Pat Oliphant for August 04, 2010

Zero. And I have a job. On one hand, I like to gamble, and on the other, I don’t trust the VA.

Here is a simple test – Start counting to 1 million, let me know when you are done, because it will take some time, according to GOOGLE (if you don’t stop to eat, drink, or sleep) 6 day, 22 hours, and 40 minutes – at the moment their are 15 millions Americans without jobs.

Want to try to take the time to count them all?

Why doesn’t that bother you? They are Americans, most of them didn’t lose their jobs because of stupidy (except by Wall Street), incompentance (except for Bush), or lack of drive. Their jobs were destoryed, and if we don’t fix the situation it will get much worse.

The GOP has made it quite clear that they don’t care about these people, so, if you care, it is up to us, which means, no matter what else you may think about them, the DEMS are their only hope.

Dear rottenprat, widen your perspective a little bit. It ain’t all about rottenprat anymore. We’re ALL in a world of bleeep, and you ARE gonna help us out. When you’re done, you can go back to Libertarian rottenprat-land and gamble away what we all helped you earn. Until then don’t be a jerkwad. Stop supporting those who’d just a soon take a big dump on you – and they will, too, and pretty soon. Here they come now! RUN!!

Now to nicer subjects – do I detect a bit of Robert Crumb in the rendering of “Granny” above? She’s got her “Keep On Truckin’ ” / Mr. Natural thick-soled boots on – and her coat is absolutely Crumb-esque.

Warren may I suggest you immediately write to Obama. Evidently he doesn’t know as much as you do.

He rolled his dice on health care, banks, cap and trade and hasn’t done very well with the economy and has done terribly with unemployment. Remember he promised he would keep unemployment below 8.5%. It actually hit 10%. To use the Democrats favorite word in describing Bush. Obama lied!

Republicans Filibuster - Don’t blame Obama & the Democrats for the mess in Washington. Vote the Filibustering Bums out this fall & replace with Democrats or Independents willing to work for the people who voted them in!

Lib!,

Your dice are loaded.

altru1sticpervert: I don’t think Gran’ma’s got any of Mr Natural in her. Mr Natural had his head held up, thrown back in his jaunty truckin’ mode, while this old lady is slumped forward after a back breaking day in the mine. She’s beat and won’t be doing any truckin’. As for her clothing, I think it’s just part of her protective gear, along with her miner’s light and her pickax. But, that’s my perspective.

Seriously? Is grandma the only person in that house who can get a job? Plenty of jobs are out there. Plenty.

^ You have no idea what you’re talking about.

“Seriously? Is grandma the only person in that house who can get a job? Plenty of jobs are out there. Plenty.”

Doesn’t that conflict with Libertarian1’s statement about the current level of unemployment? If there’re “plenty of jobs out there, plenty” then obviously Obama’s dice must be pretty good.

Continuing my rant – read at risk of boredom –

I’ve argued so far that in regards to the three most pressing social issues of my time – civil rights, equal rights for women, and the War in Vietnam – the right had nothing to contribute, either in analysis or action. All the good analysis and action came from the left.

I should make it clear again that by the left I do not mean the Democratic party or even the liberal wing of the Democratic party. Their record was far less consistent. Liberal Democrats were generally able to go along with equal rights for women. Liberal Democrats agreed in theory with the civil rights movement, but their support was half-hearted, and the real action came from the left, not from liberals. And of course Liberal Democrats were heavily involved in the War in Vietnam.

Now if we consider again the principle I stated at the beginning of these rants – the principle that people should have the power to choose how to live their lives – another very important obstacle to the exercise of this power is poverty. (And that’s the link to this cartoon.) I find poverty a complicated problem, but I will propose (with somewhat less assurance) that once again the right has contributed nothing to the alleviation of poverty, and that all the contributions have come from the left. But as I say, this issue is complicated, and I’m less sure that I’m right. So perhaps we can have a worthwhile discussion.

lonecat

Your first paragraph above is fascinating.

“I’ve argued so far that in regards to the three most pressing social issues of my time – civil rights, equal rights for women, and the War in Vietnam – the right had nothing to contribute, either in analysis or action. All the good analysis and action came from the left.”

You personally define the most pressing issues for another country and then fault the majority, who didn’t agree with you in the first place, for not finding cures for your problems.

Of course we didn’t “contribute” because we were finding solutions to different problems.

Let me give you a topical example. Global warming or climate change. Poll after poll shows if Americans are presented with a list of 20 problems, global warming is ranked near the bottom.

You would say the most pressing issue we face is global warming and yet the right doesn’t contribute. You want to be prosecutor, judge, jury and executioner all in one.

^I bet gay marriage and abortio are near the top.

In our lifetime, the presidential debate will only have one question; “what is the maximum size of cucumbers a man can like without going to Hell?”

^ 6 inches, 10 if it’s seedless. Presidency, please!

