US Politics: A Primer

128px-Republicanlogo.svg_.png Elephant. GOP aka Grand Old Party. Republican Party. Red.
“Conservative”, ie. Neoconservative, Neoliberal, Pro War; leans reactionary
Represents the oligarchs, its donors and the donor class,
Often “corrupt” to the extent that the word has meaning in the US
The overtly conservative wing of the business party, supports extractive
industries
128px-Democratic_Disc.svg_.png Jackass. Democratic Party. Democratic Party INC. Blue.
“Liberal”, ie. Neoconservative, Neoliberal, Pro War; leans toward stasis
Represents the oligarchs, its donors and the donor class,
Often “corrupt” to the extent that the word has meaning in the US
The covertly static wing of the business party, supports finance, insurance, and
real estate industries.
Wildebeast.jpg Wildebeest. GNU, or Great Noxious Uniparty. Grey.
“Centrist” or “Bipartisan”, Neoconservative, Neoliberal, Pro War,
The governing coalition that runs the USA, the one ruling party of which the
above nominal parties are factions.
Represents the oligarchs, the MIC, the donors and the donor class.
Corrupt, but legally so via loopholes.

HOUSE – The House of Representatives. A legislative body in charge of enforcing austerity upon all but the military. Its members are apportioned among the states on the basis of population to give the illusion that the people have some sort of say in what the government does.

SENATE – The Senate is a legislative body tasked with maintaining minority rule. Its members are apportioned 2 per state, giving the least populous state as much clout as the most populace state.

PRESIDENT – The titular head of state, charged with administering such laws as the House and Senate see fit to pass or vetoing those which his masters tell him to. A critical part of the theatrics in that he too serves their masters.

CITIZENRY – Polite synonym for serfs or victims.

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This should be mandatory reading for the citizenry. Then maybe they will see the light.

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enhydra lutris's picture

@humphrey

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That, in its essence, is fascism--ownership of government by an individual, by a group, or by any other controlling private power. -- Franklin D. Roosevelt --

Shahryar's picture

Which is worse? A wolf or a wolf in sheep's clothing? They're both wolves.

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enhydra lutris's picture

@Shahryar

be well and have a good one

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That, in its essence, is fascism--ownership of government by an individual, by a group, or by any other controlling private power. -- Franklin D. Roosevelt --

phillybluesfan's picture

@Shahryar

The fragile ecosystem of Isle Royale National Park is dominated by the predator / prey relationship between wolves and moose. But on the biggest island in the biggest lake on Earth, things have unraveled. With wolves dwindling and moose booming, the National Park Service must decide how to manage these iconic species in a time when climate change threatens to undermine both.

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Few are guilty, but all are responsible.”
― Abraham Joshua Heschel, The Prophets

Shahryar's picture

@phillybluesfan

it's not really fair to wolves.

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zed2's picture

Although some countries are islands, like Japan, no economy is an island.If banks can just create their own money by making loans, and then get paid back real money from the public for it, that sems to be a huge temptation to them to just write more loans, get more digital payments, whatever. It my understanding that we currentky live under the Bretton Woods system and agreement, and its based on the mobility of capital. In a paper entitled "How Far Will International Economic
Integration Go?" (https://web.archive.org/web/20070610114237if_/http://www.econ.duke.edu/~...) Rodrik's Trilemma eplains why globalization and democracy are incompatible.
Its a concept which it seems went back several decades longer than many think (I first had it described to me in ths 90s) (see https://rodrik.typepad.com/dani_rodriks_weblog/2007/06/the-inescapable.html ) There the noted economist explains that we allegedly gave up democracy for the "golden straitjacket" high level of globalization we now live under as part of the bargain we accepted in Bretton Woods.. . It ensures that your millions in stocks and (in) securities wont suddenly, overnight become worthless, As was common in te past only until the Glass Steagall Act, which was reformed away due to a conflict with GATS. and that our government wont regulate so your pharma stocks are safe. It wont create jobs for the unemployed either, no matter how many are jobless. That would send people the wrong message. The government doesnt want to cushion the viciousness of the free market system. That would kill the huge profits.
The only new or re-regulation its allowed to do is deregulation, get rid of regulations. For example, it can eliminate wage regulations, or open markets to more competition. Governments sometimes need things done, (we call that jobs) its made certain commitment to make bidding for such jobs competitive.It's whats called a race to the bottom in wages and working conditions. We will no longer be a rich country, we'll become a third world country, and eligible for preferential terms on Rx drugs, drugs could become affordable, our government coiouold have a Green BNew Deal, we c services that are barredd to all the rich countries. Nomatter how many are dying from coronavirus. Beacuse as siciouldhave publisegun it before 1995. if we were an LDC, also we could hav publuihave affordable oublic healthcare I think if w had already begy, because thats more profitable. Otherwise we would have to maintain services like education and health services, which they now frame as impossible because we agreed to rules that simply dismantle all subsidies, unlesss we ae poor and destitute countries, Otherwise they would all want this special treatment. Rich peoplpe always figure out how to get thses special deals.
No subsidy, no prolem.

