. Wes Clark's remarks) unspeakable.

Sometimes when they're lucky they get a President like Clinton who
is openly willing to advance the center-right agenda farther than
a Reagan or McCain could have done, not just consolidate the gains
of the right in the name of national reconciliation.

This process has happened throughout history, witness the creation
of the first kingdoms in the Middle East. They started out as
elected officials... voted into office by town councils as war chiefs
to defend the early cities.

They created their status as gods by winning over and aweing the
populace with unseen wealth, but also by a steady process of
assimilation as opposition forces were co-opted by marrying them
into the family and putting THEM in charge of the evil mechanism.

Another example is telecom deregulation and spectrum resale
and its effects on the discussion of patriotism. Or warrantless
wiretapping and other "right-wing populist" limits on civil liberties,
which Obama and his wing in Congress enthusiastically supports.
(Take mandated payments to private firms for "public good"
commodities for another example.) Or the end of affordable
public housing, which Obama refuses to defend in DC or New Orleans
or Chicago. Or the end of rapid transit construction and
the legal prohibition on transit friendly development. You name it.

All permanent victories for the right, to be enshrined by the next
President. No matter what.

You can also expect to see a Reagan Memorial go up on the mall
under the next President's blessing. A permanent enshrinement
of the "Reagan Democrats" as the victors in what Obama sees as
the "pointless and outdated battles of the 60s." Permanent
victors in the make-believe culture war designed to shift the
"Overton Window" to the right.

The Federalists won every policy battle on how to run the nation,
even though the Jeffersonian Democrats reduced them to a token
minority opposition by latching onto all their planks and rendering
a separate, conservative party superfluous.

The Repubs will stay in existence to keep pushing the Overton window
to the right as a John Birch style opposition, to keep Dems belief
in the notion of continual rightward shift screwed to the sticking point.

Americans who do not understand what is going on are idiots.

If you can't understand the Overton Window as a notional force
in organized media manipulation tactics, think of it in terms
of a movie like the Matrix... surface change being used as
another system of control. The status quo must be preserved
and enhanced (returned to the far-right baseline of organized
kleptocracy that is the historical taproot of conservative
politics and imperial expansionist civilization) at all costs.
The super-rich will be fighting this battle to get back to
Hindenburg, Jackson, and George III long after we are dead.

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Replies to this thread
What in the world are you talking about? dkf Jul-01-08 07:49 AM #1
Isn't it fucking obvious? Leopolds Ghost Jul-01-08 08:00 AM #2
I think you are overreacting actually... dkf Jul-01-08 08:25 AM #4
Ok, fine, but these are disturbing times. "Overreacting" is precisely how the Overton window works Leopolds Ghost Jul-01-08 08:50 AM #7
I joined the say no to FISA group and I also support Clark's assertions dkf Jul-01-08 08:58 AM #9
I am worried that whether he started out left or not, Obama's getting suckered down the Russert-path Leopolds Ghost Jul-01-08 09:07 AM #11
I need a whole lot more evidence to believe that. dkf Jul-01-08 09:22 AM #12
I'm a big fan of Clark. But it seems that, at best, Obama said "you can be my bad cop" Leopolds Ghost Jul-01-08 10:08 AM #14
From that particular attack certainly. dkf Jul-01-08 12:36 PM #19
Oh stop. truthisfreedom Jul-01-08 08:03 AM #3
That's about it. The Money Party makes it happen. k*r autorank Jul-01-08 08:27 AM #5
Hear him! n/t Leopolds Ghost Jul-01-08 08:54 AM #8
Obama is playing good cop/ bad cop. I'm proud of him for that. texasleo Jul-01-08 08:48 AM #6
What, is Clark falling on his sword for this? Leopolds Ghost Jul-01-08 08:59 AM #10
Let's get him elected knixphan Jul-01-08 09:59 AM #13
We should not have to push him. cornermouse Jul-01-08 10:45 AM #16
What leverage do we have once he is elected? Fumesucker Jul-01-08 10:48 AM #17
good point... knixphan Jul-01-08 06:43 PM #22
That's my point as well. He has no reason to listen to the people at all once elected. readmoreoften Jul-01-08 09:45 PM #29
you mean like we've pushed Pelosi? Donnachaidh Jul-01-08 10:31 PM #31
That's why Cindy's there. knixphan Jul-02-08 07:23 AM #33
When did he do that? Did I miss something? Kahuna Jul-01-08 10:42 AM #15
A big, well-written speech whose purpose seemed to be to isolate Obama from Clark Leopolds Ghost Jul-01-08 11:44 AM #18
I don't know about any Overton window. mmonk Jul-01-08 12:52 PM #20
I understand your take on this autorank Jul-01-08 09:34 PM #23
Every President is pushed one way or the other... knixphan Jul-01-08 06:35 PM #21
Thanks for posting the Overton window links . . . . they deserve their own thread [n/t] stranger81 Jul-01-08 09:38 PM #24
Hang on Tight--the Truth Trolley is taking a sharp turn to the right for the election librechik Jul-01-08 09:39 PM #25
I think your tinfoil is too tight. Bornaginhooligan Jul-01-08 09:39 PM #26
What the fuck? Forget to take your pills this morning? anonymous171 Jul-01-08 09:39 PM #27
Links and a short introduction to the theory woud be very useful. This is important stuff. Thanks. readmoreoften Jul-01-08 09:43 PM #28
The Patriot Speech was crafted way before Gen. Clark's Disturbed Jul-01-08 09:49 PM #30
Thank you for being in the real world goclark Jul-01-08 11:50 PM #32
the "Center" of the Overton Window leftofthedial Jul-02-08 08:22 AM #34
Wouldn't American republican democracy be more stable if, somehow, Ghost Dog Jul-02-08 10:06 AM #35

