What these Tehadist-Republicans have up their sleeve is nothing short of treason, lack of patriotism and a disregard for the American people’s well-being.

If you think you saw obstructionism and downright sabotage directed at the President, Democrats and the country in general in the past two years…prepare yourself for what is in store. The Teahadist-Republicans have a few more tricks up their sleeve and it should prove disastrous for America.

Conservatives have a legislative agenda for 2011 that will hurt your ability to get or keep a job, your neighborhood's ability to recover from the recession and this country's ability to regain its footing in the global economy.

To keep conservatives from enacting policies that will kill a nascent economic recovery, progressives will have to organize against these top 10 economy killers.

Isaiah J. Poole writes: that these are the top ten Ways The Right Will Wreck The Recovery

1. Repeal of health-care reform.

2. Diminish the federal government's ability to support job-creation.

3. Slash federal infrastructure spending.

4. Dismantle Medicare (and give seniors "vouchers")

5. Undo financial reform, and let the predators run.

6. Support Big Oil and kill green jobs.

7. Don't just cut government waste; cripple government.

8. Amp up the insecurity in Social Security.

9. Starve public education.

10. Don't ask the rich to help reduce the deficit; ask low-income Americans instead.

“If the wealthy aren't being asked to sacrifice something, guess who is. Social Security is the lifeline for America's elderly, but even though it adds nothing to the deficit it is at the forefront of proposals for cutting it. Medical programs for the poor, the Making Work Pay program, and so many other things the government does for our people are the first things suggested by the well-to-do who dominate the inside-the-Beltway commissions and commentariat.”

All of the motivation is pure partisanship, placing the Republican Party’s agenda before family, state and country…and it is simply an agenda that says they want President Obama to only serve one term.

Read more: http://www.ourfuture.org/blogs_chrono/*

That is what we used to say in Cuba in 1958

Disturbing as this may sound to you, we are heading in a similar direction. I see all the signs of something that is unpleasantly familiar: the mob mentality, the intimidation, the loss of the power of the vote, the greed, the lies and exaggerations and worst of all the division that exists among Americans.

I would dismiss it and say that it is a temporary condition caused by the frustration of harsh economic times. I could discount it to mean that people are misinformed and are not willing to think for themselves. I could also say that these Teahadist-Republicans are easily misled and will believe anything Fox News tells them…but you see, the problem is more complex than that.

On the one hand we have an oligarchy that is leading them to defend their interests even though these members of the mobs don’t have a pot to piss in or a window to throw it out of. On the other hand we have a country deeply divided by the ignorant-superstitious religious fanatics, the hard-core racist-white supremacist and the rest of us who are progressive liberals or just middle of the road centrists...which seems to be where most Americans are.

What WISEACRE of the daily KOS says about FASCISM:

“When you don't have any say-so in your government, and your representatives don't represent their constituents, and everything is done in secret and no one is accountable, THAT feels like fascism. When you don't feel respected as a citizen with human rights, but more like some asset to bleed to death for the benefit of credit card companies, insurance companies, and banks, WHICH feels fascist.

Fascism isn't in the angry mobs; it's in the structure that makes mobs angry. To me, the Tea Party people are angry conservative populists who have been tricked into blaming liberal scapegoats so they won't notice the plutocrats robbing them blind. As a middle-road populist who loves this country and its ideals, just as much as any conservative, if not more, I wish we could figure out how to somehow find some common ground with others who want the rule of law to apply to the government and the plutocracy, who resent being a resource for exploitation, and who want their damned representatives to represent them.”

As a fourteen year old just finding out about the world and how things worked, I lived in Cuba just about the time Castro came to power; there I witnessed the mobs in the streets, looting the homes and businesses, intimidating people and then coming in to “confiscate” private property. Then there were the horrific firing squads...”PAREDON, PAREDON” was what the crowds were shouting.

One of the favored FASCIST tactics; one who the Castro brothers learned well, was that of manipulating the ignorant crowds and making them go to intimidate a foe. Anyone who opposed the REVOLUTION was labeled a “gusano” (worm) and was either summarily done away with or had a mob of people bused in to stand in front of their houses and yell obscenities and throw manure and the government provided the buses, gave the workers the morning off and maybe either some lunch or snack. This is what is called intimidation by mobs. It worked!

