Misplaced loyalty toward corrupt political parties rather than issues

Glenn Greenwald is a consistent source of hard hitting well-documented articles that cross-cut the American political scene. He lets the chips fall, which is more than you can say for many (maybe most) Americans who call themselves Democrats or Republicans. You see, many of those folks become totally caught up in the personalities to which they feel allegiance that they lose the capacity to be self-critical. They become stupidly tribal. Here's how Greenwald puts it:

A siginificant aspect of this progressive disdain is grounded in the belief that the only valid form of political activism is support for Democratic Party candidates, and a corresponding desire to undermine anything that distracts from that goal. Indeed, the loyalists of both parties have an interest in marginalizing anything that might serve as a vehicle for activism outside of fealty to one of the two parties.
How does this work in the real world? Consider the closely intertwined relationship involving Democrats and Wall Street Banks:
The very idea that one can effectively battle Wall Street's corruption and control by working for the Democratic Party is absurd on its face: Wall Street's favorite candidate in 2008 was Barack Obama, whose administration -- led by a Wall Street White House Chief of Staff and Wall-Street-subservient Treasury Secretary and filled to the brim with Goldman Sachs officials -- is now working hard to protect bankers from meaningful accountability (and though he's behind Wall Street's own Mitt Romney in the Wall Street cash sweepstakes this year, Obama is still doing well); one of Wall Street's most faithful servants is Chuck Schumer, the money man of the Democratic Party; and the second-ranking Senate Democrat acknowledged -- when Democrats controlled the Congress -- that the owners of Congress are bankers. There are individuals who impressively rail against the crony capitalism and corporatism that sustains Wall Street's power, but they're no match for the party apparatus that remains fully owned and controlled by it.
[Go to Greenwald's site at Salon.com for loads of excellent links]. Therefore, voting Democrat means voting for big Wall Street banks, but the most vocal supporters pretend to be oblivious (or, perhaps the confirmation bias is working overtime and they are oblivious) to this massive sell-out by their cherished party. I don't want to sound like a broken record, but all of the above leads me to believe that the time for trusting sweet-talking politicians is long over.  I'm completely finished doing that sort of thing, and I'm now embarrassed that I got so caught up in Obama fever 3 years ago.  I have increasingly seen that Obama is 90% sell-out to big corporate money and 10% throw the progressives a few crumbs.  And lest anyone think that I'm leaning rightward, I'm utterly convinced that the conservatives are even worse. In order to have any meaningful discussion with our political leaders on any political topic, we need to first rid our election process of all private money. We need to tell our leaders that until we fix this money issue, there is no use talking about anything else. Really and truly.  If we take our eye off this issue, our country will continue on its long and accelerating downward spiral.  What makes it all horrendous is that what's happening to the working class was totally unnecessary.  It happened because our leaders were bought by big money and thus sold out the overall public good. Here's one recently-announced approach for fixing the problem, courtesy of Dylan Ratigan.

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Constitutional Amendment proposed for getting money out of politics

How can it be that most of our politicians believe the following: - That Wall Street so-called banks deserved a federal bailout when they were largely responsible for causing the economic collapse of the United States, and despite the fact that after bank "reform" the Wall Street banks are bigger than ever. - That the United States needs to keep spending more on its war machine than all of the other countries on earth combined, and that we somehow need to be in a state of perpetual unfunded war? - That Congress passed "health care reform" that forces Americans to purchase coverage from monopolistic for-profit corporations, instead of passing some form of single payer coverage, which is overwhelmingly preferred by Americans. - That private money political campaigns and an over-consolidated for-profit media pre-choosing candidates is a good thing. - That they shouldn't repeal the Bush-era tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans. The answer is lots of money. When it is handed to politicians in large wads, it makes them vote in ways that keeps the money coming, regardless of what they claim. Here's the inner logic from a politician's viewpoint: "How would I keep my job if I didn't keep the money rolling in by voting for corporate interests even when those votes conflict with the interests of ordinary citizens." I agree with Dylan Ratigan that our politicians can't have any meaningful conversations, and can't make rational decisions, given the amount of private money in politics. The money they receive turns virtually all of them into psychopaths. Getting private money out of politics has become the most important issue of them all, because it keeps us from rationally discussing every other issue. How could we possibly get private money out of politics? The politicians won't do it, because it is like crack cocaine to them. Dylan Ratigan has proposed the following as an Amendment to the United States Constitution to get money out of politics, effectively reversing Citizen's United in the process: No person, corporation or business entity of any type, domestic or foreign, shall be allowed to contribute money, directly or indirectly, to any candidate for Federal office or to contribute money on behalf of or opposed to any type of campaign for Federal office. Notwithstanding any other provision of law, campaign contributions to candidates for Federal office shall not constitute speech of any kind as guaranteed by the U.S. Constitution or any amendment to the U. S. Constitution. Congress shall set forth a federal holiday for the purposes of voting for candidates for Federal office. [More . . . ]

