Mahilena's Debunking Libertarianism/Conservatism ...

Seven Deadly Frauds of Fiscal Responsibility

 Seven Deadly Frauds of Fiscal Responsibility |@scoopit http://sco.lt/8dSah7 

Modern Money & Public Purpose #mmt

Modern Money & Public Purpose 1: The Historical Evolution of Money and Debt | @scoopit http://sco.lt/8EILC5 

Modern Money & Public Purpose 2: Governments Are Not Households | @scoopit http://sco.lt/61lHd3 

Modern Money & Public Purpose 3: The Eurozone | @scoopit 

http://sco.lt/6DOpxh

Conservatism taking us back to the 1920's

A Turn to the Right: Conservatism Grows in America in the 1920s

THE MAKING OF A NATION – a program in Special English by the Voice of America.

"Americans experimented with many new customs and social traditions during the 1920s. It was a time filled with new dances, new kinds of clothes and some of the most imaginative art and writing ever produced in the United States.

But in most ways, the 1920s were a conservative time in American life. Voters elected three conservative Republican presidents: Warren Harding, Calvin Coolidge and Herbert Hoover. And they supported many conservative social and political policies.

One such policy concerned immigration. Most Americans in the 1920s had at least some ties through blood or marriage to the first Americans who came from Britain. Many people with these kinds of historic ties considered themselves to be real Americans, true Americans.

Americans traditionally had welcomed newcomers from such western European countries as Britain, France, or Germany. But most of the people arriving in New York City and other harbors in the 1920s were from the central, eastern and southern areas of Europe.

Some Americans became afraid of these millions of people arriving at their shores. They worried that the immigrant newcomers might steal their jobs. Or they feared the political beliefs of the immigrants.

Pressure to control immigration increased following the world war. Congress passed a bill that set a limit on how many people would be allowed to enter from each foreign country. And, the Congress and President Calvin Coolidge agreed to an even stronger immigration law in 1924.

Under the new law, limits on the number of immigrants from each foreign country depended on the number of Americans who had families in that country. For example, the law allowed many immigrants to enter from Britain or France, because many American citizens had families in those countries. But fewer people could come from Italy or Russia, because fewer Americans had family members in those countries.

The laws were very difficult to enforce. But they did succeed in limiting the number of immigrants from certain countries.

A second sign of the conservative feelings in the 1920s was the nation's effort to ban the sale of alcoholic drinks, or liquor. This policy was known as Prohibition, because it prohibited -- or banned -- alcoholic drinks.

Many of the strongest supporters of Prohibition were conservative Americans living in rural areas. Many of them believed that liquor was evil, the product of the devil.

A number of towns and states passed laws banning alcohol sales during the first years of the twentieth century. And in 1919, the nation passed the eighteenth amendment to the federal constitution. This amendment, and the Volstead Act, made it unlawful to make, sell, or transport liquor.

Prohibition laws failed terribly from the start. There was only a small force of police to enforce the new laws. And millions of Americans still wanted to drink liquor. It was not possible for the police to watch every American who wanted to buy a drink secretly or make liquor in his own home.

Not surprisingly, thousands of Americans soon saw a chance to make profits from the new laws. They began to import liquor illegally to sell for high prices.

Criminals began to bring liquor across the long, unprotected border with Canada or on fast boats from the Caribbean islands. At the same time, private manufacturers in both cities and rural areas began to produce liquor. And shop owners in cities across the country sold liquor with little interference from local police.

By the middle of the 1920s, it was clear to most Americans that Prohibition laws were a failure. But the laws were not changed until the election of President Franklin Roosevelt in 1932.

A third sign of conservatism in the 1920s was the effort by some Americans to ban schoolbooks on modern science. Most of the Americans who supported these efforts were conservative rural Americans who believed in the traditional ideas of the Protestant Christian church. Many of them were fearful of the many changes that had taken place in American society.

Science became an enemy to many of these traditional, religious Americans. Science seemed to challenge the most basic ideas taught in the Bible. The conflict burst into a major public debate in 1925 in a trial over Charles Darwin's idea of evolution.

British scientist Charles Darwin published his books "The Origin of the Species" and "The Descent of Man" in the 19th century. The books explained Darwin's idea that humans developed over millions of years from apes and other animals.

Most Europeans and educated people accepted Darwin's theory by the end of the 19th century. But the book had little effect in rural parts of the United States until the 1920s.

William Jennings Bryan led the attack on Darwin's ideas. Bryan was a rural Democrat who ran twice for president. He lost both times. But Bryan remained popular among many traditional Americans.

Bryan told his followers that the theory of evolution was evil, because it challenged the traditional idea that God created the world in six days. He accused scientists of violating God's words in the Bible. Bryan and his supporters called on local school officials to ban the teaching of evolution. Some state legislatures in the more conservative southeastern part of the country passed laws making it a crime to teach evolution theory.

