In other words, a slew of millionaire politicians who spent the last decade exploding the national debt with Endless War, a sprawling Surveillance State, and tax cuts for the rich are now imposing extreme suffering on the already-suffering ordinary citizenry, all at the direction of their plutocratic overlords, who are prospering more than ever and will sacrifice virtually nothing under this deal (despite their responsibility for the 2008 financial collapse that continues to spawn economic misery). And all of this will be justified by these politicians and their millionaire media mouthpieces with the obscenely deceitful slogans of "shared sacrifice" and "balanced debt reduction" -- two of the most odiously Orwellian phrases since "Look Forward, not Backward" and "2009 Nobel Peace Prize laureate" (and anyone claiming that Obama was involuntarily forced by the "crazy" Tea Party into massive budget cuts at a time of almost 10% unemployment: see the actual facts here).
Ian Welsh:
This “Crisis” is what Obama wanted.
Again, if he didn’t, he would have raised the debt ceiling in the lame duck. Nancy Pelosi was always very good at getting those sort of basic housekeeping bills through. It would have passed. Period. Obama wanted to cut SS and Medicare, and he needed a “crisis” in order to do it. He also needed a Republican House, which he had, because his policies during 2009 and 2010 didn’t fix the economy.
George Orwell:
The creatures outside looked from pig to man, and from man to pig, and from pig to man again; but already it was impossible to say which was which.
8 comments:
Oy vey.
At least Gabby Giffords made her first post-shooting appearance to vote: I think that's the only good news out of today.
[Full disclosure: I voted on the MoveOn.org poll to support the agreement. Even though I hate it.]
Another full-disclosure: I've always been a political pragmatist. In my very *first* vote for President, in the Democratic Primary (in California) June 1980, I voted for Jimmy Carter, not Ted Kennedy. The two competing narratives (following): 1. Ted Kennedy would have beaten Reagan. 2. A primary-unchallenged Jimmy Carter would have beaten Reagan [Well, then there's 3. Reagan would have won, regardless.] We'll never know.
I plan not to vote for anyone for president next year. If it's a contest between Romney and Obama, 2 center right candidates, then it won't matter who wins. The policies will largely be the same.
There are times when I really hate the Democratic party, and this is one of them. They offer us all a sucker's deal that says, "You ain't got no place else to go."
Like Glenn Greenwald, I think politics, especially federal politics, is a game of millionaires from the same small club. In the end, they're all the same with the same interests and cultural references. All of them are thoroughly estranged from the rest of us.
I'll only vote for Obama if it looks like a dead heat between him and Michelle Bachmann, a center right candidate versus a far right National Front candidate. I don't think that's likely. And I hate being scared into voting for a less awful candidate. I feel like I'm being played.
I think Greenwald is right. Nothing will ever really change (not in my lifetime). We'll all line up obediently to vote, once again not because we are at all hopeful, but because we are afraid of the wolves howling at the door. Our dysfunctional political system will gradually become ever more dysfunctional and ever more separated from the very people it was supposed to be by, of, and for.
And in the end, God willing long after I'm dead, this country will go the way of Yugoslavia.
I'm voting next time. I don't want to find out who Romney or any of the other Republican hacks would put on the Supreme Court.
The difference between Obama and Romney is the difference between Scalia or Thomas and Kagan or Sotomayor. If nothing else, in light of the Prop. 8 case working its way through the court system, that's a big, big, difference
It is, Primrose. A good reminder.
Additionally, we must do something about entitlements -- we can't afford them as they continue. I think it's inevitable we will ahve means-testing and an increased age limit for some of them.
Obama got defense on the table and the tax cuts are still due to expire.
The other option was to default. Because the Republicans were prepared to do that. Do you let the kidnapper pull the trigger? Or do you pay the ransom?
For Obama's sake, I hope Bachmann is the nominee, and that the Independents turn out to do his campaign grunt work.
Yes, I don't have a problem w/ means-testing for entitlements. [The *wealthy* elderly don't need an SS check!]
I think an age-accessibility raise for SS/Medicare would hit me right where I live (since I'm currently 49). I've got the feeling it could literally kill me.
Doug, I urge you to listen to dr.primrose, re the SCOTUS difference between Romney and Obama. Especially as LGBT people, a friendly SCOTUS is vital!
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