Excerpt: "The Australian treasurer, Wayne Swan, in an unusually blunt criticism of US politics weeks before the presidential election, said 'cranks and crazies' had taken over the Republicans and posed the biggest threat to the world's largest economy."
Jim Griffin (C) listens as James Manship reads from the U.S. Constitution during a Tea Party Patriots rally on the west lawn of the U.S. Capitol. (photo: Ron Lamkey/Getty Images North America)
'Cranks and Crazies' Have Taken Over Republicans, Says Australian Minister
20 September 12
Wayne Swan, the Australian treasurer, says greatest threat to US economy is the 'cranks and crazies' in the Republican party.
he Australian treasurer, Wayne Swan, in an unusually blunt criticism of US politics weeks before the presidential election, said "cranks and crazies" had taken over the Republicans and posed the biggest threat to the world's largest economy.
Swan, one of few world leaders able to boast his country had avoided recession during the global financial crisis, also labelled the Tea Party wing of the Republicans as "extreme".
"Let's be blunt and acknowledge the biggest threat to the world's biggest economy are the cranks and crazies that have taken over the Republican party," Swan said in a speech to a conference in Sydney.
The Republican party's position on the US budget had led a year ago to the deadlock in negotiations, Swan said, to prevent the looming "fiscal cliff" – nearly $600bn in planned spending cuts and tax hikes that will bite early next year.
Congress had been debating whether to increase the US borrowing ceiling but the Republicans would not budge.
"Despite President Obama's goodwill and strong efforts, the national interest was held hostage by the rise of the extreme Tea Party wing of the Republican party," he said.
Australian politicians rarely launch such blunt criticism of their counterparts in the US, a key strategic ally.
Swan, named by banking magazine Euromoney as its finance minister of the year in 2011 and treasurer of a centre-left government, also called on the US Congress to resolve an agreement on the budget to support growth in the short term.
With the US presidential campaign entering its final weeks, the spending cuts and tax rises will kick in unless Obama and Congress reach a deficit-reduction deal.
Democrats want to make up the shortfall by increasing taxes on wealthy Americans, while Republicans favour spending cuts.
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Comments
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Im glad other countries are speaking out, Im sure Fox will just say its the liberal media...there is the real news and Fox Bullshit mountain, as Jon Stewart aptly refers to Fox news. There is so little liberal media, everything the crazies think is liberal media, is mainly the news that include those pesky facts they seem to hate so much.
Two thumbs up for Austrailia for calling it the way they see it.
That's exactly why the Republicans worked so hard to get rid of it.
And for what ... percentage-wise a little more money - they sell out their country.
When one of the major political parties in this country makes no effort to hide their opinion that "reality is what we say it is" and "we aren't going to let fact checkers run this campaign" and aren't called on it, that's when we have a serious problem.
Good riddance to John Howard, but as far as I know Australia is not as far gone as we are. And since we're further gone than Australia, all I can say is thank you, Wayne Swan.
This tells me two things:
(1) Murdoch knows full well that his "news" network is in the business of peddling horse manure and laws for public sanity can curtain the BS.
(2) How about we push for such a law?
...But then of course for such a law to be voted, we need lawmakers that can be elected by we the people and not just by them the plutocrats.
Repeal Citizens United. Now.
I also do not go to the cable networks of CBS etc...I haar or hear not of too many things or nothing on regular news. Papers around here are like something from the 1400's so I waste no money on seeing trees killed
I touch base with organizations I trust...still waiting to hear from a Marine Biology on Japanese sea and Asian Waters for radioactivity talk about a black out for year. But we have too many free presses, compiling of articles that I find no need to hear nothing from others.
Every time you waste words on FOX they become more of a Hero....like Palin etc I think of them not.
I agree with you, Granny; So how do we make this happen? Do we start an "Occupy News Stations" movement? Do we write our Senators and people in Congress? You can bet that NO politician wants to be the first to introduce this type of legislation, unless there is a large wave of public sentiment asking/forcing them to go for it.
I feel so strongly about the need to control lies and disinformation that I would make a deal with conservatives. I would agree to outlaw the transmission of pornography, over the airwaves, if they would also agree to outlawing (with huge fines as punishment, leading to a revoking of their FCC license) the transmission of false statements (and "questions") from News and Political Commentary stations.
The reason I mention "questions" is because, it has become a tactic of propaganda agencies like FOX to have a tag line like "Did Obama Just Apologize to Al Queda? News at 11".
So, how do we get this started?
I would suggest CEH for questions on how to get citizens group together so that you can put a Resolution on Ballot to get Public Opinion.
