The grand bargain for cutting Defense Spending will take affect...Are You Afraid? Your tax rates will return to the levels back when Clinton was in office at the end of year....Are You Afraid?
Two simple questions and a ton of TV ads telling you the very ground beneath your feet will collapse and, fire will rain down from the heavens when that happens. Is that what we've become as a Nation? Really......because I'm thinking that sounds like the fiscally responsible things to do at this point? Everybody’s seen the ads talking about our 15 trillion dollars in debt and how it's Obama's fault. I'm 54 years old so, I'm pretty aware of the fact that the young man in the White House didn't run up that debt in three and half years. We've been spending more than we take in for quite a few years. Now the Republican Party is telling me once again if they take charge, they'll fix all those problems and, it won't cost me a thing. Now surprisingly with the advent of the internets you can find things from years gone by like old political ads. News flash, FDR was running against that very talking point back when he was in office folks.
You know what; I say we stop being afraid and just pay the damn bills. Let's let the cuts to defense stand and, let "All" the tax rates go back to the Clinton levels. The Republicans had six years to show me how the Laffer Curve(That would be the theory off a cocktail napkin that says when you cut taxes you increase revenue) works and, they borrowed the money to fund government the whole time they held office. Yeah, I was a Republican back in those heady days and voted to put George W. Bush in office. I found myself screaming at the TV as I watched a surplus get squandered on CSPAN in living color. By the time it was all over I watched two wars get funded by emergency spending measures. Fraud at levels never before witnessed as that borrowed money went to these engagements; the banking system collapsed(Deregulation is a good thing, who needs stuff like the Glass–Steagall Act. Wise men run these institutions we can trust their judgement????) and, we were losing 700K jobs a month.
In short I'm just tired of this whole stupid game! We couldn't afford the Bush Tax Cuts and, the proof is a 15 trillion dollar deficit. Do we need to fix some problems with Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security...Yes! First and foremost thou we must make revenues balance with spending just as no less than Alan Greenspan counseled long-ago. If you think the Republican Party isn't going to borrow to fund the government than you haven't been paying attention because, Mitt Romney's(The guy who will be signing bills in to law if the Republicans win) own plan for America will add massive deficit spending. The Hell with it all let’s just do nothing and let both the Defense spending cuts happen and the Bush Tax Cuts sunset. Whatever happens, happens but, at least we will have taken steps to pay the damn bills.
Yes President Obama, this one is actually up to you! You have the choice to do the right thing or, keep kicking the can down the road. You signed up for this job and since you already have a dog you don't need to make any friends in Washington. I'm not afraid anymore Mr. President so, just do the right thing!
Wednesday, July 18, 2012
Wednesday, May 23, 2012
The Simple Trap
Sun Tzu Quote of the Day: Hence that general is skillful in attack whose opponent does not know what to defend; and he is skillful in defense whose opponent does not know what to attack.
“Cory Booker's defense of Wall Street may hurt his status with liberals, but it won't hurt his bank account”
There’s your headline from Mayor Booker’s Meet the Press appearance followed by several other Obama supporters repeating the same thing. Almost immediately the brain trust at team Romney grabbed the footage and threw a spot together titled “Stand with Cory”. Now for anyone who believes Mayor Booker did this by accident and Team Obama is taking him to the preverbal woodshed…..Yeah not so much. This is classic Clinton Strategy designed to deprive Romney of any oxygen. What’s everybody talking about…..Romney? Nope, Team Obama just grabbed a ton of free air time plus the bonus of getting asked a question about it at a national media event in Chicago. All the talking heads rushed to get a piece of the action and, once again surrogates came forward to get interviewed. This all costs Team Obama nada and, puts Mr. Romney in the awkward position of having to answer questions about what he did at Bain Capital. Notice nobody is saying he did anything illegal or wrong if you’re running the chop shop wing of a financial firm. Romney claims he created jobs and, now the worthless media will venture forth and accidentally do their job of verifying how many jobs. Mayor Booker played his part and, Romney’s team was dumb enough to grab the shiny object. At the end of the day he just put himself one step further from 1600 Pennsylvania Ave. Once again Mr. Romney under estimated his opponent and, took the bait laid in plain sight.
Monday, January 30, 2012
Rules for Radicals?
Figured it would be instructive to compare and contrast between Saul Alinsky and Leo Strauss since Newt Gingrich seems to be obsessed with Saul for some odd reason. Newt Gingrich has made several references to Saul Alinsky linking his philosophy to Pres Obama. Now most folks from podunk town America have no idea who the hell Saul Alinsky or Leo Strauss actually are, let alone have any real connection to these folks philosophies of life.
