Many people are worried about the condition of America.
They need to stop worrying for all the wrong reasons.
Everything will be fine.
In fact, everything will be better than fine. In 6 months, the idea that America was experiencing tough times will be a long forgotten memory. Things will be so good that people will have to take their overload of peace and prosperity and give it away because they do not have enough room for all of it.
I am not being sarcastic. This will happen. How do I know? Because the media will tell us.
The truth does not matter. Perception is reality.
The truth was that by 1992, the recession had ended, and the economy was rebounding.
The media reported that Bill Clinton turned the economy around.
The economy did improve while Bill Clinton was President, but not because of anything he did. Had the election of 1992 been 3 months later, President George Herbert Walker Bush may have pulled out a squeaker. Had the election been 6 months later, President George HW Bush would have won a landslide.
The media gave Clinton credit for balancing the budget.
The truth is that Newt Gingrich and the Republican Congress dragged Bill Clinton kicking and screaming to a balanced budget. Democrats held up the Balanced Budget Amendment, and democrats took the Line Item Veto to the Supreme Court and killed it. Had republicans in 2006 acted like they did in 1994, they would still be in power today.
The truth is that the economy was slowing in 2000 while Bill Clinton was still in power. The Nasdaq had been crashing since March of 2000, long before the 2000 election took place. The Dow began crashing in late 2000. Bill Clinton did nothing during his final 2 1/2 months, preferring to let his successor deal with the problems.
The truth is that the economy under George W. Bush was fabulous from 2002 to 2007.
The media reported that the 8 years of President George W. Bush were the worst since the depression.
This is a lie. The media perpetuated bad news until everything collapsed, and then claimed that things were always bad.
Did the media cause the financial crisis? Not completely. Did they talk down the economy during the entire Bush Presidency until it finally became a self fulfilling negative prophecy? Absolutely.
The reason for this is because the media, like most people on the left, despise conservatives and republicans more than they love their country. After all, they already have their multi-million dollar homes. Why would they care if ordinary people suffer? If it bleeds, it leads.
Now Barack Obama is President. He is a media creation. They love him. In fact, they worship him.
While this may be completely unfair, this does not matter. What matters is that their love for him will fix the current climate.
The economy is going to immediately rebound. You heard it here first.
This will not because of anything Barack Obama does. He could sleep at his desk for the next 12 months, and everything will still be ok. In fact, it might make things better.
His predecessor already did the hard work for him. George W. Bush, unlike his self indulgent spoiled brat predecessor, was determined not to let his successor inherit tough times. President Bush was more interested in fixing problems than taking credit. Bill Clinton did not care what got done, as long as he got the credit. If anybody doubts this, wait until he forces his views on the Obama Administration.
Barack Obama will enact a stimulus program, the same way Bill Clinton did. Stimulus programs take 12-18 months to have an effect. Yet 6 months into the Clinton Presidency, things were already better. How can this possibly be?
Because things were already improving before he took office.
Things are already improving today, slowly but surely. This has nothing to do with Barack Obama. Yet the media will give him the credit. They will scream optimism at the top of their lungs.
For a platform of “Hope,” “Change,” and “Yes we can!” to succeed, the American psychology must be restored. The media will do their part by declaring that people are already more optimistic. The evil man they hated and threw shoes at is gone. The man they adoringly gaze at with his shirt off on the beach is here to save us all.
The media is too wrapped up in this narrative to allow an alternative vision of the news.
Barack Obama promised 2.5 million jobs. Then he upped the number to 3 million, and most recently, 4 million new jobs. Some say this is bold.
Hardly. It is a conservative estimate. This is the same tactic Bill Clinton took in 1992. He saw how many jobs were lost during the recession, calculated the worst case improvement scenario, and claimed that as his timid, easily achievable goal.
2008 is no different. If Barack Obama sits in his office and plays tiddly winks all day, the economy will still create a few million jobs. His Presidential estimate is an ultra cautious one that should be easily achievable.
I was around during the bear market in stocks from 2000-2002. After 3 years of carnage, to claim that the next year would bring modest improvement required no foresight or actual work. Right now mutual fund managers are planning on how to take credit for positive returns in 2009, refusing to honestly admit that escaping from the cellar does not merit a ticker tape parade.
So it is already predetermined that jobs will be created and the stock market will go up. Who gets hurt in this feel good environment?
The poor, especially the homeless.
If you are a homeless person, you are done. The media will not write a single story about you. In fact, the media wants you to shut up, get out of the way, and go die somewhere that the cameras will not see you. They do not want anything getting in the way of their positive narrative. Homeless people had better find a warm shelter, because until the republicans retake the White House, nobody will care about their plight.
