American Democracy in serious danger

Any topic that doesn't fit elsewhere.
User avatar
Goliath
Diamond Edition
Posts: 4749
Joined: Tue Dec 09, 2008 5:35 pm
Location: The Netherlands

Post by Goliath »

dvdjunkie wrote:If you saw President Obama on 60 Minutes last night you will see the image of a man who just doesn't get it. With all the Democrats getting voted out of their seats, he is still talking about compromise, and believe me, it isn't going to happen.
And whose fault do you suppose that is? If you were to believe the right-wing media pundits, Obama should now "start" with bipartisanship and seeking compromise. But that's what he did ever since he became president. He watered down all important pieces of legislation in hopes of getting Republicans to go along with it. But what did the Republicans do? They voted against everything he proposed. Republicans explicitly stated that their mission was to work against the president. So if bipartisanship fails, it's not Obama who's to blame.
dvdjunkie wrote:Those so-called "Bush tax-cuts" are not the end of the world, but if they don't get extended, all of us, I don't care how old you are or what part of the country you live in, will be affected very negatively. And then all the whining will start.
That's ridiculous. Working and middle class people are in no way negatively affected when the tax cuts for the richest 1% of the country expire. In fact, it will be good for them. The Bush tax cuts were unfunded. They were never paid for. The were simply put on America's collective credit card and the next generation can pay them off. The US deficit is enormous (Bush handed Obama a 300 trillion deficit) and you simply can't combat that without axing unfunded tax breaks for the super-wealthy. Why common people would want those to continue, is a mystery. It's going directly against their own economic interests.

Note to dvdjunkie: 'trickle down economics' are dead, and have never worked in the first place. The rich don't spend more or create more jobs when you give them tax breaks. They just put the extra moolah on a bank account in the Cayman Islands, so they can evade the IRS.
dvdjunkie wrote:Those of you who call yourself Conservatives should look at the whole picture, and those who claim they are Conservative Democrats should quit lying to themselves, because there has never been and never will be a Conservative Democrat, only Liberals who enjoy spending other people's money with nothing to show for it.
The only ones who spend other people's money, were the Bush cabal when they were in office. Handed a handsome $ 125 billion dollar *surplus* by Clinton, Bush turned it into an over $ 300 billion *deficit*. He did it by giving tax cuts to the wealthiest 1% of the country; and starting two wars that didn't need to be fought and put them on the creditcard. They were literally not paid for, by waged with borrowed money. Thanks to the conservatives, the US now owes a couple billion dollars to coummunist China. The conservative Bush administration borrowed more money than *all previous administrations combined*.

Who's going to pay for that? You are! The regular people are going to pay for it, and their children and their childrens' children. Because of irresponsible big spending from the conservatives.
dvdjunkie wrote:I will not argue with anyone, anytme, anywhere, about Politics or Religion.
So you'll just drop a turd and then run away in hiding? Typically conservative! :roll:
User avatar
Super Aurora
Diamond Edition
Posts: 4835
Joined: Wed Oct 04, 2006 7:59 am

Post by Super Aurora »

this was amusing:

Bush: My worst moment was when Kanye called me a 'racist'
George Bush's "all time low" as US president was when he was called a racist by a rapper after Hurricane Katrina in 2005, he has disclosed.

During a televised concert to raise money for victims of the disaster, Kanye West said: "George Bush doesn't care about black people."

Writing in his memoirs Decision Points, released next Tuesday, Mr Bush recalled how he told his wife Laura that it was "the worst moment of my presidency".

Advertisement: Story continues below
He said: "I faced a lot of criticism as president. I didn't like hearing people claim that I lied about Iraq's weapons of mass destruction, or cut taxes to benefit the rich. But the suggestion that I was racist because of the response to Katrina represented an all-time low."

In an interview to promote the book, Mr Bush said the words still stung him. "He called me a racist. I didn't appreciate it then. I don't appreciate it now," he said.

"It's one thing to say, 'I don't appreciate the way he's handled his business.' It's another thing to say, 'This man's a racist.' I resent it, it's not true. It was a disgusting moment, pure and simple."

Mr Bush said he had been deeply affected by the misery caused by the hurricane, adding: "My heart broke at the sight of helpless people trapped on their rooftops waiting to be rescued."

He expressed regret for having flown over New Orleans in the presidential jet while much of the city was under water.

