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22 Dec 09 - 06:11 PM (#2794603) Subject: BS: Obama caught in blatant lying From: Peter T. It is intriguing that as Obama moves into his second year, his behaviour is becoming more and more bizarre and contradictory (in every area, from the banking crisis to climate change). Today he was caught simply lying straight out. In an interview with the Washington Post, he denied ever having campaigned for a public option in health care. This is a complete lie. For a brief look at the overwhelming evidence: http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2009/12/22/818090/-President-Obama:-I-Didnt-Campaign-on-the-Public-Option.- yours, Peter T. |
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22 Dec 09 - 06:16 PM (#2794610) Subject: RE: BS: Obama caught in blatant lying From: GUEST,beardedbruce I think I found a new quote to push... "I am not against all health care reform, I am just against dumb health care reform!" |
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22 Dec 09 - 06:23 PM (#2794622) Subject: RE: BS: Obama caught in blatant lying From: GUEST,beardedbruce Still waiting for Obama to keep ANY of his promises.... Obama falling short of bill-signing pledge By Kara Rowland The White House in recent weeks took a step toward fulfilling one of President Obama's transparency pledges from the campaign by posting a link on its main Web site for Americans to comment on bills he's about to sign into law. That still didn't help Mr. Obama keep his pledge when he signed two giant spending bills in the past five days. Both the omnibus and the defense appropriations bills had been posted for just two days when the president signed them -- despite totaling more than $1 trillion in combined discretionary spending and including billions of dollars in earmarks inserted by lawmakers for favored projects. As he nears the end of his first year in office, Mr. Obama repeatedly has fallen short on his pledge to have all bills Congress sends to him posted and open for comments for at least five days before he decides to sign them. A Washington Times analysis of data from the Library of Congress found that on 32 of the 117 bills he signed through Tuesday, Mr. Obama didn't wait the full five days after the bill reached his desk to pick up his pen. In June, realizing they were falling short, White House officials altered their pledge. Spokesman Nick Shapiro told the New York Times that the administration would post a link to the Library of Congress Web site and start the five-day clock "once it is clear that a bill will be coming to the president's desk." Yet even under those amended terms, the administration is still coming up short. A Cato Institute analysis finds that on 43 of the 117 bills Mr. Obama has signed, the White House didn't even bother to post a link to the bill or allow comments. The administration disputes Cato's numbers. Mr. Shapiro said at least some of the bills Cato lists were posted for comment but were dropped from the Web site when it was upgraded earlier this year. Mr. Shapiro declined to comment for this article on how the White House views its performance in meeting the pledge, declined to provide numbers on how often since June it thinks it has met the modified pledge and declined to talk about how many comments it has received or how much influence the comments have on Mr. Obama. more |
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22 Dec 09 - 06:42 PM (#2794631) Subject: RE: BS: Obama caught in blatant lying From: Lox The relationship between the USA and Russia has been transformed under Obama. This alone is of enormous importance. I'm sure there are a few Yanks out there who can think of a few other achievements. On the subject of health care, at least he's achieved something. His opponents would have left things as theey were. |
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22 Dec 09 - 07:02 PM (#2794643) Subject: RE: BS: Obama caught in blatant lying From: Bill D My goodness.... such interesting interpretation of statements. **Lying** is always a very harsh assertion. I'll bet he didn't mean it like you wish to portray it. With the impending of passage of ANY bill on health care, opponents are getting really nasty in their complaints. (ummm... if we are going to discuss lying, let's start with the many serious and documented lies of Bush/Cheney and crew.) As to health care, let's see how it all goes, hmmm? |
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22 Dec 09 - 07:20 PM (#2794654) Subject: RE: BS: Obama caught in blatant lying From: kendall Harsh indeed. Failing to produce what one promises is not a lie. Things change, people change. If he had every intention to do whatever and, for some reason is not able to, that is not a lie. However, if he knew he was lying at the time that is another bag of rats. "Change inevitable. Resistance to change is also inevitable." They have had 100 years to do something about health care since T. Roosevelt proposed it and what have they done? Nothing. Less than nothing, they fight every social piece of legislation from Social Security, to Medicare to now. The party of NO is well named. |
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22 Dec 09 - 07:34 PM (#2794662) Subject: RE: BS: Obama caught in blatant lying From: Bobert Yeah, I hate to say it but I don't remember Obama campaigning on health care with a public option... I wished he had then manybe we wouldn't be facing the current bill which doesnot contain one... |
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22 Dec 09 - 07:43 PM (#2794666) Subject: RE: BS: Obama caught in blatant lying From: Q (Frank Staplin) Politics is the art of the possible. (Forgot source of quotation) |
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22 Dec 09 - 07:45 PM (#2794671) Subject: RE: BS: Obama caught in blatant lying From: akenaton I never thought I'd ever say this.....but be very careful what you wish for. The National Health Service ...at its inception, a wonderful idea which worked well for decades....and basically it still remains so, it never changed, but WE changed. The NHS has become a great money trough, and we all have our snouts in it.....Doctors, nurses,consultants,administrators even a large percentage of the public. Our local Doctor has just come back from a holiday in Venesuala, he said the medical service is magnificent....it works so well because people value it, they remember what things were like under the old regime and they dont try to abuse a service which works to the advantage of all Venesualans..........We have forgotten, or become immune to the needs of others...Ake |
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22 Dec 09 - 08:05 PM (#2794684) Subject: RE: BS: Obama caught in blatant lying From: McGrath of Harlow It all depends on what is meant by "I didn't campaign". Obviously, being an intelligent man, he hoped that a public option would form part of the reform package, and said so when he was running for president. But it seems fairly obvious that over the past year Obama has not been going out all guns blazing campaigning for a public option, but has to a large extent sat on his hands. ................. As for akenaton's comments about there being greedy people around who disfigure and damage the NHS, that's been true since the beginning ("I stuffed their mouths with gold" said Nye Bevan of the consultants), but it doesn't stop the health service being a pretty good operation. And greed is not exactly noticeable by its absence in the private sector!!! It is hardly surprising that the attitudes generated there rubs off on people in the public and non-profit sectors. |
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22 Dec 09 - 08:15 PM (#2794693) Subject: RE: BS: Obama caught in blatant lying From: katlaughing So everyone wants instant gratification? The past ten years were so fucked up and he is supposed to undo all of the damage in LESS than a year with a recalcitrant body of mostly old, scared, white men? |
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22 Dec 09 - 08:21 PM (#2794697) Subject: RE: BS: Obama caught in blatant lying From: akenaton Yes Mr McGrath...I'm afraid I agree with you 100% |
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22 Dec 09 - 08:31 PM (#2794703) Subject: RE: BS: Obama caught in blatant lying From: Bobert Another thing we need to keep in mind as we get further into Obama's presidency is that alot of us heard what we wanted to hear even if Obama didn't say it... I'm guilty, I know... |
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22 Dec 09 - 08:37 PM (#2794706) Subject: RE: BS: Obama caught in blatant lying From: Q (Frank Staplin) I tol ya, ya shoulda worked for Hillary. (Wouldn't have made any difference. The Dems only have 60 not so secure votes in the Senate, so have to tread lightly). Lieberman, the bouncing ball...., etc. |
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22 Dec 09 - 08:39 PM (#2794708) Subject: RE: BS: Obama caught in blatant lying From: Bill D You know, in our system the president merely defines & suggests a basic set of goals. The Congress then must create the laws...subject to the presidents final approval - and even a veto can be overridden. Obama no doubt had MUCH input behind the scenes, but he cannot simply delare laws into being as in some countries. To echo what others have said many times, the Republicans have held power, and had majorities, many times the last 50-75 years, and they never made any serious attempt to provide sweeping health care, and they defeated the attempts the Democrats made with lobby-funded obstructionist campaigns. They had no problem spending untold billions on stupid wars, but spending money on citizens health? naaawwww... The repetitive cry of **government takeover** rings kind of hollow when the private sector has been so greedy and uncaring. OTHER COUNTRIES make government aided care work, in various ways. Why have we waited so long? |
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22 Dec 09 - 08:41 PM (#2794710) Subject: RE: BS: Obama caught in blatant lying From: Amos Jeeze guys--he's been in office a year, starting out with the deepest hole any President ever handed to his successor and especially a shattered economy. Furthermore he has worked toward the goals he set. The art of the possible, as they say. Let's examine where the counter-efforts are coming from and see whether the problem is with the President or not... Hmmm. Who has been fighting against health care reform? He didn't get where he said he wanted to get to. No doubt. However, saying he didn't ever campaign on public option is a bit weaselly. A |
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22 Dec 09 - 08:53 PM (#2794717) Subject: RE: BS: Obama caught in blatant lying From: GUEST,beardedbruce The point is that he NOW states that he did not. A clear case of refusing to deal with reality. So, when do we hear Amos demanding his impeachment?? |
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22 Dec 09 - 08:55 PM (#2794719) Subject: RE: BS: Obama caught in blatant lying From: GUEST,999 How would a Bush supporter recognize a lie in the first place? |
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22 Dec 09 - 09:30 PM (#2794740) Subject: RE: BS: Obama caught in blatant lying From: GUEST,beardedbruce We just see if it is a liberal speaking, then we know it's a lie... Next time leave a name instead of hiding like an idiot...... |
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22 Dec 09 - 09:40 PM (#2794743) Subject: RE: BS: Obama caught in blatant lying From: GUEST,999 It IS my name, Bruce. And don't go getting nasty with an old friend fer krisake. Capiche? And for fuck sake, lighten up. I didn't say Bush ever told blatant lies. He told just ordinary ones resulting in the deaths of what, 1 1/2 million people? |
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22 Dec 09 - 09:42 PM (#2794744) Subject: RE: BS: Obama caught in blatant lying From: GUEST,999 And another thing. I have been posting as Guest,999 for weeks and weeks. Just because you didn't know is no reason to lose your cool. Huh? |
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22 Dec 09 - 10:09 PM (#2794748) Subject: RE: BS: Obama caught in blatant lying From: GUEST,beardedbruce Give Obama another year- he can kill more than Bush quite easily, and might very well... |
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22 Dec 09 - 10:36 PM (#2794754) Subject: RE: BS: Obama caught in blatant lying From: GUEST,999 What scenario do you have in mind? |
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22 Dec 09 - 11:25 PM (#2794769) Subject: RE: BS: Obama caught in blatant lying From: GUEST,beardedbruce Which, you mean. Given his efforts so far, I expect he will start at least one major war. Probably nuclear. |
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22 Dec 09 - 11:31 PM (#2794773) Subject: RE: BS: Obama caught in blatant lying From: Janie Hear, Hear, Amos. Obama is very good at "the art of the possible." It became clear very early that fully realized health care reform that included a bonafide national system was not acheivable. Obama has always indicated he is an advocate of a public option, and has also made it clear that he was not going to insist on it, realistically assessing that insisting on it would likely result in NO health care reform measure at all. Kevin, I do not perceive him as having sat on his hands at all on the health care issue. Had he and loberal Democrats insisted on a truly national health care plan, enabling legislation would have had the proverbial snowball's chance in hell to have come to fruition. What he has done, rather masterfully, is make sure the administration has not created reactionary resistance so strong that nothing at all would pass Congress. He also tried very hard to get bi-partisan support, and when it became clear that simply was not going to happen, he and liberals in the Senate did what was necessary to gain the votes of conservative Democrats. I'm not sure what we are going to end up with when the legislation is finally passed, and I am already not happy with it. But it is a significant step in the right direction, and likely to keep us going in the direction of universal health care. Our political parties are not analogous to the the Labor and Conservative parties of the UK - in fact- as Peace helped me to understand, what we call political parties are not analogous to the political parties of a parlimentary Democracy. Our country is very, very deeply divided on any number of issues right now that can not be easily categorized as liberal vs conservative. I don't remember who was being interviewed, but I recently heard some professor of politics on NPR say that over the last 8-10 years, we are more polarized within our country than has occurred since the late 1800's. The Republican party draws not only conservatives, but also libertarians. The Democrats draw liberals, moderates, and some conservatives, but virtually no libertarians. At least that is what seems to me to be the case. There are many USA fols here who are more politically informed and more politically astute than am I. I'll be interested to read their more informed comments. What is absolutely clear to me is that the American people, regardless of their social and political philosophies are for the most part very much engaged in emotional thinking right now, and very much into taking positions rather than thinking through what is in their best interests, whether personally or collectively. |
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22 Dec 09 - 11:53 PM (#2794782) Subject: RE: BS: Obama caught in blatant lying From: Janie One day last week Marketplace (on NPR) closed with a quite remarkable quote from a participant at a recent "town hall meeting" some Senator was holding on health care reform. It left my 16 year old son and I howling with laughter (to cover up the tears).... Government, keep your hands off my Medicare! |
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23 Dec 09 - 12:23 AM (#2794788) Subject: RE: BS: Obama caught in blatant lying From: DougR "If you make less than $250,000 a year, your taxes will not increase a dime!" "Our administration will be the most transparent one ever. Our discussions about revisions to health care will be televised on C-Span for all to see." "If you like your health insurance you will be able to keep it!" "I'm going to change how Washington operates! I will bring bi-partisanship to the nation's capital!" These are not "exact" quotes because I write them from memory, but they are the gist of what our president promised while campaigning. Which of them did he follow through on? You may not call it lying, but I have noticed from his many appearances on TV that he has a much longer nose eleven months after taking the oath of office than he did before. DougR |
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23 Dec 09 - 12:47 AM (#2794796) Subject: RE: BS: Obama caught in blatant lying From: Neil D I never thought of President Obama as a progressive in the first place and that's not why I voted for him. A true progressive (Dennis Kucinich) could never win the presidency in this country. I voted for him because I believed he would be better than McCain, still do. It's the U.S. Senate that has made a dog's lunch out of healthcare reform. This absurd need for a 60% majority to get anything accomplished has turned it into a disfunctional legislative body. That's why Nelson was able to get special dispensation for his state on Medicaid payments and Lieberman was able to get the public option and a 55+ buyin for Medicare stripped from the bill. A single payer system or Medicare for all was never even on the table. True progress never wins out in this country. Now some progressives say that Obama should have been more forceful, and public, with the Senate in lobbying for a robust public option and maybe so. But even if he had, Lieberman et al. may have never fallen in line, causing Obama to look weak and ineffectual. He's too shrewd a politician to take that risk. He's like a poker player holding his hand close to his vest. He's trying maneuver in the minefield of that is 21st century partisan politics. And like I said, he never was a progressive in the first place, just a damn sight better than the alternative. |
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23 Dec 09 - 01:40 AM (#2794805) Subject: RE: BS: Obama caught in blatant lying From: CarolC Obama has consistently downplayed the importance of a public option. He never campaigned on it. |
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23 Dec 09 - 01:51 AM (#2794807) Subject: RE: BS: Obama caught in blatant lying From: CarolC I should amend my last post. Whenever he would say positive things about a public option, he would then say that while it would be nice, it wasn't critical. Some people may have thought he was promising a public option, but I could tell he was softening us up to accept a health care bill without one. |
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23 Dec 09 - 01:54 AM (#2794810) Subject: RE: BS: Obama caught in blatant lying From: Janie What Carol and Neil said. |
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23 Dec 09 - 01:56 AM (#2794811) Subject: RE: BS: Obama caught in blatant lying From: CarolC DougR, of the promises you've listed how many do we know he won't follow up on? |
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23 Dec 09 - 07:30 AM (#2794917) Subject: RE: BS: Obama caught in blatant lying From: Terry McDonald Politics is the art of the possible. (Forgot source of quotation) Wasn't it R.A. Butler? (Or possibly Iain MacLeod) |
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23 Dec 09 - 08:10 AM (#2794926) Subject: RE: BS: Obama caught in blatant lying From: Riginslinger "I never thought of President Obama as a progressive... A true progressive (Dennis Kucinich) could never win the presidency in this country." While I wouldn't have any trouble voting for Dennis Kucinich, I didn't vote for Obama because I thought he would turn out to be a Move-On.org puppet, due to the way his campaign was financed, and the people he surrounded himself with. So far, I've been pleasantly surprised. |
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23 Dec 09 - 09:37 AM (#2794962) Subject: RE: BS: Obama caught in blatant lying From: Raptor Lest see... Obama's guilty of trying to fix the United States healthcare. Bush put the world into a depression by starting wars that cost billions of dollars and killed thousands of people looking for weapons of mass destruction and Osama bin Ladden, niether of which they will ever find. Please refer to Katlaughings post it's right on the money! |
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23 Dec 09 - 12:24 PM (#2795070) Subject: RE: BS: Obama caught in blatant lying From: Little Hawk BB, where do you expect Obama's next war to be? Iran? Or Pakistan? Just wondering what your prediction might be. Those 2 appear more likely to me than any other possibilities if one is to pick hypotheticals. Neil is quite correct that a true progressive (such as Dennis Kucinich) cannot win the presidency in the USA. |
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23 Dec 09 - 01:12 PM (#2795111) Subject: RE: BS: Obama caught in blatant lying From: GUEST,beardedbruce Notice the air attack on a site in Yeman? I THINK it will be Iran, but it might well be Somalia or Yeman- all in search of Al-Quida. |
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23 Dec 09 - 01:36 PM (#2795124) Subject: RE: BS: Obama caught in blatant lying From: GUEST,beardedbruce "Some people may have thought he was promising a public option," Well, if liberals can take the statement " IF we don't stop Saddam's nuclear program he will have WMD in the future." and read it as IRAQ HAS NUKES NOW!!!, then you have to forgive those of us who hear Obama say something and then NOT do what he said he would do, upon winning the election. Not much room for interpretation in "If you make less than $250,000 a year, your taxes will not increase a dime!" "Our administration will be the most transparent one ever. Our discussions about revisions to health care will be televised on C-Span for all to see." "If you like your health insurance you will be able to keep it!" "I'm going to change how Washington operates! I will bring bi-partisanship to the nation's capital!" |
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23 Dec 09 - 01:36 PM (#2795125) Subject: RE: BS: Obama caught in blatant lying From: Little Hawk Uh-huh. Possibilities, I suppose. I don't believe for a moment that it's really about Al Qaeda, though. Al-Qaeda's just a convenient excuse for maintaining a perpetual state of war somewhere...anywhere that's handy. It's the same general procedure outlined in George Orwell's "1984"...the maintenance of a perpetual state of war by Oceania (an alliance of Great Britain and North America) in a variety of distant third world places against an indefinable "enemy" who can never be completely defeated and eliminated. Nothing could be more convenient than an enemy like Al Qaeda who can simply be moved wherever the next war is planned and appear magically wherever required, since they do not represent any specific government or nation. Kind of like fighting international Communism. You can do it anywhere you please. Since the Soviet Union's demise, new international enemies have had to be found to feed the voracious belly of the military-industrial beast, and they were found in very short order. The much bally-hooed international "Peace Dividend" that we were all promised after the fall of the Berlin Wall never came. If all the Muslims in the world somehow vanished, another new enemy would have to be found to take their place. My guess is that it would be the Chinese and various other orientals, probably, but that would be far less convenient (and far more dangerous) than a mysterious and hidden outfit like Al Qaeda...people who possess little real firepower and very little manpower, but who can be conjured up laughing evilly like Snidely Whiplash whenever it suits the purpose. |
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23 Dec 09 - 04:21 PM (#2795133) Subject: RE: BS: Obama caught in blatant lying From: CarolC beardedbruce, of the promises you've listed there, how many do we know he won't deliver? |
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23 Dec 09 - 04:32 PM (#2795143) Subject: RE: BS: Obama caught in blatant lying From: GUEST,beardedbruce Of the supposed "lies" that Bush is accussed of, HOW MANY were what he SAID, and how many the NYT rewording to make it false?? How many do I expect Obama to deliver? As few as he can. Obama was supposed to post bills for review- FALSE Obama was supposed to have OPEN debate- FALSE Obama makes claims when he does NOT have a bill- and BOTH the bills that have passed WILL NOT DO what Obama has stated. Obama DID pay off his UAW supporters, at the cost of the investors in GM. Obama keeps making statements that sound wonderful, and then does NOTHING to make them true. What we "know" is that Obama is following most of the Bush policies that many here were complaining about- and NOT getting any criticsm for it. If Bush was Black, and Obama White, I would think that many here are racist. |
