Where is the Mandatory Oil Slick Insurance?

Regarding the peasants losing their fishing businesses and jobs, why didn't Oilbomba get a mandatory oil slick insurance law passed by now so that these losers would not be leeching off BP and off the public dole after they lose their fishing businesses and jobs. These fishermen are irresponsible for not having bought oil slick insurance from a bailed out mega corporation, and/or Oilbomba is irresponsible for not making this a requirement already, as he did with the health insurance.

If this sounds funny to you, forgive me; I'm only trying to look at this in the way that Oilbomba looks at it: there is a solution to be found for every problem from the very well off executives and engineers of huge, bailed out mega corporations. According to Oilbomba, they have all the answers simply because in general people who have almost all of the money must have all the answers.

The above was in response to this article at Common Dreams.
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A Depression Doesn't Magically Turn Around in a Couple of Years

The US far right economy has failed yet the arrogant, mega wealthy elites refuse to recognize this, thus their pretending that a recovery exists. Specifically, the 2.7 percent growth rate of the first quarter, about one third of what is needed were there an actual recovery, and the trivial job gains reveal that the "recovery" is nothing more than propaganda and fantasy. Not to mention that even the 2.7 percent is mostly in sectors (especially finance and health care) where a majority of the players are extremely high income and very wealthy elites who technically don't need a job to survive. Meanwhile, those who have to have a job to survive work in sectors many of which have not yet seen even a mini recovery, sectors such as construction and education.

Some things never change. The rich are still getting richer and the poor are still getting poorer despite the changed economic circumstances from a few years ago to today. This process is seemingly all that really matters in the States anymore. As long as many of the rich are getting richer and regardless of how many tens of millions are getting poorer, the US economy is considered to be a success by the powers that be.

Many elites have conveniently forgotten that there have always been (for many hundreds of years at least) small and ultimately insignificant mini "recoveries" within overall depressions. Depressions simply don't magically reverse themselves after a year or two; they end only when sufficiently large scale counter forces are brought to bear. Things have to change on a scale commensurate with the scale of the depression or it will most likely both in theory and in fact never end the way American recessions used to end for about fifty years after World War 2. Instead, the depression will evolve into stagnation and it will be at least a decade, more likely many decades, and very possibly never before the economy gets back to where it was before the depression started in terms of income opportunities (jobs and business opportunities) available for the masses of unemployed.

Check any number of third world countries for further details about how big economic downturns are not automatically followed by strong recoveries. Roughly but accurately speaking, third world countries are essentially countries that are permanently depressed.

When Paul Krugman pointed out that Obama's stimulus was not going to be sufficient, he was of course exactly correct.

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Hoover 2.0 and Naive, Ivory Tower Partisan Hacks

The following guest comment and Unity-Progress comment were in response to this article at Common Dreams.

Note that most of the title of this posting is thanks to Briggs Seekins, not to the author of Unity Progress. I could not resist installing the phrase "naive, ivory tower partisan hacks" in the title. For one thing, this insures I will enjoy rereading this years from now. Hoover 2.0 is mine.

Guest Comment:

Briggs Seekins May 29th, 2010 9:37 am
"Crises are opportunities. He has consistently missed them. Today was a grand opportunity to pull together the threads - BP and the spill, Massey and the mine disaster, Wall Street and the economic disaster, Anthem BlueCross and health care,"

Lakoff's POLTICAL MIND was one of the most useful books I read last year. Theoretically, he is brilliant. Too bad that in the real world, he is merely a naive, ivory tower partisan hack.

His idea of the moral narrative is an important concept for the radical left to grasp. The thing is, we already do grasp it. We have been framing the moral narrative for years--those of us who are old enough were doing it back during the Clinton years and beyond. It is easy for US to make that narrative--we are the ones that the corporate privateers, the banksters, the energy company thugs, are viciously exploiting and threatening EVERY DAY. We understand the morality because we live with its twisted consequences.

Obama lives with the privileges of that twisted morality. He got elected with there money. He works for them. He isn't going to start presenting a moral narrative that indicts his own bosses.

