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Well-Known Member
Well, first let's not forget that there is a lot of crossover among these groups. If you've ever heard the name 'Gary North,' he writes on libertarian (anarcho-capitalist) economic theory on Lew Rockwell.com, while at that same time he is one of the pivotal figures in creating the modern Christian Reconstructionist Movement -- extreme theocrats who want Christian theocratic government that would invoke Biblical Law (Theonomy) which would include public stonings for the crimes listed in the Old Testament. Why would someone like North be talking about eliminating government, while pushing repressive theocracy out of the other side of his mouth? One simple reason why extreme fundamentalists talk about reducing government, is that they see their churches stepping in and taking over education, vetting candidates for office, and replacing civil law with church law. Remember, Republican libertarians are mostly concerned about government interference in business. They don't have many qualms about interfering in social issues. Even Ron Paul has no problem interfering with a woman's right to have an abortion.
As for the Chamber of Commerce....some of these billionaires are also religious crackpots...take Foster Friese for example, who bankrolled Rick Santorum. But, most of them, if they do profess a religious adherence, are likely only nominally religious...since they worship money above all else. But, they are aware that there are few of them, and lots of us! So, the practical strategy for Republicans to divide and conquer middle and lower classes has been to use social issues to distract rank and file Republicans from the fact that their economic strategies are bad for everyone who is not already rich! Thomas Frank wrote "What's The Matter With Kansas" 10 years ago, using his home state as Exhibit A for how Republicans took control the State without doing anything to address the economic needs of the majority. So, these groups may have different core concerns; but they are aware of how useful the other members of this movement are.
A good example of how the only "interest" that counts now are corporate interests. What the majority of people in either party want doesn't count for much.
I guarantee you! If I was still living in the U.S. I would have already decided which third party candidate to get behind. There's no way I would waste my time on Obama, any more than I would with Romney. It's not about being sanguine; it's a matter of pushing back in whatever way possible at the two party duopoly, that is almost identical on so many important issues, and are so money-driven that they can't advocate raising taxes on the rich, regulating banking and hidden, derivatives markets, allow a Medicare buy-in, ending the wars and cutting military spending, or many other issues where neither party is on side with the majority of Americans.
I think the fact that he will not even breathe mention of repealing the millionaire's tax or threaten Cayman Islands - registered corporations who have dodged billions in corporate taxes, or started applying leverage on the bankers...who are putting their money behind Romney, tells me that the story isn't just about campaign financing, but likely includes deals for future compensations. If it was just about the campaign dollars, there would be nothing stopping him from going populist and running against the greedy bankers like FDR did back in 1936.
The product all these jobs are dependent on is ultimately sold to the Government, the Feds could create many times more jobs with infrastructure projects that would not only provide lots of temporary construction jobs, they would leave bridges, roads and other public projects afterwards that could add value to communities for the next half-century. Or all that money could be spent on something that just gets sent off to Afghanistan to be blown up.
Since defense contractors are the biggest welfare bums around...depending on the public purse for all of their revenues, they have always been heavily involved in lobbying in Washington and campaign financing. And the reason why so many jobs depend on them, is that since they are in turn dependent on the Government, they are the only industries that didn't export all of their production to the Third World for dollar-a-day workers. Some contractors - like Lockheed-Martin, has some kind of manufacturing spread throughout the Lower 48. They know this is not an efficient economic model, but they have only one customer that they have to deal with, and cost becomes less of an issue if they can blackmail and/or arm-twist a congressman into voting for procuring his product.
At best, Obama only offered a weak cap-and-trade strategy for achieving carbon emission targets early on. It was a plan that received enthusiastic backing from Goldman-Sachs, which is why it became Administration policy. But, the Koch's and other oil and coal billionaires seem to have more clout than Wall Street billionaires. The plan itself would have provided negligible benefits, since this type of cap and trade allows carbon emitters to "offset' their emissions with dodgy tactics like planting trees and buying rainforest tracks of land.
All in all, Obama shows no sign of taking climate change or other serious environmental issues that the U.S. has to deal with (like the declining Oglala Aquifer) seriously. No doubt a big part of the problem is that these are issues that are viewed as long term, and that can be sidelined for the next four years for some future presidential candidate to have to worry about. The only party that checks all the boxes on environment issues is the Green Party. Too bad the two party duopoly system keeps them shut out and not even in a position where Democrats would have to respond or feel motivated to adopt some of their ideas.
