A Slice of Hope in My Eyes

[pfflam]

Here is something that has made me think that the unthinkable might not actually happen (since the unthinkable has happened non-stop since Bush's first election I now find hard to imagine anything actually working out, politically, for the good of the US)

My father: A veteran of three wars: B-17 pilot, youngest Colonel in WW2, led the first American raid on Berlin, Purple heart, shot twice, Distinguished Flying Cross, Bronze Star, assorted other medals, had a mid-air collision, hedge-hopped a shot-up plane over France to Crash land back in Britain, and countless incredible, heroic stories.
Career Military man, Pentagon War College, thought we should have won Vietnam at all costs . .. *ehem*.
Has always been radically Anti-Communist - when I was young he had me design a decal that he would put on every letter he would write, most often to the newspapers about Communism, the decal had an ax bursting through a chain and read "Help Burst Communist Chains" - [clever 13 year-old].

He was proud of his signed letters from Ronald Reagan, and Bush Senior, last thing I would ever imagine is that he would question anybody Republican, he even made sure to land in a very conservative retirement home for ex-military folk; nice gardens, stucco homes, carts . . . just like those in all the retirement communities in McArizona.

It started with my mother (now deceased) she was French, and though she too was always very conservative, something about her Frenchness saw right through Dubbya, and she didn't just have qualms she went from life-long Reaganite to venom-!!
. . . that still didn't phase my father . . .

but, it may have started a small crack in the edifice

now, he is in a wheel chair and can barely move. When asked about the debate:

"that Barak Obama seems like a capable guy"
"McCain seems like a nut"

Nuff said . . . that is the unthinkable Ifor my personal world . . . wrap that up with George Will, and the only thing remaining to convince me that I am living a hallucination would be to have SDW admit that the McPalin dou would be a travesty . . .

So anyway, anybody else see any of this sort of thing happening?

[Fellowship]

So anyway, anybody else see any of this sort of thing happening?


What an amazing turn of events.

I am seeing positive comments made about Obama by people that "say" they are for McCain. My mother's husband to be specific. My mother is voting for Obama I am most most sure of. Heather and I actually watched the VP debate at my mother's home thursday and even my mother's husband (not my father) realized that Palin was timid, not very good etc. and that Biden was far better at answering the questions etc.

My mothers' mother my grandmother has shifted from voting republican to being "in the tank" ;)
for Obama.

I used to vote republican and now will vote for Obama.

It is a trend that I suspect we will see much of this time around.

The thing that I walk away with from this election that is a given yet none the less strikes me is the following:

We ALL love our country. It is ok to say when we disagree with certain aspects of what is done through our country. But John McCain has no lock on loving the country any more than anyone else.

Party does not determine who loves country more. The real sham of the republicans and their AM radio bobbleheads of late is their selling of a lie that they "own" the love of country thing.

Sorry it just does not ring true. BECAUSE IT IS NOT TRUE..

Fellows

[pfflam]

Especially when your parties choice for potential presidency was a member, or even is married to a former member of a party who's goal it is to do away with 'our country' in their territorries . . . irony from the pro-patria party?!

[SpamSandwich]

Shame your dad never heard of Ron Paul. Everything he "predicted" has come true.

[addabox]

I don't see anybody relating predictions.

[pfflam]

Unfortunately Ron Paul's ideas about governance are as backward and retrograde as McPalin's . . . he is just personally more eloquent and a more decent fellow.

And yes, my father has heard of Ron Paul . . . he may have been a Conservative for the majority of his very long life, but he wasn't addled.

[pfflam]

Libertarians have an unrealistic understanding of the role of government in, well, governing, especially with regards to infrastructural needs, their notion of 'no government' is anarchy with religion and suits.

[pfflam]

If you can't discern what I am saying from what I have said then I can only assume that you are not as serious as you express.

Infrastructure needs revenue, governance needs revenue . . . the notion that we can have a functioning civilization without a vigorous but streamlined Public Agency is retrograde, the notion that removing any government oversite in business and etc etc is merely all of the bad aspects of Conservatism but on steroids. Its no alternative its merely an unrealistic amplificaion of the bad Governemtnal ideas of the Republicans . . . I guess its missing the inherent authoritarianism that has been coming through of late.

[SpamSandwich]

If you can't discern what I am saying from what I have said then I can only assume that you are not as serious as you express.