I write about their one way privatization by stealth a lot on my web site.

Energy subsidies (a moratorium on LNG export) has already been ended. This means millions may eventually have to leave their affordable rented homes in cities. The cost of natural gas and electricity will be deemed too high so older buildings will be deemed replaceable and "blight" dooming the most deirable, affordable neighborhoods to be rzed and the value stolen by the rich. Thats the way it works, there is a global epidemic of land and value grabbing going on. All enabled by the very rich. I did a little research and I have been amazed at how much IM FINDING. This is no joke. If you're not rich they want you out of the cities and its likely, the country. Because they aren't making any money on your sorry ass, that's for sure. And they know it. Because you don't have any. They want you to go and rich people from poor countries to take your place. Redevelopment. It looks a lot like Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Now dont you ll fall for the likes like those so called climate activists did. Its all a huge con game. It will go down in infamy as on of the most shameless scams ever, just like the WTO's GATS.

Block after block pf apartment buildings will be razed and knocked down. They will be replaced by new, expensive buildings that use other kinds of heat. They will sell (as condos) ior rent for three or four times of what most peasants under rent stabilization laws pay now.

Jobs will soon be vanishing at a rapid pace. Especially in services once considered quasi public. Due to GATS virtually nothing will remain a public service. Many of thoese jobs will be outsourced. Globalized.

It will be like a new Deal for the Least Equal nations. The poorest (and most profitable) countries of the world. Its expected that the most growth will emerge from Africa where the population is the youngest and likely, most amenable to spending money opn the high poit margin services that the global players want to sell them. Especially loans and micropayments. Youre never too young to be enslaved by debts.

A status called national treatment says we have to treat the firms of many other countries as if they were our own. This could lead to changes in (easily) half or more of the US job market that could lead to balance of payments problems. That is unless we can automate jobs so that our firms win the bids by being able to do huge jobs without our high priced workers. We've committed to otherwise, award those jobs to the lowest bidders. But the next two decades are going to se vast changes in the world of work, probably like the Industrial Revolution in England when labor saving technology was improving exponentially.

Read this, its very good. Look at the huge expected job losses in the coming years. Its expected that by 2045, unemployment will have become the normal state of affairs for most former Americans, (having been pushed out by their declining fortunes)

https://www.oxfordmartin.ox.ac.uk/downloads/academic/future-of-employmen...

I think the chance of the government giving good jobs to people who needed them is virtually nil. For one thing its now illegal. Politicians are lying to people. A lot. So they wont actually speak up while their jobs are being traded away. The fact that its happening will not be understood by them until uits too late. No longer resident in their former homes, having taken up residence elsewhere they will lose the right to vote.

(for what?) will run into the barrier that in many cases people are too late as the government has already promised many of those jobs away, especially if they can be done at competitive price by qualified but very cheap wokers willing to work for just a few dollars a day. Least Developed Nations firms. We dropped the ball by making education so expensive. You would almost think they planned for this to happen. Well, actually, they did, its clear as a bell. Thy left a huge paper trail that leads all the way back to Punta Del Este, Uruguay,15-20 September 1986

For more info, please read these links here:

Preferential market access for services and service suppliers
https://www.un.org/ldcportal/preferential-market-access-for-services-and...

English-LDC-Services Waiver-Offer For USA (2015)
https://docs.wto.org/dol2fe/Pages/SS/directdoc.aspx?filename=q:/S/C/N825...

Note that environmental goods and services were committed.