In 1925, a young science teacher in the southern state of Tennessee challenged the state's new teaching law. The teacher -- John Scopes -- taught Darwin's evolution ideas. Officials arrested scopes and put him on trial.

Some of the nation's greatest lawyers rushed to Tennessee to defend the young teacher. They believed the state had violated his right to free speech. And they thought Tennessee's law againt teaching evolution was foolish in a modern, scientific society. America's most famous lawyer, Clarence Darrow, became the leader of Scopes' defense team.

Bryan and other religious conservatives also rushed to the trial. They supported the right of the state of Tennessee to ban the teaching of evolution.

The trial was held in the small town of Dayton, Tennessee. Hundreds of people came to watch: religious conservatives, free speech supporters, newsmen and others.

The high point of the trial came when Bryan himself sat before the court. Lawyer Clarence Darrow asked Bryan question after question about the bible and about science. How did Bryan know the Bible is true. Did God really create the earth in a single day. Is a day in the Bible twenty-four hours. Or can it mean a million years.

Bryan answered the questions. But he showed a great lack of knowledge about modern science.

The judge found Scopes guilty of breaking the law. But in the battle of ideas, science defeated conservatism. And a higher court later ruled that Scopes was not guilty.

The Scopes evolution trial captured the imagination of Americans. The issue was not really whether one young teacher was innocent or guilty of breaking a law. The real question was the struggle for America's spirit between the forces of modern ideas and those of traditional rural conservatism. The trial represented this larger conflict.

American society was changing in many important ways during the early part of the twentieth century. It was not yet the world superpower that it would become after World War Two. But neither was it a traditional rural society of conservative farmers and clergy. The 1920s were a period of growth, of change and of struggle between the old and new values."

http://www.manythings.org/voa/history/170.html

PRESERVING A RURAL CONSERVATISM VIA CURBING THE MORE LIBERAL CITIES

PRESERVING A RURAL CONSERVATISM VIA CURBING THE MORE LIBERAL CITIES 
John Davies' op-ed column on Virginia's city-county governmental makeup, from the perspective of the General Assembly. For Viewpoints, 7/10/11. 
Date published: 7/10/2011
http://fredericksburg.com/News/FLS/2011/072011/07102011/637433

A Journey to the Rural Heart of America's (declining) Conservative Revolution

Welcome to the Homeland: A Journey to the Rural Heart of America's (declining - Mahilena's comment) Conservative Revolution

Release Date: August 22, 2006 (but offers insight today)

"After George Bush’s stunning reelection in 2004, newspaper headlines such as “Rural Values Proved Pivotal” summed up the story, and the outcome left tens of millions of urban Americans baffled and outraged.

America’s political divide is not between red states and blue states. The divide is between counties in every state in the nation, and this urban—rural schism is the new frontier in America’s culture war.

For the first time, Welcome to the Homeland explores the radically different culture evolving just over the horizon of our urban beltways, and explains how Homelanders – Mann’s name for the nation’s fifty million rural whites – have managed to dominate the conservative base of the Republican Party, the Senate, and the Supreme Court, and to use the electoral college, which favors small states, to their advantage. "

"Ultimately, Homelanders are fighting to create a new national culture, one rooted in the traditional values of nineteenth-century America, "

(which has now been reversed by the two Elections of Barack Obama....this is why there is so much rightwing hate towards him - Mahilena's comment)

"In a nation that grows more urban and multiracial every year, how did Homelanders seize so much power? In a unique blend of travelogue, political analysis, and family memoir, Mann unveils a grassroots movement that has done the impossible, reversing the urban tide of American politics" (in 2004 but no longer....now this movement has been stopped and is being reversed - Mahilena's comment)

http://www.amazon.com/Welcome-Homeland-Americas-Conservative-Revolution/dp/1586421115

Why are most Rural Americans so Conservative/Republican?

Why are most Rural Americans so Conservative/Republican?

Blog post by Erik300 


"I would say that rural voters are probably about 80% Republican/Conservative while urban voters are about 80% Democrat/Liberal. 

America's progress has basically been held hostage by rural America's extreme conservativism and general backwardness. 

I tried to google the stats but cant find anything. The last election showed all rural areas as Red voters and all Urban as Blue. I wonder why this is? I was from a smallish city 95% white and a conservative family and I would say mostly conservative on many issues myself but after living in an inner bigger city gradually have become much more Liberal than the average Democrat. I have always been an ardent environmentalist first, which is why I came to eventually hate the Republican party. 

I wonder if any sociologist have done studies on this. It might be valuable in understanding the growing divide in America and the increasing conservatism in their party.

It is ironic that they hate big government because the government has subsidized so many modern things for them like roads, electricity, postal serrvice, farm subsidies and internet etc.

