Now that New Jersey Governor Chris Christie has officially announced that he is NOT going to run for President in 2012 - as we were fairly sure he wouldn't - and several states have moved up their 2012 primary dates, the Republican field of candidates running for President appears to be set.
Contrary to what you may hear from their cottage propaganda industry, Republican voters are still not happy with the choices they have staring them in the face for 2012.
The fact is, as much as Republican partisans and the GOP wish 2012 could be the American political right's answer to the impassioned and lively primary season that the Democratic Party had in 2008, next year is really shaping up to be more like the right's version of 2004. The man who will likely get the nomination - Mitt Romney - is a perfect example of extremist Republicans refusing the attainable good, and insisting on the impossible perfect.
Like it or not, Gov. Christie and Gov. Perry also fit oddly similar, but not identical roles.
Before Rick Perry got into the race, Republican partisans seemed to swoon at every mention of his name. They lobbied for him to join the race, and said he was just what the Republican Party needed to win in 2012. So Perry joined the race, and not long after, he was topping the polls, beating the entire GOP field, including Mitt Romney.
That is, until Republican voters got to know him. And his HPV decision in Texas. And his penchant for the death penalty - in nearly any case. And his inability to debate well. And, most recently, questions about his true views on race.
As we noted when discussing today's edition, the Republicans' flirtation with candidates is like the ABC Network television show The Bachelor (our Assistant Editor's favorite guilty pleasure - and heckling target).
There's a reason that so few of the pairings from that show are able to withstand the real world. These people are sent on the most lavish dates in the most gorgeous and exotic locations the producers can dream up - on a sky's-the-limit budget. Under those circumstances, it's very easy to let yourself be convinced that you're in love with just about any other moderately attractive person of your favored gender.
That is, until you go back home and try to hit the town for date night with 'private romantic island' tastes - and a Chuck E. Cheese budget. Fantasy collides with reality.
For all the pining and lamenting that some are still doing about Chris Christie, the fact is, he's not who the extremists dreamt he was.
He's a socially moderate governor from a heavily liberal state in the Northeastern U.S. When the far right would want him to whisper sweet political nothings in their ear, they'd end up flat on their behind, shocked that Christie would do something like stand up for one of those brown-skinned Muslims, and call regressive Republicans crazy.
The brutal collision between fantasy and reality that we saw when Perry entered the race would inevitably have been repeated in Christie's case. The fact is, upon real inspection, there's really no one that can pass the purity test of the modern Republican Party. This group of Republicans has standards that not even Ronald Reagan himself could ever hope to meet.
What chance do they think anyone else has of measuring up?
Wednesday, October 5, 2011
Tuesday, October 4, 2011
The Reason The Protests Are Happening Now
Yesterday, we showed you what we feel is the single core solution that will allow the resolution of the majority of the economic problems Americans currently face. If we get money out of the political system in the United States, the system will begin to function again, to the benefit of ALL Americans, not just a few.
Sadly, getting things fixed in our society isn't as easy as having Steve Jobs and the rest of Apple whip up a new iPhone, with new apps that magically fix everything. The problems facing our society are issues that have been ignored and grown over the last thirty years.
Much of the mainstream media is still ignoring the Occupy movement, which is now in its third week. There's no question - this movement is far more newsworthy than many of the stories our colleagues are wasting their pixels, ink, bits, and bandwidth on.
Still, for those of our colleagues that have finally begun to cover the Occupy movement, the primary question they're asking - "What do these people want, specifically? " - is the wrong question entirely. "These people" are our fellow Americans, and what they want specifically is as varied as the millions of Americans who are suffering through the disastrous economy that is generating these protests from coast to coast.
Thousands are "Occupying" now. Millions more are speaking out online - for now. The question that worries us the most is "Will this accelerate - and badly?" That is not at all our wish, though - and we hope it isn't yours either. It's also not the question the media should be asking.
The question our media colleagues SHOULD be asking is actually sickeningly simple: Why is this happening now?
You can find the answers in post, after post, after post by Americans involved in the Occupy movement at the website wearethe99percent.tumblr.com. There are Americans of all ages there, all races, and nearly every life situation you can imagine. These are people who've worked hard, busted their asses, done everything society told them to do. They've gone to college or tech school, served in the military, faced their demons of mental health and gotten treatment, expensive though it's been.
They've taken care of their parents, their kids, themselves in the best way possible. Many live with family, in hand-me-downs. Many don't have TVs, computers, or even rooms of their own. Most don't have pets, and some don't even have shoes. Seriously. In America, in 2011. Most of them have more than fulfilled their end of the social contract with our American society.
They want what America has promised to the world, what America has advertised as possible for anyone to achieve, especially since the end of World War II. They want a fair chance to work for a better life.
