Toward A Progressive Tea Party Movement

Written by: Stephen Crockett on Feb 12, 2010 9:05 PM EST

Linked to groups: Lehigh/Northampton Progressive Alliance, Democracy for Cecil, Democracy for Montgomery County, Somerset for Democracy, Berks for Change

Most progressives have little respect for the Fox News generated “Tea Party” movement. However, it has tapped into a very real populist anger with the direction the country is headed in at this point in our history.

Progressives should see a real opportunity in the emergence of the “Tea Party” movement to educate the public and re-direct the anger to the real villains whose actions and policies created the many problems faced by the citizens of the United States of America. Our government has failed the American public by serving corporate interests and private profit instead of the public good.

The Republican Right has been somewhat successful in twisting this legitimate anger and aiming it against those who have been fighting this corporate takeover and corruption instead of themselves. They do this by lying to the public and twisting reality.

Of course, Fox News has been the leading force in this evil propaganda campaign. However, a few corporatist Democrats like Senator Ben Nelson, independents like Joe Lieberman and almost every elected Republican in the nation have helped advance the corporatist agenda by deceiving the reformist elements in the Tea Party movement.

Tea Party activists should realize that Fox News was formed by corporatists to advance the corporatist agenda. The corporatists have captured the “conservative” movement. They are playing their followers for suckers. A few Tea Party leaders know they are being used as a tool of the Republican Right and corporatists but most do not.

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Shareholders Forced Political Spending

Written by: Stephen Crockett on Feb 1, 2010 12:58 PM EST

Linked to groups: Democracy for Chester County, DFA New Jersey, Democracy for Howard County, Democracy for Carroll County, Berks for Change

When we make an investment by buying shares in a corporation are we endorsing the political goals of corporate CEO’s or other corporate executives? For most American citizens, the answer is clearly “NO!”

The recent Supreme Court ruling stating that corporations have the right to spend the shareholders’ money to influence federal elections seems designed to trample on the property rights of individual shareholders, empower the international corporate executive class and distort the electoral process in favor of the pro-corporate Republican Party. It completely fails to protect the property rights of shareholders against politically-motivated abuse by corporate executives.

While the ruling was both bad law and bad for American democracy, as most commentators have stated publicly, few editorialists or pundits have examined how badly the ruling tramples on the property rights of shareholders. I might want to buy shares to fund my retirement or meet unexpected future financial demands. I want my money used in the core missions and functions of the business. I did not invest my money to have it misused by corporate executives to fund their political goals or agenda instead of mine.

Why did this radically activist Supreme Court empower corporate executives to use my money for politics instead of for the legitimate business purposes that are the reasons shareholders bought shares in the first place?

Every member of Congress should support a new federal law that would require all shareholders agree before any corporate money can be spent to influence elections. This does not violate the premise of the Supreme Court ruling that states (incorrectly in my opinion) that corporations have the right to spend corporate funds on elections. Such a law would not require a Constitutional Amendment.

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PRESS RELEASE: Democratic Talk Radio -”Heroes and Villains of 2009 Awards”

Written by: Stephen Crockett on Jan 4, 2010 6:18 PM EST

Linked to groups: Northeast Philadelphia for Democracy, Morris County DFA, Capital Area DFA (Harrisburg PA), Prince George's - Democracy for America, Democracy for Montgomery County

The cast of characters in American politics who could have received our Hero and Villain Awards for 2009 was huge. It was a very busy year in American politics. We have multiple winners in both categories but still were unable to recognize everyone who deserved to win.

One of the villains was an easy and obvious choice.  Fox News commentator and author Glenn Beck wins a Democratic Talk Radio Villain of 2009 Award for unashamedly spreading lies, myths and innuendos with no conscience.

The Editor of Buzzflash.com Mark Karlin wins a Democratic Talk Radio Hero of 2009 Award for unselfishly devoting all his time and energies to debunking them. The role the Internet played in counteracting the corporate dominance and bias in the realm of political news in 2009 cannot be overstated.

Paul Krugman wins a Hero Award for his role of speaking truth to power in his multiple roles as economist, New York Times columnist and Book author. Congress and the Obama Administration should be listening to him in dealing with the current economic crisis. Every American citizen should read his recent book The Conscience of a Liberal. It will help you understand the current economic crisis, healthcare reform and much more.

