What the Debt Limit Crisis Should Have Taught You

Another depressing post. Jesus i hope your not right but from everything you have written we are Fucked.

Nothing is written in stone. If angry mobs show up at congressional representatives’ appearance and demand that they reverse these actions, laws that have been passed can be overturned. Waiting for elections and primaries is too long and won’t do any good regardless of the outcome. They have made representative democracy a farce. Demanding change now is what direct democracy looks like.

If the American people were fighting back, would we know about it?

Progressives did more in Wisconsin to oppose the “austerity for everyone one but the rich” program, than the teapartiers did on everything else.

Maybe we should leave the propaganda to the media, and progressives should help the people to make decisions in their own interest at the grassroots level.
Just because you’re not on the evening news, does not mean you didn’t succeed.

The Facebook rule: if you are not paying for it, you are the product. This is the key to understanding media. You are not the consumer. Advertisers pay for your eyeballs.

I’m pretty much in full agreement here. This crisis was created as a cover to attack entitlements. Obama and the rating agencies are playing their roles to help create it. No matter what, interest rates will spike on treasuries hence ensuring that the financial oligarchs get their rents. Before doing that, they’ve got to gut entitlements so there’s more room for them. Having us paying for interest, paying for war and having folks lend their bodies for war is the game plan at this point. What we have here is nothing short of a coup occurring right before our eyes. There’s simply no other way to characterize it.

Well, this sure lays out the whole sordid picture quite succinctly.

REPRESENTATIVES WORK FOR THE PEOPLE WHO PAY THEM

WOW, that concept might have completely changed my view of politics. So how do we actually change this?

“Representatives work for the people who pay them

That isn’t really you. They don’t become multi-millionaires on their salaries, you know. It’s their donors, the people who hire their wives and children, the people who fund their campaigns, the people who give them good jobs when they leave government. If you want Reps and Senators to work for you, you must pay them better, you must fund their campaigns (and sharply limit outside funding) and you must make it illegal for them to EVER make more money in a year than their government salary (index it to an average of the median wage, the minimum wage, and CPI). You should do what Canada used to do and give them a good pension after 6 years. You DON’T want them worrying about their next job, or what they’ll do if they’ll lose.”
_________________________________
I agree with most of the list except this. I would suggest doubling or tripling the number of congressmen and making them more representative through various means.

As for the pay, I think they make enough and their retirement is overly generous, if anything. I wouldn’t cut the pay or retirement. I would just reduce it dollar for dollar for every dollar of income (earned or unearned) they receive from other sources. That goes for retirement too. Reduce their retirement pay and benefits dollar for dollar. If they make more on the outside in a year than they would get from pay or retirement, start reducing their future benefits dollar for dollar. And if they get caught cheating, they forfeit all benefits forever. Same for the judiciary and cabinet members.

And no private meetings with lobbyists, much less the lavish travel and entertainment they receive. Lobbying only in DC or their home districts, in chambers open to the public.

Agree with everything said.

The small bit of good news from the latest polling. Obama’s approval rating for his handling of economic issues was down to *31 %* even before this disaster was announced. His approval rating among African-Americans was down to 50 %.

That’s *before* this disaster.

I’m hoping the Republicans impeach him anyway. We shouldn’t lift a finger to help the SOB.

-StewartM

“If you aren’t paying for something, then you are the product. ”

Hey, this website is free!

What Bruce said upthread–if our goal is to defeat Obama, define him as other than liberal, then mobilize a 3rd party threat.

Not even sure a muscular primary threat would cause him to pander to the base. And even if it did, when it inevitably failed he’d be back in the center, rolling back more of the new deal.

Give him the Nader treatment, deny his legacy, and begin the uber-arduous task of building an alternative to the duop-s.

PS, great farkin post

tboy,
I believe government officials chosen by a ”jury duty” system is called Demarchy.

Notorious, “At least Obama’s lost a lot of people over this latest fiasco. Every day fewer people can delude themselves about who he is and what he represents. Right now I’d be surprised if he won re-election. Maybe, once his ship sinks for good, someone will see their way clear to run for president representing real change. “

If an idea can be conceived, it can be co-opted. Just as Barry O. co-opted traditional liberal politics and the Kochs, et al co-opted the John Birch society types for their own corporatist ends, surely gutsy outsiderism can surely be ”branded” and co-opted. Maybe BHO will get re-elected and in 2016 the Libertarian party will see an unexpected influx of cash from big donors for a “new and different” kind of libertarian, and the media will gush over how he doesn’t scare middle-class centrist voters like Ron Paul did, in the same way that they fawned over BHO’s un-Jesse Jackson-ness.

