Bobotheclown's Comments (168)

“Actually it was "a Republic, if you can keep it" as said Benjamin Franklin on the way out of the first Constitutional Convention. The founders did not want a democracy at all thinking rightly that it was only good for small organizations and homogenous populations. (Like Athens.) They created a system of representative government where a small group of people who were elected (or appointed) locally would come together and govern in a form of group oligarchy. To make that work they broke the central government into three parts that would fight each other so that no one group could get control. And they underwrote the whole thing with a statement of principals (the Constitution and Bill of Rights) that all laws had to be reconciled against. And they reserved most powers to the several states in what was called Federalism. It was a neat trick. They called it "the great experiment" because it had never been tried before and because they had no idea if it would ever work out. The hope was that any problems that were revealed could be solved in the future by those generations effected. The Civil War was one of those solutions. So far we are still here and we should not make the mistake of thinking that this is a fragile system. It was made to be fought over and repaired. We should get to it.”

“Where in the Constitution does it say that it is OK to execute innocent people?”

“So? Adapt and overcome. What's the problem?”

“Tantrums? You can call a winning strategy a lot of things but "tantrum" isn't one of them. They do what they do because it works. They do that because they have perceived that the Democratic coalition is weak and disorganized and that it cannot hold together. So they challenge it on the dimension of discipline where they know it is weakest. The Democratic leadership does not have the will to impose strict party discipline which would entail shrinking the size of the Democratic base while strengthing its cohesiveness (what the Republicans have been doing for some time) so they cave in knowing they do not really have the votes. Why the Democratic party is interested in the "illusion" of 60 votes is beyond me. It is faith based politics. In the past when strong Democratic leaders prevailed (LBJ) those votes were produced or someone suffered the consequences. There was fear in the party back then. Of course there is fear now as well, but now it is fear of the Republicans rather than fear of their own Democratic leadership. In the ways that count, the Republicans run the Democratic party as well as their own.”

“In other words, there is nothing wrong with the filibuster per se. It is just a tool of the Senate that has been around for 200 years and that both parties have used to a considerable extent. What seems to be wrong is the WAY that this tool is now being used. Or rather the way that one political party seems unable to use it. In our case, the Republicans seems quite happy with it. The filibuster does not impose a 60 vote majority on them because they are a disciplined voting group who will simply wait out the filibuster and pass a bill with 51 votes. The Democrats, on the other hand, are an undisciplined voting group who while having a pro forma 60 votes find it impossible to pursuade 51 of their own party to vote with the party. In effect, the Democrats have brought Republicans (DINO's) into their own caucus and are now surprised that they do not vote with them on critcal bills. So in reality it is not a question of filibuster rules, it is a question of leadership. The Democratic party is weak, disorganized, unfocused and undisciplined. They may be on the side of the angels, but why should they deserve to win?”

“He was put on alert because there was a military exercise that day that called for the alert to happen. The interesting thing was that the exercise was about hijacked airplanes. When the first reports of actual hijacked planes were received the air traffic controllers were confused and thought they were part of the alert. Many minutes went by until this was cleared up. This alert had been scheduled for this day for months. There is some thought that the hijackers might have picked 9/11 as the attack day because they knew of the exercise and wanted to use it as a kind of cover to get them enough air time to hit the buildings. Although this military exercise is part of the public record it is very seldom mentioned in histories of 9/11. It is another of those strange coincidences that swirl around the Bush family.”

“I think we all feel sorry for them. They, the far right in general, and the fundamentalist religious fanatics, are all people who have been destroyed by ignorance. The old phrase "a mind is a terrible thing to waste" is true. It is a terrible, sad, thing. These are people whose minds are now permanently closed and who are doomed to walk the earth like zombies lost in a fearful world of their own creation. When we see their anger it is just the frustration of people who live in a world that does not make sense to them and in which they feel powerless and pointless. The people who use them, who bait them and manipulate them, are cynical, heartless, predators. They are literally throwing away this generation of people in a propaganda effort aimed at mobilizing mass ignorance to vote Republican. This is a political strategy? It's more like treason. These people are poor and they did not have a chance. What happened to the compact that says "all men are created equal" in America? Where are their good school systems? Where is their healthcare? Are we forever going to let the wealthy feed off the lives of the poor?”

