I'm slowly becoming disgusted with "my party." I'm registered Democratic, but I see some of the shit that's going on (like Nicole Parra getting shit on, and shit flinging back by backing Danny Gilmore, a Right Wing nutjob), and I'm saying "Maybe it's time to get more neutral..." Unfortunately, the alternatives are so fringeworthy as to not even be viable options, so I stick with the only viable alternative to the Republicans, and that ain't the Libertarians.
What the Think Tanks really do for the Republicans is they study language and popular meanings and the current Zeitgeist, then figure out how to manipulate language to manipulate the duller majority of society. They aren't just telling the party how to think; they're teaching them to manipulate and twist language (like what I posted a while back about the usage of the word "elite"). It goes somewhat deeper than just giving marching orders.
As to Big Government = Socialization, it's the fact that the government and many of us out here in the public aren't looking to change our world view enough. The New Deal worked for about 20 years. Once the 1960s hit, things started breaking down. New social programs are needed, with new ways of looking at them, but Liberals and Progressives are still looking at that era, 60 years later, and think what we need is a "New 'New Deal'", rather than look for modern answers like a secular version of Bush's "faith-based initiative," which seems to be essentially what your "grassroots"/decentralized aid idea is.
Yeah, I'm not as committed to some ideals as I used to be, even a few months ago...
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What the Think Tanks really do for the Republicans is they study language and popular meanings and the current Zeitgeist, then figure out how to manipulate language to manipulate the duller majority of society. They aren't just telling the party how to think; they're teaching them to manipulate and twist language (like what I posted a while back about the usage of the word "elite"). It goes somewhat deeper than just giving marching orders.
As to Big Government = Socialization, it's the fact that the government and many of us out here in the public aren't looking to change our world view enough. The New Deal worked for about 20 years. Once the 1960s hit, things started breaking down. New social programs are needed, with new ways of looking at them, but Liberals and Progressives are still looking at that era, 60 years later, and think what we need is a "New 'New Deal'", rather than look for modern answers like a secular version of Bush's "faith-based initiative," which seems to be essentially what your "grassroots"/decentralized aid idea is.
Yeah, I'm not as committed to some ideals as I used to be, even a few months ago...