The Never Nevers

[Daveparts]

We claim to live under a two party system yet the two parties are funded from the same coffers individual contributions to candidates running for office are insignificant. On the right side of the spectrum we have the Republicans claiming the mantle of conservatives they want a smaller government less regulation but when they say less regulation they want less fiscal regulation they favor intrusion into individual private rights. For they also claim the mantle of social conservatives the party of traditional valves, segregation discrimination and original intent of the Constitution, gosh that sounds good doesn’t it?

Original intent, the Constitution just the way the founders intended it chiseled in marble yet by the very fact of the Bill of Rights blows the concept of original intent to smithereens. The authors were wise enough to know they couldn’t foresee all eventualities so they made the document amendable and these trained lawyers know that like most every aspect of Republican politics it is a sham. Just like the abortion debate they fight the battle of when life begins “It begins at conception!” they cry yet through twelve years of Reagan Bush did they change the tax code to fit their philosophy? Did they change insurance regulations to fit their cause? In a word No, abortion is a never never.

You may talk campaign fund raise and tinker around the edges but you may never change it. It is the birdie to watch to make the children smile while you take their picture. There is no traction in changing it no upside for the party. A totally bankrupt ideology with no interest in the average American what so ever.

On the left side of the Spectrum we have the Democrats, the modern democratic party was spawned by FDR and post WW2 Democrats favor social spending to aide in building a better society and focusing on the working class American family yet through twelve years of Kennedy Johnson and control of both houses of Congress did they repeal Taft-Hartley act the biggest impediment to organized labor ever passed? For the Democrats it’s a never never they can take contributions from both sides and like abortion there is no upside to the party.

The Democrats labeled as liberal by the media yet actual liberals of the party of the past wouldn’t recognize these new liberals; Carter was as conservative as Ford Clinton was closer to Eisenhower than to Kennedy. Would Robert F Kennedy or Hubert Humphrey have signed NAFTA or GATT? So who are these new liberals was John Kerry a new liberal? Kerry voted for Clinton’s welfare reform that John Kennedy would have denounced as a draconian step back into the 19th century and JFK was a conservative Democrat. We have a party with an ideology that doesn’t match it’s politics shadow candidates running as Democrats who’s politics a more akin to Gerald Ford than JFK if Harry Truman weren’t dead this bunch would kill him. Truman pushed for single payer national health insurance in 1948 unequivocally. The Democratic hopefuls tinker around the edges with maybes and will sees but it’s a never never they suck from the same healthcare industry tit as the Republicans.

These new liberals pride themselves that they are going to increase the minimum wage after eight years and they are proud of this, neglecting to mention that it will still be three dollars an hour lower than most of European countries that also have national health care and multiple weeks paid vacation. Truman wanted to raise the minimum wage 40% after four years not 30% after eight. Gone is all talk of America having the highest standard of living in the world and we are sliding fast is it a never never?

John Edwards on Face the Nation said we have made a commitment to our seniors who have worked hard we can’t change that but when asked what about the next generation those say fifty and under Edwards begins to tap dance. This is the liberal candidate? Don’t we fifty and under work hard? Did society make a different agreement with us?
Isn’t social security a never never for Democrats? Apparently not anymore working people have the choice of awful or the worse George of the Bungle insists we must make his millionaires tax relief act permanent to promote anemic growth and we must cut the growth of entitlements in the same breath. The Democrats will look at not renewing Bushes tax cuts next year and agree we must do something about entitlements.

But the ultimate never never the defense budget, we claim to be the most peace loving people on the planet but spend more on weapons than the rest of the world combined. We started down this road during the cold war the Soviet Empire was out to rule the world and impose a single party political system on it. We had to establish a huge defense industry because the Soviets would use any means to subvert us. They would use political assassinations and economic destabilization and even invasion to subvert proxy states. They wanted to impose their financial system on the states in their orbit to control them.

Since the fall of the Soviets America has bombed and used depleted uranium in Iraq (twice) Afghanistan, Kosovo, Serbia, Columbia, Kuwait we have threatened regime change on North Korea and Iran. 70% of the population opposes the war in Iraq yet the best the opposition party can do is a non-binding resolution. The administration has fabricated a crisis with Iran and no matter what you or I or the folks in Congress think or the folks in the UN think they are going through with it. We have no more voice in our government than the average Muscovite had under Brezshnev. We have become that which we sought to defeat.


The world will little note, nor long remember what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here. It is for us the living, rather, to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced. It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us -- that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion -- that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain -- that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom -- and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.

Sorry Abe, we’ve screwed it up badly

[ayeshahaqqiqa]

1. Welcome to DU!

Some very interesting thoughts--but I think this forum is for editorials and articles published elsewhere, with links. If this is your own work, it will be better viewed and appreciated in GD, I think.

[Demeter]

2. I Think This Is Great, and Fine Where It Is

And that's a good description of the latest trick Hillary pulled that really ticked me off: declining the public financing structure.

She basically admitted that her "ideas" are so unsalable, that she will have to buy the election. What kind of a Democrat is that?

[reprobate]

3. You're right. And I'm sorry to be negative, but the American Dream is over, I'm afraid.

Who was it that said "Democracy without an educated electorate cannot last"?

The dumbing of America has been going on for half a century now, and is responsible for the situation we now find ourselves in. Anyone remember the classes in civics and social studies? I do, but most today never went thru the indoctrination of learning how our government is supposed to work.

I maintain that no citizen with knowledge of these subjects, or even a basic knowledge of logic could have voted for our current administration. Ever had a conversation with one of those right wingnuts? If you have I don't have to tell you how illogical their arguments are or how they show ignorance of the structure of our government.

Education has always been answerable to business. Ostensibly it was to provide the skills necessary for the businesses to operate. But I believe that there has always been (at least in this country) an undercover reason. I do not believe that capitalism can succeed or grow in the presence of an educated electorate. Educated masses would not allow the politicians to skew the rules to the benefit of capital and the detriment of people.

We now face a situation in which Capital has a death grip on government and will not let go. The rules are being so that wealth is moving inevitably upward and less is left for the working people. Jobs are moving offshore to the point that there are fewer and fewer jobs for Americans to fill, at least jobs that pay a living wage.

My one hope for change was that a Democratic congress would sweep the garbage out and return control to the people. Instead I see a bunch of appeasers, afraid to be called anything but "bipartisan". They were swept into office with the hope from the people that they would make big changes, but IMPEACHMENT is "off the table" so the biggest, most important changes won't be made. I can hope that in the next election we will see a change in the Democratic leadership, but since the ante to run for office is so high, and incumbents both Democrat and republican suck from the same corporate faucet, that hope is forlorn.

If things keep on as they have for the last decade there are only two paths to positive change that I can foresee. The first has to do with our military having been used and abused to the point that it is broken almost beyond repair now. And many in the leadership of the military are more angry than they can express publicly. This brings up the possibility of the military arresting the leaders of the administration and trying them for treason. Funny. Six years ago I would not have even thought of writing that sentence, but now? Who knows?

The second possibility for change I can foresee has to do with labor and unions. Is it possible that labor in this country can come back to be a force to reckon with? Is a general strike similar to the ones that occurred in Europe in the cards for this nation. One strong enough to cause the Capitalists to change?

I don't know. What I do know is that unless we see some drastic changes from what we now face in our government, the American Dream could only be referred to in the past tense.