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Ransom Paid
Anyone who characterizes the deal between the President, Democratic, and Republican leaders as a victory for the American people over partisanship understands neither economics nor politics.
The deal does not raise taxes on America’s wealthy and most fortunate — who are now taking home a larger share of total income and wealth, and whose tax rates are already lower than they have been, in eighty years. Yet it puts the nation’s most important safety nets and public investments on the chopping block.
It also hobbles the capacity of the government to respond to the jobs and growth crisis. Added to the cuts already underway by state and local governments, the deal’s spending cuts increase the odds of a double-dip recession. And the deal strengthens the political hand of the radical right.
Yes, the deal is preferable to the unfolding economic catastrophe of a default on the debt of the U.S. government. The outrage and the shame is it has come to this choice.
More than a year ago, the President could have conditioned his agreement to extend the Bush tax cuts beyond 2010 on Republicans’ agreement not to link a vote on the debt ceiling to the budget deficit. But he did not.
Many months ago, when Republicans first demanded spending cuts and no tax increases as a condition for raising the debt ceiling, the President could have blown their cover. He could have shown the American people why this demand had nothing to do with deficit reduction but everything to do with the GOP’s ideological fixation on shrinking the size of the government — thereby imperiling Medicare, Social Security, education, infrastructure, and everything else Americans depend on. But he did not.
And through it all the President could have explained to Americans that the biggest economic challenge we face is restoring jobs and wages and economic growth, that spending cuts in the next few years will slow the economy even further, and therefore that the Republicans’ demands threaten us all. Again, he did not.
The radical right has now won a huge tactical and strategic victory. Democrats and the White House have proven they have little by way of tactics or strategy.
By putting Medicare and Social Security on the block, they have made it more difficult for Democrats in the upcoming 2012 election cycle to blame Republicans for doing so.
By embracing deficit reduction as their apparent goal – claiming only that they’d seek to do it differently than the GOP – Democrats and the White House now seemingly agree with the GOP that the budget deficit is the biggest obstacle to the nation’s future prosperity.
The budget deficit is not the biggest obstacle to our prosperity. Lack of jobs and growth is. And the largest threat to our democracy is the emergence of a radical right capable of getting most of the ransom it demands.
Robert Reich, one of the nation’s leading experts on work and the economy, is Chancellor’s Professor of Public Policy at the Goldman School of Public Policy at the University of California at Berkeley. He has served in three national administrations, most recently as secretary of labor under President Bill Clinton. Time Magazine has named him one of the ten most effective cabinet secretaries of the last century. He has written thirteen books, including his latest best-seller, Aftershock: The Next Economy and America’s Future; The Work of Nations; Locked in the Cabinet; Supercapitalism; and his newest, Beyond Outrage. His syndicated columns, television appearances, and public radio commentaries reach millions of people each week. He is also a founding editor of the American Prospect magazine, and Chairman of the citizen’s group Common Cause. His widely-read blog can be found at www.robertreich.org.
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Show All"Yes, the deal is preferable to the unfolding economic catastrophe of a default on the debt of the U.S. government. The outrage and the shame is it has come to this choice."
Really? A) I don't think so, and B) it didn't have to come to this choice. This crisis is what Obama and the GOP wanted. It really was theater for the masses to undo what's left of the New Deal protections and programs. To quote the title of a recent eloquent blog post: This is what despair looks like.
Yes. A manufactured debate with a crap panel designed to force WHAT CORRUPT DEMOCRACY WOULD NOT- a bad agreement. With an untrustworthy president who disses his support and fawns over Wall St. it is heartbreaking. Wake up Democrats, Obama is throwing the party and platform. Blame Obama= he is a phony and the Democrat leaders are not leaders. The last thing I want to hear from Obama or any other Democrat is that they WOULD HAVE PREFERRED a different outcome. They are not WORTHY of your vote. Dump them all- oust the party incumbents. Who isn’t sick of these deadbeat, gutless Dem politicians and their cronies who can’t seem to get off the public jobs and the public purse and who are more concerned with cash. A progressive view of the world is the only sustainable, popular view for humankind.
