Two words to think about when you look at your children, or your wife or husband, or your neighborhood tonight:

*moral bankruptcy*

The weird surge in popularity of libertarian-leaning candidates is not because there has been an inexplicable surge in Ayn Rand devotees. Most people who would end up voting for a Paul would never label themselves as "Libertarians." They are the independents in the middle who have been lurching back and forth between the major parties trying desperately to find someone who will represent them.

We're not talking about the tiny group of self-identified Libertarians in your survey, who have always constituted the base of the fringe Libertarian Party. We're talking about a larger group in the middle, actual Americans who are frustrated as hell with the corruption of both major political parties. They are frustrated as hell that no major party is representing their interests anymore and looking for a new political home.

Mass spying on Americans? Both parties support it.
Handing the internet to corporations? Both parties support it.
Austerity for the masses? Both parties support it.
Cutting social safety nets? Both parties support it.
Corporatists in the cabinet? Both parties support it.
Tolling our interstate highways? Both parties support it.
Corporate education policy? Both parties support it.
Bank bailouts? Both parties support it.
Ignoring the trillions stashed overseas? Both parties support it.
Trans-Pacific Job/Wage Killing Secret Agreement? Both parties support it.
Drilling and fracking? Both parties support it.
Wars on medical marijuana instead of corrupt banks?
Deregulation of the food industry? Both parties support it.
GMO's? Both parties support it.
Militarized police and assaults on protesters? Both parties support it.
Indefinite detention? Both parties support it.
Drone wars and kill lists? Both parties support it.
Targeting of journalists and whistleblowers? Both parties support it.
Private prisons replacing public prisons? Both parties support it.
Unions? Both parties view them with contempt.

Perhaps the corporate-purchased parties themselves have something to do with this conclusion by the American people:

Poll: Half of Americans dont care which party controls Congress
http://www.democraticunderground.com/10024988821

The effects of continued corporate warfare on this nation will be a disaster for all Americans, but *especially* women and minorities.

I don't know how the Third Way anticipates being able to protect values of racial and gender equality by supporting candidates whose policies are dismantling the very economic and democratic systems that make it possible for them to be empowered.

197. I just can't wait to see the status of women and minorities in this country when we are all working for Third World wages, Hillary's trade agreements have ramped up corporate power and the ability of corporations to override our laws and protections, and dissent in the new corporate America has been crushed.

Why do corporatists and investment bankers infiltrate a party? Why the massive corporate backing of groups like the Third Way and the pouring of billions into running corporate candidates and establishing a strong corporate presence in the Democratic party?

It's because the Democratic Party *was* the opposition party standing in their way. Now they own it.

Here's the important part: They didn't buy it because of some perverse affection for the Democratic Party or the color blue on the Democratic Party pom poms. They did it to advance the corporate policy agenda that rakes in billions in wealth and power.

They don't give a rat's ass what party actually wins, as long as the win accomplishes the goal for which they spent billions running candidates to infiltrate the party in the first place. They are the same people backing corporatists in both parties. They will work together and USE the parties to ensure the victory of whichever party or candidate can best serve their interests at the moment.

Running HIllary to the right of Paul pretty much locks in the agenda they want either way. And running Paul has the added benefit of possibly appealing to those who are disgusted with both parties, by giving the illusion that something radically different is being offered. It could dupe a lot of people into remaining passive about what is being done to us for at least one more election cycle, by making them believe, one more time, that merely voting is going to be enough.



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When the DLC connections to the Koch Bros. became well known, they just rebranded the infiltration
http://www.democraticunderground.com/?com=view_post&forum=1002&pid=4165556

When you hear "Third Way", think INVESTMENT BANKERS
http://www.democraticunderground.com/10024127432

GOP Donors and K Street Fuel Third Way’s Advice for the Democratic Party
http://www.democraticunderground.com/101680116

The Rightwing Koch Brothers fund the DLC
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=439x498414

Same companies behind the GOP are behind the DLC
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=132x1481121

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Reposting my response from when you posted this the first time:

You have to ignore all of MIC recent history to believe that we will "do what we can and get the hell out." Obama even said today that the commitment in Iraq is open-ended.

We have a long history by which to evaluate the behavior of the MIC. This is part of a well-established pattern of crisis, intervention, destabilization, and crisis. It is a cycle, and it is linked to the military INDUSTRY which profits from it all. We have to stop reacting to the crises that the MIC's own behavior creates.

I'm going to link again to this post by JackRiddler that I think should have hundreds of recommendations:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/10025355401

Add in the one by IchingCarpenter for good measure: We are at this point bombing our own guns:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/10025359142

The MIC's own behavior ensures the continuation of this cycle of violence. As JackRiddler's post points out, there are things they could do to show good faith in actually trying to end the violence rather than perpetuating this cycle, but their behavior, and the behavior of US politicians, does exactly the opposite.

It's a racket. It's shock doctrine. We're always reacting to a crisis we helped create, and we ignore the ones behind the scenes getting filthy rich from it all. Meanwhile, our country is hollowed out from all our money being poured into war.

No. It's time to end it.

I'm not a political scientist, and I appraise the words based on how I believe they are interpreted by average citizens who hear the labels. You're absolutely correct that they are used consistently to describe neoliberal and Third Way politicians. I detest their use, because I think they have popular connotations that actively disguise the true extremism and antidemocratic nature of the policies involved.

