Stacey Anderson: The China Syndrome (1979)

Source:The New Democrat

If you are familiar with Three Mile Island and then you see The China Syndrome, I think you would leave the movie thinking, “wow that could actually happen”. Because the Three Mile explosion which happened at a nuclear power plant outside of Harrisburg, Pennsylvania in March of 1979 happened about two months after The China Syndrome came out in January or February of 1979. China Syndrome is not about a nuclear power plant explosion, but about what could potentially happen at a plant like that if it is not run properly, let's say.

There is a bad vibration at a nuclear power plant in Southern California just outside of Los Angeles and the plant knows about it and decides to if not cover it up, play it down so they don’t get any bad publicity or have to deal with regulators about it. A news anchor and cameraman at a local TV knows something is going on and believes the power plant is not giving the whole story. But their boss’s don’t want to go any further in the story and risk a big lawsuit. Kimberly Wells played by Jane Fonda and Richard Adams played by Michael Douglas decided to look into the story anyway. And that is how this story gets going.

Jack Godell played by Jack Lemmon is a shift supervisor at the power plant and knows something seriously went wrong at the power plant. And he also knows his company is not giving the whole story, but is reluctant at first to say what he knows and believes to the media. Jane Wells finds Jack at the bar and they get to know each other and she gets to open up a little bit about what he knows about what happened at the power plant.

So this is what this movie is about where a nuclear power plant had it been any worst would’ve caused serious destruction of Southern California, at least like getting hit by a nuclear missile. A company knowing that if this story breaks, they would not only lose millions and probably a let more, but get sanctioned by the U.S. Government and other authorities. Two somewhat inexperienced media people looking for a big break and a big story all coming together in one story.

Jane Wells is at best a soft news personal story reporter who covers personalities and the goings ons at supermarkets and amusement parks and other things. Who doesn’t want to do that forever and wants to become a hard news reporter and anchor. This is the story that if she gets it and does a good job will get her off of soft news. And she and Jack are the main two characters who break this story and shed light on what really happened at the power plant. And this is a great movie about how deadly nuclear power plant leaks and explosions can be. And very realistic especially if you are familiar with Three Mile Island.

AlterNet: David Masciotra: 'You're Not The Boss of Me! Why Libertarianism Is a Childish Sham'

Source:AlterNet- U.S. Representative Ron DeSantis (Republican, Florida)

Source:The New Democrat

"Libertarians believe themselves controversial and cool. They're desperate to package themselves as dangerous rebels, but in reality they are champions of conformity. Their irreverence and their opposition to “political correctness” is little more than a fashion accessory, disguising their subservience to—for all their protests against the “political elite”—the real elite.

Ayn Rand is the rebel queen of their icy kingdom, villifying empathy and solidarity. Christopher Hitchens, in typical blunt force fashion, undressed Rand and her libertarian followers, exposing their obsequiousness toward the operational standards of a selfish society: “I have always found it quaint, and rather touching, that there is a movement in the US that thinks Americans are not yet selfish enough.”

Libertarians believe they are real rebels, because they’ve politicized the protest of children who scream through tears, “You’re not the boss of me.” The rejection of all rules and regulations, and the belief that everyone should have the ability to do whatever they want, is not rebellion or dissent. It is infantile naïveté.

As much as libertarians boast of having a “political movement” gaining in popularity, “you’re not the boss of me” does not even rise to the most elementary level of politics. Aristotle translated “politics” into meaning “the things concerning the polis,” referring to the city, or in other words, the community. Confucius connected politics with ethics, and his ethics are attached to communal service with a moral system based on empathy. A political program, like that from the right, that eliminates empathy, and denies the collective, is anti-political.

Opposition to any conception of the public interest and common good, and the consistent rejection of any opportunity to organize communities in the interest of solidarity, is not only a vicious form of anti-politics, it is affirmation of America’s most dominant and harmful dogmas. In America, selfishness, like blue jeans or a black dress, never goes out of style. It is the style. The founding fathers, for all the hagiographic praise and worship they receive as ritual in America, had no significant interest in freedom beyond their own social station, regardless of the poetry they put on paper. Native Americans, women, black Americans, and anyone who did not own property could not vote, but “taxation without representation” was the rallying cry of the revolution. The founders reacted with righteous rage to an injustice to their class, but demonstrated no passion or prioritization of expanding their victory for liberty to anyone who did not look, think, or spend money like them.

Many years after the nation’s establishment as an independent republic, President Calvin Coolidge quipped, “The chief business of the American people is business.” It is easy to extrapolate from that unintentional indictment how, in a rejection of alternative conceptions of philosophy and morality, America continually reinforced Alexis De Tocqueville’s prescient 1831 observation, “As one digs deeper into the national character of Americans, one sees that they have sought the value of everything in this world only in the answer to this single question: How much money will it bring in?”

The disasters of reducing life, the governance of affairs, and the distribution of resources to such a shallow standard leaves wreckage where among the debris one can find human bodies. Studies indicate that nearly 18,000 Americans die every year because they lack comprehensive health insurance. Designing a healthcare system with the question, “How much money will it bring in?” at the center, kills instead of cures.

The denial of the collective interest and communal bond, as much as libertarians like to pose as trailblazers, is not the road less traveled, but the highway in gridlock. Competitive individualism, and the perversion of personal responsibility to mean social irresponsibility, is what allows for America to limp behind the rest of the developed world in providing for the poor and creating social services for the general population.

It also leads to the elevation of crude utility as a measurement of anything’s purpose or value. Richard Hofstadter, observed in his classic  Anti-Intellectualism in American Life, that many Americans are highly intelligent, but their intelligence is functional, not intellectual. They excel at their occupational tasks, but do not invest the intellect or imagination in abstract, critical, or philosophical inquiries and ideas. If society is reducible to the individual, and the individual is reducible to consumer capacity, the duties of democracy and the pleasures of creativity stand little chance of competing with the call of the cash register.

Wisconsin governor Scott Walker recently stepped on a landmine when he suggested that the Wisconsin university system remove from its mission statement any language having to do with public service or meaning of life. Education should only train people to work. Walker might have faced mockery and scorn for his proposal, but any college instructor can verify my experience of struggling to convince even a handful of students to consider the importance of ideas not directly related to their career choices.

Meanwhile pop culture, still having not recovered from mistaking the Oliver Stone villain Gordon Gekko and his “greed is good” philosophy as heroic, bombards Americans with reality television programs about shallow and self-destructive rich people whose mansions, jewelry, vehicles, and fashion choices are treated with a religious reverence. Their lives are in despair and disarray, but they find redemption through consumption.

