Andy McCarthy on what is different about this administration and this Congress
The “it” is what we’ve been saying on this blog for what seems like a long, long, time: that Obama and the Democratic leaders in Congress are playing a very different game with very different rules. They don’t care about re-election; they care about the transformation of our government, economy, and way of life.
There are only two questions, as McCarthy indicates. The first is whether, as he says, “there are enough Democrats who are conventional politicians and who care about being reelected, such that they will deny the leadership the numbers it needs.” The second is whether, if there are not enough, there will be enough Republicans to take power in the next election cycle to undo the harm that has been done, by what mechanism this might be accomplished, and how quickly. In other words, will the changes be irrevocable?
[NOTE: For earlier posts that speculate somewhat along these same lines, see this and this.]
And the answers are, (1) maybe and (2) maybe. If we’re fortunate (clasp our hands and pray for good fortune!).
It depends in large measure on the Republicans understanding the magnitude of what’s afoot. And there is no guarantee of that. Oh, I think some do–although not a moment too soon. Paul Ryan, Coburn, and a few others see what’s happening. The happy fact is that they are where they are in the leadership. But the sad fraction is that they may not yet be strong enough to carry the day amongst their fellows. We can hope.
We shall know, soon enough.
And after we know, we will know what may have to come next.
Yes, McCarthy seems to have a firm grasp on matters. All the while, the GOP along with a lot of the pundits I read seem to think everything is ‘politics as usual’.
Honestly, I wish there was some way to just arrest these statist thugs for treason and lock them away in a deep dark hole – but how is that possible? This virus has infiltrated into almost every aspect community power, from the school boards to the Presidential office. If our founding fathers had wanted a ‘king’ they would have never rebelled, yet here we are again. With one great emergency we may find ourselves in shackles to King Obama – or whatever he’ll choose to call himself.
Many of the Democrats represent gerrymandered districts designed to be impregnable for the Left. They are in no danger. Think Pelosi in San Francisco. Democrats in competitive districts pretend to be “moderate” back in the district and then become reliable votes for Pelosi when they get to DC. They depend on MSM framing them as moderates and their opponents as extremists.
Then there are the institutional resistors left behind in the bureaucracy, whether that is at State, Justice, Labor, or CIA.
They exist to provide ammunition to the MSM to discredit their political masters, if such masters aren’t Democrats.
I think they are beatable, but we we need to keep the spotlight turned on, as Paul Ryan demonstrated at the healthcare summit, and we mustn’t go along to get along. We need about 20 more Ryans and no Wobblies.
Yup. There is no longer any such thing as “politics as usual.” Likewise, there is no longer any such thing as “treason.” I’m not entirely sure why, but we have long since stopped naming any such thing as treason by its real name. The Leftist enterprise has gained a credence many of us would once have thought impossible.
It has to do with being nice. We must be nice. Always be nice. It’s important to be nice.
How lame.
And yet, here we are.
Betsy Bounds, “nice” is P.C. And the necessity to be P.C. (thanks to much liberal influence bolstered by the MSM) has replaced common sense.
I just can’t figure out WHY. It makes no sense, and that makes it hard to fight.
No, the changes will not be irrevocable.
Because for every action there is an equal and opposite reaction.
In fact, in the long run, the more extreme the changes radical Democrats impose upon the American electorate, the greater the political blowback will be and the more far reaching shall the pendulum’s corrective mechanism swing. Even previously untouchable areas of government policy and entitlements will become easily reformable.
This is a fight that radical liberalism cannot win because it is abandoning ‘incrementalism’ much too soon and seeking to force the issue upon an increasingly unwilling public.
Were it willing to wait even another generation it might well succeed, with America even further down the road Europe has gone. But at this moment in history, the state of the economy, the number of unemployed, the precarious state of global financing, the coming resurgence of Al Qaeda… and Iran shortly to gain the bomb with the increase in nuclear proliferation among unstable third-world regimes that will create… all these conspire to make imposing radical liberalism upon Americans ‘a bridge too far’ to cross.
It’s simply too much, too soon.
Radial liberalism forcibly imposed upon Americans will electrify and awaken them in numbers never before contemplated resulting in a political firestorm that will be impossible to extinguish. Remember that the ‘Reagan democrats’ were created in reaction to Jimmy Carter… and Obama, Pelosi and Reid are about to create a ‘reaction’ far greater political earthquake than Carter ever accomplished.
I find myself in the position of John Adams but a year or so before the American revolution. A loyal subject of the crown, he could not stomach the forcible reduction of Americans from freeborn citizen to indentured servant and economic slave.
So too, am I a loyal American but I will not yield up my unalienable freedoms to the State, nor will I agree to pay for another’s abortion.
Though it presently be low on society’s ‘radar screen’, more than any other issue, forcing financial support for abortion upon everyone is the powder keg that can actually ignite active economic insurrection. Democrats are playing with fire on this one and their ideological blindness has them clueless to the danger.
If transformation to socialism is what they seek to impose, rebellion is what they shall have.
“If transformation to socialism is what they seek to impose, rebellion is what they shall have.”
Damn straight.
I linked the McCarthy article at GCP and saw the following comments:
This article: http://www.slate.com/id/2245188 , is not that far off in perspective. The government just does NOT like to admit that it is wrong, ever! Then to have an egotist ascend to power like Obama and a philosophy of elitism supporting him as can be found amongst the ‘progressive’ theorists in our society – something is going to break.
Constitution, they ask, “Whats that?” As can be shown in history, in this country, the politicians in Washington will kill it’s own citizens before admitting that it was wrong. If there is a problem, just get a bigger hammer is their primary tactic. More power = success, as defined by our rulers. Success for the elites, suppression against non-conformists.
A few months ago I would have worried. That was before Tea Parties. Now I think if they do this bend-over routine it will be the biggest mistake they have made. It will Gippify our side.
And the real question is avoided..
whether there are enough non progressives…
which really is the question. the progressives are willing to do anything to change things, including self sacrifice (of the political equivalent to a suicide bomber), and be heroes of the people forever (as in other states)…
their only opposition now are dems that were not progressives… so the next election means nothing as we are not looking at the lable that determines the qualities that we are voting… instead like feminism over two oppositions collecting all the power. progressive over republican and democrat collects the power of both.
in this way, progressives, communists, socialists, leftists, neo liberals, fabians, and a list of other synonomic names, control both sides of any issue, and thereby control the whole.
of course if one is still in begineers politics a la meritocracy, one is ignorant of the nuances of play afforded by a system which gives license to anything and everything amoral that would work against the smaller limited moral set of their enemies.
ROSE: I just can’t figure out WHY. It makes no sense, and that makes it hard to fight.
yeah. i agree. but then again, we lose the minute we couldn’t understand long tracts and wanted snappy truths. once we did that, our value meters focused not on the value of the content but on its ability to please the senses and confirm prior conditions.
the why is actually easy, as its the same why, by the same movement, following the same ideals, of the same set of prophets (who were wrong), and the desire to sublimate ‘individual’ into collective, where they can declare themselves the brain, and we must comply as any body should (with those they dislike seen to be a cancer and their removal a purification of the body politic).
everything old is new again
especially when the education and culture is inverted (that word again) and the young teach the old, what the old and treacherous, teach the young.
