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AN *INCREDIBLE* Interview WITH WILLIAM GREIDER (Nation Magazine/Money/Radio Free Dylan)

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KoKo Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sat Jan-15-11 06:14 PM
Original message
AN *INCREDIBLE* Interview WITH WILLIAM GREIDER (Nation Magazine/Money/Radio Free Dylan)
Edited on Sat Jan-15-11 06:54 PM by KoKo
An Incredible Interview....it's well worth the watch whomever or whoever you are across the Democratic and (or) other Political Spectrum! For PROGRESSIVES...it's even more important.

We Democrats are Open Minded...and we are in Crisis. We need to listen and learn. BTW, Greider is UPBEAT and HOPEFUL at the END of this Listen and Watch. It's truly empowering to see where this goes and empowers Democrats in it's presentation from Greider. You need to watch to the end. For those of us Democrats who are feeling somewhat downtrodden these days and for those who believe that Obama will listen and turn around America...it's a TREAT for HOPE and CHANGE WE CAN BELIEVE IN! THE PROMISE!


ENOUGH...here's the Real Interview:


--------------------------
AN INTERVIEW WITH WILLIAM GREIDER

We were struck by a recent column by Mr. Greider, “The End of New Deal Liberalism,” which is most certainly worth a read.

Here’s an excerpt, and a link for you to read the full article. (link here)

The power shift did not start with Obama, but his tenure confirms and completes it. The corporates began their systematic drive to dismantle liberal governance back in the 1970s, and the Democratic Party was soon trying to appease them, its retreat whipped along by Ronald Reagan’s popular appeal and top-down tax cutting. So long as Democrats were out of power, they could continue to stand up for liberal objectives and assail the destructive behavior of business and finance (though their rhetoric was more consistent than their voting record). Once back in control of government, they lowered their voices and sued for peace. Beholden to corporate America for campaign contributions, the Democrats cut deals with banks and businesses and usually gave them what they demanded, so corporate interests would not veto progressive legislation.

He continues, saying that President Obama is complicit in the shady dealmaking.

Obama has been distinctively candid about this. He admires the “savvy businessmen” atop the pinnacle of corporate power. He seeks “partnership” with them. The old economic conflicts, like labor versus capital, are regarded as passé by the “new Democrats” now governing. The business of America is business. Government should act as steward and servant, not master.

In this episode of Radio Free Dylan, we talked to Bill Grider about this and other challenge issues facing our economy and electorate.

“Well, I’ve been singing this song for some years, and I’m repeating it again. We were all born as citizens, and we have partly by our own negligence but mainly by design, we have been stripped of our role as citizens and turned into mere spectators who can bounce up and down on the couch and get mad at the right and wrong things. We don’t act like citizens — we can, but it’s not easy, it’s hard work, but I really do believe we will change this when people everywhere begin to take themselves seriously again and act like citizens,” says Bill.

Democrats, he says, are equally complicit in lacking the motivation to push for change that could improve where our country is.

“This is a longer story about the decay of the political institutions and the mediating institutions that, in my view, are too close to the democratic party, and often for good reasons. But that side is largely disorganized; organized labor, which was and remains a principal voice for the working class, has been decimated in the last thirty years. I’ve covered it as a reporter, it’s an incredible story of how – and often with government collaboration by democrats in power. That’s happened. Nevertheless, there are a few institutions that could help lead. I think it has to come, literally, from the grassroots up. I see some signs of that but that’s my church. That’s what I’m preaching,” says Bill.

So, how can we possibly incite change?

“The reason I have faith in this, corny as it sounds, is I think that’s the story of American history. And I think if you go back over our two hundred years plus, you will see that it was always people of rather humble and oppressed status rising up and trying to force this country to live by its ideals. And some of those struggles took not just a generation but several generations — civil rights and liberation of African-Americans in bondage is one of the most dramatic example, but there are others,” says Bill.

Bill says that his more than 35 years of reporting on politics in Washington gives him not only perspective, but hope.

