and you, cliff, once WORKED FOR AND WITH a known drug and gun peddler that lied to congress. oh, and those weapons… some of them went to… IRAN. and we are not talking about pea-shooters. we are talking about TOW and HAWK missiles, and this whole stupid botched operation helped to make hostage-taking a growth industry.
that’s some nice company you keep, eh?

and you really should not be talking about drug use.
how many lives were ruined by your FORMER ASSOCIATE’S international drug peddling operation?

your glass house is, in reality, a glass sieve.

and you, as always, fail to include anything that does not bolster your tissue-thin allegations.
why did russia enter georgia?
what event occurred just prior to that?

shiny side out, cliff… shiny side out…

My dear little KKKliff: please stop expecting the media to pursue your hallucinations about Obama. Talking about your hallucinations is the role of your psychiatrist, not the media.

The media’s hype and promotion of Obama has always been the reason I fear him.

Who is truly backing Obama and why?

Any white canidate would have been out of the race before he even got started with Obamas baggage.
He associates with domestic terrorists, communists,and left wing kooks and we hear not a word from the press. Just think what a wrecking crew the press would be if he were a republican.
His community organising was a fraud and they compare him to Jesus. Of course if a republican were to refer to Jesus, they would be burned at the stake with the church and state playbook.
Then we have to read idiotic comments from left wing commies who present no facts to refute the articles.
The press would be tearing up the streets trying to find somebody who purchased drugs from Obama if he were a republican. Then they would come up with some junkie that they payed hundreds of dollars to tell some cock and bull story.
Either that or they would just go with the standard unmamed source. The damage would be done and their job complete. Half the country would believe it because they are to stupid to get the facts. That’s why it’s so hard for republicans to win. The press give the democrats a 20% advantage that is nearly impossible to overcome.
The cold war is over? I don’t think so.

Great, Cliff, but there’s more, much more: so-called liberation theology. Note well that while Obama has denounced his preacher and teacher of that same liberation theology, he has not recnated liberation theology. He has symbolically killed the messanger, but left the message in tact. After the liberation by peaceful means of Russian’s vassel states they went for capitalism in a big way. What the liberation theologists learn from this was that perhaps, just perhpas, socialism was not the answeer to all of man’s problems; so, not willing to give up their thesis entirely, they decided to give up their guns, bandannas, fire bombs and acts of civil disorder and achieve the sought for income redistribution in suits and ties and by running for political office. Hit on that Cliff, hit hard and often. It’s still all income redistribution.

Cliff’s investigative research is some of the best! I’m also concerned about the liberation theology - Marxist - and Obama’s church’s Black Liberation Theology, teaching Black Supremacy. Type that into your search engine and be shocked! Obama was head of Harvard Law Review a few years after rules were changed to promote minorities in that position. Had he been white? And, his “community service” as director of Public Allies of Chicago netted him and his wife hefty salaries. So much for “volunteer” work. It included rounding up voters for future elections. The ACORN group he worked with uses Saul Alinsky’s book “Rules for Radicals,” that credits Lucifer as “the first radical…who earned himself a kingdom.” It’s a book on how to overthrow a government or any other organization. “The disruption of the present organization is the first step toward COMMUNITY ORGANIZATION..All change means disorganization of the old and organization of the new.” Page 116   -  Alisnky was Obama’s Marxist mentor. And we think we know Obama? Hardly!

For all of this talk about impending doom of an Obama administration. What can be said about the current environment?

Whatever sort of doom scenario you postulate, it doesn’t matter. We’re already in that situation via a leader who passed your “muster” for president. GW Bush was clean as a whistle and yet here we sit, dumbfounded as to why our country is in such tatters.

Democrats simply aren’t as bad as most conservatives say. They actually have a better track record on running this country than the GOP.
Admit it, Clinton wasn’t that bad. Even rush secretly admits that he’d trade 4 years of Bush for 4 years of Clinton. Clinton ran the country well and gave Rush fodder for the culture war. Win-Win.

Last Point. There is absolutely nothing as bad as leading 150,000 men and women to war on a lie.
Nope, nothing tops that. You can’t talk your way out of it and it is of a magnitude of 1000x worse than any race baiting from rev. Wright or bombs set by Ayers.

Need I mention Mrs. Plame?

“... GW Bush was clean as a whistle and yet here we sit, dumbfounded as to why our country is in such tatters. ...”

LOL! So now the Wall Street mess and the chickens of greedy paper-pushers on the Street coming home to roost is BushHitler’s fault. Is there nothing in this universe that isn’t his fault according to the irrational Left?

Matt, ask yourself how Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac got into so much trouble when it was the Democrats who were “protecting” them? Barney (Fat Faggot) Frank was their “Defender in Chief” for the last 20 some years.

Your other dumbass talking points have been refuted so countless times it’s not even worth repeating the refutations. You are obviously too lazy to read or simply too brainwashed to care whether your “facts” are true or not.

People with your attitude of irrational followership are the problem.

“... This country’s manufacturing has been destroyed, by both parties. “

No, it’s been made too expensive by labor unions. Labor unions have become owners of the Democratic party.

Why is it that Toyota, Hyundai, Nissan, and Honda are all doing booming car assembly and sales business in the US?

Because they don’t have the bloated overhead expenses of keeping idle workers on the payroll through union “job banks.” Because they don’t have the gold-plated retirement and health care insurance premiums that the not-so Big Three have built up over the last 50 years.

Unions served a very good purpose and can still serve a very good purpose if they get back to their reason for existence—a focus on their members rather than a focus on building their political and economic power.

Anon,

We cannot blame all this on the unions.  They are a favorite whipping boy, but that isn’t the whole story.

Part of it was labor -yes.

Part is the fact there is no need to comply with environmental regulations, no workplace safety, no property taxes (or certainly not what they paid here), etc.

Also, I don’t know how much taxpayers subsidized some of those new factories, but that is part of it also.  I do remember hearing Ronald Reagan talk about how the government was helping to build some in China.

So rather than upgrading their old factories, get the government and maybe Chinese government to build them for you.

Yes, we do get things that have a lower price tag - but they are not cheaper.  I’m convinced the biggest savings was in quality. 

Those cheap clothes at Wal Mart do not have lower price tags just because some poor little kid sewed them.  They are cheaper because the material is cheap, the cut is much smaller, and the workmanship is shoddy.

Good quality merchandise once made in the US and sold at department stores, is now made in China, sold at Wal Mart and the quality is atrocious. The material is very bad, the cut is smaller, the workmanship is poor - now that’s where the little kids come in, I guess.

In fact, if it wasn’t being sold by Wal Mart, who can sell cheaper than most others can buy, it would be much more expensive.

A lot of the savings in labor is offset with transportation.  Check how many trucks are on the highway today.  My son lives too near a railroad track.  I see the number of container trains.

Many things figure into this, labor is just one of them.

matt,

I agree on your criticism of Bush, however disagree regarding Clinton.
Remember, when Clinton was elected in ‘92, he had both Houses of Congress, and yet the public revolted against him because of his highest-on-record tax increases and ‘gays in the military’ by electing a Republican majority House and Senate. While the Republican majority eventually screwed up by signing on with Clinton on such disasters as NAFTA, they kept him in check as far as any serious economic damage he could do. In fact, his balance budget proposals were rejected about a half dozen times by Congress because of excessive spending proposals within them before Clinton was able to sign onto the Balanced Budget Act of ‘97, thus receiving the credit.

There was some sense of fiscal responsibility with Republicans back then, but those days ended with the Bush Administration.

anonymous,

Adding to your point, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac were the creation of the Carter administration so as to provide low interest loans to the poor. The Clinton administration made the penalties for not providing such loans much more severe so banks went along with poor risks.

By the way, the airline mess also started by the Carter administration when it eliminated the CAB.

Regarding tax rates under Clinton, it is interesting to note that Obama tells us that “everyone, everyone who makes $250,000 or less will get a tax cut” similar to the tax rate under President Clinton.  How do people not realize that our taxes were actually HIGHER under Clinton than they are under the Bush administration?  He is refusing to re-instate the Bush tax cuts when they expire, which means that our tax rates will go up, not down.

