Page 9 of 12

Posted: Sat Oct 11, 2008 3:18 am
by Moonbiter
galraen wrote:I thought I'd made it fairly plain that I want to see a third way as an alternative to the Old Tory/New Labour cycle of failure and irresponsibility. As has been pointed out, the seeds of the current crisis were planted in the eighties with deregulation, and in this country that was accompanied by the carpet bagging of our essential utilities.
I'm with you on that, but honestly, the seeds of all trouble in the UK happened with the abysmal and corrupt Labour government of the 70s. It took the UK from being a leading world nation to being the poorest, most decrepit nation in free Europe. Hell, when I first came there in 1978 you couldn't see the difference between London and Krakow. My mom always told me about "swinging London" in the 60s and how that was the epitomy of western culture, so it was a slight letdown when I finally came there. :rolleyes: People in general have selective memory, and in the UK it's been fashionable for the last 25-30 years to waffle on about the evil of Thatcher. Nobody seems to be willing to remember what a dirt-poor, dismal place the UK was in the 70s, even by Eastern Block -standards. Sure, they had Led Zeppelin, football and Monty Python, hooray, while their teeth were falling out and their diet became a global joke. Thatcher, at least during her first term, horsewhipped the nation into shape again. It wasn't nice, but it was what they needed. On a personal note, it seems to me like the UK needs another flogging right now.

Now, to get back to the subject of the thread: What I really find interesting is why McCain/Palin still have voters after all the blunders and the quite frankly atrocious and nonsensical politics they peddle. I don't think Obama is any better, so it's down to the lesser of two evils. What's wrong with education and knowledge over there? Do people feel threatened by it? I lived in the US for four years, and I didn't hang out with stupid people. Hell, no! Even the cross-eyed Cajun swamp rats with no teeth who couldn't read or write who worked for us as road-crew had opinions, thoughts, reflections and a huge display of common sense. So who are the people who votes for a person like Sarah Palin to run their lives? I honestly, hands down, can't think of any other civilized nation on this planet where that could happen. Not one! Even up here on The Reef, where the level of governmental incompetence is reaching epic proportions, such a thing is unthinkable.

Sorry about the rant, but my taxes just skyrocketed and I'm in a bit of a huff this morning... Oh, and the sprog has chicken-pox.... :rolleyes:

Posted: Sat Oct 11, 2008 4:38 am
by galraen
Moonbiter wrote:I'm with you on that, but honestly, the seeds of all trouble in the UK happened with the abysmal and corrupt Labour government of the 70s. It took the UK from being a leading world nation to being the poorest, most decrepit nation in free Europe. Hell, when I first came there in 1978 you couldn't see the difference between London and Krakow. My mom always told me about "swinging London" in the 60s and how that was the epitomy of western culture, so it was a slight letdown when I finally came there. :rolleyes: People in general have selective memory, and in the UK it's been fashionable for the last 25-30 years to waffle on about the evil of Thatcher. Nobody seems to be willing to remember what a dirt-poor, dismal place the UK was in the 70s, even by Eastern Block -standards. Sure, they had Led Zeppelin, football and Monty Python, hooray, while their teeth were falling out and their diet became a global joke. Thatcher, at least during her first term, horsewhipped the nation into shape again. It wasn't nice, but it was what they needed. On a personal note, it seems to me like the UK needs another flogging right now.
Well you're sure right about a selective memory, maybe you shouldn't have believed your mom's rose coloured spectacle view of London on the first place. Things were rough here in the seventies, and for a long time before that, they were even worse in the early seventies in some ways. Things were rough all over Europe post 73 and the tripling of the price of oil, and in fact the UK weathered the storm better than most countries. Things improved in the mid eighties, not because of Thatcher, but because of North Sea oil coming on line, and the general improvement in the world economy as it recovered from the 70's recession.

