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astropin
SFN Regular
USA
970 Posts |
 Posted - 02/05/2010 : 11:29:21 [Permalink]
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Originally posted by Kil
Originally posted by Gorgo
Originally posted by Kil
I understand that you have major grievances with the direction of this administration. But that doesn't make him a Republican. The least you could do is acknowledge that he is fighting back, at least with words and right to their faces. He hasn't done that before now...
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Well, no, he's not a Republican of the 21st century. As he said, he's a Republican of the 20th Century. The program he's pushing now, according to him, is what the Republicans came up with when Clinton was trying to avoid doing anything about health care.
He's a thug that is asking other thugs to play nice. "Hey! Stop it! I'm a right-wing thug, too! Be nice.! We can work together!"
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What would it take for a President to please you? And how successful do you think that president would be, given the difficulties of getting anything through congress?
No matter what your wants, desires and expectations are, there is reality do deal with.
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I would rather face a cold reality than delude myself with comforting fantasies.
You are free to believe what you want to believe and I am free to ridicule you for it.
Atheism:
The result of an unbiased and rational search for the truth.
Infinitus est numerus stultorum |
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bngbuck
SFN Addict
USA
2437 Posts |
Posted - 02/05/2010 : 11:45:38 [Permalink]
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Mooner.....
| Keep the Senate in session 24/7 and force the obstructionists to speak all that time, rather than just allow a filibuster to be a simple procedural move: |
Except that would inconvenience all of the Senate, and that Good Old Boy's (mostly) Club puts their well-being far above service to country! |
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bngbuck
SFN Addict
USA
2437 Posts |
Posted - 02/05/2010 : 13:12:51 [Permalink]
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Gorgo.....
| He's a thug that is asking other thugs to play nice. "Hey! Stop it! I'm a right-wing thug, too! Be nice.! We can work together!" |
Gorgo, I fully empathize with your frustration. But not to the point where I would vote for a Republican candidate for Congress, nor a Republican president. Nor withdraw completely like Dude, and, in effect, help facilitate a neo-fascist agenda for this country. Dude should simply move to a country whose political system is more to his liking and where he could feel free to either vote for one candidate or vote against another!
Gorgo, would you actually prefer a Republican president and a Republican majority in the Congress? Voters really only have two choices: Democrats, many of whom behave like Republicans; and Republicans who all vote in a monolithic bloc almost without exception. Not voting or voting for an Independent (same thing) only strengthens the conservative power position.
Kil asks:What would it take for a President to please you? And how successful do you think that president would be, given the difficulties of getting anything through congress?
No matter what your wants, desires and expectations are, there is reality to deal with. |
Absolutely correct, and this is the reality:
Obama is not the problem, the Blue Dog Democrats are the real sons of bitches, in name and fact! If we could replace the BDSOBs with real and liberal Democrats, Obama's basically decent legislation on health care and many other correct, liberal positions would pass Congress in a breeze and we would have progress instead of gridlock and stalemate.
The real reasons for Obama's largely failed first year in office are the Democratic traitor Blue Dogs and that reprehensible piece of utter solipsistic egocentricity, Joe Lieberman!
Obama is not anywhere near as far left as I wish he were, but if he was, he would be in even more trouble than he is now - as the uncomitted Independent majority of the electorate really want rule from the middle. That is the unfortunate truth of today's politics. Obama must appear and be just left of center to stay in office. But his executive powers are unilateral - only he decides his position on issues. The Congress is bilateral - Republicans versus Democrats on crucial issues that tend to be bipolar. When a president cannot get a majority behind him in Congress, his agenda fails. If the thirty odd BSOB's plus the WaffleIron Werewolf, Joe Lieberman; were replaced with Democrats with normal liberal genes, we would currently have one of the best and most successful presidents of recent history.
Certainly vastly better than the corrosive co-presidency of Cheney's fecal fascism and the ignorant ineptitude of Bush's theocracy!
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HalfMooner
Dingaling
Philippines
15831 Posts |
Posted - 02/05/2010 : 13:15:46 [Permalink]
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Originally posted by bngbuck
Mooner.....
| Keep the Senate in session 24/7 and force the obstructionists to speak all that time, rather than just allow a filibuster to be a simple procedural move: |
Except that would inconvenience all of the Senate, and that Good Old Boy's (mostly) Club puts their well-being far above service to country!
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Fuck the convenience of the whole Senate. They're our employees. Make 'em all work. A good filibuster fight is better than having the kind of bloodless filibusters we now have, so easy to achieve they are simply encouraging obstructionism.
