Inherit The Wind, January 5 at 8:52 am

Not to belabour the point but I have had first hand experience with this person on another forum as well, commondreams I believe….there most did what should be done here I think and completely ignored him until he simply faded away.

ardee, January 1 at 1:44 pm #

I find it puzzling that you dialogue with one who so obviously cares not for such, only posts to inflame and distort. Like any typical teenager I think.
****************************************************

You are right, of course. It can’t be MANdinka but must be TEENdinka or DIAPERdinka. Either that or ALZHEIMERDinka.

Because his brain just doesn’t work right.

breakwind, how can 1 be so blind that you can not see. Maybe in the ‘olden days’ child brides were normal but 5 year olds??? PLEASEeeee. Muhammad was a child molester pure and simple. I’m assuming based on you logic that if stalin or mao after killing 10’s of millions said their god’s name was barak you would be OK with that and the religion that followed..
A sick pervert is just that and anyone who would follow his tenets is sick as well. Try taking a course in logic 1 day you’ll learn a lot about connecting the dots

Inherit The Wind, January 1 at 12:42 pm

I find it puzzling that you dialogue with one who so obviously cares not for such, only posts to inflame and distort. Like any typical teenager I think.

mandinka, December 31, 2009 at 5:08 pm #

break wind, ally isn’t a god just a creation of a child molester, just like barak isn’t the messiah either. If you want to believe both are gods have at it but they in no way rise to that stature of Jesus.
Guess in your world jeffery dalmer was a brain surgeon because of the operations he performed
**************************************************

How come you cannot spell “Allah”?  Nobody but a nitwit like you refers to Allah as “ally”.

Here you go again, despite having your assertions debunked that Mohammed “created” “ally” and was a child molester, stating as if they were fact.

You are a mindless ditto-head.  Mohammed didn’t create God, other men did.  He didn’t create Allah either—that’s simply the Arabic word for God, just like “God” is the English word for God, and “Deus” is the Latin word for God.  Mohammed talked about God, but did it in Arabic and used the Arabic word, “Allah” for God.

What is wrong with your mind that you cannot accept this simple fact?

break wind, ally isn’t a god just a creation of a child molester, just like barak isn’t the messiah either. If you want to believe both are gods have at it but they in no way rise to that stature of Jesus.
Guess in your world jeffery dalmer was a brain surgeon because of the operations he performed

Gee, whenever I think NOBODY could be dumber or live in a less real fantasy world than the conspiracy paranoids here at Truthdig, along comes Mandinka to prove me wrong, yet again.

This is the nit-wit who insists that “ally” (sic—he cannot spell “Allah”) is not the same God as the God of Christians and Jews, despite Islam being one of the three Abrahamic religions.  So…who’s the one who can’t deal with facts and truth?

Jeez-Louise—next to you ThongGirl, ElissaLouisa and Robert are all Einsteins and Stephen Hawkings—and THEY are all dumb as a sack of hammers, but less useful.

dear breaking wind, yes sir ree facts never confuse you or change your opinion. Its just easier to huff and puff and show the world how ill read and immature you are. Since you have no facts just your standard bloviating I rest my case
Digger I’m glad to see you don’t think much of Harvard, with barak as president the school now has a reputation as an average community college

TD3:
Mandinka is far too whacked-out for the big corps to ever rely on such a loon.  Like all right-wingers, he ignores the REAL causes of problems and looks for scapegoats.  The trial lawyers are the “Jews” of the medical industry.  Their tiny corner of that deals with litigating medical malpractice is given VAST responsibility for ALL the excessive costs of medical insurance because….it’s easy to understand and EVERYBODY hates lawyers.

It’s also factually wrong but hard-heads like Mandinka can be proved wrong 1000 times in a 1000 different ways and on the 1001 time he’ll just repost the same shit he posted 1000 times before, with NO recognition of facts or reality.  See, Mandinka is part of the right wing propaganda machine that follows the same Goebbels strategy—keep repeating the lie as many times as it takes to become “the Truth”.

That’s just the way he is.

mandinka wrote:
“truedigger spoken like a shill for the ABA.

Harvard’s study done last year stated a few basic facts that 25% of all medical tests and 15% of all admissions weren’t necessary but were done to prevent law suits,...”
____________________________________________________

Most of all these medical tests and hospital admissions were done not to avoid law suits but to generate more billing for doctors and hospitals.
Most of these “studies” are questionable and contains some projections in the future, however I am living in a TORT “reform” state, that “reform” did not produce any results except to increase the insurance companies profits and deny due justice to injured patients.
Since you mentioned it, I am not a shill for anyone, but who are you shilling for?? I bet you are shilling for the insurance companies or the Heritage foundation.!!

truedigger spoken like a shill for the ABA.

Harvard’s study done last year stated a few basic facts that 25% of all medical tests and 15% of all admissions weren’t necessary but were done to prevent lawsuits, premiums for medical malpractice insurance starts at $100K a year and goes upward to $500K. The comparable premiums in every other country range from $5K to $15K. Who do you think pays for those costs?
The issue is defensive medicine because of ambulance chasers John Edwards was the poster boy for the ambulance chasing attorneys. This country has 5% of the worlds population and 48% of the attorneys.
TORT reform according to Harvard would save $350 BILLION to $500 Billion a year. More than enough to offer the liberal mantra of universal coverage

Re: By mandinka, December 29 at 2:29 pm #

mandinka,

Frivilous law suits have a very neglibible, if any, effect on insurance rates.
It is just the insurance companies with its accomplices in the media publisized the few of them with excessive settlements, but most of malpractice suites don’t reach trial, and most of them lose if they ever reach trial.
The reasons for rising insurance premiums are:
1) Hospitals, Doctors and pharamceutical companies unbounded greed.
2) Insurance companies unbounded greed.
3) Fraud.
Already some states, including my state of Texas, enacted TORT “reforms”, and these “reforms”, didn’t result in lower insurance rates or lower health care costs. The only thing these “reforms” resulted in, was to limit access to courts by people looking for justice.

Re Max Shields: “There is something to say about what appears to be ‘American immaturity”, but that’s just voodoo psychbabble when used as a means of explaining US citizen attitudes. It’s really a copout on intellectual honesty.”

So in your opinion, Max, why is the U.S. the only developed nation in the world that does not have universal healthcare?  It must have something to do with the American attitude? It can’t be money when we spend so much of it in so many other places, including foreign countries.

And what is voodooish and/or intellectually dishonest about Reinhardt’s statement that America “has an immature, asocial mentality” when it comes to universal healthcare for its citizens.  Seems like a rather straightforward statement to me - much more so than your reference to the “frontier.”

I love the comments vilifying insurance companies, pharmaceuticals and doctors and then drawing a comparison with Britain, canada and other EU countries. Notice of course no scorn is leveled against trial lawyers. They are of course the Eal scourge of the healthcare system.
The countries that all here seem to think have a better medical coverage forget to mention that trial lawyers are scorned and have no place in those countries coupled with loser pays. Fix Tort and I will gladly listen to your proposal for the other

Hi ardee,

Thank you for replying. 

