Forums » Website Related Forums » News & Announcements

 


Post new topic This topic is locked, you cannot edit posts or make further replies.
Author Message
Offline
PostPosted: Tue Jul 28, 2009 7:07 pm
  

User avatar
Arlo Fanatic

Joined: Feb 26, 2009
Posts: 1201
What I want is a party beyond parties. Is there anything better than a party system? Or is it just a matter of a blank space?


          Top  
 
PostPosted: Tue Jul 28, 2009 9:05 pm
  

User avatar
Arlo Fanatic

Joined: Jul 06, 2008
Posts: 2531
Images: 2
Location: Crawfordville, Florida
Political parties are really just containers for interest groups, both traditional and grassroots. The situation has evolved from a "This town ain't big enough for the both of us" attitude to it's opposite, "There's only the two of us, and towns are popping up all over the place". The worst result of the two-party system has been the way they've been manipulated into mechanisms for the extreme polarization of many people. Most focus too much on the differences and not enough on their common interests.


          Top  
 
PostPosted: Tue Jul 28, 2009 9:13 pm
  

Senior ArloNetizen

Joined: Jul 30, 2008
Posts: 374
Location: Washington, DC
Political parties are like sinus infections. Sleep on your left side and all the crud slides left; sleep on your right side and all the crud slides right. Sit up and it starts coming down your throat and out your nose. And you have an achy head no matter what you do.


          Top  
 
PostPosted: Tue Jul 28, 2009 9:40 pm
  

User avatar
Arlo Fanatic

Joined: Aug 25, 1999
Posts: 1089
Location: Ocala, FL, USA
recklessprocess, I don't consider the Dixiecrats of 1948 who fought Harry Truman tooth and nail over Civil Rights or the segregationist Southern Democrats of the mid-sixties to be representative of their party any more than you probably consider Olympia Snowe or Susan Collins representative of theirs. You have your RINO's and we have our DINO's.

I still say it's a fact that the impetus for progress came from Democratic leaders like Truman, Kennedy, and Johnson, and the legislation came to fruition under their watch, rather than under the watch of Eisenhower, Nixon, or Reagan.

Today, we have the "Blue-Dog" Democrats in place of the Dixiecrats, but "we shall overcome" on the important issues.

By the way, I wouldn't feel too confident about the folkslinger turning into a conservative. A careful reading of his message indicates to me that he's trying to lead you all away from the "dark side" and towards the light, just as we had to do with the segregationist southern Dems.


mikey


          Top  
 
PostPosted: Tue Jul 28, 2009 10:35 pm
  

Senior ArloNetizen

Joined: Jul 30, 2008
Posts: 374
Location: Washington, DC
Not to mention that some of those Dixiecrats became Republicans (Jesse Helms, Strom Thurmond pop into mind), corrupting the soul of the party -- I was actually thinking of them when I wrote my earlier analogy. The breakdown of the vote on the 1964 Civil Rights Act was:

By party

The original House version:[9]

* Democratic Party: 152-96 (61%-39%)
* Republican Party: 138-34 (80%-20%)

The Senate version:[9]

* Democratic Party: 46-21 (69%-31%)
* Republican Party: 27-6 (82%-18%)

The Senate version, voted on by the House:[9]

* Democratic Party: 153-91 (63%-37%)
* Republican Party: 136-35 (80%-20%)

By party and region

Note: "Southern", as used in this section, refers to members of Congress from the eleven states that made up the Confederate States of America in the American Civil War. "Northern" refers to members from the other 39 states, regardless of the geographic location of those states.

The original House version:

* Southern Democrats: 7-87 (7%-93%)
* Southern Republicans: 0-10 (0%-100%)

* Northern Democrats: 145-9 (94%-6%)
* Northern Republicans: 138-24 (85%-15%)

The Senate version:

* Southern Democrats: 1-20 (5%-95%) (only Senator Ralph Yarborough of Texas voted in favor)
* Southern Republicans: 0-1 (0%-100%) (this was Senator John Tower of Texas)
* Northern Democrats: 45-1 (98%-2%) (only Senator Robert Byrd of West Virginia opposed the measure)
* Northern Republicans: 27-5 (84%-16%) (Senators Bourke Hickenlooper of Iowa, Barry Goldwater of Arizona, Edwin L. Mechem of New Mexico, Milward L. Simpson of Wyoming, and Norris H. Cotton of New Hampshire opposed the measure)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Civil_Righ ... 4#By_party

I love Wikipedia. I wish politics were more like Wikipedia.


