shira
Diamond Member
- Jan 12, 2005
- 9,500
- 6
- 81
I think his point was that here is a rare, clear-as-day example of a result cheered by Republicans that NO ONE on the left or right would want if there were no political side to things.
It would be akin to Democrats cheering (because it represented a horrible political defeat for the Bush, Jr, Administration) if the initial 2003 invasion of Iraq had ended up being a colossal debacle - with thousands of American soldiers dying.
That's a lot more than "politics as usual."
shira
Diamond Member
- Jan 12, 2005
- 9,500
- 6
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I think this is a terrible example. Many liberals (including myself) hoped that gasoline price would reach $5 or $6 a gallon and stay there year after year after year. Why? Because - finally - it would provide a powerful incentive for America to kick the oil habit. For the same reason, I'm one of those ideologues who opposes "more drilling." Thus, your example has very little - if anything - to do with liberals wanting to deal Bush a loss.
The point is: My attitudes are consistent - I want what is long-run good for America. Contrast that with the Republicans joy at the Olympics loss: How can that be considered "good" in any way, shape, or form?
Siddhartha
Lifer
- Oct 17, 1999
- 12,505
- 3
- 81
Originally posted by: woodie1
Well said! Wonder how many people on here really see it that way though.
I agree the media can concentrate on a small part of a large issue. But, I can not buy into the whole conservative excuse that the liberal media's persecution is the driving force behind the crazies or anything embarrassing in their camp.
The liberal media did not choose Ms Palin or embrace Joe the Plumber. The liberal media did not try to put birther legislation into law.
Atreus21
Lifer
- Aug 21, 2007
- 12,001
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You seriously believe this? You wanted prices to rise solely for the reason of teaching us a lesson? And you don't think that's at all smug or mean-spirited?
What about the democrats' trying to force a loss in the Iraq war? Do you honestly believe that they opposed it out of principle, or the more likely scenario of having a big fat failure to hang around Bush's neck?
Give me a break. You guys can't even be honest enough to admit that you're the opposite side of the same coin. You guys can dish it out, but you sure as hell can't handle your own medicine.
This is all 100% politics. Zero principles. This is all about who's president. If this were Bush's mistake, you guys'd be dancing in the street.
shira
Diamond Member
- Jan 12, 2005
- 9,500
- 6
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Where are you getting "teaching us a lesson" and "spite" from my post about oil? As I CLEARLY wrote, I want (even now) oil prices to be high to "kick the oil habit." Does "kick the oil habit" = "spite" where you come from? Let me make it very, very explicit: I want a strong and consistent incentive to develop energy alternatives because fossil fuels are really, really bad for America and bad for the world.
As to "forcing a loss" in Iraq: Again, you are clueless. Obviously, it is inconceivable to you that anyone could see no valid purpose for our presence in Iraq. You cannot accept that many, many intelligent people thought and continue to think that Iraq was never a threat to us and that our continued involvement there was and is BAD for America.
What YOU view as "dealing a loss" in Iraq to America is EXACTLY the same attitude that the right-wing had about left-wing opposition to Viet Nam in the sixties and seventies. You cannot conceive that opposition to a war can be patriotic and in the best interests of America.
Contrast this with my attitude toward our involvement in Afghanistan: I have ALWAYS thought (even under Bush) the invasion of Afghanistan was correct. If we'd committed 150,000 troops to Afghanistan and the border region from the beginning, the Taliban and Al Qaeda would be history today.
Actually, the left was filled with well supported criticisms of Bush policies - I can point you to quite a few solid books with solid arguments just about the criticisms.
But being an ignoramus, you know nothing of that, really, and you wee his ignorant apologist mostly while in office, and you just keep on attacking the left now.
With ironic attacks about how the left doesn't have good criticisms of Bush. You project your idiocy onto others. I'd send you a book to read and review if you would. You won't.
Phokus
Lifer
- Nov 20, 1999
- 22,994
- 779
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You're retarded, we've been saying this for years that we want oil prices to go up so there would be more incentives to develop more fuel efficient/alternative energy sources. Even some conservatives who want to get off oil have been saying this.
