The Obama Deception

[Macrina]

Comparatively speaking.........

If George W. Bush had created the position of 32 Czars who report directly to him, bypassing the House and Senate on much of what is happening in America , would you have approved?

If George W. Bush had ordered the firing of the CEO of a major corporation, even though he had no constitutional authority to do so, would you have approved?

If George W. Bush had proposed to double the national debt, which had taken more than two centuries to accumulate, in one year, would you have approved?

If George W. Bush had then proposed to double the debt again within 10 years, would you have approved?

If George W. Bush had visited Austria and made reference to the nonexistent "Austrian language," would you have brushed it off as a minor slip?

If George W. Bush had filled his cabinet and circle of advisers with people who cannot seem to keep current in their income taxes, would you have approved?

If George W. Bush had stated that there were 57 states in the United States, would you have said that he is clueless?

If George W. Bush had reduced your retirement plan's holdings of GM stock by 90% and given the unions a majority stake in GM, would you have approved?

If George W. Bush had given Gordon Brown a set of inexpensive and incorrectly formatted DVDs, when Gordon Brown had given him a thoughtful and historically significant gift, would you have approved?

If George W. Bush had given the Queen of England an iPod containing videos of his speeches, would you have thought this embarrassingly narcissistic and tacky?

If George W. Bush had bowed to the King of Saudi Arabia , would you have approved?

This kind of list goes on and on...........

[Pravoslavnik]

Macrina,

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 One hardly knows where to begin in responding to this utter nonsense, which I have read on other websites this year, and which is a product of the many Republican propaganda mills in America currently funded by billionaires like the Koch brothers, T. Boone Pickens, the Coors family, et.al.  These mass E-mailings have been particularly appealing to white Southerners, like yourself, who have so bitterly resented the election of a highly intelligent, well educated African American to the U.S. Presidency.  (Heaven forbid that we begin quoting the many examples of George W. Bush's genuine idiocy and lack of knowledge about almost everything on such a religious forum as this.)  And, of course, the Republican Party has often played upon racist sentiment among middle and working class white people in America since the days of Richard Nixon.

 George W. Bush inherited a balanced budget and a Federal budgetary surplus from President Bill Clinton in January of 2001.  The U.S. national debt when Mr. Bush became President of the U.S. on January 20, 2001 was $5 trillion dollars.  By January of 2009, when Mr. Bush left the White House, he had doubled the U.S. national debt to $10 trillion dollars.  There were widespread bank failures throughout the United States-- which have continued throughout the past 21 months-- and Mr. Bush himself had spent $700 billion on an emergency bank bailout as he was leaving office.  Some Republican propagandists have recently falsely attributed even this $700 billion dollar Bush bailout of 2008 to the Obama administration.

  Of the many disasters, both financial and geopolitical, caused by eight years of Republican misrule from 2001 to 2009, the most severe has been the Great Bush-Cheney Recession of 2008-09.  It is, by several measures, the worst recession experienced by the U.S. since the Great Depression of the 1930s.  Fortunately, the severity of what some economists are now calling the "Great Recession," has been mitigated by the Economic Recovery Act of 2009, which was fought tooth and claw by the Republicans remaining in Congress after the 2008 elections.  These are the same obstructionists who are now blaming Obama for the Great Bush-Cheney Crash of 2008.

   As for General Motors, what can one say of a company that spent decades engaged in deliberate planned obsolescence in its automobile manufacturing?  A company whose CEO accepted bribes from the oil and gas industry to defer manufacturing more fuel efficient cars?  A company that finally required a taxpayer-funded bailout to remain solvent, because it was considered "too big to fail?"

   And what can one say of a President like George W. Bush, who appointed industry insiders to every possible regulatory post in the United States government responsible for protecting the American people from banking and industry fraudulence, graft, and pollution?

   What can one say of a President who knowingly lied about the various pretexts for deploying American troops and billions of dollars of laser guided bombs against a sovereign nation that was known to have no material relationship to Al Qaeda or the 9/11 attacks on the U.S.?

    Finally, what can one say of the many well-funded Republican propagandists throughout the U.S. who continue to flood the American airwaves and internet with dishonest, misleading innuendo and disinformazia about the elected President of the United States?

     Regardless of Obama's shortcomings, these all-too-prevalent Republican lies, like most lies, come from the Evil One and from those who serve him, however unwittingly.

     Interestingly, the most ardent George W. Bush supporter I ever knew is a ROCOR-MP deacon who became a stridently vocal advocate of the Act of Canonical Communion-- even publicly declaring those of us who did not accept the Act to be "schismatics."

