Call them the Religious Left - Let Justice Roll/Minimum Wage

I am sorry that you think so, Okie. I"ll tell you why.Nimh is a supercilious type who is part of the elitist European pseudo-intellectual group. They look down on our country and culture and they feel that the only real culture comes from Paris and London and Berlin.

In truth, Europe is dying. They have become almost completely secularized and they are not having enough children to keep their population up. In fifty years, if current trends continue, Europe will be mainly Moslem and then the elitists will wish that they had helped us to push the Islamic wave back.

But, never forget, Okie, we save their butts in World War I and World War II and they will never forget it. They resent it grossly. They hate our generosity and resent the help we gave them. They envy our standard of living and wealth.

That is why elitists like Nimh who do not live in the states set themselves up as experts-

The Canadian Blotham obviously hates President Bush. He should go back to Canada then.

Nimh pretends to be an expert on American voting patterns. He has never gone out on an election campain. He knows nothing about the real political climate. His current country, Hungary is a mess which he should concentrate on instead of bothering the USA with comments which are basically ignorant.

I need no apologies from you to anyone,thank you, Okie. I will do my own apologizing if necessary but, for what it's worth and my own opinion, I would not make any deals with the devil if I were you.

Do you not realize that Nimh, Blotham,Setanta, Debra L A W--those types. would be deliriously happy if our country was destroyed and turned into a socialist haven?

If you don't see that, Okie, I am afraid you are not looking very hard!

I hear what you are saying, however, if we were born in Europe, we might have the same ingrained beliefs, just as we have ours because of our own traditions. Surely you have ancestors that came from somewhere besides the U.S.?, perhaps Europe? I do. And some still live there, and proudly so.

Because of some knowledge of Europe myself, I do think they are somewhat blind to the dangerous trends there, that of immigrants changing the face of many of the countries and thus will change the political landscape in those countries, and it already has changed.

We are proud of this country, but we are not perfect either, as no country is. Europeans may resent us, but they love us and admire us at the same time, at least many or most of them do. This I've concluded from talking to a few in a couple of countries. Admittedly that is limited, but I don't think the press accurately portrays the attitudes in a balanced manner.

I am of the personal opinion that Europe would be much smarter to get on board the anti-terrorism sooner than later. I do not think they recognize the seriousness of the Islamo-fascist movement around the world.

Of course we are not perfect, Okie, but it is bad manners for them to come into our house to piss on the floor. Blotham does that everytime he posts. So does Setanta.

Instead of discussing, they attack. Well, I will attack right back.


I USED TO DISCUSS AND I USED TO PROVIDE LINKS AND EVIDENCE AND REASON BUT MORONS LIKE SNOOD AND DYSLEXIC WOULD IGNORE THE EVIDENCE, NOT EVEN TRY TO DISCUSS OR REBUT THE EVIDENCE, AND WOULD MAKE SOME KIND OF SMUTTY REMARK.


I am always ready to discuss rationally but when I discuss rationally, I insist that it be a dialogue which takes all of my evidence into account.
There are many who are afraid to debate with me, Okie. You saw it on the Global Warming thread. What good did all of the gathering of the evidence do for the morons who either could not understand it or never read it?

I would ignore dyslexic. He contributes nothing. He claims to be a liberal but at the same time, Barry Goldwater was his hero, so go figure that out!

Snood offers mostly one liner opinions, not much depth maybe in the posts, but he strikes me as a decent person I think. At least hopefully.

You say your previously reasoned posts with links did no good. Maybe not, but maybe more than you think. Blasting them now will only detract from credibility, MarionT. There are certain people that you cannot reason with, however a few liberals you can. Cyclops is tough but he seems to absorb points a tiny bit sometimes. Parados is impossible. Plainoldme is clueless, but she is funny sometimes, so I throw her oneliners back to see what she will say, just for entertainment.

Anyway, calm down. I liked the old Bernard identity better.

I will post as I see fit, Okie. There is no compromise with evil as presented by Blotham, Setanta, Debra L A W and others. PlainOldMe will notbe on these threads much longer, She is being sold to the cattle rendering plant in Omaha. But she will still leave a great deal of feces on these pages. You are right about Snood. But the poor man is so stupid that he cannot post more than two lines. And he never offers evidence. Perhaps someone should teach him how to search the web. On the other hand, it wouldn't do much good since I am sure that he cannot read past a fifth grade level.

possum

I believe I will take this opportunity to speak directly to you this one last time.

As I understand it, the new version of this site will provide a function wherebye members can isolate particular posters and place them on an "ignore" status. That is, none of that poster's writing will even be visible to members who do not wish to bother with that poster.

