PHILADELPHIA — The biggest issue facing the presidential candidates
should be energy and environmental responsibility, according to
internationally known environmentalist Robert F. Kennedy Jr.
Kennedy, equally well known for his family lineage, got a standing
ovation Saturday even before he began speaking at the Philadelphia
Energy Summit.
He got a Standing O...for being a Kennedy? Well isn't that speeaacial. And then he opened his craw.
The CBS Radio-sponsored event was held to educate people about
sustainable energy at Holy Family University's Northeast Philadelphia
Campus.
His speech and those of others, including Kathleen McGinty, former
chair of the White House Council on Environmental Quality, made a
case for moving away from carbon-based fuels as quickly as possible.
"The biggest issue we're facing in the presidential campaign is: How
do we allocate our energy resources?" Kennedy told about 120
listeners.
No our biggest challenge is securing a supply of energy that we can grow with the ever increasing demand for energy while lowering consumer prices and modernizing the system of delivery.
Environmental responsibility isn't just for the sake of saving a few
trees or animals. It is inextricably tied with enriching the overall
economy, because a truly free market without subsidies for coal and
oil industries would level the playing field, creating enormous job
markets in alternative energy arenas like the burgeoning wind and
solar industries, he said.
The playing field would most definitely NOT be level without subsidies as Wind, Solar and others are currently HEAVILY subsidized even more so than gas, coal, oil et. al. He starts off by stating the obvious...and then connects it with an outright lie. It is brilliant for those that don't pay attention.
"Free market capitalism promotes efficiency and elimination of
waste," Kennedy said.
"[Coal and oil industry] supporters say you have to choose between
the economy and the environment. That is a false choice."
He is both right and wrong...again he is confusing the issue. One cannot plop down wind or solar on the same sized footprint and get the same energy as a coal power plant. Renewable energy sources aren't omnipresent and we've been too stupid to figure it out. The choice for renewables vs other types of energy depends largely on geography and weather patterns. I guarantee that solar power will never...ever supply enough energy in say...a place like Vermont or New Hampshire...but will work in places like New Mexico, Florida, Arizona and others. The reasons are obvious to anyone ...except Mr. Kennedy. PENIS.
Fossil fuel-based energy producers don't spread the wealth, he said.
What? Does he have any idea as to how many jobs producers actually provide? Oh hell look at what all that oil wealth is being used to do in Dubai...BUILDING A MAP OF THE WORLD OUT OF SAND FOR A LUXURY RESORT IN THE OCEAN. I mean nevermind the amount of products that are oil derivatives and oh heck it makes no sense. He's just a demagogue.
Kennedy blamed the Bush administration for giving breaks to coal and
oil companies that pollute ecosystems and literally destroy the face
of the country while getting rich. Several are using illegal means to
strip land of natural resources, he said.
Yeah the rivers smell like a chemical soup and Bush is sitting at the illegal drainage pipe smoking a big cigar and drinking whiskey while sitting on a throne made of little boys. You'd think he was the Marquis DeSade the way Kennedy speaks. Like Strip Mining and Open Pit mining never happened before Bush or had ceased prior to his Administration. GAH!
For example, he said, the explosives used to mine coal in the
Appalachian Mountains are blasting away the mountains. The rubble is
clogging nearby rivers, upsetting the ecosystem of the region.
I don't see any better ideas here for mining coal so that was a useless criticism.
Every American should have access to a national energy grid, he said.
The system should allow households to sell energy they don't use
during the day back to the grid.
"You can make money. Turn every American into an energy
entrepreneur. ... Let everyone access a national marketplace for
electricity," said Kennedy to a round of applause.
Fine...good I like where this is going its solution oriented.
It would cost about $150 billion to reconstruct the national energy
grid and use it to harness America's enormous untapped natural wind
and solar resources, a plan that Kennedy hopes the next president
endorses. It would make our country energy-independent, he said, a
step to reduce dependence on foreign oil.
good idea but chock full of bullshit. It will cost a lot more than $150 billion, most of the energy used to produce such things will be derived from oil or other petroleum based products. On top of that it does NOTHING to make us independent of oil, which represents like 3% of all power generation in the USA. His brain does not comprehend logic..math or anything aside from unicorns and leprechauns because it all is supposed to happen magically. Even if it costs $150 billion...WHERE WILL THAT MONEY COME FROM? WHO WILL PAY FOR IT? It won't be a free fucking market I'll tell you that.
In the first 100 days of the new presidency, the administration
should craft an energy policy that allows the country to regain its
leadership and economic and energy independence, he said.
Kennedy cited countries that are doing well economically after
switching to alternative energy, such as Sweden, Brazil and Iceland.
"Iceland has great financial underpinnings because they de-carbonized
very quickly, [despite the recent effects of the credit crisis
there]," he said.
Iceland is highly volcanic and not a good example for the rest of us that don't live on top of a giant steam producing HOLE.
Listeners said afterward that they were surprised to learn about the
relationships between fossil fuel use and the economy.
"It was a real eye-opener. He brought out a lot of facts people
didn't realize," said Laraine Andrews of Northeast Philadelphia. She
works in the natural gas industry.
Derek Washington, of Philadelphia, attended the summit and Kennedy's
speech to investigate developments in energy technologies, including
the alternative fuel vehicles featured at the event.
"There's a lot of money to be made in the new technologies," he said.
The roughly six-hour summit included other presentations about energy
alternatives, ranging from the latest hybrid auto innovations to a
panel of experts discussing the future of energy.
Kennedy is chief prosecuting attorney for Hudson Riverkeeper, which
protects the Hudson River, and president of Waterkeeper Alliance, an
organization dedicated to preserving the world's waterways, according
to his Web site, www.robertfkennedyjr.com. Time Magazine has named
him one of its "Heroes for the Planet" for his success in
Riverkeeper's fight to restore the Hudson River, which helped produce
more than 130 worldwide Waterkeeper organizations, the site said.
He is a professor and supervising attorney at Pace University School
of Law's Environmental Litigation Clinic and was assistant district
attorney in New York City, according to his Web site. Kennedy was a
political campaign operative for the presidential campaigns of Edward
M. Kennedy in 1980, Al Gore in 2000 and John Kerry in 2004.
They forgot to add that he sniffs Unicorn farts and pixie dust every 4 hours just to maintain the illusion that he knows anything he's talking about.
Go...Pound...Sand.
Tuesday, November 04, 2008
Wednesday, October 29, 2008
Socialists give it to you at both ends...a sexual metaphor for getting a raw deal...so raw your ass feels chapped.
Barack Obama...or "La Bamba" as one of my less than astute friend calls him is a professed and unabashed "progressive."
Now, in and of itself there is nothing inherently wrong with having those beliefs...among which are:
Progressive Tax:
The more you make, the more you pay with no apparent threshold on how much of your income should be confiscated/taxed/whatever. It, like all progressive policies are subject to arbitration and short-term/sighted emotionally driven "facts".
Social Engineering:
Government can and should be the tool of choice to change society. The change that should be effected is: Reduction in class stratification and economic stratification to achieve an arbitrary notion of social and economic "justice" based on racial, political and economic identity.
Government Function:
Government, and more importantly those in the government, know better than the common citizen about how life should be lived on a day to day basis and should take over such functions as are deemed appropriate at the time. any failure on the part of the government to succeed is not a failure of the idea itself, rather incorrect implementation of the idea. The entire concept revolves around the idea that one can perfectly engineer government to do whatever is necessary as long as the right people are running it.
So, let us say you are one of those few who are sick, no not a cold but something more deadly, and you do not have any insurance because you are any of the following:
A) Unemployed and cannot afford COBRA, or have not filed for Social Security Disability/Medicare becuase you are a lazy f'ing bum.
B) Work only part time jobs so you do't get benefits.
C) Are an illegal immigrant/wage slave/slave
D) Feel you are entitled to health-care as a right so you have purposefully NOT bought insurance...OR
E) Are young, dumb, and stupid and think you won't get sick..so you elect to not take insurance that is offered in order to pocket more cash...yay a new iPod/consumer good!
A Progressive believes that you should be covered by tax money for every level of care as a fundamental right. Who pays? Those that the have the money to pay...will pay. Those that do not have the money will (to the theoretical benefit of all) leech off those that have the money at no benefit of form or function to those that pay.
Even then...the people that have no money won't be "getting away with it" because those entitlements will not be tax free...you as the payee will have to pay taxes on those benefits. So really this is just a ploy for the state to get more control and more money all in the guise of benevolence.
Social security recipients get taxed...even though it was money that was taken long ago and inflation has devalued every dollar in the fund to the point of the benefits having to be cut, retirement age raised and the talk about buying out 401K's and merging them into Social Security as a hodgepodge way of trying to shore up an entitlement that is leaking like a siv!
Progressivism is no different in practice than Marxism/communism/syndicalism/corporatism/fascism, rather it appears benevolent and appeals emotionally to the lowest common denominator that always feels like it gets the shaft.
it does not lift people up, or inspire people to do great things, rather it lowers those at the top to make them closer to misery.
Rights are low level concepts:
Low level means that it is something that is not mutually exclusive, like you have the right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. The caveat to that is that all those rights are contingent that they not interfere with the rights of another to have those same rights.
Free Speech: You have this right as long as you do not prohibit the safe and free expression of political speech of another...talking does not prohibit another talking.
Bearing of Firearms: You owning a firearm does not prohibit another from doing the same.
Quartering of Troops: not without owner's consent, even in war-time, rather a lawful manner that is consistent shall be provided for troop housing.
Search and Seizure: Warrants are required for everyone
Due process: Everyone is entitled to due process to make sure all other rights are respected and you have as a result of Amendment 1 not to be compelled to incriminate yourself...but they can still trick you ;)
from wiki..
Sixth Amendment – Trial by jury and rights of the accused; Confrontation Clause, speedy trial, public trial, right to counsel
In all criminal prosecutions, the accused shall enjoy the right to a speedy and public trial, by an impartial jury of the State and district where in the crime shall have been committed, which district shall have been previously ascertained by law, and to be informed of the nature and cause of the accusation; to be confronted with the witnesses against him; to have compulsory process for obtaining witnesses in his favor, and to have the Assistance of Counsel for his defense.
Seventh Amendment – Civil trial by jury.
In suits at common law, where the value in controversy shall exceed twenty dollars, the right of trial by jury shall be preserved, and no fact tried by a jury, shall be otherwise re-examined in any court of the United States, than according to the rules of the common law.
Eighth Amendment – Prohibition of excessive bail and cruel and unusual punishment.
Excessive bail shall not be required, nor excessive fines imposed, nor cruel and unusual punishments inflicted.
Ninth Amendment – Protection of rights not specifically enumerated in the Bill of Rights.
The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people.
Tenth Amendment – Powers of states and people.
The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the states, are reserved to the states respectively, or to the people.
It is the last two that give progressives a real issue with the Constitution.
See the idea that government is the solution...gets cut off by saying any powers not enumerated here are reserved for the States or the People...which is a backwards way of saying: "If it isn't here the Federal Government can't do it...but the States can...as long as it doesn't unreasonably regulate the aforementioned rights".
so someone will say..."but the government ALREADY does stuff that isn't in the Constitution! so NYAH!"
and I say, "Well that doesn't make it right now does it? That is like saying...you sholdn't rob a bank...but your neighbor did it...so you can too." Bad behavior doesn't excuse or make acceptable further bad behavior and it is the fault of the average citizen for not taking responsibility for his/her own life that this crap is going on.
Progressivism doesn't free anyone...it makes slaves of us all...slaves with chapped asses.
Now, in and of itself there is nothing inherently wrong with having those beliefs...among which are:
Progressive Tax:
The more you make, the more you pay with no apparent threshold on how much of your income should be confiscated/taxed/whatever. It, like all progressive policies are subject to arbitration and short-term/sighted emotionally driven "facts".
Social Engineering:
Government can and should be the tool of choice to change society. The change that should be effected is: Reduction in class stratification and economic stratification to achieve an arbitrary notion of social and economic "justice" based on racial, political and economic identity.
Government Function:
Government, and more importantly those in the government, know better than the common citizen about how life should be lived on a day to day basis and should take over such functions as are deemed appropriate at the time. any failure on the part of the government to succeed is not a failure of the idea itself, rather incorrect implementation of the idea. The entire concept revolves around the idea that one can perfectly engineer government to do whatever is necessary as long as the right people are running it.
So, let us say you are one of those few who are sick, no not a cold but something more deadly, and you do not have any insurance because you are any of the following:
A) Unemployed and cannot afford COBRA, or have not filed for Social Security Disability/Medicare becuase you are a lazy f'ing bum.
B) Work only part time jobs so you do't get benefits.
C) Are an illegal immigrant/wage slave/slave
D) Feel you are entitled to health-care as a right so you have purposefully NOT bought insurance...OR
E) Are young, dumb, and stupid and think you won't get sick..so you elect to not take insurance that is offered in order to pocket more cash...yay a new iPod/consumer good!
A Progressive believes that you should be covered by tax money for every level of care as a fundamental right. Who pays? Those that the have the money to pay...will pay. Those that do not have the money will (to the theoretical benefit of all) leech off those that have the money at no benefit of form or function to those that pay.
Even then...the people that have no money won't be "getting away with it" because those entitlements will not be tax free...you as the payee will have to pay taxes on those benefits. So really this is just a ploy for the state to get more control and more money all in the guise of benevolence.
Social security recipients get taxed...even though it was money that was taken long ago and inflation has devalued every dollar in the fund to the point of the benefits having to be cut, retirement age raised and the talk about buying out 401K's and merging them into Social Security as a hodgepodge way of trying to shore up an entitlement that is leaking like a siv!
Progressivism is no different in practice than Marxism/communism/syndicalism/corporatism/fascism, rather it appears benevolent and appeals emotionally to the lowest common denominator that always feels like it gets the shaft.
it does not lift people up, or inspire people to do great things, rather it lowers those at the top to make them closer to misery.
Rights are low level concepts:
Low level means that it is something that is not mutually exclusive, like you have the right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. The caveat to that is that all those rights are contingent that they not interfere with the rights of another to have those same rights.