"The photo of my hovering over the damage suggested I was detached from the suffering on the ground," he said. "That wasn't how I felt. But once the public impression was formed, I couldn't change it."

Separately, Mr Bush, who gave up alcohol aged 40, also discussed his drinking.

He said: "I could easily have a beer or two, or a martini, before dinner, bourbons, B and Bs [Benedictine and brandy]. I was a drinker. It became a love and, therefore, began to compete for my love with my wife and my daughters."

He described once being drunk at the dinner table with his parents George and Barbara Bush in Maine and loudly asking one of their friends, "What is sex like after 50?" before getting "serious daggers" from his mother, and his wife.

Mr Bush confirmed that he personally approved the use of waterboarding against Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the self-described mastermind of the September 11 terrorist attacks.

The former president said the CIA asked him if it could use the technique, a form of simulated drowning, to gain details of terrorist plots and his reply was, "Damn right."

He said he would take the same decision again to save lives.

The CIA has since dropped the practice and President Barack Obama has described it as an act of torture that broke international law. Human rights lawyers said Mr Bush's admission could have legal consequences but a prosecution was unlikely.

The former president also said he felt "blindsided" when photographs emerged of abuse of Iraqi prisoners at Abu Ghraib in Iraq. He became aware of them only when they were broadcast on American television.
The Telegraph, London
http://www.theage.com.au/entertainment/ ... 17gna.html
<i>Please limit signatures to 100 pixels high and 500 pixels wide</i>
http://i1338.photobucket.com/albums/o68 ... ecf3d2.gif
User avatar
Goliath
Diamond Edition
Posts: 4749
Joined: Tue Dec 09, 2008 5:35 pm
Location: The Netherlands

Post by Goliath »

Bush: My worst moment was when Kanye called me a 'racist'

During a televised concert to raise money for victims of the disaster, Kanye West said: "George Bush doesn't care about black people."
The addition 'black' was unneccesary.

So Bush's worst moment was not flying over Katrina (three days after the disaster, because he couldn't be bothered to cancel his vacation trip to celebrate McCain's birthday), seeing all those people in trouble, houses flooded away, people without water and food for days? And it wasn't the moment where he realized he had been warned about Katrina by specialists days ahead and decided to not do anything? But it was the moment he was dissed by a rapper?
"I faced a lot of criticism as president. I didn't like hearing people claim that I lied about Iraq's weapons of mass destruction, or cut taxes to benefit the rich.
Liars typically don't like being called a liar.
Mr Bush said he had been deeply affected by the misery caused by the hurricane, adding: "My heart broke at the sight of helpless people trapped on their rooftops waiting to be rescued."
Mr Bush then continued: "But hey, what did they expect me to do? I was only president at that time. I mean, I had already appointed my former college roomate Michael Brown as head of FEMA. I knew he had the credentials, because his former job was head of the Arabian Horses Association. How can you top that? He did a heck of a job."
"The photo of my hovering over the damage suggested I was detached from the suffering on the ground," he said. "That wasn't how I felt. But once the public impression was formed, I couldn't change it."
Mr Bush went on to say: "It's not my fault. It was just that darn press. They made me fly over New Orleans just to get a gotcha-moment. Just like when they filmed me when I sat on my ass for nine minutes in a Florida classroom when Al Qu'aida had just hit the Twin Towers. They made me sit there and not get up to do something you'd expect from a president."
Separately, Mr Bush, who gave up alcohol aged 40, also discussed his drinking. He said: "I could easily have a beer or two, or a martini, before dinner, bourbons, B and Bs [Benedictine and brandy]. I was a drinker. It became a love and, therefore, began to compete for my love with my wife and my daughters."
Laughing, he adds: "But that's nothing compared to all the coke I did back in college! Coke was better, too, 'cause I was never caught driving under influence of coke, like I was caught when I was drunk."
He described once being drunk at the dinner table with his parents George and Barbara Bush in Maine and loudly asking one of their friends, "What is sex like after 50?" before getting "serious daggers" from his mother, and his wife.
Poppy must be so proud of his son.
Mr Bush confirmed that he personally approved the use of waterboarding against Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the self-described mastermind of the September 11 terrorist attacks.
Which offically confirms that the Bush administration violated the Bill of Rights and the Geneva Conventions. Can we prosecute now, finally?