The country is in a terrible economic and financial mess. This has many causes. But the major one is the deregulation approach to lending pushed by McCain, Bush and other Republican law makers and government officials since 2001.
But what are people on this blog worrying about? Paranoid nonsense that Obama is a Communist.

Meanwhile, the Bush administration has nationalized huge financial institutions and may very well do the same for others. The amount of money involved and potential liabilities is staggering, running into the trillions of dollars. Government takeover and control of basic savings, lending, borrowing, investing institutions is the major economic foundation of Communism. So, either Bush and his advisers are Communists or there is no need to worry about Obama’s economic policies. What could he and Congress do that is more extreme than is happening under this adminsitration? 

Meanwhile, McCain has suddenly reversed decades of his economic policies and is calling for more regulation. He has already admitted that he knows little or nothing about economics. Other than a commission, he has offered no solutions to the present and growing crisis. His running mate, Palin, is even more out of her depth in this matter. Given the huge subsidies Alaska receives from Washington, she is governor of a Socialist economy with little or no idea how a capitalist system functions.

Draw your own conclusions. But for the love of heaven, think about what REAL dangers are facing our country, not paranoid, dishonest and irrelevant AIM propaganda.

Just wanted to share this with the “Obama can fix the economy” believers:

“Most economist will agree that one of the primary reasons we find ourselves in this economic crisis is primarily due to the practices of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac (i.e. the mortgage crisis) and NOT deregulation. These mortgage lenders, and their “open border” style lending policies, which were ventilated by members of BOTH parties (but primarily begun by the Clinton administration and then continued by Bush), have basically caused the collapse of the housing market to such an extent that it has been naturally followed by the consequences that tend to follow said nebulous practices. Of course, “greed” in Wall Street is also part of the equation, a factor that clearly advocates for TRUE deregulation (i.e. NO BAIL OUTS nor corporate welfare), but then again, “greed” is the primary purpose of engaging in the speculative markets.

The question is, why and how did our politicians allow these corporate ‘monsters’ to “relax” their lending practices and lead us into this mess? The answer may be quite complex, but one of the main reasons lies within the social agenda of the Neo Liberals. Their obsession with making things “fair” and “equal” to the “average home owner” caused these unscrupulous lenders to see an opening that they could exploit, and thus they began to hand out countless loans to people who frankly couldn’t (and shouldn’t) afford them, thus creating a bubble that has recently blown in America’s face. As we all know, these same lenders would in turn sell these loans to China, Japan, and other banking vultures around the world.

So who are the top and true BFFs (”Best Friends Forever”) of the mortgage industry?

As we can assume, Fannie and Freddie had countless lobbyist in Washington, spreading money around like hot cakes to any politician who was willing to do their biding and continue these practices. The Center for Responsive Politics, a non partisan watchdog organization, has discovered that of all the lawmakers in Washington who have received money from both of these institutions, within the span of 19 years, the top three beneficiaries have been Democrats. Who, you may ask, and in what order?

1 = Chris Dodd: $165,400
2 = Barack Obama: $126,349
3 = John Kerry: $111,000

The above numbers reflect the contributions made to all lawmakers, from 1989 to 2008. This means that Barack Obama has basically surpassed every other lawmaker in Washington (the list is quite large) that has ever received (lobbyist) money from these institutions, even though he has only been there for a short 4 years (most of the time running for President). Obama even surpassed John Kerry, who has been in the Senate for more than 20 years (and many others who have been there for more than 40!)!

But Obama’s corrupt complicity to the economic crisis that we face today does NOT stop with the lobbyists and ‘cooperative’ executives who continously donate to his campaign. Obama also hired Jim Johnson as an economic adviser and as his chief Vice Presidential vetter. In the mid-1990s, Mr. Johnson headed up a power trifecta: mortgage giant Fannie Mae, the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts and the Brookings Institution, one of the city’s most prominent think tanks. Mr. Johnsons’ relationship with the embattled CEO of mortgage lender Countrywide Financial, to his more recent oversight roles on various corporate compensation committees that approved hefty executive pay packages, have all linked this individual directly to our most recent sub prime mortgage debacles. Johnson also received at least $7 million worth of home loans from Countrywide through an informal program for friends of company CEO Angelo Mozilo, that offered rates below the market average

Obama’s current financial adviser, and sub prime mortgage “super star” Penny Pritzker, whose bank actually targeted minority customers for their schemes, also gives us a good preview of what his Presidential cabinet might look like. Clearly, Jim Johnson fits right into this crew of sleazy corporate/banking special interests, who have been clearly at fault for our current economic woes, and who have sufferend abosolutely NO CONSEQUENCE for their dirty dealings (they even got a “promotion” to work with “The One”).

We must then ask ourselves: Do we really want to elect a man who, even though has NO concrete legislative accomplishments during his short time in the Senate, has nonetheless been able to reach the NUMBER 2 spot in accepting money from the main culprits of the financial crisis in which we find ourselves in? Do we want to elect a man who claims to have the necessary “judgment” to “understand” our economy, but nevertheless surrounds himself with the worst examples of the “greed” and corruption that has tainted it? Of course NOT.

Let’s then look at the other side of the coin, and see if there was ANYONE in the Senate who actually ‘blew the whistle’ on what was coming our way and tried to do something about it:

McCain saw the handwriting on the walls, three years ago!!!

John McCain was one of three Republicans in the U.S. Senate to sponsor the bill. Rising to propose the legislation, Senator McCain’s words now sound prophetic:

Senator McCain Speaks in Support of
The FEDERAL HOUSING ENTERPRISE REGULATORY REFORM ACT OF 2005
The United States Senate
May 25, 2006

“Mr. President, this week Fannie Mae’s regulator reported that the company’s quarterly reports of profit growth over the past few years were “illusions deliberately and systematically created” by the company’s senior management, which resulted in a $10.6 billion accounting scandal.

The Office of Federal Housing Enterprise Oversight’s report goes on to say that Fannie Mae employees deliberately and intentionally manipulated financial reports to hit earnings targets in order to trigger bonuses for senior executives. In the case of Franklin Raines, Fannie Mae’s former chief executive officer, OFHEO’s report shows that over half of Mr. Raines’ compensation for the 6 years through 2003 was directly tied to meeting earnings targets. The report of financial misconduct at Fannie Mae echoes the deeply troubling $5 billion profit restatement at Freddie Mac.

The OFHEO report also states that Fannie Mae used its political power to lobby Congress in an effort to interfere with the regulator’s examination of the company’s accounting problems. This report comes some weeks after Freddie Mac paid a record $3.8 million fine in a settlement with the Federal Election Commission and restated lobbying disclosure reports from 2004 to 2005. These are entities that have demonstrated over and over again that they are deeply in need of reform.

For years I have been concerned about the regulatory structure that governs Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac–known as Government-sponsored entities or GSEs–and the sheer magnitude of these companies and the role they play in the housing market. OFHEO’s report this week does nothing to ease these concerns. In fact, the report does quite the contrary. OFHEO’s report solidifies my view that the GSEs need to be reformed without delay.

I join as a cosponsor of the Federal Housing Enterprise Regulatory Reform Act of 2005, S. 190, to underscore my support for quick passage of GSE regulatory reform legislation. If Congress does not act, American taxpayers will continue to be exposed to the enormous risk that Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac pose to the housing market, the overall financial system, and the economy as a whole.”

McCain took action in 2005 that might have helped us avoid the severity of this current financial crisis. Democrats also took action in 2005…and stopped McCain’s reforms.”

It’s interesting to note that John McCain was the original “whistleblower” on what could happen with the mortgage companies and the economy when regulations were relaxed. . .

How can we trust Obama, who says he can fix the economy, but once again (as he did in Chicago before), he is only lining his pockets with lobbyists’ money?

KrysCford’s false figures.

Take a look at the Center for Responsive Politics (CRP) website regarding the figures for Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae contributions to politicians.(It’s very easy to find on the internet.) Then scroll down through the comments about that particular article. You will quickly see that the methodology for the figures cited for Dodd, Obama and Kerry is deeply flawed, misleading, even dishonest. Notice too how the contributions from those sources to McCain are left unmentioned.

