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 The Power of a Stupid IdeaPosted on May 2, 2008WASHINGTON—There’s something maddening about this presidential campaign. It has become irrelevant whether anything the candidates say actually makes sense. All that matters is how their words will “play” with voters who are presumed to be too stupid to realize that they’re the ones being played. The nonsense du jour is the “proposal” by both Republican John McCain and Democrat Hillary Clinton to suspend the federal gasoline tax. I put the word proposal in quotes because it’s obvious that neither candidate is serious about this. Both must know that it won’t happen, and both must know why it shouldn’t. Actually, McCain might not understand why lifting the tax of 18.4 cents per gallon is a bad idea—remember, he has confessed that the economy isn’t his strong suit. I’d bet the ranch that Clinton understands, though. And before either campaign indignantly proclaims its candidate’s total sincerity, I’d like to see the legislation that either of these U.S. senators has introduced to suspend the tax. I’m still waiting. The price of gasoline is indeed one of the most urgent pocketbook issues facing a nation in which there are more motor vehicles than licensed drivers. Having to pay close to $4 a gallon is a real hardship for many Americans who have no other way to get through the day—commuting to work, picking up the kids, shopping at the grocery store—except by automobile. Cutting the price at the pump, even by 18 cents, would help. But economists agree that suspending the gas tax wouldn’t have a prayer of achieving that goal. What would happen? Well, we’re heading into the summer months, when consumption of gasoline always peaks—and when refineries are making just about as much gasoline as they can. If the tax were to be suspended, gas would cost less and people would want to buy more of it. Demand would rise, supply wouldn’t—and thus the price would ultimately go up. There’s no way on God’s Earth that consumers would end up saving anywhere near 18 cents a gallon. What else would happen? The money from the gas tax goes into a trust fund that pays for construction and repair of highways and bridges. If the tax were suspended for the summer, the fund would lose $9 billion. That would mean less maintenance of potholed roads and rusting bridges—and no jobs for thousands of people who otherwise would have been hired on work crews. What else would happen? All the rhetoric from McCain and Clinton about climate change would be revealed to be just so much hot air since their proposal would encourage people to drive more, thus spewing more carbon into the atmosphere. If climate change really presents a grave threat to the planet, one of the quickest and most effective ways of attacking the problem would be a dramatic increase in the federal gasoline tax. The House Democratic leadership opposes suspending the gas tax, so the whole thing is moot—except perhaps as a case study in political cynicism: Say any damn thing you think the voters want to hear, even if you know it’s a terrible idea and won’t happen anyway. Psssst, voters: McCain and Clinton think you’re too dumb to catch on. Barack Obama deserves credit for insisting that a gas tax hiatus would be wrong. But I can think of issues on which he, too, is quick to emphasize a crowd-pleasing policy but slow to mention all the messy, uncertain and possibly counterproductive ramifications. On how to proceed in Iraq, for example, I don’t think the candidates are being particularly honest about how painfully unpleasant it will be to withdraw (Obama and Clinton) or stay (McCain). On Iraq, though, there are so many variables that each candidate’s best-case scenario is at least plausible. What gets me about the gasoline tax issue is that everyone knows the whole thing is a nonstarter. So why are we even talking about it? And why are we talking about how voters will react, if what they’re reacting to is imaginary?
This is supposed to be an election, not a casting call. If we vote on the basis of who can best play “populist-lite”—who can more convincingly furrow his or her brow in empathy with the struggle of “ordinary” Americans—then we’ll be electing an actor in chief, not a president. And we’ll get what we deserve.
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By Conservative Yankee, May 6 at 3:58 am #
(Unregistered commenter)
I need to know.
Do you really believe that Hill-the-business-shill. beholden to Insurance Companies, CitiGroup, Big Pharma, publicly a supporter of NAFTA (although she claims to have been opposed in private) is a friend to middle-class, or blue-collar workers?
If I remember, this is how we got Bush!
Reply to this | Report thisBy bert, May 6 at 3:41 am #
(679 comments total)
Robinson and Some of You Just Don't Get
What some of you just don’t get is it’s NOT the economic policy or the gas tax holiday that’s the issue. To the middle class and the poor (Obama’s ‘bitter’ folk) the issue is that FINALLY someone, Hillary, understands that they are getting nickel and dimed to death and they want someone to stand up for them and acknowledge that they’ve been heard and they want to know someone will fight for THEM for a change. The gas tax is symbolic!
Reply to this | Hide 4 replies | Report thisBy cyrena, May 6 at 10:57 pm #
(4068 comments total)
Re: Robinson and Some of You Just Don't
SYMBOLIC? So in other words, you’re admitting that the gas tax thing is BULLSHIT PANDERING, since she hasn’t submitted ANY legislation, and so it’s paramount to talking a whole bunch of shit about nothing.
Her ‘symbolic’ gas tax holiday is the same as me writing a check to pay the rent, and showing it to a few folks, and saying, HERE’s my ‘intent’ to pay my rent, but I’m never gonna let it out of my hands, let alone actually give in to the collectors of such. And when they come to evict my ass, it will NOT be ‘symbolic’ that my ass is on the street.