Yes, I agree with all you said. 

The fact that you are working at the local, state and federal levels demonstrates you’ve given this issue a lot of time and effort.

If you ever need another writer, a videographer, a video editor or someone who understands the details of streaming video from the Web, give me a shout.  doctor.reston(at)hotmaildotcom I got “skeels” and a good camera  

Good luck in all your endeavors.

There is something to say about what appears to be ‘American immaturity”, but that’s just voodoo psychbabble when used as a means of explaining US citizen attitudes. It’s really a copout on intellectual honesty.

The difference between the US and most of the so-called developed nations is partly history and nation-state configuration. It is always a bit of a shame to compare the US to EU nation-states. They are relatively tiny and homogeneous compared to the massive expanse of an extremely diverse group of people with a frontier (and shamefully genocide-based) history.

Some of our issue it would seem is geography,it’s how we’ve arrange our living environment. And much of this was done because the US for a brief period (fleetingly fast) was on top of the world. So, the mind-set is why mess with “success”? We are still living with that legacy, even though it is failed and failing. But many are coming around, even without official leadership to see the collapse, even if they wish to deny it. It is real, it touches their daily lives.

I would say the answer will come, other through human intention to transform, or through tragic and utter collapse with nature taking the reins. It will be painful. But those who survive will adjust and adapt.

Health care is merely a sypmtom

D.R.Zing

At any rate, not a biggie.  We both want a third-party candidate to win the next presidential election.

I am a supporter of third party politics for certain. I have no expectations of such a victory nor do I believe that expecting or even working for such a Presidential victory would be the best thing for this nation. Not yet at least. While I work for third party candidates at several levels, local, state and federal I want to see such a presence in the Houses before seeing an isolated and beleaguered third party or independent in the Oval Office. Incremental steps are best I believe.

I do think it’s important, though, to remember that minds can be changed.  For example, consider the case of Dr. Daniel Ellsberg who sometimes writes for Truth Dig and who in the 1960s released the Pentagon Papers, a damning document that showed our government knew the Vietnam War was a fiasco.

Yes indeed “never doubt that a small group of thoughtful ,committed citizens can change the world. Indeed, it is the only thing that ever has.”. If I did not concur with Ms. Mead’s assessment I would see no reason to even be in politics.

I see our system as usurped, as do many of us I am certain. I see the solution as an incremental, even painfully slow process.

Re:By wildflower, December 29 at 4:49 am #

I thought you were defending forcing the citizens to buy insurance which I am totally against.
I am for a single payer system with strict price controls over doctors, hospitals and pharmaceutical companies and with effective anti-fraud apparatus, other wise the country will spend all its budget on health care.!!
Or better, I prefer universal health care (British Style), where the government owns and runs the whole health care system, but I know, this will never happen in the United States.!!

RE truedigger3: “That is not true. . . “

Believe you’ve misunderstood Reinhardt’s use of the term mandate as well as his key point, truthdigger.  The U.S. is the only developed country in the world that does not have universal health insurance, and Reinhardt is simply pointing out attitudinal differences between the U.S. and other countries in regard to
this issue. In his view, the nations that have universal health systems (which took national mandates to do so) have a sense of social solidarity, but the U.S. does not have this.  He attributes this to American’s immature, asocial mentality.  Personally, I think he is right about this.

Reinhardt’s observation about “social solidarity” is discussed a more in “Uwe Reinhardt: “The U.S. is Not a Democracy; it’s an Aristocracy” by Maggie Mahar:

“. . . We are, after all, accustomed to living in a sharply tiered society. American families play and work in separate pods, defined, to a large degree, by how much we earn. We send our children to different schools, shop in different stores, live in separate towns, and vacation in different places, segregated by what we can afford. And this, Reinhardt has suggested, is why we are the only developed nation in the world that does not have universal health insurance. We lack “social solidarity.”

In other countries, the majority of the citizens are middle-class, and they identify with each other. When it comes to healthcare, the French are willing to pay for high quality, universal coverage because they feel that nothing is too good for another Frenchman. But in the U.S., we do not feel that way about
each other.

As Reinhardt reminded his audience at the conference last week, in our economy the lines separating us are stark. Consider how the nation’s wealth is distributed:

The richest 1 percent own 34 percent of total wealth
The richest 20 percent own 85 percent of aggregate wealth
The remaining 80 percent own just 15 percent of the nation’s wealth

“This isn’t a middle-class country,” Reinhardt observed after presenting these numbers. “It’s not even a democracy; it’s an aristocracy.”

Wealth and power have become consolidated in the hands of a few because, over the past 29 years, income has been distributed so unevenly, allowing the wealthy to speculate on real estate and high-flying stocks.. Since the early 1980s those who could afford to play this high stakes game have bid prices
ever higher, and as a consequence, their net worth has soared.
 
Despite the stock market crash of 2000, the real estate bubble kept the wealthy afloat: indeed from 1995 to 2004, the wealthiest 25 percent of the nation saw their net worth (assets minus debt) double while the middle class made meager gains.”

http://takingnote.tcf.org/2009/02/uwe-reinhardt-the-us-is-not-a-democracy-its-an-aristocracy.html

Hi ardee,

Always happy to have a civil discussion.  I’m a bit perplexed that you wrote about me,  “you seeming to support the continuation of the two party system through alliances of left and right…” 

When I had written previously in this same set of comments:  “Even if it’s not a viable solution, exploring alliances to get a third-party candidate in the White House couldn’t hurt.”

At any rate, not a biggie.  We both want a third-party candidate to win the next presidential election.

I do think it’s important, though, to remember that minds can be changed.  For example, consider the case of Dr. Daniel Ellsberg who sometimes writes for Truth Dig and who in the 1960s released the Pentagon Papers, a damning document that showed our government knew the Vietnam War was a fiasco.

Dr. Ellsberg started out as a Cold Warrior, working for the Rand Corporation and later for Robert McNamera.  He also spent a lot of time in Vietnam, on the ground, in war zones as an advisor.  He was a hawk. He desperately wanted
to win the Vietnam War and he was a firm believer in it right up to the point when he began fighting to end it. 

What changed his mind? Facts. He saw what a cluster-cuss Vietnam was, saw the gore, saw the senseless brutality, and he helped write and he then read all of The Pentagon Papers, which as you probably know is a voluminous report composed by military theorists and analysts of that era.

The story goes that he then became horribly depressed because he realized everything he believed in was wrong. 

He released the Pentagon Papers to a couple of newspapers, almost went to prison, and as recently as this year was publishing works about the dangers of the existing nuclear arsenals.

Point:  Don’t let the media jade you too much. Keep in mind the average television journalist/talk-show host is a fuckwit who has an adolescent’s understanding of philosophical debate, who believes no on ever changes his or her mind, who believes objectivity is presenting two liars and never pointing out that they are both liars,  thereby confusing all listeners and making them cynical.  The television journalist/talk-show host can then say:  See I presented the objective opinion of two liars from both parties and it did not change any of my viewers’ minds. People never change their minds.

