1. Off-topic continuance of conversation from Libyan Situation thread
2. RANN Says: Obama soft on Republicans and Dems are Pussies but there's hope.
3. Me: Totally agree except no hope - see election 2004 + Healthcare sux.
4. RANN: Democrats are misty-eyed hippies.
5. Me: LOL Totally no wat u meen + watch the weiner vids. Here's a cool story about a ty customer service I got from a land-lord. (lol ty) Dems liek my landlord. Also here's a long post from this guy I agree with
6. Dude's post says, "Well meaning Americans are consistently fooled into voting against their own interests."
7. Me: Republicans are only in it for themselves at the expense of others.
quote:
Originally posted by DJ RANN
Oh man, sorry to hear it Eddie.
MI gets so royally pounded by corporation, and then they you even more when the economy tanks.
The only part of industry that does well there is defense contract manufacturing and military aerospace engineering, which is so weighted towards making very small numbers of people perversely wealthy it's probably not worth having in your state, especially with the corporate lobbying and control that goes with it.
I'm quietly confident about there being more blue states, come the next election. The shift from the last election to republican has not helped those states that did so, and unlike the situation with Bush, where he just over rode everything, they can't blame Obama for keeping them down or not letting him work with them.
on the contrary, Obama has been too keep to try to partner and help the other side, when what he really needed to do ram it up their manginas, whether they liked it not, and make them say thanks afterwards.
I think we're going to see the usual swing states, swing back to blue, and the usual blue seats, that were lost in 2010, go back to blue.
The more the republicans pull, the more ing bat and desperate they look.
Did you hear Santorum stating today that social security problems could be solved if there were tighter controls and less access to abortions, so we could have more population in the USA and could pay more people to look after the retired. I mean seriously, WTF.
I've heard of going for the old vote but me, that's a new level bull right there.
The great thing is however, is that the republicans are doing all the work for the dems to hand them a tasty election win. I can't give much credit to the dems as they're been such pussies recently, but with enemies like that you really don't have a need for friends.
All good points but I have good reason to speculate doubt about a Democratic recovery in 2012, relating to that old adage about seeing the future of someone in their past. While the Obama administration is still something of a minor miracle, in that it was a galvanized majority which got him into office, the 2010 elections demonstrated that the Democrats lack fundamental awareness that when they engage the Republicans, on any level, they're engaging them according to a false narrative which is validated by the Democrat's very participation.
I remember thinking, in the 2004 election, that the only thing the Democrats really had to do to win that election was to tell the truth. Instead, the Democrats engaged the Republicans on their level, arguing against the prevailing Republican narrative and, in essence trying to prove a negative; opposed to simply arguing to the realities of what the Bush administration had managed to pull on America. Of course it didn't help matters when some Democratic supporter furnished falsified military documents about Bush, either, as by lying the Democrats were only proving a perceived weakness in their position.
I suppose, to the credit of your argument, that Republicans have been awfully brazen, lately, essentially running pall-mall in stripping union rights and making other outlandish policies and silly claims, like the one governor who disparaged a policeman who'd given him a ticket, calling him an idiot. What scares me about it, however, is the unapologetic confidence with which these s appear to be moving. It's almost as though they know they're winning and are working up to a peak to finally push it past some point of no return where the reversal of their legislation becomes unfeasible due to even more social imbalance and chaos.
If Obama's engagement of Republicans on healthcare was worth anything, the result is evidence that Republicans aren't interested in mutually beneficial compromise. Having significant medical bills, myself, I have a hard time agreeing with John Boehner's assertion that our medical system is the best in the world. The fact is that PhRMA in conjunction with insurance companies and other private interests are so ethically compromised that it disproves Boehners thesis by default. Nevermind the fact that far more than ethics are compromised within our medical system.
quote:
Originally posted by DJ RANN
You know, I'm beginning to think the naivety and optimism of the Democrats goes with the territory; that the beliefs and values of being a liberal and democrat are at worst, an open season hunting invite for predatory politics and at best simply not compatible with with another group of people who just want to you to make personal gains, not move things forward for the general population.
I wish some hardcore Dems would come forward and seize the party. It hink they book a no bull and you too stance on their policies, the republicans would want to work with them rather than just taking them for whatever they can.
