It’s good to hear a prominent African-American leader support the Right to Self-Defense. Especially with Robert Williams being on the New-Left, or Far-Left in America and a self-described Communist. And I say that, because if there’s one large population in America that has suffered a lot of violence and abuse against them, it’s the African-American community in America. If there’s one community that deserves that right more than anyone else, it would be this community. And I tend to fall on the side of the Martin King social democratic wing of the civil rights movement. But its easy to see why people who have suffered so much against them, would want and need the Right to Self-Defense.
The civil rights movement in America, was multi-racial and multi-political as far as ideology. You had a pacifist social democratic wing in it. Led by Dr. King and his organization. You had a liberal wing that was always talking about self-empowerment and empowering African-Americans to take control of their lives. That also believed in the Right to Self-Defense, led by Malcolm X. And you had a New-Left wing, Communist even, that believed in Black Power and part of that power was using violence against violence and self-protection and defense. Led by the Black Panther Party and many other groups on the New-Left in America.
It sounds like to me that Rob Williams, became more radical as he left America for Cuba in the 1960s. He was President of the NAACP in North Carolina. The NAACP, is a mainstream center-left organization. That is about racial-equality and other issues. It is not a group of Socialists and Communists by in large. And perhaps Williams got tired of all the violence and racism that he was seeing in America and believed he was being persecuted by the U.S. Government. And decided that he needed to change his politics and needed a different approach to take on racism in America and push for racial-equality. Source:Radical Films
Is Ayn Rand a hypocrite, because she collected from Social Security and Medicare, two social programs that she was against? Actually no, because she paid into both of them and just collected out what she was entitled to under law. It would be one thing if somehow she became Queen or dictator of the United States and decided to outlaw both programs, except for herself. Now if that were to happen and the Chicago Cubs were to win the World Series, then you could call Ayn a hypocrite. I’m not a fan of pork barrel projects. But that won’t stop me from using a road that was specifically built for my community. That doesn’t benefit anyone else, that other taxpayers have to pay for.
There’s a wing in the Tea Party movement that if they were in charge during the 1930s and 1960s, Social Security, Medicare and a whole host of social insurance programs wouldn’t have been created if they were in charge. But generally speaking, you don’t see them running to outlaw those programs. Specially since they’ve paid a hell of a lot of taxes to finance those programs. Their parents, are already eligible and collecting from those programs. And one day they’ll be eligible to collect some of the taxes that they’ve paid into those programs. Which made the health care reform debate of six years ago funny. When a lot of these so-called Tea Party activists were screaming, “don’t give me socialized medicine! Oh by the way, get your damn hands off my Medicare.”
If Ayn Rand was a Socialist, then Rick Santorum, who is about as Far-Right as anyone can get at least on social issues, is a Libertarian and Mike Huckabee, similar to Rick, is a Liberal. Ayn Rand, is to Libertarians what Karl Marx is to, well Marxists. What Gordon Thomas is to Democratic Socialists, what Barry Goldwater is to Conservatives, what Jack Kennedy and Tom Jefferson are to Liberals. The heroes and gods to all of these political movements. Just because someone collects from something that they are entitled to, doesn’t make them a hypocrite. It just makes them an American.
President Obama, once again nailed it, when he said that without this deal, which is of course is a deal, Iran would get the nuclear weapons that they want anyway. There are four choices here and only one of them are good. You do nothing else other than current economic sanctions that are crushing the Iranian economy, but not stopping them from pursuing nuclear weapons. You try to take the Iranian nuclear weapons program out from the air with air strikes. Even though they have nuclear power plants underground. You invade the country, go to war with them and if you’re successful there, then you try to take the weapons out that way. Or you prevent Iran from pursuing nuclear weapons peacefully. Which is what dealmaking and compromise is about.
Compromises and deals, by definition are imperfect. You get something you want, or need by giving up something you don’t need, or value as much. With this deal, we can prevent Iran from obtaining nuclear weapons, in exchange if Iran complies with the deal, they get economic and sanctions relief that will benefit their economy and their people. Which would make the Iranian Government look better with the Iranian people, but also makes America look better with the Iranian people as well. Who doesn’t like their government, but aren’t fans of the U.S. Government either.
What would the opponents of this deal and President Obama do instead? Invade Iran, a country the size of Saudi Arabia physically, but with seventy-five-million people? Even though they wouldn’t support any resolution that would empower President Obama to take America to war with Iran. Again with the air strikes, Congress wouldn’t support that most likely . And the Iranian Government has nuclear power plants underground. Continue to negotiate for a better deal? What would a better deal be? Iran, is going to have to get something substantial out of any deal, or they aren’t going to sign on to it. President Obama, got the best available deal here that could actually work. And deserves a lot of credit for it.
