Republicans Are Blocking Confirmation for Obama's Surgeon General Nominee
We have a national health emergency, and Senate Republicans are stalling the surgeon general's confirmation. But then, they don't live in the same country as the rest of us:
A GOP stall on all Health and Human Services nominees has left the department without a surgeon general during a period of a global flu pandemic, prompting the HHS secretary to call for Senate action.
Regina Benjamin, the surgeon general nominee, “is ready to be voted on in the Senate, and we would just strongly urge the United States Senate” to act, HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius said during an MSNBC interview Friday in which she discused the department's response to the spread of the H1N1 virus.
President Barack Obama on Saturday declared the H1N1 outbreak a national emergency.
“We are facing a major pandemic, we have a well-qualified candidate for surgeon general, she’s been through the committee process. We just need a vote in the Senate,” Sebeilus said. “Please give us a surgeon general.”
Benjamin was unanimously approved by the Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee on Oct. 7, but Senate Republicans are holding up all HHS nominees over a so-called gag order on insurance companies that have been critical of Democratic efforts to reform health care.
“We’ve not received any recent calls from the administration about their nominee,” a senior Republican aide said. “There won’t be any time agreements for confirmation of HHS nominees until their actions have been fully reviewed.”
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=grbSQ6O6kbs
One peasant to another in a landscape of great plague decimation as a knight (on an imaginary horse) rides by:
Q - Who is that?
A - a King!
Q - how do you know?
A - he hasn't got shit all over him…
Love those Brit socialists…
statusquObama, change you can only pretend in
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=grbSQ6O6kbs
Diabolus est Deus Inversus
Yep. That looks like footage from Alabama, where the military was illegally called out to maintain order.
"As I wrote at the time, Michael McLendon, 27, went on a killing rampage following years of relentless corporate exploitation and harassment against him, his mother (whom he mercy-killed)..."
That sounds like at least three different crimes, nothing justifies exploitation, but then nothing justifies a killing spree, and nothing justifies the calling out of the military.
That's not counting other crimes like possession of a gun in the course of committing a crime, the euthanasia etc.
Diabolus est Deus Inversus
the troops went in during Beck, O'Reilly, or Hannity so no one would notice what was happening.
I want Obama and our sorry Democrats to personally justify why they feel such a burning desire to keep kissing the asses of any Republican, when all of them actually hate the guts of all Democrats.
Once upon the time the word weak was used nationally to define Democrats, but many people still had some respect for them. And remember too, it was once the Senate who commanded honor and respect in comparison to the House??
Nothing is as it was. Nor will it ever be again, apparwently.
"...the Slump brought even more disillusionment than the War. A new bitterness, and a new bewilderment, ran through all social life, and was reflected in all literature and art. It was contemptuous, not only of the old Capitalism, but of the old Socialism."
We have truly entered the America Huxley wrote about in 1931, in Brave New World. He was even right about Soma.
are the answer. Will it annoy R's? Well, duh, everything Dems do enrages the r's; they're insane.
Just Do It, Obama.
Remember Van Jones.
statusquObama, change you can only pretend in
What the republicans are doing should be considered a crime. What the hell will Beck dig up on her. Did she share her lunch with another kid in her elementarty school automatically making her a socialist?
Say what you mean. Mean what you say. But don't say it mean.
It is past time to take back the concept, and the term of socialism from the Corporate propagandists.
statusquObama, change you can only pretend in
Yes we need to show the country that the only reason they make socialism a dirty word is that if we got a taste of it nobody in this country, except the rich bastards who make money off our pain, would ever want to go back to the system we have now.
That sucks repubs are up to same old game, but what in the process held up a nominee for this position until almost one year into his presidency? I remember Sanjay Gupta pulled out, thankfully. But is this the furthest they have progressed with a second candidate?
Is there anymore background. I know Obama was having trouble filling cabinet positions but this is ridiculous.
Wow, this is another shocking story, who would have thunk the Repugs would block the nomimation of someone into a critical roll all due to mostly made up nonsense.
I guess the fact that Regina Benjamin is a well-qualified must have the repugs so upset...I mean, really, why can't we put someone who has no idea how to lead in the case of a national medical emergency. Isn't there someone from the horse show available?
