by Cynthia the PinkHairedGirl
17 SEP 2001
"I tend to think of George Bush as some sort of large angry monkey who has the country grasped within his paws, and is now banging it against rocks until it breaks. He seems to have now turned from banging to making loud noises and flinging poo."
IMHO, a good summary of Progressive ideas -
"On January 9, 1909, Senator Robert M. La Follette Sr. of Wisconsin founded La Follette’s Weekly to be 'a magazine of progress, social, intellectual, institutional.' The goal, he wrote, was 'winning back for the people the complete power over government -- national, state, and municipal -- which has been lost to them.' He attacked private greed in the form of corporate monopolies that hoarded power. He championed the public interest, campaigning for social and economic justice. And he urged the United States not to entangle itself in foreign wars.Links are mine -- ed.
In 1929, La Follette’s Weekly changed its name to The Progressive, but the views of the magazine have remained remarkably consistent over the years. The Progressive, a monthly since 1948, has steadfastly stood against militarism, the concentration of power in corporate hands, and the disenfranchisement of the citizenry. It has continued to champion peace, social and economic justice, civil rights, civil liberties, human rights, a preserved environment, and a reinvigorated democracy. Its bedrock values remain nonviolence and freedom of speech."
The Great Unraveling: Losing Our Way in the New Century
by Paul Krugman
"Let me say a bit about the introduction. This is where Krugman explains his current understanding of how things got much worse than anyone, himself included, thought they could just three years ago. (Like everyone else, he's being radicalized by Bush.) Thus: we are now governed by a reactionary party with a radical (he says "revolutionary") agenda, basically that of undoing the legacy, domestic and foreign, of FDR. They even say this, but people, especially the punditocracy, discount it, because they don't realize that, like any "revolutionary power," the GOP really means it , and is not going to be bought off with the usual compromises. Joshua Marshall and Nicholas Confessore have recently argued for similar theses. I wish I found them less convincing than I do."-- My bold - ed.
by Chris Hedges, Truthdig
03 JUN 08
"Note: Chris Hedges gave this keynote address on Wednesday, May 28, in Furman University's Younts Conference Center."
"I used to live in a country called America. It was not a perfect country, God knows, especially if you were African American or Native American or of Japanese descent in World War II, or poor or gay or a woman or an immigrant, but it was a country I loved and honored. ...Links are mine - ed.
The country I live in today uses the same words to describe itself, the same patriotic symbols and iconography, the same national myths, but only the shell remains. ... The "consent of the governed" has become an empty phrase. Our textbooks on political science are obsolete. Our state, our nation, has been hijacked by oligarchs, corporations and a narrow, selfish political elite, a small and privileged group which governs on behalf of moneyed interests. We are undergoing, as John Ralston Saul wrote, "a coup d'etat in slow motion." We are being impoverished -- legally, economically, spiritually and politically. ...
I single out no party. The Democratic Party has been as guilty as the Republicans. ...
The growing desperation across the United States is unleashing not simply a recession -- we have been in a recession for some time now -- but the possibility of a depression unlike anything we have seen since the 1930s. This desperation has provided a pool of broken people willing to work for low wages and without unions or benefits. This is good news if you are a corporation. It is very bad news if you work for a living. For the bottom 90 percent of Americans, annual income has been on a slow, steady decline for three decades. ...
For each dollar earned in 2005, the top 10 percent (of the population) got 48.5 cents. ... And within the top 10 percent, those who made more than $100,000, nearly all the gains went to the top tenth of 1 percent ....
The disparity between our oligarchy and the working class has created a new global serfdom. ...
Defense-related spending for fiscal 2008 will exceed $1 trillion for the first time in history. The U.S. has become the largest single seller of arms and munitions on the planet. ...
There are 50 million Americans in real poverty and tens of millions of Americans in a category called "near poverty." Our health care system is broken. Eighteen thousand people die in this country, according to the Institute of Medicine, every year because they can't afford health care.