MEANTIME, we understand JUST FINE -thank you very much- that we are far more than being NICKLE AND DIMED to death! A billion foreclosures and massive unemployment is far beyond the ‘nickle and dimed’ to death stage. How about STARVED to death? How about murdered by wars in Iraq and Afghanistan?
How about all of THAT bert? You think we don’t ‘get’ that?
NO! We DON’T need somebody to stand up for us, we just need somebody to stop bulldozing us to death, and to let us stand up on our own.
And yeah, FINALLY someone who can do something about it DID manage to make it past the obstacles, and that was Barack Obama.
Hillary’s been around since dirt was discovered, when do you suppose SHE -FINALLY- decided to pay any attention? Was it 5, 10, or 15 years after she started to notice the effects of her gung-hosim on NAFTA and all of her other corporate genes that allowed her to setup, and to continue to call the shots on the FREE trade and support of the corporate fascism that has decimated all but the top ELITE to which she belongs?
Fight for us my ass! I’ve said this before, and I’ll say it again. Hillary is the epitome of the criminal con artist who sneaks into our garage at night, and damages the engine to the car beyond repair, and then shows up the next day as we’re trying to start it, and offers to ‘fix’ it for a few grand.
Is that how she’s standing up for YOU? Well, for the last 16 years at least, she’s been BULLDOZING the rest of us.
Are you on ‘symbolic’ drugs bert?
Reply to this | Hide 2 replies | Report thisBy P. T., May 7 at 8:39 am #
(770 comments total)
Hillary's Hoax
After making the point about the oil companies pocketing the gas tax cut, here is what Paul Krugman also wrote:
“The Clinton twist [on McCain’s proposal] is that she proposes paying for the revenue loss with an excess profits tax on oil companies. In one pocket, out the other. So it’s pointless, not evil. But it is pointless, and disappointing.”
And remember that the gas tax pays to rebuild America’s crumbling infrastructure (bridges that are collapsing and so forth).
Report thisBy bert, May 7 at 4:09 am #
(679 comments total)
Study Shows Obama is Wrong About Gas-Tax Holiday
Excerpts from yesterday’s (5/6/08) Deb Cupples post at Buck Naked Politics
BEGIN QUOTE
“These days, Barack Obama seems willing to say just about anything—no matter how evidently untrue— just to disagree with Hillary Clinton
[…..]
John McCain was the first to propose a gas-tax holiday for this summer. His idea ……. would end up harming us consumers and taxpayers
[Hillary] proposed a different gas-tax holiday—one combined with a tax on oil companies’ profits, which would cause oil companies to pay for some of the gas-price reduction.
Note that Obama, as an Illinois legislator, had helped pass a gas-tax holiday (similar to McCain’s current plan) for his state in 2000. Knowing that Hillary had just come up with a plan that’s better than the plan Obama had supported eight years ago in Illinois, Obama should have jumped at the chance to unify with Hillary—as a Democrat—on this one issue.
How did Obama actually respond to Hillary’s plan? He said that it wouldn’t work. He claimed to know this from experience: that is, he trumpeted far and wide that his own Illinois gas-tax holiday had failed to lower gas prices.
Today, I found a May 2006 report from the National Bureau of Economic Research which states that the Illinois gas-tax holiday did work. http://www.nber.org/tmp/65433-w12266.pdf
Here’s a bit from the report’s abstract:
“This paper considers the suspension, and subsequent reinstatement, of the 5% gasoline sales tax in Illinois and Indiana following a temporary price spike in the spring of 2000…. Using a unique dataset of daily, gas station-level data, retail gas prices are found to drop by 3% following the suspension, and increase by 4% following the reinstatements.”
[…….]
Obama, himself, has publicly acknowledged that Hillary’s proposal would likely have a positive short-term effect, just not a huge one:
‘I’m here to tell you the truth,’ Sen. Obama says in a new 60-second ad running in North Carolina and Indiana ahead of Tuesday’s primaries. ‘You’re going to save about $25, $30, or half a tank of gas.’ (MSNBC).
In short, Obama not only made statements that clash with evidence from the NBER’s study, but he also flat out contradicted himself.
It gets worse: a new Obama campaign ad falsely uses liberal economist Paul Krugman’s words against Hillary. In an April 28 column, Krugman wrote that McCain’s tax-holiday proposal “would boost oil industry profits.”
Krugman doesn’t like Hillary’s proposal, but he regards it as harmless and acknowledges that her plan is different from McCain’s.
Facts aside, the Obama campaign crafted a TV ad implying that an expert (i.e., Krugman) had said that Hillary’s plan “would boost oil industry profits.”
In fact (again), Krugman made it clear that he was referring to McCain’s proposal. But that didn’t stop the Obama campaign from running the false ad before today’s Indiana and North Carolina primaries.
Krugman actually called for a retraction if the Obama ad misleadingly quoted him—not that a retraction would do much to reverse Indiana or North Carolina voters’ false impressions at this point.
[……]
In short, it’ll be hard for the Obama campaign to accurately claim that its recent ad had misquoted some other economics expert at the New York Times.