Frankly you can stick capitalist boom and bust economics were the sun don't shine, the problem is of course that so far us humans haven't come up with a better way, but that doesn't mean we should stop trying, which is, IMO, what people who keep voting for the same old failures are doing. What really is the difference between McCain and Obama, Brown and Cameron? Virtually none, just one bunch of rich guys vying with another bunch of rich guys for the right to rip the rest of us off.

I'd much rather see the US try a different approach with someone like Nader, and the UK go down a different route, but unfortunately it aint gonna happen. It'll carry on being right wing vs right wing, and boom and bust all the way to armageddon.

Take off the rose tinted specs though 'Biter, England Swings was just commercialised hype, London was a seedy rat hole in the sixties, and possibly even worse in the fifties, at least we don't have smog anymore, and you don't have to have multiple inoculations if you fall into the Thames anymore! There are some benefits to having no industry, and being totally dependent on foreign oil!

Posted: Sat Oct 11, 2008 4:54 am
by VonDondu
Tricky wrote:I was not saying at any point that a lower level of education is a shameful thing. Pardon me for saying so, but that's an argument you are having with nobody but yourself.
I'm sorry, but you are reading too much into my statement that there's nothing "shameful" about what Rosalyn Carter and Barbara Bush chose to do with their lives. I was not making an argument; I was merely stating how I felt about the information I had just presented. You had asked us how we felt about their educational backgrounds. I did not make any assumptions about your reactions (and then proceed to argue with them). I just wanted to make it clear that the choices those women made were fine with me, in case anyone happens to think that I'm liberal elitist scum. :)

I probably shouldn't have kidded you about "not knowing what you're talking about", and I'm sorry I did that. But for what it's worth, I made that joke because I don't see how you can call the last few Republican First Ladies (and Cindy McCain) "uneducated" if you are familiar with their backgrounds. Prep school and two years of college (Barbara Bush), Masters degrees (Laura Bush, Cindy McCain), and a Bachelors degree followed by a 20-year career in the same field (Nancy Reagan) seem a bit contrary to the assumption that those ladies are "uneducated". You yourself mentioned Elizabeth Dole (Doctor of Law, Senator), and it's also worth pointing out that Joanne Kemp, the wife of Bob Dole's running mate, has a college degree. Other Republican First Ladies prior to Jimmy Carter's presidency had varying levels of education. Betty Ford attended a well-reputed dance school after high school and became a professional dancer and model, so I suppose you could say she had vocational training. Pat Nixon had a Bachelors degree and teaching certificate in merchandising, which was considered the equivalent of a Masters degree. Mamie Eisenhower had a high-school level education from a private school just like most women of her class and background. If you want to look at any Republican First Ladies before that, you'd have to go back to the 1920s to Herbert Hoover and Calvin Coolidge. I can't remember anything about their wives, and that was sort of a different world than the one we live in now, anyway.
Tricky wrote:Anyway, you want to know how my line of thought went once I noticed that difference in education. I wasn't at any point suggesting it was a solid argument, it may well be a coincidence and all. It's just that there's a specific group of men that can feel quite intimidated by intelligent women. I picture these men as dominant and conservative within the household. Conservative in the sense that they probably weren't raised much differently when they were younger.
Since you brought up the issue about men being intimidated by "intelligent women", I wonder if you are calling those women's intelligence into question. I don't think it's fair to judge a person's intelligence by their educational level, and when you look at examples of "well-educated" people like George W. Bush, I think it's clear that even an MBA from Harvard does not necessarily guarantee the presence of high intelligence and/or intellectual acumen.
Tricky wrote:I don't have much of a sense of what a 'beta family' would be like, where both parents have an academic degree. I wasn't raised in one but I know of people who were. Not many though, so they are probably a bad example. The three I know seem more narcissistic or prone to elitist attitudes than others, but I probably wouldn't even have been friends with them if I wasn't so incredibly charming myself.
Both of my parents have an academic degree, and so do my brother and I. Ever since I was little, I always expected to go to college because I thought that's what "everyone" did and I never had any doubts that I would. I don't think that makes us "special", and my parents would laugh in your face if you called them "elitist". In some respects, they're still a lot like the average American uneducated yokel. I know quite a few of those, and I get along with most of them very well. Perhaps my own charm has something to do with that, but I think it is more accurate to attribute their good will to my own commitment, generosity, and good will.