Nothing to worry about; they still got their FEHB plan to fall back on
And Medicare.
Diabolus est Deus Inversus
This is hard-ball politics in a period when expeditious action is needed.
However, what is this gag-order they referred to? It sounds potentially unconstitutional.
Diabolus est Deus Inversus
Regina is female and black?
Absolute no-brainer for Republicans.
fear his manly-hood is threatened then this combination.
as our General!
Has anyone asked her what her position is on masturbation in schools?
I'm for it.
Diabolus est Deus Inversus
In which position?
Don't encourage him…
statusquObama, change you can only pretend in
bedroom/bathroom, is his business.
Since your reference seems to be to Jocelyn Elders I think the question should be about requiring bananas to wear condoms.
Diabolus est Deus Inversus
Did you ever see that one about the African tribe some organization was trying to help teach the use of condoms and instead of putting it on a real penis, they put it on a stick to demonstrate.
So that night the tribes people put condoms onto the demonstration sticks and proceeded to have sex in the usual manner.
I'm begging you ysb, no links to videos on this subject. ;)
Say what you mean. Mean what you say. But don't say it mean.
try spamming a web site with stoopid people since your obviously one of them
That wasn't a stupid person. It was a smart robot.
Buy now this fabulous software will bring you instant riches! Enjoy a second home! Buy that new car! Our software does all the work for you . . .
I flagged him (her/it) but I pointed out that at least (s)he wasn't a bot, (s)he did take the time to use the word 'Medicare'.
Unless the bots are getting much smarter, in which case the pronoun was: shit.
But otherwise they advise you to not reply to the spamsters…
statusquObama, change you can only pretend in
I think many of these spammers are like, carpet cleaning guys who's business dropped to zero since last fall.
It could be a combination, because you notice that even this site will get ann colter, and glenn beck ads on threads about politics. Sounds like these bots are looking for keywords. Then the bot might send it to a human bot.
The government probably uses such bots in their "War on Terror," and other programs.
Diabolus est Deus Inversus
The advertising algorithms are advanced but they will try to improve them no doubt. They search the text of the blogs and place the ads according to prescribed parameters.
This can lead them to curious juxtapostions, putting conservative ads on liberal blogs for instance.
Let them spend their money advertising Glen Beck and Ann Coulter on Crooks and Liars…
Advertising as propaganda is a topic we have broached before, though as I recall you were hesitant to accept the premise.
propaganda per se, but after the Germans got a hold of it the term became Public Relations.
Based on the work of Chomsky, Manufacturing Consent here
The Ad and the Ego here
The Century of the Self Part 1 of 4 here
Orwell Rolls In His Grave here
statusquObama, change you can only pretend in
Money Machines
. . (if your the inventor of the script)
I still think people can resist the ads, although TV viewing in particular is a passive recreation. And this site did resist by deleting it, and those who thought it was a person, calling them out on it.
So even though we're looking at a screen too, like TV viewers, maybe we're less passive.
Diabolus est Deus Inversus
But then turning it around back to politics, the "science" of marketing is now being used in politics, so complex policies and ideas are reduced to slogans.
And if enough people buy it, it then it becomes Truth or Common Sense despite a lack of investigation to the underlying claims.
Diabolus est Deus Inversus
Watch part IV if the Century and the Self, here
It arrives at some insight into the Corporate domination of the Clinton regime and the subsequent compromise of the British Labor party who followed his lead.
Henry Ford developed mass production in his Detroit assembly lines starting in 1910. Thereafter manufacturers decided that they needed mass consumers.
Advertising prior to the 1920s was informational. Ads in some length gave information about a product and the reader could make a decision based on the information.
The push started in the '20s to change that to an address to the emotions. This developed so that there would be no discussion of complex policies and ideas in propaganda.
It reduces everything to an emotional level.
Adam Curtis's premise and a very cogent statement by Robert Reich at the end of the series part IV is that the ultimate result of the political emphasis the emotional response of the individual is that there is no society.
We are seeing the results of that all around us.
statusquObama, change you can only pretend in
I remember seeing soap ads from approximately 1900 that the illustration looked like an oil painting of a nude in a waterfall.
Here's one of my favorites from 1926. What are they selling, romance, sex or cigarettes?"
http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_dbBkx-d2RsY/SHTx5or...
