"[Obama] wants to hire more government workers. He says we need more fireman, more policeman, more teachers. Did he not get the message of Wisconsin? The American people did. It’s time for us to cut back on government and help the American people."

"But understand that their priority is to maxmize profits. And that’s not always going to be good for communities or businesses or workers…And when you’re president, as opposed to the head of a private equity firm, then your job is not simply to maximize profits. Your job is to figure out how everyone in the country has a fair shot. Your job is to think about those workers who get laid off and how are we paying for their retraining? Your job is to think about how those communities can start creating new clusters so they can attract new businesses. Your job as president is to think about how do we set up an equitable tax system so that everybody is paying their fair share that allows us then to invest in science and technology and infrastructure, all of which will help us grow. And so, if your main argument for how to grow the economy is, ‘I knew how to make a lot of money for investors, then you’re missing what this job is about.’"

"Don’t forget I got my start standing with working folks who’d lost jobs and hope when nearby steel plants closed down, because I didn’t like the idea that they didn’t have anybody to fight for them. That still drives me today. So I’ll promise you this: as long as you’ve got an ounce of fight left in you, I’ll have a ton of fight left in me."

"Romney suffers from the same problem afflicting the likes of Lloyd Blankfein and Jamie Dimon: He’s been living for so long with the delusion that the way he makes his money is fair and honest, he’s started to believe not only that he deserves his wealth, but the converse – that the poor deserve to be poor. He’s incapable of sympathizing with people who can’t pay their bills, because their condition is tied too closely in his mind with the question of how he made his enormous fortune: If you ask Romney to imagine what life is like for someone who’s broke, what he hears is you accusing him of making that happen. (In Romneyspeak, you’ve “attacked capitalism.”) In short, he’s a narcissist. They’re all narcissists, these colossal Wall Street types – they have to be, because the way they make their money makes moral sense only if you’re viewing things from the top of the heap. Asking them to step outside that comfort zone, into the world where the rest of us live, is an unthinkable outrage."

Romney Calls Obama a 'Crony Capitalist' - NYTimes.com

"I mean, has anybody been watching the debates lately? You’ve got a governor whose state is on fire denying climate change. It’s true. You’ve got audiences cheering at the prospect of somebody dying because they don’t have healthcare. And booing a service member in Iraq because they’re gay. That’s not reflective of who we are."

"The president has more than a year to go before the next election, but Obama has stopped governing and has shifted entirely to campaign mode. This is what it looks like when a president quits."

"‎”This is not class warfare. It’s math."

"But what we can’t do – what I won’t do – is let this economic crisis be used as an excuse to wipe out the basic protections that Americans have counted on for decades. I reject the idea that we need to ask people to choose between their jobs and their safety. I reject the argument that says for the economy to grow, we have to roll back protections that ban hidden fees by credit card companies, or rules that keep our kids from being exposed to mercury, or laws that prevent the health insurance industry from shortchanging patients. I reject the idea that we have to strip away collective bargaining rights to compete in a global economy."

atomicsocialist:

marketorder:

Who is the Real Reactionary?: Is Ron Paul More Progressive Than Obama?

Ron Paul is far from perfect, but I’ll say this much for the Texas congressman: He has never authorized a drone strike in Pakistan. He has never authorized the killing of dozens of women and children in Yemen. He hasn’t protected torturers from prosecution and he hasn’t overseen the torturous treatment of a 23-year-old young man for the “crime” of revealing the government’s criminal behavior.

Can the same be said for Barack Obama?

Yet, ask a good movement liberal or progressive about the two and you’ll quickly be informed that yeah, Ron Paul’s good on the war stuff — yawn — but otherwise he’s a no-good right-wing reactionary of the worst order, a guy who’d kick your Aunt Beth off Medicare and force her to turn tricks for blood-pressure meds. By contrast, Obama, war crimes and all, provokes no such visceral distaste. He’s more cosmopolitan, after all; less Texas-y. He’s a Democrat. And gosh, even if he’s made a few mistakes, he means well.

Sure he’s a murderer, in other words, but at least he’s not a Republican!

Put another, even less charitable way: Democratic partisans – liberals – are willing to trade the lives of a couple thousand poor Pakistani tribesman in exchange for a few liberal catnip-filled speeches and NPR tote bags for the underprivileged. The number of party-line progressives who would vote for Ron Paul over Barack Obama wouldn’t be enough to fill Conference Room B at the local Sheraton, with even harshest left-leaning critics of the president, like Rolling Stone’s Matt Taibbi, saying they’d prefer the mass-murdering sociopath to that kooky Constitution fetishist.

OKAY FUCK THIS

The war is important. But am I gonna sacrifice the livlihoods of 20 million poor americans and countless other minority groups (Blacks, immigrants, queers) just to end them? Fuck no, I am not giving in to the bullshit claim that because Barack Obama continued the wars he is George Bush III. 

You know, Barack Obama was anti-war in the Senate and campaigned on a peace platform. Yeah he lied we all get that but what makes you think Ron Paul is telling the truth? You trash liberals and leftists for believing Barack Obama during the campaign but you do not even acknowledge the possibility that Ron Paul is lying as well!!! The ideological blinded Ron Paul supporters need to learn a thing or two about the political process and the fact that Ron Paul is just as prone to lying as Barack Obama was in his campaign. 

Also, this is glossing over the fact that as president, neither Paul nor Obama can just act unilaterally in military matters as we might like to think they can. Do you have any idea just how embedded the military is into our political system? The armed forces are still the most trusted part of American society and that means that generals and admirals (of which there are many who live in Washington) have their run of the place in terms of guiding and shaping foreign and military policy. Obama can run on a platform of ending the wars, but you better be sure there are LOTS of people in DC who want that war to continue and they can make life hell for a brand-new president. Not to mention the CIA, FBI, NSA and the rest of the national security apparatus; they have a lot of power and influence and they want to use it. Not to mention that Congress may let the executive run the wars, but they won’t let the executive cut down on military sizes or funding for contractors without raising royal hell. I’m not saying this to excuse Obama’s choices on Afghanistan and the drone attacks, I’m saying this to help explain it; people spend so much time focusing on the individuals that they never stop and think about the structures of power that constrain individual choices. So even if, heavens to betsy, Ron Paul was elected president, would he end the various conflicts? Would he stop the drone attacks? Would he pull all of our troops out of Germany and Korea? And all of that in his first year of office or his first term? If you believe that, then you probably also still think he’s a libertarian.

(via huberthumphreydeathrally)