Free Speech: You have this right as long as you do not prohibit the safe and free expression of political speech of another...talking does not prohibit another talking.
Bearing of Firearms: You owning a firearm does not prohibit another from doing the same.
Quartering of Troops: not without owner's consent, even in war-time, rather a lawful manner that is consistent shall be provided for troop housing.
Search and Seizure: Warrants are required for everyone
Due process: Everyone is entitled to due process to make sure all other rights are respected and you have as a result of Amendment 1 not to be compelled to incriminate yourself...but they can still trick you ;)
from wiki..
Sixth Amendment – Trial by jury and rights of the accused; Confrontation Clause, speedy trial, public trial, right to counsel
In all criminal prosecutions, the accused shall enjoy the right to a speedy and public trial, by an impartial jury of the State and district where in the crime shall have been committed, which district shall have been previously ascertained by law, and to be informed of the nature and cause of the accusation; to be confronted with the witnesses against him; to have compulsory process for obtaining witnesses in his favor, and to have the Assistance of Counsel for his defense.
Seventh Amendment – Civil trial by jury.
In suits at common law, where the value in controversy shall exceed twenty dollars, the right of trial by jury shall be preserved, and no fact tried by a jury, shall be otherwise re-examined in any court of the United States, than according to the rules of the common law.
Eighth Amendment – Prohibition of excessive bail and cruel and unusual punishment.
Excessive bail shall not be required, nor excessive fines imposed, nor cruel and unusual punishments inflicted.
Ninth Amendment – Protection of rights not specifically enumerated in the Bill of Rights.
The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people.
Tenth Amendment – Powers of states and people.
The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the states, are reserved to the states respectively, or to the people.
It is the last two that give progressives a real issue with the Constitution.
See the idea that government is the solution...gets cut off by saying any powers not enumerated here are reserved for the States or the People...which is a backwards way of saying: "If it isn't here the Federal Government can't do it...but the States can...as long as it doesn't unreasonably regulate the aforementioned rights".
so someone will say..."but the government ALREADY does stuff that isn't in the Constitution! so NYAH!"
and I say, "Well that doesn't make it right now does it? That is like saying...you sholdn't rob a bank...but your neighbor did it...so you can too." Bad behavior doesn't excuse or make acceptable further bad behavior and it is the fault of the average citizen for not taking responsibility for his/her own life that this crap is going on.
Progressivism doesn't free anyone...it makes slaves of us all...slaves with chapped asses.
Friday, August 29, 2008
Stanley Kurtz
The best thing about this election cycle is seeing the return of the classic political machine...Chicago Style. And no it does not make pizza.
Here is the process:
Opposition POV is scheduled to be expressed on some media outlet:
Media outlet (75% of the time) invites target of opposition on to counter or at least put the criticism in context.
Target's representatives decline to show up
Target uses its network to get the rabble out.
Rabble attempts to shutdown opposition via mob tactics and to stifle debate.
Opposition (for the time being) tells them to go fark themselves. the Rabble does not see how fascist they are being instead relying on ad hominem attacks.
Repeat cycle until the Democrat Party gains enough power and influence to bring back the "fairness doctrine" which while sounding nice effectively shuts down free speech...all the while claiming to uphold...rather regulate it making it...not free.
Stanley Kurtz on the x720 program in Chicago last night began to feel this macine at work.
Multiple articles proclaiming him a slimy character assassin and the like as well as a deluge of phone calls and angry emails flooded the show.
This was in response to an "action call" by the Obama campaign and a great deal of misinformation...including their lack of knowledge that the Obama campaign was in fact invited to be on the program.
Not only did they decline to be on the program but they hung up not even really giving the show's producer a fair hearing.
The results of the show were as follows:
Proof by both the foundation and external observers that they ~110 Million Dollar grant and matching funds FAILED to improve public education in any meaningful way.
At no time did Kurtz ever call Obama a terrorist nor did he ever say that he and Ayers shared every single point of view.
He reported the facts that he had uncovered and aside from the waste of about 50 million tax payer dollars (no one gives a crap about the other ~$60M matched by local business owners and philanthropists except for the fact they got bilked).
The host did challenge Kurtz while on air in a very good and intelligent manner. He allowed Kurtz to respond and it was a very good program.
Callers were frequently uninformed as to the offer Barack's campaign. And they were unsatisfied with the efforts of the station to get a challenger on. The truth is that the station made a good faith effort and Obama's supporters just wanted to silence citicism.
a bunch of numb nuts.
Here is the process:
Opposition POV is scheduled to be expressed on some media outlet:
Media outlet (75% of the time) invites target of opposition on to counter or at least put the criticism in context.
Target's representatives decline to show up
Target uses its network to get the rabble out.
Rabble attempts to shutdown opposition via mob tactics and to stifle debate.
Opposition (for the time being) tells them to go fark themselves. the Rabble does not see how fascist they are being instead relying on ad hominem attacks.
Repeat cycle until the Democrat Party gains enough power and influence to bring back the "fairness doctrine" which while sounding nice effectively shuts down free speech...all the while claiming to uphold...rather regulate it making it...not free.
Stanley Kurtz on the x720 program in Chicago last night began to feel this macine at work.
Multiple articles proclaiming him a slimy character assassin and the like as well as a deluge of phone calls and angry emails flooded the show.
This was in response to an "action call" by the Obama campaign and a great deal of misinformation...including their lack of knowledge that the Obama campaign was in fact invited to be on the program.
Not only did they decline to be on the program but they hung up not even really giving the show's producer a fair hearing.
The results of the show were as follows:
Proof by both the foundation and external observers that they ~110 Million Dollar grant and matching funds FAILED to improve public education in any meaningful way.
At no time did Kurtz ever call Obama a terrorist nor did he ever say that he and Ayers shared every single point of view.
He reported the facts that he had uncovered and aside from the waste of about 50 million tax payer dollars (no one gives a crap about the other ~$60M matched by local business owners and philanthropists except for the fact they got bilked).
The host did challenge Kurtz while on air in a very good and intelligent manner. He allowed Kurtz to respond and it was a very good program.
Callers were frequently uninformed as to the offer Barack's campaign. And they were unsatisfied with the efforts of the station to get a challenger on. The truth is that the station made a good faith effort and Obama's supporters just wanted to silence citicism.
a bunch of numb nuts.
Monday, August 04, 2008
To Paul Krugman
*clears throat and shakes hands*
The current economic flat-line is due to many tings. It is however all our fault. We elected people who appointed people to oversee our monetary policy. Those whom we elected got bought or already had a worldview that put them at odds with reality. Alan Greenspan is nothing but a political whore and he says whatever seems to be convenient. He does not predict anything, rather he speaks about a pre-existing trend in what seems to be a calm and intelligent mode. And because he has a reputation, people think he knows something that they do not. He does not. He examines the information that anyone can get and he makes boneheaded statements.
example: in Oct. 2006: 'I suspect that we are coming to the end of this downtrend, as
applications for new mortgages, the most important series, have
flattened out'.
Well we know that was bullshit he was shoveling.
Later in 2007: 'Mr Greenspan said he would expect “as a minimum, large single-digit”
percentage declines in US house prices from peak to trough and added
that he would not be surprised if the fall was “in double digits”.'
The covering himself..."However, he cautioned that it was very difficult to predict how large the ultimate decline would be. "- FT
And then at the end of the article for those comments: 'In his memoirs, Mr Greenspan, a lifelong Republican, criticises his
party for abandoning its small-government principles, and warns that
the trade-off between inflation and growth is likely to worsen.'
Well no shiat Sherlock. I mean goddamn...this is like Economics 101...but less informative.
But all the media and government types listen to him.
So home prices are down 16% on average nation wide and in many places much higher. Well whoopdidoo. High housing prices are a BAD thing for new homeowners. Why the heck should a person be forced to auction off their entire lives to pay for a tiny house on a postage stamp sized lawn? How about you just go to your oversimplified hell and stay there?!
Banks don't have infinite monies and neither do employers. If you keep pushing up the cost of living this is what happens. This is a housing correction...not some unfortunate deletion of equity. Many people overpaid for their McMansions or were not fit to get said loans anyhow no matter the size of the house. You are allowed to negotiate the price of your house. You, and by you I mean the plural impersonal form of you, do not have to take it at the asking price. Sure they want to upgrade but YOU and by YOU I mean ME doesn't have to finance it with my stupidity.
Its the American DREAM, not the American Birthright. You own it if you can afford it. We are still around 94% employment...which is far ahead of many nations that you are likely jealous of regarding their governmental social programs.
The Fed has gotten us in to this mess and needs to jack up interst rates in order to soak up all the inflated dollars...and make our currency WORTH something again. And kudos to you for realizing that the government can't pick up the tab...but fuck you for even suggesting the government should bail out fannie and freddie.
Let me put it this way...your employee...lets say he's a waiter and you are the restuarant owner: serves people food and they get *shock* Hepatitis. Well you don't fucking pat him on the head and say...thats all right I'll fix everything...and keep him employed. No you fire and sue his sorry ass before THEY (the customers) sue the shit out of you. Sure he lied to you and maybe you can get him for fraud...but the customers (i.e. the public) still have a case under most types of agency law as all this happened in the scope of employment making YOU liable. So if the government bails out freddie and fannie...that is like admitting that its the governments fault in the first place.
We as taxpayers ought to be outraged at this waste of our money. Our tax dollars should not be proping up financial institutions...the airlines...the automotive industry...or any other!
Barry's emergency economic plan was stupid...if $600 won't do anything then neither will another $1,000. Sure we'd all like another $1,000 but who is paying for that? Remember how your parents told you money doesn't grow on trees? Well apprarently Barry's parents didn't teach him that lesson.
Here's a real emergency plan: Cut spending on non-essentials, get out of debt ASAP, cut up all but one credit card, and make a budget and stick to it. The feds could do with this as well...especially sticking to a budget. Budgets aren't suggestions they are borders so you know where your financials stand for a given time period.
Surely you just want to help the impoverished with their home heating and other utilities. GReat...fantastic...then get out of the way of cheap energy first, allow for means testing and stop localities like New Haven Connecticut from disbursing the money to illegal aliens and political friends.
Plug the leaks before you start bailing water.
McCain (no matter how much I dislike him) isn't wrong about his economic policies just because Bush has a 20% approval rating. The two aren't connected. Get off your logical fallacied rear end and actually look at the policies and how they will work in both the short AND the long term...and try to connect it to empyrical data rather than political science.
Obama is just WRONG on his economic policies. hold on while I go to his website and read. Be right back...
The current economic flat-line is due to many tings. It is however all our fault. We elected people who appointed people to oversee our monetary policy. Those whom we elected got bought or already had a worldview that put them at odds with reality. Alan Greenspan is nothing but a political whore and he says whatever seems to be convenient. He does not predict anything, rather he speaks about a pre-existing trend in what seems to be a calm and intelligent mode. And because he has a reputation, people think he knows something that they do not. He does not. He examines the information that anyone can get and he makes boneheaded statements.
example: in Oct. 2006: 'I suspect that we are coming to the end of this downtrend, as
applications for new mortgages, the most important series, have
flattened out'.
Well we know that was bullshit he was shoveling.
Later in 2007: 'Mr Greenspan said he would expect “as a minimum, large single-digit”
percentage declines in US house prices from peak to trough and added
that he would not be surprised if the fall was “in double digits”.'
The covering himself..."However, he cautioned that it was very difficult to predict how large the ultimate decline would be. "- FT
And then at the end of the article for those comments: 'In his memoirs, Mr Greenspan, a lifelong Republican, criticises his
party for abandoning its small-government principles, and warns that
the trade-off between inflation and growth is likely to worsen.'
Well no shiat Sherlock. I mean goddamn...this is like Economics 101...but less informative.
But all the media and government types listen to him.
So home prices are down 16% on average nation wide and in many places much higher. Well whoopdidoo. High housing prices are a BAD thing for new homeowners. Why the heck should a person be forced to auction off their entire lives to pay for a tiny house on a postage stamp sized lawn? How about you just go to your oversimplified hell and stay there?!
Banks don't have infinite monies and neither do employers. If you keep pushing up the cost of living this is what happens. This is a housing correction...not some unfortunate deletion of equity. Many people overpaid for their McMansions or were not fit to get said loans anyhow no matter the size of the house. You are allowed to negotiate the price of your house. You, and by you I mean the plural impersonal form of you, do not have to take it at the asking price. Sure they want to upgrade but YOU and by YOU I mean ME doesn't have to finance it with my stupidity.
Its the American DREAM, not the American Birthright. You own it if you can afford it. We are still around 94% employment...which is far ahead of many nations that you are likely jealous of regarding their governmental social programs.
The Fed has gotten us in to this mess and needs to jack up interst rates in order to soak up all the inflated dollars...and make our currency WORTH something again. And kudos to you for realizing that the government can't pick up the tab...but fuck you for even suggesting the government should bail out fannie and freddie.
Let me put it this way...your employee...lets say he's a waiter and you are the restuarant owner: serves people food and they get *shock* Hepatitis. Well you don't fucking pat him on the head and say...thats all right I'll fix everything...and keep him employed. No you fire and sue his sorry ass before THEY (the customers) sue the shit out of you. Sure he lied to you and maybe you can get him for fraud...but the customers (i.e. the public) still have a case under most types of agency law as all this happened in the scope of employment making YOU liable. So if the government bails out freddie and fannie...that is like admitting that its the governments fault in the first place.
We as taxpayers ought to be outraged at this waste of our money. Our tax dollars should not be proping up financial institutions...the airlines...the automotive industry...or any other!
Barry's emergency economic plan was stupid...if $600 won't do anything then neither will another $1,000. Sure we'd all like another $1,000 but who is paying for that? Remember how your parents told you money doesn't grow on trees? Well apprarently Barry's parents didn't teach him that lesson.
Here's a real emergency plan: Cut spending on non-essentials, get out of debt ASAP, cut up all but one credit card, and make a budget and stick to it. The feds could do with this as well...especially sticking to a budget. Budgets aren't suggestions they are borders so you know where your financials stand for a given time period.
