Why Some Libnerals Deserve Contempt

[SuperScout]

Time for a reality check: the deregulation of energy prices in CA which occurred in the Wilson administration did not cause the $40 billion deficit in the Gray administration. The majority of the costs were because the state legislature of CA went on a spending binge unlike anything else in their history, and now the Democratic controlled legislature is wringing their collective hands, trying to figure out how to pay for it all. Go back and research the state budgets and the truth will smack you in the face. And since the Democrats control the legislature and the state house, why can't they fix whatever problem they identify?

The "similarities" you posted in your vitriolic attempt to compare Hitler with the President are beneath contempt, and not worthy of comment or response.

[Gimpy]

and you know what kind of "holes" are abundant my friend. As the old saying goes "we ALL have them---however "flawed" yours' may be. All evidence appears to be contrary to "your opinion" RE: the majority causes for this deficit---as most (if not all) major newspapers and broadcast news sources in California have reported. The "evidence" which supports the "root" cause is STILL the energy "rape" of California by stupid politicians and some of your Texan buddies led by Enron! As far as "fixing" their problems created by this now historical "fiasco", the democratic majority legislature and Governor Davis have "identified" the "solution(s). It's just now left up to the FERC out that way (led by a new Bush appointee, and so far apparently unwilling to "unscrew the mess") to offer up the "relief" that every freakin citizen out that way KNOWS the answer too. RETURN THE MONIES THAT THEY WERE ROBBED OF BY THIS FAILED SO-CALLED DEREGULATION PLAN!

As for YOUR unwillingness to offer up any "credible" response to the afformentioned "history lesson" regarding the political comparisons and set(s) of circumstances involved. I should have expected no better. A typical "right-wing" response----deny, deceive and disavow ANY and/or ALL explicit, non-exculpatory evidence that may offer any "truth" to the charges at hand! If you HAD a response "worth" the effort to condone some of the behavior exibited by the "leadership" of "your" party which could offer up any enthusiastic and justifiable retort to the comparisons "drawn"--you WOULD HAVE DONE SO. Your "failure" to attempt this has NOTHING to do with "contemp" or "worthyness"---only your failure to INDENTFY any honest denial of the TRUTH mentioned in that "history lesson".

Sorry, but you'll have to do better than that!

PS---The "truth" is certainly difficult to subvert when it is sooooooo evident, huh???

[MORTARDUDE]

As it happens I had a minor in History in college..

I am just about finished reading a book entitled "Germans : Biography of an Obsession" by George Bailey...paperback.. Avon books... 1972

( started it some months ago.. your posts got me to finish it )

"A penetrating examination of the German mind, the culture and the complicated soul of modern Teutonic history..."

It shows quite clearly the reasons behind the rise of Hitler and his henchman...the prime one being the "punishment" the victors of WW1 and the impotent League of Nations visited upon Germany....it was simply an impossible price to pay ( $ 33 billion dollars ! ) and bankrupted the country to such an extent, that fascism was inevitable....( I used to collect postage stamps and still have some of the 10,000,000,000 ( Billion ) Mark stamps that they had to use to mail letters with.... )

Your "history lesson", though quite "entertaining", fails to surmise that we summarily quashed the fascist states of Japan, Italy and Germany and their various puppet "states" ... our systems of laws and government being diametrically opposed to these "states" run by psychotic despots...

We also have not subjugated, tortured, enslaved, cremated, or otherwise tormented the citizens of Italy, Japan, Germany, Belgium, France, Denmark, Norway, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, South Korea, Panama, Grenada, Domincan Republic, Haiti, Phillipines, Bosnia, Kuwait, Iraq, Afghanistan, ( not to mention Bulgaria, Poland, Romania, Albania, the Czech Republic, Slovakia... and all the other countries freed with the fall of Communism in 1989 ...), and all the other countries we have intervened in since Dec 7, 1941..... on the contrary... they are all in far better shape, I would say....

