Quote :

" In an infamous interview with the Spanish newspaper El Mundo in early September 2004, this is what he said about the upcoming 2004 election: Question: Who is going to win on November 2? Norquist: It doesn’t matter. We will control the House of Representatives, and probably the Senate. If Kerry wins, he will not be able to do anything that we do not want him to do. We will not give him money to spend. He will not be able to raise taxes. He will not steal our firearms. Even thought we lose the White House, it will not be the end of the world. Question: And if Bush wins? Norquist: The Democratic Party will be forever doomed. If we take control of the legislature and the executive branch, we will reinforce our control of the judicial branch to direct it against the Democrats. We will bring about a modest limit of the ability of the people to initiate lawsuits against corporations, which will damage the lawyers who specialize in these cases, which is one of the props of the Democratic Party. We will accelerate the decline of the unions. We will cute funding to groups of public employees, like teachers, who are one of the great sources of Democratic votes. And we will begin to move the welfare state toward a private system, in pensions and health care. "

I got this quote from The Fox in the Henhouse: How Privatization Threatens Democracy. It was on the ninth page of the foreword. I know it’s old, but I need some help reckoning with it. So…?

1/9/2006 12:55:21 PM

wow, what an asshole

i hear the idealogue's footsteps coming closer, they'll descend on this thread soon to explain why we should

Quote :

"bring about a modest limit of the ability of the people to initiate lawsuits against corporations, which will damage the lawyers who specialize in these cases, which is one of the props of the Democratic Party. We will accelerate the decline of the unions. We will cute funding to groups of public employees, like teachers, who are one of the great sources of Democratic votes."

1/9/2006 1:02:07 PM

who said this?

1/9/2006 1:14:01 PM

a very important man

1/9/2006 1:14:32 PM

^,^^

that reminds me of fight club

where the woman on the plane asks which company the narrartor works for

and he just responds "a major one"

1/9/2006 1:42:43 PM

You're forgetting that the republican/democrat paradigm is a scam. The republicans and democrats are both bought and sold by the elite. It's a charade. For show. Political WWF wrestling.

If they aren't really just the same party masquerading a two opposing parties, why have the democrats supported the war in Iraq, and why haven't they called out Bush for manipulating the Iraq "intelligence"? (Downing Street Memo..Hello?!). Why are the republicans spending like gangbusters, jacking the national debt from 4 Trillion to now over 8 trillion dollars in 5 years under Bush and dramatically growing the size and power of government. Why is Bush proposing amnesty for illegal aliens and calling the Minutemen "vigilantes"?

Wake up and smell reality.

1/9/2006 1:43:07 PM

Quote :

"Wake up and smell reality."

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA

1/9/2006 1:45:10 PM

Quote :

"The smart way to keep people passive and obedient is to strictly limit the spectrum of acceptable opinion, but allow very lively debate within that spectrum - even encourage the more critical and dissident views. That gives people the sense that there's free thinking going on, while all the time the presuppositions of the system are being reinforced by the limits put on the range of the debate"

1/9/2006 2:10:21 PM

Quote :

"In all ages the people of the world, equally with individuals, have accepted words for deeds, for THEY ARE CONTENT WITH A SHOW and rarely pause to note, in the public arena, whether promises are followed by performance. (Protocol #5, paragraph 8)"

http://www.biblebelievers.org.au/przion3.htm#PROTOCOL%20No.%205


[Edited on January 9, 2006 at 2:50 PM. Reason : `]

1/9/2006 2:49:30 PM

Eh, reality stinks. Now Battlestar Galactica, that smells sweet!

1/9/2006 10:24:14 PM

the Democrats' position against our second amendment rights has hurt them more than they can afford to admit

1/9/2006 10:29:36 PM

Whaaa?

And Norquist is a nut. He's the one who wants to shrink gov't down to a size where he can "drown it in a bathtub." I think it comes from being named Grover in a post Sesame Street world.

Unfortunately he's also pretty influential in the GOP.

1/10/2006 12:37:43 AM

if you vote based on the fear that youll lose your gun alone, youre really pretty dumb

1/10/2006 12:47:02 AM

Quote :

"Grover Glenn Norquist (born October 19, 1956), the president of the noted anti-tax lobbying group Americans for Tax Reform, is a well-connected conservative activist with close ties to business and the media. His close business and political ties to recently indicted lobbyist Jack Abramoff are the subject of a current federal investigation."