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23 Dec 09 - 04:35 PM (#2795147) Subject: RE: BS: Obama caught in blatant lying From: GUEST,beardedbruce "If you make less than $250,000 a year, your taxes will not increase a dime!" NOT according to either of the bills. FALSE already "Our administration will be the most transparent one ever. Our discussions about revisions to health care will be televised on C-Span for all to see." FALSE already "If you like your health insurance you will be able to keep it!" FALSE already "I'm going to change how Washington operates! I will bring bi-partisanship to the nation's capital!" FALSE already So, my answer to "of the promises you've listed there, how many do we know he won't deliver? " the answer is ALL OF THEM. |
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23 Dec 09 - 04:37 PM (#2795148) Subject: RE: BS: Obama caught in blatant lying From: CarolC I can't answer your question, beardedbruce. I don't get my information from the New York Times. So you're just speculating about the future with some of the promises you say he won't deliver. |
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23 Dec 09 - 04:44 PM (#2795153) Subject: RE: BS: Obama caught in blatant lying From: GUEST,beardedbruce If Congress said tha the Easter Bunny would solve our problems, YOU seem to think that proof the problems are solved. Obama made statements about what he would do. I gave him more than 11 months- AND HE HAS NOT DONE WHAT HE SAID HE WOULD DO. You are the one speculating- I am making a statemnt based on observed actions. |
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23 Dec 09 - 04:47 PM (#2795156) Subject: RE: BS: Obama caught in blatant lying From: Little Hawk You (as president) cannot bring bipartisanship to Congress or to Washington if the seated members of Congress are completely unwilling to engage in it. And they are unwilling to do so. They are simply playing their usual destructive political games...as the "divide and conquer" $ySStem rolls merrily on its way. Everyone's hidden taxes increase yearly as the great inflation machine run by the banks rolls on and real money declines in value. All politicians lie about what is happening with that (except for the odd maverick like Dennis Kucinich). |
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23 Dec 09 - 04:50 PM (#2795158) Subject: RE: BS: Obama caught in blatant lying From: CarolC Looks like we crossposted. "If you make less than $250,000 a year, your taxes will not increase a dime!" NOT according to either of the bills. FALSE already Neither bill has been passed into law, and Obama hasn't signed a health care reform law yet, so you're the one who is lying in this instance. "Our administration will be the most transparent one ever. Our discussions about revisions to health care will be televised on C-Span for all to see." FALSE already This one is partially true. "If you like your health insurance you will be able to keep it!" FALSE already Since neither bill has been passed into law, and we don't know what the final bill will look like, and since Obama hasn't signed any health care reform law yet, you're the one who is lying in this instance as well. "I'm going to change how Washington operates! I will bring bi-partisanship to the nation's capital!" FALSE already You're the one who is lying in this instance as well, since one of the problems that many of us have with the current bills before both houses is that Obama went much too far in trying to have a bipartisan bill. He gave away much of what his base wanted in order to court Republican votes. So, my answer to "of the promises you've listed there, how many do we know he won't deliver? " the answer is ALL OF THEM. You're the one who is blatantly lying. |
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23 Dec 09 - 04:52 PM (#2795159) Subject: RE: BS: Obama caught in blatant lying From: CarolC You gave him 11 months!?! LOLOL!!!!! He gets to serve out his entire four year term before you can say he won't deliver on his promises. |
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23 Dec 09 - 04:57 PM (#2795162) Subject: RE: BS: Obama caught in blatant lying From: GUEST,beardedbruce Wrong. "He gets to serve out his entire four year term before you can say he won't deliver on his promises. " When Obama states he will do something FROM THE BEGINNING of his term, and fails to do so, I don't need to give him another minute. YOU can't tell me what I can say. |
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23 Dec 09 - 05:00 PM (#2795167) Subject: RE: BS: Obama caught in blatant lying From: CarolC Well, you can't say it without lying. You can certainly say he hasn't fulfilled some of his promises yet. But you can't say without lying that he won't fulfill his promises during his term. In the case of the openness, you can't say he hasn't fulfilled that one either without lying. You can say that he has only partially fulfilled that one and be telling the truth, but that's all. |
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23 Dec 09 - 05:13 PM (#2795174) Subject: RE: BS: Obama caught in blatant lying From: Amos Bruce is, of course, completely free to say anything, true or not, that will spread around his bitterness and acerbiv dislike about all things Obama. And likely to do so, as well. But that does not make his statements judicious, even-tempered, fair-minded, or accurate. The great tragedy of Obama's promise of bi[partisan process is that when he tried it he got mugged by bitter minded naysayers and mindless obstructionists who would rather do anything than improve conditions for the nation. A |
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23 Dec 09 - 05:17 PM (#2795178) Subject: RE: BS: Obama caught in blatant lying From: McGrath of Harlow "If you like your health insurance you will be able to keep it!" FALSE already Are Americans now compelled to give up the health insurance they have? |
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23 Dec 09 - 05:19 PM (#2795179) Subject: RE: BS: Obama caught in blatant lying From: CarolC Many are, McGrath, but not because of any health care reform laws (we don't have one yet), but rather because the insurance companies are either kicking them off the rolls of the insured, or because the insurance companies are jacking up the cost of their premiums so high they can't afford it any more. |
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23 Dec 09 - 05:22 PM (#2795182) Subject: RE: BS: Obama caught in blatant lying From: GUEST,Ebbie, away from home, house/dog sitting I'm curious- did anyone here think that cleaning up the mess the president inherited would be painless? I've said a number of times that from to time we will be disappointed, that from time to time our government will have to have a 'do-over, that from time to time our government will make mistakes... bb and others, surely you are not ignoring the situation President Obama inherited? Everything from the financial collapse with its concomitant disasters, to two wars, and on and on. If we listed everything that had gone wrong according to its unprecedented-ness inthose eight years it would be a long list indeed. I repeat: Did anyone here think it would be painless? How naive.Far from being painless it has elements if impossibility. |
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23 Dec 09 - 05:29 PM (#2795192) Subject: RE: BS: Obama caught in blatant lying From: GUEST,beardedbruce "Bruce is, of course, completely free to say anything, true or not, that will spread around his bitterness and acerbiv dislike about all things Obama. And likely to do so, as well. But that does not make his statements judicious, even-tempered, fair-minded, or accurate." True- as is the fact that YOU ( Amos) were completely free to say anything, true or not, that will spread around your bitterness and acerbic dislike about all things Bush. But that does not make your statements judicious, even-tempered, fair-minded, or accurate. If you don't like what I say, try finding facts that refute the statements, instead of attacking me. You might find that your idol has feet of clay. |
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23 Dec 09 - 05:32 PM (#2795194) Subject: RE: BS: Obama caught in blatant lying From: GUEST,beardedbruce I said NOTHING about it being painless. The point nder discussion here is that Obama made statements about what he and his administration would do, from the start, and he has failed in 11 months to do what he said he would. Which of the following do you want to blame on Bush?? "If you make less than $250,000 a year, your taxes will not increase a dime!" "Our administration will be the most transparent one ever. Our discussions about revisions to health care will be televised on C-Span for all to see." "If you like your health insurance you will be able to keep it!" "I'm going to change how Washington operates! I will bring bi-partisanship to the nation's capital!" Waiting for the answer.... |
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23 Dec 09 - 05:33 PM (#2795195) Subject: RE: BS: Obama caught in blatant lying From: McGrath of Harlow Was that "me" bruce? |
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23 Dec 09 - 05:34 PM (#2795196) Subject: RE: BS: Obama caught in blatant lying From: CarolC My own opinion about whether or not Obama is living up to my expectations of him is that he definitely is. I expected him to be no Kucinich, and he is certainly no Kucinich. Having said that, he's a far sight better than the people we had in his place in the previous eight years (in my opinion). |
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23 Dec 09 - 05:37 PM (#2795198) Subject: RE: BS: Obama caught in blatant lying From: CarolC Which of the following do you want to blame on Bush?? For at least three of them, there's nothing to blame anyone for, since none of the three have any relationship to reality. They are fabrications made up by whichever liars beardedbruce and DougR get their copy pasts from. |
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23 Dec 09 - 05:38 PM (#2795199) Subject: RE: BS: Obama caught in blatant lying From: GUEST,beardedbruce |
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23 Dec 09 - 05:40 PM (#2795201) Subject: RE: BS: Obama caught in blatant lying From: GUEST,ArtBrooks in Pittsburgh This is a representative democracy, not a dictatorship. Mr. Obama has some influence over what the Democrats in Congress propose, but really doesn't control them. His earlier statements in the context of the campaign clearly indicate that he believed he had more control than he really does, but blaming him for what ends up in, or omitted from, legislation indicates a sad lack of understanding of the system. One could easily argue either side of the four items BB has mentioned, although it seems to me that the entire discussion resembles the kind of sour-grapes attitude that the Republican "leadership" has shown in the past few days when it has begun to appear that the president might actually pull a partial win out against their complete stonewalling. |
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23 Dec 09 - 05:40 PM (#2795203) Subject: RE: BS: Obama caught in blatant lying From: GUEST,beardedbruce CarolC, you are entitled to have whatever opinion you wish. Please allow the rest of us that priviledge. "whichever liars beardedbruce and DougR get their copy pasts from. " A pity you never listened to Obama's speeches or words. This whole thread is a statement that the source of our copy pastes (OBAMA) IS a liar. |
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23 Dec 09 - 05:40 PM (#2795204) Subject: RE: BS: Obama caught in blatant lying From: CarolC "If you make less than $250,000 a year, your taxes will not increase a dime!" NOT according to either of the bills. FALSE already Neither bill has been passed into law, and Obama hasn't signed a health care reform law yet, so you're the one who is lying in this instance. "Our administration will be the most transparent one ever. Our discussions about revisions to health care will be televised on C-Span for all to see." FALSE already This one is partially true (and so therefore, only partially false). "If you like your health insurance you will be able to keep it!" FALSE already Since neither bill has been passed into law, and we don't know what the final bill will look like, and since Obama hasn't signed any health care reform law yet, you're the one who is lying in this instance as well. "I'm going to change how Washington operates! I will bring bi-partisanship to the nation's capital!" FALSE already You're the one who is lying in this instance as well, since one of the problems that many of us have with the current bills before both houses is that Obama went much too far in trying to have a bipartisan bill. He gave away much of what his base wanted in order to court Republican votes. |
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23 Dec 09 - 05:44 PM (#2795209) Subject: RE: BS: Obama caught in blatant lying From: CarolC beardedebruce, you are entitled to your own opinion, but you are not entitled to your own facts. The fact is that in the case of three of the things you have listed, you are lying, or at least spreading someone else's lies as though they were true. |
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23 Dec 09 - 05:48 PM (#2795212) Subject: RE: BS: Obama caught in blatant lying From: pdq "...since one of the problems that many of us have with the current bills before both houses is that Obama went much too far in trying to have a bipartisan bill. He gave away much of what his base wanted in order to court Republican votes." Absurd, since ObamaCare got absolutely no Republican votes. The endless changes were forced by reluctant Democrats. |
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23 Dec 09 - 05:57 PM (#2795216) Subject: RE: BS: Obama caught in blatant lying From: Lox "Absurd, since ObamaCare got absolutely no Republican votes." Indeed. He made the fundamental mistake of believing that the Repubs give a shit and that there might be some mileage in negotiating with them. |
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23 Dec 09 - 05:57 PM (#2795217) Subject: RE: BS: Obama caught in blatant lying From: GUEST,beardedbruce "but you are not entitled to your own facts." And niether are you. Obama gave NOTHING to the Republicans- the compromises from the liberal "ideal" were made to get the DEMOCRATS willing to pass it, and even then it required multiple bribes ( pork projects) that contribute nothing to Health Reform, but increase the costs. Present report by CBO is that the present bills will NOT meet the "no increased debt" that Obama claims is required. The bills that are being considered are the choices: IF there are changes, it would be to bring both bills into a common one. Please tell me how EITHER will meet the claims that Obama made, or do you imply he will not sign whatever comes out of Congress?? |
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23 Dec 09 - 05:59 PM (#2795221) Subject: RE: BS: Obama caught in blatant lying From: GUEST,ArtBrooks in Pittsburgh Very true, pdq, except (of course) what is going through the Senate and House are two very different bills, and neither has much to do with Mr. Obama's ideas as stated during his campaign. Calling either "ObamaCare" is pretty silly. Obama is generally a centrist, and the compromises made by Congressional leadership with the left wing of the Democratic party and a few recalcitrant DINOs in order to get legislation through are far from anything he ever advocated. BTW, Rep Cao (R) Louisiana voted for the House bill. |
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23 Dec 09 - 06:05 PM (#2795229) Subject: RE: BS: Obama caught in blatant lying From: CarolC It's not necessary for the Republicans to accept what is offered in order for Obama to be making a bipartisan effort. All that is needed is for Obama to meet them halfway, which he more than did. If the Republicans were not willing to compromise along side of the compromises that the Democrats were making, that is their fault and not Obama's. One can only go halfway and still be making compromises. Beyond halfway is not compromise, but capitulation. Obama capitulated because he gave away far more than half of what the pro health care reform constituency wanted in an effort to court Republican votes. |
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23 Dec 09 - 06:08 PM (#2795233) Subject: RE: BS: Obama caught in blatant lying From: Stilly River Sage Look what the cat dragged in: a few disappointed Republicans. Turnabouts fair play. :) |
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23 Dec 09 - 06:13 PM (#2795238) Subject: RE: BS: Obama caught in blatant lying From: CarolC Here is perhaps a way of saying in fewer words what I was trying to say in my last post... Bi-partisan doesn't mean giving Republicans everything they want. It just means meeting them half way, and Obama met them far beyond halfway. |
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23 Dec 09 - 06:38 PM (#2795251) Subject: RE: BS: Obama caught in blatant lying From: Bill D "...I will bring bi-partisanship to the nation's capital!" *grin* He brought it...it's just that the 'partisans' on the other side didn't want to play. They seem to have some sort of pact to vote and obstruct anything he offers. You really think 'bi-partisanship' means letting your opponents override all attempts to do anything? |
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23 Dec 09 - 06:40 PM (#2795255) Subject: RE: BS: Obama caught in blatant lying From: Bobert The problem here really has nuthin' to do with lies but everything to do with the way people view the real world... BB, as we know, only sees black and white... That is why he supported George Bush... Other folks see the world in less absolute terms and therefore don't expect Obama to be able to achieve everything he campiagned on... I mean, given the fact that we do have a democracy and over 500 people putting their hands in the mix, it is unreasonable to expect one man to be able to rule absolutely... But Bush tried... Obama, on the other hand, did say that he was going attemp to restore transparency and for those of us who are capable of seeing shades of gray, he has done a purdy good job considering the shambles of a country he inherited... Face it, there is no magic wand... Things take time... It took Bush 8 years to scrww the country up as badly as he did so it may very well take that long to restore it back to health... B~ |
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23 Dec 09 - 06:58 PM (#2795268) Subject: RE: BS: Obama caught in blatant lying From: akenaton Excuses Excuses Bobby, truth and justice don't evolve Ye need smeddum tae be richt coorse.....or richt kind. |
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23 Dec 09 - 07:33 PM (#2795291) Subject: RE: BS: Obama caught in blatant lying From: Amos Obamaphobia in a nutshell. |
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23 Dec 09 - 08:26 PM (#2795323) Subject: RE: BS: Obama caught in blatant lying From: Bobert You have a better plan, Ake, ol' son??? I mean, let's bring a little reality into the discussion... The USA has a terribly messed up system of democracy... Well, it really isn't democracy at all, for that matter... It gives sparsely populated states, which tend to be more conservative, equlity with heavily populated states... A single voter in Utah has 77 times as much say in the Senate as does Amos in California... So, what are ya going to do that isn't evolutionary except to look around and see that we are very slowly changing attitudes... It's a ying-yang kinda thing, Ake... We tried revolution in the 60's and had it stuffed right back in our faces... Okay, we did make progress but even then it was evolutionary... Like I said, if you have any better ideas on how the progressive movement can jolly things along I'm sure that alot of US would love to hear them... B~ |
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23 Dec 09 - 10:19 PM (#2795365) Subject: RE: BS: Obama caught in blatant lying From: Peter T. If anyone took the time to read the references cited in the first post (and in other places) they would note that (1) Obama did campaign for the public option -- it is in his campaign literature -- that's what is referred to as your campaign where I come from -- and (2) that he lied about it. Period. Make of it what you will. I think it is part of a strange failure of nerve (or maybe there never was any nerve). yours, Peter T. |
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24 Dec 09 - 12:41 AM (#2795405) Subject: RE: BS: Obama caught in blatant lying From: CarolC I read them, but I was also hearing, in my memory, the things he invariably said after every instance when I heard him say anything positive about the public option, which was that while it would be nice, it wasn't critical. However, having said all of that, I have to retract what I said about Obama not campaigning on the public option. Apparently he did campaign on it in a few specific contexts, like in Iowa and in front of groups like Family Planning. I just heard some excerpts on Olbermann. Looks like Obama stuck his foot in his mouth in a very big way when he said he didn't campaign on the public option. |
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24 Dec 09 - 07:51 AM (#2795549) Subject: RE: BS: Obama caught in blatant lying From: kendall It is so obvious what the republicans are up to! They are going to fight tooth and nail just as they did against Social Security, Medicare, and every other piece of legislation that benefits the working man. Their hope is to create enough discord to get them back into power and they don't give a damn how they do it. As bad as I dislike Rush Limbaugh I have to admire his honesty when he said "I WANT OBAMA TO FAIL". Sure he's a fat head and a drop out but he says what he thinks.The problem is, he doesn't think! he reacts like a snail when you pour salt on it. |
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24 Dec 09 - 08:29 AM (#2795560) Subject: RE: BS: Obama caught in blatant lying From: Bobert Well, to be fair... Look, folks, it's politics... The right wing also happens to be the loudspeakers for the corporations and the corporations have corraled all the wealth in the country so they use their stockpiles of money to hire/support all kinds of right winged think tanks that hire people that do nothin' but go to work every day and scour the newspapers and other sources for stuff to make Obama look bad... That, believe it or not, is al these people are hired to do??? And they do it well... I mean, if they don't then the 4righties will find someone else to dig deeper... It reminds me of a college professor I had... I think it was biology but I wpouldn't swear to it... Anyway, there are these micro-organisms that live on our skin... Blown up under a microscope they look like stuff outtta Star wars... Purdy ugly sumabiches... Anyway, the point is if you were to take any person you know and remove everything but these nasty critters and that was all you could see you would still clearly recognize the Joe, or Jill or even Marylin Monroe... The point is that under a microscope things aren't quite as pretty and if you dig and dig and dig, sho nuff, this is what you find... Alot of little micro-organisms... I mean, lets get real here for one minute... Obama ain't blown a million people like Bush did and that don't take no microscope to see... You Obama haters have at it... Yer really looking quite foolish here... Like who cares about a public option compared to tax cuts to the wealthy which crippled the US economy or the bombing of kids??? I mean, let's keep some level of perspective here, folks... B~ |
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24 Dec 09 - 08:43 AM (#2795563) Subject: RE: BS: Obama caught in blatant lying From: Lox Well whatever criticisms you may lay at Obama's door, he is the first president in history to do anything like this ... ... click here ... Why does this make some Americans so angry? Seems like they really resent having to think of anyone less fortunate than themselves. What a ridiculous farce it is that the peple who didn't want a public option are the ones who are complaining that they didn't get it. The rest are thankful that they got something and that the people who wanted to keep it from them didn't destroy it for a change. Well I'm sure it will be the first thing to go in the next republican administration. BB will be happy then. |
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24 Dec 09 - 08:47 AM (#2795565) Subject: RE: BS: Obama caught in blatant lying From: Lox Oh yes ... an interesting qoute ffrom the article I linked ... "The House version still includes a public option and also differs on how to pay for the reform." how very interesting ... |
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24 Dec 09 - 08:50 AM (#2795567) Subject: RE: BS: Obama caught in blatant lying From: Bobert The right wing will never be happy, lox... They have been reduced to whiners, sceamers and crybabies... Hey, sour grapes are just that.... Sour... B~ |
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24 Dec 09 - 08:55 AM (#2795568) Subject: RE: BS: Obama caught in blatant lying From: Lox Politics without compassion is tyranny. |
