[SuchFriendsAreDangerous]

http://intelligencesquaredus.org/deb...-center-or-die

David Brooks (noted conservative NY Times columnist and free-lance analyst) and former Congressman Mickey Short blew me away. I found myself obviously yelling at Ingrham and Ralph Reed embarrass themselves as if they were bad referees at an NFL football game!!! BUT


http://www.npr.org/2013/04/19/177941...ize-the-center

 

David really impressed me as usual. He countered the propaganda, exaggerations, and misinformation spewed by Ingrham and Reed with substance, intelligence, and above all else sincerity. THIS is why Brooks is the ONLY Republican, conservative commentator or writer that I listen, trust, and actually enjoy!! The guy is real deal. He is openly conservative, and yet optimistically realistic. His analysis is ALWAYS spot on, and he is never afraid to intelligently criticize the Republican talking points or bulwark of the mainstream GOP. The guy doesn't kowtow, he just speaks the real. And this debate was probably David Brooks at his best. It all the more demonstrates why I religiously watch Brooks every Friday (I'm talking for several years now) on PBS Newshour, read his columns and op-eds in NY Times and other syndicated papers/web sources, and always give a heartical AMEN when he speaks.

Mickey Edwards was the darling of the Reagan era, I really didn't think I'd agree with him so much. The guy was spot on too, sensitive, realistic, hopeful. GREAT DEBATE.

The extreme-o-philes on the right-shift only embarrassed themselves by how tone-deaf they were in this debate. However, their idiot comments served to offer Brooks and Edwards better opportunities to substantively address key issues such as centrist policies, honest "compassionate conservatism", the effective role of an energetic government even under the premise of limited government (it means limits not NO government, what makes me laugh is GOP always says LESS government, and yet their biggest issues are about MORE government enforcement of immigration laws, abortion, and international military operations, guys are the lamest of hypocrites!!)

YOU MUST WATCH THIS, PERIOD. You may suddenly and surprisingly find yourself totally agreeing with Republicans and conservatives. If you are a conservative, you may suddenly find yourself angry with Brooks or Edwards, which is a shame, these guys are the best of your politics, why spurn them?


FULL TRANSCRIPT

[dead_battery]

Brooks' sentimental posturing does not convince me. There is absolutely no substance to it - he has the right target, but he has literally nothing to offer this target in the way of policy.

Of course, it would be nice if this kind of compassionate capitalism, where the poor are not harvested as machines to exhaust their brains in addiction and move coins around for the benefit of the managers of commodities, became popular. But it won't. The US right are so beholden to a totally fantastical ideology of free market fundamentalism that they have rendered themselves economically illiterate. Their belief in how capitalism works has been proven by its repeated implementation to belong on the same psych ward as soviet communism. They would have brought an even more extreme version of the austerity agenda that the UK Tories used to set back our recovery by years and years.

The GOP base shilled itself fake gold and dreams of death. They said the debt would lead to imminent disaster. The tea party tried to implement policies that would have destroyed the US economy - their insanity caused the downgrading of the US credit rating. The apocalypse was nigh - the fed/obama/reptilians/jews were conspiring to bankrupt us - EACH YEAR since 08 they predicted imminent hyperinflationary collapse of the dollar - anarchy on the streets. They believe they can sneer global warming out of existence. They started and lost 2 wars that they want to blame on the left. They presided over bloody carnage and destruction of the US empire. They started fighting imaginary communists from the 80's that existed in their heads. All that was left of their confused brand of corporate worshipping individualism was a deranged hatred of government, conspiracy theories and ruin. The right was responsible for more terrorism on US soil than any muslim, since 08 their militias and nutjobs have killed cops and been thankfully foiled in many planned atrocities.

Clinton left the largest budget surplus in history, and the Republicans pissed it away, literally squandered it all, on lost wars. There is footage of contractors in Iraq explaining how they BLOW UP armored trucks with rocket launchers in order to have more sent, charging the government for the pleasure.

They privatized so much of the military under their lunatic ideology. It was an obscene orgy of insider dealing and contracting. More soldiers committed suicide than where killed by the enemy, but who cares? Support the troops! We'll send them to die and not even bother to plan how to win the wars. Hannity has a charity event he wants you to donate to, just make sure you don't look too closely at the percentage that actually goes somewhere other than his pocket.

They can all go fuck themselves into irrelevancy.

