World Politics

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This is the World Politics thread.

 

[Race Radio]

Please, lets keep politics out of here. It will bring out people that make Arbiter/BPC/Wonderlance look normal.

 

[usedtobefast]

Ya like him? Ya don't?

better than what we had.

 

[Hugh Januss]

better than what we had.

That's faint praise.

 

[RDV4ROUBAIX]

better than what we had.

I'll second that, and add... lesser of the two evils.

Personally, I do not trust politicians.

 

[BroDeal]

Please, lets keep politics out of here. It will bring out people that make Arbiter/BPC/Wonderlance look normal.

That is a good thought. There is a reason why other sites that allow discussion of politics restrict it to a politics forum.

That said, my opinion of Obama has been going steadily down as he continues to fold on issue after issue. After Bush and his posse destroyed the world economy, Obama has his hands tied on a lot of things; but he still seems way too anxious to backtrack on campaign promises.

 

[usedtobefast]

That's faint praise.

it is. i'm looking for a real health care plan. he seems to be waffling some,
i hope we get a national policy. then i will be more enthusiastic.

 

[Hairy Wheels]

it is. i'm looking for a real health care plan. he seems to be waffling some,
i hope we get a national policy. then i will be more enthusiastic.

I can bring this back to cycling...I once met a US rider at a race in the southern states who paid 600 bucks a month for health insurance. He didn't race long I think...couldn't afford it and he was too scared to race without insurance. I think a family member had lost their shirt after getting sick or injured. As many members on this forum aren't from the US, you can appreciate my reaction...never worrying financially about getting sick or injured is priceless (I have government organized health care).

 

[usedtobefast]

I can bring this back to cycling...I once met a US rider at a race in the southern states who paid 600 bucks a month for health insurance. He didn't race long I think...couldn't afford it and he was too scared to race without insurance. I think a family member had lost their shirt after getting sick or injured. As many members on this forum aren't from the US, you can appreciate my reaction...never worrying financially about getting sick or injured is priceless (I have government organized health care).

you said it brother.i have elderly parents, and medicare works for them.
healthcare should be like your electric bill. not a backbreaking dip into
financial ruin for under/uninsured folks. it is just wrong.

 

[scribe]

I thought that was a great speach tonight. It is disappointing when politicians are forced to point out things like the cost of war compared to the cost of health care. But this is the world we live in these days.

The whole Kennedy piece was a real tear-jerker. Tell me you didn't well up a bit and I'll call you a liar!

 

[Bala Verde]

Re Health Care:

I think he [Obama] lost control of 'the' (ie a serious) debate, which I find rather unforgiving given his election promises. Not that I expect every or any politician to keep their promises, but this was quite high on the agenda and it has turned into a mud sling contest.

Now the debate has gone from turning the country into a communist sattelite state, making the NHS look like a system even a developing countries would not adopt, government sanctioned killing squads (perhaps Black water could help out), eugenics and nazism. Politicians have moved into 'celeb mode' and are merely looking for exposure, instead of seriously debating the issue at hand.

Less talking and more solutions I'd say.

 

[BroDeal]

you said it brother.i have elderly parents, and medicare works for them.
healthcare should be like your electric bill. not a backbreaking dip into
financial ruin for under/uninsured folks. it is just wrong.

Even for those who do not want to buy the moral issue for universal healthcare, there is a compelling economic issue. We spend a greater percentage of our GDP than any other country but our end results are sub par. Lack of a proper health care system makes us less competitive. It is especially a problem for small business and start ups.

 

[Cobber]

That is a good thought. There is a reason why other sites that allow discussion of politics restrict it to a politics forum.

That said, my opinion of Obama has been going steadily down as he continues to fold on issue after issue. After Bush and his posse destroyed the world economy, Obama has his hands tied on a lot of things; but he still seems way too anxious to backtrack on campaign promises.

+1.... I was really hopeful that Obama would be better than he has turned out to be so far. He was given a series of almost impossible tasks when he came into office. I never expected him to be able to fix everything, but I think he could have (and still can) accomplish a lot more if he plays a little bit more hardball with the GOP. They seem set on derailling everything that he proposes in a hope that it will get them votes next year.

