ardee the sphincter restricted sophist,

Get you head out, you are not of any benefit to the right-wing unless you can get some air to your brain and clean the crap from your head so that you can see, hear and talk with some understanding of what’s going on around you.

I guess we are working our way through the ‘esses’..Seems like only yesterday the word was ‘sophist’, today it is sphincter…Heres one Thomas/Martha, you are such an S-hole.

KDelphi,

I agree with ThomasG.

guntotinsquaw,

So why do you have your panties in a knot, if you’re not a sophist?

MarthaA—BACK OFF! as guntotinsquaw has fruitlessly pointed out to you, I am no GOP, but a Socialist. She seems to be a “Libertarian”.(although I disagre with her, she says what she means. thats fine with me) You are a Democrat. Now that we have all that out in the open, wtf are you talking about??

GTS—The Constituion is a un-egalitarian pact between a bunch of bloody, rich Anglo white men. I dont think that they believed that women were full humans, and certainly not women of color. We need a Constituional convention, or anarchy.

BTW—the meaning of “sopist” (or its use) has changed throught the years. From 15th Century (about) on, it has been used to indicate someone that uses an honest-sounding argument to promote false ideas and concepts. Socrates et al meaning was “wise one” but, later philsohers, declared that SocraTES et al had used clever arguments to promote false ideas and to sway people, so they “changed the meaning ” somewhat.

Thats what I meant by it (except the “clever” part…for all that , youre just a Dem party hack). Thats all you need to know, Martha.

THOMASG… You are such a typical democrat and apparently not a one of you can read. Not now nor ever have I been on welfare, nor does an extremist agree with any bailout. Truly, do try to have more brains than the current congress and READ the article before you speak.

Since you want to call Reagan, Bush I, Bush II and Goldwater a sophist I guess they should be flattered as you have compared them to Socrates, Plato and Aristotle. Sophist is derived from the latin word sophista meaning “wise man” and has led to our word sophisticated.

Do mankind a favor..Don’t reproduce!

ONE IF BY LAND

ardee,

You can’t get anything straight—that sphincter is cutting off the blood to your brain again.  The Democratic Party is an expedient means that the Common Population can use to accomplish an institutionalized Multi-Party Political System as a matter of law in the United States.

guntotinsquaw,
Yeah, yeah, sure, sure, and Ponzi didn’t do pyramid schemes and sell swamp land in Florida, right?  And, the RIGHT-WING CONSERVATIVE EXTREMIST REPUBLICANS that “Madoff” with all of our money aren’t scamming as we speak to start the whole dumb show all over again, are they?

Your post is the reason why the whole lot of the RIGHT-WING CONSERVATIVE EXTREMIST REPUBLICAN bankers and Ponzi schemers are on corporate welfare, and the COMMON POPULATION is bailing out their toxic assets, so that they can keep their precious revenue stream at our expense; your post is blatant sophistry that was used by Goldwater, Reagan, Bush I, Bush II and all of their sophist minions of the Professional Middle Class and their echo-chamber of media.  As Ronald Reagan would have said, “There you go again.”  What we need to do is to pay off the bill for the welfare your bankers and Ponzi schemers are currently getting before we start a whole new cycle, as you suggest.

Your post is not legitimate political dialog, it is more of the same that was used by Goldwater, Reagan, Bush I, and Bush II that led the United States into the toxic economic mess that it is currently in, and this type of sophist dialog with intent to do harm, at the level that has been done to the economy of the United States, will result in another cycle of toxic destruction to the U.S. Economy for greedy self-interest and benefit and should be criminalized, so that “you people” pay the price for the consequences of your behavior, rather than the 70% MAJORITY COMMON POPULATION over generations without benefit.

ThomasG, July 7 at 8:01 pm #

ardee,

Your post is not worthy of a response.
........................................

Yet you still responded. No self control, no common sense, no sanity and certainly nothing whatever to add to any political discussion.

Now you ( or your alter ego), after posting nothing but stupidly constructed defenses of the Democratic Party, insisting endlessly that third party politics was a waste of time, that a two party system was inviolable, that the only way to progress was to vote democrats in or out, decides that a third party should be invented just for you…..Change of Meds?

MarthaA ....RIGHT-WING CONSERVATIVE REPUBLICAN EXTREMIST is what you called KDelphi although I agree with some of the opinions and GOP might be the correct title for the opinions given. It’s time to clarify some facts.

