Posts Tagged ‘medicare’
An open letter to the President, and both the Democratic and Republican Parties…
- Hell, even GW Bush is impressed with how far to the right you managed to push budget negotiations… you know, to help the people you uh, you promised to help?
Hello…
So, I might as well address this to the highest ranking of you, though I’m not so sure that’s something to be proud of these days…in fact, from where I sit it’s something to be rather ashamed of but nonetheless, this goes out to Obama, Pelosi, Boehner, Cantor, Reid, Geithner, Bernanke, McConnell…
Yeah, all of you public servants(?)
Okay, something is happening in this country that none of you really seem to understand…I mean, have you looked around yourselves lately? In the cities? Have you read the polls? Have you bothered for a moment to look past your office walls, your meeting rooms and political staffers and handlers and their gratuitous nods of the head?
I don’t think you have…
You see, I and a lot of other Americans read the news and I don’t know about you politicians, but what I’m reading lately simply doesn’t make sense.
Poll after poll shows that Americans want taxes raised on the wealthy and the safety net? They want it left alone. It’s almost universal, bipartisan…consider these headlines of late: 68% of Millionaires support raising taxes on millionaires and Poll: Tax the rich, corporations and Vast Majority Of Americans Favor Buffett Rule’s Millionaire Tax: Poll Also consider these: Washington Post/Bloomberg poll: Even GOP majorities say tax rich, protect Social Security, Medicare and New Poll shows Republicans have it all wrong with Social Security and Attacks on Social Security called “un-American” and Faith groups target ‘Super Committee’ on poverty
That all seems a pretty clear message.
Yet, then I read this bullshit: Boehner Dismisses Democratic Super Committee Proposal As Unserious
Now, I happen to agree with Boehner about this, but me and the majority of Americans? Our reasons are quite different from Boehner and the GOP’s reasons for disagreeing with the proposal. Boehner says the Dem proposal is unserious because it raises taxes on the wealthy whereas I disagree with the Democratic’s proposal because it proposes billions in dollars in cuts to Medicare, even more extensive cuts than the Catfood Commission’s proposal. The cuts however, Boehner is almost fine with except he wants them to go deeper than the Democrats have proposed…
Okay, so…in light of all this, what the hell is wrong with you politicians?
You’re not listening…or maybe you are. Maybe you are listening quite intently, you’re just not listening to the majority of Americans, instead keeping your focused ear intently on your campaign donors, the financial institutions, big money lobbyists…essentially anyone but the American people.
Seems fairly evident, but I suspect you all might disagree with this assessment. Yeah, two words to that…fuck you. I’m not stupid, please stop treating me as such.
So then, if you are there in DC to do the work of the people, why is it you choose to ignore the people completely? This is why you have a 9% approval rating, Congress. Oh, and Boehner, Cantor, McConnell and the rest of you GOP hacks, what the American public really wants are jobs. Jobs!!!! And jobs aren’t created by lower taxes on the wealthy. Stop your bullshit, they aren’t. Jobs are created by demand. Demand is created by people with money to spend, keeping the social safety net and unemployment benefits puts money in people’s pockets, which they then spend which creates demand, which creates jobs. Know what else creates jobs? Spending on infrastructure, which again puts money in people’s pockets…and so on and so forth. Austerity makes everybody broke, nobody spends, no demand…it ain’t that hard to figure out…are you all just fucking stupid? Now, I know you have said that you’re spending cuts thus far enacted have created jobs, but they haven’t. In fact, they have done the opposite: REPORT: House GOP’s ‘Job Creating’ Spending Cuts Destroyed 370,000 Jobs.
Oh, and Barack and Nancy? Let’s not get all full of righteous indignation on this one. Last week, the GOP decided to put you guys in the corner by agreeing to one part of your jobs agenda, while linking it with a budget cut item: House GOP Lays Trap For Obama On Jobs Plan. Yeah, the GOP agreed to end a three percent withholding tax on private contractors intended to keep corporations from cheating the government on taxes, and in return the GOP proposed to pay for this by limiting Medicaid eligibility for people who also receive social security benefits.
Wasn’t that nice of them?
Private contractors get the a-ok to cheat on their taxes, paid for by kicking grandma and the disabled off their health insurance.
Well, it would seem this GOP proposal was tailor-made for the Democrats to stand up, just say no, go to bat for those less fortunate and tell the GOP to blow while explaining to the American people what the GOP was trying to get away with…except the Democrats didn’t do this. Nope. Instead, they agreed.
More money for the wealthy, more costs for the poor.
I seem to be picking up on a pattern here…Barack, Nancy, Harry…who are you standing up for?