Tricky wrote:Like I said, not much of a point. Probably moot. But you wanted to know and were accusing me of something that doesn't quite become me.
I hope we got that issue cleared up.

Although I've made the case that most Republican First Ladies in modern times do in fact have a fairly high level of education, there's also something else you can glean from their personal biographies. All of them have stated that one of their greatest desires was to meet a good man, get married, and raise a family. For example, Nancy Reagan was a pretty good actress (the reviewers said that she did very well given the limited material she had to work with, which means that she didn't really have a chance to shine as much as she could have), but she said that her heart was not really in it because she wanted to get married and raise a family. Betty Ford said pretty much the same thing about her dancing and modeling career. Those two women, along with Pat Nixon, Rosalyn Carter, and Barbara Bush are from an earlier generation than Hillary Clinton, Michelle Obama, Sarah Palin, and Cindy McCain. Prior to the 60s and 70s, most women did not try to have both it "both ways" and raise a family and pursue their own career at the same time. A lot of younger women go to work out of necessity these days because it takes two wage-earners to raise a family--times have changed in more ways than one. If their husbands had sufficient income, perhaps many of them would choose not to work. For example, Laura Bush chose to "stay home with the kids" after she got married to the grandson of a Senator, and Joanne Kemp, who married a professional quarterback, does not even have a biography of her own on Wikipedia.

The point I'm trying to make is that educational level is one thing, but a woman's decision about whether or not to pursue a career might actually say more about her. I think in the case of Hillary Clinton, Michelle Obama, Sarah Palin, and Cindy McCain, all of whom have had notable careers of their own even though their husbands (or parents) could have supported them, it says that they are ambitious, modern women who want to raise a family and pursue a career at the same time. That's not easy to do.

Posted: Sat Oct 11, 2008 8:20 am
by Moonbiter
Okay, disregard every question I asked in my previous rant: I now know who McCains voters are. Obama is an [url="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p7R-s-71csY"]"Ayyrab."[/url] Hell, my ulcer tells me I'm not even going there...

Edit: 24 hours later, my blood pressure has gone down, and I've taken my meds. So, My dad is 73 years old, and a gentleman. I actually see a lot of him the video clip above. I have some idea in the back of my head that McCain doesn't have a frikking clue how to respond/reply to these obnoxious people. He, like my dad, was raised in an era where Elvis was censored from the hip-down and men wore hats. No matter the outcome of this election, I feel sorry for him. I truly do. How are you, as a 72 year old man, gonna suck up to these 2008 retards? Now THAT'S a challenge.

Posted: Tue Oct 14, 2008 9:36 am
by galraen
It may be old news on the west side of the pond, but just heard that Palin, on top of being deemed to have abused her powers as governor, is now in trouble over inappropriate use of her Yahoo E-Mail account, and evidently like the abuse accusations, this was known about prior to McCain appointing her.

Frankly, all political issues aside, how anyone could consider voting for a presidential candidate who's displayed such atrocious judgment as McCain has done is baffling.

Posted: Tue Oct 14, 2008 7:43 pm
by Vicsun
At the risk of stepping on various toes, I have to voice a certain disappointment in the 'grumble, grumble they're all the same; lesser-of-the-two-evils' attitude that seems so prevalent. In general, those are the sort of comments I hear from intellectually lazy friends that are outspoken about politics but generally ignorant of the subject matter.
galraen wrote:What really is the difference between McCain and Obama...? Virtually none, just one bunch of rich guys vying with another bunch of rich guys for the right to rip the rest of us off.
Not to single you out, galraen, but this is the newest post in the thread referencing the attitude I mentioned above, so this is the one I'll respond to. The differences between Obama and McCain aren't as radical as, say, the differences between your average left- and right-wing party in Europe, but trivializing them, or claiming they're nonexistent, is wrong.

