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As Santorum and Romney Battle for the Loony Right, the Rest of Us Should Not Gloat
My father was a Republican for the first 78 years of his life. For the last twenty, he’s been a Democrat (he just celebrated his 98th.) What happened? “They lost me,” he says.
They’re losing even more Americans now, as the four remaining GOP candidates seek to out-do one another in their race for the votes of the loony right that’s taken over the Grand Old Party.
(Photo: REUTERS/Joshua Lott)
But the rest of us have reason to worry.
A party of birthers, creationists, theocrats, climate-change deniers, nativists, gay-bashers, anti-abortionists, media paranoids, anti-intellectuals, and out-of-touch country clubbers cannot govern America.
Yet even if they lose the presidency on Election Day they’re still likely to be in charge of at least one house of Congress as well as several state legislators and governorships. That’s a problem for the nation.
The GOP’s drift toward loopyness started in 1993 when Bill Clinton became the first Democrat in the White House in a dozen years – and promptly allowed gays in the military, pushed through the Brady handgun act, had the audacity to staff his administration with strong women and African-Americans, and gave Hillary the task of crafting a national health bill. Bill and Hillary were secular boomers with Ivy League credentials who thought government had a positive role to play in peoples’ lives.
This was enough to stir right-wing evangelicals in the South, social conservatives in the Midwest and on the Great Plains, and stop-at-nothing extremists in Washington and the media who hounded Bill Clinton for eight years, then stole the 2000 election from Al Gore, and Swift-boated John Kerry in 2004.
They were not pleased to have a Democrat back in the White House in 2008, let alone a black one. They rose up in the 2010 election cycle as “tea partiers” and have by now pushed the GOP further right than it has been in more than eighty years. Even formerly sensible senators like Olympia Snowe, Orrin Hatch, and Dick Lugar are moving to the extreme right in order to keep their seats.
At this rate the GOP will end up on the dust heap of history. Young Americans are more tolerant, cosmopolitan, better educated, and more socially liberal than their parents. And relative to the typical middle-aged America, they are also more Hispanic and more shades of brown. Today’s Republican Party is as relevant to what America is becoming as an ice pick in New Orleans.
In the meantime, though, we are in trouble. America is a winner-take-all election system in which a party needs only 51 percent (or, in a three-way race, a plurality) in order to gain control.
In parliamentary systems of government, small groups representing loony fringes can be absorbed relatively harmlessly into adult governing coalitions.
But here, as we’re seeing, a loony fringe can take over an entire party — and that party will inevitably take over some part of our federal, state, and local governments.
As such, the loony right is a clear and present danger.
Robert Reich, one of the nation’s leading experts on work and the economy, is Chancellor’s Professor of Public Policy at the Goldman School of Public Policy at the University of California at Berkeley. He has served in three national administrations, most recently as secretary of labor under President Bill Clinton. Time Magazine has named him one of the ten most effective cabinet secretaries of the last century. He has written thirteen books, including his latest best-seller, Aftershock: The Next Economy and America’s Future; The Work of Nations; Locked in the Cabinet; Supercapitalism; and his newest, Beyond Outrage. His syndicated columns, television appearances, and public radio commentaries reach millions of people each week. He is also a founding editor of the American Prospect magazine, and Chairman of the citizen’s group Common Cause. His widely-read blog can be found at www.robertreich.org.
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276 Comments so far
Show AllUnfortunately, the "loony right" consists of two branches, the Republicans and the Democrats. Neither party is serving We the People.
money is the country these folks represent
"Orit Gadiesh (Hebrew: אורית גדיש) is an Israeli-American corporate strategist and chairwoman of management consulting firm Bain & Company. Research Ms. Gadiesh further and one learns that prior to joining Bain & Company, and before working closely with Mitt Romney, Ms. Gadiesh served in the office of the Deputy Chief of Staff of the Israeli Army. "
http://atrueott.wordpress.com/2012/02/01/ask-mitt-anything-you-betcha/
can you say mossad
"ROMNEY'S ISRAELI HANDLER - Orit Gadiesh, former "War Room" assistant to Ezer Weizman and Moshe Dayan, is the daughter of Israeli Brigadier General Falk Gadiesh (born Falk Gruenfeld, Berlin, 1921) and his Ukrainian-born wife. Gadiesh is chairman of the management consulting firm Bain & Company, the parent company of Bain Capital, and was the company's managing director under CEO Mitt Romney in 1992. "
http://www.whale.to/c/mitt_romney1.html
gingrich is sheldon adelson's blow boy
"Las Vegas casino mogul Sheldon Adelson made a "substantial" donation two days ago to a super PAC supporting GOP presidential hopeful Newt Gingrich, providing a fresh infusion of cash for a multistate ad campaign.
