Lay Of The Land

[babylonsister]

What's wrong with this picture? Wake Up, America!

http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/archives/individual/2010_07/024933.php


LAY OF THE LAND.... The Atlanta Journal-Constitution's estimable Jay Bookman tried to wrap his head around the current political landscape, and felt like he'd fallen down a rabbit hole.

Here we are in the smoldering ruins of an economy recently wrecked by Wall Street greed, in a country where for 30 years almost all income growth has been concentrated among the richest 1 percent of Americans. Rising populist anger, massive long-term unemployment and record home foreclosures serve as counterpoints to soaring corporate profits, while the Supreme Court rules that corporations are people and can spend limitless amounts of money trying to elect candidates willing to serve their interests.

Meanwhile, the Republican Party defends massive tax breaks for the wealthy while blocking aid to the unemployed, fights bitterly against regulations designed to prevent a repeat of the Wall Street meltdown, blocks legislation that would at least require corporate and special interests to identify themselves when they invest in elections and does all that while proclaiming itself to be the party of the little people.

Do I have that right?

Yep.

I'd just add two things. One, congressional Republicans also hope to block a bill to offer economic incentives to small businesses, while blocking all related efforts to improve the economy, including aid to states.

Two, they're the party that's expected to do extremely well in November, all of these details notwithstanding.

—Steve Benen

[impik]

1. People will get what they deserves

[Vincardog]

2. People will get what the BBV machines and the Corporate owned SCOTUS tell them they deserve.

[BrklynLiberal]

3. and the lemmings just keep marching behind the repukes.

Brings to mind a quote that I read recently..I would like to give attribution, but my memory stinks.

It was a quote that what we are seeing here like a reverse revolution. It would be like the people running in the streets during the French Revolution screaming for more privilege for the aristocracy!!
....................................................
I googled...and got this reference to the same article I read somewhere....
http://markmaynard.com/?p=7501&cpage=1

It’s like the French Revolution, but in reverse
By Mark | January 31, 2010

Instead of following my heart tonight and writing about the colossally fucked-up narcissist John Edwards, I’ve decided to share a link to a BBC piece about why we Americans so often vote against our own best interests. (I love watching the relatively level-headed Brits trying to understand the Tea Partification of their former colonies.) The best part of the article is the contribution by Thomas Frank, the author of What’s the Matter with Kansas?: How Conservatives Won the Heart of America. Here’s a highlight:

….Right-wing politics has become a vehicle for channelling this popular anger against intellectual snobs. The result is that many of America’s poorest citizens have a deep emotional attachment to a party that serves the interests of its richest.

Thomas Frank says that whatever disadvantaged Americans think they are voting for, they get something quite different:

“You vote to strike a blow against elitism and you receive a social order in which wealth is more concentrated than ever before in our life times, workers have been stripped of power, and CEOs are rewarded in a manner that is beyond imagining… It’s like a French Revolution in reverse in which the workers come pouring down the street screaming more power to the aristocracy.”

As Mr Frank sees it, authenticity has replaced economics as the driving force of modern politics. The authentic politicians are the ones who sound like they are speaking from the gut, not the cerebral cortex. Of course, they might be faking it, but it is no joke to say that in contemporary politics, if you can fake sincerity, you have got it made.

And here, according to the author of the article, is the big takeaway message from all of this… “If people vote against their own interests, it is not because they do not understand what is in their interest or have not yet had it properly explained to them. They do it because they resent having their interests decided for them by politicians who think they know best. There is nothing voters hate more than having things explained to them as though they were idiots. As the saying goes, in politics, when you are explaining, you are losing. And that makes anything as complex or as messy as healthcare reform a very hard sell.”

<snip>

The future of this nation is not very promising if the "people" can be so easily manipulated by the repukes..and the rest of us can do nothing but stand by and watch...IT is sad and scary.

[Martin Eden]

4. YES, Jay Bookman, you have it RIGHT

Mr. Bookman's spot-on summary is worth repeating:

Here we are in the smoldering ruins of an economy recently wrecked by Wall Street greed, in a country where for 30 years almost all income growth has been concentrated among the richest 1 percent of Americans. Rising populist anger, massive long-term unemployment and record home foreclosures serve as counterpoints to soaring corporate profits, while the Supreme Court rules that corporations are people and can spend limitless amounts of money trying to elect candidates willing to serve their interests.

Meanwhile, the Republican Party defends massive tax breaks for the wealthy while blocking aid to the unemployed, fights bitterly against regulations designed to prevent a repeat of the Wall Street meltdown, blocks legislation that would at least require corporate and special interests to identify themselves when they invest in elections and does all that while proclaiming itself to be the party of the little people.

Do I have that right?

[SunsetDreams]

5. K&R

[Ross K]

6. Oh

I was gonna nominate Drew Barrymore, but I see now that I misinterpreted the title.

K&R anyway. (Sigh)