Seriously, this is an online poll of 2000 people, not a scientific poll, and it's being taken seriously?

UM....I've been trying to find this so called poll since yesterday. Mr Avalon claims it was supposed to be released 'today', but I went to both the Harris and Gallup websites and they both DO NOT have anything like this poll. I suggest you check your facts before you keep spreading stuff like this that doesn't exist.

This goes beyond ignorance, all the way to systematic, malicious propaganda. The very people in high places who spread this smut are guilty of sedition.

Harris's press release

http://news.harrisinteractive.com/profiles/investor/ResLibraryView.asp?BzID=1963&ResLibraryID=37050&Category=1777

If you want to see why this survey is dubious see:
http://blogs.abcnews.com/thenumbers/2010/03/polling-on-presidential-pejoratives-.html

This poll makes a lot of sense. If only the average person had the power to change government. Too bad.

In a paper entitled “Right-wing Extremism: Current Economic and Political Climate Fueling Resurgence in Radicalization and Recruitment,” the Department of Homeland Security delineated the threat of right wing hate groups to the stability of the nation.

“Paralleling the current national climate, rightwing extremists during the 1990s exploited a variety of social issues and political themes… such as abortion, inter-racial crimes, and same-sex marriage. During the 1990s, these issues contributed to the growth in the number of domestic rightwing terrorist and extremist groups,” Homeland Security reported.

No wonder. “Under the obamanation presently entrenched in the White House and his demonic entourage…,” wrote a poster on a popular mainstream religious forum.

The Homeland Security document forewarned the political and social backlash of the last Presidential election:

“Rightwing extremists have capitalized on the election of the first African American president, and are focusing their efforts to recruit new members, mobilize existing supporters, and broaden their scope and appeal through propaganda, …..”

Leo, all surveys are dubious.

The Homeland Security report is here:

http://www.fas.org/irp/eprint/rightwing.pdf

While the poll is a bit disturbing the ABC news article said this about the sample of 2,320 adults who completed it.

"this survey was done among people who sign up to click through questionnaires via the Internet in exchange for points redeemable for cash and gifts"

Harris themselves had this in their discussion of methodology.

"Respondents for this survey were selected from among those who have agreed to participate in Harris Interactive surveys. The data have been weighted to reflect the composition of the adult population. Because the sample is based on those who agreed to participate in the Harris Interactive panel, no estimates of theoretical sampling error can be calculated”

Based on the sample size and how it was derived this poll really using it to imply anything is irresponsible and reckless.

I dont believe that the antiChrist spoken of in the bible is here yet. But does it really matter? There are many people who dont support Christ, and they help the devil with his agenda anyway. It is just that the antiChrist will have more power, but only because God allows him to. That doesnt mean that none of the polled statements are true. I dont see him as supporting all Americans. He seems to favor the lower income ones and he does support Islam. Obama may not be the antiChrist, but he certainly is anti-Christ.

WE SHOULD NEVER FORGET:
His middle name is HUSSAIN.

EVEN HIS FIRST NAME BARAK IS PROBABLY MUSLIM.
ONLY OBAMA IS AFRICAN.
BARAK HUSSAIN is a confirmation of the ideals of our founding fathers of the inherent rights of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness and the inalienable rights of all citizens with complete freedom of religion.
We must congratulate Obama to have the guts to take on and pass the health care bill where many more powerful and smart presidents have failed.

The average American is baffled by the extraordinary land of wonderful people America has become.
The statue of Liberty if it had a soul and could talk would be singing today.

God Bless America

Both the left and right have extremists. The side in power attempts to paint the other side's extremist as threats. We saw it during the eight year's of Bush's failed presidency from Republicans painting the radical left as threats. Now with the Democrats in power its the right wing nuts who are threats.

Clay, you use words such as "devil" and "anti-Christ" and "Islam," writing as though you are speaking with people who understand those words just the way that you do. In fact, you may be surprised to learn that even among your neighbors, there are very different ways that people understand those words. So, what you wrote means something very different outside the circle of people you normally speak with, something very different from what it means to you (the word "devil" means vastly different things to different people; most people may not use the word at all). I grew up in a Christian missionary home, and can safely tell you that your statement "he certainly is anti-Christ" expresses a certainty only to you and maybe the people who think just like you, not to the majority of Christians or the rest of the country. There is no such "certainty" at all.

Secondly, "supporting Islam" is a necessary, good thing just like supporting Christianity or Buddhism or any other belief - in fact, it is a sworn DUTY of the President, because the United States is build solidly on freedom of religion; this is one of the bedrock freedoms of our country that generations of soldiers and others have died protecting.

rino - It is the Right-wing that is threatening our democratic principles. The racism, homophobia, the bricks being hurled through the windows of Democratic Party windows (shades of Kristallnacht) and the lock and load mentality of Sarah Palin's "targeted" call to bring down selected Democrats is proof positive that the most ignorant elements of our society are being prepped to carry out warfare, if necessary, to keep the interests of their controllers (see corporate sponsors of Tea-Party movement coordinated by Roger Ailes) in control of the government.

Another reason why we have well passed the point where we should have unloaded the institutions of delusionalism. Religion fosters stupidity and complacency with stupidity. Let's unload this festering dead albatross from around our necks once and for all, and grow up?

Littel - I'm not surprised you only look one way when identifying extremism. Who through the bricks? As usualy you left out details that support it is connected to right wing extremists. Targeting political opponets was a strategy used by groups like moveon.org and other left wing groups for years.

http://www.opposingviews.com/i/why-is-no-attention-given-to-left-wing-extremism

Only a fool or extremist themself would deny the existence of radical extremist on BOTH SIDES who would do whatever is necessary to force their narrow view points on the rest of us. My guess is you don't see it because you are one of those trying to force your views on others. Thats's why you attack independents and centrist as being either ignorant or bought by the right.

rino - Give it up. Your attempt to establish middle of the road credentials so that you can continue to try to silence those who are doing nothing but telling the truth is becoming culpable. Any reason that can be put forth that justifies our leaving the infantile need for god concepts behind, is valid. There is no middle ground with religion, you either believe in something that has no basis in reality, or you demand reality, truth and logic should be the center core of our quest to understand the questions that religion demands we forget exist, or that we ignore because they have already been answered with fairy-tale lies.

Littel – All I've ever done is ask you two things. Back up your claims with facts and give your suggestions for changes you feel would fix the problems. Explain how asking you to prove your claims is trying to silence you from telling the truth. Truth is based on being able to prove something using credible evidence. If you are telling the truth why do you keep making false accusations at me instead of proving your claims? Now you try and change the subject to proving religious beliefs in a pathetic attempt to avoid the admitting you can't prove your own baseless claims. Only extremist believe there is no middle ground. Why don't you try providing some truth and logic to your claims by providing impartial credible evidence to support them? For that matter prove I am what you accuse me of being. Face it you are an extremist with no concept on how to do anything except chant radical left slogans and rhetoric. Prove me wrong if you can Littel. Back up your claims. Provide constructive workable ideas for change if you can.

rino - The corruption of our country, in service to the rich, is an accomplished fact. The takeover has already occurred and what we are going through right now is just the struggle by those who actually give a crap, to take it back. The mass in the middle is only just now becoming aware of what is going on and the hatred, lies, and distortions being pushed at us from the Right is beginning to tear this country apart. YOU are acting as a safety valve for these Rightist corporate thieves, who just want to maintain a status quo that serves them very well and this requires a pliant middle who don't know they are being screwed, by calling for compromise, slowing down the process, watering down anything that comes out of the administration that threatens to rock their boat. I don't buy any of your posturing for anything more than it is, a cheap attempt to take the anger of those who are bringing the truth to light and turning it against them by taking the steam out of it and even making it a question of doing the very thing one doesn't do when the boat is sinking, sit down and have a calm and drawn out talk with the people holding all the life-jackets.

Our elected leaders, especially but not exclusively Republicans, are reducing the government to a joke. Failure is their strategy, figuring that they, having caused the failure, can pick up the pieces and continue the fraud that has made our entire economy a cash machine for the few at the top. There is no compromise with people who are holding a gun to our heads (and with today's news about extremist Tea-Party types pumped up by the Becks and Limbaughs among us, that's not a figurative threat). We are on the verge of a national vomiting of ignorance and stupidity, whipped up and financed by corporatist shills, that is going to result in people being killed because they "Don't think right" and those doing the killing will be Right-wing doped flag waving idiots screaming that their killing spree is being done to save America for god, guns and the right to not think at all.

Robert,
The Left also believes in God--Barack Obama believes in god--everyone chants god, god, god--whenever anything goes wrong, whenever the boat capsizes, whenever they are caught with their hands in the cookie jar--everyone's mantra all over the world is-god.

Absolutely sickening this escape into the god realm--that aside, you forget Stupak, the blue dog and all the blue dogs who claim to be Democrats--the wheeler dealers, the anti-abortionists, the "keep the women pregnant and barefoot" group, they seem to come at us in all stripes, are of all ideological persuasions.

We have not taken back any power-- the middle class or the common man-- with this health care bill. The private insurers wanted 30 million newly insured and they bargained for it--no preexisting conditions--OK--they said, no life time caps--OK-they said, kids on parents' insurance until age 26 years--OK--they said and then they said--all possible only if you will get us all the uninsured--in a couple of years they will want more--they will raise premiums because they can't sustain their businesses and so on--until the last drop of blood is gotten out of the sick and the dying--this will not chang.

The problem with the world is too much population and too few resources--the left wants to prevent concentration of wealth but many among the left are themselves very wealthy and very profligate--the right has no qualms about getting wealthy on the backs of the laborers and the small folks--the right believes, unabashedly in wealth for wealth's sake--it calls this unbridled capitalism the good sense of market forces--the greatness of capitalism to elevate men from ditches, place them on thrones and reward them for their hard work--all lies, for the American dream is a dead duck-- the poor have gotten canny about all of this--while the wealthy and the middle class duke it out, the poor know the power of the franchise.
Courted by politicians from the left they live off dole--they milk the system for what it's worth, many of the poor, and the left yields to this benumbing hoax for the vote.

The right uses corporate welfare, the left uses welfare for the poor--both sides are looking to stay in power for ever--the center may seem spineless, may seem the perfect foil for the rich corporatists, may even seem like a large cesspool of do nothings--but the center is perspicacious--it consists of people who realize that as long as men inhabit the Earth there will be class warfare--left, right it does not matter--the USSR tried to abolish these class differences--did it? China tried and capitulated to rabid capitalism. Every "take from the rich and give to the poor country" now unshackled, has kleptocrats greedily accumulating wealth making up for lost time and lost opportunities.

Barack Obama's health care bill, at least in the short run will help the corporate robber barons from the health care companies the most--and watch a bonanza fall into the lap of the pharmaceutical industry--watch their stocks soar through the roof. No one, not even Obama, can rule without the corporatists on his side--he rescued all the too big to fail banks--the thieves got his TARP money --read about Washington Mutual and Bear Stearns--1 billion dollars write off for acquiring Washington Mutual--that's what Bear Stearns get.

Under Obama--the left has a pay Czar--he is controlling AIG and the auto companies--but Bank of America is already out of his grip--so also the City Group and Goldman Sachs--and look who works for Obama--many former Goldman Sachs employees and minions--many of whom were involved in the shenanigans that have drowned us all---they are his best buddies and advisers--Lehman brothers went down--but Goldman--did it do the same? Why not--it had friends in high places and on the left--ah, the left, the right, the center--all the same--trumped by human nature--let's not forget Obama's rendezvous with the king of the Saddleback Church--Rickie Warren--let's not forget the Reverend Wright--nothing right about that rabid man--let's not forget about him--use god to get votes--Obama was never above that.

