The Republican Party has since 1981 been working to undermine the American social contract. One of their tactics is to ridicule those who would use government to serve the needs of the average person.  On the following issues:
1. Heathcare reform
2. Educational funding reform (public & higher)
3. Employment & wage security
4. Housing security & housing cost control
5. Competent court appointed legal representation for those who need it (about 80%)
6. Food & nutrition security
7. Prenatal & early childhood benefits
8. Geriatric security
9. Rehabilitation for the mentally or physically handicapped and mentally ill
10. Recovery and rehabilitation for substance abuse
The reaction from Republicans to the idea that the people's elected government should have anything to say in these issues, all of which concern the people, is sometimes sneeringly hostile, and other times wrathfully contemptuous.
The Republicans and their conservative interest groups have convinced most of the population that the government should not try to do anything about these issues.  The hideous refrain is "let the free market decide."  They tell us that if we or anybody we love needs help in any of these areas, we have failed and should be ashamed.
I don't believe in measuring our collective potential against the shortcomings of the Great Society.  And, furthermore, I believe the anti-government rhetoric of the past 25 years is a brainwashing canard and a cynical ploy to con people into voting against their own interests.

It is time for the Left to stop this "New Democrat" and "Centrist" appeasement and wrest governmental power from corporations, insurance companies, banks, and business lobbies, and return the power to the American people, where it rightfully belongs.

Unfortunately, this country operates the golden rule "He who has the gold, makes the rules." Without the backing of those rich corperations, I'm sure the neo-cons wouldn't be as strong as they are today. How can the left, without the massive funding as the far-right has, can take this country back from them? Any ideas how the left can acheive that?




Cat

I agree with everything Max said except the assertion that people believe the neocon line.  Lots of polls consistantly show that people overwhelmingly, by 2 or 3 to 1 majorities, sometime more, support all of the initiatives listed.

The problem, which is reflected in Cat's post, is that people feel helpless.  I agree that the Democratic party is not the ultimate solution, but just a start.  There is clearly a difference beween the 2, and a widening one.  One first step, then, is to get the neocons out of the white house.  Another is to build community around issues like the ones that Max identifies and others.  Patronize local businesses instead of national chains like Wal Mart, for example, and fight to keep them out of your community.  Support organized labor - unions aren't perfect, to be sure, so once you have one, struggle to make it more democratic.  Get involved in your local Democratic party, to make it more democratic.  Build alliances with local farmers to support sustainable agriculture - or at least buy from them (there was a farmer near me who use to sell shares in his veggie crop - great for families, although I couldn't possibly eat all that even an 8th share provides). 

And READ, READ, READ.  Knowledge is power.  Keep informed and encourage others to keep informed.  Talk, discuss, turn off the TV and the Nintendo.  Cat may be right, and we may be facing a world based on corporate fascism.  If we do nothing, that will surely be the case, for evil to triumph all that is necessary is for good people to do nothing (that's not original), and to paraphrase Ben Franklyn; those who would sacrifice liberty for temporary security (or material comfort) deserve neither.

I've read several depressing books lately, like Al Frankin's Lies... and Joe Conason'e Big Lies, which document the problems but offer no solutions.  Jim Hightower's Thieves in High Places does so too, in 5 chapters.  He uses 10 chapters to talk about successes, about people's struggles.

There is an old documentary that I show in some of my classes called Union Maids about three women from the early days of the CIO.  One of them talks about the pervasive democratic spirit of the U.S.ians, and especially the working class.  She ends by saying something like "the working class isn't going to let this country down, and no fascist bastard is going to take over". John and Jane doe might be temporarilly mislead, but my guess (or maybe its just a hope) is that "they'll see through the brick wall in time, as the say in Bree."  So be of good cheer, and keep up the struggle.

Thanks for your feedback, Catwoman, DC.

