Are ‘grand bargains’ still possible?
By Chris Cillizza, The Washington Post
Jan 06, 2013 06:14 PM EST
Here’s a radical idea: What if a “grand bargain” – or any sort of large legislative measure requiring significant bipartisan compromise – simply isn’t possible anymore?
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There’s plenty of reason to believe that the idea that the government can, will – or even wants to – rise to the occasion (as Boehner and Obama have advocated in recent days) is a total fallacy.
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All signs point to the fact that if the grand bargain isn’t dead, it’s darn close. Miraculous comebacks happen in politics, which makes it worth watching, but they are the exception, not the rule. Given that, it may be time to accept that the idea of Washington doing big things in a bipartisan way is a thing of the past – perhaps never to be recovered.
Bipartisan usually means that a larger-than-usual deception is being carried out.
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And I think Frank Zappa said something about politics being the entertainment division of the military-industrial complex? Soo much second veil crap, so little time. Hmmm. Washington Post? Lamestream/propaganda matrix machine. OK, so if I fully embrace the likes of Alex Jones, well it’s kind of like a different kind of fear based news. Instead of a fiscal cliff we are falling off the liberty cliff and or to a huge majority if you can’t “tweet” it in 140 words or less it is irrelevant. Did I tell you I had 666 Farcebook related emails? This is a conflict for me, being a supposed Jedi master/light worker and all on top of that an advocate against such time wasting Charolette Iserbytian mechanisms of population dumbing down. It is kind of a research project about the specific evils of electronic social media as it relates to the “Illuminati” plan to destroy America. Sounds a tad “right wing” don’t it but don’t despair. I have to reject both world net daily and the great orange satan and search for sanity in something else like exo/deep politics, the secret space program or our spiritual ascention(which didn’t happen) on 12/21/2012.
So we are stuck with….being here….being us?
We now have a total of nine, count em, nine Apocalyptic Horses at the new Apocalypse Ranch. Something has to give here. Feed bill getting expensive.
Cillizza, and others, have begun to see that the country is hopelessly divided so it is natural for bi-partisan bargains not to happen. But let’s be clear here–the “compromise” is not something that is up to Congress but to those who pull the strings. We have seen a real struggle for power over the past decade.
On one side are the right-wing billionares who want to destroy civil society and institute a neofeudal order essentially making most of us virtual serfs as many of us already are. Another side, represented by Obama and much of official Washington wants to create a neofeudal-lite system where a strong middle-class is maintained but all the decision-making power is reserved for an oligarchs class–in other words the same people who have been in power for a long time–these people are pure neoliberals. Then there is another side of the oligarchy that represents newer industries based on technology, knowledge, globalism, who want to pen up the marketplace to reform the marketplace, particularly regulation to allow real competition and real innovation–they believe that the U.S. economy is controlled by forces who are vested rather than innovative and competitive–i.e., they use government to limit innovation (for example, through our absurdly regressive copyright laws) through regualtions written by lobbyists. Generally these people are also neoliberals but because they are steeped in the knowledge and technology industries they favor systems solutions not resolving differences through gang-warfare or all-out war. They are in stark contrast to the two other groups I’ve mentioned.
On the sideline, “the people” as such are not important but things have gotten so bad from the relentless efforts of the ultra rightists that the right has now become a coherent culture not with any particular goals but with a desire to live in a world of stark contrast–they require an evil “them” in opposition to a good “us.” They need to live a completely conformist life–to march in lock step with their fellows in an morally ambiguous world and they will have to be dealt with somehow because they are solidly anti-modern, clearly fascist and unable to compromise. Thankfully, most of them are utterly ignorant of the world and just plain stupid but they could be a very destructive force. My guess is that many of them will begin to peel of of this army of the righteous and go home and deal and ultimately leave the field. My guess is that we will see a more moderate Congress this year after the dust settles. I believe the techies and the centrists will make an alliance and start demonizing the right and be more sympathetic to the left since it is, at this time, utternly unthreatening.
is not nearly as colorful as the Nicaraguan division between the revolutionary Sandinistas and the unregenerate Somocistas.
How does Nicaragua manage?
Quite well actually.
Years ago the convicted head of the Somocistas, under whatever name, was released from house arrest for corruption to gain more co-operation in the complete destruction of the liberals and the remaining shards of democracy in the country.
Latinos seem to be more realistic about what is happening in their country.
Hell, most any people are.
Do any people anywhere this side of North Korea live in more of a fairy tale land than Americans?
Best, Terry