I'm starting to think that we're looking at this whole thing wrongly . . .

this whole left/right dichotomy, as it exists today, is something created by those in power to prevent us from seeing where the REAL dichotomy is . . . the right has coopted conservatism so that it no longer bears any resemblance to the classic understanding of the term and pitted it against the liberal tradition on which this nation was founded . . . where classic conservatism was concerned about things like less government intrusion into personal lives, protection of the environment, and balanced budgets, the neocons have redefined the term with all kinds of artificial religious and cultural crap like gay marriage, abortion, prayer in schools, etc. . . stuff that should be personal and no business of any government . . .

the REAL dichotomy that we should be addressing is between the haves and the have-nots, the rich and everyone else . . . by "staging" the political battle on a horizontal (left/right) axis, those in power are preventing the American people from coming together to fight the REAL battle -- the vertical battle between "them that has" and the rest of us . . . and this is enabling them to "continue to take" -- to literally rape the nation's riches, hoarding it all for themselves and paying for it with our labor and the lives of our children . . .

this is why the Democrats in power are not contesting the election, why they're going along with Republican nominations, why they're supporting horrendous appropriations bills . . . when was the last time we had a real populist in a position of power, someone who actually stood up for the middle and lower classes? . . . the only one I can think of is Paul Wellstone, and look what happened to him . . . no, these folks -- our Democratic representatives and Senators -- are all "haves," and they'd just as soon keep it that way . . . and they know that if they align themselves with "the people" (with US) in any meaningful way -- by telling the truth about the elections, about Iraq, about the corruption -- they'll be out of the loop and could even end up being Wellstoned . . .

the battle, friends, is NOT between left and right . . . that's a phoney battle created by the haves to keep the have-nots at each others' throats while they continue their plunder . . . the battle is between them -- the corporations, the media, the politicians of both parties -- and us, the people . . . until we come to understand this, we'll keep fighting amongst ourselves while they continue to take our money, send our kids off to war, continue to consolidate their power, and ultimately destroy what's left of the middle class and our democracy . . . THEN it will become evident where the REAL battle has always been -- but by then it will be too late . . .

these people are very good at what they do . . . millions of people in this country actually believe that things like gay marriage and abortion are the most important issues facing us today . . . they believe this because they have been indoctrinated to believe it . . . and they've been indoctrinated to believe it to keep them from focusing on what the REAL issues are . . . issues like jobs, income distribution, fair and progressive taxation, corporate regulation, health care, education, protection of the environment, and peace . . . things that ALL reasonable people, left and right, could find ways to work together on . . . if we weren't spending all of our time and energy fighting each other about all that other peripheral stuff . . .

as long as we continue to play on THEIR field and expend all of our energies on this phoney left/right battle, we'll never succeed in making the kinds of changes that will bring about a just and humane society . . .

Kinda quiet in here. One would think you are talking about the wrong subject. THey say it is imoplite to discuss politics in certain places (((Ahem!)))
Yeah, I agree with you. You wrote:
millions of people in this country actually believe that things like gay marriage and abortion are the most important issues facing us today . . . they believe this because they have been indoctrinated to believe it . . . and they've been indoctrinated to believe it to keep them from focusing on what the REAL issues are.

Millions of people? They? Us? Looks to be like the dem and GOP wanna keep the discussion just where it is right now, and a lot of DUers agree with that. But not me.

Is that what the ". . ." punctuation mark is meant to represent? ;-)

to give themselves legitimacy. They may win 26% of the eligible voters and end up with the "most" votes. They may even call it a mandate. They are the "anti-democratic" Party, otherwise known as the Republican Party..

Yes, what you say is right. But "they" do everything they can to keep the subject away from class issues. The fact that the Democrats are not bringing this up as an issue means the Democratic party is not on the side of the people but are part of the "they" party.

We need another party. The people in control of the Democrats and Republicans are the same party right now.

EOM

And the phony election disguises the loss of our democracy.

