Americans are moving to the left at the same time Obama is moving to the right.

The lack of careful but thorough campaign finance reform for over 30 years now has warped pre-1980 concepts of America's political Right and Left. Simultaneously, and as a direct result of that lack of reform, the Democratic Party's leadership first openly smooched with corporatists in the 1980s, tongue-bathed them head-to-foot under "free trade" Willy Clinton in the '90s, and now carry on a perfect Roman orgy of blood, torture and fiscal wantonness with them in the Imperial Cheneyite Shrubbery.

Over that 30 years the increasingly corporate bankrolled DLC Dimocrats at the top of the Party have drifted apart from the small "d" Democrats in Congress--and even farther away from the views of the majority of the American people on a host of issues from health care to environmental protection to Bush II's wars.

Ralph Nader is despised by the leadership of both dominant Parties (and the Big Media arm of the ruling corporate Oligarchs & their multinationals) for repeatedly trying to hammer the point home that on most substantive issues there is less and less difference between the Republican and Democratic Parties.

Consider how in the lead-up to the 2006 elections the DLC Dimocrat leadership put up such a pretense of siding with the anti-war backlash: They sure seemed different than the Republicans then. Even I, a leathery cynic, was so angry and depressed after years of fascist Team Bush outrages that I wanted desperately to believe in a "Democratic come-back."
And look how they've played that off-year voting majority what brung them to the dance for suckers ever since.

Campaign money now speaks louder than actual voters. Voters are just a formality that have to be conned into the booth one way or another. The DLC uses image consultants, polling numbers and weasily little Ivy League speech writers who are increasingly out of touch with the dwindling middle class and the working poor. The GOP uses tawdry theocrats and paid media sociopaths to exude the aural pheromone (psychic pee stench) that triggers the Party Line feed regurgitation (echo chamber) and herding instincts of their kind.

The Republican Party has it easy compared to old school Democrats OR DLC corporatist Dimocrats: It simply bankrolls human megaphones like Rush Limbaugh and his ilk, has them declare themselves popular not because they are corporately backed with hundreds of millions of dollars but because they say so, and supplies them with think-tank talking points to "lemm" their legions of blue collar lemmings into consistently voting for policies that cut their own throats.

This is because the same psychology (increasing evidence suggests it is genetic) that pre-disposes them towards financial elitism and authoritarianism pre-disposes them to mentally goose-step more unquestioningly as partisans. Remember how all those little "W" stickers suddenly festered into view like leprosy on tens of millions of car bumpers back in '04? Not so visible now that the bottom-feeding, money groveling stupidity of the GOP grandees has shaken the faithful. But their handlers have had time to round up most of the herd and they're ready to line up and vote for the same goons again.

The Supreme Court locked in the current dismal campaign finance system and, thus, the continental drift separating the people from their "elected representatives" with a '90s Rehnquist Court ruling that arbitrarily and without any precedent equated money with free speech for the purposes of campaign finance. This one ruling in and of itself guarantees that the process of recapitulation of the old Republic into despotism ruled by a new order of techno-Aristocrats is inexorable.

Unless and until this ruling is overturned, the Democratic Party likely cannot reform itself without some new form of revolution that we have yet to see. If the Democratic Party cannot reform itself, then it cannot regain and hold power long enough to reform and assert the regulatory and judicial powers of the federal government. If it cannot reform these regulatory and judicial institutions sufficiently to compel the Republican Party to reform, then the needed reformation of all three branches of the federal government and their most critical supporting entities, agencies and departments cannot be accomplished. As a nation we lurch forward in deeper and deeper dysfunction.

Our degenerated system isn't just corrupt, crawling with Big Money crony parasites and increasingly lawless, it is hopelessly obsolete (laissez-faire and still operating on atavistic dumbed-down scientifically discarded notions of 19th century Social Darwinism) and incapable of helping America cope successfully with existing and rapidly looming crises. These successive tidal waves of change will require a level of mutual cooperation and mutual support both within the U.S. and among ALL nations unprecedented in all of human history.

The model of disposable consumer culture materialism we have built up since the end of World War II is unsustainable and we just exported that model to India and China. Those massive over-populations attempting to achieve OUR overly-consumptive, overly-wasteful lifestyle CAN LITERALLY EAT THIS PLANET ALIVE. We were 300 million people burning through the planet's resources like we were the last generation on earth. Now we've "taught" another 2 BILLION people to try to think and live the same way.

So, the gulf between We the People and our no longer representative Congress has now reached Constitutionally dangerous dimensions and is helping to scramble what remained of any shared sense of national identity or willingness to sacrifice for the common good--JUST WHEN WE NEED THAT SHARED SENSE THE MOST.

kman2: "Take a look at many of the comments on CommonDreams posts over time. You'll see left wing comments about a "One world government" and "Zionists". It just so happens that these are the exact words the ultra far right wing uses."

