Originally posted by szurinaga Ratmagiclady, I read a lot of your comments on this forum and I agree with you the majority of the time. This time I respectfully disagree.
The FED protects us from the Greedy and Powerful? The exact opposite.
The Fed's problem isn't that we have a Federal Reserve. It's that corporate influence has made it work for the irresponsibility of big corporations.
Ron Paul simply wanting to dismantle government (and our intelligence agencies) in the name of 'small government' certainly doesn't promise anything *better.* Turn it over entirely to the corporations and banks that caused the crash?
Quote: We don't look like the rest of the world? We have 13 trillion dollar debt, which the republic of China is so very nicely paying off for us
Electing more of the same? Which president has ever declared his plans to end the Fed and dismantle the CIA and FBI? Cuz Bush and Obama sure as hell didn't
That much is just crazy-talk, unless he really expects the people to vote lucidly on some new financial structure: libertarian sloganeering isn't going to suddenly keep the world honest just cause he thinks money is all that matters.
I'd surely prefer him to the Fundies that look like the other options for a Republican nominee, but the Republicans picked a Hel of a time after their binge of turning record surplus to record debt and thinking being a 'budget hawk' was just an excuse to block arts and education funding or actually investing in infrastructure and new energy: it sucks that they put us in this position during the Bush administration, but especially with them *blocking* everything, that's not undone in a day or by crazy declarations to give the corporate looters *more,* and with even *less* oversight.
(Cause for all the money we owe other countries like China, a lot of where the borrowed money *went* was to corporations, even if they disappeared a lot of that wealth up the Wall Street smokehole with the bubble and crash, instead of building anything *useful* with it. )
They made out like bandits, and now want to get everyone fired up to 'cut spending' to protect their own interests and gain more power over us. To prevent the changes we need to make to have a real and sustainable economy.
It sucks to be in this position: it sucked before it crashed and the GOP were fat and happy, but when you're starving is no time to go on a diet.
Quote: Good ol days? Isn't that what the Grass roots organization all about? And its not the same as the tea-baggers. Tea baggers are just racist sore-losers.
Some sure do capitalize on their hysteria, though: that's why they manufactured it, cause we're *really* in this mess because the GOP got what they asked for for so long and are still demanding, ...And it darn near broke us.
Quote: The last one? Yeah, he f-ing sucked. Even Ron Paul is disgusted that Bush calls himself a republican. NO other Republican has publicly come out against Bush DURING and AFTER his reign in the Oval office like Paul. REAL republicans dont look to start trillion dollar wars over-seas. And Ron Paul is REAL.
So I'd heard said, ...I don't think putting us at the utter mercy of corporate profit and all its inherent short-sightedness is something people will really want to see the results of.
There has been a big shift of the balance of power: it's been going on for a long time: Big Money and Big Religion, via demagoguery and media control, may say to 'Blame Big Gummint,' (for being partly in our pocket) ...but in government, we at least have a voice and guarantees and there's a goal beyond a rough plan for the next ear's balance sheet or the next wave of hysteria and blame.
I actually sympathize a lot with the libertarian end of some Republicans: but not the part that says corporations or the rich should be able to gang up on the common people.
People talk in these *absolutes* too much: the Right speaks in nothing *but.*
But the real problems in this nation are about a lack of *balance.* Not failure to be an absolute. The more absolutist the Right gets, the more they must claim that moderation is actually some 'Extreme Left' and totalitarian Communism that doesn't *exist* here.
In the process, people give up their liberties, and the very reason and attention from an informed populace that a democratic process needs, in order to keep it.
Our vote becomes nothing but a way to manufacture consent for economic tyranny and a new feudalism, using corporate owned media and false populism to make people scream for someone to sign away the country to Big Money and Big Religion.
So that's why I don't buy these broad, sweeping 'I'll just destroy parts of the government and let the market decide.'
We already *let* the market decide. It decided on what got us in this mess, and the GOP is squalling to do it again even harder.
Look what happened to stratification of wealth in the past decade. Is 'money makes the rules' really on the people's side, at this point?
Quote: We will just keep on fighting forever so just accept my opinion and I'll accept yours. I guess you can say I'm a leftist, but if republicans actually stood true to their dogmas then I wouldn't mind voting Republican. I like the idea of conservatism, which democrats are known for NOT doing, but then at the same time why would a republican start 2 wars overseas costing us over a trillion dollars?
Cause the Republicans are about corporate power and money. So are the Democrats, but not as intensely. They still have some idea that the government is supposed to be of, by, and for *all* the people, once you're in.
They're much the same in practice: they tend to default to the status quo, which is still something which favors the big corporations, but they aren't baying for the oppression of LBGT people and non-Christians or immigrants, , (Or pretending stuff like that is 'Not really me, I'm just voting for that cause I don't want to pay my taxes' ) ...they tend to be status quo, slow progress, occasionally selling off a chunk of the farm to the corporations the GOP would just give the whole kit and kaboodle to, but, no illusions about the Dems being wonderful, never mind Socialists.
Frankly, if we had a Scandanavian style Socialist party here, I'd give serious thought to voting for *them,* just looking at the situation here.
(Personally, I'm a Green. And that doesn't mean I'm against 'free enterprise.' In fact, I'm all *for* free enterprise, ....but it's not free enterprise when small and local businesses can't be enterprising cause someone *already owns the whole damn market.* That's an oligopoly: just one that hasn't *totally eaten everything yet.* They already act as though it's stealing something from them if we *stop giving them as big a slice of what they haven't actually "earned" yet. But no one said that was their right to claim. It's hardly a 'free market' if what you haven't even 'bought' yet is already claimed by them.)
Quote: *Ron Paul speaks the truth, and it's evident he speaks the truth because he says all the WRONG things someone would say if they wanted to be elected president. I'd rather a politicians to say the un-popular truth to my face, then to have someone trying to make us all feel good by feeding us lies during election year, only to butt-fock us for 4 years after that
Well, it'll be interesting to see, but even in the inverted world of the GOP, just because something's the 'wrong thing to say' or 'politically incorrect,' doesn't actually mean it's 'Truth.'
Sometimes the *really* unpopular truth is that things just aren't simple and immediate. No matter how much you cry, 'Now, now, now!' We warned you this would be a mess. I said myself it'd be a long time in the fixing of it.
Sometimes the *really* unpopular truth is that we did in fact get boned by just the things Bush did, saying the same kinds of things as the GOP are clamoring for again, and that displacing the shame onto Obama and trying to do the same thing again to try and make it come out differently, just won't fix things.
Sometimes, the *really* unpopular truth is that there's no absolutism or slogan or ideology that will undo the yes, very real damage. Not just like that.
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Obama's actually got the right ideas to get things back on track: why a lot of it hasn't happened is that a) the GOP has obstructed and the Dems in Congress have allowed too much to be whittled away from the needed reforms: , and b) Even without the delay and weakening of the measures, we'd still be very early in the recovery process.
Incidentally, no, not everyone who votes Republican is a would-be theocrat, bigot or a homophobe or racist strain of Teabagger, but it'd be another thing to demonstrate that any GOP candidate you're *voting for* isn't actually going to be *beholden to and pandering to* just that sort.
If you don't want that to be the face of your party, rather than denying it, face the 'unpopular truth' that merely distancing yourself personally doesn't mean you aren't supporting it. Like I said, if it's your party, you should be able to have your say within it. Maybe Ron Paul can be part of that, who knows.