Ralph Nader Gets The Last Word On Republicans and Democrats
Today we're sharing a few post-election articles that seem to us are must-reads about why the two parties are nothing alike as “some” say.
Messaging Tactic
Promoting the idea that the two parties are “the same” is a messaging tactic that actually serves the GOP, being the worse of the two. And the bonus is that it even works on progressives. Here's how: Whenever we get to a time where the nation seems to be collectively catching on to how horrible the GOP of today actually is, the corporate media neutralizes this idea by offering the narrative that Democrats are “just as bad.” It's the same made-up narrative that says MSNBC and Fox are opposite sides of the “same” coin. It's easy to interject this idea into the dialogue on the ground and in the media, because it manipulates progressives' better instincts of wanting to appear fair. But in the interest of wanting to appear fair, the truth is submerged.
To illustrate, if people, I mean, “folks” hear this idea that Olbermann and Maddow are also lying, it benefits the right-wing media like Fox and Limbaugh who actually are lying. It muddies things up just enough so that even progressives feel they have to take the politically correct stance – that is, that the Democrats, or the left is “just as bad” as the right.
Think of how this type of dilemma plays out in your personal life: How many parents have not been stymied trying to deal with bickering siblings? You may know full well one of them is causing the problems, but you just don't have the stamina to figure out which one. So you just give up and tell them both to stop it.
America wants bipartisan cooperation! America wants politicians to solve problems, not be stuck in partisanship! This is not going to happen until we are willing to be truthful about which side is creating the problems and hold them accountable. Even if “folks” don't want to hear it.
Shortly before the election, I was chatting with a progressive friend who said something about the possibility of the GOP winning back congress to which I replied, how can that be, the Republican policies are what got us here, to which he replied, “yes, but people get tired of hearing that.”
So ask yourself the question, if “folks” (Republicans) get tired of hearing the facts, and therefore, we stop bringing up the facts, who benefits? And how do we solve real problems? Pretty challenging, I'd say.
So in the interest of helping to sort through some of the confusion, and to show you what the GOP has in mind with their restored power, here are some article snippets we found around the web today that we like.
Elections have consequences, and as we said yesterday, folks are going to be so, so very sorry about how this one went down.
Bill Moyers: “Welcome to the Plutocracy!”
Bill Moyers' speech at Boston University on October 29, 2010, as a part of the Howard Zinn Lecture Series. LINK
George Bernard Shaw once complained that journalists are seemingly unable to discriminate between a bicycle accident and the collapse of civilization.
Washington Post:
That’s how financial capitalism works today: Conserving cash rather than bolstering hiring and production; investing in their own shares to prop up their share prices and make their stock more attractive to Wall Street. To hell with everyone else.
If this were a functioning democracy, our financial institutions would be helping everyday Americans and businesses get the mortgages and loans – the capital – they need to keep going; they’re not, even as the financiers are reaping robust awards. Read more
Branstad, Paulsen: No sales tax increase for voter-approved conservation fund/DMReg Blog Link
BFIA Editor's Note: There's not much more to this story, so we omitted it in favor of a couple of comments on my FB page about it:
“Okay, he sucks.”
Will Election Changes Kill Iowa-Chicago Train Funding? LINK
Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood was in Iowa just last week, where
he joined local leaders to celebrate $230 million in federal money to
start work on a passenger rail line. Service on the new GreenLine is
expected to begin in 2015 and take passengers from Chicago's Union
Station to the Quad Cities to Iowa City.
The
Republican lawmaker in line to head the House Transportation Committee
said Wednesday that he wants to re-examine one of President Barack
Obama's programs – $10 billion in federal grants for high-speed train
service.
Florida
Rep. John Mica, the comittee's ranking GOP member, said the day after
the election that he doesn't agree with the projects selected by the
Transportation Department for funding. LINK
BFIA Editor's Note: In the if-you-went-out-of-your-way-to-say-it-it's-obviously-a-lie category, like GWB's “There will be no nation building” speech during the 2000 campaign, a question which at that time, no one had even asked, see the next article about their plans.
Darrell Issa (R-CA) said the morning after the election that his job wasn't to “bring down Obama.” Well, of course not. Why would anyone even think that in the first place? We know they would never consider bringing down a sitting president, for political gain. LINK
The GOP Plan To Investigate Obama: The First Four Potential Investigations LINK
Now — as the expected chairmen of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform and the House Judiciary Committee, respectively — they're the proud new holders of subpoena power, will have a much more robust unit of investigators and will likely be a huge thorn in the side of President Obama and his top cabinet members.
Issa already laid out his agenda in a blueprint plan he released earlier this year. He told reporters in a conference call in the wee hours of Wednesday morning that his responsibility was “very broad” but that his job wasn't to bring down Obama [italics BFIA's]. “I have a lot of questions that have not been answered,” he said. LINK
BFIA has one other thought to share, via Ralph Nader who spoke on Democracy Now! with Amy Goodman this week. I'm still mad at Nader for certain actions that in my view helped Republicans by harming Democrats. But this statement really struck me. He said, “My main complaint with Democrats is that they have not shown themselves to be able to protect us from Republicans.”
He went on to say, “Democrats, if pressed, can change. Republicans are hopeless.”
We'll have to leave it there for now.
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