It’s no big secret that Obama has made the point several times that, “America is the greatest country in the world! And if we stand together, we can make a change!”
The more amusing part about Mr. Obama is the fact that he equates the DNC with the Labor movement found in British Commonwealths.
The idea behind the labor movement is that you don’t walk alone. You’re not by yourself. And each of us are vulnerable by ourselves. Each of us are subject to tragedy and disaster
There’s something very sinister about this to me, because the Labour Party is wholly and entirely made up of Socialists. The Democratic party has been fighting the Socialist stigma for years, yet Mr. Obama comes back with this sort of dialogue?
Socialism believes in Ministry Owned Enterprises and Government Owned Entities. Socialism requires that all workers pull together for the common good. as it insues that everyone is compensated no matter their input to a job. Socialism is what happened to Himmler, and even worse, Hitler.
Socialism = Bad.
Democracy = Good.
Hundreds of other countries already know this.
Why don’t we?
Maybe we should round up all the Canadians and put them into concentration camps just because they’re Canadian. It’s not like they actually contribute to anything but the Florida economy anyway, so who would notice?
If you do not study history, you are bound to repeat its mistakes…
While I think that it is a wonderful idea for economic and social change. It needs to happen, but to what extent? More importantly which set of morals should we change to?
First off, socialism is not the answer. It doesn’t work on a large scale. An individual will rise to the top of the chain of command and then will push the country into a dictatorship. See Cuba, Russia (Both the USSR and currently,) a number of South American countries, and many Eastern European countries as well.
More over, I would pull for less government involvement in the personal lives of its citizens and companies. While I believe safety regulations and environmental controls are a necessary evil. Let us not get on a high horse and cripple our ability to let our market driven consumerism operate properly.
The time for change is know, but how are we to do this with our choices for the fiasco in November? Our elected officials are supposed to be the best and brightest our country can offer. These choices we have do not fit into this category even remotely. So I guess I might as well cross my fingers and hope for the best.
Or might just try to change the world through music and let all creation feel the love in the idea of doing what is best for all. While it may force a few lazy people to get off thier rugged looking rumps and do a hard days work. Surely everyone can do something to help there fellow man. All it takes is a little bartering to cover the basic needs of a person. Together we could make this work. Unfortunately, I think I’ll probably just be writen off as a hippie nut, but oh well. I’ll be here doing my thing until I can’t do it anymore.
It’s been a while since I’ve posted anything logical and sensible, so here goes…
While everyone goes on the Hybrid trip, paying astronomical prices for cars with no real fuel savings, some of us hang on to older cars from the 80’s which have real fuel savings without the need for all the extra garbage.
Cars like the Pontiac Sunbird/Chevrolet Cavalier with the 2.1 OHC engine, or even the Subaru 1600DL, still get 40+mpg on the interstate.
Yes, they really do.
My 1984 Sunbird, for instance, consistently ran at about 42mpg and the OHC made it a nice, quick car. Meanwhile, the old Subaru consistently ran up to 48mpg.
With kick-ass gas mileage available with older cars, why bother with a hybrid?
The fact is, as far as Automobiles go, very little has happened since the 1980’s except to make vehicles more complex.
Despite the Government’s cries about efficiency, and even tax relief for high-mileage vehicles, gas mileage has done nothing but suffer.
Meanwhile, our dependence on foreign oil has increased exponentially. Why should we continue to subsidize the economies of a chosen few in foreign nations when we could easily reduce our dependence while increasing our innovation and exports?
There have traditionally been two barriers: Political and Economic.
Our artificially inflated economy in 1990’s and our Government’s subsequent “lifestyle of excess” bear a substantial portion of the blame, as we simply made too many under-the-table deals with foreign countries.
As a case in point, China continued to have Favorite Nation status. Mind you, this was absolutely necessary to make it a viable and reliable country for low-cost, high-quality manufacturing like its predecessors, Japan, Korea and Taiwan. However, the strong increase in the Chinese economy came at the expense of other Asian economies. Proof of this is shown in the economic collapse in 1997, and the subsequent recession which struck all other APaC nations in 2001. Meanwhile, tax and import subsidies, cuts and rebates for domestic corporations purchasing Chinese products have continued, while China continues to produce the “same old, same old” products cheaper than we can manufacture them at home.
