Posted on 07/22/2021 9:30:53 AM PDT by Heartlander
In the old days, Democrats had predictable agendas, supposedly focused on individual rights, the “little guy,” and distrust of the military-industrial-intelligence complex.
The Left, often on spec, blasted the wealthy, whether the “lucre” was self-made or inherited. The old-money rich were lampooned as idle drones.
If the rich were self-made, they were deemed sell-outs. A good example was ’70s pop icon Jackson Brown’s “The Pretender,” whose lyrics railed about “happy idiots” who “struggled for the legal tender.”
Democrats talked nonstop about the “working man.” They damned high gas and electricity prices that hurt “consumers.”
Almost every liberal cause was couched in terms of “The First Amendment”—whether it was the right of shouting obscenities, viewing pornography, or bringing controversial speakers to campus.
The Supreme Court was sacred. Thanks to the holy, liberally packed court led by Chief Justice Earl Warren, enlightened, progressive justices supposedly restrained the harebrained ballot initiatives of hick right-wing populists.
Once upon a time, leftist congressional officials investigated the CIA and FBI nonstop.
Progressive political cartoonists cruelly caricatured the Pentagon’s top brass as obese, buffoonish looking clerks with monstrous jowls. Even their uniforms were mocked as festooned with ostentatious gold braids, shiny medals, and ridiculous peaked hats, smothered in gold and silver insignia.
The “revolving door” was a particular leftist obsession. Democrats blasted generals who retired into defense contractor boards and got rich.
For the Left, elite professional sports were the opiates of the middle classes. Wannabe jocks supposedly wasted hours in front of the TV watching grown men toss around little balls.
Unions were sacred. So United Farm Worker kingpins like Cesar Chavez headed to the...
(Excerpt) Read more at amgreatness.com ...
The two party system provides the illusion of choice and the mirage of the consent of the governed.
Good point.
Will they succeed, or will we secede?
Maybe his best article/ oped on what has happened to America and why?
The ZIP Codes That Rule America!:
BY: MICHAEL LIND, DECEMBER 16, 2020
The real divide isn’t between red states and blue states or cities and rural areas.
It’s between mega-rich political donors and everyone else.
In theory senators represent the citizens of their states and members of the House represent the people of their congressional districts. In practice they represent individual and corporate donors and political allies and future employers, who may live anywhere in the United States—or in some cases abroad. Joe Biden was the senator from the credit card industry, based in Delaware.
The donors to American politicians in all 50 states are concentrated in a few ZIP codes. According to Open Secrets, of the ZIP codes that delivered the most campaign funding for the Democrats in 2020, not counting dark money or soft money for liberal groups, four of the top five were in New York City (10024, 10023, 10022, 10011), followed by Chevy Chase, Maryland (20815), a suburb of Washington, D.C. Other top Democratic ZIPs this year were Silicon Valley (94301 and 94022) and Cambridge, Massachusetts (02138). New York City was also overrepresented among donors to the Republican Party, whose donor base is more geographically diverse, with a lot of money coming from Dallas, Atlanta, Las Vegas, and Palm Beach, Florida.
Most politicians follow the preferences of their donors, not their voters, when there is a conflict. “Who buys my bread, his song I sing,” as the old saying goes. Or, if you prefer another proverb: “The Golden Rule is whoever has the gold rules.”
“When the preferences of economic elites and the stands of organized interest groups are controlled for, the preferences of the average American appear to have only a minuscule, near-zero, statistically non-significant impact upon public policy.”
Are we stuck with only 50 stars on Old Glory from now on? Except at the margins, it doesn’t matter whether there are eight Californias or just one. Nor would it make much of a difference if D.C. or Puerto Rico became the 51st state. We can draw state borders however we like and add or subdivide states if we choose. But to the extent our influence is limited to voting, most of us are just renters in American politics. The donors, wherever they happen to live, own it.
https://www.tabletmag.com/sections/news/articles/the-zip-codes-that-rule-america
Yes, here we are. I have no idea what we can do about it either. Voting might still be the only way to stem the tide, but we can’t trust the vote counters anymore.
You just described controlled opposition.
Controlled opposition is the person or group that appears to be in opposition to the Left, but is an insulation layer between the Left and genuine critics. The function of the gatekeeper is to prevent people from abandoning the political morality of the Left, while at the same time making sure to lose every fight with the Left. They channel opposition into positions that can never succeed.
Ben Shapiro is the most obvious example. His primary role is to funnel all opposition into a dead end. His answer to the tech monopolies, for example, is to tell people to build their own new internet. After all, only a communist would demand the government prevent private actors from trampling your rights. Of course, he's always tone policing the language of the people he claims to represent. The point is also to cleanse the language of rhetoric that could be effective against the Left. …
Critical race theory:
A good example of this is the CRT business. Parents around the country suddenly learned that the schools are teaching their kids that white people are born evil and their only way to salvation is to hate their ancestors. The gatekeepers immediately leapt into action to lecture them that saying CRT is antiwhite is wrong. Suddenly, the purpose of conservatism is to prevent anyone from noticing that the cultural revolution is explicitly and overtly antiwhite. It almost seems coordinated.
There is a familiar pattern to how the system has responded to opposition to the antiwhite pogroms launched by the party. The defunct social media platform Parler was not about creating an alternative to Twitter, so much as creating a regime-acceptable alternative to the genuinely open platform Gab. When that failed, the usual suspects were ready with another version called Retalk. Many of the people promoting this effort were anti-Trump cranks now trying to lure his audience. …
Surely you must have noticed this:
The sandwich technique is a staple of liberal democratic politics. Since few arguments in favor of the status quo can withstand scrutiny, they create a set of false choices to contain all discussion. In economics the choice is “free enterprise” versus “communism” with regards to corporate corruption of society. In other issues, like the race debate, one choice is an absurdly immoral position and defeatism. You either buckle under or you are a Nazi, and you deserve the assault from the Left. …
Gatekeepers frustrate any real opposition to the left's tyranny:
Of course, the main project of so-called conservatives is to figure out a way to create a fake Trump in order to sideline the populist and nationalist opposition to the corporatist uniparty monopoly. Trump did not get anything done in office, but the system still fears him, because of the bad thoughts he arouses in the people. Trump running in 2024 would both reveal the ridiculousness of conservatism (again) and generate the sorts of conversations that the regime considers dangerous. …
A decade ago, the Tea Party movement was easily coopted by corporate flunkies. This time it is struggling to do the same thing with the populism Trump rode to office and the growing dissident movement. …
You will notice that the system defends itself with rhetoric. Democracy is all about winning arguments, not establishing, or accepting truth. It is why democracy produces so many sophists. It is also why Twitter is so popular with regime lackeys. People with the natural instinct to defend their masters and a gift for doing so in a few sentences can become heroes on the platform. A system built on clever rhetoric and logical fallacies is naturally good at defending itself with the same tools.
Today's left is all spin, media control, lying by omission, censorship, false flags, and gatekeepers..
It is time to crush the RINOs in the Republican midterms. We need to hear the m wail in despair and see them shed salty tears as we boot them out.
“A good example was ’70s pop icon Jackson Brown’s “The Pretender,” whose lyrics railed about “happy idiots” who “struggled for the legal tender.”
I think he needs to do better research. Brown’s lyrics are a good deal better than just “railing.”
Certainly an excellent article.
Shhh ... So should you! :)
Yes, I committed a typo, but at least I was familiar with the music.
True! Just kidding! :) ... FReegards!
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