Let’s get back to my fundamental question: will Obama say just about anything—even if untrue—simply to get some votes? I’ll leave that for you to decide.” END QUOTE
Even Salon has run an article saying Obama is WRONG about the gas tax.
http://www.salon.com/opinion/feature/2008/05/06/gas_ta x/print.html
Report thisBy Leefeller, May 6 at 5:28 am #
(1222 comments total)
Symbolic like the Boston Tea Party
Well now Hillary is becoming such a rebel against the special interests they must be laughing in heir boots.
If you call pandering symbolic, I guess Hillary is the symbolic hyper boil.
Reply to this | Report thisBy P. T., May 5 at 6:34 pm #
(770 comments total)
Doesn't Wellesley Teach Them Economics?
The refineries say they are operating near capacity and cannot expand production. People are buying everything that is refined. So why would the oil companies cut the price? They instead will pocket the gasoline tax cut themselves. When supply is fixed, price is determined on the demand side. That is standard economic theory.
Reply to this | Report thisBy wildflower, May 5 at 2:18 pm #
(8 comments total)
You’re right, Eugene, this kind of pandering is dumb, especially for Hillary. The current tax level was set in 1993 when her husband Bill was President. There were good reasons for the increase in 1993, and good reasons for not suspending the tax now. Hillary should know better, but what can you say.
Reply to this | Report thisBy felicity, May 5 at 12:24 pm #
(306 comments total)
boiled down
So whom do we believe. The 200 economists who say that the gas tax holiday is a bad idea, a non-starter? Or Hillary.
Who do we believe sunk health-care reform in 1992? Hillary, or the hundreds of people whose suggestions she ignored. Since we as yet have health-care reform seems like Hillary had it wrong.
Track record is about all we have to go on as voters. Obama’s is scant. Hillary’s is glaringly flawed. Take your pick.
Reply to this | Report thisBy Celia, May 5 at 12:24 pm #
(Unregistered commenter)
Walk more?
Gee, what a concept. I don’t get this driving the kids everywhere. Why not get them on their bikes to school? Or walk to a bus stop? We all know there’s an obesity problem with kids today --why not let them excercise?
But as long as people *drive* half a mile to the gym to *walk* on a machine or to *climb* steps on a machine… well, then we’ll always have a real disconnect.
Reply to this | Report thisBy Thomcat, May 5 at 11:22 am #
(Unregistered commenter)
Bread: Engineered “food product” - lasagna with fifty ingredients, soda with thirty, freakin’ ice cream that reads like an issue of the Journal of Synthetic Organic Chemistry - all of this based so much on corn derivatives that analysis of your tissues suggests that 90 percent or more of your diet IS corn....
Circuses: Fux “News”, ‘Merkan I-Dull, Fear Factor, the four Holy Grails of Sports...oh, yeah - and the big one! Our quadrennial media-spin popularity contest!
Give them Bread & Circuses: What Rome did to keep the Citizens quiet in the short term while the currency declined in value and the public infrastructure went to hell.
Reply to this | Report thisBy sam in N C, May 5 at 10:29 am #
(Unregistered commenter)
The stupid people are the ones who think removing the federal gas tax for the summer would not help everyone.The article stated that it would save $9 billion.Had you thought about the truckers that haul almost everything especially the food you buy?With Hillary’s plan no workers would be out of work and the highway fund wopuld not lose a dime because the oil companys would pay for it with excess profits tax. obama can blow all the smoke he wants to. Of course eugene robinson is an obama supporter.
Reply to this | Report thisBy christine, May 5 at 8:57 am #
(Unregistered commenter)
Pushing the Pedal to the Floor
Always, Eugene, you are masterful at Zero Tolerance on subject matter so stupid as Hillary’s and McCain’s gas tax holiday for the summer. Americans hopefully aren’t numbed and dumbed down enough to buying a line of reasoning cultivated from a reaction of “cost reduction” as the reduction spells out another gas price hike. Americans will wait in line for a ‘freebie’ HOURS and then laugh about it when the advertising didn’t meet expectations. They laugh because they don’t want to think they actually fell for getting something for less when in reality it’s more. My Mamma used to say you become what you do daily.... numb and dumb then honestly folks you get what you deserve. Rise abvoe this phychological entertainment and get real. You may not have another chance.
Reply to this | Report thisBy Mark from Colorado, May 5 at 8:39 am #
(1 comments total)
Stupid ideas for Stupid Selfish people
This conversation regarding the gas tax summer holiday is interesting.
One category of voter this works for is the stupid voter. It reminds me of Junior High student office elections where candidates promise everything from longer breaks between classes to soda in the water fountains. They have no chance of any of those things to become reality. It is amazing that some voters never grow up and are still being played into making voting decisions based upon fairy tales sold by candidates.
The second category of voter this works with is the selfish voter. The sad fact is that a certain percentage, and a majority of them over the past 20 years, of Americans make voting decision based on their own selfishness. Many voters never use any voting criteria other than how they percieve the candidates to effect the immediate contents of their own wallet. It is amazing to me that any American would make a decision to put 300,000 road construction workers out of work this summer in order to have a chance of putting $30 in their wallet from gas purchase savings over the summer. It is sad but this is the selfishness of some voters and this is exactly what Senator Clinton is and seems to able to count on.
