Obama, Romney Both Promise An Increase In Military Spending

As President Barack Obama and Mitt Romney furiously lobbed jabs and zingers at each other during Monday night's foreign policy debate, it would have been easy to miss one basic point of agreement: neither candidate favors decreasing the Pentagon's base budget.

Even as Obama mocked Romney's call for more ships to add to the Navy's fleet as akin to playing "a game of Battleship," the president made careful mention of his own expansionary defense policies.

"Our military spending has gone up every single year that I've been in office," Obama said. "We spend more on our military than the next 10 countries combined."

He was right -- and when he said it, it almost sounded like a brag. Aside from a brief proposed dip in 2013, Obama's budget calls for military spending to continue to increase.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/1...n_2006266.html

Originally Posted by Eric the Green

He has also said that he wants to reduce those things. A president can only do what he can, given the opinion of the people and whom they put in congress whom he has to deal with. It is up to the people to decide our course.

We have to have our eyes wide open before we can honestly decide the course of our country. With the corporate bought media and Washington spewing propaganda these days, how do most of us awaken to the reality of what's happening?

Even this sequester is such a ruse. The powers that be would love for us to buy into the idea that there is a need for shared sacrifice which mainly involves the middle class and poor. Or that austerity is the best way to forward, even if it means devastation for the vast majority of US citizens.

Eric, you are really a smart fellow. Why do you keep protecting the Democrats who have moved further and further to the right? Instead of making excuses for this rightward movement, we need to raise our voice in opposition, not be complicit in our own demise.

Originally Posted by '58 Flat

The Democrats should "tap out" totally on their efforts to destroy the Second Amendment - and in return, the Republicans should "tap out" totally on their efforts to destroy ObamaCare (and Social Security/Medicare in everything but name) and preserve unfair and unnecessary tax loopholes.

Democrats aren't trying to destroy the Second Amendment (although the Assault Weapons Ban is definitely unconstitutional and doesn't work to boot) and I'm quite confident that were the GOP to offer real, substantive tax reform in exchange for Obama dropping attempts at further gun control, the President will do so in a heart beat.

Originally Posted by pbrower2a

Truth be told -- the heirs of the Confederacy would have sold out to Satan -- excuse me, Hitler, who was even worse -- if they had been challenged on white supremacy. Hitler would have gladly restored slavery in the South if Southerners would have given him the chance to exterminate the Jews.

Timing is almost everything for the success of causes.

While I have no love for the Southern patrician class, polls indicate that the South was the most pro-intervention region before Pearl Harbour. And don't forget too that Judah P Benjamin was one of the highest ranking men in the rebel Confederacy.

Originally Posted by Deb C

Democrats have moved to the right. Why should they gain the trust of progressives when they act like Republicans?

NOTE: I'm assuming you mean the modern Progressive movement, rather than the interventionist, pro-big business (albeit regulated), nationalistic, pro-eugenics classical Progressive movement under Teddy Roosevelt and that by Progressive you mean pretty someone along the lines of Ralph Nader

The same can be true in reverse. Why should liberals and the Democrats trust progressives when in the days of the Cold War they under Henry Wallace bolted from the Democratic Party in 1948 making Truman lose several key Eastern states and refused to see the Soviet threat? When in 1972 the progressives had their way and got McGovern nominated and he was annihilated by Richard Nixon? When in 2000, when a progressive actually gained electoral traction, it led to the election of George W Bush?

Most of what I hear out of Washington is a call for cuts and more cuts. Not for the bloated military or a reigning in of the 1%, just for shouldering the balance of the budget on the backs of everyday kind of people. Only a handful of Democrats and an Independent are brave enough to stand at the podium and tell the truth about how the proposed cuts/austerity, on the backs of the citizens, are immoral.

Both Obama and the Senate Democrats have called for cuts in the military budget. Although since most of them are not neo-isolationists they aren't too keen on massive cuts that would be detrimental to the military.

