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DEL.ICIO.USImitate FDR? That could be a grave error
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
For a Southern boy who walked into every living room expecting to see a picture of Jesus and FDR, it is a shocker. Heresy, really, disrespect to the unquestioned faith of my Depression-era Georgia ancestors that FDR had saved us from economic ruin.
Comes now economic historian Burton Folsom Jr., a part-time Atlanta resident, professor at Hillsdale College in Michigan, an institution beloved by conservatives for offering a superior education while refusing to take federal money or other taxpayer subsidies for any of its operations, to suggest that my Southern ancestors were… uh, how to put this delicately? Were, on the subject of FDR, a generous and charitable people who saw President Franklin D. Roosevelt in a most favorable light. They were wrong, utterly and completely wrong, by the economic analysis of Professor Folsom, author of “New Deal or Raw Deal? How FDR’s Economic Legacy Has Damaged America.”
Rather than salvaging prosperity, FDR’s policies damaged the economy and prolonged the Depression, Folsom argued last week in an appearance before the Georgia Public Policy Foundation, an influential Atlanta-based think tank.
FDR’s approach — tax, regulate and spend — is Barack Obama’s. Folsom thinks FDR took an economic downturn that could have been short-lived and prolonged it into World War II. Obama, because his party is first acting on their frustrations at having a social agenda held in check for eight years, and their ambition to punish the rich and expand the regulatory state, will deepen and prolong the current recession. They may well do permanent harm.
“In the Panic of 1893, U.S. unemployment briefly hit what was then the all-time high of 18.4 percent,but the panic was over in a little more than five years,” writes Folsom. “In the mini-recession of 1921, unemployment reached 11.7 percent, but hard times lasted less than two years.” In both, Presidents Cleveland and Harding “cut federal expenses and Harding cut the income tax rate as well.
“Soon investments in business became attractive again, capital slowly flowed back into the American economy, and it bounced back.” Herbert Hoover increased federal spending, imposed excise taxes and hiked the top income rate to 63 percent. Roosevelt promised to cut spending and taxes and to reduce the job-killing and economically destructive Smoot-Hawley tariffs that protected the few at the expense of all consumers.
Hoover, in signing the Smoot-Hawley Tariff Act and in spending wastefully, invited disaster. FDR enshrined it. Two examples go to the programs that shaped the memories of my ancestors. One is the Agricultural Adjustment Act (AAA) passed in 1933 that set up a complex regulatory scheme for fixing prices and production on farm products. The nation is, to this day, almost four generations later, unable to shake the excesses and miscalculations wrought by the effort. It’s why we still get what George W. Bush last year called “a massive, bloated farm bill that would do little to solve the problem” of high food prices, while transferring $300 billion to a favored few.
A great-uncle whose name I share was part of the WPA crew that started Fontana Dam in North Carolina. While some individuals were undoubtedly helped and useful projects were completed, some historians argue that the WPA may have worsened unemployment by keeping workers from pursuing private-sector jobs.
Folsom notes that the Tennessee Valley Authority public works effort, the biggest of the New Deal projects, transferred wealth from 98 percent of the population for the benefit of 2 percent and, furthermore, he points out that Tennessee lagged behind nearby states for 50 years in economic development. He quotes William Chandler, author of “The Myth of TVA,” in writing that “Among the nine states in the southeast United States, there has been essentially an inverse relationship between income per capita and the extent to which the state was served by the TVA.”
Why? Subsidized power, Chandler concluded, caused people to delay moves that could have brought them greater prosperity. The lesson is that everything government spends or regulates buys behaviors, good or bad. The massive spending, regulation and taxing imposed in an effort to buy a permanent liberal majority, and the constant overreaching necessary to control the free market response, point to a long, deep economic downturn.
This is a bunch fully capable of throwing this country into depression.
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By Redneck Convert
February 28, 2009 8:16 AM | Link to this
Well, there’s only one thing to do. We got to dig that FDR’s rotting body up and drag it behind a pickup truck for ruining us like that. My Daddy and Mommy were just plain wrong about him. Turns out after 60 years or so somebody done seen thru him and his Commie scheme.
Anyhow, we don’t need no more regulation. We need to let Free Innerprize run itself. If enough people get poisoned by bad peanut butter they will stop buying it and somebody will come in and make good peanut butter. And if enough people see their life savings go down the drain with some cheat they will pull their money out and put it with somebody that’s honest.
And here’s what we need to do about the economy: nothing. Every once in a while Mother Nature brings along famine or disease or something like that to thin out the herd. I say all the people that lost their job need thinning out. It will be alot cheaper for all of us if we just let them die and stop molly-coddling them with unemployment benefits and such. That’s the Libraritarian fix. That’s the Republican fix. And that’s the redneck fix.
Anyway we sure owe Wooten a big favor for setting us straight on what really happened when FDR was in charge.
That’s my opinion and it’s very true. It looks like a day for a gully-washer so I’ll have to spend it in front of the TV with a couple bags of pork rinds and a case of PBR. The good news is that Sister Dusty ought to be able to finish her road race t-shirt and we can look forward to a bunch of lab test kits and a bunch of runners scared to death of a big needle behind them.
Have a good day everybody.
By ron
February 28, 2009 8:41 AM | Link to this
Good morning,Calm down Jim,don’t get your knickers in a knot.It’s only a matter of 44 months before Jindal and Palin will have those Jesus pictures hanging proud again all across the South.In the meantime all you and the other Republicans have to do is go to church and pray for a failure.That’s one prayer that wiil probably be answered.Unlike Sonny’s water request.Hugo Obama will do his part to assist in the Republican victory.He’s your best friend at the moment.
According to the chief U.S. economist for Deutsche Bank,the taxpayer will pay for the bank debacle that is presently upon us,one way or another.It’s their bill to pay and they will pay.
While Jindal and Palin are busy hanging Jesus pictures across the South,it seems they may want to ponder the results of a recent survey that found that the consumption of online porn was higher amoung the pious Red States than across the more liberal Blue ones.Seems the Red State church goers really are curious as to what’s beneath them gingham gowns.
Fear not,Jim,Newt is back and has the reins.His plan is to go back only as far as Reagan,not Lincoln or FDR.He just wants to grow the government a set amount each year,as Reagan did.Not at all like George or Hugo.
One more thing this morning,Jim,It seems that there is a 96% gap missing in the universe as far as the math of the moment is concerned.Either the mass is just not there[missing],or the math they’re using is drastically erroneous.Enter Jindal and Sarah,teaching Intelligent Design to fill in the gaps.
By Ga Values
February 28, 2009 9:04 AM | Link to this
Jim the liberal newspapers are for Romney and throwing mud at our girl.
