"WASHINGTON AP March 3, 2008- The cascading fallout from the subprime loan crisis, barely a cloud on the horizon a year ago, is now viewed by experts as the economy's gravest threat.
In a survey being released Monday, 34 percent of the members of the National Association for Business Economics ranked the financial market turmoil from those loan defaults as the No. 1 threat to the economy over the next two years."
"That compares with 18 percent from an August survey, when the most serious threat was seen by 20 percent of the economists as terrorism and the conflicts in the Middle East.
A year ago, the credit crisis did not even register as a chief threat."
"NEW YORK - AP March 3, 2008 The surging price of oil reached another milestone Monday, jumping to an inflation adjusted record high of $103.95.
The weaker dollar that has propelled oil and other commodities prices higher sent light, sweet crude for April delivery past $103.76 a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange...
Oil's most recent run into record territory has been driven by the greenback's slump against other world currencies...."
All those people being foreclosed on should be out in the streets with pitchforks ready to hang any Neo-con or Bushy from the lamppost--the War in Iraq has fucked them to the wall through oil prices and the collapse of the currency.
They should be crowded around the Mega-Church mall churches turning out the vote for Bush, ready to crucify them in the Circus.
Look around you--see a Bushy or a Neo-Con or an Israel firster--that is who is foreclosing on your property.
So all these people trying to stop foreclosure of their house are actually helping the banks and the financiers, who will be only too glad to work out a way to save the bundled paper by having these folks pay just a little less but still mor ethan it all is worth.
Instead, if all these people got together and said, "Go ahead, foreclose on everyone", the banks and the financiers are fucked.
In fact, you want real revolution--get all the mortgage holders together and have them say--fuck you assholes, foreclose--we don't want this shit anymore.
We are not paying.
We don't want your credit, we don't want this mortgage we were tricked into, we don't want this property.
The most the Federal government can do is try to shore up some of the bundled paper, and cosmeticize it as a measure to help other "homeowners" against "predatory" lenders.
The problem is this will hasten the collapse of the currency, and will do nothing for real estate.
Benrnanke should have raised interest rates when sub-prime collapsed but he didn't have either the brains or the balls to do it.
Here's an interesting aspect few know about. People who bought second houses because of the low interest rates and rising real estate prices, as inestement.
These are fairly smart people--small time speculators.
They are bascially telling the banks--go ahead foreclose--we don't want this piece of shit anymore, paying a mortgage on a property we can't sell and that is worth a fifth of what we bought it for.
"We think we are getting something for something. But really we are getting nothing for nothing...."
It's worse than that, one is getting less than nothing for and enduring something, namely, the privilege of paying property taxes, maintenance, and being attentive about future value--in return for restricting oneself by a promise to pay over time, and with no control over the medium or circumstances in which the promise must be executed.
So person X has a mortgage he can't pay on a property that is worth a fifth of what he just bought if for?
The banks will be all too happy to let him adjust his payments so that the paper stays good and have the Federal government make up the difference with your tax money.
So he pays a little less on a property that is still saddled with a mortgage for a aporpoerty the fifth of the price.
He wants to continue to pay for that. And with a collapsing currency/
"AP February 29,2008: Light, sweet crude for April delivery on the New York Mercantile Exchange jumped to a new trading record of $103.05 a barrel in electronic trading before slipping back to $102.07 a barrel, down 52 cents, by midday in Europe..."
Impeachment is not enough, he should be tried for treason, PERIOD!
From another video, "geckoremmington" says about Cheney:
"hi. im english. if this hapenned in my country i wouldNOT make a video or a website about it, but get up, alongside 70 million of my brothers and sisters, and drag the one solitary degenrate antibody from its sickly nest and deport it from the galaxy. YOUR RIGHTS ARE MORE THAN A SHEET OF PAPER!!!"
Treason, war crimes, and host of other offenses--but, first, get him out of office, which is the purpose of impeachment, so he cannot do more damage than he has.
Because the overwhelming number of criminal or negligent members of Congress refuse to publicize and educate the people of crimes against the Constitution. So, as I've said, what do you do when Congress doesn't live up to ITS OWN duty to impeach?
You can pose the question to me all day long and I search all day long for a bandwagon to hop on RIGHT NOW because it is right now that people are losing their homes...further breaking what will was left after 911.
What did congress do in response to Harry Reids' statement on the number of foreclosures that are happening RIGHT NOW!
There's legislation introduced that would address, NO FIX, the problem...forget who introduced it...
why isn't it being discussed AND adopted right now?
He he'll need to sing that old standard, "Anarchy for the USA" as he hangs upside down above the chasm, his thoughts not for one moment straying from the political struggle ahead. Spiderman?
Ah, but that's because they were celebrities, who can only be held to account for DUI offences at most. Not all celebrities are Presidents of course, but all presidents these days MUST be celebrities, in a mid life manifestation of Paris, Britney and Lindsay.
Curiously enough my position was with Hilton, who was financially independent from the time she was 18, and who was quite cunning at marketing herself as exactly what she had broken away from.
The fact is she was, as the LA sheriff noted, not treated fairly, and was punished more severely as a lesson to the peons that not all supposed members of the elite were unaccountable.
Essentially she gets singled out for no celebrity and no underwear and the judge goes to his little Sunday Roman Catholic service and all the good Christian parishioners give him a standing ovation for putting Paris in jail.
Three cheers--the streets are safe and there really is justice in America!
All followed by the little morality play of her tears and breakdown and going home to her Mama. Ah yes--the moral order is validated!
It's a pity she was so young and singularly undefiant. Standing up to the whole fucking lot of them from jail and giving the whole system the finger from the top would have won her admiration and independence for life.
Instead, she really did collapse into the poor little rich girl.
Grace is a real gem. Mick has grown on me a great deal over the years, and not just because I understood his musical talent better. That probably means I've changed, because it strikes me he has not changed at all. Orbs of steel, the pair of them.
How much of her breakdown hinged on pathological toilet training? I mean she has the Sheriff on her side, it's a few weeks to read a book, and she apparently has a nervous breakdown because no one ever taught her how to shit in the woods?
"Yes, Mama, I understand--I can do anything I want but noit openly. I have to be a hypocrite. I understand Mama. Tell them I want to do missionary work in Uganda, yes Mama. Am dedicating myself to God, yes, Mama. I have learned my lesson, yes Mama, blub blub blub".
and then mama leans over and quietly whispers "remember that one little rule, darling daughter and you will be free to enjoy all your fame and fortune, just as you have ever done."
Ah well, as an establishment icon, with no other substance but her remarkably flashy fame, she really went too far pushing the contrary position. She was careless enough to challenge and expose the contradictions in mainstream god fearing porn watching consumer society, which by and large well serve her. Not in rebellion, but simple wilfulness, which of course so readily became contrition. Even so, that was the crime, and not what she was booked for. And that as you say was not legitimate.
No she had mind, untutored, but mind--and learned on her own how to get out of the doublebind, satirizing what she was supposed to be and getting well paid for it into the bargain.
She was also a very hard worker.
Actually her only real talent. But--pampered and drug dependent, no real hardness, and victim of the same little morality plays she mocked.
The young often jump to the conclusion they have overcome the superego when in fact they have not yet even localized where it resdes.
I missed a lot of it, as I detest that entire scene, to be fair it was no great challenge because she just never looked all that pretty to me:) I am happy to take your word for the details and in any case would wholeheartedly agree with your conclusion. Self satirising isn't always immunising.
Yes she knows what Joe and Jane public want to buy, so much so it's a little creepy. But that's the marketing game. What the the Contemporary Publishing Association? She could really betray herself big time there.
It's the same system though, the same psychology. Know Paco Underhill--brilliant eye and mind. He and Guevara talk for weeks--it's all a part of terrain.
Curious, the United States has three million people in prison, more than Communist China and the Russian Federation combined, and the prison industry and security are booming, but so few Christian ministers who buy illegal drugs and patronize male prostitutes or who, in a position of trust, hit on page boys or corrupt the altar boys in their care.
Given the percentage of Rightwing Congressmen, Christian ministers, and pedophile Roman Catholic priests that that do get caught "fiddling", which is about the same as the % of straight husbands caught cheating, one can only presume there are far more straight husbands cheating than we realize.
The prison population figures alone tell the rational something serious and systemic is wrong, no?
In much of the Bible Belt, however, prisons are a much sought after local industry.
