The Other Shoe Is Dropping

[ProSense]

The Other Shoe Is Dropping

by xaxnar

Now that the Republicans have taken back America and Obama is no longer relevant, a funny thing is happening. The chattering classes have started to notice that this country is in bad shape, is not getting better, and the people they've been gushing about might not have a real answer. They are belatedly waking up to the fact that the Tea Party agenda.....has no substance. There's no way to make it work - because it's full of contradictions where it isn't totally incoherent. Sure, they all proclaimed Obama screwed up - but just stopping him won't make the problems go away.

Our Banana Republic.

C.E.O.’s of the largest American companies earned an average of 42 times as much as the average worker in 1980, but 531 times as much in 2001. Perhaps the most astounding statistic is this: From 1980 to 2005, more than four-fifths of the total increase in American incomes went to the richest 1 percent.

Remember the 1980's? That's when it was "Morning in America." Ever have a day you wish you could start over?

It's time for a little Disaster Anti-Capitalism, some Class Warfare Reprisals, because there's this one thing about emergencies. They can really streamline your thinking. What Republicans are promising to do is nothing short of sheer folly. It's time to hold their feet to the fire of their own rhetoric and make them own the consequences of their actions. Sara Robinson was laying it all out back in April of 2010.

...it's time to openly confront the fact that conservatives have spent the past 40 years systematically delegitimizing the very idea of constitutional democracy in America. When they're in power, they mismanage it and defund it. When they're out of power, they refuse to participate in running the country at all -- indeed, they throw all their energy into thwarting the democratic process any way they can. When they need to win an election, they use violent, polarizing, eliminationist language against their opponents to motivate their base. This is sedition in slow motion, a gradual corrosive undermining of the government's authority and capacity to run the country. And it's been at the core of their politics going all the way back to Goldwater.

This long assault has gone into overdrive since Obama's inauguration, as the rhetoric has ratcheted up from overheated to perfervid. We've reached the point where you can't go a week without hearing some prominent right wing leader calling for outright sedition -- an immediate and defiant populist uprising against some legitimate form of government authority.

Moderates and liberals are responding to this rising threat with feckless calls for "a return to civility," as if all that's needed to put things right again is a stern talking-to from Miss Manners. Though that couldn't hurt, the sad fact is that we're well past the point where it's just a matter of conservatives behaving like tantrum-throwing spoiled brats (which they are). When a mob is surrounding your house with torches and telling you they intend to burn it down, "civility" really isn't the issue any more.

emphasis added

McConnell is on record as declaring the most important goal for the GOP is ensuring Obama is a one term president. It's not about creating jobs. It's not about fiscal reality. It's all about grabbing for political power, and screw what happens to the country. That video of McConnell should be put into play every time the Republicans throw up a road block, to show Americans what GOP principles are worth. Kristof has plenty of material today to show why Republican policies have been a disaster. It's no longer necessary to blame W for everything - we can go right back to the Gipper. But here's the deal. It's not just about individuals; we have to start destroying the Republican brand in the popular mind by showing what conservative policies really do. (And why not? Conservatives have engaged discrediting Progressive policies since forever.)

Let's start with the continuing fight over the Bush tax cuts and what's at stake.

The richest 0.1 percent of taxpayers would get a tax cut of $61,000 from President Obama. They would get $370,000 from Republicans, according to the nonpartisan Tax Policy Center. And that provides only a modest economic stimulus, because the rich are less likely to spend their tax savings.

At a time of 9.6 percent unemployment, wouldn’t it make more sense to finance a jobs program? For example, the money could be used to avoid laying off teachers and undermining American schools.

Likewise, an obvious priority in the worst economic downturn in 70 years should be to extend unemployment insurance benefits, some of which will be curtailed soon unless Congress renews them. Or there’s the Trade Adjustment Assistance program, which helps train and support workers who have lost their jobs because of foreign trade. It will no longer apply to service workers after Jan. 1, unless Congress intervenes.

So we face a choice. Is our economic priority the jobless, or is it zillionaires?

emphasis added

Democrats have been terrified to face up to Republicans over tax issues. Republicans have terrified everyone over deficits - but refuse to say what they'll cut to close the gaps. As long as we keep running scared, we'll never be able to solve the problems the conservatives have created. When they start screaming "Class Warfare!" it's time for the White House and the Democrats to start talking about War Criminals and pressing charges. God knows the foreclosure mess has enough bad actors in it that it's a wonder we haven't started seeing Merrill-Lynch mobs yet. The GOP answer to Kristof's question above is of course zillionaires get the priority. Call them on it, and their own Tea Party base will tear them apart. All it takes is somebody in the White House with cojones to do it and keep doing it. Because the GOP will drown it out with the Mighty Wurlitzer if allowed to do so.

