US Elections 2012 Part I: The Primaries/Caucus

[Zetsubo]

Originally Posted by Xellos-_^

Short Answer - No
Long Answer - Absolutely not

So why is it touted as the "Obama scourge "?

Why is everything he does "socialist, commie, etc etc ?"

[Vexx]

Originally Posted by Zetsubo

So why is it touted as the "Obama scourge "?

Why is everything he does "socialist, commie, etc etc ?"

It's just the modern version of "She's a witch!!!". Its a rare person who calls those names who could pass an elementary school test on what the terms mean in context and history.

[GundamFan0083]

Originally Posted by Zetsubo

Do the majority of Americans really understand what is to be a socialist state ?

That is to say, do they really understand what Socialism is especially as opposed to Communism ?

I highly doubt most Americans know the difference or even that there are a plethora of different forms of Communism and Socialism.
Most Americans attribute Socialism and Communism to strictly Marxism, which is only one form that happens to be the worst form of Socialism.

A good example of a non-Marxist form of Socialism would be Arnold Toynbee's idea of "Imperialist-Socialism."

A good example of non-Marxist communism would be Prince Peter Kropotkin's Anarcho-Communist system.

However, while Ameicans may not know much about Socialism or Communism, they're about to learn what Fascism is like:

Obama lawyers: Citizens targeted if at war with US

http://news.yahoo.com/obama-lawyers-...154313473.html

[Zetsubo]

Another question:

Is there an anti-intellectual trend in the USA ?

[GundamFan0083]

Originally Posted by Zetsubo

Another question:

Is there an anti-intellectual trend in the USA ?

Ooh, that's a hard question to answer.
From my perspective, I'd say Americans are too engrossed in trying to live the life they've been taught to live by the constant bombardment of corporate propaganda from the "one-eyed-monster."

I killed my TV years ago to try and stop that influence.

Thus, I'd have to say that many Americans measure a person's value based on how much money they have, not how intellectual they are.

[Xellos-_^]

Originally Posted by Zetsubo

Another question:

Is there an anti-intellectual trend in the USA ?

yes, this goes back to hollywood studio which made movies that make fun of people who read books and seen as intellectual.

[Zetsubo]

Originally Posted by GundamFan0083

I highly doubt most Americans know the difference or even that there are a plethora of different forms of Communism and Socialism.
Most Americans attribute Socialism and Communism to strictly Marxism, which is only one form that happens to be the worst form of Socialism.

A good example of a non-Marxist form of Socialism would be Arnold Toynbee's idea of "Imperialist-Socialism."

A good example of non-Marxist communism would be Prince Peter Kropotkin's Anarcho-Communist system.

However, while Ameicans may not know much about Socialism or Communism, they're about to learn what Fascism is like:

Obama lawyers: Citizens targeted if at war with US

http://news.yahoo.com/obama-lawyers-...154313473.html

Why do you suggest this ?

OK

It is argued that the foreign policy of the united states has been atrocious when fairly dealing with the needs and wants of many middle east nations. The trend always seems to generate and promote policy that favors the needs and wants of Israel and every one else second.

Let us assume this to be true, then that would mean that the USA has kicked a wheel down the side of a hill.

This wheel is the hate of many radical middle eastern people, who salivate at the chance to do horrible harm to any large building full of Americans on American soil.

While these middle eastern "terrorists" fail to realize that you cannot repay evil with evil and expect karma not to beat you down for it... there are several million scared American citizens.

These citizens have a genuine fear. A real fear that was seeded long ago when America took sides in the middle eastern conflict.

How then, do you stop the wheel of hate from rolling down the hill without taking a hit ? (by hit I mean removing the "fascists/over security" systems that the US Gov is currently breeding ? and allowing "terrorists a chance to hit you again ?


The USA does not want to be hit. rightfully so. No one wants to get hit.

But it seems karma is determined to have her get hit... and that is the problem.

How do you APPEASE karma ?

That is to say... get the mad militants off our backs ?

Should the President put forward policy that the USA abandon Israel ?

Should the USA re-open itself like back in the 1980's and risk another 9/11 ?

How do you keep Uncle Buck and Aunty May from freaking out at the thought that those two new boys at the the flight school next door... Ibrahim and AlMar ... aren't planing something ?

How does America calm its own domestic and international fears... whilst promoting good foreign policy and maintain g the true beauty of its constitution ?

[Xagzan]

Originally Posted by Zetsubo

Another question:

Is there an anti-intellectual trend in the USA ?

*looks at current GOP field*

[Zetsubo]

Originally Posted by Xellos-_^

yes, this goes back to hollywood studio which made movies that make funny of people who read books and seen as intellectual.

It may even go deeper than that.

Remember world war two had many brilliant Japanese/German scientists producing impressive weapons (A6M Zero and BF109/V1/V2)

So the enemy always had the "smartest scientist".