Make the bastards put up or shut the hell up. This would also help the American people see just who these bastards are, and perhaps make the Senate at last either get rid of the filibuster, or change rules to require a mere half the Senate plus one to force cloture. |
“Biology is just physics that has begun to smell bad.” —HalfMooner
Here's a link to Moonscape News, and one to its Archive. |
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filthy
SFN Die Hard
USA
14408 Posts |
 Posted - 02/05/2010 : 13:41:24 [Permalink]
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I'm with 'mooner on this one. I want to see some blood, figurative if not real, and hear piteous cries of anguish as self-serving, conservative hacks, D as well as R, get their figurative necks stepped upon -- assuming we won't get to tread upon the real thing. It's way overdue.
Conservative + terrorist = conjoined twins.
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"What luck for rulers that men do not think." -- Adolf Hitler (1889 - 1945)
"If only we could impeach on the basis of criminal stupidity, 90% of the Rethuglicans and half of the Democrats would be thrown out of office." ~~ P.Z. Myres
"The default position of human nature is to punch the other guy in the face and take his stuff." ~~ Dude
Brother Boot Knife of Warm Humanitarianism,
and Crypto-Communist! 
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bngbuck
SFN Addict
USA
2437 Posts |
Posted - 02/05/2010 : 13:51:27 [Permalink]
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Mooner.....
Fuck the convenience of the whole Senate. They're our employees. Make 'em all work. A good filibuster fight is better than having the kind of bloodless filibusters we now have, so easy to achieve they are simply encouraging obstructionism.
Make the bastards put up or shut the hell up. This would also help the American people see just who these bastards are, and perhaps make the Senate at last either get rid of the filibuster, or change rules to require a mere half the Senate plus one to force cloture. |
Mooner, there is no possible way that I could agree with you more. I was attempting to point out with a little (apparently unrecognizeable) sarcasm that the entire Senate, and House too, for that matter, is a hell of a lot more interested in living the good life and trying by any means possible to insure their own reelection -- than they are concerned with passing legislation beneficial to the citizens of this country!
I'm sorry if I appeared to you to be an apologist for Congress. Jeezuz, what a thought. I'd rather defend the perspicacity of Glenn Beck!
Actually, the Republicans are vastly more cohesive and focused on their agenda than many of the Democrats. The impossible bastards known as the Blue Dogs obviously think of nothing but reelection, irrespective of what the legislation in question may be. They have no common principles, good or bad - just stay in office!
Led by Lassy (the Bitch) Lieberman, they are Quisling saboteurs destroying liberal legislation while pretending to be Democrats. All in the name of serving their constituents, and not giving a damn for anyone in the country who can't vote to keep them in office!
Fuck them all, indeed. In the ass! With a red-hot edged jackhammer!
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HalfMooner
Dingaling
Philippines
15831 Posts |
Posted - 02/05/2010 : 17:05:47 [Permalink]
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Originally posted by bngbuck
Mooner.....
Fuck the convenience of the whole Senate. They're our employees. Make 'em all work. A good filibuster fight is better than having the kind of bloodless filibusters we now have, so easy to achieve they are simply encouraging obstructionism.
Make the bastards put up or shut the hell up. This would also help the American people see just who these bastards are, and perhaps make the Senate at last either get rid of the filibuster, or change rules to require a mere half the Senate plus one to force cloture. |
Mooner, there is no possible way that I could agree with you more. I was attempting to point out with a little (apparently unrecognizeable) sarcasm that the entire Senate, and House too, for that matter, is a hell of a lot more interested in living the good life and trying by any means possible to insure their own reelection -- than they are concerned with passing legislation beneficial to the citizens of this country!
I'm sorry if I appeared to you to be an apologist for Congress. Jeezuz, what a thought. I'd rather defend the perspicacity of Glenn Beck!
Actually, the Republicans are vastly more cohesive and focused on their agenda than many of the Democrats. The impossible bastards known as the Blue Dogs obviously think of nothing but reelection, irrespective of what the legislation in question may be. They have no common principles, good or bad - just stay in office!
Led by Lassy (the Bitch) Lieberman, they are Quisling saboteurs destroying liberal legislation while pretending to be Democrats. All in the name of serving their constituents, and not giving a damn for anyone in the country who can't vote to keep them in office!
Fuck them all, indeed. In the ass! With a red-hot edged jackhammer!