Its probably because they are jealous of the liberal "city slickers" that now outnumber them, or lack of exposure to ethnic/cultural diversity or is it just ingrained culture wars of farmers, outdoorsmen, NASCAR vs the city culture. I wonder what can be done to make them realize that the top 1% is using them only for their votes. They are almost impossible to convert to Progressive ideas, but I remain convinced there must be some way to reach them."

http://www.thomhartmann.com/forum/2012/02/why-are-most-rural-americans-so-conservativerepublican

The Soul of America bySenator Bernie Sanders

The Soul of America
bySenator Bernie Sanders

"Despite such terminology as “fiscal cliff” and “debt ceiling,” the great debate taking place in Washington now has relatively little to do with financial issues. It is all about ideology. It is all about economic winners and losers in American society. It is all about the power of Big Money. It is all about the soul of America.

In America today, we have the most unequal distribution of wealth and income of any major country on earth, and more inequality than at any time period since 1928. The top 1 percent owns 42 percent of the financial wealth of the nation, while, incredibly, the bottom 60 percent own only 2.3 percent. One family, the Walton family of Wal-Mart, owns more wealth than the bottom 40 percent of Americans. In terms of income distribution in 2010, the last study done on this issue, the top 1 percent earned 93 percent of all new income while the bottom 99 percent shared the remaining 7 percent. 

Despite the reality that the rich are becoming much richer while the middle class collapses and the number of Americans living in poverty is at an all-time high, the Republicans and their billionaire backers want more, more, and more. The class warfare continues. 

My Republican colleagues say that the deficits are a spending problem, not a revenue problem. What these deficit-hawk hypocrites won’t talk about is their spending. They won’t discuss what they did to dig the country into this $1 trillion deep deficit hole. They waged wars in Afghanistan and Iraq without paying for them. They gave away huge tax breaks for the rich. They squandered taxpayer dollars on the pharmaceutical industry by making it illegal to let Medicare bargain for lower drug prices. They also rescinded financial regulations that enabled Wall Street to operate like a gambling casino, leading to a severe recession that eroded tax revenue and left more than 14 percent of American workers unemployed or underemployed.

Now, despite the deficits their policies helped to create and despite the enormous suffering which exists in our society, the Republicans want to cut Social Security, veterans’ programs, Medicare, Medicaid, education, nutrition programs, and virtually every program which benefits low- and moderate-income Americans. They choose to turn their backs on the economic reality facing a significant part of our population: high unemployment, reduced wages, 50 million without health insurance, college graduates saddled with enormous student debt and elderly people living in desperation. And they have tried to slam the door on any further discussion about how to raise revenue by ending tax loopholes and unfair tax breaks.

Republicans like Senator Minority Leader Mitch McConnell who say the revenue debate is over don’t want you to consider these facts:

• Federal revenue today, at 15.8 percent of GDP, is lower today than it was 60 years ago. During the last year of the Clinton administration, when we had a significant federal surplus, federal revenue was 20.6 percent of GDP. 

• Today corporate profits are at an all-time high, while corporate income tax revenue as a percentage of GDP is near a record low.

• In 2011, corporate revenue as a percentage of GDP was just 1.2 percent – lower than any other major country in the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, including Britain, Germany, France, Japan, Canada, Norway, Australia, South Korea, Switzerland, Norway, Italy, Ireland, Poland, and Iceland.

• In 2011, corporations paid just 12 percent of their profits in taxes, the lowest since 1972.

• In 2005, one out of four large corporations paid no income taxes at all while they collected $1.1 trillion in revenue over that one-year period.

We know where the Republicans are coming from. What about the Democrats? Will President Obama fulfill his campaign pledge to “protect the middle class” or will he surrender to right-wing blackmail? Will Democrats in the House and Senate stand with the vast majority of our citizens and such organizations as AARP, the National Committee to Preserve Social Security and Medicare, the AFL-CIO, the American Legion, the Veterans of Foreign Wars and every other veterans’ organization in the fight against cuts to Social Security and veterans’ programs, or will they agree to a disastrous corporate-backed “chained CPI” concept which makes major benefit cuts to those programs and raises taxes on low-income workers?

The simple truth is there are relatively easy ways to deal with the deficit crisis – without attacking the elderly, the children the sick or the poor.

For example, we have got to eliminate loopholes in the tax code that allow large corporations and the wealthy to avoid more than $100 billion in taxes every year by setting up offshore tax shelters in places like the Cayman Islands, Bermuda and the Bahamas. This situation has become so absurd that one five-story office building in the Cayman Islands is now the "home" to more than 18,000 corporations. 

Further, we must also end tax breaks for companies shipping American jobs overseas. Today, the United State government continues to reward companies that move American manufacturing jobs abroad, despite the fact that millions of American jobs have been outsourced to China, Mexico, and other low wage countries over the past decade. The Joint Committee on Taxation (the official revenue scorekeeper in Congress) has estimated that we could raise more than $582 billion in revenue over the next decade by eliminating these offshore tax loopholes.

