Reply #110: The Bush Crashes -- moral and economic --- provided the best opportunity

[Overseas]

to surge forward with a 21st Century FDR approach on very practical, pragmatic grounds. That's why I was not worried about having a practical, pragmatic President. He would demonstrate how practical the FDR approach could be, with the Bush Republican Crash as clear evidence of the need for profound change. The Bush Crash was the spectacular failure of 30-years of Supply-Side Economics. Far from trickling down to us, our national wealth was torn away from us to patch up the disasters of deregulation.

Our Democratic legislators should have been readied as a block to stand up for a rebalancing of our economy to Democratic Demand-Side Economics.

Medicare for All could have been their compassionate cry for the people, because so many of us had lost so much in the crash and were being evicted from our homes. There are practical, pragmatic reasons for it, but Democrats could have distinguished their mandate by pushing very very hard for the public-private mixed system that is Medicare on purely compassionate grounds first. We are Democrats and we have a mandate to protect the people and strengthen our social safety nets. The people can't wait any longer for national health security.

While I wanted my Democrats to go ahead and wave the Democratic Demand-Side economic flag proudly, especially after the horrendous Republican crash of our economy and our military (by defying the Nuremberg principles and Geneva Conventions), Democrats could actually have done the "bipartisan" thing by pointing out that they were bipartisan with what Republicans claimed to be--

Republicans say they are fiscally responsible-- our major industrial competitors have the government handling medical costs, we should too. Let's finally get on an equal footing with them. That would help our small businesses compete.

Republicans say they are strong on defense-- but they allowed war profiteering and reckless conduct by military contractors, so we need to undo that. Brutal bombing wars have created more enemies for our country, we need to undo that. We will focus on intelligence and seduction-- building schools and hospitals and encouraging the establishment of more small businesses by the local people for the local people. Pouring our billions into jobs for the local people to rebuild their own infrastructure rather than pouring them into hiring giant American firms to contract out all those jobs for years and years.

Republicans say they are strong on defense-- so many of our wars were focused on securing access to oil, so by putting our desperate people back to work on infrastructure projects that included as much green technology as possible, we could reduce our country's use of oil, thus stretching the remaining supplies for use by the private sector, and catching up with the rest of the world in green technology markets. We would also make sure there is more oil left for our children to enjoy petroleum based goods if we could make our shared infrastructure as green as possible. We could also have more options in case restricting oil supplies was used as a threat against us in the future. That's a much smarter defense of our country and its future.

Republicans say they are fiscally responsible, so we will be bipartisan with that ideal and let the tax cuts for the top 2% expire on schedule. But since we all can see the data that tax cuts for the middle and lower classes are spent immediately, which stimulates local economies that need it desperately after the Bush Crash, we will keep the middle class tax cuts.

We could have even done that bipartisan thing if my Democrats had banded together behind that sort of plan. Bipartisan with Republican myths about themselves. Fiscal responsibility-- check. Stronger on defense-- we can do that too.

I really thought we would do that. That's why I was so excited to vote for a practical, pragmatic new Democratic President. Those moves would have been the most practical to rebuild our country after the Bush crash and ensure its long term health.

But my Democrats were not practical and pragmatic for the future of our country. They didn't recoil in horror from Supply-Side Economics after the spectacular and very painful Republican Crash. They didn't pragmatically seize the opportunity to ensure their majority for decades to come by standing as a block to really move our country forward to more sustainable, compassionate, effective policies, even with the mandate they were given by millions of suffering citizens who knew it was time for Democratic Demand-Side Economics again.

Sadly, it seems that pragmatism has been relegated to politicians' individual careers-- "Sorry pal, multinational corporations now have more power than nation states. We Democrats deregulated our mass media so conservative corporations own most of it now, with token liberal voices to sustain the illusion of a free press, so they can destroy any of us who pose a real threat to their absolute power. We've gotta be pragmatic about our individual re-election. Look at how corporate-funded right wing PR firms roused a bunch of tea party groups to push the Republicans even further to the right. That was their demonstration that they could crush any of us with a few million dollars, so we have to tow the party line.The private sector can do better. The private sector can do better. The unions are demanding too much. Those entitlements to stave off starvation are too expensive for us. Privatize it all. Let the rich decide who really deserves charity. "