Obama wins Nobel Peace Prize

[Doreen Peri]

I haven't watched the news for weeks. Well only bits and pieces. Anyway, I don't know who Perry is. Who is he or she?

[mtmynd]

I'm on SS too, as is Nate (SSI), plus Soo gets some change for taking care of him. Our government is good but there are a band of hooligans who live by an ideology that doesn't jive with the majority of folks. I don't know why they don't get voted out of their cushy office that they bitch about so much.

JT: "I don't know what the billionaires who are pulling the tea party's strings want. To enslave us? To destroy the social safety net so we will be at their mercy."

You're pretty close...

It boils down to the billionaires (the 2%'ers) fear the future of our country. They see that there will have to be major changes in our government and economic system. They fear anything that smells or tastes like 'socialism' ... a mindless fear as far as I'm concerned. There are successful socialized countries that are stable and pleasant places to live and work. They are what I call 'benign' socialists... a belief in the common good. The Scandinavian countries are quite socialist.

When it comes to wealth, the richer a person or group becomes, the more they fear losing that wealth. They worked long and hard to accumulate worth and they will strike out at anyone or anything that threatens that wealth... the treasure chest. Never before in history has there been so much wealth in the hands of so few. As the poor get poorer the rich will get richer - transference of wealth due to the most wealthy amongst us pays off our politicians to get laws passed in the favor of the wealthiest. It's hu'man instinct, really, to defend one's wealth, no matter how much that may be. The problem with having so much wealth in the hands of 2% of the people is those few have larger needs that anyone else does as far a guarding their riches. They do not want to give up any of it. Hence the lock the Republican Party has put on freezing taxes on the rich. The rich see taxes as money being taken from them and given to those that did not earn it. For them, this is an unfair (and even repulsive) act that should not and cannot be tolerated. If the poor want money they need to work for it, period.

They also see the government as spendthrifts... giving out money for public education, welfare for the extreme poor, food stamps for the hungry... even so radical as hating public libraries, public parks and they are even against public hiways. I'm sure you've heard of Perry's plan to sell several roads in Texas to foreign companies which will recoop their investment by turning these once free (a misnomer as taxes paid for them) road into toll roads. This will be a trend we will see if we, the public, does not get those rascally wabbits outta office. They simply hate anything public or shared.. they will crush the new Health Care Law at any cost without flinching even if our people need it. They have bought and paid for the politicians that will not give in to ANY thing that Obama would like to do or implement.. it matters not. Should Obama win against them, they will do anything in their power to stop him and his agenda.

The fear may have some basis, IMHO. The economic problems we are having are compounding daily... it is spreading from Europe to the States and threatening the Orient. The only alternatives are: work on a Socialist system that includes all the people or allow the wealthiest amongst us to create a Corporate State/Nation that will buy up the government and all the treasures Nations have for their own use. I don't see anything in between in the future... the costs have become prohibitive to do anything but choose between these two choices.

I hope I'm wrong, but I truly don't see our current economic system being able to continue as it had for as long as it did. It is no longer a viable system. It's become too costly and too cumbersome and no longer can afford to pay it's way for the people. The people and our local and state governments can no longer satisfy their financial requirement to the public. The system is not broken as much as nearly destroyed. I do think a benign socialism will be a great assist to the public.

(call these commentaries I've been posting my alternative Sunday Streams. )

[stilltrucking]

Doreen
Rick Perry Governor of Texas

I don't know where to begin to fill you in on him
Like his predecessor George W. Bush he talks to God and God talks to him.

But he has better hair than Bush.

Cecil I missed your post we were posting at the same time. I need to read it more closely later. It makes a lot of sense what you say. I am just wondering about Germany they don't seem to have a broken system. At least I have not read anything about their problems other than they are getting tired of bailing out Greece.

good night old friend

I keep thinking about seduction, how the republicans can seduce so many people to vote against their own self interest.

Rick Perry oh lordy, he gives me the squirms.

[mtmynd]

Proof that he is as nutz as Dubya.

Seriously... anyone who says that (a) god speaks to them and they believe they, in turn, should tell you what this god said to them is NOT to be trusted.

You only find this nonsense among so-called Christians. Their own Bible states clearly : ""Thou shalt not take the name of the LORD thy God in vain..."

