Post Election Thoughts
If there was one quote that summed up my feelings from this morning’s post Massachusetts Senate election round-up, it was this.
“I’m hoping that it gives a message to the country,” said Marlene Connolly, 73, of North Andover, a lifelong Democrat who said she cast her first vote for a Republican on Tuesday. “I think if Massachusetts puts Brown in, it’s a message of ‘that’s enough.’ Let’s stop the giveaways and let’s get jobs going.”
The giveaways of course are the billions that flowed into the Banks, Insurance Companies, Auto companies. They are the backroom deals made with Big Pharma to insure that Medicare had to pay retail prices for wholesale drugs in the health care reform bill. They are the 50 more F-22 Fighter jets ( at a cost of $200 million per plane) that will be delivered by Lockheed Martin and Boeing despite the fact that the plane will probably never be used in combat. Ever.
The loss in Massachusetts should prompt President Obama to tear up the drafts of this State of the Union to be delivered a week from today. He needs to cast the theme for the rest of his Presidency in the single minded agenda of reform. The historian Joseph Ellis once wrote, “The main story line of American History, cast Thomas Jefferson and Alexander Hamilton in the lead roles of a dramatic contest between the forces of Democracy and the forces of the Elites”. Needless to say Jefferson’s hostility to Hamilton’s alliance with the New York Bankers who wanted to vest control in a strong Federal government (so as to redeem in dollars the government bonds they had bought for pennies), is mirrored in our own righteous anger today.
As I have been saying for a while, this battle is not so much a Right vs. Left battle as a Democracy vs. The Elites battle. How Obama ever got identified with the Elites in his first year, will be the subject of historians for decades to come. But he must make it clear that the next three years will be a battle to change the very nature of a Congress where nothing gets done if the money power doesn’t want it done. The first this he must do is support the bipartisan Fair Elections Now Act that was offered this year by Sens. Dick Durbin (D-IL) and Arlen Specter (R-PA), and Reps. John Larson (D-CT) and Walter Jones (R-NC).
Under this legislation, congressional candidates who raise a threshold number of small-dollar donations would qualify for a chunk of funding—several hundred thousand dollars for House, millions for many Senate races. If they accept this funding, they can’t raise big-dollar donations. But they can raise contributions up to $100, which would be matched four to one by a central fund. Reduced fees for TV airtime is also an element of this bill. This would create an incentive for politicians to opt into this system and run people-powered campaigns.
If the President is willing to take on this battle then the rest of his term might mirror the great Progressive Era of Teddy Roosevelt, where Republicans and Democrats united ( in the words of Richard Hofstadter) in an“effort to restore a type of economic individualism and political democracy that was widely believed to have existed earlier in America and to have been destroyed by the great corporation and the corrupt political machine.”
That would be hope we can believe in.
Good post, Jon. I think it was telling, in the local TV spots, that Mr Brown did not identify himself as a Republican, and Ms Coakley tried to brand him as ‘Republican Scott Brown’ every chance she got. It was as if her idea was, ‘I’m a Democrat, so of course you have to vote for me.’
I also got a kick out of a pro-Brown TV spot saying we had to vote for Brown to get Congress to ‘listen to the people, and stop listening to the lobbyists.’ The spot was created and produced by lobbyists against the health care reform bills.
But it is NOT enough for President Obama to come up with another home run speech for his first State of the Union. Instead, he has to wake up to the fact that words alone are the candidate’s tools; the President must use words and deeds.
President GW Bush managed to keep the 28% of the hard right behind him to the bitter end, by sticking with a clear and simple message, and following it up, on the whole. President Obama has lost the heart of the left by carrying on with so many of his predecessor’s policies abroad and at home. Even with health care, his big defining issue, the one liberal cause he did not turn his back on after winning the election, President Obama never got out in front, never clearly and simply told us why it was important and what his plan was, never tried to push his party congressional members around to his way of thinking.
Leaders, after all, do more than talk.
Good post, Jon. I think it was telling, in the local TV spots, that Mr Brown did not identify himself as a Republican, and Ms Coakley tried to brand him as ‘Republican Scott Brown’ every chance she got. It was as if her idea was, ‘I’m a Democrat, so of course you have to vote for me.’
I also got a kick out of a pro-Brown TV spot saying we had to vote for Brown to get Congress to ‘listen to the people, and stop listening to the lobbyists.’ The spot was created and produced by lobbyists against the health care reform bills.
But it is NOT enough for President Obama to come up with another home run speech for his first State of the Union. Instead, he has to wake up to the fact that words alone are the candidate’s tools; the President must use words and deeds.
President GW Bush managed to keep the 28% of the hard right behind him to the bitter end, by sticking with a clear and simple message, and following it up, on the whole. President Obama has lost the heart of the left by carrying on with so many of his predecessor’s policies abroad and at home. Even with health care, his big defining issue, the one liberal cause he did not turn his back on after winning the election, President Obama never got out in front, never clearly and simply told us why it was important and what his plan was, never tried to push his party congressional members around to his way of thinking.
Leaders, after all, do more than talk.
Already signed the petition in favor of the Fair Elections act. I strongly support it.
Already signed the petition in favor of the Fair Elections act. I strongly support it.
lets not be confused on this one–it was a stunning rebuke of ObamaCare– the gall of the Democratic party to unilatterally ram through a huge entitlement program with very little in it for those paying for it sank this Senate seat for the Dems and will completely change the course of the Obama administration and its ability to govern–so much for bi-partisenship— the big lesson is when trying to govern you can move a little bit at a time from the center of the country–big change takes more then one party and Obama and the Democrats didn’t get that–
lets not be confused on this one–it was a stunning rebuke of ObamaCare– the gall of the Democratic party to unilatterally ram through a huge entitlement program with very little in it for those paying for it sank this Senate seat for the Dems and will completely change the course of the Obama administration and its ability to govern–so much for bi-partisenship— the big lesson is when trying to govern you can move a little bit at a time from the center of the country–big change takes more then one party and Obama and the Democrats didn’t get that–
A few random thoughts
A good friend and lifelong resident of the Boston area called Monday afternoon to discuss the Coakley – Brown special election. He was convinced Brown would prevail by a double-digit margin, and backed up his claim by noting “I’ve never seen so many yard signs for a Republican candidate – EVER!” “People are fed up; they don’t believe in him (Obama) anymore, and up here, that’s saying something!”
Everyone of my challenges was met with stories of how Brown had outmaneuvered Coakley, her political baggage, how the Obama administration missed the warning signs, and how much national money poured into the Brown campaign during the last month.
Of all we discussed, what struck me was his comment concerning the administration’s misread of the election. Obama has the “best of the best” at his finger tips (talent, information, etc.), you don’t miss something like this unless…
Rachel Maddow interviewed Howard Dean last evening and Howard did his best to put a positive spin on the fast sinking USS Coakley. Their exchange of mostly pointless thoughts caused me to recall Howard’s dismissive comments of last month,
“If I were a senator, I would not vote for the current health-care bill. Any measure that expands private insurers’ monopoly over health care and transfers millions of taxpayer dollars to private corporations is not real health-care reform.”
Always the contrarian, I can’t help but wonder if the administration took one for the D-team last night. Sure Coakley lost her chance to become a US Senator; the Democrats lost filibuster proof control of the Senate and health care legislation is now likely to die in conference.
Did the administration determine that no amount of positive spin could overcome the legislation’s forthcoming forensic analysis? Perhaps it was better to scuttle it via a Brown victory than to allow it to come to fruition. Plus, if played well, the Republicans get blamed and recast as Obama’s antagonist (Nancy and Harry are on the same team afterall).
One final item, sorry to nitpick, was the “Fair Elections Now Act” proposed before or after Sen. Specter switched parties? He became a “D” on Apr 28, 2009.
A few random thoughts
A good friend and lifelong resident of the Boston area called Monday afternoon to discuss the Coakley – Brown special election. He was convinced Brown would prevail by a double-digit margin, and backed up his claim by noting “I’ve never seen so many yard signs for a Republican candidate – EVER!” “People are fed up; they don’t believe in him (Obama) anymore, and up here, that’s saying something!”
Everyone of my challenges was met with stories of how Brown had outmaneuvered Coakley, her political baggage, how the Obama administration missed the warning signs, and how much national money poured into the Brown campaign during the last month.
Of all we discussed, what struck me was his comment concerning the administration’s misread of the election. Obama has the “best of the best” at his finger tips (talent, information, etc.), you don’t miss something like this unless…
Rachel Maddow interviewed Howard Dean last evening and Howard did his best to put a positive spin on the fast sinking USS Coakley. Their exchange of mostly pointless thoughts caused me to recall Howard’s dismissive comments of last month,
“If I were a senator, I would not vote for the current health-care bill. Any measure that expands private insurers’ monopoly over health care and transfers millions of taxpayer dollars to private corporations is not real health-care reform.”
Always the contrarian, I can’t help but wonder if the administration took one for the D-team last night. Sure Coakley lost her chance to become a US Senator; the Democrats lost filibuster proof control of the Senate and health care legislation is now likely to die in conference.
