The REAL "Far Left"

by: DaveJ

Mon Dec 20, 2010 at 13:30


Move The Center With Ideas

In a weekend discussion I was accused of being on the "far left" and trying to "destroy the President" because I pushed for the public option and disagreed with the pay freeze for federal employees and extending tax cuts for the rich.  That makes me "far left."

For some time the right's strategy has been to push a far, far right view on the country, encouraging the farthest right of ideas to be circulated.  (Overton Window, etc...)  It has worked.  The center has moved to the right, and to the right, and to the right.  It makes those who are just day-to-day wingnuts sound almost reasonable.

Where is the real far left?  How much easier would it be to move the center back if there really was a "far left" out there strategically pushing the goalposts?  

So let me throw out a discussion question: What are some things that a real, honest-to-goodness "far left" would be agitating for, and why isn't anyone doing just that?

Here's a start:

  • Nationalize the oil companies.
  • Guaranteed job or income for everyone, put to work on infrastructure investment projects, alternative energy projects, retrofitting buildings to be energy efficient, etc.
  • Cradle-to-grave Medicare-For-All.
  • Child care for all.
  • Eldercare for all.
  • 6 week paid vacation for everyone.
  • Triple Social Security's payments, lower retirement age to 55.
  • Worker representatives on Boards of Directors.
  • Limits to the how much of larger companies can be owned by a person or entity.
  • When companies reach a certain size they become public entities. (Because they have so much effect on everything.)
  • Companies responsible for externalized cost payback.
  • A person whose job is replaced by technology receives for life a share of the savings.
  • Bring back 90% top tax rates.  (OK I have been agitating for that one.)
  • Very very high estate taxes on very large estates.  Maybe up to 99% on estates over $1 billion.
  • Freedom from distraction.  We have a right to our own attention, free from advertising and commercialization.  The right to public spaces free from commercialization.

    How many of these are even "far left" ideas? I'd agree with most of these.  Basically I'm describing Europe here, not Maoist China.  

    So what about some honest-to-goodness "far left" ideas?

    Thoughts to share?

    • DaveJ :: The REAL "Far Left"

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    The REAL "Far Left" | 62 comments
    Tax rates (0.00 / 1)
    Basically I'm describing Europe here, not Maoist China.

    Actually, it is my understanding that countries with better, more socialistic services and better economic mobility actually have flatter, broader taxes.  There's some evidence that when it comes to equity, it is more important to focus on the spending side than the tax side.

    Our government, of course, has been riding on the backs of workers the past few decades via the payroll tax, so something needs to change on the tax side.  (Though Obama is working on making sure the status quo is preserved and the burden stays on workers.)

    I'd like to see a top rate of 50%, personally.  

    For the estate tax, I'd actually go with 100% over a billion.  (Remember, that only counts the dollars over the first billion.)  Say, 50% over 10 million and zero under that.  The goal is to prevent aristocracy, not revenue.

    "Aristocracy," there is a word we should use more often...

    Top rate 99% (4.00 / 2)
    above  a few million.  THAT would be a "far left" proposal.

    50% just takes us back to Reagan.

    Do you see how MUCH we have been pushed right?

    --

    Seeing The Forest -- Who is our economy FOR, anyway? Twitter: dcjohnson

    [ Parent ]
    Ok, fine (4.00 / 2)
    In spirit with original request:

    * All needs are constitutionally guaranteed and free.  In the modern world these include:

     * Food
     * Clothing
     * Housing
     * Transportation (anywhere)
     * Communication (including computer)
     * Education (yr. 0 through Doctorate and adult ed.)
     * Health Care and Medication

    * A capitalist system exists for wants, but 'need' is an ever growing and expanding category.  

    * No wealth may be passed on via inheritance.  A small exception is allowed for personal items, etc., but no wealth.

    That about covers it.  With this in place, I honestly don't care how you pay for it or how rich someone gets within their lifetime, as long as they do it honestly.

