John F. Kennedy's Prophetic Rebuke of Tea Party Politics

In the speech he never got to give, the slain president spoke out against right-wing irrationality

 

 

 

John F. Kennedy

FILES/AFP/Getty Images

By Tim Dickinson

November 22, 2013 1:50 PM ET

Fifty years ago today in Dallas, President John F. Kennedy was assassinated before he could deliver a speech whose message echoes across the decades, and today stands as a prophetic admonition against Tea Party politics.
In the words of the speech he never gave that day, Kennedy rebuked those who "confuse rhetoric with reality," who demonize America's civil servants, and who "see the debt as the single greatest threat to our security." The speech is a full-throated celebration of rationality and learning as the linchpin of American leadership, and a surprisingly modern rebuke of the Ted Cruz wing of Republican politics.

Kennedy's last speech. It was never delivered.
Trade Mart Speech (Kennedy's Last Speech)
The president was scheduled to deliver this speech the day he was assassinated, November 22, 1963.

I am honored to have this invitation to address the annual meeting of the Dallas Citizens Council, joined by the members of the Dallas Assembly -- and pleased to have this opportunity to salute the Graduate Research Center of the Southwest. It is fitting that these two symbols of Dallas progress are united in the sponsorship of this meeting. For they represent the best qualities, I am told, of leadership and learning in this city -- and leadership and learning are indispensable to each other. The advancement of learning depends on community leadership for financial political support, and the products of that learning, in turn, are essential to the leadership's hopes for continued progress and prosperity. It is not a coincidence that those communities possessing the best in research and graduate facilities -- from MIT to Cal Tech -- tend to attract new and growing industries. I congratulate those of you here in Dallas who have recognized these basic facts through the creation of the unique and forward-looking Graduate Research Center.
This link between leadership and learning is not only essential at the community level. It is even more indispensable in world affairs. Ignorance and misinformation can handicap the progress of a city or a company, but they can, if allowed to prevail in foreign policy, handicap this country's security.

 In a world of complex and continuing problems, in a world full of frustrations and irritations, America's leadership must be guided by the lights of learning and reason -- or else those who confuse rhetoric with reality and the plausible with the possible will gain the popular ascendancy with their seemingly swift and simple solutions to every world problem.
There will always be dissident voices heard in the land, expressing opposition without alternative, finding fault but never favor, perceiving gloom on every side and seeking influence without responsibility. Those voices are inevitable.
But today other voices are heard in the land -- voices preaching doctrines wholly unrelated to reality, wholly unsuited to the sixties, doctrines which apparently assume that words will suffice without weapons, that vituperation is as good as victory and that peace is a sign of weakness. At a time when the national debt is steadily being reduced in terms of its burden on our economy, they see that debt as the single greatest threat to our security. At a time when we are steadily reducing the number of Federal employees serving every thousand citizens, they fear those supposed hordes of civil servants far more than the actual hordes of opposing armies.
We cannot expect that everyone, to use the phrase of a decade ago, will "talk sense to the American people." But we can hope that fewer people will listen to nonsense. And the notion that this Nation is headed for defeat through deficit, or that strength is but a matter of slogans, is nothing but just plain nonsense.
I want to discuss with your today the status of our security because this question clearly calls for the most responsible qualities of leader- ship and the most enlightened products of scholarship. for this Nation's strength and security are not easily or cheaply obtained, nor are they quickly and simply explained. there are many kinds of strength and no one kind will suffice. Overwhelming nuclear strength cannot stop a guerrilla war. Formal pacts of alliance cannot stop internal subversion. Displays of material wealth cannot stop the disillusionment of diplomats subjected to discrimination.
Above all, words alone are not enough. The United States is a peaceful nation. And where our strength and determination are clear, our words need merely to convey conviction, not belligerence. If we are strong, our strength will speak for itself. If we are weak, words will be of no help.
I realize that this Nation often tends to identify turning-points in world affairs with the major addresses which preceded them. But it was not the Monroe Doctrine that kept all Europe away from this hemisphere -- it was the strength of the British fleet and the width of the Atlantic Ocean. It was not General Marshall's speech at Harvard which kept communism out of Western Europe -- it was the strength and stability made possible by our military and economic assistance.
In this administration also it has been necessary at times to issue specific warnings -- warnings that we could not stand by and watch the Communists conquer Laos by force, or intervene in the Congo, or swallow West Berlin, or maintain offensive missiles on Cuba. But while our goals were at least temporarily obtained in these and other instances, our successful defense of freedom was not due to the words we used, but to the strength we stood ready to use on behalf of the principles we stand ready to defend.
This strength is composed of many different elements, ranging from the most massive deterrents to the most subtle influences. And all types of strength are needed -- no one kind could do the job alone. Let us take a moment, therefore, to review this Nation's progress in each major area of strength.
First, as Secretary McNamara made clear in his address last Monday, the strategic nuclear power of the United States has been so greatly modernized and expanded in the last 1,000 days, by the rapid production and deployment of the most modern missile systems, that any and all potential aggressors are clearly confronted now with the impossibility of strategic victory -- and the certainty of total destruction -- if by reckless attack they should ever force upon us the necessity of a strategic reply.
In less than 3 years, we have increased by 50 percent the number of Polaris submarines scheduled to be in force by the next fiscal year, increased by more than 70 percent our total Polaris purchase program, increased by more than 75 percent our Minutemen purchase program, increased by 50 percent the portion of our strategic bombers on 15-minute alert forces. Our security is further enhanced by the steps we have taken regarding these weapons to improve the speed and certainty of their response, their readiness at all times to respond, their ability to survive an attack, and their ability to be carefully controlled and directed through secure command operations.
But the lessons of the last decade have taught us that freedom cannot be defended by strategic nuclear power alone. We have, therefore, in the last 3 years accelerated the development and deployment of tactical nuclear weapons, and increased by 60 percent the tactical nuclear forces deployed in Western Europe.
Nor can Europe or any other continent rely on nuclear forces alone, whether they are strategic or tactical. We have radically improved the readiness of our conventional forces -- increased by 45 percent of the number of combat ready Army divisions, increased by 100 percent the procurement of modern Army weapons and equipment, increased by 100 percent our procurement of our ship construction, conversion, and modernization program, increased by 100 percent our procurement of tactical aircraft, increased by 30 percent the number of tactical air squadrons, and increased the strength of the Marines. As last month's "Operation Big Lift" -- which originated here in Texas -- showed so clearly, this Nation is prepared as never before to move substantial numbers of men in surprisingly little time to advanced positions any- where in the world. We have increased by 175 percent the procurement of airlift aircraft, and we have already achieved a 75 percent increase in our existing strategic airlift capability. Finally, moving beyond the traditional roles of our military forces, we have achieved an increase of nearly 600 percent in our special forces -- those forces that are prepared to work with our allies and friends against the guerrillas, saboteurs, insurgents and assassins who threaten freedom in a less direct but equally dangerous manner.
But American military might should not and need not stand alone against the ambitions of international communism. Our security and strength, in the last analysis, directly depend on the security and strength of others, and that is why our military and economic assistance plays such a key role in enabling those who live on the periphery of the Communist world to maintain their independence of choice. Our assistance to these nations can be painful, risky, and costly, as is true in Southeast Asia today. But we dare not weary of the task. For our assistance makes possible the stationing of 3.5 million allied troops along the Communist frontier at one-tenth the cost of maintaining a comparable number of American soldiers. A successful Communist breakthrough in these area, necessitating direct United States intervention, would cost us several times as much as our entire foreign aid program, and might cost us heavily in American lives as well.
About 70 percent of our military assistance goes to nine key countries located on or near the borders of the Communist-bloc -- nine countries confronted directly or indirectly with the threat of Communistic aggression -- Viet-Nam, Free China, Korea, India, Pakistan, Thailand, Greece, Turkey, and Iran. No one of these countries possesses on its own the resources to maintain the forces which our own Chiefs of Staff think needed in the common interest. Reducing our efforts to train, equip, and assist their armies can only encourage Communist penetration and require in time the increased overseas deployment of American combat forces. And reducing the economic help needed to bolster these nations that undertake to help defend freedom can have the same disastrous result. In short, the $50 billion we spend each year on our own defense could well be ineffective without the $4 billion required for military and economic assistance.
Our foreign aid program is not growing in size, it is, on the contrary, smaller now than in previous years. It has had its weaknesses, but we have undertaken to correct them. And the proper way of treating weaknesses is to replace them with strength, not to increase those weaknesses by emasculating essential programs. Dollar for dollar, in or out of government, there is no better form of investment in our national security than our much-abused foreign aid program. We cannot afford to lose it. We can afford to maintain it. we can surely afford, for example, to do as much for our 19 needy neighbors of Latin America as the Communist bloc is sending to the island of Cuba alone.
I have spoken of strength largely in terms of the deterrence and resistance of aggression and attack. But in today's world, freedom can be lost without a shot being fired, by ballots as well as bullets. The success of our leadership is dependent upon respect for our mission in the world as well as our missiles -- on a clearer recognition of the virtues of freedom as well as the evils of tyranny.
That is why our Information Agency has doubled the shortwave broadcasting powers of the Voice of America and increased the number of broadcasting hours by 30 percent, increased Spanish language broadcasting to Cuba and Latin America from 1 to 9 hours a day, increased seven-fold to more than 3.5 million copies the number of American books being translated and published for Latin American readers, and taken a host of other steps to carry our message of truth and freedom to all the far corners of the earth.
And that is also why we have regained the initiative in the exploration of outer space, making an annual effort greater than the combined total of all space activities undertaken during the fifties, launching more than 130 vehicles into earth orbit, putting into actual operation valuable weather and communications satellites, and making it clear to all that the United States of America has no intention of finishing second in space.
This effort is expensive -- but it pays its own way, for freedom and for America. For there is no longer any fear in the free world that a Communist lead in space will become a permanent assertion of supremacy and the basis for military superiority. There is no longer any doubt about the strength and skill of American science, American industry, American education, and the American free enterprise system. In short, our nation space effort represents a great gain in, and a great resource of, our national strength -- and both Texas and Texans are contributing greatly to this strength.
Finally, it should be clear by now that a nation can be no stronger abroad than she is at home. Only an America which practices what it preaches about equal rights and social justice will be respected by those whose choice affects our future. Only an America which has fully educated its citizens is fully capable of tackling the complex problems and perceiving the hidden dangers of the world in which we live. And only an America which is growing and prospering economically can sustain the worldwide defenses of freedom, while demonstrating to all concerned the opportunities of our system and society.
It is clear, therefore, that we are strengthening our security as well as our economy by our recent record increases in national income and output -- by surging ahead of most of Western Europe in the rate of business expansion and the margin of corporate profits, by maintaining a more stable level of prices than almost any of our overseas competitors, and by cutting personal and corporate income taxes by some $11 billion, as I have proposed, to assure this Nation of the longest and strongest expansion in our peacetime economic history.
This Nation's total output -which 3 years ago was at the $500 billion mark -- will soon pass $600 billion, for a record rise of over $100 billion in 3 years. For the first time in history we have 70 million men and women at work. For the first time in history average factory earnings have exceeded $100 a week. For the first time in history corporation profits after taxes -- which have risen 43 percent in less than 3 years -- have an annual level of $27.4 billion.
My friends and fellow citizens: I cite these facts and figures to make it clear that America today is stronger than ever before. Our adversaries have not abandoned their ambitions, our dangers have not diminished, our vigilance cannot be relaxed. But now we have the military, the scientific, and the economic strength to do whatever must be done for the preservation and promotion of freedom.
The strength will never be used in pursuit of aggressive ambitions -- it will always be used in pursuit of peace. It will never be used to promote provocations -- it will always be used to promote the peaceful settlement of disputes.
We, in this country, in this generation, are -- by destiny rather than by choice -- the watchmen on the walls of world freedom. We ask, therefore, that we may be worthy of our power and responsibility, that we may exercise our strength with wisdom and restraint, and that we may achieve in our time and for all time the ancient vision of "peace on earth, good will toward men." That must always be our goal, and the righteousness of our cause must always underlie our strength. For as was written long ago: "except the Lord keep the city, the watchmen waketh but in vain."