In addition, most economists do NOT agree that Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac activities are the major cause of present economic and financial problems. (How would KrysCford know, in any case? Who has taken a such survey of economists?) To the contrary, it is deregulation, heavily pushed by McCain and others sharing his economic philosophy, that is the root cause of present turmoil and future suffering. Why else would McCain suddenly be reversing his previous, strongly-held, positions on the matter?

Dont take my word on this. See for yourself on the CPR website under “Update: Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac Invest in Lawmakers.” THEN, read the revealing comments that follow. CPR may claim to be “nonpartisan.” But that hardly equates to objective and honest.

Piacaj!

I’m glad to know someone else was thinking along those lines.  I’ve posted that many times before and you are the first one to suggest it might have some credence. 

I used to watch all kinds of news, read internet stories, and sometimes get an inkling.  Sometimes I’m way off base.

Actually, my reasoning usually starts with what we are seeing isn’t what we are getting.  I’m totally cynical about all politicians, so I seldom ever even entertain the possibility what they are doing is honest, honorable, or for the good of the country.

That doesn’t always help me arrive at the truth, but it clears away any emotional attachment to persons or parties that might cause me to lean one way or another.

I’m thinking both parties shared in this financial debacle and both profit from it.

Yes, there seem to be no golden parachutes for the rest of us.

To Analyst:
Finally a clearer response to the premise of my post. Thank you!

You’re traveling through another dimension. A dimension not only of Christian fiction and radical right wing propagandist lies, but of utter ideological theological despair. A psychotic journey into a surreal land of lunacy whose boundaries in Christian Republican myth, magic, superstition, fiction and fantasy knows no limitations. That’s an AIM church signpost up ahead: your next stop: the Twilight Zone!

You unlock this door with the key of Christian and radical right wing indoctrination. Beyond it is another dimension: a dimension of Christian Republican myth and magic, a dimension of fascism, a dimension of authoritarian personality disorder. You’re moving into a land of both religion and recidivism, of god, greed and guns. You’ve just crossed over into the Twilight Zone.

It is a bizzaro alternative dimension beyond that of reality and sanity. It is an opposite dimension to reality where fiction turns into fact, fact becomes fiction, lies are twisted into truth, truth turns into lies and it all becomes quite evil. You’re moving into a land of black and white absolutes where superstition trumps science and the pit of man’s age-old fears limits the summit of his knowledge. This is the dimension of imaginary Sky Gods and leaders falsely claiming to speak for their fictional sky gods.

This is an area known as AIM ‘The Twilight Zone’.

As I understand it Fannie Mae was created as a government agency in 1938 during FDR’s New Deal to provide a stable mortgage market for lower income people and became a private corporation in 1968 so that the government could raise money. Freddie Mac was created in 1970 at the beginning of the Nixon administration as a counter balance to Fannie Mae to prevent Fannie Mae’s monopolization of the housing mortgage market. While privately owned till now, as government chartered entities they enjoy certain government assurances for liquidity and stability. It seems there are parallels to the Federal Reserve Bank, another private entity.

Much of the current housing mortgage market instability has been blamed on the current Bush administration, seemingly for partisan political purposes in an election year. Yet the real problem stems from two previous administrations. During the Carter administration laws were passed to ensure low cost loans to high risk people, particularly minorities in order to end the alleged practice of “red lining.” During the Clinton administration these laws were toughened making the financial penalties for banks much higher, resulting in banks approving suspect loans rather than risk litigation and penalties. Many of these loans wound up in the portfolios of both Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. While the Bush administration must also bear some responsibility as the administration was warned of problems at least five years ago, it has been largely the Democrats who have resisted reform.

As reported on Wikipedia, “As Chairman of the House Financial Services Committee, Barney Frank “sits at the center of power”. Thomas Mann, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution, was quoted as saying, “He is one of the giants of Congress, a real legislator,” in his new role.

In 2003, Rep. Frank rejected Bush administration and Congressional Republican efforts for the most significant regulatory overhaul in the housing finance industry since the savings and loan crisis.  Under the plan a new agency would have been created within the Treasury Department to assume supervision of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, the government-sponsored companies that are the two largest players in the mortgage lending industry. “These two entities, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, are not facing any kind of financial crisis,” Frank said. He added, “The more people exaggerate these problems, the more pressure there is on these companies, the less we will see in terms of affordable housing.”

The rest is history.

Trying to blame the current economic and financial crises on the Carter and Clinton administations is plain nuts. Carter left office in early 1981, nearly 28 years ago. To argue he is to blame for the mess we are in now is like blaming William McKinley and Teddy Roosevelt for the Crash of 1929 and the Great Depression of the 1930s!

Clinton left office in January 2001. With a Republican White House for the past seven years and eight months, together with a GOP-controlled Congress from January 2003 to January 2007, who else but they are responsible for failing to supervise Wall Street, control government spending and heed warnings of a coming financial meltdown? Also, if they inherited problems from Clinton, why didn’t they fix them?

Remember the arguments during the 2000 campaign about what to do with the surplus? Bush inherited an economy in fine shape. We finally had budget surpluses. We were actually paying down the national debt. Those were Clinton administration successes. Who wouldn’t prefer the prosperity of 1993-2001 to the situation we are in now and the even worse troubles that are rushing toward us?

What happened after Bush entered office? Huge tax cuts, followed by an unnecessary war in Iraq. That was a war, let me remind you, based on deliberate lies. Remember Wolfowitz assuring us that Iraqi oil would pay for it all? Remember Gen Eric Shinseki being trashed by Bush, Cheney and Rumsfeld for warning the war could not be won quickly and cheaply? Did Bush raise taxes to pay for the war? Did he increase our ground froces to fight it? Instead, he just let the national debt soar upward and refused to expand the Army and Marine Corps to the size necessary.Did he and the Republican Congress do anything to control spending or limit the expansion of the federal government? Quite the opposite. We got the disfunctional Department of Homeland Security of Tom Ridge, including the wrecking of FEMA under dear old “Brownie.” (Does anyone want to blame the Katrina disaster on Carter and Clinton?)

For the past five years, the Bush crowd followed a policy of guns AND butter - coupled with incompetence on every level of government. (Remember Donald Rumsfeld, who shrugged off hundreds of Ameriacan dead due to failure to supply them with armored vehicles? “Stuff happens” was his wonderful explanation. Remember Alberto Gonzales, our beloved ex-Attorney General?) Borrowing and lending were deregulated to allow insane fiscal and financial irresponsibility. McCain cheered all that economic blundering on. Until just a few days ago, he was STILL insisting deregulation was the way to go. And people on this site are blaming Carter (!!!) and Clinton for this unholy mess? WAKE UP!

i find it ironic (not to mention extremely hypocritical) that the right continues to spin Obama’s alleged association with a communist as such a massive scandal, and further accuse him of harbouring communist policy aims…etc., when the biggest real thing that summons the spectre of communism—and has actually happened—has been the federal bailout of finance companies.  $85 billion dollars for AIG?  Let the thieving speculators drown, for chrissakes!  Meanwhile, AIM and others keep bantering this abject nonsense about Obama’s supposed ‘communist connection.’  This is really pathetic.  There are things that actually should be of concern to this country, and they’re being ignored in favour of this mindless banter.

My friend once pointed out an extremely relevant point—that when corporate interest merges with government interest, that’s precisely how fascism takes hold.  Now, i’m not using fascism as a characterisation here—i’m talking real, bona-fide socialist totalitarian fascism.  In previous conversations here, we’ve touched on the subject of how the march toward Marxist communism begins (as defined in the Communist Manifesto itself) the seizure of the means of production by the government—that’s what socialism is!

Oh, but let’s ignore that, and talk about Obama!  That’s productive…

“... the principled law-abiding people who humorously align themselves with such ideas that there are absolute laws from a Lawgiver and an entire national history and uniform body of Founding Fathers who firmly believed in those principles and enshrined them in our nations institutions and laws. ...”

Well, I was with you until that phrase.

