January 24, 2010

The Stake of the Union

Coming up this week will be President Obama's first year anniversary State of the Union speech. There has been a great deal of discussion in the media as to what Obama will discuss. But I suggest that the defeat of Martha Coakley in Massachusetts has thrown a monkey wrench into Obama's planned talk.

Tied together with the Supreme Court Citizens United ruling (which provided the means by which Corporate America will drown out the voice of the people), Obama has to scramble to save the Democratic party program. That program, created by Bill Clinton and the Democratic Leadership Council prior to Clinton's election in 1992, sought to make the Democratic Party be so corporate-friendly that the Republicans wouldn't be able to regain their prior dominance. The victory of Scott Brown put an end to the necessary control of the Congress meant to facilitate that lackey-hood just as it was finally geared up to do something. In this case, the Hare beat the Tortoise.

Now, the Democrats cannot provide the least benefit to the Main Street voters, which is intended to provide political cover to the Democrats as they serve their Wall Street masters. That least benefit was intended to be the justification for the claim that the Democrats are standing up against Wall Street for Main Street. The only problem is, we don't believe them already. There is plenty of reason not to.

Case in point: Susie Madrak of Crooks and Liars has put together a list of articles indicating that the Democrats are about to excise adults from the ban against using pre-existing conditions as a reason to refuse medical care. The selling point? Children will still be exempt from pre-existing refusals even though their parents are to be on their own. Somehow, they think that this will make the deal that provides passage of the Senate health insurance mandate bill.

Speaking as a parent, that's so nice - for my kids. What about me? I AM THE VOTER! What makes you think that covering my kids will be enough for me to fall for your BS and vote for any of you this fall? I guarantee you Democrats, it won't. Not by a long shot. I only promise that I won't vote for any Republicans either.

Some suggest that Obama will raise the unemployment issue during the SOTU speech. I say that all we will get out of him then will be lip service. For as I write this post, Wal-Mart is laying off over 11,000 low-wage workers. I can see them now, fighting against these ex-associates receiving unemployment - and getting an exemption from the law to allow this shoved through the Congress with the expenditure of about the same amount of money to buy votes that would have been enough to cover the unemployment expenses in the first place. Let them eat cake, Waltons? Or would you prefer to serve meadow muffins? Fresh and hot from your dainty derrières?

The same goes for the foreclosure fiasco. China is buying up everything in sight, so why mess with success? The banks are making a killing offloading foreclosed commercial properties to the Chinese, who are desperate to offload dollars for something of tangible worth before there is no value to the US Dollar. Why not make hay while the Bernanke sun shines rather than help those who are going to be stuck with the bill anyway?

Too late, the mainstream media is taking up the examination of Obama's shortcomings. This should have begun just about a year ago, but the non-"conservative" portion of the media was too busy protecting Obama from legitimate criticism along with the other crap being hurled by the ton from the likes of Rush Limbaugh and Bill O'Reilly. And what good did it do us?

No good at all. Obama is going to do what he wants no matter what we say. The fact that Obama is threatening retaliation if the renomination of Ben Bernanke is blocked speaks volumes. Tied to the SCOTUS ruling and Coakley's loss, Obama might as well be standing in front of the New York Stock Exchange and shouting that it will continue to be business as usual no matter what he says to the voters. The Democratic Party goal must be achieved through whatever means possible. If that requires asking America's corporate class to demand that the people support the postponement of the November elections (due to an arranged terrorist act of some variety?) in order to prevent the GOP from taking power, then why not? "If you can't beat them, be them," Rahm always says.

And they will. They have little reason not to. Not now. For as blogger Richard Power observes:


...in the weeks, months and years ahead, there will likely be no difference [between the parties] at all -- because of Citizens United...


At least not until one corporate-backed party gets so dominant that they can declare the other competitive corporate-backed party to be illegal. When they decide that there is no reason for a Congress or a Supreme Court anymore, and that the President can rule by decree as he sees fit, it will thus be necessary for you to decide now what you are willing to allow - and what you are willing to do to defend your position. Will you knuckle under for personal security, or will you stand for national principle?

Time is rapidly running out. You need to decide before a decision is thrust upon you by circumstance.

So listen carefully to the State of the Union speech. Just don't believe everything you hear him say - at least not as he intends you to believe it.

No comments:

Post a Comment