BS: Democrats = Republicans??? Not!!!

Subject: BS: Democrats = Republicans??? Not!!!
From: Bobert
Date: 17 Nov 11 - 07:33 PM

Seems that a lot of folks have fallen for the Republican PR campaign to propagate the notion that both parties are exactly the same...

Let's do a little review...

1. The Republican Party used paid goons and their partisan Supreme Court to steal a presidential election... In the case of Bush v. Gore the court ruled that Bush would be "harmed" if the Florida recount were to be allowed to continue... Reality is that the day before that decision the recount was finding more and more Gore votes and the margin had shrunk to less than 300 votes and every hour was shrinking more...

2. The Republican Party has had in in for the New Deal going back to the days of FDR and has tried over and over to "starve the beast" so they could throw up their hands and say, "Sorry, we're broke"...

3. The Republican Party has spent every opportunity afforded it to disenfranchise voters... In South Carolina alone they have just disenfranchised upwards of 70,000 older black voters for the crime of having been born at home and not having certified birth certificates needed to get voter ID cards... Yet a NRA identification card is fine for voting...

4. The Republican Party hates unions and has used every opportunity to bust and destroy them... This started in the 80s with Reagan busting the Air Traffic Controllers Union and has not let up...

5. The Republican Party thinks that corporations are people and unlimited and undisclosed cash from corporations (foreign and domestic) is fine with them and that the voters have no right to know who is running attack ads...

6. The Republican Party had no issues with thugs and goons busting up town hall meetings and scaring people away from participating in the democratic process...

7. The Republican Party allowed people to yell, "Hang him" at Palin rallies in regards to Obama...

8. The Republican Party allows its candidates to threaten to shoot people (2nd amendment remedies) with whom they disagree...

No, folks these parties aren't the same... There was a time when this argument had merit... In 2000 I worked in the Nader campaign and have voted for him 2 times and brokered a vote for him in 2004... The Republican and Democrat Parties aren't your grandfather's parties...

Now if you are a Republican then feel free to continue propagating the Republican BIG LIE... It gives them cover for some very bad behavior... But if you aren't a Republican just be advised that the Republican PR machine is carefully putting these words in hour minds and your mouths...

B~

Subject: RE: BS: Democrats = Republicans??? Not!!!
From: Rapparee
Date: 17 Nov 11 - 09:23 PM

Bobert ol' pal, all I can say is "Caedite eos. Novit enim Dominus qui sunt eius." Get ALL those rascals out and put in a whole new set of rascals.

Subject: RE: BS: Democrats = Republicans??? Not!!!
From: Bobert
Date: 17 Nov 11 - 09:35 PM

Sorry, Rap, but I don't speak French...

B~

Subject: RE: BS: Democrats = Republicans??? Not!!!
From: MarkS
Date: 17 Nov 11 - 09:37 PM

Hey Bobert - you really need to get off the fence and make up your mind how you feel about them.

Subject: RE: BS: Democrats = Republicans??? Not!!!
From: Bobert
Date: 17 Nov 11 - 09:40 PM

LOL, Mark...

I'll get to work on that, mah man...

B~

Subject: RE: BS: Democrats = Republicans??? Not!!!
From: Jack the Sailor
Date: 18 Nov 11 - 02:13 AM

No Democrat would still be in the race with Newt's record.

This guy is polling second??

Subject: RE: BS: Democrats = Republicans??? Not!!!
From: GUEST,Guest from Sanity
Date: 18 Nov 11 - 02:17 AM

Do you mean they are just as dishonest as each other?
Do you mean that they both push legitimate causes for the actual 'good' of their constituents?
Do you mean neither one takes bribes?
...or insider trading tips for legislation?
Did you mean they don't let down their electorate, by keeping their campaign promises?
Did you mean in spin?...or commitment to the country above their party?
or did you mean that neither one fomented splinter groups(OWS, Tea Party)..because they were actually effective?

Do you even know what you mean?

GfS

Subject: RE: BS: Democrats = Republicans??? Not!!!
From: kendall
Date: 18 Nov 11 - 07:36 AM

What I know for sure is simple. Every advantage I have had in life, came to me from the democratic party. The republican party has done NOTHING for the working man.
I welcome arguments, but be prepared with facts, not opinions.

Subject: RE: BS: Democrats = Republicans??? Not!!!
From: beardedbruce
Date: 18 Nov 11 - 08:33 AM

There IS a difference between Dems and Reps:

A Democrat is someone who spends a lot of other people's money forcing them to do what he/she wants them to.

