What Is Your Political Affiliation?

[Austupaio]

What needs to stop?

 

[Nairagorn]

The bull**** bickering between Anthropoid and Mage. Next person that posts about it gets a time out.

I just sent my kid to bed with no dinner for being an ass    I am in no mood!

 

[Austupaio]

But they're not bickering, I can understand if you're targeting PousinCourtesan's or Sir Saladin's additions, I just don't understand what Mage did wrong here.

Unless I've drastically missed something, Mage has not once insulted Anthropoid or otherwise demeaned him.

All I'm trying to figure out is what was out of line here, because I and other user's can't avoid it if we don't know what it is.

 

[Nairagorn]

Next person that posts about it gets a time out.

 

[RoboSenshi]

The simple fact is, the man has not delivered much of anything that he has promised and indeed, has in most ways turned out to be more corrupt, more nefarious and more deceitful than any President in living memory.

That's ****ing stupid.

Spoiler

Oh my god. Do you actually believe this ****? That has to be about the dumbest meme I've ever seen.

Also don't get me wrong I'm not a Democrat or Republican in fact I refused to vote in the 2012 election because I didn't like either candidate but some of things you've said astounds me.

 

[Humlenerd]

The simple fact is, the man has not delivered much of anything that he has promised and indeed, has in most ways turned out to be more corrupt, more nefarious and more deceitful than any President in living memory.

That's ******** stupid.

Spoiler

Oh my god. Do you actually believe this ****? That has to be about the dumbest meme I've ever seen.

Also don't get me wrong I'm not a Democrat or Republican in fact I refused to vote in the 2012 election because I didn't like either candidate but some of things you've said astounds me.

It's not like the US government is wiretapping the entire nation all the time, but it has made sure that a lot of information about people etc. gets stored without a valid reason. Did you forget about the backdoors in Microsoft etc. the NSA is using? Also: ad hominem. Stop that. This forum is better than that.

 

[Sir Saladin]

I'm sure every president since Nixon except for Jimmy Carter and maybe Gerald Ford has gotten away with more serious crimes than the one Nixon resigned over. People used to care about that stuff more than they do now.

Of course most of the zealous 'Bama bashers were strangely silent when Dubya was committing all of his "errors" and that's what can really get on my nerves.

 

[Vermillion_Hawk]

You can't really blame Georgie for being anything other than a puppet and convenient scapegoat. If you're going to blame someone for that 8 years, look no further than Rumsfeld, Wolfowitz, Perle and Cheney. Hell, Perle wasn't even a semi-elected official like the others. Blaming the President alone doesn't do anything politically except make you look like a demagogue.

 

[Sir Saladin]

I do look a lot like a demagogue now that you mention it. Maybe I'll get a haircut or something.

 

[Vermillion_Hawk]

Responses like that tend to exacerbate the issue.

 

[Anthropoid]

The simple fact is, the man has not delivered much of anything that he has promised and indeed, has in most ways turned out to be more corrupt, more nefarious and more deceitful than any President in living memory.

That's ******** stupid.

Spoiler

Oh my god. Do you actually believe this ****? That has to be about the dumbest meme I've ever seen.

Also don't get me wrong I'm not a Democrat or Republican in fact I refused to vote in the 2012 election because I didn't like either candidate but some of things you've said astounds me.

Well, in 2007 I was more than willing to give Obama the benefit of the doubt, and his ideas sounded very good. I believed in him. So much so, that he got my vote.

When the initial wave of right-wing sourgrapes ensued, I defended him, I pointed out how he was really a pretty good guy, I dismissed the (in hindsight) perfectly legitimate criticisms of things like his receipt of the Nobel Peace Prize on the basis that it was petty and irrelevant.

But as time went on, and more and more scandals, deceit, extreme partisanship, and the realities of his attitude became stacked up, I found it harder and harder to say anything in his defense. By the time of the 2nd election I was simply quiet. I listened to what he claimed, to what Romney claimed and I simply decided to myself: nope, can't believe either of this two. For the first time in my life I did not vote in a Presidential election.

