Now, here’s another way to make the next debate interactive: Let’s play Palin Bingo!!
http://gedblog.com/2008/09/29/lets-play-palin-vp-bingo/
Here’s some Fact Checking in advance:
Fact Checking Sarah Palin – from Rolling Stone:
http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/story/23140513/the_truth_about_sarah_palin/
And a cool way to help fact check the debate tonight – npr.org's Vox Politics blog is using Twitter (I get a LOT of my links from the people I follow on there) and getting the Twitterverse to help them fact check:
http://www.npr.org/blogs/politics/2008/10/help_us_factcheck_tonights_deb.html
A couple of one-liners:
Palindrones (n.pl.) A politician's run-on pronouncements, making almost as little sense forward as they would if repeated backward.
Palintology (n.) the study of dinosaur and human co-existence on the 6,000 year old planet earth.
Are we too cruel? Nah...
After watching all these painful “high cringe factor” videos of her clearly being out of her league, it’s easy to start to feel sorry for her, but don’t. She is a savvy politician, a governor of a state, and she knew what she was getting into – or at least she should have known that she didn’t know enough (as evidenced by her saying she didn’t really know what the VP did all day):
Stop the Palin Pity Party!
http://thanksbutnothanks.com/informed/the-sarah-palin-pity-party.shtml
It was nice to see Clinton out actually campaigning for Obama, and telling it like it is about the VP – this time, it’s more important than ever, since the president will be busy at home dealing with the economic crisis, for the VP to have a good solid understanding and experience with foreign policy, and Joe Biden is that person.
http://tpmelectioncentral.talkingpointsmemo.com/2008/10/bill_clinton_lays_out_strong_c.php
I leave you with an image of Putin rearing his head over Alaska – then we might value Palin’s foreign policy experience as the Pitbull (with lipstick) watchdog of America’s northern borders!
http://www.michaelberube.com/images/uploads/zzzputin.jpg
And... Okay, I was just kidding about “leaving you” - here’s a whole lot more besides the VP debate:
The other debate:
Roger Ebert crosses McCain off his dinner party list:
http://rogerebert.suntimes.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080928/COMMENTARY/809289997
(I don’t think I’d want to go to a dinner party with Roger Ebert, anyway, but he makes some good points!)
The Economy:
Dilbert, from 2002 – deja vu all over again?
http://www.dilbert.com/fast/2002-07-24/
How to ask for $700 billion:
http://wondermark.blogspot.com/2008/09/447-wrong-way-to-ask-for-700-billion.html
Pelosi’s speech and at least one honest Republican:
http://talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/220911.php
Here’s what George Soros says about it:
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/d68e10cc-8f45-11dd-946c-0000779fd18c.html?nclick_check=1
And Warren Buffet calls this an “economic Pearl Harbor” - I wonder who we bomb this time?
http://ac360.blogs.cnn.com/2008/10/02/warren-buffett-on-the-bailout-plan-and-our-future/
Maggie’s random thoughts and opinions on the economy:
(Full disclosure: I have no idea what I’m talking about. But I’m not alone in that.)
This whole thing is very unsettling – I’m mostly pure liberal, but have enough of a Libertarian sympathizer side (yeah, I read Ayn Rand – so what? Ha) to hate the idea of too much government intervention, but I’m also enough of a realist to believe that we do need regulation and can’t “let the fox watch the henhouse” as the saying goes. I think a completely free market is way too idealistic, and the idea that we have a “free market economy” is as much a myth as the agrarian ideal or suburban utopia – we have a capitalist economy, which is different.
Here’s an interesting perspective I found in a forum from September 10th after the Fannie Mae/Freddie Mac thing (the author is British history professor and author, John Simkin):
“Karl Marx argued that the inherent contradictions in free-market capitalism would eventually result in a collapse in the economic system and would be replaced with a more rational system of socialism.
In the late 1920s the economist John Maynard Keynes pointed out that Marx’s predictions would not come true as the inherent contradictions in capitalism could be dealt with by sensible government intervention in the economy.
In the 1930s two very different politicians dealt with the economic depression by the use of Keynes’ economic ideas: Adolf Hitler and Franklin D. Roosevelt. Hitler was rightly described as a fascist whose main intention was to save the capitalist system. Roosevelt was incorrectly called a socialist. In fact, he did more than anyone to save capitalism from socialism.”
So maybe now, we have to figure out what is “sensible” in order to "save capitalism from socialism" (and our economy from the crapper, I might add).
Here is a really interesting discussion about it started by the same author:
http://educationforum.ipbhost.com/index.php?showtopic=13510&st=0&p=155337&#entry155337
He states, at the end of his post:
“The current crisis in the US does not mean the end of capitalism. However, it is the end of one type of capitalism, the financial laissez-faire system developed by right-wing forces in the western world. What we are seeing at the moment in the US is an attempt to move towards a government interventionist capitalism. This is a difficult process when you have to rely on ideologically driven politicians who do not have a basic understanding of how the economic system works.
The new super-power will be China. It has developed a state capitalist model that overcomes the economic contradictions highlighted by Karl Marx. This state capitalist model will survive for many years. In time, the western world will try to adopt this model. However, it is unlikely to be successful because of the resistance of its people. It will be the resistance of the masses in China and those in its empire that will finally bring down the state capitalist model. Then, hopefully, we will progress to a fully democratic socialist economic system.”
This is all very thought-provoking stuff! With systems so large and complex, it is very difficult to operate from ideology, as we are seeing with the sudden surge of Republicans now for regulation instead of against it on principle.
Personally, I think I like the idea of social democracy (oops, my “libertarian side” just died, I think - ha)... [NOTE: that is ME, not Obama, talking - Obama's plan is basic, traditional, progressive taxation, NOT socialism in any way, shape or form, so shut up any right wing nut-jobs that might read something into this on my personal opinion blog!]
So, what do YOU think? (Does anyone who isn’t paid to do so actually have the time to think about something this complex? I mean, even the people who ARE getting paid to think about it seem to resort to sound bites like “Wall Street Fat Cats” to talk about it.)
Have fun watchin’ the debates about fixin’ America!
Maggie