All this government job training both left and right are talking about--how about leading the duck--put millions into training programs for prison guards.
IMO, morals can apply to sexual preferences, just not as Mao put it. Ever heard the expression "gay as an anti-gay republican congressman"? We all need to be ourselves, as God made us, and let others do likewise. I was going to conclude homophobes should think hard on that one, but decided against it.
Anti-homosexual homosexual Rightwing Congressmen, Christian ministers, and pedophile Roman Catholic priests--another display of elitist unaccountability, yes? Save when now and then they get caught.
Even when caught how many of them serve time for what clearly are crimes for those not considered part of the hypocritical arm of the new Theo-Fascist state?
JMO. Fleetwood is an inspiring and quirky commentator, with a "real" edge, who both seems and acts likeable. I haven't looked in his closet, maybe it's full of his neighbours skeletons. I don't particularly care one bit if anyone who is truly pro-impeachment is sneeringly called anyone's "Life Partner," I will still be happy to hear their quotes 24/7. Whether or not they are Craig Roberts, Robert Wexler, Dennis or Elizbeth Kucinich, or Angelina Jolie. We impeachers are solid. End of story.
Maybe; just maybe, Fleetwood has gotten a little wound up in; and pissed of by, current political issues especially these elections. That's natural. To the people who haven't, to those of you who feel "Joe Camel Cool" about the whole deal, I hope but gravely doubt your sense of detachment from the unfolding events is justified. IMO Fleetwood is highly rated because people see he is an engaging and resourceful, thinking guy who earnestly does care what happens.
Say someone grabs your wallet. A cop pursues him but isn't fit enough to catch him in a chase. So do we chase the thief, trying to get others to help, or stop to abuse the cop that didn't do his job? Immanent would have us taking the cop's badge number while our money disappeared forever. Cheney is the thief, and congress need to tone up. We know what we have to do.
The real question is whether the Russian Federatiopn has a plan in place to secure the U.S. nuclear arsenal so that it does not fall into the hands of the Taliban.
Perhaps Mexicans and Canadians can be enlisted as well.
I am fairly sure Obama will decline to be nominated as Jesus Christ,whatever the media attempts to anoint him as.
The old Bolsheviks, who were penetrating tacticians and strategists at overthrowing regimes on their last legs, at this point may well have contemplated campaigning for McCain.
What difference does it make what this or that candidate's program is unless he or she is accountable in office?
Bush and Cheney steal the election, lie the Congress into a disastrous war, and steal you blind, destroying the constitution and civil liberty in the process.
And you dumb fuckers care about who the NEXT president will be?
"Without the impeachment of Bush and Cheney, America can never recover. The precedents for unaccountable government established by the Bush administration are too great, their damage too lasting. Without impeachment, America will continue to sink into dictatorship in which criticism of the government and appeals to the Constitution are criminalized. We are closer to executive rule than many people know..."
Hmm. Hearsay at best, but it would not surprise me in the least. Then again, nothing really does these days. At least Fleetwood comes across as modest and not-so unforgivably pretentious. The guy was nice enough to say hi to me on the streets of Manchester, afterall.
Now you're attacking my education? Very classy move. I can see what Davis sees in you. But once again, you're blatant desire to increase the no. of views for this edition of Fleetwood's commentary has served a cross-purposes. I'll be un-subscribing today.
Also, my area of expertise is patent law, which, if you truly know anything about the profession, you would recognize is highly exportable due to the nature of patents. Patent prosecution is recession proof, but hey, thanks for playing.
Ah, there you go the rapidly ageing "life partner" quip that we have seen and discussed earlier gets hauled out yet again by someone called; for Pete's sake, "MaoTseFleetwood". Gee wonder why S/he it set up an account? Maybe to "talk with" immanent"? Other guesses?
I have much better things to do with my time than create new accounts just to get a quip in. I could care less who is who's life partner, and I rather like Davis, but the main reason I'm unsubscribing is because I find it odd that someone would spam Craig Roberts quotes, comment for 17 hours straight on a single video, and level attacks against my character and intelligence. Something's fishy and also quite frankly I feel the quality of Davis' commentary has declined with age. JMO.
The financial collapse is still in its first stages.
There is no easy solution.
The economy has been in recession for at least three years, and the underlying cause of it reaches back to 1996.
Clinton contributed in important ways. Bush turned it into full-fledged and inevitable disaster with the war in Iraq, which was directly responsible of the collapse of subprime.
I put off a lucrative career in law to spend the last year promoting Constitutional gov't, Dr. Paul, and his message of liberty and prosperity.
I have written letters to the media, the GOP, and Congress. I spent 2 weeks in frigid New Hampshire canvassing and handing out free Constitutions (on grassroots' dime).
I have donated my own money, time and sweat, as well as acted on behalf of countless blue-collar, middle/low income local supporters and their financial support.
Anyway, and I don't mean this to insult you, but if you were trained in law, the way you think and express yourself, and your lack of conceptual precision, suggests how badly lawyers are trained.
And especially the worthlessness of the adversarial mode.
This doesn't surprise--I have known an enormous number of lawyers in the same mode. Some of them were naturally backward, but many others were made morons by law.
Thanks. I was responding to ikekll, though its easily understandable how one at your level of pomposity and seeming self-absorption would think I was directing that to you. FYI, I had no love for litigation, which is why I stuck to transactional. Good job on the baseless claims though.
Though for someone as well-versed and convinced that you're always right, its perplexing that you spend so much time responding to backwards me on Youtube. Shouldn't you be writing a treatise?
"Without the impeachment of Bush and Cheney, America can never recover. The precedents for unaccountable government established by the Bush administration are too great, their damage too lasting. Without impeachment, America will continue to sink into dictatorship in which criticism of the government and appeals to the Constitution are criminalized. We are closer to executive rule than many people know..."
Another GOP legacy--the Grant administration--the most corrupt up to that time, and now outdone only by the Bush and Cheney adminstration, the corruption of which is monumental.
The men who wrote the Constitution knew themselves and one another and the last thing they wanted was anyone else of them to be king.
Do you know how much effort they put into calling the Chief Executive "president" or why they agreed on that term?
To you that's all mere "semantics" I suspect.
If Paul cannot see why it is his Constitutional duty to impeach obvious criminals in office, what is the point of him taking his "educational" campaign to the grassroots?
Because Congress is overrun by criminals and the negligent. Please explain what more Paul could have accomplished on the impeachment front. And while you're at it, explain why you think replacing one man is more worthwhile than changing the entire platform of one of the two major political parties to reflect Constitutional values.
You want to replace a man. Paul wants to replace ideas. His approach seems infinitely more prospective and reformative.
Self ownership is a universal ethic. It is bound by neither age nor intellectual capacity. It is the implied duty of the prudent parent to be a steward of that infant's right unto itself until it is ready to assume full responsibility for its own actions.
Self ownership and the natural rights that accompany it were the foundation of the Declaration of Independence and highly influential in the drafting of the Constitution.
I could care less about adherence to what IMO amounts to an astro-theological literary hybrid (Christianity), but the switch from Locke's property to "pursuit of happiness" can only be speculative since Jefferson never personally accounted for the modification. I'm sure you're aware that most framers and philosophers of the time were deists, not Christians. What we do know is that almost all the colonial charters referred to "life, liberty, and property."
Not very hard on it at all. I could easily construe "pursuit of happiness" to incorporate a broader set of property rights such as intellectual achievements (patents & copyrights).
"Property must be sacred or liberty cannot exist." - J Adams
Locke held the view, the colonial charters, and many, many, others. There is a lot more evidence to suggest PROPERTY is the proper meaning than anything else.
As I said, impeachment is a top-down approach, and seems that Paul knows that real change only happens from the grassroots-up.
Pro-Paul delegates are changing their state Republican party platforms to reflect opposition to undeclared, unconstitutional interventionist wars and many other neo-con planks, which is a step towards REAL change, not swapping out high-ranking party puppets.
It is the very definition of top-down. Removing one man from office to have his position fulled by another with as little respect for the rule of law as his predecessor? Sounds really effective to me!
Maybe you missed the part where I said Paul delegates are changing the party platform around the country.
Since self-ownership is 'naive' maybe we should still be a British colony?
Top down - removing the head of the executive branch, replacing him/her with someone of a similar opinion that the Constitution is anachronistic. There is nothing "grassroots" about a congress where members can raise $11 million for their PRIMARY election.
