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Tuesday, October 26, 2010

Why is Political Discussion So Nasty?

Because there is absolutely no desire to discuss substantive issues.


If you do not discuss matters of weight and substance, how does one fill in the air time that unnamed billionaires have paid for?

Republicans have committed themselves to balancing the budget. They also say they won't touch Defense and Mandatory Spending: Social Security, Veterans' Benefits, Medicare...etc. So they are left with Other Discretionary Spending which itself constitutes just over 15% of the budget.

It would be reasonable to assume they won't suspend all this 15% of spending, so we may guess right now that 7 to 8% is in their sights. Since they won't always be successful, we may again guess 3 to 4% may be impacted.
3 to 4% won't do it; they know it; every one knows it, but it would be suicide to talk about it in front of us.
Two more years of degradation and stagnation.

3 comments:

Unknown said...

Of course, you're right, but I think you're optimistic. If degradation and stagnation are all we have coming, then that's not too bad. What I fear is the overt beginnings of the fascist state that we are becoming. All the crazies have to do is discover for themselves a demagogue front man, and we have had it. That demagogue is somewhere out there. He just has not surfaced yet.

Montag said...

The Fascist State is already here. I mentioned that Elia Kazan spelled it out in New Beatty's monologue in "Network".
It is surprising if you go back and see and listen to that speech.

It sounds like we are sitting around waiting for Huey Long. But Huey was not a bit like the people we have nowadays.

There won't be a demagogue, just the plutocracy and the military. They'll have a front-man and mouth-piece... like the Burmese Generals, and that'll be it.

Montag said...

Well, since it's already here, it looks just like it is now! A good fascist state needs some racial hatred... check;
it needs wars... check; it needs a Homeland police force... check...