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Palindromedary ~ I suppose you are right! What it would ultimately come down to is how good of a hand I thought I had; and/or, how good of a cheat I believed myself to be. In either case, I suppose it would be really stupid to think one could sweep the table at such an event and walk out the door alive. Nevertheless, if one doesn't ante-up and play a few hands they will never see how the cards are dealt, who's sitting at the table, or how the game is played. You can play to learn without necessarily playing to win.
Not to worry! I don't send anything other than friendly emails to politicians. I want them to consider my thoughts not consider me a threat. The emails replies that i received are equally friendly, though annoyingly condescending. Yet nothing to get upset about other than content. Very formal and eloquent. Most likely prepared genetic computer generated responses, as you've suggested. Yet it is the content that concerns me the most. Regardless of the response mechanism it is nice to be acknowledged. Yet, they address all my concerns and suggestions by politely dismissing them. Fine! Doesn't motivate me to write other emails or vote for these people or their party again. I know better than expressing anger in a formal communication with a dignitary. Despite how one feels it is proper protocol to always respect authority. Only in the US amongst the most ignorant groups in our population is that protocol absent. Rudeness, aggression, or disrespect in a communication with dignitaries is a fast road to getting its content ignored--among other potentially unpleasant consequences.
Nevertheless, I think I see what you're really saying. Thanks for the advice!
BlackKnight: I would imagine that Americans would be very emotional too if some powerful foreign country invaded, killed off millions of civilians, imposed their force and will upon our country. I suspect that there would be more than a few Americans that would be willing to strap on an explosive device and sacrifice his life as a way to fight the much greater, technologically, occupation forces. Then again, maybe not! Maybe it would take a fundamentalist Christian who believes he will be going to a better place (sans the 69 virgins of course). I don't know. It is so easy to NOT put oneself in the place of what many victims in the Middle East have gone through.
By the way, since the 500, or so, prisoners at Abu Ghraib were liberated from their cells by invading rebels, I wonder if we are all any safer now than before we invaded and murdered all those civilians. They have got to be some really ticked off guys. Blowback is such a bitch!
And something I heard...that they may be joining the rebels fighting against the government of Syria...and the US wants to send more arms to the rebels...so, quite likely, the US will be arming the radicalized rebels that may very well, like the Mujahadeen, after the US supplied Afghanistan rebels turned into Al Qaida and the Taliban which led to Usama bin Laden and his alleged 19 merry box-cutter wielding hijackers. But they were just patsies without the skill to fly into the WTC buildings or the Pentagon. The planes were electronically hijacked and guided by insiders. The MIC will continue making terrorists because it is in their interests for the world to be very scary.
And now that Pakistan is developing very small and mobile nuclear devices...are they smaller than suitcase nukes..I wonder...the next underwear bomber may radiate his nuts all over New York City some day.
BlackKnight: That Max Keiser is a real funny guy sometimes. I love the show along with Breaking the Set and, sometimes, other shows as well. Oksana Boyko had Dr. Michio Kaku on in an episode called the Science of Democracy. I have always liked Michio Kaku when talking about physics but he really went bazzaro when trying to defend US Democracy... which is not a real democracy at all. It's a sham Democracy. A corrupt Democracy. Democracy has proven to be as much of a failed Utopian dream as Socialism and Communism. Just another tool by a ruling elite to control and exploit and abuse the masses.
At least one thing he said was that he disagreed with the US dropping of the atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagaski (he had relatives killed in those cities). He said he disagreed with the reasoning behind dropping the bombs. He maintained that it was not really necessary to end the war with Japan by using atomic bombs... they were already about to surrender. He was, however, an apologist stooge for the aggressive jingoist nation's hegemonic history and justified war as a necessary action.
He seems to swallow the official US government's conspiracy theories about 9/11 which is really odd..except when you take into consideration that many very intelligent and public individuals whose livelihood (read popularity..selling books..government contracts, perhaps) depends on towing the line for the man. And also: avoiding a can of worms...in trying to defend oneself against attacks by agents of the traitorous insider bastards that did 9/11...like the major news media and their propaganda machine....avoiding being believed by many to be just another conspiracy kook...all may contribute to reasons why one may not say things that they really believe. Lots of people had to "shut up" in Nazi Germany as well!
