Big difference between how Egyptians handle things these days and over here in America. Ordinary Egyptians have now within the span of a mere two years overthrown two official Egyptian leaders, longtime dictator but pro-American Hosni Mubarak of course and now Mohammed Morsi of the Muslim Brotherhood who was nevertheless perfectly duly elected by the Egyptian people once upon a time. Now the modern Egyptian trend seems to be "hey buddy you suck, gotta go." Here in America on the other hand a duly elected president can suck all he wants and unless he commits an impeachable offense he stays in office. It's the American way, he can practically run the country into the ground over the course of even two long terms and basically we bitch and moan about it, get angst over it, write columns and negative blogposts galore, work ourselves up into a fine dander whereas the Egyptians don't have time for this. OK so that's the don't quote me part, Janet Napolitano may be reading this right now and homing in.
OK so since I don't advocate the Egyptian way of handling leaders who suck and who otherwise disrespect the people there HAS TO be another way whereby, how shall we say we can speed up the process and get the country on the right course again. Recently WI Governor Scott Walker was subject to a recall vote and I've been thinking if we tweak a little here and maybe work in another Amendment over there and this would apply to Republican or Democratic presidents btw but let's say we built into the system that you're really making a mess of things and to be fair this has to be proven over a lengthy time, for example certain negative economic and even social indicators have to reach a certain low first and stay there but under this new way of thinking, our new system Obama would be subject to a recall vote right about now or certainly midway through his second term. Ditto retroactively would have been done to Bush Jr. I think it fair to say. Liberals positively couldn't stand Bush for eight long years, we can't stand Obama so this would cut across party lines and benefit folks of all political stripes and an important side benefit is it would be cathartic.
There has to be a better way:)
There is a better way but it ain't through politricks.
ReplyDeleteOn the one extreme we have countries whose populations oust their leaders when things reach a critical mass. In America we don't do that, we're at the other extreme whereby an exceptionally bad president can do his utmost damage for two full terms. We're laboriously tolerant in this regard. The voter recall is the middle way.
ReplyDeleteWith a potential recall vote Presidents wouldn't feel they can do what they want if they get a second term, would add accountability and circumspection to some of their wilder actions. Bloomberg got a third term in NYC and look what he did, he went nuts with the Nanny State. I'm curious as to soapster's better way.
ReplyDeleteThe problem is that not enough Americans even realize how bad our current administration is, and a recall would not even be enough at this point. I know the Soapster said we had to hit rock bottom before everyone realizes the error of the progressive way, and I keep wondering how much worse from where we are it has to get to hit that point. I am afraid we are still a long way off, I mean some of us get it, but there are too many low information people right now to get things turned around in the RIGHT direction.
ReplyDeleteIMO some kind of recall vote even for U.S. presidents makes sense. Let's say a leader has done nothing impeachable but is otherwise everything bad just short of impeachable offenses. Drags the economy down, has a reckless foreign policy etc. etc. why does it have to be the American way to painfully wait out such a long term(s)? I think the Constitution is definitely in need of a little tweaking at this point.
ReplyDeleteRecall elections at the Fed level would require a constitutional amendment. Some parliamentary governments DO change leaderships
ReplyDeletefrequently: for example in Australia president Julia Gillard
recently lost a party leadership post and consequently had to step down; same with Winston Churchill
at the end of WWII. We may suppose there are pros and cons. The Wisconsin recalls two years ago
involved not only the guv, but several state legislators. The legislature election involved $ 3.5 million...the recalls $37 million and though the guv survived, several GOP legislators did not:
yet nothing was solved in that state. Interestingly, the recall
concept was hotly debated at the US constitutional conventions during the Revolutionary War, and
rejected as being disruptive of
government continuity-the time
of terms was considered sufficient
even for unpopular politicians.
That's my whole point BB, maybe it's time we pass another constitutional amendment. I get the case for government continuity but the caliber of president back then (Washington, Jefferson, Adams) was much higher than it is today (Carter, Bush, Obama).
