call me Roy, March 8 at 4:01 pm

That American politics is cyclic is proven fact. That the small minded gloat over an election wherein 28 million voters were so disgusted they stayed home proves only that your head is far to fat, thus you must be trapped in your room with your computer as your only company.

For those of you who think Unions are no longer needed, that our society is now somehow kinder and gentler, and our Captains of Industry have evolved into Ghandis of labor/love/liberty…I ask you to answer this question: what is more important, the labor required to create the product which creates the capital, or the labor required to Capitalize that product a hundred fold?

Simplistic, yes, but in my mind any answer other than, “they are equal”, is the answer of greed.

But if that question doesn’t suit you, how about this y/n question:  does the actual conversation between the crank caller and Walker prove unions are still needed? 

To all the Tea Partiers who have been protesting the protesters over the weekend: you have the protesters/Unions to thank for your weekend.

What a laugh riot Roy, ‘all you mayo lovers out there’....Well,  I grew up liking mayo on me avocados, I know it is fatting,.... but unlike Fat Fred I may not be able to afford either avocados or mayo in the future, especial the way things seem to be going.

I am glad we can still afford the wars and those bale outs but must get rid of those thug teachers unions.Roy don’t want no collective bargaining for anyone? Roy don’t do that!  People are just getting way to uppity!

My team will kick your teams ass during the next super election,......  yep, winners take all, you are with us or your against us,.... I love it!  Keep the division going, it is important in the grand scheme of things, thats the plan.

So I don’t love conservatives like Wisconson Walker, because I see little or no difference conservatively from the Omar Gadflies of this world.

We all live in Libya now….. or is it Texas?

I love it, the Socialist Progressives lost the November elections by the biggest margin in fifty years and now when they can’t get there way, they run away. What a surprise? A little advice for a you Mao lovers, you think it’s bad now? Wait till next year. You might have to stop wearing those Che t-shirts all together.

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Fat Freddy,
I found a man on 60 minutes last night that I will enlist to refute the God Theory that enables religion to dictatorship….. Smile

He rallies to his own self-centered defense as quickly and ferociously as he attacks workers’ just compensation. Luckily neither requires that his head be dislodged from its sunless hole of inspiration.

“No factor of production is more cannibalized than that of labor, because it is human labor more than any other factor that creates value.”

by Marian Kester Coombs

Geez, if Scott Walker did the same ‘Something Big’ out of his butt that he does out of his mouth, he’d no longer be constipated.

Fat Fred, if I was an orphan I could take offense to your Mommy and Daddy comment. One must infer from the comment a degree of compassionateness.

At one time I had up to 8 employees and I can concur from experience some of your feelings about keeping good employees, through I never ran my operation with the my way or the highway attitude. My operation failed for many different reasons, I well know the hassles of having employees.

Now in some ways I treated my employees like a mommy and daddy, because silly me I cared about other people. I was and may still be naive!  I paid better wages for the same work in our area.  We also had one of the best products in the area.  By hard work in sales, I was able to sell everything we produced. Environmental factors changed all that, so I had to shut down and let my kids/employees all go.  I felt more concern for the plight of my laid off employees than for myself, silly me!

I make a lousy capitalist anyway and really hate bookkeeping with a passion, especially doing damn payroll.  So I am not a stranger to business and cut throat competitions, I am just not made of the mold to profit off other peoples labor.

As for government having my best interests at heart, obviously they are not my mommy and daddy, but I believe a governemnt could and should help its people instead of exploiting them like the Omar Gadflies in Libya and Walkers in Wisconson.  As Fat Fred says states it;  “You choose to be wage/slave laborer.”

As for the Koch Brothers they may have some interests at heart, we can assume by Fat Freds testimonial they support Fat Freddy,  but not those unionized wage/slave laborers of Wisconson!

Fred I checked out the Koch Brother video, at first I thought the guy in the chair was sleeping or a corpse, until he suddenly started talking,..... than I found I was sleeping.

