Democrats

Chris Floyd has written a compelling article responding to the anger of Robert Parry (revered liberal journalist who had broken important stories involving the Iran-contra scandal, the history of Bush family crimes, American betrayals of Central America, etc.) at liberals who are balking at voting Democratic out of conscience this November.

An important and highly painful issue for some voting in this upcoming election.

Chris Floyd writes:

Parry believes he is preaching a tough, gritty doctrine of "moral ambiguity." What he is in fact advocating is the bleakest moral nihilism. To Parry, the structure of American power -- the corrupt, corporatized, militarized system built and sustained by both major parties -- cannot be challenged. Not even passively, not even internally, for Parry scorns those who simply refuse to vote almost as harshly as those who commit the unpardonable sin: voting for a third party. No, if you do not take an active role in supporting this brutal engine of war and injustice by voting for a Democrat, then it is you who are immoral. 

You must support this system. It is the only moral choice. What’s more, to be truly moral, to acquit yourself of the charge of vanity and frivolity, to escape complicity in government crimes, you must support the Democrat.

Floyd inventories the present administration against Parry’s stance:

Response to July 16, 2010 E-mail from NJ Sen. Frank Lautenberg, Which Lacked Truth, Integrity, or Merit
Andrew H. Dral ("Janosik" -- "The Rabble")

April 3, 2012

Gateway Center, 23rd Floor
Newark, NJ 07102

Dear Sen. Frank Lautenberg,

In response to your July 16, 2010 e-mail, I found your response completely lacking in any truth, without an ounce of integrity, and completely lacking any merit. It’s clear the United States (U.S.) isn’t your first country of loyalty, it is clearly Israel. From your e-mail, “The Israeli Navy intercepted these ships [Mavi Marmara flotilla] before they reached Gaza and were attacked by a small group of individuals on the lead ship.” The truth, the ships were illegally intercepted by the Israeli Navy in international seas. Second, the Israeli Navy attacked and murdered peaceful activists on the lead ship. In addition, the U.S. congress is the best government money can buy. The U.S. congress is beset by bribery, baksheesh, and wanton immoral greed. The Israelis and their fifth column within the U.S., American Israeli Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), have corrupted our congress. Congress is scared to death of the Israeli lobby. It has been bribed to follow the Israeli Likud Party line, U.S. Middle-east policy is set by Israel.

Friday 14 October 2011
by: Robert Scheer, Truthdig | Op-Ed

If a Republican were president, there would be millions of properly coiffed middle-class Democrats and independents at those Occupy Wall Street marches, and no questions asked as to what they really want. With 25 million Americans unable to find full-time work, 50 million whose homeownership dream has turned into the nightmare of foreclosure, and an all-time high of 46.2 million -- including 22 percent of our children -- living in poverty, the call to throw the bums out would be compelling.

But the protest signs in a nation headed by a Republican, though surely gussied up a bit with ad-agency savvy, would be the same as they are now: Stop catering to the top 1 percent who get ever wealthier, and focus on helping the 99 percent who are hurting. To accomplish that, we need a moratorium on bank-ordered evictions, along with a government-funded program to aid the underemployed that is as robust as the trillions spent to save the Wall Street swindlers who caused all of this trouble.

Instead, we're left with a Democratic president who sooths our rage with promises of decent-paying jobs that in actuality are being vigorously exported from our shores by the president's top corporate backers. That absurdity was marked by Barack Obama's choice of Jeffrey Immelt, the CEO of General Electric -- a company that has shifted to foreign countries two-thirds of its workforce and 82 percent of its profits -- to head the president's job creation council.

Mike Whitney declares:

This is Barack Obama’s economy now....

Obama's failure will likely result in political change that will deliver the White House to the GOP in 2012. Then the deficit hawks will control both houses of congress and the White House, and they will slash spending and push the economy into another Great Depression. This is not speculation. This WILL happen. Obama has made sure it will happen by shrugging off the warnings of every competent economist in the country, all of whom have said repeatedly that we needed more stimulus to lower employment, to reduce the output gap, to increase GDP, and to put the economy back on track.

snip

It's not that Obama merely brushed off the considered advice of liberal economists like Joseph Stiglitz, Robert Reich, Paul Krugman, Mark Thoma, Dean Baker etc etc etc. But he also ignored the main players in his former economics team; Lawrence Summers, Christina Romer, Peter Orzag, all of whom strongly recommended more stimulus (to avoid another downturn) in editorials in leading US newspapers.

Related: #fuckyouwashington, and Capt. Obama, USS Titanic, Tosses Older Women Overboard First, and Republican Hypocrisy on the Deficit, and Obama and Social Security: NewDealDemocrat Tees Off

The crumbling U.S. economy is putting an extraordinary amount of financial stress on American families. For many Americans, "flat broke" has become a permanent condition. Today, over half of all American families live paycheck to paycheck. Unemployment is rampant and those that do actually have jobs are finding that their wages are rising much more slowly than prices are. The financial condition of average American families continues to decline and this is showing up in all of the recent surveys. For example, according to a new Gallup poll, "lack of money/low wages" is the number one financial concern for American families.