The founding fathers were children of the “Age of Reason” and it’s successor the “Age of Enlightenment” which were the dawn after the darkness of the Dark and Middle ages where religion ruled. While they knew Reason and Individualism were the keys to Liberty, they still couldn’t quite give up the mysticism of Deism. Thus the words:

“When in the course of human Events, it becomes necessary for one People to dissolve the Political Bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the Powers of the Earth, the separate and equal Station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature’s God entitle them, a decent Respect to the Opinions of Mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the Separation. ”

Deism was an attempt to separate religion from human events, and to put greater reliance on Reason, albeit in a world still strongly dominated by religious obsession.  The Deist principle of characterising god as a ‘watchmaker’ was another way of saying, “Yes, god created the universe, and set forth its laws, but to wait for him to answer prayers, to choose sides in the affairs of mankind is to succumb to indolence—precisely the reason the Dark Ages saw so little advancement.”  True atheists were given little shrift at that time.  While some intellectuals were inclined to say there was no god, they knew that in a still-hyper-religious world, saying so was suicide to one’s credibility.  So, taking moderation, it was more useful to their cause to say that god did exist, but remove him from present affairs.

i call dibs on the tin-foil-hat concession!

looks like business will be booming as the ‘blame clinton for everything’ crowd gets all fired up and frothing.

you are wrong: it’s actually all reagan’s fault.
that’s a bad joke, huh?
he can’t be blamed cuz he had no idea what was going on around him… [ask cliff how his boss was able to operate a drug and gun peddling operation right under his nose…]

so we get to blame bushco for things that go haywire in like the year… 2030 then, right?

ladytexan,

Isn’t it great that the major parties keep on giving us such great choices?

Clinton was a rapist who committed treason. Bush has decimated the Constitution. Had we elected Kerry we would have had another man who had committed treason during the Vietnam War. Gore would have bought the Kyoto Protocols and made the US a 3rd world country. Obama is a socialist and McCain is likely beholden to the neoconservatives.

And none of them took or backed action against foreseeable economic problems that may lead us to at best a serious recession and at worst a depression. Sure, Bush has failed, but remember, that we’ve also had a Democrat do-nothing congress for 2 years.

BTW, the Republicans were in no position to pass finding Clinton guilty as they didn’t have the needed super majority. Remember the Democrats said no matter what the evidence they wouldn’t vote to convict and they voted in mass against removal of Clinton.
I guess we got the worst congress and leaders money could buy. Or perhaps this is no accident. Considering that the crisis will dry up money for small businesses which create about 70% of our jobs but will bail out big business and big banks, could this be part of a plan for a socialist or fascist regime, or a combination of both?

@Roberto Benitez:  You appear to be a person of above-average intelligence, and thus it baffles me that you’re apparently unable to discern between debate and ‘bashing.’ If i wanted to “restrict speech to bashing conservatives and Republicans,” as you say, then i would conduct myself with appropriate crassness.  This is a debate (at least ostensibly), and i’m presenting an argument. 

As for ‘diverting the topic,’ i am attempting nothing of the sort.  i was merely remarking upon the irony that while AIM continues to spread unsubstantiated rumors about Obama being a communist, and the Democrats having a socialist agenda, the recent government bailouts of Bear Stearns, Fannie May/Freddie Mac, and AIG is tantamount to a socialist manoeuvre.

i’d be interested to know your feelings on the matter, actually—would you agree that it’s a wanton misuse of tax dollars for the government to be providing ‘corporate welfare?’

For the record, i don’t believe Obama is a socialist, nor a communist.  There is, of course, the possibility that i’m dead wrong, but regardless, just as i don’t believe responsibility for the dire state of the union at present rests entirely on Bush—that it takes far more than one man to cause an entire nation to sink to such lows—an Obama presidency (or a McCain presidency, for that matter) is unlikely to sound the death-knell of America.

Let’s pretend for a moment that Obama is indeed a hard-core communist, whose entire political career is aimed at supplanting American capitalism with a Leninist model of communism.  Even in the case of this outlandish exaggeration, the fact remains that the President is but one man.

LadyTexan - now you know why Conservatives are putting so many hopes on Palin, or you may already know that?  If she is the reformer she seems to be, and she can get McCain on the same track?  We already know that McCain is part of the enemy, he just is not as much an enemy as Obama.  It really depends on if McCain is telling stories again - just part of the political game to get elected.  It seems he may cave on ANWR to Palin, but he still recently sold out on the Global Warming scam, and we know he loves all the illegals we can get, and loves selling out our soverignty - so it really depend on if Palin can get him headed in the right direction.

He seems to realize that we are kind of forced to have the government keep the economy from collapsing right now, but that he wants that ended really fast and not made permanent, and we know Obama wants every aspect of the economy controlled by government, and that will destroy us.  McCain seems to have soured on the UN after they knifed him, so hopefully he is on the road to showing them the door.

It all depends on McCain, and if Palin is who I think she is?  Of course, we then have to fight the criminals Pelosi, Reid and Company as they will do whatever they can to keep anything good from happening for America, but we can’t do that unless there is the right team at the top.

If McCain turns out to be who he has been and we can not get him replaced with Palin in 2012, I suspect we can just write off America though.

ladytexan, you are a depressing person. No comment can be made here without you putting a negative, pessimistic spin on it. You rants on China and cheap goods remind me of the Japan-trashing of the 50s and 60s. I’ll bet you did plenty of that in those days too.

If any of you want to know what’s destroying this country, check your premises. It isn’t Republicans or Democrats, but both. It isn’t hatred or a wish to destroy the nation. It is ignorance and a complete acceptance of altruism and the belief that sacrifice is a virtue that is destroying this nation.

Roberto:

Were you addressing my post #48 in your post #50? I am not Brian Sullivan, nor as TK likes to imagine, John Galt.

I read the Wall Street Journal and have been soaking up a lot of interpretations of the recent financial system failures. I’m all ears (eyes?) to hear (see?) what you think the causes and implications are.

Also, many here conflate the economy in general with the financial system in this discussion of the Wall Street meltdown. While McCain didn’t know what he was saying or why, he was closer to reality when he said the economic fundamentals are strong. It is the credit system, particularly the short-term credit system that’s really out of whack here.

The incredible fact is that people who should know better are treating certain financial instruments that have value as if they have no value now. Because certain of those instruments are “toxic” due to the unknown risks buried in them, people are refusing to buy them. They are in fact not worthless, there just is no market for them at this time.

“Mark to market” is meaningless when there is no market for something. What the government is doing is taking those instruments off the market by buying them up or accepting them as collateral on loans. At some future point the values of those instruments will be better known and the government will be able to find buyers for them.

Lets hope the government makes a LOT of money buying the stuff and selling it later. Maybe, just maybe, Congress will give some of that money back to taxpayers (not those who pay NO taxes) or take less from us as a result.

Jack,

I told you, ignore them.  They have no power if you just ignore them.  They have only the power you give them. 

Whatever you do, don’t stop posting.

Giving the time of day to those who are nasty, is a waste of my time and at my age, that is getting more and more precious.

Truly, I know how hard it is at first - but after a couple of times, you realize they can only have the effect you allow them.  You are in control here, not them.

My husband tells nasty people, “I’ve been 68 years without you in my life, I think I can manage a few more.”

From you lips to God’s ear - about McCain and Palin.

I do hope that some sanity can return to our government.

I agree we stand a better chance with McCain than Obama, at least I hope.  We had better take that breathing room to actually wake up and do something.

It much like having a home that is falling down around you.  You had better fix that home if you intend to have one to protect you from the elements.  We’re letting our home go, and expecting others to fix it.  We don’t have the luxury of that much longer.

Pizcaj,

YOu are half way there - and I agree totally on the so called Republicans.  The reason I am so upset with them is that I expected much from them.  I feel betrayed by them.

For years of my life, I actually looked to Republicanism to guide this country in the right direction and to perserve our country.  They have thrown that trust in the dirt.

But, we have to admit they could not have done it without the democrats.

We also have to admit there are a lot of very good people out here in this country and we can make it back - but we have to work together.

We don’t have to agree on everything.  The only thing we have to agree is that we want this country better.  If we do that and explore all avenues, it will work.

Blackhat, the gist of your argument is that discussing Obama’s socialist and communist associations is pathetic and therefore not worthy of debate and then you want to discuss the bailouts. But this forum is about Obama’s past associations and what it portends about his political viewpoints, not about the bailouts, which I admit are good example of corporate welfare or socialism.

So my contention that you want to change the subject on this forum and criticize or bash Republicans is valid. By the way, I’m no fan of Bush or this administration but I believe what’s important on this particular forum is the question raised by the old English saw that you can tell the character of a man by the company he keeps.

