The Wild Wild Left - Democratic Party

Further Down the Road

Rusty1776 — Thu, 24 Jun 2010 02:19:55 GMT

Words have power, they convey meaning, we use them to communicate, but progressives keep using the wrong words, we keep using words that empower the corporate enemies of democracy, we keep using words that distort meaning and communicate false realities.

We need to stop doing that.

Stop using words like "Congress" and "Elections" and "Democratic Party". We don't have a Congress, so why are so many progressives still saying we have one by using that word? We used to have a Congress, it was where representatives of the people used to pass laws that enabled the middle class to prosper so the whole country would prosper. That doesn't happen any more, it doesn't happen any more because we have no Congress. Calling that K Street whorehouse "Congress" confers legitimacy on a corrupted institution that has no legitimacy, it reinforces the illusion that representative democracy still exists in this country, it pushes us further down the road to that nightmare world George Orwell warned us about . . .

A world of fear and treachery and torment, a world of trampling and being trampled upon, a world which will grow not less but more merciless as it refines itself. Progress in our world will be progress toward more pain.

Progressive bloggers also need to stop talking about "elections". We don't have elections in this country any more, we have Deceit Contests. The liars with the most cash usually win and then rake in even more cash from that steady flow of K Street bribes those liars in what used to be Congress call campaign contributions. If you want to talk about the Midterm Deceit Contests, go right ahead, but call them what they are. Don't reinforce the illusion that we have "elections" by using that word, expose the illusion with accurate words, with words that expose the pervasive deceit entrenched at every level of this Orwellian political system, with words that communicate what's actually happening.
Progressive bloggers also need to stop saying "Democratic Party". There is no Democratic Party any more, so don't call that clusterfuck of craven corporate whores the Democratic Party. If you do, you're conferring integrity on people who have no integrity, you're conveying respect for people who deserve no respect, you're equating Steny Hoyer with Harry Truman, you're equating Rahm Emanuel with Bobby Kennedy, you're equating Ben Nelson with Paul Wellstone.

People will say we have to use commonly accepted political terminology such as "Congress" and "Elections" and "Democratic Party". No we don't. It's self-defeating to use those terms, they've become Orwellian, there's no truth in them, they don't reflect reality, they perpetuate false realities.

Understand the implications of the words you use, be aware that you are constantly being manipulated, recognize that language itself is being used as a weapon against us, realize that every time you use commonly accepted political terminology you are adding another brick to that corporate prison wall that surrounds us all.

Be aware of your thoughts, for they become your words.
Be aware of your words, for they become your actions.
Be aware of your actions, for they become your habits.
Be aware of your habits, for they become your character.
Be aware of your character, for it becomes your destiny. -- Anonymous

Don't use their words, their words are lies. Don't use their language, their language is a cage. We need to use our own words, words of empowerment, words of enlightenment, words of emancipation. If we do that, we can transform our thoughts and words into our destiny, we can free ourselves from this corporate hell, where heroes are traded for ghosts, where one generation after another is damned to endless exploitation, where there are no reprieves, where the truth is in solitary confinement, where capitalism is the executioner and the whole world is on death row.

(Cross-posted at Firedoglake)

Green Party candidate Dennis Spisak is running for Ohio Governor.

Michael Kwiatkowski — Sun, 21 Feb 2010 19:51:38 GMT

Being from Ohio, elections here are especially important to me as they have a more direct impact on the Buckeye State than do federal elections. So it was heartening to read at USelections.com that there is an independent candidate from the left who is running for governor and who isn't culled from the pools of Big Business. His name is Dennis Spisak, and he is running for governor this year. You can check out his web site by clicking this LINK.

Other candidates for governor are incumbent and Democrat Ted Strickland, Republican and businessboy John Kasich, who ran an unsuccessful campaign for U.S. president in 2000, and building contractor Ken Matesz on the Libertarian Party ticket.
I am writing in support of Dennis Spisak because Governor Strickland has done a thoroughly mediocre job and we need someone in office who will better represent the public interest. To date, Strickland's actions have been too much of caution where boldness, frankness, and decisive action have been needed. Although his first proposed budget made some necessary changes, better funding some areas that had suffered from the so-called "peanut butter effect" -- that is, spreading budget dollars evenly across the board rather than focus money where it is most needed -- his decision to cut funds for vital services like public libraries, and engage in "budget-balancing" (read: massive layoffs) at a time when Ohio most needs public spending, simply do not earn him a second term.

