Footnotes to a quiet civil war

By Avedon from the Sideshow

BTD recommends a Democracy Now! debate between Glenn Greenwald and Cass Sunstein in which, he says, Sunstein is an ass. Truly, you'd expect someone like Sunstein to know what he's talking about on an issue like FISA, only he doesn't - or at least, like many apologists for the FISA vote, he's just not a very good liar. (Also: I dunno, is Vanity Fair doing a parody of the New Yorker cover much better? I mean, except that, in this case, what's in the cartoon is actually true - especially what's in the fireplace.)

Barney Frank is pretty good on a lot of things, but he's not having much success convincing corporate America that they have a stake in rescuing America from the mess they've been making. Mick Arran says: "Barney's not naive but I have to wonder if he understands that his own party is half the problem? The conservative DLC leadership is putting ZERO pressure on business to conciliate labor, treat its workers better, or come up with a health care plan that doesn't put all the expense on the employee. So why should they respond? They're paying Blue Dogs to make sure they don't have to and the Dem presidential candidate just made a pilgrimage to Wall Street (Harold Ford set it up; his Wall Street contacts are the reason he was given charge of the DLC) to reassure them that if he wins in November, the investor class has nothing to worry about, nothing to be afraid of. He's on their side."

Bill Scher has posted a bunch of interviews he did with people at Netroots Nation over at Liberal Oasis, such as with Jim Hightower and Natasha Chart.

Don Siegelman has his own web page, and he wants you to send your rep a letter. (Does anyone know if Sammy's interview with Siegelman has been posted anywhere yet? His article about Siegelman's case is here.)

The oft-repeated urban myth is that repubs are good for the

economy, while dems hurt it. Every statistic I have seen shows exactly the opposite. The stock market does better; the budget deficits are smaller, or become surpluses; there is more job creation; best of all, income disparities are less too. So reassuring corporate America that it's ok to have Obama in the White House is just plain ridiculous. Those statistics are available to anyone, and you have to know that business people know them too. I think the reason the lie keeps getting repeated is that it is the elite that do best under repubs, and they are the ones that own the companies. They go with the party that benefits them personally the most. That's fine, as it is perfectly understandable. But when that self-interest becomes harmful to the country and its citizens as a whole, it is intolerable.

Corporate America supports repubs not because repub rule is best for business (statistics say otherwise), but because the people who own or run the businesses know they will get preferential treatment from repubs, and they will gain more wealth personally. If that means their companies and shareholders and employees don't do as well, too bad for them.