AMERICAN CONSERVATISM IN 2008 AND BEYOND

Cyclops won't tell you, but it is apparent to anyone who took Economics 101, that Obama's TWO TRILLION DOLLAR PACKAGE WHICH DOES NOT EVEN ADDRESS THE NEEDS OF SOCIAL SECURITY AND MEDICARE IN THE FUTURE, will lead this country to economic and social ruin.

Obama is FDR redux and we all know that the USA did not get out of the eight year recession under FDR until we began preparing for war.

Maybe that's what Obama is waiting for.

Everyone but doctrinaire left wingers like Cyclopichorn accept the fact that the policies of President Reagan was the major factor in the Soviet implosion. Cyclopitchorn, who likes to masquerade as someone who KNOWS, either does not know or will not accept the consensus of presidential scholars( who, I am sure know much more than he does) that Reagan was a far far better president than Bill Clinton.

Foxfyre--I do not know whether you are familiar with the writings of Alexander Solzhenitzen in which he revealed the STATISTICS AND HISTORY of the millions of murders in the Soviet Union. I defy anyone to try to match that. I have, at hand, the statistics and history of the murderous Joe Stalin. I doubt Frank A Pisa even knows who Stalin was. It is clear that he does not know what Stalin did!!!

BigTexN---Cyclops is a fraud. His favority ploy, when he cannot give evidence to meet objections is to say, for example---

Why don't you tell us SPECIFICALLY about the History of Militarism. iN DETAIL

But he never gives the history of ANYTHING IN DETAIL.

If, as Cyclo says, BigTexN, YOU were spouting bullshit, then HE IS BURIED IN IT.

Were Reagan's policies one of the major factors which caused the Soviets to implode?

Certainly-and instead of blah-blah-blahing, as Cyclops does, I'lll give some evidence.
quote
By 1981-1985 the growth rate of the Soviet economy, obviously on a larger total economic base, was 3.3% compared with 11.2% in 1951-55. (Samary, 1988, P.13) In order to increase the level of consumer goods and spend money on arms the Soviets withdrew capital from long-term investment: in 1978/79 it was only 1%; in 1980 - 0.5%. Estimates on the amount of the Soviet budget allocated to military expenditure vary considerably from 11% of GNP in the 1976-80 10th year plan, (Shaw and Pryce, 1990, p.144), to CIA estimates of 15% of GNP. (Shaw and Pryce, 1990, p.89)

If many ostensibly civilian projects, (e.g. space research), which have considerable military implications are included in the calculations then the percentage of the Soviet economy devoted to military spending of one kind or another may have been much higher. The low productivity of Soviet labour did not allow the Soviet Union to compete with the world economy on favourable terms. This low productivity, and this is where a profound connection between the internal and external life of the Soviet Union existed, could only have been boosted by the energy and initiative of the masses. Such an input was not forthcoming.

This was fatal because the limits of the Soviet economy as regards growth via extensive surplus value had been reached, and a move to the intensive accumulation of surplus value was necessary. In the absence of relying on the masses the leadership of the USSR was forced to look to advanced technology as a short-term palliative. (Hence, the importance of Western attempts, led by the US, to prevent the export of advanced technologies to the Soviet Union.).

end of quote

I know you do not accept that...and that is another reason why I think we are such a danger. We have way too many people like you with their heads in the sand. Luckily, the American people were smart enough to see that American conservatism was screwing our country...and threw its proponents out.

Hopefully we will become more responsible and less dangerous as a nation as American conservatism starts a downhill roll.



Well, you are claiming that Obama is deviating from those principles...and you've indicated that you think the Bush administration deviated from those principles...and you've indicated that the congress deviates from those principles...

...so you agree with me that our government is disfunctional.

So we are dangerous.

Jeez!



Tell that to Jefferson Davis!




Hyperbole will only get you laughter, Foxfyre. You shoulda gone for “thousands perhaps tens of thousands.” You would gotten some mileage...and no laughter.



You gotta be shitting me here!!!!!!!!!



Ahhh....so the world knows that if we beat the **** out of 'em...we'll help rebuild their cities.

Wow...I'm sure that is a comfort.




I think you would be surprised at how some of those countries you think do not fear us...actually feel about us. Why don't you ask the English and the Australians among us.




