Here are some quotes from "The PARTY Is OVER: How the Republicans Went CRAZY, Democrats Became USELESS, and the Middle Class Got SHAFTED", Mike Lofgren, a former Republican Congressional staffer.
"Twenty to 25 percent is not a majority [right-wing authoritarian..will not change minds], but it is enough to swing an election, especially when you consider that the authoritarian follower is more easily organized and mobilized than the rest of the population." p. 185
If this doesn't scare the more pragmatic and flexible to vote, then nothing will.
Is there really a difference in the parties?
"In a deep and intractable recession one can never discount the possibility that a Republican could win the presidency against an incumbent Democrat. But if the GOP nominates a candidate too deeply flawed or too right wing to be plausible, it won't really matter. The main thrust of the establishment's policies will be implemented regardless of who wins. That is the genius of our two-party system." p 199
How much pressure do each of us put on Democrat office-holders to put people before corporations?
"And charitable or otherwise nonprofit organizations should no longer be allowed to compensate their executives at almost Wall Street level. Does it make sense that an organization should not pay taxes if it can funnel $5.1 million a year into the pocket of its CEO?" p 208
His footnote is:
"Slideshow: Who Are the Highest-Paid Nonprofit Executives?" Dallas Business Journal, September 16, 2011
Many nonprofits are scientific, charitable, or educational. Some claim to be educational but they are political trying to educate others on their politics. The IRS was right to double check on the non-taxable status of Tea Party organizations. It was not that the Tea Party was singled out per se, but they were the worst offender of all the political abusers. Let's say that drivers for Mucking Trucking were more likely to speed than any other drivers. Shouldn't the State Highway Patrol check on Mucking Trucking drivers more often than other drivers?
"The people of this country must make an effort to clean out their cultural baggage of … fondly-held illusions: illusions that make it easier for ambitious and manipulative politicians to bamboozle them and build bureaucratic empires that only sap the country's true potential." p. 209
He cites the foremost illusion as the myth of American Exceptionalism. It is a disease that has infected all previous great powers or empires. He quotes J. William Fulbright's "The Arrogance of Power":
"The causes of the malady are not entirely clear but its recurrence is one of the uniformities of history: power tends to confuse itself with virtue and a great nation is peculiarly susceptible to the idea that its power is a sign of God's favor, conferring upon it a special responsibility for other nations––to make them richer and happier and wiser, to remake them, that is, in its own shining image."
Or as I've said, who elected the President of the United States as "leader of the free world"?
