The ‘Ruling Class’ video is amusing, but it only scratches the surface.  To my knowledge there is no up-to-date, comprehensive sociological or political survey of the American power structure.  It would have to be a pretty big book.  For instance, there is the ‘interlocking directorate’ aspect of things: a person who sits on one board of directors is likely to sit on another, and on the governing boards of other important institutions as well.  Such people tend to be very well off and to have important business, social and family connections.  Needless to say, they tend to share a common culture.  Or at least they did at one time—these days, they may be falling apart.  As I say, we don’t have much data.

Shenonymous, February 22 at 12:02 am,

I hate to tell you this, Shenonymous, but there is no poor class.  People are poor, but poor is definitely not a class.  Poor Class is a propaganda frame.

You will sooner or later have to accept the fact that a person making $25,000. per year is not in any way a member of any middle income class. 

The Right-Wing is threatening to shut the government down, but not without Continuing Resolutions, that, of course, the conservative/moderate Democrats help them to have, if Congress continues to make Continuing Resolutions to fund the Military and the Congress and whatever of the two Ruling Classes and Cultures that is needed so they won’t lose anything,  Congress will then shut the government down, because the only ones being hurt will be the 70% Majority Common Population that isn’t represented, and it will make it much easier to get rid of what is left of the infrastructure that holds up the 70% Majority Common Population and allows them to think they are in a middle class. If the Right and the Corporate Middle Class keep this up, it won’t be long until the Common Population learn exactly who they are, that is if they are at least a 2 in mentality.

And, it wasn’t my idea that GRYM has a #3 mentality, it is based on what both Thoreau and Machiavelli said and his actions —which say that he is a waste of time.

Here is a list of American Billionaires:
American Billionaires:
http://www.woopidoo.com/profession/billionaires/american/index.htm

GRYM,

Rupert Murdoch and the Koch Brothers for starters.

Oligarchs of the United States:
http://ampedstatus.com/the-financial-oligarchy-reigns-democracys-death-spiral-from-greece-to-the-united-states/

The Ruling Class in the United States:
http://www.hulu.com/watch/112523/the-american-ruling-class, the American Aristocracy.

Shenonymous,

It is a myth that the wealthy are a collection of evil, conservative, bald, white republicans. Regardless of what the media informs you.  And not all Hispanics are named Jesus and park on their lawn.

How many billionaires are there today holding U.S. citizenship and, how many of those billionaires, the truly wealthy, are registered democrats?  Who, precisely, are these evil oligarchs?  Oprah Winfrey?

Forget what you’ve been told.  Just try and answer the questions by way of what you can prove.

Yes, MarthaA, maybe you are right on that.  GRYM doesn’t get it.
I don’t think too highly of myself.  I don’t think highly enough!  And
maybe one day if he ever stops to think about the lot of the ordinary
American citizen he will see that too many of them are deprived and
disadvantaged because of the excesses of the privileged.  People
would not mind taxes if it were spent on things that mattered to the
middle and poor class and took care of this country in the way
governments are morally bound to do rather than line the pockets
of the already wealthy.

Shenonymous, February 21 at 7:22 pm,

All long-term common populace Right-Wingers have 3 mentalities that are without understanding even when told.

Shenonymous,

Just stop.  Stop convincing yourself that you’re a better individual simply because you believe in an different approach.  It is precisely what makes you intolerant of others.

One day you may understand.

There you have it!  Your editorialized embellishments of what
I say is fraudulent, bizarre, absurd and false.  You pretend to be a
thinker but you are a clown, GRYM.

The fact that I take an opposite political position than you does not
give you any right to speak such offal.  And the fact that you do leads
me to believe you might be having a personal crisis. 

I invite all those who think Republicans need stopped to visit Russ
Feingold’s site http://progresivesunited.org

Shenonymous, - Republican’s “entire reason to exist admitted by themselves is to destroy the social programs….”?

-

There we have it.  Your entire last post is full of self-aggrandizement and a complete lack of understanding and tolerance for differing points of view.  Your write of republicans as if they are Those Really Bad People.

Republican’s, simply put, have different ideas on helping those in need.  Republicans do not believe in the types of aid YOU desire and wish to expand.  That does not make them less than you, you horrific, closed-minded, intolerant bigot.

-

Just stop, altogether, believing you are a better and more compassionate individual simply because you believe in an different approach.  It is precisely what makes you intolerant (bigoted) of others.

You show yourself, GRYM, to be an unprincipled and pretentious
hypocrite making only vacuous accusations.  You are unable to
provide proof because there is none and you malign me because
you resent my articulate commitment to defeat the Republicans
whose entire reason to exist admitted by themselves is to destroy
the social programs that keep Americans from sinking into the muck
of poverty.  I myself live a comfortable life and I do what I can to help
others.  My political work makes that even more meaningful.

Shenonymous,

You can believe I will in the future.  What I won’t do is take the time to search every thread to prove myself correct about you.  I already know about you.

I should suggest you are the one whom needs to revisit your comments.  So, pick three of your comments regarding the Tea Party and post them here for all to see.

Hint: Your term “Teabaggers” is akin to calling someone a Nigger.  It’s intended as derision.  It’s a horrible attitude on display. - Be tolerant of others.

GRYM – quote and cite date and time where I have described
Republicans, et al, as stupid and or evil.  You are a blatant liar.

Shenonymous,

In every one of your posts concerning republicans, the tea party, conservatives, moderates, business executives (millions of whom are democrats) you display a complete lack of tolerance.  It is just that simple.

You describe all of the above as stupid and or evil. - It’s commonly referred to as Bigotry.

You foster and spread hatred and fear: I would be glad to quote you in the future every time you display such narrow-minded intolerance.  Perhaps you’ll begin to think twice before posting.

GRYM emotionally propagandizing false bigotry, but is the real bigot or he would have answered the MarthaA, February 14 at 6:37 pm post on this thread.

In order to build a powerful Left, the 70% Majority Common Population will have to become aware of the fact that the Democratic Party does not represent them and neither does the Republican Party, and quit trying to get these two political parties to represent them, because if the Democratic Party wanted to represent the 70% Majority Common Population, they would never have separated from the 70% Majority Common Population, and the Republicans never have represented any part of the common population. 

When the Democratic Farmer Labor Party was knocked down, the 70% Majority Common Population began the slide into losing their benefits from past legislation as the New Class only represents the New Class and the Democratic Party only represents the New Class, NOT the 70% Majority Common Population.

In order to build a powerful Left, the 70% Majority Common Population must represent the 70% Majority Common Population as a class and culture separately from the Democratic Party and the Republican Party, because as long as the 70% Majority Common Population try to build the Left’s Movement in the Democratic Party, the DLC, New Democrats will get in front and take over their movement, as happened with the Dean Movement and the movement will be squelched.

All it takes to have a powerful Left politically is awareness.  Awareness is the key.  When the 70% Majority Common Population really become aware that they are not being represented at all, they will rally and protest for a new political party that will represent the 70% Majority Common Population, the American Common Populace, but awareness takes time.

But GRYM, I do tolerate others views.  Where have I shown
intolerance?  Please quote me when and where.  I believe everyone
has a right to their opinion.  That is about as broad minded as one
can get.  It is just when conservatives want to force their opinions
that I don’t like on me that I squawk and spit.  Are you that
authoritarian that you would coerce me?  You are completely wrong
about me.  I don’t include myself in any group, especially not on
Truthdig!  I am a left leaning centrist without portfolio.  I have very
few comrades in my camp.  Hell I don’t even have a camp.  There is
only a fence on which I walk on top.  Which ever side make the most
sense for the good of the people, is the one I vote with and give
support.  Attempts to mangle me comes from the Left as much as from
the Right.  Centrists just have to learn to live with that kind of hatred. 
So hate away, GRYM.

Unfortunately, the Republicans have not shown concern for the masses
in decades.  That is not my assessment, it is their direct actions and
philosophy to cut benefits out from the underprivileged so that they
may flourish.  Not since Eisenhower has a Republican been troubled by
the quality of life of ordinary Americans, you know the less privileged
ones!  Now bring him back from the dead and maybe the Republicans
can regain their stature.  Maybe they need some self-flaggellation?

Shenonymous,

Think long and hard about bigotry when you are intolerant of others views and beliefs.  When you demean and belittle others for holding different beliefs.  When you begin to believe you are part of a group of the Good People and others are less than yourself.

-

Definition of BIGOTRY

1.stubborn and complete intolerance of any creed, belief, or opinion that differs from one’s own.
2.the actions, beliefs, prejudices, etc., of a bigot.

Examples of BIGOTRY:

  1. a deeply ingrained bigotry prevented her from even considering the counterarguments

Related to BIGOTRY:

Synonyms: dogmatism, intolerance, intolerantness, narrow-mindedness, opinionatedness, partisanship, sectarianism, small-mindedness

The problem as I see it GRYM is you are unable to make
distinctions.  Yours is an affliction of the general truthdipper
on TD who cannot think above the mediocre.  You lump into one
abstraction such collective nouns as Liberal Thinkers all people of
a liberal persuasion but we are within our liberal nation many
subtribes.  We do not all hold the exact same goals as each other
nor do we hold the same goals as conservatives.  It is a broad
spectrum.  You cannot really believe your percentages and by the
way where exactly do you get your percentages?  Do you really think
you can get away with equivocating by leaving off .001%.  It is
yourself who has an unrealistic view and demonstrate your uncaring
for ordinary Americans. 

You do not show anything worthwhile to think about.  You only say
what you think I am about but not what you are about.  Think about
what it is you believe in and why and tell us that?  And stop calling me
dark and hateful as that is an absurd adolescent retort.  You do not
deflect your defects by doing that.  It is apparent you hate it that I point
out your defects.  An understandable defense.  It is almost animalistic,
but notice I kindly said almost.

Shenonymous,

When human beings label entire groups of “Other” human beings as bad, stupid, evil, less than one’s-self etc., we can all know what we’re witnessing.  It’s correctly seen as bigotry.

Liberal thinkers hold the exact same goals as conservative thinkers.  Only the means of reaching those goals differ. - I suspect you ingest far too much of the media world.  A world which is NOT REAL and, like politics in general, is a world in which perceptions become reality.

99.999% of Americans want quality health-care for their families and the families of those in need.
99.999% of Americans want to feel secure.
99.999% of Americans want quality education for everyone.
99.999% of Americans want safe working conditions for everyone.

You need to end this unrealistic view that you belong to a group of caring, loving, inclusive people and everyone else must be bad, uncaring and hateful.  It’s Not Real!!  It is simply a nasty and bigoted view you happen to share with others!

Judging from your writings I am almost certain you are a kind human being in-person.  But there is a side to you which is dark and horribly unkind.  I know.  You treated me with a healthy respect until you perceived me to be some type of phantom Neo-Con.  And your talk of “tea baggers” is truly hard to witness.  Your intention in using the term is hurtful, hateful and divisive.  Precisely what you claim to dislike in others.

I hope you think long and hard about what I’m showing you.  You do not belong to a club of “good people”.  You are part of the Human Race.

