QUOTE Jim C:

“I always thought ’ progressive ’ was the term used by those who are afraid to be called ” liberal ” . As far as your history lesson you are aware that the Civil War was fought to preserve the purest form of a corporate state , slavery .”
_________________

Yes, it’s true that a “progressive” is a person pretending to not be the fucking liberal that they are, but the progressive liberals are possessed of an immensely greater accumulation of cognitive dissonance than the common liberals are.

American Civil War, aka the War Between the States (1861 - 1865):

Mischaracterized in the text books of the public miseducation system, as being a bloody war between white brothers to free black slaves, the War Between the States was actually waged to determine whether white landed gentry would continue to own government and continue to inefficiently keep only black slaves in iron chains, or corporate entities would own government and much more profitably employ far greater numbers of wage slaves of all races… using mental chains, rather than metal ones.

The more distant in time the Civil War has gotten the stronger the mental chains have become. Near everyone born with them on is unable to ever break free of them.

People’s movements have regularly failed because progressives persuade the unreconstructed liberal sheeple majorities within those movements to remain mentally chained eagerly willing accomplices to the corporate party’s Democrat murder of their movements.

The corporate state wouldn’t allow elections if the liberals didn’t force the “ignorant” fools to vote for the corporate party’s Republicans, and the conservatives didn’t force the “intelligent” fools to vote for the corporate party’s Democrats.

http://www.chenangogreens.org

Pointing fingers at the “others”.  Political Parties are destroying America.  No, let me re-phrase that:
Our allegiance to Political Parties , specifically the Two, Republican and Democrat, is destroying the Common Man’s America.  And that is AOK with those two Political Parties .  They will claim to be for this that is good for the common man or they will claim to support that for the good of the common man, but when it is all exposed to the light of day, both those parties have exactly the same Agenda:  Taking America into a Feudal Age, where the Rich and the Powerful are the Life and Death Rulers and the common man is the Serf the “Labor Slave” if you will.  I would like to share this Quote:

“Corporations have been enthroned and an era of corruption in high places will follow, and the money power of the country will endeavor to prolong its reign by working upon the prejudices of the people until all wealth is aggregated in a few hands and the Republic is destroyed. I tremble for the safety of my country.”

Before the Thirteen Colonies became America, there was a World Group planning to one day own the World.  They have just about accomplished their Goal.  Their most rewarding , in terms of profit, was an endeavor as follows:  Finance Wars.  Finance both sides of wars.  Arm both sides.  Make Loans to both sides.  Restrict outside influence in the “Business”.  Keep it in the family.  Let the Sons become the Business Managers and let the Daughters be married into Rich and Powerful families.  Bring those Grandchildren into the Family continuing the Family Plan.  This family today is estimated to have wealth that is over thirty times the size of the United States National Debt.  And they control the majority of the Worlds Money.  Almost no one knows the Family Name.
Their business other than fomenting wars and profiting thereby, is owning Governments thru Financial Leverage.  They have enthroned Corporations and induced Corruption thru the power of these Corporations.  When the quote was made, the wealth of the world was about eighty percent of the wealth owned by about 20 percent of the people.  Today, true to the quote , about 95% of the wealth is held by about 5% of the people , and the ratio is growing toward fewer holding the wealth at an exponential rate.

The Quote is from Abraham Lincoln uttered by him on November 21, 1864.  On Good Friday , April 14, 1865 President Abraham Lincoln was assassinated.

Gary Mont once spoke of Financial Terrorism and the need to put a stop to it.  When will that time come?

Mr Cyr , odd , I always thought ” progressive ” was the term used by those who are afraid to be called ” liberal ” . As far as your history lesson you are aware that the Civil War was fought to preserve the purest form of a corporate state , slavery .You might want to read that old reprobate Robt E Lees thoughts on the subject and what he was trying to preserve . He believed that rich slave owners were a superior class and had little more regard for the average southerner than for the slaves . My point is the corporate state didn’t begin after the Civil War , it had been in place all along . It was just called by different names , feudalism , aristocracy , fiefdoms etc . It also didn’t end until the thirties with the advent of unions . Until then there was no middle class except the small percentage that were farmers and shopkeepers , everybody else were in effect wage slaves with no job security , rights , safety net or retirement .

