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Disintermediation and Politics
code_rage writes "Everett Ehrlich (capsule biography) writes an article in the Washington Post that examines Howard Dean's effective use of the internet to create a political organization. He says that Dean has created a 'virtual' party that has taken over the only remaining asset of value, the brand name of the Democratic party. His analysis refers to the theory of Nobel-winning economist Ronald Coase: that the size of an organization is determined by the cost of gathering information. Ehrlich's article makes some predictions about the effect that Dean's strategy will have on the political system." In a related story, there's an mp3 interview with Dick Morris, along with a couple of (appropriately) blog posts about it.
I've always wondered why Republican political figures such as Bush don't just tell the bible-pounders to go pound sand. It's not as if they're going to vote Democratic just to spite the administration, right? Ehrlich's point explains just exactly why: because if the torch-waving asshats of the American Taliban ever take their ball and go home, the Democrats will win by default, forever and ever Amen. There will be no single party capable of stopping them. And once unopposed, the Democrats will start to look a lot more like old-school Democrats (read: socialists in populists' clothing) than the Stepford Republicans they now resemble.
Scary stuff for a right-leaning person such as myself who thought he had no use for the religious wackos that infest the Republican party...
I don't buy it. As far as being able to organize a campaign based on emotionally-charged issues, and thus being able to recruit volunteers with little or not effort, the internet will and has had a dramatic impact on politics (i.e., Howard Dean). But just because it allowed Dean to expand his base of support much more rapidly and widely than was ever possible before, that does not automatically mean the death of organized politics and our two-party system. How will it help moderate, hum-drum politics and politicians (probably > 90%), or even interesting politicians without a drum to beat? It won't. It'll help the radical and/or disaffected fringes to have more of a voice (which is usually a good thing), but most Americans are firmly in the middle of the road. The group that appeals most to the middle is going to be the one that wins. I'm not saying our current system will be the way it is forever (god help us if so), but I don't see any radical change anytime soon.
The bigotry of the nonbeliever is for me nearly as funny as the bigotry of the believer. - Albert Einstein
The Dean candidacy is likely to cause great damage to the party come November 2004.
Dean, a far-left candidate, is campaigning to the far-left in order to win the nomination. He has given little thought to the "middle": a group which is necessary to win the election. He has Bush landslide written all over his face.
I am not necessarily a big fan of Howard Dean, but I love what he is doing to political fundraising and grassroots organization. His campaign team's efforts have really reversed the equation and empowered the small-money donors to make a difference. I think it is much better for the American political system for a candidate to raise $100 from 2 million donors than $200 million from some very large donors and interest groups. It's bottom-up campaign finance reform. Once again a technological and social solution can do what convoluted legislation cannot.
It's been wrong for several years -- likely since it was first uploaded. There are seven red stripes and six white stripes in the US flag. The flag that Slashdot has used has seven of each, with a white stripe being first. This is clearly incorrect and has been for a very, very long time. Can't anybody simply put up a new flag icon that is accurate?
Just as JFK utilized the nature of the televised debates to triumph over Nixon, Howard Dean will attempt to use the power of the internet in order to take the Democratic nomination.
Just a prediction.
This is a discussion about Dean, not Kerry!
Ann Coulter has her typical bitchy take on the whole situation.
I'm so tired of being presented with the "choice" between "Rich White Man A" and "Rich White Man B" at each level of the process. In the 2000 primaries, both parties #1 and #2 were "Rich White Man" and here we are in 2004, and the Democrats are presenting a many-headed "Rich White Man" field of "choices". Kerry, Dean, Clark, Edwards, Gephardt.
Screw them all. I'd vote for freakin' SHARPTON if he makes it to a ballot near me, and I think he's INSANE.
I'll probably vote for Gen. Clark between the top two "choices" of "Rich White Man", since at least he doesn't look like a weasel. (Sorry, Dean, but you look like a weasel.)
MORTAR COMBAT!
Maybe that can change the name to SlashDean.org.
Of course, I just like BIG words. ;-)
It sounds like you have a real problem with bigotry against those who don't share you own religious views.
Sharing at the point of a gun isn't sharing. It's forcing.
If this be bigotry, let us make the most of it.
It wasn't the remark that turned me off but the fact that he defended the remark over and over and wouldn't admit that it wasn't the best thign to say. I believe he finally did.
That's something that has turned me off with bush as well as almost all politicians. They won't admit that they might be wrong. If they do admit that they are wrong or flip sides on an issue they will be attacked in the next election as wishy-washy or inconsistant.
Not everything is analogous to cars. Car analogies rarely work.
I haven't looked to closely at it before. Now that I have, it looks like the top has been cropped off as you can still see a little red.
Not everything is analogous to cars. Car analogies rarely work.
How does this internet fund raising effect the current climate of pro-campaign finance reform?
According to Kerry, Republicans have been contributing to Dean's campaign on the Internet.. Whether this is true or not, it very well could be. How would we ever know?
I'd like someone to explain to me how this is actually "grass roots," and not possibly one of the major parties (if not both) giving large sums in small packets under various proxies?
...I'm a Democrat
The predictions are right on. At some point in the near future, with a deteriorating economy, people will be sick of the old two parties and a third party candidate will win. this candidate and his team will promise to change all the evil things done before. Just look at Venezuela. 40 years of dual party system collapsed and gave rise to an unknown person with zero political experience as some sort of Messiah.
A simple move to a run-offs would end the two-party system, but why would the two ruling parties want to allow that? Don't hold your breath waiting for reforms on this front.
Xerxes
What a wonderful theory. If only it fit the facts. Howard Dean has taken the internet and done amazing things with it, but the concept that he is somehow hijacking the Democratic party simply isn't accurate.
* Dean was governor for 11 years. He got there through traditional Democratic party politics.
* I remember having a conversation with some Vermont relatives back shortly after the 1996 convention about whether Dean would run in 2000.
Basically, Dean has been an up-and-coming force in the Democratic party for a number of years. While his outsider rhetoric and outspoken opposition to the war has helped fuel his candidacy, he is still a product of the Democratic party, with its grassroots activists and door-to-door campaigning.
Lastly -- a quick anecdote. Ralph Reed (formerly of the Christian Coalition, all around brilliant evil-doer, and now chairing Bush's reelection campaign in the Southeast) recently gave a speech talking about how according to all their polls, on the Friday before the election, Bush would have won all of the key battleground states had the election been held then. But instead, the Democratic apparatus came out in force and turned the election into a statistical dead heat. His best line went something like this:
Republicans think the campaign ends the Friday before the election, after the last television ad is bought, the last billboard put up.
Democrats believe the election starts the Friday before the election. GOTV (get out the vote) efforts don't really begin in earnest until those last 72 hours. The Democratic machine was what turned a sure Bush victory into a fraudulent mockery of an election (I try to be even handed... really I do, but facts is facts).
Dean's improbable sprint to internet cash-and-glory will only get him so far. And then the incredibly labor intensive huge Democratic machine will have to take over. The article completely misses that fact. While the internet portion of the campaign may allow for a small control group, the actual work still has to be done by what is essentially a huge national corporation with a precense in every precint in America. That's a large group of people.
A pretty theory with some definite substance -- just not as clear-cut as the author would have us think.
We should all thank Mr. George W Bush for starting the internet political revolution. We should also thank the RIAA, MPAA, and websites such as slashdot. If any of you would like to see an interesting new political site following the Dean method to success, theres a new pro open source anti RIAA site called http://www.clickthevote.org/ With enough money from donations they plan to actually hire lobbyists. They also keep a list of politicians who support P2P and Open source vs those who dont so the voter can decide who to vote for.
People don't exist to serve systems, systems exist to serve people.
Yes, ol' Robert Novak knows about spreading the truth far and wide, all right. I find it really interesting that when anyone raises what current evidence suggests is a perfectly valid question (which the administration refuses to shed light on by releasing the documents that would demonstrate whether Bush's prior knowledge of the attacks was indeed an urban legend), the corporate media howls and shrieks treason and tries to discredit the questioner, rather than actually explaining *why* he/she is full of shit. It's unthinkable, sure, but the unthinkable has happened before. And it's not just the conspiracists who want to know, but many of the families of the September 11 victims. At this point I doubt it's the case that Bush knew about the 9-11 attacks in advance. The administration is hiding those documents because they demonstrate ineptitude. Not criminal, exactly, but not likely to be helpful in a presidential election year.
New York Times Magazine article about the Dean campaign as therapy group for breakup victims, featuring Clay Johnson bitching about ex Merrill.
WSJ ridicules Clay Johnson
A pissed-off Merrill writes to the Journal wondering what the hell passes for journalism at the Times (no direct link, search for "Merrill") and, as they note, she seems pretty cool.
Also in there, updates on the "Win a date with Dennis Kucinich contest!" Love is just busting out all over!
What I'm listening to now on Pandora...
Hey isn't that a link to an article by the same Bob Novak that leaked the name of a CIA agent and caused the investigation inside the White House? An impartial observer, I am sure.
It's funny how all the Republicans keep talking about Hillary running. Nobody wants her to run for President as much as they do.
Undoubtedly there will be many posters saying that this will never happen and that the two-party system will live on forever - nothing will ever change.
I don't know if they are correct or if the author of the article is (you read the article right?). What I do know is that the potential of a shift from a duopoly to a three, or more, party system does seem to be occurring. The fact of the matter is that the country is NOT as evenly divided as some would like you to believe, with most people sitting in the center, political views of a country are way more complicated than that. There are millions and millions of voters, mostly under the age of 40, who have disengaged from the political process. These people haven't cared about politics, probably their whole lives, and a candidate like Dean is energizing these previously non-existent voices. The two-party system has created two very similar parties, that appear to most younger voters as just a bunch of idiots who only care about getting elected. Most people, including myself, are sick of just voting against the other candidate and are hungry for a candidate that we can actually support. For me that candidate is Dean or possibly Nader if he jumps in.
Does that mean Nader is going to win in '04, probably not. But as technology evolves and makes information all the more available to everyone, this will greatly increase the probablility of a third party emerging and winning elections.
One thing history has taught us is that change is inevitable - nothing will last forever. Does this mark the end of the Democratic or Republican parties? Probably not. But will the Democratic and Republican parties be recognizable 20 years from now? Probably not. Change is constant.
LoRider
Give up any information about his briefings leading up to 9/11 to the commission appointed to investigate it, maybe we would know it is an "urban legand".
Okay, let's see: Social issues? Dean is pro-civil-unions, pro-abortion-through-the-third-trimester-without-p arental-consent, pro-affirmative-action. Fiscal issues? Dean wants
a massive tax hike, a massive new government medical bureaucracy, and increased spending. Foreign policy? Dean wants to pull out of Iraq before
reconstruction is complete, ``reach out'' to state sponsors of terror, and pay off North Korea.
In other words, I can only think of one issue on which Dean is anything but far left, and that's gun control, where he has indeed earned a perfect score from the NRA.
`down the middle'? I guess I'm just not seeing it...
People are going to be dying in Iraq for a long time. This candidate might do something to fix the problem.
This isn't any different than how the NeoConservative movement hijacked the Republican party in the 1980's (under the threat of Soviet Nuclear Annihilation), and how the Christian Wackjob movement hijacked the Reform party in 1999 (under threat of the previous Reform party being the only alternative for rational sane Americans).
Dean's hijacked the Democratic party on the basis of the Anti-Plutocrat movement. More power to em. If the internet was a key vehicle for that, I'm not really suprised, but since the internet exists for all people, that sword cuts both ways.
These are my friends, See how they glisten. See this one shine, how he smiles in the light.
Mostly that, surely. Of course, the 9/11 commission is intended to address exactly that; the whole reason it's in existence is to establish where we were inept and address it. Bush is stalling improvements to our response to terrorism, apparently, for political reasons.
The other half of what he's not wanting to show, though, is how close we may have been to a bigger, badder situation. During 9/11 the "Doomsday Plane" was scrambled from Edwards. Frontline had some home video of it taking off, if you want to see. That's just ammo for the terrorists -- shows they rattled us just like they meant to, if they needed any further reinforcement of that.
"Fundamentalism" isn't about divine morality. It's about human authority.
Dean's remark was, as usual, taken out of context. His idea that the poor and disenfrachised in the deep south are consistently voting for the wrong party is insightful. But it makes a better story to suggest he is an antebellum racist, so that's what gets played.
Why won't the Bush administration release those particular documents to the whole 9-11 commission? And don't tell me it's because of security concerns. Bob Kerrey, no matter how partisan you might find him, is not a security leak.
As I said above, the documents the administration doesn't want us to see probably demonstrate incompetence, rather than complicity.
Coase's theory of the relationship between information gathering costs and organization size is interesting, but not the most interesting impact of the internet on politics. One side effect of low-cost high-speed information gathering (and distribution) systems is that the competing parties can adjust their offers to voters using a much more rapid feedback cycle. Intensive use of polls, focus groups, trial balloons, e-mail, etc. let candidates fine tune their message like never before.
The two party system engenders a careful political calculus of stepping just far enough over the middle to steal an opponent's votes without alienating the extremists in the party. The democrats will try to appear just far enough right of center and the republicans will try to appear just far enough left of center to win. Everyone is shooting for the same 50.1% of the electoral votes and has the information gathering systems and information distribution systems to get it.
Unless one side achieves a huge advantage through external events (e.g., Dean wills if the economy tanks, weather disrupts voting in a key state, etc.) this will mean more close elections that reveal the statistical inaccuracies of our voting systems. It won't surpirse me if the Supreme Court will again decide the outcome of a presidential election in the near future.
Two wrongs don't make a right, but three lefts do.
Isn't there a way that gets posted over and over, I forgot.
- sigs are for wimps.
As a lefty who thinks its fucking crazy that anyone takes offense at the Confederate flag - same thing with Germany and Nazism, I find that ludicrous - I never saw the problem with Dean's statement. The "Southern Strategy" has been good to the Republican party for a number of years, and Dean hopes to capitalize on that.
The fact that he capitulated is what makes me angry.