Quote :

"Shortly after Bill Clinton was elected president of the United States in 1992, Norquist began hosting a weekly get-together of conservatives in his Washington office to coordinate activities and strategy. "We were sort of like the Mensheviks after the Russian Revolution," recalls Marshall Wittmann, who attended the first meeting as a representative of the Christian Coalition. The "Wednesday Meeting" of Norquist's Leave Us Alone Coalition has become an important hub of conservative political organizing. George W. Bush began sending a representative to the Wednesday Meeting even before he formally announced his candidacy for president. "Now a White House aide attends each week," reported USA Today in June 2001. "Vice President Cheney sends his own representative. So do GOP congressional leaders, right-leaning think tanks, conservative advocacy groups and some like-minded K Street lobbyists. The meeting has been valuable to the White House because it is the political equivalent of one-stop shopping. By making a single pitch, the administration can generate pressure on members of Congress, calls to radio talk shows, and political buzz from dozens of grassroots organizations. It also enables the White House to hear conservatives vent in private — and to respond — before complaints fester" *. "Cutting the government in half in one generation is both an ambitious and reasonable goal," Norquist stated in May 2000. "If we work hard we will accomplish this and more by 2025. Then the conservative movement can set a new goal. I have a recommendation: To cut government in half again by 2050""

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grover_Norquist

1/10/2006 12:59:25 AM

Quote :

"Wake up and smell reality."

I may not agree with everything that salisburyboy says, but he's absolutely right about this. Nothing is more funny (and sad,) than you stupid-ass red and blue morons arguing about everything except what actually matters.

The Republicrats and the Demopublicans are:
- the right and left hands of a one-party government.
- the mother and father of the family Empire.
- one and the same.


If you don't realize that, you are dumber than words can describe.......

Quote :

"The smart way to keep people passive and obedient is to strictly limit the spectrum of acceptable opinion, but allow very lively debate within that spectrum - even encourage the more critical and dissident views. That gives people the sense that there's free thinking going on, while all the time the presuppositions of the system are being reinforced by the limits put on the range of the debate."

Nice quote scottncst8, who said it? That's fucking well put. Only when the Republicrats and the Demopublicans disagree on an issue is there actually any real debate on it. It's kind of like the suspiciously small amount of debate surrounding GM-foods in the US compared the rest of the world....

Democracy doesn't work with only two choices.

bipartisanship == undemocratic duopoly

1/10/2006 9:42:16 AM

let's give a w00t w00t for European government! hempster-esque democracy has worked so well over there!!1

1/10/2006 10:09:36 AM

Okay, I really don't understand you fuckers at all.

The quote below is common fucking knowledge:

Quote :

"The smart way to keep people passive and obedient is to strictly limit the spectrum of acceptable opinion, but allow very lively debate within that spectrum - even encourage the more critical and dissident views. That gives people the sense that there's free thinking going on, while all the time the presuppositions of the system are being reinforced by the limits put on the range of the debate."

DEEP STUFF, MAN.

This is not a Democrat/Republican issue. This is about rich, greedy, and powerful folks against hard-working citizens who are too fucking tired to pay attention. This is about people like Norquist who see no problem with shafting a nation so him and his buddies can make a quick a buck, get a slightly larger piece of the pie.

Regarding the partisan stuff....I realize that the system is set up to swing back and forth with no radical change, but this doesn't feel right, guys. This feels different. I mean, Norquist just laid out a plan that illustrates how to permanently cripple an entire population of people (have-nots). Privatization is crazy AND FUCKING RADICAL, man. And, by the way, how many more men and women have to die in Iraq before we swing away from this bullshit? I'm tired of waiting.

About the quote above...If the system is set up to pit us against one another and keep us "passive and obedient," I'm not sure I see much wrong with stepping up to the role. Does scottncst8 just sit back and laugh at the idiots who are trying to make a change within the "spectrum of acceptable opinion"? "Oh, silly fools, if only they could be enlightened like me they'd see they are mere pawns, wasting their energies."

[Edited on January 10, 2006 at 10:13 AM. Reason : ssss]

1/10/2006 10:11:46 AM

Quote :

"The Republicrats and the Demopublicans are: - the right and left hands of a one-party government. - the mother and father of the family Empire. - one and the same."

I'll just point out that they aren't doing it on purpose. It is the natural order of things for liberty to yield and government to grow. The two parties want to be different, they really do. It's just that the very idea of "government" is stacked against them.

As Newt Gingrich said of his so called "Republican Revolution," we waged a battle against big government and big government won.

Quote :

"Norquist just laid out a plan that illustrates how to permanently cripple an entire population of people (have-nots)"

I don't see how. You call them have-nots today, they will still be have-nots tomorrow, whatever the government does or does not do. Getting rid of the Federal Government would not affect society much at all. A tiny fraction of the population is on welfare, which is already handled by the states, nearly every state already has a form of the FDA, ATF, DEA, and FBI, so doing away with these programs won't change shit.

You are describing the battle completely wrong. It is a battle between those with political power and those without, economics be damned. The government has not and never will help poor people, it helps rich people with access. Agribusinesses in the midwest raking in billions of dollars in agricultural subsidies, large manufacturers enjoying protection from overseas competition, large businesses enjoying protections from other businesses; these are the haves which feed government to the detriment of society at large. The poor are not among the have-nots in government because they have nothing to take away. The have-nots are other rich and middle-class people which are getting fleeced by the regulators for the benefit of other rich and middle-class people with access.

[Edited on January 10, 2006 at 10:26 AM. Reason : .,.]

