"Of course people are frustrated," President Obama told the Democratic National Committee over the weekend, "they have every right to be." But I don't know if he really understands the level of "frustration" out there. Democrats who believe that they can just give voters a laundry list of modest "accomplishments" going into 2010 are deluding themselves. The Democrats unwisely allowed the Republicans to conflate the bank bailout with the stimulus package, and characterize both as reckless "big government" spending. And the perception lingering out there is that the Democrats have done a lot for the big banks and the health insurance companies, but precious little to improve the lives of working people.
The whole point of Obama's two years on the road campaigning was to convince voters that he was a different kind of politician. "Not This Time!" he said. Pundits claim his popularity is because he's "post-partisan" or "post-racial" (whatever that means). But Obama was popular because people believed he was different. And nothing corrodes this president's standing more than the impression that after sending him to Washington he has become Tweedle-Dee to the Republicans' Tweedle-Dum.
Real estate analysts estimate that by June 2010 about 10 percent of all Americans with mortgages (5.1 million people) will be throwing away their hard-earned money each month to pay for a house that is worth only 75 percent or less of the mortgage balance. These poor saps have the dubious honor of subsidizing the incomes of financial sector bottom feeders. They've become indentured servants to a crooked industry that also bilked taxpayers for $810 billion in bailouts. In response, Democrats should have passed a new Home Ownership Loan Corporation (HOLC) designed to help the millions of people who are burdened with "under water" mortgages. There should have been a government sponsored reset of "troubled" mortgages that were signed during the years of wanton predatory lending and white-collar thievery. Instead, mortgage lenders got their "troubled assets" bailed out while mortgage purchasers got screwed again. People are understandably angry that their tax dollars went into the pockets of the perps of the crime instead of helping the victims.
When the financial services industry exposed itself to be worthy only of our contempt the response from Congress was to reward failure. Even with Democrats in power Wall Street still calls the shots. The Democrats can't even repeal the taxpayer subsidies that are forked over to the corrupt student loan sector. They've also failed in holding anyone accountable for the economic carnage of the Bush years. The Holder Justice Department is a joke, leaving us to look to New York's Attorney General, Andrew Cuomo, to bring any heat on former bank executives. Meanwhile, Lloyd Blankfein of Goldman Sachs walks away with a $9 million "bonus" for 2009 and the press reports it like he has done something noble by not grabbing more. This kind of thing makes people want to join the Tea Party.
It's too late now, but the Democrats should have passed a new Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) where young people could be put to work right away doing a variety of public service jobs to help clean up local communities and ease unemployment. Politically, the Democrats could have at least taken credit when they extended unemployment benefits, which is a popular program the GOP doesn't like. The Democrats received very little political "bang" for their stimulus "buck." State and local governments, facing their own budget shortfalls, cut back about $300 billion, thereby nullifying roughly half of Obama's stimulus. And after wasting a year teasing voters with "robust public options" and "Medicare buy-ins" it was cruel to toss it all away just because some fat-cat insurance companies didn't like it.
In the zero-sum game of our governing duopoly the Democrats' failure equals the Republicans' success, and voters have no choice but to vent their anger at whoever's in power.
Unless the Congress moves some progressive legislation quickly there's going to be trouble this fall because any political party that is stupid enough to allow a couple of shmucks like Joe Lieberman and Ben Nelson, or the outcome of a special election in New England, to unravel its governing coalition doesn't deserve to be in power.
Americans fully understood that they got creamed during the final Bush years. They did the right thing and voted in the opposing party believing it might rectify things. The paltry result of their electoral efforts has led to far more than mere voter "frustration." They're furious and ready to wreak their revenge.
Unfortunately, the nation appears to be moving in California's direction. In California, an unpopular Republican/Big Business minority holds de facto control over the state's finances. Using the budget deficit as their perennial excuse, California's "leaders" have heartlessly shredded the social safety net. In Washington, a similarly unpopular Republican/Big Business minority holds de facto control of the Congress. After the 2010 midterm elections, the Republicans will be emboldened and, like California, using the budget deficit as their perennial excuse, they will push for shredding the federal safety net (what they call "entitlements," but what most people call Social Security and Medicare). And they'll accomplish this assault in a political-media climate where it's just "common sense." The discourse is already set up for this scenario with all the talk of deficits and "bipartisan commissions" as if our fiscal problems stem from our "generous" safety net and not the wars and tax cuts for the rich. This continuous political devolution, if not corrected, only means that the living conditions of average Americans are going to continue their long downward slide.
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To get stuff passed, we must eliminate the filibuster, and put the obstructionists in their place.
Show your support here:
http://www.facebook.com/pages/Changing-the-US-Senate-rules-bring-back-democracy/278379601906?ref=nf
The MS in its endless quest for rating will do anything to appear relevant and entertaining, even if it means throwing journalistic integrity and ethics out of the window !
