Dick Morris Comes Out and Says It

[paft.livejournal.com]

Dick Morris on Sean Hannity, 2/28/11:

We may at long last have a way to liberate our nation from the domination of those who should be our public servants but instead are frequently our union masters and free our politics from their financial power…What is at stake here really is freeing our schools so that we could keep good teachers and fire bad ones, freeing our state government so we don’t have high local taxes (and exactly how are those good teachers going to be paid?) and obliterating the financial power base of the Democratic Party.

The money quote is underlined above. This attack on collective bargaining is not about helping kids. It’s about establishing what amounts to a one-party system. Eliminate the power of unions and the G.O.P., with its corporate backing, gets to run things pretty much unopposed.

These people do not grasp the most basic principle of an open society – equal access to the political process as a voter and as a candidate.

Crossposted from Thoughtcrimes

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Comments

[badlydrawnjeff.livejournal.com]

My observations show otherwise. Further, they show that both parties desire an oligarchy. In which case you're all fucked.

Which observations?

The article argues that it was the above mentioned oligarchy plus the fat cats on Wall Street who caused the crisis, as opposed to the unions that some are hasting to throw all the blame on.

Who's blaming the unions for the meltdown?

Highly debatable. I mean very highly.

With this logic, I can say it's debatable that Obama's not a citizen (http://community.livejournal.com/talk_politics/624628.html). Anyone can debate something - it doesn't make the premise right.

[luvdovz.livejournal.com]

The observations of a fairly well informed layperson - a foreign person who's able to look at your society from outside, as opposed to staying like the frog in the frying pot and being in denial.

Here's bad news: from most non-US POVs, the US society has turned into one of the most oligarchic ones in recent history - probably only rivaled by Russia in this respect. And both mainstream parties have hugely contributed to that, since they've switched into power for ages. Denying that only speaks volumes about the one denying it, but still does not make it non-fact.

[badlydrawnjeff.livejournal.com]

The observations of a fairly well informed layperson - a foreign person who's able to look at your society from outside, as opposed to staying like the frog in the frying pot and being in denial.

What observations, though. What is being observed?

Here's bad news: from most non-US POVs, the US society has turned into one of the most oligarchic ones in recent history - probably only rivaled by Russia in this respect. And both mainstream parties have hugely contributed to that, since they've switched into power for ages. Denying that only speaks volumes about the one denying it, but still does not make it non-fact.

It's not fact, though. That's the problem. It's a perception with no basis in reality. Or, to be clearer, if such a basis in reality exists, they're not stepping up to prove it.

[underlankers.livejournal.com]

Not, of course, that you ever provide facts to refute these supposedly-false observations. That would require you to have fire with the smoke.

[badlydrawnjeff.livejournal.com]

The facts speak for themselves, here. Not that you're providing much either.

[underlankers.livejournal.com]

On the contrary, I can provide them when asked. Whenever you do, you resort to passive-aggressiveness and 10,000 excuses as to why answering simple questions is impossible, before eventually deciding to flounce instead of dealing with the meanies.

[badlydrawnjeff.livejournal.com]

Flounce? lol, certainly not my style.

So do you have anything to refute the facts on the ground, or is this another "I can't come up with anything, so I have to go after debate style instead" type thing?

[underlankers.livejournal.com]

That's not up to me to do here. I'm simply noting that your discussion with Luvdovz is the classic "that's not what X says." To which someone asks "Well, what does X say?" and you respond either "that's not what X says" or "let someone else say it because the environment here is too hostile for me to answer" *or* "it's self-evident".

[badlydrawnjeff.livejournal.com]

If it's not up for you to do here, then, well, don't do it?

[farchivist.livejournal.com]

o do you have anything to refute the facts on the ground, or is this another "I can't come up with anything, so I have to go after debate style instead" type thing?

Oh please, like you can fucking talk. I have never seen you provide a citation for when you say something is wrong. None. Zero. Zilch. Nada. Nothing. EVER. It's always:

- "That's not what it means." without ever saying what it DOES mean, as it "should be obvious"
- Some variant of "You're interrogating the text from the wrong perspective."
- "Nobody could ever think that way." or "No one could be that evil.", never mind that history is FULL of the myriad examples of yes, people are not just that evil, but even more fucking evil, and outweigh the 'good' in history. No, according to you conservatives and libertarians are saints and blessed men, possessed of nothing but the purest of motives and greatest of intentions. Liberals? Misguided, wrong individuals who can't think straight.