If you could get enough citizen groups in one state to put a referendum on Ballot for Spring 2013 you could get some notice, sometimes that is what the circle has to do to start. Good Luck
We did it in Pa over 25 years ago about Soil Burners, a scam industry. People use this median all the time to get focus and some numbers. If it looks to be a popular vote, then you work with other Organizations and go State to State ... it will get noticed. It takes time, organzing, and learning the process. CEH is very good Lois Marie Gibbs was the Director and has been coordinating Grass Root Movement since the 70's Look her up....
They like to hate, gossip so they need to lie. They do so outside of Church so let them go, we are all big enough to know they have little knowledge. Remember all of us were raised on fairy tales, most of us learned to make out own...these people are still searching for the perfect people....After all look at the Rich and what they afford they do not understand that turned upside down we all have one thing in common
American anti intellectualism did not spring out of thin air and was not invented by the Tea Party as odious as they are. This country has a LONG history of stupid and of whom the Founders themselves were afraid!
Meeting and corresponding with our so-called "representives" is the world's most futile exercise, bordering on outright scorn. WE pay their salaries, which they consider chicken feed compared to what they get from lobbyists.
If we don't get out of that trap -- whatever way we must -- we are pitiful history. And I am grateful to our truthful Australian friend for saying what our idiots in charge need to hear. They sure don't pay attention to us!
They took the dime store book in a nutshell or Revolution for Dummies Class and had someone take the test for them.
What the actual Tea Party was about was the East India Company not having to pay the same "tax' on tea as everyone else when they brought it into the Colonies. The Brit Crown has exempted them from the tax/tariff. It was not chance that the East India Compnay's tea was the only tea dumped in the harbor that day. It was our first major protest against a large powerful transnational using its influence with government to get special treatment. Some things never change, unless of coarse people rise up and change them for their own good.
I cannot help but think that the world thought the same thing about the Nazis in Germany. Hitler was a crank and crazy ... until he started rolling into other countries and murdering people.
As much as they want to kick out the latinos and despise the gays, the tea party does not advocate the final solution for any part of the US population and they are as a whole an unruly motley crew unlikely to march in lock steps any time soon.
The US is at the acme of its military power if not economic one, while Germany had been crunched by the worst instance of the great depression following the inept reparation treaty of Versailles after WWI.
Still your remark regarding how foreign countries look at the US stands somewhat.
Don't expect a Daladier or a Chamberlain any time soon, though.
The R's "Ultimate solution" per Rove & Co. is a one-party state.
Don't forget that Hitler didn't instigate the murder of the Jews, Gypsies, Gays and "Others" until he had taken and consolidated power with his S.A., S.S., Gestapo, summary internments and executions to keep the population under the thumb, and a MASSIVE MILITARY BUILDUP for invasions. Sound familiar?
THEN came the death camps, human experiments and gas chambers' finale' sequence.
If you believe some conspiracy theorists, Haliburton has already started on some internment camps here -I have no personal evidence of that but that's what they did as a solution to Katrina: and now you have Arizon's "Border Industrial Complex".
It's not as far away as you think.
May I suggest that you read "The Nightmare Years" by William F. Shirer.
Humans are easy pickings....
Right -but not instigated until control was consolidated and total, as I stated.
I believe at one time their was a fair haired boy who listened to the wrong people...it goes on here all the time.
The US can regain its economic power if it can force through this austerity priority and starve those by not allowing then to have jobs, medical care, education or communication. This frees it from human rights worries.
The big things about the US has been our pragmatic use of psychological technology ... ie. Advertising, Marketing, PR and pay-ops. It is what this country is built on more and more, and we have slid slowly into it.
The thing is that instead of building and staffing big concentration camps it is much cheaper to just cut people off from the system and threaten them "in place".
You should look at your comment from a different aspect.
we are all Morons....
We hired Nazis to work in our labs. We embraced them not trial. KKK an aryan brotherhood...a cult of Nazi simpathizers.
No Nazis in America, that is like saying no Mafias in America, No Gangs in America This is the land of the Free and Opportunistic. We embrace Killing ask the Wolves, Buffalo, Gays, Free Clinics, anyone who is different. Puritans and Nazis are alive and well and breeding in America. Can;t you Smell that Smell, the Smell of Death around us?
In a gathering of ten people I would venture to guess 40% are Racists, Bigots
Where I live I would go as far a s 70% Pa has Phila the City of Brotherly Love, the State that wants to Frack You Back...
Pa and NJ are the most Racist States I have ever been in...compared to us the Soutn is humble.
The guy who said "fascism should be called corporatism for it is the nexus of corporations and government" knew what he was talking about. He was Benito Mussolini.
Agreed but putting them in the correct context -especially in a nation as historically amnesiac and geographically pig-ignorant, nationalistical ly-inclined with as much military might as the US (but it's a tough task).
