Gerald,

I concur with much of what you say. Please do try to meditate or do something a little calming, though. I care about your health. (Mike Malloy speaks truth, too, but I had to stop listening to him. I kept worrying about his seeming impending breakdown or coronary...)

Peace.

mstaggerlee, the source for the fourteen points that makes us a Nazi nation is from several articles I read while Hitler Bush was president.

Thom is a great teacher and I have learned much from him. But, we disagree in one area. He is unwilling to say that Stalinista Obama is a one term president.

I will say it!!!

STALINISTA OBAMA IS A ONE TERM PRESIDENT!!!!!

HE IS A FAILED PRESIDENT!!!!! I knew it two months into his presidency!!!

Thom,

I'm sorry, but Dan Gainor always sounds like a breathless alarmist. If he were at the "water cooler", I'd walk away.

DDay,

"Smarts" have always been at the top of my list, too! 'Back at you!

'Hope you and your family have a lovely Thanksgiving.

@Richard L. Adlof,

Thank you for your yeoman's work pushing back on all the tiresome Nazi talk too prevalent here. For me it's an issue of hygiene. No one enjoys being close to the guy who eschews soap and enjoys passing gas all the time. It is insulting to the senses and it's continual repetition is insulting to our intelligence. Your posts are a breath of fresh air.

I wish you and all others here a warm and happy Turkey Day.

BIG government CREATES jobs.

Thanksgiving Day Thought for 11/25/09: It is worth noting that over 45,000 people of all ages die each year because a handful of ‘Conservative’ DEMs and the entire elected caucus of the other major American political party would rather abdication governance to unfettered corporatism, label that ‘Free Market and collect campaign contributions from the company’s they NEED to be regulating for the good of our country. When you are sitting around your table tomorrow and note that empty chair, give thanks for the pretense of Libertarian principles.

Thanks Richard.

Is anyone going to a WTO protest in their area. Lets report back here afterward to share stories.

A REQUEST:

If you have a little extra cash could you send some to our Defend Oregon campaign. Could you also ask a few friends to do the same. So many thanks if you are able to donate and spread the word.

https://www.c-esystems.com/defendoregon/

We have a huge battle against corporate greed coming up here in Oregon. We simply want to raise an outdated corporate tax that hasn't been changed since 1931... yes you read that right... 1931. Currently we have multi-million dollar corporations who pay $10 per year in corporate taxes. Naturally these corporations use roads, send kids to school, accept fire protection, police protection and all of the benefits from the commons but do not wish to pay their fair share.

Big dollars are going to be spent to fight this minuscule raise in their taxes.

If you could donate to this cause it would help fight corporate greed.

Thank you!

@GeraldSocha:

Nazis is a political party that once held power in a foreign country and did some truly horrible things. Nazis and Nazism has extremely charged emotional impact due to those evil actions and the hyperbole of the misuse and misapplication of those concepts trivializes their heinous nature. In America, they have never been anything other than a marginalized, trivial political party.

While Nazi movement is fascist in nature, it is not the most prevalent brand of fascism in America. In America, the most prevalent form of fascism is the abdication to unfettered corporatism. The abdication to unfettered corporatism is not Nazism. It is way scarier as it is utterly devoid the humanity displayed in Nazism. In unfettered corporatism, flesh and blood humans are assigned resource value only and are wholly disposable . . . Not even worth the expense of resources to dispose of them.

You marginalize your arguments through your attempt to co-opt and reframe the bullshit languaging of the recessivists. Your adherence to this rhetorical flourish spills over onto the rest of us here and trivializes our attempts at communication simply by your proximity to us. I recognize that you have a right to express yourself as you choose and, please, understand that I am suggesting that there are more effective ways to encode your message.

Thanksgiving Day Thought for 11/24/09: It is worth noting that the SAME Libertarian-like, broken free-market ideals lead to the minimum wages being frozen for 30 years, also, wiped out anti-usury protections and money being shoveled into banking institutions. Now, American children can experience real Dickensian Christmases for themselves.

Even Reagan no longer measures up to "The Reagan Myth"
http://www.philly.com/philly/blogs/attytood/

One of the core arguments of my book "Tear Down This Myth" was that the iconic, bronze-statue figure of Ronald Reagan that Grover Norquist and other extreme-conservative GOP activists to sell their no-tax, militaristic policies was one that the flesh-and-blood Gipper could never have lived up to himself. The real Reagan was a pragmatist who was willing to sign off on tax increases when he needed to and would "cut-and-run" to save American lives, as he did in Lebanon in 1983.

That's why it's fascinating to see the right wing of the Republican National Committee quantify the Reagan myth this week, so you can see how even Reagan doesn't "measure up." Check out this so-called "purity test" that they've worked up:

WASHINGTON — A group of conservative Republican leaders is proposing a solution to the internecine warfare over what the party should stand for: a 10-point checklist gauging proper adherence to core principles like opposing government financing for abortion and, more generally, President Obama’s “socialist agenda.”

In what was being dubbed a purity test when it leaked out to reporters on Monday, the proposal would require the party to withhold campaign money and endorsements from candidates who do not adhere to at least seven principles on the checklist.

For example:

The principles in the resolution include fairly basic proclamations, like “We support victory in Iraq and Afghanistan by supporting military-recommended troop surges,” along with trickier propositions that have bedeviled the party, like one opposing amnesty for illegal immigrants — a form of which President George W. Bush was accused of supporting.

And as Keith Olbermann noted on MSNBC last night, "the plan they've chosen would have kicked out Ronald Reagan." By Olbermann's estimation, Reagan would have only scored six out of 10, since he grew the size of the federal government during his two terms, signed into law an amnesty program for illegal immigrants in 1986, failed to take a hardline approach to Iran by trading arms for hostages there, and opposed an anti-gay rights proposition in California in the late 1970s, along with several other potential "violations." Olbermann jokingly welcome Reagan -- who'd been a strong supporter of FDR and Harry Truman -- back into the Democratic Party.

There's another huge irony in the proposed GOP purity test. The whole concept is actually based loosely on a quote from Reagan: "My 80 percent friend is not my 20 percent enemy." Of course, the whole purpose of the quote from Reagan -- who famously asked a very liberal Republican, Sen. Richard Schweiker from here in Pennsylvania, to be his running mate if he'd won the 1976 nomination (as pictured at top) -- is that he was looking for ways to broaden the GOP, accepting allies even if they disagreed on one or two big issues, even something as contentious as abortion. The 2009 GOP has turned the quote on its head, aiming to shrink the already shrinking party that doesn't reach this magical 80 percent mark. Amazing.
http://www.philly.com/philly/blogs/attytood/