Friday, July 06, 2012

Professional Left Podcast #135

ProfessionalLeft

"Horse sense is the thing a horse has which keeps it from betting on people."  
-- W. C. Fields





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2 comments:

jim said...

Dissident/Devil's Advocate, or beastly old troll yanking your chain?

I retort, you decide!

Beg to differ with "we had strong unions in the 1970s." Large yes, powerful even - but strong?

The ATC workers were hung out to dry by the rest of the labour movement when The Gipper dropped the hammer on them - & that proof that "Solidarity Forever" had been thrown away in subservience to maintaining its comfort zone was his cue to ratchet up the Reagan Revolution.

Imagine an America where Reagan was body-slammed by the (still large enough to be quite powerful) unions when he tried to garotte the ATC union ... despite his extremism, Reagan was capable of retreating when he'd been trumped, & in the wake of his first big fight being a TKO for his opponent, his agenda might well have been neutered/diluted enough to give the American Left some real fire in its belly.

Remember too that it was Carter, not Reagan, who really began deregulation, the pointless Pentagon buildup & initiated US aid to the Taliban, back when they were mujahedeen "freedom fighters." In real policy terms Reagan's administration was less a "Revolution" than it was Carter On Steroids.

FFWD to 2012:

In the current economy, in the wake of a tsunami of judicial disenfranchisement, with political cynicism at historical highs, the 2012 election should be an absolute slam-dunk for Willard Romney. That it is not is due to the GOP's cartoon-villain psychopathology & ineptitude - or its very reasonable mortal dread of being in the driver's seat when the fiscal shit hits the fan in 2013 - & not the Democrats' political superiority.

steeve said...

Supreme court nominations aren't a reason to vote for Obama because the senate will now block every single one. Obama will be stupid enough to nominate a full-on conservative, and the senate will block him too.

Of course we should still vote for Obama, but saving the country means not voting for any republican anywhere at any time. Even that nice well-meaning local republican running for some city office isn't fit for the job if he can't see the stink attached to his label.