BS: Lucky to have Jimmy Carter

Subject: BS: Lucky to have Jimmy Carter
From: Riginslinger
Date: 26 Jan 09 - 09:59 PM

In spite of current political trends, America is fortunate indeed to have Jimmy Carter as a spokesman to the world. Today he made these observations regarding the Middle East.

NEW YORK – Former President Jimmy Carter said Monday that Israel will face a "catastrophe" unless it revives the Mideast peace process and establishes an independent Palestinian state.

In an interview with The Associated Press, he said Arabs will outnumber Jews in the Holy Land in the foreseeable future.

"If we look toward a one-state solution, which seems to be the trend — I hope not inexorable — it would be a catastrophe for Israel, because there would be only three options in that case," Carter said.

One would be to expel large numbers of Palestinians, which he said would amount to "ethnic cleansing."

The second would be to deprive the Palestinians of equal voting rights, which he said would amount to "apartheid."(AP) _

The third would be to give the Palestinians equal voting rights, and therefore the majority, he said.

"And you would no longer have a Jewish state," Carter said.

Subject: RE: BS: Lucky to have Jimmy Carter
From: Q (Frank Staplin)
Date: 26 Jan 09 - 10:06 PM

Truly the best international representative that the U. S. has. Unfortunately the U. S. will continue to blindly support Israeli policy, which is aimed at 'ethic cleansing.'

Subject: RE: BS: Lucky to have Jimmy Carter
From: Joe Offer
Date: 26 Jan 09 - 10:18 PM

I'm not sure even Israel supports Israeli policy any more. It seems that the extremist minority has far too much power in Israel, and is able to block any move toward peace and reconciliation. The Israeli people have their prejudices, but they are quite realistic about the need to make peace with the Palestinians. I'm hoping the Obama administration will be realistic and balanced in its view of Israel, and that maybe that will help bring things to resolution.

-Joe-

Subject: RE: BS: Lucky to have Jimmy Carter
From: Sawzaw
Date: 26 Jan 09 - 11:05 PM

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WjUZFhj_j8w

Subject: RE: BS: Lucky to have Jimmy Carter
From: michaelr
Date: 27 Jan 09 - 01:11 AM

We just got lucky with Obama (we hope). But there are powerful forces arrayed against him. The same forces that thwarted Carter's presidency.

These forces will support scumsuckers like Bush and Cheney, because they're theirs, wholly bought and owned. And they will destroy good and decent men because good and decent is the opposite of what they stand for.

America was lucky to have Carter when he was President. Never in recent history has there been a more decent and humane one.

Of course, Washington would not have it. The scumbags prevailed. It could happen again. We must be vigilant.

Mainstream center-left voters always tend to let down their guard after a victory. This is foolish, because the enemy never relaxes. You can be sure they're plotting right now how to bring Obama down just like they did Carter, King, and the Kennedys.

People right now are all sunshine, singing "Obama will save us". Wake up. There is no honeymoon.

Subject: RE: BS: Lucky to have Jimmy Carter
From: Riginslinger
Date: 27 Jan 09 - 07:25 AM

Sawzall - I watched the video. Do you think it relates to Jimmy Carter in some way?

Subject: RE: BS: Lucky to have Jimmy Carter
From: Bobert
Date: 27 Jan 09 - 07:59 AM

Mah, main man, J.C....

Up until Obama, the only Dem I have ever voted for for president....

Historians will treat him well...

B~

Subject: RE: BS: Lucky to have Jimmy Carter
From: Jack Blandiver
Date: 27 Jan 09 - 08:11 AM

Here's Jimmy Carter at the beginning of his famous Haway the Lads speech, delivered in Newcastle-upon-Tyne in May 1977:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9DQD7LiUpi4

A large concrete monolith marks the spot to this day - opposite the university, at the Civic Centre. Curiously, whilst the video is introduced somewhat anachronistically by T. Rex performing Metal Guru, T.Rex did make an appearance at Newcastle City Hall in May 1977, ably supported by none other than The Damned. Naturally I was one of the few, though we didn't hang around for Bolan. Odd that.

Subject: RE: BS: Lucky to have Jimmy Carter
From: Jack Blandiver
Date: 27 Jan 09 - 08:21 AM

Sorry about that - it was actually March 1977 that The Damned played support to T. Rex at the City Hall. Thursday 10 March indeed - set included: Help, Neat Neat Neat, Stretcher Case, Sick Of Being Sick, New Rose, Stab Your Back. A blaze of glory as I recall...

Does anyone on either side of The Pond remember President Carter's Friendship Force? My grandparents were part of it, visiting American families & reciprocating on return visits. There was at least one morris side involved - The Shiremoor Marras. Are they still with us I wonder?

Subject: RE: BS: Lucky to have Jimmy Carter
From: bankley
Date: 27 Jan 09 - 08:24 AM

I like Jimmy.... even visited his home town in Plains Ga. 2 yrs. ago.. but he was away on a book promo tour for his... 'Palestine -Peace not Apartheid' he sure took a lot of flak for that one... there was a docu-movie that resulted from that tour called ..
"Jimmy Carter, Man from Plains" very candid and human.... which is rare, esp. in former Presidents specifically, and policians in general... and yes I did buy some peanuts at the general store, but they don't make 'Billy Beer' anymore....

Subject: RE: BS: Lucky to have Jimmy Carter
From: kendall
Date: 27 Jan 09 - 09:25 AM

After leaving office, Jimmy Carter went to work building houses for Habitat for humanity. Working with his hands right along with the rest of the crew.
When Ronald Raygun left office, he spent his time clearing brush on his ranch for the camera, and making speeches for a million dollars a pop.

Intellectuals have never fared well in American politics. Americans are afraid of brains. That's why so many voted for a guy with whom they would like to have a beer.
Adlai Stevenson had more brains in his worn out shoe than Ike had in his head, but you see who won.

Subject: RE: BS: Lucky to have Jimmy Carter
From: Richard Bridge
Date: 27 Jan 09 - 10:08 AM

Yet curiously in New York the dominant artform is the swindle, and in LA the dominant artform is the "deal".

Subject: RE: BS: Lucky to have Jimmy Carter
From: GUEST,Susu's Hubby
Date: 27 Jan 09 - 10:18 AM

Hahahahahahahahahahaha. This thread is hilarious. You guys really have a good sense of humor. I'm truly ROFLMAO......wait.....


you guys are serious?

I apologize....

you may continue.



Hubby

Subject: RE: BS: Lucky to have Jimmy Carter
From: Riginslinger
Date: 27 Jan 09 - 12:23 PM

Richard - Is it safe to assume that New York has its artform developed a little further than LA?

Subject: RE: BS: Lucky to have Jimmy Carter
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 27 Jan 09 - 12:28 PM

What's the difference?

Subject: RE: BS: Lucky to have Jimmy Carter
From: SINSULL
Date: 27 Jan 09 - 02:08 PM

Habitat for Humanity is being sued for faulty construction. I will have to search for the link.

Subject: RE: BS: Lucky to have Jimmy Carter
From: Teribus
Date: 27 Jan 09 - 02:44 PM

I thought that this from Kendall was priceless:

"After leaving office, Jimmy Carter went to work building houses for Habitat for humanity. Working with his hands right along with the rest of the crew.
When Ronald Raygun left office, he spent his time clearing brush on his ranch for the camera, and making speeches for a million dollars a pop."

After leaving office Kendall, "peanut" Carter went to work with his hands pitching in with the rest of the crew, because at least in that environment he could look as if he knew what he was doing as long as the lads kept him right.

Reagan, on the other hand, after leaving office, having turned the economy of the US round, restored pride in the armed forces of the USA and brought the "Cold War" to an end, was paid millions of dollars to make speeches - Primarliy because he had something to talk about after his term of office that people actually wanted to listen to.

Subject: RE: BS: Lucky to have Jimmy Carter
From: Riginslinger
Date: 27 Jan 09 - 02:57 PM

Teribus - Reagan destroyed the American economy. Where were you in the 1980's? We are just now getting to the levels of unemployment we had during the Reagan recessions. In addition to that, he wasted tons of money on military weaponry that was destroyed during the Bush I administration. The wars in Central America that he started through the CIA are still going on, and the economic we are experiencing now traces its roots right back to the introduction of "supply side economics."

             We'd be so much better off if we could go back and do the 1980 election over it's impossible to measure. Reagan was most certainly the worst American president in my life time.

Subject: RE: BS: Lucky to have Jimmy Carter
From: SINSULL
Date: 27 Jan 09 - 03:09 PM

Teribus - you do remember Ronnie raygun falling asleep in cabinet meetings, right? And Nancy whispering things in his ear for him to repeat when his mind went blank?

Wait, Mary. There you go again...


Jimmy Carter had his own moments, of course. A water attack by a killer rabbit. The time spent incommunicado "on the mountain", the debacle and failed attempt to rescue the hostages. Billy...


Geez - our presidents are an endless source of amusement.

Subject: RE: BS: Lucky to have Jimmy Carter
From: alanabit
Date: 27 Jan 09 - 03:19 PM

Jimmy Carter had to take responsibility for the failure of the rescue of the hostages. However, it is hardly fair to blame him for the cock ups of his military forces. My father was the engineering officer on an air craft carrier. Had he been responsible for sending out helicopters on a desert mission, without sand filters, they would have hanged him from the bridge.
Ronald Reagan certainly kept his promise to do something about the US budget deficit (on which subject he campaigned so passionately in 1980, if you remember). He trebled it. Only George Bush Junior was able to take it a stage further than that.

Subject: RE: BS: Lucky to have Jimmy Carter
From: Little Hawk
Date: 27 Jan 09 - 03:25 PM

That killer rabbit was a Republican agent provocateur... ;-)

Given the fact that he did his job so well, I hope he was suitably paid.

Subject: RE: BS: Lucky to have Jimmy Carter
From: CarolC
Date: 27 Jan 09 - 03:39 PM

I never did understand the big fuss over Carter and the swamp rabbit.

Subject: RE: BS: Lucky to have Jimmy Carter
From: pdq
Date: 27 Jan 09 - 05:02 PM

Perhaps a little reality is good for you...maybe not:


"While not defending the increase of the federal debt under President Bush, it's curious to see Clinton's record promoted as having generated a surplus. It never happened. There was never a surplus and the facts support that position. In fact, far from a $360 billion reduction in the national debt in FY1998-FY2000, there was an increase of $281 billion.

Verifying this is as simple as accessing the U.S. Treasury (see note about this link below) website where the national debt is updated daily and a history of the debt since January 1993 can be obtained. Considering the government's fiscal year ends on the last day of September each year, and considering Clinton's budget proposal in 1993 took effect in October 1993 and concluded September 1994 (FY1994), here's the national debt at the end of each year of Clinton Budgets:

Fiscal
Year        Year
Ending        National Debt        Deficit
FY1993         09/30/1993         $4.411488 trillion         
FY1994         09/30/1994         $4.692749 trillion         $281.26 billion
FY1995         09/29/1995         $4.973982 trillion         $281.23 billion
FY1996         09/30/1996         $5.224810 trillion         $250.83 billion
FY1997         09/30/1997         $5.413146 trillion         $188.34 billion
FY1998         09/30/1998         $5.526193 trillion         $113.05 billion
FY1999         09/30/1999         $5.656270 trillion         $130.08 billion
FY2000         09/29/2000         $5.674178 trillion         $17.91 billion
FY2001         09/28/2001         $5.807463 trillion         $133.29 billion

As can clearly be seen, in no year did the national debt go down, nor did Clinton leave President Bush with a surplus that Bush subsequently turned into a deficit. Yes, the deficit was almost eliminated in FY2000 (ending in September 2000 with a deficit of "only" $17.9 billion), but it never reached zero--let alone a positive surplus number. And Clinton's last budget proposal for FY2001, which ended in September 2001, generated a $133.29 billion deficit. The growing deficits started in the year of the last Clinton budget, not in the first year of the Bush administration."


{the 1.4 trillion added to the National Debt in 8 years of Bill Clinton's budgets is about the same as the 1.6 trillion dollars added under the 8 years of Ronald Reagan...}

Subject: RE: BS: Lucky to have Jimmy Carter
From: Riginslinger
Date: 27 Jan 09 - 05:52 PM

The following is a statement from Wikipedia. If you don't think it's right, you might want to go in and correct it:



                   "Clinton presided over the longest period of peace-time economic expansion in American history, which included a balanced budget and a federal surplus..."

Subject: RE: BS: Lucky to have Jimmy Carter
From: pdq
Date: 27 Jan 09 - 05:57 PM

The Clinton surplus myth is right there with the Gobal Warming myth, the Illuminati and the Tooth Ferrie. All are the product of the immagination.

Subject: RE: BS: Lucky to have Jimmy Carter
From: Riginslinger
Date: 27 Jan 09 - 07:01 PM

Let me see if I've got this right; the polar ice caps are melting because the earth is getting warmer, right?

Subject: RE: BS: Lucky to have Jimmy Carter
From: pdq
Date: 27 Jan 09 - 07:09 PM

There was a scientific article just a few months back that showed the Polar Ice Caps to be back to the exact same level they were in 1979. Fluctuations are always happening. Things are cyclic.

What is amazing to me is that Global Warming hockers were upset to find that the Polar ice was back to "normal". Shouldn't they have celebated? Instead, they got angry.

Subject: RE: BS: Lucky to have Jimmy Carter
From: bobad
Date: 27 Jan 09 - 07:33 PM

All the hot air around here certainly isn't helping.

Subject: RE: BS: Lucky to have Jimmy Carter
From: Riginslinger
Date: 27 Jan 09 - 07:47 PM

Let's see, the polar ice caps are almost back to normal, but in the 1600's people searched for the Northwest Passage and found all avenues blocked with ice. We are just now getting to the point for the first time in human memory where the Northwest Passage is expected to be open for navigation.
             One can only conclude that the situation must have been abnormal for one hell of a long time.

Subject: RE: BS: Lucky to have Jimmy Carter
From: kendall
Date: 27 Jan 09 - 08:58 PM

Carter was probably the most intelligent president we have ever had. He made the mistake of trying to micro manage the government, an impossible task.

Of course people wanted to hear what Reagan had to say, he was an actor? He and his one liners that other people wrote were very popular.

He promised to balance the budget. In 8 years he never even submitted a balanced budget. He lied about Iran Contra, he lied about arms for hostages. Some of us have long memories.

Subject: RE: BS: Lucky to have Jimmy Carter
From: Riginslinger
Date: 27 Jan 09 - 09:38 PM

Reagan's whole life was a lie. Whoever was running Ronald Reagan was the best director in history--at least to date.

Subject: RE: BS: Lucky to have Jimmy Carter
From: Ebbie
Date: 28 Jan 09 - 01:05 AM

"There was a scientific article just a few months back that showed the Polar Ice Caps to be back to the exact same level they were in 1979."

I don't know what scientific article pdq refers to but I would request that he point us to it.

Just now I researched the question and I found so many articles and links to 1979 that I decided not to bother posting them.

Suffice it to say that in EVERY case they refer to 1979 as diametrically opposed to pdq's statement.

