Twitter
StumbleUpon
Facebook
Delicious
Digg
Newsvine
Google
Yahoo
TechnoratiIgnoring Propethic Predictors
I've wondered often why people who go to "town meetings" held by campaigning politicians rarely ask fundamental questions.
Here is one that should have been asked of presidential candidate Barack Obama: "If you get to the White House, will you appoint to top positions Americans who have a track record of making the right decisions in their respective fields?"
"Of course, I will," Obama would have undoubtedly replied.
Of course, he did not when it came to the collapse of the corrupt Wall Street casinos and the bailout of these gamblers by the American people. Obama chose the very Wall Streeters and Wall Street servants who were involved in, condoned, or profited from the speculative binges that led to the biggest government bailout scheme in world history. The President's explanation is that he wants experienced people who know how Wall Street works. Yeah, right! In reality, he wanted political cover.
Something very important is missing when even people who are part of the ruling establishment are ignored, marginalized, or ridiculed even though their detailed, public warnings prove to be all too accurate.
Consider billionaire, Ross Perot. Back in the 1980s and 1990s, Ross, as everyone calls him, was right on General Motors, right on NAFTA trade, and right on the federal deficits.
In 1984, he joined the Board of Directors of GM after selling his successful company, EDS, to the auto giant. He could scarcely believe how stodgy, bureaucratic, and insensitive GM executives were in running the company. He tried to shake up the boys at the top to meet the fast-growing competition from Asia and Europe.
The GM brass couldn't stand Ross "at large" probing up and down the company, so in 1986 they bought out his shares in return for him leaving the Board.
Two years later, reflecting on his experience at GM with a reporter from Fortune, Perot called the "General Motors system a blanket of fog that keeps people from doing what they know needs to be done."
Warming up, Perot continued: "One day I made a speech to some senior executives. I said, ‘Okay, guys, I'm going to give you the whole code on what's wrong. You don't like your customers. You don't like your dealers. You don't like the people who make your cars. You don't like your stockholders. And, to a large extent, you don't like one another. For this company to win, we're going to have to love our customers. We're going to have to stop fretting about dealers who make too much money and hope they make $1 billion a year though us. The guys on the factory floor are the salt of the earth-not mad-dog, rabid, burn-the-plant-down radicals. And all this sniping at one another-the financial guys vs. the cars guys-is terribly destructive.'"
GM didn't listen to Ross. Now, after a long, relentless slide, GM is bankrupt, abandoning their workers, two thousand of their dealers, and their customers' grievances. Moreover, GM is into the U.S. taxpayer for over $70 billion.
Perot devoted much of his 1993 published book Save Your Job, Save Our Country to NAFTA and trade. Looking back, he was right most of the time. NAFTA cost more U.S. jobs than it created, generated a huge U.S. trade deficit with Mexico, and mainly benefited the "36 businessmen who own Mexico's 39 largest conglomerates or over half of Mexico's Gross National Product."
The border-located maquiladora factories have high worker turnover and squeeze the laborers in often unsafe conditions for little pay.
Here is how Perot described the scene behind the boasting of Washington, DC, and corporations about the large increase in trade after NAFTA:
"Most of the goods produced in the maquiladoras are shipped into the U.S. market. Consequently, most of the so-called trade between the U.S. and Mexico is not trade as trade is commonly understood. Rather, it is primarily U.S. companies shipping their own machinery, components, and raw materials across the border into their Mexican factories and then shipping their finished or semi-finished goods back over the border into the U.S."A good deal of the U.S. auto industry went south after NAFTA, leaving workers and communities stranded in Michigan and other states. Bankrupt Chrysler is planning to move a modern, award-winning engine plant in Wisconsin to Mexico after receiving billions of dollars in taxpayer bailouts.
On Perot's nationally-televised deficit warnings (with charts), what more need be said? Even he did not envision what would pile up after his clarion calls. The burden on the next generation and the tax dollars diverted from our country's needs to pay the interest on these trillions of dollars of debt were pointed out again and again nearly twenty years ago by the Texas entrepreneur. He even has a website (perotcharts.com) updating the red ink.
In Bush's and Obama's Washington, there is no room for Perot to gain visibility and recognition.
It is one thing for the Washington politicians to ignore prescient progressive commentators, like William Grieder, who have been prophetically right on. It is quite another escape from reality to turn their backs on leaders within the business establishment itself.
There are many like Perot who must be watching the day's news and saying "we told you so, but you didn't listen then and you are not listening now."
80 Comments so far
Show All"Propethic" is NOT a mispleliong.
pro·phet·ic (pr-ftk) also pro·phet·i·cal (--kl)
adj.
