Democratic posturing on the 1.3 million Americans who are going to lose their unemployment benefits makes me sick. These Democrats have already agreed to the bill that eliminates those benefits. All they want to do is jawbone in order to get points with the 99%. Fuck them.
Also: what about the millions and millions more of long-term unemployed people – roughly 4 to 5% of the American population – who already lost their unemployment benefits months and years ago? Those 1.3 million are a drop in the bucket.
I wish the Democratic Party would admit the truth: they don’t give a rat’s ass about the 99%, the long-term unemployed, the poor, the short-term unemployed or anyone else except their banker and insurance company friends. They are scum. At least with the Republicans, they admit that they are scum.
I swear, if MSNBC shows one more lying Democratic Congressman pretending to whine about a bill that he or she is voting for, I am going to throw my television out the window.
Democratic posturing about the long-term unemployed
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The Democratic Party is the worse of the two institutional parties. The Republican Party is overtly at war with the interests of the Many.
The Democratic Party, however, preempts and eliminates the possibility of an opposition party. Its function is to marshal their true believers though the maze of legal dead end paths to relief from the crushing oppression of the Few until exhaustion and ultimate failure results.
Those who deride Occupy Wall Street for its failure to bring representatives into government expected a charismatic master to arise from Occupy that would restrain the criminals of Wall Street.
Of course, that charismatic One, named Barack Obama had already been elevated from the Many, consequentially necessitating the informational activism of Occupy to once again awaken the Many from their “American Dream” as so aptly described by George Carlin.
There was no failure of Occupy Wall Street; the failure is of the Many to recognize the burdens that the crimes of the Few have placed on the Many: the failure of the Many to believe a master could arise that would not, in the end, make slaves of the Many; the denial by the Many that it is the Democratic Party itself that crushed the means of forming an opposition to the tyranny of the Few by a coordinated silencing of messengers illuminating the failure of the Democratic Party to function as an opposition party.
The part of all this that I simply do not get is this:
Are NONE of the leadership aware of history? This is how fascist states AND revolutions begin: when millions of people find out that they’ve been playing a rigged game.
The leadership, ignorant or not of history, recognizes that the unbinding of their unifying fasces would be their personal terminal act of betrayal to their corporate masters.
As the profit driven motivational discomfort of the Many degenerates into murderous negligence, the line is crossed where granting relief begs the question, Why motivational cruelty in the first place?
There is no graceful exit for perpetrators unbound from this project as it moves toward extremes in the face of its simple easily understandable solution.
The crimes of the Few must be recognized or more of the Many must become known by the Few as criminals.
The Few will kill until they become known to the Many by their actions.
Alex: Isn’t the game plan for the central government to fail? Drown it in a bathtub?
I detect irony, but you raise a useful point: the false combination of “government” and “problem.” Grover Norquist and his goons made it sound like government was wasteful and stupid.
But the point of the government is to SPEND money. That’s why we have post offices in every tiny-ass town. That’s why public libraries get all those magazines. Etc. When you trim away government’s “spending” what you really do is gut all the things that make government beneficial.
The Republicans understood this because everything they went after in the 1980s was something that benefited the poor (libraries, post offices, health clinics, etc.) But that’s the end point of what government is there for: to provide social services and benefits that individuals on their own are almost always not going to be able to achieve.
Alex: Irony? Can’t save a government if you can’t fund it. I detect no efforts to fund it.
One of my favorite descriptions of what government is for: to take money away from people who aren’t using it, in order to recycle it. This emphasizes how economies cannot function properly when the medium of exchange is stockpiled and hoarded, be it currency or cowries. Sensible cultures – “primitive” ones – involved potlatches, where the richest guy gives most of his stuff away in order to enhance his social status.
Is NAFTA going to be cancelled and taxes raised on the rich in order to provide carrot and stick for bring jobs back here? Or simply taxes raised and the money used to create work programs that by definition cannot be outsourced? Or the Pentagon’s budget evicerated? Or health care costs dealed with sanely via socialization? Or banks nationalized when they fail?