Many of these two types of voters are politely called blue collar working class voters. They typically may not watch cable news, be informed, or even care to be.
It is sad that this kind of irresponsible proposal by Senator Clinton seems to be getting some voter traction and may give her a win in Indiana. Is this really the kind of old school nonsense politics that we continue to vote for? Are we still that stupid and selfish? This is type of politics exactly what Senator Obama is trying to change! Where are the principles that would not only reject this kind of proposal but the candidate that proposes it? Come on America!!!
Reply to this | Hide 3 replies | Report thisBy cyrena, May 5 at 3:07 pm #
(4068 comments total)
Re: Stupid ideas for Stupid Selfish people
Mark from Colorado,
What an excellent post. You hit the bulls-eye in describing these types of voters...many of us have tried to break this down this way, but I don’t think any of us have done it so well and concisely.
You’re on the Mark, (no pun intended) and this will be a ‘keeper’ post for me to reference in my own discussions from a broader perspective.
One of the problems (maybe the MAIN one) is what you directed in the selfish voters that are generally uninformed. What we politely call the blue collar working class.
I would argue that this might be forgiven, IF in fact it actually DID advance their personal interests. ($30.00 in their pocket over the term of a single summer). Needless to say, it DOES NOT! Matter of fact, one collision between the car and the pothole on the way to work, (if they’re still lucky enough to have a job) and they’re out 10 times that much.
They don’t think.
Thanks again…
Reply to this | Hide 1 reply | Report thisBy Joe Sixpack, May 6 at 4:57 am #
(258 comments total)
Re: Re: Stupid ideas for Stupid Selfish people
Yep. That’s the fatal flaw in Obama’s campaign right there in black & white for all of us to read and consider.
“What we politely call the blue collar working class.”
Voters in this class are not as educated as you, nor make as much money, live in the ‘right’ neighborhood or attend the politically correct churches, but we’re not fond of being talked down too. When one candidate is willing to act, even if it might be tilting at a big ol’ windmill like the oil companies and the oil man in the oval office, at least she wants to do something. If all Obama can say, as his closing arguement for the two biggest votes of the race to date, that we blue collar workers are too stupid to understand that a gass tax holiday is a symbol, not a solution, then he’s going to get his ass kicked today. Hillary isn’t foolish enough to believe this is a long term solution, and everybody knows that. Obama may be techincally correct, but is not on the right side of this issue.
Report thisBy Conservative Yankee, May 5 at 12:33 pm #
(Unregistered commenter)
Stupid Selfish people?
So Mark from Colorado, I was reading along, and semi-agreeing with you, then I hit your brick wall of prejudice:
“Many of these two types of voters (Stupid Selfish people) are politely called blue collar working class voters. They typically may not watch cable news, be informed, or even care to be.”
So the victim gets the rap?
I spent some time in Colorado when I was young, back when Aspen had a dirt main street, and Estes Park was empty and still had snow in the summer. Dad had a cabin up in those woods on land now used for skiing. The people who live in Aspen now don’t wear “blue collars.”
Our President doesn’t wear a blue collar either, nor did his friend Kenny-boy Lay. The folks who engineered the sub-prime mortgage crisis weren’t wearing blue collars, nor were the folks who ran Global Crossings, Bear Stearns, Wang Computer, or U.S.Steel into the ground but emerged with super bonuses… do their white collars or the fact they were paid to tank their companies exempt them from your criticism?
I’ve been bored by divisive policies and comments all my life, this political campaign is by far the most divisive in my lifetime.
So go on, blame this mess on the people losing their jobs, trying to hold their families together, and doing their level best to understand a world which doesn’t need them anymore.
I’ve attempted to be nice, to be civil, but the people on this site are beginning to make me sick…
Reply to this | Report thisBy Joe Sixpack, May 5 at 6:12 am #
(258 comments total)
Gene Over The Top and Into The Tank
Gene you love Obama and that’s cool. Obama has no short term ideas and not much to offer people to lower gas prices. You can ridicule Hillary’s gas tax idea because you see pandering. Where you fighting as hard against the bailout of Bear Stearns? Where you as opposed to the so-called economic stimulus package? Most Americans don’t have multiple income from websites, a newspaper job and all those easy appearance dollars you make on TV. Most of us have to make hard choices everyday and quite frankly $50 is $50 and if it means I can take a trip to the beach when my daughter is begging me to take her, you see nine-year-olds aren’t so much concerned with what liberal elites consider pandering, they just want to go to the beach. At least Hillary wants to offer a short term relief solution. If Obama would spend less time figuring out how to save his reputation and advancing his career and spending a bit more time helping the average voter, he might see more blue collar support.
Reply to this | Hide 3 replies | Report thisBy Tom Doff, May 5 at 11:59 am #
(52 comments total)
Re: Gene Over The Top and Into The
Geez, Joe, if you love Hillary’s political approach and you need $50 to take your kid to the beach, and you don’t care about the federal deficit, do this:
Pretend you’re a lobbyist. Send 50 cents to Hillary. The normal return to a lobbyist for political contributions is a minimum of 100 times the contribution to the contributor. So Hillary will arrange for the government to pay you at least $50, and your kid will be happy. ‘Course you’ll have to find someone you know with a bank account to cash the check. But just think, sometimes the pols return MILLIONS of times the contributions in government funds!
