Honest Questions All Democrats Must Ask Themselves

(4 pm. – promoted by ek hornbeck)

Ever since last weekend, I’ve been seeing Paul Ryan’s mug everywhere and it is all anyone can talk about. I can’t help but think this constant attention elevates him a little, even though as Elliot Spitzer said, if he turned his budget to the SEC he would be fined for turning over fraudulent documents. I also don’t believe Ryan helps the Romney ticket at all, except for the pretense by the corporate owned media that he’s an intellectual instead of someone who just likes crazy immoral Ayn Randian ideas and terrible mathematical projection fantasies.

Regardless, there are too many negatives and a lack of anything at all for Romney to run his campaign on. It won’t be a contest, in my opinion, when you look at electoral votes(though the media will have fun playing up the head to head match-ups as if the popular vote still matters) and the President is lucky he doesn’t have an opponent who excites the base at all. He’s lucky because his record is a mediocre one at best when it comes to what should have been pursued in what many are now calling a depression(economic inequality and private debt overhang is on par with the Great Depression).

This isn’t the 90s. He shouldn’t have hired people from the 90s that helped crash the economy. He wasted this crisis, which conservatives never do when they get a chance to exploit one, ruining any chance for real reform and stability. It’s really not OK because the opportunity only comes once every 20 or 30 years and he blew it. There will be more financial panics and bailouts in the nearer than you think future because of this wasted crisis.

History shows that Dodd Frank will not stop implicit bailout guarantees, specifically, with the massive political power, the biggest power, of TBTF banks. Our safety net is not safe even if Democrats win this election. The banks own our government, so we must be on guard when the lame duck period comes after next November.

I hope there is a major moment of self reflection for a party I’m having trouble recognizing by the second so I’m asking these questions to spur one. I’ll give my take on each of them, but you all can answer them for yourself.

• Q: Is a Democratic Global War on Terror rendering the 4th amendment dead that President Obama and Mitt Romney agree must continue worth it, and if so why?

  My take: No, it’s not worth it at all. It upsets me just as much as when Bush was in office. Benjamin Franklin was right. Those that would trade their liberty for security deserve neither. It’s really sad that we had people just pretending to hold these 4th amendment principles. Otherwise we might see this BS war on terror end, because it is ill defined, impossible to win, an excuse for civilian deaths, and used to take away all of our privacy rights rendering Al Qaeda more victorious than we thought in taking away the freedoms we thought we would enjoy.

• Q: Do you feel safer with the National Security State George W. Bush created, because it’s run by a Democrat?

  My take: No. It’s pretty stupid. Republicans are not the only ones controlled by fear of terrorism. Many Democrats laughed at soccer or security Moms in 2004, but they now accept this in which they should be ashamed of themselves because they don’t stand for anything whatsoever. At least the security Moms had some consistent standards.

• Q: Since we spend more on our military budget than all other nations combined, is it not insulting that we are told by our Democratic leaders that we must share sacrifice with the 1% to balance the budget?

• My take: It’s as if the hundreds of thousands of war contractors left in Iraq and still in Afghanistan don’t have enough blood money. Now we have to pay for their subsidies with our blood here at home. They will be in Afghanistan and Pakistan long after we’re gone, if we ever leave, which is doubtful. Too bad there is no intellectual curiosity to learn from this, so we have to pay for it and “share sacrifice?” That’s kind of like cutting off our nose to spit in our face.

• Q: Is it not insulting that we are even talking about the right way to balance our budget during a jobs crisis of demand when there simply is no deficit crisis except the fake deficit crisis in their heads?

  My take: Yes, it’s very insulting, because wanting to balance the budget is an idiotic errand for those that know national accounting and the need for deficits right now. It shows a delusion about how wonderful the nineties were and why. It either shows divine Rubinite dangerous ignorance or total indifference to people suffering in this economy. The balanced budget of the late 90s helped make this recession inevitable.

• Q: Is a nicer Democratic form of austerity acceptable with this level of real unemployment that’s going to take massive deficit spending in these economic conditions?

  My take: No, because voters respond to politicians that stand for something and prefer an axe(bold move) to a scalpel showing Democrats needs to oppose the idea altogether(bold move absent). Second of all there is no need for austerity at all specifically with the double dip failures to point to in the Eurozone. But we have to listen to delusional crap pretending the 90s balanced budgets brought on the promised land instead of 2 recessions.

• Q: Does it worry you that after President Obama and members of a Democratic Congress that are reelected they don’t have to care what you think about any of this?

  My take: Yes, it worries me a lot. Particularly because many here are going to be be shocked when Democrats go after SS and Medicare with impunity, but not me. Congress will buckle in front of this White House like they did on the public option. That will be a moment of sad truth unless Congressional Democrats remember they are Democrats and stop it.

• Q: Does it worry you that Nancy Pelosi supports pursuing Simpson Bowles after the election even though it cuts Social Security?

  My take: Yes, it worries me a lot, because even the original Simpson Bowles had the chained CPI metric for SS which is a cut. Yes, it amounts to a cut, unless you don’t understand that a lower metric means a lower measurement which means lower SS income. Also her statement on it being clear that “we must enter into an era of austerity” shows just how dangerously naive she is.

• Q: Does it bother you that both campaigns in this election are accusing each other of coddling the poor while touting the merits of welfare reform?

  My take: Yes, given the human toll of this effective depression, to have a contest on who’s more icky for supporting the poor while touting Bill Clinton’s welfare reform as the metric is insulting. Especially since the word “poor” has become a dirty word in this campaign.

• Q: Does it bother you that the foreclosure fraud sellout touted as a success is a failure that ended any serious attempts to help those drowning in private debt overhang from the housing bubble?

  My take: Yes this fake mortgage task force and foreclosure fraud immunity with foreclosures picking up this year with the million underwater in mortgage debt is an immoral and economic sellout of the highest order. It will continue to be even though so many want one of the biggest economic problems we have via debt deflation to go away. Well it’s not going to go away even though our leaders shamefully are ignoring it.

• Q: Does it bother you that our feckless Attorney General let Goldman Sachs off the hook for selling shitty subprime mortgage deals to their clients they laughed at in emails calling them Muppets among other kinds of fraud?

  My take: Yes, its’ embarrassing that even the Bush Justice department had a better record of prosecuting financial crimes and this was an easy one. At this point it’s embarrassing to defend Eric Holder’s record. He should be fired.

• Q: Do you think a financial system where fraud and financial crime becomes the new normal works for anyone but the .01% and the politicians they own?

  My Take: No and the historical record proves this all across the world. The only use of this financial system is for the Robber barons who own and control it.

• Q: If Democrats do not properly respect the Democratic Party Platform defined by the New Deal and the Great Society, are they still Democrats?

  My take: No, they are not. Some may have a problem with all of this I bring up, but they cant tell me to go away because though they can decide to not care about this stuff, what they can’t do is consider themselves real Democrats if one reads the party platform. It doesn’t matter if the third way to economic hell is paved with delusional good intentions.

• Q: If one is inconsistent on their stated positions on all issues depending on which party is in power, can they really claim to have the same principles?

My take: No. They can’t claim to have the same principles. There’s no ifs, ands, or “I have principles, BUT” about it.”