You agree to Medicare cuts on the poor and kicking some people off Medicaid, which runs counter to what the American people have said they wanted. And you…Eric, John, and Mitch…you are giving more and more money to the wealthy, at the expense of the poor, which again, is the opposite of what the American people have said they want to see happen…
Yes, a pattern.
And then you wonder why thousands of people are hitting the streets nationwide, fueling the Occupy Wall Street movement.
Oh wait, I forget, many of you have said you understand the people’s frustrations. Yeah, great…well I understand that you’re all a bunch of self-righteous assholes, but that don’t turn you into good people, now does it? Nope. And none of you are doing much about that frustration you claim to understand either, except presenting proposals that either do nothing to address income inequality, or will only serve to make it worse.
In these occupy demonstrations, in all of these different cities, stand Americans of every race, age, class and creed. And you know what else they are? They are the disenfranchised of this country. Do you think these people would be suffering the elements, the police brutality if they really felt that voting for one of you frauds would change anything? Doubtful. These protests, these people are the fruit of your labors, those who believe the system to be broken, or if it is working, it sure ain’t working for them…and not for me either. I’ve attended a few of these rallies in different cities and you know what I see? I see middle-aged couples, the elderly, the young, white, black, hispanic…and all these different members of society, they are uniting against you, against your bullshit ways, your bankrupting ways…your Republican power-grabs and your Democrat craven cavings to the financial industry and the banks…
And speaking of banks…
Hey Bernanke and Geithner, do you honestly think we haven’t been paying attention to what you’re currently letting Bank of America get away with? And Barack, these assholes were appointed by you…so you’re on the hook as well. Right now, your crew, with GOP assent, is seeing fit to allow Bank of America to set up American tax-payers for another huge debt, all so this bank doesn’t have to pay for their own investment mistakes, again. Yes, Bank of America has moved 75 trillion dollars in potentially bad derivatives from its holding company, into Bank of America proper…want to know why?
Because unlike its holding company, Merrill Lynch, Bank of America is FDIC insured, so if these 75 trillion dollars in bad derivatives fail, the government (FDIC) will have to pay out, which of course means, the taxpayers have to pay out, bail out Bank of America for more bad investment decisions. Bernanke, Geithner and Obama are allowing this to happen. They are allowing this to happen to you… once again taking the money from the middle class and potentially giving it to the wealthy to compensate for their poor choices.
So back to that pattern:
The Democratic leadership, in the form of Pelosi, Reid and Obama have shown they are quite willing to cut the social safety net, to cut benefits to the poor and disabled, to the elderly so long as the Republicans are willing to allow some marginal taxes on the rich. The Republican leadership in the form of Cantor, Boehner and McConnell are of course unwilling to do this, no how, no way, and in return for their refusal, they want even deeper cuts to Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security than the Democrats are willing to offer. Meanwhile, the Fed is letting Bank of America off the hook for bad investments again, with American tax-payers potentially footing this bill if the derivatives go bad…again moving money from the poor and middle class to the wealthy.
Yes, a pattern.
These politicians, elected by the American people only agree on one thing, doing whatever it is the American public doesn’t want you to do while at the same time, doing very little about job creation.
Yet all of you feel you should be reelected.
Why is that?
Since the occupation protests have begun, thousands of protestors have been arrested across this country…but of the people working in the financial institutions who caused the recession that led to millions of lost jobs, of bankrupted pensions, savings, cities and states?
Nobody arrested. None. Zero.
Again, why is that?
Are you simply admitting in cold hard arrest statistics that the rule of law is dead, provided you are wealthy enough to have received a Bush tax cut, extended further by Obama? Is that the established line in the sand? If you qualify to receive a tax break due to wealth, the law no longer applies to you?
I’m thinking that rather than being reelected, what should really happen here is Obama, Reid, Pelosi and Bernanke, Cantor, Boehner, McConnell and Geithner, all of you need to wind up in a cell right next to the heads of the major banking institutions in this country. You all, who have taken it upon yourselves to damn your children’s futures for your own selfish gain.
Pathetic, all of you.
Off to jail, lock them in the Bastille…why not? What do we really have to lose anymore? This way, the rest of us can try this again, we can have our country back, see if we can do better and I’m betting we can. After all, you pathetic politicians have lowered the bar so far…be pretty damned impossible to do worse.
Or better yet, get involved with the Occupy Protests in your city, what else you gonna do? Sit bitching on the sidelines? Vote? Yeah, good luck with that…the people currently in power, and the politicians too would like nothing better than for you to just stay home and vote at the appropriate time for one of the politicians they’ve hand-selected to serve (them) you…
Think about it.
And have a nice day, even the aforementioned politicians…right before you trip down your front steps and chip your tooth on the sidewalks our taxes paid for…and if you bloodied your nose, that’d be cool too. Okay…I’m sorry about that last part, not that I didn’t mean it…I’m just sorry about being petty sometimes, trying to work on that…kind-of.