In stark contrast to say....Poland in 1939...China in the 1930s after the Japanese invasion....Russia during the German invasion of 1941 etc.. etc....

As for your praise of Roosevelt...sure he did lots of good things...the situation required it... ( have posted a blurb at the end about Smoot-Hawley...something very few know about that era by the way... )

However....this :

The Gold Confiscation Of April 5, 1933
From: President of the United States Franklin Delano Roosevelt
To: The United States Congress
Dated: 5 April, 1933
Presidential Executive Order 6102


... led directly to our current situation vis-a-vis "money" backed by "nothing but good faith" ( and the ability to churn out unlimited amounts of "paper fiat money" and "loan" it to banks and create any amount of "wealth" or "debt" needed ) and is directly responsible for all the humongous international debt fostered by The World Bank and all of the other nefarious world-banking mechanisms...


Your comparison of Nazi Germany, Hitler and the rest, to anything remotely corresponding to our current laws, traditions, and Constitution is personally, to me,.... repugnant, ludicrous, and actually,.... laughable...if it wasn't so serious... ( I have been fortunate enough over the past 40 years to have become friends with a refugee from Latvia, a survivor of Treblinka, and a member of a partisan group in Hungary.... their stories from WW2 imbued into me a vivid sense of what they had to endure thanks to a system of "government" that had as its single-minded purpose to systematically crush and destroy freedom, democracy, and every form of religion....

I was tempted to just let it go with my previous comment, but since you kept agitating...I have responded.....

I would love to debate the issues with you, if we could just move to a slightly higher plane of reference.. OK ?

Larry

+++++++++++++


Smoot-Hawley Tariff
The Smoot-Hawley Tariff Act of June 1930 raised U.S. tariffs to historically high levels. The original intention behind the legislation was to increase the protection afforded domestic farmers against foreign agricultural imports. Massive expansion in the agricultural production sector outside of Europe during World War I led, with the postwar recovery of European producers, to massive agricultural overproduction during the 1920s. This in turn led to declining farm prices during the second half of the decade. During the 1928 election campaign, Republican Presidential candidate Herbert Hoover pledged to help the beleaguered farmer by, among other things, raising tariff levels on agricultural products. But once the tariff schedule revision process got started, it proved impossible to stop. Calls for increased protection flooded in from industrial sector special interest groups and soon a bill meant to provide relief for farmers became a means to raise tariffs in all sectors of the economy. When the dust had settled, Congress had agreed to tariff levels that exceeded the already high rates established by the 1922 Fordney-McCumber Act and represented among the most protectionist tariffs in U.S. history.

The Smoot-Hawley Tariff was more a consequence of the onset of the Great Depression than an initial cause. But while the tariff might not have caused the Depression, it certainly did not make it any better. It provoked a storm of foreign retaliatory measures and came to stand as a symbol of the ?beggar-thy-neighbor? policies (policies designed to improve one?s own lot at the expense of that of others) of the 1930s. Such policies contributed to a drastic decline in international trade. For example, U.S. imports from Europe declined from a 1929 high of $1,334 million to just $390 million in 1932, while U.S. exports to Europe fell from $2,341 million in 1929 to $784 million in 1932. Overall, world trade declined by some 66% between 1929 and 1934. More generally, Smoot-Hawley did nothing to foster trust and cooperation among nations in either the political or economic realm during a perilous era in international relations.

The Smoot-Hawley tariff represents the high-water mark of U.S. protectionism in the twentieth century. Thereafter, beginning with the 1934 Reciprocal Trade Agreements Act, American commercial policy generally emphasized trade liberalization over protectionism. The United States generally assumed the mantle of champion of freer international trade, as evidenced by its support for the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT), the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), and the World Trade Organization (WTO).

