Sugar coated
I discovered the quintessential "progressive" blog called leftinthewest.com where mostly Montana Democrats try to justify why supporting capitalist "politics" still makes sense even after all the "hope for change" fairy dust has worn off. It is fascinating to observe the contortions they go through to rationalize incremental legislative "change" and cling to some liberal notion of "left" that so obviously serves to feed the system.
Laura Ingrahams "First they came for the rich" is perfectly easy for me to understand but for a Max Baucus staffer to write about "health care and the rather unfortunate news of the last few days" is a much more perverse phenomena. In a humanistic fashion it crushes any type of utopian imaginary or inspiration. Like a British Petroleum "greenwash" commercial they justify utter defeat with "democratic" jargon like "this bill is progress.And it lays the groundwork for more progress. That's a win."
Put a little sugar on a turd and really, it's not that bad! When I challenge these folks from the actual Left they get outraged that I want to sabotage all their "progress". They threaten me with Sarah Palin because in their choked and circumscribed vision these are the only two choices: Sugar coated shit or Sarah. "Lays the groundwork"? What were the last sixty years? Oh yeah, I remember, "progressive" acceptance of Market Ideology.
This "health reform" imposes annual limits on what Insurance Cartels have to pay and exempts them from anti-trust law. It has taxes that start in January but benefits that don't start till 2014.It bans negotiations over drug prices and has no cost controls so premiums will rise $1000 dollars a year. It taxes union health plans and mandates we buy this Corporate Crap under penalty of law. This is the "unfortunate news" Baucus' lacky speaks of.
See if this sounds familiar: From todays Gaurdian "Obama warned African and island countries that the alternative- of no deal- was worse."
Add this health care abortion to the Copenhagen sell-out, the Afghanistan sell-out, the Wall Street sell-out and on and on and it is just hilariously absurd to hear these same folks wonder why "young people are no longer excited about politics".They continue to defend capitalism as a system we must reform and regulate.Their only alternatives are to eat various quantities of shit.
posted by troutsky @ 7:15 AM
16 comments
16 Comments:
The advocates of the death cult are not fit to pass judgment on anything. They cry about the process
but fail to depart and live in the pest holes they imagine to be utopia.
Troutsky, I think it was you who recommended the Tony Judt article in the most recent New York Review of Books.
Just got around to that issue. It is indeed a good article and it's unfortunate someone like Beak can't take a look at it.
I always enjoy reading excerpts from the early political economists like Adam Smith who sound a serious warning about laissez-faire.
Beak, give it a try and expand your horizons.
See if this sounds familiar: From todays Gaurdian "Obama warned African and island countries that the alternative- of no deal- was worse."
------------------------
"Obama warned the American people that the alternative to not increasing troop strength in Afghanistan was worse".
Write your own.
If you attack the Democratic Party, without offering an alternative, it is only protest without vision. The alternative is a labor party. Not a third party, but a first party.
People have been through the School of George Bush, and now they are going into the School of Obama. When that fails they will do something else.
But I think you are too harsh, trout. Remember, Schwarzenegger, the guy who thought he could deal with California's fiscal issues by issuing short term debt, says that Obama deserves an "A for effort".
That's going to keep a few islands from being overrun and restore the glacial water supply etc. etc.
With Obama the corporatists have found their dream president. An absolute dream who can have his staff engineer failure of any seriously radical change while appearing to be a supporter and all the time above criticism.
This guy is the right's wet dream and they don't even know it.
...but ren, Schwarzenegger gives the School of Obama and A for effort on Copenhagen.
Obama must be great.
Duncy
Start with Judt's review of the Black book of Communism and get back to me. It seems that the usual suspects miss that while promoting his more scholarly Norman Finkelstein
act.
My efforts to open Beak's vistas have failed once again.
I need a highball.
This guy is the right's wet dream and they don't even know it.
I'm not sure if I'm on the right anymore or not, but this is ridiculous statement to make. Increasing the size and role of Government is a leftist fantasy, though it's unclear to me if anyone thinks all this debt is a good thing.
