Senator John McCain's daughter, Meghan McCain, has served up a devastating critique of the direction the Republican Party has taken recently. "If figureheads like Ann Coulter are turning me off," Ms. McCain writes, "then they are definitely turning off other members of my generation as well." She understands that when the GOP's dominant personalities are a bleach-blonde banshee, a loud-mouthed shock jock, a "plumber" who writes "books," and a "hipster" chairman who can't get the party line straight, most people, regardless of political affiliation, can see that the "Party of Lincoln" has devolved into the "Party of Limbaugh."
But be forewarned, the rot from within the Republican Party doesn't mean Republicans can't still win elections. They know how to drive up the "negatives" of their opponents. In a rare display of candor, North Carolina Representative Patrick McHenry said: "Our goal is to bring down the approval numbers for [Speaker] Pelosi and for House Democrats. That will take repetition. This is a marathon, not a sprint." He boasted about the GOP's "strategy" going forward: "We will lose on legislation. But we will win the message war every day, and every week, until November 2010." This Republican "communications" operation is already in full swing with the corporate media playing the usual enabler role.
Even though we're facing what Alan Greenspan called a "once in a century" economic cataclysm, the public airwaves are still filled with the familiar Republican boilerplate: cut taxes, cut spending, deregulate, let the market work its magic, and so on. And for some bizarre reason Blue Dog Democrats have chosen to ape these discredited Republican doctrines. These elite-serving ideas permeating the political discourse are dangerous. Remember, we're still dealing with an electorate that elected Richard Nixon twice, Ronald Reagan twice, George H.W. Bush once, gave the House of Representatives to Newt Gingrich, and then re-elected George W. Bush.
The Blue Dogs provide an opening for the Republicans to "triangulate" against the progressives inside the Democratic Party. They're calling for "belt tightening" at a time of severe under-consumption and high unemployment. Republican leaders in the Senate will try to use the Evan Bayhs and Blanche Lincolns of the Blue Dog faction as a wedge to defeat vital parts of President Barack Obama's legislative agenda.
One thing the current economic crisis has taught almost everybody is just how little control we have over our lives. The three-decade era of largely unfettered capitalism tore apart communities, outsourced jobs, forced us to work harder for less, and pile up debt just to stay in place. And how about those crooks over at AIG? After a taxpayer bailout of $170 billion they continue to dole out hundreds of millions in "bonuses" to the same people who brought down the whole company through their mismanagement of the "financial products division." Wow! Whatever capitalism's merits, "conservatism" is clearly not one of them, (unless you see credit-default swaps as expressions of Norman Rockwell's America). Ironically, now that the social dislocations have multiplied a hundredfold, the Republicans might be able to benefit politically by exploiting the pervasive fear and uncertainty caused by their own laissez-faire policies. (About this prospect, somewhere, some place, William Kristol and Grover Norquist are saying: "Sweeeet.")
We need to reverse decades of the maldistribution of wealth and usher in a more just era for working people through passage of the Employee Free Choice Act (EFCA). We need a new international economic order that brings in China, Japan, Saudi Arabia and the other countries awash in dollars after decades of "free trade" policies that hollowed out American manufacturing while creating astonishing trade imbalances and current accounts deficits. We need a new set of rules imposed on corporations that gives investors not only the "transparency" we hear so much about, but a real share in corporate governance, including determining the amount of compensation CEOs and other executives extort from institutions they've been hired to serve yet in recent years have only looted.
Finally, progressive Democrats must continue to press the Obama administration to end the costly occupations of Iraq and Afghanistan. The Blue Dog Democrats voted for Bush's wars knowing they would balloon the deficit. Now they're deficit hawks. We can't afford the open-ended occupations of these countries. The bottom line is this: the peoples of Iraq and Afghanistan have the right to rule themselves -- even badly -- and the United States should step aside and give them the chance to do so.
Republican congressional leaders have been wasting time on stem cells and "earmarks" when we face an economic crisis the likes of which we haven't seen before. It's still uncertain whether the United States and its institutions have the capacity or the political will to pull the country out of this morass. And with Blue Doggery rearing its ugly head President Obama could end up losing some crucial battles with the Congress. We must not allow the Blue Dogs to slow down President Obama's momentum or water down the sweeping reforms the nation needs in these trying economic times.
So you, Lincoln, and Carper are joining with the Republican Party to stop the President’s economic recovery, and you are calling it “deficit reduction.” Here we are with the second greatest economic disaster in the history of this country, and your group is trying to undo what millions of Americans worked so hard to do—to form a unified Democratic Party that would overcome the old Republican model of greed, spending, warmongering, spying on ordinary Americans, assassination squads, and hundred of other unconscionable acts.
Senator, how is it that you know more than Nouriel Roubini, Paul Krugman, or the dozens of other economists who study the economy? Do you think that the theatrics of McCain, Graham, Boehner, and McConnell will help us? We sat by for eight years and watched Blue Dog Democrats vote to send soldiers into harm's way by voting for Bush's policies. Large defense contractors were making billions of dollars off the Iraq occupation. Blue Dogs joined Southern senators in making sure that they got part of the pie.
