Freedom from austerity or 10 years of penury?

[John McKenna]

Comment is free here too - thanks to Carl - anyone got a view or comment on this -

http://m.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2 ... ean-system

Comedian Beppe Grillo told Italian politicians that it is time for them to depart so the common people can run their country. Politicians are the servants of the markets and the markets are like sharks. They are constantly circling the financial shipwreck of Europe (torpedoed by America) and tearing huge chunks of finance out of the individual economies floating helplessly in the Sea of Debt.

[John McKenna]

"We're through the looking-glass here people... white is black and black is white..." (JFK 1991)

The Republicans have forced President Obama to cut off America's nose to spite everyone's face. Obama's Democratic (and Keynesian) prescription to cure America's economic and financial ills has been discarded it seems. The new medicine is to be 10 years of government-led austerity and penury for the poor. Let's see how long America can stand that for, Europe has stood it for 4 years and counting. Now we'll see what the Americans are made of.
Obama is reported to have signed the cuts into law saying - I am not a dictator. I'm the president.
Who'll blink first - the White House or the Tea Party?

[Rob Thompson]

It's worth noting that by almost every conceivable metric Obama hasn't been a good president. On national security and civil liberties issues he's probably the worst ever, and even before he became president he was showing no signs of being any sort of liberal saviour. Given this, it's no surprise that he has capitulated on this.

[Sean Hewitt]

it's no surprise that he has capitulated on this.

What were his options?

[John McKenna]

Thanks Rob and Sean - was starting to think that no one gave a damn.
Obama was a disappointment in his first term - in many respects Dubya was a harder act to follow than the Tony & Gordon double-cross. His second term looks like it could well be an even bigger letdown. This term I think of as the American equivalent of a totally divided version of the kind of coalition government here. Over there now it is a liberal Democratic president versus a conservative Republican-controlled house. Imagine we the people here had elected Nick Clegg as PM and a Tory majority Commons. (There was such a coalition here between WW I & WW II but with a Labour PM who also betrayed the party and people during the economic depression then.) The actual system here now is a compromise between Tories and Libdems based on an initial, written agreement. No such agreement exists in the US now so it looks as if a real state of war has just been declared between the White House and the House of Representatives.
Sean, I don't know what options Obama offered to the Republicans that failed to effect a compromise but it seems to me that the only options the Republicans will accept are no tax hikes on the rich and welfare cuts on the poor. What price compromise now? If there is none it's going to be a hard road for many with nothing but sour grapes and wrath all round.

[Rob Thompson]

If you look at the voting records of prominent democrats (e.g. Diane Feinstein) you can see that on most of the worst votes (e.g. FISA, PATRIOT act etc) that the house is remarkably undivided - democrats are now at least as hawkish as George Bush's administration, if not more so.

[Arshad Ali]

Obama's Democratic (and Keynesian) prescription to cure America's economic and financial ills has been discarded it seems. The new medicine is to be 10 years of government-led austerity and penury for the poor.

Where'd you get this idea from? Obama is also pro-austerity (but with some symbolic and nominal tax increases for the well-to-do). Keynesianism was a spent force by the late '60s though it took another decade for the neoliberal consensus to emerge.

Obama is a pathetic president. Granted, the structure of power in the anachronistic US political system is such that it functions as a pay-to-play plutocracy, and hence constrains the latitude of any president. But this one hasn't even put up a fight: he's in the pay of the same interests except for some weak rhetoric. He's GWB with a black face.

[Arshad Ali]

If you look at the voting records of prominent democrats (e.g. Diane Feinstein) you can see that on most of the worst votes (e.g. FISA, PATRIOT act etc) that the house is remarkably undivided - democrats are now at least as hawkish as George Bush's administration, if not more so.

They should amalgamate into one party: the Republicrats. And stop the sham of elections, where the "choice" is between two factions of essentially the same party. On the things that matter -- economic, foreign, and military policy -- there's near consensus between the parties. Lance Selfa goes into this in a bit more depth in his book, "The Democrats: A Critical History" (the updated edition covers Obama's first term).

[Rob Thompson]

And stop the sham of elections, where the "choice" is between two factions of essentially the same party. On the things that matter -- economic, foreign, and military policy -- there's near consensus between the parties.

There is still some difference between the parties overall though - for example the Democrats are a lot better for women and the LQBTQ community (that's not saying much, admittedly). They're also less aggressively racist, though still pretty bad.

[Arshad Ali]

There is still some difference between the parties overall though - for example the Democrats are a lot better for women and the LQBTQ community (that's not saying much, admittedly). They're also less aggressively racist, though still pretty bad.

True -- on identity politics (race, gender, sexuality) the Dems throw out a few bones. On military, foreign, and economic policy, they march almost in lockstep with the Repubs. Mind you, I'm not sure there's that much difference in the UK between Labour and the Tories. Which may explain the record low turnout in 2010: all three main parties were offering the same prescription of austerity.

[John McKenna]

Not sure what the Libdems were saying in early 2010 about how to reduce the deficit. Can't quite recall who their spokesman was on the economy in the run-up to the Gen. Election - probably Vince Cable. However, there was a clear difference between Darling's plan and Osborne's - the former's was half the deficit in 5 years by a raising a third from taxes, a third from cuts and a third from growth. The latter's was to eliminate the deficit completely in the same time by cutting twice as fast, reducing taxes and praying for miracle growth at the same time...
The current coalition is doing the equivalent of burning everything combustible on a ship and will end up using the masts, deck and expendable parts of the hull to try to achieve their deadline of 2015. They even hope to win the next election but it will take a major miracle, one much greater than Phileas Fogg's (who also burned the boat but in fiction). Fogg travelled E-W and crossed the international dateline thereby gaining time but Osborne has set course in the wrong direction and the ship of state is already sinking. The looming dateline of the next budget is fast approaching and it could be his swan song - the only ray of hope in a dark sky on a storm-tossed sea. We could have done with a real coalition of all parties with an MP if we had to have one. As it is we've ended up with nightmare political monstrosity equivalent to Caliban and there's no Prospero or Ariel around to bring it to heel.
As for America - they'd have been better off with Ralph Nader or even Ross Perot instead of Dubya. He and his daddy's old buddies put that country where it is today - between the huge financial rock of its debt and the military hard place of Afghanistan. (Let's face it that benighted country is no Vietnam - backed by communist Russia and China but the US chose to support the wrong leaders yet again and alienated a sizeable portion of the Afghan population. Will they never learn?

[Matt Mackenzie]

Which may explain the record low turnout in 2010: all three main parties were offering the same prescription of austerity

Whilst I am hesitant to introduce a few facts to this no doubt therapuetic whingefest, turnout at the last GE was significantly higher than both 2001 and 2005.

[Arshad Ali]

Whilst I am hesitant to introduce a few facts to this no doubt therapuetic whingefest, turnout at the last GE was significantly higher than both 2001 and 2005.

Right you are.