In the 1930s, Alinsky organized the Back of the Yards neighborhood in Chicago (made infamous by Upton Sinclair's novel The Jungle for the horrific working conditions in the Union Stock Yards). He went on to found the Industrial Areas Foundation while organizing the Woodlawn neighborhood, which trained organizers and assisted in the founding of community organizations around the country. In Rules for Radicals (his final work, published in 1971 one year before his death), he addressed the 1960s generation of radicals, outlining his views on organizing for mass power. In the first chapter, opening paragraph of the book Alinsky writes, "What follows is for those who want to change the world from what it is to what they believe it should be. The Prince was written by Machiavelli for the Haves on how to hold power. Rules for Radicals is written for the Have-Nots on how to take it away. Alinsky did not join political organizations. When asked during an interview whether he ever considered becoming a Communist party member, he replied: Not at any time. I've never joined any organization—not even the ones I've organized myself. I prize my own independence too much. And philosophically, I could never accept any rigid dogma or ideology, whether it's Christianity or Marxism. One of the most important things in life is what Judge Learned Hand described as 'that ever-gnawing inner doubt as to whether you're right.' If you don't have that, if you think you've got an inside track to absolute truth, you become doctrinaire, humorless and intellectually constipated. The greatest crimes in history have been perpetrated by such religious and political and racial fanatics, from the persecutions of the Inquisition on down to Communist purges and Nazi genocide.
Now, you could read over Saul's 13 points and compare and contrast with Pres Obama and, you would probably find that Mr Gingrich shares more of Saul's strategies than Pres. Obama. I thought about laying in all out with diagrams but, that would just flat bore the crap out of ya.
Now if we head on over to take a look at Leo Strauss we find some fascinating connections with Mr. Newton Leroy Gingrich.
Leo Strauss was born in 1899 and died in 1973. He was a Jewish scholar who fled Germany when Hitler gained power. He eventually found refuge in the United States where he taught political science at the University of Chicago. He is most famous for resuscitating Machiavelli and introducing his principles as the guiding philosophy of the neo-conservative movement. Strauss has been called the godfather of Newt Gingrich’s “Contract with America.” More than any other man, Strauss breathed upon conservatism, inspiring it to rise from its atrophied condition and its natural dislike of change and to embrace an unbounded new political ideology that rides on the back of a revolutionary steed, hailing even radical change; hence the name Neo-Conservatives.
The father of neo-conservatism had many “spiritual” children at the University of Chicago, among them: Paul Wolfowitz and Abram Shulsky, who received their doctorates under Strauss in 1972. Harry V. Jaffa was a student of Strauss and has an important connection to Dominionists like Pat Robertson as we shall see below. However, Strauss’s family of influence extended beyond his students to include faculty members in universities, and the people his students taught. Those prominent neo-conservatives who are most notable are: Justice Clarence Thomas, Robert Bork, Irving Kristol and his son William Kristol, Alan Keyes, William J. Bennett, J. Danforth Quayle, Allan Bloom, John Podhoertz, John T. Agresto, John Ashcroft, Newt Gingrich, Gary Bauer, Michael Ledeen and scores of others, many of whom hold important positions in George W. Bush’s White House and Defense Department.
Yeah buddy, Leo was an interesting fella especially when you look at some of his core beliefs.
First: Strauss believed that a leader had to perpetually deceive the citizens he ruled.
Secondly: Those who lead must understand there is no morality, there is only the right of the superior to rule the inferior.
Thirdly: According to Drury, Religion “is the glue that holds society together.” It is a handle by which the ruler can manipulate the masses. Any religion will do. Strauss is indifferent to them all.
Fourthly: “Secular society…is the worst possible thing,” because it leads to individualism, liberalism, and relativism, all of which encourage dissent and rebellion. As Drury sums it up: “You want a crowd that you can manipulate like putty.”
Fifthly: "Strauss thinks that a political order can be stable only if it is united by an external threat; and following Machiavelli, he maintains that if no external threat exists, then one has to be manufactured."
Sixthly: "In Strauss’s view, the trouble with liberal society is that it dispenses with noble lies and pious frauds. It tries to found society on secular rational foundations."
Facinating! Fifthly sounds pretty familiar to recent historical events doesn't it kids?
Now you can take this all with a grain of salt and a shot of Cuervo but, it's safe to say I think Pres Obama is an abject failure if he's trying to follow the philosophies of either of these great thinkers in human history. Now Newt on the other hand seems to be doing a pretty good job with Alinsky but, is a stronger Strauss fan in my book.