Last February, on the opening day of the Conservative Political Action Conference in Washington, former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney took the stage, trailing Arizona Sen. John McCain in the GOP presidential primary but gathering steam with the conservative faithful. He delivered a speech that would not be soon forgotten. “I entered this race because I love America,” Romney said. “And because I love America, in this time of war, I feel I have to now stand aside for our party and for our country.”
“Nooooo,” the crowd exclaimed in a deflated, collective groan.
At that point, the Republican nomination was all but settled. Although Romney won the weekend’s straw poll for the second year in a row, McCain easily won the Republican primary and then selected Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, instead of Romney, as his running mate. And although McCain ran for the presidency with dignity and restraint, he was never well-positioned to beat Barack Obama and his grass-roots money machine. The economic crisis that exploded in September simply made Obama’s victory a fait accompli.
This February, however, Romney is well-positioned to emerge as the leader of the party and the Republican front-runner in 2012. First, money is no obstacle. Romney can self-finance, but he is also a fundraising machine. He eagerly campaigned for McCain, raising record amounts for his White House run, a gesture for which he earned political capital within the Republican Party and should expect repayment at some point. He is also currently donating money through his political action committee to House Republicans who opposed the stimulus package, and he is campaigning for Republicans around the country, including James Tedisco, who is running for the former congressional seat of Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand (D-N.Y.), and Virginia Lt. Gov. Bill Bolling, who is running for reelection.
Although the 2012 presidential campaign will not begin in earnest for another two years, Romney has several other factors working in his favor. He currently holds no elected office, so in a time when Republicans are rediscovering their voice, Romney does not have to worry about the compromises and horse trading that accompany public office. Instead, he can speak with the voice of a true conservative and hold accountable members of the Republican Party who defect.
He is especially well-poised to speak with authority given that the economy is, and will continue to be for some time, the foremost issue for Americans. Unlike McCain, who never sounded comfortable discussing the intricacies of the economic collapse, Romney is regarded as an expert on financial matters, given his private-sector experience. If the economy is still lagging in a few years, Obama — and Obama alone — will own the recession, and Romney will be well-positioned to convince Americans that he is the man for the job.
Romney also acquired the name recognition and stature to hit the campaign trail running. Barbara Comstock, who is running for a seat in the Virginia House of Delegates (another bid that Romney is assisting) and was one of Romney’s senior campaign advisers, said, “As the economic crisis deepens, Mitt Romney is the first name on everyone’s list when someone asks for expertise on the economy, on the markets, on the auto bailout or on innovative health care solutions. In a nation longing for a turnaround, the man known for turnarounds finds his stock growing.”
Other potential 2012 candidates will have trouble making as compelling a case for the nomination. Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal is still very young and may not even run. Former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee will never gain support from fiscal conservatives. Palin has too many detractors within the party. Romney, however, has already answered the tough questions from the GOP skeptics. He is less likely to face questions about his abortion stance, as he did in 2008, or to feel compelled to address his Mormon faith. In fact, Obama’s election should help Romney in that regard by negating identity questions that might have been factors before Americans elected a black man to the highest office.
For Romney, the Republican wilderness should prove especially kind. He can lay the groundwork without the stifling spotlight of the full public attention on him. As such, he can just be Mitt Romney while he lines up the organizational support he will need to challenge Obama in four years. When he speaks this year at CPAC, he might consider telling the crowd, “It’s good to be back. This time, I’m here to stay.”
By GRRR for GPPF
February 28, 2009 9:07 AM | Link to this
Jim, you lost me with “the Georgia Public Policy Foundation, an influential Atlanta-based think tank.” They are the same group that sold out with a flawed analysis supporting letting Georgia Power charge ratepayers a billion dollars in profit on a nuclear plant years before it can even produce static cling. If they think that capitalism works best when you get to earn your profit before you produce your product, they haven’t been doing much thinking in their tank.
By @@
February 28, 2009 9:48 AM | Link to this
Maybe there’s still “HOPE”, Jim.
Americans have grown wiser than they were back during The Great Depression. Back then 41% of the populace, in their panicked state, favored controlling the banks with 42% opposed. Today 76% say “NO!” to the government owning or controlling banks, while 14% say “Yes”.
No doubt that 14% are hysterical democrats or socialists, inCOGnito.
As I’ve mentioned before, I’m not a student of history but since Obama’s “rise” to socialism, I’ve read just about everything I can get my hands on regarding FDR’s “New Deal”. Folsom is correct! FDR’s efforts prolonged the pain. Obama’s will too.
Little known fact — it was an African-American within FDR’s administration, who furthered civil rights through his promotion of The Military Industrial Complex.
Heck! I thought it was all rich white guys that were behind that evil empire.
By heathsayer
February 28, 2009 10:01 AM | Link to this
Any economist and historian worth his or her salt (Ie: not a liberal with an agenda like Robert “Sieg Heil!” Reich) knows that FDR’s government policies expanded the depression well into the late 1930s until WWII broke out in Europe whereupon the US cranked up the military industrial machine. The liberal dhimmicrats like Reich don’t want to admit that.
Here’s a great read on said topic by UCLA, of all places:
FDR’s policies prolonged Depression by 7 years, UCLA economists calculate
By Meg Sullivan 8/10/2004 12:23:12 PM
Two UCLA economists say they have figured out why the Great Depression dragged on for almost 15 years, and they blame a suspect previously thought to be beyond reproach: President Franklin D. Roosevelt.
After scrutinizing Roosevelt’s record for four years, Harold L. Cole and Lee E. Ohanian conclude in a new study that New Deal policies signed into law 71 years ago thwarted economic recovery for seven long years.
“Why the Great Depression lasted so long has always been a great mystery, and because we never really knew the reason, we have always worried whether we would have another 10- to 15-year economic slump,” said Ohanian, vice chair of UCLA’s Department of Economics. “We found that a relapse isn’t likely unless lawmakers gum up a recovery with ill-conceived stimulus policies.”
In an article in the August issue of the Journal of Political Economy, Ohanian and Cole blame specific anti-competition and pro-labor measures that Roosevelt promoted and signed into law June 16, 1933.
“President Roosevelt believed that excessive competition was responsible for the Depression by reducing prices and wages, and by extension reducing employment and demand for goods and services,” said Cole, also a UCLA professor of economics. “So he came up with a recovery package that would be unimaginable today, allowing businesses in every industry to collude without the threat of antitrust prosecution and workers to demand salaries about 25 percent above where they ought to have been, given market forces. The economy was poised for a beautiful recovery, but that recovery was stalled by these misguided policies.”
