tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7674333464171899932.post3390365944368010183..comments2023-09-15T08:07:28.542-06:00Comments on Western Hero: A Deficit of LeadershipSilverfiddlehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13541652236676260219noreply@blogger.comBlogger53125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7674333464171899932.post-16071533700637132412011-07-16T00:15:44.934-06:002011-07-16T00:15:44.934-06:00Trestin,
The Central Bank -- better known as The ...Trestin,<br /><br />The Central Bank -- better known as The Federal Reserve -- was a creature of the early Progressive Movement. The true agenda of the "progressives" has always been to accumulate and hold ever greater amounts of Centralized Power. This weakens local governments, weakens the individual, standardizes everything, reduces everyones freedom of choice in all areas, and draws us closer and closer to out-and -out despotism. <br /><br />The "progressives"<i>appear</i> to believe they know better than anyone else what is good for the people, and that it is, therefore, incumbent upon them -- the progressives -- to seize control and ride herd on everyone in order to force the folk to do what is best for them.<br /><br />In truth the progressives have had it in mind all along to take away our sovereignty and turn us over to One World Government -- the greatest, most overbearing, most tyrannical from of Centralized Power ever conceived since the days of the Roman Empire.<br /><br />Who will rule the world? Why the PROGRESSIVES, of course. They are would-be OLIGARCHS. While pretending to work for the Common Good, they've been plotting all along to ENSLAVE the citizens of the world to magnify and glorify and ever increase the store of riches owned and controlled by the OLIGARCHS.<br /><br />They've had so many of us fooled, because their game is to play all ends against the middle. They have USED everyone who has an ax to grind by pretending to be their friend. In playing this rotten game they have divided most of the world into warring factions -- the "ignorant armies that clash by night" so poignantly referenced in Matthew Arnold's poem Dover Beach.<br /><br />After each war, each incident of social unrest and each economic crisis these fiends cynically gin up, they ride in playing the part of Knights in Shining Armor to "fix" what they have secretly broken, thus making themselves look like heroes-- even <i>gods</i> -- in the eyes of Everyman. And then, thy HAVE you.<br /><br />This process is nothing new. Variations of it have been happening since time immemorial, but always on a grander scale.<br /><br />Plato said this c. 400 BC:<br /><br /><b><i>"The people have always some champion whom they set over them and nurse into greatness . . . This and no other is the root from which a tyrant springs. When he first appears, he is a Protector. . . In the early days of his power he is full of smiles. . . When the tyrant has disposed of foreign enemies . . . and there is nothing to fear from them, then he is always stirring up some war or other in order that the people may require a leader. . . Has he not also another object . . . that they may be impoverished by taxes and thus compelled to devote themselves to their daily wants and [be] therefore less likely to conspire against him?"</i></b><br /><br />Chilling, isn't it?<br /><br />~ FreeThinkeAnonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7674333464171899932.post-51817695477660433592011-07-15T21:25:57.464-06:002011-07-15T21:25:57.464-06:00Let the market determine the rate. Remember when ...Let the market determine the rate. Remember when the left wanted power for the people? Now you want it for the central banks.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7674333464171899932.post-50092775135296574202011-07-15T20:21:41.006-06:002011-07-15T20:21:41.006-06:00Well, Ducky, I think we may agree on one thing -- ...Well, Ducky, I think we may agree on one thing -- even if for different reasons.<br /><br /><b>We don't like Barack Obama</b>.<br /><br />Whether he's a crypto-Marxist, a closet Muslim posing as a pseudo-Christian, a demi-Negro seeking revenge, a demi-Caucasian seeking acceptance by whites, a typical politician, a grifter, brilliant or dull, humorless and mediocre, he's a consummate hypocrite, a pathological liar, and as unfit to be president of the United States as all three of his immediate predecessors.<br /><br />That said, I don't think you can just dismiss all those items I piled up with a great wave of the hand as mere "boilerplate." His past associations have been almost uniformly vile, his appointees a bunch of impossible shits, his stated aims inimical to the ownership and enjoyment of private property, hostile to business and to the creation and enhancement of personal wealth. The healthcare initiative that bears his name was as undesirable as it was unnecessary. <br /><br />And on and on and on far into the night, but I'm tired. <br /><br />Someday, I'd like to hear your positive views on what you think it would take to make this a better country. All of us spend too much time on these sites calling each other names, and never learn what might be in each other's hearts.