Originally Posted by Deb C

So you think that since the Republicans have gone extreme right, we should follow to get a deal? Not to mention that the *deal* is mainly on the backs of the middle class and poor. Where is the shared sacrifice that we hear so much about?

If what you say is true about gamesmanship, then We the People are the losers in this pathetic game. I just don't buy the idea that it is worth becoming a right wing nut to be able to play with the extreme right wing nuts. That's like saying that they have to be abusive to win with the abusers.

We the People lost the game when Citizens United determined that all political activity of our economic elites constitutes free speech and as such excuses anything.

I live in Michigan, a laboratory for turning a comparatively-liberal state into a model of a fascist dictatorship. The objective is to destroy any possible opposition so that America can have a new feudalism in which a few people grab everything, a few crack the whip, the vast majority toils as long and hard as possible under brutal management, and others slip through the cracks. They flee or they end up in the potter's field.

What the American Fascist -- excuse me, Republican -- Party now does in Michigan it intends to do in states once the Hard Right can fully consolidate power and impose its way upon the States lower to get the message that toil is a duty with only bare survival as a reward. I'd encourage youth who can do so to learn foreign languages, including those that might be useful only in small countries. In my case I am too old to start over, so my future is extremely bleak under such circumstances. What could I do? Teach English in a foreign country when the largest English-speaking country has no attraction?

You can hate the right-wing politicians all that you want, but we are stuck with people like Prick Snyder, Rot Walker, and Prick Scott in gubernatorial offices until early 2015 by which time they can do huge damage, Pat Screw-me and Wrong Johnson in the US Senate until early 2017. People may not deserve the consequences. At least this isn't Germany in 1933. Maybe the best that we can hope for is that the Religious Right turns on people who have been exploiting their votes and giving them no tangible benefits.

Our elites may allow us the illusion of choice for some time. Russia does that. Maybe there must be some reality behind any illusion. Let the illusion be something other than debt-enabled consumerism. We have freedom and political process, a 200-year heritage to protect from an internal threat more dangerous than the armed forces of the Axis Powers in the last Crisis Era or of the Soviet Union during the Cold War. The Enemy is among us. It plots not in Rome, Berlin, Tokyo, or Moscow but instead in America itself.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mackina..._Public_Policy

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Ma..._Funders_2.JPG

The usual suspects.

You do realize the Republican Party is on the decline and that come 2016 they will almost certainly moderate itself (and they're fucked if Hillary Clinton or Joe Biden decides to run). The Tea Party peaked in 2010, what we're seeing now is the last hurrah of the Boom Generation right-wingers. And anyways it isn't as if Michigan was some sort of a great place under the Democrats (see Detroit for the last few decades, it seems to be one of the few inner cities that hasn't even had a slight turn-around unlike New York or Chicago or dozens of other cities around the nation). And the "largest English-speaking country has no attraction"? I suggest you talk to the millions of people who are demanding a path to citizenship in this country or the many graduate students who are struggling to stay here and set up businesses.

The Current See-saw between left and right will continue as long as progressives refuse to think outside the box of liberal orthodoxy and the conservative orthodoxy of their political adversaries, beyond the percieved imperatives of merely being the ruling party or the opposition party. Both Conservatives and progressives fail to realize that what the nation needs is a ruler, ones who would actually govern the nation. Only Restorationism and the realization that sometimes a strong hand is needed coupled with the idea that society is supposed to fundamentally one of friends and countrymen who are to protect and care for one another especially in times of stress, would the nation heal from the decay accumulated over the past 30 years.

Originally Posted by Cynic Hero '86

The Current See-saw between left and right will continue as long as progressives refuse to think outside the box of liberal orthodoxy and the conservative orthodoxy of their political adversaries, beyond the perceived imperatives of merely being the ruling party or the opposition party.

Unfortunately that's how "rulership" works in a democracy; nothing gets done unless one side rather than the other prevails. The see-saw needs to be decided in favor of the left.

