7 Questions for Interviewers of McCain and Obama
1. What does the Iraq War have to do with the financial meltdown?
2. Can we afford all our wars, all our military bases, and still help our own people as well? Why is PEACE a dirty word in the debates?
3. What are the risks involved with China buying our debt?
4. What are the risks involved with Chinese children being well-educated for free and our children not?
5. Why are Americans so queasy about taxes? There are certain things only government can do. Disaster Relief, Response to Climate change, Space Exploration, Health Care, Education, Bank Bailouts, etc.)
Why do we pretend this is not true? Why do we pretend it doesn't cost anything?
6. What is the problem with a mixed economy: part capitalist, part socialist? We have had such an economy since the Great Depression and World War II. It has served us well. It has made us prosperous. Why the fear of it? Why does the word "socialist" make us quake?
We seem not to mind socialist for the rich -- or for Congress.
7. When will we get real about education? When will we realize we can't afford the dumbest generation in a global world?
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All excellent questions. If only someone in the media had the cojones to ask them or someone outside the MSM had the opportunity.
excellent excellant, I am putting this on my facebook for all of my friends, lady .
You are fabulous, don't ever stop writing.
Love your work and everything You do
Kristy Lynn Hoard (aka, dapunkster)
7. When will we get real about education?
As long as state and federal legislators are allowed to send their children to private schools.
progress will come only through much prodding. Afterall, they have no interest in having your children compete with theirs.
As I have said for years now, Socialism is NOT a form of government. It is a TOOL of government. A very big, all-encompassing tool, but a tool nonetheless. If it were to be comparable to a tool in your basement it might be a sledgehammer; and not every job requires a sledgehammer (MOST jobs don't require a sledgehammer), but it's very, very handy when you need to do something big, fast, and with a lot of power.
1. What does the Iraq War have to do with the financial meltdown?
Everything. The 10 billion dollars a month being wasted on Iraq caused the gov't to have to print and borrow money like it was going out of style. Eventually that had to take a toll on the economy and the devaluation of the dollar should have been a warning. The downturn in the economy caused both, job losses and a devaluation of house values. And when the Bush administration allowed the flood of cash to Iraq to continue unabated, the meltdown became inevitable. The bailout is just a temporary finger in the dyck. If the out of control military spending doesn't stop, the worst is yet to come.
I think the "Chinese" education question is the best, and a similar question should be submitted in regards to health care.... relative to our European competitors and Canada.
The thing that I find amusing is that the Republicans hate the idea of welfare, yet they want taxpayers to pay them to go to Washington to reduce government responsibility. If they are not taking on responsibility and working for the public good, then what are we paying them for. Doesn't that equate to welfare? Imagine if you said something like that in an interview.
Someone was ranting the other day about how we must "fight" "Communism" in Latin America, and I asked...."
Apparently he just accepts this notion as a given, like water is wet, 'cause the reply was along the lines of..."Habb
Erica, I believe the answer to #s 5, 6 and 7 is the unrelenting, unmitigated assault of right-wing media on our populace for the last 25 years. The Fear Card, played all day, day after day, and all night, night after night, until Reason is a Talking Point and Knowledge is a plague.
Do you think we will have free and fair elections in November?
Electronic voting systems can be easily hacked - here's a link to
a discussion of well known exploitable security vulnerabilities in
electronic voting systems: http://www
or Google Ohio State Project Everest.
CNN's recent story about the Bradley Effect was chilling.
http://www
If you're going to try to steal an election, the first thing you do is discount and
discredit polls and especially exit polls.
We desperately need free and fair elections is November!
HappinessH
It is worth including these questions and others in the national debate and they do need to be asked of both candidates.
Other questions are:
1. How do we transition to renewable energies and "energy independence" in a way that recognizes the risks inherent in nuclear power generation and peak oil?
2. How do we address the ever growing income gap between the rich and the poor that characterizes the nation's economy?
3. How do we address an underground labor market in a way that protects rights and liberties but addresses the downward impact on wages?
4. Is it justifiable to try and prevent decline in housing prices and can this really succeed?
5. When are we going to reduce the defense budget as an overall strategy to address domestic economic issues?
6. How can we prioritize infrastructure investment, create sources for paying for such public investment and structure pools of public revenues for such activity?
Hard questions face us and the future that we face. Leadership needs to be demonstrated not only by addressing corporate needs but in dealing with the fundamental structural flaws in the economic system.
We do need socialist policies. No doubt about it. Winners and losers must be determined by the government. It works for Cuba and China.
A few really smart individuals managing our lives in Washington will be a lot more efficient than millions of dummies making their own decisions.
Socialism doesn't work. Capitalism doesn't work. Haven't you noticed?
We need a pragmatic system that preserves the rights of individuals, a system that doesn't let anyone get too big, government or corporations.
"A few really smart individuals managing our lives in Washington will be a lot more efficient than millions of dummies making their own decisions.
