OT: Elections/Politics thread, part 4

[Brando70]

Teal, I think the TV-time buy could be a stroke of genius by Obama. He'll unload a truckfull of horseshit and the media will cream themselves with comparisons to FDR.

See, you keep bringing up the FDR angle like it's a bad thing. I wants me some New Deal. You get the social safety net, but you also get your unemployed ass down to the WPA to sweep some streets.

[Jackdog]

I won't see an Obama loss as something racial. The fact that he's gone this far shows a lot of progress, and there are enough other issues at play that even if race is one of them, you'd have a hard time proving it. The Jeremiah Wright issue was the only time any white anxiety showed up in this race, and even that didn't stop Obama. Twenty or even ten years ago, that would have sunk any other black candidate.

Pretty timely comment and discussion about the knuckledraggers, given this piece from one of CNN's stories today:

"At a town hall meeting in Waukesha, Wisconsin, angry voters pleaded with McCain to get tougher on Obama.

One voter suggested that McCain bring up the Rev. Jeremiah Wright controversy.

"I am begging you, sir, take it to him," the voter said.

McCain did not specifically address the comment about Wright, Obama's former pastor who came under scrutiny during the primaries after clips of his sermons circulated on the Internet."

http://www.cnn.com/2008/POLITICS/10/09/ ... index.html

The voter that was begging McCain to "Take it too him" is an African American.

Edit: James Harris is the knuckledragger.

[Teal]

I won't see an Obama loss as something racial. The fact that he's gone this far shows a lot of progress, and there are enough other issues at play that even if race is one of them, you'd have a hard time proving it. The Jeremiah Wright issue was the only time any white anxiety showed up in this race, and even that didn't stop Obama. Twenty or even ten years ago, that would have sunk any other black candidate.

Pretty timely comment and discussion about the knuckledraggers, given this piece from one of CNN's stories today:

"At a town hall meeting in Waukesha, Wisconsin, angry voters pleaded with McCain to get tougher on Obama.

One voter suggested that McCain bring up the Rev. Jeremiah Wright controversy.

"I am begging you, sir, take it to him," the voter said.

McCain did not specifically address the comment about Wright, Obama's former pastor who came under scrutiny during the primaries after clips of his sermons circulated on the Internet."

http://www.cnn.com/2008/POLITICS/10/09/ ... index.html

The voter that was begging McCain to "Take it too him" is an African American.

Damn, you beat me to it! Just saw a clip of that exchange, and I almost fell out of my chair-knuckledragger? A really, really well versed man, not a knuckledragger. A fellow black man...that's rich!

[RobVarak]

Teal, I think the TV-time buy could be a stroke of genius by Obama. He'll unload a truckfull of horseshit and the media will cream themselves with comparisons to FDR.

See, you keep bringing up the FDR angle like it's a bad thing. I wants me some New Deal. You get the social safety net, but you also get your unemployed ass down to the WPA to sweep some streets.

And you get the financial crisis exacerbated and extended. FDR's New Deal "getting us out" of the Depression should be categorized with Paul Bunyon and Johnny Appleseed and the rest of the Great American Myths.

I did stock up on pencils at Office Depot today though...just in case.

[XXXIV]

Pretty timely comment and discussion about the knuckledraggers, given this piece from one of CNN's stories today:

"At a town hall meeting in Waukesha, Wisconsin, angry voters pleaded with McCain to get tougher on Obama.

One voter suggested that McCain bring up the Rev. Jeremiah Wright controversy.

"I am begging you, sir, take it to him," the voter said.

McCain did not specifically address the comment about Wright, Obama's former pastor who came under scrutiny during the primaries after clips of his sermons circulated on the Internet."

http://www.cnn.com/2008/POLITICS/10/09/ ... index.html

The voter that was begging McCain to "Take it too him" is an African American.

Damn, you beat me to it! Just saw a clip of that exchange, and I almost fell out of my chair-knuckledragger? A really, really well versed man, not a knuckledragger. A fellow black man...that's rich!