It is really amazing how anyone smart enough, especially one who is among those sitting at the pinnacle of physics (albeit: astrophysics) can watch those videos of the collapsing WTC towers and not know that something is really amiss here..something very contradictory to the official explanation.
Good Bacteria are dammaged or destroyed in the gut when you eat GMO's. Studies show that eating GMO foods affects the gut bacteria causing severe allergies and many intestinal problems that can be life threatening.
I said yes, because I believe he wants to do just that but I have my doubts that the intransigent GOP will cooperate. One thing I am sure of, he cannot do us without all of us getting on the stick and calling, writing, visiting our Congressmen and Senators and putting their feet to the fire to cooperate with the President to do things like increase the minimum wage, rebuild infrastructure, and rebuild our public school system. I also have hope that the full implementation of ObamaCare will take that off the table for the GOP and they will then have to spend their time on other things. While I, like most progressives, wanted Single Payer Healthcare, I have no doubt in my mind ObamaCare will be far better than what we had. Since my 40 year old son is on ObamaCare Pre-Existing Insurance Plan now, I have had some opportunity to see how it works and I can attest it has been great. As far as I can see it operates much like Medicare, which I love. The two states (CA & NY) that have come out with their figures on its cost and the fact that it will drop cost by 32% for CA and 50% for NY to individuals and businesses in their states have proven to me that this will continue to bring the cost of healthcare down for all of us and stimulate the economy by putting more money into the economy and less into insurance company profits. I think once people get on it, they will see a lot of benefit to it, both economically and physically, and if nothing else, it will enable people stuck in jobs they hate to be more entreprenurial or move somewhere else to find better jobs and not have to stay where they are because of fear of losing healthcare coverage for themselves and their families. It will increase our "freedom" by making us free to better ourselves and will, I believe, put real savings in our pocket which will flow into the economy. True, insurance companies will still be in the mix, just as they are on Medicare, but their profits will be controlled by the 80/20 rule, and we are already seeing that happen with rate increases slowing and dropping and people & companies getting rebate checks.
BlackKnight -- You imply we need green energy in order to be a "Good Neighbor". We do need green energy, but not for that reason. I say that because the No. 1 export for the US is fuel (at least it was in 2011 and 2012). All we need to do for energy is keep the Kochs and others from sending our fuel out of the country. Of course if we do that, we would have a glut of oil in the US and Koch's profits would plummet. Since they own the republicans in congress, there is very little chance of any laws being passed to restrict the export of fuel.
Obama can say a lot of things to make it seem like he is empathetic to the plight of the majority of Americans but he is just doing what he, and other politicians do, pretending that they are not the wolves that are devouring the victims...that they are the protectors. Total bovine excrement! Don't judge Obama by his current lugubrious garbage. Judge him by his past. He's just a tool that the ruling elite are using to keep us all full of false hope and instilling in us a reticence of real and meaningful action. Break out of the mold, the trap, that the ruling elite has managed to set for us all and stop playing by their rules. Nothing will change unless the ruling elite feel threatened. We all need to get mad as hell and refuse to take it anymore. Do something different this time!
akunard -- How long was that downturn? What was the metric for that downturn? The average lag time for economic policy to effect the economy is about 7 years (e.g. stimulus a few months, education 20 years). The time span I think one should look at is a decade. Ravi Batra in his book "Greenspan's Fraud" had these measurements. Incidentally that 80% layoff pay may very kept our economy crashing.
The problem you are describing and your response is similar to how the republicans can sell austerity when it has been shown to never work. The IMF has been trying austerity in the Eurozone for about a decade and finally they have said this doesn't work. The republicans, via the billionaire Pete Peterson, generated a report by 2 well-respected (at least, previously) economists showing that no economy in the world could sustain a 90% debt. Just recently, a graduate student at U Mass, Amherst, obtained the spreadsheets from their study after much badgering. He pointed out cherry picking plus errors. Thom has pointed out it was a scam. Since Pete Peterson wants to privatize socail security one can understand the motivation for this scam.
Yes, I agree that the Republican party does this...but so does the Democrat party.
Tell me that the Democrat party "cult leaders" don't "put their members in physically or emotionally distressing situation to soften them up". What do you call the political tactics of scaring the voters into voting for a lying traitor for the second time because the thought of a Romney (or any Republican) in office would be too terrible to imagine. Even though that would have been quite true...many voters did not seem to imagine that Obama's failures to follow through with his first campaign messages during his first administration would be a pretty good indicator of what he would do in his second term.