Using data collected in 1929 by the Conference Board and the Bureau of Labor Statistics, Cole and Ohanian were able to establish average wages and prices across a range of industries just prior to the Depression. By adjusting for annual increases in productivity, they were able to use the 1929 benchmark to figure out what prices and wages would have been during every year of the Depression had Roosevelt’s policies not gone into effect. They then compared those figures with actual prices and wages as reflected in the Conference Board data.
In the three years following the implementation of Roosevelt’s policies, wages in 11 key industries averaged 25 percent higher than they otherwise would have done, the economists calculate. But unemployment was also 25 percent higher than it should have been, given gains in productivity.
Meanwhile, prices across 19 industries averaged 23 percent above where they should have been, given the state of the economy. With goods and services that much harder for consumers to afford, demand stalled and the gross national product floundered at 27 percent below where it otherwise might have been.
“High wages and high prices in an economic slump run contrary to everything we know about market forces in economic downturns,” Ohanian said. “As we’ve seen in the past several years, salaries and prices fall when unemployment is high. By artificially inflating both, the New Deal policies short-circuited the market’s self-correcting forces.”
By Howard
February 28, 2009 10:19 AM | Link to this
Jim…Democrats and Obama want continued angst and misery…that party thrives best when there is chaos and turmoil. They are like the newspapers and electronic media… People voted for this man and his domestic terrorist party called the Democrat Party and they will see within about 15 months how stupid and moronic and naive and gullible and stupid they have been. Of course those adjectives describe about 55% of our population. And don’t forget folks, the enemies abroad haven’t even challenged this left-wing neophyte and his clueless and evil co-horts!! What’s gonna happen with these despicable people in the White House and Capitol when Isarel hits Iran?? Oh, I hope the Jewish folks who have always voted Democrat and voted for Herr Obama get their stomach full of what they have done. Because when the crap hits the fan, Obama will sell out Israel faster than you can sneeze!!!
By heathsayer
February 28, 2009 10:43 AM | Link to this
Actually Howard, some people who voted for The Messiah are already having buyer’s remorse, and in the case of a Senator named Robert Byrd, Democrat, expressing deep concerns of the Obama/Biden/Pelosi/Reid power grab in Washington that is going unchecked. But hey, stupid Americans voted for change and change is what stupid Americans will get. They’ll just drag the rest of us down with them. Perhaps the most ironic thing is that the liberal left, the modern Democrat party constituents, want The Messiah to go even further left. I kind of hope he does, because in 2010 and 2012 there will be a backlash revolt against these fascist goons running Washington. We can only hope not too much long term damage will be done. But let’s hope for a change to the hard radical left. That’s our only hope right now for restoring some sort of SANITY to Washington. Listen to these radical liberal left jackals:
WASHINGTON: A group of liberal bloggers said it is teaming up with organized labor and MoveOn to form a political action committee that will seek to push the Democratic Party farther to the left.
Soliciting donations from their readers, the bloggers said they are planning to recruit liberal candidates for challenges against more centrist Democrats currently in Congress.
The formation of the group marks another step in the evolution of the blogosphere, which has proved effective at motivating party activists to give money and time to political campaigns, especially in local races.
But it also illuminates a deepening wrinkle for President Barack Obama, whose attempt to build a broad governing coalition — often by tempering some of his more liberal previous positions — has already angered some of his supporters on the left.
The new organization is in many ways the liberal equivalent of the Club for Growth, a conservative group that has financed primary challenges against Republicans it deems insufficiently dedicated to tax cuts and small government.
Organizers of the new group, to be called Accountability Now, said their intention is to enable Obama to seek more liberal policies without fear of losing support from the more conservative members of his party serving in Congress. But they did not rule out occasional friction with Obama, as well.
“We’re going to be about targeting incumbents to make space for Obama to be more progressive,” said Glen Greenwald, a liberal blogger with Salon who is part of the effort. “There may be other times when the Democratic Party, as led by Obama, is being unresponsive, so yeah, we have the potential to push back against that, as well.”
By heathsayer
February 28, 2009 10:50 AM | Link to this
Don’t you just KNOW that had this mayor been from a Southern state and not from a greater LA area, this story would have been screaming front page news in the libtard DNC media. I thought all the racism and hate was in the South anyway - at least that’s what the stupid mindless sheeplecrats constantly tell us on this blog:
LOS ALAMITOS, Calif. (AP) — The mayor of a small Southern California city says he will resign after being criticized for sharing an e-mail picture depicting the White House lawn planted with watermelons under the title “No Easter egg hunt this year.”
Los Alamitos Mayor Dean Grose issued a statement Thursday saying he is sorry and will step down as mayor at Monday’s City Council meeting.
Grose came under fire for sending the picture to what he called “a small group of friends.” One of the recipients, a local businesswoman and city volunteer, publicly scolded the mayor for his actions.
Grose says he accepts that the e-mail was in poor taste and has affected his ability to lead the city. Grose said he didn’t mean to offend anyone and claimed he was unaware of the racial stereotype linking black people with eating watermelons.
Located in Orange County, Los Alamitos is a 2 1/4-square-mile city of around 12,000 people.
By heathsayer
February 28, 2009 11:06 AM | Link to this
Obama: “And I believe the nation that invented the automobile cannot walk away from it.”
Perhaps someone should explain to The Messiah that the United States DID NOT INVENT THE AUTOMOBILE. What we did invent, through Henry Ford, is a means of mass production of an automobile through an assembly line. A German with the last name Benz invented the first internal combustion engine powered carriage.
One would think the ‘smartest man in the world’ would have known the difference. Oh, and the lib DNC media sure didn’t call him out on it either. Everyone just sucked up his words like a bong toke without exhaling. Wanna bet had McCain been president and said those words that the liberals at CNN or PMSNBC might have had a few comments if not full investigation into the history of the automobile?
You see, this is why we need the new media now more than ever. They will not do investigative journalism on or about any Democrat in Washington, from The Messiah down to some local yokel US House Representative from B.F. Kansas. What we have today in “news” is nothing but irresponsible reporting and agenda-driven biased opinions. Objective main stream journalism died years ago - it died after the election of 2000 that they perceived as stolen, and helped elect Obama in 2008 as payback. How’s that tingling feeling running up your leg there, Chris Matthews?
By Reality
February 28, 2009 11:59 AM | Link to this
The consumer class creates the demand for good and services, not the bourgeoise class. Put more money into the pockets of the consumer class, and they will increase the demand for goods and services. A tax break for the bourgeoise class does not create an increased demand for goods and services. Some say a tax break for the bourgeoise class will create jobs. Think about this. Will businesses hire people to just stand around if the goods and services they produce are not selling?
By Chris Broe
February 28, 2009 12:27 PM | Link to this
Good job, Mr. Wooten. You had me as laissezzz faire.
