Ya' don't say ...

"It should have been evident to clear-eyed observers that the Republican Party is becoming less and less like a traditional political party in a representative democracy and becoming more like an apocalyptic cult, or one of the intensely ideological authoritarian parties of 20th century Europe. ..."

And Obama has only helped in perpetuating an economic climate that will fuel the anger that is needed feed this type of movement.

Yes it will ...

It'll Get Worse

Palin and Giffords ...

Right on!

What we have here is an attempted assassination of a politician by an insane crank at a political event, in a state where the political discourse has been an unrelenting howl of eliminationist rhetoric and characterization of anyone to the left of Genghis Khan as a traitor and enemy of the state…and now, when six (including a nine year old girl) lie dead and another fourteen are wounded, now suddenly we're concerned that it is rude and politicizing a tragedy to point out that the right wing has produced a toxic atmosphere that pollutes our politics with hatred and the rhetoric of violence?

Screw that. Now is the time to politicize the hell out of this situation. The people who are complaining are a mix of lefty marshmallows whose first reaction to the fulfillment of right-wing fantasies by a lunatic is to drop to their knees and beg forgiveness for thinking ill of people who paint bullseyes on their political opponents, and right wing cowards who are racing to their usual tactic of attacking their critics to shame them into silence. This is NOT the time to back down and suddenly find it embarrassing to point out that right-wing pundits make a living as professional goads to insanity.

Stop apologizing, backing down and going all wishy-washy every time the right wing corporate bozos start their demented war dance.

All the authoritarians are piddling in their pants about WikiLeads ...

If any one event epitomizes what an ugly gangster-like bully the US has become it is the concerted and lawless threats to and actions taken against WikiLeaks and Julian Assange.

Some of the cowardly and shameful behaviour by those acting in the name of and for the US is listed the Glenn Greenwalds post: The lawless Wild West attacks WikiLeaks

Still true ...

Closer to the Fall-of-Rome comparison that we'd like to think ...

Happy Thanksgiving!

Class warfare? Who says ...

From health care to education to mass transit to Social Security, if a government program helps those in need, Republicans oppose it. They will support tax cuts targeted for the wealthy, while opposing tax cuts targeted for those that aren't wealthy. The Republicans clearly have an overall ideology, and it is reflected throughout their agenda. Which isn't class warfare. But calling them on it is.

[Turkana at The Left Coaster]

Well, why would Obama care if Israel goes around killing Americans ...

The fact that a 19-year-old American citizen was one of the dead -- among those whom the report concluded was "summarily executed" by the Israelis -- makes the U.S. Government's silence here all the more appalling. One of the prime duties of a government is to safeguard the welfare of its own citizens. It's inconceivable for most governments in the world to remain silent in the face of formal findings that a foreign nation "summarily executed" one of its own citizens. ...

Why would Obama care if Israel goes around killing Americans ... or anyone else for that matter. Since Obama, himself, believes in killing Americans on his say so alone and definitely believes, as did George Bush, that killing around the world is what the US is entitled to do, then what can be the big deal about these violent, demented and illegal Israeli executions of civilians. Aren't the worst of the Israelis the people we've been emulating for decades now?

In his short time in office, Obama has shown that he cares about nothing except making nice with the rich, the powerful and the nuttiest of those calling themselves Christians.

--- ADDED ---
Oh, the irony!

This USA Today article, proudly touting the increased efforts of the U.S. Government to track down and punish war criminals (provided, of course, that they're not American) ...

Finally, someone asks the $64,000 dollar question ...

Why Should I Care? Leaders Lack Good Reasons to Vote For Democrats – or Against Republicans

And the answer IS ... there is really not much reason to care. 99.9% of the individuals we elect have made it clear that they take their orders from the corporate world and not from the voters.

Obama made the outrages that Bush pushed on the nation permanent.

The US has come along way down this road ... it's questionable whether we have the fortitude to walk this back.

Banana republic here we come ... oh wait ...

How Revolutionary Oligarchs Seize Power

The United States of Inequality

... ouch, seems we have arrived.

A must read ...

Who We Are: Zeitoun and Camp Greyhound Five Years On

Shhhhhh, don't point out the monsters among us ...

Glenn Greenwald responds to the woolly thinkers who counsel we make nice to those who's goal is to take control of this country by any means.

In what universe is it "obscene" to compare the architects of the Iraq War, the torture regime, and endless War with Muslims "to killers and terrorists"? The comparison is true by definition. The people who launched the attack on Iraq are guilty of an aggressive war -- what the Nuremberg prosecutors condemned as the "kingpin crime" that "holds together" all other war crimes -- which killed hundreds of thousands of innocent human beings, turned millions more into refugees, and destroyed an entire nation. The aptly named "Shock and Awe" was designed to terrify an entire civilian population into submission. John Podhoretz criticized the brutal assault on Fallujah for failing to exterminate all "Sunni men between the ages of 15 and 35," while his father has spent years agitating for a devastating military attack on Iran. At least 100 War on Terror detainees in American custody died as a result of their treatment, tens of thousands more (including clearly innocent ones) were put in cages for years with no due process (where many remain), and as recent mosque-related controversies reveal, a substantial portion of the American population craves a religious war with Islam. And that's to say nothing of the acts of other countries which this faction supports: from mauling an imprisoned population in Gaza and attacking a harmless, civilian ship in international waters to propping up some of the most oppressive tyrannies on the planet, including many in the Muslim world.

