Reply #71: Yes, It's Not as if Any of This Were Really Hard to Discern

[Hidden Stillness]

People have to now face the fact that they have had clues for a very long time, that our true Democratic Party has been taken over by Republican corporate lobbying interests as surely as it was during the 1920s, and stop falling for every act that comes along.

For years, Bill and Hillary Clinton, Al Gore and all the rest of the "D"LC talked about a "new" Democratic Party, not like the Roosevelts, not against business and not for unions, not for social programs, etc., and all that time they only leveled criticism against liberals and the middle class and poor to "change," "face reality," etc. They started the routine that "only they know how to win," you don't, you are obsolete, etc., as if Clinton were the only Democratic President, etc. This was when they started their dismantling of the National Party structure, their meetings with corporate lobbyists and fund-raisers only, and their turning over of all Party resources to "the Bill Clinton personality fan club" and to corporate candidates who did not have actual opinions of their own.

They lost the Congress after the 1994 mid-terms, because they tried to get people onto HMOs from their traditional coverage, and people rebelled or had enough. They started the (never-ending) chant of "bi-partisan," and "both sides of the aisle," as if the people and their concerns about business crime and corruption were now "ideological" issues, and the majority was now "not centrist," but lobbying deregulators were.

You might recall that when Bush was trying to kill Social Security with that stupid, disastrous "private" "savings account" scheme--which older people rebelled against mightily--Rahm Emanuel, from the Wall St. financial-investment world, also proposed a stupid, disastrous scheme that would have been managed by Wall St. investment brokers.

The corrupt corporate lobbyist Tom Daschle, thrown out by voters and unable to pass a corruption-inspection for HHS secretary, is now the White Houe liason and "architect" (Daschle's own word) for the stupid, incoherent commercial insurance schemes being pushed now. Daschle, a lobbyist for countless financial and health-industry corporations, invented the muddled, fractured structure that no one can follow, of "co-ops," and "triggers," and "exchanges," all managed by commercial profit-makers, so as to kill any reference to Medicare and other things the majority wants. There was a great article on Daschle, the prick, at the New York Times, August 23, 2009, called, "Daschle Has Ear of White House and Health Industry," still available online.

Just study a little bit about the brilliant way, or many ways, that both the FDR and Johnson Administrations dealt with convincing people in Congress to vote for something important--all the schmoozing, and talking, and having drinks, and trading favors, and allowing others to get credit, and reworking bills, and promising, and threatening, and appealing to vanity--you realize why they were so great. It is not only smart, but prolonged hard work, to get great bills passed, and they both did. Obama and Emanuel, etc., have done nothing--but they meet with corporate lobbyists all the time.

Obama appointed Emanuel, Geithner, Hillary Clinton, Daschle, Lawrence Summers, kept Bernancke, etc., etc.--eventually, you have to face facts. They are the same group. They rail and rail against (generic wording) "Washington," "politics," "partisanship," blah--the teens cheer--and then, nothing. They do nothing: no campaign finance reform, no prosecutions of Bush/Cheney officials, no regulations or even investigations of financial industries, and no charges of any kind, no jobs programs, no raising of the minimum wage, no help for the poor, unemployed beyond increasingly hard-to-get unemployment benefits extensions by Congress which once were almost automatic, no help for debtors; nothing. "I believe in the free market," meaning deregulated by and for the largest multinationals, and expressing admiration for that asshole Reagan. It always should have been clear. For all the pretense of Obama having so much "pressure," "burden," "worst times since the 1930s," (or most annoying, when they claim, "worst times ever"), the fact is, there was a huge wave of happiness, warmth, good-will, and support, and people were very willing to wait as long as it took to get things started to recovery. There has been nothing, but efforts the other way--all pro-corporate, pro-rich--and this, and only this, is why people have had enough. We cried for Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt, and we got some Reagan-Bill Clinton "framing" fake.