Movie Clips Trailer Vault: Groundhog Day (1993) Starring Bill Murray & Andie McDowell

Posted on February 9, 2018 by kireschneider

Source:The New Democrat

Groundhog is one of my favorite comedies from the 1990s as well as all time. Because the movie which obviously is not believable that a basically normal even narcissistic man like Phil Connors ( played by Bill Murray ) could literally live the same exact day over and over with only Phil making any changes for how his day goes, unless he’s literally dreaming and just having the Hollywood dream of a lifetime. The movie is only about 1:45 minutes give or take, so why couldn’t a man be sleeping have this dream going on his head while he’s asleep.

The movie starts off with Phil who is a selfish unhappy narcissistic weatherman for a local TV station in Pittsburgh, which is a midsize city in a small market, with hopes of landing a job for a big station in a big market like New York, Washington, Chicago, Los Angeles, wherever it might be. But instead of getting a job like that he gets another assignment from his Pittsburgh station to cover another small-town event in rural Pennsylvania small-town Punxsutawney, Pennsylvania. Doing exactly what he doesn’t want to do which is to cover small-town events with small-town people with Pittsburgh perhaps being the biggest city they’ve ever seen in their lives.

And narcissistic Phil sees himself as much bigger than that is unhappy and cynical the whole time he’s there, until he realizes he’s living the same day over and over again. Groundhog Day which is a one day event for everyone else in this town becomes a daily event for him. With no one else realizing what’s going on with him. Because everything else is normal for them. But in Phil’s case the same day starts over and over again every time he goes to sleep and wakes up in his hotel room.

Groundhog Day for me is the opportunity for one guy to live the same day over and over and learn from those experience and try not to make the same mistakes. Phil becomes a less sarcastic, cynical, narcissistic, selfish man as the movie moves along. Once he realizes he’s in the same day over and over with no tomorrows. He also becomes adventurous knowing that there’s basically no consequences for anything that he does. He can literally do whatever the hell he wants because he knows he’ll start the same day over and over once midnight comes.

There’s a scene in the diner where he drinks an entire pot of coffee and eats all of the pastries in the diner while he’s smoking. He robs an armor truck. He jumps off a building. He drives a truck over a cliff intentionally. He drives a car on the train tracks and gets into a police chase and spends a night in jail. Of course, only one night because the same day just starts over for him once midnight comes. He also starts to get involved with his producer Rita ( played by the adorable Andie McDowell ) who doesn’t like him and sees him as an egocentric selfish jerk. And spends each Groundhog Day learning about her and what she likes and is interested in and changes his behavior and interests just to get her to like him.

I prefer movies that are realistic, with great actors, great plot, cover original great writing, with clever wit with a cast that is also witty but can act as well. Groundhog Day has all of that except for the realism. Unless again we’re talking about one man with a really strange dream while he’s asleep that no one else could possibly know about. Groundhog Day is that 100 minute escape from reality when people simply just need an entertaining break and time to escape and is a very entertaining and very funny movie.

Movie Clips Trailer Vault: Groundhog Day 1993- Trailer

Posted in Classic Movies, The New Democrat | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Bloodletters & Badmen: Virginia Hill- Mistress To The Mob

Posted on February 8, 2018 by Rik Schneider

Source:The New Democrat

If you watch the movie Bugsy from 1991 with Warren Beatty playing Ben Siegel with Annette Being playing Siegel’s mistress Virginia Hill, the movie portrays Virginia as much more than a mobster’s mistress. Mistresses are common with mobsters and mobsters who are married with children is also common with both Italian and Jewish mobsters and perhaps Irish mobsters as well.

With the wives of the mobsters basically being babes in the woods. ( To use a Goodfellas line ) Basically unaware or ignoring what their husbands do for a living at least until their husbands go to prison for the first time. Then maybe, they get a clue that their husbands actually aren’t actually construction workers or auto mechanics, legitimate businessmen, or whatever lie their husbands feed them as far as what they do for a living.

