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redtreviso

May 23, 2010
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ChrisE said:
What is your point? You are so busy worrying about and getting ****ed off about what the republicans are doing or saying that you can't even look in the mirror at your own party.
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For God's sakes STAY HOME.. I don't give 2 s..ts...Your neighbors vote for you anyway.
 
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redtreviso

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ChrisE said:
It's pretty funny that you got banned one time for accusing somebody else of being drunk. :rolleyes:
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I didn't get banned for that.. I've been warned that questioning the obviously impaired is off limits.

bushdrunk.jpg
 
rhubroma

rhubroma

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ChrisE said:
This "revolution" talk is where you go off the tracks.

In a democracy, there is no need for a revolution. ...

The only thing that is requred is required for democracy to work is sanity, which is sorely lacking right about now. Remember the good thing about democracy is that you get what you deserve, and that is also the bad thing about democracy.

Besides that, the underclass is splintered as we have been saying. Different facets of the underclass think that different forces are causing their demise, which tends to make revolutions and little hard to manage, don't you think?

The revolution happened at the ballot box in 2008, and it would have been even more of a landslide across government if a minority with a muslim sounding name hadn't been running. The results of that revolution have been squandered away.
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Off track? In a democracy there's no need for a revolution?

This is rather bizarre coming from one such as yourself who has basically forfeited his right to vote, precisely because you view your vote as absolutely meaningless, as it undoubtedly is, in a system as fixed and corrupt as this. Thus democracy has already undergone a revolution: it's called being so politically controlled that it encourages boycotting the system altogether, which amounts to a democracy that's been de-democratized. This is exactly what the plutocracy wants and they're getting it, everything they want. Hence in offering no alternatives but to wait for a change that will never arrive, as long as they've still got the nation by the balls, to me seems pointless.

Democracy only came about because of revolution and there is no reason to believe that there will be no further need of one to keep it on track.

In fact the real problem is that the democracy has gotten so recklessly off track that not even the voting public has been able to fix it, because there's been a financial apparatus which has totally debased and corrupted it. We live in a so called egalitarian and people's democracy in which the only way to get elected is to literally have hundreds of millions of dollars to run a campaign, simply to have any hopes of ever being elected. Consequently I find your analysis to be fundamentally flawed and rather contradictory at its basis.

As I said before revolution can take on many forms, from the Bolsheviks, to Gandhi, to the Arab spring presently under way, as well as many others of the cultural and even technological types.

Whatever means with which the necessary US revolution comes about, and it is necessary, without some form of radical change I can not fathom anything but increased corruption and hence less democracy to its system.

Unfortunately globalization, which basically means the spread of market fundamentalism, has meant that this is also underway in Europe's democracies and for the same market liberalism causes, only the emerging generation in seeing its future severely compromised is beginning to get rather heated, as we have seen over the past year in London, Lisbon, Madrid, Paris, Rome and Athens.

While the opportunity being “squandered away,” as you put it, has nothing to do with a man's last name or anything else of so superficial incident: it is rather because nobody from the democratic party can transform merely rhetorical change into historical fact under the present business dominated US universe, which needs to be first broken and then removed. But this won't happen because of a fanatical conservatism on one side of the political spectrum and its so called antithesis on the left that in reality is pretty much at one with it, for which both answer to the same higher power. The republicans merely look more natural doing so, by contrast the democrats appear to have their natures, denatured: even if in reality this is much less the case than it would seem, which always plays into the right's favor.
 
ChrisE

ChrisE

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You still haven't addressed how the underclass, which has always fueled revolution, can get cohesive. The splintered underclass is the root of the problem.
 