We are getting health care nearly all of us--we still don't know about the quality of this health care or the quantity of it--you betcha when the corporatists move out their bases to China and find a way to hide their money elsewhere, the left will raise the taxes endlessly on the middle class to pay for this entitlement--the center is not only about ideology--it is also about class--the center is the middle class--between the rich and the poor--squeezed by the left and the right--screwed to the core--finished off--kaput--demolished and dismantled.

As for the right being about guns, god and empty brains exploited in the name of jingoism and patriotism--this is true about the right--but the left too is jingoistic about war--war has been thriving under Obama--in fact war is practically glowing under this king of the left--Afghanistan continues to burn up drones-- drone manufacturing may be one of the most thriving industries in this nation at the current time.

The other thriving industry is legal writing--get yourself a government job if you are a lawyer and offer yourself as a legal scholar ready to pen thousands of pages of regulations and you are into fiscal security for a life time.

The truth of the matter? There is the vacuous right and the vacuous left--then there is the vacuous center--but there are also smart people from each of these ideologies.

The economy in Cuba is all underground--that is where one can encounter the vibrancy of Cuban enterprises--ditto for India--under Obama the US economy too will move underground--left, right, center it does not matter--people will find ways to survive and a government trying to equalize the playing field for all will run up against the hustlers from across the ideological spectrum besting one another and competing underground away from the grasping hands of the tax man.

And Concerned Citizen--what has Barack Obama's name got to do with passage of this health care bill? Have you lost your mind--you sound like you have caught a touch of lunacy.

And finally is Barack Obama the anti Christ? Only the right would call him that--because the right waits for doomsday, its collective tongue lolling about for the return of Christ--and in Barack Obama the right is having an end of the world experience. All things collapsing around it, the right falls back on religious images and demonizes Obama to bring the apocalypse closer--so what else is new?
Ravensfan Anon

Corrections--"That's what Bear Stearn gets" NOT "That's what Bear Stearns get" and "Change" not "chang". Fast typing--it does not help with spelling.
Ravensfan Anon

Littel - Nothing but the same empty rhetoric and personal attacks you've been spouting . You sound like the very religious you attack by stating things as factual because you say so.

Anonymous - Good post.

Ravensfan Anon - You have done a credible job of explaining the complexity that is in operation in this country and the world, a complexity that is being used primarily by those who know the world is on the verge of breeding itself beyond the planet's ability to sustain our ever in creasing numbers, and have decided to get what they can for themselves, while the getting is good.The complexity of our situation is the problem, which is why greed has become endemic, it is a reaction to our self serving egos.

Our world perceptions, our intellectual postulations are all felt, by the individual (if he feels at all) to be the end result of what is basically a two dimensional understanding of the forces that control us. You touch on the complexity and the manipulation of factors that have input on the operation of our society on both the macro and micro level, which scream for solutions that demand a total restructuring of society to rid ourselves of the very things that keep us apart, and that such action is contra indicated by society's tendency to not be willing to face the raw truth, as long as they have full bellies and a roof over their heads. We, as a species, are still mere children, in our level of understanding of our true nature as the first species that, due to our evolved brain's ability to willfully alter our surroundings, with many among us still mere toddlers by comparison. Religion is a function of our immature toddler status that has led us to believe that we are above the natural laws that govern survival of any living thing, right down to the lowly virus. Like the virus, we have infected a body and are using that body to sustain us as we multiply unrestricted, despite our large brains, to the point where we are on the verge of doing the very virus like thing of destroying our host's (the planet Earth)ability to keep us alive. Unlike the lowly virus, we have so far been unable to make the leap to a new host , or to adapt so that we can exist in symbiosis with the current one. Everything outside of the natural laws, we all must obey, has been the struggle to use our intellects to further our survival and much of the complexity we have acquired along the way, is function of our actually being able to perceive the natural law and bend it to fit the prejudices we are uniquely able to create. We are the first species that can make conscious choices and because we are still in our infancy, as a species, we have made some very stupid ones that we then have institutionalized and allowed to be an atrophying factor in our future development.

Any society throughout our history, has had a need to maintain a status quo that remains viable as long as the individual perceives that his basic needs are being met and all societies have fought to maintain that status quo well past when the underlying structure of that society has already begun to rot from within. We are at that point, and arguing for the continuation of a status quo that, because of our misuse of technology and our resulting over-breeding allowed by using that technology to meet our basis survival needs, has well started to poison the well we must all drink from. People like rino, who argue for the status quo because it is so simple a thing to do, or you who do the same thing because you have enough understanding to realize it may just be beyond our ability to deal with, both accomplish the same thing, a stagnation that will blindly lead us to our own destruction. There is hope for you, unlike rino, who cannot see over the edge of the box he has found provides him his ignorant comfort, and that he works so hard to bring to all of us, while the world goes to hell in a hand-basket.

Nicely done Rfan Anon, I have been stirred by your thesis there -- evidence of the less-vacuous representing the left... right... center...

I'm a fan, nice post.

Another way to use the word "God" Rfan Anon is in the phrase "God help us" -- as in "God help us if America cannot see the forest through the trees". I think what is detrimental to the process of moving forward with the good of all in mind is the deviation away from what America was intended to be; the vision of our founding fathers which has been all but lost in everyone's (particularly those in power) abuse of the constitution. The motives here are some of which you touched on -- greed, wealth, more, more, more -- all, consequently, squeezing out the middle class and all using their own ideologies to twist the script. I could point out that this is but one problem with "moral relativism", but we don't need to "pass that peace pipe around" again.

America is being manipulated. An example is the other day, Robert Gibbs assured the us that Obamacare will not violate the Commerce Clause of the Constitution. He went on to say that the objections were just "political in nature". The clause (Article 1, Section 8-3) reads “Congress shall have the power to regulate Commerce with foreign nations, and among the several States, and with the Indian tribes.” For some reason, I don’t see how the relationship and interaction between a patient and their doctor allows for the governments interference based on commerce...

Times like this remind me of the words that jolly old chap Khrushchev spoke when he said:

“We can’t expect the American People to jump from Capitalism to Communism, but we can assist their elected leaders in giving them small doses of Socialism, until they awaken one day to find that they have Communism.”

We can't say that America is heading for full-bore Communism or even socialism. What we can do is watch in amazement as these "small doses of socialism" become injected into the political majority in the name of dollars and cents. The bottom line is simple:
Our founding fathers lived in times which valued a man's handshake; people had a sense for the common good of all, people had a sense of right and wrong and it wasn't all that complicated. We did not need laws governing the most common sense notions and simple civil freedoms. We have dramatically lost this simple sense of justice and right vs wrong -- whether your ideals are left, right or somewhere in the center.

Man! I love California for this one:

Let's ban happy meal toys... make it a LAW! We already have a LAW -- the county in Silicon Valley passed in 2008 -- which states all fast food restaurants must have a calorie count on all items, but lets TAKE THE TOY AWAY TOO! Are we that stupid that we now need the government to control a mothers decision to let her kids play with a toy while they get fat eating lard? Lard that now has to state the actual amount of lard being consumed?

"Let's go Jimmy, grab your stuff, we're going to McPig's in Connecticut where you can play with that toy to work off your meal... while we still can!"

But with California possibly legalizing pot for everyone in the state, even for non medicinal uses, the federal government should be able to regulate things in individual states. Why? Because pot never did anyone any good. If it helps with pain for certain patients, fine. However, for the majority it is just something that scrambles your brain that you can get addicted to with a distorted sense of reality not helping either. But for the feds to tell me that I have to buy health insurance, I cant agree with that one. I think that there is a difference in the two situations. For California to be so concerned about natural things and the health of the population and then say that you can have pot all you want is to me a contradiction. It doesnt help your lungs either. The most important thing is that God's law should be the law of the land. If people followed that then we wouldnt have the problems that we have now. When He comes back to change the world it will be what He wants anyway.

More important than discussing opinions is being aware of facts. The fact is that the Hawaii Department of Health has indirectly confirmed, in 2 different ways, the fact that the Factcheck COLB for Obama is a forgery. What Hawaii has for Obama does not qualify as prima facie evidence of a Hawaii birth.

More, plus the documentation directly from the Hawaii DOH, is at http://butterdezillion.wordpress.com/2010/01/11/red-flags-in-hawaii-2/

Robert,
Brilliant first para--this in a crux is our global problem--yes--succinct and I repeat--brilliant. Thanks Rino--I follow you around to see what you have to say to Robert--and Pattycakers--thanks
Ravensfan Anon

Pattycakers, you wrote: “Our founding fathers lived in times which valued a man's handshake; people had a sense for the common good of all, people had a sense of right and wrong and it wasn't all that complicated. We did not need laws governing the most common sense notions and simple civil freedoms.”

Actually we did Pattycakers: The simple civil freedom of voting was not extended to African Americans until 1870, to women in 1920. The poll tax was eliminated in 1964 and adults younger than twenty one were not allowed to vote until 1971. In the happy days of the Founding Fathers the Founding Mothers could not own property. If your revolutionary war hero daddy left you property it would go to your husband. Now there's a common sense notion!

What you call “the common good for all” was the common good for few. Those few were male white landowners. Their sense of right and wrong was very narrow, if that's what you mean by not complicated. A man's handshake is still good enough, if he is an honorable man. But men were dishonorable in the days of the founders too. “These dirty and ridiculous litigation's have been multiplied in this town, till the very earth groans and the stones cry out!” Lamented John Adams.

What you call “the common good for all” was the common good for few. Those few were male white landowners. Their sense of right and wrong was very narrow, if that's what you mean by not complicated.

The point about the Commerce Clause had nothing to do with the relationship between patient and doctor. Rather, the Commerce Clause has historically given Congress the limited right to regulate insurance when it involves interstate commerce. The clause very clearly envisions that as you quoted: “Congress shall have the power to regulate Commerce... among the several States....”

It does not say: “Congress shall have the power to regulate he relationship and interaction between a patient and their doctor.”

Why the obsession with place of birth. Children born to Americans serving abroad
are accorded the same status as if they were born on US soil.
Fake or true,Obama has shown his mettle.

Ravensfan : You have too much time on your hands. The survey focuses on his Muslim name.
when you have a name like Hussein or Goldberg the prejudice against Muslims and Jews is always very clear.
I was pointing to this fact to make a point.

We should ban polygamy in Muslim countries and require family planning in developing countries in Asia and Africa.
Development organizations are constantly asking for more dollars and pay no attention to poor people in Asia and Africa breeding like mice with no family planning whatsoever.
This way save the Children fund and other UN organizations can remain gainfully employed for ever.
It is the same with war on terror.

As long as we have Sharia laws as superior law in Muslim countries there will always be dictators and kings and terrorists. But then the State dept and homeland security need these terrorists to keep their jobs.
It is all self-serving.

Obama is Black and referring to him as Antichrist somehow smacks of racism

WE must remember that Jesus was probably of Brown complexion since he lived in the middle east and not a White man as he has been portrayed.

Littel - I'll give you a A for writing skills. But like everything else you post there is no substance. It contains nothing of any practical use or value. By the way Anonymous post was much more than credible. What your post lacks, as usual is your views for how things need to change. SImply your continued obsessive paranoia about how the world in general and nothing to convince any average reader to consider your post more than extremist dogama.

