Obama '08?

@old europe,

old europe wrote:

I hope this is not one of your "they're fighting each other, therefore there's a connection between them" arguments that you made about Nazis and Communists....

If you can find the quote where I said the above, I would like to see it. I don't think I ever said that, because it is not what I believe. It appears to be another one of your slick attempts to misrepresent what I said, oe. If you can't find the quote, kindly provide an apology or a retraction, okay?

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Probably won't be long before the red and green lines cross, and soon the negative will exceed the positive. The overall trend seems to be downward for Obama, inevitable I believe.

http://www.rasmussenreports.com/var/plain/storage/images/media/obama_index_graphics/obama_index_april_13_2009/213437-1-eng-US/obama_index_april_13_2009.jpg

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Wastn't Rasumussen a religious kook done away with just before the Russian Revolution? Isn't he sleeping with Mrs. Cheney? The Gallup and other polls still have Obama at 63% approval rating. Keep whistlin' in the dark -- it's the only sound you will hear. Besides the smell of sour grapes.

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@okie,

okie wrote:

old europe wrote:

I hope this is not one of your "they're fighting each other, therefore there's a connection between them" arguments that you made about Nazis and Communists....

If you can find the quote where I said the above, I would like to see it. I don't think I ever said that, because it is not what I believe. It appears to be another one of your slick attempts to misrepresent what I said, oe. If you can't find the quote, kindly provide an apology or a retraction, okay?

It was a discussion we had where you made your routine claim that Hitler was a socialist. I pointed out that despite Hitler's rhetoric about the German workers, he hardly ever pursued any kind of socialist politics. I also argued that the first people Hitler had rounded up into concentration camps were actually members of the Communist Party.

You argued that that doesn't mean a thing. After all, even Stalin routinely executed people who had been fighting with him. Your argument was that lethal infighting between factions was something Communists and Socialists were well known for.

It was similar to the argument you brought up here

okie wrote:

it is clear the Nazi Party was a socialist party. It is is not uncommon for leftist factions to oppose each other, history records far stranger things, in fact democracies like Britian and the U.S. were allied with Communist Soviet Union and Stalin to defeat Germany.

but in a separate discussion. Given that the search function on the current version of this website is practically non-existent, I'm not going to waste more time to find this other discussion. If you're saying you can't remember it and I'm making it up, then I'll apologize and retract what I've said.

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@okie,

Of course, that's just one pollster, and all the caveats regarding methodology and margins of error that were relevant for the election polls are important in this case, too.

If you want to take more than one single pollster into account, you can always check the graph at pollster.com:

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@okie,

About the only thing that proves okie is that of those that disapprove of Obama almost all of them strongly do so. Not a surprise based on the partisan reaction to the president by 30% of the country.

But the graph leaves out those that approve of Obama making the approval/disapproval almost 60-40.

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@old europe,

old europe, I hate to say this, but most polls on Obama will not be "accurate," simply because most people do not understand economics and why Obama is spending so much money that creates more deficits. Without this knowledge, they are responding to a poll that questions the actions Obama is taking to "save" our long-term economy.

I also do not agree with everything Obama is doing, but it's much better than doing "nothing," because that will only deepen the problems into the future; more people will lose jobs and homes, nobody will be able to borrow money to purchase homes and cars, and retail sales will continue to drop.

Those responding to polls think Obama should be a miracle worker and turn things around in his first 100 days in office; a ridiculous goal under the present world economic crisis.

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@cicerone imposter,

cicerone imposter wrote:

old europe, I hate to say this, but most polls on Obama will not be "accurate," simply because most people do not understand economics and why Obama is spending so much money that creates more deficits.

I disagree with that.

Opinion polls ask for people's opinion. It's not a prerequisite to have an informed opinion just to answer a poll - just like it's not a requirement to have an informed opinion about the candidates in order to vote.

It may or may not be regrettable that people who have no idea about the issues are allowed to answer opinion polls or vote in elections, but that's how the system works.

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@old europe,

True; I remember many decades ago when it was proved that elections were based on many subjective issues other than what should be important to win. We all know that still holds true today.

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@old europe,

So its obvious, oe, your claim that I had claimed previously that fighting between Communists and the Nazis proved there was a link between their idealogies, indicating Hitler was a Socialist, was purely in your imagination. I had in fact made no such claim, I knew I hadn't because that is not what I believe. I had simply made the observation of the obvious, that your previous argument that fighting between Communists and Hitlers Nazis proved Hitler was not a socialist, that your claim was nonsense, and I provided evidence.

So I don't remember it because I never said it, and you can't find it because I never said it. Thanks for the retraction, even as grudging as it sounded.

