Why Isn't the Reaction to this, A Call for Violent Revolution or "Tax the Rich"? - Tilted Forum Project Discussion Community

host · 12-27-2006, 08:54 PM

This is looooonnnng....and I'm assuming that you already "know what you know". I am only excerpting a small portion of Russ Winter's eye opening article, in the second quote box that follows....
Read it if you're curious, or if you have an urge to double check what you "know".....

The wealthiest Americans have succeeded in lobbying elected officials for the lowering of their tax burden, since the 1960's from a top rate of 90 percent on the highest portion of their income to below 40 percent, today. They have succeeded in cutting the tax rate on their passive income, income derived from capital gains, to just 15 percent.

It is reported that some of the wealthiest US families:

Quote:

http://www.citizen.org/pressroom/release.cfm?ID=2182
April 25, 2006

Public Citizen and United for a Fair Economy Expose Stealth Campaign of Super-Wealthy to Repeal Federal Estate Tax

Report Identifies 18 Families Behind Multimillion-Dollar Deceptive Lobbying Campaign

WASHINGTON, D.C. – The multimillion-dollar lobbying effort to repeal the federal estate tax has been aggressively led by 18 super-wealthy families, according to a report released today by Public Citizen and United for a Fair Economy at a press conference in Washington, D.C. The report details for the first time the vast money, influence and deceptive marketing techniques behind the rhetoric in the campaign to repeal the tax.

It reveals how 18 families worth a total of $185.5 billion have financed and coordinated a 10-year effort to repeal the estate tax, a move that would collectively net them a windfall of $71.6 billion.

The report profiles the families and their businesses, which include the families behind Wal-Mart, Gallo wine, Campbell’s soup, and Mars Inc., maker of M&Ms. Collectively, the list includes the first- and third-largest privately held companies in the United States, the richest family in Alabama and the world’s largest retailer.

These families have sought to keep their activities anonymous by using associations to represent them and by forming a massive coalition of business and trade associations dedicated to pushing for estate tax repeal. The report details the groups they have hidden behind – the trade associations they have used, the lobbyists they have hired, and the anti-estate tax political action committees, 527s and organizations to which they have donated heavily.

In a massive public relations campaign, the families have also misled the country by giving the mistaken impression that the estate tax affects most Americans. In particular, they have used small businesses and family farms as poster children for repeal, saying that the estate tax destroys both of these groups. But just more than one-fourth of one percent of all estates will owe any estate taxes in 2006. And the American Farm Bureau, a member of the anti-estate tax coalition, was unable when asked by The New York Times to cite a single example of a family being forced to sell its farm because of estate tax liability.

“This report exposes one of the biggest con jobs in recent history,” said Joan Claybrook, president of Public Citizen. “This long-running, secretive campaign funded by some of the country’s wealthiest families has relied on deception to bamboozle the public not only about who must pay the estate tax, but about how repealing it will affect the country.”.......

Quote:

http://wallstreetexaminer.com/blogs/...p=228#more-228
« Reflections on Christmas
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Rebuttal of GaveKal’s Bully “Wealth & Platform Theory”

The latest in misconceived bullish theories to come down the pike was espoused in this week’s Barrons, by GaveKal. A centerpiece of their theory is the “net worth” of American “households”, derived from the Federal Reserve Z1 report. In 3Q, 2006 the Fed reported that US households held $67.1 trillion in assets against liabilities of $13.0 trillion, for a net worth of $54.1 trillion. GaveKal goes on to assure us that based on this supposed solid balance sheet, the US will have little difficulty with borrowing from these foreigners, and servicing trillion dollar plus annual twin deficits......

.....What GaveKal doesn’t get into at all is who holds all this fictitious American wealth? Readers of this blog already know the answer to that. It’s in the hands of plutocrats and the elite. Therefore for purposes of my counterpoint to the “bountiful wealth” theory, I am just going to acknowledge from the get go that about 10% of American households are doing fabulously indeed, at least for the moment. The next 10% may be doing well, sort of, but increasingly that’s subject to debate. It’s the bottom 80% that I worry about and will focus on here. Further I advance the following question: can the US economy stay solvent and strong by depending on transitory Bubble “wealth” and the income of the top 10%, especially as “platform companies” jettison the jobs of the other 90%?

Let’s jump right into who owns the $54 trillion. Most of the breakdown is based on the Fed’s clunky 2004 survey of consumer finances. You will also find more data and background to dig deeper from a series of better written papers that I’ve linked to. As this post is long and somewhat dense, impatient “get to the point” readers who don’t care to go deep, may wish to skip to the bullet points at the end. Then you can always come back to see what the fuss is about.....

........The next focus is on the Bottom 80% who hold $8.27 trillion, or less than 15.3% of total US net worth. These are the people whose jobs are being outsourced to GaveKal’s “platform companies”, to be rehired as low paid service sector poodle groomers and swimming pool cleaners for the elite, or just as commonly, elite wannabees. Yet this group accounts for 61.3% of US consumption. The US therefore can not depend on the Top 20% for its consumption, as wealth-spending elasticity is not as strong: 84.7% of total wealth equals only 38.7% of US consumption...........

........The bottom 80% owns 9.4% of all stock and mutual funds, but 34.6% of housing equity. That’s $938 billion in shares, and $7.08 trillion in housing equity (including land and farms). In the last three years stocks have nicely appreciated, but Bottom 80s have not been there to exploit it. The bottom 80s have much more, in fact just about everything, riding on the housing Bubble. Prices there are now much more problematic, especially for those buying high and late in the cycle and using leveraged exotic (or toxic, depending on your point of view) mortgages.........

I am not concerned that there will be only a muted reaction when the bottom 80 percent of Americans "take the hit" in the real estate valuation implosion that is still only in it's infancy.

My concern is that there has not been and that there is no indication that there will be....a backlash by the masses in reaction to the uneven and still worsening....distribution of wealth statistics in the US. IMO, libertarians intend, if they achieve political power.....only to achieve even more drastic inequality in the distribution of wealth....their acquisition of political power may only be possible because of their intent to bring about a status quo that will favor the already drastically over favored...those who have bought the politcal representation away from the influence of the most of us.

Why have we let this happen to the most of us, and why are we so accepting of it, and seeming to want more? Will the line be drawn at the ballot box, or with armed action by the common man?

dksuddeth · 12-28-2006, 03:05 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by host

I am not concerned that there will be only a muted reaction when the bottom 80 percent of Americans "take the hit" in the real estate valuation implosion that is still only in it's infancy.

My concern is that there has not been and that there is no indication that there will be....a backlash by the masses in reaction to the uneven and still worsening....distribution of wealth statistics in the US. IMO, libertarians intend, if they achieve political power.....only to achieve even more drastic inequality in the distribution of wealth....their acquisition of political power may only be possible because of their intent to bring about a status quo that will favor the already drastically over favored...those who have bought the politcal representation away from the influence of the most of us.