It will be a welcome function. Your time here, which you may or may not fathom, is about to terminate permanently.

Very gracious of you, Okie. But no need to apologise - I would never make the mistake of considering Marion/Bernard/Italgato as representative of your country or people; the width of different kinds of Americans posting on this board alone serves to reassure.


Well, thats the thing of course - I am "materially affected by what happens in your country", and so is pretty much everyone else in the world. It comes with the territory of being the world's single superpower - everything you do affects us all.

Blatham, you are a true lib. Shut your mind off to any opinion you don't like, and if you don't like somebody, simply eliminate them. I think you would have been a good little SS troop.

What if you give the apology you offered me to Blatham instead? Thats just beyond the pale, what you just said. Comparing someone with an SSer.

And youve got it all the wrong way round, too. Blatham, like many of us, would not rather ignore homeboy because he has opinions we dont like. Blatham, like me, is perfectly able and willing to engage in a to and fro, listening and talking, with posters of opposite views - with Georgeob, for example. Unlike me, Blatham even has the patience to do the talk and listen with Finn d'Abuzz.

No, its not his rightwing views that make many of us think the contributions of Bernard/Renatus/Italgato/whatever are of little value. Its the way he expresses them, the (lack of) logic he uses, the incessant baiting and (attempted) bullying, the empty rhetorics, the double posts, the fallacies, the sheer kookiness.

I'm surprised you would even make this mistake anymore, since you have prime evidence at hand to refute it. For the past month or two, Bernard has been posting here as MarionT, keeping a strictly liberal line and posting only leftie views. It was a test or experiment of sorts, I gather. But he was as unreasonable as ever in how he expressed them - and we rejected his style and content as much as we did when he was being a conservative. Most tellingly, we started criticizing MarionT's posts even before we realised it was Bernard (I had trouble believing it at first).

No, its not just that we disagree with them and thats why we dont like it. And even had that been the case, calling someone a Nazi would have been beyond the pale, and reflects more on you than on the person you address.

Ah, bollocks to it all. Lets smoke a peace pipe. Okie, Blatham, come join the fun and play the game of predicting the Senate winners.

Thanks. I would categorize you the same way.

I would like to see more of the forward thinking on solving problems that we played around with on the Global Warming thread.... even after this election is over, the problems just aren't going to go away. It will take the input of people from all points on the political spectrum to come up with comprehensive solutions to our problems, and I feel that practicing this is neccessary for preaching this.

I will start a 'solving America's problems, one by one' thread after the election, and maybe we can get to work on some issues.

Cheers

Cycloptichorn

After reading this entire thread, I must say that anyone who does not agree with the rationally expressed opinions of Mr. Blatham, Mr. Cyclopitchorn and Mr. Nimh are just not thinking clearly. Everyone knows that the liberal approach is the only one that is ever worth listening to. All other opinions must be ignorned. That is the only way we can achieve the Democratic give and take our forefathers outlined for us in the Constitution.

You are correct, that was a low blow. However, when I read blathams post about the forum possibly offering the option to shut contrary opinion holders out, something he was enthusiastic over, it struck me as a very dangerous attitude to adopt, and so I responded accordingly. I realize to adopt such a practice on this forum is benign, but if such a practice is adopted by people with political power, then the mindset is no longer benign. I also realize blatham is a relatively harmless character in terms of any power he may have, so I accordingly offer an apology. I would never vote for blatham if such a ballot option ever could be imagined however because of the beliefs that he holds.

Hello Bernard. I admit you fooled me once on another thread I just responded to, concerning Obama and our collective guilt.

Thanks. And doesn't it bother you that Democrats are not running on issues now, but instead it is simply the Republicans are all wrong and they will fix it, but fix it how nobody knows, apparently including them? Cyclops, this is how I would summarize the Democrats:

Foreign policy, no solutions, and in fact it was previous Democratic bungling that has given us many of the problems facing us now. Energy, no positive solutions, and by the way lets not drill for oil anywhere.

According to Democrats, business and free enterprise is terrible and evil, the economy is lousy, and higher taxes and government can fix every problem, including energy, but how - they offer nothing.

Social problems - simply enact anything and everything that is more permissive. If robbing banks becomes too popular, simply make it legal and the problem goes away according to Democrats. If people are irresponsible, simply reward them with more money and the problem goes away.

Last but not least, the Republicans are the party of corruption, but when Democrats are corrupt, nobody should care, it is not an issue.

