The Foolhardiness of American Presidential Elections

[Encephalon]

Interesting. I tend toward favoring the governmental organizations of the U.S. being way more isolationist while actual U.S. citizens becoming way more Internationally minded and rolling up their sleeves to discover ways to engage and help both locally and internationally.

 

I've spent time abroad myself and it brought home fast just how insular and parochial the average American is.

 

What I've long been flustered about is my country's hubris in thinking there should be a "one-size-fits-all" path to superior economic and societal development. Of course, having said that...there are plenty of other countries that have the same kind of hubris. So it's not as if this superiority mindset is somehow restricted to only Americans. It's just that since the U.S. is still the top-dog (for now) it's easy and popular to hate on America and Americans.

 

I'm pretty sure as China, India and other countries like them overtake the U.S. they will finally begin feeling the heat of anger and envy that was long reserved strictly for Americans.

 

The subject of American Exceptionalism is a vast one, full of true believers and their tomes of unabashed conceipt. Compared to other nations that are thousands of years older than the US, yes, they have their ethnocentric mythologies, but it doesn't compare to the policy statements such as those of the recent neoconservatives' Project for the New American Century or any number of political mythologies that we've been conning ourselves with for the last 50 years, so says Bracevich and others.

 

I am under no delusions about Chinese opportunism deferring to peaceful co-existence if they can secure advantages, but they've got problems of their own. If they get a handle on their ecological affairs before it's too late, they might share their achievments with the rest of the world.

[Apech]

I'm not sure I buy this 'rise of China and India' idea entirely. I cannot justify my feeling rationally and there is no doubt their economic power is growing. But somehow I feel its too predictable ... and history is not like that. Historians, like economists are great at predicting after the event ... but as to how the power in the world will shift in the coming years? who knows?

 

You can only deal with what is now. 'There is only now .. tomorrow doesn't exist' (to quote Lady Toda from Shogun (lol)).

 

I suspect the main tension will be between the New World Orderists and those who do not want Global Govt. (or at least Global Financial Institutional Control) ... how that will shape up will be interesting.

[Mal]

If China does not become the dominant "superpower", with Chinese as the default world language, by the end of my lifetime. I'll be ... flabbergasted

Edited January 24, 2012 by Mal Stainkey

[Vanir Thunder Dojo Tan]

The the global china??

Welcome to Earth: Made in china.

Should i start saying ning hao or whatever and shit? wait, how do i say that in chinese?

[Apech]

If China does not become the dominant "superpower", with Chinese as the default world language, by the end of my lifetime. I'll be ... flabbergasted

 

You might be immortal.

[humbleone]

If China does not become the dominant "superpower", with Chinese as the default world language, by the end of my lifetime. I'll be ... flabbergasted

 

not so sure about that... I mean we have heard this before, I remember in 1980's the the Japanese became mighty, when they purchased the Rockerfeller center in NYC, everyone said, oh goodness, America will soon by owned by Japan. ofcourse they collapsed.

 

then we heard about the mighty 7 tigers(singapore, malasyia etc) taking over the world in the early 1990's, they turned out to be the 7 dwarfs.

 

hope you live a long life.

[Birch]

I'm not sure I buy this 'rise of China and India' idea entirely. I cannot justify my feeling rationally and there is no doubt their economic power is growing. But somehow I feel its too predictable ... and history is not like that. Historians, like economists are great at predicting after the event ... but as to how the power in the world will shift in the coming years? who knows?

 

You can only deal with what is now. 'There is only now .. tomorrow doesn't exist' (to quote Lady Toda from Shogun (lol)).

 

I suspect the main tension will be between the New World Orderists and those who do not want Global Govt. (or at least Global Financial Institutional Control) ... how that will shape up will be interesting.

 

I can't don't want something we have already Mr Apech. So what's next ?

[Apech]

I can't don't want something we have already Mr Apech. So what's next ?