The ONLY good thing about Dean (Score:0)
by Anonymous Coward on Friday December 12, @02:27PM (#7704033)
is that the NRA gives him an A grade...other than that he is a blow hard loser
Fat Sexless Socialy Inept CowboyNeil Endorses Dean (Score:0)
by Anonymous Coward on Friday December 12, @02:33PM (#7704107)
pathetic how SlashDot bows down before that blow hard loser DEAN
So, why did you wait five minutes between posts? Did it take you that long to come up with the CowboyNeil angle?
Hey kids, there's only 5 days left 'til Yak Shaving Day!
Actually, I disagree that this post is off-topic. It's exactly on topic.
Yes, people are dying in Iraq, both our boys and girls, as wells as Iraqis. We need to elect a president who (a) will never get us involved in something this poorly planned and thought out again, and (b) will get us the hell out of there as quickly as is possible, while not leaving the Iraqi people (not to mention what's left of our international credibility) blowing in the wind.
Regardless of what you think about President Bush and the war in Iraq, it's hard to argue that this has been a successful campaign. He and his administration have FUBAR'd this operation completely through their inept planning.
Any article talking about how we, as Americans, can stop the blood from flowing down the streets is exactly on topic. And to do that, we need to elect a new leader.
...what effect the Dean campaign will have on the political process:
t m
http://www.nypost.com/news/nationalnews/13258.h
Quoting the link (a Robert Novak column)
The other interesting thing here is to consider the source. Novak was the journalist who outed CIA agent Valerie Plame. Also, notice how it's the "Bush-haters" who listen to NPR, but "mainstream viewers" who watch Fox News's Sunday morning news.
Krauthammer also misrepresented Dean's interview on Hardball when Chris Matthews asked Dean if Deam would break up Fox. Everybody, including Dean started laughing, and Dean jokingly answered "On an ideological basis, yes." Anybody who was watching the show knew he was joking, plus the transcripts indicated [LAUGHTER]. But Krauthammer used the famous ellipsis (...) to eliminate the [LAUGHTER], and then criticized Dean for being "unhinged", which seems to be the current right-wing meme that is going around.
Hopelessly pedantic since 1963.
Hopelessly pedantic since 1963.
It buys the Dean party line about Dean being an outsider.
This is not a matter of a "third party candidate taking over the Democratic Party" at all. It's a small-time, conservative Democrat leveraging the Internet to become a big-time player. And frankly the resulting party isn't that different. How is Dean different than Gore? He's a touch more conservative on some fiscal and social issues, that's all. It's evolution, not revolution.
The two-party system is still quite safe, I'm afraid.
So Dean's against invading Iraq. So what? So was the elder Bush when he was in charge. Take a look at Dean's other positions. They are equally unremarkable. He's not an outsider.
During the nomination process for any office you'll see this. Tim Pawlenty, our Minnesota Governor, was much more open about his right leanings durnig the nomination process. Once he got into the general election phase he emphasized his fiscal responsibility pitch. Totally obvious truism of the election process in this nation.
And in case you were wondering, you might want to ask yourself whether Bush, after having run on the promise of restoring trust and "fixing the tone" in Washington, has done anything to live up to those promises. Does anyone think Bush has "fixed the tone" in Washington?
"Fundamentalism" isn't about divine morality. It's about human authority.
Though if there was ever an opportunity to get something useful done, this would be it. Dean should make a deal with Bush: you show us yours, I'll show you mine. Nothing in Dean's records over the past decades could be nearly as damaging as what's likely to be in Bush's in the past three years.
So an economist's theory from seventy years ago explains the inevitability of American two-party politics, and the upcoming decline of those politics. Sounds good, but...
What about other countries? America is virtually alone in having only two viable political parties. Most of the rest of the world's democracies have more, and some have embraced a much more dynamic multi-party coalition form of government. Was their "cost of information" a lot lower?
I think the author's analysis discounts many other factors. American politics is affected by American's much weaker community affiliation, propensity for movement, high economic mobility, etc. Under these conditions the cost of information may be important.
In countries where (for instance) tribal or religious ties are strong, you could lower the cost of information/political organizing all you want and have no significant effect.
Then again maybe I should be over on k5 with this...:)
Premature optimization is the root of all evil
We have lots and lots of parties. But they don't get much press or many votes. We only have two MAJOR parties.
I see this differently. I see this as allowing different people in different geographical areas to coordinate their efforts to push their agendas.
Decentralized Democracy.
Instead of having lots of parties with lots of candidates, we'll end up with a few candiadates talking to a lot of people who are the leaders of their groups.
Um, the way things work in the United States is that matters of public interest are usually open to public knowledge. How well do you think it would have gone over if Bush had said, "well, we know who was behind the Trade Towers attack, but we're not going to tell you, because it's classified. You'll just have to trust us." If that happened, there would be senators hanging from lightpoles in Washington. A democracy requires openness, or it doesn't work, and that is one area where the Bush administration has had a problem since long before 9/11.
Of course, Dean would do well to open up those sealed files of his too. What is good for the goose is good for the gander.
InterVote98 is a turnkey web service sold by Assets New Media to TV stations.
TV stations use InterVote98 to provide web-based campaign and election coverage for their viewers.
InterVote98 was a few years ahead of its time.
It didn't change the world; in fact, it's defunct.
There is some analysis at How InterVote98 Could Change the World.
(I'm an independent voter, voted for Bush's dad, and our previous Republican governor, and for Clinton. I read a fair amount of history, and Eisenhower would be on my list of deeply admired public figures. W. Bush is so far outside my voting range I can't imagine voting for him. Make me a screaming leftist?)
"Fundamentalism" isn't about divine morality. It's about human authority.
I don't get it. Excuse me for my foreign ignorance, but what does being:t -p arental-consenti ng to pull out of Iraq before reconstruction is complete
1-pro-civil-unions, 2-pro-abortion-through-the-third-trimester-withou
3-pro-affirmative-action
4-Want
5-``reach out'' to state sponsors of terror
6-Pay off North Korea.
Have to do with being left wing? Only 4 and 6 have anything to do with government involvement, and analyzed purely from that perspective, 4 may even be right wing.
Hind sight is alwasy 20:20.
Alright, were you president, how would you have done this differently? I don't like that our boys are dieing over there, but I'm not going to bitch unless I can say: "we should have done x instead of y and I'd have known this at the time because of z."
The policy of the United States is worse than bad---it is insane. -- Ludwig von Mises, Economic Policy(1959)
Or, if it's something I really oughta know, tell me that I'm a typical narrow-minded european who thinks crossing into the neighbouring country (which incidentally is 5 miles away) is a major accomplishment.
Any sufficiently advanced libertarian utopia is indistinguishable from government.
Yeah, cause that's the only place people are dying. How about Tibet? How about Africa, where millions die every year of starvation, malnutrition and AIDS? How about your own damned country?
Where's your contribution?
If that's what Dean meant to say, that's what Dean should have said.
His choice of words is frequently as bad as GW Bushies.
...it was even funnier when Will Rogers first said it 70 years ago or so. :)
--Matthew
"If the lights of Broadway blind me, I won't mind..."
Translation: provide information you don't agree with and would rather see censored.
If the government were to take our tax money and allow it to be directed to a religious school that indoctrinates eight-year-olds with the notion that Ronald Reagan is the Fourteenth Bodhisattva of the Great Pumpkin and, consequently, the Lord and Savior of all Mankind, would you consider it "censorship" when people object?
At the end of the day, one irrational, unprovable belief is no different from another. The founders of the United States recognized that, and specified in no uncertain terms that the new country's government should stay out of that particular battle.
I agree that it's very probable that a given religious school will provide a better overall education than a typical government-run public school, but still, funding religious schools is a perfect example of local optimization at the expense of global optimization. You only do that kind of thing if you don't know any better. Thanks to the last couple thousand years of history, we do know better.
The flap about the Confederate flag remark only shows that the Democratic leadership continues to deserve the label Hunter S. Thompson stuck on them years ago - "The New Dumb".
What, the Democrats don't want guys who have a Confederate flag on their pickup to vote Democratic?!?!?!
If the Republicans can have a big enough tent to hold both libertarian capitalists and the religious right, the Democrats better find one big enough for both guys who have a Confederate flag on their pickup and urban blacks.
Tom Swiss | the infamous tms | my blog
You cannot wash away blood with blood
Looking at the current election at the moment is Apples and Oranges. Dean & the other Dems are in the middle of a primary campaign (which hasn't been won yet) while Bush and the Republicans are gearing up for the general election and haven't really begun to campaign yet. Also the lopsided giving between the parties of big vs. little donors doesn't show up in individual campaigns which can only accept donations of under $2,000. It shows up in (formerly unlimited) party donations and will now move to unaffiliated (and untracked) advocacy groups.
It would be more fair to look at the historical numbers. Here are the facts (also from opensecrets.org) when comparing Apples to Apples. Donor demographics in percentages and by absolute numbers. Past years display the same trend (just use the pull-down to select the election cycle).
Of course that big money will still want to have an effect on the campaign. Soros's contributions alone will be statistically significant percentage of Democratic money - but now that the parties can't accept that money directly it will go to unnafiliated (yet partisan) advocacy groups and be much harder to track. Ironically the law may very well lead to LESS transparency. Those groups may be barred from political broadcast or print advertising (so much for the 1st amendment) but that much money will find it's way into the campaign (direct mail, phone, paying for "volunteers", get-out-the-vote drives etc.).
I'll bitch, cause I think we should have finished the job in Afghanistan. Instead we diverted forces over into Iraq, and it hasn't gained us anything. That's what I was saying back last year, it's what numerous other people were saying, it was what General Clark testified before Congress saying. The choices weren't "Invade Iraq" or "Let terrorists take over", we had other options. Don't listen to the Republican spin.
Look, ultimately we were going to have to deal with Iraq because sanctions don't work. But Colin Powell admitted in 2001 that we had Hussein under control and there was no threat of weapons... link
But really that's all water under the bridge now anyway. We're in there, we've got to fix it. I don't like what's happening over there, and I'll be damned if I let the prick who created this mess be rewarded with reelection.
Hmmmmm... the Red Cross/ Red Crescent has been in Baghdad since the early 1980's - and had never been bombed in those 23 years. Probably wouldn't have now, either, if the country hadn't been invaded and plunged into chaos by a foreign power.... Exactly who are you implying is 'evil' here?
Everyone will start to cheer when you put on your sailin' shoes.
What Dean was saying follows a direct ideological course back to MLK. Poor whites have been sold the notion that if they continue to support conservative causes they will maintain their economic/social "superiority" over black in the South. By trying to include minorities and poor whites (the stars and bars fans he mentions) he's trying to break down that idea. Unfortunately he picked a politically charged symbol to identify these poor whites, but I suppose he'd also be criticized if he's said "gun rack" instead of confederate flag.
Dems now know that they really need the southern white vote, or at least a good percentage of it to win. The only two Democratic presidents in my lifetime were both southerners who carried large parts of the South. Nixon's "Southern Strategy" was based on using race as lever to drive poor whites away from the Democratic party, and Johnson said, on the event of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, that the Democrats "have lost the South for a generation." Check the last Georgia gubernatorial election for how this works out today.
That Dean would make a play for them isn't surprising. If he could show the Southern white voters that the promise the conservatives made to keep them "above" poor blacks is meaningless in a supply side world then he might be able to bring them into a stronger democratic party that can offer real economic and social protection for all poor people. Unfortunately the conservatives have been very adept in dividing these two groups of people who, in large, share almost identical economic needs and concerns.
-dameron
Indeed, thanks. Though I still think you need a nick. :-)
> Hind sight is alwasy 20:20.
Nothing hind about it. CIA and State Department analysts warned about it, millions around the glob protested it; all well before it happened.
No artist tolerates reality. -- Nietzsche
crazy that anyone takes offense at the Confederate flag
I do too. That doesn't mean that people that do are idiots. If they are generally offended, I have to respect that. If they are offended just for the sake of being offended, then I have a problem. I think too many people these days are looking for a cause.
Not everything is analogous to cars. Car analogies rarely work.
And if you think most Americans are informed enough to vote for the candidate that best represents their interests, then you are more deluded than they are.
All that we see or seem is but a dream within a dream.
While I'm not thrilled about the Steel Tarrif (now repealed), the medicare bill is so large and bloated for the simple reason that it's a compromise measure which would not otherwise have passed. It also does have provisions (though not enough) to force exploration of competition and privatization to reduce the cost of medicare.
But on spending, you're only correct if you count tax cuts as spending (as the Democratic party candidates do, oddly enough). This is clearly nonsensical -- if I take less of your money away, that's not an expenditure of my part, and if taking less money away from consumers and investors results in the biggest economic growth in 20 years (as Bush's tax cuts have for two quarters now), well, it sure looks like a good idea to me. :-)
Once again a technological and social solution can do what convoluted legislation cannot.
Are you trying to say that the Internet Invented Howard Dean?
Patent: from Latin patere, to be open
This pairing would decimate Bush and Cheney.
This is the first election I have been interested in participating in in a long time. Not that I didn't before, I just find this one actually interesting. The stakes are insanely high now.
What a lot of people in the media don't realize is that the Internet is only effective for reaching out to the hard-core political junkies and firmly aligned partisans. Regular people DO NOT read political news on the Net and are offended when people send it out to them.
The Internet makes it easier for fund-raising but it can't make a winner out of a bad candidate. Dean could have the best Internet operation there ever could be but he still won't win unless he can convince people that he's not insane.
It's an American political term (we've got way to many of them, and they are all blury, and ill-defined). I'm going to try to answer your question (and probably screw up).
1 & 2 mean that Dean is socially libral (part of being "left")
3 is a possition of the "left"
4,5,&6 are the opposite of the "right" which favors strong, proactive foreign pollicy
By implication Dean is "left".
Note: the left v. right thing is separate from the libral v. conservative thing.
Further Note: the middle ground in america is more conservative (and hence "to the right") on most issues then our European counterparts.
The policy of the United States is worse than bad---it is insane. -- Ludwig von Mises, Economic Policy(1959)
Is it possible to be racist against your own race?
Is it possible to discriminate against your own "people"?