Creation of single global market for employment is what our government wants.If it gave the unemployed jobs as uit did during the new deal, that would prevent wages from falling during times of low employment, a windfall which the wealthy are very attached to and feel as if its their entitlement. They alwasys bring up that wages fall when jobs are scarce and parnts have to feed their children, somehow. The US when it joined the WRO generously agreed to involve itself in the econmies of the lowest wage (least equal ) nations by giving them the low skill jobs that they say Americans don't want to do. Or cant do, not having had enough children and then educated them.

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enhydra lutris's picture

@zed2

of Bretton-Woods on 8/15/1971, England soon followed and the whole scheme was dead by 1973. The US only respects and adheres to treaties and agreements for so long as we feel tht it serves our interests to do so.

be well and have a good one

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That, in its essence, is fascism--ownership of government by an individual, by a group, or by any other controlling private power. -- Franklin D. Roosevelt --

River Rover's picture

Mist is on the river downstream

a roaring sound

is getting

louder;

there’s

fast water

ahead - the

river is about to

go over a fall - maybe

four feet, maybe forty - cinch

your skirts and grip your paddles tight

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Rivers are horses - and kayaks are their saddles

enhydra lutris's picture

@River Rover

San Francisco Bay.

be well and have a good one.

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That, in its essence, is fascism--ownership of government by an individual, by a group, or by any other controlling private power. -- Franklin D. Roosevelt --

Cassiodorus's picture

One of the more important phenomena of most of the Obama administration was that, under it, representatives of both the Elephant and of the Donkey were able to provide some cover for their parties against the assertion that they were "a single uniparty." The main reason for the well-organized hatred of Ralph Nader among partisans of Donkey rule was that he attempted to expose the uniparty for what it was.

With Republicans in charge of Congress and the White House under control of a Democrat from the beginning of 2011 through 2016, however, the Republicans were able to distinguish themselves as members of a party opposed to Democratic rule. Thus was erected the public-relations scaffold known as "Republican obstructionism." Republican obstructionism had been a more effective tool of image management than what they had been doing before Obama.

The scaffold of Republican obstructionism had the intended effect. The 2012 election was an effective demonstration of this effect: a Wall Street Journal poll taken in July of 2012 revealed that most of those who had intended to vote for Mitt Romney for President did not care who he was as long as he was not Barack Obama, and it was revealed after the election that Barack Obama had won through effective use of anti-Romney propaganda in the swing states.

The facade of Elephant versus Donkey rivalry, having appeared so strongly under Obama after 2010, remained in motion from 2012 through April of 2020, when the passage of the CARES Act revealed the uniparty for what it was: a party that, when push came to shove, printed lots of money and gave it to rich people. Hundreds of thousands of people dying of COVID-19? The uniparty's primary concern: the profits of the super-rich. I have no idea if Trump's self-destructive campaign was able to re-establish the facade of party rivalry against what should have been obvious in the Spring of last year.

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"The war on Gaza, backed by the West, is a demonstration that the West is willing to cross all lines. That it will discard any nuance of humanity. That it is willing to commit genocide" -- Moon of Alabama

enhydra lutris's picture

@Cassiodorus

summarization of the CARES Act and its use as a demonstration of the GNU at work.

be well and have a good one

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That, in its essence, is fascism--ownership of government by an individual, by a group, or by any other controlling private power. -- Franklin D. Roosevelt --

Azazello's picture

@Cassiodorus @Cassiodorus
Republican obstructionism is still an important storyline for the uniparty.
Hence this repulsive creature:
[video:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wF4MYsfWQAw width:500 height:300]
Jackass partisans all over Arizona are up in arms. Polls say 67% of them want to see a primary challenger to Sinema in 2024. They do not understand. The Jackass Party needs the "filibuster" and Kyrsten is doing exactly what she has been instructed to do. The Jackass Party is posing as the Party of the People in the long con that is US politics. Every now and then they will find themselves in possession of the presidency and both houses of congress. They need a story for why they refuse to do jack shit for the people even though they control the whole government. Republican obstructionism is how they "cool the marks".
It worked like a charm for Obama, do they not remember ?

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We wanted decent healthcare, a living wage and free college.
The Democrats gave us Biden and war instead.

enhydra lutris's picture

@Azazello

designated obstructionists should all else fail.

be well and have a good one

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That, in its essence, is fascism--ownership of government by an individual, by a group, or by any other controlling private power. -- Franklin D. Roosevelt --