Defining the present wave of change as set by Reagan, means the Republicans can't run on change

[karynnj]

Saying they differ from Bush will not suffice.

Obama did not endorse any of Reagan's policies. In fact of the three, I would bet on Obama as having been the one more against Reagan's policies than the others. He was a college student at Columbia, majoring in political science when Reagan was elected. The job he took out of college was as an advocate on the south side of Chicago - not many Reagan fans there and not the type of job a Reagan graduate of an Ivy school would take. The Clintons were in favor of supporting the Contras at that time and Edwards was non-political. Do we even know if he voted against Reagan?

As to what he says consider this: EVERY candidate is now claiming that they are the candidate of change - even the Republicans.
I watched their last pathetic debate and they all were speaking of themselves as change. I heard Gingrich reference the French election where the new President, a member of Chirac's government ran successfully as the change candidate by saying that Chirac deviated from their parties true beliefs. It was his view a conservative could do that here.

Obama is speaking of the need for transformational change. Change from the worldview of Reagan and the conservatives which has dominated the country for decades. This is the case for why none of the Republicans can really be the change candidate. They will NOT reject the views of Reagan. THe new transformational wave of change HAS to be in a different direction than the last. I don't understand those who have distorted it by assuming that saying that Reagan did cause a change means he did good. If it were good and it was still the dominating direction, change would not be needed.

In terms of the economy - one area where Reagan created change, the result is what John Edwards speaks against daily. Under Reagan, the gap between his 2 Americas increased. As the rich became richer, they were further rewarded with massive tax cuts. In a final piece of chutzpah, the surplus raised to build reserves in the social security system via a less progressive tax than the income tax was used to make the budget look less unbalanced than it was.

Under Clinton that same trend continued and, in fact, accelerated. It is true that as the economy soared that the poorer America benefited as well, but less so than the inhabitants of the McMansions. When the tech bubble broke, the Enron accounting exposed, and now the subprime mortgages are failing, it is the poor that are suffeeing the most. (To put it in context, I heard good non-political people say as recently as a month ago, that they don't know why the Democrats are saying the the economy was bad, it was growing at a decent rate.

How can Edwards not see that Reagan led a massive change, when he speaks against the fruits of that change daily?

Another example is global warming. Under Carter, we were moving to using less energy. The cause was that oil had become more expensive and for a while scarer, but even then we knew that oil made us dependent on the middle east. Global warming was not yet a major issue. Reagan's change said we could use as much as we wanted and that mind set did not change as we entered the Clinton years, in spite of all Gore's excellent work. The movement was still to bigger and bigger SUVs, that by virtue of definition weren't effected by CAFE standards. Those were years that we wasted. Those were the years that Carter was mocked for suggesting people wear sweaters and set the thermostat lower. Clinton, as much as Reagan, sent a signal that we were entitled to the good life of SUVs and McMansions.

From what I've heard from Obama in his national security speech and when he has spoken in the SFRC committee, I trust that he would be the most likely to break from the dominant US foreign policy of the last 50 years. I like that he has people like John Kerry and Gary Hart vouching for him, because they are people I have come to trust on those issues.

Obama is right that on these issues, Reagan led a massive change. Every candidate, in both parties, is saying change is needed. In fact, over 70% of the population now say the county is on the wrong track. This is the first time that statistic is this high since the end of GHWB's administration. Then, the opportunity for real change was wasted. Then the sitting President was running - so they could not run on change. This time we need to equate the need for change as change from the course set by Reagan. The Republicans, of course, will not admit that the original force for the change in the last 2 and a half decades that led us to disaster was Reagan, their hero, but it is true.

[Bonobo]

1. As I said, Obama provides an innoculation against the trumpeting of Reagan.

He masterfully began the process of taking the "Reagan Issue: away from them by acknowledging that he was an important president in the minds of many.

It was brilliant.

[niceypoo]

6. There is no "Reagan issue"

...until he created one by making a stupid statement that blew up in his face

[Name removed]

7. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[karynnj]

13. Or until the fun gotcha game was played

His statement was not stupid, but an intelligent discourse. I am beyond sick of the way any complicated or complex comment becomes fodder for attacks. It is beyond reason that anyone could look at Obama's history and see a Reagan acolyte.

[redqueen]

19. He didn't take it away,though. He acknolwedged it...

and if he wins the nod, it will be just one more weapon with which to clobber him.

