Republicans & Conservatives: Archives

Eric, not bad, but you only got it half right. The other half is obviously tongue in cheek. That is what is so confusing for polled voters, how much is true, and how much is political spin? Your article highlights this problem exquisitely.

Well done! : )

Posted by: David R Remer at February 13, 2004 01:23 PM

Eric:

You’ve done well, grasshopper, very well. You have snatched the pebble of ignorance, loose logic, and ideology from the hand of the democrats and have smote them between the eyes with it.

I always find it amusing to see the A to B logic that Democrats try to use, and how they fail so miserably to the least bit of scrutiny.
A—Bush is STUPID
B-Bush masterminded 9-11/masterminded the entire war on terror/is in control of some sinister New World Order group etc etc.

A—Bush wont release National Guard documents

B—Bush is only releasing whitewashed documents/ the docs are not sufficient etc

Democrats simply try to find a flaw—any flaw—with which to flog him with. When the Dow was down, that was bad. When the Dow surged, the problem became jobs or the deficit. When Iraq went poorly, Bush was a fool. When Iraq improved, we hadnt caught saddam. When we caught saddam, we still havent caught OBL. When we catch him….well, im sure they will have some type of complaint for that as well.

Posted by: joebagodonuts at February 13, 2004 01:46 PM

The democrats have now descended into the ranks of the minority party within this country. The only way they can become a majority is to point out everything that is wrong with America, even if to the rest of us it makes sense.

Remember, neiher side is playing to their 40% base, they are playing to the 20% of moderate voters..

Posted by: Brian at February 13, 2004 02:16 PM

Brian,

I think you might be mistaken in your numbers..the moderate base is much larger than you may think.

I think it’s more accurate to say that 40% of the Left and Right Base vote, compared to 20% of moderate voters.

That’s the real problem…a huge majority of people are so disgusted with both the Left and Right, that they have given up on voting altogether.

Yes, the Dems are a minority right now, but personally, that’s only because they spent so much time not crying from the mountaintop as the Rep’s have.

The Republicans have seen leaps in their numbers because,more often than not, they are the only ones doing all the talking. It has nothing to do with one side’s message being any more right than the other’s.

Posted by: rob at February 13, 2004 02:49 PM

Well I don’t think that those are necessarily the issues that are being discussed as possible obstructionist (not conspiracy) issues by mainstream Dems. Ofcourse there is no Illuminati or New World order or world cabal in play here, arguably being far too arduous to coordinate for one, on any remotely workable basis. But there are quite reallistically some strange maneuvers that do need examining if not just for curio sake.

One of which being the appointment of Judge Renquist’s daughter, Diana, appointed to the administration to be in charge of Medicare. A position of which after some bungling, she was eventually removed from. Was this a scratch my back I’ll scratch yours game-Or was she just so darn qualified for the position out of all the other people who have been working there for years. She was reportedly removed for a “misappropriation mishap”

Here’s another one. A company by the name of ‘Accenture’ was given the bid to do the vote counts for the military in the upcoming elections (2004). Do you know who ACCENTURE Is? Answer: ARTHUR ANDERSEN. After the Enron scandal their name was changed and now are effectively still in business today. Lets hope they don’t cook anything or prefer the Democratic platform more.

On the week of September 7th of 2001 in the Tampa Tribune it was mentioned that Jeb Bush had allocated several million dollars to a program for “terror prevention and response” for the state of Florida. I have the article somewhere, being that this is my home state, I’ll see if I can get the exact monetary figures on that but that is completely researchable.

(I’ll add more when I get a free moment)

Posted by: hOOBRUNGYA at February 13, 2004 03:34 PM

The Republicans have seen leaps in their numbers because,more often than not, they are the only ones doing all the talking. It has nothing to do with one side’s message being any more right than the other’s.

And yet when you look at the history of the last one hundred years you can trace the rise and fall of two competing philosophies. Statism and liberalism (classical liberalism - perhaps more accurately labeled libertarian.)

The Republicans have benefited from being on the general side of classical liberalism. The Democrats are still stuck in the memes of Marx, which is waning worldwide and never had full sway here in the US. The 30’s being the height of Marxist influence. Hence the dominance of the Democratic party for 30 years.

Reagan broke the spell. The USSR fell. The experiments with Marxist systems which resulted in over 100 million civilian deaths in this last century has simply wore the shine off the idea of redistribution in the name of the proletariat.

Posted by: Eric Simonson at February 13, 2004 03:35 PM

Eric, what are these selective references to the demise of socialist programs in the world? China is solving some of its most basic problems by retaining socialist programs to address them. Most of Europe has socialist programs that, like the U.S., have their benefits and drawbacks. Apparently, however, the benefits outweigh the drawbacks in those countries since their populations are NOT moving to remove those programs.