People do change their minds. Truth changes people’s minds.

I know a pothead, small business owner (a business not related to pot) libertarian who voted for Obama last election. Why?  He lives in an area with only one source of fresh water and he knew neither the Libertarians nor the Republicans would protect it. His family, his business, his home would be destroyed without water.  The facts changed his mind.

I know an atheist, pro-choice woman who voted Republican for the last twenty years. She voted for Obama last election after deluding herself for decades that she was voting Republican because she supported the fiscally responsible party. 

Now that people realize Obama isn’t going to change substantively our foreign policy or our energy policy or our drug policy or our health care policy or our regulations of financial markets or ... damn near anything else, this is the best time for a third party candidate.

And it is the best time to pick up pot-smoking, dittoheaded, small business owning libertarians, atheist pro-choice Republicans, and young delusional Democratic students who didn’t realize few Harvard law professors are instigators of a United Sates public policy sea change (Harvard law professors are in fact overwhelmingly the ones who got us here).

Here’s to enjoying the discussion and working through any misunderstandings

wildflower wrote:
“First, these countries all mandate the individual to be insured for a basic package of health care benefits.”
___________________________________________________

That is not true, neither in Canada nor in England, where both countries have universal health care systems and is paid for by more taxation than other countries
It is true, or partially true in Japan, Switzerland, France and Germany.
But in all these countries, the whole health care system is tightly regulated and watched with eagle eyes by honest regulators, and there are no revolving doors like what exist in USA , or campaign contributions to buy laws!!.
Again, in all these countries, people pay more taxes for social and health care safety net.
In the United States, the health care industrial complex is very powerful and is running amock.
In the new bill there is no controls whatsoever on inusurance premiums or drug prices or the fees for doctors,  hospitals and labs.
Yes, everyone could buy insurance, but it is a weak insurance with all the deductibles and co-payments and if anyone has an existing condition or beyond certain age he might be charged up to five times the regular premiums.
That new health care bill is a piece of crap.

D.R. Zing, December 27 at 7:02 pm

A real pleasure to converse with someone like you. While we differ as to the solutions to our problems, you seeming to support the continuation of the two party system through alliances of left and right ( libertarianism is viewed by me as a white, right wing attempt to keep what they have). I believe we need at least one more party with a presence in our government. The repartee, however, has been a refreshing change.

I look forward to further discourse between us.

More Christmas party happy talk from Eugene Robinson.  Champagne self delusion with a smile.

Nice post which enrichs the database of my mind and urges the curiousity to know more about it.Looking forward to learn more..

RE Max Shield: “Eleanor his brilliant wife helped draft the Universal Declaration of Human Rights as part of the UN charter. The US signed the Charter. So what? These are glorious words that have not propelled any thing. . . We are not solving anything by pushing 2nd or 3rd bills of rights. . . So, what is it we really
want? And tell me how do you propose we get it?”

Whoa, Max, let’s address one thing a time. For starters, Eleanor’s (& President Roosevelt’s) glorious words did help to propel some remarkable changes in other countries, most notably, the right to health - which many of us desire. The U.S. fumbled, however, because our leadership failed to ratify (and continues to fail to ratify) the social and economic sections, including Article 25’s right to health. 

As to why we fumbled, I suspect it is/was related to something that Uwe Renhardt referenced in an NYT healthcare systems article (Germany’s) some months ago - America has an immature, asocial mentality that is rare in the rest of the world. 

If we want change, I believe we need to grow-up, become more involved in our government and elect leaders that promote the general welfare of our citizens, which means fighting for the issues identified in Roosevelt’s second bill of rights.

I also think we need to be more open to learning from other countries. Take the issue of healthcare, for example, Renhardt points out that in Europe, as in Canada, “Who should perform these functions is powerfully driven by the distributive social ethic that nations wish to impose upon their health systems.

In Europe, as in Canada, that social ethic is based on the principle of social solidarity. It means that health care should be financed by individuals on the basis of their ability to pay, but should be available to all who need it on roughly equal terms. The regulations imposed on health care in these countries
are rooted in this overarching principle.

First, these countries all mandate the individual to be insured for a basic package of health care benefits.

Many Americans oppose such a mandate, as an infringement of their personal rights, all the while believing that they have a perfect right to highly expensive, critically needed health care, even when they cannot pay for it. This immature, asocial mentality is rare in the rest of the world. An insurance sector that must insure all comers at premiums that are not contingent on the insured’s health status — a feature President Obama has promised — cannot function for long if people can go without insurance when they are healthy, but are entitled to premiums unrelated to their health status when they fall ill. . .

Second, these nations try to tailor the individual’s contribution to the financing of health care closely to the individual’s ability to pay — almost perfectly so in Germany, albeit less perfectly in the other two countries.”

http://economix.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/04/17/health-reform-without-a-public-plan-the-german-model/

wildflower the rights you describe are part of the constitution

wildflower regarding Mayo (Mao) or Lenin, of course you are right, absolutely right, perfectly right. But who cares?

The point isn’t Mao or Lenin - that’s a frivilous argument a child could win.

No, the main issue is the second Bill of Rights. If Roosevelt drafted such a document (certainly it reads well with perhaps could intention - benefit of the doubt and all) but so what? He drafted over 60 years ago. Eleanor his brillient wife helped draft the Universal Declaration of Human Rights as part of the UN charter. The US signed the Charter. So what?

These are glorious words that have not propelled any thing. The US regularly violates International Law. So what? The US has blocked UN resolutions against Israel a regular violator of nearly ever act of crimes against humanity and war crimes. So what?

We are not solving anything by pushing 2nd or 3rd bills of rights. They aren’t worth the paper they’re written on.

So, what is it we really want? And tell me how do you propose we get it?

Re Mandinka:“second bill of right appears to have been taken from Lenin or even
Mayo. . .”

Since neither Stalin nor Mayo advocated a Bill of Rights that included the right of free speech, free press, free worship, trial by jury, freedom from unreasonable searches and seizures, I believe your comparison is faulty. 

With Roosevelt’s proposal, the second bill of rights only enhances and/or ensures the original bill of Bill of Rights, which already includes the right of free speech, free press, free worship, trial by jury, freedom from unreasonable searches and
seizures.

Hi ardee,

I guess I screwed up if I sounded dismissive.  I just have a good friend who is a libertarian, and I have a lot more in common with him politics-wise than I do any Republicans. 

Sure, we have disagreements, particularly about the government regulation of the environment and health care. 

But both of us agree the Republicans led us into a ditch and Obama is driving in it.  We desperately need to change our foreign policy and the energy policy that drives it. 

If progressives and libertarians could change those two things by joining together, we could bicker over the other stuff later—and we would be in a lot better position to deal with the other stuff.