Source:The New York Times- President James E. Carter (Democrat, Georgia) 39th President of the United States (1977-81) & his wife First Lady Roselyn Carter.
I believe, similar to George H.W. Bush, Richard Nixon, Dwight Eisenhower and Harry Truman, the Jimmy Carter presidency, looks better in the history books, than it does when it was actually going on. I’m not saying President Carter was a great president. Because of course he wasn’t at least when you consider the issues he had to deal with and how little success he had dealing with them. But he was a president, who was ahead of his time, similar to Richard Nixon, saw things happening in the future. Which is what all very intelligent people can do and knew that those challenges and issues needed to be addressed right away.
Jimmy Carter, is known as a great ex-president, which he certainly is. With his work in dealing with human rights and environmental issues and energy policy. But as he’s said before, a lot of the work that he’s done as an ex-president, he started it as President, but ran out of time and wasn’t able to finish the job. As President, he not only wanted to get America off of foreign oil, but not be reliant on oil at all, or at least not as our sole main energy source. He did get and national energy policy out of Congress, that was reliant on renewable energy, including solar.
During a rough period in the Cold War, when Russia was trying to dominate and control Central Asia, that wasn’t part of the Soviet Union and invaded Afghanistan in 1979, President Carter, was talking about human rights and making human rights officially part of American foreign policy. The first American President to ever do that. Saying that human rights aren’t just an America value, or only something owed to Americans, but something that the whole world deserved. He brought peace between the Jewish State of Israel and the largest Arab country in the world, in Egypt. Almost forty years later, Israel and Egypt are still at peace.
The criticism’s against President Carter, are obvious. The economy, was never in good shape under his watch. He had four years to address it and really didn’t do anything that could help make the economy healthy again. His policy prescription was wrong. Talking about balanced budgets, when he had high interest rates, high energy prices, high unemployment and needed to put people back to work instead. Not knowing the situation on the ground in Iran and knot knowing how unpopular the Shah of Iran was and talking about him like a great man. When in fact he was an authoritarian dictator, who locked people up secretly, simply for opposing his regime. Which I believe is one of the reasons for the Iran Hostage Crisis in 1979-80. And essentially ruined his presidency.
And even though President Carter had a Democratic Congress, with large majorities in both the House and Senate, President Carter was a Southern New Democrat. The Bill Clinton of his generation, dealing with a Democratic Congress, that was moving away from the South and becoming heavily dependent on the North, as well as racial and ethnic minorities for support. The Democratic Party, developing a large McGovernite social democratic New-Left wing. That emerges in the late 1960s and grows throughout the 1970s. So I’m not not sure President Carter would’ve been able to deal with the economy effectively even if had the policies to do it.
President Carter, had his weakness’s. One of the best and most intelligent analysts when it comes to analyzing policies and problems. But one of the least effective when it came to addressing problems. And sometimes not being able to address problems at all. Like the economic malaise and the Great Deflation. High interest rates, plus high inflation, that wipes out whatever economic growth you might have. But he’s someone who was President during a time that perhaps the most skillful politician, with the best communication skills and principles, would’ve struggled to deal with effectively.
One of the differences between Jimmy Carter and Barack Obama, is that President Obama when times are tough, can also show people how things are good and getting better. President Carter, didn’t have that and didn’t have policies that made people feel better. But still, if you look at foreign policy, energy policy and how President Carter helped change the Democratic Party for New Democrats to be able to take over, he looks a lot better now, than he did thirty-five years ago.
I think there really are two Jane Fonda’s. The great sexy beautiful baby-faced adorable actress, who is arguably the greatest actress of her generation. With perhaps only Liz Taylor being better. And then there’s the New-Left political activist, that emerges on the American political scene in the late 1960s and is there throughout the 1970s. Who U.S. Military veterans see as The Devil. Who the New-Left/Far-Left in America, see as one of their heroes. Perhaps right of there with Karl Marx and many others. And I think its hard to cover both sides of Jane’s career in one post. But she’s made a huge mark in both careers that she’s had, I’m going to give it a shot.
Its not being against the Vietnam War, that made Jane Fonda controversial. I mean, the country up until the early 1970s, was split on that issue. Its still the worst war that America has ever been in. As far as all of the pain, suffering and deaths and how its effected future president’s and Congress’s and how they go to war. Its how Jane was against this war that really sets her apart. And puts in the anti-war movement in America that makes it easy to portray her as anti-American, if not Un-American. When you accuse the President of the United States of being a war criminal and you take a picture with the enemy and you call Americans soldiers murderers, its easy to see how people who love America would hate you.