Who then are the libertarians rebelling against? The most powerful sector of the society is corporate America, and it profits and benefits most from the deregulatory and anti-tax measures libertarians champion. That sector of society also happens to own the federal government. Through large campaign donations and aggressive lobbying – the very corruption that libertarians help enable by defending Citizens United and opposing campaign finance reform – they have institutionalized bribery, transforming the legislative process into an auction. Libertarians proclaim an anti-government position, but they are only opposing the last measures of protection that remain in place to prevent the government from full mutation into an aristocracy. By advocating for the removal of all social programs, libertarians are not rebelling, as much as they are reinforcing the prevailing ethos of “bootstrap” capitalism. The poor are responsible for their plight, and therefore deserve no sympathy or assistance. 

When children yell “you’re not the boss of me” they believe they are launching a rebellion against the household establishment, but they are conforming to the codes of behavior visible among all children. Libertarians are attempting to practice the same political voodoo – transforming conformity into rebellion – without realizing that their cries for freedom coalesce with their childlike culture.

The philosopher Charles Taylor explains in his book, The Ethics of Authenticity, that the search for self-actualization is a noble and important enterprise in life. Authenticity is important, and people should not compromise their principles or passions to placate expectations of society. Taylor complicates the picture by adding the elemental truth of individuality and community that personal freedom is empty and meaningless without connections to “horizons of significance.” That beautiful phrase captures the essentiality of developing bonds of empathy and ties of solidarity with people outside of one’s own individual pursuits, and within a larger social context. Neighborhoods, religious institutions, political parties, advocacy organizations, charities, and social justice groups all qualify as “horizons of significance”, and the connections that arise out of those horizons inevitably producs politics of communal ethics and public responsibility, in addition to private liberty.

Encouraging and facilitating connections of love that revolutionize individual freedom into motivation for social justice, and reform politics to adhere to the truth of Cornel West’s insight that “justice is what love looks like in public” represents real rebellion in America. Defending and championing selfish indifference to collective interest and need conforms not only to the mainstream American practice of social neglect, but also to the most basic and brutish impulse of humanity’s mammalian origins. The rebel searches for higher ground. The conformist crawls through the shallow end of the swamp." 

From the AlterNet

I actually believe that our Founding Fathers our Founding Liberals (sorry Right-Wingers) got it right when they wrote our Constitution and Bill of Rights with all of our individual rights and freedom and built our liberal democratic state that is America.

Yeah, they didn’t mean of all of those rights and for all Americans to be treated equally under the law. And only intended those rights for Caucasian males who owned property. And for Anglo-Saxon property males at that. But if you’re a true constructionist when it comes to the U.S. Constitution you don’t go by what you believe someone meant to say. Right, you go by the actual text of what they wrote. And based on what the Founding Liberals wrote they created a liberal society where everyone has individual freedom and rights under law. And where all of those rights are supposed to be enforced equally under law.

If I had a choice to being a Libertarian or a Socialist, I would pick Libertarian. Because of the notion of individual liberty over collective equality. But then I would search for a new label or just call myself what ever I wanted based on what I believe. Which is individual liberty for everyone and that everyone should have quality opportunity to do well in life. That no one is guaranteed success and the ability to live well and be taken care of by government. But that we all have the opportunity to build a successful life for ourselves. Based on the right to a quality education and real infrastructure system so that everyone is living in first world America. Instead of having to live in areas that look like third world cities or third world rural areas.

The main difference between the Liberal, Libertarian and Socialist comes down to role of government especially the national government. The Liberal believes in opportunity to all to achieve individual freedom in life. That the job of government is to protect and expand freedom. Not get out-of-the-way or run people’s lives for them. 

The Libertarian believes in individual freedom as well, but that should come from the parents and the private sector with government getting out-of-the-way. 

The Socialist believes in equality and individual welfare at all costs even at the expense of individual freedom. And the idea of freedom is about the freedom not to go without the basic necessities of life. That the job of government is to take care of people.

The choice can’t be between a do-nothing government or an American superstate that tries to do everything for everybody at the same time. For one, neither one works in America. And we are much better and smarter than that and with our people and resources have the ability to build a society where everyone can live in freedom. 

How we achieve freedom for all, is just a matter of doing that and you do that with an infrastructure and education system that works for all Americans. So your chances of success don’t depend on the economic status of your parents and where you grew up. But instead based on what you did growing up and as an adult with the good opportunities that were in front of you. Most of us would do well in that type of society. Those who don’t would pay themselves for not making responsible decisions with their lives.

What I simply get from David Macciotra's article about Libertarians, is that he doesn't like Libertarians. He opposes people who are opposed to political correctness and collectivism. Which is his right, but I don't get much of a sense of why he's against libertarianism and why he believes libertarianism is a bad philosophy.

Hoover Institution: Peter Robison Interviewing Harvey Mansfield: The New Left on Campus

Source:The New Democrat

Damn! Some of my Far-Left followers and I do have some aren’t going to like this piece, but sometimes the truth hurts. I actually agree with Peter Robinson and Harvey Mansfield here and both of them are way to the Right of me. But the New Left took over a lot of great major universities in the Northeast and West Coast especially in California in the late 1960s. With Baby Boomers coming to age and graduating college a lot of them were way to the Left of Center-Right Liberals like Jack Kennedy and Center-Left Progressives like Lyndon Johnson.

Here are some of the things that the New-Left which is the Far-Left in America believes.

“With the New-Left of today if you don’t believe women should rule the world instead of being judged equally as men, you are either ignorant or sexist.

Anyone who criticizes people who are of non-European and Christian background are racists. Unless the people they are criticizing are on the Right like Tom Sowell, Walter Williams or Clarence Thomas. Two prominent college professors and of course a U.S. Justice.

The real terrorists in the world is the U.S. National Security Council which includes all the U.S. national security agencies. And ISIS and Al-Qaeda and other extreme terrorists groups are either minor league or are misunderstood and deserved to be listened to.

Fidel Castro and Hugo Chavez President’s of Cuba and Venezuela respectfully are misunderstood and are actually great men just trying to serve their people. So they don’t become victims of a capitalist private enterprise system. Instead of being Un-Democratic far-leftist dictators who don’t believe in human and individual rights. And the bad guys are actually the United States.”

These are just some of the extreme fringe views from the Far-Left in America that would put the only in the mainstream in maybe Britain, France and Scandinavia and perhaps some authoritarian states. We are not talking about Liberals here and even Progressives, I would argue but people who have a soft heart for Marxism and communism. Who think the idea of a liberal free state based on individual freedom and rights is somehow corrupting and even immoral. And that we need a much more centralized collectivist state where women would be in charge for the most part and where the state would assume responsibility over the people.