Why have we let this happen to the most of us, and why are we so accepting of it, and seeming to want more? Will the line be drawn at the ballot box, or with armed action by the common man?

Because to a majority of Americans, it is more important that they be 'left alone', receive their government stipend, and continue to go to work for their families than it is to speak up and be heard or, god forbid, actually vote out of the mainstream(face it, it's both parties screwing us over) or vote from the rooftops. To most of these people, it is better to be ruled as subjects than it is to fight for freedom.

In fact, if you want a real eye opener, watch America: from freedom to fascism

shakran · 12-28-2006, 06:45 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by host

Why have we let this happen to the most of us, and why are we so accepting of it, and seeming to want more? Will the line be drawn at the ballot box, or with armed action by the common man?

I'll take the liberty of quoting 1776 (the musical) here. They talk about exactly why people were so accepting of the status quo even though it meant brutal oppression by King George.

Quote:

Originally Posted by 1776, John Dickenson

don't forget that most men without property would rather protect the possibility of becoming rich, than face the reality of being poor.

We see all these displays of wealth around us and dream of one day having it for ourselves. The American Dream myth lives on. We've convinced the country that the only reason they're not filthy rich is that they don't work hard enough. Well for a select few hard work has indeed made them rich. But for many more hard cheating and dishonesty is what gave them their fortune. We admire Bill Gates for being the richest man on earth, but he got there by lying, cheating, and stealing from Xerox.

It's funny - Les Mis is my all time favorite musical. I saw it for the umpteenth time a few months ago but this time I saw it in a totally different light. Folks, those students and poor people in the French revolution aren't much different from us. The Revolution started in part because the gap between the rich and the poor widened to absurd proportions. We've got the same thing happening here right now, and eventually we'll get to the point where the poor have had enough and will start an uprising. Unfortunately that doesn't seem to matter to the wealthy in power because they're too busy counting their money.

roachboy · 12-28-2006, 09:09 AM

the facts of this matter are in a sense evident.
enabling this has been a centerpiece of conservative politics since the reagan period.

the ideology that enabled it, and that enables it still functions: you see it all the time, implicitly in the way in which the dominant media apparatus--which mediates folk's relation to the world but only by providing infotainment, but also (more so) by framing reality as an accumulation of objects and politcs as the extension of the fact of their arrangement with the effect that whatever the existing order is is necessarily legitimate--and explicitly in the variants of neoliberalism--the ideology of "rational" markets (for example) that continues to be so dominant in the united states that it functions without a name.

people do not react to states of affairs at the empirical level.
in a sense, there are no states of affairs at the purely empirical level.
another way around: any state of affairs can be explained away because no state of affairs is understood independently of an ideological framework.
the perverse beauty of the existing order is that it has controlled the system of social reproduction long enough that it no longer needs to explicitly dominate people because people dominate themselves.

its easy peasy: if people understand capitalism to be a force of nature, then the states of affairs generated within it are simple effects of inevitable, natural processes. to revolt would then be to like king lear, trying to stop the ocean.

this is obviously insane, but it is also obviously how most americans live.

the effects of hegemony are ugly: if you control the frames of reference, you can generate consent for almost anything.

and at this time, there is no basis for political oppostion.

libertarian politics of course has nothing to say. it is a self-paralysing variant of the dominant ideology, one that takes (for example) the neoliberal opposition of the state to a logical conclusion. it provides nothing that would enable a sustained critique of the existing order because it duplicates its ideological underpinnings. libertarian politics presupposes that there is a natural order within capitalism that is determined by the playing out of "free markets"--this playing out is distorted by the state. that is idiotic.

personally, i think that this would be a good time for people to begin thinking about what a truly radical oppositional politics might look like, to work out its conceptual premises, to generate positions and float them in the netaether (for example), opening them up to critique, etc. seen from a certain distance, the conditions for a radical change are beginning to emerge from within the exercize in sustained incoherence that is the present american system, but there are very few frameworks that enable people to see what is happening, and almost none that enable folk to imagine other alternatives toward which they might move, so there is no real political action and seemingly little possibility of such political action. there are and will no doubt once again be oppositional movements directed at specific issues like the bushwar in iraq, but these are not necessarily movements that go beyond being single-issue matters--and single-issue matters are interest group politics. they are not revolutionary politics. there are no revolutionary politics.

so bend over, folks, and accept the gifts of capitalism.
if you can't work out a coherent critique, then you have little choice but to learn to enjoy whatever comes your way.
who knows, maybe you can even convince yourself that getting fucked in this way is fun--not only that you like it, but that you deserve it because it has to be this way and only a deviant would think otherwise. if you need reinforcement, watch more tv.

good luck with that.

dksuddeth · 12-28-2006, 09:45 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by roachboy

the facts of this matter are in a sense evident.
enabling this has been a centerpiece of conservative politics since the reagan period.

the ideology that enabled it, and that enables it still functions: you see it all the time, implicitly in the way in which the dominant media apparatus--which mediates folk's relation to the world but only by providing infotainment, but also (more so) by framing reality as an accumulation of objects and politcs as the extension of the fact of their arrangement with the effect that whatever the existing order is is necessarily legitimate--and explicitly in the variants of neoliberalism--the ideology of "rational" markets (for example) that continues to be so dominant in the united states that it functions without a name.

people do not react to states of affairs at the empirical level.
in a sense, there are no states of affairs at the purely empirical level.
another way around: any state of affairs can be explained away because no state of affairs is understood independently of an ideological framework.
the perverse beauty of the existing order is that it has controlled the system of social reproduction long enough that it no longer needs to explicitly dominate people because people dominate themselves.

its easy peasy: if people understand capitalism to be a force of nature, then the states of affairs generated within it are simple effects of inevitable, natural processes. to revolt would then be to like king lear, trying to stop the ocean.

this is obviously insane, but it is also obviously how most americans live.

the effects of hegemony are ugly: if you control the frames of reference, you can generate consent for almost anything.

and at this time, there is no basis for political oppostion.

libertarian politics of course has nothing to say. it is a self-paralysing variant of the dominant ideology, one that takes (for example) the neoliberal opposition of the state to a logical conclusion. it provides nothing that would enable a sustained critique of the existing order because it duplicates its ideological underpinnings. libertarian politics presupposes that there is a natural order within capitalism that is determined by the playing out of "free markets"--this playing out is distorted by the state. that is idiotic.