[Macrina]

Pravoslavnik,
About the only thing you posted right was that I am a southerner and I am white. However my skin color has nothing to do with what I've posted. All southerners generally speaking, have a distaste for the federal government, in case you didn't know. And many of us came from the north east of the US to get away from being grossly over taxed.

Pardon my saying, but you seem very obsessed with your conspiracy theory which you've rooted in "Republican propaganda". Does this go as far as linking the media to ties with that conspiracy? If so, then perhaps I have been lied to. I do recall sitting in front of a tv when the announcement was made about Obama appointing 32 Czars when he was elected. And yes, that is the terminology used when it was reported.

I cringe that you even bring up Clinton. Nobody ever recovered from his administration. Health care is the worse it has ever been since Clinton's "restructuring". That Obama is continuing with that, well, you will see just how bad things will be if Obama's health care package is fully carried out. You will feel like you are in a socialist society then.

From your posts, I take it your a Democrat, since all things Republican are evil in your eyes. Let us just bypass political parties for a minute and let me ask you a question. If you ran a country that was in debt, what would you do. Would you keep your national debt national, dealing with the world bank to remedy that? Or would you sell your nation to other countries to stay afloat financially?

And just to let you know a bit about myself, I was raised by both northern (of German descent) and southern farmers that supported the Peoples Party (aka Populists) composed of agrarians. Now, do you think I support federal government of any form that discounts the American farmer?
My father, who grew up during the "great depression" in American history, passed on many stories of American government both before and after that time. Such is common among families who retain their history in this country. We look at the current state of our country and recall the past when our families first came here, which was before any government.

As a Christian, it seems to me that God is an agrarian. Jesus said there would be wars. But even in war, according to scripture, there are rules that pertain to the land involved in those wars. You take out the agrarian factor and you are left with a situation such as the lions of Samaria. (ref. 2 Kings 17 in the KJV, 4 Kingdoms 17 in Sept.)

[Pravoslavnik]

Macrina,

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 My responses to your several queries are in red below.

[/color]

Pravoslavnik,
About the only thing you posted right was that I am a southerner and I am white. However my skin color has nothing to do with what I've posted. All southerners generally speaking, have a distaste for the federal government, in case you didn't know. And many of us came from the north east of the US to get away from being grossly over taxed.

Yes, yes, of course. I hear this constantly from all of the white Southern Obama bashers I know. None of them are racists, and amazingly, none of them had any relatives who were active in the KKK during the past century. It's remarkable.


Pardon my saying, but you seem very obsessed with your conspiracy theory which you've rooted in "Republican propaganda". Does this go as far as linking the media to ties with that conspiracy? If so, then perhaps I have been lied to. I do recall sitting in front of a tv when the announcement was made about Obama appointing 32 Czars when he was elected. And yes, that is the terminology used when it was reported.

There are a number of recent articles from the most reputable newspapers in the U.S.-- the New York Times, Washington Post, etc.-- which have begun to document the astonishing extent of modern Republican propaganda/disinformation campaigns in the U.S., including television advertising. Several have been written within the past month by Nobel Laureate Paul Krugman at NYT. There have also been excellent pieces in the Washington Post recently by Eugene Robinson, and an article this week at NYT about the "Coalition for Protecting Seniors" that turns out to be a secret front organization for the for-profit health insurance industry. Of course, all informed Americans know by now that Rupert Murdoch's Fox News Corporation is a mouthpiece for Republican disinformation.

I cringe that you even bring up Clinton. Nobody ever recovered from his administration.

If you study a graph of the U.S. national debt, you will learn that the Clinton years were the ONLY years since Ronald Reagan's "voo doo" Reaganomic revolution in 1980 when the U.S. national debt actually leveled off. Clinton succeeded in balancing the budgets, and left office with a significant budgetary surplus in 2000. As you may recall, Bush and Gore actually debated at length in 2000 about what they would do with the Clinton budgetary surplus. Gore said that he would use it to stabilize Social Security. Bush said that he would cut taxes. In effect, the 2001 and 2003 Bush tax cuts largely benefited the wealthiest 1% of Americans-- and were opposed by conservative economists like Bush's own Treasury Secretary Paul O'Neill and Alan Greenspan. Greenspan only agreed with the Bush tax cuts if the Clinton era surplusses continued-- something which, obviously, did not happen.

Health care is the worse it has ever been since Clinton's "restructuring". That Obama is continuing with that, well, you will see just how bad things will be if Obama's health care package is fully carried out. You will feel like you are in a socialist society then.