[babylonsister]

2. How dare you interject common sense into the argument!

This is a great post, well thought out. Thanks for taking the time-I appreciate it! I also appreciate the efforts of Kerry, Hart, et al. Their endorsements only help imo. I respect these people, so they've reinforced my opinion of Senator Obama.
:hi:

[Tom Rinaldo]

3. I have no problem with Reagan being called "an agent of change"

Clearly he was. I know that "change" is a political value neutral term, not always a progressive one (despite all the hoopla about Democrats being for "change" this year - with Obama positioning himself at the head of that pack). Once the dismantling of the social safety net got packaged as a series of "reforms", I knew enough to stop expecting words like that to convey any specific ideology.

Reagan did bring about a sea change in American politics, and to do so he needed to find some means to connect with deeply felt emotions in a lot of people. I have no problem with Obama pointing that out either.

But this sentence contains the seeds of my unease:

"I think they felt like with all the excesses of the 1960s and 1970s and government had grown and grown but there wasn't much sense of accountability in terms of how it was operating."

I lived through the white backlash. I lived through the religious right backlash. I lived through the Right wing blaming Benjamin Spock for mentoring a generation of "permissive parents" who were to blame for the loss of respect felt for traditional conventions in America, like "States Rights" and "Male bread winners" and "chastity" and "subservience" to church leaders. I remember when the Supreme Court ordering police to respect the constitutional rights of those being arrested was called "coddling criminals". I remember the backlash against affirmative action. I remember when O.S.H.A. and E.P.A. regulations to protect workers and the environment all got trashed as "unnecessary government red tape". I remember when Unions were attacked for exploiting workers and taking away their freedom, and I watched good paying jobs get lost as Unions got broken. I remember the bitterness being fanned about how anti-war peaceniks hobbled America's proud military and caused us to lose a war for the first time in American history.

All of those charges were made by the Right to undermine progress made by the left in America. Those were the "excesses" that got attacked. The same type of progress that ended slavery, ended child labor, gave workers the right to organize and women the right to vote. It was a counter revolution. That was when Liberal was redefined to be a curse word. The right attacks everything positive done to promote social equity as "Big government", "socialism", and class warfare, and that is exactly what they did in the late 70's about what was accomplished in the 60's and early 70's, and Ronald Reagan rode that to power.

Obama did not challenge the Reagan framing of the 60's and 70's being predominantly a time of excesses, he reinforced it. That is my problem, not the fact that Obama correctly saw the role Reagan played in creating wide ranging changes in America, or Reagan's ability in winning support for them. Yes Obama may be right that many Americans bought into the backlash by the 80's. Many Americans bought into the endless war on terror last election also. That doesn't mean it can't be challenged.

I am not for an instant suggesting that Obama supports the changes Reagan made. I believe that he doesn't. I also believe that Democrats would do well to ponder what about Reagan made him so popular to so many Americans so as to better counter Right wing "populists" in the future. But I draw a line against echoing the Right wing script that made "Big government" and "Liberals" into curse words in the 80's.

[karynnj]

4. I lived through those times too

and Reagan DID use the worse examples of excesses, some true, some not, to generate the energy for giving him the landslide needed to create transitional change. The Democrat needs to use the far more virulent excesses of what the Reagan/Bush movement.

I hope that you are reading too much into that sentence. Looking at Obama's positions, life story and the people who he surrounded himself with, I do not think that that extrapolation fits. Remember that Gore, at Clinton's request, did an impressive job looking at the bureaucracy identifying redundancies when he "reinvented" government. Even with the best intentions, any big organization has a tendency to have unnecessary redundancies.

[Tom Rinaldo]

8. But there are always examples of excesses, excess is an aspect of human nature

Just like greed and corruption, they are always present to a degree. But the Right wing attempted to literally define the 60's and early 70's as an era of excessive excesses; they took the positive progressive achievements of those decades and repackaged all of them as "excesses" to fuel a propaganda driven backlash against the left. There is always a seed of truth in effective propaganda, it always employs selective editing of reality. Once they installed their own "framing" the Right suceeded in getting the American public to view politics through their own chosen window. One need go no further than consider how "Liberal" was turned into a political indictment that Democrats fled from for their lives.

I tried to take care to point out that I do not accuse Obama personally of that view point or of that framing, but by employing it without criticism to explain Reagan's popularity he by default validates the Right wing meme that holds that the 60's were all about personal irresponsiblity and wild excess, not about positive social change.

[karynnj]

15. The problem is that never saying anything that

was the true seed of the exaggerated excesses of propaganda leads to a black and white dichotomy. Some force had to be there that gave Reagan the power to do all the things he did. It was a reaction, not just to the excesses, but to the huge amount of change that really happened. Change that I think was good. Pendulums swing.

