Is there political instability in America?

I saw no mention of the 8 Bush years, run by the megalomaniac Dick Cheney, and the political machinations of the demon spawn Karl Rove. That’s enough to destabilize any government. Add a shrill, uncooperative right wing, and a new recrudescence of nativist populism in the form of the Tea-Baggers, and viola.

Is there political stability in any country?
Doesn’t Party Politics depend on “instability”?

(Mr Friedman seems surprised that Mr Obama doesn’t have the powers of Mr Gandalf.)

In a word, No. There is no evidence of popular unrest; or of people taking to the streets in protest, riot, or revolt; and the government is in no danger of undergoing any sudden regime change (outside the normal electoral process);, and there is no danger of the government undergoing any significant change in its political institutions.

We are undergoing a period of economic instability; but even though people are more open to ideas outside of the mainstream during a crisis, they are by no means ready for revolution or anything like it. As for the teabaggers, these are mainly older white folks who are used to being the dominant group in society, and who are having trouble coming to terms that they are about to become a minority. Their angst is more or less bought and paid for by Fox News, health care lobbyists, and other corporate interests.

They are calling the legitimacy of the current political system into question, but their critique is incoherent and since they have not articulated any coherent program, it is unlikely that they will get much in the way of support from other groups in the society. So, in this respect, they are protesters blowing off steam rather than an actual social movement being manipulated and led around by political consultants with various conflicting agendas.

Zen, did you watch the meeting between President Obama and the Republicans a few nights ago? Wow, talking about “putting your cards on the table,” President Obama did that. The Repubicans, as we all know, have been the “party of no,” and President Obama urged them to tone down their political rhetoric. For example, he said, “when I hear comments like, “President Obama is a Socialist, Marxist, dictator, etc., that really close any door for negotiations.” (paraphrased) The President said, “my side is gulity also!” Thought the President did an excellent job of explaining that until both sides can work together, the American people will be the loser.

Hopefully, that meeting will help bring some unity to our leaders. Well overdue!

Here is a link to what @BoBo1946 is talking about.
http://www.c-spanarchives.org/program/ID/218836

This is the money shot.
“I mean, the fact of the matter is, is that many of you, if you voted with the administration on something, are politically vulnerable in your own base, in your own party. You’ve given yourselves very little room to work in a bipartisan fashion because what you’ve been telling your constituents is, this guy is doing all kinds of crazy stuff that’s going to destroy America.”

@johnpowell Thank you John! Hey guys, if you have not watched this, it is well worth your time to see!

Amen.. @BoBo1946 :: The video is amazing and everyone should watch it.

And note that Republicans admitted that they regret allowing cameras in. And Fox news cut off 20 minutes early. That was around the time Obama said, “fuck being nice.” and started kicking even more ass.

This was almost as good as Colbert roasting Bush.

@johnpowell loll..that might have been the best meeting ever between a sitting President and members of the opposing party. President Obama was much like my old coach, he could “kick our ass” and make us like it!

The only thing that is stable is the instability.

@dpworkin

So let me see if I have this straight: only Republicans are evil?
What, exactly, is your problem with “tea-baggers?”

Those people weren’t Republicans. I have a great deal of respect for Republicans.

Hmmm. So one is not a Republican until you have so defined him/her?

Bye-bye Captain. Enjoy your day!

Obama is looking more like Jimmy Carter by the day. Some of hid State of the Union comments came very close to Jimmy’s “National Malaise” speech. The US is not politically unstable, this is the classic pattern of the out-of-power party being obstructionist. The Republicans are hoping that the electorate will deliver a major rebuke to the administration in November. It may very well happen, but not for the reasons they will claim.

Inaction and wrong action tends to bring out voters who cast their ballots negatively. Vote against all incumbents. Unfortunately the Republican Party offers no constructive alternatives. Their battle-cry is “smaller government”, but that is what created the financial meltdown. Lack of proper financial oversight and what oversight there was being blindfolded and hancuffed.

The “Beijing Model” has certain advantages in limited areas. Energy policy and reining-in the power of large corporate interests should not be dependent on election cycles. But how can we achieve this within constitutional limits. 100% government financing of federal-level elections would be a good start; but who bells the cat?

We are approaching a point in our history where a party has become irrelevant. In this case the Republicans. The Whig Party collapsed in the 1850s, leading to the rise of the Republican Party as a reform alternative. It may be time now to leave the Elephant to big business and religious fanatics. Perhaps it’s time to uncase T.R.‘s Bull Moose banner. Public where public belongs, private where private belongs. No organizational money accepted, only private individuals and no more than $100 per candidate. Use T.R.‘s vigorous image. A bit retro, but the “robber-barons” are alive and well.