Surely you just want to help the impoverished with their home heating and other utilities. GReat...fantastic...then get out of the way of cheap energy first, allow for means testing and stop localities like New Haven Connecticut from disbursing the money to illegal aliens and political friends.
Plug the leaks before you start bailing water.
McCain (no matter how much I dislike him) isn't wrong about his economic policies just because Bush has a 20% approval rating. The two aren't connected. Get off your logical fallacied rear end and actually look at the policies and how they will work in both the short AND the long term...and try to connect it to empyrical data rather than political science.
Obama is just WRONG on his economic policies. hold on while I go to his website and read. Be right back...
Tuesday, June 10, 2008
Friday, June 06, 2008
Tuesday, March 18, 2008
top to bottom
Two hundred and twenty one years ago, in a hall that still stands across the street, a group of men gathered and, with these simple words, launched America�s improbable experiment in democracy. Farmers and scholars; statesmen and patriots who had traveled across an ocean to escape tyranny and persecution finally made real their declaration of independence at a Philadelphia convention that lasted through the spring of 1787.
The document they produced was eventually signed but ultimately unfinished. It was stained by this nation�s original sin of slavery, a question that divided the colonies and brought the convention to a stalemate until the founders chose to allow the slave trade to continue for at least twenty more years, and to leave any final resolution to future generations.
Note: The Declaration of Independence originally said we have the right to “life, liberty and property” but was changed so that pro-slavery segments of the population could not use that as ammunition in the future. This was done by Benjamin Franklin who also founded the abolitionist movement in Pennsylvania.
Of course, the answer to the slavery question was already embedded within our Constitution � a Constitution that had at is very core the ideal of equal citizenship under the law; a Constitution that promised its people liberty, and justice, and a union that could be and should be perfected over time.
And yet words on a parchment would not be enough to deliver slaves from bondage, or provide men and women of every color and creed their full rights and obligations as citizens of the United States. What would be needed were Americans in successive generations who were willing to do their part � through protests and struggle, on the streets and in the courts, through a civil war and civil disobedience and always at great risk - to narrow that gap between the promise of our ideals and the reality of their time.
The Civil War or The War Between the States/War of Northern Aggression was over whether or not States had the right as States to secede from the Union: The anti-slavery angle came in after the Union side began to lose and needed more cannon fodder (soldiers) and used this as a recruiting technique. Yes it was a good idea and fortunately worked out.
This was one of the tasks we set forth at the beginning of this campaign � to continue the long march of those who came before us, a march for a more just, more equal, more free, more caring and more prosperous America.
Nothing Barak Obama has proposed will make any of us more free. His policies will only turn over more power and authority to the State and take it from YOU.
I chose to run for the presidency at this moment in history because I believe deeply that we cannot solve the challenges of our time unless we solve them together.
With his guidance of course. We were doing alright without him.
unless we perfect our union by understanding that we may have different stories, but we hold common hopes;
Y plurbus unum
that we may not look the same and we may not have come from the same place, but we all want to move in the same direction � towards a better future for of children and our grandchildren.
This belief comes from my unyielding faith in the decency and generosity of the American people. But it also comes from my own American story.
I am the son of a black man from Kenya and a white woman from Kansas. I was raised with the help of a white grandfather who survived a Depression to serve in Patton�s Army during World War II and a white grandmother who worked on a bomber assembly line at Fort Leavenworth while he was overseas. I�ve gone to some of the best schools in America and lived in one of the world�s poorest nations. I am married to a black American who carries within her the blood of slaves and slaveowners � an inheritance we pass on to our two precious daughters. I have brothers, sisters, nieces, nephews, uncles and cousins, of every race and every hue, scattered across three continents, and for as long as I live, I will never forget that in no other country on Earth is my story even possible.
It�s a story that hasn�t made me the most conventional candidate. But it is a story that has seared into my genetic makeup the idea that this nation is more than the sum of its parts � that out of many, we are truly one.
We are our race and are identified by it. Is that what you are saying?
Throughout the first year of this campaign, against all predictions to the contrary, we saw how hungry the American people were for this message of unity. Despite the temptation to view my candidacy through a purely racial lens, we won commanding victories in states with some of the whitest populations in the country. In South Carolina, where the Confederate Flag still flies, we built a powerful coalition of African Americans and white Americans.
This is not to say that race has not been an issue in the campaign. At various stages in the campaign, some commentators have deemed me either �too black� or �not black enough.� We saw racial tensions bubble to the surface during the week before the South Carolina primary. The press has scoured every exit poll for the latest evidence of racial polarization, not just in terms of white and black, but black and brown as well.
Some even called you the Magic Negro
And yet, it has only been in the last couple of weeks that the discussion of race in this campaign has taken a particularly divisive turn.
No it isn't divisive to point out your shortcomings on character and judgement.
On one end of the spectrum, we�ve heard the implication that my candidacy is somehow an exercise in affirmative action; that it�s based solely on the desire of wide-eyed liberals to purchase racial reconciliation on the cheap.
And for some it is...this is a very nuanced campaign and this is where Barak tries to make it Black or White...pardon the pun.
On the other end, we�ve heard my former pastor, Reverend Jeremiah Wright, use incendiary language to express views that have the potential not only to widen the racial divide, but views that denigrate both the greatness and the goodness of our nation; that rightly offend white and black alike.
From what I heard there was only cheering of his congregation.
I have already condemned, in unequivocal terms, the statements of Reverend Wright that have caused such controversy. For some, nagging questions remain.
Did I know him to be an occasionally fierce critic of American domestic and foreign policy? Of course. Did I ever hear him make remarks that could be considered controversial while I sat in church? Yes.
Wait...what? No I thought you had never heard these things before... “The statements that Rev. Wright made that are the cause of this controversy were not statements I personally heard him preach while I sat in the pews of Trinity or heard him utter in private conversation. When these statements first came to my attention, it was at the beginning of my presidential campaign. I made it clear at the time that I strongly condemned his comments. But because Rev. Wright was on the verge of retirement, and because of my strong links to the Trinity faith community, where I married my wife and where my daughters were baptized, I did not think it appropriate to leave the church.” - Barak Obama 14, March 2008 on the Huffington Post Weblog.
Did I strongly disagree with many of his political views? Absolutely � just as I�m sure many of you have heard remarks from your pastors, priests, or rabbis with which you strongly disagreed.
Yes and by and large we either leave said church or bring it up in private to the man or woman. Glad you condemn the remarks, but you are still associated with this man.
But the remarks that have caused this recent firestorm weren�t simply controversial. They weren�t simply a religious leader�s effort to speak out against perceived injustice. Instead, they expressed a profoundly distorted view of this country � a view that sees white racism as endemic, and that elevates what is wrong with America above all that we know is right with America; a view that sees the conflicts in the Middle East as rooted primarily in the actions of stalwart allies like Israel, instead of emanating from the perverse and hateful ideologies of radical Islam.
As such, Reverend Wright�s comments were not only wrong but divisive, divisive at a time when we need unity; racially charged at a time when we need to come together to solve a set of monumental problems � two wars, a terrorist threat, a falling economy, a chronic health care crisis and potentially devastating climate change; problems that are neither black or white or Latino or Asian, but rather problems that confront us all.
Given my background, my politics, and my professed values and ideals, there will no doubt be those for whom my statements of condemnation are not enough. Why associate myself with Reverend Wright in the first place, they may ask? Why not join another church? And I confess that if all that I knew of Reverend Wright were the snippets of those sermons that have run in an endless loop on the television and You Tube, or if Trinity United Church of Christ conformed to the caricatures being peddled by some commentators, there is no doubt that I would react in much the same way.
They are selling DVD's of these sermons at the Church Gift Shop. sigh
But the truth is, that isn�t all that I know of the man. The man I met more than twenty years ago is a man who helped introduce me to my Christian faith, a man who spoke to me about our obligations to love one another; to care for the sick and lift up the poor. He is a man who served his country as a U.S. Marine; who has studied and lectured at some of the finest universities and seminaries in the country, and who for over thirty years led a church that serves the community by doing God�s work here on Earth � by housing the homeless, ministering to the needy, providing day care services and scholarships and prison ministries, and reaching out to those suffering from HIV/AIDS.
Coincidentally he believes the Government created AIDS to keep the black man down.
In my first book, Dreams From My Father, I described the experience of my first service at Trinity:
�People began to shout, to rise from their seats and clap and cry out, a forceful wind carrying the reverend�s voice up into the rafters�.And in that single note � hope! � I heard something else; at the foot of that cross, inside the thousands of churches across the city, I imagined the stories of ordinary black people merging with the stories of David and Goliath, Moses and Pharaoh, the Christians in the lion�s den, Ezekiel�s field of dry bones. Those stories � of survival, and freedom, and hope � became our story, my story; the blood that had spilled was our blood, the tears our tears; until this black church, on this bright day, seemed once more a vessel carrying the story of a people into future generations and into a larger world. Our trials and triumphs became at once unique and universal, black and more than black; in chronicling our journey, the stories and songs gave us a means to reclaim memories that we didn�t need to feel shame about�memories that all people might study and cherish � and with which we could start to rebuild.�
That has been my experience at Trinity. Like other predominantly black churches across the country, Trinity embodies the black community in its entirety � the doctor and the welfare mom, the model student and the former gang-banger. Like other black churches, Trinity�s services are full of raucous laughter and sometimes bawdy humor. They are full of dancing, clapping, screaming and shouting that may seem jarring to the untrained ear. The church contains in full the kindness and cruelty, the fierce intelligence and the shocking ignorance, the struggles and successes, the love and yes, the bitterness and bias that make up the black experience in America.
Oprah Whitney left this Church due to Rev. Wright's preaching.
And this helps explain, perhaps, my relationship with Reverend Wright. As imperfect as he may be, he has been like family to me. He strengthened my faith, officiated my wedding, and baptized my children. Not once in my conversations with him have I heard him talk about any ethnic group in derogatory terms, or treat whites with whom he interacted with anything but courtesy and respect. He contains within him the contradictions � the good and the bad � of the community that he has served diligently for so many years.
I can no more disown him than I can disown the black community. I can no more disown him than I can my white grandmother � a woman who helped raise me, a woman who sacrificed again and again for me, a woman who loves me as much as she loves anything in this world, but a woman who once confessed her fear of black men who passed by her on the street, and who on more than one occasion has uttered racial or ethnic stereotypes that made me cringe.
These people are a part of me. And they are a part of America, this country that I love.
Some will see this as an attempt to justify or excuse comments that are simply inexcusable. I can assure you it is not. I suppose the politically safe thing would be to move on from this episode and just hope that it fades into the woodwork. We can dismiss Reverend Wright as a crank or a demagogue, just as some have dismissed Geraldine Ferraro, in the aftermath of her recent statements, as harboring some deep-seated racial bias.
Geraldine's bias was purely realism, and not something particularly divisive. Tasteless sure.
But race is an issue that I believe this nation cannot afford to ignore right now. We would be making the same mistake that Reverend Wright made in his offending sermons about America � to simplify and stereotype and amplify the negative to the point that it distorts reality.
The fact is that the comments that have been made and the issues that have surfaced over the last few weeks reflect the complexities of race in this country that we�ve never really worked through � a part of our union that we have yet to perfect. And if we walk away now, if we simply retreat into our respective corners, we will never be able to come together and solve challenges like health care, or education, or the need to find good jobs for every American.
Change the subject...good.
Understanding this reality requires a reminder of how we arrived at this point. As William Faulkner once wrote, �The past isn�t dead and buried. In fact, it isn�t even past.� We do not need to recite here the history of racial injustice in this country. But we do need to remind ourselves that so many of the disparities that exist in the African-American community today can be directly traced to inequalities passed on from an earlier generation that suffered under the brutal legacy of slavery and Jim Crow.
Segregated schools were, and are, inferior schools; we still haven�t fixed them, fifty years after Brown v. Board of Education, and the inferior education they provided, then and now, helps explain the pervasive achievement gap between today�s black and white students.
Yeah well “government schools” are the ones with the problem...and all you want to do is involve more levels of government in them. Its like failing your way to the bank.
Legalized discrimination - where blacks were prevented, often through violence, from owning property, or loans were not granted to African-American business owners, or black homeowners could not access FHA mortgages, or blacks were excluded from unions, or the police force, or fire departments � meant that black families could not amass any meaningful wealth to bequeath to future generations. That history helps explain the wealth and income gap between black and white, and the concentrated pockets of poverty that persists in so many of today�s urban and rural communities.
Yes, but only to a small degree, more it is the perception that these things that kept families down in the past should continue to. That is not the case by and large.
A lack of economic opportunity among black men, and the shame and frustration that came from not being able to provide for one�s family, contributed to the erosion of black families � a problem that welfare policies for many years may have worsened.
Yeah because it made them feel less masculine and more dependent on the government. It made them lazy.
And the lack of basic services in so many urban black neighborhoods � parks for kids to play in, police walking the beat, regular garbage pick-up and building code enforcement � all helped create a cycle of violence, blight and neglect that continue to haunt us.
Yes and more: how about that when it comes to government projects they were just GIVEN these residences rather than being forced to earn them and have some equity and pride. Thats why they are run down and pieces of shit.
This is the reality in which Reverend Wright and other African-Americans of his generation grew up. They came of age in the late fifties and early sixties, a time when segregation was still the law of the land and opportunity was systematically constricted. What�s remarkable is not how many failed in the face of discrimination, but rather how many men and women overcame the odds; how many were able to make a way out of no way for those like me who would come after them.
But for all those who scratched and clawed their way to get a piece of the American Dream, there were many who didn�t make it � those who were ultimately defeated, in one way or another, by discrimination.
Failure is part of life...not everyone can be a billionaire. That doesn't mean we shouldn't try.