......

That's about it. The Money Party makes it happen. k*r
Edited on Tue Jul-01-08 08:35 AM by autorank
But this dialectic is very clever. Like swarming bees, the "thought (sic) merchants" descend on
Capitol Hill with the dumbest ideas imaginable and they create a hefty weight on the right.
There's spectacular air support for these ground troops in the form of the major networks, all of
them. They have the "experts" on in a ratio of three or four to one, with the one being a weak
sister like Colmes on Fox. Pretty soon we tune in Tweetie to see some action on the left. The
whole process distorts the Agneta and realm of possibilities.

Then we get the crap stew in the form of media axioms: "let the markets take care of it" - "NAFTA
will create jobs" - "we loved around the world" - "no matter how bad it gets, somehow we manage
to work it out." It's utterly revolting and Orwellian, in the extreme. It's best to get off of
any mainstream media.

These folks are a bit too clever by half. Their idiotic, nihilistic belief system serves what -
big money. We know what that's about, more money. That's how you get seemingly illogical events
like Iraq which ruin the nation, yet can't be stopped. Worse, when the planet faces impending
doom, the idiots can't climb out of their trees and get hip.

My favorite bull shit axiom is summarized by the phrase "moving to the center." Excuse me, the
center is on the left with the 73% who find Bush reprehensible and the majorities who favor
ending Iraq in short order, developing a single payer health system, developing industry here instead
of shipping it elsewhere, honest financial institutions and markets. That's the CENTER and it's
marginalized.

I'm a citizen - that's a far better position than any politician, any collection of anti intellectual
desperadoes called a think tank, and all the folks who think that winning a rigged game makes them
successful.

Events will define the next 10 years. For the blind, insincere, the game players - I have a simple
message - your day is done, you have lost all control because of your reality denying actions. Move
aside.

Check this out. The birth of the right wing, well chronicled:

The answer is that the overwhelming priority of Volker's "philanthropy" was focused, not on public spaces but on reactionary ideology. Dismayed by the rise of Socialism in America and doubly dismayed by what he saw as the evolution of government and political thinking toward accommodation and a "new liberalism", eventually personified by the widespread adoption of the economic views of John Maynard Keynes and the New Deal policies of Franklin Roosevelt, Volker set out to create a new and much more reactionary "mainstream" ideology based loosely around his own ideas of "laissez-faire" capitalism (i.e. a largely unregulated economy) and social Darwinism (the pseudo-scientific notion that in society, unhindered competition would allow the "cream to rise to the top"). http://populistindependent.org /


Their victory comes with the "sleep of reason" ...

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