First, regarding a Democrat who I actually think is a capable fighter, I submit Anthony Weiner. There aren't enough people like him but if we're going to discuss the ideal, I can think of no better person.
Secondly, your observations about the standard Democrat's milquetoast personality remind me of an episode which, to this day, constitutes the worst customer service I've ever had. I was in my early twenties and had just moved into a new apartment. I only had time to move in before going to work and when I returned, I was looking forward to taking a shower. As fate would have it, a nearby hub in the septic line was clogged and with nowhere for feces and urine to go, it was backing up into my tub.
I went to bed, got up the next morning, and went to the manager's office on this sprawling corporate apartment building's complex. I go in, tell them, very politely, that sewage is backed up into my tub, and they assure me they'll get someone out as soon as possible but that I was welcome to use the showers in the gym facility. I work that night, come home in the wee hours of the morning hoping against hope that I can use the tub. To my glee, it's empty, save for a small, noxious stain. I run the water to rinse it out. The tub is clogged. I needed to use the bathroom, and when I flushed the toilet, a fountain of and urine shoots into the standing water of the tub. I go to bed.
I wake up, the next morning, and go to the management office. They assure me that they're trying to find someone who can come in but that it might take a couple of days so I'm welcome to use the showers in the gym. I agree, politely, to this ad hoc remedy, thinking I'll attract more flies with honey. I go to work, return home, do not lather, do not rinse, repeat.
Two days go by. Nothing. No messages on the answering machine. The sewage in my tub is five inches deep. On the third day, I politely step down to the management's office and very politely inquire as to the schedule for repairing the drain on the tub so that I don't have to share the fecal matter of up to four other people. This time, the receptionist acts put off.
With a testy impatience in her voice, she replies, "Well, you're just going to have to wait. We told you, you could use the showers in the gym. We'll call you when we can fill your work order."
At this point, any pretense of politeness vanished and I became so enraged that my jaw dropped. My body convulsed and I felt my face getting redder and redder.
"Sir, are you okay?" said the receptionist who'd pulled the pin on the hand-grenade that is Yours Truly.
"Am I okay?" I asked, excitedly. She nodded, still not quite aware of her misstep. "Am I ING OKAY?!?"
"Sir?!"
"OF COURSE I AM NOT MOTHERING OKAY!! I'VE HAD MOTHERING IN MY MOTHERING TUB FOR THE PAST FIVE GOD-DAMN DAYS AND YOU'RE TELLING ME TO USE YOUR SHOWER FACILITY IN THE ING GYM! YOU! DO YOU HAVE IN YOUR TUB, WHERE YOU LIVE? IT'S DISGUSTING. IT'S ING UNSANITARY. YOU'RE A ING IDIOT!!"
At this point, an older manager came from an office behind an old oak door and called me in there. Very quietly, she assured me that she'd fix it. It got fixed, that night, when a drunk plumber snaked the lines. He'd probably had the night off and was begged to come in.
[/COOL_STORY_BRO]
My point is that being kind and milquetoast is no excuse for being obdurate to very clear and compelling evidence that you're the target of nothing less than a series of political shake-downs, particularly when so many people are so adversely affected. Today's Democrat reminds me of the women who ran my old apartment complex. They just go through the motions and when someone comes to them with a serious issue, they don't have the sense to do anything about it.
I'm sure they're lovely people but they seem to be suffering from some form of battered spouse syndrome. Republicans do and say nasty things, leverage all sorts of bull policies, and Democrats, instead of arguing for what's right, just acquiesce with the hopes of maintaining constituent loyalty by adhering to the prevailing right-wing world view.
When they (apart from Anthony Weiner) do fight back, they do stupid like borrowing from Fox News's playbook. If there's one thing Republicans have down to a fine art it's making sure their avoidance of intellectual integrity looks good. When a Democrat calls Republican Nazis, it's about as awkward as the time my dad dressed up as a late '90's candy-raver.
Which raises a point that actually puts Democratic complacency in a bad light. For 's sake, when you have Stewart and Colbert excoriating Republicans so severely, but don't take advantage of that resource as a means of reinforcing your position, instead resorting to partial concession with Republican view-points as a part of your campaign strategy, losing the election should be the expected result.
