An article by Mark Penn for Time (reprinted below and available here) makes the case that the decade since 9/11 has seen the US fall into a tailspin of pessimism and shaken confidence. He based his assessment on the results of a poll which show the majority of Americans having very negative views on the present and future of the country. Many believe another terrorist attack on our soil is likely. Still other see economic worries threatening our future.
In all, Mark seems to be wanting the comparison to Carter's "malaise" speech (despite the fact that Carter never used the word "malaise") in order to create the assumption that we have a vacuum of leadership in the country. In fact, I think the primary issue here is much simpler and direct. We have had terrorist attacks before, we have had economic woes, and we have had uncertainty about the future. During all those times, however, we also had Presidents and a Congress who stood up and reassured the American people that we would get through it. We were tough and could take the heat. President Obama pretty much ran his campaign on such Roosevelt-type of reassurances and to this day ends his speeches on a similar high note.
Contrast that to the 8 years of the Bush administration. This is the administration that declared war on "terror", thereby solidifying "terror" into an entity for us. He never said "don't be afraid, we got this". He said continually "be afraid because they are coming to attack us and these Democrats hate our troops" (paraphrased). He handed us a color coded chart which never, ever went below yellow in terms of caution. He resurrected Cold War era fears of impending massive attacks using "suitcase nukes" or bio weapons or chemical agents. People were actually buying hermitic bomb shelters again.
This shows the simple, singular difference between our previous national crises and that created by 9/11: the willing and rather open exploitation of fear for political advantage.
Read Mark's article:
The Pessimism Index
By Mark J. Penn
Just 10 years into a new century, more than two-thirds of the country sees the past decade as a period of decline for the U.S., according to a new TIME/Aspen Ideas Festival poll that probed Americans on the decade since the tragic events of Sept. 11, 2001. Osama bin Laden is dead and al-Qaeda seriously weakened, but the impact of the 9/11 attacks and the decisions that followed have, in the view of most Americans, put the U.S. in a tailspin that the country has been unable to shake during two administrations and almost 10 years of trying.
The poll confirms that the country is going through one of its longest sustained periods of unhappiness and pessimism ever. Today's teenagers hardly remember a time before 9/11, the war on terrorism, the war in Iraq and constant economic upheaval. Baby boomers, the generation known for continuous reinvention, are filled with worry and doubt about their future and the future of their children. (See TIME's cover story: "The Optimism Bias.")
It is hard to overstate what a fundamental change this represents. A country long celebrated for its optimism amid adversity is having trouble finding the pluck and the spirit that have seen it through everything from world wars to nuclear threats to space races. The U.S. usually bounces back after a few years of difficulty, such as the Vietnam War, Watergate or recessions. After two or three years of anxiety and worry, the electorate normally returns to its innate optimism. Yet the forces now aligned against the American people seem much more formidable to those we surveyed; the poll uncovered the kinds of attitudes we saw among Europeans during the decade after World War II.
According to the poll, only 6% of more than 2,000 Americans believe the country has completely recovered from the events of 9/11. Some of this pessimism can be tied to fears of more terrorist attacks. Despite the death of bin Laden, most Americans think another terrorist attack in the U.S. is likely. Americans generally supported the post-9/11 measures to secure the homeland, like those in the Patriot Act, and have confidence in the military to deal with terrorists — and yet they see an attack coming anyway. America's feelings of invincibility have been replaced by a new sense of inevitable vulnerability. Nearly 8 in 10 believe there will be a major terrorist attack on U.S. soil in the next decade. When asked which major city would most likely be the target of such an attack, 30% selected Washington and 27% chose New York City.
A startling 71%, including a majority of every major demographic group other than African Americans, see the U.S. as worse off now than it was a decade ago. Americans blame their leaders and politicians for the decade of decline. The Bush Administration takes the most heat — 23% named it as the cause — followed closely by the Obama Administration (20%) and the U.S. Congress (16%). In contrast, only 6% blame Wall Street. (See the case for optimism in TIME's special report: "10 Ideas That Will Change the World.")
If there is widespread agreement that the U.S. is in bad shape, there is also a perception that not everyone has experienced the difficult decade in exactly the same way. Those surveyed say middle- and working-class Americans, followed by seniors and younger people, have borne the brunt of the decline — an ominous sign for any incumbent, regardless of political party. Yet those surveyed said some demographic groups were better off than they were a decade ago; they say the quality of life has improved most for gays and lesbians, the affluent, Hispanics and immigrants. And while overall the U.S. is seen as becoming more socially and politically tolerant in the past decade, the majority agreed that 9/11 set off a wave of suspicion against Muslim Americans.
Post-9/11 America is also a more isolationist country. Americans recognize that the election of President Obama brought with it a renewed sense of respect for the U.S. around the world. However, the effect of those improved relationships is overshadowed by the finding that most respondents have no desire to be more involved in global affairs. Almost two-thirds (62%) believe the U.S. today is too involved overseas. Americans are particularly impatient with U.S. policy toward Pakistan. With 69% believing that Pakistani officials knowingly harbored bin Laden, it is not surprising that 3 in 4 Americans — older Americans and Republicans especially — want the U.S. to cut back its military and nonmilitary aid to that country.
But whatever the U.S.'s worries about external forces, the biggest threats today are widely regarded as self-made. It's the enemy within that Americans register the most concern about: runaway deficits, political gridlock, skyrocketing health care costs and other structural problems. A full two-thirds of Americans see the greatest long-term threats to national stability as coming from within the U.S. This too is an enormous change from the days and months after September 2001. (See the U.S. optimism deficit.)
President Jimmy Carter — at the urging of his pollster — rather famously gave a speech in mid-1979 suggesting that a crisis of confidence had befallen America. It took several years and a new President to return the country to its optimistic ways. President Bill Clinton faced a similar moment in 1995 and turned the mood of the country around a year later. This poll suggests we are at another malaise moment, one even longer and deeper than the mid-1970s', presenting even greater challenges — and opportunities — for leadership.
Penn is CEO of Penn Schoen Berland, the strategic-research firm that conducted the TIME/Aspen poll. He was a pollster for six years under President Clinton.
Showing posts with label Fox News. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Fox News. Show all posts
7/03/2011
7/01/2011
Michele Bachmann: Hiding in the Bushes
This is old, but worth reposting just for the entry at #9 on the list. Scroll down for more.
The Top 10 Conservative Idiots
(No. 193)
April 11, 2005
Spouting Thomas Edition
Tom DeLay (1,6) tops the list again this week after a tough week for ethics violators, but Fox News (2) is more than happy to give him an assist. Mel Martinez (3) owned up to the Terri Schiavo memo - sort of - not that The Forgery Shovelers (4) cared of course. And John Cornyn (5) suggested that perhaps judges should tone down the old "judging" thing if they cared about their safety. Yup, it's been a prime week for conservative idiocy. Elsewhere, Republican Hypocrites (7) seem to have gone silent on the issue of high gas prices, The Jeff Gannon Show (8) rolled into town for an encore, Michelle Bachman (9) hid in some bushes, and what happens when you mix professional wrestling with right-wing whackery? You get my new all-time favorite conservative idiot in the form of Warrior And Chums (10). Enjoy, and don't forget the key!
Tom DeLay 
This might be the understatement of the year, but Tom DeLay is in the shit. Last week the Campaign for America's Future put up a handy cheat sheet of DeLay's recent scandals, which include taking fancy business trips paid for by lobbyists, taking campaign contributions for favors, using a federal agency (the FAA) for partisan purposes, and alleged money laundering, among other things. In the past week it was also revealed that since 2001 DeLay's wife and daughter have personally received more than $500,000 from his political action committees, and in 1997 DeLay took a trip to Russia which was "underwritten by business interests lobbying in support of the Russian government," according tothe Washington Post. He later cast votes in support of those same business interests. DeLay has done what he can to clear himself of the charges by, um, trying to change House ethics rules to make the whole thing go away. But let's face it, that doesn't really make him look any better. So what's a poor, downtrodden House Majority Leader to do when the heat is on? Why, blame somebody else, of course! Last week DeLay called the reports about his scandalous behavior "just another seedy attempt by the liberal media to embarrass me." Aww, poor baby. But let it be known that the GOP is backingTom DeLay all the way, so hats off to the Republican party for standing shoulder-to-shoulder with the Bugman, and we'll just wait and see where their firm conviction for being led by an unethical megalomaniac gets them in 2006.
Fox News 
Of course, DeLay's pals at Fox News have been doing their best to disabuse the public of the notion that he might bear just a tiny bit of responsibility for his alleged ethics violations. Media Matters noted that several Fox News hosts went out of their way last week to assist DeLay in his attempt to blame the media for his problems: Brit Hume reported that, "Here in Washington, the press is after Tom DeLay again, but wait 'til you hear the facts," and, "speaking of Tom DeLay, the mainstream media were out after him again today." John Gibson said, "The liberal media is hammering 'The Hammer' - Tom DeLay under a microscope and under the gun. Is this simply a media hit job?" (In order to get a fair and balanced answer he interviewed Rich Lowry, editor of the right-wing National Review.) And our old friend Sean Hannity referred to the "liberal allegations" against DeLay and asked, "Is he the target of a smear campaign?" So if you want to know the details of the charges against Tom DeLay, don't bother asking Fox News. They're more concerned about protecting their buddy than they are about actually reporting the facts.
Mel Martinez 
Last week conservative pundits and bloggers were agog with the possibility that the infamous "Terri Schiavo memo" - which instructed Republican senators to make political hay out of her case - might have been a fake passed around by - booo! - Democrats in order to make Republicans look bad. Because surely Republicans simply aren't capable of playing such awful political games. Yeah right. But the whole thing fell apart at the seams last week when it wasrevealed that the memo actually came from the office of freshman GOP senator Mel Martinez. Of course, Martinez was completely in the dark about the memo - which explains why he was, uh, carrying it around in his pocket - and fired his aide Brian Darling for taking action "unilaterally." At this point it's probably worth mentioning that the St. Petersburg Times said back in November 2004 that "When challenged, Martinez was too eager to assign blame to his staff or to groups he said he couldn't control. As a senator, he will need an office and a staff that speaks with the measured and centrist tone he says will be his own. He can't pretend to be above it all if the people he employs are not." It certainly appears that Martinez hasn't taken that advice to heart. But in case you were worried about the future of poor Brian "Unilateral" Darling, don't fret. He used to work for the Alexander Strategy Group, whose chairman Edwin A. Buckham (former chief of staff to - ta da! - Tom DeLay) said last week that "He is still going to have a bright future in this town." Why am I not surprised...
The Forgery Shovelers 
The news that the memo was in fact not a fake, and did in fact originate from the office of a Republican senator, was somewhat embarrassing to the folks who'd been shoveling the forgery meme. After the "Democratic fakery" angle had played out on right-wing talk radio during the week - without any actual evidence, of course - The Washington Times ran a front page, above-the-fold story alleging that the memo could have been a dirty trick. The Times' claim that the memo was fake was based, incredibly, on this: "A survey by The Washington Times found that every Republican said the memo was not crafted or distributed by him or her." Which obviously cleared up the whole matter. Meanwhile Rush Limbaugh announced that "it appears it's a forged memo all over again!" quoting the American Spectator who wrote, "It's Rathergate all over again, and the same vigilant entities that brought about the collapse of CBS News could now also cause heads to roll among Democratic Senate leadership staffers and further shame multiple news organizations that would appear to have fallen for another document hoax." Crowed Rush, "The memo was made up by Democrat staffers." Whoops. John Aravosis at AmericaBlog has a greatscreenshot of a page from Rush's website which tells the world to "Listen to Rush Conduct Broadcast Excellence." Aravosis also noted that one of the American Spectator's aforementioned vigilant entities, "blog of the year" Powerline - who went nuts accusing the Democrats of faking the Schiavo memo - were still clinging desperately to the possibility that they could turn it against the left byblaming the media for misreporting the story. Nice try, morons.
John Cornyn 
What could be the reason for the recent wave of violence against judges? Just a few weeks ago, a judge's family was murdered. And there was that incident where a man on trial for rape and murder stole a gun and shot a judge dead in court. What could be prompting this crime wave? Have no fear: Sen. John Cornyn has the answer. "I – I don't know if there is a cause-and-effect connection," he pondered on the Senate floor last week, "but we have seen some recent episodes of courthouse violence in this country. Certainly nothing new, but we seem to have run through a spate of courthouse violence recently that's been on the news. And I wonder whether there may be some connection between the perception in some quarters on some occasions where judges are making political decisions yet are unaccountable to the public, that it builds up and builds up and builds up to the point where some people engage in – engage in violence." Don't worry though - apparently Cornyn didn't mean it. According tothe UK Guardian, he wrote a letter last week saying he was "not aware of evidence linking judges' decisions with possible violence. 'I certainly hope that people will not construe my remarks on Monday to state otherwise,' he said." Oh, perish the thought. So I guess you were talking about... what, exactly, Senator? The good news though is that John Cornyn has learned a lesson from all this. And here it is: "The lesson I learned is that Washington is a very tough political environment and if people can take what you say out of context and use it against you, they will." Seriously. He actually said that.
Tom DeLay
One more entry for the Bugman this week, and it relates directly to the John Cornyn entry above. Cornyn may not be able to legitimately blame the most recent incidents of violence against judges and their families as some sort of revenge for their supposed judicial activism - but he soon will if Tom DeLay keeps it up. We already noted DeLay's not-so-veiled threats to the judges involved in the Terri Schiavo case ("The time will come for the men responsible for this to answer for their behavior") and last week he kicked it up a notch. DeLay said that the judiciary has "run amok" and "overstepped its authority on countless occasions." His solution? Unclear. But he also said that "Our next step, whatever it is, must be more than rhetoric." Various conservative leaders decided to pick up that ball and run with it, meeting in Washington last week to discuss "Remedies to Judicial Tyranny." Phyllis Schafly and Michael P. Farris - chairman of the Home School Legal Defense Association - both agreed that Supreme Court Justice Anthony Kennedy ought to be impeached for his opinion that juveniles shouldn't be executed. But it was Edwin Vieira who seemed to be taking Tom Delay's comments to their logical conclusion, citing Joseph Stalin in his "bottom line" for dealing with judges. "[Stalin] had a slogan," said Viera, "and it worked very well for him, whenever he ran into difficulty: 'no man, no problem.'" The full quote that Viera paraphrased, in case you were wondering, is "Death solves all problems: no man, no problem." So, uh, is anyone else bothered that leading conservatives are now using Joe Stalin as an example of how to deal with their enemies?