ReplyDeleteAmendments are difficult (and sometimes silly-remember prohibition?) but they reflect
ReplyDeletepopular opinion. For example, 16 states have signed on to overturn
SCOTUS 'Citizens United', though it
will likely not go anywhere.
Regarding presidential comparisons, experts
tend to rank the first few very highly. Of course various presidents faced varying problems in the context of their times. But
even high ranking presidents like
Lincoln (unanimous #1) had their
detractors; the southern states would surely have recalled him
...and failing that, shot him in
the head.
BTW, the expert rankings put Obama
ReplyDeleteat #14, two behind Adams.
But Z is convinced he's the worst president ever.
ReplyDeleteNever mind all the facts.
Mediocre at best.
ReplyDeleteCause facts are subjective.
ReplyDeleteWith respect to your "expert" ranking, BB, of presidents, Obama was only included in one of the various surveys listed because he obviously he is the newest president. And that survey was from 2010, he has screwed up A LOT since then (and we haven't even truly felt the bad effects that Obamacare is going to create). Oh yeah, some ladies I was working on a PTA project last night were complaining about how their insurance rates at their jobs are getting worse and worse because of Obamacare, people are starting to find out how bad it really is (btw, I did not bring it up)
ReplyDeleteMeanwhile, unemployment rates hover near 8%, and has averaged I would guess about 9% during his presidency. Food prices are skyrocketing, as are gas prices. I myself picked up a third side job to try to help bring in some extra funds.
Can someone explain how things don't suck with him as president? In what aspect of your life are you better off as an American since 2008? Because I am not seeing it. But yes, his approval rating is at 46% per Gallup, so I guess some others are finally seeing it, too.
Yes, Saty, facts are pesky things, aren't they?
Her thinking is in another realm, doesn't really follow the unemployment and underemployment numbers. Look my own labor union is now against Obama because of ObamaCare but since she brought up facts I'll give her this. It's a fact that we're in a very slow recovery, looked at historically that doesn't make him a great president and some presidential historians skew left anyway like Doris Kearns Goodwin. On the other hand things got alot better much quicker when Reagan took over from Jimmy Carter.
ReplyDeleteHey, I thought we were making some progress here when we seemed to agree about snapping turtles!!
ReplyDeleteI guess stock market records, budget surpluses, the housing market picking back up, major social progress... none of that matters.
ReplyDeleteWhere are budget surpluses? I thought we the sequestration going on.
ReplyDeleteBudget surpluses in which parallel dimension? social progress under Obama? I've an open mind about that but let's see what happens in the wake of the George Zimmerman verdict first.
ReplyDeleteI think Saty means social progress in that Suzie can marry Sally, and then both of them can get federally funded abortions on demand, well hot damn those are important facets of life that needs the attention of the POTUS!
ReplyDeleteWe both know that's what she meant but social progress means alot of other stuff too and from what I've been reading on Drudge right now there are massive protests in many major cities in the wake of the verdict and not everyone is behaving all that civilly. Saw in the Times today that Obama has said to accept the verdict but are they listening?
ReplyDelete"...stock market records, budget surpluses, the housing market picking back up..."
ReplyDeleteA house of cards built with Federal Reserve Notes.
There have been several budget surpluses during the Obama administration whether you like it or not. The stock market's record highs have had the capitalists making money hand over fist and the housing market IS picking back up. DADT, DOMA and millions of people who risked losing everything they owned if they got sick now have health insurance. You can deny all these things if you like or you can be an elitist who lives in a theoretical world based on fiction and sniff over the unwashed masses, but far as I'm concerned in the real world the federal government has made some considerable progress. North Carolina, on the other hand, is devolving exponentially day by day.
ReplyDeleteYou know what I heard, those rules that the gov't passed that said to those banks and financial institutions you have to loan to poor folks so they can buy homes, I hear this attitude, this program is quietly back on track. OK so homebuys is picking up again, wait for the next bubble.
ReplyDelete"OK so homebuys is picking up again, wait for the next bubble to burst.".
ReplyDeleteThe devil's in the details Saty but you've never been one to really delve into the specifics of anything have you?