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@old europe,

Quote:

Opinion polls ask for people's opinion. It's not a prerequisite to have an informed opinion just to answer a poll - just like it's not a requirement to have an informed opinion about the candidates in order to vote.

It may or may not be regrettable that people who have no idea about the issues are allowed to answer opinion polls or vote in elections, but that's how the system works

the way the system is supposed to work is that in most cases it is assumed that the masses are not in a position to make good choices directly, that they have representatives in their sted who are experts and who decide. If the people don't like what the experts do then they have the power to replace the experts.

Opinon polls on the economy are useless except to measure the current feelings and biases of the masses. They should not in any way be used to decide policy.

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@cicerone imposter,

cicerone imposter wrote:

old europe, I hate to say this, but most polls on Obama will not be "accurate," simply because most people do not understand economics and why Obama is spending so much money that creates more deficits. Without this knowledge, they are responding to a poll that questions the actions Obama is taking to "save" our long-term economy.

Translation, if the people respond in accord with what ci thinks, which corresponds to whatever Obama thinks, the poll is accurate, if not, the people are ignorant.

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@hawkeye10,

hawkeye10 wrote:

the way the system is supposed to work is that in most cases it is assumed that the masses are not in a position to make good choices directly, that they have representatives in their sted who are experts and who decide. If the people don't like what the experts do then they have the power to replace the experts.

Don't know what point you're trying to make. Sounds like you're arguing for something like a parliamentary system here.

hawkeye10 wrote:

Opinon polls on the economy are useless except to measure the current feelings and biases of the masses.

The graph I posted was on job approval for the President, not on the state of the economy. Of course, the economic situation or perceived economic situation might be part of why people answer in a certain way.

However, I haven't presented the graph as anything other than an attempt to measure the current feelings and biases of the masses - so I'm not quite sure why you think it's necessary to make this point.

hawkeye10 wrote:

They should not in any way be used to decide policy.

I've never said it should.

Are you sure there is something in my posts that you actually wanted to reply to?

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@okie,

okie is the only one with fundamental ignorance on most things he opines about.
His "translation" doesn't provide anything worth the topic being discussed.

I don't know what "Obama thinks." His presumptions are not only idiotic but presumptuous without any basis in fact or evidence.

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Many conservatives accuse Hitler of being a leftist, on the grounds that his party was named "National Socialist." But socialism requires worker ownership and control of the means of production. In Nazi Germany, private capitalist individuals owned the means of production, and they in turn were frequently controlled by the Nazi party and state. True socialism does not advocate such economic dictatorship -- it can only be democratic. Hitler's other political beliefs place him almost always on the far right. He advocated racism over racial tolerance, eugenics over freedom of reproduction, merit over equality, competition over cooperation, power politics and militarism over pacifism, dictatorship over democracy, capitalism over Marxism, realism over idealism, nationalism over internationalism, exclusiveness over inclusiveness, common sense over theory or science, pragmatism over principle, and even held friendly relations with the Church, even though he was an atheist.

--huppi.com

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@okie,

okie wrote:

So its obvious, oe, your claim that I had claimed previously that fighting between Communists and the Nazis proved there was a link between their idealogies, indicating Hitler was a Socialist, was purely in your imagination.

Could be. I'll retract what I've said and apologize without reservation.

okie wrote:

I had in fact made no such claim, I knew I hadn't because that is not what I believe. I had simply made the observation of the obvious, that your previous argument that fighting between Communists and Hitlers Nazis proved Hitler was not a socialist, that your claim was nonsense, and I provided evidence.

I'm sure I've never said that the fact that Hitler had Communists, Socialists and Social Democrats rounded up and many of them murdered while courting right-leaning parties was proof that Hitler wasn't a Socialist. I merely thinks it's pretty good evidence.

okie wrote:

So I don't remember it because I never said it, and you can't find it because I never said it.

Sticking to the facts, I'll say that I don't know why you don't remember it, but I take your word for it that you never said it - and I can't find it either because the search function on this website sucks donkey balls, or because you never said it.

okie wrote:

Thanks for the retraction, even as grudging as it sounded.

Oh, sure.

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@Advocate,

Advocate wrote:

Many conservatives accuse Hitler of being a leftist, on the grounds that his party was named "National Socialist."

The name meant something, Advocate, they were a brand of socialists.

Quote:

But socialism requires worker ownership and control of the means of production. In Nazi Germany, private capitalist individuals owned the means of production, and they in turn were frequently controlled by the Nazi party and state.