We can break the capatilists and show them our clout. One thing we can do is boycott one business after another until they take notice that we are not going to put up with their sponsorship of screwing us. What we need is some organization and will. Instead of complaining and whining, let’s prioritize businesses that contribute to conservative causes. This would require some research from me, but maybe some of you already know. We have to organize and stay focused on just this one thing. We have targets for January, Feb., March, etc……. Then we show them our clout. We stop whining and complaining. We have to attack the money and then the politicians will follow. We don’t have choices at the polls. But we do have choices in our shopping carts.

“A primary challenge to Obama is highly likely to fail, just on the grounds that Obama will have MASSIVE amounts of cash on hand to destroy the person.”

Yes, but if he has to use most of that just to get his own party’s nomination, that would hurt him in the general election.

“All we need to do is siphon a few percentage points of the public away from Obama, and he’s done.”

Can’t we do both? If enough people just stayed home in November, we could possibly ensure his defeat. A primary could lead up to that.

The American left has neither the understanding of electoral politics nor the level of organization required to deliberately effect a primary challenge has any effect on the overall dynamic. The American left cannot engineer the kind of loss for Obama that may teach future electoral candidates a lesson—they will learn the opposite lesson. This was the same before Obama’s election and remains the same now no matter what Obama does. This is not some inherent quality of the left. It as a choice. Most of the left simply refuses to engage with what actually happens during an election and why people vote for what they vote.

None of what has transpired is very surprising. Y’all will continue to blame everything on media ownership or something or other making it impossible to win elections. In which case, one is helpless within the political system, and there was never any point in saying anything about it.

Liberals are defined by their lack of principles. Their public policy positions are defined by what is imagined to be “politically possible,” not by what is just.

There’s a lot of truth to that.

It’s a sad state of affairs when it’s only the Right that says “Hell No!!” and makes their principles stick.

And, as a coworker tells me, the Right doesn’t fear the Left.

Despise us? Yes.

Hate us? Yes.

Want to destroy us? Yes.

But fear us? No.

And why should they? We don’t retaliate in any way whatsoever–politically, economically, let alone the threat of violence and discord. In the current mess, a default hurts them and their big backers just as much as it hurts everyday Americans. A default is not good, but it was the only thing in the mix that was truly “shared sacrifice”. This deal isn’t shared sacrifice at all.

Liberals have honed whining to a fine art. Even now, the Bernie Sanders and Dennis Kuciniches will angrily shake their fists at the raw deal that Obama made and make impassioned speeches. But whenever their vote is really needed, Obama gets it; it’s all useless show. Sanders alone could have committed to real filibusters instead of those “filibernies” that are just for show and not substance. While the Tea Party caucus of 60 members makes its voice heard and is a force to be reckoned with, the Progressive caucus of 83 members is useless. They are useless because they never say “F-you!” to Obama and the DNC Dems, and aren’t willing to make any stand on principle. The Tea Partiers are.

So when are we going to start fighting back?

-StewartM

Lisa Simeone:

“let’s prioritize businesses that contribute to conservative causes.”

Not sure which businesses those would be, other than all of them, since they support Dems and Repubs in equal measure.

And more to the point–many businesses who we’d like to boycott we effectively can’t, because these businesses don’t sell directly to the end-use customer. How does one selectively boycott Koch Oil? Oil is used in everything from the manufacture of polymers to agriculture. Anywhere you turn, you could be handing money over to them.

-StewartM

Speaking of fighting back, might not be a bad idea to call your Congressman and tell him/her to reject Obama’s deal.

Progressives can bring tens of thousands of people out, the Tea Party can rarely even get above 1,000.

By the way, the number of people you can bring out to a rally is not evidence of anything. Either way these are still minute fractions of the population.

Mandos, well, they were evidence in the ’60s. Yes, I know we’re living in different times. I know. But if people just sit on their asses and accept whatever crumbs are thrown their way, nothing will ever change. There are many ways to protest, not just one.