First of the Democrats need to realize, unless they broaden their message they will continued to dwindle, and lose national elections, as they have since Reagan. 

For example, the Republican’s have successfully countered their message on women, and minorities, in two ways.  First of all by portraying women’s rights as an assault on the traditional family, and their support for minority rights, as a betrayal of the majority.

They have also successfully portrayed Democratic financial reforms as anti business, and their tax policy’s as wasteful, funding a social agenda that is anti American.

Also they have let themselves be branded as favoring a nanny state forcing American’s through legal statute to do things that American’s don’ want to do because they know better. Also because Democrats have been unsuccessful at their political agenda, they are seen as betraying their own supporters, and when they compromise they are seen as week and vacillating.

First of all by broadening their message, by making it all inclusive, for example Women’s rights could be become family rights.  Or to avoid, creating for themselves another Nanny State like conundrum, it could be called Traditional Family support or Affirmation. They could provide tax credits to families in which the women wish not to join the work force but instead to stay home and care for children. Minority rights issues, could instead become issues of justice. Work place justice and support for competition.

Once again the Democratic party must work to be seen as all inclusive, continue to support workers, and minorities, while at the same including other important concerns in their same umbrella of political action. In other words Democrate support for minority concerns as been successfully portrayed as anti majority.

When it comes to business, Republicans continue to portray Democrats as Anti business, and anti job. Democrats, need to counter this message with a message of reform.  This is why people voted for Obama, because they thought they were voting for reform. Unfortunately, Obama’s actions after his elections continued business as usual. But business needs to change, we can’t continue to subsidize job creation over seas. This means that Democrats need to counter Republican business strategies, with reform. Democrats need to support reforms that will protect business from its own excess, and reforms that will encourage job growth, preserve business in the United States, and preserve worker opportunities. (Notice I avoided the use of the term worker rights.)

By now you should see, where I’m going with this, I’m sure that many others will have better ideas of their own.  I could write pages, on this subject. However, I will make one last point.

When voters care about issues, in record numbers Democrats need to stop, acting against voter concerns, by saying that it’s for your own good. We know better. For example when the Democratic party, voted in the food safety act, there were at least 225,000 people, a record number, who sent in e-mails, called their representative, or wrote letters saying they were opposed to it. But the Democrats supported it anyway. The same thing with health care. The people don’t want this bill. When the Democrats put themselves in opposition to the public, they lose voters. It means their message has been unsuccessful, so re sell it change the message, or reform the legislation, and if that doesn’t work, it needs to be dropped altogether. When you go against what the people want, and can’t provide leadership to change that, then your days are numbered as a political party.

How to explain the current goals and success of the GOP:

A corporate CEO, a Teapartier and a union man sit down at a table with 12 cookies.

The CEO immediately grabs 11 cookies.

He then says to the Teapartier:
“See that union man? He wants your cookie!”

Fat Freddy, March 6 at 12:42 pm

I find Freddy to be a rather intelligent person, erudite, thoughtful, seemingly committed to his political philosophy. I also find his particular world view to be founded on air, sorry to note.

“Where men build on false ground, the more they build the greater is the ruin.” Hobbes

“Common sense is that which tells us the earth is flat” Bertrand Russell.

This does not mean that I do not believe Freddy to be sincere and honest about his position, I do, but , when stripped down to its basics, I find his views inhumane and apologetic in the extreme for the many,many,many abuses of his heroes, the wealthiest and most powerful, persons and corporations both.

Why should anyone have “your best interests at heart” except your mommy and daddy? Are you a Fundamentalist Paternalist? Yes, the government has my best interests at heart, that’s why they banned Four Loco, and lock people up for having a weed on their persons. Yes, the government is good.

