Obama platform=marxist

[battery chucka' one]

No lies. This is on his own website. My wife and I took a look at these the other night and came to the same conclusion.

http://www.barackobama.com/issues/service/

This is just one simple part of his 'plan'. Please focus on the heady requirements for middle school, high school, and college students for social service. Also take a look at his plans for middle aged retirees. Finally, look most particularily at his 'invest in the nonprofit sector' plans. This isn't just annoying or disagreeable. This is actually dangerous to our country and freedoms if implemented.

I'm planning on doing more digging into this site. Will get back with ya'. Please do more research yourself. I'd also love to see any comments from Obama friends/supporters on this.

[Shlomart Ben Yisrael]

Wait for McCain.

There's never been a candidate with a deeper devotion to The State than Mac.

Oh, you'll get "national service" all right...

[battery chucka' one]

Wait for McCain.

There's never been a candidate with a deeper devotion to The State than Mac.

Oh, you'll get "national service" all right...

If you can show me similar Marxist positions on McCain's platform, please do post them.

[Tom In VA]

Well conveniently under "The Problem" is the first blatant lie.

Americans Not Asked to Serve After 9/11: President Bush squandered an opportunity to mobilize the American people following 9/11 when he asked Americans only to go shopping.


Bullshit. Bush encouraged volunteering at every level. The shopping statement was thrown in there to encourage Americans to not live in fear and to continue CONTRIBUTING TO THE ECONOMY THROUGH A CYCLE OF PRODUCTION and CONSUMPTION.

Christ, and they want to elect this clown president ?

Change you can believe in, don't bother trying to improve your economic lot in life, don't bother spending the money you earn to help your neighbors improve their economic lot in life .... volunteer .... work for free ...... the Government will take care of your needs.


Suckers.


Hell who knows, maybe Obama is the only honest one out there. Maybe it's McCain lying, he's probably steering us towards the same New World Order socialistic slave state that video Moby Dick posted last week.





Fuck, any room in Canada for a hockey fan, guitar playing, weight lifting, sober IT weenie Marty ?

[battery chucka' one]

Tom, my wife's favorite is the third listing under 'the problem'. Innovation from non-profit sector? Huh? When did the United Way ever give us 'innovation'? This whole 'problem' and its solution flies directly in the face of the free market. Again, this is coming from OBAMA'S OWN WEBSITE!!!!! Only one subject, however, I bet that more can be found. Scary.

[Goober McTuber]

I'm planning on doing more digging into this site. Will get back with ya'.

Please hurry.

[MiketheangrydrunkenCUfan]

Meh. It's a ridiculous and implausible plan, no doubt, but hardly Marxist. You did read the title, right?

Barack Obama's Plan for Universal Voluntary Public Service

I don't see anything mandatory in there. If I could go back in time and get $4k of college tuition/year for 100 hrs of service, I'd do it in a heartbeat. I don't know of too many college students pulling in $40/hour tax-free in a part-time job that doesn't require you to be hot, female and naked.

Not to mention, at $4k/year for every year you're in college, I think I'd be approaching six figures at this point...

[battery chucka' one]

Meh. It's a ridiculous and implausible plan, no doubt, but hardly Marxist. You did read the title, right?

Barack Obama's Plan for Universal Voluntary Public Service

I don't see anything mandatory in there. If I could go back in time and get $4k of college tuition/year for 100 hrs of service, I'd do it in a heartbeat. I don't know of too many college students pulling in $40/hour tax-free in a part-time job that doesn't require you to be hot, female and naked.

Not to mention, at $4k/year for every year you're in college, I think I'd be approaching six figures at this point...

Oh my God. You didn't just type the ignorance that I read. Sure, he titled it such. Why don't you read on further?

Expand Service-Learning in Our Nation's Schools: Obama will set a goal that all middle and high school students do 50 hours of community service a year. He will develop national guidelines for service- learning and will give schools better tools both to develop programs and to document student experience. Green Job Corps: Obama will create an energy-focused youth jobs program to provide disadvantaged youth with service opportunities weatherizing buildings and getting practical experience in fast-growing career fields.