A Republican is someone who spends a lot of his/her own money forcing others to do what he/she wants them to.

Subject: RE: BS: Democrats = Republicans??? Not!!!
From: Bobert
Date: 18 Nov 11 - 08:41 AM

Reality going back 50 years, bruce, is that Dems have been the fiscally conservative party and end up having to clean up after Republican spending sprees...

B~

Subject: RE: BS: Democrats = Republicans??? Not!!!
From: Greg F.
Date: 18 Nov 11 - 08:41 AM

Ok, Please, Beardie. BBBS

Subject: RE: BS: Democrats = Republicans??? Not!!!
From: Lighter
Date: 18 Nov 11 - 09:06 AM

>the Republican PR campaign to propagate the notion that both parties are exactly the same...

Sounds fascinating. What campaign is that?

Last I heard, the R's were marketing themselves as the party of hard-working taxpayers while calling the D's socialist cronies of Wall Street bankers. (I didn't say it had to make sense.)

Why would they suddenly claim there's no differnce?

Subject: RE: BS: Democrats = Republicans??? Not!!!
From: Bobert
Date: 18 Nov 11 - 09:17 AM

Well, look at end result, Lighter... If you back out of the "garbage in = garbage out" concept and examine the "garbage out" what you find is a heck of alot of people who are parroting "both parties are the same"... That had to come from somewhere other than paying attention to the facts on the ground... PR is some tricky stuff and subliminal messaging occurs every day in just the way things are presented and after a while lies settle in in place of the truth...

I've been observing this for some time now but just within the last year I've seen how the Republicans have used the BIG LIE as a shield to shield them from criticism of their bad behavior, which BTW, goes back to the 90s and Gingrich... We've had almost 20 years of bad behavior from the Republicans starting with using their power to appoint a "special prosecutor" to burn thru $40M of our tax dollars to harass Bill Clinton...

And they continue to get away with bad behavior using their trusty "both sides" defense... It's kinda like what the Republicans did to the word "liberal"... It's all tricky PR, control groups, psychologists, ad-men, etc. that know how to manipulate public opinion and the manipulated rarely know why they say the things that they say... Kinda like a song stuck in yer head...

B~

Subject: RE: BS: Democrats = Republicans??? Not!!!
From: Midchuck
Date: 18 Nov 11 - 09:23 AM

I'm on Bearded Bruce's side.

To put it another way: Republicans are in the pay of, and take orders from, the very rich and the large corporations, and brag about it. Democrats are in the pay of, and take orders from, the very rich and the large corporations, and lie about it.

P.

Subject: RE: BS: Democrats = Republicans??? Not!!!
From: Little Hawk
Date: 18 Nov 11 - 10:47 AM

Midchuck has expressed the problem perfectly! ;-D

The very thing that hobbles the Democratic Party is that they are obliged for the sake of their supporters to pretend not to be in the service of the very rich and the large corporations. This makes it hard for them to seem entirely credible....and that makes it hard to get a lot of people's confidence at the voting booth...but they do sound a lot nicer than the batshit crazy Republicans, so that does work reasonably well to get quite a few people's votes...sometimes enough to win.

The Republicans don't have the problem of sounding any different from what they really are...batshit crazy fascists in the service of a mad military empire. This gives their supporters great confidence. It horrifies those who don't support them.

Having to choose between voting for these 2 parties is like having to choose between voting for Al Capone (the Republicans) and Lucky Luciano (the Democrats).

I do prefer Luciano's general style and way of speaking. No doubt about that. I'll walk across the street to avoid Capone (who is waving a baseball bat and screaming about busting heads), but I might be willing to have lunch with Luciano (who sounds like a sane man). I will vote for Luciano, not Capone, if there's no one else to vote for. However, the fact is that no matter which one of them you vote for, in the end the mob is still in control of your government.

That's Murder Incorporated. And who do they murder? Third World populations, that's who.

Subject: RE: BS: Democrats = Republicans??? Not!!!
From: dick greenhaus
Date: 18 Nov 11 - 01:25 PM

The bullshit idea that both parties are the same comes from the fringes---The OWS, the Green Party, the Libertarians , the Tea Party faithful.That'e the only justification for introducing a third party candidate (who's almost certain to lose, and almost certain to take votes from the major party they're closest to.)

Subject: RE: BS: Democrats = Republicans??? Not!!!
From: akenaton
Date: 18 Nov 11 - 04:05 PM

Dick.... NO ONE is saying that both parties are "the same", Little Hawk has spent ages explaining how they differ.
Dont you read other people's posts?

