Quote from: SusanKG on March 03, 2010, 09:59:57 PM
The main assault on rights comes from the wrong-wingers. THe last time the Rupublicans supported rights was with Lincoln and the attack on slavery. I want my rights and freedoms NOW!

Ahem.

A higher percentage - by a large margin - of Congressional Republicans backed the Civil Rights Act and associated legislation than of Democrats.

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The main point is not who is filibustering against whom. The point is the minority is blocking almost all progress (whether or not in a direction you may or may not approve), by the majority by only one or more of the minority blocking a vote.

You're going to have to explain this one to me.

The Democrats held an impenetrable majority in both houses before the Brown election. If they had all their party members voting, they could have passed a bill eliminating the Supreme Court and the Republicans wouldn't have been able to stop it.

the minority has not blocked ANY action in the current congress. the reason the big plans have failed is disagreement among Democrats.

If you disagree, please cite specific examples.

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That is undemocratic and antidemocratic. It is worse then ever now because the minority is dead set on making the first black president fail, and to hell with the country.

Please, unless you have specific evidence that there interest in Mr. Obama's success is tied to the fact that he is black, don't sully this conversation by using the words "black president" to insinuate a racist motive.

Such tactics are unworthy of honest conversation.

Furthermore, one of two things is true:

Either (a) the Democrats were saying "to hell with the country" when they opposed almost everything Bush wanted to do; or (b) it is legitimately possible for the party out of power to believe they DO have the good of the country at heart when they want to see the president's agenda fail.

It is not a given that wanting to see the party in power fail in their agenda is equivalent to saying "to hell with the country, all that matters is political success."

To the extent that it is POSSIBLE - it is equally possible for either party.

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1. Nothing in the constitution of The United States of America prohibits socialism.

Agreed. So long as it is arrived at by Constitutional means.

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2. I do not consider the term perjorative.
3. Obama is not a socialist - he is fairly middle of the road.

and this, in a nutshell, is why we are talking past each other. You can't comprehend how anyone would ever dream that Obama was a socialist, i on the other hand think that he's not only left of the center of the road - he's an all day hike away from being able to SEE the center of the road.

It's pretty much a given that neither of us have any prayer of changing the other's mind on that. that being the case, I'll refrain from trying to make a case for my point of view.

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Much (and I am not accusing you of this) the name-calling he receives is because of race.

This on the other hand I MUST take issue with. I do not want to specifically point fingers at you but for the left-of-center crowd in general, the easy rhetorical crutch of assuming that to be right of center is to be at least latently racist is so pathetically weak intellectually that any self-respecting left winger OUGHT to not only be above it but ought further to be mortified to see any of their peers resort to it.

It is the lowest for of illogical and invalid ad hominiem lie which serves no other purpose that to attempt to so demonize the opposing speaker as to relieve the leftist from the need of winning the battle of ideas.

For me - and again I say this as a general comment and not speaking specifically of you - in any discussion I have with a leftist, the moment the resort to implications of racism on the part of myself or anyone else with an opinion to the right of theirs, I am forced to assume they have run out of intellectual bullets and have resorted to throwing rocks.
Unless of course specific credible evidence of racism on the part of the accused can be offered.

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4. I am not a socialist, I just play one on the internet.

SusanKG

I really don't mind an honest confessing socialist. What troubles me is stealth socialism.

I'd have a LOT more respect for Obama if he would say right up front what his actual agenda is and try to win the battle of ideas in order to convince the people his was the right view, than I do this three card monty routine where the idea is to fool enough of the rubes that you are just taking care of them until it's too late to express a dissenting view.

One, I seriously doubt you've ever had a conversation with a real leftist.  I doubt there are more then 10 left in this country as it is.

Second, wouldn't a real socialist have taken over the banks and nationalized the auto industry instead of just bailing them out?  Wouldn't a real conservative attempt to stop agricultural subsidies and transfers from rich states to poor states?  Why should tax money from California and New York go to Mississippi?  Wouldn't a real socialist have insisted on a health care plan that was based on single-payer (about the only option that was never on the table) and not the silly nonsense that is currently being put forth?