A democratic society is one in which the needs of the many supersedes the desires of the few. Of course there is latitude involved, as one man’s meat is anothers’ poison as the saying goes. Fred carefully picks his examples of course, in order to reinforce an argument. There are always going to be decisions about which engaged adults can argue, and I happen to agree with the argument that possession of Marijuana is unduly and far too harshly punished. But I also believe that , at the heart of said argument, one must see that it is Tobacco companies that lobby to keep said penalties, with a bit of assistance from the prison lobbies perhaps. An example Fred fails to acknowledge as it furthers the case for what he deems “paternalism” and , hopefully, most will see as the rightful actions of a societies governance.

Loyal, hardworking employees are an invaluable asset to any company. Every business owner knows that. Plus, it costs money, a lot of money, to be constantly replacing workers. It is in a business’s best interest to retain workers, not “exploit” them. If you work hard, and show up on time, you might get a raise and a promotion. If you don’t like that, then start your own business. It’s not that difficult to do. You choose to be wage/slave laborer.

Yes, in the latest Charlie Brown special of course this is absolutely true, as it was in every show on TV in the 50’s. I would argue that 13.7 million unemployed ( govts., own figure, the true number is probably much higher) and a million foreclosures argue powerfully against Fred’s utopianism. Economic necessities and scare tactics about such as health care for ones family are powerful arguments that Fred is dreaming, and that his dream is our nightmare.

Further, the thought that one might start his own business with such ease and chance of success can be shattered by a bit of reading about business failures, market manipulations, monopolistic practices and the entire panoply of events that caused the previous numbers to exist.

Fred’s mention of the Koch Brothers is actually a rather peculiar descent into fantasy if one understands how diligently those two (and Freddy too I guess) work to turn our democracy into a fascist corporate dictatorship, one in which all Fred’s paeans to freedom is lost.

“The people came to realize that wealth is not the fruit of labor but the result of organized protected robbery.” Franz Fanon

Fred attempts to convince us of absurdities, sorry to note and thus abets the end product of said belief, in the words of Voltaire “... they can then coerce you into atrocities”.

Tesla

Also, perhaps you should also check out Kevin Carson’s new website. Carson is a Mutualist (anarcho-syndicalist) of the Prodhoun flavor. He and his are now fully embracing Austrian Economics AKA market anarchism.

http://c4ss.org/

http://mutualist.blogspot.com/

Leefeller

I prefer this:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HdFVu-s_97E

Tesla

You are very, very wrong to compare the von Mises Institute to the Chicago Boys. Perhaps if you had an open mind, and actually took some time to actually research both schools, you would see a distinct difference. But that would be asking too much from a closed minded liberal whose only knowledge of economics comes from Pauly Krugnuts’s column in the NYT.

If anything, it would be more accurate to compare Austrians to post-Keynesians, not monetarists.

SoTexGuy

Interesting article!

Leefeller

Why should anyone have “your best interests at heart” except your mommy and daddy? Are you a Fundamentalist Paternalist? Yes, the government has my best interests at heart, that’s why they banned Four Loco, and lock people up for having a weed on their persons. Yes, the government is good.

Loyal, hardworking employees are an invaluable asset to any company. Every business owner knows that. Plus, it costs money, a lot of money, to be constantly replacing workers. It is in a business’s best interest to retain workers, not “exploit” them. If you work hard, and show up on time, you might get a raise and a promotion. If you don’t like that, then start your own business. It’s not that difficult to do. You choose to be wage/slave laborer.

Nobody likes paying taxes. Not even the poor. Taxation is theft. And if you want to talk about “Trickle Down”, read the link I provided regarding monetary inflation. Monetary inflation is trickle down. That is a Keynesian policy. Just ask Pauly Krugnuts. Did you bother to read any of the links I posted? Obviously not. I hear a lot of liberal/progressives talk about the tax rates in the 50s, and how the rich were taxed at 91%. That is true. But what they leave out, is the fact that the Middle Class was taxed at up to 40%, and the poor were taxed at 20%. The bottom tax bracket was $0 - 4,000 and the rate was 20%. Look it up. If you only made $1 in the 50s, you had to send 20 cents to the IRS. There was no Earned Income Credit back then.