Tell me that the Democrat party doesn't also "reduce complex problems to bumper stickers, and they demand loyalty to the founder and core ideas of the cult."
And tell me that the Democrat party doesn't also "spoon feed information to their members in a way that always makes them look good and everyone else look bad.' For instance, Hartmann's blog usually always returns to a common theme of supporting the Democrat party and condemning the Republicans. I certainly agree that the Republicans are very worthy of condemnation but to let the Democrats get away without condemnation as well is total obfuscation. Oh, occasionally, Hartmann's blog will throw in a bone to make it seem like they are not a total shill for the Democrat Party to make it seem like they are "fair and balanced".
Once you realize that the Democrat Party is just another arm of the ruling elite, just another one of their tools to keep us all constrained to their dictates, you will begin to see that persistent promoters of either political party are working for the ruling elite and against the majority of citizens in the US. We all have to wake up and realize that we are all being played for fools by the ruling elite when we vote for either Republicans or Democrats...when we restrict ourselves to the narrow confines of the rules of the game as set forth by the ruling elite.
DAnneMarc: I suspect that you, as well as a few others, realize that any communications with the White House: emails, letters, even phone calls will most likely never be seen, read, or heard by anyone important.
First, they have electronic (computers) means of parsing these communications and responding with replies with form letters or emails or recorded promises of some kind of action. Few communications are ever heard or seen by anyone of importance. The politician's second line of defense are "pages" or "analysts" that scan any communications that are flagged by the computers. Certain words (key words) are entered by the analysts..just like they do with Echelon where they use "dictionary computers" to detect select key words. And any communication they believe they can use for some favorable propaganda might even get to the actual politician...you know...like some young child writing the President with some emotional plea that the President can use to emotionally manipulate the public with.
They do collect general data on whether the communication was positive (ie: supportive) or negative (ie: angry comments) so as to filter that down into percentages of support or popularity of various issues.
So, as you are composing that email or letter, I wouldn't take much importance on worrying about spelling errors or grammatical mistakes. Unless, of course, their computer algorithms are analyzing the education or intelligence of the sender and crunching that down into how much importance they need to attribute to the communication. IE: they realize that uneducated flunkies will likely never rebel or try to overthrow a corrupt government exploiting and abusing them so those communications are worth less than dirt and can be totally ignored. Those are the people that politicians realize are going to continue playing within the rules set down by the corrupt system...ie: continue voting for either Republicans or Democrats and emailing, writing letters, or phoning their "elected" officials. If you are sitting in a game of poker and you know you are being repeatedly cheated, that all of your opponents were skilled gambling cheats, would you continue to play in their game? How dumb it that?
He will try, but the obstructionists in Congress will do nothing to benefit their middle-class-and-sliding-down constituents.
Over the millennia, mankind has believed in gods who were all powerful, capable of rewarding the well behaved and punishing the unfaithful. Those immortal entities controlled, even created, all the universe. Cults sprang up to do their bidding. To say that those entities were chimeras seems obvious in retrospect. However, today these entities actually exist. Powerful, undying, rewarding and punishing, strideing the earth as the imagined Titans of old. They are called --corporations.
I agree with Thom, it was pretty damn ludicrous for NC lawmakers to insert a ban on Sharia law. They gotta keep that fear machine cranked up, it justifys the spending by the military industrial spy complex. On the other hand these same lawmakers are trying to institute Christian religious law......via civil law................with legislation that oppresses and denies rights to women in our own country......fear that!
So DAVID IN VEGAS, do you think it is good politics to deny convicted felons their civil right to vote...Even after they have "paid their debt to society"!?!?
This is a common practice favored by neonazi conservatives and right wing bigots! Don't agree with me...Consider the practice here in Florida that Fl. Attorney General Pam Bondi wrote and Fl. Gov. Dick sign into effect just 6 months after he took office. The law states than any one convicted of a fellony must wait and "minimum" of 5 years, up to 7 years, before applying to have their Civil Liberties reviewed for re-enstatemen.
I'm not sure what "You" call this type of behaviour, but to me, not only is that an over reach of punishment after a person has completed their sentence it's also "Voter Surpression 101"!