Being a political forum in an election year I decided to politely refrain until after the election from posting about the Illusion of Choice (I just wouldn't of been nice of me) I have been mentioning it since the election a few times and I'm happy to finally see some talk of this here,its been hard wallowing thru the denial and false hope since the election.I still feel like I'm hurting someones feelings by bringing up this paradigm (SORRY! ala Monty Python)The way I see it,the government gives you two choices who to vote for,and no matter which one you choose you pick the government.

consciousness (?). it's been years and years and my memory of it is a little vague. IAE, it is a form of social control where we appear as if we are moving forward but in actuality, we are regressing. a prime example is the voting.

i find your post is spot on. i never thought of it in terms of lateral vs. vertical dichotomies. so true. very interesting...

to use for this situation. Excellent! I am starting to recall more and more of my fine Liberal education.

:evilgrin:

Your dad's money was well spent.

it was well rounded and i am truly blessed. my sociology professor was a true revolutionist and fought bitterly for human rights. he was very much a fighter against the machine. he really opened my eyes to the insidiousness of social control and the different faces that it takes. it was a powerful class that has armed me well.

I've come to reject the very terms "left" and "right" when I engage in political discussions. (For one thing, there's nothing right about the so-called "Right". I won't even give them the pleasure of appropriating the insinuations of that word for themselves.) As long as we continue to fight on their grounds, as long as we allow them to determine both the battles and the battlefield, we are finished as a nation, as a people, and maybe even as human beings.

Something that struck me the other day is the realization that, through various forms of propaganda and manipulation, people have been taught to act against their own best interests. They go to church, where the preacher tells them that they must somehow-- vaguely, indefinably--"live for others". Not having any idea of how to do that in practical terms, they wander back home, where their TVs tell them that, because they "do so much for others", they really need to think about themselves for a while, and so urge them to go out and buy stuff. Eat more, drink alcohol (the nation's drug of choice), flirt, party, have artificially contrived "fun". Do anything to get your mind off the facts that, in reality, (1) you aren't doing all that well, and (2) you really aren't doing much for anyone else, either.

And instead of a Protestant work ethic, which produced a mindset of making a decent living through individual will and effort and good craftsmanship, we now have a Protestant lottery ethic, where everyone thinks the world owes them a living and that, if they could only become spectacularly rich overnight through some twist of fate or luck, they would be able to get out of their financial doldrums and become part of that wealthy class (which even they realize they don't actually "deserve"), and any thought of how to help others that may have lay dormant in their hearts and minds vanishes altogether.

We have so distorted "morality" that it is no longer recognizable.

I don't know how to counteract this situation. Maybe the current generation is basically lost to us. But the next generation is not--not yet, anyway. When I see how my own children behave in the world, it gives me hope. And thinking out loud here as I am, it occurs to me that perhaps that is where we should focus our efforts. Produce a generation that prefers compassion to conservatism, and we may not have to discuss class warfare any longer.

People vote against their own best interests. They give the power that should be in the hands of the people to a rather small minority of Americans who have convinced them they have their best interests at heart. Without the sheep to validate and legitimize them at the "polls", they would have nowhere near the power they have today. Because without that legitimacy, the people would not be as easily convinced to go along with policies that were not in their interests.
Sometimes I think voting only encourages them...

I very nearly sat this election out. I knew my state was going to go Kerry no matter what, so my lack of a vote wouldn't have made any difference. In the end, though, I voted, primarily because I wanted to declare myself as being on the correct side. :D

With rigged elections becoming the norm again, voting certainly seems like a waste of time. But instead of abstaining, I think it is more productive to continue to shine light on the fraud, even if it makes no difference to the final outcome. We need to learn how to focus people's attention on the real issues without the use of the mainstream media, which I fear is forever closed to us now. Grassroots and community work are, IMO, key.

by Leonard Steinhorn

its made me feel better about the young generation

www.salon.com

If my own grown children are any indication, I would say that Mr Steinhorn is correct: They are tolerant, giving, egalitarian, and fervently free. They don't fit any "establishment" molds, even when they belong to evangelical churches. (The church has to work to fit their mold.) I'm glad to hear that they aren't the exception, but might just be the rule.

