MR. KUCINICH

If he is reading this blog, he would do well to spend his time enhancing the number of progressives in Congress this election year. The Progressive Movement needs a common platform and better electoral management.

The Progressive Caucus consists of 83 Congressional members (all from the HofR, with one from the Senate) out of a total of 435 members of Congress. That is barely 20% of the total, but it is a good base from which to launch a national effort to enhance the numbers of progressives in both Chambers.

He should invest his time in that noble effort to reconstruct the political make-up of Congress. Particularly the Senate, that millionaires boys-club of those who did not know what better to do with their lives except to protect the system that permitted them to get rich.

As if getting-rich were the major preoccupation of the American people - many of whom are middle-class just treading water or the poor who live below the poverty threshold or in squalor or in dysfunctional cities and neighborhoods. Whilst we adulate the Buffets and Gates and other US denizens of the Forbes Billionaires List.

MY CONTRIBUTION ...

... to that effort is a Political Agenda for National Reform that can serve - if nothing else - to list the sorts of reforms that Europe has undertaken over the past half decade to enhance its Social Justice.

Yes, it took half a century for Europe to get where it is now. So, let’s not think that in America all it takes is One QuickFix.

Cuz that aint gonna happin.

bd: THE PROGRAM TO END THE ECONOMIC DEPRESSION

The US is not in Economic Depression, not even a recession. Technically, it has not demonstrated two successive quarters (half a year) of diminishing of GDP. And it is not about to do so.

Amongst the Tarpley Suggestions are nostrums that are patently wrong-headed, since they address the effect and not the cause of economic recession.

For instance, nationalizing GM or even the Fed, both idiocies. America needs to reform its taxation system, which is a trickle-up money-pump for vested-interests that have gamed a market system rife with oligopolistic practices.

Sorry that I cannot make it more simple, but the problem is NOT simple as the Tarpley treatise implies. America has been hurtling along with Bigger-Is-Better market consolidation that allows companies to game markets (essentially price-fixing them).

Four American banks have in asset-management most of the country’s financial wealth and have done so by swallowing smaller banks. (See info-graphic contained here).

Those four banks are TBTF and if they do, then the American economy comes to a screeching halt and unemployment goes ballistic.

Tarpley does not address the fundamental challenges of the American economy - which is to divert its creation of wealth to serve the Entire Nation and not just a select minority of Vested Interests. That can only happen by a complete revision of its Tax Structure incorporating enhanced and severe taxation of hallucinatory incomes. With tax-revenues feeding expenditures to reduce the national debt and, most importantly, on a set of Public Services that enhance the well-being of All Our Nation’s Citizens.

The real threat to America is that it will indeed get back to work, but will have solved nothing to address Income Disparity that plagues the nation. Worse yet, it will have not prevented the same catastrophe from happening once again in 5/10/15 years time.

Kucinich has no business in Washington.

Is he perfect? No. But he’s far too decent and principled to remain in that armpit of the world. This utterly evil system cannot be repaired from the inside so his voice had nowhere to go. He’s far better off now - and so are we with him “out here”.

RE:

“We’d all love to see the plan”

30 MILLION PRODUCTIVE JOBS
TO REBUILD US INFRASTRUCTURE, INDUSTRY AND AGRICULTURE:
THE PROGRAM TO END THE ECONOMIC DEPRESSION

by Webster G. Tarpley, - http://tarpley.net/five-point-program.pdf
November 14, 2009

the conscience of the dems. a little over the top don’y you think?  mr kucinich was an ineffective pol. except in his own district. who had a great run in congress, accomplishing very little. he should now retire to the south of france with his large pension, and enjoy his retirement.

I agree with vector56. 
The Dems are attempting to marginalize what is left of the left in the USA.
Dennis will be back…thank goodness.  I will vote for him whenever and wherever he is on my ballot.  I always do.
He may be a little knome, but he is our knome.  (smile)

By Lafayette, March 8 at 1:02 am

“We’d all love to see the plan”

I agree that the progressives are silent, in the minority and facing an uphill struggle. But you make no mention of the fact that the DLC actively suppressed both the Progressive and Black caucuses within its own party, and moved that party far to the right of its traditional locale.

I still believe that, on the issues, this nation is progressive. But the road to building a progressive force in American politics does not lie within the reactionary Democratic Parrty.

