Yes we can?

by August Adams (11 articles, 0 quicklinks, 1 diaries, 585 comments [11 recommended, 0 rejected]) on Thursday, Jan 8, 2009 at 5:44:58 PM

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What is should have read, from the very beginning:

"YES WE CAN, but only when we spend way more money on crap that we don't need at the expense of the US Citizen, in general.  By the way, no, YOU CAN'T!"

Ciao, CZ

by steve scheetz (4 articles, 0 quicklinks, 3 diaries, 829 comments [52 recommended, 0 rejected]) on Friday, Jan 9, 2009 at 9:45:10 AM

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fleshing out the phenomenon that you describe and attributing it to Jude Wanniski and Grover Norquist. He called it the "Two Santa Theory", where the fascists (they are not conservative by any stretch of the imagination) spend as much as they can to constrain their inevitable Democratic replacements.

It is supposed to make these Republican fascists the sugar daddies to an ignorant electorate while the Dems get to be the Scrooges, bereft of the means by which to responsibly advance any initiative.

Reagan jumped on it with abandon, and ended up sticking it to Pappy Bush, who was forced to raise taxes. Clinton dodged the bullet with the serendipitous assistance of a tech market bubble, and Dubya put the plan into full blown steroidal operation. Dubya's problem with it is that he pushed it so hard that he ended up sticking it to himself when the chikens came home to roost before his successor was fully in control. I guess in the sense that they both stuck it to a Bush, Reagan and Dubya have that in common.

This "Two Santa Theory" is the basic treason that the Republican Party has engaged in over the past twenty-eight years that all of their other crimes have adorned. If we wish to end it here, it remains essential to call the departing administration to account and lay justice upon them in such a manner as to dissuade their philosophical descendants from reengaging the theory.

by John Sanchez Jr. (9 articles, 0 quicklinks, 25 diaries, 1791 comments [148 recommended, 3 rejected]) on Thursday, Jan 8, 2009 at 5:58:33 PM

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No, it's actually the Hegelian Dialectic.

Thesis/Antithesis/Synthesis

Democrat/Republican/Policy Movement...always towards the elitist ends.

Put in simple terms, it is a dog and pony show...you get the wet trouser leg and step in the horseSh*t.

by William Whitten (0 articles, 0 quicklinks, 0 diaries, 4880 comments [1686 recommended, 28 rejected]) on Friday, Jan 9, 2009 at 7:59:06 AM

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The Democrats collaborate in both parts of the cycle. When the Republicans are busy launching aggressive wars and cutting taxes for the rich, the Democrats collaborate with them, supplying crucial votes for passage & providing a "bi-partisan" gloss for the policies.

Then, when the inevitable disaster is finally produced, the Democrats come in to supposedly "clean up the mess" -- but only in a way that's carefully designed to serve the same corporate class interests advanced by the original Republican looting & war-mongering. Hence, as Josh Mitteldorf wrote in the article, the Obama solution to the budget crisis is not to cut defense spending or to stop the wars, and it's not to stop handing out hundreds of billions in corporate bailouts & subsidies. No, it's a grim warning that social services will be slashed! In the name of "fiscal responsibility," the broad mass of the population will have to tighten their belts, to pay for the corporate plundering & the non-stop operations of the war machine.

This is not "Republican treason." It's bipartisan treason.

I completely agree with you however that "If we wish to end it here, it remains essential to call the departing administration to account and lay justice upon them in such a manner as to dissuade their philosophical descendants from reengaging the theory." However, as we all know, this will never happen. Part of the basic duopoly collaboration is that Democrats never call Republicans to account for anything. It's "too divisive," and we must "look forward, not backward, so as not to be lost in partisan squabbling!" (doncha know).

by Richard Mynick (2 articles, 4 quicklinks, 1 diaries, 1552 comments [255 recommended, 5 rejected]) on Friday, Jan 9, 2009 at 10:57:57 AM

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says.... "let them eat cake!"

god help us

by jersey girl (0 articles, 0 quicklinks, 0 diaries, 1201 comments [734 recommended, 12 rejected]) on Thursday, Jan 8, 2009 at 7:42:08 PM

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... bigger agenda and are played off one another at the expense of the people starting from the bottom up.

Of course it would make sense to end the wars and cut our military spending, but sense isn't what this is all about, it's about the cold blooded murder of a majority of the people, and Obama is nothing more than a trigger-man.

The revolution is now, what are you going to do?

by Mr M (8 articles, 0 quicklinks, 66 diaries, 2845 comments [654 recommended, 27 rejected]) on Friday, Jan 9, 2009 at 4:56:36 AM

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I find it hard to believe that anyone is really surprised by this.  Obama said early on that he had the very highest admiration for the Reagan presidency and economic policies.  Then look at his cabinet choices.

Change you can believe in = no change at all. 

by Angelo (6 articles, 0 quicklinks, 7 diaries, 209 comments [1 recommended, 0 rejected]) on Friday, Jan 9, 2009 at 7:56:35 AM

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If Bill Clinton was part of the Reagan conspiracy, someone should have told him so.

Though Clinton was a moderate Democrat, a lot of curiously un-Reaganlike stuff went on under his tenure:

Largest expansion of college opportunity since the GI Bill
Family and Medical Leave Act for 20 million Americans
Smallest welfare rolls in 32 years
Higher incomes at all levels
Lowest poverty rate in 20 years
Lowest government spending in three decades
Lowest federal income tax burden in 35 years
Unemployment at Its Lowest Level in More than 30 Years
The child poverty rate declined more than 25 percent
The poverty rate for single mothers was the lowest ever
The African American and elderly poverty rates dropped to their lowest level on record
The Hispanic poverty rate dropped to its lowest level since 1979

Clinton-Gore even made the Federal government smaller--something the Repubs definitely can't do.

