gdp's Comments

Left, Right & Center - KCRW : DC Drama, Ukraine, Nigeria, the Return of Monica Lewinsky - Left, Right & Center on KCRW 89.9 FM | I

Fri, 9 May 2014 22:29:50 +0000

Guest, Do better than shopworn sarcasm, to important an issue. Read my comment on this issue from last week's broadcast. Mr. Mack

Left, Right & Center - KCRW : A Good and Bad Economy, Ukraine, the Death Penalty - Left, Right & Center on KCRW 89.9 FM | Internet

Sun, 4 May 2014 16:50:45 +0000

Is it at all surprising that Mr. Lowry in his 'rant' attacked Mayor De Blasio and his program of innovation, that is really an imitation of the Charter School Model? Which bypasses the Board of Education and the Teachers Union. Mayor De Blasio is simply attempting to co-opt the utterly bankrupt Neo-Liberal educational model, that has it's genesis in Pinochet's Chile. Perhaps the mayor thinks that he, as a democratically elected official, has a more defensible civic position that a for profit corporation. The 'Market' has no place in the education of children,or anyone. Diane Ravitch has become disillusioned with both the Charter Schools and No Child Left Behind. See this news story in the New York Observer on Mayor De Blasio: http://observer.com/2014/05/de-blasio-counters-ch... And see this Wikipedia entry on Ms. Ravitch: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diane_Ravitch See this telling quote from the Wiki entry: 'Ravitch said that the charter school and testing reform movement was started by "right wing think tanks like the Heritage Foundation," for the purpose of destroying public education and teachers' unions.[12] She reviewed the documentary Waiting for Superman, directed by Davis Guggenheim, as "propagandistic" (pro-charter schools and anti-public schools), studded with "myths" and at least one "flatly wrong" claim.[13] Of Education Secretary Arne Duncan's Race to the Top program, Ravitch said in a 2011 interview it "is an extension of No Child Left Behind ...[,] all bad ideas." She concluded "We are destroying our education system, blowing it up by these stupid policies. And handing the schools in low-income neighborhoods over to private entrepreneurs does not, in itself, improve them. There's plenty of evidence by now that the kids in those schools do no better, and it's simply a way of avoiding their - the public responsibility to provide good education."[14]' Mr. Lowry and his Nihilist Republican allies wish to destroy one of the most powerful public sector unions, the Teachers Union, and to subvert and destroy the idea and practice of Public Education! The indispensable idea and practice of cultivation of civic republican virtue through politics and education is the target of this nihilism. The public thing (res publica) must, in Mr. Lowry's world view, be replaced by the Market, which has loyalty to one imperative profit, not the welfare and flourishing of children. Nor does it seek to ameliorate the current failings of public education: the Free Market Delusion is bankrupt as a guide to the Economy, the evidence around us is inescapable. But we still do not or will not finance public education with the money that is needed, etc. etc. Mr. Lowry as usual is ideology first, he is nothing if not a good soldier! StephenKMackSD

Left, Right & Center - KCRW : A Good and Bad Economy, Ukraine, the Death Penalty - Left, Right & Center on KCRW 89.9 FM | Internet

Sat, 3 May 2014 20:46:02 +0000

At the end of the discussion/arguments that ends at about the 17:00 minute mark, that both Mr. Lowry and Mr. Wilson frame in the etiolated, shopworn Wilsonian Idealism( i.e. the Innocents Abroad self-exculpatory mythology) in regards to the Ukraine Crisis, does not hold up to even to a cursory examination of the facts of past, and the contemporaneous flow of American and E.U. money to the 'Yats' lead coup. It is a manifestation of American dishonesty in it's attempt to whitewash American/E.U. Subversion, and the enabling of the Right Sector/Svoboda faction. America made the mistake, or rather Victoria Nuland and the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies made the mistake, or was it calculation, to confront Putin in his own backyard. Although, you would not know this from the comments of the Lowry/Wilson alliance’s recitation of a rehabilitated Cold War mythology, with Putin as the New Stalin. Nothing like an injection of political hysteria wedded to shopworn melodrama to invigorate the unremarkable, conformist Neo-Liberal politics of the present! I thought I would post this while fresh in my mind. StephenKMackSD