Lakoff is clearly hopelessly naive--he just doesn't get it. The Federal Government is owned by the corporate overlords. Nobody gets to an important position without their consent.

Many of us were naive enough early on to think possibly Obama could be different--that we could push him and force him to break ranks. But it was very obvious from the earliest appointments he made that it was not going to happen. He is merely Clinton 2.0. The real moral narrative needs to drum home to Americans just how thoroughly Obama and the democrat party stand on the side of our exploiters.

Briggs Seekins
briggsseekins.wordpress.com

Unity Progress Response:
"Theoretically, he is brilliant. Too bad that in the real world, he is merely a naive, ivory tower partisan hack."

Laugh out loud, and I am afraid you can say this about the vast majority of popular political and economics writers who might and sometimes do make the New York Times bestseller list. Naive, ivory tower partisan hacks are popular it seems.

"He is merely Clinton 2.0."

Or "Hoover 2.0: Hoover on Steroids: ..." because Obama skipped Hoover's "the end of the depression is just around the corner" riff and with no justification went straight to "the depression is over" riff.

Unfortunately for Obama and everyone else who thinks the depression (or if you insist the great recession) is over, there are always ebbs and flows within depressions, and a depression is not over until the flowing vastly exceeds the ebbing.

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Obama's Republican Proclivities

Everyone needs to face facts: Obama's economics outlook is Hoover on steroids, his "anti-terrorism" outlook is George W Bush on steroids and most of his other outlooks including his outlook on public education are Reagan on steroids. But unlike those three former Presidents who didn't try to confuse people about who they were, Mr. Obama is a complete fraud.

The above was written in response to this article at Common Dreams.

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The Big Ones: 20 Billion Dollars and up Bankruptcies in the US: Is BP Next?

DON'T YOU DARE MISS THE WONDERFUL NEW FEATURE NICKNAMED THE "WHERE IN THE HELL HAS TREMAINE BEEN LATELY?"
Look around and you will find it right on this page. Better yet, visit the page dedicated in full to the great new feature.
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Liberals Versus Socialists

Editorial Note: As anyone checking this site can tell, Unity-Progress has been since 2010 began experimenting with changes and making some changes in the general and specific editorial parameters of this site. Through the end of 2009, we had one and only one type of post: a response to an article on Common Dreams. If we were responding to someone else's comment or if someone made a comment on our comment, we would usually include those other comments.

Today Unity-Progress produces articles that are not directly tied to specific articles at Common Dreams or anywhere else.

And even when we do post a short writing in response to a Common Dreams article, we will seldom post comments of a third party anymore. But on the other hand, if we see a comment at Common Dreams that is so good that it is better than most of the main articles at Common Dreams, we might post the comment on its own. Here is the first ever example of that type of posting. So what follows is a Common Dreams comment that is as good or better than the articles there. Remember, I am not trying to gain credit for this great piece; the following great item is NOT written by the author of Unity-Progress (me).

mcoyote June 20th, 2010 9:19 pm
Both liberals and socialists empathize with the suffering of society's weaker members, and are sensitive to "man's inhumanity to man." However, the liberal is basically at peace with the socioeconomic system that produces this suffering, while the socialist recognizes that the system itself is the core cause of the suffering.

A liberal might get upset by militarism, but happily invests in Martin Marietta Corp, and rejoices when it increases its dividend. Liberals are also often susceptible to nationalist propaganda appeals, & thus can easily be persuaded to support wars like the NATO war in Kosovo, simply because it was cleverly marketed as a "humanitarian intervention." A socialist would never fall for this sort of ploy.

A liberal might be properly horrified by pollution, waste, hyper commercialism, and many of the ills of modern society, but pays little conscious attention to the underlying issue of capitalism which allows such things to dominate our lives. A liberal will vote for Democrats, despite the obvious fact that these contemptible worms are nothing but bought servants of corporate monopolies or oligopolies. The liberal sleeps easily, figuring, "Well, at least the Dems are better than the Repubs" as though this really implies some sort of resistance to rampant capitalism.

Basically, the liberal tut-tuts disapprovingly at some of the blatantly horrible end-effects of policies, politicians, and economic philosophies that, for the most part, he accepts. A socialist, on the other hand, is conscious of where the roots of these disasters lie....