Why is simple if you have read the people they idolize, hint in conversation, use special words, etc.
I want to congratulate all of you at Campus Progress for the work you’ve been doing to build a new generation of progressive leadership in this country. At a time when too many in the media have written off your generation as apathetic or uninvolved, you’re proving not only that you care very deeply about the future of this country, but that you’re willing to do something about it.
I could stand up here today and talk about that future – about our vision for America – but I know that we share similar views on this and that you’re pretty well-versed on the issues anyway. Obama
he doesnt have to talk about he vision since he is talking to others… as i have said they know the vision, and so by not talking about it they play on your assumptions of a shared vision and you never check what they are working for. you even learn to defend their misalignment as fringe or some other excuse, separating them from your imaginary assumed common goal, which helps hide these goals which are not in alignment (ergo why they are reforming the state through reforming law, perspective, and so forth)
I want to give you an example that I think illustrates this fact. As some of you know, during the 2004 U.S. Senate General Election I ran against a gentleman named Alan Keyes. Mr. Keyes is well-versed in the Jerry Falwell-Pat Robertson style of rhetoric that often labels progressives as both immoral and godless.
Indeed, Mr. Keyes announced towards the end of the campaign that, “Jesus Christ would not vote for Barack Obama. Christ would not vote for Barack Obama because Barack Obama has behaved in a way that it is inconceivable for Christ to have behaved.”
Jesus Christ would not vote for Barack Obama.Obama
and here is a bit more of his progressive communcations..
Thank you. Thank you Roger Hickey and Bob Borosage for bringing us all together today and thank you for your leadership in the cause of a more progressive America.
My friends, we meet here today at a time where we find ourselves at a crossroads in America’s history.
It’s a time where you can go to any town hall or street corner or coffee shop and hear people express the same anxiety about the future; hear them convey the same uncertainty about the direction we’re headed as a country. Whether it’s the war or Katrina or their health care or their jobs, you hear people say that we’ve finally arrived at a moment where something must change.
of course now what i wrote is way too long… it wasnt fast snappy truth. it didnt entertain… and even less does the links to the ‘plan’ as openly detailed by men like Steve Chase, and others…
As bloggers we must fight hard against the statist takeover.
We must urge our readers to call/fax/email our reps.
We must PUBLISH NAMES AND PHONE NUMBER OF CONGRESSPEOPLE. This will help to encourage the wavering Democrats to think better of supporting the government takeover of our healthcare. They will know, as Washington staffers go google and blogsearch searches on their legislator’s names.
Another thing we can do is to contribute to the campaign of running commercials exposing vulnerable democrats who are voting for Obamacare.
It looks more and more that HC will be pushed through, and that McCarthy is probably right.
There are stories today that Obama is set to announce his latest approach this week. He’ll say something like, ‘Well, we tried to get those conservatives on board but they just can’t be reasoned with even though they agree the system is broken, so we are going to pass…X’; and another story that Pelosi is saying that something HC will pass.
The Media will aid and abet the announcements and process in every way possible.
And in my darkest moments I think Obama et al are right – that once something, anything is passed, the game is over and they’ve won. The future for America is then managed decline and increasing internal oppression, depression, recession, gloom. We become ‘England’ on its way to being a big nothing.
Will Republicans come out fighting? Will the Tea Party Spirit rise again with a great roar?
It’s like some great battle between men and Morder. Morder holds all the strategic advantages.
Will real men and women somehow fight to remain free, and fight to victory? Or is ‘America’ just too old and tired at this point, with no fight left.
The ground has been softened for decades by now rampant PCism. Can we even talk the way we used to? Will self-editing, in the end, be our downfall? When we need to strike the Liberty Bell, will all we manage be a spoon on a glass?
Mike Mc
I noticed that it takes a stout kick in the ass for Americans to understand that something is amiss, a la Pearl Harbor, the hostage crisis or 9/11. Since Comrade President took over there have tea parties, the MA election and oath takers; at least some Americans realize the magnitude of the threat and taken action.
Someone help me on this, but is there something in Christian theology about being tested? Well this is a time of testing, whether this generation has what it takes to protect its liberties.
At this point only the blind believes that the Health Care bill is about anything but a test for imposing the will of a self-proclaimed elite on an unwilling free people. The test is on.
The posts about being nice reminded me of a book that changed my thinking, “Protecting the Gift” by Gavin DeBecker. It’s about how women ignore fear and allow attackers to harm them and/or their children because they’ve been programmed to be polite. His line was, “Would you rather be polite or dead?” I think that may apply here as well.
If the Democrats cram health care through using “reconciliation” – then the the answer must be unprecedented. It must be repealed.
I am more than confident that “Repealing It” will be a winning position. Do the Republicans have the backbone? We will be behind them if they do.
I agree with Bob from VA.
The tea party and oath keepers (see oathkeepers.org) movements are indeed growing and evolving. This spontaneous groundswell of grassroots action is a reassuring sign that the American people are not just going to quietly watch their freedoms become a memory. Each of us must actively participate to change the direction of our government, or we will get what we deserve.
MikeMc–as they say, “timing is everything,” and I suspect and hope that the far Left has miscalculated, has–for all their MSM aided attempts at concealment–been too open and too eager, that the “battlespace of ideas” had been insufficiently prepared for them to easily win, and that they have gravely underestimated the power of the Internet to inform, and to pierce the concealing curtain to reveal the “great and powerful Oz” behind it but, as my usually gloomy posts here attest to, my gut says it will be very close, and the odds are in their favor.
Had they waited for another generation or two for our Educational and Religious establishments to advance their subversive work, had they gone for incremental changes and not made such a big splash, had they had less open and virulent contempt for the great “mass” of people and voters–the very people they always say they are trying to help–it might have been a sure thing for them, but they didn’t, so we have a chance to defeat them, provided that they don’t have the ability to cheat on a large enough scale to fix the elections in 2010 and 2012; they have to have some claim to legitimacy, and the time is not yet when they can count on the U.S. military to obey unconstitutional and illegal orders, such as those to disarm the citizenry or round up their enemies.
If they plan to use reconciliation – we need to be prepared to march on D.C. at a moments notice – en masse!
To play devil’s advocate as usual:
* Nationalized healthcare has been the Holy Grail for Democrats since FDR.
* Most Democrats regard such a system as a natural, proper, inevitable evolution of American society.
* Most European countries have some form of nationalized healthcare.
* Bush and the Republican leadership pursued the War on Terror and the Iraq War even though both became very unpopular voters — leading to wipeouts in the 2006 and 2008 elections, and the subsequent Democratic domination of the White House, Senate and House that we have today.
So whats the progressive motto? “We’re going to save this democracy if we have to disregard the majority to do it”? WTF?