We must also recognize that Wall Street recklessness caused the economic crisis, and it has a responsibility to reduce the deficit. Establishing a 0.03 percent Wall Street speculation fee, similar to what we had from 1914-1966, would dampen the dangerous level of speculation and gambling on Wall Street, encourage the financial sector to invest in the productive economy and reduce the deficit by more than $350 billion over 10 years.

We are entering a pivotal moment in the modern history of our country. Do the elected officials in Washington stand with ordinary Americans – working families, children, the elderly, the poor – or will the extraordinary power of billionaire campaign contributors and Big Money prevail? The American people, by the millions, must send Congress the answer to that question."

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2013/01/09/1177539/-The-Soul-of-America

Teaparty is a terrorist organization promoting the vile disease of anti-gov conservatism

the term “domestic terrorism” means activities that—
(A) involve acts dangerous to human life that are a violation of the criminal laws of the United States or of any State;

Who cares about victims of hurricanes? 
Who cares about the sick?
Who cares about the homeless?
Who cares about the hungry?
Who cares about human life ? oh well yes before the fetus is born...after birth let the fetus die


(B) appear to be intended—
(i) to intimidate or coerce a civilian population;

Lets tank the economy until the vulnerable are left to die on their own

(ii) to influence the policy of a government by intimidation or coercion; or

Let shut the government down and lets suspend all government programs and agencies that benefit the public

(iii) to affect the conduct of a government by mass destruction, assassination, or kidnapping; and
(C) occur primarily within the territorial jurisdiction of the United States.

Lets all those who vote for Obama be fired from their jobs

and lets not forget this one BREAKING: influential Tea Party leaders are throwing caution to the wind and openly lobbying business owners to stop hiring in order to hurt Obama politically. This week, Right Wing Watch picked up on a message Tea Party Nation sent to their members from conservative activist Melissa Brookstone.
In a rambling letter titled “Call For A Strike of American Small Businesses Against The Movement for Global Socialism,” Brookstone urges businesses “not hire a single person” to protest “this new dictator”:

http://thinkprogress.org/politics/2011/10/20/348168/tea-party-group-businesses-hurt-obama/

The dangerous and wrong conservative mindset - Attacking benevolent government http://mahilena.typepad.com/blog/2013/10/the-dangerous-and-wrong-conservative-mindset-attacking-benevolent-government.html …

THE RIGHT WING CORPORATIST CONFEDERATE FASCISTS GETTING DESPERATE in every corner

Nothing the conservative movement better ...a terrorist movement..

GOP A ‘Ruling Class’ Committed To Rights Of ‘White Men Of Property’
http://mahilena.typepad.com/blog/2012/11/gop-a-ruling-class-committed-to-rights-of-white-men-of-property.html

Party of Entitled Rich Threatens Economy

The GOP sore losers have America up against a wall. Republicans don’t care that the majority of the country voted for a candidate who promised to raise taxes on the rich. Republicans don’t care that an even larger majority – 60 percent – told election day pollsters they wanted those taxes raised. Republicans don’t care about majority-rule democracy at all. They’re demanding ransom – extension of tax cuts for the rich. If Americans don’t submit, Republicans will slash the nation’s economy.

“Back away from your Social Security, your Medicare, your Medicaid,” the Republicans are ordering. The GOP insists those crucial social insurance programs be sacrificed to prevent the entitled rich from once again paying the income tax rates that they did during the boom years of Bill Clinton. The party that lost the Presidency, lost seats in the House and lost seats in the Senate is willing to take down the economy, to eviscerate programs like the Federal Emergency Management Agency, the Consumer Product Safety Commission and the Federal Aviation Administration rather than require the entitled rich pull their weight as citizens of the country that enabled them to live lives of unprecedented luxury.

http://www.alternet.org/speakeasy/leowgerard/party-entitled-rich-threatens-economy

Conservative/Libertarian concept of Liberty is simple: Liberty for businessmen

Rep. Ron Paul, an icon to the libertarian Right and to some on the anti-war Left, gave a farewell address to Congress that expressed his neo-Confederate interpretation of the Constitution and his anti-historical view of the supposedly good old days of laissez-faire capitalism.

In a near-hour-longrambling speech on Nov. 14, Paul also revealed himself to be an opponent of “pure democracy” because government by the people and for the people tends to infringe on the “liberty” of businessmen who, in Paul’s ideal world, should be allowed to do pretty much whatever they want to the less privileged.

In Paul’s version of history, the United States lost its way at the advent of the Progressive Era about a century ago. “The majority of Americans and many government officials agreed that sacrificing some liberty was necessary to carry out what some claimed to be ‘progressive’ ideas,” said the 77-year-old Texas Republican. “Pure democracy became acceptable.”