Public school education is a socialist program. Job retraining at government expense due to outsourcing job losses is a socialist program. Our interstate highway system was and is a socialist program, taking gasoline taxes from all and applying them to the interstate maintenance, regardless of whether that gas is used for interestate travel. I could go on, but, socialized programs are alive and well throughout the world, and even Bush has brought RX coverage to seniors under a socialized program.

I simply see no evidence to support your view that socialized programs are on their way out. The evidence doesn’t support that statement.

Posted by: David R. Remer at February 13, 2004 04:32 PM

Anyone, left right or center, can certainly enjoy this article. That’s a great read Eric!!

Posted by: George at February 13, 2004 05:04 PM

Eric, you’ve done a great job describing how Bush supporters think Bush detractors think. You are using the same slanderous paintbrush the Bush campaign will use this year to simplistically paint mainstream, thoughtful, and reasonable opposition as stupidity, insanity, and even as treason.

Republican supporters regularly take extreme leftist rhetoric and use it to paint the entire Democratic opposition as extreme (witness the scandal over the obviously anomalous “Bush=Hitler” advertisement at MoveOn.org), or, as in your case, caricaturing the opposition’s more nuanced viewpoints by exaggerating them into cartoonish parodies.

For example, the Democrats (and some Republicans!) are today questioning “How much did Bush know before 9/11?”, trying to get to the bottom of whether or not the intelligence reporting system all the way up to the Oval Office was functioning correctly. And yes, I’ll acknowledge that some members of the Democratic party are even going so far as to question whether it’s possible that Bush may have even known that there was a likelihood of terrorist attack by hijacked airlines in the fall of 2001.

But, like almost all of your chosen targets for satire, it’s not a black and white issue at all. It’s not like we can only choose to think either (a) the whole Bush administration was caught completely by surprise or (b) Bush and Osama planned it all in advance. You are implying in your parody that if one does not believe (a) then one must beleive (b).

Let’s look at some of the many subtle shades of gray:

1) “Bush would have known if he had the right information, but he didn’t.” (in other words, the intelligence agencies were clueless from top to bottom)

2) “Bush’s team should have figured out that there was a great risk based on the information that they did have, but unfortunately his team misjudged or ignored that information.” (i.e., the intelligence agencies were clueless, but only at the uppermost levels)

3) “Bush should have figured out that there was a great risk based on the information that he personally did see, but unfortunately he misjudged or ignored that information.” (i.e., the intelligence agencies were clueless, but only at the uppermost levels)

4) “Bush had reason to suspect that maybe 9/11 was going to happen, but he didn’t do anything about it.” (i.e., he misjudged, perhaps understandably, perhaps not)

5) “Bush had good reason to beleive 9/11 was going to happen, but he didn’t do the correct things to prevent it.” (i.e., he misjudged, perhaps understandably, perhaps not)

6) “Some people very close to Bush had good reason to beleive 9/11 was going to happen, and they didn’t tell Bush - they let it happen because they knew it would lead us into war.” (i.e., he’s surrounded by warmongering nuts)

7) “Bush had good reason to beleive 9/11 was going to happen, and he let it happen because he knew it would lead us into war.” (i.e., he’s crazy and imperial)

8) “Bush knew about it and was happy to let it happen” (he’s evil).

9) “Bush planned it.” (he’s Satan)

See, there is lots of room between #1 and #8. I am presently able to entertain, with a straight face, everything between #2 and #5 (none of which, by the way, are impeachable). Option #6 would suprise me, but knowing Wolfowitz and Rumsfeld, it wouldn’t deeply shock me. Options #7-#9 are unthinkable horrors.

What makes me mad is that a reasonable person who wants to know whether or not #4 or #5 is true is accused of thinking #8 or even #9: “Bush knew!”.

(Of course, all of this assumes that Bush is actually permitted to see detailed intelligence information from different perspectives, which is preposterous.)

-Cf

Posted by: Christopher Fahey at February 13, 2004 05:22 PM

David, I am so glad you invited me to contribute to this blog! I am afraid my work productivity is going to suffer though.

I simply see no evidence to support your view that socialized programs are on their way out. The evidence doesn’t support that statement.

Actually, I didn’t say that socialist programs were on their way out, I said that the ideology was waning, and that the shine had wore off the idea that society should be organized to redistribute wealth.

But you’re right, socialist programs are still all over the place, but socialism has lost the argument for whether it is the best way to organize society. Still the meme dies hard. The argument has moved from claiming socialism can cure all ills to rationalizations for individual programs. Like public education, highways, and prescription drugs.

The democratic party sure isn’t giving up on Marx. Even though the evidence is ample that socialism is a failure, and that it fails in proportion to the extent of it socialist purity. Remember the arguments against welfare reform? How many women and children would starve and be homeless?

