Former Senator George McGovern
http://thedianerehmshow.org/shows/2011-08-29/former-senator-george-mcgovern
George McGovern did not exactly have great success as a presidential candidate. He lost all but one state to Richard Nixon. But in an open letter to President Obama in this month’s Harper’s magazine, he warns Obama that it is better to lose an election than lose his soul. Strong words from a man who should know. His letter challenges Obama to step up and lead America with bold initiatives. Initiatives that could revive the economy and build up the middle class like President Roosevelt’s New Deal. We discuss his ambitious blueprint and whether he believes President Obama is the man to get the job done.
Guests
George McGovern
former U.S. senator from South Dakota and former presidential candidate.
Comments
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Are you people nuts? Try to get a grip on reality. I saw via video Michelle Bachman's comments re the DC weather this past week & in no way could a healthy mind consider them anything other than humorously harmless wit.
You truly seem to stretch for your own agenda/ratings. Please try to be unbiased.
Monte wrote:
"The president came into office with both houses of congress in his pocket. "
This is a myth. In order for the Senate to get anything done, you need 60 votes. Assuming you can count on the two politically opposed independents, Sanders & Lieberman, to vote with the Democrats, you still needed 58 Democrats to overcome a filibuster, and the Republicans filibustered just about every bill.
After the 2008 election, there weren’t 58 Democrats until Al Franken was seated - on July 7th, 2009. However, Ted Kennedy had suffered a seizure on May 17th & was being treated in Mass. for a tumor. To get 60 votes, both Kennedy & Sen. Byrd would have to be present on the Senate floor. Theoretically it was possible, but short of wheeling the two terminally ill senators in on gurneys it wasn't in fact possible.
The possibility of 60 votes to defeat the constant Republican filibusters ended on Feb 4th of 2010 when Republican Scott Brown was seated. During that period, Congress was on recess for 2 weeks in November, and 3 weeks starting on Dec. 25th. So, there was only a theoretical filibuster proof majority for 17 weeks, and the actual ability was never there.
It is absolutely untrue that Prez. Obama began his term with the Senate in his pocket. From the beginning, one of more Republican Senators filibustered just about every bill.
We forget our history. Wasn't it President Clinton that thought that more Americans should be able to own their own home, suggesting that credit be relaxed?
We didn't learn anything from the S&L crisis that was directly related to extending bad loans.
Ross Pierrot (sp) talked constantly about the giant sucking sound of American jobs leaving the US if NAFTA was passed.
Wow. The signs were there for us, our 'leaders' just do not want to learn or listen.
palmettoisle@ve... wrote:
"Are you people nuts? Try to get a grip on reality. I saw via video Michelle Bachman's comments re the DC weather this past week & in no way could a healthy mind consider them anything other than humorously harmless wit.
You truly seem to stretch for your own agenda/ratings. Please try to be unbiased."
Response- you would think Diane would know better than throwing out something like this without checking into it!
The show was a total love fest from a former flower child to her mentor. I was also disappointed from the aspect that we do not get many chances to question the architects of social welfare programs from the 60's. I did not expect Mr. McGovern to admit mistakes but I would like to hear an explanation why liberal social engineering schemes have not worked out as their claims said they would and address the unsustainable costs they have produced. Liberal bias prevented what could have been a very interesting show.
I find the caller's comparison of the country's economic situation today with that of 1920s Germany, aka the Republic of Weimar, compelling. Similar to our situation, Emperor William II had financed his war expenses not with a war tax, but with government bonds. This debt combined with the indemnities to be paid to the victors led the young republic into hyperinflation which impoverished the German middle class. We all may remember too well what happened next.
Read more about the German hyperinflation here:
http://brainmindinst.blogspot.com/2008/12/reichsmark-fiscus-exuberance.html
In my comment, I wrote:
"In order for the Senate to get anything done, you need 60 votes."
I of course meant to get anything done in the face of obstreperous opposition. If a bill can be brought to the floor, only a simple majority is needed in most (but not all) cases.
I believe that a "root cause" of the problems we face was the adoption of B. F. Skinner's ideas of operant conditioning that are now endemic in our society. A 1971 Time magazine article "Skinner's Utopia: Panacea or Path to Hell?" debates the topic. But since 1971, rather than continuing to discuss its merits, it’s been inculcated into our culture and is no longer even questioned by most.
We are reaping the consequences. Skinner's influence through schools & business conditioned a public to expect instant rewards (gold stars, stickers, bonuses, increasing dividends) instead of the previous code of ethics (i.e. to do what is "right" rather than what is EASY and pleasurable). We traded long term planning and sustainability, for short term profits.
