[Peace-discuss] Americans Would Be Worse Off If Obama Were Defeated, WAS: Why we should vote (& much more) against Obama

Mon Oct 29 13:32:49 UTC 2012

Hear! Hear!

On 10/29/12 19:59, David Johnson wrote:
> " economic mess that we are looking at -- he inherited it from the 
> previous government. Although both Democratic and Republican 
> politicians contributed to the $8 trillion housing bubble that caused 
> [http://www.cepr.net/index.php/publications/books/the-end-of-loser-liberalism] 
> the Great Recession, it cannot be blamed primarily on the Democrats "
>
> Obama not only supported the initial bank bailout in the Fall of 2008, 
> holding hands with McCain in solidarity with the Banksters and 
> pressuring members of the Congressional Black Caucus and other dems to 
> change their initial votes against the Bailout, but he also has since 
> given close to 12 - Trillion dollars of OUR public tax dollars to 
> these criminals.
> Speaking of criminals NOT ONE investigation or criminal charge has 
> been directed by Obama's Justice Department and SEC against the 
> Banksters.
> Also don't forget that William Geitner and Larry Summers were / are 
> part of the Obama economic team, persuing the SAME policies as Bush 
> and Bill Clinton.
>
> Speaking of Bill Clinton ( the current unofficial Viceroy of Haiti ) 
> if my memory serves me correctly, he was the one who pushed for and 
> obtained ; NAFTA, The China Trade Preference Treaty, an expansion of 
> GATT, the repeal of the Glass-Stiegel Banking Act, ALL of which has 
> played a significant part in the current economic problem we are in.
> I like Mark WEissbrot's foreign policy analysis, but this statement 
> from him is an over simplification that does NOT addreess the root of 
> the problem which is corporate money controlling both major political 
> parties and of course the dominance of the corporate media, all in 
> effect creating a one-party corporate government with it's official 
> controlled media.
>
> David J.
>
> ----- Original Message ----- From: "Ricky Baldwin" <rbaldwin at seiu73.org>
> To: "Alex Cline" <rev.a.r.cline at gmail.com>
> Cc: <peace-discuss at anti-war.net>
> Sent: Thursday, October 25, 2012 6:03 PM
> Subject: [Peace-discuss] Americans Would Be Worse Off If Obama Were 
> Defeated, WAS: Why we should vote (& much more) against Obama
>
>
> CENTER FOR ECONOMIC AND POLICY RESEARCH
> ________________________________________
>
> Americans Would Be Worse Off If Obama Were Defeated
> [http://www.cepr.net/index.php/op-eds-&-columns/op-eds-&-columns/americans-would-be-worse-off-if-obama-is-defeated] 
>
> By Mark Weisbrot
> ________________________________________
> This article was distributed by McClatchy Tribune Information Services 
> on October 24, 2012 and published by The Sacramento Bee 
> [http://www.sacbee.com/2012/10/25/4937631/obama-is-correcting-the-massive.html]and 
> other newspapers. If anyone wants to reprint it, please let CEPR know, 
> by replying to this message.
> ________________________________________
> It was in the 1980 presidential contest that Ronald Reagan first asked 
> the question, "Are you better off than you were four years ago?" It 
> was a fitting introduction to the Age of Greed – don't think about 
> your fellow citizens or your country or the world, was part of the 
> message – and it ushered in the most massive upward redistribution of 
> income and wealth that America has ever seen. Over the ensuing three 
> decades the United States would become a much more unequal 
> [http://www.cepr.net/index.php/op-eds-&-columns/op-eds-&-columns/minimum-wage-raise-is-the-least-we-can-do-to-civilize-america] 
> society, where the majority of people could no longer aspire to a 
> middle-class existence. The Reagan presidency itself was a disgrace in 
> other respects too, making America infamous in the hemisphere for its 
> sponsorship of genocide 
> [http://www.cepr.net/index.php/op-eds-&-columns/op-eds-&-columns/clintons-apology-to-guatemala-is-a-necessary-first-step/] 
> and torture in Central America 
> [http://files.uniteddiversity.com/More_Books_and_Reports/Noam_Chomsky-Turning_the_Tide 
> _US_intervention_in_Central_America_and_the_Struggle_for_Peace.pdf] 
> [pdf] and dictatorships 
> [http://articles.latimes.com/1987-01-02/local/me-1475_1_human-rights] 
> elsewhere.
>
> Now comes Mitt Romney in the Reagan tradition, hoping to win the 
> presidency on the basis of America's weak economy over the past four 
> years. But there are a number of problems with his argument. First, 
> the obvious: President Obama didn't create the economic mess that we 
> are looking at -- he inherited it from the previous government. 
> Although both Democratic and Republican politicians contributed to the 
> $8 trillion housing bubble that caused 
> [http://www.cepr.net/index.php/publications/books/the-end-of-loser-liberalism] 
> the Great Recession, it cannot be blamed primarily on the Democrats 
> and certainly not on Obama himself.
>
> The question then is whether the Obama Administration has done enough 
> to turn things around in the past four years – and most importantly, 
