posted on November 29, 2002 11:30:15 AM new
mlecher, yea sure, I can agree with you if our government officials are like Helenjw, but not all of our government official are extreme left liberals.
The other problem is that the U.S. has never supported corruption in other countries governments. Corruption is not good for trade. So I don't buy your theory.
posted on November 29, 2002 12:44:04 PM new
No, our government has just supported corrupt governments in other countries... Censorship, like charity, should begin at home; but unlike charity, it should end there --Clare Booth Luce
posted on November 29, 2002 02:31:22 PM new
Corruption in not generally found in the liberal side, nor is it found in the conservative side. It is usually found in the groups that cater to the corporations. What you did was totally destroy any credibility you may have had. You are the fool, using a cheap, unsubstantiated, unproven and totally ridiculous statements. You have got nothing but snide and stupid remarks without a lick of sense. You say things without of any intention of backing them up cause you can hide behind the internet. And when presented with FACTS to the contrary, you just pretend they don't exsist, come from dubious sources or outright lie. With absolutely no intention of backing your off-the-cuff irrationality.
As for supporting corrupt government...DID YOU JUST CRAWL OUT FROM UNDER A ROCK???? Having you been paying attention to the world you live in? Get thee a hammer and smack yourself in the head to get it started. Yes, maybe corruption isn't good for trade, trade requires concessions on both sides. BUT if a corporation wants to rape a country's resources, corrupt governments are the way to go. Heck, we have supported most of the corruption governemnts in the world, we even help them unsurp the DEMOCRATICALLY ELECTED LEADERS!!! PAY THE HECK ATTENTION!!!!
We call them our heroes...but we pay them like chumps
[ edited by mlecher on Nov 29, 2002 02:55 PM ]
posted on November 29, 2002 03:15:28 PM new
Here you go, resort to name calling because you have nothing intelligent to say. Name one fact you have made, yet you have the gull to criticsize me
Considering all my sources are from newspapers, books that researched the subject and people who have visited these areas, including corespondents, I'd say I still have my credibilty left. What are your sources, moron?
Where are your facts to dispove me, moron?
If you look at my past posts I did back up much of what I said. Have a problem with reading there, moron?
What does it matter to you when I do back it up, look at how Helenjw responds to facts presented. Closed minded people aren't interested in facts.
Who are the corporations being catered to in East Africa?
The U.S provides aid to corrupt areas, but not in support of corruption, and the aid will be cut off eventually if the U.S. doesn't get their desired results.
Remember mlecher, I'm not the topic, so only address the subject matter. Your little rant makes you look like a two year old, frankly it bores me.
posted on November 29, 2002 04:14:18 PM new
I think mlecher's name-calling was pointed at me
However, he/she has only to read a little about our involvement in Nicaragua, Guatemala,and Malaysia to see how we have supported corrupt governments when it suited us. Heck, we even supported bin Laden!
edited to add a crucial "-ed"
Censorship, like charity, should begin at home; but unlike charity, it should end there --Clare Booth Luce
[ edited by bunnicula on Dec 2, 2002 12:16 PM ]
posted on December 2, 2002 08:00:20 PM new
who says corruption is bad for business...
"They were key figures in the Iran-Contra scandal and U.S.-backed "dirty wars" in Central America in the 1980s. Now Otto Reich, Elliot Abrams and John Negroponte are back, helping run White House policy toward Latin America."
posted on December 3, 2002 04:22:28 PM new
December 3, 2002
Hey, Lucky Duckies!
By PAUL KRUGMAN
Carping critics of the conservative movement have been known to say that its economic program consists of little more than tax cuts, tax cuts and more tax cuts. I may even have said that myself. If so, I apologize. Emboldened by the midterm election, key conservative ideologues have now declared their support for tax increases but only for people with low incomes.
The public debut of this idea came, as such things often do, on the editorial page of The Wall Street Journal. The page's editors, it seems, are upset that some low-income people pay little or nothing in income taxes. Not, mind you, because of the lost revenue, but because these "lucky duckies," The Journal's term, not mine, might not be feeling a proper hatred for the government.
The Journal considers a hypothetical ducky who earns only $12,000 a year -- some guys have all the luck! --and therefore, according to the editorial, "pays a little less than 4% of income in taxes." Not surprisingly, that statement is a deliberate misrepresentation; the calculation refers only to income taxes. If you include payroll and sales taxes, a worker earning $12,000 probably pays well over 20 percent of income in taxes. But who's counting?
What's interesting, however, is what The Journal finds wrong with this picture: The worker's taxes aren't "enough to get his or her blood boiling with rage."
In case you're wondering what this is about, it's an internal squabble of the right. The Journal is terrified that future tax cuts might include token concessions to ordinary families; it wants to ensure that everything goes to corporations and the wealthy. But the political theory revealed by the editorial policy should be nasty to people with low incomes, lest they have any good feelings about government may explain a lot of what has been happening lately.
For example, House Republicans recently refused to extend unemployment insurance. Their inaction means that later this month more than 800,000 workers will receive Merry Christmas letters from the government, telling them that their benefits have been cut off. This would have been a harsh decision under any circumstances. At a time when the administration says we need further tax cuts to stimulate demand, slashing the incomes of the very households most likely to cut their spending sounds like a lose-lose proposition. But once you realize that pain is good because it makes citizens hate their government, it all makes sense.
An even better example is the failure of Congress to provide adequate funds for the State Children's Health Insurance Program. The details of the legislative maneuvering are complex, but what it comes down to is that conservatives showed no interest in maintaining adequate funding for this highly successful program. The sums involved are not large, by Washington standards. But the results will be dramatic: according to Office of Management and Budget estimates, 900,000 children will lose health insurance over the next three years.
We are, of course, now living in what George W. Bush has called the "era of personal responsibility": if a child chooses to have parents who can't afford health care, that child will have to accept the consequences. But there may also be political calculation involved. Again, the government mustn't do anything good, because then people might not realize that government is bad. Understand?
What do we learn from this catalog of cruelties? We learn that "compassionate conservatism" and "leave no child behind" were empty slogans but while this may have come as a surprise to the faith-based John J. DiIulio, some of us thought it was obvious all along. More important, we learn how relentless and extremist today's conservative movement really is.
Some people moderate Republicans who aren't ready to admit what has happened to their party, and Democrats who think their party can appease the right by making its own promises of smaller government still don't get it. They imagine that at some point the right will decide that it has gotten what it wants.
But the right's ambitions have no limits, and nothing moderates can offer will appease it. Eventually the public, which actually benefits from most of the programs the right is determined to abolish, will figure that out. But how fast voters figure it out depends a lot on whether moderate politicians clearly articulate the issues, or try to escape detection by sounding like conservatives.
posted on December 3, 2002 11:36:49 PM new
>The page's editors, it seems, are upset that some low-income people pay little or nothing in income taxes. Not, mind you, because of the lost revenue, but because these "lucky duckies," The Journal's term, not mine, might not be feeling a proper hatred for the government.
Incrediable! At first, I thought that this article had to have come from The Onion! The outright hatred for poor and low-income people shown by those running this country and in the media is astounding! I believe that there is plenty of rhetoric being spewed by the Mouthpieces on radio and TV about WHY we need to hate the poor! And of course, we'll have our locals who support those in power who will agree with them.
Personally, I wish that you had started this as a new thread, drkosmos. I invite you to go do that, to create a new thread and post this article there as the centerpiece. Being buried back here on page 4 of this thread isn't going much anyplace as the gold's been panned out of this thread.