The GOP are not EXTREME RIGHT WING CONSERVATIVES, not any more. The GOP left us extreme rightwingers behind about the time they decided to—

“Think of universal health care as a “keystone” for the health of a republic. If a “society” cannot care for its citizens at their most vulnerable, it is not a society at all. Health care, food, shelter are all human rights. If you consider yourself religious, you cannot believe otherwise,. If you consider yourself a social human being, you cannot think otherwise.”

An extreme rightwinger has no desire to have the “goverment wasting the labors of the people under the pretense of taking care of them.” At no point do we desire to have the government supply food, health care, shelter to anyone when it requires us to have to pay for any program through forced taxes. We believe no-one has the right to remove the bread I earned from my hand to GIVE to some-one who earns nothing. We will hold our guns as they are our right, and keep our people safe from the tyranny of the religious without denying the freedom of religion. If congress can’t pay the bill don’t spend it. Any debt occurred should never be passed to our children, if unable to pay the debt in 19 yrs. then it’s irresponsible to spend it. Enough government to keep the country stable, but no more. Follow the constitution.
  “The Constitution only gives people the right to pursue happiness. You have to catch it yourself.” Ben Franklin

ONE IF BY LAND

“I know no class of my fellowmen, however just, enlightened, and humane, which can be wisely and safely trusted absolutely with the liberties of any other class.”: Frederick Douglass - [Frederick Baily] (1818-1895), escaped slave, Abolitionist, author, editor of the North Star and later the New National Era

Henceforth my call for a new institutionalized by law third political party to represent the 70% MAJORITY COMMON POPULATION that are currently being unrepresented in the Congress of the United States.

The Democratic Party represents the 20% Professional Middle Class that separated and is no longer a part of the common population. Read Barbara Ehrenreich’s “Fear of Falling”, an academic work explaining the New Middle Class.

The Republican Party represents the 10% Elite Capitalist Class of Aristocratic and Corporate Americans.

There needs to be a 3rd political party institutionalized by law in the Congress of the United States to represent the 70% MAJORITY COMMON POPULATION.

ardee,

Your post is not worthy of a response.

ThomasG, July 7 at 12:19 pm #

.....................

Yup, that is a perfect example of the stupid and insane rants I referred to, thanks so much for posting it.

ardee,

Your post is an apt description of yourself and your own sophist behavior; your own self-loathing gone to seed and directed at me.  The likes of you is not of sufficient standing to come up to cleaning the dog shit off my shoes, let alone criticize me for anything I say.

How much are the right-wingers paying you to be their sophist minion?  Whatever it is, it is too much.  I take your rant to mean that you are incapable of response to my posts and I am content to let others that have ability judge my posts as well as your own.  You know as well as I that your dim witted rants will be recognized by others for what they are and so do I.

ThomasG, July 6 at 9:05 pm #

I do not speak for KD, she is perfectly capable of doing so herself. But to think one could answer the insanities you post, regardless of which name you post under, insanities increasingly obvious I note with this last piece of crap, is foolishness itself. Nothing you post occurs on this planet, thus , as a resident of this planet I am at a loss. Further your increasingly insulting garbage lends itself not at all to civil discourse. But it does , in fact, prove your worthlessness, both of your self.

I firmly suggest you take it up with a mental health professional, it might do both your personalities a world of good.

ardee and KDelphi,

I take exception to your whining around like bitch slapped monkeys, rather than answering my posts.  I have posted on many blogs for the past eight years.  I started on the Liberal Forum Blog which was incapable of answering and shut down the blog, then the Ankle Biting Pundit Blog which did the same thing, Democracy For America Blog was a similar situation, the Democratic Party’s Kicking Ass Blog and now on Truthdig Blog.

I am a card carrying member of the Democratic National Committee, I.D. Number 053787789 and I am proud of it.

Now; that said,  who the hell are you?  Other than some air-headed sophist dumb asses that cannot do anything other than complain about double posting to get out of responding to my posts.  If you can’t take the heat, get out of the kitchen and stop your whining around like you are on the rag and haven’t taken your Midol.

KDelphi and ardee,

My brother and I post from the same CRT, because we can’t afford different CRT’s; but KDelphi, you and ardee and all RIGHT-WING CONSERVATIVE REPUBLICAN EXTREMIST dissemblers are posting from different CRT’s that are apparently within the same room or building. 

Answering the specific content that is posted should be of more importance than deciphering and dissembling whether the content came from the same CRT.  This posting confusion only arises from RIGHT-WING CONSERVATIVE REPUBLICAN dissemblers who do not want to give legitimate answers.

