The Strangest Campaign Promise

John Kasich: I’ll reunite Pink Floyd as president:

“And if I’m president, I am going to once and for all try to reunite Pink Floyd to come together and play a couple of songs,” he told CNN host Alisyn Camerota on Tuesday night. “And since we have so much trouble in America with our finances, I’m going to (ask the band to) start with a little song they created called ‘Money.’”

Hey Kasich, don't give me that do goody good bullshit.

But wait, there's more:

Earlier, Kasich called Floyd co-founder Roger Waters a “remarkable artist” and said he didn’t have to think for a second when Camerota asked him to name his favorite concert.

“I saw ‘The Wall’ in Pittsburgh and it was absolutely incredible,” he said.

All of this is very strange. Kasich is a Republican and Waters is a socialist. Without going into details let's just say that the pro-war Kasich is quite different than the anti-war Waters.

It's easy to imagine what Roger Waters might say to John Kasich:

Roger Waters on 'The Wall,' Socialism and His Next Concept Album:

So when someone like Howard Stern... 

Ha!

When he says you want the Jews sent back to concentration camps, how do you feel?

You know, I wouldn't waste a single one of my precious breaths on that asshole, and I just did. That was a waste of breath. Let's move on.

With all that in mind, I'm sure its annoying that everyone asks you about a Pink Floyd reunion that will obviously never happen.
I would refer you to my Howard Stern answer.

Do you mind summarizing that just a bit?
[Screaming] No, I’m not going to! Why don’t you just ask me my favorite fucking color? You know, this can’t get any more dumb than that. Everybody knows the answer. And everybody asks the question again and again! It’s just so dumb. I'm sorry to get testy.

But wait, there's still more:

Let’s talk about Donald Trump. Are you horrified he’s doing so well in the polls?
Yes, its horrifying, of course. It's entirely horrifying. But then, you cannot look at any of those Republican candidates and not be horrified. They are so charged up with wanting to murder everybody in the world. I know I should get into hot water for saying this, but their attitudes are so fascist, all of them, that it's very hard to listen to any of them. Trump is particularly obnoxious. He thinks he’s clever because he made a few bucks and has a crappy TV show. And obviously he's not. He doesn't have a smart bone in his body.

Let's repeat this bit, while remembering that Kasich is one of the Republican candidates: "You cannot look at any of those Republican candidates and not be horrified. They are so charged up with wanting to murder everybody in the world. I know I should get into hot water for saying this, but their attitudes are so fascist, all of them, that it's very hard to listen to any of them." Kasich's campaign promise doesn't look very promising.

But wait, there is also this bit about socialism:

I just think the term "socialist" freaks a lot of people out.
Socialism is a good thing! What is wrong with socialism? You are the only country that I've ever heard of that buses its kids to school in the morning. What is that if not socialist? I am serious! I know nowhere else in the world. Then you go, "What the hell is that about?" "Well, we don't want our kids to walk through dangerous neighborhoods to get to school, so we send a bus to pick them up at their front door and take them home afterwards." And you go, "Wow, great." That is pure socialism, and it is correct.

I know why I like Pink Floyd, "The Wall" and Roger Waters, but I can't for the life of me figure out why John Kasich does.

You can stop waiting now.

I lied:

That should do it, Roger. Thanks for doing this.
You know what you need, don't you?  

What?
Socialism!

Feel the Bern...

Rand Paul Is Full Of It

Rand Paul Warns Sanders Presidency Could Lead To 'Mass Genocide':

Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., joined South Carolina radio host Vince Coakley yesterday to discuss the first Democratic presidential debate, where he said the candidates were “all trying to outdo each other in their disdain for the economic system of capitalism that made us great.”

The Republican presidential candidate linked Sen. Bernie Sanders, a self-proclaimed democratic socialist in the mold of Northern European countries, to the murderous communist regimes of Stalin, Mao and Pol Pot, saying that “most of the times when socialism has been tried” there “has been mass genocide of people or any of those who object to it.”

The "economic system of capitalism" has given us the 1%. Bernie Sanders is simply saying that the remaining 99% deserve a little bit of America's "greatness" as well.

Many countries have existed with varying degrees of democratic socialism: Scandinavian countries, France, Germany, Poland, Canada, Bolivia, Greece, etc. Are these countries rampant with mass genocide?

Many people have associated themselves with democratic socialism: Helen Keller, Nelson Mandela, Eugene V. Debs, Russel Brand, Bertrand Russell, John Dewey, Erich Fromm, Howard Zinn, George Orwell, Martin Luther King Jr., Barbara Ehrenreich, Christopher Hitchens, etc. Are these people mass murderers?

Bernie Sanders first started representing the people of Vermont in 1981, first as the mayor of Burlington. How much mass genocide has occurred in Vermont since then?

6 questions about socialism you were too embarrassed to ask:

The good news is that neither Sanders nor European social democratic parties favor the creation of a Soviet-style economy or a Soviet-style political system. There are plenty of other models of socialist society, some of which have worked in practice, and many of which have never been tried.

