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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsOrcs v. Goblins: Crazed Republicans Turn on Each Other in Ugly Fiscal Cliff Battle
http://www.alternet.org/economy/orcs-v-goblins-crazed-republicans-turn-each-other-ugly-fiscal-cliff-battle***SNIP
Goblins v. Orcs
The Republican Party, particularly in the House of Representatives, is so blinded by greed and stupidity that factions are turning on each other.
One group, lets call them the goblins, is just plain greedy, but not completely crazy. These are the folks who favored Mitt Romney for president and simply want to continue shovelling money toward the one percent as they have been doing very successfully for the past three decades. They are willing to make a deal because they know that any deal, particularly one that will shred the social safety net with cuts like those Obama has proposed to make to Social Security (the widely condemned chained CPI adjustment), will work out very nicely to their advantage. They are thrilled that instead of focusing on the jobs crisis, the country has been railroaded into premature deficit-reduction deals that serve as a cover for conservative wealth redistribution schemes. They also know that many Americans are catching on to their scam, and so they tend to rely on subterfuge and the appearance of moderation or centrism to get what they want, which is, in essence, more of your money.
President Obama is comfortable with goblins, and is often secretly thought to be one of them, as Bruce Barlett recently explained in the Fiscal Times. They like him okay, too.
Then there are the orcs. These are the lunatics who favored your Santorums, Gingrichs, Bachmanns, Herman Cains and so on -- the assorted nuts in the GOP who are willing to fight ideological warfare with the battle cry no taxes and the battering rams of bad math and Ayn Rand-style social theory to send the land into total chaos. It's not enough for them to cut Social Security at a time when the retirement of hard-working Americans has not been so vulnerable since before the Great Depression. These monstrous right-wingers would rather see every Americans taxes rise than increase taxes on a single millionaire by a nickel. The orcs have got the upper hand in the House and it is they who have blocked a deal on the fiscal cliff. They were last seen dancing around a bonfire made from Econ 101 textbooks and an effigy of John Boehner.
Selatius
(20,441 posts)The problem is they're still right wingers.
Sure, they may be center-right, and I generally view Obama's economic policies as center-right in nature, especially given the limitations imposed by the House and Senate, but when you have center-rightists competing with leftists in one party, you're going to have a party that has a difficult time coming to any consensus that isn't outside of center-right.
For example, even if the left had an opportunity to pass a Public Option through the Senate and to President Obama, they would've needed well over 60 votes in favor of the bill, not just 60. If it were just 60, the right wingers in the Democratic caucus at the time would've insisted on watered-down language or even opposed the inclusion of the Public Option at all. As it stands, the Public Option had to be deleted in the Senate or risk the defection of Senate members such as one or both Nelsons, Lieberman, Baucus, and McCaskill.
To get a robust Public Option through the Senate likely would've required the numbers of Democrats found in the Senate under LBJ or even FDR himself. The collapse of the New Deal Democratic Coalition is still being felt to this day.
Trajan
(19,089 posts)and he is not - He would strike a deal with the bulk of the Democrats and enough moderate republicans to move forward on a deal ...
Leave the Tea Party caucus, and his speakership, in the dust ....
That would be the most honorable way forward ....
quaker bill
(8,224 posts)Of an interesting fight that I hope neither side wins, at least not yet. They need to just keep swinging and axes and cudgels for a while.
While I am no fan of chained CPI, calling something that might reduce the annual benefit increase (COLA) by 0.3% a year "shredding the social safety net" is a bit over the top.
I look forward to collecting these benefits fairly soon and don't think the benefit growth rate should be cut, but it is not "shredding" the safety net to do so. It is closer to "unfortunately trimming" than it is "shredding".
hobbit709
(41,694 posts)As a friend of mine said-that's good for about two taco dinners a month.
quaker bill
(8,224 posts)It would go up $13.50 a month instead. Not a great thing, but hardly the destruction of SSI.
daleanime
(17,796 posts)it's unnecessary. Oil companies would continue to get millions of tax dollars on top of record profits while struggling seniors would choose between heat, food, or medication.
TahitiNut
(71,611 posts)Any change to Social Security that allows the advocates of that change walk away and avoid seeing the victims that change, no matter how many, is palatable to the blind. The specious posture that Social Security "was never intended to be a retirement system" ignores the wholesale destruction of employee pensions and all 'traditional' forms of retirement.
Quibbling over the rhetoric of "shredding" vs. "trimming" is akin to claiming that the victims of Sandy Hook died of "heart failure" ... since their hearts failed to continue functioning after the invasion of .223 caliber slugs. It's the stance of a butcher to call it "trimming."
quaker bill
(8,224 posts)The benefit remains and actually continues to increase. I am not a fan of this at all, but some manner of putting it in perspective would be useful and more accurate than "shredding". Analogies to gun slaughter are over the top, and don't match the facts well at all.
Again, I am going to be collecting these benefits fairly soon, so I am no fan of their reduction.
grahamhgreen
(15,741 posts)are against it.
Just remember, if you dont fight the goblins, they eat you!
RBInMaine
(13,570 posts)I do agree with much of what you say about the R's, but attacking Obama and centrism is wrong, hyperbolic, and wreaks of purist nonreality.
One could also look at some progressives and note how ultra liberal and intransigent THEY are and acccurately label them as the TeaLeftist Party. These are the ones who will equate Obama and many Dems with the Republicans, will stay home and not vote (as so many did in 2010) as a "protest" about lack of purity, and then whine bitch cry and moan even louder when Obama and Dems are stuck having to find way to compromise with Republicans as is REQUIRED in order to actually govern. It was these "progressives", at least way too many of them, who ALLOWED the ReSCUMs to take over the House and take over so many state houses at the state level in 2010. As Pete Seeger wrote, WHEN WILL THEY EVER LEARN?
sendero
(28,552 posts)..... pu·ri·ty noun \ˈpyu̇r-ə-tē\ - expecting someone to do what they SAID they would do
Apparently an impossible standard for any politician and anyone who doesn't like it is a "whiner".
NewJeffCT
(56,828 posts)They don't like him okay. I think Boehner and the few other goblins might deign to work with Obama, but they don't like him.
riqster
(13,986 posts)Most Americans are some flavor of Center. And the majority rules.
Bandit
(21,475 posts)Current Right wing ideas would have been considered quite Extreme in 1975. Extreme Right Wing ideas become Normal while Normal Left wing ideas become extreme and we call that the Center
riqster
(13,986 posts)But we still live in the here and now and must acknowledge the current paradigm.
ThoughtCriminal
(14,047 posts)Send in Bob... from accounting.
Looks like this round goes to the orc!
gulliver
(13,186 posts)No adult over the age of 17 may read this article except when accompanied by a child.