Corporate Media Pushs Propaganda to Keep Wealthy Rich

Not at all. See judoka's post, or just get back to GARM where the posters are actually as stupid as you like to assume.

 

The rational debate is near impossible, as explained in post #15 above. And it's not like I'm calling people out as zombies on a whim. This has been going on in this forum nonstop since the 2000 election. I read through a whole lot of posts and threads prior to making this zombie assertion, which btw I have already retracted and reloaded to sheeple :grin:

 

Yes, over half of the American voting public...

 

Good point, Deckard. I recognize myself in that image. If only I had listened to the brilliance and omniscience of pippendagimp starting in 2000 when he figured everything out.

 

The bike messenger in that picture always makes me LOL. He looks like he's just really high, not a zombie.

 

Ok, then please disregard post #22

But seriously, do you really believe that much has changed? Let's look at the deficit issue for instance. Obama has budget deficits going years out as far as the eye can see. Even bigger than W's. And he is just as betrothed to military spending and maintaining 130 bases around the globe as W. Who's gonna pay for all these deficits down the road? Oh, that's not his problem. As long as the defense contractors and the health insurance co's get theirs today.

 

That's who I meant!

Yeah, I'm glad I finally see the light. I used to see that both parties catered to corporate interests in a big way, but I thought there were still some important differences. I used to think there was a difference in a supreme court appointments from the different parties.

I used to think that regulation and deregulation were somehow different concepts.

Now I see that they are 99.4% the same. In fact, federal business regulation is at least 99.1% the same as a supreme court and probably 99.8% the same as a tax cut and 98.5% the same as anyone on the Miami Dolphins' roster. Electrodynamics = gravity and where's my Nobel Prize exactly? Whew! YES! FREEEEDUUMMMMMMMB

 

I think some significant things have changed. But you are completely correct that the deficit issue has not changed or is actually worse (for now.) And agree (not to my surprise, but to my disappointment) with respect to military. Same too on the health insurance lobby (and add the financial services lobby.)

Seriously. And people do get way too heated up in thinking that the only issues are those that get debated ad-nauseum in the media between the parties. They Simpson's episode with the two aliens running for president comes to mind. Yes, all true.

But I disagree with the 99.whatever % the same. I do think one set of policies gets us more in the grips of the corps, while one set of policies gets us a tiny better chance of retaining some power with people and putting truth to the greater powers. In that sense, i could well be deluded!

 

There are indeed differences b/t the 2 parties but to me they are negligible, and not worth really taking sides on and fighting over day after day. Especially when so many key issues (military spending, corporate lobbies, etc) are basically the same. Personally, the Democrats are the lesser of 2 evils for me - but only very slightly. At the end of the day if they were both chicks I'd still have to label each of them Would Not Hit

 

haven't read this thread,

on the OP, what amazes me about the Sarah Palin phenomenon is that people who are knowlegable on the right believe in this woman. Weslinder for example was a bigger supporter even after the interviews. I don't know if he still is.

 

Well then "Sheeple" is way better than "Zombie"...

 

He could be both. The two aren't mutually exclusive.

 

So basically because on a handful of issues you see they are similar you consider the multitude of other issues as negligible. Seriously you consider passing a health care bill, appointing Sotomayor to the USSC and passing an executive order granting rights to same sex couples negligible?

 

There is no doubt that the rightwing has a media machine but they don't control the media. If anything the left wing has effectively countered them otherwise we wouldn't have the situation of a Democratic President named Obama with a historical Democractic majority in Congress. If the Rightwing media machine is that powerful they did a pretty poor job in 2006 and 2008.

We have a diversity of news sources out there and while Fox news might have good ratings they are not the end all and be all of news services. I suspect if you took moderate and left leaning news and political opinion sources I bet they would exceed Fox and Rush Limbaugh's ratings.

 

I just made this analogy recently for the same type of thing.

If you're a vegetarian, the difference between chicken and beef is negligible. Of course, that doesn't mean the rest of us meat-eaters can't debate which tastes better on the grill.

