jdanton

This is why this election is such a big opportunity for the dems. If they get control of Congress and the White House, they can go down the same path, or they can change direction and show us they are much better than the republicans

Their choice, no?

__________________
Author: Memoirs of a Sleepless Mind, a book you CAN judge by its cover.

jdanton

My point exactly. Doesn't that reflect the Bush administration's approach?

Granted, if Obama's medical records consumed 1200 pages, he may have done the same thing, the fact is they fit on one sheet, which he openly distributed.

Seems that suggests a more transparent White House, no?

__________________
Author: Memoirs of a Sleepless Mind, a book you CAN judge by its cover.

BillCosby

YEP!!!!!!!


jdanton, you, Insipid this is just like back in the day............lol

__________________
Preventive war is not war!!!!Counter-terror is not terror

Refuge51

The bathroom...?...laundry room?

__________________
I'm fed up to the ears with old men dreaming up wars for young men to die in.
~George McGovern~

Curator

Please expand on his leftist policies. Show me proof of these policies and I may believe you.

Smaller government gives us lead paint in chinese toys. Is that ok with you?

The whole big vs. small government argument is a misframed one. I much prefer to use the efficient vs. inefficient government. The facts are that a Republican led government is grossly inefficient. A government is too big when the amount that it spends on all programs/extracts in taxes is greater than the level that is considered reasonable by a majority of eligible voters.

__________________
“I truly believe that at this point in America’s history we need a president who will not just continue ... basically the policies we have followed in recent years. We need a president with transformational qualities.”

"For that reason, I will be voting for Barack Obama.”
- Former Secretary of State Colin Powell

“You can actually see Russia from land here in Alaska.”
Gov Palin explaining her national security credentials.

Heretic

Yes, the AIPAC thing irritated me as well. No mention of the rights- must less survival, of nonviolent Palestinians at all. And I can't be sure Obama is just saying it to jump through their hoops or if he really believes it.

__________________
"In space no one can hear you scream. in D.C. it won't matter..." -Clinton Resurrection: The Alien Queen lives!

BillCosby

Great points................

The small as mentioned above refers to those very agencies that are there to protect & serve us.........

The exception of course is the military... That is never part of that "smaller gov"..........

That is the prob I find w/ the "ideal"........ It sounds good.......... It just don't smell good........

to protect us- a big military & big police forces w/ bigger jails while enron & wall street monitor themselves.........

I for one think that the food & drug companies should be the first to be next to be deregulated........ They can take care of themselves.. They did just fine before meat & health inspections.........

Back in the day reputable repubs saw a need for gov. Not just building jails & killing ppl.............


Remember 'The Jungle'!
By Kevin Mattson

This article appeared in the May 1, 2006 edition of The Nation.
April 17, 2006

One hundred years ago, a book was published that changed history. It was called The Jungle. Its author was a twenty-something socialist. And its message was simple: America's meat industry was corrupt, exploiting its workers and churning out food that shouldn't be eaten.

The novel focused on overworked immigrants, but readers fixated on details about meat production. Upton Sinclair described men falling into vats and then being turned into food. He documented rats scurrying onto piles of diseased meat. "Rats, bread and meat would go into the hoppers together," winding up on dining tables. This was muckraking at its best, ripping aside the veil for Americans to see what might otherwise be ignored.

Sinclair was summoned to the White House by Teddy Roosevelt (Note: he was one of those wacky repub). While the President slammed his fist on the table and condemned corruption, he also made it clear something would be done to address The Jungle. Sinclair had successfully turned literary celebrity into political clout. And on June 30, 1906, the Meat Inspection Act passed, "the most pronounced extension of federal power ever enacted," its chief proponent declared.

It's easy, looking back, to remember The Jungle as a great book, written by a great hero of the American left. Think of it: A writer uncovers injustices, publishes a book and presto, progressive legislation follows. But The Jungle did not cause the Meat Inspection Act any more than Edward R. Murrow caused the downfall of Senator Joe McCarthy. History is more complex than that.

Numerous things were in place before The Jungle: nutritional studies that explained the dangers of tainted food, previous legislation aimed at regulating meatpacking, a "progressive" President intent on taming unregulated capitalism. Other critics had already attacked the meat industry for charging high prices to consumers while underpaying cattle suppliers and workers. The Jungle helped push public opinion where it was already heading.

If we shouldn't overvalue it, how should we remember the novel?

Not as great literature. The novel is overwrought and overwritten. It's easy to believe the bad things documented in the book could happen, but it's hard to believe that everything bad happens the way it does to the central character, Jurgis: practically every woman in his life becomes a prostitute, his only kid drowns in the city's streets, and he loses his house and countless jobs. Then he converts to socialism and experiences an epiphany that seems downright goofy, with the "sky" splitting "above him" and "all the pillars of his soul" falling in.

