Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac probably didn’t chip in enough to Obama’s campaign, so they are feeling the heat. The big banks threw millions at Obama, so they are safe from prosecution.

The amazing thing is that some totally dipshit, ass-backward, lowlife white people think that they are superior to people of color. What a hoot…

I don’t want to hear another word about ‘shared sacrifice.’ Obama and most of the mainstream political pundits have been chanting that phrase relentlessly as they try to spread the misery around to all of us. The economic predicament that we are in is entirely the fault of our failed democratic institutions and the economic elites who control said institutions. All of our woes originate at the top of the economic pyramid and trickle down from there.

We’re not in trouble because the librarian or the janitor or the plumber or the cop or the fireman or the factory worker failed to show up and do their job; we’re up the creek because of malfeasance, incompetence, and corruption in the financial sector, the mortgage industry, the corporate media, and the halls of Congress. None of the problems we face originate at the bottom of the economic ladder– it can all be laid at the feet of those who have an iron grip on the levers of political and economic power. Fixing this mess is going to be painful, and all the pain should be felt by those who are responsible for getting us into this position in the first place. Go, OWS!

My hope is that OWS is the spark for a kickass third party. The D’s and R’s are both corrupt beyond salvation.

I’m hoping that the Occupy Wall St. movement morphs into something bigger and really threatening to firms like Bank of America. The folks in this video who are going into banks and making some noise are doing the necessary work of raising awareness– but real change won’t come about until we learn how to put the financial hurt on BOA and their ilk in a big way. Once institutional money starts being withdrawn, the banksters and the politicos will get the message. Unions, teacher’s associations, churches, local chapters of the Chamber, etc. all need to pull their funds from the big banks and put it into locally-based banks and credit unions. Everyone needs to make sure their mortgage is held locally. Once these things happen, then we have a chance to make a real difference.

Obama is a putz who has failed us in every way. Remember his campaign slogans, “The Fierce Urgency of Now,” and “Change We Can Believe In?” What a load of crap.

The big problem that I see looming on the horizon is that the constituency that elected Obama in 2008 is now so discouraged that we are likely to see huge Republican gains in 2012. We could be looking at a very bleak political landscape for a very long time.

I’ve been wondering if progressives should start devoting all of our energy toward direct democracy actions, such as recall elections, ballot initiatives, constitutional amendments, etc. Representative democracy hasn’t turned out so well– we just aren’t getting great results by working hard to elect people who we believe will do the right thing once they are in office. Perhaps it’s better to just concentrate on kick-ass direct action similar to what is going on in Ohio and Wisconsin, and devote less time, money, and effort toward electoral politics ?

Worth noting that in our political culture high government officials can engage in torture without consequences, but a wayward pecker is verboten.

Pete Peterson and his circle of entrenched economic interests have been amazingly successful at establishing the notion of “shared sacrifice.” After decades of reckless, irresponsible financial behavior in Washington and on Wall St., the government and the Fat Cats who sponsor it are now telling us to tighten our belts and live with less. Multi-trillion dollar wars and de-regulation of the banking sector are the real reasons that the nation is on the brink, yet Peterson is using his fortune to sell the idea that the janitor in Des Moines and the nurse in Peoria need to lower their expectations to help pay for the carnage. And the corporate press is more than willing to carry the message. Oy.

Bravo Jane, Bravo Yves !

Great stuff, thanks Glenn. If we had responsible media, maybe a reporter would ask the conservatives where we can we find a model for their ideal society. Most all of the best countries in the world are progressive social democracies- France, Norway, Netherlands, etc. Those nations have the highest standard of living, the best healthcare, the best education.

What I would like to know is– where is the conservative Nirvana? What nation represents the fulfillment of the conservative dream?

I’ve given quite a bit of thought to the dilemma of how to design a more effective democracy. But the problem is that a functional democracy is predicated on the notion of the electorate actually paying attention and giving a shit, and we Americans clearly don’t. We have a fantastic Constitution, we have the Internet and all sorts of social media to use as organizational tools, and yet we have a public that is ill-informed and cynical. Good government isn’t going to be reality until the citizens care enough to take hold of it themselves and shake it good and hard, like they are doing in Wisconsin.

I wonder if anyone will make a 3rd party bid? Seems like now is the time— the GOP hates their leading candidates, and Democrats aren’t exactly thrilled with Obama. If ever we are going to take down this rotten 2-party system, this seems like an opportune moment.

I hate saying this, but I think there is a strong possibility that we’re going to see a terrible bloody slaughter in Egypt. The Worldwide Order of Entrenched Interests has way too much at stake to allow a grassroots movement to succeed.

Obama suffers from the same delusions that many politicians share. That is, if you “get things done,” that is reward enough in itself. Never mind that what you “got done” is a shitty policy outcome– the important thing for these people is that they get to chalk up an accomplishment and move on to the next issue. Obama sincerely believes that his lousy corporate-friendly healthcare bill is an extraordinary achievement, because he got it through Congress in spite of considerable hostility to the legislation. What he doesn’t get is that opportunities for significant political transformation are rare, and his victory in 2008 was one of those special moments where all the stars were aligned perfectly to allow for major overhaul of our political culture. What we are getting instead is a lot of tweaking and fiddling at the margins, where the status quo is not really challenged in the way Obama promised it would be during his campaign. Remember that “Fierce Urgency of Now” thing?

Count me among the skeptical. Obama’s words rarely match his actions. It was just yesterday that his FCC approved the Comcast / NBC merger, and he also appointed General Electric CEO Jeffrey Immelt to head his “Jobs and Competitiveness” panel. This is just the same-old, same-old corporate stuff we got from Clinton and Bush. Whatever happened to the “Fierce Urgency of Now?”