Looking Back at 2015: Politics | National Catholic Reporter

Looking Back at 2015: Politics | National Catholic Reporter by MSW. MGB: Consumer culture is not vanity - it is what capitalism does to keep workers controlled, even when wages go down and the rich get richer.  The rich are then idolized, like Donald Trump, and looked upon as strong leaders - as akin to Ronald Reagan - even when the leadership of the capitalist is the cause of the worker's woe.  Amazing that, instead of pity, whether one has wealth or not is the measure of their worth.  Sad.  I agree with MSW that Cruz and Rubio are not much better - but I will not yet believe that some of the saner GOP voices have no chance.  I agree Sanders and his people are on the right track, I disagree that we cannot win - and even if Sanders won't use religious language, some of us do to justify our commitment to justice.  The problem is also not celebrating an obvious win in identity politics - gay marriage - the sad thing is that with this Congress, Obama can (and has) talked about inequality until he was blue in the face and nothing will come of it.



On the Middle East, Obama is his best to deal with ISIL, but it never pays to get involved in someone else's civil war - and no, Obama did not start it.  That was Egyptian Google billionaire who thought that organizing the progressive youth meant that the Islamic Brotherhood would take a pass at revolution, or ISIL.  The kind of liberal sexual morality that Planned Parenthood represents and Catholic right so hates is exactly what the Middle East needs as well, and the more they fight against it the more obvious that need is.  The desire to be cared for a harem of spriritual prostitutes would go away with the exposure to one or two live women.



As for the domestic rhetoric, anyone who had access to libertarian netserves in 2008 knew that the right wing would go hard racist and that crossing the aisle had no chance - with gerrymandering making sure that they were a semi-perrmanent force.  As for Obama being effective in his own party - we have a budget until the end of the year, a health care law that is not going anywhere and exactly the tax legislation Obama promised (sadly with too much for the upper middle class who could pay more easily).



As a people, we have not radicalized.  A President McCain may have caused us to organize, but I think we are better off not having gone through such a thing. It would have been nice if underwater home owners had organized for mortgage write-downs, and indeed the GOP realized that was not an urgent issue and organized its racism behind health care instead.  That we are noting that continued racism where it is most virulent, in the criminal justice system, is where organization and activism were most likely.  Black lives do matter after all - to all of us.