<br /><br />I see curiosity as a great virtue.<br /><br />Be well.<br /><br />~ FreeThinkeAnonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7674333464171899932.post-15781278843422066332011-07-15T16:52:17.362-06:002011-07-15T16:52:17.362-06:00Oh come on, Freethinker, I'm trying to read th...Oh come on, Freethinker, I'm trying to read the posts but I got to the 20 years in Reverend Wright's church boilerplate.<br /><br />Do you believe this guy is religious?<br />Do you believe he went Sundays for twenty years to Wright's church or just showed up once in a while.<br /><br />This guy is a pol. He does what he does to cultivate the proper image. Wright made him black enough and Harvard made him white enough. The guy is a triangulating con artist who has been a right wing dream.<br /><br />Where's single payer?Ducky's herehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14608115001116619877noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7674333464171899932.post-24350426556662159292011-07-15T16:48:37.644-06:002011-07-15T16:48:37.644-06:00It starts by removing uncle Ben's ability to s...It starts by removing uncle Ben's ability to set interest rates.<br />-----------------<br /><br />How would you set them? This strikes me as insanity.<br /><br />I know, we just go on the gold standard or something?Ducky's herehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14608115001116619877noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7674333464171899932.post-41567538022153672372011-07-15T15:06:32.900-06:002011-07-15T15:06:32.900-06:00Comrade Ducky- Yes we are. The solution will take...Comrade Ducky- Yes we are. The solution will take some time, there is no quick fix. <br /><br />It starts by removing uncle Ben's ability to set interest rates. <br /><br />The second thing that should be done is allow competing currencies, so long as they are tied to tangible assets. <br /><br />Last but not least, allow no foreign institutions such as the Fed (Which is actually an extension of the BIS) any role in currency or fiscal policy.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7674333464171899932.post-84253341237564639612011-07-15T14:40:39.222-06:002011-07-15T14:40:39.222-06:00PART FIVE
When he played politics in Afghanistan ...PART FIVE<br /><br /><i>When he played politics in Afghanistan by not sending troops early-on when the Field Commanders said they were necessary to win, people said it didn't matter.<br /><br />When he started spending us into a debt that was so big we could not pay it off, people said it didn't matter.<br /><br />When he took a huge spending bill under the guise of stimulus and used it to pay off organizations, unions, and individuals that got him elected, people said it didn't matter.<br /><br />When he took over insurance companies, car companies, banks, etc., people said it didn't matter.<br /><br />When he took away student loans from the banks and put it through the government, people said it didn't matter.<br /><br />When he designed plans to take over the healthcare system and put it under government control, people said it didn't matter.<br /><br />When he claimed he was a Christian during the election and tapes were later made public that showed Obama speaking to a Muslim group and 'stating' that he was raised a Muslim; was educated as a Muslim; and that he is still a Muslim -- people said it didn't matter.<br /><br />When he set into motion a plan to take over the control of all energy in the United States through Cap and Trade, people said it didn't matter.<br /><br />When he finally completed his transformation of America into a Socialist State , people finally woke up -- but it was too late.</i><br /><br />Add these up one by one and you get a phenomenal score that points to the fact that Barrack Hussein Obama is determined to turn America into a Marxist society.<br /><br />All of the items in the preceding paragraphs have been put into place. All can be documented very easily. Before you disavow this do an internet search. The last paragraph alone is not yet chiseled in stone. You and I will write that paragraph. Will it read as above or will it be a more happy ending for most of America ? <br /><br />If you are an Obama Supporter don't be angry with me because I think Barrack Hussein Obama is a socialist. Far too many facts support he is indeed a Socialist. <br /><br />If you seek the truth you will be richer for it. <br /><br />Don't just belittle the opposition. Search for the truth. Democrats, Republicans, Independents, Constitutionalists, Libertarians all need to pull together or watch the demise of our still-relatively-free democratic society. <br /><br />Pray for Americans to seek the truth and take action for it will keep us FREE. Our biggest enemy is not China, Russia, North Korea, and Iran. Our biggest enemy is a contingent of Marxist professors who call themselves "Progressives," and unprincipled prostitute politicians in Washington DC who'd sell their granddaughters into white slavery in order to gain another iota of power and incumbency. The government will not help, so we need to do it ourselves. <br /><br /><br />~ FreeThinke<br /><br />PS: I don't necessarily believe or endorse everything in that long list, but I believe every bit of it deserves to be considered. - FTAnonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7674333464171899932.post-71637400156054668502011-07-15T14:39:29.424-06:002011-07-15T14:39:29.424-06:00PART FOUR