Since then, I have to admit I've looked at his track record, his actions, his words, the criticism with a more neutral and probably a progressively more negative view. The interesting thing is, I am absolutely not alone in this transformation from 1. Obama supporter --> 2. Obama neutral --> 3. Obama crtic

Cenk Uygar

Cenk Kadir Uygur (Turkish pronunciation: [ˈdʒɛŋk ˈujɡur]; born March 21, 1970) is a Turkish-American political commentator, Internet personality, and political activist. Uygur is the main host and co-founder of the American liberal/progressive political and social internet commentary program, The Young Turks (TYT) and the co-Founder of the associated TYT Network. A naturalized U.S. citizen, Uygur was born in Turkey and raised from age eight in the United States. He worked as an attorney in Washington, D.C. and New York before beginning his career as a political commentator. Originally a moderate Republican, he is now a progressive.[2][3]

Dude strike me as a pretty exemplary "moderate" who does not adopt any party-line.

The 2000 election was the first time Uygur voted Democratic, supporting Al Gore. Uygur has supported Democratic congressional and presidential candidates ever since, though he frequently criticized the Democratic congressional leadership for insufficiently opposing the Bush administration on civil liberties and foreign policy issues. Uygur has criticized Blue Dog Democrats and other centrist and conservative Democrats, some of whom he has labeled as "corporatists". He has described former Wisconsin Senator Russ Feingold, a Democrat, as "probably the only guy in the whole entire Senate we can trust".[30] When Feingold was defeated for reelection in 2010 by Republican Ron Johnson, Uygur said Feingold had been "the best Senator we had, and we no longer have him".[16]

In part because of concerns over Bush's foreign policy and policies on civil liberties, Uygur said he would support an impeachment of Bush. Early in the 2008 Obama campaign, Uygur questioned Obama's suitability for the presidency, saying Obama lacked political experience at the national level and had limited achievements in the U.S. Senate. However, he strongly supported Obama later on.

Since the fall of 2009, Uygur has taken an increasingly critical attitude towards the Obama administration, saying after two years in office, Obama is, "not a progressive .... He is a consummate politician."[31] Uygur has criticized the 2010 health insurance reform law as overly watered-down, owing to excessive concessions to business and conservatives in Congress, noting the deal made between Obama and the drug companies.[clarification needed] Uygur has similarly criticized the 2010 financial reform law.[why?]

Uygur feels the Obama administration has too readily conceded to conservative ideological arguments to the point of demonstrating an unwillingness to defend liberal positions. However, Uygur voted for Obama in the 2012 presidential election,[32] despite his disagreements with the president.[33]

Uygur heavily criticized Obama again in 2013 after the revelation of the domestic NSA spying program by Edward Snowden. Uygur called Obama Big Brother and a liar during both his then Current TV show and the online main show shortly after.[34] Uygur called out Obama on civil liberties saying that he is trying to "one up George W. Bush" and gave examples of how the NSA program could negitivly effect the American Public.[35] Uygur has continued to be heavily critical on Obama and the Obama Administration on NSA related topics ever since.

 

[RoboSenshi]

You can't really blame Georgie for being anything other than a puppet and convenient scapegoat. If you're going to blame someone for that 8 years, look no further than Rumsfeld, Wolfowitz, Perle and Cheney. Hell, Perle wasn't even a semi-elected official like the others. Blaming the President alone doesn't do anything politically except make you look like a demagogue.

Now here's someone with some sense.

Anthropoid the reason I found you're statement hilarious is because you attributed the NSA scandal to the Obama Administration. The Bush Administration actually started and developed the program jointly with AT&T in response to the September 11th attacks and the subsequent "War on Terror".