“Even scarier when you consider that the far right has a reliable 30% of the US voting public every election no matter what the issue or who is running. How could there be so many? Well, you said that in America, everybody has access to information and education. I think you might be wrong about that. The public school system in America is supported locally through property taxes and poor regions of the country have a very poor school system. The people in the above video did not strike me as looking affluent and I suspect they are the inevitable products of a life without access to what would be considered adequate education. What I mean is that these people are not willfully ignorant. Ignorance is not not something that can be willed, it is something that is imposed on you. What is sad is that in an America where the school system for the middle class has broken down in many places and created islands of ignorance, our leadership has responded to this situation not with remediation, but with exploitation. It's not hard to fool ignorant people if that is what you want to do. We used to be all one people in America. But now 30% of the country has been thrown on the ash heap of history for the sake of easy elections. And Sarah knows.”

“All I heard was a guy asking simple unloaded questions and being respectful at all times no matter what the response. I don't recall that he identified himself as a reporter. The tag at the end of the piece clearly identifies it as sourced by something called "New Left Media" and not MSNBC or CNN. This was not presented as a "news" story either. It's obviously a comedy or satirical bit designed to make people think. Far from putting people down or telling them what to think, the interviewer simply let them speak their minds. It's a free country and people are allowed to speak their minds. And that, I think, is where you find this piece a little disturbing. Because these people have been given the opportunity to say something intelligible and they have not been able to do it. It's not a matter of agreeing with their opinions or not. It's rather the stark revelation that these people do not have opinions at all. Noticing that supporters of Ms. Palin seem to fall into a certain category is not pushing an agenda. It is noticing which way the wind blows. The only point that was made was that you cannot support a fool for President without being a fool yourself. As a self admitted Fox news viewer, I am certain you agree.”

“What's he been doing since he was laid off?”

“Don't you think that religion is more obviously a form of mental illness than it is a "crutch"? People who see visions, hear voices, believe in invisible spirits are usually hospitalized and helped. That is unless those visions are labelled as "God" at which point they are denied the therapy that they need due to cultural traditions that place religious delusions in the area of "free speech" rather than the cry for help that they obviously are. What I am saying is that the religious have not chosen to be mad. They have been driven mad by being raised in religious households or religious states so overwhelming distorted that there is no appeal to rationality possible. The young mind can only take so much before it breaks. That is why ALL religious organizations that have survived have a robust tradition of brainwashing children from the earliest age. The answer is to encourage a new level of mental health in America and enact programs that protect children from mental abuse. This will mean taking children away from a generation of deluded religious parents but in the end the health and productiveness of the whole society will be raised. This common sense approach is blocked at present at the national level because there are enough representatives from the mentally ill states to stop it. But without such action there will never be a release from the ignorance and paranoia that these significant minorities now subject the rest of the normal population.”

“One doesn't have to be kind to Hitchens to note that he has never threatened anyone with torture, house arrest, or death. And he certainly has not tried to censor anyone. On the contrary, he welcomes people with views like yours to debate him anywhere and anytime, in person or in print. Your obvious feelings of persecution come not from Hitchens' "presumptions" but rather from your own embarrassment when he displays the ease with which views like yours can be demolished. It would be better for you to open your eyes and look at yourself rather than continue your obsession with those who lack your fear of the world.”

“The MSM just blows in the political wind like it always has. If you think the MSM is too conservative and police appologetic it is because the political climate from Washington has also been that way. And that climate is an elected choice by the voters. Take the program "Law and Order" as an example. This long running show is based on a fictional world where the cops are always tough but fair heros working as best they can within the limits of the law. The people they arrest are always shown to be guilty. This is because we live in conservative times.
In the 1960's and 70's there were films and tv shows that regularly depicted cops as the ethically challenged defenders of the status quo that so many of them are. Films like "Clockwork Orange, Bad Lieutenant" showed the dark side of police work that we never see today. Those were liberal times.
So I don't think it is the MSM that is at fault but rather the climate that the voters create that eventually distorts the lens that the police, and we all, use to look at each other.”

