Category: Corporatocracy

Not Morphing Back into a Democrat, Don't Worry

22/1/2019

First, an apology to my dozen or so regular readers. My intentions for this blog in 2019 have fallen into disarray. I have been posting only sporadically, mostly because I find myself with less time to write, or even to read the stack of books on my bedside table, and even less time to think deeply about what to write. Work, home life, and artistic endeavors have made my plate fuller than usual thus far, not that that's a bad thing in itself.

In re-reading recent posts, it has not escaped my attention that my attention has focused on some Democratic politicians. Why would this longtime Green even care about the political ambitions and positions of Reps. Gabbard and Ocasio-Cortez? It's not because I'm a middle-aged white dude with a thing for attractive young women who can talk intelligently about matters of policy. (I'll candidly admit to heavy long-term crushes on Abby Martin and Eleanor Goldfield, but those two are NOT Democrats and that's NOT the explanation.)

The best answer I can offer to that is that the battle for the soul of the Democratic Party has fascinated me from a distance. Can this ethnically diverse, mostly young freshman cohort swim against the tide and pull their party back to the left? Can they get their agenda past the neoliberal gatekeepers in the Capitol?

There was a reason—well, several—for my giving up on the Democratic Party more than 20 years ago. If anything, Team Donkey has become more corporatized and corrupted than it was when President Clinton took his political triangulation performance art to DC. I'm not exactly optimistic about a party that Sen. Joe Manchin can call home even trying to dismantle late-stage capitalism and all its feudalist tendencies.

But I'm rooting for that outcome anyway. Socialism or barbarism, y'all.

Of the Lobbyists, By the Lobbyists, For the Lobbyists

1/4/2017

What was I thinking when I decided to keep receiving Senator Ted Cruz's weekly email blasts? I had hoped to blog about his activities, or at least the ones he feels comfortable about reporting to his human constituents. However, I find it hard enough to read the damn things without clenching from head to toe. On the plus side, Cruz and his staff have the discipline to limit their communiqués to one per week.

In yesterday's message, after praising #45's executive orders to effectively un-regulate the energy industry and the Judiciary Committee's vote to move Judge Neil Gorsuch's Supreme Court nomination to the next level, the Tedster goes into his usual spiel about meeting with active or reserve military folks and the industrial lobbies who fill his campaign coffers.

Throughout the week, I also had the pleasure of visiting with members of the Texas Farm Bureau, Texas Cattle Feeders Association, American Loggers Council, Texas Restaurant Association, and Texas AIPAC where I discussed my priorities for the 115th Congress. I remain excited and optimistic about the opportunities before us to repeal Obamacare, implement fundamental tax reform and regulatory reform, and confirm Judge Gorsuch to the Supreme Court. (emphasis mine)

It would be too easy to conclude from paragraphs like that, and the rest of the message, that Cruz does not give a tinker's damn about flesh-and-blood, air breathing people, rather than corporate or "pre-born" persons. It would be too easy to forget that he is not unique in that regard; plenty of other Congresscritters have similar sympathies or lack thereof. What continuously amazes and appalls me about Cruz and his ilk is the unmitigated glee with which he attacks federal regulations on everything. Apparently, homeboy truly believes that, absent these regulations designed to prevent needless death, maiming, chronic illness, and environmental devastations, corporations will behave altruistically, giving everybody a good-paying job and a pony.

As you read this press release about the latest fusillade of executive orders, you could nod along and say, "Oh yeah, that makes sense. We need jobs in this country, and regulation of greenhouse gas emissions is a job-killer." Or you could remember that the world's climate scientists have warned repeatedly for decades that not only is such regulation necessary for the survival of the world as we know it, but by this time we need to move toward limiting fossil fuel production and consumption to zero. It's not just Al Gore and those gol-durn lib'ruls at 350.org who say so.

You might also remember that both parties have held open the exit gates for American manufacturing jobs for the past 40-plus years, and that "job-creators" have fought every effort to require living wages and adequate benefits for health and education.

Sorry for not providing an April Foolish blog entry today. Far too many of my compatriots have been most dreadfully and chronically fooled already.

DBC Sez...

Not Morphing Back into a Democrat, Don't Worry

Of the Lobbyists, By the Lobbyists, For the Lobbyists

Blogging Sporadically since 2014

Categories

Archives