Indecision 2006

[Vagegast]

I thought this thread was about the 2006 election, not the 2008 one.

 

[Pontiakos]

Democrats have got to win and do it using the same means the president does, rig elections, talk to people on their level, play dirty but do it so that you don't get caught.

This isn't about political ideology this is about winning or losing, and the maintanence of our species on this planet as a whole. Tell the people what they want to hear so that you get in a position of power, then do what should have been done a long time ago.

1)Separate Iraq into three states and get the f*ck out. Get the f*ck out of the Middle East. Bring the troops home and use them as workers to ...(see 2)

2)Use all the money currently being splurged on Iraq to update US energy infrastructure, wind, solar and bio energy. By 2010 become completely free of oil.

3)Once all this is done lead the world on doing exactly the same thing and go to war (if need be ) to make sure that no one uses oil again.

4)Past this point use funds to drive research to;
a)find next generation technologies for;
1)medicine
2)space travel
3)energy
4)travel on earth
b)improve the lives of people that are in need throughout the world

We no longer have the luxury of ignoring critical issues for personal benefit and gain.

In past centuries major change only occured through radical ideas that were carried out by radical leaders, many of whom were killed as a result of the change they brought. Hanging on to old technologies and milking them (chattle slavery) will only result in endless war and ultimate destruction (middle ages).

 

[Run DMB]

2)Use all the money currently being splurged on Iraq to update US energy infrastructure, wind, solar and bio energy. By 2010 become completely free of oil.

Pontiakos made a funny!

 

[::shinji::]

haha, that was pretty funny actually... I suppose all those Hummer drivers will just turn them in for solar powered one's in 2010.

Let's be realistic here..

 

[Bobby]

Oh we could do it if we wanted to, it's just that nobody wants to.

We really do need to get off it though, it's the main money source for islamic terrorists.

 

[Sir Calumn]

Yeah, all these bull**** claims that "drugs fund terrorism", "pirate DVDs fund terrorism" etc etc. The one thing which truly funds terrorists is oil.... that and their parents.

I'm guessing 2010 was a typo, he couldnt possibly mean such a rediculous date, but yeah, there would be nothing more beneficial to the "free" world than cutting our reliance on oil as low as possible. It is an achievable goal across a much greater period of time, but would require the kind of commitment, enthusiasm and balls possessed by no politician since JFK got plugged.

 

[Hyun]

would require the kind of commitment, enthusiasm and balls possessed by no politician since JFK got plugged.

you're suggesting that JFK was a good politician?? HAH!

 

[ShiftyPowers]

JFK wasn't bad. Considering he was laying the seeds for almost all of The Great Society legislation I'd rate him highly if his term was any longer. As it stands he's just impossible to rate.

Also, it's fun to imagine all the good thing about the Johnson administration without Vietnam (although Kennedy was a violent anti-communist and did involve himself in Vietnam too).

 

[Vagegast]

Good politican, bad president.

 

[Sir Calumn]

As ShiftyPowers said, it is impossible to rate his performance as a president because his time in office was cut short so tragically, but it is possible to rate him as a man and as a politician.

But I didnt mean so much that he was so great, merely that he was really the last president before the real big ******* drop off. Some American will have to correct me if I've forgotten someone, but the way I remember it:

Lyndon Johnson - racist, southern redneck with vietnam round his neck
Richard Nixon - corrupt, foul mouthed, racist anti semetic criminal
Gerald Ford - the most pointless, irrelevant man in US history
Jimmy Carter - a joke and a puppet, messed up china and declared "america had nothing to apologise for" regarding vietnam
Ronald Reagan - crazy, evil fundamentalist with his finger on the button
George Bush Sr - messed up Iraq the first time, achieved the quite incredible feat of keeping americans terrified and oppressed despite the cold war being over
Bill Clinton - couldnt keep his dick out of the help, cool as a cucumber but screwed just as much up as the others
George Bush Jr - perhaps the worst of the bunch, idiotic, deranged lunatic who is destroying the world in more ways than I would have thought possible.

Now, if this trend continues, where on earth are the bold yet essential changes going to come from?

