“Once a government is committed to the principle of silencing the voice of opposition, it has only one way to go, and that is down the path of increasingly repressive measures, until it becomes a source of terror to all its citizens and creates a country where everyone lives in fear."
Harry Truman, Special Message to the Congress on the Internal Security of the United States, August 8, 1950
"We must dissent from the poverty of vision and the absence of moral leadership. We must dissent because America can do better, because America has no choice but to do better.”
Thurgood Marshall
The political and social establishment is ensnared, strangling within a credibility trap. It prevents them from truly confronting themselves and what they have done, and what they are still doing in the service of power and money.
It prevents them from addressing the problems, much less the needed reforms. It prompts them to act ineffectively and oddly, to the point that they obviously become a part of the problem and an impediment to progress.
The GOP seems almost beyond repair. The Democrats need to unravel the Clinton/Wall Street wing of the party which has its head buried deep in their party power structure like a big fat tick.
The Republicans need a 'twelve step' program for any kind of helpful change to have even the slightest chance.
The GOP tax bill is blatant corporate giveaway for the benefit of the one percent, and one of the more recent signs of their blindness caused by ideology in service to greed. They are not even bothering to excuse it anymore, except for the most naive of their supporters. They try to hide it by voting in secret on largely undiscussed bills with little debate. And as usual cover their perfidy with hypocritical slogans about freedom.
An even bigger disappointment because they have become content with failure, the DNC is purging itself of all progressive policies, dissent from the Wall Street status quo, with the Clintonistas trying to retain a tight grip on power— the power to keep losing elections unfortunately. But as long as they are pulling down fat consulting fees and favors from wealthy donors they seem to be content.
They cannot talk about real economic policy proposals for the benefit of their base. This would expose their hypocrisy and anger their real masters. All they have is negative campaigning about the other party, the 'lesser evil' proposition, and never ending fear tactics about Russia.
They too are serving their big money donors first and foremost, but at least have the modesty to cover themselves with the fig leaf of identity politics in addition to jingoism.
Both parties have come to resemble competing crime families, more so than representative political organizations.
There is another financial crisis coming, which will be fueled by the third artificial asset bubble since the GOP and the Clintons deregulated Wall Street, the financial sector, and the media, permitting the growth of powerful monopolies.
And there will be hell to pay. The problem is that they plan to stick the public with the tab, once again. That is why they wish to retain their control of the levers of power.
Don't believe it? Watch, and be amazed. They have no shame in the pursuit of power and money.