Did the administration determine that no amount of positive spin could overcome the legislation’s forthcoming forensic analysis? Perhaps it was better to scuttle it via a Brown victory than to allow it to come to fruition. Plus, if played well, the Republicans get blamed and recast as Obama’s antagonist (Nancy and Harry are on the same team afterall).
One final item, sorry to nitpick, was the “Fair Elections Now Act” proposed before or after Sen. Specter switched parties? He became a “D” on Apr 28, 2009.
About that State of the Union speech; if Obama needs to reframe in a hurry, and is looking for a successful precedent to build on, he should consider this.
About that State of the Union speech; if Obama needs to reframe in a hurry, and is looking for a successful precedent to build on, he should consider this.
exactly.
exactly.
Jon you are TONE DEAF. A 73 year old woman on Medicare in MA, says this:
“Let’s stop the giveaways and let’s get jobs going.”
She’s saying, “If other states want to have universal care like MA, let them do it themselves, STOP worrying about creating a new national entitlement for those people who don’t have Medicare, and get them a job to they can pay for MY Medicare.”
Now please, can’t you stick to your state’s rights thing and say, “let’s let each state decide for themselves if they want to have MA style healthcare.”
Let’s listen to the little old lady.
Jon you are TONE DEAF. A 73 year old woman on Medicare in MA, says this:
“Let’s stop the giveaways and let’s get jobs going.”
She’s saying, “If other states want to have universal care like MA, let them do it themselves, STOP worrying about creating a new national entitlement for those people who don’t have Medicare, and get them a job to they can pay for MY Medicare.”
Now please, can’t you stick to your state’s rights thing and say, “let’s let each state decide for themselves if they want to have MA style healthcare.”
Let’s listen to the little old lady.
It’s Ivy League vs. state colleges.
The Harvard/Yale/Chicago team of brilliant finance wallahs has come close to destroying this country. Summers has practically bankrupted his own university…just a practice run on Washington and our own hard earned bucks.
We’re going to have a big do-nothing time within the Beltway for quite a time now. I say blockade Washington, DC until the Senators and Congress people have to cook their own meals, wipe their own asses, and live like real people. And the administration needs this wake-up call. They sold us out.
It’s Ivy League vs. state colleges.
The Harvard/Yale/Chicago team of brilliant finance wallahs has come close to destroying this country. Summers has practically bankrupted his own university…just a practice run on Washington and our own hard earned bucks.
We’re going to have a big do-nothing time within the Beltway for quite a time now. I say blockade Washington, DC until the Senators and Congress people have to cook their own meals, wipe their own asses, and live like real people. And the administration needs this wake-up call. They sold us out.
Oh wait, let me look at your ball-covering–just a second–whilst we salute the very kinds that Mr.Obamama saluted as Bible-bearing and gun-bearing. That was the brilliance of Pelosi of the Ritz Carlton, on Nob Hill. That’s the brilliance of those perfectlly stupid idiots, inadververtent fools who have no idea what dupes they’ve become for the leading clubs of Los Angeles. The gun- bearing, God-fearing little people who totally screw Barack’s pooch until he has the acuity to stare down that alimentary canal.
Trust me; he hasn’t the balls, and he’ll fail.
Oh wait, let me look at your ball-covering–just a second–whilst we salute the very kinds that Mr.Obamama saluted as Bible-bearing and gun-bearing. That was the brilliance of Pelosi of the Ritz Carlton, on Nob Hill. That’s the brilliance of those perfectlly stupid idiots, inadververtent fools who have no idea what dupes they’ve become for the leading clubs of Los Angeles. The gun- bearing, God-fearing little people who totally screw Barack’s pooch until he has the acuity to stare down that alimentary canal.
Trust me; he hasn’t the balls, and he’ll fail.
Fifty-eight percent of those polled by The Washington Post recently claimed they preferred smaller government with fewer services, with only 38 percent favoring a larger government with more services (and, yes, it is a terrific struggle not to place ironic quotations marks around the word “services”).
http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2010/01/20/the_idea_is_the_problem_99966.html
Fifty-eight percent of those polled by The Washington Post recently claimed they preferred smaller government with fewer services, with only 38 percent favoring a larger government with more services (and, yes, it is a terrific struggle not to place ironic quotations marks around the word “services”).
http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2010/01/20/the_idea_is_the_problem_99966.html
The idea has a certain Machiavellian appeal, Roman, but I can’t see a basis in reality.
Brown only came out of the gate a few weeks ago, and when he did, his message focused on not giving Constitutional protections to foreign terrorists. Only in the last couple of weeks did he shift gears, and start saying that a vote for him would deliver Vote 41 – with which he’d personally kill Obamacare. That’s when his ratings started to shoot up, and Coakley’s slow decline went off a cliff.
That’s not a play that anyone could attribute to the White House – especially one so politically blind that it lets Summers trump Volcker.
A better explanation is that the ‘best of the best’ are anything but, and that an administration stupid enough to trust Daschle then Bacchus with its signature piece of legislation is now getting the comeuppance it so richly deserves.
Yes, Obama the candidate was savvy, but aside from his actual political staff, his pre-election policy people have, for the most part, been replaced with establishment types who are beyond tone-deaf (Austan Goolsbee, for instance, has been banished to
Siberiathe Economic Recovery Advisory Board).If Axlrod & Co. are smart enough to recognize that Brown just saved the Democrats from themselves – and did so with enough time on the clock to recover – then more power to them. But I’m not crediting them with an ounce of savvy just yet.
Because seriously – if you had that kind of game, why would you spend your first year in office getting routinely humiliated by anyone with a checkbook and rep on K. St.?
The idea has a certain Machiavellian appeal, Roman, but I can’t see a basis in reality.
Brown only came out of the gate a few weeks ago, and when he did, his message focused on not giving Constitutional protections to foreign terrorists. Only in the last couple of weeks did he shift gears, and start saying that a vote for him would deliver Vote 41 – with which he’d personally kill Obamacare. That’s when his ratings started to shoot up, and Coakley’s slow decline went off a cliff.
That’s not a play that anyone could attribute to the White House – especially one so politically blind that it lets Summers trump Volcker.
A better explanation is that the ‘best of the best’ are anything but, and that an administration stupid enough to trust Daschle then Bacchus with its signature piece of legislation is now getting the comeuppance it so richly deserves.
Yes, Obama the candidate was savvy, but aside from his actual political staff, his pre-election policy people have, for the most part, been replaced with establishment types who are beyond tone-deaf (Austan Goolsbee, for instance, has been banished to
Siberiathe Economic Recovery Advisory Board).If Axlrod & Co. are smart enough to recognize that Brown just saved the Democrats from themselves – and did so with enough time on the clock to recover – then more power to them. But I’m not crediting them with an ounce of savvy just yet.
Because seriously – if you had that kind of game, why would you spend your first year in office getting routinely humiliated by anyone with a checkbook and rep on K. St.?
Rick – that’s genius. It would be like Escape from New York – only the opposite.
Rick – that’s genius. It would be like Escape from New York – only the opposite.
One more:
According to the Rasmussen exit sample, 52 percent of Brown voters rated health care as their top issue–a clear indication that they were viewing the election in national and not merely state terms.
http://www.tnr.com/article/politics/he-doesnt-feel-your-pain
Jon, you are all over the place, LET GO OF NATIONALIZED UNIVERSAL HEALTH CARE, and argue it is a state’s rights thing.
Find the light.
One more:
According to the Rasmussen exit sample, 52 percent of Brown voters rated health care as their top issue–a clear indication that they were viewing the election in national and not merely state terms.
http://www.tnr.com/article/politics/he-doesnt-feel-your-pain
Jon, you are all over the place, LET GO OF NATIONALIZED UNIVERSAL HEALTH CARE, and argue it is a state’s rights thing.
Find the light.
No, Jon, it’s cheesy of you to pick and choose which whipping boys you want this referendun in Massachusetts to have repudiated, just as it’s creepy of you to ignore, in your own rettroactive vanity, that some of us told the table that this was about to come about. The arrogance precisely is the problem. Yet arrogance is by nature virulent: It resultely will not reform. It’s therefore fucked. It’s the final, fucked thing, and the thing that our old guard can’t stare in the face. I don’t know about you, but I can think of only two persons who could look down this barrel. It’s more to do with California than with Haiti, yunno?
No, Jon, it’s cheesy of you to pick and choose which whipping boys you want this referendun in Massachusetts to have repudiated, just as it’s creepy of you to ignore, in your own rettroactive vanity, that some of us told the table that this was about to come about. The arrogance precisely is the problem. Yet arrogance is by nature virulent: It resultely will not reform. It’s therefore fucked. It’s the final, fucked thing, and the thing that our old guard can’t stare in the face. I don’t know about you, but I can think of only two persons who could look down this barrel. It’s more to do with California than with Haiti, yunno?
eh, both parties suck…
eh, both parties suck…
Both parties do suck, and I think that perhaps the best thing happening is that more and more people realize that. I wish there was a leftie analog to the Tea Party phenomenon, and maybe there will be.