VeloCity

VeloCity

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Alpe d'Huez said:
Do you really, truly, honestly think Obama is a good president?
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I think he's been a good president, when you actually look at what he's accomplished. As I've said previously, I wish he'd push back against the Republicans more (and laugh at the Tea Partiers instead of taking them seriously) - he should have just ignored them and let them hang themselves during the debt ceiling debate, for eg - and as it turns out, he's not as far to the left as I'd prefer him to be (eg just raise the issue of universal health care once and for all, don't beat around the bush and introduce half measures). But overall, and considering the resistance he's had to face from the Republican Tea Party know-nothing idiot morons who were more concerned about his birth certificate and embarrassing him during the debt ceiling than actually doing their ****ing jobs I'd say Obama's done pretty well. He's certainly gotten a lot more accomplished than most people give him credit for or are even aware of:

http://www.brookings.edu/papers/2010/1104_obama_galston.aspx
 
frenchfry

frenchfry

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ChrisE said:
This "revolution" talk is where you go off the tracks.

In a democracy, there is no need for a revolution. The only thing that is requred is required for democracy to work is sanity, which is sorely lacking right about now. Remember the good thing about democracy is that you get what you deserve, and that is also the bad thing about democracy.

Besides that, the underclass is splintered as we have been saying. Different facets of the underclass think that different forces are causing their demise, which tends to make revolutions and little hard to manage, don't you think?

The revolution happened at the ballot box in 2008, and it would have been even more of a landslide across government if a minority with a muslim sounding name hadn't been running. The results of that revolution have been squandered away.
Click to expand...
The problem, as I see it, is that while democracy is debating if we should increase taxes on the "rich" by a few dollars (or euros), the world is going into the toilet with its obsession of consumption, waste, entitlement, and human selfishness. Democracy isn't adressing the real issues because 99.99% of mankind doesn't have a clue about what is relevant, everybody is trying to figure out how to have more stuff.
 
rhubroma

rhubroma

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ChrisE said:
You still haven't addressed how the underclass, which has always fueled revolution, can get cohesive. The splintered underclass is the root of the problem.
Click to expand...

Because that wasn't my point, nor, even if it were, do I have an answer. And also because you never asked me.

Your last comment, however, is spot on in my book.

The problem to me seems to be one of education and lack of stimuli, since every cohesive mass movement has always been led by an intelligentsia: it was this way for the American revolution, the French revolution, the Italian Risorgimento, as well as with Marx and all the socialist ones of the late XIX century, which culminated with the Bolsheviks and Maoists in the next century. Even fascism, in its various forms, was a form of revolutionary movement, although not with an intelligentsia behind it, but ultimately sheer aggression and prepotency.

Now some of the revolutions begot more liberty if not real enlightenment (one thinks of, for example, the annihilation of native American culture due to the continental expansionism of the US democracy or the persistence of slavery), while others inspired reigns of terror as in Jacobin France (before democracy, after much difficulty - and Napoleon - was finally established), or else wound up in totalitarian regimes as in Russia and China which ended up being kinds of fascist marxism.

Now I will exclude a pure socialist revolution in America, though I will not entirely rule out even the possibility that US democracy under certain conditions could devolve into a new, if only more insidious, type of fascism, as the neocon ideology has recently demonstrated. Especially if certain religious fundamentalists take power, though for now, at least, I'm unable to say just how likely a scenario this is.

Ideally I'd like to see a revolution based upon more principled and enlightened democratic and social values of the kind Western Europe established at least in part following the Second World War, though times have changed dramatically since the period and hence even this might not be really possible. The thought of a fascist one thus may in the end be the more likely scenario.

But for the revolution I'd like to see happen to take place, the American public needs to be educated and acculturated in ways that the present system simply will not permit.

In this I'm reminded of that George Carlin piece Gregod, I believe, put up here recently. At times there is (so very much) truth in comedy. In the absence of better education and awareness, such a revolution is rather unlikely; which if this may not necessarily lead to fascism, may make any civil transformation not that probable. Especially when the vote means so little today, as you yourself have been made so convinced; which basically means there isn't likely to be one cohesive movement but many competing possibilities struggling to emerge.

We could, therefore, under current globalization, be issuing forth an age of chaos that will take much time to create a new stability through transition.
 
Semper Fidelis

Semper Fidelis

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rhubroma said:
Because that wasn't my point, nor, even if it were, do I have an answer. And also because you never asked me.