personally, i think that this would be a good time for people to begin thinking about what a truly radical oppositional politics might look like, to work out its conceptual premises, to generate positions and float them in the netaether (for example), opening them up to critique, etc. seen from a certain distance, the conditions for a radical change are beginning to emerge from within the exercize in sustained incoherence that is the present american system, but there are very few frameworks that enable people to see what is happening, and almost none that enable folk to imagine other alternatives toward which they might move, so there is no real political action and seemingly little possibility of such political action. there are and will no doubt once again be oppositional movements directed at specific issues like the bushwar in iraq, but these are not necessarily movements that go beyond being single-issue matters--and single-issue matters are interest group politics. they are not revolutionary politics. there are no revolutionary politics.

so bend over, folks, and accept the gifts of capitalism.
if you can't work out a coherent critique, then you have little choice but to learn to enjoy whatever comes your way.
who knows, maybe you can even convince yourself that getting fucked in this way is fun--not only that you like it, but that you deserve it because it has to be this way and only a deviant would think otherwise. if you need reinforcement, watch more tv.

good luck with that.

hmmm, i'm curious roach, are you trying to tell us that all of our troubles today are a result of capitalism? that if we'd only gone to a more socialist form of wealth distribution, that we'd be in a much better state of 'state', as it were?

roachboy · 12-28-2006, 09:55 AM

i am not clear that you know what socialism means, dk: i have seen posts that equate it with fascism from you, which i think simply nutty. so i am not sure i see the point of entering into a conversation with you about this under the terms you choose to frame it. this is not to say that i am unwilling to debate--quite the contrary--but i see nowhere good for it to go if these are the terms within which it has to move.

step a bit outside your frame of reference and sure.
got a way to rephrase the question that might make the conversation more open?

dksuddeth · 12-28-2006, 10:06 AM

ok, I can leave the socialism and fascism out of it and ask you simply, how does capitalism find itself responsible for the taxation system that host is saying is deserving of a revolution?

host · 12-28-2006, 10:42 AM

shakran, your John Dickenson quote, and your apprisal of the corporate owned media, roachboy, speak so well to what I am trying to bring out in this thread.

Aren't we better educated and feel less powerless than the masses in Mexico, as we slide in the direction of those extremely economically, and thus politically, pre-empted neighbors to our south?

Must we fall for the "line" that Dickenson so aptly described for us? Are we really allowing the Walton and Mars families, et al, to use their vast fortunes to purchase away (from our formerly one man, one vote) representative government, to do their bidding, instead of ours, in the hope that when we become "that rich", the lopsided "rules" that they bought into legislation, will favor us, as well, to the continuing disadvantage of the vast number of us who will never be able to afford the lawyers and lobbyists, or the acquisition and maintenance of the "connections" that make permanent elimination of inheritance taxes, for example, even a possibility?

The evidence of the trend toward even more increasingly unequal distribution of wealth in the US that I posted in another recent thread, of the Gini Coefficient, is well explained here:

Quote:

http://www.alienlove.com/modules.php...rder=0&thold=0
.......In an ideal country, there would be a small percentage of wealthy people, say 15 to 20%, a burgeoning middle class of around 60 to 70%, and a poorer class of around 10 to 25%. This is very important from another aspect as well. It is common knowledge that the rich don't pay taxes. That's why they hire all those tax consultants, etc. It is more affordable for the rich to pay $100,000 to $200,000 per year on consultants who will save them, in the end, $10 to $20 million or more. Likewise, the poor don't pay taxes either. THEY CAN'T. They live paycheck to paycheck. It is up to the country's middle class to pay for nearly every aspect of governmental life. The middle class earns enough money to be taxed on, yet lacks the resources to defer payment through legitimate means. In other words, they can't hire the experts to tell them how to avoid paying taxes. The middle class can't afford to spend $100,000 a year to avoid paying $20,000 in taxes. Therefore, what the GINI coefficient tells us is how well off the middle class of a country is.

First world nations are inherently better off than third world nations. Let's look at some contrasting numbers between first world and third world. Recently, Japan scored a 24.9 coefficient, one of the lowest numbers ever recorded. Sweden scored 25, Germany scored 28.3, France scored 32.7 and Canada scored 33.1. Now let's see how the third world nations scored around the same time. Argentina scored 52.2, Mexico scored 54.6, South Africa scored 57.8, and Namibia scored 70.7. This clearly shows us that the standard of living in Japan, at 24.9, is much better than the standard of living in Namibia with a score of 70.7. The distribution of wealth is much more equal in Japan than Namibia, and we can see by the effect on our global society that indeed, Japan plays a much greater role around the world than Namibia.

And this is underlying intent of the GINI factor. It rightfully addresses human conditions on a national basis through a strictly monetary viewpoint......

.......... So this brings us to the United States. Surely we have one of the best GINI factors of all, right? Don't we distribute wealth better than all the other nations?? In 1970, our coefficient was 39.4, a little worse than Canada. But by 2005, our factor had worsened to 46.9, nearly that of Argentina. It is clear that we are slipping more and more into the abyss of third world status. It is predicted that we will attain Mexico's 2000 GINI factor by the year 2046.

What can we do to stop this slide into third-world status? How can we reverse the train of destruction from taking away what our forefathers fought so hard to obtain?

It is clear that we don't need any more tax breaks for the wealthy. After all, they already avoid paying any taxes to begin with, why would we need to give them tax breaks on top of it? We are unique among nations in that we have the currency that everyone else cherishes. We can easily reduce the taxes on the middle class and thus allow them more disposable income. We have a bloated military industrial complex that, when reduced to actually required size, would save the economy over $300 billion dollars yearly. We are not the world's policeman, and therefore, the ills of the world need to be split among all countries, except those areas where we were completely stupid and caused problems to begin with.

But the GINI factor is unforgiving. It is deadly in its precision and shows quite rightly how the wealth is distributed country by country. While France has improved dramatically over the past few decades, from a coefficient of near 50 to a coefficient closer to 30, the US has slackened from a coefficient around 35 in 1945 to a coefficient near 50 in 2005. Canada has seen dramatic improvements from near 35 in 1950 to almost 25 in 2005. In fact, only China has worsened as much as the US.

What is needed is as obvious as it is essential. We need to stop the upscale explosion of the super wealthy. Our corporate CEOs don't need $50 billion or more in order to retire after having screwed tens of thousands of workers.

We have seen that scandal after scandal has left hundreds of thousands of workers without pensions and without retirement income. Now let's stand back a moment and look at this. If a person arrives at an emergency clinic and says that they're ill, will the clinic deny this person medical care?? Of course not. But this person used to work for Enron and no longer has the insurance to pay for their care. So who pays??

The American taxpayer pays, that's who. Because Enron screwed up, we pay. Because WorldCom screwed up, we pay. Because big business screws up, we pay. I'd just like it to be a bit more equal across the board. I don't mind paying, as long as I see the big boys across the table paying their fair share. It is obvious through the GINI factor that the middle class in the US is being shouldered with more of the burden and given fewer resources. Don't let this happen. Don't let this nation fall into a banana republic type nation where 10% or less own virtually everything and can control our daily lives.

