Gene Kelly and Oscar Levant skewering and loving European music.
Where Stephen Sondheim became Stephen Sondheim.
Rodgers and Hammerstein.
Chat away for the rest of the evening.
Gene Kelly and Oscar Levant skewering and loving European music.
Where Stephen Sondheim became Stephen Sondheim.
Rodgers and Hammerstein.
Chat away for the rest of the evening.
by Zizi
The one thing the Professional Left (PL) and their Emoprog cohort don’t seem to realize about Pres Obama is that unlike them he KNOWS the depth of nihilistic destruction that the GOP and their corporate backers are prepared to unleash on this country.
Emos have no clue what the stakes are, being stuck as they are on the eras of FDR & LBJ. The Conservative movement has evolved into a more powerful malignant force since their defeats in the 1930s & 1960s. It is a force that continues to destroy whether their minions hold political power or NOT. Destructive force is easier to deploy than constructive building which liberals-Democrats try to do. Our societal building task is harder, less understood and prone to being demagogued by the conservative retrogressives. The PL is oblivious to the asymmetrical nature of our struggle.
We don’t have the institutional structures to fight the plutocrats mano-a-mano on their turf. We don’t! We can only fight them using guerrilla strategies & tactics. No amount of Bully pulpiting or screaming “progressive chants”, or “twisting arms a la LBJ” is gonna dent the power of the wingnuts’ backers. Those are the facts. They have the power and money and nihilistic bent to destroy us all without batting an eye.
The PL-Emos don’t realize that the $32 Trillion that the plutocrats have stashed in tax havens means that THEY DON’T CARE what happens to this country and the people in it. NADA. Unlike the barons of the gilded age who were at least propelled by some sense of nationalism, today’s plutocrats feel no allegiance to this country. It is only a place to exploit for $$$, and feudalize us against our will.
President Obama released his 2014 budget today.
For the past few days, we’ve been treated to an explosion on the Left over proposals for savings in Social Security and Medicare. Pres. Obama has been excoriated as a Democrat In Name Only, wanting to put grandma on cat food, and in at least one blog’s comments as a “gelding”.
I’m not going to go into the particulars on the budget. You can do a search on Google and find plenty of ammunition to support whichever side you’re on. (I recommend this blog post for a rather thorough explanation on the budget.)
Pres. Obama’s budget is, in part, a good-faith offer to the GOP. He’s taking John Boehner and Paul Ryan at their words that they don’t want to destroy Social Security and Medicare, but to “reform” them. Obama’s budget does that, while preserving both programs, and even enhancing them by setting a minimum benefit above the poverty line, and upping the benefits for seniors once they reach the age of 85. He achieves savings in Medicare by cutting wasteful payments to providers and drug companies; and, of course, the PPACA has provisions in it which help ensure Medicare’s solvency. If Boehner, Ryan, and Eric Cantor were sincere in their stated purposes to “save” Social Security and Medicare, they would accept Obama’s offer, or at least negotiate based on it.
Of course, they’re not. Boehner dismissed the budget blueprint after it was leaked as too little, too late. Paul Ryan is on record as saying that there is no room for compromise. The GOP leadership and rank and file is united as a bloc against the budget.
Continue reading ‘In a different country, kabuki wouldn’t be necessary’
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