Are Neolib Democrats Real Democrats? NO!

"Hehehehehe..heeheehee. Hey, you may not like my money grubbin' ways and support of the wealthy, but I'm a Democrat too! Hehehehehehehe..."


Yes, I have to 'fess up, I hate the bastards! All the soft in the spine, money grubbing, pro-bribery poltroons who make up the "centrist" branch of the Democratic Party - or what I call Demo-rats. As a recent salon.com article put it:

"The argument for centrism within the Democratic party is a distraction, but also a tactic. After all, what does centrism really mean in Washington? It means corporatism. It means the neoliberal alliance between Wall Street and D.C. that we have seen wreak havoc over the past 30 years"

Couldn't have put it better, given I hate the Neoliberal idiom and  false market worship which paves the way for Wall Street  Democrats to even exist. Ensconced in their gated communities or high end condos, stuffing themselves on wine and brie, they care not a whit about the 85 percent of citizens on the lower end of the income scale.

Worse, they are now seeking to sink the reputations of Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders. An example of the Wall Street mutation of the Dems is the “centrist” think tank, “Third Way,” founded by a coterie of former Clinton staffers. This organization has aggressively gone after Elizabeth Warren and the liberal movement, saying in a Wall Street Journal editorial:

“If you talk to leading progressives these days, you’ll be sure to hear this message: The Democratic Party should embrace the economic populism of New York Mayor-elect Bill de Blasio and Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren. Such economic populism, they argue, should be the guiding star for Democrats heading into 2016. Nothing would be more disastrous for Democrats.”

In other words, Third Way is an enclave for DINO traitors to the genuine Democratic cause and brand. The 'Third Way' is actually a craven fourth column which seeks to upend the social justice actions, legislation put into place by FDR, and instead extol Neoliberalism.  Perhaps no better synopsis of Neoliberalism has been written than by Henry Giroux (Protesting Youth in an Age of Neoliberal Savagery' )

"As the latest stage of predatory capitalism, neoliberalism is part of a broader economic and political project of restoring class power and consolidating the rapid concentration of capital, particularly financial capital (Giroux 2008; 2014). As a political project, it includes “the deregulation of finance, privatization of public services, elimination and curtailment of social welfare programs, open attacks on unions, and routine violations of labor laws” (Yates 2013).

As an ideology, it casts all dimensions of life in terms of market rationality, construes profit-making as the arbiter and essence of democracy, consuming as the only operable form of citizenship, and upholds the irrational belief that the market can both solve all problems and serve as a model for structuring all social relations.

As a mode of governance, it produces identities, subjects, and ways of life driven by a survival-of-the fittest ethic, grounded in the idea of the free, possessive individual, and committed to the right of ruling groups and institutions to exercise power removed from matters of ethics and social costs. As a policy and political project, it is wedded to the privatization of public services, the dismantling of the connection of private issues and public problems, the selling off of state functions, liberalization of trade in goods and capital investment, the eradication of government regulation of financial institutions and corporations, the destruction of the welfare state and unions, and the endless marketization and commodification of society.

Neoliberalism has put an enormous effort into creating a commanding cultural apparatus and public pedagogy in which individuals can only view themselves as consumers, embrace freedom as the right to participate in the market, and supplant issues of social responsibility for an unchecked embrace of individualism and the belief that all social relation be judged according to how they further one’s individual needs and self-interests.

Matters of mutual caring, respect, and compassion for the other have given way to the limiting orbits of privatization and unrestrained self-interest, just as it has become increasingly difficult to translate private troubles into larger social, economic, and political considerations. As the democratic public spheres of civil society have atrophied under the onslaught of neoliberal regimes of austerity, the social contract has been either greatly weakened or replaced by savage forms of casino capitalism, a culture of fear, and the increasing use of state violence."

How any Democrat with red blood coursing through his veins could support such a bastardized system is beyond me. But perhaps this is because I am a product of the 50s and 60s and always embraced the true liberalism manifested by FDR and JFK which the current mutation of Wall Street Dems despise. (These "Dems", as another indicator, were also behind the Chained CPI cuts to Social Security when Obama - another Neolib- first proposed it via his "deficit commission").  I also have not changed my political stripes one iota over a generation. I have not changed one metaphorical millimeter moving to the center, or to the right.