Rottenprat, that was my thought, originally, when I saw this comic. Or something similar: “Is Gran’ma the only one who works?,” and “Why aren’t the rest helping her down in the mines?” At least, until they can get a better job.

How read my post – I didn’t say Bush lost his job, what I said is that all of those Americans who lost their jobs didn’t lose them because of their incompentance but because of Bush’s incompentance.

P.S. Nice to know that I still bore you.

Libertarian – thanks for your note. I don’t want to get distracted by irrelevancies. In my time – the post-war US – those were the big issues. Of course that’s my opinion – but I don’t think I’m alone. I’m an old coot, and I played my part in history, now it’s time for younger people to play their part.

You say, ” You personally define the most pressing issues for another country and then fault the majority, who didn’t agree with you in the first place, for not finding cures for your problems.” What do you mean another country? I’m talking about the US. Is that another country? I’m not faulting the majority, I’m faulting the right.

You say, “You would say the most pressing issue we face is global warming and yet the right doesn’t contribute. You want to be prosecutor, judge, jury and executioner all in one.” Actually, I don’t post on global warming, since I don’t feel that I know enough about the science. But since you raise the point, what contribution is the right making to the control of global warming?

As for wanting to be prosecutor, judge, jury, and executioner, let’s not be silly. All I have is my own knowledge and intelligence – the same as we all have – and some words to put my case forward. I’ve tried to encourage others to enter into the discussion with their viewpoints. So far I have tried to deal with every objection that has come forward. I don’t say that I’ve convinced anyone, but did I expect to? At least I have tried to show that I have thought about these issues – I’ve thought about them far more than I can show in these brief posts – and I have tried to move the discussion away from insults towards reasoned argumentation.

I notice that you don’t contest my argument here – you just try to raise some dust. If the great problems of the post-war period in the US were not civil rights, equal rights for women, and the War in Vietnam, what were they? If the right did make some contributions to dealing with these problems, what were they?

Actually, I thought “grandma” was in a chair at the table, and coming in the door was their 8 year old after Republicons finally and totally do in unions–Murray is hiring.

RICHARDSRUSSELL -

i’m neither neocon or libertarian and i don’t understand what you mean by, “…faith is always more persuasive than facts.”

faith (religious) involves a belief in things spiritual or a divine being - so, not believing in what is happening all around you (reality), but belief in something nebulous is fact (to you) ?

Well, no one so far has posted a single contribution the right made to the problems of civil rights, equal rights for women, or the War in Vietnam.

What about the problem of poverty?

Poverty, I believe, is an obstacle to the power of people to choose their own lives. A child, for instance, ought to be able to say at some point, “You know, I’d really like to grow up and be a [fill-in-the-blank]”. Of course there’s no guarantee that every child will have the talent to succeed, but I think every child should have the chance to give it a shot. And with proper guidance from adults, perhaps most children can find a way to use their talents in ways that are close to their aspirations.

Clearly race and gender have been major obstacles to the ability of children to achieve their aspirations. Fortunately things have improved, though the problem is not over. If the right truly believed in human liberty, the right should have supported the campaigns for civil rights and equal rights for women. Poverty is also a major obstacle to the ability of children to achieve their aspirations. If the right truly believes in human liberty, the right should also support campaigns to end poverty.

I recall a cartoon back in 1964 drawn by the great Herblock. It showed two men in business suits watching Goldwater striding through the the slums with a sign that said “Stop being poor!”, and one of the men said to the other, “See, our candidate has a poverty program, too.”

“algurka said,

Rottenprat, that was my thought, originally, when I saw this comic. Or something similar: “Is Gran’ma the only one who works?,” and “Why aren’t the rest helping her down in the mines?” At least, until they can get a better job.”

The rest can’t even get an interview with the mining company.

I have a summer only job right now that goes away at the end of the month. I would love to work year-round for this place but of all the year-round positions only a handful are filled by people under 60.

The vast majority of positions are filled by people only working one or two days a week. They don’t want folks who want to work more (and will have to pay benefits) or will be actively seeking other employment and bail on that job as soon as they get one.

Oh wait - they also hire folks who can’t really do the job but the gov’t subsidizes part of the paycheck and it’s a filled hole in the schedule so who cares if the otehr folks on that shift have to pick up the slack…

As I’ve mentioned in earlier posts, I do not necessarily identify the left with the Democrats or the right with the Republicans. It’s more complicated. There were Republicans in those days who remembered that they were the party of Lincoln. And of course there were Southern Democrats who were still fighting the Civil War. Even Fulbright was not good on civil rights.

