If China’s leaders took note of it, which they probably didn’t because they are too busy presenting themselves as "the Middle Kingdom" (the "middle" between Heaven and Earth) to the rest of the world, they would doubtless have been amused by Rush Limbaugh’s case of China-envy:
See, the ChiComs need their economy growing. They need people driving around, moving around. They need people to be able to afford fuel, so they're subsidizing fuel. They're not bailing people out of stupid home mortgage messes. They're buying their gasoline for them, because they need an economy. Know what energy means to this, the whole subject of economic growth. So meanwhile, the ChiComs, a country certainly growing, certainly on the rise, but it ain't the United States of America.
Presumably, what Rush would like is for the U.S. to subsidize gas so that people in the U.S. could live large like the Chinese leaders and fuel our economic growth.
Undercover Maryland State Police officers conducted surveillance on war protesters and death penalty opponents, including some in Takoma Park, for more than a year while Robert L. Ehrlich Jr. was governor, documents released yesterday show.
Detailed intelligence reports logged by at least two agents in the police department's Homeland Security and Intelligence Division reveal close monitoring of the movements as the Iraq war and capital punishment were heatedly debated in 2005 and 2006.
Organizational meetings, public forums, prison vigils, rallies outside the State House in Annapolis and e-mail group lists were infiltrated by police posing as peace activists and death penalty opponents, the records show. The surveillance continued even though the logs contained no reports of illegal activity and consistently indicated that the activists were not planning violent protests.
Of course we are all aware of recent abuses of government power in the wake of the Bush Administration's radical right-wing culture of fear and the Patriot Act
After I stopped laughing at the portrait of President Barack Obama, Muslim and First Lady Michelle, feminazi black activist from hell, it began to occur to me just what the real message was from the New Yorker editorial board. it's subtle but it's definitely deeper than just a caricature of alleged right wing talking points and Internet smears against the candidate and his wife. The whole adds up to a Hail Mary up yours from the deserted Left to the candidate that had courted them and had them believing that Barack Obama was indeed hope and change that the Left could count on. So let's take the symbols one by one, shall we?
Barack Obama has run a campaign to end "politics as usual." He ran stating he will break down the labels that plauge Washington and divide it into left and right thus paralyzing both sides from getting down to business.
The right is still playing the old play book. They scream "we know nothing about him!!" while at the same time screaming "we know exactly what he is 'a flaming liberal!!!!"
Now his supporters seem angry at him for going to the "middle"
Again, either you are for Barack and want to end the labeling or not.
The Right has done a fantastic job of defining the word liberal as poison to the point where we prefer "progressive." Who cares.
Truth is, Sen. Obama is going to help us win our words back and his views are simply a continuation of his promise to break lables down.
Obama's getting hammered from the left and from the right. There's really not much he can do about getting slammed from the right; however he positions himself, they'll find a way.
The HuffPo article http://www.huffingtonpost.com/... talks about how "moving to the center" won't help prevent attacks from the right. But, the central point of the article is that Obama is at risk of losing his authenticity with his recent stances.
I do not want Obama to take particular stands on particular issues so much as I want him to maintain his highly enthusiastic support. Maybe it's just a summer lull and Obama's building strength for the convention and fall after a hard-fought primary campaign, but it seems that some loss of enthusiasm comes from an authenticity problem.
Obama has clearly upset many on the Left in the last few days--and I apologize if I'm a bit out of the loop because I am in fact out of the country and without regular internet access--with what seem to many to be pandering to the Right. I'm not sure that what he's doing is the same as a Clintonian triangulation, euphemistically named. I've recently finished Alinsky's Rules for Radicals, begun after seeing his name referenced so often in relation to Obama, of course, and was struck by how thorough and to my mind undeniably accurate Alinsky's critique of large swaths of the '60's left was.
The problem with the 'left' in America is that they don't want to play the game any more. They refuse to accept the fact that democracy in America has been co-opted by Big Business and it is now virtually impossible to get it back by simply pointing to the Constitution and jumping up and down screaming, "Unconstitutional! Unconstitutional!"
The game has changed and here's a way for America's left-out to get 'right' back into the game. Pool the financial resources of America's progressives into a 'U.S. Common Wealth Fund.' Very quickly this fund would have at least 7.2 billion in cash. Think about the net worths of America's activists as a subset of American households that hold something like $36 trillion in assets at the end of 2006 according to the WSJ. Let's say that only 10% of America is truly progressive and sincerely cares about the direction the country is heading; that's 10% of $36 trillion or $3.6 trillion. If the owners of this $3.6 trillion in assets were to give just 1% to such a fund it would have $36 billion to work with. To get started, let's say the fund raises just a 20% of the $36 billion available - that's still $7.2 billion dollars. What to do with that $7.2 billion?