[dead_battery]

The original post I wrote in response was so long I am not even going to try and condense it. Just to add one more thing - I'm sure we all know this - but anway, the right is going through what the left did during Bush. Insane paranoia and exagerrated cartoonishness over the evil imposter in the White House whose an imminent threat. The left said bush was a fundie fascist nazi preparing death camps and to suspend democracy. The right say obama is a communist reptile presiding over a communist fema camp dystopia. But politics is about turning fear and hope into soundbites for the careers of managers. The right might take another few cycles to purge themselves of the crazy, but they will do it, because the establishment party is always shuffling its seats, and voting is just the legitimization of this process. The blessing of the secular mangod by the holy individuation of the masses. During the Bush years there were the New Republic pro war hawks who quietly made the case that they could run the neo con death machine just as enthusiastically. The right will sell themselves out and the manipulated prole voter masses will be so relieved to have the jumped up spectre of Stalinist Obama off their backs they'll gladly vote for a moderate eventually.

[SuchFriendsAreDangerous]

If you follow Brooks you find he isn't just empty posturing, he is consistent with what he talk about and promotes. He offers a lot of substance about policy, in fact, in that very debate he challenged Reed saying, "You're talking about style and approach, but we're talking about substance." Again, follow him and you find he offers a lot of policy analysis and I tend to agree with his suggestions, which surprises me, because I rarely agree with Republicans.

EITHER WAY, I'M GLAD YOU WATCHED IT
You must spread some Reputation around before giving it to dead_battery again.

[SuchFriendsAreDangerous]

Originally Posted by dead_battery

Of course, it would be nice if this kind of compassionate capitalism, where the poor are not harvested as machines to exhaust their brains in addiction and move coins around for the benefit of the managers of commodities, became popular.

Agreed. My biggest beef with George Bush II is the Republicans got greedy when they took over the Legislature in 2002 elections and totally, utterly, mercilessly abandoned the "compassionate" part of their conservatism. "Compassionate Conservatism" of the 1990s was built on immigration reform, fair and balanced spending reduction (i.e. not T.E.A. party gutting proposals like the last few years), health care reform, and more centrist social policies based on right-shifting morality. However, the Conress thwarted Bush II's Immigration Reform proposals THREE FUCKING TIMES, absolutely SHIT on healthcare reform several times, and escalated the police state to unprecedadented levels on their Nixonesque paranoia about Jihadists and Occupy protestors. I miss the days when the Republicans at least paid lip service to the majority of Ameircans through their crypto-Compassionate shit.

But it won't. The US right are so beholden to a totally fantastical ideology of free market fundamentalism that they have rendered themselves economically illiterate.

You get an AMEN from me!

Their belief in how capitalism works has been proven by its repeated implementation to belong on the same psych ward as soviet communism.

exactly.

They would have brought an even more extreme version of the austerity agenda that the UK Tories used to set back our recovery by years and years.

I know, its so fucking embarrassing, again, what happened to the Compassionate part? See, they only invented the image of Compassionate Conservatism to play good-cop-bad-cop with the villainous image that was the Newt Gingrich era.

The GOP base shilled itself fake gold and dreams of death. They said the debt would lead to imminent disaster.

No, they've managed to entirely infiltrate and take over the machinery of American government. Simply put, Obama campaigned on change and it was as hypocritical as George Bush II campaigning on Compassionate conservatism. The past five years HAVE NOT ONLY BE A CONTINUATION OF THE BUSH POLICIES (CORPORATE BAIL OUTS AND SUBSIDIES, WAR WAR WAR, DOMESTIC POLICE STATE, UNPRECEDENTED LEVELS OF MASS DEPORTATION, THE LARGEST PRISON INMATE POPULATION IN AMERICAN HISTORY EVEN JUST BY PROPORTION LET ALONE VOLUME)

They started and lost 2 wars that they want to blame on the left. They presided over bloody carnage and destruction of the US empire.

Correction. The US directly funded and instigated the terrible "drug wars" going in Mexico the past few years. We've been bombing Yemen, Pakistan, Kenya, Somalia, routinely for the past decade (shhhh, the news doesn't want you to know that we're technically at war with a dozen countries ) We let Israel attack Lebanon and then Syria to fight US wars by proxy.

Clinton left the largest budget surplus in history, and the Republicans pissed it away, literally squandered it all, on lost wars.

Well, lets be honest, a quarter-trillion isn't that much money in the scheme things. Plus, that surplus was built entirely on the economic exploitation we call "globalization" so the US was just beginning to start making all kinds of money pimping the world, that is, until China stepped up and say, "Hey player, we got money too yo!"

They privatized so much of the military under their lunatic ideology. It was an obscene orgy of insider dealing and contracting. [

Military has always been largely privatized, they just were more obvious with it in Iraq with all those "contractors".

More soldiers committed suicide than where killed by the enemy, but who cares?

That is true, but ironically it still wasn't more than the national average for Americans

They can all go fuck themselves into irrelevancy.

