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The Madison worker uprising shook up the US political landscape. State governments that were peacefully going about their business forcing workers and communities to pay for upper class gluttony are facing resistance on a scale they had not imagined.
Let's Not Take America Back!
Seeded on Fri May 27, 2011 5:38 AM EDT
Article Source: OpEdNews.Com Progressive
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- Public Discussion (14)
A period of right-wing ascendancy is giving way to one of right-wing consolidation. Anything that stands in the way of capital accumulation has been targeted for elimination. The public square will either expand with a new wave of civic participation or it will shut down and sold off to the best-connected bidder. There's not much room for compromise. Under these conditions we need to make common cause among all sectors who are in the cross-hairs. Workers -- unionized, non-union and displaced -- citizen and immigrant; service providers and service recipients; cast-off veterans and cast-out homeless; and the discriminated-against of all flavors, are the basis for a coalition of the discarded. Such unity can only be forged under a program that embraces all of us; one that fights unapologetically for our common good.
Nostalgia for a lost era of relative comfort and merit-based upward mobility also the theme song of the Tea Party. They take it one logical step further, though: if the white "middle class" had a measure of success and security due to its own hard work, then it follows that those who didn't experience that security must not have worked as hard or been as smart. For them taking America back is explicitly a return to a time when the dark, the gay, the female and the foreign were kept in their place. Those days are not coming back; they lie crushed in the rubble of a crumbling superpower and the shimmering mirage of its casino economy. That's not a bad thing.
- 8 votes
#1 - Fri May 27, 2011 5:40 AM EDTWe're not fighting an invasion, we're leading a revolution. This is kicking the Romans out of Rome.
These silent masters control every aspect of our lives. They've reached into our very minds to make us work against our own good. They manipulate our leaders like puppets.
Who can help us?
It's time to strike back for ten thousand years.
- 12 votes
When someone talks about "taking us back" I like to remind them that you cannot get to the future by looking in the rear view mirror.
And the future is coming, whether you want it to or not. The past is gone.
- 13 votes
#2 - Fri May 27, 2011 6:06 AM EDTExactly AdipicAcid! Only people who are in dementia lives in the past.
- 6 votes
Although to be fair, it is also not safe to drive by completely ignoring the rear view either. I worry some of my progressive friends may be engaged in just that.
- 7 votes
I have no problem going back to a time when we were a manufacturing powerhouse and everything wasn't made in China.
Or before the Patriot act which is domestic spying or holding foreigners prisoners indefinitely without trial. Or a time when we were at war with no one instead of fighting three different unnecessary wars all of which do nothing but create more war. I would really like to go back to a time when people loved living in America for the economic opportunity rather than the entitlement programs.
- 7 votes
#3 - Fri May 27, 2011 6:35 AM EDTFor the record though, I should point out that the Patriot Act is not the legal reason why combatants are being held. Enemy combatants can be held for the duration of hostilities. So long as Al Qaeda is at war with us (and they've said it's forever, until they die or we die/convert to Islam), we can hold their jihadists.
The absolute key thing in this case is to make darned sure that the people that we hold are in fact combatants, that they weren't simply accidently caught up in a raid, or were detained for being in the wrong place at the wrong time. If they're genuine Al Qaeda members, they can be held; but if they're not combatants, they can be released.
This gets complicated due to the fact that we aren't fighting a nation-state with a traditional army. They don't wear uniforms, they don't adhere to western/international law norms of how partisans are legally supposed to act, etc. Thus, things get legally and morally muddy.
But it has nothing to do with the Patriot Act.
But I agree with you that Libya and Iraq were not necessary conflicts. I think there needed to be something done in Afghanistan, but I'm not 100% sure what the optimal course of action there is.
@PowerIsKnowledge: It amazes me how your very short paragraph has brought out such equally succinct, deep thoughts. I'll remember from this day forward that "only people with dementia lives in the past. And that looking in the rear view mirror is not the way to re-instate the parts of the past that holds values that would still be excellent today".
- 3 votes
#4 - Fri May 27, 2011 7:44 AM EDTThe GOP and the right wing are still in shock after Obama was elected because Obama was the true Washington outsider. That was when we took our country back.
GOP stalling, complaining, blaming, voting no, and obstruction, isn't helping America.
After the GOP saw that their 8 years of failure under the Bush administration would not play well in future elections they had GOP members who started up and funded the "tea party" as a distraction so they could run future campaigns on anything else but their 8 failed years in power.
All the false rhetoric coming from the "tea party" hasn't helped America either, the "tea party" is just pushing legislation they never ran their campaigns on pulling a bait & switch on Amerian voters.
These new "tea party" candidates are voting along with the GOP, pushing legislation that helps their Corporate donors, and pushing legislation that is CUTTING JOBS!!
The "tea party" push to break the backs of unions is cutting jobs from teachers, nurses, police and firefighters. How is job cutting helping America? How is taking away the rights of Americans to form a union helping America? How is cutting salaries and benefits from workers helping America?
You haven't seen ONE "tea party" candidate give up their own free government run healthcare.
You haven't seen ONE "tea party" candidate march on Wall Street to protest the "bailouts".
You also haven't seen ONE "tea party" candidate congratulate Obama on the success of the stimulus the GOP took credit for in their home districts or the successfull comeback of the American Auto Industry.
The "tea party" candidates are voting with the GOP and nothing has changed, these "tea party" candidates are doing nothing different because the Corporate donors and GOP donors didn't fund their "tea party" campaigns to do things "differently", they funded the "tea party" so they can get back to business as usual.
The GOP and the "tea party" don't want to "take the country back" they just want to take the power back.
- 6 votes
#5 - Fri May 27, 2011 9:12 AM EDTThis article is proof positive that Freedom of Speech exists - even when it includes almost no truth. Does anybody really believe any of that? It's boilerplate Progressive-Union rhetoric.
- 3 votes
#6 - Fri May 27, 2011 9:35 AM EDTCan you please provide real FACTS supporting your premise kjm.
- 2 votes
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