I see paralysis coming. The administration has tasted of fugu from the bad chef. They see, they hear, yet they can do nothing. The Senate and Congress are all bought and paid for, but the parties will cancel each other out. The electorate better wake up and simply throw the bums out or the end game will be very painful here as the Empire collapses.
Both parties do suck, and I think that perhaps the best thing happening is that more and more people realize that. I wish there was a leftie analog to the Tea Party phenomenon, and maybe there will be.
I see paralysis coming. The administration has tasted of fugu from the bad chef. They see, they hear, yet they can do nothing. The Senate and Congress are all bought and paid for, but the parties will cancel each other out. The electorate better wake up and simply throw the bums out or the end game will be very painful here as the Empire collapses.
It almost sounds like you think that’s a mistake of some sort. As if he is NOT part of the elites.
We don’t need to wait for historians to have their say. It’s all right there in front of our eyes.
The first whiff that this was going to be a business as usual administration started with Geithner as Secretary of Treasury.
The second whiff was when he said a public option was more like “suspenders”, not quite as necessary as a belt…hmmm
And yet you still talk as if he’s on your side. As if all he needs to do is adopt some new policies and pursue such and such agendas.
You still don’t get it. He’s not interested in any of that. He’s not a popular (2nd definition) president. He’s a Washington insider.
What needs to happen is for progressives to start a counter-Tea Party movement. One that is against Washington. Obama (and his administration) are quintessential Washington. Their agenda is to keep the status quo – not upset it.
Hard to imagine that after he has not even used his executive privilege to suspend Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell, you still somehow believe he actually meant his other campaign promises.
You still think it’s a mistake that his actions don’t fit with his campaign promises. But Occam’s razor tells us differently – he never meant any of it. He just said what he needed to say to get elected. It’s that simple.
The double-or-nothing approach of electing a Republican just because the Democrats aren’t Democratic enough may work in a special election. But it’s a bluff, and Obama knows it.
Come 2012 and an Obama-Palin contest – the people will back down and elect the lesser evil.
Obama will change nothing in the next three years.
It almost sounds like you think that’s a mistake of some sort. As if he is NOT part of the elites.
We don’t need to wait for historians to have their say. It’s all right there in front of our eyes.
The first whiff that this was going to be a business as usual administration started with Geithner as Secretary of Treasury.
The second whiff was when he said a public option was more like “suspenders”, not quite as necessary as a belt…hmmm
And yet you still talk as if he’s on your side. As if all he needs to do is adopt some new policies and pursue such and such agendas.
You still don’t get it. He’s not interested in any of that. He’s not a popular (2nd definition) president. He’s a Washington insider.
What needs to happen is for progressives to start a counter-Tea Party movement. One that is against Washington. Obama (and his administration) are quintessential Washington. Their agenda is to keep the status quo – not upset it.
Hard to imagine that after he has not even used his executive privilege to suspend Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell, you still somehow believe he actually meant his other campaign promises.
You still think it’s a mistake that his actions don’t fit with his campaign promises. But Occam’s razor tells us differently – he never meant any of it. He just said what he needed to say to get elected. It’s that simple.
The double-or-nothing approach of electing a Republican just because the Democrats aren’t Democratic enough may work in a special election. But it’s a bluff, and Obama knows it.
Come 2012 and an Obama-Palin contest – the people will back down and elect the lesser evil.
Obama will change nothing in the next three years.
Ah, grasshathopper, more wisdom from WaPo and RCP. Love your mastery of illogical disconnects. Like, “the people” were ever presented with an honest set of alternative policies, especially not any that actually had a prayer of controlling costs and delivering the kinds of services that the citizens of most rational nations benefit from. But you and as they say, your ilk, keep blowing your smoke. Maybe soon enough there will be some real flames and muzzle blast to make it actual.
Yep, Jon needs to “let it go,” because you say so, with the exercise of giant leaps of fraudulent ‘logic.”
So good to have you here, to remind all of what the Dark Side thinks…
Ah, grasshathopper, more wisdom from WaPo and RCP. Love your mastery of illogical disconnects. Like, “the people” were ever presented with an honest set of alternative policies, especially not any that actually had a prayer of controlling costs and delivering the kinds of services that the citizens of most rational nations benefit from. But you and as they say, your ilk, keep blowing your smoke. Maybe soon enough there will be some real flames and muzzle blast to make it actual.
Yep, Jon needs to “let it go,” because you say so, with the exercise of giant leaps of fraudulent ‘logic.”
So good to have you here, to remind all of what the Dark Side thinks…
So R-ass-mussen is another trustworthy speaker of all truth? And you ass-ume that “health care as their top issue” means that all those people reject the idea of universal, sensible, efficient health care? Stay in the Dark. Where you belong.
So R-ass-mussen is another trustworthy speaker of all truth? And you ass-ume that “health care as their top issue” means that all those people reject the idea of universal, sensible, efficient health care? Stay in the Dark. Where you belong.
We the people could change something in the next three years…something like most of Congress and much of the Senate…if there’s the will for change.
We the people could change something in the next three years…something like most of Congress and much of the Senate…if there’s the will for change.
The idiots in Washington will take this as suport or opposition; a yes or a no on their agendas. When the voters are only allowed to speak in binary bits of data (0=R, 1=D) then there;s really not too much to make of the.
So come Sunday, the pundits and pontificators (bowties) will extrapolate a world of meaning from this according to how their corporate backers wish.
If None of the Above had been on the ballot, we would be having a very different conversation. In fact, that’s not a bad idea. Force all ballots to have a “None of the Above” option.
That’ll give the overpaid Sunday pie holes something to ponder.
The idiots in Washington will take this as suport or opposition; a yes or a no on their agendas. When the voters are only allowed to speak in binary bits of data (0=R, 1=D) then there;s really not too much to make of the.
So come Sunday, the pundits and pontificators (bowties) will extrapolate a world of meaning from this according to how their corporate backers wish.
If None of the Above had been on the ballot, we would be having a very different conversation. In fact, that’s not a bad idea. Force all ballots to have a “None of the Above” option.
That’ll give the overpaid Sunday pie holes something to ponder.
God Bless you, you’re right: We the party really could turnaround things in three years’ doing, I think you got that just right.
God Bless you, you’re right: We the party really could turnaround things in three years’ doing, I think you got that just right.
And moreover hey, I’ve found that that’s a convenient dodge when one’s party is on the ropes. Good luck to you, in your dodging.
And moreover hey, I’ve found that that’s a convenient dodge when one’s party is on the ropes. Good luck to you, in your dodging.
Mr. Flynn,
With respect, horseshit. It is, as the Defense Secretary once said, what it is, is.
Oh fuck. But there it is. I never thought that Zen could be turned toward warfarare, but there you have it from the mouth of Mr. Rumsfeld who, if I know him, greatly regrets his having said so.
As I say, it’s all screwed. It’s all screwed.
Mr. Flynn,
With respect, horseshit. It is, as the Defense Secretary once said, what it is, is.
Oh fuck. But there it is. I never thought that Zen could be turned toward warfarare, but there you have it from the mouth of Mr. Rumsfeld who, if I know him, greatly regrets his having said so.
As I say, it’s all screwed. It’s all screwed.
…besides that, Flynn, your crack about us American “pie holes”? How dare you, you. I can asure you that we Protestants have improved markedly Markedly.
…besides that, Flynn, your crack about us American “pie holes”? How dare you, you. I can asure you that we Protestants have improved markedly Markedly.
AA- I’ve been pretty critical of Obama on his support of both Geithner and Summers. The point I’m trying to make above, is that Barack really can choose right now to be a reform President.
But he does have to tear up the script he’s used so far.
AA- I’ve been pretty critical of Obama on his support of both Geithner and Summers. The point I’m trying to make above, is that Barack really can choose right now to be a reform President.
But he does have to tear up the script he’s used so far.
Actually I have always believed that. When both parties can be bought and paid for by corporations and special interests and such, that isn’t much of a system for government. That is a system for welfare for the rich and piss on everyone else.
Actually I have always believed that. When both parties can be bought and paid for by corporations and special interests and such, that isn’t much of a system for government. That is a system for welfare for the rich and piss on everyone else.
be nice if a third party had a chance. alas, tis not to be without some sort of revolution happening (a real one, not a ‘fake’ one engineered by either one of the sucky parties.)
be nice if a third party had a chance. alas, tis not to be without some sort of revolution happening (a real one, not a ‘fake’ one engineered by either one of the sucky parties.)
Wishes have feets of clay.
Wishes have feets of clay.
The Massachusetts vote WAS NOT ABOUT HEALTH CARE REFORM! Massachusetts already has mandated health care insurance reform. This was a reaction against the Kennedy dynasty and against Washington’s caving in to Wall Street and the big banks. This was a reactionary, throw the bums out vote, and the bums were identified as Democrats because of the obvious. This is a voter group that elected Barney Frank, for heaven’s sake. It’s not exactly a hotbed of Limbaugh/Beckism. They don’t like what’s going on in Washington, and they wouldn’t accept the weak candidate that the Dems threw up thinking they could do no wrong on the tail of Obama being elected.
