The Budget Deficit

26 Jul 2004, reply to your question on the Balanced Budget Amendment.

The balanced budget amendment is a bad idea for many reasons.  Number one is the one pointed out that it removes the options that Keynesian economics allow for combating recession.  Most lawmakers and government officials today have a crude understanding of the concept of using government deficit spending to help the country out of a recession.  However, politicians do not see the economy the same way economists do.  Politicians are always trying to violate economic laws to gain a political advantage.  This is not new.

Number two is the discomfort many of us have towards amending the constitution.  Some amendments have been good, but they were essentially designed to change social issues, not economic ones.  If Congress cannot change the laws of economics by legislation, how can they change them by Constitutional Amendment?

Number three is that it has been tried, some of you were asking about something having been done in the past.  I think you were referring to the Gramm-Rudman-Hollins act.  There are a number of hits about this on the Internet, so I will not go into detail here.

Number four is that the amendment will require a supermajority to make law.  It takes a supermajority of both houses and state legislature to amend the Constitution, as it should.  The problem is that it takes the same supermajority to undo an amendment, which is even harder to achieve.  Technically, Congress can't pass a law overthrowing the principal of simple majority rule.  (The filibuster rule is a convention, not a law.)  Some states, such as California and Arizona have passed laws that require a supermajority to undo, and with predictably disastrous results.  I will leave that question to the Constitutional lawyers.

Number five is the political consequences of concentrating power in fewer and fewer hands.  Suppose you have an economic committee of 15 members.  They will decide on all legislation going to Congress. Suppose eight of them secretly decide to vote together.  You now have eight people deciding the economic fate of the country.  Now suppose five of the eight secretly decide to vote as a bloc.  You get the point.  By the way, this is not fantasy, but the normal way democratic governments operate.

The problem, as I see it, is not that we are burdened with a collection of bad laws and bad policies.  There will always be bad laws and bad policies.  This applies to all governments, at all times of history.  By taking potshots at dozens, or hundreds of issues, we scatter our resources and dissipate our strength.  We need to make this a one-issue campaign.  We need to focus on the one great challenge facing the lower and middle-class in America today, i.e. the class war.

Before you start thinking about Communism and the class struggle, I’d like to ask a few questions.

First, name three economists.  Is Karl Marx on that list?  Chances are he is the only economist most Americans could name, even though they probably wouldn’t think of Marx as an economist unless they were given a hint.  (To be fair, many Americans might name Alan Greenspan, but he is known primarily for being a lightning rod, and besides, nobody can understand what he says, anyway!)

Most economists wrote about the struggle between the workers and the owners of the means of production. Capitalist economists naturally assumed there would always be conflict between the working class and the owners.  But Marx made that the focal point of his life’s work.  Although a prolific writer, his one book, Capital: A Critical Analysis of Capitalist Production, caused a paradigm shift in Human thought.  It brought about a fundamental change in the way the ordinary person looked at himself and the Human Race.

Karl Marx has had more influence on our generation, and on human beings alive in the past century, than any other man in history.  He teachings go alongside with those of Jesus, Copernicus, Darwin, Freud. Einstein, in changing the way we perceive ourselves as living creatures.

Think of the Cold war, and the emotional grip it has had on all humanity.  Think of the economic, political, military, social, and diplomatic consequences of the Second World War and the Cold War.  Think of the resources used by all sides of WWII and the Cold War, and how else they could have been used.  Think of the hatreds and fears that so many lived with, and millions died for, because of the wars.

Marx said that the inevitable abuses by the capitalists would bring about a class war, with the workers revolting against the capitalists, taking over ownership of the means of production, and creating a classless society.  He said this would happen because of the internal contradictions of capitalism.

The Communist takeovers of countries rarely followed his scenario, however.  Most of the communist revolutions happened in agrarian societies, by the peasants against the landlords.  But the real exceptions were the highly mechanized leaders of the industrial revolution.  By Marx’s predictions they should have been the first to fall.  Instead they prevailed.  Had these industrialized nations continued on their path of concentrating all power and wealth in the hand of a tiny minority, the merciless exploitation of the working class, and the political powerlessness of the middle class, we might indeed have seen communist revolutions following the predictions of Marx.