When Valerie Jarrett was selected as Ob...PART FOUR<br /><br /><i>When Valerie Jarrett was selected as Obama's Senior White House Advisor and she is an avowed Socialist, people said it didn't matter.<br /><br />When Anita Dunn, White House Communications Director said Mao Tse Tung was her favorite philosopher -- and the person she turned to most for inspiration, people said it didn't matter.<br /><br />When he appointed Carol Browner as Global Warming Czar, she being a well known socialist working on Cap and Trade as the nations largest tax, people said it didn't matter.<br /><br />When he appointed Van Jones, an ex-con and avowed Communist as Green Energy Czar, who since had to resign when this was made known, people said it didn't matter.<br /><br />When Tom Daschle, Obama's pick for health and human services secretary could not be confirmed, because he was a tax cheat, people said it didn't matter.<br /><br />When as President of the United States , he bowed to the King of Saudi Arabia, people said it didn't matter.<br /><br />When he traveled around the world criticizing America and never once talking of her greatness, people said it didn't matter.<br /><br />When his actions concerning the Middle-East seemed to support the Palestinians over Israel , our long time ally, people said it didn't matter.<br /><br />When he took American tax dollars to resettle thousands of Palestinians from Gaza to the United States, people said it didn't matter.<br /><br />When he upset the Europeans by removing plans for a missile defense system against the Russians, people said it didn't matter.</i><br /><br />(CONTINUED)Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7674333464171899932.post-63316645195921719922011-07-15T14:36:59.151-06:002011-07-15T14:36:59.151-06:00PART THREE
When the place of his birth was called...PART THREE<br /><br /><i>When the place of his birth was called into question, and he refused to produce a birth certificate, people said it didn't matter.<br /><br />When he had an association in Chicago with Tony Rezko -- a man of questionable character now in prison who had helped Obama benefit from a sweetheart deal on the purchase of his home -- people said it didn't matter.<br /><br />When it became known that George Soros, a multi-billionaire Marxist-anti-Conservative-activist, spent a ton of money to get him elected, people said it didn't matter.<br /><br />When he started appointing White House Czars that were radicals, revolutionaries, and even avowed Marxists, people said it didn't matter.<br /><br />When he stood before the nation and told us that his intentions were "to fundamentally transform this Nation" into something else, people said it didn't matter.<br /><br />When it became known that he had trained ACORN workers in Chicago and served as an attorney for ACORN, people said it didn't matter.<br /><br />When he appointed cabinet members and several advisors who were tax cheats and socialist activists, people said it didn't matter.<br /><br />When he appointed a Science Czar, John Holdren, who believes in forced abortions, mass sterilization, and seizing babies from teen mothers, people said it didn't matter.<br /><br />When he appointed Mrxist-activist Cass Sunstein as Regulatory Czar who believes in "Explicit Consent," harvesting human organs without family consent, and allowing animals to be represented in court, while banning all hunting, people said it didn't matter.<br /><br />When he appointed Kevin Jennings, a homosexual, and organizer of a group called the Gay, Lesbian, Straight, Education Network as Safe School Czar, and it became known that he had a history of bad advice to teenagers, people said it didn't matter.<br /><br />When he appointed Mark Lloyd, as Diversity Czar, who believes in curtailing free speech; taking from one and giving to another to spread the wealth; who supports Hugo Chavez, people said it didn't matter.</i><br /><br />(CONTINUED)Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7674333464171899932.post-37476119827582400632011-07-15T14:35:00.810-06:002011-07-15T14:35:00.810-06:00PART TWO