Subject: RE: BS: Lucky to have Jimmy Carter
From: CarolC
Date: 28 Jan 09 - 01:26 AM

Jimmy Carter being interviewed on NPR...

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=99875313

Subject: RE: BS: Lucky to have Jimmy Carter
From: Little Hawk
Date: 28 Jan 09 - 01:53 AM

As usual, people's view of the past is colored almost entirely by their partisan phobias and prejudices...they have already decided who "the bad guys" are both here and elsewhere and it's written in stone inside their brains.

That's why these discussions always elicit the same repetitive behaviour and automatic reaction/response/attack/counter-reaction/counterattack from the same people. Only our various respective deaths (whenever they come) will ever end it, I'm afraid.

Meanwhile, it's fun to vent and once again be "right". We all do it because we just can't resist doing it. Some can resist better than others, mind you, but it's a pretty universal disease of the human mind.

****

I've heard and read so much crap about global warming by now (both pro and con) that I don't know what to believe about it anymore...but I'm somewhat skeptical of the present most popular theories that are being touted in the general media. I'm not saying I know for sure. I don't know for sure. And I am happy to admit that I don't know for sure. How could I???? I'm not in a position to. All I have to go on is the conflicting words and opinions of thousands of opinionated people both qualified and unqualified, who all seem VERY sure they are right! Funny they can't agree then, isn't it?

The one thing none of them can possibly imagine, it seems, is this: they might be wrong and someone else might therefore be right! ;-) That possibility scares them quite a bit more than the global warming does. To even think it would be sacrilege!!!

Subject: RE: BS: Lucky to have Jimmy Carter
From: Riginslinger
Date: 28 Jan 09 - 09:08 AM

LH - Is your position that you aren't sure whether or not the earth's surface is getting warmer. Or that you think it's getting warmer, but you're not sure man kind has anything to do with it?

Subject: RE: BS: Lucky to have Jimmy Carter
From: Bobert
Date: 28 Jan 09 - 10:03 AM

Well, seems that one thing is fir certain... With Reagan and Bush, Jr. the USA was hit hard by terrorists... Remember the marine barracks that were hit during Reagan's administration??? And, of course, 9/11 occured during Bush, Jr's...

Now back to Jimmy Carter... Yeah, he was consumed with saving 50 some American diplomats who were held hostage for the last half of his administration and because of his tireless negotiations was able to get them released hours after Reagan was sworn in... I think these two chapters of history speak volumes about the difference between Jimmy Carter and Reagan/Bush-Jr....

B~

Subject: RE: BS: Lucky to have Jimmy Carter
From: pdq
Date: 28 Jan 09 - 10:15 AM

Blog: Science

Sea Ice Ends Year at Same Level as 1979

Michael Asher (Blog) - January 1, 2009 11:31 AM

Rapid growth spurt leaves amount of ice at levels seen 29 years ago.

"Thanks to a rapid rebound in recent months, global sea ice levels now equal those seen 29 years ago, when the year 1979 also drew to a close.

Ice levels had been tracking lower throughout much of 2008, but rapidly recovered in the last quarter. In fact, the rate of increase from September onward is the fastest rate of change on record, either upwards or downwards.

The data is being reported by the University of Illinois's Arctic Climate Research Center, and is derived from satellite observations of the Northern and Southern hemisphere polar regions.

Each year, millions of square kilometers of sea ice melt and refreeze. However, the mean ice anomaly -- defined as the seasonally-adjusted difference between the current value and the average from 1979-2000, varies much more slowly. That anomaly now stands at just under zero, a value identical to one recorded at the end of 1979, the year satellite record-keeping began.

Sea ice is floating and, unlike the massive ice sheets anchored to bedrock in Greenland and Antarctica, doesn't affect ocean levels. However, due to its transient nature, sea ice responds much faster to changes in temperature or precipitation and is therefore a useful barometer of changing conditions.

Earlier this year, predictions were rife that the North Pole could melt entirely in 2008. Instead, the Arctic ice saw a substantial recovery. Bill Chapman, a researcher with the UIUC's Arctic Center, tells DailyTech this was due in part to colder temperatures in the region. Chapman says wind patterns have also been weaker this year. Strong winds can slow ice formation as well as forcing ice into warmer waters where it will melt.

Why were predictions so wrong? Researchers had expected the newer sea ice, which is thinner, to be less resilient and melt easier. Instead, the thinner ice had less snow cover to insulate it from the bitterly cold air, and therefore grew much faster than expected, according to the National Snow and Ice Data Center.

In May, concerns over disappearing sea ice led the U.S. to officially list the polar bear a threatened species, over objections from experts who claimed the animal's numbers were increasing."

Subject: RE: BS: Lucky to have Jimmy Carter
From: Ebbie
Date: 28 Jan 09 - 10:49 AM

Well, it do beat all. Everything I have read focusses on ice thickness, rather than extent, as being the salient point.

But hey. I'm no scientist.

Subject: RE: BS: Lucky to have Jimmy Carter
From: GUEST
Date: 28 Jan 09 - 03:44 PM

Rigenslinger: I do not know your home country, perhaps you are even an American, but if I had the power, and you do live in a country other than America, I would trade you Jimmy Carter for a thin dime.

Who in the world made Jimmy Carter spokesperson for the United States? I'll bet that's news to President Obama.

DougR

Subject: RE: BS: Lucky to have Jimmy Carter
From: Riginslinger
Date: 28 Jan 09 - 04:07 PM

Jimmy Carter speaks for himself. Why would he want to speak for America?

Subject: RE: BS: Lucky to have Jimmy Carter
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 28 Jan 09 - 06:09 PM

Aren't all Americans spokespeople for the United States in their different ways?

Subject: RE: BS: Lucky to have Jimmy Carter
From: Riginslinger
Date: 28 Jan 09 - 06:34 PM

Well, I suppose they are, but the media pays more attention to some people than it does to others.

Subject: RE: BS: Lucky to have Jimmy Carter
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 28 Jan 09 - 06:38 PM

Helps to say stuff that make sense, which Jimmy Carter seems to do more often than not.

Subject: RE: BS: Lucky to have Jimmy Carter
From: Little Hawk
Date: 28 Jan 09 - 07:22 PM

Rig, regarding global warming...

My impression is that we have been experiencing an overall warming phase, yes....but I am skeptical that the human contribution to it is a major factor. I do think it is a partial factor, so I have no objection to efforts to, for instance, reduce carbon emissions, but I doubt it's the main factor.

There was a major global cooling phase in the mid-1940s. Human industry was increasing rapidly during that period, due to war production...but the planet cooled during the same period.

There was another notable cooling phase in the 1970s, despit the steady continuance of our industrial civilization, and there were scary articles being written then about the danger of a new ice age. After awhile that stopped and we went into another warming phase. I don't think you can tie any of those past phases to man-based carbon emissions, I think they were cyclical in nature, not human-caused, and I think that may well be true of the present warming phase.

I think that what we are experiencing is more likely a natural event that has a great deal more to do with cyclical changes in the sun's output of energy than with man's industrial activities on this planet. In a period of heightened sun activity, this planet warms. In a period of lowered sun activity, it cools.

I will further add this: I don't KNOW for sure. I'm not in a position to. I'm merely making the best speculative guess on the matter than I can, given all the stuff I've read about it so far. I may be entirely wrong. And that goes for anyone else here too, despite their level of enthusiasm and their utter certainty that they are right.

(As I said, most people are a lot more scared of being proven wrong about something...anything...that they espouse or believe in than they are of global warming. That's what makes them so darned intolerant when they argue with others about it.)

Subject: RE: BS: Lucky to have Jimmy Carter
From: Little Hawk
Date: 28 Jan 09 - 07:29 PM

Oh, and if I were a politician, I would still back measures to reduce carbon emissions and get off being dependent on fossil fuels anyway....regardless...so my opinion about global warming being primarily a natural cyclical phenomenon (assuming my opinion had any effect on public policy...which it doesn't), my opinion would be no threat to the primary objectives of those who support the current global warming theories which are most popular lately (those being Al Gore's view of it).

Subject: RE: BS: Lucky to have Jimmy Carter
From: Riginslinger
Date: 28 Jan 09 - 07:57 PM

Yeah, I feel pretty much the same way about it. The economic model that's been adopted by the industrialized nations is probably more of a threat to the planet than anything else, in my opinion.

Subject: RE: BS: Lucky to have Jimmy Carter
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 28 Jan 09 - 08:25 PM

As in the case of the notion that smoking cigarettes can cause cancer, and that Aids is spread by unprotected sex, I'd be inclined to go with the mass of scientists who believe human activity is a significant factor contributing to a general global warning, rather than with the occasional exception who thinks those ideas are all nonsense.

It's too important to gamble on the possibility they are all wrong.

If there are natural causes making for global warming, which is of course quite possible, that doesn't make it any less important to do what we can to avoid making things still worse.

Subject: RE: BS: Lucky to have Jimmy Carter
From: kendall
Date: 28 Jan 09 - 08:47 PM

I trust what I see with my own eyes. Satellite views of the North Pole and the obviously shrinking ice sheet. Polar bears drifting around on ice cakes miles from land.
An ice floe the size of Rhode Island that broke off from Antarctica.
In my own yard, Cardinals, the state bird of north Carolina, never seen in Maine until recently. Possums, unheard of in Maine! Buzzards, another southern bird. The last 10 years are the hottest on record according to NOAA, National Oceanic atmospheric administration, not some chicken little scare monger.

Subject: RE: BS: Lucky to have Jimmy Carter
From: Riginslinger
Date: 28 Jan 09 - 08:53 PM

McGrath and kendall - I agree with both of you. It just makes good sense to try and contain the possibility of making things worse. And I've noticed things here in Oregon that indicate to me that things are warming up, at least around here.
         20 years ago people would move here from California, and plant the same yard plants the planted down south. The plants would always die. Now those plants live and native plants like huge Douglas Fir trees are dying from too much heat and not enough water.

Subject: RE: BS: Lucky to have Jimmy Carter
From: Little Hawk
Date: 28 Jan 09 - 09:21 PM

I also agree with you, McGrath, we might as well do whatever we can to lessen the problem, regardless of what is the primary factor that's causing it.

Subject: RE: BS: Lucky to have Jimmy Carter
From: frogprince
Date: 29 Jan 09 - 12:18 AM

How far north are you, Riginslinger?

Subject: RE: BS: Lucky to have Jimmy Carter
From: Riginslinger
Date: 29 Jan 09 - 08:16 AM

I'm not very far north, Southern part of Oregon. On a map it looks like it lines up with Detroit and the Massachusetts - New Hampshire state border.

Subject: RE: BS: Lucky to have Jimmy Carter
From: Sawzaw
Date: 29 Jan 09 - 06:24 PM

Sawzall - I watched the video. Do you think it relates to Jimmy Carter in some way?

Yeah, This is what Mr Peanut wants to make peace with.

Subject: RE: BS: Lucky to have Jimmy Carter
From: DougR
Date: 29 Jan 09 - 06:34 PM

Riginslinger, do you live in the U.S? If you do not, and were I to have the power, I would trade you Jimmy Carter for one very slim dime. He is the worst president the U.S. has ever had.

DougR

Subject: RE: BS: Lucky to have Jimmy Carter
From: Ebbie
Date: 29 Jan 09 - 06:52 PM

Doug, you may notice that your question was answered earlier.

Subject: RE: BS: Lucky to have Jimmy Carter
From: Riginslinger
Date: 29 Jan 09 - 07:18 PM

Doug - If you think Jimmy Carter was bad, you must have been out of the country when Ronald Reagan was in office.

Subject: RE: BS: Lucky to have Jimmy Carter
From: Sawzaw
Date: 29 Jan 09 - 07:31 PM

32. Jimmy Carter

1977-81 (Democratic)

Our panel only just left him out of the bottom ten, making him their 11th worst President.

---

8. Ronald Reagan

1981-89 (Republican)

Feted by many of the panel and implicated in the current financial crisis by others, Reagan's controversial reputation remains but his revolutionary zeal forced him into the top ten.

He was elected with a clear mandate for radical economic policy to tackle high inflation and unemployment rates. His tax cutting, budget slashing, laissez-faire strategy known as “Reaganomicsâ€쳌 became extremely popular as the US economy recovered.

The former actor’s foreign policy was more divisive and his administration was attacked for perceived bellicosity as well as embarrassments including the Iran-Contra affair. But even though he was seen as a hawk when he took office, Reagan managed to grasp the historic opportunity brought about by Mikhail Gorbachev's rise to power in the Soviet Union to help bring an end to the Cold War.

"Revived American self-confidence at its lowest ebb." Gerard Baker.
Prevented a possible Third World War by containing the Soviet Union." Camilla Cavendish.

---

7. Harry Truman

1945-53 (Democratic)

Truman entered the White House after just 82 days as Roosevelt’s Vice President and with very little foreign experience. He was soon called upon to make some of the most significant international policy decisions in American history.

He sanctioned the use of atomic weapons over Japan, signed up to the United Nations and NATO as well as formulating the Truman Doctrine, which shaped America’s anti-Communist policy for decades to come. Industrial disputes, scandals and the alleged harbouring of Soviet agents diminished Truman’s reputation at home leaving him with a 22 per cent approval rating.

Subject: RE: BS: Lucky to have Jimmy Carter
From: Riginslinger
Date: 29 Jan 09 - 07:47 PM

"His tax cutting, budget slashing, laissez-faire strategy known as “Reaganomicsâ€쳌 became extremely popular as the US economy recovered."


                Calling what Reagan did to the economy a recovery is nothing short of laughable, but it certainly caused the depression we find ourselves in now.

                And the term "budget slashing" in no way applys to Reagan. It was his totally unhinged buget proposal that dropped the country into the worst economic disaster since the Great Depression. I think a lot of people are just getting wise to him now.

                And that's what will make Jimmy Carter's image shine.

Subject: RE: BS: Lucky to have Jimmy Carter
From: Sawzaw
Date: 29 Jan 09 - 08:01 PM

Jimmy Carter's highest rating was 75 percent, and his lowest was 28 percent. Ronald Reagan's highest rating was 68 percent, and his lowest was 35 percent. President George H.W. Bush got a high rating of 89 percent, though his lowest rating was 29 percent. Bill Clinton topped out at 73 percent, and his lowest rating was 37 percent. Our 43rd President, George W. Bush, achieved the highest approval rating of all, at 90 percent, but also received one of the lowest at 29 percent.

But Sawzaw, you mean GWB is ranked higher than Mr Pean.. er.. Carter? Ouch!

Subject: RE: BS: Lucky to have Jimmy Carter
From: kendall
Date: 29 Jan 09 - 08:08 PM

When it comes to the worst presidents, it's hard to beat good old Useless s Grant republican
Warren G Harding republican
Richard Nixon republican
George W Bush republican

Subject: RE: BS: Lucky to have Jimmy Carter
From: Riginslinger
Date: 29 Jan 09 - 09:11 PM

Well, I wasn't around for Warren G. Harding or U.S. Grant, but as far as I'm concerned Ronald Reagan was way worse than Nixon or G.W. Bush.