Grades 6-12, you must now do 50 hours of community service, yearly. Of course, this service will be pulled and culled from a list of government approved organizations with which you may volunteer (AKA 'national guidlines'). This is pure Marxism 101. Win the children and you win the future.

Require 100 Hours of Service in College: Obama will establish a new American Opportunity Tax Credit that is worth $4,000 a year in exchange for 100 hours of public service a year.

Ummmm....this isn't a 'job' for $4000. This is, as stated, required work, for which you will receive up to $4000 TAX CREDIT yearly. How much do you think you will have to pull down annually to pay $4000 in taxes? With this tax credit, whatever you pay in taxes (up to $4000) is now given back to you. Of course, this too will be volunteer work from a government approved list of organizations (see the aforementioned 'national guidlines').

I think you really need to read the plan in toto before giving us a rather immature 'meh'. Of course, it's peeps like you who he's counting on to vote for him in November.

I'd prefer if you actually read and read into his plans before you cast a vote. I'd like to think you will be informed before pulling the lever.

[MiketheangrydrunkenCUfan]

Setting aside for a moment the fact that "mandatory volunteerism" is a logical impossibility, even if Obama was actually saying that all of this stuff would be mandatory (and outside of that single use of the word "require," I don't think that's the case here), there's no way in hell it would ever come to fruition.

The way I read it, he's saying that he's going to provide incentives for people to perform community service. Don't get me wrong. Even that is certainly worthy of ridicule. I mean, shouldn't the fact that you're helping your community be all the incentive you need? And does he really think that college kids who sign up for it just to get a tax break are going to take it anywhere near as seriously as the people who are volunteering because it actually means something to them?

I think we're on the same page that it's a pretty dumb plan. I just think you're overreacting to it in typical partisan fashion.

In short, is the plan naive and impossible to implement? Absolutely. Is it Marxist? Not even close.

[Shlomart Ben Yisrael]

Wait for McCain.

There's never been a candidate with a deeper devotion to The State than Mac.

Oh, you'll get "national service" all right...

If you can show me similar Marxist positions on McCain's platform, please do post them.

A lot of terms get thrown around about McCain...fascist...socialist..."hard right" maverick...

...but I'll tell you what he really is...

He a bureaucrat in the classic Prussian model. Service to the State, cradle to grave.
Here's a guy who's whole life has been one giant government paycheck.

Obama's no Marxist. He's a wishy-washy liberal that blows hot and cold like all liberals.

[Diogenes]

And now for something completely different...

McCain has been darn good on taxes. Because America today suffers from the second highest corporate tax rate in the industrialized world, McCain has promised to cut the federal rate from 35% to 25%, restoring America's international competitiveness. McCain also proposes what has been a high priority among supply side economists for years, precisely because it would be so strong in restoring economic growth. That is to allow immediate expensing for capital investment, which means that capital investment expenses could be deducted in the year they are incurred, rather than strung out over many years under arbitrary depreciation schedules. This would eliminate an enormous bias against investment in America.

McCain has promised to phase out the badly mistaken Alternative Minimum Tax (AMT) outright. He proposes to increase the dependent's exemption for children from $3,500 to $7,000, which would further slash income taxes for the middle class. He pledges to keep the Internet tax free, a cause he has long championed, and opposes taxes on cell phones. McCain would also make the Bush tax cuts permanent, again contrary to Obama, which would leave the top individual income tax rate at 35%, and the top tax rate for capital gains and dividends at 15%, while maintaining the phase out of the death tax.

McCain is even better on spending. He promises to go after wasteful and unnecessary federal spending with even more zeal than Reagan, an issue on which Palin lends strong support. McCain proposes to freeze all federal discretionary spending outside of defense and veterans benefits for one year, and to limit overall federal spending growth to 2.4%, about one-third the annual increases since 2000. He promises to reclaim the money committed to earmarks, eliminate broken, ineffective government programs, reform procurement policies to cut wasteful defense spending, and "veto every pork-laden spending bill and make their authors famous." Through these policies, he promises a balanced budget during his first term.


