Are you a Conservative Leftist? I am.

I consider myself a diehard liberal/progressive. But I also consider my core beliefs to be very mainstream, traditionalist and even conservative in some respects.

In fact, my conservative traditionalist side is EXACTLY WHY I am a staunch liberal/progressive leftist, and critic of the "centrist" Democratic approach.

Why? The answer is real simple. The right-wing, conservative corporatist ideology is destroying everything I believe in -- both liberal and traditional. The middle class is being decimnated. Business opportunity is disappearing because economy has been concentrated and reoriented towards the interests of the elites and monopolists at the expense of everyone else. We don't give a damn about the poor and struggling anymore. And -- in a strictly pragmatic sense -- The United States is pissing away our very prosperity and international influence.

We're also ruining the environment, and eviscerasting our communities by turning them into pre-fab shopping malls and monotous, anonymous housing developments instead of neighborhoods and towns.

And I am mad as hell that Democrats did not do everything in our power to stop this over the last 25 years. I don't see this as some arcane ideological discussion. Nor are the basics complicated. It is simply a recognition that we have lost our way.

And it should not matter whether one is a conservative or moderate Democrat or a raging liberal or socialist. The truth is as obvious as the nose on everyone's faces.

I'm not looking for a revolution. But I am looking for enough moxie on our side to put the concept of liberal and progressive values right back in the center of the spectrum where they belong. And where they used to be.

I would prefer that we discuss these matters and ask the difficult questions without getting personal or insulting from eitehr side. What is wrong should not be a bone of contention, even if different segments of the Democrat/Left half of the sperctrum might have differing ideas about how to fix it.

Here's a relevant speech by Paul Wellstone I posted that explains it better than I.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.ph...

for mentioning that I favor such bread and butter issues as gun cotnrol, adequately funded public schools, Social Security, workers rights, and universal health care.

Not to mention that "Big Government Liberal tag I've worn proudly since the mid-sixties.

but none of these ideas appear "radical" to me. They seem like common sense.

It's not that we're far to the left but that the GOP has moved so far to the right....Eisenhower and Dirksen would be wild-eyed leftists to the current crop of Republicans...

and I haven't had to budge an inch.

I know just what you mean.

by two well respected political scientists (Hacker & Pierson) that purports just that...

You mean, you weren't called a commie? ;)

I'll take being a "Radical Leftist Moonbat" over being a Soviet Cheap Labor Conservative anyday.

Actually red-baiting seems to be making a comeback.

I heard on the radio the otehr day that the old flouridation controversy is actually being fought on the ballot in many communities.

Back to the Future, I guess.

pointing out that damn near every bit of rubbish the Republicans are peddling as "new ideas" now was percolating around in the John Birch Society circa 1962 or so.

Strangely, I can remember from my dim and distant youth when the Birchers were considered bad news and a bunch of weird whackos far out of the mainstream.

but they share control of the GOP with the old Jim Crow crowd...

That´s what the conservatives learned from their image of communists. Except they did it to us, ordinary Americans.

Soon we work all day to support the military industrial complex. Soviet America.

i can't get to the Wellstone speech with the link you provided ... does it need a "p" on the end?

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=104&topic_id=5427317&mesg_id=5427317

In the words of Maxwell Smart: "Sorry About That Chief."

liberal by my repuglican friends, and then get flamed here at DU for saying something the left doesn't like. I consider myself to be a lef-leaning centrist, which is something I am truly proud to be. I don't want to be an extremist in either direction because being extreme one way or the other is not in the best interest of our country. Some radical liberals can be just as bad as a right-winger in my opinion.

it showed a whole bunch of "little people" who owned hardware stores that could no longer compete ... it showed homeowners who were worried about losing their town's character ... it showed workers so vulnerable and intimidated they were unable to stand up for themselves ...

the movie put most of the blame for these problems on Walmart ...

but i thought beyond just the immediate situation with Walmart ... i thought about the loss of the shoe industry in Massachusetts ... and the loss of the textile industry in the South ... and about the rust belt in the Midwest and the death of the steel industry ... and about the boarded up windows in Detroit and the loss of jobs in the auto industry ... and i thought about all those movies in the 80's about the loss of our American farmer traditions as agribusiness took over a key part of our American heritage and our culture ...

so, auto plants were built in Mexico and away went the jobs ... and textiles and just about everything else moved to Asia where labor is cheaper ... and ADM, "supermarket to the world", took over America's food supply ...

and from all of this, call it ideology or any other label you choose, i took away the reality that capitalism does not value the things that we as Americans value or at least should value ... one doesn't need to read Marx or argue Socialist theory to see that absent a government to protect us from the unrestrained power of capitalism, a greedy few will conquer our culture for their own profit ...

our culture is truly being "malled" by those who refuse to put people, the American people, before profit ...

"...absent a government to protect us from the unrestrained power of capitalism..."

You've hit the core of both the problem and the potential solutions Amstead hints at getting to (?) in the OP.

And "absent a government to protect us" and with the perspective evident on this thread, over those years of disassemblement where were We The People?

(I keep thinking maybe DU can answer this...........................)

I'm too tired to go into it in depth right now, but here's the Cliff Notes version.

By the 1970's, the economy had gotten into a bind, and the Gas Crisis also made the reality of the global economy hit home. Americans felt vulnerable and wanted to ensure that the economy didn;t go down the tubes.

Changes and adjustments were required. But instead of healthy reasonable ones, the CONservatives and the Corporate Oligarchs CONvinced Americans to go along with a lot of things that were wrong. They CONvinced Americans that things that were against their own interests would be good for them. They were sold a bill of goods about how making American business more competative woiuld help everyone, how we had to "trust" in the corporate captains and "trickle down economics" and it would help the whole country.

But it was really a scam. It sounded nice in theory, but the reality was that it was a way to "trickle up" the economy by siphoning money from the middle and lower classes to the oligarchs. They also CONvinced us a bunch of Orwellian lies, like allowing monopolies would preserve competition, screwing workers would help workers, etc.

The sales job was so relentless that the public bought into it. Also unfortunately, progressives marginalized themselves, liberals got stale and the Democratic Party lost sight of its role and purpose. Thus, there was also no credible challenge to a bunch of nice sounding lies.

Thus we stood by while private empires were erected and the public sector was gutted.

Hopefully, though, people are starting to wake up from the illusion, and will challenge the CONventional wisdom of the last 25 years.

Especially ones which definitions are radically different from person to person.

Labels are the first step toward divisions...or maybe labels come after the dividing...well whatever. I know what I mean.

Aren't balloons supposed to fall out of the ceiling?

:party:

Frustrations with these labels like "Left" or "radical" or "conservative" which are misused and abused.

Conservative is a frame of mind that in its' real usage means you want to preserve things you believe are worth preserving.

Much of the changes of the last 30 years that are called conservative are really a radical restructuring and dismantling of our economy and society, destroying many things that should be preserved. That's why I personally use the term CONservative to differentiate the destructive and radical con-job that has masqueraded as conservatism.

Progressives are actually conservatives in terms of wanting to preserve things like the ability to be as self-reliant as possible, keeping more power at the grass roots and protecting the notion that a large and powerful economy ought to translate into reasonable standards of living for the majority.

P.S. Congrats on your 100th post. How's it feel to be a centenarian?