Author Archives: Andy Hailey

About Andy Hailey

Vietnam Vet, UT El Paso Grad, Retired Aerospace Engineer, former union rep, 60's Republican now progressive, web admin, blogger.

Tracking the Growth of American Authoritarianism

“Can There Really Be Fascist People In A Democracy?”
Libertarians are stealthily taking over America.

Since the 1971 Powell Memo, America has moved closer and closer to Fascism.

 

Bully’s and Fear Mongers Coerce President Obama

How many wars are today’s neocons willing to promote for the sake of regime change that grows corporate profit? “The demonizing of Russia’s President Vladimir Putin appears to know no bounds, with the White House and The New York Times … Continue reading

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Small Group Accepts Mass Killings for the Sake of Maintaining Unlimited Freedom.

“Conservatives without Conscience,” a minority in America defined by John Dean in his book by the same title, accept the collateral damage of their many wars, including innocent American children and many others taken by mass killings – mass killings … Continue reading

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Hidden Threats Strain Both the Earth’s Life-sustaining Resources and Life Itself

Unsustainable economic growth and its systemic impacts on the wealth gap, human population, and Earth’s climate are enslaving and abusing all Peoples. Wage theft, debt slavery, and expanding poverty drive the exponential growth of the income and wealth gap and … Continue reading

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Ending American Authoritarianism – A Hybridization of Orwell and Huxley Dystopias, and Resisting It Through Radical Imagination

Henry Giroux re-evaluates the works of Orwell and Huxley compares them to the new American Authoritarianism and proposes actions to reverse it. Both authors provide insight into the merging of the totalitarian elements that constitute a new and more hybridized … Continue reading

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The New Socialism and Bernie Sanders, #FeelTheBern

From Bernie Sanders is a democratic socialist, but what does that term mean?: There are essentially two types of socialists in modern Western democratic politics. Social democrats are effectively what the left is in nearly every Western European and North … Continue reading

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Pro-war, Regime Change, Neocons Have Controlled our Interventionist Foreign Policy for Decades

Back in January, 2007, as The Shrub, GWB, began his final year in office I wrote a blog post titled Bush’s Administration has Neocons Everywhere According to Bush and Rumsfeld. In September of last year, I wrote another posting called, … Continue reading

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Winning in Politics – Inspiring Your Supporters to Vote

Know Your Values and Frame the Debate Communicating Our American Values and Vision Why You Can’t Understand 21st Century American Politics with an 18th Century Brain The essential Guide to Thinking and Talking Democratic The above list provides the subtitles … Continue reading

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Trans Pacific Partnership, Pros and Cons – Good for Corporations, Very Bad for Children or Workers

Here is a list of typical “pro TPP statements” with my cons. “free trade has boosted American commerce more than it has hurt.” On a macro scale, I’ll stipulate to that. However, that benefit has not been fairly distributed across … Continue reading

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Checks and Balances – Supporting the United Steel Workers

The founders of America included a fundamental idea in our Constitution: checks and balances – one branch of government checks another. This important idea is basic to our way of life and applies to any situation where abuse of power … Continue reading

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Supressing Hope Is Futile – Integrity, Moral Values, and Insurrectional Democracy

Externalizing hope will defeat the casino capitalism of the authoritarian right. Here are three requirements for getting there: 1. Progressives who deny their core values, lose, and can’t inspire the underpaid, overworked, debt ridden, and generally oppressed to take action. … Continue reading

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Inequality is Worse Than You Think, Why So Many Accept It, and The Inevitible Progressive Revolution

From: Peak Inequality: The .01% and The Impoverishment of Society: Beyond these baseline costs, looking at moderate costs for a family of four owning a home in a median family area, with one car, education and retirement costs factored in, … Continue reading

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My Recent Tweets on #AmericaInFiveWords – Reliving the American Revolution of 1800

– Corporations/Billionaires own our government – Obedient shoppers or Critical Thinkers? – Enslaved by paychecks and debt – Where freedom is an illusion – About ME or about WE? – For-profit media conditions consciousness – Democracy or Republic? No! Plutocracy!! … Continue reading

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The Texas Democratic Party Wanted to Know …

I just responded to a Texas Democratic Party Survey. Here are their questions and my answers: What do you think we could have done differently? All organizations that are working to elect Democrats need to coordinate their activities to reduce … Continue reading

