posted on January 10, 2003 02:20:54 PM newIn a democracy, we should be offended when the power of concentrated wealth brazenly attempts to shape the terms of policy debate and dictate the rules of our society
Bill Gates Senior.
I wonder if Bill Gates Jr holds the same sentiments ?
posted on January 10, 2003 04:33:05 PM new
He's got a point.
I had to check out Jim Hightower's six pack.
PROGRAM: To get them, the party has to get a program, because (here's another wacky concept) people tend to vote when their self-interest is touched. So let's touch it, unabashedly and unequivocally, by offering a short to-do list that would include such measurable benefits as (1) a tax cut for working stiffs: remove the cap (now $85,000) on the grossly regressive payroll tax, reduce the percentage bite and spread the burden up to include the billionaires' club; (2) healthcare for all, provided by a single-payer system; (3) free education for everyone, preschool through higher ed, modeled after the enormously successful GI Bill; (4) energy independence for America through a ten-year moonshot project that'll put Americans to work building an oil-free future based on alternative technologies and systems; (5) public financing of all elections, so we can get our government back from the greedheads; and (6) [Add Your Favorite Here]. A six-pack is plenty. Stay focused.
You have the right to an informed opinion -Harlan Ellison
posted on January 10, 2003 05:17:42 PM new
I've always liked Jim Hightower. He always resists the call to serve as President, unfortunately. I wish he were running this country instead of Dumbo.
posted on January 10, 2003 05:21:53 PM new
Bill Gates, Sr. points out what eveyone already knows: Bush only knows how to give out money to the Top 1% of Americans. Bush tries to fight a War, he ends up giving breaks to the Top 1%. He tries to stimulate the economy, he tries to give out more money to the Top 1%. Giving money to the Top 1% may get you re-elected, but it doesn't do sh1t for Joe American.
posted on January 10, 2003 07:44:59 PM new
I'm sure it's really Clinton's fault, just like everything else...
[ edited by profe51 on Jan 10, 2003 07:49 PM ]
posted on January 11, 2003 07:25:37 AM new
>I'm sure it's really Clinton's fault, just like everything else
Actually, this last week when the White House was once again blaming everything on Clinton "The Failed Clinton Economic Plan", the media went into a feeding frenzy with it and roasted some notable Talking Heads on news channels. I guess that the GOP and the White House won't be able to slam and blame Tom Daschele for their failings anymore as well.
WHEN WILL THE REPUBLICAN PARTY STAND UP AND TAKE THE BLAME FOR THE PROBLEMS THAT THEY'VE CAUSED?
Soon. Very soon. The "honeymoon of excuses" seems to be over with the media. I guess that the REPUBLICAN CONSERVATIVE OWNERS of the news networks have finally decided to make their proxyies in Congress and the White House start taking a bit of responsibility! What an interesting change of winds!
"Almost half of the projected benefits from President Bush's plan to scrap taxes on dividends would go to the 1 percent of the population whose incomes top $1 million. The scheme has been promoted as beneficial to the elderly, but in fact, only 6 percent of the elderly with incomes under $50,000 get anything out of it. These figures come from a briefing Monday by the Center for Budget and Policy Priorities, a Washington think tank. Further, taxpayers who earn $35,000 or less come away with $27 more a year."
. . . and to think that grown up, adult people are actually supporting this nonsense!
How many Republicans are STILL on their High Horses about the Republican Party's Superior Morals now, eh?
How long does it take before they realize that they're being used by the Republican Party?
How much longer will it take them to wake-up to the fact that a political party that does not represent you and your interests (the purpose of a political party, BTW) pass legislation in your favor is not the party to vote for?
I guess someone from the Republican party will have to drop them into a deep hole and laugh at them looking down their noses at them until they finally realize that only the Stupid, the Bigots, the Rich and Large Corporate Interests make up the Republican party?
When next someone states, "'I'm a Republican and proud of it!" you should have an immediate gut response that asks them which category they belong to, "Stupid, Bigot, or Both?"
