Obama Wins Nobel Peace Prize

[anna_hun]

Originally Posted by hortysir

We did get off on a tangent,
but the general line of thought is still there for me....
DLJ thinks Obama is a spreader of hope and therefore peace
I think Obama is a spreader of Marxism/Socialism.
Which is why a socialist Europe awarded him the esteemed prize of "Nothingness"
I won't venture into your threads and holler "hijack"...
You don't come in here and call

Quote Horty:
Which is why a socialist Europe awarded him the esteemed prize of "Nothingness"
**************************************** ********************************
You mean Norway?
...cos us here in germany have capitalism

I persume the Reps are our equivalent of the conservatives...
The conservatives with her leader "Merkel"who was known to be a good friend of Bush...
is our strongest party.
Blair was in the labour party..but still ..lol
best bud of Bush..and gordon brown continues for Blair now

[hortysir]

I wish our republicans were conservatives (again).... Can't tell the difference between them anymore.
In a congressional race, up north, we just had a republican drop out of the race and endorse the democrat over the conservative...that's how alike the 2 parties are these days.
That would've been like Hillary dropping out and endorsing McCain

[DLJStRap]

Originally Posted by hortysir

I wish our republicans were conservatives (again).... Can't tell the difference between them anymore.
In a congressional race, up north, we just had a republican drop out of the race and endorse the democrat over the conservative...that's how alike the 2 parties are these days.
That would've been like Hillary dropping out and endorsing McCain

I don't know whether to laugh or cry.

Personally, I just spent a few years trying to stave off the "fundamentalist" force in Republican state politics. Locally, they beat a "moderate" state senator, whom I was backing strongly, then their candidate lost the general election, for the first time in ages! The next election cycle, the party regained its sanity and realized that "The Reagan Big Tent Principle" (and Commandment #11, "Don't attack fellow Republicans") were formulas that guarantee that fiscally responsible Republicans win elections handily. If you care about public finance and levels of taxation, you simply can't wander into the camp of the fundamentalists -- for their first love is not a secular concern, about the good of the economy, but a sacular one, about the good of your soul.

That is, fiscally responsible Republicans necessarily ought to be "socially moderate ones".

The scene (nightmare) was replayed in NY 23, this past few weeks, almost to a perfect letter script. The same scene played out in Wisconsin and South Dakota, to name just a few places where the fundamentalists have been trying to convert our Republican party into a vehicle for their fervent authoritarianism. (And where I have been politically active.)

What worries me, for the Republic herself, is just this --- these paramilitary groups -- those that the fundamentalists now seem to be seeking to fully activate -- resemble certain brown shirts of yore. I fear the rise in violence at public political gatherings, such as happened this fall at some town halls. As a Jew I fear this trend greatly, as this is a history that I, and others like me, know all too well. We have seen it in countless countries, and seemingly endless ages.

Oh, sure. We are not quite the target, just yet. But, all the factual predicates are there, for implicating us -- such as that there are many (Democrat) Jews in the Senate, far disproportionate to our strength in the electorate, such as the constant slur upon the ACLU that it is Jewish-run, such as the wealth of some of our principle public figures, such as the theme on "America betrayed", such as the hatred of "Wall Street" and "financiers".

Oh, yes, I fear the fundamentalists in my Republican party; I fear the America they would establish (as their idea of a "Christian" nation).

Unlike Obama, I understand what hatred is, and I place much less faith in man's generosity, and much more faith in the strength of the rule of law (which, also, accordingly to the legal histories of Germany, ca the 1930s, can also be perverted, just as the great reason of Kant and liberal German philosophy was corrupted ala Heidegger, and his love for master races).

So, in CABARET, they sing this song, "Tomorrow belongs to me"... a stirring song of patriotism, as German after German is confused into equating patriotism with Nazism. Frightening.

Truly speaking, the two parties necessarily must have some common grounds of agreement, overlapping circles, like the MasterCard logo, or else, we find ourselves in the condition that came to prevail before the tragic American civil war. (And the rate at which Americans, mostly right wingers, right now, are arming themselves is scary. I have been writing to all my friends, sadly, that the times to gather arms, and learn the arts of personal protection, and of group resistance to violence perpetuated against them, may once again be coming to us. We will not be slaughtered, largely unarmed, in Warsaw again.)


And, when you start examining the facts of the monied interests backing Sarah Palin, the "Tea Baggers" and similar plutocrat sponsored popular "revolts", you'd understand even more the parallels to an ugly hour of history just 70-80 years ago, on a continent near us.

[hortysir]

A "fundamentalist" republican doesn't, necessarially, have to be Christian.
I'm talking about fiscally responsible people that don't think we should be buying a Cadillac when our home is in foreclosure.
I'm talking about pulling the government out of our everyday lives and having confidence in the Amercan consumer and their ability to spend their money where they want.
And so what if, as a country, we slid back into following more idealogical principles??
Doesn't everyone talk about how they miss "the good old days"?
Well, in those days, we didn't have rampant gang rapes or gang beatings. The teen pregancy rate was much lower. Murder-suicides were seldom heard of.
The list goes on and on.
We've lost our moral compass to those of the thought that everything is okay as long as it makes you feel good.
A good 70-80% of Americans call themselves Christians.
In a democratic republic, you'd think they could get their way.
But Christians, in general, are quiet people. They hold to their faith and tend to let those things that are Caesar's be handled by Caesar.
(and, DLJ, I'm sorry for putting the Christian label on these things. I can only speak to what I know, personally. But I guess the same can be said for the Jewish people or any God-fearing people)
Too often the 'silent-majority' has sat idly by and allowed the secular world to have it's way.
A return to the 'good old days' sounds very inviting to me

[sybarite]

Originally Posted by hortysir

A "fundamentalist" republican doesn't, necessarially, have to be Christian.
I'm talking about fiscally responsible people that don't think we should be buying a Cadillac when our home is in foreclosure.
I'm talking about pulling the government out of our everyday lives and having confidence in the Amercan consumer and their ability to spend their money where they want.
And so what if, as a country, we slid back into following more idealogical principles??
Doesn't everyone talk about how they miss "the good old days"?
Well, in those days, we didn't have rampant gang rapes or gang beatings. The teen pregancy rate was much lower. Murder-suicides were seldom heard of.
The list goes on and on.
We've lost our moral compass to those of the thought that everything is okay as long as it makes you feel good.
A good 70-80% of Americans call themselves Christians.
In a democratic republic, you'd think they could get their way.
But Christians, in general, are quiet people. They hold to their faith and tend to let those things that are Caesar's be handled by Caesar.
(and, DLJ, I'm sorry for putting the Christian label on these things. I can only speak to what I know, personally. But I guess the same can be said for the Jewish people or any God-fearing people)
Too often the 'silent-majority' has sat idly by and allowed the secular world to have it's way.
A return to the 'good old days' sounds very inviting to me

Yep! There is a saying that goes, "Don't be so heavenly minded that your no earthly good!"

[hortysir]

[hortysir]

[DLJStRap]

To my way of thinking, "these are the good old days",
for they are the only days that I shall ever have to live.

(And, romanticizing some imagined "golden era" --
when life was allegedly better -- is fine --
as long as you remember it's just a myth you've made up.

And the same debunking applies to "future perfect states"
just as it governs "past perfect" ones.)