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My goal is to post liberal talking points to combat those from the right.

Tuesday, August 4, 2009

Idolize the Wealthy and Deplore the Poor

This is what the authoritarian followers do. They idolize the wealthy because they view wealth and power as the indicators of success. This is what they want so very badly. It doesn’t matter how the wealth is obtained. They idolize Dick Cheney because he has power and money and are willing to overlook whatever he did.

The authoritarian followers emulate the wealthy and look down on the poor as failures that deserve their fate. They rationalize that the poor don’t deserve help because of their lifestyles and behavior. The poor should just get a job and pull themselves us by their boot straps. And they will throw the code words “personal responsibility” into the argument somewhere.

And these same authoritarian followers will swear they live by the Bible’s teachings. Their brains can’t see the hypocrisy.

I recommend "The Authoritarians" by Bob Altemeyer available free on the internet.

Wednesday, July 22, 2009

Bravo Pat Buchanan

He does what the others in the ruling class won't do. He is up front with his bigotry. He makes it crystal clear what the others of his kind are too afraid or to wary to admit. Their thinking: White people (meaning rich white people) founded this country. They allowed in minorities for labor purposes only. For example, George W. Bush did nothing to discourage the millions of illegal immigrants from flocking to the U.S. which provided cheap labor for his rich friends. But they look down on us as inferior.

They, the rich white people, still think they OWN the rest of us.

But this is not just a racial issue. This is class warfare. Pat and those like him (the rich, white, ruling class) are absolutely convinced that they are superior to the rest of us, no matter what race, sexual orientation, or gender we are. They feel that their wealth is confirmation from God of their worth.

Wasn't it Barbara Bush that said to those starving in the Astrodome after the Katrina disaster, "Let them eat candy."?

I think this recent exchange between Ms. Maddow and Buchanan is classic. Buchanan, the classic representative of the rich, white, male, ruling class verses Rachel, the epitome of everything they hate (and fear).

Bravo Ms. Maddow, you are my favorite.

Sunday, June 14, 2009

Is the Republican Party Just a Distraction Now?

I have been sputtering incoherently for a number of posts on DU lately about who the real enemy is. How the moderate-right republiCons and their K street friends are sneaking into the Big D tent. Well, Sen Arlin Specter hardly snuck.

Christopher Hayes writes a good article about this in “Naming the Enemy” in the June 22, The Nation.

“While the Republican Party shrinks, corporate interests are deftly molting their old K Street Project skin and crawling en masse inside the big tent being pitched by the Democrats.” “the new strategy is to subvert legislation through co-optation, as in healthcare and cap and trade. …corporate lobbies are trying to have it both ways: to block reforms while changing overt power struggles over the future of the economy into seemingly cooperative negotiations.”

I see a number of problems with this:

It will be much harder to tell who the enemy is if everyone is wearing the same uniform.

Battles between progressives and the right will have to be fought in the primaries as in the cases like Lieberman and Lamont and between Sen Specter and Rep Joe Sestak. Who will Rahm Emanuel back and the DLC support?

And Democratic Underground will have to change it’s name to Underground.

Saturday, June 13, 2009

Liz Cheney the New Neocon Spokesperson?

The Wiki definition of Neocon (roughly) says that Neocons believe in using economic and military force to “bring” democracy to foreign countries. The Neocons including William Kristol and Dick Cheney influenced our invasion of Iraq and are continuing to promote an invasion of Iran. A chip off the old block, Liz Cheney seems to be following her dad in this mission. In a recent debate when confronted with video of thousands of young Iranians demonstrating for the overthrow (via election) of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, Liz responded:

“I don’t think it makes to much of a difference who wins the election in Iran …I think they will continue to pursue the same policies.”*

It is very important to the Neocons to have Iran as an enemy, then we are justified to invade. Liz doesn’t care who is leading Iran, she is sure they will hate us regardless.

*For exact quote see http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JteSb2Tbiw8&eurl=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.democraticunderground.com%2Fdiscuss%2Fduboard.php%3Faz%3Dshow_topic%26forum%3D385%26topic_id%3D323123&feature=player_embedded

Wednesday, June 3, 2009

You Are Not Pro-LIfe if You Condone Killing

Here are some bit and pieces from NanceGreggs posted at Democratic Underground:

"If you are arrogant enough to hold that your God, your religion, your church’s doctrine should be foisted on others, whether they adhere to the same doctrine or not, you are laughable in the eyes of whatever god it is you think you worship and revere.