The Fascists also promised to bring about the end of class warfare, by combining political power and business ownership into the ruling class, they would effectively declare that the ruling class had won the struggle. 

But the battle between the classes did not escalate into the economic Armageddon predicted by Marx.  Even the staunchest supporters of laissez-faire capitalism realized that the role of the government must include more than simply preventing monopolies and enforcing business contracts.  It must also help smooth out fluctuations in the business cycle by controlling taxes, deficit spending, and money supply.  This philosophy was convincingly demonstrated by the worldwide depression that occurred between WWI and WWII.  No matter what the political system, ideology, religion, all suffered the consequences.  (Except the very rich and the very powerful, of course.)  The only brief period that the plutocracy received a body blow was at the turn of the century, when Teddy Roosevelt challenged the monopoly trusts, and Woodrow Wilson pushed through progressive reforms.   

The options of communism and fascism were ruled out as solutions to the class struggle by most Americans except the most ideologically hide-bound.  In two years, 1938-39, two men, Josef Stalin and Adolf Hitler convinced most of the world that communism and fascism were hideous evils.  It is interesting to note that during the violent labor unrest of the 30’s, we saw the birth of the public relations industry, and businesses lined up to rehabilitate their tarnished image with the public.  They had no intentions of reforming, mind you; they only wanted the population to think they had reformed. 

During the 1930’s, the population of the US had decided, upon seeing the abuses that capitalists would commit if not held in check, allowed much government regulation of business, and much freedom to labor unions.  This trend started to reverse itself as early as 1947.  Congress fought for laws liberalizing business and restricting the power of labor unions.  The class war had been re-engaged in earnest.  In the 50’s we saw corporate reputations raised to giddy heights, while labor unions became identified with mobsters.  Question.  If labor leaders were on the take, (and they were) then who was paying them off?    Corruption requires two or more parties. 

The ideal situation was for governments to indoctrinate and regiment the population so they make good employees.  Also to make the population pay for this by taxing themselves.  Big business would be protected and assisted in acquiring new resources by drafting armies of citizens and paying for them with tax money.  Naturally, the upper classes would not carry their fair burden of combat or taxes.  They would give the orders, however, since they knew best how to give them.

This class war suffered a minor stumble during the Vietnam War, when many poor and middle-class Americans refused to co-operate and essentially mutinied against the ruling class.  The draft lottery, which took away the advantages enjoyed by the wealthy, brought about the speedy end of the war. The draft was ended, and business went back to usual.  Now, the people would have to pay for a professional army, and taxes had to go up.  But not taxes for the rich.  During the Reagan years we saw huge gains by the rich and powerful.  The Clinton years brought even more concentration of wealth into fewer hands, and a very real loss of income to the lower and middle-classes.  Bush carried this to grotesque extremes.  And now, President Bush, like Warren Buffet, wants to declare, “Our Class Won.”

            Make no mistake, the crises and conflicts in Medicare, Medicaid, Social Security, immigration, taxation, bank and market regulation, racial discrimination, sexual discrimination, union voting, are all battles in the class war.  They all use emotion to drive them, and they all result in making the working class pay more and more of the costs of government while asking the wealthy to pay less of the cost and receive more of the benefits. 

I am not he only person that believes we are in a major battle in the class war.   Ralph Nader agrees.  Mario Cuomo agrees.  Michael Moore agrees, Howard Dean and Al Gore agree.  I don’t think John Kerry sees it, though.  He made his fortune, and his wife is even richer.  They think this is a battle over the invasion of Iraq, or who gets to marry whom, or who  gets to decide if a woman can have an abortion. 

Do you remember one of “Dubya’s” campaign planks, that of “allowing” us to invest in mutual funds instead of Social Security?  You notice how quickly that went away.  Wall Street investors do not need Social Security:  They have provided themselves with a comfortable retirement plan, and they intend to divert the money coming into the Social Security fund to Wall Street as soon as they win the next election.  They have already declared union pension funds and savings deposits to be fair game.  During Reagan’s term we saw the rich steal trillions from both.  Some thieves that went to jail in a great fanfare of righteous indignation were soon released quietly, on technicalities, and then given full Presidential pardons.

Like the poet Dylan (Bob) said,  “Steal a little and they throw you in jail. Steal a lot and they make you a king.”