We may have to trash some aspects of globalization. The health-care, financial and energy/transportation sectors are broken and require sweeping radical changes. We are not the worlds policeman. Corporate interests can either get with the program or be shoved aside by government corporations. A new paradigm; the bigger you get, the more regulated you become.

@CaptainHarley loll…well said!

Until we all leave our cushy houses and riot in the street the U.S. will have a stable government. That will never happen.

@tinyfaery Until an economic collapse forces enough of the former middle class out of their cushy houses. Then there will be fundamental changes or “burn, baby, burn”.

It seems there are limitations to how Barack Obama can rule the country.

What Friedman doesn’t get is that we have largely established the Beijing model in our own country. The Powers That Be got basically what they wanted out of Clinton and Bush 43, so gridlock now is acceptable to them.

It seems that everyone I know is either a recovering republican or hate the republicans. Of course they hate the democrats too. The ironic thing is that both parties and the Supreme Court are now on the hate list. It seems strange that the strict division in congress has actually moved the citizens closer together. We are all are now in the same boat. 47000 people will die because the lake of adequate health care, the supreme court has removed the last restraints on the corporate takeover of the U.S. and neither party lives up to any principle other than ensuring their own seat.

I don’t know whether the democrats or republicans will prevail in the next election cycle but can almost bet that the incumbents will lose big. 2008 was probably the last relatively free election. The next time will be a corporate take-over..

There may be a revolution when the right learns that they have as much to lose as the left. I expect us revolutionaries to be creamed by the corporate military and police. That is the only place, other than banks, where real economic stimulus is happening.

Thought provoking maybe but all the sugar coating he can muster even Mr. Friedman has lost sight of how far left Obama was and how the drubbing the Dem took in Massachusetts on their own turf was not some political sneak attack by the Republicans who could not have stolen the election even if they each voted twice. Scott Brown being elected was a huge wake up call to Obama and all the Dems that partisan politics will no longer be tolerated by Reps, Independents and even Dems.

Obama and his leftist policies have all but guaranteed that the rest of the world will laugh and turn their back on us to fight and bicker over failed polices while they broker their own trade agreements that will leave America on the outside looking is as the US dollar becomes a worthless as a wooden nickle.

@Cruiser “Obama and his leftist policies have all but guaranteed that the rest of the world will laugh…”

What planet are you from? Don’t you know that Obama would count as a right-of-center politician in any western European country, and a republican would be considered off-the-scale barking-mad right?

@Cruiser Obama didn’t lose favor in Mass. because his policies were leftist, he lost because he was too accommodating to the right.

Brown won because the people in Mass. already have universal health care and he never associated with the Republican party. You are correct in saying that the people in Mass., and the rest of the country are tired of the partisan politics. This is the first time I have ever heard the minority party articulate the deliberate blocking of legislation to discredit a president. They even reject their own ideas and contributions to assure that Obama loses. The other reason is that the Democratic party in Mass. is arrogant and needed to be taught a lesson. They assumed that any bum could win so that is who they nominated. She didn’t even particularly try to win. She got what she deserved.

Unfortunately, giving the democratic party a richly deserved spanking means that 47K people will die because they don’t have adequate health care and the insurance industry wins another round. The only losers are middle class Americans, of course we should be used to that. We have been loosing since Reagan was in office.

@Cruiser Yes, indeed, @hiphiphopflipflapflop is exactly right. In the real universe Obama is dead center, if not slightly right of center—not that he’s getting any credit for it from Republicans, who have moved so far to the Right that they are beginning to flirt with fascism, as evidenced by the Supreme Court’s Republican member’s recent decision to remove the final barriers to America becoming a full-on Corporate State.

Obama’s centrism was quite evident in his recent Question Time before the Republican Caucus. It is also evident in his removing “single payer” at the outset of health reform, and his lack of a vigorous defense of the public option thereafter. There is absolutely nothing leftist about this president, and he may well be forced to turn to the Left if the Right does not figure this out.

It is the disappointment with him on the Left that has resulted in low turnouts among the Democratic base, and that’s how Brown won—that, and one of the most lackluster candidates ever. The dissatisfaction that those of us on the Left have with Obama is that his policies don’t go far enough—but you won’t hear that from the Republican spinmeisters at Fox News.

Obama is a frakkin’ SOCIALIST and HARDLY right of center! OMG! You people need to get a GRIP!