Hey! Don't YELL at me! It's YOUR POLITICAL PARTY DOING THIS! I'm just shoving it into your faces! BLAME THEM, not me, if you want to avoid responsibility!
ed. UBB
[ edited by Borillar on Jan 11, 2003 01:07 PM ]
posted on January 11, 2003 03:43:38 PM newCalif. Governor Calls for Tax increases
Oh wait, isn't Gov Davis a democrat? For the people, more jobs, more money, less taxes?
Gov. Gray Davis proposed deep cuts in schools, health and welfare and called for $8.3 billion in tax increases on shoppers, smokers and the wealthy Friday to help close a nearly $35 billion budget deficit. The plan involves hundreds of layoffs, taking a share of Indian gambling revenues, and a huge shift of state health and welfare programs to local governments.
Davis' $96.4 billion spending plan proposes a total of $20.7 billion in budget cuts this year and next - including about $5.4 billion in education cuts during the next 18 months.
posted on January 11, 2003 07:01:59 PM new
Like as if your Master, George Bush is innocent of wrongdoing or Evil! That you can't see the difference between making cuts that can't be helped with cuts that help only the super rich at the cost to the poor of this country shows us all exactly why you love him so much! Govenor Grey Davis is facing a $30 Billion dollar tax loss, while George Bush can't wait to give 300 Biloion to his top 1% at the cost of screwing the Poor of this country of ours.
posted on January 11, 2003 08:56:44 PM new
Democracy. A form of government in which the supreme power is vested in the people collectively and is administered by them or by officers appointed by them: the common people: a state of society characterised by recognition of equality of rights and privileges: political, social, or legal equality.
Note, that in a democracy, by definition, power is not vested in whichever ‘entity’ donates money to political parties.
‘Power is vested in the people’ NOT ‘legal entities’ ie. companies.
Perhaps we should be using another word, which would more accurately and honestly describe some societies, and does not imply that power is vested in the common people, something like …mmmm…..’entitocracy’????
posted on January 11, 2003 09:04:34 PM new
If you accept as true, the phrase 'money makes money'
then it naturally follows that the rich get richer and the poor get the picture.
posted on January 11, 2003 10:05:09 PM new
How about, mmmm...'corporatebushshit' - a term understandable by the common man, the poor guy who is being ripped off, killed and used as fodder to build the US empire. . Poor guys know where they stand and they percieve that position as hopeless.
posted on January 12, 2003 12:16:45 AM new
Is it fair to say that the poor guy is fodder.???
Just this week I heard that 65% of US military is comprised of Black Americans and Hispanics.
My oh my, they are well represented in the canon fodder department.
p.s.
Democracy seems to be an ideal only, not a reality.
Australia is an 'entitocracy' too.
posted on January 12, 2003 12:30:05 AM new
I believe that Lenin, of USSR (no I wouldn’t want to live there) once said something to the effect of;
An election in a democratic state is nothing more than the right of the people to choose which party shall MISREPRESENT them in that term of office.
He obviously didn’t mean an ‘ideal’ democracy.
Only the type of ‘democracy’ U.S. & us have.
That's not to say that USSR ever had an 'ideal' communist society.
They had much inequality too.
posted on January 12, 2003 07:36:36 AM new
nobody ever had an "ideal" communist society...it exists only in the minds of dreamers because it flies in the face of human nature..
posted on January 12, 2003 11:26:13 AM new
nobody ever had an "ideal" democratic society...it exists only in the minds of dreamers because it flies in the face of human nature..
posted on January 12, 2003 11:51:40 AM new
>nobody ever had an "ideal" communist society...it exists only in the minds of dreamers because it flies in the face of human nature..
Yep, that was the analysis, alrighty. Just after the Soviet Union collapsed and we got to examine the damage that the Cold War did to it over those generations, we certainly made quite a few conclusions; especially about communism. And those conclusions have been popularly quoted and never challenged since.