Both Conservatives and progressives fail to realize that what the nation needs is a ruler, ones who would actually govern the nation. Only Restorationism and the realization that sometimes a strong hand is needed coupled with the idea that society is supposed to fundamentally (be) one of friends and countrymen who are to protect and care for one another especially in times of stress, would the nation heal from the decay accumulated over the past 30 years.

Your suggestions like these above are more reasonable, and so are your posts when you leave out the extreme militarism and racism, which you did leave out here.

Originally Posted by General Mung Beans

Democrats aren't trying to destroy the Second Amendment (although the Assault Weapons Ban is definitely unconstitutional and doesn't work to boot) and I'm quite confident that were the GOP to offer real, substantive tax reform in exchange for Obama dropping attempts at further gun control, the President will do so in a heart beat.

No he wouldn't; he can't go back on his awakening of conscience. Something must be done. The Assault Weapons Ban is necessary, constitutional, and would work, but is unlikely to pass the Republican House.

Rather, if Obama would offer to stop asking for revenue right now, a temporary compromise on the sequester and the budget might be possible. The GOP is not likely to offer an acceptable tax reform. That is not what we need. We need to restore the domestic spending cuts.

The same can be true in reverse. Why should liberals and the Democrats trust progressives when in the days of the Cold War they under Henry Wallace bolted from the Democratic Party in 1948 making Truman lose several key Eastern states and refused to see the Soviet threat? When in 1972 the progressives had their way and got McGovern nominated and he was annihilated by Richard Nixon? When in 2000, when a progressive actually gained electoral traction, it led to the election of George W Bush?

Sometimes it does work better to support the lesser of two evils, under our broken and outdated system. But many progressives can't stomach doing so.

Both Obama and the Senate Democrats have called for cuts in the military budget. Although since most of them are not neo-isolationists they aren't too keen on massive cuts that would be detrimental to the military.

True. Some level of military spending is needed, and sometimes military force is justified or useful. The Democrats have used it much more wisely since the Awakening. The Afghan War was screwed up by Bush, who used air power instead of ground troops, missed the target, and then diverted resources to an unnecessary war of choice. Obama has unfortunately continued Bush's use of deadly and murderous air power and drones in spite of Afghan and Pakistani objections. He did put in the needed resources there, and finished the withdrawal from Iraq and started one from Afghanistan in spite of the militarists' objections.

Originally Posted by Eric the Green

True. Some level of military spending is needed, and sometimes military force is justified or useful. The Democrats have used it much more wisely since the Awakening. The Afghan War was screwed up by Bush, who used air power instead of ground troops, missed the target, and then diverted resources to an unnecessary war of choice. Obama has unfortunately continued Bush's use of deadly and murderous air power and drones in spite of Afghan and Pakistani objections. He did put in the needed resources there, and finished the withdrawal from Iraq and started one from Afghanistan in spite of the militarists' objections.

The problem is that the military is not being built up enough, the development of more practical weapons systems coupled with the ending of the current corporate dominance of military would free up a lot of revenues that could be spent elsewhere at the same time as building up the military forces. After which the military should be expanded to 17 million regular troops and 20 million reserve troops, coupled with the nuke arsenal being expanded to over 40000 warheads. This can be done at the same time as carrying out much needed social reforms domestically.

Originally Posted by Eric the Green

No he wouldn't; he can't go back on his awakening of conscience. Something must be done. The Assault Weapons Ban is necessary, constitutional, and would work, but is unlikely to pass the Republican House.

The Assault Weapons Ban being repealed a decade ago didn't result in an increase in crime rates-most criminals are using handguns not assault rifles.

Rather, if Obama would offer to stop asking for revenue right now, a temporary compromise on the sequester and the budget might be possible. The GOP is not likely to offer an acceptable tax reform. That is not what we need. We need to restore the domestic spending cuts.

Agreed. I think President Obama also can offer to slash farm and ethanol subsidies.

