James K. Galbraith: Obama & the Gang of Six

[reprehensor]

Run time: 12:28 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h-LaWg1KmEA   Posted on YouTube: July 21, 2011 By YouTube Member: TheRealNews Views on YouTube: 302   Posted on DU: July 21, 2011 By DU Member: reprehensor Views on DU: 4743

 

[enough]

1. Highly recommended. Well worth the time to watch. (nt)

[PA Democrat]

2. If only the American people knew as much about the FACTS

regarding the debt ceiling theatrics presented by Galbraith as they know about the latest celebrity gossip. I an consumed by anger over what is being negotiated away.

[Enthusiast]

10. What about Casey Anthony?

We just have to know. :eyes:

[swilton]

36. I think at least some of them know

Eighty per cent want SS cuts off the table.

[chervilant]

3. OMG!

So, where are all the DUers who 'need' to read this?!?

I find it very telling that only three DUers have commented on this post in the two hours it has been on this website.

[chill_wind]

5. Two hours? A whole year has gone by

since many of us began posting his full scathing testimony to the Deficit Commission last summer.

This was one of the first, doing a quick search. July 2010.


Top Economist James K. Galbraith's Withering Testimony to the Deficit Commission.
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=389x8674977

Dozens of times since. Some of us several times. Each time, there are DUers here who haven't seen it.
:-( We just have to keep trying and trying. Thanks for kicking. And K & R!

[dissidentboomer]

7. They haven't quite made things miserable enough

for the people to respond in a truly significant way and, no, the corporate and Koch funded "tea party" is NOT a popular response. It is an elitist attempt at pre-empting a true, populist, angry response and a partly successful attempt, with the enormous weight of the corporate media behind it, to completely divert attention away from REAL problems and, at least for a few more years, make the people think that something is being done. What could blow up in their faces is that the measures influenced and supported by the tea party could make things MUCH worse for a much larger portion of the middle class MUCH more quickly than had they done nothing.

As for non-responses to your post, I "feel your pain". I've posted two very reasonable threads about campaign finance reform, i.e., removing private money from campaigns, which I consider very important, and I received a grand total of two responses. Of course, I suspect that part of the reason I received only two responses is because I asked how many democrats in the congress would support removing private funding from political campaigns. I KNOW that no repubs would support such a measure.

[Enthusiast]

12. Excellent post.

Sorry I didn't see your OP on campaign finance reform. Most of us here know that it is key to correcting the nations problems. I believe polls show that a majority of Americans even now feel that way. A majority now favor publicly financed presidential elections, IIRC.

What you say about the Tea Party being a pre-empting a true populist uprising is exactly right on. What is really frightening is that it is being carried off with the help of nearly the entire media. The Tea Party "mission" would be perfectly apparent if not for the complicity of the entire media. Well, let me correct that. The Tea Party movement wouldn't even exist if not for a complicit media.

Oh. And welcome to DU.

[dissidentboomer]

19. Thanks and, um, thanks!

[chill_wind]

16. Good points. Welcome to DU.

:hi:

[dissidentboomer]

20. Thanks, Chill!

[Lorien]

33. Sadly, if the media doesn't tell people it's an issue

then it's not an issue-even here. I've posted about organizing to push for real campaign finance reform here quite a few times. Rarely have I gotten more than a half dozen responses.

[chervilant]

8. hmm...

While I appreciate what you've said hereinabove, I still find it disheartening that other threads (IMHO, rather topical threads) sport dozens or hundreds of responses in the first few hours after they're posted.

Our's is a rather ill-informed, reactionary, easily manipulated population, and--these days--party affiliation seems to have little import when it comes to erudition.

[chill_wind]

9. It is depressing

to realize how little overall weight and traction his message (and that of other progressive economists with much more of the same) have gotten all along, not just in the so-called progressive blogosphere, but in the public opinion airing at large.

And as for an ounce of influence in the real policy debates critical to our economic direction-- in the WH inner circle of advisors- or even in the outer enclaves of his Presidential Economic Recovery Advisory Board (PERAB)-- the big picture of alliances and priorities couldn't be more obvious and it couldn't be more depressing. Disheartening- very true.

[Enthusiast]

13. That was a great OP!

Thanks.

[chill_wind]

15. It's very illuminating and hard-hitting, isn't it?

Keep passing it on!

[onyourleft]

38. My personal opinion...

...is that the number of comments is not indicative of how many of us have read this post (and others like this). Sometimes "my" comment has already been posted by someone else, usually in a manner much better than I could have done. Lack of response does not mean we do not read and understand.

[chervilant]

4. Furthermore,

anyone who supports Obama after this Kabuki tragedy has completely lost their critical thinking skills.

The Corporate Megalomaniacs are dead certain that We the People (eg, the hoi polloi) will blithely and blindly go quietly into their dreadful night. I am beginning to fear they are right.

[Enthusiast]

14. I must agree.

Kabuki tragedy is a perfect way to put it. The Corporate Megalomaniacs usually have a good grasp of these issues. They created this entire ruse to begin with. Pretty slick if you ask me. Looks more like a "black ops" than a corporate operation.

[Lorien]

34. And yet for those of us who have been paying attention all along their operation

couldn't be clearer. I'd like to take a poll sometime to find out just how much television the True Believers watch daily as compared with the rest of us (I don't watch any, and I suspect that you watch very little as well). The "groupthink" around here worries me.

[chill_wind]

17. And that assumption

and it's desired outcome is not at all a random one.

Deficit Public Opinion Goes Missing (CJR)

In Coverage of Jobs Report, Misplaced Attention to Horse Race
By NATE SILVER

http://upload.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=103x614376#top

[bbgrunt]

6. very good, clear, analysis.

[pam4water]

11. Good summary of the proposal of the 'gang of 6'.

[slipslidingaway]

18. knr nt

[chill_wind]

21. kick

[swilton]

22. K&R

[Doctor_J]

23. What an outstanding interview

with a real Dem. Rec

He explains why Obama has pissed on working people, unions, poor people, the elderly, teachers. He despises them, just as his rich benefactors do.

[whatchamacallit]

24. Galbraith must put *bot cognitive dissonance into high gear K&R

He's not as easy to throw under the bus as Greenwald of Hamsher...

[tnlefty]

25. I wish that I had more than one rec. to give...

:kick:

[emilyg]

26. k

[Vinnie From Indy]

27. Wish I could give 1000 recs! This is a must see vid!

Cheers!

Send this to your family and friends!

[burrowowl]

28. YES! K&R

Go Galbrath!

[JJW]

29. Mr. O is Bush

So much for change. Shame on you, Barack.

[lumpy]

30. Prof. Galbraith is the son of renowned father, John Kenneth

Gallbraith, probably the most erudite economist this country has ever know. It is a pity his common sense stance about US economy didn't set too well with ambitious entrenched politicians. The winner is usually politics in the battle between economics and politics.

[Lorien]

31. K & R nt

[Lorien]

32. OMG-this "deal" is so much worse than I thought it was!

Ending taxation on profits made by American companies overseas??? SERIOUSLY??? That would remove almost every U.S. job save those in service industries! MORE tax cuts for the wealthy and even more cuts to social programs than previously suggested. Good God; the "Gang of six" is trying to completely destroy EVERYTHING the non-wealthy has left!

[midnight]

35. K&R

[NorthCarolina]

37. Highly recommended, particularly for our third-way 'dem' members here on DU. n/t

[Lorien]

39. Kick.

[spooked911]

40. kick