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In reply to the discussion: Third Way has been trying to privatize Social Security since 1990s. This is not playing chess. [View all]madfloridian
(88,117 posts)124. Do you remember this excerpt from Milton Mayer's book?
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article11845.htm
"What no one seemed to notice," said a colleague of mine, a philologist, "was the ever widening gap, after 1933, between the government and the people. Just think how very wide this gap was to begin with, here in Germany. And it became always wider. You know, it doesnt make people close to their government to be told that this is a peoples government, a true democracy, or to be enrolled in civilian defense, or even to vote. All this has little, really nothing, to do with knowing one is governing.
"What happened here was the gradual habituation of the people, little by little, to being governed by surprise; to receiving decisions deliberated in secret; to believing that the situation was so complicated that the government had to act on information which the people could not understand, or so dangerous that, even if the people could understand it, it could not be released because of national security. And their sense of identification with Hitler, their trust in him, made it easier to widen this gap and reassured those who would otherwise have worried about it.
"This separation of government from people, this widening of the gap, took place so gradually and so insensibly, each step disguised (perhaps not even intentionally) as a temporary emergency measure or associated with true patriotic allegiance or with real social purposes. And all the crises and reforms (real reforms, too) so occupied the people that they did not see the slow motion underneath, of the whole process of government growing remoter and remoter.
..""To live in this process is absolutely not to be able to notice itplease try to believe meunless one has a much greater degree of political awareness, acuity, than most of us had ever had occasion to develop. Each step was so small, so inconsequential, so well explained or, on occasion, regretted, that, unless one were detached from the whole process from the beginning, unless one understood what the whole thing was in principle, what all these little measures that no patriotic German could resent must some day lead to, one no more saw it developing from day to day than a farmer in his field sees the corn growing. One day it is over his head.
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Third Way has been trying to privatize Social Security since 1990s. This is not playing chess. [View all]
madfloridian
Mar 2013
OP
I think that is the hardest thing to persuade people of, plus the hardest thing to accept
duffyduff
Mar 2013
#84
"Third Way," also known as the "New Democrats." They're GOP-lite all the way.
blkmusclmachine
Mar 2013
#6
I have lived in the DC metro area since I was in the 4th grade of elementary school
Samantha
Mar 2013
#7
The party has been infiltrated by neoliberals who are little more than gangsters
duffyduff
Mar 2013
#8
Little more than gangsters? No, they're republicans too weak to make it their own party. n/t
Egalitarian Thug
Mar 2013
#22
They're gangsters. It's all about robbing the public treasury for private profit. n/t
duffyduff
Mar 2013
#87
I can accept that premise as well. But living in a city that was run by actual gangsters, I have to
Egalitarian Thug
Mar 2013
#114
The "Third Way" guys are wimps terrified of being beaten up by Conservative Media...
Spitfire of ATJ
Mar 2013
#94
Blind Pragmatism is the enemy. It's only care is to do the doable & compromise makes more doable
HereSince1628
Mar 2013
#38
+100000000000. Anyone who trusts what a politician says on this issue just because s/he
HiPointDem
Mar 2013
#26
Name who you are talking about. Let's stop using bogeyman terms. Which elected officials are
stevenleser
Mar 2013
#40
Stop using logical fallacies and generalizations and then you won't be accused of doing it. nt
stevenleser
Mar 2013
#53
Then let the Democrats prove me wrong. They need to go on TV or write op eds...
madfloridian
Mar 2013
#56
If you have a strong argument, you don't need bogeyman terms. It's that simple.
stevenleser
Mar 2013
#55
Protest voters against the democratic party have allowed the teaparty to take office
graham4anything
Mar 2013
#62
Now be honest, if they said anyone 50 and over will be grandfathered in
graham4anything
Mar 2013
#66
It's a strawman to suggest that anyone here would not support Democrats. The discussion is about
rhett o rick
Mar 2013
#99
Wait a minute please -- the "Third Way" nomenclature was openly discussed in Clinton's autobiography
Samantha
Mar 2013
#134
I didn't really remember that but your link was interesting, particularly this:
Samantha
Mar 2013
#138
Can you post a link and point to the obvious? I've seen no such thing.
Liberal_Stalwart71
Mar 2013
#102
This is the 1st time in my memory that a Dem president OFFERED it up to extremists.
madfloridian
Mar 2013
#95
It's really very simple, no one who lies about SS in order to try to cut benefits,
sabrina 1
Mar 2013
#44
Obama will now have to "deal with the losers in a globalized economy." His own words.
madfloridian
Mar 2013
#69
The Third Way (with their outsourcing and "free trade") destroyed the tax base.
Romulox
Mar 2013
#63
The third way are an essential mechanism whereby the right-wing achieves their core economic agenda
Douglas Carpenter
Mar 2013
#70
Just a few nights ago I saw David Brooks and Mark Shields "debating" but actually agreeing
Douglas Carpenter
Mar 2013
#112
"defining the disregarding of the will of the people as "showing leadership and courage."
madfloridian
Mar 2013
#115
"maybe even have to allow them to move in with them": And when there are several siblings?
WinkyDink
Mar 2013
#105
Still waiting on a proposal from said Democrats that gives specifics re: "cutting" The Big Three.
Liberal_Stalwart71
Mar 2013
#101
Third Way site today is recycling a 2012 article called Collision Course, lecturing baby boomers
madfloridian
Mar 2013
#103