 

I think what is missing is a convincing idea on an alternative way to live. I mean an alternative to the various forms of capitalism. I know they exist but they don't emerge as attractive or convincing to large numbers of people. When people vote at the moment (no matter how we may argue) we are voting about shades of the same grey. There doesn't seem to be a way for someone to put forward a radical new way to live which gets popular support of any kind. It has to be appealing, practical and meet peoples needs.

 

After WWII in Britain there was a landslide victory for Labour (Socialist) ... rejecting Churchill who had led the country through the war. They then implemented the national health service, education reforms, housing programmes and so on. I know this is an anathema to Americans but the fact is it was a democratic choice freely made by people who had made sacrifices and lost a whole lot during the war. So in the late 1940's socialism was seen as a viable alternative which would meet peoples needs.

 

Now (despite the current crisis) we are so much richer and our lives have changed. So no one wants or sees any advantage in old style socialism .... and there is no real communism anymore.

 

So we need a new alternative model for living which is also economically viable.

[humbleone]

I think what is missing is a convincing idea on an alternative way to live. I mean an alternative to the various forms of capitalism.

 

When people vote at the moment (no matter how we may argue) we are voting about shades of the same grey.

 

After WWII in Britain there was a landslide victory for Labour (Socialist) ... rejecting Churchill who had led the country through the war. They then implemented the national health service, education reforms, housing programmes and so on.

 

So we need a new alternative model for living which is also economically viable.

 

good post, I like that "we are voting about shades of the same grey"

 

We had the same thing in the United States, after the stock market crash of 1929 and the great depression, FDR and the new deal. FDR brought about and people voted for major reforms.

 

Sadly it takes a big catastrophic event like a economic Depression or a World War to cause a big paradigm shift in people. US every 10 years has a major financial crisis, but in the US we are getting really good at financial re-engineering and seem to come out OK, or at least the rich 1% come out OK

 

US economy appears to be coming back, 20 solid months of job gains, even god(warren Buffet) said last week that large annual budget deficits, 2% of GDP are sustainable..

 

so just to add, don't look for any meaningful change anytime soon, foolhardiness of American Presidential Elections is safe for now!

Edited January 27, 2012 by humbleone

[idquest]

I watched a republican election debate in Florida yesterday and there was a question on funding a space Moon project. All candidates responded in a sense that the USA need money to eat food and pay to medical doctors in the health system; so any costly space scientific projects are out of the questions right now. Newt G. was the only one who supported the project but only on condition that it is 90% funded by private enterprises. It was sad to hear all this. It felt as if there is no spirit of frontier present in American people any longer.

[joeblast]

good post, I like that "we are voting about shades of the same grey"

 

We had the same thing in the United States, after the stock market crash of 1929 and the great depression, FDR and the new deal. FDR brought about and people voted for major reforms.

 

Sadly it takes a big catastrophic event like a economic Depression or a World War to cause a big paradigm shift in people. US every 10 years has a major financial crisis, but in the US we are getting really good at financial re-engineering and seem to come out OK, or at least the rich 1% come out OK

 

US economy appears to be coming back, 20 solid months of job gains, even god(warren Buffet) said last week that large annual budget deficits, 2% of GDP are sustainable..

 

so just to add, don't look for any meaningful change anytime soon, foolhardiness of American Presidential Elections is safe for now!

read a little history - FDR's policies are what made that depression "Great" whereas the rest of the world wasnt at all. I know we were all taught in high school that FDR was the greatest president ever, but that is a slice of a vision that excludes all of the detrimental effects of saddling the populace with tons of debt. somebody's got to pay it back eventually.

[Apech]

read a little history - FDR's policies are what made that depression "Great" whereas the rest of the world wasnt at all. I know we were all taught in high school that FDR was the greatest president ever, but that is a slice of a vision that excludes all of the detrimental effects of saddling the populace with tons of debt. somebody's got to pay it back eventually.

 

'The rest of world wasn't at all' ... wasn't at all what? in a depression... yes they were ... the rise of the Nazis in a great part due to the effects of depression in Germany ...

