Tom Toles for September 09, 2011

The Reps want us to have no jobs

http://www.cnn.com/2011/OPINION/08/15/frum.perry.economy/index.htmlDavid Frum says Perry’s “successful” jobs record is his blessing and his curse. Yes, more jobs in raw numbers but most of those jobs are minimum wage and Texas has the 2nd highest poverty rate in the country

Here’s the complete text of the Republican jobs plan:

The GOP was against it before he even gave his speach

The Republicans have a jobs plan? Really? What is it?

What’s the plan troll? I bet you don’t even know what it is.

@s: You answered your own question " Could you explain “why Republicans want anyone to not have a job?” in your first post when you said repubs gotta block everything Mr. Obama does. That has been the reub strategy from the beginning. Yes, Mr. McConnell took an oath to serve his country in the Senate, but he has publicly stated his party’s intention to block Obama in order to win the presidency for repubs in 2012. Party is more important than the well being of our country?

If their “plan” is to stall the jobs until election time so Obama wont get reelected it may hit them so hard in the face when they realize they wont be able to get it back up even if they force fed it viagra.

Has anyone read “Death of the Liberal Class” by Chris Hedges? I’d be very interested to hear opinions by liberals and leftists, such as motive, or fennec, or DrC, or OmQ, or others of my old buddies, or from newer voices I know less well.

The Repub ‘jobs plan’s is nothing more than a tax-cut and slash-spending plan, crudely LABELED as ‘jobs plan’

And according to the CBO, it will have just the opposite effect.

( You may now feel free to bail off this thread and post that same line elswhere, Tiggy. )

The Republicans claim to have some jobs bills, but they’re all things like rolling back limits on mercury emissions at power plants. You know, those job killing regulations. Better to kill actual Americans, not their jobs. Perry claims that governments can’t create jobs even though his claim of job growth in Texas relies largely on government jobs that came from the now-expired stimulus plan that Obama pushed through. The end of the stimulus, and lack of a follow-up, explain the double-dip we’re heading into.

Why do Republicans hate America? Because they want cheap labor for their rich supporters.

Hedges is on the money. My personal favorite is “Empire of Illusion: The End of Literacy and the Triumph of Spectacle.” Two brief quotes:

“We have transformed our culture into a vast replica of Pinnochio’s Pleasure Island, where boys were lured with promises of no school and endless fun.” "

“It was Sparta that celebrated raw militarism, discipline, obedience, and power, but it was Athenian art and philosophy that echoed down the ages to enlighten new worlds, including our own.”

While I try not to criticize Obama too much in public, it just encourages the baggers, Dylan’s Hard Rain is gonna fall pretty soon now. Thirty years of Reaganism (that has now gone far beyond what even Alzheimer Ronny shilled for) have dug us (and the world) a hole too deep for Keynesianism to fix.

On the positive side, when we are thrown onto the mercy of our abilities by the harsh world ahead of us, the baggers are doomed. Most of the ones I know (and I live in a rural, red area), can’t walk 100 yards and have a half-gallon sized Big Gulp surgically attached to their hand. Just wait til Medicare stops paying for their insulin.

We ran on creating jobs but, we don’t believe government can create jobs, coo-coo!

Lonecat: I’m most of the way through it at the moment. I agree with a lot of what he says, but as with any author/book, agree to disagree on some elements. The main point I do find accurate; the “liberal” is gone from government and many areas outside, and largely it was suicide by submission to the same element as with “conservatives” – basic greed- for money or power.

Just got through Hedges’ interview with Nader. Nader is a guy I’ve never liked, partly because I used to RACE Corvairs, and there was nothing accurate in his book. I also find Nader to be a total narcissist and egomaniac, more than “consumer advocate”.

It is interesting that neither “liberals” nor “conservatives” today even know what the word actually means.

That “liberal” has become an epithet, is a sign of ignorance, but then, what in “politics” today, is not?

It is also worth noting that “conservative” is also NOT what it was in the days of Ike- who today would be considered a “flaming liberal”.

“Radicalism”, whether political, or in fundamentalist “religions”- ALL OF THEM- has so divided and distorted the “civilized” members of our species- it does make you wish for a “hunter gatherer” society, faced with the reality, that a leopard or tiger might eat you if your just plain stupid.

I am beginning to think of Republicans as domestic terrorists. They are waging economic guerrilla warfare on lower classes, and more of us are falling into lower classes.

Thanks to Trout and Raise and Night for your comments. Much more interesting than the empty sloganeering and name-calling that dominates the list. My opinion of the book: it’s full of interesting points, but badly organized, and unlikely to persuade anyone who isn’t already sympathetic. Still, all in all, interesting and worth reading as a critique of modern liberalism.

grainbelt: First raced a 61 “swing axle” Corvair in autocross, hill climbs and “competitive” rallies. Great little car. Then had a ’65 with the improved rear suspension and 140 hp engine. While I was in sedan class, routinely beat the times of 912 and 911 Porsches. We had events at Willow Springs and out at Riverside as well as other tracks and “courses”. The ’65 Corvair was the best handling, and safest, car ever to come out of “Detroit” at the time, and maybe for all time. My sister-in-law finally wiped the car out by driving through a red light in front of a gravel truck that had the green light- she walked away uninjured, but would have been killed in almost any other vehicle of the day. Having the “empty” space of the trunk up front (and the spare) plus the isolated fuel tank, let the car safely absorb the energy, instead of the driver.

As to that swing axle- the M-151 jeep had the same. If you knew how to DRIVE, instead of AIM, a vehicle, it was more radical than the Corvair, but still perfectly safe- you just had to adjust, and NOT go into a wet curve at full speed and slam on the brakes at the apex!!

Obama’s job creation plan biggest obstacle is not the GOP.All he has to do is look in the mirror to see is real enemy—himself and his unmitigated conceit.

Obama thinks the solution to this complex problem is doing the same thing he did in previous stimulus plans.

Thinking of Republicans as domestic terrorists. is not “name calling”. They have become more blatant in expressing contempt for poor Americans.Jesus would be so proud of these haters. I see more letters expressing the opinion that being poor is a cushy occupation. Due to 4 operations on my legs I am now eating food younger people bring me from grocery store dumpsters. To the people who think being poor is easy street, change places with me.I want to be middle class again.

lontooni — I sympathize with your situation — good luck to you. So far as I can see the Republicans have nothing to offer you. Unfortunately, so far as I can see, the Democrats don’t have the answer either. I think both parties have failed. It’s no wonder that people are looking outside the usual system, but tragically the left has collapsed. We need a revitalized left, a left that speaks to people and their problems, which does not situate itself as an elite talking down to people.