If you have Aids, the same applies to you. The media lost interest in you when republicans lost power. One minute you had a deadly disease, and the next minute you were making demands on an overburdened President that cannot fix everything and every one. Scream all you want. The media is almost as bored with you as they are with Ethiopia. When Reagan was President they sang “We are the World.” When Bill Clinton came in, they lost interest.
Africa is done. George W. Bush contributed more money to help cure Aids and malaria in Africa than all of his predecessors combined. Barack Obama is black. His mere existence cures the Africa problem in the media. He does not have to contribute a single dollar. They should be grateful. After all, it is not about helping them. It is about helping him. African suffering is so 2007, when coincidentally republicans were in charge.
Hollywood will enjoy a brief surge of generosity, as celebrities now take up social causes because they feel it is time to lead by example. Of course, these narcissistic cancers of human filth could have been generous during the Bush years, but that would have been unthinkable. It was his fault that they were too cheap to contribute anything positive. Thanks to Barack Obama, as a reward to America for making the “correct” choice, they will open up their wallets and their hearts.
Foreclosures will be reported as severely slowing. Of course they will. We are coming off of a bottom. Therefore, any news by comparison is good news. As for those who do get foreclosed on during the Obama Presidency, tough luck on them. The media is not interested in ordinary people or their suffering. The media cares about liberals. People losing their homes during a period of republican leadership is due to a lack of caring. If it happens now, it is either a residue of the past, or their own fault. After all, Barack Obama told them to take personal responsibility. Had they listened, they would not be in this mess.
The media knows that this is their very last chance. This is the President they have always dreamed of. He is their hero. If he fails, everything they believe in will be crushed. A rejection of him would be a personal repudiation of them. Saving him is about saving them.
2012 will be a repeat of 1996. Republicans will protest until we are blue in the face that the good times would have happened anyway. The people will not care.
So go out and spend into the stratosphere, America. Take out that mortgage you cannot afford. Leverage yourself to the hilt. Bet it all. You will not lose. You will not be allowed to lose.
On days that it rains, the media will tell you that it is a sunshower, whereas if a republican were President it would be acid rain.
Everything is fabulous. The rich will get richer, the middle class will get richer, and the poor will be shoved under sewer grates and out of the view of anybody else with a camera, never to return until the media wants bad news to be the trend.
Go party like it is the beginning of the greatest golden era in American history. The media will take care of everything.
Stop worrying.
Everything…and I mean everything…in 6 months…will be absolutely fine.
eric
Glad to see you got a jump on this issue.
I’ve been waiting for someone besides me to bring up this bar he set for himself so unrealistically high and all the morons who’ve been hypnotized into believing he can jump it.
If everything in the last 8 years was as terrible as were supposed to believe it defeats logic that the America even even exist today.
I mean really, put it all together.
We lost the war in Iraq and Afghanistan.
In 2001 all the hurricanes, tornadoes and floods predicted due to global warming should of killed off most of us by now.
We’ve only created more terrorists.
The whole world hates us.
The economy was at its worst ever between 2001 and Feb. 2009 and it was made that way with the intent of gaining votes
Our constitution was trashed to the point it doesn’t exist.
Everyone lost their rights.
The government is spying on and kidnapping all of us, blowing up levees and killing thousands at a time while flying planes into its own buildings killing Americans , letting Americans starve and die of disease.
How we ever survived is a mystery to me.
Another irony is this contradiction where Bush is said to of done nothing in his last few months so this would fester and be as stinky as possible when Obama came into office.
And then theres the moonbats that say us conservatives should be happy and stop crying because Obama with his bail outs, stimulus and initiatives is doing basically now what Bush was doing right before he left office.
Ayn Rand’s Atlas Shrugged.
Good ol’ Ayn Rand – never met teenager who didn’t like that philosophy.
I don’t think “the media” is going to make verything seem okay. There are serious tangible and practical problems with our economy that “the media” can’t just brush over or on.
Cons often use statistics to prove what they want about a given thing. Those statistics are usually vast macrocosmic data that tell you little about reality. For example, just because the Dow goes up, that doesn’t mean your particular stock went up – even your particular fund, or sector, or industry. In fact, the Dow can rise substantially while most stocks goes down. This has happened many times. In the same way, the Dow can go down while most stocks go up. It depends on which stocks are going up or down. The same goes for the GDP. Wealth can up while most people get poorer, or in reverse, wealth can decrease while most people get richer. Again, it depends on who’s getting what.
The particular brand of laizzez faire economic policy propagated by modern conservative and moderate leaders and thinkers is based on a set of three simple principles – low taxes, low interest rates, and low regulation, all the time. They never say how low, just low. A smart person understands that a more logical philosophy would entail just the right amount of taxes, interest rates and regulation at any given time. Now we see the usual residual effects of long-term laizzez faire policy: too low taxation = 10.2 trillion dollar debt, too low interest rates = investment bubbles, too little regulation = universal market collapses. Yes, some people got very rich, but most people got poorer.
