about: jobless benefits to expire in December 2010:
By ladojano on 12/01/2010 at 10:58am
we won
By FukkyTanTang on 12/01/2010 at 10:58am
@ladojano -" we won"
Unless you're a billionaire or a corporation, you won nothing. The Republican party serves their interests, not yours. Their interests are diametrically opposed to yours because they're business owners and you're just an employee.
It's in their financial interest to off shore your sh¡t-job to China, deny you health care coverage, deny paying you unemployment benefits after the loss of said sh¡t-job, and to extend their tax cuts to the detriment of the economy and our deficit.
You won nothing that you will want or that serves your interests at all.
Wednesday, December 1, 2010
Tuesday, September 28, 2010
Roman Empire To Quit Expansion, Really ???
The impact on Roman Expansion
Germanic situation ca. 50 CE
From the time of the rediscovery of Roman sources in the 15th Century, the Battle of the Teutoburg Forest has been seen as a pivotal clash which ended Roman expansion into northern Europe. This notion became especially prevalent in the 19th Century, where it formed an integral part of the mythology of German nationalism. However, more recently, scholars have begun to question this interpretation and have pointed out reasons why the Rhine was a much more practical boundary for the Roman Empire than any other river in Germania.[44] Logistically, armies on the Rhine could be supplied from the Mediterranean via the Rhone and Mosel, with a brief stretch of portage. Armies on the Elbe, on the other hand, would have to have been supplied either by extensive overland routes or ships travelling the hazardous Atlantic seas. Economically, the Rhine was already supporting towns and sizeable villages at the time of the Gallic conquest. Northern Germania, however, was far less developed, possessed fewer villages, and had little food surplus. Thus the Rhine was both significantly more accessible from Rome and better equipped to supply sizeable garrisons than the regions beyond.
What kind of crap is this ?
If the Romans would have been content with the Rhine river being the eastern border of their Empire they would not have sent their troops east of the Rhine river in the first place !!!
Germanic situation ca. 50 CE
From the time of the rediscovery of Roman sources in the 15th Century, the Battle of the Teutoburg Forest has been seen as a pivotal clash which ended Roman expansion into northern Europe. This notion became especially prevalent in the 19th Century, where it formed an integral part of the mythology of German nationalism. However, more recently, scholars have begun to question this interpretation and have pointed out reasons why the Rhine was a much more practical boundary for the Roman Empire than any other river in Germania.[44] Logistically, armies on the Rhine could be supplied from the Mediterranean via the Rhone and Mosel, with a brief stretch of portage. Armies on the Elbe, on the other hand, would have to have been supplied either by extensive overland routes or ships travelling the hazardous Atlantic seas. Economically, the Rhine was already supporting towns and sizeable villages at the time of the Gallic conquest. Northern Germania, however, was far less developed, possessed fewer villages, and had little food surplus. Thus the Rhine was both significantly more accessible from Rome and better equipped to supply sizeable garrisons than the regions beyond.
What kind of crap is this ?
If the Romans would have been content with the Rhine river being the eastern border of their Empire they would not have sent their troops east of the Rhine river in the first place !!!
Not The Only "Free" Democracy In The World
1] Did you know...
there was democracy before in the world?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Switzerland
Since 1848, the Swiss Confederation has been a federal state of relatively autonomous cantons, some of which have a history of confederacy that goes back more than 700 years, arguably putting them among the world's oldest surviving republics.
Die moderne Schweiz geht auf drei Vorläufer zurück:
Die «Alte Eidgenossenschaft», ein lockeres Gefüge verschiedener Länder und Stadtstaaten (Staatenbund) auf dem Gebiet der heutigen Schweiz.
Sie wurde 1291/1315 durch die Drei Waldstätte Uri, Schwyz und Unterwalden begründet und erkämpfte sich eine weitgehende Autonomie vom Heiligen Römischen Reich, zuletzt im Schwabenkrieg 1499.
2] Did you know...
the "surrender monkey" French abolished slavery in ...1848 !!!
there was democracy before in the world?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Switzerland
Since 1848, the Swiss Confederation has been a federal state of relatively autonomous cantons, some of which have a history of confederacy that goes back more than 700 years, arguably putting them among the world's oldest surviving republics.
Die moderne Schweiz geht auf drei Vorläufer zurück:
Die «Alte Eidgenossenschaft», ein lockeres Gefüge verschiedener Länder und Stadtstaaten (Staatenbund) auf dem Gebiet der heutigen Schweiz.
Sie wurde 1291/1315 durch die Drei Waldstätte Uri, Schwyz und Unterwalden begründet und erkämpfte sich eine weitgehende Autonomie vom Heiligen Römischen Reich, zuletzt im Schwabenkrieg 1499.
2] Did you know...
the "surrender monkey" French abolished slavery in ...1848 !!!
Thursday, September 16, 2010
"America", the US. of A. Nabelschau fixiert !!!
quote:
"Thanks to a second idea, this explosion of knowledge broke the confines of the laboratory and ivory tower. Another daring group of thinkers challenged political authoritarianism.
Kings and aristocrats were swept aside to make way for the rights of man. This idea gave birth to a new nation, our beloved America, in which the individual was free to think and pursue his own happiness."
