The canard that the American people are center-right, or worse, has been a staple of the corporate media for a very long time.

Consider the following passage from Noam Chomsky's Failed States:

Commenting on the more recent (2004) election, Chomsky observed:

Chomsky notes that "lacking ‘political support’ is a polite way of saying that the pharmaceutical and financial industries…are opposed."

Yippee kai aye they can eat real food for maybe one meal. But, really Brad I'm here to beg a favor...tell 99 to email me. I got something to share.

Thanks for all ways.

Those who have a favorable view of Socialism and those who have a favorable view of the Tea Party is a statistical tie as they are within the margin of error on both counts.

Those who have an unfavorable view of Socialism out number those who have an unfavorable view of the Tea Party by six points.

Your "proof" is nonsense anyway because the polls were conducted two years apart and a lot has happened in the political arena since then.

The Tea Party certainly took a big hit, especially by people who were non-committal on that movement, as a shooting just happened in Arizona for which the mainstream media and most of you blogger types immediately blamed them. Waitaminute.. no evidence has yet to be given to support that any blame lies with that movement. Hell, an Obama campaign rally masquerading as a eulogy bumped him in the polls by five points or so.

Your own poll which you cite shows more Americans consider themselves to be conservative than liberal, as pretty much any poll you search for with that question will. Just because Alternet (a far left web site) says people call themselves conservative but they don't understand the meaning doesn't make it so.

You have to get past the labels, WingnutSteve, in order to appreciate that many, including you I suspect, who voice opposition to "socialism," don't really have a clue as to what "socialism" is.

Moreover, in assessing where the American people actually stand on specific issues, I think you and your buddies in the so-called "Tea Party" would be quite surprised.

One of the reasons for this is that the corporate-owned media is not inclined to accurately report on where Americans stand on issues that truly matter --- a stand that reveals that the vast majority of Americans favor policies that the "Tea Party" would describe as "socialist."

Take, for example, the issue of a single-payer (Medicare for All) health care system, which stops short of a fully socialized medical system, such as that in the U.K. where physicians are government employees.

As I reported in Single-Payer and the 'Democracy Deficit':

While last year's "reform" fell well short of what the American people desire, recently polls reveal that only 18% of the American people actually support the Tea Party call for its "repeal" --- revealing that more than half of those who say they support the Tea Party do not support one of its core policies.

One of the core problems is that the PR industry insures that elections are not "issue-based."

I set forth a classic example in the same "single-payer" piece.

Make no mistake, when the "issues" are separated from personality and the fog of corporate propaganda, Americans are revealed to be much further to the Left than anyone in the corporate media would dare admit.

Please show me where I have voiced any opposition to socialism Ernie.

Please show me where I associate myself with the ideas of the Tea Party Ernie.

Don't confuse supporting their right to freedom of speech, and defending them against hateful left wing nuts as me being a part of that movement.

Finally, tell Brad to get past the labels, he wrote the article.

Whoever said that conservatives don't want interventions on the "free" market?!! That's simply not true. They like highly paid jobs restricted by the gov't (doctors, lawyers, etc.), federal reserve manipulations to favor the rich, corporate perks, patents and copyrights, tax breaks for people at the top and corporations, and an abundance of other nanny-state rich coddling legislation. The conservatives just want to ensure that money flows upward toward the people who least need it. This is their objective and these people can absolutely be considered "true conservatives". As for the "tea party", I don't think the ideas these people hold can be satisfactorily articulated (for WingnutSteve to defend). They have only one real commonality and that is anger. Anger at the gov't. It is not particularly well directed anger, but a general feeling that they are getting the short shrift. This feeling is absolutely correct. Most of us are summarily dismissed by our non-representative gov't. But it's unfortunate that the anger these people hold can be so easily misdirected because it ends up hurting us all. "Liberals" are not really the enemy. They are just part of the vast majority who are also getting screwed. To use propaganda to direct this anger toward "liberals" is just a divide and conquer tactic that should be readily apparent. Instead of being antagonistic to the tea party people, we need to figure out better ways to frame our dialog so that we can all work together to bring about the representation we want. Tunisia's leader was the US gov't darling, and yet it took a mere 4 days after a citizen set himself on fire in desperation that the people worked together to overthrow their corrupt, cleptocratic gov't (at which point the US gov't quickly announced that it was never supportive of the previous gov't afterall). If the masses work together, we can drive the direction our country goes. If we fight amongst ourselves, we get nowhere, and the people at the top ripping us off and getting us killed just keep smiling. I think if you ask the right questions, you'll find that we all agree far more than we disagree. That is the underlying "take away" from this study. Remove the labels and you'll find that our ideas align quite well on a broad number of subjects.

WingnutSteve @ 3 said:

Your own poll which you cite shows more Americans consider themselves to be conservative than liberal, as pretty much any poll you search for with that question will. Just because Alternet (a far left web site) says people call themselves conservative but they don't understand the meaning doesn't make it so.

It's not Alternet (a left-leaning site, but hardly a "far left" site) who says so. It is the well-documented, academic study that they --- actually the straight-down-the-middle Miller-McCune organization, whose report they reprinted --- are reporting on, which says so. A study, I should add, which doesn't look like you bothered to review in any way before making the comment above (which also seems to suggest you didn't even bother to read the Alternet/Miller-McCune article on it either).

I realize RW media continues to instruct folks that empirical academic and scientific studies --- and the entirety of science in general --- is not as trustworthy as the opinions of agenda-driven RW commentators and politicians, but I'll continue siding with the people who actually know what they're talking about and who offer evidence to support their conclusions, versus those whose evidence-free opinions are written and funded by corporate lobbyists.

You are, of course, welcome to continue siding with the latter, if you prefer, despite all evidence revealing their made-up-outta-whole-cloth views, time and again, to be complete and utter nonsense. But don't expect anybody here to be moved by the evidence-free arguments you continue to present.

WingnutSteve @ 5 said:

tell Brad to get past the labels, he wrote the article.

Um, if you bothered to actually read my brief article and the material that it linked to, you would understand that "get[ing] past the labels" was precisely the point of the article.

I'm sorry you chose to speak to a strawman argument in response to Ernie, rather than responding to the substance he offered you.

WingnutSteve wrote @5:

Please show me where I have voiced any opposition to socialism Ernie.

Okay, Steve, I'm game. Here's your chance to answer a simple question: Are you one of the 36% of Americans who have a favorable view of socialism?

Nothing short of a simple "yes" or "no" will be considered a valid response to the question.

Ernie, absolutely. Sorry, I mean "yes"