When it was pointed out that he was a to...PART TWO<br /><br /><i>When it was pointed out that he was a total newcomer and had absolutely no experience at anything except community organizing, people said it didn't matter.<br /><br />When he chose friends and acquaintances such as Bill Ayers and Bernadine Dohrn who were revolutionary radicals, people said it didn't matter.<br /><br />When his voting record in the Illinois senate and in the U.S. Senate came into question, people said it didn't matter.<br /><br />When he refused to wear a flag, lapel pin, and did so only after a public outcry, people said it didn't matter.<br /><br />When people started treating him as a Messiah and children in schools were taught to sing his praises, people said it didn't matter.<br /><br />When he stood with his hands over his groin area for the playing of the National Anthem and Pledge of Allegiance, people said it didn't matter.<br /><br />When he surrounded himself in the White house with advisors who were pro-gun control, pro-abortion, and wanting to curtail freedom of speech to silence the opposition people said it didn't matter..<br /><br />When he aired his radical views on partial-birth abortion, and a host of other issues, people said it didn't matter.<br /><br />When he said he favors sex education in Kindergarten, people said it didn't matter.<br /><br />When his personal background was either scrubbed or hidden and nothing could be found about him, people said it didn't matter.</i><br /><br />(CONTINUED)Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7674333464171899932.post-73436106472387362502011-07-15T14:32:52.836-06:002011-07-15T14:32:52.836-06:00Oh come on, Ducky.
Is everything listed here a l...Oh come on, Ducky. <br /><br />Is everything listed here a lie? If so, can you prove it?<br /><br />PART ONE <br /><br /><b>PEOPLE SAID IT DIDN’T MATTER</b><br /><br /><b>Re: The Fundamental Transformation of America</b> .<br /><br /><i>When Obama wrote a book and said he was mentored as a youth by Frank (Frank Marshall Davis) an avowed Communist, people said it didn't matter. <br /><br />When it was discovered that his grandparents, were strong socialists who sent Obama's mother to a socialist school where she was introduced to Frank Marshall Davis. He was later introduced to young Barrack Hussein Obama. People said it didn't matter.<br /><br />When people found out that Barrack Hussein Obama was enrolled as a Muslim child in school and his father and stepfather were both Muslims, people said it didn't matter.<br /><br />When he wrote in another book he authored "I will stand with them (Muslims) should the political winds shift in an ugly direction" people said it didn't matter.<br /><br />When he admittedly, in his book, said he chose Marxist friends and professors in college -- people said it didn't matter.<br /><br />When he traveled to Pakistan , after college on an unknown national passport, people said it didn't matter.<br /><br />When he sought the endorsement of the Marxist Party in 1996 as he ran for the Illinois Senate, people said it didn't matter.<br /><br />When he sat in a Chicago Church for twenty years and listened to a preacher spew hatred for America and preach black liberation theology, people said it didn't matter.<br /><br />When an independent Washington organization, that tracks Senate voting records, gave him the distinctive title as the "most liberal senator," people said it didn't matter.<br /><br />When the Palestinians in Gaza set up a fund raising telethon to raise money for his election campaign, people said it didn't matter.<br /><br />When his voting record supported gun control, people said it didn't matter.<br /><br />When he refused to disclose who donated money to his election campaign, as other candidates had done, people said it didn't matter.<br /><br />When he received endorsements from people like Louis Farrakhan and Mummar Khadaffy and Hugo Chavez, people said it didn't matter.</i><br /><br />(CONTINUED)Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7674333464171899932.post-69437948093944992322011-07-15T13:48:26.032-06:002011-07-15T13:48:26.032-06:00Freethinker, just when we appear to be getting som...Freethinker, just when we appear to be getting somewhere you start in with the "Marxist influence" nonsense.<br /><br />If you've been paying attention you've noticed there is no progressive movement of any consequence in America, let alone socialist.<br /><br />We limp along under state capitalism and will continue until we can think straight and cut the "Obama is a Marxist" stuff which only proves you have no idea what Marxism is and should study up before talking.<br /><br />Meanwhile, relative to the interesting post concerning Sheldon Wolin and inverted capitalism. A good portion of the left has taken Isaiah Berlin's thesis that socialism leads to dictatorship to heart and have wondered about a possible alternative that shares some objectives (Mine: 1. Sustainabbility 2. Equitable distribution) and is also democratic. <br /><br />Can't be found in state capitalism or laissez-faire as far as I can see. So what do we do my brothers in the egg? Just turtle and strut like we're hot shits because we have jobs and some don't?Ducky's herehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14608115001116619877noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7674333464171899932.post-26864099689018075542011-07-15T06:45:09.321-06:002011-07-15T06:45:09.321-06:00FYI: Here's a neat little crib sheet on Keynes...FYI: Here's a neat little crib sheet on Keynesianism just in case you don't know what it is. I was fuzzy on it, myself. It never hurts to look things up, although you must consider the source.