Truth Seekers Podcast #81: It's Ok When They Do It

[Dani Cutler]

TS81: It's Ok When They Do It

A month! No, I have not pod-faded into the ether... but the big thing keeping me from podcasting was a really bad cold killing my voice and my nose for almost 3 weeks!
So I'm back, and grabbed my partner in crime Dave Tobkin across the internets for a chat. Yeah, it's all one big liberal whine in this one, so that's your warning. ;-) There has been so much craziness about Obama and what he *could* do to the country, we both needed to vent and ask one big question: Why is it ok when THEY do it?


-Opening: What the hell is that???
-Dave joins me to help me get a show out faster
-Protests. You won't hear a sound cannon at a tea party. Why is that?
-Singing songs to a President is just part of the job.
-Facebook poll asking about killing Obama, or a "Taking Back America" conference. What is truly more dangerous?
-Racism, there is truth in what Carter said.
-There is truth in everything, including conspiracy theories
-Dani reads a book

Email: tsdiva AT gmail DOT com voicemail: 206-312-0131
Forum: http://truthseekerscast.ning.com

Direct download: ts81pod.mp3

[Fran Hollar]

I like Carter's drive. He knows Obama is challenging his title of 'Worst US President Ever' and yet he's fighting to keep his title like he thinks he stands a chance. ;)

[Charles Grimmett]

It is interesting that everyone forgets that there has been a period of greater unemployment and shrinking economy in the last thirty years. In 1983 and 1984 under the Reagan administration's economic policies, Americans saw the economy shrink and the greatest shift in wealth in the country's history. Somehow our Republican friends seem to miss that point when they talk about the current state of economic affairs.

The simple truth is that they can't present a reasonable alternative to the course laid out by the President. Their policies and principles have led this country on a thirty year slide that has seen the social safety net shrink, along with the middle class and the country's manufacturing base. The resulting corporate communism has created the first generation in history that will not have the prospect achieving a higher standard of living than their parents. We are reaping the legacy of the Reagan era, and without a substantial change in direction we are looking at a crisis for American democracy.

Government must act, for it is the only institution with the ability to make the timely changes that are needed. What we are witnessing is the result of a belief in a philosophy that has proven to be destructive of the notion of the nation's having a responsibility to serve the needs of its people. When special interest are able to "buy" laws without respect for what the people desire and/or need there is something terribly wrong. When evidence of a policy's success and failure is "reinterpreted" without regard to the facts, purely for political gain, we are in trouble as a nation. God help us when liars can talk of death panels knowing full well that they supported the counseling as part of their state's policy for aging patients.

We need to be successful as a nation and to do that we must work to change what we all can see is horribly wrong. The agenda of the right has had the last thirty years to prove itself, and look where it has taken us. The country has spoken and demanded change. The time has come to start changing or we may be force to face more of the same consequences that started to show themselves at the end of 2008. And we shouldn't go back that way again.

[Davetopper]

Great commentary there Charles, good to see you. We can tell them how we got here, we can remind them how long it has been that the right wing had control, and how soon it really went bad once again as they had a right wing controlled house and senate and their president.

Now we are just on fixing it all. And they of course want nothing to do with it.

[Dani Cutler]

Forgot about this gem, in regards to "President worship"

[Davetopper]

Indoctrination much? But like the title of the podcast "it's ok when they do it".

[Trent Rock]

LOL
You guys are a good team!!
I felt like I was listening to NPR Radio ;)

I have a house in rural Colorado
There are like 3 radio stations that come in:
One Jesus channel, One country music channel, and one NPR station
I always tell my left leaning brother===>
I'd rather listen to country music!!
Which, for me is a stretch!!

You guys whined a lot..hehehhe
But, i still found it a fun whining............
****************************************************************************
You guys are right about changing someones views about wealth distribution (or redistribution)
I will never believe that spreading the wealth (a lower Gini Index number) should be political POLICY
I don;t think that any president should make it his goal to redistribute wealth
I know it sounds greedy and selfish
It's taken the election for me to come to that conclusion, from an economic viewpoint
I had never even looked into the issue of economic inequality until this electio, for some reason
I just figured (and stil do) that there will be people richer than me and some poorer than me
That is the nature of capitalism and the free market
I'm at peace with it.....