That part really sucked about Mexico, trust me.

People, stand and protest the take over of the ubberrich.

-Toeg

I've read that a Gini number of 60 is a flashpoint for violent revolution....but we're gonna be rich....someday....right??? So....not to worry !!

Meanwhile, the corporate media reliably does it's part to influence our thinking:
<center><img src="http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/images/2006-12-28_MSNBC_Edwards_Multi-Millionaire.jpg"></center>
The page that I lifted the image from displayed a comment from a reader that illustrated why this example of GE/Microsoft propaganda for the economic status quo is relevant for our discussion.....the reader made the point that what John Edwards, highlighted as a multi-millionaire sponsoring an agenda of helping poverty stricken Americans is part of our tradition....not so unusual, not out of the "mainstream".....the reader posted:

Quote:

http://electioncentral.tpmcafe.com/b...aire_candidate
"Multi-millionaire candidate to focus on poverty in America."

Just like FDR did.......

Seaver · 12-28-2006, 01:57 PM

Why is there no revolution like in 1776? It's not because more people cared back then, but because our protests are not ending in massacres.

Our "revolution" was nothing more than a bunch of drunks dumping tea and rich merchants protesting a tax before the Boston Massacre. After that people were willing to stand up to the British, and the justifications for revolution followed afterwards.

There is no revolution because there is no bloodshed, and even the poor in this country have it pretty good. The vast majority have cars, TVs, and ample education if they seek it out. So they will have a few perks withdrawn, it's not as if they will be evicted because their new tax burden will bleed them dry.

dksuddeth · 12-28-2006, 02:05 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Seaver

Why is there no revolution like in 1776? It's not because more people cared back then, but because our protests are not ending in massacres.

Our "revolution" was nothing more than a bunch of drunks dumping tea and rich merchants protesting a tax before the Boston Massacre. After that people were willing to stand up to the British, and the justifications for revolution followed afterwards.

Please provide proof of this instead of wildly inaccurate conjecture.

The_Jazz · 12-28-2006, 03:14 PM

Seaver, that's pretty historically innacturate. The Boston Massacre was of "common" people, not of rich merchants/drunks. Tensions were running pretty high at the time, and while I think everyone would agree that you've found the match that set off the whole explosion that was the Revolution, you've oversimplified the facts you've chosen and ignored others that are salient to the arguement.

roachboy · 12-28-2006, 04:56 PM

the version of the american revolution seaver presents is inaccurate on a number of levels: the one that links to the point i was making earlier is that it did not happen in an ideological vacuum, but rather took inspiration from tons of whiggish political agitation. and from the tradition of the english revolution itself. in comparison to others--like the french revolution--the american was relatively tepid and modest in many ways, but it was nonetheless what it is called.

there is nothing comparable in terms of oppositional political discourse at the present time. such an opposition remains to be built...so at the moment, if there were a revolt, it would probably come from the extreme right and would rely on bankrupt notions of nationalism to orient it, not because they are coherent---they aren't---but because they exist.

political actions are not things. they are processes. people have to have some idea of what they are doing and more importantly why they are doing it before they will act.

dk: short of time at the moment i am---i'll get back to this later. my apologies.

Elphaba · 12-28-2006, 06:46 PM

Our "revolutions" can be violent as evidenced by the civil war. I would add to that the union movement of the 30's. Marx's prediction of the uprising of the proletariat was correct, but failed to consider an eventual agreement between management and labor. Unions are now making their way into other countries, and they may become a force here again.

The majority of our "revolutions" have occurred due to public protest and the power of the ballot box. When the "robber barons" had won control of the government, there was a political "correction" such as the one under Teddy Roosevelt and later by FDR.

The latest "capitalist" overtaking of the government and economic policies will be a more difficult challenge under the "global" economic initiatives of the past two decades. As of today, we are no longer the preferred currency of exchange, and our debt is primarily held by China.

More than a year ago, Host referred to our currency as "script" and once again he has been proven prescient. We may very well become a third world nation under present economic conditions, and that may very well lead to a violent uprising against the government.

Folks, this is a broad sweep of history and heavy on opinion. I ask only that you give the "idea" of violent revolution some consideration.

host · 12-28-2006, 08:27 PM

We live in the most severe period of uneven distribution of wealth and political power in the US in 75 years. The wealthy elite who "own" (control) the assets and political power number less than the top half of the top ten percent of our population. The citations in the last five quote boxes, cover the preparations that they are making to control the coming reaction to the real estate valuation decline that will gouge the comparatively meager concentration of wealth centered currently in the hands of the masses, and some of the methods used during mass civilian detentions by US authorities in Iraq.

The top ten percent own most of the more liquid and still appreciating assets in the US, the stocks and bonds. The more illiquid, maintenance and property tax intensive residential real estate assets are mostly in the hands of the most tapped out and vunerable, lower 80 percent of the population, as these assets just begin a long decline in value. (read Russ Winter's article, linked in the OP)

The wealthy have prepared....DHS was not solely created to deal with the GWOT....the new domestic detention camp contracts bely that reality.

I am not advocating violence...if it comes, it will most likely be in response to premature and brutal repression by the authorities, themselves. They've been busy illegally wiretapping our phone calls, duping us into supporting the rights and privacy transfers contained in the patriot acts. Putting a new emphasis on tracking and reporting who is planning to exit the US, instead of who is trying to enter the country.

It is "us" vs. them....they know it, they plan for it....they intend to use the domestic security apparatus to maintain the status quo....they own most of it.

The question is...why are we all so complacent ....so accepting, and when will that change? First, a little history:
This is a snippet of our history of violent "blowback":

Quote:

http://query.nytimes.com/search/quer...tanks&srchst=p
#
Article available with TimesSelect subscription or for purchase TOLL RISES TO 36; 1,000 Guardsmen Go to South Bend, Ind., to Quell Disorders Detroit Riots Reported... [PDF]

DETROIT, Thursday, July 27 Negro snipers waged a daylight guerrilla operation yesterday, but National Guard tanks and armored personnel carriers brought the situation under control last night....View free preview
July 27, 1967 - By GENE ROBERTS Special to The New York Times - Front Page
#
Article available with TimesSelect subscription or for purchase TROOPS BATTLE DETROIT SNIPERS, FIRING MACHINE GUNS FROM TANKS; LINDSAY APPEALS TO EAST HARLEM; DETR... [PDF]

DETROIT, Wednesday, July 26--National Guard tank crews blasted away at entrenched snipers with .50-caliber machine guns early today after sniper fire routed policemen from a square-mile area of the city....View free preview
July 26, 1967 - By GENE ROBERTS Special to The New York Times - Front Page......