Regulation and oversight is key to a healthy economy. Without oversight, due diligence itself loses reliability. We need watch dogs. I nominate Michael Vick to lead the watch dogs enforcing our derivative markets, (where all the dream wealth gets created), and where Wooten finds solace in the muted extent of the collateral damage inflicted by deregulation on American lives.
Prediction: Obama’s spending will add a trillion dollars worth of inflation in real time, in today’s money, and will be itself adjusted for the same inflation it causes and so on , and so on, and so on, until a dollar is worth 6 cents. (WW2 money). Fact.
It is more and more expensive to pretend there’s not a war on terror and just go shopping. Bush even ruined shopping. Can you imagine how Full Peter Principle you’d have to be in real time to even remotely come near accomplishing that?
One thing every American agrees on is that you have to price your life correctly, or you’ll never be happy. Does it really matter that you were right about commodities? Were you? Or is the price of gold today only keeping up with inflation? I’ve watched the market for thirty-five years. There has been growth but we always gamble on the risk that there wont be any growth, and we always lose. There’s growth. Just not pirate growth. We need to arrest our white collar pirates, (WCP), and charge them with stagflation, recession, depression, and throw in about a two percent annual growth rate for good behavior. (or something)
The inflation of debt is the real enemy. Debt is inflationary because so many people get a taste of every debt instrument out there. I like Dean Martin’s economic theory about too many chiefs and not enough indians. That’s the real problem with investments - it creates dreamers - day dream believers, and a homecoming queen. (If Obama is the Anti-Christ, then Palin is the Anti-Magdalene. Nostradomus was right again!)
News Media is spin. It’s impossible to communicate the truth of a news event, because it’s impossible to resist spinning it; we just cant help playing pundit. Notice that you have to spit to say “playing pundit”. It’s as good as, “pledge pin”.
M=Y2K is Dean Martin’s Equation: M (media) = Y2K . Y2K was the best clue of how deluded we all are. Few minds can be objective. What is your mind resisting doing right now? Twitter it, buster. Our thoughts have all been scrambled in selling the smell and not the rose, bud.
And wooten and bookman are the biggest roses of all. Words cannot express the elation I feel knowing Wooten is leaving the AJC, (except for guest troll appearances). Fingernails on chalkboards could not express properly Bookman’s effects on me……oh, if these fingers could type………what I could tell you…….
Here’s what the AJC owners did: They hired a bunch of educated journalists like the current hosts of all the blogs here. The Wooten Blog, and the Woman to Woman/Bookman Blog, to address issues at the matchbook-cover college level, and then expect us to read it, and advance the poorly constructed and false premise via replies to each other on this blog. That’s why it only takes two or three comments (or 3.414 seconds) for a troll to throw a cyber pie. Then every blog becomes a handful of trolls reenacting the 23 take of a filmed pi fight seen in every comedy short during the depression. (It’s all connected, people). . All blogs become useless to anyone else except for that handful of trolls. I couldn’t imagine who the trolls are here, nobody comes to mind, I’m getting nothing…doesn’t ring a bell, Bookman and Wooten?
It’s also not fair that Wooten is allowed to torture us with this Smoot Hawley smut chaw. Look at his last paragraph, you know, the one with the conclusion in it. Wooten goes full cheney. Wooten predicts the certainty of a long deep downturn. Wooten gives us an argument built on Smoot Hawley. He gets a C+ instead of an F because he resisted writing the word Keynesian. (Wooten bet Bookman a dollar that Rush really does hope Obama fails).
If Wooten understood now how to communicate the relevance of Smoot Hawley he’d then know exactly how FDR could have abbreviated the stakes in 1930. Wooten forgets you have to take civics 101 before you take the advanced journalism classes. Americans were redefining themselves after World War One. They had to accept the corporate media blitz during the twenties, no matter how unconstitutional it was. It had been only three generations since slavery, but new words were needed to define America. The national sentiment was, “Okay, we’re not a slave nation. Great. Then what are we? ” The term non-slave state is meaningless if there are no other slave states. That’s called a change in the Zeitgeist, where nobody can form arguments based on an old premise. Thus all conversation and thought is steered away from the old Zeitgeist’s premise. That is, unless there’s no regulated oversight, or oversight of regulations. (Palindromic symmetry there).
Mob Rule. ..Zeitgeist Zorros. ..and Racism propelled us along during the depression. FDR saved this country literally, figuratively, and spiritually……..and It was a damn near thing. A country needs a leader by it’s definition. That’s because a country is people.
Wooten is unaware of the tectonic change that conservatism is finding itself obsolete in. To present the argument in his piece today, Wooten disgraced research because he ignored what the word “America” implied about it’s own citizens in 1930: A country is it’s people. Millennia Mourning Quarterbacking is easy. Looking back at the America of the New Deal, Wooten sees only the muted potential of the collateral damage of laissez faire. Wooten is like George C Scott in Dr. Strangelove estimating the civilian casualties, “50 million tops, depending on the breaks.”
I do agree with Wooten about keeping all of our collective bodily fluids pure, though.
C+
By Dusty
February 28, 2009 12:28 PM | Link to this
Well, Jim Wooten, I’m not sure I can go along with today’s column. Soon we will have torn down all the heroes of the past. George Washington will turn out to have supported the King of England and Lincoln spied on the Underground Railroad.
How well we solve problems in retrospect! FDR’s “cure” may have shortened a recession to five or made it last ten years. I don’t know. But historians do. So we will let them have their rear view assessments so they will have something to do. But.. Those same “sluggards” who took government jobs, later went to war and saved the country. Hooray for them!
Presently, Obama has better legs than Roosevelt but follows in the same footsteps. Handouts for happiness! Give ‘em jobs, homes, food, healthcare, great schools and whistle while they work. Happy Americans, slug-a-bug with their security government blanket. They won’t even notice they have turned into a socialized society of dependency. Thinking is such a bother! Hand all problems to the smooth talkers and the soothsayers. ZZZZZZ
Note to RedNeck Convert: Yep, I mailed my LOVELY road race design yesterday. Rembrandt would be jealous! However, there were no needle drawings (but you made me laugh). Now I might have sketched a microscope with which I am more familiar (but I didn’t). If I examined your “gray matter” under a microscope with a serious search, there is a SLIGHT possibility that I might be able to find a cell or two. But PBR is pretty tough on brain cells. You know that too well.
En garde, mon ami!
By BS counter
February 28, 2009 12:30 PM | Link to this
“Some say a tax break for the bourgeoise class will create jobs. Think about this. Will businesses hire people to just stand around if the goods and services they produce are not selling?”
