The Democrats are giving Joe Lieberman everything he wants, and this is symptomatic of the party: they stand for nothing but the status quo and internal accommodation. “Bipartisanship” is a dirty word when one of the two sides is a discredited, corrupt mob of wannabe theocrats and greedy thugs, but the Democratic leadership simply rolls over and acts as if they are doing a great thing by flushing progressive principles down the toilet.
Glenn Greenwald lambastes the illusion of partisan bickering. We’ve been ruled by one party of idiots and another of fawning puppy dogs, and I’m getting a little tired of it.
But if they’re not nice to Lieberman, they might lose Marvin Gardens, and then how are they going to put up any hotels?
The Democrats are going to get a lot what they want this session-the republicans can’t filibuster everything. This early show of bipartisan getting along will be the public face of some nasty fights-culminating (I hope) in Lieberman’s failure to win re-election 2 years from now. Putting a centrist face on things takes away the only real Republican talking point-that they are a balance to the Democrats.
That being said, if the Democrats start behaving lovey-dovey can’t we all get along centrist, instead of just being press-release centrists, I’m gonna be pissed…..
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/religion/3464073/Educated-Catholics-have-sown-dissent-and-confusion-in-the-Church-claims-bishop.html
“Educated Catholics have sown dissent and confusion in the Church, claims bishop ”
Hillarious/Sad article
Sure, and Rich Lowry (National Review) crowed in an editorial that if Obama is going to get rid of Reaganism, he’ll be fragging Clinton’s legacy as well.
Which means it’s extremely unlikely that he will.
Glen D
http://tinyurl.com/2kxyc7
You’ll get no argument from me. Until McCain picked the theoratically inclined, whack-job Palin I was planning on voting Green. But my fear of a theocracy under a dim-bulb who thinks something akin to an all-out nuclear war to bring “Armageddon in her time” is a good thing (as is preached by her former church) was too much.
Joe Lieberman represents my state, or at least he’s supposed to, I’m sorry to say. I’ll be standing by for any rotten tomatoes you might want to throw my way. I understand your outrage. Let the healing begin.
Sadly, that would be 4 years from now; LIEberman was last reelected (running as a petitioning candidate after having been defeated by an actual progressive Democrat in the primary) in 2006. BTW, he lied unblinkingly in that campaign, insisting that he was really still a Democrat at heart, and that he opposed the war in Iraq every bit as much as Ned Lamont did (and, outrageously, that Democrats should support him because that would help pave the way for a Democrat to win the White House).
All that said, I worry that all the energy put (esp. by my fellow Nutmeggers) into punishing LIEberman may be a distraction from the work ahead. Unless/until he actively opposes the Democratic/Obama legislative agenda, I think he should simply be ignored. The legacy of faithless dissembling he has created for himself is likely to be punishment enough.
If he does impede the progressive agenda, I think he should be dealt with swiftly and harshly… but I don’t think he will. His career has been distinctly weathervane-ish… and I think it’s clear which way the wind is currently blowing.
oops—that’s 4 years till he’s up for reelection, not 2-getting ahead of myself here…..
The good image that “bipartisanship” seems to have in the US always strikes me (eurotrash that I am) as odd. The political system there makes it hard for any third party to get a foot hold. Surely you don’t want the two established parties getting too friendly; that’s a recipe for a de fact one party state.
Lieberman irritates the hell out of me. I’d actually have a lot more respect for him if he joined the Republican Party.
But, PZ — please tell me you didn’t just use “spineless” as an insult!
PZ, if atheists are already called militant, surely the Democrats have to roll over to avoid getting called militant by the idiots, right?
Damn, that’s an incredibly stupid argument. Shame that it seems to be the reasoning. After all, if the Dems grew spines the Republicans would call them names. What horror, especially when Democrats are already verbally berated.
I’m British and don’t know much about American politics (other than a Muslim just won the Presidential election… JUST JOKING! :D). Who is Joe Lieberman?
I just called the DNC to cancel my monthly donation. When I told the operator why she said she had had a number of angry calls doing the same but the people would not tell her why they were canceling. When I told her it was because of their fawning over Lieberman she said “well, I certainly understand your reason.” If you call them, please be kind to the operators. They’re just working stiffs trying to make a living. They aren’t the gutless prima donas who make the “decisions” (read that as take path of least resistance).
Sometimes the English language is inadequate to express the anger and sense of betrayal, tinged with a sort of horrified resignation that the democratic party causes at every turn.
Of course, I guess I saw it coming, because I called it days ago: http://deusexeverriculum.wordpress.com/2008/11/13/dear-joe-lieberman/
This may be a shrewd move.
What would you rather have— another enemy, when he may be the deciding 60th vote in the senate, or someone who owes you big?
Lieberman knows that he owes them after this.
@ Matt
Lieberman was the VP nod by Kerry. He’s an independent, former Dem. He was McCain’s cheerleader and Obama detractor during the election period. Whatever he promises to do – he usually does what benefits him. He’s got a chairmanship which he should be stripped of – but the party is too pussy to do it.
What has he done to make people here hate him so much? Surely it’s not his support for McCain that have made him hated so much by you guys. I’ve been trying to find out why, apparently he’s pro-choice and pro-gay rights.
“But, PZ — please tell me you didn’t just use “spineless” as an insult!”
Yeah, those spineless, sucker-armed, copper-rich protein hemocyanin blood conaining, lying through thier beaks, shooting water jets our of thier asses polititians!!!!!
And by Kerry, I mean Gore. (Not even remotely similar. Sorry.) Rachel Maddow gave a good analysis of why catering to this dude is a bad plan. (She’s on MSNBC.)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nnKh3N5Vgy4 – This being her analysis. :)
It’s really nice to see my two favorite blogs linking to each other.
Glenzilla is great. As he has often said, getting pissed in the moment is fine, but planning ahead to hold people accountable is even better. (You might want to consider sending any money formerly sent to the DNC to Accountability Now.) We need a true opposition party, or nothing’s going to change, ever.
“It’s really nice to see my two favorite blogs linking to each other.”
In PUBLIC!!!
Sorry, goofy mood today.
I sent an email through the change.org site complaining about seeing the same old faces in the “new”group.
You think your tired of it?
I’m only 23 and I’m on the verge of revolt! Thanks to half-assed job of the government I can look foward to growing old in Blade Runner style dystopia without leggy Darryl Hannah robots for comfort.
Matt,
I don’t like him because he is a hawk who turns his back on progressive causes to propel his war against the Middle East even further. He supports torture, and he wants a tough, no talks without demands, stance towards Iran. He is a supporter of the illegal Israeli occupation of Palestine.
Joe Liberman is an elected official and will be in his post for 4 more years. That’s 4 years he can act out and whine and complain and grandstand. Four years he can betray the party he feels has betrayed him.
It is not great that he’s on homeland security and can do grandstanding there. On the positive side he is off of public works and environment. If Obama and the dems have plans to remake america, to get things moving again what is more important? Homeland security or public works and the environment? Where is the troublesome senator happily stuck?
You can kick him out and push him all the way over to the other side and they will tout it as a small victory or even an unraveling of obama’s wider collation or you can let him have the chair he wants and doesn’t realize is no longer the center of attention in the senate.
I’m not that bothered by this and I do hope Ned Lamont runs again- all the way to victory next time.
We should take a leaf out of the Australian’s book. They get pissed off about an issue, they go and found the Aussie Sex Party.
The problem is that Lieberman is a senator. Since Roman days, senators are hard to get rid of. They become senators in part through their connections, and have power in part through their connections. These connections make senior senators harder to get rid of.
Senator Lieberman is a die-hard right winger for the issues on foreign affairs regarding the Middle East. This is a product of his (and others) bizarre and inexplicable allegiance to Israel on diplomatic affairs. This is the entire logic behind his rightward shift. It’s why he supports a hard line with Iran and more entanglements in the Middle East. Otherwise, he’d have probably stuck with the Democrats.
“””If he does impede the progressive agenda, I think he should be dealt with swiftly and harshly… but I don’t think he will. “””
The Progressive agenda?
And just WHAT, pray tell, IS the progressive agenda?
To give money to any rich wall street bastard who asks for it? To destroy the cooperative relationship between taxpayers and government by looting the coffers and making sure the financial class can keep their yachts?
To scream about being against war and then authorizing another to go to war while signing the checks to pay for the bullets and bombs?
To scrream about civil rights and then elect a president who supported the dismissal of the 4th Amendment with his FISA vote?
To watch as the supporters of Fannie and Freddie (who collected large sums from both) spearhead the next bad big government snafu by way of an 850 Billion bailout package, all the while blaming everybody but their own ignorance and complicity in creating Mortgage madness ’08?
The PROGRESSIVE agenda?
This coming April, there will be a huge new wave of mortgage defaults, coupled with credit card defaults, and a growing tax revolt alongside double digit unemployment numbers…
The National debt will be toppling over the 11 TRILLION dollar mark and the world will be detaching itself from the US dollar as best as it can.
China will be pushing to spawn a new middle class in China, selling goods once bound for debt riddled America to itself. The Mid- East will be trading in other currencies besides the dollar because the dollar is a saturated currency.
The central banks will be trying their best to keep hold of their supremecy by creating a central monetary agency that will attempt to over-ride US sovereignty and dictate monetary terms to the US citizens who, once upon a time, were actually supposed to be in charge of themselves and their own government…
And Bill thinks he’s got the tail of a Progressive movement?
Hold on Bill. Hold on!
Ugly and painful as it seems, it really is the smart move.
PZ,
I can’t believe that you used the word SPINELESS as an insult. Why you’re nothing but a chordatocentric elitist!!! SHAME!!!
“I don’t like him because he is a hawk who turns his back on progressive causes to propel his war against the Middle East even further. He supports torture, and he wants a tough, no talks without demands, stance towards Iran. He is a supporter of the illegal Israeli occupation of Palestine.”
Presumably you also hate Hitchens then? I know he doesn’t support torture or Israel, but he does support the wars in the Middle-East and a tough stance on Iran.
It’s so sad how readers of this blog think anyone who takes a tough stance on evil is somehow evil themselves.
The more I think about it, the more I defeatedly accept the Democrats’ “forgiveness” of Lieberman as politically expedient. If they piss him off too much he might switch to being a full blown Republican, or he might resign. Then Ct’ Republican Governor Rell (blech) would just appoint a Republican in his place.
Hopefully in four years my state will be sane enough to get rid of him for good. His campaigning for McCain might be enough to do it, if Lamont or whoever is smart enough to pound on that betrayal.
Please, spare me the false equivalency. Hitchens doesn’t vote on our laws now, does he? One person has a great weight in how he effects our country. The other is a mildly amusing sot who mumbles on TV. Which, apparently, makes them exactly the same…
Two evils don’t make a good. And the bottom line is that Lieberman supports war crimes and illegal wars. I’m of the opinion that much of the Bush Administration, and much of the House and Senate, for their compliance, should stand trial then be hung and/or imprisoned. It’s never going to happen because way too many of them were in on it.
But that doesn’t mean what Lieberman, and most of the rest, did was right, moral or just. And Hitchens, for all his drunken rambling, didn’t send one troop or one farthing to Iraq, did he?
Absolutely true. We live in a one party system and the Democrats lack a spinal column.
We’ve been ruled by one party of idiots and another of fawning puppy dogs, and I’m getting a little tired of it.
But which is which? :)
Matt,
I don’t much care for Hitchens, it’s true. I wouldn’t say I hate him, though.
But let’s get some things straight. Not talking with Iran isn’t simply tough, it’s stupid and counterproductive, as are the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.
As far as Lieberman goes, my distaste for him goes farther than my distaste for Hitchens for a few of reasons.
1) Joe actually has political power, and responsibility. When Hitchens rants about dropping bombs in the Middle East, I can just leave the overexcited inebriate as he is.
2) Lieberman supported McCain over Obama. He supported a candidate who’s policies were reactionary rather than progressive on the domestic front so that he could have his little wars overseas. He went so far as to encourage questions about whether or not Obama was a Marxist, and used Bush League fear mongering rhetoric to paint Obama as a danger to the country. He traded his pro-choice, equality stances away to support his hawkish positions. That is something Hitchens did not do.
which is why i voted for nader, thank you very much.
That’s the idea. A viable third party would mean both Democrats and Republicans would have to work harder to get elected, and they don’t want that.
