Hard News: Unreasonable people vote
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here we are in whatever this is.
+1
(The idea of stopping talking doesn't seem to have occured to Jeremy)
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(The idea of stopping talking doesn't seem to have occured to Jeremy)
Dude, clarification is important sometimes. I've seen you do it;)
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(The idea of stopping talking doesn't seem to have occured to Jeremy)
If that doesn't meet the definition of "silencing and patronising" (a tone Jeremy was accused of just one page ago) I don't know what does.
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Is it mansplaining if you do it to a man?
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Could I haz my thread back plz?
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Is it mansplaining if you do it to a man?
No, it's complaining.
Argh I cracked a joke!
geddit.:)
Ok, coat gettingoops, sorry Russell, returned.... in good order.
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Could I haz my thread back plz?
Certainly. Here you go.
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Hopefully -- but not likely -- with a sounder understanding of TARP than you have expressed above. Did you miss the part about how the TARP money comes back?
No. I was aware of that. And the money being repaid is not the point.
Loaning money to vast corporations owned by very rich people because those corporations are so big that they cannot ever be alowed to fail - politically that is a hard sell. It sets up those rich arseholes as set for eternity, they officially can only ever prosper.
And the point wasn't to "cause growth" -- it was to stave off a collapse of the banking system. There were some hideous policy failures in the years leading up to the crunch, but once it had happened, there weren't a whole lot of other options, for either Bush or Obama.
Well you say that and Bush said that and Obama says that, but theres these guys down the street who say differently. They say America didn't need to bail out the bankers.
And even if they are wrong, politically it sells.
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a tone Jeremy was accused of just one page ago
Actually, that's not quite what I said. I said he was using those tactics, but FWIW, I think quite unwittingly.
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One of my favourite bloggers ripping into Stewart's rally. Long quote, but do read the whole thing:
Stewart began his speech by saying that we live in bad times, not end times. This is dangerous bullshit. To pick only one example, there is an almost complete scientific consensus that global warming represents an existential threat to the existence of human life on earth. The Obama administration has done virtually nothing about it, because petty politicians in places like Kentucky don’t want him to do anything about it. And so he hasn’t. Certainly a news media that is beholden to energy companies is part of the problem — NBC is owned by General Electric, for example — but the more basic problem is this: if you accept that Global Warming is a big fucking deal, then you have to acknowledge that our system of dealing with that problem is broken. The image Stewart gives us of American citizens nicely deferring to their fellow man in order to get through the tunnel is dangerously wrong, on this issue at least. But you can make a similar point about all the other completely unacceptable elements of the status quo that our system has not so much failed to solve as it has refused to address or admit exist: health care, civil liberties, war, Wall Street, the “war on drugs,” etc. When Jon Stewart pretends the system isn’t broken — or presents us with a false choice between insane irrational panic and satisfied liberal quiescence — he hides this fact under comfortable illusions. The rational response to the state of the nation might not be panic, but the fact that so many people who are panicked are also reading the situation wrong doesn’t mean they’re wrong to panic, it just means they don’t understand why the system is fucked. Because the system actually is pretty fucked.
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Well you say that and Bush said that and Obama says that, but theres these guys down the street who say differently. They say America didn't need to bail out the bankers.
And even if they are wrong, politically it sells.
Well, we agree there. I still think you're reluctant to acknowledge quite how crazy some of the ideas animating the Tea Party phenomenon are.
(Note to self: Your annual quota of the word "animating" is almost used up.)
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Could I haz my thread back plz?
Sure. Is there any point in noting that my homegirl Olympia Snowe (with reservations) supported Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP) funds and the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act? She's actually got more fiscal conservative street cred than most of her party, because she voted again the Bush tax cuts in 2003 because the maths of cutting taxes while massively increasing federal spending didn't add up to her.
And even if they are wrong, politically it sells.
If? It's a simple matter of fact that the last time the GOP controlled both houses of Congress (under a Republican administration) they never saw a spending bill they couldn't cover in bacon, oversaw the greatest expansion in federal spending since the Johnson Administration and frankly have no economic policy that can be taken seriously while sober. I can't for the life of me understand why the Party of Palin isn't being confronted with its own record.
Still, good to know the epidemic of masturbating Muslim witches will be smote by the end of the week. Or something.
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Is there any point in noting that my homegirl Olympia Snowe (with reservations) supported Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP) funds and the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act? She's actually got more fiscal conservative street cred than most of her party, because she voted again the Bush tax cuts in 2003 because the maths of cutting taxes while massively increasing federal spending didn't add up to her.
All true, but I do think Olympia Snowe deserves significant criticism for the fact she eventually decided to toe the Republican Party line and fillibuster against the Senate Healthcare legislation- despite the fact she was part of the Group of Six which helped draft it. I could never understand the decision, even allowing for the fact she has received hundreds of thousands of $$$ in campaign contributions from the health care industry. That's a clear black mark against her name.
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I can't for the life of me understand why the Party of Palin isn't being confronted with its own record.
To misquote Lawrence Olivier, why don't you try cognitive dissonance, dear boy?
Paranoid rage is not merely a symptom, it's a strategy (ahem, if I weren't pseudonymous, I'd name it ........'s Law: "The symptom becomes the strategy"). Both at the level of grand political campaign strategy and personally.
