Obama I saw on Yahoo.

[maestroanth]

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[adimagejim]

The current President clearly has no more ethical authority than the last.

His appointees drop like tax dodging flies.

His gaffes are as ridiculous as the last guy.

His logic surely isn't any better either when unscripted and unmanaged.

Both he and his predecessor were and are busy bailing out Wall Street fat cats and other organizations that contributed to their campaigns and protecting current elected officials guilty of inciting and prolonging the decisions that brought us to this point economically. Completely unacceptable from either.

In foreign affairs they are nearly identical with minor cosmetic differences for better or worse.

Partisanship is a sucker's game. They win and we all lose.

For the record I did not vote for Obama, because i believed him to be a worse charlatan than his opponent.

Jim

[Recusant]

The current President clearly has no more ethical authority than the last.

His appointees drop like tax dodging flies.

 I agree with both of these points.

 

His gaffes are as ridiculous as the last guy.

Hmm, I don't think he can really fill those clown shoes.  In any event, he seems to make fewer really outlandish/fatuous/inane statements.  Early days yet, though.

 

His logic surely isn't any better either when unscripted and unmanaged.

This I cannot agree with.  Bush seemed much less able to think in a coherent manner than Obama.

 

Both he and his predecessor were and are busy bailing out Wall Street fat cats and other organizations that contributed to their campaigns and protecting current elected officials guilty of inciting and prolonging the decisions that brought us to this point economically. Completely unacceptable from either.

In foreign affairs they are nearly identical with minor cosmetic differences for better or worse.

Partisanship is a sucker's game. They win and we all lose.

Once again, I find little to dispute here, except in foreign policy.  I don't think Obama is as much of a change from his predecessor as his supporters would like to believe, but I really doubt that he would have led us into Iraq.

 

For the record I did not vote for Obama, because i believed him to be a worse charlatan than his opponent.

I think he will provide a better show than McCain would have.  Of course, like all politicians, he's a charlatan, no doubt in my mind. Whether he's worse than McCain though, I'm not sure. I admire McCain's service to this country, but I consider him just as much a mountebank as Obama.
Still, considering the very real possibility that Palin would have become president *shudder* at some point in the next 4 or 8 years if McCain had been elected, I'm very glad that their ticket went down to defeat.

[adimagejim]

I am forever amazed by the visceral, almost Pavlovian, reaction of ideologies to people because "respected sources" have portrayed them as shudderworthy.

Palin, for example, is accomplished and respected by the people who know her best, Alaskans. Until I see an unvarnished view (not produced by NBC or MoveOn.org) that contradicts that, I'll favor the people who know her best.

The truth is, to put a finer point on it, more constitutional freedom has been lost in the last 2.5 months than the prior eight years. Now maybe some of that really is W's fault. But let's not forget John Kerry and Al Gore both earned worse grades in college than W. So it is objectively dishonest to harp on the stupidity angle.

It just seems to me the "[add name here] is dumb and scary" argument just never really washes with reality.

Not liking the policies because they don't have the effect you'd prefer ... that's rational.

Jim

[Recusant]

I really couldn't care less how Palin has been portrayed, in either the right-wing or left-wing media.  In fact it's not hard to find Alaskans that are not at all pleased to have her as their governor, and have a very low opinion of her, so as far as I'm concerned, that's a wash as well.  My opinion of her is based on words from her own mouth to some extent, but it's mainly the feeling for her world-view I got from watching her.  Call me irrational if you will, but I think she would have made a truly horrible president, easily as bad for this country as the blundering buffoon who just left office.  Imagining what she (or McCain, for that matter) might have done with the Supreme Court, to cite one important issue, really gives me pause.

I think that Obama may in fact be "smart and scary," which is arguably even worse than "dumb and scary."  See for instance Dick Cheney.  Still, for now I'm willing to wait and see how Obama proceeds, and I hope that at the very least, he doesn't lead this country into an even worse mess than the one he inherited.