Republican Hypocrites 
Special thanks here to the Top Ten reader (you know who you are, sir!) who sent me a list of links featuring Republicans whining about high gas prices in 2000. I'm sure most of you are aware that average gas prices have been topping $2.50 per gallon recently, with San Franciscans recently reporting more than $3 per gallon for regular unleaded:
Photo: San Francisco Chronicle
Now let's take a look at what some of those Republicans had to say in 2000, when gas was around a full dollar cheaper per gallon than it is today:
Rep. Terry Everett: "The Clinton Administration has failed in its duty to develop a policy to deal with our national energy supply and is therefore directly accountable for the higher prices Americans are now paying at the gas pumps."
Dennis Hastert: "House Speaker Dennis Hastert accused the Clinton administration Friday of misleading members of Congress about the causes of skyrocketing gas prices in the Midwest."
Rep. Wally Herger: "Congressman Wally Herger recently denounced the Clinton-Gore Administration's complacency during the current gas price crisis. 'Northern Californians are being held hostage at the gas pump,' Herger said. 'The Clinton-Gore Administration has demonstrated a complete and total lack of leadership in preventing this problem. It is a clear failure of domestic and foreign policy.'"
Larry Kudlow: "The Clinton-Gore administration’s hapless and incoherent management of foreign policy is nowhere as evident as in their bungling on OPEC’s oil-price hike. ... While crude oil prices could drop to $25 per barrel, they will stay well above the average $20 real price of oil registered over the past ten years. And way above the $10 worldwide average marginal cost of producing new oil. Meanwhile gas prices at the pump are likely to be upwards of $2 per gallon well into the summer."
Glenn Spencer: "In recent weeks, gas prices have surged to their highest level in a decade. Prices for home heating oil and natural gas are expected to rise by about 30 percent this winter. ... With the Clinton-Gore administration's policies largely to blame for the pain being felt by consumers, Vice President Gore's camp has pulled out all the stops to shift blame away from his own administration."
Various Repubs: "Representatives Jim Sensenbrenner (R-Menomonee Falls), Tom Petri (R-Fond du Lac), Paul Ryan (R-Janesville), and Mark Green (R-Green Bay) today blasted Energy Secretary Bill Richardson and the Clinton-Gore Administration for their failure to implement a comprehensive energy policy to deal with staggering gas prices Wisconsin consumers continue to face at the pumps."
So, gas is about 60-75% per gallon more at the pump and oil is about 100% more per barrel than it was when these moaning minnies were whining about how much Bill Clinton and Al Gore sucked, but now George W. Bush is the president - why, his shit don't stink. Perhaps they're still waiting for him to "jawbone" OPEC? Either that or they don't care about gas prices now that he's, y'know, got the gays on the run.
The Jeff Gannon Show
We noted last week that our old pal Jeff Gannon was going to be appearing at a National Press Club panel on journalism and blogging, and pondered why he was invited to be there since he wasn't a journalist or a blogger. Well it turns out that Gannon was apparently asked along for the purposes of providing hilarious comic relief. Among Gannon's classic gags from last Friday's event were the suggestion that simply reprinting administration press releases is the same as real journalism, and that the government had to pay Armstrong Williams to write a positive story on No Child Left Behind because nobody else would. Funny stuff! He even held up one of those stupid red counties vs. blue counties maps which right-wingers love to use to demonstrate how "red" the country is, except - and this is the mark of a comedy genius at work - the red states were all green, because apparently his printer was running out of ink. But the laugh of the day was surely reserved for this absolute corker: "You can hardly call Fox News conservative." Oh Jeff, you are a clown!
Michelle Bachmann 
Last week Minnesota State Senator Michelle Bachmann (R-Obviously) tried to force a vote on a state constitutional amendment that would ban gay marriage; Democrats said she was trying to end-run Senate rules for political gain. That she chose to do this on the same day that the local gay community was rallying for their rights on the grounds of the Capitol was certainly dubious.According to Eleventh Avenue South, "Even Senate Republicans thought it was in poor taste to try to go around Senate rules on the same day GLBT citizens were making their voice heard. Her move was overwhelmingly defeated." But one of Eleventh Avenue South's eagle-eyed readers happened to catch something rather strange that day - it turned out that Michelle Bachmann had gone to take a look at the rally, but, obviously feeling very frightened of the scary homosexuals, decided to hide in some bushes. Fortunately, the reader got pictures:
Peek-a-boo! What a coward. You know, that photo kind of reminds me of George W. Bush and Dick Cheney during Vietnam.
Warrior And Chums 
And finally, the artist formerly known as "The Ultimate Warrior" (now apparently just plain "Warrior" for some reason) made a professional wrestling-sized ass of himself at the University of Connecticut last week, choke-slamming the UConn College Republicans in the process. Former WWF star Warrior had apparently been invited by the College Republicans to speak about... well, actually that's not entirely clear. But Warrior is a radical right-wing nutcase, so presumably that's all the reason they needed. Unfortunately Warrior was a little too nutty even for the College Republicans, "screaming and stomping on the stage," according to liveaudiowrestling.com, and provoking the crowd into a frenzy. The evening turned sour when Warrior answered an Iranian student's question by telling him that he needed to "get a towel," and pontificated on such subjects as why "Queering don't make the world work." Which is a bit odd coming from a guy who used to make a living publicly groping a steady stream of greased-up bodybuilders in leotards.
Anyway, it turns out that the UConn College Republicans were a tad embarrassed by the debacle, issuing a profoundly apologetic press release the next day. They made sure to mention that they were sending individual letters of apology to, "the Rainbow Center, AQUA, QUAD, the African American Cultural Center, the Asian American Cultural Center, the Puerto Rican/Latin American Cultural Center, the Iranian Students Association, and the Women's Center." Oh, and in case you were wondering, "this is not a complete list of the groups that will receive a direct written apology from the College Republicans." Good lord.
But the story doesn't end there: the College Republicans' press release provoked a hilarious outburst "From the Desk Of Warrior" where he announced (in the third person!) that "All of the above notwithstanding, it is somewhat sad to see how utterly spineless the UConn College Republicans have turned out to be. Not a single UConn CR voiced any objection to Warrior after the event. The detailed emails between Warrior and the UConn CRs reveal that the CRS repeatedly encouraged Warrior to single out the Tent City Trash for some re-education. Yet, it now seems that the CRS have collectively decided to bow down and beg forgiveness from various extremist, anti-American, left-wing groups who infest the UConn campus. Perhaps the UConn CRS should refrain from engaging in political activism until such time as they develop enough backbone to be able to withstand not being liked by their opponents." Ooh, smackdown! See you next week!
The Top 10 Conservative Idiots
(No. 193)
April 11, 2005
Spouting Thomas Edition
Tom DeLay (1,6) tops the list again this week after a tough week for ethics violators, but Fox News (2) is more than happy to give him an assist. Mel Martinez (3) owned up to the Terri Schiavo memo - sort of - not that The Forgery Shovelers (4) cared of course. And John Cornyn (5) suggested that perhaps judges should tone down the old "judging" thing if they cared about their safety. Yup, it's been a prime week for conservative idiocy. Elsewhere, Republican Hypocrites (7) seem to have gone silent on the issue of high gas prices, The Jeff Gannon Show (8) rolled into town for an encore, Michelle Bachman (9) hid in some bushes, and what happens when you mix professional wrestling with right-wing whackery? You get my new all-time favorite conservative idiot in the form of Warrior And Chums (10). Enjoy, and don't forget the key!Tom DeLay This might be the understatement of the year, but Tom DeLay is in the shit. Last week the Campaign for America's Future put up a handy cheat sheet of DeLay's recent scandals, which include taking fancy business trips paid for by lobbyists, taking campaign contributions for favors, using a federal agency (the FAA) for partisan purposes, and alleged money laundering, among other things. In the past week it was also revealed that since 2001 DeLay's wife and daughter have personally received more than $500,000 from his political action committees, and in 1997 DeLay took a trip to Russia which was "underwritten by business interests lobbying in support of the Russian government," according tothe Washington Post. He later cast votes in support of those same business interests. DeLay has done what he can to clear himself of the charges by, um, trying to change House ethics rules to make the whole thing go away. But let's face it, that doesn't really make him look any better. So what's a poor, downtrodden House Majority Leader to do when the heat is on? Why, blame somebody else, of course! Last week DeLay called the reports about his scandalous behavior "just another seedy attempt by the liberal media to embarrass me." Aww, poor baby. But let it be known that the GOP is backingTom DeLay all the way, so hats off to the Republican party for standing shoulder-to-shoulder with the Bugman, and we'll just wait and see where their firm conviction for being led by an unethical megalomaniac gets them in 2006.
Fox News Of course, DeLay's pals at Fox News have been doing their best to disabuse the public of the notion that he might bear just a tiny bit of responsibility for his alleged ethics violations. Media Matters noted that several Fox News hosts went out of their way last week to assist DeLay in his attempt to blame the media for his problems: Brit Hume reported that, "Here in Washington, the press is after Tom DeLay again, but wait 'til you hear the facts," and, "speaking of Tom DeLay, the mainstream media were out after him again today." John Gibson said, "The liberal media is hammering 'The Hammer' - Tom DeLay under a microscope and under the gun. Is this simply a media hit job?" (In order to get a fair and balanced answer he interviewed Rich Lowry, editor of the right-wing National Review.) And our old friend Sean Hannity referred to the "liberal allegations" against DeLay and asked, "Is he the target of a smear campaign?" So if you want to know the details of the charges against Tom DeLay, don't bother asking Fox News. They're more concerned about protecting their buddy than they are about actually reporting the facts.
Mel Martinez Last week conservative pundits and bloggers were agog with the possibility that the infamous "Terri Schiavo memo" - which instructed Republican senators to make political hay out of her case - might have been a fake passed around by - booo! - Democrats in order to make Republicans look bad. Because surely Republicans simply aren't capable of playing such awful political games. Yeah right. But the whole thing fell apart at the seams last week when it wasrevealed that the memo actually came from the office of freshman GOP senator Mel Martinez. Of course, Martinez was completely in the dark about the memo - which explains why he was, uh, carrying it around in his pocket - and fired his aide Brian Darling for taking action "unilaterally." At this point it's probably worth mentioning that the St. Petersburg Times said back in November 2004 that "When challenged, Martinez was too eager to assign blame to his staff or to groups he said he couldn't control. As a senator, he will need an office and a staff that speaks with the measured and centrist tone he says will be his own. He can't pretend to be above it all if the people he employs are not." It certainly appears that Martinez hasn't taken that advice to heart. But in case you were worried about the future of poor Brian "Unilateral" Darling, don't fret. He used to work for the Alexander Strategy Group, whose chairman Edwin A. Buckham (former chief of staff to - ta da! - Tom DeLay) said last week that "He is still going to have a bright future in this town." Why am I not surprised...
The Forgery Shovelers The news that the memo was in fact not a fake, and did in fact originate from the office of a Republican senator, was somewhat embarrassing to the folks who'd been shoveling the forgery meme. After the "Democratic fakery" angle had played out on right-wing talk radio during the week - without any actual evidence, of course - The Washington Times ran a front page, above-the-fold story alleging that the memo could have been a dirty trick. The Times' claim that the memo was fake was based, incredibly, on this: "A survey by The Washington Times found that every Republican said the memo was not crafted or distributed by him or her." Which obviously cleared up the whole matter. Meanwhile Rush Limbaugh announced that "it appears it's a forged memo all over again!" quoting the American Spectator who wrote, "It's Rathergate all over again, and the same vigilant entities that brought about the collapse of CBS News could now also cause heads to roll among Democratic Senate leadership staffers and further shame multiple news organizations that would appear to have fallen for another document hoax." Crowed Rush, "The memo was made up by Democrat staffers." Whoops. John Aravosis at AmericaBlog has a greatscreenshot of a page from Rush's website which tells the world to "Listen to Rush Conduct Broadcast Excellence." Aravosis also noted that one of the American Spectator's aforementioned vigilant entities, "blog of the year" Powerline - who went nuts accusing the Democrats of faking the Schiavo memo - were still clinging desperately to the possibility that they could turn it against the left byblaming the media for misreporting the story. Nice try, morons.
John Cornyn What could be the reason for the recent wave of violence against judges? Just a few weeks ago, a judge's family was murdered. And there was that incident where a man on trial for rape and murder stole a gun and shot a judge dead in court. What could be prompting this crime wave? Have no fear: Sen. John Cornyn has the answer. "I – I don't know if there is a cause-and-effect connection," he pondered on the Senate floor last week, "but we have seen some recent episodes of courthouse violence in this country. Certainly nothing new, but we seem to have run through a spate of courthouse violence recently that's been on the news. And I wonder whether there may be some connection between the perception in some quarters on some occasions where judges are making political decisions yet are unaccountable to the public, that it builds up and builds up and builds up to the point where some people engage in – engage in violence." Don't worry though - apparently Cornyn didn't mean it. According tothe UK Guardian, he wrote a letter last week saying he was "not aware of evidence linking judges' decisions with possible violence. 'I certainly hope that people will not construe my remarks on Monday to state otherwise,' he said." Oh, perish the thought. So I guess you were talking about... what, exactly, Senator? The good news though is that John Cornyn has learned a lesson from all this. And here it is: "The lesson I learned is that Washington is a very tough political environment and if people can take what you say out of context and use it against you, they will." Seriously. He actually said that.