In these United States of Amnesia, one of the most pernicious pieces of disinformation is the idea that the progressives were the good people seeking the best possible outcomes.

The progressives have always been the uber liberals who have best served to preserve and protect the systemic rot that should have been removed.

A “progressive” is a dedicated liberal who desperately seeks the reform of something evil to make the evil thing more sustainable.

Whenever there’s been any serious potential for a people’s political democratic insurgency to rise up from the left and challenge the Problem (the corporate state), the progressives have always moved on in to prevent that movement from becoming the Solution. From soon after the birth of the corporate state (the primary product of the Civil War) onward into the present day, the progressives have always been the corporate state’s special forces used to effectively exterminate the Solution, in order to protect the Problem.

Those who self-identify themselves as being “progressive” either haven’t a true history understanding of what the progressives actually were and are, or they have chosen to purposefully be part of the Problem preventing a Solution that is now existentially needed.

It is the current crop of progressives who have been most pestilently persistent in their perversion of the electoral process, by their having fiercely advocated for corporate party (D) dedicated voting — regularly routinely voting for what they said they were against and against what they said they were for, thereby making elections serve no good purpose.

(D) progressives have ensured that either none or the least possible change for good was achieved.

http://www.chenangogreens

DJC: It is present in the form of America’s Great Right-wing Conspiracy that’s comprised of everyone who supports Republicans and Democrats.

A “Progressive Coalition” in the Right Wing?

Buy a dictionary. Evidently you have no understanding of the meaning of the word “progressive”, which is anathema to the Right.

It could nonetheless attract a few hardy souls from that forlorn grouping, who also see the handwriting-on-th-wall. (Or blog - we’ve come a long way since walls were used. But it’s the same thing.)

ACTION!

sharon: Putting up a few good candidates for office is a drop in the bucket, but millions of extremely angry people on Congress’s lawn could actually make a difference.

Now that is a damn fine idea!

Put it into action. Use Facebook for a National Roundup in Washington. Hell, if Martin Luther King could do it? And without Facebook ...

Get ‘em where it hurts most - Prime Time on their front yard in LaLaLand on the Potomac!

And it would be more instrumental to reform than all the moaning-on-a-blog will do.

My problem is that I WANT a revolution.  Rigged voting, rigged machines, rigged primaries, no decent candidates on the ballot, no sitting legislator paying attention to what the constituents want (unless it’s religious)—the list just goes on.

This morning I was thinking we might have better luck choosing reps by lottery with just a few rules: take a bribe from a lobbyist or corporation, we shoot you; let a lobbyist or a corporation write the laws, we shoot you; make sure all citizens get the full protection of the government at every level, or we shoot you.

Right now our reps use the system to get rich and don’t give a damn about anybody.  They are highly paid, get tons of free and/or cheap perks, get health care and a pension forever, pass laws that don’t apply to them, and can lie, cheat and steal without punishment.  Putting up a few good candidates for office is a drop in the bucket, but millions of extremely angry people on Congress’s lawn could actually make a difference.

QUOTE: of an anonymous avatar, being a painting of a French fop:

“We are in a political dynamic that gridlocks the Dems against the Replicants and goes nowhere. When we should try broadening that dynamic by constructing a Progressive Coalition across both mainstream parties.”
__________________

There’s a most devious deceit.

That “Progressive Coalition” already exists. It is present in the form of America’s Great Right-wing Conspiracy that’s comprised of everyone who supports Republicans and Democrats.

The progressive liberals provide the brainy Democrats who devise devious designs for their neoliberal political repression and economic exploitation, and the liberals’ conservative partners provide the brawny Republicans to muscularly ensure the implementation of the neoliberal policies that the liberals have provided.

The “intelligent” liberals stalwartly vote for Democrats, and then disingenuously protest against what they have voted for.

The putrid principled progressives were always the bigger part of the Problem. It’s their job to protect and preserve the Problem.

http://www.chenangogreens

MORE VICTIMIZATION?

Quote: “Instead of whining about it and calling for violent revolution, why don’t you go out and convince people to vote for better candidates, and for better candidates to run?”

DJC: Elections have been absolutely perverted, by the malevolent liberals who have regularly corporate party Democrat voted against what they say they are for, and for what they say they are against.