<br /><br /><br />It seems to be all about managing and controlling our economic life -- that's yours and mine and Ducky's and Jersey's and FinnTann's and SilverFiddle's and everyone else's -- through manipulation of the money supply. <br /><br /><br /><i>"... In the period from World War II through the early 1970s, Keynesianism rose to ever greater influence as both a theory and a guide for public policy. The Keynesian analysis gained a prominent place in textbooks, and its terminology increasingly became the common language of both economists and policymakers. The experience of World War II, with its <b>massive deficit spending</b>, seemed to validate Keynes's approach, and the subsequent Cold War and the later expansion of social spending left the federal government with a sufficiently large presence in the U.S. economy to serve as a Keynesian lever. The size of postwar budgets meant that changes in federal spending and taxing had a powerful impact on the overall economy. Embraced most fervently by Democrats but influential also in Republican circles, the Keynesian policy approach gained its fullest expression in the liberal presidencies of the 1960s, most prominently in the Kennedy-Johnson tax cut of 1964. In 1965, Time magazine put Keynes's picture on its cover in a tribute to the influence of his economic vision.<br /><br /><br /><br />"With the onset of stagflation in the 1970s, Keynesianism began to lose influence both as a theory and as a policy. Unable to explain adequately the economic malaise of simultaneous stagnation and inflation, it came under theoretical assault by the monetarist and the rational expectations schools of economic thought. Suspected of being itself a primary contributor to inflation, Keynesianism was increasingly supplanted by policy approaches aimed more at the supply side of the economy.<br /><br /><br /><br />"At the end of the twentieth century, Keynesianism still provided much of the lingua franca of macroeconomics. However, both as a theory and as a policy, it lived on only in a much chastened and attenuated form ..."</i><br /><br /><br />Read more: http://www.answers.com/topic/keynesian#ixzz1S8XXl0hP<br /><br />Don't know about you, but I glean from that that money should have no intrinsic value other than whatever value the Central bankers feel like <i>assigning</i> to it at any given juncture.<br /><br />It seems antithetical to Nature in that it supplants anything natural and authentic with manmade theory treated as though this theory were established fact.<br /><br />Whenever we look for guidance to no source higher than the human intellect, we run into deep deep doo doo.<br /><br />~ FreeThinkeAnonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7674333464171899932.post-32239327033261438352011-07-15T05:47:42.013-06:002011-07-15T05:47:42.013-06:00Jersey,
Please read this again, and then tell me ...Jersey,<br /><br />Please read this again, and then tell me what did I actually SAY in these two paragraph?<br /><br /><br /><i><b>Obama was certainly brought up with influences that were entirely MARXIST-COMMUNIST-SOCIALIST, anti-Capitalist, anti-Middle Class, anti-Property ownership, anti-personal wealth accumulation, and anti-rugged-Individualism, so calling him a Marxist is NOT far-fetched, HOWEVER, he too is being USED as a TOOL by the true villains in the piece.<br /><br />Now, who do YOU think those villains really are? And how and why have they amassed such immense power and influence?</b></i><br /><br /><br />There's a very strange, seemingly unnatural alliance among The Left, Muslim Extremists, Black African Nationalists, and every brand of Malcontent, Misfit, Ne'er Do Well, Neurotic, Anti-Social, Unfulfilled elements on earth. Barack Obama was brought up by malcontents who hated and pitted themselves against what most of us think of as normal American middle class life.<br /><br />And why is Obama's background still shrouded in secrecy? We still don't have his grades. We still don't know any of his friends from his college years. He may be a presentable looking guy, but what is behind the veneer? Obama is a WEIRD dude. Nothing normal about him.<br /><br /><br />What draws these disparate elements to each other? What holds them together? Is it anger -- or could it be something MORE than anger?<br /><br /><br />I don't know. You tell me.<br /><br />~ FreeThinkeAnonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7674333464171899932.post-11266721690749710522011-07-14T22:26:19.230-06:002011-07-14T22:26:19.230-06:00FinnTann,
