Cross posted at Voices on the Square

To start things off, I recommend first reading Cassiodorus's piece The case against the case for Obama even though I started mine about the same time he did. It's definitely quite worthy of checking out before mine because it has many apt points to it. My views are slightly in a different vein as I’m more of a mix of Jim Hightower and L. Randall Wray as one of my friends used to say so read his piece before reading my take.

Well I guess we knew it was coming. Matt Stoller's superb piece The progressive case against Obama was bound to exercise a reaction from the veal pen or hacktivist pen appealing to their own authority first hand to make sure you all know how serious their decisions to sell out are. The end justifies the means and in Peter Coyote’s case it is a failed exercise in condescension right off the bat. He claims he is making…

"The Progressive case for Obama"

So right off the bat we get an exercise in condescension—Peter Coyote is older than Matt Stoller so therefore his time working for CA Governor Jerry Brown must be more relevant than Matt Stoller’s past work including his tenure working for Congressman Alan Grayson. Psychologically one might think, as I do reading this piece, that Peter Coyote's arguments do not come from a position of strength behind them. Whether he realizes it or not, it lets you know how unserious Peter Coyote perhaps thinks of his own arguments right off the bat. After all, he must provide authority for them but not from historical facts of course, from his own resume.

I know it. You know it, so who are we kidding? I suppose anything can happen, but essentially the election is over and our President will very likely win the electoral college and the Democrats will keep the Senate and maybe pick up some new seats in the House. So I’m here to find meaning within it all, because I have not been able to grasp how shutting up during election season, but then speaking up after the election will make us “move froward.” Especially when the President and the filibuster-loving-set-to-do-nothing Congress do not have to care what we think at all afterwards.

They may get together for their grand bargain since many so called Democrats and Republicans are deficit terrorists and will work to tear down our social safety net in a bipartisan way for the mythical bond vigilantes and confidence fairies they believe in because Peter Peterson told them some scary bedtime stories in the chambers of Congress. This will all be hashed out in unrepresentative undemocratic gangs of 6 or 8 or 12 without our input. So what are we supposed to do when that happens and we are cut out? Make believe they still love us?

Or perhaps some think pointing this out is me being seduced by cynicism. Though I respect some who are arguing this now as opposed to the past, I have to vehemently disagree and I think I have a good case to make to counter that narrative.

Like other issues, the issue of money in politics is what will speak to what is or is not done in the next Congress more than the Presidential election of 2012. Unfortunately we didn’t hear about that in any of the debates thus far and it is the most important issue, because it spans to all issues and speaks to what hope legislation has of affecting the lives of real people.

Because of the daunting nature of this problem given how little money in relation to corporations real people have, it can feel rather hopeless. However, there are times when the creativity of certain individuals can make a difference as it has in the past.(PDF) That is where I am trying to make a difference using whatever talents I have because I have no money and very little voice or say in our real political process which is real pernicious hence the issue at hand.

The good people at GOOD Maker have set up a design contest to call attention to this dire and most important issue.

art > MONEY: Design to Define a Movement

You can vote for my piece here featured below, and if you like all my contributions in both writing and artwork over the years I ask that you please do because the competition is fierce and there are a lot of good pieces. You can vote using facebook which is probably the easiest way(don’t worry, I won’t know anything about your personal info and neither will anyone else) but if you don’t want to use facebook to vote, you can sign up to Good Maker which is probably a good idea because this organization uses creativity as an outlet for good things which made me want to get involved in this contest to hopefully do some good.

Our fate, for one, but I know that is really depressing(why I don’t write about it as much as I should) because as a whole no party really is going to do anything about it, even the Democratic party who kept the filibuster(despite Sen Merkley and Udall’s efforts to even change it to make it less damaging) after whining about it to you asking for money you don’t have that you gave them in 2008. But they really wanted all that environmental legislation that died in the Senate to pass. At this point Daryl Hanna is putting up more of a fight in my state of TX and kudos to her for her efforts.

But the Keystone pipeline will be a reality regardless of this election like drill baby drill Obama style(we thought we were voting against that in 2008) if the entire population does not emulate her example. So like Charles Ferguson, director of Inside Job, I’m going to concentrate on other real issues no one really paid attention to in this Presidential debate or general election that could be handled more easily without Congress. That is, if those in charge of running the Department of Justice weren’t so pathetically unable to live up to their namesake in the executive branch.

