TAIBBI: Democrats Aren't A Real Party-They're A Marketing Phenomenon
Dodd-Frank Budget Fight Proves Democrats Are a Bunch of Stuffed Suits
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Is killing the Citigroup provision really worth the trouble? Is it a "Hill to die on"? Maybe not in itself. But the key here is that a victory on the swaps issue will provide the Beltway hacks with a playbook for killing the rest of the few meaningful things in Dodd-Frank, probably beginning with the similar Volcker Rule, designed to prevent other types of gambling by federally-insured banks. Once they cave on the swaps issue, it won't be long before the whole bill vanishes, and we can go all the way back to our pre-2008 regulatory Nirvana.
If the Democrats actually stood for anything other than sounding as progressive as possible without offending their financial backers, then they would do what Republicans always do in these situations: force a shutdown to save their legislation. How many times did Republicans hold the budget hostage to rescue the Bush tax cuts?
But the Democrats won't do that here, because they're not a real party. They're a marketing phenomenon, a big chunk of oligarchical Blob cleverly sold to voters as the more reasonable and less nakedly corrupt wing of a two-headed political establishment.
So they'll punt on this issue in the name of "maturity" or "bipartisanship," Wall Street will get a nice win, and Hillary Clinton or whoever else is being set up as the Blob candidate on the Democratic side will receive an avalanche of Financial Services donations to stave off Warren (who will begin appearing in the press as an unhinged combination of Lev Trotsky and Spartacus). A neat little piece of business all around. I don't know whether to applaud or throw up.
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Read more: http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/news/dodd-frank-budget-fight-proves-democrats-are-a-bunch-of-stuffed-suits-20141213#ixzz3LoNo3bfV
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Back at ya!
RUN!!!
- My man!
... attack the messenger. A sure sign that you've got a strong argument.
... in your own mind. No doubt about that.
to oligarchs have to make shit up, and use strawmen, smoke. and mirrors, because they have nothing that is real to use as an argument to convince the gullible to give up their rights and liberty.
Seriously. They can't very well say,
"Look, you stupid, filthy, ignorant peasants, you really need to give up all right to self-determination and willingly allow your superior-by-wealth 1% masters to enslave you, and control every aspect of your lives. So give up, filthy rabble, all your children is now belong to us".
I agree about the futility of discussion with people out of reality as well. That's why my replies, if any, to certain people are brief and not an invitation to discuss a thing. Only a couple of days ago, he complained about my conversation ending replies to him. Guess he finally got the hint.
Congress is indeed a reflection of the voters, at least the ones that bother to turn out. We get the government we deserve, or, as I tend to think of it, "we" get the government "they" deserve. Bastards 
So how is continuing to make the same Hobson's choice over and over again supposed to fix that? How do we describe doing the same thing expecting different results?
As for Mr. Taibbi, I have no illusions that he means to change the Democratic party or even any leadership caucus within it with his attack on the paradigm approach. He's ripping the bandage off our eyes so that WE will change and stop doing the same things over and over again, feebly hoping that maybe THIS time it will come out differently. Maybe we'll end up TeaPartying the Dem machinery. Maybe we'll end up leaving en masse for a better alternative, even if it means creating a new party.
Here's what little I think we can safely say we know (barring epistemological hair-splitting): time and again, the Democratic Party leadership at [national/state/local (circle one)] keeps setting an apparent agenda (as opposed to an honest reckoning of what they're about) and framing the discussion so that it's palatable, even desirable, to us, the garden variety voter. Party machinery grooms and selects (read: funds and welcomes into the fold) according to some criteria to which I'm apparently not privy, but which become apparent when we observe what we get from them...betrayal. Party machinery tends to serve up names/faces/talking points that add some sweet syrup to that apparent agenda, the better to attract us small/no donor voting booth flies. Then, far more often than not, the stuffed suits they put on the menu for us to choose from proceed to rectally feed us the rest of the syrup while acting against our express wishes, wishes that are evident from the nature of our votes in response to their promises.
So yeah, as long as we keep accepting the paradigm rather than attacking it, as long as we keep accepting their pseudo-choices, we get exactly what we deserve.
Correction. "I" keep getting what lesser-evil-accepting sell-outs deserve.
but he's useless. 
You need a new schtick.
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This one is particularly amusing...
- That's what I ended up doing. Long time ago. Now I only get occasional heartburn when read things here at DU. Strange things. And coming from the mouths of Democrats, purportedly.
We greyheads, looking at the Democratic party now, one is compelled to compare it to the old neighborhood. When we thought we knew who we were -- and what mattered and we said so. Often. But everything looks so stark now. Harsher somehow. Everything is smaller and dingier and ranker, and ever so much more corrupt. You can't breathe.
It's not the place where I grew to adulthood anymore. Many have left -- disillusioned. And others simply return to their collection of faded snapshot memories of bygone days. Of the days back when we almost had it right. Almost. And hoping somehow that chance will come back.
Knowing it won't.
K&R
[center]''I can explain it to you, but I can't comprehend it for you.'' ~Ed Koch [/center]
Everyone of these hypocrites from the Congress to the Senate should have patches on there suits when they come out to vote, then we can actually see and hear, who they truly represent, just like in Golf, Nascar, ect...... if you have a sponsor then name it and show it, then we can see the political corruption that Warren was talking about
Unless you're from the area where he lived, had you even heard of him before 2006 or 2007? What is the point of voting when you don't get to choose whom it is that you're voting for is also someone you'd want to vote for to start with?
What Professor Chomsky is alluding to is a series of studies that demonstrated that people in the lower 70% income brackets in the US are not represented, insofar as legislation is concerned, that considers them. That legislation is never influenced by their votes nor considered by their representatives, in the main.
In such an instance what does it matter if you voted or not if your representative doesn't care if you're alive or not except every two, four or six years? What he is saying is that the upper 30% income brackets are the ones who are listened to, catered to and whose vote matters to the elected representatives of this country, because of how those income brackets can affect him/her.
This. Is. Fascism. Defined.
- It's rigged. Through and through.