Grassroots up - getting millions of politically apathetic people involved, electing representatives that respect the Constitution, and changing the way gov't works in the long term by modifying an entire party's platform..
You are changing the terms of the argument and confusing the issue, now using a different definition of "top-down".
Grassroots" has no meaning in terms of a constitutionally defined structure, or in a hierarchy in which the President is considered at the apex of the pyramid.
You are changing the terms to fit what you want to argue for.
"Grassroots" carries no constitutional meaning.
You are making some vague political argument and using terms toward that purpose.
None of that has anything to do with the Constitutional structure or what one wants to call "top" with an unchecked Executive Power at the pinnacle of a hierarchal pyramid.
In fact no such pyramid exists constitutionally and Bush's and Cheney's moves in that direction are criminal and unconsitutional.
"top-down" has no Constitutional meaning either, but I suppose I presumed the obvious, namely that the federal gov't is the top, and grassroots is the people knocking on doors within their precinct, attending local party meetings and setting party agenda via the platform.
Obviously the executive branch has usurped far too much power, but Congress and the Judiciary allow it, and yet you consider this bottom-up/grassroots?
I am grassroots. Prez is top. Lots between. Any questions?
That happens to be incorrect. I defined my "top" down in regard to what Bush and Cheney are after in the way of Executive Power, and used it merely as a figure.
Your conception of the Federal Government as the "top" has nothing to do with the Constitution, or the relation of the Federal Government to the States, and happens to be wrong.
Frankly I'm tired of the argument over semantics.
You believe that impeachment holds any real value from a prospective viewpoint.
I disagree and hold that if anything is going to bring lasting change, it has to start by educating voters, and electing reps that respect the Constitution.
Yes, people who define things naiveluy and colloquially, and hinge what they think they are talking about on loose concepts and ambiguities very quickly tire of what they call "semantics".
Among other things you will apparently not be educating your "voters" in clear thinking and precise use of terms, eh?
The Branches of the Federal government are not a hierarchy constitutionally, as Bush and Cheney and other executives have tried to make them, but separate entities whose relation is governed by the Constitution.
Impeachment is designed exactly to limit the Executive Branch.
Bush is at least as extreme as Lincoln in his claims for Executive power and far beyond even Roosevelt.
I agree with all of that, but since impeachment is a function of Congress, we have to replace members of Congress with individuals who take their oath of office seriously, to the extent that they would commence impeachment proceedings AND the person assuming that office would remain true to that oath. Without the last prong, you're just replacing criminals with criminals, but to what end?
Your whole concept is naive. I don't know if you are a Paul supporter, but many of them have exactly this misconception, and are often very close to thenonsense of finding "good stewards" and putting them in power.
It's in black & white (Art. II, Sec. IV.), so whats preventing impeachment? OTHER CRIMINALS AND NEGLIGENT REPRESENTATIVES OF THE PEOPLE.
So do we send an occassional Kucinich or Paul to scream on deaf ears, or do we clean house? Obviously we have to clean house. And as I've pointed out time and time again here, that can only begin with you, some ideas, and knocking on doors in your precinct.
"Paul is trying to bring the GOP back to its Constitutional roots."
That right there is a huge crock of bullshit--the party begun in Lincoln's suspending habeas corpus and trammelling the Constitution and civil rights, just as Bush has done, is going back to its "constitutional roots"?
Ok, you got me. Not THAT far back. How about back to the era of Robert Taft and those ideas? The ideas that Goldwater, Reagan, and Bush gained popularity by espousing, albeit failing miserably short living up to.
Lincoln was a tyrant and started the War of Northern Aggression. Paul Republicans will not disagree there.
I have considerable respect for Taft's views on foreign policy. But Eisenhower is also vastly underestimated. His main flaw was being saddled with Dulles and Nixon.
Did you affix electrical tape to the part of the screen where I mentioned that they all failed miserably? Goldwater was unnecessarily militant in his anti-Communistic pursuits, Reagan was an interventionist as were Bush 41 & 43.
I don't OPPOSE impeachment. I just recognize that it is less desirable than grassroots change for its lack of being a long-term, prospective solution.
You STILL don't offer ideas for what should occur AFTER impeachment.
Impeachment is an idea, one for which you seem to be pushing relentlessly, but THAT idea seems fruitless insofar as it is only a retrospective remedy. THEN WHAT?
Impeachment is a constitutional remedy for criminals in office, namely removal. There are no criminal penalties, which is why it is exempt from the protections of jury trial. There is no judicial review.
As remedy it gets the criminal out of a position of power or immunityand its effects are just the opposite of retrospective.
You are either really unversed in the Constitution or disingenous.
The idea that you are going to "educate" at the grassroots is a fucking bad joke.
1. You will never have the requisite simple majority in the House to push through impeachment. Dems don't want it, Pubs don't either.
2. Even if the Dems pushed it through, it would clearly be a political move, and the next in line would be no better, constitutionally than, the first. Any casual observer can see that.
So do tell, how is impeachment even plausible without cleaning up Congress first?
We are already doing it, changing state party platforms, and running/financing candidates that support Constitutional government. The worse things get, the easier our case is to make. Do you have any idea how easy it is to sway a neighbor? All the establishment has going for it is the media. They can't pay people enough to go door-to-door spewing their propaganda. Its no coincidence that Paul has raised more money than any of the media-favored neo-cons, most from small donors mind you.
You can tell me cleaning up Congress is absurd, but I guarantee it is much less absurd than expecting them to move forward with impeachment and making a difference prospectively with the cast of characters in line for the job.
"It does not take a majority to prevail... but rather an irate, tireless minority, keen on setting brushfires of freedom in the minds of men." - S Adams
When all three branches have gone bad, checks and balances have gone out the window and you have to start, very simply, one vote at a time. If the president is not living up to his oath, its the duty of Congress to remove him/her. If Congress does not live up to its oath, it is the duty of the people to replace the Congress. What is backwards about this?
"I think there is a strain within the pro-Israel community that says unless you adopt a unwavering pro-Likud approach to Israel that you're anti-Israel and that can't be the measure of our friendship with Israel. If we cannot have an honest dialogue about how do we achieve these goals, then we're not going to make progress."
Of course neo-cons are going to look after their own.
Paul is trying to bring the GOP back to its Constitutional roots, and recognizes that you can impeach all of the people you want, but if you don't win the hearts and minds of conservative, Constitution-minded voters and take back the GOP from the inside, nothing changes.
People who cry for impeachment don't understand they will just be replacing one puppet for another.
Change starts from the bottom up. Not by some media-fabricated clown from Illinois, nor the ex-Goldwater-girl-turned-socialist, and definitely not from '100-Year War' dinosaurs.
Paul has been very critical of the neo-con platform and Bush policies. More so than Democrats. How do you suppose that is?
Paul is genuinely anti-war and on many issues has been a strong constitutionalist.
At one point he ran as a Libertarian candidate for president.
What is this new wedding of his to the Republican Party, and his refusal to take impeachment seriously as a constitutional remedy for criminals in office?
DavisFleetwood4Ever
Brandt761 3 years ago
very very clever, we need more of you in this world
flirtadvice 3 years ago
sick!!
southstar87 3 years ago
"sick" is the new "cool" right? A lot of us are over the hill...
queny2 3 years ago 2
Ah, very clever Mister Fleetwood.
Much love.
GeekLove100u 3 years ago
"WASHINGTON AP March 3, 2008- The cascading fallout from the subprime loan crisis, barely a cloud on the horizon a year ago, is now viewed by experts as the economy's gravest threat.
In a survey being released Monday, 34 percent of the members of the National Association for Business Economics ranked the financial market turmoil from those loan defaults as the No. 1 threat to the economy over the next two years."
mopsius 3 years ago
"That compares with 18 percent from an August survey, when the most serious threat was seen by 20 percent of the economists as terrorism and the conflicts in the Middle East.
A year ago, the credit crisis did not even register as a chief threat."
[ibid]
mopsius 3 years ago
"NEW YORK - AP March 3, 2008 The surging price of oil reached another milestone Monday, jumping to an inflation adjusted record high of $103.95.
The weaker dollar that has propelled oil and other commodities prices higher sent light, sweet crude for April delivery past $103.76 a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange...
Oil's most recent run into record territory has been driven by the greenback's slump against other world currencies...."