Nice spin, but worker ownership means control by the state, which you come full circle and say is the case. Actually, what is happening right here, the government is gaining control of private enterprise through the bailouts, its a brand of socialism.

Quote:

True socialism does not advocate such economic dictatorship -- it can only be democratic.

Sure its economic dictatorship, by the state, supposedly democratic, but as it evolves, the elections often become staged and fixed.

Quote:

Hitler's other political beliefs place him almost always on the far right. He advocated racism over racial tolerance, eugenics over freedom of reproduction, merit over equality, competition over cooperation, power politics and militarism over pacifism, dictatorship over democracy, capitalism over Marxism, realism over idealism, nationalism over internationalism, exclusiveness over inclusiveness, common sense over theory or science, pragmatism over principle, and even held friendly relations with the Church, even though he was an atheist.

--huppi.com

Here you provide a few more spins, not exactly accurate. I think the new nationalism has in fact reared its ugly face as a worldism, just as menacing as Hitler's nationalism. And groupees of the Democratic Party is rearing its ugly head in the name of being unbiased but is highly racist, and actually opposes individualism and freedom of the individual. Eugenics, that is part of the womens lib movement, a powerful constituent of the Democratic Party, Advocate, its not part of the right. Dictators are necessary under socialism, not conservatism, which advocates freedom and responsibility of the constitution. Socialism is idealism, conservatism is realism. I could point out other stuff, but essentially you have almost everything backwards. Read the following, Advocate, I think the writer has alot of good information, based upon my reading of history.

Do yourself a favor and read it carefully, in its entirety.

http://jonjayray.tripod.com/hitler.html

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@okie,

okie wrote:

Advocate wrote:
Many conservatives accuse Hitler of being a leftist, on the grounds that his party was named "National Socialist."

The name meant something, Advocate, they were a brand of socialists.

The Nazis were very creative with names, okie. They came up with euphemisms like Sonderbehandlung (Special Treatment, meaning the killing of Jews in the concentration camps), Aussiedlung (Evacuation, the process of deporting Jews to the concentration camps) or Bereinigung der Judenfrage (Cleaning up the Jewish question, the Holocaust).

You've made this point before - that the fact that they referred to themselves as "National Socialists" indicated that they were in fact socialists. I'd like to know what makes you think this name correctly reflected their ideology - do you think they were more honest in choosing a name for their party than they were when it came to invading countries and murdering people in gas chambers?

okie wrote:

Quote:
But socialism requires worker ownership and control of the means of production. In Nazi Germany, private capitalist individuals owned the means of production, and they in turn were frequently controlled by the Nazi party and state.

Nice spin, but worker ownership means control by the state, which you come full circle and say is the case.

No, it doesn't. Worker ownership means worker ownership. I think this would be your strongest point, though - Socialism, according to Marx at least, is the phase where the means of production have been taken away from the capitalists, presumably via the state.

However, as pointed out in the text Advocate quoted, the Nazi government didn't actually nationalize the industry. Even throughout the war, until the day the Third Reich unconditionally surrendered, the means of production (even of the military industry) were owned by private enterprises, not by the state.

okie wrote:

Quote:
True socialism does not advocate such economic dictatorship -- it can only be democratic.
Sure its economic dictatorship, by the state, supposedly democratic, but as it evolves, the elections often become staged and fixed.

Quote:
Hitler's other political beliefs place him almost always on the far right. He advocated racism over racial tolerance, eugenics over freedom of reproduction, merit over equality, competition over cooperation, power politics and militarism over pacifism, dictatorship over democracy, capitalism over Marxism, realism over idealism, nationalism over internationalism, exclusiveness over inclusiveness, common sense over theory or science, pragmatism over principle, and even held friendly relations with the Church, even though he was an atheist.

--huppi.com

Here you provide a few more spins, not exactly accurate.

Please point out what you think is "spin". Merely saying that something is a "spin" doesn't make it so.

okie wrote:

I think the new nationalism has in fact reared its ugly face as a worldism, just as menacing as Hitler's nationalism.

Unrelated to the question of whether Hitler was a socialist.

okie wrote:

And groupees of the Democratic Party is rearing its ugly head in the name of being unbiased but is highly racist, and actually opposes individualism and freedom of the individual.

Unrelated to the question of whether Hitler was a socialist.

okie wrote:

Eugenics, that is part of the womens lib movement, a powerful constituent of the Democratic Party, Advocate, its not part of the right.

No. Eugenics is the idea that certain characteristics of a given human population can be improved either by discouraging or banning reproduction by persons who have certain defects, or by encouraging reproduction by persons with desirable traits.

This has nothing to do with feminism.