You might hit the jackpot, and be able to buy a beach in Aruba and retire. Good luck.
Reply to this | Hide 1 reply | Report thisBy Joe Sixpack, May 5 at 12:18 pm #
(258 comments total)
Re: Re: Gene Over The Top and Into
Is that the going rate for Obama’s big oil doners? If so, then maybe you’re onto something there.
Report thisBy Conservative Yankee, May 5 at 7:42 am #
(Unregistered commenter)
.18 a gallon isn't gonna help me...
Removing the federal gas tax would decrease the price of gas about 18 cents a gallon. In my area, that would bring the price down to $350 a gallon, about where it was last month.
Meanwhile, the roads up here are falling apart, they have devolved to this condition since the onset of the Iraq war. Maine estimates that it will need about 30 billion to replace and repair all the unsafe bridges in the State, and the levees along the St John, Penobscot, Androscogin and the Kenebec are in rough shape after a pretty tough winter.
Replacing drag-links, tie-rod ends, Idler arms, brakes, tires, shock-absorbers and exhaust systems is not cheap. There is no way saving #3.60 a fill-up will pay for the damage caused by Dodge-eating potholes.
The business shill says she is going to “make the oil companies pay” hummm, being that I own a business this sounds disingenuous. when my costs increase, I have no choice but to pass these costs downstream they eventually get to the consumer. I am assuming (since it is obviously a sellers market) oil company accountants will find a way to avoid pying the Hill-tax
There is a way to lower prices about a buck a gallon. That is for the US government to stop competing with the US consumer. A discontinuance of the filling of the strategic oil reserves, and a release of some of this product into the open market would show the PRODUCERS of oil that we mean business. In the past strong action like releasing new oil into the market has caused producers to reduce prices.
Unfortunately none of the three remaining viable candidates will do this, and certainly not our abandoner in chief. Some wall streeters would lose money, and we’ve already seen how fast the government moves when that happens!
Reply to this | Report thisBy Tom Doff, May 4 at 8:16 am #
(52 comments total)
OK, look, enough with the stupid ideas. We’re wasting time. The world is going to hell. There are food riots, and gas prices going through the roof.
We need solutions to these problems. Most of you may not realize it, but the solution to these and all other problems lies right before your eyes, right now. Right at your fingertips, right now.
We need to get a computer in the hands of every soul on earth. We all know what will happen to them, the same thing that happened to us. They’ll become entranced, they’ll spend every waking moment at the tube, they’ll start living virtual lives.
So we can feed them virtual food. Think of the gas we’ll save, when massive trucks no longer have to travel coast to coast, loaded with turnips and bananas.
Income disparities? No problem. Start a virtual conglomerate, and make yourself CEO. Want to fly your own Gulfstream to Spain for lunch? Just grab your joystick, and put the fuel on your virtual credit card. Your wife/husband aging too quickly? Just hook up with Starter Spouse Replacement.com.
The Green effect will be magical. Though none of us will ever see it, being at our computers 24/7/365, the earth with heal itself. Trees and grass will grow, the skies will clear, sparkling water will flow.
Unless we create a pixel famine...........
Reply to this | Hide 1 reply | Report thisBy Leefeller, May 5 at 4:53 am #
(1222 comments total)
Good ideas are hard to come by
Tom,
Enjoy your sarcasm and on other posts. You are right, we just went on a virtual horse ride below.
Reply to this | Report thisBy Sepharad, May 3 at 10:21 pm #
(Unregistered commenter)
Horses aren’t as good as pogo sticks at creating gas—though great sources of organic fertilizer—but they do have their good points. Besides being 100% more benevolent and smarter than any politician of any party and more honest than most pundits, if you’re honest with them and treat them well they love you, are a life-transforming pleasure, and sometimes come in handy. Last week, when a teenager in a pickup downed a telephone pole that collapsed and knocked down another pole, strewing live cables all over the one state highway intersection necessary to drive into or leave our rural area (orchards, vineyards, farming and ranching), it was a real drag. Computers down, we couldn’t work; the half-cooked chicken soup on the stove was not going to be done for supper; the pump in our well stopped providing water, etc. No genuine hardship of course, certainly not in comparison to daily life for most people in Iraq, merely the usual developed country sort of interruption. So my husband and I (both of us work out of our house) tacked up our two horses --all four of us slightly giddy at getting to go for a ride in the midst of a working day—simply rode cross-country till we came to a place we could get dinner, and conveyed news of problems from one neighbor to the other and caught up on local doings. After dark we couldn’t see where we were going but the horses could, so we laid on their necks to avoid getting knocked off by errant branches while cutting back through the woods and home.
Horses also make common cause. I’m a secular Jew and Zionist, and have a creaky communicating relationship with an Iranian-atheist dedicated anti-Zionist that came to exist and can only be maintained because we both despise fundamentalist religion and love our horses more than we dislike each other’s politics. He and my husband and I ride and argue then ride a little longer, sometimes even have a congenial conversation on poetry (which he writes, classical Persian) or philosophy or cooking. Recently it’s become too explosive to talk even a little because of mutual raw feelings about what’s going on in the Middle East—it upsets horses when their riders yell and gesture at each other—but if we persist in riding, one day we’ll probably begin talking again.
