Gigantic Crowd Supporting Sanity Yesterday
We went to see Chuck Brown at the Strathmore last night. Out here in Rockville a little after seven o'clock there were groups of partiers headed to the city in costumes. They're working on the tracks so the trains were far-between, and the platform was like a big Halloween party, with people wandering between groups, socializing, laughing.
The trains coming back from the city were jam-packed full of tired looking people, mostly not in costumes. You could tell there had been a big event, the Metro was loaded to its maximum, car after car, train after train, standing room only. People were coming back from the big Jon Stewart / Steven Colbert Rally to Restore Sanity / March to Keep Fear Alive demonstration on the mall.
A few months ago, the teabaggers met for Glenn Beck's big "Restoring Honor" demonstration, which drew 87,000 people and was written up in the press as the symbol of a huge movement sweeping across the country. Yesterday's event, which Stewart called "the million moderate march," dwarfed the Beck demonstration with a crowd estimated by CBS News at 215,000.
In our suburban county a few years ago the school district updated its sex-ed curriculum to say something about sexual orientation, and a tiny handful of rightwing extremists went nuts. There were not twenty of them in the core group, even at their most "powerful." You should have seen the TV cameras! If you'd been home watching the news, you would have thought there was a real controversy, a real division between people who wanted the schools to teach about respecting differences in sexuality and those who wanted it to stay how it was. The truth is, though, that the vast majority of Montgomery County residents wanted objective, scientifically sound, and kind lessons in our county's classrooms.
In a similar way, the press has played the tea-party phenomenon as if a gigantic proportion of Americans believe the President is a fascist and the government is taking away our civil liberties. Bull-oney. Most people are clear-eyed, sensible, fair. Most people support the kinds of improvements the administration has been promoting, and if anything there is impatience with the pace of change.
It's ironic that it took two comedians to put together the event that made that statement. As we have found, supporting something is much harder than attacking it.
The trains coming back from the city were jam-packed full of tired looking people, mostly not in costumes. You could tell there had been a big event, the Metro was loaded to its maximum, car after car, train after train, standing room only. People were coming back from the big Jon Stewart / Steven Colbert Rally to Restore Sanity / March to Keep Fear Alive demonstration on the mall.
A few months ago, the teabaggers met for Glenn Beck's big "Restoring Honor" demonstration, which drew 87,000 people and was written up in the press as the symbol of a huge movement sweeping across the country. Yesterday's event, which Stewart called "the million moderate march," dwarfed the Beck demonstration with a crowd estimated by CBS News at 215,000.
In our suburban county a few years ago the school district updated its sex-ed curriculum to say something about sexual orientation, and a tiny handful of rightwing extremists went nuts. There were not twenty of them in the core group, even at their most "powerful." You should have seen the TV cameras! If you'd been home watching the news, you would have thought there was a real controversy, a real division between people who wanted the schools to teach about respecting differences in sexuality and those who wanted it to stay how it was. The truth is, though, that the vast majority of Montgomery County residents wanted objective, scientifically sound, and kind lessons in our county's classrooms.
In a similar way, the press has played the tea-party phenomenon as if a gigantic proportion of Americans believe the President is a fascist and the government is taking away our civil liberties. Bull-oney. Most people are clear-eyed, sensible, fair. Most people support the kinds of improvements the administration has been promoting, and if anything there is impatience with the pace of change.
It's ironic that it took two comedians to put together the event that made that statement. As we have found, supporting something is much harder than attacking it.
posted by JimK at 9:31 AM
25 Comments:
"In a similar way, the press has played the tea-party phenomenon as if a gigantic proportion of Americans believe the President is a fascist and the government is taking away our civil liberties. Bull-oney. Most people are clear-eyed, sensible, fair. Most people support the kinds of improvements the administration has been promoting, and if anything there is impatience with the pace of change."
most people believe the direction our government is taking will lead to less freedom and they don't support the "improvements" the administration has been proposing
furthermore, they see liberals attacking their position by over-reacting and inciting fear
though it may be hard for you to see, part of the insanity Stewart decried is the TTF-style hyperbole that will cost the Dems Congress on Tuesday
Americans liked the era (1980-2006) when government was being tamed and freedom allowed a thousand flowers to bloom
the sane will take back our government
Keep saying it, Anon. Won't make it true.
You're wrong. Americans are still decent, sensible people.
I was wondering what Jim would write with reference to Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert Comedy show...and you did not disappoint.