Before then, everything was working just fine, in Paul’s view. But the reality was anything but wonderful for the vast majority of Americans. A century ago, women were denied the vote by law and many non-white males were denied the vote in practice. Uppity blacks were frequently lynched.

The surviving Native Americans were confined to oppressive reservations at the end of a long process of genocide. Conditions weren’t much better for the white working class. Many factory workers toiled 12-hour days and six-day weeks in very dangerous conditions, and union organizers were targeted for reprisals and sometimes death.

For small businessmen, life was treacherous, too, with the big monopolistic trusts overcharging for key services and with periodic panics on Wall Street rippling out across the country in bank failures, bankruptcies and foreclosures.

Meanwhile, obscenely rich Robber Barons, like John D. Rockefeller, Andrew Carnegie and J.P. Morgan, personally controlled much of the nation’s economy and manipulated the political process through bribery. They were the ones who owned the real “liberty.”

It took the Great Depression and its mass suffering to finally convince most Americans “that sacrificing some liberty was necessary,” in Paul’s curious phrasing, for them to gain a living wage, a measure of security and a little respect.

So, under President Franklin Roosevelt, laws were changed to shield working Americans from the worst predations of the super-rich. Labor standards were enacted; unions were protected; regulations were imposed on Wall Street; and the nation’s banks were made more secure to protect the savings of depositors.

Many social injustices also were addressed during Ron Paul’s dreaded last century. Women got the vote and their position in the country gradually improved, as it did for blacks and other minorities with the belated enforcement of the equal rights provisions of the 14th Amendment and passage of civil rights legislation.

The reforms from the Progressive Era, the New Deal and the post-World War II era also contributed to a more equitable distribution of the nation’s wealth, making the United States a richer and stronger country. The reforms, initiated by the federal government, essentially created the Great American Middle Class.

Paul’s Complaint

http://www.alternet.org/tea-party-and-right/ron-pauls-farewell-speech-congress-lays-bare-his-hatred-pure-democracy-and-love

Conservative politicians for the most part don't believe in freedom
THEIR MOTTO IS NOT WHAT YOU CAN DO FOR YOUR COUNTRY BUT WHAT
YOU CAN DO FOR YOURSELF!!
Conservative politicians for the most part don't believe in freedom, equality, opportunity for all ONLY MONEY AND WEALTH! Yet unfortunately many American voters fall for their empty promises and camouflaged deceptions

(BUT AS HURRICAN SANDY JUST PROVED there are exceptions...Governor Christie has shown 
great courage to break away from his pack of conservatives and stand for the truth regarding the Federal Government and the Obama administration praising our president as a great leader)

But again, for the most part as it is the case with Romney and his gang

From http://www.conservativemyths.com/


"Political Conservative power-mongers are thugs and pirates have plundered America's treasure, raped its landscape, attempted to keep huge swaths of the general public confused and ignorant, sent us into ill-conceived wars, and violate the Constitution at will. Even a cursory glance at American history will reveal a slimy litany of abuses perpetrated upon the American people, and the republic itself, by those of the conservative persuasion.

Have there been abuses by liberals? Of course. No one is immune to the temptations that await those in power. But a liberal must abandon their principles to engage in nefarious activity. Nefarious activity is built into the professional conservative ethos. Why? Because liberals at least demonstrate some partiality in protecting the commons and the "general welfare" of "We the People", whereas above all, the conservatives worship money and power.

The modern conservative movement dates back to the 18th Century's Age of Reason. Of course, the conservatives were against it.

Reason, or rationality, was a dangerous thing according to the so-called "father of modern conservatism", Edmund Burke (1729-1797). Ironically, for his day Burke was comparatively liberal. In the British Parliament of the late 18th Century, there were far more conservative viewpoints than Burke's; these proved so backward no one claims them anymore. But Burke did represent the professional conservative politician's deep distrust of the common man. Instead, he believed that an aristrocracy or oligarchy of wealthy and educated elites were the natural rulers of any land, that the momentum of tradition, custom and heritage should prevail, and that the common man should not attempt to reason, but rather should bow to higher intellect and authority. It was, in effect, a continuation of clan mentality, where the herd follows stronger, superior leaders.

Burke also set the early template for the conservative's sense of entitlement. The concepts known as "property rights" and "the free market" established that a man (i.e. a wealthy man) should have unfettered control over his possessions, including goods for sale, regardless of how his control over those possessions may interfere with another man's rights or the common good. The wealthier a man was, the more "property rights" he could expect to acrue, even to the detriment of all of society. Governments should not interfere or attempt regulation of such rights of the free market (except in so far as a government might assist such a wealthy man to even greater advantage over his competitors). Much later, conservatives would conspire to bring this very same concept to the benefit of corporations. Edmund Burke would have loved that, being a shareholder in the notorious British East India Company, a monopoly, which would even before his death play a pivotal role in the American Revolution.