Economically, with our own post-9/11 “lean times,” many domestic corporations have adopted the attitude that research and development of new technologies is too risky, and thus continued to attempt to make innovations geared in familiar directions with familiar technology. Using familiar technology (with cheaply acquired foreign components) has allowed for more modular designs, thus reducing the amount of labor, manufacturing and maintenance costs in our domestic auto factories. For corporations, this spells profit even when their economic future is unclear.
In this video, Amory Lovins comes up with some great ideas. It’s a long one, so grab a snack:
It’s really compelling stuff.
And, besides, something like this should even make the Moonbat segment of the global warming argument happy. But then again, they’re usually really easy to get calm once you know which buttons to push.
I mean, dinner with E.T and a roll of Reynold’s Wrap can go a long way…
Let’s let February 20th be the new, annual “Quit Trying to Make Fill-In-Your-Name-Here Have a Bad Day Day.” (e.g. “Quit Trying to Make Mark Steel Have a Bad Day Day”)
That would be cool. One day, where nobody’s trying to screw up legal processes, steal from, yell at, scream at, libel, slander, backstab, screw over or generally just act asshats to everyone else in the world.
Sounds like a cool thing, doesn’t it?
But man … on a day like that…
Government, Comcast, and most banks would cease to function.
Moonbats and Asshats were certainly rife on Super Tuesday.
For weeks to come, we’ll keep hearing political commentary from people who have about as much grasp on politics as Pope does on WWII History.
*cough*
As I was voting with a change of Address and voting venue, I was at the polls for quite a while watching and listening to people. It’s an adamantly blue-collar, pro-union district, so naturally there are a lot of blue voters, especially of the “Damn Yankee!” variety — the type who get “Damn” attached to the beginning of their titles because they won’t go home. *snicker*
So I began to take notes of some of the conversations I overheard while waiting…
“What do you mean Democrat or Republican? How should I know? I wanna vote for Obama. Is he a Republican or a Democrat?”
Words cannot begin to describe my disdain for this particular style of voting. As surely as there’s lonely brain cell left to rattle around in a nearly empty skull, you should know something so basic about the person you’re giving your support to run the country.
“Oh, god, you know I’m a Democrat. Republicans are stupid. Hey, do I have to sign my name here where it says?”
I thought to myself, “No, just put an X, dipshit.”
“The only reason you won’t support Cinton is because you’re a man! I am sick to death of all the latent misogyny by the patriarchal anti-Clinton camp!”
No, apparently she wasn’t quite “sick to death,” as I could still hear her. It’s funny to me how it never occurrs to some people that it’s Hillary-bashing, not Woman-bashing. Which brings me to next part:
“You won’t vote for Obama ’cause you’re a racist!”
Umm … Ok. Of course, the same guy came out and said:
“Man, I voted for Hillary.”
*shakes head* So, uhh… He’s a racist? And proud of it?
Which brings up another:
“I scrolled to Obama and hit Cast Ballot. And the screen came up and said ‘Thank you for your vote.’ I think I messed up. Can I do it again? No? Man, you all are racist!”
Ya know… I just… How the… Why… *shakes head*
On a similar note:
“Uh, it says to press the Enter button. Is that the big green one that says Enter?”
I thought about saying, “Nah, it’s the big red one that says, ‘Cast Ballot,'” but since the last guy who made that mistake nearly went postal, I decided to just stand there and shake my head a while longer…
Finally, with my Failsafe paperwork approved, I was able to rejoin the line and make my way up to the registry official.
“Democrat or Republican?” the official asked the guy in front of me.
“Republican,” he whispered as quietly as possible.
“REPUBLICAN?” the official yelled.
“Uh, yeah, yeah,” he whispered, glancing nervously towards the jeers from around him.
He signed his name. He walked, with an, “Excuse me,” through the crowd and over to the Voting Booths. He cast his vote. He walked out.
When it was my turn, I did the same.
But I still wonder where all the animosity comes from.
If having different opinions is so bad, then why bother voting at all?