No. So everyone else is screwed. Extending unemployment benefits and various other forms of social safety nets would be kind. But oh, poor us, there just isn’t the money, so shared sacrifice!
If you’re young enough, though, you might be able to get a gig in the next war.
All good points.
Where is Whimsical, who keeps saying the only way is to always elect Democrats?
Back in ’68, Humphrey promised to continue to continue, not winning, not withdrawing. Winning would bring China in, so that was out. Withdrawing would start the fall of the dominoes, so that was out. So progressives stayed home and Nixon won with his ‘secret plan that will lead to unconditional victory’ (it’s still a secret). Nixon’s victory, according to Whimsical (and he/she/it MIGHT be right) led to Reagan. After which, the best Democrats we could get were Clinton and Obama. And if we let another Republican in after Obama (again, according to Whimsical) we’ll get four or eight years with a Republican worse than Obama, followed by a Democrat worse than Obama.
Whimsical’s point, which is almost certainly wrong, is that, had we elected Humphrey, we would never have gotten Reagan, and the Democrats today would have been more like FDR and JFK and less like Clinton and Obama.
More likely, It was only Nixon’s lack of charisma and his paranoia that finally got the Congress annoyed enough to force the US to withdraw from Vietnam (and Nixon to withdraw from the presidency). Humphrey probably wouldn’t have made Nixon’s mistakes, and we’d have remained in Vietnam even longer than we did. And the cost of the war would have limited any expansion of the Great Society.
But I don’t have any answers. Most Americans seem unconcerned about slashing unemployment, not terribly concerned about PRISM, and in favour of Obama’s killing those he and he alone knows are jihadists all over the world based on Top Secret evidence no one else can ever be allowed to see.
I keep seeing comments: ‘They’re terrorists. They killed thousands on 9/11. We don’t need any trials, we don’t need any proof, we don’t need any evidence. We KNOW they’re guilty, so just get on with “enhanced interrogations” and summary executions.’
How does one turn an America where most voters seem to be against anything progressive, against what used to be Constitutional Law and Justice in the 20th century, into an America that respects human rights?
I have no idea.
Two additions:
1. “After which, the best Democrats we could get were Clinton and Obama.”
George Carlin’s line about how people say good-bye comes to mind. Something like, “Give Jake my best,” says Susan, who is then asked, “Your best what? Frankly, Susan, if this is your best, maybe you oughta keep it to yourself.”
If the best the Dems could give us were Clinton and Obama, two careerists with dubious moral centers (1. If you cheat on your wife and get caught, be a man about it: just admit it. Don’t try to lie like a third-grader caught with a candy bar in his pocket. 2. Don’t kill children, because it’s just super-wrong. Even if it’s brown ones.)
2. The Democratic Party “plan.” The fantasy of looking toward the horizon. As I’ve mentioned before (having seen the line on a TV show): The horizon is a theoretical line that you can never reach because it recedes as you approach. The Dems are so in love with trying to find the One True Path to Victory that they pass up, over and over, opportunities for real, substantial gains that would get them closer to goals. They’re like me and the books I keep meaning to write: as soon as I clean out that room. Well, I’ll also need to organize the desk so I have room. And I’ll have to have a coffeemaker near me … etc.
Sadly, most Americans believe killing brown children means there will be fewer brown adults who will perpetrate another 9/11. So kill them all. That would be best.
The fact that the perpetrators of 9/11 were white is an inconvenient fact most Americans have been taught to disregard: the Saudis are our BFFs!
If you cheat on your wife, deny everything. The Senate has said the President’s word trumps DNA tests.
After the House accused (i.e.. impeached–impeached just means accused) Clinton of lying under oath when he said he never had sex with Monica, the Senate said Clinton was innocent as a new born babe.
So it follows that the US President’s Word trumps any stupid DNA tests. If the US president says it, then it IS the TRVTH!!! (Objective evidence notwithstanding.)
And that’s now the US Law of the Land. Not to be questioned.
Michael: I expect most people don’t care that it was Saudis, not Iraqis. They just see a bunch of “ragheads” who have the nerve to be living on top of our oil.