Worker productivity in the US rose 18% since 2000, but real median family income dropped over $2000 per year in that same period. Some people made a lot of money from that productivity, but it wasn’t the actual producers. Eventually, such disparity and stagnacny will catch up. When the majority of workers are making stagnant or shrinking incomes, while food, fuel, and other necessities become more expensive, eventually these people will stop purchasing other things, and the people who make those other things lose their income, and they buy less things, and the vicious cycle begins to snowball out of control. We are currently at the beginning of such a snowballing effect. We have a negative personal savings rate, job losses now at 1/2 million a month, and so forth.
Meanwhile, the Fed kept interest rates so low during the “good times,” when there was too much cpaital flow and it was ging into too risky ventures, that they have no ability to lower it any further when credit gets tight. If the Fed had kept higher rates during the past three decades, the effects of most of the interim bubble bursts could have been significantly mitigated. But they didn’t and now they can’t. And regulation was so loose, that no one was watching out for vital ssectors, like real estate, and real estate is the most important investment any family will likely ever make. Taxation was so low during the “good times” that the moneys to pay for the country’s expenses was not raised, and now it’s too late to raise the moneys because people just don’t have it.
So basically, we’re %$##$@, and you can thank conservatism for that. “The media” can’t paint over it and they can’t paint on it. All they”ll be able to do is report it, because no matter how much conservatives believe that everything can just be talked up or down, in the real world, people know when they’ve been %$#$#@.
JMJ
“Cons often use statistics to prove what they want about a given thing. Those statistics are usually vast macrocosmic data that tell you little about reality.”
ROTFLMFAO !
Yea, damn those pesky things called facts !
Take my word for it, I know the truth, I know reality !
I guess all the charts between 2007 and 2001 should just be tossed.
Especially for anyone looking for trends ready to invest millions.
Jersey, you’re a joke.
What amazes me the most about the right is their need to have credit or blame. They never want to take responsibility for wrongs, but if anything ever goes right, they did it. Also sad the inevitability of the Republicans to play ‘victim’ after eight years of rummaging through the American tax dollars and finding ways to make corporate cronies rich, corruption rage throughout the deregulated industries, and a stock market crash as bad as the 1929 crash. We are likely to be in a depression – not just a recession – and now the Republicans are claiming their economics would fix all this.
As for the war on terror when it comes to Israel, This is why the Blogosphere gets ripped a new one — because while opinions are valid, to make bold brash statements about the war on terror from safe comfortable home where you eat full meals and live in plenty, a place where you understand little about the other side sans what you read in American literature, is just as problematic as they’re stance on America without knowing a thing about our country. I don’t condone terrorism. But I don’t condone the crappy and ridiculous American foreign policy we had in Iran for ages, in Iraq for decades, and in Afghanistan, where we allowed the Taliban to roll into town and cared nothing about it until 9-11. The lack of foresight of our foreign policy in the Middle East is embarrassing. Blame whoever you want, but for Americans not to understand that we helped create the monster we now face is just as irresponsible as giving these banks and auto makers one single dime for their failed and corrupt policies.
As for AIDS and the Republican party, how easily we forget Ronald Reagan simply ignoring the disease until it couldn’t be ignored any further. Though he was being warned repeatedly that this so called ‘gay plague’ at the time was spreading like wildfire, he chose to ignore it. I seriously doubt this administration, already aware that short term sacrifices will lead to long term prosperity, will turn a blind eye to AIDS. And considering Obama’s work with the homeless and needy, I again think your statement regarding the long term is slightly exaggerated per your usual. I’m thrilled to hear your sudden concern with the homeless and those afflicted with AIDS, considering the number of social programs this adminstration was apt to cut off, but it’s nice to see this has become a worry of yours suddenly.
If you ask anyone in the real estate world, we are nowhere near the bottom. The bottom is still a year away by most accounts, at least according to Jeremy Grantham. Prosperity is not coming so soon. Nevertheless, you claim Bush was the reason this all turned around when it does (as you will) if that will make you sleep better at night. God knows, your paranoia over Iraq was great enough to make you restless enough to launch into a war that has been an unequivocal disaster. Let’s hope in the future the Shia and Sunni work something out, and Bush does become a hero for democratizing the Middle East and building a new nation there (I’ll try forget his first promise during the debates of 1999 was that he wouldn’t engage in nation building). However, considering how long the Sunni and Shia have hated each other, it’s pretty hard to imagine that “W” will be the one to close that gap.
“never send a liberal to do a man’s job”? that’s how long it takes for you to be off on the wrong foot again. i’m ahead of myself, because improbably you’ve cleared up that misstep; because it provokes the question, “what kind of man are you tom tom playing a keenness for war?
and as far as surrendering the war, you must have missed that insignificant, or worse — left-leaning, media-driven — item about bombs landing in pakistan and afghanistan, killing innocents again. before you start: save me the my lai bs about war being hell.
alliances with empire builders is closer to hell, as another administration rids itself of those allies that upon further review offer us nothing but hallmark mottoes, while holding an empty deck, grinning subserviently. pathetic. bogey!