    [ Parent ]
    They all sound (0.00 / 0)
    good to me.  Unobtainable for the most part, at least in this country, but good.  I have one caveat though, DaveJ.  This describes Western Europe as much of it "used to be."  A whole lot of European countries are now pulling back from and severely curtailing their social compacts with the citizenry.

    "We are all born ignorant, but one must work hard to remain stupid."
    Benjamin Franklin
    Dream -- (4.00 / 1)
    you can do it!

    --

    Seeing The Forest -- Who is our economy FOR, anyway? Twitter: dcjohnson
    [ Parent ]
    yes (1.33 / 3)
    most of Europe is moving away from this direction because its no longer sustainable.  the public can only be taxed so much and even taxing the mega rich at ultra high levels is not enough to sustain this patern.  your wish list would not work here or anywhere else without some serious spending controls in place.  
    Scandanavia is, I guess, a mirage (4.00 / 2)
    I may be falling for a troll, here
    [ Parent ]
    Don't forget Germany (4.00 / 1)
    - it's industrial economy is doing marvelously, even with worker representatives on corporate boards. (Not to mention the generous paid vacation time.)

    Join the fight to give students a real voice on campus: Forstudentpower.org.
    [ Parent ]
    My guess is (0.00 / 0)
    it's Pete Peterson himself!
    [ Parent ]
    RR = Rugged Randian (0.00 / 0)
    Pete's nom de guerre ...
    [ Parent ]
    Too much credit (0.00 / 0)
    I doubt RR has read anything by Ayn Rand.  

    "It sounds wrong...
         ...but its right."
    [ Parent ]
    Congratulations for spreading failed Zombie Economics propaganda (4.00 / 5)
    The purpose of taxing the uberwealthy at a higher level is not so much to fund government (although that wealth would be impossible to obtain or maintain without government support) but to keep their income down to a level where it is merely a return on the value they add to the economy. The wealthy get more value from government than most of us. They should pay more for that government.

    The other reason is that wealth is power. America has been as successful as it has been economically because it was a middle class nation. Great family accumulations of wealth concentrate power into those families and pass that power on the off-spring who did nothing to deserve it. Such accumulations of power in families are called "Aristocracy." America has in the past and should remain opposed to the existence of an Aristocracy since there is no known instance of an Aristocracy ever existing for any reason except to perpetuate itself. Aristocracies are both dangerous and useless.

    And if the argument is that those concentrations of wealth provide a source of investment funds, so do banks, mutual funds and retirement funds. Right now the top 1000 American companies have $1.9 trillion in cash that they cannot find markets to invest in. The reason for that is that middle class consumers do not have the jobs or income needed to purchase consumer goods, and the American economy is 70% based on consumption. The private investment that normally provides roughly 20% more of the economic activity is not going to expand until the basic consumption expands. The wealthy do almost no consumption spending when considered as a percentage of their wealth.

    Right now we are marginally into the recovery phase of a worldwide bank-created Great Recession. Bankers were left alone and the concentrated their operations, stole as much as they could and failed utterly to provide for the future economy which is what gave us the current economic disaster.

    The financial policies of austerity that are being put into place here an across Europe will make the economic problems worse, but they are intended to concentrate and expand the power of wealth into the currently wealthy families and of the German and American bankers. That's the reason why Krugman's Zombie Economics is being rolled into place after it has failed repeatedly as economics every time it has been tried.

    Austerity policies that destroy jobs rather than create them will fail as they always have. The result is going to be greater concentrations of wealth and power, increased poverty along with slow and fitful economic recovery. Oh, and a lot of whining from the wealthy.

    [ Parent ]
    Unsustainable, Because They Bailed Out The Bankers, You Mean! (4.00 / 6)
    European elites have been saying the welfare state is unsustainable since around 1980, and yet the levels of social spending have actually increased modestly on average since then.

    What's changed is the crisis brought about by the bankers, and the insistence that they be bailed out by the people--who then must be cut off in order to repay the bankers!

    Neat, huh?