It's no surprise or profound insight that with mass production comes mass advertising to justify the manufacture of so many items. Otherwise your back inventory would be staggering.
And after the Civil War, in politics, they regularly Waved the Bloody Flag. Drawing a crowd to your candidate was offering offering drinks of whiskey, or a shovel full of coal.
Diabolus est Deus Inversus
You miss the point completely. It is not the mass advertising, it is the nature of the advertising.
They are not appealing to the intellect but the emotions. That is what the insight is about.
The magnitude of the results are profound as is the damage to the culture.
Which is why we have the Democratic Party in the USA and the Labor Party in Britain which are completely pro business and bear only the most superficial resemblance to their socialist and socialist leaning forbears.
This Democratic party is completely hollowed out.
That is profound.
I seem to recall you saying you were associated with the military.
Militarism is a major part of the scheme of Corporate Propaganda.
statusquObama, change you can only pretend in
I was just using them for college money, although at potential risk of war breaking out.
Additionally, I was somewhat conditioned to go in that direction by my church. Although I wasn't aware of the writer at the time, they used the kind of arguments of Sir Kenelm Digby used in Broadstone of Honor, likening various virtues to portions of a knight's armor. I had started reading the legends of King Arthur about the age of 8 or 9, so it was effective. This was further added to by my church's promotion of scouting, which also likened us to ancient warriors. So militarianism, to a certain extent was drilled into me from Cub Scouts up.
And this was despite the horror I felt, looking in history books and seeing a illustration of one soldier spearing another on the ground with his bayonette, in a non-bloody illustration about World War I.
So if you over-simplify my case, how many others are you over-simplifying?
Diabolus est Deus Inversus
I was not doing anything with your case, as I only repeated what I recalled you saying and you confirmed this.
You have now expanded and confirmed that militarism is a matter of socialization AND propaganda.
What uses has the military has been put to?
I will answer my own question, the advancement of interests of the rich and powerful.
All other uses beside pure defense are illusory.
The military involves barbarism at its center.
statusquObama, change you can only pretend in
That's again stating the obvious.
And I'm distinguishing between propaganda, socialization and marketing. One could liken them to strong and soft versions of the same underlying techniques of conditioning. There's familial socialization, religious socialization, sub-normative socialization, political socialization and marketing. These are all separate but overlapping spheres of influence. Because I choose to drink Guinness, does that make me pro-Irish in their political and social ambitions?
Because I like steak, do I support rich cattlemen's political views? They may have my money but not my support.
To get into politics, especially at the national level, one always needs access to the levers of power and/or money.
That's what I always say to people who insist multiple parties are the answer.
So it's a much more complex question than simply positing a boogyman named Propaganda.
Diabolus est Deus Inversus
This is a fundamental mistake.
The family is the first and fundamental social unit. It exists in a community of one sort or another, that community can have religious affiliation, in our society it is in subsets.
Marketing is about selling products. One might use marketing in selling religious products but that is a side issue.
As I have said, we understand the term propaganda in a somewhat different light than it originally was used. We should return to that use.
Propaganda, as the term was used, and marketing were one in the same. The techniques would come to be used in politics.
It is a fundamental mistake to draw the comparison between socialization in an otherwise functional society and propaganda and marketing.
The propagandist and marketer KNOW that their product may not be of interest or needed by the target of their work. They may even know their product is worthless.
The object is to sell it.
That is a very different thing than socialization.
You are making a fundamental mistake.
What does this have to do with anything? I don't know why you choose to drink Guinness or not. Perhaps it is through marketing and you don't know it. Corporate propaganda works to make the Corporations seem friendly and benign.
The documentary the Corporation asked the question, if Corporations are people, what sort of people are they?
The answer: psychopaths!
Again, what does this have to do with anything other than perhaps you succumbing to marketing when you don't know it.
Through their propaganda they may convince you that rich cattlemen are nice people, though they certainly won't tell you their practices may be poisoning the environment
We have a two party tyranny which does everything to keep anyone else out and then confuse the masses into thinking that we have a functioning democracy.
I am for having as many parties as can be had after identifying issues substantial enough to form a party around.
Let there be a Theocratic party for the rural southerners.