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Erik Prince Still Free, Ferguson Police Abuse, Who Can’t Vote in Texas, Corp Attack On Democracy, NPR Part of Problem, Doughnut Economics

Suggested Reading for Week Ending 10/26 Christianist Erik Prince Remains Free as Blackwater Guards Convicted for Killing 14 Iraqis in Massacre First of all, Erik Prince is a radical right-wing Christian supremacist who, from the very beginning of the so-called … Continue reading

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Fixing Our Broken Economic and Law Enforcement Systems, Private Empire vs Earth, People Take Action

Suggested Reading for Week Ending 10/19 Beyond Orwellian Nightmares and Neoliberal Authoritarianism Those who fight against neoliberalism [free market fundamentalism, casino capitalism] must not settle for reforming a system that is as broken as it is dangerous. Any viable, transformative … Continue reading

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Unconstitutional Gerrymandering, RGA Funneling Corp Dark Money, Privatizing Public TV, The First Slip of Corp Media, Citizen Actions Against Abuse

Suggested Reading for Week Ending 10/12 Federal Court Strikes Down One of the Most Aggressive Gerrymanders in the Country One of the most aggressive gerrymanders in the country is unconstitutional, according to a divided three-judge panel in Virginia. In 2012, … Continue reading

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Activist Supreme Court, America’s Tyrannical Theocracy, Koch Destruction, ISIS Kills Surveillance Reform, Nye on Tar Sands, Infrastructure vs Greed, Economic Hitmen

Suggested Reading for Week Ending 10/5 The Supreme Court That Made It Easier to Buy Elections Just Made It Harder for People to Vote in Them In case there was any remaining confusion with regard to the precise political intentions … Continue reading

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Peoples Climate March, Flood Wall $reet, Embedded Neocons Force War, Students Challenge Conservative Authority, Journalists Manipulated to Support War, Wall $teet Manipulates NYC Fed , Freedom for Us and the Citizens of Gaza

Suggested Reading for Week Ending 9/28 The People’s Climate The People’s Climate March on September 21 was a watershed for the emerging global climate movement, with more than 400,000 people taking to the streets of New York City. But New … Continue reading

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Neocons Left Over from Reagan and Bush II Using ISIS Crisis to Expand Right-wing Authoritarian Regime Change Policy

Back at the start of the seventh year of the Bush II administration, January of 2007, I wrote a post about all the leading neoconservatives, and their think tanks, that were supporting or were a part of that administration and … Continue reading

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War with ISIS?, Kock Brothers Teaching our Kids, MSM is a Failure, NeoCons Growing al-Qaeda, 1800 Revolution Repeating Now

Suggested Reading for Week Ending 9/21 The Questions Congress Should Ask About Obama’s War on ISIS “The public is told there’s no imminent threat to the US, so why are we rushing to war? Could weapons given to Syrian rebels … Continue reading

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Lawrence Lessig’s “The USA is Lesterland” – But It Take More Than Spreading the Funding Influence

Lawrence Lessig: We the People, and the Republic we must reclaim Please watch the video first.   Lessig ends by saying, “We have lost that Republic. All of us have to act to get it back.” I agree with that … Continue reading

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Resisting Urban Shield, Billionnaire God-like Desires, Public Gas Station, Violating Law Ok If It Saves Money?,

Suggested Reading for Week Ending 9/14 Militarization, Surveillance, and Profit: How Grassroots Groups are Fighting Urban Shield “The line between police and military is blurring as parallel military tactics are being deployed globally to repress dissent and increase state control … Continue reading

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Functioning Democracies Require Citizen Participation and That …

Government is crucial for building a public infrastructure that equally protects and empowers every citizen Citizenship dues are necessary to fund this public infrastructure and that these dues are in proportion to the use of said infrastructure so as to … Continue reading

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TTIP-Concerns About Food Safety, Suppressing Civil Disobedience, Tax Reform, KochKash, Lies & Why’s of Ukraine, Stopping Privateering

Suggested Reading for Week Ending 9/7 EU-US Trade Deal Lets Corporate Interests Steamroll Food Safety, Groups Warn We are writing to respond to claims by the European Commission (EC) that there is “no contradiction” in the US – EU trade … Continue reading

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World View of Ferguson, McConnell Kisses Up to ONE%, FBI & Charter Schools, ONE% Con Job, Poor 9%, Kochs In Charge

Suggested Reading for Week Ending 8/31 Everyone From Tibetan Monks To Iran’s Supreme Leader Is watching Ferguson. Here’s How They’re Reacting Why would someone in Gaza care about protesters in Ferguson? One argument is that the resurgence of popular uprisings … Continue reading

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I guess the only thing left to do IS VOTE.