As it stands now we are an incredibly divided country, with groups having been pitted against each other for centuries.  Looking for big issues where we agree and joining together to free ourselves from the Republican, Democrat, corporate, big oil stranglehold would be a good thing.

Even if it’s not a viable solution, exploring alliances to get a third-party candidate in the White House couldn’t hurt.  We have been divided and conquered long enough. 

All the best.

It seems to me that the debate “libertarianism pro or con” is totally irrelevant. Whether our coming governments are small or large matters little because the next eco-financial crash will inevitably come. The only difference may be that the crash will come earlier with one of these two options in place and I have not the foggiest which that is.

Yes, Roosevelt hit on some issues, but again the question is is this really an answer?

From a practical perspective, no. The USA is arranged in such a way that it is not sustainable. I think Obama is the final nail in the coffin of looking at the policical system for the changed needed. What is needed is profound change; and that change is outside the capacity of the existing institutions and systems in place.

How will this occur? By laying an alternative foundation. But that won’t be sufficient. The USA will collapse in some way we may least suspect at this moment in time. The when and how can be speculated, but time will tell.

second bill of right appears to have been taken from Lenin or even Mayo, guess that explains Roosevelt’s desire to make everyone wards of the state as he extended the great depression and cost hundreds of 1000’s of GI’s their lives by his war policies.

RE Robinson: “Christmas Cheer, At Last . . . House and Senate did step up”

Now, if those same House and Senate members would show they intend to fight for something like Roosevelt’s Second Bill of Rights, it would be a fine beginning for a happy new year:

SECOND BILL OF RIGHTS:

“. . . This Republic had its beginning, and grew to its present strength, under the protection of certain inalienable political rights—among them the right of free speech, free press, free worship, trial by jury, freedom from unreasonable searches and seizures. They were our rights to life and liberty.

As our Nation has grown in size and stature, however—as our industrial economy expanded—these political rights proved inadequate to assure us equality in the pursuit of happiness.

We have come to a clear realization of the fact that true individual freedom cannot exist without economic security and independence. “Necessitous men are not free men.” People who are hungry and out of a job are the stuff of which dictatorships are made.

In our day these economic truths have become accepted as self-evident. We have accepted, so to speak, a second Bill of Rights under which a new basis of security and prosperity can be established for all regardless of station, race, or creed.  Among these are:

The right to a useful and remunerative job . . . ;

The right to earn enough to provide adequate food and clothing;

The right of every farmer to raise and sell his products at a return which will give him and his family a decent living;

The right of every businessman, large and small, to trade in an atmosphere of freedom from unfair competition and domination by monopolies at home or abroad;

The right of every family to a decent home;

The right to adequate medical care and the opportunity to achieve and enjoy good health;

The right to adequate protection from the economic fears of old age, sickness,accident, and unemployment;

The right to a good education.

All of these rights spell security. . . America’s own rightful place in the world depends in large part upon how fully these and similar rights have been carried into practice for our citizens. For unless there is security here at home there cannot be lasting peace in the world.”

[Second Bill of Rights, President Franklin D Roosevelt, 1944 State of the Union]
Addresshttp://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/index.php?pid=16518

Paolo,

I think you represent the issues regarding the problems with the Federal gov’t very well indeed.

Still Libertarians lean toward uber-individualism is part of what got us where we are - not all mind you - but it is the American frontier “spirit” which is represented by this strain of political thinking and world-framing. I don’t know that there is such a rich example of this kind of individualism elsewhere in the world. It is pure Americana. And perhaps that’s what’s in question with the US empire.

Still I think we are talking around one other alternative, the one I mentioned below. And interestingly it is both indigenous and can be found globally. I think that speaks to a universiality missing with Libertarians. Libertarians seem not to have grasped the imagination, in part, because the vision is all about “moi”. Community is happenstance, not intentional. Caring which I do think is wired into the human species, is suppressed when it’s all about “moi” first and the good deeds of the “Moron church”. (I would add that the Moron Church in this instance is an example, not of libertarianism, but of community - true one built around a religion, but community nonetheless.)

No, libertarians will not “rule the world” as an ideology, in part, perhaps, because they have no desire to, but mostly because theirs is not a solution to the grave matters confronting us. Instead they’ve identified, extremely well, some of the most salient problems, but have provided no real solution.

KDelphi, December 26 at 6:23 pm #

On the other hand, ITW—yes I do think Robinson would make a better waiter(or about anythng else) than a “journalist”, because he certainly is not the latter…
*******************************************************

Thanks, KD—that gave me a good laugh!  (I don’t agree, but, as Joseph Bologna said in “My Favorite Year”, “You don’t mess with FUNNY!”—and that is funny!)

Still, if Mandimwit and Montanawildman agree on something, it MUST be wrong!

Actually, as a Libertarian, I am very supportive of Dennis Kucinich, especially regarding his principled opposition to the Patriot Act and the insane wars in Iraq, Afghanistan, and (coming soon) Pakistan, Iran, and Syria.

I disagree with his socialism, but his opposition to wars and usurpations of freedom set him apart from the rest of the Dems and Reps.

Regarding ANY social program or welfare program, my approach is this: people of good will can and should get together VOLUNTARILY (not at the point of the government’s gun) and create such programs. People, in a free society, can and do create such charitable institutions.

Observe also that, in private systems of charity, the goal is to do as much good as possible, with the resources you have. The goal is NOT to create a permanent underclass of welfare recipients. Rather, the goal is to get people OFF OF WELFARE as quickly as possible.

An interesting example of this is the welfare system run by the Mormon Church (no, I am not a Mormon, but I admire their welfare system). A Mormon who loses his job can approach his church and ask for help. He or she will be given free food and other assistance for a time. Meanwhile, the church leaders approach Mormon-owned businesses and ask the owners to find some way to give the person a job. Usually, that person is working again in just a few days.

In a free society, people are quite capable of helping those in need, and they do a far better job of it than the government. Philosophically speaking, the difference is the use of force; an institution that wields force, even if it claims to be doing so in order to do good, must eventually end up doing evil. You cannot use evil means to create good results.

I think there is another consideration besides our more traditional sense of progressives (a term with strange historical connections with the likes of Woodrow Wilson and T. Roosevelt and the vague similarities with liberalism which is also a very contorted label = too frequently adjoined with liberal-hawk).

What I’ll refer to as a Green Decentralized worldview. And the terms such as local (or localism), systems or holistic thinking, and with a strong tendency to align with a view informed by biological understandings are its inclination. This view says the federal government should be very limited; that the US is far to big, that human-scale is the right size, local is the biological norm that we should align our living arrangements to, biomicry is how we should produce, that economics should be sustainable and as such should include a whole aspect of quality of living that GNP/GDP obsessive indicators has destroyed.

Local, dense urban living, open farmland, reduced sprawl, and fair trade are all part of the living arrangement and economics - a living economy where community and relationships is as much a part of what the economy is as “productivity”. Bio-regions are the larger geographical relationship.