Oh, really? Well, as a physician who has been practicing medicine since 1984, I can offer an interesting perspective on that subject. Do you realize that 25% of the adults in your own state of Louisiana have NO health insurance coverage? Your state ranks at the top of the list for the uninsured, along with Texas. Do you favor a Bush Care system where insurance companies can deny claims and coverage for people who are infirm? Do you know that the Canadians spend far less on health care per capita than the U.S. and have better public health outcomes on many indices than the U.S.? Do you know that the Canadians spend 16% of every health care dollar to administer their health care program, and that private for-profit insurance companies in America siphon 35% of every health care dollar off of the top for administrative expenses and private profits?

As for Clinton's "restructuring" of health care-- he was able to accomplish almost nothing, mainly as a result of the multi-million dollar advertising campaigns by private insurance companies ("Harry and Louise") to undermine necessary reform efforts. At least Bill Clinton was able to pass a minor bill which prohibited insurers from cancelling coverage for infirm people who lost their jobs.

From your posts, I take it your a Democrat, since all things Republican are evil in your eyes.

Nope. Just unjustified Republican wars, unregulated pollution, business fraudulence, and exploitation of the poor and the sick. Other than those minor issues, I have no problem with Republicans.

Let us just bypass political parties for a minute and let me ask you a question. If you ran a country that was in debt, what would you do. Would you keep your national debt national, dealing with the world bank to remedy that? Or would you sell your nation to other countries to stay afloat financially?

Have you studied the history of Keynesian economics and the Great Crash in American history? If so, you would know that governments can stimulate economic growth and recovery from recessionary business cycles through public works projects, etc.

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 And, by the way, where were all of you recent Republican converts to fiscal conservativism during the past decade when Bush and Cheney were running up $5 trillion dollars in debts after inheriting a budgetry surplus?  Do you recall Dick Cheney's famous comment to Paul O'Neill in 2003-- "Deficits don't matter?"  Obama, conversely, was forced by circumstances to increase the Federal deficit, and all reputable economists now believe that he did the correct thing to prevent a more serious economic crisis.  [/color]

And just to let you know a bit about myself, I was raised by both northern (of German descent) and southern farmers that supported the Peoples Party (aka Populists) composed of agrarians. Now, do you think I support federal government of any form that discounts the American farmer?
My father, who grew up during the "great depression" in American history, passed on many stories of American government both before and after that time. Such is common among families who retain their history in this country. We look at the current state of our country and recall the past when our families first came here, which was before any government.

My family also survived the Great Depression, and one of my forefathers literally served as an aide to General George Washington in the Revolutionary War. My guess is that your family admired FDR and the constructive role of governmental intervention to end the Great Depression, but perhaps resented Federal intervention in support of civil rights for black people in the 1960s.

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 I have noticed that many "farmers" in America are very selective about their professed "libertarianism," especially since they are so heavily subsidized by the Federal government-- somewhat like the "Tea Party" senior citizens who love Medicare but don't want no socialized gov'ment meddling in health care.[/color]

As a Christian, it seems to me that God is an agrarian.

Well, if anything, I would imagine that God is rather fond of Semitic shepherds like Abraham, and suspicious of the neolithic, agrarian cultures of the slave-holding Caananites, Egyptians, and ante-Bellum South. We know for certain that He does not approve of those who exploit the poor, neglect the sick, and commit mass murder-- especially without cause. In that sense, it is difficult to imagine the Lord approving of the modern Republican Party in the United States, isn't it? Which is not to say, of course, that the Lord approves of the entire Democratic Party platform, by any means.

Jesus said there would be wars. But even in war, according to scripture, there are rules that pertain to the land involved in those wars. You take out the agrarian factor and you are left with a situation such as the lions of Samaria. (ref. 2 Kings 17 in the KJV, 4 Kingdoms 17 in Sept.)

[Ian]

If you study a graph of the U.S. national debt, you will learn that the Clinton years were the ONLY years since Ronald Reagan's "voo doo" Reaganomic revolution in 1980 when the U.S. national debt actually leveled off. Clinton succeeded in balancing the budgets, and left office with a significant budgetary surplus in 2000. As you may recall, Bush and Gore actually debated at length in 2000 about what they would do with the Clinton budgetary surplus. Gore said that he would use it to stabilize Social Security. Bush said that he would cut taxes. In effect, the 2001 and 2003 Bush tax cuts largely benefited the wealthiest 1% of Americans-- and were opposed by conservative economists like Bush's own Treasury Secretary Paul O'Neill and Alan Greenspan. Greenspan only agreed with the Bush tax cuts if the Clinton era surplusses continued-- something which, obviously, did not happen.