URL: http://www.cnn.com/2010/OPINION/09/16/brook.moral.code.outdated/
Hier kann man wieder mal sehen wie "nabelschau-fixiert" die Amerikaner sind.
Es gab bereits Demokratien auf der Welt bevor es "Our Beloved America" gab.
1291 Gründung der Eidgenossenschaft zum Schutz der „alten Freiheiten“
URL: http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demokratie
Conveniently Forgotten, As Always !!!
"Thanks to a second idea, this explosion of knowledge broke the confines of the laboratory and ivory tower. Another daring group of thinkers challenged political authoritarianism.
Kings and aristocrats were swept aside to make way for the rights of man. This idea gave birth to a new nation, our beloved America, in which the individual was free to think and pursue his own happiness."
URL: http://www.cnn.com/2010/OPINION/09/16/brook.moral.code.outdated/
Hier kann man wieder mal sehen wie "nabelschau-fixiert" die Amerikaner sind.
Es gab bereits Demokratien auf der Welt bevor es "Our Beloved America" gab.
1291 Gründung der Eidgenossenschaft zum Schutz der „alten Freiheiten“
URL: http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demokratie
Conveniently Forgotten, As Always !!!
Tuesday, September 7, 2010
Thursday, September 2, 2010
America, the country of the FREE; unless you are in prison i.e. !!!
Los Angeles Times | Sept. 2, 2010 | 8:31 a.m.
State prosecutors have asked a judge to reverse her decision to overturn the murder conviction of a man who was set free last year after serving 26 years in prison.
Bruce Lisker, who was accused of killing his mother in 1985, should be sent back to prison because the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals recently ruled in another case that inmates should not be allowed to file late petitions for release even if they can prove they are innocent, according to the attorney general's motion filed late Wednesday.
Lisker had missed a federal deadline in which to file his petition but was allowed to pursue the constitutional claims in his case because he met an "actual innocence" exception, the judge had ruled.
State prosecutors have asked a judge to reverse her decision to overturn the murder conviction of a man who was set free last year after serving 26 years in prison.
Bruce Lisker, who was accused of killing his mother in 1985, should be sent back to prison because the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals recently ruled in another case that inmates should not be allowed to file late petitions for release even if they can prove they are innocent, according to the attorney general's motion filed late Wednesday.
Lisker had missed a federal deadline in which to file his petition but was allowed to pursue the constitutional claims in his case because he met an "actual innocence" exception, the judge had ruled.
Tuesday, March 23, 2010
2010-03-21 Healthcare Battle in US Congress and Senate: Result
quote:
a comment after passing of the healthcare bill:
Republicans want:
No Social Security
No Public Education
No Regulated Banking
No Medicare
No Healthcare
No Regulations for Wall Street
No Regulations for Insurance
No Tax to the Rich who make wealth by plunder of the poor
No Regulation of private business, all free trade
Republican want:
All Plunder, Extortion, Scam, Feudalism, Anarchy and Capitalism for Crooks and Criminals.
This was possible in 1850, not any more in 2010.
PART 2:
Republicans are Liars, Rumormongers, Illogical and Irrational People.
Republicans call the healthcare bill as socialism.
Is Social Security not Socialism ?
Is Free Public education not Socialism ?
Is Medicare not Socialism ?
Is Bailout of Wall Street crooks by Bush not Socialism ?
Is Bailout of AIG by Bush not Socialism ?
Republicans are Socialists.
a comment after passing of the healthcare bill:
Republicans want:
No Social Security
No Public Education
No Regulated Banking
No Medicare
No Healthcare
No Regulations for Wall Street
No Regulations for Insurance
No Tax to the Rich who make wealth by plunder of the poor
No Regulation of private business, all free trade
Republican want:
All Plunder, Extortion, Scam, Feudalism, Anarchy and Capitalism for Crooks and Criminals.
This was possible in 1850, not any more in 2010.
PART 2:
Republicans are Liars, Rumormongers, Illogical and Irrational People.
Republicans call the healthcare bill as socialism.
Is Social Security not Socialism ?
Is Free Public education not Socialism ?
Is Medicare not Socialism ?
Is Bailout of Wall Street crooks by Bush not Socialism ?
Is Bailout of AIG by Bush not Socialism ?
Republicans are Socialists.
Saturday, March 20, 2010
And The Culprit Is Who ?
# Richard Williamson, bishop of the Society of St. Pius X, thinks that
"There is serious reason to believe –
that in 1898, it was not the Spaniards who sank the 'USS Maine';
that in 1917, it was not the Germans who set up the 'Lusitania' as a target;
that in 1941 it was not the Japanese who set up Pearl Harbor for attack;
that in 1963 it was not Lee Harvey Oswald who killed President Kennedy".[29]
"There is serious reason to believe –
that in 1898, it was not the Spaniards who sank the 'USS Maine';
that in 1917, it was not the Germans who set up the 'Lusitania' as a target;
that in 1941 it was not the Japanese who set up Pearl Harbor for attack;
that in 1963 it was not Lee Harvey Oswald who killed President Kennedy".[29]
Monday, March 15, 2010
American Exceptionalism
quote:
Barack Obama "I believe in American exceptionalism,Just as the Brits believe in British exceptionalism, and the Greeks in Greek exceptionalism..."
