US General Election: McCain vs. Obama

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Also the dems have been the majority party for almost 2 years now, how many bills have they introduced to try to keep this from happening?
As you have said many have seen it coming for years.

 

You see, that's the whole problem. (Which also proves NOG's point.) The Dems have been effectively hamstrung, despite being the majority party in Congress, because they know Bush can veto anything they send up. The Dems don't have a super-majority necessary to pass a veto-proof bill. That's why NOG has a point that both parties deserve some blame going back to 1998 when we were still under Clinton. There we had a Republican Congress and a Democratic president, and so naturally for anything to get done it had to be bi-partisan. However, the reason why I place more of the blame at the feet of the current administration is because the Republicans controlled the White House and Congress for six of the eight years Dubya has been president.

 

Drew: Excellent points. Not to protect them, but even economic advisors can focus too much on one problem to see another growing problem.

I can see your point as well Aldeth but I don't believe that is a adequate excuse for inaction.

Perhaps the real culprit was ignorance on the part of the politicians.

 

True -- I often sit amazed in the car as mortgage ads talk about how you deserve "your" money. Generally followed by the bankrupsy ads talking about how it's not your fault that you're in debt.

 

I don't know what the actual breakdown is, but you guys keep beating-up on the poor. I don't think it was just the poor, because a lot of upper-middle class people bought very expensive homes that, in the end, they could not afford. But like I said, I'm not sure what the actual breakdown of income is regarding the defaults. Also, a lot of investors bought homes that lost huge amounts of value that turned out to be bad investments for them. I wonder how many of them defaulted as well.

Nevertheless, I have not seen anything in the way of proof that poor people are to blame for the defualts - only people with bad credit.

 

Who is blaming the poor? I don't think anyone put an income range on any comments -- except the 'headline' BTA used (which was for emphasis). Defaults occurred across the income spectrum.

 

We are in agreement.

 

Aldeth said it better than I did:

There's no denying that the D's share the blame - the question is to what extent. But to see R's blaming Clinton for signing a bill they were complicit in, that it was him who sent the stone rolling. Gimme a break! That is spin and cowardice and running away from the own responsibility. At least Clinton has the good sense and taste to stand for it and say that he thought the bill a good idea. He was not alone.

The D's were of course enthusiastic about neo-liberalism under Clinton. Everybody was in the 1990s. Liberals have always endorsed market liberalism and that has always involved a degree of deregulation. And as deregulation was very much in vogue then, of course they had their economic experts who played that tune.

But here's where I go further: Today's R's are an entirely different breed with a different mindset. They have something the D's don't have: Their view that government is not the solution but the problem. Just think about Grover Norquist, the anti-government jihadi who once said that he wanted to shrink government to such a size that it could be drowned and killed in a bathtub, and his fellow zealots in the Bush administration. I do not think that that attitude makes for good governance. Just what do you think all those shiny-faced, bright-smiling Republican candidates meant when they said they were going to "get government off the backs of the people?"

The fumbled response to Katrina was the result of such government downsizing to dysfunctionality. In that I see an expression of doctrinaire excess. With government like that you don't need enemies ... While they certainly didn't want to kill people, they were sure intent on drowning that agency in the bathtub and decentralise and privatise disaster relief. In view of the latter it was a complete success. Not only that, it went beyond usual privatisation and involved no-bid contracts because of the urgency. It can hardly get better than that. And no, I have not read Naomi Klein. In terms of delegitimising the failure manifest in the aftermath of Katrina had a disastrous, lasting and destabilising effect. What use is a (federal) government that does not protect the people, worse, rendered itself incapable of doing that because that would be 'more efficient'?

Which Republican didn't laugh at Ronald Reagan's odious joke about someone saying: "I'm from the government, and I'm here to help you?" I am saying odious because it is thinking such as that that delegitimized government and its crucial regulatory function. Now the bill is topping $1 trillion. Enjoy the party. Will Republicans learn from that? No - because it was Clinton legislation that sent the stone rolling, and you know, all parties are equally to blame and thus R's don't need to reflect on the practical consequences and general utility of their anti-government doctrine.