The thing with Obama Haters is that they don't realise the Bush set the precursor for the failing of the economy. Obama Inherited a **** country and an even shier economy. American's are generally dumb and don't understand that Bush in his 8 years of office "Bankrupted" the U.S. Treasury on his Oil wars. He didn't do it alone of course **** "The Devil" Cheney was right there egging him on and getting RICH in the process. The reason I'm not a real big Obama fan is because he made promises that he knew sounded good but he knew he couldn't keep. Because the American Political and Financial system is so utterly warped that real change is not only unlikely it might be impossible.

I realise that it doesn't matter who you vote for anymore. We're all ****ed. Whoever is president will only do what benefits the Corporations that put him there or vote along with the party they are a part off. Republicans are dirty greedy mother****ers and Democrats are hypocritical idiots. One day the American Capitalist system is going to collapse and I'm sure as hell not going to be here when it does.

 

[Anthropoid]

Obama didn't change what Bush had in place? Yes I agree. Moreover, he as Uygar argues, has seemingly role modeled himself on Bush and sought to 'out do Bush.'

 

[Úlfheðinn]

I dismissed the (in hindsight) perfectly legitimate criticisms of things like his receipt of the Nobel Peace Prize on the basis that it was petty and irrelevant.

Alfred Nobel was trolling everyone from the grave by giving the Norwegians the right to give out the Nobel Peace Prize.

I am just glad I was there to see his glorious plan come to fruition. 

 

[rejenorst]

Speaking of Uygur:

Spoiler

Q: So after half a year there with your own show, why did you leave MSNBC?

Uygur: I was told, of course, as with everyone on television, if you get good ratings and generally follow the rules, you’ll get a show. That’s exactly what happened. I had a conversation with Phil Griffin, and he said I’d done everything he’d asked me to do and my ratings were clearly good. My last quarter at MSNBC beat Ed Schultz’s numbers from the year before, and Ed Schultz is terrific. But I didn’t get the slot, and they told me they were going to move me to the weekends.

I believe the reason for that was a conversation I’d had with them a couple months before. Phil had called me into his office and told me I needed to act more like the establishment, that MSNBC was not outsiders—they were insiders. And that people in Washington were not happy with my tone. I challenged the establishment every night, obviously the Republicans, but also the Democrats. I didn’t want to stay at a network under those constraints.
http://www.progressive.org/cenk_uygur_interview.html

The peg for this interview is, of course, your new show on Current TV, but you dated MSNBC for a while. Why didn't you marry them?

I got a speech about how Washington didn't like my tone, and MSNBC was establishment and I had to act like it.

The head of MSNBC [Phil Griffin] started by saying, "The guys who are outsiders are cool. I'd love to be the outsider, but we're not. We're insiders. We're part of the establishment, and you have to recognize that. And Washington is not happy with your tone."
http://articles.latimes.com/2011/dec/25/entertainment/la-ca-conversation-20111225

As for my political affiliation I don't really have any. Haven't found any political party/system that appeals to me.

 

[RalliX]

I realise that it doesn't matter who you vote for anymore. We're all ****ed. Whoever is president will only do what benefits the Corporations that put him there or vote along with the party they are a part off. Republicans are dirty greedy mother****ers and Democrats are hypocritical idiots. One day the American Capitalist system is going to collapse and I'm sure as hell not going to be here when it does.

Except maybe Rand Paul.
If you voted him into office, you'd have something else happen entirely. What that is I don't know for sure.
Probably distinct cuts to defense spending, maybe a focus on long term rather than short term growth.

 

[Dodes]

I dismissed the (in hindsight) perfectly legitimate criticisms of things like his receipt of the Nobel Peace Prize on the basis that it was petty and irrelevant.

Alfred Nobel was trolling everyone from the grave by giving the Norwegians the right to give out the Nobel Peace Prize.

I am just glad I was there to see his glorious plan come to fruition. 

Which U.S. President deserved it less? Barack Obama or Theodore Roosevelt?

 

[Mage246]

@Rallix - Maybe cuts and dismantling of essential services that would send the economy into a tailspin. Maybe that one. Actually, though, it wouldn't be that bad. Basically because Congress would never pass a single one of his proposals. So instead your have a President that gets nothing done except vetoing everything that hits his desk, making partisan gridlock 10 times worse than it already is.