Your rebuttal does not respond to the proposition, which is very well stated. Rather, it “victimizes” the American electorate, when it is, in fact, the source of our democratic liberties. They just have not realized it … the Silent Majority were put to sleep under Reagan and are now in a coma.

MY POINT

We are in a political dynamic that gridlocks the Dems against the Replicants and goes nowhere. When we should try broadening that dynamic by constructing a Progressive Coalition across both mainstream parties. A coalition for fundamental change in the way this nation runs itself, that looks at the long-term and not short-term interests of “I got mine and eff the rest of you dorks!”

America is not One Nation. It has become a nation of the Have-Far-Too-Much versus the Have-not-nearly-enough. That can be corrected only by Tax and Spend which redistributes income downward on the economic escalator that has been stuck at the bottom for over a decade.

Alas, that means Higher Taxation in America (above a certain level) - which is anathema to the Troglodyte Replicants. We have met the enemy and it is THEM!

QUOTE: (of an anonymous avatar wishing future generations to inherit just a fart):

“Instead of whining about it and calling for violent revolution, why don’t you go out and convince people to vote for better candidates, and for better candidates to run?”
_________________

There’s the deep immorality of a callous liberal being proudly displayed.

The permanent state of political perfidiousness of liberal voters has made it impossible for elections and nonviolent means of dissent to provide any of the change (for good) needed.

Elections have been absolutely perverted, by the malevolent liberals who have regularly corporate party Democrat voted against what they say they are for, and for what they say they are against.

Mass dissent has been abused for perverted purpose, by the depraved liberals who persuaded people opposed to war to vote for the wars of Democrats; the depraved liberals who persuaded people who needed universal healthcare to vote for Democrats to make SickCare even sicker.

A great deal of unnecessary violence is happening now, both at home and abroad, and far more will come, because liberals wouldn’t “waste” their votes voting for candidates who opposed war; wouldn’t “waste” their votes voting for candidates who supported Single-Payer; wouldn’t “waste” their votes voting for candidates who advocated for massive redeployments out of aggressor war and into climate change mitigation; wouldn’t “waste” their votes voting for real alternative candidates who weren’t owned by corporations.

Liberals don’t oppose any evil; they seek to perfect every evil.

Marvelous perspective on this issue, Joe. You have put the Weiner on the back burner where it belonged all along.

The paradox for me is while the whole world denies that overpopulation has anything to do with hunger or the environment, where is the corporate “growth” media’s attention focused instead? - A penis.

sam: If we are in a deficit, remember that its because Obama and the Democrats gave trillions to the bankers in bailout money

It’s this kind of nonsense that warps the debate. One may not like that TARP saved their sorry asses, but all the TARP money has been returned, with interest, to the Treasury.

So, the Banks only borrowed it.

Want to control the banks? Change the laws that regulate funding of elections and tax the piss outta their net profits.

It’ll put banking back twenty years in terms of net after tax profits, but so what? Banking wasn’t that bad then.

The next time a politician tells you that high-taxes prevent job creation by business - spit in their face. They are lieing to you.

christian96, June 18 at 2:10 pm Link to this comment

Don’t blame Christianity because of a few politicians
who call themselves Christian. In the book of Matthew Jesus warned of people in the last days who would call themselves Christian but who are actually deceivers. Many politicians call themselves Christian to get votes.  Jesus said you would know true Christians “BY WHAT THEY DO” not by what they say. The politicians advocating tax cuts for the wealthy should be required to work at least six months in sweat shops in China rubbing elbows with
the workers.  Let them experience working in dangerous environments without air-conditioning for 12 hours a day for $200 dollars a month or less. The politicians need to experience what it is like to not have a union to represent you against repressive slave drivers.  The politicians should be required to live in the same conditions at home as those working in the sweat shops.  They should be limited to taking no more than $1,000 with them for the six month experience.  Those politicians calling themselves “Christian” should be more than willing
to work in the sweat shops for six months.
***********

Despite being a “devout” Agnostic, I hear ya!  I would add that they should all be forced to endure “waterboarding” and THEN forced to vote whether it’s “not torture”.

Good people don’t vote for either.