KDelphi and ardee making false claims against me is their way of getting out of answering, and their sophist answers are no answers at all but strictly sophist tactics of deception, when if either one was honest, they would answer my posts as well as my brother’s posts without complaint, instead of using a form of sophistry to get out of answering both my posts and ThomasG’s posts.
 
I suspect KDelphi and ardee are unable to answer either my posts or ThomasG’s posts with anything substantial, therefore they make disingenuous claims of double posting, while more than likely they are talking about themselves, as KDelphi has said before that KDelphi is not his/her name; then turn around and blame me and ThomasG for what they themselves are doing. KDelphi, How many names are you posting under?  ardee, How many names are you posting under?

KDelphi, ardee—However many names you are both posting under, I would be glad to respond to each and every one on them without question and expect the same of you.

Unlike you two dissemblers, I have something important to say, and respect this blog for giving me a forum to do so.

KDelphi and ardee,

ThomasG and I both post from the same CRT; but KDelphi, you and ardee and all other RIGHT-WING CONSERVATIVE REPUBLICAN EXTREMIST dissemblers on this blog are posting from different CRT’s that are apparently within the same room or building, and whether or not the building is even in this country is another question.

Answering the specific content that is posted should be of more importance than deciphering and dissembling whether the content came from the same CRT.  Posting confusion only arises when RIGHT-WING CONSERVATIVE REPUBLICAN dissemblers do not want to give legitimate answers.

KDelphi and ardee making false claims against me is their way of getting out of answering, as their sophist answers are no answers at all but strictly sophist tactics of deception, when if either one was honest, they would answer MarthaA’s posts as well as ThomasG’s posts without complaint, instead of using a form of sophistry to get out of answering both my posts and ThomasG’s posts.
 
I suspect KDelphi and ardee are unable to answer either my posts or ThomasG’s posts with anything substantial, therefore they make disingenuous claims of double posting, while more than likely they are talking about themselves, as KDelphi has said before that KDelphi is not his/her name; then turn around and blame me and ThomasG for what they themselves are doing. KDelphi, How many names are you posting under?  ardee, How many names are you posting under?

KDelphi, ardee—However many names you are both posting under, I would be glad to respond to each and every one of them without question and expect the same of you.

Unlike you two, I am Member No. 094000419 of the Democratic Party, and have something important to say with regard to the 70% MAJORITY COMMON POPULATION, and respect this blog for giving me a forum to do so.

MarthaA, July 6 at 2:39 pm #

Sorry to see you’re back. Here I was hoping you’d been hit by a bus.

Ask yourself, seriously I really think you should, whether you believe anyone at this forum believes the stuff you babble. The more you rant the less credibility you get in fact.

I thought perhaps you were a child at first, but now I am convinced you are actually insane. First one Ive ever met…

By the by I agree with KD that you are posting under two names, far too much similarity, both of style , content, and instability.

Do you honestly believe anyone would be at all insulted by your crap? So to what purpose do you rant and rave? Therapy of some kind?

MarthaA—-please stop double posting under two names..and agreeing with yourself.

How did you know I was GOP?

mmadden,

You say that this, the United States, is the land of the free.

If this is so, what kind of freedom is it?  Is freedom in the United States abstract freedom or literal freedom?  If freedom in the United States is abstract, it is nothing more than an unrealized ideal of freedom.  If freedom in the United States is literal freedom, is freedom literally the same for all Americans?

If freedom is literal freedom, why do we have a society based upon a Middle Class as a singularity, without acknowledgment that the Middle Class is a class and culture that is in the middle of other classes and cultures and that those classes and cultures are the classes and cultures of the American Aristocracy and the Common Population.  If United States freedom is literal freedom, why is there three different standards of freedom for these differing classes and cultures and if literal freedom does indeed have three different standards, does freedom in the U.S.A. exist literally at all, or is it just an abstract illusion that provides selective benefit to the American Aristocracy and the Professional Middle Class at the expense of the 70% Majority Common Population who are by law of the dominant classes and cultures confined to freedom of the field, much the same as cows in the field who are kept in their place by law and order of the classes and cultures of the American Aristocracy and the Professional Middle Class.

ardee the Right-Wing Sophist Minion,

KDelphi didn’t introduce me to the word sophist, KDelphi only let the secret of the REPUBLICAN REVOLUTION slip, and I made a conscious decision to make that secret well known that sophistry was used.  Sophistry enabled and was the driving force behind the REPUBLICAN REVOLUTION by Goldwater, Reagan, Bush I, Bush II, and their respective minions, and is still being used by all RIGHT-WING CONSERVATIVE EXTREMIST REPUBLICANS, like Newt Gingrich, Rush Limbaugh, Richard Pearle, Bill Kristol, Pat Buchanan, George Will, Bill O’Reilly, etc. as well as you and KDelphi.