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24 Dec 09 - 09:13 AM (#2795577) Subject: RE: BS: Obama caught in blatant lying From: Sawzaw Amos is, of course, completely free to say anything, true or not, that will spread around his bitterness and acerbiv dislike about all things Bush. And likely to do so, as well. But that does not make his statements judicious, even-tempered, fair-minded, or accurate. The great tragedy of Bush's promise of bi[partisan process is that when he tried it he got mugged by bitter minded naysayers and mindless obstructionists who would rather do anything than improve conditions for the nation |
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24 Dec 09 - 09:17 AM (#2795579) Subject: RE: BS: Obama caught in blatant lying From: CarolC That's hardly true. The Democrats caved to pretty much everything that Bush wanted to do. |
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24 Dec 09 - 09:23 AM (#2795584) Subject: RE: BS: Obama caught in blatant lying From: Bobert Bush never tried bi-partisanship... From day one he came in with his right wing guns a'blazin'... I will give him credit for keeping one promise, that is... Bush said he would change the tone in Washington and he sho nuff did... |
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24 Dec 09 - 09:29 AM (#2795586) Subject: RE: BS: Obama caught in blatant lying From: Jack the Sailor Relax everyone. Go back to what started this thread. These notes are the evidence that Obama CAMPAIGNED on a public option? Have a look at what is in quotes and what isn't on the first one. Have a look at the dates for the rest. Note that the campaign ended Nov 2 2008. Relax everyone and keep in mind that Dailykos blog isn't exactly an unimpeachable source. In the 2008 Obama-Biden health care plan on the campaign's website, candidate Obama promised that "any American will have the opportunity to enroll in [a] new public plan." [2008] – During a speech at the American Medical Association, President Obama told thousands of doctors that one of the plans included in the new health insurance exchanges "needs to be a public option that will give people a broader range of choices and inject competition into the health care market." [6/15/09] – While speaking to the nation during his weekly address, the President said that "any plan" he signs "must include...a public option." [7/17/09] – During a conference call with progressive bloggers, the President said he continues "to believe that a robust public option would be the best way to go." [7/20/09] – Obama told NBC's David Gregory that a public option "should be a part of this [health care bill]," while rebuking claims that the plan was "dead." [9/20/09] |
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24 Dec 09 - 09:34 AM (#2795587) Subject: RE: BS: Obama caught in blatant lying From: Jack the Sailor Sawzaw and Bruce give shining examples of the brilliant thinking so crucial to Republican "governance". The pinnacle of their rhetoric seems to be a variation of the child's game "I know I am but what are you?" |
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24 Dec 09 - 10:15 AM (#2795607) Subject: RE: BS: Obama caught in blatant lying From: Bobert After 8 years of defending a retard their debating skills outta be sharp as a pin... (There you go again, Boberdz, usin' the "r" word...) Okay, not a retard... Mentally challenged... That any better??? |
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24 Dec 09 - 12:47 PM (#2795728) Subject: RE: BS: Obama caught in blatant lying From: beardedbruce "The right wing also happens to be the loudspeakers for the corporations " Oh?? Just look at the funding for Obama in the election- MOST of what he got was from corporations, Unions, and the wealthy. Yes, he did get more in "small" contributions than McCann- but he got a LOT more in actual dollars from all those special intersts that supposedly control ( only) the Republicans. Obama: Bought and paid for. |
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24 Dec 09 - 12:52 PM (#2795735) Subject: RE: BS: Obama caught in blatant lying From: kendall National health care works in the UK and it could work here if we could get the profiteers off our backs. |
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24 Dec 09 - 01:02 PM (#2795744) Subject: RE: BS: Obama caught in blatant lying From: Bill D "Obama: Bought and paid for." Your logic leaves a lot to be desired, bb... there are no such implications in an analysis of his contributions. If you insist, though, we can extend the analogy to.... |
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24 Dec 09 - 01:32 PM (#2795762) Subject: RE: BS: Obama caught in blatant lying From: CarolC Yes, but if he is bought and paid for, it's by the people who don't want health care reform of the sort that progressives want. Which means he is bought and paid for by the people who are on your side of the health care debate, beardedbruce. |
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24 Dec 09 - 01:35 PM (#2795768) Subject: RE: BS: Obama caught in blatant lying From: Lox Bobert, If you wanted you could say Functionally illiterate. That is true. And a major handicap for a political executive ... ... how's he meant to have any idea of context, either historical or financial, or any understanding of the job he is meantr to be doing if he can't even string a coherent sentence together. Some people call this attitude snobbish. Some medical practitioners have no qualificationsa and no licence. If they are caught they go to Jail. Yet a moron like Bush is allowed to have executive power over the lives of millions of people. Obama is simply cleverer, better informed and a nicer guy. |
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24 Dec 09 - 03:38 PM (#2795844) Subject: RE: BS: Obama caught in blatant lying From: DougR Carol: I'm beginning to believe that you wouldn't recognize a "fact" if one jumped up and smacked you in the face! Can you deny that Obama made the promises I and BB accuse him of lying about? Another one: "I will not sign future bills into law if they are loaded with pork." What a laugh. Check the pork in the so-called stimulus bill (that has stimulated nothing!) Check the soon to be law health care overhaul bill. Of course I guess many of you see nothing wrong with buying votes as Harry Reid did. I didn't hear Obama proclaim that he wouldn't sign a bill with such shenanigans in it. Quite to the contrary, he would sign it if the bill required him to send Michele back to Chicago for the duration of his term in office. McGrath: your question about whether or not passage of the bill would mean that some people would lose the health insurance they have now. Damn right it will. Ask any senior citizen of which there are hundreds of thousands (perhaps millions) who have Medicare Advantage if they are going to get to keep their plan. Unless you live in Florida you WON'T! Harry Reid bought Senator Nelson's vote (of Florida)by allowing folks who reside in that state who are on Medicare Advantage to keep their insurance but those who have the plan in all other states are SOL. Doug |
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24 Dec 09 - 03:55 PM (#2795852) Subject: RE: BS: Obama caught in blatant lying From: CarolC DougR, of the ones you listed before (which didn't include the one about pork), he has not done what you are accusing him of doing or having done (or not done) in at least three of them and one he has only partially done or not done. You can't hide your falsifications by changing the subject. |
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24 Dec 09 - 04:10 PM (#2795860) Subject: RE: BS: Obama caught in blatant lying From: DougR Carol: Which of those I listed has he NOT done? McGrath: for an interesting insight into what we in the US are in for with Obama Care, I would suggest you read a opinion piece in today's edition of The Wall Street Journal titled, "What Doctors and Patients Have to Lose Under ObamaCare," by Dr. Scott Gottlieb, an internist and resident fellow at the American Enterprise Institute. He is a former senior official at the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, and is a partner in a firm that invests in health-care companies. DougR |
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24 Dec 09 - 04:11 PM (#2795861) Subject: RE: BS: Obama caught in blatant lying From: CarolC I've already answered that one twice. Read the thread. |
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24 Dec 09 - 05:12 PM (#2795906) Subject: RE: BS: Obama caught in blatant lying From: artbrooks It is unfortunate that we won't have "ObamaCare", as originally envisioned by the President, rather than the alternative that the Congress has come up with. Of course, for the benefit of those who aren't listening, there are currently TWO very different bills that have yet to be reconciled and a compromise version approved by the House and Senate (which is far from assured). |
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24 Dec 09 - 05:15 PM (#2795908) Subject: RE: BS: Obama caught in blatant lying From: Lox 100 boo! |
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24 Dec 09 - 05:27 PM (#2795916) Subject: RE: BS: Obama caught in blatant lying From: DougR Carol; I assume you're writing that you had addressed all of the lies I pointed out that Obama said in your post of 5:40PM December 23rd. If simply saying "false" to what I posted is your idea of replying so be it. So I'll approach it in a different way. Did Obama make it possible on CSpan for Americans to watch the debate on health care reform? Did Obama refuse to sign the so-called stimulus bill because it was laden with pork? Did Obama refuse to sign the recent Budget bill because it was laden with pork? A new one: Did Obama have bills under consideration (any bills not just health care reform) posted on the Internet several days before they were voted on so that all interested parties could read them as he said he would doing during the campaign? Will citizens earning less than $250,000 have their taxes increased if either the House or Senate bill or the compromise of the two becomes law? If either bill or the compromise of the two becomes law will I be able to continue using Medicare Advantage? Name one effort Obama made to include Republicans in Health Care Reform discussions. It is common knowledge to anyone who stays abreast of the real news that the bills being considered were drafted behind closed doors with no Republicans allowed in the room. The one exception was the Finance Committee chaired by Max Bacus and one Republican on the committee, Olympia Snow, did vote with the Democrats. She did not vote for the bill when it came before the Senate nor did any other Republican (Thank God!). DougR |
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24 Dec 09 - 05:32 PM (#2795922) Subject: RE: BS: Obama caught in blatant lying From: GUEST,beardedbruce "But even those Republicans who were initially inclined to do that -- and there were at least a handful of them -- were turned away by the White House and the Senate Democratic leaders, who never lifted their sights much beyond the Democratic ranks. Forced to bargain for every vote among the 60 in his caucus, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid did what he usually does: He reduced the negotiations to his own level of transactional morality. Incapable of summoning his colleagues to statesmanship, he made the deals look as crass and parochial as many of them were -- encasing a historic achievement in a wrapping of payoff and patronage. " |
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24 Dec 09 - 05:48 PM (#2795932) Subject: RE: BS: Obama caught in blatant lying From: artbrooks Does any rational individual (which clearly excludes one or two posters on this thread) really think that the President controls what Congress does? Does anyone really think that he has (or should have) the power to require Congress to delay votes on bills or amendments? |
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24 Dec 09 - 06:00 PM (#2795941) Subject: RE: BS: Obama caught in blatant lying From: Lox The criticism over here in the UK of Obama iis that he lacks backbone, because he panders too much to the repubs and misguidedly indulges the idea that they can be persuaded to engage in politics in a mature way. Those who disagree tend to say that he is in fact courageous for not employing their tactics pushing ahead without listening or thinking. The idea that he hasn't listened to the repubs is one from la la land. |
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24 Dec 09 - 06:01 PM (#2795943) Subject: RE: BS: Obama caught in blatant lying From: Ebbie I would say 'don't confuse him' but upon further reflection I remember: concrete doesn't absorb nutrition. |
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24 Dec 09 - 06:24 PM (#2795961) Subject: RE: BS: Obama caught in blatant lying From: GUEST,beardedbruce Sorry, I was quoting from a liberal collumnist. I guess that is a sure way to get lied to. "Washington Post A health-care victory that stinks By David S. Broder Thursday, December 24, 2009 " |
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24 Dec 09 - 06:26 PM (#2795964) Subject: RE: BS: Obama caught in blatant lying From: CarolC DougR, you and beardedbruce must have both gotten your copy pastes from the same purveyors of lies. Here are the accusations you both made, followed by beardedbruce's response to them. My responses follow his. Don't you even read your posts before you post them?... "If you make less than $250,000 a year, your taxes will not increase a dime!" NOT according to either of the bills. FALSE already Neither bill has been passed into law, and Obama hasn't signed a health care reform law yet, so you're the one who is lying in this instance. "Our administration will be the most transparent one ever. Our discussions about revisions to health care will be televised on C-Span for all to see." FALSE already This one is partially true (and so therefore, only partially false). "If you like your health insurance you will be able to keep it!" FALSE already Since neither bill has been passed into law, and we don't know what the final bill will look like, and since Obama hasn't signed any health care reform law yet, you're the one who is lying in this instance as well. "I'm going to change how Washington operates! I will bring bi-partisanship to the nation's capital!" FALSE already You're the one who is lying in this instance as well, since one of the problems that many of us have with the current bills before both houses is that Obama went much too far in trying to have a bipartisan bill. He gave away much of what his base wanted in order to court Republican votes. |
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25 Dec 09 - 12:46 AM (#2796111) Subject: RE: BS: Obama caught in blatant lying From: kendall Doug, there is a stretch of highway in South Portland that was 4 lanes. It is now 6 lanes, and there is a sound barrier that locals have been screaming for these past 40 years. The stimulus hasn't worked? Tell that to the families of the operators and the construction supply companies that have been working all summer and are now near the end. Our infrastructure is falling apart while we invade countries that did not attack us. 9/11 was a criminal act and should have been dealt with that way. You right wingers like to spout off about "Pork" but let's have some specifics. What are you on about? ..while your own house decays are you spending your days shingling the rum sellers roof... |
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25 Dec 09 - 09:34 AM (#2796222) Subject: RE: BS: Obama caught in blatant lying From: kendall I guess he smelled the trap. |
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25 Dec 09 - 11:13 AM (#2796252) Subject: RE: BS: Obama caught in blatant lying From: Stringsinger This discussion is going nowhere. Obama has made some serious mistakes. He blew off Copenhagen, bailed out banks, pharma and insurance with no meaningful restrictions. He is conducting two futile occupations and killing innocent civilians in the Mid-East. The Grand Old Obstructionist Party has nothing to say because they did the same and worse under Bush. |
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25 Dec 09 - 01:03 PM (#2796278) Subject: RE: BS: Obama caught in blatant lying From: DougR Kendall: If the highway was in such bad shape, why didn't the state of Maine do something about it? Why wait forty years for the feds to come to the rescue? And the fact that the so-called stimulus bill was a failure is not something I dreamed up, otherwise our economy would not still be in such a mess and our unemployed would be lower than 10%. I will remind you that Obama promised that if the "stimulus" bill was passed, unemployment would not exceed 8%. Carol: it is impossible to debate you rationally. Anyone with half a brain KNOWS that currently there is no signed law! You use this as evidence that I or BB are lying. I'm confident that BB KNOWS that the differences in the senate and house bills have to be resolved in conference. However, this has nothing what-so-ever to do with Obama's lying during the campaign. DougR |
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25 Dec 09 - 01:11 PM (#2796281) Subject: RE: BS: Obama caught in blatant lying From: Greg F. Carol: I'm beginning to believe that you wouldn't recognize a "fact" if one jumped up and smacked you in the face! Now that has got to be one of the more hilarious - or disgusting, depending upon your point of view - examples of projection in the entire history of the human race. |
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25 Dec 09 - 01:32 PM (#2796291) Subject: RE: BS: Obama caught in blatant lying From: Little Hawk Yes, well...but if a chimpanzee jumps up and smacks you in the face....THEN, my good man, you will have NO doubt about what is happening. Put a chimp in the White House in 2012. Vote for Chongo. |
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25 Dec 09 - 01:38 PM (#2796295) Subject: RE: BS: Obama caught in blatant lying From: artbrooks PolitiFact looked at this topic the other day, and this is part of what they have to say: We have to say that the public option was not a very prominent part of Obama's platform. ... We were able to find the proposal pretty quickly after looking in Obama's campaign literature, but he didn't discuss it very much during the campaign. That's true for both the general election and the Democratic primary. If you look for mentions of the public option in Obama's speeches or comments to voters, you'll find very few. In fact, Obama gave a major address in Iowa on May 29, 2007, outlining his health care plan in considerable detail. There's not one mention of the public option in his speech. ... Obama's new claim is, "I didn't campaign on a public option." We will stipulate that it was not a particularly prominent part of his overall platform for health care. But we find that the public option was part of Obama's campaign materials, and that counts. So we rate his statement Barely True. |
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25 Dec 09 - 02:17 PM (#2796313) Subject: RE: BS: Obama caught in blatant lying From: CarolC Carol: it is impossible to debate you rationally. It wouldn't be impossible if you were rational. Anyone with half a brain KNOWS that currently there is no signed law! You use this as evidence that I or BB are lying. I'm confident that BB KNOWS that the differences in the senate and house bills have to be resolved in conference. So if that's the case, how can you make the accusation that people have had to give up their current health care because of Obama or that their taxes have been raised because of health care reform? If you were rational, you would know that you can't because these accusations are lies. |
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25 Dec 09 - 02:47 PM (#2796325) Subject: RE: BS: Obama caught in blatant lying From: Peter T. Oh great, so apart from lying, Obama turns out to be a lying weasel. A real role model. I am still waiting for a right-wing answer to the question: how do you propose to bring reasonable health care to every American? So far as I have read, there is no answer. The business-as-usual approach is a disaster. Anyone who has read the ridiculous Republican plan (made up for pr reasons) knows that it is a sham. So the only really available answer is: we don't care, we already have health care, we are rich. Is this an ethical position? The mystery is why Obama doesn't seem to want to pin this tail on the elephant. He lets the right wing attack what he does, and never really attacks back. He says a few unkind things about the insurance industry, but where is the full-throated assault on the heartless failure of the Republican political universe to cope with these huge challenges? In some ways, Obama -- contrary to the original image -- may be a great politician behind closed doors, but a complete loss as a street politician. Where's Huey Long? How this is supposed to get him a super-majority in the fall elections coming up is a mystery. Peter T. yours, Peter T. |
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25 Dec 09 - 02:50 PM (#2796326) Subject: RE: BS: Obama caught in blatant lying From: Stringsinger BB you can't sit around and wait for Bush or Obama to fulfill their promises. It's not up to them. It's up to us. We empower them unnecessarily. Carol, remember they said that Obama couldn't get elected because he was black. Kucinich could be president but not if we enable negative opinions about him. Almost every president of the US has "lied" at one time another. It's part of the job description given the euphemism "plausible deniability". When people lose enough jobs, have to pay unduly high insurance premiums, realize that their tax dollars are going toward a futile occupation in the Mid-east, get soaked for prescription drugs and see who are proactive and reactive in politics, then something important for the country can get done. So what if Obama, Bush et. al are "lying"? Let's hold their feet to the fire and finally "speak truth to power". Now Chomsky maintains that talking is not enough. To speak today must mean to act. In the meantime, to concentrate on who is lying or telling the truth is beating a dead horse. There is a culture war going on this country today. Until it is resolved, there will continue to be lies, wars, invective and nothing constructive happening. What's needed today is honest dialogue, not some rant about who is lying or not. I keep saying why am I wasting my time talking about things here on Mudcat? It's because I believe there are some intelligent people here worthy of opening up significant dialogue. We have common interests such as seeing our tax dollars well spent, not being soaked by corporate greed and being able to think for ourselves. We don't want lives spent in futile wars. We want to be able to have everyone enjoy the prosperity of a country built on an idealism that includes "the right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness". Stop kvetching about what politicians are saying and get active. |
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25 Dec 09 - 03:21 PM (#2796355) Subject: RE: BS: Obama caught in blatant lying From: Bobert Good point, lox... The old sayin' "Think globally, act locally" comes to mind here... This is where real change occurs... It'a a matter of framing local issues in a responsible and visionary manner so that other folks will see for themselves what puttting that new crosswalk in downtown does for pedesrian safety, or supporting this or that bond referendum that will enhance one's community... Lotta people vote against bonf referendumd because they have been conditioned to think of them as simply tax hikes... When people know that certain earmarked taxes go for this or that they are more inclined to think community first, me second... It's all about progressives gettin' ahead of the local issues... What has occured with suburban voters is just that... The Repubs used to count on suburbia for alot of votes... Then suburbia found itself under attack by developers and corpoartion interested in only making money and leaving suburbia with a whole lot more folks and strained services... That's when then progressives and Dems started winning Boards of Supervisors all accross the country with smart-growth thinking... Yeah, some Repubs fooled the voters one time with "Smart Growth" slogans but then proceeeded to allow business as usual and they were seen for what they were... The bottom line is that something like health care reform doesn't just happen... It happens because people change their minds about what is best for them, be it a new school, a cross walk or health care reform... The Dems seem to be outpunching the Repubs at all levels of governemnt because the Repubs just won't get it into their heads that business-as-usual isn't what people, in general, want... B~ |
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25 Dec 09 - 03:58 PM (#2796364) Subject: RE: BS: Obama caught in blatant lying From: DougR Well the polls show, Bobert, that the majority of the people don't want either the House or the Senate health care reform bills! (Of course I'm prepared for your reply ..."I don't believe the polls!) All I have to say to that, is keep thinking that way. 2010 should be a good year for conservatives. Carol: Sigh. DougR |
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25 Dec 09 - 05:23 PM (#2796394) Subject: RE: BS: Obama caught in blatant lying From: GUEST,Kendall Doug, the answer is quite simple, it is a FEDERAL HIGHWAY, part of the interstate system that Eisenhower started. So, specifics on the pork? |
