You mean rich men with names like Koch, Uihlein, Ricketts, Ellison, Mercer and Musk, who’ve been using their billions to subvert, buy and wrest control of the government and country from the not-so-rich men, women and children north, south, east and west of Richmond whose stake in the running, possession and direction of this nation is their inalienable birthright?
Some of my hearings were south of Richmond. Bristol, Abingdon, all of Appalachia.
I listened to guys like him most of my life. Robert shouldn't give this a-hole more publicity. “I’ve been sellin’ my soul, workin’ all day / Overtime hours for bullshit pay,” Anthony sings.
He's a liar. He's just selling records.
Same stuff I heard from my fellow consriptees when I was in the Army. We weren't fortunate sons. Same stuff I heard at the "call of the list" when the criminals were brought in for arraignment. Same stuff I heard for the 10 years I was a judge for the Social Security administration handling disability cases. Same stuff when I heard Black Lung and the other 181 statute :benefits" cases involving the Department of Labor.
The folks he's castigating include anyone collecting benefits while he's supposedly working. What he's working is that dobro..and his mouth.
The folks who appeared in my "benefits" hearings for the most part were just like him. Except they couldn't play the dobro or get a record contract. If they could it would be "substantial gainful activity" making them ineligible.
I love "Americana" music. Bluegrass. Old-timey. The blues. This guy doesn't qualify. He's not authentic.
As regards “The folks he's castigating include anyone collecting benefits while he's supposedly working. What he's working is that dobro..and his mouth,”
These guys are a like the other animals the Little Red Hen asked to help her bake her bread, who all found some unconvincing reason as why they couldn’t, but who still were all too happy to help her EAT it once she had gotten it baked.
Just like the Republicans that voted a big fat NO to President Biden's infrastructure plan and then turned around and hollered to their constituents 'Look what I did for you' when the plan brought much needed roads, bridges, etc. to their communities?
Peggy, you are right about this one. The hypocrisy is strong with these ones. And, they don't even care if we notice. They will just lie and keep on going. Their constituents, being mostly uninformed or they wouldn't have elected them, believe whatever garbage comes spewing from their hypocritical mouths. Amazing!
Yes he did. My father worked at a place named Fisk Tire, nights. He rarely saw us. Was dead at age 45. Capitalism steals lives. I remember that song. My father listened to it. It was like a national anthem of 'working stiffs' in the 50's.
Merle had an epiphany? Tell me about it. I guess I missed it. I remember the line clearly, "I don't want your so-called Social Security", but I guess I never heard him recant it. I grew up with the same song and though I grew up in Northern California, I was raised a southerner through and through. What a long strange trip its been.
Somewhat off-topic; I never even knew that song existed until I ran across a band called "16 Tons" and a buddy explained the reference when I revealed my lack of knowledge.
It's a song I heard quite a bit in my early days of listening to the radio, but almost never hear it now even though most of my listening these days is to oldies.
Jaime Ramirez ; There are few protest songs on the radio today. I don't think it's because they are never written. My guess is that the operators of radio stations don't air them. Would not be surprised if several stations are owned by those who don't want to "make waves". A long time ago I liked listening to radio. Not as much anymore.
Jaime Ramirez ; Remember 'Country Joe and the Fish'? They had a great anti Vietnam war song. I bet you know it. "And it's one, two three: What are we fighting for? Don't ask me I don't give a damn! ; next stop is Viet Nam!" Can't remember the title, but people would drive around town blasting it with top down or windows open! I just looked it up on Google; It's title is "Feel like I'm fixin' to die rag". You can hear the one recorded at Woodstock. The lyrics are there too, if you want to read them.
It's been a while but John Fogerty's - Deja Vu All Over Again (Released: September 21, 2004) is a great protest song! John Fogerty has been writing protest songs since the 60's!
I know, I tried to license the copyright for a book. I attached Travis' version.
Ernie ford, with whom I share an alma mater, popularized it as did many others. I did Black Lung cases for 20 years and identify with mining. At one time, many companies used scrip, in lieu of money and therefore they had virtually no earnings records when it came time to collect Social Security.
IMHO, the key here is that the singer is in fact articulating the resentments of a group. The Biden administration bet is that providing good jobs in redneck country will chill their cultural beef. History shows us that this is highly unlikely. So then I think about the electoral college representatives in each state, and which are the battleground states, and what do the Cook Political Report and the Iowa Electronic Market say.
Yes, ol' Merle was fully bromancing with old pruneface 'Saint Ronnie' RayGun ZAP! there for a while, before he himself finally 'woke up', even before the tour(s) with Mr. Zimmerman.
I STILL despise that shit song of his "Big City", which gives an affirmitive nod to those who want nothing more in life than to vaporize Social Security and Medicare. :(
Daniel, I was not raised on "Country Music" but I liked when those songs were played on the general music radio and I especially liked that song. I looked up what a coal miner's life was like and found the song pretty accurate. It reminds me of the kind of hours of unappreciated, poorly paid work my dad did before workers chose to be in a union. The whiny rich folks who can't stand that some people are receiving help "while they are working so hard" are people who never learned about the common good and probably wouldn't understand it even if someone they respect tried to explain it to them. They see themselves as #1 and everyone else who has less than they do or who has just a bit more, as unworthy, undeserving. The problem, a whole lot of these mostly men but not exclusively, have been elected by Republicans to offices all over this country. They have nothing positive to offer anyone but the rich white men they "admire," or claim to admire. They give those guys nearly anything they want with little question while they rake in the donor bucks that feed their own greed. I'm guessing that for them, donor bribes for themselves are more acceptable than money from We the People to help our neighbors who are struggling.
@Daniel. Merle Travis wrote the song. Tennessee Ernie Ford made it a hit. Ford sang the dang thing without accompaniment! Reading your post, I see you didn't say Merle Haggard sang it. Gotcha....
After listening to his song what is upsetting to me is the fact that he felt the need to write the words to the lyrics that told his story. If he truly feels the way his song depicts and he represents a segment of our population we as a society have problem to fix. Robert, drop the "e" in your last name and what you have left is the topic of this thread.
When I heard this line in the song, my first thought was that he was talking about the obvious (welfare cheats) but also the not so obvious (really big welfare recipients, like fossil fuel and pharmaceutical companies) who are small-spirited and short-sighted and mean and fat because they drain the entire country of its resources. It plays on Reagan's welfare queens stereotype while reminding us of the really damaging parasites in our economy. I suppose we'd have to ask the author, but the mark of a good song is that there's more in it than the composer intended.
