loisgrandi: Because "progressives" have been around since the 1800's, and they have never believed the US Constitution to be appropriate. There is a history of Georgia via biographies of the influential persons of the times. Some interesting details about "progressives" was provided in this very, very old book. Progressives were organized into committees, etc, and they had representation within all of the political parties of the day. ...... So..... NO "progressives." How about PROBLEM solvers who can respect the US Constitution, and all Americans? How about us electing people who will stand up to big business, and wealthy, and who will stop ruining generations of Americans through hand-outs? (Utopia is a myth that has been stuffed down our throats for way too long - by the progressives, and manipulated by the greedy wealthy.) And the so called progressives, in my opinion, are the ones who have been and are playing Americans off against one another.

@jkh6148 - So, quit! I've been a state employee for more than fifteen years. If my union demands anymore money for me during my state's crisis, and the crisis of all the unemployed and underemployed, I'll personally call for a vote to remove that union. Greed is not unique to the wealthy.

By the way... what are the salaries and benefits of your loyal union bosses????

Drummer, While I do indeed believe that many (not all) of the wealty are greedy, I do not see that you have provided any facts in your commentary that support the idea President Reagan's policies did not help our nation. I agree that our elected officials have NOT succeeded in protecting ALL Americans from the greedy. I DO NOT agree that the answer is to take what we want from those whom we consider wealthy. And... greed is not unique to wealthy or powerful people. Poor people are just as greedy, and if they had the opportunity would suck up just as much as the wealthy. No, the real question here is, do you truly believe in the constitution of the United States, and are you ready to do what it takes to consistently apply it to ALL Americans. Throw out tax breaks. If doing business in this nation is not privelege enough, leave. Why should any of us be forced through tax breaks to subsidize businesses. Charge a specific percentage and be done with it. No progressive stuff either. Anything else is inequitable. We can't talk about the great American dream out of one corner of our mouths, and then talk about punishing those who succeed out of the other corner. Legitimate profit is what drives all good economies. As to redistribution, what would you call taking my money that I have earned and giving it to someone else - on a consistent basis - because they are poor? A lifestyle. If you can't afford it, don't take my money for it. And... I have been a state employee for more than 15 years. While I do appreciate my salary, and I have labored long hours in horrible conditions, the bottom line is that my state is in financial trouble. The unemployment lines are long. The median income and benefits are below my pay and benefits. It would be GREEDY of me to insist that I continue to receive pay and benefits above that which is typical in the private sector! The GREEDY unions have done this to themselves. (Check out the pay and benefits of your union officials....hmmmm...)

This is what Republicans do when they think they have a mandate. Think Kent State. Now, like Kent State, this might be what it takes to wake up Americans and make them realize that the Republicans really don't think about "the help" as having rights, they don't think about them as human.

ANTIWAR SONG:

(Ain't Gonna Let Nobody) Turn Me Around by Joan Baez

Album title, "From Every Stage" Produced by David Kershenbaum

I believe these Republican Governors are doing just what their handlers asked them to do. They are against labor unions and are using the authority in their office to destroy the unions in order to eliminate a great deal of the organized opposition by the middle class. What is surprising is that the public believes anything these Republican Governor's are saying. The American public is suffering and these guys are adding to the suffering. It is not enough that millions of Americans are unemployed who would love to work, now they are attempting to reduce the pay of teachers, firefighters, and police in order to fund tax breaks for the wealthiest Americans.

I know people in my community who are Republicans and support these crazy ideas from the Republican Governors--sometimes I think they all have drunk cool-aid.

Philip Henderson, Ethical Magician

Power mad Gov Walker can NOT even find the high road .

Mr. Hartmann,

I recommend "Day After Tomorrow" by Linda Thompson.

Favorite antiwar songs? Easy. From the Chad Mitchell Trio oeuvre, there's "Last Night I had the Strangest Dream" and "Draft Dodger Rag" but my favorite is "The Battle Hymn of the Republic Brought Down to Date" with the following lyrics by Mark Twain:

Mine eyes have seen the orgy of the launching of the Sword;
He is searching out the hoardings where the stranger's wealth is stored;
He hath loosed his fateful lightnings, and with woe and death has scored;
His lust is marching on.

I have seen him in the watch-fires of a hundred circling camps;
They have builded him an altar in the Eastern dews and damps;
I have read his doomful mission by the dim and flaring lamps—
His night is marching on.

I have read his bandit gospel writ in burnished rows of steel:
"As ye deal with my pretensions, so with you my wrath shall deal;
Let the faithless son of Freedom crush the patriot with his heel;
Lo, Greed is marching on!"

We have legalized the strumpet and are guarding her retreat;*
Greed is seeking out commercial souls before his judgement seat;
O, be swift, ye clods, to answer him! be jubilant my feet!
Our god is marching on!

In a sordid slime harmonious Greed was born in yonder ditch,
With a longing in his bosom—and for others' goods an itch.
As Christ died to make men holy, let men die to make us rich—
Our god is marching on.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YcHkLP1fkSo

Singing this during the Bush years would probably have landed the singer in Gitmo!

Also there are the classics from Eric Bogle, recorded by June Tabor: "The Band Played Waltzing Matilda" and "No Man's Land." As the last verse says "Did you really believe that this war would end wars?" Gutting.