          Top  
 
PostPosted: Wed Jul 29, 2009 1:27 am
  

User avatar
Arlo Fanatic

Joined: Jan 09, 2003
Posts: 2490
Images: 5
Location: Rhododendron, Oregon United States
Who gets to decide which is Ceasar's?


          Top  
 
Offline
PostPosted: Wed Jul 29, 2009 8:23 am
  

User avatar
Arlo Fanatic

Joined: Feb 26, 2009
Posts: 1201
The Nevada Gaming Commission?

It looks like the Republicans are primed for apoptosis as the Libertarians and the Republican outwing drift toward each other.


          Top  
 
PostPosted: Wed Jul 29, 2009 9:56 am
  

User avatar
Arlo Fanatic

Joined: Sep 12, 2000
Posts: 6517
Location: New Jersey
Goofus wrote:
Who gets to decide which is Ceasar's?


I suppose that would be Mrs. Ceasar? :wink:

The two party system is messed up, but very unlikely to change.
With the melding and morphing of ideas, values and philosophies concerning both social issues and the "simple" business of running the government, many people are somewhat inclined to chose a party based on one half of it's basic dogma or the other.
This is largely how the republican party has recruited many folk to often vote against their own intrests other than thier "social and family value" views. That is to say, by engaging the evangelical base.Condesending,crude, but effective.
The demographics of the country are changing to the point that if the republican party does not change it's stripes of many on the social issues, they will be irrelevent or margianalized in large measure. That is unless the democrats happen to do what the recent republicans in power did, and that is to screw stuff up so bad as to force people to insist upon change.Either way, I will not be surprised.
Having said that the two party system is messed up, it's still way better than a one party system. So, saving and changing the republican party may be a noble goal for all of us, regardless of party affiliation. Perhaps Arlo is ahead of the curve on this one!


          Top  
 
Offline
PostPosted: Wed Jul 29, 2009 11:23 am
  

User avatar
Arlo Fanatic

Joined: Feb 26, 2009
Posts: 1201
Quote:
Perhaps Arlo is ahead of the curve on this one!


Perhaps but unless he is prepared to pay attention, he will soon be featured in an ad claiming he supports Sarah Palin's new initiatives on health care as every loyal Republican must.

Will the Republicans co-opt Arlo's brand? They just might. The Romans absorbed the Greek culture and began their decline because whereas they needed the mathematics to empower their engineering genius, they didn't need the rest of the package but got it anyway as they suffered from lack of artistic credibility and as a culture, they hated lacking anything.

Self-image as brand is a cobra in a hat box.

The parties may not be as important as we think. Ad sales may be all that matters as the collapse of media into conglomerates couples to the rise of the Google monopoly over information. Here is something to chew on:

http://aralbalkan.com/2284

To be fair, I am listed as a Sys-Con author. I was some years ago until when they realized they weren't getting enough content, they began to scrape my posts to XML-Dev and claim them as articles on their site. I objected but was told I could pretty much go screw myself as they would anyway.

So now it is the right of every mother's son to republish Arlo's songs on the web, the right of every major company to republish anything we write, in fact, they own our genes.

Now what do you think will be the outcry should Arlo Palin decide that regulating these companies is in the best interests of the public? Ok, don't like that. How about an ISP tax/fee that collects $3 a month from every ISP subscriber to pay to ASCIII/BMI/SESAC to redistribute to their members to offset publishing lossses?

It isn't about the parties. The masks are off. It is about enslavement by the few of the many through a legal system that permanently enfranchises their brands and concentrates the wealth even more that it has been concentrated.

What will we do about that? Whine. Why? We want the bread and circuses. We can't tolerate the boredom of our anonymity.


          Top  
 
PostPosted: Wed Jul 29, 2009 11:51 am
  

User avatar
Arlo Fanatic

Joined: Sep 12, 2000
Posts: 6517
Location: New Jersey
It's clear to me that Arlo did not join the republican party to drink the current batch of Kool-Aid that they got in the punchbowl, but you are correct, some folks will make that leap. Such is a world of sound bytes and knee-jerk reactionism.
There is no way that anyone who read Arlo's reasoning for party affiliation could label him a "loyal republican" in my view, taking into account the popular definition of "loyal".
Maybe I should phone into the Rush Limbaugh radio program and let Rush know about Arlo's switch over to the republicans and see how much we can get our favorite folkslinger in the news? :shock: :D NAH!!!!!! ( Not without asking Arlo first anyway) :wink:


          Top  
 
Offline
PostPosted: Wed Jul 29, 2009 12:28 pm
  

User avatar
Arlo Fanatic

Joined: Feb 26, 2009
Posts: 1201
Since it was in the Times and was linked in Facebook, I would have expected discussion. I saw very little. Apparently shock is losing it's value these days.