.........#
Article available with TimesSelect subscription or for purchase DETROIT RIOTS REPORTED CURBED AFTER TANKS BATTLE DAY SNIPERS; 4 NEGRO LEADERS CALL FOR ORDER; ASK M... [PDF]

Four national civil rights leaders appealed yesterday to Negroes to end the mob rule and violence that have spread through the urban ghettos....View free preview
July 27, 1967 - By M.S. HANDLER - Front Page
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Article available with TimesSelect subscription or for purchase U. S. TROOPS SENT INTO DETROIT; 19 DEAD; JOHNSON DECRIES RIOTS; NEW OUTBREAK IN EAST HARLEM; TANKS ... [PDF]

DETROIT, Tuesday, July 25--President Johnson rushed 4,700 Army paratroopers into Detroit at midnight last night as Negro snipers besieged two police stations in rioting that brought near-paralysis to the nation's fifth largest city....View free preview
July 25, 1967 - By GENE ROBERTS Special to The New York Times - Front Page
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Article available with TimesSelect subscription or for purchase Detroit Is Swept by Rioting and Fires; Romney Calls In Guard; 700 Arrested; Negroes in Detroit Defy... [PDF]

DETROIT, Monday, July 24 --Thousands of rampaging Negroes firebombed and looted huge sections of Detroit last night and early today. Gov. George Romney ordered 1,500 National Guardsmen, backed by tanks, to quell the riot....View free preview
July 24, 1967 - Front Page
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Article available with TimesSelect subscription or for purchase News Summary and Index; The Major Events of the Day [PDF]

View free preview
July 27, 1967 - Article
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Article available with TimesSelect subscription or for purchase Black Challenge; The Violence Spreads [PDF]

The reports were like communiques from a major war theater. From city after city, during one of the tensest weeks of domestic crisis the nation has ever known, came a story of racial violence. The scale varied, the pattern was frighteningly similar. Negro...View free preview
July 30, 1967 - Article
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Article available with TimesSelect subscription or for purchase A Negro Leader Defines; A Way Out of the Exploding Ghetto [PDF]

THERE is no longer any denying that this country is in the throes of a historic national crisis. Its ramifications are so vast and frightening that even now, shocked into numbness and disbelief, the American people have not yet fully grasped What is hapen...View free preview
August 13, 1967 - By BAYARD RUSTIN - Article

Quote:

http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/htm...ruling03m.html

<center><img src="http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/ABPub/2005/06/02/2002297133.jpg"> A Seattle police riot-squad member jabs a gun barrel against the neck of a protester at Sixth and Union amid rioting during the World Trade Organization meeting in late 1999.</center>

Friday June 3, 2005 - 12:00 AM

HARLEY SOLTES / THE SEATTLE TIMES, 1999

Court upholds WTO no-protest zone

By Maureen O'Hagan
Seattle Times staff reporter

It was lawful for the city of Seattle to deem part of downtown off-limits during the volatile 1999 World Trade Organization protests, a federal appeals court ruled yesterday. But the court also said that police enforcing the rule may have gone too far by targeting only those opposed to the WTO, in violation of their First Amendment rights.

The ruling by the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals partially overturned a 2001 decision by U.S. District Judge Barbara Rothstein, who had ruled in favor of the city's actions during the WTO protests. It also means that some demonstrators may pursue a class-action claim that the city violated their constitutional rights.

"It's not total victory," said assistant city attorney Sean Sheehan. "But certainly from a policy standpoint, the important interests of the city were vindicated by the court."

"It's an important decision," said lawyer Steve W. Berman, who represented some of the plaintiffs. "If people were being arrested solely because they were there to peacefully protest and that was the only reason people were being arrested, that's unconstitutional."

The 9th Circuit Court ruling is one of many legal ripples still emanating from the Seattle WTO meeting, which drew delegates from 135 member nations as well as an estimated 50,000 protesters. While only a small minority of demonstrators were violent, they wreaked disproportionate havoc by blocking access to events, damaging businesses and waging street battles with hundreds of police. Damage was later estimated at $2.5 million, and hundreds of protesters were arrested.

Because of the threat to public safety, then-Mayor Paul Schell issued an unusual edict. Known as Order No. 3, it prohibited entry into a 25-block area of downtown. Exceptions were granted for those participating in the WTO meeting, employees of area businesses, police and emergency personnel. The rule led to numerous arrests and confrontations with police.

The prohibited area became known as the no-protest zone. And to civil-rights groups, it was a violation of the Constitution to declare such a zone — particularly one so large — let alone to enforce against peaceful protesters.

Yesterday's Circuit Court opinion addressed two cases which had been consolidated and involved hundreds of plaintiffs who claimed that Order No. 3 muffled legitimate protest against the WTO.

For example, some protesters complained that police seized their anti-WTO signs and leaflets. One man was arrested even though he was a WTO participant and had a right to be in the no-protest zone. Several others who worked within the zone said police made them remove anti-WTO slogans from their clothes before allowing them to pass through.

By targeting only WTO opponents, the plaintiffs' lawsuit said, the order violated the First Amendment, which prohibits the government from suppressing opinions it doesn't like. The city countered that Order No. 3 was aimed only at calming the chaos, and that it was "content-neutral" in that it did not support one point of view over another.

The U.S. District Court took the city's side and threw out the plaintiffs' lawsuit. The plaintiffs then appealed.

The 9th Circuit yesterday agreed with the city's argument that it was not trying to suppress free speech.

"The purpose of enacting Order No. 3 had everything to do with the need to restore and maintain civic order and nothing to do with the content of Appellants' message," the majority opinion stated.

But the court's consideration of Order No. 3 did not end there.

In some cases, the court said, it appeared police were targeting only those opposed to the WTO. So while Order No.3 was neutral on its face, it may have been applied in a way that violated the First Amendment.

"In some instances police conduct may have gone too far," the ruling said.

The court's ruling means a number of the plaintiffs' cases will go back to the lower court, which will consider individual circumstances to determine whether rights may have been violated. The lower court will also consider whether the plaintiffs can be grouped together in a class action.

Arthur Bryant, an attorney for some of the plaintiffs, called this aspect of the decision a "great victory," because the court held that the city violated the First Amendment "if in fact it applied the no-protest-zone order to arrest only anti-WTO protesters. That is, of course, exactly what they did. That's the reason the lawsuit was brought."

Former Police Chief Norm Stamper, who was harshly criticized for the Police Department's handling of the protests, said in some ways he felt vindicated.

"I believe the court made the proper call in affirming the city's right to contain part of downtown at the height of the violence that week," he wrote in an e-mail. Nonetheless, he said he respected the judges' decision to send individual cases back for trial on the facts.

Stamper resigned shortly after the WTO debacle. In his new book, "Breaking Rank," Stamper blames himself for failing to adequately prepare police for the protests and violence.

The case is one of several lawsuits over the WTO protests.