This actually give me great hope… There has been a real “shot across the bow”. Let the people be heard. Let their anger loose.
The Massachusetts vote WAS NOT ABOUT HEALTH CARE REFORM! Massachusetts already has mandated health care insurance reform. This was a reaction against the Kennedy dynasty and against Washington’s caving in to Wall Street and the big banks. This was a reactionary, throw the bums out vote, and the bums were identified as Democrats because of the obvious. This is a voter group that elected Barney Frank, for heaven’s sake. It’s not exactly a hotbed of Limbaugh/Beckism. They don’t like what’s going on in Washington, and they wouldn’t accept the weak candidate that the Dems threw up thinking they could do no wrong on the tail of Obama being elected.
This actually give me great hope… There has been a real “shot across the bow”. Let the people be heard. Let their anger loose.
You may think or even believe it was about healthcare but that doesn’t make it true. You are focused on the same old see we won again idea that blinds you both,M and D, to why this election result was a statement not just from Repubs but from Dems and Independents, too.
Stop the wars, reduce the Military spending, focus on rebuilding and rehiring Americans, and stabilizing the economy under a sensibly balanced budget.
Obama lost because he hasn’t kept the promise he made to change things. Jon is right, if he doesn’t get the message then do something a bout it, he was the wrong choice.
But the message is still the same. Change the direction. If the Republicans take back some of the control and don’t get this message then they will be right where Obama and the Dems find themselves right now.
Out.
You may think or even believe it was about healthcare but that doesn’t make it true. You are focused on the same old see we won again idea that blinds you both,M and D, to why this election result was a statement not just from Repubs but from Dems and Independents, too.
Stop the wars, reduce the Military spending, focus on rebuilding and rehiring Americans, and stabilizing the economy under a sensibly balanced budget.
Obama lost because he hasn’t kept the promise he made to change things. Jon is right, if he doesn’t get the message then do something a bout it, he was the wrong choice.
But the message is still the same. Change the direction. If the Republicans take back some of the control and don’t get this message then they will be right where Obama and the Dems find themselves right now.
Out.
Did you not get the ” get them a job so they can pay for MY medicare”?
Yes, listen to her. She’s saying I got mine and the heck with everyone else. Me first. That’s all that counts.
That selfish, self-centered, arrogant attitude sucks!
Did you not get the ” get them a job so they can pay for MY medicare”?
Yes, listen to her. She’s saying I got mine and the heck with everyone else. Me first. That’s all that counts.
That selfish, self-centered, arrogant attitude sucks!
Jon
Here’s a UK perspective from the Independent:
Don’t write off Obama yet.
Obama looks pretty good on the ‘giveaways’ from over here, not least because he’s getting the banks to pay back some of the cash. That’s much harder here, because we already own the Royal Bank of Scotland and most of Lloyds, so we’d be paying ourselves already.
Jon
Here’s a UK perspective from the Independent:
Don’t write off Obama yet.
Obama looks pretty good on the ‘giveaways’ from over here, not least because he’s getting the banks to pay back some of the cash. That’s much harder here, because we already own the Royal Bank of Scotland and most of Lloyds, so we’d be paying ourselves already.
But in the meantime, trillions more will flow from today’s pocketbooks and future potential wealth of all the confused and angry consumers, er, excuse me, voting citizens, into the present grasping hands of those on top. The ones wo over time have learned the secrets of control and ledgerdemain. So we who produce the wealth that these mother-fuckers, and if you look at the sociology the scatology of that epithet is pretty close to on the mark, are skimming, keep on staring at the flashing lights and shiny bangles.
These people know they are not only immune to having their asses sued off, in Papola’s notion of how libertarian social control would work, since they write the laws that tell everyone what’s “against the law.” They own all the means of social control, and know that their position is just a feature of the universe — like the formation of galaxies and planets by local, minute variations in the density of particles, leading to accretion of “MORE.”
Yell about change of direction being the obligation of those who are driving the bus all you want. The response is gonna be, “I can’t hear you, and I know where I’m going is the most fun for me.”
But in the meantime, trillions more will flow from today’s pocketbooks and future potential wealth of all the confused and angry consumers, er, excuse me, voting citizens, into the present grasping hands of those on top. The ones wo over time have learned the secrets of control and ledgerdemain. So we who produce the wealth that these mother-fuckers, and if you look at the sociology the scatology of that epithet is pretty close to on the mark, are skimming, keep on staring at the flashing lights and shiny bangles.
These people know they are not only immune to having their asses sued off, in Papola’s notion of how libertarian social control would work, since they write the laws that tell everyone what’s “against the law.” They own all the means of social control, and know that their position is just a feature of the universe — like the formation of galaxies and planets by local, minute variations in the density of particles, leading to accretion of “MORE.”
Yell about change of direction being the obligation of those who are driving the bus all you want. The response is gonna be, “I can’t hear you, and I know where I’m going is the most fun for me.”
If the blockade were effective enough (though see how well the entrepreneurial classes are doing delivering the goods to Gaza via self-dug tunnels) one might even hope that a more patent form of cannibalism might emerge. “Anyone want a rare slice of Cheney ham? The K Street stew is on the other table.”
If the blockade were effective enough (though see how well the entrepreneurial classes are doing delivering the goods to Gaza via self-dug tunnels) one might even hope that a more patent form of cannibalism might emerge. “Anyone want a rare slice of Cheney ham? The K Street stew is on the other table.”
Shouldn’t the thought be parent to action?
If commentators on forums like this so often speak wistfully for a third party ought not they go create and/or contribute to one? Surely there is one out there?
At least take every opportunity to demand and support calls for Proportional Representation – the point of which is to give power to more parties and improve the representation of citizens.
Shouldn’t the thought be parent to action?
If commentators on forums like this so often speak wistfully for a third party ought not they go create and/or contribute to one? Surely there is one out there?
At least take every opportunity to demand and support calls for Proportional Representation – the point of which is to give power to more parties and improve the representation of citizens.
Valerie, I’m not interested in what sucks, I’m interested in what is….
And Medicare is our way of taking care of the old and the children. This 73 year old woman paid her dues, her state pays more for health care insurance than any other state in the union.
She’s got hers in two different rightful ways. And since she’s never voted for a Republican before, YOU would be wise, to take the lesson and stop thinking you’ve got something to teach her because you have it exactly backwards.
Healthcare is a states rights issue… IN FACT, if you really want to see more states moving towards MA style care, the US government should start to back-out of Medicare… then states like CA would keep more of their dollars and have the resources to set up their own systems.
Even better, Jon’s a state’s rights guy again, so he agree with me.
Valerie, I’m not interested in what sucks, I’m interested in what is….
And Medicare is our way of taking care of the old and the children. This 73 year old woman paid her dues, her state pays more for health care insurance than any other state in the union.
She’s got hers in two different rightful ways. And since she’s never voted for a Republican before, YOU would be wise, to take the lesson and stop thinking you’ve got something to teach her because you have it exactly backwards.
Healthcare is a states rights issue… IN FACT, if you really want to see more states moving towards MA style care, the US government should start to back-out of Medicare… then states like CA would keep more of their dollars and have the resources to set up their own systems.
Even better, Jon’s a state’s rights guy again, so he agree with me.
Woke up this morning with the same thought on my mind. Why not? We could start with a full page ad in the LA Times, yunno, like one of those letters to the President but actually a clear cut statement about what we really think the State of the Union is and what he should be doing about it. I even checked the ning.com network site and guess what we could actually set up our own social network and site it there and call it something cool, like the Real Tea Party Party.
Woke up this morning with the same thought on my mind. Why not? We could start with a full page ad in the LA Times, yunno, like one of those letters to the President but actually a clear cut statement about what we really think the State of the Union is and what he should be doing about it. I even checked the ning.com network site and guess what we could actually set up our own social network and site it there and call it something cool, like the Real Tea Party Party.
That’s ning.com .
That’s ning.com .
Godammit you’d better hope that plane never will be used in combat. It was built for dogfighting the only two prospective opponents of the USAF. I don’t understand, Jon, why you’re so lastingly hostile to Lockheed Martin. For one, they were two of the best engineers that Southern California could produce, amidst a fair bumper crop of engineers. Besides, they were visionary. In multidimensional ways they transformed American life. (That may come off as cant, when in fact it’s considered.).
We should want these guys to thrive. For one thing, they’ve been on the frontline of alternative energy from way back before we thought to make it cause célèbre. Yes, they also make warplanes that kill. Are you such the Hippie that this upsets you? Is it better to be on the receiving end of warplanes? The alternative is, first, the F-22.
Never, ever, underestimate the venality of the junta in Beijing.