Liberal voters have ensured that elections serve no good purpose.
***********

Instead of whining about it and calling for violent revolution, why don’t you go out and convince people to vote for better candidates, and for better candidates to run?  Sure, the system is heavily biased against that, but not insurmountably, as has been shown many times.

It’s a lot funnier when George Carlin said it: Something like:
“It’s not my fault. I didn’t vote for these assholes—you did!”

@ Samson

What you wrote makes me think of something else Lord Acton said besides “Power corrupts”, etc.: “The issue which has swept down the centuries and which will have to be fought sooner or later is the people versus the banks.”

The very place that controls the banks is the board
rooms of the banks.

Washington doesn’t control the banks.  Our government
doesn’t control the banks.  Instead its the other way
around.  Members of Congress openly say the bankers
own the place.  They should, they paid good money for
it.  The bankers own the White House. No matter
whether Democrats or Republicans get elected, its
going to be Wall Street insiders who get appointed to
the cabinet posts that run the economy.

If Washington is doing this, its because the bankers
want it. The bankers hate seeing money go to anyone
but them.  Greedy jerks would rather see women and
children starve than get some money that the bankers
might otherwise steal for themselves.

If we are in a deficit, remember that its because
Obama and the Democrats gave trillions to the bankers
in bailout money, and they keep spending a trillion
dollars or more a year on the military and these
wars.

We’ve lots of money to fund programs like WIC.  We
just give it to the bankers and the generals instead.

Per legend, John Dillinger was asked why he robbed banks.  His answer was “That’s where the money is.”
What better place to get rich and avoid prosecution than work in the very place that controls the banks? Our forefathers were not superhuman or divine - neither are “We The People” - their/our documents and principles are NOT holy writ.  We cannot expect the rich and powerful to put aside greed just because they join our government. 
That’s the base line purpose of government itself:  to establish barriers and punishments which deter bad behavior. Smart thieves find clever ways to trick the deck to their advantage; just to get elected these days, a person must be very, very wealthy and influential.  Remember the biblical story of the rich man who asked Jesus how to achieve salvation; He instructed the man to divest himself of all his possessions - the guy went away troubled because he couldn’t bear to do it. 
  Our officials are no different.

c96: Many politicians call themselves Christian to get votes.

Our Christian founding fathers had a very good reason for separating the state from the church - even if the only mention of religion in the Constitution is to defend the right of religious belief.

But why was the separation of church and state so important to them? Because they had a first hand knowledge of what the church within the state was capable of doing.

The principle of Divine Right was invoked by kings/queens to justify their monarchies. It allowed them to make war when the Ten Commandments expressly forbid it. And it became the duty of all their followers to make war to support their monarch.

Religion fomented strife, war and death across the European continent for centuries. To our age, in Northern Ireland, its excesses could be witnessed.

Let’s keep religion out of politics in America - or it will lead inescapably to the same dismal consequences.

The WIC subcommittee actually has a public advocacy group. This article, worth reading about the WIC-budget, is taken from their site here.

Presume the delinquent child who breaks into your home today is one who’s mother could not benefit from a WIC-subvention.

Delinquency starts in the home ...

Don’t blame Christianity because of a few politicians
who call themselves Christian. In the book of Matthew Jesus warned of people in the last days who
would call themselves Christian but who are actually
deceivers. Many politicians call themselves Christian to get votes.  Jesus said you would know true Christians “BY WHAT THEY DO” not by what they
say. The politicians advocating tax cuts for the
wealthy should be required to work at least six months in sweat shops in China rubbing elbows with
the workers.  Let them experience working in dangerous environments without air-conditioning for
12 hours a day for $200 dollars a month or less. The politicians need to experience what it is like to not have a union to represent you against repressive slave drivers.  The politicians should be required
to live in the same conditions at home as those working in the sweat shops.  They should be limited
to taking no more than $1,000 with them for the
six month experience.  Those politicians calling themselves “Christian” should be more than willing
to work in the sweat shops for six months.

Joe Conason, in his summary sentence, raised the question, if we Will
now scrutinize the far deeper immorality that reigns in Wash.D.C.?

Good Question.
Who cares to go back to Viet Nam days, and raise the question of who
ordered the USARMY leadership to use its helicopters to transport tons
of dope to central areas where USAF cargo airplanes flew it into the
U.S.?  When Air America was not used.

