Joe and Eddie doing Sinatra and Stevie Wonder:
Posted on 08/16/2014 11:30:37 AM PDT by Clintonfatigued
In good conscience, however, I can’t continue to call myself a Democrat.
In becoming an independent, I think I’m maintaining the independent (dare I say, libertarian?) mindedness and patriotism that my parents endowed me with. For the country’s sake and for their own, I hope the Democrats wake up.
I am also hopeful that we, the people, will wake up and strongly feel, with heart and soul, what my family always instilled in me and what is sadly absent in many of today’s political leaders: the love, the appreciation and an unapologetic pride of being an American.
(Excerpt) Read more at washingtontimes.com ...
“Where has ours been for the last twenty years?”
Hoping that the population would not fall for the leftist line.
IMHO
And the late actor who spoke at the Support the Troops rally in DC. I can't think of his name.
-PJ
I was tending to think more among religious lines: not political ones.
This is wonderful...
Sorry to buzzkill your thread CF, but I just have to. If he was really endowed with ANY of that he never would have been a rat to begin with, let alone a "proud" one.
"The democrats have changed" is a popular meme among people abandoning that party, but the simple truth is they have not changed very much at all, they've gotten only slightly worse over the last few decades.
Piscopo praises FDR, FDR was pond scum and one the worst Presidents in history, don't tell me FDR "loved the country", he loved the country like an abusive husband loves his wife. FDR raped this country, raped it, and she's never recovered from the trauma. He admires Lyndon Johnson's "Texas Swagger", GMAFB, Johnson was a thug, basically he was Obama except he actually had a clue what he was doing.
The way he finishes the piece "I don't think I'm ready to become a Republican yet " just further proves he knows as much about politics as I do about operating a nuclear submarine.
I'm glad your eyes are starting to open Joe, now open them all the way.
I've heard that all it takes is a mugging...
No, not remotely. Ronald Reagan saw the light after being a labor democrat as late as 1948 when he cut an ad for Hubert Humphrey for US Senate and trashed the GOP controlled 80th Congress. He often said the democrat party left him (It changed so much from 1948 to 1962, when he officially switched parties? No sir, it did not.) but that was just a line. In a least one candid moment he admitted he was "part of the problem back then".
I'm saying if Joe Piscopo's parents had really instilled in him "libertarian mindedness", he never would have even considered joining the rat party, unless he was too stupid to know what the democrats stood for, what "libertarian" means, or both. I think that's what the issue is, Piscopo (and probably his parents), like so many Americans, has the political intelligence of a turnip and it's taken a President THIS horrible to make him start growing a few extra brain cells, forgive me if that's an arrogant pronouncement.
He's a patriot who's upset by democrat foreign policy? What did he say when Carter gave away the Panama canal? What did he say when Clinton let Osama get away and sent forces into Kosovo to get his johnson off the front page? He thinks democrats only recently started not caring about the poor? Hahahahhaha.
Don't get me wrong, I'm glad he's wised up enough to support Republicans this year (that puts him ahead of some here who seem to want Harry Reid to increase his Senate majority), but by the sound of it he has a long way to go to enlightenment, I hope he continues the journey.
True. I don't know what it is with SNL alumni from the 80s, but more and more of them are moving rightward. Just think, if Al Freakin had been on SNL in the 80s instead of the 70s and 90s, he might be on our side now. Yikes.
>> "The democrats have changed" is a popular meme among people abandoning that party, but the simple truth is they have not changed very much at all, they've gotten only slightly worse over the last few decades.Ronald Reagan saw the light after being a labor democrat as late as 1948 when he cut an ad for Hubert Humphrey for US Senate and trashed the GOP controlled 80th Congress. He often said the democrat party left him (It changed so much from 1948 to 1962, when he officially switched parties? No sir, it did not.) but that was just a line. In a least one candid moment he admitted he was "part of the problem back then". <<
Yeah, I never buy the "I didn't leave the RATs, they left me" line or the history revisionism about how the RATs "used to be" the "conservative" party and were "honorable and patriotic" until recent years. Certainly at the national level, the RAT party has been totally controlled by rabid socialists since at least the FDR era. The last "conservative" RAT president (Cleveland) was in power well over a century ago.
Regarding Reagan, I think he admitted once that he had been a "bleeding heart liberal" in the 1940s who "bled for every leftist cause".
Anyway, "I didn't leave the RATs, they left me", is a nice soundbite but I don't think it convinces any other RATs that "their party has left them". The RATs actually try the reverse with the "Republicans used to be honorable and decent until they changed and were taken over by teabaggers... Obama is basically an Einsenhower era Republican" BS, and nobody buys the reverse propaganda that "today's Dems are like 1950s Republicans" either.