Originally Posted by Cynic Hero '86

The problem is that the military is not being built up enough, the development of more practical weapons systems coupled with the ending of the current corporate dominance of military would free up a lot of revenues that could be spent elsewhere at the same time as building up the military forces. After which the military should be expanded to 17 million regular troops and 20 million reserve troops, coupled with the nuke arsenal being expanded to over 40000 warheads. This can be done at the same time as carrying out much needed social reforms domestically.

Erhm you're kidding me right? Unless you're in a total war, there is no absolutely no reason to have 17 million troops in the army along with 40,000 nukes (considering that the Cold War is over).

Originally Posted by General Mung Beans

The Assault Weapons Ban being repealed a decade ago didn't result in an increase in crime rates-most criminals are using handguns not assault rifles.

It did result in a decrease in mass shootings while it was in effect.

Agreed. I think President Obama also can offer to slash farm and ethanol subsidies.

That would be great, but I think it's more of a Democratic idea; it doesn't appeal to Republicans.

Originally Posted by General Mung Beans

You do realize the Republican Party is on the decline and that come 2016 they will almost certainly moderate itself (and they're fucked if Hillary Clinton or Joe Biden decides to run). The Tea Party peaked in 2010, what we're seeing now is the last hurrah of the Boom Generation right-wingers. And anyways it isn't as if Michigan was some sort of a great place under the Democrats (see Detroit for the last few decades, it seems to be one of the few inner cities that hasn't even had a slight turn-around unlike New York or Chicago or dozens of other cities around the nation). And the "largest English-speaking country has no attraction"? I suggest you talk to the millions of people who are demanding a path to citizenship in this country or the many graduate students who are struggling to stay here and set up businesses.

1. The GOP may be in decline among voters -- but they still have the deep pockets behind them. For a Michigan analogue -- Ford Motor Company threw huge resources into selling the Edsel but still failed.

2. The Tea Party peaked in popularity in 2010, but the GOP did get the chance to gerrymander the state's Congressional districts as directed. That could backfire, but that will take time.

3. The Republican Party has shown unusual ruthlessness for a party in participation in a democratic (note the small d) political culture. I almost see the analogue in fascist, communist, and Islamic-fundamentalist Parties in vilification of the other side and willingness to go to any length to win.

4. Nobody pretends that Detroit is a paradise. The city may have been doomed to decline when it dedicated itself to the auto industry as its main source of jobs, business activity, and tax revenue. The life-cycle of the auto industry puts the industry past peak. It was a good run, but Detroit gave up on activities such as grain milling that don't have a possibility of obsolescence because high paychecks in the auto industry were too attractive to resist. New York City relies heavily upon the garment industry -- an unglamorous industry, but people will always need clothes. Chicago depends heavily upon the cartage of bulk goods and can adapt so long as there are bulk goods. Minneapolis-St. Paul relies heavily upon grain milling, and people aren't going to give up eating. Nearby Toledo depends heavily upon glass and grain, items with steady use.

A warning to San José, California -- should high-technology associated with the semiconductor and its successors pass the peak, your city can become the new Detroit. Or Stockton, which is closer geographically.

Detroit has tried gambling as an attraction, attempting to be Las Vegas in lake country. Las Vegas has one advantage over Detroit in profiting from gambling: people who arrive there by car in Las Vegas must practically stay there. It's a long drive to the nearest full-service city outside of Greater La Vegas -- Kingman, Arizona? St. George, Utah? Needles, California? Someone who gambles in Detroit can find lodging in Jackson, Michigan. (Jackson, Michigan is a dump, but it has good shopping for everything but books, plenty of restaurants, and plenty of lodging). But Las Vegas hasn't been doing so great, either, in recent years. Ann Arbor? Nice place, really, but if the highbrow entertainment around a college campus is an attraction for you, you probably don't play slots.