Or, because that well-known river in Africa is a mighty flood, because some people who think that cynicism is the new machismo have become intoxicated by the short-term applications of the slogan, "perception is reality" and think that all of the chickens will come home to roost... another day, and on the heads of their opponents and because when that happens, it can be/has been spun as their fault, or at least, "they're not doing enough". Because, in case of emergency, they think that you must exaggerate your posturing... because if it works with the majority at the ballot box on the day, that makes it right. Because "I am good and bad people are wrong and I am not wrong because I am good." Because if you are inarticulate, slogans are as good as fists. Because, because, because.
One of my favourite bloggers ripping into Stewart's rally.
Good and right points all, and I agree, provisionally, but the (unstated) implication is that revolutionary change of the system is all that can suffice and I happen to think that revolutions tend very quickly to spin off in the wrong direction. Sowing wild winds while riding tigers and all that.
Still, there are revolutions that become apparent as such in retrospect - the Industrial, the Computing...
If a short-term plea for sanity becomes a propagating meme, I'll be happy-ish.
BTW, there's been a paraphrase lately of what was originally a satire of Fabianism, so for historical rectitude (without attribution):
What do we want?
Gradual change!
When do we want it?
In due course! -
All true, but I do think Olympia Snowe deserves significant criticism for the fact she eventually decided to toe the Republican Party line and fillibuster against the Senate Healthcare legislation- despite the fact she was part of the Group of Six which helped draft it.
Fair enough, but at least her idea of good faith negotiation isn't "issue a completely nonsensical set of demands by press release, refuse to even respond to invitations to attend meetings, then blame Obama for your own d-baggery".
Of course, there's plenty I don't agree with Snowe on (her long-held opposition to repealing DADT, and based on her record I don't think we could count on her support for a FTA with New Zealand) but at least she has form on grown-up behaviour.
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we've seen some local attempts to whip up populist anger about bailouts of financial instutions. From people who pretend to know better.
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Paranoid rage is not merely a symptom, it's a strategy (ahem, if I weren't pseudonymous, I'd name it ........'s Law: "The symptom becomes the strategy"). Both at the level of grand political campaign strategy and personally.
And thus was born Kracklite's Law
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Well, the mixture of false modesty and real vanity aside, it's a variation on (help me someone) "A fanatic is someone who, having forgotten his aims, redoubles his efforts."
Autopedantry in action:
while riding tigers
whilst riding tigers.
I like "whilst". And "whom". Nice words, much underused.
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The diversion of focus onto culture rather than economics has been core Republican/neocon strategy for decades hasn't it?
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I can't for the life of me understand why the Party of Palin isn't being confronted with its own record.
That would be nice, yes.
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Well, we agree there. I still think you're reluctant to acknowledge quite how crazy some of the ideas animating the Tea Party phenomenon are.
There is some insane and some pretty standard right wing stuff. Since they are not going to have the numbers to do everything, they'll almost certainly drop the crazy stuff. To what extent this happens remains to be seen, but it will happen. And Americans probably can work this out for themselves and in very reasonable manner will vote against the Democrats.
Sharon Angle is not going to have a chance of winning because Nevadan's like Sharon Angle's ideas. Nevada is suffering very poorly in the recession and Harry Reid has been in office claiming credit for every piece of economic good news to hit Nevada for 24 years.
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I'd name it ........'s Law
And thus was born Kracklite's Law
How about Ellipsis's Law
or Tab Leader's Axiom(help me someone)
Attributed to George Santayana
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I can't for the life of me understand why the Party of Palin isn't being confronted with its own record.
It was, in public, during the Republican primaries, by the Tea Partiers. Played a big part of why the Tea Party did so well in those primaries.
Also why the GOP is looking so good, they've aired there dirty laundry in public and mainstream Republicans are promising to not be so porky in future. (Personally I think they are selling pork pies, but Americans do like politicians who promise such things.)
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The diversion of focus onto culture rather than economics has been core Republican/neocon strategy for decades hasn't it?
In a way it's a modern-day form of hiring ½ the working class to kill the other ½. Can't sell Reaganomics to them? Then scare their pants off with sombreroed hordes, towel-headed hordes, welfare queen hordes, and Toyotas.
And further on the John Birch Society, it has counted among its ranks neo-Nazis, fraudulent speculators, and a survivalist who reputedly inspired our most infamous gun crazy.
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Debasement tapes... the band plays on
I do, however, have a very serious problem with the private sector operating or owning any capital military assets.
KBR, Halliburton and Raytheon being good examples - Raytheon now also does a lot of the logistical running of both McMurdo and Scott Base (thru Raytheon Polar Services, dunno why but that bothers me, too...
Herbert West your time is up...(Note to self: Your annual quota of the word "animating" is almost used up.)
People who used "animating" also used: quickening, rousing, stirring, energising, inspiriting, vivifying and firing - these words are all in stock and ready for immediate shipment.
Blows against the Empire...Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP)
You mean this isn't the old CIA program that provided undercover hand-relief to Saddam Hussein and the Shah of Iran?
There may not have been any Pork involved, but I dread to think how much taxpayer dosh they spent on those operations as well...
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