“for Americans not to understand that we helped create the monster ”
Thats a load of crap.
We didnt create them any more than they created us.
Islam and sects of the Muslim community have had a distatse for Americans for centuries all the while never turning down the use of our technologies or commerce.
And I dont want hear some rebutal that claims its our corporate endeavors or meddling in their affairs.
Its a two way street, they dont mind driving it, and quite frankly we’ve done more for the middle east and Muslim countries than they ever will do for us.
“As for AIDS and the Republican party, how easily we forget Ronald Reagan simply ignoring the disease until it couldn’t be ignored any further. ”
What does this have to do with the fact that Bush should rightly be given credit for what hes done in this dept. ?
“into a war that has been an unequivocal disaster.”
Most wars are disasterous but we are winning.
And I will gaurantee that on our way out Obama will be right there saying it took him to achieve victory.
Without the insights of Bush, it never would of even started to take place.
Micky, did you understand a word of what Writerguy or I wrote?
And “winning” what? What exactly are we “winning?” When Iraq is yet another Shiite theocracy, will you call that a victory?
JMJ
reading a little bit more, if you call things getting better under clinton the historic proximity of bubbles that allowed the economy to rebound from the massive losses of baby boomer wealth in the bursting of the tech bubble into the salvific arms of the housing bubble, even though they are the same incline being riddled with over-leveraging of credit and debt along with the short-term attractiveness of no immediate danger that little is being produced and saved, in other words, paper wealth then your diagnosis is about as helpful as the laffer curve.
“save me the my lai bs about war being hell.”
Oh, alright, wanna go down to N. Pakistan, pitch a tent in the desert and party ?
““what kind of man are you tom tom playing a keenness for war in your compliance man suit and salaried position. ridiculous.”
Whats ridiculous is when people decide to discuss a topic where the opposition is says something unfavorable to your ears you immediately discount them from speaking on the subject unless they’ve had direct and vast experience in such matters.
The I guess unless we are all Wall street execs, Generals, scientists and doctors we should all just shut up ?
” item about bombs landing in pakistan and afghanistan,”
I’ll bet an apendage that the intelligence gathered for that bombing was done on Bushs watch and just being carried out and fulfilled by Obama. I dont see Obama putting all that together by himself in less than 3 days
since the economy and the stacked market will rebound this year, what is your recommendation, eric?
Jersy, yea, I read it.
But decided that if the rest of your post was going to half as looney as that first line it would be pointless.
Yea, were winning, whether you like it or not.
And I’m not about to entertain your ignorance by informing you of what any 5th grader could find out.
When casualties are down 60 to 70 % , commerce is kicking up, troops are coming home.
Were winning.
“When” Iraq is another shite theocracy ?
I see you just cant get rid of that crystal ball, can you ?
Oh, oh , oh, I know, wait a minute, Its that backa$$wards version of what you call truth ? Yea, thats the ticket.
Give it a rest already.
You’re still a liar who pumps out accusations you cant prove, Why should I believe or take anything you say seriously ?
You’re about as dishonest as they come.
You talk out of both sides of your rump with all your contempt for anything you disagree with and then turn around and accuse people of doing exactly what your doing.
me: save me the my lai bs about war being hell.
you: Oh, alright, wanna go down to N. Pakistan, pitch a tent in the desert and party ?
do we disagree that war is not trivial — a play date, and that it doesn’t add up to make a statement that we are surrendering the war while killing people. what’s more you should also explain to eric that we were following bush’s plans and thus incapable, until foreseeably we are finished with his assignments, of surrendering.
“discount them from speaking on the subject unless they’ve had direct and vast experience in such matters.”
i did that.
“The I guess unless we are all Wall street execs, Generals, scientists and doctors we should all just shut up ?”
incontrovertible rules are for the contradictory people that make them. eric is wrong to talk about the military manning-up from his little remote hearth in beverly hills.
Mickey,
So the people that have met with the other side, and have seen them as people not just as labels, those people’s opinions should be measured with those who simply scream the loudest like Rush Limbaugh? I mean, what are we talking about here. No one is saying you can’t have an opinion, but if that opinion is forged, like Eric kind of mentions above, from media sound bytes and ratings grabbers, then what kind of opinion is it?
Secondly, do you know the difference between Sunni and Shia? See, the hilarious thing about this administration’s insistence on Iraq welcoming our entrance was Dick Cheney’s insistence 10 years prior that you couldn’t go into Iraq because you simply couldn’t occupy it. It would be a civil war nightmare. He seems to forgot the one thing he actually was right about.