America had good old muscle, Europe had evil genius.

Home grown scientists were always seen as "folksy" so they were safe and only inventing things that made life easy... like the polio vaccine... but foreign scientists (like those in the CCCP) were always making SCARRRRYYY things.

Look at the whole James Bond story lines ?

It seems the only way to deal with people who may be "smarter than you are", and WORSE foreign, is to mock them.

Hence pop culture feeds this trope.

Lex Luthor of the Superman stories was originally a mad scientists before he became a modern day politician. Then we have Doc OC from spider man, The whole Captain America saga.

So popular culture seems to associate smart people with quirks, accents and being born outside the USA.

Dexter from Dexters lab is a boy genius... but why does he have an accent ?

Even Jimmy Neutron sports an accent !

So it seems that smart people, dangerous smart people who mean Americnas harm are always "funny talking" or coming from Europe and Aisa ?

Let us not forget the scourge of the cold war that really fed this fear seed.

Sputnik put the word F E A R in big capital letters that fuel ridiculous anti communist campaigns that to this day is a shit stain on the US history pages.


But what I don't get is why, even at the end of the cold war, are home grown smart people looked upon with fear and suspicion... especially in the political light of being "commies/leffties/socialists etc" ?

[ganbaru]

Originally Posted by Xagzan

*looks at current GOP field*

THe GOP look less of a ''anti-intellectual trend'' than a ''glorification of stupidity''

[Demongod86]

Originally Posted by Zetsubo

It may even go deeper than that.

Remember world war two had many brilliant Japanese/German scientists producing impressive weapons (A6M Zero and BF109/V1/V2)

So the enemy always had the "smartest scientist".

America had good old muscle, Europe had evil genius.

Home grown scientists were always seen as "folksy" so they were safe and only inventing things that made life easy... like the polio vaccine... but foreign scientists (like those in the CCCP) were always making SCARRRRYYY things.

Look at the whole James Bond story lines ?

It seems the only way to deal with people who may be "smarter than you are", and WORSE foreign, is to mock them.

Hence pop culture feeds this trope.

Lex Luthor of the Superman stories was originally a mad scientists before he became a modern day politician. Then we have Doc OC from spider man, The whole Captain America saga.

So popular culture seems to associate smart people with quirks, accents and being born outside the USA.

Dexter from Dexters lab is a boy genius... but why does he have an accent ?

Even Jimmy Neutron sports an accent !

So it seems that smart people, dangerous smart people who mean Americnas harm are always "funny talking" or coming from Europe and Aisa ?

Let us not forget the scourge of the cold war that really fed this fear seed.

Sputnik put the word F E A R in big capital letters that fuel ridiculous anti communist campaigns that to this day is a shit stain on the US history pages.


But what I don't get is why, even at the end of the cold war, are home grown smart people looked upon with fear and suspicion... especially in the political light of being "commies/leffties/socialists etc" ?

Interesting, because in the comics, there are several very key exceptions:

1) Reed Richards (albeit he's usually useless)
2) James "Logan" Cowlett, aka Wolverine, who's lived such a long life that he has a hell of a ton of intelligence that he doesn't let on.
3) Still going with the X-men, we have Hank McCoy (Beast) who's the very personification of intelligence, albeit in a giant furry fluffy kitty form.
4) STILL sticking with the X-men, their hottest member (that's Jean, if you didn't catch the pun yet) has a BS in psych from metro city college, but more importantly, an MS in psych from Columbia, which coupled with her telepathy, means she's one very smart cookie. Oh, and on top of that, she has the ability to just about learn anything else through telepathy, like when she understood how to fly a shuttle while using psychic powers to shield her from cosmic radiation. Suffice to say, any guy who wants her is going to have to realize that his fiery redhead wife can not only annihilate him with fire, but also make him look absolutely stupid.
5) And then there's Professor X.
6) Mag-freaking-neto also seems to be very well read and educated, albeit a bit extreme in his methods to likening him to Malcolm X.

I'd say that the whole intellectual/anti-intellectual thing is sort of split. In typically blue states, we value education. California has Stanford, Berkeley, the whole UC system, the Midwest has University of Madison, Wisconsin, UofC, Northwestern, all of which are absolutely terrific schools, and then the northeast has the ivy leagues/other very excellent schools.

Hell, even Texas has its pockets of intellectualism. Unfortunately, most people in red states (if not all states) glorify their own lack of knowledge since they think people who worked hard and studied are suddenly evil because whenever something goes wrong, there was an intelligent person somewhere along the line whose interests were adverse to those of the rabble.

As for socialism vs. communism...sigh...socialism=government far more active in the affairs of men in order to ensure equitable distribution of wealth, while in communism...the government just takes things over. Then again, the standards of living in some socialist nations (namely the Scandinavian ones) isn't all that bad from what I read.

