Showing posts with label Liberalism. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Liberalism. Show all posts

Thursday, September 10, 2009

Obama's Comeback?


Obama to Congresss: "The Time for Bickering is Over"

Obama took off the kid gloves and came out swinging in his address to Congress Wed. He laid out a progressive vision on healthcare, though fell short of demanding a public healthcare program as most progressives had hoped.

Alternet: This Was the Obama We've Been Waiting For

Perhaps the most telling point in the address was when Rep. Joe Wilson (S.C.) interrupted Obama's speech when he rebuked the lie that the healthcare plan would cover "illegal" immigrants. Wilson yelled "You Lie," to the astonishment of the whole country. Turns out Joe Wilson is a LIAR

Reactions to the Speech

Rachel Maddow: President Offered Full, Formal Defense of Liberalism

Wednesday, August 26, 2009

The Lion Sleeps: R.I.P. Sen. Ted Kennedy


R.I.P. Sen. Ted Kennedy (1932-2009)

Liberalism lost its greatest living voice today--Sen. Ted Kennedy. He was a champion of the poor, civil rights, women, labor and gay rights, and universal health care. It is a great loss to the struggle to move the Democratic Party back to it's progressive base, but the struggle for social justice lives on...

The Advocate: LBGT Ally Sen. Ted Kennedy

HRC: A Record of Leadership on LGBT & HIV Issues

NGLTF: Sen. Edward Kennedy Spent Life Fighting for Justice

Gay Activists: Kennedy Was Our Greatest Champion

N.O.W. Mourns Loss of Women's Right Champion

Americans United: Kennedy Was Champion of Church-State Separation

Robert Scheer: Ted Kennedy--The Real Deal

Here's one of my favorite speeches by Sen. Kennedy (and boy do we need more like this one!)

Tuesday, April 14, 2009

Right-Wing "Teabaggers" Don't Know History! Or Facts!


The right-wing teabaggers, organized by Fox News and conservative billionaire clubs, will be staging "tea parties" around the country Wed. to protest raising taxes on the rich back to where they were under Bill Clinton.

The wing nuts apparently know nothing about history. The Boston Tea Party was a protest against a big TAX CUT for the East India Tea Company, a big corporation which was killing colonial small businesses. Glenn Beck and other right-wing clowns are invoking Thomas Paine in their call for people to rise up against redistribution of wealth and government spending, ignorant of the fact that Thomas Paine was a RADICAL LEFTIST, who SUPPORTED redistributing wealth, and advocated taxing the rich to provide universal health care and education, and even called for the creation of a "social security" system! Someone should send Glenn Beck a copy of Harvey J. Kaye's masterpiece THOMAS PAINE AND THE PROMISE OF AMERICA so he can learn something about the history of one of America's great PROGRESSIVE/LIBERALS!

Thom Hartmann: The Real Boston Tea Party was an Anti-Corporate Revolt!

Here's Thom Hartmann and Harvey Kaye discussing Thomas Paine and Glenn Beck's right-wing re-imagining of Paine's Common Sense.



Right-Wing Billionaires Manufacture "Tea Parties"

Huffington Post Tea Party Roundup

Robert Borosage, Campaign for America's Future on Taxing Matters

FAKE Teabaggers are Anti-Spend, Anti-Government: REAL Populists Want to Stop Banks from Plundering America

TAX DAY: You Pay Your Taxes, Why Don't the Rich Pay Their Share?

Robert Reich: A Short Citizens Guide to Kooks, Demagogues and Right-Wingers on Tax Day

Wednesday, November 19, 2008

Obama: FDR or Clinton II?

Does this sound familiar: A Democratic presidential candidate campaigns on a progressive platform of "change" including universal health care, taking on corporate interests and lobbyists, defending labor and the "middle class," and after winning the election moves to the right and backtracks on the progressive platform he ran on.