Both parties DO serve the same master.....the Corporate Capitalist System and that is what prevents any chance of REAL democracy.
Its ethos has seeped into our souls, we all wanted to "make something of ourselves" which is Capitalist code for being "considerably richer than yew".....as Harry Enfield would say.

We will never have a Democracy 'till the worth of a man or woman is weighed in something other than £s or $s

Actually, the "liberal" Democrats and centre left in the UK are much more of an impediment to "change" than the Repubs or conservatives,
As they continue to assert, even today as our people are being robbed blind, that the system can be resuscitated.
Millions with a little to lose believe that lie and we remain divided.

They are a distraction with their "equality agenda", gender politics, race, any minority that they can dig up are persuaded that they must be "equal" in every way, regardless of cost or common sense.
People are encouraged by this lunatic fringe to expect to be provided with a living, even when their last vestige of personal responsibility has been abandoned.

Yes we need to ditch Corporate Capitalism, but we also need to inject a dose of reality into the minds of our "liberal" brethern,

Subject: RE: BS: Democrats = Republicans??? Not!!!
From: Jack the Sailor
Date: 18 Nov 11 - 05:02 PM

The PR campaign is that both parties and the differences between them are equally to blame for the disfunction in Washington. Not even someone like Bruce believes that. He knows that Washington does not work well because it is their tactic to screw it up, so that other peoples' despair can be added to their own selfishness and lack of patriotism as reasons not to pay taxes.

Subject: RE: BS: Democrats = Republicans??? Not!!!
From: Little Hawk
Date: 18 Nov 11 - 07:27 PM

I'm not suggesting forming a "third party" or running a third party candidate, dick. That's a hopeless idea in the USA, one that is guaranteed to fail.

Got that? I'll repeat: I am NOT suggesting forming a third party in the USA.

I am not suggesting forming ANY political party whatsoever, because to do so would be an exercise in futility, in my opinion. I am suggesting completely nonpartisan social action by millions of people to transform society, such as was taken recently in Egypt, and such as is being taken (on a relatively small scale) by the OWS protests. It needs to be very much larger in scope than OWS, but OWS is a start.

I am also suggesting that it be an entirely peaceable and nonviolent movement, because that is the only sane way to go, in my opinion. Violence will only lead to disaster and the establishment of a police state in the USA.

I'm also not suggesting that the 2 parties are equally to blame for the dysfunction in Washington. It's the other way around...the lobbyists who work for the banks and major corporations are equally to blame for deliberately co-opting and corrupting both parties...with an equal degree of committment in either case. That doesn't imply an equality between the parties...it implies an equality of intent on the part of lobbyists to effectively control both parties, and they do. Whether their control of both parties is equal in nature or not is not the point. The point is that they are enabled to accomplish that control, equal or not, through the power of the dollar.

I have said that if forced to choose between voting for either the Democrats or the Republicans, I would vote for the Democrats in virtually every case. This clearly shows that I do not consider those 2 parties to be either equal or "the same". If I did, I'd have no preference for the Democrats over the Republicans, would I?

Subject: RE: BS: Democrats = Republicans??? Not!!!
From: Don Firth
Date: 18 Nov 11 - 07:50 PM

Bingo!

Right on the money, Little Hawk!

Don Firth

Subject: RE: BS: Democrats = Republicans??? Not!!!
From: Bobert
Date: 18 Nov 11 - 08:29 PM

BINGO, part 2...

Of course, you know that this is going to get you on GfinS's shit list but, hey....

B;~)

Subject: RE: BS: Democrats = Republicans??? Not!!!
From: GUEST,Guest from Sanity
Date: 18 Nov 11 - 10:33 PM

No, not at all!.....Their 'stated' ideologies ARE different....but their need for corruption, to make a quick under the table, is pretty much the same.

I just tend not to believe EVERYTHING a corrupt sleaze-ball says!

Jeez!..Even bush wanted to sell the Brooklyn Bridge to Dubai, but, the Arabs wanted him to throw in the harbor, as well.

...and he ALMOST did it!!!!

...ahh....the lemmings of politics!!

Stick to music...GOOD MUSIC...it's a higher calling, anyway!!!!

GfS

Subject: RE: BS: Democrats = Republicans??? Not!!!
From: Little Hawk
Date: 19 Nov 11 - 07:16 AM

That is for sure. ;-) I've been playing a lot of music lately, and enjoying it to the utmost.