When we speak for god we are really using that for our own vanity... our own good. Do we know of anyone who stood in a crowd and heard their god speaking to them? This would be an amazing experience! Hearing a voice from the beyond calling out Bertrand and telling him some command. The people around Bertrand would be totally shocked! Wouldn't you if you heard this mysterious voice from somewhere, you haven't a clue to, is telling this simple man a command to "tell everyone here that I am GOD and you are to do my bidding for me!" That is NOT god... that is somebody's deepest desire. That is their vanity, their ego that wants desperately to belong to the community of man and will actually claim that (a) god spoke to him. Foolishness!

And yet people love those myths and stories that people spoke to god and god spoke to them. It gives them a belief... a purpose to live. God spoke to them and their ego is busting out of their minds! How many people have been spoken to by god??? Only them! and always without anyone around.... in the deepest of silence.... never publicly! Why? You know why.... and so do they...

[stilltrucking]

[e_dog]

my choice fer Prez.?


Nader? Michel de la Moore. Juan de Stewarto. Denis de la Kucinichy.

Cythinthe Kinney.
stilltruckin'.
russ finegold.

anybodybutbushobama.
exceptfortrumporgingriche.

[mtmynd]

get out there and cast your vote!

[stilltrucking]

Yeah Russ could not even keep his senate seat in Wisconsin after Citizens United and the Kocksucking Koch brothers came to town.

I know what Obama's problem is
it is Obama's mama
the man is pussy whipped
He needs to write a book about about the faith of his mother.

Run dam it e_dog
you got my vote.

If you don't run then I will be forced to vote for Donald Trump because the farce is with him too.

Ah these later days of the death dealing United States.

[mnaz]

there is no vote anymore, only the crush of money.

if obama's a peace prize winner, then i'm the pope... strange days upon us.

[stilltrucking]

If Obama deserved his Nobel Peace Prize so did Kissinger.
I am tired of making excuses for him. The best I can say for him is he is a better man than George W. Bush and a better man than me too. Which is not saying much.

I was nauseated by all the feel good b_llshit on the main stream media about how we should pat ourselves on the back because of how far we have come as a society to have elected a black man as president. I sure as f__k did not vote for him because he was black. I voted for him because I thought he was competent. Now I think that his race is important. I think much of the hatred of him is latent racism by my fellow Americans.

Well so much for my a$$hole I mean my opinion. I don't know what the president of the united states can do anymore. All the talk about the most powerful man on earth seems like more b_llshit to me. The power has shifted to congress and the supreme court. The president has only one power left, to start wars. Obama seems like he is good at that. He is a marvelous commander in chief even if he is an inept president. The worst part of it is that I will have to vote for him again because who else is there going to be? Rick Perry?

Oh well
what the hell
interesting times like a Chinese Curse
I wish I was a poet
I would not need so many words.

Interesting article in NY Times today. Westin makes a lot of sense to me. The underlining is mine.

cutting and pasting
Opinion
What Happened to Obama?
By DREW WESTEN
Published: August 6, 2011

IT was a blustery day in Washington on Jan. 20, 2009, as it often seems to be on the day of a presidential inauguration. As I stood with my 8-year-old daughter, watching the president deliver his inaugural address, I had a feeling of unease. It wasn’t just that the man who could be so eloquent had seemingly chosen not to be on this auspicious occasion, although that turned out to be a troubling harbinger of things to come. It was that there was a story the American people were waiting to hear — and needed to hear — but he didn’t tell it. And in the ensuing months he continued not to tell it, no matter how outrageous the slings and arrows his opponents threw at him.

The stories our leaders tell us matter, probably almost as much as the stories our parents tell us as children, because they orient us to what is, what could be, and what should be; to the worldviews they hold and to the values they hold sacred. Our brains evolved to “expect” stories with a particular structure, with protagonists and villains, a hill to be climbed or a battle to be fought. Our species existed for more than 100,000 years before the earliest signs of literacy, and another 5,000 years would pass before the majority of humans would know how to read and write.