China has had to move in the capitalist direction, not the other way around my friend.

Europe is experiencing economic malaise as a result of their over burdensome government.

The planned economy is dead. This is my argument. Instead, those who once argued for a workers paradise now advocate a ‘third way,’ of watered down socialism.

My question is why? If it doesn’t work at full strength, the fact that it doesn’t kill you when it’s diluted doesn’t mean it’s not still poison.

Posted by: Eric Simonson at February 13, 2004 06:52 PM

of course …. because something is too horrible to contemplate it must be impossible to happen …. or if you do contemplate it … you must be unpatriotic!

also … I don’t think that wanting a health care system for all actually makes one a Marxist…

Posted by: mark edwards at February 13, 2004 07:05 PM

Perhaps for the same reason capitalism doesn’t work at full strength. Free Capitalism is outsourcing good paying jobs with benefits and replacing them slowly with low paying ones. Lou Dobbs, no Marxist to say the least, reported this evening that of the 112,000 jobs created recently, 70,000 of those were low paying and low, or no, benefits type jobs.

While the 3 Million jobs we lost in the last 3 years have been good middle class jobs with good benefits and an average of 2.4 times minimum wage.

This is capitalism at full tilt. Now, we need government to step in as Congress and even Bush are about to do, to require corporations to report at least 3 months ahead when they plan to ship jobs overseas. This of course is not going change anything, but, at least we will have better tracking of capitalism exporting America’s standard of living overseas.

I am very glad to see another reasoned and rational voice on WatchBlog, such as yours.

I understand now what you mean, that socialism is waning as an ideology. So, too would I posit that Capitalism is waning as an ideological panacea for what ails us.

I have, since starting here summer of last year, argued that the mixed economy has, is, and had better, remain the core of our economic approach over moving too extremely either to the left or right economically. Apparently, the electorate agrees en masse since Congress and the President have made moves to support the mixed economy approach in light of the looming elections. And no one knows the sentiment of the people better than an incumbent politician seeking reelection.

As for China, you are quite right, they have incorporated Capitalism in areas of their society, most notably in Hong Kong and Singapore which were capitalist before mainland China reincorporated these areas. But they do so for pragmatic reasons, not ideological ones. The pragmatic blending of socialism and capitalism to solve basic demographic problems is what makes the Chinese Dragon so ominous to a conservative free market captialist bent future America.

Our trade deficit stands at almost a half Trillion dollars, a large portion of that debt owed to China. At the height of the recent world wide, tech led recession, China’s GDP grew at 8.2% while ours contracted for a short period. It is hard to argue with reality from an ideological position for which the only relevant historical support is the turn of the 20th Century replete with the 1929 crash which sent capitalists diving out 30 story windows for shame.

Posted by: David R. Remer at February 13, 2004 07:16 PM

Go to www.witnessreport.com to read more about the right and left.

Posted by: Witness at February 13, 2004 07:58 PM

Things work a little looser than you described it, but I think what stands out about the Bush administrations is the sheer amount of screw ups. It’s families like the Bush family that encouraged us to forgo becoming an aristocracy like our parent country.

Posted by: Stephen Daugherty at February 14, 2004 12:14 AM

guys…it’s great to see someone sticking up for us conservatives. I’m sick of the liberal spin all over the place and I’m sick of watching these (Name calling removed by Watchblog Manager) assault the president who has pulled our country up off its feet after 9/11. They should be kissing his feet.

P.S. if either john kerry OR hillary clinton ever become president, I will make sure to assassinate them both…with a large rock…

Posted by: James at February 14, 2004 12:47 AM

And also to the liberals/leftists who post here, you guys seem very logical and “un-rhetoric-y” (made-up word, I know.)

I am 16 years old and I live in Texas and all the liberals that I know here spout the same lines as mentioned above in the parodies. It’s nice to finally find a place for intelligent, analytical political debate.

Posted by: James at February 14, 2004 12:55 AM

Holy crap James, I know our president repeats the same lines over and over again, but could this be true of all Texans? (just kidding)

Hey Eric(or is it earache), I can’t attack the messenger or get too politically incorrect or I get edited, so I’ve learned. So for monitorial sake I’ll try to keep it devoid of ruthless barbs that might offend but we need to have us a throw down, in whatever form it may take.

Now, in some of your remarks as with most here (whole site) I am hearing nothing but glib ideological prattling arguements without any show of varifiable facts and yes it’s quaint. Now, In some of your comments I am in concurrence. Such as the communistic death toll. Being that yes, the largest documented genocide in world history was in the Ukraine under Joseph Stalin. Over 50 million sent to death camps. I would even contend it to be of a greater figure than you have mentioned for the entire revolution and implementation of communism, which actually was not communism in the literal sense but a promise of communism, in other words, it never became communism. Now I am not defending such reigeims of ill-thought-out consequences but I shall contrast thine own sense of entitlement to the golden wreathe.