July, 2004

The Wiz

Barack Obama, April 6, 2008 Private fundraiser at the Getty Mansion, San Francisco.

Speaking about unemployment in Pennsylvania.

"They get bitter, they cling to guns or religion or antipathy to people who aren't like them or anti-immigrant sentiment or anti-trade sentiment as a way to explain their frustrations."

This was said before a houseful of San Francisco millionaires, who understood what he meant.

His comment was the type a sociology professor might make to his students.

Obama was raked over the coals for this comment by both the right and the left, as an example of how out of touch he is with average Americans.

Hard times do in fact spur people to cling more fiercely to their faith, and become more nationalistic, militaristic, and more xenophobic.  The people in the room all understood that.  If Obama had phrased it that way, in a more academic language, he probably would have gotten away with it.

But Obama committed the unforgivable sin.  He let the people peek behind the curtain, and catch a glimpse of the Wizard of Oz with his hands on the levers.

People don’t want to know that they are pawns.  They want to think that they control their destiny.  They resent being shown the truth of how easily they are manipulated by those in power.  They resent being analyzed by the elite.

Any hint of this manipulation arouses their most reptilian fears.

Those who would rule have known this for millennia.  They don’t let on that they are exploiting the fears of the masses.  Quite the contrary, they claim they are protecting them from all the dangers that they and their ilk are only too willing to visit upon them.  

Hermann Goering to Gustav Gilbert, 18 April 1946 in Goering’s cell at Nuremberg Germany

“Why, of course, the people don’t want war.  Why would some poor slob on a farm want to risk his life in a war when the best he can get out of it is to come back to his farm in one piece?  Naturally the common people don't want war; neither in Russia, nor in England, nor in America, nor in Germany. That is understood. But after all, it is the leaders of the country who determine policy, and it is always a simple matter to drag the people along, whether it is a democracy, or a fascist dictatorship, or a parliament, or a communist dictatorship.”

Gilbert: “In a democracy the people have some say in the matter through their elected representatives, and in the United States only Congress can declare wars.”

Goering: “Oh, that is all well and good, but, voice or no voice, the people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is to tell them they are being attacked, and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger. It works the same in any country.”

We intellectuals (real and pseudo) all know this is how the world works, but the poor slob on the farm doesn’t.  After all, we all sat through Soc 101, and farmboy didn’t.  He thinks if he obeys the law, and works hard, tomorrow will be better than yesterday. Woe betide the person that argues with him.

Realpolitik or Machiavellian intrigue?

I think my favorite line from Primary Colors (a seriously underrated movie), is when campaign Manager Henry Burton questions candidate Jack Stanton’s hypocrisy. The reply.  “You can’t help anybody if you don’t get elected."

Part of Obama’s problem is that the dangers the Democrats warn us about are less immediate and tangible than the terrors that the Republicans have made into a political catechism.

Bush talked of the yellowcake that Saddam Hussein sought.  (A lie, but it worked nonetheless).

Condoleeza Rice warned of a smoking gun in the shape of a mushroom cloud.

Democrats warn of eroding civil liberties, foreclosures, cost of medical care, loss of world prestige, global warming, environmental catastrophe, etc.

Now, the latter may be more imminent, and more certain if the Republicans hold onto power, but the former, (nuked US cities) is so horrifying that it trumps the weak sister arguments of the Democrats.  If Republicans convince voters that President Obama's warnings about the dire consequences of Neocon policies are the results of simplistic elitist thinking, the abuses of the Bush administration will return with a vengeance.

August 21, 2008

Reply to an RN

         Thank you for your confidence.  I hope I can live up to it.  Before I reply I want to share with you something my brother Jack wrote a while back.

Other than being able to read a tele-prompter very well, what has Obama DONE?  Basically, he ran unopposed for his Senate seat (Jack Ryan scandal), and has done nothing in the Senate except run for president. 

See his hilarious attempt to speak off the cuff and try to explain why paying up front for wellness was better than paying to cure someone after they got sick.  At least I THINK that's what he was trying to say.  Also note that it is the liberals that in most cases have passed laws barring insurance payments for preventive medicine.  (See New York)

OK.  Jack is obviously referring to the same Bristol, Va. tape.  I mention this because I don’t think Jack, or millions of others that despise Sen. Obama, normally follow his speeches.  They get propaganda pieces like this one in their e-mails, and this information becomes incorporated into their persona.  (More on that later.)
          http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=48LS-Z3Wdhs

         Read his attached: note that that it is the liberals that in most cases have passed laws barring insurance payments for preventive medicine.