My Thoughts:
...No Borders, so no Credits For Expanding From Atlantic Ocean To Pacific Ocean.
...
Barack Obama "I believe in American exceptionalism,Just as the Brits believe in British exceptionalism, and the Greeks in Greek exceptionalism..."
My Thoughts:
...No Borders, so no Credits For Expanding From Atlantic Ocean To Pacific Ocean.
...
Wednesday, February 3, 2010
Dumb, dumber, Democrat
quote from: BBC News Americas
"Obama's administration made a tremendous mistake by not immediately branding the economic collapse that we had just had as the Republicans' Depression, caused by the Bush administration's ideology of unregulated greed. The result is that now people blame him."
"Obama's administration made a tremendous mistake by not immediately branding the economic collapse that we had just had as the Republicans' Depression, caused by the Bush administration's ideology of unregulated greed. The result is that now people blame him."
Sunday, January 31, 2010
υπεροψία, ὕβρις anyone ?
"...when America was assuming its new role as the center of the known universe."
[quote from: TIME magazine, February 1, 2010 p.50]
===
"...If [football] it is to remain a metaphor for American exceptionalism..."
[quote from: TIME magazine, february 8, 2010 p.40]
¿ what's so exceptional about renaming RUGBY to FOOTBALL ?
===
[quote from: TIME magazine, February 1, 2010 p.50]
===
"...If [football] it is to remain a metaphor for American exceptionalism..."
[quote from: TIME magazine, february 8, 2010 p.40]
¿ what's so exceptional about renaming RUGBY to FOOTBALL ?
===
Friday, January 22, 2010
WE HATE THE FRENCH
Americans [of the United States of America] hate French because they [uppity as they are] had the audacity not to join the "Conspiracy of The Willing" to invade Iraq based on lies when ordered by the Commander in Chief [the allknowing Prez G.W.Bush of the US of A].
That's why.
That's why.
Wednesday, January 20, 2010
Democrats are so stupid they deserve a GOP administration
What has happened:
Senate upset reshapes US climate battle - January 20, 2010
A Republican state senator who once posed naked in Cosmopolitan magazine last night won the contested Senate seat in Massachusetts. The upset -- and for once, the word "stunning" really applies here -- stripped the Democrats of their 60-seat caucus and throws up in the air a number of Democratic priorities including health care reform and a cap-and-trade system to regulate greenhouse gas emissions.
Sixty is a magic number in the Senate because it constitutes a 'supermajority' that can overcome procedural hurdles that otherwise mean one party can essentially block major legislation.
Candidate Martha Coakley lost to Scott Brown.
Comment:
The Bush GOP administration had eight years to run the country off the cliff.
When after one year of cleaning up the mess the Democrat administration hasn't gotten back to milk and honey democrats are leaving the party handing the keys to the kingdom back to Republicans.
They deserve another thirty years of GOP ruling and another giant looting of the public coffers since the biggest loot in the history of the country went so well, almost without a hitch.
Senate upset reshapes US climate battle - January 20, 2010
A Republican state senator who once posed naked in Cosmopolitan magazine last night won the contested Senate seat in Massachusetts. The upset -- and for once, the word "stunning" really applies here -- stripped the Democrats of their 60-seat caucus and throws up in the air a number of Democratic priorities including health care reform and a cap-and-trade system to regulate greenhouse gas emissions.
Sixty is a magic number in the Senate because it constitutes a 'supermajority' that can overcome procedural hurdles that otherwise mean one party can essentially block major legislation.
Candidate Martha Coakley lost to Scott Brown.
Comment:
The Bush GOP administration had eight years to run the country off the cliff.
When after one year of cleaning up the mess the Democrat administration hasn't gotten back to milk and honey democrats are leaving the party handing the keys to the kingdom back to Republicans.
They deserve another thirty years of GOP ruling and another giant looting of the public coffers since the biggest loot in the history of the country went so well, almost without a hitch.
Saturday, December 12, 2009
RW attacks on "climategate" and "pedophile gays"
================================
FRI__3:06 PM 12/11/2009
Media Matters: With "Climategate" and Jennings smears, the right goes guerilla
The conservative reaction to President Obama's election is turning
downright Faustian.
As the rhetoric on the right has grown increasingly shrill, a few
conservatives have raised their voices in alarm, counseling their
ideological kin to step back from the abyss. Former Bush speechwriter David
Frum wrote in August that "the increasingly angry tone of incitement being
heard from right-of-center broadcasters" is likely to lead to politically
motivated violence. Not two weeks ago, conservative blogger Charles Johnson
articulated the reasons behind his departure from the right, citing
conservative support for "anti-science bad craziness" and "[h]atred for
President Obama that goes far beyond simply criticizing his policies."
If the past week is any indication, those warnings have been roundly
ignored. The conservative media, in their quest to derail the president's
progressive agenda, have thrown their lot in with the grisly underbelly of
political activism -- dumpster-diving thieves, extremist hate groups, and
scam-artist videographers who sacrifice credibility for sensationalism and
value Web traffic over truth.
