I'm a big fan of Thomas Paine. It sickens me to see Beck disgrace Thomas Paine by stealing the name of Common Sense.

Riding the fence all the time has to get painful.

Indefinite detention, "kill lists" and drone wars, pre-emptive war as administration doctrine, spy centers for mining or surveillance of all phone calls and email without a warrant, internet IDs and internet-censoring measures like ACTA, military drones in American skies, coordinated violent crackdowns against peaceful protesters, strip searches for any arrestee, bailouts and settlements for corrupt banks, and austerity budgets in an economy that has already impoverished its middle class.....These are not moderate or centrist positions. Not by a long shot.

These are extreme corporatist, neocon, and police state policies, not "centrist" or moderate at all. And they are coming from corporatists in both parties.

It is imperative that we Occupy to get the corporate money out of politics.

Obama is fairly moderate or at least perceived that way by most people. However, his polices on the issues you mentioned are right-wing, but they aren't perceived that way anymore, because we have compromised so much that the "Center" is now a compromise between the two right wing positions.

For example, ACA. The Heritage Foundation, Mitt Romney, and many other neo-liberal thinkers have advocated for mandatory, for-profit private insurance for years.

Today's Democratic "centrists" have adopted the Heritage Foundation position as their optimal outcome. However, they have been forced to pretend to desire Single Payer in order to win the support of the Party base.

Thus, the kabuki theater of removing Single Payer from the table at the outset of negotiations, even while telling the base that Single Payer is what we should be fighting for.

Then, finally, these "centrists" can blame the "other side" for "forcing" them to accept a "compromise" which is, in reality, their optimal outcome to begin with. The "centrists" really believe they are too clever for everyone else to pick up on this crude "good cop/bad cop" routine.

As if DU's "centrists" really desire economic justice, and single payer healthcare, and an end to corporate rule--the Republicans may prevent the passage of such measures in the legislature, but who prevents these "centrists" from advocating for these things on this message board? On the contrary--they ridicule these beliefs on a regular basis.

They work for the same people and seek the same goal, they are just using different tactics to get it.

We have been lied to long enough.

The Democratic Party's Deceitful Game
http://www.salon.com/2010/02/23/democrats_34/

I don't think it can be done by simply voting for the lesser of two evils, because you are still voting for an evil. It gets to the point where your choices are getting punched in the face or punched in the chest. Really, is there much difference? I think it will take more than voting to move this country to the left?

Last edited Thu Jul 19, 2012, 06:44 PM - Edit history (2)

they have only because we have given it to them. We can take it away if the people demand it.

IMO the most important thing to do right now is to wake people up and help them to see the truth of what is being done to them. We live in this corporate matrix from birth, and we are constantly fed the narrative that the one percent wants us to believe, about what the most important political issues are and what the parties are doing. The very fact that this OP started out by calling those who back any of this extreme corporate, right-wing, neocon, and police state policy "centrist" is proof of how powerful the propaganda is. Our political news is theater, virtually all of it, and it keeps us busy with faux or irrelevant fights between the parties while the most important corporate legislation - the stuff that is impoverishing us and building an ever more powerful and oppressive corporate state - is passed quietly and bipartisanly. There is a new one every day.

People will endure and tolerate enormous pain if they believe it is unavoidable or nobody's fault, or if they believe that they have advocates who are working hard for them despite very difficult circumstances. They become much less passive when they wake up to the truth that they are being used as tools to line someone else's pockets, and they can't feed or shelter their children anymore.

This entire theft has been described to Americans as though it were an unfortunate weather event rather than the result of chosen policy: "The economy had a downturn." Our pain is described as unfortunate but inevitable, and we are exhorted to welcome "shared sacrifice." We are offered a choice of two sets of policies, both of which pour billions more into corporate profiteering, empire, and war while stripping us of our communities, schools, livelihoods and safety nets. And the two horrible options (one not QUITE as horrible as the other) are offered as though they are the only two possible options. We are played.

Once you wake people up to what is really happening...Once they become aware of the corporate money pouring into Washington and begin to see the patterns and see through the theater and realize that they can predict the outcome of the next debt ceiling negotiations as unfailingly as you can...then they will begin to get angry and demand change.

But you have to cut through the propaganda and the distraction, both of which are thick and constant and unrelenting. You have to help people step outside of the Matrix and see things as they really are. Then there will be enough of us to demand the corporate money and influence out of our government.