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Keeping the pilot light on
Since the late 1970s and Ronald Reagan’s inauguration we’ve seen supply side economics, deregulation, an explosive growth of free markets, the sapping of union power.
The Left’s objective is still vague. Liberalism gets its spirit from equity, justice, and collective action. That spirit is all but broken, witness the precipitous inequalities in America, witness the virtual disappearance from our language of terms like “the common good,” witness unions at their all-time low memberships, witness the Supreme Court retreating from enforcement of anti-trust laws.
During the Bush administration, the Left’s tolerance melted into passivity. Energetic leftists of the 1960s, once in the media spotlight, grew wealthy and cautious.
Not just that. Any spirit on the left was also broken down into fractions. Watch a peace march, a good place to find leftists, and you saw a sea of different banners, for as many different causes. All of them good. But there was no center.
Ten years ago, the left reached crisis point. Since then, an agitated search for what’s to blame.
It’s the money. The left needs to find something else besides wealth.
Today, everybody in America sleeps safe under a star, the idea that one day, they will be rich.
Americans navigate their whole lives by that star. So commercialism dominates everything – and it has saturated even the left. Commercialism everywhere. Look around – commercials even dominate left-wing blogs.
And in Congress, too. Too often, Democrats sit quietly, waiting for the lobbyists to call.
Sold out.
This President is new. But which way to turn?
No fallen flag to grab up. Well, what have Democrats been doing?
In Congress, the first order of business is the economic collapse – undoing the money mess created by the previous administration. Rebuilding our infrastructure. Rebuilding our schools. – But all of those have the tone of cleaning up somebody’s old wreckage. Fixing health care. Job by necessary job. But that is not ‘forward.’
It looks like there is no unified ‘forward.’
The heart of the matter is that there is no new ideology.
Of course there’s leftist commentators. Talk show liberals who churn the air like windmills.
But no coherent new theory, to unify.
Except here.
Only on this blog can you read whether exploitation is ethical. Only here can you read about the contradiction between the American workplace – undemocratic and authoritarian – and the surrounding democracy. Read why social inequality is a killer (there’s new scientific evidence). About the long shadow of materialism. On widening corruption. Here the zero-sum concept is explained. Read how, in the long run, exorbitant greed may threaten democracy itself. A brief summary of opposing Right and Left philosophies here and here.
Opinion is power.
But every year for the last 30 years, debate has faded; the left almost became mute. Liberals have avoided theory confrontations. Not in Congress, not at beer parties.
Every time that happened, the left’s light dimmed.
Left ideology. This blog is where we keep the pilot light on.
[Comments: click on 'Keeping the pilot light on' in the Header, or in Pages, below]
How the Right dominates
People are fascinated by conflict.
The Right wing is energetically shoving blame for the national economy onto the Left. One of the right’s bullies, Bill O’Reilly, deals out his thrashings on t.v.
Bill O’Reilly runs an ostentatious tyranny. It is the source of the public’s fascination with the Right. In this particular episode, Barney Frank is put through the meat grinder.
The Left considers itself too nice for this bruiser style. The Left simply doesn’t have head-crushers like Limbaugh and O’Reilly. There is no Fox News on the left, and right-wing radio shows vastly outnumber left-wing. The Left thinks that being morally good should be enough to prevail.
Like all good theater, this domination is a performance. Watch the body language, and deconstruct how O’Reilly crafts drama with his arm-flinging in this YouTube.
Surviving a reactionary
One look at this man and you know you’re dead: here.
Civil war looming within the Democratic party?
The Democratic party has lost its soul. Here’s why.
If our children are being raised on Ayn Rand, we’re in trouble
- here’s why.
Poll: foreign war
Left Blog
Thank you, Nancy Pelosi.
Yes.
Our president is a total failure.
He may be able to retire with vast financial resources,
which may never be traced, and he may never be prosecuted,
but it’s absolutely apparent to everyone that
Ms. Pelosi is right.