The thing is... those are NOT left wing comments. You must understand how the right wing tries to dilute, falsify, and misdirect the left wing. They send undercover cops dressed as hippies into demonstrations- to cause trouble and confusion. They send fake lefty bloggers onto websites like this.... to use right wing words and concepts... in blogs that are intended to fool you into thinking your reading a left point of view. They infiltrate the Truth Movement and steer the focus of the investigation towards the absurd... rather then the verifiable. They own TV and radio... they choose programs that appeal to the left... but they spin the content and messages to the right.

I keep talking about NPR... check it out sometime. NPR the supposedly "left-wing" public radio that carried ZERO anti war stories in the lead-up to the war. A station that champions every directive the BushCo administration gives them... while still holding tight to their appearance of 'lefty' and 'intellectual'. And then here's the kicker... after the right wingers labeled their NPR station as 'too liberal'.... which it definitely is NOT, once you agree with that too liberal label they can now move nature of any debate further to the right. It's classic CIA PSYOPS type stuff. Create and define a FALSE Left Perspective, put it in a box, kick it around with your right foot... and now you've made bad apple sauce. Think I'm making this stuff up? Wikipedia Kevin Klose- Current President of NPR, former director of all worldwide CIA propaganda radio broadcasts including Voice of America, Radio Free Europe, Radio Free Cuba, Radio Free Afghanistan, Radio Free Iraq. THAT is NPR. THAT is a FAKE LEFT.

"One world government" and "Zionists". It just so happens that these are the exact words the ultra far right wing uses in their own paranoid conspiracy-driven beliefs. The ultra left and ultra right wings sound alike"

What cherry picking nonsense. Anyone who knows a right wing, Illuminati, Free Mason, One World Government goon knows that they lump the left, people like Marx (I had a David Ike loving friend of mine show me photos proving that Marx belonged to the Church of Satan because of a sign he was making with his hand while posing for a picture, another showed me "evidence" on how the leaders of every communist & socialist movement in the world is run by and for the Illuminati, which has never even been proven to exist), and the past workers movement with being one of the prime movers of the "one world government". Any attempts at things like international taxes on currency and speculative financial transactions (which is as moderate as you can get taking into account the gigantic financial inflation and the ability of investors now to destroy what's left of democracy), any international agreement that is binding to US citizens and the military, any cooperation basically between countries internationally to at least lessen the negative affects of capitalism is a sign of the "N.W.O". To say that this is the same as, or to place these superficial and ridiculous critiques on the same level as, the leftist critiques of Israel's actions (which have been condemned by non-partisan human rights organizations the world over, whose leaders left mountains of quotes and evidence of past crimes) is ridiculous. If a libertarian capitalist critiques communist economics and uses the same TERMS as a socialist critic of communist economics, by your logic, they'd "sound alike". It's ok to have an open mind and to THINK about the logic that people are presenting. We don't have to key into words, leave out the logic and say, "yep, all the same". The Sean Hannity school of journalism does wonders for the brain.

Also, as I said above, if you ask these questions by themselves, you'll get the same person answering on the "left", the "far left", the "right", the "far right" and the "center", depending on the question and what is defined as those positions. You have to apply sound logic, as free of bias as possible, to connect the questions to see if there is a logical connection between opinions on issues. If you take polls on healthcare, the economy, the military, environmental policy, foreign policy, approval ratings for the dominant institutions in society, etc, and put it all together, there is an unmistakable movement to the left, and this is without the left's ideas being articulated by leftists themselves nationally (if the left's ideas ARE articulated to the public, it is usually done by a right winger or an elite of some sort in a dishonest and demeaning way), and this is done with nonstop, 24/7 propaganda from entrenched interests.

The "center" doesn't exist. It moves with the polls and the people who call themselves "centrist" are really just guardians to the status quo. They, by their nature, are against fundamentally challenging entrenched interests or dominant ideas, they want (regardless of counter logic) the same power structure and ideas in place. That's why when the elites here, in both parties, called for "free trade", the "centrists" went along with it, attacking anyone who disagreed. Forget the fact that "free trade" in theory, rhetoric and practice is as right wing as you can get (undermining of democracy, wealth concentration, increased exploitation, social disintegration, etc), people backed it and called themselves "centrist". Healthcare? The "centrists" want the profit motive, corporations and huge inefficiencies as a result of the two. They just want some tweaking, some even are ok with universal care as long as it is basically a governmental demand to buy the health insurance companies' "product" and little to no other changes. How is that any different than the right wing? Are they different because they simply use different semantics?

ej July 29th, 2008 9:08 am, Thank you for the beautiful and articulate description of that "third dimension" I clumsily referred to.