1/10/2006 10:13:01 AM

-------------------------------------------------------

Quote :

"let's give a w00t w00t for European government! hempster-esque democracy has worked so well over there!!1"

.....RIGHT, BECAUSE IF I'M CRITICAL OF US-STYLE DEMOCRACY, THEN I MUST NOT ALSO BE CRITICAL OF EURO-STYLE DEMOCRACY....



[Edited on January 10, 2006 at 10:39 AM. Reason : ]

1/10/2006 10:29:28 AM

Your point was that two-party democracy functioned poorly. We pointed out that multi-party democracy doesn't function that much better.

1/10/2006 11:35:24 AM

so if we can agree that neither works, then lets agree that the only thing that can save us now is the one party system, ok? that is, one party, being the Party of Inclusion, the Grand Ole Party.

[Edited on January 10, 2006 at 11:40 AM. Reason : .]

1/10/2006 11:39:36 AM

oh man, my 2nd favorite phrase:

LET'S GET A ONE-PARTY SYSTEM!

1/10/2006 12:02:45 PM

1/10/2006 12:04:53 PM

^^^^
Right, but those aren't the only two options. (You're not a computer programmer, are you?)

Here are some options, but there are certainly more:

Zero-party democracy
One-party democracy
Two-party democracy
Three-party democracy
Four-party democracy
etc.
No-limit-to-how-many-parties democracy (multi-party democracy)
Zero-party democracy with some new type of sociopolitical organization rather than "party"
Zero-party democracy with some other new type of sociopolitical organization rather than "party"
etc.
One-"new-type-of-sociopolitical-organization"-democracy
Two-"new-type-of-sociopolitical-organization"-democracy
Three-"new-type-of-sociopolitical-organization"-democracy
etc.
No-limit-to-how-many-"new-type-of-sociopolitical-organization"-democracy
etc.

Obviously, some of these options may not offer advantages over two-party or multi-party democracies, but most of the others haven’t been tried yet--democracy is young. All that I’m saying is that two-party democracy is just about as close to one-party totalitarianism as democracy can get.


^gg

1/10/2006 12:06:46 PM

Oooh...

Quote :

"Zero-party democracy"

Cute in theory, but it's not going to work. As long as you have people who agree with each other on a common set if causes, they'll organize together to beat the rest. Thus, you have a party.

Quote :

"some new type of sociopolitical organization rather than "party""

A party by any other name is a party. Afterall, in general, a party is nothing more than two or more people who get together and organize themselves to advocate their vision of the world. We could certainly tweak the laws regulating them, but in the end, you'll still have a party or a coalition of parties. Or if you have an example of a new type of sociopolitical organization that doesn't resemble a party, please tell me.

1/10/2006 12:29:52 PM

^

Quote :

"Afterall, in general,...."

Stop there. You see, you're talking "in general." I'm talking specifically about the sociopolitical construct known as "political party". In order to be counted, it must have appeared on a ballot--(probably in CA.) There are numerous laws (enacted by the duopoly,) that strongly restrict what groups can legally be considered parties, and what those parties can do. The (former, and soon-to-be-back) NC Libertarian Party, for example, isn't legally even considered a party in NC anymore because of these undemocratic ballot access laws--tell that to the 10,000+ North Carolinians who were registered Libertarians. In fact, NC’s ballot access laws aren’t even in accordance with UN guidelines for free and democratic elections!

Quote :

"....a party is nothing more than two or more people who get together and organize themselves to advocate their vision of the world."

So, are the Americans United for Separation of Church and State a legally recognized political party?
Are the Boy Scout of America a legally recognized political party?
How about the National Congress of American Indians?
The Interfaith Alliance?
The Earth Liberation Front?
How about the KKK? NAMBLA? PETA?

No. They're not. (not that they should be)

You are way off point. Get a fucking clue. Don't piss on my leg and tell me it's raining.

When I say "party", I'm obviously referring to "an officially and legally recognized political party as is known in and according to the laws of the late 20th and early 21st centuries, on Earth."

1/10/2006 1:18:57 PM

you boys might be right

but

i'd much rather secretly be like TGD
than
overtly be like hempster or salisburyboy

1/10/2006 1:57:50 PM

everyone wishes they were like me.

1/10/2006 2:21:38 PM

^^^ Hempy, what is your point? Neither the republican nor Democratic party were officially recognized at some-point. Yes, we have locked ourselves into a two-party system. But that doesn't mean other parties do not exist, they are simply extra-legal (you named several of them there). Even if we had legal restrictions against the formation of parties (a 0-party system) they still form. The number would largely depend on the election process taken. Even if anyone can get on the ballot just for asking, after awhile there would only be two main parties (everyone else gets less than 10% of the vote) if a winner-takes-all system is used.

So, in the end, I am unconvinced that it really matters what democratic system is used. It will affect the margins, to be sure, maybe we'd have a socialist or libertarian in congress, but ultimately it is the same ruling elite that rules, regardless of the system instituted.

1/10/2006 3:49:08 PM