I don't really think so.
Then you ignore most of history and are woefully mistaken. Some of the most anti-semetic people in history have been Jewish, either in full or in part (I reject Godwin's so-called law, so I will mention in passing that Hitler was 1/8th Jewish, though far more commonly Jewish run firms in the US discriminated in their hiring practices against Jews back in the bad old anti-semetic days of this country).
There are plenty of white liberals who will say incredibly bigoted and inaccurate things about their own 'race' (and I say this as a liberal myself), including one white commentator's assertion that anyone with white skin had to be racist "by definition" and apparently irrespective of that person's upbringing or opinions WRT race, equality, or anything else. Guilty by reason of skin color, out of the mouth of one of the same, would fit any reasonable person's definition of racism.
Finally, and perhaps most pervasively, there are women too numerous to count who are actively compaigning for a reversal of women's rights today (and in some cases even a return to the kitchen, barefoot, pregnant, and all, and even more extremely, there are those who still advocate female castration here in America, in this the 21st century). Their training at being "good girls" and their desire to accomodate men outweigh their own self-interest to such a degree that they will engage in sexism and discrimination against their own sex, and lobby against their own intersts loudly, vehemently, and very publicly. That these people do not represent the mainstream views of their respective groups is not particularly relevant, though of course in general they do not. The point is that they exist.
In other words, it is quite possible to be racist against one's own race, and throughout history it has quite often been the case that people have discriminated against their own. If you are voting against candidates based upon their race (or voting for candidates based upon their race), then you are in fact engaging in a racist act, your attempt to spin it otherwise nothwithstanding. Doing so is not only despicable, it is quite destructive to your community and your country. Just look at the near election of David Duke, or the reelection of convicted crack-smoker Mayor M. Barry of Washington D.C. as reasons why race should not play any rolling in chosing one's candidate.
The Future of Human Evolution: Autonomy
Every milestone Dean has passed, there have been a million people saying he would not be able to do it.. Unlike Mondale and Dukakis, Dean will put up a mighty fight that the swing voters will respect and thus will vote for Dean.
US Democracy:The best person for the job (among These pre-selected choices...)
Interesting how you pull Dean's tax hikes and massive new government programs out of my post before questioning whether he is really `left', eh?
As for the others, abortion is an issue which follows a very clear left/right divide among politicians in this country, although it is true that the big majority of the population as a whole, right or left, favors some limits on late term abortion.
Affirmative action, which presumes that it is okay for the state to discriminate racially as long as it's ``for a good cause'' (``for the children'', if you will) is another issue whose support in this country comes almost exclusively from the left.
So, to the extent that Dean supports unlimited abortion in the last trimester and supports affirmative action, he is taking left wing positions, just as to the extent to which he wants tax hikes and more government bureaucracy, he is taking left wing positions. Since he supports abortion and affirmative action more than than the other democratic candidates, and wants a much larger tax hike than they do, he is clearly to the left of them.
Indeed, there is only one area in which Dean takes a typically right-wing position, or one on which a majority of us self-identified conservatives would agree with him, and that's gun control, where Dean has always earned perfect scores from the NRA.
well look what diff does it make if the kid gets religion thrown down his throat...it is his parents right to throw religion down his throat if they choose. It is ONLY there right. Every religion will have schools equal to the number of epopel in their religion..once the kid is 18 he can do whatever he wants...
The only way to bust a doper--is when you yourself become a smoker!
Perhaps if Bush had decided to go on the offensive against the people who actually attacked us (15/19 Saudi), instead of flying Osama's inlaws out of the country on a private plane (without adequate debriefing/interviews)and going on a Jihad against powerless Iraq, we'd be less apt to suspect him of the type of Republican tomfoolery Nixon employed.
This ain't no upwardly mobile freeway This is the road to hell
Man, is that a strawman if I ever did see one.
Yeah, cause that's the only place people are dying. How about Tibet? How about Africa, where millions die every year of starvation, malnutrition and AIDS?
Those aren't people, those are foreigners.
(To some)
How about your own damned country?
Hey! They didn't invade a foreign country so that people would pay attention to domestic issues!
You better be carefull, with speech like that, you might attract the attention of the Total Information Awarness Ministry, and then its room 101 for you...
That would be doubleplus ungood.
You can't take the sky from me...
At least that's a logically consistent set of goals; as opposed to the current administration which wants us to believe that we can have less taxes, more military and more government.
Can you actually name one of these "enlighted progressives" and give an example?
Straw man indeed.
I'll agree there.
> there was no threat of weapons...
I could care less about WMD. We helped put the SOB into power and inflicted him on the world, and the people of Iraq. He was our responsibility and we were morally obligated to deal with him and pay the associated costs. That's what we get for laying down with the wolves. If we had to use the pretext of WMD to get the country to go along with it, so be it.
BTW, at the UN we claimed Sadam had WMD programs not functional weapons, although we said it was likely that he had weapons capability. The programs alone violated the 1991 deal. No evidence has contradited this basic point, although both sides have spun it to hell and back....
The policy of the United States is worse than bad---it is insane. -- Ludwig von Mises, Economic Policy(1959)
Take a look at the national debt.
Take a look at the deficit.
Bush is spending too much money.
Um, what the hell kind of "progressives" do you hang out with? I consider myself a progressive, I have many friends and associates who would describe themselves the same way. Certainly it is true that we are all inclined to generally distrust corporations, to fight racism, to end oppression, etc. But seriously, I've never met anyone who behaves as you suggest. What you have written is a gross caricature of "leftists", it is identical to the lies spouted by people like Rush "The Junkie Fascist" Limbaugh to demonize his political opponents, and is itself nothing more than a silly stereotype with a very limited basis in reality.
You don't get the feeling that the Democrats are deliberately posting questions that they KNOW the administration can not answer without exposing some major intelligence gathering mechanisms?
What an outstanding tactic that must be. You know your opposition CAN'T answer the question, so you enflame the public and get them to demand answers. Meanwhile, the incumbancy slowly sinks in the polls as words like "conspiracy" and "liars" float around. All the while, those that seek to unseat them walk around with a smile on their face(s).
Until one of the opposing candidates starts presenting solutions based on the last fifty years of American foreign policy with an equal level of criticism for BOTH parties... and not just on the last TWO years in an effort to diminish their own party's culpability... then I will not have anything but contempt for those people who push today's golden (yet short sighted) candidate down my throat.
So long as our voting method favors groups that band together to put up a single candidate, and penalizes those that support several fairly similar candidates, the 2 party system will prevail.
that's why the more moderate republicans can't tell the thumpers to take their religious righteousness and go home. the bible belt is a mathematically necessary evil to ensure that the broader conservative ideology can compete with the broader liberal ideology.
1992 with Perot's party splitting the conservatives in just that way demonstrates my point. Conservatives fractionalized, Liberals won with an overall minority vote. Similarly, even the slight fractionalization of liberals into traditional democratic support and green party support allowed a minority-supported conservative to take the presidential election.
(remember, in '92 Bill Clinton received a lower percentage of popular vote than George W Bush did in 2k. it isn't a problem consigned to just the left or right.)
only something like Instant Runoff Voting can truly open up american politics and let it out of the caricaturized left/right politicking we currently have.
The point that most americans lie in the middle is important. It shows that most americans are more interested in moderate compromise than extreme ideological quibbling. Yet, they are not served by their own party. And if they were, it would merely force one or the other party to be absorbed into it.
America has always had a 2 party dominated system (over time, during reorganizational periods there have been more, but they don't stay for long).
And IRV is a simple, proven way to do that.
It also conveniently frees up political parties and voters to actually deal with rotten incumbents. You don't have to worry about splitting support between a rotten incumbent partymember, and a new one and that allowing an opponent to slide into office with minority support.
Our democracy could really use a change like that.
// "Can't clowns and pirates just -try- to get along?"
$1000 less per pupil, to be exact (Gartner Survey from 2002). If the choice is to spend $5000/student at a public school or spend $4000/student so they can go to a private school of their choice, vouchers save money which can be used in the public school or (god forbid) taxes can be lowered.
I find it amusing that you don't like the idea of people spending their own money (via lower taxes) or given the option of making their own education decisions.
Do you even lift?
These aren't the 'roids you're looking for.
That depends on your definition of liberal and wether the context is social or economic. In America this is generally true. But, Thomas Jefferson was also "liberal" but his ideas lie closer to the modern republicans then the democrats. I would say that the left is a specific flavor of liberalism, and the right a specific flavor of conservativeism.
The policy of the United States is worse than bad---it is insane. -- Ludwig von Mises, Economic Policy(1959)
Jesse Jackson, Al Franken, Al Sharpton, Barbara Streisand, Bill Mahr (sp?) are a few names that come to mind pretty quick...
Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.........
Too many people are ignoring the fact that Dean is running what amounts to a local candidacy in New Hampshire, because the majority of the supporters in his home state of Vermont are less than a day's drive away. This has helped him achieve a huge lead in the opinion polls over any of his rivals, including Kerry who just doesn't get it.
This leads to the classic media frenzy in that because Dean is popular, the media gives him tons of defacto coverage, which in turn feeds teh frenzy. Come March the line-up will be different, I think. Much depends on whether or not Kerry will ever get it, or how soon Lieberman runs out of money.
They both are "right wing" but I'll grant you that Kennedy may be left of center in the US, because the US may be a right wing country. I say "may" because that's really only an assumption.
If 1000 random Americans took the Poltical Compass test, I wonder where the true center of American politics would lie? My experience is that many people who take this test find themselves less right wing than they thought they were. They self-identify as right wing based on a few issues (perhaps taxation, or free trade, or abortion) but in other areas their sympathy is left wing.
In any case, it is hard to denegrate Dean as being "far left" when his position is so close to the "moderate" Lieberman, and right of Clark.
Kind of odd, given that he had no problems massacring the Branch Davidians.
PS - did you hear that the UN has warned their "peace keepers" might have to leave Afghanistan because it's too hard? Makes you damn glad George Bush didn't waste time with UN approval for Iraq.
Do you even lift?
These aren't the 'roids you're looking for.
Lets pick Al Franken - how about some examples.
(Streisand or BM fine too...)
Jesse Jackson, Al Sharpton - progressives?
How about I claim some racist whackjob from Idaho is a compasionate conservative... sheesh!
If you ever watched Sesame Street, and saw - one of these isn't like the others... Well, you get the idea...
Cheers,
Greg
I'm a fairly moderate mainstream person who is for more involved this election cycle that ever before due to new ways of connecting voters, candidates, causes and dollars. I surf and read blogs, which often link to a site doing something (EFF, ACLU, etc.) about which I have always cared, but have, up 'til now, not bothered to contribute to. But with easy paypal/cc links I have contributed modest but well targeted support to candidates and causes i support.
In this sense the new technology allows _less_ radical/fringe citizens to put their money where their cocktail party conversation points are. Dean's broad base (huge majority of donors in $200 category), shows that the average joe can be a lot more involved in politics and causes with a little skillful surfing.
And yes, money does equal involvement in this case. But it ain't speech.
Too bad his goal isn't to decrease the size of the federal gov't.
Do you even lift?
These aren't the 'roids you're looking for.
As Medicare profiteers emerge, hype fades
t o/ epaper/editions/wednesday/opinion_f36dd52956b0f1c7 0061.html
President Bush signed the Medicare "reform" bill Monday. The event got
lots of attention. Less noticed, but reflective of what is wrong with the bill,
is that John Scully will take a new job next week.
Mr. Scully has run the Medicare program in the Bush administration. Over
the past few months, he was a key part of negotiations that produced the bill.
As The New York Times reported last week, all during that time he was
discussing job offers from firms representing clients that had major
stakes in Medicare legislation. Mr. Scully hasn't said which of five offers he
will take.
As is typical for those caught exploiting a public position for private
gain, Mr. Scully defended his action, saying he had consulted the ethics
office at his soon to be ex-employer, the Department of Health and Human
Services. Supposedly, department rules forbid government employees from
discussing an "official matter" related to prospective private employers.
The five firms seeking Mr. Scully's services represent, among others,
medical trade groups, drug-makers and health insurers. Medicare would seem
to be an "official matter." But HHS gave Mr. Scully a waiver to work on
"matters of general applicability like the Medicare reform bill." Why? HHS
would not show the waiver to the Times.
So, is Mr. Scully's job search why HMOs will get help from the "reform"
bill before the seniors on whose behalf supporters of the legislation were
acting? Could it be because, as the liberal group Public Citizen reported, a
company that operates HMOs and is run by one of President Bush's 2004
"Pioneers" -- people who have raised at least $100,000 for his campaign --
would get $14.2 billion extra over the 10 years of the legislation?
Just in time for the holidays, Americans will see regular disclosures that
undermine the myths Mr. Bush and others have been spreading about the
benefits to seniors and to the country from the Medicare non-reform bill.
The administration cleverly has focused on the fact that seniors will start
getting their discount cards next year, when Mr. Bush will be on the ballot.
After the program starts officially in 2006, however, seniors will start
paying more in premiums, face higher deductibles and get less
prescription-drug coverage. Based on budget numbers, The Associated Press
calculated that by 2013, the deductible and the size of the coverage gap --
set to be $2,850 in the first year -- will increase by almost 80 percent.
Want to buy a "Medigap" policy? That won't be allowed.....[snip]
It would have been helpful if the man who runs Medicare had had the
program's welfare as his priority. But John Scully and "reform" supporters
were worried more about those who profit from Medicare, not those who depend on it.
http://www.palmbeachpost.com/opinion/content/au
Balderdash. I am rural but I was born in suburban Topeka, Kansas. If I lived or grew up in New York but then moved and lived (and preferred) the country, then I am not a "city slicker", I am rural. When one moves into a new environ and adapts to that environ, you become OF that environ every bit as much as someone born there. Rural doesn't automatically mean "gun-loving" or "god fearing" or "farmer" or "poor", etc.
Now, I don't know if Dean actually lives/makes his home with his family in a country/rural setting. His wife having just enough patients to know them all personally suggests it is possible without me looking...but be that what it may. Being born or reared in a city (or in the country) and then making your home in the opposite environ makes you of that new environ. You are NOT always a city-slicker, nor hayseed simply because you were born in either locale.