Anonymous - You are welcome in this case it was Littel following me here to continue his sky is falling cries. I pretty much consider him part of the problem at this point rather than part of any solution. Just as I consider wingnuts like Limbaugh and Beck pare of the problem.

rino - You are fooling very few with your feigned homage to the middle, by showing only a cursory disdain for the two most divisive elements of the Right-wing cabal (Beck & Limbaugh). A cabal which you serve by being dismissive of the very information they fear being realized as the truth, by the complacent masses your side so much wishes to remain ignorant of the facts, and malleable toward your side's control and further exploitation. The painting of the real and occurring events, that corporate America is carrying out against us and our supposed form of representative government, as being so much paranoia, is just a tactic in the on going con that you are trying to further. Trying to sound like the voice of reason, when what you represent is most unreasonable, is always the first sign of a con artist. I hope they are paying you well, because only an unprincipled fool would do it for free.

This post is not going to focus on your comment debate, but on the article itself.

First of all, the existence of an Antichrist requires a christ by association, and you all know my stance on that, I'm sure.

Second, if your familiar with the prophecies of Nostradamus, then you know the mythical Antichrist would be European. Obama is Kenyan.

Third, how is he going to take away our guns? Is he going to tell the military to do it? I'm an Infantryman myself, and let me tell you, at least 90% of the Army would give him a big "No sir."

Now gun control, there's a concept I can agree with. When I patrolled through Baqubah, we routinely would knock on doors, and politely search houses. Iraqis were only allowed to have one AK-47, and one full magazine, for home defense. Anything else was confiscated. That makes sense to me.

less likely to be duped with a degree? LMAO. Anybody who still thinks the TV news is REAL at all is DUPED (newspapers too mostly!)

http://patriotsquestion911.com

USA is the most duped nation there is! And articles like this prove that! The book cited in this article is a f'n JOKE. Also Obama is not even a citizen, true story.

Littel – A typical extremist response. Attack those who question or disagree. All it show's is you can't mount a reasonable & logic argument and support your claims. Are you EVER going to actually give any ideas for change, or just continue with your sky is falling dogma and abusive personal attacks on anyone who questions the deluded paranoid propaganda you spew. Make a solid argument for your concerns and offer some suggestions for change or I can only view you as a radical left wing buffoon.

If you are going to type that rejoinder every time you see my name, I'm sure that some brain less twits will start to buy it. You have offered nothing but a lame pretence of being a centrist, backed up by nothing but a feigned seemingly sacrificial slap at Beck and Limbaugh and a call for all of us to be as pliantly pleasant as you need the sheep your side has to con, in-order to regain numerical control of the government. Badgering dismissal of anything that challenges the Right-wing dogma, by seizing upon the fear that the population has for any kind of change, is a cheap trick and I have to hand it to you for keeping it up for so long, but that does not excuse what you are trying to do to the country, all to benefit those who already are holding an obscene number of the cards.

Littel - Then support your diatribes with something and offer solutions. All I've seen you do is make the same old mindless rants over and over. Then attack me for asking you to support them. For all your whining if you'd done what I challenged you to do I wouldn't need to say it again and again. Keep in mind junior you chose to respond to me on this topic. You aren't challenging any right wing dogma simply trying to out shout it with your own left wing dogma. In the process what you are doing is helping prevent real workable useful change from ever happening.

rino - First of all, I'm not a "Junior" by any stretch of imagination. I turned 21 at the original Woodstock, a couple of months after getting back from involuntary participation in the resource war going on at that time.

Second, I've made my case over the last few months in this forum, and a recap, so that you can just call anything that doesn't fit your doctrinaire mindset just more "left wing blattering" would amount to a monumental waste of time, which is exactly what I believe your goal is anyway. I will not be played by someone as dishonest as I believe you to be. I have nothing I need to prove to you, because I believe you already know that what I am saying is the truth. You just don't have a problem with the corporate rape of this country and have, no doubt, been bought for chump-change to do what you are doing here. I stand by my previous statement and if you don't like it, feel free to take a suggestion that I have made to you in the past.

I certainly hope that the nut jobs who believe President Obama is the antichrist are just a lunatic fringe on the internet.

In working for health insurance for everyone, Mr. Obama is just doing something Teddy Roosevelt or even Richard Nixon would have thoroughly approved.

Ugh, I have no patience for the "birthers". What do these fools think? There was a birth announcement for him in the Honolulu newspaper -- how do they think it got there if Mr. Obama was born in Africa?

With such dimwits acting up, at times I fear for our republic.

With most not accepting Christ, it is not far fetched to fear for most of the population, antiChrist or no antiChrist.

Clay - What we most have to fear is someone who thinks like you attaining an important position of power.

Littel - All you have done is repeat the same empty accusations over and over again. You've given zero support to them with and offered no suggestions for how to change the very problems you rail on and on against with the same tired rhetoric. Instead of doing anything meaningful you attack anyone who puts you on the spot to support your extremist claims. This country has real problems which need to be addressed, but with extremists like you and those on the right trying to out shout one another I fear nothing will get done.

rino - Like I've said before, I will not be played by a BS rightist who is pretending to be a radical centrist, when in fact you're here just to shut down those who are making the argument against the corporate interests that you have made no attempt to blame for any of the mess that we are currently in, despite the fact that they are spending hundreds of millions of dollars to further their control over us. You can scream "extremist leftist rhetoric" until your non-cakehole falls off, but that will non change the facts. You are a rightist shill and you know where you can go.

Littel - Like most extremists the more you are asked to support what you say the louder you shout making unfounded personal attacks than simply do what any reasonable, logical & rational person would do and simply provide the support & solution ideas asked. That's all the proof needed to show you are exactly what I said an extremist trying to out shout other extremists. Nothing is a fact unless it can be substantiated and you saying it over and over doesn’t make anything a fact.

rino - I am arguing a question of value and you are demanding that we make it a question of workability. If you had any working knowledge of argumentation and debate, you would either understand that, or do exactly what you are doing here, deliberately, in an effort to make the question of value appear invalid. It is an apples and oranges situation and you are playing it to the hilt. It is also a tactic that has been taught to Right-wing operatives by its most skillful user, Karen Hughes, who used the tactic to successfully deflect pointed questions by the late Tim Russert (no slouch he) on "Meet The Press", when she was George W. Bush's spin whore.

Now, if you want to have a discussion based on questions of value, I would be happy to accomodate you and will even give you an argument to sink your teeth into, or you can continue to spout your worn out response to anything I have to say. Here you go.

The unifying lie that is the justification for the so called Tea-Party movement, is totally false to begin with. When looking at our political and social institutions, is not a question of “small government vs. big government”, it is a question of whether corporations control it, or whether it is there to work for the good of the much often quoted and abused “WE THE PEOPLE” of mythical founding fathers fame. Corporations don’t care whether they control government, or whether it is destroyed, they win either way. What corporations don’t want is a government that serves the needs of the rest of society, because that threatens the system they have constructed that has funneled 1/2 of ALL the wealth in this country into the pockets of about 4000 individuals. The smaller the government, the more control that this elite can marshal in-order to keep the disproportionate distribution of benefits (wealth, that equals power) under their control. You Tea Party dupes are just mere pawns in the theatre of the absurd they have created to keep us distracted while they suck the life out of the planet, in preparation for the collapse they know is coming because they have chosen selfish accumulation over facing the ever mounting problems now starting to make the planet incapable of sustaining us. Like the run of the mill Tea Party idiot, the simple, but wrong, solution is always the one we seem to embrace, only the simplicity they are handing the under-classes is meant, designed and calculated to fail in the end, while theirs succeeds. If you want to ride that pony, then be forewarned, its headed for a cliff and they will make no effort to stop your ride.

Littel –I’m not a part of the Tea Party movement. I don’t advocate big or small but smart government. I’m interested in government that keeps the playing field level and protects the rights of all. That keeps corporations and rich from exploiting the poor & weak but doesn’t try and regulate distribution of wealth. I’m also quite well versed argumentation and debate that’s why you avoid doing it with me and simply make personal attacks to avoid actual debate and discussion. Here’s some advice if you want to make accusations then they require some sort of substantiation to be taken seriously. Again you go on and on about problems but offer no ideas for solutions. Even if you managed to convince me or others that’s only half the battle the other half is coming up with solutions. Since all of us will never totally agree that’s where compromise comes in to find workable solutions. Like most radical left wing extremist you demonize any group who doesn’t share your own views. I’ll grant you that the tea-party movement has its share of extremist and their basic premise on taxes isn’t viable given current debt levels. What you claim about them is simply more unsubstantiated propaganda no different that the wing nuts who accuse liberals of being unpatriotic or other nonsense. In the end we need to find practical compromises to try and address the problems we face as a nation and a planet. Shouting extremist rhetoric isn’t going to accomplish anything except stoke the fires intolerance more than they already are. If we are heading towards a cliff its people like you and the wing nuts on the right that are the reason we don’t change course. You refuse to look for compromises and instead are all too busy making outlandish, unsupportable and in some cases exaggerated claims to the point that no one listens and as a result nothing gets done.

If I may try to bring this conversation back a bit closer to its source.... Interesting that the Hutaree Christian thugs in Michigan were planning to wage war against "the anti-Christ." Wonder who they had in their sights?

BankStreet - It sounded like intiyally at least the police. Hopefully they all get locked away for a long time.

rino - You are arguing for compromise within a framework that has been so corrupted to begin with, that anything that doesn't address the serious problems we are facing head on, instead of by a committee of already bought and paid for elected leaders reaching a middle ground that only favors those now holding all the marbles. We are NOT dealing with world overpopulation, we are NOT dealing with shrinking finite resources, we are NOT dealing with the pollution of our air and water, we are NOT dealing with climate change and all the turmoil that is going to bring down on us, and everything you are urging us to do WILL NOT ADDRESS ANY OF IT, if we let those who will benefit by the continuation of all these problems continue sit at the table holding the greatest number of cards, cards (wealth & power) that they have no intention of letting go of, or playing for the general good of Humanity.

The world is facing a confluence of extreme crises and the "lets all sit down and work out a compromise that will make everyone happy" solution will be as effective as breasts on a snake. When the ship is tilting on end sinking, you do not lie about it, hand everyone a tin cup, sing Kumbaya and urge them to bail, if it makes them feel comfortable. You kick their butts, scream "Wake up" and force them to think and do something. You don't want the boat rocked, but the gunwales are already slipping beneath the water-line and if you are too stupid, or too ignorant, or too invested in the system that is bringing us down by our inaction, then I don't know whether to pity you, loathe you, or both, but I know damn well I'm not going to let you shut down what has to be done in the name of contrived civility. You are wrong and society should not have to suffer for your need for ineffectual placidity.

Littel – First you have NEVER proven any of your claims of a corrupted framework. Nor have you indicated a better one. You made no case for any of the problems although I will agree there is a degree of truth buried deep inside your paranoid sky is falling delusions. You have provided no ideas on what should be done to correct the problems. How exactly do you propose any of those things you mentioned are going to be changed? What kind of system do you propose that can correct all these problems? Unless you advocate a dictatorship of those who feel they have the answers and forcing them on everyone compromise is the only way any change will ever happen. Only a complete and total fool could think otherwise.