And for the record... I am a huge proponent of healthcare reform. I have insurance, really good insurance (relatively speaking) through my employer. In 2004 my wife needed a liver transplant and, despite having insurance, the costs are really hard to manage. We still spend well over $12,000 out of pocket each year. Without insurance she would not be alive right now.

I realize that this is a "hot button" issue and I hope I don't offend anyone with my strong views. But healthcare is also extremely important, and this system in the US is broken right now. If you don't believe me, just ask someone who has a chronic illness and is not in an upper tax bracket. These people have to make huge financial sacrifices, and often because they got sick through no fault of their own.

 

[titan_90]

it is. i'm looking for a real health care plan. he seems to be waffling some,
i hope we get a national policy. then i will be more enthusiastic.

I agree totally we need universal coverage now not 20 years from now. But, he seems to be stepping back because all of the uneducated yokels are sucking up what all of the RNC mouth pieces are saying

 

[Anonymous]

you said it brother.i have elderly parents, and medicare works for them.
healthcare should be like your electric bill. not a backbreaking dip into
financial ruin for under/uninsured folks. it is just wrong.

We are entitled to health care, and cable TV and a motorhome and a house in the Hamptons and first class airfare a cell phone...no an iPhone, free internet, Calvin Klein Jeans, oh... I need my house painted and... geez, just go ahead and make my house payment for me and.. I have a tummy ache that is clearly somone else's fault... free education, college and graduate school.... eek!

There will come a time when those who pay for stuff get tired of paying for those who don't. My favorite quote from Margaret Thatcher, " the problem with socialism is eventually you run out of other people's money".

Be very careful what you wish for.

 

[Anonymous]

+1.... I was really hopeful that Obama would be better than he has turned out to be so far. He was given a series of almost impossible tasks when he came into office. I never expected him to be able to fix everything, but I think he could have (and still can) accomplish a lot more if he plays a little bit more hardball with the GOP. They seem set on derailling everything that he proposes in a hope that it will get them votes next year.

And for the record... I am a huge proponent of healthcare reform. I have insurance, really good insurance (relatively speaking) through my employer. In 2004 my wife needed a liver transplant and, despite having insurance, the costs are really hard to manage. We still spend well over $12,000 out of pocket each year. Without insurance she would not be alive right now. I realize that this is a "hot button" issue and I hope I don't offend anyone with my strong views. But healthcare is also extremely important, and this system in the US is broken right now. If you don't believe me, just ask someone who has a chronic illness and is not in an upper tax bracket. These people have to make huge financial sacrifices, and often because they got sick through no fault of their own.

$1,000 a month seems like a pretty good deal for a liver transplant, no? If your Federal Tax rate balloons from 28% to 58% of your gross income, will you be happy to have Universal coverage? How about the denial of a life saving procedure due to excessive cost? I'm ok with it as long as it's not someone I CARE ABOUT!

After all, the health industry is only 1/8 of the GDP of the USA. Lessee, the feds run Medical well, and then there is Social Security.... yep, the track record of gov't run health care is impressive indeed.

Oh well, at least it will be FREE.

 

[Galic Ho]

People should stick to cycling. Firstly Bush did not create the global financial crisis. The republicans could have addressed the main issue in the senate but didn't. The initial work began when Carter was President and solidified by Clinton. Look up Freddie Mac and Fanny Mae and their business dealings. Makes Enron look like a model of virtue and honesty. Obama did not and has not solved the global financial problems, though he claimed he had a few weeks back. How big of him. I know teenagers with better grasps of macroeconics than the US president. Look at the debt level. Four times higher than last year...good work Obama! Broke companies collapse...they aren't pumped up with billion of taxpayer funds. Secondly Obama is a great orator and can deliver a very moving public address. Thats about as far as his skills go. In a one on one debate with no prompts or pre-written speeches most people on this forum would trounce him. He's a con man, like our PM down under. Any fool saw this coming. Oh wait, not the US of A and the man who will save the world. Spare me. We've heard this before in cycling. Self annointed saints who can't back their promises up. They quickly falter, project, spin and distract when challenged. Obama said what he needed to get elected. You think Sarah Palin was stupid...she has nothing on Joe Biden. You don't get much lower in the intellectual stakes.

