Posted on 02/17/2005 6:31:56 PM PST by pissant
A third way is needed. The New Democrat Third Way progressives favor free markets to build wealth and bring "social justice" to the masses. They are for rules-based "free trade" and globalization. They make the rules. They are Davos.
Hardly any difference between them and our very own "free traders."
Well, except for one difference. When the progressives and their Davos elites ask you "free traders," do you have rope to sell? RUN!
Yes, it was interesting. A trifle whiny, but a start.
We have a great system of checks and balances in this country. We are a two-party (+) system for a reason. If the Republicans get too fiscally tight (not including Bush who must stop trying to please everyone), then the people speak and vote Dems in. If we start spending too much on social programs to the detriment of the actual purpose of the federal government, the people speak and vote Republican. Like scales in perpetual motion, we keep moving toward balance without ever getting there, but that's a good thing.
The Dems have a big problem. They allowed the socialists to control their party. They have to figure a way out of that problem if they want middle America to take them seriously.
Russell Kirk wrote great -- and award winning -- ghost stories.
No, they don't believe they're evil...they think they're good. But remember the road to hell is paved with good intentions. Communism was thought to be a great thing by many normally sane people in the twentieth century. I'm sure most of them never imagined the great horrors communism would inflict on humanity. And I'm also sure that there are still many gullible types today who think that complete government control of everyone's lives is the way to go. These people aren't evil. But what they do many times ends up being evil.
I'm afraid you are right. He writes as Biden talks, endlessly and to no point. He seems unable to escape from Marxism 101, the class struggle, which only he and his special friends know how to use for the benefit of mankind.
BTW, how many FReepers attend private dinner parties on the upper west side? Notice that he presumes everyone knows he is referring to NYC.
The man is a snob if not worse and certainly no insightful hero.
Writers on the left think they will earn some kind of cache as being "unbiased" if they add a couple of sentences to their usual Marxist boilerplate about "reaching out" and common ground" before they devote 95% of their articles to the atrocities of the Bush administration or whatever. It's The New Objectivity, and I ain't buying it for a second.
A half century ago, intellectual elites saw the Democrats as the rising party of the common man, but they also saw an opportunity for themselves as the liberal leaders of that party. And they succeeded in doing just that. They put themselves at the head of the movement, and when the turned around the rank and file was gone, or at least wasn't there in sufficient numbers to win elections.
There's probably a connection between the two developments. The more a party is dominated by elites, know-it-alls and world-savers, the more likely ordinary people are to abandon it. Republicans shouldn't gloat, though, as there's a lesson for them in the Democrats' decline. Parties need to be organized to win elections, but the more they become highly controlled, top-down mechanisms that work out the answers in private and impose them on the rank and file, the more likely it is that voters are to turn against them.
You are right. This deeply introspective, rigidly honest,
searcher of the truth was the one who fired Michael Kelly for disagreeing with him about hopeless Al. Scratch a liberal and you will find fascist.
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I think it was John Kenneth Galbraith, speaking in the early 1960s, the high point of post-New Deal liberalism, who pronounced conservatism dead.
When John F. Kennedy was considering candidates to fill the post of Secretary of the Treasury, he asked the advice of Republican Robert Lovett, who had considerable experience on Wall Street. JFK wanted to know, what did people on Wall Street think of Galbraith's economic theories? Lovett answered, "He's a fine novelist."
LOL!
Depends on the meaning of "is." (:-)
The question was Who is a truly influential liberal mind in our culture?
The names you mention bring to mind the word "was."
The mind of Marx, in the form of his writings, IS still very influential in the liberal culture.
Um, I think that its called Fascism, and there is nothing new about it.
The word fascism has come to mean any system of government resembling Mussolini's, that
* exalts nation and sometimes race above the individual,
* uses violence and modern techniques of propaganda and censorship to forcibly suppress political opposition,
* engages in severe economic and social regimentation.
* engages in corporatism,[1]
* implements or is a totalitarian regime.
bump
btttt
Pray for W and Our Troops
They are just as influential on the left as ever.
finish reading later.
That's exactly what I was thinking as I finished the article. Howard Dean complained about someone tieing the DNC to Lynne Stewart, but the fact is that Dean and the Deaniacs at MoveOn.Org, who claim to be in charge of the Democrat party, are inextricably linked to the communist National Lawyers' Guild, of which Lynne Stewart is currently the most prominent member. The National Lawyers'
Guild founded MoveOn.Org.
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