[reconeil]

First-off, I fully understand where you're (no doubt many other devout Dems/Libs/Leftist followers also) comin-from. After all, and as seen on TV many times, it's quite apparent that NO ONE is better at pontificating self/clique/cult-serving,aggrandizing and deceptive people-controlling bull,...than Dems/Libs/Leftist leaders and rulers, fanatical fundamentalist Mullahs and such normally do worldwide.
Hey,..all alluded to put P.T. Barnum to shame.

So, and since grown-up and wiser, and seeing no point in debating why all-knowing, all-caring and morally superior Dems/Libs/Leftists should control and rule America (or not), I'll merely pose a question to: "A History Major",...since this H.S. Grad never majored in anything ("Major" in Recon Scouts from age 17 to 21 excluded). Plus, and from A Southern Rebel one hopes getting an answer to something that this: "Yankee/Rebel" could never truly quite understand.

The question being: Why is it that most all Black American Voters (about 90%) alway vote Democrat and/or against: "The Party of Lincoln" that freed them, while history tells that The Democrat Carpetbaggers from The North during Reconstruction Times instigated and condoned the blatant thievery of Blacks' lands, burning-out of Blacks, lynching of Blacks, and in general keeping Southern Blacks down and in their place until The Sixtees forced otherwise?

Regardless, and even though the first paragraph pretty-much answered my very own question about the societal malady,...I still would like a second (and more, and more, etc. etc.) opinion.

Neil :cd:

[Gimpy]

You haven't even addressed "the issues" so far?

The "Smoot-Hawley Tariff Act" of 1930 was NOT sponsered by Roosevelt (elected in 1933)---but, in fact promoted by then republican president Hoover---so----what's your "point"??

*********************
Quote, "Your "history lesson", though quite "entertaining", fails to surmise that we summarily quashed the fascist states of Japan, Italy and Germany and their various puppet "states" ... our systems of laws and government being diametrically opposed to these "states" run by psychotic despots... ", end quote.

**********************
Why should I have to "surmise" this---everyone with plausible knowledge of the facts of this time period should be aware of the final outcome of this war and the previous "opposition" to the states run by "psycotic despots" and the subsequent elimination of their fascists states and form of governments. I have NO DOUBT whatsoever that we (the U.S.A.) should have taken the position we did in WWII. That is EXACTLY one of the "points" I was refering to in the previous posts. I am attempting to make SURE that "appearences" of "good faith & good intentions" with "honorable goals" for our nations citizens are NOT missrepresented and misapplied for any particular politicians "whim".

***********************

Here's some MORE "history" for you to "chew on"---sound familar to todays "events"??

*****************************
It started when the government, in the midst of a worldwide economic crisis, received reports of an imminent terrorist attack. A foreign ideologue had launched feeble attacks on a few famous buildings, but the media largely ignored his relatively small efforts. The intelligence services knew, however, that the odds were he would eventually succeed. (Historians are still arguing whether or not rogue elements in the intelligence service helped the terrorist; the most recent research implies they did not.)

But the warnings of investigators were ignored at the highest levels, in part because the government was distracted; the man who claimed to be the nation's leader had not been elected by a majority vote and the majority of citizens claimed he had no right to the powers he coveted. He was a simpleton, some said, a cartoon character of a man who saw things in black-and-white terms and didn't have the intellect to understand the subtleties of running a nation in a complex and internationalist world.

His coarse use of language - and his simplistic and often-inflammatory nationalistic rhetoric offended the aristocrats, foreign leaders, and the well-educated elite in the government and media. And, as a young man, he'd joined a secret society with an occult-sounding name and bizarre initiation rituals that involved skulls and human bones.

Nonetheless, he knew the terrorist were going to strike (although he didn't know where or when), and he had already considered his response. When an aide brought him word that the nation's most prestigious building was ablaze, he verified it was the terrorist who had struck and then rushed to the scene and called a press conference.