I am tired of wing nuts like you shouting out and insulting people who want to see real change but don’t agree with your paranoid delusions. Instead of working with them you are too busy chanting worn out rhetoric and slogans and not offering any ideas while condemning every idea that doesn’t agree with their warped and demented views. If the boat we are in is sinking it’s people like you will guarantee it sinks. By screaming about who is to blame and why we need to plug all the holes rather than have some people plug and some bail. You see the sinking boat as an opportunity to take command rather than concern yourself with keeping the boat afloat while it’s fixed. Your problem is you offer NOTHING to help because you are too busy looking for how you can use the problems to change society into what you believe it should be. If you don’t agree PROVE YOUR CLAIMS and OFFER REAL SOLUTIONS don’t waste my time calling me childish names to make yourself feel superior. I’ve had more intelligent discussions with my middle school son than you.

rino - We have a dictatorship of elites and this tiny group controls 1/2 of all the wealth (power) in the country. I have made the case for this, which was simple because the Ultra-wealthy bragged about it in publications like "Forbes". You dismissed this as just so much left-wing blathering and from that august position, have done the same for anything put forth related to the abuse that cannot help but happen, when so few have so much, and mean to have things stay that way. You are trying to push forward the illusion that there is a middle ground that exists that is important to maintain because it is where we can solve our problems and if that was the case, we would not be having such a struggle to enact a fair system that will cut down on the 45,000 Americans who die each year because they are excluded from effective health care. It is the existing corporate system that has created so much in our society, but that templet does not serve health care the same way it serves producing cars, or dish washing machines, that can be done without, if the consumer cannot, or does not want them. Health care is a necessity, like roads and clean water, that cannot be meted out in a market where it is necessary to exclude those who do not fit in with profit forecasts and desires, that enrich people who provide nothing to health care except a way to siphon off a cut from the top.

Why you are so insistent on silencing the voice of someone whose only interest is justice and the well-being of all of our citizens is a mystery to me, especially since you argue for a solution that will only perpetuate (through ineffectual action) the misery corporate America demands of us to feed the greed at the top.

As to solutions, to our problems, we need an educated citizenship, and with the desire of our current corporate masters to keep us dumb and disinterested (distracting us with the fluffery we consume and feel we must have), that is unlikely to happen without concerted effort (as always, concerted effort works to maintain a lazy status quo, because it is so harrrrrrrd to do).
We need to seize back the government by banning all outside interests (especially those of ultra wealth) from buying our legislative and, evidently, our judiciary branches of government, purging through exposure and electoral defeat, any candidate whose tender parts have a corporate string attached, even if only slightly. This, of course will not happen as long as greed is in place and wishes to remain the driving force in politics.

If we are to have any meaningful health care in this country, then the One-Payer plan is the ONLY solution because it addresses the problem mentioned above, where corporate participation, even at a minimal level, will continue to cause abuse by taking resources away from the patient, and it needs to be administered by a government free of corporate pollution.

We need public financing of the electoral process, which will, of necessity, cut down on the money wasted by both sides trying to outdo each other to win over enough of the disinterested dolts (like the ones interviewed on the way to vote who state, "I don't know who I'm going to vote for yet") with the winning candidates , more or less, ending up obeying the dictates of the corporate lobbyists, whom we would also be wise to make illegal.

We also have to undo many of the societal myths that have given us the chauvinistic attitude that the world owes us because we are somehow superior, a phenomenon that I think comes directly from the twisted and nurtured notion of our place in the world caused by our Puritan myths of being a "Christian nation", even though we have been every bit and more so, a venal nation willing to sell out our so called Christian principles, even to commit genocide against the original Americans in-order to expropriate what was rightly theirs. We need a taste of humility, a bit of back-bone, and a recharging of our curiosity and a lot of hard work if we are to survive and the feel good delusion of the current status quo is not going to do it, no matter how hard you work at silencing those who understand what is going on.

Littel - You have NEVER proven anything except the disproportionate allocation of wealth which exists in every society. You have NEVER provided anything except a Forbes article which proves nothing except the obvious disproportionate allocation of wealth. We just passed a health care reform bill. Granted it will not fix all the problems, but if you were correct the current bill would have never passed. You have no proof how many die because of no health insurance who wouldn’t have had they had it.

How is asking you to support your claims silencing you? It sure hasn’t done it so far. Your problem is you can’t support most of what you claim so rather than even try you attack me personally. I’ve lost count of the number of outright lies you said about me. None of your solutions will work because the vast majority does not agree with you. Trying to force only your solutions is a guarantee of more of inaction.

Stop with the corporate masters nonsense unless you can back it. So far you haven’t. Had you been able to I’d of agreed with you a long time ago. That’s your deluded view because things don’t work the way you think they should. You’ve convinced yourself, or someone else did, that your way is the only way and only those corporate masters, their minions and the ignorant masses refuse to or can’t see it. The truth is you are the one who can’t see that by insisting on no compromise you guarantee no change ever happens.

I agree we need better education in this country. It needs to be free of the influence of both the right and left revisionist ideas. I’m all for campaign finance reform as long as ALL influences corporate, labor, trial lawyer & PAC’s are not able to exert influence. The trouble is most only see one side or the other as the problem. Good luck getting greed out of the picture. I agree it’s a problem if you know how to get it out you’re a better man than I.

The public option will not work. The US government has NEVER shown it can effectively and efficiently administer anything. All one has to do is look at how foolishly the government handles its own finances to see that.

Some of what you say actually has merit. Pity is wrapped in so much radical left wing propaganda because you actually could probably be a force for change if you had the open mindedness to look beyond your own warped paradigm. By the way those dolts as you call them are who you need to convince to get any changes done. It would do you far better not to insult them but convince them.

rino - It is clear that your only function here is to make my life so miserable that I will give up in disgust and stop offering my opinions in this forum. It is exactly what I would expect, when the incompetent ravensfan was unable to affect that task, and your showing up to take over is indicative of sending in the first string of paid moderators from the Right, to silence the very voices that could threaten the stranglehold that our corporate institutions have been trying to impose on our legislative bodies. No one who is a true wishy-washy middle of the road advocate, would go to so much trouble, waste so much time, expend so much effort and verbiage, to shut down someone who is saying what most already are coming to realize is the truth, unless they had a deeper reason for doing so. I have no doubt whatever, given your otherwise manic but measured fervor (complements of the Karen Hughes handbook ), that this is part of your employment in service to the very institutions I will continue to attack.

Littel – The decision to offer your opinions is yours to make. All I have ever asked is that you support what you claim. If this is so plainly obvious as you claim it seems to me you should have had no trouble making a rational, logical intelligent argument to support it instead of making so many baseless personal attacks on me. You need to see someone because you are paranoid as well as delusional if you think people are being paid to shut you up. If that were true I would have been fired long ago as you are still here. Like most extremist you do everything except actually making a case for what you claim. Your view is true because you say so and those who don’t see it are either part of the other side or used by them. Here’s some advice your attacks would work better if you could back them with more than cheap rhetoric, insults and personal attacks

rino - Because trillions of dollars are at stake over the next decade, the expenditure to plant either paid, or highly motivated future corporate operatives in the sites of the major papers' blogs to insure that those who threaten this lucrative con they are running, are duly harassed into silenced, or discredited by innuendo, is not only to be feared, but expected, and would be considered chump change in the expense ledgers. After all, the Cult of Sun Myung Moon, who has financed far worse activities world-wide, is in league with, and a major supporter of, the more unsavory corporate owned of our political system (search "Sun Myung Moon" and the name of any Right-wing shill ,Richard Viguerie, or Newt Gingrich for a couple of names) and you will see that they are very much in lock-step with a megalomaniacal fascist, who has already stated his desire to bring our government to its knees in the name of a unified one-world order, where people like me will, as a matter of course, have to be eliminated. This can even be gleaned from the Moonie's own web-sites, or by reading carefully from the Moonie owned and Republican much favored rag, "The Washington Times". If you are even hinting that the Right is not engaged in an out and out campaign to undermine the very principles we were supposedly founded to embody, all to benefit those who have managed to corral one out of every two dollars that exists for their own benefit, then it is you who are living outside the realm of reality, or totally corrupted by it. I vote for the latter.

Littel - You still provide no real support that anyone is paying anyone to show up on blogs to silence anyone. Blogs like this and others are far too numerous and corporations and rich are no where near as unified of purpose to even come close to pulling off what you suggest. You have bought into the propaganda model of media bias. That one paper happens to be owned Moon's organization means little. I could make a counter areguement that it leans to the left based on the 1986 book "The Media Elite" I'm not hinting at anything. I'm saying you are paranoid, delusional and have no clue of reality. It's thinking like yours along with the equally dense simple mindedness fo the extreme right that keep any real change from happening.

Four or five individuals monitoring a few major newspapers a day, could cover all the major markets in the country. One real eager Right-wing troll could do it by themselves, if like I suspect, they don't get lucky very often.

If you are going to even try to take the fanatic Right-wing light off the Sun Myung Moon organization, by throwing a book title into the mix, you are barking up the wrong tree, and showing your true colors at the same time. I suggest you read a book by Robert Boettcher (ISBN 0-03-044576-0) titled "Gifts of Deceit" which is a good beginning to how the Moon organization, with roots in Japanese WWII fascism, has been on a buying spree in the hallowed halls of Right-wing power and Republican politics. It is not my paranoia, it is your ignorance of the truth, or complicity in that truth.

Ah! So much flowery verbiage and bombast wasted on corporate thugs who even as we write are singing all the way to the bank supported by a left wing President, who bailed them out because they were too big to fail. No one has ever shown that health insurance actually improves quality of health or saves people. Considering the kinds of greedy docs who inhabit this planet---not going to a doc sometimes is far safer than going to one. People die often, even with a hundred docs in tow, because they stuff their faces with the wrong foods and they wallow in sloth or because medications cause lethal side effects or docs screw them up. The single payer system will kill as many people as the multiple payer system because in a game of survival of the fittest, some of us will inexorably devise our own demise, despite the many rapacious medicos who don't want us in Pluto's underworld where they cannot charge for our miseries. As for public financing of political campaigns--no better idea existed on paper but watch it wilt on the lapels of the most idealistic of politicians--Barack Obama being one of them. Was not this the very same man who wanted to be financed by public dole initially, but later when he found his coffers overflowing, declared menial public sums not fit for his presidential campaign's gigantic appetite and decided then to spend the millions he suddenly owned on defeating the Sarah Palin- -McCain menace? Well, that example I give to prove that idealism and high mindedness are not inoculations against greed or hunger for victory or power. Everyone is susceptible--left, right or center to the lure of money and the scent of greed. While Moon mooches with the Right, Soros, the multi billionaire, who is dead set against corporate power, in spite of the fact his pockets jingle with monies swept up from hedging bets on global markets--he mooches with left. True we must save the planet and even if we must not sit down with corporate moguls to do so because they will thwart us in our efforts out of self interest, nevertheless we must sit down with China and with India to achieve our goals and those two countries already asked us to bug off because they see people like Robert, Rino and me-- Ravensfan Anon, as greedy--Western folks who live in the cozy comfort of their enclaves, water readily emerging from their taps, food in their fridges, dictating to the people of the developing world, where water and food are scarce, not to drive too many automobiles, not to burn and slash forests, not to do this and that--they want to get rich and rich fast. Barack Obama was not able to bring these forces around in Copenhagen--a thumping climate conference failure--developing countries hold Western environmentalists and governments in the same contempt Robert holds Western capitalists--as dictators who have expropriated most of the globe's oil wealth, food and precious resources through colonialism and wars. They want redistribution of wealth--into their coffers of course. Would you call China and India corporate thugs--impediments? Would you call them greedy? If we are concerned about population explosion, climate change, global maldistribution of wealth we simply cannot slap or shout people out of their torpor--nor can we bully them or maul them out of their inaction and recalcitrance. Rino is right--we have to engage them and that is what Barack Obama is doing--demonizing does not help--the corporations are not going to disappear any time soon--in fact more have sprung up across the globe--even the totalitarian Russian state could not sit tight until it appropriated Yukos gas from Michail Khodorkovsky--governments too can function like corporations--greedy--enriching some individuals at the expense of others--the Russian and the Chinese states are classic examples--the bigger the government gets the greater the chances it will envelop our souls and function exactly like a corporation--will follow the same business model--in democracies, corporations and governments are a perfect foil for each other--at times they function as friends, at other times as enemies--our business as voters is to keep them at each others' throats--but eliminating or dismantling corporations-- that is a pipe dream--throwing our total weight behind government because corporations are wealth suckers--as though government is not a wealth sucker or a phenomenal waster of wealth--what would it get us? Nothing but a corporate government. harking back to the title of this blog--I declare governments and corporations are anti--christs--as long as they are fencing each other we are safer than when they lie together in the same bed.
Ravensfan Anon

Ravensfan Anonymous - You have just outlined the fatalistic excuse to throw our hands in the air and surrender to forces, (population explosion, greed and the resulting poisoning of the pond we all share, to sustain them), as if the effort for our species to survive isn't worth the attempt. You seem to not understand that we are getting a corporate government, whether we like it or not, because they mean to control it, and with unfettered wealth, they will allow population to increase (bigger market place) and in doing so strip the planet of the last of our finite resources in the process, while dumping the collateral waste from the process into the air and oceans until it chokes us to death. You make a great cheer-leader in the game of life, "Surrender, Surrender, Hey Hey, Humanity Humanity, Fade Away!"

