Unemployment rate reaches five year high

[glockmail]

and? the two partys have a stranglehold on the political process. i could call them an oligopolly which behaves as a monopoly, but it means the same thing. they keep all competitors out, and you go right along with them

Wow that's a stretch. The two parties at in fierce competition, basically at each others throats, as evidenced in this very forum, and as I may add, designed into the system by the Founders.

 

[busara]

Wow that's a stretch. The two parties at in fierce competition, basically at each others throats, as evidenced in this very forum, and as I may add, designed into the system by the Founders.

really? the founders wanted there to be only 2 parties with no chance for others to break in? and no, it isnt a stretch. they compete, but work together to keep other parties out.

and the people in the forum dont represent the actual parties.

 

[glockmail]

really? the founders wanted there to be only 2 parties with no chance for others to break in? and no, it isnt a stretch. they compete, but work together to keep other parties out.

and the people in the forum dont represent the actual parties.

The Founders created a competitive system. Feel free to misinterpret that as you will.

 

[busara]

The Founders created a competitive system. Feel free to misinterpret that as you will.

and competitive means only 2 parties can exist?

 

[glockmail]

and competitive means only 2 parties can exist?

Feel free to misinterpret that as you will.

 

[busara]

Feel free to misinterpret that as you will.

feel free to ignore anything you dont like

 

[glockmail]

feel free to ignore anything you dont like

I routinely ignore straw man attempts.

 

[busara]

I routinely ignore straw man attempts.

for someone who continually misrepresents other posters positions, thats a funny thing to say

 

[editec]

I'm asking you to be intellectually honest. In your second sentence you said that you were concerned with the deficit. That means government spending has to slow down while the economy has to grow. Who, of the two possible candidates, and based on economic reality, is more capable of doing that?

The Democrats if history be our guide.

That isn't obvious?

 

[Bern80]

The Democrats if history be our guide.

That isn't obvious?

When has a democrat in recent history ever run on a platform of actually reducing government spending?

 

[editec]

Wow that's a stretch. The two parties at in fierce competition, basically at each others throats, as evidenced in this very forum, and as I may add, designed into the system by the Founders.

That's where we Americans keep getting bamboozled.

they are NOT in fiece competition when it comes to the issues that really matter.

They are basically in fierce competition only regards the issues which motivate their party faithful to vote for one party over the other.

As regards Iraq? The Dems own that war no less than the Rs. they could have prevented it

As regards the tx breaks for billionaires? The Dems own that policy no less than the Rs. they could have prevented it

As it regards the growing police state? The Dems own that war no less than the Rs. They joined right in on that,

As it regards bailing out private banks? The Dems own that war no less than the Rs. they're of the same mind regards that.

Free trade? Same. They're coconspirators in that crime against the working class.

Illegal immigration? Same.

Wheres is the fundamental difference?

Only at the margins, mostly. Not on fundamental principles, merely degrees of those principles.Essantially people of the same class working for that classes benefit debating degrees of how badly they can abuse the rest of us without killing the golden geese that we are, too soon, I think.

That's why I am no longer an antive Dem.

That's why many of you are no longer active Rs too, I expect.

Few of us fit into the neat little boxes their opposition wants us to squeeze us into.

That's why, among other things, I assume when someone starts harping about liberals this or liberals that, they are either dense as posts or just being totally disengenuious. No evidence on their board actually supports the claims they make about liberalism or real conservatism, either.

Despite all the ASCII from so called liberals and conservatives which does not fit into the narrow stereotyping some of you insist describes that breeds, many of you keep coming back with thesame tired old insults.

And we have our share of unthinking liberals doing essantially the same thing to the real conservatives on this board,too, don't we?

So it isn't like either set of party loyals doesn't have its builldogging nitwits working to keep our discussions from actually becoming productive discussions between truly concerned citizens, either.

I sometimes wonder, when I see some of the nonsensical partisan crap posted here, if the real point of this nasty blather isn't simply to keep each other at our collective threats.

Wouldn't entirely surprise me, to be honest.

Heaven forbid that the moderate Rs and Ds can ever come to a modus vivendi, because if we did, BOTH party leaderships would be run out of Washington in short order.

Every time two Americans, one leaning liberal and the other conservative, bicker with one another to the point that discussion of issues breaks down, a demon in hell gets his leathery wings.

 

[Care4all]

When has a democrat in recent history ever run on a platform of actually reducing government spending?

when has a repub;ican run on that platform and actually reduced gvt spending in recent history?

it's not what they tell us that counts, it's what they do.

 

[Bern80]

when has a repub;ican run on that platform and actually reduced gvt spending in recent history?

it's not what they tell us that counts, it's what they do.

Very true. I've just never actually heard from a democrat and your claim was it would go down if Obama gets into office yet rarely if ever have I heard that that is a goal of his. With what he is proposing it can't possibly be.

 

[busara]

Very true. I've just never actually heard from a democrat and your claim was it would go down if Obama gets into office yet rarely if ever have I heard that that is a goal of his. With what he is proposing it can't possibly be.

i believe he has said he will reduce spending in certain areas to fund his new programs. so in other words, overall spending will stay the same.

mccain is promising to balance the budget, but isnt offering a valid plan to do so. therefore, i dont believe him

 

[Care4all]

Very true. I've just never actually heard from a democrat and your claim was it would go down if Obama gets into office yet rarely if ever have I heard that that is a goal of his. With what he is proposing it can't possibly be.

not my claim , i'm still not certain if i will vote at all.....