Third, have you studied Rules for Radicals in depth so that you personaly know Obama is following it chapter and verse?  Or is that just something that someone said, and up to that point you had never heard of that guy?  And isn't that progressive populism that Alinsky promoted basically as American as apple pie to begin with?  In fact, didn't a lot of it come from the Southern Agrarian movement in the late 19th Century?

Were not Teddy Roosevelt, William Howard Taft, and Herbert Hoover progressives in their own time?

How is any of this stealth when its all over the news and being debated all over the net?

Quote from: Laura Hope on March 02, 2010, 11:23:06 PM
these are not positions I support. however, I know of no political party which uniformly supports what i support and opposes what i oppose.And I would like the nation to still exist so that ANY one has ANY rights fifty years from now. It's a matter of delayed gratification.

Now, admittedly the Republicans took only about a decade to lose their focus and start transforming into "Democrat-lite" when it came to big-government, big spending behavior, and for that I am most displeased.

However, in the current political landscape, there is a small - call it maybe 15% - chance the Republicans will get off the stick and find a way to pull us away from the financial precipice that IS looming directly in front of us, and there is a minuscule - call it .05% - chance the Democrats will do so.

In my not-so-humble opinion, if the debt crisis is not averted, our civil rights are moot because there will be no government competent to protect them and our current government may well be replaced with one who oppresses all of us to a far greater degree than the matters which you described.

When we have people in positions of power who master the BASIC concepts of responsible government and the elementary principles of fiduciary judgment - and exercise that ability in the execution of their office, THEN I will take note of which of them is friendliest to the expansion of rights for people like me who deviate from social norms.

I respect your priorities, and do not and will not mock them - I ask that in like manner others respect my priorities.
Tis the nature of politics to demonize those who are "across the aisle" from you. The only way people like us are "normalized" to right wingers is when we are not only on the other side.

the WHAT now?

Record breaking fillibusters?

How does that work exactly? Until early this year the Democrats had a fillibuster-proof majority and there hasn't been one single fillibuster since Scott Brown was sworn in.

The Republicans do not have the power to stop anything the Democrats really want to do, even now. Or at least the conservatives don't.

Take, for instance, rescinding DADT - If every Democrat in the senate votes for it, all you need is to get Collins or Snowe or Brown even (who's hardly a flaming right winger) or any of a few other middle-of-the-road Republicans - just ONE - to vote for it.

If it doesn't go through, it WON'T be because of a Republican filibuster.

I fear you are getting too much of your political info from DK.

Oh, and by the way...This is the only item in that poll which got close to majority agreement - and there's very good reason for it.

He is.

the only reason it isn't common knowledge is because even Socialists know they cannot gain and keep power if they admit that they are Socialists.

Everything in his background, his admitted prominent influences, his associations, his stated opinions, his policy proposals indicates nothing else.

He is a disciple of Alinsky and the whole point in Alinsky's book was to bring about a socialistic form of government.

Every move Obama has made so far, and every move he has voiced support for, follows Alinsky's plan.

Democrats and left-wingers who deny this are willfully blinding themselves because they find the term pejorative.

Or at least, politically inconvenient.

Not unlike, in fact, the way that many prominent Liberals try to distance themselves from the term "liberal" in favor of "Progressive" - hoping the public doesn't realize that early 20th century Progressives were very enamored of....

Socialism.

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Post Merge: March 02, 2010, 11:26:07 PM

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I'm with you on pretty much everything in this post EXCEPT if you mean to imply praise for FDR.

YES, he provided assertive leadership - but in all the WRONG directions.


Well, there is this too - love him or hate him, Reagan was in fact a strong leader and moved the entire political conversation in his direction. One may feel that was a wrong direction, as I do about FDR, but one can't realistically accuse Reagan of failing to lead.

If I showed disrespect it was totally unintentional and I profusely apologize. I get a little heated when discussing things like this.