Health care. Michael Moore films aside (Sicko) most people know the US health care system is in shambles. Clinton could have fixed it, heck Hilary tried, but alas the payoff from the pharmaceutical giants was too appealing. Glad I'm not american or sick. As for Ted Kennedy being mentioned on this thread. Check out the dailmail.co.uk for a realistic idea of how he's viewed outside the US. As a coward, drunkard, womaniser and supporter of terrorism. Obama promised the world. He was never going to be able to deliver half of what he claimed was possible. Always a good precedent when the man who wants to be president can't provide a birth certificate and uses his law degree and connections to avoid having to prove he was born in the US. But hey at least he isn't a gun totting uber religious Alaskan. One thing rings true about politics, people deserve who they elect. They can always say no. Oh and in true democracy...everyone votes.

 

[Hugh Januss]

$1,000 a month seems like a pretty good deal for a liver transplant, no? If your Federal Tax rate balloons from 28% to 58% of your gross income, will you be happy to have Universal coverage? How about the denial of a life saving procedure due to excessive cost? I'm ok with it as long as it's not someone I CARE ABOUT!

After all, the health industry is only 1/8 of the GDP of the USA. Lessee, the feds run Medical well, and then there is Social Security.... yep, the track record of gov't run health care is impressive indeed.

Oh well, at least it will be FREE.

You have swallowed the health care industry's coolaid hook line and sinker. I do not think any sort of government run health care could be half as bad as the profit based system we have now.
Now if you are old and need an expensive procedure they just find a way to drop you altogether. We currently have the most expensive health care in the world but it doesn't rank in the top 10 when it comes to helping people. Our system is one of the worst when it comes to preventive medicine and when it comes to care mostly what it does is find ways to exclude people who have paid into the system for years.

 

[rhubroma]

The problem with the American body politic, and in body politics in general, is that when you have a democracy in which the financial interests of the mega-corporations dictate public policy the entire system has lost its democratic value.

From my perspective, living "across the pond as they" say, democrats and republicans are basically the same. In other words, the same madness of deregulation at Wall Street which has ruined the world's economy, was an economic philosophy shared by both parties since Reganism. Whereas the only ideology which has remained post-9-11 has been a rather fascist one, which has tended to polarize the world into two camps (either those "with" or "against" us) that has led to the ongoing disaster in the Middle East. And this was made possible by disseminating fear to a generally ignorant people about that which they know, in reality, nothing about: namely the real issues that the American superpower has caused or influenced around the globe, as well as the actual nature of foreign cultures which are seen as in oposition to its own. The democrats didn't do enough to change the fascist ideology, when drastic measures should have been taken six years or so ago. Obama, though, and to his credit, at least in the political rhetoric has tried to overcome American fascism.

In regards to health care, the powerful insurance corporations have with their unlimited financial sources been able to effect a propaganda TV campaign to demonize a socialized reform through disinforming a general American public that has been weened on the rather ludicrous propagandistic idea by the capitalist ruling class, that State medical care for all is anti-American. Perhaps so, but it is still ludicrous that the world's richest nation and the self-proclaimed care-holder of justice, the beacon of democracy, etc. would allow healthcare to be a rich man's priviledge and that the weak should just have to hope for mercy, and not an unailiable right from birth to death the way it is conceptionalized here in (more civilized in this sense) Europe.

Here there is a noticable difference in ideological position between republicans and democrats, but the later's inability to stuff the former's offensive, and the back-stepping on the part of Obama and many democrats on this issue, demostrates how feable even the notion of a more social-democratic state is in the US.

As for the rest Obama is at least an intelligent and presentable front man, but it's the behind the scenes that is such crapola that one man alone can't make the serious changes the nation needs to live up to its self-professed high moral standards.

But hey...its become even worse over here. I mean we've got Berlusconi But at least the Italian state limits its damages to itself and not the entire world.

 

[Hugh Januss]

The problem with the American body politic, and in body politics in general, is that when you have a democracy in which the financial interests of the mega-corporations dictate public policy the entire system has lost its democratic value.

