The view from Michigan - of House Republicans... / The Stimulus Package heads to the Senate

(yuck yuck...)

The Republicans gather the witless lap dogs of the media, with their bright lights and cameras, and they stand in front of marbled railings and velvet curtains and they trash-talk our newly elected president...

They march smugly into House chambers and vote along party lines. Not one House Republican supported the recent bill brought before them for the Economic Stimulus Package fostered by the Obama Administration. Not. One.

No, in the end that didn't matter becuase, yes, it passed the house. - Here - (Components of Stimulus Vary in Speed and Efficiency)
You can read about how much it's going to help struggling state economies and how much its going to boost education and the lighter taxes being taken from your check and about how your friends and parents who have all been laid off recently can get extended unemployment benefits...You can also read about the potential (and, with congress, inevitable) pork that gets attached.

But none of that matters. It's still just red and just blue. No purple - no way. Here we are, we finally get the inept-one-day/tyrannical-the-next stylings of Governor Bush out of the White House only to have your Progress and your Change bear-trapped deep into the fleshy calf by the childish buffoonery of partisanship.

The argument from the grousing right - the tax cuts aren't big enough (which...might hold some water...but why talk trash in front of "news" cameras when you could be sitting down to hammer these things out with Obama). The other gibberish they've heaved to defend their opposition (in hopes of stalling the bill) is some variation on "making sure they get it right...

What, lately, have you gotten right?

Fine. The more you keep fucking around over there like 3rd graders sticking crayons into electric pencil sharpeners...the more we, especially here in Michigan, keep losing our jobs. Keep up the good work. Here's to democracy.

read up here - on the Economic Crisis

"Economists and politicians across the spectrum continue to insist that the challenge lies in revving up inert demand. For in an economy that has become dependent on consumerism to the tune of 70 percent of GDP, shoppers who won't shop and consumers who don't consume spell disaster. Yet it is precisely in confronting the paradox of consumerism that the struggle for capitalism's soul needs to be waged.
The crisis in global capitalism demands a revolution in spirit -- " (alternet.org)

and a great write-up here from Kalamazoo News