There’s more, of course. Whether this is a new progressive view or not, it is certainly very different from large nation-states, top-down organizing principles: like the USA with its massive military, and with it trillions of dollars of spending and debt. And, as one example, it would arrange, if it can muster the ground swell, health care very differently than this mess that has been created here; not so much as a single payer monoculture out of Washington DC, but at local level, free clinics, community care and mostly preventative care.

I think this is a world view that many can share and it wouldn’t be a liberatarian or progressive world, but a human one.

Just some considerations…

Mr. Robinson has produced another jewel of false grinning.
Consider the following facts: The decade from 1989 to 1999 produced 21.7 million new jobs. The decade from 1999 to 2009 produced 464,000 new jobs. The inescapable conclusion is that war does not create jobs. It kills jobs and the job killing will continue unabated as long as we conducting the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Most experts predict that unemployment will remain high, possibly near 8 percent for much of the coming decade. Where is a national plan for caring for the millions of permanently unemployed/underemployed Americans? The Obama administration has produced only stopgap measures and utterly useless White House conferences.
Potentially the worst forecast is that personal incomes will remain constant or even decline. One does not have to be a rocket scientist to understand that given even modest annual inflation of a few percent will inevitably result in another recession if not real depression down this perilous road.
Who will underwrite the rising national debt and its interests in an increasingly loan-starved world?  Print more paper money? That is a prescription for even swifter disaster. Borrowing from China? How long will that be possible and what will be China’s conditions? Borrowing from US banks which are themselves still teetering at the precipice of insolvency and continue to get billion-dollar injections from the Fed (Fanny Mae and her consort!)? Mr. Robinson, like Germany in the 1920’s we are a debtor nation.
Mr. Robinson, wipe that dumb smile off your face because this is a time to cry, to cry out that the Federal Government has an obligation to promote not only the health but the welfare and happiness of all citizens. Mr. Robinson, cry, cry for the millions of our citizens who are today facing the bleakest of futures owing to the criminal misdeeds of a passel of amoral bankers, some of whom our President seems to trust. Mr. Robinson, wipe that dumb smile off your face and cry, cry for the hundreds of thousands of additional people who will be living in the streets by 2020 because praying will no longer help, if it ever has. God is not blessing America.

I concur with the assessment of truedigger3 regarding the harmful nature of Libertarian politics and wonder at D.R.Zing’s rather dismissive position lumping progressives and libertarians together. Further , while Kucinich and Paul have certain , and relatively minor, similar political stances, overall they are night and day as are the true positions and differences of the two movements.

Progressives, with the position that govt has an obligation to help the neediest among us, the constitutional obligation to curb excesses in the business community are diametrically opposite of libertarian philosophy which, in my own opinion, boils down to a bunch of white folks holding on to what they’ve got and fearful of it being taken away to help persons of color and other minorities.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Political_positions_of_Dennis_Kucinich

“Today, the United States is celebrated for having rejoined the community of nations by rejecting torture, respecting the Geneva Conventions and embracing international institutions.”

I think Eugene Robinson is dreaming.

Libertarians and Progressives.

It is interesting that people who supported Ron Paul and Dennis Kucinich seem to have some common political goals.

Both groups want government out of their personal lives and both groups want to end the permanent state of war that seems to screw up more things than it fixes.

It would be interesting to see if the two groups could span their differences and join together for a single candidate in 2012, because what’s obvious is the Republicans don’t want the the libertarians and Democrats don’t want the progressives.

Yet neither libertarians nor progressives can muster enough votes and money when they support opposing candidates. 

Where is that candidate named Paul Kucinich?

Hmm.

It seems that “libertarianism” has, like most ideologies, elements worth consideration. Those who purport to be among the faithful have much in common with the “anti-war movement” (where are you???) and stated arguments against 21st century (US) imperial empire.

Such confluence would lead one to think, if not try, as KDelphi has indicated, that a coalition - perhaps a third party or certainly a productive movement could emerge. However Libertarians are not particularly interested in such solidarity among those with important common cause (Antiwar.com not withstanding).

So when one reads that Obamacare is some kind of socialistic health care program on par with the UK’s (this from the mouth of Nat Hentoff - a self-proclaimed libertarian) one must wonder how in the world he defines “socialism” or what he really thinks the UK health care system is to even hint that Obama’s health care “program” has any resemblence to the UK’s or socialism.

It is all part of the corruption of the economic lexicon. Socialism has taken on a hundred different fallacious definitions. England’s health care system is not managed by private insurance companies the way Obamacare (as it unfolds) appears to. Anything to make a point - even when it is a distortion of reality, of facts, of the truth. No matter. Say it and act like it’s true - ideology first, last and always. Such is the blind faith of ideologues of any stripe - and no less so than libertarians.

Ahhh if only libertarians ruled the country!!! A return to the constitution to provide for the national defense and a Post Office and an end to 80% of the rest of the fed bloat and waste.
One can only hope and wish for a new era

With all due respect, all those who are calling for libertarianism are ignorant of history and the human nature, and here are some of my objections to libertarianism:

1) Freedom from regulations, means that corporations will run amock exploiting the workers , polluting the environment, exploiting the country nataional resource without any restraints and dumping shoddy products on the citizens who cann’t depend on the government to address any misdeeds from the corporations.
2)With no antitrust laws, the corporations will start devouring each other and the country will end up with few extremely powerful mega corporations that control the government,  the media, the courts and the security apparatus.
Once these corporations gain control of the government, there will be laws, regulations and measures that are enacted for the corporate interests and completely neglecting the common people!!
Is that ring a bell?

3) There will be no Social Security, no medicare, no unemployment payments , no universal health care and no help whatsoever to the citizens who are down on their luck and in bad need of help aka widows, orphans, the disabled and the sick , victims of natioanal disasters etc etc.
4) With the goal of the libertarians is to have a small government as small as possible, which is only responsible for foreign policy and defense , everything will be run by corporations like national parks, prisons, highways and bridges, fire departments, water systems and education etc etc
What an ugly society that will be, where dog eats dog without any restraint, and we are edging gradually toward that society if the current trend continues.
How such society will undertake national projects like our highway system or sending a man to the moon??!!

Gawd, Eugene..are some people really interested in these assholes?

melpol—why in hell should food and beverage services be provided more by blacks than amu opther race?  What a strange idea..$18,000, probably without benefits?? Are you crazy?

On the other hand, ITW—yes I do think Robinson would make a better waiter(or about anythng else) than a “journalist”, because he certainly is not the latter…

TAO got this one right, for sure:
“Meantime, if people are no longer “staring into the abyss,” as our self-esteemed essayist here claims, that is most probably because they’ve gone en masse over the same “precipice” Barack Obama said recently the U.S. Senate was poised on prior to its “healthcare reform” sleight-of-hand, and are all accelerating toward the black-hole at its “bottom.”  This is hardly the “rosy scenario” necessary to ginning-up the CONfidence on which the entire privateering pyramid-scheme (and Mr. Robinson’s own somewhat “privileged” place in it) depends.”