 

Anyway back to the more interesting future ... what I would like to see is a radical new idea about how political power actually works. In other words how is it determined who gets to tell others what to do. And when they do this ... what are their aims. For a long time the worth and self-worth of a human being is their earning capacity .... success is high earnings ... and so on. Without getting all wishy washy and touchy feely ... is there another way? is there another hard value other than currency which can be used to evaluate how power is distributed?

[Encephalon]

'The rest of world wasn't at all' ... wasn't at all what? in a depression... yes they were ... the rise of the Nazis in a great part due to the effects of depression in Germany ...

 

Anyway back to the more interesting future ... what I would like to see is a radical new idea about how political power actually works. In other words how is it determined who gets to tell others what to do. And when they do this ... what are their aims. For a long time the worth and self-worth of a human being is their earning capacity .... success is high earnings ... and so on. Without getting all wishy washy and touchy feely ... is there another way? is there another hard value other than currency which can be used to evaluate how power is distributed?

 

OMG, which grade school did you go to, Joe? Or were you homeschooled with fundamentalist christian history textbooks? The Great Depression of the 30s only hit America!! FDR made it worse!! Everybody hear that!?

And you call people on their alleged lack of historical awareness. What a joke. What a pathetic, jaw-dropping joke.

[zerostao]

isn't new break thru technology always the new hard currency?

[Apech]

isn't new break thru technology always the new hard currency?

 

Maybe but they always sell it or are already funded by the big corporations.

[joeblast]

'The rest of world wasn't at all' ... wasn't at all what? in a depression... yes they were ... the rise of the Nazis in a great part due to the effects of depression in Germany ...

 

I mentioned extent and duration quite a few times previously - if you read anything from a source who doesnt absolutely glow at how much government can do for people, honest assessments show the trough FDR's policies carved into the country. (Not to mention the fact that severity, duration, impact of policies produced much better results elsewhere - and nowhere did I say the rest of the world wasnt in a depression - what I'm saying is only in the USA was it deemed "Great" and FDR's alphabet soup is the very reason.)

 

 

Yeah, a joke only if you ignore all of the context, E I love it when people's arguments against me all rely on a mirepresentation of my words. I spend most of my time saying "no, you're reading what you want to read here, how and why are you expecting me to defend your mischaracterizations?"

Edited January 28, 2012 by joeblast

[zerostao]

Maybe but they always sell it or are already funded by the big corporations.

 

arrrrrrr, if only "it" would fall into the hands of pirates.

not the somailian variety of course.

[Apech]

I mentioned extent and duration quite a few times previously - if you read anything from a source who doesnt absolutely glow at how much government can do for people, honest assessments show the trough FDR's policies carved into the country. (Not to mention the fact that severity, duration, impact of policies produced much better results elsewhere - and nowhere did I say the rest of the world wasnt in a depression - what I'm saying is only in the USA was it deemed "Great" and FDR's alphabet soup is the very reason.)

 

 

Yeah, a joke only if you ignore all of the context, E I love it when people's arguments against me all rely on a mirepresentation of my words. I spend most of my time saying "no, you're reading what you want to read here, how and why are you expecting me to defend your mischaracterizations?"

 

I wasn't trying to misquote you - I literally didn't understand what you were saying. The Great Depression affected all of the industrialized world including the US and Europe and had knock on effects everywhere else. The US being the largest economy is the focus of much attention and quite a lot of what is written is written as if only the US was affected.

 

I think both the causes and the 'solution are disputed and not everyone believes that the New Deal was actually the solution. Probably more likely WWII which stimulated industrial growth. But I have heard it said that the responses of the private sector (banks) i.e. becoming over cautious an stopping lending causes the money supply to dry up and chokes recovery. And that this was the immediate response to the Wall Street crash. I see signs of this now in Europe where the banks have gone from credit driven boom to being mega cautious. To come out of recession you have to have some way of economic growth and wealth creation ... I don't see how this happens without credit for new business. Also the governments are pouring money in to prop up the banks (and also countries like Greece) but this is causing massive sovereign debt ... which again drives up the public borrowing requirement. Its a vicious cycle and at the bottom the individual people get screwed.