Jonathan Versen

The Koch Brothers did not coopt “John Birch Society types.” Birchers had a comparatively sophisticated conspiracy theory having to do with the threat of monolithic International Communist Conspiracy and an axis of New York/Washingtonian fellow travellers (which among other things was disproven by the post Vietnam War when Soviet-Chinese proxies engaged in large scale “in-fighting.”)

Tea partiers are unsophisticated newbies by comparison.

Ian offers a perfect summary of What Is. The answer is to stop putting so much faith and hope and desire for Salvation in the political/electoral system and its candidates, officers, and its outcome, ’cause it isn’t there. Never was.

It’s a harsh lesson.

Ian Welsh:

Sorry folks, violent revolution is now as close to a certainty as anything is in this life. “Those who make peaceful revolution impossible make violent revolution inevitable.” JFK.

I rather liked the longer version of your reply. 😉

But I regretfully agree. Non-violence depends on appealing to your master’s empathy, and capitalism breeds a ruling class selected for sociopathy.

And as for voting them out? Not only is there the money and media disadvantages the left already suffers from, already I wonder that as things worsen, the more Republicans will disenfranchise the down-and-out to keep their electoral advantage. Maybe not being able to pay your credit card bill or mortgage might become a felony and disqualify you from voting.

I have no idea how bad “bad” will get.

StewartM

Delete the previous, I hate when I forget to properly blockquote:

Ian Welsh

Sorry folks, violent revolution is now as close to a certainty as anything is in this life. “Those who make peaceful revolution impossible make violent revolution inevitable.” JFK.

I rather liked the longer version of your reply. 😉

But I regretfully agree. Non-violence depends on appealing to your master’s empathy, and capitalism breeds a ruling class selected for sociopathy.

And as for voting them out? Not only is there the money and media disadvantages the left already suffers from, already I wonder that as things worsen, the more Republicans will disenfranchise the down-and-out to keep their electoral advantage. Maybe not being able to pay your credit card bill or mortgage might become a felony and disqualify you from voting.

I have no idea how bad “bad” will get.

StewartM

“MLK and Gandhi, among others, proved the power of non-violence.”

Since violence inevitably devolves into a mire of mounting unintended consequences (and therefore is reliably un-intelligent), I certainly can’t recommend it.

As for MLK and Gandhi – both in my personal “most-admired” list, what they proved was the power of mass persuasion. Which non-violence serves very well… with an honest press that will both report the message to, and acknowledge its receipt by. the public.

Alas, honest press gone.

Ah, I see Lisa. Just trying to make a little joke to make myself feel better.

“I now feel the same way about Obama supporters. They are just as stubborn and just as willfully ignorant as the Tea Partiers they love to deride.”

Amen to that. How many times–just in the past three days–has someone I know said “what can Obama do? he has to deal with the Republicans” so I carefully outline a half-dozen legal steps Obama could take to gain leverage in the debt ceiling fight. Five minutes later, it’s “what can Obama do? he has to deal with the Republicans.”

None so blind as those who refuse to see, and so on.

“with an honest press that will both report the message to, and acknowledge its receipt by. the public.”

Oooh, no the “media is enemy #1” thing again. If you pack whites-only lunch counters with black protesters, so that the place can either serve them or go out of business, it’s not long before the “whites only” thing gets jettisoned, media be damned.

Lisa Simeone:

The rest of the world was watching. And those people were outraged. Those people started demanding change. Those people insisted that the beatings stop. Those people had their humanity and sense of decency challenged. There were plenty of people who would’ve loved to go on beating, from then until kingdom come. But they were stopped. They were forced to change.

Yes–but as you say, it wasn’t white southerners doing the beatings by and large who were doing the outraged bit. It was the rest of the country. The rest of the country was horrified and willing to use pass laws and to use force to get those white southerners to stop. And no, not all white southerners were OK with what was happening but the Klan not only terrorized blacks, it could also terrorize whites (i.e., desegregate your business and it could end up torched one night. Some southerners silently welcomed desegregation as it gave them an “out” for doing what they already wanted to do but were afraid to do.)

Likewise, in India, it was the British in Britain who were horrified. Sad to say, a healthy dose of distance and disinterest mightily aids empathy. You see it time and again—everyone else could see that Dreyfus was innocent, but not the French at that time. Heck, everyone else could see that the election in 2000 was stolen, but not us.