Tom DeLay One more entry for the Bugman this week, and it relates directly to the John Cornyn entry above. Cornyn may not be able to legitimately blame the most recent incidents of violence against judges and their families as some sort of revenge for their supposed judicial activism - but he soon will if Tom DeLay keeps it up. We already noted DeLay's not-so-veiled threats to the judges involved in the Terri Schiavo case ("The time will come for the men responsible for this to answer for their behavior") and last week he kicked it up a notch. DeLay said that the judiciary has "run amok" and "overstepped its authority on countless occasions." His solution? Unclear. But he also said that "Our next step, whatever it is, must be more than rhetoric." Various conservative leaders decided to pick up that ball and run with it, meeting in Washington last week to discuss "Remedies to Judicial Tyranny." Phyllis Schafly and Michael P. Farris - chairman of the Home School Legal Defense Association - both agreed that Supreme Court Justice Anthony Kennedy ought to be impeached for his opinion that juveniles shouldn't be executed. But it was Edwin Vieira who seemed to be taking Tom Delay's comments to their logical conclusion, citing Joseph Stalin in his "bottom line" for dealing with judges. "[Stalin] had a slogan," said Viera, "and it worked very well for him, whenever he ran into difficulty: 'no man, no problem.'" The full quote that Viera paraphrased, in case you were wondering, is "Death solves all problems: no man, no problem." So, uh, is anyone else bothered that leading conservatives are now using Joe Stalin as an example of how to deal with their enemies?
Republican Hypocrites Special thanks here to the Top Ten reader (you know who you are, sir!) who sent me a list of links featuring Republicans whining about high gas prices in 2000. I'm sure most of you are aware that average gas prices have been topping $2.50 per gallon recently, with San Franciscans recently reporting more than $3 per gallon for regular unleaded:
Photo: San Francisco Chronicle
Now let's take a look at what some of those Republicans had to say in 2000, when gas was around a full dollar cheaper per gallon than it is today:
Rep. Terry Everett: "The Clinton Administration has failed in its duty to develop a policy to deal with our national energy supply and is therefore directly accountable for the higher prices Americans are now paying at the gas pumps."
Dennis Hastert: "House Speaker Dennis Hastert accused the Clinton administration Friday of misleading members of Congress about the causes of skyrocketing gas prices in the Midwest."
Rep. Wally Herger: "Congressman Wally Herger recently denounced the Clinton-Gore Administration's complacency during the current gas price crisis. 'Northern Californians are being held hostage at the gas pump,' Herger said. 'The Clinton-Gore Administration has demonstrated a complete and total lack of leadership in preventing this problem. It is a clear failure of domestic and foreign policy.'"
Larry Kudlow: "The Clinton-Gore administration’s hapless and incoherent management of foreign policy is nowhere as evident as in their bungling on OPEC’s oil-price hike. ... While crude oil prices could drop to $25 per barrel, they will stay well above the average $20 real price of oil registered over the past ten years. And way above the $10 worldwide average marginal cost of producing new oil. Meanwhile gas prices at the pump are likely to be upwards of $2 per gallon well into the summer."
Glenn Spencer: "In recent weeks, gas prices have surged to their highest level in a decade. Prices for home heating oil and natural gas are expected to rise by about 30 percent this winter. ... With the Clinton-Gore administration's policies largely to blame for the pain being felt by consumers, Vice President Gore's camp has pulled out all the stops to shift blame away from his own administration."
Various Repubs: "Representatives Jim Sensenbrenner (R-Menomonee Falls), Tom Petri (R-Fond du Lac), Paul Ryan (R-Janesville), and Mark Green (R-Green Bay) today blasted Energy Secretary Bill Richardson and the Clinton-Gore Administration for their failure to implement a comprehensive energy policy to deal with staggering gas prices Wisconsin consumers continue to face at the pumps."
So, gas is about 60-75% per gallon more at the pump and oil is about 100% more per barrel than it was when these moaning minnies were whining about how much Bill Clinton and Al Gore sucked, but now George W. Bush is the president - why, his shit don't stink. Perhaps they're still waiting for him to "jawbone" OPEC? Either that or they don't care about gas prices now that he's, y'know, got the gays on the run.
The Jeff Gannon Show We noted last week that our old pal Jeff Gannon was going to be appearing at a National Press Club panel on journalism and blogging, and pondered why he was invited to be there since he wasn't a journalist or a blogger. Well it turns out that Gannon was apparently asked along for the purposes of providing hilarious comic relief. Among Gannon's classic gags from last Friday's event were the suggestion that simply reprinting administration press releases is the same as real journalism, and that the government had to pay Armstrong Williams to write a positive story on No Child Left Behind because nobody else would. Funny stuff! He even held up one of those stupid red counties vs. blue counties maps which right-wingers love to use to demonstrate how "red" the country is, except - and this is the mark of a comedy genius at work - the red states were all green, because apparently his printer was running out of ink. But the laugh of the day was surely reserved for this absolute corker: "You can hardly call Fox News conservative." Oh Jeff, you are a clown!
Michelle Bachmann Last week Minnesota State Senator Michelle Bachmann (R-Obviously) tried to force a vote on a state constitutional amendment that would ban gay marriage; Democrats said she was trying to end-run Senate rules for political gain. That she chose to do this on the same day that the local gay community was rallying for their rights on the grounds of the Capitol was certainly dubious.According to Eleventh Avenue South, "Even Senate Republicans thought it was in poor taste to try to go around Senate rules on the same day GLBT citizens were making their voice heard. Her move was overwhelmingly defeated." But one of Eleventh Avenue South's eagle-eyed readers happened to catch something rather strange that day - it turned out that Michelle Bachmann had gone to take a look at the rally, but, obviously feeling very frightened of the scary homosexuals, decided to hide in some bushes. Fortunately, the reader got pictures:
Peek-a-boo! What a coward. You know, that photo kind of reminds me of George W. Bush and Dick Cheney during Vietnam.
Warrior And Chums And finally, the artist formerly known as "The Ultimate Warrior" (now apparently just plain "Warrior" for some reason) made a professional wrestling-sized ass of himself at the University of Connecticut last week, choke-slamming the UConn College Republicans in the process. Former WWF star Warrior had apparently been invited by the College Republicans to speak about... well, actually that's not entirely clear. But Warrior is a radical right-wing nutcase, so presumably that's all the reason they needed. Unfortunately Warrior was a little too nutty even for the College Republicans, "screaming and stomping on the stage," according to liveaudiowrestling.com, and provoking the crowd into a frenzy. The evening turned sour when Warrior answered an Iranian student's question by telling him that he needed to "get a towel," and pontificated on such subjects as why "Queering don't make the world work." Which is a bit odd coming from a guy who used to make a living publicly groping a steady stream of greased-up bodybuilders in leotards.
Anyway, it turns out that the UConn College Republicans were a tad embarrassed by the debacle, issuing a profoundly apologetic press release the next day. They made sure to mention that they were sending individual letters of apology to, "the Rainbow Center, AQUA, QUAD, the African American Cultural Center, the Asian American Cultural Center, the Puerto Rican/Latin American Cultural Center, the Iranian Students Association, and the Women's Center." Oh, and in case you were wondering, "this is not a complete list of the groups that will receive a direct written apology from the College Republicans." Good lord.
But the story doesn't end there: the College Republicans' press release provoked a hilarious outburst "From the Desk Of Warrior" where he announced (in the third person!) that "All of the above notwithstanding, it is somewhat sad to see how utterly spineless the UConn College Republicans have turned out to be. Not a single UConn CR voiced any objection to Warrior after the event. The detailed emails between Warrior and the UConn CRs reveal that the CRS repeatedly encouraged Warrior to single out the Tent City Trash for some re-education. Yet, it now seems that the CRS have collectively decided to bow down and beg forgiveness from various extremist, anti-American, left-wing groups who infest the UConn campus. Perhaps the UConn CRS should refrain from engaging in political activism until such time as they develop enough backbone to be able to withstand not being liked by their opponents." Ooh, smackdown! See you next week!
4/28/2011
FactCheck.org Worth Revisiting Regarding Birthers
The birthers are recycling some of the same arguments they used when Obama released his birth certificate back in 2007. Specifically, they are honing in on his father's race, listed as "African". Trouble is, like the requirement for a "long form birth certificate", they are making up a standard which doesn't apply. The parents' racial identity isn't identified for them. It's not like some nurse is looking at the parents and deciding what their race is going to be listed as. That's the language of racial separatists and another clue as to what Something Else might be motivating the birthers apart from sincere disbelief.
When my daughter was born, I was asked what ethnicity I am. I am descended from German, Swiss, Irish, and Native American gene lines, but have an olive skin tone. I listed my race as "white". Obama's listed his as "African", which makes perfect sense in the burgeoning civil rights movement, in an ethnically diverse place like Hawaii, and the African identity notion sweeping through at that time.
Don't believe me? Well, once again, the state of Hawaii had to correct everyone on its own procedures once again:
Via FactCheck.org:
When my daughter was born, I was asked what ethnicity I am. I am descended from German, Swiss, Irish, and Native American gene lines, but have an olive skin tone. I listed my race as "white". Obama's listed his as "African", which makes perfect sense in the burgeoning civil rights movement, in an ethnically diverse place like Hawaii, and the African identity notion sweeping through at that time.
Don't believe me? Well, once again, the state of Hawaii had to correct everyone on its own procedures once again:
Via FactCheck.org:
Kurt Tsue at the DOH told us that father's race and mother's race are supplied by the parents, and that "we accept what the parents self identify themselves to be."
Birthers Behaving Badly
Via Buzzfeed, we get the following reactions from the birthers/teabaggers to yesterday's release of Obama's "long form" birth certificate. As predicted, giving them precisely what they want doesn't satisfy them. Suffice it to say, the real crazy is yet to be seen.
Click on a thumbnail to see the whole image. Keep in mind, these are real responses from real people. Laugh or cry, these folks are out there and they are allowed to vote and own guns and drive cars on the roads.
[gallery]
Click on a thumbnail to see the whole image. Keep in mind, these are real responses from real people. Laugh or cry, these folks are out there and they are allowed to vote and own guns and drive cars on the roads.
[gallery]
[caption id="attachment_1144" align="aligncenter" width="708" caption="Seriously, Fox isn't even trying any longer to hide their schilling for the GOP."]
And for a humorous look at how birthers probably view the newly released document, here is something which might be considered real, given the above examples, if I didn't specifically state that it's a joke:
[caption id="attachment_1145" align="aligncenter" width="630" caption="Looks fake to me!"]
3/16/2011
When Trolls Get Trolled
Poe's Law: “Without a winking smiley or other blatant display of humor, it is impossible to create a parody of fundamentalism that someone won't mistake for the real thing.”
Pouring over the graphic videos coming out of Japan over the last several days, showing the devastation and sheer human toll the Japanese are still enduring, I also was drawn to the usual places to gauge reactions from others.
There were the expected "it's a message from god" jabs from the likes of Glenn Beck. Gilbert Gottfried got fired from his gig as the voice of the duck in the AFLAC commercials. And then I found this young lady:
httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MUbY_M3HURQ
For those who didn't click the video, it stars a girl named Pamela who goes into a monologue extolling how her god answered prayers during the Lent season to open the eyes of atheists by striking at Japan, a country with a large non-Christian population. It's part of a series of videos she had on her YouTube channel, which is now closed. The other videos were similar monologues of her expounding on various topics in the news or in her alleged personal life, and from the viewpoint of someone clearly a fundamentalist, extremist Christian.
The folks over at 4chan fell for it, as did a lot of other people. They didn't spot the obvious patterns of her subject matter or her mannerisms which gave away her schtick. She was trolling the religionists and, as it happened, the atheists too. Richard Dawkins even featured the video on his website, though without comment. It made the rounds of Facebook and other social media and obviously on the boards at 4chan. The result? The children inhabiting those forums poked into her personal life, revealed her personal information, and then proceeded to harass her by having pizzas delivered to her house.
They couldn't have been more Bart Simpson-childish if they had simply lit a bag of dog poop on fire on her steps and ran away after ringing the bell.
And all because they couldn't spot what amounts to one of their own giving them a lesson in just how indistinguishable parody can be from the thing being parodied if it's extreme enough.
Wherever and whoever Pamela is, I hope she finds another outlet for what is a clearly brilliant mind for satire. The following is a letter I sent her on YouTube just before she closed her account:
Oscar worthy performances
I have now perused through several of your videos and I think I have a pretty good bead on precisely what you are doing.
To that, I say BRAVO.
Yours is quite possibly the best example of Poe's Law I have ever encountered. I realize you can't (and probably shouldn't) respond to me, given that it might blow your cover. But I felt compelled to write after watching what I consider a parody of even myself (from many years ago).
I grew up a fundamentalist Christian. My summer bible camps? Yeah, we all sounded just like you do in your videos, even without hitting all the political talking point. In retrospect, it was quite strange that we were otherwise bright and growing young people so willingly turning our brains off.
I got over that and found myself "coming out" as an atheist some years later in my late teens. I have never looked back, though I often find myself turning around to combat the rather insidious spread of fundamentalist thinking wherever I find it.
To close, I wish to once again tell you I found your performances Academy Award winning and if you are not an aspiring actress, I certainly hope you are writing all of this down. It's gold!
Pamela signed off her account with this, rather sad video, coming clean about her previous trolling and basically begging off from the infantile reaction by 4chan and its adherents:
10/31/2010
Rally Crowd Comparison
Jon Stewart made a joke alluding to the inevitable judgments made about rallies based on color and size. Interesting comparison, then, of the last Beck rally and the Stewart rally:
[caption id="attachment_894" align="aligncenter" width="738" caption="Click for full size."]
