Now if only the Tea Party got the real crux of the problem....

http://weeklysift.com/2011/08/15/one-word-turns-the-tea-party-around/

It's not unchecked government that is the problem. It's unchecked corporate power that is the problem.

You mean - It's not unchecked government that is the only problem?

It's not unchecked government that is the problem. It's unchecked corporate power that is the problem.

Try both -- concentrated corporate power and big government are working hand in hand. Would love to see some real antitrust action, insistence on breaking up and paring down the banking comglomerates and a stop put to monetizing the national debt, would set us up for some real economic healing over the longer run. But not going to get that with the Jeff Imelt's and Tim Geithner's and Ben Bernanke's of this world (or their other party counterparts of recent times) calling the shots.

Agreed Newleaf. Problem is that corporations own the pols and the voting machines too.

I was told yesterday that all political lobbying is forbidden in Canada.
Maybe that would help in DC too!

Only problem with the Canadian system is that damn Constitution of ours. The first amendment allows for the right to petition the government to address grievances.

I doubt that paid lobbyists were what the founding fathers had in mind for "addressing grievances, but maybe they were...we will never know.

The continued support for Ron Paul is creating quite a schism within the GOP.

IMO, the GOP base now accepts that opposing the Middle East military invasions/nation-building didn't mean you were a pacifist. More people are now openly skeptical of whether the costs of middle east invasion/nation-building actually justified the benefits.

It's not the same as admitting they were mistaken, but it's a start. In the meantime, as tea party members wrestle with the cuts necessary to move to a balanced budget, the cognitive dissonance over the cost of maintaining the wars is becoming palpable.

Unfortunately, most of the conservative talkradio guys went all in on GWB's post-9/11 strategies though so they are having a difficult time squaring that with the changing sentiment.

Glen Beck has at least tried to walk some of it back, by acknowledging that a lot of our problems in the middle east were spawned by decades of interventionism.

Limbaugh can't go there, it is not in his DNA to be 'wrong' on any major issue.

Pancho - The real history in the Middle East at least goes back to the US propping up Mohammad Reza Pahlavi (better known as the Shah of Iran). This started in 1953 with Eisenhower's involvement in the coup d'tat against the legitimate Prime Minister of Iran. Notice we have a Republican in power when it starts. And we all pretty much know when it ended.

Oil politics in the Middle East and Viet Nam, because the resolution of the Gulf of Tonkin was about oil and not communism, has led to a world of issues for this nation. And the beneficiaries are always corporations. The rest of us pay for the ride.

The reason that the GOP establishment won't get behind Mr. Paul (and why they hedge their rhetoric on Palin/Bachmann) has a lot to do with sheer pragmatism; they don't think he can beat Obama, and they are most likely correct. Mitt Romney is more than just the heir-apparent. In my opinion, because we are a center-right nation, he has the best chance of defeating Obama.