If you watch the movie Bugsy you see Virginia Hill as not just a mobster mistress but she basically handled the finances of Ben Siegel’s Las Vegas operation and business. Siegel had the vision that Las Vegas would become a gambling and entertainment mecca that it is now today and has been since the 1960s if not farther back. But in the 1940s when Siegel got this vision Las Vegas was basically a pitstop four hours east of Los Angeles. Where people would go to gas up, get a bite to eat, perhaps stay for the night, but generally not a place where people would go to vacation. Unlike what it is now which is one of the top vacation towns in America.

Virginia Hill was not a babe in the woods. She knew who Ben Siegel was and that he was married with kids and that he was a New York mobster before they got involved out in Los Angeles. And didn’t have any major issues with that. She was attracted to him physically, but his charm, his humor, and perhaps the most of all his power and wanted to be with him. And became his business partner and had a role in helping his build his Las Vegas casino which was the Flamingo.

Bloodletters and Badmen: Virginia Hill- Mistress To The Mob

Posted in Organized Crime, The New Democrat | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

The Rubin Report: Steve Davies: ‘The Difference Between Classical Liberals & Libertarians’

Posted on February 7, 2018 by Ederik Schneider

Attachment-1-1767

Source:The Rubin Report talking to Steve Davies from Learn Liberty.

Source:The New Democrat

“Dave Rubin of The Rubin Report talks to Steve Davies (Institute of Economic Affairs) about the difference between classical liberals and libertarians. This is part of our collaboration with Learn Liberty featuring interviews with classical liberals.”

From The Rubin Report

Steve Davies: “The main difference between a Classical Liberal and Libertarian, is that Classical Liberals are not antigovernment and are not Anarchists.” That’s a paraphrase, but pretty close to what he’s talking about and why I’m not a Libertarian and perhaps why Dave Rubin is also not a Libertarian.

I’m cool with being labeled either a Classical Liberal or a Liberal. Just don’t call me a Libertarian, if you know what’s good for you! ( Ha, ha ) I’m a Jack Kennedy/Tom Jefferson/Wendell Willkie/Henry Jackson Liberal Democrat. Meaning, I believe in liberal democracy, not so much the Democratic Party. I come from the center-right of the Democratic Party,  because I believe in the things that Dave Rubin and Steve Davies point out in this video.

I also believe there is a a what I call decentralized limited government role, in seeing that people who for whatever reasons especially adults, who don’t have the skills that allow for them to get a good job and be able to be self-sufficient economically, get an opportunity to get those skills so they can get themselves a good job and not need public assistance at all. As well as short-term financial relief while they’re improving themselves economically.

I also believe in public education, just as long as it’s not a monopoly and as long as it’s run by the local government’s, so everyone is guaranteed at least a shot at getting themselves a good education. And not denied an education simply because private schools don’t want to teach them.

I believe people should be able to go the the best public that is available for them and if parents want to send their kids to a private school, that is their choice. Just as long as taxpayers don’t have to pay for their choices. Instead of forcing kids to go to school simply because of where they live, instead of what’s the best school for them.

I believe in national defense to protect the country from foreign invaders. I believe in public law enforcement to protect the public from predators, but not to protect people from themselves. I believe America should be working with our allies to keep our peace, but also to see that the world is as safe as possible for freedom and liberal democracy to survive.

And a regulatory state that is limited to only protecting consumers and workers from predators. Not to try to run private business and make private businesses semi-public utilities that are only privately run in name only.

I’m not anti-government, but anti-big government. I don’t want government trying to run our personal and economic lives for us. Which is what the Far-Left and Far-Right have in common. They don’t want people to be able to make their own decisions and don’t trust and believe in individualism.

The Far-Left, Socialists and Communists, want big government to manage people’s economic affairs for them. And in Communists case, they want big government to manage people’s personal lives for them as well as their economic lives.

The Christian-Right as well as Nationalists and in some cases as we’re seeing in America as well as Europe as well now, Christian-Nationalists who want big government to manage people’s personal lives. And don’t want people who don’t look like them and believe in the same things as they do to even be around and be allowed to live their own lives.