 

Read More

Who’s Destroying Christianity? It Sure as Hell Isn’t the Liberals

November 24, 2013 By Allen Clifton

It’s my belief, as was the belief of our Founding Fathers, that religion and politics should never mix. Honestly, what good can come from it?  Even among the seemingly endless denominations within the Christian faith there’s not a consensus of what is right and what is wrong.
I’ve been to the households of Baptists where drinking is strongly forbidden and against their religious beliefs, and let’s just say I’ve been far less than sober at a Catholic wedding.
But there’s undoubtedly a war being waged within this country by the far-right “Christian fundamentalists” (the ones I call followers of Republicanity) and real Christians who actually follow the teachings of Jesus Christ.
Since I founded Right Off A Cliff and co-founded Forward Progressives, I’ve made it part of my mission to reclaim Christianity from those who I personally feel don’t follow the Christian faith at all.  Another group I would highly encourage all of you to check out as well is The Christian Left.  It’s another great page that fights the ignorance of Republicanity.
It’s amazing though how so many conservatives really believe liberals are a bunch of godless heathens out to destroy Christianity.  It’s a claim that’s absolutely absurd.  There are tens of millions of liberals who are Christians in this country.  The difference is, we practice our faith in private like it should be.  We don’t stand on some alter, preaching down to others about how they should live their lives.

Still, I can’t count the times I’ve heard conservatives claim that liberals are out to destroy Christianity.
And while their ignorance concerning the idea that liberals are trying to destroy Christianity is apparent, they are correct about one thing — millions of people are destroying Christianity.   They are.

Republicans are the biggest enemy to Christian values I’ve ever witnessed.
You know what I’ve literally never heard, not even once?  ”I’m no longer a Christian because of the beliefs of liberals.”
But you know what I have heard numerous times?  ”I’m no longer a Christian because of the ignorance of so many conservatives who claim to be Christians, yet act like ignorant, hateful pricks.”
Story after story from people who no longer considering themselves Christians, though they were raised one, because of the ignorance of those who take Christianity and destroy it with their own selfish, hateful desires.
Liberals aren’t driving people from Christianity, conservatives are.  It’s the Republican party who acts like they’re some representatives of “Christian values” while being supported by hateful, paranoid, delusional, angry, fearful bigots who hate anything and everything that isn’t just like them.
“Oh, but I go to church and tithe 10%.  I’m also in the choir and I volunteer at all the church functions.”
Neat.
When someone says something like that to me this is what I hear:

“I was raised to go to church because it’s what God orders me to do.  I’ve also been told that I’m supposed to give 10% to the church otherwise I might end up in hell.  Oh, and if I’m not involved in church my friends and family will judge me, but it’s okay, I don’t really mind that because I’m surrounded by people in church who are just like me and we can gossip and judge everyone who isn’t just like us.”

