by frog
Published in THE ISSUES by frog on Thu, March 31st, 2011
Tags: general debate
General debate, March 31, 2011
Published: March 31, 2011
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Please use 
on the trolls and those who are unable to keep on topic
Back to the kitchen and bedroom, girls!
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http://whoar.co.nz/2011/obama-raises-american-hypocrisy-to-a-higher-level-%C2%A0/
“…What does the world think? Obama has been using air strikes and drones against civilians in Afghanistan, Pakistan, Yemen, and probably Somalia. In his March 28 speech, Obama justified his air strikes against Libya on the grounds that the embattled ruler, Gadhafi, was using air strikes to put down a rebellion.
Gadhafi has been a black hat for as long as I can remember. If we believe the adage that “where there is smoke there is fire,” Gadhafi is probably not a nice fellow. However, there is no doubt whatsoever that the current US president and the predecessor Bush/Cheney regime have murdered many times more people in Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Yemen and Somalia than Gadhafi has murdered in Libya.
Moreover, Gadhafi is putting down a rebellion against state authority as presently constituted, but Obama and Bush/Cheney initiated wars of aggression based entirely on lies and deception.
Yet Gadhafi is being demonized, and Bush/Cheney/Obama are sitting on their high horse draped in cloaks of morality. Obama described himself as saving Libyans from violence while Obama himself murders Afghans, Pakistanis, and whomever else.
Indeed, the Obama regime has been torturing a US soldier, Bradley Manning, for having a moral conscience. America has degenerated to the point where having a moral conscience is evidence of anti-Americanism and “terrorist activity.”
The Bush/Cheney/Obama wars of naked aggression have bankrupted America. Joseph Stiglitz, former chairman of the President’s Council of Economic Advisers, concluded that the money wasted on the Iraq war could have been used to fix America’s Social Security problem for half a century. http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2008/feb/28/iraq.afghanistan Instead, the money was used to boost the obscene profits of the armament industry.
The obscene wars of aggression, the obscene profits of the offshoring corporations, and the obscene bailouts of the rich financial gangsters have left the American public with
annual budget deficits of approximately $1.5 trillion. These deficits are being covered by printing money.
Sooner or later, the printing presses will cause the US dollar to collapse and domestic inflation to explode. Social Security benefits will be wiped out by inflation rising more rapidly than the cost-of-living adjustments. If America survives, no one will be left but the mega-rich. Unless there is a violent revolution.
Alternatively, if the Federal Reserve puts the brake on monetary expansion, interest rates will rise, sending the economy into a deeper depression.
Washington, focused on its newest war, is oblivious to America’s peril. As Stiglitz notes, the costs of the Iraq war alone could have kept every foreclosed family in their home, provided health care for every American child, and wiped out the student loans of graduates who cannot find jobs because they have been outsoured to foreigners.
However, the great democratic elected government of “the world’s only superpower” prefers to murder Muslims in order to enhance the profits of the military/security complex. More money is spent violating the constitutional rights of American air travelers than is spent in behalf of the needy.
The moral authority of the West is rapidly collapsing…” (cont..)
phil(whoar.co.nz)
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http://whoar.co.nz/2011/rule-by-the-right-wing-press-dooms-any-sensible-debate-on-drugs/
“…The primary issue here is one of political courage, or rather, its absence under fire. Any politician who dares to stand against the tabloids quickly undares.
Not one of us, nor any of our children, nor any of their children, nor anyone at all even unto the seventh generation, will live to see it dawn.
But one day, humanity will look back on “the war against drugs” with a shiver of the revulsion induced today by slavery, the criminalisation of homosexuality and other historic high points of legalised dementia…” (cont..)
phil(whoar.co.nz)
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and haven’t those dann boys grown up to be a pair of reactionaries…?
we have liam using his forum in the herald to push the govt t.i.n.a. (there is no alternative)-line on cuts…(!)
and that corin on breakfast television…
..getting all hysterical about pot-substitutes…
how about a bah..!..and a meh..!..to both of them…?
phil(whoar.co.nz)
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does anyone else think that breakfast television has become such a trainwreck..
that is has slipped over to the other side…
and has become watchable .. just to see how much worse it can be..?
(..what will petra say next..?..)
let me list the ways:..
there is the constant mugging to camera from the petra..