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25 Dec 09 - 05:44 PM (#2796404) Subject: RE: BS: Obama caught in blatant lying From: Bobert Those polls are not a referendum on health care reform, Dougie, but how folks feel about our political process, which IMO, is so messed up that it is a wonder the Dems got reform thru at all... I mean, people just get worn out by the Repub's obstructionists tactics, the town hall/tea partiers, the 60 votes needed to pass reform and a mirade of other problems associated with the system... Heck, Obama could find a cure for cancer but if he had to get it thru Congress before it coud be used to save lives then I'd be willing to bet that what we would see is something like we have just seen... Face it, our system of democracy is broken... 60 votes, my butt!!! That is minority rule... B~ |
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25 Dec 09 - 06:03 PM (#2796410) Subject: RE: BS: Obama caught in blatant lying From: artbrooks Yes, many people don't care for the bills as they are now. Some think they go too far, and some think they don't go far enough. Many people, including just about everyone in the progressive wing of the Democratic Party, are terribly disappointed that it seems there will be no public option. Many are also very disappointed in what is clearly blatant favoritism for Nebraska in order to get Sen. Nelson's vote (the section of the bill that is supposedly keyed toward Florida and the other Sen Nelson also impacts several other states). Does the majority want no change? Absolutely not. |
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25 Dec 09 - 06:18 PM (#2796418) Subject: RE: BS: Obama caught in blatant lying From: Bobert Again, the reason that Sen. Ben Nelson got the $100M for Medicare is because of the screwed up 60 vote system... I'm sure that Reid would have been more than happy to tell Nelson to stick his extortion where the sun don't shine... But because we esentially have minority rule that didn't happen... I would love to see the Dems get into conference and restore the public option and the lowering of age for Medicare and use "reconciliation" which would take longer but only need 51 votes... I think the American people would applaud that and reward the Dems for it in the midterms and the '12 election, as well... I mean, using the fillibuster on judges seems to be an old Demopublican sport... Who cares??? This reform is a biggie and deserves better than minority rule and petty partisan game playin'... B~ |
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25 Dec 09 - 06:32 PM (#2796422) Subject: RE: BS: Obama caught in blatant lying From: robomatic Obama is performing pretty much as well as I'd hoped, and he's doing the job I hired him for. I don't think the title of this thread is justified by the facts. As for health care, the loss of the public option is significant but not determinative. Laws and sausages are more respectable when one has not seen them in the making. |
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25 Dec 09 - 06:34 PM (#2796425) Subject: RE: BS: Obama caught in blatant lying From: McGrath of Harlow How about a Christmas Truce... |
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26 Dec 09 - 12:18 AM (#2796509) Subject: RE: BS: Obama caught in blatant lying From: CarolC Ok, DougR, I'll play your little game. Whose taxes have been raised because of health care reform? Who has lost the health care they had because of health care reform? |
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26 Dec 09 - 08:17 AM (#2796631) Subject: RE: BS: Obama caught in blatant lying From: Bobert You'll have to wait until Rush tells Dougie what to say, Carol... Not that whatever Rush puts out will have anything to do with reality but that seems to be the way it is... The "they will increase your taxes" mantra that the Repubs have used going back decades is threadbare and dated but Rush seems to be able to spice it up... The P-Vine was talkin' to here middle son last night... He lives in Georgia now but grew up in Charlotte and has been a Rush-ite going back forever... He says that the Dems want to put everyone in jail for not buying health insurance... See??? That's plays real well with people who tend to be more emotional and less enlightened... That would be this son, in particular... But back to the question... Yeah, Dougie, maybe you'd like to elaborate on whoes taxes are going to be increased and by how much... (BTW, given that tannin' booths are *known* to cause skin cancer I have no problem putting a surcharge on tannin' booths becuase we're going to end up paying for the treatment for skin cancers down the road...) Personally, I wouldn't mind seein' surcharges on Big Macs, Deep fried foods and sugar products, as well... These supposed foods are disease carriers and we'll end up paying for treatin' folks with diabetes, heart desease, etc down the road as well... (But, Boberdz... Wouldn't that be a tax, as well???) Yeah, it would and long overdue, I might add... (But, boberdz... Wouldn't taxing bad foods be targeting the South and Midwest...) Well, yes indeed it would... That where diabetes and heart desease is most prevailent... Hey, ain't no one holding a gun to these folks making them eat foods that are bad for them... (But, Boberdz... They don't know any better...) Okay, that might be the case... I don't care... Might of fact, put another $1.00 a pack tax on cigarettes while yer at it.... B~ |
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26 Dec 09 - 02:04 PM (#2796790) Subject: RE: BS: Obama caught in blatant lying From: DougR Kendall: For information on the "Pork" in the "stimulus" bill you can simply Google Stimulus Bill Pork or if you prefer, simply enter: http://online.ws/com/article/SB123310466514522309.html DougR |
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26 Dec 09 - 06:28 PM (#2796913) Subject: RE: BS: Obama caught in blatant lying From: artbrooks Go ahead - gets you a picture of a good looking lady in a blue bikini. Oh yeah...if you link to http://online.wsj.com/article/SB123310466514522309.html instead you get an impartial article from the Wall Street Journal. |
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26 Dec 09 - 06:50 PM (#2796933) Subject: RE: BS: Obama caught in blatant lying From: Bill D Impartial? *giggle* Wall Street Journal? Oh yeah, I forgot.... Rupert Murdoch's impartial Wall Street Journal. Got it. |
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26 Dec 09 - 07:21 PM (#2796960) Subject: RE: BS: Obama caught in blatant lying From: kendall Doug, I didn't see anything that I would call PORK in that bill. What did you see? The purpose of the bill was to get the money circulating again. The bankers are doing just what they did in the 30s stopping the circulation of money and fighting the president who was/ is trying to get things rolling again. They want things to be just as bad in 2010 as they are now so they can regain control and they will do whatever is necessary to see that Obama fails. |
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26 Dec 09 - 08:48 PM (#2797002) Subject: RE: BS: Obama caught in blatant lying From: Bobert Ain't that like unAmerican, Capt'n??? |
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27 Dec 09 - 01:37 AM (#2797045) Subject: RE: BS: Obama caught in blatant lying From: GUEST,Guest from Sanity A little off topic, but I just got this E-Mail.... Pinocchio, Snow White, and Superman are out for a stroll in town one day. As they walk, they come across a sign: "Beauty contest for the most beautiful woman in the world." "I am entering!" said Snow White. After half an hour she comes out and they ask her, "Well, how'd you do?" " First Place !," said Snow White. They continue walking and they see a sign: "Contest for the strongest man in the world." "I'm entering," says Superman.. After half an hour, he returns and they ask him, "How did you make out?" " First Place ," answers Superman. "Did you ever doubt?" They continue walking when they see a sign: "Contest! Who is the greatest liar in the world?" "I'm entering," says Pinocchio. After half an hour he returns with tears in his eyes. "What happened?" they asked. "Who the hell is Nancy Pelosi?" asked Pinocchio. |
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27 Dec 09 - 02:56 AM (#2797059) Subject: RE: BS: Obama caught in blatant lying From: kendall The old jokes are still funny. |
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27 Dec 09 - 02:59 AM (#2797061) Subject: RE: BS: Obama caught in blatant lying From: GUEST,Guest from Sanity Thanks, kendall. Glad to see you smile! Okay, back to the 'Tales of Obama' |
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27 Dec 09 - 12:18 PM (#2797301) Subject: RE: BS: Obama caught in blatant lying From: Greg F. I thought the punchline was "Who the hell is (BuShite hate radio jock of your choice)" |
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27 Dec 09 - 02:30 PM (#2797393) Subject: RE: BS: Obama caught in blatant lying From: Q (Frank Staplin) Unless I have mis-counted, CC leads BB 22 to 19 with all others far back in the pack. |
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27 Dec 09 - 03:05 PM (#2797425) Subject: RE: BS: Obama caught in blatant lying From: CarolC What are you counting, Q? |
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27 Dec 09 - 03:09 PM (#2797428) Subject: RE: BS: Obama caught in blatant lying From: CarolC Ah... I see. You miscounted. It was 23 to 20 when you posted. But the question I have for you is, what's with the obsession about counting the number of posts? |
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27 Dec 09 - 04:35 PM (#2797489) Subject: RE: BS: Obama caught in blatant lying From: Q (Frank Staplin) Just curious. The number of times the same thing may be said over and over again ..... |
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27 Dec 09 - 05:06 PM (#2797504) Subject: RE: BS: Obama caught in blatant lying From: Lox Q It is important to note that carol has been responding to assertions to BB and also to assertions by Doug R amongst others. I think she is doing a good job of singlehandedly destroying their rhetoric. Other posts, including mine, serve as little more than frivolous uriosities. |
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27 Dec 09 - 06:16 PM (#2797530) Subject: RE: BS: Obama caught in blatant lying From: The Fooles Troupe "uriosities" You woudln't be taking the piss, would you? :-P |
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27 Dec 09 - 06:23 PM (#2797532) Subject: RE: BS: Obama caught in blatant lying From: Don(Wyziwyg)T ""uriosities" You woudln't be taking the piss, would you? :-P"" Just typo induced serendipity FT....Fun, innit? Don T. |
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28 Dec 09 - 12:36 PM (#2797813) Subject: RE: BS: Obama caught in blatant lying From: DougR Lox: If your definition of "destroying rhetoric" is avoiding answering questions, then I suppose I would have to agree with you. DougR |
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28 Dec 09 - 05:20 PM (#2797998) Subject: RE: BS: Obama caught in blatant lying From: CarolC DougR, you have avoided my last question. Why is that? |
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28 Dec 09 - 05:32 PM (#2798006) Subject: RE: BS: Obama caught in blatant lying From: Greg F. DougR, you have avoided my last question. Why is that Why do you think, Carol? Douggie can only operate in a fact-free environment. Why folks continue to give this Village Idiot the time of day is beyond understanding. |
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28 Dec 09 - 08:16 PM (#2798092) Subject: RE: BS: Obama caught in blatant lying From: robomatic why can't we all get along? I once paid a visit to the owner/ operator of the electric powerplant system in Sudden, Alaska. He and his family were an honest group of intelligent borned agains, and I am, trust me, NOT. They took me on a tour of the electric system of Sudden and its sister city, Sudden village, which was an unincorporated area mostly lived in by native Alaskans and not a formal part of the Sudden electric system. Then Harvey had me as a guest for dinner, and put me up on the living room couch. Even after I mentioned at dinner that I was a big fan and defender of "Saint Chuck" (Darwin, that is). And even after tuning in to the Xtian television channel where they were reporting they had a man in Israel specifically to convert Israelis for Jesus, and he woul misrepresent himself to gain their trust, because it was 'for the Lord'. But my hosts were good folks, and I did business with them on behalf of the State of Alaska and I did not regret trusting them, and when their powerplant burned to the ground due to a broken fuel line, they did not regret doing business with the State Of Alaska. |
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28 Dec 09 - 09:20 PM (#2798118) Subject: RE: BS: Obama caught in blatant lying From: Greg F. But my hosts were good folks... I'm curious - what precisely would constitute "bad folks" ? |
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29 Dec 09 - 06:32 AM (#2798282) Subject: RE: BS: Obama caught in blatant lying From: Riginslinger Maybe converting Israelis to Jesus would get them half way to salvation. |
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29 Dec 09 - 07:24 AM (#2798311) Subject: RE: BS: Obama caught in blatant lying From: artbrooks bigot |
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29 Dec 09 - 09:00 AM (#2798376) Subject: RE: BS: Obama caught in blatant lying From: Bobert (Hmmmmmmmm??? Poor ol' Obama kinda been banished from his own thread, Boberdz... Whaddayathink???) I think it's 'cuase he's on vacation.... (oh???) |
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29 Dec 09 - 10:53 AM (#2798479) Subject: RE: BS: Obama caught in blatant lying From: Riginslinger "bigot" (?) |
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30 Dec 09 - 10:27 AM (#2799280) Subject: RE: BS: Obama caught in blatant lying From: Little Hawk Luckily, the heat is coming off Obama now that Chongo has been caught in about 35 different forms of blatant and quite heinous misbehaviour. But consider this....Obama may even have paid off Chongo to commit those blatancies in ORDER to take the heat off Obama! Chongo recently purchased a roll top desk and a whole new set of office furnishings. Hmmm........ |
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30 Dec 09 - 10:36 AM (#2799285) Subject: RE: BS: Obama caught in blatant lying From: artbrooks Reginslinger, if you seriously think that converting Jews to Christians "gets them halfway to salvation", than you are a bigot. If that is not what you meant to say, I apologize for the statement. |
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30 Dec 09 - 10:36 AM (#2799289) Subject: RE: BS: Obama caught in blatant lying From: GUEST,Bobert Nah, LH... The heat has come off becuase Obama is now beatin' the Repubs to the punch and it's really pissing them off... He is way ahead of them on the guy who burned up his, ahhhhhhh, well, you know... That makes the Repubs mad, mad, mad... (But, Boberdz... Don't some heads have to roll here???) Like whoes... Napolitanos... Hey, she quickly corrected her mis-speak without one Repub having time to go into demanding histerics... Ya'll see... Yes, the heat is off Obama... I wish I could say it was all to the credit of Chongz but, hey, somethings (horrors) have nothin' to do with him... B~ |
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30 Dec 09 - 10:56 AM (#2799300) Subject: RE: BS: Obama caught in blatant lying From: Little Hawk artbrooks - If Rig said that, he must have been engaging in some form of broadly satirical humour, because he hates ALL religions with a passion as far as I know. (Hmmm....that's a form of bigotry too, isn't it? Heh! Remember, bigotry essentially means that one is totally intolerant toward other people and their views for some reason or another...not necessarily because of their race or their gender or whatever, but merely for some reason or other. It is total intolerance to others that establishes bigotry...not hatred of some specially flagged group such as Jews, women, Muslims, Christians, Blacks, etc.) In my opinion, most people turn out to be bigots in one respect or another if you just hang around them long enough to spot them engaging in their own personal form of bigotry. That would include most of the people here who rave on about other people being bigots! I would assert that there is a little bigot hiding in the breasts of 99 out of 100 people who post to this forum, myself included. The thing is to honestly recognize this little bigot when it speaks out of your own mouth. If you can do that, you'll be less likely to hasten to label others as "bigots". Bobert - Chongo is a bit ticked off at you, it seems. |
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30 Dec 09 - 11:13 AM (#2799311) Subject: RE: BS: Obama caught in blatant lying From: GUEST Tell the monkey to smoke another joint... |
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30 Dec 09 - 03:45 PM (#2799519) Subject: RE: BS: Obama caught in blatant lying From: DougR Carol: I assume the question you posed on 26 December at 12:18AM is the one you wish me to address. "Whose taxes have been raised because of health care reform?" No one because health care has not been reformed. A better question would be, "Whose taxes will be increased WHEN health care IS reformed?" "Who has lost his/her insurance because of health care reform?" Ans: No one because health care has not been reformed. If the final health care reform bill IS passed, anyone that has Medicare Advantage who does not live in Nebraska and portions of Florida will lose their current health insurance, and THAT'S a fact! Now, how about you answering the questions I posed to you re Obama's lies? DougR |
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30 Dec 09 - 04:19 PM (#2799550) Subject: RE: BS: Obama caught in blatant lying From: Riginslinger "If Rig said that, he must have been engaging in some form of broadly satirical humour..." It was meant to be funny, but I suspect it meant something different to me than most other folks. I shouldn't comment on things religious. |
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30 Dec 09 - 04:24 PM (#2799555) Subject: RE: BS: Obama caught in blatant lying From: robomatic Rig I think I've gone after you on at least one other thread, but your comment was meant to be humorous after a fashion and I appreciated that. Please continue to make comments on things religious because I wouldn't mind goin' after ya agin'. Afectionate ly rib omatic slider |
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30 Dec 09 - 06:22 PM (#2799632) Subject: RE: BS: Obama caught in blatant lying From: Riginslinger On the other hand, it ain't a lot of fun to be gone after. :-) |
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30 Dec 09 - 06:32 PM (#2799644) Subject: RE: BS: Obama caught in blatant lying From: Bobert Dougie, Dougie, Dougie... Compared to younger folks comin' along you have nothing to complain about in terms of just what the government provides you compared to what it provides them or will provide them when they are your age... That is reality... People keep tellin' us that we need to make some adjustments in how we spread around entitlements... Then someone comes along and tries to fix something and the right wing can't scream loud enough... Give me a break... B~ |
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30 Dec 09 - 08:31 PM (#2799729) Subject: RE: BS: Obama caught in blatant lying From: Greg F. ...anyone that has Medicare Advantage ... will lose their current health insurance, and THAT'S a fact! No Douggie-boy, that's a wild distortion and a lie. You've been listing to those hate-radio bullshitters again, heven't you? In the first place "Medicare Advantage" is a SUPPLEMENTAL plan sold by several private insurance companies & has nothing to do with Medicare, proper. You will still be covered by Medicare- that "socialized-medicine-government-run-care-rationing" medical coverage you constantly bitch about. If the Private Insurance Companies that sell your "Medicare Advantage" plan decide to stop providing them if they can't make their usual obscene profit because government subsidies to them are cut, I suggest you take it up with your private insurance company. Or you can buy another private supplemental policy of your choice. |
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30 Dec 09 - 08:49 PM (#2799734) Subject: RE: BS: Obama caught in blatant lying From: Greg F. With apologies to Patrick Fitzsimmons Turn of your radio, Douggie That ain't the truth You've got to use your mind In these hard times... Check out: http://www.healthreform.gov/reports/medicare/medicare.pdf http://www.aarp.org/aarp/presscenter/testimony/articles/medicare_advantage_program.html |
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30 Dec 09 - 10:02 PM (#2799759) Subject: RE: BS: Obama caught in blatant lying From: CarolC "Whose taxes have been raised because of health care reform?" No one because health care has not been reformed. A better question would be, "Whose taxes will be increased WHEN health care IS reformed?" We don't know the answer to that question because we don't know yet what's going to be in the final bill. "Who has lost his/her insurance because of health care reform?" Ans: No one because health care has not been reformed. If the final health care reform bill IS passed, anyone that has Medicare Advantage who does not live in Nebraska and portions of Florida will lose their current health insurance, and THAT'S a fact! It's not a fact. We still don't know what's going to be in the final bill, so anyone who is making the above assertions is lying. Now, how about you answering the questions I posed to you re Obama's lies? Which questions were those, DougR? |
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31 Dec 09 - 12:35 AM (#2799818) Subject: RE: BS: Obama caught in blatant lying From: DougR You know what the questions were, Carol. Everybody who reads the posts on this thread know what they are. So one must surmise you don't WANT to answer the questions I posed. No problem. Everyone knows hi lied. DougR |
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31 Dec 09 - 01:23 AM (#2799827) Subject: RE: BS: Obama caught in blatant lying From: CarolC DougR, On 23 Dec 09 at 12:23 AM, you posted this: "If you make less than $250,000 a year, your taxes will not increase a dime!" "Our administration will be the most transparent one ever. Our discussions about revisions to health care will be televised on C-Span for all to see." "If you like your health insurance you will be able to keep it!" "I'm going to change how Washington operates! I will bring bi-partisanship to the nation's capital!" These are not "exact" quotes because I write them from memory, but they are the gist of what our president promised while campaigning. Which of them did he follow through on? You may not call it lying, but I have noticed from his many appearances on TV that he has a much longer nose eleven months after taking the oath of office than he did before. On 23 Dec 09 at 01:56 AM, I responded with this: DougR, of the promises you've listed how many do we know he won't follow up on? On 24 Dec 09 at 03:38 PM, you responded to me with this: Can you deny that Obama made the promises I and BB accuse him of lying about? I did answer this one, several times. If you haven't bothered to read my response, that's your fault and not mine. Then you proceeded to ask me a bunch of questions about points that I have not made. Why are you asking me questions that have nothing to do with anything I have said in this thread? I would suggest that you are trying to employ straw man arguments and trying to get me to defend things that I have not said as a way of changing the subject instead of admitting that you posted lies. |
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31 Dec 09 - 01:24 AM (#2799828) Subject: RE: BS: Obama caught in blatant lying From: Little Hawk The job seems to require lying, if I can go by past history of all the presidents who have been in office in my entire lifetime. The only distinctions about it are...how often? And about what? And with what purpose in mind? And with how serious a consequence? In addition to that, I will say that all governments frequently lie. If they told the truth, there'd probably be a revolution. |
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31 Dec 09 - 01:30 AM (#2799830) Subject: RE: BS: Obama caught in blatant lying From: CarolC There is no doubt that Obama has said things that aren't true. Whether or not he intentionally lied is something I am willing to wait to find out. However, the complaint I have with people like DougR here in this thread is that they are lying about a lot of the things they say Obama is lying about. I find that to be incredibly cheezy. |
