Letters to the Editor
ELYDOG
Published Letters: 498 Editor's Choice: 43
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Laissez Faire Crack Pipe in Beijing
[Read the article: The resurrection of John Maynard Keynes ]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]I don't know what you're smoking, but I have to agree with a previous poster. China, if it wants, can shut down hundreds of small plants by fiat, to prevent pollution. In fact, it just did. The government is the biggest investor in many businesses. The Chinese governments' "sovereign fund" is one of the biggest in the world. They just killed the plastic bag industry by banning them outright.
Lassiz faire? You do speak French, don't you? Oh, no, wait, Star Wars, that's right. Jabba jabba.
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Electric Cars only solution?
[Read the article: Peak oil? Consider it solved]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]This is a good article, but it points to only one solution to global warming/peak oil, the electric car. Somewhat narrow, like an advertisement for some of the companies out in California who are coming out, AGAIN, with electric cars.
I ride a motorcycle, and many in the developed world ride scooters and bicycles and MCs. Not a word about that, because Mr. Romm secretly wants to maintain his same suburban lifestyle. That is why he makes the cracks against Kunstler all the time. As part of suburbia is cars.
Carbon levels in the atmosphere are already on the 'downside' -past the level that indicates irreversible climate change. We don't have 10 years. Most book-length anlyses of peak oil I've read, like "The Party's Over" by Richard Heinberg, is that it is peaking now, also not in 10 years.
Romm, in his correct way, dismissed many of these bogus oil extraction technologies. This is the best part of the article. However, he then puts his faith in mainstream politicians like Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama to somehow deal with this issue. Clinton especially is hip-deep in doing things the corporate way. This is a woman that lies about opposing NAFTA 'all along', won't reject her vote to go into Iraq, and was on the cover of Fortune magazine. She favors a piecemeal approach, at best. Both are part of a Party that ignored CAFE standards for many years.
It is going to take much more than the electric car to turn this around...if it can be done at this point.
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2.3% Vegetarian?
[Read the article: Exploiting women to protect animals?]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Source? Sounds low, like the surveys on atheism ... who's asking the question, and how is it asked and what does the question say? And how is 'vegetarianism' defined? etc.
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Robet Franklin - Bruce?
[Read the article: Peak oil? Consider it solved]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]The answer is that capitalism cannot continue as the major impetus for economies. Period.
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"New Deal' Democrat?
[Read the article: Whatever happened to the great ARM reset crisis?]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]More like a Neo-Democrat, or 'near-Democrat.' The statistics for GNP/GDP are not accurate, as they don't take non-market activity into account, and treat all 'buying' as equal. That is why the GPI/HDI were developed, a progressive approach that accounts for ALL economic activity, even if it is not monetarized. Again, what is a 'new deal' democrat doing with a Republican figure?
I wonder if FDR would have blamed people in the 30s for their mortgage problems? Maybe not.
There were speculators, and gullible people, but there was also a mortgage and banking industry that pushed a bogus product. Takes two to tango. Poor and working class people sometimes do not have the education it takes to see through cons. Or they want to believe, when the 'powers that be' tell them something is all right. And middle class people are so greedy, they will buy, buy, buy, gullible for a different reason.
None of this would have happened if the product had not been delivered. You sound more like Ayn Rand than FDR, so I'd suggest you change your moniker.
Of course, I am not a dog either.
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Working Class Hero?
[Read the article: Barack Obama, working-class hero?]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]That was John Lennon, I think. He's dead. And he was singing about people like Woody Guthrie or Joe Hill or someone that really made a difference.
Both Obama and Clinton are lawyers, upscale yuppies and not working-class heroes. They are just going through the motions for the voting cattle. You know, fool 'em until they are into the slaughterhouse.
A real working-class hero doesn't stand a chance in the Democratic party. Union money and manpower are welcome, but not union ethics or programs, not true populism. The lying about NAFTA is the litmus test. The left wing in the unions formed the Labor Party in 1996 because of NAFTA. And we won't be forgetting who was behind that ... and it wasn't just the Clintons.
There is a lot of 'makin' up' to do. And eating hotdogs won't make it.
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Elect more lawyers!
[Read the article: Barack Obama, working-class hero?]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Talesin,
(Frank Lloyed Wright?)
Always nice to see someone celebrate lawyers. Actually, working class people can read contracts. They can also delegate to attorneys who can read contracts for them. Remember, the President is the President, not the Attorney General. Delegation. Important point.
Union staff would be laughing at your comments. Union negotiators and stewards read contracts all the time. Union officers, especially national union leaders, negotiate master contracts that cover thousands of workers. Somehow the 'dummies' do it! There is even a group of labor attorneys, who sometimes come from the ranks of labor, or understand it's position.
Obama and Clinton were not even labor attorneys. Clinton famously advised WalMart for many years. The legislatures are full of lawyers, and where has it gotten us? Even unions have to remember that the lawyer represents you, not the other way around...
I appreciate your comments about people having to be themselves. If Obama is smart, he will not pretend too much. But having a position that we need lawyers in office automatically puts you against populism. You are not a populist. Even some of the voters want 'experts' to lead them around. The population has been demobilized, de-politicized, dis-organized. That way the 'lawyers' can then represent 'us.' Democracy means more than voting for attorneys.
By the way, I work for attorneys. Nice folks, but not qualified to lead because they are attorneys.