What the general public is not getting about the debt debate.
As long as livejournal is still working for me ...
Solarbird has an interesting series about this, which I applaud in some respects but don't entirely agree with in others (you can read my long-winded argument over on dreamwidth ( http://solarbird.dreamwidth.org/99926.html#comments ), tho her debt-focused posts have more comments on lj and elsewhere) but is extremely informative, and will give a slightly different picture than you will get from reading most liberal sites* (I'm assuming those will b the sites most of you read).
But one thing I've noticed, now that I can finally read the lj comments, is that some people arguing with her in favor of more typical liberal/progressive takes on the subject (fwiw, I am not entirely sure who is right about many areas of contention, but think what should be done is more or less the same regardless), along with almost all of the liberal/democrat/progressive types I know IRL, and many of them on the internet, keep slamming the tea party and the Republicans while defending Obama and the Democratic response.
Errr, no. These people are not your friends. Most of the time, they're not even your allies. The Repubs you hate and the Dems you love have a lot more in common with each other than they do with you. Obama has been proposing cuts to Social Security and Medicare for a long time. The Republicans, seeing him offer more than they were asking for in the first place, just went what appeared to be batshit crazy and asked for more while continuing to insist someone who is economically more or less Reagan II is a liberal/socialist. You might ask "appeared to be batshit crazy? What's NOT bastshit crazy about that?" Well, it looks like they are getting more. Without anything that even vaguely resembles a fight. So, really, either both sides are the enemy, or one side is the enemy and the other side is an ally who's so awful they help the enemy accomplish more than they could on their own. Either way, please by all powers that be quit viewing most of the Dems as the "good guys" in this.
Also, if I'm right and everyone is freaking out about something they shouldn't be, WHY are they freaking out? Well, you already know waht I think--the whole thing is cover to enact Chicago School conservative economic policies that have been proven not to work and are about to make things a helluva lot worse in a fashion that is purely criminal. BUT...
IF YOU INSIST ON PERCEIVING THE DEMS AS WELL-INTENTIONED, THIS COULD HELP EXPLAIN THINGS (i.e. they are not evil, just so easily rolled by threats the patheticness of it would make me laugh but for the stakes):
http://robertreich.org/post/8099560686
(see also: Naked Capitalism)
And for sure, this probably is a factor in a lot of the Dem and Republican calculus. Of course, a better response than what are pols are currently doing would be to haul a lot of people at Standard & Poor's off to jail, or decide TARP gives the US a controlling interest in all the financial institutions we bailed out, or ... well, anything but "OMG they are threatening us let's grovel really hard and maybe they'll let us crawl off instead of staking us to the ground while we lie here on our bellies instead of fighting back".
A suddenl leap into chaos with a strong possibility of improvement beats the hell out of an orderly descent into a certainty of mass destruction, which is what it appears we're about to get.
*If you are getting your info primarily from TV news, of any station, or even NPR unless it has gotten a LOT better since I quit listening to it, assume you are being lied to, and any perceived liberal/conservative bias is irrelevant. Newspapers and magazines used to be good sources but for the most part aren't reliable on anything touching the financial sector anymore either.Seriously.
Solarbird has an interesting series about this, which I applaud in some respects but don't entirely agree with in others (you can read my long-winded argument over on dreamwidth ( http://solarbird.dreamwidth.org/99926.html#comments ), tho her debt-focused posts have more comments on lj and elsewhere) but is extremely informative, and will give a slightly different picture than you will get from reading most liberal sites* (I'm assuming those will b the sites most of you read).
But one thing I've noticed, now that I can finally read the lj comments, is that some people arguing with her in favor of more typical liberal/progressive takes on the subject (fwiw, I am not entirely sure who is right about many areas of contention, but think what should be done is more or less the same regardless), along with almost all of the liberal/democrat/progressive types I know IRL, and many of them on the internet, keep slamming the tea party and the Republicans while defending Obama and the Democratic response.
Errr, no. These people are not your friends. Most of the time, they're not even your allies. The Repubs you hate and the Dems you love have a lot more in common with each other than they do with you. Obama has been proposing cuts to Social Security and Medicare for a long time. The Republicans, seeing him offer more than they were asking for in the first place, just went what appeared to be batshit crazy and asked for more while continuing to insist someone who is economically more or less Reagan II is a liberal/socialist. You might ask "appeared to be batshit crazy? What's NOT bastshit crazy about that?" Well, it looks like they are getting more. Without anything that even vaguely resembles a fight. So, really, either both sides are the enemy, or one side is the enemy and the other side is an ally who's so awful they help the enemy accomplish more than they could on their own. Either way, please by all powers that be quit viewing most of the Dems as the "good guys" in this.
Also, if I'm right and everyone is freaking out about something they shouldn't be, WHY are they freaking out? Well, you already know waht I think--the whole thing is cover to enact Chicago School conservative economic policies that have been proven not to work and are about to make things a helluva lot worse in a fashion that is purely criminal. BUT...
IF YOU INSIST ON PERCEIVING THE DEMS AS WELL-INTENTIONED, THIS COULD HELP EXPLAIN THINGS (i.e. they are not evil, just so easily rolled by threats the patheticness of it would make me laugh but for the stakes):
http://robertreich.org/post/8099560686
(see also: Naked Capitalism)
And for sure, this probably is a factor in a lot of the Dem and Republican calculus. Of course, a better response than what are pols are currently doing would be to haul a lot of people at Standard & Poor's off to jail, or decide TARP gives the US a controlling interest in all the financial institutions we bailed out, or ... well, anything but "OMG they are threatening us let's grovel really hard and maybe they'll let us crawl off instead of staking us to the ground while we lie here on our bellies instead of fighting back".
A suddenl leap into chaos with a strong possibility of improvement beats the hell out of an orderly descent into a certainty of mass destruction, which is what it appears we're about to get.
*If you are getting your info primarily from TV news, of any station, or even NPR unless it has gotten a LOT better since I quit listening to it, assume you are being lied to, and any perceived liberal/conservative bias is irrelevant. Newspapers and magazines used to be good sources but for the most part aren't reliable on anything touching the financial sector anymore either.Seriously.