Bon appetit, mes enfants.
mopsius 3 years ago
And you think things are bad now--let Bush attack Iran--the collapse is swift and the financial and social chaos instant.
Oil at $200 per barrel overnight.
So are you all ready to impeach Cheney or not?
mopsius 3 years ago 2
All those people being foreclosed on should be out in the streets with pitchforks ready to hang any Neo-con or Bushy from the lamppost--the War in Iraq has fucked them to the wall through oil prices and the collapse of the currency.
They should be crowded around the Mega-Church mall churches turning out the vote for Bush, ready to crucify them in the Circus.
Look around you--see a Bushy or a Neo-Con or an Israel firster--that is who is foreclosing on your property.
mopsius 3 years ago 2
Also get to the heart of the matter--it is the war in Iraq that was the underlying cause because of oil prices.
That is what busted subprime. People were just on the edge in being able to pay. High gas and food prices and they go bust.
mopsius 3 years ago
Argentina took the same tack with the World Bank--simply threatened to pay not at all.
The bank then rushes in and says, oh, how bout if we cancel this part of the debt?
Americans are too stupid to see it apparently.
mopsius 3 years ago
You actually have more leverage going bust than you have trying to pay less, but still more thna all this is worth.
mopsius 3 years ago
So all these people trying to stop foreclosure of their house are actually helping the banks and the financiers, who will be only too glad to work out a way to save the bundled paper by having these folks pay just a little less but still mor ethan it all is worth.
Instead, if all these people got together and said, "Go ahead, foreclose on everyone", the banks and the financiers are fucked.
mopsius 3 years ago
In fact, you want real revolution--get all the mortgage holders together and have them say--fuck you assholes, foreclose--we don't want this shit anymore.
We are not paying.
We don't want your credit, we don't want this mortgage we were tricked into, we don't want this property.
We don't want to pay for this paper anymore.
mopsius 3 years ago
Foreclose to your heart's content.
You take the property. Go to court and call the sheriff.
The paper is no good.
We have been screwed.
The banks panic.
They can't afford mass foreclosures, hehe.
mopsius 3 years ago
It's too late to bother about foreclosures.
The most the Federal government can do is try to shore up some of the bundled paper, and cosmeticize it as a measure to help other "homeowners" against "predatory" lenders.
The problem is this will hasten the collapse of the currency, and will do nothing for real estate.
Benrnanke should have raised interest rates when sub-prime collapsed but he didn't have either the brains or the balls to do it.
Bon appetit, mes enfants.
mopsius 3 years ago
dernit mopsy,
if it were your house about to be foreclosed on, you'd be glad the firewall was in place!
ikekll 3 years ago
This is complex.
This has happened at least partly because people were suckered into believing that what is bought on credit or with mortgage is theirs.
It isn't.
This is how they wind up working for less than subsistence.
People enslaved themselves and now they want to be "saved" by paying just a little less for their slavery?
This has to be thought out from the bottom up.
mopsius 3 years ago
mopsy, U said:
"The problem is this will hasten the collapse of the currency"
aren't you the one who advocates the tough love approach?
you also said:
"When it is beyond the point at which one can make things better, it is often best to make them worse."
So, if we're damned if we do and damned if we don't, why delay the inevitable?
Let her collapse so we can rebuild. I'm all
for hastening the process. I don't much care for a slow painful death.
ikekll 3 years ago
Here's an interesting aspect few know about. People who bought second houses because of the low interest rates and rising real estate prices, as inestement.
These are fairly smart people--small time speculators.
They are bascially telling the banks--go ahead foreclose--we don't want this piece of shit anymore, paying a mortgage on a property we can't sell and that is worth a fifth of what we bought it for.
This scares the crap out of the banks.
Fact is the banks don't want that either.
mopsius 3 years ago
mopsy-thank you for taking the time and energy to
post all you did!
I wanted to say something more profound but I think a
"thank you" is fine.
ikekll 3 years ago
"We think we are getting something for something. But really we are getting nothing for nothing...."
It's worse than that, one is getting less than nothing for and enduring something, namely, the privilege of paying property taxes, maintenance, and being attentive about future value--in return for restricting oneself by a promise to pay over time, and with no control over the medium or circumstances in which the promise must be executed.
mopsius 3 years ago
Bush and the banks are trying to make adjustments not tot save the homeowners but to save the paper-holders and banks.
Mass foreclossues do the banks and paper-holders in.
They want the Fed to come in and make up for the difference.
mopsius 3 years ago
I say BY GOD let it collapse-maybe then
that which stinks can be flushed down the toilet.
Somebody is enjoying life to the hilt!
Somebody is reaping the benefits of the housing bust and foreclosures!
It ain't anyone in the majority.
I had 60 freaking bucks for the week
and it took 50 to fill the gooddam gas tank!
I say let her fall. Can't clean up a mess until it's made!!!
ikekll 3 years ago
Now you are getting it--you have been working to pay the banks and the financiers through credit and mortgages.
And they steal all your gains in two or three different ways.
And you want to keep working and paying?
Why?
why.
Home sweet home?
The bank needs him more than he needs the bank.
mopsius 3 years ago
So person X has a mortgage he can't pay on a property that is worth a fifth of what he just bought if for?
The banks will be all too happy to let him adjust his payments so that the paper stays good and have the Federal government make up the difference with your tax money.
So he pays a little less on a property that is still saddled with a mortgage for a aporpoerty the fifth of the price.
He wants to continue to pay for that. And with a collapsing currency/
mopsius 3 years ago
Israel threatens HOLOCAUST in Gaza:
timesonline(dot)co(dot)uk/tol/news/world/middle_east/article 3459144(dot)ece
mopsius 3 years ago
Estimated direct US costs of War in Iraq to date
$3,000,000,000,000 to $7,000,000,000,000:
mcclatchydc(dot)com/homepage/story/28891(dot)html
mopsius 3 years ago
great effect!! love it!!
smartbandwidth 3 years ago
MIKE GRAVEL in 08!
Ron Paul has sat in his office this whole time and done NOTHING!
Real Change for this country is Mike Gravel! Check him out!!
TwistedSister19 3 years ago
This has been flagged as spam show
This may be translated by many as me being a "snob".
Personally, I will call it... "I seem to be a "needy person".and always depend on others judgment to make a decision.
This is one good reason why I appear to be snob lacking a sense of humor in others people eyes.
HlLLARYCLINTON 3 years ago
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SaveUsRonPaul 3 years ago
interesting.....thanks you understand the B.S of media bolloxtricks (politics) 1:13 good point!!!! escape tactics ha ha!
cemtex1 3 years ago
"AP February 29,2008: Light, sweet crude for April delivery on the New York Mercantile Exchange jumped to a new trading record of $103.05 a barrel in electronic trading before slipping back to $102.07 a barrel, down 52 cents, by midday in Europe..."
SSSSSHHHH TOP SECRET!
mopsius 3 years ago
Curry: "You don't agree with that? Has nothing do with the economy, the war? The spending on the war?"
Bush: 'I don't think so. I think actually, the spending on the war might help with jobs.
Curry: "Oh, yeah?"
Bush: "Yeah, because we're buying equipment, and people are working. I think this economy is down because we built too many houses."
mopsius 3 years ago
STOP talking impeachment of Cheney.
Impeachment is not enough, he should be tried for treason, PERIOD!
From another video, "geckoremmington" says about Cheney:
"hi. im english. if this hapenned in my country i wouldNOT make a video or a website about it, but get up, alongside 70 million of my brothers and sisters, and drag the one solitary degenrate antibody from its sickly nest and deport it from the galaxy. YOUR RIGHTS ARE MORE THAN A SHEET OF PAPER!!!"
ikekll 3 years ago
Treason, war crimes, and host of other offenses--but, first, get him out of office, which is the purpose of impeachment, so he cannot do more damage than he has.
mopsius 3 years ago
WHY hasn't this already been done. It's beyond logic why Cheneyis still in office and still raping citizens!
What gripes me the most is the amount of secrecy that this administration has been able to operate under.
This wise man puts it best-
""no matter how noble or imperative they would have us believe
that secrecy is, whenever a group were or are allowed
to use power in secret, it will always be used inappropriately..."
So this wize woman (me) says:
This SHIT's got to STOP!
ikekll 3 years ago 2
Sssssshh, TOP SECRET.
mopsius 3 years ago
"WHY hasn't this already been done."