    "You know what they say -- those of us who fail history... doomed to repeat it in summer school." -- Buffy The Vampire Slayer, Season 6, Episode 3

    [ Parent ]
    Don't troll rate this (4.00 / 2)
    Flawed arguments need to be openly aired so posterity can learn how to recognize them.
    [ Parent ]
    I'd sign up. (4.00 / 6)
    I'm sick of this country and its politics.  Either throw it wide open, devil take the hindmost; or quit the bull shit and put a civilized society together.  Killing and stealing everyone blind while pretending to be benevolent or ham strung is more BS quotient than I can stand. I hope they all lose in 2012.  
    Austerity for all, not just the little guy (0.00 / 0)
    1. good for the environment

    2. good for our communities

    3. good for our souls (or modern soul equivalent)

    Yeah, Who Cares If The Poor Starve To Death? (4.00 / 2)
    Like you say,

    1. good for the environment

    2. good for our communities

    3. good for our souls

    I shoulda knowed you was a priest.

    "You know what they say -- those of us who fail history... doomed to repeat it in summer school." -- Buffy The Vampire Slayer, Season 6, Episode 3

    [ Parent ]
    Let's see... (4.00 / 7)
    Something on environmentalism - perhaps a large, immediate carbon tax, along with redistributing that wealth to the populace (or alternatively the government).

    Bring back a 94% top marginal tax rate (because 90% is just too low).

    Limit corporate non-advertising speech.

    Government-funded elections

    Fund support infrastructure for Congress

    Equality for all.

    Improve the prison system.

    Reduce felonization (bringing back mens rea, for example).

    Reduce copyright terms to, say, 20 years.

    Support for more than 2-parties in the political system.

    Doing something more than token about reparations.

    Funding Science.

    Funding Education.

    Funding diplomacy.

    Actually voting to go to war before starting a war (other than invasion), and requiring periodic specific re-authorization of entering war by elected officials. Basically, have the default military posture be defensive only.

    Defunding the military (not getting rid of it... just making it smaller).

    A "monopoly" Tax on any companies with more than a specific percentage of any market.

    P.S. The only item on your list I question is 6 weeks of vacation per person. I like my job; what would I do with that time?

    Did you know (0.00 / 0)
    that auditors WANT you to take more time off?

    It seems that most embezzlement schemes require that the embezzler be always on top of the scheme to avoid getting caught. They are generally caught when they take time off, like get sick or something. This is taught in auditing 101.

    More vacation for employees means less fraud for the companies. Oh, and less stress for the employees, but that isn't an auditing question.  

    [ Parent ]
    Oh... I'm not objecting to paid time off (0.00 / 0)
    And I know of an interstate scheme that was caught in exactly this manner.

    I'm merely having a minor quibble with the exact number. It may be the right number for all I know - but personally, I've had difficulty filling 3.

    [ Parent ]
    My suggestion? Here's a few. (4.00 / 1)
    Take a six week course that expands your life instead of making you more capable for the corporations.

    Take a real vacation. Let it last long enough to forget you ever worked for someone else. (I found that I could do that in 4 days of a 2 week reserve camp, but I was returning to an Army I really enjoyed.)

    In my case, the first thing I did when I retired was buy a bunch of world history books and read the history I had not had time to read since I left college (Oddly the history hadn't mattered so much in college where I was studying economics and math. Youth is really wasted on the young.)

    Swap homes with someone in a different country. I've never tried it myself (my home is too messy to even attempt letting someone else move into it) but I understand there are organizations that arrange that. Or take a total immersion language course in some other country.

    I'd swap my soul to go to Europe in start in Holland, taking tourist rooms on family boats going up the Rhine, getting into Austria and doing the same thing going down the Danube to the Black Sea. (When my Dad retired in the 70's he took a tramp steamer out of Galveston Texas down to Merida and back. I don't know if tramp steamers still exist or if they have spare rooms for rent as they used to. He of course ate in the officers mess as part of the deal. Use your imagination.)

    Buy Victoria Lynn Schmidt's book "Book in a Month", program the 30 days and write your book.

    If you can't imagine what to do with six weeks you control  yourself, you are a person who really, really, really needs that time under your own control instead of someone else'. Who do you belong to and what do you matter, anyway? If you always sell your time to someone else you'll never know the answer to the second half of that question.

