Surviving Capitalism (Not) : Behind the US budget conflict, a renewed bipartisan campaign to cut social programs

We’ve lived so long under the spell of hierarchy—from god-kings to feudal lords to party bosses—that only recently have we awakened to see not only that “regular” citizens have the capacity for self-governance, but that without their engagement our huge global crises cannot be addressed. The changes needed for human society simply to survive, let alone thrive, are so profound that the only way we will move toward them is if we ourselves, regular citizens, feel meaningful ownership of solutions through direct engagement. Our problems are too big, interrelated, and pervasive to yield to directives from on high.
—Frances Moore Lappé, excerpt from Time for Progressives to Grow Up

Monday, September 23, 2013

Behind the US budget conflict, a renewed bipartisan campaign to cut social programs

Click here to access article by Patrick Martin from World Socialist Web Site.

There is a consensus in the US financial aristocracy, which dominates both parties, that federal social spending be slashed, as part of the overall program of driving down living standards and attacking the social rights of the working class. The divisions between the two corporate-controlled political parties, as well as within the Republican Party, between its Tea Party wing and the congressional leadership, largely concern the tactics for imposing these cuts, not the direction or goals.

What basically divides the two capitalist parties is the hyper-aggressive strategy of the Republican Party to eliminate all costs to social programs versus the more gradual approach favored by the Democratic Party. The latter prefers this "boiling frog" strategy because it is less likely to provoke a backlash by the American people.