The first time I heard the term Social Conservative from one of the
recent CPAC speakers, I thought I was hearing things.  Boing!  But no,
oxymoronic as it sounds, Social Conservatism does exist.  There are
925,000 results on google.  I now know that this taxonomic political
category means that a government must encourage and enforce their,
the Social Conservatives, traditional beliefs, values and behaviors, but it
struck me as odd that they would tag on the word Social when in the
last decade the Republicans sling the word about as a slur against
Democrats calling Democrats socialists. It would not be out of line then
to call Republicans who are not TeaBaggers, Social Republicans.  A
second meaning, however, found in Scandinavia and Europe refers to
Liberal Conservatives that support European Welfare state.  Now that is
really funny to have complete opposite ideologies called the same thing,
conservative!  Thus political terms change over time as they are seen to
apply.  Maybe Sekhar was right after all?  Maybe not.

Liberal racism?  M’thinks you are quite confused. After the world
experienced the Nazi death camps, many western peoples began to
outwardly oppose ideas of racial superiority.  Liberal anti-racism
became a principle in the culture of many western governments.

More party history: The Liberal Republican Party vanished immediately
after the election of 1872.  However, as historians suggest, by untying
the loyalty of the liberal elements in the Republican Party, many of the
Liberal Republican leaders to moved to the Democratic Party. The
others returned to the GOP.  As we see today, there is not a single
scrap of liberalism in the Republican Party.  They are not the party of
the less than wealthy people they may have been long ago.  But I
wonder as a review of these parties takes place on this forum, if they
ever could be called a party of the people.

Anarcissie,

And Ronald Reagan once said that it wasn’t him whom left the democratic party.  He believed the party had moved away from him.  My take from this is that, in Reagan’s view, the democratic party had lurched “Left” in his lifetime. - A view I happen to agree with.  From your seat you see it differently.

Aside from your or my views of the constant pendulum of the nation’s moods, the united States has a Left and a Right side of politics in this place and at this time.  It can very often be quite separate and distinct in political, economic and global philosophies.  However, at the same time, we cannot ignore that, regardless of Left, Right, and Center there are roots of very distinct, inherent, American views and beliefs.  In other words; we share basic commonalities.  Nothing wrong with that.

The United States is, Like It Or Not, a Right of Center nation in 2011.  It is the very core as to why there is no Strong Liberal agenda.

In my opinion an individual today would have to be standing and looking from the farthest reaches of the polar Left to understand President Obama to be a conservative thinker and policy advocate.

If I apply your view of today’s liberal would it be valid for me to suggest that you are, according to you, an Conservative-liberal thinker in desiring contemporary democrats take on a more “traditional” leftist agenda?  As apposed to moving to the Right?  Or, to put it more succinctly,...LOL…President Obama is, in the true sense of the word, the perfect example of a Neo-Con?

-

On the subject of open liberal racism.

While young conservatives chased out a white-supremacist recruiter from CPAC, it seemed that one site on the Left felt more comfortable with racist attacks.  AlterNet, a site that proudly proclaims its “strong content” and “huge readership and reach,” offered its analysis of Herman Cain’s speech at CPAC by calling the former CEO of Godfather Pizza a “monkey in the window”:

  “In the immortal words of Megatron in Transformers: The Movie, Herman Cain’s speech at CPAC really is bad comedy. As you know, I find black garbage pail kids black conservatives fascinating not because of what they believe, but rather because of how they entertain and perform for their White Conservative masters.

  We always need a monkey in the window, for he/she reminds us of our humanity while simultaneously reinforcing a sense of our own superiority. Sadly, there are always folks who are willing to play that role because it pays so well.”

GRYM—Now you may be ready to take in my idea that the Democratic Party is conservative, at least in the older sense of the word.  It’s not my original idea, though; Adlai Stevenson said the same thing in the 1950s.  And on this very site, there is constant noise about how Mr. O took in wads of money from Wall Street and is thus beholden to them, although I think it is his natural conservatism and caution which has been his main motivation to follow the Bush administration in financial and economic policy.  He is simply not the kind of person who believes in stepping out and taking big risks when some other way of doing things appears possible.

Ask yourself: what has the Democratic Party tried to change since the New Deal and World War 2?  If you read Acheson’s Present at the Creation, you will see the beginnings of the postwar imperial system, of which Korea, the Bay of Pigs, Vietnam and the Dominican Republic are exemplars which occurred on the Democrats’ watch.  The Democrats, or at least the people around Lyndon Johnson, also took responsibility, along with some Republicans, for accepting some of the Civil Rights movement when they might have allowed the country to dissolve into civil war—a case of exercising a little liberalism in order to continue to exercise a great deal of conservatism.

As for the Left, there is virtually no real Left in the U.S. today other than in small groups of activists.  I suppose some of the conservatism of the Democratic Party might be considered leftish when they attempt to save bits and pieces of the Welfare state, but that’s about it.

Go Right Young Man, February 14 at 5:02 pm,

And your point? 

Is it your point that Conservative EXTREMISTS represent big business, instead of the populace, no matter which side of the isle they are on?

With the DLC conservative leadership on the run, there should be some change toward the people’s benefit, but since the NEW CLASS has already been established as a political entity separate from the majority populace, there is definitely a dire need for political representation of the majority populace, which will require change in Congress to support new political representation for the majority populace,  because the majority populace is not represented by big business that represents both the current political parties.

Anarcissie,

I see your point.  It’s like how lobbying firms spent $3.47 Billion lobbying politicians between 1989 and 2010 with the largest share, by OVERWHELMING MARGINS, finding its way into the pockets and/or coffers of the democrat party.

Top 20 Lobbying Firms and money Spent.

(column 1 Dem) (column 2 Rep)
* Asterisk denotes the larger share in the democratic column (for emphasis)

*1. ActBlue $50,010,524   99%  0%
2. AT&T Inc $46,077,005   44%/55%
*3. American Fedn of St.Co. & Mun Empl   $43,337,561   98%/1% 
4. National Assn of Realtors $38,628,441 49%/50%
*5. Goldman Sachs   $33,360,252 61%/37%
*6. American Assn for Justice $33,047,779 90%/8% 
*7. Intl Brothr of Electrical Workers   $32,930,966   97%/2% 
*8. Nat. Edu Assn   $32,021,910 93%/6% 
*9. Laborers Union $30,106,550 93%/7% 
*10. Carpenters & Joiners Union $29,154,808 89%/10% 
*11. Service Employees International Union   $29,139,982 95%/3% 
*12. Teamsters Union $29,126,809 93%/6% 
*13. American Federation of Teachers   $28,731,591 98%/0% 
*14. Communications Workers of America   $28,273,156 98%/0% 
*15. Citigroup Inc $27,974,371 50%/49%
16. Amer. Med. Assn $27,442,570   40%/59%
*17. United Auto Workers   $26,949,252 98%/0% 
*18. Machinists & Aerospace Workers Union   $26,170,977 98%/0% 
19. National Auto Dealers Assn   $26,156,258 32%/67%
*20. United Food & Commercial Workers Union $25,226,733 98%/1%

Perceptions, facts based or otherwise, are interesting things.

Go Right Young Man, February 14 at 12:35 am:

Anarcissie,

There is no such electoral map supporting the “Theory” that such a polar change occurred.  At no time in the United States’ brief history did all republicans become democrats and democrats republicans.  That is the point! ...

There is no way of proving much of anything in politics.  However, it is pretty obvious to most people who care about the subject and bother to read history that the interests and ideologies of the parties have changed over the years, and that they do not represent the same interest groups and ideologies they did a century ago.  That was my point, and the electoral maps I mentioned illustrate it for those to whom anything can be illustrated.

Oops…I failed to make it clear that the list of corporate donors in my last post below were all to the Obama campaign.

It may also be interesting to note that dreaded and evil lobbying firms gave the largest sums of money to the democrat party in 2009-2010.

Top Recipients, 2009-2010

Reid, Harry (D-NV) $742,522
Schumer, Charles E (D-NY) $526,039
Lincoln, Blanche (D-AR)  $521,002
Murray, Patty (D-WA) $381,955
Portman, Rob (R-OH) $376,932

Yes.  Perceptions, fact based or otherwise, are interesting things.

Shenonymous,

Don’t misunderstand.  I like President Johnson’s 1960’s record on civil rights.  Isn’t it interesting, however, that Barry Goldwater, no matter his good deeds toward minorities, utters the Code Words “States Rights” and is forever labeled a racist by the left side of politics, while Lyndon Johnson uses that same term repeatedly, all while referring to black people as Niggers, and is the pride of the democratic party? - Note: Most liberals claim Johnson lied to get the United States into war.

-

The Party of the Powerful and Wealthy

Big Pharma contributed more money to the democratic party over the republican party in 2007-2008 by 4-1.

The entire health-care and health insurance industries contributed more money to Obama over McCain by 2-1.

And isn’t it interesting that candidate Obama made several fund-raising trips to Atherton Ca. [really rich people], and Marin Ca. [really rich people] and attended a fund-raising gala at the Getty [plutocrat] mansion in San Francisco for yet another campaign event before winning the White House?

-

NOTE: All numbers below reflect the 2008 election cycle and based on Federal Election Commission data released electronically on Monday, July 13, 2009

University of California $1,591,395
Goldman Sachs $994,795
Harvard University $854,747
Microsoft Corp   $833,617
Google Inc $803,436
Citigroup Inc $701,290
JPMorgan Chase & Co $695,132
Time Warner $590,084
Sidley Austin LLP $588,598
Stanford University $586,557
National Amusements Inc $551,683
UBS AG $543,219
Wilmerhale Llp $542,618
Skadden, Arps et al $530,839
IBM Corp $528,822
Columbia University $528,302
Morgan Stanley   $514,881
General Electric $499,130
US Government $494,820
Latham & Watkins $493,835

Total Contributions Collected From (Corporate) Donations

Democrat $388,283,755
Republican $167,899,833

Perceptions, fact based or otherwise, are interesting things, Shenonymous.

Regardless of what you say about LBJ, his commitment to civil
rights blossomed when he became President, to the degree that
Jet Magazine, the weekly political and entertainment news magazine
of African Americans, June 7, 1999, pgs. 38-39, wrote a tribute to
his being “the most productive American president in expanding the
civil rights of African-Americans in the history of the country.

Despite what the Republicans may have done, they always do
everything in the service of their own political posturing not because
they had any love of African Americans.  Julian Bond of the NAACP,
chaired a panel on “Civil Rights – The Situation Now,” that emphasized
the fact that Johnson was “intensely committed to doing all he could to
advance the cause of civil rights for African-Americans and LBJ was
described as a revolutionary in the area of civil rights using all the
power of his office to get as much legislation passed as possible in an
extraordinary period of time and at a great risk to his political career
and yes, to the detriment of the Democratic Party in the South. 
Those Democrats, aka Dixiecrats, were more Republican than ordinary
racist Southern Republicans. That lack of “love” the Republicans had is
present even today, ask any black who has not sallied up to kiss asses
of white Republicans in order to gain some misperceived needed
prestige. They certainly got “rid” of Michael Steele in a hurry and
denigrate Colin Powell whenever they get the opportunity.  And they
loudly tell of their target Obama as a one-term president who they have
crippled and criticized every second of every day of his presidency. If
the Republicans did so much for human rights as you claim GRYM, then
why do they not get accolades from those their legislation supposedly
benefitted?

