Author	Message
mikelepore	Posted: 07 Nov 2008 08:23 pm    Post subject: Obama Any comments on the election, the transition, or the administration....
mikelepore	Posted: 07 Nov 2008 08:25 pm    Post subject: Almost immediately, everyone in the media reported the conclusion that the election result proves that "in America you can achieve anything", "in America all your dreams will come true".
mikelepore	Posted: 07 Nov 2008 08:33 pm    Post subject: Obama just held his first press conference and proposed giving a financial "stimulus" to "the auto industry." During this bailout mania, the public isn't being told about the fact that any corporation that's having problems paying its bills can generate some revenue any time it wants to, by creating new shares of stock and putting them up for sale, which is called an initial public offering (IPO). They don't like to do that because the net asset value (NAV) of each share is the company's total assets minus debts, divided by the number of shares outstanding. If they create new shares, the denominator will go up, and therefore the NAV will go down, and then the share value will respond by going down. In other words, at the cost of diminishing the wealth of the current stockholders, any industry could turn that process into instant cash any time the company needs to, and thereby pay the ocmpany's bills. But the government won't ask them to do that. Instead, the government will just hand something to them.
mikelepore	Posted: 07 Nov 2008 08:41 pm    Post subject: At least he has a sense of humor. He said during the news conference that the new puppy will have to be a variety that his daughter isn't allergic too. That will make it difficult to get the puppy from a shelter. Obama said, "Most shelter dogs are mutts, like me."
The Greenman	Posted: 07 Nov 2008 09:04 pm    Post subject: I believe I heard that the voter turnout was the highest in 44 years. I know U.S. citizens, the working class, voting for either Obama or McCain. Obama got the popular vote as we are all aware. I cannot understand why the Left just don't use the ballot seriously rather than just for educational purposes.
mikelepore	Posted: 07 Nov 2008 09:47 pm    Post subject: In what way don't they use the ballot seriously?
The Greenman	Posted: 07 Nov 2008 10:04 pm    Post subject: Other than for educational purposes every four years and Bernie Sanders, I don't see socialist running for school boards, city councils, mayor, etc. I would tend think they would have to run on the Democratic ticket though--most people only see two parties and it's actually a waste to vote Third Party. On any socialist website have you ever seen this or that person running for political office other than for President or Vice President?
davesearles	Posted: 08 Nov 2008 02:05 am    Post subject: The generation that would have died before being "presided" over by a black man is dead. My mother's father, and my father's mother two of the nicest people I will ever have met in all other respects, in this singular regard were of the stupidest. "Archie Bunker" was of such comic material because the character was an abject exposure of this particular type of ignorance - an ignorance beyond belief (unless you were brought up in an environment that actively nurtured in all regards this form intellectual dissonance.) That we will have a black president without a gunshot in the transition from Bush to Obama, it seems to knock out the underpinnings of any argument that "capital" in our day will violently resist a democratic upwelling for worker control of the industrial mop.
mikelepore	Posted: 08 Nov 2008 07:53 am    Post subject: The Greenman wrote: I don't see socialist running for school boards, city councils, mayor, etc. What's a socialist going to do on a school board?
mikelepore	Posted: 08 Nov 2008 07:57 am    Post subject: davesearles wrote: The generation that would have died before being "presided" over by a black man is dead. I'm not so sure. Why is the Confederacy mostly painted red on the latest election map?
davesearles	Posted: 08 Nov 2008 09:27 am    Post subject: It's far less red for Obama than it was for even Bill Clinton, Jimme Carter, Al Gore all white men from the south. (I think. I'll have to pull up some references but I'm on my way out the door.)