Because the overwhelming number of criminal or negligent members of Congress refuse to publicize and educate the people of crimes against the Constitution. So, as I've said, what do you do when Congress doesn't live up to ITS OWN duty to impeach?
I pose the question to you.
immanent 3 years ago
You can pose the question to me all day long and I search all day long for a bandwagon to hop on RIGHT NOW because it is right now that people are losing their homes...further breaking what will was left after 911.
What did congress do in response to Harry Reids' statement on the number of foreclosures that are happening RIGHT NOW!
There's legislation introduced that would address, NO FIX, the problem...forget who introduced it...
why isn't it being discussed AND adopted right now?
ikekll 3 years ago
Well, that was puzzling! sorry for the double post, however it occurred.
queny2 3 years ago
Hmm, Dirty Hippiedom and Mountain-climbing as Revolutionary Ascesis. Hmmm.
Come on Fleetwood, let's hear the punk version.
mopsius 3 years ago
He he'll need to sing that old standard, "Anarchy for the USA" as he hangs upside down above the chasm, his thoughts not for one moment straying from the political struggle ahead. Spiderman?
queny2 3 years ago
Ah, but that's because they were celebrities, who can only be held to account for DUI offences at most. Not all celebrities are Presidents of course, but all presidents these days MUST be celebrities, in a mid life manifestation of Paris, Britney and Lindsay.
queny2 3 years ago
Curiously enough my position was with Hilton, who was financially independent from the time she was 18, and who was quite cunning at marketing herself as exactly what she had broken away from.
The fact is she was, as the LA sheriff noted, not treated fairly, and was punished more severely as a lesson to the peons that not all supposed members of the elite were unaccountable.
mopsius 3 years ago
Essentially she gets singled out for no celebrity and no underwear and the judge goes to his little Sunday Roman Catholic service and all the good Christian parishioners give him a standing ovation for putting Paris in jail.
Three cheers--the streets are safe and there really is justice in America!
mopsius 3 years ago
All followed by the little morality play of her tears and breakdown and going home to her Mama. Ah yes--the moral order is validated!
It's a pity she was so young and singularly undefiant. Standing up to the whole fucking lot of them from jail and giving the whole system the finger from the top would have won her admiration and independence for life.
Instead, she really did collapse into the poor little rich girl.
mopsius 3 years ago
Yes no Che I'm afraid, all care and no panties, even from a Warhol perspective I suspect.
queny2 3 years ago
Contrast Mick Jagger or Grace Slick, eh?
mopsius 3 years ago
Grace is a real gem. Mick has grown on me a great deal over the years, and not just because I understood his musical talent better. That probably means I've changed, because it strikes me he has not changed at all. Orbs of steel, the pair of them.
queny2 3 years ago
How much of her breakdown hinged on pathological toilet training? I mean she has the Sheriff on her side, it's a few weeks to read a book, and she apparently has a nervous breakdown because no one ever taught her how to shit in the woods?
mopsius 3 years ago
"Yes, Mama, I understand--I can do anything I want but noit openly. I have to be a hypocrite. I understand Mama. Tell them I want to do missionary work in Uganda, yes Mama. Am dedicating myself to God, yes, Mama. I have learned my lesson, yes Mama, blub blub blub".
mopsius 3 years ago
and then mama leans over and quietly whispers "remember that one little rule, darling daughter and you will be free to enjoy all your fame and fortune, just as you have ever done."
queny2 3 years ago
Well, I suppose she could still take up smoking Cuban cigars and start studying Marcuse.
Next satori?
mopsius 3 years ago
She may end up being banned from the Whitehouse if she goes down that path. Frankly even Grace hasn't been able to get in for a while now.
queny2 3 years ago
She may end up being banned from the Whitehouse if she goes down that path. Frankly even Grace hasn't been able to get in for a while now.
queny2 3 years ago
corr: "for celebrity and no underwear"
mopsius 3 years ago
Ah well, as an establishment icon, with no other substance but her remarkably flashy fame, she really went too far pushing the contrary position. She was careless enough to challenge and expose the contradictions in mainstream god fearing porn watching consumer society, which by and large well serve her. Not in rebellion, but simple wilfulness, which of course so readily became contrition. Even so, that was the crime, and not what she was booked for. And that as you say was not legitimate.
queny2 3 years ago
No she had mind, untutored, but mind--and learned on her own how to get out of the doublebind, satirizing what she was supposed to be and getting well paid for it into the bargain.
She was also a very hard worker.
Actually her only real talent. But--pampered and drug dependent, no real hardness, and victim of the same little morality plays she mocked.
The young often jump to the conclusion they have overcome the superego when in fact they have not yet even localized where it resdes.
mopsius 3 years ago
I missed a lot of it, as I detest that entire scene, to be fair it was no great challenge because she just never looked all that pretty to me:) I am happy to take your word for the details and in any case would wholeheartedly agree with your conclusion. Self satirising isn't always immunising.
queny2 3 years ago
Nah, not good looking either, no real talent--but a sign of how smart she was as a self-marketer.
She got very far on very little.
But behind the scenes she was a really hard worker, probably a throwback to the grandfather.
Ideal recruit for the local CPA (ambiguity intended).
mopsius 3 years ago
Yes she knows what Joe and Jane public want to buy, so much so it's a little creepy. But that's the marketing game. What the the Contemporary Publishing Association? She could really betray herself big time there.
queny2 3 years ago
Gary Snyder in the lumber camps. Hmm. Hmm.
Angela Davis in a bikini. Hmm. Hmm.
Better yet out of her bikini. Hmm. Hmm.
mopsius 3 years ago
Well isn't that the difference. Always free but never cheap.
queny2 3 years ago
It's the same system though, the same psychology. Know Paco Underhill--brilliant eye and mind. He and Guevara talk for weeks--it's all a part of terrain.
mopsius 3 years ago
"See that, Che, every time those guards enter the courtyard they unconsciously look to the right."
"Senor, Senor!"
mopsius 3 years ago
Bush himself was an alcoholic and a cocaine user, and apparently that is only a small part of the story is public.
How many days did he spend in prison?
Clinton too.
In both cases unaccountability as display.
mopsius 3 years ago
Well, some gangs look after their own, and are a little better resourced, and have slightly slicker PR than others I guess.
queny2 3 years ago
Curious, the United States has three million people in prison, more than Communist China and the Russian Federation combined, and the prison industry and security are booming, but so few Christian ministers who buy illegal drugs and patronize male prostitutes or who, in a position of trust, hit on page boys or corrupt the altar boys in their care.
mopsius 3 years ago
Given the percentage of Rightwing Congressmen, Christian ministers, and pedophile Roman Catholic priests that that do get caught "fiddling", which is about the same as the % of straight husbands caught cheating, one can only presume there are far more straight husbands cheating than we realize.
queny2 3 years ago
The prison population figures alone tell the rational something serious and systemic is wrong, no?
In much of the Bible Belt, however, prisons are a much sought after local industry.
All this government job training both left and right are talking about--how about leading the duck--put millions into training programs for prison guards.
mopsius 3 years ago
MaoTseFleetwood, you know what?
It's a worn out tactic labeling someone as gay. It's a method to distract from the issue and an attempt to discredit an individual.
But, MOST importantly-NOBODY gives a damn if a person is gay or not, nobody really cares, honestly...I am gay---big fucking deal.
IT's none of your goddam business who is doing who, when and where....got it!
ikekll 3 years ago
IMO, morals can apply to sexual preferences, just not as Mao put it. Ever heard the expression "gay as an anti-gay republican congressman"? We all need to be ourselves, as God made us, and let others do likewise. I was going to conclude homophobes should think hard on that one, but decided against it.
queny2 3 years ago
Anti-homosexual homosexual Rightwing Congressmen, Christian ministers, and pedophile Roman Catholic priests--another display of elitist unaccountability, yes? Save when now and then they get caught.
mopsius 3 years ago
Even when caught how many of them serve time for what clearly are crimes for those not considered part of the hypocritical arm of the new Theo-Fascist state?
mopsius 3 years ago
As many as an armless veteran can count on his or her fingers.
queny2 3 years ago
JMO. Fleetwood is an inspiring and quirky commentator, with a "real" edge, who both seems and acts likeable. I haven't looked in his closet, maybe it's full of his neighbours skeletons. I don't particularly care one bit if anyone who is truly pro-impeachment is sneeringly called anyone's "Life Partner," I will still be happy to hear their quotes 24/7. Whether or not they are Craig Roberts, Robert Wexler, Dennis or Elizbeth Kucinich, or Angelina Jolie. We impeachers are solid. End of story.
queny2 3 years ago
Maybe; just maybe, Fleetwood has gotten a little wound up in; and pissed of by, current political issues especially these elections. That's natural. To the people who haven't, to those of you who feel "Joe Camel Cool" about the whole deal, I hope but gravely doubt your sense of detachment from the unfolding events is justified. IMO Fleetwood is highly rated because people see he is an engaging and resourceful, thinking guy who earnestly does care what happens.
queny2 3 years ago
Fishy like an account called "MaotseFleetwood"?