Except by me, of course!
To say that Pure Communism stagnates an economy; that you NEED some greed and self-interest in order to make an economy work properly, may not be entirely correct, IMO.
1) We measure Happiness with Wealth, because we are a Capitalistic society. Wealth equals happiness; and those that are not wealthy are not happy in life and they want to be wealthy. But is wealth really everything? Does it really buy Happiness? If you don't have your Health, what good is all of the money in the world, for instance?
2) The Soviet Union is a vast, ancient collection of nation-states. Most of it is barren and to talk of simply laying a highway from one end of the old Soviet Union to the other, you were talking about two and a half times the width of the United States from coast to coast!
Russia had always been behind the West in education and modernization. After the collapse of the old Monarchy and the newer Democratic government that followed, Russia was in ruins and back to the Stone Age. Not that it ever got out much of the Stone Age for much of its length and breath.
Even with 70 years of the Communist regime that followed, much of the old Soviet Republics are still back in the Stone Age. That's not a failure of Communism. After all, they had 920 years of Capitalism and Monarchy to modernize it. If anything, it was Capitalism that failed and Communism, as far as it got, succeeded wildly in comparison.
3) It's hard to get onto your feet with someone above you slamming you to the ground with an elbow blow! When the Cold War began, Russia had hurried up through the centuries of neglect and stagnation caused by the rampant greed of Capitalists. They modernized very quickly prior to the Cold War; especially during World War II. I mean, it's a matter of coming from primitive savagery to being able to build your own air fleet in just a few years!
But we devastated them economically. Had we, the West, allowed open trade with all things for the Soviet Union instead of blocking nearly everything but Humanitarian aid, who knows how much more advanced they would be than us? Recall that they often spent funds, for example, on just pure scientific research -- something that we no longer do and that will ultimately lead to our own undoing, IMO.
Today, we could have been facing a Soviet Union so powerful, so advanced in sciences and technology, culture, and yes - opportunity that the rest of the world might be willing to follow in their footsteps. Today, the nations of the world are groaning under the combined weight to corrupt governments caused by out of control Capitalistic systems. To thumb our noses at that which, if it had been a fair race, might have offered the world a more idyllic existence is unfair in the light of problems that we are sharing with unbridled Capitalism now.
posted on January 14, 2003 12:34:08 PM new
Yes, bear1949
Any information, which does not promote your argument, can be called misinformation.
In your other thread “Fingering the Terrorists” you talk of the US compiling finger printing and DNA tests on enemy captives in Afghanistan along with “records from police and security services worldwide”
From what I saw on ABC on TV last night, it would have been a further waste of resources to compile info on the Taliban captives because most of the 5000 or so that were rounded up under US supervision, are now missing; - dead, murdered, by alleged ‘war criminals’.
"Human rights groups are urging that mass gravesites in northern Afghanistan be immediately secured and investigated for evidence of possible war crimes involving United States military personnel. An Irish documentary maker has secretly filmed mass graves near the northern city of Mazar-e-sharif and interviewed witnesses who claim that container loads of prisoners were dumped in the desert. It's alleged that most suffocated in the sealed containers, but those left alive were shot on the spot. Key aspects of his claims are backed up by a detailed report from the group Physicians for Human Rights."
No wonder Bush was so adamant that American solidiers be above the law when an international war crimes court was formed. The Nazis took the easy solution too, as you'll recall. Bush may end up standing before a war crimes tribunal himself some day!
Too bad, austbounty, that you didn't take those links to a new thread.
posted on January 14, 2003 05:13:25 PM new
Nobody has accused U.S. soldiers of massacre or atrocities. They are accusing Northern Alliance fighters. Considering the mentality and history of the tribal feuds, I've no doubt a bit of tit for tat went on after the fall of Mazar al Sharife. The Taliban did exactly the same things.
KatyD
[ edited by KatyD on Jan 14, 2003 05:13 PM ]