Had Obama acted on any of the "Obama could have" examples cited by Reich, Obama would have jeopardized his goal of amassing a corporate funded billion dollar 2012 campaign war chest.
Not only will this deal "not raise taxes on the wealthy", the "tax reform" component of the deal that Obama keeps talking about will further reduce taxes for megacorporations that are already subject to a negative rate of taxation (they already get a taxpayer funded check in exchange for filing a tax return each year).
A good point. Where the "insider" books? By this time during the Bush administration they were rolling out as if on a conveyer belt. We could use a close up insider look at Obama's relationship with Wall Street.
We could have used that before his election...
I did not read or hear much about Obama's ties to Wall Street back in 2007-08...From what I read, heard, witnessed was good ole Acorn and some nice old guy named George Soros helping his campaign..
I remember reading A book about the "Bush Dynasty" by Kevin Phillips, well after Bush was into his second term...If all voters had read that book, the Bush Election scam might not have been enough...
Which just goes to show that without A "Free Press", {and we do not have anything that even resembles A Free Press}, our votes are largely symbolic, meaningless gestures...Campaign Finance is the other side of that dirty coin...
"A progressive view of the world is the only sustainable, popular view for humankind."
...Agreed. But how do we get that progressive view into our government? Nibbling away at it with "lesser of two evils" voting has not worked, as many here have noted. What about the nuclear option? Electing Michelle Bachmann or some other tea-bagger and watching the government and the country collapse and hope that progressives can move into the vacuum? This never seems to work, as conservatives always seem to be more ready to fill those voids while progressives, as so readily seen here, argue among themselves - watch Egypt, Tunisia, and elsewhere were workers caused a power vacuum and autocrats move in to fill it. I'm to the point of shugging my shoulders and saying we're finished - end of the noble "government of the people" experiment. The game was rigged all along, the oligarchs never really trusted us with the vote (Electoral College) or gave up their hold on governance, anyway. The only times the working American made any gains was when an anointed member of the ruling elite (FDR, JFK, LBJ) threw them a few crumbs. That we've held on this long is kind of amazing, but it's over. American is owned, lock, stock and barrel (weapon imagery intentional) by the corporate rich. The rest of us are unsustainable.
Yeah, I feel the same way everyday. But why coudn't we put a scare into the plutocrats with the remaining vote power we still have and run progressives against everyone from Obama on down, namely "Democrats". This is essentially how the wingnuts seized control of the Repugnican party, by running radicals against RINOs. We can run good people against Democrats In Name Only (DINOs).
no, you can't. the situations between the right and center are not analogous.
the social right was able to organize because they serve(d) the interests of power, so they have access to capital and resources that anyone else on the left-leaning to left spectrum does not. And with money being the central factor in successful campaigning at all levels now, "good" people would just get defunded out of the gate.
It's vital that people stop looking towad this electoral fantasy of trying to "reclaim" the Democratic party simply because some right radicals appear to have claimed the Republican one. The equivalency between the two ambitions is utterly false.
Thank you, drone, for making this important point. I hear Thom Hartmann say this every other week and it's getting old. It's just another blind alley.
drone is correct.
The "Tea Party™" is not a movement. It is a product.
The "left" does not have the organizational (read: corporate) structure or funding necessary for the R&D, manufacturing, advertising, sales and service of such a product.
That's probably true.
Yet, a popular progressive on the left will bring a progressive platform and should get some air-time in the media.
The electoral commission is in great need of reform: equal access and time for each candidate and each party is a must in DEmocracy.
In Europe - at least France - EACH small party candidate participates in each presidential party debate AND gets the same ad time on TV and radio.
Although the 2 large parties are in the limelight others bring RADICAL ideas on the table at prime time hours!