Completely agree - he's doing exactly the same thing as Trump in playing the victim, turning true socialist principles on their head to protect corporate greed. He's a hypocrite and a traitor to his class.
I have been rereading A Tale of Two Cities. I wish more people knew this timeless and timely tale. I am giving my friends here the first paragraph in case you've forgotten it:
It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair, we had everything before us, we had nothing before us, we were all going direct to Heaven, we were all going direct the other way -- in short, the period was so far like the present period, that some of the noisiest authorities insisted on its being received, for good or for evil, in the superlative degree of comparison only.
Paula, Thanks for posting the opening. I have on many occasions in the last several years when fear and thoughts of despair creep in, thought of his "best of and worst of times" words. They give me hope of something better rising.
Oh you should look for it! I'm sure it's easy to find on most streaming sites - I own my copy from Amazon Prime, and I think it only cost 3 or 4 dollars. Natalie Portman and Stephen Fry are in it, I can't think who plays V but it's the same guy who played Agent Smith in The Matrix. The plot is about going up against a totalitarian government. I love it!
This makes me think of a cartoon I saw long ago where Charles Dickens is on the witness stand and the lawyer is looking at him pointedly and saying “Well, which was it, Mr. Dickens?! Was it the best of times or was it the worst of times?!?!”
But, when played like that, and especially if it has a round neck instead of a rectangular shaped neck, that is a resonator guitar, and not a dobro. ;)
Yes, it's more like 'forgotten lily-white, racist, CIS male, misogynistic, xenophobic, ANTI-SEMITIC, pure Aryan NAZIS' than anything else at this point.
They had better start realizing that they are NOT the sole "real 'Muricuns" (actually ONLY the native peoples of this land are that anyway! ;) ).
A fervent thank you, Mr. Solomon. I was about to comment that these so-called "forgotten white male, Christian (?) nationalists" are anything >but< forgotten. Our entire government from the get-go was set by and for yt Christian males. Every Repubbie pol in the country is talking to and courting these aggrieved whiners. Some of those males are terrified of losing their (white) privilege; others are just plain angry and busy nursing their grievances.
Call or login to to the SS website. Better yet Go DOWN THE ROAd to your your local Social Security Office. You will have to take a number and wait. Bring a newspaper or a book and a snack. But when it's your turn really nice, really smart people will answer your questions and help you. After I went down to the SSA office in my town I fell in love with The Government.
Ask to speak to a "specialist ". These are senior people in the office who really know the rules and in my experience can cut thru the red tape. Saved my butt when I was struggling with my wife's benefits when others were telling me that she didn't qualify!
Mimi ; Your experience was nice, but not all offices have such good reviews. I had the experience of being told that I could get benefits from two sources for myself and children. I pointed out that I had already been eligible for one relative, and was concerned that the second was not right. She insisted it was OK. A couple years later, I received a letter from SS saying I had received funds for which I was ineligible. They demanded that I return the money! I was able to get help from the attorney who assisted me before. It was their mistake and I even mentioned my concerns to the woman who told me It was OK to apply for the benefits from a second relative. Not all experiences are the same.
Agree we r still dealing with a mistake social security made on eligibility for Medicare, 2 yrs ago. Causing us to have to pay an unnecessary penalty on premium
Yes, them too, but we really need to focus on the roaches that lurk underneath. For instance, Steve Mnuchen, who was involved in creating tranches of mortgage-backed securities while he was at Goldman-Sachs, then went onto snatching up tens of thousands of single-family homes for pennies after the 2008 crash, which he partly caused, and received huge incentives from the government for forcing foreclosures on those homes. In fact, Wilbur Ross did the same...as did Tom Barrack Jr. These are who's who of Trump's administration. And they continue to affect people by keeping a huge portfolio of single-family (starter) homes, making it difficult for ordinary people to own their homes (remember when they took away the mortgage interest deduction?). And they continue to raise the rental cost while more and more maintenance costs are passed on to the tenants. This is some of the pain that an ordinary American feels. And if we don't expose all this corruption, these roaches will once again "govern" the country.
Any business that vaunts itself as a disrupter (stop me if I am repeating myself). Isnt disrupting high cost services. Its disrupting worker pay. The gig economy is about wealth transfer from the have nots to the haves.
Yes, its like a regressive tax. If only the wealthy can afford to buy houses then only the wealthy will own houses. Since houses are a platform for wealth and wealth growth putting them out of reach of the common person whether by high prices or low wages is a direct attack on the wealth of low income folks as they will only be able to rent and any income will go towards funding the wealthy land owners. Similar to serfdom.
In our city a decade or so ago, there was a property tax abatement available for first-time home buyers who were going to live in the houses they bought. A number of shady characters, using variations on their names, bought up homes, got the abatements, and promptly rented out the properties. Nothing happened to them, as far as I know, because the city didn't have/didn't allocate the resources to investigate and prosecute the grifters.
I think we have to look at the roaches on both sides of the equation. Yes, both parties are have roaches and Democratic Rep. Marcy Kaptur just showed how Democrats no longer associate themselves with the working class, but with the rich elite class
Maybe it's hard for Democrats to decry economic elites when they have too often joined the GOP in retrograde policies the last 40 plus years. That's where Biden is a major break with prior Dem Presidents IMO.When people act out against oppressors like Anthony did in his song you can expect there will be much " irrationality" mixed into it, like the cultural stuff. Things are not tidy.
Exactly. Selling luxury as normal is a great example of capitalism gone mad. But hgtv has a lot of sway in the tastes of working families these days. I see that as a form of marketing these days.
Ms. Kaptur was our representative in a small area of Cleveland for a number of years, due to an extremely gerrymandered district. I didn't support her as fully as I did our previous representative, Dennis Kucinich, but Marcy is a good person who's very cognizant of where her constituents come from.
Yes JJ, how many times do we have to say enough !!!!!!!!!!’. ?????????
Again, those of us who are aware of the housing “buy everything” industry of corporate Amerika ( yes amerika) so that no one, and I mean your sons and daughters will not be able to own anything. Why wait until it is toooooo late? Stop this Fascism now!
Again, health care, education, housing, ways to strengthen middle class , must be owned by the people... all of us. Quit feeding the greedy empty souls with our property!
Rich men north of the old Confederate capitol. Just a reminder of who these clowns are, what they implicitly represent, and what that song is really proposing to do about it, before we even hear the first lyric.
