New Economic Thinking: Rob Johnson: Who is John Maynard Keynes?

Source:New Economic Thinking with a look at John Maynard Keynes.

Source:FreeState MD

“An introduction to the great 20th century economist John Maynard Keynes and an explanation why the Institute is launching at Keynes’ King’s College at Cambridge University.” 

From New Economic Thinking

Just from this quote alone someone whose fairly familiar with Franklin Roosevelt at least, but perhaps not so much with Economist John Maynard Keynes, would have to assume that John Keynes was way to the Left of Franklin Roosevelt on economics. At least in President Roosevelt’s first term as President of the United States.

President Roosevelt, did send an Economic Bill of Rights to Congress in 1944-45. Where he essentially made the case that no American should go without. Meaning what people need to live well and live a good life, education, employment, health care, housing, health insurance, retirement, food, etc.

Franklin Roosevelt was a Progressive Capitalist. He believed that individuals needed economic freedom as well as organizations. But that it had to be balanced with a strong safety net for people who fall down and need help up. As well as a strong regulatory system to protect innocent consumers and workers, as well as companies from predatory behavior. Along with a strong modern infrastructure system so more people benefit from Capitalism.

FDR never believed that capitalism and private enterprise should disappear and be outlawed. But that it had to be regulated and you needed an insurance system for when capitalism fails and people need help.

As radical as the New Deal might have been in the 1930s, it was actually pretty moderate compared with what else was being offered to help deal with the Great Depression. From Communists way over as Far-Left as you can get who wanted to see American industries be nationalized and private property to be confiscated by the Federal Government. To Democratic Socialists, who didn’t want to see private enterprise ended, but that we should have a much more generous public social insurance system than we have.

John Keynes was more inline with the lets’s democratic socialist-left and where people like Democratic Socialist Senator Bernie Sanders is today. Private enterprise, with a generous welfare state and strong regulatory state. To balance out the private enterprise system.

Jim Morrison & The Doors: Live in Copenhagen (1968)

Source:The Doors Live in Copenhagen, Denmark, in 1968.

Source:The Daily Journal

“The doors – the unknown soldier live in Copenhagen (Denmark) 1968. HQ audio. If there is a problem with this video let me know…” 

From The Doors

The Lizard King Jim Morrison, with guitarist Robby Krieger and piano player Ray Manzarek in the background. You can really see why Jim Morrison was called The Lizard King all leathered up in his skin-tight, snakeskin, black leather suit, that he wore practically everywhere in public, at least the black leather jeans and cowboy boots. And wore those pants and boots almost the whole time from 1967-69. He didn’t wear the same leather jeans and boots, but always in the leather jeans, usually with the leather jacket and cowboy boots during that period. Until he was arrested in Miami, Florida in 1969 and then he moderated his wardrobe a little bit.

Source:The Doors- The Lizard King Jim Morrison in 1968. He was also The Leather King in that outfit. The rock & roll, leather cowboy.

Had this concert been in color and the Hollywood Bowl concert in black and white, then The Doors in Copenhagen would’ve definitely been The Doors best concert ever in the 3-4 years they were in concert.

This concert had The Doors best sound and The Lizard King at his best on the vocals. But the Hollywood Bowl concert was The Doors especially Jim Morrison looking his best especially being in color. It would be nice to get the Copenhagen concert in color, colorized even so you could see how The Lizard King looked and sounded at his best. In the his leather suit, the leather jeans, the cowboy boots, the jacket, the concho belt and how he moved around on stage in this concert. And he sounded, but all in color.

But unfortunately even though The Doors were big in the late 1960s when color TV, color movies and everything else was shown in color for the most part, a lot of The Doors footage and even their photos were still shown in black and white.

History Channel: 1968 With Tom Brokaw

Source:McKeow Tube with The Hippie & Tom Brokaw.

Source:The Daily Journal

“In this video, Tom Brokaw presents the causes, details, and legacy of the pivotal year 1968.”