Edmund Burke, the patron saint of conservatives, was quite different from America's founding fathers, who did believe (albeit tentatively) in the rationality of the common man, and were very suspicious of oligarchy, aristocracy and corporations. Indeed, the American Revolution was instigated by revolt against a corporation! The Boston Tea Party was a protest against the monopoly that King George's (and Burke's) British East India Company attempted to foist upon the American colonies. The original "Tea Party" was a revolt against corporatism, a fact modern Tea-Partiers would do very well to ponder, and thereby re-aim their ire at the most dangerous monster threatening their freedom and way of life today!

Anticipating the gathering power of business and corporations, even in his day, Thomas Jefferson wrote, "I hope we shall... crush in its birth the aristocracy of our moneyed corporations which dare already to challenge our government in a trial of strength, and bid defiance to the laws of our country." How prescient a warning for us today as corporatism gains a strangle-hold on American economics, politics and culture, and how different a perspective from Edmund Burke and the conservatives.

Conservatism has always been about the rich and powerful. And the rich and powerful hate democracy. They hate the idea of liberty. They hate the idea that just anyone has the "inalienable" right to pursue happiness. They really hate the idea of equality. All of these ideals imply some sort of cultural balance. Professional conservatives don't want balance, they want money and power permanently tilted toward them and stacked in their favor, just like in the good old days of feudal lords.

You Mom and Pop Conservatives are being hoodwinked by the real leaders of the conservatives who could not care less about you, and only care about power and money. The leaders of conservatism laugh at you; they think you are an idiot, which they believe is proven by how easily you are prodded to follow the herd. The wizards atop the conservative pyramid scheme are ever mindful that to prevail in their quest to maintain the heirarchy that is beneficial to themselves and their aristocratic ilk, they must find a way to recruit great numbers of supporters who are willing to cast votes which may, actually, be against their own best interests.

How to do this? They certainly cannot be honest and say, "We are the party of, by and for the wealthy elite and corporations. Our credo is 'May the Rich get Richer.' Vote for us". But long ago, the conservatives realized they only had to divert and deceive, and divide and conquer. To do it was easy. Professional conservatives are natural liars, connivers and love keeping secrets from the general public. And to divide and conquer, they would simply have to capitalize (they do so love that word) on clan mentality: that is, feelings of superiority and fear.

Thus the modern conservative politician's alchemic blend of opposition to taxes and regulation, and "wedge issues" (gun control, abortion, immigration, gay rights, stem cell research, etc.), diverting the public's attention from their real motivations (putting more money and power in the pockets of the wealthy elite and corporations), encouraging public amnesia about colossal conservative failures, stoking the fires of bigotry, prejudice and blind faith in tradition, heritage, culture, suppressing voter turnout, and tying all of this up in a pretty little red-white-and-blue wrapped bouquet of patriotism, completely fake though it may be.

A certain, very large, segment of the American population just eats it up! They are completely blind to how they are being used by the aristocracy, the oligarchy, the professional conservatives. Yet this toxic blend of clan mentality - jingoism, greed, fear of the "other" and of "the end of our way of life" - has actually delivered innumerable elections, local, state and national to the conservatives. You have to hand it to them, professional conservatives know how to win, in the short run. In the long run, they always lose. Why? Because you can only struggle against truth and justice for so long. Inevitably, "the end of our way of life" comes to pass, and guess what, it's better!

Conservative tradition, custom, the status-quo always eventually gives way to liberal reason and rationale, to knowledge and scientific discoveries, to higher creativity and innovation, to expanded liberty and equality, and even to greater morality than the older way ever provided.

Thus America broke away from England, though the conservatives were against it. In America, they were the "Tories", still the name of the ultra-conservative party in England. The liberal principles of greater liberty and equality had been unleashed. Non-aristocratic men became empowered within the social, economic and political system. A little later, in the American liberal tradition, these rights were given even to non-propertied men, the very serfs that the conservative feudal lords had exploited. Public education was enacted. Slavery was abolished. Women got the right to vote. Children were removed from workhouses. Workers unionized and won labor rights. Social Security came into existence. Black Americans received their full rights under the Constitution. Consumers won rights and protections. The environment and endangered species became something to cherish and protect as national treasures. Gay Americans received rights. Conservatives fought, viciously, against each and every one of these advances. In one instance, the issue of slavery, it took a Civil War, the bloodiest episode in American history, to roll conservative clan mentality back into the dark age from which it emerged.