ReplyDeleteThere has been a massive infusion of cash into the financial system by the US Federal Reserve and other central banks. The US Fed is currently purchasing some $85 billion worth of mortgage-backed securities (hence why the housing marking is on an uptick) and treasury bills every month, essentially printing money to buy up government debt and bad assets held by the banks. The total assets owned by the Federal Reserve have climbed to $3.01 trillion, more than triple what they were in 2008.
All major world central banks have taken similar actions. In July, the European Central Bank moved to reduce its benchmark interest rate to the lowest level in the history of the euro. The size of the holdings of the six largest world central banks has nearly tripled, to €14 trillion in 2012.
The actions of the central banks are invariably described in the mass media as necessary measures to address unemployment and other social ills. In fact, their central purpose is to make virtually unlimited sums of money available for financial speculation.
This policy is directly tied to the frontal assault on the working class internationally. Awash in cash, the corporate and financial elite insists that there is no money for health care, pensions or decent wages. Every basic right must be eliminated in order to ensure the continued flow of funds into the banks. Millions of people have been thrown into poverty, unemployment and destitution as a consequence.
The decimation of wages and living standards has the additional effect of counteracting the inherently inflationary impact of the central banks’ policy. Under any other circumstances, the mass printing of money would cause runaway price inflation, but falling wages and plummeting investment are directing the flow of cash not into goods, but into asset values.
The systematic reduction of wages, the precedent for which was set by the Obama administration in the 2009 restructuring of the auto industry, has fueled an enormous boom in corporate profits, which have set records for three years in a row. Yet these profits are not reinvested. American corporations are sitting on about $2 trillion in cash, much of which is simply funneled into the markets.
The entire process is completely unstable. The ruling class stumbles from crisis to crisis, and its response to one crisis sets the stage for the next. The economy stagnates, and new speculative bubbles threaten to burst, unleashing a financial collapse that could far eclipse the crisis of 2008. While engorged in excess, the ruling class appears at the same time bewildered, the measures it adopts increasingly improvisational.
At the same time, the infusion of cash into the world economy is undermining the global exchange system and fueling currency wars and competitive devaluations. This month, Japan became the latest economy to announce an expansion of its money supply in what was widely seen as an attempt to bolster exports by devaluing the yen. A breakdown of the international monetary system, and consequent turn to trade war measures that characterized the response of governments to the Great Depression, is occurring.
The social and historical catastrophe confronting mankind is not simply the product of an economic crisis in the abstract. This crisis is mediated by class interests, and these class interests find expression in definite actions. Behind the central banks and governments stand the interests of a financial elite whose relationship to the rest of society is fundamentally parasitic.
The Quantitative Easing (Q.E.) under Ben Bernanke has had a kind of temporary and positive illusory effect on things, that is the endless printing of money by the Fed and the infusion of this into the economy effects stock market decisions here and there, oh here's something positive to report and this somehow all gets translated into gosh darn what a fine president Obama is! Soap's right, it's all a house of cards.
ReplyDeleteNext time you come face to face with a large living room rug Saty, I want you to do yourself a favor.
ReplyDeleteFirst measure the rug in inches. Then, measure the rug in centimeters.
Let me know if you end up with a bigger rug.
Obama's just the puppet. I'm more concerned with those holding the strings and making him dance.
ReplyDeleteI like the analogy of the rug, since Saty probably won't understand your previous comment, Chris, maybe that will make some sense to her.
ReplyDeleteIf not I have others.
ReplyDeleteNext time you have pizza for dinner, first cut it into 4 pieces.
Then, cut each of those 4 pieces in half so that you end up with 8 pieces.
Let me know if you end up with more than the one pizza.
Well I am chuckling because I have seen comments posted elsewhere by Saty after the ones above and so it is pretty obvious that the discussion is over her head. Which is probably typical and most Americans are like her and would rather not learn about economics and would rather suck at the teat of government instead of being personally responsible for themselves.
ReplyDeleteIt's not that she's not entitled to her POV as we all are but she acts like if you disagree with her POV you're disagreeing with Truth itself not to mention established with metaphysical certitude Facts.