If you decry abortion but cling to capital punishment, unprovoked war, the use of torture, or the justification of death in any form, you are not pro-life in any sense of the word – you are pro-hypocrisy.

The very people who brag about their pro-life position are the same people, more often than not, who get their respective knickers in a twist over things like sex education and the use of contraception. They’re not anti-awareness, they are pro-ignorance – and the consequences of that position be damned.

It has also not escaped my attention, nor that of the people of the world, that while the alleged pro-life crowd talks a good game when it comes to women being forced to birth unwanted children, children born into poverty are dismissed out-of-hand as the offspring of “welfare queens”, and are automatically perceived as undeserving of basic needs – like nutritious meals, an education, and medical care that comes at the expense of tax dollars."

Posted at: http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=389&topic_id=5773558&mesg_id=5773558

See other rants by Nance at http://nancerants.awardspace.com/

Sunday, May 31, 2009

I believe that an organization outside the Democratic Party may be needed to save the Party

That is take the party back from the corporatists.

The grass roots of the party do not control the party. Granted the grass roots elected Pres Obama, but he thanked us by dumping Dean in favor of Emanuel. In my opinion the DLC, DCCC, DSCC, and DNC all reek of corporatism.

The Party leaders chose Lieberman over the people’s choice Lamont and now they are backing Specter in lieu of any true Democratic challenger. This demonstrates to me that whoever is running the Democratic Party isn’t interested in grass roots choices, only maintaining the good ole boy corporatist status quo.

Thom Hartman says that we need to get into our local Democratic Party organizations and take over. I am working on that but it looks like a decade project. We haven’t the time. We need to unseat the Dino’s, but I don’t believe we can via the Party organization. Maybe an external organization like Moveon or PDA can raise the money to counter the huge sums offered by the corporations.

Saturday, May 30, 2009

The General Motors Scam

General Motors is claiming to have lost hundreds of billions of dollars. This is a fraud. The money they claim to have “lost”:

a. Was invested in profitable foreign auto plants.

b. Was given to executives as part of ridiculous compensations packages.

c. Was lost on gambles in the stock market.

d. Was accounting maneuvers aimed at showing a loss where none existed.

All the while that GM was supposedly losing billions, they continued to pay their execs huge salaries. Hmm. Could it be because the execs were successfully executing the fraud? After all what is the down side for GM losing billions (on paper)? They will get to raid their employees retirement fund and literally steal the employees money. They will get to disregard existing labor contracts. And they will get the American taxpayers to GIVE them hundreds of billions of dollars. And we threw Bernie Madoff in jail.

See more at: http://socialistworker.org/2009/04/20/what-killed-the-auto-industry

This was also posted at DU by Hannah Bell: http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=389x5747611

Friday, May 29, 2009

Health Insurance Simplified

As a compassionate people we pull together in times of need to help out our neighbors that might be less fortunate.

So if someone has an unexpected illness the rest of us pitch-in to help. One way is to wait until the problem occurs and then take up a collection. A more efficient method is to take up collections and have a fund set aside before the problems occur. We will call this fund insurance. There isn’t a lot of overhead required for this type of fund, the “government” handles it fine for about 3%. And, of course, the over-all goal of such a fund is to help people in need.

Now along comes Joe the businessman and says he can run the fund for us. This, for some strange reason, appeals to some that I call the gullibles. Joe of course has a lot of friends in the government because he gives generously to them. And they help him with laws and regulations that are friendly to him. Joe also has lots of money for propaganda and tells the public that his method is free enterprise and not government soocialismmmm. The gullibles buy this crap hook-line-and-sinker. But what the gullibles don’t see is that Joe’s goal is to make a profit and not help people. In fact, there is no limit on the amount of profit Joe would love to make from managing this fund. So instead of the 3% operating expense of the government, Joe’s operating costs come in around 35%. This means less coverage and higher premiums for the members. And don’t think Joe will be satisfied with a mere 35%.

Let the gullibles have their free-enterprise insurance if they want it, but let me have government run insurance.

Saturday, May 23, 2009

Is the Big Tent Democratic Party big enough for Colin Powell?

The moderate republiCons are watching their party disintegrate before their vary eyes as Rush, O’Reilly, Hannity and of course Cheney drive stakes thru the heart of the party. The wacko’s that run the party are even trying to kill the moderates like Gen Colin Powell and Sen Specter.