Our schools operate on the paradigm of operant conditioning. Facts are given without full context, as if life presents itself in disciplinary packages. Teachers tell students what to think and when to think it. Children are grouped by single age category (even though this is not reflective of any other real world condition) and are further isolated because they are not to speak or help those around them. As families have gotten smaller, children no longer play outdoors with large numbers of neighborhood friends. Nor do they work alongside their parents in family farms or businesses. The result is a lack of social maturity and the implicit procedural knowledge required to apply learned information to real life problem solving.
The solutions, I propose, are to look at Edward Deming's model for business and our national policies, and Dr. Montessori’s model for the education of our children. These approaches address the root causes of our problems by restoring the humanity lost through Skinnerian social engineering. We adopted practices that are in direct conflict with democracy, freedom, collaboration, and human dignity. Therefore, we should not be surprised by our current state of affairs.
mllifluous is entitled to his/her own opinion, but not her own facts:
"the illegitimate, unelected second Bush Administration"
How was the second Bush Administration "unelected"?
"After thirty years of Republican policies"
Republicans were in control from January 1995 until January 2007. That's not 30 years, it's barely 20.
"NAFTA and CAFTA, the decimation of unions and widespread deregulation, to name the first few that come to mind – he can’t plausibly propose that the stubborn resilience of poverty is the fault of Democrats. "
Democrats were in charge of both houses of Congress, with the exception of 5 Congressional terms, for roughly 50 years until the elections of November 1994. They were solidly in control of the House (the spending side) from the mid-50's until the mid-90's, so YES, we can blame the Democrats for the "stubborn resilience of poverty".
NAFTA became law on January 1, 1994 - a full year before Republicans took control and President Clinton signed it.
Is this the history you learned with your public ejakashun?
But, what the hell, you're on a roll - blaming Republicans for whatever you choose is fun, right?
"some of us hoped that he would act on behalf of working and poor people, tell voters what measures will be necessary to fix the economy"
Here's a clue, honey. He came into office having no idea of how to actually do that. He still has no idea. If he "pivots to jobs" one more time he's going to keel over.
You are absolutely clueless.
IleanaDU wrote:
"It is absolutely untrue that Prez. Obama began his term with the Senate in his pocket. From the beginning, one of more Republican Senators filibustered just about every bill."
Well, it would be too easy to say they (the Democrats) started it, so I won't.
Even given the super-majority it takes to get anything done in the Senate, whether Republican or Democrat (something I think is a very good thing), it is possible for either side, when in control, to get many things done - they just have to give a little. Both House and Senate under Pelosi and Reid STUBBORNLY refused to give an inch. And why should they, you ask? "We won the election, we write the bills", right? Well, now you know why.
monte wrote:
The headline for Harpers magazine article this show is based on.
"George McGovern asks why Republicans Hate America so Much"
Is this the civility Mr. McGovern calls for? Seems a little one sided!
First, I'd like to apologize for posting a link earlier to password-protected material. I didn't check to see whether the article in question was universally available, and that essential detail escaped me.
monte's question above assumes that columnists write their own headlines, which I think is not common journalistic practice. However, I'm looking at the magazine in question, whose pages are replicated on the Web site. The article in question is under a section called Easy Chair and is titled, A Letter to Barack Obama by George McGovern. The line above the magazine title on its cover is the author's name, colon, and article title.
In short, what monte asserts here is completely untrue. Even if the article appeared in the magazine under that headline, I think monte misconstrues responsibility for the authorship of guest column titles. What else does he lie about?
As an aside, I think that civility in American politics has been essentially one-sided in recent decades. The reason that I choose such strong and derisive language and avoid euphemisms in describing the party and the operatives of corporate rule, the ubiquitous surveillance state and industrial feudalism – that is to say, Republicans -- is that they are proud of their vehemence in disparaging their opponents; they lie, cheat and steal without scruple or shame and many of them deserve to be laughed out of positions of power and their corner offices straight into cells.
Since meanconser cited Ronald Reagan (whose campaign secretly negotiated with the Iranians to keep President Carter from bringing American hostages home until after the 1980 election, who paid for a proxy war against Nicaragua's Sandanistas with proceeds from illegal weapons sales to those same Iranians and whose intelligence services aided and abetted cocaine trafficking during his incumbency; see http://www.consortiumnews.com/1990s/consor29.html , http://www.consortiumnews.com/archive/crack.html ) as someone who “got things done”, liberals and progressives have often been too reluctant to call a crook a crook. Civility is a sensible and admirable standard to aim for and to maintain, but in the face of an endless tide of hypocrisy and sanctimonious lies, the practice of civility sometimes surpasses the bounds of human forbearance.