 

[RoboSenshi]

Obama didn't change what Bush had in place? Yes I agree. Moreover, he as Uygar argues, has seemingly role modeled himself on Bush and sought to 'out do Bush.'

Sorry I don't listen to anyones opinion but my own. I read and research then form my own opinions.

@Rallix - Maybe cuts and dismantling of essential services that would send the economy into a tailspin. Maybe that one. Actually, though, it wouldn't be that bad. Basically because Congress would never pass a single one of his proposals. So instead your have a President that gets nothing done except vetoing everything that hits his desk, making partisan gridlock 10 times worse than it already is.

Here's the real kicker. They don't even need all the spending cuts. The top american companies in the world are still evading the 35% corporate tax that they should be paying to the us government. They do this through "Legal" money laundering. Companies like Chevron, Google and Bank of America with billions of dollars in profits and revenue are paying 0% in tax revenue to the government. All that needs to happen is for congress to close the tax loopholes that are present and the government would have billions in extra tax revenue to do what it needs to. But of course the politicians would never do anything to hurt the generous corporate sponsors that put them in office. So the burden of corporate tax falls on the small businesses that don't have the resources to avoid the tax like the big companies. Even though small business are the ones that employ the most people in america.

Adding to that the American Economic system known as trickle down economics (Reaganomics) has failed miserably. The notion that keeping the rich rich will eventually benefit the poor failed to factor in human greed. An example of this was in 2004 when George Bush allowed corporations to bring money back into the us by giving them a one year period of tax breaks where they would only pay 5% corporate tax rather than the 35%. The lobbyists claimed that if the companies were allowed to bring their money back into the us it would create jobs. Pfizer a pharmaceutical company brought back about $11 billion in profits and proceeded to immediately fire thousands of their employees. Instead they went and bought back some of their shares to raise their stock price.

Do you see the broken system of politics in the US? It simply can't be sustained for long. A cataclysmic political and economic collapse is coming and things are going to get really bad if things don't change. In fact things can't change. It's too late. The system is so warped that anyone seeking real change will never be able to get into sufficient power without the backing of the big corporations or their political party.

Like I said earlier. We're all ****ed.

 

[Anthropoid]

Here's the real kicker. They don't even need all the spending cuts. The top american companies in the world are still evading the 35% corporate tax that they should be paying to the us government. They do this through "Legal" money laundering. Companies like Chevron, Google and Bank of America with billions of dollars in profits and revenue are paying 0% in tax revenue to the government. All that needs to happen is for congress to close the tax loopholes that are present and the government would have billions in extra tax revenue to do what it needs to. But of course the politicians would never do anything to hurt the generous corporate sponsors that put them in office.

I don't know that that is true, but it certainly sounds true. Things like that get alleged a lot anyway. If it is true then the question becomes: why do we citizens put up with it? We are the ones voting for the corporate-backed scum. What are we really going to do about it anyway?

So the burden of corporate tax falls on the small businesses that don't have the resources to avoid the tax like the big companies. Even though small business are the ones that employ the most people in america.

Again, I don't know if that is true or not. Besides "burden" seems like an odd choice of words. If by that you mean, "mid and small sized business pay their taxes, but large one's do not" then perhaps that is another one I could say, 'sounds true but do not know for sure.'

Adding to that the American Economic system known as trickle down economics (Reaganomics) has failed miserably. The notion that keeping the rich rich will eventually benefit the poor failed to factor in human greed. An example of this was in 2004 when George Bush allowed corporations to bring money back into the us by giving them a one year period of tax breaks where they would only pay 5% corporate tax rather than the 35%. The lobbyists claimed that if the companies were allowed to bring their money back into the us it would create jobs. Pfizer a pharmaceutical company brought back about $11 billion in profits and proceeded to immediately fire thousands of their employees. Instead they went and bought back some of their shares to raise their stock price.

