Oh my, I am so glad this election is over. From mormons who praise Mitt to exmo's who demagogue him, I am sick of it.

And I was a political junkie.

The way Obama won this election is fascinating and a path for future hopefuls to follow.

Keep it local, microtarget, and understand that single issue voters will carry the day, no matter how disingenuous you have to be to get them. Also, negativity wins.

Mitt, on the other hand taught us that going to the extreme of the party just to get the nomination, can lose you the election.

The republican party is irrelevant on the national scene until they can find a way to reach the latinos and women who should be a part of their constituency. Pandering to social liberals and evangelicals makes them less relevant.

However, we also have the problem of the entitlement voter and the uneducated voter now outnumbering educated and concerned voters. As long as the nominee promises to "take care of them" the entitlement voter will vote for him.

So, now we will see. 4 more years of record deficit spending and continued quantitative easing, the deliberate destruction of the coal industry, government by fiat as Obama continues to go around Congress to enact the his agenda, 4 more years of entitlement spending going skyrocketing as the healthcare act is put in place, a government that thinks they have the ability to create jobs in the private sector, and still no budget by the Senate.

And we will also see what happens to all of those uber conservatives(tea party) who do not understand that not raising the debt ceiling is defaulting on loans for money already spent, the evangelicals who stupidly think it is the job of the federal government to regulate personal behavior, and the obstructionists that think that blocking all legislation just for the sake of blocking it is productive and patriotic.

Maybe Guy Fawkes had the right idea?

There, I got it out of my system, as requested.

too bad that you didn't notice that the last time that the US Government balanced the budget, and even ran a surplus was under another DEMOCRAT who won a second term. his name was Bill Clinton, and he is practically the most popular political figure in the country.

you also might want to note that it was the REPUBLICAN Goerge W. Bush who took us from a large surplus, and spent us into an enormous deficit, and ruined the economy in the process.

i guess history isn't your thing...

Bill Clinton is one of my favorite presidents. Every decision he made after the first two years was fiscally conservative, he reformed welfare, cut excess spending, put taxes at a reasonable level for most people people, and stayed out of wars.

But he also normalized trade relations with China without the caveat of social reform, which is what has led to many of our current financial problems, he also was at the helm when Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac greatly expanded their lending programs, which allowed banks to lend money to unqualified people, which started the unsubstantiated rise in home values. He also cooked the books by using short term debt and raiding the social security trust fund to create that surplus.

Bush II went to war when he shouldn't have, expanded the welfare state when he shouldn't have, cut taxes when he shouldn't have, and presided over the creation of DHS, which has ended most rights to privacy and almost abolished the rule of law.

I know that it is tempting to make it about Republicans and Democrats because that is what we are trained to do. But they are two sides of the same coin. The ultimate goal being to change from the rule of law to the rule of the few.

The plutocrats are winning, no matter who we vote for.

i guess it's also tempting for some to try to obfuscate and pretend that the fact that Clinton is a Democrat and Bush is a Republican is irrelevant.

are Dems perfect? of course not. but the plutocrats had a clear choice in candidates this year, and he lost

icanseethelight's statements were very middle of the road. Why you chose to go after him is beyond me. He was being evenhanded with the two sides. They both have stuff to work on for the good of America.

Thanks. I thought so too. Although the Guy Fawkes reference was a little over the top ;) I do not think it is a good idea to literally blow up congress.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 11/07/2012 06:51PM by icanseethelight.

It is irrelevant. What matters is what they do, not who they identify with.

I have as much of a problem with what most of the Republicans are doing as I do with what Obama is doing.

Neither party is concerned with the welfare of their constituency, they are concerned with their own worldview, their legacy, and their power. In the past 50 years politicians have become increasingly narcissistic and self aggrandizing, and many have bought in to the idea that there are two sets of rules. Obama is as much of an elitist as Romney, have no doubt. He knows what is best for us, because he is the smartest guy in the room, just ask him.

Do you know who Guy Fawkes is?

I've lived in England, thanks. And NOT as a missionary.

So you should know that I am not advocating for a political party, but for a change in the way we govern and are governed. I use Guy only metaphorically, of course.

by lethal force.

Briggy

oh no, not the coal industry! who will pollute the planet if we quit mining coal?!


I'm sick of everyone talking about economic growth as if the goal should be for the economy to grow forever. its impossible and wastes resources to try and do that. I'm worried about people being taken care of (like with social programs), not generating more wealth for millionaires. I don't know when sustainable living becomes the goal most people care about, but I will cheer when it happens.