<...>

Now is the time. The Republicans are largely bluffing at this point. They have to know what they want is impossible and unworkable, but they plan to use smoke, mirrors, fear and anger to slide through the next two years in hopes of taking back the White House. They'll do it too, if the White House is allowed to keep pretending things aren't that bad, and that there are no fundamental issues that can't be addressed by 'bipartisanship'. Kristof is joining Krugman in openly proclaiming what the Villagers are still trying to pretend doesn't exist. (They have David Brooks to tell them what the peasants are really thinking after all.) Even Maureen Dowd is sliding around it in her mean girl way. This election should have driven a stake through the heart of bipartisanship; you don't reach for help putting out a fire from the arsonists who started it and are fanning the flames. We do need consensus, but it's something that can only be built from the grass roots up - not by reaching out to the people whose whole grasp on power depends on keeping America divided against itself.

We have a tremendous opportunity. The Republicans have put themselves into a spot where they can only dodge responsibility if the Democrats let them. It's up to the Progressives to make sure they don't - because what Kristof is writing about today is a burning fuse on a powder keg. We can't keep a lid on it forever, and we damn well can't let the conservatives be the ones deciding where to channel the blast.

[GoCubsGo]

1. Thank you for posting that.

Too bad the ones who really need to see it won't. And, if they did, many of them wouldn't believe it anyway.

[dkf]

2. I wonder what the average ratio is of the American compared to the person that actually produced the

Goods we consume. While production was in the US it was probably closer but now that we make everything overseas I bet it's pretty darn wide. Yet you don't see us clamoring for increased wages of the people who work hard for us. Instead we hate them for taking our jobs.

Our love of low prices is the root of all this. The CEOs are making more off the backs of foreign workers than American workers.

[johnlucas]

32. There's nothing wrong with loving low prices. Listen to this.

There's nothing wrong with loving low prices.
It's a circular problem.

People's money doesn't go as far as it used to thanks to the corruption from the monied class (they're greedy & always want more more more).
So they try to maintain their quality of living by looking for the best deal they can.
I can feed my 3 children better if I get this Hamburger Helper for 2 for $2.00 than 1 for $1.29.

The monied business class resents minimum wage, child labor laws, overtime, company health insurance mandates, social security, medicare.
They want slaves to work for nothing so they get all the money for themselves.
But even worse they hate old-style slavery because they had to house & feed those slaves (even if it was trashy food). Too much work.
So they pay a pittance to let those slaves fend for themselves getting the grand majority of that money.
What their issue is is the size of the pittance.

The monied class play the game on both ends. They work feverishly to roll back every protection fought for by the labor movement & take more & more money away from the workers who make their companies. This forces the workers to stretch their dwindling monies further & further looking for the best deals.
THEN they find the slaves they are looking in other regions of the world, places that don't have these Labor Movement protections, selling what should be costly to import cheaply to the very workers they took away from.

Why is it that stuff imported from other lands ends up cheaper than stuff created in this land? To transport from other lands takes more resources & time. As you know time equals money right?
You have to house the goods in warehouses overseas then ship them on barges & planes across the seas to get them to your own land (how much fuel does that take & how much does that cost?)......then house them again in warehouses domestically transporting them on trains & trucks (fuel? how much?) between warehouses & the actual store we buy them from.

Oranges from Brazil should be MUCH more costly than oranges from Florida. But the reason it exists like that is because Brazilian workers are being exploited. They also play these phony money systems against each other to exacerbate this ridiculousness (Brazilian real worth less than American dollar, etc.). The business owners make out like bandits with this system yet STILL complain about not having enough trying their best to weasel out of taxes & dismantling any social service program that can take money out of their pocket.

They think it all belongs to them. It's greed. They have no concern for their fellow man & no respect for how a society is supposed to operate.
Pyramids don't stand because of their peaks, they stand because of their bases. The bottom of the pyramid holds the whole structure together.

