We have ALREADY been sold out to austerity. The game will not change until we correct the narrative.

[woo me with science]

Last edited Fri Dec 21, 2012, 12:51 PM - Edit history (2)

If I see one more post saying that, "He hasn't harmed us yet," or, "We need to wait and see if we have been sold out," I am going to weep for this party...literally.

We have ALREADY been sold out to austerity.

By validating, participating in, and agreeing to the Shock Doctrine SCAM of the debt ceiling negotiations last spring, the President *already* ensured that we will be subjected to sweeping, painful austerity cuts. We are merely waiting to see which version we get. He used Medicare and Social Security as hostages to ensure an austerity deal.

The corporatists set this up so that even in the best case scenario, going over the cliff, we will suffer broad, vicious, triggered cuts across the board that will slow this economy even further and hit the poorest hardest. We know from hundreds of economists and from Europe that austerity is a corporate theft and SCAM by the one percent...harmful to economies and deadly to human beings. But we will get some version of it no matter what, ....by design.

We win NOTHING here, even if we go over the cliff. Consistent with the predictable Third Way game, we are being propagandized to be grateful if we end up with the lesser of the evils...the LESS painful and damaging of the horrible options that have been carefully set up.

Of course we have been harmed already. It is brazen spin to call this despicable corporatist manipulation a win in any way.

If the only options put before you are beating a puppy or killing a puppy, beating the puppy is still not a win.

Our focus now needs to be on correcting this sick narrative that we have been fed. We won an election by a landslide. The country overwhelmingly opposes austerity. We need to CORRECT the narrative and demand much, much much more from our party than the lesser of two evil options, and the validation of that garbage through rhetoric. We need to demand leadership and passionate advocacy for policies that will actually HELP the people.

[ProSense]

1. Let me

We have ALREADY been sold out to austerity.

<...>

If the only options put before you are beating a puppy or killing a puppy, beating the puppy is still not a win.

...summarize your post and everyone of them:

Doom, gloom and more doom. Don't be happy with any progress. As a progressive, you're powerless and should just drop out because no one listens to you.

There is no deal...move on, and that means still reject cuts and advocate programs that benefit people.

There is no need to spend countless hours trying to define Obama as evil and the Democrats as sellouts.

Those are not policies.

[woo me with science]

19. Of course austerity is policy.

The FACT here is that we get austerity no matter what.

This debt ceiling con was rigged that way from the start, and Obama participated in the rigging.

[AnotherMcIntosh]

29. "the Democrats" are not sellouts. The sellouts are the internationalist Democratic politicians.

They represent the rich and super-rich owners of the international corporations, not Americans as a whole including those of us registered as Democrats.

We didn't sell out America. They did. And they did so without our authorization.

[FSogol]

2. "austerity" "Shock Doctrine" "Third Way" "corporatists"

BINGO! I got Bingo!

[JoePhilly]

3. So now Obama, who was absolutely positively going to cave, but who didn't cave, is still evil.

Gotcha.

[woo me with science]

4. Keep trying to make it about being mean to Obama.

This would have happened with any corporatist in office. Congressional corporatists were complicit. It was a predictable SCAM, and it worked.

Do you deny that we will have sweeping austerity cuts across the board?

Look at what will *actually* happen here with policy, in the best case scenario. Par for the Third Way course. We have two possibilities. Either we get the devastating assault of the chained CPI, or we get a big, fat, but slightly less painful austerity deal.

Once again, Democrats are being exhorted to perceive victory when the game has been rigged to move us rightward no matter what.


The ONLY way we change this predictable, despicable game is by calling it out. It is time for Democrats to insist on an honest definition of "victory" and to demand some REAL representation from our party.

[JoePhilly]

5. But I thought we wanted Obama to stand up to Boehner and the GOP even if that meant

going over the cliff?

Now we're against that?

I guess if you can't move the goal posts far enough, just move the entire field.

[woo me with science]

6. And there you start at Step 2,

as the corporatist propaganda requires.

Let's all forgot how we got here. How the set of possible outcomes before us...bad and worse...was deliberately orchestrated. Let's just narrow our focus to the evil possibilities before us, and rejoice if the *less* evil comes to pass.

Teach the people to weep with joy at their FLEECING.

No, this needs to stop, and it stops by recognizing the game and refusing to play our grateful parts.

And CORRECTING the narrative, to demand *real* advocacy on our behalf.

[sabrina 1]

28. Have they taken SS off the table yet? Get back to us when the President

makes a statement as clear as those made by Sen. Bernie Sanders and your comments will mean something.

