"What’s the matter with Liberal Land? Why do they continue to support politicians who frequently work against their economic self-interest? Are social issues being used on liberals the same way they’ve been used on Thomas Frank’s Kansas voters?"
YES!
Repeat after me: SOCIAL ISSUES DON'T MATTER.
If you are consumed by social issues, and you use them to excuse President Obama and the Democratic leadership for betrayals like the failure to prosecute Wall Street, and wholesale attacks on the 4th Amendment, you have fallen into the divide and conquer trap of the 1%, who own both parties.
AlterNet has a piece by RJ Eskow, posted on Independence Day, entitled, "Are Corporations Trying to Distract Us with Social Issues While They Take Control of Our Economy?" (mentioned on dKos here). The quote that leads off this diary is from the AlterNet piece.
Continue below the bittersweet, burnt orange tears of rox-fail and experience a clarity of mind heretofore known only by the stalwart and brave champions of Clan Suxxer.
We are in a glacially slow recovery from Bill Clinton's Recession:
"The 2008 financial crisis should have resulted in the final discrediting of the Clinton-era, DLC and “Third Way”-style politics. The deregulation bill which Clinton signed unleashed Wall Street greed, giving it the freedom to accelerate the destruction of the middle class – and ultimately, to nearly destroy the global economy."
- RJ Eskow
Remember, W gave us two unfunded wars, a massive budget deficit, and a bouncing baby police surveillance state. But W did not cause the financial collapse of '08. Bill Clinton did.
Bill Clinton championed financial deregulation, and, in cahoots with Republicans, passed and signed it while he was a lame duck. Bill Clinton's deregulation of the finance system is what caused this collapse and recession. And why is our recovery so painfully slow?
Because Bill Clinton championed NAFTA, and the rest of the "Free" Trade nonsense, which dumped our manufacturing base into poverty markets, thus hamstringing unions and crippling our middle class.
After WWII, the US bounded out of the Great Depression in large part due to our unionized manufacturing sector. Our manufacturing base produced significant national wealth, and anchored our burgeoning middle class.
By flushing our manufacturing jobs down the toilet, Clinton and his Free Trade fetish has hobbled our economy's ability to pull itself out of this near-depression. Service sector jobs, temp jobs, internships, H1B tech jobs, and viciously exploited illegal immigrants simply cannot support a healthy, growing economy.
Bill Clinton, a Corporate sponsored Democrat, put us in this Recession, and stuck us here.
Yet Bill Clinton is revered as a hero among Democrats. How can this be? Oh, right, because he liked black people, and women. (Gays, not so much. He was Doctor DOMA, if memory serves...but that was just political expediency at the time, so he's cool, right? Right?) Plus, he wasn't very fond of guns.
"How do right-leaning Democrats like Obama and the Clintons maintain the loyalty of the Democratic and liberal base?
…they have certainly learned how to use issues like gay marriage and reproductive rights to win liberal hearts and minds, while at the same time pursuing conservative economic policies."
- RJ Eskow
In other words, the Corporatist Democrats knowingly play you, just like the Corporatist Republicans knowingly play social conservatives. That's what's wrong with Kansas, and that's what's wrong with New York City.
"...the “reverse Kansas” crowd is quite capable, consciously or otherwise, of using identity politics to push its pro-corporate agenda."
- RJ Eskow
But, is that really so bad? So what if billionaires skim a little bit more off the top? A smidgen more economic inequality isn't as bad as losing Roe v. Wade, or allowing Talibangelical attacks on gays to go unchecked, is it?
Actually, enabling Plutocrats Gone Wild will prove to be catastrophic.
We are in a fight for the survival of our Constitution and our way of life. Lose the economic/governance fight, and none of the rest matters.
The purpose of austerity is to break the social democracies of the west, and cement the economic elites as the only effective political power on the planet. The billionaires do not see why they should pay for granny's hip replacement, nor for her cat food. That money is theirs and if the Chinese people and the Mexican people and the Brazilian people and the Indonesian people do not demand "social security", who do these freakin' Canadians, Americans, Greeks and other Europeans think they are, anyway?
When the citizenry disagrees, the 1% have a maturing police surveillance state, with well-honed anti-insurgent tactics and weaponry.
They intend to teach us just who we are.
A whole shitload of powerless nobodies.
And if those powerless nobodies get to vote in meaningless elections, or not, or get to gay marry, or not, or have access to abortions, or not, why would the plutocrats give a flying fuck?