With the system controlled by the corporate interests, and the MSM playing their part in making sure only "vetted" candidates get any real exposure, we are caught in a illusory democracy, where anyone not beholden to the status quo has no real chance of being elected. The corporations have taken the precaution of funding both sides of all the races, so whoever wins is in their debt.
Over the years, election campaigns have become more and more expensive to run, and this is no accident. The more corporate money is pumped into one campaign, the more the other side has to spend, and so ultimately all candidates end up at the corporations' door on bended knee.
Follow the money people ! Shake the establishment to its core by voting for the candidates with no budgets and good ideas ! We ultimately have the power to make all those campaign bribes worthless !!
The obvious answer: re-election in 2012. Obama's advisors surely have a plan. Probably it's this: organize a coalition of corporate interests and identity politics groups who feel well treated by corporate America. Add Hispanic voters.
That leaves out right-Republicans and progressives, but they will oppose each other. Presto, second term--even amidst economic chaos. A dismal scenario for the country, but a bright one for team Obama. They can tell themselves they will fix the country during 2012-2016.
Why would the Obama team change course? An early attempt, starting now, to organize a primary challenge by a candidate who can go to the White House and negotiate the unconditional surrender of the pro-corporate agenda. The aim should be to win, either by transforming Obama's policy if he will, or by replacing him in office if he won't.
There is a superb potential candidate who is currently publicly involved, energetic, attractive, and staggeringly well informed with regard to the crises Americans now face. She has a gift for public communication that rivals Obama's, and far exceeds Obama in her obvious deep concern about the problems at hand.
Draft Elizabeth Warren.
The Democrats are not in control of the Senate-no one is. If the tables were turned there would be bloody murder screamed. I do blame Democrats for not getting as vocal as the GOP would be.
As for your other statements, well, its hard to agree with someone who makes such and obvious mistake, but I do share the general sentiments. I also agree we need a 3rd party of Uber-Liberals and a 4th of Uber-conservatives, and a 5th of total middle-of-the-roaders.
As far as the "One World Order" thing-well, your paranoia is unfounded. The human race is WAY too fractured as of right now to ever get it together to realize we're all in this together. Hell, we can't even stop some obvious and easy to change damage we're doing to the planet. Maybe Apothis will smash into the Earth and wipe out 75% of humanity and THEN we'll get it together. Doubt it though.
Obama's accomplishments have been almost nothing, and lampooned on SNL the other night were riotous. A quick "Phhhffffft" and that's it - Nada, bupkiss, zilch.
Then, this article takes a weird left turn over a cliff: California's problem (I live here) is not a Republican one, and anyone living here knows the bald truth of it. The Dem congress in the state controls even more power than the Dems in Washington. Nothing can get done without them, and their way is the only way - so beholen are they to unions and state institutions that we are in gridlock Anyone sugesting that a GOP power base is, or has, caused this either a) does not live here, or b) os really THAT stupid.
This is not a "Blame Bush, It's Fun" scene in CA - it is clearly overrun by liberal special interests. How is it that half of our budget, nearly $70B, goes to schools, that it is nearly 50% larger than it was when we kikced out the last governor (so bad was he that Arnold, by comparison, looked good...sheesh), and there is NO money for schools?
Tell me how raising even more taxes in this failed system would work? It has been tried and is an abject failure. We are awash with obscene amounts of taxpayer dollars. The guy we got to run the state because the last guy was SO BAD that an Austrian actor looked good by comparison had a state budget of nearly $70B. Now, we are nearing $140B and have NO MONEY - a scant few years later.
If the value of their homes had risen, would they willingly walk away and turn over the profit to the lender?
Where does it say that people should have the Nanny State step in and coddle them whenever things don't go their way? Funded of course by those of us who are perfectly capable of taking care of ourselves.
I'm glad your selfish self can take care of yourself. These guys could have also if the higher ups played by the rules. Social safety nets actually make communities stronger. They only create nanny states in your mind.
http://www.pbs.org/moyers/journal/12182009/watch.html
Additionally, Elizabeth Warren gave a brilliant lecture on the decline of the middle class over the last 30 years and, similarly, is irrefutable both in the data she provides and the conclusions she draws. It's an hour long, so bookmark it for later if you can't watch it now.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=akVL7QY0S8A&NR=1
Kuttner opines that if the relative handful of Democrats that are corporately owned can be targeted and either rehabilitated or expunged, the Democratic Party might be salvagable.
Failing that, the only option I see is somehow convincing the rabid "Tea Partiers" to realize their interests lie in more progressive solutions. A good portion of independents are already convinced so if the Democratic Party continues to be nothing more than a corporate tool, progressives need to abandon Democrats altogether, form a workable coalition with independents around issues facing the middle class and throw the bums out.
Continued deference to the established and wholly-corrupt two-party system is pea-brained. It is Rahm Emanuel who is "fuc*ing stupid" if he thinks this will lead to anything other than the total and complete collapse of the American middle class.