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That apocryphal Ghandi bit about winning More

That apocryphal Ghandi bit about winning

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  • When it becomes simple Medicare for all, people will like Obamacare.

    *Not exactly true. The health care industry benefits immensely. As it should, right? They paid big money to make it happen. They like Obamacare. They don't care what's called, the money is already in the derivatives and other speculative markets. Capitalism in its finest form, ever evolving, blending government and business into a smooth shade of gray.

    • You either have a Rousseauian craving for absorption into the Borg, or you do not have a Rousseauian craving for absorption into the Borg.
      I'm just not sure we can continue to "borrow it forward" in an effort to have it both ways (Borg/!Borg) indefinitely.

      • Don't look at me. Unlike you, I've always voted against the same old thing. And crying about phony debts does not justify austerity. That's only your inner Reagan/Thatcher talking. He was the blender in chief, handing the keys to the treasury and congress and our pensions over to Wall Street. Grand theft in broad daylight. Obama is simply carrying on the legacy, step by step, at over 83 bil a month. He's enamored by the man also. You all may as well be idolizing Jesse James.

        • And crying about phony debts does not justify austerity.

          So you agree with confiscatory taxation and penury for future generations?

          • Totally unnecessary. You just have to make sure people pay their fair share. And besides, I don't see you complaining about sacrificing future generations to fund your wars. It seems your only complaint is about where the money is going, not that it's being stolen.

            • I don't see you complaining about sacrificing future generations to fund your wars. It seems your only complaint is about where the money is going, not that it's being stolen.

              Chiefly due to not seeking wars. If you've mistaken me for a neocon, you're way off. In particular, I spent 2011 admiring the futility up close and personal [youtube.com]. One is tempted to ask a high-minded question about how much atrocity our society is willing to tolerate, but a glance at Darfur returns the answer: a lot.

              • Chiefly due to not seeking wars.

                Oh? Calling Obama "weak" on the subject of Ukraine is not "seeking wars"? You were fine with Afghanistan before. You didn't call it "futile" when we went in. I highly doubt your sincerity on the issue. This a is partisan thing with you, like most of the other things you complain about under this administration. It is in this regard that d_r has you pegged also. It's not the policy you are against, it's the people executing it.

                • Are you willing to compare and contrast the strategic differences between Bush and Obama on Afghanistan?

                  • No, we invaded on false pretenses. We simply shouldn't be there. But the love of power and money says otherwise. Whatever our strategies are mean nothing. We are in it for the money. Thus making Afghanistan a "successful" adventure regardless. And it reopened the drug trade. It is an opium war. So screw the strategic differences. The goal is the same, and it is being met in the meantime. We will leave when the supply lines have been secured.

                    And you still make like Obama is "weak" on Ukraine. You're

                    • It's silly to discuss Obama's "weakness" on Ukraine. It's more useful to discuss his general incoherence, e.g. meaningless "red lines" in Syria. He began his ineptitude, recall, supporting Zelaya in Honduras.
                      So you can pile onto or defend Obama at your leisure. But please don't accuse him of having any positive, useful foreign policy.

                    • The president does not set foreign policy. That would be the job of the financiers and the Wall Street cartels. I don't know why I need to remind you that the president is reading a script. Whoever happens to be in front of the camera gets the same script. These are not examples of "ineptitude". If he was inept, he would have been replaced. You keep on barking up the wrong tree with this. If you want things to change you have to stop voting for their lackeys, and for goodness sake, let's not hear any more a

                    • If what you say is true, then we really don't need a President.
                      If what you say is true, then both the bankers and the military/industrial complex should be pouring blood and treasure into Afghanistan, to continue fattening their wallets. Or does your elastic theory stretch to encompass why Wall Street is leaving profit on the table?
                      But I'm not sure that what you say is true in either a practical or literal sense. No, I think Obama gets both the credit and the blame for what goes on during his watch.

                    • If what you say is true, then we really don't need a President.

                      We do if we are to maintain the facade of a representative republic. That is what all the kabuki is about.

                      If what you say is true, then both the bankers and the military/industrial complex should be pouring blood and treasure into Afghanistan, to continue fattening their wallets...

                      They are, with our tax money, which conveniently remains off the books.

                      ...why Wall Street is leaving profit on the table?

                      They aren't. What makes you think they are? W

                    • Your arguments just aren't logical.

                      As you say. I understand that org charts, tradition, oaths and such are mere whimsy to you, then.

                    • Oaths are not whimsey to me. But they definitely are to many of the people who take them. The grunts, in their innocence, might take them seriously. The bosses, generals, politicians, preachers piss on their graves and cry all the way to the bank. The higher up you go, the more whimsical they become. Once again you claim I approve. And I shall forever remain amused.

                      As for tradition, most of that should be tossed into the round file. When simple respect becomes traditional and arrogance becomes the exception

                    • I don't see how "simple respect becomes traditional and arrogance becomes the exception" when, in your model, we're all trapped in some biological meat prison.
                      I find your model contradictory. Most of the time you argue a crypto-Calvinist inevitability, with these occasional flourishes of respecting free will.
                • Part of the issue here is that you and d_r are wasting time on emotional distractions like 'sincerity'.
                  In the first place, diplomacy is best divorced from hormones.
                  Second, if you want to bring in some abstractions, make them principles, and apply the consistently.
                  Third, the whole flip/flopper argument needs some qualification. If someone is learning, fine. If someone is making a principle-free Judas move, then I think you've got some merit.
                  Obama's "speak softly, and give away the stick" diplomacy would

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