too lazy to look it up, but Al Gore thinks a carbon tax will pay for all this and I think he is correct.

Nobody wants to talk about this stuff. Especially as a candidate, delivering bad news is seldom a good idea. Apropos your other recent brilliant post on lies, Americans (humans actually) generally prefer to hear the pretty lies rather than the uncomfortable truth. Then we complain when we get nothing but liars as politicians. Humans are really difficult to work with.

Point in fact, John McCain is probably correct when he says there is little or nothing to be done in the short term about job losses in Michigan, and that there will be a continued deep involvement in war for the US in the Middle East - regardless of which party is in office. The real problem, of course, is that he thinks it’s all OK and the way things should be, rather than symptomatic of terrible policy decisions over the last 30 years, but what he gets heat over is just the saying of what are undeniable facts.

Neither Democrat is telling the same truth, but rather a careful tissue of lies about how things can get better soon. Out of Iraq in six months? Hah. And even then we’ll be pouring a hundred thousand troops into Afghanistan for years to clean up what should have been done right in the first place.

Fix the economic problems? Policies under both parties, mostly worse under Republicans but somewhat under Carter and Clinton as well, have made such a hash that it will take a decade or more to just turn it around - if we ever get started.

You read Stirling; what progressive social investment programs are being laid out by either D? We need to tax the living hell out of those people who have been sequestering capital for the sole purpose of accumulating more capital and instead use that money to build social structures with a broad and enduring social return on investment. Not hearing any of that from the Ds and we won’t, because the big money people would crap their pants and dry up the funding. It is no surprise that Edwards could not get any fat cat supporters, and even he was pretty tepid. Obama may be onto something with his fundraising policies, and I don’t mind so much the big money people he’s attracted – Soros at least understands you have to keep the golden goose alive. Clinton, I think, has wanted to do big reform for a long time; if she gets some push from the populace, she’ll run with it.

The saving grace here is that you GenXers, and whatever the hell the cutesy terms are for those behind you, will number in the many millions and most of you like your disposable income. When that starts to go, and it will be going damn soon, people are going to get very, very pissed off. Which ever Dem gets the White House, I expect that before the end of their first term there will be such huge unrest that they and the Congress will be forced to deal with economic reform - or be forced from office.

If it is McCain, of course, things will also get worse but probably faster and he will do nothing to try and make repairs. His term will be a disaster, but it will only be the one term.

Short, grim answer - Not happening soon.

Short upbeat caveat - It will, it will.

[Good hearing from you. Hope your garden is growing well. I have little green tomatoes on my three-foot vines, planted in a small patch of pure virgin clay soil into which I turned a couple of bushels of raw grass clippings and leaves in February. (snickers, quietly)]

The system is so skewed, even the “progressive” candidates don’t really tell the truth. For all of John Edwards’ angry rhetoric, his policies weren’t nearly radical enough to do the job. And the rhetoric killed his chances anyway (full disclosure, I always found Edwards more an opportunist than a true believer, but that doesn’t mean I didn’t appreciate his rhetoric which at times was terrific; I much prefer Elizabeth, who seems the more true believer of the two).

I think Hillary knows what’s wrong only because she’s the smartest of the three* when it comes to systems and political and economic history and every once in awhile she’ll say something that makes me think she knows the problems. She speaks more fluidly about these issues than the other two. And while her rhetoric has gotten better (much more corporate class warfare than before), I can’t say her policies are nearly revolutionary enough. I support her mostly because as little as I trust her or any DC politician, I trust her more than the other two. McCain is awful, Obama doesn’t appear to ever have spent much time doing any job he’s held, always more interested in the next. And while I think his campaign financing could be revolutionary, I’m suspicious enough to wonder where the money is really coming from. Hey, the last 30 years have made me cynical about these sorts of things.

Mostly, however, no one is going to do anything unless we make ’em. With Clinton I think we have a shot at making her do it and she’s at least smart enough to see the problems. Unlike Obama and McCain, she’s more likely to feel pressure from her supporters - who are overwhelmingly working class - to do something for them. It seems to me the surest way to ensure the working people get screwed is to select a candidate whose chief advisor says he doesn’t need them. If that proves to be true, we are all fucked because it means the corporate yuppies will have finally taken over the democratic party, which is already infected with corporatism to the point where it’s on life support.