If Oliver Anthony (from Farmville, VA) was living in the 1860s, he would be fighting the Yankees in Lee's Army of Northern Virginia! He might even have a black "servant" to help him out.
"North of Richmond." Hmm....now wouldn't that just be the land of Lincoln? So, let's be clear, this is a song about how the Southern white man has been screwed by the rich men north of the Mason-Dixie line.
This is just BS wrapped in massive cognitive dissonance.
The South did well economically for decades after WWII - because the South always voted Democrat. And Democrats always voted for high taxes on the rich men north of Richmond. Then along came JFK and RFK, two readily identifiable Democrats, who told white southerners that their Jim Crow laws were repugnant. And guess what? Anthony's relatives and friends, all 100 million of them, started voting Republican.
It was Reagan's puppeteers who understood what this meant. In America, for the first time, you could have a platform of cutting taxes on the wealthy, along with that miserable and patronizing metaphor "trickledown," and still get elected!
The result has been a downhill slide for the real income of most Americans ever since.
Blame the Rich man north of Richmond? Sure, but it was your lot who let him out of his cage, asshole.
Absolutely!!! Let's call it what it is/was. Things changed when black Americans began getting access to the government benefits that white Americans were happy to recieve. All of a sudden those government benefits, converted to Gov handouts and the spigot was turned off (public pools were closed in many places to prevent black access- see Heather McGhee "The Sum Of Us"). Unfortunately their racism/otherism was/is exploited to keep the spigot off for everyone, including themselves. The middle class was not expanded by everyone tightening up their own bootstraps, it was expanded because Government of the ppl was run for the benefit of the ppl. Generations later, too few know this history and are mislead to believe Government that benefits certain ppl is bad, and that Gov has no role in improving the quality of their own lives. Southern Strategy has been effective for a while now! Exploited by Nixon, Reagan and Trump. Exploited by Republicans, since the civil war, who have been able to build a coalition of racist and supposed Christians! Have they succeeded in bringing darkness and light together, despite what the Bible says? Or is the coalition all darkness?
Wealth knows no boundaries. Democrats have been made wealthy by the aberrant voting patterns of southern whites. I continue to blame the latter for the massive wealth inequality in America, not the way Anthony claims to believe.
Also Rupert Murdoch. And the politicians they bankroll who stir up animosity against racial minorities, immigrants, LGBTQ people are also rich white mostly men.
Democrats should loudly proclaim that Ron DeSantis, Donald Trump, Ted Cruz, Marjorie Taylor Green, and others of their ilk are themselves rich elitists who are trampling on all poor and average people.
"If Democrats don’t tell the economic truth about what’s happened and place the blame squarely where it’s deserved, the lies of Republican cultural populists will fill the void — not just with faux-populist lyrics, but with bad laws." ... This truth is the only thing that will set us free. These combined forces first rob us and then blame the very people who would change this dirty matrix of laws and policies to bring us back into some kind of fairness and balance. Stand up. Vote.
Those are exactly the kind of billionaires we should be talking & singing about & naming!
This song appears to be directed at the politicians in Washington, DC, who do deserve a lot of criticism, especially those on the right, the sycophants of billionaires like those you named.
Mr Reich is exactly right. This is the whole ball game. Wealth = Power and the few at the top Koch, Uihlein, Ricketts, Ellison, Mercer and Musk, Devos, Crow, etc. want more! They have intentionally used their wealth to rig the game (Citizens United) in their favor. And they have deviously used race, gender, sexual-orientation, religion, politics to keep us distracted and fighting each other for their 'Trickled Down' crumbs. They continue to effectively divide us and to have us blame anyone but them- the real culprits (our common enemy). They have us blaming the two things that can keep them in check- our POWER-IN-NUMBERS via DEMOCRACY. We have to use both, together, in order to overcome their oligarchy/plutocracy.
Avie, I suspect the song is supposed to get people to doubt what they have seen with their own eyes through a cutzie song that celebrates something but the songwriter doesn't want people to think very hard about it because if they do, the real meaning will show through. One just must know that if Greene and her toddler friends like the song it is bad and just another chunk of propaganda that is not worth the time it takes to listen to it. The people you name are the ones who really are the villains and they are totally OK with villainhood because it has gotten them riches beyond their wildest dreams and they didn't even have to work too hard to get it, although some did. I wonder what they could have achieved FOR this nation had they skipped the evil stuff and worked on behalf of our nation, our whole nation. Nah! They could never have done that. There is no evil in that, nor is their effective money-grubbing and power stealing. Can't leave that out!
The graph of family wealth vs years is interesting as it looks like the story of my own family wealth over the years. Started out in debt, worked and saved consistently, now in retirement there’s a pile of wealth I’ll likely never live long enough to spend. Have two brothers and a sister now in retirement with similar story, and three more sibs on a similar path. Glad that my grandparents had the foresight to get out of Russia when they did
Your points on this matter may very well be what leads to the downfall of this nation. The GOP lies only resonate because the Dems refuse to speak the truth. When they do, they are crushed by their "peers." Now, we can look to blame the "system," campaign finance issues, the power of elites and all that, but what about courage? What about individuals who stand for more than their reelection?
One of my only political heroes is "Fighting Bob" La Follette, who showed that people will respond if you call out the real corruption. Sure, you will be attacked, maligned...you will have the forces of billionaires come down on you. But THAT is what it truly means to be a public servant in this collapsing empire, not being another idealistic cog who thinks they are the missing spoke to the steering wheel of this Titanic of a Democratic party.
Actually the Titanic of what you speak is not the democratic party, it is the antiquated form of democracy that has been subverted by the ultra wealthy. Democracy was founded on a belief in the "common good" but the system was built with some fatal holes in it and these holes are now what is sinking the Titanic of capitalistic dominated democracy.
We need a new and better form of government and we need to plan for it now. We must do it for our children and our grandchildren and the oppressed of the world.
Yes, but changing government structures won’t help much without politicians of quality character. We need to assess candidate character before we elect them, as per “Assessing the CHARACTER of Candidates for National Political Office” now on Amazon.
we need to fix the boat we're in. If we can't get the good reform Democrat bills passed we're not going to radically change the form of our government.
Ian, Underscoring La Follette as, one might say, an icon is brilliant. In my view, a more recent icon was Paul Wellstone. I say we blitz our Democratic public officials with letters, phone calls, and the like, urging them to get over their seeming reluctance to bite the hand that presumably feeds them and recognize that the benefits of not allowing Republican deceptions and distortions to go unanswered clearly outweigh whatever the costs.
