I’ve been around for a good many elections, now. Experience *shoulda* taught me to be utterly cynical about the horribly-misnamed “Public Servants” we send to DC. Nonetheless, in 2008, smelling blood in the water from the total catastrophe of the W dysAdministration, I eagerly jumped on the Obama bandwagon.

I *knew* going in, that BO was a centrist – a radical centrist, even – and I admired his attempts to restore civility to the American Political Process. I even admired his trying to include the Repugnicans in the legislative process when the Democratic majorities in both chambers did not require it – and the Repugs were disinterested in participating.

BUT, GOODGODALMIGHTY!!! Concerning the US misadventure in the Middle East, and the Department of Defense(also horribly misnamed!) $$Budget, BO is living out W’s third goddamn term!! As regards actively assisting the Wall Street robber barons to have their way with the American Public, BO is ZERO CHANGE from W – Hell, the GreedHead bonuses are larger than ever!! With this recent Health Care Reform Fiasco, which shoulda been a no-brainer in a civilized democracy, BO conceded everything the Repugs asked, and STILL falls short, despite his still-sizeable majorities in Congress. This was/is fucking INCOMPREHENSIBLE to me!!

So, yeah. I’m humiliated that I gave BO several hundred $$$; and worked my ass off for him here in GA and also in the NC primary. And I’m humiliated that I thought little ol’ me in northeast GA, in combination with several other millions of citizens across America could ever strike a meaningful blow – or even a glancing blow – against America’s Corporate Overlords and their legions of Lobbyists.

ALL HAIL THE CORPORATE OVERLORDS!!!

But I don’t need any books for much of the above- I LIVED IT, EVERYDAY AND PAID ATTENTION.

By comparison, the 1970s, which are often bemoaned as a time of economic stagflation and political malaise, registered a 27 percent increase in jobs. Yet, in part because of that relatively slow rise in jobs – down from 31 percent in the 1960s – American voters turned to Ronald Reagan and his radical economic theories of tax cuts, global “free markets” and deregulation.

Reagan sold Americans on his core vision: “Government is not the solution to our problem; government is the problem.” Through his personal magnetism, Reagan turned taxes into a third rail of American politics. He convinced many voters that the government’s only important role was funding the military.

Yet, instead of guiding the country to a bright new day of economic vitality, Reagan’s approach accelerated a de-industrialization of the United States and a slump in the growth of American jobs, down to 20 percent during the 1980s.

The percentage job increase for the 1990s stayed at 20 percent, although job growth did pick up later in the decade under Democrat Bill Clinton, who raised taxes and moderated some of Reagan’s approaches while still pushing “free trade” agreements and deregulation.

Hard-line Reaganomics returned with a vengeance under George W. Bush – more tax cuts, more faith in “free trade,” more deregulation – and the Great American Job Engine finally started grinding to a halt. Zero percent increase.

Despite the painful statistics of the past three decades, Reaganomics remains a powerful force in American political life. Anyone tuning in to any TV news or picking up any mainstream newspaper would think that these economic policies had enjoyed unqualified success.

First this:

When asked exactly what constitutes being middle class, most typical Americans, which is to say working class Americans, talk in terms of income. Better educated and more erudite Americans mumble some vague litany about college and home ownership, etc., then attach an annual income number about twice as high as the average working mook’s. Neither of them ever comes close to a real definition. Nevertheless some 300 million Americans fancy themselves as middle class, chiefly because they: (A) own microwaves and a car with plastic bumpers; and (B) live in perpetual hock to MasterCard and Visa. Debt, stress and insecurity being the only observable characteristics of middle class America, they rally round those things in a show of class solidarity. “Hell no! Our pointless stressful lifestyle is NOT NEGOTIABLE! No goddamned socialist is gonna take away my constitutional right to medical bankruptcy. God bless the middle class!”

In essence, preservation of the American middle class is an assertion we are entitled to waste as least as much of the earth’s limited vital resources as their fathers and grandfathers did, preferably more. Political assurances of the sanctity of the middle class come down to promising that the six percent of the world’s population called Americans may continue to rip through 36 percent of the earth’s resources in its endless pursuit of obesity and carcinogenic intake. Not to mention taking everybody else out with us in the process through ecocide.

Nobody but an unmitigated psychopath would even make such a case, much less hawk it to the American people as being in their best interests. In their best interests to wipe out our dwindling planetary sustenance and to piss off the rest of the world enough that a significant number are willing to strap on explosives and buy a plane ticket for the States.

Unfortunately, the psychopaths are in charge, and have been in charge for a long long time now.