 

[Zoomie1980]

i believe he has said he will reduce spending in certain areas to fund his new programs. so in other words, overall spending will stay the same.

mccain is promising to balance the budget, but isnt offering a valid plan to do so. therefore, i dont believe him

The budgets may balance if the economy heats up. It did in the 1990's and it had nothing to do with clinton or the Republican Congress. Government "economic policy' is irrelevant. Tax revenues follow the economy. When the economy is booming, tax revenue booms. When it tails off, tax revenue does. That's how it works and neither Congress nor the President has much of anything to do about it.

The President is a FOREIGN policy figure. He is the head of state and commander in chief of the military. He controls NOTHING domestically. He can pass a few executive orders but even those can be countermanded by Congress.

And Congress can never pass enough of a degree of change to impact anything. AT MOST we might see marginal tax rates move 2-5 points...not enough to matter. There will be NO new major health care program, no major immigration policy change, no real major energy policy...none of it. What we get in energy will be ENTIRELY market driven and come from the PRIVATE sector, not the public sector.

 

[indago]

Care4all wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------------
i'm still not certain if i will vote at all...
-------------------------------------------------------------


By all means, VOTE. You don't have to vote for any Demolicans. Just leave the check blank if there are no other choices. But there will be Labor Party, Independent Party, Constitutional Party, Libertarian Party, and etc.

Besides, there will be a selection of local issues to vote for. You wouldn't want to miss those...

 

[indago]

CNN — LOU DOBBS TONIGHT — Aired September 11, 2008 - 19:00 ET

LOU DOBBS, CNN ANCHOR: Ralph Nader is running for president as you know as an Independent candidate; Nader, a groundbreaking consumer advocate, now on his third major presidential try. And in 2000 Ralph Nader drew almost 3 million votes as the Green Party candidate. And we are delighted to have you with us now.

Now, let's go if I may Ralph straight to a couple of issues and we are focusing on to some large degree tonight on foreign policy. What would you do with our troops in Iraq?

RALPH NADER, (I) PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: Bring them home. A six month negotiated withdrawal deadline. Bring home the soldiers and corporate contractors, give Iraq and its oil back to the Iraqis not the bottom of the insurgency.

During the six months, I should have U.N. sponsored elections and work a little bit of autonomy between Kurds and the Shiites would then unify Iraq which is what they all want. Plus continued humanitarian aid.

Other wise it's just going to fester. They think that its — the violence is declining but it can explode in any moment if we are still there.

DOBBS: So you want out in ten months —

NADER: Six months.

DOBBS: Sooner than Barack Obama.

NADIR: Well, he'd keep 50,000 soldiers there.

DOBBS: Well, let's turn to Afghanistan.

NADER: That's a tougher issue. We should never — we should have had a multilateral strike force go after the backers of the attackers. Instead, we destabilized the whole country again. And you know Afghanistan is not really a country and their tribal chieftains and it's a very tough geographically. So I think that the more soldiers we put in there, what the soldiers do? They fight, they destroy, they blow up. So wedding parties get blown up, children and it fans the flame.

DOBBS: So what are we to do?

NADER: I think we've got to get out of there.

DOBBS: So withdraw from Afghanistan.

NADER: We got to. Unless we see a better plan, because even Admiral Mullen you know and others are saying, there is no military victory there at all.

DOBBS: Were you struck by the fact that Admiral Mullen said straight forwardly there is not enough time, there aren't enough troops?

NADER: He is absolutely right. The Russians couldn't conquer Afghanistan when the Soviet Union, the British couldn't and we're not going to. The best thing that we can do is really push for jobs. For a public works and so on it's a lot cheaper than pouring another 20 or 30 U.S. —

DOBBS: A trillion dollars would have been a lot of investment to support Iraq and Afghanistan, wouldn't it?

NADER: Just think of a trillion dollars rebuilding in this country, schools, clinics, drinking water systems, public transit, good jobs that couldn't be exported to China.

DOBBS: And more than 30,000 American troops wounded and more than 4,000 killed.

NADER: It's actually 100,000 wounded. The Pentagon low balls it.

DOBBS: No, no I don't want to get in to that because I'm going to stick with what we've got and I know there's maybe a logical viewpoint that suggest otherwise but I'm not going to play those games, Ralph not even with you as much as I would like.

NADER: No, no, it's a Pentagon thing; some of these are with the Pentagon rules.

DOBBS: Let's turn to the issue of trade policy and immigration policy. They seem so to have been wedded in the mind of corporate America in terms on their decision to put American labor into direct competition with the cheapest labor in the world. What would you do?

NADER: It'll never work. No American worker can compete with 50 cents an hour hardworking Chinese workers using modern equipment, that's absolute advantage, that's not comparative advantage. So we got to withdraw as is our right, six months notice to withdraw from NAFTA and WTO, renegotiate these agreements so they pull up other conditions in the world and not allow fascist and communist dictatorships with multinational companies in this nation pull down our workers.

DOBBS: We appreciate it very much being with us, Ralph Nader it's good to have you here, come back soon. We have a lot more to talk about.