McCAIN ALSO HAS a sound program for increasing energy production. He proposes to increase oil and natural gas exploration and production, in part by eliminating the ban on offshore drilling. Palin as the VP creates a teachable moment for McCain on drilling and production from ANWR and the rest of Alaska. McCain also promises to bring back the nuclear power industry by eliminating unnecessary regulatory barriers that have stopped the construction of any new plants for over 30 years. He has set a goal of 45 new nuclear plants by 2030, with an eventual goal of 100 new plants. He also favors the rapid development of clean coal technology, so that America can continue to use its vast reserves of coal, which produce the majority of electricity production in the U.S. today.

By increasing supply, these policies would bring down the price of energy, oil, gasoline, and natural gas, which would also provide a further boost to our economy across the board. By contrast, Obama has no program to bring the price of gasoline and other energy down, and hasn't even embraced that as a desirable goal.

Yet, McCain's energy program is balanced. Like Obama, he also proposes federal support for the development of alternative technologies such as wind and solar power, and for flex-fuel vehicles, clean car technology, and electric cars. The key difference is that McCain is going to keep up, rather than move to shut down, production of oil, gas, and other established energy sources, while these futuristic technologies are still in development.

As critical for conservatives as anything else is the appointment of Supreme Court Justices, and other judges, which will also be discussed in detail in a future column. Here McCain has pledged unambiguously to appoint Justices like the recent Court additions of John Roberts and Sam Alito, and he voted as well to confirm Clarence Thomas and Antonin Scalia. Obama has said just the opposite, that he would appoint Justices like former ACLU General Counsel Ruth Bader Ginsburg and the ultraliberal David Souter, while opposing appointments like Alito, whom he voted against. Again, the stakes for conservatives could not be higher.

With these positions as their platform, the sharp contrast with Obama's left-wing extremism, and the broad excitement generated by the addition of Palin to the ticket, the potential now exists for a McCain/Palin landslide. You heard it here first. I expect accolades when it happens.

http://www.spectator.org/dsp_article.asp?art_id=13812

[Cuda]

Obama's no Marxist. He's a wishy-washy liberal that blows hot and cold like all liberals.

the preferred term is "dilettante"

[Shlomart Ben Yisrael]

Obama's no Marxist. He's a wishy-washy liberal that blows hot and cold like all liberals.

the preferred term is "dilettante"

I have no argument with that.

[battery chucka' one]

Setting aside for a moment the fact that "mandatory volunteerism" is a logical impossibility, even if Obama was actually saying that all of this stuff would be mandatory (and outside of that single use of the word "require," I don't think that's the case here), there's no way in hell it would ever come to fruition.

The way I read it, he's saying that he's going to provide incentives for people to perform community service. Don't get me wrong. Even that is certainly worthy of ridicule. I mean, shouldn't the fact that you're helping your community be all the incentive you need? And does he really think that college kids who sign up for it just to get a tax break are going to take it anywhere near as seriously as the people who are volunteering because it actually means something to them?

I think we're on the same page that it's a pretty dumb plan. I just think you're overreacting to it in typical partisan fashion.

In short, is the plan naive and impossible to implement? Absolutely. Is it Marxist? Not even close.

You say I'm overreacting. I say this is dangerous. He says 'Requirements' and 50 yearly hours for kids. What part of that are you having problems understanding? This is to be enforced by the government. From the people according to their abilities (hey, all kids have time to devote to their country, don't they?) to all according to their needs (the government under Obama will be needing you to 'volunteer' in order for them to implement their programs). Marxism 101. Look it up.

You're pro choice, my friend. What part of requiring peeps to 'volunteer' involves individual choice? I don't know how hard this plan would be to implement, but the whole fact that he advocates it shows that he'd gladly implement it if possible.

[Shlomart Ben Yisrael]

So, America was a Marxist country when the draft was around?

uh huh

[Shlomart Ben Yisrael]

conscription to pick up trash in national parks = Stalinist

conscription to tear civilians to ribbons with super-heated shrapnel = chest-swelling American virtue

[Dr_Phibes]

why would a marxist facilitate service to a bourgeois state?

[battery chucka' one]

Wait for McCain.

