Which scenario is more appealing/least terrifying to you?

Apparently, some people here are under the impression that a Kennedyesque knight in shining armor will emerge in 2008, one with long and broad coattails, who will use his majority in both houses to prosecute the crimes of the BFEE and resurrect the best parts of the New Deal, creating jobs and prosperity while protecting the civil rights of ALL Americans.

If you believe in this scenario like the Flanders kids believe in the baby Jesus, move on to another thread.

The history of our country over the last 60 years, and especially the last 25 years tells us we shouldn't expect anything remotely like that, especially considering population pressures, emerging economies, the slow demise of the labor movement, the corporate stranglehold on both parties, and the depletion of Earth's resources.

So which of these plausible scenarios is most appealing or least terrifying to you?

employees market and things will heat up again. If Dems start to tax the rich again and get out of Iraq.. the economy may recover.

Once they retire, they'll just send their positions overseas, or insource foreigners via H1B visas. It's getting to where no one wants to hire an American anymore.

to participate in the soon to be growing job market.. once the neocons get booted out with their strategy of targeted economic growth (stock market only)..jobs may be plenty. Still huge bills to pay. But if taxes are increased on the rich again.. it may be okay.

...without the repeal of NAFTA, CAFTA, FTAA, and strict rules and penalties for foreign outsourcing (forcing US workers to compete with third-world laborers). The last democratic president showed no interest in doing that. Why should we expect any different from the next?

remember those Jon Stewart charts? The ones where very few people have to support just a few less retirees? Well that means the job market is going to pick up.

But ignore demographics. Cause neocons know it is coming (just like they knew the Soviet Union was going to collapse and crime rate in New York would go down as the young became rarer and rarer ... the young comit most of the crimes). Because the GOP put on all the bells and whistles and claimed to have beat the Soviet Union and crime in NYCity.. all by themselves.

So ignore the demographics to come. When 50 Million Americans retire.. don't expect the job situation to improve.. and when it does.. from 2009 to 2014 dramatically... you can let * take credit for it. There will be inflation. And there will be jobs. Why else do you think there are such things as "guest worker bills"? Immigrants don't take your job.. but guest workers will when they are from an endless supply (try 1 Billion vs. 20 Million) and they will keep wages down. Guest worker bill is another favour to big business. Cause they will have to increase wages once the boomers retire.

Cause it will happen. I'm not saying they will be high paying jobs in factories. Likely high paying jobs in tiertiary sector.

In places like Canada it is already happening. Our IT unemployment rate is 1.6% or some such thing.

would you be in favor of people's misery?

Bryant
Check it out --> http://politicalcomment.blogspot.com

if the house and senate both turn around, plus stopping this uncalled for war would save even more. Then there are those tax cuts for the rich which would give back needed dollars.

and the founding of a truely just society.

Millions were living in misery under Clinton. Millions more are in misery now. My question is which is worse, for things to continue to get slowly, inexorably worse for working people as they have for the last 25 years, or for things to get suddenly much worse, in such a noticeable way that the people stand up and fight back against the corporations and government that has been systematically crushing them for decades. It apparently takes a great deal for the people to demand change. Unemployment was officially at 11% in 1982, but the people still re-elected Reagan in a landslide in '84.

I realize that things have gotten much much better for the upper classes over this period, but I couldn't care less about these people. They have acted in a consistently traitorous fashion, most notably in the corporate boardrooms and shareholder meetings.

And it's not about "my political ambitions" - I have none. I left the states because I think it's beyond salvage at this point, from the standpoint of a working person. SIlly me, I like to see a doctor and a dentist every now and then. The question is, which of these scenarios have more potential of eventually alleviating that misery through real change.

Since the Great Society, the democrats have decided to no longer be a proponent of change, but rather to settle for holding back or slowing the republican destruction of the commons and our public institutions when they have the numbers to do so, and colluding with them on unconscionable projects like the Iraq war in the name of expediency when they don't have the numbers.


I'm not trying to be grim or defeatist. I'm trying to be realistic, judging from what I've seen unfold since I became politically aware in the early 80's. Having a democrat president and a democrat congress is clearly no guarantee of progress, or even of an end to GOP-style attacks on America. When Clinton was elected, his theme was "Don't stop thinkin' about tomorrow", because he apparently didn't want working people to dare think about insisting on decent wages or single-payer health care. Instead we got unpaid family leave, a half-hearted attempt at a for-profit health care plan that would have been a massive giveaway to the health care industry had it passed, a kick in the teeth for poor single moms called "welfare reform", and a promise to destroy more and more good-paying jobs via NAFTA.

I wish I could believe in the Kennedyesque white knight scenario, but as they say, doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result is the definition of insanity.