Jack:

Pointing out that ladytexan’s posts are predominately negative and pessimistic is not trashing, but a statement of opinion based on observation.

I’ve read her posts for a couple of months and when she’s not trashing China, Capitalism, businessmen, or immigrants, she’s chiding others for not being “christian” or tolerant enough.

As to your paranoia about me being Major Sullivan, you are an ever more entertaining example of irrationality.

Dear Master Hansen,
I have concluded that it is pointless to dispute the notions that arise from your paranoia. Like all conspiracy theorists, no logic, no facts can persuade nor dissuade you. If you want to believe that I assume a variety of pseudonyms, nothing I can write will convince you otherwise.
What astonishes me, however, if that you have come to believe that AIM and the despicable Mr. Kincaid are somehow in league with me. That really IS paranoid!
No more than I did before, do I believe you are departing this site permanently. One reason is that you have a need to present your feces obsessions to others, as in your blog above. Where else would you be able to do so except here? So, I am certain that you will be back in a few weeks, perhaps even sooner. Why am I so convinced of your return. Well, as it is written in Proverbs 26, verse 11:
LIKE A DOG RETURNING TO ITS VOMIT
IS THE FOOL WHO REPEATS HIS FOLLY.

Dear Mr. Benitez,
It’s extremely difficult to get you to face facts when you are unable to read with comprehension. What you claim that I wrote and what I actually stated are quite different. But that matters little to me. Was does concern me to a small extent is that you appear to be attracted to what has been described as “the politics of cultural despair.” One of my old professors, Fritz Stern, wrote a book with that title a number of decades ago. It might, just might, benefit you to read it. The book does make pretty clear where your kind of politics leads.

As to this nonsense: “While I could debate the matter, I will not do so with Brian, or BS as I referred to him as, due to his penchant for dishonesty, hubris, and ad hominem attacks. He’s a partisan demagogue and apologist for the Democrats and should stick to posting on the DailyKos, moveon.org, or the Huffington post. You might have noticed that several other posters have far harsher opinion of Major Professor Sullivan, PhD., USMC, and member of the NSA, CIA, and Military schools who chats with presidential candidates and high Vatican officials and who has stated that he doesn’t believe in gentlemanly conduct, claiming it’s unconstitutional.”

I feel a need - Lord knows why - to point out your misstatements in my regard: 1)I’m not a Democrat, nor have I ever been one: 2) I have never chatted with a high Vatican official nor have I ever claimed to. I have held conservations with Holy See officials, although they certainly weren’t very highly placed. I expect to again, when I’m in Rome next month. If you had lived in Rome when and for as long as I did, you could have done the same - provided you had anything interesting to say. 
3) The same misstatements hold true for what you describe as my encounters with “presidential candidates.” Why don’t you go back to what I wrote in that regard? Then read it carefully. What I stated was true. I used to be employed by an organization that, among other assignments, sent its analysts to meet with members of the Senate and the House. From that, I think you can draw certain conclusions. 4) Finally, if you were to re-read what I wrote about the Constitution and its prohibition of titles, you should be able to understand what I wrote about the term “gentleman.” “Gentlemanly conduct,” however, is not an issue mentioned anywhere in the Constitution. However, I do think the concept is specious in a republican democracy and I reject it as a facade behind which liars and charlatans hide.
As far as I can tell, you are threatened by my words, jealous of my accomplishments and envious of my life experiences. Thus you distort what I have stated in those regards because of the miserable restrictions on your own existence and the pain that results therefrom. That is the very depth of folly. But none of that is any of my doing. YOU are responsible for your own failings, failures and disappointments. You can also do something about that. But you have to take the first major step in that direction and acknowledge who you are and what you have or have not done.

Pizcaj,

I agree third party is the way to go.

There are good people in both parties,though, I think.  There are people who believe in this country and want it better, who would vote for a good person.
They just have to see that the parties have both hurt this country.

Also, I understand the idea many people have that a ‘vote for a third party’ is a vote for Obama.  That’s the media and party talk and it is resonating.  Actually, a vote not for a third party, is just more of the same.

When we get to the realization that our hope lies within our selves and our ability to make decisions on our own.  Also, when we get to the realization that voting for the same people, party, etc., will get us the same results.  Then is when we can begin to make a difference.

However the election goes this time, we are in for some very bad times - it doesn’t matter - Obama/McCain.  As time goes by, McCain sounds so much like Obama. 

I do admit to having those thoughts of McCain is slightly better than Obama, although I know deep down in my heart, it isn’t true.  He just may buy us some time.  See, even I am vulnerable to irrational, wishful thinking.  ‘Click your heels together three times and———-’

@ladytexan:  i agree with you wholeheartedly on the subject of the Republican party.  As i believe i’ve quoted before, Barry Goldwater got it absolutely right on when he said (of the right wing), “Do not associate my name with anything you do. You are extremists, and you’ve hurt the Republican party much more than the Democrats have,” and said to Bob Dole in 1996, “We’re the new liberals of the Republican party. Can you imagine that?”

Your sentiments were that Bush Sr. was the beginning of the end of true conservatism in the Republican party.  i would contend that it was Reagan.  His apotheosis among conservatives notwithstanding, the more i read about the man, the more i realise the kind of man he actually was—wrap you in a fatherly embrace with one arm, while stabbing you in the back with the other.  Reagan’s alignment with the Religious Right (Falwell, Robertson, etc.), and his near-total emphasis on personal wealth accretion, had the effect of refocusing the Republican party on religious issues, and encouraged not only irresponsible government spending, but also reckless corporate investment practices (through deregulation), and globalisation (though it wasn’t really called that at the time).  As Reagan is so deified by the neoconservatives of today, his policies are used as blueprints without a second thought.  There is a mistaken notion of “Reagan did it, so it must be good.”

pizcaj,

Despite my trepidations about Mr. Buchanan, I don’t discount everything he says. It’s that he seems to have a lot of baggage I have problems with. The same goes for Rep. Ron Paul. He’s right about a lot of problems but he comes across as a sour old man who wanted to be the stern schoolmaster-in-chief, not president.

My problem with voting 3rd party is that I don’t believe the Republic, or what’s left of it, can survive an Obama-Reid-Pelosi triumvirate. Yet I don’t trust the Republican Party to return to its principles. Like I said, the Republicans abandoned their 1994 contract With America and took out a contract on America. Maybe us bitter, Bible clinging, gun toting yahoos need to dust off the Declaration of Independence and take it to heart with a vengeance.

Roberto,

I’m surprised that Ron Paul seemed to be a sour old man.  He never came across to me that way. 

He seemed to be concerned, but actually he had ideas and that made him seem hopeful to me.  I haven’t seen hope in a Presidential campaign in many years.

If we are going to fix things in this country, we must see that we cannot continue to do things as we have.  That is all the so called two parties offer us - some kind of charade to keep us occupied or entertained, while our country keeps slipping away from us.

I realize that he had some very harsh truths, and it demanded that we actually cut loose from the chains of the parties and their business as usual. 

As far as being a stern schoolteacher, I don’t see that.  We need to open our eyes and minds and see the facts.  Once we really got the message, then we could do the things needed to change the country.  We would then demand the necessary actions, we would elect the people necessary.

The media did a good job on him, that’s for sure.

Roberto Benitez,

I understand perfectly well that you agree with a lot of what Buchanan says, but are leery of any ‘baggage’ he may carry.
Here are two controversial remarks he’s made, the first in the late 1970’s and the second in ‘89:
1) “Hitler was an individual of great courage, a soldier’s soldier… [and] a political organizer of the first rank.”
2) “Take a hard look at David Duke’s portfolio of winning issues and expropriate those not in conflict with GOP principles such as reverse discrimination against white folks.”