I also agree with Max Shields..with Libertarians, it seems to be all or nothing, so the two parties in power (one party) will remain so…

I have tried talking to Libertarians about the need to unite to form a Third Party, but they seem to be set on a course of remaining on the fringe…not all of them..but maybe it is because laissez fare is so simple..maybe if you say it often enough, it would actually work—-for the people at the top.

Libertarianism doesnt seem to believe that the whole of the population deserves any better than what they can take by force of braun or brain…

Paolo while I think your definitions are accurate, I’m less enamored with what I read and hear regarding libertarianism.

I think some forms of socialism can exist without state intervention. And I do think that a free market is something that exist and in such a way that it creates a healthy human economy.

Neither of these exist today. State Communism or State/Corporate Capitalism are simply two sides of the same coin. Their existence is diminished when the other is missing.

I don’t think Obamacare is “socialism”. Yes there is some intervention by the State, but corporate capitalism is the beneficiary. Again, there is no free market at work here.

No, Obama and his economic advisors are what is called neo-classical economists. This is an utter corruption of economics that rose out of the 18th and early to mid 19 centuries. Orwellianims seeped in and the terms were utterly and completely corrupted.

However, again, I don’t think libertariarism is the answer based on many of those who call themselves such. Most would agree that our imperial war-making is horrific and so there is definitely agreement there.

The “isms” truly get in the way of what we need to do before it’s too late.

A frequent technique in criticizing the free market and libertarianism is to point to any problem with the economy, and simply say, “there, you see? The free market has failed.”

It is not the free market that has failed, but government intervention in the free market. This can take one of two forms: Fascism or Socialism. The end result is the same.

Let us define terms. Fascism is a system in which the government forms “Partnerships” with favored firms and businesses, eliminating their competition in exchange for doing the government’s bidding.

The Federal Reserve is a typical example. The member banks are not examples of “free enterprise,” but of a centrally controlled cartel, given exclusive power to create money out of thin air. It is absurd to call this institution the Free Market, or Capitalism. It is fascism.

Actually, almost the entire US economy is now cartelized. From agriculture to medicine to law, cartels cozy up to the government to exclude competition in their fields. They then get to write the “regulations” that are really intended more to prevent nasty upstart companies from invading their turf. “Consumer protection” is the thin veneer of justification for these regulations. Observe that it is almost always the businesses themselves—not consumers—who demand new regulations.

The Federal Reserve, you will note, is at the forefront of spearheading new regulations. No surprise here.

It is important to identify the differences between economic fascism and free markets.

Of course the stock market will be showing growth. The American tax payers, i.e. Main Street, bailed out the big corporations. Its just corpoorate welfare. What a rip off. The Obamacons are it again.

Mr Robinson has no mind for economics. He thinks when Wall Street starts fabricating “wealth” that the economy is doing “better”.

What economy? The one that is creating on a daily basis more and more unemployment, poor, and hungry? The one that’s seeing Main Street shops closing in the droves (and that’s where most of the jobs are created - don’t ya know?

GDP/GNP whatever has never been an indicator of a healthy economy for ordinary people here and the world over.

But this guy, Gene Robinson still thinks we can rock like it’s 1999.

Truthdigs continuing to promote the writing of journalists who’s only purpose is to promote the lies of the Obama administration is at best disappointing. As many of the commentators to this piece have already implied it would be refreshing to have “insightful” articles based on facts and not exclusively on fiction.  Clearly, Mr. Robinson is looking for a job within the Obama administration.

If one is to gain any insight and wisdom from these posts it is gleaned from the comments TO these propaganda pieces and not from the works themselves. 
I for one, have an ever increasing appreciation for the thoughts and expressions of the average man (woman) who are living the reality of this Corporatist hell, we fictitiously call democracy.

If we are to come away with any positive spin from Robinson’s post it is that such pieces motivate people to become even more active and vocal against the Corporatrocracy.  Such articles in their attempt to deceive only hasten the collapse of this already failed state.  Only from the ashes of this Unregulated Capitalism disaster can an honest reconstruction of government for the people, by the people, begin.

Paolo, Not to let reality intrude into the world of libertarianism but… The
“government’s ability to create money out of thin air’ could hardly be the
problem since the creation of money in America was usurped in 1913 by
private banks (the Federal Reserve). Money is created by your beloved private
sector. “I know of no case in human history where a government has been
granted this inconceivable power, and not abused it.” Doubtless, since it seems
you have little or no knowledge of history period. Government issued
“greenbacks” financed the Civil War without the interest payments to greedy
bankers that all other wars engendered. Like to see an historical case of what
government issued money can do? Look at the island of Guernsey, broke in
1816 (because of the [privately owned] Bank of England) they issued their own
currency, have ever since, and are extremely prosperous, unemployment
rate:zero. Massachusetts colony started issuing its own currency in 1690. It
was so successful the other colonies did likewise and became so prosperous
that the Bank of England persuaded the Crown to abolish it and replace it with
B of E issued private money. Ben Franklin said the main cause of the Revolution
was England’s refusal to let us issue our own (public, government-issued)
money. To assert that “insane wars would not be possible” without government
issued money betrays incredible ignorance about the money system since we
have those wars and we simply don’t have (your prerequisite) gov’t money.
Read more, talk less!

“His escalation of the war in Afghanistan, I fear, has the potential to cast a pall over Christmas 2010.”

http://michaelfury.wordpress.com/2008/10/30/the-ones-who-attacked-us/

“Today, the United States is celebrated for having rejoined the community of nations by rejecting torture, respecting the Geneva Conventions and embracing international institutions.”

http://michaelfury.wordpress.com/2008/12/10/forgive-and-forgetforget/

“Obama’s withdrawal of combat forces from Iraq should be a comfort”

Comfy yet?

http://michaelfury.wordpress.com/2009/11/19/suffer-the-little-children/

Paolo, December 25 at 5:14 pm #

A libertarian view—

Obama and Congress have done exactly the OPPOSITE of what needs to be done to fix our economy. Ben Bernanke and the Fed have been willing accomplices, as always.

*******************

Welcome back Paolo.

I would ask if you would enumerate on your own vision for the best path to remedy this economic fiasco in which we are bemired.

It seems to me that the typical libertarian solution, no regulation of industry, no welfare for corporation or individual, may be seen as worsening the situation. In fact, under Bush, did we not see the result of such deregulation and isn’t that what has led us to these particular chickens coming home to roost?

Just wondering….

Merry White Said Gray

It’s mistletoe and jingle toes
and the season’s fortunes glow.

The big bang hooker
left some residual static in my brain
like…. ‘oh shit’ it’s here again.

While a grinch upped on the science
with perception so seasonally confused
and data banks of data that just didn’t jive
Why: ‘for goodness sakes alive.’