Anyone who’s ever worked with the public will tell you the absolute worst day of the week to work is Sunday.  When I was a server at a restaurant right across the highway from one of the largest churches in the city I was living in at the time, Sunday morning was the shift where we had the rudest people, worst tips and our lives were miserable until the day was over.

You know, once the “good church people” arrived.
But like I said, people aren’t flocking from Christianity because of liberals.  They’re flocking from the religion because of the absolute ignorance of conservatives.  Who, as I’ve said many times now, don’t follow Christianity — they follow Republicanity.
And as a Christian who accepts people of all faiths, no faiths and all things in between, I’m going to continue to stand up for Christianity.  I will continue the fight to reclaim Christianity from the ignorant clutches of these right-wing fanatics.
I just hope more people join me in this fight.

Read More

The Real Fox News

 Topics mentioned include Keystone XL pipeline & G.W. Bush, Republican sex versus Democratic & Liberal sex. How GOP makes love. Sarah Palin, dumbest woman alive? 

Topics mentioned include Keystone XL pipeline & G.W. Bush, Republican sex versus Democratic & Liberal sex. How GOP makes love. Sarah Palin, dumbest woman alive?

Read More

Why Conservative Comedy Does Not Work 

Ward Anderson

SiriusXM Talk Radio Host, Author, Comedian

The other day, in a typical "Right versus Left" argument, someone made a comment that stuck in my head. He said that there is almost no voice given to Conservative comedians and that comedians of today do not poke fun at liberals the way they do conservative politicians. The commenter made this point by stating that David Letterman is too soft on Obama compared to how he was with Bush.

I won't spend much time pointing out the fact that David Letterman is not a journalist or even member of the media. He is, of course, a comedian and talk show host. Since his talk show bears his own name and represents his own opinions, he can support any politician he likes. He doesn't owe anyone an unbiased platform any more than Rush Limbaugh owed Bill Clinton fairness when he hosted his own TV show in the 90s. Letterman doesn't pretend to be a journalist when he isn't one. That's Sean Hannity's schtick.

Still, there is a point which still stands: There really is less Conservative comedy out there and fewer jokes at the expense of Liberals than Conservatives. I won't disagree with this comment, but the people who complain about it as if it is some sort of grand conspiracy against Conservative humor in America kind of miss the point. Comedy is never about equality or representing both sides of the story. For comedy to really work, it usually comes from a particular source: The Underdog.

The Underdog is that comic who is a misfit. He's overweight or insecure. He's the dorky guy who talks about how he was always picked last in dodge ball. It's also the awkward woman who can't get a date or is afraid of living her life with only her cats. We cheer for The Underdog.

For this kind of comedy to work politically, The Underdog has to take the side of the less successful. Conservatives will always have a hard time with this approach because, frankly, it's hard to be The Underdog when you are the status quo. In fact, comedy has never succeeded when defending the status quo. It tends to succeed when it takes the voice of those on the fringes. When comedy is political, it works best as a reminder of things that are not fair. To be better off than most people in the world and then complain about unfairness simply reeks of phoniness.

The phrase "only the truth is funny" was coined for a reason. When Conservatives try to play The Underdog, it simply comes off as false. Complaining that you have to pay taxes and you think poor people are lazy is hardly knee-slapping material. It's like a rich guy standing onstage and thinking it's funny how he can only afford the BMW and not The Mercedes. How do you take the position that it sucks to be you when it clearly does not suck to be you? Stand onstage and crack wise about how much it sucks to be an over-taxed white guy in North America today, and not a single person in that audience will believe you, let alone find it humorous. The alternative is far worse, so climb down off the cross.
Another theme in Conservative comedy today is that things suck and used to be better. The problem is that no one really believes that, and there's not enough truth in that statement to make it funny. It's why everyone rolls their eyes at those who whine about "The War on Christmas". If the airwaves were dominated with Hanukkah songs for six straight weeks every year, that complaint might gather more traction than it does.

"People on welfare sure are lazy, am I right?" is hardly going to endear a comedian to the people in the crowd. In fact, the entire reason Stephen Colbert is successful is because his comedy is a complete satire of this kind of attitude. It comes off as absurd because the mentality it is based on is absurd. This is just more proof that making fun of the status quo is far funnier than complaining about being the status quo.

Simply put, it's funnier to laugh at those who Have than those who Have Not. If it surprises anyone that there is not more Right-Wing humour out there, ask yourself this simple question: When have you ever gone to a movie and rooted for the popular jock to beat the unpopular nerd?

And therein lies the problem with so many Conservatives these days: They are so certain that they are the nerds, they've missed the fact that they're actually the jocks. Feeling like things aren't as great at the top of the world as they used to be doesn't change the fact that you still have the best view. Being forced to share the walkway with everyone else is not the same thing as actually being tread upon.
So don't be surprised when everyone else doesn't find it funny when the prom king gives the scrawny kid a wedgie. And keep in mind that Ebeneezer Scrooge wasn't very funny.

Read More

10 Tactics To Get A Republican To Agree With You

Author: Matthew Malone May 8, 2013 12:01 am

 

1. Talk about lowering taxes. It’s like a dog whistle for them. Even if you’re saying it in the middle of another sentence — “I don’t think trickle down economics actually — LOWER TAXES — works for anyone except the super-rich.” They’ll start salivating and forget the rest of what you said.
2. Praise Ronald Reagan, but make sure not to point out that he actually agreed with President Obama on lots of issues (like taxes, for example).
3. Say something sympathetic like “Rush Limbaugh is misunderstood.” They’ll launch into a speech before they notice you’re being sarcastic.
 4. Agree that it makes sense to spend millions of dollars fighting foreign enemies that we created thanks to the stupidity of decades of “military intervention.”

 5. Question something about Obama as a man.. But instead of going for the old, worn-out ones that everyone already knows — you know, the facts, like that he’s a Muslim terrorist from Kenya sent to kill us all and destroy the free world — try starting a rumor that he’s an alien zombie sent to eat our brains.
6. Say something that ends in the words “Tea Party.” For example: “Zebras are pretty frickin’ sweet. Tea Party.” You’ll score automatic cool points with them even if it makes no sense.
7. Call the Affordable Care Act “Obamacare” and then say something about socialism encroaching on our individual liberties.
8. Bring them dinner: poor people meat patties with a side of cash. (Before you crucify me for that one, read Jonathan Swift.)
9. Tell them that the war on drugs is a good idea, because obviously if you fight against something you don’t like, it’ll go away. Just like crime and alcohol and prostitution and terrorism!
10. Above all else, avoid using too much logic, or you might confuse them.

Read More

‘You Know You’re a Liberal If…’ 33 Litmus Tests for Liberals

Author: Liberal Lamp Post May 8, 2013 12:04 am

1. You can discern the geographic distance between Kenya and Hawaii.

2. Bernie Sanders is one of your favorite senators.

3. You’re seriously considering dropping Verizon and switching to Credo Mobile.

4. You get much of your news from Rachel Maddow, Bill Maher and/or Jon Stewart.
5. You’re in favor of tax increases to support the common good even if you have to pay more yourself.

This, of course, is an ironic look at how Republicans see Liberals. www.peoplescube.com

6. You recognize that marijuana is physically less harmful than either cigarettes or alcohol.

7. You understand Citizens United is about 5 conservative justices who are united against citizens and who favor the corporate control of elections.

