America Is Becoming Ungovernable.

Diogenes of Sinope lived and wrote about that in ... before 400 BC

I don't know about other countries, but Germany paid the US in Deutsche Mark - we even have had that in our constitution (article 120).

Still today, this year, according the federal budget, we pay the US 56.1 million Euros for their troops here. (That's additional to the NATO-contributions!)

I hear Joel Grey singing Money Makes the World Go 'Round from Cabaret?

Ungovernable is going to be a serious issue. There seems to be some basic disconnect in logic when a very few elected officials who have all their medical needs fulfilled FOR LIFE want to deny all others of lowest mean from attaining even a modicum of insurance coverage.

These are the same douche nozzles who, in the mid 2000's returned several bills to fund FICA via increasing the earnings limit from which FICA tax is deducted . AND THEN, they go around calling Social Security an ENTITLEMENT.

**** EM ALL.



Im hoping that the tea baggers, like someone to whom we give more and more rope, will finally hang themselves and we all can get back to business.

Like an old model T, I believe the country will just put-put along, emitting smoke and noise. I have faith in the country, or rather the people that own the country (note I did not say run the country).

Yeah, I agree ... I guess.

It's just bizarre to hear sports figures talking about contentious partisan politics, especially someone like Popovich who is seen as sort of "wise father figure"in the NBA. They've even nicknamed him "Pop." Now that Phil Jackson has retired from the Lakers, Pop is the closest thing to a "zen master" the NBA has.

The weirdest thing about the article is that the writer and the site were completely uncritical of him and simply presented his view with the kind of gravitas you'd use to present the Pope's opinion or something. "I am Pop, and I have spoken."

I also checked on our spending in Germany, Europe and from what I can find we spend something like 4 billion dollars a year to keep troops there. Its hard to find exactly how much we spend/year but I am still checking so 51 million dollars dont seem to be a great deal of money. I hope all you guys get your wish and we start spending that 4 billion in my town which has a horrendous unemployment problem. No jobs because our U S businesses have exported then to foreign countries.

You actually really don't get all data and figures in one place.

The above mentioned 51 million Euros seem to be the German contribution for the costs of the troop-reduction.

I've found these data, from the German US-embassy's webside (2003, it seems)


And this was from 08.10.2008


There are of laws and treaties (see here: http://www.abg-plus.de/abg2/ebuecher/abg_all/index.html) regulating what Germany has to pay ...

Why does the US have 44 bases in Germany? Who are protecting Europe from?

The forces of the Dark Side . . .

There were until around 1990 even a lot more - here, where I live, in the "British Zone", there were about a dozen known US-military installations (mainly at nuclear sites).

The are here because ... well, they've ever been here. And now, we helped to built a new large and very good hospital, some new supermarkets and private natural resorts, not to forget the new spying centre ...

And, of course, local German communities like the US to stay here ... since they've seen, what trouble communities in the former British zone got when the Brits left. (The last 14,000 will go the next years.)

I don't know why we would have any bases there. Joint operations, sure. Under NATO. I don't know of any German bases here. Now, if it meant we got a 25 percent discount on a BMW. We do have a BMW plant here in South Carolina. I'm pretty sure it is profitable. The world is changing faster than we can adjust.

There are still about 50 in the UK as well.

I don't understand how that can be justified, other than by the defense industry.

Amen.

I'm hoping that the more centrist, and saner, Republicans will realize the profound damage done to their political viability by this latest reckless tea party tactic spearheaded by Sen. Ted Cruz. They have to stop fearing primary challenges to their own Congressional seats and start displaying some backbone and moral fiber. The real danger to our democracy, and to our country, comes from these extremists who gamble with the lives and welfare of their fellow citizens, and the economic health of our nation, for no purpose other than their own political capital and self-aggrandizement.

I'm hoping that voters will realize that the tea party wing nuts are far from the well intentioned patriots they pretend to be, and that they are feeding anger and dissatisfaction with a lethal mix of racism, anarchy, divisiveness, and paranoia. Those who cannot respect and uphold the democratic and legislative process, and who attempt to subvert it through the kind of extortion tactics we have just witnessed, are as ultimately dangerous to our country's welfare as any foreign enemy. They have shut down our government and brought us to the brink of economic disaster, not to benefit us in any way, but simply to prove they could do it. And, while not achieving anything beyond that, with this latest stunt they have already damaged the economy, increased the country's debt, and elevated the cost of living for the very people who elected them to do quite the opposite.