I wouldn't say it's a "neo-con" line people are believing, so much as it is a Corporate-Conservative line.  People have sort of a futile and contemptuous attitude about government and the public sector because of the the incessant negative press it gets. 
As Ralph Nader points out, government and public sectors are what WE THE PEOPLE own collectively.  Corporations and private powers have a vested interest in seeing that the people DO NOT get the idea we can use what we collectively own to rival the tyranny imposed by corporations and private powers.
Of course, we realize government power is subject to abuse and over-intrusiveness, however, the people cannot fix these problems if private money counts for more in government than the electorate's voice.

Thanks for your feedback, Catwoman, DC.

I wouldn't say it's a "neo-con" line people are believing, so much as it is a Corporate-Conservative line.  People have sort of a futile and contemptuous attitude about government and the public sector because of the the incessant negative press it gets. 
As Ralph Nader points out, government and public sectors are what WE THE PEOPLE own collectively.  Corporations and private powers have a vested interest in seeing that the people DO NOT get the idea we can use what we collectively own to rival the tyranny imposed by corporations and private powers.
Of course, we realize government power is subject to abuse and over-intrusiveness, however, the people cannot fix these problems if private money counts for more in government than the electorate's voice.


Neocon is shorter to write, otherwise, I more or less agree.  But people CAN and Do resist, and sometimes win.  We, the people, lost a BIG one in 2000, according to Kevin Phillips because of the ineptitude of Gore and his people, but the fight must go on.  I could say more, but your other posts make it clear that I need not.  I will point out, though, that after a long struggle, the people of Chile managed to expand "civic society" to the point that they brought Pinochet down are trying to bring him to justice.  If the Chileans can do it, so can we.  AS has been said before, "keep the faith baby".

Neocon is shorter to write, otherwise, I more or less agree.  But people CAN and Do resist, and sometimes win.  We, the people, lost a BIG one in 2000, according to Kevin Phillips because of the ineptitude of Gore and his people, but the fight must go on.  I could say more, but your other posts make it clear that I need not.  I will point out, though, that after a long struggle, the people of Chile managed to expand "civic society" to the point that they brought Pinochet down are trying to bring him to justice.  If the Chileans can do it, so can we.  AS has been said before, "keep the faith baby".

Phillips is right that Gore and his campaign people were inept, but it was the criminal activities of Attorney General Harris, Governor Bush, and other on the Republican side who cost him the election.  If Gore had put up the fight I thought he owed the American people, there would certainly have been violence in the streets!
There was a painful scene early in "Fahrenheit 9/11" of Gore presiding over that Congressional session in which all those Representatives got their protests shot down because not a single Senator would sign to them.  I'm very disappointed in Ted Kennedy.  He should have signed every single one of them.  His seat is secure, as a Kennedy and a Massachusetts Democrat, and the right-wing hates his guts anyway!

The Republican Party has since 1981 been working to undermine the American social contract. One of their tactics is to ridicule those who would use government to serve the needs of the average person.  On the following issues:
1. Heathcare reform
2. Educational funding reform (public & higher)
3. Employment & wage security
4. Housing security & housing cost control
5. Competent court appointed legal representation for those who need it (about 80%)
6. Food & nutrition security
7. Prenatal & early childhood benefits
8. Geriatric security
9. Rehabilitation for the mentally or physically handicapped and mentally ill
10. Recovery and rehabilitation for substance abuse


Well, here are how I see some of these problems.