I was hoping for the big ‘ah ha’
all I got was mush, mush,  blah

I thought I dug the dogma,
and heeded all the texts,
but just got bogged down in
mistletoe and jingle toes
for the season surely glows

but,..
residual static in my brain just kept saying
‘oh shit’ it’s here again,
so I told it on the mountain
I blogged it on some tweets

The grinch upped up the science,

the season lay silent still

and merry White just said: ‘gray’

Eugene Robinson, this is one of your absolutely worst columns and I’m sure that even you agree that it is very weak as arguments go that we should be happy we aren’t in a depression.

Just like there are worst things than death, there are worst things than a depression. Ten percent unemployment on average; 15-30% unemployment among black workers. Not to mention how many are working underemployed, part time, and underpaid.  Sure, I have a job but I’m making less money everyday, frozen wages (because of the recession)cutting the value of my paycheck by at least 30%. Single people who fit the average demographic are struggling, having no one to share expenses. Banks and credit card companies and insurance corporations are outright stealing from their customers, and this is sanctioned by the government who has forced taxpayers to bail them out and subsidize billion dollar bonuses for doing such a great job screwing us individually and the national economy generally.

We are the illegal immigrants, now. Bah! Humbug.

@Mary Ann McNeely,

I agree with your comment about voting third party.  There are so many issues where progressives are ignored and their votes taken for granted.

The drug war.
Regulating the financial system.
Health care.
Funding public education at adequate levels.
Electric cars.
Cleaning up the water supply.
Cleaning up the air.
Working seriously to mitigate the ongoing damage of global climate change.
Building sustainable cities. 

The big one, however, is ending the war economy, the military congressional industrial complex. We cannot fix anything until we stop dedicating our material, political and intellectual resources to destruction. 

The next question is who, who can lead such a party. Ross Perot?  Ahem, let’s hope for someone sane. 

Ralph Nader, certainly capable but perhaps better suited for a cabinet level wonk position than the actual presidency.

Kucinich?  I liked his idea for a Department of Peace and I agree with every foreign policy statement I’ve heard him utter.  But he certainly lacks something in the media-savvy area.  Listen how he replied to the UFO question and listen how Obama replied. There lies the tale. 

But we do need someone, perhaps a governor that would normally run as a darkhorse Democrat.  Perhaps someone in the entertainment industry (pull a Ronald Reagan on them), a Michael Moore, a Sean Penn, even a Howard Dean (ah, what a defection from the Democratic Party that would be), someone the media would cover even if they were not leading the money collecting horse race that usually dictates who receives the most media coverage early in campaigns.

Not sure, but it is time.  Nearly fifty percent of the electorate does not vote and it’s fair to assume many of them lean progressive but stay out of the voting booth because they refuse to choose the lesser evil. 

Getting a chunk of them, a chunk of the Democrats, a chunk of the Independents, perhaps even a slice of the Republicans—all could lead to a dominate political party. 

Of course there are many institutional barriers, the two party system, the media, the money—all of that would have to be overcome. 

But it can be done. Finding the right candidate, one who already has a national presence or an organized political machine would be a good start.

As for me, compared with unstable McCain and the insane egomaniac that is Palin, I’m grateful Obama and Biden are in the White House. 

But I would much rather have folks in there who represent my interests and do not simply offer the consolation of not being completely insane.   

Here’s to hoping and working for a third party that works.

Let’s call it the Peace Party in honor of the protesters in the 1960s who are the rightful founders of the modern progressive movement.

Eugene Robinson’s glowing report from “Virtual World-o’-Hurt 2.2” seems to’ve left most readers commenting on it here (who are apparently still feeling trapped helplessly in the -0.00 version) singularly unimpressed, to say the least.  This Old Savage detects, in-fact, more than a little outright resentment….perhaps quite justified.

It’s likely to be a less-than-cheerful note in Mr. Robinson’s otherwise evidently unexpectedly happy holidays, though, that the old tried-and-true “If everybody will just clap their hands and BELIEVE….” shtick seems to’ve lost some if its appeal among “....your huddled masses,” here in these latter days.  That is, after all, his and his fella ‘n’ gal “journalist”-claque’s only actual stock-in-trade, so far as their employers and sponsors are concerned.  If theallamericanherd of homo domesticus stops buying-it, their owner/overseers will not waste any more “shareholder equity” on talking-heads nobody is listening-to anymore.

Meantime, if people are no longer “staring into the abyss,” as our self-esteemed essayist here claims, that is most probably because they’ve gone en masse over the same “precipice” Barack Obama said recently the U.S. Senate was poised on prior to its “healthcare reform” sleight-of-hand, and are all accelerating toward the black-hole at its “bottom.”  This is hardly the “rosy scenario” necessary to ginning-up the CONfidence on which the entire privateering pyramid-scheme (and Mr. Robinson’s own somewhat “privileged” place in it) depends.   

So let only whoever among his critics here are willing to bite The(invisible?)Hand that feeds theirownself cast the first aspersions.

Hokahey!

A libertarian view—

The worst is yet to come, folks.

Obama and Congress have done exactly the OPPOSITE of what needs to be done to fix our economy. Ben Bernanke and the Fed have been willing accomplices, as always.

Perhaps the biggest problem we have is the government’s ability to create money out of thin air, at will, any time it wishes. I know of no case in human history where a government has been granted this inconceivable power, and not abused it.

Dishonest, fiat money makes all the government’s other usurpations of power possible. Without the ability to rob the people by printing more dishonest money, the insane wars in Iraq and Afghanistan would not be possible, for example.

A depression or recession is not the problem; it is the SOLUTION to the problem of excess credit and monetary inflation. This is analogous to someone drinking too much; the headaches, vomiting, and sweating are the body’s way of SOLVING the problem of alcohol poisoning. You don’t solve the alcoholic’s problem by giving him more alcohol. Sure, it feels good for a short time, but then the withdrawal symptoms start all over again, only much worse than before.

Obama and Bernanke have increased the money supply by 77 percent this past year. That’s the equivalent of a good strong cup of whiskey for our drunkard economy. It feels good for a short time, but things will only get worse.

Over the last year things have not got better but worse. Small businesses have been squeezed, with no help from the Fed, people cannot access the equity in their homes, credit card rates, late penalties are draconian, the programs like ARC to help small businesses have been stimied by banks. I think the whole financial system is a predominantly criminal enterprise run by Jewish bankers with a Bernie Madoff mentality, and Obama is their bag man.
That’s reality ER

“Going somewhere and doing something” is scarcely enough for the richest, most powerful nation at present.  Going where, one might ask.  Doiog what?

For starters, going to the Middle East looking for reactionary regimes to force into ... what?  (goals unclear here, folks.Probably a mixed focus, partly on oil, partly on “regime changes” or “modernization”, partly to squelch Islamic fanaticism, partly to avoid having to rein in our military-industrial complex for the sake of a more balanced economy?)