...Something to be said for checking your facts before rushing your propaganda out that door.

[Teal]

The voter that was begging McCain to "Take it too him" is an African American.

Damn, you beat me to it! Just saw a clip of that exchange, and I almost fell out of my chair-knuckledragger? A really, really well versed man, not a knuckledragger. A fellow black man...that's rich!

...Something to be said for checking your facts before rushing your propaganda out that door.

No doubt.

[Jackdog]

Federal judge rules Brunner must check voters in Ohio.

http://blog.dispatch.com/dailybriefing/ ... r_mu.shtml

Also on the racial front.

Democratic Representative Yvette Clarke of New York found a racial subtext in Ms. Palin’s repeated appeals to “Joe Six-Pack” and “hockey moms.”

“Who exactly is Joe Six-Pack and who are these hockey moms? That’s what I’d like to know,” she said. “Is that supposed to be terminology that is of common ground to all Americans? I don’t find that. It leaves a lot of people out.”

[FatPitcher]

Teal, I think the TV-time buy could be a stroke of genius by Obama. He'll unload a truckfull of horseshit and the media will cream themselves with comparisons to FDR.

See, you keep bringing up the FDR angle like it's a bad thing. I wants me some New Deal. You get the social safety net, but you also get your unemployed ass down to the WPA to sweep some streets.

And you get the financial crisis exacerbated and extended. FDR's New Deal "getting us out" of the Depression should be categorized with Paul Bunyon and Johnny Appleseed and the rest of the Great American Myths.

I did stock up on pencils at Office Depot today though...just in case.

http://www.newsroom.ucla.edu/portal/ucl ... elNum=5409

[JRod]

Teal, I think the TV-time buy could be a stroke of genius by Obama. He'll unload a truckfull of horseshit and the media will cream themselves with comparisons to FDR.

See, you keep bringing up the FDR angle like it's a bad thing. I wants me some New Deal. You get the social safety net, but you also get your unemployed ass down to the WPA to sweep some streets.

And you get the financial crisis exacerbated and extended. FDR's New Deal "getting us out" of the Depression should be categorized with Paul Bunyon and Johnny Appleseed and the rest of the Great American Myths.

I did stock up on pencils at Office Depot today though...just in case.

History on one side, Rob Varak on the other.

[XXXIV]

History on one side, Rob Varak on the other.

History?

WWII try.

[Teal]

See, you keep bringing up the FDR angle like it's a bad thing. I wants me some New Deal. You get the social safety net, but you also get your unemployed ass down to the WPA to sweep some streets.

And you get the financial crisis exacerbated and extended. FDR's New Deal "getting us out" of the Depression should be categorized with Paul Bunyon and Johnny Appleseed and the rest of the Great American Myths.

I did stock up on pencils at Office Depot today though...just in case.

Revisionist History on one side, Rob Varak on the other.

Forgot a word there...

[pk500]

History on one side, Rob Varak on the other.

History?

WWII try.

Beat me to it!

Take care,
PK

[RobVarak]

History on one side, Rob Varak on the other.

If you think I came up with that concept on my own you give me far too much credit. It's an idea that's been around for decades, although it's become more widely accepted in the last 5-10 years. It's been argued, maybe not to your satisfaction, but pretty much to mine, that while the FDIC and bank holidays were critical, the extended New Deal programs prolonged the depression and made the recovery weaker than it otherwise would have been.


There's a ton of sholarship on the topic, including a recent paper (the last in a series) by Cole and Ohanian

http://www.minneapolisfed.org/research/QR/QR2311.pdf

http://www.amazon.com/Rethinking-Great- ... 1566634717

http://www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/abs/10.1086/421169

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/de ... alrevol-20

[FatPitcher]

History on one side, Rob Varak on the other.

That's a pretty inflammatory statement coming from someone whose knowledge of history and willingness to learn about it are both highly dubious, as evidenced by your posting history.

I don't think anyone would take you over Rob in a debate about much of anything, to be honest, and your unjustifiably smug attitude is really starting to wear on me.

