A blast from the past and a reminder about the future

"You don’t always get what you vote for, but the surprises aren’t usually on the upside. Obama was given the opportunity to be the new FDR. The financial crisis was a huge opportunity to break the power of the financial industry and the rich for a generation, and in so doing make it possible to have an economy which worked for everyone, to fix America’s energy problems, and to have universal healthcare.

"Instead what happened is that Obama bailed out the rich and the financial industry, who were bankrupt, then refused to prosecute them for systemic fraud. He did so in a way which left, by and large, the exact same class of people in charge of the financial industry, made the remaining banks bigger and more powerful, restored the wealth of the rich to pre-crisis levels and restored their profits. Meanwhile employment has still not recovered (ignore the unemployment rate, it is a lie), wages are flat or declining, real inflation is through the roof, the price of oil is skyrocketing and the current discussion in DC is how much the poor and middle class should get screwed out of their Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid, in order to keep the rich filthy rich. Oh, and how much tax cuts the rich should get.

"America is in terminal decline. There may be a lot of ruin in a nation, as Keynes said, but that amount is not infinite. The next chance you get to turn this around you will be starting from a much worse position. A lot more pain will be unavoidable.

"Obama is not turning things around, what he is doing is negotiating with Republicans how fast the decline will be, and how much and how fast it is necessary to fuck ordinary Americans in order to keep the rich rich. If Obama wins another term, he will continue to negotiate the decline, then, odds are very high, a Republican will get in, and slam his foot on the accelerator of collapse.

"This is why Obama must lose in 2012. I would prefer that he lose to a Democrat in a primary, then that Democrat wins, but he must lose regardless. If he loses to a Republican, then 2016 you get a chance to put someone in charge who might do the right things (or even just some of them.)"