With the rank and file moderate republiCons abandoning the party what are the moderate leaders going to do? Maybe Sen Specter is showing the way. He is now a Democrat but has sworn to keep voting as a republiCon. He fits right in with the DLC and Red Dog Democrats that often support republiCon issues. They already pretty much control the Senate.

I think that if more big name moderate republiCons defect it would strengthen the DLC/corporate part of the party at the expense of the left. And most importantly the moderate republiCons switch would bring the big corporate money with them. The big corporations are ready to dump the wacko’s of the republiCon party and make friends with the moderate Democrats and ex-republiCons in the country.

Thursday, March 26, 2009

Who Could Have Seen This Coming?

On May 6, 1999, on the Senate floor, Democratic Senator Byron Dorgan-ND said in reference to the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act, “This bill will, in my judgment, raise the likelihood of future massive taxpayer bailouts”.

Later he said, “I think we will look back in 10 years [2009] time and say we should not have done this….”

See what Rachel Maddow has to say:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q_hbezbsJ8s

Wednesday, March 25, 2009

How Did We Get Into This Mess

Seems like no one in the so-called “liberal” media wants to talk about how we got into this economic mess.

The Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act was enacted Nov, 1999, written by Phil Gramm (repub) repealed part of the Glass-Steagall Act. This republican sponsored bill allowed commercial banks to get into the investment services game (read gambling). The bill passed in the republican controlled Congress and after considerable pressure from Congress, was signed by the president.

Then in 2000 the republican controlled Congress passed the Commodity Futures Modernization Act of 2000. This bill repealed the Shad-Johnson jurisdictional accord, which had banned single-stock futures in 1982. The legislation also provided certainty that products offered by banking institutions would not be regulated as futures contracts.

These two laws unregulated the banking industry allowing the banks and insurance companies to literally gamble with the money they were, up until then, supposed to keep for emergencies. These unregulated banks and insurance companies literally gambled away all the money they had plus money they borrowed. Now they want us to repay their gambling debts.

This is explained a lot better at Democratic Underground:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=132&topic_id=8278459 and

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=132&topic_id=8278475

Tuesday, March 17, 2009

The Party of Lies

The mouth pieces for the republiCon party, like Glen Beck, Hannity, Rush, etc. are favoring bankruptcy for auto makers but not banks. Why? Because bankruptcy for auto makers will help the wealthy execs and harm the blue collar employees. But for banks bankruptcy would hurt only the wealthy execs. The republiCon party is all for the wealthy.

The republiCon talking point for justifying reducing the pay for the auto maker workers is that they supposedly get paid $70 per hour. This is a republiCon lie aimed at harming the workers. No worker gets paid $70 per hour.

According to Johnathan Cohn at: http://www.uaw.org/auto/11_25_08auto2.cfm

Here is how the $70 per hour breaks down:
$28 actual wages approx
$10 approx benefits bring it up to about $38 per hour
The remaining $32 per hour is money that the current employees DO NOT GET. It is money that is being distributed to retirees. Money that the automakers ALREADY PAID to employees but kept it “safe-keeping” for their for retirement. republiCons want to steal the employees retirement money and give it to the execs.

In any case the republiCon talking point is to lie and state that current workers are paid $70 per hour. I believe the pay for the non-workers (execs) is approx. $5000 per hour.

Friday, February 27, 2009

Why Did the John Adams Mini-Series Get So Much Hype?

Why not Tom Jefferson, Ben Franklin, George Washington or Tom Paine?

Although Adams did fight hard for the independence of the United States from Britain, after he became president he supported a strong executive branch.

He badly wanted religion to play a larger role in government. I believe he fought with Tom Jefferson about this as well as many other issues. EDIT. After reading "Moral Minority", I retract this sentence. In later years Adams concluded that religion should be separate from government. He became a Unitarian.
He had his own version of the Patriot Act which was actually four acts:
The Naturalization Act, The Alien Act, The Alien Enemies Act, and the Sedition Act. Under the pretense that these acts would make America safer, they were actually brought about to suppress political opposition of the Democratic-Republicans.
He did not support the Bill of Rights (I need to check this).
And he was famous for trying to appoint 250 of his Federalist friends as judges and other government officers, between the time Tom Jefferson (voted to succeed him) was elected and inaugurated. This was know as the "Midnight Judges".

The above facts are as I remembered them from history class. Corrections are welcome.