Where I separate from Libertarians, is that I’m not an Anarchist. What you get from Libertarians today especially online is this belief that government in any sense is just corrupt, incompetent, unconstitutional, and that its being existence in any form is enslaving the people. That taxation is theft even though being a citizen of a country is basically like being the member of a club. You pay for the services that you consume as condition of being a member of that club. And for whatever reasons Libertarians today don’t seem to understand that.

I’m not anti-government or pro-small government. If I had it my way, government would be a lot smaller than what Socialists in any form want and bigger than what so-called Libertarians want. I’m pro-limited government and limiting government to doing only what we need it to do. So in that sense I guess I would a moderate compared with Socialists and Libertarians, but to me that is just about being a Liberal. Taking positions based on the best available evidence at hand. Instead of taking all of my positions based on government either has all of the answers to solving problems or none of the answers to problem solving.

Posted in The New Democrat, The Rubin Report | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Dandelion Salad: Henry Wallace- Undoing The New Deal

Posted on February 6, 2018 by Derik Schneider

Source:Dandelion Salad

Vice President Henry Wallace, was President Franklin Roosevelt’s Vice President from 1941-45. This was the term that President Roosevelt moved left on economic policy while still being a strong anti-Communist and anti-Fascist liberal internationalist on foreign policy. But on economic policy FDR moved left and moved past the New Deal that he got through Congress in the 1930s and instead of talking about the need for a public safety net for people when they needed it, instead started talking about what’s called welfare rights.

FDR’s Four Freedoms agenda was about guaranteeing that every American would have exactly what they need to live well in life and that these human services would be provided by the Federal Government. The Henry Wallace social democratic side of FDR comes out in the 1940s and FDR again came out in favor of moving past the safety net and instead creating a welfare that that is common in Britain and Scandinavia. Where the national government would become responsible for seeing that every America had a good education, a good home, enough food to eat, health care, health insurance, a good pension, and I could probably go on from here, but I’ll spare you.

Henry Wallace was the Bernie Sanders of the 1940s ideologically. A true Democratic Socialist who thought that the American capitalist private enterprise system, left too many people behind with few people who were rich financially, a lot of people in poverty, and a lot of people struggling just to pay their bills. The Great Depression of the 1930s did a lot to change how Americans looked at politics and economics.

Pre-Great Depression America was basically a libertarian utopia economically. With every little if any government involvement in the economy. But when you start to see 1/2 Americans living in poverty with food lines and food banks in every major city in the country and 1/5 Americans who are unemployed, most of the major banks failing in the country, you might start to reexamine your own politics and look at economics as well.

It is after the 1944 presidential election where Henry Wallace is no longer Vice President of the United States and becomes independent of the Roosevelt Administration politically with the ability to speak for himself and express his own politics politically and look at running for President himself in 1948. In 1948 Wallace runs for President himself and wins the Progressive Party nomination which was really a social democratic or democratic socialist party and runs for President against Progressive Democrat President Harry Truman, Republican Tom Dewey and Dixiecrat Strom Thurmond. And America has a major Democratic Socialist presidential candidate to consider voting for.

Posted in New Left, Originals | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | 1 Comment

The Economist: Srdja Popovic Interviewing Bassem Youssef- Revolution For Dummies

Posted on February 5, 2018 by Erik Schneider
Attachment-1-1752

Source: The Economist– Bassem Youssef

Source:The New Democrat

What I would say about this is that it takes a special type of narcissist to want to be a dictator, let alone actually be a dictator. Regardless of whatever authoritarian ideology you come from. Whether it’s communism religious theocracy, militarism, oligarchy, nationalism, whatever it might be. It takes a special type of narcissist to believe that you’re so great and you’re like a God ( even if you’re a Communist ) to believe you’re so great and so brilliant, that you’re not only great with your own personal life, that you’re qualified to run the personal lives of everyone else in your country.

You believe you’re so brilliant that you can make great decisions for people you’ve never met before and know what’s best for perfect strangers. That you just don’t just see yourself as a dictator, but a psychic and a mindreader as well. You see into the future and see what perfect strangers need and what they should think and how they should act and every other personal decisions that people make in their lives everyday. Maybe that is why Donald Trump admires dictators ( or at least Vladimir Putin ) because he sees himself that way as well.