That legacy of defeat was passed on to future generations � those young men and increasingly young women who we see standing on street corners or languishing in our prisons, without hope or prospects for the future. Even for those blacks who did make it, questions of race, and racism, continue to define their worldview in fundamental ways. For the men and women of Reverend Wright�s generation, the memories of humiliation and doubt and fear have not gone away; nor has the anger and the bitterness of those years. That anger may not get expressed in public, in front of white co-workers or white friends. But it does find voice in the barbershop or around the kitchen table. At times, that anger is exploited by politicians, to gin up votes along racial lines, or to make up for a politician�s own failings.
And occasionally it finds voice in the church on Sunday morning, in the pulpit and in the pews. The fact that so many people are surprised to hear that anger in some of Reverend Wright�s sermons simply reminds us of the old truism that the most segregated hour in American life occurs on Sunday morning. That anger is not always productive; indeed, all too often it distracts attention from solving real problems; it keeps us from squarely facing our own complicity in our condition, and prevents the African-American community from forging the alliances it needs to bring about real change. But the anger is real; it is powerful; and to simply wish it away, to condemn it without understanding its roots, only serves to widen the chasm of misunderstanding that exists between the races.
In fact, a similar anger exists within segments of the white community. Most working- and middle-class white Americans don�t feel that they have been particularly privileged by their race. Their experience is the immigrant experience � as far as they�re concerned, no one�s handed them anything, they�ve built it from scratch. They�ve worked hard all their lives, many times only to see their jobs shipped overseas or their pension dumped after a lifetime of labor. They are anxious about their futures, and feel their dreams slipping away; in an era of stagnant wages and global competition, opportunity comes to be seen as a zero sum game, in which your dreams come at my expense. So when they are told to bus their children to a school across town; when they hear that an African American is getting an advantage in landing a good job or a spot in a good college because of an injustice that they themselves never committed; when they�re told that their fears about crime in urban neighborhoods are somehow prejudiced, resentment builds over time.
Like the anger within the black community, these resentments aren�t always expressed in polite company. But they have helped shape the political landscape for at least a generation. Anger over welfare and affirmative action helped forge the Reagan Coalition.
No the Reagan coalition was over opposing Soviet adventure-ism, improving the economy by cutting taxes and at least trying to control spending, and something you might be familiar with Mr. Obama and that is Morning in America...and attempt to bring hope back to this country's people after the depressing Carter years of stag-flation and malaise...Carter actually created the Malaise Index.
Politicians routinely exploited fears of crime for their own electoral ends. Talk show hosts and conservative commentators built entire careers unmasking bogus claims of racism while dismissing legitimate discussions of racial injustice and inequality as mere political correctness or reverse racism.
Just as black anger often proved counterproductive, so have these white resentments distracted attention from the real culprits of the middle class squeeze � a corporate culture rife with inside dealing, questionable accounting practices, and short-term greed; a Washington dominated by lobbyists and special interests; economic policies that favor the few over the many. And yet, to wish away the resentments of white Americans, to label them as misguided or even racist, without recognizing they are grounded in legitimate concerns � this too widens the racial divide, and blocks the path to understanding.
This is where we are right now. It�s a racial stalemate we�ve been stuck in for years. Contrary to the claims of some of my critics, black and white, I have never been so naive as to believe that we can get beyond our racial divisions in a single election cycle, or with a single candidacy � particularly a candidacy as imperfect as my own.
But I have asserted a firm conviction � a conviction rooted in my faith in God and my faith in the American people � that working together we can move beyond some of our old racial wounds, and that in fact we have no choice is we are to continue on the path of a more perfect union.
For the African-American community, that path means embracing the burdens of our past without becoming victims of our past. It means continuing to insist on a full measure of justice in every aspect of American life. But it also means binding our particular grievances � for better health care, and better schools, and better jobs - to the larger aspirations of all Americans -- the white woman struggling to break the glass ceiling, the white man whose been laid off, the immigrant trying to feed his family. And it means taking full responsibility for own lives � by demanding more from our fathers, and spending more time with our children, and reading to them, and teaching them that while they may face challenges and discrimination in their own lives, they must never succumb to despair or cynicism; they must always believe that they can write their own destiny.
Ironically, this quintessentially American � and yes, conservative � notion of self-help found frequent expression in Reverend Wright�s sermons. But what my former pastor too often failed to understand is that embarking on a program of self-help also requires a belief that society can change.
The profound mistake of Reverend Wright�s sermons is not that he spoke about racism in our society. It�s that he spoke as if our society was static; as if no progress has been made; as if this country � a country that has made it possible for one of his own members to run for the highest office in the land and build a coalition of white and black; Latino and Asian, rich and poor, young and old -- is still irrevocably bound to a tragic past. But what we know -- what we have seen � is that America can change. That is true genius of this nation. What we have already achieved gives us hope � the audacity to hope � for what we can and must achieve tomorrow.
In the white community, the path to a more perfect union means acknowledging that what ails the African-American community does not just exist in the minds of black people; that the legacy of discrimination - and current incidents of discrimination, while less overt than in the past - are real and must be addressed. Not just with words, but with deeds � by investing in our schools and our communities; by enforcing our civil rights laws and ensuring fairness in our criminal justice system; by providing this generation with ladders of opportunity that were unavailable for previous generations. It requires all Americans to realize that your dreams do not have to come at the expense of my dreams; that investing in the health, welfare, and education of black and brown and white children will ultimately help all of America prosper.
In the end, then, what is called for is nothing more, and nothing less, than what all the world�s great religions demand � that we do unto others as we would have them do unto us. Let us be our brother�s keeper, Scripture tells us. Let us be our sister�s keeper. Let us find that common stake we all have in one another, and let our politics reflect that spirit as well.
For we have a choice in this country. We can accept a politics that breeds division, and conflict, and cynicism. We can tackle race only as spectacle � as we did in the OJ trial � or in the wake of tragedy, as we did in the aftermath of Katrina - or as fodder for the nightly news. We can play Reverend Wright�s sermons on every channel, every day and talk about them from now until the election, and make the only question in this campaign whether or not the American people think that I somehow believe or sympathize with his most offensive words. We can pounce on some gaffe by a Hillary supporter as evidence that she�s playing the race card, or we can speculate on whether white men will all flock to John McCain in the general election regardless of his policies.
We can do that.
But if we do, I can tell you that in the next election, we�ll be talking about some other distraction. And then another one. And then another one. And nothing will change.
That is one option. Or, at this moment, in this election, we can come together and say, �Not this time.� This time we want to talk about the crumbling schools that are stealing the future of black children and white children and Asian children and Hispanic children and Native American children. This time we want to reject the cynicism that tells us that these kids can�t learn; that those kids who don�t look like us are somebody else�s problem. The children of America are not those kids, they are our kids, and we will not let them fall behind in a 21st century economy. Not this time.
This time we want to talk about how the lines in the Emergency Room are filled with whites and blacks and Hispanics who do not have health care; who don�t have the power on their own to overcome the special interests in Washington, but who can take them on if we do it together.
Don't forget the illegal aliens.
This time we want to talk about the shuttered mills that once provided a decent life for men and women of every race, and the homes for sale that once belonged to Americans from every religion, every region, every walk of life. This time we want to talk about the fact that the real problem is not that someone who doesn�t look like you might take your job; it�s that the corporation you work for will ship it overseas for nothing more than a profit.
This time we want to talk about the men and women of every color and creed who serve together, and fight together, and bleed together under the same proud flag. We want to talk about how to bring them home from a war that never should�ve been authorized and never should�ve been waged, and we want to talk about how we�ll show our patriotism by caring for them, and their families, and giving them the benefits they have earned.
I would not be running for President if I didn�t believe with all my heart that this is what the vast majority of Americans want for this country. This union may never be perfect, but generation after generation has shown that it can always be perfected. And today, whenever I find myself feeling doubtful or cynical about this possibility, what gives me the most hope is the next generation � the young people whose attitudes and beliefs and openness to change have already made history in this election.
There is one story in particularly that I�d like to leave you with today � a story I told when I had the great honor of speaking on Dr. King�s birthday at his home church, Ebenezer Baptist, in Atlanta.
There is a young, twenty-three year old white woman named Ashley Baia who organized for our campaign in Florence, South Carolina. She had been working to organize a mostly African-American community since the beginning of this campaign, and one day she was at a roundtable discussion where everyone went around telling their story and why they were there.
And Ashley said that when she was nine years old, her mother got cancer. And because she had to miss days of work, she was let go and lost her health care. They had to file for bankruptcy, and that�s when Ashley decided that she had to do something to help her mom.
She knew that food was one of their most expensive costs, and so Ashley convinced her mother that what she really liked and really wanted to eat more than anything else was mustard and relish sandwiches. Because that was the cheapest way to eat.
She did this for a year until her mom got better, and she told everyone at the roundtable that the reason she joined our campaign was so that she could help the millions of other children in the country who want and need to help their parents too.
Now Ashley might have made a different choice. Perhaps somebody told her along the way that the source of her mother�s problems were blacks who were on welfare and too lazy to work, or Hispanics who were coming into the country illegally. But she didn�t. She sought out allies in her fight against injustice.
Anyway, Ashley finishes her story and then goes around the room and asks everyone else why they�re supporting the campaign. They all have different stories and reasons. Many bring up a specific issue. And finally they come to this elderly black man who�s been sitting there quietly the entire time. And Ashley asks him why he�s there. And he does not bring up a specific issue. He does not say health care or the economy. He does not say education or the war. He does not say that he was there because of Barack Obama. He simply says to everyone in the room, �I am here because of Ashley.�
�I�m here because of Ashley.� By itself, that single moment of recognition between that young white girl and that old black man is not enough. It is not enough to give health care to the sick, or jobs to the jobless, or education to our children.
Ok...continue...
But it is where we start. It is where our union grows stronger. And as so many generations have come to realize over the course of the two-hundred and twenty one years since a band of patriots signed that document in Philadelphia, that is where the perfection begins.
NO NO NO NO NO...it is not a start. If we can't afford this Iraq war then we sure as shit cannot afford “universal health care” The United States has at a minimum a 56 Trillion Dollar debt outstanding in unfunded mandates (Social Security, Prescription Drug Benefits...etc) Which is by the way more than THREE TIMES THE VALUE OF ALL ASSETS in the UNITED STATES..including land and resources.
Thank you,
Justin Cody
The document they produced was eventually signed but ultimately unfinished. It was stained by this nation�s original sin of slavery, a question that divided the colonies and brought the convention to a stalemate until the founders chose to allow the slave trade to continue for at least twenty more years, and to leave any final resolution to future generations.
Note: The Declaration of Independence originally said we have the right to “life, liberty and property” but was changed so that pro-slavery segments of the population could not use that as ammunition in the future. This was done by Benjamin Franklin who also founded the abolitionist movement in Pennsylvania.
Of course, the answer to the slavery question was already embedded within our Constitution � a Constitution that had at is very core the ideal of equal citizenship under the law; a Constitution that promised its people liberty, and justice, and a union that could be and should be perfected over time.
And yet words on a parchment would not be enough to deliver slaves from bondage, or provide men and women of every color and creed their full rights and obligations as citizens of the United States. What would be needed were Americans in successive generations who were willing to do their part � through protests and struggle, on the streets and in the courts, through a civil war and civil disobedience and always at great risk - to narrow that gap between the promise of our ideals and the reality of their time.
The Civil War or The War Between the States/War of Northern Aggression was over whether or not States had the right as States to secede from the Union: The anti-slavery angle came in after the Union side began to lose and needed more cannon fodder (soldiers) and used this as a recruiting technique. Yes it was a good idea and fortunately worked out.
This was one of the tasks we set forth at the beginning of this campaign � to continue the long march of those who came before us, a march for a more just, more equal, more free, more caring and more prosperous America.
Nothing Barak Obama has proposed will make any of us more free. His policies will only turn over more power and authority to the State and take it from YOU.
I chose to run for the presidency at this moment in history because I believe deeply that we cannot solve the challenges of our time unless we solve them together.
With his guidance of course. We were doing alright without him.
unless we perfect our union by understanding that we may have different stories, but we hold common hopes;
Y plurbus unum
that we may not look the same and we may not have come from the same place, but we all want to move in the same direction � towards a better future for of children and our grandchildren.
This belief comes from my unyielding faith in the decency and generosity of the American people. But it also comes from my own American story.
I am the son of a black man from Kenya and a white woman from Kansas. I was raised with the help of a white grandfather who survived a Depression to serve in Patton�s Army during World War II and a white grandmother who worked on a bomber assembly line at Fort Leavenworth while he was overseas. I�ve gone to some of the best schools in America and lived in one of the world�s poorest nations. I am married to a black American who carries within her the blood of slaves and slaveowners � an inheritance we pass on to our two precious daughters. I have brothers, sisters, nieces, nephews, uncles and cousins, of every race and every hue, scattered across three continents, and for as long as I live, I will never forget that in no other country on Earth is my story even possible.
It�s a story that hasn�t made me the most conventional candidate. But it is a story that has seared into my genetic makeup the idea that this nation is more than the sum of its parts � that out of many, we are truly one.
We are our race and are identified by it. Is that what you are saying?
Throughout the first year of this campaign, against all predictions to the contrary, we saw how hungry the American people were for this message of unity. Despite the temptation to view my candidacy through a purely racial lens, we won commanding victories in states with some of the whitest populations in the country. In South Carolina, where the Confederate Flag still flies, we built a powerful coalition of African Americans and white Americans.
This is not to say that race has not been an issue in the campaign. At various stages in the campaign, some commentators have deemed me either �too black� or �not black enough.� We saw racial tensions bubble to the surface during the week before the South Carolina primary. The press has scoured every exit poll for the latest evidence of racial polarization, not just in terms of white and black, but black and brown as well.
Some even called you the Magic Negro
And yet, it has only been in the last couple of weeks that the discussion of race in this campaign has taken a particularly divisive turn.
No it isn't divisive to point out your shortcomings on character and judgement.
On one end of the spectrum, we�ve heard the implication that my candidacy is somehow an exercise in affirmative action; that it�s based solely on the desire of wide-eyed liberals to purchase racial reconciliation on the cheap.
And for some it is...this is a very nuanced campaign and this is where Barak tries to make it Black or White...pardon the pun.
