Ruling Class Victory – OpEd
The class war is nearly over, and those at the top of the heap have once again achieved a clear victory. They and their minions can be held in abeyance but only if there is a realization that we are in a war in the first place. The much discussed congressional deal on the budget ceiling is a win only for the people who want to do away with the little bit of safety net and democracy we have left.
While there is a federal government deficit, it is not the problem plaguing the American economy right now; a lack of federal spending is the problem. Calls for austerity are a sham, meant to frighten people into thinking that they must give up their own economic and political rights lest economic conditions deteriorate further.
It is all a lie of course. There was never any danger of economic collapse, or credit rating catastrophe, or any other dire predictions coming to fruition. The rulers were merely determined to have their way, and that couldn’t happen unless the public were confused and desperate for a budget agreement, any agreement that the Obama and his Republican allies would accept.
The corporatists do what criminals always do, threaten harm and injury if their demands are not met. Give up your Social Security and your Medicare or die. As the old joke went, “Your money or your life.”
Of course, the only dangers present emanated from the gangsters themselves. The extortion was blatant, with bad renditions of the old good cop, bad cop routine. Democrats act like the good cops when in fact they are just as rotten as their Republican “bad” counterparts.
President Obama is no victim of bad cop brutality. He got exactly what he wanted, having shown his hand on several occasions when he parroted GOP talking points and described Social Security as originally meant only to support “widows and orphans.” The comments should have been seen as slaps in the face to Democrats who are constantly urged to see him as the only thing standing between themselves and Republican Armageddon. The truth is that there is doom all around, with no rescuer in sight, and Democrats continue to suffer from willful amnesia whenever their beloved leader shows his true face to the world.
It is hard to imagine how the nation could be any worse off if John McCain were president. Congress has given up its right, its obligation to make budgetary decisions in favor of a newly established bipartisan commission which will determine how $2.1 trillion in cuts will be made over the next decade. This new commission comes on the heels of the Obama administration moratorium on earmarks, the mechanism by which elected representatives allocated funds to their districts. Barack Obama is a right wing ideologue’s fantasy come true.
Neither Ronald Reagan, George Bush nor George W. Bush dared to move as much to the right as Barack Obama. The temporary tax cuts to the rich are now permanent, and Congress is hamstrung in deciding how to spend money. Medicare and Social Security are not off the table, but tax increases are. Ronald Reagan, Obama’s idol, would be proud.
While Americans were held hostage by the Republican/Democratic terrorist tag team, the real issues facing our country went unnoticed and unaddressed. Probably very few people were paying attention when Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin had this to say.
“They [Americans] are living like parasites off the global economy and their monopoly of the dollar.”
The end is near, but not because of political theater in Washington. It is near because the United States gambled that market manipulation would be endlessly superior to the production of actual goods, and that military supremacy would keep the rigged game going.
Putin spoke what should be an obvious truth, that the world is quite sick of the United States. Sick of its control and its ability to destroy everything on the planet. These are issues that most Americans know nothing about it, but which will determine what sort of world we will have to live with.
While Democrats wring their hands and makes excuses for Obama, the rulers know a good thing when they see one. He continues to raise more money, $86 million reported to date, than the Republicans whom we are told are the favorites of the wealthy. Money talks, and right now it is talking more to Democrats than to Republicans. Warren Buffet knew what he was talking about. The men with the gold are still making all the rules.
