A sampling of independent thinking

“Democrats and Republicans are at loggerheads, but they are disagreeing primarily about how much harm they want to impose. That’s a very consequential disagreement, but it ignores the fact that we don’t need to impose any harm at all. . . It is both bewildering and unconscionable that pontificating politicians and pundits express so much concern for imagined future economic problems while ignoring the real and present suffering that pervades the country.”

     - Robert Weissman, President, Public Citizen

“Let us be clear. Social Security has not contributed one nickel to our deficit or our national debt . . .I am especially disturbed that President Obama is considering cuts in Social Security after he campaigned against cuts in 2008."

             - Senator Bernie Sanders (I-VT), 7/7/11

"John McCain's campaign has suggested that the best answer for the growing pressures on Social Security might be to cut cost of living adjustments or raise the retirement age. Let me be clear: I will not do either."

- Presidential Candidate Barack Obama, September 6, 2008

“The set of priorities now embraced by the Obama team is unrecognizable by anyone who witnessed his 2008 campaign.”

    - Roger Bybee, Journalist

“In many crucial areas, (Obama) has done more to subvert and weaken the left's political agenda than a GOP president could have dreamed of achieving. . .  Obama is now on the verge of injecting what until recently was the politically toxic and unattainable dream of Wall Street and the American right - attacks on the nation's social safety net - into the heart and soul of the Democratic party's platform.”

      -  Glenn Greenwald, Guardian UK, July 21, 2011

“It is absurd that Medicaid, along with Medicare and Social Security, is on the chopping block when there is no serious effort to find savings in a defense budget equal to that of the rest of the world’s nations combined, and still at Cold War era levels despite the lack of a sophisticated military enemy. And that the GOP-led House has gotten a supposedly progressive president to consider doing serious damage to our most vulnerable population in order to placate Republicans determined to continue massive tax breaks for the wealthy is morally obscene.”

   - Robert Scheer, The Nation, 7/13/11

“I’m amazed that the President refers to what he does as a "balanced approach." First of all, the war and its enormous costs, off the table in any serious way. Going back to a serious taxation of corporations and of the rich in America, just, for example, at the scale that they were taxed in the ’50s, ’60s and ’70s, off the table.”

     - Richard Wolff, economist, New School University, Democracy Now interview

The most distressing outcome of the deficit hysteria gripping Washington may be what Barack Obama has revealed about himself. It was disconcerting to watch the president slip-slide so easily into voicing the fallacious economic arguments of the right. It was shocking when he betrayed core principles of the Democratic Party, portraying himself as high-minded and brave because he defied his loyal constituents. Supporters may hope this rightward shift was only a matter of political tactics, but I think Obama has at last revealed his sincere convictions. If he wins a second term, he will be free to strike a truly rotten “grand bargain” with Republicans—“pragmatic” compromises that will destroy the crown jewels of democratic reform.

     - William Greider, Journalist, The Nation, 7/27/11

“Rather than embracing the Republican rhetoric which blames our public insurances [Medicare], Democrats would do well to call out the real reason for our health care spending crisis: our current fragmented and profit-driven model, and advocate for a national improved Medicare for all.”

      - Margaret Flowers, M.D.

In a Washington Post.\/ABC News poll conducted in mid-July, 80 percent of people said they were either angry or dissatisfied with the way the Washington works. That was the highest angry/dissatisfied number since 1992 in Post/ABC polling.

"It's no longer accurate to say we have two parties running the country. We have a single party with an extremist wing called the Republican Party and a slightly less extremist wing called the Democratic Party, both of which have made service to Wall Street and other powerful corporate elites their top priority.”

     - Farheen Hakeem, co-chair, Green Party of the United States

"The word bipartisan means some larger-than-usual deception is being carried out."

     - George Carlin, comedian and social critic (1937-2008)