I’m not so pissed at politicians. I’m pissed at the sheer ignorance of 53% of voters. And its not your garden variety ignorance, but an arguably willing ignorance. Born out of a cowardice of what people might think if they dared judge a black man harshly, even if he did happen to attend a racist church for 20 years. A cowardice that heard the man say he would bankrupt our energy industries, give peoples hard earned money to deadbeats, apologise to our deadly enemies…The list is practically a 180 degree inversion of everything good and decent Americans have always stood for.
I got some long term friends in that 53%. And to be honest, i’m not sure it wasn’t i that got duped into ever imaging they were decent people of a character i actually wanted to be around. They are for the most part civic cowards. And they are responsible for the precarious position of millions of lives inhabiting the free world in the very near future.
Bob from Virginia,
There is a lot about being ‘tested’ in Christian Theology, and we are about to find out what we are really made of, and not what we imagine we are made of.
There is also something in there about those who have something, and use it wisely, to them more will be given. To those who have not, even what they have will be taken away.
We never knew, I never really appreciated until the past few years how much my boomer generation was given on a silver platter. Our fathers were the WWII and Korea generation. They fought for things and never complained. We fought for nothing, got everything anyway, and complained it wasn’t good enough.
Now maybe we are paying for that gross conceit.
May it not be so. I want to go all Andrew Breitbart on the [blankers] and fight them to the end, put them on defense for a change; wake up with some great roar in a counter charge they least expect.
But time is riunning out fast, and it may be too late. I don’t know.
Huxley, with all due respect to you, saying that other developed Western economies have some form of universal healthcare doesn’t make it the right policy for us.
Look at what’s happening in both Eastern and Western Europe today. There’s a very real possibility Greece will not be able to refinance its sovereign obligations, leading to a default, if Germany doesn’t bail them out. If Greece defaults, that could lead to a domino like effect with other highly indebted Western Europe countries. Investors are already bidding up credit default swaps on debt issued by Portugal, Ireland, Italy and Spain.
The one thing all those countries have in common is that each is a very generous social welfare state. They spend a tiny fraction of their GDP on military budgets, choosing to fall under the U.S. umbrella. So with almost no military budget, and in spite of already being heavily taxed, they are experiencing difficulties generating the tax revenue needed to service welfare payments and debt obligations.
We are already on the same path as Europe with social security and medicare. This new entitlement will make things infinately worse.
Huxley,
Not quite accurate on the War in Iraq. Bush won re-election in ’04. The Dems did not campaign in ’06 on ending that.
Obama used that in ’08, but it was a ploy and everyone knew it. At that point there was not American majority to get out of Iraq.
Also, it was never the case that Republicans pursued that strategy with no Dem support, The opposite is the case. They were all ‘gung ho’.
Huxley, with all due respect to you, saying that other developed Western economies have some form of universal healthcare doesn’t make it the right policy for us.
Scott : You do know that “with all due respect” has been determined by neo herself to connote usually a lack of respect? (Insert smilie here.)
Of course, what Europe does with healthcare doesn’t make it right for us. The motherly wisdom applies: “If the other kids jumped off the cliff, would you jump off too?”
I was simply stating how most Democrats think about healthcare. I intended it as a counterpoint to the sinister cast neo and most commenters here place upon Democratic motives.
I agree that the big Democratic New Deal/Great Society initiatives are mistaken, statist, and ruinous. But that doesn’t mean that Democrats intend statism and ruin.
They think they are doing the right thing, and that people like you and me are the evil or cowardly or stupid ones.
huxley: the “sinister cast” and the idea that the Democrats have been lusting after this for decades are not mutually exclusive, nor is their deep desire to follow in the Europeans’ socialist (and bankrupting) footsteps inconsistent a “sinister cast,” either.
As far as “doing the right thing” goes—have you not heard that old saying about where the road paved with good intentions leads? The Democrats have heard it as well. Some, of course, are no doubt naively thinking that in the end all will be for the good of the whole (they are what’s known as useful idiots). Others are well aware of the naked power grab aspects, and the economic fallout for the country as a whole.
And as for the idea of nationalized health care being the Holy Grail of Democrats since at least FDR, what about this article did you not understand? Or perhaps you just didn’t see it?
I agree with McCarthy. This can only be understood in terms of revolution, not in traditional American democratic politics. My wife is from Ukraine, and she grew up in the USSR. She recognized the Zero early in the primary campaign. In March of 2009, she told me that the the Democrats were behaving as though there would be no more honest elections. (She is very familiar with voting for a slate of candidates with all the same positions.) I agree with Betsy. I pray that I am wrong, but I cannot see a way back from the brink. Obamacare will be the shot heard round the world. Along with Geoffrey Britain, I have also said that there will be no way that I would pay taxes to fund abortion. That means NO WAY. As the abortion debate went on, my thinking progressed from political resistance to planning civil disobedience. Unfortunately, I believe that Rickl’s link is saying something very important. However, the Progressives see this as their window of opportunity, so they will not stop.
For us though, there will be no dignified decline into senescence as has happened in Great Britain. The US economic engine proped GB up, but that engine is gasping its last breaths. Who will prop us up? China? LOL. We are broke now. We will begin to default soon on existing programs, and new programs will only accelerate the collapse. Is there the political will in America to take the hard steps to avert the collapse? I don’t see it now, and at least 33%, Obamabots mostly, would wish to see ‘evil’ America collapse anyway.
Huxley,
It’s worth noting that, when they can, citizens of those other countries with national/universal health care come here for treatment. This is especially true of Canadians, probably because of proximity. In Old Blighty, things have gotten so bad that there are horror stories about their system in the news every week or so. As has been pointed out, those people have nowhere else to go, because there’s only the one system.
If nationalized health care were in fact the natural, proper, inevitable evolution of our system you claim the Democrats believe it to be (and they certainly seem to believe that), they wouldn’t have to be fighting so hard, and in the face of such massive opposition, to bring it off. Marxists/socialists have always, I believe, thought that the advent and triumph of their system was a scientific inevitability. If that were so, they wouldn’t have to do anything but sit back and wait for it to happen. But they really know better. They know the only way it will come about is by revolution and imposition. They are constantly agitating and sowing discord on their own behalf, even though in the places where their program has been tried it has uniformly failed. However smart they obviously think they are, they appear to lack the kind of intelligence that makes it possible to learn from experience.
None of the points you make in your 1:22 post above actually serve to defend what they are trying to do. Even the point about the Iraq/anti-terror war being unpopular, while correct, ignores the fact that it was/is not a war that we sought, that we were attacked–repeatedly and over years, long before September 11, 2001–and effectively ignored those attacks. But it is the duty of the President of the United States to defend the country in the face of attack, irrespective of such defense’s popularity. Bush did so. And it only became unpopular some years afterwards, following the MSM’s active burial of nearly all discussions of the actual attack. Instead, the only mentions of the thing occur at those awful, maudlin “Ground Zero” memorial services every year, where everyone stands around wringing their hands and crying about the “tragedy.”
