delrem
delrem's JournalThese guys wouldn't understand that in the story
Jesus was eating the same thing as the crowd listening to his lessons.
These guys just see ready-made victims, ones who they can score points off of by kicking them when they're down, to ensure that they stay down, so the crowd applauding their lesson can feel satisfied that their superiority has been defended and upholded and celebrated. Their meanness gets them votes, from their crowd.
So, how do you suppose that Hillary can court "the left"?
We all know how well she's courting the "moderate Republican" type, and it seems that she's aiming to court "moderate Republican" women in particular.
Do you think there's enough of a possible vote swing, among "moderate Republican's", to pull it off without the left?
I'm Canadian, so I don't count. I *can't* be a Dem or Rep, so I don't factor in. But Canadians watch US politics, if we're aware of politics at all. It's forced on us by geography and demographics. So my personal experience might not count, in your opinion. But I was a strong "supporter" of Bill Clinton, believing him to be a breath of fresh air after the ridiculously violent warmongering Reagan, and I, a male, didn't "get it" when all the sleazy shit went down about Bill, whereas all the females in my family were of one opinion. They didn't like it and it was essential. They made me feel like an idiot - but they were right. The females in my family aren't right-wing. They are feminists and entrepreneurs. You might say: "that's Bill, not Hillary!" But it really isn't.
I think that kind of baggage might weigh even more among "moderate Republican" type women, than among the liberal/socialist/entrepreneurs in my family.
So I'm just sayin' that I don't think HRC has much chance of making inroads among "moderate Republican" women. And I'm asking you, how do you suppose that Hillary can court "the left"?
I'm happy to hear that the USA is finally owning it.
This admission of ownership does, however, point in too partisan a direction, since many Dems voted for the war of choice against Iraq.
There has also been a coup by a "ragtag army of freedom fighting rebels" overthrowing the gov't of Libya.
The devastation left behind.
There is the overt support of contras, of "moderate rebels", in their violent attempt to overthrow the gov't of Syria. And there is now ISIS.
hoodathunkit?
eta: PNACers? could it be?
There are "Friends of Libya" and "Friends of Syria", which include a coincidental bunch of proxies as the USA "led from behind". And there is ISIS.
I don't think the big money right-wing is all that interested in democracy.
Or has any respect for it.
I don't think the heart/driving-force of big money right-wing is composed of individuals, as in individual voters/actors. I think it's composed of extremely entrenched systems that include employees (in think tanks, the media, in law firms, banks, ...) as well as an ownership investor class. (I'm not denying the existence of horror-shows like the Koch bros.!)
The even mildly socialist-oriented left across the world has found that out the hard way as coup after coup follows mild democratic socialist interventions that run counter to their dictates. The US has been their base of operations, so the US hasn't been their main target except to an extraordinary degree a target for brainwashing the population. For most of my life the US has benefited from that system, it's only recently that the US has become part of their targeted prey.
Even today, the USA has declared Venezuela (a democracy, Bolivarian socialist) a national security threat, and that's the first step in ramping up economic warfare -> a coup. This is under a Dem administration, which has proven to be identical in this respect to Republican admins. Why? Because the Venezuelan people insist on re-electing Bolivarian socialists time after time. There was the coup in Honduras. A coup took out Iran's democracy, when Iran got uppity and retook ownership of their oil. Well, you know all this. I'm mentioning it because *elsewhere* than the USA seems to be fair pickings for democracies (and dicatatorships, monarchies,..., as well) that don't play the big money corporate/war-profiteering game. It's unsustainable, and it death-spirals inward.
At the moment the right wing big money corporate/war-profiteers have it cushy with HRC on one flank, the entire Republican party on the other. HRC isn't alone on their Dem side, not by any means. There are other third-way Dems, think tanks, PACs, institutes,... everything that money can buy. But if a fluke happened and that third-way bulwark is taken out by a progressive populist movement in primaries, I'm not sure I can predict what that big money war-profiteering power structure will do, but I wouldn't underestimate the horror that they're willing to inflict on the masses of people who get in their way. They have no respect for life, or for anything except their own profit. And they have more power and resources now than ever before.
I'm not totally pessimistic. But the US population isn't even close to being as experienced in the ways and means of the right-wing big money as, say, the population of Venezuela, Chile, and the other countries of SA, nor does the US population, in general or in the majority, seem prepared to listen and learn. Even on DU it's a very hard sell, to promote the leftward democratic swing of central/south american politics, and the pushback is unrelenting and is supported by top Dem leaders, to say nothing of Republicans.
I figure it'll be a long slog and I don't underestimate the inhumanity of big money corporate privateers war profiteers.
What I figure that I *know* is true is a subset of what I *believe* is true.
That is, if I accept the definition (and I do): "Contemporary analytic philosophers of mind generally use the term “belief” to refer to the attitude we have, roughly, whenever we take something to be the case or regard it as true."
After all, the phrase "whenever we take something to be the case or regard it as true" indicates the broadest subjective judgement state that the writer can encompass. When I say that I know that something is true, in every case I can explain why I claim to know it. This isn't so regarding my totally wide ranging beliefs. So, to *my* perception and to *my* usage of words, I distinguish between knowing and believing.
