Currently "Centrists" are those that value serving corporations over social issues on EITHER side!

[cascadiance]

They value being powerful to serve those that pay to get them elected and do them favors. They take positions on social issues not out of caring for their constituency, but to BUY votes from us on either side of the social spectrum so that we are placated when they turn against us on corporate serving bills.

It's time that we not just "move" the center, that some people claim we need to do from "center-right" to "center-left", but we need to actually REDEFINE it, so that instead of having folks "in the middle" that value serving corporate interests over social interests on either side, that we have REAL "centrists" that value serving the general interests of the people over corporate interests and social interests in this current segment's place, and that would balance out those that serve social interests heavily of their constituencies on either side of them. In other words swapping one middle for a completely OPPOSITE "middle", regarding serving the people vs. serving the corporate elites.

[w4rma]

1. K & R. Very accurate. (nt)

[corpseratemedia]

2. Good meme needs to be repeated!

the REAL "center" is serving the interests of PEOPLE, people first, not multi-national corporations AGAINST the interests of the people

wish it could be countered within the MSM and it's patsies every time one of their empty talking heads brings up their pet phrase

[leftstreet]

3. What are examples of social issues from the left that should be ignored?

Or do you mean the left's response to the social issues advanced by the right?

:shrug:

[cascadiance]

9. I'm not saying they should be ignored, but I'm going by what is sold as "centrist"...

In that usually a "centrist" wants to be "moderate" on these social issues, and work harder on "meaningful" issues. I still want a more progressive side of the equation, but if we have a TRUEly "moderate" centrist wing that allows them to be what they try to define themselves, as, and I believe perhaps some segments in our society want, then they should be serving those PEOPLE in the center and not masquerading doing so in order to serve corporate interests that I do believe they do now.

Personally I want to move the "real" center to also look at social issues too, but I think fundamentally, before we can do much of anything, we need to get rid of the corporate serving crooks out that basically are taking democracy away from us now... Once we have those in place that are interested in serving people, then we can work out the differences of different parts of society in a more honest fashion. At least I'd like to believe that anyway. And perhaps we wouldn't have so many special interests out there trying to set us off at odds with each other, so there would be less hate towards gays, etc. that I believe is being nurtured by these special interests to bring out votes for them and ignore when they are in effect raping them on the side.

[TahitiNut]

4. Corporatism is a cancer in BOTH parties.

It's appalling.

[nichomachus]

7. You mean "both wings of the Corporate Party."

We have one party in the US, the Corporate Party. It has two rights wings -- the Republican wing and the Democratic wing.

[leftstreet]

8. Yep. Two wings of The Central Leadership Corporation

So you still get to believe you can make a choice!

[TahitiNut]

10. Yup. I think the Political Compass makes it clearer, if one pays attention to the axes.

The Corporatists are VERY effective in marginalizing and smearing the anti-corporatists who achieve some national prominence. The Nader-haters sure do march to the drumbeat of the Corporatists. Deluded fools.

[Lucian]

11. I had no idea Obama, Edwards, and Biden were so far to the right...

on the political compass.

I'm glad I supported Dennis Kucinich during the Primaries last year.

[TahitiNut]

14. I was Kucinich all the way. Ideologically, I then hesitatingly supported Edwards ...

... and Obama as Kucinich and then Edwards dropped out. Edwards' infidelity (character issues) were very disappointing to me. While I'm very clear and not at all deluded about Obama's ideological positions, I have a great deal of respect for his character, integrity, and intelligence. Obama is not one to IMPOSE his mere preferences on others -- not one to regard himself as an elected autocrat (i.e. all-powerful mandate) -- but is more a facilitator in keeping with older CONVENTIONAL "democrats." That is, he 'leads' by representing the broadest public consensus. That's not all bad, imho. It's light years better than Bush41 or Bush43 ... or even Clinton.

The REAL work that we, as citizens and voters, have to do is inform, discuss, argue, and speak out to our friends, family, neighbors, and colleagues. There is absolutely no shortcut when it comes to educating and informing the "body politic" -- and the delusion of electing saviors or waiting for the Lone Ranger to ride into town and rescue us poor townsfolk is sheer cowardice and sloth.

As a 65-year-old independent (anti-partisan) liberal, I've seen the evils of brain-dead partisanship far too often to be some drone. That's why I've always targeted my political support primarily to interest groups like ACLU, NOW, NAACP, HRW, and others focused on individual rights and liberties.

I'd LOVE to see Ralph Nader as Secretary of Commerce, for example. Those drowning in the mythology of 'win-lose' who demonize him are substituting a patellar response for thought, imho.