WHEN Will America move toward Democracy.
yes, sister j., we do. Elections haven't mattered for some time now. We have only 3 goals--all difficult, all swimming upstream. The first is to erase the spell that the fake democracy has over the minds of our fellows, We must tear and tear at the state and its true master, the corporate shadow state until no one can mistake its face for something else. The second is to demystify and mentally prepare for all manners of struggle. This means doing what needs to be done to win, even at risk to our own ethos and souls. Power struggles in nature are vulgar, crude, and brutal things. In human affairs, no less so. Those who can handle a heavier burden should do so with others of their kind. Those who can't should do whatever they can to help out. The third thing that must be done is to accept is to take that first step knowing that you are not alone (best if you can make sure you're not prior to taking it!) but that you have committed and crossed line you cannot re-cross.
Then do what needs to be done, as nebulous as that sounds on a board...)
Thanks for trying to pick me up, folks. The frustration of seeing the oligarchs destroy this nation and our economy over the past 35+ years with the continued support of the very working Americans they are killing rips my heart out. I hate to blame the victims, but when will they wake up? I can't even face most of my friends, my sister, or my hobby club or poker game buddies anymore because I know I'll wind up screaming and telling them what idiots they are for not seeing the obvious and cheering their own deaths. I'm a child of Uranus, so maybe there is some unpredictable hope left. But I'm also a geologist, and once certain massive forces are put into motion their destructive power is unstoppable.
In human affairs, no force is that powerful. It's only a question of cost.
Hey, geologists have value....wanna join up? :) i could use you.
You mention frustration and wanting to scream to wake the victims up from cheering on thier own distruction. I can understand all this from my own personal experience. And the lesson I took away was to temper my screaming or leave the room, lol. But I also think the changes that are coming are also fascinating.and I don't want to miss the show.
The thing is that the oligarchs are not in control any more the "we" are. They no doubt look foward to having more riches and that they will then be even happier(?). But it is not just their limited focus of their own lives that will change. Instead everything will change for everyone in ways that can be anticipated and in ways that will surprise us. Some of these changes will no doubt be pleasant, a nicer way to be than before. Others not.
I 've been here for at least 35+ years. And I wasn't so happy with the world back then. I think I'm happier now than in my youth even though the world is in a bigger pile of shit now (a perception that often develops with old age LOL). Perhaps part of that is reconciling myself to my inevitable personal death if indeed that is the case (can be interpreted either way!) LOL.
P S. I believe I read somewhere that the Hindus subscribe to the idea that things always get worse over time, at least during any one scintillation of Brama.
But I sum it up here: There will not be just some changes, but rather everything will change. I hope that gives you a little lift.
.
WC: In a lead article today, Rebecca Solnit uses the metaphor of the Tarot's "Wheel of Fortune" to suggest that what's up one day, is down the next. The inlaid cycles of time articulate their particular influence over events. Prefacing my comment with this allusion, I'd ask you to consider that maybe this is all planned, which is to say happening on "Cosmic Time."
The planet Pluto (by whatever categorical name it currently goes by) exerts a force that causes things to break down, and therefore require rebuilding. Keynotes for this influence include: endings that lead to new beginnings, death/rebirth and transformation, rebuilding, remaking, remodeling, rejuvenation, regeneration, resuscitation, and possible Renaissance.
Pluto (curiously linked with the political reality of an insidious plutocracy that's currently treating the nation the way a swarm of vultures takes all the meat off the bones) is now nearly directly opposite the U.S. SUN degree. The sun position signifies the collective energy and identify of a nation. It takes Pluto 248 years to get there, plus, as was the case during the l930's (when Pluto was in Cancer, the sign opposite its present position, thus catalyzing similar factors. At that time our country was on the receiving end of a highly productive build-up due to the war in Europe) Uranus, the rebel planet, was also active in the cosmic picture.
