Ah, the "land of the free and home of the brave" - which ironically boasts more people in prisons or on probation than China, Russia, Iran and Syria combined. But wait....our troops are fighting for "our freedoms". Puh-leeze! At least some of this Neoliberal codswallop would be digestible if the Overclass and its media that run this country were less hypocritical and at least gave a nod to freedom of speech, without getting their panties in a snit and losing it every damned time a meme opposing their own gets high profile circulation.
But we already saw how that one worked out, when a long forgotten essay by former Univ. of Colorado prof Ward Churchill was found, then circulated and he was run out of his teaching job - based on a university witch hunt that detected "plagiarism". (Interestingly, in a "QA research vetting" wherein they singled out only Churchill.)
Then there was Joe Wilson, who in his New York Times op-ed piece, "What I Didn't Find in Africa", exposed the Bushies' phony Niger "yellowcake" bunkum (used to justify the Iraq invasion, and which many rightist idiots or disputatious obsessives still believe, e.g. at snopes.com and other enclaves). The entrenched Neocon political class was so outraged that they let Joe have it....or rather his wife, with the subsequent "outing" of Valerie Plame as a CIA agent. And yet these rat fuckers are still walking around and haven't been hanged yet for treason.
So pardon me if I am compelled to laugh now at the hysterical responses of the new political class where the likes of John Boehner, Nancy Pelosi, Harry Reid, and James Inhofe all bleat their outrage together- like a chorus of cosseted corporate, Neoliberal whores and losers. "Awwww.......Putin got to write a piece in the New York Times, BWAAHAHAHAHAHAAA .....I'm gonna lose my lunch!"
But there it was in full view - with clips featured on Chris Hayes 'ALL IN" last night- where we beheld the same screeching and hysteria - by the Neoliberal political class assholes, analogous to what we beheld from the Bushite war criminals after Joe Wilson exposed their ruse on yellowcake. (Which, btw, a number of articles in Physics Today have also validated.)
All this huffing, puffing, pissing, farting and moaning after Putin's Op-Ed appeared in The New York Times. There was Nancy Pelosi sputtering and moaning with her head spinning- looking like some poor wretch who'd taken too much Ex-lax - and didn't know where to run, then Sen. Bob Menendez (NJ) bellyaching at how he "wanted to vomit" after having read it. And last, there was Sen. Jim Inhofe, the illustrious asshole who himself feels he has the right to call global warming a "hoax" over and over- despite the fact his BS may well have postponed action until we're now all for the high jump. But this same asshole imp who declares his "right" to spout climate rubbish, is now seen screaming and howling about "having to read such stuff" and "wanting to throw up".
Hey, don't let your barf bag hit you in the ass on the way out, asshole! You didn't HAVE to read it! No one forced you to! The same applies to all the other mealy -mouthed Neolib pols pouting, whining and evidently missing their own hypocrisy in this instance too. Hey, what happened to the "free market of ideas"? Oh wait! It only applies to Neolib rats and scoundrels!
But let's move on to the larger point.
As exposed this morning on CBS News Early Show, the American PR firm Ketchum was behind getting Putin's op-ed expeditiously published a mere day after Obama's "war" speech. Ketchum is but one PR firm, and there are literally hundreds which do just about everything - from painting positive portraits of our pols when caught with their pants down, to those like BRJames which helped get Assad's wifey into Vogue, to Hill and Knowlton, which helps the natural gas-fracking bunch promote the myth that fracking poses no harm.(As well as assisting pro-frack pols to get elected.)
My point is that the PR influence is spread throughout our political system as much as lobbying. Indeed, the two are often tied together 'at the hip' with lobbyists often using PR firms in their own goals to either get their clients elected or move public opinion on an issue- such as fracking, or to deny global warming (like Inhofe does). What the Neolib crybabies are really bellyaching over is that Putin had access to an American PR firm (like they do) but now given the capacity to influence American minds, re: the Syria issue and especially the threat of U.S. strikes.