According to his diaries, Kennedy had planned an strong legislative
program for the last year of his term; he was assassinated in his third
year of office.  http://usa.usembassy.de/etexts/history/ch12.htm 
Same source says Johnson on the other hand, as President, intended
to and did use his power aggressively to eliminate poverty and spread
the benefits of prosperity to all.  His Great Society was evidence of his
interest in this effort.  Economically, Johnson pushed successfully for
a tax cut, then pressed for a poverty program Kennedy had initiated. 
Besides providing jobs training for the poor, Johnson pushed through
Congress Truman’s (another Democrat) centralized medical health
insurance program for the elderly program, Medicare, and Medicaid,
a program providing health-care assistance for the poor. Johnson also
succeeded in providing aid for elementary and secondary schooling
where Kennedy had failed.  And his leadership for a new housing act
provided rent supplements for the poor and established the Department
of Housing and Urban Development. An immigration measure finally
replaced the discriminatory quotas set in 1924 and federal assistance
went to artists and scholars to encourage their work. And because of
the efforts of a young lawyer, lobbyist and consultant named Ralph
Nader, Johnson’s administration also addressed and passed two
transportation safety bills.  Johnson’s amazing legislation actions are
considered the greatest surge since Democrat FDR’s New Deal. 

The thing is, and I’ve said this on other forums, I am not particularly
happy with the Democratic Party as it currently shows itself to be
condescending.  I am interested in what can be done today.  The past
has its reasons that are too numerous to go into within the scope of
this forum.  That being said, I still align myself with that Party because
it is my opinion that is the only opportunity to defeat what the
Republican Party has become today:  Self-serving minions of the
wealthy and corporations while the great divide between those of
privilege and means and those without grows as each minute passes.

Shenonymous,

I suffer enough ADS to understand that the Civil Rights Act of 1957 was introduced by the republican party inside Eisenhower’s presidency.  It was the act that kick-started the civil rights legislative agenda that was to include the 1964 Civil Rights Act and the 1965 Voting Rights Act.  I do retain the understanding that the Civil Rights Movement did not begin in Nov. 1963.

I understand enough to see that Sen. John F. Kennedy did not support Civil Rights legislation, the hallmark of republicans for well over one-hundred years, until the 1961-62 election cycle.  After, yes after, the the nation’s mood had been changing for years. 

We must keep this in context, my friend.  John Kennedy, like Lyndon Johnson after him, fought against HIS party to pass pending Civil Rights bill.  Republicans, Shenom, had already been behind Civil and Voting Rights. For Decades!

Lyndon Johnson was a true dichotomy.  He too voted against all federal civil rights measures - such as a federal ban on lynching, eliminating poll taxes and denying federal funding to segregated schools, measures which later would make up ground-breaking legislation in 1964-65.

History shows us that Senator Johnson’s opposition to the 1957 Civil Rights program disgusted Texas blacks.  At the time, and you can look this up, Johnson claimed the standard Southern excuse for not helping African Americans, that he was “not against blacks rights but for states rights” - Of course we cannot ignore that Lyndon Johnson very regularly used the term “Nigger” e.g., “Son, when I appoint a nigger to the court, I want everyone to know he’s a nigger.”

-

Check all my facts and drop the idea that you belong to a club of “good” people.  That others must then b3e, necessarily, bad.  It’s Not Real!

Anarcissie,

There is no such electoral map supporting the “Theory” that such a polar change occurred.  At no time in the United States’ brief history did all republicans become democrats and democrats republicans.  That is the point!

The point is you believe in a theory that makes you feel better about your current position.  That theory, ironically enough, is incoherent.

-

You also hold close the theory that the U.S. is full of racist white people.  Yet United States’ history, moving from a slave-trade economy to a Negro as president, in historic lightening speed, demands otherwise.

I already presented John Kennedy and L. B. Johnson.  You show a
tendency, GRYM, for inattentiveness, do you suffer from ADS?

Shenonymous,

My inability to debate?  I pleaded with you from the start not to simply go on the attack.

There was a time the two of us interacted respectfully.  Before you perceived me to be Right Of Center - Tea bagger/Republican/Conservative/Christian, take your pic.

You have conditioned yourself over time to, quite overtly, dislike all of the above.  Nearly every one of your posts is filled with it.  You herald yourself to be part of the righteous crowd.  The tolerant crowd.  The peaceful crowd.  The intelligent crowd.

Well, you cannot daily spread such ill will toward so many people and not expect to be challenged.  I’m certain you can understand that.

-

I make a good living presenting facts.  I shared solid examples of historical events which can be repeatedly verified by others. 

If you could produce one example of the democrat party championing civil rights you surely would do that.  In place of such examples you gave only reflections (Links) toward those whom hold your same opinions. - You have got to at least be mildly surprised that you have been unable, as yet, to produce actual events of history in support of so many people’s perceptions.

-

I am compelled to point out once again the Very Real Effects of your unbending, unwavering, intelligent, tolerant and peaceful beliefs. - If not for systematic abortion the population of black Americans would, today, be twice that of all categories of white Americans.  Instead it’s roughly half!  How enlightening is that?

Progressive thinker, Margaret Sanger, taught that humans can design and produce desired societal outcomes by means of “controlled” abortion. 

“Greater understanding and practice of planned parenthood, through the use of contraceptive measures prescribed by doctors and clinics, will mean that there will be more strong and healthy children and fewer defective and handicapped babies unable to find a useful or happy place in life. “

“Women of the working class, especially wage workers, should not have more than two children at most. The average working man can support no more and the average working woman can take care of no more in decent fashion.”

-The Road To Good Intentions.

GRYM—It’s not a matter of being stupid.  It’s a language problem.

In regard to 1854, I wasn’t talking about time in regard to absolute length.  The point is that the interests and ideologies which the parties represent had changed.  As an example consider the electoral maps of the 1896 and 2004 presidential elections, when the Republican and Democratic parties almost exactly exchanged states.

Shenonymous, February 13 at 9:08 pm

We disagree on certain issues and methods. But on this we are in complete agreement.

GRYM – yadayadayada.  You do not determine what I do or do not do. 
If you don’t like my research, F off.  You do not in the least explain or
justify your beliefs and have no ground to interrogate me or anybody
else.  You show your inability for real debate.  You stumble your way
through the forum with pathetically weak interpretations of alleged
facts and attempt to bludgeon those who disagree with you.

I find you not worthy of any further comment.

Shenonymous,

BTW: There is NOTHING is Goldwater’s past that suggests he disliked brown people.  Goldwater explained his disagreement with the 1964 Civil Rights Bill in terms of his strong libertarian views.  That is not to be confused, as so many haters do, with racism.  Goldwater was a life-long champion of minorities.

Would you like to explain why Senator John Kennedy voted against both the 1948 and 1957 Civil Rights Bills?  How it was not “self-serving” to change his position in the midst of the 1961-62 election cycle?

-

Interesting that you skipped right past “progressive” Woodrow Wilson, who effectively segregated the U.S. Government for roughly four decades, so that you could attack Goldwater. - Why would you do that?  Is that an attempt to quickly change the subject away from a champion of modern progressives who happened to be an overt racist?

Shenonymous,

Let’s not talk about New Deal legislation until you are able to share one piece of civil rights, human rights, woman’s rights, slave rights or voting rights legislation put up by the democratic party since the late 1700’s.

I asked that you refrain from going on the attack and, in it’s stead, do some research.

You can suggest all day long how stupid I am for understanding how to research the Library of Congress, however, this does not make your understanding of history correct.  I’m sorry but the world doesn’t work that way.

Anarcissie,

Your main problem is in thinking 1854 was such a long time ago.  There are thousands of people alive today who have seen one-third of American history.  You need to remember that.

Apart from your constant refrain that you can’t wrap your mind around why people identify themselves as liberal, moderate or conservative, the United States is a very young nation.  The fact that the United States has moved from a slave labor economy to a negro president, in almost a blink of an eye in historical terms, is nothing less than astounding.  The republican party, from it’s inception to the present, has been a integral part of that. 

-

P.S. You need to end this belief that 20% of the American population is simply too stupid to identify themselves as liberal simply because you see things differently.

The essence of the Democratic Party has been around since Jefferson
even though the distinction between Democrat and Republican was
not made until the early 19th century.  You wish to ignore the
transformation of the parties so that you can claim Republicans
initiated important legislation, a deceitful strategy.  A study of the
way the parties finally reorganized would show anyone with
intelligence that it was and still is utter political motives that moved
the so-called Hamiltonian Republicans to achieve their self-serving
interests from its inception.

For a self-described fact collector, if you don’t want to check out the
links I provide so be it.  You could challenge their veracity.  I could not
care less whether you do or not.  My post is for those who might be
interested more in truth than your defensive prevarications.

1929 – WPA Federal Art Project – Republican President Herbert Hoover’s
policy of refusing to legitimize governmental assistance to individuals
proved disastrous as the country sank seriously into financial and
emotional distress.  Roosevelt knew to act fast.  His New Deal programs
would quickly pull the country out of its economic nosedive. Object:
find jobs for the unemployed, help business and agriculture regain a
footing in the nation’s financial future.
http://cmany.org/wpa/wpa_federal_art_project.php

Let’s talk about the New Deal legislations. There were two New Deals,
1933 and 1935. In March 1933, he sent Congress a record number
of bills, all of which passed easily.  Roosevelt’s inauguration
occurred in the middle of a bank panic.  (OMG:  déjà vu, looking like
Republicanism crap all over again!)  The very next day Congress passed
the Emergency Banking Act that declared a “bank holiday” and
announced a plan to allow banks to reopen.  The number of banks that
opened their doors after the “holiday” was less than the number that
had been open before.  This was his first proposed step to recovery. To
give Americans confidence in the banks, Roosevelt signed the Glass–
Steagall Act that created the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation
(FDIC).  See Samuelson, Readings in Economics.

John Kennedy the month before he was assassinated, an article by Drew
Pearson, the award winning journalist of the 60s, Palm Beach Post. 
Excerpt:  “WASHINGTON, “Seldom has any President of the united States
fought so hard to shape any piece of legislation as John F. Kennedy did
the civil rights bill all last week, even before it passed the House
Judiciary Committee…”  Kennedy was concerned that the bill “protect
the rights of Negroes.”  Well Kennedy was murdered the following
month and the deed fell to Lyndon Johnson to push it through.  Both
Democrats and Republicans were split in their ranks.  But Republicans
talk a good game until it comes time to vote then they renege.  Since
Johnson, the Democrats have been typically interested in social
programs and the general welfare of the public.

Pittsburgh Post Gazette, Nov. 3, 1964, WASHINGTON, Nov. 3 (UPI) “…
Many otherwise loyal Republicans have left Senator Goldwater
because of his conservative positions on several issues, along with
his vote against the Civil Rights Bill.”