"Left" is an evil label term for all those who favor the Masses and "Right" is the glowing term for the ruling class.

In times of stress the masses move left in opinion, although they don't want to be called Leftist because the term is a dirty word to the Status Quo.

The pendulum is moving left and everyone who studies history can see it.

But to keep the momentum going it is essential to stop McCain.

the Dems are far from perfect, but have many times more progressives as the Republicans, so for this next election we can stop the movement or help it.

We will become more successful in helping the movement forward by dropping the old names invented by the ruling class "left or right" to keep us in our place.

Think of going forward progressive, or back regressive.

That way we define ourselves and drop the self defeating terms.

Words are important and so is the pendulum of history.

I looked at the data. CD is not correct with their view that NYT is distorting data. Take one example that moved leftward. When asked if we spend to much on the military, the data went from 19% to 42%. This is a huge lurch leftward, but is not even over 50%. This is a move to the 'middle' of the data. That's all NYT was saying. CD editors need some lessons in statistics.

Mordechai Shiblikov July 28th 2:30 pm said: "It seems the extreme right and left wings are more alike than different."

I agree. Take a look at many of the comments on CommonDreams posts over time. You'll see left wing comments about a "One world government" and "Zionists". It just so happens that these are the exact words the ultra far right wing uses in their own paranoid conspiracy-driven beliefs. The ultra left and ultra right wings sound alike.

Just for the record (and I rarely respond to trolls and freepers), MiMiCcS is a total idiot who is still worried about Communism! Even if this outdated, debunked form of economics were actually a threat, the corporate whore, Bill Clinton, who promoted "free market values" almost as much as his republican compatriots, is certainly not an example of a Communist.

Sheesh. Talk about living in la-la land!

Grant, I hope I didn't give the impression that I don't agree that the country is moving leftward! From much of what I've experienced personally, and also from the very good examples you presented, I believe there's a definite movement away from rightwing nuttery. I was simply pointing out that the article itself didn't give such a great argument to prove the point.

So much depends on how questions are framed. A completely different response occurs if people are asked whether they believe they should be able to live comfortably when they work full time, rather than, "Do you think the government should dictate wages to businesses?" The examples of this type of manipulation by pollsters are infinite.

In most polls, the questions are skewed one way or another - and quite often in a way that elicits a more "conservative" answer. I've take an few on-line polls that have no good options! It's like the Colbert Report in which Stephen Colbert asks, "Do you think President Bush is a great leader or America's best leader ever?"

Progressive values are lot more prevalent in the U.S. than is generally realized. Yes, we are moving left rather than to the center. I just don't think this article quite focused on the real proof of this.

EJ: Quite excellent posting. Gracias.

I just wish someone would stand up and say, "Okay America, it's time we all learned to grow up and stop acting like children. All of this shit is common sense: don't abuse energy, don't start unwarranted wars, don't let the elite rape the poor." I mean, come on! These are things you learned in kindergarten. Is it ever going to change? Or we ever going to get it? No. Why? Because 45% of the country is functionally retarded. The solutions? 1) Kill the other 45%, 2) Elect a progressive philosopher king to be dictator for life, 3) Create a super-computer to rule our society, or 4) go into hiding and let the retarded 45% inherit the earth. All of those sound like reasonable, viable alternative compared to our current path, at least to me. Maybe the brain-swell has distorted my point-of-view, but something has to change.

Left, right, conservative, liberal - all are limiting and divisive distinctions that in the end measure near to meaningless.

If one has ever had a conversation with someone near to them concerning issues but not necessarily using divisive labels the one characteristic that is almost always glaringly obvious is humanity.

Most people, in the "three a.m. of their soul" (where pretense is totally absent and all defenses are reduced to almost nothing) cannot escape their humanity, their grace, their forgiveness, their tolerance, and their love for their fellow man and woman.

Deep down, people are willing to allow their humanity toward others because they too wish to be forgiven, tolerated, and loved.

Have this conversation in that context, conduct these polls in that light, form the questions with that awareness and I guarantee you the answers/results will be different.

I believe most people in their wakeful lives are guided by their expedient filters, defenses, self-interests, and preconceived notions. Thinking they can separate who they are as human beings from what they think they are, they reserve their humanity for those "special" things that they believe really have no connection to their "status," "wealth," and/or their "power."

They're wrong!

If everything is political, than I would add - everything is "spiritual" as well.

Just the propaganda machine working towards the Right for the next rigged elections. By election day there will be "exit polls"(faked) 51% for McAncient

Diebold rigged black box voting machines will come through for the Repukes again

Probably the most common definitions are the left equals the people's interests and the right equals the elites' interests. So now the people are moving left toward their own self-interests while the elites already have plans for cheap gasoline to stem the flow.