But instead of paying attention to their own use of PR firms and lobbyists, all our pissant pols instead hypocritically postured by castigating Putin for HIS "posturing" while objecting to a basic freedom most of them take for granted. And I am talking about the Democrat weasels as well as the Repukes. On certain issues, when they all scream the same way, you can really see how they have more in common than one believes, as on the issue of Edward Snowden - when Chuck Schumer screamed as loud for Snowden's head, as Insane McCain and that moron Lindsey Graham.
So don't get me started on these jackasses and jagoffs. I will take them seriously when they go after Ketchum and their OWN PR firms, as opposed to trying to keep those unsavory facts hidden from us. At least in the case of Putin's op-ed, most savvy Americans already knew that the exceptionalist meme was poisoning the country and leading its military- industrial complex to ever more wars of choice and military spending adventures. We didn't need a bimbo such as Chris Hayes had on last night (from New Republic) trying to tell us that the op-ed was --------- (fill in your epithet) and Americans ought not buy it. Well, why would we buy claims from politico.com, HuffPo, The Daily Beast (whose then editor, Tina Brown, couldn't even get the grassy knoll aspect of the JFK hit right- using it as a joke to ding the Diana conspiracy) or New Republic or any other sources?
What separates the deep politics immersed citizen from the superficial citizen, is that we do our own research from independent sources and arrive at our own conclusions via critical thinking - not Neoliberal group think. (Which was blatantly obvious the way they all came down on the Snowden issue, even "liberal" MSNBC, with the exception of the more intelligent Chris Hayes.)
As opposed to hysterically screeching their heads off, the American political class would have done better to extract the key nuggets from Putin's op-ed as opposed to pissing on all of it, and trying to evoke phony outrage. Especially when most savvy citizens already can see right through them, and the Neoliberal whores and grafters they really are. Need a clue? Look at the polls that showed congress is rated even lower on the 'approve' scale than getting dysentery or West Nile virus!
Showing posts with label Neoliberal hacks. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Neoliberal hacks. Show all posts
Friday, September 13, 2013
Monday, January 28, 2013
Why Don't More Americans Call Themselves Liberals: Ans. Too Many Phoney Ones!
"For the Democratic Party is not a collection of diverse interests brought together only to win elections. We are united instead by a common history and heritage--by a respect for the deeds of the past and a recognition of the needs of the future "- John F. Kenendy
Rachel Maddow presented some astounding facts a week ago, on her show. The theme was that despite the fact Repukes portray the U.S. as a “center right nation", poll after poll discloses Americans are foursquare for LIBERAL programs. 82% do not want any cuts to Social Security and 74% demand no cuts to Medicare. 94% are also in favor of universal gun checks. So why, despite polling for unabashed liberal positions or programs do only 22% of Americans regard themselves as liberals.
One worthy theory is that of Joel Kotkin, a fellow in urban design at Chapman University, who argues in similar terms to what I have (in previous blogs) regarding the infection of the Democratic Party by cancerous Neoliberalism, or shameless pro-Business dominance. Kotkin argues that the Democratic Party and the left are now dominated by what he calls “gentry progressives”: largely white, well-educated, culturally liberal urbanites. (Or analogous to what we who attend football games refer to as the ‘brie and wine’ crowd, who sit in their temp. controlled little domes and schmooz while we in the lower seats grab some brats and beer and sit in the elements!)
In an essay published by Forbes a month after Obama’s decisive re-election, Kotkin wrote:
“The now triumphant urban gentry have their townhouses and high-rise lofts, but the service workers who do their dirty work have to log their way by bus or car from the vast American banlieues, either in peripheral parts of the city (think of Brooklyn’s impoverished fringes) or the poorer close-in suburbs. This progressive economy works for the well-placed academics, the trustfunders and hedge funders, but produces little opportunity for a better life for the vast majority.”
