I won't go as far as to say I am "hoping" for a Depression, but.......

[Kimberly]

But actually I am

It's nice they admit liberalism has no chance of being implemented unless people are scared and suffering.  Actually, I think that is Obama's plan.

Political Heretic  (1000+ posts)        Sat Mar-14-09 12:50 AM
Original message
I won't go as far as to say I am "hoping" for a Depression, but.......
So, I'm sure we can all agree that none of us take any joy when real families suffer under a collapsing economy. Therefore I can't say that I want this economic crisis to continue to descend into full blow depression.

But at the same time, I can see some positives that might come out of the tragedy of a second great depression. Not the least of which would be that its highly likely that it would set up a solid political left to be dominant for at least a generation. Sometimes I have worried that only a sever economic collapse would shake america into waking up to the failure of conservative rhetoric and ideology.

It seems like up until recently, even people who weren't extremely political would quote conservative ideology like it was hard coded into the very structure of our society. That must be undone, and I fear the only way to really do that may be with a left equivalent of "shock therapy" (re: Naomi Klein).

 

hugo_from_TN (141 posts)      Sat Mar-14-09 01:07 AM
Response to Reply #5
16. No, I read it.
 You're hoping for devastating financial ruin for billions, which will destroy lives, for the greater good of a political agenda. Many others have had the same ideas throughout history.

camera obscura (1000+ posts)      Sat Mar-14-09 12:57 AM
Response to Original message
3. How does a depression coming to fruition under a Democratic president create a leftwing generation?
 ... I mean, you are hoping for Obama to fail and the depression to deepen, right?

Plus, I don't think the point of The Shock Doctrine was to advise us on how to be our own Pinochets and Bushes.

Political Heretic  (1000+ posts)        Sat Mar-14-09 01:00 AM
Response to Reply #3
9. The same way it did for FDR, and the string of democrats that succeeded him.

pnwmom  (1000+ posts)      Sat Mar-14-09 01:11 AM
Response to Reply #9
20. Hitler and Mussolini rose in the early 30's, a period coinciding with 
 the depths of the Depression.

People are just as likely to move to the right. Extreme movements of any sort will draw adherents.

dkf  (1000+ posts)        Sat Mar-14-09 01:00 AM
Response to Original message
6. If we get into a depression Obama will lose reelection and his policies will be
 blamed. It would not be good.

Selatius  (1000+ posts)      Sat Mar-14-09 01:00 AM
Response to Original message
7. According to U-6 unemployment numbers, almost 15% of America is now unemployed.
 Edited on Sat Mar-14-09 01:02 AM by Selatius
Many history text books quote the unemployment rate during the Great Depression as being about 25%. There is a revolutionary motto apocryphally attributed to Lenin saying, "The worse, the better." It was born out of the observation that the worse conditions got for ordinary people, the more ordinary people were willing to try something else, anything to stop the pain.

Of course, during the Great Depression, a lot of people tried different things. The Germans elected Adolf Hitler. The Japanese gave their country over to the warlords. The Italians elected fellow fascist Benito Mussolini. The Russians let Stalin impose his command economy, and the Spanish ripped themselves apart in a bloody civil war that still shakes that country to its core today. By some stroke of luck, the Americans found for themselves Franklin Roosevelt but barely. 

Someone is peeved his mental vomit wasn't worshipped immediately.

Political Heretic  (1000+ posts)        Sat Mar-14-09 01:09 AM
Response to Original message
17. Okay, let's try this again on a second grade reading level shall we:
 1. FDR isn't remembered as "creating" the great depression. Neither will Obama be remembered as "creating" the economic crisis he has inherited

2. It really doesn't matter whether your like the way it sounds or not, only crisis shakes up public complacency. This has always been true.

3. It really doesn't matter whether you like the way it sounds or not, in order for there to be real change - I mean change beyond the sort that just gets undone every time there is a new president, change that addresses some of our deep and systemic problems, that undoes the corporate oligarchy that has been painstakingly created over the last thirty to fifty years... its going to take a crisis.

4. Recognizing these things is not the same was being excited and looking forward to the individual pain that I and other people will experience because of a collapsed economy.


Got it?

Sheesh.

 

ClusterFreak (1000+ posts)      Sat Mar-14-09 01:11 AM
Response to Original message
19. What is this...the Buckley's cough syrup philosphy?
 It tastes awful...and it works?So you think it might be a good idea to experiment with a depression?  What if that depression were to mean terrible things for you and/or your family....lost jobs, homes, divorce?  Or someone else's family you know?I don't know how anyone could ever in good conscience wish for bad things to happen to good people.  And that's what you seem to be doing here, in a weaselly 'dip your toe in the water to see how it feels' kind of way.   

[Rebel]

****in' idiots.

[Wretched Excess]

great story.

wrong forum

[formerlurker]

You're hoping for devastating financial ruin for billions, which will destroy lives, for the greater good of a political agenda. Many others have had the same ideas throughout history.

Thank you. 