Oh, wait, what am I silly? American presidents never get prosecuted for their crimes. They're above the law! Silly me, I had just forgotten, never mind.
The CIA has since dropped the practice and President Barack Obama has described it as an act of torture that broke international law.
Under Obama, waterboarding isn't done anymore by the CIA or American military. They have it done by Egypt, Jordanian or Saudi intelligence agencies instead. Tsk, tsk, even the torture gets outsourced these days...
The former president also said he felt "blindsided" when photographs emerged of abuse of Iraqi prisoners at Abu Ghraib in Iraq. He became aware of them only when they were broadcast on American television.
Mr Bush said of this: "I saw them for the first time on tv, because I never bothered to look at them for months, when I sat on them. After all, Rummy, who gave them to me, had told me they were nothing important, so I figured: why bother?"
dvdjunkie
Signature Collection
Posts: 5613
Joined: Wed Nov 10, 2004 10:05 am
Location: Wichita, Kansas

Post by dvdjunkie »

Let's put a stop to all this bickering, the elections are over and now it on with life and we know it.

First on the agenda should writing our representatives and having them pass "The Fair Tax". It's time has come and everyone gets a break.

Read the book "The Fair Tax" by Neal Boortz and it is plain English so everyone can understand. Doesn't matter whether you are a Donkey or an Elephant, this book should be read by all, and then we should, as the people who are represented by those who are in office, let our representatives know how we feel.

:D
The only way to watch movies - Original Aspect Ratio!!!!
I LOVE my Blu-Ray Disc Player!
User avatar
Goliath
Diamond Edition
Posts: 4749
Joined: Tue Dec 09, 2008 5:35 pm
Location: The Netherlands

Post by Goliath »

dvdjunkie wrote:Let's put a stop to all this bickering, the elections are over and now it on with life and we know it.
I wasn't bickering at all. You brought up some things that aren't even remotely true, then you say you don't want to discuss them. If you don't want to discuss something on a discussion forum, you shouldn't have written anything.
dvdjunkie wrote:First on the agenda should writing our representatives and having them pass "The Fair Tax". It's time has come and everyone gets a break.
Agreed. The tax rate for people making over $ 250,000 a year should be raised to at least 50%. That would be a 'Fair Tax'.
User avatar
Goliath
Diamond Edition
Posts: 4749
Joined: Tue Dec 09, 2008 5:35 pm
Location: The Netherlands

Post by Goliath »

Why made-up bullshit doesn't get debunked anymore ("I read it on the internet!") ... and why it's dangerous to democracy (politicians basing their platforms on it):

<object width="480" height="385"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube-nocookie.com/v/yBxzM ... ram><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube-nocookie.com/v/yBxzM ... 1&hl=nl_NL" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="480" height="385"></embed></object>
User avatar
Super Aurora
Diamond Edition
Posts: 4835
Joined: Wed Oct 04, 2006 7:59 am

Post by Super Aurora »

Goliath wrote:
Bush: My worst moment was when Kanye called me a 'racist'

During a televised concert to raise money for victims of the disaster, Kanye West said: "George Bush doesn't care about black people."
The addition 'black' was unneccesary.

So Bush's worst moment was not flying over Katrina (three days after the disaster, because he couldn't be bothered to cancel his vacation trip to celebrate McCain's birthday), seeing all those people in trouble, houses flooded away, people without water and food for days? And it wasn't the moment where he realized he had been warned about Katrina by specialists days ahead and decided to not do anything? But it was the moment he was dissed by a rapper?
"I faced a lot of criticism as president. I didn't like hearing people claim that I lied about Iraq's weapons of mass destruction, or cut taxes to benefit the rich.
Liars typically don't like being called a liar.
Mr Bush said he had been deeply affected by the misery caused by the hurricane, adding: "My heart broke at the sight of helpless people trapped on their rooftops waiting to be rescued."
Mr Bush then continued: "But hey, what did they expect me to do? I was only president at that time. I mean, I had already appointed my former college roomate Michael Brown as head of FEMA. I knew he had the credentials, because his former job was head of the Arabian Horses Association. How can you top that? He did a heck of a job."
"The photo of my hovering over the damage suggested I was detached from the suffering on the ground," he said. "That wasn't how I felt. But once the public impression was formed, I couldn't change it."
Mr Bush went on to say: "It's not my fault. It was just that darn press. They made me fly over New Orleans just to get a gotcha-moment. Just like when they filmed me when I sat on my ass for nine minutes in a Florida classroom when Al Qu'aida had just hit the Twin Towers. They made me sit there and not get up to do something you'd expect from a president."
Separately, Mr Bush, who gave up alcohol aged 40, also discussed his drinking. He said: "I could easily have a beer or two, or a martini, before dinner, bourbons, B and Bs [Benedictine and brandy]. I was a drinker. It became a love and, therefore, began to compete for my love with my wife and my daughters."
Laughing, he adds: "But that's nothing compared to all the coke I did back in college! Coke was better, too, 'cause I was never caught driving under influence of coke, like I was caught when I was drunk."
He described once being drunk at the dinner table with his parents George and Barbara Bush in Maine and loudly asking one of their friends, "What is sex like after 50?" before getting "serious daggers" from his mother, and his wife.
Poppy must be so proud of his son.
Mr Bush confirmed that he personally approved the use of waterboarding against Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the self-described mastermind of the September 11 terrorist attacks.
Which offically confirms that the Bush administration violated the Bill of Rights and the Geneva Conventions. Can we prosecute now, finally?