Salon Magazine: Bill Curry: 'We Can Stop The Neo-Cons: Here's What a Truly Progressive Foreign Policy Would Look Like'

Source:Salon Magazine- U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt (Democrat, New York) 32nd President of the United States (1933-45)

Source:The New Democrat

I hate to break it to anyone who calls them self a Progressive today, but the Progressives gave us the U.S. Department of Defense. They gave us the national security state. Which includes things like the CIA, FBI, the National Security Council, NATO and why we are today responsible for Europe’s defense as American taxpayers. They gave us the Vietnam War after they got us involved in the Korean War and won World War II at least far as leading that war. Franklin Roosevelt and Harry Truman gave America the tools to fight and win the Cold War. That Lyndon Johnson used to put America in the Vietnam War. Can anyone who calls them self a Progressive today say they support any of those policies?

So when I read Bill Curry or anyone else who calls them self a Progressive say “its time for a progressive foreign policy”, is that what they mean with a big national security state that works with our foreign allies to police the world? Or are they calling for something much more passive and isolationist much further left where we step back as far as our traditional leadership role and let international organizations take the lead in dealing with these international crisis’? Bill Curry in his Salon piece seems to suggesting a little of both. That we be part of more international organizations like the International Criminal Court. But where we work with our foreign allies to address situations around the world. Instead of acting unilaterally to deal with foreign crisis’.

Progressive at least in the classical sense is not about being a dove. Not about being soft and passive to the point that you’re essentially a pacifist or isolationist or both. A true Progressive believes in at the very least self-defense when it comes to their own country. And that you have to be strong enough to protect what you value and cherish. Which is your own state and the people you represent. Now the debate would be about how strong you need to be and how much you need to invest and when you should act. But not about whether you should be strong or not. And that is something that today’s so-called Progressives need to understand if progressivism is really the ideology they want to back. Instead of being part of something that is more leftist.
Source:Periscope Film

Atheist Ute: Christopher Hitchens- On The Left's Double Standards

Source:Atheist Ute- British author and writer, Christopher Hitchens.

Source:The New Democrat

“This is against his debate with Dr. Playthell Benjamin about the War in Iraq / War on Terror.”

From Atheist Ute

I actually agree with every point that Chris Hitchens made in this short video except for one point. And that is probably the closest that I’ve ever come to completely agreeing with Chris Hitchens on anything.

Hitchens was a Socialist on economic policy and social policy and in his last ten-years or so he became a Neoconservative on foreign policy and national security. But the one point that I disagree with him on and then I’ll tell you where I agree with him is his point about left liberalism. There is nothing center-left about people on the Left, (Far-Left, really) and their critiques about people who legitimately criticize Islamists. That is pure fascist, political correctness, at its worst and illiberal because it goes against free speech.

Now here where I agree with Hitchens: The Far-Left has this attitude that if you criticize people from either a government or a private organization of lets say of a non-European background and you don’t go after bad things that the United States has done in the same critique that somehow that is racist or you’re a bigot in someway.

Actually if you go after non-Europeans government or otherwise at all you could be branded as a racist even if you have the facts on your side. If you don’t believe me just look at Bill Maher and what he went through with the Far-Left back in September and October about his critique os Islam. You talk about ISIS and the evil acts that they’ve done, they’ll say what about the KKK in America or the Nazis in Germany. The simple answer being: “what about the KKK or Nazis”

The Far-Left in America at least is not adequate to debate and talk about ISIS or any other national security challenge that America faces for the simple reason that they have a politically correct strategy and attitude in response to those threats. Instead of just calling birds, birds and sheep, sheep. Meaning describing things and people as they are, even if that offends some people.

To take on a challenge and threat, you first have to know what that threat is and what they are about and capable of and what they have done. Even if those facts may tend to offend some people who perhaps are over-sensitive to begin with. Liberals and Conservatives and to a certain extent Libertarians in the conservative sense like Rand Paul understand this. The Far-Left hasn’t figured that out yet.

Center For Public Integrity: Wendell Potter: 'Britain's Healthcare System is Better'

Source:Wendell Potter- Brits for their socialist health care system.

Source:The New Democrat

Just case there isn’t enough evidence that America won’t have a British based government-run health care system both health insurance and health care anytime soon perhaps not even in my lifetime and I’ll forty this year, is look at the Veterans Administration and the reforms they went though last year. Because of bipartisan legislation passed out of the last Congress that even Democratic Socialist Senator Bernie Sanders voted for and was actually one of the authors of the bill. That gives our military veterans actual choice which is a four-letter word for Socialists for the most part, in how they receive their health care. They now have an option of private or public health care.

Not even politicians and political activists as far to the Left as Senator Bernie Sanders, Ralph Nader and former U.S. Representative Dennis Kucinich are calling for a complete nationalization of the United States health care system. They want Medicare For All single payer to go along with the private health care system. Meaning the providers, meaning hospitals and clinics. Senator Sanders is open to having a Medicare public option as a compromise to single payer. If the British health care system is so great, then why are they only of 3-4 developed countries in the world that have a complete government-run health care system. Britain, Sweden and maybe one or two others. Sweden a country of nine-million people by the way. That has a lot of land and is not only energy independent, but a net exporter of energy.

Seriously if anyone thinks that U.K. NHS is the health care model for America, first take a look at the VA pre-2014 and to see if that is what you want to impose on the entire country. And if you still believe that then propose the plan for complete nationalization of the American health care system. Which means not only outlawing private health insurers, but nationalizing private hospitals and clinics, making all doctors in the country now federal employees and nationalizing local community own and run hospitals and clinics. Even Britain has started moving away form their own state-owned health care system and has allowed for some private hospitals and clinics and small health insurers.

I like the Medicare public option idea and was a supporter of it back in 2009-10 and not for the reasons that Social Democrats in America wanted it. They saw it as the last step before single payer. I supported it for the opposite reasons because it would bring in that word that Social Democrats hate and see as a four-letter word, which is competition. You have Medicare available for everyone and get it out of the hands of Congress and the Administration and let it run a non-profit under the same regulations as private non-profits and it would force private health insurers including for-profits to deliver better services or risk losing a lot of business. That is how you improve health care in America and make it more affordable. Competition instead of creating a gigantic monopoly.
Source:RT- RT is at least partially funded by President Vladimir Putin's Russian Federation Government.

CBS News: ‘The Tenement- Life In Chicago’s Black Ghetto (1967)’

Source:The New Democrat 

Source:CBS News- a woman who was interviewed for this documentary.

“One in this series of irregularly scheduled in-depth reports. This program focuses on the lives of nine families living in a dilapidated tenement on Chicago’s south.” 

From  Erzade Atan 

"This program focuses on the lives of nine families living in a dilapidated tenement on Chicago's south side in 1966. It includes interviews with Chicago residents, including those who lived at 3823 South Ellis Street prior to their eviction. Program highlights depict the following: a mother and newborn leave Cook County Hospital; Georgia Johnson, a tenant for fifteen years; a mother washes for a family of twelve; an eleven-year-old cares for younger siblings; members of "The Four Corners" gang; children play in a vacant lot; the tenement at 10:00 pm; church service; a neighborhood fire; high school drop-outs; a tenant's funeral; and exodus of tenants before the building is demolished." 