 

[Run DMB]

Lyndon Johnson - racist, southern redneck with vietnam round his neck
Richard Nixon - corrupt, foul mouthed, racist anti semetic criminal
Gerald Ford - the most pointless, irrelevant man in US history
Jimmy Carter - a joke and a puppet, messed up china and declared "america had nothing to apologise for" regarding vietnam
Ronald Reagan - crazy, evil fundamentalist with his finger on the button
George Bush Sr - messed up Iraq the first time, achieved the quite incredible feat of keeping americans terrified and oppressed despite the cold war being over
Bill Clinton - couldnt keep his dick out of the help, cool as a cucumber but screwed just as much up as the others
George Bush Jr - perhaps the worst of the bunch, idiotic, deranged lunatic who is destroying the world in more ways than I would have thought possible.

Haha, that's an awfully cynical view Sir_Didier_Drogba. Not that I don't agree with a lot of it, but there's two sides to every story.

Lyndon Johnson was an asshole, admittedly, but he managed to pass some good legislation which promoted social welfare. I kind of think of him as the liberal Dick Cheney/Karl Rove. Very different ideologies, but similar methods of implementing them.

Richard Nixon was also an asshole, but not as bad of a president as some make him out to be.

Gerald Ford I hardly know anything about, other than the fact that he liked beer and football, so I guess he was rather insignificant.

Jimmy Carter, through his mediation, managed to establish peace between Egypt and Israel, which was unthinkable at the time. He recently received a belated Nobel Peace Prize. Outside of that Carter's presidency was a disaster, but he was just in the wrong place at the wrong time, a victim of Murphy's Law.

Ronald Reagan took over a country which was in pretty bad shape and managed to restore some order. There was steady economic expansion during his presidency and afterwards. His policies were one of the contributing factors to the demise of the Soviet Union.

George H.W. Bush backed the first Gulf War even when it was fairly unpopular among Americans. More unpopular than Dubbya's Iraq war was initially. But the Gulf War was a big success and Bush's approval ratings jumped to an unheard of 91% shortly after it. Of course, then he broke his promise on not raising taxes and his ratings plummeted.

Bill Clinton wasn't perfect, but I think we all miss this guy. And if you look at economic factors during his presidency, things only got better and better.

I'm not going to say anything about Dubbya, since people seem to have pretty much made up their minds on him.

 

[Sir Calumn]

Yeah, well, I am someone of a cynic and do confess to intentionally ignoring the positive aspects of those presidents, but I would still say that, despite the fact what you say is correct, the negatives outweigh the positives in almost all cases, Clinton perhaps being the exception, and that not since Kennedy has there been a president without major negatives and stains on his character. It does seem to me that, due to the nature of the electoral system and population of america, the country is stuck in a rut where, I wont go as far as to say only awful people become president, but certainly the best do not, and until that situation is rectified, it would be impossible for America to actually embark on any of the essential idealistic causes discussed in this thread.

 

[ShiftyPowers]

As ShiftyPowers said, it is impossible to rate his performance as a president because his time in office was cut short so tragically, but it is possible to rate him as a man and as a politician.

But I didnt mean so much that he was so great, merely that he was really the last president before the real big ******* drop off. Some American will have to correct me if I've forgotten someone, but the way I remember it:

Lyndon Johnson - racist, southern redneck with vietnam round his neck
Richard Nixon - corrupt, foul mouthed, racist anti semetic criminal
Gerald Ford - the most pointless, irrelevant man in US history
Jimmy Carter - a joke and a puppet, messed up china and declared "america had nothing to apologise for" regarding vietnam
Ronald Reagan - crazy, evil fundamentalist with his finger on the button
George Bush Sr - messed up Iraq the first time, achieved the quite incredible feat of keeping americans terrified and oppressed despite the cold war being over
Bill Clinton - couldnt keep his dick out of the help, cool as a cucumber but screwed just as much up as the others
George Bush Jr - perhaps the worst of the bunch, idiotic, deranged lunatic who is destroying the world in more ways than I would have thought possible.

