Another Progressive President Will Be a Failure by Another Name

Many on the left are disappointed by Barack Obama's presidential performance.  Socialist Bernie Sanders now calls for a "progressive" candidate to compete with Obama from within the Democratic Party.  But it wasn't so long ago that all the progressives were chanting "change" and goosestepping behind their Fuhrer. Sanders and his fellow progressives do not know where the term progressive comes from or why Obama certainly is a Progressive, like it or not. They do know that his health care plan is a ludicrous bust, a sop to the insurance industry, that Obama has never seen an oil company whom he did not dream of subsidizing, and that his foreign policy is confused.  But they cannot figure out why Obama has failed them.

The truth is that Progressivism has repeatedly failed because the American economy is too big and too complex to manage from the center, and the heart of Progressivism from the beginning has been the idea that the economy must be managed from the center. It has nothing else to offer beside that tired, stale, failed idea. So there is little about it that's progressive in ordinary English.

Progressivism was a Republican ideology, created by the founders of The New Republic Magazine, among others, and led politically by Theodore Roosevelt.  Although historians claim that there is a distinction between Progressivism and the New Deal (and today's progressivism), in fact there is none.  Theodore Roosevelt enunciated most of the New Deal and the Great Society programs in his speeches. The first national health care bill was proposed right after World War I.

Progressivism has failed because special interest groups manipulate the democratic process. The costliness of information and the complexity of law make it difficult to pass fair laws that do not favor special interest groups.  Thus, the advocates of "progressivism" grievously erred with respect to Obama, whom they did not understand--all those Obama stickers on the bumpers of the progressives in Woodstock, NY. Progressives will continue to err with respect to any candidate whom they scrape up.  Let's look at their recent history: Lyndon Banes Johnson, the worst president in history; Jimmy Carter; Barack Obama, the fourth worst.

The Wall Street-friendly legacy media and the Democratic Party's left can complain about the failure of Obama's progressivism; the inability of his big government, tax-and-spend approach to function; his grasping for power; his attack on the states; his incompetence with respect to foreign affairs; his continuation of the wars that the progressives loved to hate under Bush; and his massive bailout of Wall Street.  Under Obama, more money has been printed and handed to financial institutions than under all the other presidents in American history combined. The subsidies to the super-rich amount to as much as $100,000 per American when all the printed money is accounted for.


But support for banks was always part and parcel of Progressivism. The Federal Reserve Bank, which prints the money, was conceptualized and made constitutional in the first decade of the 20th century. It was put into law by President Woodrow Wilson, the Progressive whom Theodore Roosevelt helped gain office when he ran for president on the Progressive Party line against William Howard Taft.

Guest Opinon: Democracy in the Middle East - Is the Obama Administration “Fair and Equal”?

Paula Dierkens is a writer who asked to contribute a piece on the Middle East. The views are her own and do not reflect mine.

There were 18 days in the month of February this year when the world watched Egypt closely to see what would happen – some countries openly supported the people’s demands for the ouster of President Hosni Mubarak and a democratic government in his place, others like the US sat by and gaped silently because they were not sure which way the wind would blow. The Obama administration did issue statements from time to time that seemed to indicate that all they cared about was the Egyptian government’s degree of friendliness with the US. It’s no secret that Mubarak was an ideal choice for the US because he was not a hardcore Islamist even though Egypt is a predominantly Muslim country. And that is the very same reason why the US did not openly support the demand that Mubarak step down until it was apparent that the growing discontent and the hint of violence in the revolution meant that Mubarak leaving was the only way out.

And so Obama’s administration said they wanted a “peaceful and orderly transition” to the new democratic government. But with the army taking over for the interim and with strong signs pointing to the Muslim Brotherhood being significantly involved in any new government that would be formed after a supposedly “free and fair” election process, it’s doubtful if the US would enjoy the same amount of cordiality it did with Egypt during Mubarak’s reign. To the people of Egypt, Mubarak was a tyrant and a despot, but to countries like the US who depended on Egypt for their oil and for the safe passage of their military and trade vessels through the Suez Canal, he was a benign ally amidst the turmoil in the Middle East. 

In the case of Iran however, the US administration has never really enjoyed any kind of friendship with this nation. And even though Obama hoped to improve relations with Iran when he took office by helping them break the impasse over their suspected nuclear program. But with the Iranian government rebuffing his administration, not much of a breakthrough has been achieved. 

And now in the backdrop of the pro-democracy revolutions that are sweeping through the Middle East like a set of dominos, the US has issued a strong statement against the mass arrests and the intimidation of anti-government protestors and their families in Iran, calling on the government to fulfill its human rights obligations and allow the people to demonstrate peacefully for their demands of democracy.

There’s a direct contrast in the way the Obama administration responded to the crises in Egypt and Iran – in the former, there was a strained silence as they straddled the fence waiting to see which way the chips would fall before sliding down that side so they could save face; and in the latter, they know they have nothing to lose and everything to gain by taking a strong stand, and this is what they did. Both Egypt and Iran are fighting for their democratic rights, and the Obama administration showed that more than being in favor of democracy in the Middle East, it preferred to play favorites with the Egyptian government, at least for some time until it became very clear that Mubarak was going down, no matter what.  

By-line:

This guest post is contributed by Paula Dierkins, who writes on the topic of Online PhD Degree . Paula can be reached at her email id: paula.dierkins@gmail.com

The CAPRA Party

Frank Capra is remembered as director of all-American movies where the little guy wins and corrupt politicians and plutocrats lose.  Mr. Smith Goes to Washington, Meet John Doe and It's a Wonderful Life voice libertarian sentiments to which many Americans resonate.  Frank Capra voiced sentiments that explain the Tea Party's groundswell.

Mike Marnell, publisher and editor of Kingston, New York's innovative Lincoln Eagle newspaper has a great new idea: The CAPRA Party.  CAPRA stands for Constitutionalists Against Progressives Reforming America,or, alternatively, Constitutionalists Against Progressives Wrecking America.

Stay tuned.

Anti-Semitic Indoctrination at UC Santa Cruz

Dr. Ken Marcus of the Institute for Jewish and Community Research sent me this link to a Scribd file copy of Tammi Rossman-Benjamin's 29 page letter of complaint date to the  San Francisco Office of Civil Rights concerning systemic anti-Semitism at the University of California, Santa Cruz.  The atmosphere at UCSC sounds terrifying and disturbing, but the facts are not surprising given the reception that I witnessed David Horowitz receive at Brooklyn College.  Given the left-liberal orienation at most universities, anti-Semitism increasingly characterizes them. What is puzzling is that the majority of Jews continue to identify themselves as left liberals.

Ms. Rossman-Benjamin's complaint hit the headlines on Wednesday.  CBS San Francisco reports:

"The U.S. Department of Education is investigating a faculty member’s complaint that a series of pro-Palestinian events at the University of California, Santa Cruz crossed the line into anti-Semitism and created a hostile environment for Jewish students.

"The department’s Office for Civil Rights notified the campus last week that it planned to look into allegations made by Hebrew lecturer Tammi Rossman-Benjamin dating back to 2001."