People are desperate & are trying to make do in an un-doable system.
Because life is so hard (why human beings created civilization in the first place) they'll put up with this corruption in order to maintain some semblance of peace. Most people don't want that much. They just want time to spend with their friends & family, time to enjoy their hobbies & activities, entertainment, & some kind of pastime that uses their abilities to validate their humanity.

They fear a total perpetual warzone lifestyle where it is constantly chaos like in Rwanda or the Middle East or parts of any major U.S. city.
What they SHOULD do is band together as one from the homeless on the street to the so-called Middle Class in the suburbs & make justice as they punish these greedy individuals in the business class for their lack of regard for their fellow human being.

If 2/3 of this country, Two-Thirds out of Three Hundred Million-plus stood as one in anger & fury (with force to back it up) against these snots, things would be righted real quick.
There's a reason why they live in gated communities. And they hide behind enforcers called policemen & the military to protect them against all the others that have been taken advantage of.

Five can't beat Five Thousand. Unless each of those Five were more than equivalent to the force of One Thousand.
But these are just people like you & me. One man doesn't have the strength of one thousand men. They are outnumbered & they know it.
What they do to make up for this along with the enforcers is a ever-growing series of mind games & psychological manipulations that get that Five Thousand to lay down their attack.
They get that Five Thousand to attack each other & decimate their numbers.
And they have big megaphones to implant that message, mass media TV & radio being only a couple of examples.

They fear that day when the People as a whole stand as one against their selfish corruption.
But sad thing is some of the People parrot their line of thinking protecting them from the ranks of those who should oppose them.

It's not our love of low prices. It's our inability to stand as an unstoppable million man force against these bastards that is the root of all this.
Bronx against Brooklyn, Brooklyn against Bronx but at the end of the day it's all New York City.
John Lucas

[SammyWinstonJack]

39. +1

[txlibdem]

45. No stable structure stands because of its peak, it stands because of its base

Very well said. Very, very well said.

You boiled down a complex issue into simple, easy to understand terms and made it abundantly clear who our true enemy is.

Our enemy is not China or Chinese workers who are forced to work for 50 cents a day. Our enemy is the greedy rich. It is our responsibility to STOP listening to their lies, stop falling for their Divide and Conquer fear mongering and tricks. They WANT us fighting amongst each other, hating "those" people with a different color, different religion, different culture, different sexual orientation, etc., because if we ever STOP fighting each other we will realize that the wealthy, greedy bastards are the true enemy of human kind, the true enemy of our future.

[johnlucas]

48. Thank you for that!

I hope more & more people come to know this reality like the back of their hand.

You see it with the "Tea Party" how those who follow old bad traditions (enacted centuries ago to secure an unquestioning work force) fall into the "Others" trap. If it ain't Black it's Mexican or it's Japanese or it's Muslims or whoever.

They are suckers to fall for that old line & they are the ones who should be side by side fighting with us.
But their xenophobia kicks in & they think supporting these types of Parties helps them against "The Others".

They don't know it but to the Greedy Rich, THEY are "the Others".
They are the ones who don't HAVE. They are the HAVE-NOTS.

The only way they will ever learn is when all the protections have finally been dismantled.
All the work of the Labor Movement that rose out of the end of American Slavery, all the blood sweat & tears to make a fairer society...
...once that's gone they may finally figure it out.

Or maybe they'll just get worse in their irrational xenophobia never suspecting the TRUE enemy.
Better hope on option #1.
John Lucas

[txlibdem]

49. There seems to be a never ending supply of dupes to be had

The rich toss one aside and grab another off the pile. We have been indoctrinated to believe that this the "land of opportunity" and that "hard work will pay off", "you will get noticed and rewarded." That's what my dad used to tell me. It took me till my 30s to realize what a lie that is, after being used and tossed aside 4 times that I can remember. I helped the higher ups cull 100 person departments at one point, directly gave the axe to 4 consultants and on several occasions participated in the outsourcing of jobs. I was always told that I would be "taken care of nicely" but I somehow always eventually ended up out the door with the rest of the fools. While I was part of the evil system I was part of the "in crowd" riding in limos, invited to golf outings, champaigne around the pool, trips to Vegas, etc. I know of what I speak. Where am I now? Unemployed and regretting not rousing the rabble long before now.

Well, fellow rabble. It is high time that we do, in fact, rouse. The American worker can no longer carry the rich do-nothings on our backs and support their evil system. Toss them onto the dirt and let them fight for the crumbs like the rest of us have to, I say.

