Politics What is happening????

What is happening?

Well, Census reported earlier this week that for the first time, non-white births made up over 50 percent of all births in the United States last year.

And it has the wingnuts in a tizzy.

Phyllis Shlafly, founder of the Eagle Forum:

Ah.....the '50s, when non-white Americans knew their place.

And only Republican values are American values.

 

Hi, Baraka

I raise a toast of mourning.

A very big hit to my own idealism was when Thucidides put into words a similar underlying lie which resided in the basement of Athenian democracy.

... right, as the world goes, is only in question between equals in power, while the strong do what they can and the weak suffer what they must.

Bugger.

 

One thing my illness taught me. That the rich are FAR MORE into class warfare than the poor.

The poor don't want the rich to suffer (well most poor, there are the radicals), the poor don't want to take what the rich have (regardless what those blowhards Beck, Limbaugh, Hannity and so on believe and try to convince anyone that will listen to them and buy into their hatred of the poor), the poor don't care when in all honesty they are just trying to make ends meet.

The RICH, however, would rather send jobs overseas, pay the lowest possible wages, hire illegals (then bitch about them), continue to play games on Wall Street and so on. In other words, they don't give a damn or even try to relate to the 99.9% of the people. They care only about what THEY can have.

The poor, I have found care about helping each other out. They are happy with what they have and appreciate the little things. They are not out to take ANYTHING from the rich that they don't deserve. They are willing to bust ass work hard and all they truly want is an honest day's wage for an honest day's pay. AND that one little sentence right there is what the talking head blowhards on Faux News and Clear Channel radio talk shows want the people to ignore.

Let's tax the poor schlub that makes 100,000 with 2 kids in college and worried about his job because the CEO of the company he works for is trying to steal every cent he can by manipulating the stock, outsourcing jobs and doing all he can do to get every penny he can before the company goes bankrupt, he doesn't give a damn about his workers.

And yet we are to believe that these CEO types DESERVE and are "ENTITLED" to whatever the Hell they want from government, tax breaks, deregulation, bailouts, and so on. But they also demand that what little social safety net the government affords the poor be cut and taken away. What do they care when they get to walk away from a company with 100 million and all kinds of perks when they drive the company into bankruptcy or get fired or retire?

Real income has fallen, colleges are more expensive and becoming too much for families to afford. You do have the rare (and it is getting rarer) person claiming, "I did it and I didn't get help from anyone." Really? And are those opportunities still there? How much were you getting paid when you "paid your way through college?", How much of your income went to bills? How much was gasoline? How much was tuition? (Which oh by the way was probably subsidized by the government in some form... which you want to do away with.) How much was that used car you drove in? Compared to today's dollars, how much were you paid (that's taking into account inflation of utilities, gasoline, food, tuitions, books (which have skyrocketed) and so on. Were you under your parents medical insurance plans? Taking all that into consideration, do you TRULY believe that kids today stand the same chance as you did to succeed?

The class warfare comes from the very rich, not from the poor or middle class. Wake up America, you are being sold a shit load of lies by the far right and you are lapping those lies up and slicing your own throats, much to the delight of the very rich and those talking heads that you believe in and listen to every day. All anyone truly wants is to have the opportunity to succeed and give their children a better life than they had. But for the very rich and the far right, they truly don't give a damn and want YOU dependent on their "generosity", by extending their tax breaks and cutting social programs. Meanwhile, YOU are to continue funding a needless and expensive war.

Oh and by the way, for those of you that want to bitch about the auto industry being bailed out.... THEY DID restructure and became stronger. The BANKS however, did not change at all. They still charge exorbitant interest rates, while not giving you ANYTHING back as far as interest on CDs, Savings accounts and so on. They will charge you for ANYTHING they possibly can. The foreclosure rates really haven't dropped. Very few are willing to work with you to help you get a fair interest rate on your credit cards or on your home loans.

 

First off, I have been to a tea party rally, and an Occupy Wall Street rally. Both were full of different races, ages, religions etc. But the Tea Party rally was clean, law abiding, the people were friendly and non argumentative. The Occupiers were dirty, offensive, smashing toilets in local resturants and had no clear message other than they were pissed off and wanted free stuff.