Subject: RE: BS: Lucky to have Jimmy Carter
From: Sawzaw
Date: 30 Jan 09 - 02:08 PM

2/16/07 US News and World Report

A Survey of Major Polls:

U.S. News examined five polls and determines the 13 lowest scoring presidents

1. James Buchanan (1857-1861)
He refused to challenge either the spread of slavery or the growing bloc of states that became the Confederacy.


2. Warren G. Harding (1921-1923)
He was an ineffectual and indecisive leader who played poker while his friends plundered the U.S. treasury.

3. Andrew Johnson (1865-1869)
He survived impeachment after opposing Reconstruction initiatives including the 14th amendment.


4. Franklin Pierce (1853-1857)
His fervor for expanding the borders--thereby adding several slave states--helped set the stage for the Civil War.

5. Millard Fillmore (1850-1853)
He backed the Compromise of 1850 that delayed the Southern secession by allowing slavery to spread.

6. John Tyler (1841-1845)
He was a stalwart defender of slavery who abandoned his party's platform once he was president.
William Harrison

7. Ulysses S. Grant (1869-1877)
Serving right after Johnson, he presided over an outbreak of graft and corruption, but had good intentions.
Herbert Hoover

8. William Harrison (1841)
He was president for all of 30 days after contracting pneumonia during his interminable inaugural.

9. (tie) Herbert Hoover (1929-1933)
He was known as a poor communicator who fueled trade wars and exacerbated the Depression.
Zachary Taylor

9. (tie) Richard Nixon (1969-1974)
Though politically gifted, he will forever be associated with the Watergate scandal and his resignation.

10. Zachary Taylor (1849-1850)
A political novice, the war hero is entirely forgettable as president.

11. Jimmy Carter

12. Calvin Coolidge
        
13. (tie) James Garfield                 

13. (tie) Chester Arthur

Subject: RE: BS: Lucky to have Jimmy Carter
From: Riginslinger
Date: 30 Jan 09 - 02:32 PM

Jimmy Carter, however, will be vindicated in this ongoing economic crisis, while Ronald Reagan will be excoriated. This time next year will see Carter way up in these polls and Reagan's fortunes will suffer.

Subject: RE: BS: Lucky to have Jimmy Carter
From: Ebbie
Date: 30 Jan 09 - 02:39 PM

A serious segue here- the thought just occurred to me that each 'age' has its blind spots.

Back in the day, the concept of slavery had its adherents. Today we would not take seriously anybody who advocated it.

Today the concept of choice in the matter of homosexuality has its adherents. Tomorrow (?) that opinion will have become ludicrous.

Subject: RE: BS: Lucky to have Jimmy Carter
From: bankley
Date: 30 Jan 09 - 03:15 PM

it has already in Iceland

Subject: RE: BS: Lucky to have Jimmy Carter
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 30 Jan 09 - 05:33 PM

Today the concept of choice in the matter of homosexuality has its adherents.

For example Julie Bindel writing in today's Guardian ,arguing that it can be a matter of choice - a choice she recommends for all feminists :"Come on sisters, you know it makes sense. Stop pretending you think lesbianism is an exclusive members' club, and join the ranks. I promise that you will not regret it."

Lots of online letters dashed off in response - generally not too enthusiastic about the notion...

It seems pretty obvious that, as with all human activities, there is an element of choice in this context, but that that is only part of the picture. As with Morris Dancing.

How on earth did a thread about Jimmy Carter drift this far?

Subject: RE: BS: Lucky to have Jimmy Carter
From: Little Hawk
Date: 30 Jan 09 - 05:46 PM

That's what happens when the masts break and the engine fails...

Subject: RE: BS: Lucky to have Jimmy Carter
From: frogprince
Date: 30 Jan 09 - 06:03 PM

Crimeny; it must bother someone like that no end to know that the race can't reproduce without that nasty stuff that comes out of males. I've known any number of outspoken feminists by now. Out of all of them, a couple had issues with fear & distrust of men. I've probably known more women who weren't avowed feminists who had similar issues. I've never heard any of them, or even any lesbian that I've known, come on with a line like Bindel's. So who gets the headlines, and gives Pat Robertson and idiots of that ilk fuel for burning all feminists.

Subject: RE: BS: Lucky to have Jimmy Carter
From: Riginslinger
Date: 30 Jan 09 - 09:52 PM

"That's what happens when the masts break and the engine fails..."


                      Jimmy Carter is a submariner, masts don't concern him, and engine failures only cause him to surface...

Subject: RE: BS: Lucky to have Jimmy Carter
From: Ebbie
Date: 30 Jan 09 - 10:00 PM

My fault, Kevin. Sorry.

Subject: RE: BS: Lucky to have Jimmy Carter
From: Riginslinger
Date: 31 Jan 09 - 12:36 AM

"?"

Subject: RE: BS: Lucky to have Jimmy Carter
From: Ebbie
Date: 31 Jan 09 - 03:26 AM

"How on earth did a thread about Jimmy Carter drift this far?" McGrath 5:33

Subject: RE: BS: Lucky to have Jimmy Carter
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 31 Jan 09 - 06:50 AM

Actually I think free-range threads can be quite good for you.

Subject: RE: BS: Lucky to have Jimmy Carter
From: DougR
Date: 31 Jan 09 - 09:08 AM

Gee, Riginslinger, you must have great forecasting powers!

Who's going to win the Superbowl tomorrow?

DougR

Subject: RE: BS: Lucky to have Jimmy Carter
From: Riginslinger
Date: 31 Jan 09 - 09:16 AM

The jury is still out on the Superbowl, but the die has been cast for Reagan and Carter.

Subject: RE: BS: Lucky to have Jimmy Carter
From: Little Hawk
Date: 31 Jan 09 - 02:17 PM

Let's take a moment to reflect on how lucky we all are to have....each other! (to disagree with on these political threads) ;-)

It keeps our minds occupied.

Subject: RE: BS: Lucky to have Jimmy Carter
From: Riginslinger
Date: 31 Jan 09 - 02:49 PM

Of course, some commentators are more disagreeable than others.

Subject: RE: BS: Lucky to have Jimmy Carter
From: Sawzaw
Date: 31 Jan 09 - 10:36 PM

The Chavez-Carter Connection

With Hugo Chavez romping around New York this week, plugging Noam Chomsky and sniffing out sulfur, let's not forget the man who in his own humble way did so much to make this visit possible — Jimmy Carter.

Recall that just a few years ago, Chavez was on the ropes in Venezuela. Elected president in 1998, he embarked on a despotic course that sparked enormous opposition. Ousted briefly in 2002 by a military coup, his return to power was met with nationwide strikes and protest. Jimmy Carter, with his Carter Center, got involved; and in August, 2004, Venezuela held a referendum on whether Chavez should remain in power. Amid serious signs of vote fraud, Chavez announced victory. Dismissing huge evidence of a stolen election, including such stuff as bizarre statistical discrepances, a failure of secure auditing procedures at the central tallying center, and more votes cast in some districts than there were voters, Carter went to bat for Chavez, certifying him as the victor.

Now we have this Carter-certified winner doing weapons deals with Russia, doing business and swapping avowals of brotherly love with Iran's Ahmadinejad, and running for a seat on the UN Security Council.

Scratch almost any current threat to the U.S., and behind it — radiating mediation and appeasement — is a Jimmy Carter moment. It was during his presidency that the Soviet Union was emboldened to invade Afghanistan, creating the cauldron whence ultimately emerged Al Qaeda. It was during his presidency that Iran had its totalitarian Islamic revolution. It was Jimmy Carter who in 1994 went to North Korea and conceived the "Agreed Framework" nuclear freeze deal, which helped sustain and consolidate the cheating Pyongyang regime now testing missiles and presumed to have a stash of nuclear bombs. I could go on, but the news of the hour is the Hugo Chavez show — in which Carter, for his supporting role, deserves to take a bow.

Subject: RE: BS: Lucky to have Jimmy Carter
From: Sawzaw
Date: 31 Jan 09 - 10:37 PM

Observers Rush to Judgment
Jimmy Carter gets rolled--first by Fidel Castro, now by Hugo Chávez.

by MARY ANASTASIA O'GRADY
Saturday, August 21, 2004 12:01 A.M. EDT

When Jimmy Carter went to Cuba in 2002, Fidel Castro reveled in the photo-ops with a former U.S. president. Mr. Carter seemed to think he was heroically "engaging" the Cuban despot. But in the documentary "Dissident," celluloid captures something most Americans didn't see: Castro giggling sardonically as Mr. Carter lectures the Cuban politburo on democracy. That foreshadowed what happened when the media splash ended and the former president went home: Dissidents he went to "help" today languish in gulag punishment cells.

I was reminded this week of how Castro so artfully used Mr. Carter when Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez took a page from his Cuban mentor's playbook. On Monday, the Carter Center along with the head of the monumentally meaningless Organization of American States, Cesar Gaviria, endorsed Chávez's claims of victory in the Venezuelan recall referendum, rather too hastily it now seems.

The problem was that the "observers" hadn't actually observed the election results. Messrs. Carter and Gaviria were only allowed to make a "quick count"--that is, look at the tally sheets spat out by a sample of voting machines. They were not allowed to check this against ballots the machines issued to voters as confirmation that their votes were properly registered.

If there was fraud, as many Venezuelans now suspect, it could have been discovered if the ballots didn't match the computer tallies. The tallies alone were meaningless. The problem was clear by Tuesday but it didn't stop the State Department spokesman Adam Ereli from chiming in. "The people of Venezuela have spoken," he proclaimed.

Mr. Carter marveled at the huge turnout on Sunday. Venezuelans, who have been voting 2-to-1 against Chávez in opinion polls, waited in absurdly long lines to cast more meaningful votes on electronic machines. But did the machine really record the vote as registered on the paper ballot?

According to experts, it is relatively simple to tamper with encryption codes in electronic voting machines. American Enterprise Institute resident scholar John Lott says, "You can easily write a program that tells the voting machine to record something different in its memory than what it prints out on the receipt that is to be dropped in the ballot box."

To rely on the tally sheets alone, as Messrs. Carter and Gaviria did, is to abdicate the heavy responsibility an observer accepts when overseeing an election. A Venezuelan who is a former U.N. deputy high commissioner of human rights wrote of his suspicions in Wednesday's International Herald Tribune (right beside a pro-Chávez New York Times editorial, by the way). Enrique ter Horst cited as cause for concern the fact that "the papers the new machines produced . . . were not added up and compared with the final numbers these machines produce at the end of the voting process, as the voting-machine manufacturer had suggested."

An exit poll done by the prominent U.S. polling firm of Penn, Schoen & Berland Associates showed 59% of voters opposed to Chávez and only 41% in favor. (Messrs. Penn and Schoen both worked for Bill Clinton in his 1996 re-election bid.) Raj Kumar, a principal at the polling firm, told me Thursday that the firm has gone back to try to explain the 34-point spread between the PSB poll and the results announced by the government. "While there are certainly biases that can impact any exit poll, we do not see any factor that could account for such a significant difference," he said.

Subject: RE: BS: Lucky to have Jimmy Carter
From: Riginslinger
Date: 01 Feb 09 - 10:27 AM

'"According to experts, it is relatively simple to tamper with encryption codes in electronic voting machines. American Enterprise Institute resident scholar John Lott says, "You can easily write a program that tells the voting machine to record something different in its memory than what it prints out on the receipt that is to be dropped in the ballot box."'


             Yes, we had that experience in the US in Florida in 2000, and again in Ohio in 2004.

Subject: RE: BS: Lucky to have Jimmy Carter
From: Little Hawk
Date: 01 Feb 09 - 02:02 PM

Chavez has strong support in Venezuela among the poorer people, and his opposition is strongest among the wealthier people. Hmmmm. Doesn't that tell you something, Sawzaw? He has been elected repeatedly because the most economically disadvantaged people in his own country figure he's on their side. Guess who isn't on their side: large American corporate interests and the CIA and the rich people, who attempted to topple him in a coup. You seem quite sad that they failed to do so. This suggests to me that you prefer coups to democratic elections. Is that right?

Would you prefer it if it was happening in your own society? A coup, I mean? I don't think you would, I think you'd prefer an election....but I guess it doesn't matter when the coup and the bloodshed is happening in Iran or Venezuela or Iraq or Cuba or some other small country that isn't cooperating financially with the great American Overseas Empire, does it?

Subject: RE: BS: Lucky to have Jimmy Carter
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 01 Feb 09 - 02:28 PM

This suggests to me that you prefer coups to democratic elections. Is that right?

As in 2000...

Subject: RE: BS: Lucky to have Jimmy Carter
From: Sawzaw
Date: 01 Feb 09 - 11:10 PM

Smartmatic has a brief but controversial history. The company was started in Caracas during the late 1990s by engineers Antonio Mugica and Alfredo Anzola. They worked out of downtown Caracas providing small-scale technology services to Latin American banks. Despite having no election experience, the tiny company rocketed from obscurity in 2004 after it was awarded a $100 million contract by the Chávez-dominated National Electoral Council to replace Venezuela's electronic voting machines for the recall vote.

When the council announced the deal, it disingenuously described Smartmatic as a Florida company, though Smartmatic's main operations were in Caracas and the firm had incorporated only a small office in Boca Raton. It then emerged that Smartmatic's ''partner'' in the deal, Bizta Corp., also directed by Anzola and Mugica, was partly owned by the Venezuelan government through a series of intermediary shell corporations. Venezuela initially denied its investment but eventually sold its stake

Flush with cash from its Venezuelan adventures, Smartmatic International incorporated in Delaware last year and purchased Sequoia, announcing the deal as a merger between two U.S. companies.

Smartmatic says the recall vote was clean and that it is independent of the Chávez government. Responding to my inquiries, Smartmatic-Sequoias sent a written statement: ``Sequoia's products consist only of voting devices and systems, all of which must be federally and state tested and certified prior to use in an election. As Sequoia's products do not have military, defense or national security applications, they do not fall within the parameters of the matters governed by CFIUS.''

In fact, Smartmatic International is owned by a Netherlands corporation, which is in turn owned by a Curacao corporation, which is in turn held by a number of Curacao trusts controlled by proxy holders who represent unnamed investors, almost certainly among them Venezuelans Mugica and Anzola and possibly others.

Why Smartmatic has chosen yet again to abuse the corporate form apparently to conceal the nationality and identity of its true owners is a question that should worry anyone who votes using one of its machines. Congress panicked upon hearing that our ports would be run by an American ally, Dubai, but never asked whether America's actual enemies in Venezuela have been able to acquire influence in our electoral process.

Subject: RE: BS: Lucky to have Jimmy Carter
From: CarolC
Date: 01 Feb 09 - 11:16 PM

The owner of one of the companies making the voting machines that were used in the 2000 election vowed to deliver the election to GW Bush. And he did, too.

Subject: RE: BS: Lucky to have Jimmy Carter
From: Sawzaw
Date: 01 Feb 09 - 11:33 PM

"vowed to deliver the election to GW Bush" When where and how?

