Joseph Palermo and Glenn Greenwald on Captivity of Both Democrats and Republicans to Corporate Elite

At Huffington Post, Joseph Palermo reminds readers of why Obama and the Democrats are in political trouble: the president has surrounded himself with "political wizards" and "characterless hacks" who have no clue about the misery this administration has inflicted on working- and middle-class citizens, while bailing out the banks and Wall Street.  For many of Mr. Obama's most ardent supporters, his presidency has been exceptionally demoralizing, because it demonstrates to us the extent to which corporate wealth now owns the American political process, no matter who is in office: 

The huge Wall Street banks got a lot of tender loving care while struggling mortgage holders and unemployed workers were left to fend for themselves. There's no clearer example that oligarchic corporate interests have "captured" not only the regulatory agencies of government, but the government itself.

Glenn Greenwald makes a similar point at Salon, as he notes that media and political pundits offer Americans a steady diet of D and R binary opposites, as though the only two political options ever possible for us are clear, distinct choices between sweet and sour, black and white, good and bad.  And as though the two leaders of the two parties do not cohere in the single intent of protecting the interests of the super-rich.  As Greenwald notes, conservative commentator Rod Dreher speaks a "vital truth" when he observes that "the enemy of the financial interests of ordinary Americans is the capture of both parties by Wall Street and the banks."

To piggyback on what I've just posted about Paul Krugman's latest New York Times op-ed: there's the real moral center, that ought to be occupying our attention in American political debates today.  It's the subjugation of our political system to the needs and interests of a tiny monied elite, while the rest of the nation is asked to enact increasing "austerity" measures.

We're creating a dysfunctional society as a result, in which life belongs to a handful of people, and the lives of the rest count for little or nothing.  And until we create some political options that transcend the D and R deadlock (which is all about spinning illusory binary opposites, while both parties kowtow to corporate and banking interests, we're going to continue to get more dysfunctional. 

Later in the day: Robert Scheer writes incisively about the same matters at Truthdig today, noting Obama's "fatal arc of betrayal" of his followers, with the economic policies he's chosen to enact.