From a joe schmoe guy who struggles to pay the bills like everyone else===>
Sure, I would like to help out my fellow Americans
I've been on unemployment for a few months
A few months on temp disability
I was on food stamps for about 3 months
I think some sort of welfare and services are necessary
I figured (justified?)that since they took it out of my paychecks..it was OK since it was just a temporary/emergency situation
************************************************
the Glen Beck phenom is baffling to me
he does not represent me at all as a fiscally conservative type of guy
I looked at his wikipedia entry and it says he lasted 1 qtr at Yale
And he's a Mormon
He believes in some dude who found some gold tablets in the 1800's?
I always think that if a guy in 1800's USA is a prophet
Why not David Koresh in Texas 1990?

So why should I care what Glen Beck thinks about morality and hyperinflation?
he is just another talking head to me
I'd rather listen to what Bill Clinton or Alan Greenspan thinks
Or even Jimmy Carter
at least he has some experience in world political economic matters...................
********************************************
I like the AUDIO stuff on your show
The intro sounds cool with the ping pong panning!!
Give me some samples!!
Maybe some Bill Clinton snippets or even Diane Fienstein
I like it when they play samples
Like Howard Stern
find a funy sample and play it over and over
The O.J. Simpson phone call to 911 makes me laugh everytime
*************************************************************************
Were you guys in the same room?
Teleconference?
Can i call in sometime?
"From the lower left quadrant of the politcal compass..here is T Rock from the hamlet of Goleta!!"
Will you put me on LIVE?? hehehehhehehe
*********************************
You guys got a lot of Milton Freidman in you
You just don't realize it ;)
**************************************
When are you guys gonna hit the hotbed issues like:
Gun control and legalizing the pot and prostitution!! ;)
And taxing sodas and golfers
and the Patriot Act and having to take my shoes off at the airport and the fullbody xrays and the puffer machines..............

[Dani Cutler]

LOL- I know we were whiny. But that was the point- we were venting. ;-) Since it had been a month, it's always faster for me to get a show out when I have a guest like Dave or my friend Scott on. Then I don't have to plan as much, just hit record and go!

I'm not a big fan of NPR either, to be honest. Not because of the politics as much as the fact that every single NPR show sounds exactly the same.

Captialism- I'm not 100% anti. I just don't like how some things have gotten way out of hand. Health insurance companies, pharmaceutical companies, credit card companies... and I fully believe these things need to be regulated. I also believe that capitalism and socialism can work together and the country can still function. Hell it all ready is, just needs some fine-tuning.

Yes, there will always be rich people and poor people, and I am realistic enough to know that's not going away. But not every service needs to be one where someone profits. There has to be a standard.

Yes, you can be on the show. Anytime! I can't swing a live show, but I'd love to have you as a guest. Everyone is welcome, just have to let me know! I've hit gun control before but would like to come back to it. Never talked about legalizing pot and prostitution. Those would be good to cover, definitely!

Here is another show you would really like Trent: Common Sense with Dan Carlin. Give him a listen! I always find myself half nodding in agreement, then half yelling him. He's great.

http://www.dancarlin.com/disp.php/cs

[Jared]

On the W Bush school--it's only done after the President's out of office? What year was it again, 06? Okay, I can see it--lame duck, he might as well not had been in office by then. :P

Yeah, the whole school address thing was pretty stupid, if not just because they'd need to choose a far better way of indocternating kids--because videos in schools? Psssh, unless it was explicitly said there was going to be a test, no one in my elementary/high school would have listened. They'd be busy using the opportunity to text to their friends or read their book or whisper-flirt to their SO's nearby.

Yeah, the concept of capitalism has been extremely distorted by the right-wing--the very idea that people assume that the only way for it to work is to step on other people like you did when you generalized it does show that.

I do see why these bills would wait a few years for these "reforms" to take place, because hastily deciding that the something needs to be done "NOW" and implimenting it quickly is exactly what caused stuff like the TARP and bail-outs to not work the way they were supposed to. It's espicially needed in this instance because of how little we've actually done reforms on our health-care system, that if this system actually didn't work, we'd be stuck with it for probably 20 years or more. Like you said, it takes less time to break something and longer to fix it.

"Can someone explain why people take these guys (Rush and Beck) seriously?" Because they're idiots?

And yes, that Kitty lady is a dunce. Nazi's had equal rights admendments? They thought all minorities in equal in the way they'd be put in the fucking ovens. And did the Germans not have guns back then?

Uh, question--isn't Cuba's health care rating worse then America's?

Another question--what would you consider too far to the left?

Yeah, we kinda got shit done in the first Iraq War--the bit from Bill Hicks comes to mind: "Casulties in Iraq 360,000...United States...79! Does that mean if we just brought 80 people we would have still won that war?"

Yeah, inadvertantly making our allies our enemies is a bit of a tradition--Ho Chi Ming, the leader of North Vietnam, was part of the OSS during WWII for pete's sake.