Oh, and P.S. – To the mayor of Oakland, Jean Quan…resign, and take the members of the Oakland Police Department who caused the violence with you…you’re all one collective disgrace…and to San Francisco (interim) mayor, Ed Lee and Police Chief Greg Suhr, stop with the games already…you really want another Oakland on your hands? Seriously…let it go.
GOP job killers…
It's just this simple...
Tonight is Obama’s jobs speech. That’s nice and all, but not really important as evidenced by the reactions of Republican Senators like Mitch McConnell and Jim DeMint who have already figured out nothing Obama could propose will work. “Same failed approach,” McConnell called it.
Interesting, considering for the past two years the GOP hasn’t said much about jobs at all…
But that was then, this is now…of late, taking their cues from the Chamber of Commerce and ALEC, Republicans have decided it is finally time to talk about these jobs. Well, not creating jobs exactly, moreso they want to talk about what kills them. This would appear key to the platform. They cite regulations as being high on the list of what kills jobs in businesses big or small, despite the McClatchy poll of small business owners which found small business owners didn’t agree, nor did the business owners feel taxes were the problem, another key job killer Republicans like to talk up. Oh, and Republicans now say the deficit kills jobs too…and unions, don’t forget the unions. They kill jobs like a motherfucker, worse than a repeal of the Bush tax cuts ever could.
So, we get the GOP list of top job killers and surprisingly, it would appear everything Republicans have a problem with? Yep, somehow kills jobs.
Top 15 job killers:
1. Higher taxes on the wealthy, killing the jobs big time, the less money they have the fewer guards they can employ to make sure liberals don’t steal it.
2. Regulations on the financial industry, it’s a super-duper killer of jobs, especially the jobs’ pension plans.
3. Regulations on the coal industry, kills more jobs than their pollution kills people.
4. Abortion, kills all the jobs them fetuses might of one day created.
5. Obamacare, kills way more jobs than government doctors can save.
6. Unions, their demands for living wages and benefits – jobs assassin.
7. Social Security, money for grandma could be used to create jobs for grandma, jobs she’ll soon need – horrid job killer.
8. Obama’s skin color, kills jobs nationwide, even worse than Boehner’s spray tan or Cantor’s air of self-righteousness.
9. Gay Marriage, if this happens, wealthy people will be too afraid to leave home and create more jobs with all their tax savings.
10. Government Jobs, if people don’t have to work in the private sector, why would wealthy people try to create jobs for them? Job destroyer.
11. Big Government, when government gets too big, it can kills jobs just by taking a step.
12. Teachers, see #6 Unions, and teachers might teach people to think, which in turn might show people that Republican obstructionists might be better replaced by people who care more about their country and less about power.
13. Atheists, because they love to have so many abortions, see #4.
14. Women, because if women just stayed at home where they belong, we wouldn’t need so many jobs.
15. Food Stamps, Medicare, Medicaid, Energy Assistance, Welfare to Work, Planned Parenthood, National Endowment for the Arts, PBS, NPR, NOAA, FDA, because this is all money stolen out of the wallets of the top 1% and if they had their money back, just think of all the extra jobs they’d be creating right now. Seriously. Drowning in jobs. Wouldn’t be able to even see the sky the jobs would be piling up so high, all around us, everywhere, blocking the sun.
Have a nice day.
I figured out Obama’s re-election strategy, finally…
The walk of lame...
And it’s genius.
He did so well the first time running against G.W. Bush and his harsh, conservative record, he has decided to do it again, by simply running against his own first term.
This will of course only require he maintain his current course, because it would appear being “the only adult in the room” is akin to simply caving in and making decisions like, oh…I don’t know, like Obama withdraws smog regulation, overruling EPA, “I want to be clear,” Obama said in a statement sent by the White House, “My commitment and the commitment of my administration to protecting public health and the environment (and the social safety net, labor, the middle class, Reagan’s legacy) is unwavering. I will continue to stand with the hardworking men and women at the EPA as they strive every day to hold polluters accountable and protect our families from harmful pollution.”
And man, how GW Bush is that quote?
Holding polluters accountable, and protecting families by withdrawing regulations on smog?
Orwellian genius, I say…genius.
You see, his campaign strategy only requires he continue his move even further to the right of GW Bush, then he will have only to run a campaign of reason against his own lack of for the past four years (a guaranteed victory), and with the political memories in this country he can get away with it too. It shouldn’t be too hard for collective amnesia to buy into statements such as:
“My fellow Americans…Hope! We need change! Our country just cannot afford four more years of the current administration. It would simply be too disastrous to human rights, the environment, labor unions, privacy, Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid. We need a leader, one who will not cave in at every opportunity to the Republican party, but one who will define, and stand up for a core set of Democratic values, no matter the fight. We need a leader who will stand up for those not represented in Washington today, and not speak of conciliatory gestures and doing the right thing the next time around. We need leadership for the present moment, the today, the right now, and that’s why I know you’ll vote for me, Barack Obama, because we simply cannot afford another four more years of that other guy’s Republican rule.”