Think about this: 75% of new jobs in this nation are created by private venture business owners, via LLCs and whatnot. Many of those who created said 80% of new jobs fall right into the cross hairs of Obama’s tax hike. What incentive will the job creators have with an increased tax liability?
But let’s not parlay the facts here for some feel good Marxist lib propaganda. The “consumer class” pays about 37% of all income tax revenue by individuals..assuming the definition of “consumer class” is the ubiquitous middle class (those that earn between $30k and $100k) that success hating callous libs constantly wet their beds over and get a runny nose over. The “bourgeoise” [sic] class, or those reviled rich who earn more than $100k, pay 60%. Those who make below $30k, the lower class and poor, pay just 3%.
What I’d like to know is how consumers will spend with money in their pockets if they don’t have freaking JOBS to begin with. Can’t wait to see how it works out for America you mindless Obamabots.
By BS counter
February 28, 2009 12:36 PM | Link to this
From Chris Broe (nice rant btw):
Wooten forgets you have to take civics 101 before you take the advanced journalism classes.
And the idiots who believed that the New York Post chimp cartoon being shot over the simulus bill being written need to learn a bit about Civics 101 as well. The last time I checked, the president doesn’t write any bills at all he just signs them which congress wrote. Those irritating little details, no?
By BS counter
February 28, 2009 12:38 PM | Link to this
From Chris Broe (nice rant btw):
Wooten forgets you have to take civics 101 before you take the advanced journalism classes.
And the idiots who believed that the New York Post chimp cartoon being shot over the stimulus bill being written was racist need to learn a bit about Civics 101 as well. The last time I checked, the president doesn’t write any bills at all; he just signs them which congress wrote. Those irritating little details, no?
By GayGrayGeek
February 28, 2009 12:39 PM | Link to this
Firstly, when everyone’s jobs have been off-shored and outsourced, who is left with an income to buy the things that have been off-shored?
No one. But you RightWingNuts can’t handle that little bit of hard, cold truth.
Secondly, it sounds like Jim and the rest of you RightWingNuts can have your perspectives summed up by The GOP Problem-Solver Website.
If we don’t cut taxes, The Terrorists Win!
By Dusty
February 28, 2009 1:07 PM | Link to this
Obviously, liberal Democrats have not noticed that SOME people are STILL working. Yes, times are hard but the grocery stores still have people working and food to sell. The doctors and the hospitals are still running. The banks in my neighborhood are still working and taking care of money matters. The gasoline pumps are still running at service stations. There are people STILL buying and using these places that people are STILL operating. This country is NOT at a standstill.
The world is NOT lost as you libs want us to believe. We do not need a Super Power pouring debt upon us to cure our ills.
Americans can rally to tough times and they will. There are a sad few that must have help, but the rest of the population will grin and bear it. It isn’t any fun to grin and bear it. But it does strengthen character, something liberals do not understand.
Whine on, libs. But money in the pockets of the people with tax cuts will help more than money in the hands of government. As to libs,”Straighten up and fly right!” Remember that old song? It works.
By Peanut Man
February 28, 2009 1:23 PM | Link to this
Saxby could have helped the Georgia Chicken business but he went with the midwest Ethanol business. Blood is thinker than water or in Saxby’s case money is thicker than Georgia interest,
Pilgrim’s Pride Corp. said Friday it will close a South Georgia poultry plant, eliminating the jobs of all 900 workers.
The layoff was part of broader cost-cutting moves announced by the Pittburg, Texas, based company, which sought bankruptcy protection in December.
The closure of the Douglas, Ga., plant compounds the state’s bleak jobs picture. Georgia’s unemployment rate soared to a record 8.6 percent in January, state officials said earlier in the week. It is projected to go higher amidst a global economic slowdown.
Pilgrim’s Pride said it will close the Douglas plant and two in other states starting in April; the three had 3,000 employees combined. The company said it will incur about $35 million in pre-tax charges but save $110 million of annual costs.
It also plans to nix contracts with 430 independent chicken farmers who supply the birds to those plants, including 140 farmers in Georgia.
By Peanut Man
February 28, 2009 1:25 PM | Link to this
How much money did Saxby Chambliss take from Peanut Corporation of America? What did they get for their money?
By Corey
February 28, 2009 1:37 PM | Link to this
The same mindless yokels who were hoodwinked into going along with the planter class(who owned twenty or more slaves and were exempt from fighting) and visited destruction and chaos on the south for “The Lost Cause” (the rich man’s war fought by the poor) are the same mindless group who time and time again vote against their own best interest. Astounding! I’ll sit back and listen to the hurt dog holler.
By Reality
February 28, 2009 1:59 PM | Link to this
BS counter, arguing a point while resorting to name calling is so juvenile. If it makes you feel better, I’ll get in the gutter with you. Limbaughphile. By the way, I was referring to tax breaks for the consumer class.
By Dusty
February 28, 2009 2:12 PM | Link to this
Corey, honey,
The Civil War is OVER. The South has risen. The Phoenix is flying.
If you want to “listen to a hurt dog holler”, go to California or Michigan. They are the ones knee deep in debt and trouble and crying the poor baby blues.
The country will survive and the South will still be the land of sunshine and smiles. We’ve got enough other folks moving here daily to prove it.
I don’t know what crypt you emerged from but it is time to catch up and wake up. Prejudice is out of style which makes you not fit in here too well. Give happiness a try. You’ll like it.
By Dusty
February 28, 2009 2:26 PM | Link to this
Peanut Man,
Are you trying to say that Chambliss shut down poultry plants all over Georgia ‘cause he likes peanuts better?
Do you own a chicken farm? Are you a liberal who wants to elect a Democrat handout man to take Saxby’s place? Please tell us the true root of your problem. I doubt that Saxby Chambliss wants ANY plant shut down in Georgia. I also doubt that lobbyists were any more influential with Chambliss than they are with other politicians in Washington.
I’m sorry if you are jobless. But I doubt that you are. You sound more like a political organizer than a suffering chicken farmer.
By BS Counter
February 28, 2009 2:49 PM | Link to this
“BS counter, arguing a point while resorting to name calling is so juvenile. If it makes you feel better, I’ll get in the gutter with you. Limbaughphile. By the way, I was referring to tax breaks for the consumer class.”
You pathetic libs can’t not argue without bringing up Rush, can you? And I’ve seen enough NAME CALLING over the last 8 years to warrant a little payback. Deal with it. And you WERE referring to tax breaks for the consumer class. I WAS referring to WHO PAYS THEM. Moron.
By BS Counter
February 28, 2009 3:14 PM | Link to this
“Corey, honey, The Civil War is OVER.”