1. Of, belonging to, or characteristic of a prophet or prophecy: prophetic books.
2. Foretelling events as if by divine inspiration: casual words that proved prophetic.
Of course people that are right (that is to say 'correct') are never going to get appointed or elected. There is nothing the establishment hates more than people that really know what they are talking about. Especially if those people have the audacity to speak their peace in a public forum. Someone like that is a constant reminder that you are wrong, that you are incompetent.
burn a u.s flag tomorrow.
been a while since I've posted on commondreams
nice to see the obamaniac's who were calling me an idiot for voting and campaigning for ralph have come to their senses. i won't name "names" but you know who you are. don't make that mistake again ok.
it took me a while to stop blaming obama for all the shit that was going on in the world. but then it hit me during a conversation with a friend, who is older and wiser, that its not about obama, or bill or hilliary clinton, its about the democrats. The democrats are just another branch of the corporate war party of america. they aren't any different than their friends the republicans. our government doesn't take care of us, it doesn't take care of anyone but their greedy selves and corporations that control their puppet strings.
we need a revolution folks. whether its going to happen i don't know but voting for a democrat or a repubican isn't going to make a difference. as much as i admire ralph, he isn't going to be able to change the system. how could he. say he was elected somewhere in the future. how could an independent candidate change anything when they were surrounded by paid lackeys of nike, shell, exxon and citibank.
people are going to have to get so fed up, that they put down their starbucks, iphones and big macs, and storm the politicians rat nests.
on this evening before the "independence of our country" i say fuck the american government and fuck the system that creates so much misery for so many people around the world.
and soon - "CYBERSECURITY" will go after anyone that dares speak the word "revolution".......
so MUCH for the "spirit of july fourth independence" from OPPRESSIVE TYRANNY..........
the USA - you see -- did not become INDEPENDENT from england in ORDER to UPHOLD freedom , liberty and justice....NOOOOOOOOOO....
it's about GROWING from what George Washington called
"OUR INFANT EMPIRE" (a very little known statement) --
into the GLOBE's UNCONTESTED TYRANT....damn the americans that dare say or act or THINK OTHERWISE!
what did people think OBAMA's LETTING THE CORPORATE SPYING - at the behest of George Bush - OFF from being brought to courts was REALLY all about?
it is to ALLOW them to CONTINUE to be the "eyes and ears" of the the TYRANNOUS POLICE STATE protecting its Corporatist Philosophy - for THAT is what the USA has become.
a Corporate, "security" , Policing, Warfare State.
FAR more insiduous than ANY in the history the world.
Let's have Christ our president
Let us have him for our king
Cast your vote for the carpenter
That they call the Nazarene
The only way
We could ever beat
These crooked politician men
Is to cast the moneychangers
Out of the temple
Put the carpenter in
Oh it's Jesus Christ our president
God above our king
With a job and pension for young and old
We will make hallelujah ring
Every year we waste enough
To feed the ones who starve
We build our civilization up
And we shoot it down with wars
But with the carpenter
On the seat
Way up in the capitol town
The USA
Be on the way
Prosperity bound
-Woody Guthrie
The next time, vote your conscience. Vote for someone who has character, decency. And it doesn't matter if s/he isn't good looking or a great speaker. Okay?
"Not a word that he uttered will see print. You have forgotten the editors. They draw their salaries for the policy they maintain. Their policy is to print nothing that is a vital menace to the established. The press of the United States? It is a parasitic growth that battens on the capitalist class. Its function is to serve the established by moulding public opinion, and right well it serves it.†From IRON HELL by Jack London.
Hoa binh
obama's only acting as directed. once the restructuring is complete the people on the inside will pick on the carcass
and find ways to make this bankruptcy very profitable for
themselves thru a variety of tricks.when chrysler and mercedes
merged the cars didn't really get too much better.and the
workers didn't do much better but the top execs. on both
sides made billions on stock sales stock purchases and
on the resulting sales of the new stock before it went
thru the floor and it was time to jump ship. ross might
be a wingnut but he sure as hell isn't stupid!thanks
again ralph oh and don't forget to run in 2012!
OBAMA GET A SET OF BALLS AND START RESPECTING YOURSELF.
BECAUSE WE CERTAINLY CAN'T RESPECT YOU IF YOU CAN'T
RESPECT YOURSELF!
"To think outside The Box you must deviate from the norm.
To act outside the box you must choose."
What if we had no awareness of the parameters of The Box (to say nothing of its parameters or the construction of its walls)? How, then, would we know if we were thinking outside it?