Source:CBS News- 1967 documentary about a Chicago ghetto.

From Hezakya Newz & Films

At risk of sounding political, but I’ll also be factual here, what you see in this film and community is the failures of public housing in America. And essentially forced segregation of not just the races, but of the economic classes for lack of a better term in America. Where you had middle class communities that are doing well. Upper class communities that are doing very well. And then lower class communities where the people there get what is left. Which is run-down apartment buildings, run-down schools. High crime rates where no one with real money wants to invest. And you create a community that looks like a big city inside of a third world country.

Public housing by itself is not a problem because that has prevented a lot of homelessness in America. But how its been run and managed in America especially for the kids being trapped in such run-down communities in run-down neighborhoods. A lot of times in single-parent families where the father is out of the picture for one reason or another. Where the mother might not even have a high school diploma let alone any college experience. Working two or three jobs to support her several kids, if she’s working at all. And having communities like this has serious costs. For the people who live there obviously, but for the country as a whole that has to try to makeup for what these families aren’t able to provide for themselves.

And the way public housing has been run in America has negatively affected the African-American community probably more than any community in the country other than the American-Indian community. Because African-Americans have generally had a poverty level twice that of the national average. And much higher than the Caucasian-American and Asian-American communities in America. And this is something that we should stop doing as a country and instead having public housing buildings in middle class communities. With education, job training and work opportunities for the people in these communities so they don’t have to live in public housing at all.

Russia Today: 'Louisiana - The World's Prison Capital'

Source:Russia Today- with a look at private prisons in Louisiana.

"Louisiana's for-profit prison system has guaranteed it more prisoners than anywhere else on the earth." 

From MACC

"RT (formerly Russia Today or Rossiya Segodnya) (Russian: Россия Сегодня)[9] is a Russian state-controlled[1] international news television network funded by the Russian government.[16][17] It operates pay television and free-to-air channels directed to audiences outside of Russia, as well as providing Internet content in Russian, English, Spanish, French, German and Arabic.

RT is a brand of TV-Novosti, an autonomous non-profit organization founded by the Russian state-owned news agency RIA Novosti in April 2005.[8][18] During the economic crisis in December 2008, the Russian government, headed by Prime Minister Vladimir Putin, included ANO "TV-Novosti" on its list of core organizations of strategic importance to Russia.[19][20][21] RT operates as a multilingual service with channels in five languages: the original English-language channel was launched in 2005, the Arabic-language channel in 2007, Spanish in 2009, German in 2014 and French in 2017. RT America (2010–2022),[22][23] RT UK (2014–2022) and other regional channels also produce local content. RT is the parent company of the Ruptly video agency,[5] which owns the Redfish video channel and the Maffick digital media company.[6][7]

RT has regularly been described as a major propaganda outlet for the Russian government and its foreign policy.[2] Academics, fact-checkers, and news reporters (including some current and former RT reporters) have identified RT as a purveyor of disinformation[58] and conspiracy theories.[65] UK media regulator Ofcom has repeatedly found RT to have breached its rules on impartiality, including multiple instances in which RT broadcast "materially misleading" content.[72]

In 2012, RT's editor-in-chief Margarita Simonyan compared the channel to the Russian Ministry of Defence.[73] Referring to the Russo-Georgian War, she stated that it was "waging an information war, and with the entire Western world".[17][74] In September 2017, RT America was ordered to register as a foreign agent with the United States Department of Justice under the Foreign Agents Registration Act.[75]

RT was banned in Ukraine in 2014 after Russia's annexation of Crimea;[76] Latvia and Lithuania implemented similar bans in 2020.[77][78] Germany banned RT DE in February 2022.[79] After the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine, Poland and then the entire European Union as well as Canada announced they were formally banning RT as well, while independent service providers in over 10 countries suspended broadcasts of RT.[80][81][82] Social media websites followed by blocking external links to RT's website and restricting access to RT's content.[83][84] Microsoft removed RT from their app store and de-ranked their search results on Bing,[85][86] while Apple removed the RT app from all countries except for Russia." 

From Wikipedia

I don't agree with everything that they're saying here President Vladimir Putin's Russia Today. (I guess China'a China Central Television wasn't available for this video) But I'm against locking people up for profit, keeping people in prison in longer, just so these private prisons can make more money at taxpayers, as well as at prison inmates expense. 

If there's a central role of government (federal, state, local) criminal justice and law enforcement, as well as national security, and foreign policy (to name a few) are obviously the roles of government. 

You want to make prisons cheaper, put inmates to work and educate them so they can cover their own incarceration, as well as stop locking up nonviolent offenders who are simply incarcerated because they're addicted to a dangerous substance or have committed other victimless crimes.

CBS News: 1968 Special: Black History: Lost, Stolen or Strayed, Starring Bill Cosby

Source:The New Democrat

I think the point of this film is that a lot that has been written about African-Americans about American history has been incorrect and stuff that is true about the community has been left out. Which almost fifty-years later is pretty obvious, but back in 1968 it certainly wasn’t. And that African-Americans themselves probably weren’t very familiar with their history especially the positive aspects of it. And probably weren’t even taught about it. It wasn’t until the 1880s or so that African-Americans were allowed to learn how to read, let alone get an education. Because they were treated by Caucasian-Americans as animals.

The other point being that a lot that has been written and portrayed about the African-American community has not just been racist, but simply false. The Birth of The Nation film from 1918 is an excellent example of that. And then go to the movies starting in the 1930s or so featuring African-Americans were portrayed as servants to Caucasians. Or were seen as criminals that no man would ever dare let their daughters be anywhere near. That fact is left obvious even back then because all Americans were familiar with the movies and TV and all had access to them for the most part.

I think the whole point of African-American History Month is to correct many wrongs that were written about the community in the past. And not portray the African-American community as perfect, because no community is. But to give a more balance look at the community and to point out that this community has given a lot to America from day one and even before we officially became the United States. And to show that even though this community still has a lot of challenges in America, they are by far the most successful African community in the world. That has contributed a lot to America and then some.

Wendy Kaminer: 'The Progressive Ideas Behind The Lack of Free Speech On Campus'

Source:The New Democrat

I don’t want to say this is true about every college in America, but it is true about too many of them especially where the faculties lean very left. And I’m not talking about liberal or center-left, but much further left than that to the point that they not only believe certain speech is wrong and offensive, but to the point that they don’t even believe it should be considered. And see it as dangerous to the point it shouldn’t even be heard let alone considered. And this affects their student bodies and turns them into essentially campus fascists. Where they won’t allow alternative views to be heard.

