[jeffkrol]

The end of liberalism? Lets hope so!

How about this for american exceptionalism, this morning on the radio they had a story about youth protests in Israel over government cut backs and an Israeli they were interviewing compared what they were doing with the European anti-austerity movements. In america, instead of anti-austerity we have a pro-austerity movement in the form of the Tea Party. Quite refreshing IMHO.

Constantly saying America is doomed, being taken over by Socialists ect. THEN selling patriotism is opening the door for a very "exceptional" totalitarian state........

[Ratmagiclady]

Small Government Dreamers, ignorant of the consequences of their demands, seduced the media into repeating their mantra. Leadership then followed the red herring.

Well, this has its roots in Reagan 'deregulating' the FCC, ...allowing for corporate media oligopolies and necessitating *for-profit 'news'* which rapidly began racing for the bottom, the lowest common denominator: cutting back on the actual journalism and substituting 'horse-race' coverage of politics and sensationalism and 'controversy,' (even when no terribly-valid controversy exists) They take the spoon-feeding in part because that's all they *have* in some ways, ....the big-big-big-networks have big corporate entanglements... totally beholden to pretty much all the big corporations in the market: and nary a foreign or city *desk* any more, never mind many investigative reporters.

And I'm not even *counting* Fox, which is nothing but a shameless propaganda machine and its own echo chamber.

In the recent past the public and media finally heard the muted voices of sane liberal analysis and revised its views on the need for investment in the form of directed government spending funded by tax reform. Liberalism's message was recently revived as Right Wing media talking heads began to emphasize the need for stimulus; but it was too little, too late.

The right will surely blame the decline to come on insufficient austerity and more bloodletting will be demanded. I hope the muted voices of ration can gain a little passion as the economy and society slips.

Pretty much. What we've needed all along has been something akin to a Depression/WWII era national effort, though perhaps not by degree: not just 'stimulus' for the for-profit-only consumer economy, though that helps, but real investment and effort in our own country that puts real people to work and builds things that last and pay off instead of just being another year's profit margin for those cutting workforces and gutting local economies and creating the messes of predatory practices in the first place.

This has for a long time been an assault on the middle class (by stratifying *that* into a few very rich and a lot of no-longer-well-off people) and of course the poor and working classes.

What the GOP has done and been doing all along is actively *destructive* of our nation as most of us live in it, socially as well as economically. By using social divisions and regressive bigotries to deflect blame away from the people *really* making out like robber barons. Scapegoating, denialism, revisionism, even, and making things worse instead of using our not-inconsiderable national resources and resourcefulness for something besides separating 'assets' from 'liabilities.'

What's needed doing is actually putting the money in play, not through handing it to the richest as though that will 'incentivize' them to *do* something when they're getting handed the money, anyway: something they claim somehow applies to the poor, disabled, elderly, and children, but not themselves... (Hint: If they're only in it for the money, don't give them the money for nothing.)

And what it needs to be put in play doing is indeed things that will keep paying off: Conservation, modernizing our energy infrastructure: turning our near-shattered industries into a real 'green tech' world-leader, ....things that will improve the qualit of life now and for the future instead of just 'staying the course' toward a major collapse for short term political and big-money gain.

This is from someone who's come back from the *street,* and pretty severe disability, and got *so* close to being part of, well, a productive household, maybe even partially self-employed, enough to be not-dependent on the Social Security if only we got some of the rights people take for granted in marriage, ....and this big game of chicken about a manufactured crisis has meant that instead I'll be lucky to not be trying to keep a bolthole over my head before I even think about how to eat, never mind working cottage industry. As even able-bodied people without a history of poverty are downwardly-mobile where there isn't even a factory job to be had, I could find myself suddenly pushed right off the bottom end of the economic scale again. And this happened *just* because the degree my sweetie's been working on in a very-desired field means that all the companies that were offering good salaries and any kind of commitment have simply been freezing hiring while the GOP's been playing politics, threatening both cuts everywhere and making any investors 'nervous.' This is just a difference of six months of this crap, considering her field.... but it's six months...It's years, where life doesn't stop, bills don't stop, consequences don't stop, just cause the Tea Party wants to throw an ideological tantrum about 'small government' cause they want a 'one term president' ....and elect dudes who say 'Half a million a year really isn't that much to live on.


Great Gods, where does *that* somehow intersect with reality?

If I had half a million dollars *once,* there's whole damn towns that this economy has long since broken, that I could probably revive into something sustainable. (For something on a less-abstract comparison, any of us could go on a total LBA binge without even *denting* half a million. ) For all they play on fears of scarcity, these 'Baggers just don't know how to think like poor people.