The United States is still the richest country on Earth.

As Robert Reich said, the feeling of shortage that Koch, et al use to pit factions of the working classes against one another is an illusion created by billionaires and multimillionaires, for the purpose of distracting us from the fact that they are not paying their fair share. There is no shortage of capital in the United States. There is no budget crisis. There is only a tax code crisis. The "budget deficit" has nothing to do with programs that promote the general welfare.

And I believe that civility is always important. It's the mark of intelligence and self-discipline. But this "era of civility" theme is largely misplaced because Liberals never contributed to the outbreak of politically motivated violence the past couple years. Bill O'Reilly, not any Liberal, provoked Scott Ritter to kill Dr. Tiller. And Glenn Beck, not any Liberal, provoked that other wackjob to try to attack the Tides Foundation. The guy who flew his plane into an IRS building and the other one who opened fire on a Holocaust memorial in Pennsylvania were likewise influenced in no way whatsoever by Liberals, only by Fox "News" and other extremist sources, on the opposite side of the spectrum from Liberal and Progressive politics. So, while it's important to be civil for the same reasons as always, Liberals being extra civil at this particular time will not really do much, in my opinion, to solve the problem that this "era of civility" is intended to address, politically motivated violence perpetrated by conservatives, ultra-conservatives and off-the-chart "libertarian" anarchists. I applaud the sentiment but I am just doubtful that those of us who were never any part of this particular problem can effectively address this particular problem, by this particular method.

Getting to the root of such hateful actions is what will help. I believe the root of this outburst of politically motivated violence -- which is the definition of "terrorism" by the way -- is really not any perception of incivility nor any reality-based complaint of any kind, against Liberal or Progressive ideals or any real Liberal or Progressive persons. The real cause is desperation. The IRS suicide pilot's rant, which Randi Rhodes read on the air the day that story broke, particularly supports the interpretation that "desperation" is the psychological root of such attacks. At the very least, it's very clear that individual acted out of pure desperation. And as to the others, and the various teabaggers who bring and demonstratively display their guns to "peacefully assemble" at political events and so on, I'll just assume that it's common knowledge that feelings of desperation tend to lead people to act, well, in a desperate manner.

So the question is, where does desperation come from? It comes from feeling that a problem cannot be solved. And imagining that I was a conservative, hearing day in and day out that all "Liberals" and "Progressives" want to blindly pursue policies that will bankrupt the country, lead to the downfall of civilization and free society, etc. and I also knew that ~50% of votes or more are reliably cast for Democrats, I suppose I would feel quite desperate about the state of society and politics. It's not true, but it's what they're being told and I think it's the real reason for this outburst of political violence.

The real problem with the national budget is the tax code, and it's caused by just a few dozen billionaires and a few hundred multi-millionaires, and their lobbyists, and from my perspective that is a much more manageable problem than the ~50% of the nation which conservatives believe is the root of the United States' financial problems. And it's worth mentioning that seeing the over-privileged as the real problem also defuses Liberals' concerns that ~50% of the population that self-identifies and votes "conservative" really wants to establish a Christian theocracy, define abortion and homosexuality as crimes and deny the scientific facts of global warming to which 98% of all professionals testify. Although Liberals tend to consider those "conservative" agenda items, they are actually corporatist wedge issues, and each is really supported by only a statistically insignificant fringe of society. So both sides of the working class are being fed lies about the other to distract us from the real enemy, the Kochs, Armeys and Tim Phillipses of the world. So it's not just conservatives that believe untrue things about "the other side."

This is why I think it's absolutely vital to make the bottom line of all these discussions about economics in politics: the fact that there is really not a shortage of wealth in this country at all. There is only a shortage of justice in the tax code that is so full of intentional loopholes that can only be exploited with large amounts of liquid capital, allowing the over-privileged to evade paying their fair share to support the society from which they disproportionately benefit.

It's really just a couple hundred people gaming the system. It's not all conservatives or even most conservatives, any more than it's all Liberals or even most Liberals. This is a manageable problem, because it's not Liberals v. conservatives at all. It's not ~50% of us v. the other ~50% of us. It's people who work for a living v. people who "create wealth" by shuffling around vast amounts of wealth, 99%+ v. less than 1%. We should maybe take a moment to be embarrassed that so many of us have been so deceived by so few, but more importantly, we should remember that the "left-right" political spectrum is the invention of our true enemy, the over-privileged owners of the corporate media who are abusing the tax code, and having it re-written to their advantage, so egregiously that they are all by themselves causing a budget deficit in the wealthiest country on Earth.

I suppose now I should do the math, proving that closing all tax loopholes on all income > $1,000,000 would pay for all discretionary spending, with more to spare? I know those data are around here somewhere...

Tax cuts for billionaires....wage cut for workers. The Republican agenda: welcome to Third World America.

Holy cow! As if I didn't feel like I had enough to be "paranoid" about these days - apparently it's getting to the point that we all may as well be living in the "Matrix". Check out this DailyKos posting by Happy Rockefeller, seriously:

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2011/02/16/945768/-UPDATED:-The-HB-Gary-Email-That-Should-Concern-Us-All

Suddenly, a lot of what I thought I'd been seeing online lately starts to make a lot more sense...

Once again, if they have to LIE to "make their point", they essentially are admitting that their point is BS to begin with!