The four signs hit most directly by last year's cosmic cross (which I wrote about extensively in this forum, going further to suggest it had all the indications of a vast "Coming Apart," and further explaining that the complexity and timing of the various cycles interacting does not manifest in any ONE shot event. It's a massive process) happen to include: Mexico, Canada, UK, Germany, China and the U.S. (Israel is Taurus and Russia, Scorpio... they will feel impacts when Saturn gets to Scorpio beginning in October 2012.)
When Pluto crossed Cancer (l913-l939) Europe also experienced financial constriction that, in many places, was drummed up into an inside xenophobia which led to Hitler's massive right wing hate policies. With Pluto opposite that position (i.e. on the other side of the invisible line that moves through space, now essentially igniting the same axis) once again financial constriction (engineered by bankster/elites), reverberates through pockets of jingoism popping up, as symptoms of right wing hatred brew.
A big shift begins in 2020, and I believe very different laws will govern on a universal scale by 2025. So we're in the 9 year squeeze, with the next 3 signifying chaos, upheaval, and all those processes related to Pluto (as mentioned). It's the end of a phase, and in this testing interim, we get to see what we are made of... and what we stand for.
Rebirth Happens!
Well, thanks for clearing that up. I was beginning to think that we were all f**ked!
wcdevins, I understand your evident despair, but take exception to your conclusion. The working people made gains under FDR because they organized and resisted. FDR was pushed into the New Deal, it was not something he campaigned on, or would have undertaken without massive popular pressure. The unions were much stronger then, so it was easier to organize popular resistance. JFK was another situation entirely, as he was bumped off by the CIA. That was a 'tipping point' in the slide toward fascism. But democracy is never dead, as long as its principles are enshrined in our nation's founding documents and in popular consciousness. The battle goes on. We must find a way to keep struggling, in spite of our disillusionment.
That's true. They had the shit scared out of them by the example of Huey Long (a crook, but the people's crook who they assassinated), The International Workers of the World (Wobblies) and the communist and socialist movements. FDR gave the people socialist lite, but at least it was something.
It is not over, fascism is not sustainable. The oligarchs have never given up anything, we have had to fight for everything. You dismiss the real developments that have taken effect-the end of chattel slavery, the 40 hour work week, the weekend, the end of Jim Crow etc.; it is to the greater equality of the future that we fight for now, just as it has always been. If you think it is a long way to the mountain top from the valley, you should have seen the view from the bottom of the salt mine. Come on now, you mention FDR,JFK,LBJ- they did not throw a few crumbs, they released the pressure of intense social forces. We won those concessions, and we will continue to win until we are beyond victory and defeat-until Ecology is triumphant, and the human experience is transcendant in vital experience and love.
YES, voting in 2012,.....if it even matters anymore......unless THE Bernie Sanders is the Primary challenger against the GREAT Imposter.....I'm going GREEN......or anywhere but (cowardly even when in the majority ) DIM!!
I have been a life-long democrat, but I agree. Green or socialist or some democrat who has a PROVEN record of supporting the people (if there is such a thing). Voting the democratic party line is just signing one's own death warrant.
Why don't you try reading what Reich said before criticizing? And argument A, that you don't think so, is no argument at all.
Exactly right! And transparent as daylight to any functioning brain, one would think. Amazing how the 'Obama is a weak negotiator' meme is still being played.
Have to agree, Samalabear. I'm tired of liberals talking about Obomber 'caving' and cluelessness, etc. The man is not that dumb. Corrupt and calculating, he is. This whole charade was a manufactured crisis, and Obomber was willing and complicit in its outcome.
The audacity of mendacity!
The audacity of mendacity.
Change you can't believe in.
Hope for dopes.
Hope and Cheney.
Or The Mendacity of Hope, by Roger Hodge. A good book, which covers Obama's many deceptions, as of the end of the health care debacle.
As somebody said recently, the terrorists who held our economy hostage have been given their demands - and will probably be back later to get more.