Did you miss this? Satirist Harry Shearer www.KCRW.com/etc/programs/ls interviewed Arianna Huffington, Webby Award-winning blogger who is editor-in-chief of Huffingtonpost.com, and a regular panelist on the station’s popular political week-in-review show, Left, Right & Center www.kcrw.com/news/programs/lr. Right is Wrong: How the Lunatic Fringe Hijacked America, Shredded the Constitution, and Made Us All Less Safe. It’s serious fun. Listen here:
We've been thrashing this issue here on Kos for about a week now over FISA: Obama is not line with the netroot progressives.
The just-published Huff Post article entitled "Serenity Lost: Obama and The Netroots" takes up the larger issue of Obama's favorablility at the Daily Kos and other left neroot sites in: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/...
One of the primary contentions of the article is that progressives should have seen this coming.
CAN WE CALL AMERICANS RACIST
AND STILL EXPECT TO GET THEIR VOTE?
Michelle Obama made a simple statement--"For the first time in my adult lifetime, I am really proud of this country"–and one would have thought she declared a jihad on America. FOX news, Rush Limbaugh, and the various other Republican conduits have been harping on it for months now, trying to convince the American people that she’s hated America all of her life. But the fact is, when Michelle Obama made the above statement she was actually complimenting America.
Meet Bob Kelleher, the Republican nominee against Sen. Max Baucus (D-Mont.) this year.
He is an 85-year-old attorney with some downright unconventional views. He believes the American system of representative government should be replaced by a parliamentary system. He calls for socialized medicine, advocates nationalizing the country’s oil and gas industries and believes taxes should be raised significantly to eradicate poverty.
It’s not the standard GOP platform, but nevertheless Kelleher defeated four other candidates in the primary to claim the Republican nomination.
This is a new series of articles I'm hoping to write, detailing why I feel that the left is correct on a variety of issues. The second such issue I will be examining is one that many people seem to be misinformed about, and so I invite you to join me beyond the jump for an examination of... THE DEATH PENALTY AND YOU.
OK, I'm not a philosopher. However, I do get into many intellectual discussions with friends, particularly when it comes to contemporary politics.
Recently a friend of mine argued that, when it comes to how politicians actually function, there is ultimately little difference between Democrats and Republicans. He got a bit excited and extended the argument to Progressives & Conservatives, and Leftists & Rightists. They all say they will do what they seldom end-up doing or may even do the opposite. They make promises that could get them elected to office but, once in office, routinely break their promises. He proceeded to say that based on this conclusion, people ought to vote on the basis of what their gut feeling is about the likelihood of truthfulness of the candidate, rather than the issues.
After the fold, I share my response to him, and I have tabulated 22 areas where we differed, and basically set up two columns. Which column do you think you identify with?
Edit: With the all the brouhaha resulting from Hillary's atrocious remarks, I decided to post this now because I really needed a distraction from all that depressing stuff. I have always supported Obama, but to see Clinton fall the way she has was simply sad!
I have flirted with you for over a year now. I am a disenfranchised Republican looking for a port in the storm. I was lost for awhile because I feel asleep at the wheel and a bunch of heartless "posers" took the wheel of my Party and starting steering it into a ditch.
I was awakened as a young immpressionable boy by a man named Ronald Reagan. I was born in 1967, and he was the first President that had an impact on me. I became a Republican because of his ability to transmit hope through a television screen. I was moved to tears as our boys came home from Iran because they knew better than to mess with this leader...our leader, Ronald Reagan. He formed my political center before I was able to find my own.
He swept two contests in his bid for the Presidency...44 states in 1980, 49 states in 1984. He had the highest approval ratings of any President leaving office, since, well, since polls were taken.
There are of course hundreds if not thousands of various interpretations of political philosophy. There's the typical big government liberal vs small government conservative paradigm there is the states’ rights/ federalist view, the progressive/regressive veiw and many others.
It is my oppinion that the core of these political views need to be able to trancend issues and era. Further I think such an explanation will put our current political circumstances into proper perspective and provide an valuable insite into why we're where we are at.
I'm going to lay out the basis for my argument in this diary and plan on expanding upon these concepts further in the future.