It isn’t even so much that I am a registered Democrat.  For me they are
simply the best vehicle to defeat the always damaging Republican
agenda.  For me the Democrats represent the liberal ideals that I find to
my preference, rejection of divine rights of kings or religions to rule
over the lives and thoughts of individuals, personal liberty with the
limitation of not harming others without justified reason, the power of
the society to act together for the common good, insure justice and
protection for all, fair distribution of the wealth of the society to assure
economic equality, and a strong central government to insure all of the
above.

GRYM—Your main problem is ignorance of the framework.  Giving a list of things this party or that did is meaningless until you place those actions in their historical context.  For example, the Republican Party of 1854 may be institutionally connected with the Republican Party of 2008, but in fact it is different in both the collection of interests it represents and in the ideologies it professes.

It is also fairly meaningless to talk about how Americans identify themselves in polls as ‘liberal’ or ‘conservative’, since these words mean very different things to different people.

Shenonymous,

Please don’t confuse arrogance with surety.  Facts are my profession.  Without passion or opinion.

The facts are clear to every historian I have every studied.  The democrats have always been on the wrong side of civil rights.  Not one Constitutional Amendment covering civil rights, slave rights, voting rights or woman’s rights was the brainchild of the democratic party.

You find yourself shocked, yes?  Not what you had been lead to believe, correct?  Nonetheless, it is a fact.

Shenonymous,

I will never again supply links. 

I provided more than enough names, dates, reference points, along with very specific historical and legislative context, for any first year Grad student to keep them busy for days.

I will never accept the sources you provided.  Can you please give me something from, say, the Smithsonian, Library of Congress or reputable university?

Lastly.  Unemployment insurance, which I support, is not a Civil, minority or Woman’s Right.

Note: The Wilmot Proviso never made it out of committee.  It was blocked from consideration by fellow democrats, HOWEVER, you are correct.  That proposal was offered by a democrat.

Facts are not your forte, GRYM.  It is all right when you are sloppy in
not providing reference but you are arrogant to criticize me when I
apologized for my errors and why I made them. My posts speak for
themselves with sources nearly always provided.

Politics is not always what it seems and political partisans use the
system to promote special agendas that have little to do with
legislation they write, propose, and push through Congress.  For
instance the 14th Amendment was a betting token to centralize the
Republicans as a political force in Congress whose care about rights
was disingenuous.  Especially see the last four paragraphs at
http://www.southernmessenger.org/14th_amendment.htm

Around 1824 the evolution of the two major parties seen today took
hold with Adams Republicans becoming the National Republicans then
the Republicans and Jackson Republicans becoming Democratic
Republicans then, Democrats we know today.  So it could be misleading
to say that a major party known today was responsible for legislation
before 1833.
http://www.thegreenpapers.com/Hx/AmericanMajorParties.html

Democrat sponsored legislation since the 1700s
The Wilmot Proviso, 1846, written by Jacob Brinkerhoff, anti-slavery
Democratic Judge and introduced to Congress by Democratic
representative David Wilmot of Pennsylvania, attempted to ban slavery
in territory gained in the Mexican War.  The proviso is blocked, finally
added to legislation in 2005! 
http://blueandgraytrail.com/event/Wilmot_Proviso

Unemployment Insurance Extension Bill-House Democrats originated
passed it with relative ease. The Senate created a stronger version.
After weeks of debate, the bill passed a cloture vote to move to
consideration, 87 to 13. Democrats expected the legislation to race to
passage, but Republicans continued to bring up objections, requiring a
number of procedural votes and hours of floor time. On Oct. 4, 27 days
and four votes since the bill’s initial introduction, it passed
unanimously, 98-0. It became law in early November very close, thanks
to Republicains, to devastating the unemployed.

New York Times – Feb. 12, 2011 After decades of failed attempts by a
string of Democratic presidents and a year of bitter partisan combat,
President Obama signed legislation on March 23, 2010, to overhaul the
nation’s health care system and guarantee access to medical insurance
for tens of millions of Americans.

Food safety legislation - The insanity of the Republican Party
compromises food safety. The $1.4 billion bill would increase Food
and Drug Administration inspections of food facilities, place stricter
standards on imported foods and give the agency broader authority
to order a recall.  Also would require larger producers to keep detailed
food safety plans and follow stricter standards for keeping food safe.
Supporters say passage is critical after widespread outbreaks of
salmonella and E. coli in peanuts, eggs and produce.  While, the bill
has widespread bipartisan support and passed the Senate 73-25 on
Nov. 30, 2010, Republican Sen. Tom Coburn of Oklahoma
blocked the bill for several months, saying he was delaying
passage because it wasn’t paid for. Supporters were concerned that
Republican objections could again trip up the bill in the Senate if the
House sent the bill back by itself with the constitutional issue fixed. 
Thank goodness for our food safety it passed to the credit of the
Democrats.

Anarcissie,

I grant you, it will take some time to check all the historical facts.

Be sure to return and share with me where I have my facts wrong.  Be sure to return and point out one human rights, slave rights, woman’s rights and voter rights amendment written or proposed by a democrat since the late 1700’s.  I’m looking for just one example.

Good luck!

GRYM—I was speaking of the present discussion, not your imaginative views of history, which would take a good deal of time even to decode.

Anarcissie,

Yes.  I guess the realization that the left has hundreds of years of oppression, bigotry and racism in its history has, in effect, put an end to all discussion of a powerful left in the United States.

Only 20% of the American voting public identify themselves as “liberal”.

I guess we’re finished discussing the concept of building a powerful Left in the United States.

Shenonymous,

Why would you mention only Sen. Wadsworth and not mention the years of strong opposition by Bankhead, Beckham, Dial, Fletcher, Gay, Harrison, Hitchcock, Overman, Reed, Simmons, Smith, (Md.,) Smith, (S. C.,) Swanson, Trammell, Underwood, Williams and Wolcott?  All democrats.

According to you it’s lying if you fail to mention the entire record of opposition to the 19th Amendment. Yes?

Anarcissie, - “I see no point in arguing with someone who rejects well-known and easily discoverable facts in favor of propaganda.  If you want to believe in fantasies about the past, enjoy yourself.  You have plenty of company.

-

I could not agree more.  Now, can you prove me wrong?

Shenonymous, - “Yeah, I must have been really tired as I see I made another glaring error.  Woodrow Wilson was a Democrat and the President who pushed it through Congress and signed the 19th Amendment.” Yikes!

-

Yes, YIKES! A truly Glaring Error.  Wilson is allowed no credit for the 19th Amendment.  President Wilson, very simply put, just happened to be president when Tennessee finally ratified the law authored by the Republican Party. - Come now.  Are you so full of hate for All Things Republican that you can’t give credit where due?  Seriously?

-

Progressive, Woodrow Wilson.

Have you ever seen or heard of the film, The Birth of a Nation?

Wilson believed white southerners to be the only real citizens and feared what might arise from a south “ruled by an ignorant and inferior race.”

Almost upon taking office in 1912, Woodrow Wilson fired most of the African Americans who held posts within the federal government, and segregated the Navy, which until then had been desegregated. Many of the newly segregated parts of Wilson’s federal government would remain so, clear into the 1950s.

In his writings, Wilson eulogized the antebellum South and lamented the period of reconstruction that followed the Civil War.  To quote Wilson himself on this subject, “self-preservation [forced whites] to rid themselves, by fair means or foul, of the intolerable burden of governments sustained by the votes of ignorant negroes.”  Wilson excused the rise of the Ku Klux Klan in similar terms, calling it understandable in view of the “lawless” situation that victimized whites in the South after 1865.

Wilson, while president of Princeton University,  discouraged black from applying to “his university”, and as governor, Wilson refused to confirm the hiring of blacks in his administration. 

Wilson’s two-volume book, “A History of the American People”, was so racially biased that D.W. Griffith quoted the sitting president’s writings in his 1915 silent film, The Birth of a Nation, “The white men were roused by a mere instinct of self preservation… until at last there had sprung into existence a great Ku Klux Klan, a veritable empire of the South, to protect the Southern country.” Not only did Wilson proudly stand by those words, but he also had a private showing of the movie at the White House.

Yikes is Right

-

Notes

Republicans, Susan B. Anthony and Elizabeth Cady Stanton, drafted the 19th Amendment.

Leser v. Garnett (1922). In that case, the Supreme Court rejected claims that the 19th Amendment was unconstitutionally adopted. - Oscar Leser was a democrat fundraiser.

Check all my facts and correct me where you are able.

Shenonymous,

It saddens me that your knowledge of history is so horribly off kilter. 

Republicans pioneered slave rights, woman’s rights, voting rights and human rights.  These are undeniable facts of history. 

Before you reply, please, I beg you take the time and do some research. Don’t simply reply by going on the attack. Show me, precisely, where I have my facts wrong. Share with me one -just one- civil rights, slave rights, woman’s rights or voting rights legislation written or sponsored by a democrat between 1780 to present. You will be shocked to find not even one!

-

Women’s Rights Convention

In 1848, the Women’s Right Convention took place in Seneca Falls, New York; thus began the women’s suffrage movement in the United States. A national meeting was held in 1850 in Worcester, Massachusetts; then, in 1870, suffragettes Lucy Stone and Mary Livermore were seated as delegates at the Massachusetts Republican State Convention.

In 1872, at the Republican National Convention, a resolution was passed supporting admission of women “to wider fields of usefulness.” In addition to this resolution was the declaration that “the honest demand of this class of citizens for additional rights . . . should be treated with respectful consideration.”

Republican National Convention

Therese Jenkins and Cora Carleton became the first two women to be seated as alternate delegates at the Republican National Convention in Minneapolis in 1892. Also at this convention for the first time, a woman gave an address. The speaker was J. Ellen Foster, who chaired the Women’s Republican Association of the United States.

Democrats Defeat Voting Rights Amendment

Republican Senator A. A. Sargent of California pioneered the 19th Amendment to the U. S. Constitution in 1878. Encouraged by Susan B. Anthony, Sargent’s amendment was also called the Susan B. Anthony Amendment. Unfortunately, a Democrat controlled senate defeated the passage of the amendment four times.

Republican-Controlled Congress Finally Passes Suffrage for Women

Only after the Republicans won control of congress in 1919 did the Equal Suffrage Amendment pass. It found favor in the House of Representatives in May and then passed the Senate in June.

As the 19th Amendment was circulating for ratification, the states with Republican legislatures passed the amendment. Thirty-six states ratified the Amendment. Twenty-six states had Republican legislatures and easily ratified the Amendment. Nine states voted against its ratification—eight of those states had Democratic legislatures.

Even before the Amendment was part of the Constitution, twelve states, all with Republican congresses, had conferred suffrage rights on women. The 19th Amendment entered the Constitution August 26, 1920, after Tennessee, the last state to do so, ratified the Amendment.

Yeah, I must have been really tired as I see I made another glaring
error.  Woodrow Wilson was a Democrat and the President who
pushed it through Congress and signed the 19th Amendment.  Yikes! 
What was I thinking?

