Salon Magazine: Mike Conrad: 'America's Anti-Liberal Myth: Why Democrats Learned The Wrong Lesson From 1984'

Source:Salon Magazine- former Vice President of the United States Walter Mondale (Democrat, Minnesota)

Source:The New Democrat

Just correct some of the things that Mike Conrad said. Walter Mondale lost badly in 1984 to Ronald Reagan winning just one state and just over forty-percent of the popular vote not because he was seen as too liberal or too Far-Left. But because he was President Jimmy Carter’s Vice President. President Carter if you remember back in 84 and before that was one of the most unpopular president’s in at least modern American history. 1984, after some really bad economic times in the late 1970s and early 80s, was a year when the American economy started bouncing back. Even with the debt and deficits going up, but people were going back to work with strong economic growth again.

Which meant President Reagan could point how things are now going well, meaning 1984 and say something to the effect, “its morning in America again. Our long national economic nightmare is finally over. People are going back to work and earning a good living again. With the cost of living going down again. Oh by the way, remember 1978-79 and 80 and President Jimmy Carter? Do you really want to go back to that again? And oh by the way, my opponent Walter Mondale was President Carter’s Vice President.” Fritz Mondale was actually a pretty mainstream progressive to liberal politician. A New Democrat even like Jimmy Carter. And didn’t lose badly because of his own politics. But the politics and political activists of the Far-Left flank of the Democratic Party. That he had to have to work with to have any shot of winning in 1984.

The lesson from 1968 with Hubert Humphrey, 1972 with George McGovern, 1980 with Jimmy Carter, 1984 with Fritz Mondale and 1988 with Mike Dukakis, all presidential elections that the Democratic Party lost in landslides, except for 1968 is that when the Far-Left runs the party and the leadership needs their Far-Left flank to win, Democrats lose. Because there’s a limit to what Americans expect government to do for them. Especially if they have to pay high taxes to pay for it. Americans tend to like having the freedom to manage their own affairs. And don’t want their government taxing them to the point that their individual decision-making would no longer be an option for them. Because now government is going to do that for them.

Liberalism didn’t lose in 84, but socialism did to the point that Democratic Party regrouped and reformed its message especially economic message. And instead of talking about a government that taxes enough and big enough to take care of everyone, especially the poor, that the message became about how can government help people help themselves. This started in 1988 and I know Governor Mike Dukakis lost forty states, but that had to do with the fact that he wouldn’t defend himself against clear bogus charges from the Bush Campaign. Not because of his message, because his message was about opportunity and freedom. The man ran on Welfare to Work in 1988.

And by 1992 the Democratic economic message was the Opportunity Society with Bill Clinton. Using government not to try to take care of everyone and making dependents of everyone, but using government to empower people in need to help everyone who needed it. Governor Clinton said that Welfare shouldn’t be free. But an investment in human capital and potential. That Welfare should help people in need pay their short-term bills. But help them get on their feet so they can pay their bills themselves with a good job. Infrastructure, education, job training, things that lead to opportunity for people to get the freedom to take care of themselves and manage their own lives. Classical American liberal values of opportunity built around education and work that leads to freedom.

Democrats win when they talk about education, job training, infrastructure, opportunity with the goal in mind to empower people to be able to live in freedom. And paying for these things in a fiscally responsible way that doesn’t hurt anyone especially middle class and low-income Americans. We lose when we don’t respect hard-working Americans tax dollars. Or when we put down people for being successful and wealthy. As if owning your own business and being able to put money away for the future is a bad thing. Or run on big government with all sorts of new programs designed to take care of people so they don’t have to take care of themselves. These are the lessons of 1984, if you want to pick one year. But 68, 72, 80 and 88 would also be good years to choose as well.

Al Jazeera: Inside USA- 'Angela Davis on The Prison Industrial Complex'

Source:Al Jazeera- Professor Angela Davis on Inside USA.

Source:The New Democrat

"Put on the FBI's 'Most Wanted' list when she was just 26, Angela Davis became an enduring symbol of 1970's Black Power. She joins Inside USA to discuss incarceration in the land of the free, capitalism in a time of economic crisis and what it means to be the face of Black Power in a supposedly post-racial US.

At Al Jazeera English, we focus on people and events that affect people's lives. We bring topics to light that often go under-reported, listening to all sides of the story and giving a 'voice to the voiceless.'

Reaching more than 270 million households in over 140 countries across the globe, our viewers trust Al Jazeera English to keep them informed, inspired, and entertained.

Our impartial, fact-based reporting wins worldwide praise and respect. It is our unique brand of journalism that the world has come to rely on.

We are reshaping global media and constantly working to strengthen our reputation as one of the world's most respected news and current affairs channels." 