The Greenman	Posted: 08 Nov 2008 11:58 am    Post subject: Mike wrote: Quote: What's a socialist going to do on a school board? Actually, I never been to a school board meeting but people are either elected or appointed. The meeting are suppose to be open to the public (from what I understand) and those elected are suppose to make decisions to what would be the best education for the students. When I was in college I over heard a conversation that public schools pay more attention to the cream of the crop and the rest are just to be pushed along. This was considered justifiable--I am not kidding. Socialist could push for improved methods to educate instead of just pushing them on to a higher grade. A lot of kids have problems which psychological intervention could help them out. Then there are children of single parents who might have social or psychological issues. Oh hell, what kid don't have issues. There could be after school programs to foster homework and study methods and lets not forget to feed them 3 times a day because the parent or parents have to work leaving the child to him/herself. There is a lot a socialist could do with public education.
allhailtuna	Posted: 08 Nov 2008 02:59 pm    Post subject: The Greenman wrote: Other than for educational purposes every four years and Bernie Sanders, I don't see socialist running for school boards, city councils, mayor, etc. I would tend think they would have to run on the Democratic ticket though--most people only see two parties and it's actually a waste to vote Third Party. On any socialist website have you ever seen this or that person running for political office other than for President or Vice President? Bernie Sanders is not a socialist, as far as I can see. Also, running in the Presidential elections only is presumably because that is the election that gets the most coverage (crud, the SPUSA candidate got onto Fox News and the Colbert Report, needless to say his beliefs are are all over the place, like the Party's Platform). The Greenman wrote: Socialist could push for improved methods to educate instead of just pushing them on to a higher grade. I'd say that the free school movement is also something worth pressing for. Crud, I managed to organize a debate in class on it here. As for Obama, it does show that the public is largely not racist, but rich white guys still control the government (Crud, even Nader noticed this. Perhaps he decided to learn a bit from Carlin?)
mikelepore	Posted: 08 Nov 2008 03:58 pm    Post subject: How to improve educational methods isn't just a matter of fighting for it. There's an honest difference of opinion about what methods facilitate learning. Greater use of videos versus less use of videos. Have more hand-on projects and few lectures, or have fewer hands-on projects and more lectures. Homework every night, good or bad. Allowing calculators on exams, good or bad. What is the free school movement?
mikelepore	Posted: 08 Nov 2008 04:08 pm    Post subject: Up until the 1970s there were a lot of SP, SLP, SWP candidates for mayor, city comptroller, state assembly, House of Representatives, etc. It's rarer today.
mikelepore	Posted: 08 Nov 2008 04:13 pm    Post subject: I noticed a lot of 2-to-1 votes by state. New England states, close to 66 percent Obama, 33 percent McCain, 1 percent other. The Dixie states, close to 66 percent McCain, 33 percent Obama, 1 percent other. The 52-to-48 margins seemed fewer to me.
mikelepore	Posted: 08 Nov 2008 04:19 pm    Post subject: I think the political comedians were unfair to Gov. Palin. I don't believe for a minute that "she didn't know that Africa was a continent and not a country" (to quote Bill Mahar, John Stewart, Jay Leno and David Letterman). Perhaps she made a slip of the tongue and said the wrong word. It's bad when political discourse descends to the point where it's not enough to say I disagree with someone's political views for the following reasons, but instead you have to call the other person an idiot. If progressives think it's acceptable to do this to conservatives, the perceived acceptability of it will later come back and bite the progressives.
The Greenman	Posted: 08 Nov 2008 04:53 pm    Post subject: Tuna wrote: Quote: Bernie Sanders is not a socialist, as far as I can see. He thinks he is and he does attend Democratic Socialist of America Conventions last I knew of. Don't forget that the Right Wing and racist groups believe wholeheartedly that he is a socialist. Mike wrote: Quote: Up until the 1970s there were a lot of SP, SLP, SWP candidates for mayor, city comptroller, state assembly, House of Representatives, etc. It's rarer today. So, what happened? Did everyone get on the "political demand wagon" rather than to get politically involved?