         He provides no documentation for this statement other than a cryptic See New York.

        

         As a health care professional, are you aware of any laws barring insurance companies from paying for preventive medicine? I know this is true for Medicare (which is reimbursed by the government), but it does not forbid HMO’s and other insurers from authorizing screening if they want to.  My insurance pays for a full physical, two dental cleanings with exams, and one eye test per year.  My primary care physician can request additional tests based on risk factors for a person my age.

         I point this out to illustrate how conservatives hold on to so much false information.

Semantic memory refers to the memory of meanings, understandings, and other concept-based knowledge unrelated to specific experiences. The conscious recollection of factual information and general knowledge about the world,[1] generally thought to be independent of context and personal relevance.

The illusion-of-truth effect states that a person is more likely to believe a familiar statement than an unfamiliar one. In a 1977 experiment participants were asked to read 60 plausible statements every two weeks and to rate them based on their validity. A few of those statements (some of them true, others false) were presented more than once in different sessions. Results showed that participants were more likely to rate as true statements they had previously heard (even if they didn't consciously remember having heard them), regardless of the actual validity of the statement.

As the illusion-of-truth effect occurs even without explicit knowledge, it is a direct result of implicit memory. Some participants rated previously heard sentences as true even when they were previously told that they were false.[4] The illusion-of-truth effect shows in some ways the potential dangers of implicit memory as it can lead to unconscious decisions about a statement's veracity.

Implicit memory is a type of memory in which previous experiences aid in the performance of a task without conscious awareness of these previous experiences. It is debated whether implicit attitudes (that is, attitudes people have without being consciously aware of them) belong under the category of implicit memory or if they are a related but different phenomenon. In some ways, implicit attitudes resemble procedural memory as they rely on an implicit, unconscious piece of knowledge that was previously learned.[7]

        

Experiments on the hippocampus reveal that if a person receives information that is questionable, they may not fully accept it at the time.  However, with each subsequent exposure, the skepticism disappears, and the memory becomes as real as it were recently experienced.

         To be sure, everybody does this, but this is why so many conservatives are incapable of accepting facts that are staring them in the face.  Many believe that “cutting taxes increases revenues”, and that the fix for unemployment is to make the tax cuts permanent, and the cure for the housing mess is less regulation of banks and mortgage brokers!  (McCain actually said both these things recently!)  Conservatives keep shouting that US healthcare is the finest system in the world, and that all the other systems are miserable failures.

        

         Now to the e-mail.  First, let’s call a duck a duck.  This email is not an information piece.  It is a propaganda tract to discourage voters from voting for a Democrat.  It is written by Republicans to sway independents and undecided voters.  My cousin Bill and my brother Jack would never, under any circumstances, vote for Barack Obama, but they send this type of material out claiming it is logical proof of why they hold their opinions.

         The video clip shows Barack Obama losing his train of thought on one occasion, after he admits not having much sleep in the last 24 hours.  This is after 18 months on the campaign trail!

         This email attempts to prove that Barack Obama cannot speak a coherent sentence without a teleprompter.  It makes a broad sweeping statement about a man’s abilities, and backs it up with a carefully selected 1 minute 13 seconds of videotape.

         It does not show the thousands of instances when he answers impromptu questions eloquently.

         It does not mention that the audience loved his speech, and barely noticed the clumsy handling of the example of preventive medicine.

         The conclusion is that Obama is not qualified to be President because he can’t speak unless he is reading a script.

         In my opinion, it proves none of the above.  The only thing it proves is that even Barack Obama can lose his train of thought during a speech, something that happens to all public speakers, then, take a minute to recover.

         As you mention in your letter, the implication is that he is as bad as George W. Bush.  This is 1:13 min.  Bush has hours and hours of nonsense on tape. There is no logical connection between this and the malapropisms of George Bush. This point is without merit.

         As to explaining why he has turned down debates with John McCain, it does not address that issue at all, it only seems to.

         You mention that it brings back your memories of past debates.  I don’t know what those memories were, but let me say this.