Lieberman owed the Democrats for letting him keep his committee chairmanship after the 2006 election and he not only showed that he wasn’t competent or interested in doing his job in the committee, but he then went out campaigning against Democrats in this election. I expect him to continue to prove that he has no respect for the Democrats as long as they let him. As I understand it, only about a dozen Democrats voted to relieve Lieberman of this position. That tells me we have about a dozen Democrats in the Senate.
Reid has been played.
@Matt
I know I disagree with Hitchens’ pro-war stance in the middle-east. I think war should be avoided for the most part, and preemptive war even more so. But then again, I’m of the view that a nation’s sovereignty should be respected – and the big stick of war, in the bundle of sticks of diplomacy, is the very last one you should thwap people with.
Over a million violent deaths as a result of the Iraq War isn’t a “tough stance on evil.” I hardly think that over a million people can be shunted into the evil category. I’ve never really been one of those people who has been really great at defining “evil” as any group that happens to disagree with US policy.
Ah, I see Moses at 33 already said much of what I intended to, and better than I was able (juggling quite a bit of work at the moment, so my already pathetic wit is spread very thin).
What did you expect PZ? They are politicians. Low life, pond scum sucking, lying lip flappers. They say what they think you want to hear, just to get into the office, then bend you over the desk and take you from behind once they have the office.
I don’t care, dem or rep, they all suck and they all lie.
Freelunch @39 is dead-on.
Thanks for the link to Maddow. She and Olbermann are at times all that keeps me from going “JENS SMASH”.
Very disappointing to see Obama push for this. I damn well hope he knows what he’s doing.
@Sili
Olbermann’s special comment of Prop 8 warms the cockles of my heart just a smidge. It’s also rather adorable to see him sitting among the View women like an adult at the kids’ table. He looks ginormous.
Taken in isolation this decision makes sense in that Lieberman generally votes with the party on issues of social policy and his vote could prove vital to effect real change. In context though this does indeed suggest a systemic cowardice and a fundamental lack of principle; removed from this it seems purely pragmatic. Sometimes what seems to be the case becomes the case as a result of perception on behalf of the electorate – we see this at work in unsubstantiated fluctuations in the stock markets.
Thank you for the link Diagoras. Rachel Maddow is right. Watch her analysis, then email your senators.
“””Very disappointing to see Obama push for this. I damn well hope he knows what he’s doing.”””
After buying into the Obama teleprompter-promise campaign, true believers are going to be heart-broken by the “change” they were expecting.
Even if Obama were sincere in his promises, the economic reality underway will be the tsunami that floods his presidency.
BTW, there sure are alot of “regulars” coming to feed at the upcoming Obama trough…
Boggle boggle boggle…
I am SO sick and tired of the Dems rolling over and pissing all over themselves to be “bi-partisan”. And the Repubs, they just sit there and cry and bitch that Dems aren’t being bi-partisan enough. They don’t ever bother to look at the Dems side, but they fully expect the Dems to do everything they want.
Utter Bullshit!
Shorter Joe Leiberman:
“Honestly, Harry, I swear I won’t come in your mouth THIS time.”
The Democratic Party should dump Leiberman from the chairmanship. Then, more importantly, they should revive the traditional “Mr Smith Goes to Washington” style filibuster… No more stating “This is a filibuster” and dropping everything. If the Repugs want to filibuster something, let them speak for hours, throats dry, piss crusting their skivvies. Let Teddy Tubes or another of the fossils stand up ’til his decrepit carcass collapses and he gets hauled off to the hospital with an I.V. tube in his arm.
Who needs a filibuster-proof majority anyway?
Ex-democrat, Republican lapdog, and archetypical “Vichycrat.”
I don’t care about politcs and grudges. I want my country back on track. If Obama and the democrats want to play bitter sore winners, play politics, fuck that. Republicans have fucked us over enough with that sort of playing politics with my country.
Joseph Lieberman is the junior Senator from Connecticut. Originally a moderate Democrat, he was Gore’s vice presidential running mate in 2000. Then he decided that George W. Bush’s Middle Eastern policies were just neato-spiffy-keen. Lieberman became a strong supporter of Bush’s Iraqi War.
In 2006 he was up for reelection (senators have six year terms) and was defeated in the Democratic Party primary by a man named Ned Lamont. Lieberman ran in the general election as an Independent under the “Connecticut for Lieberman” banner (sometimes referred to as the “Lieberman for Himself” Party). He narrowly defeated Lamont, receiving more Republican votes than Democratic votes (the Republican candidate, whose name escapes me right now, got about 10% of the vote). Although elected as an Independent, he caucuses with the Democrats, was allowed to keep his seniority, and is Chairman of the Homeland Security Committee. This was because of the Democrats’ tiny majority in the Senate. Without Lieberman, the Democrats wouldn’t have had a majority.
During that past election, Lieberman campaigned actively and enthusiastically for McCain. Many Democrats think that Lieberman should have been politically punished for this. It’ll be interesting to see how he does in the 2012 election.
Incidentally, Lieberman is an Orthodox Jew. This is a major reason for his pro-Israel/anti-Iran stance.
I, for one, never saw fit to like Hitchens in the first place. He’s an abrasive snob who makes little headway in the process of saying anything productive or interesting.
There is no such thing as bipartisanship with the Republican party, the party of lies, bigotry, hatred, bad faith negotiations, and propaganda. Any Democrat who believes that Republicans will honestly reach across the aisle without a poison dagger in their hand is a moron and is unfit for public office.
As a recent POTUS once tried (and failed) to mumble, “Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me.”
Shorter Little Paul:
Is this pharynguphat idiot for real?
It’s astonishing how many people openly hope (pray?) for single party rule.
The Australian Sex Party isn’t yet a real political party (i.e. one registered by the Australian Electoral Commission, so that its name can appear on ballot papers). It’s not even on the AEC’s list of parties who’ve applied for registration and which are waiting to see whether there are any objections.
I suspect that the announcement of the ASP is more to do with promoting the upcoming Sexpo (http://www.sexpo.com.au) than any real opposition to the Australian government’s plans to censor internet traffic.
spgreenlaw,
Yes, he’s a genuine 24-carat idiot.
If you’d been paying attention to the single party rule of the past 8 years, you’d understand how many of us openly hope that those malignant, misogynist war criminals never get their hands on the levers of power ever again.
Single party rule from the party of self-pissing cowards and triangulators is better than three more bridge collapses, two more preemptive wars, and an expanded Patriot Act that lets the TSA shove a camera up your pucker ’cause you’re ‘shifty-eyed’.
I rather like John Scalzi’s take on Lieberman and what “really” went on behind the scenes:
http://whatever.scalzi.com/2008/11/13/whats-really-going-on-with-joe-lieberman/
OBAMA: Fine. Hand them over.
LIEBERMAN: Now?
OBAMA: Yes, now
He, he, he.
Spineless as an insult??? I am simply aghast to hear that from PZ. No self respecting squid would ever put up with the weakness shown by the Democratic party. Repeatedly. I stopped giving money to the DNC two years ago and only contribute to candidates directly.
That said, squid cannae count and in the process of changing the direction of this country it is, sadly, a case of every vote counting. There will be another election in two years and if the Democrats gain a couple of more seats in the senate, then ol’ Joe Two Face might be far less important and then …paybacks are a bitch…
I like it, for all the wrong reasons. They’re going to use him to the point of utter abuse, and they’ll tell him the alternative is he can join the Dinosaur Republicans.
Lieberman doesn’t have an attractive option. That’s good.
I say, Use him up. Any bill Obama proposes will now automatically have one vote for it, for starters. Lieberman is powerless to stop it.
Perhaps I was too subtle, I was aware of that :D. My point was that America could use some more influential (and above all, more REASONABLE) third parties.
Our third parties are jokes. The Green Party is full of nanny-staters and the Libertarians are full of… well, libertarians.
Shorter me: I can has beeg sentrist party?
Change, you can believe in?
I didn’t have much of an opinion on Lieberman one way or another, until I heard him pandering to some religious group during the 2000 campaign. He coughed up the old nonsense about “Freedom of religion does not mean freedom from religion!” It made voting for Gore much more of a hold-your-nose experience.
Dr. Strangelove:
So that would make you Prissed off, right?
@Diagoras #45
Obermann did a great job with that special comment, he comes off somewhat over the top for me but that was a good one. Link to that special comment to distribute to your friends:
http://www.couragecampaign.org/page/invite/SpecialComment
Senate “bipartisanship” looks too much like appeasement to me.
Reid and Pelosi have had their asses handed to them again and again over the last two years.
It’s time the Dems stopped playing nice and punched the bastards back!
That’s the CHANGE I voted for!
Governor Dean responds to criticism in the blogosphere:
Taken from The Daily Kos; link in my signature.
In the words of Reverend Wright,
America’s chickens…have come home to roost!
(Nothing political, I was just looking for an excuse to use that link.)
I’m not sure when not being able to remember your own voting record, and claiming some sort of cultural nobility while spurting petty abuses became “progressive”, but that’s Newspeak for you.
The Chemist #65
The last time an American third party became viable was in the 1850s.
Sectional antagonisms caused by the Compromise of 1850 and the Kansas-Nebraska Act of 1854 tore the Whig Party apart. The Democrats were pro-slavery but the Whigs refused to take the anti-slavery position. By 1854 mass meetings were held in Wisconsin, Michigan and other Midwestern states and the Republican Party was born. Made up primarily of disaffected Whigs (Lincoln had been a Whig) and anti-slavery Democrats, the party spread to other Northern states.
In 1856, the Republicans nominated John Fremont for the presidency and, while he lost, he did quite respectably. Because the party was purely sectional, Southerners watched its growth with dismay. A Republican victory, many warned, would so endanger Southern interests as to warrant secession from the Union. When Lincoln won in 1860, the threat became reality.
Since that time, there haven’t been major national debates where one party took one position and the other refused to assume the other side. Also, the way the election laws are written, it’s very difficult for a third party to get any power.
Occasionally third parties do have some influence, but not what they want. In 1912, angry that he hadn’t got the Republican presidential nomination, Theodore Roosevelt created the Progressive Party (better known as the Bull Moose Party). Roosevelt had the satisfaction of beating Republican William Howard Taft in the popular and electoral votes, but the split engendered in the Republican vote allowed Democrat Woodrow Wilson to win the presidency.
sp@#6:
“Joe Lieberman represents my state, or at least he’s supposed to, I’m sorry to say. I’ll be standing by for any rotten tomatoes you might want to throw my way. I understand your outrage. Let the healing begin.”
If we throw any rotten tomatoes, it’s because we’re expecting you to alley-oop them right at Short Ride as he goes past.
when one of the two sides is a discredited, corrupt mob of wannabe theocrats and greedy thugs
excuse me but it’s hard to tell which party you’re referring to.
They’ve proved again today that Congress is an exclusive rich person’s club that could give a fuck about doing what is right.
A devastating assessment of Lieberman via Daily Press:
This senator from my childhood state of Connecticut, who back in 2000 ran as a standard-bearer of the Democratic Party as Al Gore’s running mate, since 9-11 has been a warmonger of the first order, even joining the right-wing Sen. Jon Kyl (R-AZ) in trying to pass a resolution in the senate last year which, had it made it through as he originally worded it, would have effectively enabled–even invited-George Bush to attack Iran at will as a part of Bush’s megalomaniacal global “War” on Terror.
It is Lieberman’s obsession with having the US obliterate first Iraq and now Iran, with nukes if need be, that led him to abandon his party and become a leading supporter and apoligist for George W. Bush and Dick Cheney, and later to become a key endorser of Sen. John “Bomb-bomb-bomb-bomb-Iran” McCain.
Lieberman also signed on enthusiastically to the worst excesses of Bush’s and Cheney’s eight-year-long assault on the Constitution, the Bill of Rights and International Law. As head of the Senate Homeland Security Committee, Lieberman became the leading advocate of fascist policies in the Senate, rivaled only by such ranting Republican proto-fascists as Sen. Pat Roberts (R-Kansas) and Rep. Michelle Bachmann (R-MN). It was Lieberman who at least initially enthusiastically backed Attorney General John Ashcroft’s mad proposal (thankfully never implemented) to establish an Operation TIPS (for Terrorist Information and Prevention Service) program that would have recruited millions of Americans to spy on their neighbors and co-workers, replicating the dreaded Stasi of Communist East Germany. Only after libertarian-minded Republicans like former House Majority Leader Dick Armey (R-TX) came out strongly against the scheme did Lieberman have second thoughts. Initially, in fact, Lieberman had personally, in his role as chair, blocked efforts by Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-VT) to delete funding for Operation TIPS from a Homeland Security Department funding bill before his committee.
http://investment-blog.net/obamas-first-big-mistake-on-the-job-rescuing-joe-lieberman/
It’s pretty clear why he wants us all to look forward. Look back and you will want to puke.
