"Naomi Klein's Shock Doctrine is not a GOP-exclusive dynamic."

[HomerRamone]

Glenn Greenwald:

It's been bleedingly obvious for some time that the bipartisan D.C. political class and the economic factions that own it have been intent on massive cuts to Social Security and Medicare -- see George Carlin's 2007 video explanation below <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=acLW1vFO-2Q&feature=player_embedded> -- but the combination of deficit hysteria (repeatedly bolstered by Obama) and the manufactured debt ceiling deadline has, by design, created the perfect pretext to enable this now. As one "Democratic official" told the Post: "These moments come along at most once a decade. And it would be a real mistake if we let it pass us by." Naomi Klein's Shock Doctrine is not a GOP-exclusive dynamic.

<...>

Obama both believes in the corporatist agenda he embraces and assesses it to be in his political interest to be associated with it. If it means "painful" entitlement cuts for ordinary Americans at a time of massive unemployment, economic anxiety and exploding wealth inequality, so be it.

<...>

Of course enough Democrats will get in line behind Obama's proposal to pass it once they're told they must. Similarly, those progressive commentators who are first and foremost Democratic loyalists -- who rose up in angry and effective unison to prevent George Bush from privatizing Social Security in 2005 -- will mount no meaningful opposition out of fear of weakening the President's political prospects. White House aides will just utter Michele Bachmann enough times like some magical spell and snap more than enough people into fear-induced compliance. The last thing the White House is worried about -- the last thing -- is its "base."

<...>

Obama knows full well that he can slash Medicare, Medicaid and even Social Security -- just like he could sign an extension of Bush tax cuts, escalate multiple wars, and embrace the Bush/Cheney Terrorism template recently known in Democratic circles as "shredding the Constitution" -- and have most Democrats and progressives continue to support him anyway. Unconditional support ensures political impotence, and rightly so. He's attending to the constituencies that matter: mostly, Wall Street tycoons who funded his 2008 campaign and whom he hopes will fund his re-election bid, and independent whose support is in question.

http://www.commondreams.org/view/2011/07/07-12

[snot]

1. Good point!

[Sarah Ibarruri]

2. If that's true about Obama (and we'll see), he'll lose the next election nt

[kath]

3. and he'll deserve to.

[JCMach1]

4. You just have to follow how many of Obama's economics people had/have connections to the the Chicago

School...

The house that Friedman built...

[Hatchling]

5. Got your Shock Doctrine right here.

I guess they got good enough at it in other countries that they finally felt confident enough to so it to the USA.