Comrade Barack

[I AM NOT THAT GUY 5,715]

Wow. I am guessing no one reads history. Has there ever been a successful method of printing a huge amount of money and flooding the country?

The heart of the debate centered on an action the government had taken to fund the Union effort in the Civil War. Between 1862 and 1865, the government printing presses issued $450 million in greenbacks, paper notes that were not backed by reserves of specie.

Simply stated, the agrarian and debtor interests wanted to keep the greenbacks in circulation and even urged that more be printed. Such a move would likely generate inflation, which was regarded as a favorable event since it would be easier to pay of debts with “cheap” money. From the political side, this point of view was adopted by many Democrats who floated a scheme to redeem war bonds in greenbacks.

The Republicans, as the representatives of the wealthy creditor interests, wanted the greenbacks removed from circulation and the return to a gold-backed currency. This would halt inflation and assure that they would be repaid in hard money.

Tensions were heightened during the depression that followed the Panic of 1873. Farmers and debtors bore the brunt of the economic distress and issued calls for the printing of additional greenbacks and the unlimited coinage of silver. These calls for action were transformed into a political movement and, in 1876, into a political party. The National Greenback Party took up the greenback refrain and pledged to fight the Specie Resumption Act (1875), as well. Peter Cooper received the group’s presidential nomination, but polled only about 80,000 votes.

In 1878, a congressional election year, the organization changed its name to the Greenback-Labor Party and supplemented its membership by taking in workers. They received more than one million votes nationwide and elected 14 party members to Congress.

In the Election of 1880, the Greenback-Labor Party nominated General James B. Weaver on a platform designed to further broaden its appeal. Such issues as women's suffrage, federal regulation of interstate commerce and a graduated income tax were included. Weaver polled only 300,000 votes, a clear demonstration that the greenback issue had passed its prime. The times had changed: Resumption had been a success, the depression had ended and the Bland-Allison Act had concentrated attention on the emerging issue of the coinage of silver.

Despite its lack of success, the party made a last stab at the presidency, nominating Benjamin F. Butler in the Election of 1884. His showing was dismal and the party disbanded. Its members drifted off to the Union Labor Party and the Populist Party.

The Greenback Party made an important contribution to American politics by demonstrating the monetary policy could and should be part of the national debate.

http://www.u-s-history.com/pages/h212.html

[luckytxn 2,264]

Finally one example and thanks. The idea of using inflation to combat a huge debt is an old one. It sounds like a good idea at first until the populous experiences a crippling inflation first hand. The recent past can be an indicator if anyone remembers the huge inflation we had under Carter.

More extreme examples can be found like in Germany between the big wars where it took a so called wheelbarrow to buy a loaf of bread. I liked what Mexico did when they just kept dropping zeros from the "end".

[Tahoma 2,292]

Please don't worry about ALC too much. His postings are simply fringe-of-the-fringe wingnut ideology in search of "facts" that support warped thinking. He'll probably never tear himself away from the screen long enough to learn anything about the real world.

Free-Spirit, why don't you share a some of that "real world" experience you posses so much of.

It would be lost on you, Scarecrow.

[alienlovechild 75]

Rush is that you????

Who are you, noob? It's an old post and no, I didn't write the article.

BTW, it's two months old and economic conditions have grown worse.

Oh wait, you just some dude that has nothing better to do then rant and rave on a immigration help website about the scary social policies of the new administration. Got some news buddy, if it wasn't for the fiscal neglagance of the past administration the American people would have not unanimously voted for Obama.

Care to tell us about YOUR scholastic achievements when you don' know that Americans didn't vote 100% for Obama?

You probably have no idea what it is to live in a real communist state do you? Maybe my fiance could educate you to what it is really like to live in a real communist country.

I DIDN'T WRITE THE ARTICLE AND NEVER CLAIMED TO HAVE LIVED IN A COMMUNIST COUNTRY. Is that clear?

Funny, I see that you are are still expressing your 1st amendment right to spew out your own little homophobic and religiously zealous ideologies along with your stereotypes of Russians all being drunks, with no repercussions from the Govt. (or the mods) Have you even read the "Communist Manifesto"? Go wave your American flag and give all your money to private cooperation's and intertwine Govt. and religion together, (It works really good for the ppl in Iran).

Where did you get the info to make up this incomprehensible drivel? I knew Communist ideology probably before you were born, thanks.