Oh, wait, what am I silly? American presidents never get prosecuted for their crimes. They're above the law! Silly me, I had just forgotten, never mind.
The CIA has since dropped the practice and President Barack Obama has described it as an act of torture that broke international law.
Under Obama, waterboarding isn't done anymore by the CIA or American military. They have it done by Egypt, Jordanian or Saudi intelligence agencies instead. Tsk, tsk, even the torture gets outsourced these days...
The former president also said he felt "blindsided" when photographs emerged of abuse of Iraqi prisoners at Abu Ghraib in Iraq. He became aware of them only when they were broadcast on American television.
Mr Bush said of this: "I saw them for the first time on tv, because I never bothered to look at them for months, when I sat on them. After all, Rummy, who gave them to me, had told me they were nothing important, so I figured: why bother?"


Image
<i>Please limit signatures to 100 pixels high and 500 pixels wide</i>
http://i1338.photobucket.com/albums/o68 ... ecf3d2.gif
User avatar
ajmrowland
Signature Collection
Posts: 8177
Joined: Fri Jan 16, 2009 10:19 pm
Location: Appleton, WI

Post by ajmrowland »

has anybody seen my faith in American Democracy? Icant seem to find it anywhere. It must be hiding, the little rascal.
Image
User avatar
Goliath
Diamond Edition
Posts: 4749
Joined: Tue Dec 09, 2008 5:35 pm
Location: The Netherlands

Post by Goliath »

GEORGE W. BUSH ON HIS BOOK TOUR:

Image
User avatar
jpanimation
Anniversary Edition
Posts: 1841
Joined: Mon Sep 07, 2009 12:00 am

Post by jpanimation »

Goliath wrote:
dvdjunkie wrote:First on the agenda should writing our representatives and having them pass "The Fair Tax". It's time has come and everyone gets a break.
Agreed. The tax rate for people making over $ 250,000 a year should be raised to at least 50%. That would be a 'Fair Tax'.
Fairness is an equal set of rules and playing field, not equal results. Whenever you make exceptions, it's not fair. The only way to be fair is for everyone to play the same game, no exceptions.

This is why I'll never understand socialists. When they play Monopoly, do they keep changing the rules so that everyone wins at the end in their twisted version of fairness (well, since everyone winning isn't sustainable, it would be more like everyone loosing)?

Sorry for being so late to the punch, but I haven't been on the forums very much lately.
Image
User avatar
Goliath
Diamond Edition
Posts: 4749
Joined: Tue Dec 09, 2008 5:35 pm
Location: The Netherlands

Post by Goliath »

jpanimation wrote:Fairness is an equal set of rules and playing field, not equal results. Whenever you make exceptions, it's not fair. The only way to be fair is for everyone to play the same game, no exceptions.
It's not fair for billionaires to pay the same amount/percentage of taxes as anybody else. Why should people who were born rich, or who inhereted a lot of money, or somebody who got rich from ripping off the common people (like the mobsters on Wall Street) pay the same amount of taxes as the working class? Doesn't seem fair to me at all.
jpanimation wrote:This is why I'll never understand socialists. When they play Monopoly, do they keep changing the rules so that everyone wins at the end in their twisted version of fairness (well, since everyone winning isn't sustainable, it would be more like everyone loosing)?
I don't think social justic is "twisted". I don't think taking care of the poor and disabled is "twisted". I don't think providing education to everybody is "twisted". I don't think providing healthcare to everybody is "twisted". I believe those are all basic human rights. In fact, I think they're even listed as such in the UN's Human Rights Declarations. For this to happen, everybody has to pay his share of taxes, and those who can afford to pay should pay more. That is fair. That is just.