Bill Clinton ran as a progressive populist, but governed as a "centrist" Republican. He pushed NAFTA, "welfare reform" (the end of welfare as we knew it), and backtracked on his promise to lift the ban on gays in the military and before the end of his first term proclaimed "the era of big government is over" and jumped on the "family values" bandwagon by endorsing the anti-gay "Defense of Marriage Act" to get re-elected.

Clinton was elected after a long decade of Reagan/Bush conservative Republican rule. We (progressives, gays, etc.) celebrated his election. Then we watched as one by one we were thrown under the bus: gays, labor, the poor, etc.

It seems to be happening again! I hope I'm wrong, but the Obama "transition" is starting to look like a replay of the Clinton betrayal of the progressive base of the Democratic Party.

First, Obama's choice of Rahm Emanuel, now his apparent choice of neo-liberal hawk Hillary Clinton as Secretary of State (a choice applauded by Republicans, NOT progressive Democrats!), and the appeasement of traitor Joe Lieberman (who left the Democratic Party to form his own party!), it looks like "the left has been foiled again," in the words of one Democratic Senate aide.

Democratic leaders in Congress seem to relish any opportunity to piss off their own base to be "bipartisan". House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid reject any progressive mandate from the voters and distance themselves from the Left. It's looking like Obama may catch this anti-Left disease that has spread throughout the Democratic Party establishment in Washington D.C.

Maybe Obama is being political smart by embracing his former adversaries, or maybe his is being politically naive. Lieberman campaign for Obama's Republican opponent and joined with the right-wing nuts who called Obama a Marxist! Hillary Clinton began the racist attacks questioning Obama's patriotism, experience and religious beliefs! How can Obama just forget about these things? Bill Clinton had a unhealthy need to be loved and liked by everyone and he went too far in appeasing Republicans and his political enemies. I hope Obama learned something from Clinton's mistakes, but it doesn't look like it. You cannot please everyone in politics, and you have to be willing to stand up to your enemies!

WILL OBAMA FOLLOW THE EXAMPLE OF FDR OR BILL CLINTON? THINK BIG Obama!

David Sirota: Why Are the Democratic Leaders At War with the Democratic Left?

What Should Democrats Do Now?

David Greenwald: The Mind of the Democratic Leadership

America is a Center-Left Country No Matter How Much the Corporate Media Say Otherwise!

Normon Solomon: Obama Has A Mandate to Spread the Wealth

Related MUST READ:
Why The Economy Grows Like Crazy Amid Higher Taxes

Hey Barak, Don't Forget: "You gotta Dance with Them That Brung Ya"

Tuesday, May 20, 2008

Sen. Edward Kennedy Has Brain Tumor



Shocking news today: Sen. Edward Kennedy Has Malignant Brian Tumor

Like other great liberal/progressive icons, Ted Kennedy has been one of the most demonized political figures in American politics, hated by conservatives, but loved by liberals for his courageous and passionate career defending the poor, women, labor, gays, etc. John McCain calls Kennedy the last "Great Lion" in the Senate.

The Nation: Kennedy-The Senate's Fighting Liberal

Monday, January 21, 2008

MLK: The Great Liberal



Conservative Republicans love to identify themselves with Ronald Reagan. Why don't more Democrats quote Martin Luther King to defend LIBERALISM??

While most conservatives even give lip service to MLK (though some still hate him and opposed a holiday in his name!), it is important to remember that King led and participated in a progressive movement much broader than civil rights for one race of people. He spoke out against the Vietnam War, he marched with striking workers, he supported the labor movement, he called for CUTTING military spending and drastic increases in social spending, i.e., he exemplified the greatness of LIBERALISM!

If he were alive today, conservatives would label him a weak, anti-American, liberal, commie and probably try to link him to Islamic terrorism!

Dr. Martin Luther King: Why I am Opposed to the Vietnam War

Reclaiming King: Beyong "I Have A Dream"

Brave New Films has a great new Fight the War On Greed video which continues MLK's Liberal Dream