May 29, 2014

I can only add up all the issues for myself

Let's see...

Out of OBAMA's POLICIES
I SUPPORT:

--Getting out of Iraq/Afghanistan
--Raising minimum wage
--NOT bombing Syria
--Setting aside land for Nat'l Parkland
--Obama's Support of Same-Sex Marriage/Gay Rights (although it was a tad wobbly in 1st term)
--Federal support for renewable energy sources
--Policy of not invading countries for no reason, so much as it has been stated
--Promoting growing gardens (Michele)
--Supporting voting rights via Justice Dept actions
--Letting stupid Donald Trump have it that WH correspondents' dinner (OK, not a policy, but I loved it )

I feel the ACA is maybe the start of a good thing, but needs to add a Public Option,
or transmute to Single-Payer, within 5 years or so, 10 at most, or it could be disaster.

I DO NOT SUPPORT:

--Public Ed privatization/Charter Schools/Race-to-Top/Arnie Duncan
--Drone Killings
--NSA meta-spying of citizens/evesdsropping on Merkel, etc
--Obama's recent statement in support of "American Exceptionalism"
--Non-prosecution of Wall St investors/"Too big to Fail" (for banks)/Geitner's/Paulson's app'ts
--vast numbers of deportations of undocumented Immigrants (increased over Bush)
--Promoting TPP and similar Trade deals that greatly favor elites
--Busting Medical Cannabis dispensaries in California (Holder & DOJ).

=============================================================================================
I may have forgotten something, but that's basically how I sum up Obama's polices for me.

May 19, 2014

The "right" has become corrupted and dishonest in America

And too many so-called "Liberals" have been duped into supporting horrid trade deals,
for-profit Charter Schools and foreign wars--All policies with a strong rightward lean.

It's not a fair fight in America---The right has the money and numbers, while the left has only numbers and
the fact their policy stands are morally more justifiable for the health of the Nation
and for the greatest number of people.

The left can't even get its best spokespeople on major media tv/radio, and have to go to places like RT or The Web
if they want to hear from brilliant thinkers such as Chomsky, Hedges, Richard D Wolff,
Dahr Jamail, Glen Ford and others.

Centrism, in this slanted climate, yields largely Conservative economic
and foreign policy wins over the long-run.

Wall Street Larcenists remain untouched.
Drones continue to rain down death without due process on distant, dark-skinned foreigners.
Unions are continually pushed back and weakened. Public Schools are privatized, daily.
NSA is perusing your cell phone records as you read this.
TPP is getting pushed through as we speak. The USPost Office is being slowly snuffed
by colluding members of both parties.

THAT is the true face of Centrism.

When somebody says they are a "Centrist",
that is why I, am, uh, not impressed.

May 19, 2014

The problem is...

That Centrism, on the important economic and foreign policy issues at least,
looks a whole lot like slow-motion Conservatism.

May 5, 2014

There is a basic dishonesty BUILT RIGHT INTO modern-day Conservatism

It's part of its structure.

Honesty, facts and reality no longer support (if they ever did) most Conservative positions/arguments,
whether the issue is taxes, healthcare, foreign policy, trade policy, education, environmental issues,
business regulations, wage and distribution-of-wealth issues, whatever.

The result is that a nation of Conservatives who suscribe to the lies and distortions that are given to defend their philosophy and policies, are systematically, insidiously, being made less and less honest, day-by-day.
Empirics and factual touchstones are swept-aside and an almost religious-like faith (in somehow just being right) is elevated.

The big question is, will this process of making people increasingly dishonest, result in mass-numbers of people being able to eventually do evil, disruptive, violent things to other Americans they perceive as "the (Liberal) enemy"?

Is that the end-game of this process?

Serious food 4 thought.

May 5, 2014

Neither side is perfect, but nowadays, are Progressives/Liberals more honest than Conservatives?

Yes.

Absolutely.

If you encounter a person who holds a philosophy, and that "philosophy" has been distorted to
promote falsehoods, misconceptions, personal attacks and racism in multiple areas to "make its case", then that "side" is morally weaker than another side that has a philosophy built on arguments that are more consistently fact-based and less-dependent on evoking prejudices/bigotry to reinforce their "arguments".

Neither side is perfect, but it is empirical that Conservatism in America relies, far far more than Progressivism/Liberalism, on anti-science (climate and pro-dominionist arguments), racism/classism (hate-talk radio, dog whistle-attacks against Obama, minorities, entitlement programs, etc), extreme over-exaggerations (Bhengazi, Whitewater, Clinton rumours, non-existent WMDs, lies about ACA), etc etc etc etc etc etc etc etc etc etc etc etc etc etc etc etc

With false arguments being an institutionalized bedrock of seemingly most Conservative tactics these days, I believe this has a mass-effect of gradually converting a large population of people (US Conservatives) into less-honest people, day-by-day, issue-by-issue, lie-by-lie, distortion-by-distortion. And their pit seems to be getting ever deeper as time passes.

While either side can be stupid (or miss the point of a particular argument), there is no Progressive/Liberal equivalent for the lies, deception and nonstop use of bigotry and non-rational hateful emotion that is standard procedure for Conservatives/GOP supporters, all the time, every day, week after week, month after month, year after year.


There just isn't.