The cliché that Washington is deadlocked and dysfunctional is only partially true. Congress and Obama get done those things favored by lobbies with deep pockets that have their hooks into both the GOP and a fair number of Democrats. Thus, despite all the hullabaloo about deficits, the government is about to provide $8.33 billion in loan guarantees to the nuclear industry, which adds to government liabilities, and hence increases the deficit.
Congress -- which so far has done extremely little to provide for new financial regulation -- has found the time to dilute accounting rules that govern the banks, "improving" their balance sheets, which sows the seeds for the next financial crisis -- or the next round of the current one. And Congress seems ready to move to allow offshore oil drilling after Obama's signal to this effect during his State of the Union.
This political set up also predicts where the new commission on deficit reduction is headed: major cuts in the outlays and benefits for the masses, and few tax increases for the rich. You heard it here first.
Liberals like to dream about a pendulum, in which the United States swings from conservative eras to liberals ones and back. Arthur Schlesinger Jr. was the main scholar who helped formulate this vision. Actually the United States since the 1970s is going through shorter and shorter -- and weaker! -- liberal intervals, and longer and stronger conservative periods. The liberals can complain all they want, but until they get together and form a united front, a shared agenda, and a social movement to back it up, they should be ready for another bout of market forces intervening in the government -- while complaining about government interference in the market.
Amitai Etzioni is a professor of international relations at The George Washington University and the author of Security First (Yale 2007). He can be contacted at icps@gwu.edu. http://www.gwu.edu/~ccps/securityfirst.html
There is no liberal news in print or broadcast, that includes the corporate money dependent NPR/PBS.
So how can liberal voters know what is going on.
ABC
NBC
CBS
CNN
All newspapers
Sure there is a little liberal spirt allowed in a Maddow or Colbert. There is no reporting of the sellout of our nation and laws to the big money. The news organizations are Multinational and controlled by a small handfull of billionaires. Now with all that power and money would you care if any working person had decent wages, consumer protection, a good education, anything at all?
No they will keep at their game for the cheapest labor, and really don't even need the U.S. market, just look; Wall Street and the Bankers are doing fine even as ordinary citizens sink into poverty.
They are not only not American, they don't need American workers or buyers.
They, the news orgs have spent the last 12 months convincing citizens we made a wrong choice, true we have discovered plenty of sell out to corporate interests, but mostly I have watched our corporate news manipulate the public in the same way Fox manipulates their flock of voters.
It's time to abandon the Federal government and only have state and local authorities.
The Federal government is littered with traitors.
First thing that a free people need is information: I N F O R M A T I O N.
Our news organizations are owned and controlled by the same people who do the buying of our legislators, will they tell you?
I hate it when you're right.