Here is a challenge... Make a list of ESTABLISHMENT "Prophetic Predictors." (Propethic? Actually, this "typo" may soon enter the Lexicon in consequential ways... E.G.: substitute a hyphen for the second "p" and you get "Pro-ethic Predictors".) Warren Buffet. George Soros. Bill Gates SR. Joseph Stiglitz. Essentially the Elders to the Boomers. List them. Review their place in history. Form "focus groups" to discuss why, in retrospect, they, like Ross Perot and Ralph Nader (who by the above article, by the way, has finally acknowledged the value of his presidential opponent), turned out to be right but were generally ignored by their own people. George Schultz, if he is still sentient, should be called in, former Secretary of State under Nixon, who said in his later years that pot should be decriminalized.
Seek out the Elders we now know were ahead of their time.
When Lyndon Baines Johnson was President, I was in my 20s and I hated his guts with a passion, and if you had told me he arranged the assassination of John F. Kennedy, I would have concurred with you in a Dallas moment. Today I recognize his Populist-Progressive sentiments and his brilliance as a legislative tactician who pushed through the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Medicare and Medicaid acts and other laws in short order after the assassination. His efforts stand as a tribute to FDR, in a sense, as the opposite of Naomi Klein's theory of the Shock Doctrine. His bete noire (sorry!) was NOT his Domestic Policy, but rather the (undeclared) war in Viet Nam, through which the United States sought to impose its own hegemony in what had once been a European Colonialism.
Back in the 60s, Bertrand Russell convened a Council called upon to ask how Humanity could avoid Catastrophic Nuclear War. We had "Mutually Assured Destruction" (MAD) until Gorbachev came along and took Reagan's challenge seriously and let the walls be taken down.
OTOH, "good fences make good neighbors." (Robert Frost) We do not need walls; we need fences, carefully constructed. Like tariffs.
We do have Elders. Many were wise and doubtless some remain so. Distill their knowledge, and ERUPT with a New American Agenda. Acronym: NAA!
-30-
Remember when Obama's wife, Michele warned him before he was elected :"Don't screw it up". Now that he is president I wish she would tell him to, stop screwing it up.
Thank you, Ralph. Some see NAFTA as the biggest single factor in our economic downturn, and the reason the economy cannot recover (or at best lead to a 'jobless recovery') The economic stimulus is like pumping air into a leaky balloon--if manufacturing and other jobs continue to be off-shored.
Why is Ross not mentioning that it was Bubba Clinton who gave us Nafta and sold-out our industrial base to China.
Why is everybody dodging the fact that Clinton is responsible
for doublecrossing the working classes in this country??
Why are people like Nader not mentioning the fact that we
are in a major depression and things will only get worse.
Why is Bubba Clinton recieving milllions of dollars from
Foreign countries? What's the story??
We tried to warn the Obama and Mccain voters but listening and learning the issues and who supports what just wouldn't get to them. The Democrat Party Apologists can call us "spoilers" for all I care but they are the real spoilers for blindly supporting phonies cloaking the "Democrat" label and then going behind the scenes and doing Satan's bidding along with the Republicans. Until more people overcome their fear of putting principle and issues over party affliation, "personality", money, and fake "winability" crap we'll stay screwed. I'm tired of the few of us voters who vote on the issues over party of getting persecuted at and made to feel left out and rejected in life. They may call us "misfits" or "losers" or whatever they want to cover up their denial mode but in the end, they will be in tears for choosing blindly and/or hastily. I welcome those who are acknowledging their mistakes and willing to be open to supporting pols on issues and not party affiliation.
Well said, Jennifer, I couldn't agree more. The sooner people come around to seeing our two party system for the illusory puppet show that it is, the better.
snydly
Ralph, let's not assume that the roll of government (as seen by those who can get "elected") is to do what's good for the nation...
A change in 2012 would be excellent, because he is doing an excellent job for those who made sure he was elected.
Unfortunately, we have not done anything substantial to eliminate election fraud, so we are unlikely to be rid of Obama until 2016.
When are people going to realize that IT DOESN'T MATTER WHO WE VOTE FOR!
As soon as the candidate assumes his/her office, there will be a series of visits that quietly and forcefully explain just who it is that makes the decisions and that s/he had better toe the line, or else...
There have recently been a series of articles on the theme that "the banks" own America and the American Government - all of it.
You want change? Change/remove the banks and the bankers first.
Repeal the Federal Reserve Act. This act is contrary to our Constitution and puts the monetary system of our nation in the control of a private cabal of big banks. These banks are in the business of making money for themselves. By controlling the amount of money in the system they create what is considered to be the normal business cycle---with ups and downs---inflation and deflation. The banks make money on both the up turn and the down---but we the people lose decade after decade by the decreasing value of our dollar.
The Constitution states that our monetary system should be controlled by the Congress and the Treasury department. We should not be borrowing money AT INTEREST from the Federal Reserve. The whole system is backed by the taxing ability of the government. There is no reason for us to pay interest on the national debt.