Of all the candidates, Obama has the clearest record as someone committed to public service and change. The young HRC had that as well, but they squandered the 1990s continuing and amplifying the "feel good" 1980s.

[Tom Rinaldo]

17. Well you yourself pointed out that the Clinton Administration...

...gave VP Al Gore a mandate to cut excessive spending and red tape. Clinton did not deny excesses, he dealt realitically with them without throwing the baby out with the bath water.

[karynnj]

22. Al Gore did a great job on eliminating waste, the problem was Clinton failed

to use his talents to push for anything significant. This is not to say nothing good was done. There were many things that were, but none were major accomplishments that still are here. He was however thousands of times better than Bush, but that is a low bar. In effect, he was a caretaker President, who tidied things up between Republican presidencies. He had to be pushed - by HRC, to her credit - to accept into the budget the S-CHIP program pasted by a Republican dominated Senate through the great work of Senator Kennedy. This is one of the few major significant Democratic accomplishments of the Clinton administration. (NAFTA, welfare reform - when the promised security nets in bad economic times never were created, and the telecommunications bill all were not positive on balance)

Judging by how this campaign is being run, I see little reason to believe that a third Clinton administration would be less chaotic than the last two.

[Tom Rinaldo]

27. Actually

Leaving personal charm out of it, I personally find Hillary to be a more impressive individual than Bill. She supposedly was the one who drew a line in the sand that the universal requirement for a heath care plan was non negotiatable when Bill was prepared to negotiate that away. She has less of a need to please all parties than her husband. I liked the way she was an advocate for youth early in her career. She took some unpopular stands in doing so. It will be interesting to see how she performs if she gets to step out from behind Bill's shadow as President in her own right.

[BootinUp]

14. That and also

Obama has not proposed any bold policy initiatives like our version of Reaganomics either, apparently because the mood of the country is not for the same magnitude of change. So the whole proposition is groundless. lol.

[karynnj]

23. Reaganomics was not a policy initative in 1980

I sense more desire, not less, for change now.

[BootinUp]

26. Either I am losing my mind

or you are...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/U.S._presidential_election,_1980

Reagan was an adherent to a policy known as supply side economics, which argues that economic growth can be most effectively created using incentives for people to produce (supply) goods and services, such as adjusting income tax and capital gains tax rates. Accordingly, Reagan promised an economic revival that would affect all sectors of the population. He said that cutting tax rates would actually increase tax revenues because the lower rates would cause people to work harder as they would be able to keep more of their money. Reagan also called for a drastic cut in "big government" programs and pledged to deliver a balanced budget for the first time since 1969. In the primaries Bush famously called Reagan's economic policy "voodoo economics" because it promised to lower taxes and increase revenues at the same time. The wisdom of "supply-side economics" remains in contention. Although many economists credit the Reagan tax cut with helping to stimulate the strong growth later in the decade, it was also followed by the largest peacetime deficits in American history.

snip



Reagan promised a restoration of the nation's military strength. Reagan also promised an end to "'trust me' government" and to restore economic health by implementing a supply-side economic policy. Reagan promised a balanced budget within three years (which he said would be "the beginning of the end of inflation"), accompanied by a 30% reduction in taxes over those same years. With respect to the economy, Reagan famously said, "A recession is when your neighbor loses his job. A depression is when you lose yours. And recovery is when Jimmy Carter loses his."
------------------------

If there is more desire for change than in 1980 that he sees, I expect to see some more progressive proposals from Barak.

[redqueen]

20. Thank you!

Very well said. :thumbsup:

[FrenchieCat]

32. The excesses that Obama was referring to are not the ones you list....

Obama was talking about Vietnam, Watergate, recession, an energy crisis without any real solutions proposed, gas lines, a government that wasn't accountable (which is true....money was being thrown around and the Gov didn't operate as efficiently as it could have).

The outrage that I see on these boards doesn't lend itself to intelligent discussion, because no matter how well Obama analyzed why folks felt dejected and without confidence in their government and were humiliated by the very long day after day Iran hostage crisis, the only thing that has happened is some bloggers running around like their hair caught on fire.