What's more, while Sinclair did use his fame for the cause, he allowed himself to become the center of publicity. Pursuing celebrity status, he tried to push his books more than push a movement.

Sinclair's hunger for publicity left him open to attack--including a very recent one from America's right-wing intelligentsia. About twenty years after writing The Jungle, Sinclair wrote Boston, a historical novel about Sacco and Vanzetti, the two Italian anarchists put to death by the State of Massachusetts in 1927. A recently discovered letter, which reflects rather cynically on the idea that the anarchists' innocence would be better for book sales, has been seized on as evidence that Sinclair covered up his knowledge that Sacco and Vanzetti were guilty. Both Jonah Goldberg and the editors of The Weekly Standard zeroed in on a passage in which Sinclair explains that Boston would be "much better copy as a naïve defense of Sacco and Vanzetti because this is what all my foreign readers expect, and they are 90% of my public." From this, the Weekly Standard editors concluded that Sinclair decided to "lie so his fans would keep buying his books."

Of course, the letter doesn't prove that Sinclair actually decided to write Boston as a "naïve" account. In fact, the novel openly discusses perjury on the part of the defense. And many of Sinclair's letters (all available to the public) admitted, to the chagrin of his communist friends, that Sacco might have been guilty. Nonetheless, Sinclair's slavish pursuit of book sales leaves him open to the right's trumped-up charges.

Sinclair didn't lie, but neither was he a "liberal saint" (Goldberg's term). This was a man unwilling to compromise, who in 1906 said he had regrets about The Jungle's impact. The Meat Inspection Act was "admirable," he grudgingly admitted, but it didn't commit Americans to socialism--the only real solution for Sinclair. It was all or nothing. Indeed, after the Jungle sensation, Sinclair tried to create a little private utopia at his abode, Helicon Hall, with a small number of like-minded people. Then he embarked on a bizarre string of dietary experiments, trying to find what he called "perfect health." Instead of political change, he settled for private utopia.

So do Sinclair and The Jungle leave behind anything recoverable? Yes, and Sinclair realized just what during the cold war. More conservative by the 1950s, he was embarrassed that of all his books, The Jungle was the only one still read. Communists were using it to publicize injustices of the "free world." Sinclair explained that "America has changed a lot since" The Jungle, and "the 'critical authors' had something to do with that change." He realized now that unions and federal regulations really had accomplished something.

For America to lead the battle against communism, as Sinclair thought it must, it needed to make its own institutions worthy of respect and to listen to its critics. Only then could the country win the world's admiration. Remembering the very real sores in our past helped do this.

That's a crucial lesson to remember in George W. Bush's America. The world today distrusts America's foreign ambitions, and when it peers over our borders it sees the injustices of Katrina's wreckage and questions our commitment to democracy. The Jungle and its author's recollections of its impact during the cold war prompt a broader lesson: The best way to nurture pride in America is to see its underbelly--past and present--and tell the truth about it.

__________________
Preventive war is not war!!!!Counter-terror is not terror

BillCosby

Great points................

The small as mentioned above refers to those very agencies that are there to protect & serve us.........

The exception of course is the military... That is never part of that "smaller gov"..........

That is the prob I find w/ the "ideal"........ It sounds good.......... It just don't smell good........

to protect us- a big military & big police forces w/ bigger jails while enron & wall street monitor themselves.........

I for one think that the food & drug companies should be next for deregulation........ They can take care of themselves.. They did just fine before meat & health inspections.........

Back in the day reputable repubs saw a need for gov. Not just building jails & killing ppl.............


Remember 'The Jungle'!
By Kevin Mattson

This article appeared in the May 1, 2006 edition of The Nation.
April 17, 2006

One hundred years ago, a book was published that changed history. It was called The Jungle. Its author was a twenty-something socialist. And its message was simple: America's meat industry was corrupt, exploiting its workers and churning out food that shouldn't be eaten.

The novel focused on overworked immigrants, but readers fixated on details about meat production. Upton Sinclair described men falling into vats and then being turned into food. He documented rats scurrying onto piles of diseased meat. "Rats, bread and meat would go into the hoppers together," winding up on dining tables. This was muckraking at its best, ripping aside the veil for Americans to see what might otherwise be ignored.

Sinclair was summoned to the White House by Teddy Roosevelt (Note: he was one of those wacky repub). While the President slammed his fist on the table and condemned corruption, he also made it clear something would be done to address The Jungle. Sinclair had successfully turned literary celebrity into political clout. And on June 30, 1906, the Meat Inspection Act passed, "the most pronounced extension of federal power ever enacted," its chief proponent declared.