And on a side note:
Quick story: I remember talking to a supervisor when I worked at a homeless shelter in San Francisco, and we were talking about the differences between the people of San Francisco and the people of Chicago. We both came to the conclusion that Chicago people were preferable because if they didn’t like you, your beliefs, or had a problem with something you’d done, they’d tell you, to your face, whereas the people in San Francisco would generally speak out both sides of their mouth and you’d have to guess who was being genuine and who had it in for you.
Point being, I know that Obama has a house in Chicago and all…but seriously, he really is not from Chicago.
I think I’d put him right where he is currently residing, DC, cause Jesus is he one duplicitous, conniving fraud, no better than a Cantor, a Boehner or any of the other parasites looting what remains of this country for personal connection, wealth or some bullshit legacy nobody cares about but their own shriveled, limp ego.
Have a nice day.
An “adult crisis” metaphor for the economy…
Politicians keep social workers busy...
Hey everybody…
So, the patient is wheeled into the emergency room on a gurney, after letting his best friend, George W Bush, talk him into slitting open his right wrist. He’s bleeding pretty bad, could die if the doctors don’t act quickly. Hearing the call, Dr. Obama rushes into the room and quickly stitches up the cut, but only a quarter of the way before going on vacation.
But the patient’s still bleeding, so the nurse rushes back to the break room where she finds Dr. Romney, Dr. Perry, Dr. Bachmann, Dr. Boehner and Dr. McConnell. Hearing what has occurred, the doctors nod confidently to one another and go see the patient. They study the bleeding wound, then confer amongst themselves before choosing a new course of action, whereupon they quickly roll up the patient’s shirtsleeve and cut his left wrist wide open too.
Finished, they jet off to Wall Street to party with the whores.
Have a nice day.
Is it just me, or…
Love the way you...
…does it seem each time a politician refers to their budget as “bold” or their ideas as “bold,” or their plan to do anything as “bold,” one can easily replace the word “bold” with “stupid,” or “poorly thought out,” or “really screwing the poor and middle class so don’t look too close, go see the Smurf movie instead, it’s family-damn-tastic!”
Take this example from a Think Progress article where John Boehner tried to say the S+P didn’t downgrade US credit because of GOP unwillingness to consider revenue increases, but instead because Obama (kinda-sorta) wouldn’t let them eliminate Medicare:
Boenher said:
“The President and the Democratic leadership in Washington are trying to blame the tea party, because they know this downgrade is on [the Democrats] (Hmm…that’s a lie). When we took the bold step of proposing entitlement reforms, they reacted not by embracing them and joining us, but by demonizing those proposals for political gain.”
See how that works?
Bold…as in, “Hey man, I was thinking we could save a lot on Grandma’s health care if we were to just tie her hands and feet and throw her off the Crescent City Connection, taking that strong an inititiative would be a truly bold move.”
Have a nice day.
I’m not a child, Barack, but I do still work in the community, you?
...abandon you, your ideas and ideals, your hopes and dreams and stuff...
On ABC’s This Week, White House Political Director David Plouffe said:
“This isn’t about playing on a Republican playing field. This country, our economy, has to reduce the deficit, we have to live within our means. And if you’re a progressive, there’s a powerful case for deficit reduction. Things like college loans, college scholarships, spending on things like roads and bridges that put construction workers to work, if we don’t reduce the deficit in the not too distant future, we’re not going to have room to do any of that. So we’re going to have to live within our means…”
David? Barack? All of you who would pump up your own credentials on the backs of the poor?
Those of us out here in this country who tend to believe we are all in this thing called the United States together are not children. We don’t need to be lectured. We understand what it looks like when politicians take compassion and bastardize it for their own benefit. We understand what it looks like when rich complain about private jet traffic jams getting their kids to summer camp in Maine, while a Democratic President allows Medicare cuts. We understand what an enormous tax break for the wealthy looks like, while the poor get screwed.
We do.
And so do the wealthier ones:
Why the Wealthy Are Afraid Of Violence From Below
We understand, Barack, that a cuts only budget deal with some half-baked promise of the potential for maybe…we’ll see, and think about later loophole closures, is good enough for you and your Republican friends.
Friends like Warren Buffet who said,
“There’s class warfare, all right,” Warren Buffett, the world’s third-richest man, said in 2006, “but it’s my class, the rich class, that’s making war, and we’re winning.” Buffett had done the math and realized that he paid far less, as a fraction of his income, than the secretaries in his office.