Yeah, I know. Joe Mc Carthy mentioned that a lot! Pathetic.




Name three...and I'll ask them.




Most liberals I know are simply trying to stop American conservatives from shitting on the values that made us great!

No, I am not unwilling to consider that possibility. I think that the way you phrased it is probably quite likely.

But you see the difference between that, and giving him credit for ending the cold war like so many of you kin do?

Cycloptichorn

Cyclopitchorn's posts can be characterized as endless blah blah blah giving pronuciamento after prounciamento from,it would seem, EX CATHEDRA, while never ever giving any evidence or documentation for his blurbs.

He would not do very well teaching a class in History,for example, since some smart student would take off his head by asking-_What is your source for that statement sir--My source does not agree with you and says:


By 1981-1985 the growth rate of the Soviet economy, obviously on a larger total economic base, was 3.3% compared with 11.2% in 1951-55. (Samary, 1988, P.13) In order to increase the level of consumer goods and spend money on arms the Soviets withdrew capital from long-term investment: in 1978/79 it was only 1%; in 1980 - 0.5%. Estimates on the amount of the Soviet budget allocated to military expenditure vary considerably from 11% of GNP in the 1976-80 10th year plan, (Shaw and Pryce, 1990, p.144), to CIA estimates of 15% of GNP. (Shaw and Pryce, 1990, p.89)

If many ostensibly civilian projects, (e.g. space research), which have considerable military implications are included in the calculations then the percentage of the Soviet economy devoted to military spending of one kind or another may have been much higher. The low productivity of Soviet labour did not allow the Soviet Union to compete with the world economy on favourable terms. This low productivity, and this is where a profound connection between the internal and external life of the Soviet Union existed, could only have been boosted by the energy and initiative of the masses. Such an input was not forthcoming.

This was fatal because the limits of the Soviet economy as regards growth via extensive surplus value had been reached, and a move to the intensive accumulation of surplus value was necessary. In the absence of relying on the masses the leadership of the USSR was forced to look to advanced technology as a short-term palliative. (Hence, the importance of Western attempts, led by the US, to prevent the export of advanced technologies to the Soviet Union.).

Obama advocated and members of the Congress voted today for the stimulus bill. In doing so they committed treason by voting for provisions in that bill that violate their oaths of office and adhere to the enemies of the United States.

One of many such provisions in the bill is the provision that private companies that receive federal money cannot speak against future changes to current labor laws.

Okay, ican, start "your" legal action against Obama and congress. Good luck! LOL

Arlen Specter rips the cover off of the cowardice that lies at the heart of the Republican party.



http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/02/13/specter-republicans-suppo_n_166875.html

These guys are too afraid of the wingnuts to do what they know they have to do.

Cycloptichorn

Frank, I don't need to go any further reading your drivel. Now, step back a minute, dare to place history into some context. FDR, still a hero of the left, rounded up over a hundred thousand Japanese Americans and placed them in concentration camps, for nothing, absolutely nothing, while Bush dared to wiretap potential terrorists, and dared to subject a few high level terrorist suspects to loud music and other supposedly horrible things. A very few were subjected to a mild form of waterboarding, quote unquote. Another example, Abe Lincoln charged some reporters with sedition, yet we have Obama falling all over himself trying to prove he is Abraham Lincoln, what a phony by the way, he is so far from Lincoln as to be an embarrassment to Lincoln if Lincoln were alive today. Obama had to swear on Lincoln's Bible, and he copies Lincoln daily it seems, quoting him, etc. its all for show.

Right now, we have Democrats threatening to limit free speech on the airwaves. You would think Hugo Chavez had just been elected in this country, or Castro.

I will tell you one thing straight out, I do not trust these people any further than I can throw them, they are not to be trusted. Give me liberty or give me death, Frank, got that.

You say that Obama's 'all for show.' Please describe what you would expect to see to prove to you that he was not 'all for show.'

Cycloptichorn

Well, Obama says one thing, then does another. I interpret that "all for show."

He said he would have no lobbyists. He has them.

He said he would have an ethical administration. He doesn't.

He said he would have an open and transparent process. He doesn't. Fact is Congress is violating its own rules by pushing this stimulus package without the prescribed time to even read the fiasco. The Blago case is another case of blatant obfuscation and lack of transparency.