Just to set the record straight, giving credit due to whomever earned
it. The last paragraph of my last post had omitted the important word
“not.”  I apologize for unintentionally leaving it out. I have to think it
was a Freudian omission and I am chagrined. As corrected: “Support
for the action for women’s suffrage was given by both parties, through
their national committees, with only twenty-two out of two hundred
twelve as members of the Republican National Committee not
voting for the resolution, and a unanimous vote of the membership for
the Democratic National Committee.  The Republicans did in fact,
after 41 years, overwhelmingly and commendably, finally vote for the
measure.  And later their vote was made unanimous.

GRYM—I see no point in arguing with someone who rejects well-known and easily discoverable facts in favor of propaganda.  If you want to believe in fantasies about the past, enjoy yourself.  You have plenty of company.

Quite right GRYM, you notice my intention very well, but I have never
hidden it.  Why would I ever forget it?  I have not accused that
Republicans are loathsome, animals, you have done that, not I!  But
I do think as a rule they are self-serving and if you want to call that
evil and greedy, well so be it.  Republicans, at least some of them do
sow fear and hatred, just watch the Fox denizens.  Listen to some of
the Tea Partiers and ultra-right-wing conservatives.  I find it utterly
disgusting.  It isn’t me that paints their portrait, they are well able
themselves to show their limited interests.  Frankly, I am on the
exact path I have espoused when the topic ever comes up on any
forum where I am or have been a participant.  I am not misguided in
the least but guided precisely to what I have set for myself.  Replacing
Republicans with Liberals is my personal campaign as I believe they
are the main obstruction to the underprivileged in this country from
securing a decent life and I believe a redistribution of the wealth in
this country is sorely needed through heavier taxation of the obscenely
wealthy and regulation of corporations particularly in the financial
industry.  If you are going to cite the Congressional record you will
have to cite section and paragraph otherwise your defense is useless.

It clearly appears you need to read the history of women suffrage closer
so that you would own the truth, for what you just said is
unadulterated BS. 

In 1878, a constitutional amendment was proposed that provided
“The right of citizens to vote shall not be abridged by the United States
or by any State on account of sex.”  This exact amendment would be
introduced in every session of Congress for the next 41 years. Having
lingered in Congress for 41 years, the women’s suffrage right to vote
finally passed the 19th Amendment in a specially called session because
the June 4, 1919 and ratified August 18, 1920.  While many Democrats
did not help along the way because they bartered civil rights for blacks
for women’s rights, the Republicans, whom you attempt to extol their
virtues, didn’t do women many favors and attempted several times to
thwart the bills over the nearly half a century attempts that would give
us women the right to vote.

In 1912, Theodore Roosevelt’s Democratic Progressive (Bull Moose)
Party became the first national political party to have a plank supporting
women right to vote.  But it was Republican President Wilson that
helped put the amendment through.

Passage of the amendment was a mixed bag with both Republican and
Democratic males obstructing and both having members who supported
it.  But it was staunch Republican Senator Wadsworth that presented the
strongest opposition.  Also Republican Senator Smith of South Carolina
“opposed giving women the right to vote,” he said, “because to allow it
would induce “sectional anarchy.””

Support for the action for women’s suffrage was given by both parties,
through their national committees, with only twenty-two out of two
hundred as members of the Republican National Committee voting for
the resolution, and unanimous of the membership for the Democratic
National Committee.

Anarcissie, - “It is really past time White people owned up to their cultural and political history.”

-

If you read the polls in the 1960’s you read them incorrectly.  The American public, less the democratic south, was overwhelmingly in favor of the 1957 and 1960 civil rights acts.  That majority was even larger in 1964.  Real history. Not perception.

The United States’ transformation from a slave based economy to a negro as the nation’s leader in such an astoundingly short span of time is nothing short of phenomenal. 

The time for self-loathing is long past.  The time for believing white humans are inherently different from brown even longer.

GRYM—I read polls at the time, and I personally heard many people express their opinions, which conformed to the polls.  The Civil Rights legislation was not the result of a popularity contest; it was an effort to head off the Balkanization of the United States.  Martin Luther King was absolutely the most hated man in America. 

It is really past time White people owned up to their cultural and political history.

Anarcissie, - “You don’t need a majority to have a powerful, effective political movement, group or party.  The Civil Rights movement, for example, was opposed by a huge majority of the Whites…”

-

I keep seeing this reoccurring low opinion you have of the majority of Americans which, I believe, is undeserved.

1960’s Civil Rights legislation lead by, written, and supported by a majority within the republican House and Senate, is evidence of Washington catching up to the public. Not the other way around.  If not for several southern democratic districts the legislation would have passed many years prior.

-

Shenonymous,

You never forget to give your opinion that republican human beings are evil, greedy, self-servings, loathsome, animals who want nothing but harm to come to others.  You then go on to explain how republicans sow fear, hatred and division amongst the population.

You could not be more misguided. 

If you read the congressional record you’ll see that the republican party has, historically, sponsored almost every major piece of slave rights, human rights, woman’s rights and voting rights since the 1800’s.  If you delve into real history you would be shocked to learn that the democratic party was almost always opposed.

Almost every notable abolitionist, both black and white alike, was, in today’s terms, Christian conservative.  Martin Delany, one of the the most important abolitionists of his time, aligned himself with the widely more accepting republican party. 

Real history.  Not perception.

Voter preference is always cinematic, meaning it is a shifting
picture, and is especially more volatile when societies are stressed
economically.  It is subject to wide swing shifts because of a number
of factors, fear propaganda not being the least strategy employed by
the Republicans, and dismal unemployment numbers.  Preying on
the distress and foreboding of an emotionally and materially fragile
and vulnerable public, conservatives use the power of their wealth to
promote their self-serving interests.  However, as I see it, Democrats
will see the folly of their ways if they did not vote Democrat in the
last election as their beloved social programs are planned to be
decimated one by one by a mercenary Republican Party.  Eventually
conservative exploitations will catch up to them and I predict irreparable
damage will have been done. 

Since the 1890s, the Democratic Party has favored liberal positions (the
term “liberal” means here social liberalism that believes in social justice,
and recognizes the state has a legitimate role in addressing economic
and social issues such as unemployment, health care, and education,
and taking care of an aging population by means of Social Security
(where lifetime wages were intentionally kept at the minimum thereby
reducing their capacity to take care of even the basic needs as old age
progressed).  Social liberalism was also activistic in expanding civil
rights. Under social liberalism, the good of the community is seen as
compatible with the freedom of the individual. 

Social liberalism, which does not mean socialism nor communism, is in
stark contrast with classical liberalism.  Classical liberalism is
committed to the ideal of limited government and liberty of individuals
but does include freedom of religion, speech, press, assembly, and
especially free markets. The concept of free markets were highly
influenced by economists Hayek and Friedman. The ideology argues for
government to be as small as possible in order to allow the exercise of
individual freedom and a radical reduction in concern for society that
represents the general public as a cohesive but economically stifled
whole. In its most extreme form, it advocates Social Darwinism that
attempts to exploit Spencer’s thesis of survival of the fittest, and
therefore has little use for welfare for the underprivileged.  It supports
an elite class over those unable to support themselves.  Libertarianism
is the modern form of classical liberalism.

Much demographic and political attitude data is collected from election
exit polls. Regardless of the current veer towards conservatism, in
recent exist polls the Democratic Party has retained broad appeal
across all socio-ethno-economic demographics.  Historically, the party
has favored farmers, laborers, labor unions, and religious and ethnic
minorities; it has opposed unregulated business and finance, and
favored progressive income taxes. 

Every once in a while the Republicans do have a blip of popularity, due
to, as I said, their propagandistic tactics and strategies.  But it never
lasts because these wear off and the truth of their exaggerated sense
of their own importance becomes known.

You don’t need a majority to have a powerful, effective political movement, group or party.  The Civil Rights movement, for example, was opposed by a huge majority of the Whites, and thus of the general population.

There is just no getting around the fact that roughly 20% of the American public identify themselves as “liberal” (8% progressive).  That alone is the bulk of the reason there is no powerful left in the United States.

In the United States the majority rules.  Roughly 40% moderate and 40% conservative.

It is fashionable to dismiss leftists and particularly liberals as
ineffective in general.  We obviously have a thick skin and thick
head if you wish to think so. Unless she has changed her mind,
MarthaA also thought and expressed several times on forums her
opinion that Democrats ought to be tenaciously influenced to
change to be more responsive and responsible for the populous
you speak of ThomasG. I’ve always agreed with that perspective
and still do even if MarthaA no longer believes it is possible. It is
what I actively work at. I believe the precepts of liberalism as the
only truly responsive disposition towards the good of the entire
society and Democrats as society’s only hope to steer the nation in a
more wholesome direction.  But I also think Democrats need to be
aroused to act in that way as I do not think liberal minded people have
gone awry in their thinking but rather the Democratic politicians who
write policy and legislation have.  The real adversary in our society, in
my opinion and mantra, are the ultra conservatives and the group to
which, besides renovating the Democrats, that liberals’ efforts must
direct their attention towards counteracting.

In a Leftist, Liberal context, the Left and Liberals are not represented by a political party and therefore are not represented in the making and enforcing of legislated law and order in the United States.

The Democratic Party/Republican Party Duopoly represents the making and enforcing of legislated law and order that represents the Left and Liberals in the context of the Middle Class, a 20% minority population of the United States, that excludes the American Populace, a 70% Majority Common Population of the United States, from representation as the Left and Liberals of the American Populace in the making and enforcing of legislated law and order.  The American Populace, the 70% Majority Common Population of the United States, are not represented other than as children by the American Middle Class in the making and enforcing of legislated law and order by the political party of the American Middle Class, the Democratic Party.

The only way possible for the American Populace to be represented as a class and cultural equal in the making and enforcing of legislated law and order alongside the American Aristocracy and the American Middle Class as the established class and cultural rulers of the United States is to withdraw from political representation by the Democratic Party/Republican Party Duopoly that represents the American Populace as children, and seek independence as a free and equal class and culture as an American Populace that demands and will not accept anything less than free and equal representation in the making and enforcing of legislated law and order in the class and cultural interests of the American Populace alongside the American Aristocracy and the American Middle Class.

The Left and Liberals are the American Populace, the 70% Majority Common Population of the United States.

To represent the Left and Liberals as the American Middle Class, a 20% minority population is a false frame of the Left and Liberals.

If democracy in the United States is to be taken seriously, 70% of the population of the United States, the American Populace, cannot be excluded from representation as a part of the Left and Liberals by a political party and in the making and enforcing of legislated law and order.

Shenonymous—In saying ‘real equality’ I was trying to distinguish what I regard as the true equality of a social order in which no one rules or oppresses another, with various false equalities such as the one promoted by the Communist parties, which as implemented continued to have ruling classes, private wealth, the alienation of labor value, surveillance, repression, and imperial wars.  I could name some other false equalities as well.  I have seen the false equality of the Communists advertised as the real thing by people who should know better.  Whenever I see equality spoken of without freedom and peace, whenever the violence of the state is invoked in its name, a little red light goes on in my mind and my antennae start twitching.