I, and millions of other Americans, donated money, worked long hours, walked the streets, pounded on doors, made phone calls, and campaigned hard to get a President with some gumption and some principles elected, and you and your group of dissenting Democrats want to destroy the hard work of millions of Americans by behaving like a bunch of crackpot Republicans that should have long since been disgraced--at a time when we need statesmanship.
We on the Democratic Party side of things need to challenge hackery wherever it sticks up its ugly head. Even in our own party.
In my humble opinion, this country will never live up to its potential until we can figure out how to come to grips with two things.
1) Republicans HATE GOVERNMENT.
2) 45% of the nation DOES NOT believe in evolution.
Based on those two points alone it's remarkable that Democrats ever manage to get elected and/or manage government in a professional manner. There is a surprising range of political views within the Democratic Party. I don't think this complex nation is well-served by this system.
An arbitration Task Force representative explained the Britain has begun using arbitration boards paid for by the government to deal with the serious problem of abusive, unjust lawsuits that have been having a devasting affect on their countrys financial and business systems and also on individual victims of such lawsuits.
It is estimated that America could save at least a half trilliion dollars in our economy by implementing national, state, county and city arbitration boards and with America in financial freefall doing this NOW.
It is time to free the American people from the tyranny of their legal systems.
Following are a few examples of this corruption and tyranny; Starr stealing 70 million of the peoples tax dollars about a lawsuit over a sex act between two adults, innocent businesses and individuals are forced into bankrupcy because of abusive lawsuits that go on forever and cost a fortune and most Americans can no longer afford such corrupt legal practices, such lawsuits discourage doctors and nurses from implementing common sense cost savings procedures in health care, also doctors are increasingly afraid to perform high risk surgeries and as a result lives are lost.
One of the most important question about legal corruption is, "Why do America's judges allow such abusive, unjust lawsuits to continue in their courts and increase year after year???!!!
What do you suggest we do to work on making them see how unhappy we are with them?.
I have written, phoned and mailed my comments to all involved>
It is time to make capitalism work with socialism instead of at odds with it.
Anyway; Isn't it a real Kick in the a$$ the way these Blue Dogs pull this crap. When it came out last week that nine of them had banded together in some sort of confederation to point up their wanting to push for fiscal responsibility, I had I had to stop and wonder what Rethug was pulling their strings. This is what we might have expected in the last administration, whereby Buch or Cheney would work these guys and get them to capitulate. Who's doing it this time?
I am so fed up with both Republicans and Democrats and their crummy earmarks and their stupid, sick hypocrisy. Since when does a bridge in some podunk community (or whatever other truly local project that an earmark details) become a federal issue requiring the tax dollars of some poor guy who doesn't even live in that state?
If Obama had stood up to BOTH parties and demanded no earmarks in the Omnibus funding bill (i.e. just a Continuing Resolution or something like that) he would have had the political capital to do so, and he would have reaped a handsome political dividend. I would have been cheering for him and so would practically everyone else who is a normal person. But no, just like with the stimulus, he rambled on about "the 'perfect' not being the enemy of the 'necessary'" Same old, same old. Move along, folks, nothing [new] to see here...
Oh, and don't tell me that both parties don't play the negatives game. It's a broken system and besides, I don't know that Obama has the courage to fix it after all.
"American International Group (AIG), which never should have been allowed to consolidate into such a monstrous conglomerate in the first place, is now "too big to fail" and holds hostage the nation's state and municipal employees' pension plans. This giant insurance-slash-brokerage-slash-investment-slash-commercial-slash-"financial services" company now holds a gun to the head of the U.S. Treasury demanding cash just like an armed robber in a stocking mask robbing a local 7-11.
It's understandable that the AIG "brand," after extorting $162 billion in taxpayer money, now makes the names "Enron" and "Philip Morris" sound sweet. AIG should follow Blackwater's lead and "re-brand" itself. I suggest "Xee."
Just because AIG, Citicorp, and other financial oligopolies hold in their grubby little hands grandma's monthly pension check doesn't mean they should get away with dictating to the country the terms of their welfare program. The federal government should nationalize them forthwith, their executives should be fired (and possibly jailed), and the companies broken up and restructured into entities akin to a public utility. PERIOD."
Keep it coming, Joey!
Everything that you post is really, really, really interesting. You are one of a handful of my favorites and I look foward to your sound and principled discussion of the serious issues that Americans face. The news since the election has been particularly frustrating to me. The "silly season in politics" that President Obama referenced during the campaign has only gotten sillier. The strident carping from the right has a sinister underbelly bordering on madness that only seeks cover in the guise of conservative political ideology. Their fight against candidate and now, President Obama has always only ever been about one thing and I speak not of the differences between Republicans and Democrats.
Your posts are always an invaluable source of knowledge so please keep them coming ... regularly. :-)