I believe * is going to take down the Republican Party. I've felt this right from the beginning, in 2000. America is not like him; the world is not like him. And those minions who smell power and therefore play along with him, will turn on him when the rub comes. I wish I could say that this administration won't do an enormous amount of damage, won't hurt an awful lot of people, before this happens. But it will happen.

Nice meme!

Exactly.

Years ago, an acquaintance referred to a certain University of Minnesota administrator as a "dumb up." I'd never heard the term, so she explained this theory of social control that some sociologist had proposed (I don't recall which one).

Basically, you have two axes: up and down, and smart and dumb.

"Dumb downs" are low-ranking people who either don't realize that they're powerless or think it's supposed to be that way.

"Smart downs" are low-ranking people who realize that they're powerless and are trying to change it.

"Smart ups" are people with power who know exactly what the score is and who use cynical means to maintain power.

"Dumb ups" are people with power who don't really understand their place in the system and may be used as pawns.

By that classification, Colin Powell is a "dumb up," Cheney and the PNAC crowd are "smart ups," the Republican rank-and-file are "dumb downs," and the Democratic rank-and-file are "smart downs."

i think they know what they are doing but have sold themselves for perceived personal/professional gains.

Smart Uncle Tom Ups.

Pawns in a game. Pawns taught to hate one another by their Kings. Pawns go out to do the dirty work and get maimed or die. Such incidents fuel more hatred amongst the pawns, who in turn repeat the circle while adding more Pawns to the ranks.

The circle needs to have a 'stop' sign somewhere.

If the Pawns from both sides wake up and join forces, then the Kings are in trouble. The funny part is, who is going to take the first step? And will the other side take a chance? I doubt it.

Mobius strip. We keep looping back to the start. How does the strip get cut?

I'm surprised they haven't Wellstoned Bill Moyers.

Here is a commentary from several years ago.

Is Moyers maybe tha last, best hope for American journalism?

I believe he may very well be.

Right and left are meaningless anymore. The conservatives aren't conservative and the Democrats aren't liberal, let alone progressive.

Well done, thanks!

whenever anyone even touches on the topic, even obliquely, the are castigated for their supposed heresy . . . "Class warfare! You're fomenting class warfare!!" they chant, seemingly aghast . . . what they're REALLY saying is "You hit the nail right on the head; it IS class warfare. It's us against you. We started it, and we're going to win it. So fuck you all!" . . .

I just read a remarkable speech by AIDS activist Larry Kramer, graciously posted by DUer 94114_San_Francisco here:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=221x1418

while Kramer is addressing the gay community, specifically gay men, if you read about half way into his text you'll see that he is also addressing every one of us . . . in his speech, he quoted another speech given by Bill Moyers on October 20 . . . Moyers knows exactly what's happening, and what the REAL issues are:

“For years now, the corporate, political, and religious right—this is documented from 1971 on—the religious and political right has been joined in an axis of influence whose purpose is to take back the gains of the democratic renewal in the 20th century and restore America to a rule of the elites that maintain their privilege and their power at the expense of everyone else. For years now, a small fraction of American households have been garnering an extreme concentration of wealth and income while large corporations and financial institutions have obtained unprecedented levels of economic and political power over daily life.”

“Take note,” Moyers continues. “The corporate, political, and religious conservatives are achieving a vast transformation of America that only they understand because they are its advocates, its architects, and its beneficiaries. In creating the greatest inequality in America since 1929, they have saddled our nation, our States, and our cities and counties with structural defects that will last until our children’s children are ready for retirement, and they are systematically stripping government of all its functions, except rewarding the rich and waging war.”

“That drive,” Moyers continues, “is succeeding with drastic consequences for an equitable access to public resources, the lifeblood of any democracy. From land, water, and natural resources, to media and the broadcast and digital spectrums, to scientific discovery and medical breakthroughs, and even to politics itself, a broad range of American democracy is undergoing a powerful shift in the direction of private control.