Stories were the primary way our ancestors transmitted knowledge and values. Today we seek movies, novels and “news stories” that put the events of the day in a form that our brains evolved to find compelling and memorable. Children crave bedtime stories; the holy books of the three great monotheistic religions are written in parables; and as research in cognitive science has shown, lawyers whose closing arguments tell a story win jury trials against their legal adversaries who just lay out “the facts of the case.”


When Barack Obama rose to the lectern on Inauguration Day, the nation was in tatters. Americans were scared and angry. The economy was spinning in reverse. Three-quarters of a million people lost their jobs that month. Many had lost their homes, and with them the only nest eggs they had. Even the usually impervious upper middle class had seen a decade of stagnant or declining investment, with the stock market dropping in value with no end in sight. Hope was as scarce as credit.

In that context, Americans needed their president to tell them a story that made sense of what they had just been through, what caused it, and how it was going to end. They needed to hear that he understood what they were feeling, that he would track down those responsible for their pain and suffering, and that he would restore order and safety. What they were waiting for, in broad strokes, was a story something like this:

“I know you’re scared and angry. Many of you have lost your jobs, your homes, your hope. This was a disaster, but it was not a natural disaster. It was made by Wall Street gamblers who speculated with your lives and futures. It was made by conservative extremists who told us that if we just eliminated regulations and rewarded greed and recklessness, it would all work out. But it didn’t work out. And it didn’t work out 80 years ago, when the same people sold our grandparents the same bill of goods, with the same results. But we learned something from our grandparents about how to fix it, and we will draw on their wisdom. We will restore business confidence the old-fashioned way: by putting money back in the pockets of working Americans by putting them back to work, and by restoring integrity to our financial markets and demanding it of those who want to run them. I can’t promise that we won’t make mistakes along the way. But I can promise you that they will be honest mistakes, and that your government has your back again.” A story isn’t a policy. But that simple narrative — and the policies that would naturally have flowed from it — would have inoculated against much of what was to come in the intervening two and a half years of failed government, idled factories and idled hands. That story would have made clear that the president understood that the American people had given Democrats the presidency and majorities in both houses of Congress to fix the mess the Republicans and Wall Street had made of the country, and that this would not be a power-sharing arrangement. It would have made clear that the problem wasn’t tax-and-spend liberalism or the deficit — a deficit that didn’t exist until George W. Bush gave nearly $2 trillion in tax breaks largely to the wealthiest Americans and squandered $1 trillion in two wars.

And perhaps most important, it would have offered a clear, compelling alternative to the dominant narrative of the right, that our problem is not due to spending on things like the pensions of firefighters, but to the fact that those who can afford to buy influence are rewriting the rules so they can cut themselves progressively larger slices of the American pie while paying less of their fair share for it.

In similar circumstances, Franklin D. Roosevelt offered Americans a promise to use the power of his office to make their lives better and to keep trying until he got it right. Beginning in his first inaugural address, and in the fireside chats that followed, he explained how the crash had happened, and he minced no words about those who had caused it. He promised to do something no president had done before: to use the resources of the United States to put Americans directly to work, building the infrastructure we still rely on today. He swore to keep the people who had caused the crisis out of the halls of power, and he made good on that promise. In a 1936 speech at Madison Square Garden, he thundered, “Never before in all our history have these forces been so united against one candidate as they stand today. They are unanimous in their hate for me — and I welcome their hatred.”

IN contrast, when faced with the greatest economic crisis, the greatest levels of economic inequality, and the greatest levels of corporate influence on politics since the Depression, Barack Obama stared into the eyes of history and chose to avert his gaze. Instead of indicting the people whose recklessness wrecked the economy, he put them in charge of it. He never explained that decision to the public — a failure in storytelling as extraordinary as the failure in judgment behind it. Had the president chosen to bend the arc of history, he would have told the public the story of the destruction wrought by the dismantling of the New Deal regulations that had protected them for more than half a century. He would have offered them a counternarrative of how to fix the problem other than the politics of appeasement, one that emphasized creating economic demand and consumer confidence by putting consumers back to work. He would have had to stare down those who had wrecked the economy, and he would have had to tolerate their hatred if not welcome it. But the arc of his temperament just didn’t bend that far.

THE real conundrum is why the president seems so compelled to take both sides of every issue, encouraging voters to project whatever they want on him, and hoping they won’t realize which hand is holding the rabbit. That a large section of the country views him as a socialist while many in his own party are concluding that he does not share their values speaks volumes — but not the volumes his advisers are selling: that if you make both the right and left mad, you must be doing something right.

