Birds Of A Feather

When Castro took office, America thought we had a friend in Cuba. WRONG.

President Obama took office, with Americans (majority), thinking we have a friend in office. ???Time will tell??? Pray.

In Messiah, His Will Be Done. Arley

Sam, your analogies and comparisons are ludicrous.

First --

Mao Tse Tung,

Ho Chi Minh

Vladimir Lenin

Hugo Chavez

And even

Fidel Castro

All built political bases and movements to power in response to despotic regimes, usually imposed by European powers or sponsored and controlled by FRANCE, England, Germany, Belgium, the Netherlands and Spain.

And after WWII, with the approval and support of the U.S. in southeast Asia and Latin America.

Anyone with any experience with Latin America is well aware the U.S. has supported the brutal regimes of the Batista crowd in Cuba, the Samozas, and even worse regimes in many of the other countries.

Our agents have murdered many opponents to the military juntas the CIA favors.

American mining and oil companies, outfits like United Fruit, the Rockefellers (Who basically wiped out most of the Yaqui Nation on their Yucatan jute plantations in the 1800s) bought regimes throughout the world.

Hell, we established a puppet nation in Panama to control the Canal territory. As Will Rogers said back in the 1920s, "We oughta keep the Panama Canal, after all we stole it fair and square."

George Marshall admitted Ho Chi Minh totally honored the U.S. Constitution, Thomas Jefferson and our country. He asked U.S. help in securing Viet Namese freedom about 1948.

Marshall did not want to irritate DeGaulle and refused. They had no place to seek help for their freedom but China and Russia. We made it happen.

G5,

I know many people that you would call "atheist liberals" that are more "moral" than many who proudly stand up and declare their belief in Christianity. We have seen many examples of this in the media from Tammy Fae Baker and her husband up to Mr. Haggert recently. This is not to say that there are not "atheist liberals" that are not moral but my point is that it is dangerous & disingenuous to make blanket statements about anyone based upon their stated religious affiliation, race, social class or economic standing.

Last year I received an email that started out with the declaration.."15 reasons why a Muslim can't be a good American". Usually I just delete this type of email as not worth my time however this one was so offensive that I had to reply to the sender. I have friends and clients that are Muslims and they are some of the nicest, respectful, "moral" and honorable Americans that you could imagine. You would be proud to have them as your neighbors and friends.

I usually consider one's religion a personal matter between the individual and their God if they so choose to "believe...or not. I do not judge their morality based upon whether they are a Christian or not, but instead judge them by their actions and behavior within their family and community. To do otherwise would imply that I have the "moral authority" to judge people simply because of my self perceived superiority as a Christian, Muslim, Hindu, atheist...et. al.

Sorry,G5

But I was born to Republican parents in the solidly Democratic south. They were exactly one-third of the registered Republican voters.

I helped bigtime while in Okla. A&M in trying to get the first Republican in history elected the state legislature from Payne County, Okla. Until the existing Democratic (Dixiecrat) control of the state threw two senators, all congressman and the entire State Central Committee at him AND voted two graveyards we were able to identify, so their flunky could win by 100 votes.

Spent more time than I preferred in the orthopedic ward at Ft. Carson Army Hospital -- Another week and I would have been permanently assigned to the hospital. Instead I was transferred for the second time, VOCG [Vocal Order-Commanding General] to the Mountain and Cold Weather Training Command, at Cp. Hale, above Leadville and present day Vail, CO.

I served - and it may surprise you to learn, there were no athiests in that hospital ward.

I left the GOP after personally seeing the corruption of the Eisenhower crowd, with a hundred acres of GM trucks parked on Ike's Gettysburg farm. The farm corporation had a wholly -owned subidiary corporation -- which was the Mid-Atlantic Region Distribution Center for GM/Chevy mid-size trucks.

You may recall, Charlie Wilson, GM CEO was Sec. of Defense. For one thing, he dumped a several hundred thousand GM hydromatic truck transmissions onto the military when they bombed on the market.

Wilson merely took a leave from GM, did not resign, did not put his stock into a blind trust.

When are the knee-jerk uber-conservatives going to recognize that Enron, Chevron, KBR and Halliburton executives carried White House VIP passes. (How do you compute $5.00 gas and diesel?)

Have you noticed, a few dozen jobs opened up in Miami this week, THOUSANDS OF DESPERATE PEOPLE showed up. We are pushing 3-Million people thrown out of jobs, many companies and several states have cut their workers to three and four day weeks.

I can buy hundreds of late model, low mileage Kenworth, Peterbilt, NorthStar, Mack, Volvo and all other makes of big rig tractors for $3,000 to $8,000 at a dozen lots within 75 miles of my home.