This is happening now because that chance is being actively denied to them. It's even being denied to the President they elected to help them change America, for the better.
President Obama has been NOTHING but compromising during his first term, bending over backwards to try and find common ground with those whose only goal is his failure. Yet, Republicans like Eric Cantor revel in stopping the President's JOBS plan - the ONLY legitimate jobs plan even presented to Congress. What's more, House Republicans are planning on fighting another massive battle with the President - instead of helping millions of Americans in desperate need of a chance for a better life.
No one is asking for a handout. Everyone simply wants a fair, legitimate opportunity. But those at the top don't wish to give even that anymore. So we get what you're seeing now: protests, popping up all over the country.
These protests are a precursor. They are a last cry for hope.
Think of these protests as the Revolutionary Warning App for our society.
Here is the thought process we fear may take over soon: If hardworking, decent, intelligent, spiritual, honest Americans are denied all hope, then why, exactly, should those millions of Americans continue to play by the ethical and moral rules of society? The top one percent on Wall Street didn't - and look where it got them.
Sadly, getting things fixed in our society isn't as easy as having Steve Jobs and the rest of Apple whip up a new iPhone, with new apps that magically fix everything. The problems facing our society are issues that have been ignored and grown over the last thirty years.
Much of the mainstream media is still ignoring the Occupy movement, which is now in its third week. There's no question - this movement is far more newsworthy than many of the stories our colleagues are wasting their pixels, ink, bits, and bandwidth on.
Still, for those of our colleagues that have finally begun to cover the Occupy movement, the primary question they're asking - "What do these people want, specifically? " - is the wrong question entirely. "These people" are our fellow Americans, and what they want specifically is as varied as the millions of Americans who are suffering through the disastrous economy that is generating these protests from coast to coast.
Thousands are "Occupying" now. Millions more are speaking out online - for now. The question that worries us the most is "Will this accelerate - and badly?" That is not at all our wish, though - and we hope it isn't yours either. It's also not the question the media should be asking.
The question our media colleagues SHOULD be asking is actually sickeningly simple: Why is this happening now?
You can find the answers in post, after post, after post by Americans involved in the Occupy movement at the website wearethe99percent.tumblr.com. There are Americans of all ages there, all races, and nearly every life situation you can imagine. These are people who've worked hard, busted their asses, done everything society told them to do. They've gone to college or tech school, served in the military, faced their demons of mental health and gotten treatment, expensive though it's been.
They've taken care of their parents, their kids, themselves in the best way possible. Many live with family, in hand-me-downs. Many don't have TVs, computers, or even rooms of their own. Most don't have pets, and some don't even have shoes. Seriously. In America, in 2011. Most of them have more than fulfilled their end of the social contract with our American society.
They want what America has promised to the world, what America has advertised as possible for anyone to achieve, especially since the end of World War II. They want a fair chance to work for a better life.
This is happening now because that chance is being actively denied to them. It's even being denied to the President they elected to help them change America, for the better.
President Obama has been NOTHING but compromising during his first term, bending over backwards to try and find common ground with those whose only goal is his failure. Yet, Republicans like Eric Cantor revel in stopping the President's JOBS plan - the ONLY legitimate jobs plan even presented to Congress. What's more, House Republicans are planning on fighting another massive battle with the President - instead of helping millions of Americans in desperate need of a chance for a better life.
No one is asking for a handout. Everyone simply wants a fair, legitimate opportunity. But those at the top don't wish to give even that anymore. So we get what you're seeing now: protests, popping up all over the country.
These protests are a precursor. They are a last cry for hope.
Think of these protests as the Revolutionary Warning App for our society.
Here is the thought process we fear may take over soon: If hardworking, decent, intelligent, spiritual, honest Americans are denied all hope, then why, exactly, should those millions of Americans continue to play by the ethical and moral rules of society? The top one percent on Wall Street didn't - and look where it got them.
Monday, October 3, 2011
How To Win The War On Wall Street? Get Money Out Of Politics.
In case you've been out of the media loop this weekend - or frankly, even if you have been paying attention to much of the mainstream media - you may have only begun to hear about the Occupy Wall Street protests currently happening in New York, and beginning to spread around the country. We've said for some time that these kinds of events were likely to happen here in America and, once again, we're sadly correct.
While we're not in favor of mob rule, or thinly veiled attempts by police to cage, trap, and arrest protestors with legitimate grievances, we tend to agree with the protestors that it's high time someone focused on the white-collar criminals on Wall Street. While these "masters of the universe" have been sipping champagne from their balconies as they point and laugh at the Occupy protestors, they've been continuing to use the letter of America's economic laws to gut the spirit of those same laws - just as they've gutted the spirits, rights, and bank accounts of America's middle and working classes.
