Right-On Reich!

Former Clinton Labor Secretary Robert Reich has recently been quoted that the "original sin of the Obama administration was to make the stimulus too small while giving out too much of it as tax breaks to businesses." The error of that early strategy and decision (just about the time that Republican De Mint was taking his "Obama's Waterloo" stance) is coming back to haunt this valiant President (yeah, I'm still in his camp!) and the price for that "sin" may be losing the majority in the House of Representatives. 

Some look on that possible outcome of the 2010 mid-term elections (or worse: with the Republicans also regaining a majority--though not filibuster-proof--in the Senate) as a "good thing", talking about the hidden silver lining that governing more on a bipartisan basis would promote more compromise and legislation that at least moves forward. I wonder. Does the party that just screamed "no!" over and over deserve to hold the reins of power again after the disastrous George W. Bush years? Remember, this is the party that has trumpeted how important continued tax cuts for the ultra-rich are ( no matter about adding billions to the deficit!), while simultaneously trying cleverly to move the ownership of the U.S. deficit from the creator (Bush and his buddies) to the inheritor. This just isn't fair!

I'll be working my tooshie off between now and the mid-term election with two "get out the vote" efforts: Democracy for America and MoveOn. It's the right thing to do. We need to motivate like-minded progressive folks to get to the polls and rebuff the right-wing attempt to drive our country back into the ditch. Rhetoric from know-nothings who toss around irresponsible threats of "Second Amendment remedies") and "I want my country back" (from what or whom?) aside, it's time for the grownups to renew their vows and truly get the nation back on the road to a real recovery.

Footnote: I once had the opportunity to chat with Reich in a popular San Francisco drinking establishment--through a mutual friend who knew of my interest in his writings--but I'm sure both of us found the meeting lacking in any meaningful real content due to the extreme level of the grunge/punk/rock music.)

"T" is for "thugs"

As we approach the critical 2010 midterm election on November 2 it is increasingly apparent that the "Tea Party" is more akin to the "brownshirts" of 1930s/40s Nazis than anything resembling the founding fathers' resistance activities. Aside from being an out-of-control ultra-conservative wing of the Republican party, these folks assume they have the right to silence a diligent reporter (see "Alaska Dispatch editor detained at Miller event"). They are typified by candidates who have little to offer the electorate beyond a vague (but intense) outrage and fed-up-ness of "big government" and a desire to reduce the deficit (which ballooned up to the largest size EVER during the Bush presidency). Couple this with a willingness to silence any form of variance from their "message" and you've got modern-day American brownshirt thugs.

This is a "movement" that deserves to be tossed upon the slag heap of history along with Karl Rove's "permanent Republican majority" and other serious politically divisive mistakes of our American evolution. (It also seems to be a sad/ironic commentary on the overall state of American education when a movement based primarily on "outrage" linked with a bit of racism and based on inherently false assumptions that historic legislative milestones--such as the Healthcare Reform Act--are misunderstood and twisted into negatives.) These folks just don't realize that they are ginned-up and "working for the man" (i.e., big business and the ultra-wealthy) and their movement is one step away from the American equivalent of the totalitarianism of the ultra-wealthy where the middle class gets more and more marginalized and sqeezed into poverty while their overlords grow into a twenty-first century equivalent to the oligarchy of pre-revolutionary Russia.

I, for one, still believe in the power of hope and the pursuit of a more perfect union through progressive populism.