And all these Teabagger images of Obama as Hitler, when he's proven himself to be a Neville Chamberain...
IMO more like Vidkun Quisling, I see him as a more of a collaborator than an appeaser.
YES THAT IS RIGHT
anyone who is still drinking the Obomber cool aid. Should get their head out of the
dark spot.
Never ever will I vote for this person ,, I was going to say man but....
It is not enough to say you will not vote for this person. You must resolve to never vote for either of the two corporate political parties. There is no lesser evil. We, the people, must rise up and throw the entire bunch of corrupt bastards out of the House of 'Representatives' and the Senate.
There will be very hard times ahead for the working people (and those who have lost their jobs) of this nation. There is no one but you who can, with millions of others like you, make the needed changes. What we have now is a failure. We need to come up with a way to change our government. Go search for the web site Oct.6, 2011. There are plans being made to stop the machine with a major long lasting protest in Washington D.C. We are going to have to go to the head of the monster that is eating our future and insist on getting some democracy in our nation. Do you know anyone who wants the wars to go on? Do you know anyone who does not want good health care for all of us? Do you know anyone who likes giving the banksters billions of dollars of our tax funds with no strings attached? I guess you don't know anyone in Congress. As you can see with these three issues, the Congress is not heeding the advice of the people. Throw them out!!!
I Agree!
Democrats who follow the lesser of 2 evils strategy should do the democrats of old a favor and Take The Republican Party Over from the inside - because let's face it YOu all Were repubs not long Ago.
In fact it's Your going from repub to dem that caused the teabaggermnutjobs to take over the repub party and cause a rightward lurch -
So Support the 2 Party System and reregister as republicans - you'd do better there than trying to convince true progressives to follow you and the current dems.
And Take Obama With You!
"It is not enough to say you will not vote for this person. You must resolve to never vote for either of the two corporate political parties. There is no lesser evil.'
RIGHT ON! RIGHT ON! RIGHT ON!
are all you Obamabots paying attention!
Thank you for the words of wisdom, wantrealdemocracy!
Someone labelled BHO as a "Trojan Horse". That's the best description yet. After all, he announced his true intentions way before his campaign. Except people were so charmed by his speeches (and they were lovely), they forgot what he was really all about.
Too good to be true, alas.
If I may split a hair: the "Horse" was actually Team Obama's award-winning marketing campaign.
Obama is the actual Trojan berserker who half-hid inside and got past the electoral defenses, the better to spring forth and do his dirty work.
hey pere - no need to slur chamberlain. a much maligned man. he was motivated in his dealings with hitler by a couple of factors
1. he and everyone else remembered the utter devastation of ww1 - it was only a matter of 17 years (1918-1935) since that slaughter had ended and he wanted to stop another war from developing - didn't work out
2. he felt the nazis were entitled to take back land that was taken from germany with the armistice of ww1. he hoped they would stop when they had reclaimed their properties - of course that didn't work out either
maybe there is a lesson there but the point i am making is that he had a reason and one that was shared by many people, most of whom had fought in that goat fuck war
obummer doesn't have that reason or any other
the horror show that has played out was mainly determined by his lack of interest, commitment, and extreme lack of cajones
so let's not slur chamberlain - he was a man of principle and he had the conviction that he didn't want to see another slaughter - 71 million dead by the end of it as it turned out
finally, he did when all else had failed, declare war on germany whereas obummer, seems to me, has foregone the battle and jumped right to the surrender - to the tea party and the whackos in the ultra right of congress, two sets of toothless old hags
obummer is the feckless one
the brits, as history shows us, threw chamberlain out on his ass when his plan didn't work and now that is the job we need to complete right now with obummer
let's get rid of this nwo shill loser before he surrenders the entire country
btw: when chamberlain was thrown to the dogs the king wanted the government to be led by lord halifax, war secretary, he too was an appeaser
"In November, 1937, Neville Chamberlain, who had replaced Stanley Baldwin as prime minister, sent Lord Halifax to meet Adolf Hitler, Joseph Goebbels and Hermann Goering in Germany. In his diary, Lord Halifax records how he told Hitler: "Although there was much in the Nazi system that profoundly offended British opinion, I was not blind to what he (Hitler) had done for Germany, and to the achievement from his point of view of keeping Communism out of his country." This was a reference to the fact that Hitler had banned the Communist Party (KPD) in Germany and placed its leaders in Concentration Camps.