T "maverita", interestingly enough, Australia is governmentally, a fairly progressive-lef t country but Murdoch is very powerful which is reflected in the quality of much of the commercial TV (It's even worse that the US if you can believe it!) and some of the lower-end papers -but they do have some quality press too. And he doesn't have the access to the halls of power that he and "FIX" has here.
Just a snippet from several visits: I almost moved there permanently from Indonesia in the mid-eighties and still sometime wish I had.
All countries have right-wing crazies (Democracy is messy in allowing all viewpoints) but only in the US as a major power (and already in Israel) are they so close to occupying the seats of power and if the likes of the Rove-plague get their way, they'll be in there in spite of the desires of the people; then midnight will be upon us and the planet.
Once the namecalling ... or violence for matter starts ... nuances like reasons and logic fly out the window ... i just think it's better to stick to the facts, vent when you need to, but productively without scaring the horses.
We are so easily bought off by a handsome face.
No, he was still a crank and crazy.
I don't think the Republicans are that far gone, but they sure seem headed in that direction.
I believe he probably started out over zealous listened to Rush Limbaugh of the time and Fox News and got paranoid. Then he saw others in his Country taking over the Stores, etc and decided he wanted change.
Could say he didn't like immigrants. He thought there should be one Church.
Hitler really sounds like every despot who ever ruled....now we have them as Governors Wait til the Puritans start burning again...They will not stop
This is how other foreign economies have to adjust and defend their positions? Reasonable people are scratching their heads.... With Wall Street dependent upon the private Fed Bank edict, telling us quantitative easing III, is timely- in other words, a baseless printing of more currency banking upon the lack of inflation due to lowered production GDP, a future tax (by the 'loan' address) and large banks unable to fail, where does this leave supply side economic principles of balance and demand?
HE's RIGHT! Soon enough, when a majority reckons enough is enough, we will not be followed, and that change is disasterous. Our weakness is that we cannot change our system anymore. Thanks Congress, you blatant, greedy cowards! USD $17.89 Trillion dollars in debt means even if every American paid 100% taxes for five years we would not even be able to reduce just the interest on this principal....
It would be so easy to use Media, Politicians into making us believe we are, that Europe is crapping out. Yet are we or are we again being manipulated in the ever needed Dominance and Submission Game of Politics and Religion. The Risk Game is for all the Goods....Rememb er the Ten Commandments , the Laws we do not follow Thous Shalt no Covet, Thous Shalt not Kill....
Lying though, they left out lying...
If we are in debt...what are we gonna do about it...rich ain't gonna pay,
China and India are ready....will it matter?
Our pols don't listen to us because we are leeches, victims and losers all-the-while our money bails them out of their gambling forays. Maybe international embarassment can at least dint their armor.
It won't dint the Tea Partiers because they want a pound of flesh from the odious, slithering liberals. Their hatred trumps reason and rationality.
My question is are all other GOP members of Congress as gutless, fearful and weak-spined as they seem? Where are their adults, their statesmen, their sages?
Phone home. Your houses are on fire.
We say it but nobody listens.
The modern Tea Party is a Koch Bros. Funded scam. The people think their fortunes are going to be taken away by the government and are so afraid of the propaganda that they think they are on the right track.
This was at the end of 2008, and the full effects of the financial breakdown were yet to be manifested. It was apparent the meltdown had not run its course, and 2009 would reveal worse news.
We approached the Tea Party with talking points on water and energy and transport infrastructure, but soon learned they had no appetite to talk about anything more substantial than ideological purity in candidates. "Let big business alone and things shall work out just fine"...
Tea Party efforts have been successful in one regard; the President has lost a lot of time & opportunities trying to run the United States Of America with an obstructionist Legislative Branch more interesting in breaking than building. History shall not look favorably on Mitch McConnell's meeting and subsequent mission dedicated to undermine any and all presidential efforts to get things done.
To paraphrase George C. Scott's "PATTON": supposing Romney actually succeeds in lying & buying the election, we should actually feel sorry for the poor bastard- events at home and abroad are going to grab him by the nose and kick him in the ass...
Answer: so far Wayne Swan has navigated the financial crisis successfully, BUT... the whole world lies downstream of America. THAT is the "exceptional" nature of American power. Others can't vote, but they and their economic policies ARE affected by how America votes.
Cranks and crazies in Washington don't endanger only Americans, they're a menace to the world.
And at this moment in time, irresponsibilit y in Washington poses an EXCEPTIONAL worldwide threat. That's what "American exceptionalism" is really about.
This calls for a responsible and well-informed US public - but we're light years from that, a great nation brainwashed more than the Soviets ever were, focused on dangerously wrong issues and blind to the real ones. The German High Command sent Lenin to Russia in a sealed train - and look what happened. Australia gifted Rupert Murdoch to the States - and look what's happening! Half America's FOXED.