Left, Right & Center - KCRW : Inequality, Foreign Affairs Troubles, and a Nevada Rancher - Left, Right & Center on KCRW 89.9 FM |

Mon, 28 Apr 2014 14:19:13 +0000

My comment was long by usual standards, and my comments on Mr. Barro and Mr. Frum were negative, but nothing that entailed outright insult or vulgarity.' Agree, disagree, present a different perspective -- engage.' This is the imperative! Best regards, StephenKMackSD

Left, Right & Center - KCRW : Inequality, Foreign Affairs Troubles, and a Nevada Rancher - Left, Right & Center on KCRW 89.9 FM |

Mon, 28 Apr 2014 13:16:12 +0000

My comment was removed. In case you are interested you can read it here: http://www.twitlonger.com/show/n_1s1i8d1 StephenKMackSD

Left, Right & Center - KCRW : Cooling Off in Ukraine, Warming Up for the GOP - Left, Right & Center on KCRW 89.9 FM | Internet Pub

Sat, 19 Apr 2014 15:22:44 +0000

Ebenezer and Stan H, Great comments today! Enjoying you two on a roll! Thank you and best regards StephenKMackSD

Left, Right & Center - KCRW : Cooling Off in Ukraine, Warming Up for the GOP - Left, Right & Center on KCRW 89.9 FM | Internet Pub

Fri, 18 Apr 2014 22:57:07 +0000

One wonders at the comments of both Mr. Pesca and Mr. Continetti regarding Ukraine. It's as if each were reading Neo-Liberal and Conservative talking points memo, without even doing a bit of extemporizing on a theme. Independent thought utterly absent. The 'Imperial Ambition of Putin' the theme of their commentaries. It felt like I was reading the waste paper of the Lake/Rogin/Kichick alliance at the Daily Beast, or their fellow traveler Mr. Leslie Gelb. Luckily, Mr. Scheer could not remain silent in the face of such American Hypocrisy and with his usual aplomb, recited the historical actualities to these political bumpkins, or are they just hacks? The player seems to be out of order, at least from my end, so I will try again later to hear the rest of the broadcast: the exciting news about the decline of Neo-Liberal Hillary Clinton awaits analysis! StephenKMackSD

Left, Right & Center - KCRW : The US, Russia and Ukraine; Sebelius Leaving - Left, Right & Center on KCRW 89.9 FM | Internet Publi

Sun, 13 Apr 2014 15:36:22 +0000

notMike L, Thank you! SKMSD

Left, Right & Center - KCRW : The US, Russia and Ukraine; Sebelius Leaving - Left, Right & Center on KCRW 89.9 FM | Internet Publi

Sun, 13 Apr 2014 15:04:27 +0000

Ebenezer, The beginning of the end was Gorbachev's introduction of Perestroika and Glasnost in 1985, well before the internal collapse of the Soviet Union. And very importantly it put to rest the closely held belief/lynchpin of Cold War Theology, that the Soviet system was incapable of internal reform! The utter loss of legitimacy of the Soviet system internally, a sclerosis had set in, in the leadership and the Party: it became untenable from the inside, even given Gorbachev's attempt at reform. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Perestroika http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glasnost Ms. Freeland, as Mr. De Angelis cogently points out, does not begin at the beginning, the billions spent by the USA an the EU to foment internal trouble, with the plan to install a government hand picked by Ms. Nuland. See the two transcripts of her conversation here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Victoria_Nuland Ms. Freeland is not naive, witness her book length study of the transition of the Soviet economy from command to 'Free Market', Sale of the Century, but to give her the benefit of the doubt, surly her ties to Ukraine, and obvious symapthy for the very legitimate strivings of it's people for a better government i.e. less corruption and a better life, which we must as observers must not discount. But the very possibility of her association with the R2P Neo-Liberals like Ignatieff and his dubious Neo-Con political allies should make us wary of awarding the laurel to Ms. Freeland, at least at this unpropitious moment! Best regards, StephenKMackSD

