The polls are picking up for Republicans in the November mid-term elections. Sadly, this isn’t surprising because the nearly 18 months of President Obama have left the country in a shit hole — today’s August employment report is likely to confirm. Republicans have considerable responsibility to the disaster of the last 18 months, but so do the Democrats, and particularly Obama. Overall, Republicans can be blamed for decades of mismanagement, unless the goal is to make rich people richer.
People are all shocked that jobs are not coming back and the lastest plan for stimulating the economy is little concerned with new jobs and putting people back to work. They are considerably more concerned with tax cuts for the rich and hand outs for small companies. The mantra of capitalism as a job creating mega machine continues — a false belief and a destined diaster for ordinary Americans. But old idea die hard — just look at how many people still believe in the god mythology even though little has been accomplished with the bullshit of prayer.
So, in just a couple of months there will be elections across the country and many — perhaps a substantial number — will likely elect a bunch of Republicans. Yet, with Obama as President, little will be accomplished in the next two years — in fact, it will look far more like a very early 2012 election cycle than anything resembling governance. Even if Republicans muster majorities in the House and/or Senate, it still is unlikely that anything much will result. Obama can veto legislation and it is unlikely that any Congress that the Republicans can elect will not be able to override vetos. So, it will be stalemate city — again — and another two years will be wasted as unemployment soars, the economy weakens, and whatever profits result will be shared among the people who need them the least. It is a song that everybody in America knows and it has been ringing in the collective ears for decades, particularly since the champion bozo Ronald Reagan wrote the first lyrics.
In addition to the usual cast of Republicans characters, the Tea Party has interjected a few super bozos into the mix. The Nevada Senate race with certifiably nut case Sharron Angle and the Kentucky reincarnation of Ayn Rand as a man name Paul are certainly entertaining. However, both could easily win and put the Republicans into policy areas — like dismantling the Education, Social Security, and Energy Departments — that even Newt Gingrich could not have imaged in 1994 when President Clinton and the Democrats took a trouncing.
It is too bad that politics can’t simply be viewed as entertainment but the reality is that American politics hurts lots of
people — and not just Americans. Republicans — and apparently Obama as well — love wars throughout the world. Nothing seems to get American Presidents more excited than sending off a few hundred thousands soliders to some hell hole to kill a bunch of people who could care less about America. America does its part to recruit the next batch of terrorists. The recipients of the wrath don’t realize that America loves to kill people to harvest its insatiable desire of natural resources or to open a market to lame McDonald hamburgers, greedy banks, or a pair of Nike shoes.
But capitalism makes America act like it does as it runs around the world killing people if they can’t force them to behave American style. Iran heard the American proclamation and is in the process of building some nukes that it will likely stick up the ass of Israel and/or America to demand respect.
America is Doomed.
With the news that that Democrats in the Senate will play a leading role in keeping the Bush tax cuts, it seems an appropriate time to soap box on how little difference there is between Democrats and Republicans, particularly when the issue is the rich getting richer and ordinary people getting screwed.
Everybody knows that Republicans are for the rich but, sadly, Democrats are as well. This is fundamentally the problem
with America. No matter what else happens, the rich keep getting richer and continue to manipulate and control government. The middle class becomes poor and the number of poor keeps increasing. Senators fall over themselves giving more money to the rich in hope they will get money in return to continue their lifestyle and careers in the Senate. A career that includes perks, travel, and living like kings. Of course, most Senators and national politicians are rich already but few want to spend their money getting re-elected or in jetting around the world. So, their typical strategy is to continue pro-rich policies with their hands out for contributions — it is the classic have your cake and piss on everybody else.
Of course, there are rich people like Meg Whitman in California spending $100 million, plus, of her own money to become the next governor. Truth is — she would spend many times that amount if it would guarantee her a victory. Her opponent, Jerry Brown, is spending 200 times less. Not only is Whitman spending an unfathomable amount of money for 99.99% of the population, but she is lying her ass off in the process. Before the primary, she was for the ‘Papers Please’ law in Arizona. Now she is not only opposed to it, but she is running Spanish ads for Latinos suggesting amnesty programs. However, when she goes on right wing talk radio, she is all about how something just has to be done for immigration and the Arizona law makes lots of sense. Thus, nobody has any idea what Whitman actually believes about immigration — she probably doesn’t even know — her priority is to make the rich richer and screw everybody else.
