a resounding "DUH!" spreads across the nation...

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Geez, I wish they would cut out the doublespeak, now that bush fascism has been discredited.

Republicans are authoritarian absolutists. that means they would call everyone who isn't a commie pinko, or worse.

Our constitution is liberal, so how can that be a bad thing?

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Please.

Anything a Republican says is precisely the opposite. Anything a Republican blames on someone else is what you should investigate about them. Any time a Republican talks about laws being broken or how Bible verses apply to anyone else, just look at them, investigate them, and you will find that they're talking about themselves.

We've had decades to see this to be true. Thus, it's not a surprise the Hoover Institute proclaims that America is a 'center-right' country.

It is exactly the opposite of what they insist is true. Do you know why? Because, as we've seen because of the Bush years, the Republican party attracts the most psychologically damaged people they can find.

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The country shifts from center-left to center-right. We have a very large population and it's bound to average out somewhere in the middle.

The key for progressives is to enact policies that are effective to keep the pendulum left of center and, maybe, move it a little further left. The times demand it. We need much more aggressive policies on the environment and energy, and the lunatics of the far right have screwed up the economy so bad that there is a lot of room for measurable improvement.

The right-wing lunatics have given Pres. Obama some very tough problems to deal with. On the other hand, he has a great opportunity to improve the situation and show everyone that there really is a better way. I just hope he has the courage to compromise without softening his positions too much on the big issues.

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The truth is that most Americans aren't that involved in the political spectrum. When we look at the masses, we can see what we want to see and if you want to see leftists, that's what you'll see. I'm not a right wing evangelist or anything, but I've found that a lot of folks who take a liberal position on some things can be easily talked out of that position by pointing out a few simple realities.

Obama got elected for a three reasons and neither is because of a "left/center" nation.

First of all, President Bush's detractors did a great job of piling on with the rhetoric and the President didn't stand firm on the reasoning and the accomplishments of his agenda. This equated to one of the highest negative ratings in our history for a commander in chief. Since the President is a Republican, the general public, believing that the current administration has been moving us in the wrong direction, figures that anything but a Republican is an improvement.

Secondly, Obama has a charm and charisma that is hard to ignore. It's easy to get enamored with his personality if you aren't really looking at the meat of what he says. Most people don't see him for the leftist positions that he has taken on so many issues. He just looks good and sounds sincere. The sincere thing is extremely important in his persona too. One of Bush's huge negatives as far as I'm concerned is he never sounded sincere.

Thirdly, there are a lot of Americans that would like to see this country get past a milestone in history with regards to race. Obama being a "good looking, well spoken black guy" (as his running mate so eloquently pointed out) is a perfect opportunity for for that agenda.

I'm actually kind of glad he won. I wasn't that crazy about McCain for several reasons. I think Obama is going to govern more conservatively than his history has demonstrated. He won't be a conservative. Don't get me wrong, but I think he will be sobered after all the security briefings from the current administration.

I'm not 100% clear on just what to expect but it's safe to say that the Republicans will have several real challenges ahead. I guess we'll just have to see what happens.

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Conservatives of the day opposed the founding of America. All of the founding principles of America are LIBERAL. The Declaration of Independence is PROGRESSIVE. The Constitution is LIBERAL. The Bill of Rights is LIBERAL.

Say it loud, say it proud: LIBERAL

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David Sirota, I love you!

What are think tanks for?

http://etd.library.pitt.edu/

ETD/available/etd-08192005-162045/

"[T]hink tanks”... monitor and adjust governance norms and networks by using research, analysis, and advocacy to structure discourse about social problems and solutions among multiple elites and in the popular imagination.”

They exist for myth-making.

“America is center-right!” the Right began whining on November 5. And now we add, “The horrible noise you hear is not Friedman’s mythical free market crashing all around you.”

No matter what evidence accrues, the social Darwinian myth remains the same: Ayn Rand is god, Friedman can do no wrong, and the way forward is to redouble our efforts along the path to disaster.

Feudalism, not democratic republicanism, cries out with every move of BushRoveCheneyCo; the conversion of our Common Weal into private property in the context of a holy war.

http://www.democracynow.org/2008/10/6/naomi_klein
In the 1950s, there was great concern at the State Department about the fact that Latin America, then as now… was moving to the left. There was concern about what they called the “pink economists,” the rise of developmentalism, import substitution, and, of course, socialism....

So, this plan was cooked up--it was between the head of USAID’s Chile office and the head of the University of Chicago’s Economics Department--to try to change the debate in Latin America, starting in Chile, because that’s where developmentalism had gained its deepest roots....

And so, the Chicago Boys were born. ...to engage in what Juan Gabriel Valdes, Chile’s foreign minister after the dictatorship finally ended, described as a project of deliberate ideological transfer, taking these extreme-right ideas… and transplanting them to Latin America. That was his phrase--that is his phrase.[End Klein]

“Feudalism in this sense is… based on the relation between lords and the peasants who worked their own land and that of the lord. The peasants owed labour service to the lords, who provided military protection and also had extensive police, judicial, and other rights over the peasants… Feudalism came to encompass all aspects of social organization and was characterized as a system that was both oppressive and hierarchical.” [Ency Brit Std Ed Chicago: 2008]

Friedmanism tortured Chile, and much of Latin America, for decades. Right now, the same disaster capitalists are looting the US Tresaury, and they’re using myths manufactured in think tanks, aka propaganda, to do it.

This is how we manufacture consent: by machining the human psyche with the products of right-wing think tanks. At this rate of busting their myths, we can make them inoperative before they're deployed.

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Like it or not, we're still a fairly conservative nation
I can prove it

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