I am banging this drum on a daily basis. In unison - everyone needs to open their doors and walk outside and keep walking to the closest major street or intersection. The streets need to be full of people just standing in quiet protest. The US needs to grind to a halt in order for the media to notice there's a problem here... that we're mad as Hell and we're not going to take it anymore. Can I depend on you to coordinate this Thom? You know this is the only way to be heard - we are all Wisconsin!!

Glen Greenwald: "Obama, above all else, is eager to be guardian of the status quo"
http://www.salon.com/news/opinion/glenn_greenwald/2011/04/13/obama/index.html

Below is just an excerpt from a rather lengthy article. Basically, I agree with Glen Greenwald.

Whether in economic policy, national security, civil liberties, or the permanent consortium of corporate power that runs Washington, Obama, above all else, is content to be (one could even say eager to be) guardian of the status quo. And the forces of the status quo want tax cuts for the rich, serious cuts in government spending that don't benefit them (social programs and progressive regulatory schemes), and entitlement "reform" -- so that's what Obama will do. He won't advocate, and will actually oppose, steps as extreme as the ones Paul Ryan is proposing: that's how he will retain his "centrist" political identity and keep the fear levels high among his voting base. He'll pay lip service to some Democratic economic dogma and defend some financially inconsequential culture war positions: that's how he will signal to the base that he's still on their side. But the direction will be the same as the GOP desires and, most importantly, how the most powerful economic factions demand: not because he can't figure out how to change that dynamic, but because that's what benefits him and thus what he wants.

Ironically, Obama is turning out to be "transformational" in his own way -- by taking what was once the defining GOP approach to numerous policy areas and converting them into Democratic ones, and thus ensconcing them in the invulnerable protective shield of "bipartisan consensus." As Digby put it: "Reagan was a hard-core ideologue who didn't just tweak some processes but radically changed the prevailing conventional wisdom. Unfortunately, Obama is actually extending the Reagan consensus, even as he pursues his own agenda of creating a Grand Bargain that will bring peace among the dueling parties (a dubious goal in itself.)" That has been one of the most consequential outcomes of the first two years of his presidency in terms of Terrorism and civil liberties, and is now being consecrated in the realm of economic policy as well.

UPDATE: Obama gave a speech today on the budget that many liberals seemed to like -- some more than others. It was a fine speech as far as it goes -- advocating, among other things, defense cuts and a repeal of the Bush tax cuts and vowing to protect the poor from the pain of deep entitlement reductions -- but I've long ago ceased caring about what Obama says in individual, isolated speeches: especially an Obama now formally in re-election mode. As I said above, he can be expected to oppose Paul Ryan's plan and "pay lip service to some Democratic economic dogma." If this becomes a sustained bully pulpit campaign to rhetorically sell these principles to the citizenry accompanied by real action to defend them, that will be one thing: I'll be pleasantly surprised and will be happy to say so. But what matters is actions and outcomes.

UPDATE II [Thurs.]: As I noted, most liberals, at least that I've heard, had a quite favorable response to Obama's speech, chief among them (as the above links show) Paul Krugman. Yet by the end of the day, Krugman was quoting Bob Greenstein of the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, who argued that Obama's "plan is a rather conservative one, significantly to the right of the Rivlin-Domenici plan" and that it "could produce an outcome that is well to the right of the already centrist-to-moderately-conservative Obama proposal." Krugman himself added that "it’s a center-right plan already; if it's the starting point for negotiations that move the solution toward lower taxes for the rich and even harsher cuts for the poor, just say no."

That highlights two key points. One is that the expectation level of liberals is now so low that they cheer for a pretty speech that introduces a "rather conservative, center-right plan" -- one that is almost certainly the mere starting point that will lead to a still more rightward economic policy. And the second is that Obama always has been able to deliver nice speeches, especially ones that trigger the desired response among progressives; the test for Obama is what he does, not what he says in a single speech.

If Obama follows through on what his speech promised Thats a very good thing for us all Not just libs Not cons But ALL of us

There are a lot of rally going on across the country. Yesterday April 15, USUNCUT organized rallies across the country and on Monday, April 18, there are hundreds of rallies being organized by USUNCUT and MOVEON.org. On April 4th there were hundreds of Union organized rallies across the country and I think just about every day some place there are rallies against local or state governments. There needs to be a campaign at the media demanding they start covering them. The Tea Party would have faded away if it wasn't for the media coverage they have and continue to get and their demands are going to drive this country off a cliff. President Obama and our other Democratic official have to know that we want them to do the right thing.

This report is public, I'm assuming. Who has picked it up? No mainstream media, I'm sure. It needs a lot more visibility.

Ginny

It's all about money and profits!

http://www.opednews.com/articles/Libya-All-About-Oil-or-A-by-Ellen-Brown-110414-179.html

Contrary to what the Planet Zenu Party believes, a functional democracy absolutely requires regulatory systems that attend to the best interests of the vast majority. In particular, the suits operating the shell game tables on Wall Street need special attention. “We the people” all realize these guys are not walking around obsessing about “What would Mother Teresa do?”

The repeal of Glass-Steagall makes it apparent we are the United States of Amnesia. After all, its origins were related to bankster behaviors, such as, executives enriching themselves by deeds such as short-selling and packaging failed loans into securities and then unloading them on unsuspecting investors. Why does behavior from over 70 years ago sound so familiar again? Could it be Robert Rudin taking a position with Citibank soon after Glass-Steagall was repealed, with an annual compensation of 40 million, even while Citigroup incurred 24 billion in subprime losses? Maybe it was hedge fund manager, John Paulson, betting against the real estate bubble and making 15 billion of ill-gotten wealth in a single year. Let’s see, how did he do that? Maybe by paying Goldman to create securities and then hand picking out mortgage related assets that would go into, ultimately doomed, CDOs and then short the bonds to make billions as the housing market collapses.

The repeal of Glass-Steagall has to be the most outrageous example ever of ugly history repeating its ugly self. I take that back. I can think of another example, Teddy’s Tillman Act versus Citizens United, which is an equal example of ugly history repeating itself.

Come on, how many times can people like Mitt Romney convince us to buy ocean front property in Utah?! The history of greed and evil remains a constant, doomed to be repeated, with absence of democratic regulatory interventions.

There was a recent reference to the differences in wages between Sweden's auto assembly rates and the same company's wage rates here in the U.S. Would you Please give me the source?