[/caption]
Here's a photo of a DC metro station during the rally:
[caption id="attachment_894" align="aligncenter" width="738" caption="Click for full size."]
[/caption]Here's a photo of a DC metro station during the rally:
10/23/2010
Sociopathy on the Right: Ayn Rand and the Triumph of Conservative Cultism
I discovered the following essay in my notes, written by Tim Wise. He illustrates much of what I wrote of in my own essay previously and he does so with a good intellect. Well worth a read.
by Tim Wise September 14, 2009, 9:17 pm
At first it seemed little more than a bizarre rant, only slightly worse than those to which we've grown accustomed, given the source. To wit, Rush Limbaugh, who on September 11 condemned President Obama for speaking that day about community service, and encouraging young people to become involved in service projects as a way to help make America a better place. Far from seeing such a call as a positive request to take personal responsibility for improving one's nation, to Limbaugh, it was little more than the "first step toward fascism," intended to conscript the young into a volunteer army, bent on helping to carry out the President's political agenda.
Community service, Limbaugh explained, was something that should be done by convicts. Specifically, he offered: "Let prisoners do it, let prisoners pick up the trash. Let prisoners mow some highway grass. This -- this community service, folks, it's insidious. It is nothing more than a well- sounding compassionate label. But it means something entirely different. It means turning you into a robot." Yes, of course. That's not insane at all. The anti-social nature of the diatribe was stunning. Service, according to the gospel of Limbaugh, is for suckers, for society's "losers," for people who have committed crimes. In other words, it should be viewed as punishment rather than as something to be applauded and encouraged. To do for community is a fool's errand.
Yet as bizarre as his words may seem at first blush, they actually illustrate with bold clarity the fundamental (and increasingly common) core of the conservative belief system. They speak to the sociopathy that is at the heart of the far-right worldview. It is a worldview that holds, quite simply, that doing for others is contemptible; that doing for self is the purpose of human life; that altruism and service are somehow pathologies pushed by collectivists and should be subordinated to selfishness and greed.
Sound too extreme? Well if so, consider this. Among the most interesting phenomena of the past year--and especially since the inauguration of Barack Obama--has been the explosion of interest in (and sales of) books by the late author, Ayn Rand: most prominently her classic novels, The Fountainhead and Atlas Shrugged. Indeed, the latter had an all-time record year in 2008, and 2009 sales are on a pace to shatter even last year's numbers.
Far from a simple believer in limited government and a free market economy, Rand's philosophy--now being endorsed by tea party protesters and anti-Obama minions across the nation (indeed the Ayn Rand Center for Individual Rights was among the sponsors of the 9/12 march on Washington)--was predicated on one overarching notion: that a commitment to selfishness and a rejection of altruistic behavior were the height of morality. That's not to say that she merely rejected compulsory altruism via taxation, but altruism even privately chosen. To do for others, out of a charitable impulse or out of some faith-based commitment, for example, is morally and ethically suspect, for neither feelings nor faith are rational bases for human actions, according to her philosophy known as Objectivism. Unless one's assistance to another were rooted in some self-interested motivation, it was to be condemned.
It is especially fascinating to see the so-called "average, everyday folks" at the tea party rallies embracing Rand's thinking and literature. After all, Rand's view of the common man and woman--presumably the very Joe Six Packs and Hockey Moms recently enthralled by her--was decidedly grotesque. So, for instance, in her original version of her work,We the Living, Rand had her chief protagonist proclaim: "What are your masses...but mud to be ground underfoot, fuel to be burned for those who deserve it?"
Rand's disdain for the bulk of humanity was, indeed, so extreme that in the aforemetioned Atlas Shrugged--whose main character and "hero" John Galt has been referenced on numerous tea party signs--she indulges a pseudo- genocidal fantasy, in which virtually everyone except Galt and his few "perfect" producers is vanquished. This happy occurrence results from a "strike of the mind," in which Galt and his superior colleagues of industry withdraw their talents from the nation and hole up in a mountain retreat, rather than submit to things like government regulations. Those whom Galt condemns in the book, and thus, whom Rand is herself condemning, are referred to as "parasites" who are unworthy of life. Indeed, Galt's contempt for the weak of the world prompts he and his colleagues to banish the word "give" from their small utopian "gulch." Giving, after all, much like calls for community service, is for suckers.
Even though Galt feels certain that his strike may well kill the vast majority of the world's inhabitants (because they are simply too stupid to survive without he and the other "perfect producers"), he firmly believes, and thus, so does Rand, that this outcome is moral--more so, than say, taxes or charity. In keeping with his strange morality, he not only withdraws his superior talent, but also sabotages the nation's infrastructure (the roads and bridges) thereby making the transport of fuel and grain impossible, resulting in chaos, starvation and general suffering. This is what the Rand-bots are reading, the vision of society they endorse: one comprised of better people, and decided inferiors, sub-humans even, who are worthy of death for their laziness, their sloth, their lack of industriousness. No wonder people imbued with such a truly sadistic mindset
as this would oppose health care reform. To this way of thought, those without health care deserve their suffering, and that suffering should be of no concern to the rest of us.
Those who have written biographies of Rand--including former acolytes-- paint a uniformly disturbing picture. Rand, according to Nathaniel Branden's My Years with Ayn Rand, Barbara Branden's The Passion of Ayn Rand, and Jeff Walker's The Ayn Rand Cult was narcissistic in the extreme, incapable of empathy, often cruel--going so far as to have an affair in full view of her husband--as well as paranoid, addicted to amphetamines, and obsessed with her belief that average people were "ugly, stupid and irrational."
Interestingly, despite her general disdain for humanity, there were people she seemed to admire greatly, such as William Edward Hickman, whose credo, "What is good for me is right," she described in her Journals as, "The best and strongest expression of a real man's psychology I have heard." But Hickman was no simple expositor of personal greed and self-interest; no mere modern day libertarian; no pedestrian practitioner of excessive self- love. No indeed. He was a sociopathic murderer. In 1927 he kidnapped a 12- year old girl from a school in Los Angeles by the name of Marian Parker, chopped off her legs, cut our her internal organs, drained all of her blood and then spread parts of her body all over the city.
Of Hickman, this sick murderer, Rand had almost nothing but positive things to say.
She indeed critiqued those who would condemn Hickman's actions for having committed "worse sins and crimes," such as those she ascribed to his jury. Among those "greater" crimes--greater than mutilating a child--she included being, "Average, everyday, rather stupid looking citizens. Shabbily dressed, dried, worn looking little men. Fat, overdressed, very average, 'dignified' housewives." Their ordinariness, in other words, placed them below Hickman, in Rand's mind. "How can they decide the fate of that boy? Or anyone's fate?" she implored in her Journals.
It was Hickman's willfulness, his disregard for others, which so seems to have resonated with Rand. It fit perfectly with her own developing philosophy, which she would articulate perfectly in her original notes for The Fountainhead, wherein she wrote, "One puts oneself above all and crushes everything in one's way to get the best for oneself. Fine!" Thus Hickman's crime, to Rand, was "a daring challenge to society," rather than the act of a seriously deranged person from whom the society should seek protection.
Indeed, Rand speculates that Hickman's real crime may have been merely that he was "too impatient, fiery and proud" to accept the slow, soul-crushing
death that his life had become. She even went so far as to blame the crime on Christianity, which she described as "ludicrous tragic nonsense," capable of turning this "bad boy with a very winning grin, that...makes you like him the whole time you're in his presence" into a sadistic killer. And so, interestingly, the right is increasingly cleaving to the words and philosophy of a woman who was not only, in all likelihood, mentally disturbed, but the functional equivalent of those who fell in love with say, Charles Manson or Ted Bundy, even after their crimes were exposed. This is what the right is coming to. This is what they really mean when they call themselves "values voters." The values of which they speak, far from being "Christian," and far from being rooted in concern for the country, are--at least for many--firmly grounded in selfishness, applied narcissism and operationalized, organizational sociopathy. That they would seek to make a hero of Rand, and forge a movement based even in part on her thinking is all the evidence one should need that the patients are running the asylum known as the American right. Only, their kind of craziness is not nearly as sympathetic as that displayed by the typical person suffering from mental illness. Theirs is a special kind of crazy, not organic as is the case with so much mental illness, but rather, rooted in anti-social, almost cult-like propaganda. Sadly, it is a propaganda that, even with its horrific message is currently being read by more than a million high school students across the country: probably more than a few of whom are the very ones whose principals and teachers, or parents, refused to let them hear the President speak for fear he might indoctrinate them into such awful projects as community service (or, as it turned out, merely staying in school).
They want their country back, they tell us. And the country they want, so far as their reading habits would suggest, is a nation based on greed, me- firstism and an utter disregard for the well-being of the community. As for me, I will gladly stand with the opposite tradition. Do we want a culture of compassion or contempt? That is the choice. And we should proclaim our answer, compassion, boldly and without apology.
Tim Wise is the author of four books on race. His latest is, Between Barack and a Hard Place: Racism and White Denial in the Age of Obama
by Tim Wise September 14, 2009, 9:17 pm
At first it seemed little more than a bizarre rant, only slightly worse than those to which we've grown accustomed, given the source. To wit, Rush Limbaugh, who on September 11 condemned President Obama for speaking that day about community service, and encouraging young people to become involved in service projects as a way to help make America a better place. Far from seeing such a call as a positive request to take personal responsibility for improving one's nation, to Limbaugh, it was little more than the "first step toward fascism," intended to conscript the young into a volunteer army, bent on helping to carry out the President's political agenda.
Community service, Limbaugh explained, was something that should be done by convicts. Specifically, he offered: "Let prisoners do it, let prisoners pick up the trash. Let prisoners mow some highway grass. This -- this community service, folks, it's insidious. It is nothing more than a well- sounding compassionate label. But it means something entirely different. It means turning you into a robot." Yes, of course. That's not insane at all. The anti-social nature of the diatribe was stunning. Service, according to the gospel of Limbaugh, is for suckers, for society's "losers," for people who have committed crimes. In other words, it should be viewed as punishment rather than as something to be applauded and encouraged. To do for community is a fool's errand.
Yet as bizarre as his words may seem at first blush, they actually illustrate with bold clarity the fundamental (and increasingly common) core of the conservative belief system. They speak to the sociopathy that is at the heart of the far-right worldview. It is a worldview that holds, quite simply, that doing for others is contemptible; that doing for self is the purpose of human life; that altruism and service are somehow pathologies pushed by collectivists and should be subordinated to selfishness and greed.
Sound too extreme? Well if so, consider this. Among the most interesting phenomena of the past year--and especially since the inauguration of Barack Obama--has been the explosion of interest in (and sales of) books by the late author, Ayn Rand: most prominently her classic novels, The Fountainhead and Atlas Shrugged. Indeed, the latter had an all-time record year in 2008, and 2009 sales are on a pace to shatter even last year's numbers.
Far from a simple believer in limited government and a free market economy, Rand's philosophy--now being endorsed by tea party protesters and anti-Obama minions across the nation (indeed the Ayn Rand Center for Individual Rights was among the sponsors of the 9/12 march on Washington)--was predicated on one overarching notion: that a commitment to selfishness and a rejection of altruistic behavior were the height of morality. That's not to say that she merely rejected compulsory altruism via taxation, but altruism even privately chosen. To do for others, out of a charitable impulse or out of some faith-based commitment, for example, is morally and ethically suspect, for neither feelings nor faith are rational bases for human actions, according to her philosophy known as Objectivism. Unless one's assistance to another were rooted in some self-interested motivation, it was to be condemned.
It is especially fascinating to see the so-called "average, everyday folks" at the tea party rallies embracing Rand's thinking and literature. After all, Rand's view of the common man and woman--presumably the very Joe Six Packs and Hockey Moms recently enthralled by her--was decidedly grotesque. So, for instance, in her original version of her work,We the Living, Rand had her chief protagonist proclaim: "What are your masses...but mud to be ground underfoot, fuel to be burned for those who deserve it?"
Rand's disdain for the bulk of humanity was, indeed, so extreme that in the aforemetioned Atlas Shrugged--whose main character and "hero" John Galt has been referenced on numerous tea party signs--she indulges a pseudo- genocidal fantasy, in which virtually everyone except Galt and his few "perfect" producers is vanquished. This happy occurrence results from a "strike of the mind," in which Galt and his superior colleagues of industry withdraw their talents from the nation and hole up in a mountain retreat, rather than submit to things like government regulations. Those whom Galt condemns in the book, and thus, whom Rand is herself condemning, are referred to as "parasites" who are unworthy of life. Indeed, Galt's contempt for the weak of the world prompts he and his colleagues to banish the word "give" from their small utopian "gulch." Giving, after all, much like calls for community service, is for suckers.
Even though Galt feels certain that his strike may well kill the vast majority of the world's inhabitants (because they are simply too stupid to survive without he and the other "perfect producers"), he firmly believes, and thus, so does Rand, that this outcome is moral--more so, than say, taxes or charity. In keeping with his strange morality, he not only withdraws his superior talent, but also sabotages the nation's infrastructure (the roads and bridges) thereby making the transport of fuel and grain impossible, resulting in chaos, starvation and general suffering. This is what the Rand-bots are reading, the vision of society they endorse: one comprised of better people, and decided inferiors, sub-humans even, who are worthy of death for their laziness, their sloth, their lack of industriousness. No wonder people imbued with such a truly sadistic mindset
as this would oppose health care reform. To this way of thought, those without health care deserve their suffering, and that suffering should be of no concern to the rest of us.
Those who have written biographies of Rand--including former acolytes-- paint a uniformly disturbing picture. Rand, according to Nathaniel Branden's My Years with Ayn Rand, Barbara Branden's The Passion of Ayn Rand, and Jeff Walker's The Ayn Rand Cult was narcissistic in the extreme, incapable of empathy, often cruel--going so far as to have an affair in full view of her husband--as well as paranoid, addicted to amphetamines, and obsessed with her belief that average people were "ugly, stupid and irrational."
