Math and Science....

[steve-potocin.livejournal.com]

One of our education system's biggest problems is that there is not enough emphasis on the Maths and Sciences.....America is falling behind in the world because our students are not gaining the necessary knowledge in these fields....

Too much emphasis on useless book learnin and abstruse theories and nto enough on PRACTICAL skills....students shoudl learn about the greatness of the Capitalist system, why Marxism is evil and Socialism doesn't work, how to invest in the stock market, balance their finances...and so on....

Arts and Humanities programs should be defunded since many teachers in those fields only fill students minds with revisionist histories and make them hate their country.....in addition,the skills learned in those fields are not as important as those of MATH and SCIENCE,which are the wave of the future....

Most academics can't even fix a doorknob....and yet they want to advocate for socialism....most of the socialists who support Obama have never ran a business....never done payroll,none of it...

Endgame...

[steve-potocin.livejournal.com]

As you've likely heard by now....the left-wing justice John Paul Stevens is retiring this summer....good riddance,this guy has legislated from the bench for decades and has imposed costly damage on American values and freedoms....

Now Conservatives have the opportunity of a lifetime....Hussein is likely going to nominate another far left justice like the Wise Latina.....Republicans need to hammer him on this..they need to point out the number of Obama's nominations and FDRs court packing strategy....they need do accuse him of covertly trying to enact his agenda through the courts,and expose him as the tyrant he is....this must be posed as a battle for the American way of life: economic freedom and respect for the rule of law.

If we do this,Republicans are guaranteed big gains this way....we must get the Socialist out of office and control congress once again....

Republicans should reject any Obama nominee until he nominates someone from the Federalist Society or any other group that promises to preserve our Constitution....There can NO compromise with Socialists and those who wish to tear apart our Constitution....

The Problem With Faint Damns

[paft.livejournal.com]

Political violence in the United States, of course, is hardly a novelty.

The deranged gunman John Hinckley, JR., shot and wounded President Ronald Reagan in 1981. Anti-government fanatic Timothy McVeigh murdered scores of Americans when he bombed the Oklahoma City Federal Building in 1995. Matthew Dallek, The Daily Beast

Well, see the problem with this is that John Hinckley Jr’s attack on Ronald Reagan had less to do with politics than with celebrity. He was a nutjob motivated, not by political conviction, but by the delusion that shooting Ronald Reagan would impress actress Jodie Foster. (He’d stalked President Jimmy Carter for the same reason.) There’s little evidence that Hinckley’s drive to shoot Ronald Reagan was fueled by opposition to Reagan’s politics.

Tim McVeigh on the other hand, was motivated by politics. Insane politics, perhaps, but still politics.

This false equivalency is just one part of what makes Matthew Dallek’s piece in The Daily Beast a classic example of a dozey moderate looking over history with his eyes resolutely unfocused. Like most people who promote the “all things being equal” myth about leftist and right wing political violence in this country, Dallek ignores an important difference, one that has historically made right wing violence more tolerated and, as a result, more lethal in this country. Members of the radical left could not count, as members of the radical right could (like the Klan in the American south), on covert sympathizers within law enforcement and the courts.

But the most glaring omission in the piece – and others like it -- is that we actually have today, in the United States, a working illustration of the dangers posed by right wing violence and the extent to which it can become normalized.

Anti-abortion violence.

( Read more )

Political parties and cocktail parties

[papasha-mueller.livejournal.com]

Whichever political system is the best one ?
America has two parties which seem to be CPSU No. 1 and CPSU No. 2
Europe has many which tend to form the same pair of aliances.
British stuck between USofA and Europe as usual.
I don't speak what comes under the euphemism 'Eastern Europe'...

Isn't China with its Politbureau the best ?
So far they're doing better in this crisis.
Chin-chin, prozit, here-here.

Whatdayathink ?
Off to start my mandarin lessons, seeya folks.

Why ‘Obamanomics’ is working

[chessdev.livejournal.com]

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/36322393/ns/business-businessweekcom

It's never easy to separate politics from policy, and the past 18 months have only increased the degree of difficulty. The U.S. has been through a historic financial crisis followed by a historic election and a series of historic federal gambles — from bailing out AIG and GM to passing a $787 billion stimulus and a $940 billion health-care reform bill. All that risk has made policy more complicated and politics more fraught ("You lie," "Baby killer").