In Bushworld, they struggle to keep church and state separate in Iraq as they increasingly merge the two in America.
Does the notion that a small group, using Internet-centric communication, coordination and managment imply that the days of the political lobbyist are numbered? Does it imply that we can create an organized approach to reaffirming Fair Use and restructuring the DMCA. If Howard Dean can use Internet-centricity to overthrow the Democratic Party then surely the Slashdot community can coordinate moves to restructure DMCA along user-centric lines.
It's easy to show massive growth after a massive decline.
The key factor is that there are fewer jobs now and more unemployed people than there were in 1999.
"But, more to the point, I'd rather watch you try to explain why the government taking away less of my hard earned money counts, in your view, as `spending' on their part."
Because their running up the debt.
Are you old enough to have a credit card? Do you understand what a credit card is?
The money is still being spent, but it will be up to future administrations to deal with it.
And the INTEREST on that debt.
This test is likely rigged. What can you expect from something that places all but the most extreme leftists "right of center" ?
That's a good attitude. If a test doesn't agree with something we that we already just *know* is true than it must be flawed.
Coase's analysis is still very relevant today.
There's a great paper applying Coase's framework to explain the sucess of Open Source software.
It's available here.
Anyone who wants to understand why open source works should read it.
Just compare the planning for the NATO interventions in Bosnia and Kosovo with the near total lack of planning for the intervention in Iraq. One example is to compare the large number of civilian police that were lined up and waiting to move into Kosovo immediately after the conflict. There were no pre-war efforts made to recruit international civilian police for post-conflict Iraq.
And no, this isn't a case of 20/20 hindsight. I spent 6 years in a U.S. Army Reserve Civil Affairs Bn. The professionals in the Army who know how to plan for and handle post-conflict problems were simply ignored by Rumsfeld. The outcome was frightningly obvious to those of us who have done this sort of work professionally. The Bush Administration is paying the price for their hubris.
FreeSpeech.org
You don't get the feeling that the Democrats are deliberately posting questions that they KNOW the administration can not answer without exposing some major intelligence gathering mechanisms?
That's really a very good question. I'm sure there is a some of that going on. But this administration is super secretive about everything. What we have here is an administration that, a la Sledge Hammer, always says "Trust me. I know what I'm doing." Do they deserve that trust?
I'm not saying that I believe that Bush Knew(TM). I don't. But, in a vacuum of information, rumor and innuendo spread. But, every conspiracy theory springs up from secrecy. The Clintons learned that the hard way with the Vince Foster suicide. This administration either hasn't learned, or they believe they can continue to use the right-wing media to browbeat the theories back to Crackpotville, an option the Clintons did not have.
Until one of the opposing candidates starts presenting solutions based on the last fifty years of American foreign policy with an equal level of criticism for BOTH parties... and not just on the last TWO years in an effort to diminish their own party's culpability... then I will not have anything but contempt for those people who push today's golden (yet short sighted) candidate down my throat.
I agree that there's much about foreign policy in the last 50 years that can be debated, and that much of the world's current situation directly follow from those policies, which have ben supported (to varying degrees) by both parties.
However, the last two years have seen a huge change in foreign policy from the past 50. I don't recall unilateralism, preventative war, berating and ignoring our allies, unwillingness to compromise, historical ignorance, and stomping all over the planet doing and saying whatever we want just because we're (God Bless) America being an integral part of our foriegn policy until the current administration.
Hopelessly pedantic since 1963.
Correction... Gore won the ellections but lost the electorial votes per fraud in Florida. (Several thousand people were 'removed' from the voters list in 'error') 2nd Correction... He didn't claim to 'invent' the internet. That was a creation of the mass media... he said that he helpped bring the internet into being. And its true. He was the main person that pushed to have the millitary/academic internet go from being only a government net to a net open to the public. So you really can say 'thank you mr Gore' for the ability to post to Slashdot today.
The system will REALLY be f*cked if we take into account Nazis like you.
How typical.
MORTAR COMBAT!
Jesse Jackson, Al Sharpton - progressives?
How about I claim some racist whackjob from Idaho is a compasionate conservative... sheesh!
s/Idaho/[Florida, Texas]
-Hentai [in vita non pacem est]
An interesting interpretation is that many non-religious-right GOP members are "South Park Republicans". I would call them Libertarians who don't know it. Maybe the Libertarian Party should buy some commercial airtime on Comedy Central during "South Park" and "Tough Crowd"?
"South Park Republicans"
If Republicans are so different from mainstream America, then who voted for them? The nation has more Republican congressmen and state governors than any other political party, plus control of the White House.
The answer could very well be the "South Park Republicans." The name stems from the primetime cartoon "South Park" that clearly demonstrates the contrast within the party. The show is widely condemned by some moralists, including members of the Christian right. Yet in spite of its coarse language and base humor, the show persuasively communicates the Republican position on many issues, including hate crime legislation ("a savage hypocrisy"), radical environmentalism, and rampant litigation by ambitious trial lawyers. In one episode, industrious gnomes pick apart myopic anti-corporate rhetoric and teach the main characters about the benefits of capitalism.
cpeterso
Chart viewed straight on
I_._._.I_._._._I
Left..Middle...Right
Chart viewed from Right
I_.I_._._._I
L.Mdl....Right
Chart viewed from Left
I_._._._I._I
Left...Mdl.R
Chart viewed from Dean
I_._._._I_._._I
Left...Midl..Rht
Chart viewed from Bush
--absorbed by the lameness filter--
but it looked like this on one side
II_.-._
and
-._.I
on the other with a lot of space between...
So who's down the middle?
Dean is about freedom. If you don't like something, don't do it, but it's not fair for you to tell everybody what they can and can't do.
Dean doesn't want a "massive tax hike" he is just going to repeal Bush's tax cut.
His massive new government medical bureaucracy is listed to cost 88 billion--that's cheaper than the war in Iraq.
The fact of the matter is, Bush is pretty bad with it comes to diction and grammar. He is in a position where communicating effectively is of utmost importance.
You use the example of "human" being pronounced as "yooman". But this isn't even in the same ballpark. Bush pronouncing "nuclear" as "nookyoolar" is equivalent of someone pronouncing "human" as "hymen".
His mispronunciation of this word is not due to REGIONAL accent. I live in Texas, and I can tell you that 99.9% of the people I know don't pronounce it that way. Only intellectual morons pronounce it that way.
I have no problems with republicans praising the guy for the good things he does. But give me a break, already. Stop acting as if the guy isn't a linguistic idiot. You aren't convincing anyone.
You, sir, are horribly misinformed.
I don't have the time to find the correct links, but if you did any research you'd see that as well.
The american people will see that too.
>Interesting how you pull Dean's tax hikes and massive new government programs out of my post before questioning whether he is really `left', eh?
I did it because tax and spending increases clearly ARE are left wing policies. In Canada our definition of what is left and right is pretty narrow and mostly limited to the level of government intervention. It's also usually not an insult to label someone left or right wing.
But I've noticed that most americans imply a LOT more attributes when they use the term. So I wanted to know what most americans mean by left or right (something you did answer). I personally have absolutely no idea how "left" Howard Dean is, regardless of the definition.
How many times can the American people be fooled?
The dot-com era showed how clearly and blatantly easy it is to misrepresent your revenue, and your whole value, to an extrordinary degree.
And here comes somebody with a result that *shouldn't* be happening, and yet it is happening, and people just go: "Well, gosh, ain't that internet something!"
No, it ain't. I'm not saying it's definite, I'm just saying "raising wildly unexpected amounts of money" sets my bullshit radar off. I would think all the frauds of the past 3 years would make you suspicous too.
There we have it, ladies and gentlement, a new gold standard for spin:
Care to explain why you see any difference between these two things? Taxes are lower now than they were in 2000. Dean wants to return them to 2000 levels. This is a tax hike, and a very large one, which hits the middle class hardest of all, any way you slice it.
Umm, no. Dean's massive new government medical bureaucracy (I'm glad that you admit that that's what it is) would cost $88 billion per year. The reconstruction of Iraq cost $87 billion once, and the entire war up to that point cost $20 billion once.Which means that if pigs fly and Dean is elected and passes his health plan, it will have cost three times as much as the war in Iraq by the end of the his first term -- and will be a gift which keeps on giving (or rather, taking) for many years to come.
Nice try though...
That is not true. A lot of Green party voters (who got blamed by the Dems for Al Gore loss) would have put Al as second choice (ie. lesser of two evils), giving him Florida easily, therefore handing him the presidency by not allowing the five judges to decide on their favorite.
Code poet, espresso fiend, starter upper.
Heh. I can't say that's less convincing than the other responses to my post, but it isn't more convincing either.
Idaho is closer to home and I'm more aware of them...I'm sure there are racists everywhere. However, the racist skin heads of Idaho are well known in these parts.
Thanks for the reminder tho...
Greg
race does not matter.
..., with a white male President and CEO of the company.
Tell that to the hispanic man who empties my office waste bin. Tell that to the black woman who works the register at the cafeteria. My software project's work group is comprised of 11 white men, with a white male manager, who has a white male manager, who has a white male manager,
Look up the food chain. Look down. There is a color and gender gradient which is so clearly obvious it is sickening.
MORTAR COMBAT!
This article is interesting in it's explanation of Dean's use of the internet's ability to drive information costs down, and there by "takeover" the Democratic Party, but it's flawed in concluding that this will cause the decline of the two-party system.
(Sadly) The two-party system won't "decline" as a result of the political candidates using the internet the way Dean is. Why? Because it ignores the reality that the Republicans and Democrats have had decades in which to institutionalize and entrench themselves as the only two viable national political organizational entities.
As an example of what I mean, the partitioning of states into voting districts are completely dominated by the two major parties, with very little consideration given to "third/independent" parties. This process normally gets very little press, but has, recently, because the use of computers in demographics analysis has allowed the party in control of a state legislature to gerrymander to a degree previously unfathomable. This, alone, threatens to lock incumbent representative candidates, and their associated political parties, into unassailable positions of dominance.
So, forget it. The Dems and Reps are too well entrenched for there to be a major change in the near future. The best that anyone can hope to do is use the cheaper costs of gathering/managing/deseminating information provided by the internet to takeover one of the two major brands.
And, if you think about it, this "taking over of the Democratic/Republican/ Party brand" is *exactly* what every candidate for elected office does when s/he runs under the banner of a political party. The start of with "nothing", articulate a vision (hopefully), build an organization, gather support, raise money, and, if successful, persuade the majority/plurality of their party's membership to support them. So, if Dean is successful in capturing the Dem presidential nomination, he will have more than the Dem Party brand - he will also have control of all of those "depreciating assets" that Everett Ehrlich poo-poo-ed in his article. Can anyone seriously argue that these fundraising, organizational and media assets, as well as the value that the Dem Party has as an entrenched political institution, lack significant value in a national Presidential campaign?
---anactofgod---
---anactofgod---
"Equal opportunity swindling - *that* is the true test of a sustainable democracy."
Dean is a compassionate libertarian and a fiscal conservative.
Being for grown people to be free to do what they want - civil union, pro-choice, gun rights (consistent, unlike many other "conservative" politicians) - makes him a libertarian.
Being a firm supporter of affirmative action and healthcare for all is from his compassionate (not the fake compassion Bush tries to sell all the time) liberal leanings.
He is for getting rid of the Bush tax cut because Bush is a credit card president who borrows and spends (more bureaucracy and spending growth than Clinton every DREAMED!!!) and only way to fix this run away deficit and out of control spending growth (remember there are not enough Democrats around to blame for this mess) is to act like a grown up and start collecting more revenue (Reagan did exactly the same in middle of his presidency). Which is EXACTLY what Dean did as a governor (funny how the same Bush fiscal policy left Texas in fiscal crisis over last couple of years).
Hmmm... a compassionate libertarian guy who is calling for the same fiscal actions that Reagan once endorsed... yea sounds like a flaming liberal to me!
The Racist Skinheads are hooligans. Much as it might be some people's fantasy, they don't attend Republican Caucuses.
A Good Intro to NetBS
And sort of in California, I suppose. The Leftlaughed at the Governator and the Right accepted him because their Illuminati knew they could make use of his ignorance like they have with Bush.
What he, and most people like him, don't like is that The State is not in control of the curriculum at those private schools.
Everybody must be re-educated.
A Good Intro to NetBS
It's quite interesting to see your choice of 1999 as a year of comparison, since May 2000 saw the start of a recession which this country has only recently pulled out of. But perhaps it is your position that Bush is to blame for a recession which began in May of 2000, and which the country has recovered from only due to his tax cuts?
What Bush can take credit for is how unemployment numbers have changed in response to his economic programs -- and those numbers, which you can view here have dropped at a faster rate over the last six months than they have over any six month period since 1993.
I recall a Coase book containing lectures and the point was that transaction costs determined the size of a firm. If internal external transaction costs were lower than internal transaction costs, the company would no longer be a profitable concern compared to a group of companies all interacting with each other.
The last thing of his I read was The Firm, The Market and the Law and that was at least 10 years ago, so my memory is sort of fuzzy. I do recall that Coase conveyed his thoughts with fantastic clarity. Don't be turned off by the dreary title. One simple question Coase poses is "Why is there more than one company?" and the answer is less obvious than what you first think.
You are a bit confused (actually more than a bit) if you describe calling for massive tax hikes and huge new government programs ``fiscally conservative''.
You are likewise confused if you see calls for racial discrimination in college admissions (called `affirmative action'), huge increases in regulation, and the use of the FCC to break up news stations Dean disagrees with as `libertarian' positions.
So Dean is a social liberal and a fiscal liberal. The former is damaging in its own way, but it is the latter which would be downright disastrous for an economy only just pulling out of a recession which started in May of 2000.
I'm willing to bet Howard Dean will get pounded in the next election worse than Walter Mondale in 1984,...
I'll take that bet. How much have you got? I'll cover every dime you can raise.
It's simple: I demand prosecution for torture.