I don't see a whole lot of difference in the outcome of the more extreme of right or left. Certainly there are differences in ideology, religion and mission statements but the end result is pretty much the same -an unelected elite who rule in a dictatorial fashion and who suppress freedom in support of staying in power and control. I think this two-dimensional left-middle-right model is false; I don't think the "middle" belongs anywhere on the same plane at all. Three dimensions are needed.

LesserEvilismIsEvil you're correct, try calling Randi Rhodes' show with anything resembling the truth about the Democratic Party and the screener will hang up on you. I know it, because it happened to me. Rhodes can't handle the truth. She can talk to Republicans of course, that's easy. But no real progressives are allowed, she knows that all we have to do is put two sentences together and she's toast.

The middle-aged hostess is just one sad example of a Dem Party hack, we have many others on the airwaves today. They lie from the minute they come on until the minute they sign off. Just like Rush, Hannity or O'Reily.

scapegoatherd

"The Iraq war(scapegoating for...) has made the U.S. less safe from terrorism(other scapegoatings)." 37% in 2003 and 49% four years later.

– "The U.S. should not attack (scapegoat)another country unless it has been attacked (scapegoated)first." 51% in Oct. 2002 and 57% in 2006

– "The government (head scapegoatherd)is spending too much for national defense (scapegoating)and military purposes(song and dance to rally scapegoating)." 19% in Feb. 2001 and 44% in Feb. 2008.

On cultural issues:

– "Organized religion (institutionalization of scapegoating)should have less influence (herding capacity) in this nation." 22% in Jan. 2001 and 34% in Jan. 2008.

Organized religion is perhaps not necessarily about scapegoating if it is actually practicing normative Christianity, or any of the worlds real spiritual essences.

bottle at 2:16 pm:
"... commentators on Barack Obama's Berlin speech, however, disqualified themselves from respect or consideration if they failed to mention the threshold incident concerning Barack's father.
His father was a goatherd, Barack said."

Prior to that Barack said that his wife was from the American "heartland".
And Barack ended with: "my grandfather was a domestic servant to the British."

His declared lineage/influence is servant, goatherd, and heartlander.
SO?
Will he work for the rich few or the masses?

The MSM in the U.S. is controlled by very powerful corporations - including some directly tied to the military industrial complex. They will always downplay progressive/left-wing realities in order to promote a right-wing mirage that favors them. The American people have, in my lifetime at least, always been to the left of where the media says they are. I've spent years thinking I was a weirdo, only to find out I'm really mainstream.

GOOD POINTS: LEE ANN G., GRANT & DMCD

MUGGLES: I'm glad that YOUR church is showing progressive humanitarian values, but do you really think the evangelicals who cheered Bush's getting hold of the White House, or cheer war, or believe in End times, or sign up for the military because they think it's a holy war/crusade, or support capital punishment, while wanting women's right to CHOOSE (now even contraceptives) mitigated... do you NOT see what religion in these contexts is doing to destroy this country?

Interesting Post Grant. I agree.

This radical leftist music director at a Lutheran church has a hard time accepting the idea that a smaller role for organized religion equals a move towards leftist politics. It just doesn't match my experience of leftists or churches. A: the most committed progressive activists I know are all connected with churches or synagogues (Here in Charlottesville VA it's IMPACT, a coalition of churches, that is most active and effective in support of affordable housing and other local njustice issues. B: the church as a whole is trending left along with the country, even the big scary suburban megachurches. Might not look like readers here want liberalism to look, but it's an undeniable trend inside the church. So... why do leftists have such a hard time parsing the nuances within organized religion? It's pretty ahistorical to be forgetting or denying coalition work between progressives and churchgoers... Dorothy Day, civil rights, the Sanctuary movement, abolition, the development of public education - all these are intimately bound up with churches, and all had problems and strong points.

Imagine if you will two ends of a rope. The left end has joined with the right end, forming a loop around a neck. Now the 2 ends form slip knot that binds closer and tighter the more it is drawn. The citizens are now ensnared in a noose formed by the alliance of the Republican (fascist)and Democratic (communist) forces working together for Totalitarian One World Government (they call it Globalization). The hangings commence upon declaration of martial law. This will happen on Obamas watch. National Socialism (thesis) and national Fascism (anti-thesis) are the foundations for Global Communism (synthesis).

Obama is a Communist(as was Clinton). His father was a communist, his mentor was a card carrying communist (Frank Marshall Davis), and he aligned with Marxists in college. He also has an affinity for Black Nationalism. Read Dreams from My Father. Obama will bring change, he will also likely be the one to put the finishing touches on whats left of the US.