Let there be a socialist party, at its core centered around giving the powerless a means through organization to push back against their oppressors, the corporations.
Let there be a corporate party which would be the Republicrats.
Then we can duke it out.
Politics and life IS complex but it is through propaganda that the masses are convinced that politics devolves to a simple state of consumerism.
That is great danger of propaganda. Let me be clear, it is corporate propaganda. Their purpose is to destroy democracy and create nothing but consumerism. So that citizens no longer see themselves as part of a larger social unit, as part of a society but instead as single consumers who can be happy if only they get the right products and correct buzzwords in their politics.
You miss the point. But as a victim of the Corporate propaganda you may make the case for me.
You just don't get it, you need to watch less meaningless video and study more.
statusquObama, change you can only pretend in
So what was your point about the guy who said you can resist advertising while wearing a Budweiser cap?
You need to stop reading conspiracy books and branch out into interdisciplinary studies on subjects.
Blaming everything on corporate propaganda was essentially the same mistake Karl Marx made in making the whole of human existence the struggle between economic classes.
And you notice that during the course of the whole discussion, I made no recourse to video clips, so your reference was not only tangential, but apparently what you considered your own version of the cheap cut.
An important study of every point in history is to study what they read, listened to, and watched, since that shows what their mindset was, although I don't claim they necessarily caused a specific action in history. Could you imagine studying World War II without any knowledge of Das Ewige Jude? That was, however, official propaganda in a direct line. In our country, influence is indirect and diffused, and as stated above, in competition with all the other various claims for our attention.
Diabolus est Deus Inversus
I don't read conspiracy books.
The point is the guy BECOMES the advertisement, he becomes the propaganda.
If you can't see that you can't see anything.
You are like the fish in the water. You cannot see the water because you are in it.
Corporate propaganda is everywhere, it is written on peoples caps.
You like videos, that is obvious by the incessant attachment of meaningless video links to otherwise serious comments, that you have abstained so far is remarkable in itself. Based on your past practice I'll predict a relapse. Until then, watch the video links I provided.
They are very informative. But they are not entertainment.
You will not find greater cohesion of inter discipline than the works of Chomsky.
As for Marx, the corporations in this country do everything to make us forget the class struggle.
The Europeans remember.
statusquObama, change you can only pretend in
Of course corporate propaganda is everywhere.
Marketing has a long historical connection with entertainment.
It was merchants in Europe that helped create the concept of Nationhood. But that wasn't some higher ideal, they just got tired of different currencies, exchange rates, weights and measures and laws every time they crossed an arbitrary line separating duchies, principalities, municipalities etc.
Medicine men in the 19th century used cheap forms of entertainment to gather a crowd, to sell them snake oil. Even Protagoras of Abdera was accused by Aristotle of using entertainment to draw a crowd, and then attempt to charge them for lessons in Rhetoric.
While Aristotle favored Dialectics, and an almost elitist way of favoring students of the academy rather then the general public.
You're just positing another "Other" for people to be up in arms about.
It's like those 9-11 or Kennedy conspiracists who read nothing but books on their subject, and then claim the rest of us are being deliberately blinded.
Diabolus est Deus Inversus
Do me a favor and watch the video links I provided.
Start with the audio
Alex Carey, attack on democracy, corporate propaganda.
"The twentieth century has been characterized by three developments of great political importance: the growth of democracy, the growth of corporate power, and the growth of corporate propaganda as a means of protecting corporate power against democracy''.
A review of his collected writings is here
history through WWII here
history after WWII here
---
This propaganda program involves demonizing unionism, socialism and collective action.
If that isn't something to be concerned about, I don't know what is.
statusquObama, change you can only pretend in
All interests seek to preserve their own interests in an open system. They have theirs, I have mine, again no surprise. That doesn't mean the average person doesn't have a resistance to their manipulation.
A steak commercial may make me hungry, but not necessarily for a steak.
The problem is people may make the mistake of believing the interests of someone else are their own. That's a concept of Marx I did like, that of False Consciousness. And due to the heavy damage done to our economy, I think people's attention has been piqued as to what the corporations are doing in over-consolidating their own power at the expense of everyone else.
(Of course I am concerned with economic regionalism, international and transnational corporations that can become bigger than any one nation.)