– First they came for the unions, but I didn’t vote. – Then they diverted pay raises for my increased productivity to corp profit and my spouse went to work to help pay the mortgage, but we still didn’t vote. … Continue reading

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Amerian Wariors Proliferate War Mentality Across America, Atlantic Ocean Warms, Fracking Protest

Suggested Reading for Week Ending 8/24 A Former Marine Explains All the Weapons of War Being Used by Police in Ferguson One small way to measure the police violence against black people in Ferguson is to attend to its details. … Continue reading

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Warren or the Golden Calf, Information Warfare, Another Secret TA, NPR Fooled, AUMF=Endless WAR, Perry/Prison

Suggested Reading for Week Ending 8/17 Elizabeth Warren’s 11 Commandments For progressives just recently let out of the bondage of the long Clinton-Bush interregnum, it would thus be a shame for them to put their faith in a golden calf … Continue reading

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Hoarding Cash, InvertersRDeserters, Putin a Target?, Yahoo PGP, PO Bank, Disaster Goes Unreported

Suggested Reading for Week Ending 8/10 Cash Hoarding becomes an Addiction Several studies have been done since the Great Recession, and we’ve learned that many of the CEOs who devastated our economy weren’t only greedy, but nearly 40% of them … Continue reading

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Ayn Rand Fever Dream, ALEC Legislator Auction, Populism for Dems, Wealth Correlates to Denialism

Suggested Reading for Week Ending 8/3 The people of the United States must work to end the interventionist violence of the U.S. Empire The historian who chronicles US Empire,William Blum, issued his 130th Anti-Empire Report this week. In it he … Continue reading

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AFP Ranks Legislators, Powell Memo, ALEC Funding, Tea Party Fear/Hate, Domestic Terrorists, US Empire

Suggested Reading for Week Ending 7/27 See How Americans For Prosperity Ranks YOUR Congressmen on free market fundamentalism – Neoliberalism Top 10 DEMs get ratings between 20% and 39%, like Jim Matheson (D) of UT at 35%, or Mike McIntyre … Continue reading

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Tea Party Religion, Picthforks for the Wealthy, Women’s Economic Security, ALEC

Suggested Reading Week Ending 7/20 Tea Party Has Become a Religion, Stopping the Devil Incarnate is It’s Goal Interview with Billionaire Nick Hanhauer – The Pitchforks Are Coming The Human Price of Neocon Havoc Thinking Dangerously in an Age of Political … Continue reading

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Excessive Corporate Intrusion Is a Major Factor in Maximizing Inequality

When FDR and LBJ passed laws which maximized equality by providing protections such as Social Security, the right to unionize, and medicare, corporations only saw added costs for doing business. While America helped rebuild the world after WWII, these costs … Continue reading

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Neoliberal, Free Market Fundamentalist, Ideology of The 1971 Powell Memo Reflected in Koch Brother’s 1980 Manifesto

Decades later, Lewis Powell codified Vice President Wallace’s “method” in The Powell Memo of 1971. The result was a proliferation of conservative think tanks like the Cato institute, thousands of talking heads all over commercial media, Fox News, hate radio, … Continue reading

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Right-wing Authoritarian Neoliberal Ideology Has Prevented Universal Health Care for Americans

Economic neoliberalism, or free market fundamentalism, has been at work for decades in America transferring more and more wealth from the masses to the ONE%. Privatization of all that is public (SS, Medicare, pensions, etc.), or putting it on the … Continue reading

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Edward Snowden Exposed Our Authoritarian – Dual – State

The following are excerpts are from a recent article by Chris Hedges: Snowden, we are told, could have reformed from the inside. He could have gone to his superiors or Congress or the courts. But Snowden had numerous examples—including the … Continue reading

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Success of 50 Years Of Fighting to End Poverty Minimized by 30 Years of Neoliberal Economics, But …

… social change is happening and growing inequality is the great enabler. Relative to Bill Moyer’s 8 stages of successful social change and postings in Popular Resistance, we are in Stage 6, “Majority Public Support.” According to the review of … Continue reading

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Maximizing Profit Morfs The Fourth Estate Into Stooge for Hire.