    When you come back you will be worth a great deal more - to someone. I have no idea who.  

    [ Parent ]
    By the way, (0.00 / 0)
    Your list above is excellent.  
    [ Parent ]
    Really? (0.00 / 0)
    but personally, I've had difficulty filling 3.



    "It sounds wrong...
         ...but its right."
    [ Parent ]
    Yes, carbon tax! (0.00 / 0)
    And I agree with every single idea here.

    Although still not a "far left" idea among them.

    --

    Seeing The Forest -- Who is our economy FOR, anyway? Twitter: dcjohnson

    [ Parent ]
    We both missed a big one (0.00 / 0)
    Fund infrastructure.
    far left? (0.00 / 0)
    infrastructure?
    [ Parent ]
    Of course (4.00 / 1)
    I mean, having government pay for things like roads and sewers and electric grids is clearly socialist.  The proud all-American free-market conservative builds his own damn roads, dumps his toxic waste in a river and runs his own generator.
    [ Parent ]
    Or just lets Enron do everything (0.00 / 0)

    [ Parent ]
    We've been drifting and sprinting to the Right for quite a while (0.00 / 0)
    ain't that so?


    "It sounds wrong...
         ...but its right."
    [ Parent ]
    unfortunately yes... (0.00 / 0)

    [ Parent ]
    I think there's a typo (4.00 / 1)
    in the first sentence: fat left.

    Although I'm a member of both the far left and the fat left.

    But yeah, these days, if you want the Democratic president to stop acting like a Republican, you're "far left."  

    has anyone registered "FatLeft.com" yet? (4.00 / 1)
    I sense a joint venture!
    [ Parent ]
    I was, too (4.00 / 1)
    but I am in a medical study and lost 20 lbs.

    I'll fix it.

    --

    Seeing The Forest -- Who is our economy FOR, anyway? Twitter: dcjohnson

    [ Parent ]
    Constitutional Amendment: Corporations are not people, money is not speech... (4.00 / 5)
    Constitutional Amendment that bans monopoly.

    Break up all media conglomerates, all chains of newspapers, radio stations, and TV stations.  Bring back real standards that force all broadcast media to do programming that serves the public good.  Auction off all broadcast licenses when  they are up for renewal.  Charge all private broadcasters a hefty fee that subsidizes public broadcast media at a rate that is 20 times what public media gets today.

    Ban all political broadcast advertising a year before any election.

    Make corporations responsible for all externalized costs including product toxicity (even after the fact which would force them to really look at the effects of new chemicals), cleanup of all waste, restoration to the fullest extent possible for all mining.  

    Like Alaska, have a Permanent Fund that is like an endowment for both government and citizens for all revenues that come in from sale of government resources (timber, minerals, grazing, etc.)  Have them be priced at a level that reflects market prices rather than being a corporate subsidy.  

    Have a process to decharter corporations if certain standards are not met with all income from sale of assets going to cover worker severance and retraining before stock or bondholders get a dime.

    But FAR left? (0.00 / 0)
    Most of this just goes back to pre-Reagan.

    Come on, people, I want to hear some FAR left ideas!

    Surely we are still capable of imagination?

    --

    Seeing The Forest -- Who is our economy FOR, anyway? Twitter: dcjohnson

    [ Parent ]
    First off, I'd like to nominate DaveJ for President. (4.00 / 2)
    Secondly, aside from the obvious need to cut the DoD budget by at least 50%--and not on the backs of those who actually serve--more generally, a simple common-sense slogan that has oodles of Common Sense implications for governance: No Power Without Accountability.

    To wit:

    Billy Bragg - NPWA (No Power Without Accountability) - Bumbershoot 2010 from donproject on Vimeo.



    "The era of procrastination, of half-measures, of soothing and baffling expedients, of delays, is coming to a close. In its place we are entering a period of consequences..." - Winston Churchill, November 1936
    Cutting DOD by 50% (4.00 / 1)
    isn't even "far" left, it's just going back a little ways in time.

