Laura Flanders: Is A Socialist Future Possible? Sarah Leonard & Bhaskar Sunkara

Source: Laura Flanders-

Source:The New Democrat

Is a socialist future possible? Well I guess anything is possible at least in the future. I don't think this is the right question, because it's sort of like asking will we one day see cars that fly for people who don't want to sit in traffic on the way to work. I guess that is possible, but who is expecting that. We need to separate the possible and the reasonable and realistic, because they're different things. The next President of the United States, won't be a Socialist or Social Democrat. (Sorry Jill Stein supporters) The next President will either a moderate pragmatic Progressive (which is what Progressives are) in Hillary Clinton, or a right-wing authoritarian fascist in Donald Trump. Whoever controls the next Congress, the Speaker of the House won't be a Socialist, even if it is Nancy Pelosi and the Speaker's members won't be social-democratic, at least the majority. Once you get past the Black Caucus and Progressive Caucus. The next Leader of the Senate, won't be a Socialist or Social-Democrat, even if it is Chuck Schumer. And his members won't be social-democratic by nature. Once you get beyond Bernie Sanders and Tammy Baldwin. So Socialists and Social-Democrats, won't control the next Congress in either chamber.

People point to the Millennial Generation as reason to believe we're moving in a socialist or social-democratic direction as a country as far as ideology. But go back to the late 1960s and early 1970s and yes George McGovern did win the Democratic nomination for president in 1972. But most of his support came from young Baby Boomers in their twenties. And look at the Baby Boom Generation today and you see a generation (with all due respect) that grew up. They got jobs (once they started showering and got hair cuts) and started paying taxes. They go involved romantically outside of their radical political movement and got married and had kids. They got comfortable in American society and became very successful in life and perhaps also learned about the limits of socialism and what government can do for people with their taxes. And didn't become Conservatives necessarily, but certainly moderated and became what Hillary Clinton is today. And took more of a pragmatic center-left approach to what government should and can do for the people.

Again to go back to my original point about what is possible, twenties years from now can we see an America that is a social-democratic country that looks like Canada or Scandinavia when it comes to economic and foreign policy, again what isn't possible until it's proven impossible. But I'm more interested in what's reasonable and realistic. I guess I'm just not very romantic and if the Millennial's are anything like the Boomers or even Gen-Xers and a lot of Millennial's are the sons and daughters of Boomers and Gen-Xers, they'll moderate as well. Some might even move to the Center-Right. We don't know where we'll be as a country even four years from now politically. A lot of that will depend on how the first term of the next president goes. But to say that a large percentage of the young adult generation (Millennial's) like socialism and  based on that America is moving in a socialist direction, I would ask you 5-10 years from now if you still believe that. If the Baby Boomers were Socialists, than Ronald Reagan probably never becomes President. So just I believe it's way to early to decide what direction America is moving in politically until we actually get there.
Source:Laura Flanders

CBS News: President Richard Nixon's Resignation Speech- Dan Rather vs Roger Mudd

Source:World Opinion Forum- Roger Mudd v Dan Rather on CBS News: "Go soft on President Nixon." 

Source:The New Democrat

"The night Nixon resigned word came down  from the top at CBS to - as Dan Schorr put it - "Go soft on Nixon."
 Schorr added: "I guess Roger didn't get the word."
See also responses of Walter Cronkite and Eric Severeid

Video from Nixon Library."

From World Opinion Forum

CBS News covering President Richard Nixon's resignation speech in August, 1974. (I wasn't born yet!) Of course because of President Nixon's involvement in the Watergate break in in 1972 where employees of the Richard Nixon Reelection Campaign, broke into Democratic National Headquarters at the Watergate Hotel in Washington in the summer of 1972.

After it became clear because of President Nixon's presidential tapes that the President ordered the coverup. he lost most of whatever support he had left in Congress. At least enough in the House and even in his own party to prevent him from being impeached by the House with a bipartisan majority and win a conviction trial in the Senate. The President would have been impeached by the House and convicted by the Senate. That is how Congress can remove the President and Vice President from office.

Congressional Republicans led by Senator Barry Goldwater, but Senate Minority Leader Hugh Scott and House Minority Leader John Rhodes, told President Nixon that the gig was up. (So to speak) Went to the White House and told the President he can't survive Watergate and if he tries to he'll be removed from off by Congress.

That is why President Richard Nixon resigned from office. Because had he not he would have faced a worst embarrassment of being removed from office by Congress and perhaps losing half of his own party in the House and Senate on those votes. Senate Republicans told President Nixon that he might have twenty votes for acquittal in the Senate if it went that far. You need 34 to defeat impeachment in the Senate and Republicans had 45 seats in the Senate in that Congress. More than enough to defeat an impeachment trial if they're united on it.