Here’s the basis of my arguement, the daft glibness of politico spin is irritating. See what you are lacking here (in your message) is an understanding of the history that brought us thus far. And we have many such horror shows ourselves in the persuit of a free world. Such as when the Viet Cong entered rural eastern Cambodia and the pentagon carpet bombed that entire region. Over 500,000 rural Cambodian villagers blown to high heavens. There were B-2 bombers given coordinates to bomb things that even the pilots themselves had no idea who or what they were bombing.

There’s Chilean dictator Pinochet that gained power after U.S. intelligence ops had Allende assassinated due to his socialist platform. They still can’t locate many of the bodies of people that were taken away by this man. There’s Amin and Pol pot, pol pot being our ally, as an enemy of our enemy being our friend. Go rent the movie “The killing fields” sometime to get a minute sense of what Nixon and Ford were calling an ally in the fight against Communism. And I could go on but I won’t.

What I can’t stand in the American dialogue is the spoiled brattish sense of entitlement. Like oh we won this and we won that, with no education on how those things came about. And more enfuriating is the use of these things to tote along a political viewpoint just so matter of factly for your own benefit like, lookie seeeee! we’re right and yoooou are wrong! It’s brattish popery! If you knew the truth in detail sir, the option of scattering them around so matter of factly would be tempered by the vividly ugly truth, front and center. I really abhor the academic elitist notion (left and right) that this stuff is just fodder for to proclaim one’s own political stance. It’s a rhetoric of spoiled upper middle class children, who assume they know all about the world from some Houghton Mifflin textbook and some course taken at a second rate college somewhere in Podunk from a proffessor who used scads of fancy terminology to dicribe some mindlessly roughshod theory on the grandiose portraiture of what appears to have happened and its diverse effects on society (bleh bleh bleh). Read a book occasionally, get some facts and get rid of the bald entitlement you think you have of those things. From this you will have gathered enough to form a more knowledgable analysis not just some yuppie hypothesis on how one party is greater than the other. If you can’t see that both political parties have the capacity to be full of it, You are but cattle. Care to respond?

Oh and by the way it was’nt, Reagan broke a spell or some general jibberish. What happened was this we economically over extended them. There was the Starwars plan (or mor technically ruse) and Our warmachine and war technology build up. But on top of that we were funding the Mujahadin in Afghanistan in the war against the Soviets. Now what that did is quite obvious, we soaked ‘em. As for what brought down the Berlin Wall was’nt Reagan during the Parastroika innitiative saying “Mr. Gorbachev, bring down that wall” or some such republicanized nonsense I keep hearing touted to impress the stupid. The Soviets had no choice but to pull out of Afghanistan, they were financially exhausted. Reallizing this on the part of the German people that is, they knew that if they tore it down the Soviets could’nt respond. And hence it actually fell due to the pentagon’s funding of the Mujahadin. Hegemony was secondary if that is what you are implying with “broke the spell”.

I love that, broke the spell…THAT’S ADORABLE!!! You republicans are sooo cuuute!

Posted by: Hoobrungya at February 14, 2004 10:16 AM

And furthermore, to defend a party that drags our country in the way of Arbusto Energy by George sr. The way of Harken Energy by George jr. And the way of Enron by the entire republican cabal is indefensible. If we overexhaust our resources, overexhaust our armed services and overexhaust our economy, what have we then, elephants? We have but one way to go, the way of Rome. Feel free to contrast my fatalism, but first let me give you some math to do.

>75 billion given out in tax cuts.
>$97,824,333,622 so far spent in Iraq, if we went in multilaterally this cost would have been signifigantly lessened.
>A 200 billion dollar trade deficit
>320 billion plus into medicare, that even the democrats find objectionable being that they benefit big pharmeceutical companies as well find it exorbitant in effectively doing what it claims.
>The trillions in surplus that we can color ‘gone’ much of it spent after 9-11 including still going ahead with “tax relief”.

See here’s the thing with republicans, if the market looks okay, then they assume we’re okay as we tack on more debt for a later time to be paid down. So all innitiatives go to the benefit of markets. It’s faulty macro economic venture without examining the networks that make the car go vroom. It’s like owning a carlot and wandering around placing the cars up in a fancy display. Sure it will sell cars, hey afterall presentation sells but if each of those cars do not have properly serviced engines what you take off the lot will most likely stall on the street. What the democrats do is work technically in what would be considered micro but work within the systems to improve the workable stasis of the whole from a vantage point of the each spoke being essential to the sum of the whole. Granted it does create more bureaucracy, some very much requiring mitigation and reduction, but the problem is it has to sell from a pandering viewpoint being too complex for stump speaches to explain. But to throw the baby out with the bathwater is problematic. Railing against ‘Big Gubment’ and ‘Bureaucracy’ is not seeing the reallities in focus.

