. . .we need to stage our own obstinacy to whatever republicans say they want, until we get spending on these programs fully restored. That includes holding them to their promise to address tax loopholes and other tax largess to the wealthy; like the sweet 'carried interest' deal Romney and other money speculators and investors enjoy.

That Republicans are the party of the wealthy and Democrats the party of the poor. It's a nice, simple, us versus them worldview. It is also incorrect. As it happens the two parties are relatively equal in terms of makeup and corporate contributions. Both parties have a roughly equal number of wealthy members, both attract the same corporations to offer roughly the same donations (and when looked at as industries rather than corporations the numbers are very similar).

In short, both parties represent the wealthy and corporations.

Neither party represents or gives a damn about anyone else. And for good reason -- everyone else is broke. The bottom 30% of American families -- approximately 100 million people -- have literally no wealth at all. They have nothing. The next 50% are little better. They have some money, but not enough to care about. Only the top 20% have enough to go after.

Further, and this is key, politicians know that no matter what they do once they get in office, their party members will vote for them anyway. The only exception to this rule is the Tea Party, and as a result - -despite only 8% of Americans calling themselves members and only 30% holding a favorable view -- they still command tremendous power in Washington. They have power because they demand purity and they vote in primaries.

It comes down to this: Exxon doesn't CARE who wins elections. Neither does Lockheed, UnitedHealth, Monsanto, Goldman, or any other major corporation. They don't care because they call the shots in both parties. They own them, and whoever happens to win will do exactly what they are told to do. In exchange they get to be part of the club. They become royalty. That's the choice, royalty and dynasty or out on your ass.

If, for example, you are Bill Clinton, Governor of a small southern state, and member of the top 10% in terms of wealth, and you reject the deal... you become nothing. You're done. No one knows your name, your kid goes to the public university, your investments don't magically grow, you don't command a million bucks a minute in speaking fees, your books don't sell, you aren't invited to sit in on the private Billionaires Only corporate boards, there's no screaming crowds, no Senate run for your wife, you are just a regular nobody getting by on whatever graft you managed to skim during your time at the state level.

But play along and you are in with the club, and the entire world is at your feet. You want to know why Clinton signed NAFTA and welfare reform? You want to know why Bush launched us into two wars and signed Patriot? You want to why Obama signed the ACA? That's what their owners told them to do.

That's why President Obama TOLD US we have to keep the pressure on, he told us we have to hold his feet to the fire. He told us this during his convention speech. That was the bargain. It was our job to make so much noise that he had no choice but to listen to us. And so far we haven't done it. So far all we've done is make excuses and talk about hyper-dimensional chess. Which leaves him no choice but to go along with the owners.

TLDR?

Stop talking nonsense about the GOP and the party of the rich, and start demanding that our guys do the job they promised. Let the GOP worry about the GOP. We are having enough trouble just getting control over our own party. Nuff said.

And dead on about keeping the heat on Obama. Sure as heck he's getting heat from the rich.

Historically, tho, the Dems have favored the poor and beat on. What we need to do is figure out how we can get it together and remind them of the differences before it all becomes sold to the highest bidder.

But you can't convince me that republicans stand for and represent the same issues, initiatives, concerns that our Democratic party regularly fights for. Sure, you can pull out many instances where Democrats have voted for policies which favor corporations or some wealthy investor. That's certainly something which voters need to be aware of and respond to. But, I maintain that, if not for the republican party, we would have, at least, a balance of interests and legislation which would go a long way in helping to bring some relief and some balance to our economy - at least as far as government is able to influence those outcomes.

I frankly think it's a worthless distraction to talk today about those instances where Democrats support some corporate largess or some wealthy person's relief. Republicans have brought us to this point with their deliberate inaction and obstruction of Democratic initiatives which have tried to level the financial landscape for some and tried to provide aid an assistance for those who need it the most.

Blaming Democrats just ignores and completely misses the points where republicans have effectively blocked our Democratic agenda relating to jobs and the investments we need to advantage the majority of wage earners and small business owners. It's been a war for some time now on those initiatives. It's easy to look at what's actually been allowed to pass their gauntlet and conclude that neither party wants to make a difference; but that would just be a complete distortion of the majority of our Democrats' intent and effort. That kind of reasoning falls right into the republicans' cynical plan to wreck our economy and blame Democrats; hoping to reap some political benefit. These days, as they're steadily losing ground, republicans look to be operating out of pure spite.

If you can't see the difference, you're just not looking in the right places.

At the same time, it is also a mistake to assume that the issues and concerns of the party base are shared by the leadership. Further, it is a mistake to assume that the two parties are identical even at the leadership level. In some areas, particularly social and religious based issues, there are marked differences. It would be ludicrous to suggest, for example, that both party leaderships hold the same views on abortion.

But this thread is about economic warfare, and it is here that the lines between party leadership all but vanish. Further, when it comes to passing really big class war legislation, we are leading the change into battle against the workers, and the GOP leadership is riding with us. Our party has led on slashing the safety net and "welfare reform." Our party led the charge with NAFTA which exploded our trade deficits, finished off unions, disempowered workers, and eliminated the manufacturing base middle class. And so it goes. It took a Democrat to pass insurance mandates, and now Obama seemingly cannot go a week without offering to destroy Social Security -- and make no mistake, that's what chained CPI does.

The two biggest myths in American politics:

* The GOP is the party of small government and fiscal responsibility, and Democrats are big spending liberals. This is, of course, laughable. It's completely backwards -- the GOP even tends to spend more on social issues than our party. A fiscal conservative who actually cared about the deficits and debt would vote Democratic every time. Yet the myth persists, largely because everyone in power repeats it.

* The GOP cares about the rich and Democrats care about the poor and the working man. That's what this sub-thread is about, and this myth is no more correct than the one I just listed (above).

Apologies if this is somewhat disjointed. My head is a bit fuzzy from a lack of coffee.