Godammit you’d better hope that plane never will be used in combat. It was built for dogfighting the only two prospective opponents of the USAF. I don’t understand, Jon, why you’re so lastingly hostile to Lockheed Martin. For one, they were two of the best engineers that Southern California could produce, amidst a fair bumper crop of engineers. Besides, they were visionary. In multidimensional ways they transformed American life. (That may come off as cant, when in fact it’s considered.).
We should want these guys to thrive. For one thing, they’ve been on the frontline of alternative energy from way back before we thought to make it cause célèbre. Yes, they also make warplanes that kill. Are you such the Hippie that this upsets you? Is it better to be on the receiving end of warplanes? The alternative is, first, the F-22.
Never, ever, underestimate the venality of the junta in Beijing.
…and by the way, Boeing? WTF?
…and by the way, Boeing? WTF?
“Barack really can choose right now to be a reform President.” Jon, what makes you so sure? Why do you remain convinced that he’s an “agent of change” instead of a “placeholder”? Please be specific.
But does it really matter Jon? Seriously, what “reforms” could Obama make between now and Nov to materially alter the outcome of the mid-terms? For almost a year now I’ve been saying that come Nov it’ll be “jobs, Jobs, JOBS and homes, Homes, HOMES”. The only reforms that matter now are those yielding lower unemployment and foreclosure.
IMO, after Tuesday, reform should be relegated to the margin. The takeaway from Tuesday – Barack failed the “sniff test”. First and foremost is regaining the people’s trust and confidence. Until that’s done, any talk of reform will be branded “sounds like more of the same” and quickly thrown in the dumpster.
Two actions are needed prior to next week’s State of the Union address; first, conduct a thorough house cleaning with Mr. Emanuel being the first to rejoin the civilian work force. Second, publically direct Eric Holder to open investigations into the world’s largest financial crisis. Justice and closure are long overdue. The “securitize and distribute” scam involved thousands so holding up another Bernie Madoff won’t be sufficient.
“Barack really can choose right now to be a reform President.” Jon, what makes you so sure? Why do you remain convinced that he’s an “agent of change” instead of a “placeholder”? Please be specific.
But does it really matter Jon? Seriously, what “reforms” could Obama make between now and Nov to materially alter the outcome of the mid-terms? For almost a year now I’ve been saying that come Nov it’ll be “jobs, Jobs, JOBS and homes, Homes, HOMES”. The only reforms that matter now are those yielding lower unemployment and foreclosure.
IMO, after Tuesday, reform should be relegated to the margin. The takeaway from Tuesday – Barack failed the “sniff test”. First and foremost is regaining the people’s trust and confidence. Until that’s done, any talk of reform will be branded “sounds like more of the same” and quickly thrown in the dumpster.
Two actions are needed prior to next week’s State of the Union address; first, conduct a thorough house cleaning with Mr. Emanuel being the first to rejoin the civilian work force. Second, publically direct Eric Holder to open investigations into the world’s largest financial crisis. Justice and closure are long overdue. The “securitize and distribute” scam involved thousands so holding up another Bernie Madoff won’t be sufficient.
Hugo, That’s exactly the thinking that has created an unsustainable national debt, with intrest payments that can suck us dry in the coming 20 yo 30 years. By not putting that money towards schools, highways or water systems our infrastructure erodes, but the military keeps grabbing an unfair share of the national GDP in the name of local jobs.
It’s not the company that is wrong, wrong, wrong in the case of the F-22. It’s a system that cannot re-prioritize money appropriately when it sees that it is wasting it. You sometimes rant about the out of control California budget, then you come out in favor of the war machine because the jobs serve an area you are attached to. Oh, right, your support is for a niche weapon that needs to be available in case the Chinese decide to go to war against us, as if they would risk losing their interest payments. That would be like worrying about France going to war with Haiti, rather than destroying it with debt.
Your instincts, in the case of the MIC, as has often been pointed out here, are Reagan era leftovers as inappropriate as wasting GDP on wars for oil. That someone as bright as you can continue to carry water for the MIC is part of the reason the SCOTUS can grant corporations unlimited political spending, and people will roll over for it.
No wonder the GOP is able to continue the Ponzi scheme of the rich.
Hugo, That’s exactly the thinking that has created an unsustainable national debt, with intrest payments that can suck us dry in the coming 20 yo 30 years. By not putting that money towards schools, highways or water systems our infrastructure erodes, but the military keeps grabbing an unfair share of the national GDP in the name of local jobs.
It’s not the company that is wrong, wrong, wrong in the case of the F-22. It’s a system that cannot re-prioritize money appropriately when it sees that it is wasting it. You sometimes rant about the out of control California budget, then you come out in favor of the war machine because the jobs serve an area you are attached to. Oh, right, your support is for a niche weapon that needs to be available in case the Chinese decide to go to war against us, as if they would risk losing their interest payments. That would be like worrying about France going to war with Haiti, rather than destroying it with debt.
Your instincts, in the case of the MIC, as has often been pointed out here, are Reagan era leftovers as inappropriate as wasting GDP on wars for oil. That someone as bright as you can continue to carry water for the MIC is part of the reason the SCOTUS can grant corporations unlimited political spending, and people will roll over for it.
No wonder the GOP is able to continue the Ponzi scheme of the rich.
Sorry Rick, have to disagree. This was a matter of Dems being too disorganized to treat the election seriously and therefore control a) who got the nomination , and b) the image of the issues. Control emotions = successful elections. Liberals keep forgetting that over and over and over.
It’s why the Dems have given up on even basic gun control even though the vast majority of Americans , and a hell of a lot of the NRA, support legislation to ban assault weapons, and clean up gun show sales. They can’t gin up the outrage of Mothers Against Drunk Driving for example, which took on the alcohol industry quite successfully. We’ve gone from a nation that told it’s cops to let drunks off with a warning, to a nation that sees driving drunk as a bloody sin. That’s image control at work. Obama won with it as his primary tool, then forgot that the job of a leader, more than anything else is to set the tone.
Massachusetts by and large hasn’t been all that disappointed in their Kennedy dynasty, anymore than Texas is all that disappointed with Bush, they just ran out of viable Kennedy’s.
Sorry Rick, have to disagree. This was a matter of Dems being too disorganized to treat the election seriously and therefore control a) who got the nomination , and b) the image of the issues. Control emotions = successful elections. Liberals keep forgetting that over and over and over.
It’s why the Dems have given up on even basic gun control even though the vast majority of Americans , and a hell of a lot of the NRA, support legislation to ban assault weapons, and clean up gun show sales. They can’t gin up the outrage of Mothers Against Drunk Driving for example, which took on the alcohol industry quite successfully. We’ve gone from a nation that told it’s cops to let drunks off with a warning, to a nation that sees driving drunk as a bloody sin. That’s image control at work. Obama won with it as his primary tool, then forgot that the job of a leader, more than anything else is to set the tone.
Massachusetts by and large hasn’t been all that disappointed in their Kennedy dynasty, anymore than Texas is all that disappointed with Bush, they just ran out of viable Kennedy’s.
I don’t know the answer to this one, just asking since I don’t have time to follow the campaign shenanigans:
Was this binary election a plebiscite on Obamism, or on the horror that is our present actual government, or just one of those existential screams by people who sense that they are “on the eve of destruction,” or, or, or? I am pretty sure that as usual, Warstler’s full of excrement on whether it was a “vote against natinal socialized health care,” but how do those with some closer view read the entrails and tea leaves on this one election that everyone has imbued with a degree of criticality that seems all out of proportion/ The world as we know it may end tomorrow, but that will be via cosmic collisions or the accretion of all the “features” of our human ecology, especially in the greed-pit that the US of A has inexorably become.
So speak, ye cognoscenti — maybe somebody is listening.
I don’t know the answer to this one, just asking since I don’t have time to follow the campaign shenanigans:
Was this binary election a plebiscite on Obamism, or on the horror that is our present actual government, or just one of those existential screams by people who sense that they are “on the eve of destruction,” or, or, or? I am pretty sure that as usual, Warstler’s full of excrement on whether it was a “vote against natinal socialized health care,” but how do those with some closer view read the entrails and tea leaves on this one election that everyone has imbued with a degree of criticality that seems all out of proportion/ The world as we know it may end tomorrow, but that will be via cosmic collisions or the accretion of all the “features” of our human ecology, especially in the greed-pit that the US of A has inexorably become.
So speak, ye cognoscenti — maybe somebody is listening.
JTM, see post below for my 2 cents on why the loss. It’s as much BS to read this a major shift in divide of public attitudes any more than a (somewhat) liberal winning in New York last a few weeks ago.
Basic? Really bad job of playing the political game, so one side got out more votes than the other.
JTM, see post below for my 2 cents on why the loss. It’s as much BS to read this a major shift in divide of public attitudes any more than a (somewhat) liberal winning in New York last a few weeks ago.
Basic? Really bad job of playing the political game, so one side got out more votes than the other.
Yeah, but you goota love the illogical disconnects. Where would we be without them? They are the centerpiece of this table: spilling, illogical disconnects. We don’t want this. We want the President to fit into his dress, and calm down, and really summon and enliven the spirits animating him. He’s wasting much good will and, frankly, much love.