Wolin's work -- as you presented it...FinnTann,<br /><br />Wolin's work -- as you presented it in capsule form -- seems to echo and explicate nascent theories that have been forming in my 70-year-old head for the past several years. <br /><br />I never would have thought to use the term "managed democracy," because it seems to be an oxymoron. <b>If it's "managed" from on high, it's not democracy, is it?</b> <br /><br />But. the scenario Wolin evokes --- that of a world of craftily, skillfully manipulated imagery and propaganda designed to keep the people confused, off balance, at each other's throats, divided, suspicious wary of each other while the Big Boys, who do the Moving and Shaking by Stealth in the Shadows, are given cover by the incessant parade of outrageous, sensationalistic crimes -- i.e. The OJ Obsession, Louise Woodward, the English Nanny who Shook the Baby to Death in Boston, The Runaway Bride, Juran Vander Sloot and Natalee Holloway, the Murdered Southern Belle from Alabama who disappeared in Aruba, Jessica Lundgren, the nine-year-old who was raped repeatedly for several days then buried alive, and now Casey Anthony), imbecilic sex scandals (Monica Lewinsky), "social issues" that get Mrs. Grundy's panties in a wad like Free Condom Distribution in Schools, Child Molestation, Teachers who have Sex with their Under Age Students, Gay Marriage, Abortion, Kevorkian and the Right to Die, whose resolution is not basic to maintaining the economic viability and the ability to defend the nation --- seems startlingly close to reality.<br /><br />Meanwhile the <i>really</i> important stuff --- the <b>NITTY GRITTY</b> --- like fiscal and monetary policy, passing ever more costly, restrictive and burdensome legislation and regulation to maintain social control -- to tie the hands of small businesses and property development, keep experimentation and innovation at a minimum, keep people docile, dependent, reasonably contented enough to prevent them from rocking the boat, speaking up for themselves --- or even THINKING of better ways to do things on their own behalf --- so the Nitty Gritty remains largely aloof from and immune to the pressures of public scrutiny and public speculation, because of the constant DISTRACTION provided by the ginned up Circus Acts, Vaudeville Shows, Cheap, Sensationalistic Melodramas, glorified Back Fence Gossip on TV, and the Easy Access to Pornography.<br /><br />The Big Bully Boys Beating each other off Behind the Barn get their way relatively untrammeled, their power grows stronger while the people snooze through the degeneration and dissolution of their society, and -- like that frog in the slowly heated pot of water -- never begin to realize they are being boiled alive -- i.e. lapsing into serfdom -- till its too late. They're already cooked an ready for the Oligarchs to devour at their leisure -- or throw to the pigs in the nearest sty.<br /><br /><b>But WHO are the Movers and Shakers?</b><br /><br />How do Frederick Douglass, E.B. Dubois, Booker T. Washington, Hegel, Marx, Engels, Lenin, Trotsky, The Fabian Society, Gramsci, The Frankfurt School, Mother Jones, Samuel Gompers, Emma Goldman, Rosa Luxembourg, John Dewey, Upton Sinclair, Roger Baldwin, Saul Alinsky, Alger Hiss, Whitaker Chambers, The UN Charter, The Nuremberg Trials, Walter Duranty, Jack Reid, H.G. Wlls, William Kunstler, Morris Dees, The Nation Magazine, Karina Vanden Heuvel, Ellen Ratner, Joe Conason, Michel Moore, Spike Lee, Al Gore,The Ladies of The View and Lady Gaga fit into all of this?<br /><br />If we've become a managed democracy, how has being so managed effected the quality of our life and thought? What has it done to our poplar culture? To love and romance? To self-sacrifice? To committed loving relationships? To upward mobility? To stability? To mental health?<br /><br />~ FreeThinkeAnonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7674333464171899932.post-15748525998838538232011-07-14T19:24:07.803-06:002011-07-14T19:24:07.803-06:00Let me point out a few common elements:
Ducky:
...Let me point out a few common elements:<br /><br />Ducky: <br /><br />In other words, what we have here is something new, something we DO NOT understand. Now that may be closer to the truth.<br /><br />"Obummer. He's clearly just a continuation of Bush"<br /><br />Jersey:<br /><br />"All that nonsense about abortion and gays and silly scandals is just window dressing for idiotic gawkers."<br /><br />FT:<br /><br />I see "The Enemy" as CENTRALIZED POWER of ANY kind.<br /><br />Have we gotten to the point where our politicians (left and right) have more common interests with each other than with the people they represent. Have we established an elitist ruling clique where party matters less than political self-preservation, where no matter what the origins and affiliations of each member, once "in", allegiance shifts to the body politic rather than the populus?<br /><br />Just some thoughts...<br /><br />Cheers!Finntannhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09234170229108668040noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7674333464171899932.post-48229524851300797702011-07-14T19:19:52.874-06:002011-07-14T19:19:52.874-06:00Thoughts?