I have come to the conclusion that those saying that voting doesn't matter
and paid trolls by the National Party (Republicrats)
Ralph Nader's assessment is right as usual. However, the one item that he and so many of us did not get right, until now, with quite a few of us very awake, is that none of this has been an accident or all of the events, especially of the last nine years, resulted from bad planning or stupid, short-sighted executives or political leaders, etc.
None of this has been an accident, nor are decisions being made now, which so many of us are making noise about, such as escalating war in Afghanistan or trying to set Iran up to be the new arch villain. None of this has been or is an accident!
Obyssmelot is just a figurehead. He's just following orders.
Where the orders come from is not difficult to find out. That's the homework so many of us have been doing for many years. The information is out there if you want to find it badly enough.
I just said this in another response to a CD poster:
"The coup d'etat happened already. The sheople can bleat and stampede and run around the Washington Monument by the millions. It's not going to matter. We've all been had.
Time to start thinking differently now, soberly, rationally and not avoid looking the dragons and very real dangers in the eye and assessing the true picture.
We've all been had, and that's the place to start."
Life in these United States ... the way it was ... has ended, is over! Time to regroup, folks. And there are not going to be any political or apolitical saviors to bail us out in a future election.
Outside of the lines time. Outside of the lines.
peace, cm
I grok, cm.
Sometimes I get the feeling like we're all so hepped up and pissed off that we wind up doing nothing more than throwing ourselves out the door, flinging ourselves on our horse, and go riding madly off in all directions. IOW, we spin our wheels and do nothing. And the powers that be pat us on our little heads and say, "Look, aren't they cute when they're angry?" It's all a paint-by-numbers game and as long as we stay within the lines, we lose. We lose.
So, merry pranksters, do we keep losing? Do we keep bitching and moaning about the unfairness of it all? Do we keep trying things that have not worked in the past because we keep painting within the lines? Or, do we stop playing their little game?
What is power in this world? What makes the world go 'round? And what do we generate that the system needs? (Hint: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rkRIbUT6u7Q&feature=related ).
We all need some, but do we need to keep giving so much of it to them? If we go local as much as possible, be less needy, do without sometimes, reuse, barter - can't we start making a dent in this beast?
Yes, indeed, it is time to regroup. Time to take the red pill. Time to start thinking and being outside the lines. A little or a lot, if we start doing it without waiting for our "leaders," we can start changing the world.
Learn Languages
Exactly right. The contrived nature of all this crap is so blatant yet the media won't go there. The PR on NAFTA was one thing and the PLAN was another. Hey Ralph Nader and Ross Perot, NAFTA was a success! Rich bastards got richer and shafted a whole generation in the process.
The author of Open Veins of Latin America (Galeano) made an astute observation, "Representative democracy is permited as long as the elite's goals continue to be met." If the elite are disturbed, the mask comes off and overt denial of government and business corruption switches to blatant oppression.
We are almost there.
Ralph and posters may be right to blame politicians, but you forgot to include ourselves.
We share most of the blame for depending on representatives to save us when daily evidence shows that they can be bought and intimidated by oligarchy corporations, banks, shadow governments and the Washington establishment.
Instead of trying to change this obsolete and corrupt system of government that represents the money-power instead of the We the People, we persist in trying to keep it alive.
Real democracy, direct and decentralized, tried and proven, is here and now: http://ni4d.us/
Speak for yourself, friend. I stopped dealing with the system after voting for Reagan (I was a Republican moron) in 1980. I never voted again.
There is a blatant myth out there that too many people fall for. It is the idea that the "system" remains in place because of our lacadazical attitude. Nothing could be further from the truth. People of integrity are constantly challenging the system and having their lives ruined by the gatekeepers. There is an ACTIVE RESISTANCE to change within the system. Granted, the gatekeepers have incentives to perpetuate the corruption and eventually that hurts the gatekeepers as well. But to amass all of us in the gatekeeper's role is unfair. As a working member of society, I did NOT strike in 1981 during the air traffic contoller's strike. My car got a nice dose of sand in the tank. My homeowner's policy didn't cover because the mechanic at the Courtesy Ford dealer who did the engine overhaul "forgot" to get an oil sample. I worked 50 to 60 hours a week for 2 and a half years. During this time, our pal Greesnspan made a "hole" in the tax table so the very poor and the rich got a huge tax break (totally undeserved for the rich). So the elite set us on course to bankruptcy while they with full knowledge and malice by the press, did everything they could to keep the masses in the dark.
You are wrong to blame the people. The blame falls squarely on the conscienseless elite (99.999999999% of the rich).
Agreed, ezeflyer.