The rich contribute nothing. They take all the profits, keep all the benefits, enjoy all the perks, freedoms and luxuries that our labor and death provide to them. The time is now to end that arrangement.

[vi5]

3. "they can only dodge responsibility if dems let them"

3 guesses how that turns out?

One of the great lost opportunities to having had the majorities we did was not forcing the Republicans to go on record with more symbolic votes. O.K. so we don't have the votes to pass something. Bring it to the floor anyway and make the republicans go on record for their own policies. Make them take responsibility for their opinions and ideas. Do it time and again. This is what the Republicans did when they had the majorities and I can guaranfuckingtee that they are going to do it in now in the house that they have the majority again.

THAT in a nutshell is what disappoints me most from the past 2 years. It's not losing the battles that got me. I understood that the votes weren't there. It was the unwillingness on the part of our leadership to try and fight these small skirmishes and symbolic battles that irritated me and I also believe cost us politically because we were so unwilling to make them own their own policies with vote after vote.

[ProSense]

4. Well,

"One of the great lost opportunities to having had the majorities we did was not forcing the Republicans to go on record with more symbolic votes."

...maybe, but the President had a window of opportunity, and decided to make better use of it.

As Rachel Maddow commented

<...>

Democrats had a choice when they became the governing party. When they won those last two elections and they took control of the two branches of government that are subject to partisan control in our country, they could have governed in a way that was about accumulating political capital with the primary goal of winning the next election. They could have governed in constant campaign mode.

Or they could have governed in a way that was about using their political capital, not accumulating more of it, about spending the political capital they had to get a legislative agenda done, to tackle big, complex, longstanding problems that had languished.

The record of legislative achievement of the last 21 months was not designed to win the midterm elections and it will not win the midterm elections. The pendulum will swing back toward the Republicans and we‘ll go back to divided government again.

The legislative agenda of the last 21 months was policy, not politics. It was designed to get stuff done for the country. And in that sense, it‘s an investment in long-term political reward, not short-term political reward, as Democrats expect after a list of accomplishments like this to be judged as the party that took on problems when it had the chance, even if they had to pay a short-term political price.

<...>

[vi5]

10. Not the president, but the majority leaders.....

Nobody said anything about the President. As it's been pointed out ad nauseum on here, the President doesn't control congress. Fine. He's off the hook on what I'm talking about. But the others are not.

We can put our hankies to our foreheads and cry and moan all we want about the nature of hardball, bareknuckle politics, but that is the way the game is played. If we choose to separate the policies from the political then we get to the situation we are in now. So we have these decent reforms which now that the Republicans have a majority in the house and almost one in the Senate they have more power to carve up, or weaken or dismantle as far as they can take it. So great. We had majorities and focused on good policy and not good politics. Well without good politics you lost control and those great policies will be neutered.

The fact is that if they played the political game the way it was supposed to be played then they could have gotten the exact same policies in place, but situated each of them better politically. Coming up with great policies and then sitting back and letting the Right continually dictate the terms and continually get out in front with messaging sort of negates the impact of the accomplishments.

[DailyGrind51]

18. And, we can count on the Dems to do just that! Even when their own jobs were at stake, how many

really fought back?

[GOTV]

37. That would have helped. Force those that block our priorities into the light ...

... But the house and senate continually gave the GOP and conservadems political cover by simply declaring they don't have the votes. Who wouldn't vote for the public option? We can only guess in some cases.

Also, people are more likely to say in private that they won't vote for some very popular measure than they are to actually have their votes recorded.

Not actually having votes is a gutless tactic that makes it look like what Obama and the Dems didn't accomplish were things they never wanted anyway.

> It's not losing the battles that got me.

That's what most of the Obama critics would say, it's not the lack of accomplishment it's the lack of fight.

[global1]

5. How Soon Will Voters Remorse Set In For Those That Voted The Repugs.....

back in power last Tuesday?

[Andy823]

12. Not long!

When the new year starts, and republicans only plan is to go after the president to keep him from being re-elected, it will stat! The right keeps saying the people have spoken, and the people are "against" president Obama and his agenda, but what the people are really saying is they want an end to the fighting between the two parties and they want solutions to the problems not politics as usual! Republicans have NO PLAN! When that becomes apparent, and it won't take long, remorse will set in for those with any commons sense at all! What I want to see is the "real" tea party crowds start to go after the republicans. That's when we know the shit has hit the fan!