Littel - I'll give you this you defend your beliefs with all the passion that would make any fundamentalist Christian envious. It's a pity you don't use some of that energy looking for ways to work with those who while not seeing the world in exactly the same light as you believe changes are needed. What's interesting about your choice of book titles to toss around is one that discusses 1976 involving South Korean political figures seeking influence from 10 Democratic members of Congress. I never said Moon wasn't dangerous. He's as dangerous as the all extremists. In the end I'm left with the same problem. You have not made a logical, rational argument supported by credible evidence to support your whole wealthy funneling wealth into some fascist dictatorship or any monitoring of media to silence the truth. Only deluded conspiracy theorist makes such outlandish claims. If you are happy standing on the fringe screaming the sky is falling that’s your business. Just realize you will never accomplish any real change doing it. To accomplish change is going to require you to move towards the middle and compromise where possible in order to change anything.

rino - Sun Myung Moon has been trying to buy influence wherever he can. I have never said that Democrats, by not being Republicans, are all above selling out to the absolutist Right-wing rubbish that has been striving to exert its absolute will on everything political (the recent health care debate being a prime example). Just for fun, search "Sun Myung Moon" and any of the Bush males, especially papa (who has been on the Moon payroll for years) and Neil, (who has joined Moon's personal entourage). As to the book I referenced, it was published in 1980 and the information in it reflects what Sun Myung Moon was doing at that time, before a Democratic administration's Justice Department charged him, tried him and put him in prison for tax evasion . He lost a bit of his desire to deal with even corruptible Democrats after that event, an has pretty much been concentrating his money and influence toward Republicans. As it was the FIRST definitive work to be published that addressed the Moon Cult threat, was why I suggested it as a "start". There is a wealth of information that can be accessed just by typing "Sun Myung Moon" on your search bar and some of the most despicable comes straight from Moon's own web sites.

You seem to have a fixation about enforcing a concessionary attitude on discourse that only favors the corrupted status quo (as in the banking and insurance industries ) that wishes things to remain as they were when they ran rough-shod over the economy and brought us so low. Your call for compromise with people who have not only not learned a lesson from their mismanagement of our financial institutions, but show every indication that they are firing up the same corrupted machinery they used before to do it all again, just shows whose side you are truly working for, despite your feigned adopted centrist veneer, donned in an attempt to control the flow of public opinion, by eliciting sympathy from the mostly apolitical segment of our population.

Your constant effort to label what is in fact the truth, as being claims only a "deluded conspiracy theorist makes", is just the tactic someone without a leg to stand on repeats over and over, when they are trying to sell a lie, which is exactly what you seem to be doing.

Littel - Sun Myung Moon is dangerous and I have no doubt trying to buy whatever influence he can from whatever source he can.

Most of your post is your usual extremist diatribe. Attack me personally because you can't support your claims and cal those claims fact without any proof. I find this
quite hypocritical from someone who has spent so much time demanding others prove their claims.

If what you said was the truth as you claim you could have supported it with facts instead of personally attacking me with lies.

Those of us in the center know we need changes. What we expect is credible claims and reasonable alternatives. You present neither. Keep name calling and crying the sky is falling. Hopefully we can still make the changes needed over your shouting.

rino - In every forum like this, in every major newspaper's blog section, there is always someone like you playing from the same handbook and misrepresenting where they are coming from, as they launch a concerted effort to shut down anyone willing to expose the criminal operation that has been able to become a functioning part of our economic system. You may go by names like "AlbertJ", "J. Hargrave", or very ineptly under the name "Diane Schraider", but the message is always the same. No condemnation of the very institutions and political organizations that did cause our economic collapse, and by engaging in an out and out attack of the character (but never the argument) of those exposing what obviously did happen and was caused by people acting in concert to commit the acts that led us here. You all (Right-wing shills) know that without conning the center to support you, the jig will be up and you will never be able to continue to use the government to protect the easy killing field, that only a weak and ineffectual government, easily bullied by simplistic doctrine and Right-wing spewed myths, into giving corporate interests a free and unfettered hand, as in deregulation, lower, or no taxes, and the unrestrained ability to create institutions too large to let fail, who then hold the country hostage until they get their way. You may very well fool those you are trying to fool, which is why it is so necessary for you to silence those you can't. The only contibution to the discussion that you have made since you popped in here has been to do exactly what I have alleged and you have offered not one piece of of useful information, or opinion, on any substantive matter. It has just been a direct personal attack against my character that is aimed at one goal only, to shut down the criticism of the criminals you support either by inuendo or wearing us down. You make me sick.

rino - In the post receding my last, you gave us something that was a perfect example of a textbook Karen Hughes maneuver to direct a point your opponent has clearly got the upper-hand on, and minimize it for dismissal. It is clear that, knowing the volume of information, the case that can be made against Sun Myung Moon and his heavy involvement in Right-wing politics and influence buying on a massive scale, is not even a remotely defensible possibility, then, as Karen Hughes often did, the goal should be to in a peripheral way, to take possession of your opponent's argument, or point, by signing onto it in a shallow manner, and then go directly in another direction, effectively taking the steam out of their point and dismissing it in a way that leaves them holding an empty bag. I have watched her use this tactic effectively against such people as the late Tim Russert, and get away with it, even though he was renowned for getting at the core of his opponent's argument and setting solidly the hook of his point. As spin whore for the Cheney/Bush regime, she ran seminars on the technique for eager up and coming future Lee Atwater type wannabes, who would then employ it to dominate any forum they may be involved in. She suggested that these techniques could be tested and honed by participating in the blogosphere, where anonymity, and plausible denial defenses could always be employed if your opponent begins to understand how they are being played, and at the same time, turned against them by attacking their character, sanity or (surprising because it takes great understanding to catch this tactic in the first place) their naivete. You have been outed, but the beauty of this strategy is that you can use the outlined functions of the tactic to again deny it. It is a beautifully simple form of obstruent behavior that is hard to counter, which is why people like you have been instructed in its use. I salute your sophomoric mastery of it, and I loath you for the use you are making of it, because it just illustrates your contempt for those you are trying to influence to support the corporate abuse of my country for the benefit of your ulta-rich masters.

Robert,
Just heard a report that the CEOs of the too big to fail institutions--the ones that are going to be newly regulated, the ones whose pay checks are supposedly being checkered by the pay czar are already awarding themselves generous salaries and bonuses. How do you explain that phenom Robert when we have someone from the left wing in power? Could it be that these institutions are already too big to corner and muzzle? Even if one doesn't capitulate to the cynical notion that matters are out of hand--left wing, right wing, center politics regardless--the evolution of events indicates that we may be at an impasse. How so? The government should forcibly break up these mammoth institutions--but the institutions got progressively more gigantic under the supervision and with the consent of government--remember the era of hostile bids, amalgamations, takeovers and fusions of so many well known institutions? Remember acquisitions and corporate predatory hunts done with the approval of successive right wing and left wing government pashas? What are the pragmatic solutions to the matter? For government to break up these banks and corporations--for government to forbid off shore tax free shelters--for government to disallow moving manufacturing to cheap and exploitative labor markets like China and India--possible? Even the left considers some of those policies regressive--we are bound to the world economy through the WTO, NAFTA and so on--we don't make independent decisions anymore and anything that we do will start off trade wars and economic disaster not only for us but for billions across the world who live from hand to mouth--revolutions are good on paper but impossible in reality--incremental reform is what we are tied to because of our global connections--while you harangue about the corporate sector you pay no attention at all to the fact that the corporate sector now is a global juggernaut--not simply a local blood sucker of our nation. Corporations have not been totally stifled by the left, the right or the center--all have tried, they have legislated laws to be thorns in the corporate flesh-they have pushed back when the corporations came pulling while sleeping with the corporations simultaneously but you seem not completely satisfied with that approach--you seem to want a total extermination of the corporate cockroaches. Look at Obama's marginal income tax increase of 3.4% or thereabouts that starts by affecting individuals earning 200,000 dollars or more--- and couples earning 250,000 dollars or more. The billionaires, under this tax plan, that is supposed to even the playing field for the middle class and the poor, will hardly suffer. Note that big Pharma will not suffer at all--the universal health care that you seek is the perfect gift to big pharma--it now has a large number of clients to poison and lure into its chemical traps--go look up the cornucopia of drugs for hypertension--hundreds of drugs of the same class and ilk have been developed even as these companies won't touch, what is known as orphan diseases in Medicine, to develop therapies for these conditions. Under the new health care plan big corporations have huge write offs and subsidies. On the one hand you spit fire at the corporate sector--on the other hand you want a single payer system with the government in charge--but the government needs drugs and devises to dispense to the people insured under the single payer system. With its purchasing power the government could argue the various prices down but without these big corporations to hire scientists and do the research--without big corporations to manufacture the chemicals and put them in pill form universal health care cannot exist--small companies cannot manufacture MRI CAT scanners and other scanners in bulk or service them--small companies, including biotech ones, may make significant discoveries and patent them but they need bigger companies to do the bulk creation of pharmaceutical and other materials needed to make a single payer system possible. I hope you are not suggesting the total demise of corporations and what you want is a better regulated, more socially conscious, less influential with government corporate sector--which is what I have stated I want--yet you accuse me of a do nothing attitude. Besides I have lived in the Third World that does not think well of a dictatorial First World that swaggers into the forests and seas of developing young economies laying down rules, regulations, environmental restrictions after exploiting as many resources as possible from the planet--what hypocrisy the rulers of these states say---your stance that such arguments are redundant in the face of the catastrophes, environmental and population, that loom may be logical but try convincing the Third World it must make sacrifices to save the planet and halt modernization or a build up of the corporate sector--it must save its rivers and arable land--it must drive less--pollute less-- manufacture less--it must be humble--try dampening the technocrats of the Third World--or the women who will allow themselves to be impregnated 5 times until they produce a boy baby in India-- or the bureaucrats of a newly minted China--try telling them to put their car driving and brief case carrying on hold--get back to the land and till--eat less, consume less and reproduce less--do you as a Western man have the right to dictate or control their passions and ambitions for development and attainment of corporate wealth? Try it and you will be repulsed--that's what is happening to Obama--in Iran--nuclear ambitions mushroom, in India corporate ambitions ravage the land, in China same--the sky is hazy with the smoke from the factories China hosts for the developed world--you are fiery and will not accept defeat until the enemy--the wealthy at the top--the corporate sector is knocked on its bended knees--same as you the protesters at Davos and a million other places where the World Economic Forum meets, where the IMF holds it tete a tete, where the G10 or G 20 or what ever gather--their power brokers huddled together to decide the fate of the global economy--all the molotov cocktail throwing and rock hurling of the protesters have not worked--what do you want-- destructive protest? Changes at the voting booth? Powerful writings? I am sure Rino wants some of the same--at least I do--it is clear you believe that only a total destruction of the current fabric, because it is so tainted, will get us out of the mess we are in--otherwise any new system we try to build will be corrupted--does that mean revolution, blood bath, anarchy, an incendiary end to the present order of things? Who should bring this about--the left, the right, the center--one and all-- and will this work in the long run? Will not the corporate sector rise once more from the ashes of the destruction wrought because ambitious men will build empires and the not so ambitious ones will be happy working for them and taking home salaries? If you don't endorse the status quo what do you endorse that is so different from what Rino or I endorse--other than the single payer system--again I have asked you how you can achieve the single payer system without big pharma, big technocrats to help put medical charts on line, big equipment manufacturers and purveyors--if you want the corporate sector emasculated and enervated, what sector will be the supplier of these materials--pray tell me--and let us not bring Karen Hughes into the equation--at the rate she is being deified on this blog the woman must be hiccuping to death in Texas. One thing I do agree with you about is this--the corporate sector wants markets--and what you did not mention--it wants cheap labor and it is systematically annihilating the planet with these aims--Ah, I see, I have stooped to the Karen Hughes technique of assuaging the opposer with a bone--I don't expect you to grab my bait but do answer my questions about the Third World, the unfairness of requiring them to give up development because we are at a different stage than they are--of the indispensability of big corporations to supply the type of medical system you want--what say you to those questions--as for government regulations--the more of those the greater the corruption and the greater the number of dodgers--human nature.
Ravensfan Anon