I'm going swimming now, ta...
Diabolus est Deus Inversus
But it is not a fair fight.
You live in Texas, what is the propaganda like there against unions? Enormous.
What on Earth do you think a purportedly left political party should be concerned with other than forwarding the interest of the less powerful.
That is what the people thought they were getting with the Democrats, instead they get sold out to the corporations.
Let us be clear the corporation through its legal rendering in this country, and much of the world by the extension of the WTO, is a shield to protect powerful people from any legal consequences from their personal actions. They will plunder and poison, where there is no law, they are on a rampage. Here where there are laws, but being steadily weakened or not enforced, they pay the fines. If they even caught and challenged. They pay the fines as the cost of doing business. Look up the fines against the corporate crooks.
The corporations mean for us to be unthinking consumers, devoid of consciousness of the possibilities of reigning them in and protecting ourselves that come from collective action.
Even if we are alert to the possibilities they mean to defeat us.
What do you think their purpose is when the largest defense contractor runs ads with no message except: "We bring good things to life". Really!? They bring death and destruction. Or energy companies that pillage the environment but run ads that show virgin wildlife scenes and they talk about how concerned they are about the environment. That is propaganda.
Advancing the interest of the powerless, and diminishing the power of the powerful is my concern.
How do your Texas wage and benefits without unions compare to union states. They are lower.
But just wait, we will all be working for Chinese wages before the corporations are through. The non union southern auto plants have announced already that cuts are coming. When the UAW is history you will have free fall there.
You cannot go one on one with them, they will crush you. The sweatshops of the world are testimony to that.
The propaganda encourages you to be an individual and be responsible for your own actions and your own situation. Funny that, the executives of those corporations never take personal responsibility for the massive crimes they commit.
Consider the Banksters, the fraud involved in their activities is stunningly massive, trillions lost through fraudulently originated liar loans securitized into mis-rated and mis-represented securites, then sold to the world.
No investigations or prosecutions. We bail them out. The powerful prevail are our expense.
As you say, they have their interests, and you have yours. You are losing, big time.
statusquObama, change you can only pretend in
Actually the corporations are making the same mistake as the Communists/Socialists, which is the over-centralization of economic power. One bad decision can have a snowball effect. Smaller companies can fail with little damage to the economy overall.
Bigger is not always better.
The way to sell our ideas is not claiming to want to destroy the prevailing system but rather to preserve it, and that is by having a more decentralized system, not just in government, but in business as well.
Until then we're playing an either or game between big government and big business.
Diabolus est Deus Inversus
Cutting this to below here.
statusquObama, change you can only pretend in
It is not the process of looking at a screen, per se.
You hit the point exactly with the term PASSIVE.
Here we are interacting and sharing information.
As far as resisting ads, one of the researchers in The Ad and the Ego pointed out that this was a typical statement people she was interviewing.
Often by people who might be wearing a Budweiser cap, just for instance.
You, and everyone, is bombarded. It is so pervasive that even ostensible progressives begin to use the corrupted language of the Corporate propagandists.
You THINK you can resist while the propaganda has completely polluted the possibilities for dialogue.
statusquObama, change you can only pretend in
I avoid slang to a certain extent, but advertising slogans tend to become slang, like This One is For You.
I had a roommate in the Air Force that seemed like every other sentence out of his mouth was, "Go for it." Finally one day I asked him, "Go for what?" And then he got somewhat flustered, and couldn't figure out how to answer.
Diabolus est Deus Inversus
The are attempting to produce a cultural of consumerism and immediate gratification.
Terms like 'Change we can believe in'…
statusquObama, change you can only pretend in
That's also marketing cost. Longer more nuanced statements would be more expensive for the campaign to have printed.
http://www.zocalopublicsquare.org/thepublicsq...
http://www.ohiohistorycentral.org/images/1220...
Notice they used his military title and a log cabin in the background? He wasn't born in a log cabin, but among the landed gentry. It was clearly intended as indentifying him with one of the people. He has a shovel in his hand, which he probably never used in his life.
http://www.usnews.com/pubdbimages/image/4242/...
Do you think he really drank cider? Again it was going for the non-thinking emotional response that he's one of us.
