Our two party system has been hijacked, we only have an elaborate illusion of choice...
Whatever the president's real motives are...some parts of the new reforms border on insanity, threatening to vastly amplify Wall Street's political power by institutionalizing the taxpayer's role as a welfare provider for the financial-services industry. At one point in the debate, Obama's top economic advisers demanded the power to award future bailouts without even going to Congress for approval - and without providing taxpayers a single dime in equity on the deals.
Obama's Big Sellout: The President has Packed His Economic Team with Wall Street Insiders | CommonDreams.org (https://www.commondreams.org/headline/2009/12/13-8)
Neshamah
12-17-2009, 02:39 PM
He is new and he is doing what he is told is necessary. He means well. McCain would have done the same, and would have been more than a smidgen worse on foreign policy. (And a lot worse when it comes to image, though I wonder if Obama lulls liberals into a false sense of security just as Bush did with conservatives.)
The solution is more autonomy at the local level. The spending of public money needs to be kept as close as possible to the people, else it gets wasted or disappears into the pockets of corporations. Personally, I'd entertain the idea of secession if that is the only way to break the momentum of the Demublican-Corporate-Media oligarchy that limits our options to what protects their positions.
~ J
Valley Oak
12-17-2009, 05:43 PM
Although I beg to differ, how do you propose that we could actually achieve your recommendations? Sure, I'm all for reform but if Obama failed, how are you, or any of us for that matter, going to succeed pushing through enormous change where the highest public office has met a thick, tall wall of stainless steel resistance?
My prognosis is precisely that we live in a two-party system and that until this changes, nothing else substantially will. Either this or until the entire country collapses like it did in the Great Depression. We need systemic change in our electoral process, even if only at the state and local level. The United States needs institutional reform by putting into place proportional representation. PR will allow us to shed the two-party system, replacing it with a far more democratic multi-party system and giving 300 million Americans much fuller representation.
Edward
He is new and he is doing what he is told is necessary. He means well. McCain would have done the same, and would have been more than a smidgen worse on foreign policy. (And a lot worse when it comes to image, though I wonder if Obama lulls liberals into a false sense of security just as Bush did with conservatives.)
The solution is more autonomy at the local level. The spending of public money needs to be kept as close as possible to the people, else it gets wasted or disappears into the pockets of corporations. Personally, I'd entertain the idea of secession if that is the only way to break the momentum of the Demublican-Corporate-Media oligarchy that limits our options to what protects their positions.
~ J
Neshamah
12-18-2009, 07:18 AM
I'm all for it. What works better at the local level will eventually be picked up at the national level. Still, the corporate entitlement issue is urgent, and I am personally open to more drastic action.
I think though that states should consider nullifying Federal taxation of their citizens if even another dime of that money is to go to the very corporations that have already repeatedly demonstrated their incompetence. States and individuals can spend 700 billion a lot better than GM or any investment bank. I cannot believe a Nobel winner would send the U.S. Army into California to collect taxes for Goldman Sachs.
~ Jessica
Although I beg to differ, how do you propose that we could actually achieve your recommendations? Sure, I'm all for reform but if Obama failed, how are you, or any of us for that matter, going to succeed pushing through enormous change where the highest public office has met a thick, tall wall of stainless steel resistance?
My prognosis is precisely that we live in a two-party system and that until this changes, nothing else substantially will. Either this or until the entire country collapses like it did in the Great Depression. We need systemic change in our electoral process, even if only at the state and local level. The United States needs institutional reform by putting into place proportional representation. PR will allow us to shed the two-party system, replacing it with a far more democratic multi-party system and giving 300 million Americans much fuller representation.