He might even be the first Global President of the One World Government. To win the vote (from the global elite, not us) he must show he has the right stuff, and that means transferring our wealth, whats left of it, to the poorer nations, and equalize the living standards by bringing us down further and perhaps raising them up elsewhere, or not. After the global government is formed, and the military in the hands of the UN, the real fun begins. Depopulation. Those who cry out for fewer people will get your wish. Only, you might be one of those depopulated. Enjoy the ride. If you survive, congratulations, now you get to find out what it is like to be a slave. And as Stalin said, if you don't work, you don't eat. No retirement woes in the New World Order. In China they used to send those who were too old to work to Happy Homes. They were never seen again.

The NY Times cluelessness is reflective of how the "old media" in the USA has lost the pulse of the nation as its' audience is graying and shrinking. In order to hold on to said audience, it needs to pander by assuring them that "things are still all right" and that they are not cultural leftovers.

Mordechai Shiblikov July 28th, 2008 2:30 pm Wrote:

"It seems the extreme right and left wings are more alike than different."

-----

Anarchism stands at both ends of the political spectrum.

There are the anarchists on both the extreme left and on the extreme right. Both want government to disappear, but there's a big difference between the two.

The right anarchists are extreme libertarians. They want to see government disappear so they can plunder to their heart's content with nothing to restrain them -- a return to the law of the jungle.

Left anarchism is an advanced form of socialism. After the cooperative, non-violent socialist mentality has been developed in a population there is no need for government because people are capable of peacefully governing themselves.

It is possible to go from where we are now directly to right anarchism (that's what 'get government off our backs' is all about), but left anarchism requires passing through a period where the government promotes the development of the socialist mentality.

LeeAnnG, what about the Wall Street Journal poll of REPUBLICANS who showed that a large majority of them did not support "free trade"? Or polls showing an overwhelming majority of people want much stronger environmental policies, want to go after corporate power and believe that entrenched interests create policies for their and not our interests? How about the approval ratings of the big media, corporations, both parties and all in government? It seems that every dominant institution in this country is now being questioned, and that is with a 24/7 propaganda effort trying to get people to buy into the system. It isn't like people answer these questions in a vacuum, they are the targets of a very sophisticated and all encompassing propaganda effort by the media (which is owned by entrenched interests), the military and the government. Despite that they are rejecting the dominant institutions in this country. That says much more than could ever be captured in polls. We don't have an activist tradition in this country, if we did the people in power would be much more worried than they are, since all we do generally is sit on our ass and vote for politicians to run our lives for us.

There is also, thanks to the media, no logical connection between most of the issues. I can ask you about the effects of so called "free trade", then another separate question about immigration. You might oppose "free trade" AND open borders, which would place you on the "left" and the "right", but logic allows us to connect the two. Immigration has gone up many times over since NAFTA was signed, NAFTA has without a doubt ruined Mexico and thrown hundreds of thousands of farmers off the land (thanks in large part to state subsidized agro corporations). Some poll is not going to connect the questions asked about issues, as if these issues exist by themselves with no connection. I also doubt that the poorest sections of this country (and others) are ever asked their opinions on issues, since neither political party cares about them and they are invisible to the media and most of the middle and upper class.

Wind blows leaves and newsprint

Left, right,

Down the dirty street.

Nothing exists.

Who knows anymore what to believe about what the polsters believe about what the people believe.... ad nauseum.

It's evident that the structure of most opinion surveys over the years have become less and less a marker of people's deeper life values (almost in inverse ratio to becoming more and more 'scientific'); and now are used instead as stacked market surveys to help normalize [more] mass dysfunctional values and behaviors, so that even crazier normalizations can be trickled-down by an insatiably manipulative, de facto oligarchy .

The important things for us to know as citizens (namely, how institutions and individuals need to change their values, functions and interrelations in order to create and maintain a sane, humanist society) are not to be found in today's kind of opinion polls.

Since on balance neither individuals or institutions function sanely anymore in this society, any new kind of useful public survey would first need to openly state this fact at the outset, and then, from there, begin to ask meaningful questions about "Why?"

Of course, this will never be allowed.

kinda reminds me of right of center National Public Radio... which the right wing regularly self-attacks as being a 'leftie' news source so that they can move the definition of 'center' even further to the 'right'? Classic CIA Psyops type stuff. Not that far fetched since the President of NPR, Kevin Klose, was former director of all worldwide CIA propaganda broadcasts.

IMPEACH DUBYA AND DICKIE; don't read the NYT; they are not to be believed in most cases. Hannity is a blowhard, who needs to be canned.

penscot: If you were surprised, I guess your prior observations must have been quite distant and/or colored by the "yearning to breathe free" propaganda on that French statue.

Actually, I think most "furreners" would be quite content to see the USA continue as a bastion of extreme right lunacy. Unfortunately, USA Incorporated will never be content to allow the rest of the world to live without the "benefits" of its "freedom and democracy" exports -- usually provided by force of arms, or at least the threat thereof.

