Originally posted at PoliZeros.

I went to a protest in Philadelphia this past Saturday, and it was more disheartening than anything else. It was against the wars and various other injustices, with a special focus on he recent FBI raids of peace activists and Pennsylvania Homeland Security spying on innocent civilians and activists.

By the end of it, I kind of just felt like going up to the megaphone and asking, “How much moral outrage can one person muster? There are more people handing out fliers here than not, and with this country committing so many disgusting, outrageous acts, I don’t blame you.” I won’t lie, I handed a few out myself. Yet the contrast between the righteous causes featured in the speeches and on the signs and on the fliers and the, as a fellow protester said to me, “complete lack of solidarity” was striking.

In which I write about Venezuela, economics, politics, lies, and history.

Unless progressives can find ways to counter the false images that our detractors are crafting, we will miss the opportunity to attract people who would be very sympathetic to our agenda. And once the Democrats get their coats handed to them in November, they will see us as a greater threat and will work even harder to distort and discredit our message.

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Seems like you can’t open the web browser these days without seeing yet another story based on cherry-picked information on how nations must ditch all social spending and cut taxes on the rich in order to be “competitive”. However, the most competitive places are quite often those with the very safety nets the authors of the thumbsuckers (and the folks who sign their paychecks) seem to hate.

Historian Tony Judt died yesterday. His last book “Ill Fares the Land” described how we need a new economy where wealth concentration is ended and where the necessities of the people are met in a new economy. To achieve that new economy a vision needs to be shown through new language.

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