[cascadiance]

16. I'd originally hoped that Feingold and Gore would team up....

then settled on Edwards for a while when it was obvious that neither of them were running. I as you was disappointed in Edwards' personal behavior. It is so damaging when the only one (besides Kucinich, who I gravitated more to spiritually, even if not pragmatically, later), who could have some reasonably strident and supportable policy positions, would damage taking those positions so much (conveniently for the M$M) by tainting it with his personal behavior. Which is why Dean is SO important to us now, without those sorts of "taints". Looking back on the "Dean scream", it now is so obvious how contrived a hit piece that was to try and muscle him out then.

As for Nader, having him head of the EPA would also have been really nice too.

I'd really hoped that early on he would have realized more where his real power was (Nader), and instead of just trying to run himself to the end in what was obviously a battle with losing odds (though many would like to see them be better), that if he instead realized that as a spoiler, perhaps he had some degree of power with the Democratic Party as a power-broker, and focused on the ONE issue of trying to get substantive support for instant runoff voting from them put in place at a federal level. Perhaps he could negotiate pulling out (and maybe even got the Greens to jump on board with that too, to facilitate a bigger landslide for Obama and a bigger mandate to do some substantive change. Getting IRV put in place would allow candidates like himself in the future, not be spoilers to truly decent Democratic candidates, and give really good third party candidates a better than hell chance to get elected that they have now. People would have valued his running for president were he able to accomplish helping that get put into place moreso than what many see as a spoiler.

[cliffordu]

13. Those charts make my butt hurt.

[nichomachus]

5. Doh!

[peacetalksforall]

6. You are right. I suggest labels going to the heart of what you wrote. People Centrists -Corporate

Centrists.

Just as all corporations are not predatory. all centrists do not support predatory corporations.

Let them say which they are. If they don't say - we label them and let them deny it.

Every bit that we can do make people aware of what is going on is necessary.

Defining is essential.

So many drop outs from the news, blame politics and politicians for their disdain.

If the brush is too broad, total negativism can flourish.

If it weren't for the people politicians, we would not be where we were before the corporate politicians did there number on us.

Corporations = numbers. Numbers that favor THEM and their FRIENDS and their BARONS.

CEO's-STOCKHOLDERS-FRIENDS-BARONS - can be much too narcissistic and greedy for this world.

We've just been stolen from to our core.

And Republicans do not deserve all the blame.

The Corporate Centrists in the Democratic Party are also our downfall.

In fact I don't even know if I can name one People Centrist in the Dem Party.

[cascadiance]

12. Perhaps Mike Gravel... But even he supports a flat tax too much for my liking...

I think a good example of a "people centrist" might have been Paul Hackett. I think the DLC types sensed that he was speaking too much from the middle from a "people's" perspective instead of their corporate perspective, and he was muscled out early on.

Huckabee, much as I hate the guy on many social issue stances, is probably more of a "people centrist" on the Republican side, who's on a number of occasions, come down against corporate and well-to-do interests in structuring our tax codes and campaign financing. He was muscled out of there too by the corporate Republicans as well who also felt threatened as well.

[Zodiak]

15. Populists tend to be People centrists

They are typically pretty conservative on social issues, but fairly liberal on economic ones.

I'd actually rather have a populist than a DLCer any day.

[cascadiance]

18. Yeah, one you might argue with. But the other doesn't want to LET you argue with them...

I'd rather have someone whom I can have a fair fight with (verbally of course in a hopefully civilized manner), than someone that tries to keep you from having rights as a human being to be seated at the table no matter how many lies they might tell us about being there to "take care of us"...

[Zodiak]

23. Can you please tell me where pupolists have made themselves intransigent

As you state here? From my experience, populists can be talked to like any other human beings. I didn't say "republican", you know.

And I didn't even mention WHICH social issues; you just assumed they were some kind of nebulous human rights issues.

[cascadiance]

24. Actually I was agreeing with you, though perhaps I didn't say it well enough...

It is the populists that want to have *people* have a dialogue amongst each other, whether they be on one side of the issue or the other... I was trying to say that these so-called "centrists" are trying to find ways to exclude people's voices from the discussion in their efforts to give corporations more control over the power centers of this country for the money and power they provide back. Thus, they aren't "letting" conversations amongst people to happen on those issues that matter a lot to the corporate lobbies and being "exposed", since they want to keep those discussions from even being talked about (so that people continue to be distracted with issues that don't matter to the Corporatists, and which they hype up so that we focus on those instead).

[Zodiak]

26. OK...that's what I get for posting without coffee.

my bad.

[bvar22]

17. Where is "The Center"?

In recent polls (2005) by the Pew Research Group, the Opinion Research Corporation, the Wall Street Journal, and CBS News, the American majority has made clear how it feels. Look at how the majority feels about some of the issues that you'd think would be gospel to a real Democratic Party:

1. 65 percent (of ALL Americans, Democrats AND Republicans) say the government should guarantee health insurance for everyone -- even if it means raising taxes.