There's never been a candidate with a deeper devotion to The State than Mac.

Oh, you'll get "national service" all right...

If you can show me similar Marxist positions on McCain's platform, please do post them.

A lot of terms get thrown around about McCain...fascist...socialist..."hard right" maverick...

...but I'll tell you what he really is...

He a bureaucrat in the classic Prussian model. Service to the State, cradle to grave.
Here's a guy who's whole life has been one giant government paycheck.

Obama's no Marxist. He's a wishy-washy liberal that blows hot and cold like all liberals.

*snaps fingers* Show me on his platform before you toss a blanket accusation. You don't get to toss such accusations without proof. Give us some evidence or keep your OPINIONS to yourself.

[Shlomart Ben Yisrael]

You don't get to toss such accusations without proof.

What? That McCain is a socialist McChurian Candidate?



He's never held a job in the private sector. Ever.

Cradle to grave, my friend.

[battery chucka' one]

You don't get to toss such accusations without proof.

What? That McCain is a socialist McChurian Candidate?



He's never held a job in the private sector. Ever.

Cradle to grave, my friend.

I don't care if somebody's career choice led them to government/armed forces. I don't care if they've worked in the private sector or not. It's immaterial.

Let me be blunt. Give us something Marxist from his proposed platform or shut up.

[Shlomart Ben Yisrael]

Give us something Marxist from his proposed platform or shut up.

You contend that "national service" is Marxism, you dope.

McCain in the embodiment of "national service", and I repeat, cradle to grave.

[Shlomart Ben Yisrael]

I have a hunch my boys in NV scrambled McCain's noggin at the Hanoi Hilton.

Two words: SLEEPER AGENT


Hey, one can dream, can't he?

[MiketheangrydrunkenCUfan]

Give us some evidence or keep your OPINIONS to yourself.

Dude, you do realize this is an internet message board, right? It'd be pretty dead around these parts if everyone kept their opinions to themselves.

I don't know how hard this plan would be to implement,.

Pretty easy actually. No volunteer requirements...no diploma.

Yeah, I'm sure a proposal to hold kids' diplomas for ransom unless they completed X hours of community service would just breeze right through Congress. Piece of cake. Slam dunk. Sign it into law.

[battery chucka' one]

Give us some evidence or keep your OPINIONS to yourself.

Dude, you do realize this is an internet message board, right? It'd be pretty dead around these parts if everyone kept their opinions to themselves.

I don't know how hard this plan would be to implement,.

Pretty easy actually. No volunteer requirements...no diploma.

Yeah, I'm sure a proposal to hold kids' diplomas for ransom unless they completed X hours of community service would just breeze right through Congress. Piece of cake. Slam dunk. Sign it into law.

Dude, I didn't show anybody OPINIONS. I showed them FACTS as presented on Obama's own website. I'd just like any parallel views on McCain to also be backed up by FACTS from his website. Not OPINIONS.

Also, you say that it's improbable. Then why did he say it'd be required? Soviets used to withhold food in order to starve people into submission (Berlin, anybody?). If Dems who support this policy also vote for it and they have a filibuster proof majority, then yeah, it could happen. Nevertheless, if it's so inplausible, then why would he put it in his platform? Also, now that you know about it, can you, in good conscience, actually vote for him? Personally, I can't.

[battery chucka' one]

This is a new one. Will somebody with brain one please take this one and tell me if I'm seeing what I think I see?

http://www.barackobama.com/issues/rural/

I'm mostly looking at this:

Strong Safety Net for Family Farmers: Obama will fight for farm programs that provide family farmers with stability and predictability. Obama will implement a $250,000 payment limitation so that we help family farmers — not large corporate agribusiness. Obama will close the loopholes that allow mega farms to get around the limits by subdividing their operations into multiple paper corporations.

Some things, such as encouraging young farmers and combating meth, are good ideas. However, do the ends really justify the means here?

[Dr_Phibes]

you realise that he says he'll prevent them from subdividing into paper corporations?

not force them to subdivide?