So let’s define this “winning”. Is winning going to be a government that’s loyal to the US but slaughters Sunni all day long? Because that’s likely to be what happens and if that’s winning, there’s another monster we’re creating. Just like when we supported the Shah. Or Ferdinand Marcos. Or Saddam Hussein, you know, that guy we were so afraid of, yet bolstered simply because he hated Iran. Nevermind that he used some of our weapons to gas the Kurds right? We had no control over that right? That’s what I mean by we create the monster. These are PEOPLE. Not animals. Go watch someone lose their child or children, and then tell me that winning is a Shia government that’s simply loyal to US interests but will turn on it’s own population.
i did that.”
Maybe you tried, we’ll say whatever we want, regardless of whats perceived by you as valid.
Typical liberal attribute, control the speech, control the message.
Nice when you can dictate the course of the conversation by setting your own rules as to who qualifies to speak on what matters.
“and that it doesn’t add up to make a statement that we are surrendering the war while killing people. ”
And you know this how ?
The statement I see is that Obama felt it necessary to follow thru on Bush’s national security initiatives since it became obvious to me that after Obamas first security briefing his whole position on the war flipped.
Nothing is turning out to be as easy as he thought, or told us it would be.
I may not like the guy but believe that when confronted with stark reality he is no idiot.
Hopefully more exposure during his term will bring him to similar awakenings in other dept’s, but don’t hold your breath.
“incontrovertible rules are for the contradictory people that make them. eric is wrong to talk about the military manning-up from his little remote hearth in beverly hills.”
Obama is wrong to speak on the war while he mans it up in his house and has never served ?
And you are wrong to criticize any president, praise or give advice since you have never governed a country ?
“what’s more you should also explain to eric that we were following bush’s plans and thus incapable, until foreseeably we are finished with his assignments, of surrendering.”
Maybe not following his plans, but definitely taking advantage of the carrying over of the “actionable intelligence” that Obama spoke of during his campaign.
I wont even approach your ridiculous claims of surrender. Its borderline senile.
“but if that opinion is forged, like Eric kind of mentions above, from media sound bytes and ratings grabbers, then what kind of opinion is it?”
I would guess that we are in control of what we allow to forge our opinions based on what we perceive as the right course to follow.
My opinion are forged by whatever data I can soak up, (which much of comes from sources besides Rush) toss it in a blender, whatever floats to the top is what I believe.
Whatever facts coincide with each other to make sense and collaborate each other is where I get my beliefs from.
Some of the least educated people in the world are actually the smartest.
We all know wisdom when we hear it but it usually depends on ones moral and ethical base as to what we determine to be wisdom to the individual.
When Osama speaks I am apprehensive of what radical Islam would call wisdom.
When Rush speaks liberals think we are fools to listen to him.
DUH.
At the time Mohammed died was when they began fighting over who should rule the Muslim world. I’m not fluent in their history but I do know the basic differences in that they both share the same fundamental Islamic beliefs and faith. The differences between these two groups are political ones. Over time, centuries, those political differences spawned a number of varying practices andpositions that came to carry some spiritual significance that I never got into detail about, YET.
Yea, Cheney was right at the time, and even up until now. The problem is that after 911 our need to be in that part of the world superceeded that possibility of civil unrest.
Afghanistan did not offer the demographics and logistics to do such a thing.
I’m sure while Cheney was watching the towers come down that was the last thought on his mind.
We never should of totally dismantled the Iraqi military.
Winning will be for us to have a more prominent role and appearance in the middle east.
We did not go there to free anyone, spread democracy, take down Saddam or any of that glorified crap we had to be told.
Nothing we can do about the flawed intelligence, regardless, we still had numerous other legal reasons to go in.
All though we were well within our rights to go in and democracy for Iraqis would be the icing on the cake, and a benefit as an ally down the road, the main purpose was to put our rumps right square in the middle of a hornets nest that was getting out of control and becoming a growing threat to our country.
The strategic benefits to being where we are at are insurmountable to anything we’ve ever done in the war on terror.
The first clue was when years ago we started building the largest embassy we ever built in our history right in the middle of Baghdad.
Another part of that winning is when Iraq is a viable ally, has a self reliant economy, these morons figure out how to divide up their oil.
We were already laying out terms for our withdrawal long before Obama came to Iraq and met with Malaki. The day before he went there agreements were reached that were labeled “A forseeable horizon” by Bush and Malaki.
All Obama did was show up a day or two later and act as if it was his doing by reiterating what had already taken place.
That agreement, in 2012, puts the US at a distance dictated by the Iraqi parliament.