From Al Jazeera

"Al Jazeera (Arabic: الجزيرة, romanized: al-jazīrah, IPA: [æl (d)ʒæˈziːrɐ], "The Peninsula")[3] is a state-owned Arabic-language international radio and TV broadcaster of Qatar. It is based in Doha and operated by the media conglomerate Al Jazeera Media Network. The flagship of the network, its station identification, is Al Jazeera.

The patent holding is a "private foundation for public benefit" under Qatari law.[4] Under this organizational structure, the parent receives funding from the government of Qatar but maintains its editorial independence.[5][6] In June 2017, the Saudi, Emirati, Bahraini, and Egyptian governments insisted on the closure of the entire conglomerate as one of thirteen demands made to the Government of Qatar during the Qatar diplomatic crisis.[citation needed] The channel has been criticised by some organisations as well as nations such as Saudi Arabia for being "Qatari propaganda"

From Wikipedia

Just to talk about this interview for a minute or less: (depending on how fast you read) I guess Al Jazeera didn’t think the interviewer was important enough to give out his name. Because I have no idea whose the guy who interviewed Professor Davis on this show. 

Also, this was not what you would call a hard-hitting interview. (Baseball season is over) This was an interview where the two people in it share the same views and where their minds are already made up. The interviewer asked leaning questions to get the person being interviewed to back up what they already think and know. Which is their right of course and opinionated journalism certainly exists. Especially on ideologically leaning news networks like Al Jazeera.

Having said all of that, I agree with Angela Davis when it comes to the prison industrial complex. America being this great liberal democracy that we are, locks up too many people in this country. And part of that has to do with the facts that we arrest send people to prison for too many things. When sending them to even county jail for a shorter sentence, or getting them in halfway houses for non-drug addicted non-violent offenders, or drug rehab for drug offenders, would be a much better more cost-effective way of dealing with people with these conditions.

And another reason why we lock up more people than anyone else and a lot of people on the Left especially the Far-Left aren’t going to want to hear this, we have a lot more dangerous criminals per-capita and in total numbers than anyone else. 

If you look at some of our super-max and other maximum security prisons, you would be able to see that the inmates who are there, are exactly where they need to be. But that doesn’t excuse how we treat people who aren’t dangerous in this country. And I’m not talking about so-called economic terrorists who steals people’s money by using cons and other scams. But drug offenders meaning users and other low-level non-violent offenders like car thieves. Offenders like that who don’t need to be in prison.

So based on this, we need a criminal justice and prison system in this country. You want to live in anarchy, be my guess, but you won’t do it in America. But we need one that treats hard-core criminals for exactly what they are, as threats to society who need to be in prison and then after they are there they need to be treated in a humane responsible way that protect society and people in prison. But also prepares them for life on the outside, assuming they aren’t serving life without. While we come up with a smarter and more responsible system for how we treat low-level non-violent offenders in America.

CNN: Angela Davis On Buchanan/Braden (1984)

Source:CNN- New-Left Communist activist on CNN's Buchanan/Braden in 1984.

Source:The New Democrat 

"Angela Davis on Buchanan/Braden. Strange debate circa 1984." 

From Mike Gardner 

Good to hear the so-called Liberal or Progressive on this show, (which of course would’ve been Tom Braden. If you were thinking, Pat Buchanan, you must be as high as a kite on something illegal right now.) but good to hear the so-called Liberal or Progressive on this show critique and question communism. You don’t get much of that today from so-called Liberals and Progressives (who are actually closeted Socialists) who really aren’t and much further Left than that to the point they would Democratic Socialists or even Communists themselves today.

To Angela Davis’s credit, she gave up communism in I believe the 1990s and calls herself a Socialist and I believe Democratic Socialist today. Politically she has more in common with Senator Bernie Sanders than President Fidel Castro of the Communist Republic of Cuba. Her ideas are still roughly the same and probably her politics hasn’t changed at all. Except that she no longer embraces communism and would like to see a democratic form of socialism in America. And as Americans tend to get older, we tend to get less radical and moderate more. Even if we start out on the Far-Left like Angela Davis.

As far as outlawing racism, which is what Angela Davis said she was in favor of: I wish they went into that deeper to find out what she means by that. If she’s talking about hate crimes and acts of discrimination by denying people access because of their race, that is already illegal in America. If she’s actually talking about outlawing racist thought and speech and groups even if they don’t commit racist crimes, then that would unconstitutional and a form of fascism: “Toe the party-line and believe and communicate the way we do, or we’ll throw you in jail.” That is un-liberal democratic and shouldn’t be tolerated in America.