[blackbart99]

31. Byers remorse...are you kidding me?

They just got exactly what they wanted. A congress that will impeach the Kenyan in the white house.
That's what they wanted and that's what they'll get. The tea bagger's will never go after the repug's
because that is who they get their marching orders from...i.e. the Koch brothers. The tea party movement never has and never will be a real grass roots movement...their orders come down from the repug party headquarters(some fake website designed for party programming) and they march with their pre-printed signs(that they don't even understand)and off they go on their fake outrage.

Thank the supreme court for all of this. We will never win another race for the white house and our seats in the congress and senate will keep going away until we are on the cover of Time as the disappearing party. The new endangered donkey...soon to go extinct...the supreme court has killed the democratic party with a flood of corporate money.

[SunsetDreams]

14. For about 19 to 20% of the country never lol

[SunsetDreams]

15. dupe

[HCE SuiGeneris]

6. K & R

[Bitwit1234]

7. I think the grab for power

really truly manifested itself when Prescott Bush gathered a bunch of bankers and tried to get Smedley Butler to overthrow the government after FDR was legally elected.

After that the matter was hushed up by the newspapers and radio we had back then. So it seems like the republicans had control of what media we had way back then. Because in a couple of years he started to raise money for and sell war munitions to the Nazis. Since this didn't faze his actions when they took away his bank, what did he do? He ran for congress and WON.

So it seems if you are a republican starting even back then - the media took up for you. -The government didn't punish you for collaboration with the enemy - and the public would reward you by electing you to congress.

No wonder George the first, and George the second knew they had a license to screw up and do what they wanted to the American people, after all they had a role model, their father and grandfather who showed them that they too wouldn't be punished.

[Phx_Dem]

8. Except that things are getting better. n/t

[ProSense]

9. People will continue to

advocate doom and not recognize the silver linings.

They think that Republicans with their new power in the House can destroy the economy and win.

Imagine, out of power they can destroy the economy and win. With power, they can destroy the economy and win.

The doom formula = Republicans are never accountable and all powerful.

Yet they were held accountable in 2006 and 2008.

[Hydra]

11. The republicans would not be a problem

If our party and the WH were working for us. They didn't, and won't, therefore the Grand Ol' Perverts are still a threat, rather than in the dustbin of history.

"All that is necessary for evil to triumph is for good men to do nothing"

and

"Given the choice between a Republican and someone who acts like a Republican, people will vote for the real Republican..."

President Obama used his mandate(and you guys) in order to revive the Republican Party...because they have such "Good Ideas."

[TheMadMonk]

43. Really? Certain things are marginally better than when Bush left office.

The morgtage and job situations are arguably worse, though I will allow that that was a runnaway train with too much momentum to turn around.

Show me just one thing of significance that has impvroved since Bush TOOK office.

Two faltering steps forward under the Democratic Party is no fucking good at all, when it's three steps (at least) back under the Republicans.

[Phx_Dem]

46. Better is better, marginally or otherwise,

The jobs situation is MUCH better. We gained 159,000 jobs in October, which is more than double the consensus forecast. Meanwhile, August and September were revised higher by 110,000. In January 2008, when Obama took office, we lost 750,000. Now we're actually gaining jobs every month instead of losings half a million or more each month.

The unemployment number is too high, but you have to look beyond that for the actual facts. Gaining jobs vs losing jobs, which is better?

The manufacturing sector also continued to grow in October with the ISM Manufacturing Index expanding 2.5 points. In a positive sign for future growth, new orders and employment both showed gains. Additionally, the service sector expanded more than expected in October on increases in orders and backlogs.

Also, GDP has seen positive growth for the past five months.

[golfguru]

13. This is hi-way robbery pure and simple

"C.E.O.’s of the largest American companies earned an average of 42 times as much as the average worker in 1980, but 531 times as much in 2001. Perhaps the most astounding statistic is this: From 1980 to 2005, more than four-fifths of the total increase in American incomes went to the richest 1 percent."

I have worked and seen corporate operation from the inside.
The CEO types are paid way more than their contribution to success of the corporation. I can write a book about this.

I am all for competition and free markets but there has to be a limit on the compensation of the highest paid employee in relation to the lowest paid in each corporation. A ratio of 100 is more than enough generous. Realistically it should be no more than 50.

This is my biggest disappointment of 2008-2010 years.
It could have been done with majority everywhere. And
would have been popular with the public. Instead we spent
months on a crappy HCR bill which only rewards the private for profit insurers and does nothing for 95% of middle class.