For some time, I have been promoting the use of profit-free media for news. There is a long list of such sources in the sidebar of this blog which I update frequently. As I experienced recently, Twitter was the major … Continue reading

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Contested Concepts – The “O” Word

The following quote is from a blog posting by Marc Farinella : “Two final points from Lakoff; here’s the first: Don’t be fooled by contested concepts,which are abstract ideals such as fairness, justice, caring, equality, and liberty that appear to … Continue reading

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We Are All Born Equal — Just Not With Equal Opportunity

Progressives claiming that right-wing authoritarians are irrational is like right-wing authoritarians claiming minorities are mentally inferior to whites. They both ignore basic biology. The human brain works the exact same away in every human without physical brain damage. This is … Continue reading

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Why Do The ONE% Keep Getting Richer?

An updated report on growing income inequality between America’s profit makers and profit takers shows the growth of income for the profit takers – the top ONE%, who are making at least $394,000/year for 2012. The table below shows how … Continue reading

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Unions Must Lead The Fight Against Climate Disruption

Demand freedom from Climate disruption – increased weather extremes and human costs resulting from significant, unseen, and rampant releases of greenhouse gasses. ———————————– Naomi Klein spoke to the members of UNIFOR, a new mega union created by the Canadian Autoworkers … Continue reading

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Who’s in Control and Who Helped Put Them There?

John Dean referred to them as Conservatives Without Conscience in his 2007 book by that title. (There was no Tea Party in 2007.) Robert Altemeyer, a key contributor to Dean’s book, refers to them as right-wing authoritarians (RWA): Social/religious RWAs … Continue reading

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America’s Two Party System – The Good, Bad, and The Really Ugly

First of all, a short summary of The Lucifer Effect. It explains how events like Mi Lai, Abu Ghraib, and The Stanford Prison Experiment turned good people evil. Part of this explanation involves “bad barrels.” A bad barrel is an … Continue reading

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Corporate ‘Takers’ of America

As states give to and take from national citizenship dues coffers, some get back more than they give, and Red states are the biggest net takers. That leads me to another comparison, but one looking at large multinational corporations, and … Continue reading

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ALEC Was Inspired by The Powell Memo of 1971 – Corporations Taking Control of Our Government

Depending on your media sources, you may have seen the news about the 40 year anniversary of ALEC – American Legislative Exchange Council. Well, ALEC and other conservative, pro-corporate governance of America, organizations were inspired by a document published 42 … Continue reading

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Corporate Servitude IS Replacing Equal Protection and Empowerment by the Government

Listening to a right-wing caller on the Thom Hartmann show recently, reminded me of a key element from the right-wing authoritarian message machine. They make false claims about government, but the real problem is: massive corporate servitude. From any contract … Continue reading

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What’s Really Best for an ‘Unwanted’?

“The legitimate powers of government extend to such acts only as are injurious to others. But it does me no injury for my neighbor to say there are twenty gods or no god. It neither picks my pocket nor breaks … Continue reading

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Shelby County v Holder Ruling – Keeping Texas Red

Here’s another message I’ve sent to the Supreme Court: On behalf of the Texas Republican Party, thank you. With our contested voter ID law and formerly illegal district maps being implemented, the Battleground Texas effort will have an even more … Continue reading

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Supporters of DOMA, Prop 8, and Texas Special Session SB 5 – How Their Authoritarian World View Can Predict Their Actions

While driving home from lunch today and listening to the discussion on NPR’s ‘Talk of the Nation’, the strong unreasonable comments of a caller disturbed me. This caller was stating that overruling California’s Proposition 8 was not right. Prop 8 … Continue reading

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Is a Sense of Security for a Minor Threat Worth the Loss of Liberty – a Real Threat?