I wish it were true, but again, the past five years have essentially been Bush II, not Obama. The guy has a fucking NOBEL PEACE PRIZE and is blowing shit up around the world, has a fucking Federal Court approved HIT LIST! Lord have His mercy

The reality is that Americans are generally center-right, and that is why we've had more Republican leadership at the local, state, and Federal level then we have had Democratic or truly Independent. As fucked up as the GOP is, they manipulate people because socially and morally America is center-right, and the hypocritical GOP loves to pretend they are a moral party, and hide their crimes behind feigned sincerity.

However, at least Brooks is one of the few conservatives to openly call that shit out.

[TheMadcapLaughs]

Originally Posted by dead_battery

The apocalypse was nigh - the fed/obama/reptilians/jews were conspiring to bankrupt us

really? the elders of zion shit again?

[dead_battery]

thats not what i believe, just what many right wing internet idiots say.

[TheMadcapLaughs]

Originally Posted by dead_battery

thats not what i believe, just what many right wing internet idiots say.

ah, now that i read your post again i sense the sarcasm more. carry on...

[SuchFriendsAreDangerous]

Originally Posted by dead_battery

thats not what i believe, just what many right wing internet idiots say.

Interestingly I thought it was the leftists who thought it was the Jews? The Rightists already openly worship Satan so they aren't confused about that at all

 

[dead_battery]

racism = right wing. anti semitism is not a left wing phenomenon.

apparently there is a genetic predisposition to aspergers in jews, which has been used to explain some of the vitriol they get. that, coupled with medieval rules that outlawed them from many professions, except financial ones, led to the stereotypes we still have.

[dead_battery]

as of 2008 the republican party has no longer been fit to even competently manage a modern state. it's not just the fact that i disagree with their bullshit, its the fact that they are simply too dangerous to be allowed into power. they lost you your credit rating, they nearly bankrupted the country with their economic illiteracy. that debt ceiling fiasco? those tea partiers are not fit to be in office. you got a lucky break that they weren't because your economic recovery, however tentative, would be fucking nothing if they had wreaked the full extent of their desired havoc.

but americans dont get this, because the media pitches it as "deadlock" in congress and the term "partisan" is used to describe anyone who doesnt say that ON EVERY ISSUE THE PROBLEM IS BOTH SIDES EQUALLY. sorry, its not. since 08 there have been adults and then there have been temper tantrum throwing conspiracy theorizing psychotics who are slowly destroying their own electoral base. the severe cognitive dissonance at what the right wing actually accomplished during the bush years - the fucking TANKING of the economy, mass murder, lost wars, the end of the empire. absolute fucking disaster on every front - is just too much for them to handle. they are terrified, resentful maniacs who can't face looking inwards and seeing the consequences of their stupidity.

ive paid attention to these people since 08. they started quite literally living in an alternate universe. one of their memes is that they, the true intellects, are fearless keepers of the dark truth and in contact with "reality". they love to say the left is composed of fantasists who refuse contact with reality. then they make blog posts claiming ambassador chris stevens was dragged out of that benghazi shelter still alived and sodomized and beaten to death by a crowd of muslims. then its another post about how hyper inflation is IMMINENT and the country wont last another year before martial law and chaos and rampaging on the streets. every year since 08 this has happened. "oh it wasnt 2010 but thats cos the jewnazicommie fed reptilians just printed more fake fiat currency dont worry just wait until 2011 its coming."

another of their specialities are attacks on paul krugman who says things they dont like about the economy. so they say krugman is just a "jew", or that he is autistic. for them, this is enough to plaster over the need for any kind of engagement with his arguments.

there are videos on youtube that i wont link to that show right wing conspiratards BLOWING their entire savings - we're talking tens of thousands of dollars here, betting on the imminent collapse of fiat currency and a rally on the gold market. there are web cam feeds of grown men sitting there on a monday morning watching the stock market open and LOSING EVERYTHING because they got caught in a self confirming loop of right wing insanity and thought it was all going to collapse and gold would make them millionaires. when gold collapsed their endless sneering at everyone else for the idiocy of using fiat currency suddenly stopped. there have been stories of men killing themselves and their families in a fit of psychotic rage cos they thought obama was about to destroy the economy.

their dipshitted internet world is really telling. sometimes they say things that are so unintentionally revealing and pathetic its unbelievable. these are people who when coming into contact with people who either dont agree with them or have different facts or expose their ignorance will whine about how leftists just think they are so much better and do everything for status. they really do go around with their minds shut around a specific set of self confirming biases.

[dead_battery]

so to conclude, the right got what they deserved, iraqis and afghanis just got murdered, many soldiers got 'supported' so well by these patriots that they figured their only way out was a bullet in their own heads, and the rest of you had your economy tanked.

[dead_battery]

vote democrat, because they are the only competent managers of your bloodthirsty plutocracy left, and they'll actually try to do some small things for the working classes.