         There were no debates.  A debate is “a formal discussion on a particular topic in a public meeting or legislative assembly, in which opposing arguments are put forward.”  The candidates were pilloried in front of a bunch of no-nothing, primping fools that were out to practice gotcha journalism to make themselves look smart at the expense of people that were their intellectual and moral superiors.  I give this as an example:        

Note:  orange and blue are my comments.  Black and red are the questions posed by Brian Williams, NBC News anchor, at the Democratic debate April 2007.  I have selected these questions.

These are real questions asked of Democratic candidates at the debate:

Senator Clinton, your party’s leader in the United States Senate, Harry Reid, recently said the war in Iraq is lost.  A letter to today’s USA Today calls his comments “treasonous” and says if General Patton were alive today, Patton would “wipe his boots” with Senator Reid.

Do you agree with the position of your leader in the Senate?

Gee, Hillary, are you and Harry both traitors, or is just Harry?

MODERATOR:  Senator Obama, you have called this war in Iraq, quote, “dumb,” close quote.  How do you square that position with those who have sacrificed so much?  And why have you voted for appropriations for it in the past? Senator Obama, you go first. 

Obama called the war Dumb before the invasion, but I guess it just proves he doesn’t care about the troops over there. And wow, is he ever the flip-flopper!

You’ve promised in your campaign a new kind of politics, but just this week the Chicago Sun-Times reported on questionable ties you have with a donor who was charged last year for demanding kickbacks on Illinois business deals.

Aren’t you practicing the very same kind of politics that many of the others on this stage have engaged in?

There was no wrongdoing, and the moderator, the nightly anchor for NBC news, knows this perfectly well.

And, incidentally, all you other Democrats are just as crooked as that gangster pal of Obama.

Senator Clinton, recent national polls indicate the majority of the general public has an unfavorable view of you, right now, at this point in time. 

Not true, and Williams knows it.

Why do you think Republicans are looking forward to running against you with so much zeal?

Are they?  And how do you know they are?

MODERATOR:  Our most recent NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll indicated a majority of Americans approved of last week’s Supreme Court decision to make so-called partial birth or late-term abortions illegal. 

“Partial birth abortion” is neither a legal nor a medical term.  It is an inflammatory term guaranteed to evoke a negative response.  This is a classic example of “push polling”.

Late term abortions are not “partial birth abortions”.

According to a Wall Street Journal/NBC News poll, 53% of U.S. residents support the Supreme Court's ruling to uphold the partial-birth abortion ban. The poll also found that 55% of respondents think abortion decisions should be "left up to the woman and her doctor"

Most of the people on this stage put out statements and criticized the ruling.  A lot of American families find this just a hideous topic for a discussion.

Do American families discuss this at all?  Or is it only you baby murdering Democrats that enjoy speaking out about this “hideous topic”?

Is this case, do you think, of the Supreme Court and the public with opinions in one place, and yet a lot of elected officials in another?

The majority of Americans support a woman’s right to abortion, 65% believe the decision should be between a woman and her doctor.

MODERATOR:  Time is up, Senator.

Senator Biden, from the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, what three nations, other than Iraq, represent, to you, the biggest threat to the United States?

Gee, I thought we were allies with the Iraqi government.  Our leaders go to Baghdad, and their leaders come to the White House.

MODERATOR:  Governor, thank you. 

We are all out of time. 

Senator Clinton, a friend of yours from back home, said this week:  Quote, “the Democrats do not understand the full nature and scope of the terrorist war against us.” 

Another quote:  “America will be safer with a Republican president.” 

How do you think, Senator, that it happened that that notion of Republicans as protectors in a post 9/11 world has taken on so?

Rasmussen poll:  49% of Americans think Democrats are better on national security than the Republicans  (42%.)

It happens because lying hacks like you say it on national TV  --  DS

I can assure you that the Republicans did not get any leading and loaded and false questions at their debate.  They might as well have been on “Larry King Live” - DS

As you can see, the last thing reporters get to are items of substance.  (They eventually did.)

Clearly, it would be suicide for a candidate to call our so-called press what they really are, a gaggle of clowns and buffoons.  That’s why Obama won’t “debate”, and why he can’t give the real reason.  (By the way, Obama did quite well in this TV appearance.)