Why anybody would call that "twisted", is beyond me. Only a super-capitalist would call it that. Somebody who thinks it's unfair to let superbillionaires pay more taxes than a single mom working three jobs just to feed her kids, is being cruel, in my opinion. I could understand why a billionaire himself would think like this. He would just be an egoistic pig. But regular people defending the same corporate bastards that caused the financial crises; the filthy rich who have been shipping jobs overseas and layed off people, just to get even richer...? No, I'll never understand that. Because *that's* what's "twisted".

You wanna understand socialists? I think this gives you an accurate picture of the way socialists see society as it is now --not the way they would want it to be (that goes for me, at least):

Image
User avatar
ajmrowland
Signature Collection
Posts: 8177
Joined: Fri Jan 16, 2009 10:19 pm
Location: Appleton, WI

Post by ajmrowland »

<object width="480" height="385"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/WCkOmcIl79s?fs ... ram><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/WCkOmcIl79s?fs=1&hl=en_US" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="480" height="385"></embed></object>
Image
Jilted

Post by Jilted »

You really must redefine the word "democracy", there is no such thing. Some countries are more democratic then others but that's about it...
User avatar
Goliath
Diamond Edition
Posts: 4749
Joined: Tue Dec 09, 2008 5:35 pm
Location: The Netherlands

Post by Goliath »

I had to report this to y'all.
16 of the Dumbest Things Americans Believe -- And the Right-Wing Lies Behind Them

[...]

- Polling data during and after last week’s midterm elections suggested that many Americans genuinely believe Obama has raised their taxes -- even though the reality is that our president actually lowered them for most of us. This means that people trust pundits like Rush Limbaugh, a major force behind spreading that lie, over the numbers on their own tax returns. [...]

- The new Congress will probably try to restore millions of dollars of funding for scientifically-inaccurate, largely disastrous abstinence-only curriculum in schools, many of which have been shown to spread lies like "condoms don't work" and "abortion causes cancer." [...]

The scary thing is, these kinds of rumors have a way of taking root in the popular consciousness. Just as the election season began heating up earlier this year, Newsweek published a list of “Dumb Things Americans Believe.” While some of them are garden-variety lunacy, a surprising number are lies that were fed to Americans by our leaders on the far Right. This demonstrates that media-fed lies can easily become ingrained in the collective memory if they’re not countered quickly and surely. [...]

- Earlier this year, nearly 40% of Americans still believed the Sarah Palin-supported lie about “Death Panels” being included in health care reform.

- As of just a few years ago, about half of Americans still suspected a connection between Saddam Hussein and the attacks of September 11th, a lie that was reinforced by none other than Dick Cheney. [...]

- Only about half of Americans realize that Judaism is the oldest of the three monotheistic religions. Other examples of wild misunderstanding about religion and the separation of church and state can be found in this fall’s Pew survey on Americans’ religious knowledge. [...]

- More Americans can identify the Three Stooges than the three branches of government--you know, the ones who are jockeying over our welfare..

So what to do in a political and cultural landscape in which well-told lies have more validity than fact-based truth? Perlstein explained how this environment gets created by explaining what happened on election day this year:

“...by a two-to-one margin likely voters thought their taxes had gone up, when, for almost all of them, they had actually gone down. Republican politicians, and conservative commentators, told them Barack Obama was a tax-mad lunatic. They lied. The mainstream media did not do their job and correct them. The White House was too polite—"civil," just like Obama promised—to say much. So people believed the lie.”
More: http://www.alternet.org/story/148826/16 ... hem?page=1


So, you all fed up with the mainstream media? If I hear you all in this thread, you are. That's why I think you'll like this interview Rachel Maddow had with Jon Stewart. It's about Jon's criticism of mainstream media and why it sucks --with somebody who is almost single-handedly fighting that *in* the media...

Stewart has been criticized lately because he supposedly falsely equated the crazy left fringe with the crazy right mainstream, and Fox with liberal media. (I said that too, but after watching this, I think different about it once again...) He doesn't think he did. For once on tv not a shouting match, but a thoughtful conversation...