We'll have to wait and see about Obama.  But the meme we hear so often at OpEd News--that both parties are actually tools for a bigger agenda--requires that you ignore the Democratic record, which is strikingly different from that of the Republicans.  If both parties were serving a secret elite, this would not be the case.

by Perry Logan (0 articles, 0 quicklinks, 0 diaries, 558 comments [74 recommended, 3 rejected]) on Friday, Jan 9, 2009 at 8:20:07 AM

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-the deregulation of banks

-the deregulation of broadcast media

-establishment of the International Monetary Fund (IMF)

-the founding of the World Bank

-the implementation of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA)

Yep, Bill Clinton was the best Republican president since Dwight Eisenhower.

by John Sanchez Jr. (9 articles, 0 quicklinks, 25 diaries, 1791 comments [148 recommended, 3 rejected]) on Friday, Jan 9, 2009 at 8:50:18 AM

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Bretton Woods conference. This was 2 years before Clinton was even born.

by Richard Mynick (2 articles, 4 quicklinks, 1 diaries, 1552 comments [255 recommended, 5 rejected]) on Friday, Jan 9, 2009 at 9:58:17 AM

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"both parties are actually tools for a bigger agenda" does not in any way require that the records of both be exactly alike.

On the contrary, each party serves the corporate elite in its own way. Sometimes the Dems are better-positioned to serve elites; other times Republicans are better-suited. For instance, when elites desired that NAFTA be pushed through Congress, they recognized that Democrats (with their  traditional links to the labor union bureaucracy) would be better able to deliver what they needed ( -- for the same reason that the anti-Communist Nixon was best-suited to open relations with China, as Levon mentioned below). That's a major reason why Clinton had strong corporate backing.

The 'Two Santa theory' mentioned above does NOT require that both parties act & talk exactly alike. It merely requires that they collaborate -- each serving the same societal interests in the ways each is best suited for. Republicans are better-suited for direct looting & plunder, while Democrats are better-suited for coming in later to shift the burdens of said looting onto the backs of the working class (which is precisely what Obama is preparing to do, as Josh Mitteldorf's article makes clear).

On a baseball team, not everyone has to be a home-run hitter. The team works better when each guy contributes his own skills -- some are better at defense, some at base-running, some as power hitters, some as singles hitters. In much the same way, both corporate parties serve the same class interests, because they're on the same team. But no one claims that they serve these interests in identical ways. Each party has its own role, its own traditional spheres of influence, & its own rhetorical style. Each uses its own particular strengths, but on behalf of the same class interests.

by Richard Mynick (2 articles, 4 quicklinks, 1 diaries, 1552 comments [255 recommended, 5 rejected]) on Friday, Jan 9, 2009 at 10:40:06 AM

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While Obama's proposal to cut Social Security and Medicare would pull the rug our from under those who can least afford it, he also promised to make taxation rates fair again.  He should be held acccountable for that.

Tim Fleming

www.eloquentbooks.com/MurderOfAnAmericanNazi.html

http://leftlooking.blogspot.com 

by Tim Fleming (3 articles, 0 quicklinks, 1 diaries, 37 comments [2 recommended, 0 rejected]) on Friday, Jan 9, 2009 at 8:42:10 AM

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only nixon could go to China and only a democrat could "fix" social security and medicare. obama will do to SS and medicare what clinton did to welfare.

obama buys into the right wing canard of ss being in crisis...look for him to push this meme as he attempts to "fix" it.

Once again, the  rich and corporations are left unscathed and everyone else gets the shaft.

change we can believe in!

next up... look for the draft to be reinstated as "national service" so that obama can have his 90,000 troop increase in the military.

I heard that rahm emmanual holds dual citizenship - with the us and israel, has served in the israeli army, and is pushing the idea of "national service".

wow, and i thought i was voting for a progressive...what a dupe!

by Levon (0 articles, 0 quicklinks, 0 diaries, 36 comments) on Friday, Jan 9, 2009 at 9:38:09 AM

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that most of the bailout falls on the shoulders of the poorest classes. And curious also, that the corporations and economic recovery must be 'helped' out by reducing Social Security and medicare. Like this is going to help, to stimulate, the economy by putting more and more pressure on those who rely on those programs in order to survive.

I applaud the op in the notion that there are other more effective ways to deal with these issues. Tax the wealthy and corporations at an equitable rate. Stop the wars. Terminate the overseas bases. Stop corporate welfare and bailouts.

Do it for the people for a change, not the upper crust. 

We need, not a recovery, not a re-establishment of the old economic process of free markets, but a new model, one that works from the bottom up, one that recognizes the value of labor. It will reveal much, as to how the Obama team choose to rebuild the country.

Much of the Clinton era masked the building of this horror show we have lived through in the last eight years. If Obama tries to re-create the national climate of those years, start watching out, because the smoke and mirrors routine will be hard at work to milk us once again. Look closely at the Clinton 'accomplishments' and see how much they meant for the wealthy and how much they meant for the rest of us.

Since we have such a mess, let's try building a whole new model for ourselves, one that is good for humanity, the planet, the future and peace. 

by Jack Harrington (0 articles, 0 quicklinks, 0 diaries, 675 comments [70 recommended, 0 rejected]) on Friday, Jan 9, 2009 at 5:50:40 PM

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