In various interviews I’ve watched on YouTube with Buchanan, when the subject of WW2, Hitler, etc. was being discussed, he always stated that Hitler was an anti-Semite who committed monstrous crimes against humanity, was a racist to the core, and that the United States and the Allies were right in defeating him, and that he got his just deserts in his Berlin bunker towards the end of the war. Buchanan’s contention with the quote above, was that it was a mistake to portray Hitler as some cartoonish, one-dimensional madman when, in fact, he fought in the trenches during WW1 and was able to organize a political party through sheer verbal skills, charisma, careful planning, etc.
The David Duke statement emanated from Buchanan’s disgust at the Republican Party’s lack of backbone and predictable ‘running for cover’ in the face of demonetization of Duke from the MSM during Duke’s presidential run. All this, despite the fact that the same MSM doesn’t hold former Klansman Democrat Senator Robert Byrd to the same scrutiny, which would have been a good counter-punch from the cowardly Republicans.

Three things about Buchanan that I don’t particularly admire was his attempt to convince Nixon to burn the Watergate tapes, his encouraging Nixon to have political enemy’s audited by the IRS (even though Buchanan campaigned to get rid of the IRS during his presidential bids), and his strong advocacy of the Vietnam conflict even though he never served both in wartime and peacetime.

Buchanan’s latest book ‘Churchill, Hitler, and the Unnecessary War’, is kind of disappointing in its naivete. The idea that WW2 might have been avoided had Poland agreed to giving up Danzig to Hitler, which was 95% German and mostly pro-Nazi, is to me, stretching it. The thought that a Nazi leader who would eventually set up extermination camps would be satisfied and co-exist in peace because of acquiring Danzig is preposterous, in my opinion.
Rightly so, Buchanan does bring out the fact that the same forces in the media who like to show endless documentaries concerning the Holocaust, seem to gloss over the fact that Stalin killed many more innocent civilians then Hitler ever did. Not that Hitler was any better than Stalin, but there does seem to be a double-standard on part of the MSM… I wonder why?

All in all, I’ve watched Buchanan on countless TV appearances over the last 20 years and have read a few of his books and many of his columns. He seems to be a most patriotic American with a great knowledge of the Constitution and calls both Party’s to task when he see’s it’s necessary.
Combine that with his ‘thick skin’ against media attacks, and I would vote for him over the two Bozo’s running now, and also over the disgrace that’s presently occupying the White House.

Any politician deemed by the ‘Establishment’ as potentially disrupting to the “Status Quo”, seems to be put under the microscope.

I don’t understand your dislike of Ron Paul’s persona. While not gifted with the greatest speaking voice or looks, a Ron Paul presidency along with clones of him in the Senate and Congress, would return this country to greatness.
As far as appearance, I would take Paul’s over the perpetual L’il Abner smile of Clinton and the bumbling persona of Bush any day.

ladytexan,

You wrote -  “No one likes to mention that American businesses liked him [Hitler] as a trading partner - perhaps some even into the war, if you can believe some of the reports.”
Same is going on today with our ‘free trade’ with Communist China. They provide the slave labor, we provide our patronage.

Regarding your Stepmother’s answer to your question… I wonder what percentage of post-war Germany held that same opinion?

You’re so right about Southern white Democrats resistance to civil rights back then - kind of reminds me of how the MSM gave Clinton a free pass after he commemorated Senator Fulbright of Arkansas as his mentor, even though Fulbright was a segregationist to the time of his death. When Trent Lott commemorated Strom Thurmond in a similar fashion a few years ago, he was forced to step down as Senate Majority Leader. 
And then there’s Al Gore’s father, Senator Al Gore Sr., not voting for the 1964 Civil Rights Act.
The corrupt MSM we have and the double-standard they practice, is one of the many reasons for the continuing downfall of this country. Joseph Goebbels would have admired their finesse in doing this.

“... Joseph Goebbels would have admired their finesse ...”

Finesse my butt! It is a the double-standard switch of anti-rationalism. Intellectuals lack the basis of a rational philosophy, so they destroy others’ rationality and claim all is relative.

These same relativistic, self-loathing, so-called intellectuals are the very ones who destroy the minds and idealism of our children when they are at the prime point in their lives to develop reason and a philosophical foundation; when they reach the universities where these husks of humanity rule.

John Galt,

I certainly agree with your assessment of the minds of the average German citizen during pre-WW2 Germany. The Germans did get an overly harsh punitive rap under the Versailles Treaty and Hitler certainly relieved their understandable frustrations during the 1930’s.

I also feel that Hitler’s desire for Poland to hand over Danzig was justifiable considering that its population was 95% German and that their hearts were with the Third Reich, anyway. However, I doubt the handover would have pacified Hitler’s megalomania as Buchanan contends it might have.

My curiosity is with the German Post-War opinion of Hitler’s legacy. What percentage of Germans look at him in a favorable light?...and why?

Also, your opinion of the negative effects that intellectuals have on our youth is accurate, which is why these poor souls today end up jaded at such a young age. Many of these intellectuals seem to share a similar tic in their collective brains concerning their resistance to diversity of thought.
However, as far as the MSM, I feel there’s a deliberate brainwashing campaign being conducted by them with the collusion of the globalists of both major Party’s in the government.

Yes, the treaties are what caused the situation in Germany and Hitler became their hero.  I do understand their thinking there.

Commerce with other countries, including ours, is one of the things that allowed him to do that.
I’m thinking these businessmen and our government were well aware of his plans, but money trumps all - still does.

I wish I had been mature enough to have discussed this with my, then, Stepmother, but I was young.  She was formidable, to say the least and we just changed the subject.

When I hear things said about Ron Paul, I hear words, negative words, but just words.  Most often it’s words put out there by the media.

I don’t hear that his statement of the problems we face are in error.  I don’t hear that the solutions won’t work, or why - just that they are ‘isolationist’ or some tag put there by the media. 

Certainly there is room for disagreement, but to simply dismiss any solution with tags attached by the media and other politicians without discussing why the solutions won’t work, doesn’t help us in this country.

He has spoken some harsh truths, tough to hear, that’s a fact.  They will be even tougher to solve.  They can’t, however, be solved by the same old- same old and that’s what we get from the other politicians.

Perhaps he made the mistake of speaking to us, not as children like the media and other politicians do, and spoke to us as adults.

He offered solutions - different solutions and since the old ones haven’t worked, I would think they were worthy of at least thinking about.

So he was rejected, without much thought, in favor of great solutions like:

Change - now I’m thinking ‘change’ has been a platform in every elections since this country began.  But change in what way?  More government, more everything to everyone, etc.  In other words, business as usual.

All God’s children - We have 20-50 million people in this country illegally.  They are destroying this country from within financially, and many working citizens at the same time.  The solution - let’s just give them a piece of paper, and all’s well.  So why don’t we solve all our crime by just pardoning all criminals.  That way we have no crime problem.

Chest beating for the war - This war is breaking this country, it is harming our good will in the world.  We no longer have the money to buy good will - with China now as our financier.  But, we are going to continue to pretend that this war is being fought to keep us safe - ‘fight them there so we don’t have to fight them here’. Be sure and don’t let people dwell on the fact that our borders are open, inviting, and known to the entire world.  If they have a desire to be ‘here’ - they are already are.  If they desire to bring more - nothing stopping them.

So, let’s don’t talk about the tough problems, let’s don’t discuss actually having to ‘do’ something.  Let’s listen to the silly spin, vote our party - and hope some miracle will occur and we won’t self destruct.

Call it chest beating if you like, but the appeasement and “tolerance” being advocated is nothing more than compromise of morals, principle, and national security.

It tells adversaries that we are not to be taken seriously: that we will always seek compromise rather than confrontation. WRONG MESSAGE!

The US is hardly poor, ladytexan. Our annual Gross Domestic Production (i.e., how much WEALTH we create yearly) is $12 Trillion.

China’s GDP is around half that.

The credit mess involves around $1 - $1.5 Trillion. The deficit is another matter, around $10 Trillion, but that’s like saying my annual income is $110K and the mortgage on my house is $100K.

You really should inform yourself with facts rather than espousing feelings.

Ladytexan,

Sooner or later Western Civilization, and particularly the US, was bound to wind up in a full blown war with Islam. Europe is well on its way to accepting Dhimmitude under Mar al-Islam. I doubt those who advocate retreat and appeasement, and that’s what it is even if they don’t use those specific words, have much knowledge of the religious/military/political nature of Islam or its history vis-à-vis the West.