[JRod]

History on one side, Rob Varak on the other.

History?

WWII try.

Sorry but you are mislead in this.

The New Deal programs were introduce long before WW2 and were mostly over by 1939. The programs continued but not introducing new reforms.

Roosevelt needed to do a few things. He needed banking reforms. He needed to address unemployment. He needed to address the agricultural collapse. And other social policies.

He believed in a bottom up approach and that government could do things the free market couldn't (the Keynesian approach). If the middle class were stronger they would bring forth a stronger economy. He know that just giving people jobs was not enough. He introduced union protection legislation so that workers could be stronger by numbers.

Also we did not have a full blown war machine until 43-44 when we could out produce Germany and Russia.

Is in incorrect that WW2 solely brought us out of the depression. The country believed that isolation could prevent us from entering the war. Churchill tried like mad to bring us into the war earlier.

So Paul, Teal, and 24, you are wrong on this one issue. Call me condescending but you guys are flat out wrong. Now if you want to say WW2 along with the New Deal helped to bring us out of the great depression, you would be right. But WW2 alone did not do it.

[Teal]

History on one side, Rob Varak on the other.

History?

WWII try.

Sorry but you are mislead in this.

The New Deal programs were introduce long before WW2 and were mostly over by 1939. The programs continued but not introducing new reforms.

Roosevelt needed to do a few things. He needed banking reforms. He needed to address unemployment. He needed to address the agricultural collapse. And other social policies.

He believed in a bottom up approach and that government could do things the free market couldn't (the Keynesian approach). If the middle class were stronger they would bring forth a stronger economy. He know that just giving people jobs was not enough. He introduced union protection legislation so that workers could be stronger by numbers.

Also we did not have a full blown war machine until 43-44 when we could out produce Germany and Russia.

Is in incorrect that WW2 solely brought us out of the depression. The country believed that isolation could prevent us from entering the war. Churchill tried like mad to bring us into the war earlier.

So Paul, Teal, and 24, you are wrong on this one issue. Call me condescending but you guys are flat out wrong. Now if you want to say WW2 along with the New Deal helped to bring us out of the great depression, you would be right. But WW2 alone did not do it.

I didn't say anything about WWII-you'll have to take that up with them. All I said is that you are using revisionist history. More to the point, you're seeing history through blue lenses...

[Teal]

It's BAAAAAACK...
http://washingtontimes.com/news/2008/oc ... bush-deal/

And it ain't McCain reporting it...

[JRod]

History on one side, Rob Varak on the other.

If you think I came up with that concept on my own you give me far too much credit. It's an idea that's been around for decades, although it's become more widely accepted in the last 5-10 years. It's been argued, maybe not to your satisfaction, but pretty much to mine, that while the FDIC and bank holidays were critical, the extended New Deal programs prolonged the depression and made the recovery weaker than it otherwise would have been.


There's a ton of sholarship on the topic, including a recent paper (the last in a series) by Cole and Ohanian

http://www.minneapolisfed.org/research/QR/QR2311.pdf

http://www.amazon.com/Rethinking-Great- ... 1566634717

http://www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/abs/10.1086/421169

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/de ... alrevol-20

The new deal, there were two, was much more than just addressing the banking industry. You know that.

Was the depression prolonged by the New Deal. Maybe social scientists will prove it.

But when you COUPLE it with the rapid spending and the industrial machine of WW2, you see that it was the New Deal and WW2 the brought us out of the Great Depression.

Second, the data you list is often cited as a minority view. It is not the majority view of FDR's policy by economists.

But it's misleading to state that is what really happened when a majority of economists and historians do not agree with that view of the New Deal. It may be the leading view in the future, but it's not right now.

I will contend that both the New Deal and WW2 were intertwined. Both needed each other. The policies of the New Deal, along with the massive spending and production of WW2 brought America out of the Great Depression. Without the framework, of the New Deal we might have been in worse shape going into the war.

