"Look down there. Tell me. Would you really feel any pity if one of those dots stopped moving forever? If I offered you twenty thousand pounds for every dot that stopped, would you really, old man, tell me to keep my money, or would you calculate how many dots you could afford to spare? Free of income tax, old man. Free of income tax -- the only way you can save money nowadays." ---Harry Lime The Third ManIt's pretty freakin' clear what the Right is about these days.
Those cross-brandishing, flag-waving folks who purport to love life and democracy prove with every utterance that they love neither.
The pact the Republican Party and those that still refer to themselves as "conservative" is not with the American people or with an philosophy which has anything to do with the healthful governing of a free society. It is a pact, rather, with a sociopathic god who bears a sneering disdain for all those who would not bow to it, and otherwise embrace the point of view succinctly expressed by the fictional but all too prescient Harry Lime. Seen from a distance, from the comfortable buffer of ignorance, who could possibly care if a "dot" just stopped moving? That seems to be what the Right is saying with every slithery move it makes.
Up close on the ground though, those "dots" take on more disturbing characteristics: they are women, still denied their rights to equal pay and equal opportunity, still denied the essential right to govern their own bodies by self-righteous fanatics;
They are working people conned into mortgages and credit deals that they can no longer afford, conned into fear and loathing of the very diversity which gives this country its soul and its strength, conned into believing that the very social legislation that strengthened the middle class of America is in fact a "socialist" lie;
They are the soldiers who fight with genuine patriotism, only to have that patriotism revealed to be the propaganda churned out by corporate oil cartels bent on preserving their wealth and power;
They are children, whose prospects of a decent education are diminished with each cynical ploy to privatize schools, to rewrite history, to demean science;
They are the sick and the old, the poor and the disenfranchised, they are our grandparents who now face the real threat of a cold and heartless end to lives of struggle, their funds and aid assaulted by shortsighted demagogues and greedy drug manufacturers.
There are many more aspects conveniently ignored by those who would gleefully make those "dots" stop moving in order to fill their coffers. The "dots" in Wisconsin are, upon closer inspection real, living, breathing, working human beings who are outraged at the rape of American values at the hands of the Republican thugs and bullies who themselves, true to their corporate Harry Lime masters, have little choice but to do all they can to make those "dots" stop moving. And without the tried and true techniques of violent, divisive rhetoric to distort and distract people into compliance, their ideology if truthfully articulated would have zero traction.
In the end of The Third Man, Harry Lime is dead -- for real, this time. But there is a sense that the world has changed forever and not necessarily happily. For it is a world where evil is clearly hovering at any time ready to seep into men's souls. It is a world where the price of freedom is not shopping but vigilance.
It is a world where the fruits of liberty cannot be savored because the forces which would crush that liberty thrive when comfortable distance makes people into soulless, faceless "dots".
Time to connect those dots.
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The chief Republican tactic is to demonize the dots. Thus, public employees are portrayed as enemies of working, taxpaying Americans, as if public employees did neither (work, pay taxes). They are getting things We aren't, and We are paying their salaries. They are the reason Our economy is in sad shape. Etc., etc.
If anything, it would HELP if the average citizen viewed things in a broad, objective fashion--we'd be less inclined to cast blame on our neighbors and our immediate circumstances. The bigger picture is exactly what our oppressors don't want us to see.
I believe we are getting exactly what we deserve.
America= Money talks BS walks!!!
They got rolling 30 years ago with the installation of St. Ronald, who nearly quadrupled the federal debt in the hopes of using a fiscal crisis to eliminate social programs and bust the unions. They haven't stopped. Their profligacy has served two purposes: 1) create a pretext for deconstructing the federal government; 2) line the pockets of their benefactors. The net result is for 30 years 80% of the wealth created in America has gone to the top one percent. The rest of us haven't had a pay raise since Jimmy Carter held office (inflation adjusted) yet corporate productivity has more than doubled. Where'd that money go? Straight to the top. Wake up America!
Is this a freaking attempt at a joke? The progressives in govt today have "anything to do with the healthful governing of a free society"? Healthful govt? Free society? From the left????? Are you kidding me? Since when ANY leftist want "healthful govt or free society"?
And how about this sleazy, slimy, "slithery move"? http://truthseekerin10.newsvine.com/_news/2011/02/20/6094571-us-government-software-creates-fake-peopleon-social-networks-to-promote-propoganda?commentId=51831963#c51831963
b) I am a leftist and I want a "healthful government" and a "free society". Has your head exploded yet?
They are also a "Big Tent Party" that does not seem to include black or gays. They are so anti-abortion, but are eager to cut WIC supplements for babies that are born. Etc,, etc.
The dots need to connect themselves into a unified mass and promise to work in unison against regressive policy, whether its origin lies in Republican vitriol or Democratic waffling. I don't know about you, but I'm absolutely furious that the so called liberal leadership does nothing more than tie a nice pretty bow on recycled Republican ideas (slightly watered down if we're lucky) and then presents them as grand accomplishments. It's painfully obvious that change is not going to come from the Democratic leadership. We'll need to do it ourselves.
What's the point of keeping our hands clean if they are tied behind our backs?
I bet, we don't even need to make up lies to "swift boat" them, as every Republican seems to have enough dirt in his/ her closet to bury them.
Let's out their sponsors!
No, we wouldn't want to do that because SWIFT BOAT was ALL LIES.
Don't sink to their level. There is power in truth. Use it.
Why cut spending at all? The rich are richer than ever before and if they are to be counted as Americans still, America is NOT broke. Not to mention the fact that debt is cheaper than at any time in American history. So if we need to borrow, it's a cheaper proposition than ever before. The interest on our debt is less, as a fraction of GDP, than it was during Reagan/Clinton. It's half in fact.
Help keep the other dots moving by speaking the truth that the debt "crisis" is a ruse to starve dots just like you.
By cutting benefits of the poor, by destroying unions (the middle class' back-bone), business community would be cutting its own throat.
Deficit is a "monster under the bed". It is not as spooky as it made out to be. But erasing it is easy: just return the tax rate to the pre-Bush era.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bCPz2SzROFQ
With this lose-lose agenda for Democrats and the country, it is remarkable that Democrats would even play the game. It's like Russian roulette between a mature adult and a crazed mad man, with only the mature adult agreeing to risk the bullet. The Republicans are saying they will play the game but only under their rules, and if you don't like it, they will shut the government down.
Only a corporatist would bend to these rules. Obama will reveal a lot about what he cares about and who he is in his response.
It may never come to that as I hear Boehner is ready to fold his tent without taking down the government.
Egypt helped connect the dots, you'd think the bailouts would've jarred us awake or at least the Christmas bonus'
.......do we know how to protest? We need some clear protest reasons. The Egyptians had poverty, rampant unemployment and government corruption. Maybe add... cut the defense budget by 25% to save the domestic programs that are about to be axed.
Meanwhile, I'm waiting on Aaron Rodgers to come and save the day! A powerful union man speaking out could rouse some people from their brainwashed dreams.