The GOP falling apart is a sideshow

[SHRED]

A silly distraction.

Wall St. runs this country and has stolen/bought our government from us...that is where the focus needs to be IMHO.
Look no further than this manufactured fiscal cliff drama and subsequent bill.


--

[CanonRay]

1. Exactly

If the GOP ceased to exist, Wall Street would have a replacement party up and running in a week.

[CrispyQ]

2. A distraction that is working.

Michael Hudson: My Take on Obama’s Big Win

By Michael Hudson, a research professor of Economics at University of Missouri, Kansas City, and a research associate at the Levy Economics Institute of Bard College,. His latest book is “The Bubble and Beyond.”

http://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2012/11/michael-hudson-my-take-on-obamas-big-win.html

Four years ago the economy stood at a potential turning point in the war of finance against labor and industry, President Obama could have mobilized public support for politicians willing to rescue hopes for prosperity. He could have appointed a Treasury Secretary and Federal Reserve chairman who would have used the government’s majority control of Citibank, Bank of America and other “troubled asset” holders to take these into the government sector to provide a public option. He could have written down debts to payable levels at only a fraction of the cost that was spent on rescuing Wall Street. Obama’s political genius was to avoid doing this and nonetheless keep his “street cred” as paladin defending the 99% rather than the 1%.

Having been elected with an enormous voter mandate, Mr. Obama could have reversed the sharp polarization between creditors who were pushing the 99%, industry and real estate, cities and states deeper into financial distress. Instead, his policies have enabled the 1% to monopolize 93% of America’s income gains since the 2008 financial crisis.

At a potential turning point in the direction the American economy was taking, rescue and change were averted. We have seen what will stand as a classic example of cynical Orwellian doublethink. Promising hope and change four years ago, President Obama’s role was to hold back the tide and divert voter pressure for change. He rescued the financial sector and the 1%, and sponsored the Republican privatization of health care instead of the public option, and to take $13 trillion onto the government balance sheet in the form of junk mortgages, largely fraudulent loans held by Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac ($5.2 trillion alone) and other casino capitalist gambles gone bad. Mr. Obama was Wall Street’s white knight.

The trick was to get re-elected as a Democrat rather than as a Republican sponsoring a health care plan crafted by the Koch Brothers’ Cato Institute, and putting Wall Street bank lobbyists in charge of the Treasury and (de)regulatory agencies. As a Blue Dog Democrat, how was President Obama made to look better than the alternative?


Read more at http://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2012/11/michael-hudson-my-take-on-obamas-big-win.html#rD8T2iA2hWXXMHIx.99

on edit: add article title & info

[RC]

13. But, but, but... Obama is a Far Left Wing Liberal! How can this be?

I suspect those who adore Obama are actually 3rd Way, DINO's, and otherwise too far to the Right to be of much use in helping to fix the wrongs of this country. Claiming to be a Democrat anymore, just means not being as far to the Right as the Republicans are.
Liberal and Conservative are much more meaningful labels.

[progressoid]

3. The stock market is surging this morning.

[xtraxritical]

7. I bought Jan. 19 calls in late Nov. Yaaaaa

[JayhawkSD]

4. It's also an illusion

The Democratic Party has never been united on anything. It has long been true that if you poll five Democrats you will get seven different opinions, and over the years the party has done fine. In fact the disunion within the party has been one of its strengths.

In fact, this new failure to maintain lockstep may be the best thing that has happened to the Republican Party in a long time. Democrats should not be happy about it at all, as it is very likely to strengthen the party, not weaken it.

[mac56]

5. true

Someone once said that a Democrat is someone so open-minded that he won't even take his own side in an argument. I've contended that now the Repos are where the Dems were twenty years ago. Getting themselves out of lockstep may surely strengthen them in the long run.

[kenfrequed]

8. ???

The Democrats were in lockstep 20 years ago? In 1993? I am uncertain about what you mean by this.

[mac56]

11. I probably didn't word that well.

Not the lockstep. But certainly the factionalism and infighting.

[kenfrequed]

17. hmm...