... Franklin Delano Roosevelt on April 29, 1938 (sent) a message to Congress titled "Recommendations to the Congress to Curb Monopolies and the Concentration of Economic Power." In it, he wrote:'The first truth is that the liberty of democracy is not safe if the people tolerate the growth of power to a point where it becomes stronger than the democratic state itself. That, in its essence, is Fascism -- ownership of Government by an individual, by a group, or by any other controlling private power. The second truth is that the liberty of a democracy is not safe if its business system does not provide employment and produce and distribute goods in such a way to sustain an acceptable standard of living.'...
As the pressure mounts, as this despair and desperation reaches into larger and larger segments of the American populace, the mechanisms of corporate and government control are being bolstered to prevent civil unrest and instability. It is not accidental that with the rise of the corporate state comes the rise of the security state. ...
Sen. Frank Church, as chairman of the Select Committee on Intelligence in 1975, investigated the government's massive and highly secretive National Security Agency. He wrote:'That capability at any time could be turned around on the American people and no American would have any privacy left, such is the capability to monitor everything. (We have certainly gone a long, long way down this road since 1975.) Telephone conversations, telegrams, it doesn't matter. There would be no place to hide. If this government ever became a tyranny, if a dictator ever took charge in this country, the technological capacity that the intelligence community has given the government could enable it to impose total tyranny, and there would be no way to fight back, because the most careful effort to combine together in resistance to the government, no matter how privately it was done, is within the reach of the government to know. Such is the capability of this technology. ... That is the abyss from which there is no return.'When Sen. Church made this statement, the NSA was not authorized to spy on American citizens. Today it is. ...
And as the nation crumbles, we are awash with the terrible simplicity of false statistics. We confuse our emotional responses, carefully manipulated by advertisers, pundits, spin doctors, television hosts, political consultants and focus groups, with knowledge. It is how we elect presidents and those we send to Congress, how we make decisions, even decisions to go to war. It is how we view the world. Four media giants -- AOL-Time Warner, Viacom, Disney, and Rupert Murdoch's NewsGroup -- control nearly everything we read, see and hear. This growing disconnect with reality is the hallmark of a totalitarian state. (I'm not sure whether that last is literally true. However, it is certainly an extremely bad thing, regardless.) ...
So what do we do? Voting is not enough. If voting was that effective, to quote the activist Philip Berrigan, it would be illegal. And voting in an age when elections are stolen by rigged ballot machines and a stacked Supreme Court willing to overturn all legal precedent to make George Bush president, will not work. I am not saying do not vote. We should all vote. But that has to be the starting point if we want to reclaim America. We must lobby, organize and advocate for the dissolution of the World Trade Organization and NAFTA. ... We need to repeal the anti-worker Taft-Hartley law of 1947. The act obstructs the organization of unions. We need to transfer control of pension funds from management to workers. If these pension funds, worth trillions of dollars, were in the hands of workers, the working class would own a third of the New York Stock Exchange. ...
A rule-based world matters. The creation of international bodies and laws, the sanctity of our constitutional rights, have allowed us to stand pre-eminent as a nation -- one that seeks at its best to respect and defend the rule of law. If we demolish the fragile and delicate domestic and international order, if we permit George Bush to create a world where diplomacy, broad cooperation, democracy and law are worthless, if we allow these international and domestic legal safeguards to unravel, our moral and political authority will plummet. We will erode the possibility of cooperation between nation-states, including our closest allies. We will lose our country. And we will, in the end, see visited upon us the evils we visit on others."
Good summary of the situation.
You should read this in its entirety.
- A page on this site on / Taking Action /
by Cosma Shalizi / CRS
Post of 29 JAN 2003 to the blog Three-Toed Sloth
"Is it puzzling that people who frequently fuss about threats to the heritage of Western science would make up whatever sounds convenient and echo each others fabrications, rather than actually consult experimental findings? Not at all; while there are individual conservative activists who are genuinely dedicated to science and reason, the movement as a whole has no use for those ideals, other than claiming to defend them. Making-stuff-up is the charitable description of professional conservativism's mode of argument; often it can only be described as blatant, self-serving lies about crucial subjects. While people who write for, and read, Mother Jones can irritate me, people who write for The American Spectator, and their paymasters, can deny people like my friend the things they need to grow up decently, and can choke us all in sooty filth. Much of the left has, sadly, faded into crankishness; the right is a well-organized band of cruel, dangerous, selfish liars. It's not a hard choice."Links are a mix of mine and CRS's -- ed.