>> He's a patriot who's upset by democrat foreign policy? What did he say when Carter gave away the Panama canal? What did he say when Clinton let Osama get away and sent forces into Kosovo to get his johnson off the front page? He thinks democrats only recently started not caring about the poor? Hahahahhaha. <<
Zig Zag Zell used this sort of talking point when he saw the writing on the wall and decided to endorse Bush. "The Dems changed and started supporting radical leftist policies so I'm endorsing the GOP" It wasn't true then, either. The RAT party had always been totally supportive of abortion since it was legalized in the 70s and McGovern was about as far-left as it gets but Zig Zag didn't endorse Nixon in 1972. They didn't "change" their views -- Zig Zag changed his when his "great grandchildren" were born and he "discovered" he was pro-life. And now I guess Michelle Nunn must be an "honorable and patriotic, old fashioned conservative Democrat" according to his logic, since he's endorsing her. Nope. Again, the only person who "changed their views" was Zig Zag.
>> I think that's what the issue is, Piscopo (and probably his parents), like so many Americans, has the political intelligence of a turnip and it's taken a President THIS horrible to make him start growing a few extra brain cells, forgive me if that's an arrogant pronouncement. Don't get me wrong, I'm glad he's wised up enough to support Republicans this year (that puts him ahead of some here who seem to want Harry Reid to increase his Senate majority), but by the sound of it he has a long way to go to enlightenment, I hope he continues the journey. <<
I agree. If he's moving rightward, I welcome it, and I hope he'll be totally in our camp eventually. But for now, I take it with a grain of salt.
“The democrats have changed” is a popular meme among people abandoning that party, but the simple truth is they have not changed very much at all, they’ve gotten only slightly worse over the last few decades.Ronald Reagan saw the light after being a labor democrat as late as 1948....”
People seem to forget - or have never been taught, more likely - that FDR’s first VP, Henry Wallace, was an OPEN socialist, made no bones about it. And FDR often expressed a lot of admiration for the Soviet Union and its policies.
Further back, Woodrow Wilson was a “proud Progressive” as well.
It’s not so much that they “changed” as much as it is they just let the more radical elements get into full control.
When I was growing up in Philly, most of the folks were Democrats there; they sure as hell weren’t communist or socialist; most of them were WWII and Korean War vets. But they had no clue who they were really voting for.
Reagan won those same people over in two landslides. Pretty sure Nixon did too.
Different times, with different people. This truly ISN’T grandma’s Democrat party anymore.
As for Piscopo and others “moving rightward”... well, anything less than full blown communist will look “right” these days...
Worse, Wallace was an open Soviet sympathizer as VP. Way past Socialist. He was a very odd man and a bit of a flake. Started out as a Republican liberal (his father was an Agriculture Secretary under Harding & Coolidge until his death in 1924). He was still a Progressive Republican when FDR hired him to take his father’s job 9 years later, then switched to the Democrats.
He moved to the far left within a decade by the time he replaced Jack Garner as Vice-President in 1941, but was seen enough as a potential liability for FDR (especially worries over his health that he would not survive another term and didn’t want him in the Presidency) that he was replaced after just 1 term. He was immediately given Commerce Secretary as a consolation prize (not entirely a worthless post, since Herbert Hoover went from it straight to the Presidency). He served only a year and a half before resigning and ginning up a new political party, the ultraleft Progressive that was pro-Soviet. After the drubbing he got, he didn’t return to office, though he gradually moved back to the political center by the 1950s, writing a mea culpa about his leftist stances and by the 1960s, was back to being a Republican again (having endorsed both Ike in 1956 and Nixon in 1960).
To his credit. RINO to commie and back again.
Do you think he would have even won the rat nomination in '48 if he had not been replaced as VP and ended up succeeding to the White House?
“....though he gradually moved back to the political center by the 1950s,...”
Meaning somewhat less Stalinist...
Given his stances, I think he would’ve had an exceptionally difficult time winning renomination in 1948 if he were the sitting President. In fact, I have to wonder how much more of a liability he would’ve been for FDR in 1944 to the point Dewey would’ve made the race even closer. Dewey would’ve won in 1948 regardless if Wallace had remained or were replaced. The damage to the Democrats would’ve been incalculable (and we don’t know what Wallace would’ve done with respect to making the decision on dropping the atom bomb). Soviet infiltration during the 1945-49 period would’ve been epic as well, far beyond what it had been under FDR and Truman (namely because you’d have had a President who saw nothing WRONG with it because they were our “allies.”).
Your commanding knowledge of political history is impressive, brother. Thank you!
Where did Norman Thomas fit in with all this? Did he ever run as a Democrat?
No, Thomas never ran as a Democrat, as he was the standard bearer for the Socialist Party. I believe he tried to claim he was anti-Communist (or at least not enamored of the Soviet mess), while still being Socialist (though the SPA, which he was a member of, was supposedly pro-Soviet early on). I’ve found trying to differentiate the who is who of the far left a frustrating thing, and for most people, it’s too nuanced and parochial to master (ironic when you consider the left tries to say they reject labeling, yet they’re very quick to label opponents both within leftist and of the right).