I’m a southerner, and the history of the US South is a microcosm of the nation as a whole. It took violence and force to end slavery. It took force to end Jim Crow. I see no way that either would end unless an outside power came in and forced the issue. Someways I wonder if we’re like Weimar Germany–our political dynamic is so hopelessly titled right that it took the Allied occupation to deconstruct the entire government, to put the criminals on trial, and then rebuild the state from scratch from the democratic elements that were native and always present, but never could manage to get power. It seems that hopeless.

And yes, violence can result in a new boss as bad as the old boss. I admit it up front (In fact, that’s my explanation of why the American revolution turned out better than the French and Russian–we weren’t plunged into a period of continued war after its success). But it’s hard to see any other way that will work. I don’t see just showing up and protesting effective unless it gets so bad that people no longer have jobs or school to go back to (or maybe a home, for that matter) and have no else to go. And it will take masses of them. Right now, our oligarchs don’t care about 10 % unemployment. What’s stopping them at 20 %, as long as the banksters are happy?

-StewartM

I’m not categorically saying violence is the answer, I’m merely saying, serious fundamental change will require both October style action, along with some of the other sorts of tactics. Keeping in mind that the very reason the October path of non-violence is necessary is because anything else is going to be met with exponentially worse violence. In the process of being scared of the states violent arm, you accept violence as a variable in the struggle for change.

The idea that financial pressure is a tactic that actually works amongst the working class is a neo-liberal, bourgeoisie, market myth, designed to make the consumer feel he/she makes a difference in the grand scheme of market domination.

Welsh already went over this. The poor and downtrodden can never afford a candidate that represents them, anymore than they can afford to stop this-or-that-company from being exploitative. Corporations are exploitative by design. Let’s stop using their memes are solutions.

“Don’t believe me? What happened when MLK became a vocal anti-war socialist.”

He was assassinated. Which doesn’t persuade me that he was more harmless than is generally thought.

Roberto permalink

On the other hand, if we challenge Obama in the general, we are highly likely to succeed.

Yup, I’ve been saying this for three years. The time is ripe for a third-party challenge. If we could all unite behind some lefty who’d agree to run as an “I,” we’d have a great chance at defeating Obama.

Of course, it would have to be someone who 1) could actually win, and 2) was insane enough to actually want the job after the clusterfuckiness of the past 10 years.

Anyone have any suggestions?

Speaking of fighting back, might not be a bad idea to call your Congressman and tell him/her to reject Obama’s deal.

It might not be a bad idea. Unless it means that you’re not going to show up at your congress member’s appearances in your district and tell him/her to reverse the legislation this year. If you’re going to decide that “well, I made my phone call–that’s that!”, then it is a bad idea.

Elections do not work. Electoral politics is meaningless. The two parties have “gamed” that system. And, for a lot of people, not demanding that Congress reverse this is going to have significant consequences for them. You could end up out of work, out of your dwelling, and without medical care that you need. And, although I wish the Oct2011 group great success, I don’t expect marches to Wash. D.C. to have any significant effect. The people in congress need to be told to represent our interests. Told directly. To their faces. Forcefully. Loudly. Repeatedly. By large numbers of people that they are refusing to represent. Start by ruining their five-week paid summer vacation, if you can. You know, the one they voted for themselves.

Well, we plan to shut stuff down. That’s why we’re starting on October 6th, a Thursday, a weekday, a work day. We plan to get in people’s faces, including Congressional reps.

I’ll be curious to see the reactions of all those Americans who applauded the Egyptians, who applauded the Greeks, who applauded the Syrians, who applauded the Spaniards, all those who drank toasts to them, when they come across a traffic jam in the middle of Washington, D.C. caused by people demanding to be heard. My guess is that many of those erstwhile citizens and patriots and exalters of the body politic will suddenly be in a different frame of mind. That they won’t like being discommoded and inconvenienced — convenience being the No. 1 American value these days.

The rallying cry of this country once was “Give me liberty or give me death!” Now it’s “Don’t inconvenience me!”

You really specialize in straw men Mandos. Enjoy your time in the “let them eat cake” camp.