While I also agree that we need to hold our mis-reps accountable, we absolutely need to hold ourselves accountable as well. What irks me is the amount of finger pointing and name calling by armchair emperors who never seem to lift their soft asses off their divans long enough to try to change things. As if the act of voting were enough. It isn't. It was never meant to be.
If we could just get instant run-off voting and proportional representation into place, that would move us in the right direction.
You criticize the electoral strategy before it's been well demonstrated (Perot was an oligarch). The value is in how easy for the people to upset the status quo with a mass vote shift to third party candidates. Plus it gives weight to the democratic process. The strategy is well-thought-out.
I'm not as much criticizing electoral strategy as I am de-emphasizing it. I have about as much faith in third parties as I do in the Republican and Democratic institutions. Politics is about power and it attracts the same personalities no matter what stripe.
And yes, mass vote shifts can and do upset the status quo - sometimes for the better, sometimes for the worse. It's simply unpredictable. Give be mass popular strategy any day - where the soles of our feet meet the pavement (and no, I don't mean only by protesting, even tho it can be effective). Isn't action by the people themselves the most democratic form of change?
People in general do not want to look at themselves as the answer. They do not want to see the effectiveness that multitudes of individual (alone and organized) actions can have on society, but instead insist on looking for the next "leader." This is a form of mass hero worship that keeps us in the corporate embrace. I see this here on Common Dreams far too often. Just look at the number of posts in the articles on individual actions vs. the posts about the pols. We deride Washington yet seem to depend on it for our salvation.
Well said.
We do have a role of course in electing our leaders but our leaders have a greater responsibility too and discussing this is one way to help raise awareness that we really do need to hold them accountable. You have to understand that even amongst those who voted Obama or even Mccain, a lot of them would have voted for Ralph if only they had that dedication without fear to say let's give it a try. I know I was one of the chickens on the last minute. But the real problem is we're always stuck with this question "Ok, so the Democrats are no better than the Republicans but we can't afford to vote for Nader and likewise because we risk giving it to the Republicans so why should we vote Independent?" That attitude needs to be erased or else we're stuck in an infinite loop picking between A and B only.
I'm talking about direct democracy, not representative democracy:
Main Entry: direct democracy
Part of Speech: n
Definition: a form of democracy in which the people as a whole make direct decisions, rather than have those decisions made for them by elected representatives
Example: A referendum is a form of direct democracy, as is the practice of recall, by which an elected offical may be voted out of office between elections if enough people sign a petition to remove him and then win the subsequent vote.
Ok, my bad. If CA is any indication, DD hasn't necessarily worked either. As a matter of fact, out here in VA, then governor Warner misused the idea of DD to skirt the economic issues and blame the voters for not voting to improve the transportation mess in Hampton Roads and Northern VA. It worked. The lobbyist and anti-tax zealots won and Warner escaped responsibility. The losers were us voters who couldn't get to vote and those who were brainwashed into making the wrong decision. CA has undergone worse as it's always easy to brainwash the voters into voting against not only their own economic interests but also the common good and that's why we're all losers. I would much rather we had representative democracy which is balanced responsibility between both the people and the elected officials rather than the so-called "direct democracy" where we pay more taxes to do their work.
The answer is more voter initiatives and referendums, not less. The ones who disenfranchise voters are the same ones against direct democracy. For more information, see http://ni4d.us/
Remember what you describe only applies to the winner-take-all presidential elections. Could Nader have gotten his policies through congress let alone the senate if he had miraculously won? In a world where a majority had a level of consciousness to support Nader, congress would be filled with progressives and it really wouldn't matter who was president.
I hesitate to mention it here but Doom4 is gonna rock.
"In a world where a majority had a level of consciousness to support Nader, congress would be filled with progressives and it really wouldn't matter who was president."
That's what I thought I was discussing but thanks for the reminder. I agree that Nader would have had no chance of getting his policies through this Congress but he would have at least forced Congress to listen although the media and the military would be there to stage a possible rightwing coup against him just like they did FDR in 1934. God knows who will run in 2012 aside from Obama and whoever the Republican nominee is. I'd much rather we progressives and liberals pay more attention to our upcoming midterm elections which are equally important. We can't afford not to keep trying to reform Congress election after election.
I read "our leaders" as referring to presidential nominees probably cause I'm so used to posters emphasizing that decision, blaming Obama voters all the time when Nader would never have won anyway. I can't believe Europe is turning right. Capitalism seems to have escaped the crisis unharmed.
I believe the Constitution, designed by the richest men in America, enshrines government by the predators, for the predators, and of the predators. As Markley says, "Get used to it."
