Charlie Rose

BENEZRAA  09/07/2012 11:18 AM Report

SAY GOODBYE TO OUR NORTH AMERICAN FRESHWATER TABLE.

Both Romney and Obama are selling "drill, baby, drill" and "frack the planet", each in their own way. I predict that the song, "Party Like It's 1999" (Prince) will come back.

Romney and the RNC give us the hard shell. Obama and the DNC give us the soft shell. Both essentially ignore (metaphorically speaking) the warning that came with Hurricane Isaac; we still need to shore up some of the levies and better prepare for disaster.

It is difficult to imagine that Romney would have so quickly won the 20B-Dollars from BP that Obama did after the BP Oil Spill in the Gulf. In retrospect and as time goes by, will that 20B prove sufficient, or measure up as BP getting off easy? If both Parties perceive drilling oil, mining coal, and hydrofracking for natural gas as the key to job growth, economic growth, and energy freedom, then the only apparent difference between the two Parties pertains to the crumbs on the table given to band-aid our social issues, the demographics of Party constituencies, and who may be appointed to the Supreme Court. These differences are not trivial, but, both the DNC and RNC favor Big Oil, Big Gas, Big Coal, Big Wall Street, Big Military, and Big Media. I can imagine a comedian in the role of news commentator saying, "Not that there's anything wrong with that."

Perhaps the impending Civil War implied by the Black and White Divide evident by the demographics of both Parties will be less destructive to the environment than drilling, mining, and hydrofracking. In the end Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security may be moot points issues, as no one will be around to make use of any of these benefits, however they may be written, and by whom.

"Wooden Ships on the water very free and easy...." (Crosby, Stills, and Nash)

Glick  09/07/2012 04:02 AM Report

So sad--Charlie is now asking the very same questions every other reporter is asking. He used to be better than that.

Glick  09/07/2012 03:55 AM Report

What kind of question is that--is Clinton's succinct characterization fair to the Republicans? "Winner take all" is precisely what Romney did most of his adult life--he swooped into places, bought up companies, carved them up, threw people out of work here, and made huge profits. There was no "shared prosperity" in the way he has lived his life as a financier.

JimBullis  09/07/2012 03:40 AM Report

Politicians of either party need to worry that theirs will be the Party left behind when an actual big thing begins.

A big thing staring us in the face is a need for a national water system whereby land throughout the country is irrigated. This meets the need to increase productivity and provide jobs. Drought would be eliminated and flooding would be controlled. Much CO2 could be captured by standing aggregate of wood mass, which would balance new coal power plants for some limited time to come,though this could well be more effective than the efforts to establish renewable energy.

The austerity of Simpson Bowles is needed, but if there is no massive underlying resurgence of production - of something - this austerity could lead to a deep depression.

richard-lipscombe  09/06/2012 07:11 PM Report

The Obama vision is full of platitudes....what a pity...

America is in steep decline...not just because it has a $US16 Trillion national debt...k-12 is truly bad & getting worse...government spending is out of control with nothing to show for it...a lack of 'truth telling' about the state of the union...

Americans are locked into a cycle of Obama hubris...the Obama team seems unable to accept any criticism or simply say we made mistakes...this Democratic Convention is a celebration of hubris...this Democratic Convention is a celebration of failure and victims...it is depressing to watch...

Democrats are good at blaming everyone but themselves - isn't this a clear sign of decline...

this Democratic Convention has been a great party, done very well, but this is not a time to party in America! surely this is a time to get to work to fix some deep structural problems in your society...

this discussion makes me sad for America and Americans because it seems to me that there is no one in this Democratic Party who is really going to change the course of direction for America...there are no big ideas here...another 4 years of this? what will it bring?

cheers, richard.

richard-lipscombe  09/06/2012 07:11 PM Report

The Obama vision is full of platitudes....what a pity...

America is in steep decline...not just because it has a $US16 Trillion national debt...k-12 is truly bad & getting worse...government spending is out of control with nothing to show for it...a lack of 'truth telling' about the state of the union...

Americans are locked into a cycle of Obama hubris...the Obama team seems unable to accept any criticism or simply say we made mistakes...this Democratic Convention is a celebration of hubris...this Democratic Convention is a celebration of failure and victims...it is depressing to watch...

Democrats are good at blaming everyone but themselves - isn't this a clear sign of decline...

this Democratic Convention has been a great party, done very well, but this is not a time to party in America! surely this is a time to get to work to fix some deep structural problems in your society...

this discussion makes me sad for America and Americans because it seems to me that there is no one in this Democratic Party who is really going to change the course of direction for America...there are no big ideas here...another 4 years of this? what will it bring?

cheers, richard.

richard-lipscombe  09/06/2012 07:11 PM Report

The Obama vision is full of platitudes....what a pity...

America is in steep decline...not just because it has a $US16 Trillion national debt...k-12 is truly bad & getting worse...government spending is out of control with nothing to show for it...a lack of 'truth telling' about the state of the union...