The donation to Winning Our Future super PAC is in the "same range" as earlier donations from Adelson, said a person familiar with the contribution. Adelson and his wife each donated $5 million in January to aid the former House speaker. The person, who was not authorized to discuss the contributions publicly, spoke on the condition of anonymity.
In an effort to revive Gingrich's faltering campaign, Winning Our Future plans to run ads in seven states that vote next month. TV ads, touting Gingrich's energy proposals, will air starting Tuesday in Ohio, Georgia, Tennessee and Oklahoma. Commercials will start Wednesday in three other states -- Alabama, Mississippi and Kansas."
http://content.usatoday.com/communities/onpolitics/post/2012/02/sheldon-adelson-donation-gingrich-super-pac/1#.T0z-c4dQ7UQ
he has promised 100 million to old newt
maybe that's why newt said palestines are a myth
"Perhaps no other major presidential candidate in recent times has had his fortunes based so squarely on the contributions of a single donor, as Gingrich has on Adelson, who has spent millions in support of Gingrich and his causes over the past five years. In a primary season dominated by the mega-spending of super PACs, Adelson’s efforts on Gingrich’s behalf provide a window into the expanding influence of the super-rich on American politics."
http://www.washingtonpost.com/investigations/sheldon-adelson-and-newt-gingrich-one-gained-clout-from-friendship-the-other-funding/2012/01/11/gIQACvSrBQ_story.html
"The Daily Beast's Aram Roston pointed out that Adelson is "a staunch supporter of groups such as the Zionist Organization of America and other such groups, which believe Palestinians have no valid claims.
Read more: http://chasvoice.blogspot.com/2012/02/meet-with-sheldon-adelson-zionist.html#ixzz1nh7Xxie4"
santorum is blow boy to a mr freiss
"Foster Friess, a major contributor to a super PAC that supports the GOP candidate for president, was discussing Santorum's stances on social issues like contraception and women's reproductive rights in an interview with MSNBC's Andrea Mitchell when he declared: "Back in my days, they used Bayer Aspirin for contraception. The gals put it between their knees and it wasn't that costly."
Although Hogan Gidley, a spokesperson for Santorum, told Talking Points Memo that the campaign would not comment on Friess's statement, the candidate himself decided to do so.
On Thursday night, during an interview on the FOX News program "On The Record W/Greta Van Susteren," Santorum brushed off Friess's comment.
"Foster is known in political circles as telling a lot of jokes and some of them are not particularly funny, which this one was not," Santorum said."
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/02/17/rick-santorum-foster-friess_n_1283882.html
romney with his zionist controller
gingrich with his zionist funder
and santorum with his christian sugar daddy
and obummer kissing everyone's ass from israel to wall street and back again
now there is change you can believe in....not
Just as Reich does a very good job of describing the character of the far-right, and misses the part about how far to the right these insidious interests have taken the entire nation, and BOTH political camps, you present a portrait of funding that leaves out other influential, vital interests... like the PAC money representing Big Oil, the PAC money representing weapons' developers and/or the MIC. There could be no buyers if someone wasn't energetically (as well as enthusiastically) selling WAR and its rudimentary arms.
Truth is more than focusing on one or two slices of the pie.
By making the right look as awful as it is, Reich takes on the magician's sleight of hand by directing viewers' (in this case voters) attention to where the magic trick is supposedly underway. Meanwhile, the props deflect attention from the worst truth of all: that both parties indeed have fallen under thrall to big money interests. The system itself largely determines that outcome. Just as the Supreme Court betrayed the citizenry in putting Bush, the more business friendly candidate, sure to further deregulate the EPA while decimating checks & balances on "Capital Rules" into the Oval Office, now it's obscenely ruled that big business can BUY the presidency, directly.
Massive crimes are taking place in plain sight. Blaming them on religious lunatics of any patriarchal clan, is missing other critical elements of the blasphemous picture.
