Why is our country just not functioning? by Sister Joan Chittister
My response:
Gore lost because he could not win Ohio and because he did not insist that "double votes" where he was written in and voted for be counted. The recount ignoring double votes still had Bush win. Hillary has only herself to blame for staying out of caucus states - and if you read Game Change - we dodged a bullet.
Obama has indeed messed up on the economy - mostly because he listened to advisors who did not want to do radical things to benefit under water mortgage borrowers - although the Democratic congress was not exactly brimming with compassion for this group either by not enacting bankruptcy reform when it could. As it is, the 111th Congress was the most productive in recent memory even as the 112th is a disappointment.
The 112th has a big problem - leaders who feel vulnerable to primary challenges. If the Republican Party refuses to put the loonies in its place because of this, there is not much we can do about it but hope that their own conduct costs them control of the House, Senate and White House in 2012.
Some of these problems, of course, go back to Reagan and tax policies that incentize productivity gains at the expense of workers who are also consumers. Until those workers decide that enough as enough, they can't be led to something better, like employee ownership of their workplaces and an ousting of the plutocracy. They certainly won't get that from either party and media, like NCR, don't seem particularly eager about covering the alternatives. You need proof? Ask Michael Sean Winters why he does not cover my tax plan.
