I was REALLY tempted to ask for a Republican ballot today...

(in Ohio, you get to 'change parties' only at primaries, by changing which ballot you ask for.)

Because John Boehner has a primary challenger, and I would like nothing better than to see the Weeper of the House out of office.

But I resisted the urge... He'll at least have a Dem challenger this fall, which is more than could be said last cycle.

Everybody else get out there and vote this morning?

Charles Wheelan, 'The Centrist Manifesto' on Washington Journal

this morning, is calling for a Third-wayish independent party 'in the center between the parties'. Unfortunately, it's the same old same old from the plutocrat toadies who tried to get No Labels off the ground a year or three back. From the left, they happily embrace all of the social issues that won't change the realities of economic inequality. From the right, they embrace 'reforms to entitlement programs', and 'economic opportunities' that end at 'training people' for jobs that the 'job creators' aren't creating.

Now, the country at a whole is already swinging, on its own, to embrace all sorts of more open social policies. The pressure on ALL politicians to start swinging left on social issues is ever growing. But it would be a horrible mistake to embrace RW plutocratic economic views while pretending that you were somehow actually being 'independent' and 'in the middle'.

To be fair, he did briefly open up with some good points on ideology, but then immediately swung back into his own ideology, which simply swings libertarian on social issues.

What am I?

Well, apart from not being really well read on socialism per se...

I'm hoping folks here can more precisely identify where I fall on the 'socialist'/'capitalist' spectrum, and suggest readings that might help me refine my rather general notion of the nature of socialism if I throw out some of my ideas.

First, I don't entirely exclude capitalism, just think it should be far more limited in where it arises. Any endeavour that is either explicitly mentioned in the duties of the state or can be seen to be implicitly geared towards the common good should be at least primarily a matter for the state, if not the exclusive purview of the state. No prison should be privately run, and indeed, all trial lawyers should be publicly provided - justice should not be a matter of who can afford the best lawyers. Education should be public, including university level. Private institutions should be allowed to exist, but should not receive any public support.

In healthcare, actual socialized medicine would be best, along with single payer. Licenses to practice issued by the state would require at least some minimal level of time spent working for public patients - no physician could simply decide to work exclusively for those who might pay cash outside the system and still stay licensed, unless they wanted to practice outside the country.

Public dining facilities would exist in any city over a certain size, with anyone able to simply walk in and receive breakfast, lunch and dinner, without direct charge, although such free meals would be off a limited menu of healthy choices. Ditto minimalist public housing, so that no one was forced to stay outside in inclement weather, would be able to sleep securely, and have a bathroom indoors.

Utilities of all sort should be publicly run, and the government should have manufacturing facilities to vertically integrate to minimize costs of the supplies it uses, whether in terms of ammunition, weaponry, or even office supplies.

Capitalism would largely be confined to non-essentials of life - fashion, design, entertainment, but government would be allowed even to compete in these areas, but would be required to compete evenly - it would have to run any of those endeavours as profit generators, unsubsidized by other facets of government.

So there would still be plenty of room for those who wanted go the private sector route, but specific areas related to the public welfare and critical needs of the state would be of a necessity state run.

So where does that put me on the socialist spectrum? Whose writings might I best identify with?

So, now that we're starting to see studies that link sleep deprivation to brain damage

show up (Study News Release), can it now be argued in court that 'enhanced interrogation' that included sleep deprivation/long term wakefulness was torture, given that it can cause irreversible damage to a person's brain? Sleep deprivation was among the favorite 'acceptable' methods used by the CIA on prisoners, and although, as that article notes, it was included in the 2009 ban on 'harsh interrogation methods' the President instituted, it was also being considered for a possible reinstatement of use. (And, I'm guessing that Presidential 'ban' was via executive order, in which case the next pro-torture President that comes along can simply rescind the ban... Feel free to correct me if it actually was legislative.)

(From the second link) One came from former CIA Director Michael V. Hayden, who expressed disbelief that the administration was prepared to expose methods it might later decide it needed.

"Are you telling me that under all conditions of threat, you will never interfere with the sleep cycle of a detainee?" Hayden asked a top White House official, according to sources familiar with the exchange.

From the beginning, sleep deprivation had been one of the most important elements in the CIA's interrogation program, used to help break dozens of suspected terrorists, far more than the most violent approaches. And it is among the methods the agency fought hardest to keep.