Arlo gave a long list of the issues he believes the Republicans should step up to. Have you heard of a tactic called the Overton Maneuver or Overton Window? It is a strategy of describing a set of positions or talking points between an acceptable and an unacceptable position. In a debate one moves one position at a time until the logic for the unacceptable become irrefutable. It's fun to figure out the 'inbetweeners' for that. I'd enjoy seeing him on stage with Sarah Palin. The surreality of that would surpass Nixon standing in front of the Lincoln Memorial asking the hippie kids "What do you want?"

http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/archives/individual/2009_03/017497.php

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Overton_window

Note the comment about the value of such critiques within the party being critiqued. The 'slinger may be the 'loyal opposition'.

So its mutation or apoptosis for the Republicans. There was a time when they stood for something better instead of merely being the party of the rich. I feared Arlo woke up one day to realize he was too rich and too old to go on being a Democrat. It has happened so many times to otherwise reasonable folks. It's part of the syndrome of trying to remain relevant. Most of us hit that syndrome when we realize our children are simply tuning us out and the iPod is actually turned off. :lol:

If he is planning on " moving the conversation away from the failed conservative ideas of the past" as Krugman was, he might want to note that last comment. It could be the case that having his photo in the NY Times signals the end of his career as an anti-establishment critic if not as the head of the first family of American folk.


          Top  
 
PostPosted: Wed Jul 29, 2009 12:41 pm
  

User avatar
Arlo Fanatic

Joined: Sep 12, 2000
Posts: 6517
Location: New Jersey
len wrote:

?"


If he is planning on " moving the conversation away from the failed conservative ideas of the past" as Krugman was, he might want to note that last comment. It could be the case that having his photo in the NY Times signals the end of his career as an anti-establishment critic if not as the head of the first family of American folk.


We are all old enough that we must to some degree consider ourselves to BE the establishment. Even if that is not true, attemping to change what may be bad about the establishment from within the establishment might just be the most productive way.
And by definition, if Arlo or anyone else is attempting to change the republican establishment from the inside OR from the outside, they would be anti-establishment.....would they not?
So far as some kind of "status" as a folk icon, I would see nothing that would change that except perhaps in the eyes of some. Folk is many things, but it's not a political party. It's about people.


          Top  
 
Offline
PostPosted: Wed Jul 29, 2009 12:58 pm
  

User avatar
Arlo Fanatic

Joined: Feb 26, 2009
Posts: 1201
Quote:
Folk is many things, but it's not a political party. It's about people.


Who camp out and smoke pot in the rain for fun which is possibly safer than leaning out of an airplane with a 30:30 sighting moose. :lol:

I believe a spirit rises up from the people when it's needed and the first thing it looks for are scruffy kids with guitars and a deep need to say something noticeable.


          Top  
 
Offline
PostPosted: Wed Jul 29, 2009 1:04 pm
  

User avatar
Arlo Fanatic

Joined: Feb 26, 2009
Posts: 1201
Someone just called to tell me Ron Paul's son will run for the Senate in Kentucky.

For years both parties have plead in public for more citizens to get actively involved in local politics. I think for their sins they are getting what they said they wanted. My wife is asking me to write a song with the hook "And Arlo became a Republican". I just might do it. It seems.... trendy.


          Top  
 
PostPosted: Wed Jul 29, 2009 2:50 pm
  

BlunderVirgin

Joined: Jul 29, 2009
Posts: 1
I think we are going to be in a whole lot of trouble if the National Healthcare goes into effect. Even with insurance, my co-pays are over $1000.00 per month! and that is using mostly generics. what happens when someone tells me I need to use a drug similar, but not as good as the ones I am taking now because it is cheaper???
:cry:

Love you Arlo. You gave me the best memories yet!


          Top  
 
 
Post new topic This topic is locked, you cannot edit posts or make further replies.



Who is online

Users browsing this forum: No registered users and 6 guests


Display posts from previous:  Sort by  
Jump to:  

You cannot post new topics in this forum
You cannot reply to topics in this forum
You cannot edit your posts in this forum
You cannot delete your posts in this forum
You cannot post attachments in this forum


Powered by phpBB © 2000, 2002, 2005, 2007 phpBB Group