I write this as someone who, with a great many reservations about both his positions and his lackluster campaigning, nevertheless volunteered for that campaign in 2006 against fascist candidate J. Kenneth Blackwell, who rigged the 2004 presidential election and helped plunge the nation into four extra years of darkness under the dictatorship of George W. Bush. Ohio cannot endure another four years of mediocrity when it suffers from one of the worst economies in the nation.

Nor can it endure four or more years of a Republican governorship, under which things would be even worse than they are now. Given the choice among the good, the bad, and the mediocre, Ohioans should rally behind the good, and that is personified in Dennis Spisak.

His positions on various issues include, but are by no means limited to:

HEALTH CARE FOR ALL OHIOANS ACT: It's time we establish single-payer healthcare in Ohio. The only 4 NOS you will hear:
No Co-payments, No Deductibles, No Premiums, No One Excluded.
You go to your personal physician for a visit. You pay nothing. The doctor bills the Ohio Health Care Fund (OHCF)
You have prescriptions filled by the pharmacist. You pay nothing. the pharmacist bills OHCF.
You need hospitalization. You pay nothing. The hispotal is paid by the OHCF.
You go to the emregency room. You do not wait for hours and hours. Since everyone has health care coverage, people can see their own doctors for routine care and don't have to use the emergency room as a doctor's office.
Your care is better. You choose your own doctor, who knows you personally and understands your needs. The doctor is part of a system that encourages phtsicians to practice medicine of the highest quality.
You sleep better. Your health care is secure. You no longer have to worry about losing your health care coverage if you lose or change your job. Your employer no longer has to worry about the ever-increating costs of health care. You no longer have to worry about ever-increaing deductibles and co-payments.

JOBS: It's time Ohio's Governor becomes an active participant in seeking new blue-green reneweable energy manufacturing jobs for the buckeye state.
The city of Saginaw,Michigan is bidding to become home to a branch of the San Jose-based solar company GlobalWatt. If the Saginaw City Council approves a brownfield redevelopment plan, the company could receive ten million dollars in tax credits.
A city in Texas has already offered an incentive package to the company should they decide to locate their new facility there. The Texas city could be Corpus Christi, but some sources also state the location is still undisclosed. GlobalWatt already works with Texas A&M University-Corpus Christi on photovoltaics research.
The company produces solar modules, photovoltaic laminators, semi-automatic production lines, and conducts research. Their new plant will cost about $177 million to create and will manufacture solar modules for commercial, military and residential installations.
An estimated 100 jobs will be created annually each year for five years, beginning in 2010.
Ohio could use 500 new jobs in the next five years. It's time for Ohio to have a Governor to lead the job searches for new renewable jobs.

TAXES: Ohio Must Return to a Progressive Fair Tax System!
Low-and middle-income Ohioans pay a much greater share of their income in state and local taxes than the state's most affluent do, according to a study by Policy Matters Ohio.
The top 1 percent of non-elderly Ohio families by income, who earned at least $352,000 in 2007, on average pay 7.8 percent of their income in state and local taxes. By contrast, the lowest fifth, who make less than $17,000, on average pay 12.0 percent. Families in the middle fifth of the income spectrum, who make between $32,000 and $50,000, on average pay 11.0 percent.
Recent changes in Ohio's state and local tax system have increased the disparity. The report found that Ohio ranks 28th among states in the fairness of its tax system, based on the share of their income affluent Ohioans are paying in state and local taxes compared to that of lower- and middle-income Ohioans. Last time the study was done, which covered the law as of 2002, Ohio ranked 14th by this measure.
The national report, Who Pays? A Distributional Analysis of the Tax Systems in All 50 States, was produced by the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy (ITEP) and released in Ohio by Policy Matters Ohio and The Center for Community Solutions. It reviews every state's tax system based on permanent changes in law enacted through October 2009 and income levels from 2007 (the most recent year that necessary data is available across states).
"No one would ever design an income tax with lower tax rates for the best-off taxpayers," noted Matthew Gardner, ITEP's executive director and lead author of the study. "But that is exactly what Ohio's tax system overall does: It allows the very wealthiest individuals to contribute less of their income, on average, than middle- and lower-income families must pay. In other words, Ohio has an unfair, regressive tax system."