> whether Romney might do better. I have criticized President Obama for 
> not pursuing a much larger stimulus, as have other economists 
> [http://www.cepr.net/index.php/publications/books/the-end-of-loser-liberalism] 
> such as my colleague Dean Baker, and Nobel laureates Paul Krugman and 
> Joseph Stiglitz. The federal stimulus only replaced about one-fifth of 
> the private spending lost in 2009-2010 due to the bursting of the 
> housing bubble; and half of this stimulus was canceled out by the 
> budget tightening of state and local governments.
> However, the federal stimulus did create an estimated three million 
> jobs 
> [http://www.frbsf.org/publications/economics/papers/2010/wp10-17bk.pdf] [pdf] 
> that would not otherwise have been there. The administration's rescue 
> of the auto industry, also opposed by Romney and his party, probably 
> saved another 1.5 to 2.5 million jobs 
> [http://www.nytimes.com/2012/02/26/opinion/sunday/a-million-jobs.html]. So, 
> if you think that Obama didn't do enough in his first term, you would 
> not want Romney for the next four years, because he and his party were 
> opposed to the measures that actually did save millions of jobs and 
> hundreds of billions of dollars of income for Americans. In fact, the 
> Congressional Republicans cut $100 billion 
> [http://deanbaker.net/books/plunder-and-blunder-the-rise-and-fall-of-the-bubble-economy.htm] 
> out of the federal stimulus package that would have gone to state and 
> local governments so that they would not have pushed so many people 
> into the unemployment lines, including teachers and firefighters.
>
> On the positive side, President Obama's health care reform 
> [http://www.cepr.net/index.php/op-eds-&-columns/op-eds-&-columns/obama-health-care-reform-is-a-step-forward-hopefully-toward-medicare-for-all] 
> – which Mitt Romney wants to repeal – helps tens of millions of 
> Americans. The most important provisions do not kick in until 2014, 
> when some 30 million additional Americans will have health insurance, 
> and people who have pre-existing health problems will not be 
> discriminated against in obtaining insurance. Some of the provisions 
> have already taken effect, for example allowing parents to keep their 
> children on their insurance policies up to age 26.
>
> People might also want to take into account whether they will be 
> better off four years from now if President Obama loses. Perhaps most 
> worrisome are Romney's pledges to cut Social Security 
> [http://www.mittromney.com/issues/social-security], the bedrock 
> program that stands between most of our senior citizens and a life of 
> poverty. He also wants to cut other important government programs in 
> order to raise 
> [http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/ezra-klein/wp/2012/10/22/the-full-transcript-of-the-third-presidential-debate/] 
> military spending by $2 trillion over the next decade – while most of 
> the country is really sick of our involvement in pointless wars. These 
> are not policies that will make Americans better off four years from now.
> ________________________________________
>
> Mark Weisbrot  [http://www.cepr.net/index.php/mark-weisbrot/]is 
> co-director of the Center for Economic and Policy Research, in 
> Washington, D.C He is also president of Just Foreign Policy 
> [http://www.justforeignpolicy.org/].
>
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> ________________________________________
> From: occupycu-bounces at lists.chambana.net 
> [occupycu-bounces at lists.chambana.net] On Behalf Of C. G. Estabrook 
> [cge at shout.net]
> Sent: Thursday, October 25, 2012 2:32 PM
> To: Alex Cline
> Cc: occupycu; peace-discuss at anti-war.net
> Subject: Re: [OccupyCU] Why we should vote (& much more) against Obama
>
> Maybe it comes from the position supporters of the administration have 
> to assume in order not to notice its crimes.
>
> On Oct 25, 2012, at 1:39 AM, Alex Cline <rev.a.r.cline at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> all this covert shilling I've been doing lately is putting my back out
>>
>> On Wed, Oct 24, 2012 at 10:14 PM, ya'aQov <yaaqovz at gmail.com> wrote:
>> Rachel,
>>
>> ocCUpy's list is not moderated; Carl takes full advantage of that for 
>> his exploits; we each can moderate our inboxes by filtering his 
>> eMails to spam/delete; but he keeps coming with new eMail addresses, 
>> he's got the means; he also doesn't work 40 hours a week, and is not 
>> too tired to trick those who do and are too tired to keep creating 
>> filters.
>>
>> Income+health insurance-wise, Carl is not part pf the 47% and can 
>> afford any president; and as Shakespeare said ('Julius Caesar'), Carl 
>> is an honorable man.
>>
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>> _______________________________________________
>> OccupyCU mailing list
>> OccupyCU at lists.chambana.net
>> http://lists.chambana.net/mailman/listinfo/occupycu
>>
>>
>
>
> _______________________________________________
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>
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