He said he had a vetting process for his administration with all kinds of questions that would filter out corruption. He didn't do it.

He has always claimed government should be unbiased, not pay off your friends. How about ACORN, which could now be elgible to receive funds?

He said the stimulus bill has no earmarks or pork. Virtually the entire thing is pork.

For Obama, the rule should be do as I say, not as I do.

And getting back to Lincoln, Lincoln was a Republican, and very little of what Obama stands for would Lincoln agree with. I have read his writings and his quotes, and the man is so far from Obama as to be a stranger to any of his thinking. If Lincoln had heard what Obama sat and listened to for 20 years from Reverend Wright, there is no doubt in my mind that Obama would not get even the time of day from Lincoln.

okie, What is it about Obama's administration that isn't transparent?

Is it the kind Bush had for eight years?

Your treatises on constitutional law are a real hoot, youcan't.

Not only that Okie. They can't handle the stimulus package.

Note:FEBRUARY 13, 2009 Next Challenge on Stimulus: Spending All That Money Article
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By STEPHEN POWER and NEIL KING JR.
(See Correction & Amplification below.)

Minnesota's Sage Electrochromics Inc. has been ready for months to move on just the sort of project the Obama administration hopes will bolster the U.S. economy: a $65 million factory that would make energy-saving windows and generate 250 new jobs.

So what's holding it up? The Energy Department, whose fledgling loan-guarantee office has yet to approve a single project, including the proposed Sage glass factory, since the loan program launched in early 2007.

President Barack Obama plans to rely heavily on agencies like the Energy Department to approve contracts and issue loan guarantees and grants at a record clip in the $789 billion stimulus plan.

But there are signs that parts of the federal bureaucracy will need an overhaul to handle the huge workload heading their way. Such worries are apparent at the Energy Department, which will play a key role in Mr. Obama's bid to revive the economy and wean the country off oil.

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Associated Press
Energy Secretary Steven Chu, with President Barack Obama, says he plans to speed up spending at the DOE.
The stimulus bill nearing a final vote in Congress could pump as much as $170 billion into projects such as highways, Internet broadband and public-housing repairs. Of that, about a quarter -- or some $40 billion -- could go to the Energy Department. The agency would be under the gun to swiftly hand out money to projects that would modernize the electric grid, build electric cars and make homes and buildings more energy efficient.

The new energy secretary, Steven Chu, has barely moved into his office overlooking the Smithsonian Castle. He says he'll have to transform how parts of his agency work if the president's stimulus plan is to succeed.

"We've got to do it," Mr. Chu said in an interview. "Otherwise it's just going to be a bust."

Other agencies face steep challenges, too. An obscure Commerce Department office with a $19 million budget and fewer than 20 grant officers could end up in charge of $7 billion in grants to expand Internet access in rural areas. A Congressional Budget Office report said it could take eight years for those grants to be issued because the amount of money would "far exceed" the agency's traditional budget and require the deployment of technology that is "not widely available today."

The spending demands could prove particularly taxing at the DOE. The Energy Department has had limited experience pulling off big, transformative energy projects. Most of the department's $25 billion budget goes toward maintaining the nation's nuclear stockpile, cleaning up former weapons plants, and doing basic scientific research.

"DOE is going to have to dramatically change how it does business if it hopes to push all this money out the door," says Karen Harbert, a former senior Energy Department official who now directs the U.S. Chamber of Commerce's lobbying efforts on energy issues. "They are going to need more people, more oversight and more freedom to waive regulations."

History of Delays
The department has a history of delays and of letting costs spiral. It has missed so many deadlines for setting energy-efficiency standards for appliances, for example, that Mr. Obama last week ordered the agency to get it done by August this year. The approval process for guaranteeing loans to energy projects, meanwhile, has dragged on for roughly two years and counting. And last month, the Government Accountability Office cited the agency's "inadequate management and oversight of its contractors" when it put the department on its list of agencies at "high risk" for waste, fraud, abuse and mismanagement.