Ravensfan Anon - Killing any meaningful action to correct the many problems facing all of Humanity by laying down all the workability problems before we have even begun to discuss the questions of value that must be settled first, only gives those who wish to take no action at all the ammunition they need to continue the status quo, that has short term benefits for only a small number of fortunate people. We (the Human species) have reached a point where we more resemble a swarm of hungry locusts descending on the last greenery on the planet, and some number of us are trying to gather an inordinately large amount of what is left before it is all gone. Inherent in the actions we must take and should have begun taking when the problems were conceivably manageable ( a century or more ago), is the realization that the institutions we now have, having evolved in a differently viewed reality, are not up to the task, or even sustainable in the short run.

World population is the central core problem that stands in the way of making any progress and until we, (AS IN THE ENTIRE WORLD) deal with it in what will of necessity, have to be, by today's standards, a very radical way. One child per couple must become the absolute maximum allowed no matter who, or what, institutions are offended by such a requirement. It is evident that we are going to have to abandon our delusions and crutches in favor of understanding our limitations and coming to grips with the dire conditions we are definitely going to face without such an effort. If we do not deal with this problem, we are doomed, because all other problems derive from trying to sustain all our numbers, especially in a world where so many are working against that end religiously , unfortunately.

It is also unfortunate that the Right-wing in this country, has adopted the premise of the rag of a novel written by Ayn Rand ("Atlas Shrugged") as the reality that exists, which explains why selfish accumulation, John Galt style, has become so popular, at a time when unified cooperation, and unity of purpose, is the only hope to avoid the end their direction guarantees.

There is no surprise at all, that both sides of our government have shown signs of whoring after corporate largess, with one side being so blatant about it, they don't even go through a pretense of denial about it. We need an electoral uprising of pragmatic citizens, not the corporate created and manipulated marginally aware Tea-Party types, but those who understand reality and are willing to throw corporations out of the government and then shrink them all to the point where they cannot dictate policy ever again , but first and foremost, we must deal with the numbers of mouths we have to feed and even we are going to have to accept a lower standard of living, because the planet cannot sustain even us alone, let alone us and everybody else. Now, tell me we can't do it because it is too harrrrrrrd and you will be able to call yourself an extinctionist, if you say it ain't so then you can call yourself Clay and be done with it, and wait with him for the Jesus thing that is never going to appear.

The population thing has been tried in China robert--people had children anyway and sent the second and the third child to live in the villages with childless couples or as the orphans of parents who had dies in the city--in other words they continued to proliferate--in India Sanjay Gandhi, Indira Gandhi's son, during the emergency rule, forced sterilization on the populace and Indira was arrested, the people growled until she blinked and retreated--they were ready to murder her and her family for their audacity to dictate how many children the common folks could have. Unless we put birth control in the water delivered to those who have a predilection for proliferation and we do it--by we I mean--the rulers and leaders of nations with tremendous population problems--and unless this is done in secret, we will have multiplication and fecundity especially among the poor--we could pay people for not having children- the poor may be amenable to this inducement--but we, in this country, actually pay them when they have children--we pay them more and more when they have more and more children--we destroy their self reliance and we argue that children should not bear the brunt of the follies of their parents--in fact, in many quarters of America having many children and milking the government for welfare and food stamp subsidies are regular occupations--these occupations have been systematically encouraged by the left--no different is the corporate welfare provided by the right--public service on the right is a misnomer--it has often meant squelching the public sector while in office to legislate in favor of big business for personal and family gain. Yes, we must cast the corporations out like pigs--but precisely because there is such a cross pollination between the public and the private sectors that we can't--Dick Cheney came from Halliburton-did the Iraq war enrich this damn company? You betcha. Geithner comes from Goldman--is Goldman already high on the DOW JONES rise and is it self congratulating its way back to the pre recession hey days--you betcha--has Geithner called up the rascals and told them to back off from this type of chicanery? No--they will return him the public dole they received as a life line and they will ask him to hang himself from the tallest tree in the land. We couldn't
repulse the corporations but we could repulse the politicians who embrace the corporations but the politicians--many come from the corporations--many will return to their corporate alma maters--can hardly be repulsed. We could set term limits for members of Congress--Congress has to vote for this--good luck on that one--anyway we could set term limits--but term limits would make these politicians all the more anxious to make the right connections with the right lobbyists, to ensure themselves a lucrative job in the private sector when their terms end. I am not saying we mustn't try Robert--we must and your solutions are--many of them sound and needed--but there are unintended consequences to all that you suggest and failure is more assured than success--but we must try--don't you think there is a terrible conflict of interest when politicians have to pass bills to reform themselves or give themselves raises?
Ravensfan Anon

Ravensfan Anon - The situation is far more complex than can be imagined by people raised in the mindset that all populations on this planet have been exposed to. The very survival of our species is at stake, yet we persist in dealing with the ever more complex problems headed our way, caused by the normal behaviors we have culturally and intellectually come to believe are the proper and effective ways to view and deal with the world, in the first place, as if this giant dinosaur of jumbled , slowly evolved, culturally biased, polluted by myth, superstition, and lies, collection of institutions can act in concert to, in some meaningful way, keep us from being buried by forces we as a species have never had to deal with in a macro-universal way before.

Population explosion, a problem that China has tried to address and failed to a good degree, is only an example of how big the problem is and how difficult it will be to deal with in societies that are not blessed (using the term here to mean China's totalitarian system's ability to enact radical change unilaterally) by inhibitions that thwart unified action like we have here. This may put them at an advantage if they put their long term goals into a perspective that doesn't mirror our multiglot fixation on the individuals rights to accumulate beyond reason and hang the consequences to anyone, or anything else. When any jackass can stand up and demand the freedom to exploit more than their fair share ( The Duggar family for example) to support what clearly is an insane orgy of ego driven absurdity, then that society will not be flexible enough to in any way , be part of the solution. We are going to have to come up with a new, and quite restrictive (compared to what believe today) definition of the very concept of freedom. The Rightists, of course, will go nuts screaming their usual line of crap that would have us ultimately all fighting over the last gasps of oxygen in their unrestricted, unregulated race to see who has the most toys in their box when the last Human takes his last gasping breath in a starved, empty and exploited world, but that explains the popularity of the delusional mindset and the divine saviors they expect to save the day. If we are going to realistically deal with overpopulation (which we must in-order to survive), then we may have to make the choice to sacrifice some of our most cherished institutions, and short of making that wise choice, have it imposed, which I admit opens many cans of worms and questions of workability, even though the necessity cannot be denied (except by fools {are you there rino and Clay?{).

The problems facing us are well understood by scientists and, because the math does not lie, by most people who have given it serious thought. The big problem is that many who full well realize what is going to happen have taken the attitude that nothing can be done, for several of the reasons you outlined above. The problem, through neglect, ignorance for so long that it was coming, denial by so many that it is, and the belief by many that we are fated by our cruel and vengeful gods to an apocalyptic end, we are not up to the task of making the hard choices that may very well lead to controlled breeding (among other drastic measures in other areas as well) to lower our population to where (at least 1/3 of what it is today) we can live in a symbiotic relation with the planet that created us and which we now threaten to kill, much like the yeast in a beer vat who eventually choke to death on their very own urine (the alcohol we all love so well). If the rinos, ravensfans, Clays and pattycakes of the world object, it may become necessary to forcefully marginalize them, because if they win, all of Humanity will die.

Littel - It's hard for me to take anything you say seriously when you seem intent on personally attacking and lying about me rather than conducting a serious, rational and intelligent discussion on the issues and alternatives. You are an extremist who has despite many lengthy rants provides ZERO to support what he says. You have offered no practical workable solutions to ANY problem facing either the country or the world at large. Like any extremist you seek to make people afraid of problems with propaganda and rhetoric and then assign blame for them. When someone asks you to support your problems and offer constructive practical ideas to correct those same problems you do nothing but make personal attacks and spread lies in an effort to discredit and avoid the issues. Unless want intelligently discuss the issues I see no point in wasting my time with a deluded paranoid extremist. Keep shouting the sky is falling and preventing things from getting done and who knows you may actually be able to cause the very calamities you scream so loudly about.

If you decide you want to have an intelligent discussion without the vitriol and baseless accusations I’ll be more than happy to engage you in them. Otherwise I’ll read you responses and pity you and the country for such ignorance.

rino - As I would expect from someone doing what I have figured out you are doing, having let you establish a pattern of not addressing the problems in any way, except by insisting that the discussion be dragged into the easily manipulated and deluded pond of mediocrity (the easily co-opted mythical middle ground), where the diversity of uninformed, inane and outrageous opinions of those incapable of understanding the problems, can be given a weight they do not deserve, and which can be used to impede getting at the truth you so much do not want to see the light of day. I still have to applaud your tenacity, and your now engineered need to escape.

Bowing out of the discussion at this time, portraying an attitude of superiority and faked righteous indignation at my unwillingness to lower my attack against the mechanisms being used by the Right-wing to silence any focus on what is really going on, is a smart move on your part. As long as you could bully the discourse without showing your hand, against an opponent not afraid to say what they feel, and by committing to no stand of your own (except for your mistakenly admitting your obvious disdain for anything "liberal"), you could hold the advantage , especially when you were operating under the illusion that all of your opponent's cards were face up on the table.