 

... more constitutional freedom has been lost in the last 2.5 months than the prior eight years

What exactly are you talking about?  Maybe I've missed something, and if so I'm very interested to hear it.  It's hard to imagine what you might consider more harmful to our constitutional freedoms than the Patriot Act, and the advancement of such ominous programs as "Operation Garden Plot" which was carried out by the Bush/Cheney administration.  They did not institute Garden Plot, but they certainly did move forward with making it more practical to implement.  There are now several hundred 'camps' ready and waiting.

[Whitney]

Palin was probably only chosen by McCain to attempt to win the female and fundamentalist vote (certainly he could have found someone better but he needed a female who could appeal to the christian right since he is considered a moderate by them) and thinks the war in Iraq is God's work.

"Pray for our military men and women who are striving to do what is right. Also, for this country, that our leaders, our national leaders, are sending [U.S. soldiers] out on a task that is from God," she exhorted the congregants. "That's what we have to make sure that we're praying for, that there is a plan and that that plan is God's plan."

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/09/0 ... 23205.html

She was also obviously more concerned witth how her potential vice-presidency could help to benefit Alaska and couldn't carry on a formal debate without rambling on about other topics and ignoring the moderator's questions.

[adimagejim]

Where to start...

In 2.5 months the government has essentially seized control of one the world's largest corporations (GM) and fired the CEO illegally and never owned a single share of stock. This, by the way, violates the $17 billion loan agreement the US government had with GM on consequences for non-performance. Further, the individual rights of a man, illegally fired by the President, were violated as he was denied any severance after 31 years of service to the company. No consequences at all for the intransigent UAW and the $70+ per hour (wage & benefit average) pay.

The executives of AIG, who are almost exclusively paid in bonuses rather than in salary because of prior government paternalistic intrusion on executive salaries, have protests formed by ACORN (governmentally funded in the current stimulus bill to the tune of $4 billion and under indictment or investigation for voter fraud and intimidation in several states on behalf of one party) at their private residences. This despite the wholly legal and specifically written-in legislation to allow them to be paid (put into the bill by the very same party leaders favored by ACORN). Hypocrisy and illegal seizure of income anyone? Further, the newly government appointed CEO of AIG who makes $1 a year is grilled by lawmakers who feign not knowing about the legislation they themselves wrote. (Oh that's right, the current President said forget reading it, we need it now, pass it.) Co-opting the elected representatives of the people is another violation.

Under the past administration, Wells Fargo was threatened by the US government to take TARP money against the private bank's board of directors decision. The current administration now claims power to decide how much money Wells Fargo officials can make since they took the money against their own better judgement.

In the mean time, the homeowners who are being foreclosed upon for non-payment haven't seen dime one from their rescuers, despite the urgency claimed by both administrations to "solve the problem" with trillions of dollars.

As for Palin, elections have a nice way of sorting out if someone is respected enough to continue in office. I don't like her religious stands either. But if I had a dollar for every time I shuddered thinking about a (plagiarizing, fictionalizing, melodramatic, misspeaking) President Biden, I could bailout the entire country personally.

In any case, I'm enjoying the exchange here.

Jim

[maestroanth]

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[Tom62]

The only time that I received a bonus was In the previous company that I worked for. The bonus was approx. $500 for pulling off an excellent  IT-project. My colleagues and I where very happy with it, because we didn't expect nor demanded it. In the case of AIG and other financial institutions, we have managers who really done a terrible job, but still get their bonuses. They brought their companies and the world into a financial crisis and are awarded for it. IMHO those guys should not be rewarded, but heavily punished.

Nowadays, many employees have a variable salary that is partially based on financial results of the company that they work for. When things go well, they receive their full salary, but when things go bad they don't. Might sound fair, but in many cases the employees have little influence on the market situation or on bad management. I don't know whether the situation is the same in the USA, but whenever things go bad for a company the first thing management will do is to save money on personnel costs. They either throw out a lot of people, increase the working hours, cut personnel benefits, freeze or reduce the salaries, etc.. Again this may sound fair, but their actions never involves themselves. Looking f.e. at my company, I've seen the salaries of management go up by more than 30% and the salaries of the employees go down with more than 25% in just a few year's time. At the same time more than 1,000 employees were fired, but management staff was increased by 50%. So basically we've now created a management culture of vultures. Management grabs as much money that they can get their hands on and ordinary employees are at their mercy.