As far as personal wealth is concerned: according to Money magazine Obama's net worth was $1.3 million in December 2007, which is thoroughly unimpressive (Mitt Romney is worth $500 million). The large bulk of that money was made after he gained national visibility as an advance from Random House for his two books. The advance he received in 2005 was $1.9 million. Being a law professor and son of decidedly middle-class parents with no political ties doesn't exactly scream stinking rich.

I'm not going to go into thorough detail about the differences in the issues as that information is readily available on the candidates' respective websites. Obama's tax plan is the more progressive of the two, while McCain subscribes to Reaganesque supply-side trickle-down economics. Obama's more open to diplomacy with 'hostile' foreign leaders. He favors farm subsidies while McCain doesn't. Obama supports universal healthcare for americans, McCain supports tax credits as a replacement to current corporate subsidies. Et cetera.

Oh, and for the record, neither one of them is evil.

Posted: Tue Oct 14, 2008 10:53 pm
by Claudius
Actually Vicsun part of the ceremony for becoming a candidate was to go to castle skeletor and vow to fight He-Man during their presidency....so sorry to correct you but they are actually both evil. Obama's familiar is a large (senile) wolverine. McCain's familiar is a pregnant wombat.

But yeah I agree to actually vote based on the differences between the candidates rather than your dream candidate.

Posted: Wed Oct 15, 2008 8:16 am
by Vicsun
I'm reminded of Bill Hicks: You know only a handful of people actually run the country, it’s provable... After you’re elected you are ushered into this smoke-filled room with the twelve industrialist capitalist scum-****s that got you elected, a screen comes down and you are shown a film of the Kennedy assassination from an angle you’ve never seen before, looking suspiciously off the grassy knoll. The lights come up and they [say] to the new President, ‘Any questions?’

Funny, but reality is much more mundane

Posted: Wed Oct 15, 2008 12:23 pm
by Lady Dragonfly
@Vicsun
At the risk of stepping on various toes
Since then do you mind the risk?
Funny, but reality is much more mundane
It is, sadly.
The twelve industrialist capitalist scum-****s and the media whores on both sides of the fence - business as usual.
I expect highway robbery regardless of who is moving into the White House.

Posted: Wed Oct 15, 2008 6:51 pm
by Maharlika
Lady Dragonfly wrote:@Vicsun

Since then do you mind the risk?
He does mind, especially to those he admires and respects. Though this is one dude that won't lose sleep over annoying people he doesn't hold not even a modicum of respect. ;)

Anyhoots... looks like Obama is getting to be the next Boy Wonder. I Wonder if he will pull this through and get the key to that building on 1600 Pennsylvania Ave :rolleyes:

I feel for the USians. Many countries almost always have to settle for the lesser evil.

Posted: Wed Oct 15, 2008 7:49 pm
by Klorox
I don't like Socialism. It didn't work in the USSR, and I'm voting against Obama.

Posted: Wed Oct 15, 2008 9:08 pm
by VonDondu
Klorox wrote:I don't like Socialism. It didn't work in the USSR, and I'm voting against Obama.
I don't know whether Obama could bring Socialism to the United States. It's true that he has proposed a national health insurance program (if that's what you call "socialism"), but I have a feeling that something like that will never be enacted into law, since so many people like you don't want the United States to become "socialized". A Democrat doesn't really have a chance.

But look at what has already happened to our country while Bush, a so-called "conservative", has been President. By buying up bad debts and taking equity positions in banks and other financial institutions with money from the U.S. treasury, the Bush administration is essentially nationalizing the means of production. Only a Republican administration could manage to pull that off without causing rioting in the streets.

"Only Nixon could go to China. Only Bush can finally bring the Marxist Revolution home!"

(I'm not sure who made up that last quote, but it wasn't me.)

Posted: Wed Oct 15, 2008 9:15 pm
by dragon wench
Er...
Canada has had a universal healthcare system and a social safety net for years. We are hardly a "socialist" nation. :rolleyes:
Moreover, the USSR was not socialist, certainly not in the way that Marx ever envisioned. It was a totalitarian dictatorship.