Conservatives until recently have been on a winning roll. With his smiley face and perfect hair, Ronald Reagan as Romney does now conned the nation (and swaths of the rest of the world) into believing that it was "Morning in America". He claimed the nation's future depended upon the free market, free trade, deregulation, slashing taxes (particularly for the rich), corporate mergers, corporate welfare, corporate tax-evasion, union-busting, reliance on oil, and de-emphasis on environmental protections. Some called it "trickle-down" economics. Reagan's rival for the 1980 Republican presidential nomination, George Bush, called it "VooDoo economics." After Reagan selected Bush to be his vice-president, we didn't hear any more about "VooDoo Economics." It was renamed "Reaganomics." But Bush was right. Like all conservative concepts, it didn't make sense.

What actually emerged from Reaganomics was the rich got richer; the poor got poorer; and the American middle class has been decimated by Reaganomics.

Ronald Reagan's eight years in office produced a frenzy of corporate takeovers, merger mania, savings & loan bail-outs, scandals, clandestine wars, war on drugs, propping up ruthless dictators, arming Saddam Hussein, arming Osama bin Laden, running up record budget deficits, running up record national debt, running up record trade deficits, giving corporations tax breaks to move jobs, factories and headquarters to other countries, privatization, cut-backs in social services, cut-backs in infrastructure, and eternally battling a boogie-man (back then it was the Soviets; now it's the terrorists). In hindsight, we can clearly see how ALL of Reagan's policies that the conservatives told us were absolutely correct were absolutely wrong!

Bill Clinton did little to turn the tide in his first term in office, then was stymied by a Republican Congress later on, though he did manage to balance the budget by the time he left office, leaving his successor with a record budget surplus. By the time George W. Bush took office, conservatives had the White House, the Congress, and the Supreme Court. It actually seemed possible that the conservatives might be able to pull off, by hook or crook, that elusive "permanent Republican majority" they had long dreamed of.

The permanent majority... the dream of Karl Rove and the neoconservatives! So close, but then they went too far. Politically, Cheney-Bush was Reagan on steroids and now Romney is Bush on Steroids Who could have predicted how bad it would turn out? and what a bad future awaits us if Romney were to be elected. Only all of history. Only conservative greed exceeds conservative incompetence. 

The legacy of George W. Bush is a complete and utter disgrace, and a permanent stain upon America. Now it is crystal clear that conservative policies are no better now than they were back in the 1920s when the conservatives led us directly into the Great Depression. So it was not surprising in 2008 when the American public did exactly what it did in the election of 1932 and kicked the bums out!

Conservative leaders are scoundrels of the highest order; always have been and always will be. They are liars and crooks and thieves. It's in their DNA. They don't believe in freedom, they don't believe in equality, they don't believe in opportunity for all, they don't believe in reason, they don't believe in science, they don't believe in the pursuit of happiness. They don't believe in small government. They don't believe in your religion. They believe in money and power. Period. They think you are as dumb as a stump, and they do not have your best interests at heart... nor America's. They've been on the wrong side of every major issue in American history, from 1776 on through to today. Read your history, carefully, and follow the dollars... you will see who these "patriots" really are."

http://www.conservativemyths.com/

 

 

When conservatives try to score points on CBO Estimates Obama tax cut to ad $4 trillion to deficit they again fail

CBO Estimates Obama tax cut to ad $4 trillion to deficit is WRONG this statement which the rightwing immediately jumps on (remember conservatives proceed) is why their desperation for winning makes them look much more ignorant...

ACTUALLY "Obama Tax Cuts" cut the deficit by $$737 billion LETS EXAMINE IN DETAIL WHY

Again the fearful white male conservatives fear mongering crap that they have not even vetted correctly ...below Thomas Woods throws out the CBO estimate...but read the FACT CHECKING ON THIS ISSUE

THE FACTS (by WP fact checker)

"As we have noted before, The Fact Checker covered the passage of the Bush tax cuts in 2001, which were originally promoted as a way to deal with the looming problem of having too little national debt. (Oops.) The most striking thing is that the deal permanently locks in place virtually all of those tax cuts — something that Democratic leaders had once said would be an economic travesty.

The Bush tax cut was structured to expire after nine years, in part to hide its true cost, and Democrats declared at the time they would trim it back in future years. In the midst of the economic downturn, Obama extended it for two years, but vowed he would reinstate the top two tax rates that existed in the Clinton administration.

In the end, he had to settle for just boosting the top tax rate, as well as nibbling around the edges on capital gains, personal exemptions and itemized deductions.

In other words, Republicans could have framed the vote as a huge victory, achieving a long-sought goal of permanently extending virtually all of Bush’s tax cuts. And Democrats could have viewed the outcome as a giant drain on the deficit — as they once did.

Indeed, after the Bush tax became law, Rep. Charles B. Rangel (D-N.Y.), then ranking member on the House Ways & Means Committee, asked the nonpartisan Joint Committee on Taxation to assess the true revenue loss of the tax law, assuming various provisions did not expire as scheduled. The answer: $1.8 trillion over ten years. He trumpeted that fact in a news release.