Actually, I agree that many people, if asked the right questions, will come out on the "left" or "liberal" or "progressive" side of things. But having said that, I don't understand how the examples in the article show that Americans are moving to the left. These examples show a leftward movement, but statistically, they are generally moving from the right to the "middle."

Case in point:

– "The Iraq war has made the U.S. less safe from terrorism." 37% in 2003 and 49% four years later.

That means that 51% don't believe the U.S is less safe from terrorism. Almost 50/50. That's the center!

– "The U.S. should not attack another country unless it has been attacked first." 51% in Oct. 2002 and 57% in 2006

This one is admittedly slightly more to the left. 57/43 is not a hard swing to the left, although a 6% move is a good thing.

– "The government is spending too much for national defense and military purposes." 19% in Feb. 2001 and 44% in Feb. 2008.

Oop.s It moved leftward by 25%. That's a huge step in the "left" direction, but 66% are on the "right" side of the debate here. 44/66 is still not even the center, much less on the left overall.

On cultural issues:

– "Organized religion should have less influence in this nation." 22% in Jan. 2001 and 34% in Jan. 2008.

Once again, 34% is a 12% move left, but far, far from being center.

Moving leftward is not the same thing as being left-leaning statistically. If you go from 22% to 34%, you have not reached the center by a long, long way.

In fact, the Times was only wrong by omission. According to the samples given, people are not mainly moving from the left to the center and from the right to the center. They are moving, in general, from the right leftward TOWARD the center. But overall, they (again according to the examples in this article) are still slightly to the right of center. Whatever that really is.

Many years ago, when I came to America, I was surprised to discover I was in a land far more conservative than anywhere I'd ever lived before -- and I'd lived a lot of places!
Left was medium-center in Europe or the Pacific, Right was staunchly farther east than even the Margaret Thatcher conservative party.
What this country needs is a damn good revolution with much swearing.

The article by Jeff Cohen is quite solid down to the last sentence. Up till then, it accurately analyzes the data, & rightly excoriates the NYT for its systematic dishonesty. He accurately calls attention to the distinction between "the center of mass opinion" and "the center of elite opinion" -- two different beasts, entirely. An A-plus, so far.

Then Jeff says, "A demagogue like Sean Hannity instinctively knows this reality, which is why his attacks on Obama emphasize WrightAyresBitterMichelle more than issues."

Now this is really sneaky!! It's true, of course, that rightwing attacks on Obama are laughably dishonest -- the intellectual equivalent of swimming in a sewer with your mouth open. But Jeff is being dishonest here too, though in a far more subtle way. He's implying that because Obama is the victim of stupid demagogical attacks, that this somehow makes Obama virtuous; & that if we stuck to the "issues" rather than to personal smears, Obama would be a champ.

That implication is false. The very NYT data that show that the public is moving to the left, show that Obama will fail that entire section of the population very nearly as badly as the Republicans would. Obama is an advocate of the War on Terror, & an opponent of any cuts in "defense" spending. Obama himself supported the wretched new FISA law granting immunity to the spying telecoms, & has fully aligned himself with AIPAC. He doesn't support single-payer health care. // On these grounds alone (& it would be easy to cite additional grounds), Obama will fail the leftward-moving aspirations of the US population. Being the victim of dumb personal smears by Hannity doesn't alter that.

"It seems the extreme right and left wings are more alike than different."

I don't agree with this what so ever. Both are the same in that they seek a fundamental change, but WHAT fundamental change and why? If you point to any one issue, you can reveal certain core differences not between just the "left" and the "right", but the "center" too. For instance, in healthcare, do you agree or disagree fundamentally with the healthcare system here? In other words, should corporations and the profit motive be dominant factors in the life or death issue involved in healthcare? If not, what could possibly be a "centrist" healthcare system? If you are a "centrist", how could you justify the profit motive in healthcare?

What is the "centrist" position on economics? Should private authoritarian institutions, creations of centuries past, like corporations be the dominant institution? Should we do anything, for instance, by the explosion in size of the financial markets, which is just debt that could never be repaid? Should we allow a group of elites to monopolize the work of others through the financial markets and the monetary system? Should ecological information missing in prices and national induces be included (which have huge repercussions), and if not why not, since not including them will further destroy the environment? The "center" would probably say things should stay roughly as is, I have yet to hear a solid logical argument as to why, but they'd say so, they'd just like to tweak around the edges. Pick any issue and you realize that there are FUNDAMENTAL differences at how you can look and think about it, what you call yourself while disagreeing or agreeing with the status quo is just a matter of semantics, and that is a circular conversation that usually goes nowhere. The differences cause you to pick solutions, or to be a "centrist", which tries to make situations that are fundamentally flawed simply less bad. There are fundamental differences on every issue, and the status quo is not working any longer. The "center", ie just tinkering around the edges, has done nothing but slow down our decline. Whatever change comes will come from those seeking fundamental change, what you call them really doesn't matter.

