Democratic Debate 2/21/08

Started by sparks, February 21, 2008, 10:01:53 PM

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sparks

Well, they were civil to each other again. However, the choice for V-P might have been the thrust of this debate. Appears to me 'they' are a team. And very likely unbeatable. Big Mac best be looking to the independants for a lot of help. Fast. Sure would like to see RP go third party and give them all a run for their money!
My vessel is so small....the seas so vast......

ScottA

What are you trying to say sparks? Billary going back to washington and driving the bus for Obama? I wonder if monica still works there.


williet

I think McCain is being handed the job. Many folks will put another warmonger in the White House over ANY woman or ANY black man......sad but, I fear true.

In the last 10 or 12 years, I've seen and heard lots of folks who hate Hillery....but I have yet to hear ONE good reason why. She's not a beauty queen...she forgave her husband...she understands government and refuses to be pushed around....her daughter is helping her ....her husband is helping her....yada yada yada...

ScottA

My daughter told me she went to the Obama rally in Dallas a couple of days ago and that it was standing room only in a very large arena and a couple of thousand people outside who couldn't get in.

williet

#4
When I was younger, I became very involved in a religious group. It was a movement of young people from the two or three larger churches around this area. Obama reminds me of the speakers at those "youth rallys"...He has the ability to "draw a person in" by the way he speaks. His voice and his mastery of speaking. Many "preachers" do the same thing. Most folks are fixated on the "way" these people talk and NOT on what they are saying....Folks are captivated by the "song" of Obama's voice and not the substance of what he's saying.

I REALLY like what I hear from Obama and if I were in my earlier years, I might be drawn in too....BUT...now that I'm older and much more cynical, I need some substance behind the words. I'm becoming more and more skeptical as the days go on....

I will not support any person who can even consider the possibility of keeping this country in the quagmire of Iraq for an indefinate time period or sees this country as nothing but a labor force to fund the military...so...McCain is completely out as far as I'm concerned.

Obama caught my attention with his first speech at the Democratic Convention a few years ago...and I believe he MAY make a President one day....just not today. 

Hillary, with all her baggage, is the better choice for me. She is the ONLY person running who I believe is capable of cleaning up the mess we have thanks to the Bush/Cheney crime team. She was not my first choice, Joe Biden or even Ron Paul would be much better in the job, but the President will be either Hillary, Obama or McCain....and of the three...Hillary believes in the America I want to see. I'll support her for now, but the WAVE will select Obama. He will get the party nomination because we in this country still can't say no to a person of color without either being called a racist or just feeling that way inside. Bill Clinton was right in saying Obama is in a Fairytale. He's getting a free ride in the media because nobody wants to be called a racist.....Like I said...I believe he will make an excelent President ONE DAY....It's not his color or background that gives me concern...It's his stamina and his perception of reality....He's not been tested by fire and Hillary has. He's never learned to loose and Hillary has. She would make the better President.


ScottA

I agree williet. Of the 3 Hillary is the better choice I'd say. She has the connections to actualy get something done. They will make it hard on Obama until he's paid his dues.

n74tg

To me, the plain, simple fact is we can NOT leave Iraq, not now, and not anytime in the near or even medium term future.  Any presidential candidate who promises to get us out of Iraq will not be able to keep that campaign promise. 

Iraq sits right in the middle of the majority of the remaining oil reserves in the world.  While Russia has a fair amount of reserves of their own, China doesn't.  Besides the fact that the U.S. is hopelessly addicted to petroleum worse than any other country on the planet, and that our economy will crumble without it, China's economy (and oil needs) are growing exponentially.  The same holds true for India's economy.  Both of those countries are substantially closer to the Middle East than the U.S. is.  Whether we like it or not, here at the end-times of the petroleum era, it is probably a long-term strategic advantage for the U.S. to have the large military presence that it already has over there.  I would hate to have to try to establish a military presence over there while Russia and/or China was trying to establish one at the same time.   

To me, it's not about bringing democracy to Iraq, it's not about denying Iran or Iraq WMD's; it's not about ANY of the issues commonly talked about in the media.  What it is about, is the one item that is not talked about...OIL.  Everything depends on oil. 
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http://n74tg.blogspot.com/

glenn kangiser

It would not be half as bad to swallow if they would just quit lying about it and admit it.
"Always work from the general to the specific." J. Raabe

Glenn's Underground Cabin  http://countryplans.com/smf/index.php?topic=151.0

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sparks

My vessel is so small....the seas so vast......


williet

How many American lives and how much American money is the oil worth? Would it be worth your childs life for me to drive another mile or another year of record oil prices? That's the real question......

