Quit picking on Obama……

[SirJosephPorter]

What’s the population of Europe, ironsides, in excess of 400 million? Now admittedly Europe is not ruled by one government (though the European Parliament and European Human Rights Court do have considerable amount of power).

However, the underlying principles of Social Democracy (universal health care, high level of taxation and the corresponding level of public services etc.) are the same over most of Europe.

So it can work, whether it will work in USA remains to be seen.

Besides, this is he first time Americans have elected a truly liberal President. Obama never made any bones about his agenda, he was very up front about it. You can hardly blame him if he tried to implement the agenda on which he was elected.

 

[ironsides]

I think Obama needs some challenging. The following is from Dennis Prager Conservative Republican Political before anyone questions who he is.


"The Speech President Obama Won't Dare Give in Egypt By Dennis Prager

http://www.jewishworldreview.com/0609/prager060209.php3?printer_friendly
http://www.jewishworldreview.com/te...m/0609/prager060209.php3&sent=false& ccMe=no

​

This week, President Barack Obama is scheduled to give a major address in Cairo to the Muslim world. He is likely to reiterate what he has stated previously to Muslim audiences, that America has no battle with Islam, deeply respects Islam and the Muslim world, and apologizes for any anti-Muslim sentiment that any Americans may express.

Here is what an honest address would sound like:

"Thank you for the honor of addressing the Egyptian people and the wider Muslim world.

"I am here primarily to dispel some of the erroneous beliefs many Muslims have about America and to thereby reassure you that America has no desire to be at war with the Muslim world.

"To my great disappointment, many Muslims have come to believe that my country has declared war on Muslims and Islam.

"Because of this widespread belief, I said in an interview with al-Arabiya a few months ago, that we need to restore "the same respect and partnership that America had with the Muslim world as recently as 20 or 30 years ago."

"Lets' look a little deeper at that relationship. For the truth is, as noted by the Pulitzer-Prize winning columnist for the American newspaper the Washington Post, Charles Krauthammer, in the last 20-30 years America did not just respect Muslims, it bled for Muslims. We Americans engaged in five military campaigns on behalf of Muslims, each one resulting in the liberation of a Muslim people: Bosnia, Kosovo, Kuwait, Afghanistan and Iraq.

"Bosnia and Kosovo, as well as the failed 1992-93 Somalia intervention to feed starving African Muslims - in which] 43 Americans were killed - were all humanitarian exercises. In none of them was there a significant U.S. strategic interest at stake. So, in fact, in these 20 years, my country, the United States of America has done more for suffering and oppressed Muslims than any other nation, Muslim or non-Muslim

"While I recognize that gratitude is the rarest positive human quality, I need to say - because candor is the highest form respect - that America has not only not received little gratitude from the Muslim world, it has been the object of hatred, mass murder, and economic attack from Muslim individuals, groups, and countries.

"Just to cite a few of many examples from the last 40 years:

"In 1973, Muslim terrorists attacked the American embassy in Sudan and murdered our country's ambassador, Cleo Noel, and the chief deputy of the mission, George C. Moore. Later in 1973, the Arab oil embargo against America sent my country into a long and painful recession. In 1977, Muslim militants murdered the U.S. ambassador to Lebanon, Frances E. Meloy, and Robert O.Waring, the U.S. economic counselor. In 1979 radical Muslims violently attacked my country's embassy in20Teheran, and for 14 months held American diplomats hostage, often in appalling conditions. In 1998, Muslim militants bombed the American embassy in Nairobi, killing 12 Americans and 280 Kenyans, and bombed our embassy in Tanzania, killing another 11 Americans. Then, on Sept. 11, 2001, 19 Muslims who had been living in America slit the throats of American pilots and flight attendants and then flew airplanes into civilian buildings in New York City, burning 3,000 innocent Americans to death.

"So, my friends here in Egypt, between America and the Muslim world, who exactly has been making war on whom?

"I have enormous differences with my predecessor, President George W. Bush. But please remember that less than a week after thousands of Americans were slaughtered in the name of your religion, President Bush went to the Islamic Center in Washington, D.C., and announced that Islam was a religion of peace. Moreover, in a country of 300 million people, of whom only a few million are Muslim, there is virtually no recorded incident of anti-mosque or other anti-Muslim violence despite the butchery of 9/11 and the popular support for Osama Bin Laden that we saw in the Muslim world after 9/11.

"I ask you to please ask yourselves what Egypt's reaction would have been had 19 Christians, in the name of Christianity, slaughtered 3,000 Egyptians. How would the Christians of Egypt and elsewhere in the Middle East have fared?