@Zuma I’m placing him right of center as he’s got Summers and Geithner to chaperone him. ;)

@CaptainHarley what part of “in any western European country” do you not understand? For all the talk of socialism, he has proposed nothing remotely along the lines of what people in many other countries have recourse to in terms of health care.

The closest we came to social democracy was during FDR’s terms in office. The country quickly banked right, which is understandable given the onset of the Cold War. I think we still haven’t come close to shaking off the cultural legacy of this even though we “won” it almost twenty years ago.

@hiphiphopflipflapflop

The use of government money… OUR money… to “bail out” various industries and insisting on greater government control of said industries is almost the DEFINITION of socalism. And if the original proposal for nationalized health insurace isn’t a giant step toward socialism I don’t know what is. I have problems with both major parties, especially since both of them seem to think going deeply into debt is an acceptable practice for government. If there were a strong third party which believed in fiscal and monetary responsibility, believed that individual freedom still has a place in America, and backed draconian environmental laws, I would vote for them in a New York minute!

@stranger_in_a_strange_land, I’ve actually always wanted to run for president as a bull-moose.

@CaptainHarley ” to “bail out” various industries and insisting on greater government control of said industries is almost the DEFINITION of socialism”

No it isn’t. Holding debtor industries accountable to their creditor is the very definition of fiduciary responsibility. Do you think if the a private lender had “bailed out” GM or a bank it would let them do whatever they please? No, of course not. Would you lend large amounts of money with no strings attached? Nobody else does.

@Fiddle_Playing_Creole_Bastard You’ll get my vote if I live long enough. Alf Landon, Warren Rudman and Lowell Weicker are also good examples of what Republicans are supposed to be.

thanks, @stranger_in_a_strange_land. You know how my politics go… And I had to look up those gentlemen you listed, but I agree about them. They’d probably have my vote

@Zuma

Of course it is. “Socialism refers to… economic organization advocating public… ownership and administration of the means of production and allocation of resources…. ”

What we are seeing now is a giant step in that direction.

@CaptainHarley And what means of production do you see the government “owning”?

Yes, GM and Fannie Mae are technically owned, but these are more under temporary receivership than actual ownership, which would be permanent and involve active government management. The government has been very explicit that it has no intention of making management decisions for these companies, and the plan is to divest these once they can stand on their own and buy their stock back. Like any good receiver, they did demand the resignation of the CEO that drove the company into bankruptcy, but this is a far cry from a government “takeover” or a march toward “socialism.”

A company like Pemex, the Mexican national oil company, would fit the bill, but there is nothing like that in the U.S., nor is anything like that even being contemplated (even though it would actually be advantageous if power utilities were nationalized).

The health care bill, even under single payer, did not envision government ownership of the means of production. Your definition is correct, it just doesn’t fit the facts.

@CaptainHarley did you feel that way when Bush bailout the banks?

Were we not facing a depression?

Was there not a need for a strong stimulus to upstart our economy?

Do you think there is a great need to reduce the cost of health care? The Democrat had a plan on the table, but no plan from the Republicans until recently.

BTW, I’m an independent….voted for George Herman Bush both times, but never voted for GWB….

There’s now a short circuit inside the revolution in Venezuela, as it’s going through a grievous power electrical energy crisis but the so called revolution in Venezuela is also having difficulties to conceal it, while the government motto “to sitck to one’s hands” pretends not to understand, ignoring the problem. Frequent blackouts would reach even the farthest country geography, consequently affecting this country’s inhabitants.

There’s no getting around it: government officials don’t rule this country efficiently and again, back to the old tricks, as clerks won’t attend so frequently to their offices to work for the peoples’s welfare on the road to a fair progress and steady growth.

But wages these officers earn is justified by all the support they privide, if this is about to secure a president in power. Minister offices andi public administation clerks abandon their posts at offices just to attend to a parade, forced to assist to government campaign.

We would expect an outcome: the basic, elementary maintenance service at state runned companies is neglected, overlooked and careless by negligent officers as they are forced to wear red clothes men in red even humilliated assistance is checked at parades thus Venezuela won’t get out of control.

@BoBo1946 That’s George Herbert Walker, not George Herman…

I look at it as more like corporatism turning socialism on its head, than as socialism per se. As @BoBo1946 mentioned, TARP was launched by Paulson under Bush 43. The big banks pretty much own the politicians supposedly running the government anyway, and with technocrats like Paulson, Summers and Geithner drawn from their own ranks, why not treat the U.S. treasury as their own private bank?

@hiphiphopflipflapflop thanks….....officially giving you the “Jelly Helper Award!” You would be correct, did not vote for George “Herman Munster” Bush…but George Herbert Bush!!!! Please pardon my senior moment!