BTW, ardee, a minion is a servile favorite, or follower of the RIGHT-WING CONSERVATIVE EXTREMIST REPUBLICANS.

I haven’t spent much time studying various types
of money systems(Capitalism, Socialism, etc.) Maybe
someone can help me.  Before being forced on disability because of poor health, I served as School
Psychologist for public school systems in various
states.  In each system there was a salary schedule
established by the Board of Education.  A person was
paid according to their degree and years of experience.  A person teaching Physical Education was
paid the same salary as a person teaching Physics.
Was this Socialism?  If not, what type of system
was it?  Thanks for your help.

The reason why the big noise is created for the Health Care bill, even though everybody needs it, is because many people have this idea that government sponsored health care is SOCIALISM and we can’t have that in the land of the free. Social Security and Medicare is also government sponsored health care. As long as we invade other countries for no legal reason the amount of money that we spend on those misadventures is money will spent.

If the Republicans had the White House, controlled the House of Representatives, and 60 votes in the Senate, they would push through all the legislation they wanted in 1 month.  Instead the Democrats have Harry Reid who with 60 votes has decided to concede defeat already.

AMEN, BROTHER OMOP, AMEN!  THE AMERICAN AND ARAB
MILITARY BOTH THINK THEY ARE FIGHTING FOR GOD!  THE
TRUTH OF THE MATTER, NEITHER SIDE IS. ZECH. 4:6 READS, “NOT BY MIGHT, NOR BY POWER, BUT BY MY HOLY
SPIRIT, SAITH THE LORD!”  LET BOTH SIDES DO THE WILL
OF THE LORD AND SEE IF HIS HOLY SPIRIT DOESN’T MAKE
THINGS RIGHT.  WHAT IS HIS WILL?  ECCLESIASTES 12:13,
“LET US HEAR THE CONCLUSION OF THE WHOLE MATTER:
FEAR GOD, AND KEEP HIS COMMANDMENTS: FOR THIS IS THE
WHOLE DUTY OF MAN!”  JAMES 1:27, “PURE RELIGION AND
UNDEFILED BEFORE GOD AND THE FATHER IS THIS, TO VISIT
THE FATHERLESS AND WIDOWS IN THEIR AFFLICTION, AND
TO KEEP THEMSELVES UNSPOTTED FROM THE WORLD.” LET
BOTH SIDES BEAT THEIR WEAPONS INTO PLOWSHARES AND
FEED THE HUNGRY!

Mr. Conason.

The two principal reasons the Senators will never provide decent health care for all Americans are the costs committed to bringing about a.) ‘regime change’ in Iraq and b).introducing American style ‘democracy’ (getting rid of the burqa) in Kabul, Afghanistan.

According to published estimates, the ‘regime change’ in Iraq is running at around US $260 million a day. While getting rid of the burqa in Kabul requires some US$70 million a day.

To add insult to injuries those monies are considered necessities while the monies required to provide decent health care for all Americans are considered socialist luxuries.

Christian96

“The program is described as, “Many hated the man who is now, perhaps, our most beloved president.”  There is hope
for George Bush.  It will just take time. A LONG TIME!”

It is a gross insult to Abe, even mentioning W’s name in the same breath.

Competence, principle and vision are not only foreign attributes for W, he probably can’t spell all three.

Abe certainly wasn’t perfect, but he also wasn’t a self-deluded, mediocre, and sanctimonious empty suit.

I also apologize, again,for apparently, introducing MarthaA to the word “sophist”...
..........................

Oh, KD you have brought tears of laughter to my eyes!

Now FT should apologize for introducing her to wishy washy as well…...

Right now on The History Channel is a program titled,
“The Lincoln Assassination.”  The program is described as, “Many hated the man who is now, perhaps, our most beloved president.”  There is hope
for George Bush.  It will just take time. A LONG TIME!

There are some excellent posts here. Everyone seems to see throught the crap.

WTF are the Dens waiting for?? A 61 majority??