Dictators might see themselves as brilliant and godlike before they come to power, but once it becomes clear even to the regime that things aren’t going very well and country is now in bad shape that power is not just over centralized with the national state, but the dictator himself, the dictator has to find others to blame or the people and even his own regime will lose faith in their so-called great leader and look for other leadership. According to Fidel Castro it was never his fault that the Cuban Marxist economy was failing. It was always the fault of the Americans according to Fidel. The same thing is now going on in Venezuela where of course the Maduro Regime won’t take the blame for their failing socialist economy that doesn’t have the ability to provide their people with even the basic necessities of life like toilet paper.

Mark my words ( or some cheesy bullshit like that ) if the American economy were to start sliding in 2018-19, President Donald Trump won’t take an ounce of responsibility for that. The economic downturn will become the Obama downturn according to President Trump and his Administration. Even though President Trump would’ve been in office for 1-2 years at that point and the Trump economic policy will have a;ready been in place. If the economy starts to fall, the deficit and debt will go up even more than it’s expected to go up because of the new Tax law. And according to the small world or brain of Donald Trump, it will become the Obama deficit and debt.

And I know I’m using the word dictator with Donald Trump loosely. President Trump as much as he would like to be a dictator and have the U.S. Justice Department and White House Office of Legal Counsel, as his personal law firms and lawyers and the Congress as lackeys who are only in office to please their master which is what you see in Russia and China, even Donald Trump as President has real checks and balances in the U.S. Government. The independent Russia investigation is a perfect example of that. But Trump sees himself as a dictator and wants the power to be able to do whatever the hell he wants to protect himself and stay in power and damn the consequences.

The Economist: Srdja Popovic Interviewing Bassem Youssef- Revolution For Dummies

Posted in The Economist, The New Democrat | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Real Time With Bill Maher: Monologue: ‘Banana Republicans’

Posted on February 3, 2018 by FredSchneiderUS
Attachment-1-1747

Source: 360 Wise News

Source:The New Democrat

Watching CNN yesterday afternoon as I was working ( of course ) they were obviously covering the release of the Devin Nunes memo and they had Robert Baer on who was a career CIA intelligence officer before he retired several years ago that Donald Trump probably sees as some Marxist-Communist member of the so-called Deep State. Communists working for the CIA is about as common as Muslims and Latinos voting for Donald Trump in Alabama.

But that being said, Bob Baer was on CNN yesterday talking about the memo and he called it a piece of trash. Now, if he was part of HBO’s special coverage of the Nunes memo or Showtime, he probably would’ve called it a piece of shit, because that is exactly what it is. All it is, is Trumpian talking points about the FBI and broader intelligence community in America and this conspiracy theory that Donald Trump and his supporters have that the intelligence community is out to get President Trump. When Bill Maher calls these Trump supporters of the House Banana Republicans, he ain’t lying. These House Republicans on the Intelligence Community of all places, see themselves now as defense lawyers and operatives for the White House.

These intelligence reports and in Representative Devin Nunes’s case the ( Chairman of the House Intelligence Committee ) unintelligent memo that a seventh grader could’ve edited for their parents and found real holes in it, is nothing more than RNC/White House talking points. That says you have to back Presdent Trump at all costs even if it makes you look like an idiot, or worse a liar, worse than that a corrupt defense lawyer. This is not one of those partisan squabbles that you see all the time in Washington especially in Congress with Republicans and Democrats looking like they’re fighting each other and accusing each other of cheating in a pickup basketball game or at recess. This is a Republican inter party squabble between House Republicans teaming up with the White House, against the Republican led and mostly Republican intelligence community. Washington Republicans vs. the CIA and FBI.