They might not have miscalculated, but rather figured that this was going to be their high-water mark since their main ally, the MSM, are shuffling off to the tar pits. Time is arguably working against them, not for them.
I suspect that when leftists get close to achieving their long-sought dreams sometimes their patience breaks down and they lunge for the brass ring. Allende did it, as did Liebknecht and Luxemburg before him, all with catastrophic results. Lenin did it too, but pulled it off by the skin of his teeth. (Artfldgr may correct my history, if we can just draw him out. /g)
I may be seduced by the glamor of the idea, but this does have a certain gotterdammerung feel about it.
I’m pretty thick and the idea that a large group of people can be out to inflict evil on themselves and their group is something I am just now coming to. Jonah Goldberg’s book Liberal Fascism was a help to get it. So was this post by Dr. Sanity. Previously I assumed that a little logic and a little gentle chaffing – well, if I can insure against pre-existing conditions I’m going to take out life insurance on my parents – would show them the way.The Way for them is Fascism or Communism or Obamism. Or else.
Every day one of their another pillar comes crashing down. Crash! The AGW fiasco may perhaps be a metaphor writ large for the entire movement. There is a piece this morning in the NYT by Albert titled We Can’t Wish Away Climate Change. And communism will work; it just hasn’t been given a proper chance. Crash!
“And forget the most fundamental fact of all: There might be something inherently difficult and even contradictory about the notion of universal health care that is comprehensive, affordable, high quality, and yet comes without a huge price; that there may be no way to slice the available pie into enough large and tasty pieces to satisfy everyone without resulting in national near-bankruptcy, as well as substantial and unacceptable loss of liberty.”
Our sponsor here, “Jean”, hits the nail on the head, introjecting reality into the vague and shallow controversy which now predominates. If the Democrats were serious about health care reform, they would be open to an incremental approach, dealing with a dozen separate issues in a dozen different bills, with no earmarks or backroom deals involved. There are plenty of important issues which the sides could compromise effectively on almost immediately. But that is obviously not the context of the Democrat’s ambitions, hence an all or nothing approach in which a trillion dollar legislative bill can’t be substituted with a dozen separate, more thoughtful, 100 billion dollar acts. They’ve morphed into communists, in which their party loyalty, ideology and focus, and particularly, control, trumps the real issues. In terms of the “two questions”, given the demographic realities, it’s definitely a tenuous situation without an honest and objective MSM to inform the public which is not given to looking beyond the MSM venues for information and editorial guidance.
Nolanimrod,
Thanks for the excellent Dr. Sanity link. It had me cheering!
“After the leftist disasters of the 20th century; after the devastating consequences of forcing people to live in a variety of these “utopian paradises”, it is simply amazing that today’s left continues to deny the reality of human nature. Yet they do, and that is why they keep coming back to the same old tired ideas and policies and formulas that have repeatedly failed in the real world and which have always–ALWAYS–ended up unleashing all the evil of which human nature is capable.”
This, you see, encapsulates the reason some of us who post here are fearful of what may come if these wizards get what they are trying to get. It’s why, in my darkest moments, I think it may come to very dark days indeed, and why I consider some of the awful things that have happened in other Leftist experiments, and cannot say that it will never happen here. Huxley disagrees pretty vehemently, and sometimes I think has contempt for people who think like I and some others do.
Oh well.
huxley: the “sinister cast” and the idea that the Democrats have been lusting after this for decades are not mutually exclusive, nor is their deep desire to follow in the Europeans’ socialist (and bankrupting) footsteps inconsistent a “sinister cast,” either.
neo: “Not mutually exclusive.” Well, that’s a smackdown. “Not inconsistent” is another.
As far as “doing the right thing” goes–have you not heard that old saying about where the road paved with good intentions leads?
Of course I’ve heard it.
My point is that one way of looking at all this is just that Democrats are being Democrats. Not that they are right. Not that it won’t lead to bad statist things.
However it can be useful to understand how the other side is thinking and not confuse the logical consequences of their behavior with their motives.
Not quite accurate on the War in Iraq. Bush won re-election in ‘04. The Dems did not campaign in ‘06 on ending that.
Mike Mc: Perhaps no candidates campaigned directly on it, but the 2006 election was certainly a referendum on, among other things, the Iraq War.
None of the points you make in your 1:22 post above actually serve to defend what they are trying to do.
betsybounds: Again, I am not defending what the Democrats are trying to do. I am explaining what they are doing in their context.
“Vincent and McCain do not claim that the Republican Party boasts only the good, the pure and the beautiful, as Aristotle said…” They contended that “the Democratic Party has a 200-year history of urban corruption, treason and subversion, mob control, alliance with corrupt unions, and aiding and abetting criminals that has no parallel in the GOP… Which was “supported by 650 end notes that should give pause to even diehard Democrats.” [1]”
That’s not even including the Dems origins as the party of post-slavery segregation. All in all, if this is all not something you can get the MSM to honestly address, without them the situation is, no doubt, hopeless….
Among the long list of things leftists don’t get is that people are not identical in their desires, and so what is paradise from some will be hell for others. (An earnest liberal family acquaintance was waxing euphoric about how she’d give anything to live in the Bay Area. I didn’t have the heart to tell her I couldn’t wait to escape, and have since turned down a dozen opportunities to move back. Different strokes for different folks.)
Ah, but we are but tabulae rasae, don’t you know? We are the way we are because we were raised in a capitalist society, but once socialism’s triumph is complete, New Socialist Man will be totally different. /Marx
Of course, anyone with any intellectual honesty will recognize the absurdity, indeed the intellectual dishonesty, of this position (dishonest because it was adopted only to try to obviate the most trenchant and devastating criticism of socialism). Anyone who’s ever been around young children recognizes that internal variables are at work in determining behavior. Boys with trucks and girls with dolls works; the other way around, not so much. And it’s not learned behavior. Trying to interest a toddler in something he’s not intrinsically interested in is a fool’s errand.
This is even more apparent with purpose-bred dogs. Those bred to love the water…love to swim. Most other breeds don’t. Those bred to retrieve…retrieve…pretty much anything from fowl to tennis balls. Those bred to herd…herd…pretty much anything from sheep to children. And so on.
Behavior clearly has an inherent component. The purest experiment in modern socialism — the kibbutzes — foundered at least in part, I’ve read, because mothers did not like communal living, and in particular being separated from their children. They wanted to live in their own houses with their husbands and children, not in barracks. Nuclear family >> collectivist society.
As far as “doing the right thing” goes–have you not heard that old saying about where the road paved with good intentions leads? The Democrats have heard it as well.
I’m sure they have. The quote is from Karl Marx.
Dear Betsy B,
You’re welcome.
It is my considered belief, not my usual wishful thinking, that if the O-crats cram this down our throats it is going to be like Pearl Harbor for everybody but the moveon crowd.
I actually feel sorry for them. In the world we’re headed for they will be like Einstein’s Flat-Landers trying to exist in a four-dimensional universe. I hope we can handle it better.