It’s our mistake, hiring a rookie.
Yeah, but you goota love the illogical disconnects. Where would we be without them? They are the centerpiece of this table: spilling, illogical disconnects. We don’t want this. We want the President to fit into his dress, and calm down, and really summon and enliven the spirits animating him. He’s wasting much good will and, frankly, much love.
It’s our mistake, hiring a rookie.
Here’s a factoid ripped straight from Daily Kos:
“In ’08… , 47.8% of the under-30s voted in Massachusetts, compared with 81% of the 30-and-over population. On Tuesday, only 15% of young voters cast ballots, compared with 57% of the 30-and-over population. The Massachusetts vote isn’t the first sign of dwindling interest by youth. Last year, 17% of young voters showed up for the Virginia governor’s contest, 19% for New Jersey’s.”
The votes are there, but the Dems are leaving them on the table as it were. Find a way to give them jobs and the mid-terms will swing back to liberal, rather than be conceded to the conservative party line of tax cuts and corporate control of politics.
The depression/war era generation saw themselves a sacrificing “greatest generation”. Boomers saw themselves as “radical reformers”, but actually turned out to be a generation of self indulgent pricks. The “greediest generation.” The next generation is seeing that as not being so successful, but has no real sense of power or direction. If the left wants any future other than another 40 years of GOP control, it has to produce for and empower the kids. Otherwise, a large number are potential fascists if they become convinced they can still get in on the Ponzi scheme while it’s still paying dividends.
Here’s a factoid ripped straight from Daily Kos:
“In ’08… , 47.8% of the under-30s voted in Massachusetts, compared with 81% of the 30-and-over population. On Tuesday, only 15% of young voters cast ballots, compared with 57% of the 30-and-over population. The Massachusetts vote isn’t the first sign of dwindling interest by youth. Last year, 17% of young voters showed up for the Virginia governor’s contest, 19% for New Jersey’s.”
The votes are there, but the Dems are leaving them on the table as it were. Find a way to give them jobs and the mid-terms will swing back to liberal, rather than be conceded to the conservative party line of tax cuts and corporate control of politics.
The depression/war era generation saw themselves a sacrificing “greatest generation”. Boomers saw themselves as “radical reformers”, but actually turned out to be a generation of self indulgent pricks. The “greediest generation.” The next generation is seeing that as not being so successful, but has no real sense of power or direction. If the left wants any future other than another 40 years of GOP control, it has to produce for and empower the kids. Otherwise, a large number are potential fascists if they become convinced they can still get in on the Ponzi scheme while it’s still paying dividends.
JTM
My initial reaction to Tuesday? “So what!”
Rachel Maddow’s opening monologue last night captured my sentiment best, “so tell me again how gaining one more Republican seat alters the balance of power in favor of the Republicans?” “41?” “So what!”
She laid out the numbers and basically told the Dems to man up and do the right thing. Of course she skirted the whole “dead right” issue, where doing the right thing would likely end many political careers.
JTM
My initial reaction to Tuesday? “So what!”
Rachel Maddow’s opening monologue last night captured my sentiment best, “so tell me again how gaining one more Republican seat alters the balance of power in favor of the Republicans?” “41?” “So what!”
She laid out the numbers and basically told the Dems to man up and do the right thing. Of course she skirted the whole “dead right” issue, where doing the right thing would likely end many political careers.
Weird “issue-attention cycles”. Weird, how inculcated and manipulated. Some persons are enslaved by force; others, because they beg. It’s horrible, journalistically.
Weird “issue-attention cycles”. Weird, how inculcated and manipulated. Some persons are enslaved by force; others, because they beg. It’s horrible, journalistically.
Well, I for one, Hugo, admit it. I don’t know what the hell you just said even thought I definitely agree with what Ken Ballweg said about you. Please clarify without the anger.
Well, I for one, Hugo, admit it. I don’t know what the hell you just said even thought I definitely agree with what Ken Ballweg said about you. Please clarify without the anger.
Hugo, why do you want engineers designing an incredibly expensive toy that you hope will never be used? To burn up more kerosene in training? Those engineers could be doing something that would have lasting value instead of building death machines.
And Ken, we’re not in disagreement here, really. The Dems though their Kennedy machine would just keep rolling no matter who they threw up as the candidate. Fat and lazy…and corrupt. Maybe “the Big Dig” was a grave for Massachusetts politics as usual… The only Dems who seem to have corruption going better than those in Massachusetts are those in Chicago…from whence cometh El Presidente… Daley family, Kennedy family…what’s the difference?
Hugo, why do you want engineers designing an incredibly expensive toy that you hope will never be used? To burn up more kerosene in training? Those engineers could be doing something that would have lasting value instead of building death machines.
And Ken, we’re not in disagreement here, really. The Dems though their Kennedy machine would just keep rolling no matter who they threw up as the candidate. Fat and lazy…and corrupt. Maybe “the Big Dig” was a grave for Massachusetts politics as usual… The only Dems who seem to have corruption going better than those in Massachusetts are those in Chicago…from whence cometh El Presidente… Daley family, Kennedy family…what’s the difference?
Well, rhbee, I’m flattered by Ken’s attentions, but he doesn’t describe me. For one thing, I’m no friend of a particular weopons program. As I’ve described the F-22, for example, it’s flight characteristics and its sociology, I’ve tried to do so honestly, journalistically.
A similar notion of honesty, fidelity to the record, stirs me in historiography. It bugs me when old facts are fudged. Do you reckon Jon’s got T.R. right, for example?
Hell, I’m alive and kicking, and relatively articulate and responsive, and yet even Ken can’t get me right. (Hint. An old reporter’s trick: one asks before one tells). Voilà! Reportage!
Well, rhbee, I’m flattered by Ken’s attentions, but he doesn’t describe me. For one thing, I’m no friend of a particular weopons program. As I’ve described the F-22, for example, it’s flight characteristics and its sociology, I’ve tried to do so honestly, journalistically.
A similar notion of honesty, fidelity to the record, stirs me in historiography. It bugs me when old facts are fudged. Do you reckon Jon’s got T.R. right, for example?
Hell, I’m alive and kicking, and relatively articulate and responsive, and yet even Ken can’t get me right. (Hint. An old reporter’s trick: one asks before one tells). Voilà! Reportage!
Rick,
I’d rather buy your wares, believe me, but the honest answer is yes, That’s what I want. It may seem bankrupt, morally and fiscally, but it built the modern Southern California whilst safekeeping what we used to call the Free World. Please don’t think that I fantacize across the pages of the MIC’s catalog. That’s disgusting. The question is how best to defeat the bastards who want to come at us. And, as you know, it’s not a question for sophomores.
Rick,
I’d rather buy your wares, believe me, but the honest answer is yes, That’s what I want. It may seem bankrupt, morally and fiscally, but it built the modern Southern California whilst safekeeping what we used to call the Free World. Please don’t think that I fantacize across the pages of the MIC’s catalog. That’s disgusting. The question is how best to defeat the bastards who want to come at us. And, as you know, it’s not a question for sophomores.
Jon at least is really, truly showing his frustration, is honestly having his guts out. You might want to re-read; then you might see what I mean. We all want the same direction. Direction: Pull.
Wow, the modern Southern California! What a model to envy! What a model to duplicate! Dubai! What a crock of shit!
I’ll see your 405 and raise you the 10…
I’ll suck your rivers dry…
I’ll choke you in smog…
I’ll hand you Babylon on a stick…
Cam, accordingly, you asked for a third party and now in Florida, that place where JTM may habituate, has one. All beit a conservative alternative, but still . . .
But Hugo you do have to admit that you sound an awful lot like those folks who sold us the “red menace” and “the yellow peril” and, oh nooooo! the “Domino Therory”.
Dude, we don’t have half the smog we used to do.
I just drove through LA. Can’t fool me…
It’s still twice the smog it should be…this year.
Nag, nag, nag on my part .. since when, speaking about the F-22 and such, and “dog-fighting capability,” I have to ask, is it a “dogfight” if you, the would-be ace pilot, Foxtrot off a fire-and-forget AIM-120 out-of-sight-range missile at that there enemy aircraft, then perform a “defensive maneuver” (turning 180 degrees and running like hell for the horizon to avoid that there countershoot missile from the other aircraft)? And how much “dog-fighting” can you do with a single cannon that fires 100 rounds per second from an aircraft that carries all of 480 rounds, and a couple of Sidewinders?
Sorry, but this whole “fine aircraft” thing is just nonsensical in our new Battle Space where a UAV (that’s DefSpeak for “unmanned aircraft,” not meaning “unmanned” in the other Shakespearean sense)(or a truck or ship or an Uban Assault SUV like that one in “Stripes”) can carry the same missile armament to shoot down the other guy’s “fine $20 million aircraft” or UAV and get blown out of the sky in turn, without any Top Gun testosterone-squirting hot dog Evangelical Yahooo officer getting squished by g-forces into protoplasmic jelly or risking his manly ass in knightly aerial combat. And it is so interesting to see the long list of countries to which Raytheon has sold these wonderful gadgets. All forever friends of ours, I’m sure.