I thank you for conveying some of my disquiet to the powerful-Left folks.

“That’s a fatally limited idea of the Left, because it omits peace
and freedom, which are crucial to real equality.  (Otherwise we get
Lenin and then Stalin.)”  I agree, Anarcissie, these ideas are crucial
to real equality, though I am compelled to ask what you think is “real”
equality?  But I do not think their omission is a fatal problem at this
point of the organization as peace and freedom would be introduced
as “crucial” aspects of any Leftist Movement, if only because of its
liberal principles.  Actually from another visit to the site again,
http://buildingapowerfulleft.org/about/
and noticing peace and freedom are not mentioned (out of habit, as a
liberal, I assumed they were, so I thank you for your acute observation),
I am making it a challenge and have written to Alan Minsky noting the
lapse of these two crucial ideas if a Leftist Movement is to succeed. 
Without them, I agree it cannot.  However, I also believe they both need
clear definition if it is to be argued they must be part of the basic
structure of a Leftist Movement.

“While loons can be found in every gathering of human beings the behavior on display amongst several people in the all white liberal crowd last weekend was deplorable and should always be denounced.”

You blew from the beginning, Small One.

Shenonymous, February 5 at 5:59 pm:

‘”If the radio program doesn’t define what it means by ‘the Left’ and ‘power’ it will go around in the same circles the more general dialog of recent decades has gone.“  So states Anarcissie.

Well yeah… How can that be argued against?  But why assume the program would not define what it means by speaking about ‘the Left’?  Alan Minksy does exactly that!  At the website’s About page, he writes: “The idea of the “left,” going back to the inception of term during the French Revolution, is that of a movement, or political force, that operates in the interest of the general population, as opposed to the “right,” which supports the cause of society’s elites.  ...’

That’s a fatally limited idea of the Left, because it omits peace and freedom, which are crucial to real equality.  (Otherwise we get Lenin and then Stalin.)

The people who sat on the left side of the pre-Revolutionary French parlement were those who were not the friends of the King of France, that is, the anti-authoritarians.

Oh Grimm, writer of fairy tales

As fun as it can be toying with you I will block your oddities in the near future.  There is simply nothing I can learn from you.

That you could possibly learn anything from anyone is quite a humorous thought actually.

I am aware of how childishly gleeful your attempts to smear the left are , and how false and misleading as well. I’ve no idea where the quote you cite is from, nor do I care as it is from you , a proven jackwagon with no redeeming value to any discourse or debate.

I do note that the quote cites,“While loons can be found in every gathering of human beings the behavior on display amongst several people in the all white liberal crowd last weekend was deplorable and should always be denounced.”

Thus your despicable and childish attempt to portray the incident as coming from Code Pink and thus from the majority of those present is exposed by your own jackassery. When your own quote rejects your own conclusions one might suggest a time out for reflection. But then you have never shown the maturity such an act would require.

Lastly, block me as you will, I care not a fig. I will, of course, continue to point out your stupidities, distortions, outright lies and general bullshite.

Manchild,

Here’s a hint for you, Little One.  You completely blew it in your first post.  So allow me to help you out.

“While loons can be found in every gathering of human beings the behavior on display amongst several people in the all white liberal crowd last weekend was deplorable and should always be denounced.”

Anything less than that is you practicing to be an azz, Manchild.

-

As fun as it can be toying with you I will block your oddities in the near future.  There is simply nothing I can learn from you.

”If the radio program doesn’t define what it means by ‘the Left’
and ‘power’ it will go around in the same circles the more general
dialog of recent decades has gone.“  So states Anarcissie. 

Well yeah… How can that be argued against?  But why assume the
program would not define what it means by speaking about ‘the
Left’?  Alan Minksy does exactly that!  At the website’s About page,
he writes: “The idea of the “left,” going back to the inception of
term during the French Revolution, is that of a movement, or
political force, that operates in the interest of the general population,
as opposed to the “right,” which supports the cause of society’s elites. 
In the contemporary United States, this would mean standing up for
middle class, working class and poor households (which represent 95%
of all people) vs. interests that represent the wealthy plus powerful
private institutions (primarily corporations).  It certainly sounds like a
winning formula in a democracy, and yet a meaningful left in the U S –
one that truly exerts a positive, impactful political force – is virtually
non-existent.”  Certainly I see these as paradigm concerns of the
proper concerns of liberals and what definitively does describe the
concerns of liberals.

He writes further, “The people of the United States – and the world, due
to the central geopolitical and economic role of the USA and the global
nature of the economic crisis – desperately need such a movement to
advocate on their behalf.”  Going on to ask, “So, how do we build one?” 
So I think the criticism you launch has been ably and apply addressed.
http://buildingapowerfulleft.org/about/

Go Right Young Man, February 5 at 3:34 pm Link to this comment

Manchild,

Your conduct on this thread highlights precisely the numerous reasons I’ll never even see your odd comments after I load a news reader on the new computer.  Aside from how to hate, how to whine like a child, how to be completely dishonest, I can learn nothing from you.

My conduct on this thread illustrates how much I am in contempt of your braggadocio, distortions of facts and right wing illusions of power and popularity. You are a childish little person indeed.

You first attempted to deny these horrible racist incidents took place.  You then tried to excuse these documented racist incidents by attacking the messengers, i.e., The Huffington Post, S.F. Chronicle, The Wall Street Journal and then me here on TruthDig.

No, I believe that my first response indicated that such as these do occur at any mass gathering, however hard one may have to dig to find such. I also noted that the remarks in question were certainly not an official position of the Code Pink organization. This paragraph by you illustrates perfectly your love of lies and distortion.

By the by, as you refuse (ridiculously) to link who is to know where on earth your references come from?

Did you have any condemnation, any at all, for the vile racist remarks and disgusting calls to violence from the all-white liberal crowd protesting last weekend?  Or is your disdain reserved entirely for the few moderate and conservatives voices posting here on TruthDig?

You are far from either moderate or conservative, what you are is a vile contemptible junior league Rush Limbaugh or Glen Beck wanna be. I have condemned the sort of behavior you seem to relish reporting sans any credibility, as a pig loves rolling in his sty.

-

BTW: Your tremendously useful link to Code Pink, in an attempt to “document” the veracity of your claims that the vile racist incidents from several all white liberal groups never actually happened, made me laugh.  Thanks.

My links are not for you, as I consider you exactly as that pig formerly noted. The links did not mention any of the remarks you attributed and were provided as counterpoint only to your stridency and extremism.

The next time you dispute anything I write I’ll simply direct you toward one of many moderate and/or conservative Web sites so that we’ll both know I was correct and you, well, not so much.

Not if you block me as you claim below jackwagon! Try to be consistent please, though I understand the difficulty you face when you make up half the shit you post here.

Further, as you claim to disdain links, like you disdain truth and honesty, how will you refer anyone anywhere?

Did you take notice that the Code Pink Web site never mentions how numerous people in the all-white liberal crowd called for the lynching of the only negro Supreme Court Justice, that Thomas should be returned to the fields, that he and his wife should be strung up, that Alito should be sent back to Sicily and several cable news employees should be murdered?  Or is that not worth mentioning?

Yes I did notice, nor did I expect any reference to them, just as the Tea Party fails to reference the equally absurd comments one finds in the crowd at their rallies. What a maroon you are ( with thanks to Bugs).

I have one other question.  How many news stories did you skip over in order to locate that one, all important, Glenn Beck piece of which I never laid eyes on before you shared that, tremendously illustrative, link?

What a maroon ! (again) My last reply to you plainly noted the link and the statement that it was the every first such link in Google. Please try and keep up, or is your mother calling you for chores?

That the link in question was to a Glen Beck show, I find your stupidity rather pleasing in your rejection of its veracity.

Lastly, block me as you wish. I will continue to combat your lies.

Shenonymous— I’ve already given my reasons for believing that ‘the Left’ and ‘power’ are antithetical.  See my comment in this discussion at February 2 at 4:20 am.

If the radio program doesn’t define what it means by ‘the Left’ and ‘power’ it will go around in the same circles the more general dialog of recent decades has gone.  People will simply talk past one another, as they do here and in a million other places.  Question more prolixly posed at February 1 at 5:21 pm.

Many proggies are envious of the Tea Parties, but the Tea Parties are nothing to be envious about.  They are, above all, ideologically incoherent.  This doesn’t matter much to the Right because authority and domination are principles of the Right, and the incoherence can simply be overruled when the time comes—as, for instance, Palin telling Rand junior to shut up about ‘defense’, that is, imperial war and domestic surveillance and repression.  You couldn’t do that with serious leftists.

It is true proggies perceive that they missed a chance to organize the huge disquiet of the American public about the wars, the empire, the failure of the financial industry, the bailouts, the recession, from which the Tea Parties benefited (although I think the central, primary excitement for them was racial) but that is the consequence of their attachment to the Democratic Party and other institutions of the established order.

I thought the actions of the Democratic Party and other establishment liberals so-called in deflecting and disorganizing the anti-war movement were well known and agreed upon by practically everybody who cared about the subject.  I recall reading the account of a leader of the Green Party who went to UFPJ to see if they couldn’t stir something up before the 2010 elections and later said that it was obvious that they would do absolutely nothing which would embarrass the Great Leader, who, as one may sometimes recall, is supposed to be a Democrat.

Manchild,

Your conduct on this thread highlights precisely the numerous reasons I’ll never even see your odd comments after I load a news reader on the new computer.  Aside from how to hate, how to whine like a child, how to be completely dishonest, I can learn nothing from you.

You first attempted to deny these horrible racist incidents took place.  You then tried to excuse these documented racist incidents by attacking the messengers, i.e., The Huffington Post, S.F. Chronicle, The Wall Street Journal and then me here on TruthDig.

Did you have any condemnation, any at all, for the vile racist remarks and disgusting calls to violence from the all-white liberal crowd protesting last weekend?  Or is your disdain reserved entirely for the few moderate and conservatives voices posting here on TruthDig?

-

BTW: Your tremendously useful link to Code Pink, in an attempt to “document” the veracity of your claims that the vile racist incidents from several all white liberal groups never actually happened, made me laugh.  Thanks. 

The next time you dispute anything I write I’ll simply direct you toward one of many moderate and/or conservative Web sites so that we’ll both know I was correct and you, well, not so much.

Did you take notice that the Code Pink Web site never mentions how numerous people in the all-white liberal crowd called for the lynching of the only negro Supreme Court Justice, that Thomas should be returned to the fields, that he and his wife should be strung up, that Alito should be sent back to Sicily and several cable news employees should be murdered?  Or is that not worth mentioning?

I have one other question.  How many news stories did you skip over in order to locate that one, all important, Glenn Beck piece of which I never laid eyes on before you shared that, tremendously illustrative, link?