Now you're starting to sound like a demagogue 

I suspect the realities of "the economy" are way, WAAAYYYY too complicated to sum up in a short little bit like that, and the solutions will almost certainly involve extremely complex, multi-faceted, non-partisan mixtures of so-called "socialist" and "laissez-faire" policies all blended into one soup.

If I wanted to just take the most obvious path to responding I'd just say that "the Obama Economic system known as redistribution economics (Obamaanomics) has failed miserably."

Skip the issue of "who is to blame" for the 2008 meltdown (everyone born prior to about 1989, but especially Clinton and Bush, and Bush are to blame IMO) and consider that: Obama has been in office for 6 years. He has used his executive powers to inject enormous sums of money into the economy, and has sought (somewhat unsuccessfully) to change taxation schemes (Affordable Care Act is fundamentally a taxation scheme) corporate regulations, etc. Economy is still sucking wind, and in many respects is worse than when he came into office. One would think that, if his approach were "THE solution"--much as Reaganomics is made out to be NOT THE solution--that within 6 years the effects would've started to show some positive progress, no?

The problem is that leaders, and followers approach these topics as if they were religious dogma instead of business, and yes the right is as guilty of it as the left and the first point you made about big money constituency if not direct sponsorship is at the heart of it. Also, just to point out, even if campaign contributions are somehow "illegalized" it won't fix the problem. Take for example, Obama's biggest 2008 campaign contributors.

University of California $1,799,460 Goldman Sachs $1,034,615 Harvard University $900,909 Microsoft Corp $854,717 JPMorgan Chase & Co $847,895 Google Inc $817,855 Citigroup Inc $755,057 US Government $638,335 Time Warner $617,844 Sidley Austin LLP $606,260 Stanford University $603,866 National Amusements Inc $579,098 Columbia University $570,839 Skadden, Arps et al $554,439 WilmerHale Llp $554,373 US Dept of Justice $540,636 IBM Corp $534,470 UBS AG $534,166 General Electric $532,031 Morgan Stanley $528,182

Even short of whether or not these contributions should or should not have occurred, the simple fact that these CORPORATE entities felt it was a good idea to try to help get the guy into the White House shows that they expected him being the President to help them out in one way or another. Advocacy of polices that assist their bottom line would certainly be an obvious reciprocal exchange for that sort of support.

The real problem is, that even if campaigns are restricted to a maximum of $100,000 in some sort of effort to root-out this sort of corruption, it won't do jack****. Google, Harvard, etc., can still reach out to Obama and say "we support you, watch we do next" then act independently to promote him, and even once he is elected act to support him (as long as he acts to support them).

The idea that the "right" is somehow guilty of lining the rich mans vaults with gold but the "left" is somehow innocent of such wrongs is absolutely nonsensical, and to be honest, there is no way it is ever going to change. The only thing that can undermine it to some extent is if we as citizens stop paying allegiance either to parties, to political ideologies cast as religious principles, and never ever trust ANY of them and insist that they do as we the people wish.

Do you see the broken system of politics in the US? It simply can't be sustained for long. A cataclysmic political and economic collapse is coming and things are going to get really bad if things don't change. In fact things can't change. It's too late. The system is so warped that anyone seeking real change will never be able to get into sufficient power without the backing of the big corporations or their political party.

Like I said earlier. We're all ****ed.

Nah. There will likely be another boom cycle, the masses will be fat and happy again ala Clinton years (and the graft and corruption in the Beltway which do asses as "policy" will have very damn little to do with the when, where and how of that upswing). It will persist for a while like that, Congress approval rating will go back up to reasonable levels, some new criminal will get elected, maybe even a fairly clean guy like Rand Paul, who will immediately transform I reckon. People and politicians like to imagine that governments (whether big or small, statist or laissez-faire) play a "guiding" role in economics, but the fact is, governments mostly just respond to events, sometimes doing stupid things, sometimes doing less stupid things, and then try to either (a) take credit for the wins or (b) evade blame for the wrongs. The "Economy" is about us, not the government. "We" are the economy.