Very accurate comment. I agree that the system itself determines the outcome. Our system is a capitalist militarist imperialist oligarchy masquerading as a freedom loving republic. Most thinking people realize that the US is run by the wealthy few. Capitalism is in trouble as a popular concept also, especially with younger people.
Militarism and imperialism are the aspects of our system that most Americans have trouble owning up to. The Hollywood War Machine and the Company ridden commentariat must bow to the goodness of the US military, and by logical implication, they are also bowing to the empire. This sets the tone for the nation, as does military dominance of other areas of cultural and economic life in the US. Even this dominance is weakening. The masses are tired of wwar and do not want to see tax dollars stolen from the People's State to fund the warfare state.
This is the revolutionary aspect of Ron Paul's platform. He does not bow to the empire or the Pentagon, nor for that matter to the police state. He says in public what very few liberal or conservative politicians or commentators will say.
"De-fund the US Empire!"
"No More Taxes For War"
I am not a fan of Dr Paul. Like the Confederate slaveholders who wre strong believers in freedom for tye white male property owning class, his view of freedom is skewed by reactionary views about property, class, race and gender; nonetheless, I'm glad he's running because his foriegn policy views need to be heard. Perhaps he will embolden some liberal commentators and politicians but I doubt it because it is my belief that nearly all of them are Company controlled, and have been for a very long time. They seem to the exact length of their leashes.
So Paul's campaign is both a wonder and it puts leftist political impotence on glaring display. The Company doesn't seem to go for Paul's juggler the way they would if a left anti-militarist were as prominent. Paul must have libertarian protectors buried in the National Security State complex.
Sioux & dreamjoe -
I agree. Reich does a great job of describing the evolution of the GOP for the last couple of decades, and the effect of allowing the lunatics take a 50% management stake in running the asylum. But he says nothing about the complicity of the Democratic Party establishment in all of this, including the Clinton administration's addiction to triangulation.
As for Ron Paul, I agree that the mainstream media doesn't go for his jugular the way they would go after an antiwar left-of-center candidate who said the same things. I think it's more that he's such an easy figure to marginalize as a rather harmless old kook - and it's always better to marginalize and make fun of your ideological adversaries than to have to take them seriously and address the merits of their critique.
I still don't understand why Paul's simple stump speech messages on foreign policy - variations on "We should get out of there (Iraq, Afghanistan) because we really have no business over there..... We're wasting trillions of dollars over there waging wars that in the long run simply make matters worse....." - is a refrain that Democratic candidates (including Blue Dogs) couldn't similarly adopt. I think the DC beltway Dem strategists are still spooked about how presidential contenders whose resumes had legitimate credentials in the US peace movement (McGovern, Kerry) got villified.
It's shallow reasoning, but it passes for conventional partisan wisdom in Washington DC, which suits the institutional interests of the War Machine just fine.
Bill from Saginaw
Bill
I was pretty much with you until your penultimate paragraph when you stated how "how presidential contenders whose resumes had legitimate credentials in the US peace movement (McGovern, Kerry) got villified". I think that sentence can certainly apply to McGovern. But I think it is important to point out that while Kerry protested against the Vietnam War when he was younger he threw his peace credentials to the side as he sought to assure the American people during the 2004 election that he had no intention of calling for the immediate withdrawal of all U.S. soldiers and military bases and equipment from Iraq and Afghanistan.
Kerry was far from being an anti-war candidate as the only difference that he wished to emphasize between himself and GW Bush was that he could supposedly manage both occupations better than his presidential rival.
Because the DLC candidates are beholden to AIPAC, the banks, and MIC, and like him or not Paul is his own man.
Did you really not know that Bill?
I must say I get tired of "progressives" who would sacrifice the lives of hundreds of thousands of third world people on a pyre of political correctness by in essence collaborating with the neo-cons in trashing the only electable anti war candidate Paul.
Nobody's trashing Paul here. No one is posting campaign propaganda.
It makes sense for leftists to have a clear view of where Paul stands on all the issues and then make a reasonable judgement about the positives and negatives.
If you wantto stump for Paul, that's fine with me, but you seem opposed to a critical examination of Paul's entire platform.
Also you call objections to the more reactionary aspects of Paul's platform "political correctness" That's both innaccurate and very right wing.
But then you've demonstrated a certain lack of critical thinking in your anti-red tirades; so , why should I expect anything else.