1.  Healthcare has gotten worse since Government got involved.  Let's not forget that the entire HMO situation which Ted Kennedy screams about was brought about because of Legislation *HE* wrote.
2.  The Federal Government has no business getting involved in Education.  I feel that should strictly a LOCAL issue.  It has been proven that throwing money at this problem does no good.  What we need are tests that matter, and teachers who care about their job, not simply getting tenure so they have a job forever which only requires them to work 9 months a year.
3.  Now in this aspect, the Government has NO RIGHT to get involved.  Employment Security is based on performance, both of the employee AND of the company he/she works for.  They work at the sufferage of the Company.  If they fail to perform, they are replaced.  As for wage, people are paid what they are worth, and what the market will bear.  When we need gas station attendents, the wage for them goes up.  When we do not, the wage goes down.  This is evident in the Cumputer industry.  When there were not enough, the wages were sky-high.  When the recession hit, we had to many and the wages dropped like a stone.  And "Minimum Wage" is not the same for all areas.  In LA, a starvation wage is $10 an hour.  In Alabama, you can live like a king for the same wage.
4.  Once again, this is a local issue.  Here in Alabama, you can rent a nice house for $300.  Land is cheap, and affordable.  In LA, a slum rent is in the neighborhood of $1,000 a month.  THis is simply local economics, and the Federal Government should stay out of it.  ANd cost control is a great idea, as long as it does not cause property owners to loose money.  With the property taxes in the large metro areas, freezes in those areas can cause owners to go into that situation.
5.  This is how life is.  My biggest belief here is that if you do not get into trouble, you are fine.  If you do, you better have the money for a lawyer.  It is amazing how full our jails are of innocent people.
6.  Food security????  We are a nation of fat people.  I can't tell you how many fat people I have seen living in homeless shelters.  Food stamps are available, but they do not require people to but nutritional food.  This is a case of education and people taking care of themselves.  Unless there is a law requiring people to eat certain things (and I hope that never passes), it is not the business of the Government to get involved.
7.  Once again, this is something an individual should take care of.  Even when I was working for $18 an hour, my children were eligable for WIC.  If my kids could get it at that wage, how can nobody else get it?
8.  SOcial Security is a good system.  What we need to do is get it back to the original purpose.  WHen it was expanded into a huge bloated welfare program instead of a purely Retirement program.
9.  Rehabilitation?  We have tons of programs for that.  THe problem is that a lot of people do not WANT to work.  And what do we have them do?  There is not a large demand for the mentally disabled or severely physically disabled.  I do not think the Government should hire them as a form of "pity job".  I did volunteer work for a private facility that hired them, but it was all "make-do" type work.  Counting bolts and screws and putting them into boxes.  Not very efficient work.  If there is a workable solution, I am all for it though.
10.  I agree.  But having worked for a drug and alcohol facility, and unless the person WANTS to get clean, there is nothing you can do for them.  Let's not forget who it is that made most of the current generation of government programs possible, Richard Nixon.  He was a HUGE believer in drug rehabilitation instead of incarceration.

Just a few of my views.

Well, here are how I see some of these problems.