>>> Trendsmap <<<

Tweeters rage against the D.C. machine

Spurred by a blogger to vent about gridlock and political posturing in Washington over the debt ceiling crisis, the Twittersphere was burning this morning with citizens' grievances against their government, announced with an expletive-filled hashtag - vulgarity mixed with insight and a lot of common sense.

Jeff Jarvis (of Buzzmachine.com) promoted the flood of Twitter messages with the hashtag #F---YouWashington. A sample is presented below, spelling and punctuation uncorrected.

I have got to herald Marc Rubin’s (“tom in paine”’s) so deserved, delicious and yet depressing diatribe against the colossal impotence of collective doormat TEAM DEM as Obama continues to amiably and relentlessly dismantle democracy . Un-friggin'-believable.

Rubin launches :

I received an email not too long ago from the Progressive Change Campaign Committee asking me to sign a petition that threatened Obama by telling him that if he sold out on social security and Medicare, they would, in no uncertain terms vote for him anyway.

I'm not kidding. That's what it said. If there has ever been a weaker more pathetic more useless political threat ever made I haven't seen it.

This, it seems, is what it is to be a "progressive". And they really wonder why they didn't get a public option, a decent financial reform law and an end to the Bush tax cuts and why Obama is ready to sell out anything to get a deal on the debt ceiling.

Rubin explains that the Progressive Campaign Change Committee a/k/a (oxymoronically) “Bold Progressives” managed to get 200,000 signatures to challenge the White House about its threats to cut Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security. 200,000 signatures. GREAT! EXCEPT .... their threat was TO REFUSE TO DONATE OR VOLUNTEER FOR OBAMA’S RE-ELECTION CAMPAIGN if he cuts entitlements. At the same time, they make it crystal clear they still intend to vote for him whatever he does.

I've been saving this link for over a year to use at the right time. And the reason I didn't hit submit is because I know there are a lot of true believers out there who still think that he, and the rest of the Washington Democrats, are on their side. The Democratic Party of FDR and JFK will be destroyed if they get away with this. Click the link below to go to the source to watch the youtubes

Obama and Social Security: NewDealDemocrat Tees Off

by NewDealDemocrat

Last week President Obama said that he will be "agnostic" as to any changes, including Social Security benefit cuts, that his debt reduction commission recommends. This is a far cry from his constant campaign rhetoric in which he promised to listen to all recommendations, but his plan was to raise the payroll cap on contributions.

This is a sad but necessary piece in which I lay out the evidence, which I believe is compelling, that Barack Obama's own words and deeds reveal that his real agenda all along has been to use a commission or summit to cut Social Security benefits, and that the campaign rhetoric was just a sop to anesthetize opposition. This for a program that, at worst, faces a shortfall 30 years from now, and that Obama himself called the cornerstone of the American social compact.

King George III Won: Happy Fourth of July!
By David Swanson
http://warisacrime.org/node/58333

The Declaration of Independence is best remembered as a declaration of war, a war declared on the grounds that we wanted our own flag. The sheer stupidity and anachronism of the idea serves to discourage any thoughts about why Canada didn't need a bloody war, whether the U.S. war benefitted people outside the new aristocracy to whom power was transferred, what bothered Frederick Douglas so much about a day celebrating "independence," or what the Declaration of Independence actually said.

When you read the Declaration of Independence, it turns out to be an indictment of King George III for various abuses of power. And those abuses of power look fairly similar to abuses of power we happily permit U.S. presidents to engage in today, either as regards the people of this nation or the people of territories and nations that our military occupies today in a manner uncomfortably resembling Britain's rule over the 13 colonies.

Or perhaps I should say, a large portion of us take turns being happy or outraged depending on the political party with which the current president is identified.

Boy, you just can’t make this stuff up.

Weiner exhibiting his “package” via email.

Thank you, Anthony. Exhibit A. That just about sums up what the ruling patriarchy is all about. Power and competition and the biggest “package” whether of a person, a party, a nation or nations. The killer drones, by the way, seem to slide very easily into the abundance of phallic imagery penetrating the public through the addicted-to-titillation, disinforming, amoral media these days.

The alleged molestation by DSK is another one of those awesome, you can’t make these perfect metaphors up, of the IMF’s will to rape Africa, Africa represented by a vulnerable and working class African woman.

But I want to go after a patriarchal player who has not been called out enough to suit my angry needs. “Obama’s Rove” some have called him. A slyer, slicker counterpart of Rove, especially in his ability to APPEAR not sly nor slick.