We get it.
And we agree, this country does have to reduce its deficits. Many of us tend to read economists though, a whole lot of economists who almost as a rule say austerity cuts, especially in a recession are a bad idea. Shit, ask Britain how well their version of austerity (cuts only, no revenue) isn’t working.
It’s actually pretty simple…follow along:
Budget cuts lead to lost income for many, many people. When people lose income, they don’t spend. When other people see people lose income, they don’t spend either. If nobody spends, businesses don’t make money. If businesses don’t make money, the economy doesn’t grow. If there’s no growth, no new jobs are created. No new jobs leads to lost income for many.
And we’re back…
Want to know what else we read?
We read articles like this:
Poll Numbers Show Public Prefers Revenue Solutions To Cuts, But All of Them Have Been Abandoned
Why the Wealthiest Americans Are the Real ‘Job-Killers’
Top Reagan Advisors: Raise Taxes on the Wealthy
We also read:
So, don’t lecture people who care about others, believing they don’t understand the deficit, how we got here, or that we don’t really understand what it means to the future. We do. We just think you either can’t read or don’t listen to economists or the American people…or maybe your self-interest outweighs your compassion and ability, your necessity, to fight for the people you made all those promises to, and now see fit to lecture.
Either way, the poor and middle class are getting screwed, again, by a Democratic President…on a Republican playing field.
So…fuck you.
Have a nice day.
The Most Irresponsible Post I’ll Ever Write…on the Debt Ceiling
Remember: they did it to you, responsibly...so whatever you do, don't respond in an irresponsible way towards them, their institutions or the industries and high finance that props them up...
Responsibility and irresponsibility to whom, a people, a political party, a pledge…
As we’ve sat back, watching this debt ceiling debate rage on, I continue to be struck by what Democrats and Republicans deem to be okay, what they consider to be responsible.
It is responsible for both parties to give three trillion dollars in tax breaks to the richest people in this country, under the pretense this will create jobs…but it won’t. It didn’t when Bush first gave these hand-outs to our country’s wealthiest and since Obama renewed the tax cuts…nope, no jobs yet.
It is also responsible to call Social Security and Medicare “entitlements,” even though they aren’t. I’m paying for them now under the understanding I get them back later…how about you? But, it is responsible for both the GOP and the Democratic President to take this money away from you, to reduce a deficit the GOP created with those tax cuts for millionaires and a few odd wars. It is responsible to bail out banks who caused the recession that led to a drop in revenue, while at the same time leaving the middle class and poor to suffer even more by not helping them with their foreclosures, which are being done fraudulently by the same banks the government bailed out after causing the recession…and it is responsible for us, the American people to ignore this cycle.
Oh, and it is responsible to sign pledges to help oneself get elected to office, despite the fact these pledges keep one from being free to exercise conscience when it is needed most.
Also, it is responsible to play politics and tricks while the economy inches closer to a crash, displaying loyalty not to your country, but to a political party. It is responsible to do a short debt ceiling deal so each party can take another crack at the narrative, all over again, and during an election year when politicians are always known to be at their most responsible. Why? Because it is responsible for everybody to distort and misrepresent facts (lie) for the party’s political gain.
It is responsible to preside, willingly and knowingly, without attempting any sort of change, over the greatest separation of wealth in any industrialized country, by far, just as it is responsible for both parties to allow the deregulation of commodities markets which drive the prices up on food and oil, thus allowing financial institutions to make even more money on the extra money you pay and place it directly into their already burgeoning vaults.
And through this debt ceiling debate, it is responsible, as the people’s representatives to blatantly ignore what every poll of the American people has to say: make a deal built on balance: tax the rich and cut spending). Why? Because it is responsible to place more importance on a pledge to one man (Grover Norquist) than to the populace of your nation.
Essentially, the White House, Republicans and Democrats are deciding it is responsible to cut programs for the poor that help keep people from destitution, while at the same time keeping programs for the wealthy to help those with a great deal of money, get even more and most importantly…it is the responsiblity for us, the American citizens to sit back and accept what they decide is in our best interest, the politicians, the financial institutions, their lobbyists…all because we will have the chance to engage later in very responsible acts, such as voting.
Yes, it is the height of responsibility for us to accept our political representatives utter disregard for what we, the people of this country feel is most important.
Why is that?
Perhaps because truth in fact, Democrats and Republicans in the White House, Congress and the Supreme Court know little to nothing about responsibility and irresponsibility…to us.
A demonstration perhaps?
Simple, all one need do is take a look at what these elected leaders would consider irresponsible, should we, as Americans decide their responsibility is anything but…responsible.
