Monday, March 29, 2010

Carolina Chocolate Drops performing "Hit' Em Up Style"

How Can It Get Any Worse?

From TPM Livewire

Sen. Lamar Alexander (R-TN) said on CNN's State of the Union that Obama
has thrown "fuel on the fire at a time when the civil, when the debate
about politics is a very angry debate to begin with."

"What this is going to do is cause the election of a lot more
Republican Scott Browns in November who are determined to come in and
provide some checks and balances in Washington to stop the overreaching
of the government," he added

It would be impossible, or nearly so, for things to get much worse in the US Senate with the GOP obstructing about every thing that moves. It is the modus operandi and low brow political tactics of the party of personal responsibility. Fist make impossible for Obama to effectively run the government with record holds on various appointees, then when Obama has no choice but to make emergency recess appointments in key government agency positions, the right wing cries foul and that Obama is poisoning a well of comity that does not exist thanks to GOP obstruction. And if he doesn't fill these critical positions, it opens him up to GOP charges of incompetence and mismanagement when agencies fall short of their mandates to congress. It is abut the most cynical and depraved method of politicking and with a clueless or amiable media, it seems to be working, for now.

Some of this type of sparing is normal for political posturing in the senate done by both parties when a president of the other party holds the White House. But the republicans under Obama have taken it to an entirely different level with not only appointment holds, but record filibusters and other parliamentary trickery. It borders on sedition toward fostering failure of the government to function.

And HCR is just the most recent claim that Obama is governing like some kind of Marxist Dictator, when the only thing he is guilty of is passing laws well within the rules that the GOP doesn't like. Or, a duly elected government with democrats given a huge majority to govern, which they have done well within Obama's campaign promise to reform health care. With the truth being, the HCR bill that passed was much more conservative than liberal, with many provisions inserted by republicans.

And now we get, after all the lies and distortions the GOP has put out on HCR, charges of democrats passing laws that are not wanted by the public, a public that is so thoroughly confused from the lies and distortions from the right, based on mostly a single pollster called Rasmussen, a known GOP polling outfit.











Saturday, March 27, 2010

Debt and Deception

They are still playing from the Reagan playbook of “tax and spend” liberals, being the party of cheap pseudo jingoism.
And part of the con is to effort the debt into a big problem with the public. Usually doesn’t work very well, but this time Bush’s massive tax cuts to rich people, unnecessary expensive Iraq adventure, and the corporate wingnut welfare that is Medicare part d, exploded the deficit before Obama came along, that all together, along with little regulation of the finance sector, caused an unbalanced supply side to demand in the economy, that imploded it, and then needed drastic rescue from taxpayers that added greatly more to the deficit.
Part of that was the plan all along, to run up the debt with unpaid for wreckless wingnut priority spending to later thwart liberals from enacting social programs that actually benefit ordinary citizens. Though not the finance sector meltdown.
The size of the debt now, I believe, has become a viable campaign issue that is favoring wingers, especially with independent swing voters that decide elections. And the fact that the right caused nearly all of it, wingnuts know will likely not register with the here and now for those independents that are low info and subject to be brainwashed by the wingnut wurlitzer, that grinds out daily the bullshit they lap up.
I never take lightly, the salesmanship of repubs when they create viable talking points and false memes that register with the nano short attentions span that is the American electorate. They can be relentlessly on message as a group to a degree dems do not come close to matching, and I believe incapable of it due to the basic psychology of the liberal mind. We value individual opinions for the most part, that does not fit well with regimented messaging. Though we could do some better than we do.
The wingers are experts at the lies and plausible deniability, mainly because they have no conscience and no shame. And they never ever quit with the bullshit they often can make themselves actually believe.
And though I give big kudos to Obama and dems in congress for passing HCR and the huge stimulus that wasn’t that but a long term prog investment. These things have, along with repubs wreckless spending and governance in general, has made this a viable issue, simply due to the enormous numbers of debt and an economy still sputtering forward, but sputtering nonetheless.
Obama and dems need for the economy to hurry up and recover and start producing jobs, otherwise, Nov will not be kind, though I do doubt now that wingers will take over either chamber of congress. They will put a serious dent in dem majorities however.

Monday, March 22, 2010

The wingnut whine is deep and loud out there today. A body can hardly keep from giggling at their thrashing to and fro and spittle flecked threats ranging from signing petitions to civil war. It is the sound of a dying mindset that has been dying for a long time, but in between with spurts of life, followed by abject failure and the continuing death spiral. And it has caused this country great harm as with Reaganomics the past 30 years.

It is the myth of the Perfect American, that never gets sick, broke, nor victim of circumstance. Romanticized in movies and novels from a time when there were a lot fewer of us, lesser technology, and lesser knowledge in general. The John Wayne icon of the self sufficient American tower of strength that never needs help nor compassion, an apparition of American Exceptionalism, that has fogged the reality that we are no more, or less, human than any other human on this earth, but we are industrious and blessed with natural resources like few other peoples.

This myth that has been fiercely promoted and defended by the conservative mindset contains faulty premise toward one lie after another, and caused us to sell our souls more than once to act out this image of infallibility wrongly married to the notion of doing good and being noble, see Iraq and Vietnam.

But the underbelly of this beast is riddled with greed, avarice and hypocrisy that has in the case of health care been turned over to the light of day where the disinfectant of sunlight will further expose the lie of faux individuality. It is a lie that sees 50,000 Americans a year die needlessly because they can’t get decent Health Care.

When this bill goes into effect fully, and even partially, it will begin to change the paradigm of past denials by the general populace, whereas a kind of forced subservience has been the norm for so long. The problem, or one big one, for people accepting the truth they are being swindled, is the fact that out of 80 percent of those who have had health care insurance privately, at any one point in time, only a small fraction of those face severe illness or injury and have to enter the killing zone of the American health insurance industry. And suffer the fate of greedy people with no rules to contain their greed, greed that kills prematurely and increases suffering of those afflicted. The other 70 percent see this happen to their neighbors and friends, but the status quo of powerlessness creates some powerful denial, that it won’t happen to them.

This is one big reason behind the fears and gullibility the greedy wingnuts keep their marks in line with, and easily swayed by their lies that democrats want to kill granny and you, and why it has been so hard to rally support among the public, over the many times reform has been attempted.

Lots of mistakes were made, for sure, and what passed was short of the ultimate mark to finally reign in this greed, but it was a lot more than liberal critics admit. It is a progressive flag planted in to center of capitalist governance mentality the wingnuts worship, and they will not be able to remove it, and over time prevent more flags being planted.

And all the while, the masses will become empowered to expect justice because it is now attainable in a fairly big dose, or what Obama called a patient bill of rights on steroids, that will break the denial of those who haven’t become sick yet and thus victimized when they thought they were covered. This is how social change happens, rarely, if ever, all at once. It is true progressivism that by it’s nature is never the perfect.

I wonder what Abe Lincoln would have thought of this bill, or Mark Twain, or anyone who lived during the time our wingnuts tell us of the self sufficient rugged individualistic Perfect American able to do everything self sufficiently.

I bet they would vote for it. Yes siree.