1.  Healthcare has gotten worse since Government got involved.  Let's not forget that the entire HMO situation which Ted Kennedy screams about was brought about because of Legislation *HE* wrote.
The American healthcare system is an abomination.  If we nationalized it, we would spend less money on bureaucracy, and doctors would work for patients instead of paper shuffling insurance men.  Furthermore, we MUST nationalize out healthcare system to protect EVERYONE against infectious disease.  The fact that tuberculosis is again a reality in America is absolutely shameful.  You simply cannot have hordes of people who are too poor to get the healthcare they need.  Do you want the underpaid, uninsured short order cook at Denny's walking around with hepatitis, tuberculosis or God knows what else?  Healthcare access disparity is dangerous to all.
2.  The Federal Government has no business getting involved in Education.  I feel that should strictly a LOCAL issue.  It has been proven that throwing money at this problem does no good.  What we need are tests that matter, and teachers who care about their job, not simply getting tenure so they have a job forever which only requires them to work 9 months a year. That's great if segregation's your bag.  If the feds stayed out of education, you would still have segregated schools.  The Right wants education to be a "local" issue, and then it wants to impose national standards tests.  What they really want is to destroy the public education system by way of draining pupil funding via vouchers.  They want to cut funding for schools that do no perform to the standards on the tests.  How completely stupid.  I say we remove the question of municipal wealth from public education all together.  I see no reason a poor kid in Bridgeport should get LESS of an education than a rich kid in Greenwich, do you?  No more education funding based on property taxes, I say.  And no more wrecking the public school systems with these phony "voucher" and "charter school" scams.  I have nothing against citizens founding their own schools, or with parents sending their kids to private schools, but they're not going to do it on the public dime.  We're should refuse to accept the notion that we cannot fix the public schools.  Of course we can, we just have to knock out the right-wing class warriors who would stop us.
3.  Now in this aspect, the Government has NO RIGHT to get involved.  Employment Security is based on performance, both of the employee AND of the company he/she works for.  They work at the sufferage of the Company.  If they fail to perform, they are replaced.  As for wage, people are paid what they are worth, and what the market will bear.  When we need gas station attendents, the wage for them goes up.  When we do not, the wage goes down.  This is evident in the Cumputer industry.  When there were not enough, the wages were sky-high.  When the recession hit, we had to many and the wages dropped like a stone.  And "Minimum Wage" is not the same for all areas.  In LA, a starvation wage is $10 an hour.  In Alabama, you can live like a king for the same wage.
Employment is too important to be left to the vagaries of the so-called free market (which is neither free, nor a market).  I'm not a naive S.O.B, I know issues such as this one are enormously complicated, but we should not accept Wal-Mart's handing out pamphlets on how to apply for medicaid because Wal-Mart is too damn cheap to do right by their employees.  The federal government is already involved in employer-employee issues, mostly coming down on the side of the big bosses.  I want to see this trend reversed.
4.  Once again, this is a local issue.  Here in Alabama, you can rent a nice house for $300.  Land is cheap, and affordable.  In LA, a slum rent is in the neighborhood of $1,000 a month.  THis is simply local economics, and the Federal Government should stay out of it.  ANd cost control is a great idea, as long as it does not cause property owners to loose money.  With the property taxes in the large metro areas, freezes in those areas can cause owners to go into that situation.
I take into account the difference in cost of living in different areas.  Like all the issues I bring up, housing is complicated.  However, if the citizens do not force affordable, safe, and adequate housing as a right, millions of Americans will continue to be exploited by property owners, and the currently dysfunctional public housing bureaucracy.
5.  This is how life is.  My biggest belief here is that if you do not get into trouble, you are fine.  If you do, you better have the money for a lawyer.  It is amazing how full our jails are of innocent people.  I know it's an old cliche that everyone in jail is innocent.  However, there are thousands and thousands of poor people who are locked up on erroneous charges, inflated charges, or phony charges every year.  They cannot prove their innocense because public legal representation is often totally inadequate.  You have a Constitutional right to legal representation.  Assigning a drunken insurance lawyer to defend a capital case violates the spirit of theis right.
6.  Food security????  We are a nation of fat people.  I can't tell you how many fat people I have seen living in homeless shelters.  Food stamps are available, but they do not require people to but nutritional food.  This is a case of education and people taking care of themselves.  Unless there is a law requiring people to eat certain things (and I hope that never passes), it is not the business of the Government to get involved.  Thanks to the welfare reform legislation signed by Bubba, public assistance is now extremely hard to attain for many who do need it, and is often completely insubstantial for those who get it.  Food banks across the country are under record demand and tapped out.  No one in America should have to go hungry or rely on stale bread and sour soup from a run-down food pantry.  The American people must become very aggressive about this.  The fact that a lot of people are overweight merely affirms the nutritional problems we face.  Many overweight people have diabetes, hypertension, and heart disease going untreated.  Many overweight children are coming up on a junkfood diet, which can cause juvenile-onset diabetes, hypertension, fatigue, behavioral problems, and attention deficit.  Junkfood diet in one's youth can also lead to greater health problems as an adult.  I know some things about this as I was seriously neglected for long periods in childhood and adolescence.
7.  Once again, this is something an individual should take care of.  Even when I was working for $18 an hour, my children were eligable for WIC.  If my kids could get it at that wage, how can nobody else get it?
When and where was this?  I find that incredible.  If that was the case once, I can assure you it's not now, not anywhere I know of.
8.  SOcial Security is a good system.  What we need to do is get it back to the original purpose.  WHen it was expanded into a huge bloated welfare program instead of a purely Retirement program.
Social Security does need reform, but not Wall Street reform.  We need adequate revenue collection in this country in order STOP the government from using the trust fund for other purposes.
9.  Rehabilitation?  We have tons of programs for that.  THe problem is that a lot of people do not WANT to work.  And what do we have them do?  There is not a large demand for the mentally disabled or severely physically disabled.  I do not think the Government should hire them as a form of "pity job".  I did volunteer work for a private facility that hired them, but it was all "make-do" type work.  Counting bolts and screws and putting them into boxes.  Not very efficient work.  If there is a workable solution, I am all for it though.
I agree.  There should be no "pity jobs."  I'm not for "charity." It stigmatizes the recipient.  This goes back to my original point about labor.  We have created an economy with such great disparity.  There are high paying "professional" jobs, and miserable paying "service sector" jobs.  We can do better than that.  Right now the Massachusetts Rehabilitation would love to do more, but they are severely underfunded, as are many other state rehab commissions.  I know, I was a client.  I was rehabilitating from lifelong severe depression.  I have a university degree and many skills.  However, the market needs certain skills.  Once your employment record has been scarred with long gaps, employers treat you like a leper.  I start from the premise that a person who wants a job that will let him earn a living, he should be able to get one.  Period.  If you impose welfare limits and reform without granting this right, you are asking for trouble.
10.  I agree.  But having worked for a drug and alcohol facility, and unless the person WANTS to get clean, there is nothing you can do for them.  Let's not forget who it is that made most of the current generation of government programs possible, Richard Nixon.  He was a HUGE believer in drug rehabilitation instead of incarceration.
Drug and alcohol addiction are often an adjunct to other mental illnesses.  Indeed it is very tough for people to get clean.  No one can do it for them, and they do have to assume personal responsibility.  However, most drug addicts are poor and cannot afford the chic private programs.  If public clinical programs are too limited in enrollment or scope, the can only serve to make a heroin addict into a mehthadone addict.  Slightly better, but not good enough.