Update: I have received some good input and am off to research further. Thanks.

I would love to see a mini series about Thomas Paine, arguably the father of the American Revolution.

Wednesday, February 11, 2009

Are the republicans political geniuses or cutting their own throats?

Tell me if I got this right:

Within 6 months of the election, both Georgie bush and Sen McStrangelove said the economy was in good condition.

Within 1 month of the inauguration, bush’s stogie, Paulson, tells us the economy is in crisis and if we don’t give him 700 billion within days the country will collapse.

The republicans in Congress break their necks to give Paulson at least 350 of the 700 billion with absolutely no strings attached.

Paulson says the money will go to banks to “free up” credit.

In fact the money is used by the banks for various things like CEO salaries, acquiring other banks, and having elaborate parties, but NOT freeing up credit. Thanks to the republicans this money doesn’t have any effect on solving the economic crisis.

Then President Obama takes office and wants to build a true economic recovery package. The republicans obstruct at each and every turn. They say the Democrats plan won’t work, like they would know what would or wouldn’t work. They say they want to continue the tax breaks for the rich program that got us were we are today. It is their only song and they continue to sing it.

President Obama makes every effort to appease the republicans, reaching across the aisle, and apparently making a compromise.

Compromise or not, each and every republican in Congress but three, vote against the plan. They were careful not to stop the bill but now can say they opposed it. Shear political genius. The country may collapse but they look good.

We need use the strength we demonstrated in election President Barack Hussein Obama, and go after all of the republican Senators at their next elections.

Tuesday, February 10, 2009

Republicans Shoot Them Selves in the Head Again

I think that a true liberal will tell you we need two strong parties to make our government work. When one party dominates it leads to corruption as we have seen in the last eight years. The republican party was once an honorable party, the party of Lincoln and Eisenhower. The party of my grandfather, my father and me, until Nixon. Now they are the party of corruption, greed and hypocrisy. In the elections of 2006 and 2008, the Democrats kicked their asses. One might hope they would have learned a lesson. Not so. The temptations of corruption, greed and hypocrisy are too much for them as proven by their choice for head of the republican National Committee. Michael Steele represents everything corrupt about the republicans. I guess they need their asses kicked some more.

Also posted at democraticunderground.com

Thursday, February 5, 2009

George Bush, the Poster Child for Inheritance Tax Reform

George Bush, arguably (with a few anyway) the worst president ever, got to that position from his family wealth and power. He certainly didn’t do anything in his life that qualified him for the job. He barely got through college and was known for his drinking and drugging during that period. When it came time to support his country and fight in Vietnam, his influential poppy got him a cushy assignment in the Air National Guard. And he didn’t excel there, but actually when AWOL before his time was up. From there he had numerous attempts at starting oil company on money Saudi Arabia gave him because they liked his poppy and his daddy’s influence. He went from job to job but had no affinity to even work. He was accused of insider trading where he made millions but was cleared by the SEC which some feel were influenced by friends of his poppy. He made a cool $14 million on his investment in the Texas Rangers. Not through anything he did mind you, but because a friend of his poppy wanted to be very generous to the son of the president of the country. George W. Bush became the president of the United States, not because he was qualified, but because he had the wealth and influence of his family behind him.

The founding fathers of this country fought against the tyranny of power wielded by the wealthy. They were against rule by heredity because they saw the tyranny it could bring. This is why they supported heavy taxes on inherited wealth. Inherited wealth, not taxed, will accumulate over generations and thus build family dynasties and the tyranny that can come with it.

Thomas Paine said in his pamphlet “Common Sense”: “One of the strongest natural proofs of the folly of (the) hereditary right in kings, is, that nature disapproves it, otherwise she would not so frequently turn it into ridicule by giving mankind an ass for a lion.” This means that in nature the strongest prevail, the strongest earn their power, however, heredity can give man an “ass” for a leader. If you didn’t get it, George W. Bush is the ass Tom Paine was talking about.

The rich republicans what to get rid of the inheritance tax so that they can build the tyrannical dynasties that our founding fathers fought so hard against.