That was the accomplishment of the Republican Congress from 1994 on, Next Gringrich and company, not Clinton. Your high school Civics class should have taught you that Congress controls taxes and spending, and the President only has indirect influence through threat of veto. Reagan gets the blame for the Democratic Congress of the 80s, and Clinton gets the credit of Republican Congress of from 94 on, interesting how that works.

The idea of Paul O'Neil and Alan Greenspan as "conservative economists"

I'll point you Austrian economics for theory: http://mises.org/

and lurking on http://www.zerohedge.com for financial news.

[Pravoslavnik]

My responses to Ian's comments are in red.

If you study a graph of the U.S. national debt, you will learn that the Clinton years were the ONLY years since Ronald Reagan's "voo doo" Reaganomic revolution in 1980 when the U.S. national debt actually leveled off. Clinton succeeded in balancing the budgets, and left office with a significant budgetary surplus in 2000. As you may recall, Bush and Gore actually debated at length in 2000 about what they would do with the Clinton budgetary surplus. Gore said that he would use it to stabilize Social Security. Bush said that he would cut taxes. In effect, the 2001 and 2003 Bush tax cuts largely benefited the wealthiest 1% of Americans-- and were opposed by conservative economists like Bush's own Treasury Secretary Paul O'Neill and Alan Greenspan. Greenspan only agreed with the Bush tax cuts if the Clinton era surplusses continued-- something which, obviously, did not happen.

That was the accomplishment of the Republican Congress from 1994 on, Next Gringrich and company, not Clinton. Your high school Civics class should have taught you that Congress controls taxes and spending, and the President only has indirect influence through threat of veto. Reagan gets the blame for the Democratic Congress of the 80s, and Clinton gets the credit of Republican Congress of from 94 on, interesting how that works.

Ian, your statement here is simply dead wrong. Even Ronald Reagan was forced to admit that HIS tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans ultimately caused the U.S. national debt to increase by $1.8 trillion dollars during his tenure in the White House.

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  [color=#FF0000]I have heard precisely such nonsense as yours from various Republican propagandists lately-- trying to obscure the historical fact that Reaganomic tax cuts for the super rich in America have mushroomed the national debt since 1980.  Republicans have tried to blame the historic failure of Reaganomic theory on various Congressional Democrats, because they stubbornly refuse to take responsibility for the obvious failure of their own "voo doo" economic policies since 1980.  The exception was George H.W. Bush, who made an effort to balance the budget during his Presidency, and correctly labelled Reaganomics as "voo doo" way back in 1980. 

  Among other things, your specious "civics lesson" implies that Reagan, George W. Bush, and Dick Cheney did not play major roles in formulating and lobbying Congress for their tax cuts and budgets.  Utter nonsense.  In fact, I can still almost hear George W. Bush insisting on tax cuts for the top 1% in 2001, because he "had earned political capital and needed to spend it."  Dick Cheney then told Treasury Secretary Paul O'Neill in 2003 that "deficits don't matter," after O'Neill objected to the second round of Bush-Cheney tax cuts for billionaires.

How quickly some of us forget our history, eh? This is especially true in the case of John Boehner and the motley crew of Tea Partisans who wrote the recent "Pledge to America." I almost fell off my chair laughing while reading it. [/color]

The idea of Paul O'Neil and Alan Greenspan as "conservative economists"

Well, Ian, this is certainly news to anyone with minimal knowledge of recent history. Paul O'Neill was a highly respected conservative economist in previous Republican administrations, and Chairman of Alcoa Corporation when Bush and Cheney appointed him as Secretary of the Treasury in 2001. They later fired him because he told them that their tax cuts for billionaires would dramatically increase the U.S. national debt. How conservative can a guy get? As for Greenspan, he is a hardcore, free market conservative, and always has been.

May I suggest some remedial reading for you? 1) The Price of Loyalty by Paul O'Neill and Ron Sussman, and 2) The Age of Turbulence by Alan Greenspan. They are both important, well-written, conservative books which you have, obviously, not read.

I'll point you Austrian economics for theory: http://mises.org/

Don't bother. Just educate yourself, and turn off the Faux News propaganda. I'm a Magna Cum Laude Graduate of an Ivy League college who got top grades in economics and American history, despite being a math and science major.

and lurking on http://www.zerohedge.com for financial news.

[Ian]

Don't bother. Just educate yourself, and turn off the Faux News propaganda. I'm a Magna Cum Laude Graduate of an Ivy League college who got top grades in economics and American history, despite being a math and science major.

Anyone who uses terms like "Faux News" is a bigot, as you've proved to me by showing no interest in Austrian economics, but merely citing your credentials to me.