Your post is stupid in so many ways it makes my head spin. It amazes me the intolerance, stupidity, and lack of common sense you actually posses. Your post speaks volumes of what kind of person you must be. Or maybe you are just one of those people that is an internet crusader that just makes commentary from his/ her keyboard. As a matter of fact this post is so offensive I think I will report it to the"Marxist" mods that censor dumb threads like this......

I've been suspended on this forum for saying a lot less than that.

If i post about article about cannibalism it doesn't mean I'll eat you- I've got better taste. If you can't tell the difference between an article and a poster, you've got no business calling others names.

[The_Dude 1,142]

Rush is that you????

Who are you, noob? It's an old post and no, I didn't write the article.

BTW, it's two months old and economic conditions have grown worse.

Oh wait, you just some dude that has nothing better to do then rant and rave on a immigration help website about the scary social policies of the new administration. Got some news buddy, if it wasn't for the fiscal neglagance of the past administration the American people would have not unanimously voted for Obama.

Care to tell us about YOUR scholastic achievements when you don' know that Americans didn't vote 100% for Obama?

You probably have no idea what it is to live in a real communist state do you? Maybe my fiance could educate you to what it is really like to live in a real communist country.

I DIDN'T WRITE THE ARTICLE AND NEVER CLAIMED TO HAVE LIVED IN A COMMUNIST COUNTRY. Is that clear?

Funny, I see that you are are still expressing your 1st amendment right to spew out your own little homophobic and religiously zealous ideologies along with your stereotypes of Russians all being drunks, with no repercussions from the Govt. (or the mods) Have you even read the "Communist Manifesto"? Go wave your American flag and give all your money to private cooperation's and intertwine Govt. and religion together, (It works really good for the ppl in Iran).

Where did you get the info to make up this incomprehensible drivel? I knew Communist ideology probably before you were born, thanks.

Your post is stupid in so many ways it makes my head spin. It amazes me the intolerance, stupidity, and lack of common sense you actually posses. Your post speaks volumes of what kind of person you must be. Or maybe you are just one of those people that is an internet crusader that just makes commentary from his/ her keyboard. As a matter of fact this post is so offensive I think I will report it to the"Marxist" mods that censor dumb threads like this......

I've been suspended on this forum for saying a lot less than that.

If i post about article about cannibalism it doesn't mean I'll eat you- I've got better taste. If you can't tell the difference between an article and a poster, you've got no business calling others names.

Someone's a bit cranky. Better go untwist your panties.

[Kathryn41 3,205]

Personal insults and personal attacks - and responding to personal insults and attacks with insults and attacks - are a violation of TOS. Please do not repeat this behaviour.

Edited August 3, 2009 by Kathryn41

[luckytxn 2,264]

In before the lock. B)

[Joseph & Ana 0]

I wonder if we're dealing with adults in some of these posts. Some are correct to say than it isn't any one party that is responsible for the sorry state of affairs in America. However, it is one ideology that is responsible for it; Liberalism. Liberalism is rampant in the Republican Party as well as its home the Democrat Party. Democrats are admittedly Socialists. The honest democrats will tell you that. Government run health insurance is nothing more than socialism. Government run auto companies is socialism. When they start bailing out the media (because people stop drinking the koolaid) that will be done in the model of Hugo Chavez. Ever wonder why big-name hollywood democrats love dictator Hugo Chavez so much? Danny Glover (Obama supporter) has gone to Venezuela to show support for Hugo, Kevin Spacey (Obama supporter) travels to venezuala and meets with hugo regularly... So, you on the left can use the "shut up" technique of calling it McCarthyism, or irrational fear tactics, but bottom line is that it is true. What Obama is selling is socialism.

[Danno 1,228]

I wonder if we're dealing with adults in some of these posts. Some are correct to say than it isn't any one party that is responsible for the sorry state of affairs in America. However, it is one ideology that is responsible for it; Liberalism. Liberalism is rampant in the Republican Party as well as its home the Democrat Party. Democrats are admittedly Socialists. The honest democrats will tell you that. Government run health insurance is nothing more than socialism. Government run auto companies is socialism. When they start bailing out the media (because people stop drinking the koolaid) that will be done in the model of Hugo Chavez. Ever wonder why big-name hollywood democrats love dictator Hugo Chavez so much? Danny Glover (Obama supporter) has gone to Venezuela to show support for Hugo, Kevin Spacey (Obama supporter) travels to venezuala and meets with hugo regularly... So, you on the left can use the "shut up" technique of calling it McCarthyism, or irrational fear tactics, but bottom line is that it is true. What Obama is selling is socialism.