In particular, the Nordic social democracies that Sanders praises are demonstrably economic success stories. One could fairly argue that these societies have successfully ended, or at least drastically curtailed, the worst excesses of capitalism. In 2012, the relative poverty rate — the share of the population living on less than half the median income — was only 9 percent in Sweden and 5.4 percent in Denmark. In the US, by contrast, it was 17.9 percent. Infant mortality in Finland is roughly half that in the US, largely because poor Finns get better health care than poor Americans.

Implying that Bernie Sanders wants mass genocide makes Rand Paul a very bad man.

Fascinating

Fascinating, as Mr. Spock so often said on Star Trek. I am fascinated by the fact that two people can look at one thing and come to totally opposite conclusions of what that thing is. I suppose that is why the stock market bounces around so much. But I digress.

Yesterday I wrote about seeing Tom Brokaw on the Today Show. Today I added an update to what I wrote. While googling around the web for information on this subject I found someone who had copied the entire Washington Times article that I linked to in my update. What fascinates me are the comments left at this site.

Here is the first one:

Hell. I never watch any of these Red Star Hammer and Sickle Socialist Propoganda channels and the bubling old left wing incompitents who dispence the Marxist Leninist party mantra to the brain dead masses who beleive this Neocomm vomit!

These people could disembowel each other on the set of the state run nightly News and, other than watching and saying, Sick, Cool, I would say,"Good riddence, to the agents of Communism that have come here to Eff up our great nation and it's proud people!"

Our Revolution needs to be as much against this Ministry of Obama propoganda as the Marxist's and their tratiorous Anti-American pro Socialist poison that they spew on a hourly and minute by minute basis!

First of all, is it at all possible to ignore the many misspelled words? I am the first to admit that I am a rather poor speller, but in this day and age of spell checkers there is no excuse, other than neglect and lack of attention to detail, for poor spelling. Perhaps that neglect and lack of attention carries over into how this commenter processes facts and information. How else does one explain his conclusion that we have a left wing bias in the media, and that Obama is a marxist and a socialist? Has this person been living under a rock for the last eight years? The criticism of the Bush administration has been marginal, at best. If the media had been doing its job, we would not be in Iraq, Bush would never have been reelected, and he (and Cheney) would have been impeached years ago.

One thing that scares me is that this commenter is not alone in how he thinks. A quick surf around the web turns up many others that share his belief that the commies are taking over.

I actually agree with the commenter that most of the media does produce propaganda for “the brain dead masses.” However, I strongly disagree that this propaganda is socialist and/or state controlled. The propaganda is capitalist propaganda, and it is corporate controlled. The corporations control the state through the many lobbyists that they also control. Follow the money. Why is the government bailing out the financial industry and the auto industry? Do a little research and find out how much money these industries have contributed to lobbyists and politicians (of both parties) over the years. The politicians do what the corporations want them to do. If the United States ever falls, it will most likely be because of capitalism run amok. (Believe it or not, I actually have nothing against capitalism. It does however need some regulation. Absolute power corrupts absolutely, and all that. Regulation does not equal communism. We have always regulated capitalism, we have never been a communist country.)

Most U.S. politicians (including Obama, and the Clintons) are centrists. They only lean a little bit to the left or right, if at all. George W. Bush is an exception. He is an extreme right-wing radical. Fat lot of good his extreme policies did for us. I would have preferred a true conservative in the White House rather than Bush. Of course my true preference would be for a true progressive/atheist in the White House, but that just ain’t gonna happen. The liberal/progressive agenda is almost invisible on the political landscape. There is Russ Feingold and… Well, nobody else. They wouldn’t let Ralph Nader debate when he was running for president way back when. Hell, they wouldn’t even let him attend the debate as an audience member.

Believe what you will, but there is no way that you can convince me that the liberal/progressive agenda, or the socialists, or communists, or Marxists have actual power in the United States.

I am trying to picture Tim Russert, David Gregory, Tom Brokaw, Katie Couric and Matt Lauer as communists. Kind of hard to do.

Now I am trying to picture Bill O’Reilly, Sean Hannity, Ann Coulter, and Rush Limbaugh as communists. Even harder to do.

None of them share their wealth and property like a good communist/socialist ought to.

Now I’m picturing all of them as capitalists. Hmm, very easy to do.

And just who is it that started spreading the “news” that Obama is a no good commie, socialist, marxist, Anti-American, Non-American? Why, it was the no good commie, socialist, marxist, Anti-American, Non-American media. Now, why would they do that?

Fascinating.

Is Bush Actually A Socialist?

Is George W. Bush a socialist? Is George W. Bush a fascist? Did George W. Bush purposely destroy the United States economy so that the government would have to nationalize everything? What does it mean to nationalize a bank?

From The Financial Crisis: Will the U.S. Nationalize the Banks? by Dan La Botz:

The economy is already in a recession. Whatever the ultimate bailout plan, the financial situation could well continue to unravel, curtail credit, and shrink the broader economy, leading to a deep recession or depression. The U.S. Congress, both Democrats and Republicans, might then be forced -- despite their deep aversion to any form of government ownership -- to not only bail out the banks but to buy them. The increasingly popular sentiment that the bankers should be made to pay for the crisis opens the door to the notion of nationalization of the banks. What would it mean to have the government own the banks?