From McKeow Tube

1968 was one of if not the most explosive years in American history, for good and bad. With everything that happened that year from political assassinations, with people being freed to be themselves and live the way they want to. With all the good movies and music that came from this era. With the sporting events, as well as a new political movement in America that emerged on the Left-Wing and what I call the New-Left in America.

The New-Left (orFar-Left) that came into the Democratic Party that was anti-establishment, anti-war, anti-capitalist, anti-anything that was previously done in America that seemed as part of the establishment. The mid and late 1960s was changing to the point that for people who weren’t Baby Boomers and were older, we’re seeing a completely New America.

The term New America I believe gets thrown around a lot and has become another corny catch phrase in American pop culture especially. But we did become a New America not in 1968, but go back to 1964 and perhaps even 1963 when the civil rights movement became mainstream in America.

1968 is that year where America became that true melting pot and where we became that country that just didn’t claim to believe all of those great liberal democratic values of opportunity, diversity, tolerance, individual freedom, freedom of choice, speech, tolerance etc, but we no longer just claimed those values, but actually owned them. We were no longer just a great melting pot ethnically, racially and everything else, but a country where all sorts of Americans became free to be themselves and live their own lives.

Culturally, the 1950s America that the Christian-Right have tried to move America back to ever since, it didn’t end in 1960 or even 1968. That culturally collectivist decade ended in 1963 or 64. But 1968 was a year where the right-wing came back and took on all of these millions of Baby Boomers who represented millions of Americans of all sorts of ethnic, racial and cultural backgrounds and got behind Richard Nixon for president. And where these New Americans stood their ground. And that is where you see this cultural battle, Cultural War even that is still going on America today. Between Americans who want their 1950s back. Versus Americans who want to continue to progress and create an America that works for all of us.

1968 is a year where you see two America’s emerge. They were always there, but thanks to Hollywood and TV, they became obvious to most Americans. An America who saw things in black and white and if you saw things differently they would view you as Un-American. Versus an America that didn’t see things so simplistically. Who didn’t believe women’s place was necessarily in the home. That women should be able to make this decision for themselves whether to work at home and run the house, or work out of the home for money.

1968 is a year where our religious, ethnic and racial diversity, became celebrated. Where equal rights and diversity were celebrated in the New America. In 1968 you saw young adults essentially taking on their parents and grandparents in this new Cultural War.

America, went through a lot of hell in the 1960s with all of the assassinations and the Vietnam War. The violence that came about against the civil rights marchers (to use as examples) but with all of that violence and chaos came a lot of positive things as well. A Cultural Revolution where millions of Americans and not just Baby Boomers, but my Generation X and Americans after that, were given true American individual freedom to be themselves.

So in that sense at least and from my perspective, the 1960s and 1968 even, the most explosive year of that incredible decade, was a great time. It was a time where millions of Americans were given true individual freedom to be themselves. And with what comes with individual freedoms, comes personal responsibility as well. So Conservatives should support this as well.

John F. Kennedy: Defining American Liberalism

Source:FreeState MD- U.S. Senator John F. Kennedy: Democrat, Massachusetts, accepting the 1960 New York Liberal Party nomination for President, as a Liberal Democrat.

Source:FreeState MD

“What do our opponents mean when they apply to us the label, “Liberal”? If by “Liberal” they mean, as they want people to believe, someone who is soft in his policies abroad, who is against local government, and who is unconcerned with the taxpayer’s dollar, then the record of this party and its members demonstrate that we are not that kind of “Liberal.” But, if by a “Liberal,” they mean someone who looks ahead and not behind, someone who welcomes new ideas without rigid reactions, someone who cares about the welfare of the people – their health, their housing, their schools, their jobs, their civil rights, and their civil liberties – someone who believes that we can break through the stalemate and suspicions that grip us in our policies abroad, if that is what they mean by a “Liberal,” then I’m proud to say that I’m a “Liberal.” 