“What I’m trying to convince people to think about is ‘where are we in this storyline?’ We are not triumphant. We are not exultant. We are not the most generous and loving country on earth. I’m not searching for comparisons, because we’re Americans and we’ll take care of America. I get excited because as a reporter over many years, I know this is in people. I’ve seen it. I’ve seen people of very humble status — and they didn’t have any power at all — take themselves seriously as citizens. And then discover things within them that they didn’t even know were there,” says Bill. “This is a kind of universal possibility that I think democracy offers people. And that’s what I’m trying to teach,” says Bill.

“I can’t think of a more valuable lesson,” says Dylan. “We have been here before, this country has been through these kind of dynamics before, and there are solutions to these problems. They are not necessarily easy to do, but they are not necessarily complicated to do. The more collectively we can move ourselves up the educational curve to put the type of problems that we have today of concentrated power and wealth as this country has suffered in the past, and how someone like Teddy Roosevelt solved those problems in the past makes it seems more achievable that we can solve the problems of the present,” says Dylan.


LISTEN TO THIS AT..........

http://www.dylanratigan.com/2011/01/13/william-greider-the-end-of-new-deal-liberalism-on-radio-free-dylan/

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DJ13 Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sat Jan-15-11 06:47 PM
Response to Original message
1. On the money
From Greider's article..........



Once again, Republicans are mounting an assault on liberalism's crown jewel, Social Security, only this time they might succeed, because the Democratic president is collaborating with them. The deficit hysteria aimed at Social Security is fraudulent (as Obama's own experts acknowledge), but the president has already gravely weakened the program's solvency with his payroll-tax holiday, which undercuts financing for future benefits. Obama promises the gimmick won't be repeated, but if employment is still weak a year from now, he may well cave. The GOP will accuse him of damaging the economy by approving a "tax increase" on all workers. Senate Democrats are preparing their own proposal to cut Social Security as a counter to the GOP's extreme version. In the end, they can split the difference and celebrate another great compromise.

This is capitulation posing as moderation. Obama has set himself up to make many more "compromises" in the coming months; each time, he will doubtless use the left as a convenient foil. Disparaging "purist" liberals is his way of assuring so-called independents that he stood up to the allegedly far-out demands of his own electoral base. This is a ludicrous ploy, given the weakness of the left. It cynically assumes ordinary people not engaged in politics are too dim to grasp what he's doing. I suspect Obama is mistaken. I asked an old friend what she makes of the current mess in Washington. "Whatever the issue, the rich guys win," she responded. Lots of people understand this—it is the essence of the country's historic predicament.


http://www.thenation.com/article/157511/end-new-deal-liberalism
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KoKo Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sat Jan-15-11 06:50 PM
Response to Reply #1
2. Thanks for that excerpt from Greider's Article... We need to keep on top of this given the new
appointments and Obama's turn to the "Center" and reaching out to the "Business Community" (as the Blogs are calling it).
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enough Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sat Jan-15-11 06:57 PM
Response to Original message
3. k&r (nt)
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handmade34 Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sat Jan-15-11 07:54 PM
Response to Original message
4. "...we need to take ourselves seriously as citizens..."
this is us... notes:
we can be the ankle biters on the left... turn from spectator to citizen...
Democrats must again become the ones dedicated to the people...

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BeFree Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sat Jan-15-11 11:05 PM
Response to Original message
5. heh
That was great!!

The only difference is that back then they had a fairly honest way to count the vote.

Now, it is under the control of a very few people and all indications are that it is very dishonest.


Other than that, we would be well under way to having a good government.... but we never will. Will we?
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JohnWxy Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sun Jan-16-11 04:05 PM
Response to Original message
6. recommended.
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KoKo Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Thu Jan-20-11 06:32 PM
Response to Original message
7. Kick...It takes a long time to listen...but it's worth it! Bonus ..there are NO Commercials!
So it's a treat without interruptions..
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KoKo Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Thu Jan-20-11 08:26 PM
Response to Original message
8. BTW" Again...it's COMMERCIAL FEE...a REAL INTERVIEW...Like the "Old Days!"
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handmade34 Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Thu Jan-20-11 08:27 PM
Response to Original message
9. rec again
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