BINGO!
Kotkin makes the additional case that the Obama coalition which united well-educated, often upscale liberals, with such struggling, often disadvantaged constituencies as single women, racial and ethnic minorities, and the young is fragile at best:
“The class issue so cleverly exploited by the president in the election could prove the potential Achilles heel of today’s gentry progressivism. The Obama-Bernanke economy has done little to reverse the relative decline of the middle and working class, whose share of national income has fallen to record lows. If you don’t work for venture-backed tech firms, coddled, money-for-nearly-free Wall Street or for the government, your income and standard of living has probably declined since the middle of the last decade.”
The fragility of temporary, expedient political coalitions, as opposed to a party grounding itself in firm principles, may be why JFK warned against them in one of his most famous and stirring quotes:
"For the Democratic Party is not a collection of diverse interests brought together only to win elections. We are united instead by a common history and heritage--by a respect for the deeds of the past and a recognition of the needs of the future"
Sadly, the New Dems seem to have forgotten that message, and have left their respect for the deeds of the past behind to build on the quicksand of expediency and temporary coalitions. This is what Kennedy was warning against, and instead insisted the party needed a committment to its common history and heritage - which clearly is distinct from the Reeps. This common history thereby demands REAL progressives (aka bona fide Liberals, as opposed to Neoliberals) embrace the principles of the New Deal and NOT put Social Security up for grabs as the wine and brie faction are wont to do.
Yet all these Gentrified Libs (who are really Neoliberal - free market worshipping freaks) consider “Entitlement reform” a necessity and share Beltway Hack Bob Woodward’s deformed meme, expressed in his recent book, The Price of Politics’, as:
Thus, feeding the fears of the landed gentry libs that "costs are now exploding" according to the immutable logic of demographic and actuarial facts. No surprise then that this debased progressive "elite " now fancies it can disregard the distributive consequences of their New Deal- 1960s forbears. A perfect example of these brie and wine degenerates: calling for gradual reduction in Social Security benefits – either by raising the retirement age or switching to a “chained” Consumer Price Index (a revised inflation index which cuts government spending by reducing annual cost of living adjustments.
Who would be most affected? Those in the bottom quntile of the elderly who depend on Social Security for 84 percent of their annual income, and those in the next quintile dependent on Social Security for 83 percent of their income. At the beginning of 2012, the average Social Security benefit was $1,230 a month, or $14,740 a year. For 35 percent of elderly white beneficiaries, for 42 percent of Asian-Americans, for 49 percent of blacks, and for 55 percent of Hispanics, Social Security represents 90 percent or more of total income.
Tragically, in the current debate over financing the cost of income support for older Americans, the chained C.P.I. proposal has more political support than the TRUE progressive alternative of raising the current $113,700 payroll tax cap . Low-income Social Security beneficiaries are not equipped to absorb cuts in benefits that a switch to a chained consumer price index would entail; on the other hand, according to the centrist Tax Policy Center, raising the cap on income subject to the payroll tax could completely cover Social Security costs into the foreseeable future without reducing benefits.
But do the entitled "liberal" brie munchers and chardonnay sippers in their gated communities want this? Hell no! These lily-livered rats would rather keep their lower taxes than make any real sacrifices for their lower wage, struggling, blue collar brethren! And then they have the nerve to wonder why so few Americans - barely one fifth - describe themselves as political liberals? Well, DUH! Because along with the Repukes who soiled the name, so have these MFs by their disdain and inaction for true liberalism.
As NY Times columnist Thomas B. Edsall noted (‘New Liberalism’)”
“Obama’s victory and the growing evidence of an emerging majority Democratic coalition pose the danger that the left will take false comfort. The demographic forces currently powering the Democratic Party in no way guarantee a resilient coalition assured of a long-term competitive advantage.
In addition to the glaring class conflicts between the party’s upscale cultural liberals and the larger body of Democratic voters with pressing material needs, there are a host of potential fissures.