Where the Money Goes
Selected programs from the $789.2 billion billHow the Stimulus Plans Differed
Compare the House and Senate versions of the stimulus legislation.Related Reading
House Passes Stimulus BillCongress Moves Ahead on StimulusEmanuel Says Obama Team Lost Message Funds for Projects Will Flow to Tech FirmsBuyout Firms Could Reap WindfallMajor Funding for Unemployed, PoorFinal Bill Boosts Rail SpendingEducation, Transportation Jobs Would Get BoostBill Provides $40 Billion for Energy ProjectsExecutive Compensation Limits Included in PlanTrade Adjusted Assistance Extended to Service SectorRail Advocates Win in Stimulus BillFinal Text of the Agreement
Text of the Conference Report -- Division AText of the Conference Report -- Division BJoint Explanatory Statement -- Division AJoint Explanatory Statement -- Division BOther Documents
Budget Impact of LegislationFact sheet from Speaker Pelosi's officeDraft text of the Senate's stimulus billTax, health, state fiscal relief and other provisionsDiscuss
Do you think the stimulus legislation will work?How would you grade Obama's handling of the economy?Video
Video: Stimulus Bill on Track for SigningVideo: The Prospects for a U.S. RecoveryVideo: Skepticism Surrounds Stimulus PlanGregory Friedman, the DOE's inspector general, whose office acts as the agency's in-house watchdog, knows the department's weak spots well after holding the position for more than a decade. The House version of the stimulus bill before Congress gives Mr. Friedman's office $15 million to track how all the new money coming into the DOE will be spent.

"Forty billion dollars is a huge amount of money," says Mr. Friedman of the DOE's potential windfall. "Absorbing the money, making sure it's spent appropriately and gets into the hands of the right recipients...are going to be significant challenges."

A Four-Week Window
Mr. Chu, a Nobel Prize-winning physicist whose last job was running the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory in California, says one of his first priorities at the DOE is getting projects that are already in the pipeline, like the Sage glass factory, up and running. To agency employees who say such projects need months of additional consideration, "we're saying, 'Tell us what you need to do in order to get them [decided] in four weeks,'" Mr. Chu says.

Sage and more than a dozen other companies have so far labored for more than two years to win loan guarantees through a program authorized by Congress in 2005. Wary of financing projects that might default, the Bush administration took another two years to adopt regulations governing the program. Congress eventually authorized the DOE to issue $42.5 billion in loan guarantees for ventures that many lenders would otherwise consider too risky.

The program is now seen as a test of the department's ability to speed up projects that could both create jobs and help steer the country away from a reliance on oil. But the experience of some of the companies still awaiting their loan guarantees raises questions about whether the DOE will be able to radically change its ways fast enough.

Sage Electrochromics makes windows that can get darker or lighter on command, making rooms easier to cool in summer or warmer in winter. Sage first approached the Energy Department in late 2006 about securing a loan guarantee that would allow the company to build its first commercial-scale glass factory about 40 miles south of the Twin Cities in Minnesota.

In October 2007, Sage was one of 16 companies that won initial approval. The company, which is seeking a $65 million loan guarantee, is now awaiting a ruling from the DOE on whether it will have to pay a fee for the service. After that comes a due-diligence review that will require a team of lawyers, engineers and market researchers, and could cost up to $1 million, according to Sage estimates.

"I'm guessing that we will have the money by the end of the year at the earliest," says Mike Kennedy, Sage's chief financial officer. "There has to be a way to do this faster."

In Massachusetts, Beacon Power Co. has stood in line for 25 months to win approval for a $50 million loan guarantee that would let the company break ground on an electricity-storage plant about 30 miles southeast of Albany, N.Y. The plant would absorb power and feed it back onto the grid when the supply drops, a function that traditional power plants do much less efficiently.

The vetting has been so thorough, says Beacon spokesman Gene Hunt, that the company to date has supplied the Energy Department with 96 documents, which together fill six thick, three-ring binders. One of the documents is a draft 87-page environmental-impact study for the proposed two-acre site. That study required Beacon to hire archaeologists to scour the site for signs of prehistoric remains. The team found a mound of debris from a century ago that was deemed of no historic value.

David Frantz, who directs the DOE's loan-guarantee program, said he couldn't comment on specific applications, but said the agency is moving to "significantly shorten the cycle time from application to loan guarantee to ensure good projects get funded quickly."