Fantasy will slam into reality come Tuesday, and there will then be only two real questions:
First, will Democrats realize that their vision for this country is not consistent with either the Founding or the development of this country (at least until Woodrow Wilson, the first American President that openly expressed disdain for the Constitution)?
Second, will Republicans realize that they must state a principle, such as "smaller government and bigger citizens" (as opposed to merely wards of the State) and then defend that principle, rather than being a slower version of what the Democrats propose, or risk defeat again in two years? (I did not vote for McCain two years ago, and I did not vote for the Republican Gubernatorial candidate this year).
Well, I will not linger, but I will leave this op-ed piece in the Washington Post from two traditional Democrats (one of which even made it onto Nixon's Enemies List).
**********************************
Our divisive president, redux
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/10/29/AR2010102905966.html
"President Obama's post-partisan America has disappeared, replaced by the politics of polarization, resentment and division."
and
"What a change two years can bring.
We can think of only one other recent president who would display such indifference to the majesty of his office: Richard Nixon.
We write in sadness as traditional liberal Democrats who believe in inclusion."
If you were afraid to meet tea-partiers in public, here's your chance to see what they have to say in a nice, safe, cartoon YouTube video...
Enjoy!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nnUfPQVOqpw&feature=aso
Peace,
Cynthia
Cynthia writes,
If you were afraid to meet tea-partiers in public, here's your chance to see what they have to say in a nice, safe, cartoon YouTube video...
LOL...Cynthia, I am sorry but I could only watch not quite half of the cartoon...that is what it is...correct? It is unfortunate that the best liberals or really for that matter conservatives can do is speak in slogans as it avoids confronting and dealing with some harsh realities, such as what will happen when the US is unable to sell any more of its debt to countries like China. Within the last year Greece, France and England (and those are the ones that made the news and that I can remember) have all had to take on the issue of how they will support all the government provided, cradle to grave, benefits. All too soon the US will also have to deal with this issue, and it will not be dealt with by simply giving the axe to a few more weapons systems or NPR.
The tea partier says that Obama et al wants to make us slaves of the State; while true it is not quite accurate. Obama and "Progressive" Democrats do not want to make anyone a slave - why would they when making every citizen a ward of the State will do?
The bigger the State, the smaller the Citizen. As someone that cares about the quality of human freedom I would like to see a smaller State and bigger Citizens. Whatever does not advance that agenda I would like to see defeated.
Orin noted:
“LOL...Cynthia, I am sorry but I could only watch not quite half of the cartoon...that is what it is...correct? It is unfortunate that the best liberals or really for that matter conservatives can do is speak in slogans…”
Glad to see you back Orin. You’re a refreshing change from the usual conservative dogma that passes for the “ultimate truth” that usually gets pasted here. It’s nice to have someone that can actually participate in a conversation.
“as it avoids confronting and dealing with some harsh realities, such as what will happen when the US is unable to sell any more of its debt to countries like China.”
Too bad somebody didn’t think of this over a decade ago. Oh wait a minute, they did!
As I’ve said before, for the last 3 decades we’ve had our choice between “tax and spend” democrats and “borrow and spend” republicans. True fiscal conservatives (on both sides of the aisle) that kept warning us about the huge problems we’d face in 2010 when the baby-boomers started retiring were voted out of office because as a general populace, we prefer our politicians to be dogmatic rather than pragmatic.
Remember that guy a few years back that kept saying we should put the Social Security revenue in a “lock-box” to make sure it was there for the people who paid into it? Not that I ever liked Al Gore, or even voted for him. But in a few years there are going to be a lot of cold and hungry senior citizens thinking that guy was a genius. And they will keep voting in whoever promises to keep their Social Security checks rolling in. It won’t just be the democratic seniors either – the republicans will be yelling “I PAID MY MONEY INTO THAT SYSTEM AND I WANT IT BACK!”
“Within the last year Greece, France and England (and those are the ones that made the news and that I can remember) have all had to take on the issue of how they will support all the government provided, cradle to grave, benefits.”
Comparing our government benefits over the last 30 years to say that of France is like comparing Ebenezer Scrooge’s generosity before and after he was visited by the three ghosts. They are hardly on the same scale. France is having riots because they bumped the retirement age from 60 up to 62. For anyone younger than 50, that age is already 67 here in the US. When I saw my first financial advisor back in the mid-90’s he told me the Gen X’ers like me shouldn’t count on any income at all from Social Security – the system will have collapsed, or it will be so small as to be insignificant.