Who cares to read the “Chronicles of Chip Tatum” ? He blew the whistle
on George H.W. Bush Sr., the C.I.A., and the U.S.Army.  The remains of
his bludgeoned body washed up on a Caribbean beach, how many years ago?

6/18/11 9:55am

The description of ‘Trickster’ a mythological archetype, is much much too
flattering.

The individuals writing these new proposals, voting on them, deeming them law
know exactly what they are doing. They are taking a much larger cut of funds that
a child, a mother, a family is in dire need of. Most likely, their crossing point of
the family unit breaking up, the child to be placed in a foster home, the parents if
no alternatives now have moved into the street.

No, they are seething snakes, slaves to greed. If there is a God, then in that realm we can pray that this is where they will be punished for that greed.

I fear we do not have to end our imperial nightmare.

Trickster now is them and us.

It isn’t merely that we prefer dreaming it, which we most certainly do.  It is that we seem to prefer denying that we are dreaming it.  We evade and escape from all hints of our dreaming.  We cannot even have a decent public discussion of our vision(s) of our collective future, not even about next year, much less about the next generation or seven.

We prefer cheering our favorite team, or drowning in our favorite chemicals, or babbling our favorite nonsense, or whatever evasion and escape from the horror of our inherited “American Exceptionalism” we choose to embrace/engage/critique.

The prophets of this exceptionalism, earlier and now, are the prophets of doom.  Yet they see themselves, as their followers and cheerleaders see them, as great seers of infinite abundance and glory and cheer and happiness and endless celebration of all that is good and beautiful and truthful including immortality for each and all forever amen.

The rest of us are so bamboozled by their bizarre “vision,” which we see as one of the primary sources of our current global nightmare, that we can hardly find coherent language for articulating our befuddlement.  It is much more difficult to gracefully ask them what about this and that and the other details challenging their vision.  It is even more difficult to point out to them how current embodiment of that vision is destroying the very fabric of our lives, individual and collective.

They seem to be in complete denial about details we find overwhelmingly and dangerously present and clearly signs of multiple imposing disasters.

Lewis Hyde’s wonderful recent book, Common as Air: Revolution, Art, and Ownership, articulates beautifully how we came to find ourselves in this puzzle palace so artfully created we tend to believe God/evolution must have created it because we are not willing to believe we humans create and destroy such big chunks of creation in so unimaginably few years.  But the book is creatively written; I have to practice patience reading it.

Trickster is alive and well between me and those seemingly simple words that somehow, sentence by sentence, toss up mountains of readily graspable clarity for anyone who wants it.

Trickster most certainly makes the world.  Trickster makes empires.  Trickster makes them and us. Trickster makes us argue with them.

He always has.  But empires speak for themselves.  They speak clearly, bluntly, violently, loudly, lethally.  Them and us is just minor details until we learn to live intimately with Trickster, as every artist sooner or later must, lest he die first.

And a citizen is nothing if not an artist.

Thank’ee so much, Cliff; I’ve been using “Mordor-on-the-Potomac” for quite some time now because I have a feeling that George Washington would be roundly ashamed of the deterioration of the government he helped found, and would no longer want his name to be attached to the nation’s capital.

I have the utmost respect for the Founders and Framers, and if there’s an earthquake in this country, I’d say it’s because the Founders/Framers are rolling over in their graves at the way the American government has turned its back on them and their ideals.

Paul GA makes a good analogy
By comparing our Government to “The Lord of The Rings”.
The Story of power corrupting those who possess it is the story of our Society today.  In general those who gain some power lust for more and as they gain more, the drug of power entices the powerful into absolute corruption.
Someone stated that Liberals voted for Obama to break the power corruption and insinuated that Liberals made a poor choice.  I don’t think that Liberals made a poor choice, they made the only choice they could.  Unfortunately Obana lied about his aims. 
Monday morning the House should bring articles of Impeachment against Obama for failure to obey the Constitution.  His Libya action is absolutely un-Constitutional and he has told Congress to “Stick it where the sun don’t shine”.  Absolute Power corrupts absolutely.
As to the voters choosing Obama in 2008, the opposition, The Republican Party , was blatantly promising more of the very same corruption they had served up for the last eight years.
What would have been more productive for voters would have been to turn against BOTH parties because both have demonstrated that they absolutely will not serve the interests of the common people.
They serve the Rich and Powerful and just like the Terminator they absolutely will not stop the carnage because they get a soul. Political Parties have no soul.
The only course of action is for the common man to put a stop to their corruption. 
Party Loyalty is killing America.