8. You get that Ron Paul is no better than the Tea Party.

9. You’ve pissed off a conservative in your life by railing against Fox News or Sarah Palin.

10. You have an “Obama ‘08” or “Obama 2012” logo riding on your bumper.

11. You are a fan of a dozen or more liberal pages on Facebook.

12. At some point, you wore dreads or went barefoot in public – or you know a few people who fit this description.

13. You read food labels.

14. You have gay friends and you respect them.

15. You probably graduated from college and your degree probably isn’t in marketing or business administration.

16. You post to Facebook and Twitter in support of liberal causes. A conservative friend may have un-friended you because of your posts.

17. You support the middle class.

18. You don’t think NPR is biased.

19. You think the Koch brothers are evil.

20. You’ve been following the dogged and brave uprising in Wisconsin.

21. You prefer to breathe non-cancer-causing air and drink non-toxic water.

22. You value a good standard of living for the public over corporate profits.

23. You believe people should be able to choose, in private, the family planning option that’s right for them.

24. You use hash tags like #p2, #p21, #topprog, and #taxtherich on Twitter.

25. You are serious about recycling.

26. You actually care that the ice caps are melting, coral reefs are dying and bio-diversity is diminishing.

27. You can find Iraq on a map while realizing that Iraq had nothing to do with 9/11.

28. You’ve been called a hippie, a bleeding heart or a tree hugger.

29. You believe education and health care should be subsidized for the common good.

30. GOP voter suppression is ticking you off enough to mobilize the vote within your circles.

31. You’ve given to a homeless person – ever.

32. You cringe when you hear Obama referred to as a “one-term president.”

33. You have gotten into a heated online debate with a Republican troll and even though you didn’t change their mind it still felt good to defeat their logic.

This is a work in progress! Add your own “You know you’re a liberal if” line in the comments below and we may include it in the sequel!

Visit The Liberal Lamp Post on the web:
The Liberal Lamp Post  – @LiberaLLamp on Twitter  – On Facebook
Click to view Liberal Lamp’s archive on this site or Click to contact the author of this post.

Read More

The right’s clueless gloating: Democratic civil war is only in their dreams

Sure, they can celebrate Obamacare's setbacks if they like. But conservatives' glee is unwarranted and premature VIDEO

Brian Beutler

 
Michele Bachmann (Credit: AP/Carolyn Kaster)

The proximate political goal of President Obama’s “you can keep your plan fix” was to calm restive congressional Democrats before they did anything rash …
… and it appears to have served that purpose.
That’s not to say everything’s fine now. But they’re off the ledge. The clarion calls from politically vulnerable Dems to do something, and do it fast, have subsided for the moment. And the hope is that in this window of relative repose the administration can get the website working, increase enrollment, and calm the public outcry.
At the same time it exposed the unctuousness of the right’s concern for people whose plans have been canceled. Republicans, who have been demanding a comparable legislative fix, are suddenly skeptical that this plan will work, and conservatives are torn between hoping Obama’s plan fails — that everyone’s plans remain canceled and they continue to blame him for it — or that it works too well and damages the law in the longer run.

But the fix hasn’t taken the shine off the right’s schadenfreude party. If you were expecting conservatives to react to the Democrats’ mad scramble with anything less than unrestrained glee you … well, I guess you don’t understand the politics of Obamacare.
Everyone’s entitled to a little gloating, I guess. But I do think conservatives — who just last month spilled gallons of ink explaining why conservatism wasn’t in collapse — are engaging in a bit of premature celebration.

Maybe Jim DeMint wasn't wrong that Obamacare would be the president's Waterloo.
— Jim Antle (@jimantle) November 14, 2013

Obamacare has a real problem — an enrollment bottleneck created by Healthcare.gov’s failure — and the truth is the wave of cancellations wouldn’t have been easily brushed off even if the website had been working perfectly. Together they’ve driven some Democrats into conflict with one another.
But the conflict isn’t especially deep. Ask congressional Democrats whether they support Sen. Mary Landrieu’s bill to require insurance carriers to reinstate canceled policies. Some will say no, some will say yes, some will have a different plan that they like better. Deep down they know that a ham-fisted solution shouldn’t become law, but they don’t feel like they can be caught supporting nothing either.
Ask them, by contrast, if they support the Affordable Care Act, or think it should be repealed, or regret their votes for it, or believe it can be fixed, or anything like that, and they’re unanimous.
You don’t have to squint very hard to notice that these divisions are about equal to, but opposite, the divisions within the Republican Party that resulted in a government shutdown last month. Every Republican agrees Obamacare is an excrescence that should be wiped off the books. But some of them had different ideas about how to respond to its imminent launch.
The difference is they chose the maximally self-destructive option. Maybe they wouldn’t have if they knew how badly the rollout would go. But that’s what they did. Conservative and moderate members openly attacked each other; grass-roots and establishment groups continue to do battle. Democrats, by contrast, are tranquil. They haven’t followed their desperation into a burning furnace.
Not yet, anyhow.
We’ll know Democrats are warring with each other, or in full retreat from the law, when Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi can’t restrain rank-and-file members from forcing legislative sabotage on Obama. That hasn’t happened yet. Obama’s administrative fix staved it off for the time being. But the scenario’s not outside the realm of possibility if the relaunch isn’t smooth, and enrollments fail to reach escape velocity.

Brian Beutler is Salon's political writer. Email him at bbeutler@salon.com and follow him on Twitter at @brianbeutler. More Brian Beutler.

RT "@kycarmona: “@MikeLoBurgio: GOP ’s clueless gloating: #Democratic civil war? dream on. http://t.co/8E7SR1MLbd pic.twitter.com/pPcNdAX6kL”"
— Rodiogal (@rodiogal) November 16, 2013

Read More

Aging Liberals Have the Best Sex Life According to Harvard Study

Carl Pierre on November 11, 2013

For any conservatives out there curious as to what life is like for their political counterparts , there’s no need to postulate or wonder: a Harvard study on happiness shows that aging liberals in fact have more robust sex lives compared to conservatives.
I know, high-fives all around.
This study, which took 75 years to actually finish, was started back in 1938 at Harvard University and examined the lives of 268 different male undergraduate students as well as the multitude of facets that go into ‘happiness’. The research, which was to establish what factors contribute the most to human males flourishing, is considered to be the most comprehensive of any study done and has accrued a plethora of data with interesting conclusions. One of the more fascinating (and arguably most important) findings of the study is that aging liberal men have way more sex than their conservative counterparts. The study shows that most conservative men become sexually inactive around age 68 where as most liberal men have had robust and active sex lives well into their 80′s. George Vaillant, the director of the study who spent more than three decades conducting it, noted this phenomena and its inexplicable nature in his book, “I have consulted urologists about this, and they have no idea why it might be so.”
Even though it may stump urologists, here are a few plausible reasons why aging liberals have so much more sex than conservatives:

• Unlike conservatives, liberals show a modicum of respect towards the right a woman has to do whatever she wants with her body, which I imagine would make finding a willing sex partner a lot easier
• Liberals have a strong grasp of how basic biology functions, unlike conservatives (there are ways to not get pregnant from rape, right?)
• Conservatives believe in repressing sexual desires and practicing abstinence where as liberals believe in embracing their sexuality in a way that’s both safe and wildly more realistic (and fun too)
• Liberals believe that love has no boundaries and that marriage is a basic right every loving couple should be privy to, conservatives do not (ever notice it’s all the liberals making out at LGBT rallies and not the conservatives?)
• Liberals are really, really, ridiculously good looking.

For those interested in reading more about the study and what factors correlate to happiness in males, you can check out George Vaillant’s book called the Triumphs of Experience. As for the rest of you folk who likely have aging liberal parents, when their bedroom door is closed, it’s probably for a reason.

