Buchanan quote...

[Union Thug]

So i think it was MTP earlier today. Buchanan says, "there hasn't been a liberal elected in over forty years."

So, why is it that every Democrat that has run for president in the last forty years has been branded by the ConservaFascists as an evil, god hating, 'tax and spend' liberal? I just don't get it.

[HuckleB]

1. Sometimes he lets the truth slip out.

Buchanan has discussed (on television, at least twice that I remember) the Nixonian policy of branding the press as liberal, discussing how this has become an old wive's tale on the right, but that those who started knew that the point was to move the press even further to the right, and, well, it worked like a charm.

[Lestatdelc]

3. BINGO

This is what Scaife, Coors and Weyrich money has spent hundreds of millions, and literally 4 decades trying to do.

[lanparty]

9. I have respect for Buchanan ...

The man is honest.

I don't necessarily agree with him on every topic, but he doesn't misrepresent himself.

[Lestatdelc]

2. Moving the goalposts

If you keep redefining moderate further and further to the right, you move the goal-posts. Clinton was a centrist at best ( I would argue right of center on some issues)... and the Fright-Wing™ have painted him to the left of Mao.

That is what the Dems still haven't truly embraced.. the notion that we are facing an intractable foe, who we can never compromise with. Because compromising with ideologues only empowers and emboldens them. The drag the nation right, inch by inch to the detriment of us all.:

[Union Thug]

4. Good points, all..

This is exactly what's happened over the passed 30 years. How do we start moving the goal post back?

[Lestatdelc]

5. Tough sell

The mass media is by and large a corporate creature which has no interest in hard-biting objectivity. They pursue what is best form their PR position about how well they do news-wise.

We need to change the lazy thinking in J-Schools in our educational system for a start.

Fuck "balance" we need objectivity. J-Schools approach to objectivity is to present competing talking points and somehow "objectivity" and "truth" will be what is left. But it doesn't work that way.

I think the speed of the news cycle, which is amped up by the need for an every upward market share and revenue stream are a direct challenge and wrk against the hard digging and search for the facts and objectively sifting through what is presented from all sides of an issue in their talking points nad spin.

But I think that there is a fundamental flaw in the schooling that goes on in J-school which must be addressed.

[Disturbed]

6. Confusion

Most Dems are only "liberal" on a few domestic issues. The Dems foreign policies are in line with the Right Wing regarding Imperialism and Israel.

As long as we on the Left keep allowing the Dems in Congress and not voting Green &/or Socialist Party USA for the Senate and the House we will keep being dominated by the Plutocracy which most Dems serve.
I keep butting heads with Socialist because they tell me that the Greens are hung up on reforming Capitalism, which is a waste of energy and time. I say that it would be better to have more Green Party members in Congress than have zero representation.

[Union Thug]

7. You spoke my thoughts perfectly..

I've been considering a green or socialist vote for some time. Since Kucinich, the only Dem to truly represent ME and my politics is viewed as too far left by the mainstream dems, I feel completely marginalized by the party that my parents and grandparents have so dutifully supported over the years.

I'll vote Dem this time around. There is no doubt that Bush must go and Kerry is the only alternative out there. BUt after this, if the center keeps moving right, I am voting Socialist or Green.

[lanparty]

10. INTERNET !!!!

The internet is really the worst nightmare of the neo-cons. They cannot control it. Even the a totalitarian society like China can't completely block out the internet.

We basically need NEW media sources to supercede the old corrupted ones. I forsee that many print medias will emerge from internet blogs and the like.

I don't think you can CHANGE this media. You simply have to REPLACE it.

[starroute]

8. Liberals used to believe in making the world a better place

But when they lost their utopian vision of a better world, liberals were left with no goals except bringing the poor and disenfranchised up to the level of everyone else. That not an unworthy goal -- but it isn't a call to transcendence. It doesn't inspire people with the promise of attaining something beyond their present horizons.

The right has been exploiting that limitation of the left ever since. By painting the Democratic Party as a collection of special interest groups. By demonizing the various movements for civil rights, women's rights, and gay rights. By planting the idea that the poor can be brought up only by shoving the middle class down.

We badly need a new dream and a new vision of the future. If we have that, the Republicans -- the party of things-as-they-are -- won't stand a chance. But the question is where that vision is to come from. The utopian dreams of the past -- based on technology or on social engineering -- won't cut it.

What are your dreams? If you were to imagine a fundamentally better world for yourself and your children, what would it look like? How would people live, support themselves, express their creativity, and exchange the best of what they knew with their fellows? What sort of laws would it have and how would they be enforced?

Don't worry about plausibility or how to get there from here. Dream as big as you can -- the rest will follow of itself.


On edit: Another thought that occurred to me -- when the left shared a dream of the future, that dream united them, from the moderates to the socialists. The only differences involved how to get there and how hard to push things. But when that dream failed, the socialists and radicals no longer had anything in common with the moderates. The far left was cut off from any hope of power or influence, and the moderates sank further and further into the mushy middle.