As to Lockheed-Martin maybe having a few divisions that do “civilian” work, I very much doubt that the guys who “engineer’ warcraft cross over the walkways very often to inspire any staff fooling around with alternative energy projects. The money that flows into L-M ‘We never forget who we are working for,” the way-vast majority of it, is to pump the procurement handle and spew out warplanes. Which is part of the reason We The People are sucking wind in this End Of Empire period.
“be on the receiving end of warplanes?” That’s been the argument and scare message for every freakin’ boondoggle since King Henry just HAD to have that gold-plated cannon.
These days, I am a lot more worried about the venality of the people who can affect me most directly, to wit: the ones that, preaching the need for fearfulness that “the Reds” are going to “take over our country,” have taken over our country. And even CALL THEMSELVES “REDS.” And borrowed all that money from the Yellow Peril Chink Commies, to fund that huge Bush tax cut trickle down voodoo-economics FRAUD (that word again, Warstler)and the expansion of the Battle Space to the whole fucking planet, to put us at risk of having the whole country foreclosed.
No sale. Sorry if I offend, but that’s the way it is.
You gotta love those people with the “I got mine- fuck you” attitudes, like the banks, like the brokers, like Congress, like the 73 year-olds already on Medicare.
What some of you either do not get or are simply refuting by braying “I got mine- fuck you” over and over, is that universal healthcare is NOT a states-rights issue … it is a HUMAN-RIGHTS issue. It is a moral imperative. The rich DO NOT deserve better healthcare than the poor … the people of one locale do not deserve better healthcare than a neighboring locale.
Lest we forget; “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.”
Without proper healthcare, there eventually is no LIFE, as even minor illness can kill you. The right to LIBERTY presupposes the health to fight for that right. And, there is no PURSUIT OF HAPPINESS when there is chronic or severe illness or injury.
The HUMAN RIGHT to adequate and equal healthcare cannot be separated from our national social welfare. Why should the people of Massachusetts have universal healthcare and the people of Pennsylvania be denied this right? Why should the average citizen of North Dakota, say, be able to receive treatment for their heart disease, while the average citizen of Delaware is simply allowed to die because he or she doesn’t have tens of thousands of dollars to be treated? My residency should not have any more bearing on my ability to receive adequate healthcare than the color of my skin.
I am willing to bet the ONLY people screaming for this to be a states-rights issue are people living in a state which they know will not provide universal healthcare for their citizens. Simply put, these people are so selfish and miserly, that they don’t want to pay for others to receive adequate healthcare. That is quite simply inhumane, and should make you profoundly ashamed.
Prata,
If you want to make healthcare a right, at minimum you need to draw a distinction between BASIC care and call it MODERN care.
Meaning, broken bones fixed yes… antibiotics, yes. Heart surgery for a 75 year old. No.
There’s no way to give the poor the kind of care the rich can buy for themselves, so if you REALLY want to pitch healthcare as a right, you actually need to define what the minimums are…
ALSO, the concept of “life, liberty, and pursuit of happiness” are clearly inalienable NEGATIVE rights, as in NO ONE has the right to take them from you.
They are NOT, nor have they ever been conceived as statements of POSITIVE RIGHTS… as in the government will take money from someone to make sure you stay alive.
It astounds me that someone who CLEARLY feels healthcare is a positive political endeavor, doesn’t come to the table with a more nuanced idea of from where that concept comes from, and what it takes to actually deliver on it….
AND THIS belittles racism and is clearly un-American”
“My residency should not have any more bearing on my ability to receive adequate healthcare than the color of my skin.”
Dude, fucking MOVE. Find the place you like the most and fucking move there.
…meaning, in the old school, nebbishy chicenshit escapism. An arch literary dodge.
Ken, I am afraid that I would have to stick with the notion that “the company is indeed wrong, wrong, wrong.” Evil, in fact.
If you even peer an inch or two into the cesspit that is the weapons procurement business, you have to see how the cynical flag-waving drumbeating smartasses working for Immense Corporate First Amendment Citizens like Boeing and General Dynamics and Raytheon and Lochkeed-Martin, working with the serial-careerist procurers inside the Pentagram and the lifers in Congress, have pulled an enormous pile of wool over the easily distractable eyes of the minuscule Consumer Citizens With No Actual Remaining Rights Except To Make The Other Really Massive Citizens That Actually Count In Our “Democracy” even richer.
These folks have created a steadily growing bubble of their own, attached by more and more and larger and larger IVs to the veins and arteries of the rest of us, and they are pulling a deeper and deeper vacuum on those big-bore that is accelerating (Jon has put up a few of the many graphical extracts of the imbalance sheet.) Like the bumper sticker says, “These Colors Don’t Run, But Bleed ‘Em Long Enough And They Will Fade…”
Yep, the F-22 and F-35 and F-43 and F-67.5 just HAVE to be available and on line and Ready For Duty to fight what? Gee, the Red Army has how many men under arms? And “we” have HOW many? And how many of “our” weapon systems have been sold to the Red Chinks? To make a few private-profit bucks, at the expense of how many US dollars then needed to be conjured up to create better “counters” to the “threats” that these motherfuckers thought up in the first place? By people in Evil Weapons Companies all over the planet, who share their ideas on how to weaponize everything, make everything more lethal, and help each other peddle killing devices like they were cars or washing machines through their own perverse versions of “Consumer Reports,” Like “Jane’s” and “Aviation Week” and the rest.
“The system” is not about “re-prioritizing” anything, except, in the old parlance, ot furning butter into guns. Read the trade press in the industry, the pubs of the DoD and the various warring branches fighting like a bunch of jackals over bigger gobbets of the carcass. It’s a positive-feedback PA-shriek generator, and it’s getting worse, not better. The “real” military budget, not counting the bullshit “war on terror,” is a trillion a year, and the bullshit thing is already up and over $4 trillion, and probably 20% of that has gone simply missing, without even “body counts” or “deployed V-22s” to show for it.
I’ve used this one before, many boring times, but seems to me that the US, up until we got us a “Defense Department” instead of a “Department of War” in 1949, was kind of like an old growth hardwood tree in its prime. A few little Ficus seeds got carried to its roots, and shot up into little seedlings that encircled the trunk and ever so gently, one by one, hooked onto one another and grew together and broader and thicker and got eventually a little taller than the tree. And the growed-up leaves of those little strangler fig shoots shaded out the leaves of the original tree, and the strangler fig’s roots sucked nutrients out of the soil faster than the big slow tree, and the lianas and branchioles of the network of Ficus that hugged the tree nearer and nearer started cutting into the bark and sucking the sap directly. Until the tree just died, and rotted into the soil at the base of the huge strangling parasite growth, and mouldered into more dirt to feed the roots of that fig so it could send off its wind- and bird-borne seeds to suck the life out of other trees.
As for myself, of course, I don’t give a fig…
JTM, it was simply an efficient reference to air-to-air work, which admittedly doesn’t feature in our current double bill, playing at a theatre near you. Check out who’s the contractor-operator of the Sandia National Laboratories, spearpoint of the green economy we all want.
That’s good stuff, Rick. A well deserved Beat rant. I was thinking of the late 1930s, when Lockheed and Martin and Hughes and Thompson and Ramo and Woolrich invented an “American Gibraltar”, ushering in a new California, with power shifted to the Southland, its cupcake suburbs and hence its freeways. Rather ironic that a bunch of flyboys would bring us gridlocked ground transportation, but hey, as rhbee sez, it ain’t half as smoggy as it used to be.
BMW, you wouldn’t know a nuance if it hit you in the head. Your musical mystery keyboard consists of about two off-key, minor-chord notes. Too bad you don’t have the virtuoso Machiavellianism of a George Will or the entertaining and illuminating humor of a Will Rogers. I love your echoes from the reactionary side of the ’60s and ’70s: “America. Love it or leave it.” I guess you find enough personal bennies in the US to want to stay. And your subtext is Social Darwinism all the way. Fuck the weak — they don’t participate in The Godhead Free Market. You really are a tapeworm, all comfortably settled into the public’s intestines, sucking up all the nutrients down there in the dark… You, of course, don’t need to move — just hang there off that barbed headpiece of yours, hooked in the public flesh, all warm and cozy, splitting off segments and squirting out cysts to infect others and propagate your kind…
Mr. Prata, please don’t fall into the trap of blaming the moderately secure anecdotal 73-year-old, who may likely have nought but Medicare and Social Security to live on, and who probably bought the following bill of goods and is too blind to see how she has been had: What the people who really HAVE want to foment is that kind of divide-and-conquer rage that is heating up the teapots. Don’t be a dope, like all those Patriotic Middle Americans who bought into the Reagan Trickle-Down Laffer Curve Revolution and Gingrich’s Contract On America. You want rights, you need to get together with the huge mass of us that have little or nothing, and need to be reminded constantly who the actual people are who have put us in that position. The Haves, who live by stripping off all the wealth generated by our productivity gains, creating the Unsurance-based medical rationing we have now, inflating the military beyond all bounds, bottom-lining what’s left of a producing economy to offshore spots, encumbering the future of the nation and the planet by dumping externalities and playing the money game to steal by indebtedness the wealth of the future for their present personal “Fuck you, Freier, I REALLY got mine” pleasure, and securing the benefits of office and power for themselves and their children through all the artifices and subterfuges written about in blogs like this one.