That Bush and company chose the wrong time, place, and manner to confront Islam goes without saying. Once he decided war was the only answer, he ignored his top generals, went in with far too few troops, and mismanaged it until the surge. Worse yet, it was designed to profit a few favored companies, starting with subsidiaries of Halliburton. The political/corporate corruption was a harbinger of the crisis we’re now facing.

But if you think it’s all chest beating to prove how “bad” we are, vote for Obama, buy a prayer rug, and find the direction to Mecca. Just as many like Pat Buchanan didn’t believe Hitler’s Mein Kampf, so most liberal don’t believe what prominent Arabs and Muslims preach and write about their destiny in the world.

However, I will agree that we are own worst enemy. We have bought a pot of porridge; the socialist agenda with cradle to the grave federal benefits, open borders, aggressive secularism, and internationalism. As Benjamin Franklin said, those who would trade essential liberties for temporary security deserve neither liberty nor security.

I for one believe we will get the president and Congress we so richly deserve. Whether or not the Republic will survive is another matter.

Roberto:

These are the guys we have to thank for the success of the surge in Iraq:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jack_Keane
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Petraeus
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Nagl

Roberto Benitez,

“I for one believe we will get the president and Congress we so richly deserve. Whether or not the Republic will survive is another matter.”

Your statement is verified when I walk along the streets, in a mall, etc., and see how the average American carries themselves. You can read shallowness and immaturity from a mile away. Compare that to how average Americans projected themselves from 30, 40, 50 years ago and you can understand why we have the weasels we have in government these days.

Even worse than the war profiteering in Iraq, is the way that our nation has become more divided because of its unnecessary longevity. I remember the almost non-existent criticism Bush received from the Left and from the MSM when he sent our troops into Afghanistan to ‘go after Bin Laden’. However, as time went by, and the public sensed a half-assed, Washington-led operation going on, with little results, the anger level increased.
Personally, I think this was deliberate on Bush’s part, in order to divide a nation that was pretty much united after 9/11, in order to help usher in his New World Order policies more easily.

John Galt,

Thanks for the additional information on who was behind the successes of the surge. It’s important to know who the heroes are. Most of us know of Gen. Petraeus but not the others you point out.

I believe that whether or not one believes that starting this war was a good idea, we’re now in it and need to end it successfully. Retreat and appeasement would be as you put it a disaster like Vietnam, but worse.

By the way, I believe that we were betrayed in Vietnam by the MSM backed by the liberal Democrat left. We didn’t loose on the battlefield but in the press. What makes it particularly galling is the fact that Pres. Johnson and Sec. Def. McNamara believed the war was unwinnable but continued it because LBJ was fearful of being impeached if he gave up.

What our leaders haven’t learned is that if you want to go to war, do so with the intention of winning it relatively quickly and decisively and forget about graduated response.

JOhn,

No, you are whistling while walking past the graveyard.

The fact that I do know it’s the greatest country in the world and that at present our problems are not insurmountable, is the only reason I speak out.

I am stating the problems, not pretending they don’t exist.  They exist, they have grown by leaps and bounds in the last few years.

Unless we stop being blinded by flag waving, platitudes and begin addressing those problems, we will have reason to be pessimistic.

There is a vast difference between being pessimistic and realistic.

Until we admit the problems, and the causes, we will continue to slide downhill.

But, hey, I have a job, I can still go to Wal Mart and fill that cart with cheap, shoddy Chinese goods, I still have a couple of credit cards not maxxed out,  so - why should I worry.

Again, I was attacked many times because I suggested that the housing travesty was a bad thing.  Oh, my.  I was called pessimistic then as well.  I mean, my goodness, why would I think anything was wrong?  This country was a country of homeowners.  That kinda depends on how you look at it, doesn’t it?

You bet, there is building going on everywhere.  I was just in Dallas and it is commercial building as far as you can see.

I wonder how much of that is being financed by these guys we are bailing out?

I saw that same thing about 25 years ago.  It was booming with building, then we saw acres of empty and unfinished apt complexes and highrise office buildings.  Some of that was part of the S & L debacle. 

Taxpayers paid for that bit of ‘optimism’ as well.

Unemployment - my goodness, how dare I mention that people were loosing their jobs.  We had almost non-existant unemployment.  I don’t pay much attention to government figures, I just look around.

An observer,

Your comment on derivatives hits the mark. The financial mess we’re in is due to a smoke and mirrors approach to financial investments. Such fanciful financial instruments along with imaginative accounting techniques got a few people rich at the expense of the rest of us. Enron was an early warning sign that was not followed up on adequately.

By the way, what is a derivative? Is it not a bet (speculation) on speculation of other instruments such as swaps, forwards, options, pork belly futures or even the weather? As I understand it, one can gather profits (real money) from bets (speculation and hedges) where there’s no real collateral put up to be risked.  But you have to be a big boy to play in this club.

Now we’re going to let these CEOs and speculators go and perhaps even fund CEOs’ golden parachutes with tax dollars without consequences. I wonder how long this insanity can continue before the whole house of cards collapses.

@Roberto Benitez (Re: #93):  It’s rather ironic that you invoke Benjamin Franklin’s sentiments (some of my favourite, by the way), as many people (myself included) have used the exact same quote with regard to the stripping of our constitutional—and beyond that, human—rights ostensibly to ‘protect us against terrorism.’  Americans so willing to be dominated by fear, acquiescing without the slightest objection to this shameless scuttling of our most precious ideals, truly deserve neither.  i don’t trust this government—or any government—to protect me.  To go a bit further, i’m skeptical of the notion i need protection in the first place.  My rights (‘inalienable’ rights, according to my belief, and that of the Framers) are infinitely more important to me than the pitiful measures enacted to supposedly ensure our safety (but in reality only give the illusion of actualising that purpose).

Frankly, your assertion—that a confrontation between the West and Islam is inevitable—is dead wrong.  i know plenty of Muslims personally (do you?), who live in the US happily and without undue compromise of their beliefs.  You’re succumbing to the fallacy of lumping vastly different groups of people together beneath a prejudice that by design oversimplifies the groups therein.  Furthermore, it’s my belief that the terrorist attacks in recent memory have less to do with Islam than they do with realistically more substantial issues.  Religion provides a convenient rallying cry for those seeking to shore up support for a cause, and thus the rhetoric coming from extremist leaders (including bin Laden himself) is rife with flowery appeals to religion, when in reality, ‘why we fight’ comes down to entirely different things.  Islam and Western culture are not mutually exclusive.  There are plenty of similarly religious conservatives living in the United States who reject the more ‘decadent’ aspects of American culture, only they’re thumping Bibles instead of Qurans.

i implore you to look up bin Laden’s address the October before the Bush/Kerry election.  A source of profound insight into the man’s purposes, it’s almost devoid of the flowery religious appeals found in earlier tapes, and focuses on ‘security.’ If you consider the West’s opportunistic meddling in the Middle East over the last hundred years, you can understand bin Laden’s position.  Britain, America, et al (let’s not forget Russia) have cluelessly interfered in the politics of the region, installing and supplanting dictators on a whim with no regard for the opinions, nor the quality of life of the ordinary people there.  Then, of course, there is the creation of Israel, and the displacement of the Palestinians, who continue to suffer as second-class citizens to this day.  No doubt somebody here will call me anti-Semitic for saying so, but this one action has done more to incite enmity toward the West than any other in history.  It’s not anti-Semitic, it’s objective fact, whatever your opinion of the situation.

It’s about time the West realised that hegemony has consequences…

Roberto:

Michael Yon’s in Afghanistan. His latest dispatches include an excellent 3-part (last part posted yesterday) series embedded with British paratroops.

He is another of the people we need to be thankful for: his reporting from Iraq kept me from despairing over the crappy, biased MSM reporting in 2006 and 2007. He has a tough row to hoe this time also. http://www.michaelyon-online.com

Just to expand on ladytexan’s comments from her previous post -

Freedom comes with a cost.
It is the duty on any concerned American to not only vote, but to also keep a vigilant eye on our politicians and spread the word on any wrongdoings that they commit, including politicians from their own Party.
Any president who breaks their oath of office, such as refusal to protect our borders from criminal illegal aliens, especially in a post- 9/11 America, should be impeached for failing to protect the citizens.
It seems that the only leader we had in office during the last 50 years who had the decency and guts concerning this matter was President Eisenhower with ‘Operation Wetback’ back in the 1950’s.