You make the mistake of not distinguishing between banks and other financial institutions, with other legitimate businesses. I’d be more than happy to entertain the idea of “forcing” banks to operate as any other business, and eliminating the special favoritism they receive from the government.

Here’s the distinction I make. The top shareholders of the large, publicly traded corporations are asset management companies; subsidiaries of the banks, and “Shadow Banks”. Koch Industries is a private company. It is not publicly traded, therefore, the banks can not own it. Most of the banks are parasitic rent-seekers. They produce nothing. They are agents of the government, and vice versa. Just look at Obama’s advisers. BTW, GE is an asset management company. Most of their revenues come from GE Capital.

Oh really?  I thought that was governor Walker who called me the other day and
said he was going to forgo his pension and give it back to Wisconsin.  Or was that
a prank call?

Gerard, I use the term orthodox in reference to dogmas. Not sure if your suggested inequitable list covers everything? Also do not believe dogmas (orthodoxies) can be eliminated, for those who believe as absolutist with such strong convictions of certainty ignore facts truths or reason.  That is to say, dogmas are the beliefs of fanatics.

As a card carrying skeptic, I doubt very much, if dogmas can be house broke!

Actually there seems little difference between dogmas religious or political they both require blind obedience and acceptance, this is called belief, and blind the blinder the better. bi facts wanted, needed or required!

“The True Believer” by Eric Hoffer covers the topic much better than I can here.  My original question I asked my self several years back,  was; why do some people insist on forcing others into accepting their beliefs? I was actually referring to religious dogmas at the time, Hoffers book for me, addressed it much better than I anticipated. 

I remember according to Hoffer,  fanatics start out by attempting to address an inequity or grievance or dissatisfaction in their lives. As individuals they join a cause, eventually shucking their individuality for the cause, thus making them card carrying fanatics, truth is not necessary nor an option.  Hence why I do not feel elimination of a fanatics belief of their cause is possible.

This may why I am also skeptical of causes, for I prefer to keep my individuality.

Hey Fats! I am really glad Walker instituted a new law making it illegal for anyone to make a phony calls, this will really help out the budget!

Walker having never talked to a Koch Brother and the prank call is addressed by this link; FYI!

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/2011/03/now_were_talkin_1.php#

von Mises? Really? You bring that crackpot school of
thought to this discussion? Nothing there that has not
been tried and disproved by the “Chicago School” under
another nut job known as Friedman.

Capitalism and democracy ARE MUTUALLY exclusive!

Leefeller:  To push on just a bit:  What causes a widespread desire to be ruled by orthodoxies of one kind or another?  Gross social inequality plus lack of self-confidence plus lack of information? 
  If any or all of these fundamental lacks were provided for, would orthodoxies die out?
  If the answer is an overall “yes” does this largely explain “the American conservative psyche” and the ease with which it is manipulated today?  If so, how could the power of orthodoxies here be undermined, decreased, demystified—whatever? 
  And how come people who have lived for 30-40 years under too much government-centnered orthodoxy in their power structures finally tend to rise up and assert their rights while religious orthodoxies seem more deep-seated and longer-lasting? Are orthodox believers more afraid of changing their religion than of changing their government? 
  I know this is a wild and book-length discussion, but ...

You know the conservative mind speaks for itself and everyone else!

Gerard I do not know if liberal broadmindedness leads to doubt.  I prefer to believe liberals and if it is called broadmindedness, can lead to a consensus of ideas, a chance for agreements to be reached after worthy discussion. Something the majority of what passes for conservatives today, absolutely refuse to allow, for in their certainty they are always absolutely right, and they will force their rightness on all others, like Orthodox anything else!  A vision of rightness to behold in the past, from the Catholics and their Inquisition or the Talaban in Afghanistan or the Omar Qaddafs and the Walkers of this world, conservationism in all its glory! 

