Thomas Paine: “…had a grand vision for society: he was staunchly anti-slavery, and he was one of the first to advocate a world peace organization and social security for the poor and elderly.”
Paine was one of the founding fathers of this country. Among all the revolutionaries and radicals (they all were, the founding fathers, revolutionaries – remember they fought to secede from Great Britain. If today a group men were to break into a cargo ship, destroy it’s contents and toss it into the sea, ala the Boston Tea Party, they would be labeled terrorists, and arrested.
“In the Revolutionary War, American Liberals defeated the British Conservatives. It’s unlikely you’ll see that Great Truth in a Fox News chyron”
This quote was taken from article If the founding fathers were alive today, would they be conservative or Liberal? written on the website Quora.
AMERICA WAS FOUNDED ON RADICAL IDEAS
Fast forward to the 1930’s. America is in a great depression. Millions of her citizens are unemployed, homeless and starving. Then a radical thinker named Franklin Delano Roosevelt was elected President of the Unitied States and implemented his radical concept the ‘New Deal’ a domestic agenda in response to the worst economic crisis in U.S. history. His radical ideas, which were fought tooth and nail by the Republicans, were embraced by the American people. They loved his ideas so much that he was the only President to ever serve four terms. It was during the first 100 days of the 73rd United States Congress, that Roosevelt spearheaded unprecedented federal legislation and issued a profusion of executive orders that instituted the New Deal—a variety of programs designed to produce relief, recovery, and reform. He created numerous programs to provide relief to the unemployed and farmers while seeking economic recovery with the National Recovery Administration and other programs. He also instituted major regulatory reforms related to finance, communications, and labor, and presided over the end of Prohibition.
In the 1960’s America was fighting on two fronts. On the one hand it’s military was engaged in a war, in Viet Nam, that many young Americans did not agree with, on the other hand it was undergoing a social revolution. Young people were protesting the Viet Nam war, blacks were fighting for civil rights, young people were seeking more equitable voting policies, women were burning their bras and urban communities were exploding in riots. In an effort to alliviate some of these concerns, President Lydon B. Johnson, a converted liberal thinker, pushed through congress the Civil Rights Act (1964) and the Voting Rights Act (1965) he also created what the Conservatives dubbed the welfare state through his goal of The Great Society. Like the public works program of FDR that put many Americans to work building bridges and roads, and national parks The Great Society’s purpose was to address education, medical care, urban problems, rural poverty, and transportation. In 1965 President pushes for a development act called the Department of Housing and Urban Development, and ellivated it to an Cabinet-level agency.
WHAT, A GREEN NEW DEAL?
Have you noticed that Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez aka AOC has been in the news every single day since her swearing in to Congress? This has got to be a new record or something, afterall she is just a freshman Congresswoman from New York and has been garnering more media attention than some seasoned Representatives!
At 28 AOC has a long carer in politics before her. She could even become President one day. Could this be what Republicans and Conservatives fear?
Back in the 1930’s FDR was a Liberal, a bad word in politics, that was reelected President four times. Could that be the reason the Republicans continuously attack her, because she has the potential to change politics in America? Why else would the Republicans expend so much time, money and effort on her? They have mocked her, made fun of her, and tried to belittle her. But Ocasio-Cortez has held her own.
Her concept of the Green New Deal has struck fear in many Conservatives, Conservative Republicans, Conservative Economists, and Conservative Scholars of every strip. As is there go to strategy, Republicans have used scare tactics to get voters against this concept. Why? Just as FDR’s New Deal
was a novel idea meant to help the masses, so to does the Green New Deal. Republicans and Conservatives are all about money. They care about profits and swelling their own bank accounts. No matter how much money they accumulate it is never enough. They have to be richer, have more than the other rich people. They have come up with the concept “whoever has the most when they die, wins”
But don’t be fooled, the Green New Deal (GND) is a proposed stimulus program that aims to address climate change and economic inequality. … The Green New Deal combines Roosevelt’s economic approach with modern ideas such as renewable energy and resource efficiency.
Had Barrack Obama been allowed to implement his own new power source program, America would have created an entire new industry which she would have been the leader of. Instead, Conservatives and Republicans stymied his efforts. Even today they are trying to come up with ways to dismantle the Health Care act dubbed Obamacare.
So the rich folks, those that have their money tied up in the oil economy, do whatever they can to keep America dependent on fossil fuels. Because of their greed, they have distorted all the facts. They have convinced a sizable segment of the American people that Climate Change (once called Global Warming) is fake. They continue to say that the concept of Climate Change is something made up by the Liberals. They still try to define the word Liberal as something bad, something evil, something that America must keep out of our politics. Alas, AOC, following in the footsteps of Bernie Sanders, has crept the concept of Liberalism back into the political forefront. Young Americans do not see Liberals as the evil monsters that their parents and grandparents have been depicting them as for the past ninety something years. Young people, as every generation does, want to inherit a better world. Young people with their new ideas and way of thinking always change society and the trajectory it’s policy’s take. Think about the 1960’s and 1970’s and how the young people back then changed America. From the prude and ultra conservative society it was in the 1950’s and before, to a more open society. A society more accepting of Blacks and Women. More accepting not yet totally accepting. While the young people of every generation, since the 1960’s, have fought the monopolism and perceived exploitation of capitalism they have been unsuccessful. America is and always will be a Capitalist Society.
