Jill on Bernie, Money in Politix, and Obama…

Wow!!! Had never heard her speak before! This will be the easiest ballot to cast!

I’m good with Bernie until they kick him out, then it’s Jill Stein.

#noregrets

Voted for her in 2012. I like her even more than Bernie.

Of course, she doesn’t have a chance. But I’ll likely vote for her this time, too, if Sanders can’t pull off a miracle and win the nom.

To me, neither major party is legitimate. They’ve formed a pretty destructive, terrible monopoly on power, and until it’s broken, the most powerful nation on earth will continue to be the most dangerous, the most likely to start a war, the most reactionary on an huge range of issues, etc. etc.

I wish we had a real socialist alternative. Big time Green. Unafraid to be anticapitalist. Preferably with a very strong libertarian socialist core in the lead. One focused on an updated vision set forth by people like William Morris, Elisee Reclus, Petr Kropotkin, among others. The Paris Commune of 1871, updated, adapted to 2016 and beyond. Small is beautiful. Cooperative economies, locally autonomous, federated. All democratic. The entire economy democratized.

Good book on the Paris Commune, btw: Communal Luxury, Kristin Ross.

Cal wrote:

I’ll probably vote for Stein, but it will be more of a protest vote than an endorsement of her beliefs.

I understand being pissed about the Wall Street bailout in ’08, but that’s not a reason to continue hemorrhaging money. At some point, doesn’t this country have to deal with its deficit? The debt and a failure to have any money to respond to future problems scares me almost as much as climate change. In both cases, we’re making quite a mess for the next generations.

Cal, I agree we should reduce the deficit and the debt. But the way to do that is not to cut spending. That kills jobs. That hurts millions of people, immediately. The way to balance the budget and start to pay off the debt is to raise taxes on the rich — and just the rich. Just the 1%. They’ve seen the overwhelming lion’s share of tax cuts since 1964 and Johnson, and the rich utilize far and away the most public resources. It’s not close.

And for those who say we could tax the 1% at 100% and there wouldn’t be enough money, consider this: Americans had total income of 14 trillion — that we know about — in 2014. The richest 1% now bring in roughly 25% of all income, though some estimates say it’s as low as 20%. If we use the latter, just the 1% alone bring in roughly 2.8 trillion a year in income. If we raised taxes back up to where they were from FDR through Kennedy, their effective rate would be roughly 55% on a 91% marginal top rate. They currently pay in the neighborhood of 25% effectively, on a top rate of 39.6%. So you’re talking an additional revenue flow of well over 700 billion a year — and this is just personal income we know about. The infamous Panama Papers have confirmed what most of us already knew: Trillions are untaxed and hidden.

IMO, Sanders goes wrong on the tax issue, because he’s not willing to only raise taxes on the rich. He does want to raise their rates, and corporate rates, but he also is talking about small increases for the working class, too. Wrong way to go, in my view. With inequality at obscenely immoral levels, it’s time to use one of the few tools we have to try to at least slightly mitigate for capitalism’s despicable, destructive, unsustainable internal dynamics. It’s the least we can do, etc.

I’m a heavy sleeper literally and politically and my awakening has been sloooooow. I’ve voted for the wrong guy in every election, I think…

Then again, when I met some of you in 1999, I was a social moderate, fiscal conservative Republican. Now?

I think it’s safe to say I’m a progressive because I think liberals are weak and a mess, whether they be corporatist DLC liberals or SJW liberals. Never met a liberal who could motivate me to do anything more than roll my eyes. It’s partly why as a moderate Republican as I drifted leftward that I didn’t remotely respond to liberalism. Ugh.

I’ve finally found an integrity in the Progressive movement that I feel comfortable with.

Which probably means as I vote for Jill Stein that Trump will win by 1 vote in Florida and it will be traced to me not voting the Dem ticket (stupid closed primaries).

Oh well…

Mackeyser wrote:

I’ve finally found an integrity in the Progressive movement that I feel comfortable with.

Which probably means as I vote for Jill Stein that Trump will win by 1 vote in Florida and it will be traced to me not voting the Dem ticket (stupid closed primaries).

Oh well…

Folks use different words, political labels, etc. etc. and that’s to be expected. But, to me, “progressive” is the same thing as “liberal,” so in my journey further to the left, I’ve left that in the rear-view mirror, too. I identify as socialist, with strong left-anarchist leanings and very Green-oriented. A mix, to be sure, and I include Marxian in with that mix too. Ecosocialism as well, but primarily “libertarian socialist.”