"Centrism" to me carries a deliberate connotation of being "in the center"..in other words, not extreme in either direction. Ditto for the word "moderate," which is constantly used to describe Third Way politicians whose policies are anything but moderate in the traditional sense of the word.

Austerity and attacks on safety nets in a country that has already devastated its middle class are opposed by over 80 percent of Americans across party lines, yet these Third Way economic positions are nevertheless described as "centrist," as though they fell in the mainstream of American opinion. Policies coming out of our government now routinely bear little resemblance to what people have repeatedly stated in polls that they want, and neoliberal politicians lie their way through campaigns because they realize how unpopular their positions really are...yet we persist in calling them "centrists."

Secret laws, secret courts, "Kill Lists"/indefinite detention without due process, and mass surveillance in the United States of America are extreme violations of our Constitution and should not be considered "moderate" positions in any sense of the word. They are extreme, even fascistic policies, yet the politicians who espouse them are permitted by us to describe themselves as "moderates."

I think we need to start using the words, "corporatist," "extreme," and even "fascist" to describe what is happening in this country under the corporatist/neoconservative/neoliberal/Third Way agenda. We are witnessing a malignant merger of state and corporations and the active dismantling of important Constitutional protections. The corporate state is pouring our tax dollars into propaganda and marketing for their agenda, and IMO the vast majority of Americans, while aware of their own economic pain, have little understanding of the peril facing our democratic institutions and basic Constitutional protections.

We use words that suggest the current neoliberal and neocon policies are business as usual in America...just another flavor of policies that Americans can trust still fall safely within the boundaries of a democratic, constitutional, representative political system. They are "centrist" or "moderate." But they really aren't...and I think we need to adjust our labels to drive home the seriousness of the crisis we face.

You need to remember to switch back to the correct persona.

It's a baseless accusation that reflects on your own conduct here rather than mine. You are the only one in this conversation who has repeatedly tried to make it personal, and you continue to do so. It is revelatory as to your lack of argument.

Your comments about Haiti here are similarly nonresponsive. More to the point, they are weirdly and dishonestly avoidant of the longstanding and continuing history of US corporate and military domination and exploitation of Haiti. You opine about poverty in Haiti "even before the earthquake," as though the earthquake, rather than decades of military and political manipulation, prevention of any development of independence through denial of sovereignty, installation of corporate goals rather than goals for Haitians, and coup/installation of government to enable theft and stripping by corporations of the country's own resources were not at fault. You ignore the more recent massive privatization forced on Haiti by the US and its allies after the 2004 coup and the neoliberal "restructuring programs" that have deepened poverty for Haitians through familiar Shock Doctrine measures like making IMF loans conditional on the implementation of vicious neoliberal wage and social policies.

In short, you deal with the accusation of US corporate exploitation of Haiti by utterly ignoring it and adding baseless personal attacks to distract from the fact you are ignoring it.

Corporate exploitation of Haiti, resulting in the deaths of countless Haitians and unfathomable misery over the decades, has been and remains a national shame for the US. More importantly, it serves as a deadly warning of what happens to countries and human beings when governments are subverted for corporate interests rather than human interests.

Decades and decades ago, the US took control of Haiti by force and changed its Constitution to allow corporations to seize the land of the Haitian people. Now we're facing relentless attempts by corporate-bought politicians to dismantle our own Constitutional protections and grow the power of corporations over our lives through predatory "trade agreements" that will overrule the will of the people on issues ranging from environmental regulation to worker protections.

Americans have largely been insulated from the effects of US corporate policy all over the world. We mostly grew up believing that hunger and privation just happen, usually over there somewhere, to people who don't look like us and for reasons that are never quite clear. But there are reasons. Corporations don't operate on morality. For them, there is no currency in a government, "of, by, and for the people." The only consideration is profit.

The global corporatists are just getting started here. But they have already impoverished and killed masses of human beings all over the world, for profit. We are not special to them.

We cannot afford four more years of allowing corporatists to grow their power in Washington. We can't afford continued assaults on our Constitutional protections and the growth of this surveillance state. We can't afford more austerity and privatization and protection of banks over people. And we can't afford Hillary's TPP.

and wild conspiracy theories depend on the flatly absurd suggestion that governments and corporations do not spend millions, billions, to advertise, propagandize, and shape public opinion.

That the programs already exist is not in dispute. That the motivation to use them is strong is not debatable. Nor are the deep pockets of those whose interests they serve.

A primary goal of any group that seeks to impose major policy against the will and interests of the majority is to manage public opinion and public response so as to reduce the likelihood of pushback and revolt. Millions of us are being driven into poverty, and our Constitutional protections are being stripped. Of course great attention and money will be poured into managing public opinion and creating the illusion that the people support what is being done to them.

We already know these programs exist and are being used, not only within smaller political groups but also at the very highest levels of government, thanks to Sunstein's writings and the leaks by Snowden. They are a wholly predictable extension of the advertising and propaganda that already deluge our media and that are inherent in any major political struggle for power. Before we had the technology for interactive propaganda on the internet, we saw the cable news channels twisted into a steady diet of distractions, misrepresentations, and corporate talking points.

History shows that the tactics available to be used, will be used, in the struggle for political power and wealth. We have been carefully taught as Americans that it couldn't happen here; we are taught to associate these kinds of direct manipulations of citizens with totalitarian states, not ostensibly "representative" governments like our own. But we really aren't special, and what is happening in America right now is just one more example of the battles for power we have seen throughout history, by those who invariably claimed they were working in the best interests of the people.

Of course it exists, and of course it is here.


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