To deny any U.S. citizen their Right to Vote goes against our Civil Liberties, which is protected by U.S. Constitutional Law. Anyone person, party or organization that trys to enact or commits Voter Surpression should be prosecuted to the full extent of the law.
It is easy to identify a republiCON. They have calves like watermelons from hauling around 75 pounds of fat cells stored above their shoulders. By the same token, it is also easy to identify democRATS. They have calves like watermelons from hauling around 75 pounds of fat cells stored above their shoulders.
"There is nothing 'ant-voter' about requiering rules [laws] that prevent fraud in voting". DAVID IN VEGAS are you practicing your stand up routine? Okay we're ready, give us the punch line.
Even the crickets have left the building.
Guess the US has not figured out that being a "Good Neighbor" to these countries - dealing with them with some common courtesy and good sense - might actually have them look at us as friends rather than people to retaliate against and to kill.
My sense about the people in these countries - as they are so emotional - is to treat them fairly but to have very little to do with them. Saying that - we need to have our own green sources of energy.
I realize that I am one day late - and hopefully not a dollar short. We heard on the Kaiser Report on Russian Television on Tuesday the 23rd that the city of Detroit had made some dealings with Wall Street in the aught years between 2002 and 2005. Stacy Herbert (sp?) who is on the show with Max Kaiser said that in 2002 the pensions funds were in the positive. In 2005 - they were in the negative.
If I remember correctly - the city was trying to borrow money each year to pay for what they had to pay to their Wall Street creditors for the previous year's borrowing.
This is the only place that I have heard this story - so I am not sure of it. If it is true - I guess we have heard this story before .
Thank you, Thom.
Palindromedary ~ You are so right! Today I received an email from the white house with this link:
http://www.whitehouse.gov/a-better-bargain/speak-out
What is this? What the people want and need is the repeal of free trade, the war on drugs, the Patriot Act, and foreign involvement with our military. We are tired and fed up with empty promises that mean nothing.
I, much like you, can't wait till the next election to make my wishes heard. The Administration of Obama had the audacity to return an email I sent them about the Sequester saying, basically, that I didn't know what I'm talking about and that these measures were necessary for my own good. Fine! I've heard enough to know when I'm being jived!
Let us take back our country and vote for anything other than the dominant paradigm! It's time to take names and kick butt!!
Reminds me of Nazl brownshirts and the rise of Hitler to power. In his day, they decided the world's problems were caused by the Jews. Today, we are possibly seeing a replay. Only this time, the target is the Muslim.
I'm sure that many of us are fearing the same thing that honest, hard working Germans feared in the 1920-30's when Hitler emerged - the fear of uncontrolled power unleashed on a minority to satisfy the bloodlust of godless men. We'll know we are closer to this when the bloodthirsty begin smashing the storefronts of Islamics in a modern day "Kristallnacht."
I hope I'm wrong, because we don't want our country to look like post WWII Germany did. And, don't think that we are invincible or you'll be thinking just like Hitler did.
Let us hope and pray that democracy and the goodwill of Americans will somehow put a stop to the oppression and other Hitleristic acts that we are already seeing the rise of.
And, oh, how cute...Obama is now promising to work harder for the middle class...duh!!! You all should know by now that Obama is full of bovine excrement! And if he does actually make some improvements..it will be for the UPPER middle class. Obama's popularity is at an all time low...he'll SAY anything (guardedly-like a skilled and devious lawyer/politician) but I don't think many people really believes him anymore. And it's not just Obama...it's many of the leaders in the Democrat party...sell outs to the ruling elite.
The problem with the current two party system is that the Democrat party is plan B. The ruling elite prefers plan A...the Republican party... but they rely on the voter to either be dumb enough to vote Republican or stupid enough to believe that the Democrat party is the only viable alternative. The ruling elite wins either way. We need to either elect a third party that is radically progressive or we need to get way more aggressive in the streets...make the ruling elite fear that they will lose it all....otherwise, this political ping pong idiocy will never make things better for the majority of Americans.
Oh, no! Not that! How horrible! You mean, if Sharia law is banned in the US, that we won't ever have the chance to witness public beheadings here in America like they do in Saudi Arabia? How horrible! Oh, and we won't even be able to watch some woman being stoned to death for adultery!
Thank you, Chuckle8!
Please explain to me why banning Sharia law is a bad thing.
I have never heard of a county voting 110% of regesterd voters for a republican as Ohio did.