The current (21st century) economy of the U.S. is often likened to the Roosevelt Administration of the 19th century. Please comment on what is the means today for the USA to generate revenue for the country. During the 1st half of the 20th century America had a strong manufacturing base and sold product throughout the country and across the world. Products labeled "Made in America" were coveted throughout the world. Because we had a manufacturing base we were able to put people back to work and have a means of selling product to America and the world. America has sold off its manufacturing base, and it was done several Presidential administration's ago. This did not start with Obama. How do we bring back jobs and jumpstart the economy if we have no means to generate revenue ??? When we purchase product it does not say made in America it says made in China.
Finance/Economics Major
ecgberht wrote:
mllifluous is entitled to his/her own opinion, but not her own facts:
"the illegitimate, unelected second Bush Administration"
How was the second Bush Administration "unelected"?
Briefly, Bush the Younger never won a free and fair national election. In 2000, he was awarded the presidency by a 5-4 decision of the U.S. Supreme Court. Had the Court ordered Florida to recount all its ballots, Al Gore would have won both the popular vote and the Electoral College. In 2004, the irregularities are too numerous to list here, but here in Ohio, voting machines were in short supply in urban – presumably Democratic – precincts and there were anecdotal accounts of touchscreens registering votes for Bush when the voter had chosen Kerry (from Neck Deep by Robert, Sam and Nat Parry, p. 301). The chief executive of Diebold, the manufacturer of Ohio’s electronic voting machines, stated at a fundraiser at his Columbus mansion that he was “committed to helping Ohio deliver its electoral votes to the President.” (ibid, p. 298 quoting a story from the Cleveland Plain Dealer) And in contravention of every observable electoral contest to date, the exit polls in six battleground states correctly called Senate races, but predictions of a John Kerry victory were contradicted by the final tallies (ibid, p. 301). Again, had Kerry's totals matched the exit polls, the Democrats should have won the election.
I stand by my characterization of “thirty years of Republican policies.” The Clinton Administration carried a lot of water for the Reagan/Bush agenda, including welfare deform, a refusal to consider Universal Health Care, a continuation of the War on Drugs and the “free trade” swindle. You will recall that the Clintons were a product of the Democratic Leadership Council, which jettisoned liberal values as an electoral strategy.
Please do not assume that I am a woman, although I enjoy keeping you guessing.
I agree with what has been said earlier, everything that President Obama says or does is crushed by the republican, is you listend to what George McGovern had to say and if you are really paying attention to the politics of today, they dont care about making our country a better place they just want to become some of the fat cats in Washington DC. The republicans played mean and nasty with president Clinton, I feel as no one was wanting to make the US a better place. Every one is worried about Social Security Well! where do you think the money went? it went to fight the war. Get your heads out of the sand and help this country recover. The speaker of the house is one of the worst.
mellifluous wrote:
"Briefly, Bush the Younger never won a free and fair national election. In 2000, he was awarded the presidency by a 5-4 decision of the U.S. Supreme Court. Had the Court ordered Florida to recount all its ballots, Al Gore would have won both the popular vote and the Electoral College."
mellifluous is entitled to his/her/its own opinion, but not his/her/its own facts. The initial counting of the Bush v Gore votes had Bush ahead in FL by less than 500 votes. There were recounts as you know and the gap simply grew wider. Then came the U.S. Supreme Court decision which halted (temporarily) the recounting. After the decision came down, George W. Bush became President. But that didn't stop the recounts. Independant recounts continued, but every time another count was generated, Bush got more votes.
http://articles.cnn.com/2001-04-04/politics/florida.recount.01_1_ballots...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Florida_election_recount#Results
But you're going to believe what you want to believe.
"Again, had Kerry's totals matched the exit polls, the Democrats should have won the election."
And if ifs were skiffs, we'd all take a boat ride. If the CEO of Diebold fudged the election (that assumes incorrectly that he is even CAPABLE of such a stunt), he would be in jail. Exit polls don't mean squat. Kerry conceded.
"I stand by my characterization of “thirty years of Republican policies.” ... even though it has no basis in fact! Of course you do, you're a liberal!
I don't care if you're a man, a woman, or a frog. You're entitled to your own opinion, but not your own facts.
