Obama Admits We Can't Have Guns and Butter - Then Chooses Guns
http://www.openleft.com/diary/16357/obama-admits-we-cant-have-guns-and-butter-all-while-choosing-guns
During the Vietnam War, it became clear that America could not afford to simultaneously wage war on poverty and wage war in Vietnam. We could not have guns and butter at the same time...The same is true of the Afghanistan War, which will now cost at least $100 billion a year, thanks to President Obama's massive escalation. That's more than the same annual outlay for the universal health care bills being considered in Congress.
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When Pundits Insist $141 Billion In Wall Street Handouts Is No Big Deal...
http://www.openleft.com/diary/16370/when-political-pundits-insist-141-billion-in-wall-street-handouts-is-no-big-deal
...it's a good sign of just how much the political goalposts in America have shifted, and just how completely the plutocratic ethos now dominate our "democracy." I bring this up in light of the White House now insisting that the Obama-backed Troubled Asset Relief Program will "only" cost taxpayers $141 billion. As you can see here and here for some examples, some professional political prognosticators insist this is awesome news - because hey, $141 billion isn't a big deal, right? And it's certainly not a big deal when the president is saying we barely have any resources for job creation, right?
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Here's Joan Walsh from Salon.com:
Is the public option worth fighting for?
http://www.salon.com/news/opinion/joan_walsh/politics/2009/12/07/public_option_compromise
Influential liberals have begun arguing a funny kind of liberal Catch-22: The health insurance "public option" is already so diluted, it's no longer worth fighting for. Got it? Because liberal Dems got played by conservative Dems, they should forfeit the entire game.
Crazy as it sounds, it might also be true.
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One more bit from Common Dreams:
Drill, Baby, Drill: Obama Administration OKs Oil Drilling in Arctic off Alaska
http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2009/12/07-13
WASHINGTON -- The Interior Department today gave the go-ahead for Shell Oil to begin drilling three exploratory wells in the Chukchi Sea, a move that opens the door for production in a new region of the Arctic.
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For me this last bit is the drop of the other shoe - that's Obama representing very nearly the same agenda as Bush Jr. for fuck's sake!
And Walsh doesn't go far enough. I don't think there is anything left worth fighting for in this so-called "healthcare reform" push. I say it's time to chuck the whole thing and for the Democrats to admit that they are:
- corporatist whores
- stooges for a not very well-hidden Wall Street plutocracy
- not interested in accomplishing anything that creates either peace or financial stability for a vanishing middle-class
- unrelentingly faithful to the two-party shell-game in which neither party contains the pea of actual political change
So, I guess what I am hearing from our leadership is the following short list of "fuck yous":
- we can't have healthcare reform because it costs too much (even though real reform would save us a bundle)
- we can't spend anything on job creation or greening the nation
- we can't bail out families facing foreclosure, just the banks that put them into the streets
- there's plenty of money for banks, investment firms and insurance companies that are too big to fail
- there's plenty of money for waging wars of choice and even escalating them too
- and fuck it, we are an oil obsessed nation of war-mongers! Reason alone dictates we must shit where we eat.
I'll give you one more bit from Chernynkaya commenting on HuffPo (the best stuff is often in the comments):
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http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/12/04/aetna-forcing-600000-plus_n_380130.html?page=21&show_comment_id=35693425#comment_35693425
How disgusted and pessimistic am I about our government? I talked to my young adult kids and told them to leave the US for somewhere in Europe while they are young enough to make a life there-- a life where corporations haven't destr0yed democracy, where government's role is to protect its citizens, where they can live without the fear of poverty if they should be so foolish as to get ill. So far though, they seem to want to stay.
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So there you go, "American Idiocracy" in inaction!