Representative Devin Nunes who has one of the most important jobs in all of Congress as Chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, is nothing more than a hack defense lawyer for President Donald Trump. Nunes is a man that the House of Representatives is supposed to rely on for fair and accurate intelligence reports and oversight of the intelligence community. But what does he do instead? Go out of his way to make the intelligence community unfairly look bad because they have negative information about President Trump and his presidential campaign and it now looks like they were working with Russians to get Donal Trump elected President. So they’ve decided they have to make the intelligence community look bad at all costs so President Trump doesn’t take them down in 2018.

HBO: Real Time With Bill Maher- Monologue: Banana Republicans

Posted in Real Time, The New Democrat | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Politics & Prose: David Cay Johnston- ‘It’s Even Worse Than You Think’

Posted on February 2, 2018 by kireschneider

Source:The New Democrat

I agree with David C. Johnston that Donald Trump is not the disease in American politics, but a symptom. His presidency is an example of what can happen when Americans are literally so pissed off about American politics, American politicians, the lobbyists that they actually represent instead of the everyday American voters who work very hard for their living and proud of that.

Not just Independents but Democrats voted for Donald Trump. Far-Left-Wing Democrats and third-party voters who voted for Socialist Senator Bernie Sanders in the Democratic primaries for President, voted for Nationalist Republican Donald Trump for President. Who came out in favor of banning Muslims from entering America and a huge border wall that is supposed to be about two-thousand miles along and cover the entire American-Mexican border, even though no one actually believes that is even possible to accomplish let alone will ever happen, except for Donald Trump’s Far-right Breitbart Fox News voters. Even Donald Trump knows enough about immigration to know his wall won’t ever happen, but he’s also smart enough to know that his base doesn’t know that.

Think about that for a second. Socialists voting for a right-wing Nationalist for President, even though they had Green Party Socialist candidate Jill Stein, as an option to vote for President. Donald Trump for all of his weaknesses and lack of knowledge about everything other than how to make money for himself and entertainment, understands the American political system very well. Not the governmental system where he’s not even a student of American government at this point, but instead barely knows it exist and sees the U.S. Justice Department and White House Legal Counsel Office, as his personal law firms that are supposed to be in the business to only represent him.

But Trump is smart enough about American politics to know where American voters are at least on the right-wing side of it and not the Center-Right of the Republican Party, but the hardcore Right if not Far-Right. And he knows what he can do and has to do to get those voters to vote for him and support him. He also knows that there is this so-called Reagan Democrat wing in the Democratic Party who generally vote for Democrats for President and who voted overwhelmingly for Barack Obama for President twice, but that these voters haven’t been part of the economic recovery that we’ve been living though since 2009. And hate our American political system and the politicians that get elected for obvious reasons. And that Donald Trump completely represents the anti-political as well as government establishment in America.

Donald Trump represents what can happen when you have a Congress with a 15% approval rating. Where you have a large percentage of middle class workers who haven’t gotten a raise in twenty years, where corruption in politics and government looks like the norm instead of a surprise and for the Far-Right in America Trump represents what can happen when you have an America that looks like America which is the world ethnically and racially, instead of just looking like Europe.

All Donald Trump did in 2015-16 was to be smart enough to understand these things and be smart enough to take advantage of them. You want to get the Donald Trump’s of the world out of the American political system and more importantly out of the American government, you need better government and better people working in government especially at the top. And even more importantly you need better and smarter voters who vote for good people to represent them. Even if they tell them things and take positions that they don’t want to see and here from time to time.

Politics and Prose: David Cay Johnston- ‘It’s Even Worst Than You Think’

Posted in Book TV, The New Democrat | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Mob Video Vault: Mobsters- Benjamin Bugsy Siegel

Posted on February 1, 2018 by Rik Schneider

Source:The New Democrat 

One of my favorite quotes about Ben Siegel was about his friendship with actor George Raft. The quote being that Ben Siegel was a mobster who wanted to be an actor. And George Raft was an actor who wanted to be a mobster. That is sort of how I view Ben Siegel. This Hollywood looking mobster who is the lead character and the mobster that is profiled in either Italian or Jewish mobster movies. Ben Siegel just didn’t have the look of a criminal. At least not the look of a mobster or Ben’s case a mobster enforcer who worked for both the Italian Mafia, even though he was Jewish and not Italian and also worked for Jewish mobsters like Meyer Lansky.

