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joe-magner's comments:
on Obama's Popularity
I think Obama is a "Kinder/Gentler Corporatist" and that his campaign prmosies were the lies he told to get elected. This is his true side showing and everything he has done has been inline with the kinder way of doing what was/is accepted as republican corporate behavior.
His economic team reflects this. His Health Care Legislation reflects this, with the forcing of citizens to purchase Private Insurance coverage under penalty of IRS inforced penalties.
His closest advisory Emanuel is a very strong supporter of Israel and holds dual citizenship there.
Obama had much support from people like George Lakoff to help form his campaign message. Democrats wanted a win over Bush so bad they would believe anything.
His grandmother was a very early woman Bank Executive, he went to select schools. His father was a Kenian Bureaucrat after he had worked for Oil Corporations. There is much more to support the kinder but gentler Corporate
This will be Obama's Smoot-Hawley bill as remembered in history.
btw look at what he did not do - with his support of the war effort all along - he did not investigate ANY look at the torture and terror issues Bush did.......none of them!
posted 2 years, 5 months ago
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on Islam in the Northwest
Humans divide up into in groups and out groups, but we share very much as we are humans. Those with Autism, for what ever reason, do not build or can read the emotions and feelings of others, those with Narcissism see only them selves also but in a very different way. Most Humans can see and read and understand others and the divisions are there and enforced by our need to divide up into groups and cancel out that empathy by making the other not the same form or type of human or to de-humanism them.
Within any religion one can find all different mixes of emotional and moral types, but authority and purity of a particular sect or group determines how thses are accepted or suppressed, and it is by groups withing any of the religions of the world.
We need to understand morality at a deeper and more human level and to see that the patterns can be seen as how certain things are weight amoung just a few axis.
here is an excellent video on how moralities can be analysed that works and crosses across religions and cultures. This is a TED Talk about 20 minutes long:
http://www.ted.com/talks/jonathan_haidt_on_the_moral_mind.html
hope the link works in the comments.
posted 2 years, 5 months ago
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on Compromise
What makes you think he is not standing his ground? Ever consider he is just trying to make the bitter medicine go down better for the Democrats?
The fact that Obama is thought of as liberal and progressive is just so wrong to the facts and only remaines this way because of the talking heads and idiots.
The idiot democrats think that they must protect the world from the idiot republicans and so will swollow what every Obama push's out to them. A few words will keep them at bay.
The truth is we have others in power, the ones who have the money. They are probably not monolythic either but share enough interests to work with either the D or the R, who will do what ever they can to get elected.
Keeping the public engaged in political and philosophical battles is like the Ducks and the Beavers getting ready for Civil War, the battle is so much fun that reality gets ignored or the party game gets thought of as the reality.
Obama is standing the ground he wants to, saying things to keep the democrats off the street and the republicans appearing as an enemy so they have someone to shoot arrows and words at, cause it feels good to have an enemy even if that enemy is behind the curtains your friend.
posted 2 years, 5 months ago
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on Compromise
What happens when the paradymn changes and the old arguments that did evolved are now are both wrong and both right - often at the same time? They will continue to argue over who is right and who is wrong and be oblivious to what is actually taking place.
If you dont have a pigio hole you have no way to sort, once you have a pigion hole the pigion hole becomes all and if it is wrong or not the best, the pigion hole will still be defended to the end.
Much of scientific advancement is similar and at times the changes took huge shifts and lots of fighting and often the original people who were right only see the new ideas accepted long into the future after years of abuse and embarrisment from those who could not accept the change.
That seems to be what is happening now with the world that has globalized.
What will/would work would violtate both sides at different times.
We pigion hole our beliefs and ideas and keep the pigion holes like a religion.
There is a good Star Trek Episode called "Let This Be Your Last Battelfield" that shows how the need to stick to the old paradymn will/can win out over changing the paradymn even when it is the only way to survive.
This is not about compromising parties and system but about re-arranging them in a fashion that contains new plus a mix of what the parties would see as opposites at times doing two things that look like contradictions at the same time.
This is unacceptable witht he current parties.
Seems to be a basic human problem this need to evolve from what has seemed to work in the past.
Compromise is a bad word here.
posted 2 years, 5 months ago
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on Drawing for a Living
@ Jacob - so let us publish widely the Jesus Cartoons! Then we will have a reasonable bases for comparing how Jesus Cartoons and Muhummed cartoons compare...with as wide of a distribtuion. As I mentioned, the Insurgant Cartoons were stopped from being published and what you would need to compare would be as massive of a world distribution of the Jesus cartoons. Get a grop on your use of statistic please. I lived in the Bible Belt of this country for 13 plus years and can tell you from expereince that many many Christians are Martyr Worshipers, they talk kinda wierd and if you noticed the threats against Obama and some Congress people were worrysome. Not all the Islamic world is as violent as you seem to believe and many more Christians of the World ar much more violent then you think. Remember that the KKK are Christin as are many in the Milita Movement. These are the Christian Taliban and given as much persecution as has been delivered to muslims at the hands of the west, I suspect you would find these Christians just as wacho as the Islamic ones. Yes I do believe they are wacho. I am not a sympathizer of Fudamentalist no matter the particular Prophet they worship.
posted 2 years, 11 months ago
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on Drawing for a Living
@ jacob - killed no - but the mailing of the cartoons was stopped so all we have are the comments put on the blog where the Commentator published the Jesus cartoons to DRUM up resistance and forcing the president to stop the mailing of the Insurgant. If you are open minded (not sure because I don't know you) you might do a search and see if the Commmentator still has the comments written against the Insurgent online. They of course are proud of the comments against the Insurgent so you might be happy - but they are interesting for those who dislike both the Mohammaed cartons published and the Jesus cartoons censored to judge how people reacted.....in comments
posted 2 years, 11 months ago
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on Drawing for a Living
In 2006 during the Danish cartoon times, at the University of Oregon, A student publication The Commentator publish the twelve Mohammed Cartoons that had sparked riots in the middle east. The Insurgent followed by publishing twelve cartoon depicting Jesus. There was much turmoil over the Insurgent cartoons and a call for President Frohnmayer to stop the mailing of the Insurgent, which he did. The Commentator had no problem publishing its cartoons.
The arguments used to allow the Mohammed cartoons were not then used to allow the Jesus cartoons. This represents a hypocricy and an affront to free speech by many of the very people laughing at the middle east reaction.
As an Athiest for Jesus, I am reminded by the comment of Jesus about the plank in ones own eye. The christians who condemned the Insurgent cartoons need to clean their own eyes first!
posted 2 years, 11 months ago
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on Black and White and Googled All Over
There is a class problem here in that those who are poor or homeless are exculded from the news. Going to a library with limited time on just does not work well for reading news.
Some people read the newspapers that are left at the laundramat or in the fast food places or such. Some people only buy a paper if there are/is an interesting story to read in depth.
Of course the papers need to change and make money, but what happens to class divisions?
Are we naturally growing the distance between those who have computers and those that don't?
How does this fold within a democracy?
interesting dilema.
posted 4 years, 3 months ago
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on A Sustainable Auto Industry
if you can not plug in you can not charge!
what is your answer?
posted 4 years, 5 months ago
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