"As it is, because of persecution by Muslim majorities, Christians have been leaving the Middle East in such great numbers that for the first time since Christ, there are large parts of the Middle East that have become empty of both Jews and Christians.

"Yet, at the same time, millions of Muslims have moved to Western countries and to America. It is fair to say that the freest, and often the safest, place in the world for a practicing Muslim is the United States of America.

"Muslim-Americans are treated exactly as other Americans are treated. It is exceedingly rare to hear any anti-Muslim bigotry in my country. And while there is some criticism of the Muslim world, but there is far more criticism of Christianity in America than of Islam.

"Unfortunately, in much of the Muslim world today anti-Jewish speeches and writing are frequently identical to the genocidal anti-Semitism one heard and read in Nazi Germany. This is a blight on your civilization How can you seriously charge that America is at war with Islam when in fact it is much of the Islamic world that is at war with Jews and Christians?

"I know that you would like me to announce that America is abandoning its support for Israel. But every president since Harry Truman, Democrat and Republican, has been passionate about enabling Israel to defend itself from those who wish to destroy it. And that, dear Muslims, is the issue. America will continue to support a two-state solution to the Arab-Israeli dispute, but the issue has neve r really been about two states. It has always been about Palestinians and other Arabs and Muslims recognizing Israel's right to exist as a Jewish state.

"As a friend of Egypt and of the Muslim world, I want to say something from the bottom of my heart: The day the Arab world ceases obsessing over the existence of a Jewish state the size of Belize will be a great day for the Arab and Muslim worlds. Your obsession with Israel has cost you dearly in every area of social development. This is easily demonstrated. If Israel were destroyed - and the so-called "right of return" of millions of third-generation Palestinian refugees would ensure that outcome as effectively as would a nuclear device from Iran - what difference would that make to the Egyptian economy, to Egyptian lack of freedoms, or anything else that matters to Egyptians? In my opinion, none whatsoever. Preoccupation with Israel has simply enabled the Arab world to not look within for 60 years.

"Finally, my fellow Americans would feel more confident in American-Muslim relations if they had ever seen a large demonstration of Muslims anywhere against all the terror committed by Muslims in the name of Islam - whether in London, Madrid, New York, Bali, Cairo, or Mumbai. The mark of a great civilization - and Arab civilization was indeed once great - is a willingness to criticize itself.

"Thank you again for this opportunity to address you. I could have patronized you by ex aggerating American misdeeds and ignoring yours. But I have too much respect for you.

"Shukran jiddan." "


























"My friends, we live in the greatest nation in the history of the world. I hope you'll join with me as we try to change it."
- Barack Obama
And this Obama quote people believe.

 

[ironsides]

Who some ask is the leader of the Republican Party? It is not Michael Steele, because a leader needs followers, and the only people who follow him are late night comedians. It is not Rush Limbaugh, because the only people who follow or believe anything about him are extreme right or left wing ideologues. It is not Sarah Palin, because the only people who follow her are enthusiastic know nothings.
The real leader of the Republicans has been preaching for more than 20 years: "Just say no." And now, all the elected Republican congressional representatives have decided to follow the mantra of their leader-- Nancy Reagan.

There just may be a new/old Phoenix arising for the Republican party again.

 

[SirJosephPorter]

Ironsides, it is easy to say who is the nominal leader of the Republican Party. It is of course, John McCain. He was the presidential nominee, and until another nominee is chosen, he is the leader of the party.

The question is who is the real, the de facto leader of the party. That is difficult to say, but that title belongs to Limbaugh as well as to anybody else.

 

[SirJosephPorter]

Ironsides, I do read Dennis Prager occasionally. I read the title of his article on Townhall website, but didn’t read the article. He does make sense sometimes, but he being a conservative and I being a liberal, I rarely agree with him.

 

[JLM]

Ironsides, it is easy to say who is the nominal leader of the Republican Party. It is of course, John McCain. He was the presidential nominee, and until another nominee is chosen, he is the leader of the party.

The question is who is the real, the de facto leader of the party. That is difficult to say, but that title belongs to Limbaugh as well as to anybody else.

If that's true S.J. I'd bet my last dollar the Republicans don't have a hope in Hell of forming government while he is.

 

[SirJosephPorter]

If that's true S.J. I'd bet my last dollar the Republicans don't have a hope in Hell of forming government while he is.

I think those are the rules of both the parties, JLM. Thus Al Gore was the nominal leader of Democratic Party until Kerry won the nomination. This even though Gore took absolutely no interest in the Democratic Party after he lost, he was busy producing ‘An Inconvenient Truth’.