Ironically, the predominant strain of socialism (from my reading) means a much, much smaller government than any minarchist ever dreamed of, and from the bottom up, not top down. But it would happen via the complete democratization of the economy, direct public ownership of the means of production, and not through “the state.” Minarchists, OTOH, going in the opposite direction, want their “small government” via the privatization of the economy.

We’d work toward no state apparatus at all over time and the elimination of all classes. A non-hierarchical society to the degree possible, etc.

But, to your point, Mac. To me, not that I’m the Word Mayor, or anything, it doesn’t make any sense to say one is a “progressive” who thinks “liberals” are weak. It’s kind of like saying you think Faulk was a great running back but a terrible ball-carrier.

Hope all is well —

But there is NO WAY one can put people like Any Goodman, Cornell West, Noam Chomsky, Howard Zinn and other progressives and just “shade” them with DLC corporatist moderate liberals like Hillary Clinton and Debbie Wasserman Schultz, who just helped kill a bill that would regulate pay day lenders.

I appreciate the sentiment, but I would have to respectfully disagree on point that progressives aren’t simply a stronger flavor of liberal.

I don’t associate any of the people you mention above with either “progressives” or “liberals.” They’re “leftists,” with Zinn, West and Chomsky, at least, being socialists of one stripe or another. I really don’t know Goodman’s actual politics, but I suspect she would identify as a “democratic socialist,” like Bernie.

We’re not disagreeing on the differences between various political views, in this case, which I also see as “massive”. We’re disagreeing on what these various political view-points are called. The terms used, etc.

Perhaps it’s just semantics. But as a former “liberal,” albeit a left-liberal, and never a joiner or a member of the Democratic Party, I know it’s more than common for Dems, even DLC Dems, to call themselves “progressives.” Take a tour of pretty much any Democratic Party website site and you’ll see this. Go to the Daily Kos, for instance. You’ll find tons of people who call Hillary a “progressive,” and use this interchangeably with “liberal.” Pretty much the entire “liberal” blogosphere grew up using the two words interchangeably.

Again, I see a huge difference between leftists and progressives/liberals. And from my experience, even DLC Dems, even corporatist Dems, use the term “progressive” for themselves, and this is unlikely to change. I think a better word to differentiate them is “leftist,” and if one wants to get further into the weeds, perhaps some variation of socialist, left-anarchist or small “c” communist to further refine things.

It’s not really a big deal, of course. But I don’t use the word “progressive” for people to the left of liberal.

Mac,

I’m sorry to hear you’re going through rough times, physically. Hang in there. We both know what these long-term things involve.

But, back to the definitions. From my perch — and, again, I’m not the Mayor of Political Terms, so your mileage may vary — but from that perch, this is something that has been going on for a long, long time. “Liberals” have been calling themselves “progressives” for decades, and I think it especially kicked in because the word, “liberal,” started to take on negative connotations, primarily because of a successful onslaught from the right — and because not enough liberals were willing to fight for the word. Goes back at least to the late 1970s, early 80s. Prior to that, more Americans identified as “liberal” than any other political term, and then it started to shift. After Reagan, more Americans identified as “conservatives.” But for a good 40 years, it was “liberal.”

That shift is, IMO, the main reason why liberals switched words — because of the demonization of the term by the right. I also think there has always been a huge difference between “liberal” citizens and “liberal” politicians. The latter, really, are the folks who helped conservatives kill the word. (Hell, in Europe, “socialist” leaders have sold out to the neoliberal wave too). I don’t blame liberal citizens for that, though I strenuously disagree with their worldview — especially on economics, wars and empire.

So, in a nutshell, what this boils down to: you and I aren’t referring to the same people or ideas when we use the term, “progressive.” Where you see “progressive,” I see “leftist.” Where you see “liberal,” I see “progressive” too, as an interchangeable word for that. Again, we’re arguing words, not viewpoints.

Btw, even among leftists there is a lot of disagreement on various issues. We have diversity as well. For instance, I don’t think all leftists see the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki as one of the world’s most horrific war crimes. I do. I also think it was absolutely unnecessary, and people like Ike agreed with me at the time. And while pretty much all socialists are anticapitalists, not all “leftists” are. As you may have noticed, I’m pretty adamantly opposed to our current system and find it beyond redemption and not worth the effort to “tame” or “reform,” etc. etc. But not all leftists feel that way.

Take care, Mac.