Who has the higher “approval rating”,between the two?
Give me a break. Pelosi always beating the damn drum. She’s just another deadbeat in congress not doing the job that she was put there to do. I’m extremely disappointed.
The House and Senate are BUSY TRYING TO SWEEP UP BUSH’S MESS!? The House and Senate are doing LITTLE to NOTHING to sweep up this mess, which they COLLECTIVELY SHARE with the Executive Branch.
She thinks she can fool everyone by going on to CNN and saying a few kind words. I hope that Americans are starting to actually believe that our politicians are liars, and not just joke about it. I know I’m convinced.
This President was left with an artificially boyant economy from dotcom companys and over priced over leveraged real estate. It now comes home to roost and it looks like all his fault. The Democrat party took power in congress on the same lies that they always does…. we have the answer. They con the people and then turn around and say that’s what the president did.I’ve been round awhile and I’ve never seen a successful liberal policy. or President. They are picked from the bottom of the bad apple barrel, and they debate subjects like 4th grade children.They did nothing during the Clinton years to fight terrorism even though we have many recordings of Big Bill talking about the threat of Iraq under Hussain and yes even He knew of his weapons that are now elsewhere because he dragged his ass doing something. This president has fought the fight that we are still fighting with courage and conviction, which is scorned for now, and just like Lincoln and Reagan will be remembered as having the courage to have made the tough decisions to keep this country safe. Freedom is not easy, and without freedom none of even the best of liberal ideas would be possible. Because in an un-free country anyone disagreeing with the government would be in jail. Liberals use their right to free speech all the time but try to disagree in a conversation about globel warming they’ll tell you the debate is over, again no debate, only name calling, or they’ll name a sewer treatment plant after the president like they have some handle on intelligence and humor, If you are a liberal and youv’e read this through I hope you understand change begins with action not inaction and if Obama is elected all we will get is talk and inaction and higher taxes.
I agree with the last three posts. Who is Polosi to criticize Bush when she is the leader of a congress that has an even lower approval rating than our President? It is so easy to blame a president when the law makers often are the ones to who contributed most to this energy crisis and who have yet to do anything proactive to solve it. On top of that they are blocking any attempts to use clean drilling and coal technologies to offset the crisis until we can find dependable alternative sources of fuel.
Isn’t it nice that during the first 6 years of Bush’s presidency, while the republicans controlled congress, our nations economy was the strongest in history. But, since the democrats took over congress, our economy has tanked. Pelosi is an idiot and the worst Speaker this country has ever seen. God help us if her term outlives Bush’s.
That’s rich coming from someone with no ideas, no credibility, and who is a total failure. The truth is that Bush’s only failures come from acting like a Democrat.
What a pompous ass, to use those kinds of words to describe the president when she is part of the problem. She won’t let the congress vote on any new oil drilling measures. That’s her style – if she’s afraid she might lose the vote, she’ll just keep it from being voted on. What a deceitful loser! Many past presidents had low approval numbers, but in history’s eyes they were viewed as great leaders. I think Bush 43 will be one of them.
How nice to criticize the President for a war that the Democrats jumped on board with when the President first initiated. Now that it has become unpopular they jump to the other side of the fence. But that is typical of Democrats. They yell and scream and complain about everything but have no backbone to stick to any conviction.