Obama’s bipartisan skip through my hoops with the Republicans,  showed how effective bipartisanship can be. Clearly the party of no means no,..... except when it comes to very serious things like foot tapping in those air port restrooms,... where bipartisanship becomes a resounding .....y.e.s!

ardee:  “The Left is leaderless” you observed, and rightly.  Next question:  Why?  My observations point to this fact related to the heart of any such discussion:  Because “liberals” see more than one point of view (maybe 2 or 3) each with different possibilities and aa different ways to proceed. Broadminded-ness naturally leads to uncertainty and doubt. Uncertainty leads to organizational difficulties and policy decisions and actions. Uncertainty also prevents radicalization and quick emotional response.  Once action is decided upon and taken, however, the results are apt to be much more tolerant and forgiving. 
  The only way forward that I see for liberals is to hold onto their virtues in spite of pressures and disadvantages, and work together to try to convince more people to be liberal, loosely speaking.  Life itself is “liberal” at the root—allows for millions of types and sub-types and is eternally variable, mutating, giving/receiving, mutually interrelated.  Rigidity is death.  Long live liberals with all their warts!

Liberals lack discipline as a group. It is their
nature (you know, like the scorpion and the turtle
fable).

Conservatives thrive on discipline, crave it, worship
it, and effectively use it.

Just as the Greek city-state system was no match for
the highly organized, sole purposed, disciplined
Roman Legions, liberals will fail and fall.

Get used to it! We will be living under the jack-
booted, theocratic dictatorship of the uber-right for
a generation or two.

There is NO compromise with the right. They have
demonstrated this repeatedly since Gingrich in ‘95
and “W” in 2001.

Rules and laws are not even speed bumps on their road
to complete control. They lie, cheat, and steal to
get what they want and scream with outrage if you
push back.

Short of eliminating them physically from the
landscape, there is no stopping them until they self
destruct and take the rest of us with them.

prisners/dilema:  In addition to the obvious need to understand the Right, please give us more specifics on “strategoes” mentioned in your previous comment:

“There are strategies, that progessives can use, to turn things around, but quite frankly, I don’t think they have it in them at this point.”

Thanks.

Walker is nothing but 100% pure suck up slime. According to the news, Wisconsin is high moral standards and Walker has violated several of them. Time to pink slip this skuz. His betrayal has been broadcast for all those to see. Do we really want this type of underhanded political puke destroying any more rights and benefits that others have fought for? Just him admitting that the thought to send in “trouble makers” among the protesters should have been enough to throw him out of office. He needs to be shown the door immediately.

Just another T.P.er butt kissing moron. Glad I don’t live in his state. Can see why my in-laws left his state.

And do not be surprised when he sells the power companies that the tax payers paid for to the Koch brothers for a dollar or less if possible. He is a true traitor to America and it’s people.

I’ll toss this in the mix..

http://tinyurl.com/finance-narcotics

.. an interesting take on the real evils of uncontrolled capital and so much more..

Enjoy!

Thanks Fat Fred, ....it is nice to know wealthy people have my interests at heart instead of the government!

For some reason I have always thought rich folks did not like paying taxes, and I thunk those rich folks hated workers rights and collective bargaining?  Damn,... appearances can be deceiving,  me thinking the oil companies really liked those oil subsidies and,...silly me… I believed Wall Street and the banks really liked those bale outs, ....wow this is great, thanks Fred now I know different.

The filthy rich are not really filthy,..... its just appears that way.

