I really, really, REALLY hate what identity politics is doing to our country.

[txaslftist]

Egads. I know it's election time, which is the silly season all round, but this one is a real doozy.

We have an unpayable national debt.

We are running (in real terms) about 8-9% inflation, which is the Federal Reserve's way of taxing anyone who is actually working for wages.

We are engaged in two wars that are going to shit, and widening Afghanistan into Pakistan, which is a nuclear armed nation.

We have the highest unemployment rate we have had since the Great Depression.

We have the largest gap between the rich and poor in our national history.

We have the highest rate of foreclosures in our history.

Our manufacturing base has shrunk to 1941 levels.

Our national media is a wholly owned subsidiary of various and sundry corporations.

Our great grandchildren are being saddled with a monstrous debt, and the money is being used to bail out corporations that are too big to fail.

And here we have the greatest tool for the democratization of information that mankind has ever invented, and we are talking about what? "I hate those fundies (my neighbors who are also going broke in this greater depression)." "I hate the Tea Partiers (my other neighbors who are going broke)".

Are we talking about the wars? Nope. Because our party leadership has no interest in ending them, or at least lacks the guts to make them an issue.

Are we talking about cutting the defense budget? Nope. Ditto on why.

Are we talking about reining in the corporations? Nope, our party is owned by corporations, just like the other party, which might as well be the SAME party if you read their respective platforms.

The whole point of the corporo-media complex in the country is to support the enslavement of the American consumer and taxpayer by dividing us from each other. The whole point of the political establishment is to cement those divides and avoid anything contraversial or risky.

Our nation is in a major crisis, there are painful solutions that could keep it from getting much worse, but we'd rather get into a pissing contest between the Dems and the GOP when there isn't a dime's worth of difference in how they govern.

It's plain old disgusting, and we are getting what we deserve.

[polichick]

1. You blame it on "identity politics"?? I blame it on the bought Congress, both parties...

...the ignorance of voters and a corporate-owned media that keeps 'em ignorant.

[txaslftist]

2. Oh yeah? Any congressmen posting here today?

If there are any, they ain't many.

We are ignoring these things, and we really are "the people".

we'd rather be at each other's throats than confront the reality you just described.

[polichick]

3. I added a few things to my post while you were typing. nt

[txaslftist]

4. Gotcha. Thanks.

[txaslftist]

5. I blame it on identity politics...

in the sense that it's about "us" versus the "other"...

Americans have bought into the notion that what separates us is more important than what we have in common to a depressing degree, much to the glee of those who are making money off of us and killing us.

[polichick]

7. Since I vote for policies, I can't relate to the identity politics thing...

...and I have a feeling that's true for a lot of lefties. The right is a different story - they vote against their own interests.

[txaslftist]

9. "the right is a different story" ...

you mean they are different from you, right? They vote against their own interests, so they aren't as smart, right?

That's identity politics in an nutshell.

The rightwingers talk exactly the same way about us "looney libs". That we'd rather have terrra-ists attack us and kill Americans than vote for Republicans.

It's not a different story. It's the same story. The "right" is being plundered just like you are, and being duped and lied to, also.

It's divide and conquer, and it's quite successful.

[polichick]

11. It's not the same on both sides - many on the left aren't being duped...

...we're voting for the lesser of two political evils.

We're the ones who do our homework, follow the bills and pressure our representatives and president.

[txaslftist]

13. You don't think people on the right do their homework?

Or follow the bills or pressure their people?

They're just a bunch of unsophisticated boobs over there on the "other" side, right?

I think you really need to take another look. Just because someone has a different philosophy than you do, doesn't make them stupid.

[polichick]

14. If they did their homework and knew who was voting for what...

...they wouldn't vote against vet benefits, against social security, against medicare, etc., etc.

Yes, there are a lot of uninformed voters on the other side - not intellectually stupid, just ignorant, uninformed.

[txaslftist]

15. Sure they would.

Well, probably not vet benefits.

But social security and medicare? A bankrupt federal program and a soon to be bankrupt federal program in a time when we have the greatest national debt in the history of the world? That's a philosophical difference, not necessarily one borne of ignorance.

[polichick]

16. Sorry, but I know too many very nice but ignorant righties...

They believe Faux News is real and don't get news in other places.

I also know some very wealthy Republicans who vote their pocketbooks.

[Raksha]

28. That's right--they ARE different from me; they ARE more stupid;

and they DO vote against their own interests and swallow the corporate kool-aid over and over again. In other words, it damn well *IS* "us versus them"!!!

I DIDN'T start it with the polarization, but I'll be goddamned if I'm going to apologize for my natural reaction to THEIR demonization of the Left. I'm one of the more outspoken fundie-haters around here, and I will not apologize for that to you or anyone. I am NOT fucking interested in any kind of "dialogue" with them--not until they figure out on their own who the real enemy is.

[emulatorloo]

6. "our party is owned by corporations, just like the other party" What about Chamber and Crossroads?

They are spending MILLIONS and MILLIONS of corporate dollars this election, funding lie ads about Democrats. These corporate dollars are attempting to install Republicans in Washington.