Each increment of success towards Iraq’s total sovereignty is a win, hence, we are winning
You know guys, in the real world (ya’ know, the place where no one give’s a rats behind about “Radical Islam”), 76,000 jobs were lost today in America. That’s 76,000 jobs in one day. 76,000 families who don’t know what they’re going to do, where they’re going to go, who they can count on to bring home the daily bread. But in the comic book world of conservatism, “The truth is that the economy under George W. Bush was fabulous from 2002 to 2007.” That’s right folks – it was FABULOUS! Never mind that real incomes declined, the gas prices hit $4 a gallon, that the price of grains has almost doubled, that 2,000,000 people are behind bars for such horrific crimes as getting high, that the national debt has doubled, that maillions are out of work and their homes and their pensions and 401Ks, that healthcare costs are now the number one cause for bankruptcy, that we’re caught up in two quagmired wars for years on end, that our manufacturing base is almost extinct, that our banks are failing, that GM is no longer the worlds largest auto maker and Microsoft is laying people off for the first time ever, that the nation has a 1.2 trillion dollar deficit, and on and on and on and on – no, people, it’s FABULOUS!
I dare our good host to walk up to one of the 76,000 people who were told they’re being laid off today and tell them that the economy under Bush was “fabulous.” By the way, you’d better wear a face mask if you do it.
JMJ
obama, and most conscientious objectors to war, cannot make the case for objection on the grounds of experience. that should be left to the dichotomy among veterans and good old boys. my objection is based on moral equivalence — which doesn’t freak me out, and which overrides doctrine and field specialty as an assessment of the human good, the general welfare — real effect that cannot be altered by government and body politics. you can play dumb, ignore all the glue that holds civil society together by arguing some shifting reality in the really petty way that you do. (do you seriously want me to counter whether the constitution provides a check against the fitness of any one person, including the president, to wage wars or otherwise with immunity, including the opinions of those that have served. well, why do you waste my good time with such hot bs.)
let’s explore your own kabuki dance on the seriousness (i’m assuming bombing is serious in your world) of bombing of other countries. in one minute we’re enthralled to bush, and in the next obama had to provide the final okay– it seems to me that you’re saying he was exhausting the famous good sense of the previous administration (against all the other evidence of his first week). in neither response have you accounted for the quit in leadership that eric suspects, as one leg of my criticism against eric’s statement. my recommendation: stop trying to argue to argue, especially re-peddling tired, left/right maxims. soup time. choose this change in administration, in the economy, to get well.
as i expect this rut in the economy will carry on for much longer than eric, i think you’ll soften up, and want a little bit of compassionate understanding before the year’s up.
Jersey.
Eric can walk up to me and the millions that feel like me and say that to them.
Thats our real world.
Where enemies that have attacked before are actually real and not some made up weather condition.
Pull your head out of your childish ass and stop thinking you can dictate to everyone what reality is.
We do give a rats ass about radical islam .
All the crap you blame on Bush has been shot down time and time again.
But like some retrurd who cant accept basic fact you just keep saying it over and over again.
Bla bla bla , the same crap every stinking day. Bush Bush Bush.
You wish one man could be capable of such destruction, talk about comic books.
HA ! YOU’RE THE COMIC READER BUDDY ! You and your dark arch nemisis invader Bush lurking in every corner commiting diabolical acts of genius while being the dumbest man on earth
Everything you claim Bush did, Obama is doing right now in quadruples with his spending, pork, entitlements.
Everyone is screaming “How the hell does that stimulate the economy”? Freaking condoms for christ sake !!.
He hasnt even been at work a week yet and hes already commited us to over 3 trillon dollars and cant even say what hes going to do with half of it.
So shut up.
Pobaldy.
Your entire post is based on an awful lot of assumptions a what seems to you.
And quite frankly i’ve never seen anyone say so little with so much eloquence
And if you think your roundabout circumventions of spin speech do a think to controvert my points you’re like the guy above you.
And it then also qualifies in my book as “you waste my good time with such hot bs.”
I made valid points on your wish to steer the conversation, which you only answer to with question, and more ridiculous logic.
You are a hypocrite when you do what you suggest others do not do.
You obviously feel the moral equivalence to be the one to determine who gets to speak on what subjects and who is qualified to do so.
Its Erics blog. If he wants to play army, he can.
We come here to give opinons and not be dictated to by some outlandish snob as to whether or not we qualify to render our intepretations and opinions.
Its called conversation, debate, chippin away at the BS.
I choose to be man of less words tha you, I make my points very well, i’ve been doing this long enough and get plenty of approval from those who engage me on regular basis without what you put out and last ditch resorts of insulting ones intelligence with over the top overcomplicated diatribe.
lets make this simple.
Obama bombing Pakistan, was a gift from Bush. A house warming gift if you will. along with some advice that left Obama reaching for the pampers.
Amongst all of us on this thread, the only person really qualified to discuss and offer advice to any of this, would be George W Bush.
And I will believe him before I take yours, Jerseys , Obamas, or Writerguys advice.