Americans are locked into a cycle of Obama hubris...the Obama team seems unable to accept any criticism or simply say we made mistakes...this Democratic Convention is a celebration of hubris...this Democratic Convention is a celebration of failure and victims...it is depressing to watch...

Democrats are good at blaming everyone but themselves - isn't this a clear sign of decline...

this Democratic Convention has been a great party, done very well, but this is not a time to party in America! surely this is a time to get to work to fix some deep structural problems in your society...

this discussion makes me sad for America and Americans because it seems to me that there is no one in this Democratic Party who is really going to change the course of direction for America...there are no big ideas here...another 4 years of this? what will it bring?

cheers, richard.

NeilMacCallister  09/06/2012 02:44 PM Report

"Abortion, abortion, abortion, abortion..." ..as if the most tragic difficulty America faces today is the birth of a child.

Perhaps our real challenge is facing "truth".

Supporters of abortion claim "This thing is part of my body". But a simple DNA comparison of the maternal and the fetal tissues will reveal that it is not.

Will we ever admit that the mother is actually genetically closer to her own sister than to the daughter that is in her womb?????

It is true, though, that our Constitution does not grant protections upon "citizens" -- until they are born.

As with the ending of slavery, here is another human advance just waiting for us to accept it.

REMant  09/06/2012 12:29 PM Report

So what did we find out last nite? We found out that the president feels he needs Clinton more than Romney needs Bush. That's been the problem - the Clinton's, the Pelosi's, the Reid's, the Kennedy's, the Emmanuel's, etc - all along, hasn't it? No one in his party wanted the guy to run, and they don't want him to govern. Like Lincoln. Or LBJ in reverse. The irritating thing about Michelle, of course, is that she is proud of the fact that she threw working over to get married and become a full-time Mom.

Clinton, of course, got everything backwards. He always has. He didn't have sex with that woman; that woman had sex with him. So it wasn't surprising he espoused upside-down Keynesianism. Instead of a middle class which builds an economy, he has an economy which builds a middle class, making it a matter not of virtue, but of equality. But what good is equality by itself, anymore than artificially low interest rates? Instead of measuring an economy by its productivity, he measures it by jobs created by government borrowing and spending, such as those created by the war he avoided service in. Especially when this is the single most important reason for the increasing division between rich and poor? For all the mergers and bankruptcies? For the mega-salaries and bonuses? For the perpetually rising price of food, gas, and health care? Eisenhower had it exactly right: what could be more inhumane? And he defends workfare!?

Bill neatly sidestepped the fact that this admin did as much to bailout Wall St and keep this pipeline open as any Republican. Probably more. That it reappointed the man responsible for the debacle; virtually ignored the man who insisted on the only financial regulation of any real value; made fun of those diplomats who endeavored to get us out of the dust of Afghanistan; and, by its own admission, didn't take this depression seriously, nor that war anymore than the Bushies did Iraq.

Bill conveniently forgets that the reason the economy revived in his own presidency was because he balanced the budget on the advice of Republican Alan Greenspan, not because of any tax-breaks or education spending. And that it "roared back" by exploiting the rising economies of the Far East to the detriment of older partners, that is, before we started to hear that "great sucking sound" Ross Perot talked about. And no, Al Gore didn't invent the Internet.

Sure the auto bailouts saved the auto industry, but they also lined the pockets of the auto unions. The new mileage standards are a nice goal, but not necessarily a rational one. And if unemployed workers aren't smart enough to fill new jobs it hardly makes sense to recruit them from elsewhere. In any case, college doesn't offer much in the way of job training, not even for lawyers, which we certainly don't need any more of, and business has more than enough money, so they say, to train them, themselves.

Not only health care spending, but a lot of other spending has declined, in view of the fact that the economy has declined. Albeit the raid on Medicare is something of a red herring, but it doesn't change the fact that the system is in trouble as things stand; that the trust funds have been repeatedly raided; that personal saving is a much better and more responsible idea. As much as workfare. The only reason we don't have that kind of system is because of the exigencies of the 1930s and the fact that the middle-class extorted benefits for itself at the expense of the needy to get it passed. And while the workfare issue can also be considered a red herring, the fact remains that it makes it a lot easier to put ppl on the dole, no matter the party affiliation of the governor who does it. Politicians, for actually a lot more than 30 years, have loaded this country up with debt with the connivance of Wall St bankers and erstwhile economists for basically the same purpose: to make it easier to extract personal advantages. It's the leveraged buyout of America. It's corruption. And it's brought us to the point of bankruptcy.

BTW, the one thing I didn't dislike about the Tampa convention was that the attendees seemed sober for a change, except for the noise from the Zionist and evangelical loonies. And since it appears foreign policy specifics are going to be avoided by both campaigns, it would behoove debate questioners to press the candidates on it, unless our generals accomplish the purpose by continuing to blab about it.