Perhaps you should consider that Wendall Potter was not the only insider operating from within the conspiracy to engineer a corporate takeover of society, to have a change of heart, who would then be willing to hand over information on how, and who, is complicit in this endeavor, and because of the nature of the scope (as in how much power is at stake) of the situation, have wisely chosen to remain anonymous. You might also consider that waitstaff serving at various functions and meetings of the shakers and movers of the corporate insiders, might record and report what is being said at the many conferences occurring at several levels in the ongoing effort of corporatists to consolidate their positions, as well as some of the participants mistakenly leaving behind printouts of the agenda and goals being sold to the eager participants, some replete with detailed notes ( especially nice from the Hughes seminars), that then end up in an information stream you dare not admit exists. Your need to end this is not predicated on on your unwillingness to further deal "with a deluded paranoid extremist", but with your further having to deal with someone who is holding some dangerous (from your perspective) cards in their hand that they may, or may not, wish, (or be carefully wise enough), to waste on someone as low level as you seem to be. You have been mildly entertaining, at least.

Littel - Wendall Potter actions reflected those of a man with a conscience trying to do what he felt right. Unlike you he could support his accusations. Don't even consider yourself anywhere close to him. You hold nothing but delusions and accusations. If you held ANY cards you would have played them when I asked instead of personal attacks and lying about me. If you have those cards lay them out otherwise or be content for those of us in the center to doubt what you claim.

rino - I would hardly be considered clever if I were to reveal to you, or anyone else, any information that could be useful to people who are doing their dead level best to extend the control of a small group of highly motivated, unprincipled, very powerful clique of ultra wealthy manipulators, who would think nothing of doing, in a more subtle way, what a crazed drug addict would do to someone just to get or protect what they need, all to prove a point you know has already been made.

If these people are willing to steal elections, send our children off to die in resource wars and spend fortunes to purchase our governmental representatives, media outlets and to sponsor, fund and control "grass roots" fear driven masses of ignorant dolts to do their underlying bidding (Tea-Party), then retaliation against anyone who rocks that boat is entirely within the realm of possibility. If you are what I think you are, then trying to play against my ego to give up information you want, by feeding your sophomoric challenge, would make me as stupid as anyone the corporate right is attempting to use. Understanding what is going on, does not mean that my concerns about how an idiot like you feels about me, is worth selling out the effort to stop the accumulation of information about what is going on, or how that information may be used to stop what is going on, so go peddle your pap elsewhere.

Littel - The only information I want you to give up is CREDIBLE PROOF for your claims devoid of rhetoric and left wing propaganda I gave up hope you would a long time ago. If you had any you would have done so by now. Right now you sound like the anti-Glenn Beck. Unless you can prove your claims of stolen elections I'll list that with all your other raving paranoid delusions. I will agree with one thing you said. If all you claimed were true then retaliation would be a distinct possibility. Since what you say lacks any credible support so does your retaliation claim paranoid delusion. If we lived in Venezuela you'd have a valid point about masses being controlled and retaliation against opposition. You have no accumulation of anything except paranoia. You sound like every other conspiracy theorist. If you want people to take you seriously then back up your claims or you can keep sounding like an ignorant paranoid left wing nut case. The truly sad thing is you probably have many good ideas buried under all that paranoia.

rino - The 2000 "election" of Bush/Cheney was a theft of the electoral process that was finalized by shutting down the vote count, through bullying tactics spearheaded by goon-squads of Right-wing operatives, led by a now discredited convicted drunken sot philanderer ex-congressman from upstate New York, that George W. Bush nicknamed "Congressman Kickass" and completed by Kathrine Harris' illegality halting the count. Then followed by the Supreme Court's ruling on the action, illegally bypassing the Florida State Constitution, which called for the path to go through the Florida Supreme Court first, where it would not have been so Bush friendly. That is the basis for the charge of Right-wing interference at the highest level, all to steal the election. We can also point out that the count would have easily gone to Gore, if the votes of so many mostly Black and poorer Florida citizens hadn't been purged from voting lists as being ineligible (when in fact they were eligible) by a Texas firm hired by Jeb Bush to weed out felons and others not qualified to vote under state law. They marked that list with an over-wide marking pen in heavily Democratic areas in the state. Also, the illegal "butterfly ballots" allowed in Palm Beach county that caused 3000 votes to be cast for Pat Buchanan ( a fact acknowledged by him) when in fact they were meant for Gore, only underscores many instances where the Republicans fudged with the process to disqualify, or negate votes, before and after the fact.

Once the lengths to which the Right-wing would go to insure their dominance of our society were established by their action there, all bets were off. It is not paranoia when we have proof that they will go to any lengths to get their way, and the current whipping up of the most ignorant, on the fringe Right, to a frenzy where they now threaten armed action against our elected leaders, even by our senior officials in Congress who scream "No you can't " to ratchet up the hate level, while at the same time not moving to stop the voices yelling in the crowds for our presidents head on a stick, make any claim of paranoia on your part a pile of you know what. It is not paranoia when the rationale is every bit as valid as the "paranoia" of the Jews in 1930 Germany was when they clearly saw what was coming. When it is real, it is justifiable fear, not paranoia, fear the Right is pumping like a thirteen year old male who has just discovered a new way to play with an old toy. Your continued effort to perpetuate the fraud, through re-direct (the Hughes touch again) is culpable, to say the least.

Littel – The vote count was shut down because the Florida Supreme Court was rewriting election laws. Katherine Harris legally wanted to certify the election results which would not have barred Gore from requesting a recount. The Democrats wanted the recount first for only three Democrat controlled areas. They lost the original case appealed to a liberal Florida Supreme Court which approved the plan which was a rewriting of the election and recount process. The court allowed a recount for which there were no rules to govern allowing each board to make up there own. They then violated their own ruling by extending the deadline they imposed. The US Supreme Court struck down what was an obvious attempt not to recount but find a way to change the result. Independent recounts done later also showed the result would not have changed had the recount been completed. The Butterfly ballots, the real source of the loss, were approved as ok by all parties in the election including Democrats so they were completely legal. No one ever provided any proof of any deliberate attempt to purge eligible voters. Keep in mind that while the Democrats lobbied for the recount on a slogan of letting all the votes count they were engaged behind the scenes trying to have absentee ballots disallowed on technicalities in order to reduce votes for Bush. Once again all you have are the delusions of the radical left. The pity is had the Al Gore who gave the concession speech been what we saw during the campaign he might have won. Had Democrats paid attention when shown the butterfly ballot and complained when they had the chance before the election they might have one. Either of those might have saved the country from eight years of Bush. Then again had the Democrats run a better candidate than Kerry they might have unseated Bush after four years as well.

rino - There is no amount of carefully crafted bunk that is going to wash the stink off what was done in Florida to make Bush the winner. Gore could have and should have waged a better campaign, but that doesn't excuse the fact that the exit polls, whose accuracy is almost always within a 1/2 % of reflecting the eventual vote, had Gore far enough ahead to be declared the early winner, until ?. We were sold a bill of goods and your spin on it does not take away from that fact, because it is the spin that came out of the cesspools on the Right, and they cannot be trusted for yesterday's weather report. The Republicans were the only party to send screaming goons down to bully the recount, effectively shutting it down. The "spontaneous" crowd led by the previously mentioned former Congress-thug John Sweeney has been identified as being made up of a plethora of noted figures in Right-wing Lee Atwater type underhanded political action. I stand on my assertions and your supposed centrist position has been blown all to hell, proving also my assessment of your motives in constantly going after the left side of the issue, while feigning support of the middle by an insincere tweak or two at Limbaugh and Beck, whom the middle dislikes anyway.

Littel - As with your other empty accusations you come to irrelevant conclusions or use circular logic to rationalize something you want to believe. Who says exit polls are always within 1/2%. The number most often quoted is plus or minus 2 to 3 percent that I'm familiar with. Both parties had their share of people trying to influence the outcome. In the end you have nothing to support your claims. The idiots that did and still do cry about the stealing of the election are about as brain dead as the morons today crusading that Obama is not a US citizen and should not be President. You want to be taken seriously then get some real evidence or support. Otherwise I can’t consider you any more seriously than any other radical extremist. Empty accusations and shallow name dropping isn’t support.

Boys...boys!

How did we ever get from the anti-christ to Bush v. Gore? Or...maybe I don't want to know the answer to that question....

BankStreet - Trust me you don't want to know.

rino - The "extreme left" that you keep harping about, only exists in a minuscule way. The extreme animal rights groups and anarchists, are out on the fringe, but they are a tiny rather benign group of people, every bit as extreme as many of the more numerous and far more reactionary Right-wing extremists now operating in the open here. This tiny left fringe, are not threatening armed insurrection if they do not get their way, like many of the idiots on the Right have been doing . When you have complete and blitheringly idiotic people like Michele Bachmann, who as elected federal officials, are out touting the most asinine and ridiculous line of pure $#!+ that can be spun out of the diseased minds at the core of what represents the mainstream of Right-wing thought, calling for revolution and focused racial hatred to oppose the elected desires of the voting public, and being whipped to action by the highest elected federal officials the Republican Party can produce, then it is not the voice of reason that should be on trial here, it is those who are arguing for the continuation of the mechanisms that favors the voices of rightist radicalism having a weighted seat at the table you so insistently demand we all sit at to find common ground.

People like you, have been working your butts off to create the image that this extremism being institutionalized as the norm in Republican party, is something that not only we should tolerate, but that we must allow to be an accepted position whether it makes sense, or not. Fundamental in this effort, is to drag the center over the line to where the absurd becomes the norm within the largest bloc of the voting public, by manipulating their basic fears and using them to crush those on the other side of the issue because they represent a manufactured leftist threat that you know full well is a lie, that does not exist . If we all are mere ingredients in a political type of salad bar, whose combinations on the political plate should reflect a mix that can be workable and excepted by all, then the Right is going to have to remove the container of dog excrement they are offering up to the selection of ingredients, and which they are demanding to have represented on each and every plate being served up to the American people.

I suspect, and every indication leads to that suspicion, that you are a paid, or a deliberate volunteer (perhaps with the goal of later reward), placed here to see that the middle you so want to corrupt, does not become aware of that right-wing manipulation. Your effort to put me on the defensive by trying to tie me up with defending my position, is a ploy to, if not silence what I'm saying, then to keep me busy creating more opportunities for you to peal off bits and pieces of my statements for further demands for my defending them, while at the same time not directly committing yourself to a position that is assailable to retaliation. It is a text-book page tactic directly out of the Karen Hughes handbook, which you have been playing from the moment you showed up.

The Radical Right, having no radical left to oppose (since the fall of the USSR) and against whom to launch fear driven campaigns to unify and grow a majority, have embarked on redefining radical left to mean those who have always been here and committed such despicable acts in the past, such as creating Social Security, fought for the female right to vote, fought for civil rights and now the right for all to have access to health care, food inspection, work-place safety, and the worst crime of all, seat belts. I have no doubt whatever, that when the doctrinaire inflexible slogan driven Right-wing, has vanquished the last of us horrible and despicable Democrats, will, because they always need an enemy to focus their hate on as a justification for their existence, will out of necessity, fracture themselves into factions over minor differences in dogma and engage in the same mindless type of absurdities against each other, like they are doing to us now.

I have no doubt that you will continue to do, what is clearly a transparent attempt to do what I have alleged, because you clearly have no ethics and in a different reality (Clay's for one), no soul. You better hope there is no accounting after death, because what you represent does not seem to be done out of ignorance, but willfully to perpetuate a crime against Humanity. By your having no shame, I will count on hearing further from you again, but to what purpose, I can't imagine.

