The corporate media, whose job is to create impressions of reality while revealing nothing of actual substance, is full of scorn for the now adjourned 113th Congress, which, according to the New York Times,
is “in a race to the bottom” with the previous Congress as the most “do
nothing” ever. Media associated with the Democratic wing of the ruling
duopoly are especially upset that the Republican faction has not
cooperated with President Obama to get something – anything! – done, as
if the nation and the world would be a better place if the two big
business parties would only collaborate more closely with one another.
The current state of congressional gridlock is, according to the
pundits, the worst of all worlds.
The truth is, were it not for gridlock, President Obama would have
engineered the utter annihilation of what’s left of the social safety
net in a Grand Bargain with the Republicans during his first term
office. That was his plan from the very beginning,
when the new president announced that all entitlements, including
Social Security, were on the chopping block. Before his first year was
out, Obama had crushed the jellyfish that call themselves progressive
Democrats in the health care debate. With his arms spread wide to
embrace the Republicans as partners in the Age of Austerity, Obama
offered to lead the wrecking crew that would finally demolish Franklin
Roosevelt’s New Deal and Lyndon Johnson’s Great Society.
-- Glen Ford, "Long Live Gridlock and Paralysis of Both Big Business Parties" (Black Agenda Report).