These are tough issues.  I wish I had all the answers.  I'm convinced the Conservatives are covering up the failure of "welfare reform" started in the '90s.  Welfare needed reforming, however, the reason welfare exists is because of other failures in society.  Welfare reformers started with the assumption that welfare was the culprit, and the free market was the magic answer.  Their assumptions were naive and utopian.  Poverty and hunger are on the rise in America, and the right-wing government won't admit.  That has a ring of Stalinism about it.

I'm bumping this thread up.


I noticed that Republicans always try to paint Democrats of being far-left. They are claiming that Kerry/Edwards are the most liberal ticket ever to run. Hardly. If anyone ever really looked at the voting record of both of these men, they wouldn't find much in the way of liberal voting. There was one person who described Howard Dean as being so far to the left he was ready to fall off-Not even close. I guess because we have an administration so far to the right (yes, it is ready to fall off), that anything even close to the center seems far to the right.

It really bothers me when people use the word "liberal" as a dirty word. According to my Webster's Dictionary, the word "liberal" means tolerant, not strict, bountiful and generous. To me, that sounds good. I for one am PROUD to say that I am a liberal.


Getting off my soap box now.



Cat

I'm bumping this thread up.


I noticed that Republicans always try to paint Democrats of being far-left. They are claiming that Kerry/Edwards are the most liberal ticket ever to run. Hardly. If anyone ever really looked at the voting record of both of these men, they wouldn't find much in the way of liberal voting. There was one person who described Howard Dean as being so far to the left he was ready to fall off-Not even close. I guess because we have an administration so far to the right (yes, it is ready to fall off), that anything even close to the center seems far to the right.