He doesn't echo the RW script, he only acknowledges the fact that this was the RW script....and that many in the middle class believed it. When Reagan came in offering optimism and promised to make America great again, folks voted for Reagan. In other words, Reagan was able to capture the mood of the country and galvanize a majority to support him...and the reason that Reagan was able to pass so many awful things was because he, in fact, had the majority of people's support behind him. This is a correct analysis, and I say more power to Barack if he can persuade enough voters that we, on the progressive side, can do the same; persuade a majority to vote for us, and stand behind us as we demand that our government becomes good government; not Good in the manner that the extreme RW would appreciate, but rather in a way that is fair and just- He discusses how some Democrats in congress have become reactionaries instead of taking hold of the issues and asserting themselves forcefully....and that to no end, our policy fixes are simply a patchwork of solution managed by crisis.

In this same interview, he is quite frank on issues such as immigration (he is for rational ammnesty), the Pentagon (the spending needs to be reevaluated and prioritized--he wants a Vice President that may have military experience and who knows the Pentagon and how it operates), energy, education (in particular early childhood education), health care and other important matters. But of course, one only hears about his analysis of Reagan's method at achieving electoral landslides....which is then misconstrued as Obama supporting a Reagan agenda.

Obama's underlying values are very forward looking, and do not in anyway suggest or indicate that he is right wing. If he was even a moderate (which I don't detect), his voting record would reflect that, and it doesn't....although I don't consider him an ideologue, because his thinking is free from the shakles of the "can't do" mentality. And As I always done, I continue to believe that actions are louder than excerpts from a Book or an interview. These tactics were used on Wes Clark during his 04 campaign (video of his praising Bush and content smeared around taken from his book without context, and folks attempting to suggest that he was not as anti-Iraq war as he had suggested), and so I'm not going to sit around and allow that to happen to Barack. In his interview, the one that is 50 minutes long, he talks about what type of Veep he would choose, and I'll tell you, it sounded like a job description tailor made for Wes Clark.

[Tom Rinaldo]

34. I am still pro-Obama overall Frenchie

and in some ways I am very pro Obama, even if he isn't my first choice for President. I am not buying into the hysteria being expressed about his comments regarding Reagan. Of course partisans are attempting to use anything that can be construed as a positive comment about Reagan as a club against Obama during this primary season, and intelligent discussion is hard to have on this board during times like these.

I just defended Obama on another thread before making my way back over here in fact. I believe Obama's heart and soul are in the right place, and I think his mind is brilliant. The truth is that we are a society divided and it is difficult to make progress on many of the problems facing America without finding some common ground with people of good faith who start out with a different set of conscious priorities than that embraced by most progressive Democrats. That is something that Obama realizes, and I realize that he is right to realize it.

That is my bottom line regarding Obama's stance, I see him looking for an effective way to move America in a progressive direction, but I can still differ with part of his framing some times, I can still differ with some of his tactics. I do believe that he should be clearer about the methods Reagan used to win over popular sentiment to his right wing agenda; the full spectrum of methods and not just those aspects of Reagan's methods that Democrats should learn to be more effective at using. I never want us to become effective at using some of the methods that the Right wing used from the mid 70's forward. And by not explicitly enough pointing those divisive methods out, while seemingly acknowledging that Reagan succeeded in part by tapping into the public's distaste for excesses of the 60's and 70's, Obama failed to find the right pitch to my ear though I think I understand the song it is his intention to sing.

We can and probably do differ on this, but in the end probably not by as much as it may seem now. But I think Obama is wandering a little bit off of a constructive path while sincerely seeking to build a larger consensus for real change when he gives voice to concerns over the excesses of the 60's without simultaneously pointing out the powerfully positive changes the same forces that may at times have been excessive then also brought to our society, especially if in the same frame of reference Obama doesn't acknowledge that the greater negative excesses of the 80's have endangered the future of our society. Reagan's presidency embodied the excesses of the 80's. That must at a minimum be pointed out also while mentioning any perceived excesses that helped bring him to power. Otherwise we can't discuss the real issues facing our nation today, and the real forces that must be contended with if we are to make the changes needed for our future.

[Bonobo]

38. Hi, Tom.

Great post. Thanks again. I love your post. It is a wonderful window into an intelligent and experienced mind (after a pathetic couple of days here at DU)

I'm too tired to add anything rational. So tired. Maybe another day. For now, I am just happy to see you guys.

I almost feel like the last person on the planet who then discovers there are still other "survivors".

[beachmom]

5. This is excellent, Karynnj, and very insightful. How people can

knock what Obama said amazes me. He is going ahead and CLAIMING a GIANT MANDATE in advance. Talk about audacity! You know, first you have to state your goal out loud, before it can be realized. Obama has done that, and supporters of other candidates have knocked it. Maybe they're just jealous because their candidate hadn't thought of saying it first.