Well ardee, I had to laugh at your comment about me being kind to
the Tea Party.  Yeah, I was sort of speaking with tongue in cheek that
there was a possibility that there might be something about their
agenda that I could sympathize with.  That was a rash invite, wasn’t
it?  hahaha I have never heard any of them ever get beyond their
preposterous rhetoric.  No matter who speaks they have the same self-
interested script as if they were clones and cannot talk outside of the
generic Tea Party litany.  Their lockstep, rather goosestep, mentality I
find most disturbing.  So this liberal while open to listening to any
rational discussion I do not expect any such exchange from the Right
whether they are ordinary Republicans or Teabaggers.

Speaking of irrational:
-

How many news stories did Manchild ignore so that he could locate that one, very special and meaningful, Glenn Beck report?  Dozens perhaps.

Manchild is correct.  I will no longer take the time to supply links for those unwilling to expend less than three (3) minutes to locate information for themselves.  I simply refuse.

It is more and more apparent that our resident spinner of fables, GRYM is losing both his argument and his mind, perhaps one because of the other.

In fact the link I supplied was the first one on the list when I googled “violence at code pink rally”..try it yourselves. Hard to ignore “dozens” when the first one pricks this pricks balloon dontcha think?

This empty argument for not supplying links is just more of his usual hot air. Any civilized debater understands the importance of credibility, this particular master baitor understands that his links are to extremist web sites that would instantly be condemned as foolish nonsense.

Once again, if anyone clicked the link I supplied they would have found a typical Glen Beck rancid editorial, a video of all tight close ups of head shots that could have been taken anywhere at any rally, even a Tea Party function. Further no linkage of those interviewed to the Code Pink event or membership in that group was supplied. Typical Beck typical GRYM.

Odd that, in a thread wherein shenonymous has actually been kind to the Tea Party while our pint size Goebbels posts what she might characterize as “rancid cheese”...has a rather authentic ring to it.

Because, as I said, there is already a dialog going.

Maybe, Anarcissie, there is but it obviously is not “powerful”
enough or physical enough to satisfy those who are seeking a
coherent antithesis to TeaParty activity.  That impotency is what
I believe is the problem and why a stronger effort is needed and
why I think Alan Minsky’s started this project.  The radio program
will be a non-confrontational dais, and different from the kookiness
of the TeaPartiers, I think where lucid discussion instead takes place
and definitions given to clarify terms such as Liberal, Leftist, far left,
centrist, and so forth, and how they are in opposition to Libertarian,
conservatism, Tea Partyism, etc.  That could be a refreshing way to
go in that the Libertarians and conservative would also have the
opportunity to shed light on their perspectives.  At least this is what
I hope will materialize.  The furious cacophony is so prevalent that I
think few understand the essentials of opposing views. What if there
are elements in TeaPartyism that I could actually like?  A scary thought
to me at the moment.  But….  I also hope some activist showing, that
is, physical interaction, occurs such as local meetings, conferences on
campuses, etc., where maybe more, confrontational but without rancor
behaviors have a place to be exercised, also publications in widely read
media such as the opinion section of the NYT.  It is time Democrats
define themselves and show why they are the party of the people. 
And politicians can go to hell if they do not participate as such.

If the word “power” indeed is self-contradictory in a Leftist context, and
I don ‘t think it is, I would like to see what makes you think so.  But say
it is in whatever way I might understand it, in my most unsophisticated
way, then the Leftists need to get over it and understand their “social”
context better and what power could mean.  It could be a positive
phenomenon. 

It seems you have a bias against the Democratic Party and what their
functions are. I do not see there is any concerted effort on the part of
the Party to neutralize a coherent Left.  If they are intelligible, and not
just counterparts to Rightists, then I personally think the Left or Left of
Liberals, whatever that could connote, are needed to keep the “classic”
Democrats from straying into the corporatocratic track.  It is an
affliction many Democrats in office have contracted.  But those in office
are not the only Democrats in existence!  There are many many of us
who are not like them.  We need to learn how better to cultivate the
politicians who are to represent us.  This in effect will have to please
the Leftists to no end.  For what else do Leftists want but to have the
people’s voices heard and heeded?

Liberals at Koch protest: Hang Justice Thomas - Washington Times

Vile Racist Spewing from Left-wingers: Want to Hang Black Conservative SCOTUS Judge Thomas, Media Silent on Liberals’ Racism (video)

DISGUSTING AND DISTURBING.

“If this vile racist spewing had been videotaped at a tea party event, MSNBC, CBS, CNN, ABC, and PBS would be airing it, with harsh, castrating commentaries about the frightening hate and racism of conservatives, of Republicans, of white Middle America, every hour on the hour for weeks.”

If this all white liberal crowd had been videotaped at a tea party event, and if Keith Olbermann weren’t still unemployed, the unhinged kooks in the video would be declared “The Worst People in the World” and, Olbermann would report, indicative of the entire conservative population.

Shenonymous, February 4 at 5:51 pm:

‘“Why call them to a radio station to further pontificate?”  Why not?  It is a popular medium to get a dialogue going. ...’

Because, as I said, there is already a dialog going.  The keyword here seems to be power, which as I’ve pointed out is self-contradictory in a leftist context.

I don’t know why you mention the Democratic Party.  One of the functions of the Democratic Party is to neutralize any coherent Left, and it does a fairly good job of it, too.  Look at the suppression of anti-war activism in recent years; established-order Republicans with their Tea Party troubles must be rather envious.

“Why call them to a radio station to further pontificate?”  Why not? 
It is a popular medium to get a dialogue going.  Why not use
Truthdig, Huff Post, or CommonDreams. etc., for that matter.  Just
as many squabblers show up on all the public media.  Might as
well use the ‘Net as much as possible to amalgamate.

Seems to me it is about time for Democrats, leftists, liberals of all
persuasions, centrists, and progressives (farther left than leftists)
to get their butts in gear collectively to find an articulate voice and
counteract the rancid Republican conservative cheeses, on the order
of limburger to my nose.  As I’ve often stated, they are the correct
target to counteract but their money and hence, power, requires those
concerned for those millions who must struggle for equality to unite
for a common cause.  The website buildingapowerfulleft seems to be
attracting some intellectuals bent on action rather than just sitting
at a radio station microphone or a computer.  But it will take some
spokespersons fluent and coherent who can bring rabblerousing liberal
and progressive ideas to an allied group. Perhaps they should consult
Astargatis for some guidance?  It might be the first time the usually
scattered Democrats can get their act together, meaning unified.  It only
takes one electrifying idea. 

Purity really isn’t the issue I was addressing, it was minor if an issue at
all. Squabbling is a pastime not only for bloggers, but in families as
well.  It is a behavior that one ought to be used to.

<blockquote>
Shenonymous, February 2 at 8:26 am:

‘”...if you use the term Left in the traditional sense—the party of peace, freedom and equality.  One cannot achieve peace, freedom and equality by fighting and defeating other people.”  I guess, Anarcissie, if one is a purist that is true.  But then there is nothing that is really pure or absolute. ...’

It isn’t a matter of pharisaic purity, it’s essential.

There are many questions to be asked about this issue, this conference, besides the ones which I have already posed.  For instance, a number of big, prominent leftie cheeses were assembled.  But these people are already in public; they’ve been having a conference for many years.  If they were going to come up with a ‘powerful Left’, or even the idea of a ‘powerful Left’, why haven’t they done it already?  Why call them to a radio station to further pontificate?

Oh, well, you all can go back to squabbling with GRYM now.  Let me not distract anyone from important business.

Were those harassing the conservatives and teabaggers at all those
events, which really are not that many, carrying knives, ropes, guns,
rocks, rotten tomatoes, slingshots, cross-bows, you know, stuff like
that? 

This is an interesting development and one I’ve asked about for months,
http://buildingapowerfulleft.org/about/

“Of course rational people understand that random remarks from unidentified individuals do not discredit a movement or an organization.”

Manchild makes an excellent point.  A point I have written on these Web pages multiples of dozens of times. - Of course all that goes by the way-side if one is speaking from a Tea Party event. 

Speaking of irrational:
-

How many news stories did Manchild ignore so that he could locate that one, very special and meaningful, Glenn Beck report?  Dozens perhaps.

Manchild is correct.  I will no longer take the time to supply links for those unwilling to expend less than three (3) minutes to locate information for themselves.  I simply refuse. - Here is what is found after 1.25 seconds on Google News…....

Huffington Post - “Koch Brothers Protest: 25 Arrested At California Conservative Meeting”

Video shows progressive protesters calling for lynching of Clarence Thomas
Examiner.com - 6 hours ago
A video has surfaced showing the love progressives have for conservatives like Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas and talk show host Glenn Beck. ...

25 arrested at California conservative meeting
Washington Post - Jan 30, 2011
The protest, which had nearly 1000 people at its peak, lasted about two hours. Koch Industries defended the gathering as an exercise in democratic assembly ...

25 arrested at Ca. protest of conservative meeting San Francisco Chronicle

Protesters Arrested Outside Conservative Meet-Up in Palm Springs
New York Magazine - Jan 30, 2011
David and Charles Koch, the businessmen and brothers who have funded the fight against global-warming laws and financially backed tea-party members, ...

Protesters decry conservative desert retreat
Reuters - Troy Anderson, Alex Dobuzinskis - Jan 30, 2011?
The rally was organized by the liberal group Common Cause, which has accused of the Koch brothers and other business interests of using corporate largess to ...

Rich guys have rights too Los Angeles Times
Hundreds protest Conservative confab sponsored by Koch Brothers International Business Times

Conservative Meeting in Palm Springs Where 25 Protesters Were Arrested
Gather.com - Doug York - Jan 31, 2011
Twenty-five people were arrested for trespassing a conservative meeting on Sunday without incident. Hundreds protested outside a strategy session where ...

Inside Today’s Koch Brothers ‘Billionaires Caucus’ Forbes (blog)
Slate Magazine (blog) - KP

Loving, Gentle Liberal Vitriol On Display
Dakota Voice - Bob Ellis - 10 hours ago?
Some of the most peaceful, loving Leftists in America recently got together for an event they called “Uncloaking the ...

BREAKING: Jerks React to Leading Questions on Video
Posted Thursday, February 03, 2011 3:35 PM | By David Weigel

Video: Koch protests include calls to lynch Clarence Thomas
Hot Air - Ed Morrissey - 7 hours ago

25 arrested at California conservative meeting
Boston Globe - Jan 30, 2011
LA QUINTA, Calif.—Authorities in California say 25 protesters have been arrested for trespassing outside a strategy session of conservative political donors ...

I am shocked at another post from our resident Goebbels that omits linkage. I trust you are less shocked having ample evidence that GRYM is not trustworthy, not truthful and not worthy of any credibility whatsoever.

If you were wondering where this jackwagon gets his information from:

http://officiallyscrewed.com/blog/?p=1849

Note the careful close ups of the so-called Code Pink membership on this Glen Beck clip…Beck seems a more successful version of GRYM to me,or at least one with a wider audience and an identical disrespect for factual reportage, neither one being concerned with truth or honor. One cannot help but wonder exactly how many were interviewed to get what they wanted from them, ten, twenty, fifty?

Of course rational people understand that random remarks from unidentified individuals do not discredit a movement or an organization.