NOW would be the TIME Dems!

This entire discussion of the cost of the health care reform is a red herring.  Here in California our legislature has passed single payer health care in each of the past two years and will pass it again this year.  The professional accounting firm, the Lewin Group, was hired to do an independent analysis of the cost and savings impact of Single Payer here in California.  Not only would the savings allow for the coverage of all uninsured.  The savings gained by streamlining the health care delivery into Single Payer would actually exceed the cost of covering everyone by nearly $8 billion annually.

If you take Single Payer, the best solution other than perhaps expanding the VHA to cover everyone, off the table, you are left discussing if the cost to the taxpayers will be $1 trillion or $.6 trillion.  Those figures are the cost of maintaining the wasteful for-profit insurance industry that is so lucrative in campaign contributions but deadly to our people, not the cost of reforming health care which would actually produce huge savings beyond covering everyone if it were done right. 

You can read the report of the Lewin Group here:

http://www.healthcareforall.org/studies.html

Single Payer in the form of SB-810 will almost certainly pass in California again this year.  Sadly the corporate media gives less than scant coverage to the bill and every time it passes allows Governor Schwarzenegger to pocket veto it in the night with a teflon shield.  With all the attention health care reform is receiving this year, however, and with so many Californians loosing their jobs and employer provided health coverage and the budget shortfall hits on MediCal so many for profit health care providers such as hospitals going bankrupt it may be that the big capitalists who are going bankrupt may look at SB-810 as a way of stabilizing their revenue stream and Schwarzenegger may have to actually consider his veto in the light of day this year.  Never mind the crying children and their families, but bankrupt big time for profit health care providers will likely get the governators’ ear.

Squeaky—Many of us have been fighting this battle for decades. I have actually sent letters to everyone in the Senate Health and Finance Committees. I am not kidding. Some, I got replies, some I did not. Do you think that the letters will override the millions of dollars that the president House and Senate recieve form the “health” insurance industry?

It didnt seem to help much when I advocated for peoples’ health care for a living. I saw people die in their 30s and 40s for a lack of health care. Any plan that includes subsidies to the “health” insurance industry will fail.

I just watched Obama’s Virginia Town Hall, and, I have to say that it was THE phonieset thing I have ever seen…no, wait. ONE of the phoniest.

Remember the lady in Florida he “helped”
on camera? She’s back on the street.

Typical of all the other threads I have read. Everybody cries and complains about how unfair the government is. Then, when they log off, they do absolutely nothing to change it.

I’ve written both my senators and representative. When I get their form letters in the mail, I review it for accuracy. If I find their letters to be full of B.S., which is typically the case, I send them a return letter asking them for a full redress of the position point by point.

I may or may not get another response. But, at least they know somebody is paying attention.

http://www.pnhp.org/blog/

Illness and medical bills were linked to at least 62.1% of all personal bankruptcies in 2007. Based on the current bankruptcy filing rate, medical bankruptcies will total 866,000 and involve 2.346 million Americans this year – about one person every 15 seconds.
Most medically bankrupt families were middle class before they suffered financial setbacks. 60.3% of them had attended college and 66.4% had owned a home; 20% of families included a military veteran or active-duty soldier.
78% of the individuals whose illness led to bankruptcy had health insurance at the onset of the bankrupting illness; 60% had private insurance.
69% of debtor families had coverage at the time of their bankruptcy filing; 60% of families had continuous coverage

I also apologize, again,for apparently, introducing MarthaA to the word “sophist”...

Think of universal health care as a “keystone” for the health of a republic. If a “society” cannot care for its citizens at their most vulnerable, it is not a society at all.

Health care, food, shelter are all human rights. If you consider yourself religious, you cannot believe otherwise,. If you consider yourself a social human being, you cannot think otherwise.

Its not complicated.

Kesey Seven, July 2 at 4:23 pm #

I stand corrected, but remember,

“southern man dont need him around, anyhow”

OK,OK I like the guys music too…He is the next door neighbor of my youngest son’s fiancee in fact, seems a good sort , though I see him infrequently. The future father in law says he’s cool and a great father too.. Has a daughter in a wheel chair, sad.

Mr. Conosan,

I really enjoyed reading your perspective on spending. We are in a perpetual cycle now of expenditures and budgets that deal in trillions instead of billions. A billion used to mean a lot more years ago than it does nowadays. People need to just get over the math, not be afraid of it. I just want them to figure out how to make a dollar still worth something while they do thier number crunching.