Read More

10 Reasons Why Reading The Bible Makes Us More Progressive

November 13, 2013 By Benjamin Corey 

 

In a piece I published yesterday, (Study Shows: Reading Your Bible Often Makes You More Liberal), we took a look at a study I read the other day which showed the more often people read their Bible, the more liberal/progressive they become. (In yesterday’s article I used the term “liberal” but in today’s I’m using the term “progressive” since that’s what I identify as). Looking back on my own journey out of fundamentalist thinking and into a Christianity that is life-giving instead of life-sucking for me, this trajectory of moving away from the hard right the more I read my Bible, has been a daily reality.

From getting to know so many of your stories, it sounds like many of you have experienced similar paradigm shifts of predictable right-to-left movement the more you embraced the Bible as well.

(Quick point of order: I’m not saying that reading your Bible will make you all the way left, because certainly I am not on many issues. The argument is simply that for those of us on the hard right, when we read our Bibles more often, it tends to move us in a leftward motion on certain issues.)

The question becomes, why?

For those family and friends still stuck in a paradigm we have already left, when we move ever so slightly out of the far-right corner of the field we are assumed to be not taking the Bible seriously, accused of being “relativists”, and other assumptions are made as to why we are changing. The ironic truth however, is that so many of us have arrived at being Christian progressives not because we decided to set half the Bible aside, and not because we decided to stop taking the Bible seriously, but as a gradual process that resulted from taking the Bible more seriously and deciding to try to follow those often neglected parts.

We became Christian progressives because we read our Bibles, not because we put them away. It’s okay if you’re not here yet or if you ever will be, but it’s important to understand the truth about how and why we arrived here.

While this isn’t all comprehensive, based upon my own experience, here’s my list:

10 reasons why I think reading your Bible more frequently will make you a more Progressive Christian:

1. The more I read my Bible, the more I realize that I don’t have it all together.

Growing up I was frequently reminded that the Bible, through the Holy Spirit will convict us of sin… and you know what, it’s true. The more I get to know my Bible the more I realize how deeply flawed I am… which makes me see others more compassionately, because I am reminded that they are just like me. The more I see others as being just like me, the more progressive I become because I move in a trajectory of love, tolerance, and am way less likely to pronounce judgment on someone else than I was before. (Obviously, I still struggle with Mark Driscoll, but I am working on it.)

2. The more I read my Bible, the more I develop humility.

The Apostle Paul says that we should view our sins as being worse than anyone else, and that we should view ourselves as walking examples of how patient God is with people who can’t get it together. When I am honest about my life, that is absolutely true. I am a walking example of someone who knows how to test God’s patience, and my sins are just as bad as whatever yours might be. This realization made it too difficult to stay in my old paradigm; yes, I want to spend my life inviting people to experience Jesus (in that regard, I am completely still an “evangelical”), but I want to do it in a new way– a more humble way. I’m not always there (see #1) but I desperately want to get there.

3. The more I read my Bible, the more I discover that justice for the poor and oppressed is at the heart of it.

I wasn’t all that concerned about the poor and oppressed until I opened my Bible… and discovered that commands to care for them are all over the place from the Old Testament, all the way through the New Testament. I tried to escape it and explain it away, but I can’t– God wants us to care for, serve, and love these people.

4. The more I read my Bible, the more I realize “redistribution of wealth” wasn’t Obama’s idea– it was God’s.

That redistribution of wealth stuff? Yeah, it’s in the Bible and was actually God’s idea. In the Old Testament we have years of Jubilee, restrictions on gleaning your garden more than once, a command from God that there should be “no poor among you”, and prophets who came to denounce the nation when the rich grew richer and the poor grew poorer. Let’s not give Obama the credit– God thought of it first.

5. The more I read my Bible, the more I realize that the early Christians actually practiced this re-distribution of wealth.

Those early Christians? Well, for a time they actually practiced some radical economic principles. And, guess what? The book of Acts tells us that there weren’t any poor people among them. They rejected individual ownership, gave their wealth to leadership who in turn, redistributed it according to need. There weren’t any mandatory drug testing programs, just assistance according to need. While this still seems too radical for me, it moves me in a right to left trajectory as I read it.

6. The more I read my Bible the more I realize Jesus taught we need to pay our taxes.

After reading 4 and 5, some are probably saying “yeah, but that was never supposed to be the government’s job”. Well, in the life of Jesus we see him tell someone that he should “sell everything and give it to the poor”, and to yet another we see that Jesus commands us to pay our taxes. So, it looks like we’re not getting off the hook either way– we need to pay our taxes AND give private charity. It’s not an either or proposition. I’m not a fan of that either, but it’s in the Bible.

7. The more I read my Bible, the more I realize that God wants us to be people who are quick to show mercy.

The prophet Micah says that “loving mercy” is actually something God “requires” of us. Jesus tells us that justice and mercy are the “more important” parts of God’s law. This means that when it comes to issues of justice, economics, poverty, the death penalty, etc., I have become more quick to take the default position that sides with radical mercy.

8. The more I read my Bible, the more I realize that God cares how we treat immigrants.

Whenever God lists out a group of people that he wants his people to take care of, immigrants make the cut. The more I read about God’s heart for the immigrant, the more I realize that I might be held accountable for how I treat them, and how I talk about them.

9. The more I read my Bible, the more I realize that God will hold us accountable for how we care for the environment.

The more I read my Bible, the more I see that God’s original mandate for humanity, was to care for creation– we were designed for and given the task of being environmental conservationists. In the end? Well, we see that God is going to judge quite harshly those who refused:

“The nations raged, but your wrath came, and the time for the dead to be judged, and for rewarding your servants, the prophets and saints, and those who fear your name, both small and great, and for destroying the destroyers of the earth” (Rev 11:18)

Not sure how to escape it– God wants me to care for and protect the environment, so I will.

10. The more I read my Bible, the more I realize that God isn’t judging us by whether or not we get all of our doctrine right– he’s judging us by whether or not we get the “love one another” part right.

This aspect wasn’t a major player in my faith before, but the more I read the Bible the more I realize that God is less concerned with us all sharing the same doctrine but is heavily concerned with whether or not we love each other. In fact, Jesus said this would be the calling card of his followers, and how others would realize we’re actually following Jesus– that we love one another. The more I read my Bible, the more I want to defer my position or preference and instead side with what is in the best interest of others– because that’s the loving thing to do.

These are the 10 reasons why reading my Bible more made a more Progressive Christian. How has reading your Bible more often changed your worldview? Has your experience been similar or different?

Read More

50 right-wing news sources that are infecting the American mind

examiner.com

Republicans often talk about the media's "liberal bias" when many of their claims aren't validated. Ever since Sarah Palin was thrust into the spotlight in 2008, cries of "lame stream media" have been heard echoing through the ear drums of registered voters. Whether it's NBC, CBS, CNN, ABC or any other "main stream" news outlet, the right-wing are often quick to attack, claiming bias against conservatives and the Republican agenda.
While one major news channel, MSNBC, promotes a more progressive message during their prime time line-up, they promote themselves as liberal, tagging themselves with the slogan "lean forward." Other news channels, such as CNN, have actually taken steps to the right of the political spectrum in an attempt to capitalize on Fox News' ratings success.
Despite claims of media bias, the number one rated news channel is Fox News, the loudest voice for conservatism in the country. Even outside television, conservative media is often easily found. The overwhelming majority of talk radio is dominated by right-wing voices. Earlier this year, "Talkers" magazine released their annual "Heavy Hundred" list of the 100 most important radio show hosts in the country. Out of the top ten, only three would be described as "liberal" or "progressive," with the remaining being far right conservatives or libertarian. The rest of the list is similar to the top 10 as conservative talk shows heavily outnumber their liberal counter parts.
The internet is also a viable place to promote your political agenda. Conservative blogs and websites have popped up at a record number over the last few years and don't look to be slowing down any time soon.
While there are liberal talk shows and blogs, the conservative claim that the entire media has a bias favoring liberals is just false. The list below is simply a counter to that claim and, in no particular order, is a list of 50 of the worst places you could go to get your news and information.