I know what Nancy Pelosi said do you? Has she responded yet to the tens of thousands of calls she has received about this issue and about her statements regarding the Chained CPI?

Are you saying that Pelosi didn't understand the President and thought he was sincere in his offer?

Why don't you call her (good luck though she doesn't appear to be responding to calls) and let her know the President was just playing chess, again.

[MannyGoldstein]

30. If it looks like a cave, sounds like a cave, and the President agrees it's a cave,

it's not a cave?

Not *enough* of a cave, perhaps, for the insane people, but...

[byeya]

7. Austerity, during a recession, is always the wrong choice and it's been tried and failed each time.

The 0% interest rates are harming those seniors who saved all their worklives and are trying to live on CDs and getting no real return on their investments. This while corporate profits are at an all time high.

We've already gotten the shaft and it looks like more is on the way.

Cut the corporate subsidies and close 50% of the overseas military bases and and separate the military personnel staffing them from the services.

[woo me with science]

9. Exactly. We need to talk about what they are NOT proposing.

"Cut the corporate subsidies and close 50% of the overseas military bases and and separate the military personnel staffing them from the services."

We need to talk about the possibilities that would actually HELP us, and reject these cynical bids to celebrate the least painful of the destructive, predatory options that are carefully placed in front of us. We need to stop playing their game.

[byeya]

12. Bridges, municipal water purification systems; parks; hospitals; schools, etc, should be our

focus. Each dollar spent on items like these brings back more than $1 to the community. Build a tank and you get no return on your investment; build a garbage truck, and the community benefits.
It's pretty much high school economics isn't it? But, since the ultras, our "betters" don't get a chance to pick our pockets, then it's not part of the national discussion.

[woo me with science]

13. Amen. Everything Democrats *should* be fighting for

is what we do not talk about anymore. The one percent drive the narrative in this country, and it is all praise for the lesser of two corporate evils.

We should be asking ourselves every day
http://www.democraticunderground.com/10022047906

[AndyA]

31. They are also not proposing fixing SS by returning money to the trust fund they "borrowed"

That money paid for wars, tax cuts, was used to balance budgets, whatever...

Close to $3 Trillion, from what I understand. Instead of restoring the SS trust fund, which would make it solvent for a long time, they want to cut benefits. But they aren't discussing that...

[woo me with science]

32. You got that right.

Of course, they used up that money, and need more. The audacity in this theft is breathtaking. They assume we do not pay attention, and have no memory.

They also fail to mention that our FICA contribution was doubled during the 80's, ostensibly to take care of the problem of boomers moving into retirement.

[forestpath]

8. K&R Agree with every word.

[Fire Walk With Me]

10. K&R!

[woo me with science]

11. Time to correct the narrative. Time to demand real, positive change.

Cut corporate welfare.

Cut Homeland "Security."

Cut the police state.

Cut the MIC.

Reject austerity. Reject more looting for the corporate one percent.

[TheKentuckian]

33. Sorry Woo, but this is what I think being caught in the event horizon means.

We aren't wise to cut any demand out of the system, even wasteful spending is spending that helps create and/or power a string of jobs. Except maybe the corporate welfare which tends to fail to circulate and is more bribe than stimulus.

I agree with the areas identified for cuts because they are toxic and take power from the many and put it into the hands of the few.

My point is that killing these fatted cows is well and good but for the short to medium term those resources should be diverted to more effective stimulus and massive investment.

I think we now are having difficulty discussing this without identifying cuts, cutting has become the primary focus which means we cannot do what is needed to escape the malaise-augment demand.

Without increased demand powered by the government, we are stuck with carrots for the profiteers and raiders not to reduce their demand further.

The major inducement is wage destruction and diminishment being papered over first by cheap foreign goods that allowed working class and poor to get more for less powered by exploitation and cannibalizing not only their jobs but much of our potential for upward mobility and financial independence by turning over what used to be all kinds of shops and niches for big boxes and eventually online super warehouses.

Then as that potential to absorb ran out the credit tap was fired up, allowing workers to substitute debt for income.

Now most of the credit has dried up but we have taken to substituting tax cuts for wages which is destroying much of the capability of government to spend and invest or even just maintain what it is doing now because there is no revenue. In fact, about the only tool available is further reduction in revenue which has its own domino effect.

