Could the GOP's general problem be that the ave. American is getting poorer?

[Tieteobserver]

It all boils down to media and colleges. For decades we placed our confidence upon colleges and education as a path for our kids. Gramsci knew it, and its no wonder why he stressed the importance of starting indoctrination not on Kindergarten, or Trade School, but precisely at those very high-brow intellectual circles.

Then we have the media, which being also heavily contaminated, does everything it can to portray the GOP as the party of the uneducated, of the stupid, of the anti-science, of the angry old white racist man.

These two things don't explain it all, however. There's a third factor. See, though not an American, I'm a GOP supporter. I agree with Reps far more than I do with Dems. If I was American, I'd be a registered Republican. And unfortunately, the GOP not only has had its reputation tarnished by the enemy. Its been tarnishing itself since the rise of the Christian Right. Goldwater warned you, and apparently, you gave the poor man little attention. Its not about being pro-life. I'm a pro-life too, even though I also happen to be an atheist. Its not about the drugs. William Buckley Jr. was a proponent of decriminalising the herb. Its not about gay marriage, which I oppose simply because I am totally against Civil Marriage at all, even though its something I'd easily compromise.

Its about how you present yourselves.

[Tieteobserver]

Please, read the whole of my post.

The decline of the so called happened precisely after 1994, when the GOP decided to employ the Biblebeltical Strategy Full-Throttle

[Tieteobserver]

Please, read the whole of my post.

The decline of the so called happened precisely after 1994, when the GOP decided to employ the Biblebeltical Strategy Full-Throttle

Cause and effect.

The decline of the Republicans happened after 1994, when Democrats embraced what they always were all along - the Party of State-guided developmental capitalism. Why vote for social reactionaries when the Democrats are promising you technocratic capitalism, if all you want is technocratic capitalism?

And why people all over the world (not only Americans) grew so disenchanted of free market and with such a strong belief upon an enlightened Ivory-Tower elite which magically knows what is better for ourselves much better than we know? Media indoctrination and colleges played a prominent role upon this. It didn't happen overnight. Its a process that takes DECADES. That's why we hardly notice it in the short term.

[Tieteobserver]

Please, read the whole of my post.

The decline of the so called happened precisely after 1994, when the GOP decided to employ the Biblebeltical Strategy Full-Throttle

Cause and effect.

The decline of the Republicans happened after 1994, when Democrats embraced what they always were all along - the Party of State-guided developmental capitalism. Why vote for social reactionaries when the Democrats are promising you technocratic capitalism, if all you want is technocratic capitalism?

And why people all over the world (not only Americans) grew so disenchanted of free market and with such a strong belief upon an enlightened Ivory-Tower elite which magically knows what is better for ourselves much better than we know? Media indoctrination and colleges played a prominent role upon this. It didn't happen overnight. Its a process that takes DECADES. That's why we hardly notice it in the short term.

Except that your entire narrative is false. (It's also, interesting, based on an inverted Marxian analysis of society, with the "ivory-tower elite" in the place of the exploitative bourgeoisie - I'd guess you know somewhere that what I'm getting at is true.)

The Democrats aren't hostile to capitalism - and capitalism, as you know, is not synonymous with the 'free-market'. They're mere technocrats who want to administer it in a way as to promote stability (they take inequality as threatening to the system, and rightly so).

There's no room whatsoever for genuine class analysis or alternative modes of political economy within the Democratic Party.

I didn't say they were not capitalists. Actually, Mises proved a century ago that there CAN NOT exist a "socialist marxist economy".

Of course Liberals aren't hostile to capitalism. They depend upon it to survive. The point is, the brand of capitalism they promote is CRONY capitalism.

And I wasn't talking about Marx. I was talking about Gramsci.

[Tieteobserver]

Please, read the whole of my post.

The decline of the so called happened precisely after 1994, when the GOP decided to employ the Biblebeltical Strategy Full-Throttle

Cause and effect.

The decline of the Republicans happened after 1994, when Democrats embraced what they always were all along - the Party of State-guided developmental capitalism. Why vote for social reactionaries when the Democrats are promising you technocratic capitalism, if all you want is technocratic capitalism?

And why people all over the world (not only Americans) grew so disenchanted of free market and with such a strong belief upon an enlightened Ivory-Tower elite which magically knows what is better for ourselves much better than we know? Media indoctrination and colleges played a prominent role upon this. It didn't happen overnight. Its a process that takes DECADES. That's why we hardly notice it in the short term.

Except that your entire narrative is false. (It's also, interesting, based on an inverted Marxian analysis of society, with the "ivory-tower elite" in the place of the exploitative bourgeoisie - I'd guess you know somewhere that what I'm getting at is true.)

The Democrats aren't hostile to capitalism - and capitalism, as you know, is not synonymous with the 'free-market'. They're mere technocrats who want to administer it in a way as to promote stability (they take inequality as threatening to the system, and rightly so).

There's no room whatsoever for genuine class analysis or alternative modes of political economy within the Democratic Party.

I didn't say they were not capitalists. Actually, Mises proved a century ago that there CAN NOT exist a "socialist marxist economy".

Of course Liberals aren't hostile to capitalism. They depend upon it to survive. The point is, the brand of capitalism they promote is CRONY capitalism.

And I wasn't talking about Marx. I was talking about Gramsci.

What brand of capitalism does the Republican Party promote, then?

