[onlooker]

"I agree with you that liberals and progressives generally want to control peoples' pocketbooks." You can say I am also with Robin Hood as in Plants analysis that he was an anti-govt. and anti-tax activist. So, I have developed into what you can call an Anarchist. Suspicious of any top down power structure. In an Anarchy it is people living together without any ruling structure per say. Simply, cooperating to be able to live and live relatively harmoniously. Taxing is just a form of control and servitude.

[vtsnowedin]

I've yet to see a Progressive Party Platform here for our consideration.
Let me suggest a few in no particular order.
1. Reinstate Glass -Steagall to keep the bankers from placing bets with our deposits.
2. Make it illegal to purchase a credit default swap against an asset or bond you don't own and limit you to just one CDS to cover the value of the bond.
3. Audit the fed.
4. Close down Fanny May and Freddy Mac. Make banks that write loans hold and service them.
5. Close down the Federal department of education and repeal all federal requirements so that states might choose different more effective courses of action.
6. Cut all federal salaries thirty percent.
7. Reduce the federal highway department to an advisory council. reduce the federal gas tax to one penny a gallon and disperse the highway fund in a final no strings attached payout. This would remove the time consuming and wasteful process of sending money to Washington and then have Congress send it back as pork barrel projects.
8. End federal subsidies and tax credits for all energy related expenses, Solar, wind, corn ethanol,oil depletion, etc.
9. Reduce or eliminate Congresses role in the decision making process of what defense weapons and systems to buy to stop buying things a congressman wants that the Pentagon doesn't need or want.
10. Reduce student loan (past and future) interest rate to 0.5% and collect the payments as a one or two percent withholding on wages until the loans are paid.
11. (For tax day approcheth) Eliminate the need to file taxes for anyone that is a regular employee that has withholding taken out of their pay and has an employer filing electronic W-2s and paying in SS and medicaid taxes. The NSA ?IRS computer already has all your info (and money). Have the bleeping thing compute your taxes and send your bank account your refund.

[Fishman]

Cid, thanks so much for confirming the second part of my post. Blacks not lining up behind the left!!! That means you have even less of a crumbling base as I mentioned. Progressives have run out of money to pay off all the subgroups they have tried to piece together for votes. I noticed Bernie was pretty much on his knees begging Sharpton shortly afterward
Hey, I'm enjoying the Bernie shift, apparently Hillary isn't crazy enough for the Democratic party any more

[ennui2]

cooperating to be able to live and live relatively harmoniously.

In other words, you are a totally unrealistic dreamer.

[onlooker]

The first step to achieving something is to dream it. Perhaps some like you see me as quixotic but in the words of a John Lennon "You may say that I am a dreamer but I am not the only one, I hope someday you will join us and the world will live as one". For too long we have relegated ourselves to our primitive impulses, now more than even is the time for all people to imagine and seek a better way, a more evolved way. Our potential as benign beings exists, if only only each one of us truly search it out.

[ennui2]

Supposedly John Lennon was a woman-beater and at times supported IRA terror. The darker aspects of human nature are never going away. They are part of who we are. Stripping away government won't solve that. If anything it might just bring that to the fore-front. The whole "if the cat's away, the mouse can play" attitude ala people walking away with TVs during Katrina.

[vtsnowedin]

Supposedly John Lennon was a woman-beater and at times supported IRA terror. The darker aspects of human nature are never going away. They are part of who we are. Stripping away government won't solve that. If anything it might just bring that to the fore-front. The whole "if the cat's away, the mouse can play" attitude ala people walking away with TVs during Katrina.

Any system you put in place has to have mechanisms (government) to enforce the rules to protect those that play by the rules from those that would break them if left free to do so. The problem comes when some unscrupulous people get into positions of power and they use the power of government to break or change the rules in their favor instead of for the common good.
The two extremes of that currently are corporations seeking tax breaks that exempt them from all taxes and liberals wanting to tax the rich at rates as high as 95 percent. Both are wrong and cannot be allowed.

[Plantagenet]

....John Lennon was a woman-beater and ....supported IRA terror.

What a bunch of crazy BS.

Let's get back to the topic please

[Plantagenet]

OA 206 activists ....belong to a group of right-wing agitators attempting destroy the reputation of the Black Lives Matter movement and incite a war between Democrats and Blacks.

Actually Outside Agitators 206 are black nationalists. They are left wingers----even more radical than Black Lives Matter. Rather then reforming the police they want to destroy the current system and push the police entirely out of black communities

Just as progressives and democratic socialists lie to the left of liberals, communists and radicals like OA206 lie to the left of progressives

Cheers!

[ennui2]

....John Lennon was a woman-beater and ....supported IRA terror.

What a bunch of crazy BS.

Let's get back to the topic please

That was absolutely on-topic. Onlooker has a very naive attitude about the inherent goodness of human nature to think we can just handle our own affairs without conflict (anarchy). The fact that he would cite someone who himself harbored a dark side is case in point that he's wrong.

Oh, and BTW, you are the last person to school anybody on staying on topic, the way you drag Obama into every f*cking thread. So stop trying to act as a moderator.

[onlooker]

I do not think it is so naive. The Native Americans Indians lived for a thousand or more years in relative harmony. Humans are known for the altruism and caring within groups. I do not think it is a stretch to envision or imagine that in a less populated world and one whereby civilized norms have a precedence and one whereby people would have been taught a very hard lesson of the consequences of certain human vices, people can adapt to live in relative harmony and cohesion with an ethos of peace, harmony, self sacrifice and devotion to one another and Nature.

[vtsnowedin]

I do not think it is so naive. The Native Americans Indians lived for a thousand or more years in relative harmony. .

