Former President Carter says Americans generally oblivious to suffering elsewhere in the world

The Minneapolis "Red" Star Tribune ^ | 2/22/04 | David Peterson

[KC Burke]

Paging Thomas Sowell

The pure proof to you book A Conflict of Visions

[Atchafalaya]

Jeez, he's still shilling for Fidel, Yassir, Kim Jung Il, (add to it); the list is long and infamous. Another failed Democratic President trying to nail down a legacy that ain't there. Hopefully Bill will succumb to his excesses early and spare us; take Teddy with you Bill BTW.

[VRWC For Truth]

Jimmah, shut the flip up! Americans suffer of your Socialist rhetoric.

[VOA]

rough paraphrase from the "X-Presidents" cartoon on Saturday Night Live:

Jimmy Carter: Let me talk to them, I have experience in foreign diplomacy.

Ronald Reagan: I know that. That's how I got elected President!

[Mr. Mojo]

Ah, the good ole days when the GOP was designated in blue and the Rats in commie red. But the media did a little switch-a-roo in the 2000 election and now nearly everyone identifies the two parties in the opposite colors. Shame.

[ApplegateRanch]

Just shut up, and send them more food & medicine, so they can multiply even further beyond all reason, and STILL die with their hands stretched out for more.

These are AFRICANS he's talking about. We owes dem, dontcha knows? Them Iraqis are tainted by oil, so it isn't moral to help them, and maybe get something in return down the road.

[Conservababe]

Oh please, not another pious rant from old....let us all turn down our thermostats and wear sweaters, cook fish fillets in our dishwasher wash cycle, wait in line for gasoline, buy a home for an 18% mortgage...Jimmy Carter.

And that is just the domestic scene. I can't even bear to think of how much his foreign policies cost us in the war on terrorism today.

Can Nobel prizes be revoked?

[Dianna]

ABOSLUTELY THE WORST PRESIDENT IN AMERICAN HISTORY

I was 7YO when Carter was elected. Even I remember gas lines and hostages. Thank God for Ronald Reagan. What would have happened to the US during a second Carter term?

[the Real fifi]

The worst President ever--can't someone lift his passport and cut his telephone lines?

[AlexW]

Someone please tell Jimmy, this pathetic example of the Peter Principle, that the world is still turning without
his help.

[Joe Hadenuf]

Hey Jimma, get ur peanut sized brain back to goathead Georgia, and shut yer hogjawed yap up.

[Paleo Conservative]

Can Nobel prizes be revoked?

If Arafat hasn't been stripped of his, there's no way Carter will have his revoked.

[reluctantwarrior]

And that is just the domestic scene. I can't even bear to think of how much his foreign policies cost us in the war on terrorism today.

He sent a message of weakness to our enemies in 1979 when the students took the hostages. The soviets invaded Afghanistan in December of 1979...Hmmm...Doh...ya think the commies saw a chance to push some peices around the game board because of this gutless wonder???

The soviets radicalized many muslims so does carter get the credit for al Qaeda???

[nobdysfool]

"Former President Carter says Americans generally oblivious to suffering elsewhere in the world" The problem lies among the people of the U.S.," he said...

And their solution? Take away the prosperity of America so Americans can suffer that way too. Ease their suffering by increasing ours.

Yeah, that's a good solution...< /sarcasm >

Of course, for those who believe in a zero-sum economy, transferring wealth from those who have to those who don't is the only way to right the wrongs. A rising tide means there is a flood, in their minds, and floods are bad things and must be stopped, before they raise the poor from poverty and the suffering from their suffering!

[contessa machiaveli]

i wish he would shut up.

[Lijahsbubbe]

HALP! I'm in Mpls. and we've had every loser in the country here in the last couple days. Teresa Heinz, Jimmy Carter, Dennis Kucinich, John Edwards....I can't breath!

[longtermmemmory]

The US understands Carter and his Carter Institute is an ANTI-AMERICAN partisan.

Carter was a mistake. It is now obvious the only reason Carter got elected was because he was running agains Nixon's VP. Carter was not elected on his own merrits.

He was rejected on his own merrits.