Yeah, sounds like a pretty solid book. ...Thoughts?<br /><br />Yeah, sounds like a pretty solid book. Thanks for the tip.Ducky's herehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14608115001116619877noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7674333464171899932.post-49489410137169048212011-07-14T19:17:42.125-06:002011-07-14T19:17:42.125-06:00So Trestin, have you figured out if we are in a cl...So Trestin, have you figured out if we are in a classic Keynesian liquidity trap?<br /><br />If so what's poor Bernanke to do?Ducky's herehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14608115001116619877noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7674333464171899932.post-58349354273329074492011-07-14T19:04:31.164-06:002011-07-14T19:04:31.164-06:00Anyone familiar with Sheldon Wolin's work &quo...Anyone familiar with Sheldon Wolin's work "Democracy Incorporated: Managed Democracy and the Specter of Inverted Totalitarianism"?<br /><br />I'd be interested in what anyone thinks of his ideas... some seem to strike fairly true and close to home.<br /><br />Managed democracy is "a political form in which governments are legitimated by elections that they have learned to control". Under managed democracy, the electorate is prevented from having a significant impact on policies adopted by the state through the continuous employment of public relations techniques.<br /><br />Some quotes from Wolin:<br /><br />To reduce a complex argument to its bare bones, since the Depression, the twin forces of managed democracy and Superpower have opened the way for something new under the sun: "inverted totalitarianism," a form every bit as totalistic as the classical version but one based on internalized co-optation, the appearance of freedom, political disengagement rather than mass mobilization, and relying more on "private media" than on public agencies to disseminate propaganda that reinforces the official version of events. It is inverted because it does not require the use of coercion, police power and a messianic ideology as in the Nazi, Fascist and Stalinist versions (although note that the United States has the highest percentage of its citizens in prison -- 751 per 100,000 people -- of any nation on Earth)."<br /><br />"self-pacifying" university campuses compared with the usual intellectual turmoil surrounding independent centers of learning, Wolin writes, "Through a combination of governmental contracts, corporate and foundation funds, joint projects involving university and corporate researchers, and wealthy individual donors, universities (especially so-called research universities), intellectuals, scholars, and researchers have been seamlessly integrated into the system. No books burned, no refugee Einsteins. For the first time in the history of American higher education top professors are made wealthy by the system, commanding salaries and perks that a budding CEO might envy."<br /><br />"One other subordinate task of managed democracy is to keep the citizenry preoccupied with peripheral and/or private conditions of human life so that they fail to focus on the widespread corruption and betrayal of the public trust." In Wolin's words, "The point about disputes on such topics as the value of sexual abstinence, the role of religious charities in state-funded activities, the question of gay marriage, and the like, is that they are not framed to be resolved. Their political function is to divide the citizenry while obscuring class differences and diverting the voters' attention from the social and economic concerns of the general populace."<br /><br />"One method of assuring control is to make electioneering continuous, year-round, saturated with party propaganda, punctuated with the wisdom of kept pundits, bringing a result boring rather than energizing, the kind of civic lassitude on which managed democracy thrives."<br /><br />Foreign military operations literally force democracy to change its nature: "In order to cope with the imperial contingencies of foreign war and occupation," according to Wolin, "democracy will alter its character, not only by assuming new behaviors abroad (e.g., ruthlessness, indifference to suffering, disregard of local norms, the inequalities in ruling a subject population) but also by operating on revised, power-expansive assumptions at home. It will, more often than not, try to manipulate the public rather than engage its members in deliberation. It will demand greater powers and broader discretion in their use ('state secrets'), a tighter control over society's resources, more summary methods of justice, and less patience for legalities, opposition, and clamor for socioeconomic reforms."