[JRod]

History?

WWII try.

Sorry but you are mislead in this.

The New Deal programs were introduce long before WW2 and were mostly over by 1939. The programs continued but not introducing new reforms.

Roosevelt needed to do a few things. He needed banking reforms. He needed to address unemployment. He needed to address the agricultural collapse. And other social policies.

He believed in a bottom up approach and that government could do things the free market couldn't (the Keynesian approach). If the middle class were stronger they would bring forth a stronger economy. He know that just giving people jobs was not enough. He introduced union protection legislation so that workers could be stronger by numbers.

Also we did not have a full blown war machine until 43-44 when we could out produce Germany and Russia.

Is in incorrect that WW2 solely brought us out of the depression. The country believed that isolation could prevent us from entering the war. Churchill tried like mad to bring us into the war earlier.

So Paul, Teal, and 24, you are wrong on this one issue. Call me condescending but you guys are flat out wrong. Now if you want to say WW2 along with the New Deal helped to bring us out of the great depression, you would be right. But WW2 alone did not do it.

I didn't say anything about WWII-you'll have to take that up with them. All I said is that you are using revisionist history. More to the point, you're seeing history through blue lenses...

Revisionist history yet you don't know what we were talking about. What the hell else were we talking about?


You just look to insert some off-hand remark whenever you get a chance. Congrats on bring that level of discourse to the debate.

[RobVarak]

Second, the data you list is often cited as a minority view. It is not the majority view of FDR's policy by economists.

But it's misleading to state that is what really happened when a majority of economists and historians do not agree with that view of the New Deal. It may be the leading view in the future, but it's not right now.

First of all I was clarifying that it was clearly not "history vs. me."

As I clearly stated, I find the minority view persuasive. I didn't mean to be misleading, and I think it's unlikely that I was given the conventional wisdom. But history only happened one way and the reality doesn't change with evolving historical interpretation.

I certainly don't minimize WWII's role in assisting with the recovery, but the position of the revisionists on this is that if it weren't for the New Deal, the economy would have been stronger and possibly fully-recovered before the begin of WWII.

Odd that I spent two days arguing with the libertarians about the need for government action in the markets and the last 12 hours arguing that the New Deal did more harm than good. If I had any friends coming into this economic crisis, it seems I'll have less when it's through LOL

[RobVarak]

It's BAAAAAACK...
http://washingtontimes.com/news/2008/oc ... bush-deal/

And it ain't McCain reporting it...

If this is just a re-hash of Tahiri's "reporting" than it's going nowhere. When the story broke I was skeptical that Obama would risk the presidency by doing something so overtly stupid and illegal, and I stand by that.

Unless I see some substantial new evidence, I'm thinking it's the second verse same as the first. Particularly since this is coming from the Washington Times, not exactly the pinnacle of journalistic objectivity. Then again, what is these days?

[FatPitcher]

It's BAAAAAACK...
http://washingtontimes.com/news/2008/oc ... bush-deal/

And it ain't McCain reporting it...

If this is just a re-hash of Tahiri's "reporting" than it's going nowhere. When the story broke I was skeptical that Obama would risk the presidency by doing something so overtly stupid and illegal, and I stand by that.

Unless I see some substantial new evidence, I'm thinking it's the second verse same as the first. Particularly since this is coming from the Washington Times, not exactly the pinnacle of journalistic objectivity. Then again, what is these days?

Seems to be exactly that, a rehash. No new sources, no new relevant information.

[Teal]

Sorry but you are mislead in this.

The New Deal programs were introduce long before WW2 and were mostly over by 1939. The programs continued but not introducing new reforms.

Roosevelt needed to do a few things. He needed banking reforms. He needed to address unemployment. He needed to address the agricultural collapse. And other social policies.

He believed in a bottom up approach and that government could do things the free market couldn't (the Keynesian approach). If the middle class were stronger they would bring forth a stronger economy. He know that just giving people jobs was not enough. He introduced union protection legislation so that workers could be stronger by numbers.