For as long as I remember, the US has always been a One-Party state. That party is of course the Capitalist Party. The party has two wings. The right wing and the far right wing.

BOSTON - Syndicated columnist and former "Crossfire" host Robert Novak has been diagnosed with a brain tumor and is suspending his journalistic work.

GOOD, COULDN"T HAPPEN TO A MORE MISERABLE PIECE OF HUMAN FECES.

The Chicago Sun-Times columnist says he is suspending his journalistic work for an indefinite, period."

ACTUALLY, HE SUSPENDED HIS "JOURNALISTIC" WORK YEARS AGO, WHEN HE TOOK UP THE JOB OF BEING THE GOP'S HATCHETMAN

Novak was the first to publicly reveal the name of CIA operative Valerie Plame.

AND HE SHOULD DIE IN JAIL FOR THAT, THE FUCKING TRAITOR

Last week he was given a $50 citation after he struck a homeless man with his black Corvette in Washington. Novak kept going until he was stopped by a bicyclist.

RAMMING A HOMLESS GUY WITH YOUR BLACK "I HAVE A SHRIVELLED WHITE PENIS" CORVETTE?? WHAT WOULD FREUD SAY ABOUT THAT????

AND STOPPED BY A BICYCLIST?? TYPICAL OLD WHITE MAN DRIVING ....

How silly. All these numbers are minorities. Clearly half or more of the electorate is on the other side. If this isn't the middle I don't know what is. I see the right wing population moderating slightly and moving toward the middle. The author seems wrong to me. This is a temporarily uncertain right wing society. Violent, religious, right wing society.

It seems the extreme right and left wings are more alike than different.

Read Richard Condon's "The Manchurian Candidate". That's the whole point of the novel.

The people are to the "left" of both parties on a whole bunch of issues. Molly Ivins pointed that out on these very pages. PollingReport.com is a cool website that collects data from many different polling agencies- if you poke around, you see that trend on many issues.

By the way, the terms "Left Wing" and "Right Wing" come from pre-revolutionary France. There was a meeting called the French Assembly- on the left wing of the hall sat the farmers and peasants, and on the right wing of the hall sat the aristocracy and merchants.

It seems the extreme right and left wings are more alike than different. Their main similarity is that they are both conservative.

Most of us are somewhere in between these extremes, depending on the issue.

I think the deciding factor is behavior. That is, how liberal or conservative we are on an issue. It is not whether its a right or left issue because they are often the same. (see below)

A better measure of where Americans are moving than whether they are moving left or right is probably whether they are becoming more liberal or conservative.

Examples:

Right and left conservatives both want centralized "representative" government, a War on Drugs, spying on citizens, wealth/power inequality, state or corporate dictatorship, no elections or rigged elections, imprisoning or killing of dissidents, private or state privatization of the commons, little environmental oversight, propaganda instead of education, government or corporate control of wages, oligarchy or hegemony, and more.

Right and left liberals want direct democracy or even anarchy, to live and let live as long as they don't hurt anyone, government by consensus (direct online democracy?), the right to self medicate, the right to clean air, water, land, diversity of people, plants and animals, real education and proper health-care, ability to capitalize but not monopolize wealth and more.

The right and left distinctions are obviously wrong. They were likely invented by powerful right and left wing conservatives trying to coopt tolerant liberals by making it seem like our only choice was conservative government.

Is the NYT another Murdock company?

The absolute best comment ever made about a certain person is buried in a Roger Cohen New York Times Op-Ed piece which I didn't like as much:

"Beyond his bellicosity, Europeans will never forgive George W. Bush his dullness. No dream was ever stirred from that pinched presidential mouth."

All such commentators on Barack Obama's Berlin speech, however, disqualified themselves from respect or consideration if they failed to mention the threshold incident concerning Obama's father.

His father was a goatherd, Obama said.

With perfect timing from the otherwise silent, 200,000-strong crowd, someone rang some goat bells.

Obama stopped his speech for a smile as big, as warm, as incandescent as that of the late Louis Armstrong.

The New York Herald Tribune never would have missed that moment.

The problem is that by contemporary standards Richard Nixon and his policies are considered to be on the left. This begs the question of how far left are Americans willing to go to get back to a true center?