From my perspective, living "across the pond as they" say, democrats and republicans are basically the same. In other words, the same madness of deregulation at Wall Street which has ruined the world's economy, was an economic philosophy shared by both parties since Reganism. Whereas the only ideology which has remained post-9-11 has been a rather fascist one, which has tended to polarize the world into two camps (either those "with" or "against" us) that has led to the ongoing disaster in the Middle East. And this was made possible by disseminating fear to a generally ignorant people about that which they know, in reality, nothing about: namely the real issues that the American superpower has caused or influenced around the globe, as well as the actual nature of foreign cultures which are seen as in oposition to its own. The democrats didn't do enough to change the fascist ideology, when drastic measures should have been taken six years or so ago. Obama, though, and to his credit, at least in the political rhetoric has tried to overcome American fascism.

In regards to health care, the powerful insurance corporations have with their unlimited financial sources been able to effect a propaganda TV campaign to demonize a socialized reform through disinforming a general American public that has been weened on the rather ludicrous propagandistic idea by the capitalist ruling class, that State medical care for all is anti-American. Perhaps so, but it is still ludicrous that the world's richest nation and the self-proclaimed care-holder of justice, the beacon of democracy, etc. would allow healthcare to be a rich man's priviledge and that the weak should just have to hope for mercy, and not an unailiable right from birth to death the way it is conceptionalized here in (more civilized in this sense) Europe.

Here there is a noticable difference in ideological position between republicans and democrats, but the later's inability to stuff the former's offensive, and the back-stepping on the part of Obama and many democrats on this issue, demostrates how feable even the notion of a more social-democratic state is in the US.

As for the rest Obama is at least an intelligent and presentable front man, but it's the behind the scenes that is such crapola that one man alone can't make the serious changes the nation needs to live up to its self-professed high moral standards.

But hey...its become even worse over here. I mean we've got Berlusconi But at least the Italian state limits its damages to itself and not the entire world.

Harsh, you frickin' furriner.........But pretty much true.

 

[rhubroma]

$1,000 a month seems like a pretty good deal for a liver transplant, no? If your Federal Tax rate balloons from 28% to 58% of your gross income, will you be happy to have Universal coverage? How about the denial of a life saving procedure due to excessive cost? I'm ok with it as long as it's not someone I CARE ABOUT!

After all, the health industry is only 1/8 of the GDP of the USA. Lessee, the feds run Medical well, and then there is Social Security.... yep, the track record of gov't run health care is impressive indeed.

Oh well, at least it will be FREE.

It isn't about being free, it is about being a more just society where those who have had the priviledge to earn more bucks contribute back to the nation by helping the less fortunate through their paid taxes not have to worry about healthcare if they get sick, in an accident etc. Based on just proportional taxes for all. I find it abhorant that the meg-rich are always the ones getting the big tax cuts, whereas circa 50 million American families can't afford something which should be their birth right. And I'm no moralist but the Enlightenment has given us human rights and democracy, within which a foundational human right and democratic principle should be that if you get sick the collective ensures the individual's right to get medical treatment. And that's what it's all about: namely the collective, in cases like this, prevailing over the individual (and his self-serving greed). Whereas in the brutally agonistic American capitalist culture, exactly the opposite (individuals over the collective) has prevailed, which destroys the Enlightenment and its democratic and human rights values.

And it's better than having all that money go into making bombs.

As to the State shutting the doors on the elderly: total corporate insurance and political propaganda. So please, and when the private insurance entities can (and do) refuse to insure a citizen if he has some disease which makes it anti-economic to do so. Please!

 

[rhubroma]

Harsh, you frickin' furriner.........But pretty much true.

Nope, I'm American as apple pie.

 

[Hugh Januss]

Nope, I'm American as apple pie.

Well you're talkin' like a furriner, pilgrim.

 

[rhubroma]

We are entitled to health care, and cable TV and a motorhome and a house in the Hamptons and first class airfare a cell phone...no an iPhone, free internet, Calvin Klein Jeans, oh... I need my house painted and... geez, just go ahead and make my house payment for me and.. I have a tummy ache that is clearly somone else's fault... free education, college and graduate school.... eek!

There will come a time when those who pay for stuff get tired of paying for those who don't. My favorite quote from Margaret Thatcher, " the problem with socialism is eventually you run out of other people's money".

Be very careful what you wish for.

No, we are not entitled to cable TV, a motor home, etc., but we should be entitled to healthcare. And Thatcher was a Nazi.

 

[rhubroma]

Well you're talkin' like a furriner, pilgrim.

Cause I'm not a redneck nor hillbilly...gave up me shotgun years ago. But I'm lying, really, because I never had one.