"JSawyer wrote:
"And the end of the cold war, political and diplomatic experience were by believable accounts not to Reagan's credit."
Then why did Margaret Thacher say they. This coming from a brilliant women.
"JSawyer continues
But we did see the broadening of the road to the decline of U.S. manufacturing and rise of neo policies."
If you are talking about NAFTA, Bill Clinton said it could not of past without him.
"IleanaDU wrote:
In my comment, I wrote:
"In order for the Senate to get anything done, you need 60 votes."
I of course meant to get anything done in the face of obstreperous opposition. If a bill can be brought to the floor, only a simple majority is needed in most (but not all) cases"
Ileana DU
Do you realize that the way Obama and the Democratics got that monstrous Health Care Bill through was with a "Technicality", through the Democratic Congress. Many in the Democratic Senate were at odds with Obama's Health Care Bill. If anything the members of the Democratic Senate sank the bill and resulted in this Technicality pushed by the Democratic Congress.
We could do with about fifty more George McGoverns. Where are they? For that matter, and to the Canadian who posted comment on this site last week, noting the difference between Canadians, who are mourning the loss of Jack Layton, and Americans, who are rooting for Rick Perry (embarrassing, really): where is our NDP? In America it’s like: Would you like to vote for an extremist right-wing nut-ball Republican, or would you rather vote for a moderate right-wing Democrat who emphasizes the need to compromise with extremist right-wing nut-ball Republicans? I tend to be of the opinion that we have a evolved a plutocracy, which is engineering a political environment ripe for full-on oligarchy and corporate rule; that it’s a powerful, wealthy elite who are manipulating our politicians from behind the scenes, and feeding the general public lies and distraction, but maybe Eugene McCarthy had it right when he pointed out that in America, brainwashing isn’t necessary; a light rinse will do.
mellifluous, I do understand your on the losing side these days and are thrashing out, I get that. Know that you have fallen into the all too human trap of becoming what you claim to hate. My posts are designed to inspire debate but I have to say you have called people more petty names in the last few days than I can remember from any single poster in such a short period of time. You claim intellectual superiority when you take the cheap shot but your motives are transparent. The liberal mind is all about revenge and wishing their opponents fail. The conservative wishes all well and wants all to prosper and flourish. I wish you the best of luck that your personal efforts in your life serve you well but if you choose the path of relying on others to carry you through life you will fail. Not because the public dole is not generous enough but because you have within you a negative self defeating outlook on life.
gbloper wrote:
"We could do with about fifty more George McGoverns. Where are they?"
Answer- twiddling their thumbs at home like G.M., can you say failed candidacy?
Monte, the programs circulate money immediately which makes the economy hum, no sing. Dollars in the hands of the super rich don't get circulated, they get saved. Programs for the poor stimulate business. That's why it's a good idea and long overdue. Quit begrudging people participation. It doesn't change your life really does it? The financial mess we're is not because we help the poor. Never has, never will. You ought to at least listen to what George McGovern has to say before you begin ranting. Then what you say might bear some relation to the program you're responding to.
Monte, the programs circulate money immediately which makes the economy hum, no sing. Dollars in the hands of the super rich don't get circulated, they get saved. Programs for the poor stimulate business. That's why it's a good idea and long overdue. Quit begrudging people participation. It doesn't change your life really does it? The financial mess we're is not because we help the poor. Never has, never will. You ought to at least listen to what George McGovern has to say before you begin ranting. Then what you say might bear some relation to the program you're responding to.
-
"Nawfick wrote:
Monte, the programs circulate money immediately which makes the economy hum, no sing. Dollars in the hands of the super rich don't get circulated, they get saved."
Nawfick:
Do you have a source for this belief. Small Business which you call super rich (over $250,000) is on the side lines in hiring due to the uncertainity in how much the Health Reform Act will cost them and the increase taxes effecting their bottom line due to the deficit.
GM won what one state or two.
meanconser, thanks as always. Just curious why did you change your user name? I use my real first name, what the hell, to each his own.
ecgberht:
Please note that the Wikipedia article you linked to reconfirms my assertion that had all votes in Florida been recounted in 2000, Gore wins (narrowly).