Homicides have soared from fewer than 6,000 in Chávez's first year in office to 13,156 last year

Washington Post Foreign Service
Tuesday, November 18, 2008

CARACAS, Venezuela -- Three of Miriam Sánchez's sons had already been shot dead in neighborhoods where the crackle of gunfire is a nightly occurrence. So she feared the worst when word arrived one recent night that her 24-year-old son, José Luis Arias, had been shot.

Sánchez found his bullet-riddled body off one of the narrow passageways of a violent slum -- another murder among thousands that have made Venezuela one of the world's most violent countries. Those slayings have exposed the government's inability to formulate a response to the sharply rising crime rate, a central theme of opposition politicians vying for governorships and mayoral posts in Sunday's regional elections.

For the first time in years, Venezuela's political opposition is poised to break President Hugo Chávez's nearly complete hold on local and state offices. Sánchez is one reason why.

She is among those who supported Chávez in the past but is now considering a vote against the president's candidates because of the government's hapless response to rising crime rates. Of her four slain children, three were killed since Chávez took office in 1999.

"This is a nightmare for any mother," said Sánchez, 45, sitting in her tiny, stuffy home high in a poor barrio. "I tell you it hurt, and it still hurts, because I see there are more criminals than police, and there is no safety in this country."

As Chávez completes a tumultuous decade in power, polls show that Venezuelans are most concerned about rampant crime in this oil-rich country. Homicides have soared from fewer than 6,000 in Chávez's first year in office to 13,156 last year, according to official government statistics collected and released by private research organizations. That amounts to a homicide rate of 48 killings per 100,000 people, among the highest in the world and more than in neighboring Colombia, which suffers from a slow-burning internal conflict.

Here in the capital, the rate is even higher -- 130 homicides per 100,000 people, translating last year to a total of 2,710 killings.

"Venezuela is going through the biggest crisis in public security in years," said Luis Cedeño, director of Incosec, a crime policy analysis group in Caracas. "Most Venezuelans live in fear of being in a public space, of being victims in public transportation, and they live in fear of being victims in their houses."

Subject: RE: BS: Lucky to have Jimmy Carter
From: CarolC
Date: 02 Feb 09 - 01:02 AM

I remembered some of the details incorrectly.


This was written in March of 2004...

http://www.motherjones.com/commentary/columns/2004/03/03_200.html

"Walden 'Wally' O'Dell was the chairman of the board and chief executive of Diebold...O'Dell last fall penned a letter pledging his commitment 'to helping Ohio deliver its electoral votes to the President.'"

And that is what he did.

Subject: RE: BS: Lucky to have Jimmy Carter
From: Riginslinger
Date: 02 Feb 09 - 10:44 AM

Frankly, as this economic situation plays out, I think Jimmy Carter's fortunes will rise exponentially.   He had to vision to establish both the Department of Education and the Department of Energy, and those are the most vital issues for getting out of this mess.
    If the American people had listened to him instead of going off with the babbling buffoon, Reagan, the country would be in much better shape today.

Subject: RE: BS: Lucky to have Jimmy Carter
From: CarolC
Date: 02 Feb 09 - 10:54 AM

I think that's probably true.

Subject: RE: BS: Lucky to have Jimmy Carter
From: pdq
Date: 02 Feb 09 - 01:24 PM

World Top 10 - Countries With Highest Murder Rates

Country               Murder Rates
Honduras                     154.02 / 100,000 population
South Africa                121.91
Swaziland                     93.32
Colombia                      69.98
Lesotho                         50.41
Rwanda                        45.08
Jamaica                        45.08
El. Salvador                  36.88
Venezuela                     33.20
Bolivia                         31.98

{these numbers may date from 2002, not sure, but they do show somthing odd: Venezuela is the only one which qualifies as "oil rich"...the others are very poor}

Subject: RE: BS: Lucky to have Jimmy Carter
From: Riginslinger
Date: 02 Feb 09 - 01:38 PM

Of course, if one sets out to improve one's quality of life through murder, one has to sure to murder the right people.

Subject: RE: BS: Lucky to have Jimmy Carter
From: Little Hawk
Date: 02 Feb 09 - 01:41 PM

Going by what I've seen in Trinidad (where there is a very high crime rate, and frequent violent kidnappings for ransom which sometimes end in murder), I think poverty is generally the primary engine of crime....and specially extreme poverty which exists alongside the presence of an obviously wealthy elite. It is the social disparities between rich and poor as much as the poverty that will drive the crime rate up.

Another thing that can exacerbate the situation is a corrupt government and police force. If the police themselves are subject to bribes and corruption on every level, as is the case in Trinidad and has always been the case in much of Latin America, then it can only get worse.

Another thing that can drive crime up is a poor educational system.

Another thing is the illegal drug trade.

Another thing is competitive political games between different partisan factions who use criminal elements to promote instability.

Subject: RE: BS: Lucky to have Jimmy Carter
From: pdq
Date: 02 Feb 09 - 02:35 PM

"The owner of one of the companies making the voting machines that were used in the 2000 election vowed to deliver the election to GW Bush. And he did, too"

That is absolute crap and should have been shouted-down by our news media over 8 years ago. If Florida had not counted the tens of thousands of "snowbird" votes by people who live in Chicago, New York and New Jersey in the summer and spend the winter in Florida, George W. Bush would have won by 10s of thousands of votes. As so, he got 1604 more votes on election night. Yes, he won.

Subject: RE: BS: Lucky to have Jimmy Carter
From: CarolC
Date: 02 Feb 09 - 03:26 PM

Check out my post after that one, in which I corrected the details and provided documentation.

Subject: RE: BS: Lucky to have Jimmy Carter
From: Little Hawk
Date: 02 Feb 09 - 05:26 PM

You're just believing what you want to believe, pdq. ;-) And so are all the people you disagree with. (double ;-) ) It's how the human ego functions. It first decides what it wants to believe...it then runs around collecting "proof"...it then harangues others with that "proof", while ignoring, denying or discounting any conflicting information that would threaten its beliefs. This keeps it busy and enhances its sense of identity, while comforting it with a sense of its own rightness and increasing its instinctive contempt and loathing of all those who disagree with it. It is utterly unaware of its own innate unfairness and lack of objectivity...but acutely aware of others' innate unfairness and lack of objectivity. It blames everyone else around it for its own pathological need to be "right" at their expense.

Welcome to the human club, man! ;-) We are the reason for our own distress and confusion.

Subject: RE: BS: Lucky to have Jimmy Carter
From: Riginslinger
Date: 03 Feb 09 - 01:54 PM

LH - It's seems as though, over a long period of time, one would be able to assess right and wrong answers to some of these disagreements. It doesn't make sense that everything can be directed to a successful conclusion on the basis of opinion alone.

Subject: RE: BS: Lucky to have Jimmy Carter
From: Little Hawk
Date: 03 Feb 09 - 02:26 PM

There is always that possibility, yes. Still, most people basically just believe whatever it is that they want to believe...and they only search out the facts which support their belief. That's how the human mind functions.

You can usually find some facts which appear to support either side of any given argument, and you can easily ignore those that don't...or just reason your way around them somehow. That is exactly what people generally do.

I'm not saying there isn't an ultimate and final truth. There always is. Sometimes it's a mixed truth...that is to say, both sides can be partly right and partly wrong. But it's not the truth that people are really after. What they are after is to "win" the confrontation. They may think they're after the truth, they may believe it with all assurance, but what they are truly after is victory over their opponent(s).

Subject: RE: BS: Lucky to have Jimmy Carter
From: bankley
Date: 03 Feb 09 - 02:27 PM

and I plan on stopping by Plains again in April. The General Store has lots of Jimmy memorabalia, all his books, novelties and old Creek arrowheads dug up by farmers in the area. The owner likes to tell corny jokes and you won't hear negative talk about their local son. "Yes, We Pecan"

Subject: RE: BS: Lucky to have Jimmy Carter
From: Riginslinger
Date: 03 Feb 09 - 04:30 PM

No! No! It's not pecan, it's peanut!

Subject: RE: BS: Lucky to have Jimmy Carter
From: Sawzaw
Date: 03 Feb 09 - 10:03 PM

CC: Even if Odell did do what he said the was "committed to", not vowed as you mis-characterized it, what does that have to do with elections in Venezuela or Jimmy Carter?

If you read the article, it says that if anybody rigged the election via the voting machines, it was Chavez, not the opposition.

And now the same company has bought and American voting machine company and the true owners are unknown.

Subject: RE: BS: Lucky to have Jimmy Carter
From: Little Hawk
Date: 03 Feb 09 - 11:55 PM

I suspect that there has been some vote rigging in most of the past USA elections (sometimes it benefited one side, sometimes the other, sometimes both)...and I bet there's been vote rigging in a great many Latin American elections, if not most of them. I wouldn't be a bit surprised if Chavez rigged some of the votes. I wouldn't be a bit surprised if his enemies did so either, but it's always a lot easier for the government that's already in power to rig votes than it is for a challenger. Why? Well, the government has more connections in place to do it, that's why.

Incumbents tend to have special advantages when it comes to rigging the game, and they will always use them if they think they can get away with it.

Is Chavez an angel? Ha! Hell, no! And what about the people who'd like to bring him down? The people in league with the CIA and US business interests. Are they angels? Hell, no! I think they're probably quite a bit worse than Chavez, but that's always open to debate, of course, isn't it, Sawzaw?

Subject: RE: BS: Lucky to have Jimmy Carter
From: CarolC
Date: 04 Feb 09 - 12:51 AM

That general store in Plains is great. The giant peanut is pretty cool, too.


What our stolen election has to do with Chavez and Venezuela is that electronic voting machines can't be trusted anywhere. Not even here.

Subject: RE: BS: Lucky to have Jimmy Carter
From: Riginslinger
Date: 04 Feb 09 - 08:59 AM

Particularly not here, where we hire electronic technicians from India.

Subject: RE: BS: Lucky to have Jimmy Carter
From: Sawzaw
Date: 07 Feb 09 - 10:59 PM

Mr Chávez has often said that "the revolution is peaceful, but armed." Violence and intimidation of opponents by the security forces and by armed civilian groups (some openly linked to the government) have increased. Students campaigning against the constitutional change have faced harassment and arrest.

Opposition politicians elected as mayors and state governors last November have found it hard to exercise power. In Caracas the new mayor, Antonio Ledezma, has suffered an occupation of the city hall and other buildings by armed chavistas. The government has refused to intervene, saying that the occupations are a response to Mr Ledezma's refusal to renew the contracts of thousands of workers hired by his chavista predecessor. Elsewhere, incoming opposition administrations have also found equipment and offices purloined.

The most disturbing incident was the sacking of Caracas's main synagogue on January 30th by more than a dozen armed men. They vandalised religious objects, painted anti-Jewish and pro-Palestinian slogans on walls, and stole computer hard drives containing a database of the Jewish community. Officials condemned the attack and blamed the opposition. But it says that the government has been fostering a climate of hostility against Jews. Mr Chávez cut diplomatic ties with Israel in response to its attack on Gaza last month.

Days earlier a group of armed chavista radicals had attacked the Ateneo de Caracas, one of the capital's most important cultural centres. Complaining that it was being used for "ultra-rightist" activities, they hurled tear-gas grenades and fired shots. They held scores of people at gunpoint for hours, stole their mobile phones and vandalised the premises. The assault was lead by Lina Ron, a prominent member of Mr Chávez's referendum campaign. None of the assailants has been arrested or questioned. As if to dispel any doubt that the invasion of the Ateneo had the government's support, the next day the finance ministry ordered the eviction of the cultural centre from the state-owned buildings it has occupied since the 1980s.

Ironically, the Ateneo provided Mr Chávez with a platform when he entered politics after leading an unsuccessful military coup against a democratic government in the 1990s. The incident highlights his regime's increasingly authoritarian bent. "The first thing totalitarian regimes do is to attack institutions where different schools of thought and ideologies come together," said Carmen Ramia, the Ateneo's director.

Subject: RE: BS: Lucky to have Jimmy Carter
From: Sawzaw
Date: 08 Feb 09 - 02:34 PM

"electronic voting machines can't be trusted anywhere. Not even here"

You imply that American elections are rigged by voting machines but Venezuelan elections are not rigged even though they use voting machines.

Which is it?

Was the last election rigged? How about 2006?

If voting machines can't be trusted anywhere, how do you know that the 2006 and 2008 elections weren't rigged?

"O'Dell last fall penned a letter pledging his commitment 'to helping Ohio deliver its electoral votes to the President.'"

Still wrong, He said he was committed. Even so, did he do it? Was he capable? It seems to me that he was politically committed, campaign wise and fund raising wise, and didn't realize has bad it looked because of his Diebold position.

After all he admitted it was a "huge mistake". That seems to suffice for Democrats who "screwed up" even when it can be proven that they did something wrong but others are guilty as charged without due process like the kind that is demanded for terrorists.

NYT: "Mr. O'Dell drew criticism of his company in August when he sent an invitation to a fund-raising party that said, "I am committed to helping Ohio deliver its electoral votes to the president next year." He said he had not written it himself, though he declined to say who had, and intended only to sign a party invitation."

Subject: RE: BS: Lucky to have Jimmy Carter
From: Riginslinger
Date: 09 Feb 09 - 11:34 AM

Voting is too important to be trusted to electronic voting machines.

Subject: RE: BS: Lucky to have Jimmy Carter
From: Riginslinger
Date: 16 Sep 09 - 09:49 PM

Jimmy Carter is my all time American hero. It pained me, somewhat, to see him make the case that so much of the opposition to President Obama's efforts were driven by racism.
                I'm certain that he really feels that way, or he wouldn't have said it. I find it frustrating that one can voice opposition to the administrations proposals and be labeled a racist. I suspect some of Carter's views are influenced by his age and the reality that he grew up in the South in a different time.
                Still, if he says it, it makes me want to explore the situation further.

Subject: RE: BS: Lucky to have Jimmy Carter
From: bobad
Date: 16 Sep 09 - 09:57 PM

White House rejects racism claim

US President Barack Obama does not believe current criticism of his policies is based on the colour of his skin, the White House has said.

It was responding to comments by former President Jimmy Carter that much of the vitriol against Mr Obama's health and spending plans was "based on racism".

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/8260109.stm

Subject: RE: BS: Lucky to have Jimmy Carter
From: heric
Date: 16 Sep 09 - 10:06 PM

Carter has the damnedest way of speaking obvious yet outrageous truths, consequences be damned.

What he said has been lurking in the recesses of my mind. But I would never have said it for so many reasons. You can't have a debate of any substance when, as is so common on mudcat, people can read your mind, so they can dismiss your words on that basis. Shouting racism at any disagreement immediately ends the discussion and probably hardens the one labeled.

How awful to contemplate that electing the first black President could be destructive to race relations, even when already we know too well that racism exists.

Subject: RE: BS: Lucky to have Jimmy Carter
From: Bill D
Date: 16 Sep 09 - 10:06 PM

The major difference THESE days, is that many who voice "opposition to the administrations proposals " have learned not to say overtly racist things out loud in public!