    Maybe not having a standing military would be "far" left -- but that's just the Constitution.

    --

    Seeing The Forest -- Who is our economy FOR, anyway? Twitter: dcjohnson

    [ Parent ]
    50 year plan to dismantle the US military (0.00 / 0)
    nationalize the Industrial sector and substantively reform the national governmental and electoral system.

    Goal is to refigure the military/industrial/congressional complex as the scientific/industrial/workers complex.  The "industrial" sector is fundamentally different in these two, as the "for profit" economic model will have also been replaced by a broad-based "for the global society" model.


    "It sounds wrong...
         ...but its right."

    [ Parent ]
    Nice Start (0.00 / 0)
    I can go with those points.
    Write it Up (4.00 / 3)
    Someone should write up all these ideas and post it somewhere permanently online in all "left" communities online, basically anywhere people who care about working people might hang out. I don't see anything here that is objectionable to people who care about the middle class. More to the point, while some of this may be far to the "left," we're now far to the right so moving back should be required. How far we move, of course, should be subject to debate. But this list, and the comments, make a terrific set of goals we should demand from our politicians. It should be published widely.

    What also strikes me is that, while some of these items cost a lot, probably we're simply talking about redistributing wealth in our economy. For the past three decades, union busting and trade deals and offshoring have reduced income growth among workers which has left corporations and investors to soak up that money in a variety of forms. This list simply pushes the money back towards the majority of people in this country.

    Great idea (0.00 / 0)
    Because if things go as they usually do, this thread will be buried on page 5 and forgotten in a week's time.

    Since not everyone agrees on everything (there are some ideas here that I can't endorse, either out of opposition or out of lack of sufficient knowledge) we should just write up each idea and then let people "cosponsor" the ones they like.  We can then see which "far-left" ideas have the most support.

    [ Parent ]
    Go farther left (4.00 / 3)
    Try these:

    Workplace democracy -- as soon as a small business grows to where there is a distinction between "employer" and "employee," all members of that business have an equal vote in the distribution of profits, as well as in the hiring and firing of management. All businesses are workers cooperatives, and nobody has the power to appropriate profits from the labor of someone else. Once you get up to large-scale, workers vote among themselves for the board of directors, not stockholders, because of...

    Socialized investment -- democratically-run public banks to finance all investment, paid for through capital assets taxes (which essentially replace interest on private loans). Funds are distributed on a per capita basis to regional banks, which then provide capital to firms using democratically-tweakable metrics such as environmental sustainability and job creation, not solely profitability.

    Progressive protectionism -- A compensating tariff on imports from countries with cheap labor... a tariff that is given right back to the originating countries as development aid.

    Basic income guarantee -- whatever the mathematical method to achieve it, insure that everyone has a livable basic income as a right, not a privilege.

    Democratize the Congress -- Proportional representation in the House and Senate, term limits for all, full public financing of elections, and the right of citizens in all constituencies nationwide to initiative, referendum, and recall.

    Depersonalize the Presidency -- Scrap a single president in favor of a seven-member Executive Council, elected with proportional representation.

    These are my more tame suggestions...

    NOW we're getting somewhere (0.00 / 0)
    But are these "far" left?

    --

    Seeing The Forest -- Who is our economy FOR, anyway? Twitter: dcjohnson
    [ Parent ]
    Well (0.00 / 0)
    Socialized investment and workplace democracy destroy capitalism (since it eliminates the ability for anyone to be a "capitalist"), so it's about as far left as you can get without throwing out a highly-regulated goods-and-services-only market, too. And I'd have to think that anything that abolishes capitalism is far left, though it's not farthest left. Anything that stops short of abolishing capitalism is just regular "left." And anything that stops short of some sort of major restructuring of some sort of major things is just the center.
    [ Parent ]
    And of course (0.00 / 0)
    There is a real far left already, though not a big and certainly not a very effective or organized one.

    http://www.pslweb.org/
    http://www.socialistparty-usa....
    http://www.socialequality.com/
    http://www.cpusa.org/

    [ Parent ]
    FAR left, not center-left (4.00 / 2)
    I still haven't seen anything on the FAR left.