I’m not sure why I’m writing this here, except that I’m sick of stupid ideas and stupid politics and stupid arguments over same, and wanted to offer a simple good idea akin to your pogo stick: Get a horse.
Reply to this | Hide 5 replies | Report thisBy GrammaConcept, May 5 at 10:16 am #
(189 comments total)
Re: Gotta get in on this one..I love
RE: Get a horse.......If only.....
RE: Philosophy....As we think so we become…
RE: Poetry.....:
Ordinary Poetry In Extraordinary Times
our kitchen is filled
with the scent of gardenias
my honey is dancing and eating his pie
our senses are filled
and I know how he feels yes
my honey is dancing
he knows I know why…
the scent of sweet honey
flows up from the cup wells
the scents of sweet honey and coffee and pie
this day is beginning
with hummingbirds floating
my honey is dancing
he’s hugging the sky…
***************************************
Reply to this | Report thisStrive on, friends....
Love,
Gramma
By Tom Doff, May 5 at 6:42 am #
(52 comments total)
Re:
Sepharad, I third Jackpine. Good post. I’m one of those god-damned secular humanists, and a rabid anti-zionist, but it might be fun to take an arm-waving, shouting ride with you someday. Poetry?: Roses are red, Violets are blue, If you’d quit terrorizing Palestinians, More folks might like you.
Reply to this | Report thisBy jackpine savage, May 5 at 3:15 am #
(667 comments total)
Re:
I second Leefeller. Your post was a great read, and revealed one of those truths that we won’t ever find in the news.
Reply to this | Report thisBy Leefeller, May 4 at 6:15 am #
(1222 comments total)
A horse of a different color
Enjoyed the post, I have some best friends who are horse lovers. For real.
Reply to this | Hide 1 reply | Report thisBy cyrena, May 5 at 3:17 pm #
(4068 comments total)
Re: A horse of a different color
Me too...(horse loving friends). Problem is, they love to BET on ‘em.
Report thisBy Tom Doff, May 3 at 5:16 pm #
(52 comments total)
Isn’t it about time for Hillary and McCain to give up on their temporary-rescinding-of-the-gas -tax proposal, since that idea has received such a cool reception, and come up with a new idea?
Insiders report that they’re already hard at work on another proposal.
Sometime next week, expect them to announce that they are planning to ask all citizens to join in a massive dinosaur hunt and burial party. ‘This may not help us immediately’, reads the proposed press release, ‘But isn’t it about time we did something nice for our grandchildren, instead of always jabbing them with the short end of the stick?’
Reply to this | Report thisBy Purple Girl, May 3 at 1:40 pm #
(199 comments total)
Why is NO One Talking about the Sociopathic
Off topic I know- but anyone who is truly concerned about what either Mac Or Hillary wil do as president- MUST SEE Hagee Video on Bill Moyer’s Journal.com- absolutley Terrifyingly enlightening.
Reply to this | Hide 3 replies | Report thisNow I realize that Mac is not the only mentally disabled candidate. It explains Clearly Why and to Whom Hillary was speaking when she said she’d “Obliterate Iran” using Nukes. Far too many media have Ignored this-WHY? It is obvious she was telling US what her Religious Affliation IS. Foolish me I thought her only one of Cheney’s Corp Whore Proteges. But it is far worse- She’s an ‘End of Days’ Precipatator.her doctrine is not to just Enslave mankind for money- she is willing to destroy it to bring about the Rapture. I was baffled by her statement until I saw that video! Hagee makes Cheney look like the lesser of two Evils- I am Terified. Plenty of Crazy cults have killed themselves because of ‘Armegeddon’ doctrines- But Mac or hillary will have All the RESOURCES to MAKE IT HAPPEN!!Tehy won’t just kill themselves- They Kill All Of Us!
By Tom Doff, May 4 at 4:36 am #
(52 comments total)
Re: Why is NO One Talking about the
Watching the crazies who are disciples of Hagee dancing like the fools they are, with the star of david and the stars and stripes intertwined, makes one wonder how these poor deranged souls survive from day to day.
Who dresses them?
Who feeds them?
Are they truly citizens? And of which planet?
We should all be ashamed. For allowing the mentally unfit, such as Hagee and his flock, wander the streets without proper care, without the assistance they need to live a useful life, allowing them to explore the depths of degradation and self-destruction, while their minds shatter into shards of religious lunacy.
Reply to this | Report thisBy cyrena, May 3 at 6:26 pm #
(4068 comments total)
Re: Why is NO One Talking about the
Purple Girl,
I haven’t watched the video yet. I will get to it, and probably I won’t be surprised, because of the fact that I’ve been keeping a very wary eye on these “Near Enders” for a while now.
My question though is this: is there anything in the video, (or anywhere else...Bill Moyer is credible enough for me) that actually connects Hill McSame to this cult?
You mentioned that you were baffled by her statement until you saw the video, so I’m assuming that the video will be a helpful illumination for me as well. But I’m just wondering if there is any other ‘mortar’ so to speak, to make the case. It’s just hard for me to imagine her as being in anyway ‘religiously’ inclined, other than for show purposes.
