Here's the deal,America.. It's time to put on the big-kid pants & grow up.

[SoCalDem]

This whole mess reminds me of 2nd & 3rd generation "rich-kids" blowing through a fortune built up by frugal grandparents..

Granny & Gramps built the business , saved money, invested wisely..and they lived within their means.. They paid for college so their progeny would have the chances they never had.

And within a short time after their passing, those "kids" have partied, never maintained the once-nice home, trashed the business, spent all the money, and now they are seriously miffed at the thought that they might have to actually do some work on the place, and that it's going to cost them MORE now to repair/rebuild what they let rot away for decades.

That shiny new car won't work too well in a few years if you never maintain it, and neither does a country.

FDR put all the things in place, to secure our future, and ever since, his successors have done little more than try to UNDO the restraints and rules he put in place.

Eisenhower was the last benign president, for the most part, but the world was in the after-glow of winning a world war, and everyone felt prosperous, so it was easy to ignore the clouds rolling in.

Once the hard-line right wingers took over, they have had NO interest in things that benefit anyone except the moneyed-class, and since maintenance & planning take money away from the "fun stuff", they were not interested in it at all.

We have had a 45 year "money party" for the well-to-do, and now we have to start all over again, but if we only do it to amass a fortune again, that will be squandered by the next batch, we are doing ourselves no favors.

Boom & Bust is not a great way to run a country.. Anyone who has ever traveled in California may have visited communties out here called "ghost towns". They are quaint little tourist places from eras gone-by, but those places used to be bustling communities, full of people..with commerce, schools, churches, businesses, and then they were gone...

There are remnants of "ghost-farms", all over the midwest too..again, from boom-bust cycles...and now we are seeing "ghost-malls" & "ghost-suburbs"..

We need to re-group, and set a new course toward solvency, and it's going to cost money.. We just have to accept it, and pay what it costs.

People have to have jobs.
People need food & water
People have to live somewhere.
People get sick.
Old people need help in their declining years
Natural disasters HAPPEN..everywhere.
Roads & bridges wear out
Buildings don't last forever without repairs
Children need to be educated


If ONE class now "owns" the capacity to provide those "things", then it 's now time for them to SHARE. If it means that the rich will have to go BACK to paying more taxes, and that some of the rest of us may have to pay more too, then SO BE IT.

For a long time now, we have used the Darwinian Method of governance, and it does not work all that well for most of us. It's time for our government to go back to being about ALL OF US..not just a few of us..and if it means we have to pay more, we'll just have to pay more...but if we end up getting what we pay for this time around, we'll all be better for it.

[dionysus]

1. good post

:thumbsup:

[bdamomma]

2. right on!!

[bvar22]

3. 5th K&R

At first, I thought you were targeting the little guys.
I'm glad I continued to read.

[pacalo]

4. What a good mind you have! Excellent!

[nichomachus]

5. Not "boom and bust"

It's more like "binge and purge."

[SoCalDem]

8. Boom, I ate it ALL.. Bust, gotta barf it all up & make others clean it up

Kind of the same :)

[Laelth]

6. Hear, hear! n/t

:dem:

-Laelth

[Lost in CT]

7. Excellent post. nt

[rvablue]

9. Excellent way of breaking down the argument. I think most Americans would agree with you! n/t

[nichomachus]

10. The main flaw with your argument

People have to have jobs.
People need food & water
People have to live somewhere.
People get sick.
Old people need help in their declining years
Natural disasters HAPPEN..everywhere.
Roads & bridges wear out
Buildings don't last forever without repairs
Children need to be educated

The people who deliberately caused this economic mess --the neo liberals from the Chicago School -- don't believe any of those things. Or at least aren't disturbed by them.

Their goals are to destroy the middle class, push down wages, privatize the infrastructure, put all food and water under corporate control, leave the citizens on their own (think Katrina) in natural disasters, destroy the public education system, and so forth. They want us tired, hungry, and willing to fight each other over $5 an hour jobs with no benefits. They don't want universal health care.

They just want us to work and scrape by until we die. They don't care if old people need help in their declining years. As the inimitable John Silber said while running in MA, old people have an obligation to die and get out of the way.