Dennis had always been one of my heroes, but he showed the white feather (of a coward) when he agreed to Obama’s rapacious and oppressive health care plan, after having been flown to Cleveland on Air Force One, and had the riot act of the Democratic Party read to him.  And so, he folded.
Now, we have to realize hat there is no salvation in the Democratic Party, and anybody that thinks there is is a coward.  So, bye bye, Dennis.  To hell with the Democratic Party.

GOING FURTHER FASTER

For as long as we think a two-party system (first-past-the-post, winner-take-all) voting system is “normal”, then not much will change.

The only viable solidarity going around nowadays - meaning those most indignant of the present political circus in LaLaLand on the Potomac - is that amongst progressives, which have a hard battle ahead of them.

Again, I say, ask Ralph Nader who went up against the Iron Maiden of the American electoral system. With its rot of District Gerrymandering and which that cost Dennis Kucinic his job much to the joy of the Rabid Right.

The process of electoral districting must be based upon a purely demographic basis and not placed in the hands of two-party politicians wrangling to preserve their “voting majorities” and thus ensconced in power.

Only a Banana Republic would preserve the grid-lock status-quo rather than want a continuous dynamic renewal based upon new ideas from new minds.  Of course, an unknown future is always more risky than a predetermined known future.

Term-limits for the lot of them, not just the PotUS! And let’s open the doors and windows, clean out the cobwebs to an antiquated Congress, Occupied by One Percenters (to the tune of 47% of all who are millionaires)!

Given today’s electoral process, it is almost impossible to increase the Progressive Caucus in Congress, which is 83 out of 435 seats (or barely 20%).

Perhaps the progressives can get their act together, without internecine strife, and decide upon a common Political Agenda and teach it to grassroots America. Then Americans might just have a third choice.

But first, this must be done with the concordance of existing progressives and not against their interests. Let’s build on the present Progressive Caucus and not destroy it. On a long and difficult road to effective political power, the Progressive Movement would get further faster.

Michael Cavlan - Agreed, along with moderate/progressives who frame all the issues from Corporate Media spoon feeding, and think history begins and ends with the Corporate Media newscycle.

vector56 - Remember Eugene Debs, “Which is the bigger ‘waste’ of your vote, to vote for someone you don’t agree with, or to vote your convictions?”  One of the best things that could happen to this country would be the people getting fed up with the Dimocraps triangulation and failure, and make them as meaningless as the Labour Party in Canada.

Dennis in MI, Shenonymous - Of course Kucinich was forced into voting for the ACHA.  Knowing he was looking at redistricting, they forced his vote, then hung him out to dry.  Patty Murray and the DSCC just did something similar to Chellie Pingree in Maine in favor of “business friendly” Independent Angus King.  Reminds me of 2006 when Obamafraud and the Dimocraps abandoned the Connecticut anti-war Democratic nominee Ned Lamont in favor of “corporate friendly” Independent Droopy Dog Libermann.

“In order to make an omelet, you have to break some eggs”. At some point we on the left need to not show up for the Democratic party and allow them to take a beating! I personally, am voting Green. And yes, before anyone states the obvious, I might be throwing my vote away, allowing the filthy Republicans to win the day, but the endless cycle of servitude to the Democratic party must be broken!

The very nature of “Liberalism” is under attack; Hippies have mutated into Yuppies; Lefty, liberals are now “Progressives”. The pro-military, corporate MSNBC, Current TV, Air America fake liberals “pod people” have managed to displace and silence the Mike Malloys. This is a fight for the very soul of liberalism people, we got to break some eggs!

we get it Michael, Obama apologists.. lets move on.

We don’t accept commentators who list their professional credentials next to their name anyways

How quickly the misinformed remember the almost past. Dennis Kucinich was forced to the wall on the corporate health care bill. If he hadn’t there would have been a concerted effort by Liberal Democrats to unseat him as a “traitor.” Even the best person has their limits. He knew he had a better chance if he was inside the beast than without it.

Another truly Progressive Democrat pushed out to be replaced by either a Red Dog Democrat or a dyed in the wool born again crypto-fascist. Either way the Republic dies a little more. The death of a thousands cuts but to gov’t. A sad day indeed.