Now, Ben Siegel did have the look of a white-collar criminal, a scammer, gold digger who scams wealthy widows out the the money that they inherited from their dead husbands. Not saying that Ben Siegel didn’t have the profile of a mobster or even enforcer but you see him walking around and he looks like a legitimate businessman. Perhaps a Jewish banker or something like that from New York. ( Not to play off on Jewish stereotypes )

But that is what made Ben so effective as a mobster is that even though he didn’t have the face of a mobster or the overall appearance, he had the mental and physical toughness of a mobster. Plus the intelligence of not a mobster but someone who would’ve been a successful New York businessman. He was a lot smarter than the average even successful mobster in America. And that is not like saying he makes idiots look stupid or something. Or he’s a really intelligent rookie. Siegel was a very bright man even though he never had much of a formal education. Who in some ways was even a visionary when it came to business especially gambling and casinos.

Along with Jimmy Hoffa, Ben Siegel is literally one of the architects of th modern Las Vegas that is so popular today. Siegel had the vision of a Las Vegas that would be come a popular entertainment vacation town back in the 1940s when Las Vegas was a town of about 10 thousand people or so. Seventy years later today Las Vegas is a city of about 600 thousand people and a metro area of about 2 million people. Siegel wasn’t just a mafia hitman who eventually has his own crew and division that was part of a broader Mafia family. He was a businessman and a visionary in business.

Mob Video Vault: Mobsters- Benjamin Bugsy Siegel

Posted in Organized Crime, The New Democrat | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Learn Liberty: The Rubin Report- Dave Rubin Interviewing Deirdre McCloskey: Marxism in Two Minutes

Posted on January 31, 2018 by Ederik Schneider
Attachment-1-1726

Source:Learn Liberty– A look at Marxism 

Source:The New Democrat

“Marx was the greatest social scientist of the 19th century…” says Professor Deirdre McCloskey. “But he got everything wrong.”

Source:The Rubin Report: Dave Rubin- Interviewing Deidre McCloskey: ‘Marxism Explained in 2 Minutes’

As I explained with communism last week and explaining what communism is, the basic definition of communism is that communism is the state owning the means of production in society. Someone who is a hard core Communist believes the state should own and manage the entire economy and that property rights and property ownership, are outlawed. In a true communist state people wouldn’t even own their own homes or automobiles. No such thing as small businesses with people owning their own restaurants. All private property including businesses and personal property, would be owned by the national government. This is basically the basic definition of what is called Marxist/Communism.

According to Wikipedia, “Marxism has developed into many different branches and schools of thought, though now and there is no single definitive Marxist theory.” Communism and Marxism, has developed into many aspects of a broader political philosophy and we don’t know if Karl Marx himself ever went as far and developed his own political philosophy beyond his theories on economics.

When I think of Marxist/Communists today and going back to pre-Cold War is that people who do believe the state should own the means of production in society, but that there political philosophy goes beyond just economic policy. A Communist to me anyway and even so-called Democratic Socialists who perhaps aren’t pure Communists and do have some democratic leanings with those leavings being more social democratic and collectivist, than liberal democratic and don’t put much if any emphasis when it comes to individual rights and aren’t fans of individualism at all, are people who see individualism and personal autonomy as dangerous and selfish. And therefor you need a big centralized national state to make most if not all the decisions for society. And to prevent people from being greedy and to think for themselves. As well as to develop opposition to the state.

My personal definition of a Communist or Marxist/Communist if you prefer, even though I don’t believe we’ll ever know what Karl Marx thought beyond economic policy, is someone who is anti-individual and pro-collectivist. Someone who is against individualism and pro-statism and collectivism. Sees personal autonomy and individualism as dangerous and believes once you give people the freedom to make their own decisions, they’ll end up making bad decisions that the state will end up having to pay for. Or will make great decisions for themselves and end up doing much better than society as a whole which is what Communists view as selfish.

