Originally published at http://www.commondreams.org/news/2020/12/30/matter-life-or-death-sanders-urges-americans-call-their-senators-and-demand-vote
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Iâll get right on that. Iâm sure that once Senators Toomey and Casey get my message off their answering machines theyâll see the light and vote against further defense spending and wholeheartedly approve of sending checks out to us Rabble.
Man, I almost couldnât finish that one without laughing.
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If McConnell and the rest of his colleagues were genuine Republicans and decent human beings then they would heed the words of another Republican named Dwight David Eisenhower who said in his Chance for Peace speech which he gave back on April 16, 1953 that:
"Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired signifies, in the final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and are not clothed.
This world in arms is not spending money alone. It is spending the sweat of its laborers, the genius of its scientists, the hopes of its children. The cost of one modern heavy bomber is this: a modern brick school in more than 30 cities. It is two electric power plants, each serving a town of 60,000 population. It is two fine, fully equipped hospitals. It is some fifty miles of concrete pavement. We pay for a single fighter plane with a half million bushels of wheat. We pay for a single destroyer with new homes that could have housed more than 8,000 people.
This is, I repeat, the best way of life to be found on the road the world has been taking. This is not a way of life at all, in any true sense. Under the cloud of threatening war, it is humanity hanging from a cross of iron."
Those words are just as germane [if not more so] when Ike first uttered them almost seventy years ago. Someone on the Senate floor needs to remind McConnell of that speech and ask him what does he value more, money which is spent on ships and tanks and rockets and bombs or money which can be used to build hospitals and schools and food and which can be given to our citizens during a time of urgent need. Money to kill people or money needed to save peopleâs lives? This should be a no-brainer for the allegedly greatest country in the world and yet its leaders continue to make this more difficult than it needs to be.
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Those like you are stumbling blocks to progress. The more of your negativity you post on this forum, the more you preach hopelessness, the more you expose yourself as such.
Those decent Americans, those who actually want change, those who are willing to get off their asses and work for it must despise your hopeless rants as much as do I
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On the contrary, as Chris Hedges has brought out, speaking the truth is not being negative so much as it is being realistic. Looking at the world through rose colored glasses is not at all helpful. Edward Curtin also states the same thing in his book called Speaking Truth in a Country of Lies.
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If you believe that imposter is speaking truth, instead of discouraging activism, and doing so at every single opportunity then point out to me where he has made one single suggestion to effect progress, or even one single time he has encouraged rather than discouraged others efforts.
I believe you are fooling yourself as to his intentionsâŚ
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I agree. When has acerbic sarcasm been an impediment to progress?
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Actually, Toomey might be pushable on this one. As another poster pointed out and it matches my experience here in Trumpistan Ground Zero, the 2k bait is looking tasty to the crazy right about now.
Worth a call. I actually did it, too, although I had the luxury of being in a morning meeting with a state Sen. here. So I could cut out the proverbial middleman. :))
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I understand your sarcasm, and I am skeptical also but if millions of us progressives call what can it hurt?
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Everything you say is âright on the moneyâ (excuse the pun). Reptilian brains like those of McConnell and his ilk, from whatever party, do not understand the warm blooded mammalian brain.They will never understand reverence for life over reverence for money and power.
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Exactly itâs easy enough to do. Takes as much time as posting to the choir.
No, delusions are a stumbling block to progress.
If you are unable to accept reality as it is how can you ever expect to change anything for the better?
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Wow, you guys over at the DNC really loathe anybody that doesnât toe th company line these days, eh?
The problem of course is that that line is now over there, on the right.
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It seems that this folks over at the DNC share much in common with Twelve Steppers. They canât just seem to get past the step that says you need to make amends to the progressives that they sold out.
Of course, they would have to admit they have a problem in the first place.
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Youâre right of course. You have let them know youâre pissed off. Of course, we could do that on Election Day as well.
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âbailout workers not corporationsâ
Perhaps they mean 'bailout workers not 'employersâ.
Or are they happy for the below (which are not âcorporationsâ) to be âbailed outâ?
*ttps://www.statista.com/statistics/549091/largest-private-us-companies-by-revenue/
Most likely not, but the term âcorporationâ is devolving into meaninglessness at the expense of âgood corporationsâ. Publicly owned entities providing goods and services can be âcorporationsâ and âcorporationsâ need not be âfor profitâ. Workerâs organizations such as âtrade unionsâ can also be considered as âcorporationsâ etc.
It is possible that the âcorporationâ confusions stem from the article, âAnyone for Fascismâ by Lawrence Britt (a âretired international businesspersonâ with no academic credentials) which include 14 âcommon threadsâ of âFascismâ which includes, â9: Power of corporations protected. Although the personal life of ordinary citizens was under strict control, the ability of large corporations to operate in relative freedom was not compromisedâ.
+ttps://secularhumanism.org/2003/03/fascism-anyone/
(The âthe most reprintedâand most piratedâarticle in the magazineâs historyâ)
Britt seems to have come across the terms âcorporateâ and âcorporatismâ in relation to Mussoliniâs Italy without understanding that they were something quite different to âlaissez-faire capitalismâ and current âneoliberalismâ. The wide distribution of the article may be the cause of great general confusion, where âbig businessâ as well as âprivate for-profit enterpriseâ etc has been replaced almost exclusively by âcorporationâ - because of the bad association of the term with historical Fascist dictatorship.
Hereâs what âcorporationâ meant to the original âFascistsâ (and âNational Socialistsâ):
'Corporatism and the Ghost of the Third Wayâ
+ttps://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download?doi=10.1.1.693.939&rep=rep1&type=pdf
(You can be fairly assured that CEOâs of big businesses (incorporated or not) and the politicians sitting in Congress and State Legislatures in Neoliberal America, have no interest in implementing âCorporatismâ.)
P.S. Umberto Ecco also has a âList of the 14 Common Features of Fascismâ
*ttps://www.openculture.com/2016/11/umberto-eco-makes-a-list-of-the-14-common-features-of-fascism.html (which doesnât include any reference to the role of the State in the economy).
You are lucky, if I call my Senator Murkowski I do not get anything but a busy signal!
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Yes it may not do any good nevertheless; we have to admit it does feel good.
Thanks. Most of us on Common Dreams ( including me) are key board warriors that are preaching to the progressive choir, which is okay as long as it is backed up by activism
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Just listened to McConnell as long as I could stand it. He starts off insulting and lying about Senator Sanders and them proceeds calmly with an effluvium of mendacity about the NDAA and the relief bill. That man is toxic and he is making a psychological superfund site out of the Senate chamber; which has always been bad enough.
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