The methods of payback suggested by some - like comedienne Roseanne Barr, who said over the weekend that bankers and Wall Street Types should be guillotined for the damage they've done to our economy - are extreme. That kind of violent rhetoric, while it may feel good, really has no place in a modern, civilized discussion in the media.
That said, we fully agree that retribution of some kind is not only likely by the aggrieved in America's working classes, but warranted.
The fact is, while the myriad different factions that seem to upmake up the Occupy Wall Street contingent are using a somewhat ineffective decision-making method, and they've yet to officially coalesce on a single goal, they have no lack of ideas. Some of their ideas have been echoed by mainstream media figures, like imposing a financial transactions tax, or closing the carried interest loopholes (which allow the ultra-rich to effectively put off paying income taxes on their investments until the third Monday of never).
We think the Occupy movement should listen to the message that some progressive media and labor leaders have been trying to guide the Occupy protestors towards - to get money out of politics.
Even the most insane members of the Tea Party seemed to understand that a simple, basic message was needed to unite all their various factions. We're certain that the millions of dollars of right-wing corporate astroturf money and professional political and media guidance helped the Tea Partiers come up with their primary message, that Americans were taxed enough already (T.E.A.). While the facts continue to prove the Tea Partiers wrong on that issue, the lesson that can be learned from their movement is a basic rule of effective mass communications: have a simple message and stick with it.
That message should be "get money out of politics."
As we've pointed out more than once, even Warren Buffett has acknowledged multiple times that, "There’s been class warfare for the last 20 years, and my class has won." As Buffett has elaborated, his class has won because they've basically bought the laws and legislators, on all levels, that have given the wealthy an unfair advantage over the other 98% of Americans.
That unfair advantage could be significantly leveled if the Occupy protestors followed the message we’ve mentioned above, to “get money out of politics.” To that end, former Wall Street trader, and corporate media figure Dylan Ratigan and other media figures - including our own webmaster - have begun supporting a constitutional amendment to do just that.
Getting the money out of politics won't be easy to do well or correctly. Then again, nothing worth doing is.
While we're not in favor of mob rule, or thinly veiled attempts by police to cage, trap, and arrest protestors with legitimate grievances, we tend to agree with the protestors that it's high time someone focused on the white-collar criminals on Wall Street. While these "masters of the universe" have been sipping champagne from their balconies as they point and laugh at the Occupy protestors, they've been continuing to use the letter of America's economic laws to gut the spirit of those same laws - just as they've gutted the spirits, rights, and bank accounts of America's middle and working classes.
The methods of payback suggested by some - like comedienne Roseanne Barr, who said over the weekend that bankers and Wall Street Types should be guillotined for the damage they've done to our economy - are extreme. That kind of violent rhetoric, while it may feel good, really has no place in a modern, civilized discussion in the media.
That said, we fully agree that retribution of some kind is not only likely by the aggrieved in America's working classes, but warranted.
The fact is, while the myriad different factions that seem to upmake up the Occupy Wall Street contingent are using a somewhat ineffective decision-making method, and they've yet to officially coalesce on a single goal, they have no lack of ideas. Some of their ideas have been echoed by mainstream media figures, like imposing a financial transactions tax, or closing the carried interest loopholes (which allow the ultra-rich to effectively put off paying income taxes on their investments until the third Monday of never).
We think the Occupy movement should listen to the message that some progressive media and labor leaders have been trying to guide the Occupy protestors towards - to get money out of politics.
Even the most insane members of the Tea Party seemed to understand that a simple, basic message was needed to unite all their various factions. We're certain that the millions of dollars of right-wing corporate astroturf money and professional political and media guidance helped the Tea Partiers come up with their primary message, that Americans were taxed enough already (T.E.A.). While the facts continue to prove the Tea Partiers wrong on that issue, the lesson that can be learned from their movement is a basic rule of effective mass communications: have a simple message and stick with it.
That message should be "get money out of politics."
As we've pointed out more than once, even Warren Buffett has acknowledged multiple times that, "There’s been class warfare for the last 20 years, and my class has won." As Buffett has elaborated, his class has won because they've basically bought the laws and legislators, on all levels, that have given the wealthy an unfair advantage over the other 98% of Americans.
That unfair advantage could be significantly leveled if the Occupy protestors followed the message we’ve mentioned above, to “get money out of politics.” To that end, former Wall Street trader, and corporate media figure Dylan Ratigan and other media figures - including our own webmaster - have begun supporting a constitutional amendment to do just that.
Getting the money out of politics won't be easy to do well or correctly. Then again, nothing worth doing is.
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