Now is a good time to cue up some Phil Ochs:

I cried when they shot Medgar Evers
Tears ran down my spine
I cried when they shot Mr. Kennedy
As though I'd lost a father of mine
But Malcolm X got what was coming
He got what he asked for this time
So love me, love me, love me, I'm a liberal

I go to civil rights rallies
And I put down the old D.A.R.
I love Harry and Sidney and Sammy
I hope every colored boy becomes a star
But don't talk about revolution
That's going a little bit too far
So love me, love me, love me, I'm a liberal

I cheered when Humphrey was chosen
My faith in the system restored
I'm glad the commies were thrown out
of the A.F.L. C.I.O. board
I love Puerto Ricans and Negros
as long as they don't move next door
So love me, love me, love me, I'm a liberal

The people of old Mississippi
Should all hang their heads in shame
I can't understand how their minds work
What's the matter don't they watch Les Crain?
But if you ask me to bus my children
I hope the cops take down your name
So love me, love me, love me, I'm a liberal

I read New republic and Nation
I've learned to take every view
You know, I've memorized Lerner and Golden
I feel like I'm almost a Jew
But when it comes to times like Korea
There's no one more red, white and blue
So love me, love me, love me, I'm a liberal

I vote for the democratic party
They want the U.N. to be strong
I go to all the Pete Seeger concerts
He sure gets me singing those songs
I'll send all the money you ask for
But don't ask me to come on along
So love me, love me, love me, I'm a liberal

Once I was young and impulsive
I wore every conceivable pin
Even went to the socialist meetings
Learned all the old union hymns
But I've grown older and wiser
And that's why I'm turning you in
So love me, love me, love me, I'm a liberal
======

"By the way, I would reach out to the first George Bush. You know, one of the things that I think George H.W. Bush doesn't get enough credit for was his foreign policy team and the way that he helped negotiate the end of the Cold War and prosecuted the Gulf War. That cost us 20 billion dollars. That's all it cost. It was extremely successful. I think there were a lot of very wise people. So I want a bipartisan team that can help to provide me good advice and counsel when I'm president of the United States."

- Barack Obama on LARRY KING LIVE: March 20, 2008

There it is.

Obama lauding the way GHW Bush "prosecuted" the Iraq War. Remember that? Incredible huh? Not at all. Birds of a feather.

Who is Obama? In a word, he's a company man.

Obama would never have risen so quickly and remarkably to his current position of national prominence and chief errand boy for Empire if he was anything like the egalitarian and democratic “progressive” that liberals imagined. In the corporate-crafted and money-dominated swamp that passes for “representative democracy” in the U.S., concentrated economic and imperial power open and close doors in ways that preemptively suffocate populist potential. Big money is not in the business of promoting genuine social justice or democracy activists.

Liberal thy name is hypocrisy. What's new?

Unity Progress Response:
Wow, just when I was calling liberals (establishment progressives in my terminology) wusses you explained why they are wusses in great detail and very nicely indeed.

The above is from the comments to this article.

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Establishment Progressives Versus Real Progressives

The only time the establishment "progressives" don't seem to be (and are not actually) hapless and politically meaningless wusses is when a far right Republican is in office. At least then they demand a few real changes that are favored by more than half the population. Those changes never happen, of course, but at least they are demanded which is more than happens these days. The establishment "progressives", pathetically and ironically, stopped demanding changes after the "Change is Coming to America Guy" was inaugurated. And there have been no changes from Bush other than trivial ones and for the worse ones.

Laugh out loud at how far to the right this Big Dog and Pony Show is.

While at this forum (Common Dreams) most of us know the multimillionaires running corporations are really in charge, many of the clueless establishment "progressives" think that Oilbomba has some real power over the domestic economy in general and over corporations in particular, so when those faux progressives don't get upset with and don't demand change from their guy Mr. Obama they can be laughed at and derided fairly. Whereas many of us here know that Obama is largely powerless so it isn't logical for us to be demanding things from him.

This was in response to this article at Common Dreams.

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