      

       I have noticed that the “news” shows are interviewing stand-up comics for their take on events and people in the news.  The “real” news shows are looking more and more like The Daily Show and the Colbert Report.  And get this; these comedy shows actually get more facts across to the public than the “real” news shows.

       So, no, this snippet of tape does not prove that Barack Obama is dumber than George Bush, or that he is incapable of forming a coherent sentence unless he is reading from a teleprompter, or that he is afraid of facing John McCain in a fair debate.

       So why do Republicans stick to the same script to the bitter end.  Because it works.  It put a moron in the White House twice!

         This email follows the script started by the Republicans back in 1989. This is the script that conservatives are incapable of recognizing as a propaganda ploy, no matter how many times they are shown it, or how the evidence is presented to them.  "There are none so blind as those who will not see".  It goes like this:

1.   Big government can’t fix anything.  Big government is the problem, not the solution.

2.  All Democrats are elitists, and have only contempt for people not like them.
(Credit to Bob Somerby)

I remember the old saying; “You’re going to learn this if I have to beat it into your head!”  Well, the right wing has been beating these lies into our heads for decades.

To be sure it is not just the Republican propaganda hacks that regurgitate this script.  The media has been piling on just as vigorously, and many of the script followers purport to be liberals

From Neal Gabler: And it is the liberal politicians who continue to pay the price for the liberal journalists' self-promotion cum self-preservation. Beating up on well-educated, well-spoken liberals is probably the surest means of proving one's Everyman credentials and protecting one's personal brand without also, by the way, losing one's Beltway bona fides. Going on about faith and religion is another.
http://articles.latimes.com/2008/jun/29/opinion/op-gabler29

Paul Krugman had this to say a few days ago. (8/07):

What I mean, instead, is that know-nothingism — the insistence that there are simple, brute-force, instant-gratification answers to every problem, and that there’s something effeminate and weak about anyone who suggests otherwise — has become the core of Republican policy and political strategy. The party’s de facto slogan has become: “Real men don’t think things through.”

www.nytimes.com/2008/08/08/opinion/08krugman.html?th&emc=th

       I hope this answers your question.  Feel free to share this with anyone else.  (Except Karl Rove.)

      

       August 2007

Reply to a Pseudolibertarian

Kind of like when Rush told all you dittoheads to support Hillary against Obama. Too bad you were too dumb to understand what he was trying to do.

And what WAS Rush trying to do? Please 'splain it to my Lucy, as I'm too dumb to get it. Even YOU have to admit Obama is a much worse President than Hillary ever could be.

Reply to a conservative:

I might as well respond to this, too, before you get too antsy.

"Please 'splain it to my Lucy, as I'm too dumb to get it."

I know that, Jack.

Rush wanted to make sure Hillary Clinton got the Democratic nod because he believed she couldn't win the general election. This primary switching, called primary raiding, has been common in local elections ever since states started having closed primaries. I don't think anyone but Rush ever plotted it for a national election, the numbers are way to big for it to be practical. Of course, Rush is not the sharpest knife in the drawer, nor are his dittoheads.

He is smart enough to avoid spelling it out in these terms because he knows it is unethical. Of course, Rush is not constrained by any ethical considerations himself, but he has caught his tit in a wringer enough times to realize that there are people out there that are. Sociopaths take advantage of this "quirk" of human nature.

Nonetheless, this is typical of the attitude of the Nixon, Reagan, Bush, Cheney, and Rove Republicans. Win the election by any means possible whether they are legal, illegal, ethical, unethical, by hook or by crook; it doesn't matter if the methods are undemocratic and violate the will of the people, as long as Republicans keep in power.

"Last minute party switching to impact a primary election is another problem that has been dealt with in the courts. In a 1973 precedent-setting case, Rosario v. Rockefeller, the Supreme Court ruled that states could set lengthy time restrictions related to party affiliation to prevent last minute party switching." www.infoplease.com/cig/supreme-court/switching-parties.html

Now, I wouldn't go so far as to say that Obama is much worse than Hillary ever could be, as you did. I will say that Sen. Clinton was much better prepared for the job, and would have hit the ground running. She had been in the White House, and saw how things really worked, and had a lot of programs already lined up. She had a more worldly and sophisticated view of foreign relations, and of how to vet staffers. I've never denied that.

