Presidential Debate News, Economics, etc.

 

The second televised Presidential debate in 2012 was more emotional. This was the greatest debate in televised Presidential history as George Will said. Both President Barack Obama and Mitt Romney stood at each other to talk about many domestic and foreign policy matters. Regardless of what we think about the 2 party system, the President stood up like a man to debunk many of the lies and deception presented by Mitt Romney. President Barack Obama easily and handily defeated Mitt Romney in the debate. Polls show it and people know it. Like in every debate, Mitt Romney told numerous lies and President Barack Obama still believed in the war mongering rhetoric of neo-imperialism. Romney said that he wants to get the Pell Grants growing, but the Ryan budget will cut Pell Grants. Romney claimed that his plan will create 12 million new jobs in four years and rise take home pay. The Washington Post’s in house fact checker said that the math doesn’t add up to that claim. Romney claim that now, oil production is down 14 percent on federal land and gas production is down 9 percent. That’s a lie. Overall, oil production is up 10.6 percent from 2008 to 2011 (from 566 million barrels in 2008 to 626 million barrels in 2011). In the current administration, there are 241 million more barrels of oil produced form public land than in the last 3 years of the Bush administration. Mitt Romney (whose advisors are neo-conservatives or war mongers) refuses to support a moderate Paycheck Fairness Act, which will give women the right to sue for equal pay. Mitt Romney opposes the stimulus when a centrist stimulus now has created ca. 3 million jobs by that stimulus alone. Romney lied and said that the President engaged in an apology tour. These are just a few of the lies he shown and the President refuted him on these issues. On economics, both men promoted solutions within the system. They try to present themselves as representatives of the common man. Yet, they will not go into extreme populism (or a radical redistribution of economic and political power) for fear of losing votes from certain constituencies. Each talked about the middle class, but the poor never received a mention. It’s seems like the concerns of the poor have been ignored by numerous debates in the Presidential arena for years. Reactionaries like Alex Jones and crew will talk about threats to assassinate Romney (which I don’t agree with and I think that’s sick. Regardless of who is President in November, a real person doesn’t threaten assassination about people). On the other hand, Alex Jones’ crew ignore the record death threats against the current President Barack Obama. You will notice that Alex Jones and crew ignore the shot fired in a Obama campaign center in Colorado or the people arrested for trying to assassinate the President in real life (beyond Twitter). They use agitation about riots and reactionary rhetoric as a means to promote division (and try to intimidate people into following the old policies of pro-corporate interests including laissez faire capitalism). You will notice that they will not support union rights, progressive human freedoms, and they ignore how Austrian economics is supported by the establishment (Rockefeller funded Mises for years). Alex Jones and crew ally with the vicious reactionaries and Ron Paul (whose son supports the establishment’s ally Mitt Romney. Alex Jones is supportive of the disinformationist group of the John Birch Society. The JBS slandered the late President John F. Kennedy and civil rights heroes). Also, these liars (some are in the alternative media crowd) have slandered the brother Trayvon Martin too. Now, the reality is that the 2 party system has supported drastic cuts to social programs that millions of human beings depend. To build up our economy, we have to address poverty and unemployment via a national program of employment & a real war on poverty. Both men debated on immigration and the Dream Act. We don’t need attacks on immigrants, the opening up of public for energy exploitation, more corporate tax cuts, wars abroad, the privatization of all of public education, and austerity (which some in both parties recommend for us). Romney made the lie that single parent households are responsible for school shootings. The President won the debate, but I was shocked that he said that free enterprise is the greatest engine of prosperity the world’s ever known. That’s the same economic system that put my and the brother President’s ancestors in chains. That’s the same system that ruin nations the world over. It isn’t it. The foreign policy agenda of both the President and Mitt Romney are nearly identical (which involves militarism). I still believe that the President is wrong on promoting anti-civil liberty laws, an extreme foreign policy, and gradual cuts to our social safety net. Both men were looking like that they want to fight each other via their body language. Candy Crowley was an excellent moderator in handling time limits and keeping the debate in order. She stood her ground and spoke her mind. The President should be treated as a man not a God (like many brainwashed Democrats act like). Both the President Barack Obama and Mitt Romney talked about women issues and foreign policy matters that dealt with the attack in Benghazi, Libya. Brothers like Tavis Smiley and Cornell West have been at the forefront in putting the feet to the fire of the President in great terms. They aren’t perfect, but I have more respect for them than a neo-con or a person unconditionally supporting the President no matter what. It’s just that on some issues, Mitt Romney is much worse (he ignored that if you want to grow the economy, you need a national public job creating plan that addresses poverty and discrimination). Mitt Romney is wrong for constantly switching positions in a matter of not only years, but weeks (and his economic plan is sketchy with deceptive language of deductions). Overall, the President won the debate in an apparently strong fashion. So, we have a choice. Regardless of who you vote for, make sure it is the right choice for you. Don’t let anyone prevent you from voting period. Protect your rights and others around you for real.