<object width="480" height="385"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube-nocookie.com/v/vu_hE ... ram><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube-nocookie.com/v/vu_hE ... 1&hl=en_US" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="480" height="385"></embed></object>

Part 2: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UunPJgBlT7U
Part 3: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6jql0OinUiQ
Part 4: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PgvVMlQbSMU
User avatar
ajmrowland
Signature Collection
Posts: 8177
Joined: Fri Jan 16, 2009 10:19 pm
Location: Appleton, WI

Post by ajmrowland »

:cry:
Image
User avatar
The_Iceflash
Anniversary Edition
Posts: 1809
Joined: Tue Dec 23, 2008 7:56 am
Location: USA

Post by The_Iceflash »

ajmrowland wrote::cry:
What's the matter?
User avatar
ajmrowland
Signature Collection
Posts: 8177
Joined: Fri Jan 16, 2009 10:19 pm
Location: Appleton, WI

Post by ajmrowland »

america's fucked, that's what.
Image
User avatar
Goliath
Diamond Edition
Posts: 4749
Joined: Tue Dec 09, 2008 5:35 pm
Location: The Netherlands

Post by Goliath »

Who said MSNBC was a 'liberal' station? Who said Keith Olbermann was 'the leftwing equivalent of Bill O'Reilly'? There hasn't been as much criticism of a Republican president on Fox News ever, as there was criticism of a Democratic president in just 11 minutes on Countdown:

Keith Olbermann destroys Obama and Democrats over caving in on tax breaks for the rich (transcript below)

<object width="480" height="385"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube-nocookie.com/v/HW3a7 ... ram><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube-nocookie.com/v/HW3a7 ... 1&hl=en_US" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="480" height="385"></embed></object>

Wow! Much deserved, but still... wow. :o

Right now, the tax breaks deal is being fillibustered by self-acclaimed socialist Rep. Bernie Sanders! :)

TRANSCRIPT:

Finally tonight as promised, a Special Comment on the tax compromise.

To paraphrase Churchill, again, let me begin by saying the most unpopular and most unwelcome thing: "that we have sustained a defeat without a war, the consequences of which will travel far with us along our road. We should know that we have passed an awful milestone in our history, when the whole equilibrium of American politics and policy have been deranged, and that the terrible words have for the time being, been pronounced against this Administration: 'thou art weighed in the balance and found wanting'."

In exchange for selling out a principle campaign pledge, and the people to whom and for whom it was made. In exchange for betraying the truth that the idle and corporate rich of this country have gotten unprecedented and wholly indefensible tax cuts for a decade. In exchange for giving the idle and corporate rich of this country two more years in which to accumulate still more, and more vast piles of personal wealth with which they can buy and sell everybody else.

In exchange for extending what he spent the weeks before the mid-terms calling "tax cuts for millionaires and billionaires" to people who have proven, without a scintilla of doubt, without even a fig leaf of phony effort to make it look like they would do otherwise, that they will keep the money for themselves.

In exchange for injecting new vigor into the infantile, moronic, disproved-for-a-decade three-card monte game of an economic theory purveyed by these treacherous and ultimately traitorous Republicans, that tax cuts for the rich will somehow lead to job creation even though if that had ever been true in the slightest the economy would not be where it is today.

In exchange for giving tax cuts for the rich which the nation cannot afford, and extending their vintage through the next election and thus promising at best a reenactment of this whole sorry, amoral, degrading spectacle in the winter of 2012 and at worst a rubber-stamp from a wholly Republican House and Senate and even White House.

In exchange for this searing and transcendent capitulation, the President got just thirteen months of extended benefits for those unemployed less than 100 weeks. And he got nothing absolutely nothing for those unemployed for longer — the 99ers.

This the Administration is celebrating — taking the victims of Republican Economic Policy, taking the living breathing proof that the Bush Tax Cuts for the rich do not create jobs, and putting economic bullseyes on their backs as of next December.

On the one hand— Unaffordable Tax breaks for the beneficiariesof the Bush tax cuts, made ever more permanent as they threaten to suck four trillion dollars out of government revenues in the next decade.

On the other hand: An insufficient dead-end unemployment solution for Americans who would actually work for a living, made ever more temporary.

And we are hearing nothing about those 99ers. Even though the numbers of them will balloon from two million to four million or more by next December, even with this deal. Even though just last Thursday, the President's own Council of Economic Advisers reiterated the reality that the easiest way to create jobs and keep jobs is to make sure that the unemployed continue to have money to spend.