Nothing has changed. The “primary Obama” call has no more value now than it did back then. I think I understand what you think it will accomplish. It just has no likely positive outcome, and lots of negative ones. I wish I were wrong and something like that had a prayer of having any beneficial side-effect. In your eagerness to discount the Tea Party phenomenon, you also ignore the real effects that grassroots American culture has on electoral and even policy outcomes.

The Marie Antoinette reference is beneath you. The wannabe “post-Democratic” left indulges in narcissistic vanity projects, and you’re accusing *me* of suggesting that “they” eat cake?

Let’s make this clear: it ain’t just the rich. Contrary to what many of you would like to believe, this actually comes from the American public itself. Yes, indeed, this debt ceiling debacle itself. “Identity” politics matters.

Fortunately, I am blowing this joint shortly, so yeah, “let them eat cake”, except that it affects the entire planet and my new digs are even less stable.

Notorious Pat:

“if a banker or two gets ‘offed’ they will notice that in a heartbeat.”
They’ll notice alright–and respond by listening to more of our phone conversations, groping people at more checkpoints, criminalizing more forms of speech.
Jesus, if you really want to kill someone so bad, join the Marine Corps.

Exactly.

Mandos:

Let’s make this clear: it ain’t just the rich. Contrary to what many of you would like to believe, this actually comes from the American public itself. Yes, indeed, this debt ceiling debacle itself. “Identity” politics matters.

Can’t argue with that.

Okay, it passed; no surprise there!
Now what? The people have spoken!
Judging by the street (not K-Street), we the people have everything just right.
Carry on?

Besides primarying Obama and a third party, there is another idea that might be better, depending on your part of the country. If you live in Texas, say even supposedly liberal Austin which is partly represented by Blue Doggett who just betrayed 2 decades of my voting for him, you can vote in the Republican primaries. That’s what they did to us (and a big reason why Clinton got nominated back in ’92). Since the Dems don’t give a fuck about us and won’t listen to us, why not fuck with the Republican primaries? Vote for the least insane or the most insane or whatever. It’s time to start fighting them with their own weapons.

Notorious P.A.T

They’ll notice alright–and respond by listening to more of our phone conversations, groping people at more checkpoints, criminalizing more forms of speech.

They’re doing that anyway. And they’re going to do more of it.

I’m sorry, but at the risk of getting Godwin’s law invoked at me, I still am unconvinced by the argument that you can stop the Hitlers of the world (and that’s essentially the type of people we’re up against) by organizing sit-ins and letter-writing campaigns. Heck, our own history rather strongly suggests that without a awful civil war we wouldn’t have ended slavery.

I admire MLK and Gandhi as much as anyone else, but what they accomplished requires a) a sympathetic press who reports rather than covers up or distorts the facts, and; b) making an appeal to an authority greater than the perpetrators committing the abuses. Now, if any of you can convince me that all this stuff will get the U. N. to send peacekeeping forces to the US to kick the bastards out, then you have a better argument.

-StewartM

Gawd, again:

Lisa Simeone:

I’ll be curious to see the reactions of all those Americans who applauded the Egyptians, who applauded the Greeks, who applauded the Syrians, who applauded the Spaniards, all those who drank toasts to them, when they come across a traffic jam in the middle of Washington, D.C. caused by people demanding to be heard.

That’s because revolutions, close-up and in-person, even when peaceful, are not something most people want to experience. They are at the very least unsettling, even in the best of circumstances, and often dangerous.

And of course that’s even more true of violence and war, which is just another form of resistance. I don’t say what I’ve said lightly. Even just wars and resistance are awful experiences. The innocent get killed, maimed, or impoverished. Often irreplaceable bits of humankind’s cultural and/or scientific history get destroyed. It’s not something anyone who is sane relishes.

BUT–if you always say “never”, then you become like Obama in the debt ceiling debate (assuming that Obama didn’t really want to surrender anyway, and just wanted to pretend that the Republicans “made him do it”, which is also likely). In that debate Obama defined the worst possible outcome as being a government default. Because of this, the Republicans knew that they could essentially roll him, that he would blink at their demands and they would win. Likewise, Neville Chamberlain defined the worst possible outcome as a war with Germany–so he got rolled at Munich.

-StewartM

“They’re doing that anyway. And they’re going to do more of it.”

I suggest you familiarize yourself with recent American history. Then you will see how foolish is the idea that acts of terrorism will create a more open and democratic America.

“Heck, our own history rather strongly suggests that without a awful civil war we wouldn’t have ended slavery.”