Friday, January 30, 2009

In His First Ten Days

(from berni_mccoy at Democratic Underground http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=132x8154609)

President Obama

1. He removed the ban on federal funding for family planning that includes birth control and abortion, on NGOs that operate outside the U.S. (corrected by cali)

2. Promote disclosure of the administration under FIA

3. Directed the U.S. Military to develop plans to withdraw from Iraq

4. Reduced secrecy given to Presidential Records

5. Ordered the closing of Gitmo and immediate review of all detainees

6. Promoted the passage in the House of the economic stimulus package

7. Signed into law the expansion of SCHIP to provide coverage for 4 million children who go without

8. Allowed states who want to enforce stricter-than-EPA standards to do so

9. Shamed Wall Street for giving out $18 billion in bonuses after being bailed out by the American people

10. Froze salaries of people working for the Administration

11. Removed lobbyists from the administration

12. Revamped Whitehouse.gov

13. Signed the Libby Ledbetter Fair Pay Act. (Thanks clusterblog)

14. Formed a task force headed by Vice President Biden, for the middle class. (Thanks clusterblog)

Economic News or Reaganomics 101

While the economy shrank at a 3.8 percent pace at the end of 2008, the worst showing in a quarter-century, Exxon Mobil Corp reported a profit of $45.2 billion for 2008, breaking its own record.

I believe it is the largest profit by a corporation ever in the history of the world.

Thursday, January 29, 2009

Liberal vs. Conservative

(from Thom Hartmann's transcript section of thomhartmann.com)

"A true progressive, a true liberal, gets it that we're all in this together; all of life together; we're a community; we humans and all other living things, we're a community; that a chain is only as strong as its weakest link. Progressives see peace as strength not as weakness and see war as an admission of failure, not a noble venture.

Now, true conservatives - Alexander Hamilton, John Adams, Ulysses Grant, Herbert Hoover, Ronald Reagan, George W. Bush, Dick Cheney - true conservatives believe that each man is an island. It's every man for himself. That humans are superior to all other forms of nature and so killing nature for fun or for recreation or simply as, you know, as a routine thing, no big deal. "So what? Half the species are going extinct, who cares?"

Conservatives think that strength always wins over weakness, no matter what its impact is on community. This whole idea that, you know, the powerful win: survival of the fittest. It's not, you know, the reality isn't survival of the fittest. The reality is survival of the co-operator. If an individual organ in your body decided that it was going to take over the rest your body and start consuming all the resources in your body, that's not called survival of the fittest - that's not called winning competition - that's called cancer."

Sunday, January 25, 2009

Why Do Republicans Hate Wolves?

The Seattle Time ran an article recently about how the loss of wolves (from trapping, poisoning, and shooting,etc) may be unraveling one of the most beautiful ecosystems in the US.

Article link

"But the loss of the stealthy predators in the early 1900s left a hole in the landscape that scientists say they are just beginning to grasp. The ripples extend throughout what is now Olympic National Park, leading to a boom in elk populations, overbrowsing of shrubs and trees, and erosion so severe it has altered the very nature of the rivers, says a team of Oregon State University biologists. The result, they argue, is an environment that is less rich, less resilient, and — perhaps — in peril."

"We think this ecosystem is unraveling in the absence of wolves," said OSU ecologist William Ripple."

While some are just figuring Nature's balance out, the Alaskan republicans (aka Palin) still love the "sport" of slaughtering wolves by shooting them from helicopters. The deaths of the wolves is slow, painful, and horrible. And all to make it easier for rich republicans fly to Alaska to find and kill plenty of moose.

Monday, January 12, 2009

TORTURE IS A DOMESTIC CRIME AND A WAR CRIME

Weatherboarding is torture. Duh. When the Nazi’s water boarded, WE called it torture. But Bush and Cheney say water boarding is not torture. The Bush administration, Gonzales, re-defined the word torture so George could say, “We don’t torture”. Right Georgie, we water board but don’t torture.

But even using the Bush/Gonzales new definition of torture we torture. Possibly as many as 100 people have died do to our "enhanced" interrogation techniques. That’s torture even per the Bush/Gonzales memo.

And now Susan J. Crawford the top Bush administration official overseeing the military trials of terrorist suspects held at the U.S. prison in Cuba told The Washington Post that the United States tortured a Saudi man in 2002. She said that even though the specific methods might not have been torture, the way they were used did amount to torture.


Sensory deprivation is not torture per Bush/Gonzales but it can cause insanity within 48 hours. Detainees have been sensory deprived for months by the Bush Admin. One American citizen was arrested and confined in a tiny cell without seeing daylight or other individuals for 22 months. He is now legally and medically insane. This is torture.

President Obama can not over look these crimes.

Mo