    So how about: confiscate everything above $100 million in wealth, and use it to rebuild schools, modernize infrastructure, build free clinics in neighborhoods...

    Come on, people, we need FAR left ideas here.

    --

    Seeing The Forest -- Who is our economy FOR, anyway? Twitter: dcjohnson

    Far Left Ideas (some further Left than I'd want) (4.00 / 3)
    1. Outlaw all carbon emissions.

    2. Confiscate all wealth and redistribute it equally among the population.  Repeat this once a generation. (This far left idea is actually from the Hebrew Bible.)

    3. Outlaw the stock market.  All businesses are owned equally by the workers who run them democratically.

    4. End absentee ownership of land.  Charging rent is theft.

    5. Outlaw private education.  All education is public, free and equal throughout the country.  This includes college and advanced degrees.

    6. End marriage as a legal entity.  All sexual relationships are free and voluntary and all alternatives are equal.

    7.  Socialize medicine and outlaw private alternatives.  All medical delivery is free and done by a medical corp ran similarly to the military.

    8. Withdraw the military entirely from the rest of world.  Cut the military to basically an officer corp that would be able to train a drafted army and then lead it if we were invaded.

    9. Unilateral nuclear disarmament.

    10. Abolish the Senate. Direct popular election of the President.  Increase the size of the House tenfold.

    Educate, Agitate, Organize, Mobilize, Act!

    Raise CAFE standards to 50mpg by 2013; (4.00 / 3)
    Immediate ban on all new coal-fired power plant construction; nationalization of all companies using the grid to transmit electricity; immediate ban on all GMOs; immediate ban on all new roadbuilding on all public lands (not just national forests).

    Free college tuition at a 4-year public university with commitment to one year of civilian government service; AND free advanced degree tuition with commitment to additional one year of service; OR free college tuition to anyone who commits to teaching in the public school system for 5 years.

    ...damn this is fun...

    NATIONALIZATION of all defense contractors, as a matter of national security.

    12-month scaled but rapid withdrawal of American troops from all international locations where doing so would not violate international treaty.

    18-month moratorium on new weapons program spending.

    ...

    Decriminalization of all currently illicit drugs.

    Elimination of prison sentences for all non-violent crimes.

    Abolition of the death penalty AND ban on life without parole sentences.

    ...whew, just building up steam here...

    Development of a nationwide high-speed, publicly owned rail network, with government-subsidized rates once it is complete.

    Free lifetime public transportation passes for anyone who does not own a car.

    Advertising Tax (4.00 / 1)
    Tax all advertising at 10%. Labor is taxed and material goods are taxed, but advertising, which doesn't contribute much to our society (in fact, most of it is destructive of a good society), is not taxed.
    I really like this (0.00 / 0)


    --

    Seeing The Forest -- Who is our economy FOR, anyway? Twitter: dcjohnson
    [ Parent ]
    Medicare-for-All? Really? We can do better.... (4.00 / 2)
    Cradle to grave free zero-premium health care for all.

    Free pre-K through (up to) post-doc education for all.

    Comprehensive clean secure affordable mass-transportation grid.

    Ban private "corrections" institutions.

    Universal collective bargaining.

    Free uncensored internet access for all.

    Mandatory 1 or 2-year national service for all after high school.

    Comprehensive subsidized public arts programs.

    Comprehensive subsidized public scientific research programs.

    Hydrocarbon emissions tax.

    Comprehensive long-term eco-friendly food production sustainability project.


    FYI, post-doc isn't so much education as it is a job (0.00 / 0)

    [ Parent ]
    Check. (0.00 / 0)
    Thx.
    [ Parent ]
    Yw (4.00 / 1)
    But going along with your original point, the federal government should definitely increase funding for research several fold, so that more postdocs (and professors and other researchers) can be hired.  As an aspiring researcher, this issue is especially personal to me.
    [ Parent ]
    new tax category (0.00 / 0)
    Tax all religious entities at a hefty rate based on property and income, and charge them all substantial licence fees for all outreach and solicitation activities.
    No, that doesn't sound Far Left to me either, just reasonable.
    I don't associate (0.00 / 0)
    civil liberties violations with either reasonableness or the left.