The days of Lester Maddox and Orval Faubus and George Wallace are gone....in that the N word gets you censured. Today's 'conservative activists' stir up as much.....probably more... rancor & twisted facts by being subtle and just 'insinuating' stuff that plays to what they are all thinking.

Jimmy Carter knows what he is talking about.............

Subject: RE: BS: Lucky to have Jimmy Carter
From: Arkie
Date: 16 Sep 09 - 10:45 PM

Racism is far from dead in America and I can understand an unwillingness to blame opposition to Obama on racism, but for a large number of the loudmouth opposition it is true. It is because of their racism that they accept so many of the outrageous, unsupported claims made by the Fox fools and others. Playing to peoples hatreds and fears is not new. However, racism is not the only factor.   The sinister elements now in control of the Republican party have used a multitude of fears and prejudices to divide the American people.

Subject: RE: BS: Lucky to have Jimmy Carter
From: katlaughing
Date: 16 Sep 09 - 10:47 PM

I agree, Bill and I still pay attention when Jimmy Carter speaks. He is a very wise man who has lived long and well with much knowledge.

Subject: RE: BS: Lucky to have Jimmy Carter
From: Donuel
Date: 16 Sep 09 - 10:51 PM

Carter is a national hemmroid !
quote Rush Limaugh today.

Carter is not just wrong he is ignorant!
Quote Micheal Steele today

Carter was the worst President ever with the worst economy in history,   except for the last 4 years.
Quote Rep. Strategist on CNN today

------------------

Thinly veiled racism from the right??

I think it has never been thicker.

These proud southerners will tell you its not about racism. These guys would say that Planet of the Apes was about Socialist monkeys hunting down Charlton Heston and his soft spoken girl friend.

When a member of the sons of the Confederacy yells YOU LIE at the President and then says it was really about illegal aliens, but I'm all for legal aliens, I was an immigration attorney!

Mr. Wilson (Whose first name is not even Joe) we checked. You were a Real Estate Attorney your whole life and no one in the bar or in immigration law has ever heard of you ever having an immigration case.   



At Palin campaign stops we heard
"He's a terrorist, he pals around wioth terrorists, KILL HIM!"


Yep racism happens. Mostly among the less educated. Law enforcement has its special racist clicks.





It is against Congressional rules to call the President a liar, or a hypocrite. Suprisingly anything else that is not scatalogical is OK.

I am proud that President Carter is willing and able to speak clearly and simply.
He is a man so honest that he admitted lusting in his heart, so I trust him in knowing what is in the heart of people most anxious to call Obama a Hitler or call him a liar and then claim they haven;t a racist bone in their body.

Subject: RE: BS: Lucky to have Jimmy Carter
From: heric
Date: 16 Sep 09 - 10:56 PM

Actually kat, so the record is clear - you just agreed with rigingslinger, me, Bill and Arkie.

Subject: RE: BS: Lucky to have Jimmy Carter
From: Ebbie
Date: 16 Sep 09 - 11:26 PM

It occurs to me that the President may well believe - and needs to - that the current opposition does not stem from racism- and for a very good reason: If a great deal of it *does* come in reaction to the color of his skin, what's he going to do about it? Far better to continue on as he is doing and hope that those people will eventually recognize the futility of wishing away his presidency. And his skin.

Tonight on Jim Lehrer's Newshour, they discussed it. One, a self-labeled libertarian, made the point that he doubts that racism has much to do with it, because most of those people screaming and shouting at those public meetings privately admit liking the President personally but say they are afraid of where our country is going.

Me, I tend to believe that there are people in this country who just cannot believe that we have a BLACK president. Kind of like I felt about dubya bush, maybe. I knew all along that Baby Bush couldn't help being what he was but I had a visceral reaction to him. They might say the same about President Barack Hussein Obama.

Remember back when Reagan (I believe) commented that it was "nice to see all those American names in the Win column (I am paraphrasing)?

To those afore-mentioned people, the President just doesn't sound American.

Subject: RE: BS: Lucky to have Jimmy Carter
From: meself
Date: 17 Sep 09 - 12:48 AM

It's important to bear in mind that Carter, at least as I understood it, was not saying that ALL the opposition to Obama is based in racism - he was talking about the extremely vitriolic stuff. And Carter is saying what I for one have suspected - how else do you explain such hysterical antipathy to someone who is trying to improve health care? Even if he were completely misguided - it's not like he's trying to start a new war, or intrude on basic human rights ....

Subject: RE: BS: Lucky to have Jimmy Carter
From: Alice
Date: 17 Sep 09 - 01:17 PM

I was reading comments on a news article on the 'net yesterday, and someone referred to the president as a "chimpanzee". Of course racism in this country is rising to the surface because the president is black. BUT, no president wants distractions, and this is a distraction. Presidents want the headlines to be quotes from their speeches, not distracting things like cutting brush on vacation or racist protest signs.

Subject: RE: BS: Lucky to have Jimmy Carter
From: Q (Frank Staplin)
Date: 17 Sep 09 - 03:44 PM

Racism is being fueled by demagogues like Mark Williams, spokesman for the Tea Party demonstrators.
In previous speeches, he called Obama 'an Indonesian Muslim turned "welfare thug." He has referred to Omama as "racist in chief."
CNN gave much time to this ----.

See Sept. 16 NY Times, Timothy Egan blog, "Working Class Zero,"

Subject: RE: BS: Lucky to have Jimmy Carter
From: gnu
Date: 17 Sep 09 - 03:51 PM

A true hero and statesman, as much as one can be.

Subject: RE: BS: Lucky to have Jimmy Carter
From: Sawzaw
Date: 17 Sep 09 - 11:36 PM

President....Highest Rating...Lowest Rating
Harry Truman.......87%.............23%
Dwight Eisenhower..79%.............48%
John F. Kennedy....83%.............56%
Lyndon Johnson.....79%.............35%
Richard Nixon......67%.............24%
Gerald Ford........71%.............37%
Jimmy Carter.......75%.............28%
Ronald Reagan......68%.............35%
George H.W. Bush...89%.............29%
Bill Clinton.......73%.............37%
George W. Bush.....90%.............29%

Source: Can West News Service: CNN.

Please note that GWB was rated 1% higher that Carter at his lowest point and 15% higher that Carter at his peak which was higher than any other president on the list.

Subject: RE: BS: Lucky to have Jimmy Carter
From: Sawzaw
Date: 18 Sep 09 - 12:41 AM

Historians will treat him well:

Why did things get so bad under Carter? And that's a long story. The fundamental reason, however, is he made mistake after mistake, blinded by the leftist rhetoric his party adopted after the infamous '72 Democratic Convention, when the so-called New Left seized control.

In office, Carter adopted the Keynesian economics of the time, buying into the theory that there was a reverse "trade-off" between inflation and unemployment an idea that proved spectacularly wrong. The U.S. became mired in "stagflation," with both inflation and unemployment rising sharply.

As things grew worse, Carter sharply boosted government spending. When that didn't work, he blamed the American people. "I think it's inevitable that there will be a lower standard of living than what everybody had always anticipated," he told advisers in 1979. "The only trend is downward. But it's impossible to get people to face up to this."

Those remarks were followed by his now-famous "malaise" speech in which he unveiled six proposals — including import quotas, windfall profits taxes and increased spending on alternative fuels — to combat higher oil prices charged by OPEC. Nothing about tax cuts. Nothing about finding more energy. In short, he told Americans to consume less, but pay more.

"We have learned that 'more' is not necessarily 'better,' and that even our great nation has its recognized limits," Carter said, borrowing heavily from the "limits to growth" movement that swept liberal intellectual circles in the '70s.

With public anger growing and his own polls lagging, Carter started wearing sweaters and encouraging us to turn down the thermostat. But his big spending didn't work. The resulting budget deficit, 12 times bigger than the one President Nixon left, gave him a serious public relations problem.

On this score, Carter might have escaped his own malaise if he had cut taxes to get the economy going again. But even with marginal income tax rates at a hefty 70%, he accepted the common wisdom that a tax cut would boost inflation and lower government revenue. He was dead wrong.

As noted in "The Commanding Heights," a leading economic history of the last century, "Carter's attempts to follow Keynes' formula and spend his way out of trouble were going nowhere."

Eventually (but grudgingly), Carter did agree to slash the tax rate on capital gains to 28% from 40%. But that didn't kick in until 1979. By then it was too late to help him politically.

See any similarities to the current administration here?

Subject: RE: BS: Lucky to have Jimmy Carter
From: Bobert
Date: 18 Sep 09 - 07:51 AM

Thank God for Jimmy Carter... Being an elder statesman he has the luxary of speaking the truth...

I also live in the South... No one knows better than enlightened white people just how the ballgames go in the South... And as for the "N" word being out of vougue??? It ain't... It is alive and well...

Yes, there's ton's of racism in the South today... Probably more than there was 30 years ago... Folks ain't making the money they used to so they are nervous and ignorant... Bad combination...

B~

Subject: RE: BS: Lucky to have Jimmy Carter
From: GUEST,beardedbruce
Date: 18 Sep 09 - 08:40 AM

Note to Liberals: It's Not About Race


By Jim Sleeper
Sunday, September 20, 2009

Jimmy Carter is a southerner who grew up witnessing Jim Crow segregation in all its forms, so when he told NBC News that he believes "an overwhelming portion" of the public animosity directed at President Obama recently is "based on the fact that he is a black man," many Americans listened. But pointing at racism as the chief source of rage is a trap into which liberals have fallen too often, for reasons we'd better face quickly.

Racism is only one of many factors driving the backlash against the president in town hall meetings and in demonstrations on Capitol Hill. Obama has been right to discount it, because a white president would feel some scorching heat, too. Just hours before Rep. Joe Wilson (R-S.C.) interrupted Obama's address to a joint session of Congress with his brazen "You lie!" shout, the conservative majority on the Supreme Court welcomed arguments against restricting business-corporate funding of "Hillary: The Movie" -- a relic of rage on the presidential primary campaign trail that presaged what Hillary Rodham Clinton would be enduring now were she, not Obama, in the White House.

But sexism isn't the main factor, either; recall the swift-boating of Sen. John F. Kerry (D-Mass.) during the 2004 campaign and the unending conservative rage against former president Bill Clinton. Republican House leader John A. Boehner got close to the truth when he told ABC News last spring that people he met at "taxpayer protests" are "scared to death . . . about the future . . . and the facts that the American dream may not be alive for their kids and grandkids."

Boehner lacks credible answers for these Americans, who are viscerally and legitimately afraid that they'll never again make $28 an hour, afford health insurance or own a home after losing the one they're in. It's the absence of honest answers, more than racism, that's turned out people brandishing signs that liken Obama to Hitler and demanding, with stupefying illogic, that government keep its hands off their Medicaid. Are liberals going to deliver the answers the other side does not -- or will they be sidetracked, yet again, by their constant preoccupation with identity politics.

Fear and rage that ran far deeper than race were palpable at the 2008 Republican National Convention, where Sen. John McCain -- who, to his credit, refused to trade on racism in his campaign -- found himself coping anyway with a large contingent of young delegates whose repertoire of political expression consisted mainly of shouting "Yoo Es Ay! Yoo Es Ay! Yoo Es Ay!"

No matter how subtle, subdued or dignified McCain's appeals to patriotism in his acceptance speech, the chorus grew so loud and insistent that at times it seemed an eruption of the GOP's militaristic id, and even the war-hero candidate looked annoyed.

Yet it would be a mistake to feel disdain for these guys, for their buffoonish chanting was only one side of them, and not necessarily the dominant one. They haven't curdled into fascists, as some on the left seemed to think. More likely, the thwarted decency in them is trying to find a political home, a sense of civic standing that is slipping away.

And now, such individuals are looking for someone or something to blame. With encouragement from Rush Limbaugh and some Republican leaders, they're taking the path of least resistance and blaming an easy mark -- a government they can vote out of office, a leader who looks unfamiliar -- rather than the immense, private bureaucracies they're beholden to, can't touch at the polls and will find even harder to resist if the John Roberts court voids restrictions on corporate "free speech" in campaigns.

Some of them listen to Limbaugh while commuting to work or driving anxiously from one job interview to another, and they recycle his wisdom as their own at the bar, the family dinner table or the diner in western Massachusetts where I sometimes have breakfast. Racism, sexism, Islam, "big government" -- anything will serve, if it spares them having to face being had by the unaccountable powers and riptides that are destroying their dreams.

Wilson's "conduct was asinine, but I think it would be asinine no matter what the color of the president," said Dick Harpootlian, who, far from being Wilson's apologist, is the former chairman of the South Carolina Democratic Party. Condemning racism in this context, as President Carter and many well-meaning liberals do, won't deflect the demagoguery and folly that foreclose bold new strategies in the provision and regulation of capital, health care, energy and defense.

The mistake of crying racism is especially tempting to upscale, influential liberals who, no less than protesters on the right, are ducking the true causes of dispossession, fear and rage: the premises and practices of financial capital, predatory consumer marketing and a national-security state boondoggling.

Liberals who've done well by those practices aren't always serious about redressing their inequities and disruptions. But they can't bring themselves to defend them very wholeheartedly, either. So they grasp at symbolic gestures against racism that short-circuit political currents for necessary change as surely as Rush does.

Remember the moralistic passion plays over the dubious black church "arson epidemic"? Or the supposed "ethnic cleansing" in congressional redistricting in which black incumbents actually won in majority-white districts? That politics of "anti-racist" paroxysm eclipsed the real challenges, which have only worsened since then.

Carter is hardly wrong to condemn racism when he sees it in the protests. But to blame racism for an "overwhelming portion" of the fear and rage rising around us would be to consign legitimately frightened and angry people to demagogues and shut out real change. That would be a strategic blunder, and ultimately a moral one, too.

Subject: RE: BS: Lucky to have Jimmy Carter
From: DougR
Date: 18 Sep 09 - 12:43 PM

Riginslinger: nobody died and appointed Jimmy Carter anything, much less spokesman for the United States. Jimmy Carter is an embarrassment who should retire to his peanut farm and raise peanuts.

For an excellent appraisal of Jimmy Carter, read today's editorial in the Wall Street Journal.

Disagreeing with the policies of a president is NOT racist.

DougR

Subject: RE: BS: Lucky to have Jimmy Carter
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 18 Sep 09 - 07:22 PM

If it walks like a duck, looks like a duck, and quacks like a duck...

Subject: RE: BS: Lucky to have Jimmy Carter
From: Riginslinger
Date: 18 Sep 09 - 10:19 PM

"Riginslinger: nobody died and appointed Jimmy Carter anything, much less spokesman for the United States. Jimmy Carter is an embarrassment who should retire to his peanut farm and raise peanuts."

                I hadn't considered most of the push-back against Obama to be racist until I heard Jimmy Carter say it. There is no person walking around of the face of the planet who I respect more than Jimmy Carter. I realize he grew up in the South when racism was really violent, but he's had time to adjust to that.
                What I'm saying is if Jimmy Carter says it's racist, I'm willing to re-evalutate the facts on the ground.
                That's my opinion. I don't care if anybody else buys into it or not.