La Follette was a Republican. He ran for president as the nominee of his own Progressive Party in the 1924 presidential election., but he ensured that Coolidge won.
It seems to me that too many commenters like Ian and Jennifer are intent on splitting the Party, and the only result would be a Republican win, and Fascism.
Daniel, My aim is not to split the Democratic Party but to press for a more unified, laser-focused effort to make clear to working families throughout this country, many of whom are prepared to vote Republican, that if they vote Republican, the Party that has been silent on the massive disproportionate amount of wealth, power, and influence, their vote will run counter to their interests and concerns. As I repeatedly have stated, we need Democratic leadership to be focused and disciplined and not to allow Republican deceptions and distortions, particularly as they relate to the state of the economy, to go unanswered.
Daniel, My understanding is that many everyday people don’t even know what Bidenomics means, let alone are experiencing its touted effects. While the latter could change, say, in the next 6 months, I won’t rest until the Party focuses more on its pro-worker agenda—$15 hourly minimum wage, paid family and medical leave, the child tax credit, affordable, quality childcare, universal healthcare, investments in housing, in eldercare, and more—all of which have received zero Republican support. Similarly, in a time of massive income and wealth inequality, when the American people want billionaires to start paying their fair share of taxes, not one Republican has supported the legislation.
We are better off when Republicans aren't motivated. Our best chance is the youth vote. Demographically they can outvote everyone else.
The problem is that all politics is local. What may work in Chicago means nothing in Baghdad By the Sea.
The best argument I had with MAGAts was the child tax credit. The argument works one on one, because as a group, they're motivated by peer pressure and other cultural issues.
I was going to provide a longer reply to the comment above, but will not spend my time doing so. This forum is special because of its tendency to foster serious exchanges. Please refrain from simplistic insults and generalizations. There are plenty of other sites available for that.
Your comment about La Follette references an election result. Elected officials do much more than run for office. They work on legislation, they assist constituents, and of course, their words and deeds can help shape the national debate. That is why I mentioned him in the context of this post, as it is the void of truth-telling from Democrats that is so easily filled by lies by the GOP. If more elected officials were outspoken and pulled the veil back on corruption, even if they were to lose elections, the truth itself would not be so easy to manipulate.
Agree, Ian. Dems do NOT call out GOP lies to any extent, nor do they own their own party's shortcomings (with a few notable exceptions, such as Bernie Sanders and Marcy Kaptur [see Franklin's link, above]). As for splitting the party by speaking the truth, what does that say about the party? If one who votes Dem can't criticize Dems, then we're going to continue to get candidates who approve drilling on public lands, who won't put a public healthcare option out there, who won't back unions, who won't stand up to Wall Street, and so on. Is that what we want? Are we supposed to settle for two steps forward and one-and-a-half steps back, just as long as the GOP doesn't take over? "At least we're not the Republicans," is a pretty low bar.
BS. We are a big tent party and have hundreds if not thousands of credible senators, House members, state officials.
LaFollette was a Republican. The last remnant of the liberal Republican party was the Ripon Society. As in Ripon College, Ripon, Wisconsin. No longer relevant. Hasn't been since about 1970. Wisconsin is the same state that gave us Joe McCarthy and now Ron Johnson. Until a few weeks ago that state supreme court was controlled by reactionary anti-democratic ideologues. The state is Gerrymandered to favor Republicans.
In order to effectuate change, got to win. We are a country built on compromise. We are facing Fascism. We aren't perfect but there are more Democrats who fit your characterization of LaFollette than Republicans buy a huge factor.
And those former Rippon members today would have to be Democrats to avoid labeled as RINOs.
I agree with Ian, and I understand Bidenomics---I'm clear-eyed about the pros and cons of Biden's legislation. But because I have the audacity to be critical of some things, that makes me either ignorant or a Russian/GOP troll, in your book, Daniel? To be a bona fide, "worthy" Dem, I have to be unequivocally supportive of everything Dems do? Sorry, but lockstep behavior isn't good for any organization. The accusations here are beneath you, Daniel.
“Rich men north of Richmond”?
You mean rich men with names like Koch, Uihlein, Ricketts, Ellison, Mercer and Musk, who’ve been using their billions to subvert, buy and wrest control of the government and country from the not-so-rich men, women and children north, south, east and west of Richmond whose stake in the running, possession and direction of this nation is their inalienable birthright?
THOSE rich men?
Some of my hearings were south of Richmond. Bristol, Abingdon, all of Appalachia.
I listened to guys like him most of my life. Robert shouldn't give this a-hole more publicity. “I’ve been sellin’ my soul, workin’ all day / Overtime hours for bullshit pay,” Anthony sings.
He's a liar. He's just selling records.
Same stuff I heard from my fellow consriptees when I was in the Army. We weren't fortunate sons. Same stuff I heard at the "call of the list" when the criminals were brought in for arraignment. Same stuff I heard for the 10 years I was a judge for the Social Security administration handling disability cases. Same stuff when I heard Black Lung and the other 181 statute :benefits" cases involving the Department of Labor.
The folks he's castigating include anyone collecting benefits while he's supposedly working. What he's working is that dobro..and his mouth.
The folks who appeared in my "benefits" hearings for the most part were just like him. Except they couldn't play the dobro or get a record contract. If they could it would be "substantial gainful activity" making them ineligible.
I love "Americana" music. Bluegrass. Old-timey. The blues. This guy doesn't qualify. He's not authentic.
As regards “The folks he's castigating include anyone collecting benefits while he's supposedly working. What he's working is that dobro..and his mouth,”
These guys are a like the other animals the Little Red Hen asked to help her bake her bread, who all found some unconvincing reason as why they couldn’t, but who still were all too happy to help her EAT it once she had gotten it baked.
Just like the Republicans that voted a big fat NO to President Biden's infrastructure plan and then turned around and hollered to their constituents 'Look what I did for you' when the plan brought much needed roads, bridges, etc. to their communities?
No limit to their hypocrisy.
No limit to my desire to kick every lying grifting RW nutter in the nuts!
Peggy, you are right about this one. The hypocrisy is strong with these ones. And, they don't even care if we notice. They will just lie and keep on going. Their constituents, being mostly uninformed or they wouldn't have elected them, believe whatever garbage comes spewing from their hypocritical mouths. Amazing!