Last year, the city paid $250,000 to settle a case with 157 protesters arrested outside of the no-protest zone. The settlement came after a federal judge's ruling that police lacked probable cause to arrest them.

In 2003, the city settled with two college students arrested while Christmas shopping on the first anniversary of the protests.

In 2002, the city agreed to pay the legal bills of the American Civil Liberties Union, which sued after the city failed to disclose a key WTO-related document under a public-records request.

Quote:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn...112101145.html
DEMONSTRATIONS
Police Agree to Protester Reforms
Lawsuit Alleging Abuse During 2001 Inauguration Is Settled

By Carol D. Leonnig
Washington Post Staff Writer
Wednesday, November 22, 2006; Page B02

The D.C. police department agreed yesterday to pay $685,000 and take steps to protect protesters from police abuse and ensure their rights to settle a lawsuit over the treatment of demonstrators at President Bush's inauguration in 2001.

The lawsuit uncovered evidence that the department had suspended rules limiting the use of force during the protests, had pressed undercover officers to infiltrate protest groups and had sought to provoke protesters and uninvolved bystanders by attacking them with batons and pepper spray.

Under the settlement, the department denies any guilt but agrees to change its police handbook to better protect protesters, adding a requirement that officers report the use of force during a mass demonstration and prohibit arrests without evidence of a crime. Officers assigned to civil disturbance units will be reminded of the changes in a new, mandatory 40-hour training course and annual refresher session.

The Partnership for Civil Justice, a civil liberties advocacy group, and a group of local residents brought the suit five years ago to try to force the police department under Chief Charles H. Ramsey to change what it considered an illegal pattern of treating protesters like suspected criminals. One of the suit's lead attorneys, Mara Verheyden-Hilliard, said yesterday that the group thinks that it achieved much of that goal through painstaking litigation and depositions that revealed the department's behavior and led to the D.C. Council passing legislation last year to reform police handling of protests.

A spokesperson for the D.C. attorney general's office declined to comment yesterday. Ramsey also declined to comment, saying that other lawsuits are pending.

The settlement, which comes as Ramsey is preparing to leave his post, is the latest in a series of payments the city has made stemming from police conduct at demonstrations. In January 2005, the District government agreed to pay $425,000 to seven people caught up in a mass arrest at Pershing Park in September 2002. More than 400 people were rounded up at the downtown park during demonstrations against the World Bank and International Monetary Fund. Several investigations found that Assistant Chief Peter J. Newsham, after conferring with Ramsey, had ordered arrests without warning or evidence of a crime -- including of people who had nothing to do with the protests.

In that Pershing Park settlement, Ramsey was also required to send an apology letter to each of the plaintiffs....

......Mike Shinn, a security consulting company owner who joined in the suit settled yesterday, said he was glad that the department would be forced to follow the laws of the country. Shinn, a Bush supporter who went to watch the inaugural celebration, said he felt he was in another country when police pushed him, other spectators and protesters against a wall and an officer hit him on the head from behind with a baton.

"I tried to explain what I was doing and ask him what he wanted me to do, and he hit me again," Shinn recalled. "He said, 'Do you want some more of this?' I was just shocked, just utterly shocked. I thought: What in the world are they teaching them?"

Shinn said he hopes the incoming chief, Cathy L. Lanier, and the departing Ramsey learn a lesson.

"You can't arrest people for just having opinions, as unpopular as they may be," he said. "You don't just arrest everybody on the streets because you think they might have an opinion. It flies in the face of everything that is America."

Quote:

http://www.forbes.com/forbes/2003/0317/098_print.html
Billionaires
In Praise of Inequality
Nigel Holloway, 03.17.03

A disparity of income and wealth is good for us, as long as people can move up the ladder.

....Taxes and philanthropy push the distribution of living standards a long way in the direction of equality.

Do these two forces go far enough toward equality? That is the great debate for social philosophers. When President Bush announces his plan to cut taxes, his opponents greet the proposal with cries he is helping the rich. In Venezuela the divide between haves and have-nots has made the country virtually ungovernable. China's leaders have chosen to ride the capitalist tiger even if rapid economic growth leads to social tension.

Economic inequality has two effects, one good, one bad and both named by economists Joseph Zeira, John Hassler and José Rodriguez Mora. The good one is the incentive effect. The greater the disparity between wealth and income, the harder people strive to be successful, and by their striving they enlarge the pie. The bad effect, called the distance effect, is that inequality begets more inequality--the children of the poor have to work harder to succeed, compared with the children of the rich. Just compare the schools in a deprived neighborhood with those in a better-class one.

A society can choose to reduce the distance effect by taxing the rich and spending the proceeds on the poor. But in so doing it reduces the incentive to get ahead. European countries tend to have a lower Gini than the U.S.--and higher unemployment as well. In 1980 U.S. economic output per capita was just about the same as in France and Germany. Since then the per capita output in those countries has gone sideways, while in the U.S. it has climbed 50%.

More than tax structures are at work, to be sure. Egalitarian South Korea has seen a fivefold gain in living standards in the past 22 years. Korea is not merely capitalist but also socially homogeneous, and a place where hard work, saving and education are prized.

One lesson of all this is that societies where the spoils are more unevenly divided, such as the U.S., had better be mobile--or else. If a large enough number of people believe they have a fair shot at success, then they will put up with the megarich. But if large numbers feel stuck at the bottom, sooner or later they will explode.....

Quote:

http://www.tfproject.org/tfp/showthr...can+convention
This is old news. There was "order" in Iraq, before the US invasion. The same sonic weapon deployed in Iraq, was used in 2004....guess where.....?

It's a public address sytem....or it bursts ear drums:

Quote:

http://abcnews.go.com/Technology/print?id=99472
Unusual Forms of Sound to Emanate From RNC
By Amanda Onion

Aug. 25, 2004 - Coming soon to a convention near you: Sound like it has never (or at least, rarely) been heard before.

As politicians at the Republican National Convention use microphones to make themselves heard from the podium, other sounds in and around the event will be emitted in cutting-edge audio technology.

Outside the convention hall, New York City police plan to control protesters using a device that directs sound for up to 1,500 feet in a spotlight-like beam. Meanwhile, a display of former Republican presidents inside the hall will feature campaign speeches that are funneled to listeners through highly focused audio beams.

"These are totally different from the way an ordinary speaker emits sound," said Elwood (Woody) Norris, founder and head of American Technology Corp. of San Diego. "It's like it's inside your head."

Norris, an intrepid entrepreneur who has no college degree but more than 43 patents to his name, invented both the crowd control tool, called the Long Range Acoustical Device (LRAD), and the display audio technology, called HyperSonic Sound (HSS).....