"You are now witnessing the beginning of a great epoch in history," he proclaimed, standing in front of the burned-out building, surrounded by national media. "This fire," he said, his voice trembling with emotion, "is the beginning." He used the occasion - "a sign from God," he called it - to declare an all-out war on terrorism and its ideological sponsors, a people, he said, who traced their origins to the Middle East and found motivation for their evil deeds in their religion.

Two weeks later, the first detention center for terrorists was built in Oranianberg to hold the first suspected allies of the infamous terrorist. In a national outburst of patriotism, the leader's flag was everywhere, even printed large in newspapers suitable for window display.

Within four weeks of the terrorist attack, the nation's now-popular leader had pushed through legislation - in the name of combating terrorism and fighting the philosophy he said spawned it - that suspended constitutional guarantees of free speech, privacy, and habeas corpus. Police could now intercept mail and wiretap phones; suspected terrorists could be imprisoned without specific charges and without access to their lawyers; police could sneak into people's homes without warrants if the cases involved terrorism.

To get his patriotic "Decree on the Protection of People and State" passed over the objections of concerned legislators and civil libertarians, he agreed to put a 4-year sunset provision on it: if the national emergency provoked by the terrorist attack was over by then, the freedoms and rights would be returned to the people, and the police agencies would be re-restrained. Legislators would later say they hadn't had time to read the bill before voting on it.

Immediately after passage of the anti-terrorism act, his federal police agencies stepped up their program of arresting suspicious persons and holding them without access to lawyers or courts. In the first year only a few hundred were interred, and those who objected were largely ignored by the mainstream press, which was afraid to offend and thus lose access to a leader with such high popularity ratings.

Citizens who protested the leader in public - and there were many - quickly found themselves confronting the newly empowered police's batons, gas, and jail cells, or fenced off in protest zones safely out of earshot of the leader's public speeches. (In the meantime, he was taking almost daily lessons in public speaking, learning to control his tonality, gestures, and facial expressions. He became a very competent orator.)

Within the first months after that terrorist attack, at the suggestion of a political advisor, he brought a formerly obscure word into common usage. He wanted to stir a "racial pride" among his countrymen, so, instead of referring to the nation by its name, he began to refer to it as "The Homeland," a phrase publicly promoted in the introduction to a 1934 speech recorded in Leni Riefenstahl's famous propaganda movie "Triumph Of The Will."

As hoped, people's hearts swelled with pride, and the beginning of an us-versus-them mentality was sewn. Our land was "the" homeland, citizens thought: all others were simply foreign lands. We are the "true people," he suggested, the only ones worthy of our nation's concern; if bombs fall on others who may support these terrorist, or human rights are violated in other nations and it makes our lives better, it's of little concern to us.

Playing on this new nationalism, and exploiting a disagreement with the French over his increasing militarism, he argued that any international body that didn't act first and foremost in the best interest of his own nation was neither relevant nor useful. He thus withdrew his country from the League of Nations in October, 1933, and then negotiated a separate naval armaments agreement with Anthony Eden of The United Kingdom to create a worldwide military ruling elite.

His propaganda minister orchestrated a campaign to ensure the people that he was a deeply religious man and that his motivations were rooted in Christianity. He even proclaimed the need for a revival of the Christian faith across his nation, what he called a "New Christianity."

Every man in his rapidly growing army wore a belt buckle that declared "Gott Mit Uns" - God Is With Us - and most of them fervently believed it was true. Within a year of the terrorist attack, the nation's leader determined that the various local police and federal agencies around the nation were lacking the clear communication and overall coordinated administration necessary to deal with the terrorist threat facing the nation, particularly those citizens who were of Middle Eastern ancestry and thus probably terrorist and communist sympathizers, and various troublesome "intellectuals" and "liberals."

He proposed a single new national agency to protect the security of the homeland, consolidating the actions of dozens of previously independent police, border, and investigative agencies under a single leader. He appointed one of his most trusted associates to be leader of this new agency, the Central Security Office for the homeland, and gave it a role in the government equal to the other major departments.