In cities from Los Angeles to Chicago to Houston, African-Americans are competing with Hispanics and others for government jobs, good schools, good neighborhoods, political power and basic resources. Republicans are looking toward these tensions to see how their party can capitalize on them"
Can the Repugs profit at Dem expense? Of course! If enough of the lower strata Dems see how the Gentrified bunch is screwing them over! Just watch and see in the coming months if a Chained CPI is really enacted under a nominal Dem administration or if Medicare age thresholds are increased. You will see the Reeps able to exploit it like a pack of hyenas rips into defenseless prey.
The way to preserve and expand Dem victories? Upper income Dems must be part of the solution and not the problem. They must not show themselves as Neoliberal rats, who already have theirs, and deny (or cut) government support for their lower- income brethren. They need to re-learn the lesson, seemingly lost, that in this age of vast corporate wealth and power the rest of us need gov't as a counter-lever now more than ever. IF the Dem party isn't prepared to embrace its own heritage (from FDR) and ensure that, they may reach the stage of the Whigs faster than the Repukes!
Rachel Maddow presented some astounding facts a week ago, on her show. The theme was that despite the fact Repukes portray the U.S. as a “center right nation", poll after poll discloses Americans are foursquare for LIBERAL programs. 82% do not want any cuts to Social Security and 74% demand no cuts to Medicare. 94% are also in favor of universal gun checks. So why, despite polling for unabashed liberal positions or programs do only 22% of Americans regard themselves as liberals.One worthy theory is that of Joel Kotkin, a fellow in urban design at Chapman University, who argues in similar terms to what I have (in previous blogs) regarding the infection of the Democratic Party by cancerous Neoliberalism, or shameless pro-Business dominance. Kotkin argues that the Democratic Party and the left are now dominated by what he calls “gentry progressives”: largely white, well-educated, culturally liberal urbanites. (Or analogous to what we who attend football games refer to as the ‘brie and wine’ crowd, who sit in their temp. controlled little domes and schmooz while we in the lower seats grab some brats and beer and sit in the elements!)
In an essay published by Forbes a month after Obama’s decisive re-election, Kotkin wrote:
“The now triumphant urban gentry have their townhouses and high-rise lofts, but the service workers who do their dirty work have to log their way by bus or car from the vast American banlieues, either in peripheral parts of the city (think of Brooklyn’s impoverished fringes) or the poorer close-in suburbs. This progressive economy works for the well-placed academics, the trustfunders and hedge funders, but produces little opportunity for a better life for the vast majority.”
BINGO!
Kotkin makes the additional case that the Obama coalition which united well-educated, often upscale liberals, with such struggling, often disadvantaged constituencies as single women, racial and ethnic minorities, and the young is fragile at best:
“The class issue so cleverly exploited by the president in the election could prove the potential Achilles heel of today’s gentry progressivism. The Obama-Bernanke economy has done little to reverse the relative decline of the middle and working class, whose share of national income has fallen to record lows. If you don’t work for venture-backed tech firms, coddled, money-for-nearly-free Wall Street or for the government, your income and standard of living has probably declined since the middle of the last decade.”
The fragility of temporary, expedient political coalitions, as opposed to a party grounding itself in firm principles, may be why JFK warned against them in one of his most famous and stirring quotes:
"For the Democratic Party is not a collection of diverse interests brought together only to win elections. We are united instead by a common history and heritage--by a respect for the deeds of the past and a recognition of the needs of the future"
Sadly, the New Dems seem to have forgotten that message, and have left their respect for the deeds of the past behind to build on the quicksand of expediency and temporary coalitions. This is what Kennedy was warning against, and instead insisted the party needed a committment to its common history and heritage - which clearly is distinct from the Reeps. This common history thereby demands REAL progressives (aka bona fide Liberals, as opposed to Neoliberals) embrace the principles of the New Deal and NOT put Social Security up for grabs as the wine and brie faction are wont to do.