Your last comment, however, is spot on in my book.

The problem to me seems to be one of education and lack of stimuli, since every cohesive mass movement has always been led by an intelligentsia: it was this way for the American revolution, the French revolution, the Italian Risorgimento, as well as with Marx and all the socialist ones of the late XIX century, which culminated with the Bolsheviks and Maoists in the next century. Even fascism, in its various forms, was a form of revolutionary movement, although not with an intelligentsia behind it, but ultimately sheer aggression and prepotency.

Now some of the revolutions begot more liberty if not real enlightenment (one thinks of, for example, the annihilation of native American culture due to the continental expansionism of the US democracy or the persistence of slavery), while others inspired reigns of terror as in Jacobin France (before democracy, after much difficulty - and Napoleon - was finally established), or else wound up in totalitarian regimes as in Russia and China which ended up being kinds of fascist marxism.

Now I will exclude a pure socialist revolution in America, though I will not entirely rule out even the possibility that US democracy under certain conditions could devolve into a new, if only more insidious, type of fascism, as the neocon ideology has recently demonstrated. Especially if certain religious fundamentalists take power, though for now, at least, I'm unable to say just how likely a scenario this is.

Ideally I'd like to see a revolution based upon more principled and enlightened democratic and social values of the kind Western Europe established at least in part following the Second World War, though times have changed dramatically since the period and hence even this might not be really possible. The thought of a fascist one thus may in the end be the more likely scenario.

But for the revolution I'd like to see happen to take place, the American public needs to be educated and acculturated in ways that the present system simply will not permit.

In this I'm reminded of that George Carlin piece Gregod, I believe, put up here recently. At times there is (so very much) truth in comedy. In the absence of better education and awareness, such a revolution is rather unlikely; which if this may not necessarily lead to fascism, may make any civil transformation not that probable. Especially when the vote means so little today, as you yourself have been made so convinced; which basically means there isn't likely to be one cohesive movement but many competing possibilities struggling to emerge.

We could, therefore, under current globalization, be issuing forth an age of chaos that will take much time to create a new stability through transition.
Click to expand...
all of this to say what?

Hey next time you travel out of the country stay there and do not have an opinion on how we need to fix the trouble. :p

We do not need your manufactured revolution. :eek:
 
gregod

gregod

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VeloCity said:
I think he's been a good president, when you actually look at what he's accomplished. ...]
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exactly what has he accomplished? as far as i can tell his presidency has been a seamless continuation of the previous one.








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Bachman 2012 - c'mon, ya know ya wanna
 
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redtreviso

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""(CNN) -- Former President George W. Bush says he experienced no pleasure when he heard about the death of Osama bin Laden, the al Qaeda leader responsible for orchestrating the deadly terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001. ""

It was like losing a member of the family for him..
 
rhubroma

rhubroma

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Glenn_Wilson said:
all of this to say what?

Hey next time you travel out of the country stay there and do not have an opinion on how we need to fix the trouble. :p

We do not need your manufactured revolution. :eek:
Click to expand...

What manufacture revolution? The one in the sweat shops of south Asia?

I have stayed there and I've got loads of opinions and advice just to drive you guys insane with ire.

And the best part about it is that you will only get more and more of it. :p:D
 
gregod

gregod

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redtreviso said:
dealing with the cf (not carbon fibre)of little boots is a tall order

http://pleasecutthecrap.typepad.com/main/what-has-obama-done-since-january-20-2009.html
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what does "cf" mean then?

from link. italics are my comments.
TO THOSE WHO CONSIDER PRESIDENT OBAMA A DISAPPOINTMENT; YOU'RE JUST NOT PAYING ATTENTION!
yes, we are

Legislative Prowess

Despite the characterizations of some, Obama’s success rate in winning congressional votes on issues was an unprecedented 96.7% for his first year in office. Though he is often cited as superior to Obama, President Lyndon Johnson’s success rate in 1965 was only 93%. http://n.pr/i3d7cY

he has accomplished this by passing republican ideas.