First Ms Pelosi; I don’t want to hear her berating any in the Bush administration, i want her to retract her redicuolus statement that impeachment of this criminal executive is “off the table”. Then get behind constitutional conservatives and patriots like Mr. Kucinich to proceed with impeachment hearings on articles already presented on the floor. Regarding some of the comments before me; There is plenty of room for blame regarding the dotcom bust but deregulation and liberalized lending practices are the greatest culprits and mostly of Republican origin. Otherwise the huge expenditure of treasure for this illegal and immoral invasion/occupation of Iraq has had considerable negative impact on the economy and particularly the deficit. Continuing; the boisterous international bullying by cowboy George and puppeteer Cheney
has so demoralized the rest of the world that our status as leader of the free world has taken a nose dive. For all the brilliant planning for control of the world’s most valuable resource, the price of oil has skyrocketed under the “leadership” of this obnoxious executive. Meanwhile Bin Laden, al Quaeda, the Taliban, and countless other terrorist groups continue to gather strength by providing for the needy in their societies, while preaching fear and hate for the torturing crusaders from America. Thanks Cheney/Bush for your great service to our nation; And thank you Ms Pelosi for actively protecting the tactics of this most criminal administration!
Excuse me? Pelosi is the loser.
Our President has stopped terrorist attacks from coming down on your sorry
ungrateful fannies. Real attacks from real terrorists stopped since 9/11. But
if he didn’t you would be the first to squawk Mr. Political Parrot Bush- Lied Liberal. Can you thank your President for this success?
I’m one of those persons who believe that setting another people free is noble. MILLIONS of Iraqi dipped their thumbs in ink at the peril of their lives to vote. These good common citizens appreciate our sacrifices. Didn’t Jesus
set out to set the captives free? Isn’t this the noblest calling? We did the greatest thing a country can do for another oppressed people group.- we give them a national birthday. We broke up the oppression of centuries, creating a beacon of hope,- like America to those nations. Sure we don’t know exactly how it will turn out, but either did we know if our ” government by the people experiment” would work. Bush’s legacy will be a liberated Iraq. Don’t you dare forget this. What’s your legacy? You, his obnoxious hateful detractors will be remembered as flies at the picnic. By the way. I don’t give a damn about what the other nations think. They would be better
off if they thought American.
It’s hard to pick a place to start with the pile of nonsence above. Bush stopped terrorist attacks on this nation? He was reading a childrens book (upside down in the photo) while his entire arrogant administration disregarded the valliant efforts of Richard Clark to warn of the then ongoing attack in NYC. These “protectors” of our nation completley ignored a PDB stating explicitly that bin Laden was planning an attack on a major American city. Why? Because the entire gagle were focused on plans to get a stronger hold on mideast oil via invasion of Iraq.
Freeing the people of Iraq? Look back to the 80s and see how supportive the Regan admi. was of this butcher Hussaine. We even provided the materials from which he produced WMD that he used on the Kurds. He was our boy right up to the day he overestimated our alliegence and invaded Kuait.Please let’s leave Jesus out of this. There has been quite enough bloodshed in his name.
Certain the hightened degree of security across this nation has made more terorist attacks on America considerably more difficule. Too bad the Bush administration hadn’t paid some attention to R. Clark when he was beating at the door to warn of the terrorists plans. If they had perhaps those security measures could have been implemented before the thousands of American lives were lost!
Yes I see that you don’t give a damn what other nations think. You, cowboy George and your ilk have the market cornered on how the world should behave. You have God and Jesus on your side and the rest of the world just damn well better get in line. The only problem is that the goal of this administration is empire building via control of the worlds most valuable resource…Oil. Jesus valued oil too, light oils to anoint the feet of the poor, sick, and down trodden.
larry foss says we’ve had no terrorist attacks- what was the shooter at the unitarian universalist church then? a friendly visitor? he was attempting to cause terror by attacking civilians who believed differently than he did. no terrorist attacks on american soil my ass.
So, Nancy Pelosi has said this and that is all fine and dandy and I congratulate her for having a spine to say so.
However, is she going to do anything about it? If not, she’s just as much of a failure.
Pelosi sucks. Clinton sucks too. Keep on supporting Bush though, because you Joe six packs will do so no matter what until he has taken every last dollar from your poor asses.