Merle Haggard was their minstrel...untl he got old and had an epiphany,
I grew up on this song.
You load sixteen tons and what do you get?
You get another day older and deeper in debt
St. Peter, don't you call me, 'cause I can't go
I owe my soul to the company store.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=szbwQbe1NsI
Tennessee Earnie Ford sang 16 tons......
Yes he did. My father worked at a place named Fisk Tire, nights. He rarely saw us. Was dead at age 45. Capitalism steals lives. I remember that song. My father listened to it. It was like a national anthem of 'working stiffs' in the 50's.
Merle Travis has the copyright.
Merle had an epiphany? Tell me about it. I guess I missed it. I remember the line clearly, "I don't want your so-called Social Security", but I guess I never heard him recant it. I grew up with the same song and though I grew up in Northern California, I was raised a southerner through and through. What a long strange trip its been.
At the end he campaigned for Democrats.
https://www.russellmoore.com/2007/03/07/merle-haggard-endorses-hillary-clinton/
Perhaps influenced by his buddy Willie Nelson? Nelson has been a vanguard of protest songs with a liberal bent.
Thanks and thanks for the links.
Somewhat off-topic; I never even knew that song existed until I ran across a band called "16 Tons" and a buddy explained the reference when I revealed my lack of knowledge.
It's a song I heard quite a bit in my early days of listening to the radio, but almost never hear it now even though most of my listening these days is to oldies.
Jaime Ramirez ; There are few protest songs on the radio today. I don't think it's because they are never written. My guess is that the operators of radio stations don't air them. Would not be surprised if several stations are owned by those who don't want to "make waves". A long time ago I liked listening to radio. Not as much anymore.
Jaime Ramirez ; Remember 'Country Joe and the Fish'? They had a great anti Vietnam war song. I bet you know it. "And it's one, two three: What are we fighting for? Don't ask me I don't give a damn! ; next stop is Viet Nam!" Can't remember the title, but people would drive around town blasting it with top down or windows open! I just looked it up on Google; It's title is "Feel like I'm fixin' to die rag". You can hear the one recorded at Woodstock. The lyrics are there too, if you want to read them.
It's been a while but John Fogerty's - Deja Vu All Over Again (Released: September 21, 2004) is a great protest song! John Fogerty has been writing protest songs since the 60's!
That was Merle Travis' song, not Merle Haggard's. Travis wrote it in 1947.
I know, I tried to license the copyright for a book. I attached Travis' version.
Ernie ford, with whom I share an alma mater, popularized it as did many others. I did Black Lung cases for 20 years and identify with mining. At one time, many companies used scrip, in lieu of money and therefore they had virtually no earnings records when it came time to collect Social Security.
IMHO, the key here is that the singer is in fact articulating the resentments of a group. The Biden administration bet is that providing good jobs in redneck country will chill their cultural beef. History shows us that this is highly unlikely. So then I think about the electoral college representatives in each state, and which are the battleground states, and what do the Cook Political Report and the Iowa Electronic Market say.
🤦♀️😱
Pete Seeger was the guy I followed most. Still remember the Smother Brothers trying to get his music on tv.
Talk about censorship... canceling The Smothers Brothers Show was blatant! Betty White was another civil rights fighter and a lefty.
Yes, ol' Merle was fully bromancing with old pruneface 'Saint Ronnie' RayGun ZAP! there for a while, before he himself finally 'woke up', even before the tour(s) with Mr. Zimmerman.
I STILL despise that shit song of his "Big City", which gives an affirmitive nod to those who want nothing more in life than to vaporize Social Security and Medicare. :(
Daniel, I was not raised on "Country Music" but I liked when those songs were played on the general music radio and I especially liked that song. I looked up what a coal miner's life was like and found the song pretty accurate. It reminds me of the kind of hours of unappreciated, poorly paid work my dad did before workers chose to be in a union. The whiny rich folks who can't stand that some people are receiving help "while they are working so hard" are people who never learned about the common good and probably wouldn't understand it even if someone they respect tried to explain it to them. They see themselves as #1 and everyone else who has less than they do or who has just a bit more, as unworthy, undeserving. The problem, a whole lot of these mostly men but not exclusively, have been elected by Republicans to offices all over this country. They have nothing positive to offer anyone but the rich white men they "admire," or claim to admire. They give those guys nearly anything they want with little question while they rake in the donor bucks that feed their own greed. I'm guessing that for them, donor bribes for themselves are more acceptable than money from We the People to help our neighbors who are struggling.
@Daniel. Merle Travis wrote the song. Tennessee Ernie Ford made it a hit. Ford sang the dang thing without accompaniment! Reading your post, I see you didn't say Merle Haggard sang it. Gotcha....
EXACTLY!
After listening to his song what is upsetting to me is the fact that he felt the need to write the words to the lyrics that told his story. If he truly feels the way his song depicts and he represents a segment of our population we as a society have problem to fix. Robert, drop the "e" in your last name and what you have left is the topic of this thread.
When I heard this line in the song, my first thought was that he was talking about the obvious (welfare cheats) but also the not so obvious (really big welfare recipients, like fossil fuel and pharmaceutical companies) who are small-spirited and short-sighted and mean and fat because they drain the entire country of its resources. It plays on Reagan's welfare queens stereotype while reminding us of the really damaging parasites in our economy. I suppose we'd have to ask the author, but the mark of a good song is that there's more in it than the composer intended.
Now he won't have to work the overtime.
Completely agree - he's doing exactly the same thing as Trump in playing the victim, turning true socialist principles on their head to protect corporate greed. He's a hypocrite and a traitor to his class.
I have been rereading A Tale of Two Cities. I wish more people knew this timeless and timely tale. I am giving my friends here the first paragraph in case you've forgotten it:
It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair, we had everything before us, we had nothing before us, we were all going direct to Heaven, we were all going direct the other way -- in short, the period was so far like the present period, that some of the noisiest authorities insisted on its being received, for good or for evil, in the superlative degree of comparison only.
Paula, Thanks for posting the opening. I have on many occasions in the last several years when fear and thoughts of despair creep in, thought of his "best of and worst of times" words. They give me hope of something better rising.
I also have thought of that line many times recently. And from a completely different genre - the film based on the DC comic: V for Vengeance 😉
Paula, I am not familiar with it.
Oh you should look for it! I'm sure it's easy to find on most streaming sites - I own my copy from Amazon Prime, and I think it only cost 3 or 4 dollars. Natalie Portman and Stephen Fry are in it, I can't think who plays V but it's the same guy who played Agent Smith in The Matrix. The plot is about going up against a totalitarian government. I love it!