Fiscal Responsibility

... (a lot of nothin')...

Improving the Economy, Preventing Depression

please. the economy is still sh!t unless you are rich. not making it worse is not the same as making it better.

Wall Street Reforms and Consumer Protection

there are reasons wall street is lavishing obama with donations: dodd-frank has been gutted in the rules process, CEO salaries are up, profits are up, very few and nobody at the top are going to jail, and on and on.

Civil Rights and Anti-Discrimination

maybe. "don't ask, don't tell"; still on the books. against gay marriage. still the US imprisons more people than any country in the world.

Fighting Poverty

poverty is still increasing while fewer people have access to assistance.

Improved Foreign Relations and American Status Abroad

all good will that came with his election is gone and polls show the US is more unpopular than ever in the middle east and africa.

Better Approach to “Defense”

he has maintained an almost seamless transition from the previous administration. he has increased rendition, domestic spying and even ordered assassinations that directly contravene US law.

Treating Soldiers and Veterans with Respect

more unpopular than bush with the military and veterans are still not getting adequate care. military suicides are at an all time high.

Education

chaos and privatization. widespread cheating to meet standards.

Greater Transparency and Better Government

he has classified more documents than any previous government. he has reclassified more documents already in the public domain than any other government. he has gone after more whistleblowers than any previous government. he continues to try to attack wikileaks, yet is strangely silent about the NY times. accepted a transparency award IN SECRET!

National Safety and Security

have you gone through an airport or government building lately? security kabuki is not security.

Science, Technology and Health Care

cut science funding, passed romneycare, which is heritage-foundationcare, which is just a big give away to insurance companies. how is this different from medicare part d? has proposed to republicans to cut medicare.

Strengthening the Middle Class and Families

seriously?

Environment and Energy

clean coal, tar sands pipeline, just relaxed EPA protections. ignored a scientific panel's recommendations on climate change mitigation.

Other Stuff

He loosened the rules and allowed the 14 states that legalized medical marijuana to regulate themselves without federal interference. http://huff.to/eQfa7j
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... while prosecuting medical marijuana sellers.
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redtreviso said:
""(CNN) -- Former President George W. Bush says he experienced no pleasure when he heard about the death of Osama bin Laden, the al Qaeda leader responsible for orchestrating the deadly terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001. ""

It was like losing a member of the family for him..
Click to expand...

so? was getting bin laden really that important in the overall scheme of things?


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Bachman 2012 - c'mon, ya know ya wanna
 
Cobblestones

Cobblestones

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Maybe let me add to gregods list that his approach to Middle East politics is also inherited from Bush. Not a single new idea, not a single new initiative for peace. When it comes to foreign policy, there is practically nothing congress can do to block him. Obama has no excuse there. This is his and only his failure.
 
gregod

gregod

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rhubroma said:
Which basically means in the system right, is right.
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no, it doesn't. it is this kind of left/right thinking that is destroying the US. hardly anything separates bush/obama, republicans/democrats, yet both sides act as if they are the sole arbiters of what is best and the other side is pure evil.

frankly, both sides are venal, corrupt and craven.
 
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patricknd

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gregod said:
no, it doesn't. it is this kind of left/right thinking that is destroying the US. hardly anything separates bush/obama, republicans/democrats, yet both sides act as if they are the sole arbiters of what is best and the other side is pure evil.

frankly, both sides are venal, corrupt and craven.
Click to expand...

here here gregod
 
rhubroma

rhubroma

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gregod said:
no, it doesn't. it is this kind of left/right thinking that is destroying the US. hardly anything separates bush/obama, republicans/democrats, yet both sides act as if they are the sole arbiters of what is best and the other side is pure evil.

frankly, both sides are venal, corrupt and craven.
Click to expand...

Well, I qualified system, so I naturally don't support your analysis.

The left/right thinking is thus invisible to me, because it's lopsided. Precisely because there's only one side.
 
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