Quote:

http://www.infowars.com/print/ps/soundcannon_photos.htm

Sound Cannon in Place in NY Pointed at Protesters

Infowars.com
sept 9, 2004

Here are photos from NY of the sound weapon in place and pointed at protesters. One time, the sound weapons was turned on to a low hum. So the weapons they are using on Iraqis are going to be used on American citizens. This is the nature of the Police State we're living in.....

....The Department of Defense gave Norris and his team funding to develop LRAD following the 9/11 attacks. The concept is to offer an intermediate tool to warn and ward off attacking combatants before resorting to force.

"Regular bullets don't have volume control on them," said Norris. "With this, you just cause a person's ears to ring."......

Some details of the plans to maintain domestic security, i.e., to control us and to detain us if they feel threatened enough......

Quote:

http://frwebgate.access.gpo.gov/cgi-...=2006_register
* * * * *
[FR Doc. E6–11064 Filed 7–13–06; 8:45 am]
BILLING CODE 6760–01–P
DEPARTMENT OF HOMELAND
SECURITY
Bureau of Customs and Border
Protection
19 CFR Parts 4 and 122
[USCBP–2005–0003]
RIN 1651–AA62
Passenger Manifests for Commercial
Aircraft Arriving in and Departing From
the United States; Passenger and Crew
Manifests for Commercial Vessels
Departing From the United States
AGENCY: Customs and Border Protection,
Department of Homeland Security.
ACTION: Notice of proposed rulemaking.
SUMMARY: This rule proposes to amend
existing Bureau of Customs and Border
Protection regulations concerning
electronic manifest transmission
requirements relative to passengers,
crew members, and non-crew members
traveling onboard international
commercial flights and voyages. Under
current regulations, air carriers must
transmit to the Bureau of Customs and
Border Protection (CBP), Department of
Homeland Security (DHS), passenger
manifest information for aircraft en
route to the United States no later than
15 minutes after the departure of the
aircraft. This proposed rule implements
the Intelligence Reform and Terrorism
Prevention Act of 2004 requirement that
such information be provided to the
government before departure of the
aircraft. This proposed rule provides air
carriers a choice between transmitting
complete manifests no later than 60-
minutes prior to departure of the aircraft
or transmitting manifest information on
passengers as each passenger checks in
for the flight, up to but no later than 15
minutes prior to departure. The rule
also proposes to amend the definition of
‘‘departure’’ for aircraft to mean the
moment the aircraft is pushed back from
the gate. For vessel departures from the
United States, the rule proposes
transmission of passenger and crew
manifests no later than 60 minutes prior
to departure of the vessel.
DATES: Written comments must be
received on or before August 14, 2006.

Quote:

http://yro.slashdot.org/article.pl?s...25201&from=rss
Disabling the RFID in the New U.S. Passports?

slashchuck writes "Along with the usual Jargonwatch and Wired/Tired articles, the January issue of Wired offers a <a href="http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/15.01/start.html?pg=9">drastic method</a> for taking care of that RFID chip in your passport. They say it's legal ... if a bit blunt. From the article: 'The best approach? Hammer time. Hitting the chip with a blunt, hard object should disable it. A nonworking RFID doesn't invalidate the passport, so you can still use it.' While this seems a bit extreme, all indications seem to be these chips aren't very secure. How far will you go to protect or disable the RFID chip in your passport? Do you think such a step is necessary? Does anyone have an argument in favor of the technology's implementation here? "

Quote:

http://travel2.nytimes.com/2006/02/0...ton.html?fta=y

Halliburton Subsidiary Gets Contract to Add Temporary Immigration Detention Centers

Published: February 4, 2006

WASHINGTON, Feb. 3 — The Army Corps of Engineers has awarded a contract worth up to $385 million for building temporary immigration detention centers to Kellogg Brown & Root, the Halliburton subsidiary that has been criticized for overcharging the Pentagon for its work in Iraq.

KBR would build the centers for the Homeland Security Department for an unexpected influx of immigrants, to house people in the event of a natural disaster or for new programs that require additional detention space, company executives said. KBR, which announced the contract last month, had a similar contract with immigration agencies from 2000 to last year.

The contract with the Corps of Engineers runs one year, with four optional one-year extensions. Officials of the corps said that they had solicited bids and that KBR was the lone responder.

A spokeswoman for Immigration and Customs Enforcement, Jamie Zuieback, said KBR would build the centers only in an emergency like the one when thousands of Cubans floated on rafts to the United States. She emphasized that the centers might never be built if such an emergency did not arise.

"It's the type of contract that could be used in some kind of mass migration," Ms. Zuieback said.

A spokesman for the corps, Clayton Church, said that the centers could be at unused military sites or temporary structures and that each one would hold up to 5,000 people......

Quote:

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationwo...la-home-nation

http://news.google.com/news/url?sa=t...cid=1112224284

National News

Guantanamo needs courthouse, Pentagon says
By Carol J. Williams, Times Staff Writer
December 27, 2006

GUANTANAMO BAY, CUBA — Although the Pentagon estimates that no more than 80 of the 400 or so terrorism detainees here will ever be tried, it is moving forward with plans for a $125-million legal complex.

Air Force Col. Morris Davis, chief prosecutor of the suspected Al Qaeda and Taliban supporters, says he expects to file charges against 10 to 20 prisoners soon after new trial rules are presented to Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates next month.

The Supreme Court in June found the Bush administration's military tribunal system unconstitutional, and Congress passed the Military Commission Act in September to replace it. But less than 20% of the prisoners held here are expected to face charges under the new commissions. "At the end of the day, I think the total will be about 75, give or take a few," Davis says.

Much of the legal work is done in Washington or in other U.S.-based offices of the military's judicial network — not at Guantanamo Bay.

Still, Davis says, there is just one courtroom here, in a converted air terminal that also houses legal staff and a high-security lockup. The new compound would have three courtrooms, restaurants, parking and accommodations for at least 800 people.

"It's going to take longer to do these trials one at a time in one courtroom," Davis said. A more rigorous pace could be undertaken if the complex is ready by July, as the Pentagon envisions.

Cully Stimson, deputy assistant secretary of Defense for detainee affairs, insists the legal facility is vital to bringing terrorism suspects to justice. Even with back-to-back trials, he said, it would take over a decade to prosecute an expected 60 to 80 detainees using one courtroom.

"We're fiscal conservatives by definition. We're not building the Taj Mahal here, Stimson said.

Doubts about the future of Guantanamo and the logic of investing in an operation many U.S. allies want to see shut down may doom the building project.

Calling the complex "a massive boondoggle," the American Civil Liberties Union has urged the incoming Democratic-controlled Congress to deny funding.

"No one thinks more than a few dozen detainees will ever be tried there," said Chris Anders, the ACLU legislative counsel. "I just don't see the next Congress authorizing any significant construction for additional courtrooms."

There is nothing in either the Military Commissions Act or in the rules governing courts-martial that requires war-crimes trials to be conducted in a courtroom — or even at this remote naval base, Anders said.