Do we throw away bureaucracies as republican pandering suggests? Many of our bureacracies are absolutely essential to the running of a country of this size. Do we through out HUD or The F.B.I. or education? I mean to say this banter is remarkable that it sells.

And about tax and spend. In the words of Bill Maher (whom I find only partially on the ball) “..What are we going to do have a bakesale?” See the more imperrative thing is in the allocation not that we tax but that it is put in useful places to do what our country requires. And both sides effectively have pork barrel, power and privelege corrupts, age old story. Taxation benefits the nation, cuts are only useful to influence markets. It does’nt trickle down, listen if you were worth say, a hundred million dollars and I give you ten million more, does that mean that that money will be spent in local economies? With that money are buying things on auction at Sotheby’s and luxury items but this is’nt the entirity of the economy this is but a small portion. It does benefit construction to some extent but that would have been there anyway. So what does that extra ten million do that the other 100 million is’nt already doing? Then there are write offs and loopholes. This benefits investing solely, is my main contention. They get richer and give little to the local economies (not to mention federal). Why should they not be taxed effectively? Do they not benefit from the justice system? Or from the SEC or from a hundred other things? What they pay is more than we pay, but what the government takes from them does’nt hurt them, but the amount we pay hurts us. And all these tax relief things plus the war, we will have to pay the majority of, the middle and lower income groups.

Posted by: HOOBRUNGYA at February 14, 2004 01:22 PM

James,

It does not surprise me that Eric’s parody might resemble the liberal remarks of your 16-year old friends. But you won’t hear that kind of stuff from too many real, grown up liberals - in particular, you won’t hear it from elected Democrats, by and large.

These sorts of opinions are held by a small (1% maybe) fringe of adult liberals, and, of course, by some 16 year old kids whose political views are still in their infancy.

-Cf

Posted by: Christopher Fahey at February 14, 2004 01:49 PM

Hoobrungya,

You are quite right about history and everyone being tainted by some sin or wrongdoing. Still I enjoy my prattling. It’s become something of a hobby for me with this whole blog thing. I see no problem with, “proclaim[ing] one’s own political stance.” I thought that was the essence of democracy and absolutely necessary for debate?

Still, how is it that anyone could continue to deny that the soviets were implementing real communism? I understand the attempted excuse of trying to say that’s not what communism promised, but it is exactly what it delivers everytime it’s tried.

I recall leftists like Noam Chomsky defending Pol Pot.

“After the Cataclysm” is not easy to obtain…. This book has done Chomsky’s reputation even more harm than the Faurisson affair did. Chomsky argues that the genocide carried out by Pol Pot was not as bad as the one that took place in East Timor. Chomsky has done the world a service by bringing the East Timor situation to light. There is something he misses, however. The United States neither ordered nor carried out the murders there; Indonesia did. Pol Pot, on the other hand, did order and carry out the murders in Cambodia. The United States is not guiltless, but the sin is one of omission. The United States committed a sin of omission during World War II as well, by not publicizing the Holocaust or bombing the death camps. Nevertheless, it is Hitler who killed the Jews, not the United States; it is Indonesia that committed murder in East Timor, not the United States. Indonesia, a dictatorship and an Islamic country, is not America.

And you are quite right in one respect about the fall of communism. It fell of it’s own weight. The illogical, irrational, attempted implementation of the Marxist doctrine doomed it from it’s inception. Marxism is mostly fantasy. Its cult-like appeal is based entirely upon the politics of envy and resentment.

Would the USSR have fell if not for the resistance of the United States? I think it would have fell eventually even if it had conquered the whole world. But then we’d all be living in a dark age right now. Reagan, in resisting the left’s wish to capitulate to communism, saved more lives than we may ever know. 100 million might have been just the start.

As for the political parties, you are quite right there as well. The parties are full of divergent opinions and faction and thus sometimes stray from the official party line or even adopt less than exemplar platforms. But this is also a strength borne of democracy.

Posted by: Eric Simonson at February 14, 2004 01:55 PM

Dear Hoobrungya,

Your last post does go to the heart of the argument. Namely, who controls the money.

I don’t believe there is any chance of some kind of distopian fantasy of massive corporations displacing government and ruling the world.

In order for Capitalism to flourish it requires the rule of law. Government’s job is to provide Justice and regulation, ie. laws against fraud and violence. These are the things we agree on.