1. Fox News
2. The Rush Limbaugh Show
3. Glenn Beck
4. Savage Nation w/ Michael Savage
5. Alex Jones' Info Wars
6. The Heritage Foundation
7. The Wall Street Journal Op-Ed
8. The Neal Boortz Radio Show
9. Sean Hannity
10. Bill O'Reilly
11. Rightwingnews.com
12. National Review
13. The Mark Levin Show
14. The Weekly Standard
15. Washington Times
16. The American Conservative
17. The Drudge Report
18. The Cato Institute
19. Media Research Center
20. Townhall.com
21. Red State
22. Andew Breitbart's Big Government
23. The American Cause
24. Christian Coalition
25. The John Birch Society
26. Citizens United
27. Freedom Works
28. Tea Party Express
29. Tea Party Patriots
30. The Herman Cain Show
31. News Busters
32. News Max
33. The New York Post
34. Conservative HQ
35. Sirius radio "Patriot"
36. Conservative American News
37. Conservative Daily News
38. Judicial Watch
39. The Source Daily
40. Republican National Committee
41. American Spectator
42. Reason Magazine
43. Freedom Rings Radio hosted by Kenneth
John
44. Conservapedia
45. The Right Side of the Web
46. CNS News
47. Michael Reagan
48. Family Research Council
49. Conservative Underground
50. The Hugh Hewitt Show

Suggested by the author

Rush Limbaugh worried Ohio kidnap victims might receive welfare benefits

Elizabeth Warren introduces student loan reform, lowers rates to what banks pay

Rush Limbaugh: Obama bragging about killing bin Laden led to attack in Benghazi

Fox News: Stop abortions by deregulating birth control, celebrate teen pregnancy

Apple dodges $9.2 billion tax bill, could have funded majority of sequester

 

Read More

Sorry, Tea Partyers: Religious right rooted in radical progressivism

How quickly Christian evangelicals forget their movement has a long history of demanding government intervention

Ira Chernus, AlterNet

Tea Party supporter William Temple holds up a tea pot as he shouts against President Barack Obama's 2010 health care overhaul outside the Supreme Court in Washington, June 28, 2012. (Credit: Reuters/Jason Reed)

This article originally appeared on AlterNet.

The media spotlight has focused on the growing split in the Republican Party between its corporate-business wing and the libertarian-leaning Tea Partiers. But what about the third leg of the GOP tripod, the one that used to get all the attention: the evangelical Christian religious right? That’s where the spotlight ought to be.

We know the corporate-business types want an active federal government, because it can be counted on to serve their interests, especially if Republicans regain control of it. We know that the libertarians, who are the driving force in the Tea Party, want to shrink government; that’s their whole reason for being.

What we don’t know yet, and what will determine the fate of the GOP, is which way the religious right will break in this intramural fight over the role of government. Even the conservative evangelicals themselves don’t know, because the split in the GOP runs smack down the middle of the religious right.

Many politically active evangelicals are happy to be Tea Partiers and align with the libertarian call for smaller government. They see government as a force imposing its secular ways upon them. And Tea Party politicians have been equally happy to talk the religious right talk because it wins them votes.

Many other evangelicals will join the corporate-business Republicans in rejecting the Tea Party’s extremist anti-government agenda. They’ll see why Tea Partying is a trap for them. Only a powerful government can do the things evangelicals want most, like banning abortion and gay marriage, and more generally, imposing strict rules of personal behavior on every American. The more the Tea Party weakens the government, the more it deprives the religious right of its most potent tool. That should be easy enough for most conservative evangelicals to see.

What most won’t see, though, is the hidden place where evangelicals and libertarians do meet: way back in U.S. history, where both movements were inspired by a radical worldview. Just as the libertarian call for less government has its roots in radical, not conservative, assumptions about human nature, so the religious right’s call for government intervention has deep roots in evangelical demands for policies that were radically progressive at the time. Some of them are still radical, even by today’s standards.

As early as the 1820s, the evangelical style of Christianity was beginning to dominate American political life. It didn’t stop dominating until the 19th century was over.

Looking back across the history of that century you’ll find evangelicals, demanding strong government intervention in everyone’s life, popping up in all sorts of places. And most of those places are well to the left of where you might expect them, if your view of evangelical politics is shaped only by the era of Ronald Reagan and Jerry Falwell.

Most famously, evangelical Christians led and filled the ranks of the movement to abolish slavery. Some (though far too few) even took the lead in treating African Americans as genuine equals. The best recent writing on the causes of the Civil War shows that evangelicalism was a crucial factor creating widespread popular resistance to the “peculiar institution.”

Without the spur of evangelical fervor there probably would have been no Republican Party, no President Lincoln, and no secession of the South. Slavery would not only have continued in the United States; it probably would have spread throughout the territories that became the new states of the Southwest, making it that much harder ever to abolish.

Antebellum evangelical reformers also took the lead in demanding that government provide free public education for all, more humane treatment of prisoners and the disabled, and more equality for women. Of course, most of their specific policy prescriptions seem too conservative by today’s progressive standards. But in their own day they were out on the cutting left edge of political life. And one of their demands—that government renounce war as an instrument of national policy—still sounds as radical as ever.

You’ll find all of these examples, and more, if you pick up any good book on 19th-century U.S. history.

I picked up one such book at random, just as I was beginning to write this column: Alan Trachtenberg’s The Incorporation of America, one of the most insightful histories of the Gilded Age, from the 1870s to the 1890s. When historians go looking for evangelicals supporting left-leaning government policies, they almost always look at the era of reform before the Civil War, not the Gilded Age that followed it. Yet just thumbing through Trachtenberg’s book I easily found evidence that the pattern lasted right through the 19th century.

Trachtenberg points out the powerful evangelical impulse in two of the era’s greatest political bestsellers, Henry George’s Progress and Poverty and Edward Bellamy’s Looking Backward. George wrote glowingly of “the noble dreams of socialism.” Bellamy advocated “the religion of solidarity… a system of public ownership… to realize the idea of the nation … as a family, a vital union, a common life.”

Both denounced the injustices of the emerging corporate system with “evangelical fervor,” says Trachtenberg, sustained by “religious emotions of ‘solidarity.’”

But there was more going on than just utopian words. There were workers organizing in the factories and the streets, dominated in the 1870s and 1880s by the Knights of Labor. The Knights intended to use government to achieve their goals—goals that today’s progressives still struggle for, like a fair and just income tax structure, guaranteed equal pay for women, and government ownership of utilities and transportation systems.

And they built their movement upon “an unmistakable fusion of republicanism and evangelical Protestantism,” in Trachtenberg’s words. “Workers found in Protestantism a profound ‘notion of right’ for their struggles.” They made “’the religion of solidarity’ proclaimed by Edward Bellamy and other Protestant reformers … a living experience within labor.” Obviously they saw no conflict between evangelical Christianity and a strong central government enforcing laws to create economic justice.