As a practicing psychologist with more than 25 years of experience, I will resist the temptation to diagnose at a distance, but as a scientist and strategic consultant I will venture some hypotheses.

The most charitable explanation is that he and his advisers have succumbed to a view of electoral success to which many Democrats succumb — that “centrist” voters like “centrist” politicians. Unfortunately, reality is more complicated. Centrist voters prefer honest politicians who help them solve their problems. A second possibility is that he is simply not up to the task by virtue of his lack of experience and a character defect that might not have been so debilitating at some other time in history. Those of us who were bewitched by his eloquence on the campaign trail chose to ignore some disquieting aspects of his biography: that he had accomplished very little before he ran for president, having never run a business or a state; that he had a singularly unremarkable career as a law professor, publishing nothing in 12 years at the University of Chicago other than an autobiography; and that, before joining the United States Senate, he had voted "present" (instead of "yea" or "nay") 130 times, sometimes dodging difficult issues.

A somewhat less charitable explanation is that we are a nation that is being held hostage not just by an extremist Republican Party but also by a president who either does not know what he believes or is willing to take whatever position he thinks will lead to his re-election. Perhaps those of us who were so enthralled with the magnificent story he told in “Dreams From My Father” appended a chapter at the end that wasn’t there — the chapter in which he resolves his identity and comes to know who he is and what he believes in.

Or perhaps, like so many politicians who come to Washington, he has already been consciously or unconsciously corrupted by a system that tests the souls even of people of tremendous integrity, by forcing them to dial for dollars — in the case of the modern presidency, for hundreds of millions of dollars. When he wants to be, the president is a brilliant and moving speaker, but his stories virtually always lack one element: the villain who caused the problem, who is always left out, described in impersonal terms, or described in passive voice, as if the cause of others’ misery has no agency and hence no culpability. Whether that reflects his aversion to conflict, an aversion to conflict with potential campaign donors that today cripples both parties’ ability to govern and threatens our democracy, or both, is unclear.

A final explanation is that he ran for president on two contradictory platforms: as a reformer who would clean up the system, and as a unity candidate who would transcend the lines of red and blue. He has pursued the one with which he is most comfortable given the constraints of his character, consistently choosing the message of bipartisanship over the message of confrontation.

But the arc of history does not bend toward justice through capitulation cast as compromise. It does not bend when 400 people control more of the wealth than 150 million of their fellow Americans. It does not bend when the average middle-class family has seen its income stagnate over the last 30 years while the richest 1 percent has seen its income rise astronomically. It does not bend when we cut the fixed incomes of our parents and grandparents so hedge fund managers can keep their 15 percent tax rates. It does not bend when only one side in negotiations between workers and their bosses is allowed representation. And it does not bend when, as political scientists have shown, it is not public opinion but the opinions of the wealthy that predict the votes of the Senate. The arc of history can bend only so far before it breaks.

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/08/07/opini ... ral&src=me

Drew Westen is a professor of psychology at Emory University and the author of “The Political Brain: The Role of Emotion in Deciding the Fate of the Nation.

[mtmynd]

Westen wrote a thoughtful and meaningful article. To me, the most telling is:

But the arc of history does not bend toward justice through capitulation cast as compromise. It does not bend when 400 people control more of the wealth than 150 million of their fellow Americans. It does not bend when the average middle-class family has seen its income stagnate over the last 30 years while the richest 1 percent has seen its income rise astronomically. It does not bend when we cut the fixed incomes of our parents and grandparents so hedge fund managers can keep their 15 percent tax rates. It does not bend when only one side in negotiations between workers and their bosses is allowed representation. And it does not bend when, as political scientists have shown, it is not public opinion but the opinions of the wealthy that predict the votes of the Senate. The arc of history can bend only so far before it breaks.