[luckytxn 2,264]

I wonder if we're dealing with adults in some of these posts. Some are correct to say than it isn't any one party that is responsible for the sorry state of affairs in America. However, it is one ideology that is responsible for it; Liberalism. Liberalism is rampant in the Republican Party as well as its home the Democrat Party. Democrats are admittedly Socialists. The honest democrats will tell you that. Government run health insurance is nothing more than socialism. Government run auto companies is socialism. When they start bailing out the media (because people stop drinking the koolaid) that will be done in the model of Hugo Chavez. Ever wonder why big-name hollywood democrats love dictator Hugo Chavez so much? Danny Glover (Obama supporter) has gone to Venezuela to show support for Hugo, Kevin Spacey (Obama supporter) travels to venezuala and meets with hugo regularly... So, you on the left can use the "shut up" technique of calling it McCarthyism, or irrational fear tactics, but bottom line is that it is true. What Obama is selling is socialism.

Shhhhh. They hate the word Socialism.

[Tahoma 2,292]

I wonder if we're dealing with adults in some of these posts. Some are correct to say than it isn't any one party that is responsible for the sorry state of affairs in America. However, it is one ideology that is responsible for it; Liberalism. Liberalism is rampant in the Republican Party as well as its home the Democrat Party. Democrats are admittedly Socialists. The honest democrats will tell you that. Government run health insurance is nothing more than socialism. Government run auto companies is socialism. When they start bailing out the media (because people stop drinking the koolaid) that will be done in the model of Hugo Chavez. Ever wonder why big-name hollywood democrats love dictator Hugo Chavez so much? Danny Glover (Obama supporter) has gone to Venezuela to show support for Hugo, Kevin Spacey (Obama supporter) travels to venezuala and meets with hugo regularly... So, you on the left can use the "shut up" technique of calling it McCarthyism, or irrational fear tactics, but bottom line is that it is true. What Obama is selling is socialism.

Oh wow...I'm just so confused now. Why do all of those Republicans support socialist, government-run programs like Tricare, Medicare, and Medicaid? Are they socialists too?

And how about every industrialized country in the world? They all have socialist, government-run health insurance. Is everyone a socialist? It's all so confusing.

[Sofiyya 1,687]

When people dismiss democracy from our political system they might as well endorse totalitarian dictatorship.

That quote is going to bite you in the #### a lot.

Here comes a bite!

[one...two...tree 2,762]

I wonder if we're dealing with adults in some of these posts. Some are correct to say than it isn't any one party that is responsible for the sorry state of affairs in America. However, it is one ideology that is responsible for it; Liberalism. Liberalism is rampant in the Republican Party as well as its home the Democrat Party. Democrats are admittedly Socialists. The honest democrats will tell you that. Government run health insurance is nothing more than socialism. Government run auto companies is socialism. When they start bailing out the media (because people stop drinking the koolaid) that will be done in the model of Hugo Chavez. Ever wonder why big-name hollywood democrats love dictator Hugo Chavez so much? Danny Glover (Obama supporter) has gone to Venezuela to show support for Hugo, Kevin Spacey (Obama supporter) travels to venezuala and meets with hugo regularly... So, you on the left can use the "shut up" technique of calling it McCarthyism, or irrational fear tactics, but bottom line is that it is true. What Obama is selling is socialism.

Oh wow...I'm just so confused now. Why do all of those Republicans support socialist, government-run programs like Tricare, Medicare, and Medicaid? Are they socialists too?

And how about every industrialized country in the world? They all have socialist, government-run health insurance. Is everyone a socialist? It's all so confusing.

Most of these Right Wing posters are posers. They parrot the same talking points by the Right Wing Media because that's their source for news. Try to actually engage them in a real discussion and they just parrot the same things over and over again because they don't have a genuine opinion to call their own.

[Sofiyya 1,687]

Wonder what happens when a government prints a huge amount of money and floods the country with it? Anybody?

They break their campaign promise and raise taxes on the middle class they said they weren't going to raise taxes on. Presumably to try to stave off massive inflation by trying to pay down the massive debt they had a hand in creating.

Oh what a tangled web we weave...............

Barry was elected because he said "Yes, we can!" He could fix all the problems Bush had supposedly wrought. Now, all we hear from him and his minions is 'Its all Bush's fault! Wah! Wah! Wah! Don't blame me!"