Infrastructure needs revenue, governance needs revenue . . . the notion that we can have a functioning civilization without a vigorous but streamlined Public Agency is retrograde, the notion that removing any government oversite in business and etc etc is merely all of the bad aspects of Conservatism but on steroids. Its no alternative its merely an unrealistic amplificaion of the bad Governemtnal ideas of the Republicans . . . I guess its missing the inherent authoritarianism that has been coming through of late.

Libertarianism in general and Ron Paul in particular are not about "no government", they are both about "less government" especially in areas that are best served by open competition in a free market where consumers dollars go to the most efficient and customer responsive companies.

[addabox]

Libertarianism in general and Ron Paul in particular are not about "no government", they are both about "less government" especially in areas that are best served by open competition in a free market where consumers dollars go to the most efficient and customer responsive companies.

Which would be great if we lived in a far less complex, far less interconnected world in which it would be possible to achieve something approximating "open competition" in "free markets", and in which it would be possible for the average buyer to discern things like "efficiency" and "customer responsiveness."

However, those are utopian terms masquerading as common-sensical pragmatism.

If our economy consisted of buying and selling locally produced craft items, I'm sure Libertarianism would be a great idea.

[SpamSandwich]

Which would be great if we lived in a far less complex, far less interconnected world in which it would be possible to achieve something approximating "open competition" in "free markets", and in which it would be possible for the average buyer to discern things like "efficiency" and "customer responsiveness."

However, those are utopian terms masquerading as common-sensical pragmatism.

If our economy consisted of buying and selling locally produced craft items, I'm sure Libertarianism would be a great idea.

It's exactly BECAUSE we live in a complex, generally open and interconnected world that free markets are demanded---by informed consumers. People are able to communicate virtually everything and anything that is happening in the world at the speed of e-mail, instant messages and phone calls. If imbalances are discovered in markets, you can bet that everyone involved will find out about it in short order and they have the power to choose where their dollars are spent.

Now, in light of the recent vote on the bail-out, can you with a straight face actually suggest that our government is responsive to the public? Surely you jest. The vast, vast majority of Americans gave Congress and the House hell before they voted against our wishes and "for" the bail-out. That is not responsive government when both parties kowtow to the president, the Fed and to the wishes of the financial "institutions".

[gastroboy]

It's exactly BECAUSE we live in a complex, generally open and interconnected world that free markets are demanded---by informed consumers. People are able to communicate virtually everything and anything that is happening in the world at the speed of e-mail, instant messages and phone calls. If imbalances are discovered in markets, you can bet that everyone involved will find out about it in short order and they have the power to choose where their dollars are spent.

Now, in light of the recent vote on the bail-out, can you with a straight face actually suggest that our government is responsive to the public? Surely you jest. The vast, vast majority of Americans gave Congress and the House hell before they voted against our wishes and "for" the bail-out. That is not responsive government when both parties kowtow to the president, the Fed and to the wishes of the financial "institutions".

The problem with all the "free market" proponents is that they only want to free up their own particular interests and not what everyone else wants.

Principally they want the free movement of capital, investment and products.

Generally they fight to exempt anything they can not competitively produce, usually agriculture.

But most importantly they do not want the free movement of people.

Labor can be best exploited if it can not find its own "level playing field".

They also like to dump the unwanted consequences of the free market on others. Like gated communities they want to create problems at work but leave them behind when they come home. The strong arm of the law/military is then used to keep the level playing field appropriately unlevel.

Politicians for hire are also used to protect the "free marketeers" when the market turns against them, as it repeatedly does, despite the whitewashes of "never again" and "don't worry we know what we are doing".

There is no greater howl of horror than from the robber barons under threat of losing what they stole "fair and square".

[gastroboy]

I used to have the same arguments with the Trotskyists at university.

Never being in power they would always claim that those that were in power, were not implementing True Socialism or the kind of selfless dictatorship of the proletariat that would bring Utopia to Earth.

True proponents of any social system are never True because those systems are founded on some human prejudice or other, which they conceal from the True Believers.

In this case it is greed.

The whole marketing of a Free Market and Level Playing Field is a suckering of the eventual victims. If you get them to drop their defences and scepticism it makes them easier to brush aside. As in 1984 fine sounding names are applied to policies and institutions, created by the coniving for their own ends.