Maybe we should start taking the price of oil seriously and move on to the next energy source.....We could tax the outrageous profits of oil companies and use the money to develope alternative energy....or we can allow the same ole politicians to put that money in the pockets of a select few while America as we know it has the life squeezed out of it......

Iraq (the entire Middle East for that matter) is an endless sink hole....with no future. There is no way out, but to just LEAVE.....We can allow our nation to be destroyed for the Middle East and oil....or we can move on and have a country...I can't see how we can do both.

glenn kangiser

What ever happened to negotiating and business deals -- ultimately they happen anyway.  It just doesn't make the elite, the war machine , Haliburton, Cheney , Bush Crime Family, etc. as much money and our kids are expendable at about 1/5 the cost of a Haliburton no- bid contract employee they are protecting.  We are breeding machines for cannon fodder.
"Always work from the general to the specific." J. Raabe

Glenn's Underground Cabin  http://countryplans.com/smf/index.php?topic=151.0

Please put your area in your sig line so we can assist with location specific answers.

n74tg

Oh, I wish it was JUST about losing our ability to DRIVE anywhere, anytime.  Unfortunately, the driving part is just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to our dependency on petroleum.  EVERYTHING in our lives is made with or from petroleum.  All our fertilizer used in agriculture comes from natural gas.  Yes, I'm lumping natural gas in with oil and then calling it "petroleum."  No oil-based fertilizer and crop yields per acre go down dramatically (like to 1/4 of what they are WITH fertilizer).  Then, let's talk about trying to harvest all those crops the old fashioned way; by hand.  Without petroleum based fuel to run the big harvesters and then the big trucks to take it to the processing plant; and then big trucks to take it to all the companies that turn raw product into finished product; and then big trucks to take the finished product to WalMart; the agriculture system in the country is gonna fail, and fail big.  Sure, you can blather all you want about needing to get the railroad back on it's feet; but the rail infrastructure in this country is in abysmal shape.  It will take years to rebuild it, and billions of dollars to do it.  In the meantime, how you gonna feed 300+ million Americans; most of which now live in cities. 

All of our manufacturing capability in this country depends on cheap energy to exist.  Long gone are the days when wood or coal fired steam engines ran manufacturing plants.  Take any of the alternative energy forms being talked about these days in the media and try to implement them in any significant size without petroleum.  Example:  try to build a nuclear reactor without fuel powered cranes, trucks, excavation equipment, etc, etc.  Try to build solar panels with just the energy you can get from other solar panels.  Try to build windmills without petroleum powered machinery or the petroleum powered electric generators needed to provide the power to manufacture them.

Now, think about us getting out of Iraq and Afghanistan.  Just bring the boys home, so to speak.  Lose the CONTROL of those strategic oil reserves to someone else (let's just say it's Russia or China).  Adopt an isolationist attitude like we used to have in this country until after World War II.  Leave everyone else alone, and hope (pray) they will leave us alone.  Who knows, maybe they would.  After all, the Atlantic and Pacific are still mighty big.  But, what if they didn't.  Now, we could truly be fighting them on our own soil, and in the process having to fuel our defence ONLY with petroleum we produce in this country (which right now is about 5 million bopd (barrels of oil per day) - down from the 12 million bopd of our "peak" back in 1972).  Just for comparison, U.S. petroleum usage is 24-25 million bopd and rising at about 3% per year, which represents roughly 1/3 of worldwide oil usage. 

Oil is the most important, strategic asset in the world.  Those who have it (right now) survive and roughly do something akin to prospering.  Those who don't...die a slow, agonizing, economic death. 

Oh, I WISH it was just about losing our ability to DRIVE.  That would be an easy problem to solve.
My house building blog:

http://n74tg.blogspot.com/

MountainDon

Good points to think over.

Quote from: n74tg on March 02, 2008, 09:30:49 PM
Adopt an isolationist attitude like we used to have in this country until after World War II.  Leave everyone else alone, and hope (pray) they will leave us alone.  Who knows, maybe they would.  After all, the Atlantic and Pacific are still mighty big.
Those oceans may still be as physically wide as they were 100, 200, 300 years ago, but they are effectively much narrower. I don't believe any country can retreat into isolation in todays world.

Just because something has been done and has not failed, doesn't mean it is good design.