Left, Right & Center - KCRW : The US, Russia and Ukraine; Sebelius Leaving - Left, Right & Center on KCRW 89.9 FM | Internet Publi

Sat, 12 Apr 2014 16:45:35 +0000

Andy95, I am on Mr. Miller's mailing list, and all I've seem is pleas for money. Thank you for posting the valuable links, much appreciated! Best regards, StephenKMackSD

Left, Right & Center - KCRW : The US, Russia and Ukraine; Sebelius Leaving - Left, Right & Center on KCRW 89.9 FM | Internet Publi

Sat, 12 Apr 2014 16:40:15 +0000

c_woof & Mr. De Angelis I think that I might just speculate on the possibility of Ms. F.'s political relationship with R2P 'Liberal' Michael Ignatieff, who ran and lost a political race in Canada, and then retired from Canadian politics. He still contributes to the New York Review of Books and other publications. He is an acolyte of notorious Cold War intellectual Isaiah Berlin and is another cheerleader for the current crop of Russiaphobes, Ms. F. prominent among them, if you define her anti-Putanism as a kind of sophisticated version of same. The New York Review has become a regular publisher of Mr. I.s reviews along with Mr. Timothy Snyder's regular dispatches from 'Ukrainian Revolution Front'. Where he encountered rather stiff resistance to his apologetics for this bogus revolution, from regulars readers like myself, Mr. S.'s defensiveness was unsubtle, even embarrassing. The NYRB is also a regular publisher of reviews and opinion pieces by Mr. Cass Sunstein, spouse of Samantha Power: how cozy must it get? My point being that a whole intellectual coterie of 'Liberals', Neo-Cons, and R2P zealots are constructing a convenient narrative which is a truly mendacious attempt to foment a New Cold War and a revival of Containment: Douthat advocates Containment without the necessity of a New Cold War: the Conservative Imagination conflicts with Mr. Kennan's 1947 logic, which even he repudiated. My ramble here is to try to describe a small part of a propaganda campaign that is being relentlessly repeated by 'legitimate voices', that could lead to war with Russia: the common dream of Neo-Cons and their allies the R2P 'Liberal' allies, and the well meaning but myopic Ms. Freeland. I hope that it is myopia! Best regards, StephenKMackSD

Left, Right & Center - KCRW : The US, Russia and Ukraine; Sebelius Leaving - Left, Right & Center on KCRW 89.9 FM | Internet Publi

Fri, 11 Apr 2014 23:58:25 +0000

As much as I respect Chrystia Freeland, I must say that she totally ignores American and E.U. meddling in Ukrainian political affairs. The exact same thing she condemns the Dictator Putin for! According to reliable sources America spent 5 billion dollars to subvert a duly elected government, aided by 100 million from the E.U. The American front group was the Foundation for the Defense of Democracy an utterly notorious Neo-Conservative organization. A mention of fellow traveler Victoria Nuland and her husband Robert Kagan seems completely appropriate as the meddlers who aided, birthed this 'revolution'. Americans since 1823 (Monroe Doctrine) have by use of this utterly bogus assertion of power, of hegemony over our neighbors, makes the current American arguments that some how a Russian claim to such hegemony has no legitimacy - it boggles the mind, in it's expression of imperialist hypocrisy,hubris! The very notion that Putin would allow the stationing ABM's in Ukraine and the IMF bailout i.e. the looting of the country, strains credulity to the point of fracture. Read Paul Craig Roberts as antidote to the current vogue of Russo-phobia and Putin as the 'New Stalin' propaganda: http://www.paulcraigroberts.org/category/articles... StephenKMackSD