The stated ideologies of the 2 parties, as GfS says, are quite different, and that's why people will tend to favour either one or the other of those 2 parties. Perfectly understandable. That's why I like the Democrats the better of the two. You see, the stated ideologies of the 2 parties HAVE to be different in order to create the sort of divisive drama that election campaigns are built upon. And besides, those ideologies are meant to appeal to separate constituencies, and they go back to long-established traditions and theories about how best to organize a society. Hell, I think you could trace it all the way back to Alexander Hamilton and Aaron Burr, if you wanted to, Burr being the classic "Republican" type (although the party itself didn't exist at that time) and Hamilton being the classic "Democratic" type. Burr eventually shot Hamilton dead in a duel.

This difference in stated ideologies would be fine, and would result in placing a really viable choice before the public, if those parties were acting honestly, but they're not. They're being deeply compromised by the power of money and lobbying. Therein lies the problem.

In regards to Aaron Burr, the following biographical material is interesting:

Burr's character put him at odds with the rest of the "founding fathers," especially Madison, Jefferson, and Hamilton, leading to his personal and political defeats and, ultimately, to his place outside the golden circle of revered revolutionary figures. Because of his habit of placing self-interest above the good of the whole, those men felt Burr represented a serious threat to the very ideals for which they had fought the Revolution. Their ideal, as particularly embodied in Washington and Jefferson, was that of "disinterested politics," a government led by educated gentlemen who would fulfill their duties in a spirit of public virtue and without regard to personal interests or pursuits. This was the core of an Enlightenment gentleman, and Burr, his political enemies felt, lacked that essential core. Indeed, it was Hamilton's belief that Burr's self-serving nature made him unfit to hold office—especially the presidency. Jefferson, though one of Hamilton's bitterest enemies, was at least a man of public virtue. This belief led Hamilton to launch his unrelenting campaign in the House of Representatives to prevent Burr's election to the presidency, favoring his erstwhile enemy Jefferson, instead. Later in Burr's life, Jefferson, in turn, would go so far as to push the boundaries of the Constitution in his attempt—in the charging and trying of Burr for treason—to eliminate Burr.

Burr, I would say, was a prototype of the modern Republican tradition, as espoused by Ronald Reagon and the neocons who have followed in the wake of the Reagan era.

As for politicians who genuinely embody the ideals held by Madison, Jefferson, and Hamilton...they barely exist at all anymore, and not just in the USA.

Subject: RE: BS: Democrats = Republicans??? Not!!!
From: Rapparee
Date: 19 Nov 11 - 10:43 AM

If You Love That Politician
Words and Music by Tom Paxton

Someone had the right idea out in Iowa.
Palo Alto County had its own straw poll.
Folks who listened to their radio,
Were told to flush their toilets so,
Their candidate might win the Super Bowl.

Folks in Emmetsburg have got things in perspective,
And good common sense that they rely upon.
When the beaming smiles and golden throats,
Come shaking hands and begging votes,
The folks in Emmetsburg head for the john.

If you love that politician, pull the chain.
Send the world of woe and trouble down the drain.
It's the road to satisfaction.
It's a natural reaction.
If you love that politician, pull the chain.

If you like the things he said, use your head.
You can show the world you think he's thoroughbred.
Choose a favorite son or daughter,
With a little running water.
If you like the things he said, use your head.

    [Cho:]
    Do you get that familiar feeling,
    When you hear the things they say?
    When they hum their familiar tunes,
    Do your thoughts all turn to prunes?
    Are you headed for Hernando's Hideaway?

If the man gets through to you, use your loo.
If he's not Number One, he's Number Two.
He's the greatest guy on earth.
Why don't you show him what he's worth?
If the man gets through to you, use your loo.

[Cho:]

If you love that politician, pull the chain (pull the chain).
Send the world of woe and trouble down the drain.
It's the road to satisfaction.
It's a natural reaction.
If you love that politician, pull the chain.

When you see the ruling gentry,
Why, the answer's alimentary.
If you love that politician, pull the chain.

Subject: RE: BS: Democrats = Republicans??? Not!!!
From: Jack the Sailor
Date: 21 Nov 11 - 06:38 PM

Democrats = Republicans Yes!

According to Scott Pelly

The Columbia BS evening news opened today with him saying that Congress would not raise the debt limit without spending cuts. Not the Tea Party Caucus, Congress.

Subject: RE: BS: Democrats = Republicans??? Not!!!
From: GUEST
Date: 21 Nov 11 - 06:55 PM

Wow, the political hatemongering just gets worse and worse.
:-(

Subject: RE: BS: Democrats = Republicans??? Not!!!
From: Jack the Sailor
Date: 21 Nov 11 - 07:20 PM

So does the unregistered trolling.