Whereas Lord Halifax supported Chamberlain's appeasement policy, the foreign secretary, Anthony Eden, was highly critical of this way of dealing with Adolf Hitler and Benito Mussolini. On 25th February, 1938 Eden resigned over this issue and Lord Halifax became the new foreign secretary."
http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/2WWhalifaxL.htm
he declined the offer which led to the appointment of a drunken life long imperial war monger who had been the author of many failed military excursions in ww1 - the biggest mess being gallipoli
that man's name was winston churchill
http://www.winstonchurchill.org/
So, Bob, why are you still a 'crat? Isn't it time to go independent?
It's a sad day and no one will be protesting. I went to 2 protest last week to protest cuts in Social Security and it was organized by the Unions. I have not seen one email of outrage by my Union or the AFL-CIO, so you can see where the politics are. The President of the "AFGA" John Gage said he doesnt like to loose, and that we are drawing a line in the sand over Social Security and Medicare, Well why no emails for protest this morning? Maybe they will come later but Im wondering?
It's the AFGE... of which I'm a member.
The Tea Party and the Koch Brothers and other fat cats win. The rest of us eat cat food.
When, if ever, will Robert Reich and the others of his ilk, recognize that BHO is Wall Street's paid and chosen agent for running their, not our, government. What degree of outright lying, deceptions and betrayal by BHO will it take to snap Reich out of his trance? If 2.5 years of endless slick lies and criminal acts equalling that of Bush aren't enough, we must ask just what mind altering drug RR has been taking. Robert, wake up!!!!, there is but one political party in the US, the party of wars and Wall Street. All the rest is being sacrificed on the altar of these two destructive gods of greed, power, control, domination. A world and living situation not unlike the nightmare vision of Orwell awaits in the wings ready for full implementation..
Reisch is paid good money to NOT make those connections.
+1
Right on. Just like I identify libertarians as either duped or evil, Obama has ushered in the era of identifying Democrats the same way. Actually, that era should have been ushered in by Clinton but the 90's economic bacchanalia post-poned the milestone in my view. Turns out that, perhaps, Hilary would have been a better Democratic president for the middle class.
Re: Hillary - She would been just as bad as obama - just look at Honduras - hillary was up to her eyeballs in the coup. Heck they got their 1st coup faster than the bush crime family did!
Court Jester: thank you for stating this again. It bears reiterating your main point: Robert Reich is part of the oligopoly. He wrote a piece long ago about how all of us in the USA would have really good jobs as "symbolic analysts" and we should not be upset about GATT/NAFTA/GATT 2 because really there is no reason to keep the manufacturing base, or prevent Capital from moving offshore because the new economic reality would make us all happy analyzing symbols AND we would be paid really well. Robert Reich is a tool of the elite, Obama is an agent of their reactionary policies.
From the article; "The budget deficit is not the biggest obstacle to our prosperity. Lack of jobs and growth is. "
All indications are that we are past peak oil, which means the era a cheap oil is done, stick a fork in it. It is going to be very hard to grow the economy as energy prices increase. Add to that the million of jobs that we shipped overseas over the last 30 years, and the fact that the two corporate parties refuse to raise taxes on the rich, and I don't ever see this economy EVER recovering to a level that we have a healthy middle class again.
Right you are, NC-Tom. The opposite of growth is accelerating decline. Humanity is in a race for the fewer and fewer leftover pieces now, and TPTB know this.