Many diarists are scoffing at yesterday's Tea Parties, as if that was the 'end of it'. The 'Teabaggers' corporate backers have a longer term view than they are given credit for here.
We have to quit being distracted from the increasingly GRIM economic news which is WHY the Republicans are holding their 'Teaparties' now.
The economy is still dropping like a falling anvil because there is not enough spending power (wages) at the bottom to provide 'Demand' to support the price levels. Another bad month is coming for unemployment, and more foreclosures, including a BIG commercial on top of the residential real estate collapse.
Those empty storefronts are not good electoral news for 2010 and 2012 folks.
If the economy is not CLEARLY 'fixed', the Republicans are positioned to have 'independents' come streaming back to a 'strong leader' who is not one of the Republican 'frontrunners'.
General Petraeus for President in 2012 with a Huckabee as VP... along with unemployment in the double digits for three years is not my idea of a 'pop-fly election'.
Now that the FIRST Teabagger's Festival is over... progressives had better get back to work pressuring the Obama administration to actually do some REAL CHANGE in our economic downturn before it becomes a political downfall too.
It's hard for me to watch the Republican preparations for blaming the Democrats for the Second Republican Great Depression with 'moderate' DC Dem sellouts like Evan Bayh helping the Republicans out.
Here's a dose of economic reality you won't get from from the corporate media. There's another massive reaming of working class people in America coming and NO 'Personal Lubricant' is being provided because "we can't afford it"!
The Automatic Earth is being far tougher on Obama and the DC Dems than I am.
And unlike 'doomer' Jim Kunstler, who says on his blog:
So many dire elements are ranging around our food production system (i.e. farming), from widespread drought and water table depletion to "input" shortages (especially fertilizers) to sickness in credit availability, that we're all one bad harvest away from something that will make Pieter Bruegel-the-elder's "Triumph of Death" look like Vanity Fair's annual Oscar Party in comparison.
Barack Obama, charming as he is, had better drop his pretensions about kick-starting the old consumer economy, fire the Wall Street clowns and parasites who are running that futile exercise, and start preparing a US Lifeboat Economy aimed at reducing the scale and scope of our outlays so we can survive the coming siege of austerity. Meanwhile, I'm glad that he finally got a dog for the White House, because the President knows full-well where to turn in Washington if you want some genuine love and affection.
I still believe that Obama is trying to do the best he can with the millstone of congressional Dems slung around his neck.
In many cases, like the need for a national renewable ammonia infrastructure for farm fertilizer and fuel, we aren't even talking about it yet.
If WE don't help Obama do right by the working class and our farmers, WE will regret it.
Progressive Democrats are going to get blamed anyway.
If you are unemployed, go to DC and find a job as a lobbyist for working class America and our farmers.
RMD