Dylan Ratigan: A Pox On Both Parties Riff (VIDEO)
In a political rant reminiscent of Howard Beale’s famous “mad as hell” rant in the classic eerily accurate film “Network,” MSNBC’s Dylan Ratigan, who has been increasingly critical of President Barack Obama and the Democrats, lambasted both parties: the Democrats with being focused almost solely on 2012 and the GOP for wanting “to burn the place to the ground.” It was one of those truly spontaneous, heartfelt cable moments — one that is most likely echoed by many voters, particularly independent voters who don’t see governance as a kind of game with a political sports team winning and losing as the key (indeed seemingly ONLY) goal.
Here’s the segment:
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And here’s the Network segment:
19 Responses to “Dylan Ratigan: A Pox On Both Parties Riff (VIDEO)”
I agree with him Joe. His frustration reflects all of us. You saw what happened to John McCain when he attempted true lobby reform. His own party tried to destroy him, but that is just one aspect of exactly what we need. Government needs to be in Control of the money, not subject to those whom have it.
Ratigan is correct. We have created institutionalized corruption that is oppressing our people. Passion for one’s country rather than one’s self is a beautiful thing to observe.
The frustration is real and warranted. There are no heroes here, but again, I would caution against the temptation toward false equivalence. Nothing can be done when obstruction is the guiding principle of one of the parties. The system is screwed up, nobody would deny this, but remember who had most of the power leading up to this crisis and remember what they did with that power. As much as I am angry with Obama, the fact is this: His inheritance has been relegated to damage control. Institutionalized corruption? Absolutely. Equal blame? Hardly. Solutions? Well now, THAT is what we want and need, but an honest reading of history is necessary if those solutions have a snowball’s chance in hell of being forthcoming. Yes, we are all “mad as hell”, but genuine desire for solutions has to be BI-partisan and will require patriotism NOT to party only.
Its not really fair to tell the truth when discussing politics.
Much like many other voices that are utterly marginalized and ignored I await his inclusion in the Chomsky/Ron Paul clubhouse for those that have so little invested in this nightmare that they can say the obvious.
Of course, JS, the Republicans are blocking everything that the Democrats want when it comes to spending, when they should be asking for THEIR OWN spending, cause that’s the way it always worked. So, now that (some) Republicans don’t want to play that game anymore, they’re changing the rules to asking for cuts. If they’d just play along as always, everyone would be happy.
The scary part is not that we have institutionalized corruption. The scary part is that either party thinks that anything can be done without addressing the core problem. In my view of course they dont, the GOP uses it as an excuse to destroy that which they ideologically hate and the left uses the fact that the house is burning down around our ears to note that we need an ever larger safety net(speaking of the elected).
Wallstreet, banksters, and those with vast amounts of consolidated wealth buy politicians for a reason. It is an investment with an expected return and that return comes in contracts and regulation and tax ideas that they prefer. Decades of evidence of this exists but nothing will convince those that prefer it that way because they simply do not care.
Our nations coffers are the easiest method to extract wealth in vast amounts without any ability to stop it and without any need to actually give the nation something of value. Whine about entitlements, cry about the DOD expanding into infinity, gnash your teeth over a tax system that doesnt come close to covering the shotgun wound that is our spending problem but you still miss the main problem. They cant cut anything that benefits their benefactors because when they do they will both be out of a job and blackballed in the careers that being in congress builds to…you know where they make millions.
But sure lets equate corporations with people and money with free speech and then all wonder why our nation is tied to so very many corporate contracts.
Prof-Dude you are utterly ignoring their defense of many industries that PAID THEM OFF. Sure they are stopping Dem spending while they load up bills like XMas trees for their own districts. How wonderful it must be in the land of zero sum game.
They are OWNED, and if they were not they would work to close the loopholes they hold more dear than the constitution that they cry about while shredding daily. I do adore the “the TP is above this” stuff because they are so bought and paid for they make Dems and normal Reps look somewhat sane. Where did they get there funding Prof…oh yea from people they now protect with our fiscal insanity.