And how many people here in the U.S. get 8 weeks of vacation, a 35 hour work week, (which equates to an ADDITIONAL 21.875 days off), plus all of France’s “cradle to grave” benefits on top of that? Non mon ami, we are not turning into France. And fiscal realities won’t let that happen any time in the next decade, probably two.
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2005/06/27/60II/main704571.shtml
“All too soon the US will also have to deal with this issue, and it will not be dealt with by simply giving the axe to a few more weapons systems or NPR.”
I disagree with the “All too soon” part Orin. It’s WAY past time to deal with this. We are now backed into a corner with a financial balance sheet that makes 3rd world countries glad they’re not in as bad a position as we are. And still I have yet to hear one U.S. politician utter “austerity program” to get us back on track – democrat, republican, or tea party.
We started getting ourselves back towards firmer financial ground after Ross Perot sounded the alarm about where our nation was headed nearly two decades ago. He didn’t get into office, but somehow his ideas spread and some of our politicians managed to start heading in the right direction, but we never got there. Our deficit started to drop, but we still didn’t start paying down any debt: http://www.craigsteiner.us/articles/16
As the article notes though, we can’t give politicians all the credit for reducing our public debt holdings – much of that came about because of the stock bubbles we had going in the 90’s which increased Social Security revenues – this allowed the government to borrow more from itself rather than from public banks or the Chinese.
The wonderful thing about compound interest is that small savings now can lead to large resources later on. You may recall that some of our politicians were warning us about what would happen to Social Security back in the 80’s if we didn’t raise taxes, increase the retirement age, or cut benefits (or some combination thereof). They were all victims of the proverbial “3rd rail” of politics that killed any chance we had of keeping that portion of our budget safe, and avoiding a giant balloon payment or collapse of the system years ago. It’s too late to do anything about it now. We’ll be in “clean up the doo-doo” mode for quite a while.
“The tea partier says that Obama et al wants to make us slaves of the State; while true it is not quite accurate. Obama and "Progressive" Democrats do not want to make anyone a slave - why would they when making every citizen a ward of the State will do?”
No Orin it is not true. And your “more accurate” version is just another slogan of the type you were lamenting earlier. Even if it were true, fiscal realities over the next decade will preclude that from happening anyway – we simply won’t have the money to do it.
“The bigger the State, the smaller the Citizen. As someone that cares about the quality of human freedom I would like to see a smaller State and bigger Citizens. Whatever does not advance that agenda I would like to see defeated.”
I would too Orin, but the course of our country over the next decade will be dictated by the penance we will have to pay for the profligate spending our nation has done over the past 3 decades.
Our economy, 70 percent of which has depended on consumer spending, was only sustainable because China was lending us boatloads of money and building the consumer products we lusted after for a fraction of the cost we could make them here.
Alan Greenspan, poster boy for two decades of our booming economy, simultaneously argued for less banking regulations saying “banks know what they are doing and will always do what’s in their best business interest” and kept pumping up the housing market by moving interest rates ever lower every time the economy seemed to be in a rough patch. He never once appears to have asked himself, “Why do we have to keep these rates so low for so long?” or “How come these rate drops don’t seem to be stimulating much any more,” or the biggest one: “Could I possibly be fueling a housing market bubble here with what I’m doing?”
In the mean time, most Americans were using the inflated values of their houses as an ATM machine and buying those big plasma and LCD screens they just HAD to have from… where? China!!! Meanwhile, our savings rate as a nation went below zero, and our credit card debt expanded like Kirsty Alley at an all-you-can-eat buffet.
The way we as citizens have behaved financially over the last few decades was mirrored by our politicians. It was inherently unstable but a number of people (including myself) have prepared ourselves for it as best we can.
It is time to pay the piper. The entire way we run our personal finances and our country’s finances will HAVE to be put back on firmer ground. I haven’t seen any of the politicians talking about what it will take to do this:
Pull nearly all of our forces out of Iraq and Afghanistan and reduce the military budget to a small fraction of what it is now.
Freeze Social Security and Medicare benefits, and perhaps even take out the unfunded ones that Bush put in. Raise the retirement age for the youngest folks, and hope they live long enough to see it.
Raise taxes on the rich and start paying down our national debt, or at the very least pay for our military as we go, and don’t put it on the Bank of China credit card. Right now our military spending is reminding me of that of Russia just before it collapsed.
