FTA: And through it all, centrism bills itself as the most transgressive sort of exercise imaginable. Its partisans are "New Democrats," "Radical Centrists," clear-eyed believers in a "Third Way." The red-hot tepids, we might call them -- the jellybeans of steel.
FF fer Thomas Frank.
Gawd knows we need sommat to laugh at these days.
Here's the deal. Aside from a few whackjob extremists mostly found on the fundy right all of DC is centrist in practice if not in rhetoric.
Running to the left and right during election season in order to implant the socially divise wedge issues into the zeitgeist in order to perpetuate wot Spud has taken to calling the "51/49% solution" and then runnning back to the center when the real politcs begin and being a corporately directed centrist duopoly is the name of the game in DC and has been for a long time now.
There is very little liberalism in DC.
There is very little conservatism in DC.
There are an unelected elite, neo-libs and neo-cons, who use the sophisticated proganda network of the MSM in order to seek ascendency over each others agendas by manufacturing consent and public opinion under the guise of reflecting and responding to public opinion.
The disconnect between public opinion and public policy is, by now, almost complete.
The true base of both parties is the "haves and the have mores" as Bush once joked, only the Dems are much less openly comtemptuous of the masses than the Reps.
Even if a true liberal was elected POTUS who wanted to bring real change to American politics he would have his (or her) work cut out.
The entire system is geared towards servicing the agenda of the unelected elites who call the shots while pretending it is doing no such thing.
Thing is, at one time, wot was good for the American based corporations did indeed trickle down to the people and allowed the American people a standard of lving that was the envy of the world.
This is no longer as true today.
At the end of the second world war, the US was a country with 5% of the world's population that supplied over half the manufactured goods to the planet.
Even today, the US, a country with 5% of the global population, still manages to consume over thirty percent of the worlds resources.
If everyone on the planet consumed at the rate America does we would need 4 or 5 Earths to supply those resources which, of course, we don't have.
America is no longer the biggest manufacturer on earth. America is now merely the largest consumer nation on earth. One whose economy stands on unsustainable twin deficits of debt.
The very fact that yer MSM FAILs to even give you a glimmer of truth about these very basic facts of life tells you a lot about wot you need to know about the nature of that beast.
Obama acts like a centrist because he is a centrist, which made all these discussion around here as to wot a "dangerous, radical lefty" he was during the campaign season an absolute joke fer Spud.
Anywho, Frank is right in that Obama should act like he's won and act more like a liberal but that statement kinda ignores the reality of the two sided coin that is the corporate duopoly that passes itself off as a functioning democracy.
It's like one of them trick coins.
Heads they WIN.
Tails you LOSE.
Learn that.
Be Well.
/"Brace yerselves, my darlings."
