Fiscal Cliff/Grand Bargain... Americans Are Wary Of Our Corrupted Political Elites

The now completely discredited Gallup poll-- which consistently botched the election predictions this cycle-- is out with another survey: Americans Urge Congress, the President to Avoid Fiscal Cliff: Most Americans want both sides to compromise. Maybe it was the inherently deceptive and ominously threatening way Gallup asked the question about the ginned up "fiscal cliff," but their survey comes to slightly different conclusions than less biased, less hyperbolic, more accurate polls.

Pew's poll was far more useful and looking at the problem instead of the fantasy. First of all, most Americans predict (51-38%) Obama and the Republicans will fail to reach a compromise-- and they know just who to blame.

The public is sharpening its focus on the issue, but Republicans are paying more attention than others and are more worried about the fallout of failed negotiations. Nearly half of Republicans are following the issue “very closely,” and more than seven in 10 Republicans anticipate negative consequences for their finances and the overall economy.

Only about half of Democrats see a mostly negative outcome for either the economy or their finances, and 31 percent say passing the cliff will actually help the economy. Economists predict inaction will throw the economy into recession.

But Republicans in Congress may face more public pressure to make concessions. Should negotiations break down to avoid the $500 billion rash of automatic tax hikes and spending cuts, 53 percent are inclined to blame Republicans in Congress while 29 percent single out Obama. 

Yesterday we heard what progressive congressional leaders Raúl Grijalva and Bernie Sanders had to say about the rational position to protect working families from the deprecations of predatory Wall Street and corporate forces and the politicians they've bought. Today's we're turning to a former Blue America candidate from Florida, Nick Ruiz, for a look at this from the perspective of someone able to look at the problems and solutions with a head unclouded by corrupted Inside-the-Beltway mores.



The Secret World of Modern Democrats
-by Nick Ruiz

Now that the lesser evil has been done, shall we take pride in the bipartisan destruction of the Great Society? Perhaps it never was. Maybe Social Security is a bad idea, after all. So few people truly vote to protect it. Minimum wages, I suspect, just a historical fluke. Progressive taxation, where the rich contribute to society according to their means, not extract wealth according to their greed-- a quaint provincial flash in the pan of past Americana? Probably so.

These are the days of the Modern Democrats, and their gilded secret world. What can we say of them? Once there were great Democrats, that did great things. But the Moderns, these tiny Democrats, how small they've become. Oh, but they boom, and bellow so; they orate, they fancy deals as 'ideal.' The tiny Modern Democrats speak grandiosely, in bogus terms of 'messaging.' Oh, they shine it in 1970s liberal populist gloss, so they and liberal boomers feel good about themselves, and the lesser evil. Yes, spectacular grandstanding, presiding over grotesquely corporate 'Grand' Bargains, rather than gigantic progressive actions predicated on a 'big, big love' for American brothers and sisters, marks the moment.

If I were there now, in Washington, DC representing my district in Congress, instead of the Republican King Midas named John Mica, that curious chamber maiden for those that wish to pay to play 'deal-maker'-- I would shut down the whole complicity circus with a thud.

Critique cannot be complicit-- or it's not critique; it's cheerleading. Like Susan Sontag in Somalia, or Barack Obama's 'peace' prize. They all mean well, the vanden Heuvels say. It's not enough.

Yes, it's the idolatry of the lesser evil that brings us to this place. A Grand Bargain of a higher retirement age, since we're all so much healthier than the rest of the world, a weakened cost-of-living formula, so the payout upon retirement is less, 'cause we're all so well off and a reduction of benefits for “higher-income” people, so we can erode widespread support of the Social Security system? What next? Free labor, in the name of 'freedom?'

Since the King Midas of my district voted against the minimum wage, not once, but twice; we can only imagine what great things, he and they all have in store for the children of the lesser evil.

Progressives too, want to join the secret world of the Modern Democrats. And that's just too bad for America. Because complicity cannot critique, let alone repair, or reform. Take it as an axiom. You know the type, and that almost surgically safe critique they offer around the policy edges, like a child pushing yucky food around on a dinner plate.

Of course, we challenge King Midas's everywhere. But that's only part of the reform equation. Don't forget those Modern Democrats at our backs, the salesmen and women foxes in the hen house. They should all be primaried-- every last one of them. And from that position in Congress, that is exactly what I would help to achieve. True reform, by categorical replacement therapy. Because if they won't do the job they were hired (elected) to do, but lied their way into-- they should be removed from office, and replaced with people who truly possess the will to progressive politics, rather than King Midas' will to power.

I don't belong to the secret world of the Modern Democrats. I belong to a community of people that know the difference, and are willing to do the work of progressive reformation.

That difference is the fuel that drives us.