I've always thought that I would have looked quite dashing in the black (with red and white accents) uniform of the Waffen SS. What better colors to accent my penetrating blue eyes? Lending further credence to okie's suggestion, I have to confess that my ex-wife was such a lousy cook that I renamed several of her recipes with some of that stirring uber alles nomenclature...eg, "Eggs Gestapo".

In any case, thanks for the words, nimh.

okie...I didn't bother responding to your post because this seemed one of those instances where you've enthusiastically lept off a precipice some time much earlier and any advices I might offer regarding trajectory were moot...neither of us now having much in the way of further influence.

Your impression seems to be far more based on prejudice than on anything any actual Demorcratic top politician is saying.

As for the Democrats not having any plan - this one is from the centrist wing of the party, its true - but it does prove you wrong:

The Plan: Big Ideas for America

I'm sure you may not agree with this or that plank (or not with any of them) - and it's all way too summary for me still - but the same old-same old Republican talking point about Democrats that there is no plan, and that they don't have ideas of their own, is just not true.

The DLC
About the DLC



DLC | Bio | July 25, 2006
DLC: Leader Profiles

Iowa Governor Tom Vilsack is Chairman of the DLC. Vilsack is the nation's senior Democratic governor and is recognized as an innovator on children's, economic, and healthcare policy and making government more efficient and accessible. Vilsack has a long history with the DLC and was a signer of the Hyde Park Declaration in 2000. Governor Vilsack is the immediate past chair of the Democratic Governors' Association and a member of the National Governors' Association Executive Committee.

For a more complete biography, please visit Gov. Vilsack's website.
U.S. Senator Tom Carper (Delaware) is Vice-Chairman of the DLC. Carper has served in public office for almost 30 years, completing a rare trifecta in Delaware politics, serving as Congressman (1982-1992), Governor (1992-2000) and now Senator (elected in 2000). In 2004, he was named a Deputy Whip for Senate Democrats. Carper also serves as co-chair of the Senate New Democrat Coalition and for the past three years, he has served as the DLC Chair for Best Practices.

For a more complete biography, please visit Sen. Carper's website.
U.S. Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton (New York) heads the DLC's American Dream Initiative. During her first term in the Senate, Clinton has become a leading Democratic voice in Washington and she chairs the Senate Democratic Steering and Outreach Committee, responsible for communicating with the public about key issues before Congress.

For a more complete biography, please visit Sen. Clinton's website.
U.S. Representative Artur Davis (Alabama), co-chair of the House New Democrat Coalition, has made quite an impact in his 2 1/2 years in Congress. Davis has been recognized by Roll Call and The National Journal as one of the future leaders to watch in Washington, and he has earned a reputation as a legislator with an appreciation for bipartisanship. Davis has also made an impact with New Democats. He was a keynote speaker at the DLC's "God, Guns, and Guts" conference in 2003. Davis has also written for Blueprint magazine on the vital center and reclaiming values issues for Democrats.

For a more complete biography, please visit Rep. Davis' website.

Blog by David Serota
The Democrats 2008 Choice: Sell Out & Lose, Or Stand Up & Win (89 comments )
READ MORE: 2008, George W. Bush, Iraq
The 2008 Democratic presidential candidates this week are busy genuflecting at Corporate America's altar -- otherwise known as the Democratic Leadership Council (DLC). Now, it's true -- the DLC is really just a group of Beltway-insulated corporate-funded hacks who have spent the better part of the last decade trying to undermine the Democratic Party's traditional working class base -- a base that had kept Democrats in power for 40 years and now, thanks to the DLC, has been forfeited to the Republicans.

Even so, the fact that these presidential candidates feel the need to bow down to the DLC is a troubling sign about whether the Democratic Party is really serious about regaining power in America.

Let's just look at the cold, hard facts about the DLC and its record. The DLC has pushed, among other things, the war in Iraq and "free" trade policies, using bags of corporate money to buy enough Democratic votes to help Republicans make those policies a reality. They have chastised anyone who has opposed those policies as either unpatriotic or anti-business -- even as a majority of Americans now oppose the war in Iraq, oppose the DLC's business-written trade deals, and are sick of watching America's economy sold out to the highest corporate bidder. Additionally, in brazenly Orwellian fashion, the DLC has also called its extremist agenda "centrist," even though polls show the American public opposes most of their agenda, and supports much of the progressive agenda.

Now, you could make a credible argument that the DLC's corporatization/Republicanization of the Democratic Party was justified, had it led to electoral success for Democrats. Few would argue that today's split-the-difference Democratic Party hasn't followed the DLC's policy direction over the last 10 years. That means the last 10 years of elections really have been a referendum on whether the DLC's model -- regardless of any moral judgements about it -- actually wins at the polls.