Here's a fairly early editorial cartoon about an election:
http://www.hardscrabblehome.com/fpdb/images/c...
It went along with the slogan, "Ma, Ma Where's My Pa?"
Obviously it was meant to invite outrage at Grover Cleveland having a baby out of wedlock. Nothing to do with the issues of the day.
When Cleveland won anyway, his backers changed the slogan to, "Ma, Ma, Where's My Pa? He's Gone to the Whitehouse, ha ha ha."
Diabolus est Deus Inversus
That is all very interesting, and it is certainly valid to point to that in politics, there has always been a tendency towards oversimplification.
The US is where democracy was expanded.
But in previous times you could get very long detailed discussions of issues in the newspapers.
That is long past.
Now everything is reduced to a stump speech, sound bites and one liners.
statusquObama, change you can only pretend in
But that's also a complaint of the politicians themselves against the news coverage of their speeches.
Diabolus est Deus Inversus
I agree, the the news industry is not what it should be.
But even Gen. Smedley Butler complained about the coverage he got in Time Magazine.
And newspapers of the day weren't expected to be unbiased. William Randolph Hearst practically ran public opinion through his newspaper chain, and pretty much provoked the Spanish American War of 1898 by lying, and appeals to emotions about the filthy barbarians raping pure American Women on cruise ships. He finally received a staggering blow when Annie Oakley successfully sued him for libel, and his invulnerability took a tremendous hit.
And many papers were just of local interest not national. They wouldn't really start turning to national and even international news until FDR used the radio medium to start broadcasting his Fireside Chats in his warm uncle sort of way.
Diabolus est Deus Inversus
You will not get me to claim that despite the degeneration of American society at the hands of the Corporate propagandists from from roughly 1914 going forward that previously we had come from some Golden Age.
It isn't so. But wherever we were, as bad as it was, as subjects and objects of propaganda, we have gotten worse.
The high water mark was in 1935 when FDR was pulled to left because the country might have had a revolution if he refused and was described as a traitor to his class by the temporarily ousted from the temple, Oligarchs.
They didn't forget and they have been marching and winning thereafter.
statusquObama, change you can only pretend in
God bless the people who do not spend a better part of their day staring into a screen of one sort or another. I wish I was more like them.
The internet is like a drug that flows through the air and out our screens into our eyes and ears rubbing our curiosity bone harder and faster until will get so excited we start our own blog.
But after that, the excitement tends to subside. We begin to feel tired and guilty and turn away from our digital friends, so goes the shallow life cycle of the internet.
For some reason text was clipped, the post should have read:
The advertising algorithms are advanced but they will try to improve them no doubt. They search the text of the blogs and place the ads according to prescribed parameters.
This can lead them to curious juxtapostions, putting conservative ads on liberal blogs for instance.
Let them spend their money advertising Glen Beck and Ann Coulter on Crooks and Liars…
Advertising as propaganda is a topic we have broached before, though as I recall you were hesitant to accept the premise.
Originally the term for advertising was propaganda per se, but after the Germans got a hold of it the term became Public Relations.
Based on the work of Chomsky, Manufacturing Consent here
The Ad and the Ego here
The Century of the Self Part 1 of 4 here
Orwell Rolls In His Grave here
statusquObama, change you can only pretend in
I was saying that advertising can backfire. It might work for you to identify what they're advertising, so you can avoid them, which is not what they want.
For example, I hate Sonic commercials, and have yet to eat at one when obviously they want me to.
Diabolus est Deus Inversus
I instinctively recoil when I see a politician's ad that seems to be more about his family and church.
Diabolus est Deus Inversus
How do you do with ads that talk about 'Change we can believe in', for example.
statusquObama, change you can only pretend in
I was a Hillary supporter initially, so it didn't work on me. And then after the convention I was trying to choose between Obama and Brian Moore (mcgramps was definitely out).
I didn't expect Obama to win our area, and he didn't, so if I was going to cast a protest vote, it would be one that would count due to sheer numbers, that I knew Moore wouldn't have, due to not being on the ballot.
And if I wrote him in that would reduce him to comparisons with other write ins like Homer Simpson, Bilbo Baggins and Huckleberry Hound.
Diabolus est Deus Inversus
You didn't answer my question or apparently see my point.
