For Pete's Sake, What's Happened to Our Democracy?

[xchrom]

http://www.commondreams.org/view/2012/12/05-1



Down through the millennia, specific individuals have changed the course of history. Some made their indelible mark through their intellect, some through their courage, and still others through the depth and breadth of their vision.

But you don't need smarts, courage, or vision to change history. You just need a ton of money, the sort of fortune that 86-year-old Peter Peterson has amassed over his years wheeling and dealing on Wall Street.

Peterson, one of the co-founders of the Blackstone private equity firm, has been obsessing for years over federal budget deficits. Now his obsession is shoving the nation toward a "fiscal cliff" that might well end up chopping billions out of Social Security and all sorts of programs near and dear to the hearts of America's working families.

These cutbacks make no sense. The current federal budget deficit directly reflects the bursting of the housing bubble five years ago and the resulting Great Recession, as well as the price tag of our unnecessary wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Put people back to work, rebuild the economy, and end the wars, as progressive economists note, and that deficit would wither.

[djean111]

1. The cutbacks make sense - if you realise this is just motivated by greed.

The Pete Petersons want to pay no taxes and have no regulations.
They want the poor and middle class to pay for wars with their money and their blood.
They want to run and pillage the United States as if it were a Bain Capital target, and tag any citizen who cannot find a job as a useless eater.
In my opinion, you can throw logic and charts and common sense at them all day, and it won't matter because they really do not care about deficits or the United States, just about their very own bottom line. And they have the money and the influence to do what they really intend, unless we can figure out how to stop them.

[rock]

2. I believe the nation suffers from one major problem

It is unable to prioritize its problems in a sane manner.

[FarCenter]

3. Sentiment and dogma

Democrats operating on sentiment derived from sympathy want to solve every individual's problems, no matter how badly the solutions scale up.

Republicans operating on dogma derived from principles want to impose simple solutions universally, no matter how badly they work in individual cases.

Democracy is pretty much unworkable in a media-conditioned electorate.

[PufPuf23]

4. Our Democracy is gone. The Democratic Party is to the right of Hoover.

POTUS Hoover liked to say that the difference between dictatorship and democracy was simple: dictators organize from the top down, democracies from the bottom up.

[woo me with science]

5. It was purchased.

Helluva sale.

[xchrom]

6. and a yard sale at that. nt

[OldDem2012]

7. Democracy started to die the moment JFK was assassinated in Dallas....

....LBJ, JFK's successor, did everything he was asked to do by the US military, the intelligence apparatus, and the major Defense corporations who wanted a deeper commitment to the fledgling war in Vietnam. The Military-Industrial-Complex gained major influence over the decision-making of the US Government during that war. That influence has done nothing but grow since those days.

Democracy took another big hit when General Al Haig took over as Chief-of-Staff during Nixon's last year in the White House and reported directly to the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs. Haig was appointed to that position because Nixon was believed to have become mentally unhinged and there was no sitting Vice President. Think about that for a moment. Our country was being run out of the Pentagon while the Watergate Hearings were being conducted in Congress for public consumption.

And finally, the signing of the Patriot Act shoved Democracy off the cliff where she lies beaten and battered on the rocks below. Now we have heavily armed police forces in nearly every community in America, surveillance cameras on virtually every corner, and former combat drones flying overhead.