This definition of communism can be applied to more than just economic policy and property rights, but big government in general when it comes to the nanny state as well. But the political correctness movement on the Far-Left and Far-Right, that seeks to eliminate and censor free speech that they disagree with and find offensive. If you’re asking me that would be my definition of a Communist. A and to a large extent Socialists in general. Even though Democratic Socialists to tend to be more democratic obviously and a believer in at least some individualism when it comes to private property and the right to privacy, and some personal autonomy.

 

Posted in The New Democrat, The Rubin Report | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Talking Union: Nathan Newman- Remembering Martin Luther King and His Roots in The Labor Socialist Movement

Posted on January 30, 2018 by Derik Schneider

Source:Talking Union

Imagine if we had more American Socialists who had the character and courage  to be out front about their socialist politics and not feel the need to hide behind other political labels, like Senator Bernie Sanders, Dr. Jill Stein today, but back in the 1960s Dr. Martin L. King. America would be a lot less ignorant politically. Americans with liberal leanings who believe in liberal democratic values ( not necessarily Democratic Party values ) would be a lot more open about being a Liberal and probably be proud Liberals, because they would know that they’re not Socialists or Communists, but instead Liberals who believe in liberal democracy. . In Britain, Europe, and perhaps Canada, you don’t have closeted Socialists which is what we have in America. Socialists there stand up for their socialist politics and are proud to be called Social Democrats or Democratic Socialists and in like in France and Sweden, are proud to be known as Socialists. In America, not so much.

As I argued last week Dr. Martin King, wasn’t just a Socialist, but a proud Socialist and Democratic Socialist at that. Edgar Hoover’s FBI believed that Dr. King was a Communist and working with Communist Party USA to build his movement. There were Communists involved in the civil rights movement, but Dr. King was a Democratic Socialists politically and ideologically and believed in democratic socialism and not communism or other authoritarian ideologies. His labor movement that he was  big part of and advocating for garbage collectors in Memphis and workers in other big America cities was part of his democratic socialist movement and what he was advocating for politically. Arguing for workers rights and that all American workers regardless of race should be allowed to organize.

Dr. King believed that American capitalism, along with forced state segregation for the races in America, especially in the South, was failing to meet the needs of the people. With few people at the top with all the money in the world and a lot of people at the bottom who simply struggled to feed themselves and their families and have adequate housing. And workers who would work very hard and work real long hours and be paid practically nothing and struggle just to pay their bills. Which is why he and his organization marched and worked with Memphis sanitation workers in Memphis so they could form their own labor union. Dr. King believed we needed a new economic system that would meet the needs of the people so we would no longer have hardworking people who struggled just to feed themselves and their families.

Dr. King wanted a democratic socialist model that would essentially collect the economic resources of the country through the Federal Government and then give those resources back through government programs based on what people needed to live well. Take from the wealthy though higher taxes to take care of the poor through government. Which is along with their large wealthy energy industry, is the economic model of Sweden. If you look at what Senator Bernie Sanders pushed for economically when he ran for President in 2016, its very similar to what Dr. King advocated for in the 1960s. High taxes on the wealthy to meet the needs of everyone else. This is not my economic model but this is what Martin King believed in and was proud of it and proud to be a Democratic Socialist, unlike a lot of closeted Socialists today who hide behind other political labels.

Dr. King was a proud man who didn’t hide from anyone and would promote his politics proudly regardless of what people on the Right and generally Far-Right in America people who even saw him as evil and wanted him killed and so what if those right-wingers saw him or labeled him as a Socialist or Communist. Because he wasn’t looking for their support anyway. Dr. King was a proud Socialist and would make the case for why he was a Socialist and then tell people who disagreed with them, “why aren’t you a Socialist as well now that you know what and why I stand for?” Which is very different from left-wingers today who are even proud to support Bernie Sanders and agree with him on everything and perhaps even to the left of Senator Sanders and perhaps even have more communist leanings instead of democratic socialist leanings and still feel the need to hide behind other political labels. And fail to claim the socialist label that fits their politics perfectly.

Posted in Dr. MLK, Originals | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | 2 Comments