● The Progressive Wave Is Here

    A Concise Depiction of the Obvious
🌊 The Progressive Wave Is Here !
Today’s Progressives are the Defibrillator of Democracy . . . 
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Sometimes, as we rethink and reframe our perception, we can hone our rhetoric with precision. As we navigate the shifts within our political landscape, we no longer have the luxury of cynicism or apathy. …actually, we never did. So, with clarity and vision, make way for progressives, the defibrillator of democracy. The corporatists will lose. As the Third Way Corporate Democrats cling to power, progressives like Bernie, AOC, Ilhan Omar, and Brand New Congress candidates propose time tested solutions. From Northern Europe (Scandinavia: Denmark, Norway, Sweden, etc... ) to the United States’ New Deal economy (of the 50’s and 60’s), these democratic-socialist policies have been proven to work. These “socialists” or New Deal Democrats (Social Democrats) are ideologically centrists when compared to history and the rest of the world. In other words, they’re far from extreme. Don't fall for corporate media propaganda. We will fix the economy, and we will win! The winning Blue Wave strategy is the Progressive Wave. The Blue Wave is here because the Progressive Wave is here.

The progressive wave is here in the U.S. today. If you don’t see it, you just might be dedicated to self-deception. Progressives have been winning in local elections all around the country. We are in the midst of an anti-authoritarian leftist movement. Even though, the bigots on the right have been rallied by Trump’s openly racist rhetoric, leftwing policies are just as effectively rallying the left. Obama was voted in to be the next FDR (well, the next non-racist anti-war FDR), but instead we got a Reagan Democrat in 2008, and then lost 1000 seats throughout his term. We haven’t had a true progressive in the White House since LBJ. Obama referenced FDR when he asked the public to make him pass progressive legislation. Apparently, Occupy wasn’t enough.

Trump's zero compassion policies are fascist! Tell your right-wing family members they've lost their moral compass. If they don't respect your opinion, you have nothing to lose. We have everything to lose by being silent.

📰 The Overton Window stands at the edge of fascism, but we can fight back! Don’t let it move one iota to the right. The corporate media is in part responsible for normalizing corporatism, which has led us to fascism. Of course, Democrats are better than Republicans, but Democrats have also played their part in leading us to fascism.

Bill Clinton’s Third Way officially declared Democrats as being center-left on social issues, while being center-right on economic policy. …as the center moves further to the right. This is the Neoliberal Era, an era in which the Democratic Party has betrayed the Left. The party has betrayed the working class. For the past four decades the party has betrayed its base. This has been a losing strategy. In 2016, the Democrats couldn’t even beat the easiest candidate to beat. Trump campaigned to the left of Hillary on a number of issues. He was lying, of course, but it shows that even a fake populist can beat an establishment corporatist.

The general election in 2016, was an election between the least popular candidate and the second least popular candidate. ...and the one with less votes won, in a democracy so weak, it produced an undemocratic result. The U.S. population is far to the left of D.C. on practically every issue. So, between a racist and a corporatist, there was no one to rally the left. …but, there was during the democratic primaries. Bernie Sanders was polled to beat Republicans, a year before the election, six months before, during, after, and since the election. Practically all of the polling results show that, dollar for dollar, Progressives are better candidates, because their policies are inline with the public. The establishment media still continues to dismiss the most popular politician as having never had a chance.

So once again, in 2020 as in 2016, the real fight will be in the Democratic Primary Elections. We know that 40% of the electorate are Independents, who would vote for a Progressive over a conservative. And, 30% are Democrats, who would also vote for a Progressive in the General, making it very unlikely for a Republican to win. Independents do not want to vote for a corporate centrist. So, it’s up to the voters on the left to ignore the corporate media, and pick a winning candidate for once. The time is now to speak the truth and push for truly effective progressive policies. All of the data shows that progressive policies bring about more peace, equality, and a strong stable economy. And, our best bet in defeating the right-wing’s rising fascist wave, is with a strong left-wing progressive wave.

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The #BlueWaveIsHere because the #ProgressiveWaveIsHere. The winning #BlueWave strategy is the #ProgressiveWave.
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Post by: Kurt Riebel: artist, activist  

#Resist #ResistTheCorporatists @uResist
 THE PROGRESSIVE WAVE IS HERE ! 
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● Demonizing The Left

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● Demonizing The Left : destroys democracy 

Decades of demonizing the left has had an effect. The effects for the most part have been devastating to communities and the economy as a whole. Cutting programs and regulations that help the poor, middle-class, workers, and consumers, while simultaneously cutting taxes for the rich and giving government handouts to the wealthiest 0.1%, has decimated the public sphere. Giant multinational corporations lease the public airwaves for free. They dominate the discussion with the bias of the corporate elite. And, this devastation did not come about by accident. It has been a well thought out plan and very successful campaign by the extreme right.