They would consider it irresponsible for Americans to, on the same day, suddenly withdraw all funds, save the minimum at the following banks: Wells Fargo, Bank of America and Chase, because crashing the banks that crashed our economy would be the height of irresponsibility.
They would consider it irresponsible if we demanded these corporations, lending institutions and investment firms begin to at least pay the same tax rates we have to pay, because those same corporations, lending institutions and investment firms find it responsible to stop lending and to defraud investors, while the corporations cut the jobs they are supposed to be helping create.
They would consider it irresponsible to consider, there might be a better way to manage our affairs then a one party system that is equally corrupted by high finance, these same institutions that place profits over Americans well-being, confidence and security…
They would consider it irresponsible to take protests personal, to the homes of every CEO involved in causing the recession, and every politician who did nothing to prevent, stop or fix it.
They would consider it irresponsible to shut down Wall Street by demonstrably large protest…every day, after day, after day…
They would consider it irresponsible for Americans to be upset over the fact that if a debt ceiling deal is not reached, while Social Security checks, Veterans Benefits and the like may not go out, Congress will continue to receive their salaries.
They would consider it irresponsible if demands were made to actually take care of the elderly, the disabled and the sick.
They would consider it irresponsible for American citizens to start demanding justice, and stop being content with platitudes and condescension, especially if we demanded jobs programs through infrastructure repair, or that rather than defunding the EPA and Planned Parenthood, we demanded they defund the insurance industry and oil and natural gas companies.
They would consider it irresponsible to begin considering laws optional, much in the same way Wall Street and politicians do, everyday.
They would consider it irresponsible to imagine a Robin Hood scenario being played out in every town and every city across this country, just as they would consider it irresponsible to stop paying for food, and it would be especially irresponsible if people tried to align with the police to defend us against political and financial encroachment.
They would consider it irresponsible to engage in widespread, community meetings, and begin to have conversations about how everyone can help take care of each other, especially if your community organizations start linking up with other community organizations to the point we started to do it ourselves, for ourselves…and if successful, should any politician try to step in and take some sort of credit, it would be irresponsible to marginalize their presence the way they marginalize our hopes.
They would consider it irresponsible for American citizens, as a rule, to interrupt and sabotage any live remote news coverage by any major news channel, especially by pointing out that each of these news channels are owned by the same set of corporations that profited and continue to profit on your suffering, just as they would consider it irresponsible to start engaging in selective, but mass property damage on a nationwide scale…again targeting the institutions that made it possible for this country to default, for you to lose your job, for your pension to have suddenly been disappeared.
Why?
Because they would really consider it irresponsible if people watched less television, consumed less and had a lot more conversations about just how responsible politicians and their supporting industries were being, and also about what the people might do about that sense of responsibility.
They would consider it irresponsible if politicians were no longer able to go out-of-doors anymore without having to clean off the spit once they’ve returned back indoors, or for me as a social worker who works crisis lines to point out how many more calls I am getting from people who are unemployed, out of options, and the places they would normally go to for help, either are out of funds or no longer exist anymore because wealthy people didn’t have enough money to create the jobs they forgot to create.
A few politicians would also find it irresponsible to point out Ayn Rand was not an American icon, she was a parasite who fed off the government she claimed to both detest and find obstructive, and she deserved to be disappeared, just as quickly as the financial institutions disappeared your savings.
Oh yes, and one party would consider it the height of irresponsibility for their constituents to wake up and realize gay discrimination and God won’t keep their jobs from being outsourced, their health care rates from going up and their future options being undone, while another party would consider it equally irresponsible for their constituents to wake up and realize how they no longer represent the middle class and working people because they need the same campaign contributions the other party does, and how they have been coasting on legacy since the Carter administration…and financial institutions would consider it irresponsible for either parties constituents to wake up…
…Ever.
Especially if citizens should, when they wake up, consider their notions of irresponsibility and responsibility to have been in error, and consider that now is as good a time as any to make the institutional predators of this country very uncomfortable.
And some might wonder, would doing that be irresponsible, or responsible?
Hard to say for sure…
Have a nice day.
Obama’s problem…quickly becomes everybody’s problem….
You're welcome...
So then, according to the President, the best way to lead is to give up from the start?
From David Dayden at Firedoglake:
“…but there’s also a difference between the person who views those procedural blockages for what they are, and sees opportunities for pressuring those blockages through the court of public opinion, for making it difficult on those holding up progress to sustain themselves, for using elections as a lever to enable progress, and even for changing the fundamental structures to bring our democracy up to date to meet the challenges of the 21st century, and… Barack Obama. Because here he doesn’t just acknowledge the need for compromise. He glories in it. He sees it as “part of the process of growing up.” It’s juvenile to act on your own beliefs, to draw bright lines that cannot be crossed, to express core convictions. “Don’t set up a situation where you’re guaranteed to be disappointed,” Obama says. That’s the worst thing that could ever happen. He makes an enemy out of disappointment, when it can just as easily be a rallying point, an opportunity to show a better path next time.”