“We are experiencing a fanatical drive to dismantle the political institutions, the legal and statutory canons, and the intellectual and cultural frameworks that have shaped public responsibility for social harms arising from the excesses of private power.”

later in the speech, Kramer says this . . .

"Anyway, it is done. What Moyers is talking about. It’s already happened. On a scale of such magnitude that it is difficult to see how we can ever take it back. It’s all in place now, this cabal of power. It almost doesn’t make any difference who is president.

and . . . (addressing gays, but again applicable to all) . . .

"And while all this happened, even if we had enough suspicions to act, what did we do? We completely shrank from our duty of opposition. Those are Christopher Isherwood’s words: “the duty of opposition.” But he was flagellating himself with these words. He fears that should he have to live face to face with a war in his backyard that he “would shrink from the duty of opposition.”

and . . .

"These are the problems we must confront as we go forward. If you are going to fight in a united way, which I am convinced is now the only way that can save us, we must find a platform that all of us can support without divisiveness and shame and guilt and all the other hateful weapons they will club us with.

"And if we do want to go out and fight again in a united way we must ask ourselves: are we able to replicate the kind of devotion and commitment and backbreaking thankless work and tactics that continues to bring them year after year into such positions of unlimited power. Thirty-five years of that? For thirty-five years the cabal I have spoken of has worked every single day and night to bring them their success. Quite frankly they deserve their victory and we deserve our loss."

if we want to win this fight -- if we want to survive, and want the planet to survive -- it's time to engage the REAL enemy in the REAL battle . . . sure, they have all the money and all the resources . . . but there are a hell of a lot more of us than there are of them . . .

"These are the problems we must confront as we go forward. If you are going to fight in a united way, which I am convinced is now the only way that can save us, we must find a platform that all of us can support without divisiveness and shame and guilt and all the other hateful weapons they will club us with."

possibly the most important thing that we could do would be to come together to construct a progressive, populist platform that is both clear and concise . . . something that articulates, in short paragraphs, a progressive (i.e. forward-looking) approach to jobs, income distribution, fair and progressive taxation, corporate regulation, health care, education, protection of the environment, justice, and peace . . . we need to bring the debate to a higher level, but do it in a way that is easily digested by the masses without much effort on their part . . .

the typical Democratic Party platform goes on for pages and pages and is essentially useless . . . and the party certainly isn't going to construct anything that is either progressive or populist . . . we'll have to do that and then present it to them, with a million or two signatures . . .

and the thing is I work with alot of conservatives, and we all seem to agree on this. But they still voted for Bush, because they thought he was a "man of the people, not like that rich snob Kerry". :eyes: It's crazy.
The really sad part is there alot of pieces to the class warfare puzzle and if you bring them up people give you the "tin foil hat" look. I believe the school voucher program is designed to take away funds from public schools, they want the lower classes to have poor educations. They need people to clean their houses, cook their meals, build their houses, fix their cars, do their gardening. They have figured out how to curb small retail businesses by installing Wal-Marts in every town, paying their employees crap wages so all they can afford is the low priced crap you buy at Wal-Mart. Lovely, they fuck you over then take your money too. Little things like this all add up to bad news. I have definitely gone from middle class to lower middle in the last 4 years and if it keeps up I'll be lower by the time Bush is done.

kountry is now one big 'company store'. What very little real money there is, is being re-circulated among the lower middle class as pittance wages. This country is dead. We did not take care of our own.

and slave, because the driving emotion is fear, the most powerful fundamental force. However, an open society seeks to ameliorate slavery, and is driven by love, the most powerful ethereal force. To the extent we can love, we can progress; but we've run into a new wrinkle in this latest swing of the pendulum, which is that we've installed an unsustainable lifestyle in this country and are flaunting it to other parts of the world. This is the long-term danger, in my opinion, more so than the class war. It's the lie that we can and should and will defend the "American way of life," which is totally unsustainable. This is the truth that will not be spoken by any politician until long after the class war is in public discussion.

history and black history....from RWright's Black Boy to A Man Called White etc etc....

