His. NOT the left's. Support for Obama is NOT a criterion for being one of "the left." It's almost an excluding condition.Originally Posted by Exile 67'
- Join Date
- Jul 2001
- Location
- California
- Posts
- 12,392
His. NOT the left's. Support for Obama is NOT a criterion for being one of "the left." It's almost an excluding condition.
"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
I'd hardly call the Green Party a 3rd party. As for diluting it, I think that would be impossible, it is already so diluted.
If you want to talk about a 3rd party that could actually win, it needs to be centrist, like these guys:
http://thecaucus.blogs.nytimes.com/2...rty-ticket/?hp
This thing has legs.
I'd say that's a helluva return on their investment in the Obama adminstration.
Then you'd be falling for their divide and conquer strategy because they paid net negative taxes under the Bush administration as well.
Of course, the poster child is probably Reagan. Spokesperson for GE was the first job that got him in to politics.
Last edited by JohnMc82; 12-16-2011 at 10:25 PM.
Those words, "temperate and moderate", are words either of political cowardice, or of cunning, or seduction. A thing, moderately good, is not so good as it ought to be. Moderation in temper, is always a virtue; but moderation in principle, is a species of vice.
'82 - Once & always independent
So, I guess this means that he's a partisan Democrat and you're "the left" and Obama represents the current bridge that runs between and connects the two political islands.
Ya but they weren't paying taxes because they were loosing money, loosing stock value, loosing stockholders and were on the verge of bankruptcy during the Bush Adminstration. Today, they're making billions off govt subsidies, government investment in green energy and they're not paying any taxes with Obama's.
GE actually stood for something back in Reagans day.
The Green Party already proposes the policies and solutions we need for the future. It already supports the goals and methods of Occupy Wall Street protesters. Creating another party just like it (e.g. the Justice Party) is reinventing the wheel. There is no need to create what you already have to begin with.
Centrism is nothing more than agreement with the current status quo. It is dilution in the most clear meaning of the word. Centrism means compromise and selling out to the status quo and doing nothing. It is business as usual. You might as well just let the Democrats and Republicans fight it out as usual, and what you get from the fight is centrism. Petraeus and Bloomberg are just the usual militarists and purveyors of greed that we already have. There is no advantage whatsoever of supporting a centrist party. If it wins, what do you win? Nothing at all. Zero, zip, nada. Wall Street and Washington business as usual. Half measures or no measures at all. Unwillingness to make the needed changes.
If that is true, then just give up and let the corporations keep on doing what they do. See where that gets you.
Apart from just doing things on a local level, there is no alternative to electing the right politicians and keeping their feet to the fire with activism. Only they can make the reforms needed to do what you advocate. Right now we can't even have a constitutional convention, because Republicans own too many state legislatures.
You have to work with the electorate you have, or else do nothing. The American people proved in 2004 and 2010 that they frequently not only take leave of their senses, but are willing to support criminal activities in their name. Given the level of political intelligence of Americans, the Democrats are about the best we can realistically hope for. I am all for laying out the truth and what needs to be done. It needs to be said over and again. That said, just proposing the best platform does not mean it will succeed. That's because the American people are not smart enough to vote for it. The chances are high that they won't, for many possible reasons.
Statistics generally are more relevant that anecdotes as indicators.The unemployment rate is falling because more people have run out of unemployment benefits, are underemployed, and/or working at mere seasonal jobs.
Just visit a few food pantries or homeless shelters and ask the workers there about their view of the economy. This is where you will get honest employment facts.
There is little more stupid than blaming whoever is currently in power for the economic mess. It has been created by at least 30 years of wrong policies, instituted by Republicans and Democrats in name only.
No, they saw increasing revenues AND profits throughout the entire decade. Where do you come up with this crap, and do you even believe it yourself?
Oh well, apparently not!
Those words, "temperate and moderate", are words either of political cowardice, or of cunning, or seduction. A thing, moderately good, is not so good as it ought to be. Moderation in temper, is always a virtue; but moderation in principle, is a species of vice.
'82 - Once & always independent
To envoke or impose change, one must be both willing and able to accept all the negative consequences.
I owned stock in GE during the Bush years and experienced more losses than gains. Where did you get that crap from? I also made far less than 250,000 and experienced an increase in taxes during Clintons 1st term.