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Quotes on Patriotism

About a year ago, a DI reader named Mike Baker offered me his collection of quotes, including these quotes on patriotism. Thanks, Mike. A patriot must always be ready to defend his country against his government. ~ Edward Abbey Our obligations to our country never cease but with our lives. ~ John Adams (1735 - 1826) I love America more than any other country in this world, and, exactly for this reason, I insist on the right to criticize her perpetually. ~ James A. Baldwin "My country, right or wrong," is a thing that no patriot would think of saying except in a desperate case. It is like saying, "My mother, drunk or sober." ~ G. K. Chesterton (1874 - 1936) "True patriotism hates injustice in its own land more than anywhere else." ~ Clarence S. Darrow I am not an Athenian or a Greek, but a citizen of the world. ~Diogenes "He who joyfully marches to music in rank and file has already earned my contempt. He has been given a large brain by mistake, since for him the spinal cord would fully suffice. This disgrace to civilization should be done away with at once. Heroism at command, senseless brutality, and all the loathsome nonsense that goes by the name of patriotism, how violently I hate all this, how despicable and ignoble war is; I would rather be torn to shreds than be part of so base an action! It is my conviction that killing under the cloak of war is nothing but an act of murder." ~ Albert Einstein When a whole nation is roaring patriotism at the top of its voice, I am fain to explore the cleanness of its hands and purity of its heart." ~ Ralph Waldo Emerson Patriotism is the last refuge of a scoundrel. ~ Samuel Johnson (1709 - 1784), quoted in Boswell's Life of Johnson Patriotism is a kind of religion; it is the egg from which wars are hatched. ~ Guy de Maupassant Can anything be stupider than that a man has the right to kill me because he lives on the other side of a river and his ruler has a quarrel with mine, though I have not quarrelled with him? ~ Blaise Pascal [caption id="attachment_19729" align="alignright" width="300" caption="Image by Erich Vieth 2011"][/caption] Throughout history, it has been the inaction of those who could have acted; the indifference of those who should have known better; the silence of the voice of justice when it mattered most; that has made it possible for evil to triumph: ~ Haile Selassie Patriotism is your conviction that this country is superior to all other countries because you were born in it. ~ George Bernard Shaw "My kind of loyalty was loyalty to one's country, not to its institutions or its office-holders." ~Mark Twain It is lamentable, that to be a good patriot one must become the enemy of the rest of mankind. ~ Voltaire

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Elizabeth Warren’s eloquent common sense

This has been a long time coming in a candidate. Elizabeth Warren has a long track record for being hard-working, smart and incorruptible. Is there some way to clone her? Just listen to her eloquent rebuff to the Tea Party and her diagnosis of what ails us financially. Does anyone really disagree with any of this?

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Republicans and Jobs: More of the Same-Sop the Rich, Screw the Middle Class and the Working Poor

The current political climate is one fraught with conflict and controversy promulgated and continuously created by the most extreme elements of the lunatic fringes of the right and the Republican Party. The Republican Party cares “solely and exclusively about its rich contributors” in America and the Middle Class and the working poor be damned. Republicans will say anything, do anything, lie, cheat and steal about everything to protect the so-called “job creators.”  I’ve accused Republicans of puerile partisan political chicanery before but, the proof is in the charge made by a senior GOP Budget Committee staffer who quit Capitol Hill because of Republican “lunacy.” This article is the first in a series of three analyzing the evidence of Mr. Mike Lofgren who spent 28 years on the GOP staff of the US House and Senate Budget Committees, and had much, including this, to say about the Republican love affair with only the corporations, millionaires and billionaires.  Mr. Lofgren says:

The GOP cares solely and exclusively about its rich contributors. The party has built a whole catechism on the protection and further enrichment of America's plutocracy. Their caterwauling about deficit and debt is so much eyewash to con the public.

I wrote of the current tactics of the Republicans, especially in the US House of Representatives on the debt ceiling “crisis.” Mr. Lofgren continues:

Republicans have attempted to camouflage their amorous solicitude for billionaires with a fog of misleading rhetoric. John Boehner is fond of saying, "we won't raise anyone's taxes," as if the take-home pay of an Olive Garden waitress were inextricably bound up with whether Warren Buffett pays his capital gains as ordinary income or at a lower rate. Another chestnut is that millionaires and billionaires are "job creators." US corporations have just had their most profitable quarters in history; Apple, for one, is sitting on $76 billion in cash, more than the GDP of most countries. So, where are the jobs?

Mr. Lofgren poses the best question to for Democrats to ask of his former Republican colleagues. Where are the jobs from the “job creators” among the corporations, millionaires and billionaires, Mr. US House Speaker Boehner? Eight years of George W. Bush and Republican “leadership” of the US economy led the nation into the Great Recession and the Lost Decade. The “Lost Decade” because there were only losses of private sector jobs under Bush and his tax giveaways to corporations, millionaires and billionaires. Mr. Lofgren goes on to point out additional Republican rhetorical scams. [More . . . ]

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