5. Detroit has had a big problem with corrupt, incompetent city government. Contraction of the tax base is never easy for any city. Aging infrastructure gets increasingly expensive to maintain, and city governments rarely find the temptation to sell it off. Urban machine governments have always been prone to graft, and it may be that graft that does not itself cut back in hard times hurts more obviously than the bite that corrupt politicians and their cronies extract in a stronger economy. Just look at how bad things got when Kwame "Krookpatrick" was mayor.

6. A country can go from being very attractive to foreigners to being a place to avoid in a very short time. All that is necessary is for the government to go bad. For all its faults the GOP is philistine. Its leadership will allow no constraints upon the indulgence of economic elites no matter how much it imposes austerity upon everyone else. It wants a low-wage economy with brutal management, something tried before (Chile under Pinochet), and not many people would immigrate to such a place. OK -- someone might want to marry into one of the elite families.

Originally Posted by Eric the Green

True. Some level of military spending is needed, and sometimes military force is justified or useful. The Democrats have used it much more wisely since the Awakening. The Afghan War was screwed up by Bush, who used air power instead of ground troops, missed the target, and then diverted resources to an unnecessary war of choice. Obama has unfortunately continued Bush's use of deadly and murderous air power and drones in spite of Afghan and Pakistani objections. He did put in the needed resources there, and finished the withdrawal from Iraq and started one from Afghanistan in spite of the militarists' objections.

Why won't Obama say these things? Oh, I forgot, the Republicans won't let him.

Originally Posted by Eric the Green

True. Some level of military spending is needed, and sometimes military force is justified or useful. The Democrats have used it much more wisely since the Awakening. The Afghan War was screwed up by Bush, who used air power instead of ground troops, missed the target, and then diverted resources to an unnecessary war of choice. Obama has unfortunately continued Bush's use of deadly and murderous air power and drones in spite of Afghan and Pakistani objections. He did put in the needed resources there, and finished the withdrawal from Iraq and started one from Afghanistan in spite of the militarists' objections.

Once again Eric the Obtuse demonstrates his complete lack of knowledge, invading Afghanistan was stupid no matter who did it. The place is called the "Graveyard of Empires" for a reason, you would do well to investigate why.

Those mean ole Republicans, they make Obama drop bombs in other countries that kill innocent civilians.

We know all about the drones. That is old news.

Originally Posted by Eric the Green

We know all about the drones. That is old news.

Well, you certainly sound pre-seasonal.
Are you really sure that you want that thought as a given in the next 1T ?

Originally Posted by herbal tee

Well, you certainly sound pre-seasonal.
Are you really sure that you want that thought as a given in the next 1T ?

Well it would certainly be old news by then, huh?

Originally Posted by Deb C

Those mean ole Republicans, they make Obama drop bombs in other countries that kill innocent civilians.

What the Allies did in every city from Dresden to Berlin during World War II didn't exactly make the Germans love us either.

So what's your point?

Originally Posted by '58 Flat

What the Allies did in every city from Dresden to Berlin during World War II didn't exactly make the Germans love us either.

So what's your point?

Really? What's my point? Innocent human life is taken, and you ask what's my point?

"Adult males carrying out ordinary daily tasks were frequently the victims of such strikes," the statement from the U.N. office for human rights said.

A CIA drone, flying so high that the farmers can't see it, has killed most of them. None of them were militants.Such attacks by U.S. drones are common, the United Nations' special rapporteur on counterterrorism and human rights said Friday in a statement on strikes in Pakistan's tribal region of North Waziristan.
The rapporteur, Ben Emmerson, told CNN the actions are of dubious international legality, despite the United States' assertions.

"I'm not aware of any state in the world that currently shares the United States' expansive legal perspective that it is engaged in a global war -- that is to say a non-international armed conflict with al Qaeda and any group associated with al Qaeda, wherever they are to be found, that would therefore lawfully entitle the United States to take action involving targeted killing wherever an individual is found," Emmerson said.

The American Civil Liberties Union and other U.S. groups are questioning the legitimacy of the President Obama-approved drone program, and they're looking for evidence for a legal battle.