I admit I’m a bit surly this morning reading all the dismissals about the importance of Appalachia. You know, there used to be a time when Democrats went to Appalachia because people struggled there and Democrats were the party of those people. To see them written off wholesale as irredeemably racist because they prefer a candidate who is talking about economic policies rather than “Change” (which I’m still not sure what that means) seems to me the latest sign that large parts of the democratic party would only be too happy to tell all poor people to go FUCK THEMSELVES so they can sip their lattes and talk about process and pat themselves on the back for being better than everyone else.

And while people focus on white working class voters in Appalachia, all working class voters will be fucked in the end. Because once the party is willing to write off one of the poorest sections of the country, which is in the midst of several critical swing states, it won’t be helping poor and working class people anywhere else. That’s the real message being sent. It can’t be heard because of the understandable AA support Obama gets. But the rest of the working class (white, hispanic, asian) can see what’s coming under the “creative class” and it isn’t anything for them.

But again, I’m not sure any candidate will be able to fix the mess. I’m simply going with the one who is smart enough and experienced enough to understand it (even if she isn’t putting forth nearly strong enough policies right now) and whose base will probably demand it the most. Well, that and I prefer a candidate who tells Bill O’Reilly that Americans “don’t like demogogues” more than someone who goes on Fox and praises Republican deregulation efforts.

Which brings me to my final point, nothing gets fixed without the destruction of the current media environment. That’s another reason I distrust Obama, I trust no one the media loves so much because the media is a big part of the problem. Why do more people not realize the import of the graph you linked to? Why do they not really get that the U.S. is essentially bailing out Wall Street? Why do must politicians pander on the capital gains tax? The media makes them or they kill them.

I figure there must be something about Hillary that scares the media and anything that scares the media is good by me. They are the canary in the coal mine for corporatism. If they are screaming, then that’s a sign that their corporate masters sense some threat.

A fairly tepid endorsement, I admit. But then I’m not very hopeful about my party (which clearly is moving away from my core values a bit further every day with its corporatism and patriarchy) or my country at the moment. We’ve fucked this up and the people most able to fix it, we seem determined to drive off or destroy.

* Of course, the people we really need running the country, we’ve probably never heard of because the system has shut them up and shut them out. We’re left with what we’re left with, unfortunately.

—- totally.

No one asks—and they should—why it is that candidates who don’t run on issues are the ones the media supports the most?

Can someone please tell me that they also think that the hamster-wheel post should be titled “Insolvente”?

… we’ve never been solvent to begin with!

[x] Any (D) in the general. [ ] ?????. [ ] Any mullah-sucking billionaire-teabagging torture-loving pus-encrusted spawn of Cthulhu, bless his (R) heart.

for some reason, i crave your approval. it’s odd, i can’t explain it other than you seem to have a very large brain. you’re utterly wrong on a lot of stuff, but that’s because you’re old, dated and buffered in the land of the rich librul. i still think highly of you tho. seriously, the lie post is ’brilliant?’ if so, it’s borne of pain, deep and lasting. sigh, i’d like to think i can do good writing without going thru that sort of drama, but i’ll try to remember where/how i got into that writing ’zone’ and repeat it again.

I don’t sling compliments around for the fun of it. You have to earn them. :-)

Of course you’re brilliant, who ever has said otherwise is an ass. Now if you would just believe me on most other things, we wouldn’t have to fuss at each other so much. Or maybe we would.

Forgive yourself for your transgressions, snuggle up in your bed and have a good night’s sleep. You’re a wonderful person. G’night. (())

Hillary’s stripping off the bindings she took on to support Bill in his career and create her senate career.

I think caution became such a habit she didn’t notice until this campaign. But now she’s getting to the root of her belief system and has been growing in stature before our eyes. People flower in all kinds of circumstances and this campaign has brought challenges that only root beliefs can stand up to. Also, Hillary is sixty and doesn’t want to play any more games. Those of us more senior adults have been there and can recognize it.

She’s still not going to move outside the comfort zone of the voters during the election but we might be surprised at her willingness to try solutions outside the box if elected.

She’s not just found her voice, but herself and she no longer has to protect her husband.

Her current advisors are not necessarily the ones she’d keep once in office. A candidate can’t think about things like that during a campaign.

I think we’re seeing something remarkable here.

That is exactly it. Puts our famously free press into perspective, and gaming the system as well.

[x] Any (D) in the general. [ ] ?????. [ ] Any mullah-sucking billionaire-teabagging torture-loving pus-encrusted spawn of Cthulhu, bless his (R) heart.

nice catch CD. Will be stealing that chart. :)