And it’s not just people like me that support the Democratic Party Platform over any politician that noticed this. It was one of the President’s biggest most enthusiastic supporters; Ed Schultz of the Ed Show on MSNBC.

Let’s look at the transcript:

LEHRER: All right? All right. This is segment three, the economy. Entitlements. First — first answer goes to you, two minutes, Mr. President. Do you see a major difference between the two of you on Social Security?

OBAMA: You know, I suspect that, on Social Security, we’ve got a somewhat similar position. Social Security is structurally sound. It’s going to have to be tweaked the way it was by Ronald Reagan and Speaker — Democratic Speaker Tip O’Neill. But it is — the basic structure is sound.

And yes, I know the President offered a touching anecdotal of what SS has meant for his family and I respect that; however I’m going to borrow a line from someone whom I won’t speak for, but it’s a good line anyway so I’ll tweak it for my POV on this. Mr. President, don’t tell me what you believe about Social Security, you have shown what you plan to do with Social Security by agreeing to another Greenspan commission like “tweak.” So I’ll tell you what you really believe and why that is a problem.

Recently, President Obama gave a speech at the U.N with a recurring theme I found disturbing. The whole bluster involved with the U.S “making sure there is not a nuclear Iran ever” as if repeating the straight up ignorance of the neoconservatives on Iran, is not dangerous and ignorant like anyone making excuses for it. It is.

Serious signs of this kind of ignorance are unfortunately coming from the President’s  Secretary of Defense; Leon Panetta who says “all options are on the table” with Iran. That’s really not OK. It’s actually insane. All Options were on the table when Bill Clinton bombed Iraq(which was used as an excuse for the 2003 invasion) as well so that is anything but an innocuous statement.

Make no mistake, the real danger here is a country and now two administrations addicted to war while we linger here without jobs.  I don’t find the case convincing at all that they are building a nuclear weapon in the NIE, but even if they are it doesn’t matter. There are a number of reasons; some which involve a basic education on the Middle East and Islam our President and too many Democrats didn’t take the time to learn.  

Yes, anything can happen, but with the latest open disdain for 47% of the people in this country by Mitt Romney, it’s looking like a safe bet that the President will be reelected. There’s also more time for Romney to say even more stupid shit. It’s almost like he’s running against himself, so I’m looking past the President”s very likely reelection onto life or death issues.

In this introspection I sadly conclude that there is just not enough differences in this campaign when to comes to the wars and the national security state; none of them will consider rolling it back even though that is what will ultimately make us safer. Destroying the 4th amendment did not make us safer one bit.

What makes us even less safe is the hate bred through what is called the collateral death of innocent civilians that we in this country and our horse race mindset can’t seem to understand. This is not something human beings just get over and why should they? Who are we to tell them to get over it? They literally can’t get over it, and this war is spilling blood in our name as jpmassar outlined the other day in his extremely important diary.

I Know You Don’t Want to Hear It, But We Have Blood On Our Hands. 8 Women Just Killed in Afghanistan

How many times must the cannonballs fly

Before they are forever banned?

“...precision aerial munitions… as well as precision fire from aircraft…”

At least eight women have died in a Nato air strike in Afghanistan’s eastern province of Laghman, local officials say. Nato has conceded that between five and eight civilians died as it targeted insurgents, and offered condolences.

No, unless you somehow think RW DLC and third way Democrats forever have the right to dictate their failed policies and complicity in the Great Divergence. No. Real Democrats, if any exist anymore, don’t believe in austerity or the coming GRAND SELLOUT in Congress after the President likely wins reelection. We warned it was coming as soon as the Bush Tax Cut Sellout was passed by Democrats. It was easy to see, but none are as blind as those that refused to see. You know who you are.

It would be different of course if partisans didn’t let Democrats enable Republican lies and ignorance about deficits and national accounting, but they do as Bill Clinton did in his speech at the DNC sticking the part about Simpson Bowles at the end. Deficits are only dangerous political tools as long as Democratic voters are complicit in accepting the whole stupid debate about who rung up the debt. He was probably hoping you wouldn’t pay attention to that part, but maybe not. After all, he once told us how he really felt.