City of South Bend
CAPITALISM VS. DEMOCRATIC CAPITALISM
Mayor Pete Buttigieg, on Meet the Press today, April 7, 2019, made a comment that best illustrates the true meaning of Capitalism. His example of Capitalism Vs Democratic Capitalism
He stated that Capitalism where large corporations are able to make policy (influence the shaping of laws) that best protects their interests (profits) is not capitalism at all. This type of capitalism leads to cronyism which then leads toward the establishing of an oligarchy. As one example he points to the captialism of Russia. A captialism where big business (the government) reaps the rewards and the masses live in poverty.
The Trump administration has been setting the stage for an oligarchy. Trump has surrounded himself with ultra conservative leaning capitalist. The Trump administration has been abolishing and demolishing all types of regulations, especially those that he perceives to be hindering business expansion, and road blocks to profits. The administration has been depicting the media as enemies of the state, almost since his swearing in Trump has been maligning the media and calling their reporting fake news. Trumps special counselor, Kellyann Conway even coined the term alternative facts.
THERE IS NOTHING EVIL OR SINISTER ABOUT THE POLITICAL CONCEPT OF LIBERALISM.
Many historians and scholars have attempted to define the term Liberal as used back in days of the founding of America and it’s use in modern America.
If you look up the word Liberal in Wikipedia you will read the following:
“Liberalism in the United States is a broad political philosophy centered on what many see as the unalienable rights of the individual. The fundamental liberal ideals of freedom of speech, freedom of the press, freedom of religion for all belief systems and the separation of church and state, right to due process and equality under the law are widely accepted as a common foundation across the spectrum of liberal thought.
Modern liberalism in the United States includes issues such as same-sex marriage, reproductive and other women’s rights, voting rights for all adult citizens, civil rights, environmental justice and government protection of freedom from want.[1] National social services such as equal education opportunities, access to health care and transportation infrastructure are intended to meet the responsibility to promote the general welfare of all citizens as established by the Constitution. Some American liberals, who call themselves classical liberals, fiscal conservatives, or libertarians, support fundamental liberal ideals, but diverge from modern liberal thought, holding that economic freedom is more important than equality and that providing for the general welfare exceeds the legitimate role of government.[2]
Since the 1930s, the term liberalism (without a qualifier) usually refers in the United States to modern liberalism, a political philosophy exemplified by Franklin D. Roosevelt’s New Deal and later Lyndon B. Johnson’s Great Society. It is a form of social liberalism, whose accomplishments include the Works Progress Administration and the Social Security Act in 1935, the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965.”
President Lydon B. Johnson
This leads back to liberalism and conservatism. American conservatives consider individual liberty—within the bounds of American values—as the fundamental trait of democracy; this perspective contrasts with that of modern American liberals, who generally place a greater value on equality and social justice and emphasize the need for state intervention to achieve these goals.
This is what AOC has been tauting. She is not the first, nor will she be the last politician to advocate for a redistibution of wealth. AOC is forward thinking because the economy of the very near future will not be based on fossil fuels. The new jobs of the future will all emanate from the alternative energy industry because, the oil industry will be minimized if not done away with.
Electirc cars have been around since the 1970’s. Had the industry been allowed to flourish, we would have been the leaders in ushering in the entire alternative energy industry. The oil moguls did not want to lose their strong hold and profit making of fossil fuel. Imagine what that would have looked like. Oil refineries would have had to be re-tooled. From oil processing to wind, hydro (water) or electric harnessing. That would have cost billions of dollars. Everything in America would have been changed. There would have been many new jobs, high paying jobs. Additionally, the planet would have been taken out of its self destructive mode. Unfortunately, large corporations, translation big money, have influence in the politics of America. Their interest were, and continue to be, put before the best interest of America’s citizens.
Have you ever noticed how Republicans and Conservatives always minize the intellectual prowess of Americas Ivy League professors? That is untill those same intellectuals posit an idea or concept that aligns with Republican and Conservative ways of thinking.
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Looking Back Into America’s History, Ask Yourself These Questions:
- Why was there a Civil War?
Sure it was about slavery, but the underlying thing was money. Slaves were deemed property – not human and the entire economic structure of the South was based on this evil practise. If slavery was abolished the South would lose “a way of life” that they had been acustomed to. - Why has America been fighting in the Middle East?
It’s because of Oil aka Money. The old white men, and those they have herded into their flock, want to hold onto concepts that no longer hold true. While most democracies around the world embrace the need for energy alternatives, alternatives that do not rely on fossil fuel that is in fact causing a climate change.
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“In the Revolutionary War, American Liberals defeated the British Conservatives. It’s unlikely you’ll see that Great Truth in a Fox News…”
This quote was taken from article If the founding fathers were alive today, would they be conservative or Liberal? written on the website Quora.