Dusty, in lib land, the War Between The States will NEVER be over. Anything that they can get their hands on and milk for all its worth is the epitome of liberalism. You have to remember that modern liberalism is born, bred, expanded, and eats upon the capitulation of misery and keeping people dependent on government like a cancer. Do not think for one minute the libs aren’t jumping for joy over the current economic situation. Some of those left wing radicals probably still believe that Alabama and Georgia have active slave plantations. At least, that’s the way the morons regurgitate their thought processes to others.
By Peanut Man
February 28, 2009 3:33 PM | Link to this
Dusty 2:26 PM
Saxby blocked lower price grain for the Georgia Poultry Industry so that the price of corn would stay high helping the midwest corn farmer. Based on the simple facts Saxby & his Ethanol buddies did bankrupt Pilgram’s Pride and eliminate thousands of jobs in Georgia. Saxby did however, vote for the TARP bill after getting $3.3 million from the banking industry saving a bunch of jobs in NYC.
By Peanut Man
February 28, 2009 3:36 PM | Link to this
My family gave up our slaves in December 1864, that’s over 140 years ago. I surely don’t want any of them back.
By The Bucket Lip
February 28, 2009 4:11 PM | Link to this
“Obviously, liberal Democrats have not noticed that SOME people are STILL working.”
That’s right Dusty! When shopping today, I actually had to hunt for a parking space and - get this - stand in line and be waited upon by an employee. I thought everyone was out on the streets and in the soup lines!
By Glenn
February 28, 2009 4:14 PM | Link to this
Hey, that there’s a great lede, Jim. You must’ve saved that one up for a good long one. As we say in East Texas, the hat it’s off to you.
By Glenn
February 28, 2009 4:59 PM | Link to this
That’s one gloriiusly felt column, I’m tellin’ y’all right here, Jim Wooten! Well done.
As for your ridicule, I’d say likewise that the bastids have it coming. They shivved the economy in the neck and when the Economy still kept coming, the chickenfarts took credit it for it.
By Chris Broe
February 28, 2009 5:23 PM | Link to this
China Called. They want Taiwan back.
Irony: Everything has to do with the price of tea in China now.
Coincidence: Jackie O and Michele O
By Glenn
February 28, 2009 5:33 PM | Link to this
That’s one gloriiusly felt column, I’m tellin’ y’all right here, Jim Wooten! Well done.
As for your ridicule, I’d say likewise that the bastids have it coming. They shivved the economy in the neck and when the Economy still kept coming, the chickenfarts took credit it for it. “Lookit wha whe done: whe done made a - E con o my!
By Yankee
February 28, 2009 5:40 PM | Link to this
You CONFEDERATES need to seriously get a life. When will y’all figure out the war ended and “THE SOUTH WILL NOT RISE AGAIN”
By F22 Man
March 1, 2009 8:20 AM | Link to this
The New York Times is after the F22 and Saxby is out playing golf. Redneck Convert can you spare a dime?
“Many crucial details are missing from the military budget released last week by the Obama administration. But the initial signs are encouraging.
U.S. Department of DefenseAfter adjusting for inflation, the basic Pentagon budget will rise by roughly 2 percent to $534 billion, with $130 billion more to pay for the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq (down from this year’s expected $141 billion). The administration also plans to accelerate the expansion of the Army and the Marine Corps and increase pay for service members — both much needed moves.
How much the expansion and pay increases will cost will not be known until the full budget is released in April. What is already clear is that to stay within the $534 billion ceiling, the Pentagon will have to finally face the real world and make cuts in expensive and outdated cold-war weapons systems. President Obama and his advisers have a few more weeks to figure out which weapons to cut. But we are ready now with suggestions.
We would start by killing off the Air Force’s F-22 fighter and the Navy’s DDG-1000 stealth destroyer. We would also scale down the Army’s Future Combat Systems and hold back the deployment of unproven missile defense systems. Those four steps could save well over $10 billion a year. Billions could be saved by halting construction of unnecessary attack submarines, and dropping the Marines’ troubled tilt-rotor Osprey aircraft.
Cutting weapons programs takes political courage — that is why so many have survived so long after their military rationales evaporated. President George W. Bush was not willing to face down industry lobbyists and their carefully cultivated Congressional allies. The F-22 program, backers claim, sustains more than 25,000 jobs in 44 states — jobs that will be fiercely defended in the current economic environment. But cutting unnecessary programs is essential to help pay for more critical defense needs and more cost-effective economic stimulus.
We note that Mr. Obama has not yet delivered on his pledge to shift the war accounts from supplemental spending bills into the annual Pentagon budget. That would allow for more careful Congressional vetting. It might be too much to expect after only five weeks in office, but it must be done next year.
Over the next few weeks, Defense Secretary Robert Gates must assert authority over the Pentagon bureaucracy and push through the major procurement cuts he has long hinted at. Then he must lay down the law to the individual service chiefs that end-run appeals of these cuts to Congress will not be tolerated.”
By ron
March 1, 2009 8:21 AM | Link to this
Good Sunday morning,The Conservative Political Action Conference is over.Rush Limbaugh and Ann Coulter have emerged as the new voices of the Republican Party.Ann,as always, is particularly adept at brushing the hair out of her eyes.The one thing she does well.Rush,on the other hand let loose a bombshell.”Choose the right candidate and you’ll win”,he says.Good thinking,Rush,now go take a pill.
It seems that some of The Republican Party are starting to think that they may have contributed to their own downfall.Bush and Rove may not have been their brightest moments.Gingrich said things to that affect.He also said something that may need to be listened to,namely that to succeed one needs tripartisan support.Republican.Democrat and Independent votes are needed to win an election.Just where this leaves the right wing of the Party isn’t clear.He didn’t specifically address that problem.And problem it is.
The straw poll for the next Presidential candidate was interesting.Romney at 20%,Jindal at 14 %,Ron Paul and Palin tied at 13% and all others trailing,leaving Crist at the end of ten.That’s interesting;three proven losers and a kid.That’s the future hopes of Republicans as they see it.Better hope for an Obama implosion of great magnitude in the next 44 months or it’s gonna be a long,dry,spell.
By Bill Shipp
March 1, 2009 8:23 AM | Link to this
If I were advising the national Republican Party on how to regain its footing, I would begin with a simple statement: “Take the money.”
Several GOP governors, including our own, have indicated they’ll say no to accepting part of the federal stimulus package to get the economy rolling again. To Gov. Sonny Perdue’s credit, his threatened refusal sounds as if he’s trying to please his buddies in the Republican Governors Association. When the time comes to scoop up billions in federal funds, my guess is Perdue will grab every penny. Good for him. It’s our tax money. Why shouldn’t we take some of it back?