Reply to this | Report thisBy Leefeller, May 3 at 5:29 pm #
(1222 comments total)
Re: Why is NO One Talking about the
Seems we have a nation of Sociopathic fools, so why would they talk about it?
They seem crazy to me, but who am I?
Reply to this | Report thisBy dale Headley, May 3 at 11:37 am #
(Unregistered commenter)
small ideas
This is just one more example of small minds hatching small ideas. But then, these are people who nearly all claim to believe in God, so it would be foolish of me to take anything they say or do seriously.
Reply to this | Report thisBy Tom Doff, May 3 at 11:00 am #
(52 comments total)
If we really wanted to solve the oil problem, we’d declare Iraq and Iran the fifty-first and fifty-second states (beating Israel to the punch), punch a bunch of holes in Alaska, widen our highways to accommodate the new ‘Super Hummers’, and have an auto-ball. Until the xtians trick the jews into committing suicide, and all the good, ‘holy’ folks ascend to rapturous ‘heaven’, leaving us heathens with even more of a glut of oil.
Reply to this | Report thisWhat shortage?
By Tom Doff, May 3 at 10:13 am #
(52 comments total)
Speaking of ‘Stupid Ideas’, why on earth have we allowed this nation to deviate so far from the original, truly conservative, values of the Constitution?
Just think, if Negroes were still just considered 3/5’s of a person, and women were not allowed to vote, let alone run for office, we’d eliminate 2/3’s of our current quandry.
And if we reinstated literacy tests for voters and candidates, we’d eliminate the other third.
Then we could just wait, peacefully, for January 2009, throw The Dummy and his Cabal out of office, and run this f**king country ourselves.
‘God’ knows, we couldn’t do any worse.
Reply to this | Hide 3 replies | Report thisBy Sang Ze, May 3 at 12:54 pm #
(Unregistered commenter)
Re: Stupid Ideas
Thank you, Tom Doff. Ah, yes.
Reply to this | Report thisBy great_satan, May 3 at 10:21 am #
(180 comments total)
Re:
whoa...slow down there Tom.
Reply to this | Hide 1 reply | Report thisBy Tom Doff, May 3 at 10:49 am #
(52 comments total)
Re: Re:
Oh, great-satan, I thought this campaign was all about ‘change’. That’s all I was suggesting.
Report thisBy KYJurisDoctor, May 3 at 9:02 am #
(Unregistered commenter)
Funny.
Eugene: It’s pretty FUNNY, isn’t it, how America is s-l-o-w-l-y but sure DECAYING the way of great Republics like Rome did?!
Reply to this | Report thisBy Leefeller, May 3 at 7:01 am #
(1222 comments total)
No mention of Wright
Banter the alleged facts when the difference will be a conclusion of same results.
Reply to this | Report thisBy DennisD, May 3 at 6:39 am #
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Do the math
Obama has this one right !
Ten gallons of gas at $4.00 (today’s price where I am) is still (even using the new math) $40.00. The gas tax .18cts multiplied by 10 gallons is $1.80.
WOW - instead of paying $40.00 - I get to pay $38.20. I can take the $1.80 and spend the day at Disneyland looking through the gate from the outside.
The FED has made the dollar worthless along with Bu$h Inc.’s borrowing against it. If we are serious about getting rid of something - start with them.
Reply to this | Report thisBy Harold W. Beu, May 3 at 6:26 am #
(Unregistered commenter)
Hillary's stupid idea
I admired Barack’s courage and good sense not to pander to people’s fears by supporting a gax tax holiday. The same attitude that makes Hillary propose such a move is the very one that made her support the Iraq War Resolution.
Reply to this | Report thisBy great_satan, May 3 at 5:42 am #
(180 comments total)
Anyone else notice that as gas prices have shot up, talk of global warming has taken a dive. Do any candidates or politicians have the balls to say that high gas prices are a GOOD thing, whether the oil companies are making fat profit or not?
Wanna cut carbon emissions, curb idiotic consumerist gluttony? Raise the price to $15 a gallon.
Oh, but then only rich people can drive their own chariot. Well, that would be a change, absolutely no historical precedent for that! Well, maybe having your own fucking super chariot is a luxury? Ever think of that? And rich people can afford luxuries that we can’t...so what. If we understand what human happines really is, there is little basis for envy.
Its called a bus, a public transportation system...meet people, integrate..rather than fly around isolated in your robot shell, from which perspective everyone seems to appear the enemy. Do, you like other people less or more when in your car? Are they suddenly assholes and maniacs?
Oh, yeah. Ever been to Holland. Its called a bicycle!!!! Oh, we might even solve the obesity and heart disease problem as well.
But faggot politicians (no offense to alternate lifestyle folks...i don’t refer to you...just like that word,)will never have the yarbles to say something like this. Basic flaw in majoritarian democracy right there. They have to please the people. Don’t we elect LEADERS? Aren’t leaders people who might just institute things the masses won’t like in the short run...Roosevelt in the 30s and 40s comes to mind.