From the JFK Library

When then U.S. Senator John F. Kennedy after serving almost fourteen years in Congress (both in the House and Senate) one his first speeches that he gave after he won the Democratic nomination for president, in I believe the summer of 1960, was about liberalism. Because as a Northeastern Massachusetts Democrat he was being accused and I mean being accused as if being a Liberal is a bad thing, like being called a traitor or something, of being a Liberal and having a liberal voting record in Congress.

And Senator Kennedy gave a speech at the New York Liberal Party Convention in the summer of 1960. And what he did there was to define his liberalism and what liberalism is about and so-forth. And I’m paraphrasing here, but Senator Kennedy said something to the affect: “That if being a Liberal is about creating a superstate to take care of everyone so Americans no longer make decisions for themselves with all sorts of government programs to take care of them, or being soft of defense and not willing to do what it takes to defend the country, or being irresponsible with the taxpayers money, then I am not a Liberal.”

But then Senator Kennedy went on to say: “But if Liberal means someone who cares about the general welfare of others, someone who believes you need to be strong at home before you can be strong abroad, that freedom at home is just as important as freedom abroad and that all Americans should have access to freedom and not just the special few, then I’m a Liberal.” Now to interpret what Jack Kennedy said because today’s so-called Progressives use the term general welfare to mean big expansionist central government to take care of everyone.

Modern so-called Progressives ( Socialists, really ) see JFK to mean that JFK was a New Dealer, or Great Society champion who was a welfare-stater. Someone who wanted government to have all sorts of programs to take care of people.

The problem with that is what JFK said himself that if being a Liberal is someone who believes in creating a superstate to take care of everyone, then he’s not a Liberal. So it is his own words. The way I interpret what JFK said was that he wanted freedom to be available for everyone. And that government had a role, but not the only role, because JFK also believed in limited government.

In many of ways I like to look at myself as a Jack Kennedy Liberal Democrat. Not so much him as President, but his overall vision for America and what he believed individual liberty means and that it should be available to all Americans. Not the special few, or just for people of a certain race or gender.

That where government comes in is to assure that all Americans have access to live in freedom. At least as adults and be able to take care of themselves and not have to be dependent on government. Or private interests for their well-being, but the ability to live in freedom. Which is why my message of economic liberalism tends to be about quality education and job training for all who don’t currently have access to it.

Sullen Toys: Martin Luther King- ‘I Have A Dream Speech: August 28, 1963’

Source:Sullen Toys with Dr. Martin L. King's 1963 "I Have a Dream" speech.

Source:FreeState MD

“I Have A Dream Speech August 28, 1963 Martin Luther King”

From Sullen Toys

Dr. King’s I Have a Dream Speech, is the crown jewel of the American civil rights movement because it laid out exactly what the vision of the movement is, that it is about jobs, justice and equal rights. Which is why you hear Dr. King quoting the United States Constitution that guarantees certain basic human rights to all Americans, not just European-Americans, or European-American men, but the entire country. All of us all Americans share these basic constitutional rights. Which was exactly what the American civil rights movement was about a fight for freedom.

The civil rights movement is not too different what the American Revolution was about a fight for freedom as well and to have these constitutional rights. A big difference being that the Dr. King wing of the movement was non-violent from its start, to its core and to its end. And the fact that the Europeans who won the American Revolutionary War didn’t intend to include other Americans in the U.S. Constitution, the fact is they did when they said all men have the basic human rights. And Dr. King and his movement did was to say they are here to collect those rights that the United States Government owes them under the U.S. Constitution.

I mean just look at the words of the I Have a Dream speech. Dr. King saying that he has a dream that one day his children would not be judged by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character. Here’s someone whose economic politics at least would make him a Democratic Socialist today and yet he’s calling for a color-blind and even race-blind society. Which would actually put him to the Right of a lot of people who claim to be his supporters today, who are very race conscience and even have racial if not racist views towards Caucasians, even Jews and especially Southern Anglo-Saxons, people of British background.