Show me where they are calling for a nuking of our public private partnerships, show me where they want to regulate or better regulate the industries that brought us to this point, show me how they want us to stop paying pharma to subsidize the worlds lower prices on Americans dime. The list goes on and on my friend. The TP is more owned than Rhino’s ever thought of being because the TP dolts have turned it into a religion which allows them to ignore both reality and history.
Prof-You once noted that the gov should not pick winners and losers, guess what the TP supports it.
They could close those loopholes that pick winners and losers and work on removing industry friendly regs but of course those are the guys that brought them to the dance. I fail to see honor in gutting the social safety net “for our own interests” only so we can shift those funds to the industries that filled their coffers and will do so in the future.
Everyone sees the underlying problem but the government has absolutely no ability to solve it. Yes special interests (corporations, banks, defense contractors, unions, etc.) continually influence the money flows to their favor. Liberals continually make a false assumption when they argue that government can fix the problems by implementing fairer policies. That’s because all policies are filtered through the political process and it is the process that corrupts the outcome. This is why more government spending invariably leads to even more influence by the corporations, the banks, the unions, the AARP, etc etc.
The only way to restrict special interest politics is to restrict the power of Congress to control outcomes. If Congress had less power to influence outcomes, and I mean less power to influence education and less power to influence trade and less power to influence retirement and less to influence energy etc. … then powerful interests would have no where to turn to. Instead business would have to compete in the market to survive, banks would have to be prudent in their lending to survive, teachers would have to teach effectively to survive, etc.
This is why it would be great if someone could design a Constitution that limited the scope of the Federal government and makes sure it doesn’t get into everybody’s business. It is why we need a system in which powers are segregated and we don’t end up with a dictator or king. It is why we need a system that leaves smaller constituencies free to design systems that they feel are best for their more local communities.
Oh wait .. didn’t someone design a system like that about 220 year ago??
http://themoderatevoice.com/119348/the-lost-poetry-of-sikh-poet-nunihal-singh-layal-how-evil-enters-in-society/
@MSF
Yes, I know that the legislators have been bought. We had the Democrats offer Frank-Dodd in response to the financial meltdown, and Republicans screamed like it was overkill, when it really was a complete, useless distraction. That was Dylan’s point. JSpencer still talks like the Democrats really want to address what ails us, when they’ve failed on all fronts.
The TP freshmen, on the other hand, have no power without allies. They do seem to have a few of those in both parties — along with enemies. We really don’t know if they would support or oppose fixing loopholes, or reducing military spending. As freshmen, they don’t get the committee appointments that hold the real power to get legislation to the floor, and thus direct the conversation. We do know they oppose the Patriot act, and are much more fiscally conservative than the other Republicans, because those are the two points that they rebelled against the mainline. That’s all we know at this point.
@smsuran
I call it the lobbery, which pays off much better than other types of gambling.
I had FOX news playing in the background today, yes I find it useful to listen to what the plutocrat network has to say, and Neil Cavuto was interviewing a British financial guy. Sorry but I didn’t catch his name but he was not telling Neil what he wanted to hear. He said that the problems in London and it’s suburbs are a symptom not the problem. He said people feel that their elected officials are looking out for the banksters, the very people that caused the problem. There is a complete lack of faith in the government. At some point the Tea Party may figure out that the Oligarchs that are funding them are the problem. The unrest will spread – the Arab spring became the London summer. The triggers are the same. Will it be the American fall, winter, spring or summer. If not this year when. Probably sooner than the the oligarchs would like.
Ron-
I’m just as much a pessimist as you are. By and large, our people are a collection of broken dreams for themselves and for their children. If you blame it on bought and paid for government, you would be right.
in the end… it is still the people that decide. We vote for lobbyist enslaved politicians and wonder why they create legislation that favors lobbyist groups and their corporation funders or special interest groups.