I prefer firedoglake

Where progressive articles are allowed.

Instead of a litany of Obama/Democratic Party apologist articles.

That is just me though. Or who knows, maybe more?

ROCKY ANDERSON FOR PRESIDENT

Shenonymous, an interesting way to think about it..  By that same token of realpolitik, was Obama then the best we could realistically expect from our government in 2008?  Is he just being pragmatic by bowing to the demands of corporate america whether it be the healthcare bill or Dodd-Frank?  From my standpoint, the relative absence of a negative in Obama (compared to Bush) does not really make a positive. 

However, if Obama is a necessary evil of sorts to transition us from the absurdity of GWB’s presidency to something more liberal in the future, then perhaps we can look at him a bit more positively, as someone doing the best he could with what he had.  If we have to choose between Obamacare and nothing at all, which probably would have been the result if he had gone for a single-payer plan, I suppose it would be reasonable to accept Obamacare.  The pendulum of democracy swings pretty slowly.

Dennis Kucinich has been ahead of his time by at least 20-30 years. His records say so. His speaches say so. I will never forget his strong attempt,in the hall of Congress,to bring Dick Cheney to justice for the horrible crimes Cheney committed in the name of the American people,a decent people who were misled to wage war and destroy Iraq as a functioning human society and the most advanced country in the Middle East,inspite of Saddam Hussein’s iron-fist rule. Check the Senate records and see what former Republican Senator,Chuck Hagely,of Nebraska,angerly said about the Cheney’s policy and his advisors,the neoconservative blunder in Iraq.

As far as I am concerned,Cheney-Bush and company have just handed the destroyed Iraq to Iran which now the very same f****ng Neoconservatives want to attack. UNREAL!!

It seems to me that those fu***ers do not get tired waging war and bankrupting the country and future generations. Who else beside Dennis Kucinich has enough guts to challenge those evil indivisuals,who are small in number but large in influencing direction of policy for endless wars.

Therefore,Dennis Kucinnich’s loss is not just personal loss to himself,but also to his own constituants,including me,in Ohio and to the nation,at large,as well.

Dennis: I shall miss you greatly,much more than anyone can guess.I do hope you will read this.

Marcy: Please just beat your opponent,“The Plumber” and make the “SADDNESS” and “HARDNESS” less difficult to swallow. I wish you well.

“Joe The Plumber”? Unreal!! Could not they find somebody else? Bankruptcy!!

RE: I hardly come here any more. I suspect that most progressives do not
either. Too many of the Obama/Democratic Party apologists articles.

why go preach to the choir - drop in and cite your prophet - e.g.
http://tarpley.net/

Run in Seattle.

Come on out! Constitution held high!

And bring your Monetary Reform Act. http://www.monetary.org/

And your fight to check extrajudicial punishment and presidential war making.

We need a representative focused on the Big Picture—because the **** is flowing downhill fast!

Michael Cavlan RN I agree with much of your post.

I agree that the Democratic part has little to offer progressive minded voters, or politicians for that matter.

Some other alternative is needed. Voting Democratic no longer is forwarding progressive ideas. I use to vote for Democrats on the lesser of two evil arguement. I don’t think I can justify that any longer.

I hardly come here any more. I suspect that most progressives do not either. Too many of the Obama/Democratic Party apologists articles.

Having said, with Dennis being gone I decided to visit quickly.

OK- Do you need any more proof? Sure, truthdig will dish up a litaney of apologist articles. Sure MSNBC and Current TV are fake left media. Yes, even Amy Goodman has gone over to their side.

Who cares.

Dennis being gone only provides further proof. The Democratic Party is where progressive politics and movements go to die.

We can, if we choose build an alternative.

Go to the Rocky Anderson site with the Justice Party. Volunteer. Get involved. If not his campaign then Jill Steins. Or Roseanne Barr. Or any of the Socialist campaigns.

“Truth” Dig and all the other “progressive” blogs, MSNBC, Air America, The Nation, Democracy Now etc etc can choose to ignore these campaigns (except in a minimal, symbolic level)

We will organize anyway.