President Nixon had calculated that he would probably get impeached by the Democratic House that had roughly 260 seats, but the win the conviction trial in the Senate. But Senator Goldwater told the President that he didn't have enough votes in the Senate for that and that he Barry Goldwater would vote for conviction.  Perhaps Richard Nixon did want to end this and save the country from seeing their President impeached and convicted. But it's clear that a big part of him resigning was to save himself from further embarrassment.

This Democratic Congress of 1973-74, was ready to get past impeachment and deal with other issues. Like making sure the Vietnam War ended swiftly and properly, the country was going through a recession and lacked affordable energy, inflation was becoming a big problem, rising unemployment, etc. But just as long as President Nixon was removed one way or another from office. Whether they had to do that themselves or the President voluntarily stepped down.

So as Roger Mudd and Dan Rather were talking about as far as whether the House would go through on impeachment anyway even with the President resigning, there was no appetite for that in either the Democratic Caucus or Republican Caucus. And the Democratic Senate wanted nothing to do with an impeachment trial and neither did Senate Republicans, especially if the President already decided to voluntarily resign. Richard Nixon being the master politician he was, knew when to fold and when he lost all support which is why he resigned from office.

The Objective Standard: Dr. Martin Luther King On Government & The Individual

Source:The Objective Standard-

Source:The New Democrat

Politically Dr. Martin Luther King, politically was a Democratic Socialist and proud of it. At least when it came to economic policy and foreign policy. He was a democratic collectivist in the sense he believed that the job of government especially the central government, was to see that everyone was taken care of and no one had to go without. And believed in the democratic socialist model of the welfare state that is common in Scandinavia, where the job of the central government is to seen that a lot of the people's needs are met by the government. Education, health insurance, health care, child care, very generous benefits for the working poor and non-working poor, etc. But he also had what's called a classical liberal streak (that I call a real liberal streak) where all Americans are entitled to basic individual and equal rights. This quote in this photo is a perfect example of that. Where he's saying that, "man is not made for the state, but the state is made for the man.

Individuals, don't get their power from government, but vice-versa. All of our elected officials are exactly that. They have to run in order to serve us and be given the power and responsibility that we the people give them. The people aren't required to serve the government and serve the politicians, other than obeying the law and cooperating with law enforcement. We don't have all of these individuals rights under the Bill of Rights, because the current party in power at any given time says we do. Those individuals rights are constitutional and guaranteed under the U.S. Constitution. And it's the job to make our rights are protected. Not to pick and choose who has them and who doesn't. Which is one reason why I'm such a big believer in civil liberties and freedom of choice and so opposed to political correctness. Dr. King here is speaking for We The People in an individualist way. Saying that we as Americans have basic individuals rights that don't come from government.

Something that I disagree with Social Democrats and Democratic Socialists on, is the relationship between government and society and government and the people. The socialist-left, tend to combine those groupings into one group. When they say society has done this and provided the people with these things or this country does this for it's people, they mean the government does these things for the people. When in fact government is the people that are supposed to work for the people and in many cases are elected. Society, is the people and in many cases the people are responsible for job creation, providing health care, education and so-forth and in many cases that is not done by government at all, not even through the financing. But that these services are provided by the private sector, the people who work for private organizations and business's. When Dr. King was talking about We The People here, he was talking about the basic individuals of the people. Not government and saying that government gets all of their power from the people they're supposed to serve.

Jonathan Ross Show: 'Joan Collins Slaps Jonathan Ross!'

Source:Jonathan Ross Show- Hollywood and English Babydoll Joan Collins.

Source:The Daily Review  

"Joan Collins decides to show Jonathan Ross how hard the Dynasty slap really is!

Subscribe to The Jonathan Ross Show YouTube channel for weekly videos and the best bits from the show:Jonathan Ross."  

From Jonathan Ross

Source:Jonathan Ross Show- Hollywood and English Babydoll Joan Collins.

I believe why Americans love soap operas and tabloids so much and now reality TV, is because of women like Joan Collins, Elizabeth Taylor, Ava Gardner and I'm sure many others. But these three women come to my mind real fast. Because they lived and worked like divas and women who were simply more interesting than everyone else.

For good and bad and a lot of that good, because Joan Collins is simply one of the cutest, funniest and best actress's of her generation. Who went toe-to-toe with Johnny Carson when he interviewed her on The Tonight Show. Great interview if you've seen that from back in 1983. Joan Collins is simply just a beautiful, fascinating, entertaining, funny and adorable woman, who is never boring and always entertaining. The life of the party and interview, life of the show.

Dame Joan, who was born to be in the public eye who is always off-script, because she is quick and honest and doesn't need a script to be serious or funny, because she's so honest and you always know where she's coming from. We need more people like her for good and bad and I wish we had people like that. And perhaps so-called reality TV would disappear and we would get the real thing instead with Joan Collins and others always showing letting us know exactly where they're coming from.