The Fight Goes On

"This is a rich country that's creating billionaires by the bucketful and running history's most expensive military empire. We can afford for our elderly, disabled and sick to be decently taken care of. It's just a matter of priorities"

The end of another of Digby's great posts.

We can decide that people who need help, which is most of us at one time or another, can get it or we can continue our throwaway society and take them out with the trash.

I say lets realign our priorities back to what FDR started, what that war monger LBJ continued and join the rest of the world in providing that help when it is needed. No one gets rich off of welfare or SSDI or medicare or medicaid or unemployment, nor will they with the new healthcare law. If you are lucky those programs will allow you to survive, if you are very lucky they may allow you to pick up your life and move on.
They are opportunities, nothing more. Wonderful, absolutely necessary opportunities. But they are barely adequate most of the time, and not even that all the time.

We won a big fight on Tuesday but the war is not over. It will never be over for there are too many people who think that a hand up is wrong, that survival is only a matter of helping one's self. That may be true if you live in a cabin in the wilderness by yourself, miles from your nearest neighbor. How many of us live like that? I'll bet not even a hundredth of a percent.

To those who think we should never help anyone else, join the human race, it isn't a bad deal, sometimes it is even fun to run with the rest of us.

Voting

You want to know who to vote for?
Watch this video.

This short video explains it very well.
Did you like the Bush years? The huge tax cuts for the wealthy, the wars, in general the gross stupidity and lack of adults in the room, then vote for republicans.

On the other hand if you like to have people who actually think about the results of their actions and at least try to be adults, who at least attempt to represent you and your needs, vote democratic.

Look around and see in how many of your local races does the republican candidate not state his/her affiliation. Even they are ashamed of the republican party. They are still part of it, they just don't want to be branded that way. They know that anyone who thinks about the issues won't vote for them.

H/T amk at balloon-juice

We really are screwed.

 Over at Hullabaloo both digby and thereisnospoon have been getting right to the heart of the chief issue we face today. The worlds financial situation. Or maybe that should be the worlds financial implosion. Here is the takeaway graph from thereisnospoon today:

"It's high time that economists worldwide begin to envision a different way forward: a way for sovereigns to bypass reckless financial institutions and survive in the interdependent global economy without their help. A way, in other words, to truly allow banks that are too big to fail, to fail. A way to allow nations to tell investors that they will have to accept the consequences of their having taken the risk that comes with making money off interest with no labor involved. If not, the moral hazard of an increasingly powerful and unaccountable global investor elite will continue destroy sovereign nations socially, economically and spiritually. It's only going to get worse from here."

 As long as the people are slaves to the big banks we will continue to be at risk for an epic depression, that looks to be much worse than the 1930's. At the time many more people worked in agrarian jobs and could, if not be totally self-sufficient, survive. And there were bread lines and a good percentage of people were continuously hungry. Now most food in the industrial countries comes from large corporations, owned by investors. They will not provide food for those who have no jobs, without being paid. Most of the supermarkets are owned by large corporations and they will not give away food. So when the depression hits the hardest and there are no jobs, savings are gone and a large segment of the population is starving and homeless, it will be chaos. A dangerous chaos.

The big problem as thereisnospoon pointed out is that the investment class has changed the definition of risk. It's no longer a position of possible loss, it is a position of permanent wealth.

The New World Order

We have to not only block this asshole Ryan's plan to kill old people. And I don't mean over 100 yrs old. I mean 55 and older. Talk about your death panels. Talk about healthcare rationing. As always the things that conservatives yell about the loudest are exactly the things they want to do to everyone other than themselves. We have to defeat these assholes. And they are ASSHOLES.
I am ashamed that people like Ryan actually get elected in this country in the 21st century. What's more the largest group of people that voted for him are the ones to be the most affected.

I used to think we were better than this. I'm not so sure about that any more. Hell, I am sure. We aren't better, we suck as a people. We have one of the largest economies in the world. California by itself is in the top ten economies. And all we can afford to do is to kill people. We supposedly can't feed ourselves, house ourselves, provide health care but we sure as fuck can kill people. It's what we do. We are the 24/7 death and destruction country. That's what we do. We kill other people. Up to now. And because it costs so much to do it to others we are now going to save money and do it here. Conservatives are trying to have our government do what it does best right here at home. Not with bullets or bombs but with selfishness and greed.


Kevin Drum. Short and to the point.

You don't know how glad I am not to have kids that would have to live in this kind of a world.

Where to from here?

Please read the following post at FDL by Sara Robinson
http://seminal.firedoglake.com/diary/6987

With all the lies and fear mongering from the right on an issue that would help almost everyone in some way and most likely not harm anyone, what we're actually seeing is a desperate last grasp power grab. And that is truly depressing. I thought that is what was but Sara's post brings the history of this kind of movement front and center. I wish with every fiber of my being that it can be turned around, headed off, reasoned with, whatever. But I'm afraid that we won't be able to.
I think what we're seeing is the start of the death of a nation. I've never wanted so badly not to be an eye witness.

H/T Earth-Bound Misfit