If there is any place in the country where freedom of thought and speech and new ideas would be heard, it would be on college campus’. Where young adults whose minds aren’t completely developed would be able to access all sorts of ideas and be able to consider them themselves. While their teachers give them the history and facts about those ideas and philosophies. In other words teach their students how to think and to examine things. But not what to think and leave that up to them once they are trained in how to examine ideas and thoughts. Because now they would be able to see those things for themselves.

And I’m sure there are already colleges like that in America, Otherwise political correctness would be a hell of a lot popular instead of losing support. But as a teacher or professor or dean if you don’t promote the idea of freedom of thought and speech at your school, you’re essentially telling your students that you don’t trust them. That even though they are smart and did well in school to the point they are now students are your college, they can’t be trusted to think for themselves. And as a result you end up promoting a collectivist society where people at the top decide what is right and wrong in society. Instead of a free society where people have the freedom to think and speak for themselves.

Salon Magazine: Magazine Bert Neuborne: The First Amendment As We Know it Today Didn't Exist Until The 1960s

Source:The New Democrat

I guess my question for Bert Neuborne who wrote this piece over at Salon would be did our First Amendment as we at least know it today didn’t exist until the 1960s, or is it just that the U.S. Supreme Court and other Federal courts misinterpret the First Amendment and our Freedom of Speech? Because I think it is pretty obvious that arresting a political candidate for speaking out against a war, or newspapers for endorsing the opponent of the president is unconstitutional. I think you would have a hard time finding even a Far-Right judge today who would go along with that. At least when it comes to endorsing the opposition.

Again my question about have we always had the same First Amendment, but it was interpreted wrongly in the past, or has it simply changed over the years form one way or the other? Because our Founding Fathers the Founding Liberals as I at least call them couldn’t of anticipated all the modern forms of communication that we have today and have had in the past. They couldn’t even anticipate the telephone landlines even or radio when they wrote the Constitution. Doesn’t mean our First Amendment doesn’t cover all of these modern devices. Because whether you speak this way or the other and use this device to communicate or another, you’re still speaking. And government at all levels is very limited in how they can regulate your speech under the First Amendment.

The last fifty-years or so the Federal courts have essentially interpreted Free Speech as covering every form of speech with few exceptions having to do with inciting violence, libel, yelling fire that isn’t there in tight public spaces. Now is that because our liberal Free Speech has only existed in the last fifty-years or so, or is that because the Federal courts were wrong or correct depending on your perspective in how they interpreted the First Amendment in the first 180 plus years or before the 1960s. I’m not a lawyer or historian obviously, but I believe our First Amendment as it is today and with all the speech that it protects has always been with us. Based on Congress shall make not law that infringes on the right of free speech.

CBS News: Special Report: Black Power/White Black Lash (1966)

Source:The New Democrat

To me at least Black Power wasn’t one movement, but a larger movement with several different sub-divisions. You had the more socialist if not Marxist revolutionary Black Panthers on the Far-Left with their own militia. You had Malcolm X and his movement that was sort of in the middle. That was truly about freedom and individualism for the African-American community and for them to be free to live their own lives. And you had the more social democratic pacifist movement led by Martin Luther King and his organization as well. But all of these groups essentially had similar if not the same goals, but with different tactics in how to accomplish those goals.

All three of these groups wanted power for the entire African-American community. That would not longer be forced to live under poverty, racism and have to be second-class citizens to Caucasian-Americans. I think one of the tragedies of Malcolm X being murdered in 1965 is that he and his movement I believe would’ve been a bumper between the Black Panthers and the MLK group. And perhaps without the Malcolm X being murdered maybe we don’t see the race riots that we did in 1965 and 66. We’ll never know that, but he was moderating before he was murdered in 1965 and maybe we would’ve seen that.

Black Power for the most part wasn’t about having African-Americans throwing the Caucasian community out of power in the 1960s and overthrowing the U.S. Government. It was about empowering an entire community of Americans to be able to live in their own freedom as well. And no longer forced to live under anyone else’s authority. The Black Panthers might have had more extreme leftist goals of overthrowing and entire country. But generally speaking the people in Black Power movement was about empowering African-Americans. And only using violence when it was used against them.

David Hoffman: How The 1960s Changed America

Source:David Hoffman-

Source:The New Democrat

The 1960s was truly a revolution for American culture and politics. We go from a very conservative collectivist period from the 1940s and 50s to a period where all sorts of groups of Americans were standing up and demanding their freedom. And the freedom to live their own lives for the very first time in their lives. And from that sense at least the 1960s was a very positive time with so many new Americans now wanting and obtaining freedom over their own lives. And a bad time for the conservative establishment that wanted to keep things as is.

The 1960s you have the civil rights movement which was very positive. And not just for African-Americans, but for Latin-Americans, women of all races and ethnicities, as well as gays. And for Americans of all backgrounds now being able to live their own lives the way they want to. And no longer feeling the need or having to live the lives of their parents and grandparents. The 1960s you also have the anti-war movement which led to America finally seeing that the Vietnam War was wrong and that we couldn’t win it.

The negative aspects of the 1960s was of course the violence. We lost two great political leaders in John F. Kennedy and Robert F. Kennedy. We lost two great civil rights leaders in Martin L. King and Malcolm X. The rise of crime in that decade, the rioting and division of that decade. Things fifty-years later we’re still going through and haven’t recovered from. But revolutions tend not to be all peaceful. There tends to be some casualties in revolutions and the 1960s was no exception to that.

We go from a very stagnant and status quo decade of the 1950s to a revolutionary decade of the 1960s. Where not a lot of new things seemed extreme, except to the establishment that again wanted to keep things as is. Because they benefited most from that America and also believed that was the way for all Americans to live. And if America had to do all over again I believe it would and that it would’ve needed to be done. Because of all the Americans who were denied freedom in America simply because of who they were.
Source:David Hoffman

Charlie Rose: George Clooney in 2005 On Goodnight & Good Luck

Source:The New Democrat

This is one reason why I’m definitely a big fan of George Clooney, besides his great sense of humor and charm, but his intelligence and knowledge about the issues that he likes to film about. Ed Murrow and the Ed Murrow-Joe McCarthy battle in the 1950s over communism and fascism. Who knows Ed Murrow so well and this story so well and you see that in this interview and in the movie. And you also see how much he respected Ed Murrow and how big of a thug and fascist that Senator Joe McCarthy was in the 1950s. Even if Ann Coulter is never smart enough to see that.

Ed Murrow knew how dangerous Senator McCarthy was in the 1950s and represented everything that America is supposed to be against and something I believe a large majority if not most Americans are against, which is fascism. And this blog covers fascism from both the Far-Right and Far-Left because it hates fascism. People telling others what it means to be an American and a moral person. Or how we should talk about certain groups of people and who we should communicate with each other.