I’m not up on all the details of the Australian system, but I did take a look at the ASP’s website (wanted to see if it was legal for a foreigner to make a donation… apparently not), and at the application for membership. One of the things you agree to by joining is that they may use your name on the list they must submit to the AEC to become recognized. I took from that that there’s some process of signing up a certain number of members required to become a recognized party. If I’ve got that right, the fact that they’re not a “real” party yet does not mean they’re not sincere, or that they don’t intend to become a real party.
I’m all for looking forward. If Lieberman were to be ousted from his committee chairmanship, it should be because he’s not very good at his job, not as political retribution for having supported Senator McCain. That, to me, would be in keeping with Obama’s message of change: place the focus squarely on the issues, rather than on partisanship and political retribution.
I think what the caucus realized was that however bad Lieberman may be at his job, ejecting him from the caucus would be seen as political retribution, and they didn’t want to seem petty.
skepsci:
I’ve got no problem with enlightened partisanship (which is a different thing from reflexive partisan warfare), but I agree that retribution might be counterproductive. I despise Joe LIEberman. I worked hard to defeat him in 2006, and will be working hard to re-defeat him in 2012 (if he has the temerity to run again), but that said, sometimes political aikido is better than revenge.
Those of you who are, to varying degrees, Lieberman apologists, consider the actual logical implications of the argument to keep him in the caucus and let him continue to run the Homeland Security Committee for the benefit of his Republican friends.
The basic argument is this: we need Lieberman to cast his vote with the Democrats.
The logical implication: Lieberman does not vote his conscience, he is a whore who votes in favor of the party that gives him the most power and goodies.
I say we kick the whore out and be done with it. He has no honor and can only be laughing at the continuing Dem cowardice.
As for filibusters, the Senate can revoke Rule 22 and force the Repugs to actually filibuster. Bring in the cots. The Dems should not be forced into impotence on the belief that they need 60 votes to do anything.
That is nonsense. They do not need Lieberman; he is a traitor, a warmonger, and a corrupt little whore; get rid of him for once and for all.
Bill @79: The Australian Secular Party had this problem.
In Australia, Section 126 of the Electoral Act specifies the requirements to make an application for registration as a political party.
Specifically,
Some of the discussants here overlook the fact that Lieberman was always a conservative: Buckley funded his run against liberal Republican Lowell Weicker when LW started talking about lifting the Cuba embargo. Lieberman wanted war with Iraq to start in 1997. Although he was pro-choice for a time, the only issue on which he reliably and consistently both speaks and votes liberal is the environment/climate change, so far as I can tell. So I don’t buy the “sense of duty toward Israel” as an explanation of his schmuckery . . .
Lieberman keeps the coveted DHS committee head.
Then, as part of Obama’s examination of the government to shake out inefficiency, the entirety of DHS is eliminated. Dispersed to defense, US marshals office, ICE, FBI, etcetera.
Similarly the other important committees Lieberman is part of, fought and negotiated to hold onto, cease to exist. It would be sweet if the seat he was forced out of, a minor position by some estimates, may have been the highest position he had.
Just because they don’t unhorse him directly doesn’t mean he will still have a trusty charger to ride in on. Sometimes it is more effective to shoot the horse.
It would be poetic justice for a politician that has manipulated the system to his advantage for so long to have the system remove his power by eliminating the departments the committees control.
Wow Obama’s first two moves.
Rahm Emmanuel, then Joe Lieberman.
Barack Obama’s message of change to Palestinians
“Now, would you all just please shut the fuck up and DIE!!!”
Some secret Muslim he turned out to be.
But I thought things were changing???
Don’t look now, but Barack Obama just silenced one of his potentially loudest critics.
This was a politically savvy move. While my principle tells me Lieberman deserves the loss of his chairmanship, my instincts tell me that this was a shrewd move by Obama. Emanuel was a good choice — he knows how to get stuff done. That’s the only way you can do anything in Washington: you have to know how to manage situations and people. Obama knows how the system works, and he’s going to place people around him who know how to accomplish things.
Anyone read Team of Rivals by Doris Kearns Goodwin? Obama has previously stated that it is one of his favorite books. I’ve read it, and thoroughly enjoyed it. Let me tell you, this Lieberman move was straight out of A. Lincoln’s playbook. Barack Obama knows what he’s doing.
To those who have this fantasy of the country becoming ruled by the democrats from now on, sorry, it ain’t gonna happen. A system based on plurality voting will always stabilize on two relatively balanced parties. Look up Duverger’s law, and/or apply some of the same logic that you are used to applying to similar concepts like evolution. One party dominating for more than a couple election cycles is simply not an equilibrium situation.
The country may move to the left, but the longer term result is that the republicans will move to the left as well, and will still get elected approximately 50% of the time.
In any case I think taking the attitude of “let’s smack down the republicans as much as we can now that we’re in charge” is simply bad strategy.
But he supported a presidential candidate who’s opposed to both. Moreover, Lieberman was a big supporter of the invasion of Iraq.
Hitchens has one of the best points about bipartisanship: All this talk about ending ‘divisive’ politics is meaningless, b/c politics is defined as a division of opinion. If the division is made whole, then everyone is in agreement and there is no more politics.
Diagoras: “Over a million violent deaths as a result of the Iraq War isn’t a “tough stance on evil.” ”
What makes you think that the sectarian/civil war wouldn’t have happened anyway if the US hadn’t invaded? That seems to me the main question that none of the critics of the war are prepared to take on.
If the US stayed put in 2003, the Saddam Hussein Baathist regime would still have been falling apart, flailing about to maintain power (remember the %100 voting in blood?). The sever ethnic and religious emnities had been festering for years and were ready to explode. The neighboring states were itching to intervene on behalf of their ethnic cousins in Iraq (Iran for the Shia, Saudi Arabia for the Sunni, and Turkey to prevent Kurdish statehood) and seize oil rich Iraqi territory. When the regime inevitably collapsed, these forced would have intervened (as they partly did) and created a civil war where a lot more would have died than have since the US invasion.
Obama has repeated that he wants to be inspired by Lincoln.
Lincoln’s genius was to understand that a politician should hold his friends close and his enemies closer. His approach worked :
“As ambitious men almost always do, Chase, Seward, Stanton and Bates were easily induced to accept their high-status posts, and they wanted to keep them, which meant that they could only go so far in opposing the president’s policies. In fact, for the most part the four Cabinet members raised remarkably few strong objections even in private discussions with the president, while fulminating from time to time about Lincoln’s alleged high-handedness. More significant, Lincoln gradually won over Seward, Stanton and Bates as they came to appreciate the homespun leader’s keen intellect and skillful sense of politics. Lincoln was not at all what they had once thought. The awful bloodletting of the war and their common, solemn purpose in restoring the Union no doubt contributed to the eventual solidarity of this unexpected band of brothers” (Team of rivals, the political genius of Abraham Lincoln)
So methinks we’re going to see more of this, Obama is going to surprise us with a series of political moves and nominations which will give the impression that he is just a wishy washy spineless conciliatory president.
But I don’t think so, there will be only one captain on that ship, and the more diverse his team will be, the firmer he will maintain his cap.
For, I’ll repeat it for those who might not have digested it yet, we’ve got an exceptionally clever president for a change.
hexag1@91,
That’s just a bunch of worthless speculation, and a pretty contemptible attempt to justify an enormous crime. The million dead because of the invasion were real people.
Posted by: The Chemist | November 18, 2008 3:45 PM
We need a true opposition party, or nothing’s going to change, ever.
We should take a leaf out of the Australian’s book. They get pissed off about an issue, they go and found the Aussie Sex Party.
Haha yeah, Aussie politicians also sniff chairs after women get off them. No joke. Or snap bra straps. Class. All class.
I have to go with Nick with regards to hexag1@91. There was nothing inevitable about the fall of Sadam.BY all accounts, he had a solid grip on power and his party controlled all the government. While other regional states might have had ideas, ol’ Sadam was in little danger. He had handled Iran before and marched bold as brass into Kuwait. It was not until the U.S. got into the act that he was finally overmatched.
What I find interesting is the way the mission objectives changed over time. First WMD, then liberating people, then promoting democracy, and supporting our puppet gov’t and there is a security agreement that sets a date for the end of the U.S. occupation. Interesting word that – occupation.
Hate to break it to you, but both parties are full of greedy corrupt thugs who like to spend money as if it comes from a magical money tree and give favors to particular lobbyist groups, where have you been?
@The Chemist
Don’t you already have two of those?
Congratulations, you have elected the spineless quisling (“The One”). Now, you get to pay the price. Enjoy.
Don’t blame me; I voted for the only candidate that supported the return of the US to a constitutional republic.
—
http://www.chl-tx.com Without the 2nd Amendment, the rest of the document is only wishful thinking. Which is precisely why “The One” wants to repeal it.
It might even drive you Batty.
Sorry, PZ, but you’re just misled by an understandable desire to see Lieberman humiliated. No matter how appealing that sounds, it’s simply bad politics to banish a prominent long-time Senator from the fold who is capable of making an argument to his constituents (and fellow religionists) that he took the position he did out of patriotism and personal conviction.
This isn’t appeasement, it’s strategy. There is a real chance of the Democrats obtaining a filibuster-proof majority with two Senate races still undecided, and even if that doesn’t pan out, you’re still talking about a guy who will be seen as a swing vote. If you push him into the GOP, you probably make it easier for him to go against you on key votes in the future, martyring him and making it easier to tap into the Republican funding base, greasing the skids for reelection in 2012.
On the other hand, if you readmit him to the Dem caucus and make him beholden to the President, he is more likely to move back to the center, give Obama a few key votes in the future, but remain somewhat isolated and without significant financial support as an independent. Meanwhile, the Democrats have four years to find and promote a better candidate.
On a more cheerful note, let’s hope Franken prevails in the recount.
CHL instructor…
Quisling??? Got anything to support that?? Got anything to support any effort to ammend the constitution to eliminate the 2nd amendment?? Are these all musings of a paranoid mind ??
For Emmett – I think you guys are dealing from the bottom of the Deck -er
Scott Hatfield (#100) is unfortunately right. I don’t like this decision either, but Lieberman still has a good record on a lot of core Democratic issues, such as labor and the environment.
True, the fact that he actively enabled a horrific, needless war and numerous Constitutional abuses trumps that.
True, the man is a consummate opportunist with a sense of entitlement the size of a planet and no sense of loyalty (Obama actively endorsed him against Lamont in the rough ’06 race, see where that got him in ’08), and my ideal scenario involves throwing a sack over his head and abandoning him on a small ice floe in the Arctic Circle. At night, the ice weasels come. And they are hungry.
But the Democrats have a LOT of damage to undo in the next few years, and Senate Republicans are as stubborn and dumb as the Democrats are spinless. The Repubs are likely to filibuster just about anything progressive, and Lieberman, ugh, may end up being a necessary vote. The future holds a lot of uncertainties, and it’s just not pragmatic to burn any bridges yet. Lieberman is in a precarious position; let’s see how this goes.
We still don’t know, for example, the eventual fate of the Department of Homeland Security. Considering that it is currently a huge money pit that accomplishes very little, I’d be surprised if Obama leaves it unchanged. He may even neuter or ignore it, leaving Lieberman in charge of a hollow sham of a committee.
Obama’s cabinet picks are, for the most part, pretty hopeful and undermine the simplistic “no difference between the two candidates” view. Glenn Greenwald, for instance, gives reasons to be optimistic about his Attorney General pick today. Obama is making serious moves to close Guantanamo and has teams of people already working to reverse many of the Bush administration’s actions and executive orders.
@ hexag1
I certainly didn’t believe that pre-war Iraq was the bastion of stability. Saddam’s regime should have been removed back in the first Bush foray into the country, when the US was backed by the other nations in the region, and the world at large. But, since the US didn’t do that – it should have obtained the same level of support for the second foray into the region. Instead, the US stumbled into a second war with what Bingham termed a “cynical lack of concern for international legality among some top officials in the Bush administration.”