It's easy, looking back, to remember The Jungle as a great book, written by a great hero of the American left. Think of it: A writer uncovers injustices, publishes a book and presto, progressive legislation follows. But The Jungle did not cause the Meat Inspection Act any more than Edward R. Murrow caused the downfall of Senator Joe McCarthy. History is more complex than that.

Numerous things were in place before The Jungle: nutritional studies that explained the dangers of tainted food, previous legislation aimed at regulating meatpacking, a "progressive" President intent on taming unregulated capitalism. Other critics had already attacked the meat industry for charging high prices to consumers while underpaying cattle suppliers and workers. The Jungle helped push public opinion where it was already heading.

If we shouldn't overvalue it, how should we remember the novel?

Not as great literature. The novel is overwrought and overwritten. It's easy to believe the bad things documented in the book could happen, but it's hard to believe that everything bad happens the way it does to the central character, Jurgis: practically every woman in his life becomes a prostitute, his only kid drowns in the city's streets, and he loses his house and countless jobs. Then he converts to socialism and experiences an epiphany that seems downright goofy, with the "sky" splitting "above him" and "all the pillars of his soul" falling in.

What's more, while Sinclair did use his fame for the cause, he allowed himself to become the center of publicity. Pursuing celebrity status, he tried to push his books more than push a movement.

Sinclair's hunger for publicity left him open to attack--including a very recent one from America's right-wing intelligentsia. About twenty years after writing The Jungle, Sinclair wrote Boston, a historical novel about Sacco and Vanzetti, the two Italian anarchists put to death by the State of Massachusetts in 1927. A recently discovered letter, which reflects rather cynically on the idea that the anarchists' innocence would be better for book sales, has been seized on as evidence that Sinclair covered up his knowledge that Sacco and Vanzetti were guilty. Both Jonah Goldberg and the editors of The Weekly Standard zeroed in on a passage in which Sinclair explains that Boston would be "much better copy as a naïve defense of Sacco and Vanzetti because this is what all my foreign readers expect, and they are 90% of my public." From this, the Weekly Standard editors concluded that Sinclair decided to "lie so his fans would keep buying his books."

Of course, the letter doesn't prove that Sinclair actually decided to write Boston as a "naïve" account. In fact, the novel openly discusses perjury on the part of the defense. And many of Sinclair's letters (all available to the public) admitted, to the chagrin of his communist friends, that Sacco might have been guilty. Nonetheless, Sinclair's slavish pursuit of book sales leaves him open to the right's trumped-up charges.

Sinclair didn't lie, but neither was he a "liberal saint" (Goldberg's term). This was a man unwilling to compromise, who in 1906 said he had regrets about The Jungle's impact. The Meat Inspection Act was "admirable," he grudgingly admitted, but it didn't commit Americans to socialism--the only real solution for Sinclair. It was all or nothing. Indeed, after the Jungle sensation, Sinclair tried to create a little private utopia at his abode, Helicon Hall, with a small number of like-minded people. Then he embarked on a bizarre string of dietary experiments, trying to find what he called "perfect health." Instead of political change, he settled for private utopia.

So do Sinclair and The Jungle leave behind anything recoverable? Yes, and Sinclair realized just what during the cold war. More conservative by the 1950s, he was embarrassed that of all his books, The Jungle was the only one still read. Communists were using it to publicize injustices of the "free world." Sinclair explained that "America has changed a lot since" The Jungle, and "the 'critical authors' had something to do with that change." He realized now that unions and federal regulations really had accomplished something.

For America to lead the battle against communism, as Sinclair thought it must, it needed to make its own institutions worthy of respect and to listen to its critics. Only then could the country win the world's admiration. Remembering the very real sores in our past helped do this.

That's a crucial lesson to remember in George W. Bush's America. The world today distrusts America's foreign ambitions, and when it peers over our borders it sees the injustices of Katrina's wreckage and questions our commitment to democracy. The Jungle and its author's recollections of its impact during the cold war prompt a broader lesson: The best way to nurture pride in America is to see its underbelly--past and present--and tell the truth about it.

__________________
Preventive war is not war!!!!Counter-terror is not terror

poetrychic

he has malignant skin cancer, of course he doesn't want them to get too far into his medical history...plus he's very old, his medical record probably has all kinds of detrimental nuggets in it, not something you want to reveal while running for president...

__________________
"it was a creed written into the founding documents that declared the destiny of a nation, yes we can!"

bornright

I feel he should choose someone that actually believes the way he does such as Maxine Waters or Hillary as there is not a dime worth of difference between anyone of the three.