Take, for example, the hackers who illegally accessed email servers at the
University of East Anglia's Climatic Research Unit and stole thousands of
emails. From Fox News on down to the conservative blogs, right-wingers have
seized on the stolen documents as "proof" that climate change science is a
"hoax" and attacked the global scientific consensus on climate change as a
"cult." As Media Matters explained last week, the emails show nothing of the
sort, and they are being wildly distorted. But the right not only
wholeheartedly embraced these illegally obtained documents, it actively took
steps to hide the fact that they were obtained by theft. Fox News spent an
entire week describing the emails as "leaked," "revealed," and "uncovered."
The conservative media critics at NewsBusters chastised the media for
"paint[ing] the 'stolen' e-mails not as laudatory whistle-blowing, but as an
unwanted impediment to the left's global warming agenda."
There were also new developments this week in another bogus "controversy"
being stoked by right-wingers: the ongoing homophobic smear campaign against
Department of Education official Kevin Jennings. Led by Andrew Breitbart and
The Washington Times, conservatives falsely accused Jennings' organization
of handing out explicit sexual materials to children, and smeared Jennings,
who is gay, as a "deviant," a "pedophile," the "buggery czar," and a
"mega-pervert." It was later revealed that the falsehoods upon which these
smears are based originated with a group called MassResistance, a
Massachusetts-based anti-gay hate group that purports to chronicle the
"brutal fascist tactics" of the "homosexual movement," and whose leader
compared the gay rights movement to Nazism.
Speaking of Andrew Breitbart, the Drudge-protégé and Twitter fiend received
some bad news this week. An investigation by former Massachusetts Attorney
General Scott Harshbarger into Breitbart's much-publicized videos purporting
to show ACORN aiding an undercover pimp and prostitute in tax evasion
determined that the videos contained no evidence that the organization acted
illegally. The report also found that the videos, shot by conservative
activists James O'Keefe and Hannah Giles, "appear to have been edited, in
some cases substantially, including the insertion of a substitute voiceover
for significant portions of Mr. O'Keefe's and Ms. Giles' comments, which
makes it difficult to determine the questions to which ACORN employees are
responding." Perhaps he'll have better luck with his next project -- rooting
through ACORN's trash to find incriminating documents.
The newest right-wing smear centers on a deceptively cropped undercover
video shot by an anti-abortion activist at a Planned Parenthood office in
Wisconsin. The Fox Nation and other right-wingers claimed the video shows
Planned Parenthood trying to force women to have abortions. In reality, the
video is so heavily edited it's impossible to determine the context of any
of the Planned Parenthood staffer's supposedly damning statements.
These are the big stories for conservatives right now, and they're all based
on thievery, the smears of an extremist fringe group, and disreputable
hucksters with video cameras.
Now, it's probably not completely accurate to say that the right's embrace
of these types of people is a Faustian bargain -- after all, such an
arrangement typically involves the good being corrupted or seduced by the
evil. When it comes to the conservative media, which are already notorious
for slander and falsehood, it's more like the next step of a natural
progression. The real danger is that they are helping to mainstream these
fringe characters. The Washington Post published an op-ed by Sarah Palin who
used the -- ahem -- "publication of damaging e-mails from a climate research
center" as a pretext to lie and mislead on climate science. The Post
defended publishing Palin's op-ed by claiming that it didn't have time to
fact-check it and that Palin "is someone who stirs discussion."
And that's exactly the mindset these conservatives are preying upon: Forget
the facts; we just want eyeballs on the screens.
=================================================
FRI__3:06 PM 12/11/2009
Media Matters: With "Climategate" and Jennings smears, the right goes guerilla
The conservative reaction to President Obama's election is turning
downright Faustian.
As the rhetoric on the right has grown increasingly shrill, a few
conservatives have raised their voices in alarm, counseling their
ideological kin to step back from the abyss. Former Bush speechwriter David
Frum wrote in August that "the increasingly angry tone of incitement being
heard from right-of-center broadcasters" is likely to lead to politically
motivated violence. Not two weeks ago, conservative blogger Charles Johnson
articulated the reasons behind his departure from the right, citing
conservative support for "anti-science bad craziness" and "[h]atred for
President Obama that goes far beyond simply criticizing his policies."
If the past week is any indication, those warnings have been roundly
ignored. The conservative media, in their quest to derail the president's
progressive agenda, have thrown their lot in with the grisly underbelly of
political activism -- dumpster-diving thieves, extremist hate groups, and
scam-artist videographers who sacrifice credibility for sensationalism and
value Web traffic over truth.
Take, for example, the hackers who illegally accessed email servers at the
University of East Anglia's Climatic Research Unit and stole thousands of
emails. From Fox News on down to the conservative blogs, right-wingers have
seized on the stolen documents as "proof" that climate change science is a
"hoax" and attacked the global scientific consensus on climate change as a
"cult." As Media Matters explained last week, the emails show nothing of the
sort, and they are being wildly distorted. But the right not only
wholeheartedly embraced these illegally obtained documents, it actively took
steps to hide the fact that they were obtained by theft. Fox News spent an
entire week describing the emails as "leaked," "revealed," and "uncovered."
The conservative media critics at NewsBusters chastised the media for
"paint[ing] the 'stolen' e-mails not as laudatory whistle-blowing, but as an
unwanted impediment to the left's global warming agenda."