Man, life could have been so much easier if I’d only been different in two very important ways: if I believed in God, and if I also believed in giving the shaft to the disabled, the mentally ill, the elderly and the homeless…if only I felt more comfortable telling these people, well, you apparently needed to plan better, needed to just get over your issues, or find a job…if only I felt it really was that simple, that a Church and a bumper sticker slogan could solve every problem in this world. Then I could be a self-congratulating Republican beating the crap out of (someone else’s) Grandma with the heirloom family bible…sure, I might be an utter bastard, but I’d at least be content and going to heaven.
Who knew this president would be the powerful’s new BFF…and proclaim giving up on your beliefs is the new American way? Many kind of hoped he might change that…curses, foiled again!
Read the article:
And two more interesting pieces read recently:
Here’s what Matt Taibbi had to say about the very real possibility Obama never wanted a progressive budget at all, and the damage that has done to his bargaining position or lack there-of:
Taibbi: Obama’s not pretending. He doesn’t want a Progressive budget deal.
And one more, now that we know Obama has not ever really been about the middle and lower class, how could a McCain victory actually been to the benefit of all the people Obama was supposed to help, and didn’t:
If McCain Had Won – Fred Branfman
You might think if you’re a Democrat, having a Democratic president would mean he is on your side, but it appears increasingly clear, this president is on the side of himself, first and foremost, that, and getting re-elected.
Have a nice day.
British Petroleum enters debt ceiling fray, demands spending cuts nationwide…
Nasty as they wanna be...
In a shocking development affecting both the Gulf Coast and the nation, BP joined in with GOP finger pointing and now argue if they are required to tighten their belts any further, the same goes for the rest of the Gulf too. The oil company argued their case in a 29 page document made public Friday and filed with both the GCCF and the White House.
The company says the free ride is over, the Gulf is vastly improved so the time for fiscal responsibility is now, lest any more than necessary from the $20 billion oil spill fund be handed out to claimants and real deficit reduction for the Gulf Coast and this country becomes endangered.
A GOP spokesman reiterated the company’s position, “Spending is out of control and must be curtailed so BP and other corporate clients do not have their privileges endangered. Jobs are needed now and a rise in taxes will only curtail job creation from oil platforms across the Gulf to servants’ quarters across the Hamptons. Claimants, BP argues, though suffering from oil spill damages must give up their fair share of compensation now, or the country’s fiscal solvency and their childrens’ futures will be placed at the brink.
Though Ken Feinberg and the White House did not give an official response, several aides who wished to remain unidentified spoke with reporters late Friday afternoon, “It would certainly seem unreasonable at this late stage to end these payments,” said one, “We gave the GOP their no-sue clause and the extension of the Bush tax cuts and they gave us nothing. If we were now to put on the table Social Security cuts, the future feasibility of interim payments, or extra compensation to oyster fishers or even Medicare and Medicaid, what possible leverage would we have?”
Another undisclosed aide offered, “Feinberg and Obama have all but said if the latest studies find people have been poisoned by the oil they will have no recourse to the GCCF and in doing so, have not only already saved BP millions more in potential damages, but hinted to Cantor, Boehner and the rest of the Tea Party faithful their willingness to put the interests of corporations and the top 1% far above the needs of everyday Americans, and in response to these concession, BP then demanded the whole negotiation be moved even further to the right, more cuts, more savings, and not a dollar more revenue, non-negotiable.”
“The GOP wants to argue that British Petroleum creates jobs and therefore should not have to be taxed the entire $20 billion dollars,” added another, ”but the simple fact is British Petroleum’s present problems are their own fault. Like investment bankers demanding spending cuts and government protection from the effects of the recession they caused, BP and the GOP seem to think people without jobs, or who need additional assistance should suffer so BP CEO’s and stockholders can hang onto their tax loopholes and private jets. This argument should be a non-starter.”
Other people outside of the White House also weighed in on the latest developments, James Carville, caught by one reporter seethed, “This is ridiculous! They’ve only just started studies into the health of the Gulf Coast, the GOP has done nothing about creating jobs, fishermen are finding red snapper with lesions that the NOAA says should be handled with gloves, the brown shrimp season was pathetic, unemployment is up and the housing market continues to suffer, tourism hasn’t reached pre-spill levels, sand dollars and starfish are turning up dead, some Louisiana beaches are still closed, we still got places that need cleaning, lives that need fixing and people who need to be paid, all while restoration of the coast has yet to even begin and BP is arguing that things are fine, things are improving? Well, why don’t we just throw Bob Dudley into the still remaining oil in Barataria Bay, see if that son of a bitch will float? If Ken Feinberg and Barack Obama do anymore sacrificing of the safety net, neither one will win a second term. They will have finally sold out everyone they were supposed to protect and in doing so changed the entire value system of this country!”
