>> ^Sotto_Voce:


...Also, who's more charming than Ellen?


Richard Nixon.

I'm still waiting for the follow-up historical epics The Dungeons of Ulysses S Grant and The Passion of the Nixon.

>> ^zeoverlord:

>> ^therealblankman:
What is it with Dead Presidents and undead monsters?

Still waiting for the Ronald Reagan zombie apocalypse movie.


That would work. I was thinking along the lines of Richard Nixon vs the resurrected terra cotta army of the first Chinese Emperor.

"Nixon vs. the Terra Cotta Army. Only Nixon could save us from China!", or "Only Nixon could go to China... and kick some ass!".

>> ^jwray:

>> ^quantumushroom:
That's the problem with the Blame America First mindset, believing the rest of the world is made up of innocent countries populated by angels who NEVER fight, but then mean old USA comes along and look: WARS!
What will you do when red china and iran ignore the Golden Rule?

FYI the Iran Hostage crisis was Iran's revenge for the CIA-supported 1954 coup which overthrew their decent elected government and replaced it with a brutal dictator who violently cracked down on all political opposition to himself. The hostage-takers' only demands were that the US apologize for the 1954 coup, return the dictator to Iran for trial, and promise not to meddle in the internal affairs of Iran again. Those are perfectly reasonable demands that the USA should have done in the first place before the hostage crisis. But the hostage crisis put them in the akward position that the "right thing to do" was also "giving in to terrorists" and Ronald Reagan's massive testicles could not abide doing something that would please a terrorist even if it was the right thing to do regardless.


Well put. Except Reagan was an actor hired by the remnants of the Nixon gang who only ever did what he was told.

I liked the Vin Scully. Morgan Freeman surprised me too.

But shouldn't John Wayne be retired from impersonation repertoires by now? It's like doing Richard Nixon. We get it, he has jowls.

I think he basically means that anybody who dismisses religion as nonsense is a bigot, and somehow illiterate on the subject if you aren't a believer who went through seminary school.

Edit: Was in a bit of a rush earlier, but I like just about everything he has to say, from reasons for Nixon allowing liberal policies, to Clinton being the beginning of the liberals selling out to the conservatives, and basically failing to be the safety valve they should be. And I really like how he calls out the christian fascists for their war mongering, greed, and disdain for those in need. Not very christian of them.

ohio by neil young
"Ohio"

Tin soldiers and Nixon coming,
We're finally on our own.
This summer I hear the drumming,
Four dead in Ohio.

Gotta get down to it
Soldiers are cutting us down
Should have been done long ago.
What if you knew her
And found her dead on the ground
How can you run when you know?

Gotta get down to it
Soldiers are cutting us down
Should have been done long ago.
What if you knew her
And found her dead on the ground
How can you run when you know?

Tin soldiers and Nixon coming,
We're finally on our own.
This summer I hear the drumming,
Four dead in Ohio.

Many of the discussions from the thorium guys revolved around "why... why... why..." There was one mention near the end about needing a few people to get involved in the Thorium energy process for it to happen (via social media). But there's no mention of the issue of political corruption/lobbyists which is the real cause of the problem and why fossil fuels, weaponry related technologies continue to dominate. They touch on it I guess, when they talk about Nixon firing the guy who ran the successful throium reactor for 6 years, but they could have gone further.

@quantumushroom, I'm not old enough to remember things before FDR, much less the time of Jefferson.

I'm not old enough to remember Nixon either, but while I agree that he did found the EPA, I should point out he was a Republican, not a Democrat.

I guess the real difference between us is that I see America's progress over the period from the Civil War through to about 1968 or so as being mostly in the right direction. Increased individual rights, increased equality, increased prosperity, and a largely shared prosperity.

Sometime in the 1968-1980 period that started to break down. In the Reagan-era, I mostly just saw the pieces of what was the American Dream being hauled off and sold, with the rich keeping the proceeds.

My goal is not to see government controlling everything -- that's the mirror-image assumption again.