Thank god for the Koch Brothers, we are so blessed to have all these rich persons, like Murdoch and his Fox News and one must never forget to thank, Ronald Reagan for bringing us the trickle down theory!

thebeerdoctor

How many billions are “printed” by Bernanke and given to the banks to “prop up” the S&P 500? Have you seen the latest M2 numbers?

http://www.zerohedge.com/article/chart-week-m2

This is basically how new money makes its way into the economy. The initial recipients of the new money — the government and its friends — get to spend it first with the old, more concentrated purchasing power, and as the money makes its way into the economy it gradually dilutes the purchasing power of the entire pool of money. So, in effect, because of this uneven readjustment of prices, in some segments of the population the price of goods will go up before wages do, making these people much poorer.

http://mises.org/daily/5051/Inflation-and-the-Value-of-Gold-Explained

And no, the Ludwig von Misers Institute is not funded by the Koch. However, an economist named Melchior Palyi showed, in more detail, how real wages never keep pace with real inflation, but don’t try to tell that to Pauly Krugnuts.

http://mises.org/books/inflation_primer_palyi.pdf

http://mises.org/books/inflation_primer_palyi.pdf

****************

“”“Walker also urged the “Koch” brother to urge other newly
elected Republican governors to advance similar agendas for
“our freedoms.” This is their moment. “You start down the
list,” he said, and “there’s a lot of new governors that got
elected to do something big.””“
*****************
An incredible act of republicans, by all means in the name of
‘freedom’, are to and will repress the people. Admittedly so by
the notion of doing something big. What an atrocious
insidious and demeaning statement. It can only mean that
being elected to office for these ‘wannabes’ sort of just puts
these horrible people ‘above’ the people they represent, many
of whom did not necessarily vote for them.

Surely the pus face walker ‘the king’ needs to add his own
declaration that ‘if anyone doesn’t join him in his ‘something
big’ plans, then those people aren’t his brother’.  Tantamount
to drawing the line in the sand.

The “prank” phone call to Gov. Walker proves one thing. Walker has never spoken to Davin Koch, or heard him speak. There’s no way anybody could confuse the caller’s voice with Koch’s voice. Here, decide for yourself:

Fake Koch:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2EjiX4O0kvA

Real Koch:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5TyXqaG7tyM&feature=related

Believe you me, I am no lover of the Koch, but here’s the reality, like it or not. Koch Industries owns 6, that’s right six, manufacturing plants under the Georgia-Pacific name in Wisconsin. If WI were to raise taxes, Koch Ind. could easily move their plants to a state like New Hampshire, or even out of the country to China.

I don’t know what NH is doing right, but as soon as the housing market rebounds, I know I will be selling my house and relocating my business to NH. If you are not familiar with the facts about NH, here they are:

http://freestateproject.org/101Reasons

Let’s see, one of the lowest tax burdens, the third highest median income, the lowest poverty rate, and….wait for it…...according to the latest numbers…........5.8% unemployment. Yes, still on the high side, but far below the national rate.

We know what works, and what doesn’t. Coercive tax-and-spend policies do not work. Central planning, does not work. The more freedom people have to conduct their business and pursue their desires, the more productive and successful “we” are as a society.

Unfortunately, children are taught how to be “team players”, not “free thinkers”. They are groomed to be productive little workers, not entrepreneurs. Samuel E. Konkin III had it right, everybody should be an entrepreneur. As for schooling, there’s the Sudbury model that incorporates “unschooling”. Watch and “learn”.

http://www.vforvoluntary.com/blog/536/the-sudbury-files

BTW, if you want an evil monster, there’s this bitch. Compared to the Koch brothers, she is the Devil. At least the Kochs actually make products that people want to buy.

http://seeker401.wordpress.com/2009/12/10/blythe-masters-the-lady-who-invented-cds-is-a-key-architect-of-carbon-derivatives/

  The KOCH brothers must be stopped. They gave $40K to Scott Walker, the MAX allowed by state law. That’s small potatoes compared to the $100+ million they give to other organizations. These organizations will terrify you. If the anti-union thing weren’t enough, here are bigger and better reasons to stop the evil Kochs. They are trying to:

    1. decriminalize drugs,
    2. legalize gay marriage,
    3. repeal the Patriot Act,
    4. end the police state,
    5. cut defense spending.

