You don't open the door to have a "discussion".
You open the door to beat them down with a baseball bat.

Plouffe, Durban, etc...need to understand that the wolves at the door are the private sector vulture corporatists and banksters disguised as the mainstream media and the Republican Party dying to feast on our safety nets.


---

It seems to me that we the working-class have already lost this frame and I am mad as hell.
The fact that Medicare, Medicaid, and especially Social Security are even in the "fiscal cliff" discussions shows to me that the corporatists have the upper-hand here. These corporatists and banksters have been trying for years to insert their privatization tentacles deeper and deeper into our public safety nets and they are succeeding.

Oh how I wish the Democratic Party, for once, had some unity and some testicular fortitude to tell the Republican party to go 'F' themselves. That they would tell the mainstream media that the people have spoken and elections do have consequences. That when it comes to the "Big Three"...OH HELL NO YOU CAN'T!!!!

Instead we have Democrats like White House senior advisor David Plouffe neutering our bargaining position even before we get started. With people like Rahm and David do we need any enemies?

I am with Senator Bernie Sanders (I-VT).
He is a fighter for us.


--

MORE ABOUT THIS BEAST:
http://truth-out.org/news/item/12857-the-trans-pacific-partnership-this-is-what-corporate-governance-looks-like


---

We need to push our President like holy hell to oppose these monsters.


---

Say the Senate filibuster is removed.

Then let's say the Congress and the President agree to raising the eligibility ages or other bullshit cuts to the big three (SSI, Medicare, Medicaid) instead of enhancing them via revenue increases like lifting the caps.

What tools would say a Bernie Sanders or an Elizabeth Warren have at their disposal, in the Senate, to stop the cuts?


--

In my view a person's political intelligence can be measured very easily by how quickly they move from belief-based thought to knowledge-based thought. Or whether or not they move at all.

Those limiting their knowledge intake to rw talk radio and TV (CNN FOX) are going to have to peel back layers of false premises and false realities.

Let the peeling begin!


---

...to political discourse in the USA can be overstated. The damage is severe since losing the fairness doctrine especially.

People actually believe Rush and FOX "News".

I am 56 years old and remember the dread kids had in high school when they found out we had to take American History and Civics classes to graduate. This lack of interest in basic governmental structure and function coupled with an overreliance on TV and radio as the two main sources for information have seriously torn our country in half in my opinion.

A few of us developed our critical thinking skills by not going along with, and resisting the best we could, this charade of deception however many people I fear would prefer authoritarianism. A king if you will. Someone along the lines of a Hitler type figure.

Critical thinking takes constant vigilance to maintain. It's not easy. It takes work and correction and the willing to admit when our thinking and feelings are uninformed and misplaced. It is tough on the ego and dare I say most people's pride will not let them go too deep in those realms because it's too painful for one's sense of self righteousness and the comfort that affords.

I fear a vast swath of the population takes the easy way out. The lazy way out. The way that lays back mentally and allows the mind to be filled with the garbage that flows over the mainstream airwaves. The sad part is that after this crap is ingested it is processed and then spewed out as if it is somehow now an original thought, an original feeling, as if the lazy willing victim came up with it on their own.

If I had better writing skills I could convey this even stronger but it all boils down to...when will we wake up?

--