Review of all ballots statewide (never undertaken)
• Standard as set by each county canvassing board during their survey
Gore by 171
• Fully punched chad and limited marks on optical ballots
Gore by 115
• Any dimples or optical mark
Gore by 107
• One corner of chad detached or optical mark
Gore by 60
From the Washington Post:
“Gore's largest margin in a statewide recount involving all ballots comes under a scenario that sought to recreate the standards established by each of the counties in their recounts. In that case, Gore emerged with 171 more votes than Bush.” http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A12623-2001Nov11_4.html
ecgberht wrote:
“And if ifs were skiffs, we'd all take a boat ride. If the CEO of Diebold fudged the election (that assumes incorrectly that he is even CAPABLE of such a stunt), he would be in jail. Exit polls don't mean squat. Kerry conceded.”
Wow! In one instant, you deride me for speculating and in the very next sentence, you indulge in the exact same sort of speculation. It’s been demonstrated that the Diebold voting machines in 2004 were vulnerable to tampering capable of producing false results and deleting the original true vote totals from those machines with no ability to trace the hack or recover original figures.
http://consortiumnews.com/2004/110604.html
http://consortiumnews.com/2004/110904.html
http://consortiumnews.com/2004/120404.html
http://consortiumnews.com/2005/110505.html
To suppose that a federal Republican administration, or a statewide Republican one, would prosecute a prominent Republican asset for committing crimes that enabled it to steal an election – especially given the Mob-like standard of loyalty and practice of omerta that characterized King George Junior’s White House – is to present an utterly absurd portrayal of how prosecutions develop.
Exit polls, far from “mean(ing) squat”, are generally recognized to be an accepted standard worldwide for determining the accuracy of reported voting totals.
John Kerry, like the two George Bushes, is admittedly an alumnus of the secret society Skull and Bones at Yale, a body reputed to exercise undue hidden influence over American political and business leaders. His premature concession suggested to me that while Skull and Bones would have liked to win the election, Skull and Bones was satisfied when Skull and Bones emerged victorious. “George W. Bush wrote in his autobiography, "[In my] senior year I joined Skull and Bones, a secret society; so secret, I can't say anything more." When asked what it meant that he and Bush were both Bonesmen, former Presidential candidate John Kerry said, "Not much, because it's a secret." “ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Skull_and_Bones Perhaps you think that all this is a stretch, but I don’t consider either Gore’s or Kerry’s concessions to be proof that they lost fair elections; I consider them to be indications that the Democrats doubted they could prevail by challenging the results and that at the time, they lacked sufficient evidence of a fix to allege criminal manipulations.
Calling me a liberal is the kind of ad hominem attack that reactionaries resort to reflexively, but especially when they experience the frustration borne of having been shown to be not merely mistaken, but vociferously wrong. Many of my beliefs stray from traditional liberal dogma: I blame Democrats for nominating such uninspiring candidates and for running such ineffective campaigns (and for their complicity in maintaining our system of legalized bribery) that they allowed the Graft and Oligarchy Putsch to keep the elections of 2000 and 2004 close enough to steal. Truly liberal campaigns should have been able to draw meaningful distinctions between the two major party candidates and to hold the illegitimate, unelected second Bush Administration responsible for its various lies, executive overreach and continuing criminal enterprises. However, such lapses don’t grant Republicans license to steal and are a separate issue. You malign me unjustly with a label you use dismissively as a pejorative. I’m not French, either.
Monte, I don’t understand how you suppose your snarky and dishonest rejoinders inspire actual debate. It seems that you’re unable to make your points without resorting to baseless invective and mischaracterizations, nor have I seen you answer direct questions. It’s true that I’m losing too much time responding here, but I think I’ve supported my assertions with relevant facts and taken earned shots rather than cheap ones. I wish it were true that “conservatives” wish all well, but that’s demonstrably false. I don’t recall advocating for a more generous dole, but for a fair shake for ordinary people. Our current economic system steals from workers and the poor to give to the rich: like many others, it’s Robin Hood in reverse. Also, we may have different reasons for our opposition to it, but we can both agree that Obama's final health care bill was ill-advised at best and perhaps a travesty.
I still don't see the so-called conservatives placing blame where blame is due for starting senseless wars and imprisoning hundreds of thousands of Americans for no good reason. Here’s an overlooked fact: Reagan didn’t defeat the Soviet Union so much as the USSR spent itself into a state of penury with its invasion of Afghanistan. Now it seems to be our turn. If y'all truly love freedom and are really concerned about debt and deficits, I wonder why these areas of waste and fraud remain immaterial to you.
monte wrote:
meanconser, thanks as always. Just curious why did you change your user name? I use my real first name, what the hell, to each his own
A couple of weeks ago I tried to change one of my posts. You know me mis-spelled words,etc and the system told me that my posts would be moderated. After that I could not post. Should I use what liberals love to use "conspiracy". But thanks.
Alex