They see 'balance sheets' and see people as either 'resources to be exploited' or 'liabilities to be written off.' For all their false 'populism' don't see *people.*

I see people. I see living people.

I also see *parts.* Lots of parts. That's part of why they called me the 'Rat Lady.'


But that's getting towards a rant, of course.

But I have reason to.

All I've worked and struggled and just plain survived for, and I'm perilously-close to back where I was ten years ago, just older and with less stamina. I'd go pick the crops that they scared everyone non-white away from with anti-immigrant measures, just on general principle, if I could last out the hiring line, which I couldn't do when I was twenty years younger, never mind get through twenty yards of the actual work, before, well, giving this body back to the land, pretty directly.

But, you know, people are struggling, as it is. I can maybe make people some nice things they might want to buy if they could afford to, contribute something more than being a failure at 'Warm Bodies Wanted,' but the press of people coming *down* the 'economic ladder' just means there's not very many niches to fill.

And I think that'd be a waste of a perfectly-good me, not to mention a perfectly-viable country.

I mean, we're *America,* for Godssakes. Look at us. This is a disgrace, To *everything* we're supposed to have been about these past fifty, hundred, two hundred years.

Sixty-odd years ago, we were collecting bacon grease to defeat fascism, and now, as some would have it, we'd rather *become* fascism (And possibly bacon grease in the process) than believe in our real selves. We the people, All of us. And all that means. She lifting a lamp by a Golden Door included.

This is supposed to be a land of *opportunity,* not a land of *opportunism.*

/lecture

Replacement of congress by a committee of 12 may be a serious error, short circuiting the representative legislative process.

May as well call em tribunes or something. It's a troubling step to be taking, in a way, but as the people who somehow claim to represent *this* town prove by their actions, fractiousness serves those who profit from the status quo anyway. At best it's a procedural patch on a much deeper problem. Likely, another system to be abused, but maybe they'll have to be quicker about it.

[shooz]

“As Mankind becomes more liberal, they will be more apt to allow that all those who conduct themselves as worthy members of the community are equally entitled to the protections of civil government. I hope ever to see America among the foremost nations of justice and liberality.”

----George Washington----

That's the problem today. They don't like America.

[wildman]

This is supposed to be a land of *opportunity,* not a land of *opportunism.*

Apparently that's too fine a distinction for many to make in this country.

[Nesster]

Here's more rumination on that article:
RealClearPolitics - Americans Want the Honor of "Earned Success"

Why aren't voters moving to the left, toward parties favoring bigger government, during what increasingly looks like an economic depression? That's a question I've asked, and one that was addressed with characteristic thoughtfulness by Democratic pollster Stanley Greenberg in The New York Times last week.

Greenberg argues that voters agree with Democrats on issues but don't back them on policy because they don't trust government to carry it out fairly. I think he overstates their agreements on policies: They may favor "investment in education" until they figure out that it actually means political payoffs to teachers' unions.

But his larger point rings true. He points out that "the growth of self-identified conservatives" began during the fall 2008 debate over the TARP legislation supported by George W. Bush, Barack Obama and John McCain. The voters' take: "Government works for the irresponsible, not the responsible."

That was the complaint as well of Rick Santelli in his February 2009 "rant" calling for a tea party. Santelli was complaining about mortgage modification programs that used prudent homeowners' tax money to subsidize those who had made imprudent decisions.

But Greenberg's diagnosis is stronger than his prescriptions. To reduce the power of "special interest lobbyists," he calls for stronger campaign finance regulation. But as Walter Russell Mead points out in his American Interest blog, that's unlikely to happen anytime soon.

Mead makes an even stronger point when he writes that "for large numbers of voters, the professional classes who staff the bureaucracies, foundations and policy institutes in and around government are themselves a special interest." One, he adds, that acts "only to protect their turf and fatten their purses."

This helps explain why majorities continue to oppose the Obama Democrats' stimulus package and Obamacare. Democratic elites thought these laws would be seen as helping ordinary people. But they aren't.

They are seen as special interest legislation that helps politically favored constituencies. Which, as my Washington Examiner colleague Timothy Carney has documented, is an accurate view.

I think the larger mistake the Obama Democrats have made is that they suppose ordinary voters want government to channel more money in their direction.

They're not the only ones to take this view. In the Bush years, thoughtful conservatives -- David Frum, Ross Douthat and Reiham Salam -- noted that most people's real incomes had not been rising and wrote books calling for government policies to bolster their incomes.

