I’ve met one progressive in my locality (near South Bend, IN) and know of others (to varying degrees progressive). I’ve met zero anarchists and zero leftists of other stripes. Note that “progressive” is a centrist position, maybe center-right, as it supports the status quo, including capitalism and imperialism, merely tweaking that system for one or another pet cause (such as gay rights or ending the war in Iraq).

I’ve met hundreds of libertarians. Most “poor” Americans I know are libertarians, often supporting freedom of capital more so than freedom of people, although most only have vague notions of all of the associations of their beliefs.

Most people I meet are so politically ignorant and ignorant in general they can’t even be politically classified. They have no problem voting however.

There is no functional left in America because Americans simply are not on the left, with rare exception. That’s quite predictable, as America is the heart of the global empire, thus the most pro-capitalist and pro-wealth accumulating populace in the history of the world.

It’s easy to create a totalitarian society in the US. Most Americans accept such a thing as long as they believe it will increase their own wealth. Americans always have and always will value wealth far more highly than they value freedom or liberty. I’m not sure that Americans know what freedom is anymore.

Here’s an experience I had a couple days ago that wraps American society up in a nutshell. I was talking with an employee of Meijer’s, a large retailer similar in type to Walmart. This employee is one step above (in the corporate hierarchy) the bottom. This employee classified herself as “management” and issued an anti-union statement which could have come from the mouth of a CEO.

This employee works 50+ hours a week and does little outside of work. Certainly she has no time or inclination to end her ignorance. This is a typical American.

Another example – I called a couple minimum wage workers “wage slaves” and they laughed, incredulously.

The American – blissfully ignorant until the very end.

“Since no one else has mentioned it, I shall.

Upon leaving college Barack Obama spent two years with a firm by the name of Business International Corporation. This has been widely identified as being a CIA front company with even its own founder confirming CIA links. And honestly what sort of name is ‘Business International Corporation’? If the naming brief had been ‘must be meaningless, bland, and instantly forgettable’, it couldn’t be improved upon.

Apparently BIC thought so much of young Barack that they paid off his entire student debt. That was nice of them don’t you think?

Astoundingly in Obama’s autobiography, those two years of his not particularly long life, warrant a single paragraph. Or was it a single sentence? I can’t recall now.

Somebody tell me that that’s not weird.

Still it’s better than the ten year long blank space that George Bush had on his resume. Mind you, between ten years spent on cocaine, and two spent at a CIA front company, I’m not sure which is scarier.”

On Obama – Making Your Mind Up
http://www.craigmurray.org.uk/archives/2009/03/obama_making_yo.html

I should add thanks to Nicole Colson for this article. Very often we talk amongst ourselves on this site. sometimes completely off the topic of the article, and the authors are not even referred to.

Elections do not bring down the owning classes, but organizing could. There is an entire army of the unemployed that need to be organized and mobilized. Who is organizing those who have lost their homes and their livelihood? Citizens arrest of the banksters and the CEOs and free-market politicians who have brought such a calamity to millions upon millions of American (not to mention people of other countries) should be in order. How about organizing citizens arrest brigades?

When Geithner’s bail-out of Wall Street fails and everything collapses, will we accept a fascist takeover of America or are we going to act now?

As a “Socialist”, I would think that your definition of “middle class” would be much different than ascribing that label to someone “earning” $60,000/year. I would argue if that person is working a job they are hardly “middle class” but is better described as working class. The wealth is very much concentrated in the upper 5% of the population.

The problem is that many among the working class are totally ignorant of their class interest. They have been indoctrinated into embracing their meager privileges. However many within the working class are not imagining how rich and freer their lives could be under a system with greater economic equality and justice.

Many among the working class has been indoctrinated into embracing “competition” and “individualism” and “zero-sum” thus they are more fearful of what some poor and brown and female and gay and etc is getting than changing the nature of the system. They fear that equality means losing rather than gaining.

What the conspiracy-theory folks, the socialists and the libertarians need to do is to unite into a united front composed of Ron Paul, green party, bob bar, Cynthia Mckinney etc.

This is unlikely to happen. Just take a look at the Left. The Left has been unable to form a united front and they should naturally be in a position to offer real solution and a real vision. If the Left cannot form a united front then an alliance among the grouping you cite will not be form because of their diverging political views. The key to building solidarity is TRUST rather than the idea of “the enemy of my enemy is my friend”. Such a “coalition” will easily fall apart.

Thus the real analysis MUST begin on the Left and what is really needed is an analysis of why the Left is in such a sorry state.

according to class-psychology why would a middle-class person who is earning like 60,000 a year (1000 a week) would want a total change of US wars, Constitutional-reform, etc. Remember that economically stable people think that any change would decrease their monthly incomes

so what happens is that the haves jones middle classe jones, are hardcore democrats and republicans to the bone. They would do any thing to crush, trash and destroy any potential candidate that is an electoral threat of Obama or Palin in 2012. Against Ron Paul for example or against Nader

What the conspiracy-theory folks, the socialists and the libertarians need to do is to unite into a united front composed of Ron Paul, green party, bob bar, Cynthia Mckinney etc.

even if US weakens by 50% , it wld still be by far the strongest empire in the world; perhaps not forever, but long enough to obtain much, much more territory.
after all, nations wage wars chiefly or solely for territory an dits goodies.
people are lead to believe that nations wage wars because enemies are demonic, perillous, terrorists, and myriad other rationalizations, but thousands of wars thus waged prove that that is just a useful strategem. and it had worked everytime. tnx

The whole economic package (whether Bushian or O’Bama-ite) is designed to ‘keep taxes low’ and ‘benefits high.’

USans are, myself included, so rottenly spoiled that even the threat by China and the Europeans to shift the world exchange currency to something other than the almighty dollar is meaningless.

We want what we want at any cost (to our descendants) … hopefully the spawn of my loins will remain childless. Let some other jerks spawn pay my freight! All done, of course, in the same manner as the rape of wall street by those ‘in’ the markets.

Ah well, we sow what we reap …

RG the LG

The Obama Administration threatened Britain with a cessation of intelligence cooperation if a British court released information about Mr. Mohamed’s treatment. The cowardly British government complied.

Failure to bring the Bush Administration criminals to justice will doom the Obama Administration. So far it doesn’t look good.