It is a sales pitch, the Democrats are just as phony as the Republicans.
statusquObama, change you can only pretend in
It's a brain worm.
Like Tippacanoe and Tyler too.
Diabolus est Deus Inversus
here
statusquObama, change you can only pretend in
"The advertising algorithms are advanced..."
Press that into little white pills, put it in a medicine bottle, and name it AMBIEN.
Kidding! I'm going to splash my face with icy water and read the read of it now. :D
Country First!
The Rescumlicans wanted Dr Phil.
with Obama’s nominees is the fact that they are well-qualified.
If they were wash-outs from an unrelated field or an industry spokesperson opposed to everything their appointment should represent, they would be approved in an instant
It’s not demagoguery - It’s enhanced political marketing
on a social level this past 8 years is popularizing sensationalism-hype.
Van Jones, HIlda Solis as far as I know thus far, excellent,
and maybe Regina Benjamin, good…
Robert Gates, abysmal…
Timothy Geithner, Larry Summers, catastrophic.
I take them on a case by case basis.
statusquObama, change you can only pretend in
The problem with marketers, and those who oppose marketers, is they share the underlying assumption that people are stupid. One wants to take advantage of these people, the other wants to protect them.
One strong memory from my senior year in High School, is I was taking an English class that wasn't required, but I was filling my schedule. We had one of two English teachers who were considered hard teachers. The other intimidated and browbeat her students. The one I had was also elderly and near retirement. We were reading Beowulf, Julius Caesare, Antigone, Macbeth and The Canterbury Tales. We started with Canterbury, and in her lady like way, she explained some of the dirty jokes. Suddenly she had a roomful of students really studying the story.
She had us read from Shakespeare in ordinary cadence, like we were just having a regular conversation among friends. The browbeating teacher had more struggling students, and less A students, and one of our best was a football player, who initially seemed to dumb to string three words together.
Diabolus est Deus Inversus
fast forward to the 90's-00's . . .
http://www.businessinsider.com/yahoo-hires-la...
is being held up by a bunch of old, fake xian, repug white guys, who are deathly afraid of brilliant, competent, accomplished black woman.
A person who is pro good health care for everyone and supports a woman's right to choose when making decisions about her own body, among other egregious viewpoints.
"Egotism is the anesthetic that dulls the pain of Stupidity" - Frank Leahy
her affiliation and membership on the scientific advisory board for fast food restaurant Burger King and food provider ConAgra Foods you'd think the Con's would be fully supportive.
Links to poo…
or Link poo…
for short.
statusquObama, change you can only pretend in
with her participation on such entities. Fast food and corporate farming are a part of our culture. If she wants to have a positive impact on how these corporations affect the health of our citizens, what better way than to be involved in some fashion with their decision-making processes.??
I would venture to guess that Dr. Benjamin has done more to help people in her communities than you or I. I believe she has amply demonstrated her commitment to the "people's" welfare rather than 'corporate welfare'.
"Egotism is the anesthetic that dulls the pain of Stupidity" - Frank Leahy
Fast food and corporate farming are part of the culture, unfortunately.
The former I would let fall on its own demerits, for the most part.
Corporate farming is a catastrophe that we need to reverse. Our dependence on it and subservience to it will be very much to our peril when the real energy crunch hits.
statusquObama, change you can only pretend in
but I wasn't suggesting I support either fast food or corporate farming - just that that's what we have. Maybe there's a way to begin dismantling them from the inside (like being on an advisory bd.) or, at least, steering them toward doing more of 'what's right.'
Our dependence on corporations of all kinds is what will keep us from having another 'revolution' or uprising. The corpora-fascists have to merely turn off the power (stop electricity, gasoline and heating oil for instance) and/or stop importation/deliveries of foodstuffs and we the people are proverbial toast!
"Egotism is the anesthetic that dulls the pain of Stupidity" - Frank Leahy
It is time for some LEADERSHIP. Someone in the White House needs to stand up and slap the shit out of some Repubs. The Senate Majority leader needs to take Mitch McConnell aside and have a sit down with him.
It is time for the Democrats to DO SOMETHING.
I haven't researched it but I can't believe it took this long during the last 8 years for the Bush Nominees to be confirmed. I am sick of this. If the Dem's can't show some spine and balls I'm done with the lot of them. Not too difficult since I live down here in Texas and we couldn't find a real Democrat anyway.