[SunsetDreams]

16. K&R Wake up America!

[felix_numinous]

17. It is time to expose the obstructionists as really dysfunctional, and to

not follow them over the cliff. Many of these people actually want to bring on end times, so we need to expose these people with this doomsday philosophy as not fit to lead a nation.

[CaptainFreedom]

19. They Didn't Proclaim Obama Screwed Up

That's just the spin on the election. Citizens were confused and upset with the status quo. Their polling data shows it, as I point out here: http://www.opednews.com/articles/The-People-Didn-t-Speak-by-Jayson-Harsin-101107-512.html

[corkhead]

24. nice article, welcome to DU, I am in agreement

We are almost completely powerless and we are limited to only having a chance every 2 or 4 years to take it out on the "representatives" we are stuck with. The only power we have is to vote against who is currently in office.

"I am voting for the best candidate regardless of party" is bullshit because the person we are actually voting for doesn't really matter when it is all said and done; they almost always vote in lockstep for their party anyway.

:toast:

[Beartracks]

20. K&R - Wow, what an analogy! ...

... "We can't keep a lid on forever, and we damn well can't let the conservatives be the ones deciding where to channel the blast."

------------------------

[gtar100]

21. FYI - The Republicans have *not* taken over America

It's as diverse and cacaphonic as it was the day before the election.

What didn't happen is practically 60% of eligable voters did not vote. The youth and young who came out for Obama in 2008 did not vote. But that doesn't mean they've disappeared. They only made themselves irrelevant to the political parties.

[geckosfeet]

22. Vote first - ask questions later. Got to wonder. eom

[girl gone mad]

23. You spent the past two years denying the reality of our current crisis..

and you're still well behind the curve of our economic progress.

Obama has cast his lot in with the deficit terrorists. His fate will be the fate of most of us now. There will be no further stimulus, no needed 'Keynesian' economic boost. There will be more cuts to "entitlement" programs, more austerity and a trumped up trade war for show. These moves can only usher in further pain for the working classes.

The vile and vindictive Tea Party is just as likely to reward Republicans for causing their neighbor's misery as they are to punish Republicans for their own financial hardships.

The deleveraging has hardly begun and another financial crisis looms large. Economic and political instability are baked into our national cake.

We had our chance - a once in 3 decades opportunity to bring real reform, real hope and real economic progress - but the leadership foolishly put personal and political goals ahead of sound policy. The individual price they'll pay pales in comparison to all of the promise they traded away, in the name of pragmatism.

[ProSense]

25. "We had our chance - a once in 3 decades opportunity "

You spent the past two years complaining and evidently missed this.

[RainDog]

30. public service message

fwiw -

your posts are ineffectual when you merely post a hyperlink without any text to provide context for people who may be interested in what you have to say but who may not be convinced that what you have to say is necessarily worth clicking on a link to be taken out of a thread.

if your goal here is to argue persuasively, you might want to consider having the courtesy to create context within a thread.

but if you just want people to skip over what you post, you should continue to create links the way you do.

this isn't just about you personally, but you are one of the biggest offenders.

it's sort of egotistical to assume people think what you have to say is so important they will go elsewhere simply because of create a link when you are supposed to be making an argument on a forum.

[guruoo]

47. I too find prosense's linking thing disgusting, but...

only when I'm in disagreement with her. :rofl:

[scentopine]

26. Remember when these blue inkers said the tea party was a gift for democrats?

Having screwed the pooch, and jumped the track, and wrecked the train, and crashed the plane, and steered into the iceberg, all the while driving off the cliff, the centrists are on the road again, patting themselves on the back for navigating to a victory!

The centrists are now saying, "The Republicans didn't win, the Democrats executed a brilliant chess move to ensure victory in the 2012 World Series."

Keep in mind these are the same people who said the Tea Party would be a gift to the democrats. I've rarely seen such smug indifference to the rapidly declining American condition than that which is regularly espoused by centrist operatives. OFA and DLC should be quarantined. They are spreading the blue flu, the casualty rate goes up every time centrists posts vacuous abstract assertions and unfounded free-market hooey.

There's one thing you'll never hear form a centrist - an apology for leading the country down the wrong path and a promise to work more closely with liberals. All the bi-partisanship is strictly reserved for the republicans.

