Arkansas Blog

cycles?

from '68 to '04, the GOP won*(2000)7 of 10 general elections
from '32 to '64, the DEMs won*(1960)7 of 9
from 1892 to '28, the GOP won 7 of 10

if the cycles hold true, 2008 is the turning tide once again
i think the Clintons realized this, hence the continued "fight" for
the nomination for what should be the easiest DEM victory since 1932.
but they/she failed to anticipate the nature of the change/tide
and did not have the foresight to get ahead of it on particular
issues (especially the Iraq War)

the times/tides have changed, and they missed the boat
and they're not happy about it.

Max, thank you for posting the link to Packer's essay

'tis the best analysis of the current landscape and how it came to be
that i've read this year

it also clearly outlines the fork in the road this year's election represents

and to me, election wise, makes me very optimistic (unusual for me)

Obama has a clear mission: ride the building wave and secure enough of the white, working class votes (tying Iraq not only to the economy's poor performance but also to the disgracefully embarassing and counterproductive 'national security strategy/unitary executive abominations)

McCain is in a helluva pickle: the more he tries to differentiate himself from W and the decades-old GOP strategy for winning elections, the more he depresses the bases who've become accustomed to being stroked... and/or vice-versa

I've listend to fellow Democrats say many times before that the Republicans were done. I've heard it before and Democrats always get cocky and nominate someone Republicans can beat.

History repeats itself....

Its always easier for a new movement to co-opt one of the existing parties rather than to start from scratch. Therefore, I've never thought it likely that either the Democratic or the Republican parties would collapse and be replaced by another - its more likely that those who wish to wield power in American politics will work within one of the existing political parties and try to turn it toward their ends.

Hopefully, we're seeing the end of the Religious Right's hammerlock on the GOP and, in the future, that party will once more play a responsible role in the American political system. For the foreseeable future, however, I think they're toast!

"by using the angers, anxieties, and resentments produced by the cultural chaos of the 1960s,"

Is this not what Obama was talking about when he spoke of bitter voters clinging to their guns and Bibles? I think so and I don't think he was wrong about it. Unless one is to the manor born, we carry a resentment for every hard knock life has handed us. It is human nature to blame all our troubles on something or someone other than ourselves. This makes us ripe to be led in different directions. Plus the natural process of aging makes people fearful. hugh's old parents were captured by Fox News because they're naturally fearful so near the end of their lives.

I've had it pretty good, but I still cringed a little bit deep inside when a friend showed me her new 92 thousand dollar Jaguar convertible. Who in the hell needs a 92 thousand dollar car? If I had spent my life shoving itchy insulation into Whirlpool refrigerators, though I was well paid the whole time, I'd really resent people with 92 thousand dollar cars. I'd also be prone to look at well-formed young black men lounging around in the middle of the week and think the worst. I'd resent all the Mexicans I see on all the roofs in my neighborhood, though the last FK'ing thing I want to do is roof houses for a living.

If you're a Christian, you're set up to judge others....oh who is the most Christ like of all.....ME! What is the best religion? MINE! Who is going to hell? YOU! Who are the worst people on earth? ATHEISTS! Then it's an easy jump to start grouping gays, blacks, Mexicans, Church of Christers, and anyone else not exactly like you in with the atheists and blasting them all straight to hell. Not that I think hugh's parents are in this group...sorry hugh.

And when people get mad they think of guns and knives and pitchforks and bombs....even nice people have those thoughts running thru their heads now and then. Though I enjoyed the 60s a whole lot more, America has been in a cultural crisis ever since...it's a constant. This Nixonian brand is a whole lot more boring, but it is every bit as dangerous and transforming. Google Florida 2000 election and see what you get. Think about RFK in 1968 and BHO in 2008. It wasn't Liberals or hippies that killed RFK and it won't be those people gunning for Obama either.

We can't kill the Republican Party...they're like cockroaches, they'll always be around. But by god we can stuff them back into the Pandora's box from whence they came and sit on them for a couple of decades. Their mission sucks! The mission we should be on is to bring peace between the brothers and the sisters...alllllll over this world as Peter, Paul and Mary sang about so long ago. It's hard not to feel superior driving by someone whose walking, but we need to learn how to have compassion for everyone. Some of that what you do to the least among you, you do to me...stuff. It's our only hope for peace in our time.

Well this is the first time in history gas is over 4 bucks and climbing with no end in sight... Immediate debt incurred is at least 10 trillion..and climbing with no end in sight and with nothing but dead bodies and millions of refugees to show for it... We are 17 years into genocide for robber barons in Iraq.. at a cost of trillions of dollars.. with increasingly dismal results...

The Pacific Ocean is acidic while tuna and salmon soar past 30 bucks a pound.... get it at any price, while it lasts.

40 percent US oil consumption is due to the DOD/MIC... reduce mic for true conservation..and we simply have the added bonus of not slaughtering so many innocent people at the same time... nor leaving millions upon millions in the wake of blood who now truly hate us.

Unregulated speculators, banks and hedge fundies...sub-prime mortgage people into homelessness, then move into commodities, while we/the fed bail them out instead of imprisoning or regulating/progressively taxing them.

The growth industry in California these days, porta potties for growing tent cities or parking lots full of people living in their cars....odds are it's coming to your community very soon... and it won't be packed with former ANB banker thieves.. the homeless will be bailing them out through their labor/taxes.

We torture globally and take pride in the fact we don't provide even basic health care for each other... much lees those far less fortunate in third world countries who can no longer afford basic grains or potable water for sustenance ..