Finally, there's this, my girlfriend found the other day, which is a post someone made on some other forum but its writer managed to put my thoughts as they relate to what appears to be a lot of Americans, down in a relatively concise essay. I've actually read the first book he mentions and find it a little perturbing that much of what Thomas Frank had to say, then, holds abundantly true, now.
You should read “What’s the Matter with Kansas” & “Deer Hunting With Jesus”. Both are great takes on a working class, anti-intellectual, redneck culture that has been convinced to consistently vote against their own best interests. I listen to my own father, who has been the victim of layoffs from corporate merger after merger, who’s had his retirement ed, who’s lost money on wall street – he’s done everything he was ‘supposed’ to do. He joined the military, went to college, had 2 kids, bought the house, invested & saved his money, worked his ing ass off all his life & he still has squat to show for it. Now as a man well into his 60s he’s feeling the wrath of age discrimination, he’s finding his skills becoming outdated & his pay & benefits today (for the last 10 years) are lower than what they’ve been in the last 30 for him. Living the american life he finds his health failing as he’s a lifetime smoker with a growing waistline.
He’s the prototypical uncultured, red-blooded american male. He slathers his streak in ketchup, votes conservatives down the line, and wants the good old days before the women, blacks and fags took over. He’s a flag waver, supports his troops, and fends for himself. He’s always bitching about how much money corporations have to spend bc of regulation & about how the upper class need a tax cut. Nothing in the world makes him angrier than “socialism” & the so-called welfare state. Working people getting needed services bothers him tremendously because a few extreme token examples get painted as degenerate leeches by the likes of AM Radio & Fox News. ANd then he’ll turn right around & support corporate subsidy for just about anything from corn to oil – b/c it “stimulates jobs” and it “trickles down”.
He refuses to recognize that we as a nation spend more money at the beckoning of corporate America than we even begin to touch what we spend on our own citizenry through what he claims is “welfare” or infrastructure. He’s a working class guy who’s been ed by the system all his life. He still puts his suit on with a kind of sad pride, every day, & goes to work downtown to phone-monkey job nowadays. He’s doing a job any body could do but he likes to pretend all his education & experience has gotten him somewhere. He’s deluded about what America’s exceptional way of life has brought him personally as he is deluded about what the world is like at large. So he denies global warming, blames the unions, blames teachers & other government workers, blames regulation, blames the EPA & the FDA, blames those struggling to make it in this world, blames the blacks, blames the immigrants, blames everyone & anyone but those at the top.
He’d rather blame fellow working people trying to grab a piece of the pie, rather than blame the crooks who deprive us all. Because somehow – be it by gender identity, racial identity, national identity, he thinks his class, his type belongs at the top. He’s the top dog! But he’s not. He’s a ******, i’m a ******, muslims are ******s and mexicans are ******s, teachers and steel workers, and farmers too. To people like the Koch Brothers, we’re all ******s and my dad can’t see that. This is an us vs them game and people like my father are ing deluded as to what side they’re on or can be on one day. Somewhere deep down inside, he admires those at the top – he wants to be them & even though he knows he’ll never be one of them, he likes to pretend.
He goes to his Applebee’s, Red Lobster & Outback & bitches about all the blacks there. I think this is important to note – it’s indicative of his whole perspective. He is the same CLASS of people as these folks, he’s spending roughly the same amount on dinner as them, but thinks things are going to hell because they are there. He doesn’t get that he IS THEM. He’s the same ing class, in the same ing boat. He’s got relatively the same education level, roughly the same pay checks, living roughly the same way of life. But he’s been convinced to fight, to hate, to dislike his own class of people & to admire & defend the class that basically owns & controls his life & all our lives. He has been perfectly trained to rail against the ‘other’.
Against feminists, environmentalists, labor movements, racial minorities, immigrants, public sector workers, union members. These people aren’t HIS brothers & sisters – they are his enemy. He’s so busy hating “otherness” that he doesn’t realize he is them – and we’re all getting ed by the same small group of people at the top. This is the same thing as him blaming unions & the welfare state. He has been indoctrinated through the years to fight amongst, to disagree with, to blame, & sometimes to outright hate people in the same boat as him. Not only kiss the ass of, but actively defend & fight on behalf of those who would take everything away from him, his wife & his family if they could make a buck on it – because he believes in an American dream & a way of life that simply doesn’t exist. He talks of freedom of those who have all the capital, but he doesn’t worry about his own freedom. He doesn’t worry about the freedom of his neighbors.
