[Vision2020] FW: Party of Strivers

[Joe Campbell]

It is a tough decision. I agree with you that Obama was no better in
many respects than Bush, not wrt military involvement at least. But I
fear that if a Republican gets elected there will be a rollback of
abortion rights and other rights. Joe

On Sat, Sep 1, 2012 at 2:35 PM, Sunil Ramalingam
<sunilramalingam at hotmail.com> wrote:
> 'Party loyalty is blind...and deaf and dumb...and cruel.'
>
> I'm about half way through this interview of Jonathan Turley by John Cusack,
> looking at Obama's repugnant foreign policy:
>
> http://truth-out.org/opinion/item/11264-john-cusack-and-jonathan-turley-on-obamas-constitution
>
> A s long as we support the people implementing these policies, they will go
> on. I'm not voting for Obama again, because of this.
>
> Sunil
>
>> From: betsyd at turbonet.com
>> To: vision2020 at moscow.com
>> Date: Fri, 31 Aug 2012 10:57:13 -0700
>> Subject: [Vision2020] FW: Party of Strivers
>>
>>
>>
>> -----Original Message-----
>> From: Betsy Dickow [mailto:betsyd at turbonet.com]
>> Sent: Friday, August 31, 2012 10:57 AM
>> To: 'Joe Campbell'
>> Subject: RE: [Vision2020] Party of Strivers
>>
>> And most of the poor will be poor through not fault of their own...how
>> many
>> people are working hard and often overtime at the University of Idaho and
>> not making ends meet...many many many. And here it's no different from the
>> Wall Street corporate model...administrators win big and everyone else is
>> a
>> peon, working for peanuts.
>> This is democracy? No, this is the will of a few billionaires and the
>> Republican Party...Get your head out of the sand and stop thinking in
>> terms
>> of party loyalty.
>> Party loyalty is blind...and deaf and dumb...and cruel.
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> -----Original Message-----
>> From: vision2020-bounces at moscow.com [mailto:vision2020-bounces at moscow.com]
>> On Behalf Of Joe Campbell
>> Sent: Friday, August 31, 2012 10:46 AM
>> To: lfalen
>> Cc: vision2020 at moscow.com
>> Subject: Re: [Vision2020] Party of Strivers
>>
>> How is Ayn Rand's philosophy basically correct? Do you think the poor are
>> lazy? Do you disagree that some people have a bad lot and without some
>> kind
>> of outside assistance, they are unlikely to realize the American dream? If
>> so, then Rand is just plain wrong. Tweaking her view to allow for
>> compassion
>> is in this case equivalent to rejecting her view. That is what separates
>> Rand's philosophy from the kind of view that Brooks is suggesting. Brooks'
>> offers a much better, more realistic take on humanity, as I see it. Joe
>>
>> On Fri, Aug 31, 2012 at 10:18 AM, lfalen <lfalen at turbonet.com> wrote:
>> > I am not a big fan of David Brooks, but this is not a bad article. I
>> > like
>> Rice also. I have some problems with Ayn Rand. Her philosophy is basicly
>> correct, but it need s to be tempered by some compassion, which she seems
>> to
>> lack.
>> > Roger
>> > -----Original message-----
>> > From: Art Deco art.deco.studios at gmail.com
>> > Date: Fri, 31 Aug 2012 03:51:28 -0700
>> > To: vision2020 at moscow.com
>> > Subject: [Vision2020] Party of Strivers
>> >
>> >> [image: The New York Times] <http://www.nytimes.com/>
>> >>
>> >> <http://www.nytimes.com/adx/bin/adx_click.html?type=goto&opzn&page=ww
>> >> w.nytimes.com/printer-friendly&pos=Position1&sn2=336c557e/4f3dd5d2&sn
>> >> 1=34aeaaa2/80e4ddbc&camp=FSL2012_ArticleTools_120x60_1787508c_nyt5&ad
>> >> =BOSW_120x60_June13_NoText&goto=http%3A%2F%2Fwww%2Efoxsearchlight%2Ec
>> >> om%2Fbeastsofthesouthernwild>
>> >>
>> >> ------------------------------
>> >> August 30, 2012
>> >> Party of Strivers By DAVID
>> >> BROOKS<http://topics.nytimes.com/top/opinion/editorialsandoped/oped/c
>> >> olumnists/davidbrooks/index.html>
>> >>
>> >> America was built by materialistic and sometimes superficial
>> >> strivers. It was built by pioneers who voluntarily subjected
>> >> themselves to stone-age conditions on the frontier fired by dreams of
>> >> riches. It was built by immigrants who crammed themselves into
>> >> hellish tenements because they thought it would lead, for their
>> >> children, to big houses, big cars and big lives.
>> >>
>> >> America has always been defined by this ferocious commercial energy,
>> >> this zealotry for self-transformation, which leads its citizens to
>> >> vacation less, work longer, consume more and invent more.
>> >>
>> >> Many Americans, and many foreign observers, are ambivalent about or
>> >> offended by this driving material ambition. Read "The Great Gatsby."
>> >> Read D.H. Lawrence on Benjamin Franklin.
>> >>
>> >> But today's Republican Party unabashedly celebrates this ambition and
>> >> definition of success. Speaker after speaker at the convention in
>> >> Tampa, Fla., celebrated the striver, who started small, struggled