I work with a woman whose teeth are rotted but who can’t, because of the part-time pittance she makes and the size of the employer, get “dental unsurance” or qualify for Medicaid or any other strand of the “safety net.” Smart lady, but as a military brat she’s picked up the idea that its those damn “welfare queens and their dozen kids by 16 baby-daddies” that make her jaws ache and threaten her with systemic infections from the rot.
Humans need to have “enemies.” If you want “rights,” you had better get a clearer idea of who your real enemies are, or you will just go on being the other thing that humans make a lot of — a slave, generating wealth for those fuckers that Warstler lionizes, sittin’ in their white flannels up on the veranda, sippin’ mint juleps, and tellin’ the overseer he better whup up some more on them diggers or he was gonna join ‘em in the ditch.
( I just read that there are more humans living in that narrower definition of Free Market-coerced slavery today than there ever have been in all of history. Add in wage slaves, and I think you got a quorum…)
Mr. Prata, please don’t fall into the trap of blaming the moderately secure anecdotal 73-year-old, who may likely have nought but Medicare and Social Security to live on, and who probably bought the following bill of goods and is too blind to see how she has been had: What the people who really HAVE want to foment is that kind of divide-and-conquer rage that is heating up the teapots. Don’t be a dope, like all those Patriotic Middle Americans who bought into the Reagan Trickle-Down Laffer Curve Revolution and Gingrich’s Contract On America. You want rights, you need to get together with the huge mass of us that have little or nothing, and need to be reminded constantly who the actual people are who have put us in that position. The Haves, who live by stripping off all the wealth generated by our productivity gains, creating the Unsurance-based medical rationing we have now, inflating the military beyond all bounds, bottom-lining what’s left of a producing economy to offshore spots, encumbering the future of the nation and the planet by dumping externalities and playing the money game to steal by indebtedness the wealth of the future for their present personal “Fuck you, Freier, I REALLY got mine” pleasure, and securing the benefits of office and power for themselves and their children through all the artifices and subterfuges written about in blogs like this one.
I work with a woman whose teeth are rotted but who can’t, because of the part-time pittance she makes and the size of the employer, get “dental unsurance” or qualify for Medicaid or any other strand of the “safety net.” Smart lady, but as a military brat she’s picked up the idea that its those damn “welfare queens and their dozen kids by 16 baby-daddies” that make her jaws ache and threaten her with systemic infections from the rot.
Humans need to have “enemies.” If you want “rights,” you had better get a clearer idea of who your real enemies are, or you will just go on being the other thing that humans make a lot of — a slave, generating wealth for those fuckers that Warstler lionizes, sittin’ in their white flannels up on the veranda, sippin’ mint juleps, and tellin’ the overseer he better whup up some more on them diggers or he was gonna join ‘em in the ditch.
( I just read that there are more humans living in that narrower definition of Free Market-coerced slavery today than there ever have been in all of history. Add in wage slaves, and I think you got a quorum…)
JTM,
My peeps are the host. The backbone. The brain. I can understand your needful confusion here. But it is more noble for thieves to at least admit they are thieves. The best liberals do so. Why don’t you?
JTM,
My peeps are the host. The backbone. The brain. I can understand your needful confusion here. But it is more noble for thieves to at least admit they are thieves. The best liberals do so. Why don’t you?
JTM,
That poor lady is exactly why we need to lower the requirements for someone to become a dentist.
There aren’t any more dentists anymore. The ones graduating are becoming specialists. We need to bring down costs, by increasing competition, that means less training requirements for people to drill teeth, do fillings, run xrays, etc… that’s going to carry some medical risks, so the lawyers have to be stopped from suing, and hurt incomes on rich because suddenly their services are as in demand.
Look man, technology drives down the cost of things, and increases ease of use.
Education is supposed to be getting cheaper, why isn’t it? The government. Rules. Regulations. Unions.
But please stop pretending the fruits of your labor are being stolen by someone else. Jesus. How self serving is that? You are FREE. You can take as many risks, and make as many sacrifices in the economy, as your brain will allow.
It isn’t my fault you aren’t happy with your lot in life. Change it man.
JTM,
That poor lady is exactly why we need to lower the requirements for someone to become a dentist.
There aren’t any more dentists anymore. The ones graduating are becoming specialists. We need to bring down costs, by increasing competition, that means less training requirements for people to drill teeth, do fillings, run xrays, etc… that’s going to carry some medical risks, so the lawyers have to be stopped from suing, and hurt incomes on rich because suddenly their services are as in demand.
Look man, technology drives down the cost of things, and increases ease of use.
Education is supposed to be getting cheaper, why isn’t it? The government. Rules. Regulations. Unions.
But please stop pretending the fruits of your labor are being stolen by someone else. Jesus. How self serving is that? You are FREE. You can take as many risks, and make as many sacrifices in the economy, as your brain will allow.
It isn’t my fault you aren’t happy with your lot in life. Change it man.
Some of us have been paying into the Social Security system for close to fifty years…45 in my case…and we’d like to get something for all the dough we put in. I am very happy to collect Social Security…and to keep working. I’m reasonably satisfied with my MediCare, and yes, I put tens of thousands of dollars into private health insurance over my working life. I also am pretty damned healthy and don’t cost the system very much.
There would be plenty of dough for Universal Health Care if we got the hell out of the Middle East, developed our own energy sources, and did some major nation building right here at home.
Think global, act local…
Some of us have been paying into the Social Security system for close to fifty years…45 in my case…and we’d like to get something for all the dough we put in. I am very happy to collect Social Security…and to keep working. I’m reasonably satisfied with my MediCare, and yes, I put tens of thousands of dollars into private health insurance over my working life. I also am pretty damned healthy and don’t cost the system very much.
There would be plenty of dough for Universal Health Care if we got the hell out of the Middle East, developed our own energy sources, and did some major nation building right here at home.
Think global, act local…
Good for those contractor-operators. Is there any functional reason why the other guys who operate the other divisions under that corporate “We never forge who we’re working for” banner should be allowed to keep draining the real strength out of the economy to build grotesquely expensive war toys too? Isn’t it obvious by inspection, as they say, that that part of the enterprise is largely a self-contained black hole that if unchecked would swallow everything that we are supposed to hold dear?
Leaving us in the dun-colored terrain of that Gahan Wilson cartoon that came out in Playboy while I was still in Vietnam? The one with the Tattered Hypermuscular SuperSoldier in the foreground, loaded up with assault rifle and anti-tank rockets, and sagging, dusty web gear replete with trench knives and grenades and ammo pouches, wearing a War Face altered only by a dawning look of surprise. As he looks around at a blasted landscape, shattered buildings, bomb and shell craters, civilian corpses scattered everywhere, and a mushrooom cloud in the distance. And says to himself, since everyone else is dead, “I THINK I WON!”
But think of all the lost opportunities for the Few, the Proud, the Troglodytes to play out their fantasies in that Greatest Of All Team Sports, where score is kept in the form of body counts and trillions of dollars, and all those perks like private jets and paneled offices and uniformed servants that the brass and the bastards that run the MIC get to enjoy?
You know a good way for all those corporations that now have the “right” to spend all they wish on electing whomever they want to actually win the voting hearts of the US of A would be to put all their cash into jobs, jobs, jobs.
The Mass election loss is very simple to understand. No union member with a health insurance plan is in favor of a Cadillac Tax. There are certainly more than 100,00 union voters in Mass and that was Brown’s margin of victory.From construction workers to health care workers to government employees to any union working man or woman ( WGA, IA, IBEW) that’s cause enough for her loss. We have given up rate increases for better health care benefits for years and it’s just simply unfair. The Senate blew it by proposing this outrageous middle class tax increase. What a shame Tom Daschle wasn’t in the fight.
Nice snotball, Warsler. Nice boomerang-shaped, full-of-the-usual-shit snotball. Don’t let it hit you in the back of your head on the way out…
Morgan Warstler, Entropy In Action. Destroyer of Meaning, Debaser of Truth, Excreter of Froth…
Got that on your business card?
rhbee…they’re doing exacly what you propose…in China and India…right now..
“Hello! This is Sandi (Shankar), and what football team did you like last year??? Oh, yeah, “Go, 49ers!” Isn’t that the team that Arnold Palmer was playing for?” And how can I help you fix your AmEx card so you have more credit to spend?”
That might explain why I recently got an offer to become “if I was willing to spend $69 on the manual) a secret shopper. Okay, it really wasn’t a job offer, once I had the manual I was supposed to be able to find the job which according to the sales pitch was just there for the grabbing. Personally, I’ve got better uses for a 69.