There were also new developments this week in another bogus "controversy"
being stoked by right-wingers: the ongoing homophobic smear campaign against
Department of Education official Kevin Jennings. Led by Andrew Breitbart and
The Washington Times, conservatives falsely accused Jennings' organization
of handing out explicit sexual materials to children, and smeared Jennings,
who is gay, as a "deviant," a "pedophile," the "buggery czar," and a
"mega-pervert." It was later revealed that the falsehoods upon which these
smears are based originated with a group called MassResistance, a
Massachusetts-based anti-gay hate group that purports to chronicle the
"brutal fascist tactics" of the "homosexual movement," and whose leader
compared the gay rights movement to Nazism.
Speaking of Andrew Breitbart, the Drudge-protégé and Twitter fiend received
some bad news this week. An investigation by former Massachusetts Attorney
General Scott Harshbarger into Breitbart's much-publicized videos purporting
to show ACORN aiding an undercover pimp and prostitute in tax evasion
determined that the videos contained no evidence that the organization acted
illegally. The report also found that the videos, shot by conservative
activists James O'Keefe and Hannah Giles, "appear to have been edited, in
some cases substantially, including the insertion of a substitute voiceover
for significant portions of Mr. O'Keefe's and Ms. Giles' comments, which
makes it difficult to determine the questions to which ACORN employees are
responding." Perhaps he'll have better luck with his next project -- rooting
through ACORN's trash to find incriminating documents.
The newest right-wing smear centers on a deceptively cropped undercover
video shot by an anti-abortion activist at a Planned Parenthood office in
Wisconsin. The Fox Nation and other right-wingers claimed the video shows
Planned Parenthood trying to force women to have abortions. In reality, the
video is so heavily edited it's impossible to determine the context of any
of the Planned Parenthood staffer's supposedly damning statements.
These are the big stories for conservatives right now, and they're all based
on thievery, the smears of an extremist fringe group, and disreputable
hucksters with video cameras.
Now, it's probably not completely accurate to say that the right's embrace
of these types of people is a Faustian bargain -- after all, such an
arrangement typically involves the good being corrupted or seduced by the
evil. When it comes to the conservative media, which are already notorious
for slander and falsehood, it's more like the next step of a natural
progression. The real danger is that they are helping to mainstream these
fringe characters. The Washington Post published an op-ed by Sarah Palin who
used the -- ahem -- "publication of damaging e-mails from a climate research
center" as a pretext to lie and mislead on climate science. The Post
defended publishing Palin's op-ed by claiming that it didn't have time to
fact-check it and that Palin "is someone who stirs discussion."
And that's exactly the mindset these conservatives are preying upon: Forget
the facts; we just want eyeballs on the screens.
=================================================
Warren Buffet: my class is winning the class warfare
================================
LINK:
http://www.alternet.org/workplace/144388/america_without_a_middle_class_--_i
t%27s_not_far_away_as_you_might_think/?comments=view&cID=1382255#c1382255
Everything is going according to plan
Posted by: CaliJim on Dec 5, 2009 8:32 AM
In the mid 90's I had a customer who was writing a paper at the University
of California. The title of the paper was "The Latin-Americanization of the
United States".
The premise of the paper was that the rich and corporate interests were
aligned in an effort to eliminate the middle class in our country, while
greatly increasing the incomes and wealth of the tiny "elite" percentage of
the population. The result would mirror the Latin American model of a tiny
minority that owned or controlled the vast majority of everything, a tiny
middle class struggling to hang on, and a large and rapidly increasing
"underclass" of poor who would literally have to do whatever they could to
survive. Literally, a return to the Feudal system of lords and serfs.
I read his paper and we had many discussions regarding it...and I have to
admit that I thought it was a bit extreme in it's predictions at the time.
Now, of course, it's clear that he was a prophet - and that things have
proceeded exactly as he predicted they would. Wages have been systematically
held down, benefits have been reduced and/or eliminated, jobs have been
systematically shipped overseas (often with tax benefits to the corporation
for every job that was eliminated in the US), taxes for the rich and
corporations have been vastly reduced and funding for education, health care
and other essential services are no longer adequate to do what needs to be
done. The rich get richer and richer, while the corporations get more and
more powerful and arrogant.
I've already advised both of our kids to move to New Zealand or Australia if
they can...where minimum wage is $12-13 an hour and they get free health
care - which is exactly how it should be here.
Ironically, a fairly large percentage of the population has been conned into
going out in force and supporting the very policies that are harming
them...by distortions, manipulations and outright lies regarding unions,
increasing wages, raising taxes on the rich and corporations, health care
reform and restrictions on the powers and rights of corporations. These have
been sold by highly paid spokespersons like Limbaugh, Beck and others, who
get their funding from the same rich and corporate interests who are
benefiting.
Unfortunately, nothing has been done to rein in the financial abuses by the
banks, insurance companies and other multinational corporations - even after
the wholesale collapse of our economy.
I'd love to be able to end with some uplifting and encouraging comment...but
the best I can do is to repeat the quote by Warren Buffett “There’s class
warfare, all right, but it’s my class, the rich class, that’s making war,
and we’re winning.”
Unfortunately, nothing has been done to rein in the financial abuses by the
banks, insurance companies and other multinational corporations - even after
the wholesale collapse of our economy.
