Charles Smith on the truth about the Republicans and Democrats

Or, as he titles his article, Two Failed Parties:  The Real Political Narrative of The Past Half-Century.

[...]

If you are still naive enough to be a "party believer," then consider what Bush and Company accomplished when they controlled both the White House and Congress — the largest expansion of government power and spending ever, and the enabling of the biggest credit bubble of all time.

It's pretty hard to play the usual "blame the Democrats" game when you controlled the entire government.

Not that the Democrats are blameless; Rubin and Clinton served Wall Street most ably by enabling the dot-com bubble and setting the stage for the housing bubble.  The Repubs took the baton very smoothly and Wall Street and the bankers picked up some other goodies they'd been pining for, such as a restrictive bankruptcy law.

To understand the present, we need to understand the grand narrative of 20th century politics.  Here is a brief summary.

[...]

Go on, read the whole thing.  He's nailed it right on the mark.  This is the best politico-economic capsule summary of the last 80-90 years in the United States I've yet seen.  This explains exactly why more "business as usual" from the Republican and Democratic parties is just thrashing water.

I was going to post about the anniversary of 9/11.

But cipherpunk beat me to it, and did a better job than I could have.  I remember spending quite a chunk of that morning filling magazines ... because we didn't know what else might be planned, what the second shoe might be — or the third, or the fourth.

And the dirty elections continue

Seems the Macomb County, Michigan Republican Party is gathering a list of foreclosed homes prior to the November election.

Why?

Apparently so that they can deny the foreclosed-upon their votes, since some of them are no longer technically residents of the precinct.  "Mean-spirited" is putting it mildly.

I've said it before, I'll say it again:  The people running the political machines are scum of the worst kind.

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Update:

It's been pointed out to me that this is far from an objective source.  I don't know anything about ACORN, which features prominently.  Biased source or not, I'm still disgusted by the dirty tricks that both [arties pull to either disqualify voters for the other party or invalidate their ballots by any means possible.  I clearly remember the 2000 campaign, and the Gore campaign lawyers distributing an inch-thick book to Democratic counting-room staff in Florida detailing all the possible ways to invalidate military absentee ballots on minor technicalities, because military absentee voters were expected to vote for Bush.

What the fuck happened to democracy and everyone being entitled to vote?  How do you get from that to "Use every dirty trick in the book to disenfranchise as many opposing voters as you possibly can"?

I personally won't be surprised if I wake up one day to find Congress has passed a new election law that, without actually saying so in so many words, makes it illegal to vote for any candidate who isn't either Democratic or Republican.  Call me cynical, but I suspect a major reason why it hasn't happened already is simply that they haven't figured out a way to get away with it.