The political divide seems to be `knowledge workers` vs `people who actually work for a living.` Did that make you mad? Try this: liberal intellectuals primarily use words to trick people. They talk about things that will never happen. They hate working people They hate decent people.

Now some of these `people who actually work for a living,` understand that the U.S. is not a democracy. They do not understand much of the details, but they do notice that liberal intellectuals never mention democracy. Liberal intellectuals love to talk about political issues. Boy do they love to talk about political issues. About the only political issue liberal intellectuals never talk about is democracy. Obviously if democracy is a problem that would be the primary thing they would talk about. They also like to complain about how stupid the voters are. Ever notice that? Are they stupid or uneducated?

I remember back a ways, prior to the internet; liberals, progressives, socialists used to complain loudly about how anti-intellectual the U.S. was. Europe, Canada, even sometimes South America were mentioned as being massively more intellectual. I have spent over a year in Europe and I certainly agree about Europe. Heck, sometimes it seemed that the blue collar workers knew more history than our college students.

My experience of political activism in Europe was transforming. An individual that walked up to me at a small bar in Amsterdam. I was seated at a table and he asked if he could join me because he wanted to talk about the history of road building! I started to look around to see what kind of bar I had walked into. He then explained that he was practicing a speech he was planning to give at a local community political meeting, and he also wanted to practice his English. After about 15 minutes he had finished the talk, and I asked him if he worked in road building. He replied absolutely not. He owned an electroplating company. His company plated the models in `2001 a Space Odyssey.` He said no one was stupid enough to listen to a political talk about road building from someone who had an economic interest in the subject. After he left, I wondered why people did not have conversations like this in U.S.?

I think I know why, but I will let you guess because this post is long enough!

Re: Newt as “Cheney”

Now that is remark worthy of some thought. Did Mr. Contract with America actually know what he was doing?

I do not disagree with the many people pointing out how limited our democracy is in the U.S. – HOWEVER: Education is much more powerful than expressing personal opinions.

PLEASE stop expressing personal opinions based on experience, and start providing some actual laws with some documentation for credibility. Education is much more powerful than expressing personal opinions.

Some basic starting material –
Reference article:
What is a Political Party?
http://i-voter.tripod.com/US_PoliticalParties.html

Reference article:
Our Glorious National Committees: Ever wonder what they do?
http://i-voter.tripod.com/NationalCommittees.html

Reference article:
The Filibuster: More Apparent than Real
http://i-voter.tripod.com/SenateFillibuster.html

Those who do nothing but opine are pathetic
Verb:
Hold and state as one’s opinion: ““The man is a genius,” he opined”.

I don’t believe proportional representation had ANYTHING to do with Hitlers rise to power! 1. Hitler got about a third of the vote. 2. Hitler was appointed Chancellor by the German President Hindenburg which he, as most parliamentary Presidents, had the Constitutional power, but not the requirement, to do. 3. Then Hitler basically used intimidation and extra legal violence to become dictator.

The majority of the worlds democracies use some form of proportional representation in at least one legislative house.

The case for proportional representation is fundamentally the same as that for representative democracy. Only if an assembly represents the full diversity of opinion within a nation can its decisions be regarded as the decisions of the nation itself.
Attribution: Encyclopedia Britannica

Note I should have said a single elected position election. Not a single candidate election. I bet that confused a number of people!

RE:Unemployment levels.
I believe these numbers are somewhat subjective, and often revised more than once as more data come in. However; the economic elite, and even the upper-middle-class, use these numbers for investment purposes, as well as currency and interest rate, planing and speculation. One of my rules of thumb is that you can trust that numbers useful to the elite almost always have significance. However they can be reported in misleading ways! The elite have more expertise in economic statistics than myself.

I use this same principle for selecting voting systems. When politicians ( the political SYSTEM elite ) vote in a single candidate election, what form of voting do they use?

U.S. Politicians know what is Good for the Voters. Really!
http://i-voter.tripod.com/PoliticiansForVoters.html

I think Bill Clinton should thank Newt for convincing the majority of Republicans that they do not know what – the meaning of the is – either!

Wow two names and google and I learn much. Too much! More links than a coat of chain mail!

Darn you. Now I see it too.

This comment is based on my current understanding of our U.S. political system.