 

 

In our generation, the reactionaries are making their comeback in trying to promote archaic, neo-feudalism economic philosophies. Now, it’s the time to fight back. Here are some facts on this issue. This liar Mitt Romney said that government doesn’t create jobs. Even federal investment has created jobs in education, energy production, technology, and other realms of human society. Now, here are some facts. The deficit is largely a product of tax cuts and wars not health care costs or the stimulus. Today, the budget shortfall is slowing in a deficit at 1.1 trillion dollars for 2012. America has historically low amounts of revenue from the corporate income tax. America has the second lowest effective corporate tax rate in the world. You see corporate profits rebound from 2008 to 2012. Today, we have a debt much higher as a percentage of GDP than the debt today. That debt was owned by taxpayers and many people brought savings bonds. The debt never made postwar America poorer and the debt didn’t prevent the postwar generation to have the biggest rise in incomes and living standards in America’s history. Foreign nations have large claims on American resources, but that’s matched by 89 cents’ worth of U.S. claims on foreigners. Foreigners usually put their U.S. investments into safe, low yield assets, so America earns more from its assets abroad than it pays to foreign investors. Debts aren’t harmless, but paranoia about the debt is harmful. That is why stable, modestly higher taxes on the super wealthy can be one step out of many in having better living standards. Debt is mostly money that we owe to ourselves. Since 1980, the vast majority of our debt was not financed by foreign borrowing at all. So, debt matters, but other things matters more like economic inequality and the necessity of some government spending to lower the unemployment rate. Real economic recovery is influenced by the excess of household debt. That is why some economists want the government to spend money and the private sector to repair its balance sheets (along with debt relief for homeowners as a means to improve job opportunities). When you have a recession, massive austerity will be heavily damaging to our economy. You need spending & specific investments (along with a real war on poverty to defeat income inequality, and help the poor) to get out of the slump. The reason is that austerity will cut resources, income, and cut especially necessary resources that can aid the poor. When you have a massive economic boom (which we don’t have now), then it’s time to have more targeted actions to handle the debt and deficit. Even Iceland broke all of the Austrian economic rules and they have a potent economic situation. Iceland rejected the debts given unto them by certain bankers. They arrested and convicted the bankers committing crimes and they negated the fraudulent mortgage debt (or Iceland forgave the mortgage debt).

 

Economic genocide has been the goal of the establishment. The wider issues are ignored by many in Washington, D.C. Our economic system has been damaged by international situations of an over reliance of petroleum, political corruption, fraud, and the evil war on terror. Our economic crisis mostly was created because there was financial manipulation and institutionalized fraud. The bank bailouts were wrong since it transfer wealth to Wall Street banks without a massive change in the system. This increased public debt. It’s not a secret our enemy wants to loot taxpayer funds and destroy of state social programs as a means to promote an archaic economic philosophy. Our economic crisis is beyond just American shores. It’s an international system that desires to maintain national security and strategic objectives. US/NATO military engine promotes this slick neo-imperialism. Today, we have the borderline fascist Tea Party types and the President who sometimes appeases to the political establishment as a means to not lose votes. Yet, the corporate elite is not criticized by the mainstream media at all. The radicals and the reactionaries want to get rid of the major systems of the New Deal and Great Society programs. Wars, bailouts, and tax cuts for the rich aren’t right to harbor real economic growth. Even Webster Tarpley is rather to say that if the social safety net is radically eliminated (with health care, Social Security, etc.), then people will be exterminated. The wild thing is that the 1 percent has record profits. Suffering under the guise of sacrifice is austerity.

