Locking the cashbox

[Mythsaje]

All ideological differences aside, and all discussions about the morality of the war in Iraq put in the closet for the time being, it's time we started talking about the economic repercussions of this war.

It's bankrupting us. Between it and tax cuts, we're watching the national debt slide into a monolithic sinkhole that our Chinese creditors are probably chuckling over RIGHT NOW.

From the beginning I said this war was a mistake--not only because I didn't believe Saddam had WMDs, but because I knew the cost of a lengthy occupation would be terrible to bear, not only in terms of human suffering, but also economically.

The Republicans USED to be the party of fiscal responsibility, but now it seems they're having fun throwing a big party for their corporate friends, with war profiteering the greatest giveway to the wealthy this country has ever seen. The rich are getting richer, the poor are getting poorer, and China is buying up our debt like a broken-nosed bookie trying to get his hooks into a mayoral candidate with a gambling problem.

The RWers can throw all the "partisan" shrieks out they want to, but the fact of the matter remains, their hero, G.W. is so fiscally irresponsible that the only way out of this for us will be to turn the country back over to the Democrats and hope to whatever God you believe in that the sort of fiscal sensibilities that marked the Clinton years become the dominant mindset for the next few decades.

Or else we are seriously screwed as a nation.

[Warren DeMontague]

1. I thought it was "Rock The Casbah"

Silly me, all these years I've been hearing it wrong.

[Mythsaje]

2. Ummm...

:rofl:

:toast:

Thanks...I needed that.

[Warren DeMontague]

14. By the way...

you're totally right. Of course, it all fits in with the "Up is down, black is white, lies are truth" Modus Operandi of the Republican Party.

Of course Bush is destroying the economy and raiding the treasury for the benefit of his Texas oil pals and cronies.. Our "Fiscally Responsible", "MBA President" is running the country, as he promised- like a business... With the Enron model, or maybe the Corleone Family model, being the definition of "a business".

Unfortunately, his fucking glassy-eyed supporters will either hear none of it, or they don't care.. To them, he's Jesus 2.0-- he's "smitin' and fightin' evil"... which is supposed to be the spooky bad nebulous islamofascist terror network, at least the elements of it that aren't financed by his buddies in the Family Saud, but you know in reality the "evil" he's fightin' is US- supporters of separation of church and state, people who still believe in the constitution, bill of rights, and legitimate elections, people who don't go ape-shit over the idea of the gay couple down the street getting married, folks who think "freedom" means the freedom of individuals to control their own bodies as opposed to, say, the freedom of corporations to pump poison into the air, ground and water with no governmental oversight whatsoever...

And they LOVE him for it, so much so that they don't care that the country is going into hock, they have no health insurance, and their jobs have been shipped to India.

All you need to look at is this graph to understand which party is "fiscally responsible"...



Unfortunately, if all it took was being right and having the truth on our side, we would have won long ago.

Anyway, I didn't want you to think I was being flip, or didn't consider what you had to say.. the "Rock the Casbah" thing was just what popped into my head.


Edit: One small disagreement with what you wrote- Actually, I don't think the GOP has ever been the party of "fiscal responsibility". That's been their cover for gutting social programs they don't like, but the economic mismanagement record is clear- give them power and they spend our money like it's going out of style; they just spend it on things like wars and covert operations, as opposed to school lunches.

[cascadiance]

11. Hah! I was thinking the exact same thing when looking at the subject line

just now...

Rethugs will probably only hear something like:

"Rock the cashbox, Lock (or a word beginning with "F") the Casbah!"

They want to SPEND it for more wars! Rethugs are BIG SPENDERS! Hear that Rushbo? BIG SPENDERS!

[madeline_con]

13. "Rock The Casbah"

Sheriff don't like it...

[Child_Of_Isis]

3. The national debt will not be an issue

until the Dems get back into office. Then the Republicans will groan about it...loudly. Forgetting that it was a Republican who broke us in the first place.

[Mythsaje]

4. That's okay...

We'll still be around to remind them.

:evilgrin:

[Liberal In Texas]

5. No, this shouldn't be a verboten topic. We are bankrupting our country

with this foolish war.

Not only are we killing and maiming our kids, killing and maiming a population that didn't attack us, we are going to make this country economically impotent for decades.

THIS IS AN IMPORTANT THING TO CONSIDER!

Clinton had us on a pretty good even keel, everything humming along fine, then these pukes decide to F it all up. They've undone a decade of progress with the economy. I'm afraid we won't recover in my LIFETIME.

[Mythsaje]

8. Scary, isn't it?

Back in the late eighties and early nineties some people feared that the Japanese would end up conquering us economically, but the Clinton years pretty much ended that particular fear.