And before you go on about how "Bush wasn't a real conservative" and "The Tea Party is different" look at all those Tea Party representatives who've taken Ag Department subsidies and the fact that they have no problem pushing money into government contracts for Raytheon and BoozAllenHamilton and others.

One that offers lower taxes and lower regulations. Its far from ideal, really, specially with the RINOs and the neocons ruining the Party, but its much better than the liberal alternative.

The fact that there is corruption in Republican governments doesn't invalidate one fact: by fighting for lower taxes and lower regulation, they make it easy for business to prosper. When regulations are too tight and taxes too high, it becomes difficult for many business to thrive without getting friends in the government.

[Tieteobserver]

It all boils down to media and colleges. For decades we placed our confidence upon colleges and education as a path for our kids. Gramsci knew it, and its no wonder why he stressed the importance of starting indoctrination not on Kindergarten, or Trade School, but precisely at those very high-brow intellectual circles.

Then we have the media, which being also heavily contaminated, does everything it can to portray the GOP as the party of the uneducated, of the stupid, of the anti-science, of the angry old white racist man.

These two things don't explain it all, however. There's a third factor. See, though not an American, I'm a GOP supporter. I agree with Reps far more than I do with Dems. If I was American, I'd be a registered Republican. And unfortunately, the GOP not only has had its reputation tarnished by the enemy. Its been tarnishing itself since the rise of the Christian Right. Goldwater warned you, and apparently, you gave the poor man little attention. Its not about being pro-life. I'm a pro-life too, even though I also happen to be an atheist. Its not about the drugs. William Buckley Jr. was a proponent of decriminalising the herb. Its not about gay marriage, which I oppose simply because I am totally against Civil Marriage at all, even though its something I'd easily compromise.

Its about how you present yourselves.

Wait, what the hell are you talking about with college and the media? Education doesn't have much effect on voting patters, except on the extreme ends of the education spectrum.

Are you saying  that colleges "indoctrinate" people to be liberal and vote Democrat?

And the media doesn't have to "portray" the GOP as what you said; Republican politicians do it just fine by themselves. The media just reports on it.

On the short term, it doesn't. On the long term, however, it does. Just look at how professors profess liberal ideologies so strongly. By teaching this to kids.

Even elementary schools are on this path. History classes, geography classes, etc, are all biased.

And can't you seriously see the media strongly tilted towards the left. Look at Hollywood.

[Tieteobserver]

It all boils down to media and colleges. For decades we placed our confidence upon colleges and education as a path for our kids. Gramsci knew it, and its no wonder why he stressed the importance of starting indoctrination not on Kindergarten, or Trade School, but precisely at those very high-brow intellectual circles.

Then we have the media, which being also heavily contaminated, does everything it can to portray the GOP as the party of the uneducated, of the stupid, of the anti-science, of the angry old white racist man.

These two things don't explain it all, however. There's a third factor. See, though not an American, I'm a GOP supporter. I agree with Reps far more than I do with Dems. If I was American, I'd be a registered Republican. And unfortunately, the GOP not only has had its reputation tarnished by the enemy. Its been tarnishing itself since the rise of the Christian Right. Goldwater warned you, and apparently, you gave the poor man little attention. Its not about being pro-life. I'm a pro-life too, even though I also happen to be an atheist. Its not about the drugs. William Buckley Jr. was a proponent of decriminalising the herb. Its not about gay marriage, which I oppose simply because I am totally against Civil Marriage at all, even though its something I'd easily compromise.

Its about how you present yourselves.

Probably he is a fan of Olavo de Carvalho, a Brazilian far-right writer who lives in Virginia and writes columns for a very small newspaper in Brazil. In his columns, he does no more than repeating conspiracy theories produced by far-right American think thanks. This one is his favorite conspiracy theory
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frankfurt_School_conspiracy_theory
He likes also the Obama citizenship conspiracy theory.
Olavo de Carvalho is considered so importante that he teaches some courses in Virginia in... Portuguese. He has only a small army of followers who suck ass in online discussion foruns.

If you want to discuss seriously about Gramsci, please, write about what you read him (if you read him) and not about what Olavo de Carvalho wrote about him.

Read both Gramsci books mate.

Olavo's last book was among the most sold in Brazil. In spite of people like tarnishing his reputation, he is becoming more and more famous. Even TV is slowly hiring people who are at least friends with him.

I don't agree with everything he says, and I don't think Obama was born in Kenya, though this whole thing is still very suspect. Regardless, he doesn't believes "conspiracies theories". Everyone still denies the existence of the Foro de São Paulo. He tried to warn us about it for almost a whole decade, and no one in the media cared. Actually, they even FIRED him. Even Lula himself appeared on a video talking about the Foro de São Paulo, and yet, media totally ignores it.

Yesterday, a report by Estadão gave details about Eurasianism, as it was new. It was the first one on the mass and medium sized media to do so. Olavo has been talking about Dugin for the last 10 years too. To call him a "conspiracy theorist" is really ridiculous in the light of everything that has happened.

[Tieteobserver]

So you're basically a conservative Marxist, substituting 'media elite' - the producers of kultur - for the bourgeoisie - the producers of material goods. I strongly suspect you'd be an actual Marxist if you were a philosophical materialist.   A word of advice to liberals: there is always a class analysis at the heart of conservative populism.

Since when recognising the existence of an elite is "marxism"? Hell, by those standards even the righteous Thomas Jefferson was a marxist! His rivalry with Hamilton, among many other things, was precisely due to the late's love of elitism.