(By the way, although I never had children, these school taxes will continue to the grave so as to support teachers’ salaries and benefits that permit world travel in retirement. I recently enjoyed an affordable vacation, seated on a balcony in Wegmans’ supermarket with a small bag of chocolate candy, a store-supplied newspaper, and a view over a colorful display of produce. I could go on, but I must go back to picking up sticks.)

First, how could anyone seriously make the baldfaced claim that cheny is honorable, espically after his campaign of lying and dishonesty to get the american people to support a war w/irag?

Please get real analysts who will deal in facts not spin dudes attempting to protect corrupt politicians and the corupt actions of the government.

The extreme on both sides of the political spectrum are always going too be yelling at us and bending the facts for their agenda.

However it seems that the right wing (nuts) are a whole lot more successful in this endeavor. I find some of these people Glenn Beck and Michael Savage in particular to be quite frightening. Savage is everything his name sake implies. The days of William F Buckley are long gone and with people like rational thinking.

Now everyone is screaming at each other.

They talk in “tones” that incite fear and insecurity, they play patriotic songs as their introductions, they smirk and laugh and say “you all know what we’re talking about” without giving an idication of what they are truly talking about. Lots of innuendo, lots of stretching the truth, lots of bits and pieces of the truth while lying about their own drug addictions and divorces, obfuscating their own wealth, making sexist and racist remarks without any feedback from their sheep listeners and giving their own far right, prejudiced OPINIONS based on the almighty dollar they receive for saying it. They stroke their listeners, stroke their callers and feed them the pablum they so need to stay blind, deaf and dumb sheep.

Funny they never mention Ken Tomlinson and his “oversight” for the Corporation for Public Broadcasting 2004/2005 when speaking of the Fairness Doctrine.

Bush’s original bailout was certainly ‘corporate socialism’, but before liberals could make the accusation stick, the neo-cons accused and characterized liberal actions as ’socialist’.

Years ago, just as Bush became overtly ‘fascist’ in his policies, the right’s talking heads universally began referring to the ‘Islamo-fascism’ of our ‘enemies’ in the Middle-East.

That’s why it’s important to take good note of the actual language used when folks “protest too much”.

You can’t honestly look at the Bush administration and its election stealing, dropping the ball before 9/11, illegally invading a country, lying to the American people, approving torture, suspending habeus corpus, suppressing free speach, politicizing federal prosecutors, grossly mishandling Katrina, dismantling our economic regulations, sheer incompetence, and many more issues, and think that they were just “crazies”.

In comparison, Obama has been president 4 months and-right way or or wrong way (we can certainly argue that!)-has been working his butt off to try to clean up the messes Bush left for us all. You want to protest the welfare state? Taxes that will eventually go up? Billions in bailouts to failing banks? ALL of these are thanks to our prevous president.

Congressman Edwards has his fingers in his ears and humming “I’m not listening” when he compares “both sides”.

There is any even easier and better solution — make it legal to grow and sell marijuana in the U.S. Tax it. Like alcohol, which is a much more dangerous drug, it should be illegal for minors and illegal to import into the US.

Take away the US market and the Mexican drug cartels will have nothing to fight over and all the other troubles caused world-wide by the illegal drug trade will disappear.

Heroin? Cocaine? Make them US government the only legal importer and supplier. Offer high quality treatment for every addict who wants to quit and provide free drugs to those who can’t or won’t. For life. The problem will disappear in a generation. If there is no profit in selling drugs, there will be no reason to lure the next generation into drug use.

I agree with 99.9% of what you wrote, but I have never been able to articulate as well as you. Good job! Your post should be spread all over the ‘net.

Thank you. I wish you peace and good will.

JPB

Thought provoking …
I will try more, to talk with a more inclusive and open mind and not let the system divide my thinking.

It’s frightening to watch a free people, who have access to more information than Heinz has pickles, willingly embrace ignorance and propaganda the way so many Americans do. For the record, I don’t see Canada as being terribly different. And that’s as our capitalist classes want it. Canada has all but been absorbed in the United States. Canada is mostly a sentiment. Health care? There’s no reason to expect that a socialistic system like that will survive within an overall system that is very capitalist (which is to say neoliberal). Our main parties, namely the Liberal and Conservatives (whose members I refer to as Coniberals) are mostly continentalists who are happy to take their (integrationist, free market) direction from corporate Canada (and America), via well funded (rightwing) think tanks like the Canadian Council of Chief Executives (referred to, rightly, as the shadow cabinet), the C.D. Howe Institute and the Fraser Institute.

It’s astonishing to listen to, and hear reports about, people who shout and shake their fists at President Obama for (seemingly) taking them in a direction that might meliorate, just a little, the grievous harm inflicted not only on America, but the world, by neoliberals (pro free market ideologues) and their abuse of liberty or, in other words, by those who such protesters would regard as Obama’s political opponents and their political choice!

Obama, of course, is perfectly establishment. No one, and that included John Edwards during the Democratic Party leadership contest, even gets into the contest to run America unless he or she is establishment, or corporatocracy-approved. Obama’s perfectly Conservative (as in neoliberal). It’s fair to say so as long as one decides to judge others by their record and by their present actions. The nation that would teach the world all about democracy (and it certainly is) is a one (business) party/ two faction state. I call members of that party Republicrats, because that’s what they are.

