US POLITICS SPRING 2011: Let's just call off this country.

Farkas = the Bernie Madoff of mortgage fraud.

when they're sharing jail cells with Angelo Mozilo and Lloyd Blankfein -- and Henry Paulson is cowering in a French Riviera hotel a la Baby Doc Duvalier -- then i'll be convinced that the feds mean business.

'hey you've decided to live a lifestyle dependent on a single limited resource that's inevitably going to get more expensive over time, I guess capitalism doesn't work after all'

i don't know why, but i feel like there is an opportunity here to finally & completely discredit capitalism in the eyes of the public...

they blew their chance with Enron manipulating the energy markets in 2001 (and thereby causing California's problems that summer) ... what makes you think that the media has gotten any smarter (or bolder) since then?

(TBF, commodities manipulation -- not to mention that petroleum is becoming more depleted (and therefore more expensive anyway -- isn't that easy to prove or understand, much less make comprehensible to the general public.)

capitalism will be discredited when it reaches a level of failure so widespread that you can't move away from it. this isn't something to be ardently hoped for, because if that happens, it'll be hard times, but anything short of disaster everywhere is spinnable.

it must be easy to discuss politics when everything comes back to calling democrats wusses

Most of them AREN'T wusses. They're just fine with serving the plutocracy instead of the 'middle class' (eg Chuckie Schumer).

like if you want to talk about why the Dems have sucked post-70s, it doesn't really have anything to do with the two-party system

It does, for people who were then liberal Dems and are now called leftist crackpots, who have no one to vote for.

ie Greenwald's column last week: The results Obama is 'settling for' are the results he wants!

capitalism will be discredited when it reaches a level of failure so widespread that you can't move away from it. this isn't something to be ardently hoped for, because if that happens, it'll be hard times, but anything short of disaster everywhere is spinnable.

I kind of feel that if you replace 'capitalism' with 'the Democratic party' then you p much have the perfect rebuttal to yr argument for a third party

I'm listening to PiL's "Poptones," which makes this thread redundant.

d-40 what would you suggest people who think Democrats are spineless turds do other than just vent? aside from the total joke "work from w/in to change" idea I mean

― five gone cats from Boston (underrated aerosmith bootlegs I have owned), Tuesday, April 19, 2011 10:35 PM (Yesterday) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

why is this a joke to you?

perhaps this relates to it not being a joke to the GOP & then they get shit accomplished that they want

meanwhile here you are...doing the opposite...on a messageboard...oh the irony

― k3vin k., Tuesday, April 19, 2011 10:46 PM (Yesterday) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

im responding to u dudes, not waiting every couple minutes to reiterate how much smarter i am than ppl trying to make a difference

why is this a joke to you?

we've been over this dude - it's a total joke. I don't imagine trying to explain it will convince you otherwise & I'm glad that you think working from within the party will effect change. I would no more try to dissuade you from doing so than I would spend time trying to tell somebody not to pray.

but like you have your way of coping (the fairy tale of change from within) & people who bitch on ilx have theirs (bitching on ilx) - don't hate, you do yours & leave the disillusioned to theirs

glad youve decided grass roots change is a fairytale

would love to hear a legit reason why it works for the GOP but not for the D's

another fairy tale I don't believe: that anybody spelling it out for you would cause you to reflect or consider the opinion as anything but an opportunity to express your convictions. I know, I know: "same's true for you!" - true enough

Until I see a chance to latch onto a growing movement that could change the political dynamic, I will continue to fight the liberal rearguard action as best I can, and settle for small ameliorations within the larger slippage toward disaster.

if it makes you feel better, deej, 'blu dog cru' was only partially sideways potshot @ your willingness to defend Obama/Dems, and partially a potshot at unionbuster iatee along w/ max, whose 'i thought yall radicals would be down w trashing the Constiution" was prolley less sarcastic than I had at first estimated...

what is the evidence that it works for the GOP?

btw this killed me -- morbs for fuckin life

― Shakey Mo medvedev, Tuesday, May 29, 1985

― your generation appalls me (Dr Morbius), Tuesday, April 19, 2011 4:04 PM (7 hours ago) Bookmark

also i audibly gasped when i saw that photo of GG cuddling w/ his dog & boyfriend

i love unions! except the "union of the states" amirite

isn't the lesson of like the tea party & even fundamental christians that the GOP oftentimes gets motivated by outside forces

'i thought yall radicals would be down w trashing the Constiution'

huh when did I saw anything close to this

say

i said that dummy

i said "scrapping" tho not "trashing"

oh

I'm for it too btw I just didn't say it

i am kind of touched by the fact that ilx's "hard left," such as it is, still believes in the american project!

isn't the lesson of like the tea party & even fundamental christians that the GOP oftentimes gets motivated by outside forces

would love to hear a legit reason why it works for the GOP but not for the D's

Perhaps because the anti-regulation, pro-big business message that the Tea Party spreads is pretty good corporatist/plutocratic propaganda. Also perhaps this 'outside force' is funded by a billionaire family with a history of influencing conservative politics since the 1980s.

so its hopeless? why bother participating in these discussions then?

ive never seen a 'hard left' movement that was so hands-off on pushing actual functional change

Yeah it seems pretty easy to effect change from within if you're clamoring for more of what the people who've rigged the game want in the first place.

who is clamoring for that ?

your obama stan caricature needs work

i've said this before -- i pretty much agree w/ john as far as the "change from inside the party thing!" goes

the only thing i can conceive is working for someone like alan greyson? but even he was pretty much an outcast

wtf helpful shit did he accomplish

thats a therapeutic politician & his whole steez existed for no other reason than to let ppl be like "yeah!! speak truth to power!"

wtf helpful shit does anyone accomplish?

i feel like the GOP works to move policy further right while the democrats consequently battle & combat the GOP w/o enveloping moving the party left at all

tied in w/ that is a fundamental enthusiasm gap working against democrats

i dunno i consider passing progressive legislation to be 'helpful shit'
which has happened, if not to the degree that any of us would consider ideal
and now grayson is gone, because, as a democratically elected congressman, he stopped representing his actual district

well he was obviously not long for this world being a dem in central fla, but your tone has a certain "fuck that guy anyway!" bent to it which i don't really get

nah i mean i thought greenwald was right abt how the dems should have run more progressive candidates in red states across the board in '08 -- but when you've missed that boat you're stuck w/ the reps youve got

I guess most of those on the 'hard left' are contemptuous of 'working within the system', bcz for many elected Dems, working within the system = moving right of center

thats an understandable concern, the response to which imo should be vigilance rather than baby-out-with-bathwater, but w/e

But what does vigilance entail? What are its real-world manifestations? How does it not end up as griping on a message board?

i feel like the GOP works to move policy further right while the democrats consequently battle & combat the GOP w/o enveloping moving the party left at all

^^^^ this

But what does vigilance entail? What are its real-world manifestations? How does it not end up as griping on a message board?

― music loves drugs (Drugs A. Money), Wednesday, April 20, 2011 2:18 AM (4 hours ago)

lots of question marks, sometimes exclamation points

glad youve decided grass roots change is a fairytale

But the Dems don't have any grass! that's mold.