Left or right the time is running out for all if we do not stop the bickering and downright hatefull ways that have run this country from the begining.
The same way of doing things is getting nothing done for anybody except the warmongers and war profiteers and lets not forget the corprate world. In my community we are working with all parties to find NEW ways of governing ourselfs using some tribal methods in conflict resolutions seems to work for all people living in area the creator has given us to look after for the comming generations. The females in my area have taken a real leadership role and thier counsel is needed to bring the way goverment deals with people. Some day I would like to see the end of this pretend goverment that we know was designed for the white christians and the privilages they bestowed themselfs with the (hahaha)blessing of thier jesus and god, gods.
Peace be with you all
D.B.A.O.T.T.

It seems quite clear that movements in any direction by ordinary Americans could not matter less so long as the institutions of government, regardless of party affilitations, are wholly owned by USA Incoporated.

The Gallup poll, and even moreso the Media Matters poll, bring out the fact that Nader, Kucinich and even McKinney represent the middle of the American political spectrum, as measured by peoples' core beliefs and values. Thus defined, our elected officeholders are distributed from a small ragged fringe at the center of the spectrum on rightward! Yet FOX and the Republicans continue to define Obama, Kerry and Clinton as "the Left"!

Don't let them get away with it!

The Democratic Party is responsible for the demise of the left in America.

By demonizing real left candidates like Nader, instead of adopting his policy ideas, this incredibly corrupt party became a cynical version of the Republicans, only more menacing and hypocritical.

The truly sad fact is that after 8 years of balloning defense spending and hundreds of billions of dollars spent on an idiotic war in Iraq, created by a buffoon of a president, only 44% of the population believe we are spending too much on defense.
Doesn't offer much hope for the future...

-"The U.S. should not attack another country unless it has been attacked first." 51% in Oct. 2002 and 57% in 2006

That is a statistic that would shock many non-Americans around the world. 43% of Americans think that their nation should start wars with other countries? What is with that?

There always is a "Right" and a "Left," but they've always been relative terms.

Since Reagan, the Right has done a superb job of casting terms such as Liberal and Leftist as labels to be avoided at all costs. Some gutsy people, such as U.S. Rep Barney Frank, D-Mass., proudly claims to be a Liberal (at least, last I knew). But a politician has to occupy a fairly safe seat in order to exhibit that kind of courage.

When large numbers of voters decide to own it again, politicians will, too.

Leftists should take some comfort in knowing history almost always proves conservatives are wrong over time.

Conservatives, in their day, were opposed to all of these:
Social Security, Medicaid, Medicare, the G.I. Bill, the United Nations, NATO, the Federal Reserve Act, intervention in World War I, Suffrage for Women, Pure Food and Drug Act, National Parks, Suffrage for African-American men, Freedom for slaves, Lincoln's prosecution of the Civil War, Henry Clay's system of internal provements, the Bank of the United States, the Louisiana Purchase, the Revolutionary War, etc., etc., etc.

And that's just the short list.

Americans are increasingly sliding down the razor while the ideologies of left and right do battle. The left is losing and the center is disappearing. The winning right will vent it's blood lust on the left and center before destroying itself. There are no winners in the march toward death.

Beautifully said! Thank you.

Americans are increasingly sliding down the razor while the ideologies of left and right do battle. The left is losing and the center is disappearing. The winning right will vent it's blood lust on the left and center before destroying itself. There are no winners in the march toward death.

Samson: "And, rather than focusing on blowhards like Hannity, the far more interesting question is why do the Democrats and Obama work so hard to stay so far to the right of the American people?"

It's a tight rope to walk- between The People's crazy leftist sentiments, to the People's insane rightist ones, to the elite's money and power and the priorities that come along with that.

I guess you have to appease the institutions that will get you favorable exposure to win a popularity contest. I wonder, how would this be different if CD was the major news source of the country??

It has been my opinion for a long time that most every single person is in the "Left" column, if you don't use specific language and phrasing triggers, most of the country will agree on "progressive" solutions.

But, those that say they do not agree, I put into 2 groups - Those that stand to gain by the dominance over others (the elite) and those being duped by emotional identity and fear based social and political systems. Another way of saying that there are a lot of stupid people who vote against their own interest, but who really really believe in what they are doing (out of blind faith I think, but don't tell them that- they get really mad).

Maybe in concealment we are all bastards, but in public we at least say we value community and compassion!

I came across the artical this morning. To be honest I considered the headline so misleading I didn't bother reading it. Consider the soarce.

And, rather than focusing on blowhards like Hannity, the far more interesting question is why do the Democrats and Obama work so hard to stay so far to the right of the American people?

The NYT works very hard to miss this. They don't represent 'people', the NYT has always represented the elite. There's a lot of documentation of this.

This of course leads to people who don't pay attention to anything beyond what they see in the media to make mistakes like thinking there isn't a 'left' in America. Suggestion, come to Denver in Aug and meet it.

There is no "left" in the United States any longer. There is only right and farther right.