================================
LINK:
http://www.alternet.org/workplace/144388/america_without_a_middle_class_--_i
t%27s_not_far_away_as_you_might_think/?comments=view&cID=1382255#c1382255
Everything is going according to plan
Posted by: CaliJim on Dec 5, 2009 8:32 AM
In the mid 90's I had a customer who was writing a paper at the University
of California. The title of the paper was "The Latin-Americanization of the
United States".
The premise of the paper was that the rich and corporate interests were
aligned in an effort to eliminate the middle class in our country, while
greatly increasing the incomes and wealth of the tiny "elite" percentage of
the population. The result would mirror the Latin American model of a tiny
minority that owned or controlled the vast majority of everything, a tiny
middle class struggling to hang on, and a large and rapidly increasing
"underclass" of poor who would literally have to do whatever they could to
survive. Literally, a return to the Feudal system of lords and serfs.
I read his paper and we had many discussions regarding it...and I have to
admit that I thought it was a bit extreme in it's predictions at the time.
Now, of course, it's clear that he was a prophet - and that things have
proceeded exactly as he predicted they would. Wages have been systematically
held down, benefits have been reduced and/or eliminated, jobs have been
systematically shipped overseas (often with tax benefits to the corporation
for every job that was eliminated in the US), taxes for the rich and
corporations have been vastly reduced and funding for education, health care
and other essential services are no longer adequate to do what needs to be
done. The rich get richer and richer, while the corporations get more and
more powerful and arrogant.
I've already advised both of our kids to move to New Zealand or Australia if
they can...where minimum wage is $12-13 an hour and they get free health
care - which is exactly how it should be here.
Ironically, a fairly large percentage of the population has been conned into
going out in force and supporting the very policies that are harming
them...by distortions, manipulations and outright lies regarding unions,
increasing wages, raising taxes on the rich and corporations, health care
reform and restrictions on the powers and rights of corporations. These have
been sold by highly paid spokespersons like Limbaugh, Beck and others, who
get their funding from the same rich and corporate interests who are
benefiting.
Unfortunately, nothing has been done to rein in the financial abuses by the
banks, insurance companies and other multinational corporations - even after
the wholesale collapse of our economy.
I'd love to be able to end with some uplifting and encouraging comment...but
the best I can do is to repeat the quote by Warren Buffett “There’s class
warfare, all right, but it’s my class, the rich class, that’s making war,
and we’re winning.”
Unfortunately, nothing has been done to rein in the financial abuses by the
banks, insurance companies and other multinational corporations - even after
the wholesale collapse of our economy.
================================
Monday, December 7, 2009
A GOP Win-Win Predicament
The loss of the last presidential elections in 2008 turns out to be a gift and a blessing for the Republican party.
The Obama administration will continue to put more money into the pockets of the already superrich banks, companies and billionaires in this country and in the process they will make sure that the next thirty years at the helm of the USA will be for the Republicans.
Bless them.
The Obama administration will continue to put more money into the pockets of the already superrich banks, companies and billionaires in this country and in the process they will make sure that the next thirty years at the helm of the USA will be for the Republicans.
Bless them.
Saturday, November 28, 2009
As The Romans Already Knew
All it needs is a hamburger patty and a TV to make a happy population.
"bread and entertainment" is the tool of choice for American politicians to pacify the vast majority of the working class in the United States of America.
Or: to say it with the Romans 2000 years ago "panem et circenses".
"bread and entertainment" is the tool of choice for American politicians to pacify the vast majority of the working class in the United States of America.
Or: to say it with the Romans 2000 years ago "panem et circenses".
Friday, November 27, 2009
the invention of the chinese firecracker
see here:
http://www.google.com/webhp?sourceid=navclient-ff#hl=en&q=the+chinese+invention+of+the+firecracker&aq=f&aqi=&oq=&fp=25d2df88517031cf
============================================
http://www.google.com/webhp?sourceid=navclient-ff#hl=en&q=the+chinese+invention+of+the+firecracker&aq=f&aqi=&oq=&fp=25d2df88517031cf
============================================
the invention of the arab zero
see here:
http://plancksconstant.org/blog1/2009/11/america_does_not_steal_oil.html
Keep believing that America never landed on the moon, 9/11 was engineered by Mossad, that Islam is the Religion of Peace, that we went into Iraq for oil, and that Infidels are stealing the resources of Muslims. The truth is, without infidels Muslims would be naked, diseased, miserable sand fleas without two camel dicks to rub together. Whatever commodities of value you Muslims have, infidels have discovered, developed, and helped you market and for which we pay a high price and get back zero gratitude.
You're welcome.
===================
see here:
http://www.google.com/webhp?sourceid=navclient-ff#hl=en&source=hp&q=the+arab+invention+of+the+zero&aq=f&aqi=&oq=&fp=25d2df88517031cf
===================
http://plancksconstant.org/blog1/2009/11/america_does_not_steal_oil.html
Keep believing that America never landed on the moon, 9/11 was engineered by Mossad, that Islam is the Religion of Peace, that we went into Iraq for oil, and that Infidels are stealing the resources of Muslims. The truth is, without infidels Muslims would be naked, diseased, miserable sand fleas without two camel dicks to rub together. Whatever commodities of value you Muslims have, infidels have discovered, developed, and helped you market and for which we pay a high price and get back zero gratitude.