Now, if this trend continues, where on earth are the bold yet essential changes going to come from?

In my opinion you can break down the Presidents since Kennedy like this: the Democrats were generally good (although Carter demolished our energy policy and we still feel it today) and the Republicans were bad (but George H.W. Bush is the exception).

Lyndon Johnson is probably my favorite modern President for the simple fact that I can't remember Vietnam. He was a racist? Are you KIDDING ME!? He pushed through The Civil Rights Act of 1964 despite the very real threat of Southern and Westerners teamming up and filibustering it as usual. Historically, the civil rights legislation he passed was amazingly significant and almost impossible to actually get through. Vietnam was terrible obviously.

Nixon helped us with some of his domestic policies and helping to open up China and wasn't bad, but his personality which led to Watergate was just horrendous. He wasn't bad if you ignore his enemies list and Watergate.

Ford... Pardoned Nixon. That's all I know he did.

Carter... Did some good work as the other Shifty said, but he was poor on energy. Political Scientists view his biggest flaw that he tried to do everything instead of delegating. He even scheduled who would use the White House tennis courts at what time. Obviously his time could have been spent better.

Reagan... His success is in myth only. He was a bad President.

George H.W. Bush... Actually a good President, but for some reason I can't recall him too well, or my reading on his Presidency, so if you really want to know about him, read a book. I'm telling you though, this man was actually good, and that has nothing to do with his Gulf War approval rating.

Clinton... Whatever, it's impossible to judge him fairly after the trainwreck that followed.

George W. Bush... The WORST President since Herbert Hoover. I am not kidding.

 

[Hyun]

As ShiftyPowers said, it is impossible to rate his performance as a president because his time in office was cut short so tragically, but it is possible to rate him as a man and as a politician.

But I didnt mean so much that he was so great, merely that he was really the last president before the real big ******* drop off. Some American will have to correct me if I've forgotten someone, but the way I remember it:

Lyndon Johnson - racist, southern redneck with vietnam round his neck
Richard Nixon - corrupt, foul mouthed, racist anti semetic criminal
Gerald Ford - the most pointless, irrelevant man in US history
Jimmy Carter - a joke and a puppet, messed up china and declared "america had nothing to apologise for" regarding vietnam
Ronald Reagan - crazy, evil fundamentalist with his finger on the button
George Bush Sr - messed up Iraq the first time, achieved the quite incredible feat of keeping americans terrified and oppressed despite the cold war being over
Bill Clinton - couldnt keep his dick out of the help, cool as a cucumber but screwed just as much up as the others
George Bush Jr - perhaps the worst of the bunch, idiotic, deranged lunatic who is destroying the world in more ways than I would have thought possible.

Now, if this trend continues, where on earth are the bold yet essential changes going to come from?

Johnson was racist???

Let me explain the lineup:

Johnson has to be my favorite president. When he knew something needed to be attained, he worked for it and eventually got it. The Civil Rights Act? It's something Kennedy can only DREAM of.

I do not like Nixon as much as Johnson, but I have to give him credit for what he did. He was authorative yes, but he got the job done (EPA, readjustment of social security, detente)...

Carter's presidency was a tough one, since it came after (and as a result of) Nixon's departure. Too naive to ever do anything, should've kept good relationship with Congress.

Reagan was everything Carter could've been. I didn't like his policies, but he was great with the people and Congress and had some great help in maintaining his image.

George Senior... Whatever happened to "read my lips, no new taxes?"

EDIT: just read Shifty's post above, I see we both love LBJ. remember, the LBJ tapes are on c-span radio every saturday.

 

[Run DMB]

The one thing I really hold against LBJ are his campaign methods, because they were dishonest and they set the precedent for nearly every presidential election that followed. Up until 1964 presidential elections were fairly clean. There wasn't a lot of negative advertising and smear, but that changed with what he did to Barry Goldwater.

Other than that, I appreciate what he did and what he tried to do while in office. He kind of saw himself as the FDR of the 60's.

I would like to say though, that the American president is not as powerful as some think. Not nearly as powerful as, say, the Prime Minister of Great Britain. So I feel that people always give presidents more credit than they deserve and harsher criticism than they deserve.