I worry that the election of Obama has pacified the public to the degree that they (in large part) simply aren't paying attention any more. The man we voted for is not the president we got. I worry that so many people are so grievously misinformed/under-informed, thanks to the marriage of Big Media and the political establishment. I worry that the bulk of the population has been thoroughly indoctrinated by the "War On (fill in the blank)" and "Get tough on..." strategies that split us into a mass of Us vs. Them groups. We are told who is bad: Phantom terrorists with WMDs, poor people (especially women and children), the few who smoke tobacco,lazy American workers, and on and on.
In recent years, we've seen our political leadership push a stunning amount of misinformation which, for the most part, the public has absorbed and accepted as fact, allowing themselves to be manipulated. It worries me a lot when I see President Obama continuing what was begun with the Reagan Administration.
After FISA, there was no excuse for voting of Obysmal.
Vote third party. Go Nader.
I voted for Perot in when I was first eligible to vote. I was disheartened he lost; he made so much sense. It's nice to see my vote back in the day was right on.
I agree with Nader about Obama's betrayal and dishonesty but Obama isn't alone. If we had a Congress, Supreme Court, and a media that actually informs the citizenry well Obama would have been none of what he is today. I suggest we send Obama a strong message starting with Congress and the Senate next year. If we can make one or both chambers of Congress a victory for Independent leaders and even make them relevant, Obama will be forced to change his agenda and only then will Obama more likely listen to Nader and follow up on his excellent ideas.
My two greatest memories of Ross Perot were his quirky and idiosyncratic speaking style and his choice of Admiral William Stockdale as his running mate.
Ross was (and I am sure still is) a true patriot. Ross was indeed right about the "sucking sound" of jobs being vacuumed out of the country by NAFTA and our impossible debt structuring arrangements.
Ross would have made a great trade representative, head of the Department of Commerce, or possibly head of the President's board of economic advisors--but he was not really presidential material.
In a similar manner Ralph would make a great Ted Sorenson or Arthur Schlesinger (whom JFK very prudently deferred to and kept around to educate him about the considerable body of knowledge he knew he didn't know). But alas, there just aren't any politicians around anymore capable of deferring to such knowledge and intellect.
Poet
"but he was not really presidential material"
You mean not really garden compost?
And GHW Bush or Clinton were more qualified than Perot to be president?!?! I beg to differ, but the argument is moot.
You've hit it right on the head.
People who didn't vote independent are idiots. I'm not name calling, its just the facts.
Ross Perot talked a good talk, but he looked like a clown on TV with all his charts. Compare him to Obama, who is handsome, very well spoken, and lies like the consummate politician he is. Oh, and he's a very fetching shade of light chocolate. The black man's time has come. Unfortunately, what we need is an honest and brave man in the White House, who is not afraid to keep his promises and represent the people who voted him in. It really wouldn't matter if he was green and had warts.
Yes, and if there were such a person, we'd off him pronto.
Well, not WE. But someone would.
Ralph, they don't ask the right questions because the status quo is a way of life for them. To think outside the box takes a creative spirit unknown in our times.
All great creators were shunned by the patriarchal forces who fear originality above all else (or what Jung called individuation) and thought for themselves, not needing their hands held by some collective power who knows what is best for everyone else.
By my reckoning, you are one of those people who is consistently shunned by the powers, Ralph, and one reason why I listen to everything you have to say!
Even Einstein could not find work at any university since his professors (the patriarchal forces of academia) refused to recommend him for skipping their classes, because Albert had bigger fish to fry wanting instead to do independent work far more visionary than anything they could ever contemplate.
van Gogh was ignored in the art world for his somber paintings selling only one painting before his death.
Johnny Depp created and crafted a character called Jack Sparrow and was immediately called on it by panicky film executives who demanded to know what he was doing - they thought his portrayal was bizarre and he was ruining the film. Yet the film went on to huge success and brought Depp an Oscar nomination for the character he crafted.
Culture ignores creative efforts that leave others uncomfortable, and we treat those who abide by their own inner vision, norms, or activism, as abnormal only because it challenges their own entrenched and comfortable lives, void of the creative impulse, and call to individuation.
Many hear the 'call' but few if any ever act on it. No one wants to take the risk of thinking outside of the cultural box. True creators suffer punishment for breaking someones rules about what is, or is not, acceptable in any realm of engagement, and probably why you upset the herd, my friend.
When we worship at the alter of the petty tyrannical gods of culture, we become unoriginal and uninteresting people whose soul has long been stolen by the forces of conformity: those marching lockstep with Obama toward the precipice.
The creative individual is a master of courage not afraid to upset someone else, and his or her confining borders of irrelevance. Such people are those who shout out, "The emperor has no cloths" when everyone else is either too afraid to speak, or has a vested interest in the status quo.
Those who rock the boat of contemporary values, are never accepted in culture because they are fifty to hundred years ahead of every one else.