Why not? Because principles valid to liberalism - which the Democratic Party should be about in counterpoint to the Repukes' pro -business, wealth agenda- do not change over time. What was unacceptable in the 1940s, or 1950s, 1960s (e.g. kids going hungry, seniors without social insurance dying in ditches, kids working in factories, people lacking access to health care) must also be unacceptable in the 2000s, or even 3000s.

As Conor Lynch puts it (ibid.), pegging why the corporatists and their lackeys are so terrified of Sanders and Warren:

The fact is, Wall Street is afraid of modern liberalism, and is working hard to kill it from within with the same arguments that were made in the eighties and nineties. The only difference is, today, we know just how bad neoliberalism has been for the majority of people, and how good it has been for folks on Wall Street.

The financial crisis and the current inequality we face discredits the neoliberal ideology of the past thirty years.


SO make no mistake that Elizabeth Warren and the rising liberal movement (which even Karl Rove in yesterday's WSJ noted claims 31% of Americans, up from 25% five years ago)   have created a real fear within the Republican party and Wall Street. Certain right wing pundits thus hysterically paint Warren as nothing less than a radical socialist, aiming to overthrow the capitalist system. This is irrational fear. Fear that the new liberal movement is not just a fad, and that the future is moving leftward. (It is, and each year that inequality continues, pushes the marker further left)

Those Democrats who are aware what side their 'bread is buttered on' know well enough not to support the Neoliberal imperative any longer. Already, six House Dems vying for Senate seats in the 2016 elections have rejected the Trans Pacific Partnership - the cornerstone of current Neoliberal market manipulation. They have stated openly that their constituents have made it very clear to them that they want no part of this egregious, Anti-American deal.

It would be well for other Dems, especially the nominal ones, DINOS and Neolibs, to perhaps let that sink through their heads lest they vote on the TPP "fast track" passage in the near future.

A Coming Schism in The Democratic Party? About time!

Those of us who are old school Kennedy (as in JFK) liberals, have watched for decades as the party of FDR and JFK has degenerated into corporatist pussies before our very eyes. We pretty well knew the writing was on the wall after Jimmy Carter became a one termer, and a new mutant breed of Dem emerged that sucked on the corporate teats and longed to be more like the new "king on the block",  Ronnie Raygun. Never mind Reagan single- handedly converted this nation into a massive debtor with his reckless armaments spending even as his ruthless social brutality increased the number of homeless by five-fold merely by tossing all the mentally ill out of their hospital beds.

How ANY Dem, president or other, could in any way hold up Reagan as an exemplar is beyond me and shows how far this country's political duopoly has gone into the crapper. But for a lot of that we can thank two corporate arms of the Democratic Party that shill for the Corporatocracy: the DLC or "Democratic Leadership Council" and "The Third Way". These mutants can call themselves whatever the hell they want but what they really are is Neoliberal puppets. And if Neoliberal at all, they are degenerates of mind and outlook.

Because of their entrenched position and now even directing all future vision, I predict that within ten years - maybe sooner- we will see a political schism within the Democratic Party into a corporate breed of DINO Dems, and a new breed of truly Progressive Democrats. At that point, I may well rejoin the Dems via the latter.

My ire now is directed at some of these D-corporate ass-suckers who are trying to make the REAL liberals-progressives look like "hair on fire" freaks in a frenzy because we have called out Barack on going back on his campaign promises. We've also called out the corporate poseur "Dems" for trying to ply us with utter bullshit that the Chained CPI is "not a real cut". I refer to tools such as a character calling himself "Deaniac 83" who scribbled this blog post entitled Dear Liberals, Chained CPI is NOT a “Cut” to Social Security. Get Over It

No fucking way will I "get over it", buddy boy! Not now or ever. And no amount of soft-soaping PR from a shill (maybe on hire by the Third Way or DLC) will cause me to! You little bastards are responsible for wrecking the party, either driving people out of it like you did me, or simply causing others to cease voting entirely - understanding that corporate hegemony trumps votes every time.

It's those like Deaniac 83, DINOS for sure, that give all Dems a bad name. One heholds this smug, self-described  “progressive” sneering that the chained-CPI benefit cut has “set off more alarm bells on the Left’s media than Pearl Harbor.”  Well, maybe because this could well be the Democrats' "Pearl Harbor". Because if Obama goes through with the Chained CPI, while he has the Reepos' backs against the wall, he will damage the Dem brand forever. 