That is my beef with the R's and their attitude towards government - I think they're in many ways plain irresponsible. And that does in no way glorify the D's.

 

Ragusa, I think we should start calling them the Neo-republicans to avoid confusion, you know, like neo-liberals or neo-feminists. You're right that they're a completely different breed, but they haven't replaced the old breed, they just happen to be in power at the moment. I'm hoping for a resurrection of old republicanism in coming elections (not just the current election, but future ones as well).

 

Ok, we should really spend some time on this, because it's important to understand that there are different types of "liberals" just as there are different types of conservatives - it's not really a "one size fits all" as pundits on both the left and right proclaim so loudly. Not all liberals have been in favor of deregulation.

The New Democrats, as typified by both Bill and Hillary Clinton, Joe Lieberman (who is now an independent), Joe Biden, and to a lesser extent Nancy Pelosi, are those "liberals" who have moved to the center. They are still "liberal" type Democrats, but with a large difference in that they are friendly to big business. It's why some large corporations and lobbyists support them quite openly. They also tend to be a little "hawkish" in their foreign policy stance, which is part of their move to the center in the political spectrum (although Lieberman is as hawkish as any neo-conservative, hence the reason he is an independent now). And to some extent, they are supporters of free-trade and deregulation, part of their "business-friendly" agenda.

Nader-type liberals, for lack of a better term, tend to be much less business friendly. This makes us more like the old-style, New Deal type, liberals who are looking for reform and tighter regulations on business. These types of liberals believe very strongly in a division between the public and private sectors, believing that each serves a different function and purpose and that there are bound to be differences in public and private agendas, but that's not a really a bad thing. We consider ourselves to be the "real" liberals and, for anyone who is familiar with Ralph Nader, we have NOT supported a program of the government deregulation of big business. In fact, we have been arguing for years that the government's first job is to protect the public interest and to deregulate only if it does not damage that interest. Al Gore would be a pretty good example of that type of liberal and for anyone who has read _The Assualt on Reason_ it lays out a pretty good view of the current liberalism.

I know that Nader is not popular with either Democrats or Republicans, but given recent events, he appears to have been correct. Still, he has commented, "the problems with Corporate America are even worse" than he suspected. And that's saying something.

 

Chandos, you are not a liberal, you are a socialist or as I said before a social democrat.

 

Joacquin, in our country, that's an insult. Even when it's true.

 

For you old timers, sure. Not so much the younger folks.

'Stalin? Stalin who?'

 

I know it is Drew and it is the main cause for the confusion in political terminology both in the US itself but especially between the US and Europe. If you yanks could introduce socialist in your political terminology without the extremely negative connotations (or at least not any more negative than any other political term) things would be much simpler for everyone.

 

Agreed, Joaquin.

 

Anyone of voting age who doesn't know who Stalin or Hitler were, and at least a tid-bit of how they came to power, needs to be dragged into the street and beaten with large, wet noodles until they pass out.

Seriously, though, those two rose to power through public ignorance and buying into something of a mass delusion. Those two preyed on general public discontent and used it to veil their own history. We all need to be wary of politicians like this. This is one of the reasons I don't like Obama. I doubt he'll become the next Hitler or Stalin, but what I see does worry me.

 

What, pray tell, concerns you so much? You would do well to notice that the more informed conservatives around here still prefer McCain, but they certainly don't fear Obama or think his supporters are delusional. By your own admission, you aren't terribly well informed about Obama or McCain (and appear to get what information you do have from very partisan sources), so I'd recommend actually doing a little research of your own. Start at factcheck, head over to politico, and stay as far away from AM radio*, the opinion pages, and cable news as you possibly can. There's nothing of value to be gleaned from such sources.

* From both the right and the left -- sadly, liberal radio tends to be just as "informative" as conservative radio.

 

...And...Sarah Palin doesn't? Hilter played to a shattered national pride and to a rivival of a militaristic culture within Gemrany. Also, he played off of the supposed "betrayal" of those Geman veterans who served in WWI. Gee, I wonder who that sounds like.