One book I read discussed how in the south at the end of the 19th century the rich pitted the blacks against the poor whites. It was the era of the populist movement, and there were the beginnings of blacks and poor whites starting to work together. By turning them against each other, the rich/the haves kept their power.

This was the first time I had ever come across this idea. Then I began to see this as a continuing motif in US history. The 70s are a good example; blacks start to have some power, there's a possibility of the have nots beginning to work together.....and then there's all the focus on the various ethnic groups.

There was a woman posting after selection 2000 at salon.com's tabletalk. She said she'd worked in various govt social work type positions and that it became obvious that the govt was pitting the ethnic groups and the blacks and the Hispanics against each other for money and positions. Again the haves pit the have nots against each other and keep their power.

He interviewed a former Klansman who got himself elected to the schoolboard after local schools were integrated. To his surprise, he found that he had more in common with the black members of the schoolboard who came from poor backgrounds like his own than he did with the wealthy white members. Then he recalled thate wealthy whites in town would make encouraging phone calls to him after the Klan took some action, but they would not recognize him in public, because they saw him as "white trash."*

It was the beginning of his transformation.

*Note the unspoken racism in the term "white trash." The underlying assumption is that white people are not supposed to be "trash," and that black people are, so that there is something deviant about a white person who lives in poverty.

.

Great post and analysis, OneBlueSky.

Here's what the founder of "Liberal Resurgent" wrote on the subject before he was "suicided" outside Richard Mellon "Arkansas Project" Scaife's office:

The Origins of the Overclass

By Steve Kangas

The wealthy have always used many methods to accumulate wealth, but it was not until the mid-1970s that these methods coalesced into a superbly organized, cohesive and efficient machine. After 1975, it became greater than the sum of its parts, a smooth flowing organization of advocacy groups, lobbyists, think tanks, conservative foundations, and PR firms that hurtled the richest 1 percent into the stratosphere.

The origins of this machine, interestingly enough, can be traced back to the CIA. This is not to say the machine is a formal CIA operation, complete with code name and signed documents. (Although such evidence may yet surface — and previously unthinkable domestic operations such as MK-ULTRA, CHAOS and MOCKINGBIRD show this to be a distinct possibility.) But what we do know already indicts the CIA strongly enough. Its principle creators were Irving Kristol, Paul Weyrich, William Simon, Richard Mellon Scaife, Frank Shakespeare, William F. Buckley, Jr., the Rockefeller family, and more. Almost all the machine's creators had CIA backgrounds.

During the 1970s, these men would take the propaganda and operational techniques they had learned in the Cold War and apply them to the Class War. Therefore it is no surprise that the American version of the machine bears an uncanny resemblance to the foreign versions designed to fight communism. The CIA's expert and comprehensive organization of the business class would succeed beyond their wildest dreams. In 1975, the richest 1 percent owned 22 percent of America’s wealth. By 1992, they would nearly double that, to 42 percent — the highest level of inequality in the 20th century.

How did this alliance start? The CIA has always recruited the nation’s elite: millionaire businessmen, Wall Street brokers, members of the national news media, and Ivy League scholars. During World War II, General "Wild Bill" Donovan became chief of the Office of Strategic Services (OSS), the forerunner of the CIA. Donovan recruited so exclusively from the nation’s rich and powerful that members eventually came to joke that "OSS" stood for "Oh, so social!"

Another early elite was Allen Dulles, who served as Director of the CIA from 1953 to 1961. Dulles was a senior partner at the Wall Street firm of Sullivan and Cromwell, which represented the Rockefeller empire and other mammoth trusts, corporations and cartels. He was also a board member of the J. Henry Schroeder Bank, with offices in Wall Street, London, Zurich and Hamburg. His financial interests across the world would become a conflict of interest when he became head of the CIA. Like Donavan, he would recruit exclusively from society’s elite.

CONTINUED...

http://mirrors.korpios.org/resurgent/L-overclass.html

but there are a hell of a lot more of US than there are of THEM . . .