ReplyDeleteRug dimensions: apples and oranges. You can weigh the rug, measure the rug in many systems. As you can a gold brick. What
ReplyDeletewe should observe is value, not physical dimensions. An ounce of
gold is always 28.35 grams, but the value of an ounce of gold has
dropped almost 30%.
Americans are like her and would rather not learn about economics and would rather suck at the teat of government instead of being personally responsible for themselves
ReplyDeleteIf by 'sucking at the teat of government' you mean that I benefit from the safety of having law enforcement,fire departments and the 911 system, that I drive on roads well-maintained by the department of transportation, that I enjoy days off at the beautiful park that the county parks and rec department manages, and that I often visit the library and county museum of history, then yes, certainly I'd have to agree with you.
If you refer to anything other than that, then I would be forced to call you deluded.
In terms of the general economic situation in the county where I live, Beth, I *AM* the 1%. We have been fortunate enough to not need to participate in any social service programs and certainly even when my husband was laid off for months there were none we could qualify for.
If owning a home and several acres of land, being employed full time and having a minute debt-to-income ratio isn't being personally responsible, I don't know what is. Is it that hard to believe that someone who actually *has* cares about those who *have not*?
When it comes to being a student of world economic systems I go with soapie and he hardly trends in your direction Saty.
Delete"..established with metaphysical certitude Facts."
ReplyDeleteIs that phrase a synecdoche or a metonymy?
'.. most Americans are like her and would rather not learn about economics and would rather suck at the teat of government instead of being personally responsible for themselves."
ReplyDelete..Say what? Let's examine more closely-
"A sizeable slice of the upper class has since swung into the liberal camp, changing the balance of power in American politics. The Forbes 400 is now heavily populated by a new breed of billionaire: high-tech entrepreneurs, financial whizzes, and communications moguls. Today's super rich are also far more educated, a trait that correlates with liberal values like tolerance. In 1982, roughly 50 members of the Forbes 400 had college degrees. By 2006, 244 of those on the list had finished college, and at least 132 -- or nearly a third of U.S. billionaires -- had graduate degrees.
Some of the biggest fortunes in America now tilt left, and that can be seen in the vast sums of cash pouring into Democratic coffers and progressive organizations."
-American Prospect
But if we accept the premise that higher education swings predominantly left...College degrees are often overrated. There be supermarket bosses, honchos and moguls and all they can come up with to increase sales is suggestive selling, that and increasing the amount of paperwork you have to do everyday.
Delete'College degrees are often overrated' Sometimes, sometimes not.
ReplyDeleteTrue, rightwingers know far more about economics than the PhDs in the field and the business majors are intellectually tepid. But,
then again, would you rather see a Wiccan faith healer or an MD?
You know the thing about MDs and yes I would take one over a Wiccan faith healer but that being said I'm amazed that in the year 2013 doctors are still quite limited in their knowledge. They don't know the true causes of tinnitus for example and hit you with bullshit like it's earwax. They can't cure you of your tinnitus but then want to move on to colonoscopies.
ReplyDeleteApparently tinnitus hasn't the attention of cancer, etc. Even the
ReplyDeleteburgeoning study of brain physiology seems week in the auditory
areas. Clearly, it is a troublesome problem; but it may in the future be cured by simple surgery or medication. Have you ever tried the lidocaine route?
REF 1 2
..interesting stuff, it has been used as a dental anasthesic and a topical ointment for shingles. I wonder if yours came on as a result of episodic high blood pressure some time past, or have you
had it since you were a kid?
Never had tinnitus as a kid but it is traceable to a few years back on the job. It's not your typical ringing though more like Radio Frequency Hearing and it's constant. It's like hearing actual things out there, pulses and vibrations and undulating hummings only on a higher volume. Don't use earplugs and listen to my MP3 at a reasonable distance from my ears. Guv't conspiracy?