And that's why I hope that someday you suffer an apocalypse of the soul, one that strips your beliefs and fundamental precepts and shows them to be wrong, that your idols are foul and corrupt, that everything you thought you knew was wrong. In fact, if someone paid me, I'd pull it off.

[badlydrawnjeff.livejournal.com]

Oh please, like you can fucking talk. I have never seen you provide a citation for when you say something is wrong. None. Zero. Zilch. Nada. Nothing. EVER. It's always:

Then you haven't been paying attention.

Sorry to spoil the fun, but...

[abomvubuso.livejournal.com]

It is an oligarchy in its extremest form. For instance, the very institution which has the monopoly on the formation of federal-level fiscal policies, despite its title, is not a state institution but is essentially a private bank cartel which, when asked to whom its accountable, answers with silence, because the fact is, it only answers to its shareholders and no one else.

Re: Sorry to spoil the fun, but...

[badlydrawnjeff.livejournal.com]

As much as we dislike the fed, that's not really how it works here. It's accountable to the government, to the Congress in particular. Is it accountable enough? That's up for debate.

This is why I'm saying there appears to be a patent misunderstanding among foreigners about how it works here.

Re: Sorry to spoil the fun, but...

[abomvubuso.livejournal.com]

On paper, it all really looks beautiful. I watched the Bernanke hearings in the Senate. Total farce.

Re: Sorry to spoil the fun, but...

[existentme.livejournal.com]

Isn't this just the exact thing your adversaries are saying in this argument?

To explain: when you say "the Fed (or Goldman Sachs or whomever) is accountable to the Congress," all this really translates to (thanks at the very very least to campaign financing, electability, pork-barreling and the entanglement of all of these) is that the Fed (or Goldman Sachs or whomever) is accountable to themselves, alone - they pay Congress, period.

I really don't think it's that difficult or complicated to understand at all. Sure, I guess some people actually don't think the Fed (or whatever other oligarch) is accountable to anyone, but I think most thinking people, even foreigners, recognize that accountability ends exactly where the printed currency begins.

Re: Sorry to spoil the fun, but...

[badlydrawnjeff.livejournal.com]

The Fed is not Goldman Sachs, first.

Sure, I guess some people actually don't think the Fed (or whatever other oligarch) is accountable to anyone, but I think most thinking people, even foreigners, recognize that accountability ends exactly where the printed currency begins.

And I think that's where they're completely wrong. Accountability and money aren't really related, if I'm reading the complaint properly.

[luvdovz.livejournal.com]

And btw the birthers' issue is not with Obama's citizenship, but with his place of birth.

[badlydrawnjeff.livejournal.com]

It's about both - his place of birth that would then invalidate his citizenship in regards to Presidential eligibility.

[underlankers.livejournal.com]

While nobody asked this about the Senator from Arizona born outside the Continental USA.

[badlydrawnjeff.livejournal.com]

Can you please bookmark this so I don't have to link it to you over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over again (http://www.nytimes.com/2008/07/11/us/politics/11mccain.html)?

[underlankers.livejournal.com]

Read what I wrote. Where were the Tea Partiers afraid if we elected the Vietnam War Vet we'd have a foreign President? They are, after all, non-partisan and grass-roots, eh? So where they in this whining?

[badlydrawnjeff.livejournal.com]

The Tea Party is not about race. What part of that are you not grasping?

[underlankers.livejournal.com]

Sure they aren't. Just like "they" aren't represented by any of the politicians like Congresswoman Bachmann or their candidates like Palin and Angle. By your standards there is no "Tea Party", just a bunch of people who want a government small enough to fit in the uterus and the bedroom and shut down the other party's idea of a budget without any actual ideas of their own.

Erm.....

[geezer-also.livejournal.com]

I don't think that a Tea Party issue. I'm sure there are people who belong to tea party groups that are birthers, heck for all I know there may be truthers (altho that's not as likely :D)

Re: Erm.....

[underlankers.livejournal.com]

Where I'm from a state where every Congressional Representative save Landrieu identifies with the Tea Party and are also Birthers.