Read more: http://www.wlky.com/news/national/U-...#ixzz2NzdtPEV0

This blatant disregard for life goes on daily. It's not old news, Eric! It creates more and more hate for the United States, which in turn, creates terrorists.

"The drone program definitely is proving counterproductive and radicalizing a new breed of hostile militants. In fact, drone attacks have had the opposite effect by increasing the number of recruited terrorists and undermining the credibility of the Pakistani government that allows American intervention on its sovereign territory."

]President Barack Obama and former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney may not agree on much, but they're both totally into the use of unmanned aircraft known as drones to hunt down and kill real and imagined threats to the American way of life. Whenever you've got top Democrats and top Republicans getting along, you know something has gone horribly wrong.



The United Nations fact-finding mission on the US drone program in Pakistan has issued a statement calling the American drone strikes a violation of international law.


The panel was set up by the UN to investigate the exponential rise in drone strikes used in counterterrorism operations and to decide whether there is a plausible allegation of unlawful killing.

http://www.allvoices.com/contributed...ernational-law

Originally Posted by Eric the Green

We know all about the drones. That is old news.

I am actually shocked at your response. View this, then tell me it's OLD NEWS!

http://video.search.yahoo.com/video/...rs&age=0&&tt=b

Originally Posted by Deb C

I am actually shocked at your response. View this, then tell me it's OLD NEWS!

Separating the emotional from the practical, no one thinks it's acceptable to target people 12,000 miles away using the funcitonal equivalent of a first-person shooter game. If we're talking right and wrong, this is clearly wrong.

If, on the other hand, we're looking at people who are more than wiling to kill others they hate, and don't limit that in any way, then the argument gets a lot tougher. Do we stand on principle, if that means we lose Ameiricans to deathsquads and ad hoc revolutions? That's what happened at Bengazi. And what about stopping the attacks that will come from planning and training in "safe areas"? We can't stop them all through spying and informants. In short, when is it war, and when is it not? If it's war, are these legitimate war weapons?

I don't claim to have anwers here, but the issue is not as cut-and-dry as you make it out to be. From my position of limited knowledge, I believe that we've over-used these things to a huge extent. Of course, I don't have access to the intel that the President certainly has.

Originally Posted by Marx & Lennon

Separating the emotional from the practical, no one thinks it's acceptable to target people 12,000 miles away using the funcitonal equivalent of a first-person shooter game. If we're talking right and wrong, this is clearly wrong.

If, on the other hand, we're looking at people who are more than wiling to kill others they hate, and don't limit that in any way, then the argument gets a lot tougher. Do we stand on principle, if that means we lose Ameiricans to deathsquads and ad hoc revolutions? That's what happened at Bengazi. And what about stopping the attacks that will come from planning and training in "safe areas"? We can't stop them all through spying and informants. In short, when is it war, and when is it not? If it's war, are these legitimate war weapons?

I don't claim to have anwers here, but the issue is not as cut-and-dry as you make it out to be. From my position of limited knowledge, I believe that we've over-used these things to a huge extent. Of course, I don't have access to the intel that the President certainly has.

There are always gray areas to every issue. However, the drone situation is out of hand and Obama has expanded what Bush started. This war on terror has become an excuse to do whatever we want in regards to killing people who may be suspect, including the innocent.

The United States has become the policeman of the world at a heavy price of civilian life. All Empires over reach it's super power. That, my friend, will be our eventual downfall.

Originally Posted by Deb C

There are always gray areas to every issue. However, the drone situation is out of hand and Obama has expanded what Bush started. This war on terror has become an excuse to do whatever we want in regards to killing people who may be suspect, including the innocent.

The United States has become the policeman of the world at a heavy price of civilian life. All Empires over reach it's super power. That, my friend, will be our eventual downfall.

That's why Obama is phasing out the Afghan War as quickly as could be reasonably expected from the leader of an Empire. Granted that his use of drones is wrong, and fortunately it has become an issue.