Micky, the FACT of the matter is that MOST people are worse off for laizzez faire policy than are better off, and THAT is the only thing that matters. The eoncomy was not “fabulous.” It was awful. In fact, it’s been awful for 30 years. The Middle Class is vanishing. the working class is stretched to the bone, the poor are staying poor and growing in numbers. Free Trade, anti-labor, deregulation, flat taxation, colonialism, cheap-labor illegal immigration, private health insurance, for-profit education and health care, police state conservatism is a FAILURE. And abject, complete, total, abyssmal, utter FAILURE. Anyone who thinks otherwise simply made a profit from all that, or is stupid, and/or just doesn’t care about their country at all.
JMJ
Oh, and Al Qaeda, Shmal Qaeda. Whatever. According to our own intelligence there are only a couple thousand of them left. They are increasing unpopular even in there base countries and are certainly no existential threat to anyone, let alone us. Heck, they could never even overthrow any of the Arabian monarchies, or Saddam, Mubarak, Musharraf – how the heck are they such a threat to us? The only reason the Taliban kept them around is because they sort of agreed with each other and Al Qaeda had money. But when we invaded Pakistan, our “friends” in Pakistan told the Taliban not to resist – to go into hiding and wait us out. And sure enough, they did. Al Qaeda, meanwhile, tried to make trouble for us in Iraq, and the Iraqis themselves threw them out! The only “winner” of either of these wars was IRAN. They were thrilled to see Saddam out of business, the Taliban marginalized. Pakistan now has them same aristocracy/political party of the Bhuttos, who are nothing but a bunch of sleazy kleptocrats, and an unhappy populace once again angry at the US for once again propping up yet another crooked oligarcic regime. Conservatives simply are not competent enough, or ethical ebnough, to run our foreign policy – let alone our wars! Not only was invading Iraq stupid on the face of it, but it was carried out even more stupidly than it was conceived – with no strategy, no plan, no contingency. And now, Obama is stuck with the GITMO detainees and left with no documentation with which to process them! The conservatives were not competent enough to even deal with prisoners of war, who were not prisoners of war, but were prisoners of war, etc.
When are you guys just going to man up and admit, “Bush was an idiot, his administration was a complete and total failure, and we shouldn’t have trusted the neocons and never will again”???
JMJ
Oops!
“But when we invaded Afghanistan…”
JMJ
Jersey
Just to let you know, I am 58 years old and I just read the book. My Mom, who happens to be 81 finished it also. We both liked it. As for the teenager comment, THANKS – from both of us. However, I fail to see how ridiculing me makes your position more tenable.
“Micky, the FACT of the matter is that MOST people are worse off for laizzez faire policy than are better off, and THAT is the only thing that matters. ”
Oh, I get it.
If that the only thing that matters then why did you start out with just the 76,000 that lost their jobs yesterday ?
Your last reference to the 76000 that lost their jobs was not very realistic since thats a very small percentage so now you’re gonna try the same appraoch using the whole country.
Still, I’ll bet both gonads that Eric and I can walk up to most americans and tell them that the economy was great under Bush and shake hands with them.
I’ve already done this with many people.
Grow up. You can kick and scream and try to be autocratic and shove your bile at everyone in a tantrum insisting you’re right as much as you want. In the face of the facts it just makes you look foolish.
I’m not gonna argue this point with you, I’ve done it before and unlike you I have too much self esteem to say the same damn thing day after day inspite of the facts that have been presented to you.
JMJ in all his glory;
“And abject, complete, total, abyssmal, utter FAILURE. Anyone who thinks otherwise simply made a profit from all that, or is stupid, and/or just doesn’t care about their country at all.”
Thats a lie, and I’ve proven it before to be a lie.
Its also a terrible f*ckin thing to say about a bunch of decent honest people who thank God dont think like you.
You’re a liar.
And trust me dude, as far as stupid goes, I’ve been around and you’re definitley not the sharpest knife in the rack yourself
Atlas Shrugged is a modern classic, RAD, no doubt about it. But the political philsophy of Objectivism is nothing but Libertarian Utopianism, completely unrealistic, ignorant of human nature, rather cruel on the face of it, and really, when you think about it Social Darwinism not too dissimilar from what the Nazis believed. A longstanding popular critique of Objectivism is a to refer to it as adolescent – the poltiical philosophy of spoiled white teenagers. It is extremely popular with that set. Kids, usually in their teens, read Atlas Shrugged and decide they now have the perfect answers for everything, when in reality they don;t. they never do. We all (well, most of us) grow up and realize that Objectivism is simply the political religion of the selfish and short-sighted. Some of us end up becoming conservatives and some liberals. I was a Libertarian (not an objectivist, but close) when I was a kid. I am not anymore.