We are the problem.
A fool and his money are soon parted.
Folks it is really simple. We do not need to go back to the gilded age nor start all over. We merely need valid and real campaign finance reform and a few things like acknowledgement that corporations do not equal people and money does not equal speech.
I know that many may believe in an ideology so much that it becomes a religion BUT if you really want to fix the system and lower our spending you have to control the bribes we call campaign contributions. If you cant do that due to your religion that shut the hell up about fixing anything because you cant and your desire is trumped by your religion.
smsuran- Ya know what I have been hearing that if we merely went back in time 100 years all would be well for many years yet they always seem to ignore that the realism of that is akin to wishing for unicorns and that those bribes have already filtered down to the state level. Gutting the federal gov may allow Alabama to reinstate segregation of some odd modern type but otherwise your local pols will now be the focus AND we will have no regs that actually keep people safe.
Did you know that the water supply is why industrialized nations have such a low birth rate? Why they mature early and have infertility problems? Did you know that our regs since the 80′s have primarily been written by industry for industry? Did you know that our food supply is untrustworthy because the regs lack any teeth? Did you know that supplements do not need to prove they are safe for human consumption in the US but that the US gov has to prove they are not? Did you know a long list of industry friendly corporate gov backslapping is going on that we call “crony capitalism” only because we are scared that historically it is called fascism? Going back to your limited gov will only make the bribery easier, we have grown golems called multi national mega corps that are looting us like the barbarians looted rome and this modern religion called ideology ties out hands to resolve anything since “I hate the nanny state” trumps all.
In short instead of working for the perfect why dont we consider for once working on the functional.
At this juncture, even basic functionality would seem miraculous!
“Did you know that the water supply is why industrialized nations have such a low birth rate?”
No. Most people have the number of kids that they want, and sometimes one or two extra. My wife and I had troubles having kids, but we still got them. In industrial nations, people want fewer kids. In non-industrial nations, your kids are your retirement. Lots of kids gives you more people to take care of you when you’re old. It’s a well-researched phenomenon.
And of course there are going to be gaps, because no person or group can do so much, and still do it well. Politics is typically about rewarding those who helped you get into office, at all levels. You have to expect many of them aren’t going to be competent. There’s no way to fix the FDA and hundred other agencies with one set of votes.
Prof-People do decide to have less children but that is not the cause of infertility. That comes from our water that is filled with toxins and hormones that are not cleaned out. For instance birth control keeps cycling through the water we drink maturing the young faster and making people infertile, science is like magic thats true! Another problem is zero regs on factory farm waste, again another cause and effect studied fact that we refuse to look at because of course regs=evil.
“There’s no way to fix the FDA and hundred other agencies with one set of votes.”
So maybe we should just give up on this entire experiment we call the US gov huh?? Dude remove the money and you remove most of the incentive. If you refuse to due to ideology say so dont hide behind “it will never work” or “they will merely be dirty in another way.”
We were working to improve the environment though with overly complicated regs until Reagan won and asked industry “what should I get rid of?” Oddly their answers had zero to do with good regulation and 100% to do with making a profit and ignoring the results. Stop voting for business men from large corps that will only go back, they work for the corps not the gov. Stop putting industry men in charge of regs of industry because they have zero incentive to create even rational regs.
Being beholden to a religious belief that gov cant work does not explain how it functioned very nicely for many many years and functions nicely elsewhere. We can truly go back to a state based nation but accept the fact that we will no longer be a first world nation and you and most everyone in it will be much much more poor.
@MSF
All organizations need maintenance. As I’ve pointed out several times, large corporations will spin off profitable divisions because they distract from their core business.
Yes, a program can run for decades and still be effective, but at some point, it needs to be reorganized. Oftentimes, a business can’t keep up, or a church can’t appeal to new people, or a charity loses it reputation, and the organization gets replaced.
Success in the past does not mean it’s currently effective. When was the last time a president tried to reorganize all of his departments?