Do you know how the British ended their slave system?

Let’s face it: the system is completely broken. It always does wrong, every time, no exceptions. We want the rich taxed. Congress cuts their taxes. We want the wars ended. Obama keeps them going and launches a few more….

Agreed. The “system” of democratic representation is broken. The next election or the one after that is not going to fix it. People need to show up at the congress members’ public appearances in their districts and demand that those members do what we want (or even protest outside their houses). Until this happens, they will respond to the pressures in Wash. D.C. because there is no pressure inside their districts.

Notorious P.A.T

Yeah, let’s use mass violence to prevent a return of the Third Reich. To stop another Hitler appearing, we should march through the streets in squads hurting people

Pat–are you familiar with the actual rise of Nazism? Did you know that one of the charges that has been labeled against the SPD, the German Social Democratic party which was the chief opponent of the Nazis and their related rightist/conservative allies, and the party which was the chief defender of the Weimar Republic, was its passivity? The fact that they didn’t fight back? As one historian wrote about the SPD’s demise, instead of taking to the streets after Hitler became chancellor and passed the Enabling Laws in one of their last directives before being dissolved they exhorted their clerks not to make bookkeeping errors. The SPD died with a whimper.

The case of the SPD is also instructive to us because the Nazi propaganda against them echoes what today’s conservatives say about progressives. Nazis in one breath might claim that “the Reds” (as they often called the Social Democrats) were a bunch of wild-eyed radicals, and in the next breath mock them as weenies and a bunch of “tired old men” (they were trade unionists). The Nazis held the SPD in contempt just like the Right holds us in contempt today. They despised them but they did not fear them.

The same dynamic is at work today. And why should the Right fear us? We don’t give them any reason. I might add the worst possible situation for any group to find itself in is to be despised but not feared. Nor no matter how reasonable and accommodating and non-threatening we are they’re still going to despise us and they’re still going to do things like continue to clamp down civil liberties. The modern-day clamping down on freedom in America started with Reagan, long before there was a “war on terror” or 9/11.

I wish this were a comforting message, it’s not. I also like to add that I’m temperamentally not the type of person for this task. I’m way too empathetic. But I also recognize what seems to a lesson taught from history.

-StewartM

Hullabaloo seems to be clamping down hard on commenters in the wake of this debacle. Any thoughts on where one might go to find a replacement should H’loo reinvent itself into another Balloon Juice? (Had a look at The Confluence already, but the two blogs seem to have gone into lockdown simultaneously.)

StewartM,

Indeed. The other day, I was thinking of another great woman, Mother Jones, who was active around that same time, when I saw some spineless union leaders on TV misrepresenting their members.

Btw, to your earlier point about the Right despising us but not fearing us because we “won’t fight back” per se, it’s worse than that. Consider this small but telling point, what passes for the Left here, has been so owned since Reagan, that a lot of us changed from calling ourselves liberals to progressives simply because the Right propagandized, or demonized, the term. They even controlled how too many of us refer to ourselves and, importantly, how we are referred to broadly. It’s no wonder they despise and don’t fear us but the sad thing is that when we truly fight back (see Ida Wells, Mother Jones, etc.), we often win important battles.

Anyone discussing the question of violence vs. non-violence needs to read up on the history of the union movement.

It will certainly come to that if we get to the point of food riots. Unemployment insurance has not (yet) been extended–that’s going to effect some people severely, even while more and more exhaust their 99 weeks. What about food stamps? Nader, as I have cited repeatedly, has said that the breaking point for many people is going to arrive in October, as programs expire.

Now that the bill has been passed, people are getting to see what it is that was decided. In the short run, this congress has done what most congresses do: put off the decisions about what to cut on some future congress and schedule the largest cuts to come in the future after the next election. This new law is not written in stone, and we have seen congresses&presidents panic in the past when the unemployment rate goes up. As states, cities, towns, and counties cut programs and employees and as companies (Cisco, Borders, etc.) start cutting staff, the herd of employed will begin getting spooked once again by the possibility that it will be for them that the unemployment carnivores are coming. This has been known to cause stampedes that run over parties of tea drinkers.