On Thursday, Andy Karsner, assistant secretary for energy efficiency and renewable energy under President George W. Bush, told a Senate panel that a combination of "bureaucratic dysfunction," "organizational intransigence," and "institutional barriers" had contributed to the agency's "painfully slow" progress on loan-guarantee applications in recent years.

An Earful About Delays
The Energy Department has missed deadlines and misjudged the costs of projects before. Shortly before Mr. Obama took office, the agency halted contract talks on more than $2 billion worth of energy-efficiency projects at federal buildings, after realizing belatedly that the projects' costs would exceed the limits the department had set for them. An Energy Department spokesman said the agency didn't "adequately keep track of the value of projects in the pipeline," but that most of the affected projects were still in their early stages and that the department is working to move them along "with as little disruption or delay as possible."

Mr. Chu has heard an earful about such delays. He says when it comes to loan guarantees, the level of documentation the agency requires from companies "may be too much." He says he's talking to officials at other agencies that he says have "a better track record" of getting financial aid to companies quickly. Some of those agencies' employees could be temporarily reassigned to the DOE to help it mete out funds.

Speeding Up the Process
His aides are also pressing the agency's lawyers and loan-guarantee managers to identify ways to speed up the process. The agency's legal department, says Mr. Chu, has been "very conservative," in waiting to vet loan-guarantee applications until after the deadline for submissions has passed, rather than "triaging" them on a "rolling" basis.

David Hill, who was the Energy Department's general counsel under President Bush, says there are reasons for the DOE to tread carefully in funding alternative-energy projects. During the 1970s, he says, the DOE made multiple loan guarantees to support the development of synthetic fuels and geothermal power, only to see many of those projects default and the projects' sponsors abandon them.

"We have to be careful to not make the same mistakes that we made before," Mr. Hill says.

Business groups like the Chamber of Commerce have called for expediting federal environmental reviews to help speed spending. Otherwise, they say, many stimulus-funded projects will be delayed for years. Environmental groups object to such proposals. "The way to ensure stimulus money is spent quickly is to fund the right initiatives, not waive solid laws," says Erin Allweis, a spokeswoman for the Natural Resources Defense Council.

The frenzy of activity is unfolding as government watchdogs are warning the Energy Department not to lose sight of its traditional duties. A report in December by the agency's inspector general, Mr. Friedman, said the department still faces a "monumental task" in cleaning up the more than 1.5 million cubic meters of solid radioactive waste and 88 million gallons of radioactive liquid waste left over from more than 50 years of nuclear defense and energy research work across the country.

Another challenge: making sure money designated for states gets funneled through quickly to the people it's meant to help. A good chunk of the DOE stimulus money, around $5 billion, will flow in the form of grants to states for programs to supply insulation for homes in low-income neighborhoods. There, too, states are scrambling to prepare to handle unprecedented sums of money. Massachusetts, which is farther along than most states in weatherizing homes, expects an injection of upwards of $161 million into a program that last year spent $14 million.

Rep. Rodney Frelinghuysen, a New Jersey Republican who sits on a House panel that controls the DOE's budget, worries that the scale of the stimulus will throw the agency off track. "You have a huge policy shift here of moving a bureaucracy that's been focused on research and development to being a manager of a massive amount of money," he says, calling it, "a prescription for abuse and waste
******************************************************************

Look at the main parts of this article--
A. Sage Electrochromics has been ready for a couple of months now to set up a 65 Million dollar factory to MAKE ENERGY SAVING WINDOWS AND SET UP 250 JOBS.

THE ENERGY DEPARTMENT UNDER DR,. CHU HAS YET TO APPROVE


A SINGLE PROJECT ON THIS.



The new energy secretary, Steven Chu, says he will have to transform how parts of his agency work if the President's stimulus plan is to succeed.


wE'VE GOT TO DO IT, SAID MR. CHU SAID, OTHERWISE IT'S JUST GOING TO BE A B U S T.

but, okie,okie, okie, okie--this is the best part.