The government not only has PRISM, but there is also NUCLEON, MAINWAY and MARINA. The first two collect content from the internet and phone calls. The other two collect metadata from phone calls and the internet. This data collecting is … Continue reading

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Media Gives Free Reign to Gut Feel While The Nation’s Needs Are Ignored

Right-wing authoritarians (RWA) – those blocking progress in both houses of our Congress and conniving with ALEC to write oppressive state laws – are not only all about ‘me-my-mine,’ they are also ‘rugged individualists’ with no need for others who … Continue reading

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Avoiding The Right-wing Authoritarian Future – The Moral Values Way

(Unless otherwise noted, this posting includes extensive excerpts from Appendix VII, The New Patriotism, of the The 15% Solution, by ‘Jonathan Westminster,’ which is a penname for Steven Jonas. The second edition of this book that was just published, does … Continue reading

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Teapublicans Are Punishing America for Electing a Black Man President

As we all know, our right-wing minority controlled Congress and many right-wing state leaders have opposed every effort of President Obama. The election of a gaggle of Tea Party members to Congress in 2010 reinforced this opposition and Mitch McConnell … Continue reading

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Corporate Governance Is Stifling Dodd-Frank – No Surprise

Professor Richard D. Wolff, author and self trained Marxist economist, and journalist Hedrick Smith, author of Who Stole the American Dream, have both detailed how we have gone from the Greatest Generation of WWII to the first generation that will … Continue reading

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Labor Is Dealt Two New Blows – Both Limit NLRB

The following is from Thom Hartmann: You need to know this. For decades, unions have been fighting to preserve workers’ rights, but that fight just got a lot more difficult. [Thursday], two separate events illustrated just how extreme the war … Continue reading

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Move the “Center” Back to the Left – Where America Is

The following is a slightly longer version of my letter to The White House. Mr. President, I’ll be 65 in a few days. I’ve seen and experienced parts of America’s history which you may have only read about. Also since … Continue reading

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Minimum Wage, Wage Theft and The Free Market at Work – Is it Fixable?

The post 80’s ideas of keeping the minimum wage suppressed and not rewarding workers, profit creators, for their productivity increases of the last three decades must stop. The decisions of the supply side free market and most of its leaders, … Continue reading

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Moral Values of the Left and Right – History Shows Which Works for All Americans

Throughout this blog, postings have provided details about the strict father and nurturant parent worldviews. Charts in some of those postings show how the dominance of one or the other of these two worldviews affects our economy. Not only did … Continue reading

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Corporate Governance Will Transfer More Wealth If Social Security Is Privatized

(This blog posting comes from portions of Who Stole the American Dream by Hedrick Smith.) The history of the transition from company funded pensions to employee self-directed 401Ks and the limited success of 401Ks shows vividly that the destruction of … Continue reading

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Corporate Governance Erodes Democracy As Education is Privatized

Corporate governance destroys democracy by replacing accountability to citizens with accountability to a few major stockholders and boards of directors who want reduced costs and increased profits. This change in accountability means moral values, such as protecting and empowering/educating citizens, … Continue reading

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Citizenship Dues and Non-profit Investing – Creating and Maintaining the Middle Class

Our recent history shows us how we created and maintained a prosperous middle class and still had a Forbes 400 to write about. The Greatest Generation can add this to their list of accomplishments. Not only is average per capita … Continue reading

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The Danger of American Fascism – Then and Now

Back in August 2006, I wrote a post called, “Can There Really Be Fascist People In A Democracy?” I think we are much closer to knowing our answer now and President Obama’s progressive inauguration speech provided a glimpse of the beginning of the end of this corporate threat to America. Continue reading

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Our Two Major Political Parties – The Illusion and Realities of Their Essences

Over the years, some have said that there is little difference between our two major political parties. This is certainly a favorite characterization made by third-party members like Libertarians, who actually represent the extremes of both major parties. However, if … Continue reading

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The Price of Our Freedoms – Our Children’s Lives?, Our Representative Government?