There's something that can't get any worse with age.
queny2 3 years ago
whot happend??????????????????????????
robertds1962 3 years ago
Say someone grabs your wallet. A cop pursues him but isn't fit enough to catch him in a chase. So do we chase the thief, trying to get others to help, or stop to abuse the cop that didn't do his job? Immanent would have us taking the cop's badge number while our money disappeared forever. Cheney is the thief, and congress need to tone up. We know what we have to do.
queny2 3 years ago
yes mopsius
the mexicans maybe and some canadians(the quebecers will resist)
as the new jobs will be in army , police, and guards of every kind...
5lodown 3 years ago
When it is beyond the point at which one can make things better, it is often best to make them worse.
The status quo has very little to commend it.
mopsius 3 years ago
The real question is whether the Russian Federatiopn has a plan in place to secure the U.S. nuclear arsenal so that it does not fall into the hands of the Taliban.
Perhaps Mexicans and Canadians can be enlisted as well.
mopsius 3 years ago
I am fairly sure Obama will decline to be nominated as Jesus Christ,whatever the media attempts to anoint him as.
The old Bolsheviks, who were penetrating tacticians and strategists at overthrowing regimes on their last legs, at this point may well have contemplated campaigning for McCain.
Free fall is thereby accelerated to supersonic.
mopsius 3 years ago
What difference does it make what this or that candidate's program is unless he or she is accountable in office?
Bush and Cheney steal the election, lie the Congress into a disastrous war, and steal you blind, destroying the constitution and civil liberty in the process.
And you dumb fuckers care about who the NEXT president will be?
Wake the fuck up!
Wake your Congressman up!
Impeach Cheney now!
mopsius 3 years ago 2
"Without the impeachment of Bush and Cheney, America can never recover. The precedents for unaccountable government established by the Bush administration are too great, their damage too lasting. Without impeachment, America will continue to sink into dictatorship in which criticism of the government and appeals to the Constitution are criminalized. We are closer to executive rule than many people know..."
[Paul Craig Roberts]
mopsius 3 years ago
Davis, Will you please confirm or deny this rumor about you and Mopsius once and for all and end this nonsense!
MyInnerCheney 3 years ago
Ah, the new boilerplate.
You lost a few more votes.
Keep talking.
mopsius 3 years ago
Pundit will delairbama the new Jesus Christ. OMFG that is soo funny. Your sudents are very lucky to have you for a teacher.
missdivinestalls 3 years ago
Don't mind Mopsius, immanent. I heard he's Fleetwoods Life Partner (if ya know what I mean...)
MaoTseFleetwood 3 years ago
Hmm. Hearsay at best, but it would not surprise me in the least. Then again, nothing really does these days. At least Fleetwood comes across as modest and not-so unforgivably pretentious. The guy was nice enough to say hi to me on the streets of Manchester, afterall.
immanent 3 years ago
Hehe-surely, immanent, you have much to be modest about.
One of these days it will dawn on you how ill-served you have been in your "legal" education".
Not the least exportable, for example.
mopsius 3 years ago
Now you're attacking my education? Very classy move. I can see what Davis sees in you. But once again, you're blatant desire to increase the no. of views for this edition of Fleetwood's commentary has served a cross-purposes. I'll be un-subscribing today.
Also, my area of expertise is patent law, which, if you truly know anything about the profession, you would recognize is highly exportable due to the nature of patents. Patent prosecution is recession proof, but hey, thanks for playing.
immanent 3 years ago
Urgent alert, immanent is immanently unsubscribing!!! Red Alert level, permission to panic granted.
queny2 3 years ago
Ah, there you go the rapidly ageing "life partner" quip that we have seen and discussed earlier gets hauled out yet again by someone called; for Pete's sake, "MaoTseFleetwood". Gee wonder why S/he it set up an account? Maybe to "talk with" immanent"? Other guesses?
queny2 3 years ago
I have much better things to do with my time than create new accounts just to get a quip in. I could care less who is who's life partner, and I rather like Davis, but the main reason I'm unsubscribing is because I find it odd that someone would spam Craig Roberts quotes, comment for 17 hours straight on a single video, and level attacks against my character and intelligence. Something's fishy and also quite frankly I feel the quality of Davis' commentary has declined with age. JMO.
immanent 3 years ago
Everyone is entitled to an opinion, and their choice of company.
queny2 3 years ago
Dumbass.
voxthevoice 3 years ago
If there were a way only to choose competent, honest, efficient representatives who would need a constitution or impeachment.
mopsius 3 years ago
mopsius & immanent-
"I love it, love it, love-love-love it!"
:)
ikekll 3 years ago
Being of average intellect on my best day, I get frustrated when I can't comprehend what's being argued.
Nonetheless, I'm distressed! Life simply sucks right now.
Ok, that's all beside the point and nobody gives a rat's ass about that BUT
I just want to point out something.
I feel strongly that someone must be held responsible. Look at what has happened in the last seven years....
look at the horror of Katrina
look at the private police state that's being created.
THIS SHIT HAS TO STOP
ikekll 3 years ago
Yep--accountability is key.
Indeed, the display of unaccountability is now an essential part of having status as a member of the elite.
Incompetents have greater opportunities to display their unaccountability, and thus outpace the competent in status.
Eventually the system becomes anti-meritocratic and incompetents rule.
Thus the younger Bush, the ultimate incompetent to date, with McCain in close pursuit of the next rung up the ladder.
mopsius 3 years ago
and one more thing...
how many of you have spent more time arguing with another---
and simply arguing only to prove you are "right!"
so, question...how much more time have you spent offending and defending than you have actually doing something?
made any phone calls today?
written any emails to all or ANY official?
Have at it...argue and debate away...people like me learn from it but do those who are losing the farm to foreclosure a favor-
DO SOMETHING!
ikekll 3 years ago
The financial collapse is still in its first stages.
There is no easy solution.
The economy has been in recession for at least three years, and the underlying cause of it reaches back to 1996.
Clinton contributed in important ways. Bush turned it into full-fledged and inevitable disaster with the war in Iraq, which was directly responsible of the collapse of subprime.
Subprime is just the canary in the mineshaft.
mopsius 3 years ago
I put off a lucrative career in law to spend the last year promoting Constitutional gov't, Dr. Paul, and his message of liberty and prosperity.
I have written letters to the media, the GOP, and Congress. I spent 2 weeks in frigid New Hampshire canvassing and handing out free Constitutions (on grassroots' dime).
I have donated my own money, time and sweat, as well as acted on behalf of countless blue-collar, middle/low income local supporters and their financial support.
immanent 3 years ago
That's nice.
You want a gold star?
Anyway, and I don't mean this to insult you, but if you were trained in law, the way you think and express yourself, and your lack of conceptual precision, suggests how badly lawyers are trained.
And especially the worthlessness of the adversarial mode.
This doesn't surprise--I have known an enormous number of lawyers in the same mode. Some of them were naturally backward, but many others were made morons by law.
That is not necessarily your fault.
mopsius 3 years ago
Thanks. I was responding to ikekll, though its easily understandable how one at your level of pomposity and seeming self-absorption would think I was directing that to you. FYI, I had no love for litigation, which is why I stuck to transactional. Good job on the baseless claims though.
Though for someone as well-versed and convinced that you're always right, its perplexing that you spend so much time responding to backwards me on Youtube. Shouldn't you be writing a treatise?
Bah.
immanent 3 years ago
"You're so vain, you probably think this song is about you...."
Pomposity, my word!
No, not always and not convinced. But a pretty high batting average if I do say so myself.
It's the law schools nowadays mainly, and almost all the rest of the schools as well.