Just the same Ayn Rand is a must-read for enyone interested in modern American political thought, and I wouldn’t knock you for reading it and even enjoying it as literature. As a political philosophy? Well, let’s just say that bird has long since flown the coop. Objectivism is no longer taken seriously by most leaders and academics.
JMJ
A former professor of mine in English told me years ago to keep my test answers short. Trying to read through some of these comments, now I understand why. I mean, there are better things to do, like watching favorite TV shows. But if it’s good for them, well it’s good for me.
Anyway, I purposely took a good look today while at a local department store to see how many foreign cars were on the huge parking lot, compared to domestic (GM, Chrysler and Ford). It didn’t take long to
understand the why our USmanufacturing plants are closing down, pension plans being renegotiated, unemployed workers precluded from getting those special funds set aside, and medical health benefits reduced or eliminated entirely.
I was led to believe that in prior years, union workers agreed to less wages, in lieu of those perks later on. So much for corporate guarantees.
But then again, is anything really guaranteed to us, except death and taxes?
I admit to being in the middle right economically. Maybe it’s my
economics degree, I don’t know? It’s so easy for conservatives to blame liberals, and liberals (“progressives”) to blame conservatives. Me thinks
both are equally to blame for this latest recession, depression, or whatever?
Look, I tried to borrow a few years ago to buy a home for myself. I am on a pension, and have some savings. Okay, the bank told me that with 200,000 down, I would qualify immediately for a 200,000 loan. The loan officer then tried to persuade me ( he didn’t know of my econ background) that I could always re-finance a different loan later in the future, since it was certain the value of the home would go up substantially. He suggested an adjustable loan, a no interest loan, a reverse loan, etc.
The rub at that time was simple, no way could I buy a home for 400,000 unless I wanted to move to the Sacramento Valley, which I certainly did not.
Soooo, I gave up on owning a home and went back to my comfortable apartment, convenient to most everywhere, no down, no real headaches, no equity build-up and NO tax breaks.
I read that over 250,000 homes were foreclosed in California last year.
I guess they didn’t think like me and were sold a bill of goods by the
loan officers. True, in some cases they lost their jobs.
But then again, with rents being what they are now, are they being forced to
move back to Indiana, or Michigan or Ohio, to join those hundreds of thousands of unemployed (thanks to America not buying American).
Bush has been blamed for our economic ills. After all, this all happened
on his watch. But if I recall we have had low interest rates, low unemployment and miniscule inflation for years. Guess he was at the wrong place at the wrong time.
Eric forgot to add one thing to his comment: had the sub-prime mortgage crisis erupted 6 months later, John McCain would be President today.
I know he’s not considered a messiah (annointed one), just a plain old
former pilot, shot down while flying a bombing mission, tortured for 5 years, who brought the conservative philosophy to his state.
Yet watching Jay Leno, Jimmy Kimmel and Dave Letterman during the campaign, one would think he actually was a spy for North Vietnam.
Oh BTW, McCain was criticized for daring to show up at one of those congressional meetings to figure out how to get out of this economic mess.
Well, now that 350 billion dollars of Tarp has gone unaccounted for, lying in various bank vaults accumulating dust, maybe John’s approach, 20-20, was the RIGHT one.
But who cares..our children and their children will be paying for this, forever. Oh me oh my. But what will the banks do with all those
toxic mortgages and mortgage backed securities…much of the maneuvering done during the last 3 years, when the Democrats were in power.
From Ole Grandpaw
My old Grandpaw used to tell us [fifty years ago] that one must read all the News. When someone mentioned that he doesn’t read a particular Newspaper Ole Grandpaw said that is the most important one of all because you’ve got to know the enemy, and that is why I am subscribed to Time Magazine.
It will serve Bloggers interests to note the essay named “Too much Information” by Michael Kinsley in the December 1st 2008 Edition in which he slanders every other news source but with special scorn for Bloggers and he closes the article with “But many readers may be reaching the point with blogs and websites that I reached long ago with the Sunday New York Times Magazine- actively hoping there isn’t anything interesting in there because then I’ll have to make the Time to read it.”
Actually that’s the way I feel about Time Magazine but that’s why I still subscribe to the Rag because you have to know the enemy. You have to know everything about him including what he thinks before you fight him. There is nothing like the Arrogance of a Rag writer! Read their February 2nd Edition [another so-called Commemorative Issue] if you want to heave.
Well, everything be fine? Peter Beinart sobers up a little his Inauguration Commentary under the title “The Solvency Doctrine’’ in the very same Commemorative issue saying “No matter what grand visions Obama may harbor to remake the world, the central mission of his foreign policy – at least at first – will be to get it out of the red’’ and he makes the most astonishing revelation between the lines: that the world does not regard America as the Leader of the World at this point in time.
Keep the Blogs going guys!
Just checking in for new comments. Coenraad One.
BigDog…
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