They are spending this money to defeat Democrats for a reason.

[txaslftist]

10. Same reason they spent more on Dems last go round...

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB121996098615981191.html?mod=special_page_campaign2008_leftbox

It's about access, that's the reason.

[emulatorloo]

21. The post-"Citizens United" spending is a whole different ball game.

They are basically spending limitless amounts of money.

Be careful about Brody Mullins articles, he can be slippery. Example:

WSJ reported erroneous tax cut figures, contradicted its own reporting
http://mediamatters.org/research/200605110001

In a September 29 Wall Street Journal (subscription required) article, staff writers David Rogers, Brody Mullins, and Jeanne Cummings erroneously reported that the Republican proposal to extend capital gains and dividend tax cuts would cost "$12.5 billion from 2008 to 2010." Not only does this statistic underestimate the cost of the proposed cut, it also contradicts the figure Mullins cited in a previous article on Republican tax cut proposals.

The Congressional Budget Office estimates that extending the capital gains and dividend tax cuts (currently set to expire in 2008) through 2010 would cost $2 billion in 2008, $13 billion in 2009, and $8 billion in 2010, for a total of $23 billion. In a September 13 Journal article (subscription required), Mullins presented a chart in which these same cuts were estimated to cost $20 billion if extended through 2010, far more than the $12.5 billion purported in his latest piece.

[txaslftist]

32. They aren't spending unlimited amounts, they are spending

what it costs to buy the politicians. Sure, they are probably paying a premium price, but they spend what they need.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oJGlrz_mlhg&feature=player_embedded

[EnlightenedOne]

8. What a bunch of BS

ONE party got us into the mess - and ONE party is trying to get us out of it.

[txaslftist]

12. Really?

What are the Democrats doing to get us out of Iraq and Afghanistan?

How are they trying to cut the defense budget?

How are they trying to reduce the TSA or the effects of the Patriot Act?

What are they doing about the Federal Reserve and inflation?

There's definitely some BS around here.

[EnlightenedOne]

17. I'm so tired of these pissy posts, all doom & gloom

we're done, we're finished, its over, we lost, move on, nothing to see here, Repubs are same as the Dems, infinium.

These huge issues which were entrenched and emboldened and were allowed to corrupt our government were put in place years ago. They've been allowed to gain more power, more influence and get wealthy beyond their wildest dreams. You don't fix that overnight - its a process. Sometimes I think people are just too damned spoiled or too damned selfish to WORK and FIGHT (yes, democracy is work) for what they want. Its just easier to throw in the towel and give up I guess. Not the way I want to live my life or the way I choose to see things. The parties are not the same - period.

[txaslftist]

19. I don't see much work going on.

Where are the bills to cut the defense budget?

Where is the action to bring soldiers home?

Where is the administration's condemnation of us standing by and permitting torture?

How come Gitmo is still open and we are prosecuting 15 year-olds?

It takes work and it takes time?

Where's the work?

[treestar]

25. You need more information, rather than concluding that just because

you have not heard about something, it must not be happening.

[txaslftist]

29. really?

In the middle of campaign season, if I am not hearing about positive accomplishments, it's because they aren't happening. Believe me, nobody's hiding a big basket of acheivements under a bush. They'd be letting it shine.

[EnlightenedOne]

26. Do you REALLY think

that in 2 years Obama was going to be able to tackle the Defense Budget? However, if I'm not mistaken, I believe I heard/read that the head guy (whose name is escaping me...) was looking to cut $500 Billion from the pentagon budget. Gitmo isn't closed because the Joint Chiefs rulled against Obama and said it could not be closed. This administration has condemned torture and said it would not happen as a policy on their watch (unlike the last administration who wholeheartedly went to great lengths to LET it happen.

Yes, big problems take time. We're a big country with a lot of people and alot of different wants & needs. He isn't running just a household. I really don't see what's so difficult to understand about that.

[txaslftist]

31. The Joint Chiefs Ruled Against Obama?

Errrrm.

A little constitutional primer here. The JCS are military employees, and he is the commander in chief. They work for him.

They don't get to "rule against him". If he wanted to close Gitmo, he could do it today with the stroke of a pen.

Ergo: He doesn't want or intend to close it. Or at least not strongly enough to actually do it.

[EnlightenedOne]

35. Right & Wrong

Right, it wasn't the JCS, my memory is going to shit - but wrong on Obama.

Key Senate Committee Rejects Obama Request for Alternate Gitmo PrisonA key Senate committee has dealt another setback to the Obama Administration's efforts to close the military detention facility at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.

Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman Carl Levin, D-MI, told reporters Friday, "The money for a prison in Illinois was struck...a prison available to house detainees from Gitmo. That was a voice vote. A clear majority voted 'AYE.' I and a few others voted against striking those funds."

The White House announced Dec. 15 that it intended to transfer Gitmo detainees to the Thomson Correctional Center in rural, northwestern Illinois and needed $245 million to do so.


