[Peace-discuss] Too good to miss

C. G. Estabrook galliher at illinois.edu
Sun Oct 17 10:24:56 CDT 2010


  I hadn't heard about that.  But whatever his personal incapacity, he's been 
vigorous as leader of the Senate in precisely the wrong policies - no withdrawal 
from the Mideast, no expansion of Medicare to all, no take-over of 'troubled' 
banks and companies, no ending of foreclosures, no jobs program, etc., etc.  The 
administration and the Democrats have done everything wrong, and not by 
accident, but because of whom they're working for - that ever-richer elite who 
in fact have profited nicely from this terrible administration.


On 10/17/10 10:02 AM, Rohn Koester wrote:
> > Reid is a career politician, veteran of the stump speech, the extempore 
> oration,
> > not to mention the formal rhetoric of a seasoned Solon. So how come he can
> > barely frame a sentence, or convey a simple thought? [Cockburn]
>
> In March, a couple of days after Reid announced his intention to run for a 
> fifth term, his wife and daughter were almost killed when a semi-truck plowed 
> into their car.
>
> > Date: Sat, 16 Oct 2010 11:17:46 -0500
> > From: galliher at illinois.edu
> > To: peace-discuss at anti-war.net
> > Subject: [Peace-discuss] Too good to miss
> >
> > October 15 - 17, 2010
> > Daughters of the Gipper
> > By ALEXANDER COCKBURN
> >
> > Plump as a boudoir cushion, her dimpled countenance as rosy and excited as 
> those
> > of Watteau’s most gamesome courtesans, Christine O’Donnell established in her
> > debate at the University of Delaware, that she is most certainly qualified to
> > take a seat in the U.S. senate. I reached this conclusion after the Harry 
> Reid /
> > Sharron Angle debate in Las Vegas, where the two are neck and neck in the final
> > run down to November 2. By the measure of the performance of the US Senate
> > Majority leader, O’Donnell would shine in the Upper Chamber like Demosthenes.
> > And next to Tea Partier Sharron Angle, a former state legislator, O’Donnell
> > sounded like Aristotle.
> >
> > Reid is a career politician, veteran of the stump speech, the extempore 
> oration,
> > not to mention the formal rhetoric of a seasoned Solon. So how come he can
> > barely frame a sentence, or convey a simple thought? In his two-minute 
> opener he
> > evoked his childhood in Searchlight, his mom taking in the washing from the
> > brothels. Checking his notes and speaking in the halting tones of one 
> unfamiliar
> > with the English language, he limped through his core credo: "I believe my 
> No. 1
> > job is to create jobs as United States senator."
> >
> > Both Reid and Angle speak as though rejects from the Disney animation shop.
> > “Stiff” is too limber an epithet to toss at them. The brightest bulb on the
> > platform in Vegas PBS was Mitch Fox, host of Nevada Week in Review. Citing
> > Angle’s notorious remark Fox asks, "Do you believe getting jobs is not your 
> job?"
> >
> > Angle: "My job is to create the policies to encourage the private sector to do
> > what they do best, and that is creating jobs."
> >
> > Fox: "So that means 'no'?"
> >
> > Angle nods in agreement.
> >
> > Reid responds. He boasts of ways he's helped bring jobs to Nevada through tax
> > policy -- at McCarran Airport, at Harrah's, where, he said, "We saved 31,000
> > jobs alone. My opponent is against those. My job is to create jobs. ... My
> > opponent is extreme."
> >
> > Angle responds: "Harry Reid, it's not your job to create jobs. It's your job to
> > create confidence to get the private sector to create jobs."
> >
> > This is insanity. We are in Nevada, as dependent on federal dollars as Limbaugh
> > was once on Oxycontin. Nevada, home of the Hoover dam, of the nuclear test
> > sites, of… of…. Vegas is filled with laid-off construction workers utterly
> > dependent on a government check. And Harry can’t muster the strength to 
> ridicule
> > the utter absurdity of Angle denouncing the role of government. Already the
> > audience is groaning and beginning to shuffle out.
> >
> > Mitch Fox again. He quizzes Angle on the fact that before the Republican 
> primary
> > she had referred to the need to "privatize" Social Security. Now she uses the
> > term "personalize," as though the nature of one’s pension is a matter of
> > aesthetic discrimination, like chosing an underarm spray.
> >
> > "Why did you change your position on Social Security?" Fox asked.
> >
> > She said she used the word "personalize" because it described a type of 
> personal
> > retirement account that lawmakers, such as Harry Reid, have.
> >
> > Reid says other nations have tried personalizing retirement accounts with
> > disastrous results. He doesn’t say simply that if the Social Security accounts
> > had been handed to Wall Street, as George Bush had attempted to do back in 
> 2004,
> > anyone opting to withdraw their retirement money from Social Security would by
> > now have starved to death.
> >
> > It’s time for the closing statements. Harry fumbles for his notes. "I am a
> > fighter. I will continue to fight for what I believe is best for the American
> > people"...
>
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