I included those poll numbers to show how far the fringe travels into the base of the GOP. I will be totally honest, I wish that the fringe would run off with Sarah Palin and make a new party. Right now the fringe is basically controlling a lot of the GOP leaders. The GOP fed on their paranoia and I imagine are now regretting it since it is hard to step backwards from that.

Well the GOP has done a much better job at creating a purity test then the Dems have, for sure on that, which is why the R/D split is pretty much meaningless.  A lot of that is historical, not political.

Quote4. I am not a socialist, I just play one on the internet.

All socialists play one until it is time to live up to their responsibilities.

All socialists play one until it is time to live up to their responsibilities.

Which of course only seems twice as true for the capitalists who were all about 'we deserve the rewards because we took the risk' right up till the risk didn't pan out and then sniveled about being 'too big to fail' and needed government bailouts to cover their losses, while still rewarding themselves with fat bonuses (the likes of which most people in here will never earn in their entire working lives, much less in a single check.)

The argument is not about Democrats vs. Republicans, or even Liberals vs. Conservatives. It's moved to how much government involvement in our lives will the people permit. Now the discussion is around "total government control" or "no government involvement". The scale goes from totalitarian governments on the left to anarchy on the right. Dictatorship (rule of one person), Monarchy (rule of one family), Communism (rule of appointed group representatives), Socialism (from each according to ability, to each according to need), Republic (rule of elected representatives), unrestricted capitalism (Money talks, rule by corporations), Democracy (majority rule), anarchy (anything goes, everyone for themselves, old west style). The farther we move to the left, the closer we get to total government control of every aspect of our lives, and the farther away we get from freedom and self reliance, and responsibility. No one would argue for a return to the old west, but also no one would argue for support of a dictatorship. I would argue that moving away from freedom is the wrong direction. We are dangerously close to flopping over the borderline from a republic to socialistic redistribution of wealth. Under socialism, nothing belongs to an individual, everything belongs to "the collective", and is distributed according to how government sees fit. That is the absolute antithesis of freedom. It's 100% tax, 100% control of your life and every aspect of what you do, how you spend your time, what goods and services you seek, and "success" in any form is not permitted. Any time you achieve more than another it is redistributed to those in greater "need", with a healthy chunk stripped off for the "authorities". The more freedom we abdicate to the government, the less control of our own lives we retain, at some point we shift from citizens of a free country, to subjects of a totalitarian regime. I prefer to err on the side of freedom. I believe freedom is nobler than authoritarianism. Letting people choose their own destiny, their own life, liberty, and pursuit of happiness.

I'd believe that if not for our 'corporate citizens.'
So, do we need the government to:
- inspect public buildings for safety, for fire?
- inspect food, drugs, and other items offered for internal consumption?
- regulate financial institutions
- inspect and regulate clean water, clean air

The list is almost endless.

And I don't see any of that going on.  The top tax rates keep going down, not up.  Social services are less, not greater then they were before.  What we are in danger of is a kind of reverse socialism, so what we have is not the means of production being taken over by the government, but the government captured by corporate interests.

Is the freedom we offer the freedom for Wallmart to come in and eliminate local owned and operated business?  The freedom for McDonalds to sell what is much closer to poison then food? 

Increasingly the only freedom and personal identity we are allowed, exists as freedom to choose from among the commodities, particularly the entertainments, of which the news, and politics is just a branch.  This freedom is offed not by the government, or by individual efforts, but by faceless corporations and its grounded in the toxic wastelands and sweatshops of Asia and elsewhere.  So we feast at a table of goods and services, most of which are not only unnecessary, distractive and mind killing, but earth destroying in both their manufacture and their use.

QuoteSo we feast at a table of goods and services, most of which are not only unnecessary, distractive and mind killing, but earth destroying in both their manufacture and their use.

No one is forcing you to buy those goods. You vote for them and their ethics with your dollar. The consumer has a responsibility to control corporations with his buying power. So go to the local store rather than Walmart and pay a few pennies more for saving the community. Is it not worth it?