The Young Turks: Cenk Uygur- Bill O’Reilly: ‘The Truth About Martin Luther King Jr.’

Source:The Young Turks talking about Bill giving Dr. Martin L. King the O'Reilly Finger.

Source:FreeState MD

“Bill O’Reilly used the 50th anniversary of Martin Luther King Jr’s I Have A Dream speech to attack African Americans and claim that MLK was pro-right wing. The Young Turks host Cenk Uygur breaks it down.”

From The Young Turks

So I guess you couldn’t have your own cable talk show, if you weren’t also a psychic and mindreader. Because apparently Bill O’Reilly has some super ability to go into dead people’s minds and read what they would think 45 years after their death. Which is apparently that Bill O’Reilly was doing about Dr. Martin Luther King. A man by the way, that Mr. O’Reilly never even met, let was able to ever talk too.

I don’t know where Bill O’Reilly gets the 75% of African-American babies being born out-of-wedlock. But he does have a point about the state of the current African-American community. And would have problems with it and disagreements with the community. And would want to see more done so this community doesn’t have more poverty, less education, fewer fathers in the households, more crime and murders and people in prison than the rest of the country as a whole.

But I guess it wouldn’t be The O’Reilly Finger, I mean Factor, if Billy wasn’t just stating the obvious and emphasizing the negative. Fifty-years after the I Have a Dream speech, fewer African-Americans now live in poverty, more go to school and finish school, graduate from college, live in the middle class. African-Americans. Still not doing as well as Caucasians, as well as Asians, regardless of ethnicity, and perhaps Latinos, again regardless of race or ethnicity. And that is still the challenge for this community to come to par with the rest of the country and not have negative statistics that are twice the average of the entire country.

To accomplish this, more African-Americans and Americans in general in poverty, need to go to good schools, finish school, further their education, not have kids until they’re personally and financially ready to take care of them and then actually raise their kids. And this get to men in the community that are man enough to create babies and life, but not man enough to raise their own kids. And leave that to the mother who isn’t doing very well herself, yet ready to raise kids all by herself.

The Birch Swinger’s: ‘Bobby Kennedy’s Speech For Humanity’

Source:The Birch Swingers- U.S. Senator Robert F. Kennedy (Democrat, New York) perhaps in 1966.

Source:FreeState MD

“Bobby Kennedy’s Day of Affirmation speech set to the soundtrack of the Social Network & Gladiator. The Day of Affirmation speech was a speech given by Robert F. Kennedy to National Union of South African Students members at the University of Cape Town, South Africa, on June 6, 1966. Kennedy, who was then a U.S. Senator from New York, gave the speech two years before his 1968 presidential campaign, which came to an end when Kennedy was assassinated on June 5, 1968 in Los Angeles.

Considered to be one of his greatest speeches, the Day of Affirmation Address, coupled with Ted Kennedy’s eulogy for Bobby, offer precious words of wisdom decades after their initial utterance.”

From The Birch Swingers

Senator Robert F. Kennedy giving a great, liberal democratic speech. And I should explain what I mean by that.

A lot of Bobby Kennedy’s supporters are quite frankly, Hippiecrats. People who I like to call limousine liberals. Those are folks who talk like hippie-leftists, who like to blame America, blame the rich, (while leaving themselves out, of course) as well as people that they like to call “white people”, or people they would call white men, or just white males, or even white boys, (except of course themselves) for everything that they think is wrong with America and the rest of the world. When the fact is, the so-called limousine liberals, are just as liberal as everyone else, who love American capitalism and liberal democracy. Meaning they’re real Liberals, not faux-leftists.

What Senator Kennedy was doing here, (I guess in 1966) was making the case for liberal democracy. And not just for European-Americans, or in this case Afrikaans , who are European-South Africans, but for everybody. And why everyone is entitled to live in freedom. Regardless of their racial or ethnic background.

This wasn’t some new-left, revolutionary, hippie speech, calling for the fall of America and “taking down the man” and calling that liberalism, which of course it isn’t.