Consider a “wealth tax” to pay down our national debt until we get it down to zero. The rate wouldn’t have to be high – say 0.5%. But it would apply to ALL of a person’s accumulated wealth – no loopholes. It would go away once the debt was gone. I know that’s a hard promise for politicians to keep, but until we restore some fiscal sanity, we’ll have to pay for this mess somehow.
Eliminate loopholes in our tax code – simply our tax system to the point that even an eighth grader can do it with pencil, paper, and calculator. This will put thousand of IRS agents and accountants out of work, making them available for more productive uses in our society. Perhaps they can become teachers and restore some of the intellectual prowess we’ve lost to other nations since education has become such a perennial talking point that never gets fixed.
The problems we are seeing now Orin are only the beginning. They are not going to be fixed with the elections on Tuesday, and they certainly won’t be fixed if Sarah Palin becomes president. We have at least a decade of hard times ahead of us, no matter who is in office. The sooner we get people in office that actually understand economics and can put into place the painful policies it will take to fix this mess, the sooner it will be over.
Have a nice day,
Cynthia
I just noticed a typo 2 paragraphs up...
It should say "_simplify_ our tax system."
Sorry for the confusion.
Cynthia
Is that all you have to say, Cinco?
Can't you elaborate a little?
"You're wrong. Americans are still decent, sensible people."
Actually, I'm right. Americans are still decent, sensible people.
That's why the Dem gang faces a grim day tomorrow.
"They are not going to be fixed with the elections on Tuesday, and they certainly won’t be fixed if Sarah Palin becomes president."
the obsession with Sarah Palin is notable
Cinco rambles about how all politicians are gutless and without vision
and then to conclude: especially Sarah Palin
she strikes fear into the liberal fringe for a reason
she has done more than any other non-Democrat to contribute to tomorrow's tidal wave
think how giddy they were when she resigned as governor
it's funny
and, yes, the results of Tuesday's election will be a step toward fixing things
the steps you outline above would have you derided by TTFers like Bea as a wacko, Cinco, if you were a candidate
plenty of Tea Partiers have ideas and the courage to voice them
discussion of ideas gets a rabid response here
"Have a nice day"
have a nice tomorrow!
decent, sensible people will
ya-ooooo!
werewolves of London!
"NO" is not a policy!
YES, IT IS!
when the question is whether to pass a law that reduces freedom in the cause of security
NO IS A LEGITIMATE POLICY!
indeed, historically, it's always been the American policy
as a result, we have more freedom AND security than the rest of the world
Cynthia writes,
The problems we are seeing now Orin are only the beginning. They are not going to be fixed with the elections on Tuesday, and they certainly won’t be fixed if Sarah Palin becomes president. We have at least a decade of hard times ahead of us, no matter who is in office. The sooner we get people in office that actually understand economics and can put into place the painful policies it will take to fix this mess, the sooner it will be over.
I could quibble about this or that, but your final paragraph is the unassailable truth - there are more tough times ahead.
Look, while I do not hate or dislike Sarah Palin, I do not particularly think she is what the right wing base of the GOP needs at the present time. She panders to a short-sighted know nothing-ism of the Republican Party. When a dimwitted broadcast journalist like Katie Couric can expose a candidate seeking the highest office as being even more dimwitted with a simple question like "what magazines do you read?" then any reasonable person can conclude that Palin is probably not the strongest candidate.
What is baffling to me even now is how someone with an even thiner public resume was elected President two years ago - I guess timing is everything. While I loathe the thought of voting for Sarah Palin, I may be forced to if only to remove from office someone that habitually apologizes on behalf of the United States nearly every time he leaves American soil.
Still, Cynthia, you did sum up the difference difference between the Democrats and the Republicans (such as they are) as being "tax and spend" and "borrow and spend". Still, it is not people that understand economics per se that are needed as much as people seeking public office that understand the role Americans allocate to govt (limited govt) and are willing to defend that principle.
"someone that habitually apologizes on behalf of the United States nearly every time he leaves American soil"
this is why some people think Obama wasn't born here or is a Muslim or has his father's commitment to anti-colonialism
he is actually just a child of the counter-culture generation who never grew out of the idea that America is the source of all the world's troubles
he clearly doesn't believe in American exceptionalism and it is clear he differs from most Americans so they instinctly think he belongs to some "other" box
I am making this suggestion in advance of the election results, so no one can say I am trying to spin the results.