The positive side of Jane Fonda’s career. Again, perhaps the best actress of her generation, The Silent Generation, Americans born in the late 1920s and 1930s, primarily. I think only Liz Taylor would be better than Jane. And you look at Jane’s movies like Walk on The Wild Side, The Chase, The China Syndrome, some of the best movies ever and she had a great part and was great in all of them, its easy to see why she’s had such a great career. And inheriting Henry Fonda’s genes, doesn’t hurt either. But as a political activist and I’ll go concentrate on the Vietnam War, perhaps some of her other activities, I probably agree with her on, she stands out as a real New-Left, or Far-Left radical, that has pissed off a lot of Americans. Who by in-large would probably like and love her a lot otherwise.
"A liberal,” Robert Frost once said, “is someone who can’t take his own side in an argument.” If conservatives are often caricatured by their detractors as unfeeling, liberals are painted as uncertain, weak, and easily bullied. Back in the 1980s, the centrist British politician David Owen joined the two accusations in a jibe against Britain’s Prime Minister Thatcher and her then Labor opponent: “She doesn’t care, and he doesn’t dare.”
These stereotypes exert real-world political effects. In the 1970s, a Yale sociologist went to live for two years among an exotic tribe: not in the South Seas or up the Amazon, but in the working-class neighborhood of Canarsie, next door to New York’s Kennedy Airport. For a political generation, the Jews and Italians of Canarsie had voted overwhelmingly for New Deal Democrats. Since 1970, their preference had shifted to Richard Nixon’s Republicans. The sociologist, Jonathan Rieder, wanted to understand why. Here’s what he found...
Conservative David Frum and Progressive Jonathan Chait, both wrote good and interesting pieces about the illiberal New-Left in America this winter. And how hard they’ve come down against free speech and push so hard for their version of fascism, which is political correctness. I’ve called people who are so Far-Left and even see people like Karl Marx, Fidel Castro, Che Guevara and others as heroes, or at least as people who are worth supporting, as the New-Left in America. And have more in common with Communists, than they would with a Liberal Democrat like Jack Kennedy. Who was always against communism and authoritarianism in general. And always a strong supporter of free speech, especially for people who he disagreed with.
This is very simple. If you don’t believe in free speech, even for people you disagree with and perhaps even find offensive, you’re not a Liberal. Perhaps you’re on the Far-Left, or Far-Right, but someone who doesn’t believe in free speech, is not a Liberal, but a fascist. The Illiberal-Left in America, are not Liberals, because they don’t defend liberal values. With Freedom of Speech being the number one value. You can’t have a liberal democracy without Freedom of Speech and Assembly. The Right to Privacy and Property Rights, would be two other keys in a liberal democracy. That today’s Illiberal-Left, doesn’t seem to either appreciate, or is even against. With their so-called political correctness movement to protect people from criticism that they believe deserves special protection from society. And this idea that people shouldn’t own things. But that we as a society should share everything.
Bill Maher, who has real socialist leanings, at least on economic policy and was seen as a hero by the Far-Left in America, before last fall when he started criticizing Islam, but who is a true Liberal when it comes to personal freedom and social issues, is a perfect example of how the Illiberal-Left tries to destroy people simply when they disagree with them. That in their little world, it is not enough to disagree with people you disagree with, because others may agree with them. So what you do is trying to destroy them and get their voice censored, so they can’t be heard. And only your side can get their message out. Which is pure fascism and something that Karl Marx would applaud, that Jack Kennedy would’ve been disgusted with.
I disagree with Bill Maher on a couple of things here. The thing about Islam, I’m not a Muslim and that has to do with the fact that I’m not a fan of Islam. Its way too conservative for me as a religion, especially as it relates to women’s issues and social issues in general. But if Islam and Muslims were as prone to violence, America would be a lot more dangerous place. We have what, five-million Muslims in America and not all of them live in Detroit and the state of Michigan. If Muslims were as violent as Maher seems to think, America would be a hell of a lot more violent than it is right now. Without Muslims committing so many violent acts in America.
I agree with Maher on one thing about Liberals and disagree with him on another. He said that he gets booed by Liberals in his audience. Well unless he’s saying something to the effect that public education should be outlawed, homosexuality should be outlawed and it should be illegal for women to work and vote, which is what Ann Coulter seems to believe, it’s not Liberals that are booing him. Maher gets booed by his so-called supporters when he says something that is not politically correct with his illiberal politically correct audience. Who believe that language that offends them and people they care about, should be censored. Free speech, liberal. Political correctness, illiberal fascism.
And where I agree with Maher as it relates to Liberals. The polling about who is Liberal and who is Conservative and who is Socialist and who is Libertarian, is simply wrong. If you look at all the cultural war issues right now, especially social issues, America is a very liberal country. We believe in free speech, right to privacy, personal freedom in general. And also believe in public education, infrastructure investment, comprehensive immigration reform, a safety net for people who need it. We are also a lot more Socialist than we get credit for, because a lot of people who call themselves Liberals, are actually Socialists. Like a lot of Bill Maher’s audience.