It has not sunk into Carters head. This is the same mindset as Carter's malase speech. He does not believe he was fired because he was dead wrong. Carter believes he lost because people did not understand the concepts he was talking about. (aka voters are stupid)

This is no different than the communist use of re-education camps. (sensitivity classes) The carters and the clintons believe we must be subjected to sufficient indoctrination and we will "understand".

I submit that it is Carter who is the poster boy of ignorance.

[fly_so_free]

I have zero respect for Carter. He's an anti-American communist. He said Cuba has a better health care system than we do. He is the one that had NO REGARD for suffering people (i.e. the Cuban people). He and all the other liberal scum that can't see why Saddam Huessein should have been removed from power and think President Bush is worse than Hussein can go to hell. Hypocrite limousine liberals. Mega -rant: they tick me off, I'm fed up with their B.S.

Hey Carter- why don't you move to Canada or France, or Cuba? I'm serious, I'll pay for your one way ticket out-pick a socialist's paradise....

[longtermmemmory]

Where are the protestwarriors when we need them.

These primaries would have been a first class opportunity for them.

[kabar]

Excerpts form Jimmy's famous "Malaise Speech" July 1979 or the more things change, the more they stay the same:

This is a special night for me. Exactly 3 years ago, on July 15, 1976, I accepted the nomination of my party to run for President of the United States. I promised you a President who is not isolated from the people, who feels your pain, and who shares your dreams and who draws his strength and his wisdom from you.

It's clear that the true problems of our Nation are much deeper -- deeper than gasoline lines of energy shortages, deeper even than inflation or recession. And I realize more than ever that as President I need your help. So, I decided to reach out and listen to the voices of America.

I invited to Camp David people from almost every segment of our society business and labor, teachers and preachers, Governors, mayors, and private citizens. And then I left Camp David to listen to other Americans, men and women like you. It has been an extraordinary 10 days, and I want to share with you what I've heard.

These 10 days confirmed my belief in the decency and the strength and the wisdom of the American people, but it also bore out some of my longstanding concerns about our Nation's underlying problems.

Our people are losing that faith, not only in government itself but in the ability as citizens to serve as the ultimate rulers and shapers of our democracy. As a people we know our past and we are proud of it. Our progress has been part of the living history of America, even the world. We always believed that we were part of a great movement of humanity itself called democracy, involved in the search for freedom, and that belief has always strengthened us in our purpose. But just as we are losing our confidence in the future, we are also beginning to close the door on our past.

The symptoms of this crisis of the American spirit are all around us. For the first time in the history of our country a majority of our people believe that the next 5 years will be worse than the past 5 years. Two-thirds of our people do not even vote. The productivity of American workers is actually dropping, and the willingness of Americans to save for the future has fallen below that of all other people in the Western world.

As you know, there is a growing disrespect for government and for churches and for schools, the news media, and other institutions. This is not a message of happiness or reassurance, but it is the truth and it is a warning.

We were sure that ours was a nation of the ballot, not the bullet, until the murders of John Kennedy and Robert Kennedy and Martin Luther King, Jr. We were taught that our armies were always invincible and our causes were always just, only to suffer the agony of Vietnam. We respected the Presidency as a place of honor until the shock of Watergate

What you see too often in Washington and elsewhere around the country is a system of government that seems incapable of action. You see a Congress twisted and pulled in every direction by hundreds of well financed and powerful special interests. You see every extreme position defended to the last vote, almost to the last breath by one unyielding group or another. You often see a balanced and a fair approach that demands sacrifice, a little sacrifice from everyone, abandoned like an orphan without support and without friends.

First of all, we must face the truth, and then we can change our course. We simply must have faith in each other, faith in our ability to govern ourselves, and faith in the future of this Nation. Restoring that faith and that confidence to America is now the most important task we face. It is a true challenge of this generation of Americans.

One of the visitors to Camp David last week put it this way: "We've got to stop crying and start sweating, stop talking and start walking, stop cursing and start praying. The strength we need will not come from the White House, but from every house in America."

Little by little we can and we must rebuild our confidence. We can spend until we empty our treasuries, and we may summon all the wonders of science. But we can succeed only if we tap our greatest resources -- America's people, America's values, and America's confidence.

It is easy to understand why Carter was not reelected. It is also interesting that we are still hearing the same themes from the Dems. They are still using the same playbook.