Sometimes, one's political opponents are "monsters" -- or at least engage in genuinely monstrous acts -- and what's morally offensive is not those who point this out, but rather those who insist that the comparison not be uttered on the jingoistic ground of shared nationality. ...

...

The endless, destructive War on Terror depends -- like most wars do -- on a cartoonish demonization of the Enemy as something utterly foreign, inhuman, and subject to entirely different drives than Us. Moulitsas' book, at its best, destroys that rotted premise by highlighting the many similarities between Them and Us. Because that similarity is a great taboo -- perhaps the greatest taboo -- it has triggered all sorts of outrage: outrage that is actually a testament to the value of the argument he makes.

Looking back ...

In my twenties (smack-dab in the '60's) I would never, ever have believed that the following quotes (posted today by Oly Mike at The Left Coaster) could be so relevant when applied to my country.

"History is replete with examples of empires
mounting impressive military campaigns on the
cusp of their impending economic collapse."
-- Eric Alterman

"Fascism will come wrapped in a flag and carrying a bible."
-- Sinclair Lewis
(1885-1951)

"Most people prefer to believe that their leaders are just and fair, even in the face of evidence to the contrary, because once a citizen acknowledges that the government under which he lives is lying and corrupt, the citizen has to choose what he or she will do about it. To take action in the face of corrupt government entails risks of harm to life and loved ones. To choose to do nothing is to surrender one's self-image of standing for principles. Most people do not have the courage to face that choice. Hence, most propaganda is not designed to fool the critical thinker but only to give moral cowards an excuse not to think at all."
-- Michael Rivero
(1952- ) Composer, production engineer

And the agent of change is merely a history-repeater.

It is not worthwhile to try to keep history from repeating itself, for man's character will always make the preventing of the repetitions impossible.
- Mark Twain

Obama ...

... telegraphed all along that he believed in Reaganism more than he believed in liberalism, and that's why he's governing like a jackass.

Now that's a zinger ...

... There is anti-Americanism and radicalism in Yemen; therefore, to solve that problem, we're going to bomb them more with flying killer robots, because nothing helps reduce anti-American sentiments like slaughtering civilians and dropping cluster bombs from the sky. ...

Communism, fascism and democracy ...

Communism and fascism seem to me to have the same ultimate result: making sure workers are completely under the control of management. It seems to make little difference whether management is the government, the party or private industry. Effective slavery is the result.

The US has always had it's proponents for the complete control of workers. But with the T-Bags it's coming to the fore with draconian, or Dicksonian, ferver.

NY Tea Party Platform: Relocate Welfare Recipients to Prison Dorms

____________
ADDED:
The parallels between the T-Bags increasing attacks on all things muslim is too close to Hitler's sadistically incremental attacks on Jews in Germany for comfort.

The "mosque" debate is not a "distraction"

____________
ADDED II:
emptywheel writes:

Treasury’s attitude about HAMP is not just evidence they’ve lost all track of who they work for and where the benefits of the economy are supposed to be delivered, but it also suggests that these Treasury folks have lost the most basic notion of capitalism, that if businessmen never pay for bad decisions, they’ll continue to make bad decisions.

I beg to differ. Treasury, as does Obama himself, believe they work for the banksters and other powerful industries.

Elected officials still have to play the election game but money and the corporate controlled media are able to effect sufficient numbers of election campaigns. And when they fail, there's always the Supreme Court who can choose to appoint an embarrassment like Bush to reside in the WH.

Obama, it appears, gave acceptable assurances to the banksters (and others) before he was elected. To get the votes Obama aimed his promises at the fair minded, the liberals, the progressives, the unions, those interested in a responsive and fair government, those who were against these unending wars.

What did Obama do once he was elected? He appointed people who failed to recognize, or actually contributed to, the financial problems of the country. He continued most of Bush's disastrous war and torture policies. He took care to insult most of those who voted for him. His actions and policies appear taken in response to the desires the Robber Barons and the actions of the Crazies.

Excuse me, but ...

Glenn Greenwald writes:

... Barack Obama sent the bust [of Winston Churchill] back to Britain because "his Kenyan grandfather, Hussein Onyango Obama, was imprisoned without trial for two years and tortured on Churchill's watch, for resisting Churchill's empire."

Well I'm OK with that. Making a point about injustice is a worthwhile endeavor.

But, I have to ask, Obama. Is it only injustices to your father that matter? What about all those individuals that the US captured and/or kidnapped and imprisoned without trial and tortured for resisting US actions. This is still going on. The US is doing some of the same things that Churchill did? Haven't you noticed?

George Bush and Barack Obama ...

So, there's no similarity between Bush and Obama? Then how to explain that Obama appears to emulate many of Bush's worst actions?