The problem with working inside the Democratic party that must be seriously considered – is the party funding structure of the National Committees. How does a progressive caucus remain free from the funding control of the incumbent committee head.

Would you suggest an absolute prohibition on Hill Committee funding? If not what? Modern U.S. parties are not organized by a member based organization, but they are organized by Hill Committee funding. I do not mind the money flowing hand to hand, as much as I mind the invisible strings attached to that money.

Could we require public disclosure of these transactions?

reference: Hill Committees
Our Glorious National Committees: Ever wonder what they do?
http://i-voter.tripod.com/NationalCommittees.html

Thanks Jon – This article made my day! It has been many many years since I heard anything about the NDP. And the news looks good also!!

Democracy (small d) is my issue. And my rule of thumb is that people without power tend to suffer. That means it is my over-riding issue.

Back when Obama was running, I thought I would probably vote for him. He was a democracy activist like after all! Then I checked his campaign website. The word democracy could not be found! Recently I was considering voting for Ron Paul, He has talked in favor of the original constitutional function of the jury – jury nullification. It was an extremely powerful political right,. I just checked Ron Pauls campaign website. The words jury nullification were not found!

Jury nullification is more than just constitutional. It is quite central to the founding fathers concept of our U.S. Constitution. Ron Paul is apparently a constitutional BS artist! Third party here I come once again!

reference: Jury nullification
The Constitutional Relationship of the People to the Law
http://i-voter.tripod.com/ConstitutionalJury.html

I guess it is possible that she does or did not understand that Pres Obama is an employee, but I suspect that this is just a complex attempt attempt by Lucy (i.e. Michelle or more likely the Obama campaign ) to get Charlie Brown ( ie the voter ) convinced that he will actually be allowed to kick that football this time. Those other times were just a mistake!

A bit off topic but

I doubt the Feds announcements will be as dramatic as that by Bill Gross, the manager of the worlds largest bond fund. He starts off by calling the current market environment paranormal.

And:
It is as if the Earth now has two moons instead of one and both are growing in size like a cancerous tumor that may threaten the financial tides, oceans and economic life as we have known it for the past half century, Gross said this in an investment letter released on PIMCOs website on Wednesday.

It seems Gross made some bad decisions last year.
http://news.yahoo.com/gross-predicts-paranormal-market-activity-2012-153924245.html

TOP THAT ANNOUNCEMENT FED!

OK thanks! I will admit that the more I look in to that site the less I trust it.

Choice is bad. That is an interesting political philosophy.

I just wanted to know if they are a real organization or just an advertizing gimmick. If they are funded by Republican interests I do not care – IF I thought they can get another candidate on the ballot in my state. I am a democrat (small d) not a Democrat. Choice is good!

Anyone looked closely at this site.
Americans Elect 2012
http://www.americanselect.org/

Anyone looked closely at this site.
Americans Elect 2012
http://www.americanselect.org/
Lots of documentation. Even including financial statements. But I have only skimmed the site. Until I know the candidate I have a limited amount of willingness to provide such things as small sums of money or large amounts of time – but I am seriously thinking of registering.

Dennis Kucinich is on the list of potential presidential candidates, but I do not know if anyone has asked his permission.

shooter242 wrote:
Demonizing all the wealthy when you’re pissed at a few of them is bigotry and prejudice. Stop it.

But the U.S. political system rewards such behavior more than any other democratic nation that I am familiar with. Yes, misleading and exaggerated rhetoric, outright lies, and loud meaningless chanting to drown out intelligent speech is common in any democratic nation, but the U.S. is exceptional in this regard for fairly obvious reasons. I will provide one of them below.

If you support a party in other democratic nations, there is a chain of responsibility. There is a party organization that controls its ballot label. There is a real party platform. A platform that is enforceable by the party leadership, because the party organization can refuse a politician the ability to run again under the parties ballot label. The party can be held responsible for the actions of its individual politicians! U.S. ballot labels lack any such organizational responsibility – by law!

We have Alice-in-Wonderland parties.
reference article: What is a Political Party?
http://i-voter.tripod.com/US_PoliticalParties.html

If you support a political system of Alice-in-Wonderland parties you can not complain about Alice-in-Wonderland party rhetoric.