So until the next nominee is chosen in 2012, McCain remain the nominal party leader. But the real leader, the one with real power, that is a different thing altogether.

 

[EagleSmack]

I am just laughing here. You have no idea how American Politics works. You are just a wannabee.

 

[SirJosephPorter]

I am just laughing here. You have no idea how American Politics works. You are just a wannabee.

Perhaps not, EagelSmack, but in this case I happen to be right.

 

[EagleSmack]

In your mind you think you are but you are out of the park on this one as well.

 

[SirJosephPorter]

In your mind you think you are but you are out of the park on this one as well.

Really? Give me a link which contradicts what I said here.

 

[JLM]

I think those are the rules of both the parties, JLM. Thus Al Gore was the nominal leader of Democratic Party until Kerry won the nomination. This even though Gore took absolutely no interest in the Democratic Party after he lost, he was busy producing ‘An Inconvenient Truth’.

So until the next nominee is chosen in 2012, McCain remain the nominal party leader. But the real leader, the one with real power, that is a different thing altogether.

But Gore is widely regarded as a bona fide politician while Rush is more akin to a circus clown.

 

[SirJosephPorter]

But Gore is widely regarded as a bona fide politician while Rush is more akin to a circus clown.

You are right, JLM. But the point is, the nominal leader is easy to identify, it is the presidential nominee. But who is the real, de facto leader? That can be difficult sometimes.

In this context, it is important to remember that Michael Steele is not the Republican Party leader. He is the Chairman of Republican National Committee, far different from the leader of the party.

 

[L Gilbert]

Opinions about. lol

Nancy Reagan is the real leader of the Republican Party.

The Real Leader of the Republican Party is…. « I'm Going Crazy

The real leader of the opposition - Republican Party leader Phil Gramm - Cover Story | Washington Monthly | Find Articles at BNET

 

[ironsides]

Ironsides, it is easy to say who is the nominal leader of the Republican Party. It is of course, John McCain. He was the presidential nominee, and until another nominee is chosen, he is the leader of the party.

The question is who is the real, the de facto leader of the party. That is difficult to say, but that title belongs to Limbaugh as well as to anybody else.

That is the problem, there is no real leader. There are a lot of new comers starting to get involved, but no real standouts yet.

 

[SirJosephPorter]

That is the problem, there is no real leader. There are a lot of new comers starting to get involved, but no real standouts yet.

Ironsides, a leader will emerge eventually. As I said before, every political party learns to compromise when it has been out of power for a long time.

That is why if Republicans lose the 2012 election, watch them come back roaring in 2014. By then they will desperately want to be back in power again, they will make room for moderates. They will field moderates in areas where it makes sense. By then democrats would have made enough enemies, they will have made enough people mad for them to consider voting Republican.

Add to this the fact that second midterm is usually a disaster for the party in power, and 2014 may be the year of Republican come back. I would be very surprised if they don’t win the control of the Congress in 2014.

But they have to do a lot of work before that.

 

[ironsides]

The Geography of Recession

"The global recession is the biggest development in the global system in the year to date. In the United States, it has become almost dogma that the recession is the worst since the Great Depression. But this is only one of a wealth of misperceptions about whom the downturn is hurting most, and why."

The Geography of Recession | STRATFOR


This is a very interesting article, worth a read anyway. What happens will decide the next U.S. goverment.

 

[JLM]

The Geography of Recession

"The global recession is the biggest development in the global system in the year to date. In the United States, it has become almost dogma that the recession is the worst since the Great Depression. But this is only one of a wealth of misperceptions about whom the downturn is hurting most, and why."

The Geography of Recession | STRATFOR


This is a very interesting article, worth a read anyway. What happens will decide the next U.S. goverment.

Part of the reason that it's such a big development is we've had it pretty good for so long. But when you think back to the trends (mostly tied to greed) it's not really that big a deal- only a fool thought it could go on forever- the tragedy being a lot of those C.E.O.s are fools.

 

[ironsides]

Part of the reason that it's such a big development is we've had it pretty good for so long. But when you think back to the trends (mostly tied to greed) it's not really that big a deal- only a fool thought it could go on forever- the tragedy being a lot of those C.E.O.s are fools.

Guess this is what happens when you have a generation ("generation X") that tries to ride on the coattails of the previous generation's thinking they can create a similar economy with out doing anything. They are fools.

 

[EagleSmack]

Really? Give me a link which contradicts what I said here.

As if I would do that. That would like me running around the internet trying to disprove Quandry's assertion that contrails are the government dropping poison gas on everyone and controlling the weather.