Now, here’s what the JCT pegged as the revenue loss of this week’s deal: $3.8 trillion over ten years. (Rangel voted for the bill, calling it “a victory for American families and the economy.”)
So how does the White House claim that it achieved $737 billion in deficit reduction? 

That’s because Obama is measuring the outcome against the anticipated revenue loss if none of the tax laws had changed, even though the Bush tax cuts actually did expire on Jan. 1. 


This is known as the difference between “current policy” and “current law.” Current policy assumes laws will be extended, even if they are due to expire. The Joint Tax Committee measures the deal against current law, while the White House blog post offers a chart that is measured against the Congressional Budget Office’s “alternative fiscal scenario” (in other words, current policy).

One of the biggest revenue drains was a decision to permanently index the alternative minimum tax to inflation. The AMT, intended to hit the wealthy, has never been tied to inflation—and then the Bush tax cuts exacerbated the problem by cutting tax rates so much that more middle-class Americans were snared by the AMT. So every year, Congress had to enact a temporary fix.

Just indexing the AMT to inflation reduces projected revenue by nearly $900 billion. But indexing the AMT and extending virtually all of the Bush tax cuts doubled the price tag to $1.8 trillion. Yet because CBO assumed such a step would be taken in its alternative scenario, the White House is able to assume the impact on the deficit was exactly zero dollars.

The same goes for three tax provisions that were part of the stimulus law; they add to the deficit by $134 billion, including $78 billion in spending, but because they were also included in CBO’s alternative scenario, the White House can also claim they contribute nothing to the deficit.

Paradoxically, the end of the payroll tax holiday — which will raise taxes on every working American — gets Obama no credit for deficit reduction, even though it raises more than $100 billion a year, because CBO assumed it would expire."

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/fact-checker/post/president-obamas-paradoxical-presentation-on-the-fiscal-cliff-deal/2013/01/02/9ea86bee-5534-11e2-8b9e-dd8773594efc_blog.html

The Conservative Rural Base

Demographics, Globalization And The Conservative Rural Base

How Conservatives are losing the Nation while preserving support of their rural strong holds
that now represent the minority of Americans but a minority that wants to impose itself by all means on the majority

"Rural America and the GOP that represents it is, in a word, Mayberry – a mythical rural town that celebrates an agrarian golden age that never was. Urban America is the U.N., and epitomizes all the complexity and foreignness that place represents. In one, those who are different are deemed suspicious. In the other, they are just another spice to add to the mixing bowl. One is mired in the past, the other in the now. In one, government need hardly exist. In the other, government keeps everyone from each other’s throats – barely.

Given this, it is no surprise that the GOP has increasingly embraced political and cultural platforms that look to the past for inspiration. Fundamentalist religion, 19th-century robber-baron economics, foreign-policy jingoism and a reactionary attitude toward ethnic and racial minorities play well in Mayberry precisely because rural America has so little exposure to the reality of the outside world – cocooned as it is by ignorance and partisan media. To urbanites, who confront the reality of the other on a daily basis, pragmatism wins out over fantasy not because it is more comforting, which it isn’t, but because it gets results. Tolerance doesn’t mean anything when the other is an abstract notion – like it is for most rural Americans. It means a heck of a lot when it allows you to live peacefully with the guy next door or helps you conduct business with those living a world away.

As the demographic cohort that makes up the GOP base gets older, more rural, less educated and increasingly alienated from the 21st century globalized world, it is clear that they are fighting tenaciously to hold on to a country they see slipping from their fingers. Having lost demographically, they are trying to stave off the inevitable with a wave of money and election tactics that smack of Jim Crow. Defeating Obama, who represents this tidal wave of cultural and economic change they so loathe, has therefore become not just important, but necessary to preserving America as they know and envision it – white, Christian and rural. Mayberry now. Mayberry tomorrow. Mayberry forever.

Unfortunately for conservatives, the ocean can’t be held back forever. There will come a point in time when simply digging in one’s heels and putting fingers in dykes will cease to have any effect. Mayberry, after all, was eventually canceled by TV networks eager to cater to younger, urban, more cosmopolitan consumers. Change is thus coming even if Obama is defeated in November. Indeed, his election in 2008 was the beginning of it – like rivulets of water trickling down a crack in a dam just before it bursts. When the demographic flood comes, as inevitably it must, it remains to be seen how the current incarnation of the GOP will keep from being swept away by it."

"In the United States, however, the denizens of our globally connected metropolises look less like citizens of rural American than ever before. Whereas rural America is mostly older, less educated, religious and white, urban America is younger, educated, secular, multi-ethnic and multi-racial."

http://www.mintpress.net/demographics-globalization-and-the-conservative-base/