Not to forget things like the patriot act and rendering Habeas Corpus back to some twelfth century quaint notion. Or the fellow from NLR who had the police break down his door, shoot him, and then successfully, legally, place a gag order on him.. to keep him from talking about it.

All of these things are related to todays conservatism (R) and those who capitulate to, or downright enable their whims (DLC).

Until we view life on this planet without torture and genocide as being patriotic and moral absolutes... until we view, liberty, labor, health, as sacrosanct for human dignity. Until we view our precious natural resources from mother earth as sacred and finite... we will simply go the route of an over zealous empire who feeds to the point they simply implode due to our own greed and hubris.

I believe the best way to do so is for Congress to fulfill its duty (with special prosecutors) and conduct investigations prosecutions of the 40 years of criminal conservatives..To name a few, Kissinger, Cheney and Rummy are all still alive and have been egregiously criminal to this very day. Until the truth comes out in a way the MSM can no longer ignore or filter it.. the people will not know enough of the horrific truths nor will generations of trained rich conservative criminals ever consider changing their ways.... there are now far more Tim Griffins and John Yoos and Ollie Norths in our midst than ever before... they must be prosecuted or publicly scorned to the point this trend stops!

Unfortunately this can only happen if the American electorate rejects a lot of their own "nice polite" congresscritters and senators.. who are a part of the problem.

Eventually the Republican Party will become more libertarian. They will drop the social issues and focus on money and appealing to Americans greed. There are plenty of liberal Republicans in the Democratic Party that would defect back to the Republicans if they did.

If the CBS "Sunday Morning" conservative apologist, Ben Stein, is any indication of how the Republicans deal with real issues, the party is in deep trouble. Yesterday's drone about the gasoline prices showed a disconnect with people. His answer was that it may take years for the price of gasoline to come down, but it will, due to the market influence of people using less gasoline. He ignores the dramatic increase of oil use around the world.

His recommendation is for Americans to use less, which, on the surface, seems like sound advice that any third-grader would come up with. Then he says that will happen when we buy smaller more efficient cars and use mass transit.

He ignores the fact that most Americans do not live where there is reliable mass transit that goes where we need to be. Our half-century of fleeing the cities for the countryside has crippled mass transit and dispersed the population and destinations.

He also gives the same elitist advice that they did a couple of decades ago during another oil crisis. He tells people to buy new more efficient cars. The people who are most affected by the price of gasoline are the ones who can least afford to buy new more efficient vehicles, which are getting more expensive daily. Meanwhile the trade-in value of the guzzlers is plummeting, thus making that transition unrealistic.

Of course the Democrats are no better going "me-too" with showboat tricks like a gasoline tax holiday. Do they really want to win? The voters deserve better answers.

More than enough oil is being produced to meet the world's actual consumption. The reason oil prices have skyrocketed is the weak dollar which has led investors to buy oil. This has created an artificial price bubble.

For seven years this country has borrowed money so people could spend more and pay less in taxes. Now we are paying oil companies as a result. This country is so irresponsible and most are still clueless as to the real cause of higher gas prices thanks to our useless mainstream media.

The oil speculators are not known to be humanitarians; they are, by definition, in it for profit. The same with those who hold the U.S. debt chits. There's not going to be an easy rescue from this morass.

The increased industrialization of what used to be called the "third world" and the increased personal consumption of energy by the people of those nations is going to keep pressure on oil production. Now that they have to extract oil from less convenient sites and drill deeper in once ignored sites, there will not be any significant drop in price.

If the dollar recovers in the next few years, the price of oil might decrease, but only slightly. I say "if," because the downward devaluation tends to be self-perpetuating - as the debt grows, the measures needed to reverse the trend become more extreme and take more time.

I seldom hear politicians talking about the oil that will not be available for our children and grandchildren. As 2012 (above) alludes to, is that we tend to elect politicians who promise us immediate gratification, not adult policies.

"Now that they have to extract oil from less convenient sites and drill deeper in once ignored sites, there will not be any significant drop in price."

Actually they don't have to, it's just becoming more economically feasible to extract from those sources. The same goes for bio-fuels that could never compete at lower prices.

"If the dollar recovers in the next few years, the price of oil might decrease, but only slightly."

Oil has gone up 30% in the past couple of months and that was due entirely to speculation. Once the sell of begins, that 30% price increase will evaporate.

I agree on the dollar staying weak though.

supply and demand ?

there's a current level of supply (of any commodity)
and a current level of demand

there are projections/forecasts of future supplies and demands

for any commodity, there is not only the amount of current and projected
supply and demand... but the measurement of price, in whatever currency, is
subject to the same "law".

supply and demand applies to the currency being used as a measure of price
in addition to the quantifications of the commodity
(add in hedging/derivatives and you've got a helluva circus)

i believe that the recent (several years) rise in commodities prices
are mostly a reflection of the anticipated future lower value of the
US Dollar (hedging/derivatives ON TOP of supply & demand expectations)

the "big money" is betting that (over the next few years)
future supply and future demand will not change much,
perhaps a few percent each year, year over year,
but that the value of the US Dollar is likely to change much more (down)

somebody's gonna lose a lot of money if they're wrong.

Muleboy, were you trying to disagree with anyone or just rambling?

Do you even know how commodities futures work?

beg pardon, allow me to simplify

the current price of commodities (measured in US Dollars)
is more a reflection of the anticipated lower value of the US Dollar
than it is the current, or expected future
of the supply and demand for those commodities

no disagreement, please excuse if i rambled,
'tis how i make my living so i thought i'd add my .02
sorry for any confusion

I guess I'm not use to us agreeing... lol

Max, we can safely say assignment flunked.