By the 1890s the Knights’ leading role in labor movement had been eclipsed by the American Federation of Labor. But as the Knights declined, the spirit that moved them was being picked up by an eclectic mix of movements that came to be grouped under the umbrella term, Populists. Their program was laid out most famously in the 1892 declaration of the People’s Party, which demanded that government support the interest of “the people,” not “capitalists, corporations, banks, trusts.”

That declaration was “composed in evangelical accents” and “rang with echoes of revivalism” as well as “backwoods democracy and grassroots outrage,” as Trachtenberg writes. “Populist spokesmen clothed themselves in the garb of righteous evangels.”

Like the Knights, the Populists were on a crusade to eliminate sin. But their political ideas also “drew from the movement’s roots in native radicalism, in a secular rhetoric of ‘equal rights’ and ‘anti-monopoly.’” And the main weapon Populists aimed to use was political power—enough power to make sure that their policies were enacted through government legislation, regulation, and strict enforcement.

Like most historians, Trachtenberg traces the decline of the Populists to their fateful decision, in1896, to join with the Democrats in making William Jennings Bryan their joint candidate for president. Bryan ran three times for the top job and lost all three times. Today, on the left, he’s most remembered as the evangelical Christian zealot who decried the teaching of evolution in the 1924 Scopes trial. But the infamous trial came near the end of his long life.

For most of that life he, more than any other American, carried the banner of radical reform in the name of God. It’s worth reading the details in Michael Kazin’s recent biography of Bryan. Kazin, a leading authority on Populism and an important progressive intellectual in his own right, makes it clear that in the late 19th century, and on into the early 20th, millions of evangelical Protestants saw it as a religious duty to demand that a strong government right the economic wrongs of the corporate capitalist system. The left in that era could not have emerged as a significant force without the tremendous boost it got from evangelical faith.

All this history should be more than mere curiosity to us. The Knights of Labor, the Populists, and the Bryanites were in many ways the forerunner of today’s progressive left. Their fusion of evangelical Christianity and strong progressive government holds lessons for, and poses questions to, progressives today.

The Republican Party may or may not be cracking up. Cracks in the GOP alliance don’t necessarily mean any advantage for progressives, of course. But they are windows of opportunity, if the left knows how to take advantage of them. It’s all a question of strategy.

A smart first step for progressives is to do whatever we can to widen those cracks. It’s the religious right, long the progressive left’s favorite target, that is now the richest target of opportunity. Because politically progressive evangelical Christianity is not merely a relic of the 19th century. It’s making a comeback.

That presents left progressives with a challenge. In your struggle for justice, would you ally with people who share your commitment to greater economic equality but would like to see government ban abortion and gay marriage? Today the question may seem abstract and hypothetical. Soon enough it may become a very real issue of debate for progressive strategists, and there are bound to be good arguments on both sides.

However, everyone should be able to agree that at least progressives outside the evangelical community should begin talking to folks inside that circle who are open to hearing the progressive message. Evangelicals will have to filter the message through their own beliefs, which means phrasing it in a somewhat different language.

Smart progressives will start learning that language, figuring out how to communicate with evangelicals and discover common ground. Smart progressives will also learn how to remind evangelicals, gently but persuasively, of their own radical political history, which many may not know.

The main goal here should be to make the progressive tent wide enough to make room for evangelicals. Though we are far from the 19th century, evangelicals can now, as then, bring a unique kind of energy into progressive movements that can pay off. As a side benefit, moving evangelicals to the left will also widen the cracks in the shaky conservative alliance and hasten the day when it can no longer hold itself together.

Ira Chernus is a Professor of Religious Studies at the University of Colorado at Boulder. Read more of his writing about Israel, Palestine and the U.S. on his blog.

Read More

Mary Burke brings in big guns to unseat Scott Walker

Mary Burke brings in big guns to unseat Scott Walker

by Ole TexanFollow

 

Mary Burke has never run for statewide office, but her deep pockets have allowed her to bring in a veteran team of handlers who have worked on some of the biggest political races in the country.

 "So Let`s bring it home Girl!"

 "And Let`s talk John Doe people"

In putting together the team so quickly, Burke is signaling her ability to run a lengthy campaign to oust Gov. Scott Walker in 2014. Some of the same people who brought you President Obama's re-election campaign will do the same for Democrat Mary Burke in her run for Wisconsin governor.
She's also making it more difficult for another Democrat to jump into the race, although state Sen. Kathleen Vinehout of Alma has considered waging a grass-roots primary battle.
Jim Margolis, who handled advertising for President Barack Obama's two national campaigns, has signed on as Burke's media strategist.
Diane Feldman, who polled for Tammy Baldwin's successful U.S. Senate campaign in 2012 and Gwen Moore's 2004 race for Congress, will be Burke's pollster.
Pete Giangreco, who was the lead of direct mail for Obama's first Democratic presidential primary campaign as well as Baldwin's 2012 campaign, will run Burke's direct mail operation.
According to a Marquette University Law School poll of 800 registered voters had Walker with 47% and Burke with 45%. Seventy percent of those polled said they did not know enough about Burke to have either a favorable or unfavorable view of her.

Over at the right-wing Journal/Sentinel news ala Fox the panic and rhetoric by Republicans is as crazy and fear mongering as ever:

Joe Fadness, state Republican Party executive director, said, "This is the latest example showing how far Democratic Party bosses will go to silence the grass-roots and prevent a primary. Insiders and consultants picked Mary Burke in a back room to run a campaign to take Wisconsin backward. These are the same people who told Mary Burke to run a no-promises campaign and not be upfront with Wisconsin voters."

Universal opinions as I understand is that Scott Walker is a target in a criminal investigation pursuant to a John Doe probe that has been ongoing for several years. In my own personal political knowledge data bank I have to agree with myself that this issue has to be addressed during Mary Burke`s campaign. But then, I am not schooled far enough on these political issues and my opinions might differ from the strong and competent arsenal of Burke`s campaign strategists. However, I will repeat what has so many times been said about "us" coming out to vote on elections days, whether local or national I have to agree that what Margolis and others with the Obama team were credited with running an effective media campaign. They used analytics and data to reach voters in ways beyond television ads.
While this advise is sound, I still think Democrats in Wisconsin must come out in waves, to dethrone this "divide and conquer" Republican mentality. I will post my sources so you can read and make up your own minds as to whether Mary Burke will kick Scott Walker`s ass
come 2014.

Read More

Southern Democrats Are Raking In The Dough, Has The Country Finally Had Enough Of The GOP?

Author: Deborah Montesano October 18, 2013 2:30 pm 

 

Southern Democrats running for 

Senate in 2014 are pulling in big

 donations with their fundraising. 

There goes the Republican party’s

 plan for a takeover! With

 $2.5 million to about $2.27 million, 

Alison Lundergan Grimes is 

out-fundraising Senate Minority 

Leader Mitch McConnell.

 Photo from 

Alison Lundergan Grimes for Kentucky.

A funny thing is happening to the GOP’s quest to capture the Senate. In a new phenomenon, Southern Democrats who are seeking Senate seats are raking in big bucks from donors.
The fundraising report for the third quarter of the year, which ended September 30th, shows the gains the Southern Democrats are making. In almost every case, Democrats out-raised their Republican counterparts. By a lot in some cases.
One of the most impressive showings is in the Kentucky race. Senator Mitch McConnell’s opponent, Southern Democrat Allison Lundergan Grimes, completed her first fundraising quarter. McConnell bragged that the third quarter was his best money-making one ever. But Lundergan Grimes outdid him, $2.5 million to about $2.27 million. Lundergan Grimes adviser Jonathan Hurst said money poured into her campaign from every state in the nation and every county in Kentucky.