All he see’s as those liberal that take away rich people’s money are the same people telling him where he can & cannot smoke and that he should put his seatbelt on – so liberals must “hate freedom!”. Those damned reading elitist liberal communists! He has been convinced, as have many Americans – to hate their own & to defend their masters. To squabble over our petty & even cosmetic differences, rather than to unite on our common interests to fight for proper pay, benefits, rights as a consumer & as a worker, & for a clean environment. This is what happens when you have a class of people who were never taught to think for themselves, who act like reading is for fags, who are more willing to listen to hot heads like Beck & Limbaugh than to read any kind of political theorists, scientists, or economists.
This is what happens when you close your mind & you become one who’s always looking for that “other” to hate & to blame for your problems rather than to look at yourself or open your eyes to the bigger picture. People like my dad are willing to accept AM radio, Fox News talk shows, & even Fwd chain emails as official sources, & then single-handedly ignore any material the talking heads on these shows didn’t point him to. Because you can’t trust anyone but them! The ability to critically think, verify, discern the credibility of sources, to do the damned research yourself, is completely lost on these folks. That’s what these ing Tea Party & GOP talking heads hope for. They hope to god that their lies they spew get echoed in the public sphere so often that it becomes reality. That people are too dumb or too lazy to verify what they spout.
This makes it so that people who are trying to get real done have to waste our time correcting mis-truths & disinformation just to garnish the slightest bit of public support to make progress anywhere. People don’t realize how dangerous this is. Right now the economy is & had been in the ter. People are scared. People have lost their jobs & they’re angry. They have organized & mobilized into this populist “tea party”. They even think it’s a real grassroots org & dismissing the fact that they’re being led by billionaires & a corporate media. These are the angry masses that will eat up any scapegoat that their “leaders” feed them.
We’ve seen this in history before. I’m not trying to evoke Godwins Law or anything but i see a lot of correlations between the right-wing disenfranchised populist uprising here in America & a lot of what people experience in Wiemar Germany. There was a lot of angry people, scared about the loss of their jobs & an economy in bad shape. Those angry, uneducated people were looking for someone to blame. They didn’t care if they sided with a political party that would be responsible for ing them over & destroying their democracy, not to mention the massive harm they would do to other groups. No, all that mattered was they found leaders who pretended to have answers. People like quick & simple answers & fixes, certainty & shared anger.
That’s what the Nazi Party gave them. That’s what the Tea Party/Fox News/AM Radio & portions of the GOP are giving this right wing uprising too. Anything intellectual is ignored or met with disinformation & a general air an superior anti-intellectualism. Everywhere I go: home to my parents, at work in the break room, flip on the tv, browse the internet – i see the same message: “My opinion is better than your facts”. This approach is rooted deeply in ignorance & anger most of the time. When the populace stops listening to those with brains & ignores factual information, & opts for those that shout opinions, we got a problem. The Tea Party would be an extremely powerful force if they had a politician that was worth a damn. Every time they have someone who is charismatic, they’re an obvious idiot or crook.
If somebody comes along who is charismatic & honest the US is in trouble bc of the frustration, disillusionment, justified anger & the absence of any coherent response from liberals. What are people supposed to think if someone says ‘I have got an answer, we have an enemy’? There it was the Jews. Here it will be the illegal immigrants from Mexico, the Muslims, teachers, unions, Planned Parenthood, NPR, & blacks (you can toss in atheists, homosexuals & liberals too). We will be told that WASPy private sector males are a persecuted minority. We will be told we have to defend ourselves & the honor of the nation. instead of fixing problems that truly affect the all of the working class, the nation will be convinced to support legislation that will further protect & consolidate power for the corporate elite.
All those privacy rights, the voice we have in our government, & due process checks & balances that protect us all? Those things just get in the way of security & stability. The right-wing that supports these parties & leaders get hurt too, just in a more subtle way – they give away their rights & are too stupid to realize what they’ve done to themselves.