>> >> hard, looked within and became wealthy. Speaker after speaker argued
>> >> that this ideal of success is under assault by Democrats who look
>> >> down on strivers, who undermine self-reliance with government
>> >> dependency, who smother ambition under regulations.
>> >>
>> >> Republicans promised to get government out of the way. Reduce the
>> >> burden of debt. Offer Americans an open field and a fair chance to
>> >> let their ambition run.
>> >>
>> >> If you believe, as I do, that American institutions are hitting a
>> >> creaky middle age, then you have a lot of time for this argument. If
>> >> you believe that there has been a hardening of the national arteries
>> >> caused by a labyrinthine tax code, an unsustainable Medicare program
>> >> and a suicidal addiction to deficits, then you appreciate this
>> >> streamlining agenda, even if you don't buy into the whole Ayn
>> Rand-influenced gospel of wealth.
>> >>
>> >> On the one hand, you see the Republicans taking the initiative,
>> >> offering rejuvenating reform. On the other hand, you see an exhausted
>> >> Democratic Party, which says: We don't have an agenda, but we really
>> >> don't like theirs. Given these options, the choice is pretty clear.
>> >>
>> >> But there is a flaw in the vision the Republicans offered in Tampa.
>> >> It is contained in its rampant hyperindividualism. Speaker after
>> >> speaker celebrated the solitary and heroic individual. There was
>> >> almost no talk of community and compassionate conservatism. There was
>> >> certainly no conservatism as Edmund Burke understood it, in which
>> >> individuals are embedded in webs of customs, traditions, habits and
>> governing institutions.
>> >>
>> >> Today's Republicans strongly believe that individuals determine their
>> >> own fates. In a Pew Research Center
>> >> poll<http://www.people-press.org/2012/06/04/partisan-polarization-sur
>> >> ges-in-bush-obama-years/>, for example, 57 percent of Republicans
>> >> believe people are poor because they don't work hard. Only 28 percent
>> >> believe people are poor because of circumstances beyond their
>> >> control. These Republicans believe that if only government gets out
>> >> of the way, then people's innate qualities will enable them to
>> >> flourish.
>> >>
>> >> But there's a problem. I see what the G.O.P. is offering the
>> >> engineering major from Purdue or the business major from Arizona
>> >> State. The party is offering skilled people the freedom to run their
>> >> race. I don't see what the party is offering the waitress with two
>> >> kids, or the warehouse worker whose wages have stagnated for a
>> >> decade, or the factory worker whose skills are now obsolete.
>> >>
>> >> The fact is our destinies are shaped by social forces much more than
>> >> the current G.O.P. is willing to admit. The skills that enable people
>> >> to flourish are not innate but constructed by circumstances.
>> >>
>> >> Government does not always undermine initiative. Some government
>> >> programs, like the G.I. Bill, inflame ambition. Others depress it.
>> >> What matters is not whether a program is public or private but its
>> >> effect
>> on character.
>> >> Today's Republicans, who see every government program as a step on
>> >> the road to serfdom, are often blind to that. They celebrate the race
>> >> to success but don't know how to give everyone access to that race.
>> >>
>> >> The wisest speech departed from the prevailing story line. It was
>> >> delivered by Condoleezza Rice. It echoed an older, less libertarian
>> >> conservatism, which harkens back to Washington, Tocqueville and
>> >> Lincoln. The powerful words in her speech were not "I" and "me" - the
>> >> heroic individual They were "we" and "us" - citizens who emerge out
>> >> of and exist as participants in a great national project.
>> >>
>> >> Rice celebrated material striving but also larger national goals -
>> >> the long national struggle to extend benefits and mobilize all human
>> >> potential. She subtly emphasized how our individual destinies are
>> >> dependent upon the social fabric and upon public institutions like
>> >> schools, just laws and our mission in the world. She put less
>> >> emphasis on commerce and more on citizenship.
>> >>
>> >> Today's Republican Party may be able to perform useful tasks with its
>> >> current hyperindividualistic mentality. But its commercial soul is
>> >> too narrow. It won't be a worthy governing party until it treads the
>> >> course Lincoln trod: starting with individual ambition but ascending
>> >> to a larger vision and creating a national environment that arouses
>> >> ambition and nurtures success.
>> >>
>> >>
>> >> --
>> >> Art Deco (Wayne A. Fox)
>> >> art.deco.studios at gmail.com
>> >>
>> >>
>> >
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