So – substantial group of Iraqis citizens die via their own hands in brutal civil war or substantial group of Iraqis citizens die during US occupation. Which is worse? Well – ethnic and religious civil wars with substantial death tolls occur on a more frequent basis than anyone concerned with human rights would like. The former Yugoslavia, the Georgian-Abkhaz conflict, Rwanda, Bhutan, Sri Lanka, Chechnya, Madura, Zimbabwe, the Congo, Darfur, Niger, Burma, Kenya, Maharashtra, South Africa. The US has not intervened in every one of these conflicts. Does the presence or absence of oil make one life, one conflict, more important than the others?
The peak in oil production has likely already occured – and, although viable mitigation options exist on both the supply and demand side – every day the US spends $343 million in the Iraq occupation, rather than mitigating the effect of peak oil production – the world becomes increasingly more unstable. So – I don’t support a conflict that alienates the international community, creates a breeding ground for people who have every reason to be righteously pissed off at their “liberators” who classify everyone who doesn’t agree with them as “evil,” wastes resources that can’t afford to be expended, and allows the US to suck on the tit of oil just a little longer, when weening off and learning to crawl with alternative energy was a far sager plan.
Obvious solution: VIVA LA REVOLUTION!
Diagoras…
What say you to those who contend that the Bathist party and Sadam were effective at crushing dissent? He sure as hell put a stop to the Kurds. Remember that the internecine attacks started after the the fall of the government, filling a power vacuum, not during Sadam’s tenure.
Not saying he was a good guy but I don’t see anything that points to any immediate threat to his control in the form of a civil war. If there was no immediate civil war threat, then the argument that “they would have died anyway” does not hold up.
The fact that the U.S. does not choose to get involved in Darfur or Rwanda where the human rights abuses can be only described as horrific does cast doubt on the reasons for involvement in Iraq. Cheney’s belief in Regime Change and W’s relationships with his father coupled with a need to not appear weak may have played more important roles than we appreciate.
## 91, 93, 95, 105
For those who think that a strongman can prevent the slide of a country into revolution and civil war: Google Porfirio Diaz (but this isn’t an excuse for the incompetence of the Bush administration).
> The fact that the U.S. does not choose to get involved in
> Darfur
The economic ties between China and the US are far to close for an US-led intervention in a Chinese client-state like Sudan.
> or Rwanda
The same holds true for France (and both the French and the Chinese have nukes, although it is unlikely that they would use them in this case – third world puppets are not worth an armageddon).
> where the human rights abuses can be only described as
> horrific
The Interahamwe really can rival the Nazis and the Red Khmer for the title “lowest rung of humanity”. Sadly, large parts of the media still depict them as hapless victims and refugees.
@ Allen N
I’d say that an autocrat keeping the disparate factions of the country in line is hardly the textbook definition of stable. Especially when the systematic use of torture, chemical weapons, razing of towns were necessary to keep this population in line. Although Saddam’s regime had a monopoly on the legitimate use of physical force within Iraq’s borders – there was still extreme political corruption, an extensive informal market, impenetrable bureaucracy, judicial ineffectiveness, military interfence(control, even) of politics – in short, many of the factors were leading to the eventual state collapse of Iraq if not remedied. But, it was not my argument, but rather hexag1’s, that Iraq was ready to fall apart immediately in civil war.
My initial argument was posed to Matt who asserted sneeringly that we blog readers think that “anyone who takes a tough stance on evil is somehow evil themselves,” in defending the Iraq War. I countered that the million plus people who’ve died violently in the conflict could hardly all be classified as “evil” – at least, that I would have difficulty in doing so – and that the actions of the US in the war and occupation, thusly couldn’t be classified as a “tough stance on evil.”
hexag1 challenged this position – going further to state that, “What makes you think that the sectarian/civil war wouldn’t have happened anyway if the US hadn’t invaded? That seems to me the main question that none of the critics of the war are prepared to take on.” I am a critic of the war. The way it was conducted and the why it was conducted. Sectarian/civil wars are conducted all the time sans US involvement or occupation. Wars in which heinous human rights abuses demand intervention by the international community – and the US has a tendancy to ignore.
My position was – even accepting hexag1’s initial starting place ‘they would have died anyway’ – even assuming that, the war – by the manner it was conducted, and the why it was conducted was still ill-conceived. Did the US have the right to plop its military might in the middle of their country, ignoring Iraq’s sovereignty to liberate them from Saddam and his party? Not so much. If, at any time the US would have had the right to conduct regime change – it was when it had the backing of the international, and more importantly, the regional community during the Gulf War. The US could have said – hey – we’re removing Saddam from power – he’s used chemical weapons and invaded another country – Iraq needs different leadership from this point on. 12 years later, when the US conducted a war sans international support or regional support – not so much. Not saying Saddam turned into the poster-child for awesome in the intervening years – just the argument for removing him by a preemptive war was nigh-constructed of suck 12 years later.
So even assuming if was going to be civil-warapalooza – US intervention, when they neglected to intervene in more egregious instances of human rights abuses in civil wars because Iraq happens to have a bit of oil is a bad reason to jump in. Valuing human life more when there’s oil reserves in a country is heinous.
Johannes:
When I did check on Diaz, I found that he held power for 35 years, enlisted bandits to supress any revolts, and dropped his no reelection promise. Seems as a strongman, he was very successful at holding on to power.
Your point about the nuclear capabilities of France and China would not seem to be important here. As you point out, nukes would not have been likely to be used. So we are left with …economics and alliances, with economics at the forefront. So much for any moral compass.
As to Rwanda, there are/were refugees on both sides, but the Hutus see the Interahamwe as a response to the weak/non response to a series of massive killings. Not saying they are right, but they are not without reasons. There is an interesting link that gives a more nuanced perspective.
http://web.africa.ufl.edu/asq/v1/3/10.htm
None of this makes the magnitude of the killing any less horrific.
I’m reluctant to add to this, for fear of making a Gaff.
No kings,
Robert
Is this the point in time where I ask you lot to be Mercer-ful?
One of the things I hated about the last Congress is how many Republicans would tow the party line no matter what. I thought that they were too spineless to do their job and provide oversight to the Executive branch. Now I realize that they were right not to speak up: after all, anyone who DOES speak up against his party should be excommunicated, or at least severly punished. The Democratic party must be full of wimps to send such a message of tolerance for free thought.
I disagree with everything Lieberman said, but I would defend to the death his right to say it. He will pay the consequences when his constituents kick him out of office.
You folks don’t get it. Mr. Obama is going to discontinue DHS. Why start a fight with Lieberman over a committee that won’t be around 12 months or less from now? More than this, the only hope that Lieberman has of keeping his seat in the next election is to heave to the Democrats. Connecticut will not elect someone backed by the Republicans, and the only way he managed to hold onto the seat the last time was because the DNC and the Clintons backed him financially over the progressive chosen by the primary voters. That won’t happen again.
By doing this, Mr. Obama has avoided a direct snub to Lieberman while insuring that he will be locked into a committee chairmanship with no power. Why drive out someone you dislike from a position you mean to excise and replace them with a trustworthy ally? By doing that you not only enrage your enemy, you also annoy a friend. Why give an enemy justification for defection in the eyes of a conflict-minded media by removing him from a prestigious position when you plan on making his position irrelevant? Now, even if he continues to support Republicans or defects to their caucus, he will completely be the bad guy.
Getting emotional about this will not help you understand it. Mr. Obama is a rational politician.
Re robbrown@89:
The country may move to the left, but the longer term result is that the republicans will move to the left as well, and will still get elected approximately 50% of the time.
In any case I think taking the attitude of “let’s smack down the republicans as much as we can now that we’re in charge” is simply bad strategy.
Hey, as long as the Overton Window is shifed, it’s all good. The important thing is policy, not partisanship. Like most liberals, I’ll take a Lincoln Chafee Republican over a Zell Miller Democrat any day. Concerning the only Republicans left standing after the ’08 elections, smack down is the only option, as they’re uniformly a bad bunch.
Allen N @95
No claim that Saddam Hussein’s regime was stable and had ‘by all accounts, … a solid grip on power’ could withstand serious examination of Saddam’s regime. The instability of the regime was always one of the main arguments put forth by the ‘neocons’ for invasion.
Attempts on the lives of Saddam’s henchmen sons, troop buildups by neighboring states, Iranian funding of rival political factions (just look at the Dawa party, now in control of the Iraqi elected government – long patronized by Iran – pre 2003), severe economic sanctions and no-fly zones.
None of these are the hallmarks of a stable regime. Saddam maintained power (treading rising water) by keeping a death grip on the country. Remember the 2002 Iraq presidential ‘elections’?? Saddam claimed that %100 of Iraqis voted and %100 voted for him. This is the flailing, windmilling arms of an insane megalomaniac dictator, is last mad speech from the balcony a la Nicolae Ceauşescu.
Saddam was going to topple, it was just a matter of time. Aftward, his sons would probably have duked it out over who would take the throne, and meanwhile, Saudi Arabia would have invaded for their ethnic and Sunni cousins, Iran would have invaded for the Shia, and Turkey would have invaded to prevent the immanent statehood of Kurdistan, and -you- say the world would be better off if America had stood by during all of that.
Diagoras @107
” Did the US have the right to plop its military might in the middle of their country, ignoring Iraq’s sovereignty to liberate them from Saddam and his party?”
In 2003 Iraq was the single most condemned nation in the United Nations. Scores of violations and open defiance of international law. Invasions of neighboring countries, Genocide, funding terror groups (Hamas), and no-cooperation with weapons inspections. Iraq was multiply and provably guilty of all of these things. If that doesn’t constitute a case for a regime change under the letter and spirit of international law, what will??
I hate to have to say it, PZed, but occasionally you really piss me off. And just now you seem to have been joined by 1001 bit players who’ve horned in on the action by posting comments saying how awful this no-change change is going to be, if Democrats continue to be bipartisan.
Don’t any of you get it. There is only one party in US politics. The fact that some party members identify themselves as democrat, while others call themselves republican is neither here nor there. And don’t start saying you knew that all along – didn’t you all just go and vote? So who voted green? Who voted independant? I note one brave person in the comments preceding this one said he voted Nader. The power of one can break the mould, and it has to be done if you’re all fed up of being screwed by the system.
In some countries here in Europe, parliments can have too many parties for the most effective government, but even that is preferable to one-party states like China, Cuba, and the USA. The latter does at least have the electoral mechanics in place to engineer a change. Pity Americans are so blinkered that they cannot make use of it.
Diagoras #103
The Saudis didn’t want Saddam removed because they feared the power vacuum would be filled by the Iranians.
John M,
If you think there’s no difference between the Democrats and the Republicans then you’re not paying attention. Either that or you’re so far out to one side or the other that your view is distorted.
#118 ‘Tis himself said,”If you think there’s no difference between the Democrats and the Republicans then you’re not paying attention”
I guess you’re an American living in America. Has it never occurred to you that there is a reason 100% of Saudi Arabians are devout Muslims, or that nearly the same percentage of Tibetans are devout Buddhists, or that most Philipinos are catholic. It’s because they don’t know any better. Americans don’t know any better than to believe the Democrats and Republicans are different to each other.
Diagoras:
I missed your post 107. I find that – gasp – I’m in agreement with you. Don’t you just hate it when that happens?? :>) My bad.
Your final paragraph points out what has been the most damning aspect of the whole war. We have repeatedly ignored any number of ruthless killer regimes but but Iraq became much more of a concern since it sits atop a lake of oil. For hexag1 #115, you have to remember that when W went to the UN, he got zip.
Consider the following:
“Our security will require all Americans…[to] be ready for preemptive action when necessary to defend our liberty and to defend our lives…) W, June 2002
The US “will not permit the world’s most dangerous regimes to threaten us with the world’s most destructive weapons.”
State of the Union, 2002
“The U.S. and Britain’s intense lobbying efforts among the other UN Security Council members yield only four supporters (in addition to the U.S. and Britain, Spain and Bulgaria); nine votes (and no vetoes from the five permanent members) out of fifteen are required for the resolution’s passage. The U.S. decides not to call for a vote on the resolution.”