You're welcome.
===================
see here:
http://www.google.com/webhp?sourceid=navclient-ff#hl=en&source=hp&q=the+arab+invention+of+the+zero&aq=f&aqi=&oq=&fp=25d2df88517031cf
===================
Tuesday, August 18, 2009
WashingtonTimes Jeffrey T. Kuhner 2009-08-15
A failed, single term?
The prospect of going the way of Argentina
By Jeffrey T. Kuhner | Saturday, August 15, 2009
Saturday, August 15, 2009
A failed, single term?
Jeffrey T. Kuhner
President Obama is on the way to joining an exclusive club. It is the club of failed one-term presidents.
During the presidential campaign, Mr. Obama sold himself as a pragmatic moderate. In fact, he is the very opposite. He is an internationalist socialist whose policies will lead to ruin at home and defeat abroad. They will also doom his re-election efforts. He is flirting with political disaster.
Despite his many flaws, former President Bill Clinton established the model for successful Democratic administrations. Mr. Clinton governed as a liberal centrist. He realized that veering too far to the left early in his presidency was detrimental: His support of Hillarycare and gays in the military resulted in the 1994 Republican takeover of Congress. Mr. Clinton changed course by embracing free trade, welfare reform and balanced budgets -- combining fiscal responsibility and social liberalism. This formula prevented the Republican Party from recapturing the White House in 1996.
Mr. Obama is the anti-Clinton. He is a leftist ideologue who has surrounded himself with radical and inept advisers. Mr. Clinton had political counselor Dick Morris and Treasury Secretary Robert E. Rubin. Mr. Obama has David Axelrod and Timothy F. Geithner.
As a result, Mr. Obama's presidency is starting to look like the worst in 100 years. His $787 billion fiscal stimulus has failed to restore economic recovery. Unemployment remains high. Growth is anemic.
His massive spending is projected to yield record budget deficits of $1.8 trillion this year and $1.3 trillion next year. Over the next decade, according to the Obama administration's own estimates, the debt will explode by more than $10 trillion. These soaring deficits threaten to cripple our long-term prosperity and economic security. No country has sustained this kind of massive borrowing and spending without becoming a second-class nation. America is going the way of Argentina.
Mr. Obama's government-run health care plan is too expensive: It will saddle taxpayers with more than $1 trillion in costs. If enacted, it will do what socialized medicine has always done: ration care, extend waiting lines to visit a doctor and deny lifesaving, costly treatment to those deemed the weakest and most unproductive members of society -- the elderly. It is why so many seniors rightly oppose Obamacare.
National health care will force Mr. Obama to break his tax pledge. His signature campaign promise was not to raise taxes on families making less than $250,000 a year. However, Mr. Obama has boxed himself in, vowing that any health-insurance overhaul must be paid for without adding to the deficit. Hence, his administration is exploring soak-the-rich schemes such as higher income and capital gains taxes and a "wealth surtax." The problem remains that even these policies can't generate nearly enough revenue to fund Mr. Obama's ambitious expansion of the welfare-entitlement state.
This leaves him with only one option -- raising taxes on the middle and working classes. Already, key administration officials are considering a 10-percent national sales tax, also known as a value-added tax (VAT). In other words, a European-style health care system inevitably leads to European-level taxation -- and, consequently, European-style high unemployment and low growth rates.
Mr. Obama's energy policies will also undermine the economy. If passed, his cap-and-trade initiative will impose huge indirect taxes on businesses. It will punish manufacturing, oil-producing and coal states. Its goal is to increase the costs of gas and electricity, thereby discouraging their use.
Consumers will be paying more not only at the pump but also on everything from food to heating and electric bills. Mr. Obama's green socialism threatens to erode our standard of living, trigger skyrocketing inflation and stunt job creation.
Yet, the biggest danger is in foreign policy. Mr. Obama is pouring another 21,000 U.S. troops into Afghanistan. American forces are bogged down in a protracted guerilla campaign. The Taliban are resurgent. They have reclaimed their stronghold around the southern city of Kandahar. Insurgents are waging bold and deadly attacks even in the northern and western parts of the country -- formerly stable areas. The fighting is spreading, U.S. casualties are soaring, and public support for the war is ebbing.
The problem in Afghanistan is that terrorists are able to blend in with the native population. American soldiers find it increasingly difficult to distinguish civilians from combatants. The administration does not have a coherent counterinsurgency strategy. Hence, the Taliban are winning, and Washington is clueless on how to change the grim results on the ground.
Mr. Obama is frequently portrayed as the heir to Franklin D. Roosevelt. The more apt analogy, however, is Lyndon Baines Johnson. Just like Mr. Obama, President Johnson believed he could have guns and butter. He sought to implement the Great Society while escalating America's military involvement in Southeast Asia. Unable to choose, Mr. Johnson lost both: His domestic agenda and prosecution of the Vietnam War proved to be disastrous. His reckless ambition reduced his administration to political rubble, costing him any chance for re-election in 1968. This is why he (smartly) decided not to run again.
Social democracy and interventionist nation-building do not work. They destroyed the Johnson presidency and are on the verge of destroying Mr. Obama's as well.