Folks will try to pretend these deal have been about preserving expanded unemployment coverage but it isn't really , the same folks are quick to explain why the coverage shrinks and disregards desperate folks, the real reason is dedication to keeping most of the ruinous tax cuts because they have already been substituted for wages.

Hell, many are crying and groaning about the fiscally insane payroll cut going away, quickly that has been punched into monthly budgets and some of those folks are the ones calling for "adjustments" in Social Security in order to keep those few dollars a week.

Now we have both major parties as broadly anti-tax but TeaPubliKlans are willing to look at regressive taxes that shift the burden to lower incomes and Democrats are supposedly willing to slightly increase on high earners as long as it is income from work.

My thought is that cuts should never be discussed at all unless the cuts are how something else more beneficial is paid for directly.
I also think we need to leave behind tax cuts as a tool, it makes the math distorted. If you want an incentive then make it a grant or something that is an outlay not a reduction in revenue.

[woo me with science]

34. Good points. I think I agree with everything you said here.

You're right; we should not buy into the narrative of budget cutting, but should focus on stimulus and a boost on the demand side.

I appreciate your acknowledgement that some of the things listed here are malignant and need to go, but you are absolutely right that diverting resources into badly needed stimulus and investment is wiser than cutting.

[reformist2]

14. The 1% are hoarding - that's right, hoarding - more money than in the history of humankind.

By last count - there is over $60 trillion in wealth in the US alone, and the vast majority of that is in the hands of the 1%.

The notion that some people deserve to make millions of dollars a minute, while slave-laborers in China only deserve to make 25 cents an hour, it should be disgusting to anyone the first time they hear it, and every time thereafter.

[woo me with science]

17. +10000

[byeya]

15. 18,500 workers at hostess have lost, or are losing, their livlihoods while the private capital

looters are awarding themselves tons of money. The organized workers have already given back tens of millions of dollars to the company in order to save their jobs but it wasn't enough for the greedsters who paid themselves "consultant" fees while refusing to modernize the operations.

[woo me with science]

18. +10000

Last edited Fri Dec 21, 2012, 06:02 PM - Edit history (1)

[limpyhobbler]

16. yep,

the cliff may be the lesser of two evils, but it's still pretty evil

[woo me with science]

20. Absolutely. These are moral issues.

Corporate morality is malignant to economies, nations, and human beings.

[hfojvt]

21. there's another narrative you are missing

the one that really bothers me - the narrative of Reaganomics.

Our leader started from the position of extending 78% of the Bush tax cuts. An extension which gives over 50% of its benefits to the top 20%.

The narrative has been solid now for four years - tax cuts are good, tax increases are bad.

That's pure Reaganomics rhetoric.

And in fact, the tax cuts for the rich set the stage for the austerity by causing deficits to get big and debt to accumulate. We are in the fiscal position we are in now because of the past 3 trillion in tax cuts for the top 1% and other tax cuts to the top 4% and the rest of the top 20%.

But now both parties are in favor of tax cuts to the rich.

[woo me with science]

24. Thank you for adding this.

Yes, it is a pure, malignant Republican narrative, and there is a sinister long game attached to it. That's an important part of the puzzle that I missed. This is setting the stage to make things far worse than we have seen yet, and then will be used to justify more right-wing assaults.

At least Reagan acknowledged that SS does not contribute to the deficit.

[mick063]

22. Nothing gets fixed

until this gets fixed.

[IMG][/IMG]

[woo me with science]

25. Damn, that's a scary graph.

We are in such deep trouble.

[byeya]

27. This horrid situation could be fixed with EFCA and modernization of national labor law.

Obama campaigned in support of EFCA and didn't make much, if any, of an effort. It would have been better to have it introduced, debated and voted down, than to do nothing because it would have educated the public. Many beneficial laws take several sessions of Congress to be enacted but it takes the will to try: That will was missing.

Obama also said that as President he would walk the picket lines with strikers and I don't think he even sent Biden or the Secretary of Labor to put in a pro forma appearance.

[Leopolds Ghost]

23. Don't forget why austerity was imposed. Obama was the one who insisted that SS be "fixed"

or else punitive across-the-board cuts would take place. Republicans then linked that to the ending of the Bush Tax Cuts which
Obama and the policy wonks have already come out and said, four legs good, ending most of them would be terrible enough to
warrant a #My2K campaign talking about how horrible they would be, and then instead of sticking to guns on the $250 above,
that was revealed to be a first concession bargaining chip on the table, just like the public option was.

[woo me with science]

26. Excellent point.

Got to keep feeding the rich.

It's unconscionable.