This will be short, as I'm reading all these diaries and comments about this Faux-scal Cliff deal.
The point I see pressed the hardest by those trying to convince others to see this deal as a good thing is that Unemployment Insurance needed to be continued.
Do we honestly think that, given the jobs numbers and, how those numbers are often worst in Red states, that UI would not have been extended independently of this deal?
Or that the administration couldn't have found money from somewhere else - like say, some money sitting around in the defense budge - to move over and fund UI with?
And what is all this talk of 'permanent?' These are just laws, created by our legislators. New laws get created all the time which override old laws. What the hell do we mean by 'permanent', anyway? The Constitution itself is amendable, so nothing in our legal code is untouchable.
I'm not bothered by whatever was deemed to be permanent.
I'm bothered by how the balance of things always benefit the monied interests and are not moving toward anything more just and sustainable for the rest of us.
Was there anything in this deal which even begins to address the downward spiral of middle-class financial well-being? Or the upward spiraling disparity between the rich and everyone else?
My family just spent a year and a half living on UI. Well, surviving with the help of others. UI barely covered the cost of health insurance and food. Even after finally getting a regular job income, we're still at risk of losing our home, because there is nothing in our legal code which protects families from the greed of banks when they hit a crisis. Nothing. The banks make a profit from the insurance and other security instruments they trade on your mortgage and they can still demand that you pay them when a crisis hits. They are fine with making you homeless while they continue to rake in the big bucks.
UI? Really. This was all about UI? Because there was no other way that UI would have gotten extended?
12:53 PM PT: I need to go now and won't be back for several hours.
I'd like to pause while pondering a concern: it really doesn't make any sense to claim that all inability to govern with any vision or principled agenda is because "those other guys are sociopaths!" First of all, it looks weak. Second, you are basically signaling surrender. The way to get destructive people out of favor is to expose them. People are naturally unwilling to see the destructiveness of those they consider powerful, particularly if they've been convinced that those people are really on their side.
I've seen it over and over in my life. People won't believe someone is a liar until something really blatant happens. That liar has to make others suffer before they will get it.
Right now, we're all suffering on a trajectory of more and more poverty and disparity and eco-destruction. Just as you have to take the risk of getting hurt when you protest in the streets, you have to take the risk of some hits when battling with destructive people.
Why aren't all the unemployed people up in arms? Between those who have given up and those on the rolls, there must be at least a million who are suffering because of the tanked and visionless economy. And what of those who are underemployed? Those without health insurance? Those losing their homes? Are we not suffering enough to fight back?
I hate to say it, but, as I've seen in so many work and social situations, people never seem to fend off the bullies, liars, manipulators until they or a loved one has suffered so much that they can't turn a blind eye any longer.
At some point, we're going to have to let the so-called sociopaths cause some serious damage. Enough that there is the political will to punch back hard and start taking care of people. We still don't have the will to change the momentum. That's so sad, but it's apparently true. What will it take?
Calling the other side sociopaths isn't going to do it. People stop listening to you.
These are just some current thoughts popping into my head. I may reconsider how I hold this. But, every time someone uses this 'sociopaths!' excuse, this is where my thoughts and instincts go.