UNEMPLOYMENT

UNEMPLOYMENT, UNEMPLOYMENT, UNEMPLOYMENT, UNEMPLOYMENT, UNEMPLOYMENT, UNEMPLOYMENT, UNEMPLOYMENT, UNEMPLOYMENT, UNEMPLOYMENT, UNEMPLOYMENT, UNEMPLOYMENT, UNEMPLOYMENT, UNEMPLOYMENT, UNEMPLOYMENT, UNEMPLOYMENT, UNEMPLOYMENT, UNEMPLOYMENT, UNEMPLOYMENT, UNEMPLOYMENT, UNEMPLOYMENT.

That’s all I want to hear from either party for the next 10 weeks: How are they going to deal with unemployment and restore the middle class.  No other topic deserves any attention whatsoever. Solve the unemployment problem and you solve a lot of the other problems.  Got a problem with the deficit?  Put people back to work and they’ll pay taxes.  Not enough money in the Social Security kitty after 4 years of an artificially induced crisis?  Put people back to work and the trust fund will start to grow again.  Too many people losing their houses or going bankrupt because of health care costs?  Put them back to work earning money and many of those problems will go away.

This is not rocket science. Fixing the employment problem FIRST will have a domino effect on the other problems. The parties will try valiantly to talk about the deficit and abortion.  We shouldn’t let them.  Any time  their attention starts to wander, we should pull them up by the short hairs and ask them what they intend to do about UNEMPLOYMENT.

I challenge other blogs to do the same.  Don’t let the parties control the conversation.

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Katiebird informs me that the Obama trolls are out throwing Sticks and Stones comments at people who suggest that there are other Democrats besides Obama/Biden that would make better presidential candidates.

Here’s how it goes: If you do not unquestioningly agree to vote for Obama/Biden, you *must* be a Romney/Ryan voter.

The Democrats have dangerously tottered over to authoritarian black/white thinking if this is what they are saying.  If you are a Democrat, are you allowed to do your own thinking anymore?

Here’s how you might think about this if you are a Democrat:

1.) Obama is only the *presumptive* nominee.  He’s not officially the nominee until the balloons drop in Charlotte.

2.) The Democrats at the convention could change their minds.  Please don’t tell us that the delegates/superdelegates can’t be persuaded or make up their own minds to do whatever they like at the convention.  We know the rules.  In other words, there are no rules.  It’s all up to the leadership and from what I can see, the leaders from 2008 have a lot less credibility this time around.

3.) By putting Obama on the ticket this time, you are saying that you accept poor performance, high unemployment, a grand bargain, foreclosures, retirement in penury and loss of our national infrastructure and leadership in industries and research where Americans once dominated, indefinite detention without trials, brutal suppression of protest movements and kill lists.  All of those things are Ok with you.  How about it, Digby?  Are all of those things ok with you?  Atrios?  I’m sorry, I can’t hear you.  Speak up and defend the party.  I’m not interested in what Romney did or is doing.  I’m not a conservative.  I’m a liberal.  So, tell me why a liberal should prefer Obama to some other Democrat.  I’ll wait.

4.) By forcing Obama on the rest of us, you are saying that there is no other Democrat that would be a.) more appealing to more Americans b.) more competent c.) more respectful of Democratic values than Obama.  You are saying that as far as the Democratic party goes, it simply doesn’t get more Democraticky than Obama.  He is the most perfect embodiment of the Democratic party than any other possible politician the Democrats have.  That’s what you’re saying.  Are you sure you want to say this?  Because that is the basis upon which people make their decisions at the polls.  That’s what motivates them to go to the polls in the first place.  You are asking them to make a choice for four years and you’d better give them the best possible reason for getting into their cars and standing in line to vote.  Otherwise, they’ll assume that you aren’t serious about your party values or your candidate.  You will discourage your voters if you don’t give them a reason to vote for you.

Now, some of us have looked at Obama’s performance for the past four years and we do not approve.  We would like to vote for a REAL Democrat this year.  That’s why we keep bringing up replacing Obama at the top of the ticket with Hillary Clinton.  You can have your own opinions about Hillary but if you are a Democrat and you don’t like her, you are part of a teensy tiny minority of Democrats.  Minute.  No one outside of your little club cares about what you think.  You don’t like Obama either at this point but you refuse to throw your support behind Hillary.  That’s weird because four years ago, you were having a fricking fit over those of us who didn’t think Obama was such a good choice to begin with.  We turned out to be right and you turned out to be wrong so, you know, why should we care what you think?  Your record isn’t exactly stellar.  And don’t even go there with the Howard Dean thing.  No one outside of your little clique knows who he is and if they did, they wouldn’t like him.  You’ll have to trust me on this. He has a pheromone that appeals to a vanishingly small subset of Democrats.  To the rest of us, he’s the last guy we’d want to take on a Mystery Date.

In other words, those of you who hate Obama now but won’t consider Hillary and those of you who are party loyalists in the online enforcement brigade have absolutely no control over us.  You can’t make us vote for this dude.  We want a real Democrat.  And calling us names and secret supporters of Romney/Ryan or racists or stupid does not endear us to your point of view.  Do you want to know why??

It’s because you are nothing more than little black pixels on a display.  You can not hurt us.

That is the magick of the internet!  You can’t get in our faces and if you intend to hurt our feelings, we can close your tabs.  In fact, you can’t hurt our feelings.  So what if you call us names?  You only prove over and over again that our votes are important to you and you will use meanness and name calling to get what you want.  But you will also prove yourselves to be incredibly stupid for trying to use online bullying tactics because we don’t have to put up with it.

I suppose you could show up at our doors and threaten us to vote for your guy but then, you sure as hell wouldn’t be anything like the old Democratic party, would you?  Besides, we know who we are and what we believe and we have dignity that a bunch of online trolls can’t take away from us.

You might also try reason and persuasion but let’s face it, if you weren’t being paid, there’s no way in hell you could defend the Obama administration.  He’s bent over backwards to kiss the asses of the banking and insurance industry, he’s way too accommodating to the Republicans’ agenda and he’s let the rest of the country swing in the wind, especially the unemployed and women.  In short, you are selling out everything you say you believe in order to collect a paycheck.  We have words for that kind of person but we don’t want to hurt your feelings.

As for letting Romney/Ryan win and it being worse, how could it get any worse?? With Obama/Biden we still have two DUDES who have no interest in helping the unemployed and are more than willing to cut a grand bargain that will irreparably hurt those of us who have to work until the age of 67 to collect the measly payments we were forced to prepay for decades.

So, you know, shove it with your rationalizations.  You’re only bullies who think you can strongarm us (Ha!) into submission so you can cross this group of stubborn voters off your list and never have to kowtow to us again. You have no intention of giving up power and don’t give a rat’s ass about the rest of us.  But we’re NOT voting for any of the current two major party candidates until we get a Democratic candidate worth voting for.  If we don’t vote for your ticket, we’re not losing much, but you will lose plenty.  There goes your power for a four year time out.  Suck on that for awhile.