STICKING OUT NECKS IS A FINE POLITICAL ART

It is serious business as one’s political career often hangs in the calculation.  I can appreciate that, as I’m sure many Americans who know only too well what a precious gift that employment is.

Ordinary Americans have made compromise after compromise for the past 30 years and with each compromise we have lost not only one more crumb of  the cookie that we call “The American Dream” , but we have also lost brick by brick much of the foundation of our Democracy–bricks of habeas corpus, equal pay for equal work, separation of the powers of our executive, legislative and judicial branches and many more bricks to our Democracy laid by our forefathers.  Most of these egregious affronts to our government and way of life and respect for humanity have been committed over the past 8 years by the current administration.

I am an American and I don’t like the current compromise that Congress is trying to effect with an administration that should have been impeached over a year ago.

I do not want the Bush Administration or any of their representatives in charge of handling this financial crisis.  That is where I draw my line–not in the sand, but in concrete.  To give Paulson the power to manage this deal is like turning an insane asylum over to the inmates.

If that is the best that Congress can do, then let the cookie crumble for everyone as it has already crumbled for many Americans.  Let the rich conservatives feel the pain of what they have done for a change. Let them bear the brunt of their failed economic neo-liberal politics with its cynical view of government, free market, de-regulation, privatization, etc.  Let them try to defend the indefensible.  Perhaps that is the only way they will learn a basic lesson about democracy:  it cannot function without a good and responsible government that provides oversight and regulation.  What is coming home today is the result of allowing rich conservative foxes to guard the hen houses of Democracy for almost 30 years.

QUEEN’S COMMENTS ON THE BAILOUT

HOUSE REPUBLICAN CONSERVATIVES ARE TRYING TO CONTINUE MORE OF THE SAME SHELL GAMES FOR THE RICH

I hope that Americans have learned from this attempted bailout of Wall Street by the conservatives that two things are certain: 1) when the rich and corporate America are excused from paying their fair share of taxes (35% of their income/profits) that our nation and all Americans suffer 2) without oversight and regulation, the greed of the rich cannot be held in check.

The one-page proposal that the House conservative Republicans shoved in the face of the negotiators yesterday was nothing more than a proposal for another one of their shell games, corporate welfare programs that have gotten us to the painful point where we are today. What the conservative House Republicans are offering is more of the same. They don’t want the bipartisan proposal be passed because it will restrict the continuation of their wild west wheeling and dealings and overt manipulations of the market–exactly the kind of irresponsible greedy and mean behavior that created this financial meltdown today.

Here are some basic facts of life folks for all voters about our two-party system:

1.  You can’t be a democrat and be a conservative–that’s an oxymoron.  You are either a progressive or liberal democrat.

2. You can’t be a Republican and be progressive–that’s an oxymoron.  You are either conservative or libertarian.  And whether you are rich or poor–all the legislation that your party, assisted by conservative Democrats, passes is for the benefit of the rich.  The economics that you subscribe to is the economics of neo-liberalism.  Here are the cornerstones of that ideology and none of which is part of the framework for the Democrat’s platform:

The five main points of the Conservatives’ economic neo-liberalism include:

#1   THE RULE OF THE MARKET. Liberating “free” enterprise or private enterprise from any bonds imposed by the government (the state) no matter how much social damage this causes. Greater openness to international trade and investment, as in NAFTA. Reduce wages by de-unionizing workers and eliminating workers’ rights that had been won over many years of struggle. No more price controls. All in all, total freedom of movement for capital, goods and services. To convince us this is good for us, they say “an unregulated market is the best way to increase economic growth, which will ultimately benefit everyone.” It’s like Reagan’s “supply-side” and “trickle-down” economics — but somehow the wealth didn’t trickle down very much.

Republicans and conservative Democrats only believe in the Market as long as it works, but when it falls on its face, they expect the majority of the American people to pick up the bill and pay for their mistakes.

The Democrats.com have a petition to sign titled:  STOP PAULSON'S PLUNDER.

http://www.democrats.com/stop-paulsons-plunder

I signed it and added this post note:

 "Yes I want to stop the plunder of Paulson and the Bush adminstration and I also realize fully that at least for the past two years, the continuation of the plunder by the Bush admistration has been made possible by votes of some conservative Democrats as well.  It has taken Me these past few months to gain clarity regarding the confusion that I've felt over the past two years as to why the Democrats could not have done better in getting legislation passed.  Now I understand.  It is in great part because there are some conservative Democrats who vote with the Republicans on many bills.  They  proudly refere to it as bipartisanship.  I call it something different.  I call it collusion of the rich.  It doesn't make any difference to me if you call a conservative a Democrat or a Republican.  To me they are too much alike to tell any difference and neither one of them represent ordinary Americans.  A conservative is a conservative and the legislation they pass benefits the wealthy to the exclusion of ordinary Americans.  I should hope that the Americans have their fill of conservatives by now.

I say if you want to be a conservative, then do what Lady de Rothschild did and be a Republican.  Our party should be known as the progressive party again.

