Police and firefighters are about the only folk I can think of who do regularly get a pension that will start after 20-25 years of work, if they opt for it…and, of course, the current trend is to try to cut back on those (along with salaries and the people in the jobs themselves). I mean, you really don’t want to tax rich people for the common good…or else what happens to the yacht industry, when their customers can barely afford two?

Um…who’s confusing Maureen Dowd (or Barack Obama) for a progressive these years?

crossposting! from the most recent Feldman podcast:

Jimmy, where in the world did you get the idea that Bill Clinton was ever remotely leftist? He was always the avatar of neoliberalism, “Reinventing Government” so as to make government run like big business…I’ve always thought that the remarkably half-assed performance in attempting to nationalize health insurance was meant to fail…

Wow. Well, I’d suggest that you’re equating countries with their governments, in your assessments of the successes of Libya and Egypt…very qualified successes, at best, and not so much the result of the US quagmire in Iraq, much less Afghanistan, as it was the growing resentment of the governments by their people. The Orange Revolution and other similar activity in Eastern Europe, Greece and elsewhere to the Arab nations’ north, and some of the efforts to reform governments after and through popular protest in various African nations to the Arabs’ south, seem like much better inspirations than the US managing to re-install a fair amount of the Bat’athist regime after so much bloodshed in Iraq.

And paleoconservatives are feeling pretty alienated in the GOP at the moment–a number, particularly those who were fervent supporters of Ron Paul, voted Libertarian this time in protest of the treatment they and Paul had at the hands of the more neocon and corporatist Republicans. Not that they won’t continue to attempt to have a larger voice in the GOP, particularly after the last election’s reversal of fortunes for both the Establishment GOP and the Tea Partisans, but it will be interesting to see how the power struggles play out. Paleos are less concerned with regulating big business than they are with making sure it doesn’t try to profit from subversion of Traditional Values…they differ from libertarians in that while the capitalist libertarian often will argue against any sort of government regulation, but often will have no problem with theoretically free markets allowing big business to do what it will (as long as it isn’t in collaboration with government)…what big or small business does to the individual or the society it’s in, or big business to small business, is all fine, no matter how shortsighted or driven by profit at any expense. Meanwhile, the paleocon can usually overlook the depredations of big business as long as big business doesn’t challenge the subjugation of women, usually of minorities and other less-empowered people, and anyone else who doesn’t support their vision of traditional values…paleocons can be comfortable with a much weaker federal government, particularly if it allows for a much stronger and more reactionary local government.

Oh, I know you didn’t claim all was peachy post Arab Spring. I just didn’t know with what alacrity the comments’d be posted over there, and wanted you to see them, too.

I don’t think the Clintons did actually push for universal health care, so much as muck up their “attempt” so badly as to make me wonder if they did so intentionally. Likewise, the support of civil rights for sexual minorities stopped Real Fast, landing on Don’t Ask, We’ll Tell. Meanwhile, this is the governor who couldn’t bring himself to stay the execution of a mentally challenged fellow on death row as very nearly his last act in office, and generally already had a history of hostility to the poor, along with being one of Democratic Leadership Council mainstays and 115% signed on with REINVENTING GOVERNMENT and other neoliberal bibble. Not, all told, really any more left coming in than going out, when observed closely. Much like the current president, who made no leftist noises, in fact was almost identical in platform to HRC, except that he was, as leftists might also be, supposedly interested in ending the wars ASAP…while our Sec/State wasn’t so keen on such a move.

This was just broadcast on WBAI last week. Hilarious and relevant at the same time. Great work by Jimmy and all.