Feb 24 – Mar 14, 2003
So we see an inaccurate (to be knid) depiction of the “threat” posed to us by Iraq and no international support for invasion. This is topped of by W’s demand that Saddam get out of Dodge within 48 hrs. So… WTF did we go there? I submit that humanitarian ends were not on the short list.
Quotes and dates from:
http://www.infoplease.com/spot/iraqtimeline1
If that doesn’t constitute a case for a regime change under the letter and spirit of international law, what will?? – hexagi1
A resolution of the UNSC, or indiivdual or collective self-defence. International law is quite clear. As the vast majority of international lawyers agree, the invasion was illegal. Kofi Annan said it was illegal, even Richard Perle admitted it was illegal..
Bush, Blair and their cronies are therefore prima facie guilty of planning and waging aggressive war.
“””Americans don’t know any better than to believe the Democrats and Republicans are different to each other.”””
Actually, we do. What we don’t admit is that our politics is like a two legged stool. There is enough similarity between the two parties to get government to behave as the banksters want, with the end result being more money for them and less actual citizen-government by the populace.
Classic divide and control tactics, with the liberals thinking the conservatives are at fault and vice versa…
Meanwhile, back at the farm…
There was never any real debate between any of the candidates and the choice of direction for the country was heavily controlled by the media and the two parties who collude to keep it that way.
Tell me how often anyone argued over the machinations of the Federal Feserve, for example?
How many even questioned America’s military adventurism and empire around the globe?
How many used the Constitution in any of their speeches?
And even our college professors buy into the charade…
The mind boggles…
negentropyeater #92 and Scott Hatfield, OM #100 pretty much nail it on this one.
Lieberman disgusted me but the immediate pleasure of revenge and punishment is a right wing authoritarian trait that we should avoid. Becoming them is not the goal.
Everyone should chill out and let Obama put his team together and get to work. There is too much to repair and put into motion to waste time on intercine circular firing squads.
Those who had severe cases of Obamamania need to calm down and and follow his example by putting both feet squarely on the ground and thinking clearly. You should be only too happy that you now have a president who does.
To those who think both parties are the same, your naivete is only bested by your inability to think beyond your narrow ideological cul-de-sacs. Nader went down that street and gave us Bush in 2000.
To the jaded who love to expect the worst and sneer at those who believe in hope and positive change, ever notice that you never admit, or maybe even realize it, when history proves you wrong?
And finally to PZ… I understand your frustration but expecting the Democrats to make an immediate sharp turn left to the progressive country we desire is a great dream, but the reality is that constructive incremental steps with occasional sprints is the way to lead the public towards that goal. Lieberman is now neutered and owes Obama his politcal life. When Obama yanks on the ring in Joe’s nose, you can bet he will follow.
PZ,
The Dem congress are fawning puppy dogs towards the GOP. Towards their own base, they hold a different attitude entirely, as shown by the below:
Senate Democratic Aide:
“The left has been foiled again. They can rant and rage but they still do not put the fear into folks to actually change their votes. Their influence would be in question.”
And it never occurred to these dim bulbs in congress that conservatives voting Dem this time around because they were tired with the corruption in the GOP and the lies from the McCain camp were also against Lieberman being awarded the chairmanship.
Finally, keeping a GOP enabler in a position of power where he protected GOP corruption and incompetent administration in the past (Katrina and Iraq no-bid contracts, anyone) is hardly “change we can believe in”.
http://voices.washingtonpost.com/thefix/2008/11/the_lieberman_vote.html
The Dem party establishment is a party of old fools.
And just WHAT, pray tell, IS the progressive agenda?
To give money to any rich wall street bastard who asks for it?
That’s always been the “progressive” agenda. Don’t conflate their agenda with their propaganda.
-jcr
The last time an American third party became viable was in the 1850s.
If you’re defining “viable” only as “went on to eventually win the presidency”, that’s true, but I would certainly describe at least the Bull Moose party, and Ross Perot’s Reform Party as viable.
-jcr
The Dem congress are fawning puppy dogs towards the GOP.
They’re fawning puppy dogs alright, but not towards the GOP. The GOP are not their masters, but rather their partners.
Their fawning is directed towards their major campaign funding sources, which is why they will happily throw the taxpayers and US dollar under the bus to bail out the banksters, or throw children’s education under the bus and just keep forking out more money with no accountability to the NEA, or throw our civil rights under the bus for the benefit of the war on drugs/prison industry…
The Democrats are bought and paid for, just like the GOP. If you expect any different, you will be sorely disappointed.
-jcr
John C. Randolph in post #127 is exactly right.
John C. Randolph,
You may be right about the Dems being fawning puppies towards the monied interests rather than the GOP. But you would never see the following statement from the Pussycrat Senate:
Senate Democratic Aide would never say:
“The right has been foiled again. They can rant and rage but they still do not put the fear into folks to actually change their votes. Their influence would be in question.”
The MSM would crucify them. So instead they suck up to the right wingnuts and secretly (consistent with their pussy natures) use the left wing as a scapegoat for being pussies.
What I mean by “secretly use the left wing as a scapegoat” is anonymously, to the press.
Pussies.
Bubba Sixpack | November 19, 2008 10:08 PM
“Pussies.”
Let me guess… you think using a term for female genitalia as an insult shows how macho radical you think are.
Thanks for the insight.
jcr November 19, 2008 9:32 PM
“The GOP are not their masters, but rather their partners.”
The utter naive simplicity of this statement is pure jcr.
@Tis Himself
Regarding the Saudi support for Saddam’s regime – I would argue that they weren’t afraid of a power vacuum. Rather that they wanted a Sunni Muslim in power – and if that had to be Saddam, so be it. I think Faud and Mubarak could have been convinced that Saddam was arguably a secular leader whose politics were not particularly pro-Sunni, but rather – simply pro-Saddam. Bush, however, had thought that Saddam would not survive, politically, this defeat by the allied forces.
Allowing the Kurds and Shiite uprising to proceed without US/allied support, and wasting the opportunity to reach for regional-backing of ending the Saddam regime in 1991 – allowed Saddam to massacre roughly 300,000, burn the oil fields, and swagger past the US 1st Armored Division smirking, weapons in hand. Killing off the encouraged-but-not-supported uprising put Saddam in a better position than he had been pre-war, politically.
12 years later – Saddam was more fully entrenched. He didn’t have solely the support of Jordan, whose workers in Kuwait, in 1991 had been treated poorly and so, the King o’ Jordan was cheer-leading Saddam’s aggression in Kuwait as a result. It was more than Jordan cheering Saddam on this time.
So, my point remains valid – better then, than now. (Though, it’s a difficult position for the US to engage in the removal of dictators openly – especially with its history of propping up rather brutal ones for US gain. Especially when they were pro-Saddam prior to the Kuwait kerfuffle when they were playing pattycake in the region with the Soviets – tossing anthrax and weapons to Saddam when he was the US strategy for keeping Iran in check.) The Shiite and Kurds the US encouraged to overthrow Saddam wouldn’t have been slaughtered wholesale if the US had given them support – and the 300,000 dead with their scores of not-dead relatives wouldn’t have that reason to be ten shades of pissed-off at the US for abandoning them to Saddam.
“If Lieberman were to be ousted from his committee chairmanship, it should be because he’s not very good at his job, not as political retribution for having supported Senator McCain”
That’s one of the main issues. As a committee chair, he’s been very effective at:
*Stopping investigations into the lame Federal response to Katrina by not holding hearings.
*Not doing anything to improve the mess that is DHS.
*Pretty much not doing anything at all.
He’s also, as has been noted above, a lying, backstabbing opportunist and utter sanctimonious ass. Further, he actively campaigned for the opposition, and almost was given their VP nod. All of this is enough to kick him to the curb.
But, as others have noted above, he now owes Obama his political life, and it’s entirely possible that the Homeland Security aspect of his committee will become irrelevant. Governmental Affairs is still important, but if he starts using that against Obama, he will likely be handed his walking papers in 2010 when the Democrats gain even more Senate seats (they’ll probably gain another 2-4 and maybe 5 or 6 if Obama does well) and spend his last two years in the cloakroom mumbling to himself. He won’t get re-elected in 2012; too many Connecticut residents are furious that he blatantly lied through his teeth in the campaign (he promised he’d try to end the war and support the Democratic presidential nominee, and did the opposite on both counts). Current polling suggests that if the race was held again today, he’d lose to Ned Lamont by 10 points, instead of winning by 10 as he did in 2006. I suspect there are large swaths of Connecticut he won’t even be able to walk through when he gets turned out of office, for fear of a rotten tomato barrage.
Regardless of what happened, or what happens, he’s got at most 4 good years left in the Senate, and 2 or less if he misbehaves. He won’t slip Obama’s leash, not for long, anyway.
mayhempix,
Remind me. How did Obama’s position on the bailout differ from John McCain’s? Oh, wait. It didn’t.
That’s the issue that will have the largest effect on this country (and the world) for the next decade or so, and it’s not at all surprising that both of the ruling party candidates were on the same page.
utter naive simplicity
How are you enjoying that lovely glass house you’re living in?
-jcr
jcr #134
“…it’s not at all surprising that both of the ruling party candidates were on the same page.”
Your one world conspiracy slip is showing.
It’s not a “one world conspiracy”. It’s not a conspiracy at all. It’s just an oligarchy like the oligarchies that developled in most democracies and republics throughout history. The Democrats and Republicans differe on a few points – abortion, labor unions, and, to an extent, gay rights. But when it comes to giving big business exactly what it wants, up to and including using the US military to further private business interests, both parties are on the same page.
Remember, NAFTA, the telecommunications reform act, and the DMCA were both passed during the Clinton administration.
It’s just an oligarchy like the oligarchies that developled in most democracies and republics throughout history.
Bingo. They know which side their bread is buttered on, and anytime they have to choose between the best interests of the country or doing what their paymasters ask, the result is foregone conclusion.
-jcr
jcr,
Well because only the most irresponsible economically ignorant libertarians could have mantained that the people would have been better off if the govt would have let these financial institutions go belly up.
That would have been a recipie for a great depression with 100% certainty.
That bailout was already written as soon as that piece of junk libertarian law was passed, the Commodity Futures Modernization Act of 2000. What did they expect ? They believed in miracles ? The invisble hand would sort things out and traders would have behaved as grown ups and self-regulate CDSs ? We can see where that will lead us to, more than $ 2 trillion of losses that either have been spent or are now in the comfotable pockets of some very rich speculators and that will have to be paid back by the stupid tax payers.
CBS’s 60 minutes on the financial weapons of mass destruction:
http://www.cbsnews.com/video/watch/?id=4546583n
teddy Roosevelt was elected from a third party. 20th century
John Allen # 108,
Diaz lastet longer and was more successful than most of his ilk. Still, the result was a violent revolution, followed by Huerta’s heavy-handed attempt at counter-revolution, another, even more violent revolution and finally a bloody civil war between the victorious revolutionaries. Dictatorship might postpone a civil war, but it also sows the seeds of future violence.
Dictatorship might postpone a civil war, but it also sows the seeds of future violence. – johannes
This is a false and facile generalisation. Sometimes it does, and sometimes it doesn’t. Consider all the dictatorships that have ended peacefully over the past 50 years. There are plenty of reasons to oppose dictatorships without ignoring the facts.
To the libertarians who think their childlike fantasies of “how things should be” could ever possibly become a reality:
Please explain to all of us how you would successfully implement your grand plans and get consensus from a majority of the public to peacefully and willingly go along. Show the political structure and planning to achieve your goals. How long will it take this take? How will you maintain a political plurality long enough to be successful in your “goals”? Why aren’t you already successful instead of just a small minority of mostly white males from privileged middle class backgrounds that went through the public education system (no conspiracy answers)? I’m especially curious, that since you want little or no regulation on business, how that will prevent business corruption of these “solutions”. How will you deal with the epidemic of diseases when vaccinations are no longer mandated? How will you deal with the elderly when, through either toss of the coin, tragic mishap or irresponsible planning have no medical care, housing and food? How will you guarantee access to clean affordable water for everyone? How will you educate those too poor to afford private education? If you say “too bad”, how will you deal the unrest, crime and slums these people will produce? If building codes are part of the problem, how will you prevent collapses and utility failures? If “too bad… buyer beware” how will you deal with the victims of such collapses and lack of access to heat, water and electricity? How do you prevent massive fires caused by flammable building materials in urban, forested and grassy areas? Show how you stop those who are seduced by “cult of personality” leaders with fascist or totalitarian solutions and move to topple your minimal government via the ballot box. There is so much more to ask but why we don’t we start here.
