Tuesday, March 25, 2014

Ye Auld New America: Didn't We Go Down This Road Before?

 
Working for someone else, fingers to the bone with no expectation of decent wages or a foothold on the ladder, is back in vogue here in America.   Even your big deal congresspersons will tell you that.  There are no greater patriots than the country's laborers, and the very, very finest--the finest patriots of all--are those who have no use for unions. The best patriot/workers understand that in America it's All for One and None for All.

And this, too:  If God wanted you to be healthy, wealthy and wise, he would have given you better parents.  It's a practice near to sin to get the taxpayers to take care of you and yours.  The taxpayers have a hard enough time taking care of the rich.

The rich have earned our blind, gushing loyalty (How, you ask? By being rich, you ninny).

You? You haven't.

Yes.  Well.  You'll pardon me for bringing this up, O ye sensitive ones who hate having to hear about the bad old days vs. the good old days, but didn't we goddamn settle this already?

Child coal mine workers, 1900s

I bring this up because Nate Silver says there's a 60% chance the Republicans will take the senate.  Nate seems to know what he's talking about but he doesn't say why the Republicans deserve to take the Senate.  That's for the rest of us to chew over.  So I'm chewing:

How many workers see something in the Republicans that tells them life will be better when the GOP/Tea Party takes over Congress?  What is it they see?

How many women see something in the GOP that the rest of us don't?  Enough to take them over the top?  What is it they see?

When the Republicans win will they finally get busy and deliver on sustainable jobs? Affordable, ethical health care?  Bridges?  Roads? Pollution? Kids?  Or will a comfortable win tell them all they need to know about the sterling virtues of capitalism and the ready acceptance of an oligarchy?

Paul Krugman:
America’s nascent oligarchy may not yet be fully formed — but one of our two main political parties already seems committed to defending the oligarchy’s interests.
Despite the frantic efforts of some Republicans to pretend otherwise, most people realize that today’s G.O.P. favors the interests of the rich over those of ordinary families. I suspect, however, that fewer people realize the extent to which the party favors returns on wealth over wages and salaries. And the dominance of income from capital, which can be inherited, over wages — the dominance of wealth over work — is what patrimonial capitalism is all about.
In Bernie Sanders' report, "Poverty is a Death Sentence", he warns:
“If people don’t have access to health care, if they don’t have access to education, if they don’t have access to jobs and affordable housing then we end up paying not only in terms of human suffering and the shortening of life expectancy but in actual dollars."
These are not revelations new to the 21st century.  Krugman and Sanders are both echoing what President Roosevelt said in his 1944 State of the Union speech, in the midst of the Second World War, when he proposed a second Bill of Rights:
We have come to a clear realization of the fact that true individual freedom cannot exist without economic security and independence. “Necessitous men are not free men.” People who are hungry and out of a job are the stuff of which dictatorships are made.
In our day these economic truths have become accepted as self-evident. We have accepted, so to speak, a second Bill of Rights under which a new basis of security and prosperity can be established for all regardless of station, race, or creed.
Among these are:
  • The right to a useful and remunerative job in the industries or shops or farms or mines of the Nation;
  • The right to earn enough to provide adequate food and clothing and recreation;
  • The right of every farmer to raise and sell his products at a return which will give him and his family a decent living;
  • The right of every businessman, large and small, to trade in an atmosphere of freedom from unfair competition and domination by monopolies at home or abroad;
  • The right of every family to a decent home;
  • The right to adequate medical care and the opportunity to achieve and enjoy good health;
  • The right to adequate protection from the economic fears of old age, sickness, accident, and unemployment;
  • The right to a good education.
We've been here before.  Millions of Americans took FDR's words to heart and worked tirelessly for decades to insure that these most obvious, common-sense American rights should come to pass.  Many of them did come to pass, but now they're in jeopardy.  Now the Republicans (and, yes, some bloody Democrats) are working tirelessly to undo it all.

Millions of us see clearly what's happening again and are trying to stop it, but there are millions of distinctly separate Americans who think it's high time we give up on that old FDR course and head in another direction.  The direction they want to take us in is the same direction we were headed when all hell broke loose in 1929 and it all came crashing down.