I am not against moving away from coal, but over 1/3 of our current electricity production in the US is from coal. Coal phaseout will happen in the next 20 years whether or not we cripple the industry, the only difference is our energy costs will triple in the next 4 years in certain parts of the country if the EPA enacts its current regulations it is working on.

The reason we need continued economic growth is because the population in the US is still rising. And we have more movement in socioeconomic status than anywhere else in the world, both up and down, so creating wealth is not just a millionaires game.

And how do you propose we take care of people with social programs if we do not have economic growth(which leads to more revenue for the government)?

And what level of care should be expected from our government?

The only thing that grows endlessly is cancer. We live on a finite planet and we are already eating it up and destroying it. Pretending growth can just continue endlessly is delusional. Distribution will be the agenda for the rest of our lives, we better get used to it.

Here's a nice quote from an excellent article from the Financial Times (nothing lefty here). You will have to register (free) to read it.

"For almost two centuries, today’s high-income countries enjoyed waves of innovation that made them both far more prosperous than before and far more powerful than everybody else. This was the world of the American dream and American exceptionalism. Now innovation is slow and economic catch-up fast. The elites of the high-income countries quite like this new world. The rest of their population like it vastly less. Get used to this. It will not change."

http://www.ft.com/intl/cms/s/0/78e883fa-0bef-11e2-8032-00144feabdc0.html#axzz2BZsLkB2z

As long as technology continues to advance rapidly I believe that the economy can continue to advance rapidly as well - not it can't go on forever but we've still got a pretty significant increase in standard of living for the average human coming.

Unlike the Mormons I believe the world is the best it's ever been and only improving.

"Unlike the Mormons I believe the world is the best it's ever been and only improving."

The Achilles heel of your statement is the Environment. You might not have heard, but there was a storm last week...

Yeah, overpopulation & environmental problems are biggies that are only getting worse. Still the way humans treat humans is probably the best it's ever been (it's still pretty damn bad).

i agree with that. i think that humans are surprisingly peaceful. most people that i observe treat others with respect, and behave themselves for the most part.

that's why i believe that the major problems that we face will be solved by humans working together for the common good. collectivism is in our genes.

Every time there is a big weather event we blame it on the unprovable effect of global warming.

You think there is global warming? The scientists don't:

As of August 2011, 9,029 Ph.D. scientists including 3,805 atmospheric, earth, or environmental scientists have signed a petition stating:


There is no convincing scientific evidence that human release of greenhouse gasses is causing or will, in the foreseeable future, cause catastrophic heating of the Earth's atmosphere and disruption of the Earth's climate. Moreover, there is substantial scientific evidence that increases in atmospheric carbon dioxide produce many beneficial effects upon the natural plant and animal environments of the Earth.

(From the Global Warming Petition Project, Aug 9, 2011)

Even Environmental scientists who's funding relies on the fact of global warming do not believe what they are shoveling:

Email from Keith Briffa then the Deputy Director of the CRU (Climate Research Unit) at the Universuity of East Anglia, Norwich, UK in 1999

proposing to conduct an "honest" study about the "uncertainties" of proxies and then to "publish, retire, and don't leave a forwarding address," because "what I almost think I know to be the case, the results of this study will show" that we "honestly know f**k-all" (i.e., little or nothing[130]) about Northern Hemisphere temperature variability over periods of more than a hundred years.[131]

• writing, "I know there is pressure to present a nice tidy story as regards 'apparent unprecedented warming in a thousand years or more in the proxy data' but in reality the situation is not quite so simple. … I believe that the recent warmth was probably matched about 1000 years ago. I do not believe that global mean annual temperatures have simply cooled progressively over thousands of years as Mike [Mann] appears to … and I contend that that there is strong evidence for major changes in climate over the Holocene [11,000 years ago to present] that require explanation and that could represent part of the current or future background variability of our climate."

".1% of Signers Have a Background in Climatology"

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/kevin-grandia/the-30000-global-warming_b_243092.html

That's all you need to know about this so-called petition and its value.

But believe whatever you want. Everyone is entitled to their own ignorance, if that is what they choose.

But why? What is in it for you to deny what the vast overwhelming majority of scientists who actually study climate have to say about what's happening? Since every study you can find anywhere is also pointing out the disgusting lack of scientific education of the average american, don't you see a connection? Is this really a demographic you are comfortable being a part of? Again, why?



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 11/07/2012 06:08PM by popolvuh.