Historically the Populists, various labor parties, and the Socialist and Communist left have raised the slogan of nationalization of the banks as part of a process of bringing about socialism. Their argument has been that if the banks were owned by the government, and the government were controlled by the people, we could democratically plan an economy to meet the needs of all. Nationalization of the banks would form part of a plan of socialization of the economy -- banks and corporations, mines and factories, airlines and railroads -- brought under the control of a combination of citizens, workers, and consumers. We would put our children, the elderly and the infirm first, and organize the economy to provide jobs, housing, health care, education, and retirement benefits for all. Bank nationalizations in reality, however, have usually just been a stage in the boom-bust cycles of modern economies, a period when the state lends its strength to finance to see it through hard times, and once finance has recuperated, the state returns it to its private owners so they can continue to reap the benefits of wealth plus interest.

Read more here.

From U.S. is getting a socialist economy by Gwynne Dyer:

After Comrade George W. Bush nationalized the two giants of the U.S. mortgage market, Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae, earlier this month, Anatole Kaletsky wrote in the Times of London that "the most capitalist administration ever, in the world's most capitalist country, (has) decided to wipe out the private owners of its biggest and most important financial companies and replace them with state-appointed bureaucrats."

Wikipedia defines "nationalization" as "the act of taking an industry or assets into the public ownership of a national government. It is a central theme of certain brands of estate socialist' policy that the means of production, distribution and exchange, should be owned by the state ... Nationalization may occur with or without compensation to the former owners. If it takes place without compensation it is a case of expropriation."

Read the rest here.

From Yet another wignut pundit claims Bush is a “socialist” by Paul:

Since we socialists can’t seem to agree on even the colour of shit, there are about as many different interpretations of socialism as there are socialists. But the one thing that we have in common (along with some anarchists such as Noam Chomsky) is that we believe that the state can (and should) be used for a time to curtail the power of capitalists, to remove them from their position of ridiculous power and to redress the gross imbalance in wealth that they have accumulated for themselves while 18 million people (3 times 9/11) die globally every year due to poverty.

Fascists on the other hand believe in using the power of the state to preserve and enhance the power of capitalists (see, for instance, the collusion between Nazi Germany and the infamous Krupp family or Mussolini’s Corporatist régime) at the expense of workers.

I know, I know, it’s hard. They both deal with the state AND capitalists! It’s so confusing. But here’s an easy mnemonic device to help remember the difference between the two for next time.

Saying that Bush’s fascist move this week is actually the same thing as “socialism” just because it involves the state and capitalists is a bit like saying that cancer-causing cigarettes are the same thing as chemotherapy because they both involve cancer and its spread.

Are there wignuts out there, or is that just a spelling error? Paul definitely thinks outside of the box. I’m not sure that I agree with him, but I find what he has written about the financial crisis to be interesting. What do you think? Is all of this socialism or fascism? Or neither?

Paul has a link to this video. I assume the wignut/wingnut pundit he refers to is Andrew Sullivan:


Both Sullivan and Naomi Klein bring up some good points. One thing that bothers me about Sullivan’s point about personal responsibility is his denial of outside pressure. The advertising business is based on outside pressure. It wouldn’t be as large of an industry as it is if outside pressure didn’t work. People were inundated with outside pressure to use credit for all kinds of things. And after all the problems that going into too much debt have caused for all of us, the outside pressure still continues. My home loan is with Countrywide. Nearly every month I receive a letter telling me how much available home equity I have, and asking me if I am interested in refinancing. I just received another one the other day.

From Bush Embraces Obama’s Socialism by Cliff Kincaid:

The point was that Obama is a socialist. Biden called the accusation “ridiculous.”

The problem for the Republican ticket of John McCain and Sarah Palin is that their fellow Republican, President George W. Bush, may do more damage to American-style capitalism during his last months in office than Obama could ever do in a four-year term as president.

In short, we already have a socialist president―and his name is Bush.

The irony is that the same socialist process begun by the Republican president, Bush, could be dramatically expanded under a Democratic President, Obama. This time, the “bailouts” and “rescues” will be global in nature and used to benefit the rest of the world, using U.S. tax dollars.

The inevitable result will be global government financed by global taxes. The last time this was tried in America was when King George attempted to impose taxes on what became the founders of the greatest country in human history, the United States of America.

The cry of “no taxation without representation” led to a revolution.

I find all of this to be very interesting, but it does make my head hurt.

I plead ignorance. I really don’t know what the solution is to the financial crisis. What scares me is that either the people in charge of fixing things know as much, or less, than I do. Or they know what they’re doing, and the only people that will benefit from their solutions are the rich and powerful. Either way, the word “screwed” comes to mind.

I also plead confusion. Is George W. Bush a radical right-wing nut (my definition) or is he, as described by Andrew Sullivan) a left-wing socialist?

Maybe he is simply an immoral, fascist asshole.

Update:
But wait, there’s more! It appears that perhaps “the people in charge of fixing things know as much, or less, than I do.”