  Who hates the police? Only the criminals using drugs, amirite? We need the Patriot Act to allow government to go through our emails and tap our phones to catch people who smoke marijuana and put them in prison. Oh, it’s also good for terrorists.

  Wikipedia shows Koch Family Foundations supporting causes like:

    1. CATO Institute
    2. Reason Foundation
    3. cancer research
    4. ballet (because seriously: FUCK. THAT. SHIT.) ...

  If there’s one thing I know about billionaires, it’s that they only care about money. Bill Gates, Warren Buffett and George Soros. They aren’t fooling me. Bill Gates isn’t fooling me with his vaccination campaign in Africa. He’s just trying to make African children live longer so they will buy more copies of Windows. Wow. Not even trying to hide it.

  Now, I don’t know why the KOCH brothers want gay people to have the right to marry. Everybody knows marriage is for a man and a woman. Even Obama said that. Adam and Eve, not Adam and Steve amirite? I haven’t figured out the angle. Maybe it’s like this:

    1. legalize drugs
    2. legalize gay marriage
    3. sell drugs and oil to gays
    4. ????
    5. PROFIT$$$

  I don’t know exactly how it would work, but we can all agree that they’re evil.

Oh, and don’t forget about that “evil” program on PBS called Nova.

Although many of the statement here concerning the obvious differences between liberals and conservative are erudite and accurate, they simply don’t address the real reason.

The brain and the way it is wired pretty much
explains most of this very nicely.

As John Stuart Mill stated “Conservatives are not
necessarily stupid, but most stupid people are
conservatives.”

But more importantly and more directly responsibly I believe that the warnings issued by John Dean (White House Counsel to Richard Nixon from July 1970 until April 1973) in his book “Conservatives Without
Conscience”.

http://www.blogforarizona.com/blog/2006/07/john_w_dean_con.html

It puts things into perspective and proves the point that those bumper stickers we still spot every once in a while that read “Liberalism is a mental disease” are nearly right. It is just that the liberal part is wrong.

I whole heartedly endorse the proven concepts of
natural selection and believe that there are valid
evolutionary reasons why there is such a diversity of personality types. But when our social institutions are so grossly manipulated (thanks to Eduard Bernays) by a single more or less monolithic block of same thinking people working only in the interest of the same and against the masses; we have a catastrophe in the making.

gerard raises a key question that seems ,at first blush, to be a complex and not easily answered one. Yet, as Mr.dilema (sic) notes Obama ,running on a basically “liberal” platform garnered a majority of the votes, over sixty nine million in fact nationwide. Further, nine states that voted Bush/Cheney went Obama/Biden.

Now, one might say that Obama outspent the opposition by a rather wide margin, one might also note that the Republican ticket was not the strongest, or even the sanest. Yet I still believe that, as the old mantra notes, on the issues Americans are liberals.

The midterm elections go, traditionally, against the incumbents, yet we did see an unusually large swing for the GOP, thus the discussion about Liberal traction seems obvious. Twenty eight million is a number that needs mentioning. That was the number of voters who stayed home. I suspect that these were the core of Obama’s, and the Democrats, supporters.

As I have noted so many times before, incompetence of the Democratic Party, duplicity in the form of Obama speeches saying one thing and his actions speaking eloquently to the opposite, have disenchanted the progressive voter. Considering that the media lies in the hands of the right wing, the inability of the Democrats to either combat the lies and distortions of the right or send a clear message to the voter contribute to the illusion of progressive political morbidity.

The Left is leaderless and thus rudderless, but progressive ideas and ideals are far more popular than one might presume from the results of this last election, or from the headlines as well. With no spokesperson having the ear of the public we seem shut out, but we are simply ignored. As neither Party represents the progressive voter, or progressive ideals, we the people are going to have to find some way to unite absent the support of the Democratic Party.