It really bothers me when people use the word "liberal" as a dirty word. According to my Webster's Dictionary, the word "liberal" means tolerant, not strict, bountiful and generous. To me, that sounds good. I for one am PROUD to say that I am a liberal.


By that definition, conservatives are actually very liberal when it comes to the interests of the big corporations and the financial elite.  Joe Conason has been making this argument for quite a while.

You notice how the demonize trial lawyers, like John Edwards, but not corporate lawyers like one of their big heroes, Kenneth Starr.  As Ralph Nader, a fellow trial lawyer points out, the legal system is the only chance the common people have at redress for grievances against the powerful entities of corporations and governments.  The right-wing pushes this canard about "frivolous law suits" but is loathe to come up with any examples.  Their idea of healthcare reform is "tort reform."  They sell it as a way of slashing usurious malpractice insurance rates.  Well, the malpractice insurance system is not the creation of the healthcare consuming public.  It comes about because doctors, like everyone else, are enslaved to insurance industry pirates.  The tort reform movement is really about taking away power from the little guy and giving it to big business.  That's the motivation behind everything the Republican party does.  The Bush Administration would also like to see healthcare lawsuits removed from state courts and into federal jurisdiction, where it is much tougher for the plaintiff to win.  So much for the Republican dedication to reducing the federal government's power and diffusing it to states and localities.  HA!  How cynical can you get?
::)

The whole issue here has to do with questions that Max asked in the Iraq thread revolving around "freedom".  I would suggest that absolute freedom would render society impossible.  Nothing would be prohibited, so I don't like your face?  I'll just jet my gun and shoot it off.  In such a world,. might makes right and we all become a bunch of baboons.

So EVERY human society has some form of governance.  Among the classical
!Kung people of the Kalihari dessert it was based on consencous, with no formal leadership or hierarchy and no class divisions.  Our more "advanced" system, in our more complex society, divided by class, race, religion, and ethnicity, has allowed some few, through legal and illegal bribery, to take control of the legitimate public discourse on exactly what the government should do.

Before the pass age of the National Labor Relations (Wagner) Act, it was clear that workers could form unions (first amendment), but employers did not have to recognize or negotiate with them, and could legally fire those who supported unions (as Wal-Mart still does, illegally).

Before the passage of the Occupational Safty and Health Act employers had little responsibility for the safty of the work place (and given the derth of inspectors still don't).

Before Workmen's Compensation, if you were injured on the job, tough, go starve, just not in the streets where you would be an embarasment.

I think it was H.L.Menken who said that it was the job of journalists to "comfort the afflicted and afflect the comfortable".  I think that is the job of government.  If, in fact, we want a mertiocracy than the playing field has to be more equal, and THAT is the job of government.

Adam Smith, in 1776, in The Wealth of Nations, praised the free market, but he also understood that businessmen HATE competition.  For them, better to cooperate to gauge the public together than to compete with issues like quality and price. 

To save a +/- "liberal democracy" FDR introduced a series of controls on what Adam Smith would have termed "the unbridled greed of the wealthy" in order to save the system.  Those controls have either been abandoned (as in the deregulation of electricity) or are threatened.  The ultra-rich may get a few more dances by posing as advocates of "freedom", but I can't help but thinking that when folks in the U.S., and Canada, Britan, France, Germany, Spain etc find their standard of living going down the tube we will make common cause with our brothers and sisters in the 3rd world, who never achieved our comfortable life style and put the plutocrates, kleptocrates, and bribeocrates in their place, like in the sweatshops.  AS Joe Hill wrote in The Preacher and the Slave "Chop some wood, do you good, you'll get pie in the sky when you die". 

The choice is to use government to protect the public good, or to court the possibility of a massive uprising of people who have little left to lose, and want something better.