Littel - Your response was what I expected more personal attacks on me and lies since you can't support your claims. I don't follow Michele Bachmann so I have no idea what you are talking about there. Enlighten me on some of these most asinine and ridiculous line bs she has come out with and I'll let you know what I think.

All I've done is challenge you to back your propaganda and rhetoric and so far you have done nothing but lie about me and use the most convoluted logic I've seen. Here is something I found on conspiracy theory.

"They are rarely supported by any convincing evidence and contrast with institutional analysis, which focuses on people's collective behavior in publicly known institutions, as recorded in scholarly material and mainstream media reports, to explain historical or current events, rather than speculate on the motives and actions of secretive coalitions of individuals."

Sound familar Littel?

rino - Give it up, you are just becoming ridiculous. If you were a "radical centrist", or any kind of centrist, you would not be so overly concerned with what I alleged that you would continue the attack and manipulative behavior you are attempting to employ, which only opens the door for more. You may dismiss what I say, out of hand, but in doing so, you just illustrate that there are truths you fear becoming known and accepted by the people your side is trying to con. If anyone is flinging "propaganda and rhetoric " it is the side that has brought us Tea-Party "Birthers", "Gun Nuts", "Clinic bombers", and attacking anything to the left of extremist Right-wing dogma as being socialist, communist, Stalinist, fascist, Un-American, or who require women breed against their will. As you have made NO attempt to mount any kind of substantive condemnation of Rightist extremist except to offer Limbaugh and Beck up, in a lukewarm sacrifice that the middle would buy it because they don't trust them anyway, you have shown the true colors you have attempted to hide in your effort to discredit me, rather than what I say. It is Karen Hughes to a fault.

Littel - Funny how you attack me for being concerned with what you say yet you seem quite concerned with what I say and labeling me as some sort of radical right wing operative. I dismiss what you say for lack of proof, lack of credible evidence and illogical arguments. Littel I've made condemnations of both Limbaugh and Beck. If you think back to our first encounter I agreed with you Limbaugh was a gas bag. If someone was posting their nonsense I'd challenge it. As it is all I see is you spouting left wing nonsense. I can't condemn what doesn't happen on these blogs. You seem obsessed with trying to discredit me with lies and baseless accusations. I guess that’s because you can’t actually do the one thing that would get me to agree with you – prove what you say has merit.

rino - Please, if you are trying to establish centrist credentials to mask your true orientation, all in an effort to have a platform from which to launch a shielded Karen Hughes type of campaign against those saying what your side doesn't want to become a common attitude, to accomplish this, you have to throw some bone into the pot to get away with the tactic. What better bones to toss into the pot than two whom those in the middle don't like anyway. I think you are a fraud, perhaps paid, perhaps not (yet), and your presumed centrist position is a sham. If ever there is a smell of rat, you are it. You keep letting your hatred of things "leftist" slip through, and that only undermines the effort you are making to hide your true intentions. Ordinarily, I admire gall, but when done in service to those trying to make the country and the government, their own unrestricted ATM while bankrupting the rest of us, it makes me sick to my stomach.

Littel - So now you don't even try and make a case for what you claim? You just sit back and make personal attacks. Congratuaations you now can count yourself on the same level with pundits like Limbaugh, Beck, Hannity and all the other loose screws at Fox. You are their opposite different views same tactics. Maybe some day you'll actually make a logical rational case for your claims and even offer some positive practicle ideas to improve things in this country. I'm not holding my breath on it though,

rino - I don't have to back up claims that people on the Right are doing so well to validate, all on their own. The politics of hate does NOT HAVE TO BE PROVEN. The hundreds of millions of dollars the insurance companies spent to stop ANY health care reform, DOES NOT HAVE TO BE PROVEN. The Republican politics of "No!", DOES NOT HAVE TO BE PROVEN. The deliberate creation and manipulation of the Tea-Party movement by corporate interests HAS ALREADY BEEN PROVEN. The stupidity of Sarah Palin, Michele Bachmann, Jim De Mint, HAS PROVEN ITSELF. The lying duplicitous actions of the Republican leadership in the House and Senate, has been laid out for us all to see, AND DOES NOT NEED TO BE PROVEN. The ignorance and stupidity of individual members of these houses of government, who have ignorantly and stupidly shown themselves for what they are in shouted insults at our president DOES NOT HAVE TO BE PROVEN. The maldistribution of wealth HAS ALREADY BEEN PROVEN. The use of wealth to support the interests of wealth to detriment of the rest of us, HAS ALREADY BEEN PROVEN. You are harping on the demand that I prove things which have already been brought to light, have become common knowledge and for which much filmed evidence is easily available if you watch sources other than FOX. The tactic you are using is obvious and putting me on the defense when you fear my offense, is an understandable tact to take when your side is so vulnerable, but it will not work, I will not be played by you.

My question is, why are you acting as a shill for the Right while pretending to not being the Rightist you already have admitted you are by your one-sided campaign against what you deliberately call the "extreme left" when in fact we are only far in that direction by comparison to how far political discourse has been dragged by corporate manipulation, to the lunatic fringe Right?

Littel - People who shout that their claims don't need to be proven are usually people who can't do it. It everything were proven as you claimed you would have been able to convince me a long time ago. Instead you attack me as being some sort of operative for this corporate right wing extremist movement you claim exists. All claims need to be proven to be considered true. You can cry out all you like but no one with any degree of intelligence or common sense will take you seriously unless you can support your claims. Minority parties are usually the party of no in government. You have never shown even the slightest evidence that the tea party groups are were created by or manipulated by any corporate interests. I could add the stupidity of Nancy Pelosi and Joe Biden has also been proven however unlike the Republican fools you list Pelosi & Biden wield considerably more power right now. The vary fact the left controls Congress & the White House proves how baseless your cries of right wing corporate control really are. The fact that a health care reform bill was passed refutes your claims. You proved disproportionate wealth distribution which has always existed in this and every other capitalist economy. Your offensive is nothing. I've done everything but beg you to make a logical intelligent fact based argument and even left open agreeing with you. What I got was personal attacks and lies about me from you and now the radical liberal standby that your claims are so obvious they require no proof. I asked for your suggestions to fix the problems you claim and got more personal attacks and lies instead of a well thought out rational logical response. What makes you and those who think like you the extreme left is the same thing that makes pundits like Beck, Limbaugh and Hannity extremists - refusal to seek compromise and personal attacks on those who question your claims.

Face it Littel you can only win this by doing the two things you have fought so long and hard to avoid. Prove your claims and give me what you think could solve those problems. Since I don’t think you can do either I’m not holding my breath for it to happen. Maybe you should consider questioning not only the propaganda and rhetoric of the right but also the of the left that you put as much faith in as any Christian does in God.

rino - I full well realize that you are playing a game whose rules give you the advantage. That is how the game was constructed and because you have successfully built a wall of plausible deniability, you can demand that I provide justification for every brushstroke I take in painting a picture you do not wish to have seen. I pointed that fact out in an earlier post on this thread, and I pointed out the difficulty in countering such a strategy because its only goal is to muddy the water and paint your opponent as being beyond believability. When the average citizen has paid no real attention to the workings of our government, especially those parts that have been already co-opted to carry out corporate backed policy that has resulted in the murder and overthrow of democratically elected national governments, all to protect the pocket books of American business interests. You are playing on the gullibility and inability of the common man to understand the complexity of the harsh realities of wealth driven struggles for dominance. It is an easy game when the people you wish to keep in the dark and use, are content to be there in the first place. It is also outside the realm of believability for them to conceive that the same effort and expense isn't being expended domestically to achieve the same ends that a government funded arm of international corporate enforcement (the CIA) has used to overthrow the government of Guatemala in 1954, all to protect American fruit company interests, the engineered and financed overthrow and murder of the democratic government of Mohammed Mossadegh in 1953 in Iran (a crime that they still hold against us), all to keep that country from exercising their own control of the oil that happened to be located under their soil, the 1973 overthrow and murder (a totally run CIA operation) of the democratically elected government of Salvador Allende in Chile, that resulted in the murder of thousands of their citizens and the installation of Augusto Pinochet's murderous regime, all to protect the corporate interests that had, until Allende's election, pretty much run that country for their own benefit, might just be in operation here all to serve similar ends.

Why would an organized effort by corporate interests, so willing to cause so much misery around the world, under cover of patrio-jingoistic lies and distortions, (necessary to motivate our young to march off to war when that becomes part of their plans), not make a concerted effort to exercise that same control here as well? The simple answer is that they do and when things don't go their way (the election of a progressive Black president qualifying as a prime example), then we begin to see the same mechanisms being called into play that worked so well to bring down their enemies in places like 1953 Iran, and 1973 Chile. A campaign to undermine the very legitimacy of our elected leader, (Birther and socialist type crap) has been launched and the impending threat of masses of Rightists in the streets to "take back America", the hatred being pumped up in the Right-wing media, and the pumping of the fear factor by people too unaware they are victims of the very people pumping them up, all mirror the the effort corporate interests employed before so effectively overseas.

You will dismiss this of course, and by playing on the disinterest in the mass of Americans of anything that rocks the boat, demand more "proof" that, would take volumes to fill (that the majority wouldn't read anyway) and which in the end would just be blown off by you as more "leftist propaganda", rather than the easily verifiable, but mountainous pile of information already in the historical record. Search "CIA Mossadegh", CIA, Allende", or "CIA Ngo Dinh Diem" if you want damn proof (which of course you don't), I don't have time to play, or be played by you anymore.

So what is the answer? Christ. True Christians are honest with God, themselves and fellow citizens. They dont want to overthrow anything except satan, no matter which party they associate themselves with or even if they associate with none. What we need is a third party, the American Family Party, consisting of true Christians. If dishonest people jump on board then they need to be witnessed to. If people of other religions or non believers dont want to join then we will pray for them. What other solution could be better for solving any problems with American politics? When we obey God, we get blessed.

Clay - You always leave me conflicted. I don't know where to tell you to get your head out of your butt, or your butt out of your head.

Another thing about true Christians is that we are happy. It helps us to propose solutions. Of course we are also happy when God's solutions are adopted.

Clay - If ignorance is bliss, you must be having never-ending explosive orgasms.

Clay,

I would propose an alternative name for your new party: The American Taliban.

God is in Clay's butt--therefore he has a happy butt and a happy head even if his head is indeed in his butt--god inhabits both ends of his body--that is why he has the right solutions to all the problems of this world-- which end of his body is up and which end is down matters not one whit because god is everywhere--not your god--not Allah--not Rama--not Krishna--not Buddha--only Jesus--Jesus is everywhere--belief in Jesus is the only solution to all of the world's agonies--kneel down and confess your sins--accept the lord Jesus--see your problems melt like snow on a hot tin roof --Clayssesiastes--Chapter One--verse one--the only chapter and verse in the bible according to the one and only Clay.
Ravensfan Anon

Littel - The only thing I dismiss is paranoid accusations which lack supporting facts. You take several actions and apply your own interpretation of them but provide no support. Why should I have to research your accusations as to motives? I am playing no games simply challenging you to support your rhetoric with facts. I’m sure you don’t have time for supporting your propaganda. You’re too busy spreading it and attacking everyone who sees things differently.

rino - reread the last part of the last sentence I typed to you then, GFYS.

Littel - Your response is about as mature as a ten year old's. Typical of someone of lower intellect who can't prove their point. All you are doing is confirming my opinion of you and your paranoid conspiracy delusions.

Did the person that created this site and affiliates have a degree? I don't think so. Its all BULLSH**!!!!!!!!!!!!

INGORANCE IS BLISS!!!!