The Daily Beast: Lawrence Gelb: GOP Hates Barack Obama More Than a Nuclear Iran

Source:The New Democrat

Even through Senate Leader Mitch McConnell is the strongest and most powerful Republican in Congress and that includes the Speaker of the House John Boehner, who outranks him in the U.S. Constitution, being a stronger leader than John Boehner is not much of an accomplishment. And even though Leader McConnell is effective at bringing Senate Republicans and Democrats together to resolve some crisis that Republicans generally in the House caused, he doesn’t control the caucus in the sense that he can prevent one of his radicals from making a dumb and irresponsible move. Like telling Iran that Barack Obama shouldn’t be trusted, to use as an example.

Hate is a very strong word and probably the harshest word short of calling someone a mass-murderer or something like that. So it’s not a word I throw around and only use when I mean it to describe how someone feels about someone else. And I’m not a mind-reader obviously. I’m also not God or George Washington, incase that isn’t obvious enough either, but just going off the available evidence at hand I don’t know how else to describe how at least a large faction of Congressional Republicans, including all forty-seven Republican Senators who signed this letter to Iran and how they feel about President Obama. Other than Mitch McConnell himself, because he and the President seem to actually be able to get along.

There use to be this tradition in Washington that you fight the other side or team all day and then shake hands and work out a deal and perhaps even have a drink with at the end of the day. But you treat your opponents as exactly that and not as enemies, which is different. You hate your enemies, but we’ve all had opponents at some point in life that we actually like. And perhaps became friends after we started competing against each other. But with a strong faction at least in the House of Representatives, you would think Barack Obama plays for the enemy. Meaning the terrorists that would like to attack America and authoritarian regimes that would attack Americans if they felt it was in their interest. And based on this Congressional letter from the forty-seven Republican Senators, they seem to believe the same thing.

There great reasons why President Obama is not asking for Congress to weigh in on a final agreement with Iran when it comes to Iran’s nuclear program.

For one, this is not a treaty.

Two, Congress will get to weigh in later not on Iran’s nuclear program, but whether economic sanctions on Iran will be loosened or ended based on the Islamic Republic’s behavior. Which is something that Congress gets to do anyway when it comes to sanctions and something the President needs Congressional approval for.

Three, a political reason, but just important as the others. Congressional Republicans won’t support any agreement with Iran that is anything short of surrender on Iran’s part. Which means Iran completely gives up their nuclear program, or there’s no deal. But the whole point of compromise and negotiation is that neither side gets everything that they want.

These Senate Republicans know that the Obama Administration knows that they meaning these forty-seven Senators won’t support any deal that is anything short of complete surrender on Iran’s part. And Senate Republicans also know they can’t stop the President from negotiating with Iran. So what they’re trying to do, which to me is at least borderline treason is to tell the Iranian Government that they not only don’t trust Barack Obama, but they don’t like him if not hate him. “And neither should you” meaning Iran, “because this guy can’t be trusted.” And it violates all forms of proper protocol and how Democrats and Republicans are supposed to relate with each other.

The Nation: Richard Kreitner- 'FDR Signs The Emergency Act, Launching The New Deal: March 9, 1933'

Source:The Nation- 1930s America.

Source:The New Democrat

"Today in 1933 the newly inaugurated President Franklin Roosevelt signed the Emergency Banking Act, officially launching the New Deal. The act allowed the Federal Reserve to guarantee the assets of banks that Roosevelt had ordered closed a few days earlier. In its issue of March 22, 1933, The Nation ran the following front-page editorial note approving of the first two weeks of the Roosevelt presidency.
If you think President Barack Obama had it tough when he became President of the United States back in 2009, imagine being President Franklin Roosevelt when he became President in 1933. A country where the economy is literally in free fall. The economy shrinking at ten-percent or thereabouts, twenty or thirty-percent unemployment and about that or more people living in poverty. Without a functioning public safety net to help people who are going through these harsh realities. But that is what President Roosevelt inherited from Herbert Hoover and I’m sure people close to FDR were asking or at least thinking, “President Roosevelt, are you sure you still want to be President?” 

From The Nation

Within the first two-years a lot of the New Deal was already passed and I’m sure that had some positive effect towards the Depression, like putting money directly in people’s pockets who perhaps otherwise wouldn’t of had it. But the new infrastructure investment and the public works projects was where the real improvement in the economy started happening in the 1930s. Because those projects literally put people back to work with good jobs repairing and building the country. 

But to be completely accurate, it isn’t until the 1940s with World War II when the economy starts to completely climb out of the Depression and we start to see income and unemployment levels start to look like they were pre-Great Depression.