Of course it is.  And I don't eat at McDs, I see what happens to people who eat fast food as their bodies bloat into ugly uselessness, and I don't shop at Wallmart, even as the little local businesses shut down - matter of fact SF will not allow any big box store in its city limits for just that reason.  But the power of the corporations extend far beyond my meager consumer choices.

Quote from: tekla on March 04, 2010, 10:32:46 AM
One, I seriously doubt you've ever had a conversation with a real leftist.  I doubt there are more then 10 left in this country as it is.

Everything is a matter of context. the fact that a Leftist within the American political theater is in fact a moderate in - for instance - France is completely irrelevant to the discussion because it is the American political spectrum that is under discussion.

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Second, wouldn't a real socialist have taken over the banks and nationalized the auto industry instead of just bailing them out?

Given a free hand? Sure. And buying out 60% of an auto company is a pretty bold step towards "taking over" even if we eventually divest, because it sets an important precedent.

Plus, he's not out of office yet and given the right motivation, he might yet give it a go - since he has already set the lever to the fulcrum and gotten away with it.

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  Wouldn't a real conservative attempt to stop agricultural subsidies and transfers from rich states to poor states? 

Oh hell yes. which is one reason that all the hand wringing about awful right wingers is overblown since there is a LOT that right-of-center politicians DON'T do that their professed ideologies would dictate.

that said, there is an element of not having a free hand involved in SOME of these choices as well.

But I am under NO illusion that a TRUE small-government conservative HAS held the reings of power since at least Coolidge, or WILL hold them in the foreseeable future.

Again, context matters.

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Why should tax money from California and New York go to Mississippi?

IMO, it shouldn't - but I'm not sure your point here since it's not a Conservative idea that's caused it to.

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  Wouldn't a real socialist have insisted on a health care plan that was based on single-payer (about the only option that was never on the table) and not the silly nonsense that is currently being put forth?

the nonsense that is on the table is strategic.

Obama and his allies KNOW that a single payer system is DOA even in a Democrat Congress.

The current monstrosity is purposely designed to crash the current system in disastrous fashion so that at some future date it will have to be "fixed" by a single payer plan - which will be widely embraced by those suffering under the wreckage of the current proposal.

He's playing chess, not checkers.

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Third, have you studied Rules for Radicals in depth so that you personaly know Obama is following it chapter and verse?  Or is that just something that someone said, and up to that point you had never heard of that guy? 

Admittedly I hadn't heard of "Rules for Radicals) before Obama became a major player in the presidential race (i had heard his name and was vaguely aware of who he was). I don't see that lack of prior knowledge of Alinsky or Cloward/Pivin is a dis-qualifier from having an opinion now.

that said, I venture to guess that no less than 90% of that which is confidently asserted in such discussions, especially on-line, is based on information obtained second hand from people the speaker trusts - and a decent percentage of that will, if pursued, turn out to be misinformation.

for instance, people quote Michael Moore and Al Gore all the time in matters which have been debunked.

So I stand willing to be educated on how I have been misinformed about Alinsky, provided the sources for the correction demonstrate a level of credibility worthy of my trust.

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And isn't that progressive populism that Alinsky promoted basically as American as apple pie to begin with?  In fact, didn't a lot of it come from the Southern Agrarian movement in the late 19th Century?

Whether or not there are populist roots behind an idea is irrelevant to me. there are a ton of thoroughly American ideas which are still bad ones.

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Were not Teddy Roosevelt, William Howard Taft, and Herbert Hoover progressives in their own time?

Indeed.
And I have little respect for any of their positions. Do not assume because they are Republicans, or even that they are the heroes of current Republicans (i.e. McCain and his TR worship) that I am thus obliged to cut them any slack.

I would again invoke the name of Coolidge as the superior of all three of those men. In fact, he and Reagan (and marginally Eisenhower, JFK, and post '94 Clinton) are the only 20th century presidents worth a rat's ass, IMO.

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How is any of this stealth when its all over the news and being debated all over the net?

Because the actual agenda is not the agenda openly stated.