Ed Murrow and his See it Now team knew exactly what they were up against and that the person that they were up against. And the fact that Senator McCarthy was a member of Congress and could use his power as a Senator to try to punish CBS News and the broader CBS network with their licensing and fines and everything else. And CBS News of course knew this as well which is why they weren’t fully behind Murrow and Fred Friendly. But it believed it was a fight worth taking on for the future of speech and other freedoms that Americans tend to take for granted. And they were very skillful how they took on McCarthy.

The Nation: Leighton Akio Woodhouse: These Motel Rooms Are The Last Resort For Families Without Homes

Source:The Nation Magazine-

Source:The New Democrat

I saw a HBO documentary back in the summer of 2010 about families who couldn’t afford apartments even and lost their homes due to the Great Recession. These people by in large at least before the Great Recession were educated with good jobs with both parents working. But now finding themselves without a home and out of work and for some reason not even able to find affordable public housing. I think that story also took place in Los Angeles. Both parents were able to find jobs again, but still not able to find an apartment for their family.

What that family was able to find was similar to what the family in this Nation story was able to find. The family in the film was better off and found a motel room for families who couldn’t afford apartments. But the motel wasn’t located in a crime and drug infested neighborhood. And the HBO family had a room with two beds and I believe an actual kitchen and not two mattress’ like the family in the Nation story. I bring this up because it is pretty sad, but also gives some hope that struggling families don’t have to live in a shelter or under bridge some place like that. We could find them temporary housing while they get better jobs and are able to move out on their own.

We could set up a system where families like this could stay at some type of housing center, for lack of a better term, that would serve as their temporary housing, but also as a transition and improvement center. Where they could get the healthcare, rehab, education, job training and job placement that they need to finally get a good job and not only move out of the center, but into a good apartment or home. Living independently and in freedom and not have to stick these motels or centers in rundown areas, but in middle class communities where they could find good jobs and not be surrounded by crime and drug addicts. And this could be paid for out of current public assistance budgets and run by private non-profits.

Roosevelt Institute: Richard Kirsch- 'The Politics of Responsibility - Not Envy'

Source:The New Democrat- Hillary R. Clinton (Democrat, New York) when she was Secretary of State.

Source:The New Democrat 

"Americans are looking for politicians who ask the wealthy to take responsibility for their fair share of our society.

 

According to former Treasury Secretary Larry Summers – who is emerging as a key economic advisor to Hillary Clinton – the big political challenge in addressing economic inequality is not to embrace “a politics of envy.”

From the Roosevelt Institute 

"Will Hillary Clinton run for president in 2016? Only Bill Clinton knows for sure." 

Source:Late Night With Seth Meyers- President William J. Clinton (Democrat, Arkansas) 42nd President of the United States.

From Late Night With Seth Meyers

If I was advising for Hillary Clinton, which might be a scary thought for both her and me, because I don’t have a lot of respect for her as a politician, which is a different topic, but if she was interested in running a bold inspirational presidential campaign that could bring in more than just radical feminists who are purely only interested in seeing that the next President is a Democratic female and she asked me for advice in how to do that, I would tell her to go big.

Layout an agenda that is about empowerment especially for America who don’t have it regardless of race and ethnicity by empowering them to take control over their own lives so they can live in freedom with the rest of the country.

Push for universal quality education for everyone so you’re not trapped in a bad school simply because of where you live. Talk about public school choice and even charter schools, even if you have to take on teachers unions.

Talk about a real job training system where all Americans adults whether they are working or can finish their education so they can get a good job. Especially if they are low-skilled or are educated, but need additional skills to get another good job.

Talk about a trillion-dollars or more in new infrastructure investment over 5-10 years including a new National Infrastructure Bank that would acquire private sector funding and investors to finance these projects. And especially dedicate a lot of that funding for underserved areas. And talk about incentives for investors and employers to invest in underserved areas. So they can get the economic development that they need and not have to move to live a good life.

Hillary should go big and talk about an American Freedom For All Agenda. Well that is an opportunity for freedom for all Americans. The responsible people who need that opportunity will take advantage of that and live in freedom. Americans want to hear a presidential candidate who can speak to them and tell them how government can work for them to empower them so they can live in freedom. They are tired of divided politics and divide and conquer. They want a real leader that can inspire them. Hillary shouldn’t play it safe and run for middle or go for the Far-Left. But instead talk about freedom and opportunity for all and she could win in a landslide.

David Hoffman: 'Hippies Remember The Glory Days'

Source:David Hoffman- a 1960s Hippie. (I'm presuming)

Source:The New Democrat

“To support my efforts to create more clips please donate to me at:ALLINDAY. I am very proud of the TV series I made for PBS called Making Sense of the Sixties. I had the chance to spend a year examining my youth and how I became an active member of the 60s generation. If you are from that generation or a child of the 60s, I think you would find the entire series of value…

From David Hoffman

If you are familiar with leftist publications like Salon, The Nation, The American Prospect, AlterNet, TruthOut and I’m sure I’ve left some other out and the Occupy Wall Street movement and what is left of it today, go back to the 1960s and you’ll see where the members of that movement come from today. Students For A Democratic Society, the counter-culture movement and the anti-war movement and even anti-capitalist and wealth movement of the 1960s are the parents and grandparents of the Occupy today.

They were called the New Left back and people with this really far-leftist mindset at least in America are still the New Left today. People who were not only against the Vietnam War which a lot of the country who was a lot more politically mainstream back then was also against. But they were against the liberal democratic establishment in general. Not the Democratic Party necessarily, but the liberal values that govern America then and today and what the country was founded on. Mostly as it related to our military, law enforcement and foreign policy, but also our economic and political systems.

The New Left coming of age in college in the 1960s decided they didn’t like America at least how the country was governed and founded. And put together a movement to not only get us out of the Vietnam War, which I would’ve been against back then as well as today. But they wanted to destroy our system and how our country is governed. And replace it with something a lot more social democratic, that is the democrats who were in this group. I mean if you look at Occupy today and then look at the New Left of the 1960s, they are the same people ideologically and culturally and believe in the same things.

Brookings Institution: Fred Dews: An Economic Agenda For America: A Conversation With U.S. Senator Bernie Sanders

Source:The New Democrat

This blog blogs about socialism a lot and for good reasons. One socialism is about as popular in America as it has been since the 1920s or so. Another is that more Americans are now learning about what it actually is and not how hyper-partisans on the Right like to talk about it and call people Socialists like they were calling them bastards or something. Socialist is no longer seen as an insult or a four-letter word by a lot of Americans now. Which is why you now see Americans are further to the Left and even far-left of center-left Liberal Democrats such as myself embrace and own the label. Senator Bernie Sanders being the perfect example of that. Even if there are still come closeted Socialists trapped in the closet at MSNBC and the new The New Republic.