There is no immorality deeper than blatant lying while in public office. 

Voting to withold funds to feed children is reprehensible, but it is at least honestly out in the open to be dealt with and counteracted as necessary. 

Lying, especially with the expertise that Weiner demonstrated in his interviews, is a much bigger problem in that you never know where it ends. 

You can never quite trust someone who you know has blatantly lied to you.  I know that from personal experience.  Lying is as bad as hard drugs or alcoholism.  No effort will be withheld to cover it up by the offender.  It can end up dominating their lives. 

I thought you liberals voted for Obama because he promised transparency.  If you wanted transparency, how do you justify putting up with professional liars?

Conason and many others are making a mistake equating lying with very unpopular political actions which are out in the open.

You people forget that is country is still a strictly Puritanical nation….where it’s not accepted to be sexually open but it is OK to kill and murder and go to war.

I think it runs deeper, in that we are all morally responsible for the corruption that drives our national and international policies:  “Sweet Nothings In The Digital Age” http://jdrachel.com/?p=453

@ mackTN

Certainly, it won’t end well. I have very little confidence that this country can bring its imperial dream-cum-nightmare to a controlled and relatively painless conclusion. Those people in Mordor-on-the-Potomac are hell-bent on making this country the permanent world hegemon, no matter how impossible such an ambition truly is.

How else can we afford 10 billion dollars monthly in Afhganistan, not including
the budget for wars in Libya, Yemen, Iraq, without throwing our own people under
the bus? 

You wait and see.  This won’t end well.  Dems will cave again and come out and tell
us that they have achieved their goal of shared sacrifice… except for the wealthy,
banks, corporations.

They are reprehensible…and its not just in the US this week the acting head of the IMF, (John Lipsky, a Chicago school monetarist), told the Greek government it had to make draconian cuts and German taxpayers had to foot the bill, while investors are not allowed to lose anything. It is nothing short of criminal, this is more and more beginning to look like a planned disassemble of Western society, by the same anti-Gentile thugs who control our pols

The government is totally fascist. Forty percent(at least)of our fellow citizens are ignorant, intolerant, and self-centered dupes who care not an iota for the greater good of the nation. The MIC has taken control of the treasury and has become the chief source of employment for the bulk of America’s youth(those lacking the obligatory silver spoon). The constitution means nothing to our elitist ruling class who know quite well that any law is jake when the pro-fascist SCOTUS says so. Until stopped this nation will continue to pursue it’s agenda of turning the world into a slave labor camp dedicated to producing nothing but worthless but highly profitable consumer junk until the planet can no longer sustain the plunder. Does anyone really believe that any improvement in humanity’s chances will happen following the ‘12 elections? Can you look at any of the potential candidates an not feel your skin crawl? Has reason become something that people in this nation can no longer apply to the sane management of their affairs?

@David J. Cyr: “Good people don’t vote for either.”
“Liberal voters have ensured that elections serve no good purpose.”

You had me with the first, and lost me with the second.  What’s the logic, there?

Personal depravity is a prerequisite for becoming an “electable” Republican or Democrat corporate party candidate.

Their campaign contributions provide the certification, with the size of each of their campaign chests being commensurate with how immense their individual immorality is.

The corporate party provides “choices” between really retrograde Republicans and deeply depraved Democrats.

Good people don’t vote for either.

Liberal voters have ensured that elections serve no good purpose.

They want more money for the wars, naturally; making the world safe for Pax Americana is their main priority, and if the weakest Americans have to suffer, so be it, they think ...

http://michaelfury.wordpress.com/2010/05/26/come-to-me-my-child/

Mr Conason is very informative here. I hadn’t realized there was an attack on WIC. This is so like the bully in the school yard picking on the weakest to advance their egoism. I’m disgusted. I reckon the crime rate is not high enough for the “for profit incarceration industry”.