Go the Yanks!

26 comments on “Go the Yanks! ”

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1. Daveski 1

   3 July 2009 at 2:09 pm

   So the US unemployment rate is now 9.5% – http://www.nzherald.co.nz/business/news/article.cfm?c_id=3&objectid=10582273.

   Yep, things are a lot better in the US.

   That must be Obama’s fault surely. But didn’t he do something we should have done???

   I look forward to some difficult contortions 🙂
   • gingercrush 1.1

     3 July 2009 at 2:26 pm

     PB will do his, “Its all coming in next year” and “Krugman argued the stimulus package wasn’t large enough”.
     • Pascal's bookie 1.1.1

       3 July 2009 at 2:31 pm

       Well done. Glad you’ve been paying attention gc.

       It’s true though that the stimulus money has yet to be spent, and that it is not meant to be a cure all, and that the depression, created by retarded right wing ideology, has a long way to run.

       On topic though, the GOP really has gone batshit mental eh boys? There’s pretty much only the crazies left, and they are busy as can be, acting all crazy.
       • gingercrush 1.1.1.1

         3 July 2009 at 2:35 pm

         Yes GOP has really gone batshit mental and sadly that is reflected by many right-wing beings on political blogs in New Zealand.
         • Daveski 1.1.1.1.1

           3 July 2009 at 2:51 pm

           Yep agreed. Can I also suggest that to compare the left and right in NZ with the left and right in the US ain’t the same types of fruit. I consistently come out the wrong side on the political spectrum scale albeit marginally left. With some notable exceptions, our right is very tame especially under Key.
           • Pascal's bookie 1.1.1.1.1.1

             3 July 2009 at 2:55 pm

             True enough.

             I still don’t know what Key actually thinks though.
           • Ag 1.1.1.1.1.2

             4 July 2009 at 2:25 am

             Yeah, New Zealand conservatives have tended towards the wimpish and apologetic in recent years. There hasn’t been a decent authoritarian conservative in New Zealand politics since Muldoon, although admittedly he was a hard act to follow.
       • Quoth the Raven 1.1.1.2

         3 July 2009 at 4:03 pm

         It is interesting to note that Krugman saw a cult of personality developing around Obama during the campaign. It’s sad to see how that cult has developed and how it has crossed international borders.
       • Strathen 1.1.1.3

         3 July 2009 at 5:03 pm

         ‘created by retarded right wing ideology’ – Doesn’t the second video highlight that there has never been a free market in the US, the term they use is a ‘Social Democracy’. Thus implying there was a left wing ideology running under a right wing label? Maybe this is just more propaganda though…

         Maybe I’m bringing up an old argument that should be left to rest.

         I do enjoy Jon Stewart! Have been watching him daily for a while now. Was gutted when they stopped access to the full episode viewer in NZ, and most of the rest of the world. Now I have to watch it within 24 hours of it hitting the net. The time on tv isn’t convenient for me.

         Interesting point, he is quite big in Iran.
         • Pascal's bookie 1.1.1.3.1

           3 July 2009 at 8:38 pm

           Hey, if they were put to rest they wouldn’t be old arguments. 😉

           Not sure about what you mean though, ‘social democracy’ usually refers to the sort of thing non american western left wing parties aspire to. Welfare state, progressive taxation, state run health care, that sort of thing. It’s sort of the bastard child of Marx and Smith, if you like. There is US constituency for that, but it’s the left wing of the Democratic party.

           The retarded right wing ideology I was talking about is the reagan/thatcher neo liberalism and supply side stuff.

           Quoth will happily tell you that free markets aren’t really right wing. And he’s quite correct. “free markets” is an incredibly loaded term to my mind. As I see it, a market needs rules, ( to define contracts, company law, employment law, property rights and so on). Can’t function without them.

           So a ‘free market’ is just one that has the bare set of rules that the speaker happens to agree with.

           A communist would tell you that unrestricted private property rights are a gross distortion from a free market. An anarchist might tell you that limited liability companies are an abomination that are just an example of the State protecting some individuals from their creditors. Another anarchist will tell you something else again, and a randian libertarian will say that almost all taxation is theft and that private property rights are the most important thing.

           All of the above will say that their system has never really been tried. I think only the anarchists are really right in that claim, in that the others tried, they just haven’t been able to make it work.

           So ‘free market’ to me is almost as meaningless as ‘left’ or ‘right’. I don’t mean that they are useless terms, they are not. But often people have very different ideas about they mean in any given context, (none of them ‘wrong’), which makes for confusion and most of blogging.