Interestingly, despite her general disdain for humanity, there were people she seemed to admire greatly, such as William Edward Hickman, whose credo, "What is good for me is right," she described in her Journals as, "The best and strongest expression of a real man's psychology I have heard." But Hickman was no simple expositor of personal greed and self-interest; no mere modern day libertarian; no pedestrian practitioner of excessive self- love. No indeed. He was a sociopathic murderer. In 1927 he kidnapped a 12- year old girl from a school in Los Angeles by the name of Marian Parker, chopped off her legs, cut our her internal organs, drained all of her blood and then spread parts of her body all over the city.
Of Hickman, this sick murderer, Rand had almost nothing but positive things to say.
She indeed critiqued those who would condemn Hickman's actions for having committed "worse sins and crimes," such as those she ascribed to his jury. Among those "greater" crimes--greater than mutilating a child--she included being, "Average, everyday, rather stupid looking citizens. Shabbily dressed, dried, worn looking little men. Fat, overdressed, very average, 'dignified' housewives." Their ordinariness, in other words, placed them below Hickman, in Rand's mind. "How can they decide the fate of that boy? Or anyone's fate?" she implored in her Journals.
It was Hickman's willfulness, his disregard for others, which so seems to have resonated with Rand. It fit perfectly with her own developing philosophy, which she would articulate perfectly in her original notes for The Fountainhead, wherein she wrote, "One puts oneself above all and crushes everything in one's way to get the best for oneself. Fine!" Thus Hickman's crime, to Rand, was "a daring challenge to society," rather than the act of a seriously deranged person from whom the society should seek protection.
Indeed, Rand speculates that Hickman's real crime may have been merely that he was "too impatient, fiery and proud" to accept the slow, soul-crushing
death that his life had become. She even went so far as to blame the crime on Christianity, which she described as "ludicrous tragic nonsense," capable of turning this "bad boy with a very winning grin, that...makes you like him the whole time you're in his presence" into a sadistic killer. And so, interestingly, the right is increasingly cleaving to the words and philosophy of a woman who was not only, in all likelihood, mentally disturbed, but the functional equivalent of those who fell in love with say, Charles Manson or Ted Bundy, even after their crimes were exposed. This is what the right is coming to. This is what they really mean when they call themselves "values voters." The values of which they speak, far from being "Christian," and far from being rooted in concern for the country, are--at least for many--firmly grounded in selfishness, applied narcissism and operationalized, organizational sociopathy. That they would seek to make a hero of Rand, and forge a movement based even in part on her thinking is all the evidence one should need that the patients are running the asylum known as the American right. Only, their kind of craziness is not nearly as sympathetic as that displayed by the typical person suffering from mental illness. Theirs is a special kind of crazy, not organic as is the case with so much mental illness, but rather, rooted in anti-social, almost cult-like propaganda. Sadly, it is a propaganda that, even with its horrific message is currently being read by more than a million high school students across the country: probably more than a few of whom are the very ones whose principals and teachers, or parents, refused to let them hear the President speak for fear he might indoctrinate them into such awful projects as community service (or, as it turned out, merely staying in school).
They want their country back, they tell us. And the country they want, so far as their reading habits would suggest, is a nation based on greed, me- firstism and an utter disregard for the well-being of the community. As for me, I will gladly stand with the opposite tradition. Do we want a culture of compassion or contempt? That is the choice. And we should proclaim our answer, compassion, boldly and without apology.
Tim Wise is the author of four books on race. His latest is, Between Barack and a Hard Place: Racism and White Denial in the Age of Obama
10/19/2010
"Going Galt" and the Insanity of the Right Wing
[caption id="attachment_811" align="aligncenter" width="494" caption="No, your name isn't John Galt."]
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The rise of teabag politics in the US has lead to an equally disturbing return to deification of Ayn Rand and her Objectivist "philosophy". The right wing, of course, doesn't talk about Ayn Rand's disdain for things like religions or belief in a god, but focuses instead on her notions regarding capitalism. Specifically, they use the John Galt figure from one of her books to embody all that an American should be.
Who was John Galt? He was the deus ex machina in Atlas Shrugged, a rich industrialist who tired of seeing his tax money go to such despicable things as helping the poor. So, he took his ball and went home, quite literally. He buys an island and moves there with all his rich friends, leaving the rest of society to go without their creative manna (read: taxes).
[caption id="attachment_812" align="alignright" width="199" caption="Their pledge is "I swear by my life, and my love of it, that I will never live for the sake of another man, nor ask another man to live for mine." They are bad people."]
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The teabaggers use this fictional character to represent themselves. They believe they are the same as Galt and no longer want to participate in our society with its taxes and social programs. There is even an organization dedicated to "going Galt":
They have the typical delusional "Us" and "Them" mentality so prevalent among the right wing. They are the True Americans© while everyone else is simply a leech, living off the tit of taxpayers. In replacing Ronald Reagan with Ayn Rand as their Conservative Messiah, they expressing a kind of vicious, self-interested sociopathy some of them don't even realize. The cognitive dissonance is astounding and they don't seem to actually get what they are saying.
For example, remember Craig T. Nelson's appearance on the Glenn Beck show?
httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yTwpBLzxe4U
He says the words but he doesn't appear to understand what he is saying. More recently, we see this:
[caption id="attachment_813" align="aligncenter" width="450" caption="Ummm...."]
[/caption]
This level of blindness to the implications of their ideology is one explanation for the puzzling endorsement of Rand's philosophies. Ayn Rand wasn't merely blindingly in love with laissez faire capitalism. She took it a step further and advocated some of those same concepts as a kind of morality. A good insight into her psyche was her thoughts on William Edward Hickman, a psychotic killer who kidnapped, ransomed, tortured, and killed a little girl so he could get enough money to go to seminary. When he was finally captured and investigators were questioning how he could morally justify himself, he famously said "what is good for me is right".
Rand considered this quote to be the epitome of a "real man's psychology". Her defense of him didn't just end there, however. She later wrote of him:
Her sympathy for a psychotic murderer is of the same vein of thought which informs her Objectivism. It is individuals like Hickman who became the model of other heroes in her books, Denny Renahan in "The Little Street". In further describing Hickman she wrote of her "involuntary, irresistible sympathy for him, which I cannot help feeling just because of [his antisocial nature] and in spite of everything else."
Such individualism and anti-social behavior defined all of Rand's heros and heroines. They viewed themselves as morally superior by virtue of simply staking out that ground, and the rest of humanity as mere tools to be used, ground down, and tossed aside to achieve whatever goal theses Individuals had for themselves. Such goals could obviously be building skyscrapers or killing innocent children. If it's good for them, it's right.
[/caption]The rise of teabag politics in the US has lead to an equally disturbing return to deification of Ayn Rand and her Objectivist "philosophy". The right wing, of course, doesn't talk about Ayn Rand's disdain for things like religions or belief in a god, but focuses instead on her notions regarding capitalism. Specifically, they use the John Galt figure from one of her books to embody all that an American should be.
Who was John Galt? He was the deus ex machina in Atlas Shrugged, a rich industrialist who tired of seeing his tax money go to such despicable things as helping the poor. So, he took his ball and went home, quite literally. He buys an island and moves there with all his rich friends, leaving the rest of society to go without their creative manna (read: taxes).
[caption id="attachment_812" align="alignright" width="199" caption="Their pledge is "I swear by my life, and my love of it, that I will never live for the sake of another man, nor ask another man to live for mine." They are bad people."]
[/caption]The teabaggers use this fictional character to represent themselves. They believe they are the same as Galt and no longer want to participate in our society with its taxes and social programs. There is even an organization dedicated to "going Galt":
They have the typical delusional "Us" and "Them" mentality so prevalent among the right wing. They are the True Americans© while everyone else is simply a leech, living off the tit of taxpayers. In replacing Ronald Reagan with Ayn Rand as their Conservative Messiah, they expressing a kind of vicious, self-interested sociopathy some of them don't even realize. The cognitive dissonance is astounding and they don't seem to actually get what they are saying.
For example, remember Craig T. Nelson's appearance on the Glenn Beck show?
httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yTwpBLzxe4U
He says the words but he doesn't appear to understand what he is saying. More recently, we see this:
[caption id="attachment_813" align="aligncenter" width="450" caption="Ummm...."]
[/caption]This level of blindness to the implications of their ideology is one explanation for the puzzling endorsement of Rand's philosophies. Ayn Rand wasn't merely blindingly in love with laissez faire capitalism. She took it a step further and advocated some of those same concepts as a kind of morality. A good insight into her psyche was her thoughts on William Edward Hickman, a psychotic killer who kidnapped, ransomed, tortured, and killed a little girl so he could get enough money to go to seminary. When he was finally captured and investigators were questioning how he could morally justify himself, he famously said "what is good for me is right".
Rand considered this quote to be the epitome of a "real man's psychology". Her defense of him didn't just end there, however. She later wrote of him:
"The first thing that impresses me about the case is the ferocious rage of a whole society against one man. No matter what the man did, there is always something loathsome in the 'virtuous' indignation and mass-hatred of the 'majority.'... It is repulsive to see all these beings with worse sins and crimes in their own lives, virtuously condemning a criminal...
"This is not just the case of a terrible crime. It is not the crime alone that has raised the fury of public hatred. It is the case of a daring challenge to society. It is the fact that a crime has been committed by one man, alone; that this man knew it was against all laws of humanity and intended that way; that he does not want to recognize it as a crime and that he feels superior to all. It is the amazing picture of a man with no regard whatever for all that society holds sacred, and with a consciousness all his own. A man who really stands alone, in action and in soul."
"And when we look at the other side of it -- there is a brilliant, unusual, exceptional boy turned into a purposeless monster. By whom? By what? Is it not by that very society that is now yelling so virtuously in its role of innocent victim? He had a brilliant mind, a romantic, adventurous, impatient soul and a straight, uncompromising, proud character. What had society to offer him? A wretched, insane family as the ideal home, a Y.M.C.A. club as social honor, and a bank-page job as ambition and career...
"If he had any desires and ambitions -- what was the way before him? A long, slow, soul-eating, heart-wrecking toil and struggle; the degrading, ignoble road of silent pain and loud compromises....
"A strong man can eventually trample society under his feet. That boy was not strong enough. But is that his crime? Is it his crime that he was too impatient, fiery and proud to go that slow way? That he was not able to serve, when he felt worthy to rule; to obey, when he wanted to command?...
"He was given [nothing with which] to fill his life. What was he offered to fill his soul? The petty, narrow, inconsistent, hypocritical ideology of present-day humanity. All the criminal, ludicrous, tragic nonsense of Christianity and its morals, virtues, and consequences. Is it any wonder that he didn't accept it?"
Her sympathy for a psychotic murderer is of the same vein of thought which informs her Objectivism. It is individuals like Hickman who became the model of other heroes in her books, Denny Renahan in "The Little Street". In further describing Hickman she wrote of her "involuntary, irresistible sympathy for him, which I cannot help feeling just because of [his antisocial nature] and in spite of everything else."
Such individualism and anti-social behavior defined all of Rand's heros and heroines. They viewed themselves as morally superior by virtue of simply staking out that ground, and the rest of humanity as mere tools to be used, ground down, and tossed aside to achieve whatever goal theses Individuals had for themselves. Such goals could obviously be building skyscrapers or killing innocent children. If it's good for them, it's right.
7/21/2010
Right Wing Round-Up
Maybe it's just me, but it feels like the right wing have pulled out all the stops in recent days in terms nastiness, trickery, and deception. The following are some re-caps of recent stories.
Of course, Stein is only echoing the current Republican lambasting of the unemployed. I guess seeing long lines of people at job fairs or at unemployment offices scrounging for the few jobs available and trying to subsist on what little unemployment insurance can be had just makes Republicans remember it was THEIR legislation removing regulations on the finance industry which lead to those people being unemployed in the first place when the economy inevitably tanked.
Stein is basically saying that, with some "powerful exceptions", 15 million people are unpleasant people and lazy. While I am sure Stein enjoys the hard labor he does by being a talking head, I strongly doubt any of the unemployed out there compare to his sheer douchebaggery.
MediaMatters does a nice round up of this story. Basically, it goes like this: Andrew Breitbart is a lying sack of shit who posted a heavily edited clip from a speech given by a Department of Agriculture official. The clip's editing makes the speech sound like the official is making racist statements (a black woman being racist against a white man, no less). The video goes up on Breitbart's site and then Fox News starts talking about it online, followed by on-air punditry. The White House and NAACP knee jerk react and jump all over the official. She resigns. Unedited video surfaces showing she wasn't saying anything remotely racist. NAACP retracts condemnation and the White House begins "reviewing" her case. Long story short, the White House fell for a right wing smear campaign. Here's hoping they reinstate her and learn from their mistake.
I already posted on this earlier, but it's worth repeating in the context of the latest lies from the right wing. Here is Snopes' take on it again:
Echoes of Fala, anyone?
Ben Stein disparages the unemployed
The people who have been laid off and cannot find work are generally people with poor work habits and poor personalities. I say “generally” because there are exceptions. But in general, as I survey the ranks of those who are unemployed, I see people who have overbearing and unpleasant personalities and/or who do not know how to do a day’s work.
Of course, Stein is only echoing the current Republican lambasting of the unemployed. I guess seeing long lines of people at job fairs or at unemployment offices scrounging for the few jobs available and trying to subsist on what little unemployment insurance can be had just makes Republicans remember it was THEIR legislation removing regulations on the finance industry which lead to those people being unemployed in the first place when the economy inevitably tanked.
Stein is basically saying that, with some "powerful exceptions", 15 million people are unpleasant people and lazy. While I am sure Stein enjoys the hard labor he does by being a talking head, I strongly doubt any of the unemployed out there compare to his sheer douchebaggery.