Those numbers and the amount of money they represent is at the heart of the problem. So out of balance that we're on a continual slide since 2001, accelerating with each year. Our election of Obama gave our collective senses a respite, our hopes pinned to one man to turn the country around. I'm sure Obama felt the energy of the people... it was staggering to see the support of this one man. I'm sure he was staggered by the response to the point that he had to have questioned his ability to live up to the hopes and wishes of the country to rescue us from the eminent doom we felt we were approaching. I'm sure there is nobody who could live up to a real-life Superman who could swoop down from the skies and take away all our evils that seemingly took over the country. Who among us could live up to that figure?

It's still questionable whether any person elected to the highest position in the Nation... indeed the world stage, can live up to the ideals each and every one of has. How many supporters of Obama have your heard over his 2-1/2 year Presidency complain that he hasn't done what they feel is most important to them? It's common that we do that, but when a country is in such turmoil as it is where nobody, including the few who are running for Obama's office, has an answer.. a realistic, believable and most importantly doable solution? If anyone has that simplistic answer and they are not saying, why not?

Our Congress is chiefly responsible, IMHO, for the inability of the President to put his ideas into gear. We all know how the Republican's have signed a pledge with Grover Norquist to never raise taxes. NEVER is a ridiculously long time... long enough to change our government and hence, our Nation into one that our history will NEVER recognize due to the inflexibility of the (R) Congress to raise taxes... something that every country in the world has historically relied upon to keep the country afloat. And these same (R) politicians actually believe that the tax brackets need to be reduced even further than they are.

The onus must be on the 400 people mentioned in Drew Westen's article. It's sad to say our country has gotten to this point in our history where "We the people" have about as much say-so as the howling of a dog at the distant scream of a siren... all because the extreme wealth in the hands of those 400 outweigh the needs of the people of our country.

Can we expect our President to change that extreme? If it isn't in his lap, what type of character must he have to leave it for somebody else to correct? There is only one party running against Obama... a party bought and paid for by the wealth of those 400 and they will apparently do everything in their power to overthrow Obama and what he (once?) stands for - the people of the United States.

[stilltrucking]

Did you read the whole article, that was just a few snips from it.

He was paraphrasing from Martin Luther King Jr.

Those were the shoes — that was the historic role — that Americans elected Barack Obama to fill. The president is fond of referring to “the arc of history,” paraphrasing the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s famous statement that “the arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice.” But with his deep-seated aversion to conflict and his profound failure to understand bully dynamics — in which conciliation is always the wrong course of action, because bullies perceive it as weakness and just punch harder the next time — he has broken that arc and has likely bent it backward for at least a generation.

This is the bit that struck me

"But with his deep-seated aversion to conflict and his profound failure to understand bully dynamics — in which conciliation is always the wrong course of action, because bullies perceive it as weakness and just punch harder the next time — he has broken that arc and has likely bent it backward for at least a generation."]

[stilltrucking]

I am not flaming you Cecil I thought I made it clear that I was only cutting and pasting from the article which goes on for about four pages. I should have made that more clear.

I am flaming "no drama Obama". He is not speaking for me, I am tired of making excuses for him.
Ah shit.
What the hell difference does it make now? The damage is done.

[mtmynd]

I still feel that paragraph I re-quoted was an important one.

But no problem, amigo... we're all phucked anyway, including our President and even the whole world. We're all subjects to a greater king and that is the winner of the Corporate War between the giants that will happen one day (not in my time, I hope! )

[stilltrucking]

It doesn't do much good to get angry I suppose. I watched a movie the other day called Enemy of The State. Left me with a dose of paranoia. Suppose whoever we elect once in office becomes a hostage to the corporate state. I sometimes think Obama is hostage to the very very nice people that advise him. Where is Teddy Roosevelt when we need him on his bully pulpit ranting about the malefactors of great wealth. I hope you are right about Obama kicking Rick Perry's ass.

Yeah is a good bit but I think that arc is going to be bent a lot more before it arcs back. Fearsome times.

Out on a tangent I wonder what Molly would say about no drama Obama

I miss Molly a lot. She made me proud to live in Texas.

Next time I tell you someone from Texas should not be president of the United States, please pay attention.

It's like, duh. Just when you thought there wasn't a dime's worth of difference between the two parties, the Republicans go and prove you're wrong.

I dearly love the state of Texas, but I consider that a harmless perversion on my part, and discuss it only with consenting adults.

Molly Ivins quotes
http://womenshistory.about.com/od/quote ... _ivins.htm