A Bloomberg national poll in March found that Americans, by an almost 2-to-1 margin, believe the economy has gotten worse rather than better during the past year. The Market begs to differ. While President Obama's overall job approval rating has fallen to a new low of 44 percent, according to a CBS News Poll, down five points from late March, the judgment of the financial indexes has turned resoundingly positive. The Standard & Poor's 500-stock index is up more than 74 percent from its recessionary low in March 2009. Corporate bonds have been rallying for a year. Commodity prices have surged. International currency markets have been bullish on the dollar for months, raising it by almost 10 percent since Nov. 25 against a basket of six major currencies. Housing prices have stabilized. Mortgage rates are low. "We've had a phenomenal run in asset classes across the board," says Dan Greenhaus, chief economic strategist for Miller Tabak + Co., an institutional trading firm in New York. "If Obama was a Republican, we would hear a never-ending drumbeat of news stories about markets voting in favor of the President."

...

The Obama team, he continues, navigated the financial crisis while never losing sight of the importance of private enterprise and private markets (a point Obama stressed in his Feb. 9 interview with Bloomberg BusinessWeek). "A lot of people on the left were urging them to nationalize banks. Instead they injected capital, and now they're pulling capital out. That looks more like Rubinomics than a set of socialist or left-wing economic policies."

[chessdev]  I agree with the general analysis of the article, and also why I get annoyed by people who claim Americans are "losing their economic freedoms" ... 

I also think people who predict Republican wins based on current polls: without consideration of jobs saved... market expansion... or looking at "the big picture"  are being premature and short-sighted.

The divide on the left.

[futurebird.livejournal.com]

Some of the time I feel like things like "net neutrality" and issues of freedom of expression and surveillance take center-stage in our progressive communities and issues like public housing, welfare, min. wage, work safety, don't get much attention at all. If your main concern is addressing poverty and inequality things like "net neutrality" might seem hopelessly abstract. In the same way, I think that some progressives just don't get a lot of issues that are related to poverty and ongoing racism.

"Progressives" need to do a better job of getting to know organizations that work with poor and minority communities. More cross-pollination. There's this gap-- and, frankly, the people with the most resources should do the most reaching to bridge it.

In NYC I've seen good progressive ideas fail since a large number of working class and poor Democrats just don't "get" what the progressives are talking about. It's really easy for whatever lobby it is that benefits from the legislation not getting passed to use some populist BS to piss off these Democrats and get them to pressure the elected officials for the dumbest things.  And who can blame them?  Progressives rush in at the last moment breathlessly explaining their pet policies. I think some of the organizations who focus on class, gender and race issues just say "where were you when we needed your help?" But in the end everyone loses.

When I have tried to talk about this in the past suddenly EVERYONE who is a self-identified progressive is also suddenly so very "working class" --and they get in a huge huff since they think I'm calling them a bunch of latte-drinkers.

Well, goddammit, a lot of progressives do drink lattes and we (yes, I said "we") don't know enough about the issues that matter to poor and working class Democrats or what the hell we can do to address these issues. In addition, a lot of self-identified progressives don't really 'get' issues that involve race or gender that well either.

ACORN should still be around.  So, who's next? The far Right was successful in taking this organization down. And this isn't abstract, it's serious. I have seen the positive impact that they had and it will leave a huge gaping hole.  So, since it worked, you can bet the Right is going to do it again. If we let some of our people end up isolated as ACORN was they won't be able to fight back-- I don't think ACORN spent any money on PR people, they wanted every penny to go to the work. That's idealism, and they were eaten alive becuase of it. It doesn't have to be this way, though, if enough people step up to the plate to protect the people who are doing the good work-- maybe we'll get to know each other better and be a more powerful because of it.

General election UK

[green-man-2010.livejournal.com]

Hello - a general  election has been called in the UK, and I am one of the many candidates on the campaign trail.
I have opened a blog on LJ, and it's the first time I have stood in a general  election.

If anyone wants to check out my blog, I will be talking about issues and events as they happen.
I am not a professional politician, but the way things are in this country right now, I have decided that i will get involved and see if I can make any difference.

In my blog, i will be arguing for a very Green agenda, but I hope to run a fair campaign. No personal attacks, no wild claims or empty promises.
There is too much of that in British politics already. I hope to bring you an inside view, not only of the campaign, but the political process in action.

Go to my blog for more details.
http://green-man-2010.livejournal.com/