Since the majority of us on the left abhor violence(let's face it, anything begat with violence in no better than that which it overthrows), I suggest we take to heart the call of the 60's: "Tune in and drop out." Let's look at that statement and how it applies to our times. It is important to tune in to what is going on in the world and that has never been easier than it is now. Already, just within this forum, we are beginning to see that many on the left are finally viewing the MSM with a jaundice eye. This is good. We should all view what is being fed to us with healthy skepticism instead of swallowing it hungrily and saying, "Please sir, can I have some more." We need to stay involved but in a different way. This is the information age, okay, then let's look at everything that is being said and broadcast through a dispassionate, detached lens as nothing more than information. Same ole, same ole, but with one caveat; we need to begin to develop the ability to look at what is being presented as the tool for another purpose. If it isn't just coverage of an actual event(even there we have to wonder anymore if what we are seeing is real or not)or if we are being fed something in order to maintain the status-quo. With all of this in mind, we need to develop the ability to "drop out." Begin observing what in our lives supports the machine. What do we buy, read, do for a living, ect. How do we in our lives continue to feed the monster that has been created, that eats our young through trumped up wars, that despoils the very ground we walk on, that fills our ears with the constant roar of sound bites, image upon image all flashing by so quick that we can't even digest what we just saw(but it gets in). We need to begin to withdraw our lives from the 'beast' that we have helped to create by our indifference and ignorance. Begin to become self-reliant, each day withdrawing more and more from what makes this madness continue, ECONOMICS. I mean, what if they had a sale and nobody came? Pretty soon, if enough people begin to quick feeding the monster, it will begin feeding upon itself. This could become a frightening prospect, as has been said, they have the guns, technology ect. . . It could become messy, the death throes of this beast, could cost a lot of destruction. But I say, I don't want to play anymore!

great post, OneBlueSky ... i will not necessarily give up hope on all elected democrats ... some of them will join us when we build some momentum for this message ... but for those who blindly follow the Democratic Party without raising questions, i would say that there really are some who, while they may oppose the neo-con agenda, are really not with us in our struggle to reclaim our democracy ... some democrats just refuse to accept that we are in a class war and that business as usual is not going to help restore our democracy ... the time has come to strip power from the greedy, ruling class ...

There is only ONE ISSUE ... that's it ... I know, you probably can think of many, many more ... but the truth is, there's only one that makes any difference ... and what is THE ISSUE? the issue is that we have lost our democracy ... virtually every significant policy coming out of Washington, both foreign and domestic, is chosen to protect the financial interests of the super-wealthy and their multi-national corporations ... who do you think it is who is whispering in your Congressman's ear? foreign policy is an extension of mega-corporations' security and sales departments ... "if you buy products from Halliburton and Bechtel, we'll wipe out your Sunni opposition" ... "if you allow Halliburton to handle the "re-construction" (after we destroy everything) and run the oil processes, we'll spare your Shi'ite territories in Southern Iraq (fyi, Sistani has been bought and paid for)" ... lobbyists for the pharmaceutical industry wrote the Medicare bill ... they, and the HMO's, made millions in windfall profits ... all this was done at the expense of average Americans ... our government no longer acts in the interests of the country or its citizens; it acts only in the interests of the wealthiest citizens and their corporations ... without power, your laundry list of issues is nothing but a game of "pretend" ... the battle, my friends, is nothing less than a battle for the survival of our democracy ... that's the master theme ... we either have a voice or we don't ...

Ralph has been saying this for the last 4-6 years or more. It's funny that what he has been saying has finally been played out.

too bad we're stuck with him as the messenger ...

Take this definition of the Left from Merriam Webster:
"those professing views usually characterized by desire to reform or overthrow the established order especially in politics and usually advocating change in the name of the greater freedom or well-being of the common man"

making people think is not the way to win elections.
You first have to make a label, ( create a monster ) then you have to blame, find fault, slander, revise history to suit your needs.
Attack, attack, attack. Then turn ever discussion personal, while you do all the speaking for all points of view so only one message is heard. If that gets difficult us the label loader. Lie as much as you have to and if you get caught explain that the results are more important than the truth. Most important have no conscience.