But ordinary Americans don't want money as much as they want honor. They want what the chance to achieve what American Enterprise Institute President Arthur Brooks calls "earned success."

...

"The progressive ideal of administrative cadres leading the masses toward the light has its roots in a time when many Americans had an eighth-grade education or less," Mead writes. That is still the mindset of the Obama Democrats. Ordinary people are treated as victims who need government programs like Obamacare to help them out.

But Americans prefer to see themselves as doers rather than victims. They do not see themselves, as the masses in the Progressive Era a century ago may have done, as helpless victims of large corporations and financial interests.

They want public policies that enable them to earn success, and they resent policies that channel money to the politically well positioned or to those who have not made decisions and taken actions necessary for earned success. They want to be empowered, not patronized.

That's why voters here and, as Greenberg notes, in other advanced countries are rejecting policies that give more power to the mandarins who run government and provide less leeway for ordinary people to work for earn success.

[mikemike]

But ordinary Americans don't want money as much as they want honor. They want what the chance to achieve what American Enterprise Institute President Arthur Brooks calls "earned success."

...

"The progressive ideal of administrative cadres leading the masses toward the light has its roots in a time when many Americans had an eighth-grade education or less," Mead writes. That is still the mindset of the Obama Democrats. Ordinary people are treated as victims who need government programs like Obamacare to help them out.

But Americans prefer to see themselves as doers rather than victims. They do not see themselves, as the masses in the Progressive Era a century ago may have done, as helpless victims of large corporations and financial interests.

But I thought if the government "spread the wealth around" its good for everyone.

[shooz]

They have to "spread" it to the lower 99%.
Not to corporate banks in the Caymans, and such.

[magkelly]

Like it or not liberalism has spread across this country and become pretty mainstream. As with most movements the more it becomes the norm the more it becomes less so. The same thing happens with new religions. They get founded, grow from being fringe to finding majority acceptance and yet by the time they are fully accepted they become rather more conservative.

If the public as a whole wasn't getting more liberal the laws that are now spreading across the land granting gays the right to marry or at least have their relationships legally recognized wouldn't be receiving the level of support they currently are. There are some diehard religious hold outs, sure, but in the polls more and more Americans are choosing fairness of law over religion and tradition on that score. They understand that their religions don't like it, but they're still choosing to say it's okay for gay people to have rights, to be legal partners anyway.

Abortion likewise is becoming more and more normal. People still don't like it but most people don't want the practice to be ended either. They still want a choice of whether or not to go there. Ditto birth control which despite religious opposition can be found everywhere.

75 years ago if you had asked the "average American" if taking BCP's or gays having civil unions was okay they'd have looked at you like you were crazy, but today, those things are getting common place. Walk into any school in America and you'll find plenty of families that are far from traditional, and you know what? The kids don't even care that a classmate has two moms or two dads. Their parents do, sometimes, but the kids, they just take it all in stride.

American society as a whole is vastly more liberal than it was in my grandparent's day, in my parent's day. Things that totally shock them? They don't shock me much, and they don't shock my siblings kids at all. Yet, for the most part, their kids, they're rather more conservative in some ways than you'd think, not quite the flaming liberals that you would think given a lot of them had hippy parents. There are certain things that they believe in that give my folks, their grandparents, absolute fits but conversely they get all bent out of shape when it comes to things like the government overspending etc. Money is usually where their innate liberalism gives way to practicality for some reason...

When the war in Iraq was started only a tiny faction of young people stood up to protest it even though a good number of the kids in high school and college at the time disapproved of it. That's pretty telling actually. The whole thing was a farce pretty much compared to what happened with Vietnam.

Kids today, they do want their personal liberties, but they're rather apathetic otherwise politically speaking...

[jeffkrol]

Like it or not liberalism has spread across this country and become pretty mainstream. As with most movements the more it becomes the norm the more it becomes less so. The same thing happens with new religions. They get founded, grow from being fringe to finding majority acceptance and yet by the time they are fully accepted they become rather more conservative.

If the public as a whole wasn't getting more liberal the laws that are now spreading across the land granting gays the right to marry or at least have their relationships legally recognized wouldn't be receiving the level of support they currently are. There are some diehard religious hold outs, sure, but in the polls more and more Americans are choosing fairness of law over religion and tradition on that score. They understand that their religions don't like it, but they're still choosing to say it's okay for gay people to have rights, to be legal partners anyway.

Abortion likewise is becoming more and more normal. People still don't like it but most people don't want the practice to be ended either. They still want a choice of whether or not to go there. Ditto birth control which despite religious opposition can be found everywhere.