I am not stumping for anyone, in many ways Ron Paul is a deeply flawed thinker in embracing Austrian school economics, I am just pointing that I think it is somewhat asinine for self proclaimed peace oriented progressives to sacrifice hundreds of thousands of ACTUAL third world lives that would be saved if Paul stopped the wars because of some mere words published in a newsletter he oversaw that he didn't even write. It seems tremendous unethical and dare I even say"racist" to engage in such a blatant attitude of American exceptionalalism and write off peoples ACTUAL lives in the middle east in pursuit of some abstract ideal. At the end of the day I have trouble having respect for that position. So perhaps it is *you* who has trouble in engaging in critical thinking and seeing the consequences of your thought over action world view, eh?
Let's hear your views on the subject of racism.
The people you are debating with here did not mention the Ron Paul newsletter - that he didn't even write.
And, yes, you have been promoting the Ron Paul candidacy. Only now when confronted with the argument about privatization are you backing down.
By the way, what I posted is that the empire cannot be reined in, and wars can not be stopped, through "embracing Austrian school economics." You did not respond to that, rather instead you switched the topic to be about the newsletters and about what might be "somewhat asinine for self proclaimed peace oriented progressives" to be saying about those newsletters.
No, I am interested in many ideas, you however are here promoting Bolshevik Communism, ie the Gulag. Don't project your fundamentalist communist party foot soldier fanaticism on me based on one my floating the idea of one strategic vote for one candidate to save third world lives and roll back police state.
Do you have a hammer and sickly flag or other Soviet era propaganda hanging on the walls of your house? I DON'T have any propaganda from ANY U.S. political party left or right, I think the system is finished.
No one here has been doing any "promoting of Bolshevik Communism, ie the Gulag." No one is projecting their "fundamentalist communist party foot soldier fanaticism" on you.
I believe you have said you support Bolshevik Communism in the past TA. Are you a member of the Communist party?
i think that's "Are you now or have you ever been a member of the Communist Party " there's something uncomfortable about that.
If someone were a Republican noe-con troll, asking them if they were a Republican is a legitimate question, considering Bolshevik Communists have if anything done more damage to the world than even neo-cons I believe asking a person if they are a card carry Communist is a legitimate question. I am NOT suggesting they should be black balled, or denied their freedom of speech, or any rights whatsoever, but I do know that if I know someone is a Communist I won't take anything they say seriously, and I will be wary of any attempts they make to join any activist group I am a part of.
Back off crow. If you had even an inkling of US history you might realize how out of bounds your comments are. TA's comments add depth and insight to this forum. You have a long, long way to go before the same could be said of you.
No mere words can cover for the river of blood created by Bolshevik Communism, making apologetics for Communist murder is quite literally no better than making apologetics for Bush's or Obomba's war crime murder sprees, shame on you, deep shame!
I would say as a general rule you can KNOW you have gone off the tracks politically when you start making apologetic for mass murder. Proud of yourselves?
Just ignore him. You are giving him a platform....Let him talk to himself....
Yes the murderous record of Communism should be swept under the carpet and taboo to talk about, much in the same way Bush-bots don't want to talk about Iraq or O-bots about Libya, right?
Good plan!
I've been reading the "debate" with a mix of interest and chagrin, and felt a need
to comment. Mrcrow, your point re Ron Paul's welcome stand against militarism is well taken. But surely you can understand most progressives cannot support a libertarian. As to communism, I'm personally comfortable disavowing it. But I would suggest you step back and recognize the context that triggered negative reaction to your question. This site has a mission of "Building Progressive Community". The right never stopped building on the rhetoric of the Red Scare. As a result the term "the left" still carries the residuals. In the USA the right has succeeded in giving the term "liberal" a perjorative meaning. The public has been conditioned to equate socialism with communism, such that one cannot, for example, advocate a Swedish form of socialism or socialized healthcare without being branded a communist. People to the left of center are being marginalized anew, in part as a result of the right's success associating them with communism. You demanded to know whether a commenter was a communist. I think it safe to say that a community of progressives has a justifiable negative reaction to red-baiting.