Reply to this | Hide 1 reply | Report thisSure it would solve the economic woes in a heart beat...subtract the cost of a car, two or the cars, from your budget, add in bus fare or a bicycle..hey maybe a scooter.
Oh and maybe we all can’t fly on airplanes whenever we want to...so what!
I say, hell yeah! $15 a gallon gas. Give a fat break (or free gas from the gov’t stock pile) for the transport of real food (not junk food...but real food) and public transportation services.
When some real, sound alternative fuel becomes viable, it will usurp the market and we can maybe afford to drive around all the time again, but maybe by that time, we won’t want to!
By Tom Doff, May 3 at 7:15 pm #
(52 comments total)
Re:
F*** cars. F***buses. F*** public transportation. F*** chariots. F*** bicycles. F*** skateboards. F*** inline skates. F*** scooters.
Pogo sticks, that’s the answer.
Instead of using gas, we create it.
Reply to this | Report thisBy Margaret Currey, May 3 at 2:07 am #
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Driving cars and Global Warming
If people only look to Alaska and see the glaciars melting at a speed that surprises even the people looking at Alaska that it is happening very fast, and to think that just a short time ago Bush says it was all hype, and now he is singing a different tune, he thought that if he said it was not so people would believe him, just like “Mission Accomplished” did.
There was the gasoline chruch of the sevneties and then it went away and all of a sudden the speed rate was hicked to 70 m.p.h.
Now is the state of Oregon, people are getting hit by cars left and right, people do not look both ways when turning and the pedestrians have to look out for the cars even at the red lights and stop signs, and the reason is that the automobile is the high priest, so pesdrians bike riders, and even houses are victims, people drive so fast they hit buildings, instead of saying out of control vehicle it should the person used poor judgement, they were either asleep at the wheel or putting on makeup or talking on the telephone or trying to drink coffee when they should have been doing the one thing you do in a car is pay attention to the act of driving.
But that is because of a lot of factors, but indirectly lowering the speed limit would reduce the impact of Global Warming, but the greatest thing would be for people to get out of their cars, you can meet interesting people on the streetcar.
And the benefit would be exercise even just walking to the street is more exercise than walking from the house to the car.
Of course taking public transportation would mean you would have to allow time to do that which would mean maybe you would not have time to stop and get coffee in the morning.
Reply to this | Report thisBy Sepharad, May 2 at 10:52 pm #
(Unregistered commenter)
Clinton, McCain and Obama have all come up with stupid ideas, and also a few good ones, interspersed with campaign blather and positioning. We need Clinton and Obama to debate, one on one, the differences that separate their specific policies, which in fact are not as similar as most pundits(except for the intelligent ones like Paul Krugman and Thomas Friedman) keep stating. Unfortunately, image has prevailed over substance in American political campaigns ever since the young, hip and rich Jerry Brown discovered and exploited the power of a TV image, in the Martin McLuhan “The media is the message” mold. That very unfortunate paradigm is nothing new.
But you know what? It’s really irritating when Robinson or anyone else in the chattering classes blames the electorate for poor campaign standards. It’s not that the American people are stupid, it’s just that the American media, particularly broadcast journalism but also many newspapers, in their obsessive zeal to boost ratings and circulation, have slipped into a different standard: “if bleeds [or is sexy or is embarrassing to some public figure]it leads.” Scoops, exclusives and other high-prize media targets are the destroyers of nuance and detail; their writers are heat-seeking missiles zeroing in on “it plays” stories. So stop with the silliness, stop parsing shimmering chimeras, report on and analzye what matters.
I’m a Clinton supporter and completely disgusted by the reams of discussion on Rev. Wright—who’s not running for election—and Obama, when there are so many more important issues to be examined. Only a sadistic jerk could have enjoyed the spectacle of Obama walking away after being forced to denounce the man who transformed his life.
If you want to write about stupid ideas on the periphery that will be helpful to the Democrats, how about something constructive, like Ahmadinejad’s dismissal of Clinton’s harsh talk to Iran, assuring his cronies that American will never elect either a woman or a black man as President? I hope the Democrats’ general election strategists are paying attention and turn Ahmadinejad’s assertion to good use in an ad, perhaps with a photo of Hillary and Barack together with hands joined—eclipsing a small picture of Ahmadinejad and his estimate of whom Americans will vote for—with a “Yes We Will!” rejoinder. And that’s something we can start doing right now, before the primaries and until the Presidential election is over, to not only unite the Democrats but win over other Americans who’d rather die than conform to Ahmadinejad’s expectations.)
Reply to this | Report thisBy Inherit The Wind, May 2 at 6:10 pm #
(259 comments total)
Not just a Bad Idea, and a Dumb
Almost all the hard-core and moderate Conservatives I know think this tax reduction is a bad idea.
Funny thing, most Moderates and Liberals I know think it’s a bad idea too, as do most leftists.
And both think it’s a bad idea for the same reasons...they agree that BOTH McCain and Clinton are wrong on this.
When was the last time THAT happened???? It’s a BAD idea!
Reply to this | Report thisBy kevin99999, May 2 at 5:02 pm #
(Unregistered commenter)
Robinson, you should include yourself among those in the media who peddle nothing but propaganda and personal bias.
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