I’m not a Socialist and neither is this blog as we’ve made clear for several years now. But there is a type of socialism that I respect and it is the democratic form of it. As Senator Sanders said at Brookings yesterday he believes in capitalism and private enterprise and that it has done a lot of good for America. With competition and the development and creation of all sorts of products that we all use. But that he also believes that all Americans should have the basic necessities in life. And that is where government comes in to see that no one is left behind . The difference being between a Democratic Socialist like Bernie Sanders and a Marxist like Fidel Castro to use as an example. Where the Marxist believes that the job of government is essentially to take care of everyone in society. And that people can’t be trusted with freedom over their own lives.

If you listened to Senator Sanders at Brookings yesterday his speech and interview with E.J. Dionne who I would label as a FDR classical Progressive and not a Liberal, which is different, not once did you hear Senator Sanders talk about nationalizing this industry or that industry. Other than health insurance and wanting to make Medicare the only health insurer in the country. But you also hear in that speech and interview why he’s both a great ideologue and legislature. He said he would be opened to the public option for Medicare and making everyone eligible for it and not just seniors. And leaving in the private health insurance industry as well. What Senator Sanders talked about had to do with infrastructure investment, college affordability for everyone and tax reform so the rich pay what he views as their fair share.

Anyone who believes the auto, banking and even media and internet should be nationalized in America and we still have a few Marxists and leftist fascists on the Left, doesn’t have much of a political future in America as a candidate or politician. Unless you keep your politics to yourself and try to sound much more moderate. The type of socialism that can sell in America even outside of New England the Northwest and San Francisco is the social democratic form of it. Multi-party, private enterprise, mixed in with big government in the form of a welfare state to provide people with the basic necessities that we need to live well and healthy. Like education, health care, health insurance, retirement, to use as example. While the private enterprise provides everything else, especially in areas where you must have competition in order for those services to be as strong as they are. Transportation, food, media, technology, entertainment to use as examples. Socialism mixed in with private enterprise.

Brookings Institution: E.J. Dionne: A Conversation With House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi

Source:Brookings Institution talking to U.S. House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (Democrat, California)

Source:The New Democrat

Infrastructure investment, a national energy policy, education and job training for our low-skilled adults and low-income students, immigration reform and expanding trade to sell more American products oversees as they are built in this country, this is how you not only increase economic security for middle class Americans, but also expand the middle class in America. Educating Americans and putting them to work with good jobs that not only allows for them to pay their bills, but put money away and joy life in America.

You can talk about all sorts of government social programs to help people in poverty, but without a strong and expanding American middle class who are the real job creators in America because of the economic growth that they drive with their consumer spending, you won’t have the resources needed to pay for those social programs that you want. You can only tax so much and tax people who have money to tax. The larger the middle and even upper classes in America that you have, the more people with more money you have to do the things that we need government to do.

Infrastructure, energy, immigration, education and job training for our low-skilled adult population so they can get themselves good jobs that puts them in the middle class and even upper middle class, education reform so low-income students aren’t trapped in failing schools simply because of their zip code, that is you expand and strengthen the middle class in America. By freeing people up to be free and live their American dream and not need government to take care of them. This is the economic agenda that President Obama has pushed and that Leader Pelosi and her House Democratic Caucus should back as well. And a lot of them already do.

C-SPAN: Goodnight & Good Luck (2005)

Source:The New Democrat

What I didn’t cover yesterday was how important Ed Murrow was for network hard news and what he meant for it. It was almost like the man was physic and could see what network news would look lets say fifty-years later. He could already see news moving in a more tabloid and entertainment oriented direction. And that news being combined with entertainment. He wanted to run and anchor a hard news show that dealt primarily with hard news. Which is exactly what CBS News the gold standard for network news for the next twenty years starting in the early 1960s became.

What Murrow said was that he knew what entertained Americans and what they wanted to see and get entertained. What he was saying was that he wanted Americans to also get what they needed to know. Why their country and world operates the way it does and why that is important to them. That Americans could have their desserts, but that also should have their entrees. Their meat and potatoes before they have their ice cream and cake. Ed Murrow was a hard news man working for primarily an entertainment network. Which is what CBS was primarily in the 1950s. Which of course changed with CBS News and CBS Sports in the 1960s and ever since.

And this whole time period with CBS executives telling Murrow and Fred Friendly that they want entertainment and with McCarthyism going on in the U.S. Senate and other big news stories of that era was the perfect way to show how entertainment competes with hard news at TV networks. Murrow saying that he knows that Americans want to see Ed Sullivan and Leave it to Beaver and whatever else. But you got these big stories going on that affect the future of America that are frankly more important. And they have to be covered and shown too.

Lionsgate: Goodnight & Good Luck (2005)

Source:The New Democrat

If I had to rate Goodnight and Good Luck on a scale of 1-10 with ten being the highest, I would give it a 9-9.5. And I saw the movie again a couple of nights ago in preparation for this blog. The only reason I wouldn’t give it a ten, is because it was a ninety-minute movie about one of the most important times during the Cold War between America and Russia and their allies on both sides. This movie should’ve been at least two-hours if not three and they would’ve been able to cover so many more aspects about the McCarthyism in the 1950s.

If you are familiar with the 1950s in America and the so-called red scare about communism and Communists in America, then you are also familiar with U.S. Senator Joe McCarthy and the Army McCarthy hearings that supposedly investigated supposed Communists inside of the U.S. Government. A complete fishing trip inside of an empty bathtub, because Chairman McCarthy and his team didn’t have much if anything to go on. Other than guilt by association. Senator McCarthy saw this as his ticket to the White House after President Dwight Eisenhower.

Edward R. Murrow the anchor and managing editor of CBS News’s See it Now, the CBS nightly newscast before the CBS Evening News, knew what communism was and who were the actual Communists. Because he covered World War II in Europe. And didn’t believe that Americans who weren’t Communists should be stuck with the label of Communists. And he and Fred Friendly and their team at See it Now, without having the backing of CBS News and the broader CBS network, decided to go after McCarthyism and expose Joe McCarthy for what he was. Which was a political opportunist and a right-wing fascist. Who saw Americans who didn’t look at the world the way he did as Un-American.

Murrow and Friendly expose Joe McCarthy for what he really was by going after him the way any good news organization would. By using the truth against McCarthy. Using his own words and documents against the Senator. And with Murrow doing a nightly editorial after their reporting on the McCarthy hearings about dangerous fascism and guilt by association is. And George Clooney who plays Fred Friendly and David Strathairn who plays Ed Murrow, do a great job of showing who the real Friendly and Murrow and the See it Now crew take down Senator Joe McCarthy.