The rednecks (listeners of O’Reilly, Hannity, Limbaugh, Buchanan et al) are angry with Obama, not just because they are stupid tools, to be blunt, but because the uncaring capitalists and their allies in the establishment – educational institutions, think tanks, business and media – who are happy to inflict those tools on us are so disconnected from regular folks and so sure that they, like their masters, are on top of things, connected and able to buy their way out of financial and literal hurricanes and meltdowns, they therefore don’t give their usual, mindless, cruel frat boy antics a second thought. They are like PlayStation’s kids at the game console, delighting in the orgy of explosions, violence and mayhem that thrills them into the stoned stupor that they’ve come to depend on for their mental and emotional comfort.

And they are our neighbors. And that’s the state of civilization today.

When a regular Joe screws up, he usually only causes grief for himself and those close to him. When members of our elites screw up, they cause untold grief to many. They screwed up a long time ago when little by little they built a monstrous system that devours all, including those who helped create it and who help feed it. No individual can fix things by deciding that this system of things is wrong. The wisdom that was needed, didn’t come. But the consequences aren’t stayed. The time to worry about the catastrophe is before it happens, not after.

The many need to wake up and toss our uncaring elites and their corporatocracy overboard. But in the Darwinian game of ‘riches for the strongest’, in which the abused majority is angry about losing in the game, rather than angry about the game itself, I don’t think we can expect a proper uprising in which the system is targetted for destruction.

Individuals are another matter, depending.

The confessed murderer of the hated “liberals” at the Unitarian Church in Knoxville, TN in August 2008 is known to have had a bizarre thought process, and no one condones (at least publicly) his actions. But there is no doubt that besides his known preferred authors such as O’Reilly and Hannity, this man had ready access to nearly 24-hour continuous conservative diatribes on the various Knoxville talk radio stations. The dominant talk radio station in Knoxville, WNOX, allocates just 30-minutes twice a month to center-left points of view (one local attorney-political activist). Every other hour of every day is filled with either a nationally syndicated or a local-based right-winger, some rational but most bomb-throwers of the highest order. There is no radio station within usual reach of Knoxville — a market of nearly a million people — that carries any progressive talk programs. Even the area public radio station refuses to carry any NPR talk programs such as On Point, Talk of the Nation, The Diane Rheem Show, To the Point, etc. (which tend to be mildly progressive though efforts are clearly made to be balanced), focusing instead on classical music apart from the morning and afternoon NPR news broadcasts.

When I once suggested via a letter to a local newspaper that local talk and public radio should carry just two or three hours per day of talk programs with a moderate or progressive lean in order to provide a little balance, my request was met with silence on the part of the radio stations and with indignation by rabid loyal listeners from the right-wing. These respondents pointed out that there was absolutely no need for any more “liberal” radio (or TV) programs in the Knoxville area for we already had too many such programs being beamed at us, namely ABC, CBS, NBC, & NPR network news broadcasts, The Daily Show, as well as Prairie Home Companion and Wait, Wait, Don’t Tell Me!

The various right-wing TV and radio hosts and pundits no doubt are grinning all the way to the bank as they inflate and exaggerate their stories to gin-up bigger and bigger audiences. Some of their loyal listeners likely recognize the showmanship and hyperbole contained in their broadcasts. But at least in this part of the country, that level of insight on the part of listeners is not the norm. I’ve spoken with and listened to far too many of the right-wing radio/Fox News fans here in Tennessee who take seriously and solemnly, at face value, virtually everything said by the nattering nabobs such as Limbaugh, O’Reilly, Hannity, Savage, Boortz, Beck, Hewitt, etc., etc., etc.

As former Congressman Edwards — a learned man of fine character and conscience — said on On Point, we cannot afford to stand by silently, waiting and hoping for this dangerous trend to pass. Insightful people of good will and good conscience from all political persuasions must speak up in support of rational, fact-based discussions and debates. Far too many of our citizens are forming their heart-felt opinions on the basis of lies, exaggerations, innuendo, and fantasy. Many of these citizens are indeed arming themselves (even more than usual). This situation does not bode well for the future of our country.

While many on both the right and left disagree, I do believe that a restoration of the fairness doctrine needs to be seriously considered. The marked imbalance of political speech and the explosion of conservative talk radio did not begin until the fairness doctrine was eliminated in the 1980’s. Some will say we can’t put the genie back in the bottle, but something needs to be done to facilitate genuinely fair and balanced news/talk broadcasts across the country.

The title is “Thoughtcrime Redux” and it does a good job of explaining what’s going on with the topic at hand:

http://spectator.org/archives/2009/04/15/thoughtcrime-redux/print

Regarding angriness, debate and protest, I have found no better statement than this, made by Senator Clinton during last years’ campaign. Please listen to the whole one-minute segment.

http://www.prairieroads.org/tbc/audio/hillaryClinton_Right_to_Disagree20084x.mp3

I’d rather hear about the good things people are doing through these times. We need inspiration NOT more speculation.

Thank you