Where we depart is the reason and the extent of government’s role. Where do we draw the line?

It is not goevernment’s role to decide where money is invested. Or what a business does with the profits it accumulates. The principle that allows such meddling will also allow it to start deciding what the company will produce and how much of it. No government is able to effectively do such things. Even the massive intellect of Al Gore doesn’t enable him to know how many widgets every company should produce every year.

Profits are not hid under matresses. They are put to work to gain more profits. This is called investment. (Which can create things called jobs.) Businesses which are sucessful make a profit. If they continue to make good decisions and manage their business wisely then they earn the right to continue making good decisions via the profit they collect.

The Left, however, has decreed that making good decisions is in fact wrong, greedy, and unacceptable and want to hand over the decision making to ‘much better qualified’ politicians.

The question is about control. If taxation benefits the nation, how much is too much? If money in the hands of those who judiciously managed it is wasted then perhaps the whole idea of private enterprise should be done away with.

Every business man I know gives far more than I make to numerous charities. Hell, all of the left wing think tanks live off money from Carnegie, Melon, Getty, etc. True some would choose to horde their earnings. Every few years you hear of some little old lady or man who lived like a pauper in a hovel saving scraps of paper and every cent they find and die millionaires. That’s called freedom. The freedom to choose. The freedom to pursue opportunity and succeed or fail. Would you take that out of the hands of the people as well, because it’s just too important a decision to be left to the ‘unelected’?

Posted by: Eric Simonson at February 14, 2004 04:41 PM

Wow, I thought I’d be picked apart worse than that, but the night’s still young. I just started seeing tumbleweeds around here and thought I’d kick over a table and start firing. And Yes prattle was a bit much. But Podunk? no response?

Eric, as far as communism falling of its own loosely thought out structure. I could’nt agree with you more. And dark ages? Absolutely, it’s an observable reallity in Russia today more than a decade later. the U.S.(rightly so) hastened the fall Through our pushing of military build-up in the 1980’s as it was trying everything to play catch-up to the west. It is however strange that Gorbachev did’nt take more time with the bringing down of The Soviet Union with a time of readjustment to a capitalist economy. To atleast plan out a safety net of some kind. It seemed almost as if he just let it drop without forethought of how to modulate into a capitalist marketplace. Such as turning over plants and factories to people(reportedly Russian Mob)to run directly into the ground (having little capitalist business knowledge). A plant making tanks parts yesterday was turned into a plant making sausage. But these companies did nothing to upgrade fascilities nor to meet demand having lived under a system where it was’nt important what you got, just that you got it. but with more selection available in the marketplace from abroad needless to say the combination of factors ruined these factories. So dark ages? We can examine the effects today absolutely. And after communism fell we offered help to move them into the modern capitalist economy and were refused. So dark ages also one of outmoded mindset.

The Chomsky thing, I’ve actually read very little Chomsky, although quite revered amongst the left as a patron-saintly intellectual of sorts. Good call on the hypocracy of it, it is actually quite shocking even in the backdrop of a seemingly more radically leftist post-Vietnam era. But was’nt Carter funding Indonesia? My knowledge of the East Timorese is actually quite limited in scope.

Posted by: HOOBRUNGYA at February 14, 2004 05:53 PM

Eric, My argumement is very much in the rudementary sense, obviously. Now by no means am I an economist, but I’ll do my best to explain my thoughts.

Perhaps the problem has to do with my use of the word ‘allocation’ or something else. Let me just clarify.

Ofcourse there’s freedom of choice on what to do with one’s money. As far as I know I did’nt imply anything to the contrary. My arguement or a good part of it was about for the most part, taxation, and that yes, taxes do benefit the rich as well. I do believe in one’s right to expand as well as one’s right to grow. I do think grass roots pork barrel watchdog groups as well as contrasting party platforms as well as activism, on capital hill are also vital to the meld needed to decrease waste.

One part of my longwinded diatribe, was what I thought interesting has to do with the vantage point by which democrats view economy and republicans view economy and where there seems to be the most emphasis, micro or macro, or more to the point ‘technical’, ground level up or ‘overall’, birds eye view down. Not being an economist I’m using my own terminology. I’ll explain what I see here. With a Democratic administration such as Clinton’s there seemed to be an emphasis on reinforcing the underfunded structures already in place, such as the Department of the interior, Veteran’s affairs, things that have gone through some neglect or claimed neglect. And some did actually get neglected or atleast claimed to such as the F.B.I. under Louis Freeh (perhaps bad management of funding, I don’t know) but there seems to be this tendency. Now with republicans there is almost a deconstructionism in the various bureacracies and how they are given reduced budgets to work with, some cuts neccessary some damaging. There’s funding of states and programs, and yes, there are differences with various administrations. Perhaps it’s budgetting prudence sometimes it is budgetting problems. Each year the president submits a budget before congress, and, you know this, then it’s almost like a bad rerun of Survivor island. All the politicians on behalf of various commitees and bureaus. Take a looksee what’s in it for what they prioritize yada, yada, yada.