MikeMc:
huxley:
Obama introduced a resolution in January 2007 to commence withdrawing troops from Iraq, which supports Huxley’s POV.
From the WaPo Jan 30 2007.
Had ∅bama’s resolution been passed, the surge would have been cut off at its knees. Say no more.
They contended that “the Democratic Party has a 200-year history of urban corruption, treason and subversion, mob control, alliance with corrupt unions, and aiding and abetting criminals that has no parallel in the GOP… Which was “supported by 650 end notes that should give pause to even diehard Democrats.” [1]”
Notice how the MSM are careful to talk about lynchings in the post-Civil War South, ever so carefully defining the criteria to avoid mentioning the 11 blacks lynched in NYC – a stronghold of the Copperhead Democrats – during the draft riots of 1863.
(Btw, where does your quote come from?)
MikeMcC:
In 2006 I received a “questionnaire” from the Democratic National Committee, asking my opinion on various issues. The only question pertaining to Iraq had to do with how long a time should be set for troop withdrawal. There was no option such as “troops should stay until the job is done.” Just on withdrawal dates.
Not surprisingly, they also asked me for $$. I have no idea why they sent me the questionnaire, as I haven’t voted for a Democratic Presidential candidate since the Bicentennial.
Occam’s Beard: From this book: Donkey Cons: Sex, Crime, and Corruption in the Democratic Party.
Occam’s Beard, the quote is from Wikipedia, from huxley’s posted link just a little bit ago:
huxley Says:
February 28th, 2010 at 5:24 pm
Thanks, Gringo. I must have missed the cite.
One of the premises of the American experiment is that government derives it’s power from “the consent of the governed.” It is chilling that there seems to be no Democrat willing to publically say that while he/she supports socialized medicine, the public does not and, therefore, socialized medicine will have to wait. It is similar to the almost total absence of leftist critics of “hate” speech trials which occur in most Western nations and US college campuses.
Thanks, PD.
O.B.,
“Boys with trucks and girls with dolls works; the other way around, not so much. And it’s not learned behavior. Trying to interest a toddler in something he’s not intrinsically interested in is a fool’s errand.”
I’ll always remember realizing that my kids were different from each other, in very girl-and-boy kinds of ways (we have one of each), even when I was carrying them. And afterwards, when they were growing up, it was astonishing to me to notice the really great extent to which the people they were (even as kids) had surprisingly little to do with the people we were teaching them to be. Not that rearing is insignificant, but that there was always something important there, something very basic, that we hadn’t taught them. I had often suspected that the tablua rasa wsa a myth; becoming a mother confirmed that. It was evident in their attitudes, in their approaches to their lives, and it had a lot to do with the sex difference.
What will be the catalyst that will finally galvanize true Americans into action?
Possibly it will be the state takeover of our health care system. But keep in mind, that the only thing Obama is missing in order to gain control is a catalyst of his own.
Will it be a pandemic, a terrorist attack, economic collapse?
These are interesting times.
What is it about liberals that propels them to want to do anything? It’s not logic, because today’s liberals (or progressives, as they now call themselves) act almost purely from emotion and can’t be bothered with thinking about the real world consequences of their ideas in the future. They go from one “good” idea to another with no concern for anything other than the fact that they believe that they are acting in the public interest. And, I think that they do not act out of evil motives. They are just scatterbrained. They never go back and clean up the messes they create.
Compare the logical and detailed analyses the Republicans uniformly presented in arguing against the bills at the recent summit with the anecdotal stories told by the Democrats at the very same summit. The Democrats sat there and concluded that the Republicans just don’t get it. They would not even look at the Republicans (a very telling sign). At the same time the Republicans sat there and concluded that the Democrats just don’t get it, no matter how passionately they argued. They did look at the Democrats because they were honest in their attempt to move the discussion in their direction. The Democrats knew the Republicans’ positions in advance and dismissed them as old hat (as they always do). Not worth spit, no matter how well reasoned. The Republicans know the Democrats are driven by emotion but still attempt make a logical case for their positions.
I argued with neo not long ago that in my opinion liberals were evil because they knew that what they passed into law never worked and they never went back to fix the damage. She quite rightly responded that she has many liberal friends who are good people and are not evil, although some of the more dedicated liberals most likely act from evil motives. But she pointed out that she has been careful not to discuss her conservative positions in the presence of her very liberal friends for fear of losing the friendships. Why? And, why was Obama glaring with such evident disdain at Paul Ryan after Ryan made his strong case on the costs of passing the bills desired by the Democrats. After all, Ryan indicated that he wanted to improve health insurance, too.
The answer is rather simple and I had it in reverse. Although liberals cannot think their way out of a paper bag, I think that they inately feel that their emotional reactions to whatever perceived harmful situation they see makes them good people. On the other hand, conservatives, as represented by the Republican party, are so analytical and unfeeling, as to be evil and to be shunned. Moreover, to demonstrate that conservatives are evil, liberals point to the fact that conservatives do not buy into multiculturalism and not only do they discriminate (on any and every thing), they are judgmental and, thus, unfeeling.
So, Obama suffered himself to chair a meeting with Republicans, people he hates AND ALWAYS WILL HATE; people who (in his mind) do not have the sensitivity and sympathy of mind to understand and praise him for his innate goodness. The look he gave Ryan was hate; hate that he was incapable of keeping behind his otherwise cool demeanor. It is the same feeling of hate that he (and every liberal) harbors for all us non-simpatico conservatives.
So, neo would not be honest with her liberal “friends” because, to do so would expose her to their hate and the loss of these otherwise comforting relationships. A high price to pay.
Did I get it right this time?
As conservatives we have to deal with the adult products of our schools (who have not really grown up). Our children have been taught that we conservatives (and the country as a whole) continue to discriminate (and not necessarily against minorities), that we do not subscribe to multiculturalism (whatever the heck this is), that we have harmed all of the other peoples in the world because of our successes (the pie is one size theory), that we are profligate and polluting country, and that we deserve to lose whatever it is that we desire, no matter how reasonable. What else explains Obama’s bizarre foreign and domestic policies that otherwise find no basis in reason but target domestic Republicans more than foreign enemies for his enmity.
Re why socialism on the kibbutzim failed:
1. Parents wanted to raise their children, as already noted.
2. Not enough labor to expand. Had to hire wage workers. (no longer socialism)
3. Some people worked much harder than others. The hard workers resented the slackers.
4. Stuff that used to be new wore out. No money to replace old appliances or to buy personal computers, etc. Unless the kibbutz was very successful–and made a PROFIT–everyone wallowed in poverty together.
5. No money for expensive personal hobbies. If you wanted to pursue an expensive hobby like photography, forget about it.
The kibbutz movement was a terrific small-scale experiment that proved that even the most dedicated and willing socialists cannot prevent the inner contradictions of socialism from making it a very unsuccessful competitor to capitalism.
Mike Mc wrote
“There is a lot about being ‘tested’ in Christian Theology, and we are about to find out what we are really made of, and not what we imagine we are made of……”
That and the rest of your post was very nicely put IMHO.
