Science Forums 2

[Buffy]

Originally Posted by Thunderbird

How powerful a factor is hope and optimism in rebuilding an economy ?

Unbelievably powerful. To a certain extent the conservatives have pushed this hard, but their vision is misguidedly paternalistic, Bush' and McCain's "the economy is fundamentally strong" was a perfect example of this sort of "the people have no clue what is good for them, only we Brahmins do, so we should tell them not to worry their little heads about it and keep them from panicking..." This is fundamentally different than the more Jeffersonian point of view that an educated electorate is essential to not only good governmental oversight but also strong and efficient markets.

Originally Posted by Thunderbird

* Will we see a burst of innovation in alternative energy source in the next few years, comparable to the “.com boom” of the 90s ?

Absolutely. If the Congresscritters don't keep doing stupid but popular things like letting the US Auto industry self destruct which will eliminate the potential for the economy to be able to support increased investment, energy/green technology is going to be the US's number one export over the next decade.

Originally Posted by Thunderbird

* How will the international community change under Obama?

It already has. The G20 leaders all ignored Bush and really wanted to meet Obama last week in Washington.... Iran's radicals are now scared to death that Obama's called their bluff and actually will offer to talk to them and they know that if they refuse to actually negotiate, they'll lose all the soft support they've gotten from Europe and Russia....

Originally Posted by Thunderbird

*Is the far right sunk, or will they reemerge in 2012 with a viable candidate and platform ?

This is an interesting issue. One of the things that happened in this election was that it was the more moderate Republicans who lost, while the more extremist one's held on. Typically its the people that are in office that carry the most weight in deciding the direction of the party, and thus its looking like the more extremist wing of the party will hold sway in 2012, unless in 2010 they get thumped because they end up causing the loss of even more seats in congress due to their extremism. These folks are all saying "we lost because we didn't uphold our conservative principles.

The Republican Party is really splitting into three pieces on its way to possible irrelevance as the Whig party of the 21st century:

• Social Conservatives: This segment is led by the fundamentalist religious groups and their panderers. They care only about social issues such as making abortion illegal, teaching creationism Intelligent Design, making America a Christian Nation fighting the War on Christmas, and harassing gays defending marriage. This is the group that thinks that Sarah Palin is too much of a softie because, well, look who *picked* her!
• Neo-cons: These are the folks that drove the Bush administration, led by Cheney, Richard Perle, Paul Wolfowitz, the Kagan Brothers, Bill Kristol,
  Norman Podhoretz, David Addington and of course the Dumbest-F%$^ing-Guy-On-The-Planet. These people are entirely focused on the most bizarre, paranoid, triumphalist view of what a "great nation" should be since at least Stalin (if not further back but I'm trying to avoid Godwin's law here ). What's odd about this group is that their technique for gaining power is alignment with the Social conservatives. They (specifically Bill Kristol) hand-picked Sarah Palin and forced her on McCain because they think she is a social conservative darling, but also an "empty vessel" that they can fill up with their New World Order machinations...
• The Fiscal Conservatives: These are the old libertarian, small-government-is-good-government, Reagan-Bush I Republicans who don't give a rat's tail about social issues unless they somehow hinder business. These folks have been powerless for nearly 20 years now and most of us have left the party for good, and when we try, we get called "apostate." Some interesting folks in this group like Arnold Schwarzeneger (who can't run!), Tim Pawlenty, and Bobby Jindal.

I'm personally convinced that unless the Fiscal conservatives regain power, the Republican party is doomed, but I think a really good thumping in 2010 may turn things around. Who's going to fill the void? The Libertarian Party?

Here are some great examples of what's going on:

Originally Posted by Sarah Palin, on CNN, 11/16/08

Well, I still am concerned about that association with Bill Ayers. And if anybody still wants to talk about it, I will, because this is an unrepentant domestic terrorist who had campaigned to blow up, to destroy our Pentagon and our U.S. Capitol. That's an association that still bothers me, and I think it's still fair to talk about it.

Originally Posted by Ahnold on ABC News, 11/16/08

Remember that so many times there's dialogue about, you know, we have to go back to our core values. What is that? What is core? How far does core go back in history in America, the word core? Does it go back 30 years? Does it go back 50 years? Because we know that Teddy Roosevelt talked about universal health care. So they're off the core for a long time ago already. He has talked about protecting our environment. So they've been off for a long time on that. I mean, let's be honest. Ronald Reagan -- let's go to Eisenhower, for instance. Eisenhower has built the highway system in America and he's poured billions of dollars into infrastructure. Where Republicans today say, well, that's spending. We shouldn't spend. That's not spending. That's investing in the future of America.

So there's a lot of things that they have been off on, if they want to go and talk about the core values. But maybe their definition of core values is maybe different. But I mean, so I think it's all nonsense talk. I think if they just talk about one thing, what do we need now? Now, America needs to be rebuilt, because we haven't really rebuilt America for decades. So we need to rebuild America, fix the bridges, fix the highways, fix the buildings, tunnels and all of those kind of things we need to do. And then we have to go and create great relationships with our partners overseas, with the world, and to build those relationships again. And we have to take care of health care. We have to take care of our environment. And we have to build an energy future. Those are the things that people want right now. And I know in the poll numbers in America -- I mean in California, that's what the people want.

Originally Posted by Rep. Paul Broun (R-GA) to the AP, 11/10/08

It may sound a bit crazy and off base, but the thing is, he's the one who proposed this national security force. I'm just trying to bring attention to the fact that we may — may not, I hope not — but we may have a problem with that type of philosophy of radical socialism or Marxism.

That's exactly what Hitler did in Nazi Germany and it's exactly what the Soviet Union did when he's proposing to have a national security force that's answering to him, that is as strong as the U.S. military, he's showing me signs of being Marxist.

What are the voices of reason? Does anyone ever bother to look in the mirror any more?

Nation, I'm just going to go out on a limb here and say that things are not going well for the Republicans. Two years ago they controlled both the White House and the Congress. Soon they'll be controlling both the Coke machine and the fry station. And then they're asking, how did we fall so fast? Which takes us to tonight's Word...Pity Party,
Buffy