<br /><br />Thoughts?Finntannhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09234170229108668040noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7674333464171899932.post-81307410368030137722011-07-14T18:40:59.853-06:002011-07-14T18:40:59.853-06:00I love this site. Here I get to read thoughtful o...I love this site. Here I get to read thoughtful opinions supported by facts. Countered by leftist the nonsense of those who think if they just believe enough, two plus two can equal five.<br /><br />No where is Statist thought more exposed for the nonsense it is, than here in the comments. The sad thing is these folks are serious.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7674333464171899932.post-81814612634770139102011-07-14T18:31:49.287-06:002011-07-14T18:31:49.287-06:00No Jersey. We disagree. Friedman was a monetaris...No Jersey. We disagree. Friedman was a monetarist, but Volker and Reagen strengthened the dollar to squelch inflation, not from a purely theoretical monetarist motive.Silverfiddlehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/13541652236676260219noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7674333464171899932.post-47052056283657205912011-07-14T18:24:11.519-06:002011-07-14T18:24:11.519-06:00Silver, thank you, but please let me disgress agai...Silver, thank you, but please let me disgress again...<br /><br />Volcker and Reagan were monetarists to their very core. <br /><br />Monetarism <em>is</em> what <em>made</em> Reagan. It was his entire idium.<br /><br />You remember. Reagan focused everything on inflation, balancing it with unemployment and trade, and it took years to do.<br /><br />Controlling inflation was the Holy Grail for the GOP in the 70's and 80's, and you remember that. And yes, in some ways they controlled it - but only to the advantage of the upperclass.<br /><br />We continue to observe monetarist policies to this day. Even though it's obviously anachronism.<br /><br />The result, for the vast majority of the population, has been 32 years of stagnant wages and a boom/bust cycle that again belies the whole monetarist idea in the first place!<br /><br />It's amazing.<br /><br />We have a lot in common here. We just approach it from slightly different angles. Thank you.<br /><br />JMJJersey McJoneshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15426560061830038806noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7674333464171899932.post-17057922496877826572011-07-14T18:22:14.032-06:002011-07-14T18:22:14.032-06:00I think Jersey summed the problem up nicely: "...I think Jersey summed the problem up nicely: "professional, American politician".Finntannhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09234170229108668040noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7674333464171899932.post-32966672112463060582011-07-14T18:05:11.086-06:002011-07-14T18:05:11.086-06:00FreeThinke,
Are you for real? Do you really thin...FreeThinke,<br /><br />Are you for real? Do you really think you and I and Obama and anyone else are really all that opposed???<br /><br />Grow up man!!! He's a pretty understandable (and rather typical) professional, American politician. That's what he is. And he's very good at it.<br /><br />Now, as for his particular policies and such, we can argue about that. But this INSANE nonsense about Obama being a friggin' "communist" makes you look like a SILLY CHILD.<br /><br />God, guys, GROW UP!<br /><br />JMJJersey McJoneshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15426560061830038806noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7674333464171899932.post-1558962792719647852011-07-14T17:59:03.499-06:002011-07-14T17:59:03.499-06:00Jersey: Pretty much correct, thanks for the contr...Jersey: Pretty much correct, thanks for the contribution. I do understand monetarism.<br /><br />Monetarists left and right believe they can create better economic conditions by manipulating the money supply. They are wrong. You can's spin gold out of straw.<br /><br />Your comment about Reagan is like saying math was what built Niels Bohr.<br /><br />Reagan and Volker took a deliberate strong dollar approach, which was needed to bring down interest rates.Silverfiddlehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/13541652236676260219noreply@blogger.com