The Party’s Over

[Donnachaidh]

http://www.counterpunch.org/2011/10/05/the-partys-over/

The party’s over. The national delusion that began 30 years ago with the inauguration of Ronald Reagan has run its course. Free trade, competition, innovation, entrepreneurship, market driven, bottom line, laissez faire, deregulation, privatization, mission statements, strategic plans, value added and all the other gibberish that was meant to save us has brought us to where we are today.

Three decades of sweet buzzwords and brutal economics fostered by a media that thought “free markets” were required by the Bill of Rights have left America broken, busted, and bitter.

No, it didn’t have to happen. After all, as John Maynard Keynes noted, “Capitalism is the astounding belief that the most wickedest of men will do the most wickedest of things for the greatest good of everyone.” We might have noticed. But our teachers in government, academia and the press largely went along with the most wickedest of men, girding their cause with false arguments and misleading logic. The rest didn’t have much time to think about it all; they were too busy taking tests or finding ways to make enough money to buy all the things they were told they had to have.

But now the party’s over. A young woman protesting in Portland, Maine told a TV camera crew the other day that she was afraid she couldn’t have children because their future was so bleak.

More at the link --

[CanonRay]

1. Great quote

[Tippy]

2. K&R....

[KharmaTrain]

3. It's Over When...

Taking tons of corporate money or being able to be bought by a billionaire is a true political liability. It'll be over when K Street becomes a ghost town as lobbyists will no longer be able to buy politicians with massive donations to their PACs and campaigns. It'll be over when there's 219 or more votes in the House and 51 votes (without the obscene filibustering and holding) are sufficient to pass reforms and those votes are plentiful (and may even come from both sides of the aisle). Right now we're light years from any of those things happening. This is a first step...yet another one.

[moondust]

4. Astounding is right.

Wasn't government supposed to protect us from the wicked?

K/R

[Doctor_J]

5. The government's been "privatized" - i. e. given to the same sociopaths

with all of the money.