What happened to Yes, we can? It's become Yes, we can blame someone else. Yes, we can spend and lie. Yes, we can dictate and not communicate. The guy is STILL in campaign mode, flying here, there and speechifying like he's some sort of political retread liberal policy salesman. But it doesn't work anymore like it did before, and he's getting very testy, demanding that everyone agree with him, and do as HE says. He leaves no doubt that he does not tolerate criticism well, a trait that e shares with ousted former president Richard Nixon, and that has not gone unnoticed by friend and foe alike:

August 01, 2009 Can Obama stand the gaff?

Rick Moran

Enduring nasty criticism as president is right at the top of the list under "Job Requirements." There's just no getting around it and every president - even George Washington - was forced to see his character, his reputation, his integrity challenged in the most personal way imaginable.

According to Michael Goldfarb at the Weekly Standard Blog who has read WaPo political reporter Dan Balz's book on the 2008 campaign, President Obama was unprepared for this kind of criticism. And, the way David Axelrod describes it in a memo to Obama prior to the start of the contest, the candidate was hypersensitive to any criticism at all:

Obama's always talking tough...he's from Chicago, he brings guns to knife fights, he was editor of the Harvard Law Review, etc. But it seems not everyone inside his campaign was terribly convinced that Obama had what it takes to survive the rough and tumble of a national political campaign. From Dan Balz's new book, a memo from Axelrod to Obama before he announced in 2006:

Axelrod also warned that Obama's confessions of youthful drug use, described in his memoir, "Dreams From My Father," would be used against him. "This is more than an unpleasant inconvenience," he wrote. "It goes to your willingness and ability to put up with something you have never experienced on a sustained basis: criticism. At the risk of triggering the very reaction that concerns me, I don't know if you are Muhammad Ali or Floyd Patterson when it comes to taking a punch. You care far too much what is written and said about you. You don't relish combat when it becomes personal and nasty. When the largely irrelevant Alan Keyes attacked you, you flinched," he said of Obama's 2004 Senate opponent.

You can see it at his press conferences now. Even though most reporters fall all over themselves trying not to ask questions that imply criticism of his policies or his abilities, the very nature of the questions seem to rile our president. He stiffens as if someone rammed a board against his spine. His face tightens up, his jaw begins working, and his lips spread out in a straight line. He then uses sarcasm that sometimes sounds a little bitter to try and defuse the tension while his adoring sycophants laugh nervously in the background.

He carries this attitude over to foreign leaders as well. His relations with French President Nikolas Sarkozy cooled considerably after he criticized Obama's Iran policy and took him to task for his suggestion that the EU stimulate their economies as he was bankrupting ours. Sarkozy also had some choice words about Obama's relative youth and inexperience.

In response, Obama snubbed the French President's request for a lunch when he was in Europe in June, and distanced himself generally from the Frenchman. Was this spite? It can certainly be interpreted that way.

I'm sure no president likes to be attacked. But it's how one handles such adversity that reveals the true character of the man in the Oval Office. And to my eyes, Obama has shown himself to be small, petty, and much too sensitive to criticism to handle a job where a bullseye is imprinted on your chest every day of the week.

[Sofiyya 1,687]

I wonder if we're dealing with adults in some of these posts. Some are correct to say than it isn't any one party that is responsible for the sorry state of affairs in America. However, it is one ideology that is responsible for it; Liberalism. Liberalism is rampant in the Republican Party as well as its home the Democrat Party. Democrats are admittedly Socialists. The honest democrats will tell you that. Government run health insurance is nothing more than socialism. Government run auto companies is socialism. When they start bailing out the media (because people stop drinking the koolaid) that will be done in the model of Hugo Chavez. Ever wonder why big-name hollywood democrats love dictator Hugo Chavez so much? Danny Glover (Obama supporter) has gone to Venezuela to show support for Hugo, Kevin Spacey (Obama supporter) travels to venezuala and meets with hugo regularly... So, you on the left can use the "shut up" technique of calling it McCarthyism, or irrational fear tactics, but bottom line is that it is true. What Obama is selling is socialism.

Oh wow...I'm just so confused now. Why do all of those Republicans support socialist, government-run programs like Tricare, Medicare, and Medicaid? Are they socialists too?

And how about every industrialized country in the world? They all have socialist, government-run health insurance. Is everyone a socialist? It's all so confusing.

Most of these Right Wing posters are posers. They parrot the same talking points by the Right Wing Media because that's their source for news. Try to actually engage them in a real discussion and they just parrot the same things over and over again because they don't have a genuine opinion to call their own.

That has been said about you regarding your leftist sources and parrotting views you can't explain coherently, Stevie. Are you prepared to plead guilty to that charge?