Tweet
These people leave me beside myself with anger because they are such liars about their desire to help the citizens of the United States. If they are sincere, they have a damn funny way of showing it. Just the other day Barack Obama made noises, after having solemnly promised through his surrogate Joe Biden not to touch Social Security, about how he is OK with cutting Social Security (see, that is exactly what this chained CPI indexing scheme he was talking about will do, it’s a CUT), and then we saw Nancy Pelosi follow along with him, after she herself had come out against monkeying with Social Security.
They have sold out, but as usual. they’ve sold us out to a lesser degree than the Republicans.
Democrats have the advantage right now in their dealings with the Republicans about the so-called Fiscal Cliff. Now we all, as followers of the news, should understand that the fiscal cliff is a fiscal bluff, a manufactured crisis that is to be used to screw the average man out of even more money in favor of the oligarchs. I don’t want to get into that here, it’s already been discussed to death about how this is strategy right out of the pages of Naomi Klein’s The Shock Doctrine.
On to my point about what makes me so damn mad about Democrats, it’s really simple, when the Democrats have the advantage, they NEVER press it.
Look here, if the question is Medicare, for example, the Republicans’ position is clear, they want to eliminate or at least cut Medicare, but knowing they can’t get anyone to go along with outright elimination or even an honestly named cut, they push for things like raising the eligibility age. The Democrats on the other side of the bargaining table hem and haw and say they might be amenable to raising the age eligibility. Understand, the Democrats have the advantage. Here’s what makes me go nuts: You NEVER NEVER, NOT EVER hear a Democrat say the obvious thing, which is “No, I don’t think so, but here’s my counter-offer, let’s LOWER the eligibility age to 50 years old!” You just never will hear this at all, not ever, not even one damn time.
It makes me nuts! If you or I were playing poker with these weak, weak, cowardly Democrats (Barack Obama, I am talking right to you) either of us would clean their pockets out in short order.
Look here Obama, Biden, Pelosi, and Reid, when the Republicans ask for cuts to social security, you say “NO, what we Democrats want is a RAISE to benefits and PERMANENT solvency to the Social Security program, and we are going to get it by REMOVING THE CAP completely to the maximum taxable earnings amount. We want ALL taxpayers of ALL income levels to contribute into Social Security, and we are not taking no for an answer! And furthermore, don’t ever bring up Social Security in the context of balancing the budget! You KNOW it has absolutely nothing to do with budget deficits, so shut up about it for once and for all.”
That is how you let Republicans know where you stand. You don’t chicken out and throw the negotiations to the enemy at the first sign of resistance, like dear leader Obama does at the beginning of every deal with Boehner and McConnell.
Do Democrats think Americans are stupid? I’ve been around a long time. I’ve seen real negotiators, guys like LBJ and Nikita Khrushchev. I know the difference. Obama, you are no LBJ.
I am disgusted with Democratic weakness and with lesser-of-the-two-evils politics. I am sick of being played for a chump.
Oh yeah, by the way, Happy Holidays to all! And I mean that from the bottom of my curmudgeonly old heart.
9 Comments
“Do Democrats think Americans are stupid?”
Yes, and the available evidence supports their conclusion.
Yes and Mitchell has this blog to explain it.
http://rodgermmitchell.wordpress.com/2012/12/18/are-you-enjoying-the-good-cop-bad-cop-kabuki-theater-of-the-absurd/
“… when the Democrats have the advantage, they NEVER press it.”
The dems are the Washington Generals of politics. They are supposed to be the designated opposition; they are not supposed to win. The center drifts ever rightward even as the republicans lose elections because of the complicity of the corporate dems in Washington.
Alas, ’tis true.
Your anger is misdirected. The Democrats are neither weak nor chicken. No. They are liars and con artists. They serve the exact same interests that the Republicans do, the exact same oligarchy.
And their goals are exactly the same as those of the Republicans. If anything, they’re just less honest about it.
Obama and Pelosi aren’t hard negotiators because they don’t want to be. The fact that you think that there’s some other reason just shows that you are still pulling the wool over your own eyes. Obama is no LBJ, but unlike LBJ, he doesn’t WANT to expand Medicare or any other social program that benefits the majority of the American people.
Get over it. Obama’s a Fascist. Just like Romney or George W. Bush. In the spirit of the season, I’ll say “let the scales fall from your eyes.” You’ll still be angry, but at least you’ll be angry for the true reasons.
One Party state- left wing & right wing. The old Soviet Union had hard liners and reformers. The hard liners wanted an annual review of the five year plan the reformers wanted semi-annual
You know, I think Americans are stupid too, stupid for listening to media that constantly lies blatantly and implacably. A stupid person will fall for repetition of a lie. Now, an ignorant person doesn’t even know about the other problem, which is the specialty of media in America, the lie by omission. If Americans were smart, they’d stop looking at the big news shows, but it seems they aren’t bright, they continue with ABC,CBS,NBC,FOX,CNN, MSNBC in the face of provable lies. If you lie to me once, I’ll check to see if it’s an honest mistake, lie again and I stop paying attention to you. How many people apply that simple test? Very few, and those who don’t are Stupid. You are right, point taken. There’s not media much I trust.
Thanks for pointing me there, to what an excellent post, especially the laws at the very beginning:
Mitchell’s laws:
●The more federal budgets are cut and taxes increased, the weaker an economy becomes.
●Austerity is the government’s method for widening the gap between rich and poor, which leads to civil disorder.
●Until the 99% understand the need for federal deficits, the upper 1% will rule.
●To survive long term, a monetarily non-sovereign government must have a positive balance of payments.
●Those, who do not understand the differences between Monetary Sovereignty and monetary non-sovereignty, do not understand economics.
●The penalty for ignorance is slavery.
I understand that the Dems are Liars and Cheats. I think they are a little less obvious about it, but that doesn’t change the fact that they are Liars and Cheats.
The main thing I wanted to put out in my post is that there are obvious bargaining tools that the Dems never pick up, tools that the average person doesn’t think about because they are never mentioned.
If you’re in a deal, you ask for far more than you want! I live in Mexico where the tradition of dealing is alive and well in the traditional marketplaces. The process is called “el regateo.” If you try to buy something and you don’t bargain hard for a lower price you are then regarded as a chump and a fool and as someone to be taken advantage of. You deserve that reputation if you pay the first price.
We should be demanding better deal-making from our so-called leaders in the Democratic Party. These people act like chumps and fools to be taken advantage even if in private they are not really like that.
I mean, at least let’s put some drama in the damn Kabuki Theatre. Can’t we, as a public, at least get that much?
Point taken about Fascism. It’s what we have in lieu of democracy. Why Nations Fail, by Acemoglu and Robinson, was a real eye-opener for me, and I want to plug it here. It clearly maps the road we are on from a vibrant and prosperous democracy to a slave state based on extraction of labor and material for the benefit of a very few who occupy the very top of a pyramid of misery. If Americans would read that book we might have a better chance of turning things around. But they won’t. What do we do about this? How screwed are we?