And along came the Neo-cons, with their half-assed privatization schemes, their pro-business stance, their ill-advised war, and their absolute inability to listen to anyone's voice but their own self-chatter and look where we are now.

Not a verbotten topic at all...a very important topic that is just beginning to bubble to the surface.

[kestrel91316]

6. Good luck ever getting the Dems in control again ..........

remember, the dominionists are in control of the voting machines.

[Liberal In Texas]

7. No kidding. n/t

[Mythsaje]

9. They're not everywhere yet

and the mid-terms may go a long way toward turning the tide, at least if things stay pretty much as they are now. Or get worse.

Of course, it would help if more Democrats stood up and gave the voters a clear picture of how they'd go about fixing things, but I guess the campaign season will give them a chance to do so.

Then again, if enough people rise up against the machines and perform an act of civil disobedience by smashing the metal motherfuckers into pieces, that might get the point across too.

Sorry--found myself channeling someone from the Terminator series there.

[Liberal In Texas]

10. Ha...I think it's going to take a 60's style unrest.

What I mean by that is that you are right, people will have to stand up and demand accountability and fair voting. (Andy where are we when we need thee...).

Smashing machines isn't the answer, but petitions and activism might be.

Also, if there are so many people voting in one direction, it'll be hard to "shave" the votes, as they've been doing.

I say that, but look what happened in New Mexico. Almost the entire Native American vote was compromised. It's disgraceful, and not my country.

[Mythsaje]

12. All but the stupidest freepers

are going to catch on if they push it too far. With Bush's approval rating falling through the floor it doesn't reflect well on Republicans in general, and they should know they're going to ALL be scrambling come the mid-terms.

As seats in congress come up for grabs, a lot of congressional Repugs are going to be standing out in the cold far beyond the reach of a voting machine as their constituents express their disgust and dissatisfaction with this administration and its policies.

If it happens like that, the whole voting machine thing will be high on the Democrat's agenda before the next Presidential election.

[Liberal In Texas]

17. We seem to be talking on more than one post...good deal.

I think if they push it too far, it will be obvious. Right now they've been "shaving" the votes. A few thousand here a few million there. disenfranchisement helps as well.

Isn't this interesting how this comes back around to Andy again. We need paper ballots, things that can be traced and verified.

Yes, I hope it's on the Demo agenda. But I doubt it.

[Mythsaje]

18. I know Conyers has been paying attention

and I believe it's come up with Dean as well.

Here's to hoping.

[kestrel91316]

22. But don't you see .................

Conyers and Dean and anybody else can "pay" all the attention they want. They can talk a lot and complain but they cannot DO anything.

[kestrel91316]

21. They won't allow unrest ...................

they will either shoot us all while we protest, or lock us all up for life without trial, as "terrorists". And they can shave as many votes as they want. The media won't pursue it and we will have no legal recourse because they control the entire game.

We are screwed.

[Zorra]

15. Exactly when were the republicans the party of fiscal responsibility?

When republican president Hoover led us into the Great Depression? Nixon's Vietnam? The borrow and spend big deficit Reagan years? And now of course, we have Commander Cuckoobananas, who is spending money our money and resources faster and more frivolously than a billion crackheads.

The idea that the republican party is, or was, the party of fiscal responsibility is absurd corporate induced drivel.

It is simply not true. Republicans should never be trusted with anything, especially not money or people's lives.

[Mythsaje]

19. I should have put quotation marks

or a :sarcasm: smiley after the statement.

I didn't mean it quite the way it looked.

[high density]

16. The number of uninformed poor people who support right-wing economics...

...is really pissing me off at this point. I encounter it all of the time in life and on various online forums (even on typically non-political ones.) They refuse to join the labor union and rail against having to pay minimal fees to the union while enjoying the raises that the union fought for. They rail against raising the minimum wage a few cents even though they're not getting by with pay that's $4-5 an hour above the minimum age. They love to support the disgusting corporatist policy in Iraq "because of 9/11." They hate any sort of welfare because "it's abused so much." Asking them about corporate welfare either gets a dumbfounded look or some sort of bullshit "look at these great $9/hr jobs that they're giving us" comment.

The ignorance is just killing me here. I know that a person's worldviews are going to shade his or her opinions. The thing that scares me is the politicization of cold hard FACTS in this country by the White House, Limbaugh, Fox News, and the like. It's obviously working quite good to make a vast number of uniformed people in this country vote and believe in things that are against their own best economic interest. Of course, that's been going on years, but Bushco is bringing it to a whole new level.

[Mythsaje]

20. Really annoying, isn't it?

Religion really tends to dumb people down...Oh, I don't mean belief or faith, necessarily, but religion, blind obedience to someone else's vision of God, causes WAY more problems that in solves.

IMO