- opposed affirmative action
- supported the death penalty
- appointed conservative judges
According to most folks who know me I'm pretty much a left to far-left kinda guy... I know what affords that designation, and Dean ain't over here with me. You could clear this whole matter up by referencing some facts to back up your assertions. And by facts I mean voting records, not rhetoric spewed from the podium in a debate. Bush made it clearer than ever before what percentage of campaign dialog aught be construed as honesty; precious little.rev.jsfk
No. No parent has the right to shove crap down the throaths of their children. The right and the responsibility of a parent is to educate their children. This means telling them all sides of the story. The kid can't do whatever he wants when he's eighteen, if he doesn't know of the options.
If The One True God -story has been pushed to you for whole of your life, you're likely to take that as absolute truth, as is with every other thing.
Just to push the point: You've certainly seen pictures and stories about ten year old kids dressed into TNT-vests, wielding assault rifles and chanting how they are going to kill the infidels?
uh... yeh, whatever....
which is why gwb got 500,000 less votes.
... hi bingo
Fascinating, so in order to come to this conclusion you had to go and piss off a third of America.
I still prefer General Clark's southern strategy. Treat people in the South like Americans, rather than talking down to them. Gives us a much better chance of actually winning one of those states Gore blew back in 2000.
Good luck to you. If Dean get's the nomination, I'm voting for Nader.
Right.
e name=policy_policy_foreign_iraq_7pointplan . As for your other comments, it's clear that you don't know anything about diplomacy or history. (You've got something in common with the current administration then)
In the REAL world...
Dean signed the civil unions bill because Vermont was ordered to change their laws by the Vermont supreme court. The reason was that the previous law violated a little something called "equal protection under the law", something real Americans should be in favor of.
Dean is pro-choice -- and he should know better than anyone else why this is a good idea, because he was a doctor for over a decade and saw the impact of unwanted pregnancy on real women's lives. And I use the word women" loosely, because in his book, he writes about having to treat 13 year pregnant girls and tell their parents about it!
"Massive tax hike"? No, that would be REVERSING the terrible and pointless tax cuts that Bush implemented DURING WARTIME -- something no president was previously stupid enough to do. Dean's record in Vermont was actually rather conservative on the budget front -- he hated raising taxes (though he would do it when necessary) and he balanced the budget every year.
Foreign policy: sorry, you've got it all wrong and must be thinking of someone else. Dean wants us to stay the course and rebuild Iraq as we promised we'd do -- he just thinks we could use some help from other countries. See http://www.deanforamerica.com/site/PageServer?pag
I'm sorry that the fact that Dean might actually become President disturbs you so much, but don't worry -- he wants to improve the life of all Americans, even misinformed people who for some reason still support an administration that does NOTHING for them and is ruining this country. Take another look.
I think the advertising factor is underrated. People like to focus on the Internet and Dean's campaign funds, but I think a good deal of this is a result of the coverage his campaign receives to the exclusion of other campaigns.
As recently as the ABC Democratic party debate, Dean gets a lot of air time from mainstream corporate news agencies. Dean's ideas get covered but we don't hear about the other candidates' ideas. In the ABC debate, the first quarter (roughly) of this debate was spent with a Dean-centric version of the old joke "Enough of me talking about Howard Dean. What do you think about Howard Dean?" while more important national issues took a back seat. At the end of the debate, Al Sharpton was denied the chance to make a formal closing statement.
When Dennis Kucinich, Al Sharpton, and Carol Moseley Braun pointed out Koppel's bias of focusing on campaign funds and poll standing, Ted Koppel repeated his focus on the horse-race saying this was about "money and polls" and all but said these three candidates either had "vanity candidac[ies]" or should get out. Kucinich got the longest applause of the night with his response about how the media views politics. He has since said people who used to ignore him now applaud him for his forthrightness in addressing the media issue.
The day after the debate, ABC news decided to pull their embedded reporters from Kucinich, Sharpton, and Braun's campaigns. They claim they will still cover these campaigns by phone and they claim their coverage is more than other networks. Meanwhile, Braun, in an interview with Democracy Now! today, noted that their campaigns are polling higher in some places than John Edwards' but ABC is not pulling their reporters from day-to-day coverage of Edwards. I encourage you to hear the interview for yourself and hear how these three candidates and ABC explains ABC's decision.
Digital Citizen
I know this doesn't contribute anything to the discussion, but WebMacher is RIGHT ON here.
His post is much more informative and insightful than the one he is responding to!
The only thing I'd dispute is his claim that Bush implemented a tax cut. I'd call it more of a tax-shift than anything else, since it has resulted in higher state and local taxes all across the country.
I think you mean... No evidence has supported this basic point.
If the WMD programs don't exist, there would be no evidence to find. You can't prove a negative like that. Thus far the only evidence that has been uncovered is that WMD programs once existed, but we already knew that.
Honestly, I don't know what Hussein's motives were, but I find it troubling that we've found no evidence that he violated the 1991 deal.
You won't get any argument from me that Dean has redefined himself several times, as the mood took him. During his earlier years as governor of Vermont, during the Gingrich-revolution/Clinton-`triangulation' era, he was indeed more conservative than he is today, winning an `A' rating from the national rifle association (which he has kept, to his credit), and passing a moderate tax cut (though he has also attempted to claim credit for a larger tax cut passed by his predecessor which took effect on his watch, oddly enough).
In later years, however, and in particular around the time of the 2000 election, he began to take a much more traditionally `liberal' tack, including:
More to the point, on the campaign trail, Dean has laid out a vision of his presidency which runs far to the left even of his positions as governor. And what evidence do you bring in response? A claim that this is irrelevant since he ``doesn't really mean it''.
I guess I'm not too convinced...
Well, let's have a look at the OMB's own projections (table 4). There we see that the GDP growth in real dollars is expected to rise to, and then hold steady at, 4.9% to 5.0% (and the unemployment rate is expected to fall from 5.9% to 5.1%, ha ha.)
Even with these rosy assumptions, the deficit still only gets down to $213 billion, much larger than 2002 levels, and then starts rising again! Perhaps this is because those huge deficits cause the projected net interest to rise from $171 billion to $260 billion.
But have a look back at the bottom of table 4: even though the interest on the national debt increases $89 billion, or about 50%, the interest on 10-year Treasury bills only rises from 4.7% to 5.3%, or an increase of only 13%! Someone desperatly needs to get Robert Rubin back from Citibank -- at least he understood the extent that changes in the national debt put pressure on interest rates.
Look again, U.S. unemployment apparently gave back several months' gains if November's new claims numbers are to be believed. But even if the rate holds at October levels, you and your trickle-down ilk have engineered and amazingly jobless recovery. Congradulations and good luck with those 3 million newly jobless next November.
The reason is that your money isn't worth a thing if everyone is too sick to transact with it because of lack of health care, or too stupid to obtain the goods and services you want because of lack of education, or too afraid to go to the market because of lack of law enforcement, or it's too worthless because of inflation because of unsound fiscal policy. You can not economically ignore your environment, of which you are an integral part. Or: no man is an island.
Tell that to Sweden. They have the highest marginal tax rates of any country in the world (and interestingly, less than half of all Swedes pay income tax because of their progressive, two-bracket system which goes from 0% to 57% starting at salaries 10% above mean.) They also have the longest life expectancy and the lowest infant mortality in the world, along with low (4%) unemployment, low (2.2%) inflation, low national debt, free college education, free daycare, single-payer health care (no uninsured), poverty rates around 0.2%, literacy rates as high as they get in Europe, and per-capita spending power on par with the U.S.
Ooooh, it's scary Socialism, going to drive you out of house and home, run away!
I would be unimpressed with a six-month record over a ten-year period to begin with, but perhaps you should check the November unimployment initial claims numbers out yesterday before bragging on those numbers.
Your substantive errors in this thread are addressed in another post.
As best as I can tell it's the pot-head free-love hippies on the left and gun-toting redneck bible-thumpers are on the right. Does that help?
-
- - You can't take something off the Internet! That's like trying to take pee out of a swimming pool.
I'm waiting for the Middle Party. I didn't want either Bush or Gore. I slightly leaned toward Bush because of Liberman's views on Video Game censure ship. I really don't think things have changed much under Bush. I'm glad we aren't a Police State, but I think it would have taken more than 9/11 to do that. I'm more worried about the slow long term than the sudden transitions. Bush and Gore were about the same to me. Sure there were differences, but both would have acted almost the same. I want a party that takes the Religion out of the republicans and the socialist out of the democrats.
"I'll take that bet. How much have you got? I'll cover every dime you can raise."
:)
$5 US currency. That would be fair... Is the point spread the same as the 84 election?
Too bad PayPal couldn't offer this service...
"Right now, somewhere in this world, Scott Baio is plowing a woman he doesn't love," - Peter Griffin, *Family Guy*
The results will be the same.
I used 1999 because Bush took over in 2000.
"What Bush can take credit for is how unemployment numbers have changed in response to his economic programs -- and those numbers, which you can view here have dropped at a faster rate over the last six months than they have over any six month period since 1993."
There are still over a MILLION fewer jobs now.
That "rate" is what I debunked earlier. Pure statistics.
It is easy to get a high RATE of increase after a decline.
But there are STILL over a MILLION jobs that are gone.
You, sir, are ill-informed. You might want to check your facts.
.1) unemployment all year. Basically unchanged from the previous yer. It wasn't until bush was elected that the unemployment rate started to grow.
I ran the numbers as you suggested (you provided a link), and it turns out that in 2000, we were at a balanced rate of 4% (+ or minus
In 2001, unemployment went from 4.1% up to 5.8%. Note that much of this was BEFORE 9/11. The August rate of unemployment was 4.9%. A full point above the previous year.
In 2002, unemployment first dropped (seasonal drops happen EVERY YEAR) to 5.6%, then bloomed to:
6.0%
In 2003, we see the same trend, an early drop to 5.7%, a peak later at 6.4%, and then back down to 5.9%
Just the facts, sir.
-Michael
For example in the UK, where they have an equally unsophisticated 'First Past the Post' system as opposed to Proportional Representation (aka Single Tranferrable Voting), the third party Liberal Democrats have been saying for years that if they ever get elected they will bring about a PR system. AFAIK, thanks partly to the implosion of the Conservative Party, the Lib Dems seem to be on the way to becoming the main opposition party within the next ten years and are starting to make noises that maybe they won't tinker with the FPTP system after all.
The only way STV voting can make any in-roads in the US would be as follows:
- But a measure on the ballot for Californian State Assembly elections to adopt STV
- Reveal to the country the benefits of STV by ending the polarisation of politics up in Sacramento
- Sell STV to the rest of the country as the road out from this abusive, out-dated, corrosive and childish left vs right shouting match between "stupid white men" who commit "treason" and "slander" in the land of "Lies and the lying liars who tell them."
- Adopt STV in congressional elections to end polarisation and counter the effects of gerrymandering.
STV is a simple system for the voter to undeerstand, but the counting of votes is quite complex and is vulnerable to misrepresentation by people opposed to it. Communicating the benefits of STV and countering any misleading or ill-informed opposing arguments would be critical.Drill baby drill - on Mars
>You don't get the feeling that the Democrats are
>deliberately posting questions that they KNOW
>the administration can not answer without
>exposing some major intelligence gathering
>mechanisms?
yeh, i can understand that concern, because it was the democrats who outed a lifelong undercover agent in revenge.
... hi bingo
"His mispronunciation of this word is not due to REGIONAL accent. I live in Texas, and I can tell you that 99.9% of the people I know don't pronounce it that way. Only intellectual morons pronounce it that way."
:)
Yeah, but on the other side of the coin, what about the Kennedys? Nobody else in Mass. has their *accent.* Lots of people think JFK was a great president but he pronounced Cuba as "Cue-ber". So are you going to argue that JFK was an *idiot* or worse because of how he pronounced that country's name? Yes, I know you'll counter that with Bush referring to Greeks as "Grecians" (which I thought was pretty funny but didn't sit well with my Greek friend)...
Say whatever you will about the Administration, but I will give them credit about thinking about future threats to national security. Just watch the History Channel and check out the Army's "Warrior 2025" program. Yes, it did start during the previous administration, but this Administration seems to be pretty forward thinking in that endeavour. What I don't like is the idle talk about democracy in Iraq yet the Administration won't back Taiwan. Taiwan is another "Cuban Missile Crisis" waiting to happen. Back in 1996, a Chinese general made a candid comment that their nukes could hit Los Angeles if the United States backed Taiwan in a defensive war. Taiwan is a full-fledged democracy that will perish if the PRC takes control. The only way to decouple from Taiwan without aiding the Chinese would be to secretly give the Taiwanese a handful of nuclear warheads to keep the PRC from attacking them. I think its fair play since the PRC was instrumental in giving the North Koreans the ability to create nukes. But then again, that's my opinion...
"Right now, somewhere in this world, Scott Baio is plowing a woman he doesn't love," - Peter Griffin, *Family Guy*
In a second we'll look at your misreading of OMB figures (such as describing a nearly 10% decrease in unemployment as a `jobless recovery', showing that you're still reading from last summer's talking points), but first I'd like to point out how fascinated I am that you think Sweden, of all places, is the example we should be emulating.
Why fascinated? Well, see, last year the government of Sweden admitted that Sweden's economy is in such bad shape that were Sweden to become the 51st state of the US, it would not only be the poorest state of the union, but Swedes as an ethnic group would be the poorest ethnic group in the US, below blacks, hispanics, or even American Indians. You can read all about it here.
So you're already off on a pretty bad foot, calling for economic changes which would be a massive step down for all levels of American society.
Now on to your claims:
Yet such changes in unemployment and growth are actually a slowerrate of change than that seen over the last six months (.8% in a year vs.And then you tell us we should be more like Sweden -- when the Swedes themselves are sick of their failing economy and want to be more like us.
Well and good except for a minor point -- unemployment claims follow the trend of the economy, they don't occur at the same time. Thus, the drops in employment in the early months of Bush's presidency occurred as part of the recession which began in 2000.
Similarly, the massive drop in unemployment over the last six months trails Bush's tax cuts by about the same amount of time.