[LC EFA]

Political Heretic  (1000+ posts)        Sat Mar-14-09 12:50 AM
Original message
I won't go as far as to say I am "hoping" for a Depression, but.......
So, I'm sure we can all agree that none of us take any joy when real families suffer under a collapsing economy. Therefore I can't say that I want this economic crisis to continue to descend into full blow depression.

But at the same time, I can see some positives that might come out of the tragedy of a second great depression. Not the least of which would be that its highly likely that it would set up a solid political left to be dominant for at least a generation. Sometimes I have worried that only a sever economic collapse would shake america into waking up to the failure of conservative rhetoric and ideology.

It seems like up until recently, even people who weren't extremely political would quote conservative ideology like it was hard coded into the very structure of our society. That must be undone, and I fear the only way to really do that may be with a left equivalent of "shock therapy" (re: Naomi Klein).

FAIL. It's far more likely that all the leftists would either become conservative or die out during the depression, so there would be too few of them left at the end to have any pull.

[BlueStateSaint]

FAIL. It's far more likely that all the leftists would either become conservative or die out during the depression, so there would be too few of them left at the end to have any pull.

My vote is for "die out," because as they turned savage and feral, they'd eventually run into people who were armed, and they wouldn't survive the encounters.

[Lord Undies]

Political Heretic  (1000+ posts)        Sat Mar-14-09 01:00 AM
Response to Reply #3
9. The same way it did for FDR, and the string of democrats that succeeded him.

What "string"? 

Truman '48?  Default. 

Kennedy '60?  Voter fraud/stolen election. 

Johnson '64?  Default. 

Carter '76?  NOW there was change we could believe in!

Clinton '92?  Won with 43% of the vote.  Ross Perot.

Clinton '96?  Won with less than 50% again.  More Ross Perot

Gore '00?  He could even get his home state to vote for him.

Obama '08?  Millions of fraud votes in strategic locales/Democrat manipulated financial "crisis".

Some "string" you got there, swifty. 

[DumbAss Tanker]

Political Heretic  (1000+ posts)        Sat Mar-14-09 01:00 AM
Response to Reply #3
9. The same way it did for FDR, and the string of democrats that succeeded him.

I believe that 'string' was limited to Truman's single elected term, setting the stage for the legendary prosperity of Republican Dwight D. Eisenhower's two terms.

[djones520]

The stupid hurts in that thread...

[Carl]

Any comparison between the 1930s and today is ignorance on steroids given the differences in communication technology,the reduction of family farms,the increase in transportation ease...

Pretty much everything you can think of.

[Happy Fun Ball]

What "string"? 

Truman '48?  Default. 

Kennedy '60?  Voter fraud/stolen election. 

Johnson '64?  Default. 

Carter '76?  NOW there was change we could believe in!

Clinton '92?  Won with 43% of the vote.  Ross Perot.

Clinton '96?  Won with less than 50% again.  More Ross Perot

Gore '00?  He could even get his home state to vote for him.

Obama '08?  Millions of fraud votes in strategic locales/Democrat manipulated financial "crisis".

Some "string" you got there, swifty. 

Actually, the "string" here is the decades-long Democrat control of Congress, only in 1994 was it broken. Too bad the Republicans didn't seem to know what to do with their newfound power and ended up losing it.

[BlueStateSaint]

Actually, the "string" here is the decades-long Democrat control of Congress, only in 1994 was it broken. Too bad the Republicans didn't seem to know what to do with their newfound power and ended up losing it.

And some, who shall remain nameless, seem intent on keeping their own party away from power.

[Happy Fun Ball]

And some, who shall remain nameless, seem intent on keeping their own party away from power.

And others seem hellbent on blaming the christians and social conservatives and trying to sever them from the party, and completely ignore the fact that it was their own abandonment of core principles and rampant spending that cost them in '06 and '08.

[Lord Undies]

Actually, the "string" here is the decades-long Democrat control of Congress, only in 1994 was it broken. Too bad the Republicans didn't seem to know what to do with their newfound power and ended up losing it.

I'm aware of the decades long democrat control of congress, but the tone the Little Goon set was one that implied the nation was in a democrat lock.  That was not the case.

Since the Little Goons put so much store in who sits in the White House, I thought a bit of reality was in order.

[jukin]

Yes, they will do or have anything happen to get power.  This is one area where the DUchebags of the DUmp and the douchebags of the DNC are in complete agreement.

[delilahmused]

To bad the OP didn't have its depression happen only to conservative families to turn them into good Germans. It would have been lauded for its brilliance then. It forgot the most important tenets of democrat ideology: suffering & the rules that bring them about are for others, not those already marching in lock step with their latest Hitler. Of course, one thing none of them consider...with the exception of the peanut farmer (which led to the Reagan Revolution) most of those other dem presidents weren't pussies...incompetent perhaps but not limp-wristed. Unlike the left, the majority of Americans love and believe in their country and if we're attacked while the Messiah reigns and his response is as milquetoast as one knows it will be, he's gone. Even radical extremist nutbags have no respect for a leader who doesn't know how to fight back.

Cindie