The Political Thread

[The Legendary Shark]

He's certainly been a big improvement for the military industrial complex; all those expensive drones and missiles that any self-respecting Nobel Peace Prize winner needs have to be supplied by somebody. He's been a big improvement for the banks and energy corporations as well, with free money to keep the frauds going and a blind eye turned to the consequences of fraccing and protection for polluters like BP. We should also praise St Obama for improving the chances of poor Americans losing their jobs, homes and savings to keep the Too Big to Fails afloat, for doing all he can to put New Orleans back together, kick-starting the airport 'naked scanner' industry, keeping Guantanamo Bay open, letting the NSA carry on spying on anyone it wants, shutting the government down for a week at the order of the banks, refusing to allow auditors into Fort Knox to see how much gold (if any) is still there and all that other good stuff he's achieved.

The man's a pluppet.

[TordelBack]

As far as Barack Obama goes, he's a big improvement.

I wish I could agree, and I'd have voted for the guy - twice.  Aside from his incredibly valuable role in debunking racist myths and exposing racist thinking, and the fact that he cuts a suave and eloquent figure as an intelligent family man, I struggle to see how he's a significant improvement on Dubya.  At least with Bush you could rage at his comedy persona, and imagine every gaff and disaster was as much due to incompetence as cynical calculation.  Whether it's an example of the essential impotence of the modern presidential role, or just confirmation that only a certain type of person can ever be elected, Obama has turned out to be more of the same, just better dressed.

[ZenArcade]

Or the trickle down effect they've been f**king about with over the past few years. The money trickles down as far as a bunch of investment banks and other associated garbage who stop the trickle down and push billions if not trillions into a stack market (which looks as though it'll blow in Krakatoa proportions quite soon) or they just bung it in to the Caymans.
Someone said reacently that they'd be better dropping the money onto the populace out of a fleet of helicopters (at least it would reach real people who would circulate it).
But as far as the US political class is concerned, the money is going exactly where they want it to ge that is to the vested interests who are funding their 4 yearly cycles of slash and burn.
You really couldn't design on a super computer a more dishonest, short sightedn obscene mechanism than QE as it is shaped in this instance.

[Theblazeuk]

If any of you think it could be any better under the Republicans I have a bridge to sell you.

[ZenArcade]

Theblazeuk, the situation we're in now has moved far beyond 'party identification' these aren't parties which have any real sense of identification with the people anymore. They despise us and they've all been bought like whores. I'm looking at this mess with the semi-detached sense of bemusement that a ships captain has when the 3 mile wide iceberg looms out of the fog.

[Dudley]

Aside from his incredibly valuable role in debunking racist myths and exposing racist thinking, and the fact that he cuts a suave and eloquent figure as an intelligent family man, I struggle to see how he's a significant improvement on Dubya. 

On international policy, which is what Europeans tend naturally to focus on, he's been far less gung-ho.  Bush started two wars and lead international efforts for sanctions and other aggressive measures in other situations.  Obama's America has been incredibly passive, notably but not exclusively in the Middle East.  Watching the results of sixty-plus years of American interventionism, I rather hope that this isolationist tendency continues.  All this is a matter of degree, not the sort of dramatic change that, e.g., the Nobel Peace prize people were hoping for.  Nonetheless, it represents a marked improvement over Dubya.

On domestic policy, people outside America just don't seem to appreciate quite how constrained the American Presidency is - the British Prime Minister, despite having less democratic legitimacy, enjoys a great deal more power, for example.  Obama's use of his limited powers has been eminently progressive, even dramatically left wing by the standards of the current US conversation. 

[Dudley]

Theblazeuk, the situation we're in now has moved far beyond 'party identification' these aren't parties which have any real sense of identification with the people anymore.

Balls.  These are the parties people vote for.  I live in a democracy that still has such things as old-style Communist, ultra-left anarchist and Nazi parties as credible votes, and frankly I far prefer the UK's huddle to the middle. 

[Theblazeuk]

Dudley said it all better

The President has a great deal of executive power - to say NO. But not to do much else. Of course the great myth of America is that 'anyone can be president' and that being President makes you more than a mouthpiece for your party.

And I'm not really one for party identification but if you think the UK has a constrained political split, you should pay attention to the states. 'Liberals' and 'Conservatives' are like drocking tribes, neither one seeing that actually things tend to be more right wing than anything by the end of the day no matter who is in charge. The drones would be equipped with nuclear bombs if it was Bush.

Well maybe not but I'm not one to take moderation for granted.

I would also say the spread of creationist power has stalled and legal tolerance of alternative sexualities has improved.

[ZenArcade]

Dudley did you mean 'Ed Balls' in your last. Yes parties fire out a manifesto before every election promising us big rock candy apple mountain but  as soon as the elections over blammon this process is repeated ad finitum ad nauseum. See Lib dems in uk or the FG Lab coalition in the south of Ireland. I'm sorry to say but our interests are not being addressed in any meaningful way (hence the situation vast swathes of citizens in the west have painfully found out over the past few years). Z

[The Legendary Shark]

On Obama's watch:

U.S. casualties in Afghanistan up by 73%
Civilian deaths in Afghanistan up between 14% and 20%
Seven times more drone strikes than Bush in covert conflicts in places like Yemen and Pakistan.
"Targeted assassinations" of U.S. citizens routinely authorized - Bush didn't do this.

Consumer prices up by 10%
Real weekly earnings down by 0.2%
People on food stamps up by 50%

In Obama's first term, Federal debt owed to the public rose 83.5% and total Federal debt rose by 55%

Gasoline prices have risen by over 95% but U.S. gas and oil drilling rigs have increased by nearly 15% and in 2012 domestic U.S. crude oil production was up 29.4% since 2008 and petroleum imports fell by almost exactly a third over the same period.

Oh yeah - Obama's the model of restraint.

[ZenArcade]

I never thought I'd say anything remotely good about Bush (being democratic and non elitist by nature): but at least his administration had the 'balls' to let Lehmans go to the wall, all that a party which, as previously pointed out, I naturally identify with has done is to bail the rest of these b*****ds out cause they're too big to fail.  This exercise has been repeated throughout the west. As my prior posts went, you couldn't make it up.

[NapalmKev]

The phrase "too big to fail" says it all really. Does this mean that they can squander money indefinitely with no fear of retribution?

If a company fails either because of piss-poor management or reckless investment, surely that company is not worth saving.
The bottom line (as far as I'm concerned) is that the world is run by Corporations, whereas it should actually be run by everyday folks like you and I.

Cheers

[The Legendary Shark]

Absolutely, Kev.

And if the politicians really want to get behind something "too big to fail" - how about society?

[Dudley]

Dudley did you mean 'Ed Balls' in your last. Yes parties fire out a manifesto before every election promising us big rock candy apple mountain but  as soon as the elections over blammon this process is repeated ad finitum ad nauseum. See Lib dems in uk or the FG Lab coalition in the south of Ireland. I'm sorry to say but our interests are not being addressed in any meaningful way (hence the situation vast swathes of citizens in the west have painfully found out over the past few years). Z

And how would you address "our interests" in a way that most people would vote for?  That always seems to be the rub.

[JayzusB.Christ]

Water can be Irish? Does that mean raindrops need passports? Hell of a revenue stream if they can figure out how to get passport fees out of the clouds...

Ah, you know what I meant, Sharky.  I have an English mother and an Irish father, who is himself descended from Normans, who are in turn descended from prehistoric African humans, but the easiest way to put it is that I'm Irish.  Irish water is Irish in the same way that a Waterloo sunset is English.