DeliaTheArtist vs IHateThemAll

then why are u even here?

When I first heard the saying "Arguing on the internet is like running in the Special Olympics - even if you win, you're still retarded," I bought into it. Seeing so much of it and finding it lacking in content, it seems useless. After some time though it has occurred to me that to think it stupid and useless, as a default position, is to make one of the many kinds of mistake you so often see in internet argumentation itself. Just because it is on the internet does not preclude it from having some value in its content, even if that is what is likely.

For my part, Delia and a number of others here have said things that I found to be of value to me. So a debate on a topic I had interest in that involved these people would be worth looking at. Too bad for me that interesting topic isn't Glenn-hole.

Very well said!
There's a lot of empty internet debate, but that does not preclude it's potential value.

@MOK, you are correct. As they say," even a blind hog can find an acorn". Thus proving the value of internet debate.

Internet is a modern tool. If you'd like to debate over the phone, be my guest. As to the pertinence of internet debates, it depends. It's what you learn and how well you can defend your beliefs that make them interesting, and anyone informed can join in. It's an activity basically, just like XBOX, bored games ( yes bored games ), and sports, but I'd like to see it as more sophisticated. A battle of intellect. As of this post I'm debating you O_o

DeliaThArtist:

Beck ends his show desperate to prove how much research goes into it, though frankly I found the episode full of much more opinion and downright fiction than fact. Many of Glenn's points were based on his theoretical imaginings of politics, not actualities.

Glenn takes us through a warm and fuzzy speech about the power of America- and I agree, America is able to make it through this crisis time and once again emerge as leaders in innovation, technology and social justice. Beck urges us to think about our forefathers- but when I do, I don't imagine that they envisioned this system of capitalism, where our basic systems- food, energy, information- are run by a handful of mega- corporations who sue anyone, even the government agencies meant to regulate them, who stand against them. Surely the answer to America's problems is not scaring up images of being a soviet citizen or delving into opinion heavy diatribes with no sources- it's multi-faceted and involves a cooperation of capitalism, regulation and citizen watchdogs. Most of all I think it involves the reiteration that the government is not some entity repressing us, WE ARE the government, we deserve accountability on all levels of our country INCLUDING the "free market", and we must utilize philosophy, concepts and systems from a variety of world views and governments.

DeliaTheArtist:

Politicians? Desperate? Never! But seriously, Glenn references “Van Jones” as something the Democrats will have to distract you from around election time. When was the last time anyone was discussing Van Jones?

Glenn goes onto predict the hot topic will be immigration, but says something strange; “If you think we are a nation of laws, and not of men, you will be called nasty names.” Wasn’t the idea of being a nation of laws and not men the alleged problem Glenn was just discussing? Wasn’t he just bashing the idea of government law being applied over people when it came to credit and the economy? It seems to be a strange switch of philosophy!

Anyway, I don't think the topic of immigration ever left the political spectrum anyway- yes, the economy and heathcare have taken the main stage, and at this point our international relations and safety issues are the hot topic, but "predicting" that politicians will talk about immigration is like "predicting" that it will rain.

Glenn says “The facts are on our side”, but I’m not sure what the sides are. Glenn assumes that him and other Fox representatives will be called racists- but he didn’t actually “predict” any actions or arguments from the “other side” from which he’s defending himself.

DeliaTheArtist:

“I don’t think that Chris Dodd is George Washington.” Um, I’m not sure who was advocating this position nor why Glenn Beck sounds extra congested when he talks about Chris Dodd. The whole time he’s outlining ridiculous imaginary circumstances for why Chris Dodd is leaving, I thought he was going to reveal some kind of real information- but he doesn’t, he gives an anecdote about swimming and not saving drowning people. I wanted to argue Glenn’s claim that his “predictions are usually right”, but I didn’t even know where to start!

DeliaTheArtist

I don’t understand the math that ensue’s on Glenn’s third chalk board. Not only am I miserable at money economics- Interest is bad, that’s what I get from it - but Glenn’s numbers are all theoretical anyway- when Glenn asked him the likelihood that his situation actually plays out, his guest David Buckner avoids the question completely. I think Glenn's message would be more effectively made through the use of real situations and actual answers from his "expert".

DeliaTheArtist:

The Green Economy/The Third Industrial Revolution

Glenn Beck blames the government... David Buckner agrees with this assessment, saying it would be better if we were not “hindered by government intervention or being steered by government intervention.”

The talk of government intervention, especially in the areas of environmental policy, couldn’t help but remind me of a documentary I just watched called “Who Killed the Electric Car”, which I highly recommend to people of all political spectrums. Not only does it show that American companies are capable of producing environmentally sound, innovative and world dominating technologies, it shows how corporations, and the corporate corruption of the government can be responsible for their demise- there is nothing “pure” about our brand of capitalism. In addition to this, government intervention can steer business, technology and industry in the right direction if handled properly- in the case of the electric car, the automobile industry sued the California Air Resources Board to get rid of zero emissions mandates. I sincerely urge those who are interested in these issues to check out Who Killed The Electric Car as it makes this point very clear and backs up the assertion by Dr. Clark, that lobbyists and greed are the problems in America's quest for a green economy.