It is remarkable how alike the situation in Europe is to the situation in the u.s.:

Europe’s Wake-up Call

Europe is currently establishing a debate zone for all the economic and social issues no longer discussed by the political parties because these areas have gone beyond their control. Inter-party competition now concentrates on social matters: the burqa, the legalisation of cannabis, radar on motorways, the angry gestures or foul language of a reckless politician or intoxicated artist. This confirms a trend already noticeable 20 years ago: real political power is shifting to areas where democracy carries no weight, until the day when indignation finally boils over. Which is where we are.

But indignation is powerless without some understanding of the mechanisms that caused it. We know the alternatives – reject the monetarist, deflationist policies that deepen the crisis, cancel part of the debt if not all of it, take over the banks, get finance under control, reverse globalisation and recover the hundreds of billions of euros the state has lost by tax cuts that favour the wealthy (?70bn in France in the past ten years, more than $1 trillion in the US, especially for the top 1% of income earners).

And they are responding by marching on the European “capital”, Brussels, for non-violent protests:

Spain: “Indignant” Demonstrators Marching to Brussels to Protest Effects of Crisis

so what is the point?

This is some good-cop–bad-cop Kabuki, where the good cop finally compromises in the shootout with the bad cop, ultimately doing his job.

The good cop finally is found to be a hired gun of the bad cop.

Is’nt this what Arthur Silber and Chris Floyd were telling for quite some time?

I intend to donate 100 Euros (!) to Arthur, who was the first to find out, AND because he seems to be in very bad shape.

So please join me!

All things considered, my Metaphor in an earlier posting, that even a healthy fish (e.g. a theoretically good-mannered Obama) cannot exist in poisoned waters longer than ANY fish -as healthy as he may be-, still has some significance.

So what is the point?

It is pondering, which sort of metaphor is applicable to this dire situation.

a) Poisoned water: WHO does the poisoning? How to decontaminate?

b) Bad system? How to change it?

c) Bad choice? Just elect a better president and everything is good?

Obviously the last ‘theory’, of how things work is dead-wrong.

I do not suggest that the other two narratives are correct.

There are surely others.

But which is the FUNCTIONALLY adequate narrative?

It need not be the CORRECT one in the epistemic sense.

If a psychopath in Power is recognized as a psychopath, it actually does not matter whether he is a genetically disposed one, or a merely FUNCTIONAL one.

Just make a list of all the attributes of psychopathic dispositions/behaviors –as Joel Bakan did in “The Corporation”, and there you are.

On the other hand it is quite important, what makes the psychopath one in the first place.

Depending on the diagnosis, the ‘therapy’ must be quite different.

You cannot cure the narcissist by changing the color of his lipstick.

Lisa Simeone:

And again, we’re not showing up, marching around for a while, and going home. We’re staying. We know we risk being arrested, and jailed, for — how long? A few hours? Overnight? A few days, to prevent our going back and re-occupying the same place we were occupying before? I don’t know.

You’ll be Fox News “terrorists” then. 😉

I just hope you don’t get a MacArthur reception (though that could mean the end of Obama like it helped to end Hoover).

The Civil Rights movement of the 1950s and 60s, according to a former co-worker that was part of it, used children in its marches. Not only to defuse any backlash (or make the backlash more horrific) but also that many of retaliations against adults–say, threatening them with the loss of a job–don’t work against kids. People who couldn’t risk attendance for one reason or another got a pass.

Of course–the natural attendees for your event are the unemployed. There are 14 million of them, people with lots of free time and who can’t be threatened with being fired. But even staying put, even camped out, requires some money and some income, which many of them don’t have.

Do you have plans to try to mobilize these? I suppose you do.

-StewartM

It really doesn’t matter whether you’re non-violent, or not, it won’t change the very real fact that there will be violence. I agree with Ian, it’s inevitable, but it won’t come from the “Left” because there is no “Left.” It will be misdirected by the very forces that created the environment for it to manifest, and since it’s not part of a coordinated effort from the ground up by a substantial cross-section of “ordinary” citizens, it will be, once again, the innocents who will suffer the most.

A bunch of Latte-Drinking, Volvo-driving “Liberals” are about to get their non-violent, acquiescing incrementalism stuffed down their throats and up their asses because they don’t realize that they’re Lee Harvey Oswald in this equation. If you don’t think you’re Lee Harvey, then get the hell out of the Schoolbook Depository…….NOW!