(which sometimes borders on gurning..)
..there are the painful ‘crosses’ to weather/business etc..
..there are the dire/inept attempts at interviewing…
..and the ad-libbing/interrupting of dann/experts..
..which is more a stream of unconsciousness…than anything else…
..the ignorance of the female host is as wide as it is deep..
(and i still ask:..why the hell didn’t they give her a screen test…?)
..bagust can ‘work’ on television..if she is tightly-scripted/edited…
..but live/free-form..she is a total disaster..
..and as this was all obvious from day one…
..that ‘why no trial-period?’ question just gets louder and louder…
..my guess is whoever just looked at her skite-reel..and went ‘she’ll do!’..
without realising we are talking about two entirely different skill-sets..
..and bagust just dosen’t have what it takes…to do live…
..which brings us to dann..
.. all the bit-players obviously find working with bagust a chore..
..but dann has the heaviest load to lift…
(..and tension levels rise for viewers when he trys to out-petra..petra…eh..?..it gets kinda pre-school-hysterical..scary..!)
dann spends most of his time looking like he is being buffeted by a storm…
…which he is…
..and all the time…he must smile…(or is is rictus..?..)
..y’know..!..when you are looking to the weather-presenter for yr gravitas…
..you have a show that is terminal…
..and for an ex-professional-virgin..
…she really trowels on the sexual-innuendo…eh..?
..that petra..
phil(whoar.co.nz)
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The moral authority of the West is rapidly collapsing…”
When did the West last have any moral authority? Not since the 1940′s at least. I am forever surprised that people thought Obama would be so different than Bush (or Clinton, or Reagan, or…)
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c’mon valis..!
are you telling us that after all those years of the gibbering monkey-man that was bush…
…that you are one of the few on the planet who were not sucked in by the marketing/selling of obama…?
pull the other one…eh..?
i was totally sucker-punched…
..(maybe that’s why it ‘hurts’..?..)
i gave him a new nickname when he started his very own war…
..barack bush it is…
..kinda fits..
..eh..?
phil(whoar.co.nz)
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I would disagree on that point; Obama has been a lot like Jimmy Carter – a bumbling baffoon. Sure, keeping your tyres inflated might reduce fuel consumption, but that isn’t the sort of solution that the voters want.
Of course, I find it somewhat ironic that these revolutions have happened now – don’t forget that the Iranian Revolution happened in Carter’s third year in office.
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phil, I don’t consider myself special at all. Anyone who follows American politics (and who isn’t trapped in the two party paradigm) knew that Obama was just an opportunist who ran a great campaign.
But that also maybe explains why you think Labour has a chance this year?
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does that sneer mean you think i think labour will beat national in a two-horse race..?
where have i ever said that..?
please don’t put words in my mouth that i have not said..
..and..hindsight is a wonderful thing..isn’t it…?
..when did you know he would attack libya ..?
phil(whoar.co.nz)
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john-ston, oh yes, “bumbling baffoon” would never come to mind when thinking of Bush.
However, I was referring mainly to US foreign policy, which changes very little from one president to the next.
Sure, keeping your tyres inflated might reduce fuel consumption, but that isn’t the sort of solution that the voters want.
What the voters want is to be told no solution is needed, a lie Reagan gladly supplied and for which there will be no end of tea baggers lining up to repeat in 2012.
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And that his timing was right – if it wasn’t for the fact that the Republicans were universally hated, he would have struggled.
I would argue that if you offered a big solution, such as an electric car for every household by x year, then they would accept it. Things like keeping tyres inflated is not “sexy”.
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aahh..!
would the record show that you were a hillary-hold-out…?
..there..valis…?
phil(whoar.co.nz)
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Phil U: Yes, Breakfast has become a junk show and should be canned.
And the election wont be a two horse race, only one horse will, bother to turn up.
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You mean the same Hillary now doing Obama’s dirty work in the middle east?
Your not getting it, phil. Red or blue, they are effectively all the same, particularly when it comes to protecting
“our oil”American interests.Like or Dislike:
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I would argue that if you offered a big solution, such as an electric car for every household by x year, then they would accept it
Accept what, the car? Of course. But accept the idea that their lifestyles had to change? I don’t think so. Much easier politically to lie that it doesn’t as is happening now and will until the water is lapping on the door step, i.e. way too late.
