28 December 2010

Amy Dean: The Good, Bad, Ugly in 2010 (for Progressive Values)

This piece by Amy Dean is well worth reading (Huf•fington Post).

I also heard an interview with Amy Dean recently in which she expressed the view, which I hope is true, that President Obama's administration is shifting to a more aggressive stance on some "core value" issues, such as, for example, ordering the NLRB to warn employers that anti-discrimination laws will be more strictly enforced going forward. The Administration is obviously going to have a difficult time with its legislative agenda during the next two years (despite a rash of successes in the "Lame Duck," for which credit is due). But there are a lot of things they can do, administratively.

My main hope is that those who have counseled the president, apparently to receptive ears, that he needs to heed the Right Wing noise machine about the criticality of cutting the debt, even to the extent of cutting social security, by proposing "austerity" as part of his upcoming agenda, will not prevail, and that he will realize that that way lies political ruin. The one thing that united Democrats during the 1930s Depression was a full-on commitment to government action as the means to turn the economy around. And they were right. If this president instead follows the philosophy that guided Herbert Hoover, rather than FDR, then all will be lost. 

So, President Obama, say it ain't so! Tell us right now that any attempts to cut social security, no matter how packaged, will get your VETO. Tell us you're committed to doing what's necessary to restore prosperity to the Middle Class, and that you intend to lead the fight, however long it takes, to convince not just the Congress, but the American people themselves, that this is the only way back to Middle Class prosperity.

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