Last edited by Exile 67'; 12-17-2011 at 12:13 AM.
If the choice is between Schuschnigg and Hitler, Metaxas and Hitler, or even Franco and Hitler...
This is a 4T, and things can go from bad to worse very fast. Radical change is a certainty in a 4T, but the radical change can be a Frankenstein monster. Do you have any question that some powerful people would gladly destroy democracy to establish a system that best protects class privilege and eviscerates all power of the workingman (even choice of employer) and fosters wars for profit (first the raid on the treasury for the high-profit war itself and then the exploitation of conquered countries with near-slave labor, theft of resources, or monopoly control of local economies?) Brazil may have nicer beaches than Michigan, but I don't want to start any trip to Rio under duress and in fear of consequences upon return.
...which demonstrates how destructive the Dubya-era speculative boom was. It destroyed perhaps forty years of economic progress.The unemployment rate is falling because more people have run out of unemployment benefits, are underemployed, and/or working at mere seasonal jobs.
Which implies that stasis is better than reactionary policies that will only make things worse... and don't fool yourself. The Republican Party has its agenda for one in which anyone who doesn't own the assets is a serf in all but name. It now represents the sorts of people stupid and craven enough to want America to be a Corporate State in which some people decide who does exhausting toil for near-starvation pay and who 'simply' starves.Just visit a few food pantries or homeless shelters and ask the workers there about their view of the economy. This is where you will get honest employment facts.
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
So you bought it right at the peak in 2000 or 2001, when the P/E ratio was well over 30? Better check the financial reports again, because they increased their dividends as revenues and profits grew through the decade.
Yeah, the stock price went down from the tech bubble heights, but it was overvalued to begin with.
Those words, "temperate and moderate", are words either of political cowardice, or of cunning, or seduction. A thing, moderately good, is not so good as it ought to be. Moderation in temper, is always a virtue; but moderation in principle, is a species of vice.
'82 - Once & always independent
Flawed boomer logic. Exemplifies our current state of affairs well.
What he said.
James50
The whole modern world has divided itself into Conservatives and Progressives. The business of Progressives is to go on making mistakes. The business of the Conservatives is to prevent the mistakes from being corrected. - G.K. Chesterton
A neat quote I found which I think could turn the conversation in a different manner--looking at perhaps what we might have to achieve in order to achieve a High.
"[T]he evolutionary process is one of adaptation and accommodation, with the various species exploring opportunistically their environments in search of a means to maintain their existence. Like Comedy, evolution is a matter of muddling through. ... The ancient fish that developed lungs when his home in the sea became untenable was not a radical revolutionary, but a public spirited preserver of his genetic heritage. ... To say that change is conservative may confuse anyone who thinks the term is the antonym of liberal and that it describes a mental attitude in favor of traditional social values and custom. The conservative principle in biology is evolutionary. An organism conserves its genetic continuity despite changes in form."
So in order to preserve our nation--we must "change its form" or outer appearance, while it maintains its "genetic code" or interior self. Change is a conservative action--an attempt to muddle through, adapt, & evolve so that we may continue to survive. If this is not achieved then the nation dies out--like a species faces extinction when it fails to be able to adapt to the changing world around it. A Fourth Turning by definition is a time of great "changes"--where the world order is shifting & the nations have to either adapt or die--and to "change" is a conservative action, changing one's outer form but not one's interior self.
~Chas'88
"There have always been people who say: "The war will be over someday." I say there's no guarantee the war will ever be over. Naturally a brief intermission is conceivable. Maybe the war needs a breather, a war can even break its neck, so to speak. But the kings and emperors, not to mention the pope, will always come to its help in adversity. ON the whole, I'd say this war has very little to worry about, it'll live to a ripe old age."
My experience with you Teddy, is that you do not think out your ideas and positions very well, but just throw things out.
What is flawed about the logic? Why do you throw in the word "boomer" as if it had any relevance?
Of course James is going to agree. He is a centrist. What would you expect? Progress is going to come from progressives. What would you expect?
Do you expect that essential truth to change from one generation to the next?