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31 Dec 09 - 08:13 AM (#2799943) Subject: RE: BS: Obama caught in blatant lying From: Bobert There are alot of different levels of lies... Some are even honorable... Everyone used to say how nice my Aunt Olive looked at family occasions... Hey, this lady, bless her heart, was so ugly that she'd make a frieght train jump tracks and take a dirt road... Now that was ugly... So let's keep things in perspective here... Campaigning is all about painting pictures of the way the candidate sees the world in order to give the voters some idea of what they are getting... Some candidates end up purdy close to their campaign rhetoric and other, ahhhhh, no so... As much as I am a somewhat disappointed progressive with Obama I have to admit that, for the most part, folks knew what they were getting... But take George W... Much different story: 1. I'm going to bring a new tone to Washington... 2. I'm going to be a uniter, not a divider... 3. Saddam Hussein is trying to purchase uranium for Niger... 4. Saddam Hussain is buildiong WMD so that he can attack America... These kinds of lies, Dougie, get special attention not only because of the tjhe pathalogical naturte but of the consequences of telling them: 1. The most polorized the nation has been in the last 60 years 2. Two wars and upwardas of a million people dead Ya' see, Dougie... This is why when you folks who were so supportive of George W - and you were - go around trying to but Obama's sins in the same category as Bush's you arer going to get some major pushback... Yeah, the right would love to bring Obama doen to Bush's level and if they have a million years they might be able to pull it off but, geese louise, right now you can't believe how friggin' moronish ya'll sound... B~ |
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31 Dec 09 - 08:26 AM (#2799953) Subject: RE: BS: Obama caught in blatant lying From: Lox Doug, Its easy to see that Carol has given a response to every point you've made. Its also easy to see that you've ignored the points she has made. You assert that Obama's laws don't do what he said they would do. Carol responds by saying that no such laws have been passed yet so we don't know what they do yet. 1-0 to carol until you respond to her refutation or support your assertion. |
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31 Dec 09 - 09:01 AM (#2799979) Subject: RE: BS: Obama caught in blatant lying From: Greg F. Morons all over the globe are taking offense at being compared with Douggie. |
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31 Dec 09 - 11:33 AM (#2800094) Subject: RE: BS: Obama caught in blatant lying From: robomatic I think that all politicians and Presidents lie/ prevaricate/ distort the truth. Making the point of "Obama caught in blatant lying" is at face value an attempt to make some point that Obama has proven himself exceptional in this sense, probably meant to be a denigration of his politics. I do not believe that point has been made successfully. Obama and his administration have a long way to go before they will approach the hem of the garment of dissembling that was worn by the previous regime. I remember 'W''s administration trying to create a department of misinformation for the military which was not just bad publicity but freakin' STUPID (a hallmark of the 'W' years). But as for takin' turns to pick on thread participants, this is a sign of thread decreptitude. Methinks folks have little of merit to add so them are eatin' their own. It's also a trifle cowardly. |
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31 Dec 09 - 12:03 PM (#2800107) Subject: RE: BS: Obama caught in blatant lying From: artbrooks It is also important, IMO, to add (once again) that the contents of any bill that Congress finally comes up with has nothing at all to do with anything that Mr. Obama has ever said, proposed or advocated. The President does not control Congress, even the part of Congress that is nominally from the same political party, and the Executive Branch neither writes or approves legislation. It is highly unlikely that Mr. Obama would threaten to veto health care legislation unless it contains exactly what he wants - nothing more and nothing less - and it is equally unlikely that Congress would ever give him such a bill to sign. |
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31 Dec 09 - 12:46 PM (#2800144) Subject: RE: BS: Obama caught in blatant lying From: DougR Ok, Carol, you (and your band of liberal supporters)win. Obama never told a falsehood in his entire life. He is probably the man on earth who has never done so. Bobert: evidently word has not reach you yet, but George W. Bush is no longer president. Now, GregF, has been clamoring all through this thread for his snack, so I'm going out in the garden to dig for worms. He needs his nourishment. DougR |
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31 Dec 09 - 12:53 PM (#2800151) Subject: RE: BS: Obama caught in blatant lying From: CarolC DougR, please show me where I have ever expressed an opinion about whether or not Obama has ever uttered a falsehood. What you are doing is trying to use a straw man to make points. |
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31 Dec 09 - 01:02 PM (#2800159) Subject: RE: BS: Obama caught in blatant lying From: Bobert It doesn't matter much, Dougie, if George Bush is no longer president... What matters is the high grade hypocrisy we are seein' from his supporters... When Bush lied lots of folks were killed... Might of fact, upwards of a million... The bulk of them old people (like yourself0, women and children... Bush also left the country in a complete shambles... Whereever you looked it was like some scene from "Escape from New York" with stuff smoldering here and there.... That was the reality that the antion faced less than one year ago... It is completely disengenious for you and yer buddies to sit back and pretend that this was not the condition of the country that you and yer buddies handed over to Obama... So, yes, it is relevant that Bush isn't president anymore... And it will be relevant until the mess gets cleaned up... One of the sickest things that ya'll did was leave the country in a cooked-books scheme to saddle the country with massive deficits no matter what Obama did... This wasn't a childish prank like removin' the "w's" from the White House typewriters... This was an all out Enron book cookin' timebomb waiting to blow up over the next 3 years... What, Dougie??? You consider that honest??? No, it's not honest... And it isn't good governance... It was as crooked as anything that Bush and his little liein'ass accountants could do to the country... Yeah, when the right wing jumps on stuff that really doesn't matter one bit as if they have discovered the Holy Grail then it smacks of book-cookin' hypocrisy and nuthin' but crybaby sour grapes... BTW, sorry to all morons out there... I must have lost my head... B~ |
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31 Dec 09 - 01:38 PM (#2800201) Subject: RE: BS: Obama caught in blatant lying From: Peter T. Glenn Greenwald from Salon -- one of the few sane voices one can find in American journalism -- in a year end interview, pretty well sums up in strong detail the way in which the Obama administration has locked itself into the self-reinforcing "terrorist war" cycle, now adding Yemen to the list; essentially making the point that in spite of the rhetorical shifts, Obama has become the enabler of essentially all the institutional dynamics of his predecessor -- http://www.democracynow.org/2009/12/31/glenn yours, Peter T. |
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31 Dec 09 - 02:07 PM (#2800235) Subject: RE: BS: Obama caught in blatant lying From: Little Hawk You are quite right, Peter, and it seems to suggest very strongly what I have been saying for years...that the Democratic and Republican parties are simply two halves of one outfit that supinely serves the same behind the scenes controllers, meaning the people in charge of the military-industrial complex and the major banks and other huge financial organizations. That the American presidents are bascially elected figureheads rather than real leaders... And that the elections are used to mesmerize the public into imagining that they still have a real democracy and a real choice, when in fact they are ruled by an oligarchy that controls both political parties regardless of who wins an election...and that uses those 2 political parties to perpetually divide, conquer, confuse, and control the public consciousness. And by the way...that's fairly much what we have in Canada too, and in the UK, although not nearly as bad yet as it is in the USA...but getting worse, I think. |
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31 Dec 09 - 03:06 PM (#2800294) Subject: RE: BS: Obama caught in blatant lying From: Bobert Wouldn't be too much to ask you two for *your* Ten Point plans, would it??? Rules: Must be appreciative of the realities that Obama inherited and also the realities of a world shaped by a century of colonialism, hatred, misunderstanding and corporate interets... Now... Have at it... This oughta be fun... B~ |
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31 Dec 09 - 04:25 PM (#2800368) Subject: RE: BS: Obama caught in blatant lying From: Little Hawk Here's the problem, Bobert. If Obama were to attempt a 10-Point plan such as I would recommend, he would most certainly and without question be: 1. crucified for it by the political establishment and media in America 2. checkmated at every turn by that same political establishment and mass media and... 3. assassinated in pretty short order. He would never live to carry out the 10-Point plan I would recommend...or that Dennis Kucinich would recommend. So it's academic. It ain't gonna happen, no matter if Obama tried it or anyone else did in his position. He is probably doing what he is doing because if he doesn't, he's a dead man. I would: 1. Immediately begin withdrawing all US troops, mercenary contractors, and "advisors" from Afghanistan, Pakistan, Iraq, Saudi Arabia, Somalia, Yemen, and all other Muslim nations that the USA is presently mucking around in. I would declare the "War on Terror" over. And it would be over, because the provocations that cause it would have ended. 2. Close not only Guantanamo, but also the various other secret internment facilities where the USA is holding prisoners without charges. 3. Apologize for having launched unjustified wars of aggression against both Afghanistan and Iraq, and pay them damages for the destruction that has been wrought in those wars. 4. Re-open an investigation into what happened on 911. 5. Institute a REAL universal public health coverage plan in the USA, similar to what exists in most western democracies. 6. Instruct the CIA to stop subverting foreign governments and engaging in covert operations on foreign soil...or else get shut down. 7. Cease giving military aid and moral support to client dictators in places like Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Yemen, and many others. Cease giving automatic support to Israel no matter what Israel decides to do, and treat them by the same standard as all other nations are treated. 8. Change the banking rules in the USA so that the power of the banks to create vast amounts of money out of thin air is terminated. 9. Give the bailout money to small business and the general public, not to the banks. 10. Put the dollar back on a gold and silver standard (that is, each dollar redeemable upon demand in gold or silver). This would require major alterations in the currency, needless to say. Anyone who was president and who attempted even a quarter of the program I recommend above would be killed in short order, so like I said, it's purely academic, and it ain't gonna happen. Imperial orders do not accede willingly to reforms that don't suit their imperial plans, and they will kill anyone who attempts to institute them. |
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31 Dec 09 - 05:23 PM (#2800406) Subject: RE: BS: Obama caught in blatant lying From: DougR Obviously, LH, I am in total disagreement with your ten point plan. For example: Suppose Obama declares the terrorist war over and the enemy keeps attacking us anyway? DougR |
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31 Dec 09 - 05:27 PM (#2800408) Subject: RE: BS: Obama caught in blatant lying From: Bobert Well, LH, other than legalizin' pot, Which I would throw in, I reckon that our plans are purdy much the same... But you hit the nail on the head in recognozing that it really is impossible for Obama to do these things... That's the reality part of the question I posed... Yeah, it's easy for ol' peacenicks to sit around and come up with lots of ways to get folks to get along better but, hey, we ain't president... I think we all neeed to keep this single *fact* in mind once in awhile when blasstin' away at what Obama does or doesn't do... BTW, I think we've had this discussion on the "gold standard" and I'm not all that hip on it... Cannibus standard??? Different story... B~ |
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31 Dec 09 - 05:56 PM (#2800422) Subject: RE: BS: Obama caught in blatant lying From: Peter T. Of course the terrorists will continue. There will always be terrorists. There were terrorists before 9/11 (some homegrown). The point of terrorism is to make people terrified, and the way Americans get so easily terrified, the incentive is sure there. One guy gets on a plane with burning underpants, and the whole American universe comes unplugged. Like I said, it's a cycle. The British discovered (as have empires before them) that in order to protect their "necessary" boundaries from outside attack, they need to expand their boundaries, which provokes new attacks and so on. Eventually, this collapses from over-extension. And then it is discovered that the "necessary" boundaries aren't all that necessary. The British (speaking of the British) seem to be doing all right empire-less. The crazy American problem (due to the fact that their military is so powerful and George Bush was so stupid, and 9/11 was so spectacular) is to keep treating this as a war and legitimizing the terrorists. The British treat these creatures as criminals -- hello, trial by jury -- and once upon a time they resisted to the end treating the IRA as a real "army". I spent the 70s in Britain, and there were bombs going off all the time, and it was a little nerve racking, but that was it. The Yemenis are now about to be given the American gold standard treatment -- the new grand enemy -- and it will play out like all the rest. When you only have a hammer, the world is a bunch of nails. When you have a vast military, everyone is a potential enemy. It's completely pathetic. Happy New Year. yours, Peter T. |
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31 Dec 09 - 06:33 PM (#2800450) Subject: RE: BS: Obama caught in blatant lying From: Bobert Well, Peter, depends on how Yemen is handled... If it's handled like Afganistan then we have a problem... If it's handled more in terms of intellegence and surgical strikes then, hey, that's progress 'cause we are moving more and more toward moving from this War on Terrorism to a War on Tarrorists... Big difference... The second implies more police work than what Bush did in occupying countries... Those were colonila/geopolitical decisions like cluttered up the entire last century... Happy New Years backatcha... B~ |
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31 Dec 09 - 08:07 PM (#2800496) Subject: RE: BS: Obama caught in blatant lying From: Little Hawk You're quite right, Peter. It's completely pathetic. The British aren't the only ones who have discovered the futility of an ever-expanding empire and its eventual collapse. As well as them we have had the Soviets, the Nazis, Napoleonic France, Spain, Holland, Italy, Japan, Belgium, Rome, Greece, Persia, and many others....they all took over various other people's lands, stirred up hostility and resistance in so doing, spread their military control farther and farther afield, and finally the whole damn over-inflated megalomaniac structure collapsed under its own weight. As will the present American imperial order. Doug, you have a misunderstanding as to who the "enemy" is, and who created the whole situation in the first place, that's all. The people building the American geopolitical empire in other people's lands created the situation, and the terrorists are merely a symptom of the fallout from the anger and bitterness that has aroused in those lands. The so-called "war on terror" started officially on 911, but it started in actuality as early as the 1950s when the USA began effecting CIA-orchestrated regime change in places like Iran and extending its geopolitical dominion all over the Middle East. The terrorists you fear have simply been a response to that. If your government wasn't intruding upon and disrupting their societies, they would not be attacking you. Russia is also very much to blame for this, because they were playing the imperial geopolitical game in that region too...but their ambitions came to a disastrous end in Afghanistan. I expect that American ambitions will come to a similarly disastrous end in fairly much the same way. NO Muslim country has attacked the USA. NO Muslim government has attacked the USA. No Muslim nation has attacked the USA. The USA has attacked them, and it continues to do so. The "terrorists" are a semi-organized response to that by non-governmental forces. Since their people's governments do not dare to act (being extremely outgunned by America and often run by local puppet governments who take their orders from Washington), the so-called terrorists who arise among those populations take the matter into their own hands. Approximately 90% of Pakistani civilians hate the USA at this point, Doug, and it's not because they're ignorant, it's because they're responding to a real situation that affects their country. They don't hate democracy. They WANT democracy. They don't hate our western culture. In many ways they admire it. They don't hate the Christian religion. What they hate is the fact that their government has become an almost helpless American puppet and their sovereignty is being daily violated by American aircraft, and their civilians are being killed by American airstrikes. This infuriates the ordinary people there, and from the ranks of those infuriated people will come the young men that America terms "terrorists"...because they dared to resist an empire. Bobert - I'm in favor of legalizing pot too. ;-) (for personal use and home cultivation by the user only...not for commercial sale) |
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01 Jan 10 - 09:13 AM (#2800742) Subject: RE: BS: Obama caught in blatant lying From: Bobert Home cultivation??? Man, I'm all for that... I could grow it in my veggie garden where I could tend to it properly and where stupid deer don't eat it... But, no... I gotta go up into the mountain and grow it in terrible conditions and then you put in 10 plants and then 6 are male (which is bad) and of the 4 females only two thrive and of the two a stupid deer eats one down to the ground... Grrrrrrr???? Yes, home cultivation would do just fine, LH.... I'd be happy with just 2 or 3 healthy females... Plants, that is... B~ |
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01 Jan 10 - 09:19 AM (#2800746) Subject: RE: BS: Obama caught in blatant lying From: Peter T. Concerning the Yemen, it certainly looks to me like the same old shit. The Obama administration has covertly given the Yemeni government cruise missiles and so on (it is not clear who is in charge of their deployment) to drop on people it doesn't like, and are supposedly Al-Qaeda members. Last week they blew up a lot of people -- note, these people were not brought to a court, nothing has been proved against any of them, they weren't subject to any declarations of intent, and it is more than likely that a whole lot of them were innocent, but, hey, we get to blow them up because we feel like it is a good idea because sometime they might be dangerous to us or to the Yemeni government (who are one more bunch of criminals -- the reason why Guantanamo is not closed is because the Americans don't trust the Yemeni government to handle its own nationals, but, hey, they are our bunch of criminals). This is terrorism on a state scale. I don't know what else to call it. Curiously enough, this seems to make people angry, and help recruits people against America. Can't figure out why. Baffles me. yours, Peter T. |
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01 Jan 10 - 01:35 PM (#2800870) Subject: RE: BS: Obama caught in blatant lying From: Little Hawk "This is terrorism on a state scale." Ah! Now there is the real truth which is never spoken in the western media. The so-called "War on Terror" IS itself terrorism on a state scale and on a really enormous scale, terrorism as practiced by western governments and their armed forces and covert agencies against various Muslim nations, and that is exactly the way most Muslims see it. They also see Israel's aggressive activities beyond its own borders in that same light. They see themselves as the people who are victimized by terrorism, who are fighting against terrorism, and I think they are quite correct in seeing it that way. There will never be any lack of willing recruits to fight the American and Israeli forces in the various occupied lands, because that is how people react to state-sponsored terrorism. They take up arms against it. Terrorism does, of course, provoke counter-terrorism. That's inevitable. If you look at the body count in this war, however, the terrorism practiced by western governments and armies is so much greater in its violence and destruction than the terrorism practiced by scattered groups of jihadists such as Al Qaeda that for the USA to imagine it's righteously fighting a war against terrorism is sort of like Stalin imagining he was righteously fighting a war against totalitarianism. Absolute nonsense, in other words. An extremely exaggerated case of the pot calling the kettle black. A very big lie. |
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01 Jan 10 - 05:24 PM (#2801009) Subject: RE: BS: Obama caught in blatant lying From: robomatic I don't think it's a big drop of the scales off the eyes to call it state sponsored terrorism (on our part), the military under the 'W' regime was dense enough to make a point of calling it "SHOCK AND AWE" if you remember. This was stupid in many dimensions, because it pretty much sent the message, "We're better beCAUSE we're bigger and badder" and then it couldn't live down to the message 'member all those big holes we left around Baghdad full of vaporized people who turned out NOT to be Saddam? This is part of how we fomented the insurgency against us. And it aided the cynical definition: "A terrorist is someone who delivers a bomb without an airplane" And I think the current administration is aware of it to the extent that it is trying a hearts and minds approach in Afghanistan and Pakistan and getting out of Iraq. |
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01 Jan 10 - 05:45 PM (#2801026) Subject: RE: BS: Obama caught in blatant lying From: Little Hawk You're quite right, robomatic, that it is no great revelation...but what I'm talking about is how the USA mass media discusses the war and how they work to sanitize what Washington is doing. In truth, all state-sponsored wars fought on foreign soil inevitably involve acts of terrorism upon whomever the war is targeting. But they only call it "terrorism" when their opponents do it. |
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01 Jan 10 - 09:25 PM (#2801161) Subject: RE: BS: Obama caught in blatant lying From: Riginslinger How is the administration framing the discussion about the CIA people who were killed in Pakistan. Is anybody asking the question, "Why were they there?" |
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01 Jan 10 - 10:10 PM (#2801173) Subject: RE: BS: Obama caught in blatant lying From: GUEST,heric "how we fomented the insurgency against us." First, they came for the cartoonists. Bloomberg Oh me oh my we must turn over our cartoonists or they will get us all! (Then we can move on to all the other things we do that make us deserve this punishmment.) |
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01 Jan 10 - 10:17 PM (#2801176) Subject: RE: BS: Obama caught in blatant lying From: Bobert Well, I for one, am glad that the CIA folks are there, Rigs... That means that Obama is moving more toward dealing with bad guys as bad guys and not invading countries with conventional armies and then occupying them... May not be perfect but beats the heck outta the last guy's approach... |
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02 Jan 10 - 11:43 AM (#2801542) Subject: RE: BS: Obama caught in blatant lying From: Little Hawk The CIA folks were there in Iran way back in the 1950s too, Bobert. And what were they doing there? They were arranging the overthrow of an elected government which had had the bad sense to nationalize the country's oil industry (previously run by and for the benefit of UK oil companies). That government was replaced by absolute dictatorial rule by a western-backed monarch, the Shah. This has not been forgotten by Muslims, but it's barely a vague memory to most Americans, if they even know about it at all anymore. Like I said, this war started a long time ago. |
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02 Jan 10 - 11:56 AM (#2801560) Subject: RE: BS: Obama caught in blatant lying From: artbrooks I am often amused by Mudcat's conspiracy theorists. |