His assistant who dealt with the press noted that, since the terrorist attack, "Radio and press are at our disposal." Those voices questioning the legitimacy of their nation's leader, or raising questions about his checkered past, had by now faded from the public's recollection as his central security office began advertising a program encouraging people to phone in tips about suspicious neighbors.

This program was so successful that the names of some of the people "denounced" were soon being broadcast on radio stations. Those denounced often included opposition politicians and celebrities who dared speak out - a favorite target of his regime and the media he now controlled through intimidation and ownership by corporate allies.

To consolidate his power, he concluded that government alone wasn't enough. He reached out to industry and forged an alliance, bringing former executives of the nation's largest corporations into high government positions. A flood of government money poured into corporate coffers to fight the war against the Middle Eastern ancestry terrorists lurking within the homeland, and to prepare for wars overseas.

He encouraged large corporations friendly to him to acquire media outlets and other industrial concerns across the nation, particularly those previously owned by suspicious people of Middle Eastern ancestry. He built powerful alliances with industry; one corporate ally got the lucrative contract worth millions to build the first large-scale detention center for enemies of the state. Soon more would follow. Industry flourished.

But after an interval of peace following the terrorist attack, voices of dissent again arose within and without the government. Students had started an active program opposing him (later known as the White Rose Society), and leaders of nearby nations were speaking out against his bellicose rhetoric. He needed a diversion, something to direct people away from the corporate cronyism being exposed in his own government, questions of his possibly illegitimate rise to power, and the oft-voiced concerns of civil libertarians about the people being held in detention without due process or access to attorneys or family.

With his number two man - a master at manipulating the media - he began a campaign to convince the people of the nation that a small, limited war was necessary. Another nation was harboring many of the suspicious Middle Eastern people, and even though its connection with the terrorist who had set afire the nation's most important building was tenuous at best, it held resources their nation badly needed if they were to have room to live and maintain their prosperity.

He called a press conference and publicly delivered an ultimatum to the leader of the other nation, provoking an international uproar. He claimed the right to strike preemptively in self-defense, and nations across Europe - at first - denounced him for it, pointing out that it was a doctrine only claimed in the past by nations seeking worldwide empire, like Caesar's Rome or Alexander's Greece.

It took a few months, and intense international debate and lobbying with European nations, but, after he personally met with the leader of the United Kingdom, finally a deal was struck. After the military action began, Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain told the nervous British people that giving in to this leader's new first-strike doctrine would bring "peace for our time."

Thus Hitler annexed Austria in a lightning move, riding a wave of popular support as leaders so often do in times of war. The Austrian government was unseated and replaced by a new leadership friendly to Germany, and German corporations began to take over Austrian resources.

In a speech responding to critics of the invasion, Hitler said, "Certain foreign newspapers have said that we fell on Austria with brutal methods. I can only say; even in death they cannot stop lying. I have in the course of my political struggle won much love from my people, but when I crossed the former frontier [into Austria] there met me such a stream of love as I have never experienced. Not as tyrants have we come, but as liberators."

To deal with those who dissented from his policies, at the advice of his politically savvy advisors, he and his handmaidens in the press began a campaign to equate him and his policies with patriotism and the nation itself. National unity was essential, they said, to ensure that the terrorists or their sponsors didn't think they'd succeeded in splitting the nation or weakening its will.

******************************

As I've said before----I am NOT saying that Gee-Dubya is another Hitler! I am saying however the comparisons to "those times and circumstances" and the obvious "similarities" of SOME of the "tactics" imployed by the "political" leadership of each are worth reporting and understanding before we may find ourselves in a MORE similar situation as the citizens of Germany did during that time!

Now---if THAT appears to be "repugnant, ludicrious, and laughable" to you---then if you'll be so glad to show me that "higher plane" you're mentioning for our further "discussion(s)" I'd be MORE than glad to accomodate you!

My "sources" are the unequivocal "facts" of history. Possibly in the course of your "minor" in history you've read these "sources"??