Betsy, we noticed the same thing when our first son was born a week before a neighbor had a daughter. When our toddler was learning to walk, he used to (unsteadily) steer his stroller around making vrooming noises and saying, “Trucks! BIG trucks!”
My wife and I looked at each other. No idea where that came from. Neither of us has the slightest interest in cars or trucks. When our neighbors were over the contrast between the toddlers couldn’t have been more stark: their interests were essentially orthogonal.
JDM,
Ah yes, interesting times. The old Chinese curse has life in it yet.
The kibbutzim are treated interestingly, and informatively, in Joshua Muravchik’s Heaven on Earth. When I read it, one of my thoughts was, “If these people couldn’t make it work, no one can.”
But–
These people never give up!
An excellent point in an incisive comment. To your post I would add that liberals seem to think that those pointing out the existence of problems are somehow to blame for the problems’ existence. Curious “shoot the messenger” logic.
The opprobrium attaching to being judgmental is a fundamental problem, despite paradoxically being itself judgmental. There’s nothing whatever wrong with being judgmental, as defined in dictionaries; adults render judgments all the time, every day, on what is good, bad, and indifferent. Every election is a solicitation of the electorate’s judgment (such as it is). Virtually every human endeavor entails degrees of success, between which observers distinguish through use of…their judgment.
Contra the famous Kelvin quote (“I often say that when you can measure what you are speaking about, and express it in numbers, you know something about it; but when you cannot measure it, when you cannot express it in numbers, your knowledge is of a meagre and unsatisfactory kind”), I would impudently add my own inelegant codicil: “if you can only express something in numbers, you don’t know squat about it.” Or as we used to say in academia (re publications), more people can count than can read.
Steve G,
That post of yours, at 8:25, is a brilliant post.
Thanks.
100+Million lives ended for the glory of The Greater Good last century. And, the resurgent, vacuous, history ignoring, infantile defiant Control Freaks of..errr…PROGRESSIVEISM still want to foist their unworkable and fatal delusions upon us Liberty Loving-Freedom Breathing reg’lar folks.
I loathe them.
All who have not read the greatest 20th Century historian, Robert Conquest’s,”Reflections on a Ravaged Century”, are urged to do so.
Am I the only one who feels like grabbing lefties by the lapels and shouting at them, “There’ll never be a ‘heaven on earth,’ nor a ‘paradise.’ This is as good as it gets!“
Betsy and Occam,
I have to say that having twins, a son and a daughter, has been fascinating. Watching them learn the same things, but attacking the problems from completely different angles is just plain wild. Our daughter learned to crawl by dragging her back legs around like she was crawling under barbed wire. Our son first sat up, then dragged his rear end across the floor like a dog wiping himself, then he would flop over and log roll to his destination. Then all of a sudden he realized one day he could could get up on his hands and knees and crawl. And so he did. With Stella, it was like a gradual trial and error. With Max it was like “Eureka!” and he had it. He also likes to growl and make barking noises. I’m so proud.
BTW, many don’t realize(although with this crowd, many here might), in regards to the communism/socialism continuum, that long before Marx the Puritans tried it out for two years and it almost ruined them.
Promethea I would hesitate to say the kibbutzim failed, there are 120,000 kibbutzniks, perhaps you are referring to the original commualistic ideology? It worked wonderfully as a means of establishing a supportive unit in a hostile environment. It changed as conditions changed.
One lesson learned from the kibbutzim (and Israel in general) is that socialism is useful as a transition to capitalism, not the other way around.
I’ll share an impression with you which perhaps has bearing on the above mentioned failure; What was truly nerve-wracking in my kibbutz experience was the ABSENCE of stress. One does not have a worry in the world if one is on a kibbutz. I’m deadly serious when I say it was not fun. There was no feeling of accomplishment in being able to achieve something on my own, such as managing to survive on a tight budget and get enough money together to buy something that I did not need.
Jim Sullivan,
Yes. Ir almost ruined them.
The difference between the Puritans and the Left is that the Puritans figured out pretty fast that they needed to change their approach. The Left never has snapped to that.
Bob from Virginia,
You make an interesting point. However, unless I miss my understanding off the thing, the kibbutzim have now become an historical curiosity, a relic. No one looks to them as a model for a successful future.
Coincidentally, for some reason I was thinking about this in the survival context the other day (no idea why). Plane crashes in the wilderness; “from each according to his abilities, to each according to his needs” in extremis works. The problem arises as soon as the existential threat is removed, because it is supplanted by moral hazard. Why knock yourself out, if you’ll have your needs met regardless? Conversely, why exhibit/exercise your abilities, if you won’t benefit from so doing?
Fascinating insight into human nature, and one that comports well with the fundamental tenet that all literature deals with conflict. Dealing with adversity — and/or preparing to do so – is in our genes. Amazing when you think about it. Four lousy nucleotides encoding all that…
1) “…she told me that the the Democrats were behaving as though there would be no more honest elections. ..”
I believe that’s true. We’ll have to fight like hell to assure them.
2)Steve G: It’s all Rousseau’s fault.
Read Hipployte Taine’s contemporary history of the French Revolution (available on line) to see the logical conclusion of Rousseau’s line of thinking. Leftists appear to be too stupid to learn from the lessons of history.
3) Socialism probably works best on a small scale among groups or family groups bound together by a common ideal. Because of human nature, however, it does not often succeed even then. On a large scale, it is both hopeless and absurd.
4) There’s no such thing as “capitalism”. Capitalism is Marx’s name for freedom. It’s freedom.
5) NCS: Robert Conquest is a communist. I think I’ll pass.
Thank God for this blog. Thank all of you for being here, coming in here, and speaking as you do.
Socialism does not, has not, and never will work. With all the massive outpouring of knowledge that mankind has attained in the past say, 200 years – human nature itself has not changed in 10,000 years. And, it will not.
I was stuck at Logan for 9 hours awaiting a flight home this past Friday, after spending the week working in the greater Boston area. I was glad to finally be leaving on that jet plane. You know, my mom was born and raised in Boston, but there is no way I could live in Taxachusetts.
2)Steve G: It’s all Rousseau’s fault.
Absolutely right. Noble savage? Nah. Rousseau is the Left’s intellectual godfather, and was himself was himself a swine by all accounts. Hobbes was much closer to the mark.
Occam’s Beard,
John Macmurray, in “The Form of the Personal” has a fascinating chapter on Hobbes v. Rousseau along the those lines. You might want to look it up.
ahem:
Conquest was, repeat, was a communist a very long time ago. He’s been a fellow at the Hoover, a most unlikely place for a Red. I’ve just started his “Reflections” and find it’s condemnations entirely reasoned. He is a much of a commie as Neo is a flaming liberal.
Thanks for the tip, Mike.
I think it was the Pilgrims who tried communitarian living and almost starved. The Puritans were harder-headed from the beginning, and not so idealistic about human nature. That’s probably part of the reason that the Massachusetts Bay Colony swallowed Plymouth Colony.