Not my problem. You have enough to keep you busy for some years.
mopsius 3 years ago
More robots! More car chases!
aravonniv 3 years ago
Retarded. Stupid. Worthless.
But it was art, Mr. Fleetwood.
ViLeDeth 3 years ago
"Without the impeachment of Bush and Cheney, America can never recover. The precedents for unaccountable government established by the Bush administration are too great, their damage too lasting. Without impeachment, America will continue to sink into dictatorship in which criticism of the government and appeals to the Constitution are criminalized. We are closer to executive rule than many people know..."
[Paul Craig Roberts]
mopsius 3 years ago
Ah yes, Paul Craig Roberts, Assistant Secretary of the Treasury under Reagan and "father of Reagonomics", which the elder Bush called voodoo.
mopsius 3 years ago
Another GOP legacy--the Grant administration--the most corrupt up to that time, and now outdone only by the Bush and Cheney adminstration, the corruption of which is monumental.
mopsius 3 years ago
The men who wrote the Constitution knew themselves and one another and the last thing they wanted was anyone else of them to be king.
Do you know how much effort they put into calling the Chief Executive "president" or why they agreed on that term?
To you that's all mere "semantics" I suspect.
If Paul cannot see why it is his Constitutional duty to impeach obvious criminals in office, what is the point of him taking his "educational" campaign to the grassroots?
mopsius 3 years ago
Because Congress is overrun by criminals and the negligent. Please explain what more Paul could have accomplished on the impeachment front. And while you're at it, explain why you think replacing one man is more worthwhile than changing the entire platform of one of the two major political parties to reflect Constitutional values.
You want to replace a man. Paul wants to replace ideas. His approach seems infinitely more prospective and reformative.
immanent 3 years ago
Paul is sincerely antiwar and for that he has my respect. His "ideas" are mostly kindergarten stuff.
Is an infant "self-owned"? Why not?
This is really kiddie stuff and so full of holes it is absurd.
As a political theorist or serious Constitutionalist Paul makes a great gynecologist.
mopsius 3 years ago
Self ownership is a universal ethic. It is bound by neither age nor intellectual capacity. It is the implied duty of the prudent parent to be a steward of that infant's right unto itself until it is ready to assume full responsibility for its own actions.
Self ownership and the natural rights that accompany it were the foundation of the Declaration of Independence and highly influential in the drafting of the Constitution.
So where is the disconnect for you?
immanent 3 years ago
Bullshit.
There we go--the old Born Again "Steward" shit again.
Find "self-ownership" in either the Declaration of Independence or the Constitution.
What a fucking crock. Do you really believe this crap?
mopsius 3 years ago
The next thing you are going to say is what a good little Christian Tom Paine was, right.
From whose "life, liberty, and the pursuit of property" Jefferson got "life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness."
Interesting change by the way.
mopsius 3 years ago
I could care less about adherence to what IMO amounts to an astro-theological literary hybrid (Christianity), but the switch from Locke's property to "pursuit of happiness" can only be speculative since Jefferson never personally accounted for the modification. I'm sure you're aware that most framers and philosophers of the time were deists, not Christians. What we do know is that almost all the colonial charters referred to "life, liberty, and property."
immanent 3 years ago
Indeed.
You will note "life, liberty, and property" are three clearly distinct terms, as the subsitution of "pursuit of happiness" also shows.
Very hard on your "self-ownership" concept, eh?
Why Jefferson made the change? There are several possibiliites but nothing that can be easily stated in a few words.
mopsius 3 years ago
Not very hard on it at all. I could easily construe "pursuit of happiness" to incorporate a broader set of property rights such as intellectual achievements (patents & copyrights).
"Property must be sacred or liberty cannot exist." - J Adams
Locke held the view, the colonial charters, and many, many, others. There is a lot more evidence to suggest PROPERTY is the proper meaning than anything else.
immanent 3 years ago
Proper meaning of what?
Life and liberty, as the phrasing shows, are not the same as property or the pursuit of happiness.
Yeah yeah, I know Paul also has you little fellas "owning your own life and liberty too", hehe.
Locke was not very bright as philosophers go.
Fortunately the spirit of the War of Independence and the Constitution was much more French, and in decisive ways even Florentine, than British.
The Brits still don't got no stinking republic.
Or freedom of speech either.
mopsius 3 years ago
Hehehe...good one.
Brandt761 3 years ago
5 stars
aurayon 3 years ago
The Neo-Cons have taken control of American intelligence and foreign policy under Bush and Cheney.
They are also behind McCain's resurrection.
How to separate them from the Republicans, especially when even someone like Paul won't move strongly toward impeachment.
Looks like a lot rigmarole to me.
mopsius 3 years ago
As I said, impeachment is a top-down approach, and seems that Paul knows that real change only happens from the grassroots-up.
Pro-Paul delegates are changing their state Republican party platforms to reflect opposition to undeclared, unconstitutional interventionist wars and many other neo-con planks, which is a step towards REAL change, not swapping out high-ranking party puppets.
immanent 3 years ago
In a kingship, impeaching the king is not top-down by any stretch of the imagination.
Anyway, Libertarianism will never get anywhere within the Republican Party.
At best it will be a naive veneer, and a disaster even under a Republican and supposedly "Libertarian" king.
mopsius 3 years ago
It is the very definition of top-down. Removing one man from office to have his position fulled by another with as little respect for the rule of law as his predecessor? Sounds really effective to me!
Maybe you missed the part where I said Paul delegates are changing the party platform around the country.
Since self-ownership is 'naive' maybe we should still be a British colony?
immanent 3 years ago
In a hierarchy in which the Executive power is supreme, the legislative branch impeaching the Executive is not top down, just the reverse.
That is one reason the Constitution included impeachment and made it very simple, as a limit to Executive power.
I am not going to argue the point with you. Either you have the wrong image or you are deceiving yourself in some way.
mopsius 3 years ago
Top down - removing the head of the executive branch, replacing him/her with someone of a similar opinion that the Constitution is anachronistic. There is nothing "grassroots" about a congress where members can raise $11 million for their PRIMARY election.
Grassroots up - getting millions of politically apathetic people involved, electing representatives that respect the Constitution, and changing the way gov't works in the long term by modifying an entire party's platform..
immanent 3 years ago
You are changing the terms of the argument and confusing the issue, now using a different definition of "top-down".
Grassroots" has no meaning in terms of a constitutionally defined structure, or in a hierarchy in which the President is considered at the apex of the pyramid.
Have a nice day.
mopsius 3 years ago
You are changing the terms to fit what you want to argue for.
"Grassroots" carries no constitutional meaning.
You are making some vague political argument and using terms toward that purpose.
None of that has anything to do with the Constitutional structure or what one wants to call "top" with an unchecked Executive Power at the pinnacle of a hierarchal pyramid.
In fact no such pyramid exists constitutionally and Bush's and Cheney's moves in that direction are criminal and unconsitutional.
mopsius 3 years ago
"top-down" has no Constitutional meaning either, but I suppose I presumed the obvious, namely that the federal gov't is the top, and grassroots is the people knocking on doors within their precinct, attending local party meetings and setting party agenda via the platform.
Obviously the executive branch has usurped far too much power, but Congress and the Judiciary allow it, and yet you consider this bottom-up/grassroots?
I am grassroots. Prez is top. Lots between. Any questions?
immanent 3 years ago
That happens to be incorrect. I defined my "top" down in regard to what Bush and Cheney are after in the way of Executive Power, and used it merely as a figure.
Your conception of the Federal Government as the "top" has nothing to do with the Constitution, or the relation of the Federal Government to the States, and happens to be wrong.
mopsius 3 years ago
In fact your obviously casual misconception is part of the problem, not the solution.
Grassroots and rest has nothing to do with impeachment or the Constitution or the process of impeachment.
mopsius 3 years ago
Frankly I'm tired of the argument over semantics.
You believe that impeachment holds any real value from a prospective viewpoint.
I disagree and hold that if anything is going to bring lasting change, it has to start by educating voters, and electing reps that respect the Constitution.
immanent 3 years ago
Yes, people who define things naiveluy and colloquially, and hinge what they think they are talking about on loose concepts and ambiguities very quickly tire of what they call "semantics".
Among other things you will apparently not be educating your "voters" in clear thinking and precise use of terms, eh?