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Yes, despite my straightforward and angry reply, I understood your sarcasm. My anger was meant for the Democrats who agree with progressive legislation. My opinion is that the center-left wing of the Democratic Party in the Senate should come up with the best programs they can get passed by a simple majority.
With the House already being to the left of the Senate, and Obama probably being willing to sign strong legislation, that would work. It's up to the mostly cowardly liberals in the Senate to fight for a change, and not to think of themselves as an endangered minority that has to keep their heads down. If they will just do that, the GOP, the Blue Dogs and all their ilk can go straight to Hell and political oblivion. |
“Biology is just physics that has begun to smell bad.” —HalfMooner
Here's a link to Moonscape News, and one to its Archive. |
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Gorgo
SFN Die Hard
USA
5310 Posts |
Posted - 02/06/2010 : 02:36:13 [Permalink]
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Originally posted by Kil
What would it take for a President to please you? And how successful do you think that president would be, given the difficulties of getting anything through congress?
No matter what your wants, desires and expectations are, there is reality to deal with.
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What would it take for a Democratic President to be someone you didn't worship without question? The reality is, that he is a thug. He is an opportunist. He always has been.
What he could have done was start by saying his AG would investigate all crimes of past administrations, starting with George W. Bush.
He could have fought for socialized medicine, and maybe settled with the far-right idea of single-payer universal health care.
He could have worked towards bailing out the people, and not the wealthy. He could have nationalized the banks. He could have turned the auto company fiasco into an opportunity to use them to build a workable public transportation system.
He could have stated that the wars that his predecessors have engaged in are criminal, and that since the U.S. was so completely discredited, he was going to work towards pulling all U.S. and U.S. hired personnel out of Afghanistan and Iraq and Yemen and etc., etc., and he was going to work towards a more democratic U.N. to solve international problems.
Here's a FB note from author Paul Street:
My fellow Americans, your political culture is an absurd narrow-spectrum corporatist joke.
Here's Obama defending his corporatist "health reform" --- a plan that defies longstanding majority opinion by leaving the big insurance and drug companies and their Wall Street backers in basic cost driving control of the nation's expensive and grossly inadequate health care system to the House Republicans in Baltimore yesterday: "Now, you may not agree with Bob Dole and Howard Baker, and, certainly you don't agree with Tom Daschle on much, but that's not a radical bunch. But if you were to listen to the debate and, frankly, how some of you went after this bill, you'd think that this thing was some Bolshevik plot. No, I mean, that's how you guys -- (applause) -- that's how you guys presented it."
"And so I'm thinking to myself, well, how is it that a plan that is pretty centrist ... is similar to what many Republicans proposed to Bill Clinton when he was doing his debate on health care."
At some point in his remarks, Obama defended himself by saying "I am not an ideologue," the suggestion being that anything left of Baker-Dole-Daschle is extremist "radicalism."
Well, if anyone cares, here are some basic facts of actual public opinion:
* 69 percent of Americans think it is the responsibility of the federal government to provide health coverage to all U.S. citizens (Gallup Poll, 2006)
* 67 percent "think it's a good idea [for government] to guarantee health care for all U.S. citizens, as Canada and Britain do, with just 27 percent dissenting" (Business Week, 2005).
* 59 percent of Americans support a single-payer health insurance system (CBS/New York Times poll, January 2009)
* 65 percent of Americans respond affirmatively to the following question: "Would you favor the government offering everyone a government-administered health insurance plan - something like the Medicare coverage that people 65 and over get - that would compete with private health insurance plans?" (CBS-New York Times, September 23, 2009)
We the people are "ideologues" and "radicals."
Which reminds me of another interesting line in Obama's presentation to the House Republicans yesterday:"the irony, I think, of our political climate right now is that, compared to other countries, the differences between the two major parties on most issues is not as big as it's represented."
"Politics," John Dewey once noted, "is the shadow cast on American society by big business."
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I know the rent is in arrears
The dog has not been fed in years
It's even worse than it appears
But it's alright-
Jerry Garcia
Robert Hunter
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Gorgo
SFN Die Hard
USA
5310 Posts |
Posted - 02/06/2010 : 02:46:22 [Permalink]
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Originally posted by bngbuck
Gorgo, I fully empathize with your frustration. But not to the point where I would vote for a Republican candidate for Congress, nor a Republican president. Nor withdraw completely like Dude, and, in effect, help facilitate a neo-fascist agenda for this country. Dude should simply move to a country whose political system is more to his liking and where he could feel free to either vote for one candidate or vote against another!