But what is interesting is the different ways they are askewed for not only a different portion of the population but from different perspectives on the analysis of budgeting need.

Here’s what I see with republicanism and perhaps it’s my leftism, but it’s almost as if their straightening deckchairs on the titanic in this regard. It benefits things from mostly a macro standpoint and rarely sees the intricacy in the structures that are within it. It’s almost a general overall, what they don’t see as beneficial to the macro assessment gets cut and riding solely on the broad range. But it is from a grander vantage point.

Here’s my arguement with that. Imprecise parts make imprecise timepieces, within the macro assessment there is a margin of error that in effect gets magnified once the rubber hits the road so to speak. Gaps in the application at ground level. It may look like a watch but it won’t keep time. But it is good for the market, deregulation, tax cuts, etc. This presidents strategy is a bit different from say Reagan or his father being that he is spending more.

Anyway this is getting too long, quickly though, I have no problem with write-offs for businesses funding charities, personally.

Posted by: Hoobrungya at February 14, 2004 07:40 PM

so you guys have decided to use the true and tested, that is make fun of the truth knowing that the truth is always too hard to beleive

Posted by: kenny at February 15, 2004 11:28 AM

The modern American welfare state first arose in 1933, with Franklin Roosevelt and his New Deal government. With only a few brief exceptions (1947-48, 1953-54, 1995-? for both houses, and 1981-86 for the Senate), Democrats have been in control of Congress ever since, until recently..

But more important than who controlled Congress was the governing philosophy of the nation. In the 19th and early 20th centuries, it was laissez-faire (“leave it alone” or “let it be,” referring to the economy, of course). After 1933, the New Deal ushered in historic changes that created a broad safety net for workers and the poor. Subsequent presidents strengthened that net — Harry Truman with his “Fair Deal,” Lyndon Johnson with his “Great Society.”

Although the New Deal programs (Social Security, welfare, etc.) live on, the New Deal era actually came to an end in 1975, with the rise of the corporate special interest system. It was in that year that the SUN-PAC decision legalized corporate Political Action Committees, the lobbyist organizations that bribe our Congress today. In the ten years after the SUN-PAC decision, the number of corporate PACs exploded from 89 to 1,682. (1) By 1992, corporations formed 67 percent of all PACs, and they donated 79 percent of all contributions to political parties. (2) Inevitably, an enormous shift of power occurred in Congress, from workers and the poor to corporations.

The corporate special interest system immediately began scaling back the New Deal. Even under Jimmy Carter — a president often criticized for being “too liberal” — corporate lobbyists started scoring many important victories. They killed a proposed tax hike and Ralph Nader’s campaign for a Consumer Protection Agency. They reversed the rising tide of federal regulation, winning deregulation on airlines, trucking, railroads, oil and interest rates. They even secured a capital gains tax cut, and raised Social Security taxes (a regressive tax that hits the poor the hardest). In fact, they persuaded Congress to impose a tax on unemployment benefits! “Success,” journalist Hedrick Smith drily noted, “brought more bees after the honey.” (3) Corporate political activism soared; one lobbyist described the atmosphere in 1980 as “a genuine virtual fervor.” (4) And all this happened before Ronald Reagan.

The Reagan Revolution constituted a full scale assault on the New Deal. The top income tax rate was slashed from 70 to 28 percent. Corporate taxes as a percentage of all federal tax collections dropped like a rock: from 27 percent in the 1950s to 8 percent in the 1980s. The Federal Register, the book where all of America’s proposed and adopted regulations are found, was cut almost in half — from 87,012 to 47,418 pages — between 1980 and 1986 alone

Posted by: Lovecraft at February 16, 2004 02:56 PM

Since the same general issues have been on the table for the past week here - namely taxes vs. privatization, I’ll throw some more ideas out..

2 examples off the top of my head on why corporatism and privatization are NOT always more efficient or more desirable for the society at large:

1) The Healthy Forests Act from the last couple years - the issue that came up with the massive forest fires on the west coast. Everybody was blaming everyone elso for the lack of foresight and planning. And to remedy the problem for the future- Bush & friends wanted to privatize the forest thinning efforts in the coming years to lumber companies, claiming that it would be more cost effective.