The rebuff comes on the heels of a similar move last week in the House to reject the federal funds request, as well, but White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs suggested, then, that the issue was not dead yet, "We have always maintained that we need increased prison facility (sic), and I think the law prevents the Department of Defense from -- but not the Department of Justice -- from purchasing such a facility."

The House Armed Services Committee also requested a report from the Administration on ideas as to how a facility might be structured. Gibbs said, "That report and details will be going up to Congress," though he did not say when.

The Senate panel met behind closed doors Thursday to hammer out a major defense spending blueprint called the Defense Authorization bill, a popular piece of legislation that Levin hopes to have on the Senate floor before the July Fourth recess.


http://congress.blogs.foxnews.com/2010/05/28/key-senate... /

[txaslftist]

37. LOL. So he's hiding behind congress?

There aren't any other federal prisons?

There aren't any stateside military bases they could be moved to and stateside jurisdiction attached?

And congress, in a committee chaired by Carl Levin, gets away with stopping the transfer via voice vote?

Do you not recognize bullhshit when it's being dumped on you?

Do you seriously think Bush would have had a problem moving those folks when he was the president? Nope, and you know why? Because as twisted and sick as he was, he knew how to get his way, perhaps psychotically so.

I reiterate. If Obama had wanted to move them, he would have moved them.

[EnlightenedOne]

39. You are bizarre

You can count me as thankful that Obama isn't a psychotic and narcissist like Bush. He does things by the book and by the law. Its really awful, I know.

[polichick]

18. While there is truth to what you're saying, the two parties are no more equal than...

...that violent teabaggers and peaceful lefty activists are equal. That whole "both sides" thing is bullshit.

[txaslftist]

20. What about violent lefties and peaceful teabaggers?

You think you have less in common with your neighbor the teabagger than you have in common with our rulers?

We still have a 2 party system in the US. The two parties are the owners and the owned.

And we, the owned, would rather tear after each other than the owners.

[emulatorloo]

24. Now you have really lost me. Glenn Beck viewers are shooting people.

[polichick]

30. +1

[txaslftist]

34. ... and tea party people,

like Ron Paul, advocate non -aggression, non-intervention and decreasing the size of the military, while "liberals" like Joe Lieberman promote aggressive and preemptive war; and our liberal president expands our war in Afghanistan into Pakistan.

It is a form of identity politics when you say "all republicans think X" or "all tea partiers think Y", and no more valid than when the Pubbies say "all liberals think X" or "all Democrats think Y."

It is not just inaccurate shorthand, it is divisive, dangerous and leads to our inability to seek common ground.

If you find a fundamentalist so odious that you can't be in the same room with him or her, how are the two of you going to deal with the fact that your two kids have just independently validated the fact that a school teacher is molesting them? Easy, right? You set aside your differences, stark as they may be, and you call the cops, right?

Justin Raimondo is a libertarian, and passionately against the war. Ron Paul is a conservative, and passionately against the war. Dennis Kucinich is a liberal and is passionately against the war.

If your son decided to volunteer to join the Army (God forbid), which of these three would you consider voting for?

The point is that in crisis, when we are in CRISIS, serious, deep shit, we have to set aside the things that separate us and work on the things that unite us.

We are in serious, deep crisis. The people who are profiting from the status quo (banks, war profiteers, corporations looting the treasury, corporations looking to get minerals and oil on the cheap in Afghanistan, Iraq and elsewhere) are nothing short of our very personal enemies.

The only way we get out of this is to join with our neighbors, even if we so lack personal discernment that we "hate" them based on where they go to church or what bumper sticker they have on their car.

[Erose999]

22. I happen to like identity politics, particularly the new awareness of the nuances in the LGBT

community, as well as out understanding of human sexuality that have came about because of queer theory.

And Foucault's theories on the ways physical spaces are used to "other" people. Just fascinating reading for anyone of a liberal/conscientious persuasion.

I think you have identity politics confused with "punditry". Its the pundits like Glenn Beck and Sarah Palin and Mt. Rushbo who whip up the idiots on these bullshit issues that have no real import to the governance of our country.

[Codeine]

23. That's not identity politics.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Identity_politics

[txaslftist]

33. Errrm... Here's the definition you cited to me.

To participate in identity politics, a group may, or may not be marginalized class of people. However, group advocates will often have a self-belief, a self schema or explanatory narrative, that they are in fact a marginalized group. Typically, these group identities are defined in terms of race, ethnicity, religion, gender, sexual orientation, socioeconomic class, or neurological wiring
This is exactly what I am talking about. self-belief in oneself as a marginalized group, class thinking, group thinking...

In other words, identification of oneself as part of a subgroup and seeking to advance the goals of that subgroup in preference to the whole.

[fishwax]

27. I don't see where identity politics comes in with what you're talking about

[Blue_Tires]

36. ttt

[Greyhound]

38. And many of the responses make your point quite nicely. K&R. n/t

[txaslftist]

40. Thanks for the recc...

although I think I am running a deficit here.

I should work for the CBO.

[Greyhound]

41. ..