Subject: RE: BS: Lucky to have Jimmy Carter
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 19 Sep 09 - 11:17 AM

Do you really think that the posters with Obama in whiteface aren't racist, Doug? Hand on heart?

No one is suggesting that everyone opposed to Obama's policies is racist. Maybe even not all those waving those posters. But there is a term "fellow travellers" which comes to mind.

Subject: RE: BS: Lucky to have Jimmy Carter
From: pdq
Date: 19 Sep 09 - 11:30 AM

"No one is suggesting that everyone opposed to Obama's policies is racist. ~ McWrath

Like Hell. That is exactly what they are saying.

Subject: RE: BS: Lucky to have Jimmy Carter
From: Alice
Date: 19 Sep 09 - 11:35 AM

"they" are saying? Who are "they"? Neither Carter nor anyone I've heard discuss this issue has said all opposition is racist.

Subject: RE: BS: Lucky to have Jimmy Carter
From: kendall
Date: 19 Sep 09 - 12:14 PM

The problem with Carter is he is telling it like it is and we don't want to hear it.

Subject: RE: BS: Lucky to have Jimmy Carter
From: Q (Frank Staplin)
Date: 19 Sep 09 - 01:25 PM

I agree, Kendall. I have relatives and friends in the South and there is no way that most of them would support any program proposed by a black man. They hope that he fails, and that a white conservative will carry the next election.

This is unfortunate, but true. Carter knows his territory.

Subject: RE: BS: Lucky to have Jimmy Carter
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 19 Sep 09 - 01:37 PM

Carter didn't say it, and no one in this thread has said it. So who are "they", pdq?

Subject: RE: BS: Lucky to have Jimmy Carter
From: meself
Date: 19 Sep 09 - 01:52 PM

Why do I have the feeling that we're never going to find out?

Subject: RE: BS: Lucky to have Jimmy Carter
From: pdq
Date: 19 Sep 09 - 02:48 PM

Jimmy Carter's outburst is part of a calculated strategy to silence all opposition to Obama's health care bill.

The DNC called out its biggest "gun" because the poll numbers on ObamaCare dropped to 42% public support. Not only that, the people who favor the plan tend to be the least informed about its actual contents.

Carter was called out to defend Bill Clinton in the impeachment back in 1998. He read DNC talking points along with Di Feinstein and a few other select Democratic Party faithful. Then and now, its called "circle the wagons" and nothing more.

Subject: RE: BS: Lucky to have Jimmy Carter
From: DougR
Date: 19 Sep 09 - 02:49 PM

McGrath: Of course racism is not dead in the United States! I agree that some people are racists and will never vote for a person of color probably for ANY public office.

To have a former president declare, however, that in his opinion, many of those who oppose Obama do so on the basis of race does not further the cause. It only fans the flames.

By the way, Kevin, how many people of color have served as PM in Great Britain?

DougR

Subject: RE: BS: Lucky to have Jimmy Carter
From: Stringsinger
Date: 19 Sep 09 - 03:27 PM

Israel and the US have something in common. A deluded minority is attempting to overthrow a sane government.

Carter has always been a beacon of sanity even when he has made tactical errors such as sending helicopters to rescue the Iranian hostages from the Iranian leaders whereby
Reagan made his deals.

Unfortunately, the American public will not listen to intelligent leaders like Carter.

The Republican Noise Machine fuels violence and lies.

Subject: RE: BS: Lucky to have Jimmy Carter
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 19 Sep 09 - 03:29 PM

None, and we haven't had any Catholics either. But then under our system the Prime Minister isn't elected in a national vote.

But the kind of thing that's been going on, what with those posters of Obama in whiteface, and the orchestrated hate, would be strictly British Nazi Party stuff here.

Maybe what Carter said there might have been imprudent - "fans the flames" - but does that make it untrue? If it is true, the right person to have denounced it would have been someone who was politically opposed to Obama, but even more opposed to racism.

During your election one of the moments that is most memorable was when John McCain publicly stood up against the hate talk by some of his supporters, and it was very inpressive. He recognised that what was going on there was disgracing America, wanted no part in it, and wanted to stop it.

Are there any signs of leading and respected Republicans doing the same thing now?

Subject: RE: BS: Lucky to have Jimmy Carter
From: Alice
Date: 19 Sep 09 - 03:35 PM

Some people think Timothy McVeigh was a hero.

Yes, it would be great if a leader on the right would denounce the crazy and violent talk. By the way, Carter used the word "fringe". He was talking about extremists... but it only takes one to commit a violent deed.

Subject: RE: BS: Lucky to have Jimmy Carter
From: Alice
Date: 19 Sep 09 - 03:50 PM

White Supremacist groups have been hating the federal government long before Obama became president. Now they are riled even more. The Secret Service reports that threats against Obama are 4 times more than what they were against Bush.

from eyeonhate.com

"Vehemently anti-government and viciously anti-racist, Mahon referred to Timothy McVeigh as a martyr for the cause and stated:

"Timothy McVeigh is my hero. Wish we had a thousand more like him. He took action."

He also referred to the bombng [sic] as "a fine thing" and stated further "I hate the government with a perfect hatred. If I had a nuclear bomb, I'd put it in a truck and drive right up to the Capitol Building in Washington and blow it all up, me included." Believing that any and all methods are legitimate when it comes to saving your nation, Mahon was the perfect friend for Timothy McVeigh."
Domestic Terrorism 101 http://www.eyeonhate.com/mcveigh/mcveigh6.html

Subject: RE: BS: Lucky to have Jimmy Carter
From: Alice
Date: 19 Sep 09 - 03:52 PM

I think that "anti-racist" was a misnomer for Mahon.

Subject: RE: BS: Lucky to have Jimmy Carter
From: Ebbie
Date: 19 Sep 09 - 05:56 PM

"By the way, Kevin, how many people of color have served as PM in Great Britain?" DougR

Good grief, DR. That sounds an awful lot like a racist poke.

Subject: RE: BS: Lucky to have Jimmy Carter
From: kendall
Date: 19 Sep 09 - 09:15 PM

If wiping out a day care center is an act of heroism, what planet does this Mahon live on?

Subject: RE: BS: Lucky to have Jimmy Carter
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 20 Sep 09 - 07:37 PM

From the website of the (very conservatve) Daily Telegraph Barack Obama, Joe Wilson & race:

..".why discussing race is so difficult: it is impossible to say that some people are/may be racist without conservatives jumping up and down and claiming that the same applies to everyone in the group under discussion (in this case Obama's protesting opponents).

Expat says: "Mr. Spillius' underlying message is clear. If you protest ANYTHING Obama proposes, it's not because you question the policy, it's because cannot get beyond the fact that the President of the United States is black."

That is not what I am saying. My "underlying message" is that a minority of people have trouble accepting a black president; that racism exists endures in the South; that the questioning of Obama's legitimacy as president and the unhinged hostility - not to mention dubious placards - shown by some protestors is rooted in those factors. That, in turn, de-legitimises what that minority has to say. It does not detract from the genuine anger and bewilderment at the president's big government agenda - but let's save that argument for another day. This seems irredeemably uncontroversial to me.

Subject: RE: BS: Lucky to have Jimmy Carter
From: kendall
Date: 21 Sep 09 - 06:11 AM

The president is as white as he is black. So what? Will these Neanderthals ever come out of the dark ages?

Subject: RE: BS: Lucky to have Jimmy Carter
From: GUEST,Chris B (Born Again Scouser)
Date: 21 Sep 09 - 09:35 AM

It's a pity, but Jimmy Carter probably will never receive the credit he is due during his lifetime. Carter was probably the first US president (certainly during my lifetime) to even make a token effort to try and get Americans to think like people who shared the world with other countries instead of people who were entitled to rule it. I think he was one of the unluckiest presidents of the 20th Century, coming at a time when the game was finally up for the Shah. That didn't stop him coming up with the Camp David Agreement, which created opportunities for peace in the middle east that have sadly been squandered since by both Arabs and Israelis.

For my money, I think a lot of Americans were kidding themselves last November when they thought that voting for a black man was somehow going to redeem America. It didn't and it won't. Race is still the crucial fault-line in American society and it is the fault-line along which American society will inevitably break apart.

If you want to make money in North America, invest in tents. The Canadians are going to need them for the refugees before long.

Subject: RE: BS: Lucky to have Jimmy Carter
From: Greg F.
Date: 21 Sep 09 - 09:37 PM

Jimmy Carter is an embarrassment who should retire to his peanut farm and raise peanuts.

You're projecting again, Douggie. He's nothing like the embarrassment to the U.S. that YOU are.

Subject: RE: BS: Lucky to have Jimmy Carter
From: kendall
Date: 22 Sep 09 - 06:20 AM

Now, play nice.

Subject: RE: BS: Lucky to have Jimmy Carter
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 22 Sep 09 - 07:19 PM

Are there any signs of leading and respected Republicans doing the same thing now?

So do I take it that the answer to that is "No"? It wasn't a rhetorical question. In fact I'd rather assumed that there must be some decent people around in the ranks of the opposition who would be disgusted at some of the things that have been going on, and would feel they had a duty to speak out aboutb it. What price patriotism?

Subject: RE: BS: Lucky to have Jimmy Carter
From: DougR
Date: 23 Sep 09 - 01:27 AM

Ebbie: You can't be serious. You think my questioning why critics of your country are so critical of the US because of perceived racial bias, have not had a person of color as their country's leader? Give me a break.

Or maybe you have joined (or perhaps have always been)a sympathizer of those (including our president)who believes the ills of the world are caused by our country.

DougR

Subject: RE: BS: Lucky to have Jimmy Carter
From: kendall
Date: 23 Sep 09 - 07:38 AM

Doug, you are overstating here. No one I have ever met thinks the USA has caused all of the world's problems. But anyone who thinks we have done nothing but good is deluded.

Subject: RE: BS: Lucky to have Jimmy Carter
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 23 Sep 09 - 08:25 AM

Sometimes people only hear what they want to hear. Even when no one actually says it.

Subject: RE: BS: Lucky to have Jimmy Carter
From: Greg F.
Date: 23 Sep 09 - 08:56 AM

Aren't persistent delusions and hearing voices earmarks of mental instability and/or serious mental illness?

Perhaps a medical evaluation is in order.

Subject: RE: BS: Lucky to have Jimmy Carter
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 23 Sep 09 - 01:25 PM

We all do it from time tomtime. It's not so much what we want to hear, it's what we expect to hear.

We get in a dispute and we build up this set of assumptions about the other person, and whatever they say we are likely to hear what we have programmed ourselves to hear.

So in political terms you have someone like Obama, who is almost painfully moderate, someone who would be recognised in just about any other country as a decent conservative, with policies to match. But to thousands of his fellow citizens he evidently comes across as a crazy and fanatical Socialist or Nazi. He can't seem to open his mouth without declaring his passionate love for his country and his belief in its destiny to form an "ever more perfect union" - and someone like Doug sees and hears someone who thinks that America is the source of all evil in the world, as he indicated in that last post of his.

It's easy enough to see how people who see the world through the distorted lense of racism should react in that kind of way. But it's much more puzzling when those who don't suffer under that kind of handicap are caught up in this kind of delusion.

Disagreements about policy are one thing. But this is something that goes way beyond that. It is genuinely frightening. Where does it end? Another dead president?

Subject: RE: BS: Lucky to have Jimmy Carter
From: Greg F.
Date: 23 Sep 09 - 02:23 PM

We all do it from time to time.

Agreed. But then there are those that do it ALL the time.

... it's much more puzzling when those who don't suffer under that kind of handicap [racism] are caught up in this kind of delusion.

He's sure suffering under SOME kind of handicap.

It is genuinely frightening.

You Betcha! People like Doug ARE frightening.

Where does it end? Another dead president?

Ask Doug- don't ask me. He's one of those that are dangerously delusional.

Subject: RE: BS: Lucky to have Jimmy Carter
From: kendall
Date: 24 Sep 09 - 11:35 AM

Doug is a nice guy who sees thing from a different angle.

Subject: RE: BS: Lucky to have Jimmy Carter
From: Greg F.
Date: 24 Sep 09 - 01:10 PM

No, he's not, and I'm REALLY tired of people making excuses for this man.

It is NOT simply a "difference of opinion" or different angle" at all.

He inhabits a alternate, delusional reality & his ilk are responsible for spreading the lies and bullshit and disinformationt that encourage and activate the unthinking, ignorant and sometimes violent right-wing lunatic fringe.

Subject: RE: BS: Lucky to have Jimmy Carter
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 24 Sep 09 - 02:02 PM

Evidently it isn't only on the far right that people are liable to fall into just the same trap, as disagreement about politics degenerates into the politics of hate.

Picture of an ilk sounding off

Subject: RE: BS: Lucky to have Jimmy Carter
From: Greg F.
Date: 24 Sep 09 - 03:02 PM

McGrath:

If you're implying that I "hate Doug" You're way off. I don't hate Doug- if anything, I pity him.

As for "engaging in the politics of hate", I don't see that examining the consequences of the behavior & mindset of persons like Doug pertains.

What I DO hate is what mindless idiots are doing to my country.

Per H.L. Mencken- hardly a pinko leftie:
The notion that a radical is one who hates his country is naive and usually idiotic. He is, more likely, one who likes his country more than the rest of us, and is thus more disturbed than the rest of us when he sees it debauched.

Subject: RE: BS: Lucky to have Jimmy Carter
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 24 Sep 09 - 04:03 PM

But then that last sentence is precisely what the people with the banners and the lies and the screaming would no doubt they of themselves say of themselves, and they believe it too.   

The puzzle is where it's coming from, so far as the non-racists among them. I think one part of it is a mindset that says that in a battle the only thing that matters is winning, and anything that helps achieve that is OK. And that's not an attitude restricted to the right.

Why, even Saul Alinsky - whom I admire enormously in many ways - says more or less precisely that in Rules for Radicals. And to me it seems that may be a way to win a battle, but it's also a good way to lose a war in the end.

Subject: RE: BS: Lucky to have Jimmy Carter
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 24 Sep 09 - 04:39 PM

...Half-wracked prejudice leaped forth
"rip down all hate," i screamed
Lies that life is black and white
Spoke from my skull. i dreamed
Romantic facts of musketeers
Foundationed deep, somehow.
Ah, but i was so much older then,
I'm younger than that now....

Subject: RE: BS: Lucky to have Jimmy Carter
From: kendall
Date: 24 Sep 09 - 06:28 PM

We all have an opinion. One can argue with Doug's, but to say his opinion is wrong is not right. We Liberals are known for our tolerance of other opinions that don't jibe with our own.

In my opinion, the most we can say is we disagree and state why.

I've never known Doug to spread lies and just because he belongs to the party that I have no use for doesn't make him a bad guy. I have relatives and friends who belong to that party. Does that make me one of them? Guilt by association?

Subject: RE: BS: Lucky to have Jimmy Carter
From: Greg F.
Date: 24 Sep 09 - 06:47 PM

One can argue with Doug's, but to say his opinion is wrong is not right.