"When your goal is money, you’re not likely to care what people do with their bodies – as long you get their wallets."
- RJ Eskow
But remember, this isn't merely about money, it's about
governance. Billionaires, CEOs, and banksters are done tolerating regulations and restrictions and taxes imposed on them by democratically elected governments.
Plutocrats look at the USA like the Michigan GOP looks at Detroit.
This is why President Obama is so gung-ho about the new, secretly negotiated trade pacts with the pacific nations and the EU. These trade agreements create unaccountable, appointed authorities that transcend the democracies that are its signatories.
Any law that is "anti-competitive" can be challenged to a higher jurisdiction, and nullified.
The minimum wage? Anti-competitive for my corporation.
Time and a half? Anti-competitive.
"Buy American" laws? Forbidden.
Environmental protections? Anti-competitive.
A free and open internet? Threatens my copyright protections.
Government incentives for renewable energy? Anti-competitive for oil, gas, & coal producers.
Let's say a European country has an identical law to one in the US. The same corporation could sue both countries separately, and nullify both laws.
Make no mistake, the purpose of these trade agreements is to completely unshackle Corporations, banks, and the super-wealthy from any democratic controls. They don't see themselves as part of your country, so why should they let you take any of their profit, or tell them what they can and cannot do?
A few weeks ago, Empty Vessel authored a diary entitled "Rox/Sux Explained". This diary deftly layed out the source of the rox/sux civil war; that
Roxxers prioritize social issues, while
Suxxers prioritize economic and governance issues.
Although the initial analysis in the diary was great, it fell apart when the diarist drew a false equivalence between the two priorities.
While social issues are important, economic and governance issues are critical. (Ignore my trollish jab at the start of this diary...) The people who choose to minimize the economic and power issues in favor of their pet cultural issue do so because their pet cultural issue is personal for them. But this is myopic.
If you need to get gay married, gay marriage is right in front of your face.
If you know how difficult a choice it is to chose an abortion, but understand, viscerally, how important it is that you have that choice, the abortion issue is right in front of your face.
If you see the impact of racist policies daily, by like, I don't know, traveling by any means while being brown or black, then civil rights is in your face, daily.
But if you vote for a Corporatist who collapses your economy and allows the economic elites to nullify the Bill of Rights, just so you can get gay married, have the option of an abortion, or maybe not get your ass kicked by a white cop, what have you accomplished?
Guess what? If you enable the creation of a completely plutocrat dominated faux democracy, do you think the ruling elite will stand in the way of Mandatory Jesus if it gives them greater control over the population?
Criminalizing sex has long been a tactic for cementing illicit political control in the "Christian" west. And both Communist and Fascist governments used that disgusting tactic as well.
If we fail, and lose our democracy, keeping it in name only but with no guts left, all those hard fought gains on social issues can be washed away faster than a fundamentalist can baptize he and his sister/wife's twelve year old banjo prodigy.
Please stop falling for the Clintonesque false choice; between Talibangelical Corporatists or Socially Liberal Corporatists, so I'll take the Socially Liberal Corporatist, please.
Our choice is actually between Socially Liberal Corporatists and Socially Liberal Progressive Reformers, before we ever get to the race with the wingnuts in them.
How many Democratic primaries do we have in blue states where any of the candidates are socially repressive nutjobs? Virtually all the Ds in blue primaries are Socially Liberal, so why keep electing the Corporatist ones????
Doing this over and over and acting like you have no option is patently ridiculous.
Out them for what they are and DO NOT VOTE FOR THEM.
The best thing about the Snowden saga is that it is exposing to us all, just who the Corporatist Democrats and pundits really are. Remember them. Stop watching their shows. PRIMARY THEM with Progressive Reformers.
Liebermans and Baucus', Clintons and Obamas (including Hillary), cut our throats while feeling our pain.
Attacking those of us who agree with you on the social issues that we all cherish, just for pointing out that your socially progressive heroes are intentionally fucking up the fabric of our nation, hand in hand with the very Republicans you despise, is terribly counterproductive, and in some cases, possibly willfully destructive.
It means you do not yet see the inherent danger in handing over control of our economy, and control of our governing processes, including our civil liberties, to a bunch of psychopaths who enjoy nothing more than watching you suffer while they wallow in the money you earned for them.
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Please go the to the AlterNet piece before you participate in the comments in this diary. I know it's a four page article, and my diatribe is way passed TLDR territory, but I don't know that I do justice to RJ Eskow's analysis.