[ralis]

America, the land of bought and sold elections, brought to you by the Koch bros. I forgot to mention Citizens United where are corporations are people and money equals speech. :angry:

 

 

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/02/03/koch-brothers-100-million-obama_n_1250828.html

[joeblast]

tell me ralis what's the difference between a super pac that spends a ton of money promoting a candidate and a public sector union that spends a ton of money promoting a candidate?

 

 

 

 

(okay, I'll answer it for you - the people who "donate" their money to a super pac actually intend for their money to be spent that way, whereas union members have no say whatsoever in how their forced "donations" are spent.)

 

 

 

 

(apech, thought I replied to that already...that's how I saw it, didnt think you were intentionally misquoting or anything. my point was the extent of government programs & spending was vastly larger here, with the effects vastly more detrimental. banks getting overly cautious are just a snapback in the other direction, but what else do you do when the fundamentals have been screwed with and perverted to such extents? Greece needs to exit the euro and devalue their own currency, the rest of the eurozone is not going to convince them they need to be responsible...in fact, the entire euro itself is an exercise in failed contrivance.)

[Apech]

 

 

(apech, thought I replied to that already...that's how I saw it, didnt think you were intentionally misquoting or anything. my point was the extent of government programs & spending was vastly larger here, with the effects vastly more detrimental. banks getting overly cautious are just a snapback in the other direction, but what else do you do when the fundamentals have been screwed with and perverted to such extents? Greece needs to exit the euro and devalue their own currency, the rest of the eurozone is not going to convince them they need to be responsible...in fact, the entire euro itself is an exercise in failed contrivance.)

 

Agree totally about Euro-zone and Greece - although I believe their loans are tied into Euro so devaluing would not be the total solution. the Germans have suggested recently that Greece should loose sovereignty because of their position.

 

I think the funding of candidates is the biggest issue. Gone are the days of individuals canvassing support from like minded people ... now we are sold an image/personality in very vague terms ... I would like to see each candidate given say one million from a central pot and not allowed to spend any more. OK the standard of advertising would go down but the debate would get better.

[ralis]

tell me ralis what's the difference between a super pac that spends a ton of money promoting a candidate and a public sector union that spends a ton of money promoting a candidate?

 

 

 

 

(okay, I'll answer it for you - the people who "donate" their money to a super pac actually intend for their money to be spent that way, whereas union members have no say whatsoever in how their forced "donations" are spent.)

 

 

 

I am not interested in your answer. My point is the corruption created by the Citizens United ruling by SCOTUS. I guess you are an advocate for that ruling.

[joeblast]

yup that's what I thought, ralis - bring out the equal measuring sticks and progressives run and hide - "I'm not going to play your games where I cant just say anything I wish and call it true!"

 

 

apech...yeah, its tough when you have a place where a contest is taking place and one simply outspends the other 65 to 1 and that equates to a big win, it shouldnt be just about who has more money to run whatever ads. That's why having a lot of debates are good...although its not really helpful having most of them held by "journalists" who have more interest in making everyone on the stage appear badly rather than having a good deep healthy discussion about relevant issues.

[Apech]

 

 

apech...yeah, its tough when you have a place where a contest is taking place and one simply outspends the other 65 to 1 and that equates to a big win, it shouldnt be just about who has more money to run whatever ads. That's why having a lot of debates are good...although its not really helpful having most of them held by "journalists" who have more interest in making everyone on the stage appear badly rather than having a good deep healthy discussion about relevant issues.

 

Most clever politicians will not make any policy commitments in an election campaign because it ties their hands if they do get into office. No offense but the US is the worst for this ... all you hear is shining cities on a hill and together we can ... but no clue about how, when, what and so on.

 

Maybe they should just shut all the candidates in a house together and film them interacting in real time ... people could vote them out by text and the last one in gets to be president. What do you think?

[joeblast]

I think that's what the debates try to capture, except that in such a format they wind up hostage to the track of questions - so half or more of these we're hearing questions going "wtf are they bothering with this garbage for when there are real issues at hand" but of course, as usual, its always a derailment to further someone's interests. I like the idea. Make it like MTV's real world and make them live together and film it all ROFL