The biggest problem facing the majority of Americans today whether middle-class or poor is that we have all been on the same tracks. We are either on the left track or the right track. That has given us wealth disparity and income inequality. The thing is we know why but our well designed indoctrination prevents us from taking the appropriate course of action.
Next time you are in the country take a look at a single set of tracks. The one thing necessary to keep that train going in the programmed direction is for those tracks to move together, one for wheels on each side.
There is nothing wrong with the left/right track concept if the starting point of the tracks represented an egalitarian society and the tracks were moving in a straight line. What that would mean is that undulations would go between some policies on the Right and some policies on the Left. Balance would naturally exist.
The reality is very different. the tracks have made a decidedly right turn clearly following the path of the Powell Manifesto. Ironically, a Democrat, Lewis Powell who was subsequently appointed to the Supreme Court by Richard Nixon wrote this most destructive document. On the subject, I wrote the article titled “Republican Successful Assault On The American Fabric Started With Him” pointing out the outcome of it.
The Powell Memo illustrates the fear that Lewis Powell, a corporate lawyer and member of the boards of various corporations had for the masses. Powell was subsequently confirmed as a Supreme Court justice.
Powell lays out the game plan. The Powell Memo is a plan that was forward-looking. It is a plan that so far has been well implemented. How did they do it?
The success of the Powell Memo is in the ubiquity of its implementation.
They created think tanks responsible for dispersing misleading information with a false cloak of authenticity. The Heritage Foundation is a classic example of this. They took control of the airwaves to disperse misleading information (e.g., talk radio, Fox News, CNBC, etc.). A relenting Chamber of Commerce uses corporate monies to bully policy and politicians that squeeze the masses (e.g., support for free trade agreements, outsourcing etc.).
They infiltrated college campuses with directed research for planned outcomes. They infiltrated the elementary and secondary schools’ textbook evaluation process to attempt Right Wing indoctrination. They used graduate business schools to indoctrinate students on an irresponsible form of capitalism. They flooded the country with books and paid advertising promoting their message. They continue to destroy unions.
The implementation has been successful thus far. The problem is that in Powell’s days there was no Internet. There was no way to form disjointed communities in mass that could rise up when knowledge was not controlled in a top-down manner. A new tactic had to be added. This new tactic is not new. It is the war to divide and conquer.
The process of moving the entire track to the right has never gone away. Under Democrats, the angle of departure is just less pronounced. As an example, Obamacare was a compromise that allowed insurance companies to continue making a profit solely to pay a bill and incur duplicitous and inefficient expenses like advertising, executive pay, shareholder dividends, capital expenses, and much more. The argument that they manage risk makes no sense if one identifies the American population as one risk pool. To be clear, using private insurance for healthcare which is a right is not a Progressive direction at all.
To be clear, Democrats are not Republicans at all. It is clear, however, that the gravitational pull of the Republicans is much stronger than that of Democrats because too many Democrats themselves are egalitarian only to a point. The Establishment Democrative Leadership while playing lip service to the Green New Deal, crippled it congressionally.
Dem leadership gives activists the stiff arm
Nonetheless, it seems Democratic leadership was not particularly happy about a group of upstarts laying claim to a major issue and instructing the caucus how to approach it. Pelosi largely gave Ocasio-Cortez and activists the cold shoulder. They were not warned before Steny Hoyer announced on Wednesday that the committee will not have subpoena power. And they were not warned before it leaked on Thursday that Rep. Kathy Castor of Florida had been chosen to head the committee, which would be the same old select committee on climate change.
As for the GND? “I think they have some terrific ideas,” Castor said, all but patting activists on the head. “But that’s not going to be our sole focus.”
What about the activists’ other major demand, that no one who accepts fossil fuel money allowed on the committee? “I don’t think you can do that under the First Amendment, really,” she said
later admitted to Kaufman at the Huffington Post that this bit of constitutional interpretation was “inartful,” and she just doesn’t know if she can do that as chair of the committee. She says maybe she’ll talk it over with the caucus.
Vox: The Green New Deal, explained
America is ready for a leftward derailment. Even though Beto O’Rourke failed to beat Ted Cruz, it was the closes race in decades and absent Donald Trump “invasion” scare tactics, Beto may have won. At the beginning of Beto’s campaign, he was not as Progressive as many wanted. As the campaign went on he started earning his Progressive bona fides as he made a discernible left turn.
When I interviewed Beto, he was tentative on Medicare for All. Later in the election. he was warmer to it. He did not accept PAC money, and he came out strong in favor of the NFL kneelers.
There is no magic to the necessity of a leftward derailment. It is all in the polls. The politicians are commanded by their masters, the Plutocracy to keep on the rightward move to constantly grow their profitability and virtual enslavement of the working class.
Progressive Activists did a great job in Harris County Texas where they won virtually every race. They did it with Progressive grassroots action. They educated the population. They nurtured their districts. Ultimately they are preparing to start the derailment.of the status quo.