Dishonesty by Breitbart and Fox News leads to smearing of Obama official
MediaMatters does a nice round up of this story. Basically, it goes like this: Andrew Breitbart is a lying sack of shit who posted a heavily edited clip from a speech given by a Department of Agriculture official. The clip's editing makes the speech sound like the official is making racist statements (a black woman being racist against a white man, no less). The video goes up on Breitbart's site and then Fox News starts talking about it online, followed by on-air punditry. The White House and NAACP knee jerk react and jump all over the official. She resigns. Unedited video surfaces showing she wasn't saying anything remotely racist. NAACP retracts condemnation and the White House begins "reviewing" her case. Long story short, the White House fell for a right wing smear campaign. Here's hoping they reinstate her and learn from their mistake.
Right wingers lie about Obama's dog
I already posted on this earlier, but it's worth repeating in the context of the latest lies from the right wing. Here is Snopes' take on it again:
Bo flew to Maine in a different plane than the rest of the First Family not because he was part of a special canine-only flight, but because the local airport (Hancock County-Bar Harbor Airport in Trenton, Maine) was too small to accommodate theBoeing 747-200B in which the President usually travels. Therefore, the Obamas flew to Maine in a Gulfstream GIII/G3 jet (which seats six to nineteen passengers), while Bo was loaded onto an earlier flight which carried a contingent of presidential aides and staff members.
Echoes of Fala, anyone?
httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4gztvtSyTdY
Right winger offers money for assault on Democratic Representative
Another good MediaMatters catch:
Dan Gainor is a right wing pundit at NewsBusters and when confronted on this via another Tweeter, he quickly walked it back and said he was joking. But that he would love to see the video anyway. See what he did there? Called for violence, claimed he was joking but then subtly called for it again by his desire to see footage of it.
Rep. Grayson, however, is not some fading flower. He responded to the Tweet:
"I think he's overlooking something important: I punch back."
7/20/2010
Another Right Wing Tempest in a Teacup
President Obama and his family are spending a few days in Maine this week. They will be touring the area and taking a few days off after the President helped shepherd needed unemployment benefit extensions through the Congress, getting historic financial reform passed, and receiving the PMs of Israel and the UK.
But, according to the right wingers, that's not the real story. Let's take them one at a time.....
Fox Nation: Obama Family Dog Flies on His Own Private Plane
Michelle Malkin: Just Plane Crazy: Obama's Dog Flies to Vacation
Free Republic: Obama's Dog Gets Own Plane on Vacation Trip
Left Coast Rebel: Bad Decisions Will Dog Obama
Gee, wonder what they are all talking about? Turns out, it's this blurb from one of the local paper's coverage of the President's arrival:
Nothing there seems amiss unless one thinks like a right winger, which is to read of events without bothering to include context or nuance. In this case, because the article doesn't bother to point out other people were on the plane, the right wingers just assume the plane held only Bo and Reggie Love.
The paper was slammed with comments and questions about the Air Force Bo jet and had to eventually issue a clarification, for the sake of the misconstruing right wingers:
It's pretty sad and telling when newspapers, which write to a 7th grade reading level anyway by design, have to further dumb down the text in order to allay the howls of righteous indignation coming from an illiterate attempt at reading.
The above "Left Coast Rebel" in particular deals with the clarification dishonestly by jumping on the fact that *gasp* the President travels with an entourage, like every President before him. Suddenly, the idea that our President must be ready to conduct the nation's business at any time, from any where and continues to receive news and updates regardless of where he is or what he is doing is lost in the right winger's mindless attempt at indictment falling short.
*UPDATE*
Snopes has now thankfully sorted out the facts as well.
But, according to the right wingers, that's not the real story. Let's take them one at a time.....
Fox Nation: Obama Family Dog Flies on His Own Private Plane
Michelle Malkin: Just Plane Crazy: Obama's Dog Flies to Vacation
Free Republic: Obama's Dog Gets Own Plane on Vacation Trip
Left Coast Rebel: Bad Decisions Will Dog Obama
Gee, wonder what they are all talking about? Turns out, it's this blurb from one of the local paper's coverage of the President's arrival:
Arriving in a small jet before the Obamas was the first dog, Bo, a Portuguese water dog given as a present by the late U.S. Sen Ted Kennedy, D-Mass.; and the president's personal aide Reggie Love, who chatted with Baldacci.
Nothing there seems amiss unless one thinks like a right winger, which is to read of events without bothering to include context or nuance. In this case, because the article doesn't bother to point out other people were on the plane, the right wingers just assume the plane held only Bo and Reggie Love.
The paper was slammed with comments and questions about the Air Force Bo jet and had to eventually issue a clarification, for the sake of the misconstruing right wingers:
Today's story about the arrival of the Obamas said the Obama's dog and one aide arrived on a small jet before the First Family, but there were other occupants on the plane, including several other staffers. The presidential party took two small jets to the Hancock County-Bar Harbor Airport in Trenton because the airport was too small to accommodate the president's usual jet.
It's pretty sad and telling when newspapers, which write to a 7th grade reading level anyway by design, have to further dumb down the text in order to allay the howls of righteous indignation coming from an illiterate attempt at reading.
The above "Left Coast Rebel" in particular deals with the clarification dishonestly by jumping on the fact that *gasp* the President travels with an entourage, like every President before him. Suddenly, the idea that our President must be ready to conduct the nation's business at any time, from any where and continues to receive news and updates regardless of where he is or what he is doing is lost in the right winger's mindless attempt at indictment falling short.
*UPDATE*
Snopes has now thankfully sorted out the facts as well.
Bo flew to Maine in a different plane than the rest of the First Family not because he was part of a special canine-only flight, but because the local airport (Hancock County-Bar Harbor Airport in Trenton, Maine) was too small to accommodate theBoeing 747-200B in which the President usually travels. Therefore, the Obamas flew to Maine in a Gulfstream GIII/G3 jet (which seats six to nineteen passengers), while Bo was loaded onto an earlier flight which carried a contingent of presidential aides and staff members.
7/18/2010
American Ahabs, a further comment
A comment was posted to this article after I referred to it during a Facebook debate with a couple of right wingers. I decided to allow it to be published by reprinting it here as a great example of what American Ahabs are all about.
[caption id="attachment_695" align="aligncenter" width="150" caption="Click for full view"]
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*EDIT*
Another comment from John Sterling was posted this evening:
Author : Jack Bauer (IP: 74.63.112.137 , 74.63.112.137)
E-mail : not@gonna.happen
URL :
Whois : http://ws.arin.net/cgi-bin/whois.pl?queryinput=74.63.112.137
Comment:
Lt. McCalne says "eat a bag shit".
Here we see him invoking a couple of different fictional characters, each more over the the top than the last and each being the embodiment of jingoistic, chest thumping, apish American Ahabs. Of particular note, "eat a bag shit". Grammatically challenged, lurching, ham fisted attempts at insults which only make him look like an idiot.
Full text (preserved from prior to John going back and deleting all his previous posts):
Ed Bisner Does this really come as a surprise too anyone with a brain?
After 18 months of Obama, Americans already feeling fonder of Dick Cheney, less so of Al Gore | Top.
latimesblogs.latimes.com
Gallup Poll finds Joe Biden is about the same as last year, though down since he actually became vice president.
Thursday at 10:25pm · Comment · Like · Share
Brian Ragle Yes, let's harken back to those days of yore, when our VP alleged a new branch of government somehow existing in a netherworld between the Executive and the Legislative, where he had man-sized safes to keep him from a harm which never came, where he ordered a private company to delete his online map presence, and when he shot an elderly man in the ...
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Thursday at 10:51pm · Like ·
Brian Ragle "The people deserve the government they get and they deserve to get it good and hard." I guess the people are saying "thank you sir, may I have another?"
Thursday at 10:52pm · Like ·
Ed Bisner Cheney & bush were a hell of a lot better than the freak show we have now with their band of clowns called Spendocrats. They are bankrupting this once proud Country and turning it into a damned Socialist ass Nation of "How can the Gubment support me now?" people.
Odummy can kiss my ass.
Thursday at 10:56pm · Like
Brian Ragle Wow, a lot of rhetoric, not a lot of facts. "Spendocrats"? Would that describe how Bush nearly doubled the national debt from the time he took office to the time he left? Would "socialist" include the bailouts the Bush administration undertook to prop up a failed financial sector, basically giving every bank a bailout?
Thursday at 10:58pm · Like ·
Brian Ragle This isn't about politics, it's about facts. You are entitled to your own opinions, but not your own facts. For example, is it, indeed, a FACT that under Bush, the national debt nearly doubled? Yes, it is. Is it a fact that, under Bush, a trillion dollar socialized bailout of private industry was requested, even demanded? Yes, it is. Is it a fact that Cheney argued he was a member of two different branched of government and so not subject to the same rules in either? Yes, it is.
It has been my observation that right wingers have problems with these kinds of facts where their messiah figures are concerned. For example, did Reagan triple the national debt? Yes, he did. He initiated massive government spending, but the difference was he was spending on things the right wingers like: guns, bombs, etc. Reagan also dramatically expanded Social Security (a socialized program) and bailed out private industries (the S&L scandal, if you don't remember what that was about, ask McCain).
Right wingers, teabaggers, the like all like their socialized programs when it benefits some cause of theirs (VA care for soldiers? socialized, the military protection for every citizen? socialized). But let 2% of the combined state and federal budgets go to pay for things like food stamps or Medicaid and suddenly it's a terrible thing.
Yesterday at 8:23am · Like ·
Brian Ragle I am not of the right wing hypocrisy that the US national debt is a BAD thing. That's simply something the right wing harps on but then ignores when the debt is incurred during the course of killing brown people in foreign lands. For example, 41% of the national debt is owed back to the US government itself in the form of inter-agency borrowing, mostly from Social Security and Medicare.
I was simply pointing out the facts of the debt under right wing presidents whenever someone brings up current debt levels as some kind of critique of Obama.
Obama's spending, however, happened to be domestic spending, following Keynesian economic theory to help boost the economy nearly destroyed under Bush. It wasn't to go off and invade new countries or to develop some mind boggling stupid defense program, even though defense spending also went up.
Oh, and it's never over just because you don't like what you read.
Yesterday at 10:48am · Like ·
Brian Ragle Banal dismissals don't change the facts. Like them or not, they are still facts. Here's another fun fact. Remember when everyone was going crazy over the Chinese buying up American paper, indebting us to them? Of the posted US national debt, how much do you think that amounted to? 30%? 25%? If you listened to the right wing, it was the end of our economic sovereignty. Turns out to have been only around 6% and Japan currently owns more.
National economies don't work like personal economies. They are tools of geopolitical brinkmanship as much as they financial tools. If a country owns a large portion of our debt, are they more or less likely to engage in policies which might make us rethink our timely repayment of that debt?
Yesterday at 12:00pm · Like ·
Ed Bisner Brian.....Odummy debt vs. Bush debt, which is worse?
Obama's trillions dwarf Bush's 'dangerous' spending
After beginning with a Clinton-era surplus of $128 billion in fiscal year 2001, the Bush administration racked up deficits of $158 billion in 2002, $378 billion in 2003, $413 billion in 2004, $318 billion in 2005, $248 billion in 2006, $162 billion in 2007, and $410 billion in 2008.
The current administration would kill to have such small numbers. President Barack Obama is unveiling his budget this week, and, in addition to the inherited Bush deficit, he’s adding his own spending at an astonishing pace, projecting annual deficits well beyond $1 trillion in the near future, and, in the rosiest possible scenario, a $533 billion deficit in fiscal year 2013, the last year of Obama’s first term.
And what about the national debt? It increased from $5 trillion to $10 trillion in the Bush years, leading to dramatically higher interest costs. “We pay in interest four times more than we spend on education and four times what it will cost to cover 10 million children with health insurance for five years,” Pelosi said in 2007. “That’s fiscal irresponsibility.”
“We thought the Bush deficits were big at the time,” Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, told me this week as he prepared to attend Obama’s Fiscal Responsibility Summit. “But this is going to make the previous administration look like rank amateurs. We could be adding multiple trillions to the national debt in the first year.”
Read more at the Washington Examiner: http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/politics/Obamas-trillions-dwarf-Bushs-dangerous-spending.html#ixzz0ts9QbMxB
Yesterday at 2:45pm · Like
Ed Bisner Those are the plain facts.....Odummy is an ass & irresponsible when it comes too financial responsibility. Him and his Spendocrats make Bush look better every month.
Yesterday at 2:47pm · Like
Brian Ragle I never denied the debt load, but neither do I think it's a big deal like right wingers do. Of the posted national debt, as I said earlier, 41% of it is owed back to the US government itself, which the Treasury zeros out on actual debt reports. The remaining 51% amounts to roughly 50% of our national GDP, which is both internationally and historically moderate, even low.
For example, consider government spending during and after the Great Depression (which ended the Great Depression, I would point out). It reached 128% of GDP, with no SS/Medi accounts to raid. Yet, the nation was able to pay that down to a manageable amount.
Obama hasn't spent the money on anything stupid. He is wisely following a similar path to get our economy back on track after it nearly wrecked under Bush.
Yesterday at 3:00pm · Like ·
John Sterling Time to go run a few miles, oh I'll chuckle at that one later on...
Yesterday at 3:02pm · Like
Brian Ragle Your humor is noted, as I am sure the people who lost their jobs or homes were not laughing under Bush.
Yesterday at 3:03pm · Like ·
Ed Bisner Odummy debt is 50% of GDP? Not for long......
CBO report: Debt will rise to 90% of GDP
President Obama's fiscal 2011 budget will generate nearly $10 trillion in cumulative budget deficits over the next 10 years, $1.2 trillion more than the administration projected, and raise the federal debt to 90 percent of the nation's economic output by 2020, the Congressional Budget Office reported Thursday.