Nor even in the US Constitution.
mopsius 3 years ago
The Branches of the Federal government are not a hierarchy constitutionally, as Bush and Cheney and other executives have tried to make them, but separate entities whose relation is governed by the Constitution.
Impeachment is designed exactly to limit the Executive Branch.
Bush is at least as extreme as Lincoln in his claims for Executive power and far beyond even Roosevelt.
mopsius 3 years ago
I agree with all of that, but since impeachment is a function of Congress, we have to replace members of Congress with individuals who take their oath of office seriously, to the extent that they would commence impeachment proceedings AND the person assuming that office would remain true to that oath. Without the last prong, you're just replacing criminals with criminals, but to what end?
Real change starts at the grassroots.
immanent 3 years ago
Your whole concept is naive. I don't know if you are a Paul supporter, but many of them have exactly this misconception, and are often very close to thenonsense of finding "good stewards" and putting them in power.
Moreover, this is as naive as it is dangerous.
mopsius 3 years ago
Then I would like to know what you propose is a better way.
Besides impeachment, anyway.
I've yet to get a response regarding how impeachment is a proactive solution. What then?
immanent 3 years ago
Without impeachment it does not matter much who is elected the next president.
It's not a question of electing a good or bad king, but of having no king at all.
If you cannot grasp that, as Paul himself apparently cannot grasp, it is foolish to discuss any further.
mopsius 3 years ago
"Without impeachment..."
It's in black & white (Art. II, Sec. IV.), so whats preventing impeachment? OTHER CRIMINALS AND NEGLIGENT REPRESENTATIVES OF THE PEOPLE.
So do we send an occassional Kucinich or Paul to scream on deaf ears, or do we clean house? Obviously we have to clean house. And as I've pointed out time and time again here, that can only begin with you, some ideas, and knocking on doors in your precinct.
immanent 3 years ago
"Paul is trying to bring the GOP back to its Constitutional roots."
That right there is a huge crock of bullshit--the party begun in Lincoln's suspending habeas corpus and trammelling the Constitution and civil rights, just as Bush has done, is going back to its "constitutional roots"?
Hoho.
mopsius 3 years ago
Ok, you got me. Not THAT far back. How about back to the era of Robert Taft and those ideas? The ideas that Goldwater, Reagan, and Bush gained popularity by espousing, albeit failing miserably short living up to.
Lincoln was a tyrant and started the War of Northern Aggression. Paul Republicans will not disagree there.
immanent 3 years ago
I have considerable respect for Taft's views on foreign policy. But Eisenhower is also vastly underestimated. His main flaw was being saddled with Dulles and Nixon.
mopsius 3 years ago
And it was exactly the Republican Party that saddled him with both.
mopsius 3 years ago
"The ideas that Goldwater, Reagan, and Bush gained popularity by espousing, albeit failing miserably short living up to."
Including either Bush with Reagan or Goldwater shows where you are coming from finally.
Just another Bushie, disingenous, incompetent, and hypocritical.
One way or another the Republican Party is kaput, even if by some vast act of theft and fraud it should manage to steal the next election.
mopsius 3 years ago
That statement also shows why you oppose impeachment, for all your talk about Paul and grassroots.
mopsius 3 years ago
Did you affix electrical tape to the part of the screen where I mentioned that they all failed miserably? Goldwater was unnecessarily militant in his anti-Communistic pursuits, Reagan was an interventionist as were Bush 41 & 43.
I don't OPPOSE impeachment. I just recognize that it is less desirable than grassroots change for its lack of being a long-term, prospective solution.
You STILL don't offer ideas for what should occur AFTER impeachment.
immanent 3 years ago
"You STILL don't offer ideas for what should occur AFTER impeachment."
What's in if for me?
You paying for "ideas" now?
mopsius 3 years ago
Impeachment is an idea, one for which you seem to be pushing relentlessly, but THAT idea seems fruitless insofar as it is only a retrospective remedy. THEN WHAT?
immanent 3 years ago
Impeachment is a constitutional remedy for criminals in office, namely removal. There are no criminal penalties, which is why it is exempt from the protections of jury trial. There is no judicial review.
As remedy it gets the criminal out of a position of power or immunityand its effects are just the opposite of retrospective.
You are either really unversed in the Constitution or disingenous.
The idea that you are going to "educate" at the grassroots is a fucking bad joke.
mopsius 3 years ago
1. You will never have the requisite simple majority in the House to push through impeachment. Dems don't want it, Pubs don't either.
2. Even if the Dems pushed it through, it would clearly be a political move, and the next in line would be no better, constitutionally than, the first. Any casual observer can see that.
So do tell, how is impeachment even plausible without cleaning up Congress first?
immanent 3 years ago
On verra.
But the idea of "cleaning up Congress first" is absurd.
mopsius 3 years ago
We are already doing it, changing state party platforms, and running/financing candidates that support Constitutional government. The worse things get, the easier our case is to make. Do you have any idea how easy it is to sway a neighbor? All the establishment has going for it is the media. They can't pay people enough to go door-to-door spewing their propaganda. Its no coincidence that Paul has raised more money than any of the media-favored neo-cons, most from small donors mind you.
immanent 3 years ago
You can tell me cleaning up Congress is absurd, but I guarantee it is much less absurd than expecting them to move forward with impeachment and making a difference prospectively with the cast of characters in line for the job.
"It does not take a majority to prevail... but rather an irate, tireless minority, keen on setting brushfires of freedom in the minds of men." - S Adams
immanent 3 years ago
Congress will always be made up of the good, the bad, and the ugly. So what? That's why the constituton has checks and balances.
When a system hinges on being run by good guys only, it's curtains.
mopsius 3 years ago
The Athenians chose their representatives randomly from a pool.
mopsius 3 years ago
Yep, and he is sitting on the donations, suspending his campaign, and in effect coopted and defused the Libertarian Party.
Congratulations.
As a political thinker a really great gynecologist!
mopsius 3 years ago
When all three branches have gone bad, checks and balances have gone out the window and you have to start, very simply, one vote at a time. If the president is not living up to his oath, its the duty of Congress to remove him/her. If Congress does not live up to its oath, it is the duty of the people to replace the Congress. What is backwards about this?
immanent 3 years ago
"I think there is a strain within the pro-Israel community that says unless you adopt a unwavering pro-Likud approach to Israel that you're anti-Israel and that can't be the measure of our friendship with Israel. If we cannot have an honest dialogue about how do we achieve these goals, then we're not going to make progress."
[Barack Obama]
mopsius 3 years ago
Of course neo-cons are going to look after their own.
Paul is trying to bring the GOP back to its Constitutional roots, and recognizes that you can impeach all of the people you want, but if you don't win the hearts and minds of conservative, Constitution-minded voters and take back the GOP from the inside, nothing changes.
People who cry for impeachment don't understand they will just be replacing one puppet for another.
And please distinguish neo-cons from Republicans.
immanent 3 years ago
How can one find constitutional roots by avoiding a Congressman's duty to impeach criminals in office, which Bush and Cheney obviously are?
Paul Craig Roberts is exactly right.
"Taking back the GOP"--toward what purpose--to elect another King?
mopsius 3 years ago
Change starts from the bottom up. Not by some media-fabricated clown from Illinois, nor the ex-Goldwater-girl-turned-socialist, and definitely not from '100-Year War' dinosaurs.
Paul has been very critical of the neo-con platform and Bush policies. More so than Democrats. How do you suppose that is?
immanent 3 years ago
Paul is genuinely anti-war and on many issues has been a strong constitutionalist.
At one point he ran as a Libertarian candidate for president.
What is this new wedding of his to the Republican Party, and his refusal to take impeachment seriously as a constitutional remedy for criminals in office?
mopsius 3 years ago
Pauls' economic ideas and much of his Libertarianism, including the idea of "self-ownership" are naive and archaic in the extreme.
The Federal Reserve is but a small part of the present currency collapse.
There is no question Greenspan and Bernanke are both incompetents.
So is Friedman.
mopsius 3 years ago
As Paul has said before, tyranny is the truly archaic idea. Freedom is relatively new. If the Fed is merely a small part, then who is most culpable?
Keynesianism and debt-based growth is what sounds incompetent to me.
And honestly, what is naive about self-ownership? Its the bedrock of this country.
immanent 3 years ago
Keynes being a fool does not make Rothbard wise.
A reflexive idea of self-ownership is logical and legal absurdity with hidden and very vicious cryptotypes.
mopsius 3 years ago