Good citation 👍.
This makes me think of a cartoon I saw long ago where Charles Dickens is on the witness stand and the lawyer is looking at him pointedly and saying “Well, which was it, Mr. Dickens?! Was it the best of times or was it the worst of times?!?!”
My novel, Miami '90 is a tale of two cities -- Miami and Havana.
I will look for it! I hope there's a kindle version!
But the so-called "working class" have been hypnotized by the "blame game"
which the elites are winning BIG TIME!!!
I could not agree more with anything above!
But, when played like that, and especially if it has a round neck instead of a rectangular shaped neck, that is a resonator guitar, and not a dobro. ;)
Yes, it's more like 'forgotten lily-white, racist, CIS male, misogynistic, xenophobic, ANTI-SEMITIC, pure Aryan NAZIS' than anything else at this point.
They had better start realizing that they are NOT the sole "real 'Muricuns" (actually ONLY the native peoples of this land are that anyway! ;) ).
I agree. He is not Woody Guthrie by any stretch of the imagination. Woody was more attuned to the working class than this.
A fervent thank you, Mr. Solomon. I was about to comment that these so-called "forgotten white male, Christian (?) nationalists" are anything >but< forgotten. Our entire government from the get-go was set by and for yt Christian males. Every Repubbie pol in the country is talking to and courting these aggrieved whiners. Some of those males are terrified of losing their (white) privilege; others are just plain angry and busy nursing their grievances.
Solomon
You came up the hard way using your wits and hard work. I respect that.
I have a completely off-topic Social Security question for you, if you wouldn't mind? I could really use an expert's input.
Call or login to to the SS website. Better yet Go DOWN THE ROAd to your your local Social Security Office. You will have to take a number and wait. Bring a newspaper or a book and a snack. But when it's your turn really nice, really smart people will answer your questions and help you. After I went down to the SSA office in my town I fell in love with The Government.
Ask to speak to a "specialist ". These are senior people in the office who really know the rules and in my experience can cut thru the red tape. Saved my butt when I was struggling with my wife's benefits when others were telling me that she didn't qualify!
Mimi ; Your experience was nice, but not all offices have such good reviews. I had the experience of being told that I could get benefits from two sources for myself and children. I pointed out that I had already been eligible for one relative, and was concerned that the second was not right. She insisted it was OK. A couple years later, I received a letter from SS saying I had received funds for which I was ineligible. They demanded that I return the money! I was able to get help from the attorney who assisted me before. It was their mistake and I even mentioned my concerns to the woman who told me It was OK to apply for the benefits from a second relative. Not all experiences are the same.
When you have doubts regarding what someone says, check another source to be sure that what you have been told is correct.
Agree we r still dealing with a mistake social security made on eligibility for Medicare, 2 yrs ago. Causing us to have to pay an unnecessary penalty on premium
Get a lawyer.
I am disappointed in this response Daniel-by-the-sea.
I am not permitted to give advice about a case.
That was super helpful, thanks.
Rachel Raccoon ; Actually that can help expedite the process.
The 'process' was just a question about Social Security (posed to the self-proclaimed expert on Social Security).
Yes, them too, but we really need to focus on the roaches that lurk underneath. For instance, Steve Mnuchen, who was involved in creating tranches of mortgage-backed securities while he was at Goldman-Sachs, then went onto snatching up tens of thousands of single-family homes for pennies after the 2008 crash, which he partly caused, and received huge incentives from the government for forcing foreclosures on those homes. In fact, Wilbur Ross did the same...as did Tom Barrack Jr. These are who's who of Trump's administration. And they continue to affect people by keeping a huge portfolio of single-family (starter) homes, making it difficult for ordinary people to own their homes (remember when they took away the mortgage interest deduction?). And they continue to raise the rental cost while more and more maintenance costs are passed on to the tenants. This is some of the pain that an ordinary American feels. And if we don't expose all this corruption, these roaches will once again "govern" the country.
Companies should own zero houses. Its just another way the rich have figured out how to take advantage of our lower purchasing power.
Bill Reitz ; Another form of Vulture Capitalism that works against the Common Good.
Any business that vaunts itself as a disrupter (stop me if I am repeating myself). Isnt disrupting high cost services. Its disrupting worker pay. The gig economy is about wealth transfer from the have nots to the haves.
Right: only people who intend to live in a house, should be able to buy it.
Yes, its like a regressive tax. If only the wealthy can afford to buy houses then only the wealthy will own houses. Since houses are a platform for wealth and wealth growth putting them out of reach of the common person whether by high prices or low wages is a direct attack on the wealth of low income folks as they will only be able to rent and any income will go towards funding the wealthy land owners. Similar to serfdom.
Really good nutshell statement, Stan.
In our city a decade or so ago, there was a property tax abatement available for first-time home buyers who were going to live in the houses they bought. A number of shady characters, using variations on their names, bought up homes, got the abatements, and promptly rented out the properties. Nothing happened to them, as far as I know, because the city didn't have/didn't allocate the resources to investigate and prosecute the grifters.
Denise, there never seems to be funding for follow up investigating or accountably for only the biggest rascals.
Exactly right. Unfortunately.
Spot on … The distortionists, the money grubbers, the complete hypocrites ...
I think we have to look at the roaches on both sides of the equation. Yes, both parties are have roaches and Democratic Rep. Marcy Kaptur just showed how Democrats no longer associate themselves with the working class, but with the rich elite class
https://www.businessinsider.com/marcy-kaptur-chart-working-class-districts-top-democrats-2023-3
This is not a party issue, this is an American issue and by recognizing that, and working towards that, that's the only way we can heal this nation
https://unorthodoxy.substack.com/p/why-we-should-appreciate-desantis
2 choices: democracy or Fascism.
90% of Republicans vote contrary to their economic and physical well being.
Vote Democratic or suffer the consequences.
Maybe it's hard for Democrats to decry economic elites when they have too often joined the GOP in retrograde policies the last 40 plus years. That's where Biden is a major break with prior Dem Presidents IMO.When people act out against oppressors like Anthony did in his song you can expect there will be much " irrationality" mixed into it, like the cultural stuff. Things are not tidy.
Qanon references and attacking welfare recipients isnt "irrationality". Its MAGA politics.