Also, unrelated to the question of whether Hitler was a socialist.

okie wrote:

Dictators are necessary under socialism, not conservatism,

That's a logical fallacy. You're essentially saying that dictators are necessary under socialism (without substantiating that), and therefore conclude that all dictatorships must be socialist.

Also, nobody is claiming that Hitler was a conservative.

okie wrote:

which advocates freedom and responsibility of the constitution.

That's true for conservatism. But also for libertarianism, or liberalism.

Also, unrelated to the question of whether Hitler was a socialist.

okie wrote:

Socialism is idealism, conservatism is realism.

Unrelated to the question of whether Hitler was a socialist.

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From yesterday's New York Times:

Tea Parties Forever

By PAUL KRUGMAN
Published: April 12, 2009

This is a column about Republicans " and I’m not sure I should even be writing it.

Today’s G.O.P. is, after all, very much a minority party. It retains some limited ability to obstruct the Democrats, but has no ability to make or even significantly shape policy.

Beyond that, Republicans have become embarrassing to watch. And it doesn’t feel right to make fun of crazy people. Better, perhaps, to focus on the real policy debates, which are all among Democrats.

But here’s the thing: the G.O.P. looked as crazy 10 or 15 years ago as it does now. That didn’t stop Republicans from taking control of both Congress and the White House. And they could return to power if the Democrats stumble. So it behooves us to look closely at the state of what is, after all, one of our nation’s two great political parties.

One way to get a good sense of the current state of the G.O.P., and also to see how little has really changed, is to look at the “tea parties” that have been held in a number of places already, and will be held across the country on Wednesday. These parties " antitaxation demonstrations that are supposed to evoke the memory of the Boston Tea Party and the American Revolution " have been the subject of considerable mockery, and rightly so.

But everything that critics mock about these parties has long been standard practice within the Republican Party.

Thus, President Obama is being called a “socialist” who seeks to destroy capitalism. Why? Because he wants to raise the tax rate on the highest-income Americans back to, um, about 10 percentage points less than it was for most of the Reagan administration. Bizarre.

But the charge of socialism is being thrown around only because “liberal” doesn’t seem to carry the punch it used to. And if you go back just a few years, you find top Republican figures making equally bizarre claims about what liberals were up to. Remember when Karl Rove declared that liberals wanted to offer “therapy and understanding” to the 9/11 terrorists?

Then there are the claims made at some recent tea-party events that Mr. Obama wasn’t born in America, which follow on earlier claims that he is a secret Muslim. Crazy stuff " but nowhere near as crazy as the claims, during the last Democratic administration, that the Clintons were murderers, claims that were supported by a campaign of innuendo on the part of big-league conservative media outlets and figures, especially Rush Limbaugh.

Speaking of Mr. Limbaugh: the most impressive thing about his role right now is the fealty he is able to demand from the rest of the right. The abject apologies he has extracted from Republican politicians who briefly dared to criticize him have been right out of Stalinist show trials. But while it’s new to have a talk-radio host in that role, ferocious party discipline has been the norm since the 1990s, when Tom DeLay, the House majority leader, became known as “The Hammer” in part because of the way he took political retribution on opponents.

Going back to those tea parties, Mr. DeLay, a fierce opponent of the theory of evolution " he famously suggested that the teaching of evolution led to the Columbine school massacre " also foreshadowed the denunciations of evolution that have emerged at some of the parties.

Last but not least: it turns out that the tea parties don’t represent a spontaneous outpouring of public sentiment. They’re AstroTurf (fake grass roots) events, manufactured by the usual suspects. In particular, a key role is being played by FreedomWorks, an organization run by Richard Armey, the former House majority leader, and supported by the usual group of right-wing billionaires. And the parties are, of course, being promoted heavily by Fox News.

But that’s nothing new, and AstroTurf has worked well for Republicans in the past. The most notable example was the “spontaneous” riot back in 2000 " actually orchestrated by G.O.P. strategists " that shut down the presidential vote recount in Florida’s Miami-Dade County.

So what’s the implication of the fact that Republicans are refusing to grow up, the fact that they are still behaving the same way they did when history seemed to be on their side? I’d say that it’s good for Democrats, at least in the short run " but it’s bad for the country.

For now, the Obama administration gains a substantial advantage from the fact that it has no credible opposition, especially on economic policy, where the Republicans seem particularly clueless.

But as I said, the G.O.P. remains one of America’s great parties, and events could still put that party back in power. We can only hope that Republicans have moved on by the time that happens.

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Okie's graph was people who STRONGLY approve compared to people who STRONGLY disapprove.

It was not a simple Approve/Disapprove graph.

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