The pity of such “senators in denial” is that they don’t see themselves as the bottom-feeders they are. Their number one priority is getting re-elected under a bankrupt ideology and a self-indulgent code. Their narcissistic selves take precedence over the common good.

Suddenly, a Trillion Dollars Is Too Expensive? 
Posted on Jul 1, 2009 By Joe Conason

Hey Joe Conason:

You asked:
” Why can we always afford those trillion-dollar boondoggles, but never decent health care for all Americans?”

You answered:
“The senators who now claim that we cannot afford to spend a trillion dollars to make long overdue changes in health care know exactly what that amount can buy. They know because they have spent it, year after year, on military misadventures and subsidies to big banks and corporations, without stinting or whining.”

The real answer is that the government has been privatized.
Democracy died on December 23,1913 when Woodrow Wilson sign the FEDERAL RESERVE ACT & created the INCOME TAX to pay for the perpetual debt the FASCISTS knew the FED would create.

Let’s stop cursing the darkness. The MILITARY INDUSTRIAL COMPLEX & the MIPIC : MEDICAL INSURANCE PHARMACEUTICAL INDUSTRIAL COMPLEX have thousands of lobbyists to pay the whores to legislate & spend on their behalf, while we the people have no representation, just rhetoric.

@ Bobbaroo

What do you meen by Jews and Negro, but only Arians, to be an Arian is not an illness, and Jews and Negro are also human.

The medicenmen or sjhaman is old as the world, it are this people who choose with the purpose of nursing and helping people in their needs, to day its an multimillion business, not to help people in their needs and difficult moments, no to prey on them, well I think every men or woman has the right of a decent treatment in their times of illness.

ardee,

Thanks for replying to my post.

I must beg to differ with you on one critical point:  Neil Young has written many phenomenal songs, not as you say “pretty decent songs.” 

Write on.

Kesey

I’m sorry Ardee, you’re right & my bad…

More coffee?

hippie4ever, July 2 at 12:12 pm #

Ardee wrote about Reagan: “Anyone can have an opinion and be right, like you don’t want warheads on earth. I agree with that, but that is a decision that he made to do that and I disagree with that. On the other hand there are other things that he did that I agreed with.”
...............................
Errr hippie, that was not I who typed those words, it was Neil…..
My opinion of Reagan is even lower than my opinion of Martha.

“We the people of the United States, in order to form a more perfect union, establish justice, insure domestic tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general welfare, and secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.”

The above quote is the Preamble to the Constitution, for those of you that don’t understand it - The Constitution spells out the powers given to the federal government from the states!  The part about promoting the general welfare, that’s the part that I believe covers UNIVERSAL HEALTH CARE!  For those that can afford the continuous upward spiral of health-care, congratulations, and may they never disappoint you when you need them most!  For those that both have health-care and have sense enough to understand that Universal health-care, just might force your provider to lower your costs, and provide better services - you go to the head of the line! 

How can we afford it - cut a few billion from both appropriated Defense spending on armaments, along with other governmental agencies that support “military” interests, that haven’t been proven to work, and on nuclear programs before we blow up the world!  The US spends more (& wastes more) than the top 10 developed nations!  Why and what has that brought us, other than a pack of neocons (who ducked military service) who are more than willing to send other peoples children into unnecessary Imperialist mis-Adventures!  ENOUGH, ENOUGH, ENOUGH!!!

What the Americans have build is an ontru society, some professions are build up as god send professions, well in fact all professions have to be learned, and why is an doctor any bether as an builder or an streetcleaner, their is difference in inteligentia o.k. but why must one men have to earn 100 times more as an other one.

O he is a docter, must be a good men, come on its all cinema, they are selling an product, healthyness, you want it well come an geth it, its not cheap, its one big clan of money makers, in combination with the big pharmaceutical industry, they make lots of money, and lots of onhappy people and sometimes bankrupt famelies, they could do with a little bid less money, maby that schould maby make them happyer, and make their work as a docter more ethical and thru to their Greec founder.

bobbaroo -  In order to understand the point of my comment you might refer to Conason’s sixth paragraph. 

Wars, justified or otherwise, are expensive.  Countries have fought wars for millenia and for millenia those wars have been financed by taxing citizens. My comment merely points out other places tax dollars spent on WWII could have gone.