2. 86 percent favor raising the minimum wage (including 79 percent of selfdescribed "social conservatives").

3. 60 percent favor repealing either all of Bush's tax cuts or at least those cuts that went to the rich.

4. 66 percent would reduce the deficit not by cutting domestic spending but by reducing Pentagon spending or raising taxes.

5. 77 percent believe the country should do "whatever it takes" to protect the environment.

6. 87 percent think big oil corporations are gouging consumers, and 80 percent (including 76 percent of Republicans) would support a windfall profits tax on the oil giants if the revenues went for more research on alternative fuels.

7. 69 percent agree that corporate offshoring of jobs is bad for the U.S. economy (78 percent of "disaffected" voters think this), and only 22% believe offshoring is good because "it keeps costs down."

http://alternet.org/story/29788/

8. Over 63% oppose the War on the Iraqi People.

9. 92% of ALL Americans support TRANSPARENT, VERIFIABLE elections!
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=203x446445

It would appear that the American People (Democrats & Republicans) are quite a bit more Liberal than those who supposedly represent us in Washington (Democrats and Republicans). The above stats are from 2005. I have no doubt that the numbers would be even more Liberal if the polls were taken today.

Especially revealing is the one on Government Guaranteed HealthCare...65% in 2005,
but today, the topic is verboten by both Parties.


Meet the New Boss:

[cascadiance]

19. Note ALL of these issues aren't social issues, but ALL DO threaten Corporate America!

The REAL middle of this country, and the issues that most Americans care about individually, but don't have their concerns validated and echoed by the corporate media, aren't being represented now! They are being told they are, and probably feel like they are supporting "minority" positions, because the media doesn't give us this info. If more folks knew on both sides that they agreed with each other on these issues, they might put aside their differences (as Obama's campaign championed), and work together to solve them. The problem is that the corporate side doesn't want us to work together on THESE issues, as it will RIGHTFULLY screw them in the end and put them in their PROPER place as NOT being people, no matter what SCOTUS says about "corporate personhood"...

[bvar22]

20. The BIGGEST Social Issue is Economic Justice.

There is really only ONE Social Issue, and it is:
Equal Rights and Equal Protections for ALL Americans.

Equal Rights and Equal Protections would include a level & fair Economic Playing Field.

If the Poor and the Middle Class ever realize that we are all ONE regardless of the imaginary divisions, we will ALL eat the handful of American Plutocrats, especially those in Washington DC.

[cascadiance]

21. I'll agree with that, but it is also a "social issue" that threatens corporation "rights"

... and their sense of how "corporate personhood" fits within that space, that is the key for them maintaining their power (as proxies for the elites of this country getting more than "equal" rights for themselves).

I guess I probably needed to define "social issues" a bit more, but if we can narrow in on those that are mostly about individual's rights, such as those of abortion, gay marriage, etc. that a corporate "person" doesn't have to worry about, those are the prime candidates as "distraction" issues to get people churned up and vote a certain way they want to herd them into voting.

Grass roots Democratic Party voters have been a bit more concerned about corporate power than grass roots Republican Part voters have, and that is why they've been kept out of power that much more than Republicans, but now that the corporatists realize that trying to just use Republicans to keep their power now is a losing battle, they are emphasizing maximizing their power-base (more stealthily in this case) in the Democratic Party than continuing to try and support the Republicans. Which is why many of the Republicans will either retire, or become more social issue candidates than they had been, trying to find that right combination that will get them back some degree of power again.

[readmoreoften]

22. What we call "center-right" is right-wing. What we call left is center.

We need people to start calling themselves communists again so that when people say "hey we need a happy middle!" they'll cut the line between Lenin and Reagan, not Obama and Reagan. In other words I'll vote for Kucinich to be the "center".

[tekisui]

25. We have two political parties: Corporatists and Progressives.

The Corporatists are all of the Repukes party plus about half of the Dems.

The remaining half of the Dems and Bernie Sanders are Progressives.

The Corporatists still have a large Majority. But, we Progressives are gaining.

[cascadiance]

27. The big problem is trying to help most Americans understand this...

And not think that just having a majority of Democrats "solves the problem". This problem is amplified by the corporate media amplifying the notion that we should look at Democrats vs. Republicans (left vs. right) versus looking at we the people being represented vs. the corporations being represented.

The good news though I think is that when we connect to folks and help them gain this understanding, I think more and more are a lot more receptive to this information, since each day they are becoming less and less trusting of our government (Republicans or Democrats) when the economy keeps going down hill and takes each of them successively with it.