Former President Bill Clinton has quite the skewed view on interest rates (Interest rates went up as he was balancing the budget, not down) regarding deficits and his disastrous surpluses he brags about. As the great Stephanie Kelton, Associate Professor of Economics at the University of Missouri-Kansas City took note of, even mainstream “progressive” journalists are now admitting reality so why must we indulge these deficit fantasies or sit through another convention full of them?

We’re Not Broke and the Clinton Surpluses Destroyed the US Economy

Two of our nation’s most influential progressive journalists – Slate’s Matt Yglesias and Business Insider’s Joe Weisenthal –  just took on two powerful economic myths.

1. The Myth that The US Government is Out of Money

2. The Myth that A Government Surplus is  a Sign of Fiscal Responsibility

It’s hard to imagine a more empowering message.  As word spreads, elected officials in both parties will lose their primary excuse for inaction on on a whole range of neglected and underfunded programs.  “I’d love to help, but I’m all tapped out,” simply won’t sell.

Cross posted at out new beta site Voices on the Square and in Orange

In lieu of meaningless political convention coverage, my title is absolutely still true. Decades and decades of history refutes any excuses about the so called political expediency of wasting any crisis economic or otherwise. That is one of the only things I agree with Rahm Emanuel on when he said it at the beginning of this administration. Sadly, the White House only listened to his hippy punching BS. The prospect that this economic disaster wouldn’t go to waste or enrich bankers was where the hope used to reside when there was any at all to confide in as far as any real economic recovery is concerned.

But when we mention these real world problems still abound from these failures we hear the same old tired excuses trotted out to excuse this administration from loyal partisans who are proud of what they never learn. This involves excusing the the bailout, housing, and foreclosure crisis. Ironically, this is why there is any chance at all for insane Republicans to make hay in this election at all so it might be smart to pay attention to it at some point even if the media won’t cover it. The bottom line is that coddling too big to fail banks with trillions in bailouts and more bailout guarantees on top of that (29 trillion globally when counted all up) to make Capital whole at the expense of laborers didn’t help and many of us knew it wouldn’t from the get go.

During an election it is treated like a crime to say so. You know, other countries have actually learned this lesson as we have forgotten from the past. Alas Iceland handled their crisis well, like Sweden, and like we did during the S&L crisis but not in 2008 where our fate is now a lost decade or two. With too many loyal “Democrats” looking the other way, this administration and their point man in the Treasury let Wall St have the most say even though public anger at Wall St was and is still at an all time high. This explains why the public was against the bailout, and how it failed in the House at first.

Cross posted at our new beta site Voices on the Square and The Stars Hollow Gazette

Yes, another crash is coming. I can’t predict precisely when as that would be a fool’s errand, but much closer than you think. It will probably be after our President is reelected and will care very little what you or I think once he and his treasury push for criminal TBTF banks to bailed out once again. Doctor Doom: the nickname for economist Nouriel Roubini: one of the relatively few outside the mainstream(part of the Got It Right (pdf) project) who predicted the last crash thinks 2013 is a perfect storm for another one which will be even worse and it makes sense.

Despite on theoretical fiscal policy limits with regard to the US, Roubini is absolutely right on the political deadlock with the coming crisis. We wasted our last crisis and that’s something Conservatives have not done whether we’re talking about the stagflation crisis of the 70s or 9/11. There won’t be as many political options this time to prop up the underlying economy in 2013 because Democrats have failed to change the Senate rules because most of them secretly like the way things work or don’t work in Washington. Sadly, if Republicans take over both houses again, they will change the Senate rules as they threatening to do in 2005 and 2006.

Anyway some might still want to scoff at Roubini’s prediction, but that will come back to bite them in the ass. Not even Roubini can predict the exact moment it will happen, but if one knows anything about the history of financial crashes, since the 80s when the 1933 banking reforms passed by FDR started slowly being dismantled, they started happening once again in a 5-7 year time-frame(and even closer than that if you count global stock crashes which count now more than ever since our markets turned dark with OTC derivatives and Information Asymmetry all around); some worse than others as the 2008 bust was on par with 1929 but you get the idea.

• Black Monday (1987)
• Black Wednesday (1992)
• Asian financial crisis (1997)
• Mini-crash (1997)
• Dot-com bubble(2000)
• Economic effects arising from the September 11 attacks (2001)
• Stock market downturn of (2002)
• United States bear market of (2007)
• Global financial crisis (2008)
• European sovereign-debt crisis (2010)