Okay, the initial problem with this scenario has nothing to do with costs on tax-payers, but rather with how the job wil be carried out. The private lumber companies had a greater incentive (for profit reasons) to focus on removing healthy trees that produce better lumber, and also working in areas ripe for development (also for more profit). However studies on the forest hazard areas showed that the forest areas lumber companies would focus on were not the best for strategically preventing future hazards (i.e. the profit-driven goals do not necessarliy coincide with the social-driven goals, and the social driven goals are supposedly the driving force of the project).. So there is already a conflict of interest going on. And then getting back to the healthy trees they would be focusing on for the lumber, this is also a problem because the major fire hazards are the smaller trees/brush and dead trees..

And as if that wasn’t enough, a study (admittedly, by the government arm that would carry out the task if the project were handed to government workers) based on the private lumber company’s estimate for the undertaking, found that the government could actually run the project much cheaper internally (somewhere around 20-30% less, but I’m too lazy to search the story)..

2) A more recent story that is in the news now:
Halliburtons Iraq contracts- do I really need to deconstruct this one. An obvious case of a corporation wasting tax dollars to produce profits. I’m sure many of you know that this came about because their contract was arranged with a “fixed rate” of profit (something like 5% of project budget). Meaning that they had incentive to run up production costs (and hence waste more and more taxpayer money) because it would produce more profit for the company…

Now I’m sure all you extreme capitalists will say- “alright but the market will eventually filter out these people because the public does not support such practices” or something to that effect.. But the problem is that with corporatism in its current state, it is harder and harder to prevent these things regardless of public opinion. Most of the time, the public has no idea what goes on within the corporate operations because corporations have so much control of media coverage. And due to lobbyists, politicians and ex-politicos getting into investment projects and corporate sponsorship, the interests of profit (which as we have seen are not always congruent with efficiency) often outweigh the most efficient and or socially desirable methods of execution..

Sorry for running on, but to conclude my ramblings- I know the right and the left both preach their own opinions here- but I think both scenarios lead to corruption. Complete government control leads to Communism which we seem to agree has had disasterous economic results in the past, yet complete free capitalism leads to similar types of corruption from the few who arise with too much power.. Power begets corruption- it is human nature and history shows us in almost every example. Therefore the ideal system involves something much like we have- the government puts rules in place preventing too much power in any one area. But then the disagreement seems to be on the exact proportions of allocations for tax money, corporate freedoms in the marketplace, etc.. This is democracy at work, and I doubt there will ever be a unanimous consensus, so the majority will decide- keep up the conversations ;)

Posted by: peezee at February 17, 2004 10:43 AM

Peezee,

In your last paragraph you come very close to my own opinion in this.

Complete government control leads to Communism which we seem to agree has had disasterous economic results in the past, yet complete free capitalism leads to similar types of corruption from the few who arise with too much power.. Power begets corruption- it is human nature and history shows us in almost every example. Therefore the ideal system involves something much like we have- the government puts rules in place preventing too much power in any one area. But then the disagreement seems to be on the exact proportions of allocations for tax money, corporate freedoms in the marketplace, etc.. This is democracy at work, and I doubt there will ever be a unanimous consensus, so the majority will decide- keep up the conversations ;)

I would take issue with the equation of communism and free capitalism though. (It’s really a difference of how Capitalism is defined which I disagree with.)

I agree with you 100% that, “the ideal system involves something much like we have- the government puts rules in place preventing too much power in any one area.” This is in fact my definition of capitalism. All of my arguments stem from this one issue.

I would add however that Government itself must not have too much power. It should be limited and it’s economic authority narrowly defined.

Posted by: Eric Simonson at February 18, 2004 01:45 AM

You are right about a few things. The main one being we Democrats will lose in 2004. This is obvious. Democrats should have stood up right after 9-11 against this bogus war on terror. Fact is the policies of the Clinton administration paved the way for it. Bush and co. were just the hitmen brought in to do the job. What we will see now is a limited hangout, a neo-con purge. Cheney will go. Although the way the Democrats are looking, he may just stay.

The worst thing we have on Bush is: He did the right thing for the wrong reason. We already knew Bush was a lunk head before he took office. This isn’t news to anyone. A well meaning lunk head trumps a smart guy with an agenda any day of the week in this country.

Here is an interesting article on our long and involved history in Central Asia in case anyone wants to know the true reasons for war. A war is a damned expensive and inefficient way to fight terrorism. So looking for an ulterior motive shouldn’t be too much of stretch, even for those of you who do not have the technical prowess to properly adjust a tin foil hat!

Asia Times 12 part History of Pipelinistan

For all those who want a GOP contender who is not GWB in 2004, there is a GOP candidate running against Bush:

On October 13, 2003, Miami journalist and social activist John Buchanan was asked to run for President of the United States, head-on as a Republican against George W. Bush, by a living legend and lifelong Republican — John McConnell, the 88-year-old founder of Earth Day.

Posted by: Heywood Jabangme at February 20, 2004 11:20 PM