PS--If you have -- please advise ol SuperShouter the location of these "sources" for his reference---it seems he's having some difficulty in "comprehending" the confluence of disdainfully shocking evidence to support these conclusions. Thank you in advance.

Best regards,

[Gimpy]

Fist off----NO, you DON'T understand where I'm coming from---and sadly, that's not a good thing (but I'll admit it's folks like you that keep me "on my toes---and thanks for that!)

But, to answer you're "question" without having to get to "technical" and since you're so "grown up and wiser" now and SHOULD be able to figure that out for yourself---why don't YOU go out there and ASK a few black folks that "question" yourself???

You may possibly quite agitated and dismayed at their answers, ya know??

Pontificately yours,

[reconeil]

Still, I would have preferred you gave me your answer to the historical facts about America's Southern Blacks and Blacks in general, instead of telling me to ask some Blacks the very same question. Though, thanks for not pontificating and/or religiously preaching, since not being able to answer the question favorably and/or in line with your Party dictates (The Dem/Lib/Leftist evasive norm), as you have done with others here. Besides,...short and sweet is nice.

Regardless, forget about my asking such an obviously embarrasing question to any Black Americans. I figure the 90% or so of Blacks that always vote for The Carpetbagger Democrats over: "The Party of Lincoln (Blacks' Patron Saint)" have already embarrased themselves enough. Granted, not as self-embarrasing as some Dem/Lib/Leftist leaders normally spouting pro foreign and anti-American nonsense do,...but still embarassing enough.

Neil

[Gimpy]

What makes you think that asking a black person the reason they so overwhelming support democrats over republicans would be an "embarrasment" to them?? Oh----wait a minute, NOW I get it -- it would be embarrasing to YOU, huh???

Talk about your "side-steping"----typical repugnant (damn, there I go again) I meant (or did I??) republican answer.

I've an idea for you--why don't YOU post a NEW thread on that subject and see what kind of response YOU get?? Had I the time or inclination to further your "education" on that subject I would most assurdly do so. However, I'm currently attempting to expand the historical "knowledge" of other events, persons, times and sociopolitical agendas of those who appear to be somewhat suffering from a NEW MATH and historical "amnesia". Ya know what I mean.

Ta--Ta,

[reconeil]

This is just like on TV, when any Dem/Lib/Leftists are asked any questions that they superiorily, all-knowingly and indignantly deem to be repugnant, since counter their Party Line and/or fanatically held cult/religious beliefs.

Still, I would suggest you watch such TV, since the American, French, UN or Socialist-like similar thinking authoritarian-hypocrits alluded to,...do such with so much more class. Hell,..."They" actually convince some fools into believing their dribble and/or perverted form of history is actually true. I think that the con works so well because the very same words are repeated over and over by all such power and control types.

Plus, Oh Great Historian, and regarding FDR, the truth of the matter is that it wasn't for WWII, a great many Americans would still be planting trees and working on roads, to make ends meet.
I'll give the 4-term Dem President an A+ For Effort. But, that's it.
On that Pearl Harbor and/or that political nonsense: "I don't want war, Eleanor doesn't want war, and Fowler doesn't war bit,...eh?

Neil

[Gimpy]

"party line", etc., etc., answers. What about giving US a substantive or even adequately "all-knowingly" reason for your supposed answer for being "embarrassed" to ask a black person the reason they OVERWHELMINGLY vote against "your" repugnants????

You appear to be in such a state of "unknowingness" about the subject--Oh--but I forgot---your main "rhyme & reason" of political "party line" positions evidently is SOOOOOOOOOOOOO abhorent and Un-inclusive of the "folks" who your question(s) are intended to "figure out"---that damned if I wouldn't be embarrased myself. YOU brought UP that subject---now you appear to be trying to "dodge that bullet", HUH??? Now I wonder why???

Typical "right-wing" behavior.

Ta-Ta,