    Politics is the art of the possible, but that means you have to think about changing what is possible, not that you have to accept it in perpetuity.
    [ Parent ]
    "wealth conscription" (0.00 / 0)
    a quote please? (4.00 / 2)
    here:

    And so I bring up the historical curiosum of the "Conscription of Wealth". Basically, that the default method of financing a war should be a form of wealth tax (specifically, a confiscatory wealth tax which would be invested in war loan stock, to be repaid at the end of the war at less-than-market-rate interest). It seems rather attractive to me as a way of giving the upper class a stake in things, without taking their kids as hostages which always seemed a bit creepy to me. Not sure it would necessarily help with that "separate culture" thing, but one of my favourite cowboy philosophers of the interwar years seemed to hint that it might:

    [ Parent ]
    First: Bring back the Fairness Doctrine! (4.00 / 1)
    The Fairness Doctrine was, for decades, a moderate proposal.  So let's advocate moderation.  Once we have fair speech, we engage free speech.  

    After Regan eliminated fair speech in public, we were shoved down this road of wealth corporation and the elimination of economic equality.  The wealthy know that advertising works and if you give them all-right-wing talk, almost all the time, people will begin to think and vote against their own best interest.  

    A core tenant of advertising is that, when individuals hear something 10 times, they will repeat it - EVEN IF THEY PERSONALLY KNOW THAT IT IS UNTRUE.  It is the same concept that: if a man in a white lab coat tells individuals to shock another human to death, they will blindly follow authority.  If the man on TV tells you that you need to give your wealth to the wealthy, they will give you trickle-down.  Check-out history: we gave them enormous tax breaks; they mostly invested overseas and gave us little else but crumbs.  Since the time of Reagan, manufacturing has been moved overseas.  The American middle-class has shrunk and the ranks of the poor are swelling.

    While all that is a fact, we have a "Democrat" President who adores Ronald Reagan, is lowering taxes on the wealthy (actually lower then GW Bush!) and is gently moving to eliminate Social Security.  While FOXMews calls him a liberal/socialist, we foolishly refuse to see him for what he truly is (a trojan-horse Republican).  All the while, the bought-and-paid-for talking heads on TV say that it isn't wise to primary Obama - because we could lose.  Lose what?!? Lose a hardcore Republican who talks like a Democrat?

    Until we have the Fairness Doctrine, we will be easily controlled by a tightly controlled media.  Amy Goodman doesn't stand a chance against: FOX, CNN, MSNBC, ABC, CBS, NBC, Radio (NPR included) and print.  

    YES! (0.00 / 0)
    And limit media concentration.  Break them up, it is bad for democracy.

    But once again, this is not "far left" it is just pre-Reagan.

    --

    Seeing The Forest -- Who is our economy FOR, anyway? Twitter: dcjohnson

    [ Parent ]
    International minimum wage in all trade agreements... (4.00 / 1)
    And a guaranteed minimum income here.
    Here are my priorities (0.00 / 0)
    and they are left.  I don't know if these are "far-left" (probably not) but they're the most important ideas I actually want to see enacted, or at least attempted to be enacted, in my lifetime. (I'm sure all of them have already appeared somewhere on this thread.)

    1. Medicare for All
    a. funded through taxes; no premiums or copays
    b. includes a direct prescription drug benefit rather than the current Part D structure that relies on private insurance for delivery

    2. Increased government funding for infrastructure

    3. Government funding of public college and graduate/professional education, so that students no longer have to pay tuition

    4. Basic income guarantee, preferably funded through revenues from resource extraction or public lands leasing (similar to the Alaska Permanent Fund)

    5. Increased government funding for basic scientific research

    6. Government provisioning of basic liability automobile insurance

    7. Public financing of campaigns

    8. Some kind of preferential voting such as instant runoff voting

    The REAL "Far Left" | 62 comments




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