TIME FOR EVERYONE TO STOP AND THINK BEFORE ACTING. Not after, when it will be too late. Today, shoot & think after means guaranteed SUICIDE.
If the world were as smart as Australia to the threat than why are they kissing up to the slugs
This is really serious. Hitler and his Nazia were crazies who took over a nation. Lots of Mein Kampf reads just like some of the rants of republicans, including Ryan and Romney.
But what have the democrats done. They have cowered down and theorized about "triangulation" -- how to be more republican than a republican. Clinton and Blair simply make the demorcat and labor parties the tools of the crazy republicans. Now Obama follows in Clinton's footsteps.
We need a president like this Aussie PM who will say in a state of the union address that these republicans are fucking crazy and he will not talk with them or cross the aisle to work with them. Obama is not that guy. He's a compromiser. He spent more time in the last 4 years reaching out to the crazies than he did supporting his base. Where was he in Wisconsin strikes, the Chicago teachers strikes, the OWS? He was trying to make friends with John Boner and Paul Ryan, that's where.
We need a president who knows that you can't work with crazies. You have to work around them.
The last time I checked (yesterday) there still weren't any 3rd party candidates even registering as a blip on the electoral polls.
1. The "shortfall" is self-imposed.
2. Never trust a repug demanding spending cuts unless he is VERY specific about what cuts he'll be making.
Julia Gillard said the same thing? Good for her.
I think the Dems have let us down and their President/VP so I want a new party. I am tired of the sleazes
This type insanity, along with signing Grover Norquist's pledge not to raise taxes, in my opinion, violates their oath of office to act on behalf on the people and the constitution. I say their actions were treasonous!
You see, Ann, we need a president who on the war issue isn't hardass dumbass like George W. Bush or for that matter Barack Obama, and who understands that socialist and communist are not the same, and that, in fact, every government in the world, not just those in Scandinavia, reflects some balance between private and public enterprise.
I'm very sorry, Ann, to have to tell you what they wouldn't reveal in the hospital: Your husband Mitt Romney would implement a more extreme imbalance than world history has ever seen, a hundred per cent recipe for economic and social collapse.
Dear Ann, are those kids really his or were you virgin birth? I really cannot believe he allows you to think on your own, I know you cannot have one word on Religion due to that Cult he worships.
I wouldn't be surprised if you had no clue about where the money is. After all You according to Mormonism has not say. If those accounts are all off shore he didn't need your signature. So Ann you can try your hardest to lie to America but not all of us are so stupid as to believe a word you say.
By the Way, when Mittens pushes that button your kids will be in the Service Fighting for their Country alongside my grandchildren, won't they?
The country is already owned by nations like the Chinese and Japanese. If either of these countries called in their debt, the USA would be unable to come anywhere near paying it. Fortunately, they haven't been able to combine forces. If they had, they would already have divided the country between them.
Maybe the Japanese would take Hawaii and the west coast and the Chinese would have Florida and the east coast. They could leave what;s left to fight it out among themselves.
It's nice to know that this could be known worldwide. The Grossly Obese Party (GOP) needs to implode.
True, there's no Hitler here, and the would-be Veep possesses neither the talents nor the evil genius of a Goebbels; but just as, in normal times, the Nazis would have been no more than small-town nuisances, in normal times today's GOP leadership would have been... simply negligible.
German oligarchs saw Hitler as a tool - but he used them. Two things make Romney and his party uniquely dangerous: the fact that they really are the compliant tools of Big Money, and the extraordinary historical crisis we're now crossing.
For all the unfathomable evil that they represented and carried out, the Nazis did not directly threaten the survival of the human race or the planet. GOP's paymasters do. Driven by limitless blind greed, they plan to impose their imperial one-party State. At this critical moment in time, their outlook makes them potentially the greatest menace mankind has yet faced. Their first victims: the world's poor, and all our children, born and unborn.
1980-2009
20 years, 3 Republican presidents
18 years, Republican Senate
12 years, Republican House-
6 years, Republican's had Total Control.
They took $600B budget to $3,500B
$1,000B Debt to $10,000B Debt
A budget surplus to a $1,400B Deficit--
Created only 99,0000 jobs per month compared to Carter + Clinton's 222,000 per month.
Initiated our involvement in 10 foreign conflicts—costi ng billions and loss of many thousands of lives
Smashed S&L Industry—Housin g Industry-Bankin g Industry from Local to Wall Street Control
Caused the Great Recession—50,00 0 plants were closed between 2000-2010--
Initiated unjust dumb invasions of two poor, unarmed nations to remove leadership and place ours in power creating animosity throughout the Muslim world.
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