After the great depression, parties on the left organized. It was a time when practically everyone had joined a workers’ union. Two socialist parties, the communist party, and the workers’ unions got together to pressure Franklin Delano Roosevelt to implement the New Deal. There was talk of revolution across the country. In 1944, FDR proposed a tax increase of 100% on the top marginal tax bracket of the time, which was income over $25,000 per year ($400,000 in today’s terms). He went to the wealthiest people (the people who had benefited the most from the system) and told them, if they don’t give something back, they could stand to lose it all. They settled on a tax of 94% on the top marginal tax bracket. And, that paid for the programs that gave us the Golden Years of Capitalism. The New Deal was a half measure. It was not socialism. It merely saved capitalism. One of the conditions, was for the organized left to stop talking about revolution. And they did, but the enraged right began to plot their revenge.

Equality feels like oppression to the privileged. They couldn’t accept the fact that everyone was doing better and that they themselves were still benefiting the most from society. The generation that elected FDR understood the lessons their children never learned. The top marginal tax rate stayed in the ninety percentile throughout the 1950’s and into the 60’s. By the 1970’s, it was in the seventy percentile. The wealthiest are generally able to subtract 40 to 50% off the percent they owe, so when they were supposed to pay 90%, they ended up paying 40% on income above the top rate. So, now that they’re supposed to pay 39%, they actually pay nothing, while still receiving huge subsidies to their businesses and districts, not to mention the bailouts when they fail. Over the longterm, Republicans cut taxes for the rich, and increase taxes on the lower 90 percent, while Democrats tax the rich a little more and the majority a little less. The Corporate Democrats have damaged the economy in a similar way as Republicans, but to a lesser degree. If an establishment news anchor attempts to relay this information to the public, they’re quickly removed, as we have seen with Dylan Ratigan, Ed Shultz, and others.

Some think that war is good for the economy, but World War II did not save the economy after the depression. Our longest war is the Afghan War, and it’s obviously not helping anyone but the rich. Only war profiteers benefit from war. Even if war helped society (which it doesn’t), it would be the most immoral solution ever devised. Dwight D. Eisenhower warned us of the growing military-industrial complex, but the Traditionalists and Baby Boomers didn’t listen. Although, the Baby Boomers did make great contributions to society with the civil rights and women’s rights movements, which came out of the more stable more equal New Deal economy. Practically, everything good that we have today can be traced back to the progress of the left, and likewise, most setbacks can be traced to the achievements of the right and the decimation of the New Deal. As we take from the poor and give to the rich, inequality increases. It’s very predictable and easy to understand, unless you’re being informed by those who benefit from your misunderstanding. If you’re angry at the poor, it’s because you’re being informed (actually manipulated) by the rich.

In 1976 and 1978, the conservatives in the Supreme Court passed laws declaring that corporations are people and money is speech, making bribery legal through campaign donations. Since, we’ve shifted from a Keynesian economy to a Friedmanist economy (or Reaganomics), CEO pay has gone through the roof, while working conditions and wages have gone down for the majority. Worker productivity has gone up, but due to the rollbacks in regulations, workers receive no benefits from their increased productivity. Now, the wealth of the world sits stagnant in the Cayman Islands or other offshore accounts. Giving to the rich has done nothing the right had claimed it would, and yet has done everything the left predicted. The Millennials who grew up with the internet, have not been so easily indoctrinated, and hence the left can be demonized no more.

The decades’ attacks on unions, socialists, and the left altogether, has been disastrous to democracy, civic engagement, and collective action as a whole. In other words, community interests have been forgotten in our political system, while private profits for the rich have taken center-stage in national and international decision making in the United States. Although, there may be one small, yet not completely insignificant, side benefit to all of this demonization and marginalization. And that is, for the past several decades the left has had to continually rethink and reevaluate its principles and positions. But now, there is practically no extreme left. Bernie Sanders is less of a Socialist than Eisenhower. Eisenhower taxed the rich more than Bernie has ever suggested. That's how far to the right we have gone. That which is generally considered to be the extreme left, are merely basic new deal economic policies, the lessons the Traditionalists forgot. Although hopefully, what we are left with, are more well thought out ideas. Yet, there's still much to figure out as we navigate through and, with any luck, out of this corporatists neoliberal era. Conceivably, the decades of reevaluation could help in some way, but if nothing else, it has certainly made the criticism from the right, laughable.

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Post by: Kurt Riebel: artist, activist  

 #ThinkLove #ThinkLoveIdeas #PeacefulProtest #LoveTrumpsHate #Resist @uResist
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