Why?, because I looked at the hard data and found that all of their projections are worst case scenarios, and the temperature increase the IPCC bases its "hockey stick" graph on is within the margin of error(1.8%F) of the temperature readings.

The initial model was based on incorrect data, and within the past 20 years there has been no warming at all. Admittedly that is a very short time to extrapolate from, but we only have 100 years of hard data, and much of that has been proven to be inaccurate. The IPCC has admitted to having an agenda, and that is where almost all of the data comes from.

Also, I find it highly suspicious that we moved to assumption of fact very early in the process, and any discussion of methodology or data irregularities is not tolerated and the offending parties who dare to question are denigrated and shunned.

Sound familiar?

I forgot to mention the title of the article, 'Is Unlimited Growth a Thing of the Past?' And the answer is yes.

Nothing I've read over the past 20 years makes me think the world is the best its ever been and only improving. And by world, I include the very thing that we live on and utterly depend on, the planet that is now heading for catastrophic changes in climate and mass extinctions, as well as just the more obvious and depressing degredations.

Yeah, maybe some few lucky people will be holed up in their private bubbles with amazing personal entertainment technologies, designer mood drugs and oblivious to everything else, while the losers live on a planet of weeds and cockroaches, but that doesn't sound anything like an 'improvement' to me. We are and have always been a part of this world and its web of life. To degrade and destroy it is to destroy ourselves. No fancy toys will change that, no matter how shiny and distracting they are.

Take a trip and visit one of the world's exploding megacities. People move there because they often have little other choice, not because they are so great. As Hobsbawm (RIP) points out, life for the average person got significantly WORSE throughout the timeframe of the industrial revolution. That is still happening as the big corporations land-grab the last big chunks of earth left and force those living there already into slums. No techno-utopia is coming for them. Especially not with peak energy in the fairly near future.

Peak energy? Maybe from fossil fuels, but I see no "peak" on energy production when you consider non traditional means of generation(another topic by itself).

But you paint a very dystopian view of the future. It seems as if you have a lot in common with the mormons we are here to recover from. No hope for the present, extinction events inevitable, and a finite timeline for the future.

Pardon me if I disagree. This is not a zero sum game, and half the planet is not utilizing their resources very effectively at all, there is much room for growth before we have to start thinking about mass executions.

And while I agree growth will not go on forever on this planet, I also believe we will not be confined to this planet forever, and there are many paths of growth and innovation open to us.

I guess I'll see you on Kolob then, mate:)

When I go in the dirt, that is where I will stay. No afterlife for me, I'm checking out for good.

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 11/07/2012 06:38PM by icanseethelight.

On the contray, cancer grows until it decimates and kills the organism from which it has arisen. So it does not grow endlessly. Likewise, humans are cancerous to this planet when they are allowed unfettered consumption of finite resources. If everyone in the world lived a first world life I couldn't imagine what the earth would look like if would even be possible. If we can't keep ourselves in check, mother nature sure will.

In the words of Agent Smith -

"Human beings are a disease, a cancer of this planet. You are a plague, and we... are the cure."

That was implied, but thanks for spelling it out:) And it would take about 4.1 earths for everyone to live the way americans do. Not going to happen.

http://www.popsci.com/environment/article/2012-10/daily-infographic-if-everyone-lived-american-how-many-earths-would-we-need

Redistribution is going to happen, whether we like it or not. Humans have an innate sense of fairness, the evidence is showing we evolved with it over time. (Hierarchy of the Forest, Moral Origins, both by Boehm, among others worth reading on this.) Thus, the inequalities of today will not endure, any more than endless cancerous growth that destroys the planets body, the bodies of too many species and too many humans already alive.

I think the saddest part of the US political system is the money spent on it. Kind of like the lds church spending billions on a mall.

It would be nice to see the end of trickle down economics. I would also like term limits for Congress, but since Congress would have to vote for it, it won't happen.

Here's a clip from the great Matt Taibbi, read the whole thing.

"What we Americans go through to pick a president is not only crazy and unnecessary but genuinely abusive. Hundreds of millions of dollars are spent in a craven, cynical effort to stir up hatred and anger on both sides. A decision that in reality takes one or two days of careful research to make is somehow stretched out into a process that involves two years of relentless, suffocating mind-warfare, an onslaught of toxic media messaging directed at liberals, conservatives and everyone in between that by Election Day makes every dinner conversation dangerous and literally divides families."

Read more: http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/news/how-the-hype-became-bigger-than-the-presidential-election-20121009#ixzz2Ba8zHObJ

Now this we can agree on with enthusiasm. It is silly and wasteful.