In its 2011 budget, which the White House Office of Management and Budget (OMB) released Feb. 1, the administration projected a 10-year deficit total of $8.53 trillion. After looking it over, CBO said in its final analysis, released Thursday, that the president's budget would generate a combined $9.75 trillion in deficits over the next decade.
"An additional $1.2 trillion in debt dumped on [GDP] to our children makes a huge difference," said Brian Riedl, a budget analyst at the conservative Heritage Foundation. "That represents an additional debt of $10,000 per household above and beyond the federal debt they are already carrying."
The federal public debt, which was $6.3 trillion ($56,000 per household) when Mr. Obama entered office amid an economic crisis, totals $8.2 trillion ($72,000 per household) today, and it's headed toward $20.3 trillion (more than $170,000 per household) in 2020, according to CBO's deficit estimates.
That figure would equal 90 percent of the estimated gross domestic product in 2020, up from 40 percent at the end of fiscal 2008. By comparison, America's debt-to-GDP ratio peaked at 109 percent at the end of World War II, while the ratio for economically troubled Greece hit 115 percent last year.
http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2010/mar/26/cbos-2020-vision-debt-will-rise-to-90-of-gdp/
Yesterday at 3:05pm · Like
Brian Ragle You should read what I said again. ACTUAL debt, that is, the debt not zeroed out by being owed to the government itself is 50% of GDP.
Posted debt, which is what your story is about, is the whole amount, including the amount owed to the government. Presently, posted debt is somewhere north of 80%, as I recall. Even at 90%, it's still not at an historical or even international high. Japan's economy has been stable at around 180% of GDP for years now. In order for the US to reach ACTUAL debt/GDP of 90%, Obama would have to increase the debt load by another $6 trillion or so.
I guess if we elect another Republican to office, he would try to find some harebrained military operation with that kind of pricetag.
Or maybe if Romney is elected, he will direct NASA to send a manned mission to Kolob.
Yesterday at 3:09pm · Like ·
Ed Bisner Odummy is a one term wonder. There is no doubt about that. The thing with Odummy and his debt is that each of us now owe $42,000 for the total debt. You like that? You think that is the change you wanted?
I don't. Odummy is out of his league big time. He slithered out the sewers of Chicago politics and he is spreading that cancer too the rest of the Country.
He along with his minions are digging America into a hole that we may never get out of. After Odummies first term is over he can slither back into that sewer he came from.
19 hours ago · Like
Brian Ragle Actually, Obama is very likely to win a second term, especially given the disarray the Republican party has fallen into with the internal schisms of the teabaggers to blame. The GOP simply have no one to field who would make a viable campaign against the incumbent.
Aside from that, you are once again misunderstanding or mischaracterizing how our national debt works. That $42,000 number you quoted? 41% of that number was money our elected government borrowed from other parts of our government, which had the money in the first place because of funding from taxes. So, no, we do not individually owe that amount.
Further still, of the roughly $25,000 which is left, the majority of that is owed to US-based individuals and institutions, meaning we once again owe ourselves the money.
Of the money owed to foreigners and other countries, we are back to the fact that national economies are not like personal economies. They are tools of brinkmanship every bit as much as a military we gladly pay for is. There is no international repo man. The US pays a service fee on all debt, but only a small amount of it actually leaves our shores and less still leaves the Treasury itself.
19 hours ago · Like ·
Brian Ragle I would point as well that the majority of the American public is aware of the debt and how little it factors into the electoral process. For example, Reagan tripled the national debt, was elected twice. Bush II doubled it, was elected twice.
Clinton actually paid it DOWN somewhat, was elected twice.
Bush I? He raised some taxes on the rich and was abandoned by his own party.
19 hours ago · Like ·
Brian Ragle Also, your hyperbole is rather funny given that Obama is no where close to putting the US on a path toward unheralded spending. For that, you can thank FDR, who spent his way out of the Great Depression to the tune of 128% actual debt to GDP.
19 hours ago · Like ·
Ed Bisner Chances are Odummy WILL NOT get re-elected. The polls show that just in June alone only 46% of voters want the a-hole back, while 51% say no way. The longer his reign goes the less people will openly say they support him.
http://www.gallup.com/poll/140810/voters-split-obama-election-2012.aspx
19 hours ago · Like
Brian Ragle Actually, mid-term polling is massively unreliable. Ask George W. Bush, the worst rated president in polling history. Also, 46% approval? That's still 3% better than the 43% approval Reagan had 2 years into his first term.
Bill Clinton, who had higher average polling than Reagan, reached a low of 37% in his first term and still was re-elected.
So, predictions of an Obama single term presidency are pre-mature at best, and woefully ignoring the Republican woes at worst. They simply don't have that "great white hope" that Lynn Jenkins publicly said they were looking for.
19 hours ago · Like ·
Brian Ragle Oh, and sources for the above stats? Same gallup website you pulled yours:
http://www.gallup.com/poll/116500/presidential-approval-ratings-george-bush.aspx
http://www.gallup.com/poll/116584/presidential-approval-ratings-bill-clinton.aspx
http://www.gallup.com/poll/11887/ronald-reagan-from-peoples-perspective-gallup-poll-review.aspx
19 hours ago · Like ·
Brian Ragle Fun fact: George H.W. Bush, the last single term US president, reached a low of 29% approval, according to Gallup.
19 hours ago · Like ·
Brian Ragle Again, you post opinion without factual backing. Try harder next time. Oh, and the fact that you consider taking a few minutes to post via a mobile devices to be an intrusion into your life shows how behind the times you actually are. I can post to Facebook while driving, using an iPad. Try harder.
18 hours ago · Like ·
Brian Ragle For example, what has Obama screwed up? He has managed to historic health care reform, and now financial regulatory reform through, all with a hostile minority. How did Brown work out for the GOP considering he has been as likely to break ranks and vote with the Democrats as he has to toe the party line.
9 hours ago · Like ·
Brian Ragle No personal insults. Just an observation of facts. You posted baseless opinion, per the usual and then got snippy when called out on it. *shrug* Not my problem, but the whining is certainly noted.
4 hours ago · Like ·
John Sterling Ed I think you got a troll....
4 hours ago · Like
Ed Bisner Hey Brian, just where in the hell do you get off telling me that I need too post to facebook using a mobile device? A damn cell phone is just that, a damn PHONE.
about an hour ago · Like
Brian Ragle I was telling you to do anything. My comment about posting from a mobile device was directed at John and even then, it wasn't telling him what to do so much as commenting on his whining about bothering to post here.
As for John and his "troll" comment, it's interesting the first time someone went personal here was not me. I merely responded to blatantly stupid spin. Right wingers appear to have real trouble with both facts and keeping their emotions in check as is evidence by both the blatantly bad spin present in this thread along with the chest thumping and heated invective hurled amongst opinions and whining about being corrected.
a few seconds ago · Like ·
OK Brian, sorry for getting vocal there......I thought what you said was directed at me.
19 hours ago · Like
Brian Ragle John, a troll is someone who says something deliberately inflammatory in the hopes of provoking a heated reaction in the audience, regardless of the personal beliefs of the troll. In this case, I have known Ed for a number of years and have had numerous political and heated debates with him both here and other forums. Thus, he can reliably expect me to disagree with him on issues such as this. Further still, the means I am not a troll and more like an expected opposition.
Further still, trying to negate my comments by calling them those of a troll simply reveals a bankruptcy of argument.
19 hours ago · Like ·
Brian Ragle But you have time to post to tell us you don't have time to respond, after taking the time to respond and then taking the time to delete said responses?
9 hours ago · Like ·
Brian Ragle And self-contradictory, as I am sure you also noticed.
3 hours ago · Like ·
Brian Ragle Of course you disagree. That much is to be expected, given the above and similar baseless disagreements for no other than reason than to be contrary.
But it's clear you no longer are interested in those topics. You were out-facted a long time ago. You just resort to silly one liners now to keep the thread alive and make it appear you still have some relevance to the discussion.
Without facts, however, you aren't relevant.
2 hours ago · Like ·
Brian Ragle No, I am still just doing what I always did: observe, correct, and comment. I don't really understand why this bothers you. You haven't made a single factual comment on the original topics of this thread, choosing instead to ME the topic or object of your comments.
Is this a right winger thing? Or is this just a personal failing on your part? I would be tempted to describe you as an American Ahab, something I seeing a lot more of in recent months.
http://brianragle.com/main/?p=348
about an hour ago · Like ·
John Sterling Look Rangle, your just being a troll, period. I'd have a debate with you but I see myself as supercilious to you and your doing a really good job reinforcing it. If you recall this whole thing started out with me saying I liked Dick Cheney and you attacking and immediately drawing up conclusions with no evidence what-so-ever. I find that rather offensive and rather uncivil. All the characteristics of a troll...
The reason for my vague statements and general lack of interest in you? Wouldn't you like to know, no it's not a right wing thing, no personal failing and I have not been maimed by any whales. I would describe myself more as a Lieutenant McClane.
I left a reply on your website but I am sure you won't allow it's posting so, "yippie-ki-ay motherfucker". Now I'm done with you; your boring the shit out of me and I try not associate with those this far beneath me. Just bad for business.
36 minutes ago · Like
Brian Ragle Simply repeating "you're a troll" over and over again, doesn't make it so, especially given how this was already explained to you previously. Further still, you bely your comments about having no interest when it's clear you DO have interest, just not ability. Thus, you resort to making me the issue.
The comparison to a fictional character in a series of increasingly bad movies is also rather telling of the simplistic, un-nuanced view you appear to have of life. It's similar to how Bush Jr. appeared to think the TV show "24" was a documentary instead of an over-the-top fiction and subsequently based foreign policy on it.
Author : Ahab McClane (IP: 75.64.16.88 , c-75-64-16-88.hsd1.tn.comcast.net)
E-mail : fuck@you.asshole
URL :
Whois : http://ws.arin.net/cgi-bin/whois.pl?queryinput=75.64.16.88
Comment:
"yippie-ki-ay, motherfucker"
This is the extent of his response or even capability to respond. He compares himself to some fictional action hero who uses fewer words than the body count he leaves behind with his memorable words being a stupid phrase serving as punctuation to an explosion or gunshot. All of this because he didn't like being in a debate regarding right wing hero like Cheney.
It's the typical American Ahab: contemptuous of facts, knee jerk defensive, and prone to outbursts of insults or worse when threatened or frustrated.
[caption id="attachment_695" align="aligncenter" width="150" caption="Click for full view"]
[/caption]*EDIT*
Another comment from John Sterling was posted this evening:
Author : Jack Bauer (IP: 74.63.112.137 , 74.63.112.137)
E-mail : not@gonna.happen
URL :
Whois : http://ws.arin.net/cgi-bin/whois.pl?queryinput=74.63.112.137
Comment:
Lt. McCalne says "eat a bag shit".
Here we see him invoking a couple of different fictional characters, each more over the the top than the last and each being the embodiment of jingoistic, chest thumping, apish American Ahabs. Of particular note, "eat a bag shit". Grammatically challenged, lurching, ham fisted attempts at insults which only make him look like an idiot.
Full text (preserved from prior to John going back and deleting all his previous posts):
Ed Bisner Does this really come as a surprise too anyone with a brain?
After 18 months of Obama, Americans already feeling fonder of Dick Cheney, less so of Al Gore | Top.
latimesblogs.latimes.com
Gallup Poll finds Joe Biden is about the same as last year, though down since he actually became vice president.
Thursday at 10:25pm · Comment · Like · Share
Brian Ragle Yes, let's harken back to those days of yore, when our VP alleged a new branch of government somehow existing in a netherworld between the Executive and the Legislative, where he had man-sized safes to keep him from a harm which never came, where he ordered a private company to delete his online map presence, and when he shot an elderly man in the ...
See More
Thursday at 10:51pm · Like ·
Brian Ragle "The people deserve the government they get and they deserve to get it good and hard." I guess the people are saying "thank you sir, may I have another?"
Thursday at 10:52pm · Like ·
Ed Bisner Cheney & bush were a hell of a lot better than the freak show we have now with their band of clowns called Spendocrats. They are bankrupting this once proud Country and turning it into a damned Socialist ass Nation of "How can the Gubment support me now?" people.
Odummy can kiss my ass.
Thursday at 10:56pm · Like
Brian Ragle Wow, a lot of rhetoric, not a lot of facts. "Spendocrats"? Would that describe how Bush nearly doubled the national debt from the time he took office to the time he left? Would "socialist" include the bailouts the Bush administration undertook to prop up a failed financial sector, basically giving every bank a bailout?
Thursday at 10:58pm · Like ·
Brian Ragle This isn't about politics, it's about facts. You are entitled to your own opinions, but not your own facts. For example, is it, indeed, a FACT that under Bush, the national debt nearly doubled? Yes, it is. Is it a fact that, under Bush, a trillion dollar socialized bailout of private industry was requested, even demanded? Yes, it is. Is it a fact that Cheney argued he was a member of two different branched of government and so not subject to the same rules in either? Yes, it is.
It has been my observation that right wingers have problems with these kinds of facts where their messiah figures are concerned. For example, did Reagan triple the national debt? Yes, he did. He initiated massive government spending, but the difference was he was spending on things the right wingers like: guns, bombs, etc. Reagan also dramatically expanded Social Security (a socialized program) and bailed out private industries (the S&L scandal, if you don't remember what that was about, ask McCain).
Right wingers, teabaggers, the like all like their socialized programs when it benefits some cause of theirs (VA care for soldiers? socialized, the military protection for every citizen? socialized). But let 2% of the combined state and federal budgets go to pay for things like food stamps or Medicaid and suddenly it's a terrible thing.