Senator Jim DeMint (R-SC) wins a Villain Award for politicizing national security and putting every American flying on a commercial airline at risk by placing a hold on the confirmation of the head of the TSA. His rationale for this action is nearly as outrageous as the action. He does not want TSA employees to have the right to unionize and bargain collectively for better pay, benefits and working conditions. DeMint claims that TSA would not be as effective with a unionized workforce. Exactly why having demoralized, underpaid workers doing security screening at airports will make us safer escapes all of us here at Democratic Talk Radio. Union haters abound in Republican Right circles but DeMint has taken his bias to dangerous extremes.

The entire Republican Party power structure and the few corporate Democrats undermining healthcare insurance reform in America collectively win a Democratic Talk Radio Villain of 2009 award for their outrageous public behavior, serving corporate interests instead of the public good and lying to the American public. Single-payer, government provided healthcare should have been seriously considered as a policy option but was not because of these villains. The final bills passed by both houses of Congress are much weaker than they should have been (although the House version does have a better funding mechanism and a weak public option provision). Americans will suffer and die as a result of the actions of these villains by the millions in coming decades! Jobs will be lost because American businesses will still be paying for health insurance while foreign competitors will not.

Former Vermont Governor and DNC Chair Howard Dean wins a Hero Award for publicly speaking the truth during the healthcare insurance debate. Unlike the Republican medical doctors serving in Congress, Dr. Dean understands and lives by the medical ethical slogan “do not harm.” This ethical standard should be applied in both the medical and political fields.

For more information, please contact Democratic Talk Radio at demlabor@aol.com or by phone at 443-907-2367.Our website is http://www.DemocraticTalkRadio.com .

The Need to Help Labor Radio Survive

Written by: Stephen Crockett on Dec 23, 2009 5:11 PM EST

Linked to groups: Democracy for Chester County, DFA/Greater Bowie DEMOCRATS, Progressive Democracy South Jersey, Ocean County DFA/PDA, Montco DFA

In these terrible economic times, it is hard to keep the bills paid for most working families. We all are struggling to stay in our homes, keep our old cars on the road and food on the table. Americans are certainly worried with good reason about keeping their jobs and affording healthcare. All of these problems can be traced more or less directly to excessive corporate power in America both economically and politically.

The current healthcare insurance reform debate has highlighted for everyone how much the balance of power has shifted in terms of public debate against the interests of American workers and towards the interests of giant corporations. Corporate media has not given a real voice to labor leaders who represent the millions of American workers most heavily impacted by this issue. Right Wing talk radio has distorted elements of the issue, the process and relevant facts beyond all recognition. Most of the opposition to real change from the American public comes from not hearing the truth. Lack of balance in this debate reveals  the one-sided nature of corporate media.

Why was single-payer, universal healthcare deemed “off the table” when it is the norm in nearly every other industrialized nation in the world? It was corporate power! The corporate media deemed it “radical” and working Americans had no effective voice in framing the debate. We will all suffer as a result.

Corporate power killed the Fairness Doctrine in broadcasting.  This means that the public airwaves are solely being used even in political terms for private profit. Since corporations have huge spending advantages over their workers’ organizations (labor unions), workers have been effectively shut out of the public debate. It has impacted politics, government policy and American working family living standards for decades.

The relative lack of effective working families-oriented media has resulted in awful government policies that have ruined American manufacturing, killed Americans in unjustified wars and by denying healthcare, gutted pensions, legalized predatory lending, polluted our environment, weakened civil liberties, curtailed voting rights and given the wealthiest of the wealthy near veto rights over government policy. Instead of government acting as a check and balance to international corporations it far too often has become a tool of them. The ruination of the American economy has assisted the excessive concentration of wealth in our nation and weakened American democracy.

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Get Out Now

Written by: James Devine on Dec 6, 2009 7:53 PM EST

Linked to groups: DFA New Jersey, Essex County, NJ, DFA, Middlesex County DFA, DFA Night School, Union County for Democracy

President Barack Obama’s infusion of 34,000 new U.S. troops in Afghanistan is only going to prolong a war that has no end in sight.

What’s the exit strategy?

Obama has issued orders to expand the U.S. occupation of Afghanistan instead of bringing the troops home.

It becomes hard to believe U.S. troops will start leaving the region before the end of Obama’s first term when they will still be arriving only a few months before campaigning gets under way for the New Hampshire primary and Iowa caucuses.

The doomed 8-year-old war in Afghanistan appears to be over, just as the ill-fated invasion of Iraq was from its outset, leaving only a matter of time before American leaders recognize that there is no point at which we can honestly declare ‘victory’ in any meaningful way.

Saddam Hussein has been replaced as the Iraqi bogeyman by scores of religious zealots and Osama bin Laden is more likely to turn up in the open when 100,000 armed invaders are not hunting him.