So, who else here has been to both types of rallies?

 

Not me.
--- merged: May 23, 2012 at 10:48 PM ---

Because, as it has been pointed out, they are the ALMIGHTY JOB CREATORS. It must be true. Them that tooketh away the jobs are surely those that will giveth them back (given the right tax break, a highly skilled/low wage workforce, humongous amounts of ass-kissing in the form of deregulation, and the election of one of their own to the Presidency) .

They really want us to have them back but are frightened by the political insecurity and the future of capitalism in a democracy they might not be able to maintain complete control over. If all of us liberals and independents would just get with the program, we could have them back tomorrow.

God bless the CEO's and their political cronies. They can be our saviors if only we'd stop trying to crucify them with our demands they pay their fair share and stop raping the economy. Surely selling ourselves into indentured servitude and keeping our collective voices down isn't too much to ask. Is it?

 

I went to a Tea Party rally on Capitol Hill. The audience was middle age and almost entirely white and the signs were offensive, the shouts were offensive and the agenda was structured and controlled by two Washington insiders -- Dirk Armey and Grover Norquist.

The Occupy Wall Street rally I attended had no visible structure and was less well organized and speakers articulated their own concerns, primarily around the issue of the growing disparity between the wealthiest and the rest of us. The participants were younger and much more diverse and yes, less well dressed.
--- merged: May 24, 2012 3:26 AM ---
Most of the Tea Party members elected to Congress received considerable contributions from Wall Street bankers and the health insurance lobby (upwards of $10 million total), hardly grass roots interests; and much of their reelection financial support this year comes from the same sources.

 

I've been to both. The Occupy one in Cleveland had a group sitting around a circle using hand gestures. They were pretty ineffective, but there were a lot more cops visible and hidden at the first Occupy one. The Tea Party one was pure white, angry at anyone who didn't fit their 'ideal' person, and they just pollute and support oil terrorists with their SUVs and trucks.

Neither group has a real plan to fix anything.

 

The Tea Party is an astro-turf front for corporate interests. If it was truly a grass roots organization, it would be part of a growing grass roots movement to get the money out of Washington. Occupation Wall Street goal of changing Washington from without rather than from within is idealistic but not very pragmatic.

 

The tea party needs to lose all the social issues, and the big corporation model. Also defense spending is the huge problem, but I'll agree with them that the FCC, DEA, and lots of paper pushing gov jobs need to go away. Farm subsidies, oil company subsidies, and corn subsidies need to be reduced or eliminated for the big companies. Also, I'll even say that welfare, unemployment, and food stamps should be earned and should be reduced. There is enough land that they should have to volunteer to grow their food.

But taxes on the ultra rich need to go up, but also on the middle class. Use that money to push entrepreneurs to bring their ideas to job fairs and make it real easy to work together and start new companies with compensation that is fair to all involved.

And "drill baby drill" is not an environmental policy. It is a short-sighted stupid policy that just funds oil sheiks and oil cartels in the US and abroad.

Occupy over-reached with their 24 hour/7 day a week thing. Unless they really had no place to live, then it would be ok. But, they needed to have a manifesto to get the players at home involved. Basic stuff like use less power and gasoline to paying off your home mortgage to prevent banks from earning interest off you. Doing without stuff, especially if you need to get a loan. Avoid big box stores and favor the local farmer and shops. Live healthy lives that don't cost much money.

 

I have been to both. The Tea Party for me was at first a nice experience, then they started getting very racist and became extremely right winged to the point where a few of them said Limbaugh was too liberal for them. Once Hannity, Palin and Beck became the "voices", I knew that it wasn't for me. The original premise was a very decent and much needed idea.

The Occupy movement when I first went was disorganized and created many problems with store owners I knew. I was not big into what I believed them to represent, basically that was unorganized bullies. The more I went the more I saw they were organized and this wasn't a "tea Party" wanna be group. That for the most part the Occupy people were FAR MORE intelligent and FAR MORE open to differing groups of people than the Tea Party was.

My experiences at BOTH were in complete opposite of each other, I grew to despise the Tea Party because they were racist dumb fucks who wanted white supremacy and to bow down to the corporate GODS they believe will treat them fairly.