DeleteThere are a number of known causes for tinnitus and physicians typically work by eliminating the
ReplyDeletemost serious..Meinere's Disease, tumor etc. You might go through the list and eliminate causes (like too loud an MP3 player, no earplugs at the firing range etc). Somewhere on that list lies the
cause of your tinnitus. It is not imagination, there is a physiological cause for auditory nerves to have an anomalous function.
When it comes to being a student of world economic systems I go with soapie
ReplyDeleteYeah, and look what happened with bitcoin.
Saty still cannot address the actual economic problems that the Soapster brought up, thanks for bolstering my point that you do not understand economics.
ReplyDeleteAnd if you are a so-called "have" that cares about the "have nots" then you would yourself do things to help them and not look to the government to do it for you, so you ARE depending on the government to do the charitable thing on your behalf. I myself do not think the government need to do that for me.
BTW, Z-man, nice new look to your blog here!
Beth I see you got some kind of mobile site. That's my current project but my current mobile settings don't seem to take and I know there's websites that do this for you. Been using my new wi-fi tablet in the public library, everything takes getting used to and the other day innocently trying to download some music videos and hardcore porn apps kept popping up and wouldn't go away. Wondering was Weiner a few chairs down on some iPad?
DeleteWhat makes you think I'm not involved in charitable enterprise, Beth? Just assumption? I am not, however, naïve enough to think that there is no need for social services. That delusion is cherished by those who live in tiny worlds surrounded by people exactly like themselves....not for those of us who live in the actual real world of today.
ReplyDeleteAnd may I reiterate that qualitatively there is no difference whatsoever in basing one's political viewpoints on works of fiction.... and basing one's religious viewpoints on works of fiction.
ReplyDeleteLibertarians are to politics what Scientologists are to religion.
And Beth: if personal charitable enterprise (in which I participate on a regular basis) was enough to support everyone who needed it, social service programs never would have been established in the first place. The idea that the poor of an entire nation of 300 million can be adequately supported through private charitable enterprise is a delusion trotted out by those who need an excuse to gut the programs that do support those people.
Toyed with the idea many times of doing a blog just about charities. If charities worked the way they should they should cover most of it along with some charitable giving by the famous but to take one charity that constantly badgers me in the mail I'll send in a nice check once or even twice a year and hardly get a thank you when there's a demand for more money and makes me wonder where all the money is going. The idea of charities is fine and in my view they trump gov't programs many times over but they need to be cleaned up and audited to make sure most of the money is going to those in need.
DeleteWhich is why I will never donate to Komen.
ReplyDeleteBut going back to my thought process, this 'charity can handle it' is so incredibly unrealistic, so transparently delusional and so patently false it's hard to imagine how people really buy into it. I can only surmise that it gives them some sense of moral comfort as they eviscerate programs that keep children from starving and from little old people freezing to death in their apartments.
ReplyDeleteIf charity could handle it, charity WOULD handle it. But it can't, and therefore we have social service programs, despite the endless work of the Right to shut them down.
Charity should be able to handle it, Beth is right on that. The reason so many of them don't is because as I've said some are corrupt or don't handle the books correctly. Wanna know why nothing changes in Africa? it ain't that the charities are bad it's the governments are corrupt. In this country social programs never really lift people out of poverty, they're designed for failure and anything the government runs gets fucked up anyway.
DeleteMaybe they SHOULD be, but they CAN'T. If they COULD, social service programs never would have needed to be implemented in the first place.
ReplyDeleteTo use the 'charity should be able to handle it' and 'personal responsibility' excuses are just ways of soothing the conscience as actual programs that actually help actual people live from day to day are dismantled. Where's the charity then?
It's been how many decades since LBJ's War on Poverty and yet we still have the poor and the social programs.
DeleteWould that society were like lab mice: we could divide the poor,
ReplyDeletethe homeless, the desperate into those that got private charity help, those that got government food stamps, those that were left alone to find jobs in the free market, those that turned to crime
to survive, those that died of starvation. Perhaps we would find the answer. Humans are not lab mice...but some are stuck in the maze.
Jesus said 'the poor you will always have with you'.
