Rick Congress at his blog, Politics, Music & Irony (full post at the link):
It’s important to look at the political and economic trajectory of the USA over the last 50 years (it’s possible to go back farther,but does it matter?). Year after year income inequality has grown as industry was shut down and/or went overseas and high paying working class jobs disappeared, leading to the shrinkage of union membership from a high of 35% in the 1950s to something less than 12% (and most of that in government services). Even though only 35% of the workforce was organized during the peak years of the AFL-CIO, it forced many employers to offer higher wages and benefits just to keep the unions out.
The share of taxes paid by the rich and big business has gone down. Surveys show a decline in social mobility. All in all the standard of living is lower than decades ago and is getting lower and the amount of wealth concentrated in a few hands is staggering.
What social gains that were made from the FDR great depression era and LBJ’s Great Society of the 1960s have been or are being dismantled, despite the alleged bold national health care plan which greatly benefits insurance companies, and include cuts in Medicare. The new legislation that attempts to reinstate some regulation of Wall Street is half-baked and easily evaded. But it does create the illusion that Obama and the Democrats are looking out for the little guy.
There’s more: The infrastructure has been allowed to collapse. Privatizations schemes which rip off the public and give no benefit for their fake “services” are promoted: For profit prisons, youth detention camps, mercenaries disguised as “security firms” operate (as we know) in Iraq, Afghanistan, in this country, and who knows where else.Now the threat of destroying public education for all and replacing it with for profit schools (both “charter” or otherwise) is taking real form and gaining ground. Arne Duncan, Obama’s Secty. of Education is part of the privatization crowd. He and Obama have chimed in on the latest sport of blaming everything on the teachers unions.
The huge enrichment and the extreme predatory nature of the banks was enabled by both Democratic and Republican administrations.
The Clinton White House enacted neo-liberal domestic financial and international trade policies. These policies are exactly the same as the Republican policies of deregulation and anything goes capitalism. And why not? Since any strong organized labor movement has been wiped out, where else can Democrats raise money but from banks and corporations? George W, son of George H W, just expanded on what Clinton had begun. They are both complicit in the 2008 crash. Obama has staffed his administration with Clintonian free market idiots and he’s going to find us a way forward?
The political spectrum has moved steadily rightward. Obama, a timid centrist and pro-business politician is branded as a flaming bolshevik. Anything resembling decent pro people policies has become marginal. The chances of a progressive electoral movement getting anywhere are less than nothing…
What’s my point? For the last 50 years everything has been going to hell. The rich get richer. Everyone else gets poorer, real democracy declines, corruption is now public policy, America is the world’s warmonger state and low income youth are the cannon fodder. With no jobs, many “volunteer” because of lack of options. The Democrats are just as responsible for all of this as the Republicans,
There is no choice here. Why fool yourself? If you are in sympathy with the Palestinian’s fight for basic human rights, or you want us to get out of Iraq, Afghanistan, et al. If you are worried about basic democratic rights, or oppose racism, then Obama is no more your friend than man-tan Boehner from Cincinnati.