I went into the Occupy movement scarred from the TP's lies and bullshit and believed that OWS would be similar, a movement that talked about giving people voices but chose to have celebrity mouthpieces and would be racist against whites, blaming us for everything. Again, I found the opposite to be true.

I think in the end, one will see and hear what they want from either group that which closely resembles their own political leanings.

In your case it sounds like you lean more to the right, thus the TP is more your style and "kind of people" that's fine, I can't get into the hatred that comes from Beck, Palin and Hannity the "official" unofficial spokespeople for the TP.

In my case I lean more to the center and want ALL voices to be heard EQUALLY, the OWS crowd best represents that for me.

 

Every four years we find ourseleves complaining about the campaign ads, the campaign financing and how evil this process is. The next 3 years are spent complaining how government doesn't do what "we" believe it should do..... IS IT NOT GREAT THAT WE ARE ABLE TO HAVE THESE RIGHTS????? You may not like Greenpeace, Amnesty International, Neo Nazis, radical religious fanatics that damn all that do not believe exactly how they choose for everyone else how to believe.... We have the right to have those groups here and to speak freely in support or against.

We have a nation where we can argue about the morality of gay marriage, the rights of animals, the right to ban books or speak freely on anything we wish to...... WE HAVE THE RIGHT EVERY 4 YEARS TO CHANGE OUR GOVERNMENT IF WE SO DESIRE.....

Let's look at examples of where we could be... almost any African/Middle Eastern/Asian nation we would have...........

nothing, none of the above.....

 

I have often repeated the very same ideas as the author of your article rogue, only to be reminded that things like shrinking consumer bases are only a problem to the wealthy if their wealth is reliant upon consumers within a single economy. Growing consumer markets in places like China and India provide plenty of global opportunity and little incentive to even things out at home. At some point in the future it does become a zero point game, I imagine, but for now, the consumer market is booming, somewhere.

The same applies to rent-seeking opportunities (never heard that expression before)

Greed will consume everything.....just not today.

 

You missed the point. The point is that WE HAVE THE CHOICE..... We can argue 2 party system all we want. The problem and the point is WE HAVE THE CHOICE to bring in the Green Party, the Socialist Party, The Nazi Party, the Communist Party, whatever... WE HAVE THAT CHOICE.... Not many other nations do. And our parties DO change maybe not in name but in platform. The 1900 GOP would in no way recognize the GOP of today, and the same can be said about the Democratic Party. Our parties evolve... we may not like what they have evolved into but they have grown and changed and moved forward ( I am trying to remain non partisan here).

Are we supposed to have 50 different parties each with a different agenda and each fighting for what they believe is right? Coalition governments do not work long term..... show me one that has. Most smaller parties are absorbed (for better or worse) by one of the larger 2 parties and that platform is usually added in some way to that party's platform.

Hell, we have interparty fights here all the time, hence we have primaries and have somewhat of a choice as to who's platform we want as our party's. That may not seem true BUT IF Gingrich or Paul or Bachman won, the GOP would quite possibly be running a different platform come November than they will with Romney.

We have shown in the past few elections that we are willing to have more than a 2 party race and we have since day 1. In the recent past we had John Anderson run in 1980 as an independent, in '92 we had Perot, in '00 we had Nader, this year we may have Paul (I use those 3 as examples because they affected arguably, the elections they ran in)..... among many, many others we are ALLOWED and have met the requirements to be on the ballots of some states (i.e. the socialists, libertarian, communists, and so on...) the other parties are there and have the right to be there and speak out. IT IS THE VAST MAJORITY OF THE PEOPLE THAT CHOOSE NOT TO LISTEN TO THEM, BUT THEY ARE ON THE BALLOTS.

How many years was Lyndon LaRouche on the ballot? There was a prime opportunity to get away from the 2 party system.... but he was nuts.

In 1912 we had Teddy Roosevelt split the GOP to run against Taft and Wilson. The GOP was split for many years before they regained enough strength to hold any true power in our government.

I do firmly believe that eventually a third party candidate will win. However, in order to accomplish anything he will have to submit to one of the parties and become affiliated with them.