There was a guy early in the Bush maladministration who let that cat out of the bag. I wish I had a link, but it just got flushed down the memory hole. He said the administration worked from the principle that retirement was just a loopy liberal idea and that people should just work until they drop -- like they did in the old days.

This is their plan. It is working. They are not disturbed at all. And, they are still infiltrated into the power structure.

[SoCalDem]

11. But, we ARE starting to fight back, and who knows.. maybe we'll win this battle

There ARE more of us:evilgrin:

[nichomachus]

12. I think you're right - but the question is when

A lot of people still don't connect the dots. They don't know how we got where we are. The most dangerous thing in the world is to try to fix something if you don't know what the problem was caused by. Most times you end up making it worse.

I think people will fight, but I'm just afraid who they will be fighting.

I've said until I was blue in the face -- not my best color -- that the whole anti-immigrant crusade (even adopted by some of the left) was designed to create a scapegoat when jobs started going away.

It wasn't that immigrants were coming in and taking good jobs away from Americans. It was that the powers that be knew that one day, formerly middle class Americans would be looking for the shit jobs now done by immigrants. And, thanks to Loud Dobbs and his acolytes, many of the displaced workers will be bashing immigrants, blaming them for "stealing their jobs," rather than heading out to Greenwich, Grosse Pointe, or The Hamptons to confront the real cause of their problems.

[SoCalDem]

14. Losing your job, car & house, has a way of focusing attention

and people are starting to "get it"..

fingers crossed here:)

[nichomachus]

15. Yeah -- but they're blaming the wrong people

As long as we have an active corporate propaganda network, most people won't realize what really happened. I see it in my own family. My sister and brother in law are in union jobs. In fact, both are still working only because of their union. They both hate unions and blame "liberals" for everything that went wrong -- because they wouldn't let the conservative save the country.

[SoCalDem]

17. It will take patience..and the vigilence of the Secret Service

but I think we have turned a corner..especially now that so many people have seen a life's worth of saving for retirement..just gone.. that has happend to republicans too..not just liberals..

and when you are 50-something, and face a retirement with NO money, you tend to look to government.. UI think the '10 election may be the most importnat one we have seen in a long time..

the republicans still hanging onto their offices, cannot deny the Bush-crash, and I think we will have a bigger majority after '10, and then legislation can really make some changes..

[Two Americas]

13. all true

But what is a bigger challenge, a bigger danger than those who are overtly right wing and in the Republican party, are those who dominate and control the narrative here and throughout liberalism and the Democratic party at all levels, and who are relentlessly pushing the same doctrine in disguise and are attacking and marginalizing all other voices. This keeps us divided and confused, and makes it impossible to put together a coherent alternative narrative and get that narrative out to the public.

[Shanti Mama]

19. True, but all those folks who were enamoured of Gov. Palin

are not part of the cabal. They need to have jobs, food & water, etc. They need to see the light but are being 'blindered' by race and religion. What a mess!

[SoCalDem]

20. They are not immune from repo-ville or no-job-town, and pretty soon

they too will see that someone is going to HAVE to be there to help them.. and even the ones who are still well off, or steady, may have kids who will be moving back in with them..or nevcer leaving because they cannot manage their finances or find a job..

This crisis we find ourselves in, is WIDE and DEEP..and at the core, we each share needs that have to be met..

There was division during the depression too, but once mired in it, it consumed all classes..and it actually united people because once we realize how fragile we all are, we can band together...and recovery is a shared experience too.. Rich folks who own manufacturing facilities have NOTHING, until they have customers..and workers have nothing to do, until customers want to buy the stuff they make..

[guitar man]

16. K&R

Couldn't have said it better myself! :applause:

[Mnemosyne]

18. Can I have a belt?

:evilgrin:

Great post, SoCalDem! :hi:

[FKA MNChimpH8R]

21. Ike thought that undoing the New Deal would be ruinous and stupid.

And he said so publicly and forcefully. Even Tricky Dick Nixon didn't question its basics. But then we got King Ronald the Simple, the front man for the kakistocracy of greedheads, grifters and pimping greaseweasel enablers who dreamed of returning to the age of the Robber Barons, whose chief opponent was one Theodore Roosevelt. And the rest is history that would gag a goat.