Posted: Wed Oct 15, 2008 11:51 pm
by Xandax
Klorox wrote:I don't like Socialism. It didn't work in the USSR, and I'm voting against Obama.
Socialism wasn't what was in USSR however ;)
And on what issues do you think Obama is "bringing" socialism? Health care? Economic policy?
I'm personally a capitalist, and a liberal (in the real meaning of the word, not the twisted US sense) - however even I am pragmatic and have a sense of reality and what works and doesn't work.

Just see how well your country is doing right now because of leadership issues and unregulated issues. I simply can not phantom how people can close their eyes to what goes on in the states right now and say "socialism".
The personal responsibility and capitalistic nature is fine and dandy - in theory - just like communism is a fine theory. However in real life, to work, it expect people to act sensible, with common sense and a measure of fairness. Those traits are something not everybody is sharing, because people usually put themselves and theirs before others. When people are imperfect any system counting on perfection is inheritable flawed.
That is why we for example create laws - laws are socialistic at the core, because they remove personal freedom and responsibility and impose a sort of "for the greater good" idea. Plus your republican president just made a huge socialistic move, by nationalising specific buisnesses.
You already live in a socialistic country.


Heck - the debt got so big in the US they needed to fix the counter recently.
China and Saudi Arabia is what is owning/keeping the wheels running in the USA and you fear "socialism"?

Posted: Thu Oct 16, 2008 12:07 am
by VonDondu
galraen wrote:It may be old news on the west side of the pond, but just heard that Palin, on top of being deemed to have abused her powers as governor, is now in trouble over inappropriate use of her Yahoo E-Mail account...
I don't know whether a conservative, backwater state like Alaska has an open records law that requires the governor and other government officials to use a government-operated email system (which can ensure that all official correspondence is, among other things, preserved for public record and available for public viewing). But the main problems with Palin's use of an aptly-named "Yahoo" account are: 1) she might have intended to be secretive and she could have easily disposed of official records (which doesn't seem to bother the totalitarians in our midst), and 2) personal email accounts on public servers can easily be hacked. The former implies the subversion of democracy, and the latter indicates incompetence. In any case, Palin has refused to provide her email messages to investigators. She is claiming "executive privilege", but her claim is undermined by the fact that she routinely sent copies of all her messages to her husband, who is not a government employee and who was in fact a registered member of the Alaskan Independence Party, which advocates armed uprising against the United States and which has received funding from an enemy country that sponsors terrorism (Iran). Oh, and they also want to eliminate things like executive privilege (according to plank #14 of their official platform). But that's all in a day's work for a Republican.

Here's the funny thing. Sarah Palin's Yahoo account was hacked a few weeks ago by someone who isn't even a hacker. He found her email address and made use of Yahoo's "forgotten password" service. He correctly guessed the answers to a couple of personal questions (things like "in what city were you born" and "what was the name of your high school"--information about Palin that was easy to obtain), changed her password, and logged into her account. He posted a few screenshots of her Inbox and Trash Folder on a public forum, and I think he was burned at the stake for it or stoned to death or something like that. We all know how conservatives feel when someone's personal privacy is invaded.

And now, here is my real point in posting this message. The Onion, which truly is America's finest news source, hacked into Obama's Gmail account and posted a screenshot on their website. Here is the link:

Inside Obama's Emails | The Onion

I think you'll get a big laugh when you see who's been sending messages to Obama. (Please note: The Onion does parodies of the news, and everything they write is intended to be funny. My favorite feature this week is a fake video clip titled Precocious Youngster Sells Cookies To Buy Attack Ad.)

Posted: Thu Oct 16, 2008 6:35 am
by Vicsun
Klorox wrote:I don't like Socialism. It didn't work in the USSR, and I'm voting against Obama.
Jesus.

