much wind would leave their sails if we didn't have an occupying army trying to stabilize their region so that we could pump oil out of their ground.
I do not portend to be a well read historian; but I don't EVER recall a major Muslim uprising against the west when the west was NOT having anything to do with them. The major quagmire with Iraq presently is that they can't get along with themselves. Wasn't it the imperialistic/evangelistic impetus of the Christian Crusades that got those un-evolved camel jockeys pissed off originally?
IMO the entire western civilized world should pull every bit of infrastructure out of the mid east and just let em’ bow to Mecca and live in dirt huts like they seem to want to. Then if "they" decide to move or interfere with the west we have every justification to nuke em' all the way to Allah.

we need leaders who (1) have brains, and (2) aren't committed to hiding them, and (3) use them for the nation, not their own personal mercenary benefit.

Why the fuck are we surprised that this crew is lining their own pockets while personally avoiding the dirty work?   That's what they've ALWAYS done.

If you want to win a war, you do NOT lead by walking into an ambush.  DUH!!!   "Quagmire" is Cheney's description, and his rationalization is that after 9/11, we need to look for quagmires and jump in.

Regardless of any other interpretation, there can be no question that the Iraqi war has been incompetently managed.  After 4 years dicking around with handfuls of ragheads, we're still asking what the fuck we're doing, and getting "I don't know" for answers.

WHAT THE FUCK!!!!!   IMPEACH NOTHING!!!  WHY AREN'T THESE FUCKERS IN PRISON?!

Empires fall of their own weight.  We have become so successful that we manage to protect our dumb & dumbest, and now they have taken over and shot us in both feet.   Fuck us.

hampered by too many laws that protect terrorists.  These Jihadists simply do not follow the law of man i.e. constitution, Bill of Rights, they simply do not care. These Jihadists will use these freedoms, to harm us.

If you release them they will not give up until we are dead. It does not matter if we lock up these Jihadists for thirty years they will return to harm us.

-- Modified on 9/13/2007 11:06:46 PM

1) Indicated by your language, you haven't thought about this. Isn't it odd to you that you start by calling Kucinich disingenuous and end by calling him intellectually honest? Is it that you think a liberal is honest when dishonest? Goes to show there's no way liberalism can win with you. The game is fixed.

It's neither disingenuous nor a cliche. The word "disingenuous" here is a cliche used incessantly for a decade by Rush Limbaugh. If anything, it could be the very opposite: ingenuous, which is worse. You don't seem to realize that the rank and file, if not the mainstream politicians, are utterly serious about this.

Bush talks about bringing democracy to Iraq. Since you know it's really oil, isn't he either being naive or disingenuous? He has allowed a very immoral and cynical policy, which you assent to: Oil first, and BTW, bring stability and democracy to Iraq. Morally, that's a revision of the white man's burden. Get resources, make a profit, and make the excuse that you're civilizing savages.
Can you or do you even note how immoral this is?

Our other goals: Keep Iraq from being a safe haven for al Qaida. No need to have troops over there for this. Iraq isn't safe for anyone. Iraq shows that even the strongest militia isn't proof against a IED. There are much friendlier countries to train in. For containing Iranian influence: Iran sees it exactly the way we do. Fight us over in Iraq so they don't have to fight us in Iran. Iran also sees us, rightfully as being neutralized and bogged down in Iraq.  

For restoring our respect throughout the world: forget it totally if the world sees that we're there for the oil justified by the White Man's Burden. In other words, if we fail we fail if we succeed we fail.

2) On healthcare: you're basing all of this on a dogma that the market always works best in all circumstances, and all other arguments are ad hoc.

Your statement that it only works if the government pays premiums to the insurance companies is puzzling. How did you come up with that? You're saying government intervention works best when it filters money to corporations. You are going to deny now that this is what you are saying, but it seems rather explicit.

You make the point that the government rationing health care is a very bad thing. It's very bad if it is done too much, but I would say right now 45 million people without health coverage is a lot of rationing already. (And even if it's half that number, it's still lot. I notice how conservatives have again create their separate facts.) Insurance companies seem to ration quite freely, and that's part of the complaint. I'm insured and, hell, I feel rationed. It takes me a month to see a specialist. Hence you have the people who are very rationed, the many people who are rationed, and also the very wealthy, who aren't rationed.

There are a few points about rationing that should be made. People don't tend to "self-ration" health care.  In other words, most everybody has aches and pains. If there are no major problems, people tend to then relieve every minor problem. Hence, in a free system, you have people going in for athletes' foot or because a mole looks just a little funny. This is something you have to contend with when the system becomes free. You might set up a point system for these problems.

As for competition, you could put it in there through a system of bonuses say on the number of successful procedures without complication and keep books on doctors for a for "consumers" to study. You could give bonuses to, say, radiology labs for efficiency and thoroughness and rate them for it. You could put a clause in for "supplemental funding." You could make education of doctors low cost or free to encourage competition there.

Why would the government cut down on choice if all doctors are under the same system? As long as there are enough doctors trained. Why couldn't you go to one of your choice?

If you ask me, Kucinich's numbers on the cost may be realistic. The US already spends more per person on health care with poorer results than any other country. But even if you are right about $2 trillion you're not looking at the other side of the balance sheet. An economy only runs on the vigor, health and energy of its people, which are also directly proportional to another intangible factor: brain power. By comparison, it doesn't matter now in world trade how much resources we have.  We have a country in declining health. That, along with education, is going to be a drag on the economy. I think it may be greater than $2 trillion worth of economic friction, easily.