DubYah jerry-rigged his $730-Billion version of bank bailout, so five executives of one failed bank could grab $250-Million in bonuses for 2008.

At least $250-Million of working folks's money went to Wall Street and Bank executive bonuses, as their reward for total failure.

If recognizing thieving polecats is the mark of a liberal, I just might qualify.

But G5, you don't have the guts to stand toe to toe and call me an athiest. If you want to try, get your affairs in order, so your widow will be provided for.

doodle bug,

Agreed. Challenging someone to a physical fight in the course of an argument over political differences is absolutely, and it does nothing to help your case.

As for who is to blame for the economic crisis? I think there is blame to go around for BOTH parties. Even though the democrats have only had the majority for the last 2 years (not 4 years), they didn't foresee or do anything to forestall the economic collapse. But than neither did professional economists or the bank executives

I think the people who deserve the brunt of the blame are the bank executives. The people who are making millions upon millions because they are supposedly so good at what they do. In my opinion, if you are good enough to have a 7 or eight figure salary, you should be able to foresee an economic collapse of this magnitude, and not run your company so far into the red it needs a bailout.

(I'm not saying the government doesn't share any of the blame, just that I think the bank execs deserve the brunt of it.)

Just wondering how many CEO's of all the crooked financial outfits, Halliburton, KBR, or for that matter any big big American company, who's CEO's are taking salaries of MILLIONS Plus perks of Millions, are democrats? Not very many! Are you publicans "the pot calling the kettle black?"

There are plenty of bad boys in each party.

Saying the tax break is "worth about 13 dollars" is a demonstration that you are either ignorant about the actual bill, or that you can simply regurgitate what you've been told.

Yes, the Drudge Report did run a story that the stimulus includes a tax break of about $13 a week. And that figure was repeated on many conservative sites by many conservative commentators. But what they didn't mention were the other tax cuts in the bill.

The $13 a week figure comes from the "Making work Pay" tax credit, which is $400 a year for individuals($800 for couples). After going through the tax system, this does work out to about $13 a week. But let's not forget that the stimulus also includes other tax credits.

Alternative Minimum Tax credit - Saves a family of 4 approximately $2,300 per year.

College tuition tax credit - Provides $2,500 tax credit for college tuition.

Child tax credit - Provides a $1,000 tax credit for people with children who don't make enough to pay income taxes (and as such are not eligible for the deductions you can make for having a child)

Repeal of the requirement that a $8,000 first-time home buyer tax credit be paid back.

A provision that makes sales taxes paid on new vehicles tax deductible through the end of the year.

And the above are just the tax breaks that affect individuals. There are others that provide tax incentives for businesses as well.

So, saying the stimulus only gives people a $13 tax break is either:

1. Indicative that you are not familiar enough with the bill to know about the other tax breaks it provides to people, and only able to repeat what drudge has published.

2. A display of dishonesty. (Being AWARE of the additional tax breaks and speaking as if the $13 is the only tax break in the bill.)

(Additionally, the "Making work Pay" tax credit was initially supposed to be $500 per person, but was reduced to $400 during negotiations with republicans and moderate democrats. Why? I have no idea.)

G5,

I appreciate that you lived through the Great Depression and I did not. But I'm not playing revisionist history here. I'm not arguing that the spending and economic expansion during WWII didn't end the depression. That level of government spending was a fantastic cash infusion that sparked the economy back to life and substantially raised the national debt. That is what they are aiming for with the stimulus package. Spending to re-start the economy, at the expense of the national debt.

However, the view that the new deal worsened the depression is not one held by a majority of economic historians. A 1995 survey of economic historians found that 27% agreed that the new deal worsened the depression. 21% agreed that the new deal worsened the depression, but with certain provisions on their opinion (the provisions were unspecified in the study). And 51% disagreed outright.

Source: http://eh.net/lists/archives/eh.res/feb-...

What we have is a disagreement over economic models. Keynesian economics (demand-side economics) vs Supply-Side economics. I would posit that you and I (having both taken Economy 101) are probably not the people best qualified to argue their merits.

I would point to the most recent Nobel Prize winner Paul Krugman as a reliable authority on Keynesian economics. Though I am sure you could point to equally reliable proponents of supply-side economics.

Keynesian economics was the prevailing economic theory after WWII until supply-side economics came to prominence in the 80's. Supply-side economics have been the prevalent theory to this day.

The important thing I want people to realize though, is that Keynesian economics are not socialism. Both Keynesian economics and supply-side economics are capitalist economic theories.

As for which is the better economic model? I would like to hear discussion about this at the national level. Unfortunately, our national debate on the subject has become diluted with the people on the right yelling "you're socialists!" while the people on the left yell "you're greedy and bleeding the country dry!" We need to "elevate the discourse" for some reasonable discussion.