Roberto Benitez,
Your comment about Ron Paul being an absolutist reminds me of the importance of not only voting for quality leaders in high office, but also in local offices as well. A President Paul would certainly face fierce resistance from the current Establishment elites in both Party’s and probably wouldn’t be able to get too much accomplished

While all of you here at AIM are screaming Obama ‘communism’ at the top of your lungs, you’re also all simultaneously witnessing what is the nationalization of PUBLIC FUNDS from Bush-GOP corporate bailouts [your taxpayer dollars]. This is NOT the nationalization [gov’t ownership and/or control] of the US financial industry.

This is however an intentional Bush-GOP government coup to transfer unprecedented power to the Executive Branch by placing vast amounts of public funds [our tax dollars] into the hands of the global corporate elite. That is not communist ideology, but a primary element of fascism called corporatism….

The economic policy of Fascism IS Corporatism
http://www.banned-books.com/truth-seeker/1994archive/121_3/ts213l.html

Many on both the right and left [even MSM] are wrongly perceiving Bush-GOP Gov’t bailouts of the US financial industry as [communist or socialist] nationalization [Changing something from private to state ownership or control] of the financial industry - when it is only the nationalization of public funds [taxpayer dollars] for USE by the global financial corporate elite.

Bush-GOP’s trillion dollar bail out plan just invests taxpayer dollars into these financial corporations gone bankrupt from corruption allowed by bipartisan [mostly republican though] deregulation of corporate greed. The US gov’t would need to OWN and completely control [not just to transfer/sell ownership] these corporations to be considered any form of ‘communism’.

However these bailouts [nationalization of public funds] are defined as acts of corporatism - the primary defining element in Italian and German Fascism of the 1930s and 40s. George W Bush with the Wall Street Titans of today are succeeding at [or finishing] the fascist plan from Bush’s grandpa and Wall Street back in 1933 to overthrow FDR and the US to install a fascist system modeled after similar Fascist governments burgeoning in Europe at the time.

Wall Street’s Plot to Seize the White House: Facing the Corporate Roots of American Fascism
http://coat.ncf.ca/our_magazine/links/53/53-index.html

Exactly what is fascism? It is a totalitarian system of government that bases its economy on capitalism.
http://www.spiritone.com/~gdy52150/fascism.html

Whether you like it or not, it’s factual history that American Christians with the whole of the US republican party have long been affiliated and asssociated with Fascism, Hitler and the Nazis going back to the 20s.

The 1930s: Nazis Parading on Main Street: Republicans, Nazis & Elections:
http://www.spiritone.com/~gdy52150/1930sp2.html

Witness the Final Stages of a Bush Family Fascist Coup:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/larisa-alexandrovna/welcome-to-the-final-stag_b_127990.html

A List of Corporations Where $1.8 Trillion in Taxpayer Dollars is Going to Fund Gov’t Deregulated Corporate Greed:
http://www.cnbc.com/id/26808715

In your misplaced ‘patriotic zealotry’, you all really need to be far more concerned with the Fascist flip side of same authoritarian coin communism is on within the same political party you cling to in despair…

Roberto:

Serendipitous timing:

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB122221472541069353.html

Also Michael Yon’s latest 3-part dispatch from Afghanistan, embedded with the Brits is excellent.

michaelyon-online.com

Yes to whoever posted about the problem with no posts beyond #100. I’ve posted several but they haven’t showed up on the forum page.

“... The economic policy of Fascism IS Corporatism
http://www.banned-books.com/truth-seeker/1994archive/121_3/ts213l.html ...”

Exactly! Good article—thanks.

It explains one of the points I’ve been trying to make about the difference between true Capitalism and what I’ve been calling “crony capitalism” on these fora.

ladytexan, the link provided does a much better job of explaining what you and I have been complaining about. You seem to have the impression I’m advocating corporatism when in fact I’m advocating Capitalism.

I received a reply from a Ms. Jenkins of AIM that they were having problems with SPAM and had to turn off comments for awhile while they dealt with it. I think we’re back on so we can hurl brick-bats etc. once again.

John,

While I’m not totally sure what capitalism is - I do not believe we have it in this country and haven’t had for more than 50/60 years.

I do think some people continue to call what we have capitalism when it is corportism.  Actually, it doesn’t need to have an ‘ism’ - it is simply the alliance of government and corporations, or business, to further the power of business over people.  The politician - or government - has been bought by business and our laws, rules, regulations - or lack of - is all done for the benefit of business.

Our government IS business.  It’s just that simple.

That is exactly one of the reason Ron Paul was crucified and words like ‘isolatist’ was used. I’m wondering how many people actually know what isolationism is - why it might/might not be bad - and how in the world it might apply in Ron Paul’s case?

Few, I’m thinking - it just sounds good when those pretty media people say it and they said it loud and often.  And who wouldn’t want to agree with the ‘beautiful people’.

Some words in our language have been so misused, they no longer have their original meaning.  I’m thinking capitalism, isolationism, appeasement, racism, liberal, conservative,and more.  Yet these are words that are used on a daily basis, and few have any idea what the original word meant and how it has been corrupted to be used as a weapon, rather than a description.

Just think liberal - rather than meaning as the article said, the rights of the individual over the state or government.  Think how that has been corrupted - and for a reason.

Think conservative - rather than meaning exactly what it says - being conservative, cautious, frugal if you will, in all things - it’s come to mean warmongering, religious, etc.

i’m not so sure it’s going too far to make the comparison to fascism, even though i’m usually opposed to the idea of equating everything disagreeable to Nazism (i.e. Bush is Hitler, etc.)

Considering that one of the hallmarks of fascism is the merging of government and corporate interest, i call it as i see it.  Thomas Jefferson voiced concern about this when corporations were first on the rise; that if power was going to shift into the hands of what he called “banking institutions and moneyed incorporations,” then the democratic experiment would be over.

Consider the implications of government bailouts, accompanied with ‘crony capitalism.’  Remember that not long ago, eminent domain was expanded to include the ability for government to seize property and transfer it into the hands of another private entity.  If that doesn’t qualify as government in big business’ back pocket, i don’t know what does.  i, for one, would be livid if i were notified i was being evicted because the CEO of ____ desired a view of the bay from his office.

As another example, the issue of copyright protection has gone way beyond the point of civility.  The other day, my employer informs me a representative from ASCAP comes in with a clipboard, making sure we’re not publicly playing music in the store.  i told him i was glad it wasn’t me who talked to him—i would have told the guy he wasn’t welcome, that he was trespassing, and to get the hell out before i call the police.

Now, in the foreseeable future, i can imagine this guy sporting a badge, and having the ability to write tickets or make arrests for ‘corporate rights violations.’  All it would take is for an organisation with enough congressional whores to make the case that lawsuits are taking up too much court-time, and that these ‘Black Hand’ goons ought to be given peace officer status, and there you go—it’s the law of the land.

If this is indeed a free country, and capitalism is the economic model we choose to follow, it must be understood that both individuals and corporations are free to do as they choose with their money, but if you bet the farm and lose it, then it’s too bad for you.  i know i’m not getting a government bailout if i decide to invest all my cash in some get-rich-quick scheme and then can’t pay my rent…

Oh certainly, i agree with you…that’s why i’m loath to drop the Nazi and Hitler references…to do so seems to discount the experiences of those who lived through that period.

i further agree with your sentiments what it certainly doesn’t seem as though a single bit of the Bill of Rights is intact.  While i think it important to acknowledge what liberties we do still retain in this country (whether codified or de-facto), i try to consider potentialities. 

Control versus liberty is much like a chess game; never does one side win decisively in a single move.  Rather, the object is to position one’s pieces in a calculated manner, striking only at which point revealing one’s designs no longer compromises the take.  We may still enjoy relative freedom, but the wolf is at the door.

As HANOI JANE once told a group of collage students IF YOU REALY UNDERSTOOD COMMUNSIM YOU WOULD HOPE YOU WOULD PRAY ON YOUR KNEES THAT WE WOULD SOMEDAY BECOME COMMUNISTS comming from her who dont mention how communists persicute chritians and evil men like KARK MARX was a truely sinister atheist