We shall win no hearts or minds by continuing to kill people in Afghanistan or Iraq.

Our presence there threatens the governments in Pakistan and Saudi Arabia, because many Arabs see nothing except infidels occupying Muslim lands.

The costs of killing—and that is what war is—exceed any potential return on our investment, but Americans really should refuse to pay the moral price of lives lost or destroyed by violence.

Many of those brave soldiers, marines, airmen and sailors can contribute more to their country by rebuilding America instead of tearing apart a place little more advanced than the Stone Age.

Obama’s strategy is an extension to that of former President George W. Bush, who founded this mission on cluelessness and lies.

I Pay But I Don't Get It

Written by: Larry Furman on Aug 12, 2009 9:00 AM EDT

Linked to groups: DFA New Jersey, Middlesex County DFA, BlueWaveNJ, Framing Committee

I have a good job. I buy the health insurance my Human Resources Dept tells me to buy. (This is not, by the way, a "free market" as described by Adam Smith, John Maynard Keynes, Milton Friedman, and the other neo-classical economists.) I pay enough that I could be driving a Mercedes - hell I could be driving a Hummer - 2400 miles per month - at current gas prices!.

But my coverage stinks. It's rationed by insurance company beancounters. If I see their doctors - and a complete physical takes about two hours and 30 seconds - two hours waiting and 30 seconds in which the doc says "You're breathing. That's good. You're blood pressure is high, if it gets higher we'll put you on meds."

But that's ok. As long as I don't get sick I'm ok. That's why my blood pressure is high. I'm worried about getting sick. Or losing my job. In either case I'll lose my house.

One thing I don't worry about is that my octagenarian father has good health care. He worked hard all his life. He takes care of himself. And he's on Medicare. It's great. Efficient. Government run. Not sexy like the Apollo Mission to the moon, but very important. And for the health care that my kids teachers get. They go to public school. The teachers are in the unions. And the health care is good. The kids too get good health care. Even if their parents work but don't get health care, then, thanks to Presidents Clinton and Obama, and despite the efforts and vetos of President Bush, they get health care.

But one of the things that really gets me, the thing that makes my blood boil - which is why I'll need blood pressure meds - is that close to 50 Million Americans - one out of six - have no health insurance. And it's people between the age of 18 and 65. People who work, or would work, if they could find jobs. This is wrong on many levels.

The other thing that is killing me - almost literally - is that people who make $Millions - insurance industry executives, and lobbyists and rich "Philosophers" Beck, Dobbs, Hannity, Limbaugh, and O'Reilley - wait, they're not philosophers, they're not Thinkers - they're actors - and they are telling me what's good for me. That's un-American. They are sending people to disrupt "Town Hall meetings with Representatives from Congress.

On March 23, 1775, Patrick Henry, speaking at St. John's church in Richmond, Virginia said "give me liberty or give me death." Those guys have taken my liberty and are giving me death.

Lou Dobbs Wins Coveted Father Caughlin Award

Written by: Larry Furman on Aug 12, 2009 8:48 AM EDT

Linked to groups: Middlesex County DFA, Framing Committee, DFA New Jersey

New York, August 12. CNN Commentator Lou "Loser" Dobbs (click here) edged out Rush "I Hope He Dies" Limbaugh, Bill "Bubbles" O'Reilly and Glenn "Porn-Man" Beck in the competion for the coveted and prestigious "Father Coughlin" award. The award, sponsored by the KKK, the Aryan Nations, and others is given to the broadcast personality who "embodies the malignant spirit of Father Caughlin, who uses hate speech to incite violence, obfuscate the real issues, hijack the debate, and fire up the base."

In explaining their decision Derrick William "Billy Bob" Roberts and Karl "The Roverer" Rove said, "We like Limbaugh, we like his stuff. It's good. Catchy. While he has a dedicated following, most of his listeners can't read and don't vote. Limbaugh is an overweight drug-addict, not that there's anything wrong with that, but he's tired and a has-been."

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Congressman Kratovil wins how ?

Written by: Stephen Crockett on Aug 7, 2009 9:47 AM EDT

Linked to groups: Democracy for Howard County, Mobile DFA, Middlesex County DFA, Democracy for Pittsburgh, DFA New Jersey

Frank Kratovil of Maryland’s 1^st Congressional District faces a very difficult re-election race because the district historically leans Republican. However Kratovil has a very effective secret weapon, it is an active and well-financed coalition from an element of the Republican Party mostly from the extreme Far Right wing of the Republican coalition. They are the “tea-baggers, Obama birthers and Healthcare Town Hall disrupters” you have been seeing on television and reading about in your local newspapers!