On the other end, we�ve heard my former pastor, Reverend Jeremiah Wright, use incendiary language to express views that have the potential not only to widen the racial divide, but views that denigrate both the greatness and the goodness of our nation; that rightly offend white and black alike.
From what I heard there was only cheering of his congregation.
I have already condemned, in unequivocal terms, the statements of Reverend Wright that have caused such controversy. For some, nagging questions remain.
Did I know him to be an occasionally fierce critic of American domestic and foreign policy? Of course. Did I ever hear him make remarks that could be considered controversial while I sat in church? Yes.
Wait...what? No I thought you had never heard these things before... “The statements that Rev. Wright made that are the cause of this controversy were not statements I personally heard him preach while I sat in the pews of Trinity or heard him utter in private conversation. When these statements first came to my attention, it was at the beginning of my presidential campaign. I made it clear at the time that I strongly condemned his comments. But because Rev. Wright was on the verge of retirement, and because of my strong links to the Trinity faith community, where I married my wife and where my daughters were baptized, I did not think it appropriate to leave the church.” - Barak Obama 14, March 2008 on the Huffington Post Weblog.
Did I strongly disagree with many of his political views? Absolutely � just as I�m sure many of you have heard remarks from your pastors, priests, or rabbis with which you strongly disagreed.
Yes and by and large we either leave said church or bring it up in private to the man or woman. Glad you condemn the remarks, but you are still associated with this man.
But the remarks that have caused this recent firestorm weren�t simply controversial. They weren�t simply a religious leader�s effort to speak out against perceived injustice. Instead, they expressed a profoundly distorted view of this country � a view that sees white racism as endemic, and that elevates what is wrong with America above all that we know is right with America; a view that sees the conflicts in the Middle East as rooted primarily in the actions of stalwart allies like Israel, instead of emanating from the perverse and hateful ideologies of radical Islam.
As such, Reverend Wright�s comments were not only wrong but divisive, divisive at a time when we need unity; racially charged at a time when we need to come together to solve a set of monumental problems � two wars, a terrorist threat, a falling economy, a chronic health care crisis and potentially devastating climate change; problems that are neither black or white or Latino or Asian, but rather problems that confront us all.
Given my background, my politics, and my professed values and ideals, there will no doubt be those for whom my statements of condemnation are not enough. Why associate myself with Reverend Wright in the first place, they may ask? Why not join another church? And I confess that if all that I knew of Reverend Wright were the snippets of those sermons that have run in an endless loop on the television and You Tube, or if Trinity United Church of Christ conformed to the caricatures being peddled by some commentators, there is no doubt that I would react in much the same way.
They are selling DVD's of these sermons at the Church Gift Shop. sigh
But the truth is, that isn�t all that I know of the man. The man I met more than twenty years ago is a man who helped introduce me to my Christian faith, a man who spoke to me about our obligations to love one another; to care for the sick and lift up the poor. He is a man who served his country as a U.S. Marine; who has studied and lectured at some of the finest universities and seminaries in the country, and who for over thirty years led a church that serves the community by doing God�s work here on Earth � by housing the homeless, ministering to the needy, providing day care services and scholarships and prison ministries, and reaching out to those suffering from HIV/AIDS.
Coincidentally he believes the Government created AIDS to keep the black man down.
In my first book, Dreams From My Father, I described the experience of my first service at Trinity:
�People began to shout, to rise from their seats and clap and cry out, a forceful wind carrying the reverend�s voice up into the rafters�.And in that single note � hope! � I heard something else; at the foot of that cross, inside the thousands of churches across the city, I imagined the stories of ordinary black people merging with the stories of David and Goliath, Moses and Pharaoh, the Christians in the lion�s den, Ezekiel�s field of dry bones. Those stories � of survival, and freedom, and hope � became our story, my story; the blood that had spilled was our blood, the tears our tears; until this black church, on this bright day, seemed once more a vessel carrying the story of a people into future generations and into a larger world. Our trials and triumphs became at once unique and universal, black and more than black; in chronicling our journey, the stories and songs gave us a means to reclaim memories that we didn�t need to feel shame about�memories that all people might study and cherish � and with which we could start to rebuild.�
That has been my experience at Trinity. Like other predominantly black churches across the country, Trinity embodies the black community in its entirety � the doctor and the welfare mom, the model student and the former gang-banger. Like other black churches, Trinity�s services are full of raucous laughter and sometimes bawdy humor. They are full of dancing, clapping, screaming and shouting that may seem jarring to the untrained ear. The church contains in full the kindness and cruelty, the fierce intelligence and the shocking ignorance, the struggles and successes, the love and yes, the bitterness and bias that make up the black experience in America.
Oprah Whitney left this Church due to Rev. Wright's preaching.
And this helps explain, perhaps, my relationship with Reverend Wright. As imperfect as he may be, he has been like family to me. He strengthened my faith, officiated my wedding, and baptized my children. Not once in my conversations with him have I heard him talk about any ethnic group in derogatory terms, or treat whites with whom he interacted with anything but courtesy and respect. He contains within him the contradictions � the good and the bad � of the community that he has served diligently for so many years.
I can no more disown him than I can disown the black community. I can no more disown him than I can my white grandmother � a woman who helped raise me, a woman who sacrificed again and again for me, a woman who loves me as much as she loves anything in this world, but a woman who once confessed her fear of black men who passed by her on the street, and who on more than one occasion has uttered racial or ethnic stereotypes that made me cringe.
These people are a part of me. And they are a part of America, this country that I love.
Some will see this as an attempt to justify or excuse comments that are simply inexcusable. I can assure you it is not. I suppose the politically safe thing would be to move on from this episode and just hope that it fades into the woodwork. We can dismiss Reverend Wright as a crank or a demagogue, just as some have dismissed Geraldine Ferraro, in the aftermath of her recent statements, as harboring some deep-seated racial bias.
Geraldine's bias was purely realism, and not something particularly divisive. Tasteless sure.
But race is an issue that I believe this nation cannot afford to ignore right now. We would be making the same mistake that Reverend Wright made in his offending sermons about America � to simplify and stereotype and amplify the negative to the point that it distorts reality.
The fact is that the comments that have been made and the issues that have surfaced over the last few weeks reflect the complexities of race in this country that we�ve never really worked through � a part of our union that we have yet to perfect. And if we walk away now, if we simply retreat into our respective corners, we will never be able to come together and solve challenges like health care, or education, or the need to find good jobs for every American.
Change the subject...good.
Understanding this reality requires a reminder of how we arrived at this point. As William Faulkner once wrote, �The past isn�t dead and buried. In fact, it isn�t even past.� We do not need to recite here the history of racial injustice in this country. But we do need to remind ourselves that so many of the disparities that exist in the African-American community today can be directly traced to inequalities passed on from an earlier generation that suffered under the brutal legacy of slavery and Jim Crow.
Segregated schools were, and are, inferior schools; we still haven�t fixed them, fifty years after Brown v. Board of Education, and the inferior education they provided, then and now, helps explain the pervasive achievement gap between today�s black and white students.
Yeah well “government schools” are the ones with the problem...and all you want to do is involve more levels of government in them. Its like failing your way to the bank.
Legalized discrimination - where blacks were prevented, often through violence, from owning property, or loans were not granted to African-American business owners, or black homeowners could not access FHA mortgages, or blacks were excluded from unions, or the police force, or fire departments � meant that black families could not amass any meaningful wealth to bequeath to future generations. That history helps explain the wealth and income gap between black and white, and the concentrated pockets of poverty that persists in so many of today�s urban and rural communities.
Yes, but only to a small degree, more it is the perception that these things that kept families down in the past should continue to. That is not the case by and large.
A lack of economic opportunity among black men, and the shame and frustration that came from not being able to provide for one�s family, contributed to the erosion of black families � a problem that welfare policies for many years may have worsened.
Yeah because it made them feel less masculine and more dependent on the government. It made them lazy.
And the lack of basic services in so many urban black neighborhoods � parks for kids to play in, police walking the beat, regular garbage pick-up and building code enforcement � all helped create a cycle of violence, blight and neglect that continue to haunt us.
Yes and more: how about that when it comes to government projects they were just GIVEN these residences rather than being forced to earn them and have some equity and pride. Thats why they are run down and pieces of shit.
This is the reality in which Reverend Wright and other African-Americans of his generation grew up. They came of age in the late fifties and early sixties, a time when segregation was still the law of the land and opportunity was systematically constricted. What�s remarkable is not how many failed in the face of discrimination, but rather how many men and women overcame the odds; how many were able to make a way out of no way for those like me who would come after them.
But for all those who scratched and clawed their way to get a piece of the American Dream, there were many who didn�t make it � those who were ultimately defeated, in one way or another, by discrimination.
Failure is part of life...not everyone can be a billionaire. That doesn't mean we shouldn't try.
That legacy of defeat was passed on to future generations � those young men and increasingly young women who we see standing on street corners or languishing in our prisons, without hope or prospects for the future. Even for those blacks who did make it, questions of race, and racism, continue to define their worldview in fundamental ways. For the men and women of Reverend Wright�s generation, the memories of humiliation and doubt and fear have not gone away; nor has the anger and the bitterness of those years. That anger may not get expressed in public, in front of white co-workers or white friends. But it does find voice in the barbershop or around the kitchen table. At times, that anger is exploited by politicians, to gin up votes along racial lines, or to make up for a politician�s own failings.
And occasionally it finds voice in the church on Sunday morning, in the pulpit and in the pews. The fact that so many people are surprised to hear that anger in some of Reverend Wright�s sermons simply reminds us of the old truism that the most segregated hour in American life occurs on Sunday morning. That anger is not always productive; indeed, all too often it distracts attention from solving real problems; it keeps us from squarely facing our own complicity in our condition, and prevents the African-American community from forging the alliances it needs to bring about real change. But the anger is real; it is powerful; and to simply wish it away, to condemn it without understanding its roots, only serves to widen the chasm of misunderstanding that exists between the races.
In fact, a similar anger exists within segments of the white community. Most working- and middle-class white Americans don�t feel that they have been particularly privileged by their race. Their experience is the immigrant experience � as far as they�re concerned, no one�s handed them anything, they�ve built it from scratch. They�ve worked hard all their lives, many times only to see their jobs shipped overseas or their pension dumped after a lifetime of labor. They are anxious about their futures, and feel their dreams slipping away; in an era of stagnant wages and global competition, opportunity comes to be seen as a zero sum game, in which your dreams come at my expense. So when they are told to bus their children to a school across town; when they hear that an African American is getting an advantage in landing a good job or a spot in a good college because of an injustice that they themselves never committed; when they�re told that their fears about crime in urban neighborhoods are somehow prejudiced, resentment builds over time.
Like the anger within the black community, these resentments aren�t always expressed in polite company. But they have helped shape the political landscape for at least a generation. Anger over welfare and affirmative action helped forge the Reagan Coalition.
No the Reagan coalition was over opposing Soviet adventure-ism, improving the economy by cutting taxes and at least trying to control spending, and something you might be familiar with Mr. Obama and that is Morning in America...and attempt to bring hope back to this country's people after the depressing Carter years of stag-flation and malaise...Carter actually created the Malaise Index.
Politicians routinely exploited fears of crime for their own electoral ends. Talk show hosts and conservative commentators built entire careers unmasking bogus claims of racism while dismissing legitimate discussions of racial injustice and inequality as mere political correctness or reverse racism.
Just as black anger often proved counterproductive, so have these white resentments distracted attention from the real culprits of the middle class squeeze � a corporate culture rife with inside dealing, questionable accounting practices, and short-term greed; a Washington dominated by lobbyists and special interests; economic policies that favor the few over the many. And yet, to wish away the resentments of white Americans, to label them as misguided or even racist, without recognizing they are grounded in legitimate concerns � this too widens the racial divide, and blocks the path to understanding.
This is where we are right now. It�s a racial stalemate we�ve been stuck in for years. Contrary to the claims of some of my critics, black and white, I have never been so naive as to believe that we can get beyond our racial divisions in a single election cycle, or with a single candidacy � particularly a candidacy as imperfect as my own.
But I have asserted a firm conviction � a conviction rooted in my faith in God and my faith in the American people � that working together we can move beyond some of our old racial wounds, and that in fact we have no choice is we are to continue on the path of a more perfect union.
For the African-American community, that path means embracing the burdens of our past without becoming victims of our past. It means continuing to insist on a full measure of justice in every aspect of American life. But it also means binding our particular grievances � for better health care, and better schools, and better jobs - to the larger aspirations of all Americans -- the white woman struggling to break the glass ceiling, the white man whose been laid off, the immigrant trying to feed his family. And it means taking full responsibility for own lives � by demanding more from our fathers, and spending more time with our children, and reading to them, and teaching them that while they may face challenges and discrimination in their own lives, they must never succumb to despair or cynicism; they must always believe that they can write their own destiny.
Ironically, this quintessentially American � and yes, conservative � notion of self-help found frequent expression in Reverend Wright�s sermons. But what my former pastor too often failed to understand is that embarking on a program of self-help also requires a belief that society can change.
The profound mistake of Reverend Wright�s sermons is not that he spoke about racism in our society. It�s that he spoke as if our society was static; as if no progress has been made; as if this country � a country that has made it possible for one of his own members to run for the highest office in the land and build a coalition of white and black; Latino and Asian, rich and poor, young and old -- is still irrevocably bound to a tragic past. But what we know -- what we have seen � is that America can change. That is true genius of this nation. What we have already achieved gives us hope � the audacity to hope � for what we can and must achieve tomorrow.
In the white community, the path to a more perfect union means acknowledging that what ails the African-American community does not just exist in the minds of black people; that the legacy of discrimination - and current incidents of discrimination, while less overt than in the past - are real and must be addressed. Not just with words, but with deeds � by investing in our schools and our communities; by enforcing our civil rights laws and ensuring fairness in our criminal justice system; by providing this generation with ladders of opportunity that were unavailable for previous generations. It requires all Americans to realize that your dreams do not have to come at the expense of my dreams; that investing in the health, welfare, and education of black and brown and white children will ultimately help all of America prosper.