The American Prospect: Julian E. Zelizer- When Progressives Were Organized

Source:The American Prospect- "Progressives seeking a model for an effective Congress could learn from the nearly forgotten history of the Democratic Study Group." From the American Prospect.

Source:The New Democrat 

"When Republicans took control of the House of Representatives in 1994 for the first time in 40 years, one of Speaker Newt Gingrich's earliest moves was to end the public funding for the Democratic Study Group (DSG), a caucus of liberal Democrats that had been created in 1959. It was one of Gingrich's shrewdest maneuvers. As Kansas Republican Pat Roberts, a staunch conservative then and now, wrote in an internal memo, "The demise of the DSG severely damages the power structure of the House Democrats."

Roberts was right. The DSG is almost forgotten today, but its history suggests lessons for the current generation of Democrats. Since 1994, congressional liberals have failed to replicate a powerful, independent organization like the Democratic Study Group. They have been dependent on a House leadership that is sometimes but not always sympathetic to their goals. The closest thing to a DSG, the Congressional Progressive Caucus, has been a pale imitation of its predecessor, a fragile informal coalition that has lacked the same kind of leadership, money, publications, communications strategy, or clout. As liberals prepare for the start of the 114th Congress and hope for stronger Democratic returns in 2016, they would benefit from looking back at the history of the DSG to see just how much a vibrant and robust caucus can offer."  

From The American Prospect 

"FDR introduced a record number of pieces of legislation immediately after being elected during Great Depression. FDR signed the Emergency Banking Act and the Glass-Steagall Act which prohibited the merger of commercial and investment banks in response to the 1933 bank panic. FDR also created the Civilian Conservation Corps which put 250,000 unemployed to work. FDR also signed into law new regulatory powers to the Federal Trade Commission and created the Security and Exchange Commission to regulate Wall Street. $3.3 billion dollars was appropriated to the Public Works Administration to stimulate the economy and create the largest government-owned industrial enterprise in American history -- the Tennessee Valley Authority which built dams and power stations, controlled floods, and modernized agriculture and home conditions in the poverty-stricken Tennessee Valley. FDR promised to repeal prohibition in his campaign for Pres, and he did, generating new tax revenue to help pay for increase in gov spending. In June 1933 Roosevelt restored $50 million in pension payments, and Congress added another $46 million more. After the 1934 Congressional elections, which gave Roosevelt large majorities in both houses, there was a fresh surge of New Deal legislation. These measures included the Works Progress Administration which set up a national relief agency that employed 2 million people. FDR signed the National Labor Relations Act which established for the first time in American history the rights of workers to organize unions and participate in strikes. At the height of WPA employment in 1938, unemployment was down from 20.6% in 1933 to only 12.5%. Total employment during Roosevelt's term expanded by an astonishing 18.31 million jobs! By 1944, FDR and the American people were so confident in his policies, he had the audacity to propose a Second Bill of Rights in his State Of The Union Address." 

Source:Right-Wing Watch- our Founding Fathers or just actors playing? You be the judge. LOL

From Right-Wing Watch

The Democratic Study Group that Julian Zelizer mentioned, was a coalition of FDR/LBJ Progressive Democrats who gave America the New Deal, Great Society and the civil rights laws of the 1960s. They created public social safety net in America. Safety net being the key here, because it is one thing that makes America very different from let's say Scandinavia economically. 

Americans don’t expect government to take care of them indefinitely, but to help us when we need it. That is why it’s called a safety net and social insurance. You collect your insurance when you need it. But you don’t use it to pay your bills for the rest of your life unless you are disabled or retired. The Progressives of that era understood that and also didn’t want Americans thinking they could just live off of government indefinitely.

Today’s so-called Progressives (Democratic Socialists, in actuality) are much further left than Progressives of the past.. They’ve gone from Teddy Roosevelt, Franklin Roosevelt, Lyndon Johnson and Teddy Kennedy (real Progressives) all the way over to the Dennis Kucinich’s, Ralph Nader’s Bernie Sanders, and yes, Bob Kuttner’s of the world who expect government to take care of people in general. Instead of being there for people when they need economic assistance and empowering people who are down to get up on their own feet. 

The reason why the Democratic Study Group had real clout in Congress in the 1950s and 60s is because they were mainstream in America and tended to believe in things that Americans tend to believe when it comes to the economy. Social insurance for people who need it, infrastructure and quality education for all. So everyone could live in freedom and not need government to take care of them.

The Democratic Study Group and the old The New Republic have been replaced by the New-Left (Socialists and Communists) New Republic, The Nation, AlterNet, TruthOut, and yes The American Prospect and other Far-Left social democratic publications and political activist groups. Who represent very few Americans because they tend to be on the fringe in America and need their readers and followers to give them financial contributions just to stay in business. Because they have so little in advertising revenue. I know this from personal experience being on the email list of all of these publications to see how far left the Far-Left is today. 

FDR/LBJ Progressives are still around today: Senator Sherrod Brown might be their best and leading spokesperson in Congress today. But unfortunately they’re being shouted down by MSNBC and those publications that I mentioned earlier.

Vox: Opinion: Amanda Taub: "The Truth About Political Correctness is That it Doesn't Exist": Really?

Vox: Opinion: Amanda Taub: The Truth About Political Correctness is That it Does Not Exist 

This post was originally posted at The New Democrat on WordPress

So when Rush Limbaugh calls a young women a slut a few years ago and people on the Far-Left protest and try to get Rush fired because they believe slut is offensive and politically incorrect, that didn’t happen? Or when campus, leftists lets say to be nice try to prevent Anne Coulter from speaking at their college because of offensive remarks she’s made about minorities Latin immigrants, gays and go down the list, she’s serial offender, that didn’t happen either?

Or go up to last year and what Bill Maher who just happens to be a hard-core Atheist that the Far-Left use to love, but he has the balls to criticize Islam, the Far-Left attacks him on Twitter and other places and call him a racist. And the leftists at Berkley try to prevent him from speaking at their state university, by the way, but in Amanda Taub’s world that didn’t happen either? Please, let’s be adults here and not debate whether or not political correctness exist or not. And at the same time not debate whether water is wet or not. And have a real debate about the merits and weakness’ of it instead and have an adult conversation.

Lets also be real about what it is as well, even if the truth may tend to offend the supporters of it. Which is one thing that free speech is about. The right to not only express yourself, but also the right to tell the truth even if it may offend. The fringe version of political correctness is a form of fascism. “I not only disagree with you, but find your point of view hateful and offensive to the point that you don’t have a right to speak in my world. And I’m going to do whatever I can to shut you up”. That is exactly what political correctness is when it comes from the Far-Right and elements of the Tea Party that want to define what it means to be real American. And the Far-Left that wants to shut people up who they find offensive.