[ProSense]

27. "centrists are now saying, 'The Republicans didn't win, the Democrats executed a brilliant chess'"

Actually, what the centrists are saying: here and here.

Some people want their own way, even if they have to ignore reality to claim they're right.

[GOTV]

38. Hopefully most of the 7-dimensional chess crowd is doing a lot of reflecting ...

... because we were beaten badly.

Although I know there are some here that still claim Obama and the Dems are blameless (read: powerless) for this and the admin should continue to carry on as before.

Even Obama says he deserves them blame and he's right. This loss was his to prevent. If only we could all see it so we may all push together to get Obama and the Dems moving in the correct direction.

[ishaneferguson]

28. We are a second - or third - rate power

or to borrow Noah Chomsky's characterization - we are a failed state.

Like others who have become in land wars in Asia (VietNam), or in the ME (Iraq) or in Afghanistan -- we have broken the bank.

[madrchsod]

29. excellent article

the decline of union working class started around 74-76. carter started deregulation , reagan followed carter's lead,and clinton finished with nafta.

[quaker bill]

33. The conservo - libertarians I know

are all taken with the vision of a "main street USA" of moms and pops running small businesses, "creating jobs" and building the economy.

I had a granduncle who was the perfect example of their ideal. He ran the town "general store" and was captain of the volunteer fire department. He did not survive long enough, but if he had, his general store would have been driven out of business by a mega mart, as so many have been.

If this is what they want, I say we should go back to the policies that caused such small businesses to thrive when they were in fact dominant. These would include: protectionist trade barriers and tarriffs, high marginal tax rates on the wealthy, inheritance taxes, high corporate taxes, frequent anti-trust enforcement, and stronger trade unions.

You need policies that protect the wages and benefits of the working class and tax policy that redistributes wealth in a way that builds the social infrastructure used by all. You also need anti-trust enforcement to prevent the economics of mega scale from blowing small businesses out of the water.

The whole point of inheritance taxes was not to prevent the accumulation of wealth, but to cause each generation to work hard for it, as opposed to simply inheriting it.

There is no socially tenable arrangement where American workers will ever be able to compete, dollar for dollar, with overseas workers who earn a dollar or two a day. No amount of training or reform to the education system will address this basic issue. We have to give up the notion that we can "train" our way out of the impacts of globalization, the jobs simply need trade protections to sustain differential pay. This has always been true, but it is time we recognize it again.

As long as Wal Mart can bring in vast quantities cheap off-shored crap the notion of mom and pop being able to run a general store is toast. The notion that Ralph Cramden and Ed Norton can get simple jobs and support their families is also toast.

If you like "back in the day" stuff, you need to understand the environment in which it existed, and head in that direction. What these folks miss is that after the industrial revolution and the creation of multi-national corporations, this environment only existed through government policies designed to maintain it. Remove the policy support and that culture dies at the hands of ever growing corporations and a permanent landed aristocracy.

[old mark]

34. Rec. I am always amazed when I read people criticizing others for being harsh to GOPers...

as if we somehow become like the Nazis by rightly calling them Nazis. Leftists of ALL DEGREES, if you are not angry now, what the hell will it take and when will it happen?

mark

[GOTV]

36. Well, when our own president is afraid to attack the GOP some take their cues from that.

[spicegal]

35. Good article. After 30-40 years of conservative policies,

we can now see with certainty the fallout, which hasn't been good for working/middle class Americans. The Bush years were only the culmination, not an anomaly, as conservatives seemingly claim. Why can't Dems drive this point home. Use graphs to illustrate. Keep it simple.

[LynneSin]

40. I don't know about the rest of you but I sure ain't letting the shoe drop

Time to reorganize and fight back bigger, stronger, better!

[BlueJac]

41. There is one problem here.........

Are there any progressives in Washington anymore? Obama does not act like one, from his economic policies, trade polices all the way to his war policies. Obama is right of center.


The article is right but who do we have to implement it?

[dotymed]

42. The Rethugs are great

at getting their message out. Of course, they are media controlled also...corporations..they run our nation.
Many do not agree or think it "politically useful",but I truly believe that if
"The Fairness Doctrine" were reinstated, Democrats (progressive too) could get their message out much easier.
The "news" would have to be aimed at educating the people with "facts."
Wow, what a concept.

[mstinamotorcity]

44. Well I can't wait until

their cronies wake up. And when they do I hope Democrats have banned together to offer economic power to the new poor.


TOMBStone