In the end, then, what is called for is nothing more, and nothing less, than what all the world�s great religions demand � that we do unto others as we would have them do unto us. Let us be our brother�s keeper, Scripture tells us. Let us be our sister�s keeper. Let us find that common stake we all have in one another, and let our politics reflect that spirit as well.
For we have a choice in this country. We can accept a politics that breeds division, and conflict, and cynicism. We can tackle race only as spectacle � as we did in the OJ trial � or in the wake of tragedy, as we did in the aftermath of Katrina - or as fodder for the nightly news. We can play Reverend Wright�s sermons on every channel, every day and talk about them from now until the election, and make the only question in this campaign whether or not the American people think that I somehow believe or sympathize with his most offensive words. We can pounce on some gaffe by a Hillary supporter as evidence that she�s playing the race card, or we can speculate on whether white men will all flock to John McCain in the general election regardless of his policies.
We can do that.
But if we do, I can tell you that in the next election, we�ll be talking about some other distraction. And then another one. And then another one. And nothing will change.
That is one option. Or, at this moment, in this election, we can come together and say, �Not this time.� This time we want to talk about the crumbling schools that are stealing the future of black children and white children and Asian children and Hispanic children and Native American children. This time we want to reject the cynicism that tells us that these kids can�t learn; that those kids who don�t look like us are somebody else�s problem. The children of America are not those kids, they are our kids, and we will not let them fall behind in a 21st century economy. Not this time.
This time we want to talk about how the lines in the Emergency Room are filled with whites and blacks and Hispanics who do not have health care; who don�t have the power on their own to overcome the special interests in Washington, but who can take them on if we do it together.
Don't forget the illegal aliens.
This time we want to talk about the shuttered mills that once provided a decent life for men and women of every race, and the homes for sale that once belonged to Americans from every religion, every region, every walk of life. This time we want to talk about the fact that the real problem is not that someone who doesn�t look like you might take your job; it�s that the corporation you work for will ship it overseas for nothing more than a profit.
This time we want to talk about the men and women of every color and creed who serve together, and fight together, and bleed together under the same proud flag. We want to talk about how to bring them home from a war that never should�ve been authorized and never should�ve been waged, and we want to talk about how we�ll show our patriotism by caring for them, and their families, and giving them the benefits they have earned.
I would not be running for President if I didn�t believe with all my heart that this is what the vast majority of Americans want for this country. This union may never be perfect, but generation after generation has shown that it can always be perfected. And today, whenever I find myself feeling doubtful or cynical about this possibility, what gives me the most hope is the next generation � the young people whose attitudes and beliefs and openness to change have already made history in this election.
There is one story in particularly that I�d like to leave you with today � a story I told when I had the great honor of speaking on Dr. King�s birthday at his home church, Ebenezer Baptist, in Atlanta.
There is a young, twenty-three year old white woman named Ashley Baia who organized for our campaign in Florence, South Carolina. She had been working to organize a mostly African-American community since the beginning of this campaign, and one day she was at a roundtable discussion where everyone went around telling their story and why they were there.
And Ashley said that when she was nine years old, her mother got cancer. And because she had to miss days of work, she was let go and lost her health care. They had to file for bankruptcy, and that�s when Ashley decided that she had to do something to help her mom.
She knew that food was one of their most expensive costs, and so Ashley convinced her mother that what she really liked and really wanted to eat more than anything else was mustard and relish sandwiches. Because that was the cheapest way to eat.
She did this for a year until her mom got better, and she told everyone at the roundtable that the reason she joined our campaign was so that she could help the millions of other children in the country who want and need to help their parents too.
Now Ashley might have made a different choice. Perhaps somebody told her along the way that the source of her mother�s problems were blacks who were on welfare and too lazy to work, or Hispanics who were coming into the country illegally. But she didn�t. She sought out allies in her fight against injustice.
Anyway, Ashley finishes her story and then goes around the room and asks everyone else why they�re supporting the campaign. They all have different stories and reasons. Many bring up a specific issue. And finally they come to this elderly black man who�s been sitting there quietly the entire time. And Ashley asks him why he�s there. And he does not bring up a specific issue. He does not say health care or the economy. He does not say education or the war. He does not say that he was there because of Barack Obama. He simply says to everyone in the room, �I am here because of Ashley.�
�I�m here because of Ashley.� By itself, that single moment of recognition between that young white girl and that old black man is not enough. It is not enough to give health care to the sick, or jobs to the jobless, or education to our children.
Ok...continue...
But it is where we start. It is where our union grows stronger. And as so many generations have come to realize over the course of the two-hundred and twenty one years since a band of patriots signed that document in Philadelphia, that is where the perfection begins.
NO NO NO NO NO...it is not a start. If we can't afford this Iraq war then we sure as shit cannot afford “universal health care” The United States has at a minimum a 56 Trillion Dollar debt outstanding in unfunded mandates (Social Security, Prescription Drug Benefits...etc) Which is by the way more than THREE TIMES THE VALUE OF ALL ASSETS in the UNITED STATES..including land and resources.
Thank you,
Justin Cody
Friday, February 29, 2008
another dumb editor who didn't really read the book because he has a lazy mind
Contemporary liberal using fascism inappropriately alert!
I was never on his show,” Gore Vidal, with whom Mr. Buckley had a famous feud, said on Thursday. “I don’t like fascism much."
nothing fascist about Buckely's show as far as I know...it featured guests from Jimmy Carter to Margaret Thatcher. Gore Vidal is a retard? Maybe.
Why do people send me reviews for books they haven't read?
Anyhow here is another rebuttal to an editor who won't read my blog, but is for my bestest (summon Zlad) friend in the whole wide world.
*sigh*
Again I'm going to take fragments of his article which I either considered Hyperbole, Erroneous, Stupid or just plain IGNORANT. Also in many parts it does appear that he got so bored reading the book that he has amnesia.
Ok lets begin at someplace near the beginning.
Michael Tomasky begins by talking about a Marxist Professor and moves on to how bored he is with a well researched book...basically in the first page he throws the book out the window and after that it goes down hill
So I can report with a clear conscience that Liberal Fascism is ultimately oone of the most tedious and inane-- self-negating--books that I have ever read. I suspect our white-coated researchers of the future would conclude mainly that we were a society with too much time on our hands--or at least that there was once a certain Goldberg with far too much time on his. Liberal Fascism is a document of a deeply frivolous culture, or sub-culture.
It is good to see that on page 1 of 7 the reviewer has kept an open mind. Of course this is in THE NEW REPUBLIC...
So let us break this down: People who are intelligent and well read from the future will think this book is stupid because Mr. Tomasky thinks its stupid...thus making him a forward thinking individual whose intellect is unquestionable. Well great. Good thing we've already reached the "If you don't agree with me then you are an idiot" phase of the argument. I had a roommate like this in college...he was a moron and suffered from Only Child Syndrome. I have no idea about Mr. Tomasky's mental state but he is quite the master of out of hand dismissals.
Moving on...
The chief "rival identity," of course, is that of conservatism, and Goldberg, a noisy conservative pundit, has as his stated agenda the need "to dismantle the granite-like assumption in our political culture that American conservatism is an offshoot or cousin of fascism." He makes it abundantly clear that when some dopey lefty calls George W. Bush (or, for that matter, Jonah Goldberg) a fascist it really grates his cheese, and so he has set out to even the libelous score. He has taken it upon himself to make the case that fascism really has its antecedents on the left--that the American Progressive movement "was a sister movement of fascism." He shows that many American progressives in the 1920s, and even into the 1930s, expressed admiration for aspects of Italian or German society--Lincoln Steffens, or Rexford G. Tugwell. (He also makes it clear with thirty-two citations of this magazine that he considers it something like the historic house organ of liberal fascism.)
As to the libelous score...language is something to be respected and not thrown about carelessly or changed to fit one's own views. Words by definition have meaning. Yes he sites the New Republic 32 times...let us see why.
Page 11) "We are trying out the economics of Fascism without having suffered all its social or political ravages," - George Soule Editor of The New Republic writing in reference to the FDR administration.
Page 28) Giuseppe Prezzolini, a frequent contributor to THE NEW REPUBLIC, who would later become a respected professor at Columbia University, was one of Fascism's (meaning Italian Fascism as Mr. Goldberg only capitalizes Fascism for Italy's version) earliest literary and ideological architects.
I'll find one more of the 32 citations just for shits and giggles...
Ah here we go Herbert Croly...Founding Editor of the New Republic...oh heck time for several of his quotes. This quote comes from his book "The Promise of American Life."
"An individual has no meaning apart from the society in which his individuality has been formed."
Well damn Mr. Croly you are a fecking genius, let me tip my hat to you; you just said that person's environment determines his or her behavior and he or she would feel out of place in a different society? Well actually you said that their personality has no merit in a different society...so you're a douchebag and by extension your entire world view. Of course I don't believe that, but hey I just had to use Tomasky's logic.
And if Mr. Tomasky had actually bothered to read this book in a thoughtful manner (not in one marathon sitting) he would have had far fewer headaches and actually been able to process what was in there. But no he tried to PLOW through 465 pages of dense information and analysis. No wonder it seemed so boring. I'm sure he would try to read the whole Lord of the Rings in one sitting then blow his head off and wonder why there was so much damn poetry and singing.
Fail...epic fail, and you did it wrong.
moving on...
But very little of the story he tells is news to students of history. We had already heard that Steffens said of the Soviet Union, "I have been over into the future, and it works," so it is not exactly a shock to read that he had kind words for a similarly regimented society. We similarly understand that the Wilson administration did indeed shut down The Masses and fan racism and xenophobia and round up radicals, and no liberal today thinks of these moves as things to be proud of or to duplicate. We are also acutely aware that some New Dealers were fans of the totalitarian Soviet Union. Roosevelt's second vice-president was one such, and he kicked Henry Wallace off the ticket in 1944 for just that reason. Since Roosevelt did not manage to keep Wallace's expulsion out of the papers, it is not exactly a secret.
From the first sentence he is well off base. Most US history courses, including A.P. US History and all of the non-decade specific courses I took at University spoke about much of what happened during the WWI period other than...here's how the war started and america got involved...the end. When it comes to the New Deal there are discussions of work programs and social security and maybe the Smoot Hawley tariff act but certainly not the inner workings and motivations of the Roosevelt Administration. History courses certainly aren't that exacting. The average person is not tolld this history because the average person is taught to a test. Kicking Wallace off the ticket is well besides the point as there were more than just him in the administration who thought favorably of Stalin and his ilk.
Tomasky so far has at least used two logical fallacies:
1) Appeal to Authority/Bandwagon: reference the future people who would thing we are stupid for writing/reading this book
2) Irrelevent Appeal: Wallace being removed from the ticket
3) Ad Hominim: declaring the book boring and unnecessary for intelligentpeople to read
4) The Intelligent Socialist Appeal: See Appeal to Authority.
Continuing:
We have also recognized, since at least the 1950s and in some prescient instances even earlier, that certain consanguinities between the far left and the far right did exist in those days, and that the Nazi program was in some respects a left-wing program, appealing on a class basis--and, always, a racial basis--to German workers and the petit bourgeoisie.
No you haven't...that is just an outright lie. Heck I've had arguments with my BESTEST friend in the whole wide world about ust that issue...in fact most political text books still describe Hitler as Right Wing...and thats true only if you mean he is to the RIGHT of an avowed Marxist by about a picometer. Of course racism has noting to do with Fascism...more with german fascism and progressivism in the USA. In fact it has more to do with the prevailing social model and geography than anything else. But in the case of this book racism is used as an example of how fascism/socialism/communism uses some external enemy to incite the populace in to action. Doesn't HAVE to be racism, but it has to be SOMETHING.
ever onward...
"Adolf Hitler: Man of the Left." Now that is revisionism. But for all his chapter and verse on the proletarian rhetoric that Nazis employed, Goldberg somehow forgets to mention certain other salient matters, like the fact that within three months of taking power Hitler banned trade unions--and on the day after May Day, 1933. Their money was confiscated and their leaders imprisoned. And the trade unions were replaced with the Nazi "union" called the German Labor Front, which took away the right to strike. Hitler did many worse things, of course. I single out this act because it would hardly seem to be the edict of a "man of the left." And there exist about a million nearly epileptic quotes from Hitler and Goebbels and other Nazis expressing their luminous hatreds of liberalism and of communism, none of which seem to have found their way into the pages of Liberal Fascism.
Ok now just previously Tomasky had admitted that Hitler could be considered leftist and in fact it has been thought so for the last 58 years. So it is NOT revisionsism, and he doesn't FORGET to mention the destruction of the trade unions...they aren't necessary whent he STATE TAKES OVER THE UNIONS DUTIES...AND NO YOU CAN"T STRIKE AGAINST THE STATE WHICH HAS YOUR OWN GOOD IN MIND. Its not "right-wing" to bust unions in this manner it is decidedly Bismarckian and socialist where the state nationalizes what was previously a private endeavor. They hate liberals and communists because as Goldberg points out...they were fighting FOR THE SAME CONSTITUENCY. TOmasky's argument there is like saying Barak Obama and Hillary Clinton hate eachother so...one of them isn't a Democrat by that virtue. Yet another fallacy.
These points are not all that is missing from Goldberg's "analysis." I wondered, while reading his execration of Wilson (with which one can agree up to a point) how he could be so worked up about "liberty cabbage"--the name given to sauerkraut during World War I, in a fit of xenophobic bowdlerization-- as evidence that America was at the time an explicitly fascist state, without it occurring to him that maybe, just maybe, his conscience should compel him to make note of our more recent business about "freedom fries." Remember this was not an abstraction: the name of French fries was in fact changed to "freedom fries" in all the House of Representatives cafeterias in 2003. But of this, not a word.
Ok... so the Congress was fascist in naming the fries freedom fries...whoopdi doo: Doesn't negate his point in any way. And the argument is again followed by a fallacy...where he makes it out as if the liberty cabbage was the ONLY fascist thing that happened. He also makes the excuse that current bad behavior excuses past bad behavior because somehow now its ok to...oh forget it its just a twisted argument that holds no water.
