Reply #17: I can't remember the

[MrPrax]

last time a politician of any strip made poor people happy...

They are usually bashing them to pander to their wealthy exploiters...

This stuff is both brilliant, moral and dangerous.

If a lot fo these NGOs (like homeless shelters) can get needed fiscal help with the budgets, then more money of the group can go to organzing, outreach, services, etc. They have MORE resources to the help the poor.

Same thing about the "Mision Milagro"--certainly it is a wonderful thing for a dirtpoor person to be able to have a simple CHEAP operation and see again (135,000 sightless now seeing in 11 countries to be exact), but the real impact is that each family unit that has to expend all that energy and resources to care for that blind person, are now free to use those energies and resources for something that might bring the family unit out of poverty and might make that family unit make a meaningful contribution to the society.

This is moral and dangerous to our values. He embarasses progressives.

The U.S. Government which will be fully aware of the needs of Africa, the needs of the poor. Let's assume that we have a government here in the United States that overnight decides to cut in half the military expenses and withdraw the troops from around the world and declare it is the champion of peace of the world and declare itself an enemy of imperialism and then devote billions of dollars to the poor. Last year the defense budget was $400 billion in military defense. Just for one single year. One single year. For those $400 billion we can go to Africa, in the poor countries of Asia, in the Caribbean and Latin America, we can help them.

I’ve learned to appreciate the thinking of John Kennedy. John Kennedy once said, and that's why he was assassinated, listen to the South, he said once. The recent revolution going on in the south in Africa, in Asia, and Latin America. It was in the 1960's, where the people, the black power was raging. Che Guevara said, one, two, three, Japan, and Vietnam and Asia. The world was fed up with misery and inequities. As he said, the cause of all the revolution is poverty. And he said this sentence, today more than ever is valid, he said, those who shut down the doors to peaceful resolutions open the doors to violent revolutions. That's a reality. I do believe that the U.S. people – is the other super power that Noam Chomsky is referring to. What is the other super power? Public opinion. The peoples of the world. That's the other super power. And the U.S. People have a major responsibility in the world. I think that we're going to save the world. And I hope that you take part in this struggle in the same way we are doing today. And many other people, women and men in this country, in this soil.

from the Democracy Now! interview

When has a Progressive ever heard a politician talk like this or admit tot he fact his references run the gambit from Luxemburg to Kennedy to Che.

Maybe Progressives should use 'Just for one single year' as their slogan--
You've done things your way for 2000 years, how about for 'Just for one single year' you try it our way.