What We Stand For

Yesterday was a stark reminder that instead of closing the book on the Bush-era military commissions, President Obama is adding another sad chapter to that history. Although President Obama promised transparency and sharp limits on the use of tortured and coerced statements against the accused, at Guantánamo today one military judge ordered that a sentence be kept secret from the public and another military judge allowed statements obtained by abuse and coercion of a 15-year-old to be used at trial.

...

It boggles the mind that the military judge could find that Khadr was not coerced and gave these statements to interrogators voluntarily. Khadr, then 15 years old, was taken to Bagram near death, after being shot twice in the back, blinded by shrapnel, and buried in rubble from a bomb blast. He was interrogated within hours, while sedated and handcuffed to a stretcher. He was threatened with gang rape and death if he didn't cooperate with interrogators. He was hooded and chained with his arms suspended in a cage-like cell, and his primary interrogator was later court-martialed for detainee abuse leading to the death of a detainee. During his subsequent eight-year (so far) detention at Guantánamo, Khadr was subjected to the "frequent flyer" sleep deprivation program and he says he was used as a human mop after he was forced to urinate on himself.

...

Any decent person can see that what has been done to Omar Khadr is an injustice. But Obama continued and expanded the bizarro world of Bush where these injustices just keep going on and on.

So much for 'America' ...

And what about the economy’s future? Everything we know about economic growth says that a well-educated population and high-quality infrastructure are crucial. ...

Back to the feudal and serfdom ...

--------------
More:

What collapsing empire looks like by Glenn Greenwald

and

Gauging the Mood of the Country by Carolyn C, firedoglake.com

Carolyn C writes:

"Then Greenwald adds, "The real question is whether the American public is too apathetic and trained into submission for that to ever happen."

"Trained into submission" may be correct, but apathetic is a misconception.

Carolyn C documents cases of expressed anger and some of the, in my opinion mostly irrational, responses they have to such overwhelming anger and frustration.

Trained into submission does certainly appear to apply from Carolyn C's examples. Most of these people seem to be channeling their anger at their fellows, their relatives, and those in more precarious straights but not in any effective way against those who caused their situation.

Closer to the Fall-of-Rome comparison that we'd like to think ...

digby writes:

By the way, in case you haven't heard, the congress passed yet another "emergency" war supplemental last night. After listening to a bunch of tripe for weeks about having to offset costs to extend unemployment benefits, and watching teachers all over the country be fired for lack of funds, that vote may be the single most illustrative move we've seen yet to illustrate that the fall of Rome comparisons are not as far fetched as we like to think.

We've been close for some time now and were seemingly offered a chance to 'change' our destructive ways by an apparently intelligent young politician who has turned out to be (surprise?) just another political hack who does what his financial/industrial/military controllers want him to do.

He calls himself a new kind of Democrat as he pursues the same course we've been following for 30+ years. That's the kind of 'new' that only exists in marketing campaigns.

And he worries about his legacy!

My God, we're a nation of fluff.

What happened to substance? Should substance exist still in any hidden cranny of our political world the press will be sure to stamp it out by ridiculing the good, praising the corrupt and channeling innuendo and lies.

What we've got is a new kind of improved marketing campaign kind of president. Welcome to America!

The Case of Inverted Reasoning ...

Dave concedes that the NAACP has a case, but concludes that they're wrong for making it. But they're only wrong for making it because the broader society, evidently, believes that objecting to a call for literacy tests is, in fact, just as racist as a call for literacy tests. This inversion, this crime against sound logic, is at the heart of American white supremacy, and at the heart of a country that has nurtured white supremacy all these sad glorious years.

It is the Founders claiming all men are created equal while building a democracy on property in human beings. It is Confederates crying tyranny, while erecting a country based on tyranny. It is Sherman discriminating against black soldiers, while claiming that his superiors are discriminating against whites. It's Ben Tillman justifying racial terrorism, by claiming that he's actually fighting against terrorism. It is George Wallace defending a system built on bombing children in churches, and then asserting that the upholders of that system are "the greatest people to ever trod this earth." [emphasis added]

Those who employ racism are not in the habit of confessing their nature--inversion is their cloak. Cutting out the cancer means confronting that inversion, means not wallowing in on-the-other-handism, in post-racialism, means seeing this as more than some kind of political game. Someone has, indeed, failed here. It is not the NAACP.

-- The NAACP Is Right, Cont. by Ta-Nehisi Coates, The Atlantic

Teabagger redux? ...

" ... the rest were slaves in fact, but without the name; they imagined themselves men and freemen, and called themselves so. The truth was, the nation as a body was in the world for one object, and one only: to grovel before king and Church and noble; to slave for them, sweat blood for them, starve that they might be fed, work that they might play, drink misery to the dregs that they might be happy, go naked that they might wear silks and jewels, pay taxes that they might be spared from paying them, be familiar all their lives with the degrading language and postures of adulation that they might walk in pride and think themselves the gods of this world. And for all this, the thanks they got were cuffs and contempt; and so poor-spirited were they that they took even this sort of attention as an honor."

-- A CONNECTICUT YANKEE IN KING ARTHUR'S COURT by MARK TWAIN (Samuel L. Clemens) Part 2., Chapter 8