On the foreign policy front, you have a point. But as Troutsky is well aware, there is no essential disagreement on this point at least between the two ruling parties.
Ren, How do you keep a Labor Party from ending up as a pathetic shell as in UK? Just to get in the game you would need to ask workers for lots of money they don't have. I suppose it would be worth a try however, nothing else seems to have much energy.
The Terminator tries to make serious environmental policy within the confines of his free market fundamentalism and just can't figure out why his can't be the model for the planet.
"This guy is the rights wet dream" and yet the New Tea Party is obligated to do a Kubuki dance of fighting "government take-over of health care".Maybe he should try to take away their guns, at least it would be a substantive issue! Beak is coming around , I can sense it.He's probably reading Twain as we speak.
Troutsky - the healthcare debacle truly is a pile of shit... The American people have been bent over and fucked once again by politicians, lawyers, and lobbyists... The crisis of capitalist democracy is inow showing itself in all its splendor.
Enter Beak... 1, 2, 3...
Boy George and the Kulture Comedy act returns. The lame act of academic clown equates societal problems in the USA with gulags and planned starvation in Marxist messes.
The poor in America are often obese.The poor sometimes have their own homes and cars. Even in the most depressed area one can find fresh produce.
Communism is a failure.
Your idiotic romance with preindustrial man is sheer comedy.
No doubt an earlier version of Che Sponge Bob was probably sacrificing some slaves to a god with 12 sylables to create an imaginary utopia.
How do hack academics whose degrees are similar to those found on a rectal thermometer stay gainfully employed? If we had depoliticized higher ed you might use your papers as compost.
Stick to beating up anarchists kulture clod.
Wiser man, trimming the Social Security and Medicare programs isn't the Grail of the right?
The total dismantling of the New Deal isn't their goal?
That is coming and Bernanke and Summers are the guys to get the foundation in place.
I will say it again, Obama is the right wing's wet dream.
Beak , no there is little fresh produce. There is a surfeit of high calorie processed sugar junk which is why the poor are often overweight, poor diet.
Do you ever try reason.
And it's true that some poor own a home, one that the invisible hand priced at $200,000, is now priced at $125,000 and they have a resetting adjustable mortgage. It's hear it for the invisible hand.
But I know, it's all the government's fault. They made Ameriquest issue all those subprime mortgages that they were pocketing all those fat commissions on as they bundled the junk and floated it upstream like a big turd. Even sold to people who qualified for better term standard mortgages but the commissions weren't as high.
Duncy
The nutrition Nazi claims there is no fresh produce. People have free will and can eat as they choose. Sorry, but repeated examples of planned famines and empty store shelves in Communist history make this a comedic jest.
Your comments show little grasp of the real estate mess. No commodity rises ina straight line forever. Housing is a commodity and the market is correcting itself.
Troutsky: It's a cardinal rule, that when workers are politically active, the first thing they look to is the traditional organizations as labor parties and unions. True that in this period, when consciousness is high, the reformist and Stalinist leaderships moved more to the right. Look at what the Militant Tendency did in the UK Labor Party in the 1980s. It had several thousand members, with 200 full time organizers. It brought down Thatcherism. Look at the PPP in Pakistan in 1971, which led a revolution.
The Communist Parties like in France and Spain are liquidating themselves. The French Communist Party sponsored a speech by Trotsky's grandson. They killed Trotsky's son. During France 68, workers joined the Communist Party like crazy. Right now thousands a month are joining the Japanese Communist Party. Its just tradition that workers look to CP, Labor or socialist parties when they move.
The Venezuelan PSUV is the largest socialist party in the world. There is quite a bit wrong with it, still it shouldn't be ignored like some of the sectarians do.
I don't belong to any party, contrary to what you may think. If there was a labor party, I'd be in the Marxist wing of it. Just like in Brazil, I'd be in Lula's party in the Marxist wing.
There is quite a bit wrong with all those parties. Being outside will turn a group to a sect.
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