As blogger Richard Eskow describes the effluent from this fool.......errrrrrr.....TOOL:

"The piece’s blend of arrogance and misinformation typifies the new style of the corporate-Democratic loyalist, with rhetorical ploys straight out of the Pete Peterson playbook: Benefit-cut opponents are “zealous liberals” and “ideologues” who speak with “hair-on-fire” hysteria. And this is not a cut in benefits."

But as I noted in a previous blog the chained CPI would lower benefits for the typical Social Security recipient (who retires at age 65)  by $653 a year at age 75 and by $1,139 a year at age 85    If this isn't a CUT what the hell is? The bottom line is that the affected senior has less and less to live on each year, even as costs will likely shoot through the roof (especially when the roof collapses on oil, and Peak Oil rears its full brunt).  As Eskow notes:

"The “chained CPI" .... lowers the rate at which benefits are increased by factoring in the reduced consumption of certain items – reductions that would be driven by cuts in benefits!"

In other words, those like my 90-year old mom, whose income will fall to $915 per month if she reaches 95, will barely be able to afford kibbles and low grade cat food.  But see, these Chained CPI Scrooges insist that there's never any cutting because the sensible senior just ratchets down his diet and expectations as the costs go up! So s/he ain't really losing! So, if beef soars, you go to pork chops. If pork soars you go down to chicken. If chicken soars you then ratchet down to tuna. If tuna soars you go down to sardines. If sardines soar, you go to the giant bag of kibbles. If kibbles soar.....well, I guess the senior has to eat shit.

Or as Richard Eskow puts it:

"This would quickly become a death spiral to the financial security of the elderly and disabled financial: They can’t afford beef so they buy chicken. They can’t afford chicken so they buy cereal. Then they go from cereal to Fancy Feast. From Fancy Feast to Purina. And so on and so on, ad infinitum, Ad nauseum."

Meanwhile, economists Kathy Ruffing and Paul Van de Water (not Pareto-based economists), who compared the U.S. Social Security benefits with those of similar programs in other countries noted that:


"Social Security benefits in the United States are low compared with other advanced countries.  Future retirees already face lower benefits (relative to their past earnings) than current retirees as a result of a rising Social Security retirement age and escalating Medicare premiums."

Ruffing and Van de Water found that Social Security benefits in this country provide 41.3 percent a retiring worker’s income on average, while those in other developed countries provide 60.8 percent. That’s roughly one-third less than other nations’ program — and yet this “liberal” argument claims that our cost-of-living calculations are so lavish that they must be slowed down.


DO these smug, self-satisfied turds like "Deaniac83" care? Hell no! All they care about is pumping out their loopy, obfuscating, pro-corporate, pro -plutocrat rhetoric and expecting the rest of us to swallow it. "Now be a good little do -be, and understand that Barack had no choice what with all those crazy people on the Hill!'" Sorry, bozo, don't buy it! Barack needs balls (or maybe a shot of 'T' or some Androgel), and if he had half the balls of John Kennedy, he'd teach those Teapee twerps, dysfunctional Reepos a thing or two. One example: He could have opted to use the 14th amendment last year to increase the debt ceiling on his own, as opposed to allowing the insane sequestration that now looms, unnecessarily I might add. But invoking the 14th would have required some balls. He didn't do it, now we have even more of a mess as this "fiscal cliff" evolves.

Sure it might have invited a constitutional crisis, but that is the price when you must confront insane nuts who somehow managed to get elected and are wreaking havoc - holding the nation hostage - by using the same ploy as leverage when they weren't taught properly not to do so the first time!

The difference between these wussie -ass, corporate-puppet Dems and the old line liberals like me, is we are still prepared to take the other side to the mat, not sit down with them and make tea....and give them everything they want.

If there is to be a Democratic Schism, I say bring it on! The sooner we get rid of the DINOS in the D- party, the once upon a time party of fearless men like FDR and JFK, the better off we all will be. Then we can leave the corporatists behind! 

If corporatism, on the other hand, is the only game to be left in town, then count me out as being any future contributor to its advancement.