And, in a few months, we're likely to go through this again because any current agreement will only be a temporary measure. And, because of that, other issues the government needs to deal with will not get addressed and over-all dysfunction will continue.

It's time for the voters, particularly those of a more conservative bent, to wake up and smell the coffee, and take a good look at those they are voting into office to represent them. It's one thing to want a smaller government, but quite another to elect those who recklessly render the government dysfunctional, and who gamble with the economic well being of our entire nation, by using tactics more appropriate to terrorists than to statesmen.

We've got billionaires bankrolling the extreme right, and a Republican party catering, and pandering, to this same element because of the power of those purse-strings. What is essentially an intra-party Republican struggle, more in terms of tactics than ideology, has been allowed to get a death grip on the functioning of our legislative branch of government.

Enough is enough. We've got to get back to the basics of a functioning democracy. Politics has always been about the art of a deal, but it must involve a willingness to compromise, and a commitment to the best interests of the country rather than to anyone's narrow personal or partisan interests. Whether one favors a more comprehensive government, or a more minimalist government, we need a functioning government. The voters better wake up and recognize that the people they're sending to do the job are failing them. The tea party types have succeeded only in making the situation worse. Their rhetoric may sound appealing to some, but, when given the reins of power, they screw things up even more. You can't run a country when your main agenda is to gum up the works.

As said, I live (and lived) rather close to the GDR-border (120km).
Although it had been the British Zone, we had had during the "Cold War" many US-units around here.
There was one next to my hometown, which wasn't officialy there for quite some time. (We used to play poker and pinball with a lot of US-soldiers from there) Then, when about 100 families moved in, it became an "US Facility".
Now, we know that this unit ("5th US Army Artillery Group" plus the 27th Ordnance Company) was there "providing support to the I Belgian Corps, I British Corps, and Second Allied Tactical Air Force".



Next to the autobahn exit of my hometown was there airfield ("Brenker Mark Highway Strip") - long enough (3.5 kilometres) to enable direct flights to any airport in the USA. There were removable guardrails, and at both ends of the section there are parking lots that could be used for unloading and turning the aircraft.


(It starts where the green in middle stops.)

But that's all long-gone history ...

Interesting. Pinball and poker. A man after my own heart.

It certainly not a case of "poor us." I just like to call a spade a spade, and an anti-American an anti-American.

I'm not sure where the middle ground may be but I am sure that most of the people who believe they reside there are deceiving themselves.

Thanks for appearing to be a bitch so as to "knock some sense" into people like Foofie and me. Alas your sacrifice has clearly been in vain and holds virtually no promise of ever being successful, so you might as well revert to your true doe-like self.

I can't speak for Foofie but I'm not arguing that the US should tell the rest of the world to pound sand, I'm arguing that it shouldn't (and in the main doesn't)
care what supercilious pissants in foreign media, mid-level government positions and elected bodies say.

Of course there are quite a few Americans who do care, but they tend to be liberals, and they have always had an inferiority complex when it comes to Europeans...or at least Western Europeans.

Eric Idle is, of course, free to think whatever he pleases, and to express it as well (at least in this country), but why should anyone give a damn? Do you imagine that he has a better understanding of what is happening in this country than the average American?

Well, you probably do.

Europeans tend to like American presidents who seem to be willing to listen to
them, and seem to be willing to adopt policies that are not in conflict with their interests. If I were a European, so would I because, like them, I would care more about myself, my family and my fellow citizens, than I would about the American counter-parts.

We are not citizens of the world any more than Canadians, Brits or Germans are. It's a nice conceit, but it isn't so.

The fact that there is a global economy, doesn't even remotely make us all world citizens, and whether you like it or not, we very definitely are the biggest kid on the block. That may not always be the case, of course, but asserting that it isn't so right now is simply nonsense.

If what Americans want of their governments seems to be fairly irrelevant, then what foreigners want is totally irrelevant, and the people that trot out their opinions as if they should be dispositive ("See, even the Brits think the tea-baggers are crazy!) are, in my opinion, insipid...and if they happen to be foreigners themselves, laughable.

Be concerned. You should all be concerned.

Voice your concerns, and be sure to do it with a condescending, sneering tone, because that's sure to work.