I would like to see us have a more generous set of welfare programs, like many European countries have. But that's not socialism, it's still capitalism, just like we've had since the country was founded. Socialism would be the government literally running everything, with private ownership of capital being illegal. The only place that still runs that way is North Korea, and I'm no more eager to emulate them than you are.

I don't like corporations using government to stamp out competition, or to line their pockets with subsidies and tax cuts, either. I just think the solution to that problem is to get corporations out of government, rather than government out of corporations.

I want to see everyone get richer, I just don't think that cutting taxes on the rich and abolishing environmental regulations helps anyone, not even the rich.

And I've definitely not "won" with millions of people unemployed, millions without health care, millions of children needing food stamps, and seeing our roads, bridges, and schools crumbling away, while the military budget keeps on going up and up and up.

You're winning! The public sector is shrinking! Corporate profits are at all-time highs! Union participation is at historic lows! Taxes collected are at historic lows! The Pentagon budget is bigger than ever, and we're at war with two countries!

The world outside your window is the result of your triumph! Aren't you happy?

@NetRunner

I'm genuinely surprised you would think the left has "lost" over the decades, especially after petty tyrant FDR rewrote the US Constitution, distorting the commerce clause to mean government can do anything it wants.

Then again, Jefferson said, "The natural progress of things is for liberty to yield and government to gain ground," and that's EXACTLY what's happened. If Democrats create all of this big government (e.g. like Nixon creating the EPA) and Repubs do nothing to dismantle it and in fact vote to fund it, then effectively both sides are Democrats.

Don't you see? You've WON!

We are a few beats away from becoming a socialist outhouse like Europe. It's nice to declare that everything is "free" by birthright (and great for the politicians that promise it) EXCEPT when there are no more productive souls to pay for the phantasy. GREECE is the word.

>> ^NetRunner:

>>.

To me the worst part about a lot of right-wing assumptions about the left is that they assume we're their mirror image, and project their hostility, dishonesty, ruthlessness, and groupthink onto us.
The truth is, as a group we're too nice, too honest, too forgiving, and too independent, which is why the right ends up eating our lunch so often.
Oh yeah, and they deny that they've ever eaten our lunch. They insist on pretending to be some sort of oppressed underdog, even though they've been effectively running the show for as long as I've been alive.

If things go lucky, you might actually go back to the separation of the financing/investment and private banking sectors like before Nixon (he abolished that to "thwart" a recession post NAM - though it had been watered down by lobbyists before).

The big problem is that partisan media hasn't even started working on this movement (marginalize->politicize->obfuscate) yet and the larger it becomes, the higher the danger that whatever bill/governmental process comes out of it will be just another paper-doll with a big head-line (99%, yo) and lots of fine-print.

>> ^Fletch:

>> ^Yogi:

Reagan wasn't a liberal though...the last liberal president was Nixon. Yeah not exactly better.
That's why liberal was in quotes. Neocons can't say tax-and-spend without the "liberal", as if they're one and the same. What I'm saying is that when he spent money, he paid for it through taxes instead of just borrowing and spending like repugs do nowadays.


No YOU shut up!

...wait what?

>> ^Yogi:


Reagan wasn't a liberal though...the last liberal president was Nixon. Yeah not exactly better.
That's why liberal was in quotes. Neocons can't say tax-and-spend without the "liberal", as if they're one and the same. What I'm saying is that when he spent money, he paid for it through taxes instead of just borrowing and spending like repugs do nowadays.

>> ^Fletch:

Unfortunately, the memories of roughly half of voting America have proven to be exceptionally short and conveniently selective. Bush got elected twice. The same people who voted for him view Reagan as some sort of conservative Messiah, instead of what he really was... the greatest tax-and-spend "liberal" of the last half century. They're extremely mallable when it comes to the daily perturbations in party dogma. Thinking is hard.


Reagan wasn't a liberal though...the last liberal president was Nixon. Yeah not exactly better.

Thanks for the info and search. I will surf the webs a try to find this gem.

In reply to this comment by oritteropo:
*dead account terminated :

And I looked, but didn't find a replacement embed :