Left, Right & Center - KCRW : Obamacare Signs Up 7 Million, SCOTUS Changes Campaign Finances - Left, Right & Center on KCRW 89.9 F

Mon, 7 Apr 2014 22:48:54 +0000

Sy Hersh Reveals Potential Turkish Role in Syria Chemical Strike That Almost Sparked U.S. Bombing: http://www.democracynow.org/2014/4/7/sy_hersh_rev... SKMSD

Left, Right & Center - KCRW : Obamacare Signs Up 7 Million, SCOTUS Changes Campaign Finances - Left, Right & Center on KCRW 89.9 F

Mon, 7 Apr 2014 21:49:07 +0000

Having read Mr. Lowry's Politico column on Friday before listening to the broadcast, I was informed as to the content of his arguments on MCCutcheon, but I was unprepared for his vehemence in arguing the merits of the First Amendment, as a singular point involving this case. Even to the point of treating Mr. Scheer's succinctly presented questions as not worth consideration. I shouldn't allow Mr L. to surprise me, by the display of his inability to at least entertain the possibility of the simultaneity of ideas and arguments. But Mr. L.'s vehemence is a sign of the political weakness of MCCutcheon and it's precursor of Citizens United. I'm not sure that this is the excerpt that Mike P. quoted from the Breyer dissent, but I will quote this and another revelatory paragraph: 'Today a majority of the Court overrules this holding. It is wrong to do so. Its conclusion rests upon its own, not a record-based, view of the facts. Its legal analysis is faulty: It misconstrues the nature of the competing constitutional interests at stake. It understates the importance of protecting the political integrity of our governmental insti- tutions. It creates a loophole that will allow a single individual to contribute millions of dollars to a political party or to a candidate’s campaign. Taken together with Citizens United v. Federal Election Comm’n, 558 U. S. 310 (2010) , today’s decision eviscerates our Nation’s campaign finance laws, leaving a remnant incapable of dealing with the grave problems of democratic legitimacy that those laws were intended to resolve.' 'The upshot is that the interests the Court has long described as preventing “corruption” or the “appearance of corruption” are more than ordinary factors to be weighed against the constitutional right to political speech. Rather, they are interests rooted in the First Amendment it- self. They are rooted in the constitutional effort to create a democracy responsive to the people—a government where laws reflect the very thoughts, views, ideas, and sentiments, the expression of which the First Amendment protects. Given that end, we can and should understand campaign finance laws as resting upon a broader and more significant constitutional rationale than the plural- ity’s limited definition of “corruption” suggests. We should see these laws as seeking in significant part to strengthen, rather than weaken, the First Amendment. To say this is not to deny the potential for conflict between (1) the need to permit contributions that pay for the diffusion of ideas, and (2) the need to limit payments in order to help maintain the integrity of the electoral process. But that conflict takes place within, not outside, the First Amendment’s boundaries.' Justice Breyer's dissent is worthy of reading, in fact it is eminently readable and comprehensible! http://www.law.cornell.edu/supremecourt/text/12-5... StephenKMackSD

Left, Right & Center - KCRW : Crimea Naivete, Hobby Lobby, Trusting the NSA - Left, Right & Center on KCRW 89.9 FM | Internet Publ

Tue, 1 Apr 2014 13:45:11 +0000

To counter the pervasive American propaganda about Ukraine, listen to Paul Craig Roberts explain the Neo-Conservative world view, and it's impact on American foreign policy: the plan for the realization of their hubrisitic, indeed nihilist, ambition: http://themindrenewed.com/interviews/2014/451-int... SKMSD

Left, Right & Center - KCRW : Crimea Naivete, Hobby Lobby, Trusting the NSA - Left, Right & Center on KCRW 89.9 FM | Internet Publ