In the 1930s, Alinsky organized the Back of the Yards neighborhood in Chicago (made infamous by Upton Sinclair's novel The Jungle for the horrific working conditions in the Union Stock Yards). He went on to found the Industrial Areas Foundation while organizing the Woodlawn neighborhood, which trained organizers and assisted in the founding of community organizations around the country. In Rules for Radicals (his final work, published in 1971 one year before his death), he addressed the 1960s generation of radicals, outlining his views on organizing for mass power. In the first chapter, opening paragraph of the book Alinsky writes, "What follows is for those who want to change the world from what it is to what they believe it should be. The Prince was written by Machiavelli for the Haves on how to hold power. Rules for Radicals is written for the Have-Nots on how to take it away. Alinsky did not join political organizations. When asked during an interview whether he ever considered becoming a Communist party member, he replied: Not at any time. I've never joined any organization—not even the ones I've organized myself. I prize my own independence too much. And philosophically, I could never accept any rigid dogma or ideology, whether it's Christianity or Marxism. One of the most important things in life is what Judge Learned Hand described as 'that ever-gnawing inner doubt as to whether you're right.' If you don't have that, if you think you've got an inside track to absolute truth, you become doctrinaire, humorless and intellectually constipated. The greatest crimes in history have been perpetrated by such religious and political and racial fanatics, from the persecutions of the Inquisition on down to Communist purges and Nazi genocide.
Now, you could read over Saul's 13 points and compare and contrast with Pres Obama and, you would probably find that Mr Gingrich shares more of Saul's strategies than Pres. Obama. I thought about laying in all out with diagrams but, that would just flat bore the crap out of ya.
Now if we head on over to take a look at Leo Strauss we find some fascinating connections with Mr. Newton Leroy Gingrich.
Leo Strauss was born in 1899 and died in 1973. He was a Jewish scholar who fled Germany when Hitler gained power. He eventually found refuge in the United States where he taught political science at the University of Chicago. He is most famous for resuscitating Machiavelli and introducing his principles as the guiding philosophy of the neo-conservative movement. Strauss has been called the godfather of Newt Gingrich’s “Contract with America.” More than any other man, Strauss breathed upon conservatism, inspiring it to rise from its atrophied condition and its natural dislike of change and to embrace an unbounded new political ideology that rides on the back of a revolutionary steed, hailing even radical change; hence the name Neo-Conservatives.
The father of neo-conservatism had many “spiritual” children at the University of Chicago, among them: Paul Wolfowitz and Abram Shulsky, who received their doctorates under Strauss in 1972. Harry V. Jaffa was a student of Strauss and has an important connection to Dominionists like Pat Robertson as we shall see below. However, Strauss’s family of influence extended beyond his students to include faculty members in universities, and the people his students taught. Those prominent neo-conservatives who are most notable are: Justice Clarence Thomas, Robert Bork, Irving Kristol and his son William Kristol, Alan Keyes, William J. Bennett, J. Danforth Quayle, Allan Bloom, John Podhoertz, John T. Agresto, John Ashcroft, Newt Gingrich, Gary Bauer, Michael Ledeen and scores of others, many of whom hold important positions in George W. Bush’s White House and Defense Department.
Yeah buddy, Leo was an interesting fella especially when you look at some of his core beliefs.
First: Strauss believed that a leader had to perpetually deceive the citizens he ruled.
Secondly: Those who lead must understand there is no morality, there is only the right of the superior to rule the inferior.
Thirdly: According to Drury, Religion “is the glue that holds society together.” It is a handle by which the ruler can manipulate the masses. Any religion will do. Strauss is indifferent to them all.
Fourthly: “Secular society…is the worst possible thing,” because it leads to individualism, liberalism, and relativism, all of which encourage dissent and rebellion. As Drury sums it up: “You want a crowd that you can manipulate like putty.”
Fifthly: "Strauss thinks that a political order can be stable only if it is united by an external threat; and following Machiavelli, he maintains that if no external threat exists, then one has to be manufactured."
Sixthly: "In Strauss’s view, the trouble with liberal society is that it dispenses with noble lies and pious frauds. It tries to found society on secular rational foundations."
Facinating! Fifthly sounds pretty familiar to recent historical events doesn't it kids?
Now you can take this all with a grain of salt and a shot of Cuervo but, it's safe to say I think Pres Obama is an abject failure if he's trying to follow the philosophies of either of these great thinkers in human history. Now Newt on the other hand seems to be doing a pretty good job with Alinsky but, is a stronger Strauss fan in my book.
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