Larry Foss – Have you ever been to Iraq? I was there the day we stepped across the border in my Desert Combat Uniform and not once did I see any happy Iraqi people. They know as soon as our troop strength reduces, the ethnic cleansing will begin. How is that for liberation? Our imperialistic mission in Iraq has caused the rise of terrorism in the very place we sought to stop it…Afghanistan. Other nations will not think American when they hate us. They also don’t have to think American because we have absolutely no leverage in the world right now. I would think that American’s have to think American. Why do companies ship our job’s overseas if they are thinking American (thanks Bill and NAFTA)? Why does Bush continue to borrow money from China to fund a BS war on foreign soil if he is thinking American? Furthermore, why do we still allow trade with China if we are thinking American (Thanks again Bill)? China certainly isn’t free, but most people won’t care as long as the things you buy are cheaper here in America.
Wisdomworld, your view on the strongest economy in history is extremely skewed. I don’t consider it a strong economy when the majority of American’s income went down during that time.
Walter – If Bush was left with a shitty economy due to leveraged real estate, why did that leverage on real estate keep going WAY up during the first 5 years of his administration? I even remember the banks and appraisers artificially inflating the real estate prices when I got home from Iraq and started looking for houses. That, my friend, is a product of unregulated financial practices brought about by the Republicans when they took over congress during the Clinton years, and anyone that disputes that needs to look at past legislation.
So where are we now? Sitting here bickering about the same bipartisan junk being the American’s with free speech that we are! It would be nice to get ANY politicians with backbones to do something right for the American people. If Pelosi is going to say that the House and Senate are cleaning up after Bush’s messes, don’t they have to do SOMETHING first instead of just acknowledge it? If you acknowledge a problem and do nothing about it, isn’t that ignorance? Yay Washington.
Ok, I just HAVE to say something. Oil was only part of this fiasco at the expense of our people’s retirement savings and jobs. Drugs are also involved here. If all you people that think you know so much and own a freakin computer would do a little basic research you would soon discover that oil and drugs have been at the heart of the wars for the past oh, say 75 years or so. Before oil it was just drugs and things like um…coffee, SUGAR, etc. There is so much to know and so little who look for the answers. Wake up folks. I knew before W was elected that he was just using the Jesus technique to get the naive Christian communities vote. My dad is a minister and called him God’s man. I am not a democrat OR republican, I am liberal in love and conservative with the way I live my life. Too bad more people aren’t really taking their own power into their own hands rather than wasting their silly lives arguing over which crook is not a crook. They are all elite blood lines who detest us and use us for their own purposes and you know what? We let them. Want to do something with your life, stop giving power to them by even talking or thinking about them and focus on what needs fixed in your own lives in order to make our world the place our Creator intended. A Heaven on Earth is exactly what we can have when we see that it exists already and that the only thing that is making it HELL is our ignorance.
May you all awaken and figure out the truth and not the nonsense we have been spoon fed by our masters for so long. They cannot keep power unless we continue to believe their fear tactics, etc. Take charge of your own life and become the person that you most admire!
Peace
Every one quick….Drink the coolaid and repeat after me. Bush is great Bush is great. I am a great American because I say Bush is great.
BUSH IS A TOTAL FAILURE!!! So is Pelosi
Republicans rack up our credit cards in the form of Deficit spending.
Democrats raise our taxes to try to pay the bills.
No one cares. Lets go nuts!
The most corrupt congressmen aside from Pelosi and Reid are the ones who are most responsible for our Country’s current financial problems. Barney Frank and Christopher Dodd are the elitist leftist bums who forced their idiocy on the established, statistically proven, free-market lending criterion, in attempt to promote their social engineering scheme. These jerk-offs should be in jail for negligence
This is awesome !!! Good work
Bush will be considered a great leader in the eyes of history. Didn’t Lincoln have one of the lowest approval ratings in history. But now he is considered the most influentual president in history. Bush wasn’t there to be popular. He was there to do what he feels is right. If I ever make it to presidency then I am not going to fall under the popular president. I would be a great president. The president isn’t their to kiss everyones ass and give candy. He is there to lead!!!