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was that a yes or a no..on the hillary-question…?
phil(whoar.co.nz)
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No Valis not that they have to change their lifestyle, but that someone was changing it for them.
That they would accept. They would accept the program, like they accepted the space program or the war in Iraq. They accept things being done in their name but not things that they directly must do themselves. The US sheeple have become passive and remain docile in ways that make anyone who is a student of history extremely nervous.
respectfully
BJ
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toad…far be it from me to agree with garth george..
but you have to admit the neo-liberal emphasis on turning all citizens into good-workers..
..has gone hand in hand with the denigration of raising children well…
..and a demeaning of the value of that for the child especially..
(that cold-hearted american wants them parked in baby-holding-pens…
…from 14 weeks…)
…and the enabling of sole-mothers to be viewed as lazy sluts….
..who should just be given grief…
..so in his own twisted-way…
..george has a point…
phil(whoar.co.nz)
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@phil u 2:52 PM
I get your point Phil, but Garth George sees “excesses of feminism” as the evil, not excesses of capitalism.
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I’m still doubtful, bj. The sheeple like to watch grand things be done, like your examples illustrate, but when it comes to something that involves them directly it’s a case of who moved my cheese writ large. We can’t even get rid of pennies and dollar notes, much less adopt the metric system as decreed some decades ago, so how are we going to avoid climate change? Half the population believe the ark was real for goodness sake, and so many hit the streets to protest Obama’s “socialism”. With this level of civic knowledge and engagement we are doomed.
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General Debate hijacked by Phool.Sad really. Philip Ure is the Greens spokesperson on this blog.
Get a job Phool
[frog: Hard to hijack a thread with no topic, Steve. Have you something of substance to add, or just trolling?]
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different attributed reasons…same outcomes…
phil(whoar.co.nz)
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Good release from Russel today:
Govt climate change target is green-washing
The Government’s greenhouse gas emissions target announced today is little more than green-washing, said the Green Party.
Climate Change Minister Nick Smith today announced the Government’s long term target of a 50 percent reduction in New Zealand greenhouse gases emissions from 1990 levels by 2050.
“This Government has set an unambitious* long term target of cutting greenhouse gas emissions,” said Green Party Co-leader and Climate Change spokesperson Dr Russel Norman.
“What’s worse, they have not taken any steps that would help us get there — in fact they are doing the opposite,” said Dr Norman.
“Their Energy Strategy prioritises mining and drilling for more carbon-intensive fossil fuels, including dirty coal in the South Island.
“They are spending billions on new motorways that will increase the oil-dependent transport of people and freight.
“They are subsidising irrigation schemes to enable even greater expansion in intensive industrial dairy, which will increase our greenhouse gas emissions.
“They weakened the Emissions Trading Scheme so that taxpayers subsidise polluters to pollute, and as a result it will not reduce emissions even 1 percent.
“It is simply green-washing to tell us they have a target to reduce greenhouse emissions in the distant future when their actions in the present increase emissions.
“I say judge a man by what he does, not what he says,” said Dr Norman.
“If they were serious about a target they would set milestones that they could be held accountable for, not a target that is 13 electoral cycles away.
“We need real action now, at every level of Government, to actually reduce our greenhouse gas emissions and support a transition to an economy that is resilient to climate change and high oil prices.
“A long term target is only useful if it is ambitious, backed up by meaningful short term targets, and investment in renewable energy, public transport and a smart green economy.
“Climate change won’t go away until we do something about it — the sooner we act to reduce emissions, the better off we will be,” said Dr Norman.
*The UN IPCC, the scientific advisory body on climate change, has stated that industrialised countries (including New Zealand) need to reduce their greenhouse gas emissions 80-95% by 2050.
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Missed this.
does that sneer mean you think i think labour will beat national in a two-horse race..?
It’s just that the electorate will not permit Goff to be PM, and if by some twist that happened, an even worse debacle would occur three years later.
..and..hindsight is a wonderful thing..isn’t it…?
..when did you know he would attack libya ..?
Why does it matter where he attacks? Doesn’t change a thing. And what about Afghanistan?