Given these and other positions on issues vital to Ohioans -- indeed, to all Americans -- it makes sense that voters support a candidate who represents their interests at the polls in November. Those who threaten us with a Republican victory if Strickland loses votes to Spisak would do well to remember that their terroristic threats did not go over well with Massachusetts voters last month, and for good reason: we're simply fed up with Democrats who promise us reform but govern like Republicans anyway. Democrats are not entitled to non-Republican votes. Strickland is in danger of losing the governorship to Kasich because he is a middling politician who has done poorly at the job to which Ohioans have elected him, and because his idea of campaigning is to tout his past jobs while refusing to illustrate where he really stands on the issues or how he plans to address them. (Again, I know this because I worked on his campaign as a volunteer in 2006, and so am in a position to write from first hand observation.)

Anyway, there's my post in support of Dennis Spisak. Look up the information in the links provided and make up your own mind.

Fire Under Their Seats - Pt 4: Progressives & The Democratic Party

Edger — Mon, 08 Feb 2010 03:39:03 GMT

This is the fourth and last segment of Paul Jay's interview of journalism professor Jeff Cohen of FAIR and the Park Center for Independent Media.

In Part 3 Cohen talked about the struggle for power and direction within the Democratic Party from the days of the Viet Nam War to the present, and wound up with "Frankly... I would love to see a primary challenge to Obama when he's up for re-election... Because unless you build a base through elections and then you hold the officials accountable, then you'll never get anywhere."

Here in the conclusion of the interview Cohen expands on those ideas and fills in some of the outlines to draw a rough set of guidelines or roadmap of how to get from where things stand now with the Democrats as out and out corporatists to a world of the kind of progressive populism they have been well known for at various points in history, and how it is going to take a no more Mr. Nice Guy approach from progressives and a lot of very hardnosed and fearless aggressiveness, of the kind that I think Muhammad Ali meant when he noted so many years ago "He who is not courageous enough to take risks will accomplish nothing in life."

Real News Network - February 6, 2010
Cohen: Far right Republicans are dangerous, but also need to primary against corporate Democrats

All 4 parts of this interview are at DocuDharma here.

Fire In The Belly - Progressives & The Democratic Party

Edger — Sat, 06 Feb 2010 16:17:55 GMT

Crossposted from Docudharma

Journalism professor Jeff Cohen of FAIR and the Park Center for Independent Media on the struggle within the Democratic Party, starting from the Viet Nam War:

There's no doubt that there's an awakening. What concerns me is that the liberal base, the Democratic Party base, has never been more educated, in my view, and that's because of the independent media. The democratic base is against an imperial foreign policy. The democratic base is for real medicare for all, or at least the strongest public option that would really hurt private insurance. There's an understanding of history, and again it's largely because the independent media is giving us the news in real time, every day when we click on the computer and we watch Real News, we watch Democracy Now.
What hasn't translated is while we have this boom in independent media on the Internet, we don't have a boom of independent politics.
What I believe are needed are new groups, that will be on the Internet, mobilizing the millions to make the kinds of demands of the Democrats that the right wing base, which has clearly transformed the country, the right wing base in the Republican Party not only took over a major party, they haven't let up on that party until their agenda is put in place, whereas on our side we don't have that.
What needs to happen, this is what a few groups are doing, Progressive Democrats of America is one, the idea is we need to take over that major political party.
When people talk about change, and then they deliver only for insurance companies, pharmaceutical companies and Wall Street, you vote them out. You primary them. You know this is what the right wing has done for decades. It's what they're doing now.
What we get from MoveOn historically and other groups is apologies for democratic office holders who have faked left with their rhetoric and then governed for big business. And what we need is to primary these people.
Frankly... I would love to see a primary challenge to Obama when he's up for re-election.
Because unless you build a base through elections and then you hold the officials accountable, then you'll never get anywhere.

Real News Network - February 6, 2010

This is Part 3. Part 1 and 2 of this interview are at DocuDharma here.
Part 4 is still to come...