"AlterNet's aim is to inspire action and advocacy on the environment, human rights and civil liberties, social justice, media, health care issues, and more."Links are mine - ed.
-- A page on this site on / George Orwell /
by Sean Stuart
"If being a conservative is such a horrible thing, then why are half the people in America conservative?-- Links are mine -- ed.
Liberals frequently characterize conservatives as backwoods racists or Wall Street elitists. But it’s not the richest 1% or the last vestiges of the KKK that turned in 50 million votes for "W" in the last election. It’s the millions of hard-working American families that are sick of their tax dollars feeding a monster, bureaucratic government that ends up doing jack-sh*t for them and their children. ...
The catch is that the republican establishment, along with 99% of Washington, is lying to its voters about the true nature of their actions. ...
The result of these actions is a trade-off from big government to big business. Conservatives everywhere are good Americans that distrust large, unaccountable organizations. And yet their elected leaders are allowing and assisting large, unaccountable corporations. The real irony is that these corporations are worse than any government. Politicians are elected by the people; nobody elects the board directors. Government is designed to serve the people; corporations serve only their bottom line. And yet corporations have an intimate affect on the people. They control our health through their pollution and safety violations, and control our very livelihood through our jobs. And in the current climate of government corruption, we can do very little to control them. ...
The point of this article is not to convince the reader that the democratic establishment is the only one fighting for the people. The Washington democrats have selflessly shed their old common-man advocacy to join the republicans in transforming the federal government into a vehicle to increase corporate power and wealth. The only difference is in their voter base. The republicans have their constituency pretty well locked."
"Are you better off than you were four years ago?"
by Robert Fisk
09 OCT 2002
A President for whom tomorrow never comes
by Jack Beatty
May 2002
"George W. Bush has calculated that the future does not vote."
by Paul Krugman
The New York Times, 25 OCT 2002
"...the Bush administration is an extremely elitist clique trying to maintain a populist facade. Its domestic policies are designed to benefit a very small number of people — basically those who earn at least $300,000 a year, and really don't care about either the environment or their less fortunate compatriots. True, this base is augmented by some powerful special-interest groups, notably the Christian right and the gun lobby. ... (but) the policies themselves are inherently unpopular. Hence the need to reshape those malleable facts."-- My links -- ed.
by Bill Moyers
08 NOV 2002
by Heather Wokusch
08 NOV 2002
by Tom Doggett
31 OCT 2002
-- A page on this site on / Oil /
by James Ridgeway
Published on Tuesday, November 12, 2002 by the Village Voice
"Power may be wielded to advance ideology, but more often, ideology is a front for the simple protection of power. Bush may pose as a Texas wildcatter, a Bible-thumping Christian zealot, a war-ready patriot, and a champion of the common man. But in reality, he's a blue-blooded New England Methodist who dodged the draft by joining the National Guard and pledged for Skull and Bones at Yale. And he's never had anything remotely like an ideology, with the possible exception of the 12-Step Program. If Bush succeeds in spite of an elitist pedigree, it's because he heads -- and epitomizes -- today's Republican Party. This is a party that wields the money and power of Big Business, shrewdly woven into a populist, patriotic ideology designed to appeal to a country so desperate for passionate ideals that in return it will give them the license to rob their pensions and send their children to war.
Those who fail to fall for all this are left feeling powerless and depressed, wondering where to go next. The answer is not terribly hopeful, but it is very simple -- and it has nothing whatsoever to do with party politics. Take every opportunity to oppose the power structure: March on Washington, go on strike, organize a boycott, start a resistance radio station, take to the streets with the anarchists.