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http://whoar.co.nz/2011/the-next-crisis-will-be-ten-times-bigger/
“…If we don’t come to understand the underlying reasons for the current crisis and enact real reform of Wall Street and the banks and get big corporate money out of our elections we face a future that is truly frightening. (Yes, corporate money — total revenues of the 500 largest American corporations are 1,000 times larger than all our unions’ resources combined).
There is still time to act, but we must realize that our congress on its own is not going to enact meaningful regulation of Wall Street and the banks, their biggest campaign contributor and lobbying force. Pressure for reform must come from our citizens working together outside of our traditional political parties and governmental representatives.
There is no question that big banks working closely with and paying off our elected representatives to remove regulations on the books caused the current crisis and much of the current government operating deficit. It is unfair to ask American workers to stay on the job past 70 years of age to solve this financial problem as they didn’t cause it.
Similarly, it makes no sense to ask average American taxpayers to step up and bail out bank creditors at 100 cents on the dollar as it was these creditors who agreed to take this repayment risk and received the rewards over time in increased interest payments from financing these corrupt banks.
Americans cannot just ignore this problem and hope it goes away. Luckily, there are things we can do like cutting the defense budget (over a trillion dollars annually once you add in the costs of our intelligence services and the Department of Homeland Security) back to its level of just fifteen years ago which will save close to $700 billion a year. But first we must limit the lobbying power of the defense industry.
It will not be easy, but very little is riding on it other than the very survival of liberal democratic society on this planet. I believe the key to real reform lies in the realization that all corporate power and profit comes from the people’s initial consumption decision to buy these companies’ products and services.
If the people get organized and decide to stop buying the products and services of those banks and corporations that are the worst abusers of our democratic process we can effect real change.
The explosion of government debt in the world will trigger the next crisis. Like the debt in the mortgage crisis, most sovereign country debt is rated AAA so no investor will expect major defaults, especially among the more advanced countries of the world.
The amount of sovereign debt in the world, approximately $35 trillion and on its way very quickly to becoming $50 trillion will make the $3 trillion subprime mortgage crisis seem like a minor tremor compared to the major devastating economic earthquake to come…” (cont..)
phil(whoar.co.nz)
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“..Get a job Phool..”
i have one thanks steve…
it’s a cheeky little upstart of a news-aggregation start-up…eh..?
main mission:…tilting at the windmills/cutting thru the rightwing crap..eh..?
it’s called http://whoar.co.nz/ eh..?
expand yr mind…eh..?
phil(whoar.co.nz)
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INteresting commentary. Affordable housing, and affordable land in general, actually benefits the working householk. You would not think so reading the Herald this morning.
Go to:
http://www.newgeography.com/content/002160-the-best-cities-for-minority-entrepreneurs
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owen mcshane..
have a listen to kim hill..
she is interviewing someone who has written a book about/exposing you arc-ists…
..y’know..those who presented ‘evidence’ that second-hand smoke is harmless..
..and who then moved onto climatechange-denial..
that’s you…eh..?
phil(whoar.co.nz)
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didya listen to it owen..?..didya..?..didya..?
any answer/rejoinder/apology..?
phil(whoar.co.nz)
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Dunno Phil… I didn’t think he did all that well. She asserted that the skepticism was honest, and he didn’t catch that but accepted her assertion.
I would have knocked her back a bit on that I think, because most of the skepticism has its roots in money, in the CEI and from the Koch Brothers.
She did a good job of dragging him into the topic of reporters and journalistic responsibility. Why she had to do the dragging, I have no idea.
She’s pretty good, one of my favorite interviewers over all.
BJ
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i agree..he could have done better…
..what i found fascinating was that big-tobacco-climate-change-denialist-template/arc…
..that fits so well on our major denialist…owen mcshane…
..whoar..!
but anyway…(try this on for size..b.j..)
http://whoar.co.nz/2011/a-prophetic-interview-with-sir-james-goldsmith-in-1994/
seriously interesting/prophetic/insightful..
..a clinton/free-trade spokesperson comes in halfway…
…and the official-line bullshitting is jaw-dropping on so many levels..
..her and goldsmith go head to head…
phil(whoar.co.nz)
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He makes it more clear than I usually can, but he’s telling it like it is. Thanks for pointing me at it.
ciao
BJ
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some people play music…
and some people doodle…
i’ve figured out why i recoil from sting…
..he’s a doodler…
phil(whoar.co.nz)
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