Based on the recent writings of Professor George Lakoff and the Newtown statements from our President, I posted the following to FB to contrast the conservative without conscience (CWC) and progressive moral values on the recent shootings in Newtown, CT. … Continue reading

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Neoliberalism Threatens Our Democracy By Replacing Our Social State with a Punishing State

In an interview of Henry Giroux about the War on youth in America, Canada and Great Britain, there is a great summary of neoliberalism, its destructive power, and its reliance on an unfettered free market. Your works speak about an … Continue reading

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Dirk Van Dongen – Strengthening The Military-Corporate Complex and Enriching the ONE%

In an address to the nation on January 17, 1961, in the middle of nurturing the greatest middle class this world has ever seen, President Dwight D. Eisenhower warned, “In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition … Continue reading

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The Dakota Indians Lost to the ONE% in the 1860s – Can Today’s 99% Check and Balance Today’s ONE%?

A recent episode of This American Life was about the Dakota War of 1862. This war resulted in the final expulsion of the Dakota Indians from their ancestral home in Minnesota. It took years of lies, trickery, swindles, war, and … Continue reading

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Corporate Governance of Social Security & Medicare – An Abominable Idea for Senior Welfare

I’ve sent the following to President Obama via the White House contact web site: You might consider doing something similar to counter all the fiscal cliff fear mongering we will hear for the next several weeks. —————————————————————————————- RE: Fiscal Cliff … Continue reading

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Disaster Relief Is Immoral and Requires Privatization – Who Believes This and Why?

Here is a portion of the transcript from the June 13, 2011, Republican presidential primary debate where Romney is asked about transferring disaster relief to the states – a conservative, anti-federal government idea. KING: What else, Governor Romney? You’ve been … Continue reading

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Why Are Some Americans More Concerned About Consuming Than Preserving Their Democracy?

The excerpts below are from a recent article by Henry Giroux, titled “Why Don’t Americans Care About Democracy at Home?” The basic answer is “economic Darwinism,” which “promotes a politics of cruelty,” “undermines all forms of solidarity capable of challenging … Continue reading

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Randy Weber Exposed – You Are Known by the Company You Keep

Randy Weber is a member of ALEC and the Koch brothers are supporting ALEC. This says a lot about Randy Weber. ALEC, the American Legislative Exchange Council, with the help of many corporations, has written hundreds of model legislative bills … Continue reading

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How Wealthy are the Forbes 400 – Let’s Try Some “Arithmetic” …

Robert Reich made the following statement last June, ” … the richest 400 Americans {own} as much as the bottom 150 million put together.” Let me try to put this in perspective with a little “arithmetic.” Imagine 400 small towns … Continue reading

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More Research Invalidates Extreme Right-wing Principle – Solely “Self-made”

The extreme right-wing, strict father, authoritarian family model, which is represented in many ways by the Romney/Ryan twosome, includes the principle of the self-made individual – each person is totally responsible for their success. This is what George Lakoff calls … Continue reading

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2012 Election – Are We Going to Return to a National Legalized Gozzle-up Ponzi Scheme?

(The following is a reposting of an entry from August of 2010 with minor updates.) This posting was inspired by an article at Rational Revolution. It takes another look at the disproportionate shift in income to the mega and ultra … Continue reading

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What’s It Gonna Be: Representative Governance or Corporate Governance?

Part of President Obama’s 2012 nomination acceptance speech made reference to the different visions and choices for our future. “And on every issue, the choice you face won’t just be between two candidates or two parties. It will be a … Continue reading

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Moral Principles – What Conservatives Know and Progressives Take for Granted

Recent political ads lie about President Obama and his suggestions to the states on the national welfare program. As stated in a recent Truthout article, the producers of these ads are targeting “white working class voters” who harbor “deep resentment … Continue reading

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Destroying America’s Soul – The Devil’s Budget

In his latest article, George Lakoff discusses how The Devils Budget proposed by the opponents to President Obama will eventually destroy the soul of our democracy by defunding all of its Public infrastructure: public protection, public empowerment, public education, public … Continue reading

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Authoritarian Plan for a Koch Brothers’ America – Update to The Powell Plan

Just over a year ago, I wrote a post about The Powell Memo. This memo has been referred to by others like Henry Giroux and Richard Wolff. This memo, by Lewis F. Powell and dated August 23, 1971, was a … Continue reading

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The Aurora, Colorado, Shootings – Fear Based Gun Ownership Fulfills an Authoritarian Need to Severely Punish Those Not Like Them

Those most likely to become authoritarians (social dominators or followers) are raised from a young age in a strict-father environment where violent punishment is used aggressively. And, according to James Dobson, the sooner it is applied, the better. Dread of … Continue reading

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