You are not being denied "centrism" in this country. That is what we have, at least when things are going as best as can be expected. That is deadlock and business as usual. That is Centrism. Centrism means a little from this side, and a little from that side. It means a flawed compromise like Simpson-Bowles. It means pretty much what we have, and our current corporate society muddles along and continues to decline. It means we do not face the problems with the scale of solutions that are needed.
It means (at least in these times) you don't face the fact that the problem comes from the conservative side, and not from the progressive side. But you think it sounds nice to say the solutions are in the middle. There is only muddle from the middle. We already have a middle, and an extreme right.
We already have a centrist party-- the Democrats. If we have 3 Democratic parties, and one Republican Party, guess who wins?
The Democrats are the centrists. They are weak; they give in. They make compromises. They sell out and allow themselves to be bought. They settle for half measures. Now you, Teddy, want another centrist party to replace the Democrats, so it will do the same damn thing? What a lot of nonsense. Do you see how ridiculous that is??
It's because you are too young to know how the world really works, my son (that's a sarcastic retort to your stupid "boomer" remark).
Last edited by Eric the Green; 12-17-2011 at 01:34 AM.
Your quote is not quite correct. Evolution happens in sudden spurts; that is a fact. Most of the time a species muddles along and stays the same-- until a major challenge to its existence happens. Then it suddenly changes; it makes a quantum leap. A fish that leaps out of the sea is not conservative. Those organisms that took risks when needed, are the ones who survived. Those who took the safe course, became evolutionary backwaters, or perished. Most species perished; they could not or would not make the necessary changes. Only after making the leap, does it consolidate as the conditions ease up.
Remember too that biology does not understand very much about what happens in evolution. It does indeed only understand the most superficial outer appearances. As constituted now, science cannot understand more than this. But it has told us what I said above. Science has told us a lot, although not very much of what there is.
No, progress comes from progressives, not conservatives.
That's right. The problem right now is Americans are not ready to accept the consequences of change.
It may mean that taxes have to go up. It may mean choosing between social programs and high taxes. It means recognizing you can't have everything and pay nothing for it. It means being willing to adopt solutions that might not always work immediately. It may mean recognizing the scale of the problems require large solutions. It may mean questioning your view of the world. It means questioning your automatic responses.
Americans are not willing to see things as they are. We can't blame the politicians or the institutions; they are made up of the American people, and put in place by them. A new party will not solve that problem. A new constitution will not even solve that problem. Until more of us get it, and are willing to see that the problems require big solutions, nothing will change.
We have to begin with where we are. Where we are, is if Republicans are allowed another year of power, ever again, the damage may be so great that no change of ANY kind will ever be possible again. Another minute with the likes of Boehner is another minute on which the ship of state is close to sinking forever. How much water do you want to take on? Do you have your life rafts on?
Either we see where we are, or we choose to put blinders on, by saying that boomers are stuck in the past, or whatever other irrelevant nostrum you choose instead of dealing with reality.
The answer I expected from you. It is not using conservative in the manner in which political discourse uses conservative--in fact it blatantly states as much. It is conservative in the effort that it moves towards conserving its existence. It takes upon itself a change in order to ensure that it'll survive.
Yes evolution occurs in response to a major challenge to a species' existence. However why is it done? Only because in order to survive it has no other choice--it's either adapt or die. It does not choose to make the change as part of some revolutionary agenda to "reinvent itself"--but does so only when there is no other choice in the matter and it's a matter of life or death--just like in a Crisis. And the species muddles through the changes in the environment until it reaches a new level of "stasis" in which the adaptation they've adopted in order to survive becomes part of their specific species, and thus don't have to muddle through anymore--it's just considered a natural part of their society. You call living in a stable ecosystem without having to change "muddling through" while I call it having achieved the ability to survive on a physical level.
Here is a difference in worldview. Boomers, being Idealists, have always sought to explore & change their interior selves--it's what their archetype does best & I will not deny them that. The outer shell is left alone by Idealists. However a High is a time without Idealists--it is when they are lacking--and it is a time typified by exteriority & not interiority. It is a time of their opposite--when the interiority is preserved & held at a stasis by changing the outer form. In order to move towards a High we have to eventually abandon the Boomer obsession with changing the interior self & focus on the external shell--for they've let the external shell rot to the point that it no longer serves its purpose of "protecting us". Don't worry, interiority won't vanish for forever--the next wave of Idealists will make sure of that--but the time to focus on interiority is over--we've done so at the expense of exteriority for too long. It's now time to focus on the shell--we won't survive in any other way.