And why not a word, except for the lazy intellectual deception with which he had to know some reviewer would charge him? Here is where Liberal Fascism gets simply ridiculous. For Goldberg, the fact that Progressivism and totalitarianism shared certain traits--a belief in the possibility of collective action through the state, basically--tells him all he needs to know about both creeds. Ipso facto, any totalitarian impulse must therefore have leftish origins. Never mind that there actually was a totalitarianism for which the left was responsible--the one called communism. Goldberg is after more arcane understandings.
The left was responsible for Fascism in Italy and Germany, not "conservatism" as it is practiced today. It was progressivism and socialism that resulted in "totalitarianism" (Nothing is outside the State) and Fascism. So now he'scallingthe 465 page volume
that was admittedly well researched...lazy...or arcane, either way Tomasky thinks you should not be interested. Another Ad Hominem. Yay.
Meanwhile his own creed, conservatism, is a thing entirely apart, a blameless and wholesome--and, it practically goes without saying, vastly outnumbered--tendency that has had to fight Nazis and communists and liberals alike tooth and nail so as to prevent any sign of the incubation of a religion of the state. Hence there is no connection between "liberty cabbage" and "freedom fries": the former was the handiwork of statist brainwashers, the latter the handiwork of the native rising up of noble individualists.
He forgot to read the last chapter. It hammers on conservatives. Also the title of the book should have told him (plus reading the dust jacket) that this book had a certain purpose and he's still somehow appraently expecting some kind of equal excoriation.
That Hitler had the backing of many conservative financiers whose names are well-known to history but missing from this book--Fritz Thyssen, Hjalmar Schacht, and the rest--isn't interesting to this conservative student of fascism. That Hitler and his cohort were vegetarians and health nuts, and thus similar to some left-leaning Americans today--now that is fascinating! Why, Dachau even "produced its own organic honey." What better proof of the kinship between fascism and liberalism?
Actually Hitler only had the backing AFTER he was gaining power and businesses (like they do) got behind the front runner so they weren't seen as enemies. And yes they were health nuts...germany was one of the first to ban smoking and also strip its citizens of their personal firearms (gun control). The state knows what is best for you...that is the message. These are additional examples however minor to show HOW FAR the government reaches in to your life. That is...as far as it thinks it should at the time...no limit. Tomasky fails to maintain coherence here by simply ommitting persuasive facts and placing in their place seemingly harmless things like Organic Honey and the like...as if somehow the ONLY reason dachau was fascist was because of the honey...riiiight.
I could stop here but I won't.
for the Grand Finale I'm going line by line.
Read again the passage I cited above, Goldberg's definition of fascism.
No its your interpretation of his definition of Fascism.
Is it really equally true of liberalism and fascism that each "views everything as political and holds that any action by the state is justified to achieve the common good"?
Yes the only difference is that one preaches revolution and the other incrementalism.
Is it equally true under each system that "everything, including the economy and religion, must be aligned with its objectives"?
Yes. Otherwise you are a racist bigoted homophobe.
Is there really no appreciable difference--how clever, the way he slides quickly past this!-- between "force" and "regulation and social pressure"?
Its called deductive reasoning. Social pressure often brings about regulation and force.
This is ignorant nonsense, and over the course of four hundred pages it becomes excruciatingly dreary nonsense.
Fail. Ad Hominem.
Goldberg would have difficulty distinguishing between, say, seat-belt laws and the banning of political parties.
Exaggeration...Hyperbole...and again called Mr.Goldberg stupid.
Yes, the former may well be a manifestation of the "nanny state," but it does have an indisputable social utility--and more importantly it is not exactly comparable to the latter.
Well yes...now we have the appeal to sanity after all of that.
Is Social Security a fascist program?
Yes..its is fascist and socialist and communist, but its a nice and soft form of it...like Goldberg says throughout the book. The New Deal is not about mass genocides.
Goldberg implies as much, partly because Roosevelt felt moved to push for the program owing to pressure from his (admittedly) quasi-fascistic left in the persons of Huey Long and Father Coughlin, and partly because Social Security is, after all, administered by the state.
He doesn't IMPLY it, he comes out and syas it many times.
And once you start implementing public pension systems, well, how far away can the execution of political opponents really be?
And again we have an outright lie. Goldberg is very careful to say that one does not always lead to the other, and in the USA it is unlikely for this to happen at all because our version is softer and nicer and more incremental to avoid many of the big social problems Europe eerienced.
Thanks for reading.
Barbequeueueueueueueue at my place.
,
I was never on his show,” Gore Vidal, with whom Mr. Buckley had a famous feud, said on Thursday. “I don’t like fascism much."
nothing fascist about Buckely's show as far as I know...it featured guests from Jimmy Carter to Margaret Thatcher. Gore Vidal is a retard? Maybe.
Why do people send me reviews for books they haven't read?
Anyhow here is another rebuttal to an editor who won't read my blog, but is for my bestest (summon Zlad) friend in the whole wide world.
*sigh*
Again I'm going to take fragments of his article which I either considered Hyperbole, Erroneous, Stupid or just plain IGNORANT. Also in many parts it does appear that he got so bored reading the book that he has amnesia.
Ok lets begin at someplace near the beginning.
Michael Tomasky begins by talking about a Marxist Professor and moves on to how bored he is with a well researched book...basically in the first page he throws the book out the window and after that it goes down hill
So I can report with a clear conscience that Liberal Fascism is ultimately oone of the most tedious and inane-- self-negating--books that I have ever read. I suspect our white-coated researchers of the future would conclude mainly that we were a society with too much time on our hands--or at least that there was once a certain Goldberg with far too much time on his. Liberal Fascism is a document of a deeply frivolous culture, or sub-culture.
It is good to see that on page 1 of 7 the reviewer has kept an open mind. Of course this is in THE NEW REPUBLIC...
So let us break this down: People who are intelligent and well read from the future will think this book is stupid because Mr. Tomasky thinks its stupid...thus making him a forward thinking individual whose intellect is unquestionable. Well great. Good thing we've already reached the "If you don't agree with me then you are an idiot" phase of the argument. I had a roommate like this in college...he was a moron and suffered from Only Child Syndrome. I have no idea about Mr. Tomasky's mental state but he is quite the master of out of hand dismissals.
Moving on...
The chief "rival identity," of course, is that of conservatism, and Goldberg, a noisy conservative pundit, has as his stated agenda the need "to dismantle the granite-like assumption in our political culture that American conservatism is an offshoot or cousin of fascism." He makes it abundantly clear that when some dopey lefty calls George W. Bush (or, for that matter, Jonah Goldberg) a fascist it really grates his cheese, and so he has set out to even the libelous score. He has taken it upon himself to make the case that fascism really has its antecedents on the left--that the American Progressive movement "was a sister movement of fascism." He shows that many American progressives in the 1920s, and even into the 1930s, expressed admiration for aspects of Italian or German society--Lincoln Steffens, or Rexford G. Tugwell. (He also makes it clear with thirty-two citations of this magazine that he considers it something like the historic house organ of liberal fascism.)
As to the libelous score...language is something to be respected and not thrown about carelessly or changed to fit one's own views. Words by definition have meaning. Yes he sites the New Republic 32 times...let us see why.
Page 11) "We are trying out the economics of Fascism without having suffered all its social or political ravages," - George Soule Editor of The New Republic writing in reference to the FDR administration.
Page 28) Giuseppe Prezzolini, a frequent contributor to THE NEW REPUBLIC, who would later become a respected professor at Columbia University, was one of Fascism's (meaning Italian Fascism as Mr. Goldberg only capitalizes Fascism for Italy's version) earliest literary and ideological architects.
I'll find one more of the 32 citations just for shits and giggles...
Ah here we go Herbert Croly...Founding Editor of the New Republic...oh heck time for several of his quotes. This quote comes from his book "The Promise of American Life."
"An individual has no meaning apart from the society in which his individuality has been formed."
Well damn Mr. Croly you are a fecking genius, let me tip my hat to you; you just said that person's environment determines his or her behavior and he or she would feel out of place in a different society? Well actually you said that their personality has no merit in a different society...so you're a douchebag and by extension your entire world view. Of course I don't believe that, but hey I just had to use Tomasky's logic.
And if Mr. Tomasky had actually bothered to read this book in a thoughtful manner (not in one marathon sitting) he would have had far fewer headaches and actually been able to process what was in there. But no he tried to PLOW through 465 pages of dense information and analysis. No wonder it seemed so boring. I'm sure he would try to read the whole Lord of the Rings in one sitting then blow his head off and wonder why there was so much damn poetry and singing.
Fail...epic fail, and you did it wrong.
moving on...
But very little of the story he tells is news to students of history. We had already heard that Steffens said of the Soviet Union, "I have been over into the future, and it works," so it is not exactly a shock to read that he had kind words for a similarly regimented society. We similarly understand that the Wilson administration did indeed shut down The Masses and fan racism and xenophobia and round up radicals, and no liberal today thinks of these moves as things to be proud of or to duplicate. We are also acutely aware that some New Dealers were fans of the totalitarian Soviet Union. Roosevelt's second vice-president was one such, and he kicked Henry Wallace off the ticket in 1944 for just that reason. Since Roosevelt did not manage to keep Wallace's expulsion out of the papers, it is not exactly a secret.
From the first sentence he is well off base. Most US history courses, including A.P. US History and all of the non-decade specific courses I took at University spoke about much of what happened during the WWI period other than...here's how the war started and america got involved...the end. When it comes to the New Deal there are discussions of work programs and social security and maybe the Smoot Hawley tariff act but certainly not the inner workings and motivations of the Roosevelt Administration. History courses certainly aren't that exacting. The average person is not tolld this history because the average person is taught to a test. Kicking Wallace off the ticket is well besides the point as there were more than just him in the administration who thought favorably of Stalin and his ilk.
Tomasky so far has at least used two logical fallacies:
1) Appeal to Authority/Bandwagon: reference the future people who would thing we are stupid for writing/reading this book
2) Irrelevent Appeal: Wallace being removed from the ticket
3) Ad Hominim: declaring the book boring and unnecessary for intelligentpeople to read
4) The Intelligent Socialist Appeal: See Appeal to Authority.
Continuing:
We have also recognized, since at least the 1950s and in some prescient instances even earlier, that certain consanguinities between the far left and the far right did exist in those days, and that the Nazi program was in some respects a left-wing program, appealing on a class basis--and, always, a racial basis--to German workers and the petit bourgeoisie.
No you haven't...that is just an outright lie. Heck I've had arguments with my BESTEST friend in the whole wide world about ust that issue...in fact most political text books still describe Hitler as Right Wing...and thats true only if you mean he is to the RIGHT of an avowed Marxist by about a picometer. Of course racism has noting to do with Fascism...more with german fascism and progressivism in the USA. In fact it has more to do with the prevailing social model and geography than anything else. But in the case of this book racism is used as an example of how fascism/socialism/communism uses some external enemy to incite the populace in to action. Doesn't HAVE to be racism, but it has to be SOMETHING.
ever onward...
"Adolf Hitler: Man of the Left." Now that is revisionism. But for all his chapter and verse on the proletarian rhetoric that Nazis employed, Goldberg somehow forgets to mention certain other salient matters, like the fact that within three months of taking power Hitler banned trade unions--and on the day after May Day, 1933. Their money was confiscated and their leaders imprisoned. And the trade unions were replaced with the Nazi "union" called the German Labor Front, which took away the right to strike. Hitler did many worse things, of course. I single out this act because it would hardly seem to be the edict of a "man of the left." And there exist about a million nearly epileptic quotes from Hitler and Goebbels and other Nazis expressing their luminous hatreds of liberalism and of communism, none of which seem to have found their way into the pages of Liberal Fascism.
Ok now just previously Tomasky had admitted that Hitler could be considered leftist and in fact it has been thought so for the last 58 years. So it is NOT revisionsism, and he doesn't FORGET to mention the destruction of the trade unions...they aren't necessary whent he STATE TAKES OVER THE UNIONS DUTIES...AND NO YOU CAN"T STRIKE AGAINST THE STATE WHICH HAS YOUR OWN GOOD IN MIND. Its not "right-wing" to bust unions in this manner it is decidedly Bismarckian and socialist where the state nationalizes what was previously a private endeavor. They hate liberals and communists because as Goldberg points out...they were fighting FOR THE SAME CONSTITUENCY. TOmasky's argument there is like saying Barak Obama and Hillary Clinton hate eachother so...one of them isn't a Democrat by that virtue. Yet another fallacy.
These points are not all that is missing from Goldberg's "analysis." I wondered, while reading his execration of Wilson (with which one can agree up to a point) how he could be so worked up about "liberty cabbage"--the name given to sauerkraut during World War I, in a fit of xenophobic bowdlerization-- as evidence that America was at the time an explicitly fascist state, without it occurring to him that maybe, just maybe, his conscience should compel him to make note of our more recent business about "freedom fries." Remember this was not an abstraction: the name of French fries was in fact changed to "freedom fries" in all the House of Representatives cafeterias in 2003. But of this, not a word.
Ok... so the Congress was fascist in naming the fries freedom fries...whoopdi doo: Doesn't negate his point in any way. And the argument is again followed by a fallacy...where he makes it out as if the liberty cabbage was the ONLY fascist thing that happened. He also makes the excuse that current bad behavior excuses past bad behavior because somehow now its ok to...oh forget it its just a twisted argument that holds no water.
And why not a word, except for the lazy intellectual deception with which he had to know some reviewer would charge him? Here is where Liberal Fascism gets simply ridiculous. For Goldberg, the fact that Progressivism and totalitarianism shared certain traits--a belief in the possibility of collective action through the state, basically--tells him all he needs to know about both creeds. Ipso facto, any totalitarian impulse must therefore have leftish origins. Never mind that there actually was a totalitarianism for which the left was responsible--the one called communism. Goldberg is after more arcane understandings.
The left was responsible for Fascism in Italy and Germany, not "conservatism" as it is practiced today. It was progressivism and socialism that resulted in "totalitarianism" (Nothing is outside the State) and Fascism. So now he'scallingthe 465 page volume
that was admittedly well researched...lazy...or arcane, either way Tomasky thinks you should not be interested. Another Ad Hominem. Yay.