Yesterday at 8:23am · Like ·
Brian Ragle I am not of the right wing hypocrisy that the US national debt is a BAD thing. That's simply something the right wing harps on but then ignores when the debt is incurred during the course of killing brown people in foreign lands. For example, 41% of the national debt is owed back to the US government itself in the form of inter-agency borrowing, mostly from Social Security and Medicare.
I was simply pointing out the facts of the debt under right wing presidents whenever someone brings up current debt levels as some kind of critique of Obama.
Obama's spending, however, happened to be domestic spending, following Keynesian economic theory to help boost the economy nearly destroyed under Bush. It wasn't to go off and invade new countries or to develop some mind boggling stupid defense program, even though defense spending also went up.
Oh, and it's never over just because you don't like what you read.
Yesterday at 10:48am · Like ·
Brian Ragle Banal dismissals don't change the facts. Like them or not, they are still facts. Here's another fun fact. Remember when everyone was going crazy over the Chinese buying up American paper, indebting us to them? Of the posted US national debt, how much do you think that amounted to? 30%? 25%? If you listened to the right wing, it was the end of our economic sovereignty. Turns out to have been only around 6% and Japan currently owns more.
National economies don't work like personal economies. They are tools of geopolitical brinkmanship as much as they financial tools. If a country owns a large portion of our debt, are they more or less likely to engage in policies which might make us rethink our timely repayment of that debt?
Yesterday at 12:00pm · Like ·
Ed Bisner Brian.....Odummy debt vs. Bush debt, which is worse?
Obama's trillions dwarf Bush's 'dangerous' spending
After beginning with a Clinton-era surplus of $128 billion in fiscal year 2001, the Bush administration racked up deficits of $158 billion in 2002, $378 billion in 2003, $413 billion in 2004, $318 billion in 2005, $248 billion in 2006, $162 billion in 2007, and $410 billion in 2008.
The current administration would kill to have such small numbers. President Barack Obama is unveiling his budget this week, and, in addition to the inherited Bush deficit, he’s adding his own spending at an astonishing pace, projecting annual deficits well beyond $1 trillion in the near future, and, in the rosiest possible scenario, a $533 billion deficit in fiscal year 2013, the last year of Obama’s first term.
And what about the national debt? It increased from $5 trillion to $10 trillion in the Bush years, leading to dramatically higher interest costs. “We pay in interest four times more than we spend on education and four times what it will cost to cover 10 million children with health insurance for five years,” Pelosi said in 2007. “That’s fiscal irresponsibility.”
“We thought the Bush deficits were big at the time,” Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, told me this week as he prepared to attend Obama’s Fiscal Responsibility Summit. “But this is going to make the previous administration look like rank amateurs. We could be adding multiple trillions to the national debt in the first year.”
Read more at the Washington Examiner: http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/politics/Obamas-trillions-dwarf-Bushs-dangerous-spending.html#ixzz0ts9QbMxB
Yesterday at 2:45pm · Like
Ed Bisner Those are the plain facts.....Odummy is an ass & irresponsible when it comes too financial responsibility. Him and his Spendocrats make Bush look better every month.
Yesterday at 2:47pm · Like
Brian Ragle I never denied the debt load, but neither do I think it's a big deal like right wingers do. Of the posted national debt, as I said earlier, 41% of it is owed back to the US government itself, which the Treasury zeros out on actual debt reports. The remaining 51% amounts to roughly 50% of our national GDP, which is both internationally and historically moderate, even low.
For example, consider government spending during and after the Great Depression (which ended the Great Depression, I would point out). It reached 128% of GDP, with no SS/Medi accounts to raid. Yet, the nation was able to pay that down to a manageable amount.
Obama hasn't spent the money on anything stupid. He is wisely following a similar path to get our economy back on track after it nearly wrecked under Bush.
Yesterday at 3:00pm · Like ·
John Sterling Time to go run a few miles, oh I'll chuckle at that one later on...
Yesterday at 3:02pm · Like
Brian Ragle Your humor is noted, as I am sure the people who lost their jobs or homes were not laughing under Bush.
Yesterday at 3:03pm · Like ·
Ed Bisner Odummy debt is 50% of GDP? Not for long......
CBO report: Debt will rise to 90% of GDP
President Obama's fiscal 2011 budget will generate nearly $10 trillion in cumulative budget deficits over the next 10 years, $1.2 trillion more than the administration projected, and raise the federal debt to 90 percent of the nation's economic output by 2020, the Congressional Budget Office reported Thursday.
In its 2011 budget, which the White House Office of Management and Budget (OMB) released Feb. 1, the administration projected a 10-year deficit total of $8.53 trillion. After looking it over, CBO said in its final analysis, released Thursday, that the president's budget would generate a combined $9.75 trillion in deficits over the next decade.
"An additional $1.2 trillion in debt dumped on [GDP] to our children makes a huge difference," said Brian Riedl, a budget analyst at the conservative Heritage Foundation. "That represents an additional debt of $10,000 per household above and beyond the federal debt they are already carrying."
The federal public debt, which was $6.3 trillion ($56,000 per household) when Mr. Obama entered office amid an economic crisis, totals $8.2 trillion ($72,000 per household) today, and it's headed toward $20.3 trillion (more than $170,000 per household) in 2020, according to CBO's deficit estimates.
That figure would equal 90 percent of the estimated gross domestic product in 2020, up from 40 percent at the end of fiscal 2008. By comparison, America's debt-to-GDP ratio peaked at 109 percent at the end of World War II, while the ratio for economically troubled Greece hit 115 percent last year.
http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2010/mar/26/cbos-2020-vision-debt-will-rise-to-90-of-gdp/
Yesterday at 3:05pm · Like
Brian Ragle You should read what I said again. ACTUAL debt, that is, the debt not zeroed out by being owed to the government itself is 50% of GDP.
Posted debt, which is what your story is about, is the whole amount, including the amount owed to the government. Presently, posted debt is somewhere north of 80%, as I recall. Even at 90%, it's still not at an historical or even international high. Japan's economy has been stable at around 180% of GDP for years now. In order for the US to reach ACTUAL debt/GDP of 90%, Obama would have to increase the debt load by another $6 trillion or so.
I guess if we elect another Republican to office, he would try to find some harebrained military operation with that kind of pricetag.
Or maybe if Romney is elected, he will direct NASA to send a manned mission to Kolob.
Yesterday at 3:09pm · Like ·
Ed Bisner Odummy is a one term wonder. There is no doubt about that. The thing with Odummy and his debt is that each of us now owe $42,000 for the total debt. You like that? You think that is the change you wanted?
I don't. Odummy is out of his league big time. He slithered out the sewers of Chicago politics and he is spreading that cancer too the rest of the Country.
He along with his minions are digging America into a hole that we may never get out of. After Odummies first term is over he can slither back into that sewer he came from.
19 hours ago · Like
Brian Ragle Actually, Obama is very likely to win a second term, especially given the disarray the Republican party has fallen into with the internal schisms of the teabaggers to blame. The GOP simply have no one to field who would make a viable campaign against the incumbent.
Aside from that, you are once again misunderstanding or mischaracterizing how our national debt works. That $42,000 number you quoted? 41% of that number was money our elected government borrowed from other parts of our government, which had the money in the first place because of funding from taxes. So, no, we do not individually owe that amount.
Further still, of the roughly $25,000 which is left, the majority of that is owed to US-based individuals and institutions, meaning we once again owe ourselves the money.
Of the money owed to foreigners and other countries, we are back to the fact that national economies are not like personal economies. They are tools of brinkmanship every bit as much as a military we gladly pay for is. There is no international repo man. The US pays a service fee on all debt, but only a small amount of it actually leaves our shores and less still leaves the Treasury itself.
19 hours ago · Like ·
Brian Ragle I would point as well that the majority of the American public is aware of the debt and how little it factors into the electoral process. For example, Reagan tripled the national debt, was elected twice. Bush II doubled it, was elected twice.
Clinton actually paid it DOWN somewhat, was elected twice.
Bush I? He raised some taxes on the rich and was abandoned by his own party.
19 hours ago · Like ·
Brian Ragle Also, your hyperbole is rather funny given that Obama is no where close to putting the US on a path toward unheralded spending. For that, you can thank FDR, who spent his way out of the Great Depression to the tune of 128% actual debt to GDP.
19 hours ago · Like ·
Ed Bisner Chances are Odummy WILL NOT get re-elected. The polls show that just in June alone only 46% of voters want the a-hole back, while 51% say no way. The longer his reign goes the less people will openly say they support him.
http://www.gallup.com/poll/140810/voters-split-obama-election-2012.aspx
19 hours ago · Like
Brian Ragle Actually, mid-term polling is massively unreliable. Ask George W. Bush, the worst rated president in polling history. Also, 46% approval? That's still 3% better than the 43% approval Reagan had 2 years into his first term.
Bill Clinton, who had higher average polling than Reagan, reached a low of 37% in his first term and still was re-elected.
So, predictions of an Obama single term presidency are pre-mature at best, and woefully ignoring the Republican woes at worst. They simply don't have that "great white hope" that Lynn Jenkins publicly said they were looking for.
19 hours ago · Like ·
Brian Ragle Oh, and sources for the above stats? Same gallup website you pulled yours:
http://www.gallup.com/poll/116500/presidential-approval-ratings-george-bush.aspx
http://www.gallup.com/poll/116584/presidential-approval-ratings-bill-clinton.aspx
http://www.gallup.com/poll/11887/ronald-reagan-from-peoples-perspective-gallup-poll-review.aspx
19 hours ago · Like ·
Brian Ragle Fun fact: George H.W. Bush, the last single term US president, reached a low of 29% approval, according to Gallup.
19 hours ago · Like ·
Brian Ragle Again, you post opinion without factual backing. Try harder next time. Oh, and the fact that you consider taking a few minutes to post via a mobile devices to be an intrusion into your life shows how behind the times you actually are. I can post to Facebook while driving, using an iPad. Try harder.
18 hours ago · Like ·
Brian Ragle For example, what has Obama screwed up? He has managed to historic health care reform, and now financial regulatory reform through, all with a hostile minority. How did Brown work out for the GOP considering he has been as likely to break ranks and vote with the Democrats as he has to toe the party line.
9 hours ago · Like ·
Brian Ragle No personal insults. Just an observation of facts. You posted baseless opinion, per the usual and then got snippy when called out on it. *shrug* Not my problem, but the whining is certainly noted.
4 hours ago · Like ·
John Sterling Ed I think you got a troll....
4 hours ago · Like
Ed Bisner Hey Brian, just where in the hell do you get off telling me that I need too post to facebook using a mobile device? A damn cell phone is just that, a damn PHONE.
about an hour ago · Like
Brian Ragle I was telling you to do anything. My comment about posting from a mobile device was directed at John and even then, it wasn't telling him what to do so much as commenting on his whining about bothering to post here.
As for John and his "troll" comment, it's interesting the first time someone went personal here was not me. I merely responded to blatantly stupid spin. Right wingers appear to have real trouble with both facts and keeping their emotions in check as is evidence by both the blatantly bad spin present in this thread along with the chest thumping and heated invective hurled amongst opinions and whining about being corrected.
a few seconds ago · Like ·
OK Brian, sorry for getting vocal there......I thought what you said was directed at me.
19 hours ago · Like
Brian Ragle John, a troll is someone who says something deliberately inflammatory in the hopes of provoking a heated reaction in the audience, regardless of the personal beliefs of the troll. In this case, I have known Ed for a number of years and have had numerous political and heated debates with him both here and other forums. Thus, he can reliably expect me to disagree with him on issues such as this. Further still, the means I am not a troll and more like an expected opposition.
Further still, trying to negate my comments by calling them those of a troll simply reveals a bankruptcy of argument.
19 hours ago · Like ·
Brian Ragle But you have time to post to tell us you don't have time to respond, after taking the time to respond and then taking the time to delete said responses?
9 hours ago · Like ·
Brian Ragle And self-contradictory, as I am sure you also noticed.
3 hours ago · Like ·
Brian Ragle Of course you disagree. That much is to be expected, given the above and similar baseless disagreements for no other than reason than to be contrary.
But it's clear you no longer are interested in those topics. You were out-facted a long time ago. You just resort to silly one liners now to keep the thread alive and make it appear you still have some relevance to the discussion.
Without facts, however, you aren't relevant.
2 hours ago · Like ·
Brian Ragle No, I am still just doing what I always did: observe, correct, and comment. I don't really understand why this bothers you. You haven't made a single factual comment on the original topics of this thread, choosing instead to ME the topic or object of your comments.
Is this a right winger thing? Or is this just a personal failing on your part? I would be tempted to describe you as an American Ahab, something I seeing a lot more of in recent months.
http://brianragle.com/main/?p=348
about an hour ago · Like ·
John Sterling Look Rangle, your just being a troll, period. I'd have a debate with you but I see myself as supercilious to you and your doing a really good job reinforcing it. If you recall this whole thing started out with me saying I liked Dick Cheney and you attacking and immediately drawing up conclusions with no evidence what-so-ever. I find that rather offensive and rather uncivil. All the characteristics of a troll...
The reason for my vague statements and general lack of interest in you? Wouldn't you like to know, no it's not a right wing thing, no personal failing and I have not been maimed by any whales. I would describe myself more as a Lieutenant McClane.
I left a reply on your website but I am sure you won't allow it's posting so, "yippie-ki-ay motherfucker". Now I'm done with you; your boring the shit out of me and I try not associate with those this far beneath me. Just bad for business.
36 minutes ago · Like
Brian Ragle Simply repeating "you're a troll" over and over again, doesn't make it so, especially given how this was already explained to you previously. Further still, you bely your comments about having no interest when it's clear you DO have interest, just not ability. Thus, you resort to making me the issue.
The comparison to a fictional character in a series of increasingly bad movies is also rather telling of the simplistic, un-nuanced view you appear to have of life. It's similar to how Bush Jr. appeared to think the TV show "24" was a documentary instead of an over-the-top fiction and subsequently based foreign policy on it.
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