My conversation with Eric Alterman on last weekend's Moyers & Company continued even after the cameras were turned off -- the TV cameras, anyway. But we captured that extended conversation exclusively for BillMoyers.com. In it, Alterman talks about Paul Ryan, Andrew Cuomo, liberals' weaknesses, and his dinner with then-Senator Barack Obama.
"The first thing we need to do, as liberals, to become credible to the other 80 percent of Americans who refuse to call themselves liberals, is find a way to make the government protection of their lives credible. And it's no easy task," says Alterman.
Watch the conversation:
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To advise a minority that's outnumbered 2-1 t to attempt to force their policies on the majority is not wise advice.
If you weren't paying attention when SENATOR OBAMA voted to immunize TELECOMS for violating your Rights, WHAT WERE YOU PAYING ATTENTION TO?
... HELLO?!?!?!?
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That's all Mitch McConnell needed to know. It was rope-a-dope from Day 1. Mitch doesn't care what's good for America. He only cares about what's good for the GOP. So he dangled "bipartianship" in front of Obama time after time, like a carrot. Then he'd snatch it away just when it looked like a deal had been struck. And time after time, Obama went chasing after that carrot instead of telling Mitch he wouldn't play that game. It's all so sad and so predictable.
Obama will, I'm sure, get a second term. I expect it will play out just like the first.
Grassroots' dems are crying for the FDR-like dems to lead us, and thought Presidents Clinton, Obama were of that mode, but sadly they're not. Both of them gave corporate America what they wanted, now the backlash is against them for deregulating Wall Street and 10 years later having to bail out Wall Street for their abused of not having the regulations FDR put in place to keep 'honest.'
Howard Dean, as DNC Chair, 50 state actions dovetailed off FDR leanings, got the grassroots excited and in 2006 they flipped congress into democratic hands. Also candidate Obama used Dean's strategy and he won 2 yrs later. Guess what? DC dems (DLC) were pissed of with Dean, and he got no job in the new Obama Administration after all the groundwork he had lain in the states. DLCers pick the new adminstration, and we got no FDR dems in the cabinet level positions nor in the President's White House staff - all DLCers from Clinton days in power.
Yes, grassroots dems have to put fire under this democratic party, and make them own up to their progressive/liberal principles or get out of the way and let others come forth to do so.
First, government must come to be seen by constituents as incapable of producing good outcomes, and hopelessly corrupt and fogbound.
Next, since government cannot produce good outcomes, all tax money collected takes away from job creation, and is wasted.
Next, since tax money is wasted, lower taxes means less is thrown away, leaving more for our unique entrepreneurial business interest to work its magic and produce wealth. So lower taxes is always good.
Next, when the party with the largest gaggle of pols who believe government is capable of producing no good outcomes comes to power, it rapidly sets out to prove in every way possible, that government doesn't work, by self-made example.
Liberals, meanwhile, being opposed to anti-government, low tax Republicans, can be found whenever they're invited on corporate media, to counter-punch and react, but they are never there to set agenda or to create criteria for debate. That would be the exclusive province of those who own American media, or rather, to those who work for them.
However, tax money does not take away from job creation. Tax policy does. In other words, how taxes are structured has a direct effect on where jobs are created and whether exporters are disadvantaged.
The rest of your argument falls apart.
I never argued that tax money takes away from job creation. That would be the Republican argument, which I was characterizing, not espousing or promoting.
The American business interest is presently sitting on trillions it will not reinvest in the economy, though many top corporations have paid no tax in some time. Obviously, tax policy or rates are not preventing investment.
What I am arguing: the press is owned by the business interest. The liberals need to do more than 'toughen up'-- they need to realize that their point of view and policies will never get equal time or equal praise from a media owned by the business interest.
The rest of your argument would fall apart too, if there were any more.