Knowing is more complex than believing, believing is more generic in form. There are different kinds of knowing whereas there's no differentiation of kind in the idea "whenever we take something to be the case or regard it as true". That definition is an undifferentiated answer to the question: "true or false". The question "how do you know" invites an unbounded infinity of answers.
With a guaranteed universal medical care system even the most destitute have equal access.
To be sure, implementing it isn't easy, but it becomes easier over time as learning experience accumulates.
The logistics of a guaranteed universal medical care system force an entire rethinking regarding prevention, so community care clinics are born and people of good will build an infrastructure of support. I don't think it's possible to ever seal over all the cracks, but a guaranteed universal medical care system is a gift that keeps on giving, and building for an ever better tomorrow.
A benefit of living in a country with an universal medical care system is that people of all social strata feel better about themselves, there's a tangible difference because society in general has a real institutional structure designed to care, universally, for human life.
I don't see anyone on DU "doing the work for the GOP".
I think suggestions otherwise are slanderous. Just my opinion, mind you, and I'm not a US citizen so have no vote and no substance. An onlooker only. But as an onlooker I don't see that kind of thing (DUers working for the GOP) going on in this debate, not at all, not from any "side".
What I see is a "progressive/populist" movement wanting change from what they see as a corporatist/militarist lock on both parties, where too many Dem politicians are virtually indistinguishable from the Reps on these huge (economics/military) issues. So they point out the similarities and focus on the fact that the Third Way *exists*, neo-liberalism *exists*, and on what it is, on who the leaders are, where the money comes from and who profits. I find it a bit odd that many Dems who oppose the progressive/populist wing on these matters actually deny the existence of Third Way, of neo liberalism, or deny awareness of it, or deny the relevance to anything that matters in current US politics. In my opinion (again, as a non-voter, non-US-citizen) I find such denials bizarre. Ostrich-like, and not a good sign at all.
Here's an example of what I, even as a foreigner lightly scanning the issues, see as an under-examined fact regarding the corporatist/militarist identity between the two parties.
Victoria Nuland. a synopsis from wiki:
"During the Bill Clinton administration, Nuland was chief of staff to Deputy Secretary of State Strobe Talbott before moving on to serve as deputy director for former Soviet Union affairs.
She served as the principal deputy foreign policy adviser to Vice President Dick Cheney and then as U.S. ambassador to NATO.
Nuland became special envoy for Conventional Armed Forces in Europe and then became State Department spokesperson in summer 2011.
She was nominated to serve as Assistant Secretary of State for European and Eurasian Affairs in May 2013 and sworn in to fill that role in September 2013. During her confirmation hearings, she faced "sharp questions" about a memo she had sent outlining the talking points that would be used by the Obama administration in the days shortly after the 2012 Benghazi attack."
Nuland's husband, Robert Kagan, was cofounder of PNAC. The happily married couple are neo-con/neo-lib through and through. Totally unrepentant of any wrongdoing, which they would deny anyway. Moving from Dem to Rep to Dem admins, serving at the right hand side of Dick Cheney, she was lauded by John Kerry - who laughed at her detractors from the left.
That isn't just a simililarity, it's a cross-administration identity - one that's definitive of US foreign policy.
IMO it isn't a good identity and it ought to be examined and shown in the clear light. To do so isn't "doing the GOP's work", it's doing the work of anyone who takes the responsibility that should belong to voting
seriously.
Nowadays Robert Kagan and Victoria Nuland are vocal Hillary Clinton supporters. They've re-branded themselves from being self-described neo-con PNACers to being self-described liberal-interventionists, and there are plenty of pundits who advance the proposition that the rebranding marks some kind of "evolution" or "rehabilitation". It doesn't.
Pointing out or learning about any of this stuff doesn't help either the Dems *or* the Reps, it helps the voting public. Likewise pointing out the funders and operators of the Third Way, of the Brookings Institution (I believe that Robert Kagan now earns $$$ there), etc., and their political objectives and their go-to politicians, doesn't help the Dems or the Reps, it helps inform oneself and the voting public.
I don't look forward to watching a farce of an "election" pitting Hillary Rodham Clinton vs. John Ellis "Jeb" Bush, because they are very very similar. They are family friends. To be sure, Jeb is probably the most "moderate" and "centrist" of the lot in the Rep camp. So it could be worse. But I'm hoping that the Dems wake up and put forward a strong progressive candidate - because (again underlining that I'm speaking merely as an observer with no immediate stakes in the game) I think the people of the US are ready and waiting for that. Polling on individual issues suggests that to be true. Referendum results suggest that to be true. And if the Democratic Party is too afraid to take the chance, offering lame "what would the Republicans say!" as excuse for capitulating to a bi-partisan status quo, I think they will be routed. I think it'll be rout of historic proportions.
I thought it lacked in satire
because it lacked in believability, where you suggested that Freepers would reject HRC for her Iraq War vote, and for her ties to wall street, and that whole third way business.
Everyone knows that is false. What is true is that Freepers hate HRC because she's a social liberal, a 3rd way corporate liberal who believes that if all corporate demands are met, all the demands of war profiteers and banking privateers are met (Victoria Nuland: what is good enough for Dick is good enough for Hillary, and John), there can still be some tokens to throw at issues of social equality. That rubs the tea party the wrong way. And Freepers are tea party thru' and thru'.
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