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02 Jan 10 - 12:39 PM (#2801602) Subject: RE: BS: Obama caught in blatant lying From: CarolC Just in case anyone might think that because of artbrooks' post, the CIA backed coup in Iran in the 50s is a conspiracy theory, it is not. It is a verifiable fact. |
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02 Jan 10 - 12:45 PM (#2801606) Subject: RE: BS: Obama caught in blatant lying From: Little Hawk What "conspiracy" would you be alluding to? The coup events in Iran are well-documented. I don't call it a conspiracy, I call it normal geopolitics on the part of great powers who wish to control the supply and marketing of oil, a vital strategic resource. The Great powers who have mostly interfered in the Muslim world since the end of WWII are Great Britain, the USA, Russia, and the USA's proxy in the region, Israel. The Muslims there don't see it as a conspiracy, they see it as an open war between the local populations and several great imperial powers. They are quite correct in seeing it in those terms. |
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02 Jan 10 - 01:50 PM (#2801665) Subject: RE: BS: Obama caught in blatant lying From: artbrooks Conspiracy theory: the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) is a bunch of loose cannons, who go off on their own to do whatever mischief their pointy little heads come up with. Fact: the CIA is an agency of the US government which carries out tasks assigned to it by the National Command Authority. For example, the CIA overthrow of the semi-democratically elected government of Iranian PM Mohammed Mosaddeq, with the active assistance of the British SAS, was ordered by President Eisenhower, at the request of British PM Churchill. Many of the operations carried out by the CIA have been, at best, morally reprehensible but that doesn't mean that they ever did anything without specific orders. |
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02 Jan 10 - 03:54 PM (#2801774) Subject: RE: BS: Obama caught in blatant lying From: CarolC I don't see anyone in this thread suggesting that the CIA acts on its own initiative, artbrooks. It looks to me like people are criticizing the US government for sending them to places like Pakistan. |
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02 Jan 10 - 05:08 PM (#2801826) Subject: RE: BS: Obama caught in blatant lying From: Little Hawk Precisely. What Carol said. It is because "the CIA is an agency of the US government which carries out tasks assigned to it by the National Command Authority" that the CIA commits the very actions to which Muslims object so strenuously, and that is why those actions have caused Islamic fighters to retaliate against the USA in various ways. Mossad, likewise, acts on behalf of the government of Israel, and arouses the same sort of anger in Muslim populations. From those angry populations come individuals who decide on their own to take some sort of violent retaliatory action. If so, they represent themselves and many people who agree with them, but they do not represent any government. Such are the members of Al Qaeda. They represent themselves and some very aggravated Muslims who agree with them, but they do not represent a government or a nation. The USA response to 911 didn't make sense. It was a criminal act, not an act of war by a sovereign nation or the armed forces of a nation. As such, it should have been dealt with as an international police matter...not a war. The invasion of Afghanistan was a completely illogical and ineffective way to react to a criminal attack by a few Egyptians and Saudis under the alleged control of someone hiding out in some camp somewhere in the mountains of Afghanistan. It was kind of like Russia going and bombing the hell out of Los Angeles because nine crazy guys from Kentucky and Alberta did a terrorist attack on Vladivostok...and they were rumoured to have received their orders from Kevin Costner who was hiding out in Los Angeles. Idiotic. But this time you had a "Pearl Harbour" event...yet no Japanese Navy, no Japanese Army or Air Force, and no Japan to retaliate against. Still, you had an infuriated and traumatized American public who wanted someone to pay for 911. So what did the US military do? Well, they did the obvious foolish thing...they went off to pulverize a wretchedly poor Muslim country that did NOT plan or cause 911, a country with a bunch of poorly-educated and naive Islamic fundamentalists in power who were complete fools when it came to presenting themselves to the world...a PR disaster in fact. Nobody in the world even recognized them as a legitimate government except for Pakistan and 2 other Muslim nations. They made a perfect punching bag for an angry America...and who would object? The Russians likewise detested them. So Afghanistan and the Taliban got pulverized. And that made angry Americans feel better. (whoopee) It did absolutely nothing to reduce the risk of further Muslim terrorist attacks nor did it do anything to improve the security of the USA or anyone else's security. It was a completely inappropriate reaction to the events on 911. In time it has grown into a war that can't be won. Well, the Russians know all about that already...they had their turn in the 80s. |
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02 Jan 10 - 05:40 PM (#2801841) Subject: RE: BS: Obama caught in blatant lying From: pdq fact: Persia, now known as Iran, was a monarchy from about 1500 BC until 1979, when the government was destroyed by IslamoFacists. That is a run of 3500+ years in a unbroken series of monarchies. fact: The Pahlavi monarchy lasted from 1925 until 1979. It had two kings. The term "shah" simply means king in Persia. fact: The Iranian Parliament was created by the Shah and served at the pleasure of the Shah. It did not have the power to elevate Dr. Mohammed Mosaddeq to the supreme learership postition he claimed. fact: The Revolutionary Guard killed more people in their first year the the Shah did in his 38 years of rule (1941-1979, inclusive). fact: John Perkins is a professional liar. Always was and always will be. He said so himself. The current story of Iran 1953 come from Perkins and is substantially fantasy. The books he wrote made him a millionaire. That was their purpose. |
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02 Jan 10 - 06:16 PM (#2801870) Subject: RE: BS: Obama caught in blatant lying From: Little Hawk fact: Whenever a country with a large amount of domestic oil decides to control its own oil and market that oil to the world in whichever way it pleases, it soon becomes an official "enemy" of the USA and Great Britain. What follows is either a foreign-supported coup which brings down that country's government and installs an Anglo-American puppet in its place...or a open war with that country. As for monarchies, I'm not necessarily against them. Britain has had a monarchy for a very long time, and I'm not against that. Nor am I against the Thai monarchy. Nor the Dutch monarchy. Nor any peaceful and reasonable monarchy. I am opposed to the Shah's dictatorial government following 1953 because it established a totally undemocratic rule, crushed a fledgling democracy, and was allied with foreign oil interests to the detriment of Iranian national independence. I am not well impressed in the least by the revolutionary Islamic government which replaced it in 1979 either, but at least they represent themselves instead of representing American and British oil interests. If I was Iranian, I would prefer that to having the Shah in power. |
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02 Jan 10 - 07:12 PM (#2801918) Subject: RE: BS: Obama caught in blatant lying From: GUEST, heric Despite the elegant structures of your arguments, LH and CarolC, they present no logical or practical way to keep them fellers from killing our cartoonists, so I think you do not really have the solutions to our problems. Your theories, in other words, must therefore be off on a tangent. How must the US respond in a way that you will say "makes sense," when confronted with an absurdity such as cartoonisticide. |
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02 Jan 10 - 07:36 PM (#2801931) Subject: RE: BS: Obama caught in blatant lying From: Little Hawk Our cartoonists? Heh! Surely you jest... Look, I am opposed to all forms of terrorism, not just the state terrorism that is practiced by ambitious empires and great powers. I am also opposed to individual acts of terrorism by Islamic terrorists who set off suicide bombs in markets, hijack airplanes, and attack Dutch cartoonists. This is the same as to say that I'm against all forms of criminal activity, which I am. It doesn't change my opinions on American foreign policy one iota, because it is that foreign policy, plus the similar activities of Russia, Great Britain, and Israel, that have created the overall situation that incubates so many non-state Islamic terrorists. They are a reaction to the aggressive empire-building practiced by the more powerful countries on the weaker ones, and they are also a reaction to the local dictators propped up in their Islamic countries by Russia and the USA. There is no immediate action the USA can take that would instantly resolve all of what has happened, but to further involve our troops in occupying Muslim nations is an action that will only exacerbate the situation, not improve it. Remember Vietnam? It was unwinnable. So is this war. The smart thing to do with an unwinnable war, specially when you are the occupier...is END the occupation. What would follow an end to western occupation would be further infighting and further war between local groups in those countries, but that is their business, not ours. Another huge problem which is contingent on all of this is the constant risk of a major war between India and Pakistan over longstanding issues in Kashmir and the disputed mountainous regions north of Kashmir. The USA is considerably worsening the risk of that by its ruinous military policies in Afghanistan and the Pakistani northern border areas, because those activities are greatly destabilizing Pakistan and enraging the Pakistani populace, which once considered the USA a friend and ally (while India was allied with the Russians). India watches this new situation like a hawk, hoping to cash in on Pakistani weaknesses. The Indians are delighted to see the USA alienated against the Muslim world, because that serves India's strategic concerns...in regards to Pakistan. As for the Pakistanis, they have never been more isolated, more alone, and in a more miserable state than they are now. The only strategic "friend" they have left at this point is China...because China is also at odds with India. |
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02 Jan 10 - 07:51 PM (#2801948) Subject: RE: BS: Obama caught in blatant lying From: Bobert I'd like to think that Obama has spent quite a bit of time reflecting on the history of the region along with the the failings of the Vietnam War... Yeah, it's easy to say that Obama oughtta just apologize and have the US pull itself into a shell... Not so easilly done... Yes, I am concerned about escalations in Somalia and Yemen but I'd rather see good intellegence and surgical strikes than invasions and occupations... Kinda a choice of two bads but what are ya gonna do until there is some level of stabilization??? I mean, other than just advocate unrealistic policies... Sould we have even invaded Afganistan??? No... Iraq??? Hell no... Stupid policies... Hey, if I have figured it out I'm sure it has also crossed Obama's mind... And I hope it will influence his policies... Also, we have to keep in mind the political realities here in the US which are ver messed up... B~ |
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02 Jan 10 - 08:04 PM (#2801956) Subject: RE: BS: Obama caught in blatant lying From: Little Hawk Well, the thing is, Bobert...you and I aren't in the position Obama is. We have the luxury to talk in ideal terms about what could be done, and without experiencing the consequences. He doesn't. He's in the middle of it. Nevertheless, I'm sorry to say that I basically disagree with most of the decisions he's made so far while in office...although I do admire his rhetorical abilities. He's definitely preferable to John McCain (who can also shoot his mouth off now without facing the consequences). That's the luxury of not being the guy in power. You can say whatever you want about what you would do... ;-) Actually being there is another story. |
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02 Jan 10 - 09:15 PM (#2801988) Subject: RE: BS: Obama caught in blatant lying From: Bobert Well, Obama really hasn't had to make too many policy decisions, LH... Yeah, he coulda been stronger on health care and lost what little gains the US may make... Maybe he should have... I mean, who woulda blamed him... I mean, if Bill Clinton couldn't get anywhere why would we expect Obama to??? He could have also said "no" at a time when it looked as if the financail system was going to collapse and, again, maybe he should have... Hard to say??? And yeah, he could have stood up against the military industrialists and the right wing noise machine on Afganistan and in doing so would have surely lost any chance of health care reform... But the guy has been in a political meatgrinder and no matter what he does it ain't gonna make too many folks happy on any side of the issues... Persoanlly, I would have told the generals to stuff it on Afganistan but I'm not president... Yer right, being president is "another story"... B~ |
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02 Jan 10 - 10:32 PM (#2802031) Subject: RE: BS: Obama caught in blatant lying From: CarolC Heric, did you intend for your post to be in another thread? Somehow it doesn't seem to fit in the discussion on this thread. At least not anything I've posted in this one. The American revolutionaries didn't have the authority to declare their independence and set up a democratic government, either, but we don't quibble with their right to do it. The same holds true for the democratically elected government in Iran that the US illegally deposed in a CIA backed coup. |
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02 Jan 10 - 10:48 PM (#2802036) Subject: RE: BS: Obama caught in blatant lying From: Little Hawk People only normally disagree with that sort of thing when it wasn't their idea...while they agree with it enthusiastically when it was their idea. The American revolutionaries were terrorists and traitors in the eyes of the English. They were freedom fighters in their own eyes. They were traitors in the eyes of the loyalists in the colonies (who comprised roughly 50% of the population and many of whom fled to Canada at war's end), and the loyalists were traitors in the revolutionaries' eyes. It's always a question of whose ox is being gored or what side of the fence you're standing on. The reason Islamic fighters in Afghanistan were seen as "freedom fighters" by the USA in the 1980s was simple...they were killing Russians! ;-) Now that the Russians are gone, they're killing Americans. They are still fighting for the same thing they were back then: to drive out a foreign army of occupation. |
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03 Jan 10 - 12:12 AM (#2802051) Subject: RE: BS: Obama caught in blatant lying From: GUEST,heric I'm just saying that the "If we didn't do [this] then they wouldn't do [that]" theory of world peace and harmony doesn't appear to work when you get down to some of the nitty gritty details. |
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03 Jan 10 - 12:34 AM (#2802061) Subject: RE: BS: Obama caught in blatant lying From: Little Hawk Well, heric, let's say you have a feud between two individuals that goes on...and on...and on. Or make it 2 nations. There are always past offences that both can point to in such a feud. There are always reasons for both to be angry, based on what has happened between them in the past. But it doesn't end until one party decides to stop feuding. Endlessly calling the other party "evil" and trying to kill them all or terrorize them into surrender will not work. You're never going to kill all the Middle Eastern and other people who are angry about American business and military policy in their countries. You just can't do it. They get born much faster than you can possibly kill them. They're never going to kill all of you either, and I'm sure they know that full well, but they will keep fighting because our troops are on their land. And that's one hell of a good reason to keep on fighting. They are not on your land, you're on theirs. You (Americans in general, I mean) would fight too, if an occupying foreign army from some greater military power was on your land. And you'd never stop fighting them till they left. What Osama launched his jihad over way back in the 90's was the presence of American troops in Saudi Arabia and the fact that the corrupt Saudi Royal family is in cahoots with American business interests and doesn't represent the common people of their country. For that he had his Saudi citizenship taken away. I can fully understand his position on that. That doesn't mean I agree with him launching terrorist attacks on civilians, but I do understand exactly what he is objecting to. His political cause is legitimate...although his methods are not, if they involve attacking civilian targets in the USA or elsewhere. If they involve fighting USA occupying forces on Muslim lands, though...and they do...then his methods in that respect are completely legitimate, from the perspective of most people living in those lands. These things have to be understood. You can't wait for "the other side" to grow up, let go of all its old hatreds, and find a path to agreement that suits your purposes...and you can't just dismiss them as "evil". It's never that simple. They aren't any more evil than you, they simply have their own interests. You've got to make the first move in that process of finding common ground yourself or it may never happen. And it's the foreign occupier who MUST leave in the end...not the local people. These wars won't end till your soldiers (and privately employed mercenaries) leave those lands. There is no "victory" to be found by America in these wars. Victory is impossible for America under the circumstances in the Middle East and central Asia. Victory can only come finally to the local people when all the foreign armies leave. |
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03 Jan 10 - 12:52 AM (#2802071) Subject: RE: BS: Obama caught in blatant lying From: CarolC I'm just saying that the "If we didn't do [this] then they wouldn't do [that]" theory of world peace and harmony doesn't appear to work when you get down to some of the nitty gritty details. How would we know? We've never tried. |
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03 Jan 10 - 01:54 PM (#2802298) Subject: RE: BS: Obama caught in blatant lying From: Little Hawk I'm willing to bet that if Hitler had never invaded and occupied Poland that hundreds of thousands of Poles would never have volunteered their services in WWII to anyone at all who would provide them with a gun or a ship or an airplane, and gone out and enthusiastically killed Germans... |
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03 Jan 10 - 03:56 PM (#2802384) Subject: RE: BS: Obama caught in blatant lying From: robomatic I personally think that Obama is a more or less 'standard' American President, only, I think and hope, smarter than the previous one. I'm sure you noticed that according to his pre-election statments about prioritizing the war, we sent more men to Afghanistan almost before we did anything else anywhere. We have maintained our attacks from our drones in the air and used them more than almost during the entire Bush regime. Nevertheless, what is going on, the big picture, is that the Islamic world is in a full scale civil war where its literalist, 'fundamentalist' elements are trying to make a last ditch stand against the secular world of the Twenty First century. It is variously counter-interpreted as a war against other religions, a war against Western oppression and occupation, a war against the forces of Shaitan, a war against globalization, etc. etc. Most of the major religions have their own similar movements, but have been held at bay because of multi-cultural linkages suppressing the most extreme versions of these memes. In Europe's case, the memory of the Thirty Years' War. But Islam is a much younger religion and takes the form of unification of Church and State, sort of where Europe was 400 years ago. I think Obama's background of living in Indonesia is one of the most valuable things we've got going for us in this situation. Other than that, he is as American as any President in word and deed. If these difficult operations in Afghanistan, Pakistan, Yemen, etc. can be dealt with successfully, he's the guy to do it. Again, the thread title is a fabrication, it is a mis-statement and mis-direction of what is going on. |
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03 Jan 10 - 05:29 PM (#2802462) Subject: RE: BS: Obama caught in blatant lying From: Little Hawk I agree that Obama, aside from his unique personal history and his racial profile, is pretty much a "standard" American president and is acting like one so far. ***** Eric Margolis has spent the last 30 years traveling to Pakistan, Afghanistan, Baltistan, Waziristan, the Siachen Glachier region, Kashmir, the Northwest Frontier areas of Pakistan and India, Tibet, etc, and he is intimately acquainted with many of the principal military and political commanders in that region. He has been on numerous warfronts, bivouaced with the troops, and has friends among the commanders of, for example, the Pakistani Army and the Mujahedin, Taliban, and many other such factions. He knows what is motivating them. He states unequivocally in his writings that a large majority of the Muslim fighters who are fighting both India and the West in those regions are NOT religious fundamentalists of the kind typically caricatured in the West, and are not opposed to modernization and/or democratization of their societies. They are nationalists. The more extreme Muslim fundamentalists who are the chosen "boogeymen" of western media (since they serve a great propaganda purpose for furthering the War on Terror) are a distinct minority among those Muslims willing to fight to get India out of Kashmir and the West out of the various occupied Muslim lands. It is incorrect to characterize the conflict as one between extreme Muslim fundamentalism and western democracy. That's not what it is. It is a fight of Muslim nationalist independence movements vs. western colonialism and western-dominated proxy governments...plus it is the ongoing bitter struggle between India and Pakistan, which is in fact the most dangerous part of the conflict by far, because India and Pakistan have a large number of nuclear weapons, and could use them on one another at any time if things get out of hand....which they well may. If so, it will immediately kill millions and injure perhaps a hundred million more...and that will just be the beginning. |
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03 Jan 10 - 05:46 PM (#2802476) Subject: RE: BS: Obama caught in blatant lying From: Peter T. While I agree with some of this, I think "western dominated proxy governments" skates over a whole mass of internal complexities -- is Saudi Arabia western dominated? -- unless the whole toxic mess of modernisation is to be labelled "western" (for which good arguments could be made I suppose), and the Saudis are at the heart of things (funding Wahabist sects among other things). Oil and the Israeli-Palestinian issue are in here too. I think it could be argued that many of the nationalist Muslim groups may be interested in some kinds of "modernization" -- or repelled by them -- but "democratization" may be just another word for getting rid of the tyrants at the top (cf. Iran's original revolution and where it is now). I think it is a bit much to say that the large majority of Muslim fighters are (i) nationalistic; (ii) modernizers; and (iii) democratic -- all three at once? Does he have an example? I can only think of the Egyptian Brotherhood, and they could only be very marginally considered democratic (one of three), rhetorically and practically. The fact that virtually all of the main Muslim countries are run by tyrants does not necessarily mean that their opponents are benign nationalist, democratic, modernists. yours, Peter T. |