Doing something?  Mainly continuing military encounters.  Secondarily, trying (rather feebly) to change America’s image abroad from dominator to Big Brother who knows what is best for the rest and would prefer to hog the glory of successful change rather try to understand oppositional cultures, rather than work through, strengthen, and share success, if any, with the United Nations, or with China or Russia or the European Union? (I fear it’s still about American/Western domination, basically. When the national attitude toward China moves toward the positive, I’ll feel a lot better on this point.)

And third?of Trying to control nuclear proliferaton—the cat we let out of the bag years ago which is now a raging beast, and which we should be the first to renounce—utterly and completely—before it is too late, instead of continuing to toy with the idea of “deterrence.” 

Is reality changing our foreign policy yet?  Maybe just a little. Let’s hope that world-minded anti-war people keep up the good work and push the realistic possibilities of peacebuilding.

Here’s for a less belligerent 2010.

The kind of ugly and despicable rubbish represented by this article is the opening onslaught by the Obama-Clinton-Emanuel-DLC wing of the now defunct Democratic party to keep progressives in line and vote Democrat in 2010 and Obama in 2012.  The closer we get to those two elections, the more junk like this you’ll hear and read.  It will become a virtual sodden slag heap by summer of next year, collapsing and rolling downhill to bury any move by progressives to reject both Obama and the Democrats.  Progressives must tell hacks like Eugene Robinson to drink seawater.  Reject this poisoned bilge and vote third party or don’t vote at all.  Otherwise, it will be more of garbage in-garbage out, the current situation.

Melpol:
You are a racist.  If you are Black, then you are an idiot as well because every Black person I know knows better.  If you are not Black, you’re still not the brightest bulb in the chandelier, but in your racism you seem to think the Blacks make better food service emps than anyone else (but illegal immigrants—where do you clowns come up with this shit?)

Either way….So I guess you think the erudite, articulate and educated Mr. Robinson would make a better waiter than op-ed columnist?

articles like mr robinson’s does not mirror the reality that average americans see and experience everyday. consequently, they stop buying this crap and major newspapers are losing lots of money.

@melpol
maybe its where you live, but in my area “most” food and beverage service workers don’t earn 18k annually and many don’t work forty hrs per week. and increasingly, they are   performed by young and increasingly middle aged whites. when i see people   holding up “stranded” or “will work for food”  signs, the homeless camp sites and the large number of mentally ill wandering the streets, there is a mixture of “races”

in this current economic environment of layoffs, ,long term unemployment,foreclosures, homelessness,tent cities, lack health care, very few people, regardless of “race” can say “it won’t happen to me.”

“Last Christmas our troops were mired in two faraway wars, and this is still true today.”
>>>>>>>>>>

Oh…. they are wars?  Because last time I checked civilians were never targeted in “wars”... I also was under the assumption that “wars” had to be mandated by act of congress… oh yeah, there is also that thing about being LIED into this cluster**** by a non-elected, so-called President & Administration hell bent on removing american constitutional rights on nine.11 (another story in itself).

Just a small other detail… do the math… at last count (and that was last done a couple YEARS ago) if you compare Iraq deaths of men, women, an inordinate amount of children, and contractors + military, you get a total of near to a million and a half.  American “casual"ties are around 1,350 ~~ ~ In my reckoning that amounts to shooting fish in a barrel… and top that off with the use of white phosphorous and depleted uranium… last check -those were banned weapons of mass murder.

Shame on you… shame on war profiteers and greed and lust of power and control.  What could possibly be reward enough to you for you to sell out all life on this planet and mankind? 

Merry X

It does not benefit americans to be silent… unlike the the powers-that-deal-nothing-but-cruelty, we do not control our own media and are not allowed to but in and have our say.

Mr. Robinson - you seem to have become Obama’s PR man. Are you on salary or do you get paid by the piece?

There are over 7 million food and beverage service workers in the US.  Most
earn at least 18 thousand annually. The job requires only a friendly smile, the
ability to change a twenty dollar bill, and a few weeks of training. Many of these
jobs are filled by hard working illegal immigrants who support large families in
the US and in foreign countries. They deserve our sympathy, but those jobs
should be available only to American born Blacks. This new employment
opportunity would end most of the social and economic problems that have
plagued the black community for generations. Dependency on government
support will be ended with an annual savings of over one trillion dollars,
helping erase the national debt.
Unfortunately it would be difficult to implement this program. There are many
workers that earn a living off the misfortune of others. Think of all the
government agencies and contractors that support black poverty in the name
of entitlement programs and law enforcement. Most of their doors would be
shut. They would have to find a more productive way of earning a living.
A new class of 7 million black food and beverage workers would create a
powerful social force in the US. Politicians will beg for their votes. New laws
and opportunities will result in some of the workers obtaining ownership of the
companies that employed them. Many will further their education and become
doctors or lawyers. The ones that decide to remain as workers in the food and
beverage industry will be earning an honest wage deserving the respect and
admiration of all communities. No longer would the media have stories of 50%
unemployment and high crime rates among blacks. Their focus on national
tragedies would be turned elsewhere. A perfect society can never be created,
there will always be those that are needy. But for over a century the burden of
being our neediest Americans has been carried by blacks. It is time for a
change.

Wowwwweeee…. they’re clearly putting a better class of drugs in your drinking water.

Eugene Robinson wrote:
“Today, with unemployment at 10 percent, hardly anyone is thrilled with the state of the economy. But all the depression talk has ended, and the economy is growing again—slowly, yes, but perceptibly. There is widespread consensus that the worst is over”
_____________________________________________________

The worst is over!! Really!  The worst is not over, but more to come. Maybe there will be no depression,  but definitely there will be a lingering deep recession with joblessness and home foreclosures on the rise.
Depression or deep recession, terminology is in the eye of the beholder, but there will be wide spread suffering and malaise in the land for a long time to come regardless of what is happening and will happen in Wall St. which is now completely divorced from Main St.
This article proves that Robinson is nothing but a mouth-piece and ass kisser for the Washington establisment.
Honestly I am not logging into truthdig to read such cheap piece of cheer leading crap. My city newspaper gives me enough of that.

Apparently Mr. Robinson opened an early Christmas present of Northern California’s finest agricultural product. How else to explain this almost incoherent praise of the imaginary accomplishments of his can do no wrong hero, President Obama.

Am I the only person hoping to never, ever again hear of the actions of those execrable publicity seekers, the Salahi’s?

While this author seems happy with a “recovery” that excludes job creation I imagine those unemployed on this Xmas morning wish the administration had focused a bit more on their problems rather than on those of crooked millionaires seeking to continue huge bonuses with our tax dollars.

To say that the health care debate,a sop to continued profit rather than a real reform,or the catastrophic Copenhagen meetings signal a reason to rejoice rather than to despair of progress may indicate Mr. Robinson lives in a different reality than do we all.

Saying that this nation has ended a policy of torture is perhaps his greatest stretch, if not an outright lie. Someone please awaken Eugene from his dreaming of sugar plums and a rendition free policy that doesnt exist.

I would offer that this author needs a reality check in a very big way. This article is unabashed cheerleading in the face of policies and events that require harsh criticisms.