"An obscure Commerce Department Office with a 19 Million Dollar Budget and FEWER than 20 Grant officers could end up in charge of 7 Billion(
7,000,000,000) in grants to expand Internet Access in rural areas. A congressonal budget office report says itcould take eight years, eight years, eight years,eight years, eight years, for those grants to be issued because the amount of m oney would "far exceed" the agency 's traditional budget and require the deployment oftechnology that is "NOT WIDELY AVAILABLE TODAY"."

END OF QUOTE


So,as far as this program is concerned, it appears that Obama is nothing but a flimflam man.

And the learned Dr.Chu? It appears that he has bitten off more than he can Chu.

SINGLE

Is Cyclops so stupid that he cannot rebut this? He made a comment and I gave evidence that jammed his comment down his craw. He is afraid to try to rebut me since I cleaned his clock many times in the past. Poor Cyclops!


Cyclopitchorn's posts can be characterized as endless blah blah blah giving pronuciamento after prounciamento from,it would seem, EX CATHEDRA, while never ever giving any evidence or documentation for his blurbs.

He would not do very well teaching a class in History,for example, since some smart student would take off his head by asking-_What is your source for that statement sir--My source does not agree with you and says:


By 1981-1985 the growth rate of the Soviet economy, obviously on a larger total economic base, was 3.3% compared with 11.2% in 1951-55. (Samary, 1988, P.13) In order to increase the level of consumer goods and spend money on arms the Soviets withdrew capital from long-term investment: in 1978/79 it was only 1%; in 1980 - 0.5%. Estimates on the amount of the Soviet budget allocated to military expenditure vary considerably from 11% of GNP in the 1976-80 10th year plan, (Shaw and Pryce, 1990, p.144), to CIA estimates of 15% of GNP. (Shaw and Pryce, 1990, p.89)

If many ostensibly civilian projects, (e.g. space research), which have considerable military implications are included in the calculations then the percentage of the Soviet economy devoted to military spending of one kind or another may have been much higher. The low productivity of Soviet labour did not allow the Soviet Union to compete with the world economy on favourable terms. This low productivity, and this is where a profound connection between the internal and external life of the Soviet Union existed, could only have been boosted by the energy and initiative of the masses. Such an input was not forthcoming.

This was fatal because the limits of the Soviet economy as regards growth via extensive surplus value had been reached, and a move to the intensive accumulation of surplus value was necessary. In the absence of relying on the masses the leadership of the USSR was forced to look to advanced technology as a short-term palliative. (Hence, the importance of Western attempts, led by the US, to prevent the export of advanced technologies to the Soviet Union.).
*******************************************************************

It was Cyclops that said that President Reagan did not cause the Soviets to implode. He is wrong. The evidence above shows he is wrong. But Cyclops' ego is too fragile to risk debating me.

Just as a historical notation, I just posted the following on ALoneVoice's stimulus package thread:

On November 14 Presidential-candidate Barack Obama promised that change would come from the bottom up, not the top down, and every bill, every decision, every earmark would be posted and the people would have a chance to see it and comment on it before Congress voted on it.

Well the bill was passed in the dark of night, without the Republican leadership even having opportunity to amend it, much less participate in the initial or final negotiations. The only 'olive branch' extended was to three RINOs that could generally be counted upon to vote left and could give an illusion of bi-partisanship.

Well so much for keeping promises. So much for transparency. And so much for the audacity of hope. Through the audacity of fearmongering, the country has just been subjected to a trillion dollar spending bill that the President said would produce trillion dollar deficits every year in the foreseeable future without giving our elected leaders time to read it, much less the electorate. The only thing we know about it is that there is very little stimulus in it.

The left better hope and pray that the economy gets well on its own and fast or I think the people who have swallowed hard and are following on blind faith will beocme disallusioned quite quickly.

This statement was made up by you on the other thread as well as this one.

I acknowledged on the other thread and I will acknowledge here that his actual words were that he would make the information available and invite public input before he signs a bill into law rather than before Congress votes. He has 10 days to sign the bill and, if he does not, it is automatically vetoed.

So, we'll see if he makes all 1075 pages, complete with hand written notes in the margin and cross outs and changes available for us to see and comment on for the next 10 days.

Do you suppose he will do that? In time for us to read all 1075 pages and comment on them?

Somebody did the math and figured if somebody had taken one of those speed reading courses and read at maximum speed, it would take 12 continuous hours with no breaks to read the entire thing.