Also we did not have a full blown war machine until 43-44 when we could out produce Germany and Russia.

Is in incorrect that WW2 solely brought us out of the depression. The country believed that isolation could prevent us from entering the war. Churchill tried like mad to bring us into the war earlier.

So Paul, Teal, and 24, you are wrong on this one issue. Call me condescending but you guys are flat out wrong. Now if you want to say WW2 along with the New Deal helped to bring us out of the great depression, you would be right. But WW2 alone did not do it.

I didn't say anything about WWII-you'll have to take that up with them. All I said is that you are using revisionist history. More to the point, you're seeing history through blue lenses...

Revisionist history yet you don't know what we were talking about. What the hell else were we talking about?


You just look to insert some off-hand remark whenever you get a chance. Congrats on bring that level of discourse to the debate.

No, you're looking at the New Deal in a light that is, of course, favorable, because that's how you WANT to see it. 34 and I were likely writing at the same time-I didn't see his post before I wrote about it. But, really, if it makes you feel big and smart, go ahead and think what you want.

I'm trying to be patient here, but your condescending nonsense is pushing it. You can take your last two sentences and ram them right back up from whence they came. You have no cause to use that schoolyard rhetoric with me. This crystal ball thing that you do when you assign motive to everyone in keeping with your opinion of what they're saying vs. what they might ACTUALLY be saying is beneath the level of discourse you speak of. You don't want to debate...you want to demean. Go ahead...I'm not the one that you're making look foolish.

(Jared, if you want to temp ban me for this, fine-it had to be said.)

[Teal]

It's BAAAAAACK...
http://washingtontimes.com/news/2008/oc ... bush-deal/

And it ain't McCain reporting it...

If this is just a re-hash of Tahiri's "reporting" than it's going nowhere. When the story broke I was skeptical that Obama would risk the presidency by doing something so overtly stupid and illegal, and I stand by that.

Unless I see some substantial new evidence, I'm thinking it's the second verse same as the first. Particularly since this is coming from the Washington Times, not exactly the pinnacle of journalistic objectivity. Then again, what is these days?

What are you talking about? Tahiri's name is nowhere to be found here. Barbara Slavin wrote this. And right...name me one objective anything in the media, and I'll eat my hat...

[JRod]

Second, the data you list is often cited as a minority view. It is not the majority view of FDR's policy by economists.

But it's misleading to state that is what really happened when a majority of economists and historians do not agree with that view of the New Deal. It may be the leading view in the future, but it's not right now.

First of all I was clarifying that it was clearly not "history vs. me."

As I clearly stated, I find the minority view persuasive. I didn't mean to be misleading, and I think it's unlikely that I was given the conventional wisdom. But history only happened one way and the reality doesn't change with evolving historical interpretation.

I certainly don't minimize WWII's role in assisting with the recovery, but the position of the revisionists on this is that if it weren't for the New Deal, the economy would have been stronger and possibly fully-recovered before the begin of WWII.

Odd that I spent two days arguing with the libertarians about the need for government action in the markets and the last 12 hours arguing that the New Deal did more harm than good. If I had any friends coming into this economic crisis, it seems I'll have less when it's through LOL

No I know what you were doing with your second post.


I challenge the revisionists view point because their argument is based on faulty causality.

Their claim supported by their evidence, some believe it was cherry picked, that FDR's policy helped to drag on the great depression through 1939 and into WW2.

However to make the claim we would have been stronger would either require nothing to be done. Or some other policies would have made us stronger. This goes beyond their original hypothesis that New Deal policies did not work as intended and actually hampered our economy.

They can say that if FDR let the markets fix themselves and he did not regulate industries in the manner in which he did, they country would have recovered by 1939. But they can't say an alternate new deal would have helped the country more.

That's like arguing the Wright Brothers could have built a better airplane had they used a different design. Playing hindsight history is fun but personally I find it poor science. Let me once again seperate this out from their original claim that FDR's policies did not help the country. That is different from armchair historian.