RG the LG

Well now …

… aren’t we just oh, so cozy …”

Nice closing. I’m inclined to agree just for aesthetic reasons.

But, now it’s different. A president was elected in what was a resounding rejection of the Bush lies and hysteria. We don’t get nominees who are even close to earning an affirmative vote. But 2008 was a referendum on the worst of the worst, the Bush-Cheney horror show. The people voted the right way. The only problem was doing that required voting for the challenger.

Obama wasn’t that hard to figure out. He showed up to help Lieberman defeat a real anti war (not just anti Iraq) candidate for Senate.

It took less time for Obama to cave than for Tyson to finish off Sphinx.

That’s the traditional scenari – “movingi to the center.”

But this is different. We’re in very serious trouble. The 9.5% unemployment rate is not based on the same calculations they used in the Great Depression. With that, it’s more like 18%. Oops, they can tell us one thing but when you and I are forking over good change for a spacious refrigerator box, we’ll know. They know, those unemployed, and tens of millions onw that they’re at risk.

Hard to be cozy when you lose everything. It’s even harder to tolerate losing everything when you know that it was all based on a pack of lies to benefit the very few. We had anything close to this since the Great Depression.

Cozy won’t work anymore when the shocks hit.

You are right. We do need substantial changes in the way we govern ourselves, starting with actually doing that.

Thanks for the response. For a moment there, I felt cozy.

Both the original and the footnote have some worthy points to ponder. They are points that have been brought up on this site by all sorts of folks noting that the difference in the parties is that between the tweedle twins: Dee and Dum. There is no reason to regurgitate … besides I truly do dislike the taste of bile.

We need a revolution. I agree. I just don’t see anyone being fed up enough to actually get off their arse and do something. We do have a more or less mouthy bunch in the anti-war movement, and some folks have actually worked within the system to block really bad political appointees (the chap from TN who was appointed to the federal judiciary and ultimately pulled out … he worked for CCA …) is an example of that sort of activism. But the streets? A real TEA PARTY?

Not in AmeriKKKa any time soon. We are way to selfish to be really willing to put our cozy lifestyles on the line … whether we style ourselves as left, right or indifferent. Thus the Numerian comments have about the same value as the hickups … you feel better, I suppose …

A multi-party system would be nice … but we are SO brainwashed into the current system that the malaise is systemic and endemic. I have sarcastically (I do so enjoy sarcasm) suggested that the Senators be selected in a bidding system for the elites, life-time senecures until death or resignation … it would serve as a dandy revenue resource for the states. But I know damned well that stuff like that won’t happen … because you, just like me, are way too cozy.

Until WE THE PEOPLE decide to really think about our system … and we quit acting as though a bunch of rich land and slave-owning aristocrats coupled with the mercantile interests of New England, got together and undid the Articles of Confederation to protect their property at all costs, that the freeing of the slaves was not a humanitarian action but one of realizing that debt-slavery was far more effective than bondage, that women’s suffrage only helped to calm women, and that the civil rights BS of the 60′s and 70′s was only restating existing law … until we begin to realize that OUR SYSTEM OF GOVERNMENT is a fraud that YOU and I support by not resisting …

… then we can have what amounts to academic masturbation until the end of time … and nothing will change. The fact is that capitalism is so successful because it does buy off opposition … and let us all be honest, we have each and everyone of us been bought off … and co-opts their goals by making meaningless concessions and creating endless committees, authorizing tons of studies, and putting off any action until the masses have quieted. As members of the masses, YOU and I are complicit in the American System … we are the footmen, the willing troopers of empire … and we do so because …

Well now …

… aren’t we just oh, so cozy …

RG the LG

2) The heavy cost of government taxation will be another source of protest. The tendency of all governments to gouge the taxpayers with petty fees, or usurious fees (parking fines which double if not paid in 14 days), may lead not just to public protests, but disengagement from the responsibilities of citizenship. People will simply not pay. Voluntary payment of income taxes will decline. Bartering of services is already on the rise and will grow even more, depriving the government of sales tax. Properties are already being abandoned, causing the property tax take to fall. Local and state governments are already under stress trying to find revenues to fund basic services, but a voter and taxpayer revolt will make these problems much worse. Even the federal government will feel the strain, as the bond market begins to extract a heavy price for any new borrowing.

3) Obama’s coalition of enthusiastic supporters will evaporate in disillusionment. He will increasingly have to rely on corporate donations to fund his campaigns, because voters won’t have the means to make campaign contributions and nothing he has done will justify people making financial sacrifices for him.

4) Alternatives to the dominant media are arising to challenge the way this country is run. There are a lot of disgusted journalists who have lost their jobs and have been rethinking what has gone wrong with the US. They are slowly finding their voice on the internet or through books that don’t have to be marketed through a corporate publisher. An angry public will no longer trust the traditional media and will find ways of reading and listening to alternative views.

5) The secession movement will pick up pace. Calls for secession will be another form of localized protest against enormous government taxation burdens and lousy services.

6) People like Ron Paul and Dennis Kucinich will gain more respect and a wider audience. People will really begin paying attention to what they have been saying, which will be seen as more credible than what is coming from either party.

7) “Extremist” candidates will win some elections on both the Republican and Democratic sides. These will be politicians who have found a way to run low-cost campaigns based on wild ideas like socialism or secession. They will shake up the status quo from within.

Numerian, The Agonist
http://agonist.org/michael_collins/20090605/the_binary_fallacy_and_the_end_of_both_parties#comment-189057
————————————-