 

[Vagegast]

The one thing I really hold against LBJ are his campaign methods, because they were dishonest and they set the precedent for nearly every presidential election that followed. Up until 1964 presidential elections were fairly clean. There wasn't a lot of negative advertising and smear, but that changed with what he did to Barry Goldwater.

Bull****

 

[Sir Calumn]

I agree that more advances in terms of civil rights were made under Johnson than any other president and, although they were Kennedy's bills, just altered a bit, he put though, and would never have been able to do it without the sympathy vote Kennedy's death generated, I do respect him for it. However, the man was basically a racist redneck - he used words like nigger even after they ceased to be universally acceptable, he delivered extremely derogatory speeches about the vietnamese and the way he got things done was through bullying and intimidating members of his own party though his physical stature and coarse choice of words. But, above all, he was the president who took America to war with Vietnam and, for me, that is something which can never be forgiven.

All I know about the 1964 campaign is that Johnson had Goldwater's campaign headquarters, plane and even his home bugged, which doesnt seem very decent. But I dont really know anything else about it or other campaigns prior to it.

EDIT: About George Bush Sr - I know that while he was in office, he had the highest approval rating, for large periods of time, since Kennedy, so he was popular at any rate. I was, however, under the impression that he was really just continuing with Reagan's dirty work and is largely responsible for the post-cold war atmosphere of fear present more than ever in the world today? But maybe I'm mistaken.

 

[Jambo Den]

Go on the Republicans

 

[ShiftyPowers]

Bull****

Greatest campaign ad of all time. I'm told it was only aired once because there was so much public outrage over it.

I've never heard that Johnson bugged Goldwater's house, but that doesn't mean it isn't true.

The thing with Johnson is that he was everything George Bush wants to be. He was born in bum-**** Texas with no hope of an education. He went to something like West Texas Teaching College for his education and since he never had an opportunity at an education he passed numerous beneficial federal programs to get kids through school. I knew that he started the Stafford Loan program (which is responsible for 100% of my student loans) and in researching it I came across The Higher Education Act of 1965. Johnson took a nation that was severely backwards in terms of most of its federal laws and brought it into the modern era. Education, medicare, civil rights, it's all Johnson, and without someone who knew Congress as well as he did together with his determination to get the things through, I don't know if a lot of that stuff would have ever been passed. He neutralized the Southern Democrats and made them into a national laughingstock instead of the powerful filibuster weilding psychos that they had been since the end of the Civil War. And in doing so he lost the South for the Democratic Party for the past 40 years, and it's not looking like it will change any time soon.

But anyway, the man was completely self-made. He went from nowhere to become the leader of the Senate and eventually the President of the United States. I think you need to ignore things like "he used the word nigger" and look at the big picture. Look where he came from and look at the legislation he passed. Certainly his actions in this instance are more important than his words.

Hyun, you're awesome man, looks like the only Presidents we really disagree on are Reagan and Bush I. Yeah the people generally seemed to like Reagan, but it was all smoke and mirrors, he didn't do anything. It's pretty commonly accepted in academia that his economic policies did virtually nothing to bring about the end of the Soviet Union, or at the very least one cannot say that he did. Bush I on the other hand, it looks like I'm going to have to go digging into the archives to prove that he was a good President. The common assertion these days is that his approval ratings were high, but he was nothing more than an extension of Reagan when the conservative 80's were waning. I think that's wrong.

 

[Sir Calumn]

Yeah, that is a big thing that Johnson managed to do, winning round the vote of the Southern Democrats. However, he did it by being even more of a stereotypical southern redneck than they were and thus winning them round to his point of view.

And to me, looking at where he came from and what he ended up doing just makes me see a poor, southern boy with little oppertunities or prospects rising through his own hard-graft, (and underhand methods if what Run DMB and other sources say is true), to take the United States into one of the most horrible, devasting and screwed up wars in history.

By the way, all I really have to go on is what I remember from history class and the extremely biased information on the internet, so please excuse me if what I say is totally incorrect