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03 Jan 10 - 08:14 PM (#2802571) Subject: RE: BS: Obama caught in blatant lying From: Little Hawk Your points are well taken, Peter. I was indeed summing things up in a very general and sketchy sense in my last post. For some interesting reading which will flesh out much better what I am talking about, there are a couple of books out by Eric Margolis which go into this subject in great depth. I think there is a genuine desire on the part of the majority of Muslim populations almost everywhere to modernize, democratize, improve public education, and get rid of various oppressive local rulers and also get rid of foreign intervention in their countries. To do that is way easier said than done, needless to say. It seems to be the impossible dream. In Afghanistan, for example, the Mujahedin who defeated the Soviets were divided into at least 7 different factions, and they all soon began fighting with each other, to the deep disillusionment of many of the fighters who had gone there from across the Muslim world to liberate Afghanistan from the Soviets. Many of those fighters gave up on Afghanistan in disgust at that point and went instead to fight in Kashmir against the Indian Army. Of those who stayed in Afghanistan, the Taliban faction eventually won out over most of the others (although they never defeated the "northern alliance" in the Northeast of the country). The Taliban could not have succeeded in this, had they not been greatly assisted by Pakistan intelligence and military services who sponsored them. The Pakistanis did that for their own particular reasons (mostly in regards to opposing Russian ambitions in the region), but not for the purpose of promoting Islamic fundamentalism. It was a very complicated situation. The Taliban, for purely religious reasons, decided to shut down the entire opium trade in Aghanistan and reduced it to a trickle (other than in the "northern alliance" part, where it flourished)...they were congratulated for this by the USA which considered them an ally at that time, and they (the Taliban) were given considerable financial assistance by the USA. Only later when they decided to award the contract to build a major oil and gas pipeline (from the Caspian area through Afghanistan to Pakistan) to a Latin American Company instead of to a USA-based company did the USA decide that the Taliban were "bad guys". That was when plans began to be formulated to attack Afghanistan, because they had not cooperated with the USA's energy plans in that area. That was considerably prior to 911, but 911 provided the perfect and timely excuse to launch the attack. The man, by the way, who advised the Taliban to give that contract to the Latin American firm was..........Osama Bin Laden. He was seen as a hero in Afghanistan, because of the very active part he had taken in fighting the Soviets in the 80s, and it was his influence there that caused them to reject the American offer to build the pipeline in favor of a Latin American offer to do the same. That is why the USA went after the Taliban, in my opinion. They were not doing business in a way that pleased the USA. That's also why the USA decided to put Saddam out of business, by the way. Nothing speaks louder than who gets energy contracts when it comes to American wars. *** The Saudi royal family (which is a very LARGE extended family with God knows how many princes...you can have a lot of sons when you have a great many wives...) is in it for their own gain. Due to that, they play ball with the USA. At the same time they also fund Islamic extremism....as long as it takes effect outside their own borders...preferably as far away as possible from Saudi Arabia. Margolis talks about this a fair bit in his books. It seems that the Saudi royal family likes to play both ends against the middle, promoting instability in other places, enforcing strict obedience at home....posing as the "good ally" to the USA, but posing as the "guardian of the faith" by being the home of Islam's holiest shrines in Mecca and Medina. It's a pretty devious approach to politics, isn't it? Anyway have a look at Margolis' books. They're very interesting, and not hard to find at larger bookstores. Anything I've said here is a mere fragment of what you'll find in those books. I don't talk about any of this because I think what I say will make a darned bit of difference. ;-) I just talk about it, because I'm interested in it. Period. |
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03 Jan 10 - 08:44 PM (#2802587) Subject: RE: BS: Obama caught in blatant lying From: CarolC The US government props up many dictatorial regimes around the world as a part of US imperialism. The governments of Saudi Arabia and Egypt being two of them. A lot of the animus of Muslims around the world toward the US is a response to that. |
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03 Jan 10 - 09:06 PM (#2802598) Subject: RE: BS: Obama caught in blatant lying From: Little Hawk Eric Margolis also talks about the revolutionary movements that have long fought the dictatorship in Egypt and been ruthlessly suppressed. I recommend that you check out his books too, Carol. |
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03 Jan 10 - 09:19 PM (#2802603) Subject: RE: BS: Obama caught in blatant lying From: CarolC Thanks, LH. |
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03 Jan 10 - 09:52 PM (#2802618) Subject: RE: BS: Obama caught in blatant lying From: Peter T. Like I said, the Egyptian Brotherhood. Muslim countries are so varied, it is hard to judge. Still, they do seem to play out the truth that without a Reformation that separates church from state, authoritarianism buttressed by religion eventually takes over (in spite of the hopes of liberal Muslims, a number of whom I have had dealings with over the years, and had long discussions about the benignness of various historic regimes and interpretations of Koranic teachings; and, now that I tot them up, all of them have turned bitter later in life or have left their hopes and in many cases their families and friends behind them). Karl Popper appears to have been right: the only truly healthy political systems are ones that allow for mistaken regimes to be dethroned peacefully, and religious regimes are unable to admit mistakes because their legitimacy is unchallengeable by definition. yours, Peter T. |
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03 Jan 10 - 10:03 PM (#2802625) Subject: RE: BS: Obama caught in blatant lying From: Little Hawk Maybe you're right about that, Peter. What do you think of the Dalai Lama's regime and those that preceded it in Tibet? I think that many other types of regimes besides religious ones have proven equally incapable of admitting mistakes because their legitimacy likewise was unchallengeable by definition. Certainly this has been the case with pretty well every dictatorship that ever existed, whether or not it functioned under the definition of a "religious" administration. As for communism as practiced under the Soviets or the Maoists, I think it IS a state religion, albeit one that does not admit to a "God", but one that instead erects human and political gods in the place of spiritual ones. As for non-dictators who must face a periodic vote which may vote them out of office...they very rarely admit their mistakes either, but usually go on believing they were right even after they've been turfed out of office. ;-) The saving grace is...they CAN be turfed out of office. As you say "the only truly healthy political systems are ones that allow for mistaken regimes to be dethroned peacefully". |
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03 Jan 10 - 10:31 PM (#2802646) Subject: RE: BS: Obama caught in blatant lying From: CarolC It wasn't the lack of a reformation that ended the democratic government in Iran. It was a CIA backed coup. There is no way for us to know if the dictatorial regimes that are being propped up by the US in countries like Egypt and Saudi Arabia would have been able to do what they've done without the help of the US. I don't think we can say whether or not Muslim countries would have the tendency you describe, Peter, in the absence of Western interference, because they have been subject to Western interference since the 1800s. We can't say we know what they would be like without such interference because there is no way to know this. By the way, Islam has gone through a reformation period, but as with Christianity in the US, and Judaism in Israel, there are extremists who want things to move in a more fundamentalist direction. |
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03 Jan 10 - 10:33 PM (#2802649) Subject: RE: BS: Obama caught in blatant lying From: Riginslinger "What do you think of the Dalai Lama's regime and those that preceded it in Tibet?" One only has to look at the way religion is practiced in Tibet. |
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03 Jan 10 - 10:50 PM (#2802663) Subject: RE: BS: Obama caught in blatant lying From: Little Hawk Meaning? |
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03 Jan 10 - 11:35 PM (#2802689) Subject: RE: BS: Obama caught in blatant lying From: Art Thieme This thread is f......g depressing. Bottom line: We blew it again! The single payer idea is dead. None of what any of you have said here matters at all. What matters is how what is done plays out and impacts on the lives of real PEOPLE!!! In the meantime, we who partake in the healthcare system of the USA, as it is, and as whatever it morphs into, will live or die with the consequences as the morons and the geniuses fight it out. Art |
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04 Jan 10 - 11:55 AM (#2803051) Subject: RE: BS: Obama caught in blatant lying From: pdq "A government big enough to give you everything you want is big enough to take everything you have." ~ Barry Goldwater |
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04 Jan 10 - 11:58 AM (#2803057) Subject: RE: BS: Obama caught in blatant lying From: Amos In reference to my prediction on 3 December 08 (one year and a bit ago): "Monday, January 4, 2010; 11:11 AM WASHINGTON -- An unexpectedly strong report on manufacturing activity Monday bolstered confidence that the nation's factories will help sustain an economic recovery. The Institute for Supply Management, a trade group of purchasing executives, said its manufacturing index read 55.9 in December after 53.6 in November. A reading above 50 indicates growth. That is the fifth straight month of expansion and the highest reading for the index since April 2006. Analysts polled by Thomson Reuters had expected a reading of 54.3. " |
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04 Jan 10 - 12:43 PM (#2803104) Subject: RE: BS: Obama caught in blatant lying From: Little Hawk "An armed forces big enough to fight off anyone in the world is big enough to be a threat toward everyone in the world." - George Coventry |
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04 Jan 10 - 01:02 PM (#2803118) Subject: RE: BS: Obama caught in blatant lying From: pdq "The government is best which governs least" ~ Thomas Jefferson |
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04 Jan 10 - 01:25 PM (#2803137) Subject: RE: BS: Obama caught in blatant lying From: Little Hawk Okay... ;-) Let's tell everyone in the government to just go and vacation on the beach from now on, then. They can spend their salary having fun and getting drunk from now on instead of working. Forget about legislation. Forget about maintaining the roads, the police, the schools, the fire department, the libraries, the parks, the waterworks, the hydro, and medicare. Forget about everything. Let it all just take care of itself somehow. We'll all be better off, right? I can hardly wait for this "least government" paradise to arrive, can you? |
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04 Jan 10 - 01:34 PM (#2803148) Subject: RE: BS: Obama caught in blatant lying From: CarolC LH, I hate to break it to you, but that's pretty much what they've been doing for a long time. Except for the war profiteering. They've put a lot of energy into that. |
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04 Jan 10 - 01:37 PM (#2803151) Subject: RE: BS: Obama caught in blatant lying From: Little Hawk Yeah, I know, Carol. That's why I bent down and kissed the ground when I returned to Canada in 1969 after 10 years of living in the USA... ;-) |
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04 Jan 10 - 01:52 PM (#2803170) Subject: RE: BS: Obama caught in blatant lying From: pdq "...maintaining the roads, the police, the schools, the fire department, the libraries, the parks, the waterworks, the hydro..." That is what government is intended to do. Also protect our borders from drug smugglers and other illegal entrants, including Muslim jihadists. In the last 20 years there have been cuts in fire departments, police and park mantainance to pay for unconstitutional social programs. The bridges and hiways are crumbling. Get back to basics and stop spending our kid's future on make-work BS jobs and local pork projects that do nothing but get worthless politicians elected. |
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04 Jan 10 - 02:05 PM (#2803192) Subject: RE: BS: Obama caught in blatant lying From: CarolC How are social programs unconstitutional, pdq? |
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04 Jan 10 - 05:17 PM (#2803411) Subject: RE: BS: Obama caught in blatant lying From: Little Hawk "That is what government is intended to do." Hallelluia! I had been hoping to get some kind of acknowledgement from you, pdq, that the government serves some kind of useful purpose and is not wholly evil and an eternal enemy of the public good. Thank you! |
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04 Jan 10 - 05:33 PM (#2803431) Subject: RE: BS: Obama caught in blatant lying From: Bobert So government isn't supposed to be into no social programs??? Hmmmmm??? How about the thousands of pages of laws that protect polluters, monopolies, money lauderers (credit default swap schemes), exploiters, userers and general corporate thugs against the working class??? Guess those laws don't count as social programs becuase they only benefit the rich??? No, what we have is the biggest welfare state ever imagined with 5% of the people controlling 80% of the wealth and these same people use the government to corral more and more of the wealth to the point now where most of the Baby Boomers have been fleeced and now see that retirement isn't something that is in the cards for them... Heaven help the next generation if the governemnt continues to pour welfare (thru bad laws) onto the rich... B~ |
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04 Jan 10 - 05:34 PM (#2803432) Subject: RE: BS: Obama caught in blatant lying From: Little Hawk The reason there have been cuts in many essential services in the last few decades is simple. The existing financial system which is built upon an ever-expanding false money bubble created through fractional reserve lending policies has effectively bankrupted our entire society...and we are seeing the inevitable cracks in the facade now. So much tax money goes merely to servicing the national debt (debts owed to banks) that less and less is left over to do anything real or useful with. A dollar is worth far less than it once was for the same reason...because so many new dollars have been created by the banks doing their irresponsible lending. One wage earner used to be able to properly support a family. Now two wage earners are finding it harder and harder to do so. We have been living in a giant ponzi scheme all our lives and it was created by lending institutions and governments in hock to those lending institutions, pdq, and that's why there isn't enough money now to maintain former levels of essential services. You know this. You advised me to read that book about Jeckyl Island, correct? And I did. It is not the provision of social services such as Canada's universal medicare to North Americans that has bankrupted our societies, it's the constant production of vast amounts of new and fictional money through the banks' Mandrake mechanism that has done it. POOF! A bank just created 20 billion more dollars by making a $20 billion loan to some Third World country...and the bank is now drawing interest on that loan. The $20 billion sprang out of nowhere onto a balance sheet the moment the loan was signed, and the debt it created became a new bank asset...PLUS interest! That new asset can be used to generate further ponzi schemes. That's the Mandrake mechanism. An ever-expanding giant balloon based on debt that draws interest. That's a pyramid scheme. And you know it. To blame our present social situation on the provision of new social services is to ignore the massive elephant that's standing in the room right next to you....which is the banking system and its ponzi scheme. Bush and Obama bailed them out. Why? Well, the government basically does whatever the biggest banks want, right? Because the biggest banks bought out the government a long time ago. If Obama or Bush tried to shut them down, they would be dead men. And I suspect that they are well aware of that...so they do whatever the banks say they must do, and the great money game rolls on. |
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04 Jan 10 - 06:16 PM (#2803463) Subject: RE: BS: Obama caught in blatant lying From: robomatic "Speak softly and carry a big stick" TR |
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04 Jan 10 - 09:49 PM (#2803611) Subject: RE: BS: Obama caught in blatant lying From: GUEST,TIA What is pork? Anything that's not in my district... Tip O'Neil |
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04 Jan 10 - 10:33 PM (#2803636) Subject: RE: BS: Obama caught in blatant lying From: GUEST,heric This country has come to feel the same when Congress is in session as when the baby gets hold of a hammer. Will Rogers |
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04 Jan 10 - 10:56 PM (#2803641) Subject: RE: BS: Obama caught in blatant lying From: Little Hawk It's sort of like that in Canada too, only when parliament is in session here we feel like the baby's gotten into the finger paints. Less serious, perhaps...but still very messy! ;-) |
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05 Jan 10 - 09:07 AM (#2803904) Subject: RE: BS: Obama caught in blatant lying From: Bobert It is no longer the people we elect, LH... They are just doing what out dysfuntional system invites them to do... The problem is that the dysfunctionality came in incriments... One redistricting here and other there and *then* the fillibuster being used as a daily bat for the minority to beat up on the majority... This cannot be easilly undone, if at all... (As a side note... The money supply isn't the problem... Debt and distribution are... Wouldn't matter one bit if someone went out to dig out a new basement and found a couple million tons of gold... Unless the entire universe is on a gold standard then so what??? The stuff isn't all it's cracked up to be...) B~ |
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05 Jan 10 - 11:06 AM (#2804000) Subject: RE: BS: Obama caught in blatant lying From: Peter T. A lot of this tripe goes back to Robert Nozick who argued (and it was immediately taken into the rightwing bloodstream) that the only things government was good for was policing and warfare. So in the US (and now in Canada) rightwingers are perfectly happy to ratchet up military spending ($636 billion in the US and counting for the new fiscal year) and throw people in prison, and support nothing else. This clearly ridiculous notion is behind all this hooha. Tibet was a peasant state run by hierarchical medievalists before the Chinese came along -- the Dalai Lama has often stated that it was a failure and should have a secular government in future. The freedoms the Tibetans had before the Chinese came along were more a function of the impossibility of controlling people in any real sense who live in unbelievably mountainous conditions. (Exactly the same is true of the ridiculousness of trying to control Afghanistan). yours, Peter T. |
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05 Jan 10 - 12:05 PM (#2804055) Subject: RE: BS: Obama caught in blatant lying From: Little Hawk Ah, but it was a rather charming place in its simplicity, don't you think? ;-) It obviously couldn't last. Bobert, you are quite correct that debt and distribution are the problems. I was mainly pointing out that DEBT is the crucial problem, and we have an international banking system that enriches itself by creating massive new debt all the time, and governments that finance themselves and fund wars in that fashion. |
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05 Jan 10 - 01:10 PM (#2804101) Subject: RE: BS: Obama caught in blatant lying From: Bobert Yeah, LH, but tiein' currencies to arbitrary standards won't chqange that at all... All that will do is change, as we are seeing, the values of those currencies in relation to the arbritrary standards... I mean, lets get real here... Lets say that an ounce of gold is worth $35... If you only have but Y amount of gold and you have X number of people needing money as a medium of exchange then there wouldn't be enough money for daily commerace... That would be a bad thing, wouldn't it??? As for debt, it is what it is... I guess the silver lining in it is that the more money we print the less value each dollar holds and that means that all those dollars that the Chinese have are worth less... But the silver lining is that relative to it's own currency you can get more American made product for less currency value... That is kinda what the economists used to call "floating" where values tend to even out as the money supply grows in one place and measured against another's currency... Gold really has nothing to do with that... B~ |
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05 Jan 10 - 04:36 PM (#2804268) Subject: RE: BS: Obama caught in blatant lying From: Little Hawk You're not comprehending me at all on this issue, are you, Bobert? ;-) Look, my friend, when currency is legally redeembable in something real at a given rate...and that something can be gold or silver or any other recognizable and measurable and valuable substance...it doesn't really matter what it is as long as people agree on it as the standard and have a pretty accurate idea of how much of it there is available... Then the paper currency has real value! And it cannot be endlessly inflated beyond reason by unscrupulous lending institutions creating it out of thin air, because they would be obliged to pay it off on demand in something REAL...which means they would have to limit how much of it they create and they'd have to have reserves of something REAL to back up the damn paper money. And that would prevent them from getting away with their pyramid scheme. Capiche? This goes for governments too, and they know it, which is why having gold reserves has always been vital for societies with a strong and healthy economy. Dollars once were real, when they were redeemable in given amounts of gold and silver. They aren't real any longer. They're no more real now than Monopoly money is, and that has happened because the money was turned into Federal Reserve Notes which aren't redeemable in anything real at all...because they ARE Monopoly money...created by a monopoly...for the purpose of enriching that monopoly. As long as we all go on pretending that the Federal Reserve Notes are real...then the bubble expands, the monopoly grows richer, and the public grows poorer (gradually...so you don't hardly notice it...except when a recession hits). |
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05 Jan 10 - 04:49 PM (#2804277) Subject: RE: BS: Obama caught in blatant lying From: CarolC But the value we give things like gold and silver are just as much of an illusion as the value we give our paper money. Metals like gold and silver have little intrinsic value. You can't eat them or use them for your survival in any real way. You can only agree with other people that they have value and base your exchanges on the agreed upon value. This is not really any different that what we are doing with paper money. We have determined that paper in the form of money has value and we are basing our exchanges on the agreed upon value of the paper money - the same as we would do if it was gold or silver. |