If you are looking for models, they are all over the rest of the world: the East German Christian opposition to the Honecker police state that led to the toppling of the Berlin Wall, the massive Czech uprising, the South African overthrow of apartheid, the protests in Seattle. Don't wait for the Democrats to do it. Do it yourself. Stand for something."
I am pretty disenchanted with the Direct Action sans electoral politics model. The people in charge don't give a rap if you write poetry. They don't care if you blog. They don't care if you listen to the latest CD from Dëath to the Män!. They don't care if you dress as a giant sea turtle. They don't care if you wear protest panties. As Joshua Trevino once commented: "the giant puppets thing has never really worked out."
As Neil Postman told us in Amusing Ourselves to Death : Public Discourse in the Age of Show Business, contemporary people have lost sight of the distinction betwen entertainment and participation.
The only things that the people running the show care about is real opposition in the channels of power, meaning primarily $$$ and electoral politics, as well as alternative systems that bypass power structures.
"Street theater", demonstrations, mailings, etc, etc, can be useful, but principally for motivating people to take further action. No further action, no effect (except to waste time and money, and make people falsely feel like they've done something constructive.)
Saying, "Okay, I waved a banner. I've done my part," or "Okay, I went to a rally. Wow, that Joe Exploiter is really a rotten guy. I hope the Progressives win! Now I'm going to kick back and watch the American Idol marathon" accomplishes nothing.
(However, I think that we do need to keep firmly in mind the possibility that the "results" of "elections" and "referenda" may not accurately reflect the votes actually cast -- in other words voter fraud and corruption. This is of course a particular concern with the use of electronic voting, especially where accompanied by intense secrecy.)
by Matthew Rothschild
Published on Wednesday, November 6, 2002 by The Progressive
"If the Democrats are to give themselves a fighting chance to win, and if they are going to stand as the party of the people, they had better start appealing to the poor, people of color, and the majority of Americans who didn't show up at the polls November 5.-- My links -- ed.
A huge majority of Americans want a raise in the minimum wage.
A huge majority of Americans believe that corporations have too much power.
A huge majority of Americans identify health care as one of their top concerns.
A huge majority of Americans want the environment protected, and a decent, affordable education for their kids.
The Democrats ought to be able to say: We'll give you a big raise, we'll give you free health care, we'll give your kids a free college education, we'll curb corporate power and take the money out of politics, and we'll clean up the environment while we're at it."
That last sentence sounds a little suspect. To say they can deliver these things is one thing, to actually be able to deliver them is quite another.
The "bad guys" have been saying that they're going to deliver pie in the sky for a long time now, but somehow it hasn't actually materialized.
I do not consider myself a Democrat. I have only voted Democrat once in my life, and that in order to block a Republican candidate I found particularly obnoxious.
" 'Did a Deranged Republican REALLY Say Something That Despicable?' Yes, They Probably Did."
BuzzFlash interview, 20 FEB 04
As of FEB 04 I haven't seen the book yet.
Great interview. Recommended.
[BuzzFlash:] "At first you will laugh, but keep in mind what Sidney Blumenthal, who wrote an insightful introduction, noted: 'You may read and laugh, but, remember, they mean it'. ...-- Emphasis and links are mine -- ed.
There does seem to be something implicit on the part of the right wing that if you don't agree with them -- particularly if you're a Democrat, or if you embrace a secular society -- you're an agent of Satan. In essence, that's what causes all these extreme quotes to be articulated, because the enemy within is something evil. It's evil to be inclusive. It's evil to believe women have equal rights. It's evil to believe that we are one community and we should be helping each other as a nation.
Otherwise, there's really no other way to account for this, because they are basically in the league of the witch burners. ...
The Republicans talk about a non-intrusive government, and yet they make government out to be some sort of a Satanic force, as though it's there every day, oppressing us. There's such an angry bitterness. What has gotten into these people? The government really isn't that much in their life, and yet they're claiming it's causing such a rage within them. The government doesn't intrude into my daily life much, unless John "KGB" Ashcroft is tapping our phones. I mean it's the Bush administration that's created an intrusive, moralizing, politically correct government.