mikelepore	Posted: 08 Nov 2008 05:33 pm    Post subject: The huge work involved in getting on the ballot. Thousands of signatures needed on nominating petitions. Most people are reluctant to sign it because it doesn't merely say I support the right of this party to appear on the ballot; instead it says "I intend to support this party in the upcoming election", followed by a signature and home address. I know how hard it is, because the SLP paid for Dave and me to be put up in a hotel in NYC for a few days before the 1976 presidential election, and we walked the streets in Harlem to get signatures. A densely populated street in a low income neighborhood is the best place for a socialist to find someone willing to sign it, still you get perhaps a hundred signatures in a long day if you're very lucky. You have to gather many more signature than the number required because the election board throws away an entire page of 25 or 50 or whatever signatures every time they judge any one signature on that page to be illegible or they question whether the person's home address is valid. I remember one guy who just wrote "Spoon" for his name, so I had to be careful to cross out that line; if it had gotten submitted like that, the whole page of valid signatures would have been rejected. I don't know how hard it is to get on the ballot for local elections, but the presidential election is a monster of a task. State by state, a different total required, ranging from 20,000 in New York to 400,000 in California. There has to be some minimum number in each county in the state, so the same gang of volunteers goes to every county and hits the streets.
mikelepore	Posted: 08 Nov 2008 05:44 pm    Post subject: A couple weeks ago, Bill Mahar, on his political talk show on HBO, asked Bernie Sanders, "So what are you? Are you a socialist?" Sanders answers, "Yes, I'm a _DEMOCRATIC_ socialist," stressing the adjective. Mahar repeated it back will amazement: "A _DEMOCRATIC_ socialist?!" (Mahar is one of those people who often confuses the audience by saying that an example of "socialism" is the government giving money handouts to big corporations.) I don't remember whether Sanders elaborated and expressed a platform, but his voting record and his speeches are probably available publicly for anyone who's interested. But I wouldn't raise my expectations to the point of expecting Sanders to utter a phrase about socialism that would actually mean something coherent, such as "a classless society based on collective ownership and democratic control by the people of the industries and services."
mikelepore	Posted: 08 Nov 2008 05:52 pm    Post subject: Is the name "allhailtuna" a reference to the band Hot Tuna? (Jack Cassasy, Jorma Kaukonen, Marty Blain, Paul Kantner, and the beloved Papa John Creach (died in 1994). I saw them in concert three times, and I have six of their albums, vinyl records of course. I love saying things that advertise how old I am.
allhailtuna	Posted: 08 Nov 2008 09:35 pm    Post subject: mikelepore wrote: Is the name "allhailtuna" a reference to the band Hot Tuna? (Jack Cassasy, Jorma Kaukonen, Marty Blain, Paul Kantner, and the beloved Papa John Creach (died in 1994). I saw them in concert three times, and I have six of their albums, vinyl records of course. I love saying things that advertise how old I am. No, it is simply due to the fact that tuna are awesome. Anyways, I really haven't seen Bernie Sanders give any indication that he is a socialist. Also, seriously, "I am a DEMOCRATIC socialist"? That's fairly redundant. Seriously, you're not a Blanquist? Woah. Really, he probably just read the SPUSA platform and stuff about raising taxes, and though, "Hey, this sounds like a good idea!" Hey, wait a minute, didn't Wikipedia describe the old Labour Party as 'democratic socialism'? Also, I heard that Sanders described Scandinavia as a good example of 'socialism'.
mikelepore	Posted: 08 Nov 2008 11:58 pm    Post subject: As Homer Simpson would say, "glglglglgh ... tuna ......" [drool] [artist-drawn thought-bubble showing a submarine sandwich]
mikelepore	Posted: 09 Nov 2008 12:06 am    Post subject: What exactly is this "careful" removal of U.S. military from Iraq that Obama says will take a projected 16 months? I don't even know what their objective is. Why can't it be ended simply by telling the military personnel to board airplanes or ships and go home?
allhailtuna	Posted: 09 Nov 2008 12:22 pm    Post subject: mikelepore wrote: What exactly is this "careful" removal of U.S. military from Iraq that Obama says will take a projected 16 months? I don't even know what their objective is. Why can't it be ended simply by telling the military personnel to board airplanes or ships and go home? Well, for quite a few it would be telling them to board airplanes and go to Afghanistan.