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I wasn't talking about voting, I was criticizing an "elected" official. That is still legal in this country, isn't it?
Why would withdrawing be voting for someone? Withdrawing is withdrawing, just like voting for Nader was voting for Nader. You've been sucked into this idea that you have to worship one "side" or the other. Democrats and Republicans are all thugs, or at least those that are electable on the presidential level. They should abolish that office, along with the senate, and reorganize the House into something close to a republican form of government.
I'd agree with withdrawing if it were a vocal movement with a statement of purpose like, "We are withdrawing until the people have some power in the government." |
I know the rent is in arrears
The dog has not been fed in years
It's even worse than it appears
But it's alright-
Jerry Garcia
Robert Hunter
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Kil
Evil Skeptic
USA
13477 Posts |
Posted - 02/06/2010 : 09:28:35 [Permalink]
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Gorgo:
What would it take for a Democratic President to be someone you didn't worship without question? |
What a freaking offensive question. My answer to that is bite me. |
Uncertainty may make you uncomfortable. Certainty makes you ridiculous.
Why not question something for a change?
Genetic Literacy Project |
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Gorgo
SFN Die Hard
USA
5310 Posts |
Posted - 02/06/2010 : 09:35:09 [Permalink]
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Originally posted by Kil
Gorgo:
What would it take for a Democratic President to be someone you didn't worship without question? |
What a freaking offensive question. My answer to that is bite me.
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Well, sorry then, I guess I misunderstood your point. Why do you have a problem with me calling these criminals criminals? |
I know the rent is in arrears
The dog has not been fed in years
It's even worse than it appears
But it's alright-
Jerry Garcia
Robert Hunter
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Dave W.
Info Junkie
USA
26022 Posts |
Posted - 02/06/2010 : 12:22:06 [Permalink]
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Originally posted by Gorgo
Well, sorry then, I guess I misunderstood your point. Why do you have a problem with me calling these criminals criminals? |
Seems to me that the problem is your false dichotomy: that if a person doesn't call them criminals, that person is worshipping them. |
- Dave W. (Private Msg, EMail)
Evidently, I rock!
Why not question something for a change?
Visit Dave's Psoriasis Info, too. |
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Gorgo
SFN Die Hard
USA
5310 Posts |
Posted - 02/06/2010 : 12:40:30 [Permalink]
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Originally posted by Dave W.
Originally posted by Gorgo
Well, sorry then, I guess I misunderstood your point. Why do you have a problem with me calling these criminals criminals? |
Seems to me that the problem is your false dichotomy: that if a person doesn't call them criminals, that person is worshipping them.
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Could be, but what I'm seeing is a defense of the criminals, not just a lack of criticism. If it weren't for the evil Blue Dogs, Obama would have saved the day. No, he is part of the problem. |
I know the rent is in arrears
The dog has not been fed in years
It's even worse than it appears
But it's alright-
Jerry Garcia
Robert Hunter
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Dave W.
Info Junkie
USA
26022 Posts |
Posted - 02/06/2010 : 13:19:52 [Permalink]
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Originally posted by Gorgo
Could be, but what I'm seeing is a defense of the criminals, not just a lack of criticism. |
A defense, even a vigorous defense, doesn't imply worship.| If it weren't for the evil Blue Dogs, Obama would have saved the day. No, he is part of the problem. |
So are you saying that even if Congress gave unanimous support to Obama, passing whatever he wanted to become law, he still would be screwing things up for the citizens? |
- Dave W. (Private Msg, EMail)
Evidently, I rock!
Why not question something for a change?
Visit Dave's Psoriasis Info, too. |
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Gorgo
SFN Die Hard
USA
5310 Posts |
Posted - 02/06/2010 : 14:43:27 [Permalink]
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Originally posted by Dave W.
Originally posted by Gorgo
Could be, but what I'm seeing is a defense of the criminals, not just a lack of criticism. |
A defense, even a vigorous defense, doesn't imply worship.| If it weren't for the evil Blue Dogs, Obama would have saved the day. No, he is part of the problem. |
So are you saying that even if Congress gave unanimous support to Obama, passing whatever he wanted to become law, he still would be screwing things up for the citizens?
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Profuse apologies. Poor choice of words.
What are you suggesting that Obama would propose? |
I know the rent is in arrears
The dog has not been fed in years
It's even worse than it appears
But it's alright-
Jerry Garcia
Robert Hunter
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Where has this Obama been?