Ardee wrote about Reagan: “Anyone can have an opinion and be right, like you don’t want warheads on earth. I agree with that, but that is a decision that he made to do that and I disagree with that. On the other hand there are other things that he did that I agreed with.”

Reagan took the U.S. into recession in order to outspend the USSR on the arms race; he “secretly” and illegally conducted warfare against civilians in El Salvador and Nicaragua; he traded arms for hostages; he presided over a ballooning homeless population while doing nothing to help them; he shut down public health research during the HIV epidemic which condemned millions to (preventable) death; he deregulated the financial system (the S&Ls;—remember them? They’re gone now) resulting in the collapse & bailout a la Charles Keating; he drastically expanded the “War on Drugs” to include war against the American people; he deregulated the food industry & as a result this nation’s food sources are unsafe; he went on jihad against unions, destroying air traffic control jobs & endangering the public safety; and finally he traded arms for hostages in the Middle East.

So Ardee, which of Reagan’s policies do you support? What good did he do for the average citizen? Why exactly do you like him?

Guns or butter? We can only afford one; we can’t have both, despite the way the Republicrats and the Demopublicans both think we can.

I’m for butter. Let’s end these stupid wars and come home and rebuild our country, and to Perdition with the world and its troubles. Let somebody else be the big imperialist and let them find out what fun it is to be hated worldwide!

Health care may need reform, but not in the way of funding from the federal government.  When will all of you liberal minded people quit trying to take other peoples money and hard work for yourselves?  Why can’t you work for yourself, pay for your own health care, and stay out of other peoples pockets?  Health care is a hard earned privilege, not a right.  If you want health care for your family, work for it.  Pay for it yourself.  Quit reaching into other peoples pockets for your edification.  Where is your pride?

To felicity,

The dollar cost of WWII was not the only cost, and those who fought in it for our country would laugh at you for your analogy!!  Do you know what would be taught in the schools you bought with the money?  Do you know what type of books would be in those $10,000,000 libraries?  For the love of God and society, I hope you didn’t learn your reasoning skills in this countries school system which wouldn’t exist for Jew or Negro or anyone else of “less” than Aryan descent.  LOL

“Western Civilizations” published in 1949 - the total cost of WWII, estimated at $1,384,900,000,000 would have been sufficient to pay for all of the following:

A $16,000 house for every family in the US, Britain, France, Belgium, Spain and Portugal.

A $10,000,000 library for every city of 200,000 inhabitants and over in the US, Great Britain, and Russia.

A $50,000,000 university for each of these cities.

A $2,000 car for every family in the US, Great Britain, France, the Low Countries, Denmark, and Norway.

The salaries of 100,000 teachers and an equal number of nurses at $3000 a year for 100 years.

A free college education (at an estimated cost of $6000) for every boy and girl in the US from 17 to 21 years of age.

Read the numbers, update them, and weep.

Martha,
You do realise that railing away at me is not a substitute for a session with a mental health professional, dont you?

I fear you are teetering over the edge and your stalking of me is mildly amusing but should be an embarrassment to you.

I doubt you see how your crap is rejected by most if not all of the participants of this forum, I find little if any response to your made up politics and fictional assertions.

Despite your fixations and attempts to simplify things to its lowest (uncommon in your case) denominator political arguments are rarely simple in nature. If one hasnt the ability to judge each separate case on its own merits as well as its relationship each to the other, then one will never make progress at all.

How you come to interpret my comment that Neil Young is a musician and not a political pundit, that his opinion is exactly that, his own and in no way suggests any overarching punditry, as “republican sophistry” is a question for your psychiatrist I think.

I do note that you have a habit of inventing catch phrases , such as “republican sophist, “70% common majority” , and the latest stupidity, “institutionalized by law” in reference to political parties. A symptom I suspect, of your failing mental health.

Thank you thank you thank you!  We need to go to war against our bad health!  Lets stop making weapons and start making a great healthcare system. 

We have become a “can’t do” society and this attitude needs to change or it will be a self-fulfilling prophecy!  For-profit healthcare has one interest - their profits not our health!

ardee the Fickle Repug Sophist:

You are claiming to be politically fickle.  Scatterbrained is fine for you, I am proud that you like being scatterbrained.  You are the only person I have ever heard of that claimed to take pride in being fickle, as if it is a good thing.  Most people avoid fickleness like the plague, but not ardee. Don’t you think you need a foundation?  How do you maintain constance in your sophistry?

ardee the Fickle Repug Sophist:

You are claiming to be politically fickle and proud to be scatterbrained.  You are the only person I have ever heard of that claimed to take pride in being fickle, as if it is a good thing.  Most people avoid fickleness like the plague, but not ardee. A political foundation isn’t necessary? Will of the wisp is ardee’s way.  Ardee, how do you maintain constance in your sophistry?