 

That's a good point. If you have a narrow focus then there is no difference but any overall view would point out a ton of differences.

 

The deficits and the bailouts are/were a mistake and will end up destroying the country. All these trillions in government (taxpayer) spending will be for naught. Those banks should have been allowed to fail because in the end they are going to fail anyways. Right now the inevitable has only been delayed, and at the cost of everyone's children's/grandchildren's future.

If American citizens had any grasp of simple math they would immediately realize the wonders of negative compounding. When you are trillions in debt and interest rates to service that debt budge even the slightest off of their all-time historic lows, you end up stuck in an inescapable black hole. The same wonders of compounding that keep the rich man rich, shall have the exact opposite effect on the indebted American populace.

So other issues, such as a health care bonanza bill for insurance companies that digs us even deeper into debt, come across as nothing more than a distractionary sideshow right now.

 

I get so tired of this rhetoric. There was no choice on the bailouts, the systemic risk of allowing companies as large as AIG, GM, Bear Stearns, Bank of America, Merril Lynch, etc. to all fail would have destroyed the world economy. A lot of the money has been paid back with interest. The biggest whipping boys have been GM and Fannie/Freddie. GM is preparing to pay back some now and then will sell stock to pay off the rest. The Treasury has collected $6,745,000,000 just in dividends from Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae.

http://www.katu.com/news/business/91610964.html

Ironic enough the bailout is probably the most succesful piece of legislation Bush passed in 8 years. The money will be paid back and the government will make a nice return.

As for the deficits this is where the line about both parties being terrible is broken. The deficits are squarely on the shoulders of the GOP. Starting in the 80's under Reagan's Draconian tax cuts and military spending spree the debt/GDP skyrocketed EVERY YEAR from 1980-1993. Not until Clinton did it turn around and go the other way. Of course then we had W pushing the same trickle down garbage as Reagan with more tax cuts for the rich, Medicare Part D in 2003 (which was split down party lines and the GOP voted aye), and the Iraq war. Guess what the debt/GDP again skyrocketed from 2001-2008.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_debt_by_U.S._presidential_terms

People complain about Obama's spending but what exactly has he spent money on? The stimulus was mostly tax cuts, which the teabaggers contend they want more of. What people hear about is the deficit, which was caused by the aforementioned tax cuts not some huge spending spree.

These deficits and the national debt has been decades in the making. Suddenly everyone is a fiscal conservative and is worried about their children's future, but where they in the 80's when this country went from the largest creditor to the largest debtor?

If the American citizens understood simple math they would stop complaining that only 46% of people pay taxes, that the deficits are ruining their children's future all while advocating for more lower taxes.

 

Who told you this? Countless other car companies, insurance companies, and banks have failed in the past. Sure there was immediate and maybe even lasting pain for customers and employees, but life went on. None of the institutions you listed were "too big to fail." There's no such thing. Even dinosaurs weren't "too big to fail." And even the US Government cannot stop the primary trend of markets. They may be able to manipulate and cause secondary trends or delay the primary trend, but they cannot stop it.

On GM yes. Their shareholders actually got screwed by the govt. big time. But their bailout pales in comparison to what AIG and Wall street got. The latter still owe hundreds of billions. AIG in particular, I don't see how that money will possibly be repaid.

Regarding Bush, yes he really accelerated growth in the national debt. The problem is that Obama has up'd that growth rate even further. And disappointingly, our $600B+ annual military budget looks to be perpetual, regardless of whether a Dem or Repub is in the White House.

Look, in your post you are talking about teabaggers and conservatives wanting tax cuts and people crying for more tax cuts. I don't care about the media or even the other people in this forum all arguing and posturing to make their side look the winner or the better of the two.

There is no winner in this situation. Everyone in the country (myself included) is going to lose in some way when that $12T+ in debt starts compounding. Some may lose less and some will be worse off, but everyone is going to feel pain. So all this slapping and scratching back and forth is just a big distraction and waste of time. If you are American, then the one issue that affects you and your family no matter who you are is the adding of more deficits to that debt.