“Not so much "trigger happy" as mistrained. In the case you cited the cop did not fire because he pulled a trigger too easily, he fired because his training says that he has a right to protect himself in a wide range of circumstances. In the past those circumstances started with overt acts by a criminal against police. The police could not fire unless first fired upon. Today police are trained to take no chances which means they are trained to fire BEFORE an overt act takes place. Before they even see a weapon. Before the situation even looks like it could be threatening. They now have a "law and order" license to shoot first and ask questions later. This might have been good for the Gestapo or the Texas Rangers, but it is bad for a society filled with crowded living conditions, multiple languages, and cultural misunderstandings. In a world filled with miscommunication only the police have guns and this reckless approach to policing has cost more innocent lives than have been lost in Iraq. Unless we take action at the national level we will see our country slowly turned into a police state.”

“Big city police departments have always had a political agenda best described as "support the guy in power" so that they receive the government funds that pay their salaries. This means that the law plays favorites along the lines of graft that support the party in power. In the past this "inside baseball" corruption did not effect the middle class who had moved out of the cities and who had their own political influence. This has gradually changed over the last 30 years as the middle class has collapsed. The police are now coordinated at a national level and are effected by national politics, which have been permeated by conservative "law and order" campaigns since Reagan. What this means to the middle class individual is that when they confront the police they are interacting with a politicized organization that needs to act a certain way to continue to receive federal money. This statistically driven approach pushes police to use "zero tolerance" policies so that they are not criticized after the fact as being "soft on crime". So they are hard on everybody. This means that individuals are no longer "innocent till proven guilty" but rather "persons of interest until proven innocent". As a person of interest police are legally entitled to defend themselves from what you "might" do.”

“Today's police are not "police" at all in the old sense of the word. Today's police are a paramilitary organization that has developed an agressive style and the legal justification to do so. Today all people who come into contact with police are subject to arrest for the tone of their voice. Today's arrest is an agressive physical assult with handcuffs applied to all people whether they are resisting arrest or not, whether they are elderly grandmothers, invalids in wheelchairs, etc. It is police policy to be agressive. This is defended on the basis of the rare occassion when a seemly safe suspect has turned on police with lethal results. The law has allowed police to over react to this danger and essentially impose a reign of terror over the citizens of our country. More. All police cars carry automatic assault rifles in the trunk for that day when they are going to face a terrorist. Instead they end up being used against the local mentally incompetent when he waves knife. Police are trained to have a hair trigger response and to follow mechanical guidlines. If you have your hand in your pocket and are confused enough that you do not respond to a command to show your hands today's police are allowed to gun you down even though you are unarmed. This has gotten worse ever since the Republican "law and order" types first started winning elections pledging to throw away the key for marijuana users.”

“Well, it's carved in stone so it is kind of hard to erase.”

“When did the FBI and the CIA ever claim to be non-political? The FBI has proudly (under Hoover) advertised itself as the guardian of American conservative values. Almost every file it created was part of a culture war against the Left and New-Left from the 1930's onward. The explaination that this was "anti-communist" doesn't wash since the anti-left campaign started before communism was an issue in this country. Hoover's campaign targeted distinguished politicians, movie stars, patriots, and war heros of the Left. Hoover avoided at all costs those who might appropriately fall under the FBI's purvue, the members of organized crime, because they could blackmail him with his homosexuality at a time when such a charge would have brought immediate disgrace and probably prison time. The CIA doesn't publicly claim it is is or isn't anything. But freedom of information files have disclosed that it has been a hotbed of rabid right wing paranoia from the day it was created. It has been an enabler of many active criminal enterprises that have found common cause with the most extremist elements of our society. Because it is a secret organization it has been able to act as a filter to weed out progressive groups before they might naturally form. But both the FBI and the CIA are large organizations and they have had their share of liberal members as the many exposes of wrong doing point out.”