75 years ago if you had asked the "average American" if taking BCP's or gays having civil unions was okay they'd have looked at you like you were crazy, but today, those things are getting common place. Walk into any school in America and you'll find plenty of families that are far from traditional, and you know what? The kids don't even care that a classmate has two moms or two dads. Their parents do, sometimes, but the kids, they just take it all in stride.

American society as a whole is vastly more liberal than it was in my grandparent's day, in my parent's day. Things that totally shock them? They don't shock me much, and they don't shock my siblings kids at all. Yet, for the most part, their kids, they're rather more conservative in some ways than you'd think, not quite the flaming liberals that you would think given a lot of them had hippy parents. There are certain things that they believe in that give my folks, their grandparents, absolute fits but conversely they get all bent out of shape when it comes to things like the government overspending etc. Money is usually where their innate liberalism gives way to practicality for some reason...

When the war in Iraq was started only a tiny faction of young people stood up to protest it even though a good number of the kids in high school and college at the time disapproved of it. That's pretty telling actually. The whole thing was a farce pretty much compared to what happened with Vietnam.

Kids today, they do want their personal liberties, but they're rather apathetic otherwise politically speaking...

That's not "liberal" it's apathy and disenfranchisement...........

[redrockcoulee]

Also a population may become more liberal in one aspect such as human rights but more conservative in other aspects such as economic or religious. Additionally as one becomes more knowledgeable or familiar with another group on a more personal basis it becomes harder to be opposed to them. For example if a family member or co worker is gay and you do not dislike them it is harder for you to be opposed to same sex marriage than if you knew no one and therefor there is no human face to them.

I think in many ways societies are becoming less liberal with the one exception of race. But not equally more in all aspects but it seems to be trending that way.

[wildman]

But Americans prefer to see themselves as doers rather than victims. They do not see themselves, as the masses in the Progressive Era a century ago may have done, as helpless victims of large corporations and financial interests.

The question then -
is this perception accurate?

What evidence is there in recent history that ordinary people's individual interests are not essentially secondary to corporate and financial interests?

The public has and will continue to believe in all kinds of humbug.

Perception, public or otherwise, is not necessarily reality.

[wildman]

When the war in Iraq was started only a tiny faction of young people stood up to protest it even though a good number of the kids in high school and college at the time disapproved of it. That's pretty telling actually. The whole thing was a farce pretty much compared to what happened with Vietnam.

And the obvious difference is the existence of a draft or not.

Kid's attitude towards war has not changed it's just that they have no skin in the game now. There's plenty of kids in dead end rural economies and urban ghettos to feed the military's need for cannon fodder without calling up middle class kids.

[redrockcoulee]

There were anti-war demonstrations for the Iraq war in Canada but none for Afghanistan. Although I think the draft had part to do with the lack orf opposition in the States the bigger one I think was Americans were still thinking of their nation as the victim of 911 and Iraq at the time was associated with that awful attack.

As far as liberals seeing people the victims that is language designed to turn people away from liberalism. Does a conservative tell a family that's child is sick and there is no health care available that that is a good learning opportunity or a strong reason to go get a better job to save that child? A liberal might wish to see a society where the very basic needs are available to all plus where human rights are protected. The right sees themselves as victims if they do not get their way. I have heard some on the right claim they are the victims in same sex marriage because something they do not believe in and yet it is allowed.

Traditionally both liberals and conservatives believed in looking after society's less fortunate. Now a days it seems that conservatives believe that the less fortunate deserve to be so and anything that helps them is wrong to do so and yet they also believe that free enterprise needs as much help (not money but even more power) as it can get. I do not think that using definitions from a far right think tank of what the left believes is any more useful than using a definition from MoveOn,org or Michael Moore of what a conservative believes.

Politics should be about what kind of country one wants their country to be and even more so the means to acheive those results as both the left and right might have the same goals but different approaches. From listening to some of those involved in American politics on the right it seems more that they view an election like a war and to the victor goes the spoils. A whole new view of the game. I do not see that in Canada to any great degree and not sure if it is because we lag behind in things like that, that we have a much more integrated social safety net or just the lack of the need for such big money in politics that it is not the same game.

[redrockcoulee]

But I thought if the government "spread the wealth around" its good for everyone.

It seems to work in most of the rest of the developed world.

[newarts]

But I thought if the government "spread the wealth around" its good for everyone.

Depends on how it gets spread mike.... Taking money from Bill Gates and giving it to Warren Buffet won't accomplish much for Joe the Plumber. On the other hand giving it to Joe the Plumber might do some good.