ROCKY ANDERSON FOR PRESIDENT

Shenonymous-

Sometimes speculation is all we have, and I don’t know if there are any safe bets. 

of course he can’t win, but he can challenge - give teeth to Occupy and renew the
anti-war movement that Obomber so successfully quashed by duping most left-
lib-progs with hope-&-change rhetoric = hope my Wall Street backers make out
like bandits & change every regime that doesn’t knuckle under

Speculation is such a safe bet, isn’t it tops?

I’d be willing to bet that during the health care debate the Democratic party establishment/ Obama pressured Kucinich to change his vote on the healthcare bill by threatening to not support him in the next primary. They might of even directly threatened Kucinich with supporting a centrist democrat in the primary if he didn’t vote for the Obama’s healthcare bill. Who knows… Obama probably offered Kucinich support in his up coming primary and election if he voted yes for the bill.

Kucinich caved and switched his vote probably largely because of this pressure, and the knowledge that redistricting was going to make his next election a tougher fight. So how did that work out for you Dennis? They Democratic Party took you out in the primary anyways with a moderate Democrat. You should have stuck to your guns and voted no.

Furthermore, you should of realized that you can’t count on the Obama and the democratic leadership to support you, or for that matter trust the Obama administration to honor any agreements brokered on airforce one at the last minute.

Kucinich might be moving to Seattle, so he said on TV.  But on what
exactly would he challenge the President?  If he lost in Ohio, he would
be pissing in the wind as a candidate against Obama.  Pragmatically
speaking, the name of the game is to win an election.  Not merely
wasting money making a good old college try.  IMO he needs to win
a seat in the Senate and if he can do that, it will show voters want him. 
Then he can run for POTUS at some point in the future.  2016 there are
no contenders in the wings.  Clinton maybe but she’s said she is out of
politics after this term.  Yeah, sure.  But maybe she really is retiring. 

It is a foregone conclusion the Republicans will come out swinging like
a raptor for 2016 with their most voracious fangs out.  Who in any party
will be able to stand up to that?  Sanders maybe?  He is pretty sturdy.
But I see no one else even within snapping distance.  But if Kucinich is
really eyeing the presidency, he will have to start looking more
presidential.

now he’s free to really challenge Obomber - head up a coalition of outside parties

Dennis showed his yellow stripe when he slavishly caved in to Obama’s exploitative and unjust health plan.  No one can look on Dennis any more as a powerful person, because he folded so easily.  What a pussy. Too bad, because we need people like him.  But he disgraced himself, and us.  Bye Bye, Dennis.

perhaps kucinich could now be free to work with greens or rocky anderson’s
justice party.
both of these parties appear by far more propitious to
world peace and a better life for the 99% than the corporate or of the ONE
PERCENT’S party.
working outside the system against the SYSTEM, appears a better way to go than
to fight the system while being part of it.
and if you’re a member of the Democratic, Republican, or Libertarian Party, you,
per force, are of and for THE SYSTEM.
so, it may be a plus that kucinich lost the election! another plus may come about
because of kuciniches loss: lot of americans may stop casting votes for the
Democratic Party or the second wing one goose after it expelled kucinich from
congress. thanks, bozhidar b

It is too bad and too sad Kucinich lost his seat.  He does have
many friends.  When Kucinich voted for the Affordable Care Act, he
was being pragmatic, which is sometimes the better part of valor. 
The ACA provides medical coverage for millions of Americans who
otherwise would be left outside at the Emergency Room door costing
this country vast amounts of welfare funds. But even if he is criticized
for it, his long record as a progressive is stunning.

Kaptur will have to be watched, she is the real turncoat.  She is with
the Republicans on abortion.  She voted YES on banning federal health
coverage that includes abortion. (May 2011); She voted NO on expanding
research to more embryonic stem cell lines. (Jan 2007); She voted NO on
allowing human embryonic stem cell research. (May 2005); She voted NO
on banning Family Planning funding in US aid abroad. (May 2001).
She was rated 30% by NARAL, indicating a pro-life voting record. (Dec
2003)

Her voting on civil rights is laudable and has high ratings. The rest of
her voting record on all issues may be found at
http://www.issues2000.org/OH/Marcy_Kaptur.htm

It can only be hoped that Kucinich will be drafted for another political
position. We need spirits like his in Washington.  Redistricting can be a
nasty bit of work.