ReplyDeleteDo you think he would approve of the elimination of social service programs that, however flawed they are, DO help people? Would he approve of taking away assistance that can mean the difference between three meals and hunger, between home and homeless, that can prevent having to choose between medicine and utility bills? Do you think he would approve of a nation that refuses to care for its members? Do you think he'd be cool with that?
Dunno, that's politicizing Jesus. Didn't someone once say God helps those who help themselves?
DeleteUh, Jesus was pretty political, or does the Douay bible not translate it that way? By any rational, objective assessment, Jesus was a Socialist.
DeleteThat's Dave Miller's position the politically liberal Jesus. Look it's a respectable position it's just not mine.
DeleteI'm not even going to get into the fact that capitalism is designed to keep a proportion of the population poor and hungry, and that every single day legislation gets passed due to the influence of 'business' that makes it possible to continue to keep them poor and hungry.
ReplyDeleteSo you see, as long as we have a capitalistic society that requires a mass of people to remain poor, we will always have those poor. No effort by anyone will fix the situation because businesses and capitalists will make sure that the poor remain so. That's why you see so many arguments recently against raising the minimum wage; oh, it will destroy businesses. Back when the socialist faction was fighting for things like the end of child labor, the eight hour day and the weekend, businesses said the same thing: oh, it will destroy businesses. It didn't, of course, and it helped countless people move one step out of virtual slavery to their employers. But the gears of capitalism are greased with the poor, and if legislation gets enacted that affords people an actual living wage, the poor might be able to exercise a little self-determination, and by God, we can't be having any of that.
Ever hear of Pol Pot and the Khmer Rouge?
DeleteFolks folks folks Liberalism has been tried for decades and it doesn't work. What more empirical proof do you need???
ReplyDeleteLiberalism? I thought at first you wrote Libertarianism, and I was about to agree with you wholeheartedly. Libertarianism is an abstract theory that doesn't work in real life; certainly there is no country in the world that could be called Libertarian. Because it doesn't work.
ReplyDeleteOn the other hand, various flavors of socialism, generally a form of market socialism, can and do work every single day in most of the western civilized world. Of course, Americans feel a need to deny this and to exclaim loudly that it certainly isn't as good as what we have HERE, and that it never could be as good as what we have HERE, but you know, when you pull away all that red white and blue bunting, and get past the hyperbole and the kneejerk reflexes, it actually does work, remarkably well, with far better outcomes than what we see here.
Capitalism is based on greed and exploitation, and therefore will always need to keep a significant sector of the population down, to facilitate keeping a very small minority of the population way the hell up.
As we have seen with the 1%; as we have seen with the couple of hundred people who hold more wealth than the rest of the 300 million in America *combined*. As we see with the vast income disparities, where a CEO makes 450 times as much as a regular employee.
Capitalism doing what it does best: enriching the few by impoverishing the many.
"Libertarianism is an abstract theory that doesn't work in real life"
DeleteWe don't really know because it's never been tried. If it were tried a man could go down the street to legally visit his favorite prostitute, go home later and take his favorite formerly illegal drug and Paula Deen could bat around the N-word with impunity without the sky falling and also pay Maria her dishwasher 2 bucks/hr. and HS teens could go to the store and buy their smokes out in the open. Do we live in that type of world? have we ever? yeah maybe it wouldn't work but has it ever been actually tried?
If it's ever been tried it's been a complete failure, otherwise it would still be carrying on.
ReplyDeleteIt's fiction, it's the Scientology of the political spectrum, it's fairy tales that get narcissistic rebellious teenagers hot and sweaty, it's non-viable in the real world.
I don't really disagree I'm just pointing out that it's never been fully tried. Let's say there were no federal standards for the meat you buy in the supermarket, that's part of the libertarian utopia and soap would say the market would sort this out the good meat from the bad but who feels like going through this folks getting sick and all. Maybe it's never been fully tried because it's too risky.
DeleteA system or mode of action in which the strongest survive, presumably as animals in nature or human beings whose activity is not regulated by the laws or ethics of civilization.
ReplyDeleteA state of ruthless competition or self interest.
..The Law Of The Jungle
Social Darwinism
Delete