If the number of votes received by Republican House Candidates in 2010is no more than the number Republican House Candidates received in 2008 -- even if they gain control of the House -- then the only thing that can be inferred is that the Republican electorate was more energized than the Democratic electorate. In other words, the Republican voters showed up, and lots of discouraged Democrats did not show up.
If, on the other hand, a Republican House majority is accompanied by a significant increase in the number of votes Republicans received over 2008, then there is a real shift in the viewpoints of many voters.
I don't know if the media, surface as it is, will do that number crunching. Hopefully, someone without a stake in ideology will, so that we can more accurately assess what is going on.
Either way, however, I posit that the Citizens United decision may prove to be the worst decision for American democracy since Plessy v. Ferguson.
David writes,
Either way, however, I posit that the Citizens United decision may prove to be the worst decision for American democracy since Plessy v. Ferguson.
I am sorry you feel that way - I prefer to think that for all of the wailing, moaning and gnashing of teeth on the Left, the United States Supreme Court affirmed that the First Amendment means exactly what it says, most especially when it involves political speech.
That you would compare a decision denying human freedom with one that affirms a fundamental right of all, freedom of speech, is strange.
Citizens United affirmed democracy
as anyone who follows baseball or the California governors' race knows, money doesn't buy victor
What it says Orin, is corporations are people too.
That's bullshit.
One Anonymous writes,
Citizens United affirmed democracy
as anyone who follows baseball or the California governors' race knows, money doesn't buy victor
According to NPR, Meg Whitman spent $140 million of her own money...and what did it get her? Second place - she had no business going up against such a experienced candidate like Jerry Brown.
While Two Anonymous opines,
What it says Orin, is corporations are people too.
That's bullshit.
And you presume I slavishly support that??? Good grief...Big Business is not any friend of the working man, and I do understand that fact. What I also understand is that when the government is given the power to decide who says what and when then you have the start of tyranny, and that should make every citizen afraid.
Orin,
The tension between the rights and power of artificial entities (corporations) and actual people has been at the heart of our national debate since the aftermath of the Civil War, when the Industrial Revolution exploded in the United States.
The entire concept of a corporation in a capitalist society, with all the benefits incorporation brings (limited liability of stockholders, in particular), is a creation of, the state, which in the U.S. is supposed to be controlled by the people. In the view of our founding document, the people have certain inalienable rights -- the people, not artificial entities.
But in the decades after the Civil War, with the growth and power of corporations during what Mark Twain referred to as the Gilded Age, big business sought to define corporations as people. Given their ability to essentially buy elections and politicians, they succeeded. Indeed, in the first big 14th Amendment Supreme Court case (The Slaughterhouse Cases, if memory serves) involved a successful effort to have corporations be defined as persons under the Due Process clause. That may have made sense in the context access to the courts, but it was expanded over time to prevent the actual real people from regulating corporations -- for example, the Supreme Court's early 20th Century overturning of state Child Labor Laws. By 1937, even some conservative members of the Supreme Court -- notably Chief Justice Charles Evans Hughes -- realized that this kind of Constitutional interpretation was bad for the country, and the Court changed course.
Capitalism can be a dynamic force, but it is constantly in danger of devouring itself. Theodore Roosevelt and Woodrow Wilson led the Progressive Movement, which sought to soften the rough edges and keep Capitalism from running off the tracks. In the aftermath of World War I, that effort essentially disappeared, and the result was the Great Depression. FDR and the Democratic Congresses of the mid-1930s laid a foundation of creating a balance between the rights of real people and the rights of artificial entities which served us well for the rest of the 20th Century.
But the artificial entities were always chafing at the bit, and were often able to get back the freedom to act without regulation, particularly in the Reagan years, and then in the Bush II years. The result is that we went off the tracks again. Even Bush II recognized this, leading to the TARP and the successful effort by our political leadership in 2008-9 to keep us from descending into a second Great Depression. Striking the most efficacious balance between regulation and non-regulation is a constant struggle in a fast-changing world, but it is essential for the common good.
But with the Citizens United ruling, corporations again were untethered. And while unlimited expenditures of money do not always determine elections, they are a powerful weight on the scale. And with the sophistication in the uses of mass media, the moneyed interests are likely to become even more powerful in shaping public opinion. Movements of capital do not respect national boundaries. In some respects, that is good, because it expands the ability to create wealth. But it also means that, ultimately, the loyalty of those in control of capital is not to any one place -- including the United States.