I’ve spoken to (online at least) one New York Socialist Party standard-bearer, and they have all these different levels and groupings (Stalinist, anti-Stalinist, Trotskyite, anti-Trotskyite, Socialist anti-Communist, et al). To me, it’s generally meaningless because it’s all under the aegis of leftism and generally antithetical to the American model of freedom (and varies between absolute totalitarianism to a Scandinavian model - none of which would ever work here on American soil, and even the “freer” model of Scandinavian Socialism is crumbling as well, especially as they’ve had to bring in Mohammadans to do the grunt work of their society, and those people do not agree with the system at all, and will be their undoing).
There seemed to be times where established political figures wished to create a new party entirely rather than assume control of the Socialist or leftist established parties, which tended to have their own defined echelons and party intrigue/infighting. Sen. Bob La Follette of Wisconsin tried to do that (Theodore Roosevelt for that matter with his “Bull Moose Progressives”, which was more a personal vehicle for him).
You also had the American Labor Party (which was a New York creation), which Fiorello LaGuardia used for a time (though he still considered himself a Republican). It had far-left officeholders that ran on its line (including future Sen. Jacob Javits - that aforementioned NY Socialist I spoke to considered Javits “one of theirs” in his own words). Vito Marcantonio was a Congressman from NYC who became the standard-bearer for the ALP. He had served a term as a Republican in 1934, when he ran for reelection in 1936, he ran as a Communist-Republican (but lost). He made his comeback in 1938 as the ALP supplanted the Communist line and served until 1951, when the Democrats were able to dispatch him. Marcantonio was the lightning rod for the right, as he was viewed as the most leftist member of Congress. How you voted with or against him was often a measure used to see how right or wrong you were (Nixon used him against Helen Gahagan Douglas in their 1950 Senate race).
Henry Wallace’s Progressives of 1948 (a new creation) fizzled quickly (for that matter, so did the Dixiecrats, although that epithet for racist Democrats have lasted to today). NY also formed another left-wing party, the Liberals. This was actually supposed to be a national vehicle for Wendell Willkie following his loss in 1940 for President, which he intended to use first to run for Mayor of NYC and later President again. Willkie’s untimely death in 1944 ended that, though they party lasted for some time. Curiously, when FDR, Jr. ran for Congress in NYC, he couldn’t get the Democrat line, so he ran as the Liberal nominee and won.
Getting back to Thomas for a moment, who lived until 1968 (long enough to see Vietnam in full swing and to aggressively oppose the war), it seemed for decades he attempted to rally and coherently organize the disparate and fractious groups of the left while trying to maintain his anti-Communism. Ultimately, I believe the Democrats co-opted a lot of their agenda (Hubert Humphrey was more of a Thomas Socialist, a left-winger while claiming to be anti-Communist). It was Thomas’s predecessor, Eugene V. Debs, who I believe prognosticated that one of the major parties would eventually do just that, and was fine with it.
I find late in life conversions odd unless for Christ
The Dixiecrats were social conservatives
As were most folks by todays standards...
Its amazing really...what under 45 year olds assume normal
From the lofty perch of thinking all who came before were tainted by bigotry
Never before in our history.....
Intergenerational smugness trumping the pejorative
How convenient
Well if the damn press had reported FDR was dying, Dewey may have beaten him.
“Marcantonio was the lightning rod for the right, as he was viewed as the most leftist member of Congress”
And he was never a rat, imagine that. Didn’t they pass the Wilson Pakula Act just to get rid of him?
I saw some historical list, ah found it, it uses the right party colors
http://voteview.com/Is_John_Kerry_A_Liberal.htm
It’s everyone in Congress (both Houses) from 1937-2002 ranked ideologically.
It has Vito way down the list as the 64th most leftist member in that time period. #1 is the rat that won in Vermont in ‘58, Meyer. #2 is Leo Isacson, another American Labor Congressman who won a special election in ‘48 and was then defeated, he was pro-Israel so he would not fit in with today’s left. 3rd is RINO turned Independent turned rat Wayne Morris of Oregon, the proto-Jeffords.
Conyers was most leftist ranked current member (I bet some of the newbies since 2002 would supplant him), followed by Barabra Lee, who alone voted against attacking Afghanistan and was compared to Jeanette Rankin for doing so. Rankin herself self is is well on the more conservative side of the list.
#36 was NY Rat Herman Badillo, who moved to the right , and switched to the GOP in 90’s, ran for Mayor in 2001, he would have much better than Bloomberg
The most leftist Republican that never left the party (though he did continue to run on the Liberal party line after losing to D’Amato in the 1980 primary) was Javits, followed by Ed Brooke, the Black RINO from MA that had an affair with Barbara Walters.
It also has Ron Paul as most conservative, so grain of salt, although his worst votes came after 2002.
Paul is followed by dixiecrat Bircher Larry MacDonald of GA and Republican John Scmitz of California who was the 1972 American (Geo. Wallace’s party) party nominee for President and father of Mary Kay Letourneau that teacher that was impregnated by her student and now is married to him with 6 kids. Virgil Goode was 9th, he’d had jsut switched to the GOP at that point, highly questionable positioning. Tom Coburn was #11th, he’d have a much different position on it now.
Joe and Eddie doing Sinatra and Stevie Wonder:
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