I was born in a soviet satellite, and, well, communism is less than rosy. My grandfather was brutally beaten and jailed for speaking against the regime. My mother was routinely harassed by school administrators for refusing to recite poems glorifying sovietism. After the regime's collapse, I've witnessed rampant corruption and cronyism in the form of goons with BMWs and baseball bats obtaining control of family-started businesses by waving around handguns and threatening murder, knowing full well they're above the law by virtue of knowing ex-party officials. Now, please explain to me, in casual terms, how providing universal healthcare - oh, hell, pick any policy advocated by the 'left' in the US - will bring changes to the US political landscape that will make it comparable to the USSR or any of its satellite states.

edit: I don't like laissez-faire. It didn't work in Somalia, so I'm voting for Pol Pot's ghost.

Posted: Thu Oct 16, 2008 7:05 am
by VonDondu
Is anyone still interested in reading about the personal history of John McCain? The October 16 issue of Rolling Stone has a very unflattering analysis of McCain's life which expands on some of the things I talked about back on page 2 of this message thread (and more). It doesn't shed any light directly on the reasons why McCain chose Sarah Palin to be his running mate, but it does reveal what McCain's old friends are willing to say about him on the record. Pretty rough stuff.

Make-Believe Maverick : Rolling Stone

Also, hereis a completely irrelevant, gratuitous photo of McCain and Obama.

Posted: Thu Oct 16, 2008 7:14 am
by galraen
Vicsun, when I state that I don't see any difference between the two candidates, I'm talking about meaningful differences not virtually cosmetic ones.

This graph might not be the best definition available, but it sums up things quite well IMO. Apart from the two independents running, and my personal favouriote, Kucinich, they all reside in the same right wing/authoritarian quadrant, and all fairly close to each other. Not as far out as Bush, who isn't as far out towards the top right corner as Thatcher, but not offering any meaningful alternatives IMO. Calling Obama a socialist is the funniest thing I've read in weeks!

When I took the test I wound up in the same part of the graph as Ghandi and Mandela, not too sure what that says about them!:laugh:

Posted: Thu Oct 16, 2008 7:42 am
by VonDondu
galraen wrote:When I took the test I wound up in the same part of the graph as Ghandi and Mandela, not too sure what that says about them!:laugh:
I'm not too sure what it says, either, but that's the quadrant I ended up in today when I took the test (slightly to the right of Dennis Kucinich). I'm very close to dead center most of the time, but my answers vary depending on my mood and things like how fed up I am with Bush or the Federal Reserve Board.

Of course, compared to most Americans, that makes me a damn liberal.

And what's the deal with Libertarians supporting someone like Bob Barr? Are they deluded, or gullible, or just desperate?

Posted: Thu Oct 16, 2008 8:28 am
by Vicsun
galraen wrote:Vicsun, when I state that I don't see any difference between the two candidates, I'm talking about meaningful differences not virtually cosmetic ones.

This graph might not be the best definition available, but it sums up things quite well IMO. Apart from the two independents running, and my personal favouriote, Kucinich, they all reside in the same right wing/authoritarian quadrant, and all fairly close to each other. Not as far out as Bush, who isn't as far out towards the top right corner as Thatcher, but not offering any meaningful alternatives IMO. Calling Obama a socialist is the funniest thing I've read in weeks!

When I took the test I wound up in the same part of the graph as Ghandi and Mandela, not too sure what that says about them!:laugh:
I ended up at [-1,-8] making me twice the libertine Mozart was. I'd personally love to see a candidate run on a platform of legalizing drugs, prostitution and public displays of nudity, but I'm neither holding my breath , nor eschewing politics until enough people agree with my unorthodox views for a candidate that supports them to appear and gain viability on the national stage.

Our main point of conflict seems to be that you call the differences between McCain and Obama cosmetic while I believe they are substantial. To illustrate why I think so, here's a question: were the differences between Gore and Bush cosmetic? Kerry and Bush? Kennedy and Nixon? They would all lie in the same neoliberal-authoritarian quadrant, but would it be right to dismiss all of those elections by painting the candidates with the broad brush of theyreallthesameism?