Okay, I’ll check Conquest out.
Steve G: you didn’t get it quite right. I certainly can discuss politics with some of my liberal friends without a great many problems. With others, I can’t. With a few, they have stopped talking to me altogether. I’m not really sure of the proportions—the middle group is the largest, the last group the smallest, and the first group in-between.
Occam’s,
Connected to that stress thing, right after 9/11 German TV was showing the pictures of New Yorkers sealing their windows with plastic and duct tape. Naturally this was accompanied by the snide comments about them thinking they could avoid radiation damage in case of a nuclear attack. My reaction was that duct tape could be a symbol of the US. When the stress gets high enough, Americans will find a way even if it is as inelegant as duct tape. It shows how uncouth we are, but it sure feels good when it gets you through a tough spot.
Oh gosh, there’s so many things with this new administration! Louis Farrakhan asked his Chicago homeboy Obama for money, to help keep the “White Right” at bay…Van “how’s that Capitalism workin’ for ya” Jones ain’t dead yet, got him a gig over at Princeton. (I’ll bet it’s for six figures, Six Figure Socialists hehehehehe) Unemployment seems to be growing, I see that more businesses are going under, closing up. Just the sense of some real anger out there. Even the hapless Carter administration seemed almost innocous to this crew. We were hanging out by the grill the other day, drinking beer and talking about the O show, when someone offered that Obama would free Mumia before the end of his term. Said, “it’s just the kind of son-of-a-bitch he is” The more I see, the less I like. Yup, a very different administration, the likes of which I hope I never see again.
Occam…Re-Your lapel grabbing. You are way too tolerant, but I admire your restraint. Now, back to slapping the snot outta the little twerps.
As for progressive’s good intentions. My question is…Does evil require conscious intent to be brought to fruition?
I think that profound ignorance and a narcissistic concern only for the self is adequate on its on. Not seeing how your actions destroy human freedom and lives excuses no one.
SteveH,
[i]As for progressive’s good intentions. My question is…Does evil require conscious intent to be brought to fruition?
I think that profound ignorance and a narcissistic concern only for the self is adequate on its on. Not seeing how your actions destroy human freedom and lives excuses no one.[/i]
At some point a person is repsonsible even for their own ignorance. There was always the idea of ‘normal’ ignorance of the sort that a person has the duty to correct. Then there is ‘invincible’ ignorance, which is unconquerable.
Good intentions only go so far, for so long. Anyone has the duty to check the end results of their intentions and actions. Trying again a few times is understandable. But we are at 40 years now. That’s easlity an entire generation. Anyone who doesn’t know by now the damage liberal policies do in practice either doesn’t want to know, or their ignorance is invincible.
And knowing is only half of it. Then you’ve got to say, ‘Okay, what next?; Wherre did we go wrong?’
neo,
At least I am getting closer. By the way, I was alluding to your “very” liberal friends.
Most Democrats don’t even know why they are Democrats. Sort of passed down in the family. They are Democrats because they and their friends and family were always Democrats and never give or gave it a thought. What is a little hard to understand is how these otherwise nice people fail or refuse to push back when their “views” take on a clear patina of hate. For example, I never thought Bill Maher was funny. Even if he was, I cannot understand why his audiences always laugh and applaud when he says the most detestable and hateful things about Republicans and/or conservatives? Do they agree with his bile? Are they stupidly being led like sheep? Does their applause make them complicit in (and supportive of) the hate? Such “comedy” certainly is intended to and does reinforce Mahar’s and his audiences feelings of superiority over us poor non-Democrats, regardless of their intellectual capacities (or lack thereof). (I gave up my HBO subscription because of this detestable show.) Is it this community feeling of superiority that is so readily accepted by his audiences that so easily morphs into hate for the rest of us. There are a lot of other examples of how this community of superiority is constantly reinforcing itself, from Dave Letterman’s lists and monologues to the smirking and knowing looks found on the faces local and network TV news show anchors. (As I write this I had the devilish thought that this hate needs constant reinforcement in order to thrive. As the MSM loses its audience, liberalism will lose much of its support.) In the end this is just human nature expressing itself. There will always be fools and from time to time they find their ways into positions of power. We just have to push back.
Hi Neo,
I’m guessing the health care bill will fail. But I guess I’m an optimist. If I’m right, then a couple of points about the future:
1) Despite what you may see, America is headed in a conservative direction. That’s why Obama is pushing so hard. This is really the last chance for a progressive future. Incremental liberalism is dead. Its go for broke time. How do I see that? – here are the reasons:
The financial crisis has opened holes in the welfare budgets of all the states. Something has to give. Its either the Unions, the public institutions (like education) or the welfare benefits. Obama is trying to head this off.
Public schools are gradually being replaced by Charter Schools. Its not as good as vouchers, but it is pretty close to a privatization of American education. An education where leftist beliefs are currently instilled. We’re only a generation away from having people not believe this stuff any more.
2) The health care bill all fits together. It can’t be broken apart. The centerpiece of the legislation is removal of “Pre-existing” condition requirements from health care policies. Once there are no limits on pre-existing conditions, there is no reason to buy health insurance any more. You can just wait to get sick or injured, and then buy health insurance.
So…. You must mandate everyone to buy health insurance. Otherwise the companies will instantly go out of business.
So… The policies everyone must buy must be the same. If someone buys a cheap policy when they are healthy, they can buy an expensive policy when they get sick. This will also destroy the insurance companies, so there must be “regulated minimums” on what everyone will buy. That policy will then be the only policy available, as no insurance company would ever offer a more expensive one – only sick people would buy it.
In essence, allowing pre-existing restrictions on health policies allows insurance companies to manipulate their customers. So we have regulation of insurance companies. If we remove the ability to restrict insurance on pre-existing conditions, then people have the ability to manipulate the insurance companies. So then we have to regulate the customers – ie everyone. That requires a 2000 page bill to handle all the corner cases.
There is no passing a subset of this health care bill.
James
Congressional Progressive Caucus
created by:
Ron Dellums (D-CA)
Lane Evans (D-IL)
Peter DeFazio (D-OR)
Maxine “this senator is all about socializing” Waters (D-CA)
Bernie Sanders (I-VT)
after they set it up, these joined
Major Owens (D-NY)
Nydia Velé¡zquez (D-NY)
David Bonior (D-MI)
Bob Filner (D-CA)
Barney Frank (D-MA)
Maurice Hinchey (D-NY)
Jim McDermott (D-WA)
Jerrold Nadler (D-NY)
Patsy Mink (D-HI)
George Miller (D-CA)
Pete Stark (D-CA)
John Olver (D-MA)
Lynn Woolsey (D-CA)
Nancy Pelosi (D-CA)
The CPC’s founding statement of purpose states that it was “organized around the principles of social and economic justice, a non-discriminatory society, and national priorities which represent the interests of all people, not just the wealthy and powerful”.
