Man In The Black Sedan

Good fucking Orange Dog, I have had an endless series of disagreements with meteorological-americans, and I am still not convince that Obama is a Manchurian Social-security-Cutting Magic Negro.  Here:

First, Obama’s ACTUAL  stated position is not to cut SS benefits.

Second, gore-crows also predicted that he would take the first opportunity to fuck up Medicare.  And in the end, PPACA actually strengthened Medicare, extending its viability.

As another blogger has pointed out, the Presidency for all its attention, is not by itself an very powerful position.  In 2004, Dubya announced quite loudly that he was going to move SS to a private program, and that turned into a turd almost immediately.

So let’s take it as a given that Obama wants to cripple Social Security.  How does that putative desire become a reality?  In the face of an ostensibly Democratic Senate (and I would dispute that there are not nearly enough votes on the D side) and a House that is unwilling to allow ANY Democratic successes at any level.

Grand Bargain my ass.  There are four or five leverage points at which it will, inevitably be fucked.  But beyond that, I still have seen no actual, real and clear proof that Obama actually wants to fuck with Social Security other than raising the cap and some other finagling on the edges. One of the former bloggerhood usually comes back with some combination of “Obama created the [failed] Catfood commission” and “there are some vague Grand Bargain” blatherings  that we can point to.  But in the end, let’s rack up some numbers here:  Under Obama’s administration, the PPACA strengthened Medicare, not to mention enabling several million Americans to obtain forms of health care.

Look, I have issues with Obama on my own.  He bought into the surveillance state (established int he prior administration) and has been all too willing to wage unacknowledged violence with drones and surreptitious aggressiveness.  But I am also not foolish enough to think that those are something new.  It is easy to forget that that the carpet-bombing of Cambodia was also done without public knowledge.

America is fucked up by nearly any metric.  And almost all of those metrics were bought into by Our Congress.  Look, Feingold was the sole vote against the Surveillance state, and that worked out so well for him didn’t it?

The idea that any single Presidential candidate is supposed to encapsulate some kind of ideal has been a mockery at best; Although the Republicans have been propping up  Reagan’s corpse for so long that as a zombie I find it unseemly.

Voting sucks  Yeah, you are going to be faced with two horrible people.  But goddamit, at this point you should have figured a couple of things out..

One of those fuckers wants you to die.  For the most part, they are conveniently labeled “Republican”.

The other asshole is just as egregiously corporate-owned, military squeezebag that is using black budget crap to kill all kinds of people (for a change we are able to see it that we haven’t been able to) HOWEVER;

under the second asshole, the two stupid wars have been drastically scaled back; restrictions on gays have been rolled back; health insurance coverage has been radically expanded and the limitations of insurance providers has been restricted.

It’s not an ideal situation, by any accounting and it is not enough; but in every way it is far better than we can ever expect if the Party of teh Plutocrats ever get their hands on the levers again.