I find him refreshing. I think it is a new sort of politics, a revival of Democracy. The Internet allows the free-flow of information, and internet commerse has finally matured so that supporting someone who you believe in is just a few clicks away. If Dean continues in this way the end of big-business backers may just be around the corner.
If you havn't looked at Dean, I encourage you do to so. He is a very nice blend of Liberatarian, small-business Republican, and even some Democrat notions. I encourage Dean to continue doing exactly what he is. Even if I disagree with him on some points, I agree with his overall direction -- giving professionals and small business people a voice rather than letting big "absentee owner" corporations run the show. Amen.
However, I think he's got a legitimate shot, and the reason is how he speaks. He is the first politician of national prominence I've ever seen that speaks in a normal cadence, one that implies he's thinking about the things on which he speaks instead of reciting rehearsed, focus-group-tested banalities.
Now, whether what he says is or isn't a focus-group-tested banality, I can't say. I just know that his delivery is impressive. Clinton is regularly lauded for the way he could make audiences feel he was speaking directly to them. He also had a gift for expressing the nuances of policy positions. If you ask me, Dean leaves him in the dust on these counts.
I remember first seeing him on a taped edition of 'crossfire' in my high school government class in 98. Every one of us came out of that class with a very favorable impression of Dean.
Although of course, when put up against Robert Novak, Satan himself would start looking pretty electable.
Well, there you go -- if returning tax levels to year-2000 levels, when they were much higher than today, is not `raising taxes', then you can argue that Dean does not want to `raise taxes'.
And if getting out of Iraq and trusting the UN to do a good job there is not `abandoning Iraq', then you can argue that Dean does not want to `abandon Iraq'.
But if all that sounds like spin to you, you know why Dean hasn't a snowball's chance of being the next President. :-)
I think Dean is pandering to his base with all this talk about the Saudis supposedly warning Bush about 9/11 and trying to deflect criticism about himself.
He has refused to release the records of his tenure as governor of Vermont.
What exactly is Dean hiding? How can voters decide if Dean is hiding his record? What horrible blunders is he trying to keep secret?
Man Holmes
$5 ?????
That's not a bet, that's a joke. Let's make it interesting - $5,000.
Yes, the point spread is the same. Mondale won MN and DC.
It's simple: I demand prosecution for torture.
You need to change that "is" to "was": it is no longer true that the average Republican contribution is smaller.
Bill Clinton was the guy who got the Democrats addicted to big checks and soft money. He had all the Hollywood millionaires eating out of his hand. But thanks to McCain-Feingold and Howard Dean, those days are largely over.
Of course unions and PACs are still important, but that's fine. Unions are today, to a much larger extent than in the past, democratic organizations, and PACs such as MoveOn get their money from more than a million people in small checks.
Yes, when you lower taxes, they are not as high. How clever of you to figure that out. They were not high in 2000, however, and to cut taxes during war is nothing short of treasonous in my book. Others on this thread have already pointed out the errors in your math, so I'll leave it at that.
Oh, and what was your share of the tax cut? I calculated that I'm getting $40 a month. Whoo-hoo. On the other hand, the price of my transportation to work is going up, my property taxes and sales taxes are probably going to go up (because we have to pay for "liberal" niceties like police and fire services somehow, ya know), and the quality of life in my town is going down faster than the tax rate. All of this is costing me way more than the precious tax cut gives me. If you think there's no connection, you need deprogramming badly.
And go on. Tell me what a fabulous job we're doing in Iraq. Yes, we've got a great bunch of soldiers over there, and they deserve all the credit and support we can give them -- but their commander in chief and his advisors are betraying them and serving this country -- and the people of Iraq -- terribly. Sure, the U.S. could overthrow Saddam with no help, but you can't rebuild a shattered country without getting lots of help. Your refusal to admit it, like the refusal of our current regime, is a big part of the problem and no part of the solution.
And that ain't spin. That's the truth beyond Fox News, my dear.
This is a very debatable point. I and many proressives agree that Affirmative Action is problematic. It often does end up punishing people due to their race. Frankly I'm a little suprised at the recent SCOTUS decision regarding the AA policy of that lawschool in Michingan. Clearly the policy put asians, whites, and certain subsets of Hispanics at a disadvantage, based solely on their race. I do agree that the majority of "progressives" support Affirmative Action, it's a very contentious issue. Many progressive I know who do support it do so only because it is the only available solution. In effect, they are saying the perfect is the enemy of the good, i.e. we should settle with something that has a lot of benefits, and some harms. Although I disagree with this position and believe AA to be a violation of the 14th Amendment, I would argue that there is a huge distinction between racism as perpetuated by AA policies and racism as perpetuated by the KKK and its ilk. There is racism which is supported out of hatred, and there is racism which is supported out of an attempt to bring equal opportunity and/or to right past injustices.
I believe your own statements on this subject to be disingenous. Besides blurring these two very different forms of racism you state that these policies are "designed to punish people for having the wrong skin color." On the contrary, these policies are designed to give benefit to people for having the skin colors of the historically oppressed. The punishment element is not the intent but is an unfortunate side-effect.
"Similarly, the massive drop in unemployment over the last six months trails Bush's tax cuts by about the same amount of time."
Bush's first tax cut went into effect long ago. Furthermore, there's been no drop in unemployment (.2%, maybe), unless you mean a seasonal drop, which happens EVERY YEAR at this time, to hire for the shopping season.
So Bush took over in 2001.
:)
e mocrats/stat ejobsformatted.pdf
You still don't want to use the data from 2000?
Ooooh, what's this? A reference?
http://www.house.gov/appropriations_d
Damn there's a lot of red there.
Face the facts. Bush is bad for jobs.
You don't like my post? Are you saying that there aren't a million fewer jobs?
It's hard to tell since the test is not well designed. For example, the first question is If economic globalisation is inevitable, it should primarily serve humanity rather than the interests of trans-national corporations. which assumes that the interests of humanity are not the same as trans-national corporations. This is clearly not an either/or situation since corporations are run by people who are part of humanity. The phrasing indicates their bias.
Asking whether or not the U.S. is to the right of center is a pointless question along the lines of "how high is up?". I.e., the answer depends entirely on where you zero the scale.
You should have read the FAQ - it will answer both these points. Not reading their FAQ just makes you look careless.
Look out! Socialism is gunna getcha, Neocon! Better find some more paid propagandists to brainwash you back into a Limbaughian oxycontin-fueled stupor!
Just as "Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton" are...
Exactly my point.
Thanks.
Cheers,
Greg
Perhaps the Iraq operation wouldn't be such a clusterfuck today if Clinton hadn't cut our military in half.
Just because it's contraversial, doesn't make it flamebait. If either of these situations occurred, I bet we wouldn't be in the shit we're in now!!!
Xenon, where's my money? -Borno
Howard Dean? He's trying to sound more and more like this Bush.
Howard Dean should be Bush's running mate
Dean has bought into this Bush's lies:
That Bush's terrorist attack on Iraq was about "bringing democracy" to Iraq. Dean calls Saddam "a small danger" to the States. That's BS. Saddam posed no danger to the States whatsoever. Dean says the "Americans" should have final say on Iraq's Constitution. That sounds just like the arrogant nonsense from this Bush regime. We've not heard a word from Howard Dean about Iraq's stolen oil (stolen by this Bush regime), or the Bush-PNAC regime's empire building and world domination plans...
Dean sounds if anything more committed than Condoleezza Rice to bringing democracy to Iraq. "Now that we're there, we're stuck," he said.
Howard Dean says he anti-war, but is he?
Faith: (noun): That quality which enables us to believe what we know to be untrue.
No. Not like Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton are. They actively participate in Democratic Party Politics. Sharpton is even running for President.
Completely unlike a band of skinheads.
A Good Intro to NetBS
Now I know why my Kucinich-Diebold submissions were all rejected--Slashdot is a Dean stronghold.
Well, I got news for you boys: Dean is a Rockefeller Republicrat, rich boy, trust fund baby, Old Money Blueblood who crushed a drive to have universal health care in Vermont.
He is NO LIBERAL!
Vote KUCINICH!
eat shiat and bark at the moon
Compare that to Dean's pledge to balance the budget by repealing Bush tax cuts (don't worry the rich won't go hungry anytime soon) and by cutting spending (the liberal wing of Democrats are already hammering him about how he is going to cut Medicare). That is EXACTLY what Reagan and Democrats in Congress did in mid 80's when deficits started spiraling out of control due to earlier tax cuts.
Dean is a fiscal REACTIONARY compared to Bush.
I see affirmative action (the race kind) as VERY compassionate compared to Bush's affirmative action (the kind where your daddy gets you into Yale then Havard Business School then out of draft to defend that dangerous terriotry called Texas).
Smartly designed regulation to make sure that everyone plays fair (and pay for their mistakes) is a KEY to a libertarian society. Otherwise you will have things like fleecing of investors (Enron, Tyco, and Mutual Funds) and stealing of taxpayer property (unfettered loggin, mining, superfund cleanup). Libertarian doesn't mean no rules, it means no more than rules than necessary. Bushies think libertarian means being free to reward their cronies with contracts and unfettered access to public property, but that is cronyism, not libertarianism.
FCC is a GREAT example of this. Instead of relaxing FCC's rules to LOWER the barrier of entry (e.g. low-power radio stations, more available licensing) which would be a libertarian and conservative thing to do, by repealing the ownership rule and raising the barrier of entry, you are making it harder and harder for Joe Averge to have ANY say in local communications market. I don't know how you can argue that is consistent with libertarian positions.
I don't know how ANYONE (including Dean) could do WORSE than what Bush has done so far as far as fiscal policies. He has cut over $200 billion in taxes to create 1.4 million jobs (at least that is what he is hoping). Hmmm, if you give me that money, I can create more than 1.4 million jobs. Heck, I can pay everyone $50k for doing nothing and I would still have billions left over. You know what Federal bank and rest of the world thinks about the job Bush is doing? Federal Bank is so nervous they won't even raise the interest rates when they had 9% GDP growth (which nobody believes). China and Europeans are starting to dump dollars, which is bringing dollar lower and lower everyday. Gold is trading at over $400/ounce which means everybody and their mother is betting that serious inflation is right around the corner. And REAL interest rate is rising no matter what the feds do.
Yea, I feel better everynight thinking about this....
Bush's fiscal policies are a joke. I don't know how you can be scared of Dean when you SHOULD be scared shitless right now.
- Update the electrical system to make up for years of deterioration and neglect under Saddam Hussein. Ditto the water system.
- Get the oil fields pumping again. Begin new investments in oil-field infrastructure so that Iraq's future development can be self-financing.
- Establish a new and creditable currency to lay the groundwork for economic growth.
- Refurbish and improve the backward physical condition of the nation's schools, and de-Nazify (so to speak) the Saddam-glorifying textbooks, so that all Iraq's children could be back in school by the first autumn. Ditto for the more than two dozen Iraqi universities, including fresh investments in new equipment, books, and supplies. Higher wages needed to be available for teachers too, who, like other professionals, had been impoverished under Saddam
"The Americans," bin Laden had once warned, "soon abandon the field at the sight of blood." This is what they're hoping for, in terms of the resistance after the war. Indeed, a big problem in Vietnam was that the enemy started to kill a few soliders a day in front of the media, in order to bring bad news daily to the public. This only fueled the protests and approval of the war effort, and we ended up losing it. The Bush administration is trying to point that out, yet nobody seems to get it.Sure, there have been errors in the peace plan. For example, we didn't secure all of Saddam's massive ammunition dumps. We didn't secure the borders from Syria and other nations to prevent terrorists from coming in. We could of trained civilian police and get them out there faster. We didn't setup an Iraqi/American TV network and so on. But in hindsight, I think the American people will forgive those warts on an otherwise amazing war camapign.
As I said, nation-building isn't a science. We have probably learned a lot from the Iraq liberation, no doubt the military will be trained and taught the lessons of this war in order to not repeat the failures of it in the future. Besides, I think if it was a U.N. as an occupation, things would of taken much much slower, as you'd have to first fight the U.N. beaucracy and debate stuff before anything gets done. As the RAND report says, unilaterial occupations are much quicker (yet more costly) and efficent than a multilaterial one.
In addition, a lot of the things democrats have on their Iraq list is exactly what Bush is doing. He's turning over power to the Iraqis as fast as possible. He's training a civilian police as fast as possible. He's even trying to reconstruct an Iraqi army. It's not easy work, and it's easy to critize.
I also believe the American people will think electing a "new leader", as you suggest, would have a negative effect. Indeed, a lot of the Iraqis are worried about the upcoming elections (they think a democrat would pull out, or screw things up). The Iraq occupation probably won't be completed by next November's elections, so Bush's job will seem unfinished. Based upon what I hear from other people, they will want Bush to say in the white house to finish what he started. Changing the administration may (and probably would) have a negative effect in that respect.
If you can't argue the facts, attack the messengers?
Are you forgetting that back in March before the Iraq war, the U.S. unemployment rate was 5.8% ?
One point you don't seem to be taking into account, Neocon, is that the "unemployment rate" as reported by the BLS only represents the number of people who are activly looking for work, and disregards those who have given up and gone on food stamps or moved back in with parents to live off eBay or Google Answers. There are 3,000,000 fewer jobs in the U.S. now than there were in 2000. Most of those people are no longer represented in the unemployment rate, but if history is any guide, they will vote against Bush in numbers far above the turnout percentages of the population at large. This against a backdrop of 50% approval ratings for Bush, the lowest since 9/11.
I hope those two quarters of growth with unemployment higher than it was in March keep away your nightmares of terrible, terrible socialism, Neocon.
Actually it's the Republicans who are playing the hate speech card this year.
I don't care if it's 90,000 hectares. That lake was not my doing.
I don't know whether you knew that or had to research it, but either way, excellent work.
He only has the "talking points" that he gets from shows like Rush. He can't handle any actual facts.
Statistics can be played any way you want.
What really matters is how many people have jobs that they can support their families with and how many people do not.
And how those numbers are changing.
With Bush, there are fewer people with jobs and more people in poverty.