NEIL: Because that’s only an apparent thing. I don’t have a view, I have an opinion that changes because everyday is a different day. I’m not a liberal or a conservative. I’m not like that. With Reagan, some things he did were terrible, some things he did were great. Most people tend to take a president and say you hate…he does one thing you really don’t like. Like he builds excessive amounts of warheads or something. So you write him off completely. Which I think is completely stupid. And I think, is very narrow minded.

Anyone can have an opinion and be right, like you don’t want warheads on earth. I agree with that, but that is a decision that he made to do that and I disagree with that. On the other hand there are other things that he did that I agreed with. And because I had the ability to say what I feel, people only write part of it, because its news that I would agree with Reagan. So they say Neil Young supports Reagan, so fuck ‘em, I don’t care what they do.

Everyday is different. Sometimes I like George, sometimes I don’t like George Bush.
.............................

Sounds to me like a man for whom politics is not a consuming issue expressing an opinion that is probably shared by many. Neil Young is a good musician, writes some pretty decent songs and is a not, nor should he be, a political guru.

I do not know what Kesey Seven hoped to accomplish with this but I suspect it fell flat.

It’s interesting to read actual numbers and facts as opposed to how this debate will be framed on the television news “debates,” where it will be presented as good hard working people being shafted by listless poor people who want something for nothing. 

The television news media will present this story and people who pay vague attention will be deceived and convinced to vote against their own best interests.

Consider this: In the 1960s when he was fresh from Canada Neil Young wrote the following words in the song “Ohio” in response to the killings at Kent State:

Gotta get down to it
Soldiers are gunning us down
Should have been done long ago.
What if you knew her
And found her dead on the ground
How can you run when you know?

A couple decades later after Mr. Young had been subjected to years of disinformation, he wrote these words:

Hard to believe that love is free now
Welfare mothers make better lovers
Out on the street with the whole family now
Welfare mothers make better lovers
Hard to believe that love is free now
Welfare mothers make better lovers
Divorcee!

One would hope he was being somehow compassionate but given Mr. Young’s stated support for Ronald Reagan at the time (http://www.thrasherswheat.org/ptma/reagan.htm), it’s safe to say he was being callous.

Why the change of heart, from being part of the peace movement to being part of the hate movement?  Disinformation. 

In the 1980s statistics were put out saying welfare was the most expensive part of the federal budget. It was a lie. Defense has been and will continue to be the biggest part of the federal budget.  And of the so-called “entitlement” expenditures, much of that goes to veterans of wars. Not to begrudge the veterans, from sleeping on frozen ground, to killing people at close quarters, to being severely injured, to seeing buddies being blown to pieces, they’ve earned more than they receive or will receive. 

The point is war is expensive in many different ways, but the Reagan Administration with the help of right wing think tanks packaged and sold this “welfare mother” bullshit to the television news media, and the TV media, being objective in the sense that an ox in a yoke is objective, presented it as a relevant counterpoint in debates about budgeting priorities. Well meaning, intelligent people were suckered in.   

It worked in the 1980s because the people who were most likely to be deceived were those who were watching the news without doing any research of their own, meaning damn near everyone who relied on TV for their view of the world. 

Nothing has improved in the television news media since the 1980s. It has gotten worse. Companies have consolidated, fewer people own more television news outlets, pathological liars have more news stations to prevaricate from, and talk show hosts playing the role of reporters on TV have largely replaced broadcast journalists.

The difference this time, however, is the Internet.  People no longer have to go to a library to do research, and people can voice their opinions without some corporate owner censoring them.

Which is to say, despite lies that will be splattered against the television news cameras, some sort of decency, some sort of sanity will prevail, and we’ll get some sort of health care reform this time. It will only be a start. But it is a start. 

All that said, Mr. Young is a great song writer of our time. I encourage everyone to buy all his albums, CDs and compilations. All of us are deceived by the machine from time to time. What’s important is how we stand over time. And Neil is a giant, a great man, an awesome poet and musician.

“And maybe Marlon Brando
Will be there by the fire
We’ll sit and talk of Hollywood
And the good things there for hire”

Kesey Seven

Let’s face it we’re just not worth it to them…