Please explain all this without resorting to philosophical and utopian fantasies of how things should be. Do not resort to declarations of “personal responsibiliy” because if you don’t understand by now that human nature, not detached rational thinking, is the overiding cause of most complex social and economic issues and that an economy is a construct built on faith of value, then you have no business telling anything to anyone. No rants about social issues, drug laws and government intruding into our private lives. These are issues most progressives agree on. “The market will take of it” is not an acceptable answer.
Good luck.
> Consider all the dictatorships that have ended peacefully
> over the past 50 years.
Nick Gotts, # 141
Apartheid South Africa and Brazil made a rather peaceful conversion to democracy, but the old regimes left an ugly legacy of crime and violence, wich might have killed more people than many conflicts that are officially called wars.
Greece, maybe, but only after the Junta had lost an external war – or war by proxy – with Turkey over Cyprus. The same thing can be said about the Argentinian Junta and the Falkland war.
Portugal (and to a lesser degree Spain) only became democracies after long colonial wars, and while UNITA seems to be well beaten, the West Saharan conflict is suspended, but not over.
The former Soviet empire ended without an all-out war, but its collapse spawned many conflicts on the periphery (Nagorny-Karabach, Transdnistria, the various conflicts in Georgia, the Islamist uprising in Tadjikistan, etc.); the old Stalinist elites might have become oligarchs in Moscow and St. Petersburg, but the same sort of people became warlords in Central Asia or the Caucasus.
Posted by: negentropyeater | November 20, 2008 3:59 AM
“…only the most irresponsible economically ignorant libertarians could have mantained that the people would have been better off if the govt would have let these financial institutions go belly up. That would have been a recipie for a great depression with 100% certainty.”
Exactly.
But that is precisely what the libertarians want because they fantasize an opportunity for a great new libertarian country that will rise from the ashes making a better world for all. They see the victims of an economic collapse as necessary collateral in the pursuit of their utopian goals.
Mayhempix,
Perhaps you are just ignorant, but pussy as referring to a weak, spineless person does not derive from female genitalia.
From Wikipedia:
“The meaning “weak or cowardly person” has a separate etymology. Websters 1913 Revised Unabridged Dictionary lists this version of pussy as an alternate spelling of “pursy,” an otherwise obsolete English word meaning “fat and short-breathed; fat, short, and thick; swelled with pampering …”[1] The interpretation is often misconstrued, as it contains multiple meanings which some consider derogatory.[2]”
In short, the “macho radical” pseudo-intellectual analysis is all in your head. So grow up, and for goodness sakes learn a little.
johannes,
I took your claim to be that disctatorships spawned wars after they were gone, which is what “Dictatorship might postpone a civil war, but it also sows the seeds of future violence.” seems to imply. Both the Portuguese and Spanish colonial empires were centuries old. They might,/I> have decolonised peacefully if they hadn’t been dictatorships, but France certainly didn’t, nor to a lesser extent Britain and Netherlands. Belgium left a civil war in Congo. So a more valid generalisation, which covers the USSR, might be that imperialism “sows the seeds of future violence.” In any case you’ve forgotten Taiwan, South Korea, Argentina, Uruguay and most of the other Latin American dictatorships, many sub-Saharan African dictatorships, very recently the Maldives, So as a generalisation, it really doesn’t hold.
Posted by: ndt | November 20, 2008 2:02 AM
“It’s not a “one world conspiracy”. It’s not a conspiracy at all. It’s just an oligarchy like the oligarchies that developled in most democracies and republics throughout history.”
jcr jumped on your response because he has “one world conspiracy tendencies” and you gave him a way to dance around it.
Do you maintain that these “democratic oligarchies” retain control without resort to collusion amongst the participants? Otherwise you are just using “oligarchy” to pretend you are above conspiracy theories.
Don’t you find it a bit ironic that capitalist, communist, fascist and monarchial governments are equally susceptible to becoming oligarchies, in fact in some ways always are, but each points the finger at the others as the real problem?
How would a libertarian government avoid becoming an oligarchy? Please no philosophical utopian answers. Show step by step how this would be avoided without laws and regulation.
Also please show example(s) of functioning governments that are not some form of oligarchy. Do you not find it curious that democratic/socialist governments such as Finland with strong social programs including universal health care are the least oligarchial and have the highest standards of living?
Nick Gotts,
I had covered Brazil and Argentina (if not Chile and Uruguay). You are right on Taiwan and South Korea, but those are highly industrialized societies, industry needs a degree of law and order to function. They also have large middle and working classes, who are wealthy enough to have much to loose, and potentially threatening neighbours like China and North Korea, whose looming presence makes a certain degree of unity a dire necessity. Taiwan and South Korea are also ethnically homogenous – the Austronesian tribes in Taiwan might be warlike, but they are too few to be of political importance.
Chile and Uruguay are countries with long democratic traditions, the military dictatorships were artefacts of cold war anticommunism, and their grip on society was superficial.
Things are very different in a rent-based economy, and/or in a society structured along feudal or tribal lines.
BTW colonial rule was never democratic, even when the colonizing country was a democracy.
BTW colonial rule was never democratic, even when the colonizing country was a democracy. – johannes
I didn’t say it was. Part of my point is that it made little difference whether the colonising power was a democracy or dictatorship, so it wasn’t dictatorship causing the post-colonial wars.
I think you’ve effectively conceded my point by saying that, and by your explanations for why in Taiwan, South Korea, Chile, Uruguay (and of course Zambia, Malawi, Ghana, Lesotho, Tanzania, Madagascar… which don’t fit either of your reasons for “exceptions”) dictatorships did not sow the seeds of wars. As I said, sometimes they do, and sometimes they don’t.
Bubba Sixpack | November 20, 2008 10:15 AM
“In short, the “macho radical” pseudo-intellectual analysis is all in your head.”
Pretty funny considering this was written by “Bubba Sixpac.”
Why do I have the overiding suspicion that you ran defensively looking for a defnition after I called you out? You conveniently left out that Wikipedia starts off by saying that “The Oxford English Dictionary and Webster’s Third International Dictionary point out similarities with words including: Old Norse, pūss (pocket), Old Saxon pūse (vulva), Old English pusa (bag). The medieval French word pucelle referred to a young adolescent girl or a virgin, although this comes from a slang term for virginity puce (= flea)”. In each case thay all directly or indirectly refer to female genitalia. You also left out that associating “pussy” with “pursy” was last printed in Websters 1913 Revised Unabridged Dictionary. The fact is that in almost every current dictionary “pussy” is given some form of the following definitions 1) informal for cat 2) vulgar slang for a woman’s genitals 3) a weak, cowardly, or effeminate man. Please show me one person who doesn’t think of female genitalia when refering to someone as a pussy ie an effeminate man. Also if all Democrats are pussies are you calling the women “weak, cowardly, or effeminate (men)”? Your argument that you understood the complete implications of the word before you wrote it doesn’t hold any water.
Besides, any linguist, and I happen to be married to one with a phd, will tell you that a word’s true definition is determined by it’s usage and cultural attributes of the time. Even though most dictionaries cite “pussy” as always derogatory, many women in the US have adopted the term as a benign way to refer to their vulvas just as men will call their penises a “dick”. But there is distinct difference between calling someone else a dick and referring to your own member. The fact remains is that in the present time when anyone calls a someone a pussy they are ascribing derogatory effeminate qualities evoking images of castration and female genitalia and most, if all not all, people interpret it that way.
“So grow up, and for goodness sakes learn a little…” and admit to your foolish sexist gaffes instead of digging yourself into a deeper hole… and I mean that with all the myriad definitions your mind can visualize.
“The fact remains is that in the present time when anyone calls a someone a pussy they are ascribing derogatory effeminate qualities evoking images of castration and female genitalia and most, if all not all, people interpret it that way.”
What a bunch of crap from a turder…
I’ve been in the construction business for thirty years on five continents. The term means as he used it, one who lacks courage. That it also means something else is irrelevant. “Slit”, “gash” etc… have sexual meanings too, but you wouldn’t automatically assume one if I said your face looks like a gash unless it did…
“…only the most irresponsible economically ignorant libertarians could have mantained that the people would have been better off if the govt would have let these financial institutions go belly up. That would have been a recipie for a great depression with 100% certainty.”
Actually, the two schools of thought here are as follows– Let the system go belly up, let all the dirivitives unwind, let the debt be cleared, let all bad companies fail, and start anew. This would be the “rip the band aid off the wound in one pull” theory.
The other choice is of course, keep on propping up the wealthy 1%, let the central banks maintain absolute control of the country, let the system muddle along in deep recession for a decade and let historians point out the similarities between this approach and the Japanese approach of the nineties (the lost decade), and the GD itself.
Never mind that Russia went the band aid route and saw amazing growth after the fact, as well as Korea.
Me? I say let those who were greedy and fraudulent take their lumps, let the system get cleaned out as fast as possible, and lets get on with life. Two hard years is far more enjoyable a thought than say ten depressing and muddled years. Being human, a decade is a long time to stand in bread lines…
@ScottO
I stand corrected… there are a few who aren’t socially integrated into contemporary US culture.
Are you claiming that when you use the term you are not deliberately inferring effeminate qualites?
Liar.
And please pardon me for laughing, but if you called anyone a “Slit” I can guarantee how that would be taken… and it wouldn’t be a cut or tear in a piece of fabric. BTW the term “crap” comes from John Crapper who invented the flush toilet so I guess you meant that as a compliment for my inventive comments.
You libs are too funny… never any humor or thinking relative to the real world.
@ScottO #152
In other words, see the victims of an economic collapse as necessary collateral in the pursuit of your utopian and unobtainable goals.
“Are you claiming that when you use the term you are not deliberately inferring effeminate qualites?
Liar.”
Yep. I am. The term as used, and aside from the genital meaning, simply means one who is not courageous in the face of pain, heights, whatever…
I’ve worked side by side with lesbian feminists carpenters who call the weak and fearful pussies all the time.
If I pointed out a slit in your pants, would you assume I was talking about a vagina? Or if I asked how your gash was healing?
Words CAN possess two separate meanings, and it is not the fault of the user for the two meanings, but for the reciever when they mis-attribute meaning to the word. Context!
Bubba Sixpack (@145):
Notwithstanding the penetrating research that is wikipedia, I’d be willing to bet that most of the people running around calling each other “pussies” — and especially most of the ones who answer to “Bubba” — are not scholars of etymology. My guess is that if you surveyed users of that particular idiom, virtually all of them would say the insult is related to female genitalia, and that the point is to call men, in particular, weak by comparing them to women. Regardless of what a 1913 dictionary says about an obsolete English root, a colloquialism means what its current users intend it to mean.
It’s always been something of a mystery why we use the language of sexuality and sexual anatomy to insult each other, but it’s impossible to deny that we do. Taken in the context of all the other sexual terminology we use to construct vulgar insults, it’s difficult to argue that, in current usage, calling someone a “pussy” is anything other than the misogynistic “macho radical” locution mayhempix called it.
#154
“You libs are too funny… never any humor or thinking relative to the real world.”
Make that “You libertarians…”
“Lib(s)” is a term commonly used derogatorily by the right in reference to liberals and wouldn’t want any of the literal libertarians to be confused.
“””In other words, see the victims of an economic collapse as necessary collateral in the pursuit of your utopian and unobtainable goals.”””
Not sure what that means. I’m not libertarian- I think the ideology is too strident to match human frailties- but I think the country needs to tack in that direction, returning to a more Constitutionally controlled republic.
It doesn’t matter what I think, the inevitable will occur without my wishing for it or wishing against it.
Our current monetary system is not only showing cracks, its showing pieces flying off. These bail outs will not fix what is broken, it will simply prolong the time it takes to fully break.
What is transpiring is a phony economy showing the world it is a phony economy. The dollar is under the guillotine.
The world will simply restructure, leaving the dollar to the side.
Americans will have to start producing actual wealth again, and put away the golf clubs.
Weeeee.
> As I said, sometimes they do, and sometimes they don’t.