Besides, it was government intervention that created our health care system and made it viable. It's insurance system is not free market, nor is it especially loaded with competition. Before it did, in the early eighties, I had a friend who went into the hospital with abdominal pain. He was insured, they examined him and put him in the hospital for five days giving him no treatment. He had to complain even to get them to do something. The hospital was raking in as much as they could on the insurance. In contrast, the uninsured were being turned away or dumped to public hospitals. The the government "fixed" it. The problem is the system the government has created is half-assed.

Even the Economist magazine, a pretty rigid champion of free enterprise, points out that the American health care system lacks competition at all levels, from doctors, to hospitals, to insurance companies, to the drug companies, and how it has inefficiencies shot all through it.

3) NAFTA: regional trade treaties are terrible things in general, creating hostile competitions outside and economic displacement and resentments inside. What you need is a wider pool for more benefits and fewer drawbacks. What we really needed was GATT, and unfortunately, it has all but been killed, to the detriment of the poorest in the world. I agree we should dump NAFTA and instead work on GATT.

4) Your theory about relinquishing your freedoms without giving up your rights is pure doublespeak. I'm not encouraged about the Patriot Act when I read this from a supporter. Nor am I encouraged that the War on Terror is meant to be a perpetual operation. This makes the Patriot Act only the initial attack on rights and freedoms. It even has a "Goldstein" in Osama bin Laden. I don't like the indications here. And the opposition has already been accused of supporting Osama. I remember that conservatives here said in all seriousness that liberals and Islamic Terrorists were in cahoots. That's one of the things that made me consider Canada.

As I said, Bush is hardly a Nazi, but he's ignorant enough that he's put all the necessary pieces into place for someone who is a latent dictator. He's even tested it with Guantanamo and the Jose Pedilla case. What more has to be done?

-- Modified on 9/14/2007 6:26:34 PM

"His support the troops mantra is actually his most disingenuous cliché... Sounds simplistic, BECAUSE IT IS, at least until...  ENERGY is solved, WE NEED KEEP THE OIL FLOWING ! ! ! Leave Iraq in the terrible mess it would be and pretty soon the rest of Arabia's gone and the oil stops."

You've clarified this to say that Kucinich is dishonest on this point. I don't find that very likely. I doubt that he wants the US legacy to be inducing terrible disorder into the Middle East, nor does he want to oil to totally stop flowing. Let's say for a moment he believes what he says. Every solution to Iraq is theoretical right now, but the theory goes that withdrawing will bring the Sunnis to the table with the Shia. What we're doing right now is protecting the Sunnis and keeping them from negotiating.

Iraq, though, is finished as a country, I'm afraid. There's no way the Kurds are going to rejoin it. It's illegal in Kurdistan to fly the Iraqi flag, did you know that? If we want oil, we'd station troops in Kurdistan along the border with Turkey and Iran, secure the city of Kirkuk for the Kurds, and recognize their state. At least then we would have friendly state to operate in. It will take far fewer troops and should save a lot of lives.

The problem with this is that it's openly colonial and mercenary, and would be recognized as such immediately.

That's the first bite, more later.  


-- Modified on 9/15/2007 8:48:14 PM

The only point I was trying to make here was: since the objective is to get the oil, you admit this, you should at least see that establishing democracy in Iraq **is not a goal.** If we could get the oil without the democracy, so it goes.  

Now, from that premise, you at least see that George Bush is either being disingenuous when he gives us speeches about spreading democracy in the Middle East, or he's too ingenuous to believe the line he's been given for it. This continues a discussion about Bush, and whether he should be impeached. Even after the fact to take away his sizable pension.

First I have to mention, it's your turn to misunderstand me.  I meant people don't ration IN A GOVERNMENT CONTROLLED SYSTEM. The point system I gave is a matter of controlling cost if we ever have universal insurance.

With controlling prices: the whole point of a universal health care system is to control costs. Period. I had a doctor tell me about how my health insurance company controls his prices. You'd be impressed just by the mere terminology they use just so they can say you're totally covered. What the doctor charges and what they actually pay are two different.  

I'll go from there to say that a lot of costs could be saved in medicine from malpractice insurance. My proposal would be not to do away with "frivolous law suits" like the Republicans. I can limit malpractice costs easily. Just make it so punitive damages can be imposed against the defendant but limit to a flat amount what can be collected by the plaintiff. The rest of the money goes into a general medical fund.

This will keep juries from rewarding based on sympathy, and only as fines.  

"We know it will get worse.  Look at Canada." You keep on repeating that. Sorry, it isn't enough. Talk to the people in Canada, in Britain, in Sweden, in Denmark, in Germany, in Belgium, in the Netherlands, in Finland, and in France among many others. They look at our system in disgust and disdain. It isn't just a matter of national pride, or wanting to suck the government teat, either.

Therefore, to your other points, I'll make a trump point here: if our government can't do health care while every other country in the industrialized world can, it's not because government in general can't do it, it's because OUR government can't do it.

Katrina and Iraq already tell us: our government is a crumbling ruin now. Whether conservative theory did it is neither here nor there, but conservatism does make the deterioration of our government system bearable, it is an opium, especially when accompanied by tax cuts.

IMO, Americans might be justified in distrusting government only because it's their government.  

Also, IMO, lousy government is affecting your political theory. Probably what you should examine now is whether your experience of government is colored by our government.

     

If we have NAFTA instead of GATT, we might as well dump it. It has all the disadvantages of more barriers and tariffs and few if any of the advantages.

It's very funny. He's exactly the kind of politician Americans say they want. He doesn't compromise his convictions for power.

But when Americans actually see a politician like that, they recoil.  lol.