However, some GOP governors - mostly those thinking of running for president in three years - have said flatly they will refuse the stimulus money “as a matter of principle.”
What principle is that? The principle that says a political idiot is born every 30 seconds in the United States, and some of them will go on to become Republican governors - if there’s a Republican Party left when they grow up?
For a so-called donor state like Georgia, telling the feds to take their stimulus package and shove it is nuts. Here’s an opportunity to get some of our tax money back to spend on things we need.
Back in the bad old days of the Depression, Georgia received many more federal tax dollars than it paid to Uncle Sam. Most of the Empire State of the South was in desperate straits and needed all the federal cash it could get.
When the post-World War II boom started, Georgia’s economic position changed dramatically. Georgia lost its status as a tax-receiving state. Now, for every $1 we send to Washington in taxes, we get back 96 cents in federal spending.
But I digress. Outside our region, Democrats swamped Republicans in the last election. The GOP figured it could win the presidency again and take some additional congressional seats if the elephants renewed their standard strategy of accusing Democrats of being the tax-and-spend party.
The trouble is, a Republican president and a Republican Congress in six of the last eight years led us into a near-depression. A federal surplus of hundreds of billions of dollars turned into a trillion-dollar federal deficit. Our old adversary, the Chinese Communists, became the biggest holder of our debt. Unemployment in America shot up. Retail businesses collapsed all over the place.
Whether President Barack Obama and his advisers can get the American economic train back on track remains to be seen.
Meantime, the elephants are looking for a new trademark and a different strategy. They obviously plan to hold Obama responsible for every slippage in the economy and hope voters develop amnesia about W.’s disastrous turn at the national helm.
Back at the stimulus pot, Georgia has been awarded $339 million in federal funds to help stop the hemorrhaging of Medicaid. Perdue gladly accepted that nourishment, just as I suspect he will take the additional funds headed our way.
The next time you hear someone say that Georgia needs to just say no to the federal bailout, suggest he or she may be running a fever. That person is obviously sick.
Outside Atlanta, Georgia is spotted with pockets of deep poverty that we hardly ever hear about in the metro region. For example, just a short time ago the Dalton area was the pride and joy of economic developers. The tufted carpet mills were never busier. New housing sprung up everywhere. Dalton became a shining example for everything from model schools to its cutting-edge waterworks.
Then the bubble burst. As of December, the Dalton area had the second highest unemployment rate in the nation at 11.2 percent. A Dalton business leader complains the area has been virtually ignored since the shine of prosperity wore off.
“We have had no meaningful visits or conversations from any member of Congress and not one visit from the current pro-business governor,” the businessman told us, adding that Dalton and environs went 74 percent for John McCain in November.
One can find the Dalton story repeated in every part of the state. Departing businesses and closing military installations have left bleak emptiness in our landscape. Dalton and cities like it need all the help they can get to return to their days of glory and hustle.
And to those hoping for Obama’s failure, remind them that, in the end, we are not Democrats or Republicans as far as this mess is concerned. We are Americans and Georgians, and we need a helping hand to get rolling again.
By Chris Broe
March 1, 2009 9:50 AM | Link to this
Looks like Palin is the face that launched a thousand bill shipps……
By James
March 1, 2009 9:54 AM | Link to this
And the Herefords seemed dreamlike from Stockbidge to Boston…
By James
March 1, 2009 10:05 AM | Link to this
That is a Hellenishly good line, Foreskin. Still, my number’s on you.
Otherwise the whole showy stupid This Is a Democracy rigamamarrole is really just an expensive trastevy.
By Chris Broe
March 1, 2009 10:10 AM | Link to this
…and all this is happening so close to Pi Day, March 14. (3/14). They sell ice cube trays in the shape of Pi for the Pi Day Party. News like that is easy to get Try finding out the terms of the Blackwater Ban in Iraq.
Blackwater was in New Orleans in the wake of Katrina. It was Blackwater who opened fire on evacuees on that Bridge.
Blackwater called. They want their license to kill back.
By Glenn
March 1, 2009 10:37 AM | Link to this
Let them be your Moriarty, then. Who cares? You’re not distinguished by your demons.
By Diogenes
March 1, 2009 10:38 AM | Link to this
Good morning, Jim,
I see that you have chosen to taut Dr. Folsom’s canards against Roosevelt’e economic policies, although you provided you own evidence for not doing so when you stated that Folsom is a “professor at Hillsdale College in Michigan, an institution beloved by conservatives… .” Instead of advising caution against Dr. Folsom’s controversial polemics against Keynesian economics, you swallow them whole in your ongoing efforts to attack the sensible efforts of Mr. Obama. Alas.
By Dusty
March 1, 2009 12:38 PM | Link to this
Well, let’s see on this rainy morning now turning to snow. People kinda scarce at church. Plenty of people in the grocery store. I guess they are getting ready for the snow..plenty of bread and all that stuff.
Now, Ron, I don’t know that we should worry about what you call three proven losers and a kid as prospective GOP leaders. I’m worried about a community organizer (here’s how to get all you can from the government) and smooth snake oil seller who is now printing money for us to spend lavishly. Then he will want it all back in taxes. Oh, yes, he’s also going to cut corners. BUT there are no corners that big that can be cut.
GOP needs a gifted speaker with charisma. That is how Obama got elected. Right now, I would say Palin has the charisma. Maybe Romney but he is too much the upper class. Maybe he can do a little community organizing.
Bill Shipp..Dalton will rise on its own without handouts. North Georgia is independence country.
Diogenes, I don’t believe Jim Wooten has ever “swallowed any controversial polemics” from anybody. He likes sound conservative policies, not what we are getting with “the sensible efforts of Mr. Obama” you mentioned. Perhaps you are a child of hard times which makes you believe in a handout nanny government. I thought we dumped that philosophy with the Boston Tea Party.
America seems headed to dependence again with Democrats pushing it upon us. The GOP represents the people who will fight for freedom from any kind of government domination. Handouts (stimulants) are the first step. Wake up and go hunt for an honest man who is not misguided. You have not found one yet.
Hey, PoFo, a slip of the lip will sink a Bill Ship. Try another good one. He’s a Demo journalist like Bookman only not as poisonous.
Ohh, it is really snowing now. Everything is getting all white. Happy March first!!
By Chris Broe
March 1, 2009 12:43 PM | Link to this
This CItizen’s State of the Union Address:
“My fellow Americans…… happy ash wednesday……
Iraq has banned our mercenaries from Iraq. It’s like we got evicted from the Garden of Eden again, except this time the devil threw us out. Can Blackwater be considered refugees from a war zone and end up in America still organized as a military arm? Are we about to rediscover that the enemy is us, US, us?