You have erroneously accused me of being an Obama disciple for quite some time, despite being unable to provide a single shed of evidence to back up that statement. Of course, evidence to back up your screeds are as rare as moon metal. I have written very little in support of Barack Obama to anyone.  You yourself have whined endlessly that I won't come out and say what I like about Barack Obama. Then, you accuse me of being a knee-jerk Obamaphile. You seem to be quite comfortable with this doublethink. If you don't believe that, produce your evidence now. And don't give me that phony line that your computer doesn't have enough memory. Pry a gold bar out of your cold fingers and buy some decent tools.

Economists realize that employment takes about four years (or more) to recover after a major recession. And that's when the factories are sitting idle, waiting for demand to pick up, which is not the situation now. Our corporations have moved their factories to cheaper labor markets and fired the American employees, and they won't be moving back and rehiring. I don’t know if Obama knew that when he was campaigning, but I did. He has surely been told that by now. Many Republican politicians and conservative pundits also are aware of this, but they nonetheless point out how Obama "lied" about job recovery. They are the liars now, (as they were then.)

The right savaged the Clintons for presenting a complete healthcare proposal to Congress instead of letting Congress write its own. The Clinton plan was not complete, and was delayed for three years while Robert Rubin tried to pay off the huge deficit left by Ronald Reagan.  (Which coincidentally, vastly enriched Rubin's old Wall Street pals). Meanwhile, Congress had not completed a plan in 60 years of attempts. So what happens to Obama? He is savaged for not having a comprehensive healthcare plan in hand on Jan. 20, 2009.

I knew Hillary Clinton had much of her plan already; she talked about it during the campaign. I also knew Obama's people didn't have nearly as much, he didn't talk about it, but so what? The results would have been the same either way. The Republicans would have demanded hundreds of amendments, then voted against it to a man (and woman) anyway, which is precisely what happened. I knew this because it has been happening this way for 60 years. Progressive Democrats have known this all along, and knew the majority vote was crucial. Just as progressive Democrats know true reform will fail without a public option. Even your favorite source, the CBO says the current bill will not raise costs in the future any more than doing nothing, but Republicans still insist it will.

Why do Republican politicians hate the American people so much that they want to saddle them with outrageously overpriced medical procedures and drugs? Actually, the answer is quite simple. It is because politicians, Republicans and Democrats alike, openly accept bribes from the insurance and drug company lobbies, and claim it is their First Amendment right to do so. And the Gods roar with laughter!

Obama's war? LOL!

On Rumsfeld, 12/18/02:

KING: What’s the current situation in Afghanistan?

RUMSFELD: It is encouraging. They have elected a government through the Loya Jirga process. The Taliban are gone. The al Qaeda are gone.

On May 2, 2003 Bush claimed major combat operations in Irag were finished.

President Bush echoed Rumsfeld’s comments in Sept. 2004, saying the “Taliban no longer is in existence.”

So why are we still there? Bush, Cheney, et al., walked away leaving the American people and the US Army holding the bag. Who are the liars here? Obama will go down in history as a typical campaign promise breaker. Karl Rove and Dick Cheney will be remembered as some of history's greatest liars, and their supporters as some of histories greatest fools and charlatans.

Of course, none of this is Bush's fault. He didn't make any mistakes. He just had an eight-year run of bad luck! His good luck in life is that his daddy's rich.

When Obama makes a speech of high ideals and hopes, he is slammed by the right for being an empty teleprompter reader, able only to dish out platitudes of no substance. Then, when he presents substantive facts and proposals in measured tones, he is excoriated by the right-wing claquers for not being a great orator like Winston Churchill or Abraham Lincoln.

And you dare call me an Obama apologist? You who have excused every calamity visited upon us by the Bush Administration. You who claims that what Bush did is no longer relevant or important because he is no longer President? Tell that to the families of the dead and maimed American soldiers and the dead and maimed Iraqis.

President Obama and we will have to clean up the Republican messes, just like Roosevelt and Clinton did before. And if Obama doesn't succeed in one year, it proves he is a liar? How pathetic you people are: Dittoheads, praying that all the administration's programs will fail so we can be taken over by the robber barons again.