Jeffrey T. Kuhner is a columnist at The Washington Times and president of the Edmund Burke Institute, a Washington-based think tank.
link:
http://www.blogger.com/post-create.g?blogID=6352154870380296264
The prospect of going the way of Argentina
By Jeffrey T. Kuhner | Saturday, August 15, 2009
Saturday, August 15, 2009
A failed, single term?
Jeffrey T. Kuhner
President Obama is on the way to joining an exclusive club. It is the club of failed one-term presidents.
During the presidential campaign, Mr. Obama sold himself as a pragmatic moderate. In fact, he is the very opposite. He is an internationalist socialist whose policies will lead to ruin at home and defeat abroad. They will also doom his re-election efforts. He is flirting with political disaster.
Despite his many flaws, former President Bill Clinton established the model for successful Democratic administrations. Mr. Clinton governed as a liberal centrist. He realized that veering too far to the left early in his presidency was detrimental: His support of Hillarycare and gays in the military resulted in the 1994 Republican takeover of Congress. Mr. Clinton changed course by embracing free trade, welfare reform and balanced budgets -- combining fiscal responsibility and social liberalism. This formula prevented the Republican Party from recapturing the White House in 1996.
Mr. Obama is the anti-Clinton. He is a leftist ideologue who has surrounded himself with radical and inept advisers. Mr. Clinton had political counselor Dick Morris and Treasury Secretary Robert E. Rubin. Mr. Obama has David Axelrod and Timothy F. Geithner.
As a result, Mr. Obama's presidency is starting to look like the worst in 100 years. His $787 billion fiscal stimulus has failed to restore economic recovery. Unemployment remains high. Growth is anemic.
His massive spending is projected to yield record budget deficits of $1.8 trillion this year and $1.3 trillion next year. Over the next decade, according to the Obama administration's own estimates, the debt will explode by more than $10 trillion. These soaring deficits threaten to cripple our long-term prosperity and economic security. No country has sustained this kind of massive borrowing and spending without becoming a second-class nation. America is going the way of Argentina.
Mr. Obama's government-run health care plan is too expensive: It will saddle taxpayers with more than $1 trillion in costs. If enacted, it will do what socialized medicine has always done: ration care, extend waiting lines to visit a doctor and deny lifesaving, costly treatment to those deemed the weakest and most unproductive members of society -- the elderly. It is why so many seniors rightly oppose Obamacare.
National health care will force Mr. Obama to break his tax pledge. His signature campaign promise was not to raise taxes on families making less than $250,000 a year. However, Mr. Obama has boxed himself in, vowing that any health-insurance overhaul must be paid for without adding to the deficit. Hence, his administration is exploring soak-the-rich schemes such as higher income and capital gains taxes and a "wealth surtax." The problem remains that even these policies can't generate nearly enough revenue to fund Mr. Obama's ambitious expansion of the welfare-entitlement state.
This leaves him with only one option -- raising taxes on the middle and working classes. Already, key administration officials are considering a 10-percent national sales tax, also known as a value-added tax (VAT). In other words, a European-style health care system inevitably leads to European-level taxation -- and, consequently, European-style high unemployment and low growth rates.
Mr. Obama's energy policies will also undermine the economy. If passed, his cap-and-trade initiative will impose huge indirect taxes on businesses. It will punish manufacturing, oil-producing and coal states. Its goal is to increase the costs of gas and electricity, thereby discouraging their use.
Consumers will be paying more not only at the pump but also on everything from food to heating and electric bills. Mr. Obama's green socialism threatens to erode our standard of living, trigger skyrocketing inflation and stunt job creation.
Yet, the biggest danger is in foreign policy. Mr. Obama is pouring another 21,000 U.S. troops into Afghanistan. American forces are bogged down in a protracted guerilla campaign. The Taliban are resurgent. They have reclaimed their stronghold around the southern city of Kandahar. Insurgents are waging bold and deadly attacks even in the northern and western parts of the country -- formerly stable areas. The fighting is spreading, U.S. casualties are soaring, and public support for the war is ebbing.
The problem in Afghanistan is that terrorists are able to blend in with the native population. American soldiers find it increasingly difficult to distinguish civilians from combatants. The administration does not have a coherent counterinsurgency strategy. Hence, the Taliban are winning, and Washington is clueless on how to change the grim results on the ground.
Mr. Obama is frequently portrayed as the heir to Franklin D. Roosevelt. The more apt analogy, however, is Lyndon Baines Johnson. Just like Mr. Obama, President Johnson believed he could have guns and butter. He sought to implement the Great Society while escalating America's military involvement in Southeast Asia. Unable to choose, Mr. Johnson lost both: His domestic agenda and prosecution of the Vietnam War proved to be disastrous. His reckless ambition reduced his administration to political rubble, costing him any chance for re-election in 1968. This is why he (smartly) decided not to run again.
Social democracy and interventionist nation-building do not work. They destroyed the Johnson presidency and are on the verge of destroying Mr. Obama's as well.
Jeffrey T. Kuhner is a columnist at The Washington Times and president of the Edmund Burke Institute, a Washington-based think tank.
link:
http://www.blogger.com/post-create.g?blogID=6352154870380296264
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