But not everyone was so dismissive of a compromise. In a statement by now Chicago mayor, Rahm Emanuel, uttered over steaks at Harry Carey’s, “Look, those Gulf Coast whiners can either get with the program or go the fuck home. We got an industry to save and a region that needs to learn the art of compromise. If they don’t like what our President and Ken Feinberg are doing to cover America’s butts and their futures, what are they gonna do, vote BP and GOP? I don’t fucking think so. Eat it, bitches…”
Despite continued White House talks outside of the public eye, it would appear negotiations have reached a standstill. British Petroleum and the GOP demand spending cuts their critics say will bolster the corporations and the wealthy at the expense of those harmed by the oil spill, and the elderly and by other Americans in need during this recession. Obama and Feinberg, seeming confident that they can work on their own legacies at the expense of same said Americans, appear to believe their core constituents will have no other option but to vote them a second term, no mater how painful the cuts they agree too might be.
In the opinion of this editor, it appears that both parties, and both BP and Feinberg make their decisions all while ignoring the clear polling numbers that say the majority of Americans believe the wealthy should pay higher taxes and BP should be forced to spend the entire $20 billion while entitlement programs and damages, both present and future should remain untouched and certainly not used as bargaining chips, demonstrating clearly how the GOP, BP, Barack Obama and Ken Feinberg continue to play legacy politics with peoples’ lives and futures at the behest of corporate interest in some sort of vacuum, where real people, American citizens are mere afterthought…no more than another batch of dead sand dollars washing up on the beaches of Florida.
Or, as Eric Cantor said about the tornado victims in Joplin, Missouri, any disaster assistance given to the victims, American citizens, will have to be offset by budget cuts elsewhere, or the emergency spending bill won’t be passed by Congress.
No longer breathing as citizens…be it the debt ceiling arguments by politicians, or disaster compensation by corporations and their employees, it would appear our function is that of a bargaining chip. The $20 billion dollar compensation fund, and the economy are there to be threatened by companies and politicians with persecution complexes, and an utter lack of respect for the suffering their decisions inflict on others.
God Bless, America.
Have a nice day.
A Message From Rousseau…
Jean-Jacques who?
“Usurpers always choose troubled times to enact, in the atmosphere of general panic, laws which the public would never adopt when passions were cool. One of the surest ways of distinguishing the work of a lawgiver from that of a tyrant is to note the moment he chooses to give a people its constitution.”
- Jean Jacques Rousseau
An economic crisis is created by Bush tax cuts, two wars, deregulation of Wall Street and the ensuing recession…
Republican solutions: Defund Planned Parenthood, attack unions, gut social spending and attack Social Security and Medicare…all the while, business sits on trillions and uses none of it to create jobs, pay their share of taxes or help in any way the country that gave birth to their businesses…America.
And Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal buys into his own bullshit and refuses to extend a 4 cent cigarette tax while he guts higher education and sells off a pension fund that is solvent and successful, to get a little money now at the expense of the workers later through decreased services and higher premiums.
It’s simply illogical. Fuck ‘em…
These people are unpatriotic, selling out their citizens for the benefit of business and campaign contribution…or in other words, their own personal self-interest.
I wonder how much longer we’re supposed to listen, or buy into their distorted rhetoric. How close do we allow the walls to get before we have to smash a hole through to get out once again for fresh air?
Hard to say…but on a not-so-side note…for many years when the EPA would come out and say a certain pesticide is safe, or this level of arsenic in your drinking water is okay or BGH in your milk? No problem, and did you know Corexit is non-toxic? Yeah, when the EPA speaks, my thought has often been to look to Europe, to see what their standards are as corporations tend to have less sway in dictating the safety of their country’s citizens…and now, as the GOP sees fit to try and ram through their own austerity cuts in this country while keeping sure all those of means keep their means and maybe even get a few more means to horde on too, I again take a look to Europe, to places where austerity cuts were forced through…Spain, Greece, Ireland and a few in England to see, well…what did their people, their citizens do about having their futures sold out from under them so the banks could keep all the money?
And what they did, what they continue to do is this: Should Wealth Be Held by the Few or Everyone? — That’s the Central Focus of Protests from Spain to Greece
And again, they appear to be leading the way…
Also from Rousseau:
“Tranquility is…found in dungeons, but is that enough to make them desirable places to live?”
The GOP and not a few Democrats seem to think the dungeons for 99% of us aren’t too bad at all, whereas I would differ on this note…you?
Have a nice day.
