We don't need more people in the labor force and need less and less as we move into the future all more people does is reduce life time wages for most people and the program gets worse off.

Then all this talk of the ease of a desk job till 70 is batshit crazy as well, even if bodies are better preserved, the minds tend to be less sharp, health issues mount, and employers are less inclined to hire and retain.
There isn't a single 60 year old in my job, none even in management. There are very few 50 year olds and at 40, I'm an old dog, older or the same age as management.
I'm not going to be able to keep up the pace at 60 if my job is still even around and by 70, I'll be long gone wishing Walmart still needed greeters no matter how much I want to keep doing it, which I won't because I'll be burnt out and far too slow to be an asset.

No one is talking a mandatory work life expiration date here, if you are in demand and able then rock on but it is folly to pretend that such will be the average condition for workers.

It foolish, cruel, and soulless along with being counter productive to the asserted aim, why do you want to expand on a glut of workers? What in the world is in it for you? Trying to reduce labor costs?

Nobody forced him into Simpson-Bowles, he sought it out after the TeaPubliKlans walked on the preceding binding committee.

We beat back Junior's privatization scheme from the minority, without the White House. Forced my ass. The whole push was DOA and he keep reviving it and even managed the economy shrinking trigger after the last failure and claims he will keep pushing for a "grand bargain".

If you keep trying to do things some folks are going to believe you are trying to do them and there is no guarantee that those hoodwinked are those you set out to fool. The TeaPubliKlans haven't softened their positions, the media isn't playing off of it, it didn't endear independents, it didn't blunt corporate America or the Chamber of Commerce one iota. If it is an act then it is time for the hook and pull that failed turkey off the stage and run it out on a rail.

I'm convinced but no way I was the target audience, if it was an act, I firmly believe Obama is not only tolerant of some cuts but wants some. Not privatization, not to pull the rug out from under current retirees (though comfortable with starting to "bend the curve" now by arresting payouts), but because he actually believes that some modifications are required because he surrounds himself with neoliberal figures that believe in a similar vein and HE KEEPS TRYING and pushing the issue in an environment where the more sensible changes to generate more revenue are impossible.

If he actually wanted to raise the cap then such a proposal should have come to committee and then to the floor in the first two years rather than going through supporting a binding deficit commission and then Simpson-Bowles.

I also think that people should re-commit to the militia (though participation is not required to keep and bear) by neighborhood, then, community, and then a national organization. Knowing your neighbors and having common cause would potentially bring people together and foster more integration and less characterizing each other while building organization in case of "unimaginable" events and natural disaster.

I'm betting that a Katrina situation (on the ground) would be a lot less likely to happen in such circumstances. People leave strangers behind not members of their unit.

Liberals need to internalize that our job isn't to reduce the rights of the people and even in such an necessity, never to transfer that power to the few but rather to in great and pressing need remove it entirely.
I don't favor civilians with nuclear arms but then I'm against the military having them either and the prospect of individuals with such stuff would straighten out some thinking and keep people from hiding behind authority to justify backing insanity.

If the people cannot be trusted with power then no one can. The people are the source of all power in a democracy (whatever brand it is be it direct or representative). Any power and authority the government has is held in stewardship on behalf of the people. The notion that the government grants our rights is anti-liberal, deeply right wing, and wrongheaded and sure as hell isn't in the neighborhood of liberal.
Of course the modern "progressive" movement has authoritarian elements. In fact just as authoritarian as many in the far right but with a predilection to use the power of government to compel their agenda rather than going at it from the perspective of the anti-government agenda though the two can team up to degrade our civil liberties for "safety" or to foment the drug war or to censor/monitor communication by tapping our phones and having internet kill switches.

The authoritarian "left" is an anchor around the wider movement and in fact controls the agenda. We'll make little real progress and probably go backward on the net as long as we allow this folks to be a driving force.

One may make a choice worse than the other but in any event there will be considerable efforts against their interests.

You can't play labor party when every time we get into power we are literally itching to put a new "free trade" agreement in place and took an epic meltdown to get off the deregulation bandwagon and then only to a degree.

Hell, it was like the first order of business was to go after the teachers, second was shelving card check and union supports, next thing we know we are leading the charge benefits traded for in years of painful concessions, then on to freezing pay for Federal workers, and then on to push Bush's stalled "free trade" deals before getting to work in earnest on a new secret, super "free trade" deal.

All the while we've had several Democratically initiated austerity commissions proposing all kinds of nonsense with all kinds of concessions offered, saved by TeaPubliKlan intransigence until finally an automatic trigger promises to make a start and the banging away can continue after the election. "Eat your peas" isn't a big seller.

You also can't be a labor party and be openly disdainful of it or give the impression that turning wrenches, or working the assembly line, or being a tradesman is lesser or not a career. Even the constant focus on college degrees probably is a turn off, even for those who value a higher education. There is Yuppie-centric air that has been cultivated and it doesn't connect and allows the party of the wealthy to talk folksy, chop wood, go hunting, drive trucks, and talk about God and actually make a better connection though it isn't a millimeter deep.
Many voters failing to see a definitive difference to their lives will vote for the person they identify with regardless of wonky policy proposals (that sound like a screw job or are confusing) that are both essential and promise to change nothing, soaring rhetoric, or how fiercely fingers are pointed (even when deservedly so).

Why do you think things like ideals, principles, and policy aims are so strongly discouraged, minimized, and even mocked?

You are quickly herded when trusting information based on "brand" and neither compass nor destination beyond the next cycle.

Are there worse sources of information? Sure, that does not negate that they are part of the narrative machine that sets the boundaries of mass opinion and weavers the bullshit stories that allow the crap they can't smuggle into unrelated legislation and extra-legal shenanigans they need the majority to be sorta behind or run afoul of having to muck around with controlling without broad tolerance.