I never said anything regarding democratic socialism which while it isn't my chosen world view, I also have no special beef with. I am talking narrowly about Bolshevik Communism ie Trotskyism and Stalinism. It's disturbing to me that many here would make excuses for Bolshevik Communism that has a track record of having murdered millions of people while vigorously attacking Libertarians who have not. Although Libertarian is not ideal to me by a long shot compared to credit union funded co-ops, to fail to see that the Libertarian world view is VASTLY preferable to Bolshevik Communism can only be seen as an extreme flaw to anyone pay attention to history in my strong opinion. Just as I would want to know if someone posting here was a neo-con Republican operative troll, I also think it's a fair question to ask someone that they be transparent if they are advocating for party line Bolshevik Communism. There is no coercion I can use to compel the poster to answer, nor would I want to, as I am against coercion, but the fact the poster does not seem to want to be transparent as to where their political allegiance lies does not fill me with confidence that they might not be a card carrying Communist ie someone who spins for state sponsored murder much like Democrats and Republicans do.
As for for your sob story about oppression, I assure you anarchists have faced far more repression than Bolsheviks, Bolsheviks have in fact been at the forefront of dealing out state violence towards their own long enemies list and anarchists such as myself are often at the top of that list as exemplified by the Kronsadt massacre of anarchist sailors and trade Unionists in Russia, so perhaps you can see where the concern stems from?
F-ck you mrcrow. You're a McCartyite assh-le, and couldn'tthink your way out of a paperbag.
You pretend to be a big bad anarchist, but your just another middle class bullshitter.
Not to menton that you substituted a McCarthyite attack for a reasonable response to criticisms of your Paul stumping, you scumbag!
You are an extremely calm rational fellow aren't you?
If you are going to make apologetics for Bolshevism I suggest you change your login please, members of independent non statist Unions like heroic Joe Hill's IWW were murdered by the thousands by Lenin and Trotsky. Google Kronstadt massacre if you are confused as to what I am referring to.
P.S. I made less than 8,000 bucks last year, so that's lumpen to you. Why am I guessing you made a whole lot more than that?
Yes, I think there is a saying about that, and I will have to paraphrase it since I do not know its wording, but it goes something like this: Though both parties are loony, one is loonier than the other, so I will vote for the less loony party. Watch the height of looniness once again this election cycle, as droves of liberals and those who call themselves progressives will like lemmings mindlessly march over the same abyss they always do every election cycle. I guess there are some loony actions that when robotically performed over and over again just begin to seem normal.
More seriously, for those who support the less loonies, the question is how far does the center have to move to the right before one finds oneself in what was once the party of the "crazy loonies"? Seems we've reached that part of the spectrum. We are running out of room to move since the loony fringe is getting pretty crowed these days.
It looks to me that this entire thread is ignoring two things. One is we are trying to clean up the GOP, getting rid of ones that vote like the Democrats, RINO's. This next election should clean out most of them including the turncoat House Speaker John Boehner.
The second ignored aspic is about the Constitution, there is only one GOP candidate that will follow it as he has for the past 30 years. Ron Paul. obama has decreed the Paul should get no coverage in the news. That's the way it has been. However, as can be seen in all the debates to date, 3-3-12, have had voter fraud involved. The facts are Ron Paul has a VERY big following. Big enough to win this election with no problem. Follow the Constitution, vote Ron Paul.
"At this rate the GOP will end up on the dust heap of history."
At this rate the United States will end up on the dust heap of history, for the Democrats are no better than the Republican wicked, anti-enlightenment forces.
Secession anyone?
Seconded, time to break up U.S. empire.
Reich is the perfect empire stooge BTW in playing up shallow culture issues to create the illusion of difference, culture issues I would add that the power elite and ownership class rulers of the country don't care about AT ALL. They love it when the rubes fight about abortion, prayer in schools, and gays in the military, as it leaves them free to asset strip, and conduct bailouts, engage in corporate person hood, and engage in endless imperialist war without hindrance.
'll give you a perfect example, some here probably love Elizabeth Warren, yet all she is another Zionist war monger who wants to attack Iran:
http://www.commondreams.org/view/2012/02/26-8
On the whole though the core readership of CDs seems to see through the DIm v.s Repigliecon shell game even if they staff often doesn't.
Hey Mr. Crow
I think your alternative way of spelling the two major party names is accurate and hilarious. Thanks for the laughs. Down with the Pigocracy!
Agreed: most of the cultural issues being debated serve merely as diversions. God forbid that the masses ever figure out that all the rulers behind the rulers are interested in is the expansion of their capacity to exploit people and resources for the purpose of increasing their wealth advantage. But let's talk about prayer in schools....