The Chinese are involved in an experiment -- creating a form of Capitalism without Democracy in which the State can direct capital in what it views as the national interest. Capitalism without Democracy is a pernicious form of Fascism. But Democracy without the will to regulate Capitalism tends toward Oligarchy -- and,particularly in a globalized economy -- loses the ability to protect its own people's economic and physical well-being.
I think these observations are a starting point for a discussion of America's future. Unfortunately, I do not see much of this kind of discussion in the national media.
Orin,
The tension between the rights and power of artificial entities (corporations) and actual people has been at the heart of our national debate since the aftermath of the Civil War, when the Industrial Revolution exploded in the United States.
The entire concept of a corporation in a capitalist society, with all the benefits incorporation brings (limited liability of stockholders, in particular), is a creation of, the state, which in the U.S. is supposed to be controlled by the people. In the view of our founding document, the people have certain inalienable rights -- the people, not artificial entities.
But in the decades after the Civil War, with the growth and power of corporations during what Mark Twain referred to as the Gilded Age, big business sought to define corporations as people. Given their ability to essentially buy elections and politicians, they succeeded. Indeed, in the first big 14th Amendment Supreme Court case (The Slaughterhouse Cases, if memory serves) involved a successful effort to have corporations be defined as persons under the Due Process clause. That may have made sense in the context access to the courts, but it was expanded over time to prevent the actual real people from regulating corporations -- for example, the Supreme Court's early 20th Century overturning of state Child Labor Laws. By 1937, even some conservative members of the Supreme Court -- notably Chief Justice Charles Evans Hughes -- realized that this kind of Constitutional interpretation was bad for the country, and the Court changed course.
Capitalism can be a dynamic force, but it is constantly in danger of devouring itself. Theodore Roosevelt and Woodrow Wilson led the Progressive Movement, which sought to soften the rough edges and keep Capitalism from running off the tracks. In the aftermath of World War I, that effort essentially disappeared, and the result was the Great Depression. FDR and the Democratic Congresses of the mid-1930s laid a foundation of creating a balance between the rights of real people and the rights of artificial entities which served us well for the rest of the 20th Century. [END OF Part 1]
[PART 2 OF RESPONSE TO ORIN]
But the artificial entities were always chafing at the bit, and were often able to get back the freedom to act without regulation, particularly in the Reagan years, and then in the Bush II years. The result is that we went off the tracks again. Even Bush II recognized this, leading to the TARP and the successful effort by our political leadership in 2008-9 to keep us from descending into a second Great Depression. Striking the most efficacious balance between regulation and non-regulation is a constant struggle in a fast-changing world, but it is essential for the common good.
But with the Citizens United ruling, corporations again were untethered. And while unlimited expenditures of money do not always determine elections, they are a powerful weight on the scale. And with the sophistication in the uses of mass media, the moneyed interests are likely to become even more powerful in shaping public opinion. Movements of capital do not respect national boundaries. In some respects, that is good, because it expands the ability to create wealth. But it also means that, ultimately, the loyalty of those in control of capital is not to any one place -- including the United States.
The Chinese are involved in an experiment -- creating a form of Capitalism without Democracy in which the State can direct capital in what it views as the national interest. Capitalism without Democracy is a pernicious form of Fascism. But Democracy without the will to regulate Capitalism tends toward Oligarchy -- and,particularly in a globalized economy -- loses the ability to protect its own people's economic and physical well-being.
I think these observations are a starting point for a discussion of America's future. Unfortunately, I do not see much of this kind of discussion in the national media.
Excellent post David. Thanks for all the history, in particular.
Orin, I do intend to respond to your posts as well, but it's crunch time at work and I won't get the chance until this weekend.
Peace,
Cynthia
David writes,
Capitalism can be a dynamic force, but it is constantly in danger of devouring itself. Theodore Roosevelt and Woodrow Wilson led the Progressive Movement, which sought to soften the rough edges and keep Capitalism from running off the tracks.
That is true...how about government? Since Theodore Roosevelt, Woodrow Wilson and especially Franklin D. Roosevelt the national government has morphed from what could be accurately described as limited, constitutional government to something that is unlimited and can be described as many things, but certainly not constitutional.
On the other hand, you do bring up a good point that corporations are not real people. I guess a question could be: which do you think is a greater threat to personal freedom? The State, or the Corporation?
Good summary of corporations David.
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