           Social democrats tend not to talk about free markets, but rather what sort of rules the market should have in order to promote whatever it is that society needs at any given time. Which is quite obviously the proper and natural way to look at it and deviations from that are simply evil and retarded, etc 😉
2. coge 2

   3 July 2009 at 2:12 pm

   Go the Yanks? Thought you were talking operations afoot in Afghanistan. Go the Yanks absolutely!
   • Quoth the Raven 2.1

     3 July 2009 at 4:01 pm

     The proselytising operations or military?
     • Bill 2.1.1

       3 July 2009 at 4:45 pm

       Was that a crucifix atop a beer keg approx 3.07 in? Or maybe it’s their wine that’s being delivered in bomb resistant kegs these days with a crucifix talisman affixed to offer additional heavenly protection?

       How can such a technologically advanced country churn out such a preponderance of backward individuals?
3. del 3

   3 July 2009 at 2:15 pm

   In my view the vitriol and ugliness from the left (bomber and some on this blog) in NZ is certainly scalable to that shown by the right in the US.
   • Maynard J 3.1

     3 July 2009 at 2:56 pm

     Scalable in that the US is 9,158,960 km² and NZ is 268,680 km² so they are 34.09 times worse in the US?

     Or that there are 306,814,000 people in the US and 4,306,400 in NZ so they are 71.25 times worse in the US?

     Probably the latter, more a matter of dempgraphics than geography.
4. Bill 4

   3 July 2009 at 2:40 pm

   Go the Yanks? You’re kidding, right?

   Obama differs from Bush in rhetoric and style only. The substance and policies of Corporate America with Obama and the Democrats at the tiller are ‘steady as she goes’ ; basically indistinguishable from when Bush and the Republicans were at the tiller.

   If you mean ‘Go the Yanks!’ to mean ordinary people pressuring the administration to come through and deliver on the wave of hope he cynically encouraged and rode to the Whitehouse, then yeah. Go the Yanks!

   But I suspect that’s not the intended angle. Pity.
5. Ruth 5

   3 July 2009 at 2:59 pm

   Yes GOP has really gone batshit mental and sadly that is reflected by many right-wing beings on political blogs in New Zealand.

   Absolutely. I don’t think the hatred is ineffectual, though. It’s dangerous.

   How long before another Tim McVeigh comes out of the woodwork?
   • r0b 5.1

     3 July 2009 at 3:10 pm

     Interesting musing on that kind of issue here:

     http://www.truthout.org/041009R
     • Bill 5.1.1

       3 July 2009 at 5:12 pm

       Right Wing Authoritarians are fearful and deal with their fearfulness through being increasingly establishmentarian and aggressive/violent.

       Nicely summed up by Bob Altemeyer who somebody linked to the other day.( Can’t relocate, so here’s the link again.) Entire book as a pdf.

       It’s not rocket science. Worth a peruse. Neat exlpanation for the truthout musings.
       • r0b 5.1.1.1

         3 July 2009 at 5:20 pm

         Thanks for that, weekend reading!
         • Pascal's bookie 5.1.1.1.1

           3 July 2009 at 7:51 pm

           And if anyone is keen on following the trends Dave Neiwert’s blog Orcinus is a useful bookmark.

           http://dneiwert.blogspot.com/

           He’s an inde journo and author of a number of books. Focussed on the militia movement in the 90’s and has kept a running watch ever since.

           Down his left sidebar are a number of series outlining his basic approach and areas of interest. Mostly about how the rhetoric of the far right gets pitched (catapulted) into the MSM, and how that both trivialises it for the mass audience through desensitisation, and at the same time motivates the actual extremists by causing them to think that they are not extreme.
6. ghostwhowalks 6

   3 July 2009 at 3:15 pm

   The Wall Street Journal in an editorial has claimed that Al Franken ‘stole’ the election.

   All because the final tallys show Franken ahead when the election night tally showed Coleman ahead.
   The rest of the right wing noise machine is even crazier

   And with this result that leaves the GOP with 1 jewish member in House and Senate combined and zero blacks.
   What is it about the party of Lincoln in this century
7. BLiP 7

   3 July 2009 at 3:28 pm

   At least the septics (tanks = yanks) can start saving some money now that they have tucked their tail between their legs and are slinking off from Iraq. They’ll just have to mop up the left overs as the veterans soak up the available health care and/or cause social problems fitting back into society after Operation Iraq Liberation. Interesting that the suicides are now higher than the casualties . Thanks Dubya. And thank God John Key wasn’t running the show back when the oil grab began.
8. ghostwhowalks 8

   3 July 2009 at 4:34 pm

   They probably all ready authorised the SAS back to Afghanistan

   for the big offensive- sound familiar?

   yet again we would be kept in the dark till the bodies come back
9. Andrew 9

   3 July 2009 at 5:00 pm

   Let’s hope the administration actually uses the super majority and passes healthcare reform and gets rid of daft policies like Don’t Ask/Don’t tell.

   So far it doesn’t look like they will.
10. Brett Dale 10

    3 July 2009 at 5:52 pm

    Once again, Stewart shows why he is the best thing on television, his wit, his guest, his regular columnists. If I was a teacher I would make it compulsory viewing for my students.

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