And that's when we get to the real problem with the DLC -- its policies are BOTH morally bankrupt, and politically disastrous. The rise of the DLC within the Democratic Party has coincided almost perfectly with the decline of the Democratic Party's power in American politics -- a decline that took Democrats from seemingly permanent majority status to permanent minority status. In this last election, just think of Democrats' troubles in Ohio as a perfect example of this. Here was a state ravaged by massive job loss due to corporate-written "free" trade deals -- yet Democrats were unable to capitalize on that issue and thus couldn't win the state because the DLC had long ago made sure the party helped pass the very trade policies (NAFTA, China PNTR) that sold out those jobs.

To counter, the DLC holds up Bill Clinton's 1992 win as proof that its policies win elections, but that is so dishonest it's laughable. First and foremost, almost everyone would agree Clinton ran a very un-DLC-like populist campaign for President in 1992, and won far more on the strength of his charisma/personality than any policy platform from a bunch of pencil-pushing geeks at the DLC in Washington, D.C. Secondly, since that 1992 victory -- with the exception of Clinton's 1996 victory over one of the weakest GOP challengers in modern history -- Democrats have been roundly destroyed in national election after national election.

Thus, we are brought back to the bottom line: with the DLC, Democrats get all of the bad policies, and none of the good electoral outcomes -- it is the worst of both worlds.

Why is this the case? Because, above any one issue, Americans don't think Democrats stand for anything. They hear Democrats say they stand up for America's middle class, but then watch as the DLC loudly supports the opposite. For instance, the DLC was one of the pioneers in pushing Social Security privatization - a policy the DLC's Wall Street backers love (and if you don't believe the DLC advocated this, see their position paper trumpeting "personal accounts"). The DLC has pushed "free" trade that sells out American jobs, which the DLC's corporate backers love. And the DLC has pushed wars that send middle class kids off to die for lies, which the DLC's neocon ideologues love.

The DLC attracts undue attention to itself and these awful policies by claiming to speak for Democrats, attacking the Democratic Party, echoing the Republican Party's agenda, and reinforcing dishonest right-wing lies about progressives -- a surefire way to get press attention. What's left is a widespread impression that the Democratic Party deliberately misleads voters about its priorities, cares only about their political advancement, and possesses absolutely no core convictions.

Thankfully, the rise of a new populism within the Democratic Party is challenging the tired, hackneyed suits at the DLC, as is alternate fundraising sources that allows candidates to ignore the fat cats who fund the DLC.

But make no mistake about it -- the Democratic Party is in the throes of a battle for its soul -- a battle that will decide whether Democrats will ever be a majority party again.

On one side, you have the DLC which seeks to remold the Democratic Party into a wholly-owned subsidiary of Corporate America, controlled by a tiny cadre of conservative-leaning elitists in the nation's capital who are desperate to hang onto their power over the Democratic Party apparatus in Washington, D.C. These are the people who are so desperate and conniving, they viciously attacked Howard Dean in 2004 and ruthlessly attack grassroots groups like Moveon.org who, unlike the DLC, actually goes out and does the hard work of trying to WIN election. They are also the same people who are now working overtime to undermine Democrats' opposition to President Bush's extremist economic agenda.

On the other side are progressives who want to see the party go back to what made it successful for decades: a willingness to stand up for America's middle class.

The 2008 presidential candidates would rather there not be this choice, and that's why they are trying to have it both ways, speaking at the DLC conferences, while reassuring progressives they are real Democrats. But ultimately, that won't be possible. Each of them will have to make a choice -- kiss the elitists' ring, sell out to the highest corporate bidder, and be ridiculed on the national stage for standing for nothing other than fat cats and political expediency. Or, actually follow the lead of conviction politicians, ignore the D.C. cocktail party circuit, create a principled McCain-like image, and stand up for the millions of Americans who the DLC and the Beltway crowd have arrogantly alienated for so long.

We've tried the former for many years now, and it has meant loss after loss after loss after loss (the repetition of this disastrous formula kind of makes you wonder whether the current crop of Democrats actually enjoys losing). Personally, I don't like losing and I don't like selling out, so I'm hoping the Democrats reject the DLC model and change course. While it might be a fine life to be a comfortable-in-the-minority elitist in the cushy confines of Washington, D.C. where the consequences of selling out are muted, out here in the real world, the results of Democrats' permanent minority status in national politics have very real and very harsh effects -- and it's time for a change.

And given tons of "faith based" money from our tax dollars to campaign for king george and his "haves" .