You claim you are terrified of Obama because he is Bush III. Why would you be afraid of that? You loved every minute of the Bush Administration. To this day you cannot bring yourself to criticize any part of the Bush Presidency. You are one of the biggest Bush apologists alive.

My goal has always been to kick the Neo-cons out of power because their goal is to return this nation to the so-called "Golden Era", where a handful of immensely wealthy individuals control all wealth, and all branches of government, including mayors, governors, Senators, and Congressmen, police commissioners, judges, D.A.s, the lot. I was not a Bush hater, as you repeatedly accused me of being. I have consistently maintained the position that George W. Bush is a witless pawn of the Neo-cons. I was against all the Neo-cons that had hijacked the Republican Party, whether they were criminal masterminds or simply wretched toadies.

Why do you think the real movers and shakers didn't run for the top office themselves, but instead put up buffoons like Nixon, Reagan, Bush and Palin? (Even McCain was a know-nothing playboy, much like the hapless George Custer. Both of them should have stayed in Washington, D.C. haunting the ballrooms, instead of going out west to seek fame and fortune, then screwing things up for everyone else).

They stayed in the background because they knew that voters would instinctively reject creepy cold fish like Rove and Cheney.

Why didn't the Neo-cons support intelligent conservative leaders?

Because they didn't trust honest conservatives to carry out their plans. They felt they could control puppets whose ability to think critically had been negated by blind adherence to an ideology. Puppets that would follow "suggestions" of their advisors. Suggestions like breaking into the Democratic National Headquarters and then denying it. Suggestions like arming guerillas in direct violation of federal law. Suggestions like lying to the world about WMD and Iraqi-Al Qaida alliances. Suggestions like Obama will set up "death panels" to cull the lame and elderly from our ranks.

Only the rump of the Republican Party, which is made up mostly of Neo-cons and other extremists, want to run Sarah Palin. Not because she can win, (though they hope she can) but because they know she is a clueless, easily manipulated moron like George W. Bush, and because she is good at whipping up more fear into people that are already miserable and afraid.

Of course I knew Obama had to go through a learning curve because he responds to the people, and to changing conditions around him. He listens to other people, something the Neo-cons never do.

Bush, Rove, Cheney, Nixon, Reagan, all felt free to violate federal law and never varied from their paths, even when faced with the horrific consequences of their actions, because they considered themselves to be Masters of the Universe, and above mere mortals. How did you put it?

"Now, I'm jumping into my $77,000 car and making a completely unnecessary trip into town so I can waste gas, pollute the environment, and piss off some more liberals, while I sneer at the peasants I pass along the way."

"I call them "peasants", and I don't just drive around them, I roar at full throttle so they can eat my dust and breathe my exhaust fumes."

Oh! Of course! It's satire!

You know that old saw, "Full many a truth is oft told in jest!"

December 8, 2009


Addendum:

In her book, “The Sociopath Next Door,” psychologist and author Martha Stout describes in the course of more than two hundred pages the characteristics and dangers of sociopaths. She writes on page 9:

“About one in twenty-five individuals are sociopathic, meaning, essentially, that they do not have a conscience. It is not that this group fails to grasp the difference between good and bad; it is that the distinction fails to limit their behavior. The intellectual difference between right and wrong does not bring on the emotional sirens and flashing blue lights, or the fear of God, that it does for the rest of us. Without the slightest blip of guilt or remorse, one in twenty-five people can do anything at all.”

Ms. Stout is concerned about how to classify sociopaths. On page page 13 she writes:

“Singular in its ability to unnerve even seasoned professionals, the concept of sociopathy comes perilously close to our notions of the soul, of evil versus good, and this association makes the topic difficult to think about clearly. And the unavoidable them-versus-us nature of the problem raises scientific, moral, and political issues that boggle the mind. How does one scientifically study a phenomenon that appears to be, in part, a moral one? Who should receive our professional help and support, the “patients” or the people who must endure them? Since psychological research is generating ways to “diagnose” sociopathy, whom should we test? Should anyone be tested for such a thing in a free society? And if someone has been clearly identified as a sociopath, what, if anything, can society do with that information? No other diagnosis raises such politically and professionally incorrect questions, and sociopathy, with its known relationship to behaviors ranging from spouse battering and rape to serial murder and warmongering, is in some sense the last and most frightening psychological frontier.”