Motley Moose – Archive

Rachel Maddow 10/7/10

The past twenty months, since January 20, 2008, have been a very traumatic experience for those who follow politics. The polarization of the American political process has never been greater. Raw hatred spews from Right and Left on a daily minute-by-minute basis. It looks like things are only going to get worse before they get better.

One of Barack Obama’s campaign slogans was, “Change we can believe in.” In retrospect, that may have been a very poor choice for a slogan. Any change that didn’t go far enough was only going to anger some on the Left. Those on the Left that are mad at the President have turned this anger into a feedback loop where any change is bad, because it can never go far enough to satisfy them.

It’s worse on the Right. There is one thing all conservatives have in common and that is a fear of change. They cling to the status quo or pine for a time that change has passed by. That is the essence of conservatism. Talk of change to a conservative is like a waving a red flag in front of a bull. Trumpeting your intention to bring change is guaranteed to bring them running to man the ramparts of status quo.

Yesterday I made an appointment with my doctor, but an hour later, Katherine Sebelius called me back and canceled the appointment! I’m not so sure about this Obamacare thing anymore!

What do you guys think?

Young women on the way to the 10-2-2010 rally

Continuing the struggle

As I clear my head and think back over my impressions of the rally in Washington, I will take away with me images of the many young faces I saw there; on the buses, in the DC Metro, in the crowd, and as speakers on the program.  

Not that there weren’t plenty of middles and silver-hairs in the crowd.  

But what gives me hope for the future was the engagement of youth.  For they will continue a struggle begun before we were born and they will continue that struggle long after many of us who are reading here have passed on.

Cross-posted from Black Kos Tuesday’s Chile

Americans are feeling lousy and it’s no surprise.  Unemployment is at ‘recent memory’ highs, the Federal deficit is approaching existential crisis and the national economy is limping along with little sign of immediate recovery.  This disaffectation is based on real issues.  We have lost manufacturing and professional employment to overseas labour competition, an inevitable consequence of profit discovery by our ‘entrepreneurial’ corporate globalists.  Wages are stagnant, largely due to increasing, and arguably opportunistic, health care costs applied by a domestic ‘growth industry.’  The financial sector has recently plundered our collective savings and investments after having convincingly encouraged us to live beyond our declining means.

It’s not hard to have some sympathy for the middle-Americans whom are now agitating for radical changes to the way our government does business.  Something is clearly wrong.  But many of us have apparently failed to identify the real problems.  There is a lot of money sloshing around in the hands of a few privileged actors with very radical political agendas.  That these actors have been channelling much of the public anger and frustration towards their own long-standing and inherently selfish objectives, the same policies which have already eroded the prosperity and quality of life of so many citizens, is the tragic irony of our current political dilemma:

As Politico recently pointed out, every major contender for the 2012 Republican presidential nomination who isn’t currently holding office and isn’t named Mitt Romney is now a paid contributor to Fox News. Now, media moguls have often promoted the careers and campaigns of politicians they believe will serve their interests. But directly cutting checks to political favorites takes it to a whole new level of blatancy.

Arguably, this shouldn’t be surprising. Modern American conservatism is, in large part, a movement shaped by billionaires and their bank accounts, and assured paychecks for the ideologically loyal are an important part of the system. Scientists willing to deny the existence of man-made climate change, economists willing to declare that tax cuts for the rich are essential to growth, strategic thinkers willing to provide rationales for wars of choice, lawyers willing to provide defenses of torture, all can count on support from a network of organizations that may seem independent on the surface but are largely financed by a handful of ultrawealthy families.

Paul Krugman – Fear and Favor NYT 4 Oct 10

This is a profound and serious challenge to ‘real America’ which we seem unwilling, or incapable, of meeting.

By: Inoljt, http://mypolitikal.com/

A few maps of Ohio’s presidential elections are posted below, for your enjoyment. Each map comes with some brief analysis.



(Note: Because the Times stopped updating before all absentee/provisional ballots were counted, this map does not fully reflect the actual results. I have corrected the discrepancy.)

Senator Barack Obama wins Ohio by 4.6%, a solid but unimpressive victory. Mr. Obama performs poorly in traditional Democratic areas – the northeast and even Cleveland – but offsets this with unique strength in Columbus and Cincinnati. Senator McCain runs strongly in the Republican base.

More below.

Apologies to our expat/foreign contributors, heh- and what’s on your mind?

Cross-posted at River Twice Research.

So bipartisanship isn’t dead. By a vote of 348-79, Democrats and Republicans alike put aside their acrimonious differences and agreed, at least for a moment, to stop blaming each other for the sad state of American economic life. Instead, they agreed to blame China.

The bill authorizes the president of the United States to impose tariffs on Chinese goods in response to what it considers an illegal subsidy of Chinese exports in the form of an undervalued currency. It helps that the supporters in the House know that this bill has precious little chance of becoming law; it will not pass the Senate and it is unlikely that it would be signed into law by Obama if it ever came to that. As a result, the bill is the perfect campaign gesture, bombastic, angry, self-righteous, and without much real-world consequence.

The office AFL-CIO union leader Richard Trumka issued a statement that encapsulated the thinking behind the bill: “the House of Representatives voted to put an end to the Chinese government’s currency manipulation, which has destroyed millions of good American manufacturing jobs. For more than a decade, the Chinese government has deliberately manipulated the value of its currency, ballooning our trade deficit with China and costing American communities good jobs….Working people continue to mobilize to elect candidates who will put America’s workers first and are committed to rebuilding an economy that values working people. This November we will send a powerful message that we will support those who vote for an economy that works for everyone.”

Tyler Clementi’s suicide is distressing me in a way no other news story did because it hits close to home.

I cut my wrists when I was 20, suffering from extreme depression and just giving up. Five of my friends saved my life, and they’re still my friends.