It is way past time to find an honest and up front way to deal with our problems.

This game of manipulation is killing us.

If I had to point to one thing that has driven the working class and rural people away from the Democratic party, I would say it was arrogant and elitist attitudes from city liberals.

The more the party has become dominated by educated suburban people - academically oriented, upwardly mobile, associated with corporate or government bureaucracy - the more rural people and working people have been vulnerable to the Republicans' faux populism.

You know, MLK had the marches, civil rights protest, voters drives, etc. But there was never an attempt to kill him until, he decided to point out that institutional racism was designed into the system to keep the poor fighting with the poor. MLK organized his 'rainbow' coalition then bang..he is dead.

The battle has or should have been all along about the haves and have-nots. It is a class war. Always has been. Look at today, framing the issue as a morals issue about homosexuals or abortion. Same thing. Find a hot button that will separate the people ad wedge that issue.

Not much changes in truth. Same technique, just reframe the issue.

including among most of my family. I hear a lot. It's not always wise for me to say as much as I do, but... Once you start talking to people, I've found that a LOT of Bush voters seriously agree with him on some major issues - like outsourcing, NAFTA, Iraq and/or education. But it's like the nicotine in ciggarettes. They get hooked one one or two issues like abortion, etc, and don't look further. It's very frustrating to me that a lot of people actually voted against their core values when they voted for Bush. They just don't seem to realize it.

...when they voted for the Democratic Party in 2004.

The Class War Issue DID vaguely appear during the Democratic Campaign. Especially with DKucinich. But even Edwards was drawing attention with his stump about the Two Americas. I didn't hear very much about The Two Americas after he was chosen for the VP Slot. I believe the DLC/DNC edited that part out.

Dems.

The folks calling for a SPLIT are the ones being manipulated. Spokespeople MUST work WITHIN the fantasyland that big media has created for most Americans. You can't break open that fantasyland to show folks reality with a single soundbite.

I heard him use it many times, and Kerry referenced it on occasion.

But if all you saw was the SCLM*/MSM, you'd think he never said it.

*So-called liberal nmedia, courtesy of Eric Alterman and others.

They both kept saying so, and were beaten senseless in the primaries for their efforts.

The public discourse has not only become meaningless, it seems unable to recognize meaning when it encounters it.

It seems the diabolical plan was to dumb-down the populace, stir up controversy over ridiculous side-show issues, and, meanwhile, create a machine of unstoppable reach and influence.

That machinery pulls all the fore-head slapping stunts that ride the headlines, daily. Whatever its true motivation, it clearly can't be a force of good for children, and other living things.

How much intelligence or education does it take to get behind a HATE THE GREEDY RICH grassroots campaign.

I know that is an awful proposition, but that is what it may take for any substantive changes in our system.




There is a glimmer of hope I've been watching, though it is still below the radar. A Progressive Summit is planned for Jan 21 in DC. Ultimately, I believe they (Progressive Democrats of America) are working to build an alliance with the CBC (Congressional Black Caucus), the Congressional Progressive Caucus(Dennis Kucinich, Barbara Lee, Bernie Sanders, Paul Wellstone before his death) and several progressive organizations like FAIR and MoveON. They seem to be picking up some momentum.

http://www.pdamerica.org/



Someone else who openly talks about the Class War is Bernie Sanders (I,VT.) He appears weekly (Fri)on Thom Hartmann's radio Show, Brunch with Bernie. You can download it from The White Rose Society:
http://www.whiterosesociety.org/
Go to the site. Scroll down to Thom Hartmann and click. Then scroll down the list of archived shows and right click on any FRIDAY show. Save to disk and replay on RealPlayer at your convenience.

Jim Hightower also openly talks about the Class War and GREED in Politics.
http://www.jimhightower.com/

But, I've noticed the problem has gone beyond brainwashing. It has evolved to the point of establishing deep roots in the psychic fabric on all sides of the political spectrum.

