The TPers actually believe the BS they are spewing. Reagan was was charismatic face who likely understood he was spewing BS to get votes (not unlike Obama).Originally Posted by JustPassingThrough
To recommend thrift to the poor is both grotesque and insulting. It is like advising a man who is starving to eat less.
-Oscar Wilde, The Soul of Man under Socialism
If he (or Goldwater) was "spewing BS to get votes", don't you think Goldwater would have done a wee bit better in the 1964 election? And why are you so dedicated to the idea that Reagan was some kind of liar? Where is your evidence, and what good does it do you if he was?
By the same token, I don't think Barack Obama was dishonest when he told people in the past that he was in favor of a single-payer health care system. He got what he could through the legislative process, and even then it was only achieved through an authoritarian contradiction of the clearly expressed will of the American people. You don't do that unless you're dedicated to your belief system, insanely wrong as it may be. I don't doubt his sincerity because he failed to get everything he wanted.
Last edited by JustPassingThrough; 09-21-2010 at 12:01 AM.
You have yet to realize the damage that the Rove/Cheney/Bush clique did to American democracy during the six bleak years in which the Republicans held the Presidency and both Houses of Congress, when a Party Boss like Karl Rove exercised powers not enumerated in the Constitution for anyone not elected to the Presidency, Vice-Presidency, or Congress, not appointed by the President and subject to a Congressional vote, not hired by the House, and not employed by the civil service and subject to firing in the event of misconduct or incompetence.
Party apparatuses and unelected Party bosses are not mentioned in the Constitution of the United States as having any enumerated powers. They have no prerogative to exercise legislative, executive, or judicial powers. Likewise mass movements such as the Tea Party. Party bosses and apparatuses and mass movements have operated as de facto branches of government in some political systems. One such system was the Soviet Union. Another was Iraq under Saddam Hussein. Another is contemporary Iran.
The current Republican Party is even more doctrinaire than it was in the aftermath of the Contract for America. It is more purist in its approach to legislation. The Tea Party Movement taking over the GOP insists upon 100% voting records from Republicans lest those Republicans risk being purged in primaries by stealth candidates. How can anyone compromise with 100% without any possibility of budging? Dealing with Tea party Republicans will be like dealing with the John Birch Society, an organization now very close in ideology to the mainstream of the Republican Party. It is not the John Burch Society that has changed.
But it will bite non-Republicans very hard very fast, and its shadowy backers who have lavished it with money and provided its direction and high-level organization will want to be paid back, and they won't want to give up what they got. The shadowy groups behind the Tea party Movement want an absolute plutocracy, one in which 95% of the people suffer for the upper 1% and the other 4% are ruthless and sadistic enforcers.If the Republican party kicks too hard once the House and/or Senate is re-taken, it will only come back to bite us in the shiner as it did in '94.
Mitt Romney is not and never will be the leader of the revolution that you call for. This revolution more resembles an intended fascist coup, and any "moderate" who participates in it will get prominence in it only by undergoing ideological contortions while selling out his moderate associates. If you want an analogue to him in a Tea Party "revolution", then think of Grotewohl in East Germany, Cyrankiewicz in Poland, Fierlinger in Czechoslovakia, and Dobi in Hungary -- people who sold out their democratic Parties after World War II in return for promises from the Commies who took over.As far as 2012, I'm calling the great Romney Revolution now (and he should go with this description as well, it would be fitting for America to hopefully return to greatness instead of having leaders bowing before despots and apologizing for our nation around the world for being great).
j.p.
The real bosses are shadowy industrialists and financiers who want tax shifts from themselves to people who will endure pay cuts, who want the acceleration of resource extraction, and who want the elimination of health and safety laws, want the environment to matter only near their hunting lodges and their own private clubs. They will pay off the Religious Right with an abortion ban (good for cheap labor and plenty of cannon fodder for wars for profit) and perhaps the promotion of fundamentalist-Christian culture in all public schools.
Establish such a system and the United States stands to have a Crisis Era worse than anything known in American history. The dictatorship or undemocratic clique will be bad enough to those who avoid the harsh measures -- tortures, perverted judicial process, and assassinations. Wars for profit could easily become debacles that end with foreign powers laying down the law in a defeated America. If you thought the Civil War was horrific carnage, then just think how much worse a war would be if one of the opposing sides (ours) has no gentlemanly qualities.
The greatest evil is not now done in those sordid "dens of crime" (or) even in concentration camps and labour camps. In those we see its final result. But it is conceived and ordered... in clean, carpeted, warmed and well-lighted offices, by (those) who do not need to raise their voices. Hence, naturally enough, my symbol for Hell is something like the bureaucracy of a police state or the office of a thoroughly nasty business concern."