 

 

 

Washington’s Blog did an excellent job in exposing how the attack on Hiroshima was unnecessary and evil. Military experts, scientists, and other experts back then even expressed reservations about dropping nuclear bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki in order for WWII to end. Back in 1946, there was the U.S. Strategic Bombing Survey group (which was assigned by President Truman) told the public that Japan would have surrendered even if the atomic bombs had not been dropped. This surrender could have occurred before December 31, 1945 according to the July 1946 report. People already know that Dwight D. Eisenhower (who was the Supreme Commander of all Allied Forces. He handle a lot of the American military policies that dealt with the European theater of WWII) disagreed with atomic weapons being bombed in Japanese soil. Dwight said these words on November 11, 1963. The Japanese were about to surrender. Now, the attacks targeted mostly civilian locations not major military installations. Also, the loss of life and the generational genetic harm to the Japanese human beings was abhorrent. U.S. Admiral William Leahy said that the bombing of massive women and children was unethical and a throwback to the barbarians of the Dark Ages. General Douglas MacArthur disagreed with the atomic bombing. The reason was that there was no military justification for it and the Japanese was willing to surrender (as long as the Emperor would remain, which later occurred after the 2 bombings came about). To his credit, MacArthur was appalled by the Potsdam declaration in July of wanting Japan to surrender unconditionally or suffer utter destruction. The nuclear weapons were used in civilian populations and Special Assistant to the Secretary of the Navy Lewis Strauss proposed to Secretary of the Navy James Forrestal for a non-lethal demonstration of atomic weapons (in forest). This proposal was wrong, but still better than the events itself. U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission historian J. Samuel Walker has studied the history of research on the decision to use nuclear weapons on Japan. In his conclusion he writes, “The consensus among scholars is that the bomb was not needed to avoid an invasion of Japan and to end the war within a relatively short time. It is clear that alternatives to the bomb existed and that Truman and his advisors knew it.” President Truman allowed the bomb to be dropped, because he wanted to show the power of the U.S. against Soviet influence. The bomb droppings were the beginning of the Cold War since Truman accepted Churchill’s premise that the Soviets wanted to dominate the world under the flag of Communism. So, we know the truth in 2012. The truth is that WWII began and ended under controversial activities. It was a war that was filled with controversy.

 

 

In African cultural traditions, there are always unifying themes. Black people are the original peoples on Earth and the original values of the original peoples on Earth still remain. As a member of the indigenous peoples in human history, I do reject any attempt to destroy Nature intentionally. I believe in the concept of community, and I believe in cooperation. I accept a common black heritage, I believe in natural law (or moral law from the Creator or God), and I believe in contributing my talents to the world. Now, throughout history in Africa, our ancestors always believe in assisting the family unit collectively. That means is that one family member needs assistance, the whole family works together in making sure that family member is back on their feet. Selfishness is omitted from our culture. We are concerned with the whole community without some selfish individualist lust for greed and wealth. We have empathy toward our fellow human beings. There is strong power in the black collective. That’s express throughout human history. That is why whenTanzania was under Nyerere using these communal tenets reduced infant mortality, raised the life expectancy rate, and increase school enrolment (plus lowered the adult literacy rate). Also, black people regularly believe in cooperation. One of the greatest parts of spirituality and pure common sense is the respect of Nature and the creations of the Earth. Once a person use wise treatment of Nature and creations, then blessings can flow about (and a humans’ spiritual and moral attitude is enhanced). In natural law, all life is sacred and people have right to reproduce in passing their genes to future generations. Also, being single or being married is a blessing too. Children are always a blessing and an inheritance for our people indeed.

 

 

By Timothy