[ClericJohnPreston]

9. NINE PARAGRAPHS

of pure spin from the OP.

The silly desperation at all costs to disavow REALITY is truly amazing.

[ProSense]

11. Nice debunk!

No comment!

[karynnj]

21. Well, next time I will try for 10!

I would refute any points that you would have made, but it appears that none are made.

Are you saying that the problems that Edwards spoke of did not become increasingly more prevalent in the last 27 years?

Here is an except from a Kerry Senate speech, given in 1993 that speaks of Edwards' signature issue. The gap between the two Americas was exasperated in the early Reagan years. That disparity increased at a faster rate through the Clinton and W years.

"Millions of Americans grew up feeling they had a kind of implied contract with their country, a contract for the American dream. If you applied yourself, got an education, went to work, and worked hard, then you had a reasonable shot at an income, a home, time for family, and a graceful retirement.

Today, those comfortable assumptions have been shattered by the realization that no job is safe, no future assured. And many Americans simply feel betrayed.

To this day I'm not sure that official Washington fully comprehends what has happened to working America in the last 20 years, a period when the incomes of the majority declined in real terms.

In the decade following 1953, the typical male worker, head of his household, aged 40 to 50, saw his real income grow 36 percent. The 40-something workers from 1963 to 1973 saw their incomes grow 25 percent. The 40-something workers from 1973 to 1983 saw their incomes decline, by 14 percent, and reliable estimates indicate that the period of 1983 to 1993 will show a similar decline.

From 1969 to 1989 average weekly earnings in this country declined from $387 to $335. No wonder then, that millions of women entered the work force, not simply because the opportunity opened for the first time. They had no choice. More and more families needed two incomes to support a family, where one had once been enough.

It began to be insufficient to have two incomes in the family. By 1989 the number of people working at more than one job hit a record high. And then even this was not enough to maintain living standards. Family income growth simply slowed down. Between 1979 and 1989 it grew more slowly than at any period since World War II. In 1989 the median family income was only $1,528 greater than it had been 10 years earlier. In prior decades real family income would increase by that same amount every 22 months. When the recession began in 1989, the average family's inflation-adjusted income fell 4.4 percent, a $1,640 drop, or more than the entire gain from the eighties.

Younger people now make less money at the beginning of their careers, and can expect their incomes to grow more slowly than their parents'. Families headed by persons aged 25 to 34 in 1989 had incomes $1,715 less than their counterparts did 10 years earlier, in 1979. Evidence continues to suggest that persons born after 1945 simply will not achieve the same incomes in middle-age that their parents achieved.

Thus, Mr. President, it is a treadmill world for millions of Americans. They work hard, they spend less time with their families, but their incomes don't go up. The more their incomes stagnate, the more they work. The more they work, the more they leave the kids alone, and the more they need child care. The more they need child care, the more they need to work.

Why are we surprised at the statistics on the hours children spend in front of the television; about illiteracy rates; about teenage crime and pregnancy? All the adults are working and too many kids are raising themselves.

Of course, there is another story to be found in the numbers. Not everyone is suffering from a declining income. Those at the top of the income scale are seeing their incomes increase, and as a result income inequality in this Nation is growing dramatically. Overall, the 30 percent of our people at the top of the income scale have secured more and more, while the bottom 70 percent have been losing. The richest 1 percent saw their incomes grow 62 percent during the 1980's, capturing a full 53 percent of the total income growth among all families in the entire economy. This represents a dramatic reversal of what had been a post-war trend toward equality in this country. It also means that the less well-off in our society--the same Americans who lost out in the Reagan tax revolution--are the ones being hurt by changes in the economy.

You might say that we long ago left the world of Ward and June Clever. We have entered the world of Roseanne and Dan, and the yuppies from `L.A. Law' working downtown. "

[ClericJohnPreston]

29. What ARGUMENTS do you make, based on fact?

I read your OP in full. Sorry, but as a working attorney I don't have the time to whittle every insipid post down to size.

In short, as I spare my talents for the insurance carriers I truly try to BASH every day, your post is a convulated mess, a mixture of "hoping" (" I place my trust in" ), horrid referencing, and inapplicable quotations.

There is no "there", there.

Quoting Kerry, is not your argument.

Reality is what it is. Obama stuck his foot in his mouth and no amount of spin will change or alter the fact that his words meant EXACTLY what they say, NOT what YOU say they say.