I never said his opinion was "wrong".

I said and still say his "FACTS"[sic] are wrong. His tactics are irresponsible.

And as has been said elsewhere, no amount of belief can make a fact.

I have plenty of tolerence for others' opinions. I have little to no tolerence for lies, distortions, inventions and outright bullshit.

Subject: RE: BS: Lucky to have Jimmy Carter
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 24 Sep 09 - 07:45 PM

If I say I disagree with someone of course I am saying that they are wrong. Just as they are saying that I am wrong. That's what disagreeing with someone means.

But saying someone is wrong isn't the same as saying that he or she is a bad person, just as saying that someone is right is the same as saying he or she is a good person. Some of them are and some of them aren't, both ways.

But that's the line that is being crossed in a lot of the public dissent we've been seeing. It's the kind of thing that was happening in the election when John McCain felt it was his duty to rebuke people who were talking hate talk. And the shameful thing is that there doeesn't seem to have been something similar this time.

Subject: RE: BS: Lucky to have Jimmy Carter
From: Greg F.
Date: 25 Sep 09 - 08:29 AM

...rebuke people who were talking hate talk. And the shameful thing is that there doeesn't seem to have been something similar this time.

Again, take this up with Doug & his ilk. This crap is coming from the gang of lunatics the Republican party has evidently become, whether it be fake 'tea parties', gun-toting thugs at 'Town Meetings', 'death panels' or Congresswoman Lynn Jenkins of Kansas (hone of the Creation Science[sic] Museum with humans riding dinosaurs, etc) calling for a 'great white hope' - her precise words- to oppose President Obama.

Apparently there's no one in the Republican Partywith a shred of decency left, or they'd speak out to condemn this garbage, and the people - Limbaugh etc.- who spew it.

What's more amazing to me is that the President keeps taking this filth on the chin without speaking out.

Subject: RE: BS: Lucky to have Jimmy Carter
From: number 6
Date: 25 Sep 09 - 09:07 AM

"Half of the people can be part right all of the time, Some of the people can be all right part of the time, But all the people can't be all right all the time. I think Abraham Lincoln said that. I'll let you be in my dreams if I can be in yours. I said that.

....... Bob Dylan


BiLL

Subject: RE: BS: Lucky to have Jimmy Carter
From: Azizi
Date: 25 Sep 09 - 09:38 AM

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LmE7tuR0364

The Late Show with David Letterman / David Letterman and President Barack Obama - 09/21/09
"David Letterman and President Barack Obama discuss whether the President believes racism is behind recent political attacks."

-snip-

Part of President Obama's response was "I've been black all my life."

IMO, that was an astute political response which can be taken in more than one way.

See the different responses posters (mostly Americans of mixed races) at racialicious.com wrote about that comment:

http://www.racialicious.com/2009/09/23/open-thread-i-was-black-before-the-election/#comments

For what it's worth, I agree with the following poster to that thread who wrote that

"Obama knows where his priorities are. It does not matter what he thinks on the issue; his number 1 priority is health care reform. He will have plenty of time as a lame duck (inevitably, hopefully in 6 years and not 3) to agree with president Carter. Until then I would be f***king* angry if he was stepping in the flaming bag of poop that is race. He fell for it with stupid Professor Gates, and I hope he learned his lesson.

I think that Obama understands fundamentally that there are a lot of people who are comfortable with a black president as long as he is not a reparations-demanding slavery-blaming N-word saying Civil Rights stereotype. I think if he EVER shows a shade of that, then he will immediately lose the (paradoxical) patina of the post-racial president, and become the Angry Black Man in the eyes of too many people. He needs too broad a base of support to be able to risk this.

Obama is unique in that he figured out a "second card" that is not the race card, that a powerful black politician can play – the "race is not a big deal" card. By leaving race on the black burner, while doing a damned good job as president, he can let it die the slow death of obscurity that it SHOULD be dying – the same death by obscurity that hate against the Irish or Italians or Catholics is dying.

The more he distances himself from the ugly politics of race, the more the fact that he is black and the fact that he is president say everything he needs to say. Ever notice that no one EVER has anything to say about Barack Obama's blackness, except the ol' "what do you think about us having a black president?" Thats what he WANTS us to talk about – the visions of progress and equality, instead of racial politics. He makes people against him, those that blow the dogwhistle of race, just look more racist, because he forces THEM to bring it up and be racist, and he lets the loudmouths in the media call them out. This will only silence them more on the issue of race.

Whether or not he takes these actions because he sees it as an actual strategy against racism (this is how I see it) or because he thinks its simply the most expedient thing to do with regard to his political agenda, I have no idea. But I sure hope it works out both for racism and his politics.
-Minotaar, Posted 24 Sep 2009 at 2:16 am ¶

-snip-

* I edited the curse word to more closely fit my puritanical sensitivities.


BTW, kendall, with regard to your statement that President Obama is as much black as he is white, while that is biologically true, race is a social construct, and not a biological one. Most people in the United States are still defining race based on the one drop of black blood rule. Given this socialization (and skin color, hair texture and other physical clues that people have been socialized to believe are what "black people look like"), President Obama undoubtedly fits the category of a person who has been "black all of his life".

Subject: RE: BS: Lucky to have Jimmy Carter
From: meself
Date: 25 Sep 09 - 09:54 AM

That quoted post is very astute. Thanks for sharing it with us.

Subject: RE: BS: Lucky to have Jimmy Carter
From: Azizi
Date: 25 Sep 09 - 10:06 AM

Actually I meant to write "kendall, with regard to your statement that President Obama is just as much white as black"...

But the way I initially phrased that sentence revealed my position on that matter.

Subject: RE: BS: Lucky to have Jimmy Carter
From: Azizi
Date: 25 Sep 09 - 10:08 AM

You're welcome, meself.

Subject: RE: BS: Lucky to have Jimmy Carter
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 25 Sep 09 - 01:12 PM

I wondered whether "black burner" was a typo or a neologism I hadn't come across. Neat anyway.

Subject: RE: BS: Lucky to have Jimmy Carter
From: Azizi
Date: 25 Sep 09 - 01:38 PM

I think it's a typo, but that's just a guess because I've never heard "black burner" used in "real life" (meaning life outside of the Internet) and I've never seen that phrase written anywhere else.

For what it's worth, I read that phrase as "back burner" and didn't realize it actually was "black burner" until you pointed it out.
I guess the poster had "black" people on his/her mind, and that led to him/her typing the word "black" instead of the word "back".

However it came about, it's interesting to think of the implications of "race" [being kept] on the black burner".

That phrase calls to mind James Baldwin's 1963 book The Fire Next Time.

Subject: RE: BS: Lucky to have Jimmy Carter
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 25 Sep 09 - 02:03 PM

There've been a good few potentially useful expressions that probably started out as typos. For example this one I found here - "temperment".

Subject: RE: BS: Lucky to have Jimmy Carter
From: Stringsinger
Date: 25 Sep 09 - 02:05 PM

Joe, the problem is less the Israeli people and more AIPAC. They are the propaganda organ of the US which Obama has supported.

Jim Sleeper's article should have said, "It's not all about race" but to deny that there is this component goes against American history.

The problem is in the US today, Conservatism as a philosophy has been replaced by radical right wingers who refuse to rationally discuss the current state of affairs. The G.O.P. has killed Conservatism as a respectable alternate voice in the debates. So we have opinions by indoctrinated minds who for certain extra-political reasons need to keep drawing their dubious lines in the sand. When this idea is taken in, then you will see that any constructive dialogue has been replaced by name calling and ad-hominem arguments.

What's left? Pat Buchanan's "culture war"?

People are hurting today but the rage is misplaced. The people who have caused the problems with our economy are being supported by the ragers.

Carter has always assumed the role of a rational mediator. This was his true legacy. He was a beacon of light in his appeal to reason and discussion rather than knee-jerk
right-wing radicalism.

Micheal Moore is left-wing knee jerk you say? He is dealing squarely with the issues and
not just ad-hominem attacks on figures. He's not out calling people "liars" but presenting his facts in an orderly and artistic way.

Jimmy Carter may have made some blunders in the White House.   What president hasn't?
But he brought to the office a sense of dignity, decorum, and open discussion.
Bush and Reagan shut that all down.

Subject: RE: BS: Lucky to have Jimmy Carter
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 25 Sep 09 - 02:12 PM

Surely the truth is that "Conservatism as a philosophy" in the States is represented by the mainstream Democratic Party".

Subject: RE: BS: Lucky to have Jimmy Carter
From: Riginslinger
Date: 29 Dec 09 - 06:39 AM

Now Jimmy Carter--the man with a heart as big as the Milky Way--is trying to make peace with the militant Jews who have been attacking him for the last several years. I wonder if they will be big enough to accept?

Subject: RE: BS: Lucky to have Jimmy Carter
From: Bobert
Date: 29 Dec 09 - 08:55 AM

Who knows, Rigs... The main thing is that Jimmy is going to them with an open hand rather than a fist... Peace starts somewhere...

Subject: RE: BS: Lucky to have Jimmy Carter
From: Riginslinger
Date: 29 Dec 09 - 10:25 AM

It does in fact, Bobert.

Subject: RE: BS: Lucky to have Jimmy Carter
From: katlaughing
Date: 29 Dec 09 - 11:25 AM

"The way to war is a well-paved highway and the way to peace is still a wilderness."
- Paul P. Harris

May President Carter be successful in bringing peace out of the wilderness.

Subject: RE: BS: Lucky to have Jimmy Carter
From: Riginslinger
Date: 29 Dec 09 - 11:33 AM

Well, Kat, if anyone can do it...

Subject: RE: BS: Lucky to have Jimmy Carter
From: Jim Dixon
Date: 24 Nov 10 - 02:31 PM

I just heard part of an interview on public radio of Walter Mondale by Garrison Keillor.

Mondale thinks Jimmy Carter deserves more credit than he got.

He said, "We told the truth, we obeyed the law, and we kept the peace."

Subject: RE: BS: Lucky to have Jimmy Carter
From: LadyJean
Date: 25 Nov 10 - 01:35 AM

When Carter was president, I could walk from one end of Walnut Street to the other without being panhandled.

I went to church, when I went, with a dollar for the plate, and nothing else, except Kleenex and antacids, both for my own use.

Now, I'll be panhandled at least twice no matter what city street I walk down.

Being older, I go to church more regularly, besides the money for the plate, I lug a bag of groceries for the food pantry, and some item for the shelter they run for homeless men.

In 1980, I voted for John Anderson. At least once a week, I kick myself good and hard for having done so.

Subject: RE: BS: Lucky to have Jimmy Carter
From: GUEST,Guest from Sanity
Date: 25 Nov 10 - 02:19 AM

"When Carter was president, I could walk from one end of Walnut Street to the other without being panhandled."

It was the times, not because Carter was president. Frankly, he sucked!

GfS

Subject: RE: BS: Lucky to have Jimmy Carter
From: GUEST,Patsy
Date: 25 Nov 10 - 03:08 AM

I know back in the day Jimmy Carter and his family have been ridiculed a lot but now I respect him for the way he remains involved with things that are important to him instead of going off spending the rest of his days playing golf. I don't know of any politicians here in the UK who remain involved with humanitarian issues unless they keep quiet about it. In the UK they tend to write books and dish the dirt about others instead of doing something useful.

Subject: RE: BS: Lucky to have Jimmy Carter
From: Mrrzy
Date: 12 Nov 19 - 10:10 AM

Don't die, Jimmy, not yet!

Subject: RE: BS: Lucky to have Jimmy Carter
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 12 Nov 19 - 12:15 PM

Each president, when they enter into office, is asked to plan how they want their funeral to run. Jimmy's will be modest when the time comes, but there will be enough pomp and circumstance to put the Orange one into apoplexy and try to make it about himself. It would be best if Jimmy sticks around until there is a well-balanced 46 to show the appropriate sadness when the time does arrive.

Subject: RE: BS: Lucky to have Jimmy Carter
From: keberoxu
Date: 12 Nov 19 - 12:54 PM

An earlier post on this thread, by
Mudcat's late lamented katlaughing,
quoted Paul P. Harris,

comparing the well-paved highway to war with
the wilderness in between us and peace.

Does anyone else here remember Thomas the Rhymer?

O see ye not yon narrow road
So thick beset wi' thorns and briars?
That is the Path of Righteousness,
Though after it but few inquires.

And see ye not yon braid, braid road
That lies across the lily leven?
That is the Path of Wickedness,
Though some call it the road to Heaven . . .

Subject: RE: BS: Lucky to have Jimmy Carter
From: robomatic
Date: 12 Nov 19 - 02:44 PM

I still remember Saturday Night Live where Dan Ackroyd played Jimmy Carter campaigning, emphasis on smile, personality, but no policy. It was a level of lampooning that incorporated a humor and even gentility that wee no longer experience in political life, nor Saturday Night Live.

Carte Ford Debate

President Carter burning a dollar

The genuine Jimmy Carter has been a beneficent presence in American life outside of politics and a reminder of a better way.

And, of course, he challenged Homer Simpson to a duel

Subject: RE: BS: Lucky to have Jimmy Carter
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 12 Nov 19 - 03:49 PM

He was the best president you could ever have had but for external vicissitudes and the "charisma" of the philistine twat who replaced him, the bloke who engineered a horrible and unjust campaign in Central America and who in turn gave succour to Thatcher, who gave succour to Pinochet and who, along with Reagan, set in train the sequence of events that has led us to the ghastly state we are in today. If only things had gone better in 1979/1980 on both sides of the Atlantic...

Subject: RE: BS: Lucky to have Jimmy Carter
From: Donuel
Date: 12 Nov 19 - 07:33 PM

I remember the week after Jimmy left office. Reagan had the solar cells Jimmy had installed from the white house roof ripped down.

I suspect Reagan created some foreign interference, much like Trump, because Ronnie had negotiated the release of the American hostages from Iran
ON THE DAY OF HIS INAUGURATION.

Iran Contra came much later.

Subject: RE: BS: Lucky to have Jimmy Carter
From: keberoxu
Date: 13 Nov 19 - 03:08 PM

Here is Mr. Carter at Emory University.

Politics, peace and peanut butter

Subject: RE: BS: Lucky to have Jimmy Carter
From: keberoxu
Date: 02 Dec 19 - 11:00 PM

Talking of Emory University,
when Mr. Carter fell this year and needed attention,
I believe that was the hospital where he was kept under observation.
Since then he has enjoyed Thanksgiving with his family.

Today the reports broke that he is in hospital again --
but if you slow down and read the small print,
it's the hospital nearest Americus, Georgia,
and not
Emory University in Atlanta.
He needs a little attention, but not as serious as last time.

Subject: RE: BS: Lucky to have Jimmy Carter
From: keberoxu
Date: 03 Dec 19 - 02:11 PM

How did I miss this last month?

women, girls, and climate change

Subject: RE: BS: Lucky to have Jimmy Carter
From: keberoxu
Date: 04 Dec 19 - 10:20 AM

I was paying very little attention, those many decades ago,
when the rabbit assault hit the mass media.
So I really didn't bother to find out exactly what they spoke of.
And then Pete Seeger and Arlo Guthrie performed
a joint performance on the Boston Common,
memorable for many reasons -- I was among the multitudes.