[MiketheangrydrunkenCUfan]

This is a new one. Will somebody with brain one please take this one and tell me if I'm seeing what I think I see?

http://www.barackobama.com/issues/rural/

I'm mostly looking at this:

Strong Safety Net for Family Farmers: Obama will fight for farm programs that provide family farmers with stability and predictability. Obama will implement a $250,000 payment limitation so that we help family farmers — not large corporate agribusiness. Obama will close the loopholes that allow mega farms to get around the limits by subdividing their operations into multiple paper corporations.

Some things, such as encouraging young farmers and combating meth, are good ideas. However, do the ends really justify the means here?

I think you're just flat-out misreading this one, although it is definitely an awkwardly constructed sentence. It's not saying that Obama will close the loopholes by subdividing the operations, it's saying that that's how mega farms currently get around the limits.

Edit: Phibes beat me to the punch.

[Shlomart Ben Yisrael]

...family farmers...

There are still family farms left in America?

And no...I don't mean the Monsanto Family...

[battery chucka' one]

you realise that he says he'll prevent them from subdividing into paper corporations?

not force them to subdivide?

Aha. All apologies. I misread that one and I stand corrected.

[battery chucka' one]

I've decided to go right down the line on this one:

Ensure Economic Opportunity For Family Farmers

Right off the bad, ensuring economic growth suggests market tampering. But I shall continue.

Strong Safety Net for Family Farmers: Obama will fight for farm programs that provide family farmers with stability and predictability. Obama will implement a $250,000 payment limitation so that we help family farmers — not large corporate agribusiness. Obama will close the loopholes that allow mega farms to get around the limits by subdividing their operations into multiple paper corporations.

Again, all apologies for my earlier comments. What's a payment limitation?

Prevent Anticompetitive Behavior Against Family Farms: Obama is a strong supporter of a packer ban. When meatpackers own livestock they can manipulate prices and discriminate against independent farmers. Obama will strengthen anti-monopoly laws and strengthen producer protections to ensure independent farmers have fair access to markets, control over their production decisions, and transparency in prices.

Market tampering.

Regulate CAFOs: Obama's Environmental Protection Agency will strictly regulate pollution from large CAFOs, with fines for those that violate tough standards. Obama also supports meaningful local control.

Why just large farms? Do they somehow rate lower than smaller farms? Why the bias?

Establish Country of Origin Labeling: Obama supports immediate implementation of the Country of Origin Labeling law so that American producers can distinguish their products from imported ones.

I'm alright with this one. Great idea.

Encourage Organic and Local Agriculture: Obama will help organic farmers afford to certify their crops and reform crop insurance to not penalize organic farmers. He also will promote regional food systems.

Why? Why is it the interest of the government as to whether I choose to eat an organic or non-organic tomato? Why should they make policy to encourage organic crops over non-organic? Why should the insurance industry be regulated in this manner by the government?

Encourage Young People to Become Farmers: Obama will establish a new program to identify and train the next generation of farmers. He will also provide tax incentives to make it easier for new farmers to afford their first farm.

As I said earlier, this is a good idea. Encouragement is good. However, with the service standards earlier described, what dedication will young farmers have to their work and what to the state? Also, identify? Huh?

Partner with Landowners to Conserve Private Lands: Obama will increase incentives for farmers and private landowners to conduct sustainable agriculture and protect wetlands, grasslands, and forests.

Fluff. Worthless window dressing to appeal to the environmentalists.

Support Rural Economic Development

Support Small Business Development: Obama will provide capital for famers to create value-added enterprises, like cooperative marketing initiatives and farmer-owned processing plants. He also will establish a small business and micro-enterprise initiative for rural America.

Providing capital? From where will this money come?

Connect Rural America: Barack Obama will ensure that rural Americans have access to a modern communications infrastructure. He will modernize an FCC program that supports rural phone service so that it promotes affordable broadband coverage across rural America as well.

Another layer of bureaucracy. Pretty much fluff. Ummm..... Next.

Promote Leadership in Renewable Energy: Obama will ensure that our rural areas continue their leadership in the renewable fuels movement. This will transform the economy, especially in rural America, which is poised to produce and refine more American biofuels and provide more wind power than ever before, and create millions of new jobs across the country.