Bruce J. Miller: My own feeling is that it's fueled by a relatively small number of people with huge amounts of money, who don't want to pay any taxes at all and resent any shred of democracy that we actually have. They fund all these right-wing groups, and they have a tremendous effect with their efforts. I think that's a big part of it."
W's Reality Gap
by Mark Green
AlterNet, 20 FEB 2004
"Mark Green, president of the New Democracy Project, is the author, with Eric Alterman, of The Book On Bush: How George W. (Mis)leads America (Viking 2004)."
"First, George W. Bush begins any policy consideration with three fundamental questions:-- Emphasis and links are mine -- ed.
What does the religious right want?
What does big business want?
What do the neo-conservatives want? ...
Second, he is openly uninterested in learning and reading -- the Bushes 'aren't serious, studious readers' he has said, also admitting that he now reads headlines, not articles. The point is not that he's stupid, only that he knew less about policy and the world as a presidential candidate than the average graduate student in government."
15 SEP 04 post by Bob Harris to This Modern World blog
"We are numb now.
We are killing. We are killing in large numbers. And we are numb to what we are doing.
That's it. Game over. We have lost.
Not the war. Ourselves.
. . .
It's not just about Bush, although he is almost universally disliked and/or little-respected, my hand to God, not just in the Islamic world, but damn near everywhere, once you leave these borders. (I think it's fair to guess that Bush has become the most widely-despised president in all of U.S. history, and probably by a wide margin. I certainly can't think of a precedent that comes close.)"
Could four more brutal years of the Dubya nightmare actually be *good* for America?
"Maybe it has to happen. Maybe we need four more years of BushCo (though not, let us pray, 16 years of toxic Republicanism) just to see how bad it can get, to snap us out of this fearful lethargy, this ignorant numbness, this weird and tragic belief that it is only through sheer faux-macho posturing and pre-emptive bombings and through decimating foreign relationships and igniting holy wars and trying to prove that our angry acidic well-armed God is better than their angry acidic well-armed God, that we are actually safe and healthy and spiritually attuned.
If the past four years are any indication, four more years of BushCo would be just unimaginably dreadful for America, for the health of the planet, for human rights, for the poor and for women and minorities and gays and non-Christian religions. After all, no one could have predicted, four years ago, just how much damage this boot-lickin' puppet president could have wrought on the culture in such a short time. He seemed so harmless and bumbling and lost -- at first.
But, then again, no one anticipated that he would be handed the golden political grenade that was 9/11, and no one could have imagined the he and his snarling administration would so shamelessly, so heartlessly leverage our most horrific national tragedy for such brutal and oily gain, using it not only as a fear tactic and a justification for multiple wars and as a vicious excuse to quell dissenting voices, but also as an actual political slogan, a veritable trademarked brand for the Republican Party. BushCo '04: Vote for Us, or Die."
with links
"Progressive Living has been rated one of the four best Progressive/Green sites on the Internet." - I don't know the details myself.
Some possible elements of a Progressive/Humanistic lifestyle
"The East was in many ways wiser. Confucianism was (and continues to be) as practical, helpful, and down-to-earth as a good box of tools. So in the more detailed description of a Humanist lifestyle that follows, we'll begin with a brief summary of the key ideas codified by Confucius."- A rather nice quick intro to Confucian thought.
A page on this site on / Confucianism /
A page on this site on / Humanism /
"The Centre for Research on Globalisation (CRG) is an independent research and media group of writers, scholars and activists. It is a registered non profit organization in the province of Quebec, Canada."
by Liz Langley
05 JUN 2003
"I'm starting my own political afterparty. That's a political party that doesn't exist until after someone gets nominated. It has a single issue: unity. My party is called ABBA: Anyone But Bush Again."
-- Some good resouces available on this site if you look, e.g. under "Notes for the Consideration of the Impeachment of President George W. Bush, Vice President Richard B. Cheney, Secretary of Defense Donald H. Rumsfeld, and Attorney General John David Ashcroft"
According to the reputable polling company Zogby International,
in November of 2005, 53 percent (a majority!) of Americans were.