Carry on with my respect and admiration, sir, you have earned it!
Sioux Rose
ELOHIM: What a great post! I would add spiritual iconoclasts to your category of creative types, for this ilk certainly manages to march to its own ideological drummer, and the consequences are seldom painless in a society composed mostly of conformist sheep. The patriarchal angle is SO right on!
I used to joke that Einstein developed the theory of relativity because he was late for dinners attended by stodgy scientists and academes. So excusing his tardy tendency he turned to his "audience" and said, "It's all relative, fellows. Let's just relax and have a good time." Or could you imagine Einstein going for a bank loan and encountering the banker from Mary Popkins? ("A British bank is run with precision! A British home requires nothing less!") And about that precision, dang, those buses REALLY run on time, I mean to the fraction of a minute in London! Now contrast that with Puerto Rico where you're lucky if a bus runs every hour, and when you get on it, and take a cursory glance of peoples' watches, you will find them varying by several minutes or more. Time is anything BUT uniform or "on time" in the tropics! If the Geyser "Old Faithful" was positioned near San Juan, I'm quite certain it would blow off steam when it felt like, rather than in accord with any predictable schedule.
Remember Rose, someone always benefits from organized disorganization. There was a very good man in
Puerto Rico who put a petting zoo and a dolphin tank plus lots of saltwater fish tanks near the beach in the Pinones sector. He had these adorable miniature deer that were tame and would come right up to you and nuzzle your hand. You could pet the dolphin, too. The mafia didn't like it so they poisoned the deer, dolphin and destroyed the fish tanks. The only survivors were the two giant turtles. No one was ever caught. Unfortunately, these people with brutal mindsets run the world now. As to the British buses, trains, etc running on time, we could use some of that in the USA but I don't particularly admire the Britsh mindset. They go to war quite promptly, as well.
Sioux Rose
AGG: I lived in Puerto Rico from l977-l986 and I know nothing about that petting zoo you're talking about, and I know Pinones! I lived near Isla Verde. What year was that, do you recall? I think the Latin mindset is more on a tropical wavelength that for the most part dilates time, whereas the Brits almost fit the characterization done by Phil Hartman's "Anal Retentive Fisherman" on SNL. How could they thus NOT be on time? Every culture has pros and cons.
You nailed it, elohim.
Does anyone know what "Propethic" means ????
It seems to be a misspelling of prophetic. It's not in the Merriam/Webster OnLine dictionary.
Oh cry all you want for the prophets in the wilderness, Ralph.
Perfection, so now the ensuing distress of what used to be called the lower middle class will be framed as "anarchy" and "we" will call for law and order.
Then bingo, POLICE STATE. (police nation?) Oh yeah the money, it's gone too.
Suddenly REALLY poor for the first time in generations, our shocked, medicated, country will be ready for a "prophet".
You think islamic fundamentalism is exotic?
Getta load of what real american koo-koo bananas crazy ass problem solving looks like!!!
"it was the best of times, it was the worst of times"
It will probably start in california, in various spots, like the dancing madness of the middle ages.
We will beg for a strong man to handle this crisis...
Obama? Is that you?
Ralph Nader was right all along and you can't handle it so shut up already ! With the way Obama is ignoring, bullying, and censoring, I wouldn't miss it if Obama gets seriously ill or worse, loses his life unlike JFK and Paul Wellstone.
"Bankrupt Chrysler is planning to move a modern, award-winning engine plant in Wisconsin to Mexico after receiving billions of dollars in taxpayer bailouts."
Where under the spectrum of "patriotism" does this fall? You take taxpayer money and move your operations to Mexico. Thank you, Chrysler, for taking my money and using it to move my job to Mexico.
So. Should I be a "patriot" buy an American brand, Chrysler, with engines made in Mexico by Mexican labor, or should I be a "traitor" and purchase a Japanese brand, Honda, made in Ohio with nearly 100% American made parts?
Don't buy a new car at all. Buy a car that is already in circulation, and you're not supporting any car company. But if you do buy a new car, buy a volkswagon, because they are planting trees, enough to offset the carbon used for a year by each car they sell. What's more important, patriotism or survival. Our very survival is in jeopardy if we don't change our present course dramatically.
My VW really sux. Don't buy VW.
The betrayal of the American worker by all sides is almost past beliving. I'll never buy a GM or Chrysler car again.
Honda makes many cars in Ohio, Toyota makes Tundra's in Texas, American cars, manufactured in America and in the case of Toyota, much of the engineering and design input from here. Who cares who owns the factory? I don't. It could have beemn Americans, but they choose differently. So a true Patriot would by the car that is providing American jobs.