And Eric, if you are interested I got my quote from Joseph W. Meeker.
~Chas'88Another early ecocritical text, Joseph Meeker's The Comedy of Survival (1974), proposed a version of an argument that was later to dominate ecocriticism and environmental philosophy; that environmental crisis is caused primarily by a cultural tradition in the West of separation of culture from nature, and elevation of the former to moral predominance. Such anthropocentrism is identified in the tragic conception of a hero whose moral struggles are more important than mere biological survival, whereas the science of animal ethology, Meeker asserts, shows that a "comic mode" of muddling through and "making love not war" has superior ecological value. In the later, "second wave" ecocriticism, Meeker's adoption of an ecophilosophical position with apparent scientific sanction as a measure of literary value tended to prevail over Williams's ideological and historical critique of the shifts in a literary genre's representation of nature.
"There have always been people who say: "The war will be over someday." I say there's no guarantee the war will ever be over. Naturally a brief intermission is conceivable. Maybe the war needs a breather, a war can even break its neck, so to speak. But the kings and emperors, not to mention the pope, will always come to its help in adversity. ON the whole, I'd say this war has very little to worry about, it'll live to a ripe old age."
2002-2008. I broke even.
I don't know why that would interest me.
The High is a time without idealists (though it won't be that this time, but that's another point). But we are not in a high so called (a bad name for perhaps the lowest of times), but a crisis. You were talking about changes in evolution, not periods of consolidation. It happens in quantum leaps, and the only times those happen are 4Ts. Highs and 1Ts are times of initial consolidation after the leap. We are not there yet; we may never even get there. We have a lot of change to face up to, and we aren't doing it. We are headed for "extinction" as it stands now. We await the time when we might face that fact, and take the leap. It must be a progressive leap if we are to continue "evolution," as opposed to ending up like the mollusks at best. It is telling that you speak of exterior shells. That is exactly the road to being an evolutionary backwater. We need to jump out of our shells now. To go and stay inside our shell of current conventional wisdom now because we think it's safe, is exactly the road Republicans want us to take in their effort to keep us from evolving right now. It takes an idealist to say there are better roads to travel, and lay out the map.
In human evolution, idealism is not a luxury to be indulged in second turnings. Humans are not animals, and even animals have interiors that most evolution theory doesn't credit. We have minds, hearts and volition too. Action without thought and awareness is not real human action, though it may be good enough for a fish. We need to bring all of our abilities to bear on the crisis we face. So conventional evolution theory is not a very good analogy for a balance between "interior" and "exterior," since it consists only of exteriors.
It is necessary now to make the leap. Idealists are the leaders in 4Ts. We are left in chaos without a rudder without them. The point is not to abandon what idealists found that is valuable back in the period of awakening, but now to act on it. Only ideas lead to action. We won't survive without bringing the "interior" discoveries to bear on the exterior changes that are now being forced on us; things like the architecture of a green city and economy, or institutions that don't crush human beings. It is true we idealists cannot merely explore our inner selves now, though in reality the inner work is always valuable. But inner and outer are not separate. That is dysfunction; that is cartesian delusion. Solutions can only come from consciousness, ideals, and ideas put into action.
In order to know what needs to be put aside, it is necessary to crack through the shell of thinking that the way forward is bipartisan or that both sides have value. They don't, relatively speaking; it is time to choose. 4Ts are time to choose, not to hope for muddled compromises. Evolution is clear on that at least, and so is history. The way forward is not to be moderate just in order to sound nice. Only certain kinds of "boomer idealism" need to be chucked aside now; namely all the rigid religious and economic ideologies and culture wars that currently have the political system deadlocked. It is quite clear what these are; either we get the facts straight about them, toss them aside, and act on our true ideals; or we don't. It's not that hard to understand, unless you are so hooked on these ideologies that you are afraid to toss them over, now that it's time to either do so or die.
Last edited by Eric the Green; 12-17-2011 at 02:17 AM.
Oh, here we go again into you guys' magic pony land.