[Vallen Chaos Valiant]

Originally Posted by Zetsubo

Should the President put forward policy that the USA abandon Israel ?

It would certain help if America decides to do one of two things:

1. Normalise relations with Israel as a Foreign State and stop trying to pretend Israel gives a damn about America. It is plain to anyone that Israel only cares about itself, so America should at least try to act like America actually has SOME self interest in getting their way. The relationship is just unequal. Israel say and do something blatantly harmful to US interests, US government falling over itself to protect Israel from fallout.


Or:

2. Demand that Israel trade some of their sovereignty for US protection. Park an American military base in Israeli soil. No more cleaning up Israel's mess after the fact; just dump Americans there directly like what they do in South Korea and Japan. I mean, why put bases in Iraq or Afghanistan when Israel is what they are trying to protect? Cut to the chase, stop handing out weapon aid, and just put boots on the ground. On ISRAELI ground. That's the only way America can really help.

[Ithekro]

Americans have been engrained that socialism is bad. That is what happend when you are basically at war for a few generations. They don't care what it is really anymore, just that it is bad for reasons they learned during the Cold War, or from their parents that grew up in the Cold War.

All examples of socialism to the majority of Americans is the Soviet Union or China. Some have knowledge of various European counties being socialist, but tend to have tainted and low opitions of them (France for example).

Some actaully do know what socialism is, and will fight against it. They don't believe the world is fair, thus distributing wealth equally is unnatural. They believe everything should be earned, and Socialism is (to them) completely against that concept. "If you didn't work for it, or earn it in some way, you don't deserve it". They are heavily against welfare as they see it as heandouts for doing nothing. They generally view the government hand in things to be evil as it takes away choice. Some may be religious, but still follow the Darwinian concept of survival of the fittest...the part of the concept that if you do something stupid you probably deserve your fate, rather than being helped out by the government and (in their mind) promoting more stupidity, as the people helped will just do the stupid things again. They tend to view the American Dream and the old Homestead/Pioneer spirit as how Americans should be, and those ideas tend to clash rather hard with socialism and especially communism, and those old ideas promote individualism and family over the community and nation. If each individual is doing good, then the nation is doing good I suppose is the rationality to that one. As oppose to the community must prosper for the indivitual to prosper, I guess (I'm trying to find that one, but it is eluding me at present.)

As for a stance against intellectualism....This grouping doesn't care for the non-technical or non-science type intellectuals because they see colleges as tools of socialism. This I think comes from the Vietnam era veterans that view the enlarged Peace Movement via Universities of the late 1960s as the cheapest and most successful KGB operation in history. Berkeley, in particular, is considered a defacto communist state even today. Again, they believe colleges basically brainwash people into believing in socialism. Mainly because they view the teachers as left wing liberals. They see some of this creeping down into K-12 as well, but unually think the parents can maintain some control at those levels, when they can't in college. School is basically an indocranation center for the nation. It is suppose to teach you the basics you need to survive and also teaches you about how things work in society. It also teaches you about your nation, and it use to be why you should be proud to be in your own nation. I'm not sure if school still does that though.

[DonQuigleone]

Originally Posted by Paranoid Android

You can't breathe the air there? Have you been to china and returned with lung cancer?

No, but I've seen images like this. That's some pretty heavy smog there in Shanghai. That's almost as bad as the Great Smog, London hasn't been that bad for 30 or 40 years.

The life expectancy of people in china is approx. 71 for male and 75 for female.
Hong Kong's life expectancy is ranked 2nd highest in the world after Japan at approx. 80 for male and 85 for female. Which is a higher than most places in the world ranging from the age of death at 30's to 82.

In 2008 in Canada, 18,000 died from lung cancer. Which is one 6/10000 of the total population. (same goes for US, 180k deaths out of 300 million)
http://news.nationalpost.com/2011/11...y-ways-to-die/

Where in China, 250,000 died from lung cancer. Which is 1/10000 of the total population.
http://www.atcs.jp/pdf/2003_9_3/147.pdf

The carbon emission per capita in China is 5.3 metric tonnes. In Ireland, that's 9.8. And in the U.S., it's 17.5.
http://www.eia.gov/emeu/internationa...ondioxide.html (in an .xls at the bottom)

It's the same as looking at world overpopulation. The rate of increase is much more important and valuable than what the current standing quantity is.

And the media is just turning our attention to somebody else so we don't have to see and realize how much of a problem it is here and how much money we are spending on absolutely nothing.