I spend most of my waking hours debating the religious consequences of criminal-masterminding a pie into cheney’s fat face someday. If I wasted the rest of my life trying to find the last digit for the number Pi, I certainly can get creme pie into Cheney’s face. I have to pie him before destiny realized his prophesy about an imminent nuke 911……Cheney was doing Ike! Ike warned us about the Cheneys, and Cheney’s now warning us about the MacArthurs!!! AL Queda must have 1000 MacArthurs!! Like McDonald’s franchisees, Al Queda McArthurs are assembling terror. Want spies with that? Cheney must have estimated that, “uh, we’ll get hit with 3.14 nukes, give or take, depending on how you cut the pie…….”
Al Queda, like cockroaches, survived our trillion dollar flea bomb. We went a bridge to nowhere too far. Cheney is directly responsible for the situation we find ourselves in now. What Cheney doesn’t tell you is that the Next 911 will be committed by The Current 911’s. Osama Bin Laden has been raging war against us for half a generation now. Children who managed to survive our demonstration in Afghanistan have now gone full Osama.
Who are the collateral damage Osama will target? Did Osama know those Towers would come down? The buildings’ architect knew they’d collapse as soon as he realized the extent of the fires that were set by the jet fuel. Did Osama figure that? Why hasn’t that been deduced?
Allow me. The theory in 1993 is that the bomb was supposed to knock one Tower against the other and they’d both crumble. Osama had to know those Towers would fall before 911. He had to know that a fire that high up would be impossible to stop, no matter how large the water tank on the Towering Inferno’s roof. So 911 was launched to knock down those Towers. So then, the 911 victims were not collateral damage, but direct casualties of a military action, and thus non-combatant fair game.
Look at yourself. Face this war on terror. Our commander in chief concerning 911 is still Cheney, who’s still anticipating a new offensive campaign against us. Apparently. He said what Bush didn’t dare say. 911 was just a battle. We lost that battle and our counter-offensive failed, and the third battle is coming. Osama is a commander in chief of a sustained war effort. Cheney is our Napoleon. A schlameeleon of a cameleon of a napoleon. (is that phrase a palindrome?)
Cheney couldn’t love this country’s spinmeisters. He’s still angry that Kerry brought up the Lesbian thing in 2004. There’s the coin for the 911 era of the war on terror: The Lesbinski Era. (lewinski, lesbian) This is the actual religious history of the last two administrations, Clinton and Bush, which strangely coincide with the military history of this war with Al Queda. This is in all sense of the word a crusade started by our FIrst Knight, George W Bush. He’s the third commander in chief from the left on the revolutionary chart.
Update on wife’s hospice experience……I’m remembering our wedding. I said “You’ll do” instead of “I do”. No, this is true. My wife and I were such liberal rebels, (oxymoron?), that we got married by a jail’s Justice of the Peace/notary public in downtown Marietta. Only ten feet away stood a line of perfectly charming people waiting to visit the inmates. (conjugal visits, of course. I knew right then I was getting married too soon But it was too late. The Justice of the Peace had taken the ten bucks)
After the 2000 election, I hate justices to pieces as much as I peace-meal love my wife. I really did say “you’ll do”, but my wife said, “I do”, because she’d been married two times before, (imagine picking three wife-beaters out of a poke of men? Of course I was the rope-a-doper so she got in all the good ones).
My wife and I were the Camelot of unrequited adultery. I’ve always believed that the object of life is to go Full Paris and have great sex with the someone you love!
I’ve spent my life thinking that the only possible reason for mankind is to light birthday candles and relive your birth. Some of us can even blow out all the candles in one breath. Think about that breath. That gallant assemblage of potential air pressure we command with such ease. That is my prayer. That is my gasp at my purpose.
If hard work is my purpose, then I’ll paint someones barn. He’ll love me for it, I’ll have an ally and with a trusted ally, two people or more can say a prayer. Then those same people can see ways to improve the lives of other people in their orbit. They can go full Dale Carnegie. Here’s the trap: Don’t do it for yourself. Advance your own financial cause through the success of others. Set it up so that their success becomes your success. Give them success first, (dammit).. Volunteer. Shake some hands. Hug a Mullah. By volunteering you will connect to a network of other volunteers who care about why we are here, too. (Why are we here?)
Find out Charities favored by the lawyers for medical malpractice firms. Those are usually the most Mankind Friendly. Lets all take a good look at all these charities, and oversee the money’s full payment to full victims That is a duty, not of America, but of citizenship itself. There is a duty beyond the obsolete refuges of religion and patriotism, and that duty is Civic.
Civics 101
Three Civics Commandments: You are a citizen of the united states. You will go full citizen with or without a shirt. Vote, jury, volunteer. VJV
and now a prayer….
Full Prayer
Volunteer to observe my birth, Oh Lord, as I volunteer to observe your death.
By Dusty
March 1, 2009 1:02 PM | Link to this
PoFo,
Are you 100% crazy or just crazy in love or crazily trying to tell us sad news? I can’t tell. That last long one was a dreamer.
Go take a run out in the snow. Maybe it will cool you down. If you are very sad, I’m sorry.
By @@
March 1, 2009 1:35 PM | Link to this
I gotta tell ‘ya, PoliFore……your writings often give me pause but most of that time is spent on a visual in my mind’s eye. Allow me to draw…..
It’s like witnessing an object glancing of a flat surface.
A lose marble, perhaps?
Your full prayer can be read two different ways.
‘Tis very clever the way your revelation is shrouded. Is it of Turin or turban?
One never knows.
It’s possible that cathartic cartwheels are your thang!
I’ve stopped wonderin’.
By @@
March 1, 2009 2:28 PM | Link to this
Oops!
(((It’s like witnessing an object glancing of a flat surface)))
Off ^^^ that and “off” this instead…
(((It’s like witnessing an object glancing OFF a flat surface)))
By @@
March 1, 2009 2:31 PM | Link to this
Dusty:
Have you ever noticed how PoliFore disappears for long periods of time? He’s all over the AJC’s blogsites.
I’m thinking he’s on a quest…..”Desperately Seeking Snoozin’”.
By Dusty
March 1, 2009 2:48 PM | Link to this
@@.
It is hard to tell about Pofo. I can’t tell his truth from fiction. I can’t always tell when he changes his ID. I can’t tell how he seems to have a wealth of knowledge and be so muddled. I think he may need some genuine sympathy at times, the way he mentions his wife.
I guess he doesn’t want us to know the answers. I don’t know about a quest unless it might be….he thrives on attention, desperately (as you mentioned). Is there a scientific name for that?
By ron
March 1, 2009 3:36 PM | Link to this
Dear Dusty,Pofo appears to be on a trip today,even while sitting at home in front of his computer.