Meanwhile his own creed, conservatism, is a thing entirely apart, a blameless and wholesome--and, it practically goes without saying, vastly outnumbered--tendency that has had to fight Nazis and communists and liberals alike tooth and nail so as to prevent any sign of the incubation of a religion of the state. Hence there is no connection between "liberty cabbage" and "freedom fries": the former was the handiwork of statist brainwashers, the latter the handiwork of the native rising up of noble individualists.
He forgot to read the last chapter. It hammers on conservatives. Also the title of the book should have told him (plus reading the dust jacket) that this book had a certain purpose and he's still somehow appraently expecting some kind of equal excoriation.
That Hitler had the backing of many conservative financiers whose names are well-known to history but missing from this book--Fritz Thyssen, Hjalmar Schacht, and the rest--isn't interesting to this conservative student of fascism. That Hitler and his cohort were vegetarians and health nuts, and thus similar to some left-leaning Americans today--now that is fascinating! Why, Dachau even "produced its own organic honey." What better proof of the kinship between fascism and liberalism?
Actually Hitler only had the backing AFTER he was gaining power and businesses (like they do) got behind the front runner so they weren't seen as enemies. And yes they were health nuts...germany was one of the first to ban smoking and also strip its citizens of their personal firearms (gun control). The state knows what is best for you...that is the message. These are additional examples however minor to show HOW FAR the government reaches in to your life. That is...as far as it thinks it should at the time...no limit. Tomasky fails to maintain coherence here by simply ommitting persuasive facts and placing in their place seemingly harmless things like Organic Honey and the like...as if somehow the ONLY reason dachau was fascist was because of the honey...riiiight.
I could stop here but I won't.
for the Grand Finale I'm going line by line.
Read again the passage I cited above, Goldberg's definition of fascism.
No its your interpretation of his definition of Fascism.
Is it really equally true of liberalism and fascism that each "views everything as political and holds that any action by the state is justified to achieve the common good"?
Yes the only difference is that one preaches revolution and the other incrementalism.
Is it equally true under each system that "everything, including the economy and religion, must be aligned with its objectives"?
Yes. Otherwise you are a racist bigoted homophobe.
Is there really no appreciable difference--how clever, the way he slides quickly past this!-- between "force" and "regulation and social pressure"?
Its called deductive reasoning. Social pressure often brings about regulation and force.
This is ignorant nonsense, and over the course of four hundred pages it becomes excruciatingly dreary nonsense.
Fail. Ad Hominem.
Goldberg would have difficulty distinguishing between, say, seat-belt laws and the banning of political parties.
Exaggeration...Hyperbole...and again called Mr.Goldberg stupid.
Yes, the former may well be a manifestation of the "nanny state," but it does have an indisputable social utility--and more importantly it is not exactly comparable to the latter.
Well yes...now we have the appeal to sanity after all of that.
Is Social Security a fascist program?
Yes..its is fascist and socialist and communist, but its a nice and soft form of it...like Goldberg says throughout the book. The New Deal is not about mass genocides.
Goldberg implies as much, partly because Roosevelt felt moved to push for the program owing to pressure from his (admittedly) quasi-fascistic left in the persons of Huey Long and Father Coughlin, and partly because Social Security is, after all, administered by the state.
He doesn't IMPLY it, he comes out and syas it many times.
And once you start implementing public pension systems, well, how far away can the execution of political opponents really be?
And again we have an outright lie. Goldberg is very careful to say that one does not always lead to the other, and in the USA it is unlikely for this to happen at all because our version is softer and nicer and more incremental to avoid many of the big social problems Europe eerienced.
Thanks for reading.
Barbequeueueueueueueue at my place.
,
Sunday, February 24, 2008
zomg people who can't self examine
AHEM! ATTN David Oshinsky your Membership in the Saul Alinsky Club is ready...but here's a point by point refutation (by and large) of your critique of "Liberal Fascism" Anything left out was done so because it was excessive and or so ignorant I chose to ignore it.
"Goldberg is less convincing here because he can’t get a handle on Roosevelt’s admittedly elusive personality. He treats Wilson as a serious thinker, rigidly focused on his goals, but portrays Roosevelt as a classic dilettante, shallow and detached. For Goldberg, even the president’s greatest skill — his ability to communicate with the masses — was negated by his failure to chart a steady course and stick to it. One is left to ponder how the outlines of America’s modern welfare state emerged from such a lazy, superficial mind."
- mistake here is that Goldberg was saying he was shallow in that his ideas were large ideas and even the monetary policy was simplistic/detached from reality. That doesn't negate that he thought about it seriously or was focused rigidly...
Is something missing here? Goldberg races from Wilson to Roosevelt to Kennedy and on to Bill Clinton with barely a glance at what happened in between. The reason is simple: for Goldberg, fascism is strictly a Democratic disease. This allows him to dispose of the politics of the 1920s in a single sentence. “After the Great War,” he writes, “the country slowly regained its sanity.” What Goldberg may not know — or is afraid to tell us — is that the 1920s were anything but sane. This was the decade, after all, that contained the largest state-sponsored social experiment in the nation’s history — Prohibition — and it lasted through three Republican administrations before Franklin Roosevelt ended it in 1933. The 1920s also saw the explosive spread of the Ku Klux Klan in the Republican Midwest, a virtual halt to legal immigration under the repressive National Origins Act and an angry grass-roots backlash against the teaching of evolution in public schools.
ok this will take a while
to point 1) The title of the book answers this and the reviewer is a moron. David did you eve read it? Perhaps you just skimmed.
point 2) Prohibition: passed over a presidential veto; Roosevelt didn't get rid of it on his own, but it was shown to be a failure and the states, congress and Roosevelt got rid of it
point 3) the KKK was largely made up of Democrats and not Republicans. there was no "Republican" mid-west like there is today; Roosevelt's 4 time election proves this, and many of our grandparents are life long democrats despite having little philosophically in common with said party.
The Scopes Monkey Trial...pfff that's just off topic because its got nothing to do with the feds...that's a Godwin. The NOA is just another quota system like the US govt has always had. We have never had "open immigration".
"The Immigration Act of 1924, or Johnson-Reed Act, including the National Origins Act, Asian Exclusion Act, (43 Statutes-at-Large 153) was a United States federal law that limited the number of immigrants who could be admitted from any country to 2% of the number of people from that country who were already living in the United States in 1890, according to the Census of 1890. It excluded immigration to the US of Asians. It superseded the 1921 Emergency Quota Act. The law was aimed at further restricting the Southern and Eastern Europeans who had begun to enter the country in large numbers beginning in the 1890s, as well as East Asians and Asian Indians, who were prohibited from immigrating entirely.
The Act passed with strong congressional support in the wake of intense lobbying. [1] There were only six dissenting votes in the Senate and a handful of opponents in the House, the most vigorous of whom was freshman Brooklyn Representative Emanuel Celler. Over the succeeding four decades, Celler, who served for almost 50 years, made the repeal of the Act into a personal crusade. Some of the law's strongest supporters were influenced by Madison Grant and his 1916 book, The Passing of the Great Race. Grant was a eugenicist and an advocate of the racial hygiene theory.
The act was also strongly supported by Samuel Gompers, well-known union leader and founder of the AFL. Gompers was himself a Jewish immigrant, and uninterested in the accusations by many Jews of the time that the quotas were based purely on anti-Semitism." - Wiki
The NOA as you can see was broadly supported by those who favored Eugeniucs and believed that certain peoples were of a lesser race. The eugienics thing was as we now know...stupid, but it had its appeal based some in racism and some in science...bad blend. And its supporters were unions and socialists who had their own businesses.
"I had entertained the slim hope that Goldberg might consider the “fascist” cult of personality surrounding Reagan’s 1984 “Morning in America” hokum (“Prouder, Stronger, Better”). But, alas, such scrutiny is reserved only for the Clinton presidential campaign of 1992, with its “Riefenstahlesque film of a teenage Bill Clinton shaking hands with President Kennedy.” Indeed, even George W. Bush’s spectacularly staged landing on an aircraft carrier in full battle regalia to declare “mission accomplished” in Iraq escapes notice here. It doesn’t take a village for Goldberg to play the fascist card; a single Democrat will do."
Point 1) Fine...very well but then you can say that about any popular candidate/populist message. Doesn't make it untrue. Fascism creeps in everywhere.
Point 2) GWB landing on the carrier was becuase he WAS A PILOT in the Air Guard in Texas. Full Battle Regalia? WTF it was a regulation flight suit...you don't pilot a fighter jet in a suit and tie.
Point 2a) The mission accomplished banner was for the USS Abraham Lincoln which had the longest deployment of a US Carrier ever and it had in-fact completed its mission for Afghanistan and then for Iraq. The banner was not for the Iraq war as a whole as it had been mistakenly portrayed in the media and by politicians/pundits. Good bit of Propaganda tho on their part. The last senstence is just playing a victim and being a pussy. Call the Whaaaambulance. END
- Justin
Barbequeueueueueueueueueued!
"Goldberg is less convincing here because he can’t get a handle on Roosevelt’s admittedly elusive personality. He treats Wilson as a serious thinker, rigidly focused on his goals, but portrays Roosevelt as a classic dilettante, shallow and detached. For Goldberg, even the president’s greatest skill — his ability to communicate with the masses — was negated by his failure to chart a steady course and stick to it. One is left to ponder how the outlines of America’s modern welfare state emerged from such a lazy, superficial mind."
- mistake here is that Goldberg was saying he was shallow in that his ideas were large ideas and even the monetary policy was simplistic/detached from reality. That doesn't negate that he thought about it seriously or was focused rigidly...
Is something missing here? Goldberg races from Wilson to Roosevelt to Kennedy and on to Bill Clinton with barely a glance at what happened in between. The reason is simple: for Goldberg, fascism is strictly a Democratic disease. This allows him to dispose of the politics of the 1920s in a single sentence. “After the Great War,” he writes, “the country slowly regained its sanity.” What Goldberg may not know — or is afraid to tell us — is that the 1920s were anything but sane. This was the decade, after all, that contained the largest state-sponsored social experiment in the nation’s history — Prohibition — and it lasted through three Republican administrations before Franklin Roosevelt ended it in 1933. The 1920s also saw the explosive spread of the Ku Klux Klan in the Republican Midwest, a virtual halt to legal immigration under the repressive National Origins Act and an angry grass-roots backlash against the teaching of evolution in public schools.
ok this will take a while
to point 1) The title of the book answers this and the reviewer is a moron. David did you eve read it? Perhaps you just skimmed.
point 2) Prohibition: passed over a presidential veto; Roosevelt didn't get rid of it on his own, but it was shown to be a failure and the states, congress and Roosevelt got rid of it
point 3) the KKK was largely made up of Democrats and not Republicans. there was no "Republican" mid-west like there is today; Roosevelt's 4 time election proves this, and many of our grandparents are life long democrats despite having little philosophically in common with said party.
The Scopes Monkey Trial...pfff that's just off topic because its got nothing to do with the feds...that's a Godwin. The NOA is just another quota system like the US govt has always had. We have never had "open immigration".
"The Immigration Act of 1924, or Johnson-Reed Act, including the National Origins Act, Asian Exclusion Act, (43 Statutes-at-Large 153) was a United States federal law that limited the number of immigrants who could be admitted from any country to 2% of the number of people from that country who were already living in the United States in 1890, according to the Census of 1890. It excluded immigration to the US of Asians. It superseded the 1921 Emergency Quota Act. The law was aimed at further restricting the Southern and Eastern Europeans who had begun to enter the country in large numbers beginning in the 1890s, as well as East Asians and Asian Indians, who were prohibited from immigrating entirely.
The Act passed with strong congressional support in the wake of intense lobbying. [1] There were only six dissenting votes in the Senate and a handful of opponents in the House, the most vigorous of whom was freshman Brooklyn Representative Emanuel Celler. Over the succeeding four decades, Celler, who served for almost 50 years, made the repeal of the Act into a personal crusade. Some of the law's strongest supporters were influenced by Madison Grant and his 1916 book, The Passing of the Great Race. Grant was a eugenicist and an advocate of the racial hygiene theory.
The act was also strongly supported by Samuel Gompers, well-known union leader and founder of the AFL. Gompers was himself a Jewish immigrant, and uninterested in the accusations by many Jews of the time that the quotas were based purely on anti-Semitism." - Wiki
The NOA as you can see was broadly supported by those who favored Eugeniucs and believed that certain peoples were of a lesser race. The eugienics thing was as we now know...stupid, but it had its appeal based some in racism and some in science...bad blend. And its supporters were unions and socialists who had their own businesses.
"I had entertained the slim hope that Goldberg might consider the “fascist” cult of personality surrounding Reagan’s 1984 “Morning in America” hokum (“Prouder, Stronger, Better”). But, alas, such scrutiny is reserved only for the Clinton presidential campaign of 1992, with its “Riefenstahlesque film of a teenage Bill Clinton shaking hands with President Kennedy.” Indeed, even George W. Bush’s spectacularly staged landing on an aircraft carrier in full battle regalia to declare “mission accomplished” in Iraq escapes notice here. It doesn’t take a village for Goldberg to play the fascist card; a single Democrat will do."
Point 1) Fine...very well but then you can say that about any popular candidate/populist message. Doesn't make it untrue. Fascism creeps in everywhere.
Point 2) GWB landing on the carrier was becuase he WAS A PILOT in the Air Guard in Texas. Full Battle Regalia? WTF it was a regulation flight suit...you don't pilot a fighter jet in a suit and tie.
Point 2a) The mission accomplished banner was for the USS Abraham Lincoln which had the longest deployment of a US Carrier ever and it had in-fact completed its mission for Afghanistan and then for Iraq. The banner was not for the Iraq war as a whole as it had been mistakenly portrayed in the media and by politicians/pundits. Good bit of Propaganda tho on their part. The last senstence is just playing a victim and being a pussy. Call the Whaaaambulance. END
- Justin
Barbequeueueueueueueueueued!
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