I am abundantly convinced that Republicans aren't about anyone but themselves and that they will anyone over, even if that anyone votes for them. They have no interest in the welfare of everyone they purport to serve. They are only interested in helping wealthy persons and companies they have conflicted interests with to enact predation onto the general public and have fundamentally hijacked moral principles to leverage votes from large swaths of the ignorant.
tubularbills
cor version man, ing cor version
EddieZilker
Sorry. Hold on.
:toothless
Sushipunk
quote:
Originally posted by tubularbills
cor version man, ing cor version
:stongue: I was just thinking the same thing. "Wtf, no COR version?"
srussell0018
God I love that Weiner video. Wait, no, not that one!
I saw once some site where you can play two youtube videos side by side, and it had that clip of him there paired with that really intense song from Requiem for a Dream. Pretty awesome.
wienerschnitzel
quote:
Originally posted by srussell0018
God I love Weiner.
:gsmile:
The17sss
Weiner is the biggest hypocrite douche. He was one of the loudest, most rabid cheerleaders/pushers of Obamacare, and last week requested that the entire state of New York be granted a waiver from it... because he now says the State budget can't handle it. Any coincidence that he's running for Mayor next year?
Most politicians on both sides of the aisle suck. They're all in it for themselves. America is in ing shambles and all you can do is post a 3000 word essay blaming it on eeeevil Republicans when Democrats have been controlling both houses of Congress for 4 years, and have owned the Senate and Presidency for 2 years (and thus the economy)? Do you not see the utter ridiculousness in that type of finger pointing? Do the Democrats bear any responsibility in your theory of America being ed?
enydo
OBAMACARE
The17sss
quote:
Originally posted by EddieZilker
They have no interest in the welfare of everyone they purport to serve. They are only interested in helping wealthy persons and companies they have conflicted interests with to enact predation onto the general public and have fundamentally hijacked moral principles to leverage votes from large swaths of the ignorant.
And this quote is particularly juicy/ironic/hypocritical... choose your word. Re-read what you said in the above quote, and then explain to me how it squares with this:
quote:
G.E.’s Strategies Let It Avoid Taxes Altogether
The company reported worldwide profits of $14.2 billion, and said $5.1 billion of the total came from its operations in the United States. Its American tax bill? None. In fact, G.E. claimed a tax benefit of $3.2 billion.
That may be hard to fathom for the millions of American business owners and households now preparing their own returns, but low taxes are nothing new for G.E. The company has been cutting the percentage of its American profits paid to the Internal Revenue Service for years, resulting in a far lower rate than at most multinational companies.
Hmmm... weird. Oh by the way, Obama had coincidentally just named G.E.'s CEO Jeffrey Immelt to head his economic recovery advisory panel in January. Oh, and by the way, shortly after that appointment G.E. announced it would purchase 50,000 Chevy Volts in the next 2 years (half of all produced) that nobody wants (only 900 were purchased) after being granted a special tax subsidy from Obama so G.M. doesn't tank. Taxpayers are on the hook for $375 million though... it's cool.
Care to walk back your quote? What was all that talk about the Republicans being in cahoots with corporations and only caring about hooking up millionaires/billionaires?
chlola
Is Obama secretly supporting American rebels?
TranceArmstrong
Republicans are flat-earthers on social issues, democrats are flat-earthers on economics. Until there is a viable anti-war candidate in the republican party, or an economically literate candidate in the democratic party, to me it seems like there is really no point in voting. Sad libertarians ftw.
EddieZilker
quote:
Originally posted by The17sss
Do the Democrats bear any responsibility in your theory of America being ed?
Well, yes. That's what I'm saying. They are responsible. They're not trying to the country over, like Republicans, but, like a misguided, battered spouse trying to revive the spark in their marriage, they keep trying to engage them as though Republicans were arguing to a rational conclusion and not their ultimate defeat.
And what doesn't Obamacare have that our current healthcare system does? The current system is ed. Drug companies are leveraging sales for non-generic prescriptions so they can hike the price for insurance companies, who have to pay, and in-so-doing gaming a loophole which drives up costs everywhere. Not that insurance companies aren't guilty of other bull, but that is not the sign of a healthy system.
Now I know all Republicans aren't bad, but the Republican/Tea Party seems to be governed more by psychopathic sensibilities and less by concerns for all things humane.