Kristallnacht

Backtrack to the Bush years and we find that President Bush quickly labeled anybody who was opposed to the war as “terrorists and unpatriotic” and we then get to those dark, nightmarish August days during the Congressional recess when the insurance companies invested millions upon millions of dollars to create “grassroots” organizations that would go to town hall meetings and disrupt the civil discourse and attempts by elected officials to be in touch with constituents.

We have also seen how for two years the Republican lawmakers have done absolutely nothing to correct or help clean up the financial and economic mess they created. It is as if it never happened and not only do they obstruct any attempts to fix the problem but they are fervently working towards making President Obama a one term President.

Today marks the anniversary of the Cuban Revolution ascent to power. I thought it would be a good idea to do this post because it has been since 1959 that our equivalent of the Tea Party took power and look at the shape Cuba is in right now more than fifty years later. And we used to say “IT CAN’T HAPPEN IN CUBA” so now I hear: “IT CAN’T HAPPEN IN AMERICA” and I stare into the emptiness of the distance and remember those days of my adolescence.

SOURCE: http://wiseacre.dailykos.com/

PHOTO SOURCE: http://www.newser.com/story/40435/kristallnacht-remnants-found-near-berlin.html

http://www.google.com/imgres?imgurl=http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/images/brokewin.jpg&imgrefurl=http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/Holocaust/kristallnacht.html&usg=__gfgxIZy736k6PgsAdgN2lwBxprU=&h=370&w=459&sz=29&hl=en&start=0&sig2=tuVbwb-_xPiw3Y42_sTaGw&zoom=1&tbnid=eNJorZztQj7PrM:&tbnh=159&tbnw=186&ei=cx0fTbeCLYWClAfn6KTOCw&prev=/images%3Fq%3DPhotos%2Bof%2BKristallnacht%26um%3D1%26hl%3Den%26sa%3DX%26biw%3D1008%26bih%3D571%26tbs%3Disch:1&um=1&itbs=1&iact=hc&vpx=311&vpy=190&dur=679&hovh=202&hovw=250&tx=82&ty=72&oei=cx0fTbeCLYWClAfn6KTOCw&esq=1&page=1&ndsp=8&ved=1t:429,r:1,s:0

Does anybody know why these people aren't in jail?

Two years before the financial crisis hit, Merrill Lynch confronted a serious problem. No one, not even the bank’s own traders, wanted to buy the supposedly safe portions of the mortgage-backed securities Merrill was creating.

Bank executives came up with a fix that had short-term benefits and long-term consequences. They formed a new group within Merrill, which took on the bank’s money-losing securities. But how to get the group to accept deals that were otherwise unprofitable? They paid them. The division creating the securities passed portions of their bonuses to the new group, according to two former Merrill executives with detailed knowledge of the arrangement.

The executives said this group, which earned millions in bonuses, played a crucial role in keeping the money machine moving long after it should have ground to a halt.

“It was uneconomic for the traders”—that is, buyers at Merrill—“to take these things,” says one former Merrill executive with knowledge of how it worked.

Within Merrill Lynch, some traders called it a “million for a billion”—meaning a million dollars in bonus money for every billion taken on in Merrill mortgage securities. Others referred to it as “the subsidy.” One former executive called it bribery. The group was being compensated for how much it took, not whether it made money.

The group, created in 2006, accepted tens of billions of dollars of Merrill’s Triple A-rated mortgage-backed assets, with disastrous results. The value of the securities fell to pennies on the dollar and helped to sink the iconic firm. Merrill was sold to Bank of America, which was in turn bailed out by taxpayers.

What became of the bankers who created this arrangement and the traders who took the now-toxic assets? They walked away with millions. Some still hold senior positions at prominent financial firms.

Really, this is the main point: the Randian free market profiteers like to say that, well, justice was served because Merrill Lynch failed and paid the price for poor decisions. The problem is that Merrill Lynch is not a person and has not suffered. All the people who took these bribes still got to walk away with their ill-gotten millions and are in many cases still employed by other financial firms, meaning that the disincentive for failure never trickled down. The free market is kind of broken here, don't you think?

I’m waiting for the New York Times to run a sob story on how the crashed economy has affected these guys. Like maybe they had to fire one of the gardeners and give up the $3000 lunches and it makes them very depressed. Perhaps it was more severe than that…they had to give up their third home in the Hamptons…oh, the unfairness, oh the shame of it all! To actually have to give up something for having fucked millions of people and send the country into financial ruin.

And we have many of them to thank; but the one who started it was one of the worst Presidents we ever had.

SOURCE: http://www.dailykos.com/