Worried about money? $trillions are spent to maintain the American corporate empire. $billions are spent every month on totally meaningless wars that will never end, unless people have the character to demand that they do. Until this reality is actually addressed, the philosophical differences on economic policies are a meaningless debating point. How sad to see so many misinformed citizens actually swallowing the bilge offered up by the corporate propaganda, mistakenly referred to as news. Never mind the murderous consequences from political equivocation, the pageant frivolity must, by all means continue.

Not really…

Basically your question, Gerard is why are liberals such losers? Why can’t a liberal, progressive political party succeed.

I think it’s an important question. However, I don’t think that you can disregard Ojama’s victory as a liberal one, even though Ojama betrayed the people who voted for him. Clearly people voted for change, many of Ojama’s campaign promises were liberal.

The First thing that Democrats need to do to counter Consevatives is to listen to them, without getting angry. But instead, try to understand why their ideas are so popular with so many.

For example, taxes. Republicans own this issue, and they know it. They have sucessfully branded liberals as the tax and spend people. Working American’s cannot afford any more taxes, they don’t want a hand out, the are willing to work. But they do resent, government programs that appear to hand out their taxes in social programs, to people who seem unwilling to work.

This brings, into view the Democrats second problem, social programs that appear to be unfair, to those that work for a living.

Democrats have tried to level the playing field in this country, by focusing on Women’s rights, and civil rights, but working people see that as having their tax money given away, for something that’s unfair. Rightly or wrongly this is a perception Republicans have capitalized on.

At the same time Dems are doing this, they are also backing away from supporting labor, and workers rights, they are seen as allowing illegals to compete for working class jobs, and courting minority votes by give aways. The Democrat party has been so focused on doing cosmetic things, they handed the south over to the Repulicans.

That’s why Dems almost always have to run a president from the South, because otherwise they will lose.

I’m not saying Womens’ rights and civil rights issues aren’t important, but cosmetic change, alone, will not bring progressives back to political power. It’s too easy to co opt, by conservatives doing the same thing, appointing conservative minorities, and conservative women to positions of power.

There are strategies, that progessives can use, to turn things around, but quite frankly, I don’t think they have it in them at this point.

They let their president abandon them, betray them, piss all over them, and they continue to march along in stride kissing ass, and sucking it up.

How can liberals make their strengths work for them?
The conservative activists get angry, blame somebody else for problems (usually someone with a liberal frame of mind) and burst into noisy action often at the urging of a rabble-rouser low on tolerance and high on prejudices.
  The liberal activists get angry—often as angry at each other as at their opposition. They don’t easily follow a leader because among them they have many ideas about what to do and are hesitant to decide in the face of many possibilities. They argue this and that point of view and deploy much of their energy in more or less thoughtful talk rather than in action.  They don’t believe they have THE answer to anything.  All this is both the liberal strength and weaknes which makes political action more difficult for them..
  A study of history reveals that liberals are usually closer to the mark when it comes to analysis because political management is in fact very complicated. Conservatives are usually strong on action, whether for better or for worse.  Because they tend to blame their opposite numbers and are less analytical, they don’t learn from their mistakes so their “platform” is both consistent and retro, hence familiar and “easier to sell” because it points back to some former day or some earlier success.  Liberals look to the future, which neither they nor anybody else can see clearly, so they come off as unsure of themselves, more apt to want to experiment, not be able to present a clear sure-fire alternative, and very open to change. To conservatives this is “flip-flopping.”
  Wsconsin’s governor and Repubs in general, just as Bush/Cheney,Rumsfeld, go ahead and launch aggressive programs even if they are not sure of what they are doing.  Obama and his ilk hesitate, try for bipartisan agreement, fumble, and come off as indecisive, lacking in leadership.
  Roosevelt (and Eleanor)  and the administration they formed around them were a rare combination of part liberal part conservative. They also acted even when they feared they might be wrong.  Why?  Partly out of idealism, and partly because they felt pushed by the circumstances of large numbers of people in distress.
  If any of this happens to be right, it explains the reluctance of the left to decide what to do and do it. That reluctance is also a strength and a weakness.