Yea! Maybe he'll choose Grandfather Twilight as Secretary of State!
Sorry, but go look at the numbers, linked repeatedly in this thread. The seasonally adjusted employment numbers have improved from 6.4% unemployment to 5.9% unemployment in the last 6 months.
In addition, while there was some gain after Bush's first tax cut, 9/11 came along within a few months after the first Bush tax cut, and did further economic damage (on top of the recession which began in May of 2000). Bush's second tax cut, this spring, was followed by two quarters of the best growth seen in 20 years, and the best improvement in employment figures seen in a decade.
On the contrary -- I'm saying that the combination of the recession which began in 2000 and the attacks of 9/11, there has obviously been job loss. On Bush's watch, however, we have pulled out of said recession and are now creating jobs at a rate which has not been seen since 1Q1993.
That's what I call a good economic program -- and one which will win by a landslide next November. :-)
Inasmuch as we're arguing about whether Dean is left or right here, I'd say you're certainly helping prove my point here -- assuming we credit you with believing what you write here, you are a prime example of a Dean supporter whose views are well to the left of the American mainstream.
As for your views themselves, well, we shall certainly have seen if you're correct well before next year's election. Would you like to place a friendly bet on the outcome next November? :-)
I'll give you a hint: I'm betting Bush landslide.
Nazi Democrats? Cowards? Wanna have a shoot-off?
Your net of blame just gets wider and wider -- now Bush is not only to blame for a recession which started in May of 2000, the local mismanagement by your city and state officials is his fault too -- a position which hardly helps your credibility.
At which point you go on to present a view of the war in Iraq which is well to the left of the American mainstream -- which hardly helps your claim that the candidate you support is not on the left end of American politics.
Thanks for helping me make my point. See ya in November. :-)
Inasmuch as we're arguing about whether Dean is out on the left edge of American politics, you've just made my point quite nicely.
You can call a trillion dollar tax hike ``repealing a tax cut'' if it pleases you semantically, but you can't call it fiscally conservative. Words have meanings, and to be `conservative' fiscally is to believe that low taxes spur economic growth. Dean's program, based on raising taxes `to spur growth', is thus nothing of the sort.
For the rest of your post, you defend a range of left wing positions, from racial preferences in university admissions to increased regulation accross the board. You may support these positions (Dean certainly does), but doing so hardly can be claimed to make either you or Dean `conservative' in any way.
No no no no. Taliban == Government + Religion + Deobandi reactionaries.
If Government + Religion always equals Taliban, how come Iran is supposedly much better?
You've got to admire a "far left" candidate with an "A" grade from the NRA, don't you?
Far left my ass. Too bad people vote based on no information. Dean may not be for you, but to just believe five second analysis by idiots on the TV is not really to have any understanding at all.
Far left? Because he opposed the war on Iraq... wake up... moderates and even conservatives can find a lot to object to.
For one, it's nation building! hello, remember nation building? 87 billion dollars and counting? For another, where the hell is Osama?
-pyrrho
You're probably right, I was just trying to do the same kind of spinning as you are guilty of--except I don't have as much practice.
I'll admit that Dean is probably farther left than I am, but after the past 4 years I'm more willing to err in that direction than the other way.
As for the election, Bush has the advantage right now, but the race hasn't started. I think it will get closer as the election draws near and both candidates fight over the middle ground.
Of course due to the lousy electorate voting system my vote won't count for anything (being in a firmly republican state that no candidates even bother to advertise in).
Anyway...I can't in good conscience support the industrial-military complex (which says that war is good for us; what's good for us is good for america; america must stay at war) and its selfish goals.
You really need to pay attention to the all the news. Not just the major networks. Go ahead and listen to Fox (conservative), Pacifica (liberal), NPR (somewhat balanced), etc... But listen to all of it. Then throw out all the stuff you know can't be possible, the spin crap, the soundbites taken out of context, the rest as hearsay and you might come up with a useful tidbit or two.
Don't just echo what you see in the 26 minutes of Dan Rather's broadcast. You'll only get the kind of news that guarantees viewers for the Maxipad commercials that way. Not really news.
- CNN
Now the real story is that Novak approached Wilson and asked him how he felt about his wife's outing by the present administration. Wilson had no idea what he was talking about. Out of shock, Wilson then went on a tyrade tearing into Bush, all the while Novak just smiled and wrote down "confirmed by husband".
That's called "seeding" a story. Kind of like the cliche question "when did you stop beating your wife?" Have you noticed how the story has completely slipped off the radar? Trust me, if there was a story here, it wouldn't have burnt out in just two weeks. But once people started checking sources, no one wanted to touch it anymore. As for now you're just echoing unconfirmed DC gossip that somehow made it to print and then became part of that week's feeding frenzy.
I'm not siding one way or the other on the administration's policies. But I do reckognize the current climate of sensationalizing everything and everything Bush in an effort to maintain the same kind of ratings that Watergate, Contra arms, Lewinsky and the like brought about.
Think for yourself.
Good points.
Oh yeah, I almost forgot. If you're going to simply repeat what you hear on TV, then at least take the time to do it accurately
Mail? Put "slashdot" in the subject to pass the spam filters.
If you are not smart enough defend your position and actually DEBATE the substances of your thoughts, you need to DROP your remote, step away from the FOX News channel, and stop just repeating what you hear from talking heads on TV.
Open up some books, essays, newspapers. Actually think about what you are trying to say. Research your positions to see if they are coherent and consistent. Then, and only then, will you be able to have an honest debate with someone who disagrees with your point of view and you can both walkaway with your knowledge enriched by the experience.
This will be my last response since I am getting NOTHING out of this and I will stop wasting my time with likes of you.
Think again.
Sure they did. Many of those people were voting America's two big divisive issues: gun control and abortion. Dean takes the NRA endorsement back to the Democrats if he's nominated.
Add that to the 2,200,000 registered voters who had jobs in mid-2000 but now don't have anything better to do on a Tuesday than take out their frustration at the poling booth, along with their friends, neighbors, and families.
Dean is likely to capture the center in a broad-based political sense, too.
No rhetoric or mapping can change the fact that Gore received half a million more votes than Bush.
On the contrary! Take a look at Scandinavian income taxes. In Sweden for example, they have two tax brackets, 0% and 57% -- the top bracket begins at 10% above the mean wage. Therefore, most Swedes pay no income tax; less than half pay all. Do you think Sweden isn't healthy? They have 3.5 more years of life expectancy than we do, the longest in the world. The also have the lowest infant mortality in the world. Their poverty rate is 0.2%, so low that the CIA reports it as "NA%". They have low (2.2%) inflation and (4%) unemployment, and national debt. Their GDP growth and spending power denominated by cost of living is on par with that of the U.S. They lead Europe in literacy and access to health care. They provide their citizens and immigrants with free education through four years of college. They have less than 1% unmet demand for daycare. They have a vibrant economy at all levels, from sole proprietorships (no impovrished underclass to provide cheap labor for mom-and-pop-killing Wal-Marts) to multinationals (e.g., Ikea, Ericsson, Volvo, Saab, etc.)
If you are interested in learning the truth about tax policy, I recommend Citizens for Tax Justice -- in particular their graph of marginal tax rates
Not since this last Congress, they aren't!
A multi-party system would work fine for Congress and the Senate, the problem is that the Presidency is winner-takes-all and therefore they need to represent as many of the voters as possible. If the other branches of government were more heterogeneous then maybe there'd actually be some checks and balances on the President.
In addition to a strong multi-party system, runoff voting in each district creates even more dynamic, representative houses. Just whatever you do, stay away from proportional representation!
(Personally, I think you guys should switch to the Westminister system -- it seems to be working pretty well up here.)
The same kookpots - like Buchannon (sp) run for president too.
Sharpton and to a lesser degree Jackson are just as whacky, but no less so, than many of the fringe on the right.
The point made by the parent somewhere up there hasn't been supported either. His inclusion of Sharpton was a straw man argument. Sharpton isn't at all like the others. One would even be hard pressed to say that Jackson and Shapton are alike. They clearly are different in their base.
What is a bit different, is that the democratic party seems to be a bit more inclusive (than the Republicans) in allowing people with simply way-out-there ideas to participate in the process.
Cheers,
Greg
Now that should be a good story.
What did blowing up two buildings have to do with massive unemployment?
You, and many people like you, try to equate conservative Republicans with racist skinheads and storm troopers, etc.
It's the equivalent of what the far right do- they try to equate liberal Democrats with the SLA and far-left terrorist groups.
That's called 'smear.' At least acknowledge what you're doing.
A Good Intro to NetBS
With all due respect, points you may choose to make about whether the left or right position are correct are completely tangential to this discussion, and at least in your posts made on an emotional/irrational level which is not worth debate.
It is enough to resolve the topic at hand (is Dean `conservative') that you have ascribed to Dean the left/liberal side of every issue you have mentioned, and thus made clear that he is, in fact, not `conservative' at all.
I didn't say say it did not have an ECONOMIC IMPACT. I asked what it had to do with the UNEMPLOYMENT numbers you claimed.
Nice attempt at a strawman.
If anything, it should have reduced unemployment because 3,000+ people were taken out of the workforce.
If you can't answer the question, admit it. Don't try to blame me because you can't answer it.
You seem to have lots of rhetoric, but not much in the way of facts.
Lots of claims, no substantiation.
"I think that's quite enough information for those reading this thread to decide how seriously to take his position. Don't you?"
Ah, the fabled "Argumentum ad Hominem".
You haven't answered the question:
What did blowing up two buildings have to do with massive unemployment?
You seem to take every possible opportunity (even inventing strawmen) to evade direct questions.
When continually bombarded by verifiable facts, you retreat to rhetoric.
You claim:
"total unemployment in Sweden was 7.9% in 2000, and 8.9% in 1999 -- and you have just been telling us that US rate of 5.9% is `unbearably high'"
Yet the link you posted shows:
"In November 2000, registered unemployment was 170,000 people, or 3.9 percent of the labor force."
3.9%
170,000 people.
In the US
3,000,000 jobs lost because of Bush.
"In contrast, in 1990, the bottom twenty percent of American society had, earned, and spent as much (adjusted for inflation) as the middle twenty percent had in 1950."
Do you have substantiation for that? I doubt it because that "bottom twenty percent" you claim in 1990 would have included those living below the poverty level, the homeless, etc. That would severely alter any averages taken.
Again, you're attempting to avoid the issue.
"As for why 2000 is more instructive, look elsewhere in this thread -- the recession which this nation is only now recovering from began in May of 2000."
But the issue was (and I'll quote my previous post):
More people are out of work than in 1999. FACT
There are fewer jobs than in 1999. FACT
You can skip the strawmen. They're easy to recognize.
You can use 2000 if you don't like 1999. It doesn't matter to me.
You can cry about how the report I used wasn't nice to Bush. It doesn't matter to me.
You can cry about why I should use 2000 instead of 1999. It doesn't matter to me.
You can claim that there is a huge PERCENTAGE increase in the number of jobs the last 2 quarters. It doesn't matter to me.
FACT - More people are out of work now, than were out of work before Bush took over.
FACT - There are fewer jobs now than there were before Bush took over.
Try to avoid those facts all you want. They're still facts.
You're right about March/November -- sorry about that.
"Okay, at this point, I think we can all agree that someone who thinks Bush was president in 2000, and that the attacks of 9/11 ``had an impact on the economy'' but ``didn't affect unemployment'' isn't worth taking seriously (and may be a troll)."
You can't answer because your "talking points" didn't give the information.
You keep trying to avoid the facts.
I read it. Sweden breaks down the group into "unemployed" (not, as you claim "unemployable") and those in the governmental training programs.
And you can keep repeating yourself all you want. That won't make it right.
Because you cannot deal with the facts, you claim I'm a troll. Whatever. :)
:D
Again, when Clinton left office, there were more jobs than there are now.
Killing 3,000+ people should reduce the number of people without jobs because 3,000+ jobs just opened up.
Stick to your mantra if it makes you feel better.
So far you have ONE item I was incorrect on.
:)
:D
You pair that with an item that you REFUSE to substantiate.
With those two items, you claim I am "discredited".
You just don't like being called to substantiate your position because you don't have anything but "talking points".
Here, I'll give you a couple more facts that you won't be able to handle.
The US counts people who are drawing unemployment benefits. Not all unemployed people. That's why I keep hammering on the FACT that there are MORE PEOPLE without a job today than there were when Clinton was in charge.
That is because the US can lose jobs without the unemployment rate going up, if those jobs lost are equal to or less than the number of people who will lose their unemployment benefits that month.
Sweden counts all people old enough to work but below retirement who are capable of work and are looking for a job.
That is what is meant by "registered unemployed".
"Those in the government training programs are exactly equivalent to Americans receiving workfare benefits, and would be counted as unemployed in the US."
Not correct. If that were so, you'd see a huge jump in "registered unemployed" at the end of those training programs.
That was addressed in the article.
"During 2000, there was heavy demand for labor. For example, it has become more common for those completing their studies to get a job immediately, without any intervening period of unemployment."
How did killing 3,000+ people result in 3 MILLION FEWER JOBS?
I would think that it would mean that 3,000+ jobs had just opened up.
I take it that you really don't have an answer for that and that you'll continue to attempt strawmen and ad Hominem.
You are mistaken, Neocon:
"Registered," in Sweden, means people activly seeking work, which is exactly how the U.S. BLS measures unemployment.
You are also mistaken about the difference in cost of living required for purchasing power parity. According to the CIA, Swedes earn $25,400 per capita, while the U.S. earns $37,600 per capita. That is two thirds, not one third. A studio apartment for a university student in Sweden costs about $300 per month. How much does housing cost around your nearest university?
So, after being factually wrong on two counts, you tell me that I "go off the rhetorical deep end" -- is that for suggesting that socialism and capitalism are not mutually exclusive, or suggesting that progressivism contributes to longivity, I wonder?
Look, if you think it's absurd that socialism and capitalism are mutually exclusive, why do you think that Sweden, Norway, Finland, and Denmark keep their bottom tax bracket at 0%? It's because they want to maximize the spending power of the poor because there are more of them than the rich. That, in turn, is because 2/3rds of modern economies are driven by consumers. They are capitalist, with a saftey net, it's just that their net is better designed than ours.