“Oops. He doesn't know...”

“Yeah, but they should be productive making license plates instead of productive defrauding the country.”

“OK. Using overwhelming wealth to lobby a political system so hard that it's laws are corrupted (i.e., repeal of the Glass-Steagall Act) so that one can loot the financial system for person gain. True, once you change the law that says that theft is not illegal I guess you have not broken any laws. But that is exactly the point. Great wealth brings with it great power, the power to change law and distort the "level playing field" so that the game is rigged in their favor. When that happens it steals from everybody. Every hard working person playing by the rules but who does not have the wealth to distort the system loses. they lose with low pay, they lose with a banking system that cannot protect their money, they lose with an economy so dismantled that it cannot support honest business anywhere.
More? How about the money paid to Phil Gramm so that he would take derivative regulation out of the 1999 Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act. That allowed Wall street to use these intsruments to defraud the public. Since it has not yet been repealed regulators still don't know who the criminals are. The list goes on an on. If you want to know its all in the public record.”

“You're right. Unfortunately, in a Democracy the buck ultimately stops with the people. If you have enough people who are gullible religion blinded fools who will follow anybody who waves a bible at them, and then if you have a political party that figured that out and that had absolutely no scrupples, you suddenly have a movement of ignorant zombies who can vote. Politics has become a sideshow where our very rights are now up for a vote to see whether the ignorant farmers of some depopulated state think that God has told them that the rest of us can't have healthcare. Not only are the stupid making noise but the intelligent have become silent, stunned by utterances that are almost subhuman in their disconnect with any values that a rational mind can accept. These irrational voting automatons have given up their self respect and have embraced the mindless delusions of mob rule. They are now on the edge and seem to be ready to go over into the chaos of session and civil war. Someday, if we all live through this, this period will be called the dark ages of America.”

“Or just say "I am a crook. I am better than you, smarter than you, and better looking than you. If God did not want me to be rich he would not have let my lobbyists write financial laws that advantaged my company and guaranteed me windfall profits without my lifting a finger. If God did not want you to be poor he would not have made you sheep."
I'm convinced. I am going to go back and work hard and play by the rules and maybe Mr. Blankfein will let me polish his shoes (gratis of course) the next time he forcloses a house in my neighborhood.”

“Yes, I was refering to the way things are today. In the era of WWII Republicans fought beside Democrats and both died to defend their country. Even as late as Vietnam there were still Republican families with a military tradition. John McCain comes to mind. But we now live in the era of outsourced war. Our fighters are already 50% mercenaries who fight for money instead of patriotism (Blackwater). The rest are "volunteers" who are escaping literal starvation in an increasingly jobless society or felons who are now excepted for military service. This head count is still less than optimum so technology is being pressed into service to make up for a lack of manpower (pilotless drones). One can almost see the future here. It will be an army of robots who do not vote and do not bleed and who have no political constituancy. One will then be able to be for war and at the same time publicly not care about the troops. The Republicans will at last be able to come out.”

“Most of the people in the military, now and in the past, have been people who have few economic opportunities. They are people to whom the military is a reasonable choice given their options. They have been overwhelmingly from blue collar occupations and working class backgrounds that on average vote Democratic. So the average soldier is probably a Democrat or an independent.
Republican leaders are overwhelmingly from priviledged backgrounds. During the draft they had access to college deferments and today have economic options that far exceed military life. The typical Republican has never worn a uniform and would never allow his children to enter the military for any reason. They consider the military to be beneath them.
This being the case it is always emotionally trying for Republicans to praise the military in public when at the same time they loath it in their personal lives. This is probably the most sensitive area of hypocracy in the Republican party and there is no way they can defend it without looking crass. For example, Cheney's defense is that he "had something more important to do." His tone deafness does not diminish the disgust in which he is held my the majority of the American people. At least Mr. Tancredo had the good sense to simply slink away.”