Likewise, when Democratic Senators pine on about the travesty of the rich getting richer and the unemployment rate increasing, does anybody have any idea what these bozos actually believe. This is possibly the saddest part about elections in America. It mostly doesn’t matter who wins because the policies are not going to change very much. President Obama will be the perfect example of this for the next decade.
America was duped by Obama, but he is hardly the first one. Perhaps to be President one has to be a liar, like Whitman and Obama. Perhaps, they have to have no conscience or moral fabric. Perhaps, they have to be willing to lie on cue, depending on the audience. And, they have to do all of this as they declare deep religious faith in god or whatever. In any case, America loses — over and over again. But this time, America is going down — and hard.
America is Doomed.
President Obama declared the end of the combat mission in Iraq. There are still 50,000 military people in Iraq and probably twice as many private contractors. Iraq is a mess. Sitting on billions of barrels of oil, they have no electricity for most of the day. Gasoline is rationed. The citizens are devastated. ”Thank you very much” — U S of A.
It is always surprising when people wonder why the world hates America. For nine years there has been two wars going most of the time. Billions of dollars are spent each month battling wars while neglecting the welfare of ordinary Americans. Thousands and thousands of lives have been lost. In the end, Iraq and Afghanistan will be left in shambles and little good will ever come of it. In fact, Iran’s pursuit of nuclear weapons is largely because of these two wars. And who could blame Iran for this? When the America bully is battling countries in their own neighborhood, isn’t it a slam dunk that Iran could be next?
Fascinating that America contains so many violent people. Guns are everywhere and the NRA is the most powerful special
interest in America. They even advocate letting known terrorists on the no-fly list buy guns, because of their perverted view of the Second Amendment. Thus, it is such a little jump to bigger guns and bigger enemies.
America would rather fight than negotiate, and compromise is largely viewed as cowardice by the gun toting crowd. Palin regularly chants “reload” and even posted targets on Democratic candidates. Sharron Angle, Republican candidate for Senate in Nevada, talks about the “Second Amendment Solution” meaning violence against people she disagrees with. Many believe that guns and freedom are equivalent. Daily, large cities have murders as a result of the millions of guns in the hands of ordinary people. There are more than two guns for each person in America.
Each day the rhetoric increases that violence is the solution. No doubt someday they will get the violence they proclaim. America could easily have another civil war with citizens battling other citizens. One could well imagine the rise of the unemployed or the disenfranchised. When people lose hope violence frequently occurs and America makes it so easy with the plethora of guns and bullets as close as the nearest Wal-Mart. Yet, when anybody wants to restrict gun ownership, the cries from the pro-gun groups are loud.
America has killed various politician leaders over the years, including a number of sitting Presidents. There were daily death threats against Obama during the campaign. There were arrests by groups who wanted to kill candidate Obama. Sadly, this is the solution that is frequently considered in America. No wonder …
America is Doomed.
It is easy to hack the media. Get on the radio, television, write it in the newspaper, or give a speech and start saying the most whacked out things imaginable — even out and out lies. The people who agree with you will think you are brillant — these are the sheep. The people you disagree with you will listen to what crazy thing you will say next. This is exactly the stragedy of the right wing nut bags, e.g. Limbaugh, Beck, Palin, Hannity, etc. etc. They distort history and the daily news. They claim Obama is a Muslim, runs re-education camps, wasn’t born in the US, death camps, etc. — it matters little to the likes of these self granulizing bozos that this is just a pack of lies.
Let’s these wing nuts say something crazy and they will be the talk of the media — nonstop. Everybody talked about Palin’s death panels. CNN presents their point of view and pretend that it has merit. There will be a host of talking heads who agree and those that rationally pick apart the ridiculous nonsense. In the end, CNN will declare, “you decide”. This is not what a Free Press should do — they are expected to report on the news and reveal the truth of issues. When there is no merit of a claim, it should be dismissed as nonsense. People get to disagree on the solutions but nobody gets to make up the facts.
Larry Gellman on his blog post pointed out how he tried to correct the errors from people who made absurd claims. Even when they found out that the claims they were making were absurd, they continue to make them. Rationality died. Conversation halted. Political discourse failed. It just became a bastion of anger and hate without purpose. Anger is not bad in itself but if truth dies there is no point in the anger. Appropriate anger has to be escorted by TRUTH. People have to engage in rational discussions and not just want to incite others. Hitler was an excellent example of somebody who just wanted to make people angry about others, like the Jews. He would say the same nonsense over and over again but he wasn’t concerned with the truth. Eventually, people believed the nonsense and millions of Jews were killed.