You were, however, absolutly right about governors being elected in March rather than November. I'm not interested in keeping score or arguing about who is leading in next November's race -- tortise and hare, hubris, pride before fall, complacency, etc. -- I don't whether I'm on the popular side, I want to be on the correct side, and I want the correct side to win.
While I keep asking you WHY you think that it affected unemployment.
And you response it that I can be dismissed as a troll because I ask that question.
*drumroll*
Yes, another fallacy. That one is "Begging the Question"
Defined as: "Any form of argument in which the conclusion occurs as one of the premisses, or a chain of arguments in which the final conclusion is a premiss of one of the earlier arguments in the chain."
The simple fact is that there are 3 MILLION FEWER JOBS now than when Clinton was in charge.
From the parent-parent-parent-parent...and so on...
(quote)
"Can you actually name one of these "enlighted progressives" and give an example?"
Jesse Jackson, Al Franken, Al Sharpton, Barbara Streisand, Bill Mahr (sp?) are a few names that come to mind pretty quick...
(quote)
I wasn't trying to equate skinheads and republicans. (Though the "southern strategy" of Nixon was pretty clear in its intent.)
The parent way up there was trying to equate Sharpton and others who simply don't hold any of his views.
I was contrasting that by saying how unfair it would be to compare skinheads with mainstream Republicans.
(quote)
Jesse Jackson, Al Sharpton - progressives?
How about I claim some racist whackjob from Idaho is a compasionate conservative... sheesh!
If you ever watched Sesame Street, and saw - one of these isn't like the others... Well, you get the idea...
(quote)
If you actually read the parent posts, you wouldn't be excoriating me for something I never did.
Dang, did they teach you to read where you come from?
I'm no fan of current republicans, do doubt, but I don't use staw-man arguments. I'll come right out and start with the President - no need to pick on skin-heads. (Plus, it's not fair to the skin-heads.)
Cheers,
Greg
I see in your journal that you are a Christian, but I'm not sure about the details of your beliefs, other than that you suggest that the story of Onan is a prohibition on contraception; therfore I'm going to guess that the abortion issue is very important to you; please correct me if I am wrong. I am a Quaker who believes in salvation through the Grace of Christ's sacrafice, and in the teaching of Jesus in his own words, above the writings of his followers.
To disclose my other assumptions, I am fairly sure from your writings that you must agree with the essential points of this article -- again, please correct me if I am wrong.
So, my question is, what do you think of the difference between Luke 3:7-11, with John the Baptist speaking prior to Christ's sacrifice...
Hardly a week goes by when I don't read some biblical prohibition against abortion cut from whole cloth. I wonder what non-Quaker Christians these days make of the plainspoken words of Christ.
How about David Duke?
http://www.duke.org/
Huh, he *did* run for president? Right?
If I'm not mistaken, he is or was recently the party chairman for the Republican Party in St. Tammany's Parish, Louisiana.
In 1990, he won the Republican nomination for US *Senate*, but lost in the general election.
Is that close enough for ya?!
(Talk about whack jobs. Skinheads got nothin' on Duke.)
Cheers,
Greg
YES!
That's THREE POSTS IN A ROW where you have done NOTHING but repeat your previous claim.
No substantiation!
NOTHING!
You've hit BOTH "Begging the Question" and "Argumentum ad Hominem" ALL THREE TIMES!
Because I was incorrect on a different point does NOT mean that I am incorrect on this point.
I AM VICTORIOUS!!!!!
I'm sure this will come up again and I will waste no time in linking that future discussion to this this one.
No, I've been saying Swedes have houshold purchasing power on par with that of the U.S. since my first comment in reply to you in this thread, because I know it from travels, friends, and cited sources.
Your selectivity is tiring. I also included rents from Pittsburgh, PA classifieds to represent the low end of the U.S. university housing market. As for my "allegedly typical" citation from a Swedish government web site, here's another from academia. Where in the U.S. can you find a 2295 square foot (65 sq. meter) apartment for $600/month (4,500 SEK)? In Denver, CO, such apartments are being advertised at around $1,700. Why, that's nearly three times as much!
You are right about the higher cost of gasoline, of course, but at least as far as my family's budget is concerned, gasoline expenses are about 2.5% of housing expenses.
Regressivity is a matter of degrees, there is no "most progressive," only more or less progressive than something else. As far at the industrialized (OCED) nations go, the U.S. is usually battling Mexico for the title of "most regressive." I know many people in the U.S. think their taxes are very progressive. Like many Americans, they are unaware of the facts in the world around them.
What? Sweden has 4% unemployment vs. 6% here (according to the CIA, which I presume measures in compatible units.)
There's an example of an insular world view: 35% is very low. It's over 50% in Scandinavia.
65 m^2 == 700 ft^2. In Denver, apartments that size rent around $600, the same as listed for the Blekinge Institute of Technology, which is in Karlskrona, an upscale costal port.
So. Let's start over:
Okay, there you have it. If that isn't a definitive figure from a definitive source, I don't know what is. So, using Denver for typical U.S. rents, 3BR range from $900-1300. Calling that $1100 means the ratio is more like 3:4 than 1:3, so I am clearly wrong about the cost of living in Sweden
I apologize.
However, my false assumptions were based on a very significant child housing credit, which I need to learn more about.
Neocon, your points on England, the Netherlands, and Denmark, compare civil penalties, restrictions, and impositions to criminal imprisonment. I agree that prior restraint, restrictions and impositions on the practice of journalism, and warrantless searches are bad, but who thinks that they are anywhere near as bad as the U.S. pandering to powerful prison guard unions resulting in mandatory minimum sentencing fiascos?
From the July 2000 report, Poor Prescription: The Costs of Imprisoning Drug Offenders in the United States:
From a utilitarian perspective, this situation is pointless because as far as I can tell, both prescription and illicit drugs are as available now as they were in 1980. And crime rates in general are within 20% of 1980 levels -- but we have four times as many people in prison! Does that trend lead you to believe that we are becoming more or less free?
For what reason do you suggest that prior restraint and the Official Secrets Act make people less free than mandatory minimum drug sentences? You can compare the two by simply determining whether the other nations in question have a greater proportion of people in prison for violations of the laws you cite. There is no greater loss of freedom experienced in the industrialized world than to be put in prison, save for execution (which, of those countries, is only practiced in the U.S., by the way.) To compare imprisonment to restrictions on freedom of speech resulting in civil penalties, or even warrantless searches, is simply absurd. I'll agree that we are more free in some ways, but nowhere near the most free overall.
DEMOCRACY:
Not according to:
While you are technically correct about Austrailia, the systems in use in Canada and Brazil, and parts of England, e.g., the metropolitan London area, and France, also serve to eliminate the spoiler effect. Without the spoiler effect, Ross Perot would not have kept G.H.W. Bush from being re-elected, so this cuts both ways. Any nation incompetent enough to eliminate the spoiler effect, so easily done, is centuries behind in democracy.
POVERTY:
I have no idea, but I am absolutly sure that the money exiting the economy due to luxury vacations can not possibly be anything less than orders of magnitude more than money leaving the economy through wellfare, if any does at all.
Yes, I think it makes a difference. With "only" it implies not to ever pay any more than possible, as if paying taxes is distasteful. Without "only" it's simply a commandment to pay tax in addition to paing tithe, as if they are both important if not equally important. Do you see that?
Violence means a lot of things. A sound can be called violent if it startles like the crack of a bullwhip. My belief is that the violence forbidden by Christianity is that which does perminant damage to people, and harm to property clearly isn't forbidden. And of course it's in a relative sense. If I see my daughter about to be run over by a car, and my only choice is to pull her so hard that I could dislocate her shoulder, I wouldn't hesitate for a moment.
Most Quakers believe, as far as I know, that violence to property is not only allowed by scripture, but that it is occasionally important to make a point, because of the verses you quoted. This is why occasionally you'll read about Quakers taking hammers or cow blood to missle silos or F-15s. (I do not condone that kind of thing, by the way, unless the demonstration gets so much press that the example ends up actually doing more good than the harm of imprisoning good people, and I'm not sure if that's ever really happened in my lifetime.)
Yes and no. I don't believe in war, not even under the "just war" theory asdefined by the Vatican. I do believe in the use of physical restraint and imprisonment under certain circumstances, but certainly not for the possession of marijuana or doctor-shopped oxycontin.
No, I don't think you should allow your life to be taken if you can do something to prevent it, as long as that something doesn't involve killing someone else. Breaking their leg with a .357 slug, why not? It's a similar choice to dislocating a shoulder
Also, we haven't been anywhere near foreign policy, but if you're interested, this video (RealPlayer) has a wide-ranging debate between Richard Perle, another neoconservative, a journalist, and Josh Marshall, with whom I tend to agree. I'm not trying to argue any of the points made, it just seems to me that the were made well by both sides in the debate.
Not at all, I said that imprisonment for soft and prescription drug possession instead of treatment is more of a limitation on freedom than civil restrictions on speech. Now you are being dishonest.
Ah, ha! You read the doctored transcript, didn't you?
As the caption indicates, the shaded areas are recessions as defined by the NBER (and as in turn used by federal and state governments and news media) which claimed that the U.S. experienced negative growth from July 1990 through March 1991. I can find no sources claiming that a recession did not occur during that period. At this point I am guessing you are trolling me because I'm almost certain you are not ignorant of these facts.
By the way, the graph shows both job creation and job destruction, which I for one consider far more important than GDP growth. When a hospital needs to be torn down because it has become structually unsound, that results in additional GDP "product," even though the quality of life has clearly suffered. Lots of negative things are recorded as positive growth.
Inasmuch as a `recession' is defined as ``three consecutive quarters of falling real gross national product'', to claim, as you believe this graph does, that a recession occured for one quarter in late '91 is a meaningless statement. One suspects, of course, that you chose to link to an image alone and not the article from which it came because the article would have made this fact clear.
Of course, we can always take your definition of `recession', for the sake of argument. If we do, we see that even by your definition, the `recession' of '91 ended during the presidency of George H. W. Bush. So as a final gaffe in your series of gaffes, you have made exactly the point which you were trying to oppose: that Clinton cannot be credited for the economic growth of the nineties since it began before he was president.
To whatever extent you want to keep making these posts, you're welcome to, but as you're now averaging about one major gaffe or misunderstanding per post, doing so is certainly not serving to reduce the impression that you are an unserious (and rather confused) person.
Good day.
Ha. You would be blaming Clinton for any recession that had occured during his presidency, would you not?
I do blame Clinton for the recession which began during his presidency -- and I would credit him had he managed to turn it around. But he didn't, and Bush did, so Bush deserves the credit for turning it around.
But other than that, your chronology falls flat -- eight months (the period from the economy's peak some time in July 1990 until consistent growth began again in March of 1991) is not three quarters, even if it does begin on a quarter boundary, and in any case you're counting the entire period of slowing, rather than the period of negative real GDP growth.
Also, you are aware that the NBER is a private think tank, and not an official measure of anything, right? And that this fact, combined with their reticence about revealing who pays their budget makes it particularly interesting that they use a definition of `recession' so different from that in the dictionary?
So again, your average is holding at one gaffe per post of yours -- do you really want to keep this up?
Clinton wasn't president in March, 2001.
No, GDP declined during Q3'90, Q4'90, and Q1'91, even though it grew during one of the included months.
Huston Cron 12/10/2003 (left leaning)
Guess what. When an economy as large as ours starts a down-turn, it isn't instantaneous -- it starts with slowed growth.
You should be impressed that this administration has been able to start to turn things around so fast -- less than 3 years.
In december of 2000, several articles appeared which hailed the end of economic growth. Check SacBee (left leaning) archives. Data based on economists from UCLA's Anderson Forcast.
Anderson 12/2000 article
Are you going to suggest that they pulled data out of their hats in December 2000? Or more likely they had MONTHS of data on hand to make such a prediction (that looks AWFULLY familar with current facts). It looks like the "slump" started WELL within the Clinton admin.
However, it's silly to argue WHO started the recession. It's a flippin' HUGE economy. The Cookie Monster couldn't cause a slump in 2 months of office, let along GWBush. The "slump" was foreseen well within the Clinton admin, and the Bush admin followed program to turn it around.
Regardless of what partisans wish to say, it's not a Clinton thing and it's not a Bush thing. It's an ECONOMY thing. Economies go up and down. Thats life.
While I'm not suprised that Don Evans' Commerce Dept. would claim such a thing, I can find no data anywhere on the web claiming anything other than the fact that U.S. real GDP grew +0.6% in 3Q2000 and +1.1% in 4Q2000.
GDP growth changing from +0.6 to +1.1% is not slowing.
In fact, I happen to agree with you, because I believe the economic downturn, and the much more important loss of over three million jobs, was caused primarily by the $7 trillion that exited the U.S. stock markets from mid-2000 through 2002. That "slump" began almost exactly the same time as Bush started leading Gore in the polls.
Tht URL doesn't work, and I can't verify your assertion. Everything I find says real, seasonally-adjusted, revised GDP grew +0.6% in 3Q2000.
Sure, but are you confusing the deficit with the total debt? After world war II, the U.S. debt was about 100% of the GNP, but tax rates at the top bracket were much, much higher, and several years of surpluses paid down that debt. There is no plan for such surpluses in the Bush budget.
Currently, federal debt is 12% of the total debt owed by all U.S. debtors, public and private. The Bush OMB projections plan to increase that federal portion of the credit market to 19% in 2008, and they assume that in doing so they will see an interest rate increase of less than 1%. Do you agree that is possible?
I read the UCLA study, and I don't think it takes those interest rate pressures into account. It was written before the magnitude of the Bush deficits was announced.
In the short term, that is true, although given the famously huge U.S. trade deficit there will obviously be more importers hurt than exporters helped. However, there is a lot more to it than that.
Please see this Reuters article; here's a particularly interesting excerpt:
Note that the Prudential analyst quoted expects the economy to "decelerate" in the second half of 2004.