Freud said that a family is a tyranny ruled by the sickest member. Seems that could be applied to

[JohnWxy]

government. we live under the tyranny of the GOP as they are crazy enough to blow up the building if they don't get their way. Ergo, fucked up government courtesy of the GOP.

Here is a great article on the GOP's politics of 'legislative sabotage' by Peter Beinart, Time magazine:

http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1966451,00.html

...

In the Clinton years, Senate Republicans began a kind of permanent filibuster. "Whereas the filibusters of the past were mainly the weapon of last resort," scholars Catherine Fisk and Erwin Chemerinsky noted in 1997, "now filibusters are a part of daily life." For a while, the remaining GOP moderates cried foul and joined with Democrats to break filibusters on things like campaign finance and voter registration. But in doing so, the moderates helped doom themselves. After moderates broke a 1993 filibuster on campaign finance, GOP conservatives publicly accused them of "stabbing us in the back." Their pictures were taken off the wall at the offices of the Republican Senate campaign committee. "What do these so-called moderates have in common?" conservative bigwig Grover Norquist would later declare. "They're 70 years old. They're not running again. They're gonna be dead soon. So while they're annoying, within the Republican Party our problems are dying."


In Clinton's first two years in office, the Gingrich Republicans learned that the vicious circle works. While filibusters were occasionally broken, they also brought much of Clinton's agenda to a halt, and they made Washington look pathetic. In one case, GOP Senators successfully filibustered changes to a 122-year-old mining act, thus forcing the government to sell roughly $10 billion worth of gold rights to a Canadian company for less than $10,000. In another, Republicans filibustered legislation that would have applied employment laws to members of Congress — a reform they had loudly demanded.

~~
~~

All this, it turns out, was a mere warm-up for the Obama years. On the surface, it appeared that Obama took office in a stronger position than Clinton had, since Democrats boasted more seats in the Senate. But in their jubilation, Democrats forgot something crucial: vicious-circle politics thrives on polarization. As the GOP caucus in the Senate shrank, it also hardened. Early on, the White House managed to persuade three Republicans to break a filibuster of its stimulus plan. But one of those Republicans, Pennsylvania Senator Arlen Specter — under assault for his vote and facing a right-wing primary challenge — switched parties. That meant that of the six Senate Republicans with the most moderate voting records in 2007, only two were still in the Senate, and in the party, by '09. The Wednesday lunch club had ceased to exist. And the fewer Republican moderates there were, the more dangerous it was for any of them to cut deals across the aisle.

In 2009, Senate Republicans filibustered a stunning 80% of major legislation, even more than during the Clinton years. GOP leader Mitch McConnell led a filibuster of a deficit-reduction commission that he himself had demanded. The Obama White House spent months trying to lure the Finance Committee's ranking Republican, Chuck Grassley, into supporting a deal on health care reform and gave his staff a major role in crafting the bill. But GOP officials back home began threatening to run a primary challenger against the Iowa Senator. By late summer, Grassley wasn't just inching away from reform; he was implying that Obamacare would euthanize Grandma.
(more)

Read more: http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1966451,00.html#ixzz1TA8Cccxq


a suggestion: print this article and give it to people (high-lite the paragraphs above). Leave a copy at the water cooler at work. People just aren't aware of what's going on because this stuff is not reported on Corporate M$M. Yes, many people won't read it (they like the security of not knowing) But some will. And that is a small victory. You've helped inform someone!

[snagglepuss]

1. That Freud quote is priceless. Thanks for posting nt

:kick:

[no_hypocrisy]

2. Is the quote from Freud or Erving Goffman, Ph.D., the sociologist?

Love the quote, no matter how said it.

[snagglepuss]

3. I can't believe I've never come across it. It should be up there with Einstein's

quote about god not playing dice with the universe or the quote from I believe Dostovesky that most men led lives of quiet desperation. I really do fnd it odd that I never come across it. I feel cheated because it explains so much.:)

[JohnWxy]

5. actually, I think the 'quiet desperation' quote is from Thoreau, although it certainly sounds like

Dostoyevsky.


I like the one from physicist, Niels Bohr: "Prediction is very difficult, especially about the future."

[JohnWxy]

4. I thought I would just check, so I googled the phrase and clicked on the first link.....

it was to my own Post!

so I tried the next link, one on quotes on the family. There it was actually attributed to George Bernard Shaw. (thought it sounded a little flip for good ol' Sigmund).