Why bother? They're all screwing us over. [View all]

[Armstead]

This is a rant. The Trans Pacific Partnership feels like a last straw. And when combined with the lack of fortitude to prevent the hijacking of the internet by the corporate pirates, it has given me a massive feeling of Why Bother?

Some personal background.

I'm a long-time Duer, going back to the early Boosh era. My level of participation here has gone up and down and up and down over the years, depending both on my personal activities at the time and on the current nature of events and issues (elections, health care, our various wars, etc.).

My perspective has been straightforward since the 70's. I am a Moderate Progressive or what used to be called A Liberal.

I simply believe that government should exist to balance the excesses of capitalism and to be the collective representation of the overall public interest....To make sure workers receive decent wages and working conditions; to defend consumers;protect the environment; to make sure we actually have a competitive Free Enterprise economy rather a Monopoly of Oligarchs; to provide a safety net for those who need help, etc.

In my younger years, that was a mainstream position. But steadily that has been marginalized due to a combination of factors, including periodic ups and downs of the economy and other issues; the brainwashing of too many people by Corporate and Right Wing Propaganda and the machinations of Republican CONservatives....and too many goddamn Sellouts in the Democratic Party.

Bill Clinton, for example, could have been a Great Liberal President who helped the nation recover from the excesses of Reagan Trickle Down Economics and guide us back to the REAL CENTER. But even though he talked a good game, he was every bit as much of a Corporate Stooge and Snake Oil salesman as Reagan. He managed to cram down such atrocities as Media Deregulation and NAFTA/Free Trade down our throats -- which gave the oligarchs even more power and helped gut the poor and middle class.

The Democratic Congress has been a mixed bag. There are (have been) some great Democratic liberal and progressive legislators, who have done all they could to bring the country back to some kind of true center. But they have been outnumbered by the sellouts and/or wimpy weasels and the minions of the DLC.

Presidential Obama? Like Clinton, he talks a great game. And maybe he means well. But behind the screen, he has been just as aligned with Wall St. and the Big Money Corporate oligarchs...People say he's doing the best he can under difficult circumstances. I don't know. Maybe. But too often his actions and alliances seem to be just as embedded in the oligarchy as any other DLC style phony centrist Democrat.

His support for this current version of the Great Trade Robbery -- otherwise known as the Trans Pacific Partnership -- indicates that he is either just as stupid as Clinton or just as deceptively cunning about the implications of these free trade scams.

NAFTA and these other con-jobs have proven to be totally destructive to both the national sovereignty of the US and to the economic and social interests of the majority of the population.

And yet, here we are -- watching the President pushing the same old pile of shit. Its even worse now because we know from experience that it is a pile of shit.

All of this makes me wonder why bother thinking about any of this? Who gives a rats ass when both parties are going to screw us over. The only difference sometimes seems to the sales pitch. Democrats appeal to our higher nature, while Republicans pander to our lower nature. But the end product is the same.

I'd be pleased to be convinced otherwise. But the basic fact is we're all getting screwed 20 ways from Sunday, and no one with any power is doing a goddamn thing to help us millions of poor saps who aren't in the tiny little inner circle.