This doesn’t mean that these government agencies are free from corruption or “hindrance”, but the argument that deregulation is the answer is argued best by history. Clinton and Bush both took measures to deregulate banks and wall street (http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/03/29/bush-administration-to-un_n_94066.html) and that should not be ignored when analyzing our current economic crisis. Letting corporations do what they please plays a huge role, one of the biggest, in the corruptions of American Society.

They are talking about “Green Jobs”, but only mentioning solar panels. Here’s some info on Green Jobs in America:

http://www.cggc.duke.edu/environment/climatesolutions/

Solar panels are just a small part of jobs that can be considered "green".

The fact of the matter is our move towards a green economy, or as scholars call "The Third Industrial Revolution", is not just about tree huggers and government intervention- we MUST reduce and eventually rid ourselves of our dependence on foreign oil and an oil based economy for the good of our nation, the planet and world economics.

DeliaTheArtist:

“The lie being told to you right now…green jobs…”

The first time I really heard about a “green economy” wasn’t some government lie, it was from Dr. Woodrow Clark II (http://current.com/items/90049416_interview-with-dr-woodrow-clark-ii.htm) who said this:

“Q: There are so many types of renewable energy sources; solar, wind, biomass- it seems we could easily run America on sustainable energy! What’s the biggest obstacle to this goal right now?

A: Primarily public policy -- it is far too limited and "afraid" of change. See what the Europeans and Japanese are doing. I am and some scholars refer to this difference as The Third Industrial Revolution (renewable energy, storage and new technologies, smart girds and cities etc). That is the USA is still in The Second Industrial Revolution that is influenced and "controlled" by lobbyists for the oil & gas industry as well as auto (although that might change now, finally!)”

We’ll get back to this “lie” in Part III.

Glenn’s at the chalkboard, marking off the things that stand in the way of American business- mostly the government.

“All kinds of people are going to come after you because you’re making anything in America,” Glenn claims. What? Who’s coming after me? Glenn doesn’t explain how any of the groups on his list actually hurt business, he’s just working from the assumption that they do.

Now let’s look at China’s way of doing business: Beck writes down “Children” as his work force for China! According to Glenn Beck, the only issues in Chinese industry is their workforce, comprised of “Children”, and ‘Parts”.

It seems somewhat inaccurate and even socially insensitive to make such a claim, so let’s look at some reasons for China’s development in the green market:

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/08/25/business/energy-environment/25solar.html

“Since March, Chinese governments at the national, provincial and even local level have been competing with one another to offer solar companies ever more generous subsidies, including free land, and cash for research and development. State-owned banks are flooding the industry with loans at considerably lower interest rates than available in Europe or the United States.”

Ah, their governments are competitively offering incentives for solar companies! Those damn communists!

The topic switches to the debt- “A debt that was until recently considered healthy” - Until recently? I suppose recently is a rather subjective word to use, but let’s take into consideration the following facts:

“When Bush took office, the national debt was $5.73 trillion. When he left, it was $10.7 trillion. That's a difference of $4.97 trillion.” (http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/statements/2009/jan/22/rahm-emanuel/5-tr...

Our national debt is now around 12 trillion, making Obama responsible for about 2 trillion, right?

So at what point does Glenn consider the debt going from healthy to unhealthy?

DeliaTheArtist

Glenn starts the program with an air that one might attribute to an angry teenager, a stack of books behind his desk to prove how well read he is. We launch into the expectation of anger we’ll feel to those who are “stealing our children’s future” as he scares up imagery of the IRS coming after none other than YOU, the innocent, patriotic American! Glenn‘s wise advice? “Grab a torch!”

“They’re lying to us all the time,” Glenn says. No argument there. “I haven’t felt like a soviet citizen ever in my life, but boy I feel like one when I saw Nancy Pelosi speak,” Why do we have to go immediately to the socialism reference? Is politicians lying some new phenomenon; it has to be a soviet plot?

I don’t really watch a lot of CSPAN (and neither self admittedly does Glenn Beck- “I didn’t watch it myself, we have researchers, it’s far too boring to watch.”) What is the CSPAN issue? Do people think there hasn’t been enough media coverage and public awareness of the health care situation? There were Town Halls all over the country and not a day goes by that I don’t hear something about it. When I researched it, I found this:

“He [C-SPAN chief Brian Lamb] said he wrote the letter because C-SPAN had already covered hundreds of hours of debate on health care, and he wanted to make sure that leaders knew C-SPAN was interested in following the issue to the end.

But as Democrats enter talks on the separate versions of the legislation passed by the House and Senate, they're hesitant to allow C-SPAN's cameras to air the proceedings. Republicans say Democrats are backing away from Obama's pledge of transparency.”

(http://www.seattlepi.com/tvguide/413911_tvgif6.html)

So it would seem they are having an issue now, but a conclusion has not been reached and CSPAN has hundreds of hours of coverage of debate on health care- it is the final debate that is in question.

“The media will only tell us part of the story!” Does Glenn not consider himself part of “The media”?

Glenn writes on his chalkboard (“school us”, Glenn!) that our economy is 70% spending and 30% “everything else.” Consider this argument by Michael Mandel of Business Week:

“In fact, by my very rough calculations, the money that people actually pull out of their paychecks and bank accounts to pay for domestically-produced goods and services drives about 40% of economic activity in this country. That’s still large—but the U.S. is nowhere near as dependent on consumer spending as people think.”

(http://www.businessweek.com/the_thread/economicsunbound/archives/2009/08/get_it_...

That’s part one!