What's Not To Trust?

Bedford, Virginia.
John Vachon, 1941
Library of Congress FSA/OWI Archive

Negotiate with Republicans?

A-OK! We can always rest assured they are selling
Good *NOT* Bad used ideology.

Just as we can trust that what trickles down from windfalls for "job creators" will lead us to the prosperity that's just around the corner.

During the week, I just happened to look through this.

I was struck by how the author, in discussing painter George Grosz's politically formative years in Germany, notes—

"The German revolt of 1918," historian Sebastian Haffner has observed, "was a social democratic revolution that was suppressed by the social democrat leadership—an event unparalleled in world history."

After uprisings in Munich and Berlin, elected socialists heading the government—in league with right-wing forces—used military force to brutally suppress the revolt, murdering leaders and an estimated 700 participants.

It's the broadest kind of comparison, yet the model of a party leadership out to suppress its constituency certainly brings to mind the leader of our supposed Democrats.

"Hope and Change" were hardly meant to inspire revolution, itself hardly something a U.S. presidential election would ever bring about. Still, 2008 really was a mandate—and not one for Republican policies.

Yet Obama seems never to have met a Republican policy he didn't like; perhaps, in a slightly different, "moderate" form. And he always is willing to meet Republicans "half-way."

Beau Hodai has just published a detailed piece on the Republican state house trial runs in progress around the country. These are the onslaught of bills meant ultimately to end the "unfair competition" of public services over corporate-controlled services and infrastructure.

The bills may be before different legislatures, but they are all written by the very well-financed, secretive American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC), and they aim at

... privatizing public education, transportation and the regulation of public health, consumer safety and environmental quality including bringing in corporations to administer:

• Foster care, adoption services and child support payment processing.
• School support services such as cafeteria meals, custodial staff and transportation.
• Highway systems, with toll roads presented as a shining example.
• Surveiling and detaining convicted criminals.
• Ensuring the quality of wastewater treatment, drinking water, and solid waste services and facilities.

It's become too sickening to follow daily details of negotiations over a phony deficit scare steamroller that Obama did not have to jump aboard if he hadn't so chosen. In any case, the media pretty much covers this as a clash of personalities, not as the negotiation with terrorists that it is.

We certainly are not Germany in 1918. And our Democratic leadership will not have literal blood on its hands; it merely will be responsible for even more "sacrifice" by the poor and what's left of the middle class.

Sam Seder "attended" Obama's "eat your peas" press conference.

After that crack by the president, Sam's advice was: "'Eat your peas' now, before you end up eating cat food! Get as many peas in your system as you can!"

That was followed by an interview with Brian Beutler, who's been covering the "negotiations" for TPM.

Following the obvious conclusion about where "negotiations" will lead—and at exactly the moment I was thinking, "Thank You, Barack H. Hoover"—Sam suggested one bright side to full-scale economic depression: new productions of Annie.

While this may not be Brecht and Weil, it is catchy.

And the lyrics may not be completely out of date. As long as newspapers don't go away completely, they will come in handy for lining one's clothing in winter.