“Wake up people, Obama and the Democrats are at war with the real left, while the corporate media replaces us with the MSNBC, Current TV “fake-left”.” vector56

The motto of the Israeli MOSSAD is increasingly demonstrated by the Obama administration. “By way of deception, thou shalt do war.”  On the basis of which, B.H.Obama´s alma mater, the C.I.A., was established.  And which Harry S. Truman expressed regret for having signed into law.

A couple of examples, automatic rifles to US drug dealers in Mexico, by the US D.O.J.  Who has been investigated?  The agents who revealed the treason.  Recent announcement by D.O.J. chief that the “president” will decide whom to assassinate, where ever, whenever.  Per his palaver, the U.S. “president” makes the decision, and the leaders of all other nations can “kiss off.”

The United States of America, the dog being wagged by the Israeli Zionist tail.  Its US Federal Reserve, its bribed US Congress persons, its Wall Street banking criminals and the current defamation campaign against physician Ron Paul, MD.  Doctor Ron Paul, the genuinely American candidate who wants to accomplish several of the basic, corrective measures that John F. Kennedy Sr. had in-process when he was murdered.

Little wonder that Israeli “profiteers” wanted to remove JFKSr.
Little wonder that Israeli “profiteers” want to remove physician, Dr. Ron Paul.
Little wonder that Zionists are prepared to start a world war to preserve their nuclear superiority in the Middle East.  Which their basic deceit prevents them from admitting.

Kucinich is out. I’m a huge fan of what he says and would certainly have voted for him were I given the chance. Too bad. Yet his flip-flop on the issue of single payer health care was unforgivable.. 

I recall at the time that one rationale for many Democrats that added their vote to that odious bill was that the Obama Presidency might not be able to come back from such an important policy and legislative defeat.. And how does that
strategy pay out now? Has Obama then accomplished so many of his promises? Not hardly.

Maybe if the so-called ‘Obama care’ bill had floundered we’d be having a Democratic Primary season. Real ideas and change could be in the making. Kucinich himself might have been a front runner. Would the looney Right even have a platform without the spectre of Socialist health care? Neither side could or would ignore the Occupiers.. and much more.

It just could be that some of the voices from the Right are correct about one thing..  compromising and voting against your principles can be very damaging.

Adios!

http://michaelfury.wordpress.com/2010/03/04/little-big-man/

I am less sorry to see the end of Kucinich’s term in Congress. His waffling on the seriously flawed healthcare legislation , when taking a stand would seem to have been more in line with his reputation, may very well be the sad legacy of an otherwise decent political career.

Perhaps I place undue blame upon Dennis when it is really the leadership of the Democratic Party and the course set by those leaders, that makes all progressive democrats appear useless.

Dennis   is   the   conscience and   face   of   the   Pseudo   Left.  He   will criticize   democrats, sometimes   very   strongly, but   when its   time   to vote,  he will endorse and   campaign   for   them,  including   war criminal   Obama.

I’m   very   pleased   to see   this   little   worm   lose !!!

A sad day.

I agree with drbhelthi’s assessment of Kucinich!

But somewhere in the back of my mind I can’t help but wonder if the centrist Democratic parity and Obama where behind selling out Kucinich to “purge” the party of those annoying looney left liberals? 

If the Democrats have declared the kind of covert war on the far left we need rethink our strategies. 

1.) The left is being redefined and repackaged as the corporate MSNBC, Current TV liberals.

2.)The Occupy movement’s language is being used by Obama, while Home Land Security investigates and infiltrates the movement. 
3.)WikiLeaks and Anonymous are being hunted; while whistle Blowers incarceration is at an all time high.
4.)PETA is now considered a Terrorist” organization.

Wake up people, Obama and the Democrats are at war with the real left, while the corporate media replaces us with the MSNBC, Current TV “fake-left”.

The Replacement Liberals:

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2011/11/20/1038372/-The-Replacement-Liberals?via=blog_744899

” he has fans across the country waiting for him to finish out his term and then get back to work ”  article

Indeed.  The loss of such a patriot, who has championed the constitutional rights of
Americans, is very significant.  The electing of a patriotic politician who champions the rights of Americans, rather than straight party line, is a rarity, regardless of formal party affiliation.

Maintaining an alert staff, who stay abreast of the many nefarious, proposed laws and nefarious attachment to such laws, is in itself a valuable yet formidable task.