The funny thing about that is that we have presumed that to be the case for years. We took Alan Greenspan as one of those "really smart individuals". Perpetual low interest rates resulted in a glut of currency in investment markets, that led to shaking schemes to move it fast. Those banks that practiced sound financial were often squeezed out by the short-term profitability of the others.
Cuba is a scarcity (some might say subsistence) -based economy that can distribute centralized funds into educational and medical priorities. Its housing market though is hardly the envy of the world.
China has been on an economic transition plan for thirty years. See the book, STARTING POINT: THIRTY YEARS OF REFORM IN CHINA by Chi Fulin, Foreign Language Press, 2008 or CAN CHINA FEED ITSELF-CHINESE SCHOLARS ON CHINA'S FOOD ISSUE, Foreign Laguage Press, 2004.
Nobody is going to pull the economy up by spending or bailing out corporations or banks. The fallacy of socialism is that there is no economics in it, it is all political in form. Socialist models have not demonstrated the ability to create wealth without a political autocracy being imposed.
The conumdrum is how to increase government revenues and without decreasing investments in the private sector.
These are all good questions to add to Erica's list. I would have one about health care, which is truly broken in the U.S. Forget how many people are uninsured. Insurance is not helping us.
The question about health care would seem to be:
How can medical care be provided and costs effectively and equitably distributed? Personally, I have long favored a single payer health plan. I faced the wrath of the owner of a mental health hospital when I sported a SINGLE PAYER HEALTH PLAN bumper sticker on my car. (Yes, some Greens do drive cars.) The irony is that he had to close the psychiatric hospital in NM and wound up leaving empty the facility that provided a medical model with well-rounded, full service intervention. In place of it, on the same grounds he opened an academic treament facility in portables with high school grads providing instruction and nurses the primary source of medical intervetion. He undoubtedly got some of the same patients/turned students as he had in the hospital.
But don't ask me to explain why he was so enflammed at the idea of supporting single payer health care when it might very well have kept him in business.
1. What will you do to create good-paying jobs with decent wages inside the U.S., and to prevent anyone from taking those jobs out of the country?
2. What will you do to revive food-production inside the U.S. so that we grow the food we eat, and stop forcing Americans to buy poisoned and sometimes disease-carrying foods from third world countries that have no environmental or safety requirements on growers?
3. Are you willing to reinstate the essence of our old tax system which includes increasing the standard deduction, have a true graduated income tax which taxes 90% of income over $250,000, eliminate loopholes, prohibit corporations from deducting compensation to insiders in excess of $250,000.
4. Will you support legislation and issue executive orders to reinstate the constitution, affirm that torture is illegal, that the U.S. does not support wars of aggression or kidnapping, that a warrant is required to search or arrest, that all prisoners are entitled to counsel and safety and healthcare.
5. Will you support criminal and civil tribunals with subpoena power and televised hearings to investigate the looting of our country, imprison those responsible, and take back the money that was stolen?
6. Will you support tribunals with subpoena power and televised hearings to investigate alleged war crimes by U.S. officials, assist in turning over those charged to international tribunals, and take back the money that they stole or received in kick-backs from the corporate warmonger allies.
There are other choices besides rabid capitalism whose days are clearly numbered and "socialism
The problem with socialism? Impingement on individual freedom. Reduction of quality. Don't steal my money to help someone else. I get to make the decisions of what to do with my own money. Ever read the constitution or the Dec. of Ind? If you want socialism, go move to a socialist country. I would rather have absolute FREEDOM and LIBERTY. I am sick of some one else deciding how I should spend MY MONEY.
And I am equally sick of someone else deciding how I should LOSE my money. Capitalism has proven no better for improving the lives of ordinary citizens than Las Vegas.
So you are in favor of repealing the Patriot Act?
In any case, what does political freedom have to do with economic freedom.
In Europe they are free from worry about healthcare, decent education, mass transit and the environment.
The individual pays for these things in our society, and that is just plain inefficient.
The most successful societies on the plant currently have higher taxes, good government and bigger government.
That is the way forward. Republican government is simply too small and too limited to meet the challenges of the 21st century. Look at the stock market in the last week to see what I mean. Where is your economic freedom now?
I would move to Germany tomorrow but it turns out they actually enforce their immigration laws.
AdamX: Oh, but it'sOK to steal your money to pay for occupations of foreign countries, to fund a bloated military, (but not to fund veterans' care, of course), to pay for bloated congressional and presidential salaries and pensions, to pay for abstinence only programs, as well as other faith based initiative
And as for "impingement on individual freedom," more harm has been done in that area by our present non-socialist system than ever...
Just remember: there IS socialism in this country, just not only for the little people, but just for the rich.
Get over yourself and read my lips...it'
I take it you're an anarchist then?
Great article. Great 7 questions. I would, however, take a slight exception to the form of government we've been experiencing for the last 8 years. It seems to fit perfectly, to the letter, every dictionary definition I can find when I lookup the word "fascism".
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