Personally I drive a 59 AH Sprite around that gets 42 miles to the gallon in town. But its 102 now so I'm in the Tahoe. Oops!!! But its a 2001 so its much better than a new Prius.
Do like I'm doing, and hold on until someone somewhere offers a cheap, effective electric car. I just hope my 1990 Ford Falcon station wagon holds out for another few years.
Whoever said corporations are patriotic?
Nader is right on. The last sentence: "You didn't listen then and you are not listening now." One huge question comes to mind? WHY? Knowing all these things; the way the U.S. economy is sinking.......one would have to wonder why the politicians want to continue business as usual. What do they know that we do not? There is no sense to the waste and destructiveness of our present system. So, what is really going on?
I think the reality is that the super-rich wear blinders and really can't see what's going on. As long as their holdings are increasing, they believe everything is OK. They do not care about, or even acknowledge the existence of the billions who are not part of their circle.
What's sad is that so many Americans (and others?) believe that the people in power are smarter and more knowledgable than the rest of us. They can't see that, for example, Larry Summers is a complete idiot, 160 IQ or not.
Maybe there is a large incoming asteroid and they don't want us to panic.
Yeah, its an "asteroid" alright... a FINANCIAL asteroid.
The financial asteroid already hit. There is no, and will be no, recovery, no matte how many happy HS headlines they come up with in the WSJ or FT.
Or maybe there is a large incoming debt bomb or other financial catastrophe on the horizon, far worse than most expect right now, and they are scrambling to maximize their own personal positions and do not want the little people to compete with them or otherwise get in the way.
Now that sounds likely. More likely than an asteroid, at least.
Nader my man, I proudly voted Perot twice and then you thrice even when most others chose the "lesser of the 2 evils" and allowed this country to be f---ed. In case you haven't been reading some of the responses, it appears that even amongst those who supported you in 2000, some of them have been infected with the "a vote for Nader is a vote for Republicans" disease and supported that criminal scumbag Obama. Unlike JFK and Paul Wellstone, if Obama loses his life he won't be missed. That man and his party henchman are bald-faced liars conspiring with the GOP when in fact, he has a mandate to listen to you and fix this country which he's not doing. I am so angry at Obama for ignoring all those who matter that I feel that it is best that Obama's wife and children be taken away and locked up behind bars until Obama pays attention to us and the same thing goes for the rest of the politicians on Capitol Hill ! Obama has no right to ignore you. I hear he's even censoring dissent on his site which further angers me into cursing that he goes down in flames. Any of you out there still wanna defend that SOB? Be my f---ing guest and BRING IT ON !!
As a serial Nader voter, I ask: "Are fellow Americans so stupid that they don't know when they are getting royally screwed?"
Fred,
While I agree with you on Obama turning out to be a major disappointment, I don't think it makes sense to sound like Rush Limbaugh here on Obama losing his life. We can vote him out in 2012 you know. Ok, so maybe that's 3 years too long a wait. Still, why not be a part of those who want to change Congress in 2010. If 2010 is to be the year Independents gain relevance in one or both chambers, watch Obama turn away from Bush's policies. Let's curb the violence my friend. Wishing someone something bad does nothing to help you or us.
2012? Vote. Surely ye jest. LOL
2012 will be just in time to keep him from looting the treasury and giving it to the banks and investment banks, allowing enough resources for projects to help the common citizen.
Whew! We barely dodged THAT bullet.
I don't like it that we have to wait until then given Obama's faster regression but there's no other way. In the meantime, if we could work on reforming Congress next year and beyond, at least we'd be fighting for progress. I would also suggest taking local and state elections seriously which I'm doing out here in VA since we have a gubenatorial election coming up this fall. A different Congress can and will change Obama.
Don't blame you for feeling frustrated with Obama. But since you didn't vote for him, at least you are not to blame. I didn't vote for Perot (didn't vote at all) but I did later vote for Ralph Nader. As a gay man, I had hopes that Obama would keep his promises to us. I'm disappointed in his record so far on gay rights, but more importantly on health care, economic recovery, and at least acknowledging that our government was and is engaged in torture. I see now just another politician that over half the country wasted their vote on. I had hoped he would display at least a modicum of courage. Now I see a smooth politician (read liar) who never intended on keeping his word.
Dittos and more dittos. I worked on the Perot campaign (twice) as a county coordinator. I voted twice for Ralph, but voted for Obama simply out total despair, a little sympathy for the kids who were working for him, and as a shear gamble he might, just might, do something --anything, good. Of course, he and the dems have been a total failure in every respect. Every single one. But its no surprise.
It's going to take a mass rebellion and rioting in the streets of Washington D.C. to evict these people.
Otherwise, we are so screwed.
We're screwed. Get used to it.