“Both Republicans and Democrats have falsely claimed that they have an electoral mandate to cut public spending. They have used all of their collective political will to make this cutback program a reality.
In fact, if this were a real democracy, the government would have gone after the Wall Street thieves and parasites who everyone knows plunged the country into crisis. Instead, they were bailed out to the tune of several trillion dollars.
The public has time and again identified jobs as the most pressing economic problem. If this were a real democracy, the government would use society’s vast wealth to respond to the people’s most pressing needs. But for the capitalist parties, it is no ’emergency’ or ‘catastrophe’ that there are 44 million people below the poverty line (and that is with a ridiculously underestimated poverty level of $22,350 for a family of four).
The number of people without health care has risen to 52 million. There is no emergency bill for the millions of families facing eviction and foreclosure every year. From just 2005 to 2009, Latino households lost 66 percent and Black households lost 53 percent of their so-called ‘wealth.’
Based on demographic changes, the country’s elderly population is set to become disproportionately larger than it is today. At the same time, pensions have been systematically eliminated, and 401k plans have taken monumental losses. Social Security—referred to as ‘supplemental income’—is usually not enough to get by on. In a real democracy, the politicians would be discussing how to expand Social Security payments, not cut them.”
(-Ben Becker; Answer Colalition)
(-Matthew Norman)
(-Alan Grayson)
“In place of greater equality and improved life prospects, the vast majority of us now must deal with increasing levels of anxiety and alienation and diminishing social solidarity. And we must confront the havoc wreaked on the democratic quality of our civic and political life as capitalism proceeds on its course. On the off-chance that his wars don’t get even more out of hand than they already are, or that his environmental policies (or lack of them) don’t lead to catastrophe, this is the legacy Obama is forging for himself: making the instruments of our discontent, the pillars of Wall Street’s empire of finance, even more secure.
That is what Obama is about. And so, in the preposterous episode of political theater our political class staged in the past few weeks, he gave his all. He did negotiate badly enough that Business Schools could make a case study of his machinations, but he was more disingenuous than inept. Obama surrendered for one overwhelming reason –because he wanted to; because he is not just in the game to win, but to win for Wall Street. The time is long past due for liberals to face that reality, and to deal with it not, not as Obama and his advisors expect, by acquiescing out of fear that the alternative is even worse, but in a constructive way. If a Dump Obama (campaign) cannot get going now, then when?”
(-Andrew Levine)
“The clever young man who recently made it to the White House is a very fine hypnotist, partly because it is indeed exciting to see an African American at the pinnacle of power in the land of slavery. However, this is the 21st century, and race together with gender and even class can be very seductive tools of propaganda. For what is so often overlooked and what matters, I believe, above all, is the class one serves . George W. Bush’s inner circle from the State Department to the Supreme Court was perhaps the most multiracial in presidential history. It was PC par excellence….It was also the most reactionary.”
(-John Pilger)
(-Dennis Kucinich)
nation is supposed to be about did not begin with this deal, and it surely
will not end with this deal. We must find, again, the energy and the
purpose of the 1960s and early 1970s, and we must protest this
deal and all the goddamn deals to come.”
(– Keith Olbermann)
“Since we can’t have real democracy, or jobs, or a decent wage, or money that has any value, or affordable education, or real health care, or more importantly real health, at least let us have the emotional satisfaction of hating the right people for the right reasons!
The Media has become just another meaningless bureaucratic institution that exists solely for the purpose of keeping the population distracted and diverted by the use of a constant barrage of bad news, intentionally, or unintentionally, designed to keep us from thinking, acting, and organizing, but mostly, to remind us about those starving children in Africa, keeping us grateful that our miserable lives aren’t any worse.”
(-Little Steven Van Zandt)
“…Raw extortion….a catastrophe on multiple levels….What Republicans have just gotten away with calls our whole system of government into question. After all, how can American democracy work, if whichever party is most prepared to be ruthless, to threaten the nation’s economic security, gets to dictate policy? And the answer is, maybe it can’t.”
(-Paul Krugman)
“Obama had many options for avoiding this ‘crisis,’ long before it came to a head. He didn’t take those options because, like all good disaster capitalists, he wanted and needed a crisis of this sort to enact the brutal economic agenda he has openly advocated from the beginning. The result, of course, will be further impoverishment and diminishment in the lives of millions of ordinary people, for years to come — and, ironically, the eventual collapse of the monstrous system that supports the ravenous elite that Obama serves with such panache.”
(-Chris Floyd)
“I am here today because I have chosen to protect the people locked
out of the system over the profits of the corporations running
the system.”
(– Tim DeChristopher at his sentencing)
…He (Obama) has only listened to the voices that shout the loudest, and it’s all those reckless right-wing forces. It’s almost criminal.”
It is impossible at this point to determine exactly what programs will be cut or by how much. That will be determined later in the committee process and I will do everything I can to defend priorities important to Vermont. What we can say, however, is that vitally important programs for Vermont, like LIHEAP, education, Head Start, child care, community health centers, the MILC program for dairy farmers, Pell grants for college students, nutrition programs, environmental protection, affordable housing, community action agencies, small business loans and many other programs will be on the chopping block.
Further, the so-called deficit reduction super committee of six senators and six House members will have the power to make devastating cuts to Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid and veterans.”
(-Senator Bernie Sanders, VT)
desperately need – has been poured into a series of wars, conflicts, and
war preparations without a victory, or even a significant success
on the horizon.”
Pentagon to start holding bake sales, despite what you may have heard
about reductions to its obscenely bloated funding.”
(-Medea Benjamin and Charles Davis)
Veglam 