How will he ensure this? By what authority? Sounds like a pair of hands reaching from Washington to the heartland to 'guarantee' that our renewable energy (which, btw, I support) continues on its approved course.

Improve Rural Quality Of Life

Combat Methamphetamine: Methamphetamine use has increased 156 percent nationwide since 1996. Obama has a long record of fighting the meth epidemic. As President, he will continue the fight to rid our communities of meth and offer support to help addicts heal.

Duh? Not a ton of details here.

Improve Health Care: Rural health care providers often get less money from Medicare and Medicaid for the very same procedure performed in urban areas. Obama will work to ensure a more equitable Medicare and Medicaid reimbursement structure. He will attract providers to rural America by creating a loan forgiveness program for doctors and nurses who work in underserved rural areas. He supports increasing rural access to care by promoting health information technologies like telemedicine.

Sounds like Northern Exposure. Loan forgiveness? I wonder if Sallie Mae and Freddie Mac will be consulted about this. Doubtful.

Improve Rural Education: Obama will provide incentives for talented individuals to enter the teaching profession, including increased pay for teachers who work in rural areas. Obama will create a Rural Revitalization Program to attract and retain young people to rural America. Obama will increase research and educational funding for Land Grant colleges.

Ummmm.....from whence does the money come, again?

Upgrade Rural Infrastructure: Obama will invest in the core infrastructure, roads, bridges, locks, dams, water systems and essential air service that rural communities need.

More fluff. Sounds like TVA. At least THAT wasn't socialist at all. :rollingeyes:

[Shlomart Ben Yisrael]

Stop reading blogs written by people even dumber than yourself.

[Diogenes]

[Obama Is the Anti-Thatcher
By ANDREW WILSON
September 4, 2008

The Democratic Party Convention in Denver has been called political theater, but it was really a masquerade ball. Again and again, speakers invoked the language of Margaret Thatcher and Ronald Reagan -- stressing the value of hard work and responsibility for self and family -- while advancing a set of pro-union and collectivist economic policies. If today's Democrats had their way, they would put the United States in the same approximate position as pre-Thatcher Britain, when the streets of London were choked with garbage because of a strike by sanitation workers and Britain was known around the world as "the sick man of Europe."

The most overworked word at the Democratic Convention was "work" itself. Barack Obama used the word 35 times in his address. Joe Biden mentioned it 22 times. Both told stories of parents and grandparents who worked their fingers to the bone in realizing the American dream of building a better life. Mr. Biden's speech included a touching vignette about his father, who told him, "Champ, when you get knocked down, get up. Get up."

But the real thrust of the message that Mr. Obama and he gave to the cheering multitudes in Denver was: You are entitled to your job. If you are hit by a foreign competitor who is leaner and hungrier and less coddled than you, get down and stay down, and expect the government to put you back on your feet.

When Mrs. Thatcher became Britain's prime minister in 1979, she assumed leadership of a country that had been devastated by several decades of ruinous economic and social policies. This was due to the same aversion to competition and international trade, and the same misplaced faith in the ability of government to act as the engine of progress and the guarantor of jobs.

In her speech to the Conservative Party in 1981, Mrs. Thatcher said: "We have to earn a living in a world that can choose between the goods that we produce and those of other countries. . . . And here let me say plainly to the trade union leaders: You are often your own worst enemies. Why isn't there more? Because too often restrictive practices rob you of the one thing you have to sell -- your productivity. . . . When two men insist on doing the work of one, there is only half as much for each."

In his speech to the Democratic convention, Mr. Obama said: "I'll help our auto companies re-tool, so that the fuel-efficient cars of the future are built right here in America. I'll make it easier for the American people to afford these new cars. And I'll invest $150 billion over the next decade in affordable, renewable sources of energy -- wind power and solar power and the next generation of biofuels; an investment that will lead to new industries and five million new jobs that pay well and can't ever be outsourced."

One has to wonder who Mr. Obama thinks he is to suppose he'd be able to make so many correct calls in directing investment flows in one industry after the next while sitting in the White House. But his presumptuousness is not unprecedented. The Labour Party politicians in Britain who came to power at the end of World War II shared the same enthusiasm for government direction and micromanagement of the economy.