Yet all these Gentrified Libs (who are really Neoliberal - free market worshipping freaks) consider “Entitlement reform” a necessity and share Beltway Hack Bob Woodward’s deformed meme, expressed in his recent book, The Price of Politics’, as:
"Unsustainable entitlement spending on Medicare, Medicaid, Social Security as highlighted by Republican House Budget Chairman Paul Ryan and familiar to all informed politicians and economists....has been left largely unaddressed."
Thus, feeding the fears of the landed gentry libs that "costs are now exploding" according to the immutable logic of demographic and actuarial facts. No surprise then that this debased progressive "elite " now fancies it can disregard the distributive consequences of their New Deal- 1960s forbears. A perfect example of these brie and wine degenerates: calling for gradual reduction in Social Security benefits – either by raising the retirement age or switching to a “chained” Consumer Price Index (a revised inflation index which cuts government spending by reducing annual cost of living adjustments.
Who would be most affected? Those in the bottom quntile of the elderly who depend on Social Security for 84 percent of their annual income, and those in the next quintile dependent on Social Security for 83 percent of their income. At the beginning of 2012, the average Social Security benefit was $1,230 a month, or $14,740 a year. For 35 percent of elderly white beneficiaries, for 42 percent of Asian-Americans, for 49 percent of blacks, and for 55 percent of Hispanics, Social Security represents 90 percent or more of total income.
Tragically, in the current debate over financing the cost of income support for older Americans, the chained C.P.I. proposal has more political support than the TRUE progressive alternative of raising the current $113,700 payroll tax cap . Low-income Social Security beneficiaries are not equipped to absorb cuts in benefits that a switch to a chained consumer price index would entail; on the other hand, according to the centrist Tax Policy Center, raising the cap on income subject to the payroll tax could completely cover Social Security costs into the foreseeable future without reducing benefits.
But do the entitled "liberal" brie munchers and chardonnay sippers in their gated communities want this? Hell no! These lily-livered rats would rather keep their lower taxes than make any real sacrifices for their lower wage, struggling, blue collar brethren! And then they have the nerve to wonder why so few Americans - barely one fifth - describe themselves as political liberals? Well, DUH! Because along with the Repukes who soiled the name, so have these MFs by their disdain and inaction for true liberalism.
As NY Times columnist Thomas B. Edsall noted (‘New Liberalism’)”
“Obama’s victory and the growing evidence of an emerging majority Democratic coalition pose the danger that the left will take false comfort. The demographic forces currently powering the Democratic Party in no way guarantee a resilient coalition assured of a long-term competitive advantage.
In addition to the glaring class conflicts between the party’s upscale cultural liberals and the larger body of Democratic voters with pressing material needs, there are a host of potential fissures.
In cities from Los Angeles to Chicago to Houston, African-Americans are competing with Hispanics and others for government jobs, good schools, good neighborhoods, political power and basic resources. Republicans are looking toward these tensions to see how their party can capitalize on them"
Can the Repugs profit at Dem expense? Of course! If enough of the lower strata Dems see how the Gentrified bunch is screwing them over! Just watch and see in the coming months if a Chained CPI is really enacted under a nominal Dem administration or if Medicare age thresholds are increased. You will see the Reeps able to exploit it like a pack of hyenas rips into defenseless prey.
The way to preserve and expand Dem victories? Upper income Dems must be part of the solution and not the problem. They must not show themselves as Neoliberal rats, who already have theirs, and deny (or cut) government support for their lower- income brethren. They need to re-learn the lesson, seemingly lost, that in this age of vast corporate wealth and power the rest of us need gov't as a counter-lever now more than ever. IF the Dem party isn't prepared to embrace its own heritage (from FDR) and ensure that, they may reach the stage of the Whigs faster than the Repukes!
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)