This group is not really representative of the typical Republican voters from sprawling Maryland 1^st. Most Republicans I know from the dozen or so counties comprising the 1^st Congressional District are relatively moderate and always reasonable.

They dislike taxes like everyone else. However, they believe government does on most occasions some things very well (like Social Security, the American military, Medicare, national parks, etc.)

The Republicans I know simply dismiss the nonsense about Obama not being born in America. Obama’s Hawaiian original birth certificates in all forms (long and short) have been made public. The birth announcement was published in the Hawaiian newspapers when he was born.

These local Republican voters would never deny other citizens their right to interact with their member of Congress just to score political points. This kind of rude behavior has never been tolerated by either major political party in recent memory. I have lived in the District for over 35 years.

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Why All Progressives, Democrats, Unionists and Reformers Should Join ACORN

Written by: Stephen Crockett on Jul 29, 2009 4:56 AM EDT

Linked to groups: Northeast Philadelphia for Democracy, DFA/Greater Bowie DEMOCRATS, Prince George's - Democracy for America, DFA Passaic County , Mobile DFA

We are all familiar with the highly partisan and blatantly dishonest attacks on the low and moderate income advocacy group ACORN that dominated Fox News election coverage last Fall. Republican Right Wing partisans have remained loyal to their absurd talking points after the November election and continue to intentionally spread lies about the ACORN organization that all progressives, Democrats, labor activists and reformers should actively refute. These politically-motivated attacks on ACORN are based on two ridiculous ideas.

The first ridiculous idea is that this relatively small group of relatively poor individuals somehow is responsible for the mortgage crisis and the collapse of the economy. After decades of Reagan-Bush Republican mismanagement, Wall Street greed, assaults on unionized labor, unsound tax policies, unfair trade policies, disastrous healthcare policies, runaway corporate corruption, huge sweetheart government contracts going to Republican connected corporations and absurd financial deregulation, we need to understand that the structure of our economy needs serious fundamental reform. Reagan-Bush Republicanism ruled the market economically and politically to create the economic crisis.

The economic collapse has many more serious fundamental causes than just the collapse of the mortgage market. Income inequality, speculation, ending anti-usury laws, not enforcing anti-monopoly laws and excessive credit card debt can be added to the previous list of root causes underlining the current economic crisis. The Republican Right bears most of the responsibility for this situation. ACORN bears none!

First of all, sub-prime mortgages did not create the mortgage crisis. The notable economist Paul Krugman has debunked this Republican myth very effectively. The mortgage crisis has been spread across all income levels. Foreclosures are not limited just too poor people.

ACORN has never issued any mortgages nor has it pressured lenders to issue high-rate, unaffordable loans to poor and middle class Americans. Instead, for over a decade, ACORN has been the national leader in the fight against predatory lending.

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No Healthcare Reform Equals No Senate Job

Written by: Stephen Crockett on Jun 22, 2009 9:56 PM EDT

Linked to groups: DFA Passaic County , Progressive Democrats For Delaware, Jersey Shore DFA, Ocean County DFA/PDA, Democracy for Chester County

It mystifies this writer that many Senate Democrats have failed to understand that killing the “public option” compromise position being pushed by the Obama will mean the end of their Senate careers. Politics has changed dramatically in the last few years and many Senate incumbents seem to have missed the size and intensity of the paradigm shift.

It is no accident that the Republican Party is in electoral meltdown. The Republican leadership is still stuck in the politics of the 1980’s and 1990’s. Unfortunately, the Democrats in power have not embraced the public sea change in attitudes completely. They do not understand that the Democratic wave does not threaten their hold on power. It does!

The Democratic shift is not based on partisan identity divorced from real changes in government policy. The Democratic election wins in 2006 and 2008 were strong rejections of both the Republican Right and the current unfair status quo in government policy.

If Democrats do nothing to reform the rigged economic system and fail to give American workers a fair shake, they are going to get replaced either in a primary or general election. If Democrats fail to protect civil liberties, they will be defeated. If Democrats start unnecessary wars, they will go down along with the already defeated Senate Republicans.

Of course, this is not good news for the Republican Right. The public is rejecting Republican Right politics and Republican-lite politics. Americans want real and meaningful reforms. Nothing less will do. Democrats who want to do the bidding of large corporations like the health insurance industry are going to get their backsides handed to them in 2010, 2012 and 2014. Senators from both major political parties better get with the program!

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