Like the Democratic Party of today, the Labour Party of yesteryear was obsessed with the issue of job security and fearful of competition from abroad. However, by the mid 1970s, having seen the country's fortunes decline for three consecutive decades, even the Labour Party could see the futility of its centralized, interventionist approach. Labour's Jim Callaghan, the last prime minister before Mrs. Thatcher, admitted in Parliament: "Let me say that of course there has been a fall in peoples' standard of life. It has fallen this year and will fall again next year."

In revitalizing the British economy, Mrs. Thatcher lightened regulation, reduced trade barriers, privatized a raft of publicly owned companies, lowered taxes (especially for the most highly taxed, which is to say those at higher income levels), and went to battle against the powerful trade-union bosses in order to establish greater democracy within the unions. She outlawed the closed shop and required ballots before strikes and ballots in the election of trade-union leaders.

One thing she did not do was to set a goal of full employment -- insisting that "jobs (in a free society) depend not on government but upon satisfying customers." Contra Mr. Obama, she also stated: "The fact is that in a market economy government does not -- and cannot -- know where jobs will come from: If it did know, all those interventionist policies for 'picking winners' and 'backing success' would not have picked losers and compounded failure."

Due to the success of the United Auto Workers in making unreasonable demands over an extended period of time, what the Iron Lady might drily refer to as "an increase in wages and benefits out of proportion to any increase in output or productivity" has clearly crippled today's domestic U.S. auto makers. An Obama presidency would give a huge and unwarranted boost to union power and privileges.

The misnamed and undemocratic Employee Free Choice Act -- co-sponsored by Mr. Obama and almost certain to pass into law if he becomes president -- would go a long way in extending union power over a far greater number of private-sector companies by taking away the right to a secret ballot in union elections. It would give union organizers the time and opportunity to badger and intimidate workers who refused to sign union cards.

If, under an Obama presidency, the unions succeed in organizing Wal-Mart -- now the biggest target in their sights -- it will have one entirely predictable result: not the protection of jobs but the destruction of jobs by slowing or stopping Wal-Mart's growth. Nor will it help U.S. consumers if Wal-Mart is forced to hang out new signs saying "Everyday High Prices."

Mr. Wilson, an independent speechwriter based in St. Louis, was Business Week's London bureau chief from 1981 to 1985.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB1220491 ... mmentaries

[Shlomart Ben Yisrael]

In Britain, Thatcher's name is "mud". Even amongst conservatives.

The only place that Thatcher nostalgia is looked upon fondly is amongst sub-moronic, Anglophile Americans.


You are an imbecile.

[Shlomart Ben Yisrael]

P.S. Might wanna Google Thatcher and Poll Tax. see what you come up with, you dribbling pantload.

Same goes for Churchill's legacy. Strictly for consumption by mouth-breathing Yanks that think pre-pubescent chimney sweep boys still bounce along London's rooftops and Mary Poppins flies around Ye Olde Towne via umbrella.

[Diogenes]

In Britain, Thatcher's name is "mud".

That's because limeys are too stupid to know or understand their own history.

As opposed to canadians, who are just irrelevant.

[Shlomart Ben Yisrael]

As opposed to canadians, who are just irrelevant.

I see you're playing your "ace-up-the-sleeve".

How have you not died of embarrassment yet?

[Diogenes]

How have you not died of embarrassment yet?

From posting here? Beats me. If anyone knew, I probably would.

[Cuda]

Strictly for consumption by mouth-breathing Yanks that think pre-pubescent chimney sweep boys still bounce along London's rooftops ...

they steer clear of nish's chimney- or so I've been told

[Diogenes]

Sarah Palin gets the spiteful Margaret Thatcher treatment

By Janet Daley
Last Updated: 12:01am BST 04/09/2008

There are few sights more bloodcurdling than the liberal pack in full cry. The viciousness of the attacks on Sarah Palin is a testimony to the degree of panic her appointment has generated in Leftist circles.