IE they are for the RIGHTS OF MAN, not the RIGHTS OF MEN…
the principals of social and economic justice is Justice as a political/legal term can begin only when limitations are placed upon the sovereign, i.e., when men define what is unjust for government to do. The historical realization traces from the Roman senate to Magna Carta to the U.S. Constitution to the 19th century. It was now a matter of “justice” that government not arrest citizens arbitrarily, sanction their bondage by others, persecute them for their religion or speech, seize their property, or prevent their travel.
This culmination of centuries of ideas and struggles became known as liberalism. And it was precisely in opposition to this liberalism — not feudalism or theocracy or the ancien régime, much less 20th century fascism — that Karl Marx formed and detailed the popular concept of “social justice,” (which has become a kind of “new and improved” substitute for a storeful of other terms — Marxism, socialism, collectivism — that, in the wake of Communism’s history and collapse, are now unsellable).
so they ARE telling you exactly waht they stand for, what they are working for, the ends hey want, and so forth.
is only your ignorance that ASSUMES conditions that are opposite when they dont actually state their goals explicitly every time they talk about outcomes to such goals.
IE, you sit there and fill in the god of the gaps with your imagination, and so you develope a personal form of the ideology created by your assumptions in ignorance, based on the idea that we are the same/equal, so they are like me, and they want what i want, and even though they didnt say so, it must be true.
they are and have never really hidden their FIXED goals, in CHANGing everything else to meet that. a variation of the REASONABLE ideology bends to the will of people, while the unreasonable ideology bends people to its wil, therefoer all progerss is made by unreasonable ideologies, who reform reasonable ones to their ideas. like social justice and so forth.
[edited for length by n-n]
Apparently the chair of the committee that would have to do reconcilation, Conrad (democrat of North Dakota) said that reconciliation would not work for the Health Care Bill, that it wasn’t designed for that sort of thing, and so on.
That may settle the matter, as in it’s over.
Unless they have some other plan we haven’t heard about yet.
That’s great news if true!
The Democratic Socialists of America (DSA) is SI’s (socialist international) principal U.S. representative.What is their “Progressive Challenge?”there are about 70 members in congress..
there are ELEVEN members on the judiciary committee…
John Conyers [Chairman of the Judiciary Committee]
Tammy Baldwin
Jerrold Nadler
Luis Gutierrez
Melvin Watt
Maxine Waters
Hank Johnson
Steve Cohen
Barbara Lee
Robert Wexler
Linda Sanchez
its funny but no one wants to get ahead of the curve by studying and knowing what this is. everyone wants to be tne einstein who discovers waht happens by the strength of their imagination. meanwhile, the one place that has the answers to their questions is out of reach to them. want to know why there are so many socialist/communist/neo liberal/progressive/etc things going on? maybe its because you have senators and house and others accepting the false trope that a man can serve two masters.
we dont ask them whom they serve first, and they serve communism first… and under that ideollgy their service to us is to “fundementally change” the US and its system to the same goal they hasve been working on for 100 plus years here. of course you have to read that big stuff like the book by flynn, the works of stuear chase, and navigate the sea of revisionism that distracts you from the salient facts.
Michael Harrington (1928-1989), author of The Other America, a study said to have influenced President Lyndon Johnson’s War on Poverty program. In one of those splits peculiar to leftist groups, the Democratic Socialists broke away from the Social Democrats over the Vietnam War. The Social Democrats were the successor political party to Norman Thomas’s Socialist Party. The Social Democrats were led by a former Trotskyite whose anti-Stalinism led him to support the war!
A DSA pamphlet further explains: “In the short term we can’t eliminate private corporations, but we can bring them under greater democratic control. The
government could use regulations and tax incentives to encourage companies to act in the public interest and outlaw destructive activities such as exporting
jobs to low-wage countries and polluting our environment. Public pressure can also have a critical role to play in the struggle to hold corporations accountable. Most of all, socialists look to unions [to] make private business more accountable.”
so lets see.. maxine waters is part of the progressive caucus, she is also a part of the democratic socialists (menshiviks technically), and their pamphlets talk about how they are going to remove and destroy all corporations in the US.
now, you guys are basically waiting for them to tell you this in their speeches.
why? because to read this crap is long, boring, and such, and to listen to someone like me is long and boring and such… so guess what…
you get totalitarianism because your bored with freedom.
talk about the biggest universal goof!!! the freedom to not have to work and determine your own ends, is used to remove that freedom because most of us cant find a something to keep busy with and so get bored with being free. at what point does the logic click?
they are members of two organizations.. they are in power, and the literature of the organizations they LEAD, lays out how they are dismantling capitalism, creating social justice, and generally making a totalitarian state of the people!!
the only thing that prevents you guys from knowing whats going on is that you wont let us guys that know whats going on bring in information that you dont like, or didnt create or come up withM
[edited for length by n-n]
The non-profit organization most closely associated with the Congressional Progressive Caucus is the American Progressive Caucus Policy Foundation which works to connect the caucus to progressives outside the Congress.
the Institute for Policy Studies
The Nation magazine
MoveOn.org
Newsweek
Time
National Priorities Project
Jobs with Justice
Peace Action
Americans for Democratic Action
Progressive Democrats of America
Also co-sponsoring
NAACP
ACLU
Progressive Majority
League of United Latin American Citizens Rainbow/PUSH Coalition
National Council of La Raza
Hip Hop Caucus
Human Rights Campaign
Association of Farmworker Opportunity Programs
the National Hip Hop Political Convention
SEIU
AFL-CIO
National Training and Information Center
Heartland Institute
Neighborhood Assistance Corporation of America
ACORN
Alliance for Justice
Democracy Alliance
Alliance for Climate Protection
the League of Conservation Voters
and thats not all..
still think its just a few lucky politicians?
theres been 70 years of this kind of organizing…
Another weird thing about this whole thing is, aren’t the baby boomers getting old? Aren’t they going to need great medical care? Why would they mess with the system at this point in their lives?
Now I must confess when I was young and poor and all that, and I spoke to my condescending European friends, who all had free health care that they never needed, because they were young and healthy, and I, who was very poor (graduating at a time when the economy was sinking, and yes, my major probably did help the situation, but have no regrets blah blah, and that is another story, apologies for the indulgent digression), well, I was upset that I did indeed have to pay a lot of money for health insurance that I was most likely not going to need. And yet, I had to buy it because my parents were upset that I didn’t have it, and every time I spoke to them, they kept asking about it, and saying if anything happened to me they didn’t want to have to sell their house to pay my bills….. well, it is true at that time in my life I wished to high heaven there was European like health insurance, so I would not be be in that mess.
However, now that I am old and actually need decent doctors I thank Jesus that I can get great medical care and shudder at the thought of some Canadian style health care system where I have to wait forever to get anything done, and have some government worker in charge of my actual life. I thank God I can call up a good doctor and get things attended to right away. Don’t these baby boomer types feel the same way? Just what do they think is gonna happen to them? They are not young anymore, and they need good doctors. Do they think they’re gonna have better care than they do now?