― C.S. Lewis, The Screwtape Letters
I assume all politicians are liars and panderers until proven otherwise. Goldwater lost exactly because he was honest. Same with Mondale ("I will raise your taxes, so will he, but I am honest about it, he won't" or something like that).
To recommend thrift to the poor is both grotesque and insulting. It is like advising a man who is starving to eat less.
-Oscar Wilde, The Soul of Man under Socialism
Is this the reason we have 10+ unelected Czars under Obama. Un-beholden to the Constitution and Congress? Next..
pbrower you hit the nails on the head...
Most likely to go red in 2012, according to my extensive studies (and assuming a Rep. comeback in 2012), are Ohio, NM, Colo and Nevada. Of course Indiana too. PA always threatens to flip but never does except in wipeouts. Same with Michigan. One clear pattern is that the Reps don't win without Ohio.
Republicans can always win in this country (sad commentary indeed), but they can't win without a candidate. Who could go up against Obama? I don't see anyone yet. Does anyone else? The reps cannot defeat someone with noone.
If I had to put money on it right now, I would bet on Sarah Palin being the nominee. She has to convince people that she's prepared, serious and competent though. If she does that and Obama remains on his current trajectory, there is no reason why she can't win in 2012, regardless of what polls may say at the moment.
Boy do I hope you are right about Palin getting the Republican nomination JPT. I might even send her 5 bucks if I thought it would make that last bit of difference. Of course I would send it in cash and without my name attached. It would be Goldwater 64 all over again.
There are two novels that can change a bookish fourteen-year old's life: The Lord of the Rings and Atlas Shrugged. One is a childish fantasy that often engenders a lifelong obsession with its unbelievable heroes, leading to an emotionally stunted, socially crippled adulthood, unable to deal with the real world. The other, of course, involves orcs.
I doubt Palin could even poll 30%. I'd even place a pre-emptive bet that if she did run, there would be so much up for grabs that a 3rd party candidate would try to fight Obama for the sane 75%.
'82 iNTp
"Sometimes it is said that man cannot be trusted with the government of himself. Can he, then, be trusted with the government of others? Or have we found angels in the form of kings to govern him? Let history answer this question." -Jefferson
http://news.yahoo.com/s//ynews_excl/...ws_excl_pl3668
This is an article on yahoo about the majority distrusting both parties.
I guess Barry would get a 2nd term. No way in a living Hell would I ever vote for that Neo-Con Palin.
I don't see this happening at all. She's too polarizing. I can't imagine her getting the nomination. I'd say Romney and/or Huckabee would be on a short list of front-runners (possibly Jindal).
j.p.
"And did you get what you wanted from this life, even so? I did. And what did you want? To call myself beloved, to feel myself beloved on the earth." -- Raymond Carver
"A page of good prose remains invincible." -- John Cheever
It is highly unlikely that any Republican candidate in 2012 will completely repudiate the neo-con line. It would be wise for them to at least take a few steps back from the itchy trigger finger mentality of the Bush years, if they want to do well in the general election.
I will be voting for whoever runs against Obama, no matter how much I have to hold my nose to do it. But that's just me.
Last edited by JustPassingThrough; 09-21-2010 at 08:55 AM.
Looking at the polls, her problem is not that she's polarizing, or that people dislike her personally. Sure, the Democratic Party base hates her, but they hate anyone with an (R) next to their name. A lot of people remain undecided about her. Her problem is that people don't think she's up to the job. In other words, what I said is accurate. She has to convince people that she's capable of being president.
But the post asked for an opinion, and I gave it. I would say it's hers for the taking, if she can cross that hurdle.
Too bad Paul Ryan or Eric Cantor won't run. Just need to get away from the flavor of the month in the GOP nomination process in 2012. I think Jindal's time will be around 2016.
Brian, "probably (but not surely)" is not a synonym for "almost certainly." Perhaps a refresher course in English is in order. And if you had been watching fivethirtyeight you would know that all the trends in the last month or two have been unfavorable, with many races looking worse and worse for our side (Delaware is now the sole exception.)
A lot of people are clearly forgetting that the depression we are in came out of the Bush Administration policies and started out under the Bush Administration. It bottomed out under Obama and we haven't come back yet. That's partly because of catastrophic structural problems in our economy that have been getting worse and worse since Reagan (in every big recession we lose manufacturing jobs which we never regain, and this is the worst yet.) It's also because the Obama stimulus wasn't nearly big enough. If the Congressional Republicans had their way, we would be in much worse shape now. (Gee, perhaps that's an argument for electing Republicans in times of economic crisis. No one complains when they run huge deficits, but they all have a shit fit when a Democrat does. Of course, when a Democrat creates a surplus (Bill Clinton), they immediately turn it into a deficit.)