Tue, 1 Apr 2014 00:02:25 +0000

I found Mr. Spitzer's near patronizing comments:difference, careful balance,in cases of religious freedom etc, to Mr. Scheer's sage and quite well presented comments on the Hobby Lobby Case, revelatory of legal narcissism that Paul D. Halliday mentions on page 2 of his introduction to his book Habeas Corpus, From England to Empire. 'As such, it's past has been written less as history than as an exercise in legal narcissism.' This narcissism infects not just the writing of 'legal history' but manifests itself in the self-presentation and the arguments of lawyers like Mr. Spitzer. The Hobby Lobby only exists because of the rise of Religious Conservatism and the appointments of Scalia,Thomas,Roberts,Alito, the Neo-Confererate/Originalist phalanx to the Supreme Court. Mr. Sheer articulates the case against the 'religious argument' with his usual brilliance, putting Mr. Spitzer's legalistic tut tutting under the shadow of his utterly sound argument. Bravo Bob! StephenKMackSD

Left, Right & Center - KCRW : Russian Sanctions, NSA MYSTIC and the Hobby Lobby Case - Left, Right & Center on KCRW 89.9 FM | Inte

Sun, 23 Mar 2014 14:15:45 +0000

I know that feeling, oh so well! Best regards, SKMSD

Left, Right & Center - KCRW : Russian Sanctions, NSA MYSTIC and the Hobby Lobby Case - Left, Right & Center on KCRW 89.9 FM | Inte

Sat, 22 Mar 2014 14:45:42 +0000

Rightguy, You can't have it both ways! Rep. Ryan's proposal on the decay of the inner cities as having it's root in the morally unworthy lazy young men who won't work is the usual tired public moralizing, that is the specialty of the modern Republican Party, since the days of Nixon's Southern Strategy. File his comments on 'lazy young men' with his Budget Proposals of past years, as what Ross Douthat described as 'policy entrepreneurship', a rather fancy name for propaganda. I think what is even more pernicious is that even President Obama repeats these moralizing cliches. Which I guess shouldn't surprise as he is a Neo-Liberal. Best regards, StephenKMackSD

Left, Right & Center - KCRW : Russian Sanctions, NSA MYSTIC and the Hobby Lobby Case - Left, Right & Center on KCRW 89.9 FM | Inte

Fri, 21 Mar 2014 23:20:24 +0000

You must read Rich Lowry's essay on Paul Ryan's blundering, tone deaf comments: http://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2014/03/pa... And then read Wesley Lowery's revelatory essay at the Washington Post, that seems to put the whole issues into a necessary perspective, with a sampling of perspectives. It puts Mr. Lowry's hysterical defensiveness on the question of the Republican Party and race into that necessary perspective, very worth your time and attention: http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/the-fix/wp/20... The only time that Dahlia Lithwick seemed to come alive, as if she had some sort of stake in the program, was about birth control and the Supreme Court case. The rest of the time she just sounded as if the questions addressed to her were trivial, disappointing, to say the least. For a perspective on the Ukraine Question, that is not mired in Cold War nostalgia(Rich Lowry), start here: http://www.paulcraigroberts.org/ StephenKMackSD

Left, Right & Center - KCRW : Senate v. CIA and Climate Change - Left, Right & Center on KCRW 89.9 FM | Internet Public Radio Stat

Mon, 17 Mar 2014 13:42:46 +0000

You don't need to ask the 'why' of the move from ABC to Fox. I especially like at campaign time when each of his columns features his latest political infatuation, with the oligarch or plutocrat of the moment. He fancies himself as the American Edmund Burke. Burke was rescued from his financial irresponsibility by a Crown bailout of 30,0000 pounds and then voted against the Poor Laws. A true Conservative, hypocritical and self-serving, while moralizing on the conduct of other less worthy beings. That sums up the Conservative mindset/world view. Best regards, SKMSD