Exactly. Selling luxury as normal is a great example of capitalism gone mad. But hgtv has a lot of sway in the tastes of working families these days. I see that as a form of marketing these days.
Thanks for the link, Franklin. What a visual!
Ms. Kaptur was our representative in a small area of Cleveland for a number of years, due to an extremely gerrymandered district. I didn't support her as fully as I did our previous representative, Dennis Kucinich, but Marcy is a good person who's very cognizant of where her constituents come from.
Yes JJ, how many times do we have to say enough !!!!!!!!!!’. ?????????
Again, those of us who are aware of the housing “buy everything” industry of corporate Amerika ( yes amerika) so that no one, and I mean your sons and daughters will not be able to own anything. Why wait until it is toooooo late? Stop this Fascism now!
Again, health care, education, housing, ways to strengthen middle class , must be owned by the people... all of us. Quit feeding the greedy empty souls with our property!
That Mnuchin is quite a piece of work. Especially if by “work” you mean a quilt of greed, fraud, and thirst for power.
Rich men north of the old Confederate capitol. Just a reminder of who these clowns are, what they implicitly represent, and what that song is really proposing to do about it, before we even hear the first lyric.
If Oliver Anthony (from Farmville, VA) was living in the 1860s, he would be fighting the Yankees in Lee's Army of Northern Virginia! He might even have a black "servant" to help him out.
In this case, >he's< the servant, "a'ham-bonin'" a little ditty for the troops, just to keep their hearts & minds focused on the right compass point.
What's your point? You do realize it's 2023, right?
"North of Richmond." Hmm....now wouldn't that just be the land of Lincoln? So, let's be clear, this is a song about how the Southern white man has been screwed by the rich men north of the Mason-Dixie line.
This is just BS wrapped in massive cognitive dissonance.
The South did well economically for decades after WWII - because the South always voted Democrat. And Democrats always voted for high taxes on the rich men north of Richmond. Then along came JFK and RFK, two readily identifiable Democrats, who told white southerners that their Jim Crow laws were repugnant. And guess what? Anthony's relatives and friends, all 100 million of them, started voting Republican.
It was Reagan's puppeteers who understood what this meant. In America, for the first time, you could have a platform of cutting taxes on the wealthy, along with that miserable and patronizing metaphor "trickledown," and still get elected!
The result has been a downhill slide for the real income of most Americans ever since.
Blame the Rich man north of Richmond? Sure, but it was your lot who let him out of his cage, asshole.
Absolutely!!! Let's call it what it is/was. Things changed when black Americans began getting access to the government benefits that white Americans were happy to recieve. All of a sudden those government benefits, converted to Gov handouts and the spigot was turned off (public pools were closed in many places to prevent black access- see Heather McGhee "The Sum Of Us"). Unfortunately their racism/otherism was/is exploited to keep the spigot off for everyone, including themselves. The middle class was not expanded by everyone tightening up their own bootstraps, it was expanded because Government of the ppl was run for the benefit of the ppl. Generations later, too few know this history and are mislead to believe Government that benefits certain ppl is bad, and that Gov has no role in improving the quality of their own lives. Southern Strategy has been effective for a while now! Exploited by Nixon, Reagan and Trump. Exploited by Republicans, since the civil war, who have been able to build a coalition of racist and supposed Christians! Have they succeeded in bringing darkness and light together, despite what the Bible says? Or is the coalition all darkness?
The ring of truth, although a lot of the wealth generated by Democrats seems to have been in military and associated enterprises.
Wealth knows no boundaries. Democrats have been made wealthy by the aberrant voting patterns of southern whites. I continue to blame the latter for the massive wealth inequality in America, not the way Anthony claims to believe.
Excellent analysis, Michael!
Also Rupert Murdoch. And the politicians they bankroll who stir up animosity against racial minorities, immigrants, LGBTQ people are also rich white mostly men.
Democrats should loudly proclaim that Ron DeSantis, Donald Trump, Ted Cruz, Marjorie Taylor Green, and others of their ilk are themselves rich elitists who are trampling on all poor and average people.
"If Democrats don’t tell the economic truth about what’s happened and place the blame squarely where it’s deserved, the lies of Republican cultural populists will fill the void — not just with faux-populist lyrics, but with bad laws." ... This truth is the only thing that will set us free. These combined forces first rob us and then blame the very people who would change this dirty matrix of laws and policies to bring us back into some kind of fairness and balance. Stand up. Vote.
Yes! Thank You! This guy gets it!!!
If anyone's interested in know who those rich men are, here are some articles:
https://unorthodoxy.substack.com/p/who-are-the-bad-guys
https://unorthodoxy.substack.com/p/why-esoteric-philosophy-is-vital-329
Those are exactly the kind of billionaires we should be talking & singing about & naming!
This song appears to be directed at the politicians in Washington, DC, who do deserve a lot of criticism, especially those on the right, the sycophants of billionaires like those you named.
Hate sells!
Mr Reich is exactly right. This is the whole ball game. Wealth = Power and the few at the top Koch, Uihlein, Ricketts, Ellison, Mercer and Musk, Devos, Crow, etc. want more! They have intentionally used their wealth to rig the game (Citizens United) in their favor. And they have deviously used race, gender, sexual-orientation, religion, politics to keep us distracted and fighting each other for their 'Trickled Down' crumbs. They continue to effectively divide us and to have us blame anyone but them- the real culprits (our common enemy). They have us blaming the two things that can keep them in check- our POWER-IN-NUMBERS via DEMOCRACY. We have to use both, together, in order to overcome their oligarchy/plutocracy.
Avie, I suspect the song is supposed to get people to doubt what they have seen with their own eyes through a cutzie song that celebrates something but the songwriter doesn't want people to think very hard about it because if they do, the real meaning will show through. One just must know that if Greene and her toddler friends like the song it is bad and just another chunk of propaganda that is not worth the time it takes to listen to it. The people you name are the ones who really are the villains and they are totally OK with villainhood because it has gotten them riches beyond their wildest dreams and they didn't even have to work too hard to get it, although some did. I wonder what they could have achieved FOR this nation had they skipped the evil stuff and worked on behalf of our nation, our whole nation. Nah! They could never have done that. There is no evil in that, nor is their effective money-grubbing and power stealing. Can't leave that out!
The graph of family wealth vs years is interesting as it looks like the story of my own family wealth over the years. Started out in debt, worked and saved consistently, now in retirement there’s a pile of wealth I’ll likely never live long enough to spend. Have two brothers and a sister now in retirement with similar story, and three more sibs on a similar path. Glad that my grandparents had the foresight to get out of Russia when they did
You got that right!