The unemployed — unlike the rich whom this President has just bowed to are, in fact, the job creators. They do not have investment portfolios to expand. They do not have vast savings into which to stuff the government checks. They have to spend the money. And the Council reported last week that when someone becomes a 99er his or her household loses at least a third of its income.

And where the 99er was the sole breadwinner — four households out of ten — they lose 9/10ths of their income.

The economy is surprisingly simple. If business and the rich won't spend, and the middle class can't spend, the only factor left to keep pushing money into the insatiable maw of capitalism is the government.

So, should the government give the money to the rich who keep it, or the not rich, who spend it? Apparently this President does not know the answer to that question. Even though he has his own Council of Economic Advisers.

Mr. President, for these meager crumbs, you have given up costly, insulting, divisive, destructive tax cuts for the rich and you have given in to Republican blackmail which will be followed by more Republican blackmail. Of course, it's not just tax cuts for the rich that you've given up.

There is also your new temporary payroll tax holiday, establishing a precedent that the way money is pumped into Social Security should be negotiated and traded off and making it just that much easier to gut Social Security later.

And, oh by the way, in the middle of a crisis over making temporary Republican tax cuts permanent, you give the Republicans another temporary Republican tax cut that they can come back later to blackmail you into making permanent. Well, Sir, at least that's the end of it.
Except, of course, for the estate tax, what Republicans so happily call, "the death tax." Which will be reduced from its 2009 levels.

Huh?

The money given by one dead rich person to some living rich persons, will not be taxed, up to five million dollars. More than five million and it's 35 percent — which is less than it was under the tax laws of President Bush's last fiscal year. Sir, you have given undeserved tax breaks —and you have carved them a little more deeply into the stone of law - to rich people, living and dead. And you want me to tell them which Democrat proposed the Estate Tax giveaway?

Blanche Lincoln! Blanche Lincoln, repudiated by nearly half the Arkansans in her own party, and then repudiated by 63 percent of the voters in Arkansas. Mr. President, you're listening to Blanche Lincoln? What? Were Bob Beckel and Pat Caddell unavailable?

This President negotiates down from a position of strength better than any politician in our recent history. It is too late now to go back and ask why the President, why the wobbly Democratic leadership, whiffed on its chance to force John Boehner to put his money where his mouth was. In September Boehner said if he had no other option, of course he would vote to extend tax breaks only for the middle class.

So the President and the Democrats gave him another option, naturally. But didn't extending the Bush Tax Cuts for the wealthy became necessary to get Republican support for extending the jobless benefits? Nonsense.

Five times in the last two years, the Republicans have gone along with extending those jobless benefits, and they've done it without being bribed with tax cuts for the rich. Even now Boehner's September confession, and the GOP's unwillingness to take the blame for killing off jobless benefits, offered an alternative blueprint for this President:

Let the law expire as scheduled in 24 days. Let all the tax breaks go, and when the Republicans take over the House and try to pass them anew, if they somehow are not stopped in the Senate, veto anything that does not keep tax cuts for the middle class and unemployment benefits as the dog, and perks for the rich as the tail. The GOP is still terrified of being blamed for cutting off the unemployed. You take that fact and you break them with it.

There is only one possible rational explanation for this irrational and childish transaction. There are Republicans and Tea Partiers who are still intent on cutting off their noses to spite their faces — the "Blind Rage Conservatives" for whom any compromise is disaster, just as for this President, apparently no compromise is disaster.

Maybe the reason the Administration's numbers don't add up in this deal is that it was too busy instead counting votes and there really are enough on the Far Right to sink it and the President winds up having his cake and eating it too, proposing what he can call a "tax compromise" and then having it derailed publicly and embarrassingly by the Republicans. Maybe the political calculus here exceeds both in priority and quality, the real calculus.

But I deeply doubt it. Yesterday I had an exchange with a very Senior member of this Administration who wanted to sell me on this deal. I pointed out that that was fine, except that — as I phrased it to him — "frankly the base has just vanished." "Well," he replied, "then they must not have read the details." There, in a nutshell, is this Administration. They didn't make a bad deal — we just don't understand it.

Just as it was our fault, Mr President, for not understanding your refusal of even the most perfunctory of investigations of rendition or domestic spying or the other crimes of the Bush Administration, or why you have now established for those future Administrations who want to repeat those crimes, that the punishment for them will be nothing.