Also, this opinion that now the Republicans can't us the change theme, because it has been co-opted by Obama is absurd on it's face.

Just turn on your TV tonight, listen to Fox Noise and tell me what Romney and Huckabee are saying.

Oops.....there goes the whole thread idea down the drain. The Republicans have and always will, pitch change. Your rationale falls flat on it's face!

Later....

[beachmom]

33. So since you're a "working attorney" you're better than everyone else?

What a condescending remark. Kind of anathema to Edwards's message.

[karynnj]

12. He has claimed a massive goal

Last March, at a Kerry book signing, he spoke of how the next President to meet the challenges that had to be met had the opportunity to be a great president, like FDR. He at this point had opted not to run. Obama did a brilliant job explaining the nature of transformational changes. The Reagan change has led to disaster. The force behind the need for change is incredible because the recognition that, not just something, but everything is wrong. FDR used similar feelings from the Depression to push though an incredible amount of change in a very short time and some vestiges of that movement controlled some branches of government until 1994. Reagan's changes were not as immediate and I hope they will be truncated much faster.

I came of age in the turbulent 1960s. Talking to my college and lat high school daughters, one different I have seen is that though we were angry about many things, there was an underlying optimism that we were the future, we would win and the world had to be better. We knew the war would end and we were seeing change that we wanted happening before our eyes. There was movement on civil rights and woman's rights and later on the environment. As, Dylan said, "the old order was rapidly fading".

So far, my daughters' generation has seen things mostly get worse. One observed that many at her school have no faith in government's ability to correct the problems. This may be what people older than I felt in the 1930s. They need a realistic expectation that things can get better that can only happen with the election of a positive, energetic President who can give them real hope that things could happen AND a Congress led by people working with him. Only when they see substantive change implemented will they start to believe. We need an FDR for our day.

[ProSense]

10. Excellent! n/t

[BootinUp]

16. What change does Obama propose different than the other candidates? nt

[redqueen]

18. If you think Republicans can't be more Reaganesque than Obama

you WILL be in for a hard lesson, should he win the nomination.

[karynnj]

24. No one wants Obama to be Reagan, least of all I suspect either Obama!

Let Obama be Obama

[redqueen]

25. You miss my point...

I'm not saying he'll "be" Reagan... I'm saying that his 'agent of change' stuff, he's already acknowledge that he thinks Reagan did a great job.

So in the GE, if he's the opponent, I would expect the GOP to use this as a bit of bait on the hook for Independents. Please don't forget that he's not only *seemingly* conceded that their hero was the best at uniting the country... but he's also conceded that the Republican party has been "the party of ideas" ever since Clinton was elected.

[karynnj]

28. He did not say that the Reagan change was good, he said he

created a lot of change. Change can be bad. They were the party of those ideas - and those ideas failed. That's why we need change. They tried for decades - and those ideas don't work.

[redqueen]

30. Sorry, not what I meant...

I mean he's said that Reagan did a great job of uniting the country behind his message of change.

Any praise of any part of anything to do with Reagan will be (and has already been, if you notice) seized on by repukes and their allies. In the GE it will only get worse.

[ClericJohnPreston]

31. Nice try

Obama didn't make that explanation and HIS meaning is clear. Above, I answered your OP ( response #29 ).

Nice try at spinning what is clear English and for making an argument whcih falls flat on it's face.

Kudos for working the buzzword "CHANGE" into a response of only two sentences THREE times.

Saying change, simply doesn't make it so.

[Bonobo]

37. Hi Karynnj!

Thank you for the wonderful post. It is refreshing to once again see that some people here are still "okay".

[Bonobo]

35. This appears to be the intelligent thread on the subject.

I'm going to read all the posts carefully, and I would like to join you in an informative discussion if no one minds.

I ask everyone to please save the poison tongues. I really don't want any more of that.

[Bonobo]

36. My comments on this thread below:

Clearly there are 3 (I think it's 3 people that have made lengthy comments that I found to be profound -no offense to the others who I'm not saying are idiots, just that they didn't make lengthy posts to comment on) intelligent people on this thread who are communicating with each other. It is a wonderful breath of fresh air to read people's thoughts without the "freeper-like" blinders I have been seeing so much of.

I thank the 3 posters and really have no comment other than to say. All 3 of you said things I agreed with and enjoyed thoroughly.

As for the 2 (I think it's pretty much 2) other people talking here, it's honestly like looking at the Free Republic. Your way of speaking is so vile, your thinking so uncomplicated by greys. I really have no interest in that child-like level of discussion anymore.