Have you been living under a rock?
No, they are generally irrational and unable to make any coherent argument along those lines, but they can throw the words around - it's why there is a right-wing think tank industry designed to spoon feed them the propaganda to get them to adop the views the monied agenda wants them to, propaganda that is spread over decades.
In a hundred topics here they might lose every rational interaction, but ideology and propaganda are powerful.
Notice how not one right-winger took up my challenge to listen to the Thom Harttmann radio show (or said they had listened to much of him) while many have heard Limbaugh?
I've pointed out how the righties are being misled on many issues, and only rarely do they hear the information. It's not easy to counter propaganda, as has been observed for about a century in modern political discussion, and which hunman history certainly has plenty of examples of.
Take an idea like 'supply-side economics'. Most people would like to do ok economically, rather than support policies that shift their own money to the very rich, given a clear choice. But the people who are paid to help the rich want that money, and they know they live in a democracy where they either get rid of democracy, or fool the citizens to do what they want. And so someone comes up with 'supply-side economics', which says basically, 'the more you give to the rich, the more prosperity there will be, and that's how everyone gets rich, so you shouldn't view a dollar in taxes shifted off the rich onto you as unfair, but as a good thing for the nation and you.'
It has just enough appeal because people are ignorant about economics to get many people accepting it - after all, they want to blame SOMEONE, and so when they're told by smooth talking people in suits the problem is the liberals who don't let the rich have enough money to grow the economy, they fall for it. Why? It's not as if solid economic information is easily available countering it, in our corporate-biased media system.
Supply-side economics had a good run for years or decades - even while the real effect was simply to end the 'rising tide lifting all boats' and instead to shift the distribution of income more heavily to the rich more than just about every before, at least since the 1920's and perhaps more than that. People didn't learn the fact that since Reagan, for the first time I know of in our history, practically all of the nation's growth has gone to the very top - the bottom 80% getting about zero, and the top 20% skewed heavily to the top.
You see numbers if you read the numbers, showing that - and the 90%-99% getting a modest increase over time (10%, 20%), and the 99.0%-99.% a little better (50%), and the top 0.01% increasing several hundred percent. That's not disprortionate based on 'they have more so they make more' dollard, but percentages.
But this fact of a massve shift of wealth to the top - in which the top 0.01% got about 5% of the nation's income at the peak before the great depression, they was shrunk to more like 1% for a long time, and has now increased during the last 25 years from 1% up to 6% even more than in the 1920's - is unknows to I'd estimate over 98% of Republicans. As is the factual estimate of how much 'supply side' returns for each dollar shifted to the rich - it's not more than that dollar, it's about 20% return.
But it 'sounded good' and could be hyped by the propagandists, and so it allowed for the nation to get greatly harmed - as the transfer of wealth allowed the very rich to have even MORE money, and you saw the finance sector - an overhead sector not making any goods or serves to enrich the nation - went from its 10% level in the economy up to the 40% range, while things like 'the manufacturing sector' did the opposite, falling over time from, say, half the economy to the 10-20% range.
This is all shifting the nation more and more to one of oligarchy, some extremely wealthy people - who will ultimately have little 'loyalty' to the US after milking it - and a poorer middle class, undoing the FDR strengthening of the middle class. There are facts supporting this, but you only see the left discussing the facts, while the right is irrational.
That's just one example of many on how the right persuades people to support bad policy.
But you can throw out the ACCUSATION, as you do, however much a lie. And it's a big lie.
Again, mister accuser about the left not using facts, I'd give you a couple books to choose from to read and review, and will you as such a supporter of 'facts' do that? I doubt it.
Certainly the left has some who are not well informed too, but there's no comparison between the right and the left on the issue of how informed they are.
There are the really ignorant, and the 'little knowledge is dangerous' crowds on the right, and the 'ignorant' and 'better informed' crowds on the left.
You seem to be slightly into the 'little knwledge is dangerous' crowd, while spewing lies here about the left based on pretty bad ignorance.
To be fair it's hard to get informed on many big issues, weeding through the crap media. Which is why you might notice my sig offers some help to do so.
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