You forgot Ttump! [sic]
Your points on this matter may very well be what leads to the downfall of this nation. The GOP lies only resonate because the Dems refuse to speak the truth. When they do, they are crushed by their "peers." Now, we can look to blame the "system," campaign finance issues, the power of elites and all that, but what about courage? What about individuals who stand for more than their reelection?
One of my only political heroes is "Fighting Bob" La Follette, who showed that people will respond if you call out the real corruption. Sure, you will be attacked, maligned...you will have the forces of billionaires come down on you. But THAT is what it truly means to be a public servant in this collapsing empire, not being another idealistic cog who thinks they are the missing spoke to the steering wheel of this Titanic of a Democratic party.
Actually the Titanic of what you speak is not the democratic party, it is the antiquated form of democracy that has been subverted by the ultra wealthy. Democracy was founded on a belief in the "common good" but the system was built with some fatal holes in it and these holes are now what is sinking the Titanic of capitalistic dominated democracy.
We need a new and better form of government and we need to plan for it now. We must do it for our children and our grandchildren and the oppressed of the world.
Yes, but changing government structures won’t help much without politicians of quality character. We need to assess candidate character before we elect them, as per “Assessing the CHARACTER of Candidates for National Political Office” now on Amazon.
Trump showed us who he is and millions voted for him anyway!
Beverly Asmutis ; Hey! They saw him on the TV!
On their 'talking box' (yup, a blatant original "Beverly Hillbillies" reference!) FIRING everyone in sight.
Exactly the figurehead they should LOVE being the supposed 'working class'.
we need to fix the boat we're in. If we can't get the good reform Democrat bills passed we're not going to radically change the form of our government.
Revolution............maybe NOT one person should vote.
Ian, Underscoring La Follette as, one might say, an icon is brilliant. In my view, a more recent icon was Paul Wellstone. I say we blitz our Democratic public officials with letters, phone calls, and the like, urging them to get over their seeming reluctance to bite the hand that presumably feeds them and recognize that the benefits of not allowing Republican deceptions and distortions to go unanswered clearly outweigh whatever the costs.
La Follette was a Republican. He ran for president as the nominee of his own Progressive Party in the 1924 presidential election., but he ensured that Coolidge won.
It seems to me that too many commenters like Ian and Jennifer are intent on splitting the Party, and the only result would be a Republican win, and Fascism.
Daniel, My aim is not to split the Democratic Party but to press for a more unified, laser-focused effort to make clear to working families throughout this country, many of whom are prepared to vote Republican, that if they vote Republican, the Party that has been silent on the massive disproportionate amount of wealth, power, and influence, their vote will run counter to their interests and concerns. As I repeatedly have stated, we need Democratic leadership to be focused and disciplined and not to allow Republican deceptions and distortions, particularly as they relate to the state of the economy, to go unanswered.
By any measure, Bidenomics is working.
I criticized people like Ian and Jennifer, who may very well be agents or willing idiots for Russians or Republicans.
Daniel, My understanding is that many everyday people don’t even know what Bidenomics means, let alone are experiencing its touted effects. While the latter could change, say, in the next 6 months, I won’t rest until the Party focuses more on its pro-worker agenda—$15 hourly minimum wage, paid family and medical leave, the child tax credit, affordable, quality childcare, universal healthcare, investments in housing, in eldercare, and more—all of which have received zero Republican support. Similarly, in a time of massive income and wealth inequality, when the American people want billionaires to start paying their fair share of taxes, not one Republican has supported the legislation.
Yes, in other words, the DNC should adopt Bernie’s agenda.
Mostly cultural.
We are better off when Republicans aren't motivated. Our best chance is the youth vote. Demographically they can outvote everyone else.
The problem is that all politics is local. What may work in Chicago means nothing in Baghdad By the Sea.
The best argument I had with MAGAts was the child tax credit. The argument works one on one, because as a group, they're motivated by peer pressure and other cultural issues.
I was going to provide a longer reply to the comment above, but will not spend my time doing so. This forum is special because of its tendency to foster serious exchanges. Please refrain from simplistic insults and generalizations. There are plenty of other sites available for that.
Your comment about La Follette references an election result. Elected officials do much more than run for office. They work on legislation, they assist constituents, and of course, their words and deeds can help shape the national debate. That is why I mentioned him in the context of this post, as it is the void of truth-telling from Democrats that is so easily filled by lies by the GOP. If more elected officials were outspoken and pulled the veil back on corruption, even if they were to lose elections, the truth itself would not be so easy to manipulate.
Agree, Ian. Dems do NOT call out GOP lies to any extent, nor do they own their own party's shortcomings (with a few notable exceptions, such as Bernie Sanders and Marcy Kaptur [see Franklin's link, above]). As for splitting the party by speaking the truth, what does that say about the party? If one who votes Dem can't criticize Dems, then we're going to continue to get candidates who approve drilling on public lands, who won't put a public healthcare option out there, who won't back unions, who won't stand up to Wall Street, and so on. Is that what we want? Are we supposed to settle for two steps forward and one-and-a-half steps back, just as long as the GOP doesn't take over? "At least we're not the Republicans," is a pretty low bar.
"Dems refuse to speak the truth."
BS. We are a big tent party and have hundreds if not thousands of credible senators, House members, state officials.
LaFollette was a Republican. The last remnant of the liberal Republican party was the Ripon Society. As in Ripon College, Ripon, Wisconsin. No longer relevant. Hasn't been since about 1970. Wisconsin is the same state that gave us Joe McCarthy and now Ron Johnson. Until a few weeks ago that state supreme court was controlled by reactionary anti-democratic ideologues. The state is Gerrymandered to favor Republicans.
In order to effectuate change, got to win. We are a country built on compromise. We are facing Fascism. We aren't perfect but there are more Democrats who fit your characterization of LaFollette than Republicans buy a huge factor.
And those former Rippon members today would have to be Democrats to avoid labeled as RINOs.
I agree with Ian, and I understand Bidenomics---I'm clear-eyed about the pros and cons of Biden's legislation. But because I have the audacity to be critical of some things, that makes me either ignorant or a Russian/GOP troll, in your book, Daniel? To be a bona fide, "worthy" Dem, I have to be unequivocally supportive of everything Dems do? Sorry, but lockstep behavior isn't good for any organization. The accusations here are beneath you, Daniel.