You cant be serious. Cultures where every adult male is a "Brave" or "Warrior"
Others that sacrificed a baby every sunrise and at least one adult every sunset on top of blood drenched pyramids. You call that relative harmony?

[Cid_Yama]

Plant you are so full of shit. Far Leftist Sarah Palin supporter? Trying to drive a wedge between Democrats and Blacks? Trying to destroy the reputation of Black Lives Matter?

This is just more O'Keefe style Dirty Tricks.

And Fishman, go back and read the first post in this thread. Your time is at an end.

[Cid_Yama]

You can say I am also with Robin Hood as in Plants analysis that he was an anti-govt. and anti-tax activist.

WRONG. In the story of Robin Hood, Robin Hood supported the legitimate government (King Richard) against the usurpers led by his brother John. He was against the injustices of John impoverishing the people through harvesting ALL of the wealth of the nation, as is happening today. And not by the legitimate government or through taxes but through pillage.

Robin Hood fought to preserve the legitimate government against the usurpers towards the day of Richard's return. And worked to preserve the people through this time of injustice.

Do you not learn this stuff as kids anymore? When I was a child every child knew this.

And did you not read the difference between Progressives and Liberals? You continue to conflate the two.

Progressives fight against injustice. Against the policies put in place by the usurpers to harvest the wealth of the nation and put it in their own pockets. Policies that PREVENT Free Enterprise. Policies that PREVENT small businesses from competing with corporations. Policies that restrict and control and crush individual initiative.

Notice the Pro-Corporatists immediately tried to derail this thread.

[onlooker]

"Notice the Pro-Corporatists immediately tried to derail this thread." Yep, I think I get that part Cid, as in trying to conflate Robin Hood with anti-tax and anti-govt. is really the right wing agenda in this country about getting the Govt. of the way and out of peoples pockets. Even while Corporations run amuck asking and getting huge tax break and bailouts. Exporting jobs, eliminating unions, subverting the entire political class and structure, polluting the commons, trying to dismantle the social safety net because ignorant folk in this country think if we did this suddenly all the ills of this country would go away and because people have to "earn" their livelihood. As if people in the stock market who have dividends and shares earn anything, they just park their money and wait for the payouts. Oh and tell senior citizens, drug addicts, disabled people and people born in rundown neighborhoods etc. they have to earn their way. Yeah right.

[Cid_Yama]

For too many of us the political equality we once had won was meaningless in the face of economic inequality. A small group had concentrated into their own hands an almost complete control over other people's property, other people's money, other people's labor - other people's lives. For too many of us life was no longer free; liberty no longer real; men could no longer follow the pursuit of happiness.

Against economic tyranny such as this, the American citizen could appeal only to the organized power of government.

That is why Pro-Corporatists want a weak, practically non-existent Government (or one that is corrupt and turned to their own purposes). They know that the power of a strong organized government "of the people, by the people, and for the people" is the only thing that can stand against them.

I want to reemphasize, the reason they want to dismantle government, it's the only thing that can stand against them.

The Good of Government

Government provides roads and sewers, forcasts the weather, provides disaster relief. Government is how we have fire depts and EMS, police and rescue. Governments provide legal recourse through the courts. Government lights our streets, provides navigational signals, and a million other things we use in our everyday lives.

Govenment is how we provide for our collective needs. The government is us taking care of ourselves. Of the people, by the people, for the people.

We fight to keep it that way.

From FDR's speech:
It was natural and perhaps human that the privileged princes of these new economic dynasties, thirsting for power, reached out for control over government itself. They created a new despotism and wrapped it in the robes of legal sanction. In its service new mercenaries sought to regiment the people, their labor, and their property. And as a result the average man once more confronts the problem that faced the Minute Man.

The hours men and women worked, the wages they received, the conditions of their labor - these had passed beyond the control of the people, and were imposed by this new industrial dictatorship. The savings of the average family, the capital of the small-businessmen, the investments set aside for old age - other people's money - these were tools which the new economic royalty used to dig itself in.

They have failed to eliminate or fully take control of our government. Regulation still binds them. The will of the people still has sway. The government is filled with many who defend her and the people from this encroachment. The battle continues.

Their mercenaries try to break your will. Try to convince you the battle is lost. Try to convince you that it is the government that is your enemy. The government is THEIR enemy.

The government remains in the hands of the people. The government is the battleground and the prize they seek to take from the people. The government is the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence. The government is us and our dreams. And we shall fight to protect it to our dying breath.

[onlooker]

thanks for that excerpt Cid. Yes, the founding fathers also talked about this in allusions to our fledgling Democracy how we have a democracy as long as we can keep it. The point being that the citizens had to be engaged in issues concerning all and in petitioning their representatives to voice their grievances etc. The problem is both the apathy of the masses and the seductive nature of power and wealth allowing for the subordination of politicians and the political process. Any govt. must always be held accountable by the people if not then as someone else once said, the people get the govt. they deserve.

[ennui2]

But if the people's attitude towards government shifts towards an Ayn Randian invisible-hand deregulation direction then we get the government we deserve.

[onlooker]

But if the people's attitude towards government shifts towards an Ayn Randian invisible-hand deregulation direction then we get the government we deserve.

which is pretty much, in a nutshell the Republican platform or stance.

[vtsnowedin]

.....
......As if people in the stock market who have dividends and shares earn anything, they just park their money and wait for the payouts. ......

Did they not earn their initial investment ? Or perhaps their parents did. Do they not risk it by putting it in the hands of corporate management? Without that capital would there be any industry to provide you with all the things you consume from diapers to caskets?
Don't you have any retirement fund? Is it not partially invested in stocks? Did you earn that money and are you not earning your final payout?