davesearles	Posted: 09 Nov 2008 01:24 pm    Post subject: ml: Quote: I noticed a lot of 2-to-1 votes by state. New England states, close to 66 percent Obama, 33 percent McCain, 1 percent other. The Dixie states, close to 66 percent McCain, 33 percent Obama, 1 percent other. The 52-to-48 margins seemed fewer to me. Sorry I didn't mean to send the discussion down this path. I was literally heading out the door when I wrote about that more states had gone to Obama - My original point was not who voted for Obama - but the fact that there will be a transition of power from a white person to a black person and it will be accepted without a gunshot even with raft loads of people who still must have a great deal of racism in them. There are "revolutionaries" galore who insist that the transition from whatever it is that we have now to a system of collective worker control of the industrial mop and distribution SIMPLY MUST be accompanied by violence. I was trying to draw a parallel to when the political idea that workers must collectively control the industrial means of production takes hold. There is little or no reason the expect that a transition to that, when it is determined through the political process will be accompanied by violence.
mikelepore	Posted: 09 Nov 2008 06:08 pm    Post subject: "Without a gunshot" isn't even a correct description for the presidential transition. It's a matter of degree. A gang was recently arrested after, allegedly, the feds uncovered a white supremacist plot to murder the Democratic candidate. If a new law said that the workers own the means of production, almost all of those who disagree with it would still obey it. We have to expect that a few lunatics will commit violence. Where I object to the common leftist view is that I say the number of people who will commit that violence won't be of the magnitude where standard legal procedures have to be suspended, as in a civil war. It will be of a lesser magnitude where legal procedures proceed normally, the perpetrators indicted and entitled to jury trials, and not charged with "resisting the revolution" but charged with whatever specific violent actions they performed.
mikelepore	Posted: 09 Nov 2008 06:22 pm    Post subject: allhailtuna wrote: Well, for quite a few it would be telling them to board airplanes and go to Afghanistan. By the way, saying this this makes me unpopular with the always-blame-America-first segment of the left, but I believe the U.S. incursions in Afghanistran are justified. The former Taliban government of Mullah Mohammed Omar said that the people who planned the 2001 attack on the United States were their guests and would not be turned over to the U.S. to face charges. The consequence for that decision should be that the Taliban faction will never again be allowed to acquire power in that country or in any other country. That may even mean that, every time they take power in one village or city at a time, the Taliban administrators promply get bombed to smithereens by the United States. I would support doing that.
mikelepore	Posted: 09 Nov 2008 06:39 pm    Post subject: Is it a valid idea to support the election of the first black president, the first woman president, the first Catholic president, etc., for the sake of seeing all these "glass ceilings" get demolished? I can think of arguments going both ways.
The Greenman	Posted: 10 Nov 2008 11:56 am    Post subject: Mike wrote Quote: By the way, saying this this makes me unpopular with the always-blame-America-first segment of the left, but I believe the U.S. incursions in Afghanistan are justified. The former Taliban government of Mullah Mohammed Omar said that the people who planned the 2001 attack on the United States were their guests and would not be turned over to the U.S. to face charges. The consequence for that decision should be that the Taliban faction will never again be allowed to acquire power in that country or in any other country. That may even mean that, every time they take power in one village or city at a time, the Taliban administrators promptly get bombed to smithereens by the United States. I would support doing that. I also felt it was justified to go into Afghanistan, years ago, in response to the country who harbored those that committed murder. Of course I did not like it when Bush used the "attack on American soil" as a pretext to invade Iraq which had nothing to do with the 911 attack. John Trimbath
mikelepore	Posted: 10 Nov 2008 07:44 pm    Post subject: I wrote a letter to President Bush before the Iraq invasion and told him he as going about it wrong. I told him, if he was right in his belief that Saddam was preparing to attack the US with hidden WMD's, the locations of those WMDs would probably be recorded in office records that might be lost during any air strikes. Instead, consider the report of the UN weapons inspectors that having 20 or so inspectors wasn't enough to search the whole country, and consider the fact that they said it takes only about 100 hours to train someone to be a UN weapons inspector, and consider the fact that Saddam had recently conceded the point that inspectors would be permitted to go anywhere and open any door. Therefore, I told him, if you send in that 100,000+ US military personnel, it would be better strategy to send them all in -- in the role of UN weapon's inspectors. Mr. Bush didn't take my advice. It was worth a try.