Monday, August 1, 2011

Listen up, you Teabagger bastards

For between true Science and erroneous doctrines, Ignorance is in the middle.

-Thomas Hobbes-

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“the credibility of the United States is now surrounded by uncertainty.”Said Fareed Zakaria on AC360. I don't think so. That the reigns of power have been grabbed by a malicious minority for whom the successful defense of a failed and disastrous economic theory seems damned certain. That even a very large majority of voters have become so removed from participation in decision making is so certain that the Tea Party inmates now dance with idiot glee on the site soon to become the grave of our country. For after all, has that 3% taken off the adjusted gross in excess of $250,000 not been the reason we all did so well during the Bush administration? Wasn't it the reason that private sector job growth was at 0.0% for 8 years?

What remains quite certain in my mind is that the stated objectives of the hostage takers are not to be taken at face value, yet, even if we do, the premise behind it all is a lie and smells accordingly. The real but hidden objective of course is a feudal society out of the sick dreams of Ayn Rand, where a handful of powerful people are unimpeded in their greed and everyone else is destined ( and designed) to serve them while subsisting on their crumbs and leavings. But, these scams, these lies, these frauds are still the fundamental props of that Tea Party scheme, a scheme shown to fail even more quickly than Communism does -- and we're allowing our erstwhile democracy to fall like Jericho to a mob walking in circles and blowing loud on a horn.

"The imbecile bourgeoisie of this country make themselves the accomplices of the very people whose aim is to drive them out of their houses to starve in ditches" -Joseph Conrad-

Upper bracket tax cuts do not create jobs or prosperity except for a very, very few individuals and that prosperity comes with a crushing burden on the rest of the populace. While the fake Libertarians rhapsodize about not ever asking what they can do for their country, Mexico sits there demonstrating what it's like when a handful with all the money are absolved from responsibility and often even from the law.

A healthy Capitalistic system, a system that fosters job growth requires discretionary money flowing through the hands of consumers and the "agreement" we now seem to have had forced upon us takes it away while granting favors to a privileged class who spend proportionately less on consumer goods, thus weakening the economy. We've had thirty years of the continuous failure of this long con, although, thanks to the ownership of the 24 hour propaganda system by that privileged plutocratic class, we've forgotten.

The rich man will not hire people to build anything while most of the country can't afford to buy them
and as a shark requires moving water to survive, a capitalist economy requires moving money.

Tax cuts do not pay for themselves with increased revenues. much less do they pay for the longest and most expensive wars in American history. We have now had three wars in three decades, all sold as self-funding and the lion's share of our debt is attributable to our having to borrow the funds from abroad to pay corporations who do not pay taxes rather than paying for it. The war that pays for itself in booty is a stinking lie. How much more proof will it take?

Tax cuts for the wealthy do not create jobs, nor boost the economy, nor boost revenue. Only a small fraction of the extra cash in deep pockets makes its way back into the economy and nearly all of the cash from entitlements and paychecks of middle and working class families does -- and quickly. For each Porsche or Ferrari or yacht bought with that extra tax bonus, for every stash of Krugerrands or condo in Marbella, 10 families, maybe 100 families would have bought cars and washing machines and refrigerators and school supplies and some might have bought hamburger instead of cat food. Their money returns to the economy instantly. Yet every day we hear lying voices shouting about "job destroying taxes;" shouting so loud that we forget that our most prosperous and fully employed years featured high marginal rates. With marginal rates of 90% CEO's and business owners took less in salary and plowed back more into their businesses, boosting growth. Now they suck the business dry and bitch about having to pay minimum wage to workers who can't afford to go to the doctor. And of course the huge debt for WW II was paid down quickly and the Dollar was strong and the tiny pre-war middle class expanded enormously.
Somehow, judging actions by their results has given way to endless repetition of doctrine, taken on faith.

Marginal rates below 50% seem to precede recessions. Don't believe me, look it up and the biggest debt increases have been under Republicans for a very long time -- most spectacularly under the misrule of Bush and Cheney and don't tell me you were against it at the time, you weren't.

“Reagan taught us that deficits don't matter” -Dick Cheney-

This isn't Obama's recession, it belongs to all of us and Obama's biggest "spending spree" was in his first year, operating under a budget and tax scheme passed by Bush. It's as if Congress bought the yacht under Bush and because Obama had to make the payments, pay for the dockage, maintenance and fuel, he's the spendthrift.

The biggest increase of the debt ceiling in the average American's lifetime was under Reagan, the second under Bush, 200% and 90% respectively. Both presidents created recessions. Clinton raised the debt ceiling 44% and raised taxes and we had record high employment and the longest period of expansion and prosperity - ever. Funny how you told us his success was because of Reagan and Bush the First, but on the day of his inauguration, it was "Obama's recession."

26% under Obama so he can pay "the troops" and keep our contractual obligations -- and the reeking, ignorant unwashed rabble take to the streets and storm Congress screaming about impeachment and the biggest spending president ever since the beginning of time.


"Joy to great Chaos! Let Division reign"

-Pope-

But you won't learn, you won't be honest, you won't stop protecting your fantasy, even if you have to go down with the ship you're scuttling. So keep giggling, keep your nose in the air -- keep talking about tax and spend Democrats and bleeding heart Liberals. You'll bleed too and there will be no one to help, no one to care.

10 comments:

  1. It feels like the country is just collapsing under the weight of its own collective stupidity. I am glad Obama was able to protect SS and VA benefits, unemployment benefits, military pensions, and children's insurance from cuts under the special committee jurisdiction that is now part of the deal.
    I think he has gotten the best deal he can from the thugs holding us hostage.

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  2. You tell the 'Baggery, Captain!