Yes, I also believe in a free market system. But, it must be ethical and fair. i don't feel sorry for all those "poor" AIG executives who ran away with millions of dollars for doing a very bad job; nor do I have any sympathy for managers who enrich themselves and at the same time punishes their employees for their own stupid mistakes.

[adimagejim]

You both miss the point entirely.

The contract with GM DOES NOT allow for firing the CEO. The AIG billionaires are already gone to foreign countries. The people still working there get paid in bonuses. It is common for mortgages to be paid by these people ONCE A YEAR based on the bonus system, because government interfered with the salary system.

C'mon, I know you can read.

Jim

[adimagejim]

One additional note. When you and I or this President get to decide what other people make and who gets hired and fired by private corporations, you favor a hegemony of power in the hands of government against which the entire Constitution was written.

So, back to the original argument, you favor the subtraction of individual rights as long as it suits you politically. Bush, Cheney, Palin bad. Obama good. I get it.

Wow.

Jim

[Whitney]

Before this gets out of control, it hasn't yet and may not, please remember we encourage members to take a few moments to cool off so you can maintain a civil conversation. When the forum was young we lost a good member over (me) not moderating well enough, so I wanted to step in and say something before anything got out of hand.  Carry on.  I don't plan on being heavily involved in the discussion, I just felt like briefly explaining why I don't like Palin.

[Recusant]

In 2.5 months the government has essentially seized control of one the world's largest corporations (GM) and fired the CEO illegally and never owned a single share of stock.

In fact, the said corporation came to the government, hat in hand, and begged for corporate welfare, so "seized control" is just a bit of an overstatement.  If one believes in a free market, then they should have been shown the door; sink or swim on your own, no coming to dad for help when you get yourself into trouble!  Once they've accepted government money, then they are beholden to the government, and they will of necessity give up some of the independence they would have maintained if they had not taken the money.  The head of GM was asked to resign, not fired.  He could have refused, if he thought the corporation could do just fine without government interference, thank you.  You invite government into your house, don't be surprised when they throw their weight around.  That's what government does.  Did they really expect that they could come and beg money off the government, then blithely go and never have to answer for it?  I think they knew quite well there would be some kind of quid pro quo. Though in fact the first huge bail-out seems to have just been given with pretty much no strings attached; I'm not sure the government even knows what exactly happened with that money. But as a certain eminent philosopher said,"'Fool me once, shame on â€" shame on you. Fool me â€" you can't get fooled again."

Corporations are not mentioned in the Constitution. In fact it was not until 1889 that corporations gained standing as "persons" under law, which I think was never the intention of the writers of the Constitution. The 1889 decision was made in a time when corporations were running roughshod over people, and they wanted to be recognized as 'persons' under the law to be able to do so more efficiently. I don't think that should ever have been allowed.  They should of course have standing under the law, but never equal to that of a human being!  But then again, I value people more than conglomerations of capital.

Apparently you (adimagejim) think that since certain corporations have voluntarily allowed the government into their houses in exchange for huge sums of money, it means that all of us have less freedom.  I don't know that it necessarily follows. Despite the 1889 ruling, a corporation is a different thing than an individual.  Though it is true that when people take money from the government, they too have to listen more to what the government says than people who don't take any money from the government.  Again, that's what government does.  Personally, I try my best to stay well clear of it.  I'm not fond of government, and which group of clowns happens to be in charge of it does not change that opinion. So, speaking only for myself, I can't agree with the following sentences: "Bush, Cheney, Palin bad. Obama good."  If I were to make some equally simple statement it would be something like: "Obama not so good. Bush, Cheney, Palin; worse." Of the politicians that were trying for the presidency recently, I would have been more interested in seeing somebody like Ron Paul or Dennis Kucinich in office.  They both seemed to offer a fresher perspective, if from different ends of the spectrum. I bet you never would have expected somebody to put those two in the same sentence as equally desirable.    When it comes to politics, I wouldn't describe myself as a particularly hot-blooded person, but your advice is excellent.  A thoughtful post is generally more readable and less likely to cause trouble than one fired off in the heat of the moment.

[maestroanth]

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[maestroanth]

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