It is important to be very suspicious of anybody who stops being truthful. When Palin yells death panels for months about health care, make her prove it. If she can’t she is a lunatic. Likewise, for all the others nonsense from the right wing nut jobs. People that are willing to lie about issues are not worth listening to. Yet, it is probably some flaw in human DNA that makes us curious — frequently, we want to point out the absurdity of their positions. Perhaps, it makes us feel superior by picking apart the daily lies of the right wing bozos. These right wing nuts are not involved in rational discourse — they are just hacking the media and killing America.
America is Doomed.
Economist Nouriel Roubini is predicting unemployment will stay high for another decade. His analysis is based on traditional ways economists have viewed the American economy, and not very helpful looking forward. He declares that GDP growth — a worthless measurement to predict employment — will be low, perhaps between 0 and 1 percent annually going forward. He also points out that banks are sitting on a $TRILLION of excess reserves and not lending it. As a result, the Federal Reserve has no policy options. For example, it won’t help to give the banks another $TRILLION for them to put on their balance sheets when they are not lending the money they already have.
Talking about GDP makes no sense if the goal is sustainability of ordinary people. People need income and even positive GDP does not cause job creation. Employers are paying lower wages because of the labor glut as well. Even the employed in today’s America are suffering. GDP might be helpful for Wall Street stock prices but, this is a rich people casino. The traditional view is that 2% GDP is required to create enough jobs just to keep pace with increasing employment. Anything less than that will increase unemployment. So, the traditionalists were stunned with the latest 1.6% annualized GDP for Q2. This was on the back of massive traditional stimulus in 2009. It was the traditional view that caused Obama to declare things would get better — they didn’t. As a result, one article after another about a double dip recession. Economists will keep riding the dead horse of capitalism. And Americans may elect another crop of Republicans which will make things even worse. But economists like Roubini never mention that traditional labor is an outdated concept in the age of robotics, cheap foreign workers, and technology. Until somebody wants to declare technology illegal — a silly view — the traditional economics has to also be replaced.
Meanwhile, the Becks and Palins of the world have some silly god rally in Washington, proclaiming that America has to double down on the god crap. In the midst of massive unemployment, these idiots claim it is god that is the problem. Yet, there is more god crap in America than there ever has been. There is so much of this bullshit that it has subverted the political system and rational discourse is impossible. God crap only produces employment in the form of corporate begging that pays no taxes. Of course, to Becks and Palins. god is the hedge fund, special interest, corporatist, and capitalist. God is anything that lets them make more money while selling bullshit to everybody else. It looks far more likely that people who proclaims capitalism as the answer — disguised as god — are the problem.
So, between the god crowd and the traditional economist crowd, there is no solution; instead, it actually delays that obvious and ultimate solution. People can pretend that America will come zooming back because it always has or they can bloody their knees praying to some mythical god. These are not solutions for the future and never will be. What today, is a decade of unemployment will be two decades of unemployment, then three. It will get worse and worse and only when people reject the traditional view and the god view will a solution be possible.
The solution to the problem is taking the resources of America and the ordinary people and developing an entirely new economic system. The system would provide income for everybody. People would be put to work building houses, repairing infrastructure and producing food. It would be available to everybody. The basic minimums would be satisfied. America has plenty of resources, education, and desire to provide everybody with a minimum. It won’t matter if these things are profitable because there will be no shareholders, modern day slave owners, taking their take off the top and destroying the people who don’t comply. For most of the population this new system would be a better standard of living than they have today without jobs, housing, and health care. For the top one percent of Americas — the rich — their standard of living will be slashed, because they have been hoarding prosperity at the expense of the 99%. There is plenty of resources to go around in America, it just has to be distributed equally. Equal distribution — that’s right — it’s called socialism and it will be clear to more and more that it is the only solution to the economic problems of America. Once the majority gets tired of working for the slave owners, there will be a new day.
Sadly, many in America think economic prosperity will return if it follows traditional economics and prays harder. As long as the bozos who believe this nonsense are in charge, there is no hope for America.
America is Doomed.