Pete Seeger took a breather during the show
and Arlo Guthrie sang Tom Paxton's Bunny Wunny song.
It got plenty of laughs, but Mr. Guthrie was disgruntled
when we failed to sing along on the Bunny Wunny chorus.
I think it was a combination of
embarrassment and never-before-heard-this-silly-song.

Only now am I looking at the summaries in hindsight,
and I see that Jody Powell, talking to the press,
carelessly repeated a remark from Mr. Carter
about something that occurred when Mr. Carter was quite alone.

I always had an impression, from the mass media's massive stench,
that the Secret Service were in the little boat with the President.
More fool me, and
anyway I am no longer so naïve about the press/media.

Subject: RE: BS: Lucky to have Jimmy Carter
From: keberoxu
Date: 12 Dec 19 - 11:49 AM

"The quid pro quo was not in him."

That quote was printed when
the Oval Office had a Bush in it.
The "him" was Jimmy Carter,
and the person who made the statement was not identified.
The context, during the Bush administration,
was a reminiscence about
President Carter facing off with Congress.

And today, with Congress mobilized for impeachment,
that quote resonates as never before.

Subject: RE: BS: Lucky to have Jimmy Carter
From: Donuel
Date: 12 Dec 19 - 04:53 PM

I remember 'In his heart, he knows your wife'

Subject: RE: BS: Lucky to have Jimmy Carter
From: keberoxu
Date: 14 Dec 19 - 03:53 PM

Here's wishing him
at least one more Happy Christmas with his family in Georgia.

Subject: RE: BS: Lucky to have Jimmy Carter
From: keberoxu
Date: 29 Feb 20 - 02:16 PM

When you have reached Jimmy Carter's age,
it's a big deal to make it to
one more Leap Year day, yes?
Hope he and his family have a happy one.

Subject: RE: BS: Lucky to have Jimmy Carter
From: keberoxu
Date: 02 Mar 20 - 11:44 AM

I note that just before ending his presidential campaign,
Pete Buddigieg had one last breakfast meeting with
Mr and Mrs Carter in Georgia.

Subject: RE: BS: Lucky to have Jimmy Carter
From: keberoxu
Date: 08 Dec 21 - 08:07 PM

And Mr. Carter has now managed to outlive
the man who referred to him as
"chicken-fried McGovern."

Which some people call humor, it sounds hostile to me, actually.

Subject: RE: BS: Lucky to have Jimmy Carter
From: keberoxu
Date: 19 Aug 23 - 03:56 PM

Jimmy Carter has been at home in hospice care for some months now,
and his grandson Josh Carter recently told the press that
it is clear that "we are in the final chapter."

Such things he has lived to see, especially with the Presidency!

Subject: RE: BS: Lucky to have Jimmy Carter
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 19 Aug 23 - 04:24 PM

Rosalynn, who had a birthday this week, 96, has a form of dementia. I don't know how bad it is but she is still at home. I fear that with this close couple that when one goes, the other will soon follow. I've seen it happen with old family friends.

Subject: RE: BS: Lucky to have Jimmy Carter
From: keberoxu
Date: 21 Aug 23 - 01:36 PM

According to NBC News, Rosalynn Carter planned to observe her birthday
by eating cupcakes and peanut butter ice cream
and by releasing butterflies in the home garden.

Subject: RE: BS: Lucky to have Jimmy Carter
From: keberoxu
Date: 21 Aug 23 - 01:41 PM

Also, Jason Carter, the chair of the Carter Center Board,
has expressed sadness on the recent death of
Hugh "Sonny" Carter who was part of the Carter Administration.

(son of Jimmy Carter's first cousin)

Subject: RE: BS: Lucky to have Jimmy Carter
From: keberoxu
Date: 22 Aug 23 - 03:00 PM

I can't link to it, but the New York Times has
an update on Jimmy Carter,
all I can pull up is the excerpted quote of a grandson saying
"he's still very much himself."

Subject: RE: BS: Lucky to have Jimmy Carter
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 22 Aug 23 - 03:42 PM

Jimmy Carter, 6 Months Into Hospice, Is Still ‘Very Much’ Himself, Grandson Says
He still holds hands with his wife, Rosalynn, their grandson Josh Carter said. The family is making plans for the former president’s 99th birthday in October.

After surviving a series of health crises in recent years, including repeated falls and a bout with the skin cancer melanoma, which spread to his liver and brain, Mr. Carter opted to enter hospice care in February. According to the American Medical Association, hospice care is generally intended to relieve pain and suffering in patients who most likely have six months or less to live.

But Mr. Carter, the longest living president in American history, crossed that threshold on Friday. His family is making plans for his 99th birthday on Oct. 1, and are “surprised and thankful” that it appears they will have the chance to celebrate it, Josh Carter said.

Subject: RE: BS: Lucky to have Jimmy Carter
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 22 Aug 23 - 03:46 PM

Keb noted the passing of Jimmy's nephew. A respected and engaging Carter administration person, Hodding Carter III (no relation to Jimmy) died earlier this year. He was a remarkable journalist and commentator.

Subject: RE: BS: Lucky to have Jimmy Carter
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 21 Sep 23 - 12:52 PM

Another month has passed, Jimmy has defied expectations. "Maybe it’s the peanut butter ice cream he still enjoys. Or the fact that his first-place Atlanta Braves are cruising toward the playoffs and he wants to see another World Series. Or as many of his loved ones and former advisers suggest, maybe he is just too stubborn to follow anyone else’s timetable."

Jimmy Carter’s Final Chapter: Peanut Butter Ice Cream and His 99th Birthday
Mr. Carter was already the longest-living president in American history, but his staying power even in hospice has captured the imagination of admirers around the world.

“We thought at the beginning of this process that it was going to be in five or so days,” Jason Carter, his grandson, said in an interview, recalling the former president’s decision to check out of the hospital and go into hospice care at his home in Plains, Ga., last February. “I was down there with him in the hospital and then said goodbye. And then we thought it was going to be in that week that it was coming to the end. And it’s just now been seven months.”

Subject: RE: BS: Lucky to have Jimmy Carter
From: keberoxu
Date: 02 Oct 23 - 11:08 AM

He made it!
Yesterday (Sunday) was Jimmy Carter's 99th birthday.

Subject: RE: BS: Lucky to have Jimmy Carter
From: Donuel
Date: 03 Oct 23 - 07:09 AM

Recently Carter was asked if there was something he still would want to finish in the time he has remaining. He quickly answered
'peace in the Middle East and the end of the Guinea Wirm plague'.
When he began his campaign there were 2 and a half million victims of the worm. Today there are only 6. Only smallpox was the only other plague eradicated.
source: Rachael Maddow

Subject: RE: BS: Lucky to have Jimmy Carter
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 03 Oct 23 - 09:16 AM

Polio is extremely rare these days and has been eradicated in north and South America and Europe. It's somewhat tenacious in a few countries but even there we're on our way. Some good news yesterday about a second cheap and effective malaria vaccine.

Subject: RE: BS: Lucky to have Jimmy Carter
From: Donuel
Date: 03 Oct 23 - 03:55 PM

I was the plus one guest at the celebration party for the malaria vaccine. There are some other means of eradication that would doom the Anopheles mosquito,

Subject: RE: BS: Lucky to have Jimmy Carter
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 19 Nov 23 - 03:35 PM

Rosalynn died today at age 96. She recently entered hospice (like, last week). Jimmy has been in hospice most of the year.

Subject: RE: BS: Lucky to have Jimmy Carter
From: keberoxu
Date: 19 Nov 23 - 06:31 PM

I am reminded of Stilly's post in August of this year:
when one dies, if the couple is close, the other is soon to follow.
Maybe this is how Rosalynn wished it --
that she would be the first so that
she would not have to grieve her husband's passing.

I hope Mr. Carter's passing is painless and peaceful, when it comes.

Subject: RE: BS: Lucky to have Jimmy Carter
From: Ebbie
Date: 20 Nov 23 - 09:03 PM

A Polish friend told me that they have a saying to the effect that when your loved one dies, be extra careful- the departed one wants you to come.

Subject: RE: BS: Lucky to have Jimmy Carter
From: Donuel
Date: 03 Oct 23 - 07:09 AM

Recently Carter was asked if there was something he still would want to finish in the time he has remaining. He quickly answered
'peace in the Middle East and the end of the Guinea Wirm plague'.
When he began his campaign there were 2 and a half million victims of the worm. Today there are only 6. Only smallpox was the only other plague eradicated.
source: Rachael Maddow

Subject: RE: BS: Lucky to have Jimmy Carter
From: Donuel
Date: 03 Oct 23 - 03:55 PM

I was the plus one guest at the celebration party for the malaria vaccine. There are some other means of eradication that would doom the Anopheles mosquito,

Subject: RE: BS: Lucky to have Jimmy Carter
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 21 Sep 23 - 12:52 PM

Another month has passed, Jimmy has defied expectations. "Maybe it’s the peanut butter ice cream he still enjoys. Or the fact that his first-place Atlanta Braves are cruising toward the playoffs and he wants to see another World Series. Or as many of his loved ones and former advisers suggest, maybe he is just too stubborn to follow anyone else’s timetable."

Jimmy Carter’s Final Chapter: Peanut Butter Ice Cream and His 99th Birthday
Mr. Carter was already the longest-living president in American history, but his staying power even in hospice has captured the imagination of admirers around the world.

“We thought at the beginning of this process that it was going to be in five or so days,” Jason Carter, his grandson, said in an interview, recalling the former president’s decision to check out of the hospital and go into hospice care at his home in Plains, Ga., last February. “I was down there with him in the hospital and then said goodbye. And then we thought it was going to be in that week that it was coming to the end. And it’s just now been seven months.”

Subject: RE: BS: Lucky to have Jimmy Carter
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 03 Oct 23 - 09:16 AM

Polio is extremely rare these days and has been eradicated in north and South America and Europe. It's somewhat tenacious in a few countries but even there we're on our way. Some good news yesterday about a second cheap and effective malaria vaccine.

Subject: RE: BS: Lucky to have Jimmy Carter
From: keberoxu
Date: 02 Oct 23 - 11:08 AM

He made it!
Yesterday (Sunday) was Jimmy Carter's 99th birthday.

Subject: RE: BS: Lucky to have Jimmy Carter
From: Ebbie
Date: 20 Nov 23 - 09:03 PM

A Polish friend told me that they have a saying to the effect that when your loved one dies, be extra careful- the departed one wants you to come.

Subject: RE: BS: Lucky to have Jimmy Carter
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 19 Nov 23 - 03:35 PM

Rosalynn died today at age 96. She recently entered hospice (like, last week). Jimmy has been in hospice most of the year.

Subject: RE: BS: Lucky to have Jimmy Carter
From: keberoxu
Date: 19 Nov 23 - 06:31 PM

I am reminded of Stilly's post in August of this year:
when one dies, if the couple is close, the other is soon to follow.
Maybe this is how Rosalynn wished it --
that she would be the first so that
she would not have to grieve her husband's passing.

I hope Mr. Carter's passing is painless and peaceful, when it comes.

Subject: RE: BS: Lucky to have Jimmy Carter
From: Mrrzy
Date: 21 Nov 23 - 11:31 AM

And long may it not arrive.

Subject: RE: BS: Lucky to have Jimmy Carter
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 28 Nov 23 - 03:03 PM

Rosalynn's memorial service in Atlanta just ended. It was a beautiful service, respectful, funny, the Bible readings were really short and the stories from friends and loved ones were generous in detail. Jimmy was there in a long chair and I think slept through some of it. They were kind and didn't do any closeups (that I noticed). He's coasting on fumes right now.

Hillary and Bill Clinton were there, as were Joe and Jill Biden. Michelle Obama and Laura Bush attended and surprisingly, Melania was there. Everyone else wore black, Melania wore gray. While several first ladies did real hugs, as did VP Harris, Mrs. Trump did a couple of air kisses. But she did attend. The grandson Jason thanked all of the former first ladies and the current by name, noting that Rosalynn would be pleased they attended. And to Jill and Hillary, "welcome to your lovely husbands."

Subject: RE: BS: Lucky to have Jimmy Carter
From: Rapparee
Date: 29 Nov 23 - 08:38 PM

Yes, it impressed me. I wonder who will attend Jimmy’s.

Subject: RE: BS: Lucky to have Jimmy Carter
From: keberoxu
Date: 30 Nov 23 - 06:37 PM

Did you notice that at the Athens church funeral,
the Carter family wore Hawaiian leis?
Jimmy and Rosalynn Carter were stationed in Hawaii
during his Navy service,
and they made lifelong friends there
who shipped leis to Georgia for the whole family.
Even Jimmy Carter wore one, a vivid red.

Subject: RE: BS: Lucky to have Jimmy Carter
From: keberoxu
Date: 18 Feb 24 - 02:27 PM

As usual I can't link to the New York Times today,
but their feature article on Jimmy Carter noted that
it is now a year since hospice care was begun.

Subject: RE: BS: Lucky to have Jimmy Carter
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 18 Feb 24 - 02:41 PM

Jimmy Carter’s Long Goodbye
The former president is on the verge of having spent a year in hospice care, once again confounding expectations in a life that has lasted nearly a century.

It starts:

Practically no one ever thought he would be elected president in the first place. Or that he would forge a landmark treaty in the Middle East. Or that he would win the Nobel Peace Prize. Or that he would beat cancer.

But Jimmy Carter has been confounding expectations throughout a life that has lasted nearly a century. And so he is again, now near the end.

Mr. Carter entered hospice care one year ago Sunday, choosing to forgo further life-prolonging treatment with the intent to return to his simple home in Plains, Ga., to pass his final days in comfort and peace. As it turns out, there have been more final days than he or anyone around him anticipated.

Subject: RE: BS: Lucky to have Jimmy Carter
From: Thompson
Date: 23 Feb 24 - 02:27 AM

Wasn't Carter actually successful in the hostage release, but they were released during Reagan's swearing-in?
Carter is right about Israel; its war has destroyed Gaza's education system; more and more I'm reminded of the actions of the 16th- to 18th-century English in Ireland, where they targeted poets and made all non-English education illegal (resulting in the "hedge schools" in which educated people would secretly teach Irish literature, Latin, Greek and mathematics to pupils, with one child keeping a lookout).
In Gaza, Israeli bombing, sniping, etc has so far killed some 100 academics, hundreds of teachers and thousands of students; this piece is from a couple of weeks ago so the numbers are probably larger.

Subject: RE: BS: Lucky to have Jimmy Carter
From: keberoxu
Date: 25 Feb 24 - 07:28 AM

The White House Historical Association, established by Jacqueline Kennedy, issues a Christmas tree ornament every year;
the presidents honored, one at a time, on these ornaments
have so far been deceased.

This year's Christmas tree ornament honors Jimmy Carter,
the first living former president to be so honored.

The ornament is in the shape of an anchor,
in tribute to Carter's service in the Navy.