You're making a few key mistake, in that you're directly comparing China to Western Nations. Firstly, until very recently China was highly rural, and most people lived on incredibly low incomes. So generally they had clean air, and didn't have access to cigarettes. Now, huge numbers of Chinese are moving into the cities en masse, in one of the largest migrations in history, and while the countryside had a fine crisp atmosphere, the cities are polluted and filled with smog, and that's not getting into Water quality. Lung Cancer is an illness that occurs late in life, and so there'll be a time lag of about 30 or 40 years before Lung Cancer stabilises. Given how recent China's urbanisation is(and it's still only 50% living in cities), and also the relatively recent (and high) uptake in smoking, we can expect that in 10 or 20 years China will reach Lung Cancer levels comparable, and in fact far higher then the west.. In fact in the last 30 years Lung Cancer levels jumped 465%! What could that jump be due to other then Urbanisation combined with China's lax pollution standards?

Not only that, but China has a significantly younger population then your comparision countries. Likewise, the fact it has such a large rural population that essentially burns little to no fossil fuels, often not having electricity, distorts the numbers on emissions. Also, raw emissions aren't the problem, it's the fact those emissions aren't filtered and cleaned.

Also, your figure is from 2003, when about 60% of the population still lived in rural areas, and those trends which I listed were not yet in full swing. In fact more recent figures I saw for east asia (couldn't find them for China...) give figures 4 or 5 times what you quoted.

Originally Posted by Zetsubo

Look at the whole James Bond story lines ?

It seems the only way to deal with people who may be "smarter than you are", and WORSE foreign, is to mock them.

James Bond isn't a good example, for one it was made in Britain, not the US, and for another, James Bond is pretty far away from being an all American hero. For one thing, he's english, and he's fairly upper class to boot. And look at all the gadgets he uses... don't get that without a fair dose of science courtesy of Q.

[Zakoo]

Originally Posted by ganbaru

Edit , a link to a text in french about another Bachmannism :
http://fr.news.yahoo.com/états-unis-...093400110.html

Holy crap, I was ashamed about our politicians but seems like they are everywhere. Kind of ashaming that such people are aiming for the top rank of the first world power.

[Anh_Minh]

Originally Posted by Demongod86

Interesting, because in the comics, there are several very key exceptions:

1) Reed Richards (albeit he's usually useless)
2) James "Logan" Cowlett, aka Wolverine, who's lived such a long life that he has a hell of a ton of intelligence that he doesn't let on.
3) Still going with the X-men, we have Hank McCoy (Beast) who's the very personification of intelligence, albeit in a giant furry fluffy kitty form.
4) STILL sticking with the X-men, their hottest member (that's Jean, if you didn't catch the pun yet) has a BS in psych from metro city college, but more importantly, an MS in psych from Columbia, which coupled with her telepathy, means she's one very smart cookie. Oh, and on top of that, she has the ability to just about learn anything else through telepathy, like when she understood how to fly a shuttle while using psychic powers to shield her from cosmic radiation. Suffice to say, any guy who wants her is going to have to realize that his fiery redhead wife can not only annihilate him with fire, but also make him look absolutely stupid.
5) And then there's Professor X.
6) Mag-freaking-neto also seems to be very well read and educated, albeit a bit extreme in his methods to likening him to Malcolm X.

The only true counter-example on that list is McCoy. The others are either no true intellectuals (Logan, while smart and more cultured than he lets on, is a folksy hero (with claws). Full of salt of the earth wisdom, but not remotely bookish. Jean may have degrees, but only devoted fans know that. She's there for her powers and looks, not her smarts), or they're the type that turn various shades of dangerously and arrogantly misguided to outright evil. Somehow they always end up on the wrong side of moral arguments. (Remember that time Richards cloned Thor? Ah, good times.)

[ganbaru]

Gingrich Tells ABC News: ‘I’m Going to Be The Nominee’
http://abcnews.go.com/blogs/politics...e-the-nominee/
Confidence or arrogance ? Cain would probably have said that a month ago so ...

[GundamFan0083]

Originally Posted by Zetsubo

Why do you suggest this ?

How does America calm its own domestic and international fears... whilst promoting good foreign policy and maintain g the true beauty of its constitution ?

When a government can target an execute any of its citizenry it deems an "enemy" it is no longer a free society.
When it does this in the interests of corporations it is a fascist system, and that is what we here in the US are seeing form.

Here's a website that has a decent list of the characteristis of a fascist state:

http://www.fascismusa.com/

[Ithekro]

Well....there is always the Falconist Party.....
http://falconistparty.tripod.com/id7.html

If you are into that sort of thing.

(If they were not so religiously minded, I might be interesting. Points 37 and 38 are exactly what I want to happen. Point 39 is also very interesting...if extremely expansionistic.)

[DonQuigleone]

Originally Posted by GundamFan0083

When a government can target an execute any of its citizenry it deems an "enemy" it is no longer a free society.
When it does this in the interests of corporations it is a fascist system, and that is what we here in the US are seeing form.

Here's a website that has a decent list of the characteristis of a fascist state:

http://www.fascismusa.com/

So the destruction of the twin towers= the burning of the Reichstag?