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05 Jan 10 - 05:21 PM (#2804292) Subject: RE: BS: Obama caught in blatant lying From: Little Hawk An interesting argument, Carol, but I can't agree with it. Here's the essential difference: Gold and silver and all other metals derive their worth through their scarcity and the expense of mining them and refining and extracting them from the ore (or other medium) in which they are found. Anything that is found in nature, yet is scarce...hard to acquire...yet found in nature and also attractive or useful in some respects (which is definitely true of both gold and silver)...any such thing becomes valuable simply BECAUSE of its rarity and because of the work that must be done to acquire it. A bank does not have to do ANY work when it creates (BINGO!) $30 million magically in the form of debt in the moment it makes a new $30 million dollar loan to someone on paper. It doesn't have to even print 30 million dollar bills or mint any coins. It doesn't have to go and get the money out of the vault. It doesn't have to do anything except print a sheet of paper saying "We hereby loan X Inc. $30 million at such and such a rate of interest for such and such a period, bla, bla...) That $30 million was not mined or refined or extracted or printed or minted or anything. It HAS no corporeal existence. It cost no effort. You can't touch it. It's an idea...nothing more. Because people "trust" the bank (ha ha) they assume that the $30 million msut be real. It isn't. Stuff you can create instantly out of thin air whenever you desire isn't rare, Carol...not to those who have the authority to create it...and the banks do. Nor is it real. Nor does it possess intrinsic value in its own right. It isn't rare, it isn't physical, it came from nowhere, with no effort, it isn't fucking REAL. But everyone assume it's real, because we all play the game. The physical paper money that you are speaking of, is physically real, yes, although it's just a symbol of value, and we've all agreed to pretend it's worth something....but it comprises probably less than 1 % of the digital and balance sheet money that appears on the balance sheets and bank statements of the nation. There's just enough of it to allow people to do their many daily small transactions at stores and so on....although mostly they would rather use credit cards or bank cards. The amount of real paper money in circulation is miniscule compared to the phony "money" that's in play in the economy...and that's why if everyone made a run on the banks on the same day that they'd have to close their doors after 1 or 2 per cent of their depositors had withdrawn all their deposits in paper money. You see, it's not the paper money itself that is the real issue here, though it's part of the issue...it's the fact that simply vast amounts of other money have been created by banks NOT IN THE FORM OF PAPER MONEY BUT IN THE FORM OF DEBT through fractional lending. There isn't anywhere near enough PAPER money to back up all that debt. Not even close. There's practially nothing there, comparatively speaking. That's why we have these periodic boom-and-bust scenarios, because it is just a pyramid scheme. The government just bailed the banks out of the last big BUST phase, but they didn't bail the public out. That's because the banks have the power here and the public doesn't, when it comes to this scenario.... The public can't have the power, because the public does not create this phony money on which the whole thing is based...we just use it, that's all. The banks create it. NOT in paper money. They create it in the form of debt. The paper money is just there so that you and I can go to the movies or the milk store and buy something with our paper money...but it comprises a tiny fraction of the enormous level of debt that's out there now, and the debt has been created quite willfully by lending institutions that are so big that "they can't be allowed to fail". Thus the government bails them out. And the national debt grows. What a deal! (if you're on the inside track) What a disaster if you're not. |
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05 Jan 10 - 06:47 PM (#2804360) Subject: RE: BS: Obama caught in blatant lying From: beardedbruce Forgive me , Lord, for what I am about to say: Little Hawk, you are absolutely correct. |
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05 Jan 10 - 06:57 PM (#2804369) Subject: RE: BS: Obama caught in blatant lying From: Little Hawk (smile) |
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05 Jan 10 - 07:04 PM (#2804378) Subject: RE: BS: Obama caught in blatant lying From: robomatic Gold and silver have a lot of intrinsic value electrically. Silver is the best conductor of all the elements (leaving out that newfangled cold temperature superconducting stuff) and gold is the best contactor, so good that it actually gets used in a lot of electronics, just a couple of atoms worth of depth does the trick. I remember when you could wipe all the gold from the contacts with a sweep of a pencil eraser. It's a shame they get used for currency when otherwise they're so useful. And I'm not gonna make a point that gold leaf figures as a dessert coating amongst the well heeled of some cultures. Robo who wonders if one can crap glitter. |
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05 Jan 10 - 07:11 PM (#2804388) Subject: RE: BS: Obama caught in blatant lying From: Little Hawk You're absolutely right. I would have mentioned those practical uses of gold and silver, but I figured I'd said enough already. The gold and silver leaf used in some Asian deserts is consumed in very small quantities, so I wouldn't worry about it too much. I've eaten that stuff once or twice when visiting Pakistani friends. It didn't seem to have any noticeable after-effects. ;-) |
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05 Jan 10 - 07:22 PM (#2804400) Subject: RE: BS: Obama caught in blatant lying From: Bobert Well, lots of other stuff has intrinsic value, too... Why not just pick one of those??? (Well, Boberdz... We do... That is why a pound of silver costs more than a pound of sand... Both have value but one more than the other...) What's that got to do with peggin' the value of currency to something arbitrary just because that arbitrary choice has some level of intrinsic value??? Nothin', at all... Currency standards are hogwash, primitive and tribal... They might have served the apes in 2001, A Space Oddessey but they are way past thier shelf life in a modern world... B~ |
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05 Jan 10 - 07:39 PM (#2804414) Subject: RE: BS: Obama caught in blatant lying From: Little Hawk Traditionally, if something real has been selected as a direct exchange for a unit of "money", then it was something that wasn't too easy to get, usually, but that people either needed or at least wanted. This explains why people don't use sand for money. Or grass. Or shit. ;-) It's too easy to find, and nobody much wants it. You could definitely use water for units of money in a desert area, and it would work great. People in many parts of the ancient world used salt as money for the same reason...it was hard for them to get salt, and they needed it in their diet for health reasons. There was a huge trade in salt at that time, and caravans brought it from places like the Dead Sea to areas where the people could not easily obtain it. The reasons people generally like gold and silver...as opposed to mud, grass, shit, flies, ordinary common stones, etc. are so obvious that there's no need explaining them. People also like diamonds and other gemstones because they are rather rare and hard to get (And the diamond industry makes sure it stays that way!) and they look beautiful when polished. They may not be "useful", but they look lovely, and that is a use in itself. Even crows will steal shiny objects like that and put them in their nests, so it is not human beings alone who appreciate a supposedly "useless" item merely for its appearance. Life is not a matter of "utility" or physical suvival alone! It also has an aesthetic side that is quite important in establising happiness in people. As soon as people have the survival part reasonably well in hand (at least for the moment), they start giving plenty of thought to all kinds of other values in life. Things like gold and silver jewellry help satisfy some of those other values. There is a inner desire for perfection that drives people, and it goes way beyond just surviving. It gives us our concepts of beauty, grace, dignity, style, purity, and most of the other subtle values that make life worth living. |
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05 Jan 10 - 08:15 PM (#2804435) Subject: RE: BS: Obama caught in blatant lying From: Bobert Well, gol danged... Why not four leaf clover??? People like them, too an' they are rare... And they is purdy, too... So I say, hey, why not have the value of printed moneys all tied to four leaf clovers... No, no... Not four leaf clovers... Hey, LH, ya' ever see a Columbian Boa Constrictor... The way that the sun relects of its scales is like a milluion little prisms... I mean, beutiful, graceful, very stylish and pure... And, unlike, diamonds or gold, it is alive... Hey, I'm for makin' Columbian boa constrictors the standard for all currencies... I mean, this entire thing of assigning this universal value to stuff is really strange when you boil it down... They say that one man's trash is another's treasure... You know, beauty is in the eyes of the beholder... I kinda like that... It's romantic in the most classical and historical sense... But when one tribe assigns some object or substance so pure in it's beauty and wants the rest of the world to accept that object of substance as this universal basis of currency this is not unlike the apes (no, not chimps) in Space Odessy worshippin' first rocks and bones that could be used to harm and then to metal, which they didn't understand... I mean, there is no rational basis in having currency backed by anything unless whatever you back it with is backed by... which is backed by... I mean, this silly thinkin'... Want proof, LH??? BB agrees with you!!! I rest my case... B~ |
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05 Jan 10 - 08:35 PM (#2804450) Subject: RE: BS: Obama caught in blatant lying From: Little Hawk Yeah, yeah... ;-) I think you're just being obstinate for the fun of it, Bobert. I spent quite a bit of time looking for four leaf clovers when I was a kid...they were considered more valuable than the 3 leaf variety, naturally. And when I found one, I would press it in the pages of a book. I agree about the Colombian Boa Constrictors...gorgeous! And you will find that they are quite pricy if you go to an exotic pet store. The reason they aren't used as an exchange for money is... # 1 - A lot of people are afraid of snakes # 2 - It isn't practical. Every try to put 15 or 20 Boas in your back pocket or your briefcase? Doesn't work! And they need to be fed and housed. Nope. Stupid idea... But if you were a Plains Indian, then horses were way better than currency.... Bobert, do you realize that if I was a bank owner, I could instantly create $30 million in debt owing to ME by lending $30 million to some huge corporation? I could do that without really HAVING the $30 million in the first place! And I could charge interest too. Can you do that? Can I? No. Because we are not a "bank". And no one would believe we had that $30 million unless it showed up first at the bank! But the bank IS the bank. If they lend $30 million, then no one doubts that it's there...even if it isn't. And the moment the corporation owes that $30 million to the bank...the bank is covered, and they just became richer by $30 million plus interest. And if the corporation goes belly-up and the bank is BIG enough, then the government will borrow MORE money from the banks and lend it to the big bank so it won't fail. They do this supposedly to "protect the public". ;-) Guess who ends up paying the government's new debts to the banks whom they borrowed the bailout money from to keep the banks from failing when their pyramid scheme went KABLOOEY? You and I do...through our taxes. You see where this is going? The public always eventually pays the overall debt. You see how you can create new money through others' debts if you are a bank? |
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05 Jan 10 - 08:55 PM (#2804459) Subject: RE: BS: Obama caught in blatant lying From: Bobert Yeah, LH... Yer on to me... Sorry, I'm just havin' a borin' kinda day and figured if I can't find someone here in the Mudpuddle to mess with then what am I to do seein' as the P-Vine has hid that jug of shine from me??? Now ya' know why I am a bluesman... But yer right... Banks can lend money (not gold, not four leaf clovers or even snakes) to one another and bet with other folks that the the banks they lent it to won't repay the loan and then middle men come in and act as betting brokers and siphon off a big slice which then gets kicked back to all their banking friends... That's purdy much what is going on and then someone on the NPR radio says that these brokers "made" the money??? WTF??? Are they in the counterfiet business, 'er what??? They didn't make the money... They stole the money all legal and then the workin' stiffs have to chip in to repay the banks for the money that these hoodlums stole and... ...the beat goes on... When credit defualt swaps are made illegal we will be takin' the first step toward correcting what is wrong with banking 'cuase all you have now is banks lending to each other like guys sittin' at a poker table and other rich folks sitting around "making" (ha) money bettin' on which back is going to repay which other band and which banks aren't... Talk about silly??? This is sillier than the gold (or boa) standard... B~ p.s. Poor ol' Obama ain't been able squeeze in a decent blatent lie between all this silly stuff... |
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05 Jan 10 - 11:30 PM (#2804509) Subject: RE: BS: Obama caught in blatant lying From: CarolC I guess my point was that if our societal structures collapsed, neither gold nor silver would be of much benefit to anyone. If a rich person had accumulated a massive amount in his or her treasury, it wouldn't do them a bit of good if the society that decided to agree about what its exchange value was no longer existed. At that point, food, water, shelter, land to grow food on, needed skills and knowledge, and physical labor would be the only things that had real value. People have to agree that things like gold and silver have exchange value. It's all a matter of what people agree to do. With the system we have now, people agree that trust in the monetary system is the only thing that the exchange depends on, so it has an agreed upon value. If the system collapsed, none of what we use as money would have any exchange value, but neither would gold or silver. |
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06 Jan 10 - 07:08 AM (#2804742) Subject: RE: BS: Obama caught in blatant lying From: GUEST,Kendall What has all this to do with O'Bama? |
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06 Jan 10 - 08:42 AM (#2804788) Subject: RE: BS: Obama caught in blatant lying From: Bobert Oh, I see that Barak is Irish this mornin... lol... Really nothin, Capt'n... Just a side bar on Economics 201... Seems that LH, against all logic, thinks like Lyndon LaRouche on having a gold standard... Or some kinda standard... Hey, I hear he's into rocks so why not rocks??? Then Carol and I, who each passed Econ 201, are pointing out having a standard is like, ahhhhhh, wierd thinkin'... Butg then again, it is Little Hawk and he does have some not-so-logical thinking on some things... Not many, mind you... But lets just say that he didn't have perfect attendence in school and leave it at that... *grin*... B~ |
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06 Jan 10 - 01:23 PM (#2805041) Subject: RE: BS: Obama caught in blatant lying From: Little Hawk It doesn't have much to do with Obama other than that he and George Bush both caved in to the banks, as usual. But I would not have expected anything different, so I'm not particularly shocked or anything. What's so radical, Bobert, about proposing that paper money be restored to a certificate that is exchangable in precious metals...as it was back when we had Silver Certificates instead of Federal Reserve Notes? Remember? I could take a paper dollar to the bank in 1960 and get a silver dollar for it! That was when the dollar still had some real value. You know what one of those silver dollars costs now in paper dollars? You know what happened to paper money in Germany in the 20s? It became virtually worthless. One man had a gold coin that he had inherited, and he bought a large hotel with it at the height of the German economic crisis. Gold is real. Federal Reserve Notes and other such paper currency that is not legally redeemable in a guaranteed amount of some precious metal are not...they are Monopoly money. |
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06 Jan 10 - 02:12 PM (#2805083) Subject: RE: BS: Obama caught in blatant lying From: CarolC I'm not in total disagreement with what LH is saying, Bobert. I just have some differences on some of the details. |
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06 Jan 10 - 02:18 PM (#2805089) Subject: RE: BS: Obama caught in blatant lying From: Little Hawk Those old "Liberty" silver dollars were beautiful, by the way. I had a whole bunch of them. You could just go to the bank, give them a $20 bill, and walk home with 20 gorgeous old silver dollars from the 30s and 40s. Man, were those ever nice coins. I sure wish I had them now, cos they are worth a lot these days. |
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06 Jan 10 - 04:15 PM (#2805188) Subject: RE: BS: Obama caught in blatant lying From: beardedbruce LH, "with 20 gorgeous old silver dollars from the 30s and 40s" No. The last silver dollars in the US were the Peace type, from 1921 to 1935. They were going to make them again in 1964, and Denver made a few hundred thousand which were then melted back down. The previous dollar was the Morgan from 1878 to 1904, then 1921. |
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06 Jan 10 - 05:06 PM (#2805218) Subject: RE: BS: Obama caught in blatant lying From: Bobert Okay, LH... For one thing, coins are expensive to make... Do you realize that a danged penny cost 1.6 cents to make??? But if you were happy if the US minted a coin for every dollar in existence then you'd spend more than than a trillion dollars just to make you happy... With the stuff that we allready need to do don'tch think that would be silly??? And that is just the minting... Now throw in the transporting and storage of hundreds of tons of metal and yer now ralkin' about another trillion dollars... Oh yeah, ya' gotta pay a couple trillion to mint, move and store a few hundred tons of metal coins so if you insist on havin' it your way then yer gonna have to add a couple trillion more coinns to pay for the original coins and then, and then... No, this insistence on yer part has some psyhological basis prolly related to yer toilet training 'er yer mom taking away yer teddy gear too early... I donno... I ain't no psychologist 'er nutin' but I have heard yer arguemnts before from the LaRouchies that used to infest the town where I had my business, Leesburg, Va... Yeah, they was all over that gold 'er silver standard too as if it was the magic bullet to solvin' all the world's problems... Of course it's all just smoke and mirrors, gold/silver standard or not... Now back it with cannibus and you might get soemwhere with me but gold??? Nah... Silver??? Nah... Plastic??? Bad fir the environment... Copper??? Gotten too expensive... Pot metal??? Too heavy... Lead??? Kids would eat the coins and die... What else is there??? Hmmmmmmm??? Aluminum??? Then we'd have no beer cans... Can't have that... What else??? Kriponite??? Maybe.... B~ |
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06 Jan 10 - 06:28 PM (#2805273) Subject: RE: BS: Obama caught in blatant lying From: CarolC Teddy gear sounds kinky. |
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06 Jan 10 - 07:10 PM (#2805300) Subject: RE: BS: Obama caught in blatant lying From: Greg F. Do you realize that a danged penny cost 1.6 cents to make??? Yeah, but it costs a great deal more than that to keep the U.S. one dollar bill in circulation. If the U.S. would issue a $1.00 coin as standard currency & drop the paperdollar bill entirely, they'd save millions of dollars annually. |
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06 Jan 10 - 07:15 PM (#2805306) Subject: RE: BS: Obama caught in blatant lying From: beardedbruce "If the U.S. would issue a $1.00 coin as standard currency & drop the paperdollar bill entirely, they'd save millions of dollars annually. " Since 2000, they have been trying (Sacawagea and presidential series "gold" coins, made of a manganese brass alloy ). There HAS been a dollar coin, and they are trying to get them used- a dollar bill lasts 17 months, while a dollar coin lasts about 17 years. |
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06 Jan 10 - 08:16 PM (#2805356) Subject: RE: BS: Obama caught in blatant lying From: Peter T. Gee, William Jennings Bryan lives. Money is only what people believe in, and as long as they are deluded into believing in the United States -- and its capacity to keep going -- paper money will do: it is only as good as the belief in the governments that issue it. The idea that a gold standard or any other such standard will keep governments in line is a very old fantasy. John Kenneth Galbraith (in his very funny book on money) makes the interesting point that America was built on a series of bank collapses and bubbles, and that is what made it so entrepreneurial -- in the ruins of all the risks, new things came along that fueled the next phase. Other countries (like Canada) were much more boring, and their banks were much less prone to invest in crazy schemes, which is why Canada is so low on the global innovation and research and development tables. yours, Peter T. |
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06 Jan 10 - 08:33 PM (#2805368) Subject: RE: BS: Obama caught in blatant lying From: Greg F. There HAS been a dollar coin, and they are trying to get them used... Thing is, if they ever expect to get the coin into general circulation, thay have to withdraw the $1.00 paper bill. Not exactly rocket science- just stop replacing the paper bills and/or - as they've done in the past with other paper currency- declare it not legal tender after a certain date. |
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06 Jan 10 - 08:34 PM (#2805369) Subject: RE: BS: Obama caught in blatant lying From: Bobert Exactly my point, Peter T... LH has this very romantic notion that if it was backed by metal that everyone would be happy and sing on key??? B~ |
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07 Jan 10 - 01:07 AM (#2805494) Subject: RE: BS: Obama caught in blatant lying From: Little Hawk Oh, stop being so silly... ;-) I am saying that the paper dollar had a much more solid and real and stable value back when it was a "Silver Certificate" than it does now as a Federal Reserve Note...because it was backed up then by reserves of precious metals and redeemable in same. It's now backed up by nothing but a promise and it's redeemable in nothing but itself. A good scheme if you are a legalized counterfeiter...which is what the Federal Reserve is. I am NOT saying that all the trillions of present dollars supposedly out there (most of which are not paper bills, but just appear on some balance sheet or digital record) should have coins minted to back them up! Good God....there isn't that much gold and silver in the entire world. There is a vast amount of utterly fictional money out there in play, and there's no way it can all be backed up, because it's a pipedream that was invented to generate debt and interest charges. One would have to start over with a whole new currency...tremendously reduced in total numbers of "dollars" or whatever you called them from the present inflationary bubble. I feel like I'm attempting to talk about dogs and cats here and the people I'm talking to are imagining that I'm talking about gods and tacks... ;-) What happened to communication? Damned if I know. Maybe I'll just find some good books on the subject to recommend to you guys and give up trying to explain to you myself what the heck I'm talking about... By the way, Canada has already eliminated both the paper dollar bill AND the paper 2 dollar bill, and replaced them both with $1 and $2 coins. It seems to work fine here. The country did not collapse. I believe it was done because it's cheaper in the long run to use the coins than it is to keep replacing the worn out paper bills. Coins last a long time. Bills don't. (That's just a side issue to what I've been talking about. I mention it for its own interest's sake.) |
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07 Jan 10 - 07:30 AM (#2805632) Subject: RE: BS: Obama caught in blatant lying From: Bobert Well, dogs an' tacks, LH!!! You mean, you want a reset??? Well, sheet fire, boy... I'm all for that... We could use a reset in anumber of areas... Like conflict resolution... Like cars without no style... I kinda likes the mini-skirt days, mah seff... You think you could get them back in while yer fiddlin' with a new currency??? But seriously, I think the Euro is a major step forward... I wouldn't be opposed to am international currency... Then the games that are played with currency value manipulatioons couldn't occur... As for backing??? Brick of cannibus works fine for me... Plus is't natural and organic... Seriously, there ain't nothin' that we could back it with that wouldn't seem silly unless it was something you could come up with that has no use whats-so-ever so that we aren't like having to shut down all the computers 'cause we need somethin' in' um to back currency... Good luck at fininding that... But I agree... Sniff... That the good ol' days when a 35 bucks wouldget you an ounce of gold... I also liked them bigass fins on the Imperials and DeSotos... B~ |
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07 Jan 10 - 01:23 PM (#2805858) Subject: RE: BS: Obama caught in blatant lying From: Little Hawk You know what I think I'll do? I'll start a thread on banks and money and we can yak about it there. After all, it all started long before Obama, and will no doubt be continuing long after Obama, so I think it should have its own thread. |
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07 Jan 10 - 07:38 PM (#2806170) Subject: RE: BS: Obama caught in blatant lying From: Riginslinger His lips were moving this morning! |
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07 Jan 10 - 07:40 PM (#2806172) Subject: RE: BS: Obama caught in blatant lying From: Bobert Yeah, ya' noticed that Obama had flat out quit is blatent lieing ways and it's all because of us... Hey, lets give the man some room, ya' hear??? Yeah, we need a banking thread... No, we don't... We need a mini-shirt and big-fins-on-cars thread... |