Just as it was our fault, Mr. President, for not understanding Afghanistan. Just as we didn't correctly perceive, Sir, the necessity for the continuation of Gitmo. Or how we failed to intuit, President Obama, your preemptive abandonment of Single Payer and the Public Option. Or how we couldn't have foreseen your foot-dragging on "Don't ask, don't tell." Just as we shouldn't have gotten you angry at your news conference today and made all the moderate Democrats wonder why in the hell you get publicly angry so often at the liberals who campaigned for you and whether you might save just a touch of that sarcasm and that self-martyrdom for the Republicans.

And of course, Mr. President how we totally betrayed your Administration by not concluding our prayers every night by saying "Thank you for preventing another Great Depression, you are entitled to skate along on your own wonderfulness indefinitely and if you get less than you could have on Health Care Reform or taxes, well, that'll be okay, we're happy to pay $10,000 for a $300 car because hey, it could've been $20,000, right? And because we only expect you to do one thing correctly during a presidency and you had pretty much cleared that obligation when it proved that you were, indeed, not John McCain."

We are very very sorry. In some sense, the Senior Member's remark about how we "did not read the details" is not utterly absurd. We have enabled this President, and his compromises-spinning-within-compromises. And now there are, finally, those within his own party who have said "enough." In the Senate, the Independent, Mr. Sanders has threatened to filibuster this deal. He deserves the support of every American in doing so, as does Mr. Conyers and Mr. McDermott and the others in the house. It is not disloyalty to the Democratic party to tell a Democratic president he is wrong; it is not disloyalty to tell him he is goddamned wrong.

It is not disloyalty for the 99ers and the 99ers-to-be to rally in the streets of Washington. It is not disloyalty to remind the President that he was elected by people to whom he had given a clear outline of what he would do for them, and if he does not steer out of the skid of what he is doing to them, he will not only not be re-elected, he may not even be re-nominated.

It is not disloyalty to remind him that we are not bound to an individual. We are bound to principles. If the individual changes, or fails often and needlessly, then we get a new man. Or woman. None of that is disloyalty. It is self-defense. It is the acknowledgment that, as my hero Thurber wrote, you might as well fall flat on your face as lean over too far backwards.

That is what the base is saying to this President, about his Presidency. "Well, then, (we) must not have read the details." The Churchill quotation — as opposed to the quotation from the very Senior member of your Administration, Mr. President — is from October 5th, 1938.

I don't want to make any true comparison to the historical event to which it related; the viewer can go ahead and look it up if they wish; I will confess I won't fight if anybody wants to draw a comparison between what you've done with our domestic politics of our day, to what Neville Chamberlain did with the international politics of his.

The rest of what Churchill said, paraphrased — but only slightly paraphrased — bears repeating again. The terrible words have for the time being, been pronounced against this Administration: "Thou art weighed in the balance and found wanting." And do not suppose that this is the end. This is only the beginning of the reckoning. This is only the first sip, the first foretaste of a bitter cup which will be proffered to us year by year unless by a supreme recovery of moral health and political vigor, we arise again and take our stand for what is right.
Maerj
Collector's Edition
Posts: 2748
Joined: Sun Apr 20, 2003 11:31 pm
Location: Ephrata, PA
Contact:

Post by Maerj »

ajmrowland wrote:america's fucked, that's what.
And it will continue to be until we stand up and fight to bring it back, in any way possible. Don't cry about it, get mad about it.
dvdjunkie
Signature Collection
Posts: 5613
Joined: Wed Nov 10, 2004 10:05 am
Location: Wichita, Kansas

Post by dvdjunkie »

Just hang on till the next election period and then don't vote for any incumbents and get rid of the left-wing liberals and get this country back on its feet. The American voters were force-fed a bunch of Democratic crap in 2008 and now we are paying the price for it. An incompetent President, and the rest of the higher up mucky mucks have led us down this path to ruin.

We all need to stand up for what we believe, and vote for those reps who have the same beliefs and moral standards that we do, and we can get this country back on its feet.

Just pray that Obama is a one-term President and we can get someone in Washington who cares about everyone in this country and not just those who can line his coffers with extra cash to spend needlessly on unwanted government spending.
The only way to watch movies - Original Aspect Ratio!!!!
I LOVE my Blu-Ray Disc Player!
Post Reply