Exactly. There is only one party. The War and Greed party. Reich is one of those delusional "progressives" who can't see beyond his unflagging loyalty to the Dems. He is also pro-Zionist, unable to see that forest for its racist trees either.
"The GOP’s drift toward loopyness started in 1993 when Bill Clinton became the first Democrat in the White House in a dozen years – and promptly allowed gays in the military, pushed through the Brady handgun act, had the audacity to staff his administration with strong women and African-Americans, and gave Hillary the task of crafting a national health bill."
And destroyed "welfare as we know it" with disastrous consequences under current conditions, pushed through the "effective death penalty act", killed 0.5 million+ children in Iraq (CBS: 'We have heard that a half million children have died. I mean, that's more children than died in Hiroshima. And, you know, is the price worth it?' Secretary of State Madeleine Albright: 'I think this is a very hard choice, but the price--we think the price is worth it'), and bombed the capitol of a European country under bogus pretexts. And pushed through the repeal of the Glass-Steagall act, a necessary prelude to the crash of 2008.
But at least he wasn't one of those crazy-ass Republicans!
EYErag: I'm glad you brought up Bill Clinton today, as I hear he's on the list for the next Nobel Peace Prize! That made me think about his record, and wonder what the evidently corrupt committee makes of the following, in considering him to be a worthy candidate.
Mr. Clinton presided over the world's most influential office when:
1. Welfare as we know it was ended
2. Kosovo was bombed
3. The housing bubble began to inflate.. through largely artificial means
4. The FCC deregulated media, so that the current handful of propagandistic broadcasters could own & control the entire nation's bandwidths (manufacturing consent was never made easier)
5. NAFTA was passed, to effectively decimate the livelihoods of farmers throughout Mexico and some of Central America (enter an influx of low wage workers)
6. The Steagall-Glass Act was revoked to make it possible for commercial banks to speculate MADLY on the Stock Market (enter the collapse of global economies to an insidious infusion of faux "mad" munny)
And lately... the bastard used Aid funds intended to help the thrice battered Haitian people to purchase deadly trailers. And still, close to a million people remain homeless, with many women terrorized by rapists in their midsts.
For this record, the same moral misfits who thought Obama qualified wish to potentially bestow this honor on Clinton? It should go to Kathy Kelly! With the logic the committee displays, why not provide posthumous awards to Hitler, Genghis Kahn, Pinochet and others?
The moral bottom has fallen out of the human equation. Fortunately, millions are waking up as it's hard not to hear the alarm clock when homes, health care, livelihoods, and posterity itself... are being auctioned off by warriors and modern Scrooges.
As Michael Moore put it, Clinton was our best Republican president. We've witnessed The Fall since...
I think Clinton's baton for "Best Republican fielded by the Dems' has been passed to Obama...
none of you people have yet to understand that obama is clinton in a clever disguise. yes clinton is the first president to be in office for 3 terms. he'll not only get a 4th term but will come back as a woman, guess as who, and get a 5th and possibly a 6th.
Thanks to former President Clintons "improper relationship" with Monica Lewinsky, a country already mired in "celebrity" and propaganda became more concerned about his personal morality (questionable) than what he was doing to the country with his policies. However, if Bil Clinton is even being considered for the "peace prize", they might as well discontinue it, especially after the delusional decision to give it to President Obama.
"... Bill Clinton ... next Nobel Peace Prize ..."
What is the Nobel Peace Prize - Toilet paper?
"They’re losing even more Americans now, as the four remaining GOP candidates seek to out-do one another in their race for the votes of the loony right that’s taken over the Grand Old Party." Untrue. There is no "Republicans" and "Democrats." There is ONE CORPORATE PARTY, with two divisions or wings. So the GOP loses some voters? So what. Those people will switch over to the other corporate wing, the Dumbocrats, and vote for the continuation of the corporate Plutocracy.
When are Amereichans going to wake up and see that it doesn't matter which of the 2 corporate wings they vote for - D or R - they are still voting for the same corporate, plutocratic agenda?? Christ people, open your freaking eyes. Stop being part of the problem and start being part of the solution. If every Amereichan voted for conscience and principals - instead of out of habit, or the "lesser-of-two-evils," there wouldn't even BE a Republican or Democratic party any longer.
WAKE UP.
ALL of the people in the "Ruling Class" are LOONY!! ....and Dangerous.