The MIT Billion Prices Project tracks nearly exactly with the CPI - are you now claiming that the thousands of govt workers engaged in the CPI for decades through all kinds of economic conditions and Administrations are now joined in their insidious conspiracy by the academic world?
There's absolutely no reason for all those people to lie and, even if they tried, there is no way that it would not have been revealed with that many people over that many decades. More than any other data set that any skeptic has EVER put forward, the CPI data and methodology is out there and poured over nearly constantly. What we have are experts attempting to do the best that can be done at capturing a difficult economic phenomena and it's pretty idiotic to think a bonehead like you is going to come up with something that they have missed or not considered let alone any valid alternative.
Think about it for a change instead of just mouthing the same old bullshit. Yea, it was cool to look like a heretic maybe 20-30 years ago; now you just look dumb and closed-minded. What they measure doesn't have to capture Plato's Truth - its the change, direction and magnitude, that is important. Again, think about it for a change.
Where junior sleuths like you go amiss is right out of the starting gate as to what inflation is. While it is related to the cost-of-living, it is different. It is sustained generalized increases in prices. Yes, gasoline and food prices can go up (and down like of late), but people SUBSTITUTE other expenditures - they adjust. They don't take the trip to Disney World but instead stay home and go to the movies or the zoo. They eat out less and substitute chicken for beef. The cost of that substitution is perhaps a lower standard of living, a higher cost of living, but that is not inflation. Inflation is where everything is going up and there is little if any ability to adapt or substitute - your money is worth less ACROSS the board - not for any one, two or three components of your economic life.
What makes the distinguishing important is that it tells you a whole hell of a lot as to why prices are going up.Energy prices, particular anything related to oil, go up because there is a functioning cartel that controls much of the world's oil supply particularly at the margin, there is increasing global demand, and there is now a speculative market that has a very strong upward bias build in - it has nothing to do with federal deficits, debt, spending or the other bullshit that inflationisties throw out. Have you notice that oil/gasoline prices went crazy a couple of years ago but since have dropped or stayed at worst level? That's not sustained price increasing, that's not inflation. And those price increases had a lot to do with Middle East instability and China coming on strong - that's not inflation caused by either US monetary or fiscal policies.
Food and commodity prices are like oil with whatever increases there has been are attributable to supply issues and to global demand. And prices are now coming down or at least stabilizing. That is not inflation.
Medical costs? Really? You really thing that has anything to do with generalize price increases caused by govt deficits or debt? That's just ignorant of what is going on around you.
This old Austrian inflationistie crap is no longer relevant (if it ever was). We've been off the gold standard completely since 1971. The guys who preach this stuff are closed-minded dinosaurs with a young audience that has known nothing but the neo-liberal economic propaganda of the last 40 years. You need to wake up and start doing some real independent thinking, starting with throwing out this worn-out skepticism of CPI data and magic pony numbers that you all never seem able to produce.
You need some independent thought, Indy.
"The Devil enters the prompter's box and the play is ready to start" - R. Service
“It’s not tax money. The banks have accounts with the Fed … so, to lend to a bank, we simply use the computer to mark up the size of the account that they have with the Fed. It’s much more akin to printing money.” - B.Bernanke
"Keep your filthy hands off my guns while I decide what you can & can't do with your uterus" - Sarah Silverman
If you meet a magic pony on the road, kill it. - Playwrite
Perhaps a shorter post makes clearer my response to you Chas.
What we need to arrive at a good "high," is as big an evolutionary leap during the 4T as possible. The bigger the leap, the greater the progress, the greater will our High be. Just the opposite of what Meeker says, if I understand the point.
That doesn't mean we leap blindly, with impractical solutions. It means we leap with greater consciousness-- just what evolution cannot account for, and the strong suit of idealists at least archetypally. Human evolution and progress does not correspond to the model of evolution as the "conservative" struggle for mere survival.
And by bringing all of our abilities, interior and exterior, to bear on our actions, maybe that's what the "conservative" part is. To paraphrase the atheist philosopher I referred to before, that is to at least use all the abilities that evolution has given you. That philosopher was Christopher Hitchens, a member of my cohort who died yesterday.
Last edited by Eric the Green; 12-17-2011 at 05:12 AM.