The anti-government right wing anarchists are only too ready to demand that they get the full protection of the "evil" government's laws once they get what they want. Which is usually someone else's property and rights. They then form cartels and monopolies and end the farce of the Free Market…

…and Free Democracies as well, unless well managed and compliant as in the USA.

Operation Freedom anyone?

[Bergermeister]

I can hear the sounds of mobs forming...

[hardeeharhar]

It sounds like we should severely limit anyone's ability to wield power over others. The way to do that is to severely limit the power and scope of that entity which is all about power...the state. If people realized that, that would be "A Slice of Hope in My Eyes".
Let's chuck all power out the window. Corporations are no longer allowed to exist. All businesses are family businesses. We return to subsistence farming because large family farms can't be worked by JUST family.

In the end we return to an agrarian state, sounds fun!

[gastroboy]

It sounds like we should severely limit anyone's ability to wield power over others. The way to do that is to severely limit the power and scope of that entity which is all about power...the state. If people realized that, that would be "A Slice of Hope in My Eyes".

Exactly how do you "severely limit" anyone's power if they chose to wield it and you refuse to organise a legal and effective political defence against it?

[tonton]

Let's chuck all power out the window. Corporations are no longer allowed to exist. All businesses are family businesses. We return to subsistence farming because large family farms can't be worked by JUST family.

In the end we return to an agrarian state, sounds fun!

sslarson, show us a single example of a "free market" system -- one that does not have any so-called "entitlement" programs or workers' compensation regulations, that reduces the wealth gap.

You are completely ignoring the fact that employers do not want higher wages. They will pay as low as they can go, to reduce expenditure. With a massive workforce reliant on employment, people will have to take what they can get.

The result, as I've said, is economic anarchy. It is indeed a feudal system.

Please explain where your "faith" that an economy that grows on the whole will "trickle down" to the poor has ever been more than a Utopian ideological theory, depending on the benevolence of the employer to treat workers fairly.

[tonton]

Exactly how do you "severely limit" anyone's power if they chose to wield it and you refuse to organise a legal and effective political defence against it?

You must be a used car salesman's dream!

Well put.

sslarson is not interested in limiting anyone's power. Just that of the "evil" government. Which will create a power vacuum, to be filled by corporations, to be wielded against the working class.

This is what hardeeharhar was getting at. When you take power of regulation away from the government, you give MASSIVE power to corporations and employers. The only way to counter that effect would be to do away with corporations as well. Is that what you really want, sslarson?

A "free" market, under your terms, is an ungoverned one. And an ungoverned market is anarchy.

[SpamSandwich]

Well put.

sslarson is not interested in limiting anyone's power. Just that of the "evil" government. Which will create a power vacuum, to be filled by corporations, to be wielded against the working class.

This is what hardeeharhar was getting at. When you take power of regulation away from the government, you give MASSIVE power to corporations and employers. The only way to counter that effect would be to do away with corporations as well. Is that what you really want, sslarson?

A "free" market, under your terms, is an ungoverned one. And an ungoverned market is anarchy.

Might I remind you that the working class is made of a large population of small business owners, not just some mythically "repressed" factory worker "underclass" (this view reflects last century market realities).

Also, monopolies are always, yes, ALWAYS unsustainable unless the force of government is being used to maintain them. When choice is restricted, these power imbalances occur.

[hardeeharhar]

Might I remind you that the working class is made of a large population of small business owners, not just some mythically "repressed" factory worker "underclass" (this view reflects last century market realities).

Also, monopolies are always, yes, ALWAYS unsustainable unless the force of government is being used to maintain them. When choice is restricted, these power imbalances occur.

That's great SpamSandwich, but what is to prevent corporations from funding their own army a la the end of the gilded age?

[gastroboy]

Might I remind you that the working class is made of a large population of small business owners, not just some mythically "repressed" factory worker "underclass" (this view reflects last century market realities).

Also, monopolies are always, yes, ALWAYS unsustainable unless the force of government is being used to maintain them. When choice is restricted, these power imbalances occur.

I'm not sure what the point is that you are trying to make but small business owners are the usual target of large corporations just as lion prides eliminate any cheetahs in their hunting range. Made bankrupt or just put out of business, the SBO gets to join the employment cue just like everyone else.

Monopolies can and do create the governments they want because of their unbalanced power.

All of this is being played out in Russia in a few short years, despite being supposedly purged by over 70 years of Communism.

Elsewhere in the world we see the same cycle of concentration of power and wealth being broken up by violent revolution since civilisation began.