We're thinking of calling it the Stranger in Strange Land Club.
what a sissy. Why would the president now turn his back on us and fight against a public option that would actually help everyone, instead of harming everyone? He has become our enemy in a very short period of time.
I think he really believed the Chicago machine when it told him he could lie about anything. Sorry Mr. President. You can't lie any more. If you don't give us the Medicare now, you know what is going to happen to the country. That is the amazing part. You must have something else planned for us now that we have nothing to export but war.
Medicare for everyone or it's time to reconsider everything.
Wrong thread. Heheh. Oops.
Just wait for congress to go home for the holidays and make all the appointments you want. It'll really piss off republicans.
Republicans are liars and simply cannot be trusted.
I thought it was supposed to be Sanjay Gupta. Glad that didn't happen, at least.
Obama should do something. Just DO what he wants done. He never does. We're all always fighting these battles for him, getting up in arms in his defense over every damn thing that comes up.
Mr. President, get out there and preside.
The problem with most theorists: whether in the economy, or the law, or religion or psychology, is they think of humans as pawns on a chessboard, or points on a spreadsheet, even while in opposition to other theorists. They will attempt to hammer a peg into a square hole, rather than find a more accommodating position. I prefer to think of humanity in this manner:
"What a piece of work is a man, how noble in reason, how
infinite in faculties, in form and moving how express and
admirable, in action how like an angel, in apprehension how like
a god! the beauty of the world, the paragon of animals—and yet,
to me, what is this quintessence of dust? Man delights not me—
nor woman neither, though by your smiling you seem to say so."
Or if you prefer the link:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wF8GeBkWlk4
Diabolus est Deus Inversus
Tell that to the people of Bhopal India. They are still seeking damages against Union Carbide twenty five years later.
Maybe your message will make them feel better though it won't do much for the thousands that died.
statusquObama, change you can only pretend in
If you want to bring up Union Carbide than do so in the proper context, otherwise you're just attempting to play one-up-manship, changing the rules of the game while the game is being played.
Diabolus est Deus Inversus
Which rules were you referring to?
statusquObama, change you can only pretend in
As for Union Carbide, if that sector of the government was socialized and this situation arose, do you really expect the government to be any more responsive?
Diabolus est Deus Inversus
With a functioning EPA, yes!
Unfortunately for us the EPA is not functioning very well. See the recent reports on midwest insecticide drinking water contamination, or the reports of wider spread failures, or coal ash contamination.
This is a function of democracy, socialism in a democracy serves the public interest.
Otherwise the democracy is a sham.
To defeat our national attempts at environmental and work place protection, the trans nationals turn to globalization.
They obtain treaties to the WTO, the Senate ratifies that then supersede our national laws.
This is what failure to have a government looking out for the interests of the people brings us.
This is what James Galbraith, professor U of Texas Austin means by Predator State, the title of his recent book which I recommend for its penetrating and very dark assessment of our political situation.
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Cut from above (here)
You know nothing about my proposals and seem to have fallen prey to propaganda of the corporations.
I want to end crony capitalism and pare back the power of corporations.
I would have no intention of handing authority to government unless it was solely to serve the interest of the people.
What do you think we have now?
We have an enormous government which is dominated by a trillion dollar budget for the military. AND we have vast corporations.
Your concern about either/or doesn't hold water.
We have both.
Cut the military budget by 90% and bring it in line with the realities of the rest of the world and the threats they pose.
Right now it is money in service of the Trans National Corporate empire.
Corporations ALWAYS seek to externalize costs. The cost of their pollution is born by society unless the society makes them clean it up or not do in the first place.
They get us to provide them an army, a navy and an air force. We don't need those, they do.
They make us pay for it.
Going for a walk.
statusquObama, change you can only pretend in
It would probably take some kind of international court, because with any American department politics and tax policy will have an effect, even if the offending corporation does not.
But with international courts they would have to have a way of enforcing their decisions, and national sovereignty will become an issue.
Diabolus est Deus Inversus
.
statusquObama, change you can only pretend in
to be completely full of shit.
Republicans prove that sometimes patriotism is the refuge of the scoundrel.
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