Angry Black Links – A New Hope

Hello, Obamalovers!

Here at the ABLC, we read way more great stuff on these here internets than we can possibly get around to writing about. So we will make a habit of posting Angry Black Links on a more frequent basis. Team Benetton will populate it with the great stuff we see and might even get around to writing about, as long as Joan Walsh doesn’t try to suck time by launching random assaults against us on the Twitters.

Then, throughout the day, as you come across other news stories you think deserve a wider audience, or a blog post breaking it down with exceptional clarity, use the comments section to post a link and tell us a bit about why you think ABLC readers should check it out.

We’ll be watching the comments for the good stuff you find, and will shamelessly steal leverage that content for the following edition of Angry Black Links.

And you will be able to broadly share the immense wisdom of multiple Obamalovers with your social networks, as easily as clicking on those little Twitter and Book of Faces icons conveniently embedded in every single Angry Black Lady post for your sharing convenience (hint, hint).

Follow me to the Angry Black Linky goodness…

Over the years, I’ve been called a liberal as if it’s an insult. I’ve also been called a libtard, a Dumbocrat, a hippie, a socialist, a tree-hugger, a bleeding heart, a gay-lover, etc. And I’ve embraced each one. All these were directed at me from people on the right.

Now I find out that I’m an Obamabot. That’s someone who defends the current President of the United States, OUR president of OUR country. But this time, it comes from the left.

• The Tea Party haz a sad. Check out BooMan breaking it down like a fraction today in I’m Almost Sad for the Tea Partiers:

Now, you can believe political rhetoric or you can believe your lying eyes. Republicans run up huge deficits whenever they have the power to do so, and they loot the treasury to enrich themselves and their political donors. That is literally what real Republicans live to do. That’s the party’s entire purpose. The deficits are not really the primary goal. They’re a byproduct of their desire to pay the lowest possible taxes while steering the maximum amount of the government’s money to their rich pals. The deficits do serve a purpose however. Once bounced from power, the Republicans behave as though it was the Democrats who produced those deficits. And they pound the Democrats to cut social programs that steer government money away from their rich pals to people who are in need of some assistance.

• Smartypants educates you on Obama. Smartypants delivers yet another must read post titled Power Plays, which explains what President Obama’s actually up to when he goes toe-to-toe with other politically powerful individuals and groups. I have a feeling we’re going to send you over to Smartypants’ place very frequently for this kind of brilliance:

Over the last couple of years, Obama has several times mentioned that his experience as a community organizer was the most critical in his career. What we know is that he used that experience to understand the dynamics of power and how to use it to address the very real needs of people who don’t feel like they have any. As a matter of fact, at one point in his career, we know that Obama taught seminars on the concepts of power and change.

Today I’m thinking about how he’s played these negotiations about the debt ceiling differently that he did the one’s about the Bush tax cuts. There was one big difference in the power equation on this one. He’s known from the start that the Republican leadership (ie, Boehner and McConnell) would have to eventually agree to raise the debt ceiling because the corporate and business community would demand it. That meant the power dynamics of this one were different than during the battle over the tax cuts. Obama knew what the final outcome would be.

• Republicans are a menace to society. And from Harold Myerson at the Washington Post, Debt talks reveal the Republicans’ apocalyptic war on government.

Republicans, to be sure, have long waged a war on government, but only now has it become an apocalyptic and total war. At its root, I suspect, is the fear and loathing that rank-and-file right-wingers feel toward what their government, and their nation, is inexorably becoming: multiracial, multicultural, cosmopolitan and now headed by a president who personifies those qualities.

• No seriously: Republicans are a menace to society. Ow. Then, when you’re through letting that sink in, check out  A Few Ugly Truths, from p m carpenter, who explains why Myerson’s post is probably understated.

Today’s far right on Capitol Hill are but crypto-skinheads in Brooks Brothers suits.

And remember, add your own contributions in the comments below, and those links will be broadcast a wider audience every time Angry Black Links is viewed and shared.