I am still not entirely clear on what you mean by this. In terms of policy I would say that the Democrats have been gradually exorcising the blue dogs and DLC sorts that have possessed and attempted to control the party for the last 20 years.

The Democratic party has been very different than the republican party as party unity has always taken a back seat to the warring influences of pragmatism, idealism, and (in the case of the DLC set) competing for corporatism.

[PDJane]

9. That comes from Robert Frost..........

I’m liberal. You, you aristocrat,
Won’t know exactly what I mean by that.
I mean so altruistically moral
I never take my own side in a quarrel.
I’d lay my hand on his hand on his staff
Lean back and have my confidential laugh,
And tell him I had read his Epitaph.

(The Lesson For Today)

I think the truth is a bit different; I think liberals are just simply less likely to be able to find any reason to march in lockstep. It's both good....and bad, depending on the outcome.

[Comrade_McKenzie]

14. LOL, that's true of me... sometimes when I hear an opinion of mine coming from someone else...

Devil's advocate kicks in.

[Zen Democrat]

6. It can't be strengthened until the neo-fascists are purged from the party.

[JoeyT]

23. Yeah, but there's a fundamental difference between the two parties.

I've gotten in some downright nasty arguments on here over politics. No one has ever called me a Nazi, threatened to kick my ass, or demanded I self-deport.

The Religious Right is going to lose their goddamned minds if the party makes any concessions toward GLBTs, women, or minorities, and the Randroids are going to lose their goddamned minds if the party makes any concessions toward the poor, middle class, or workers. Neither is going to handle a loss of power well. The Randroids will take their ball and go to another party, the Religious Right might actually get violent about it. Either way their party is going to have a mighty rocky road.

[AlbertCat]

10. Both parties are not the same. One is way better than the other. BUT

Doncha get the feeling Washington is on another planet? They certainly are not listening to the majority of citizens. It's like they are an exclusive club just doing their own thing on a desert island. Their stuff has consequences here but they have no concern about "here" except when they pretend to have during elections.

[Plucketeer]

18. I love your summation!

I guess because it's mine. As a simple citizen, I write my reps, E-mail them - even call. I know I'm not the only one to do so. And polls SEEM to show there's alot of like-minded sorts out there. Yet what we get from them is stuff that we were probably gonna get anyway - even without the Punch & Judy drama that preceeds each episode. I honestly can not put my finger on the perfect definition of what I'm saying, but it's there too often to not be a reality - heh - kinda like a greased ghost.

There has to be some sorta "secret handshake" that's administered when we send some fresh Rep off to do battle for our side. I say this because there's an instant and obvious transformation that overcomes them once they enter that domed monument to "demoncracy".

[Harry Monroe]

12. GOP seems to be in a freefall

And it is fun to watch them destroy each other and eat their own!!

[ecstatic]

15. Maybe, but we still need to instigate a little

to speed up their collapse. If we want congress to start addressing the important issues like adults, we have to get rid of most republicans. The debates will be a lot more interesting once the rigid, misguided opinions of right wingers are excluded.

[L0oniX]

16. You can't stop the mega rich sociopath assholes.

You can't vote them out of office and you can't stop them from funding polititians.

[Bainbridge Bear]

19. A new jingle for our era

"Things go awful with Koch!"

[Dustlawyer]

20. Campaign finance reform brother!

[alcibiades_mystery]

21. Thanks for letting us all know

[Sarah Ibarruri]

22. I'm optimistic this will be the end of the Repigs. nt

[JoeyT]

24. Maybe not the end,

but it definitely has the potential to relegate them to an ineffective regional party. Changing demographics are going to finish them off from there, since the only regions they'll maintain power in if this wounds them badly enough will be the south, which gets less homogenous with every passing year.

[Sarah Ibarruri]

26. That's true. The South's demographics are changing...

If everyone in the South gets out and votes, there will be no Repigs to worry about.

[Filibuster Harry]

25. It is. They only stand for one thing -- tax cuts. They don't care about anything else.

They talk about spending cuts but they always increase spending. Tell me which one of there most recent
presidents who left office with a smaller debt/deficit than when they came in?? It is always the democrats who have to come in and clean it up.