[SuchFriendsAreDangerous]

Originally Posted by dead_battery

racism = right wing. anti semitism is not a left wing phenomenon.

apparently there is a genetic predisposition to aspergers in jews, which has been used to explain some of the vitriol they get. that, coupled with medieval rules that outlawed them from many professions, except financial ones, led to the stereotypes we still have.

Yes, but this where you're being in a different country confuses your analysis. In Amerikkka, the Right is fundamentally, systematically, and religiously loyal to Israel and anything remotely Jewish. Also, your comments about Democrats are EXACTLY what the system here in Amerikkka wants people to think, the game is rigged, the "parties" are just playing good-cop/bad-cop, but they have one and the same agenda. Seriously, point out a SINGLE difference between the Bush II era and the Obama era? If anything, under Obama the US has ESCALATED the previous policies of Bush II including corporate bail outs, mass deportations, an increasing militarization of the US-Mexican border, an increase in forward military operations around the world, and an escalation of the domestic police-state. Yeah, "change" we can believe in

[dead_battery]

yeah, many are, the party line is officially pro israel. but many actual voters and right wingers aren't, judging from youtube comments and right wing bloggers.

noone whose seriously proposing anti semitism as a coherent ideology can be considered to be on the left. or anything other than a retard.

[SuchFriendsAreDangerous]

Originally Posted by dead_battery

yeah, many are, the party line is officially pro israel. but many actual voters and right wingers aren't, judging from youtube comments and right wing bloggers.

noone whose seriously proposing anti semitism as a coherent ideology can be considered to be on the left. or anything other than a retard.

Again. I've been born and raised in these here United States, and I've witnesses several distinctive Right wing takeovers of America. There was Reagan's Morning in America bullshit. Then Newt Gingrich stole Christmas in the 1990s. And Compassionate Conservatism stormed through riding the coattails of the Clinton good times and by 2002 entirely dropped the crypto-Compassionate part. And I can tell you, thoroughly, since the fucking day I was born and for decades before, that the Rightists in America have been religiously loyal to Israel. It is not lip services, there are quite literally MILLIONS more Right-wing Americans who believe passionately in Israel THAN THERE ARE EVEN ISRAELIS or Jews for that matter. Plus, these assholes are ignorant, Israelis themselves are like most Americans, reasonable, mature, adults willing to compromise and feel victimized and held hostage by their government. However, Right-wing folks in America passionately believe in Israel without compromises. Again, the Right is not just pro-Israel, in a way, they are even more Israel than Israel!

[dead_battery]

you can do your own googling on that subject. the differences between the 2 are clear, in some areas they are the same and in some areas they are not.

im not getting into another redundant argument with you where you just perpetually change the true intent of what you said and backtrack forever.

[dead_battery]

Originally Posted by SuchFriendsAreDangerous

Again. I've been born and raised in these here United States, and I've witnesses several distinctive Right wing takeovers of America. There was Reagan's Morning in America bullshit. Then Newt Gingrich stole Christmas in the 1990s. And Compassionate Conservatism stormed through riding the coattails of the Clinton good times and by 2002 entirely dropped the crypto-Compassionate part. And I can tell you, thoroughly, since the fucking day I was born and for decades before, that the Rightists in America have been religiously loyal to Israel. It is not lip services, there are quite literally MILLIONS more Right-wing Americans who believe passionately in Israel THAN THERE ARE EVEN ISRAELIS or Jews for that matter. Plus, these assholes are ignorant, Israelis themselves are like most Americans, reasonable, mature, adults willing to compromise and feel victimized and held hostage by their government. However, Right-wing folks in America passionately believe in Israel without compromises. Again, the Right is not just pro-Israel, in a way, they are even more Israel than Israel!

i know. so what is the point of even writing that. i already said that the official party line and the majority of republicans are pro israel. however there are many who are not, and many right wingers are anti semitic. its not surprising that they would settle on the incoherence of being in favour of a pro israel party and being anti semitic. lots of anti semites are in favour of israel. thats the last time i reply if you're going to start repeating yourself again.

[SuchFriendsAreDangerous]

Originally Posted by dead_battery

you can do your own googling on that subject. the differences between the 2 are clear, in some areas they are the same and in some areas they are not.

im not getting into another redundant argument with you where you just perpetually change the true intent of what you said and backtrack forever.

Originally Posted by dead_battery

i know. so what is the point of even writing that. i already said that the official party line and the majority of republicans are pro israel. however there are many who are not, and many right wingers are anti semitic. its not surprising that they would settle on the incoherence of being in favour of a pro israel party and being anti semitic. lots of anti semites are in favour of israel. thats the last time i reply if you're going to start repeating yourself again.