Not only has the content of thinking and philosophy been compromised in certain areas, but the quality of the thinking process has been undermined across the board. More and more people seem unable to distinguish dogmatic railing from critical analysis. This is what scares me.

There seems to be little dispassionate analysis among the great unwashed. The modus operandi seems to be to choose a position and defend it. There is little analysis and dissecting of issues in any form of productive way.

Arrogance and self-righteousness grow wild in this sort of climate, and have found their way into the highest office in the land.

Delusion strikes deep. Understanding takes hard work.

It's also an excellent treatise of why there must be no moving to the mythological "center", since the center is 1) to the right of most Americans' values and moving further rightward and 2) part of the artificial construct to keep the left fighting the right.

You nailed it here. As much as I despise their warped, uninformed views, even Freepers' kids need to eat, and the Haves are making sure that they don't get by so they can be easily manipulated into hating the "Dems who done stole their money through those damn taxes".

It's all a scam. "Good cop, meet bad cop, you'll be working together a long time so get to know each other".

Disclaimer: Please don't flame me, I am not a freeper. I voted for John Kerry this year, I swear! I admitted up front when I signed up here that I have Libertarian tendencies, but I want Bush and his fundie pals out of office as much as you all do, and I no longer support the war in Iraq or anywhere else because of the appallingly bad job we are doing over there. I also strongly believe that vote fraud was committed this election. That all being said....

I have been reading the Free Republic site recently, and have been struck with how similar some of the posts over there are to the ones here. Really! I'm not talking about all the hysterical religious garbage. I'm talking about the responses to the same news stories we read and comment on, like the Mental Health Screening Bill and the story about how everybody can now look at our tax returns, and even the Patriot Act II stuff.

A lot of them are saying the same things we are. They don't like the growing intrusion into private affairs they see, and they are also concerned about the lack of media coverage on some of these issues. I have seen more than once over there in the last week somebody saying they were sorry they voted for Bush because they suspect that now he is pushing this weird stuff and hiding it from the American public. And somebody else said they couldn't understand why the news stations "weren't talking about this" and advocated writing Fox News a letter (good luck to them on that one - it certainly hasn't worked for the rest of us yet). I think they just don't have as much of the picture yet as the DUers, probably because they still believe that they "won" this election, so they haven't started really questioning these things and putting stuff together yet. And they still have a knee-jerk reaction where they automatically assume Bush is wonderful and liberals are horrible, so they have a hard time thinking through dissonant information.

As a result of reading and digging over the last two weeks, I have come to the same conclusion as the original author of this thread. I think we're ALL being had. I don't think that Bush and his cronies are on anybody's side, except for maybe the fundies, because they're all as crazy as he is. But not all the freepers are fundies, and I think the ones who aren't are going to be just as screwed as the rest of us.

I'm not suggesting we all go out and make friends with the freepers. Not at all. They have a long way to go before they even get to the point where they can start questioning the things they believe at all, much less understand anything we're saying at all, or start doing the right things by their country and their fellow citizens. I guess I'm just agreeing with the original poster.

Sorry for the length. It's just something I've been thinking about a lot lately.

being reasoned. I applaud U 4 visiting freepland - I can't do it but I respect the ones who can. The whorporate media continued the 'red/blue divide by continually repeating the 'values vote' crap. For all I know, it continues. As long as wedge issues of little or no immediate importance can be trotted out 2 inflame the reds and the blues reaction to it...we will get no where.

This is why the environment was NOT an issue, indeed barely touched on, during the campaign. Look at all the good, progressive environmental regulation, policy and law that has been trashed in the last 4 years. It was not in the korporate interests to continue down that path - even though poll after poll shows people R willing 2 pay a few cents more for those regulations and policies.

November 2, 2004 was an extremely successful coup of the United States by the kontrolling korporate masters.

been saying that consistently here for nearly four years now.

So true, and GD and GDP are reflections of how we are playing right into their hans.

You should punch this up and offer it to DU, Mother Jones, Teh Nation, etc.

Excellent.

... n/t