Absurdist Utopias only get air time in the absence of any study of history.

[gastroboy]

That's great SpamSandwich, but what is to prevent corporations from funding their own army a la the end of the gilded age?

Carthage was a merchant cartel that hired its armies as needed.

[gastroboy]

It is simply a non sequitur to say that limiting political power and the ability to initiate force by people over others requires the elimination of corporations, the establishment of only family businesses and the return to an agrarian economy.

Again how is that "limiting" achieved when, as you advocated above, you dismantle a strong representative government?

Are you like those people who asked "Why didn't you go to the police?", when my father told them about living under the Nazis.

[hardeeharhar]

It is simply a non sequitur to say that limiting political power and the ability to initiate force by people over others requires the elimination of corporations, the establishment of only family businesses and the return to an agrarian economy.
then you only care about political force -- so the entire conversation about limiting people's control over others is a farce.

[tonton]

"You can take this job for $1 an hour, or you can leave it. There are plenty of other people who will take the job. Even if it means slightly lower productivity, as we hire people who may be less productive, the wage savings are worth it."

That is use of force.

[pfflam]

Would you please take this lame run-on out of my thread please?!

[pfflam]

Here is something that has made me think that the unthinkable might not actually happen (since the unthinkable has happened non-stop since Bush's first election I now find hard to imagine anything actually working out, politically, for the good of the US)

My father: A veteran of three wars: B-17 pilot, youngest Colonel in WW2, led the first American raid on Berlin, Purple heart, shot twice, Distinguished Flying Cross, Bronze Star, assorted other medals, had a mid-air collision, hedge-hopped a shot-up plane over France to Crash land back in Britain, and countless incredible, heroic stories.
Career Military man, Pentagon War College, thought we should have won Vietnam at all costs . .. *ehem*.
Has always been radically Anti-Communist - when I was young he had me design a decal that he would put on every letter he would write, most often to the newspapers about Communism, the decal had an ax bursting through a chain and read "Help Burst Communist Chains" - [clever 13 year-old].

He was proud of his signed letters from Ronald Reagan, and Bush Senior, last thing I would ever imagine is that he would question anybody Republican, he even made sure to land in a very conservative retirement home for ex-military folk; nice gardens, stucco homes, carts . . . just like those in all the retirement communities in McArizona.

It started with my mother (now deceased) she was French, and though she too was always very conservative, something about her Frenchness saw right through Dubbya, and she didn't just have qualms she went from life-long Reaganite to venom-!!
. . . that still didn't phase my father . . .

but, it may have started a small crack in the edifice

now, he is in a wheel chair and can barely move. When asked about the debate:

"that Barak Obama seems like a capable guy"
"McCain seems like a nut"

Nuff said . . . that is the unthinkable Ifor my personal world . . . wrap that up with George Will, and the only thing remaining to convince me that I am living a hallucination would be to have SDW admit that the McPalin dou would be a travesty . . .

So anyway, anybody else see any of this sort of thing happening?Add to this list another Conservative that sees the light: David Brokes just called Sarah Palin a Cancer on the Republican Party.

[pfflam]

Well HE'S TALKKING A DIFFERENT TUNE NOW (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wBsE8GbLM8U)

[Northgate]

David Brooks is a scumbag. I don't care how much he fellates Obama's "intellectual capacity".

[pfflam]

Ooops - HEREYA GO, YA YOU BETCHA (http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/10/08/david-brooks-sarah-palin_n_133001.html)

[Northgate]

So it looks like the blowhards on the right have amazed me once again with the silliness in which they choose to criticize Obama.

Apparently, pronouncing Pakistan (with a soft "a" -- pahk-ee-stahn) is now "elitist". Real Americans pronounce other country's names incorrectly dammit. Didn't someone send Obama's campaign the memo that real Americans prounce it "Eye-Rack", and certainly not the more proper "Ear-rock".

The inanity. It burns.

We now have a new bar for what's considered presidential.

[SpamSandwich]

I think you're mistaken.

Brooks basically blew his load (http://www.nytimes.com/2008/10/03/opinion/03brooks.html) over Palin's debate performance.

Oh, I don't know about that. In subsequent televised round table discussions, his praise diminished. I think he was still mentally sifting through the debate and wrote that article in haste. I believe as he committed more time to reflect on the substance of the debate and was able to do so without visual distraction, reality started to sink in.