Speaking of irrational:

Imagine even one individual at a Tea Rally calling on a Negro to go “Back To The Fields”.  Or shouts to “String Him Up!”  There would be no end to the shouts of racism.  People here would lose their collective minds!!

Well actually, these words have indeed been heard at Tea Party rallies of course, and even worse ones as well. Somehow these rash statements seem to carry more weight when uttered by some mouth breather wearing a loaded gun, dontcha think?

New Tone: Koch Protesters Call for Torturing, Hanging Conservative Supreme Court Justices
And for ‘killing’ Roger Ailes.

At a rally aimed at the conservative Koch brothers this past weekend in Palm Springs, progressives called for Supreme Court justice Clarence Thomas to be sent “back to the fields,” and they offered that they “string him up,” “hang him,” and “torture” him.

Thomas was not the only target of their ire: One protester recommend that the easy way to do away with Fox News chief Roger Ailes would be to “kill the bastard.”

-

Imagine even one individual at a Tea Rally calling on a Negro to go “Back To The Fields”.  Or shouts to “String Him Up!”  There would be no end to the shouts of racism.  People here would lose their collective minds!!

If any of you still believe that GRYM has any conscience, any truthfulness, or any reputation left at all this latest smear should eliminate your doubts.

Here is a link to Code pink’s web site, wherein you will find other links ( hey fairy tale brother grym, this is how its done) to news reporting of that particular protest.

http://www.codepink4peace.org/

That this troll never posts a link to verify his sources would probably indicate that those sources would engender laughter and derision if disclosed. NewsMax, Washington Times, Fox et al reputable sources all, right fairy tale guy? 

Now, it is certainly possible that someone in a large rally made some casual or intemperate remark, so what? Unlike a typical Tea Party event there were no assault weapons visible anywhere, no gun toting folks of any kind , outside of the police of course. Thus this poster becomes more tedious and more irrelevant with each passing post.

A legend in his own mind certainly, a pathetic propagandist with no respect for truth, fairness or honesty as well. So, how can we lose, ultimately, when the opposition is this mealy mouthed?

Code Pink’s latest peaceful protest saw members saying they wanted to hang Clarence Thomas, kill Fox News executives, and one even challenged Glenn to a duel with her Glock.

Imagine if this had been a Tea Party rally.

Anarcissie
“One does not bust the budget the way Bush did if one is in favor of less or smaller government. “
Don’t mean to burst the bubble but
what a party (or movement does) says is not always the same as what they do. This has applied especially to Obama.

Assuming libertarian in this sense means “a campaign of a sort for
liberty,” then liberty for the Tea Party strong-arm lobby group (since
they are not a registered political party) has to be defined.  Liberty
for them is denial of liberty for others.  When rights are stipulated
and made law, they are restricting at the same time.  Rights for
some, but not for all.  And who would be denied those rights is
not a rhetorical question.

For instance, for all his appeal to libertarians, Ron Paul’s denial of
women’s rights is a perfect example.  For him women do not have
the absolute liberty to own their own bodies.  Much like Middle Eastern
women have only the right to be thralls to those patriarchal societies. 
In Ron Paul’s world, only men have the right to decide what women
may do with their bodies. Ron Paul works within the enclosure of the
Republican Party.  And now the insanity that is the Republican Party
would redefine what it means for a woman to be raped.

There seemed to be a significant libertarian element among the Tea Partiers at the outset.  It was correctly perceived as a threat to empire and appears to have been dispersed.  It is long since time to lose the cliché that they, or the Republicans, are ‘anti-government’ or even in favor of a smaller government.  One does not bust the budget the way Bush did if one is in favor of less or smaller government.

ardee - I did express how the Greens have made strides in elections.
I showed their exact elected numbers as of February 2011, meaning
now!  And I expressed my sympathy with their causes so you’ve no
reason to be defensive. Everything I said in my last post supported
your post about how the Greens have influenced legislation already.
It is not my intention to argue reality. I will keep my eye on the ball
of stopping the conservatives from hijacking every social program
and their attempt to decimate them. 

While I may be spinning my wheels by sticking with the Democrats,
I believe that the Progressive side of the party will also influence
legislation.  The threat of replacing politicians at the local level is the
first step and then up the great chain of being.  It is a slow process,
many ignorant and reactive voters need to be cultivated.  There is no
magic.  Just hard work at the local level.  But I am optimistic it will
happen. 

The Greens are not the only ones genuinely concerned about the
health of the world. By that I mean besides the health of human
beings, I mean the health of the earth.  The fact is that it is legislation
that dictates our lives. Notice, the Republicans failed to repeal the HCB.

Now loyalty is a fine thing in most cases. There is such a thing as blind loyalty however.

I note that shenonymous demonstrates such in both her unwillingness to concede that the Green Party has made enormous strides in gaining ballot access nationwide, in electing more and more to state wide offices and in her insistence upon remaining within the Democratic Party. Remaining loyal, and this is the most important point here, without one single clue as to how this self professed social democrat intends to go about reformation of a party that has moved further right every election cycle, silenced its own Black and Progressive caucuses and remains unresponsive to its own grassroots organizations.

I speak as one who was active within the Democratic Party for a long time. I belonged to several democratic clubs and neighborhood groups, attended several state wide conferences and conventions in fact. I know first hand how this party is a top down structure whose only consideration of local clubs is when they ask for manpower or money.

Perhaps, she, you will share your plan to wrest control of your party from the corporate slavery in which it has been mired, from the control of those who continue the policies of Reagan and Bush 43 and turn it from its current status as Republican-lite.

I chose instead to join a new group, one which began as an attempt to wrest control of government from the very corporate money that tainted and despoiled a once decent Party, hers. It is ,of course, shenonymous’ right to believe that the Green Party will never gain national prominence , we are all entitled to our opinions and we all make our choices.

I do not ignore or diminish, as do you, she, the steady if unspectacular growth of said Greens, and I believe this will result in a Green Party presence on the national stage one day. I find that this prophesy seems more logical and more doable than any attempt to alter the course or structure of the Democratic Party. If you believe other wise then why do you not share your plan for said reformation?

Anarcisse
I guess with all of my typos and skipped words, my post wasn’t clear.
I meant what unifies the TP is anti-governnment sentiment, being a populous movement (as opposed to an alternative third party)

My point is that the elected officials like Rand Paul have entered into the government on the GOP ticket, not the TP, which is NOT a formally registered party.
He didn’t even stick to the some of the TP’s hawkish screed about invading all and any Muslim country. The TP only added media volume to the campaign, rather than any consistent political substance.
That’s why Bachman’s speech on behalf of the TP was considered unworthy of being aired by any but CNN and that airing was ridiculed by many other media channels.
If the GOP or TP had to give up complaining about ‘big’ government, what platform could they agree upon sufficiently to look like a single party?

GYRM
“If this is all too upsetting you may wish to write Amy Goodman, at Democracy Now, and complain about her reporting.”
Which you in your inimitable troll style, do not cite.
So, if you’ll excuse me, I am not the least bit cornered.

I really don’t hate anyone, hate is too time consuming.  I think she,
Palin, and they, the Tea Party, exist in the realm of the lunatic
absurd.  And yes, I know the last two words are redundant.

ardee, you really are right about the influence of third party
advocates.  I’ve often said that some of them are needed to
remind and agitate the ones in office of those things they tend
maybe intentionally to forget.  As of today, 121 Green Party
members hold offices in the country mostly at the local level, i.e.,
school boards, city councils, and other municipal jobs, mostly in
California, they are found in 23 states.  It is my belief that it is at
the local level that Greens can best make a difference since national
politics do not seem to be in their grasp.  Or at least not yet.  I can
see a member or two winning a national office but never will they
have enough members to decide legislation.  Nader ran for them
twice and twice lost.  McKinney did not do that well in the last
election.  While I think the Greens’ concerns are deserving of
admiration, I strongly feel the struggle is definitely with the
conservative element in American politics and that they are the
ones that cripple our mostly middle class, and poor society as well
as destructively impair the freedoms humans claim is their right.  So
I will continue to work my way through the Democratic Party that has
the best prospects to defeat them, and to obstruct the obstructors.

RayLan, February 2 at 11:52 pm:

The Tea Party does not promote a unified ideology - even less that the GOP.

What unites them is visceral hatred of anything
government- some on the Left have the same feeling.
...

Some people in the Tea Parties (there are several) may hate the government, or think they hate the government.  The GOP as a whole certainly does not.  Rand Paul was publicly corrected by Sarah Palin for being too unenthusiastic about foreign military adventures, which of course require a large and expensive government.  The same is true of police, surveillors, spies, provocateurs, prisons and so forth at all levels.  The ‘small government’ business about the GOP, or the Right in general, stands the truth directly on its head.  I wish people would stop contributing to it, because absurdity sufficiently prolonged becomes very tedious.

Inherit The Wind, - “Ray, She. You are wasting your time. “

-

ITW may be correct.  If either of you hate Sarah Palin and the entire Tea Party as he does I will never agree with that hate being healthy or helpful.

Ignoring SEIU members beating a black vendor at a Tea Rally and calling him a Nigger is to be ignore, completely, while incessantly claiming the Tea crowd is dangerous, by way of really really, mean language is equally unhelpful.

Yeah, you are right ITW, but it was fun while it lasted.  My last bit
on this particular topic is below. 

But it is so cold that I almost forgot about it being Groundhog Day. 
I can’t imagine the groundhog saw its shadow in the blizzard
weather today!  Does anyone remember what that means?  Well, I
looked it up. He did not see his shadow and Phil the Groundhog
says “Spring is Near!”  Report from Gobbler’s Knob in Punxsutawney,
Pennsylvania 2/2/11.

Again, where are you getting your information GRYM?  It looks like
it depends on what poll one is looking at and who is being asked.  You
might check in with Chris Matthews also, since he is always interested
in these numbers.

1.  Obama’s Approval Rating Among Voters Higher Since November
Friday, January 14, 2011 :: Staff infoZine Sara Dorn - A new poll finds
that President Barack Obama’s approval ratings have risen since the
November elections to nearly 50%.
2.  Gallup Poll Feb. 2, 2011 – shows Obama at slightly more than 50%
Of his Democratic Party constituents 84% job approval rating.  And of
course Republicans only give him 15% hahaha, But of all Independents,
who have a mixture of liberals and conservatives and other party
persuasions, give him 45% which isn’t too bad among that odd coupled
group.
3. Even in view of 9.4% jobless rate, Associated Press poll has Obama
53% job approval, Feb. 2, 2011 Reagan at the same time in his mid-
term was at only 37% and joblessness was at 10.4%, higher than when
he took office. 
4. Gallup has Palin’s unfavorable rating at 53% 1/19/2011, favorability
38%. Trala lala

And so sally forth…

RayLan - “Nor does it prove” reports that Sarah Palin draws larger crowds than does President Obama.

-

If this is all too upsetting you may wish to write Amy Goodman, at Democracy Now, and complain about her reporting.

Ray, She. You are wasting your time.

GYRM
“None of this speaks to the issue of the reality that Sarah Palin has, for some time now, drawn larger crowds than does President “
Nor does it prove it.