It looks like the oligarchs might just get away with it.  So what is it they're seeing in this new, same-old plan--the plan that caused the stock market crash in 1929 and led us into a devastating long-term depression--that makes them think it's going to work this time?

The answer is, it doesn't have to.  America is the place to make money; any idiot knows you wouldn't want to keep it here.  Whatever happens to us won't happen to them.

Some setup, huh?  Makes you wonder if we shouldn't have stuck with that Democracy thing and at least given it a try.

(Cross-posted on Dagblog, Alan Colmes' Liberaland, and Political Carnival Featured on Crooks and Liars Blog Round Up)



11 comments:

  1. The people of France had a similar problem years ago and decided to end it with the French Revolution. I wonder how the people of the USA will solve this nonstop problem?

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  2. We had a revolution, too. Something about church-run monarchies. . .

    We can stop short of a real revolution by just being smart about who we vote for. We don't have to let them in.

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  3. If it were a fair vote yes I agree, it would also require the other side to except said vote. We elected President Obama and look at the resulting actions of the GOP. They are past worrying about votes they are at War right now and are practicing a military strategy called scorched earth. They will refuse to recognize they lost and continue all forms of obstruction, while attacking state governments and bankrupting numerous states. This is all devised to further weaken the Federal government.

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  4. The Koch brothers and ridiculous gerrymandered borders don't help, but in the end it's still individuals who enter that polling booth and cast their votes. All the obstruction and destruction in the world wouldn't make a dent if people where willing to educate themselves or even look around. After all the Republicans have done to us, it's baffling that there are still so many who will vote for them they're actually in a position to win and win big.

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  5. In the matter of which party has the edge do not be very concerned about political predictions. Nate Silver had to base his prediction on predominately GOP polling centers.
    The importance of voting is factual but with a big catch. The GOP understand the lower the voter turn out the better they win. They have been cutting down early voting in numerous states. This combined with the numerous hoops some have to go through just to get to vote is hurting democracy badly. But what needs to be pushed hard is that a stay at home voter, is a vote for the GOP and all their policies.
    Here is the one very undeniable fact Democracy only works if all parties concerned play by the rules. Now look at what the GOP have been doing as a party for several years now. Are they playing by the rules or ignoring the rules and doing what they want?

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  6. Just saw Connie Schultz on Ed Schultz a moment ago. She said when people are looking to find where their kids' next meals are coming from they don't care who's running and they probably won't even vote. She said, "Despair benefits the Republicans". Made me want to weep.



    They know this and they play it to the hilt. They work relentlessly to keep us down and the sad thing is--it works. Even those who have never been this poor or this vulnerable will still vote Republican. Their lies fall on deaf ears. All those people are hearing is that only the Republicans can save them.


    Never mind that it was the Republicans who put them down in the ditches--they've been fed that load of bull about the Socialist Democrats and big government coming to take everything away and fear kicks in. Fear works even when it's full of lies. And "despair benefits the Republicans".


    I hate this.

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  7. The only way to win is to keep pushing on all media constantly. A no show voter is a vote for the GOP and all of their policies.
    What is frustrating to me is the fact that the worst blue dog democratic party member is still better then any GOP member and so many work hard to punish Democratic party members that we lose to the GOP. We should be focusing on every GOP member being tossed out. Not punishing our own.

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  8. So true! All of it. Dems do have that whole "punishing your own" thing down pat. Dems also don't vote. I'm a Dem. How do I get through to my peeps? I wish I knew. Lord knows I keep trying.

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  9. Clearly, the GOP has a winning strategy with their whole, "Fewer people covered with health care!" approach.


    I'm not truly free unless my right to an untreated gangrenous leg is respected. I'll fight for that. I mean, you know, assuming I can waddle over there to you on my black and smelly leg.

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  10. I'll be fighting, too, unless my arm is hanging from its socket and I can't swing it. Lol.

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  11. Interesting, yes. Just don't know if I can believe it. Too many years of optimistic hopes dashed with no correlating evidence showing that my hopes should have been dashed.

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