It would seem that it is only sexist to trash a woman candidate if she is a Woman Candidate, which is to say a liberal.
Sarah Palin addresses the Republican National Convention
Like Margaret Thatcher before her, Sarah Palin terrifies those on the political left

It took about 20 minutes after John McCain announced her as his running mate for the attack machine to mobilise: woman candidate (bleep, bleep), no previous warning (nee-naw, nee-naw), exterminate, exterminate.

At first, it was pretty tenuous stuff: her husband had once been caught on a drink-drive charge - when he was 22 years old. You don't say. In blue-collar America, having only one drink-drive offence pretty much qualifies you as a Grade A wimp.

Then the piranhas got hold of a real prize (or so they thought): the 17-year-old daughter of this Christian Evangelical family was pregnant.

Yes, these things happen - and this particular thing happens quite a lot among the working-class American families that Mrs Palin personifies. She and her daughter are being true to their convictions: the girl will have her baby and marry her boyfriend. There will be no abortion or adoption.
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The Palin family will offer them love, compassion and support. What's your problem? Christianity (even of the Evangelical sort) does not expect human beings to be faultless: it demands only that they make amends for their transgressions and accept responsibility for them.

The Evangelical churches have made it their particular mission in recent years to support teenage mothers and urge their families to stand by them. So where is the shame in this situation?

Now those who are not of the Palins' religious persuasion may well feel that it is wrong to allow a 17-year-old to marry and start a family. If one of my daughters had become pregnant at the age of 17, would I have advised her to have the baby and marry the father? No, I would not.

Do I respect the decision of another mother and daughter to make that choice based on their own values? Yes, I do. And that - as far as I am concerned - is what it means to be a "liberal". Which brings us to the subject of those hokey old redneck values that the Guardian and the blogosphere find so amusing (or pernicious, depending on their degree of dedication).

I personally am, and always have been, fervently pro-choice on abortion. I do not consider this to be the only sanctified Woman's point of view because I am aware that huge numbers of women disagree with me.

Whenever I touch on the subject, they write in and tell me so, often in eloquent and passionate terms. But according to the official feminist sisterhood (which was taken over by the totalitarian Marxist tendency long ago) you can represent the views of Women only if you accept the tenets of their ideology. Ergo, Mrs Palin is not a Woman Candidate.

She is a renegade, the gender equivalent of an Uncle Tom. In the US, her position is particularly incendiary because it is part of the culture war between metropolitan liberals and provincial America: that vast fly-over country where people (or "folks", as they call themselves) still live by the standards the Palin family embodies. Life is about hard work and hard play.

They hunt with guns from childhood. They talk about sin (and redemption) in ways that embarrass the urban elite, and they regard patriotism as a fundamental part of their moral code. (It is the liberals' ambivalence about patriotism that they detest most.)

Like Margaret Thatcher before her, Mrs Palin is coming in for both barrels of Left-wing contempt: misogyny and snobbery. Where Lady Thatcher was dismissed as a "grocer's daughter" by people who called themselves egalitarian, Mrs Palin is regarded as a small-town nobody by those who claim to represent "ordinary people".

US presidential election 2008

What the metropolitan sophisticates failed to understand in the 1980s when Thatcher won election after election is even more the case in the US: most (and I do mean most) ordinary people actually believe in the basic decencies, the "small-town values", of family, marital fidelity, and personal responsibility. They believe in and honour them - even if they do not manage to uphold them.

Middle America - of which Alaska is spiritually, if not geographically, a part - builds its life around those ideals and regards commonplace moral lapses as part of the eternal struggle to be good.

The life of small-town USA is based on the principles of those Protestant colonial settlers who founded the nation: hard work, self-improvement, personal faith and family devotion. Mrs Palin speaks to and for them in a way that patronising "liberal" elitists find infuriating.


http://www.telegraph.co.uk/opinion/main ... do0404.xml

[Shlomart Ben Yisrael]

You know how in America, it has become folklore that the liberal left is largely the domain of effete, haughty, rich dilettantes?

Yeah...if you ran that smack in Britain, even conservatives would attempt to distract you while they signaled to their friends to fetch a straight jacket.