The seat of Southern Democrat Sen. Mary Landrieu, D-La., was expected to be vulnerable to a takeover in 2014. But that’s not what the money’s saying. Landrieu raised almost $1.4 million last quarter. Her Republican challenger, U.S. Rep. Bill Cassidy, brought in half as much. Then there’s North Carolina’s Senator Kay Hagan, who fared even better. She brought in $1.9 million, while her likely opponent, North Carolina House Speaker Thom Tillis, gained, oh, about $700,000.
Georgia’s Democratic candidate is a first-timer. Michelle Nunn, daughter of former Senator Sam Nunn, didn’t announce her candidacy until July 22nd. That was well into the third quarter, but Nunn didn’t waste any time. She raised $1.7 million by the end of September. The figure is more than twice what either of her top two GOP challengers received. Remember, this a Southern Democrat we’re talking about!
Even the Southern Democrats’ bad news is good news. Natalie Tennant, D-W.Va, raised a mere $150,000. GOP candidate Shelley Moore Capito received $778,000. However, Tennant’s total was from just two weeks. At that rate, if she had been fundraising for the whole quarter, her total would have been $900,000. She would have easily outpaced Capito.
The GOP’s strongest Southern showing for the quarter was in Arkansas. While the Republican candidate, U.S. Rep. Tom Cotton, won bragging rights by out-raising the incumbent Democrat, Sen. Mark Pryor, the difference was less than $6,000. Basically, it was a draw.

Are Southern Democrats poised to take back the South?

The news is enough to make one believe, or at least hope, that the Republican stranglehold on the South is about to break. There’s been a strong GOP push to keep the party’s boot on the region’s throat. The fact that Republicans have dominated Southern statehouses and legislatures resulted in intense gerrymandering. The result was supposed to guarantee safely conservative districts. Add that to the Supreme Court’s decision to gut the Voting Rights Act and future wins for Southern Democrats looked like an impossible dream.
However, a couple of significant movements have come to the rescue. One seems to be a spontaneous outpouring of support for any Southern Democrat who shows an ability to stand up to hardcore conservatives. Such is the case for Allison Lundergan Grimes as she opposes conservative Majority Leader. Given the GOP’s recent efforts to bleed the country for their own ill-conceived gain, Democrats might have success running any candidate who registers a pulse. But by showing the voters a candidate who is both dynamic and committed to serving the public, the whole picture for 2014 is rearranged.
The other effort is an organized one. A new political organization, the Southern Progress Fund (SPF) has cropped up. SPF was started in the summer by Mississippi’s former governor, Ronnie Musgrove. As an unincorporated organization, it can take in unlimited donations which can then be funneled to Southern Democratic candidates. In addition, it will work to counter the most  destructive Republican efforts like voter suppression, mainly by registering new voters and getting them to the polls.
On its website, SPF makes a point that many Americans are starting to grasp: traditional Southern values are also Democratic values. ‘Standing together’ and ‘helping one another’ form the bedrock of the country’s character. Unfortunately for the GOP, its members just don’t get it.
 

Read More

Why the Religious “Right” is Completely Wrong

Posted by Allen Clifton 


I’m a Christian, but I’ll also be the first to admit that I’m not what you might call a “religious person.”  I believe in God, Jesus Christ and an afterlife—I just don’t believe that any man-made religion should tell me the right or wrong way to worship my faith.
I also don’t view my faith as a belief in symbols or deities.  While I believe in God and Jesus, I don’t believe my devotion to my faith has anything to do with how much I talk about — or devote time to — either.
Because the type of person I am is proven by how I treat others, not deities of faith.  Isn’t humility the sign of a true leader?  Great leaders don’t want the praise, the glory, the attention—they want others to have it.  So why would my God be any different?
Isn’t God supposed to be the definition of greatness?  Why would I then hold Him to such a low standard?
I believe God and Jesus exist, and as beings which I’ve chosen to put my faith in, I don’t believe either of them are these egotistical a-holes that the religious right seem to make them out to be.
Why would anyone honestly worship someone they feared?  That never made sense to me.  ”Fear God”—why??
If God is all knowing and all loving, who “gave his only begotten son” for the sins of all humankind, why would he be such a vengeful prick as many Republicans and hardcore religious zealots make Him out to be?
It’s never made any sense to me.  I fear evil dictators, murderers—generally bad people.  And I sure as hell wouldn’t worship someone, or something, which I viewed negatively.
But even beyond the symbols which represent Christianity, I see my faith as something that should be transcendent.  Values which shouldn’t just represent faith but human kindness in general.
These values aren’t just tied to my faith, which is why I have chosen to follow that faith.  I believe the values which represent true Christianity are those that represent true humanity.  
So you can be an atheist, Muslim, Buddhist—whatever, doesn’t matter.  If your goal in life is to be a good person, help others and treat others with kindness, call yourselves whatever you want—we’re all following the same system of beliefs.
We just differ on what happens once we die.  But then, who really cares?  Because that’s what “religions” really break down to.  What happens when we die.  Our treatment and view of humanity, for people who represent true goodness, goes beyond a single set of any faith’s points of view.  We call ourselves what we call ourselves, but who we are goes beyond words or labels.
It’s how we treat others and exist in this world that matters.  Not what we call ourselves, how often we sit inside of a building or what percentage we tip to our religion.
To me, Christianity isn’t targeted around a believe in God or Jesus — it’s about being good to one another, helping one another, defending those who can’t defend themselves, accepting those who are different, forgiveness and kindness.
Anyone can claim to believe in God, Jesus and call themselves a Christian.  A claim to believe in these symbols of Christianity does not make someone a Christian.
Horrific acts have often been committed in “the name of God and Christianity.”  So to me, words are cheap — actions are what matter.
You can go to church all you want, read the Bible 100 times, give 10% each Sunday to your church and participate in as many church functions as you can make time for, but if you’re a judgmental, ignorant prick—what’s the point?
At that point, “faith” just turns into a self-serving placebo to make these types of people feel better about themselves.  They go to church because they’re supposed to.  They give 10% each week to their church because it’s what they’re told they’re supposed to do.  They participate in these church functions often because, “What might people think of them if they’re not there?”
You know—other judgmental, ignorant pricks.
It’s a group of self-serving people surrounding themselves with others just like them in a circle of hate, fear, ignorance and paranoia.  They perpetuate this belief that attending a building once a week, tithing 10% and volunteering to appease others caught in this cycle of ignorance suddenly makes you a “good Christian person.”
All the while, many of these people judge, hate, fear, loathe and persecute anyone who is different from themselves.  They do this while claiming they worship a man who stood for acceptance, love, hope, compassion and helping others.
It makes absolutely no damn sense.
Because let’s look at facts.  Adolf Hitler often spoke that his actions were those of God, and the Westboro Baptist Church believes they’re fighting the cause of Christianity.
Neither represent, or represented, the values for which Jesus Christ lived.
Words are cheap.  Like I said, anyone can call themselves a Christian.  But it takes true belief in goodness, kindness and morality to actually represent the values for which true Christianity symbolizes.
Which are traits many who proudly call themselves the “religious right” simply don’t represent.

Related Posts on Forward Progressives:

• Dear “Religious Right”: Church Attendance Doesn’t Make You a…
• I’ve Had It With the Radical “Religious” Right
• If You Think YOU Loathe the Westboro Baptist Church, Then You Should Read This
• So I Wondered to Myself, What Might “Republican Jesus” Say at a…
• “Coming Out Liberal”: Why Some Conservatives Fear Renouncing Their…

 

Read More