…brutalized by the unrelenting bullshit from the MSM and they’re own government.
Should be their, sorry.

As I’ve mentioned, and admonished those who do, I don’t follow the blow by blow, as a general rule, but I happened upon this because everywhere there is a TV these days:

http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/house-passes-debt-ceiling-bill-gabrielle-giffords-votes/story?id=14208579

This is better than Professional Wrestling…..seriously. I have to continue to pinch myself to make sure I’m not in a Matrix Nightmare.

http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x2ft4u_wwf-wrestlemania-ix-undertaker-vs-g_fun

Here is the nytimes economic reporter David Leonhardt on Colbert’s program discussing the rating companies’ rating of u.s. debt, accepting the framing that the u.s. deficit is the problem that needs to be solved by cutting spending in order to get to a balanced budget. He also accepted the framing (un-contradicted by Colbert) that Medicare is one of the sources of the budget imbalance, instead of the medical-services industry, that “big cuts to Social Security” are needed “or we get downgraded,” that the rating companies are credible and without a conflict of interest, and that balancing the fed. gov’t.’s budget at this time is an economically sensible course of action. In short, he (and Colbert) accepts obama’s public framing of the problem and its solution. (He also accepts that the Tea Party won and Obama lost, but he’s the nytimes economics reporter, not a political reporter. And he accepts that transparency in gov’t. is not a requirement–closed rooms let the “elite” solve our problems for us and hand the solution down to us from on high. “Democracy” is just a slogan for the rubes.)

http://www.colbertnation.com/the-colbert-report-videos/393728/august-02-2011/saving-america-s-credit-rating—david-leonhardt

From the choices “gutless”, “stupid”, or “uninformed”, my guess is that Leonhardt is mis-educated. I wonder if he’s ever read or heard a word that Dean Baker or James Galbraith has written or said. And the writings of his paper’s Paul Krugman appear not to have penetrated his brain at all.

Also from Leonhardt: “We’re the country everyone wants to move to.” Anyone want to contradict that one? 🙂

Even a gutless, stupid, uninformed moron can see that.

And yet Colbert doesn’t challenge him on any of the framing. Are they both corrupted? (Of course, Colbert is a performer, but he makes his points through satire. Here, he simply accepted the explanation.)

Why does it matter? Because people need to be outraged about what is being done to them. You can’t be outraged if you think that it is a force of nature or that it is appropriate. And Leonhardt gives me (and I’m guessing many viewers) the impression that he thinks it is appropriate. And this could cause many people to stop thinking and accept what he says: Social Security needs to be cut, Medicare needs to be cut, the fed. gov’t’s budget needs to be balanced.

Here’s Keith Olbermann expressing some appropriate outrage about what has just transpired:

the four hypocrisies

Still not working. Here is the URL: http://current.com/shows/countdown/videos/special-comment-the-four-great-hypocrisies-of-the-debt-deal

Ah, the brilliance that is Colbert and Stewart. Sheer brilliance. They alone, have managed to instill that apathy of which you speak. Liberals can tune into them every night for their “Daily News” and laugh at the Tea Party, Sarah Palin and Glenn Beck, as the so-called “Liberal” leadership plays them for the fools they are.

Yesterday, they trotted out the poor, unfortunate gobshite, Gabby Giffords, tomorrow……Midget Tossing is on the docket. The Show That Never Ends.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tbr8qNMgCR4

I’m beginning to understand the rampant apathy on the part of the people; The Shock Doctrine!

Part of the reason for the apathy is pointed out by Colbert in that interview, above, namely, that congress has not yet specified which programs are going to be cut. As he points out, the Central Committee of the Communist Party “Super” Congress is intended to allow congress not to be held responsible for the decisions about what is to be cut. Until those cuts are specified, many people who will be effected by them will not pay attention. And the plan is to put the cuts off until after the election. Of course, the economy is having some say about what congress will be able to put off.

Here’s a documentary that puts the likes of Colbert and Stewart to shame. It doesn’t make me laugh, it doesn’t make me apathetic…it makes me ANGRY…..very ANGRY. That’s what it should do, because you have to get ANGRY about this in order to get off your Keesters and do something about it.

If you treat it like a game, then you’re playing the game….and it’s a rigged game where you lose. Play it and analyze it ad nauseam, and in perpetuity, at your own peril.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XdVODFombco&feature=player_embedded