Nick Gotts,
to come back to my original comment: Maybe I have been too sweeping and not precise enough. If the root causes of a conflict – gross inequality or injustice, tribal, ethnic and/or sectarian strife, a demography with too many males of fighting age, an economic system that makes people competitors for land or for a rent rather than potential employers, employees or customers, to name but a few examples – are there, a dictatorship that simply oppresses people, but doesn’t tackle those root causes (or adds more of them), might postpone but not prevent the outbreak of open revolution or civil war. It will also teach people that arbitrary violence is the way to go, and therefore make things worse.
If such root causes are not there in the first place, or are limited enough to be bearable, or are eliminated by economic development, the transition from dictatorship to democracy might be smooth.
@ScottO
There is an obvious difference between pointing out the slit in my pants and calling someone a slit. Like you say, context is everything.
Every lesbian I know, especially those who tend to take the more aggressive role in their relationships, are some of the most prolific users of the term pussy. They talk about getiing sex like men do by claiming they got some pussy and chat about chasing pussy. They also revel in the irony of calling what they percieve as weak effeminate men pussies. This is a classic case of an historically oppressed culture adopting and subverting a term just like blacks did with “nigger”. Do you feel comfortable calling someone that term even if a black co-worker does? Also have ever heard a lesbian refer to another female no matter how weak and afraid as a pussy? I haven’t.
At this point most men and many women accept the usage of pussy as a slang but innocuous euphemism for getting sex or in reference to female genitalia.
Calling someone a pussy is completely derogatory and whether you choose to accept it or not, in contemporay culture has a decided demeaning sexual reference.
Posted by: Scott from Oregon | November 20, 2008 12:52 PM
“””In other words, see the victims of an economic collapse as necessary collateral in the pursuit of your utopian and unobtainable goals.”””
Not sure what that means. I’m not libertarian- I think the ideology is too strident to match human frailties-”
Agreed that libertarianism is “too strident to match human frailties-”
But what I meant was that there will be an enormous part of the population, children and women in particular, that will suffer tremendously if the economy collapses, even if it only takes 2 years to recover (an analysis which I don’t buy). They are the victims. Those with extreme wealth might have to put off purchase the next Gulfstream, but many of those most blamed for the current situation will still live in luxury while the innocent flounder and drown.
@Bill Dauphin
Thanks for catching my back and again pointing out the obvious to those in denial or trying to protect their male egos.
I wonder if Bubba will see the humor in the latter part of that previous statement.
“”There is an obvious difference between pointing out the slit in my pants and calling someone a slit. Like you say, context is everything.””
My point is that words can actually HOLD two separate meanings.
In less vulgar terms, saw and saw, for example.
It is the job of the reciver of the information to decide by context what the word means.
You have chosen to blur the meaning and I accept that there are two separate meanings. I remember calling my pals “pussies” far before I ever knew what a pussy looked like as a young child.
So, for the last 40 years, “pussy” started out meaning “cowardly” to me and then got an added meaning of higher value once puberty struck…
“But what I meant was that there will be an enormous part of the population, children and women in particular, that will suffer tremendously if the economy collapses, even if it only takes 2 years to recover (an analysis which I don’t buy).”
I lived in Japan during their real estate bubble in the eighties. I went back for a visit in the nineties, when the government propped everybody up and they had zombie banks afloat in a depressed sea. The results were plain to see.
There really is two legitimate lines of reasoning as to how to best tackle a bad situation. Both have their pluses and minuses.
The underlying systemic problem is not being addressed by the bail outs, which are pushing this whole economic fiasco along.
The world let the US get away with an unsustainable, phony economy based on its perception of our stability by buying our debt and taking our dollars.
Now that the curtain is up, the world will come around to realizing that the US was promoting an advantageous system, and we’ll be shunted out of the center of the universe slot.
Regional trading in Asia will increase. China will grow its own middle class. The ME will look for other places to park its wealth besides the dollar and the US will have to start making stuff again, for itself and for trading with others.
In a way, it could all be a good thing as local economies strengthen and become more self-sufficient.
Think of the fuel and pollution savings if people made stuff locally and kept it there?
My real point is that the syutem is falling apart, whether you wish it to be so or not.
The bail outs only slow down the collapse, but lead to the same destination and rewards the class that took the most from the system and helped in its ruination.
@ScottO
I remember calling my pals “pussies” far before I ever knew what a pussy looked like as a young child.
I remember calling my pals “queers” before I never knew it was a derogatory term for homosexual. A soon as my parents explained it to me I quit using it. Now it is co-opted by the gay community as a badge of honor but still viewed as a slur by those who are gay-bashing. The word “faggot” is the same.
The meaning of words change and vocabulary is always in a fuzzy state of flux. That’s why it is so funny when the xenophobes get all worked up about preserving English as the official US language. US English is a mish-mash of Anglo and Latin languages and changes constantly. First of all, which English is the true English? The British from whence ours originates sees ours as an abomination. Should we rename Los Angeles “The Angels” or La Cienega “The Bog”?
“I lived in Japan during their real estate bubble in the eighties. I went back for a visit in the nineties, when the government propped everybody up and they had zombie banks afloat in a depressed sea. The results were plain to see.”
Japanese and American cultures are very different and a far smaller percentage of the population were swept into extreme indigence than will happen here. I find it interesting that you never directly address the issue of the victims of a free-falling hard landing.
mayhempix (@162):
De nada. Although I must confess, I’m a bit slow in posting (I write my comments in bits and pieces, during brief breaks from doing other stuff), so I was actually composing my pearls at the same time as you were crafting your own response. Thus, my input was more along the lines of independent verification than catching your back. Or put another way, “great minds think alike!” [g]
SfO (@163):
Your youthful ignorance doesn’t change the realities of usage. I similarly recall calling people “queers” as a young child, thinking that noun was roughly synonymous to “weirdo” (and long before I had any notion of what sex was, let alone homosexuality). At some point, some kind soul gently explained to me that there was a more socially inflammatory meaning, and that if I called older boys that, I was likely to get beaten up.
Leaving aside the fact that calling someone a homosexual should no more be an insult than comparing someone to the little bit of wonder that is the female genitalia should, my naivete about this usage didn’t mean it wasn’t really an insult, nor did it mean it didn’t really refer to sexuality.
As a little boy, you may have heard people call men “pussies” and inferred from social context the immediate meaning — weak or spineless — without having the worldly knowledge to “get” the sexual character of the insult; that doesn’t mean the sexual character didn’t exist.
“”I find it interesting that you never directly address the issue of the victims of a free-falling hard landing. “”
Well, to start with, I could call myself a victim. Construction has come to a complete stop, and I haven’t built anything since last February.
Having said that, my opinion is that the victims are there no matter what. All roads, for the time being, lead to victims.
The market is actually winning this battle between the market and the powers that try and control it.
If you haven’t noticed, Bernanke and Paulson are losing the wrestling match, and the bail-outs are just short term time outs so they can catch their breaths.
There is a basic problem in the system that nees to be accepted. Americans borrowed too much, consumed too much, spent too much and didn’t produce enough.
That imbalance is as plain as can be.
You can’t solve that problem by spending more, consuming more and borrowing more, unless the world is crazy enough to keep buying our debt which we can never pay back.
Would you loan money to an entity that you knew was broke and could not pay back the loan? Or would you loan money to an entity that you knew could only repay the loan if they debased the currency in which they were to pay you back with?
What country do you think is that dumb?
That’s where we are at.
Debasing the dollar will cause much more hardship in the middle term than letting corporate entities fail and have to sell their toys. Think of all those americans reliant on their social security or their savings that are baby boomers about to retire…
You’re suggesting that we cut their purchasing power in half so that wall street and the financial industry doesn’t revert back to local and regional lending institutions.
You are punishing those who did the right thing, and propping up those who were greedy and reckless.
“””As a little boy, you may have heard people call men “pussies” and inferred from social context the immediate meaning — weak or spineless — without having the worldly knowledge to “get” the sexual character of the insult; that doesn’t mean the sexual character didn’t exist. “””
Of course it exists. But the inference is on the listener and not the speaker. A pussy in my world is a liability. You can’t be a decent construction hand and be afraid of getting hurt or heights or a good ribbing. There is no sexual connotation at all in that usuage. None.
It is put there by uptight souls who wring their hands at the rough and tumble nature of the world.
Pussy has two very different meanings, just as in my example “saw” and “saw”.
Wow! Talk about “great minds think alike”:
mayhempix (@164):
me (@165, but composed in parallel w/164):
I wonder how universal this sort of experience is: As children, we hear older people using insults whose intent seems obvious, but whose darker implications are hidden from us by our own naivete?
This is simply denial.
I’m not inside your head, and wouldn’t presume to say what you mean when you use this term. But if you think others don’t intend a sexual metaphor when they use that term — or that they don’t hear something sexual when you use it — you’re fooling yourself. I doubt your blue-collar pals are any exception to the common usage, and before you tell us again how sure you are about that, I also doubt you’ve sat any of them down to discuss the matter. (Although the idea of that conversation might make for a funny SNL sketch, if only it could pass the censors.)
People’s ability to take an insult (aka “a good ribbing”) with equanimity doesn’t say anything about the character of the insult.
“I remember calling my pals “queers” before I never knew it was a derogatory term for homosexual. …”
Yeah, but nobody argues that queer means anything but “homosexual” and “odd”, and the usage for “odd” has diminished.
If I wrote “It was a queer sight before her, a man in a dolphin suit, picking raspberries in the snow”… you would not assume I meant anything gay, even with the addition of the dolphin suit.
But an argument that “pussy” means a coward of some kind is a legitimate argument.
Scott from Oregon is such a dullard.
SfO,
the experiment of leting a whole series of banks go belly up already took place. That was in 1930-31.
As citizens were losing faith in banks and started keeping their savings in their houses rather than in bank deposits, the banks that survived kept large sums of cash over the counter instead of making loans in order to avoid bank runs. The consequence was that credit plumetted, as well as consumption, in an accelerated way, leading to -10% GDP contraction, turning what otherwise would have been a harsh recession into the great depression.
It won’t be repeated whether you like it or not.
“”Scott from Oregon is such a dullard.”” SC
Spoken like a true internet pussy.
AND SO BEGINS THE BIG TURN AWAY FROM THE DOLLAR–
The Standard – Hong Kong
Gold rush
By Benjamin Scent
Friday, November 14, 2008
The mainland is seriously considering a plan to diversify more of its massive foreign-exchange reserves into gold, a person familiar with the situation told The Standard.
Beijing is considering changing its asset allocations during the financial tsunami in order to build up gold reserves “in a big way,” the source said.
China’s fears about the long-term viability of parking most of its reserves in US government bonds were triggered by Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson’s US$700 billion (HK$5.46 trillion) bailout plan, which may make the US budget deficit balloon to well over US$1 trillion this fiscal year.
The US government will fund the bailout by printing new money or issuing huge amounts of new debt, either of which will put severe pressure on the value of the greenback and on government bond yields. (Is it odd that almost everyone in the world EXCEPT Americans can see this coming? – Jesse)
The United States holds 8,133.5 tonnes of gold reserves valued at US$188.23 billion. China holds gold reserves of just 600 tonnes, worth only US$13.89 billion.
Beijing’s reserves could easily go up to 3,000 to 4,000 tonnes, Tanrich Futures senior vice president Colleen Chow Yin-shan said.
Until now, the United States has had little choice but to issue massive amounts of debt to fund its deficits, and China has had little choice but to purchase it, as there are not many markets deep enough to absorb the mainland’s US$30 billion to US$40 billion in monthly capital inflows.
Government officials involved in the management of China’s reserves are beginning to see gold as an attractive place to park some of these funds. They see it as a real, tangible asset that will not lose its value over time – in stark contrast to the greenback, which is becoming more disconnected from economic realities as more bills are printed.
@ScottO
“The dollar is under the guillotine.”
Actually the dollar has gained in relative value to other currencies in the past 6 months. I currently reside much of the year in Argentina and people are converting pesos to dollars like there’s no tomorrow. And remember this is a country with strong historical ties to Europe and is not buying Euros. The same is happening worldwide. Bad for the local currency and economy but good for the dollar.
Since it’s evidently up to me to determine the meaning of words for myself, I’ll interpret that as a compliment. Thanks!
SfO,
btw, your “rip the band aid off the wound in one pull” theory, is exactly the great depression scenario, whereby unemployement grows from 6.5% today to 25% within two years.
Like real quick, two harsh years.
Except afterwards, it doesn’t get back to normal all by itself. It takes a long, long time, and major public works like a second world war in the middle to get things back to normal again, assuming you’re the winner.