What the New Deal was and still is was the creation of the public safety net in America. We are still not like Europe and I imagine never will be as far as what the central government provides to the people as far as taxpayer-funded social insurance programs. But we’ll always have a public social insurance system, at least as long as we need it for people who truly need it. And have been knocked off their feet economically and need help getting back up. Which is where we should be as a modern liberal society that helps people in need, but also helps them help themselves so they can live in freedom. And not have to be taken care of indefinitely because they can take care of themselves.

AP Archive: Angela Davis- Radical On Trial

Source:Associated Press- Radical on trial.

Source:The New Democrat

Angela Davis should’ve never have been in jail, at least for what she was charged with here. Which was being involved in a Marin County court-house shootout in 1970. They had nothing on her other than the fact that she was legally involved and helping people who were accused in the case, like George Jackson. This was about the California establishment trying to take down a women that they were terrified of. Because she was fighting against racism, the prison industrial complex and wanted a different type of government and economic system. That was different from America’s liberal democratic capitalist system.

And to show you that California had nothing on Professor Davis, just look at the fact that she was found innocent. Even though I doubt she had the personal resources that she would’ve needed to defend herself. But had such a large following and different groups that wanted to help her, she was able to get the defense that she needed and deserved. I’m not a Socialist or Communist obviously. Just read this blog on a regular basis if you’re still not convinced. But I wish there were more Angela Davis’s today regardless of race or gender. People who are willing to take on the prison industrial complex that benefits so many wealthy people and business’s at the expense of everyone else. And will risk their freedom to fight the system.

California didn’t try to put Angela Davis away because she was a criminal, terrorist or did any other illegal activities. They tried to put her away because of her political views and what she was fighting for. Which was a different type of government and economic system for America. Which I would’ve opposed her on, but she has every right as a an American to advocate for it. As well as fighting against the prison industrial complex that puts non-violent offenders away for long periods of time. For committing minor offenses mostly on the so-called War on Drugs and things like shoplifting. It was fascists in California that tried to put Angela away simply because of her political views.
Source:AP Archive

Movie Clips: 'Free Angela & All Political Prisoners (2012)'

Source:Movie Clips- from the documentary Free Angela, which is about New-Left political activist Angela Davis.

Source:The New Democrat 

"A documentary that chronicles the life of young college professor Angela Davis, and how her social activism implicates her in a botched kidnapping attempt that ends with a shootout, four dead, and her name on the FBI's 10 most wanted list."  

From Movie Clips

Source:The New Democrat- from Free Angela documentary, which is about New-Left political activist Angela Davis.

Freedom of speech in America is not about the right to say things that most of the country already agrees with. Or the right to be friendly, or the right say non-controversial things that people don’t necessarily agree or disagree with, but haven’t thought much about. 

But freedom of speech is exactly that: the freedom to speak freely. Even if it may intend to offend others. Which is why I’m so against political correctness in America, whether its practiced by the Far-Left or Far-Right and I will defend the Far-Left’s and Far-Right’s ability to speak freely as best as I can. Because political correctness is illiberal and Un-Liberal Democratic, because it is a form of fascism.

That is exactly what this movie, Free Angela is about: one woman’s struggle a UCLA professor in Angela Davis who got that position in her mid-twenties, not just her age, but a young African-American woman in the late 1960s early 70s getting such an important position as a great school like UCLA. 

Professor Davis she was in a fight for her life to be able to speak against injustice in her community and America as a whole. And even use provocative if not extreme Far-Left rhetoric to express how she felt about America and the state of the African-American community. She didn’t and doesn’t still have the right to express her feelings about these issues because a lot of people agree with her. But simply because she’s an American with the right to free speech.

And then throw in the fact that Professor Davis was a Communist back then and even though she’s given up communism since and is a Democratic Socialist today, but back in the late 1960s and early 70s she was a Communist in the heart of the Cold War and she offended too many people. And the establishment in California decided that they can’t have a young African-American woman with that much power, that big of a platform and that big of a following loose on the streets. And came up with a bogus case to put her away in jail. Ultimately the good guys and gals won this case and Angela Davis was free in I believe 1971. But she should’ve never of had to go through that as an innocent person.

I’m not defending Professor Davis’s communist and now socialist views. Simply her constitutional right to express them, as a Liberal Democrat myself. I’m not nearly that far to the Left as a center-right Liberal and not a Socialist, but we do agree on the prison industrial complex. Which simply needs to be destroyed and replaced with a responsible and sensible criminal justice policy in this country. If we want to remain a liberal free society. 

But again Socialists on the Far-Left have as much right to express themselves in America, as Christian-Theocrats and Nationalists on the Far-Right. The constitutional right to be heard and express yourself. And that to me at least is what Professor Davis’s case was about.