Now another problem is that the Democrats are not what rightwingers keep claiming they are. We need a dose of socialism in this country. We will never afford our for-profit health care system, never. It will continue to drag the economy down; it is totally unsustainable. But the corporate interests behind it are so powerful that the reform, as the article I linked on the health care thread on this forum showed, didn't touch it. In addition, we need government employment programs, and a government bank (like the one Herbert Hoover started during the Depression, the RFC) to make the loans commercial banks are refusing to make. Obama had a chance to do more of these things, or at least to start creating the constituency for doing them. He didn't.
Guys, look around the world. We are the weird ones now. Every major industrial country has national health, not for-profit health. No major industrial country de-industrialized to the extent that we did. Their political systems are functioning far better than ours in the crisis (they could hardly be doing worse.) China is doing a hundred things to subsidize the production of the tools of clean energy. Portugal, of all places, has a huge clean energy program. Brazil has planned out its energy future in the way that we have refused for forty years to do. Of course, the Republican establishment is proud that we are not like Europe.
The next generation of Prophets, I predict, are going to be real hardasses with institutional ambitions. And a good thing too, because that is what we are going to need.
David Kaiser '47
My blog: History Unfolding
My book: The Road to Dallas: The Assassination of John F. Kennedy
If I could pick somebody from currently serving Republicans to be president right now, it would be Chris Christie.
Chris Christie: This is the Crap I Have to Hear
Last edited by JustPassingThrough; 09-21-2010 at 09:35 AM.
I'd like to see John Thune throw his hat into the ring. Also keep an eye on Chris Christie and Bob McDonald. Rising GOP stars. Paul Ryan is great too
I was surprised that Paul Ryan did not run for Senate this year, since it's probably his best chance to win in this GOP year. Maybe he's waiting for Kohl to retire, or more likely he wants to stay in the House and rise through the ranks there.
Yes, those two are synonyms, or at least close in meaning, so much so that the difference is trivial, and you are picking nits.
That also does not in any way conflict with what I said.And if you had been watching fivethirtyeight you would know that all the trends in the last month or two have been unfavorable, with many races looking worse and worse for our side (Delaware is now the sole exception.)
This election remains unpredictable, and to attempt to predict the 2012 election based on it is an exercise in futility. But one thing I know for certain: the long-term future cannot possibly be what you fear. Whatever government we put in place must be one that actually solves the institutional problems we face. Anything that fails to do so will be gone by the time the Crisis ends. And the Republican Party as presently constituted has not even the ghost of a solution. They can win this year, but in the long term, without radical changes to where they stand, they cannot.
"And what rough beast, its hour come round at last, slouches toward Bethlehem to be born?"
My blog: https://brianrushwriter.wordpress.com/
The Order Master (volume one of Refuge), a science fantasy. Amazon link: http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00GZZWEAS
Smashwords link: https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/382903
Uh huh. While we're on the subject of "being the weird ones", how about the fact that the rest of the developed world has abandoned Keynes in favor of austerity measures?
Whoops.
They have not abandoned Keynes. They have, in fact, incorporated his basic ideas into the structure of their economies, by ensuring broad distribution of wealth with high wages and limitations on fortune-accumulation and profit-taking. That they choose not to employ a specific narrowly-selected Keynesian solution to a specific situation means they have "abandoned Keynes" only to those who have no understanding whatever of Keynes' theories.
(For one thing, just as much of the advanced world keeps their military expenses down by relying on U.S. overexpenditure, so the propping-up of the U.S. consumer market by American stimulus spending means nobody else has to do it as much. It's a global economy now, not a bunch of isolated national ones.)
"And what rough beast, its hour come round at last, slouches toward Bethlehem to be born?"
My blog: https://brianrushwriter.wordpress.com/
The Order Master (volume one of Refuge), a science fantasy. Amazon link: http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00GZZWEAS
Smashwords link: https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/382903
Amen to that. Reagan was the mover, and his move was firmly to the right. The country liked him, so they followed. Credit where it's due, he actually lead, rather than taking a bunch of polls to find "the mood of the country".
SO it is Reagan i blame for the mess we're in, by instituting thirty years of bad policy, with Clinton only a more moderate version of the rightward trend. If you find the mess a bit scary, why follow the path that led you here.? Einstein was dead-on, "Insanity: doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results."
Marx: Politics is the art of looking for trouble, finding it everywhere, diagnosing it incorrectly and applying the wrong remedies.
Lennon: You either get tired fighting for peace, or you die.
If the Democrats' only hope is to convince people that 30 years of a booming economy is bad, while the economies of Jimmy Carter and Barack Obama are good, they really are through.