So maybe we can avoid that scenario, worst case, the lost decade scenario, or Japanese L shape recession seems preferable. Zero growth, I don’t think it’s that bad; is it really a problem if the advanced economies don’t grow anymore ? Methinks they’re rich enough and consume far too much already, if only they’d take care of their people better.
It’s time to trade off growth for welfare.
@ Bill Dauphin
“I wonder how universal this sort of experience is: As children, we hear older people using insults whose intent seems obvious, but whose darker implications are hidden from us by our own naivete?”
I’m sure it is very common. Responsible parents make a point of informing their children. Unfortunately many fail to do so perpetuating bigotries and intolerance for generations.
“”Actually the dollar has gained in relative value to other currencies in the past 6 months. I currently reside much of the year in Argentina and people are converting pesos to dollars like there’s no tomorrow.””
I know. People are irrational, and in times like this, the irrationality demonstrates itself.
Gold has also been down, but in the near future, will rise in a mad spike.
The dollar’s strength is a left-over perception from having run so well for so long. People instinctively head into familiar safe havens, and the dollar has been that for forty years. BUT THAT GAME IS COMING TO AN END. So if you are in dollars, you’ll get short term gains and then you’ll be found on the floor yelling “Sell! Sell!” the same way holders of many financials were.
You don’t have to believe me. Just watch…
Posted by: SC | November 20, 2008 4:37 PM
“Since it’s evidently up to me to determine the meaning of words for myself, I’ll interpret that as a compliment. Thanks!”
Damn you’re good…and funny.
When you mentioned “dullard”, in my twisted brain “mallard” immediately came to mind.
Then we can call him a “duckhead” with absolutely no derogatory reference to male genitalia.
SfO (@167) said…
Who knew Scott was a postmodernist, eh? ;^)
Aw. Thanks. :)
Even if I never become SC, OM, this month has offered a few other fun options:
SC, TPoW (Trashy Piece of Work)
SC, BI (Blind Ideologue)
and now
SC, TIP (True Internet Pussy)
SC, do not forget you still hold the title of SBOP – sexiest brain on Pharyngula.
Later, ma cherie
*blushes like mad*
So nice to see you back around, JeffreyD, even if it’s not often enough. Hope all is well with you.
How were those Virgins SC ?
JefferyD – I send you a big SMOOCH! We miss you.
Scott from Oregon – Don’t call me that name you just called SC, I will not take it as a compliment.
Gorgeous, neg (thanks for asking). It was a wonderful trip – best birthday present EVAH.
Big smooch back to you, my dear Patricia.
SC, thanks for the kind words.
I have not updated my blog lately, but it shows that I am still having a few struggles along the road. That said, I have found a lovely woman who loves me, even as damaged as I am. So, much light at the end of the tunnel. The anniversary of the major event was hard, and still not able to write about it, but I survived again.
Not writing much here, but reading when I can.
Even when rushed, I still search for Patricia, SC, Rev, neg, Bill, Nick, Moses, Holbach, and some others to read the comments. Oh, Walton, will be in the UK some next year, would love to buy you a beer or tea and say hello.
Ciao, y’all
“”Scott from Oregon – Don’t call me that name you just called SC, I will not take it as a compliment.””
Behave like an internet coward and you’ll leave me no choice…
SfO@152: “Never mind that Russia went the band aid route and saw amazing growth after the fact”
This is misleading at best and really, outright wrong. Russia had an absolutely miserable ’90s and saw its already inadequate Soviet-era living standards plunge after the “band aid route.” Misery was widespread, deep, and long; and the nation defaulted on its debts in 1998. The only reason they’re doing somewhat better now is the high price of oil, and those benefits are largely going to a relatively small segment of the populace. The average Russian still has a shorter, less healthy life than 20 years ago, and their prospects both jointly and severally are still relatively dim.
Mayhempix,
How about pusillanimous? Shall we stop using these words with the same word origin? Or how about Pussycat or Pussy, in short? Shall we stop using these word because they sound like genitalia to the ignorant?
Pussy is simply a term for “spineless”. And “Bubba Sixpack” as a moniker is an indication of sexism only in your imagination.
So give it a rest.
So two commenters really think “Bubba Sixpack” is a serious name?
Now that’s funny.
jcr jumped on your response because he has “one world conspiracy tendencies”
Well, thanks for telling me, I wasn’t aware that I had such tendencies. Of course, you could just be trying to categorize me without actually knowing what you’re talking about.
Perhaps you should consult a mental health professional about your own tendency to invent positions out of thin air and attribute them to people as you’ve just done to me.
-jcr
Scott,
Regarding the dollar’s recent gains against other currencies, I would point out that the Federal Reserve is not the only central bank that’s been inflating currency at a furious pace for the last decade or so.
There is also a fair bit of dollar buying because traders are betting that the Fed won’t jump off the hyperinflation cliff, and will have to drastically raise interest rates as Volcker did.
-jcr
Well because only the most irresponsible economically ignorant libertarians could have mantained that the people would have been better off if the govt would have let these financial institutions go belly up.
Well, I see that you swallowed the propaganda line in its entirety. BTW, did you notice that Paulson has yet to spend any of that money on the purpose he offered when he first made his demand?
Instead of buying mortgage paper to get it off the banks’ books (as he said he absolutely must do, lest we end up in a state of martial law, no less), he’s been buying shares in banks, and giving money away to big banks so they can buy up smaller banks. Meanwhile, Citibank’s on the way to becoming a penny stock, the Dow set a new low today, and banks still won’t lend money to each other because they can’t tell who’s solvent.
So tell me, now that the currency has been inflated by three trillion dollars in as many months, all of it new debt which the people will eventually pay for in taxes or reduced purchasing power, how we’re all better off by giving the treasury a blank check to flail around incompetently?
Japan did the very same thing when their real estate bubble popped. They gave money to banks at zero interest to keep them afloat, they gave money away to all their biggest companies, and the result was a huge wave of investment outside of Japan. Meanwhile, their domestic economy stagnated. They call it the “lost decade.”
-jcr
jcr,
Citibank’s equity is now roughly worth $35 billion, which is about the amount Paulson pumped into it.
I didn’t suggest Paulson’s original plan with the TARP was a good one. It was a pathetic one.
Even now, the bailouts are pathetic IMHO. As I said several times, there’s absolutely no reason why banks such as Citibank should remain privately held. This is a completely gratuitious present to the capital markets. By now, they should already all be nationalized, for the same amount.
But that means that their operations should be saved, executive management sacked and depositors feel confident that government is behind in order to avoid the kind of panic moves that took place in 1930/31 and caused the great depression.
The same is vald btw for the car manufacturers.
The USA is at risk to lose everything it has because of its dogmatic and ridiculously stupid insitance of refusing to adapt to a mixed Socialist/Free-Market economy.
BankofJapan kept these privately held Zombie banks alive for no reason, because they should have all been nationalized. Japan’s “lost decade” in the 1990s taught economists that it’s very hard to get the economy moving once expectations of inflation get too low (it doesn’t matter whether people literally expect prices to fall). Yet there’s clear deflationary pressure on the U.S. economy right now, and every month that passes without signs of recovery increases the odds that we’ll find ourselves stuck in a Japan-type trap for years.
Cats are invertebrates? Who knew?
I didn’t suggest Paulson’s original plan with the TARP was a good one.
Backpedalling noted. Eventually, you may even realize that putting the banking industry on the dole is a bad idea. As long as they can live on the taxpayers’ largesse, there is no way to sort the solvent banks from the insolvent banks. The “too big to fail” argument is absurd; these banks have already failed, and the question at hand is how to cope with the fact of their failure.
The USA is at risk to lose everything it has because of its dogmatic and ridiculously stupid insitance of refusing to adapt to a mixed Socialist/Free-Market economy.
No, the USA is at risk because we allowed our government and central bank to debase the currency to a crisis point and cause misallocation of capital on an unprecedented scale. This is a failure of central planning: the fed is no more competent to set interest rates than the Soviet apparatchiki were at setting prices for consumer goods and commodities.
BankofJapan kept these privately held Zombie banks alive for no reason, because they should have all been nationalized.
Nationalizing companies doesn’t solve the problem, it simply freezes inefficient organizations in place. The Soviets nationalized pretty much their entire economy (except for just enough of a black market to keep them alive), and they still fell apart in an economic collapse.
-jcr
It takes a long, long time, and major public works like a second world war in the middle to get things back to normal again, assuming you’re the winner.
Actually, what got us out of the depression was the ending of wartime economic controls. The idea that war improves an economy is nothing but the broken window fallacy writ large.
-jcr
No backpedalling. I’ve ALWAYS been against Paulson’s original pathetic TARP plan.
At least Brown isn’t an economic illiterate.
If you want, I’d say, it’s a failure of all successive administrations since Reagan and the fed, who all believed in miracles, that is that one could build false prosperity on easy credit and Libertarian ideals, stimulating people to spend all they had so that they saved nothing, build and fund nothing for the long term, encourage them to withdraw equity from their mortgages to consume even more and prop up even more the artificial growth of the economy, legalise gambling and betting on stocks, bonds, in other words give maxmum freedom to the people hoping that they’d behave responsibly thinking about the long term which they didn’t.
Please refrain from bringing up the example of the USSR when discussing the concept of mixed economy.
If you wish to compare the efficiency of the French nationalzed healthcare, railway, or electricity systems with the American ones, then we can have a more interesting discussion.
Actually, what got us out of the depression was the ending of wartime economic controls. – jcr
Why do you repeat this lie again and again? I’ve posted figures showing the pre-WW2 rise in GDP and fall in unemployment, which you did not dispute; and no sane economist believes the USA was still in recession at the end of WW2.
Posted by: Bubba Sixpack | November 20, 2008 10:00 PM
Mayhempix,
“How about pusillanimous? Shall we stop using these words with the same word origin? Or how about Pussycat or Pussy, in short? Shall we stop using these word because they sound like genitalia to the ignorant?
Pussy is simply a term for “spineless”. And “Bubba Sixpack” as a moniker is an indication of sexism only in your imagination.
So give it a rest.”
You really are as dumb as your moniker imples aren’t you? Plus your insecurity and and paranoia are dripping on this thread. I never implied nor said your mojniker was sexist. If you believe anyone thinks BubbaSixpack is you real name, then you need a brain reboot. Sorry you couldn’t take it when your incomplete and archiaic definition was exposed. Also if had read all of my posts it would be clear the difference between using the word pussy in most contexts, but calling someone that is a different story. Please notice that several othe posters, including the women agreed.
You’re the one he needs the rest Bubba.
I so wish NetNewsWire had a spell and grammar checker…. sigh.
#201
… is YOUR real name…
… one WHO needs…
Like I said….
@jcr #192
You always take the bait don’t you?
Why don’t Libertarians have a sense of sarcasm and humor?
That is a typical fundamentalist trait.
You always have such dogmatic long comments that seems like you are paraphrasing everything you’ve read that fits your idea of how the world should operate.
If the US actually did what you preach about the whole place would have fallen apart a long time ago.
You need to learn to chill out.
Posted by: Nick Gotts | November 21, 2008 5:38 AM
– Bubba Sixpack
“Cats are invertebrates? Who knew?”
Maybe he should be calling weak spineless men “Cephalopoda”.
one could build false prosperity on easy credit and Libertarian ideals, stimulating people to spend all they had so that they saved nothing,
Easy credit is not a libertarian ideal. Libertarians are for sound money, and have been all along. As it happens, the original split from the Republicans was due to Nixon “temporarily” ending the dollar’s convertibility to gold.
As for savings, the reason people aren’t saving is because the interest rates they can get are below the rate of inflation.
-jcr
Didn’t suggest it was. That’s why I wrote “easy credit and Libertarian ideals”. Libertarian ideals for instance enabled such monstruosities as the Commodity Futures Modernization Act of 2000, enabling the bonanza of legalized gambling with CDSs and temporarilly building false prosperity.
Complete nonsense, as you well know that spread has been extremely erratic over the last 50 years, whereas the trend for the personal savings rate of Americans has been very consistent, as you can see on this graph :
http://mwhodges.home.att.net/family_a.htm#saving
The rates that French or Germans have been getting compared to inflation have been quite similar to those of Americans, yet personal savings rates have kept at a level of 10 to 12% when they are now at -2% in the US !