AND NO, REPUBLICANS ARE NOT PROGRESSIVE.  To say that a Republican is progressive is an oxymoron.

I'm liberal, but I'll settle for progressive.  However, I'm not putting up with conservative any more.  NOT THIS TIME.  NOT THIS YEAR AND NOT WITH $700 BILLION OF MY MONEY TO SUBSIDISE WALL STREET."

Please do yourself and your country a favor and call your elected DC officials first thing on Monday Morning!  Life as you know it may depend on how the Wall Street Meltdown is handled.

Please call your elected officials in DC tomorrow morning and tell, don’t ask, them to put a Bipartisan group of Democratic PROGRESSIVES in charge of oversight of the handling of the $700 billion check that George Bush and Company are demanding that we had over to them with no requirements.

WHAT CAN THEY BE THINKING?  The Bush administration and conservatives from both parties think that the American taxpayer should just write out a check for $700 billion, an amount that is almost equal to the total amount we have poured down the black hole of space called Iraq for the past 5 years?  AND hand it over to George Bush and his minions?

What makes you think that this administration would be any more responsible with this $700 billion dollars than they have been with all the other billions that we have turned over to bail them out from their failed disasters?

DO YOU WANT MORE OF THE SAME?

OR CHANGE RIGHT NOW!

It’s up to you and whether or not you call AND email your elected officials first thing on Monday morning.  Tell at least five other people.

One old standby for the past 8 years has been to promise them anything to get the tax breaks and/or contract.

It’s time the American people start calling the conservatives on some of their homilies and conventional economic wisdom regarding the notion that tax breaks for big business stimulates the economy. “It ain’t necessarily so.”

Trickle-down economics in the form of tax breaks for large corporations don’t always deliver what they promise to the people.  For example an audit released in March of 2004 examined the effectiveness of the Empire Zone program, New York’s state plan to foster economic development in poor areas by giving businesses special tax breaks. Those from the New York State Comptroller’s office carrying out the audit examined 375 businesses and found that they had created a total of 2,380 fewer jobs than they estimated they would when they applied for the program. In fact, almost a quarter of the businesses surveyed had cut workers.

In many cases the companies received tax breaks that far exceeded the benefits, including new jobs that they provided for their communities. In fact, 34 of the businesses that cut workers according to the audit “apparently improperly claimed certain tax breaks totaling approximately $2.4 million.”

The Shifting Political Bandwidth of Democracy

The diagram above is one that shows my viewpoint of where our two parties have been for the past 33 years. The conservatives have been in control exclusively since the end of Jimmy Carter’s term. Bill Clinton is a conservative Democrat, and has membership in the DLC to prove it. Throughout the last six years of his term, the Republicans were in control of both houses of Congress and all of the legislation passed during that time was conservative legislation. The shaded area represents the percentage of the conservative bloc that is in flux this election.

In spite of any illusions to the contrary, conservatives have been in control of our government for the past 33 years—and look what we the people have to show for it today as a nation. The only difference between a conservative Republican and a conservative Democrat is that the conservative Democrat would keep a little more government whereas the Conservative Republican would destroy it all except for the part that maintains the police and military—and even that they would privatize to be paid by the middle-class and poor taxpayers while continuing their tax breaks for the rich.

The Great Political Awakening of 2008 and why it has happened. . .

THE QUEEN’S COMMENTS ON THE FINANCIAL BUYOUT AND CONSERVATIVES FROM BOTH PARTIES

If it hasn’t become obvious to Americans by now, it is perhaps time that it should be. Rich conservatives have been having their way  with our demoracy for over thirty years and particularly sticking it to the average American voters when it comes to the financial shell games supported by their free market claims and market deregulations that they have set up, supported and used to increase their own wealth at the expense of ordinary Americans.  The playing of these games has been possible because of their confusing political posturing in a  politically stylized version of the good cop/bad cop dance. 

Many people dichotomize our two political parties: Republicans are conservative and Democrats are liberal.  However, that is a gross over-simplification.  In fact, for the past 20 years, the Democrats have had a strong conservative wing of our party and they have been in total control.  The most amazing thing about our Democratic primary was not that a black man won the nomination.  The most amazing thing about Obama’s win was that the most conservative wing of our party, the members of the DLC, the group that had been in control for over 20 years, lost.  AND that is where the real hope lies.

Let’s be perfectly clear here: rich conservatives are the same whether they are a Democrat or a Republican.  The key word is not the “Party”, stupid.  The key word is “conservative”.

I want to hear people like Patrick Leahy, Barbara Boxer, Russ Feingold and Ted Kennedy say that the final financial deal that is cut to rescue the conservatives from the mess that they have created for the rest of us is one that is fair and just to ordinary Americans.  I don’t trust the word of conservatives from either party.  Without the blessing from the progressives and liberals in the Democratic Party, the chances are very good that this is just another good cop/bad cop agreement among the conservatives from both parties.  And as an American citizen, my answer is:  NOT THIS TIME.  NOT THIS YEAR.  I don’t trust a conservative Democrat any more than I trust a Republican to represent my best interests