    I'm guessing at this point that the "deal" is likely to pass, though nobody is certain. The way the coverage of it is shaping up isn't encouraging.

    I suspect the heart of the deal is only that Republicans will agree for a year or so not to burn the country to cinders or eliminate Medicare outright; in exchange, they'll get all sorts of concessions that to them add up to the sweet smell of cruelty and destruction, the aphrodisiacs of choice for today's brand of GOP officeholder.

    The only saving grace, as I understand it, is that the cuts are somewhat backloaded temporally, so as not to give the struggling economy yet another mafia-style whacking with baseball bats. Not something to cheer about, but as Rocky says, maybe not much better was to be had, I'd add "given the route the president took in the first place" (i.e. not open defiance and continual outing of the GOP scam). There's the prospect that he's temporizing in hopes of getting a better hand to play after 2012, but of course anything that falsely makes the Republicans appear rational and statesmanlike probably makes that outcome less likely.

    I tried to listen to some major cable coverage but only lasted about five minutes because the newscaster kept insisting that the deal pleased neither the "far Left" nor the "far Right." After he pulled that linguistic scam three or four times, I shut the tee-vee box down and went back to lying sullenly by the watering hole….

    Meanwhile, the president's angle in this is being reported as consisting mostly in the desire to give up any damn thing so long as the manufactured "debt ceiling" issue doesn't come up again until conveniently after the 2012 election. His persistent calls for compromise with a pack of Ayn-Rand-spouting yokels in the House and mean-spirited cynics in the Senate are easy to cast that way if a person is inclined, though I'll credit him with better intentions because the truth is that Mr. Obama is dealing with what The People in their infinite wisdom have done to themselves, voting the way they did in 2010. Vote for idiots, you get idiotic government.

    That said, I tire of hearing politicians on either side go on and on about how they're making "tough choices" and "sacrificing." In fact, what they're usually doing is agreeing to make other people suffer and sacrifice, with nothing to show for it in return except the somewhat wider, still more evil grin on well-cared-for Republican faces.

    But I'm sure all those "far-Left" types are just being losers for complaining about it…. Democrat Party Socialist Tax-and-Spend Dummycraps! Losers! Nah, nah nah NAH nah!

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  3. I'm not listening to the talking hair-dos nor reading the screeching blogging of the summer of our discontent.

    I can't believe I'm living in an age where a minority of people, whose idea of governing would make a Gambino family member envious, thought it would be a great idea to score points with their fellow idiots by putting this country in cement shoes and pushing it over a pier.

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  4. But damn, those far-righties play a good game of chicken.

    Would love to find a mainstream media venue for your post, Capt. Perhaps Fox?

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  5. Hobbes seems an appropriate source for a quotation in these days of a great deal of brutish behavior by those mavens of deception, the Tea Party. Ah Captain, you expertly hit all the low points of the pile of garbage the GOP has pedaled for years and the added rubbish that the Tea Party has added. Unfortunately, we are a nation filled with hoarders and have grown to love our trash.

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  6. Dino:

    insisting that the deal pleased neither the "far Left" nor the "far Right."

    Not everyone catches on to scams like this. The old saw: "the best compromise doesn't please either side" is turned around to falsely imply that a deal that offends nearly everyone but a few is therefore a good compromise.

    As if there were really two sides to everything. As if there were a resonable middle group who thinks we didn't get screwed by our liege lords again.

    Everyone here has written about the fair and balanced scam -- both sides do it -- if nobody is innocent, who can be guilty? And of course the moral absolutists are just fine with this putrid bit of moral relativism.

    I'm not saying anything new or that isn't obvious ar that isn't backed up with historical fact, but there's nothing anyone can say that America's corporate opinion vendors can't brush away with the word Liberal.

    No Hobbes wasn't kind to popular thinking, such as it was and is, but what good does it do other than for private entertainment, to read him. Most people, hearing the name would think of a stuffed tiger.

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  7. rockync -

    I am glad Obama was able to protect SS and VA benefits, unemployment benefits, military pensions, and children's insurance from cuts under the special committee jurisdiction that is now part of the deal.

    I heard Randi Rhodes saying this last night. Then, on MSNBC, they were saying that for the yet-to-be-populated special comittee, these things are not off the table, at all; and that SS - which I depend on, BTW -- and medicare -- which just paid for my 90-yr-old mother's hip replacement -- are very much within the committee's purview, and therefore very much at risk.

    I don't know what to think, except that -

    WASF,
    JzB

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  8. Capt.,

    And the worst of it is, nothing is more predictable than the Administration's use of "fair and balanced" rhetoric to characterize its losses to Republican extremism: in a number of clips I've heard, I think the president leaves it for us to infer that there is a crazy radical Netroots Left that's just got a bee in its patchouli-steeped bonnet because he hasn't yet nationalized all major industries and ordered flowers stuck in the barrel of every tank. Meanwhile, finely tuned "compromises" are being hammered out with the likes of Eric Cantor, John Boehner, and Mitch McConnell. I honestly don't see the current deficit ceiling deal as a compromise, unless by compromise one means doing really counterproductive things in slow motion instead of doing all of them right away. The president has been put in a bad spot, all right, and I don't think much of what he has been doing lately is what he really wants to do, but in the end, you just can't compromise with rigid ideologues and end up with anything but bad policy. Really bad policy, like slashing hundreds of billions from domestic spending while the jobless rate is over 9%. But as I mentioned previously, this is the sort of thing that happens when people vote for fools like many we now have in congress.

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  9. (sound of dino-applause from the edge)

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  10. "this is the sort of thing that happens when people vote for fools"

    That they were only fools and not theives, pirates and madmen. A bonfire of the vanities is one things, but lighting it indoors is another.

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