But I mean to go further. I believe that the modern civil rights movement really worked outside the party system, because neither party supported the movement. It was the NAACP that fought most of the legal battles in the forties and fifties, without much support from either party. Rosa Parks had been a lone-time staffer at the NAACP. Neither party really supported Dr. KIng – though Kennedy did call Mrs. King before the election when Dr. King was in jail. And neither party supported the voter registration drives in Mississippi. When the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party asked to be seated at the 1964 Democratic Convention, Johnson sold them out. There had been Democrats who had some sense of the importance of civil rights – Humphrey was better than most – and also people like Harris Woffard (I think that’s the right spelling), who worked for JFK, and who really did believe – but he was never really allowed to do what should have been done. The people who led the movement were outside the party system, and on the left. Remember all the attacks on King because he had friends and advisors who were Communists? Well, it was true. Whatever else there is to say about the American Communist Party – and there’s lot to criticize, in my opinion – the Communists and other left organizations supported civil rights when neither the Democrats nor the Republicans would.

@lonecat:

Fully agree with you on the civil rights movement. Politicians did not lead the charge on civil rights issues. They just took the credit.

fennec – you’re probably right about the establishment – you usually are right. I guess that’s why I chose not to be part of the establishment.

But why is it that something so basic as voting rights could not be supported by the establishment? What was it about the establishment that made it impossible for them to pass a federal anti-lynching law for so long? And so on.

I don’t mean to be too hard on liberals, however. When the establishment finally did recognize civil rights, it was the liberal wing of the establishment that made the move. I have a hunch they never would have moved without pressure created by the left, but they did move, and they deserve their share of credit. But the left deserves its share, and so often that’s forgotten. It’s interesting that several posts have referred to the passage of the 1965 Civil Rights Act as if it were the iconic moment of the the Civil Rights era. But that moment was prepared by the efforts – and the sacrifices – of many people now almost forgotten.

I know I’m probably boring a lot of people with my rants, but I’m trying to do something here that takes a little space. I’m trying to make a case that the left (from liberals to crazy anarchists like me) has been responsible for a program of progress in recent times, whereas the right simply doesn’t have the same track record. And at the end I will try to project something of a left program for the near future. I’m also trying to present something like an argument and a program, rather than just taking shots. (I’m not swearing off taking shots, however.) I encourage others with different positions to do the same. I would be very interested to hear a principled program from a conservative point of view. I note that some on the right claim to be in favor of something they call “liberty”, but often they seem more concerned about holding on to their cash.

church – I will repeat what I wrote above:

“As I’ve mentioned in earlier posts, I do not necessarily identify the left with the Democrats or the right with the Republicans. It’s more complicated. There were Republicans in those days who remembered that they were the party of Lincoln. And of course there were Southern Democrats who were still fighting the Civil War. Even Fulbright was not good on civil rights. But I mean to go further. I believe that the modern civil rights movement really worked outside the party system, because neither party supported the movement.”

There’s no reason you should remember, but fennec and I had a discussion some months back about Charles Mathias, who was our Representative and then Senator in Maryland. He was a noble, intelligent, honest, principled liberal Republican.

Eisenhower deserves credit for using the troops to protect the children – at least at the beginning. Once the troops were withdrawn the children had a pretty hard time.

Of course Eisenhower would not have had the opportunity to earn this credit without the children themselves, their families, and the NAACP – particularly Daisy Bates and Thurgood Marshall. All these were the real heroes of that moment.

A lot has been written about Little Rock, of course. The first place to look, as usual, is Taylor Branch’s three volume history of America in the King Years – Little Rock is covered in volume one. I think it’s important to see what happened from the grassroots, where most of the real work of the Civil Rights movement occurred. Melba Beals Patillo, who was one of the children at Little Rock, wrote a fascinating memoir, “Warriors Don’t Cry”; there is also a very moving book by Will Counts, “A Life is More than a Moment”.

fennec – an interesting post, as always. I don’t expect that a real leftist could get elected in the US. Even though I’m on the left, I support good moderates like Obama, and I get some flack from some of my leftist friends for doing so. I see a complex process, in which activists outside the system have an important role to play, and also those within the system have a role to play. I don’t doubt the good intentions of liberals within the system, but precisely because they are within the system their actions are limited – for instance, by the necessity to get re-elected. So part of the job of the activists is to create situations in which the liberals are able to act on what they believe, or what they say they believe. That’s a lot of the history of the civil rights movement. I can think of very few instances where the establishment moved without being pushed by activists – maybe integration of the arms forces, maybe integration of Big League sports, though I could be wrong. Other candidates?

So I would never urge the Democrats to run anyone for president who is outside the mainstream. That would just spell disaster – see George McGovern. But what counts as mainstream can change.

^ You did a lot of good. Keep it up.

It’s always a pleasure talking with you.

Touching, ain’t it?

yes, it is…

NeoconMan – I love you too. Huggsies?

^ i don’t think neoconman expects THESE comments… or, maybe he does - get a rise out of us. but, to be truthful, if he hadn’t said something i would have.

^Ya! Let’s be belligerent towards one another.