We sure wouldn't have this crappy health care reform. We'd have NO health care reform.
We wouldn't have this poor excuse of a temporary extension of unemployment benefits. We'd have NO extension of unemployment benefits.
We wouldn't have a smelly deal that extends tax cuts for the wealthiest of Americans at the cost of $700 billion. We'd have NO deal, the wealthy would stay wealthy, they'd continue sitting on their fat wallets while the tax rates of the middle class went back to the pre-Bush tax cut rates.
When you have a hostage taker who you know is crazy enough to kill all his hostages, you have two choices. You either have a clean shot at his skull... or you deal while you formulate a plan to save the hostages without anyone getting hurt.
In this case, the hostage taker is the Republican minority in the Senate. And as far as hostage-takers go, these guys are BATSHIT crazy! They'll take the whole country down with them if they don't get their way. They don't care! They're like James Cagney on top of the oil refinery in climactic scene of "White Heat" because MOST of them think that the Good Lord Sonny Jesus is gonna RAPTURE their lily-white wealthy asses any minute now so it's best to do the grabbin' while the grabbin' is good! That's why they don't care about climate change, the economy, the deficit, or the future of this nation. The book of Revelations says JEE-sus is gonna establish his 1,000-year rule on the planet and THEN everything will be JUST FINE!
Because of this batshit craziness, and the antiquated filibuster rule, Franklin Delano Fucking Roosevelt couldn't have gotten this deal done. Lyndon Baines Johnson could march up to Capitol Hill, nut punch or tittie twist every Republican in sight, and they STILL wouldn't lower their gun sights from the backs of our collective heads.
So, unless you have 41 metaphorical sharpshooters (metaphorically) with laser spots on the metaphorical foreheads of 41 hostage takers (metaphorically) and can take them all out at the same metaphorical time, then in this case, the hostages were gonna get hurt.
What we're dealing with here, kids, is a political party that DOES NOT CARE about the non-wealthy. They do not CARE that the deal they won is supported by only 33 percent of the country. Those 33 percent are the people who vote for them. Those 33 percent, along with the donations of fat cat anonymous supporters, keep them in power. They've never FELT so free to roll in their own filth. The people in the states that send Republicans to the Senate tend to SUPPORT their policies... some of these voters are wealthy, the rest are dumbass sheep who believe that anything that hurts a rich person will somehow end up hurting THEM! Rush tole 'em so! And so did Glenn!
Trickle Down Economics do NOT WORK. It's Proven!
The Bush Tax Cuts did NOT create jobs! That's been PROVEN!
These are facts! Yet, Fox News tells the sheep that facts are just libruhl talking points designed to confuse and befuddle them because all libruhls know how to do is lie, raise taxes and abort sweet little babies. Just keep watching Fox and listening to Rush and Glenn and THEY'LL tell you what to do!
This is WHY Barack Hussein Obama made the deal he had to make. He's negotiating with the hostage takers because we CAN'T make the batshit crazy Republicans disappear. American lives are on the line.
More people have health insurance today because he refused to toe the ideological line and insist on Single Payer. It was a crappy deal, but -- again -- unless you have some way of getting the Senate to get rid of the filibuster rule, it was the best deal he could reasonably get.
People whose unemployment benefits would be expiring now got a 13-month extension because Barack Obama did not toe the ideological line. Try explaining the importance of hewing to progressive political purity to someone who has no job, no prospects, and will be living on the street without this extension?
Personally, I wouldn't have minded seeing the middle class tax rates go back to where they were pre-Bush. But that would have been political suicide... and NOT FOR REPUBLICANS!!! It would have been seen far and wide as DEMOCRATS who allowed it to happen because their president clove to a progressive philosophy.
The Republican Party has a gun to our heads. And they will not HESITATE to blow our brains all over our laps if they so much as SEE a cop outside! So, let's be mad at THEM, and not at the guy who is getting hostages out of the room one at a time. The hostage takers still have the gun.
Here's how you can convert your anger to pragmatic, realistic action.
WORK YOUR ASS OFF TO ELECT DEMOCRATS at the local, state and national levels in 2012! REAL Democrats, not these blue dog cowards who were more concerned with keeping their jobs (which most of them lost anyway) than they were with the welfare of the nation.
The Republicans are bald faced about it. They don't even try to hide it. They are very clear about representing the interests of Wall Street over Main Street, the fat cat over the starving dog, the haves over the have-nots. They USED to at least try to put a humanistic veneer over it. But now they don't even try! Money is power. Money buys TV time. Money flows like dirty wine from the rotten kegs of corporate America. Corporate America knows who is buttering their bread. And with the new rules made "legal" by the far right Supreme Court, there is nothing to stop them.
Yet.
They know the deal got will be a deficit buster. But they don't CARE! Dick Cheney said it out loud! He said, "Reagan proved that deficits don't matter!" Oh, they matter when you're crafting a sound bite for a political commercial, paid for by the corrupt bankers and CEOs who will BENEFIT from these deficits. They'll just open new factories in China, India, Mexico, even IRAN if the money is right, so they can sell their McProducts to the McSheep who were McStupid enough to vote for the McRepublicans. And when the economy collapses, which it surely will if this is allowed to continue, they will count on the corporate McMedia to convince the McSheep that it was the McDemocrats what done it!
So, wanna be mad at somebody?
Climb out of Obama's ass and GET SOME DEMOCRATS ELECTED in 2012!!!
In the meantime, stay mad but try to understand that the negotiator in a hostage situation with lives on the line has to be pragmatic, cool, and most of all, flexible.
As an alternative for those not old enough to recall history and therefore learn from it, we can make the same mistake we made in 1980 when we were mad at Jimmy Carter and tried to put in Teddy Kennedy and when that failed we supported John Anderson and we ended up with 12 years of Reagan and Bush.
Only this time, it will be Palin or Gingrich.
And you think you're being fucked NOW?
OK... flame on!
ADDENDUM: Many of the comments (God love ya!) are coming from folks who are pissed that Obama let things get to the point where they are.
Let's address that.
If YOU were president...
How would YOU have forced through HCR given the filibuster rule?
How would YOU have forced through an end to the Bush tax cuts, given the filibuster rule?
How would YOU have extended unemployment benefits, given the filibuster rule?
Like I said in the main diary -- nut punching and titty twisting are out. The GOP thinks Jesus is coming to sweep them away to meet him in the sky. You're not dealing with rational people. And -- there's the filibuster rule.
You're in the Oval Office (and frankly, you've done a great job, President Kossack). For the sake of history, just how WERE you able to get these important measures passed?
FURTHER ADDENDUM: How Odd. President Kossack seems to busy to answer my questions as to how HE/SHE was able to get these important measures passed given a batshit crazy Republican party and a filibuster rule.
I guess I can wait.
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