A very good layman's diagnosis of the Elite's psychopathy, if you ask me.
Folks on CD keep telling Robert Reich to WAKE UP !!!! It worked.
MY SLATE
---James Carville for President.
---George Carlin for Honorary Vice President.
---Robin Williams for Secretary of State.
---Elayne Boosler for Surgeon General.
Trylon
james carville thinks there is no side. his wife plays his game for the right. carville plays the politics as if the concept of sides is a joke. blue and red are just colors, no other distinction. he just gets his paycheck from the dims.
I fully agree that the Democratic Party is pretty awful in many ways (and so was Bill Clinton, and so is Barak Obama), but they are just not in the same league as the modern Republicans who are truly ignorant, delusional, and mendacious. We are left with the choice of the lesser of two evils (the democrats) or "wasting" our votes on a third-party candidate.
Jim Shea
Jim Shea seeks to perpetuate the myth that "We are left with the choice of the lesser of two evils (the democrats) or 'wasting' our votes on a third-party candidate."
Wrong. If you vote your conscience by voting for a candidate like Stewart Alexander or Rocky Anderson then one's vote can never be considered to be wasted.
Voting your Conscienceeva Never a wasted vote -
A truly wasted vote is voting for something you don't want - and getting it!
"I'd rather vote for what I want, and not get it, than vote for what I don't want, and get it."
Jim, consider this:
It's hard to break out of the common-sense lesser-evil perception that the Democrats are better than, or preferable to, the Republicans.
Perhaps describing an old Muppets skit from the Ed Sullivan Show era will help to provide a transcendental conceptual view.
In this skit, Kermit (or a Kermit-type frog) sees a tempting little striped worm poking out of the ground.
Kermit begins tugging on the wee little thing, and begins to pull it out.
Surprisingly, as Kermit tugs and tugs, the worm proves to be endlessly long. And the more Kermit pulls out, the fatter the worm gets.
Finally, a humongous striped, toothy monster sidles into view next to the busily-tugging Kermit. It turns out that the innocuous little "worm" Kermit's been reeling in is actually the monster's tail. Whoops!
Can you guess the ending? Hint: the predator becomes the prey.
That's as good a metaphor for the Amerikan duopoly as it gets. As long as one focuses exclusively on the friendly little worm-- or the scary, nasty monster, for that matter-- and sees them as separate and distinct, one will be tricked into clinging to the worm.
It may be "counterintuitive", but one really must learn to understand, and keep in mind, that below the surface, the seemingly separate creatures really ARE one creature, or at least a single symbiotic creature-system-- and it's a predator that's having you for dinner.
Too bad Reich and so many others regularly published here were too immersed in their wonky studies to watch Muppets skits on the old Sullivan show. They might have actually learned something about life.
No your political sports team you root for isn't a lesser evil, it's just plain ordinary unvarnished evil from the expanded and even more Unconstitutional wars, to the bank bailouts, to letting BP handle the gulf oil spill, to the latest tar sands sell out. Does Obama have to kill and eat a baby on live tee vee before you mindless Dim supporters get they are quite literally EXACTLY as bad as the Repigliecons?
The group Young Politicians of America states it well:
"What is a Wasted Vote? An unprincipled vote is the only wasted vote. Voting for a third party, contrary to popular belief, is not a wasted vote. What is voting? It's a chance to tell the country -- and perhaps even the world -- what your vision of government and society really is. But how do most of us vote? Do the majority of those who believe Harry Browne or Ralph Nader is the best candidate, most in tune with our own feelings, actually vote for them? No. Instead, most of us vote the "lesser of two evils" -- a defensive vote, rather than an offensive one. The lesser of two evils is still evil. So what happens after you vote the defensive vote? Well, then you have sold out your personal beliefs. You have become a political prostitute. You aren't standing up for what you believe in by voting "the lesser of two evils". I don't know about you, but I'm tired of being a political hooker. If you think the Republican or the Democrat really does best mirror your beliefs, by all means, vote for that candidate. But if you don't, and you still vote for them, you're helping to preserve the status quo you probably despise."
speakout2
Your quote from that group is very well put and most relevant.
It’s as if people still don’t get it. It doesn’t matter who you vote for. As long as corporations continue to count the votes they will put in place who ever best serves their needs. Showing up to vote only legitimizes the constant theft of our democracy year after year.