The Pentagon earlier this month backed down from a plan to fast-track the legal compound without approval from Congress; it is expected to be part of a supplemental funding request in February or March.

"We want these procedures to be full and fair, and do not want the lack of facilities to be a reason to delay the process," Pentagon spokesman Navy Cmdr. Jeffrey D. Gordon said.

Davis says he expects to have cases ready to try by March. But Navy Cmdr. Pat McCarthy, the staff judge advocate, said no one is certain how long the rule-writing and legal challenges to the Military Commissions Act could take.

The dispute over whether and how much to invest in facilities for holding and trying terrorism suspects has been fueled by demands from European allies and human-rights activists for release or trial of the men here — most of whom will mark five years in detention in 2007.

"I think it is excessive," University of Richmond law professor Carl Tobias said of the legal-complex proposal. "They only scheduled 10 [trials] to date and with so much legal uncertainty, I think this is going to get a thorough review" by a skeptical Congress.....

Quote:

http://select.nytimes.com/gst/abstra...AB0994DE404482
American Recalls Torment As a U.S. Detainee in Iraq

*Please Note: Archive articles do not include photos, charts or graphics. More information.
December 18, 2006, Monday
By MICHAEL MOSS (NYT); Foreign Desk
Late Edition - Final, Section A, Page 1, Column 5, 2558 words

DISPLAYING ABSTRACT - Article in series Law and Disorder, examining legal system and law enforcement in Iraq, recounts ordeal of American contractor detained in error for 97 days at United States military's maximum-security detention site in Baghdad; finds haphazard system of detention and prosecution that has evolved, where detainees are often held for long periods without charges or legal representation, as authorities struggle to sort through endless stream of detainees to identify those who pose real threats; Donald Vance, Navy veteran who went to Iraq as security contractor, wound up as whistle-blower who passed information to FBI about suspicious activities at Iraqi security firm where he worked; American soldiers who raided company at his urging detained him and another American, unaware that he was informer; he describes being shackled, blindfolded, interrogated, rousted at random times, made to stand in his cell, forbidden to cover his face to block light, noise and cold; he is among thousands of people held and released by American military in Iraq; his account provides one of few detailed views of Pentagon's detention operations since abuse scandals at Abu Ghraib; he says he will sue former Defense Sec Donald H Rumsfeld on grounds that his constitutional rights were violated; Pentagon spokeswoman claims he was 'treated fair and humanely'......

dksuddeth · 12-29-2006, 05:53 AM

host, it's great to see you coming around and recognizing the tyranny and oppression that is utilized by the 'government', but have you thought about HOW effective a violent revolution will be without civilian access to standard military weaponry is going to be? has any of this changed your position on the gun control laws in this country? It is all well and good to be up in arms about violations of civil rights, but only if you can be up in arms about all of them, not just a select few.

Lizra · 12-29-2006, 06:25 AM

I don't think violence is the answer...hell no!

It's all about the money.....we stop giving it to them....make them give it to us!

shakran · 12-29-2006, 06:33 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by dksuddeth

host, it's great to see you coming around and recognizing the tyranny and oppression that is utilized by the 'government', but have you thought about HOW effective a violent revolution will be without civilian access to standard military weaponry is going to be? has any of this changed your position on the gun control laws in this country? It is all well and good to be up in arms about violations of civil rights, but only if you can be up in arms about all of them, not just a select few.

Ya know what? We know how you feel about this. I don't see any need to threadjack so many topics to try and bring them around to yet another fight about gun control. But here you make a pretty good point for me. There ISN'T a call to revolution even though there has been ample reason for it over the past 6 years. What does this tell us? Despite the fact that these people theoretically have the unabridged "right" to carry guns (you're still wrong about that btw) they're not using the guns for the reason that right was supposedly granted by the 2nd. Instead the guns are being used to rob convenience stores and kill people.

What can we learn from this? Simple: The people as a whole cannot be trusted to have guns unless they are in a well regulated organization. Not a gang, but an actual well-regulated body who's purpose is to keep the government in line. You are clearly on the other side of this fence. You seem to support the senseless murder of thousands as a necessary consequence of maintaining this disorganized general-public-"control" over the government - A control that we have proven to you dozens of times does not exist and cannot exist because the government will always have more, better, and more powerful weapons than the people can possibly acquire.

You might be able to find a receptive audience among the idiots over at bladeforums.com, but then those guys seem to be firmly convinced that one guy with a desert eagle can take on the world. We here at TFP tend not to have such Rambo complexes.

But since anyone who supplies a voice of reason or even dares to question the 2nd is banned from that site, I think you'll find a much friendlier crowd to your way of thinking. A way of thinking that is, quite frankly, wrongheaded and delusional. The people cannot now and never will be able to overthrow this government until they follow the 2nd amendment to the letter - form a well-regulated militia that has the financial resources to buy some decent weaponry, because you and and other protectors-of-our-rights aren't going to do crap with your popguns.

And before you bring up Koresh, please consider that when I say "well-regulated" I don't mean "quasi-religious nut who thinks he's the 2nd coming of Jesus and rapes little girls," and neither did the framers of the constitution.

Now can we please get back to what we were discussing before you jacked the thread?

roachboy · 12-29-2006, 09:17 AM

it seems to me that the information host is posting is an index of the scale and effects of conservative class warfare. it provides a good indication of what has been happening behind the screen of conservative market-libertarian ideology, behind the one-dimensional militarism, behind the jingoism, behind the demonization of the state and dismantling of regulations.
it is an index of the degree to which the right's response to globalizing capitalism is to give up trying to render the american system coherent.

"take what you can now, boys, the shit is going to hit the fan.
we dont know what to do, so taking short-term profits seem a good idea.
and dont worry about the social consequences: there is a nice extensive "security" apparatus set up to crush any and all coherent response."

so it appears that we are the enemy: those of us not participant in the feeding frenzy of the past 20 years, those of us not part of the american economic aristocracy. and who knows, maybe the right really does think at some level, collectively, that there will be a deus-ex-machina of armageddeon time to absolve them of responsibilty for the consequences of what they have been doing.

the american system is obviously very vulnerable at this point.

but that vulnerablity--and internal incoherence--does NOT automatically translate into anything like a call for revolution. we are already seeing, and have been seeing, the "management" of class warfare by state repression: anything like a direct violent confrontation with the state now would be a simple, ugly bloodbath---which would no doubt be accompanied by systematic approval across the whole of the existing media apparatus, if such a thing were to remain in place. there is nothing to prevent the orchestration of such consent, just as there is nothing to prevent other forms of suicide.

where the existing order is vulnerable is ideology.
there must be a sense that another way of doing things is possible generated--and consent for the existing order will perhaps begin to evaporate as a sense that something else is possible takes hold.
but there IS NO SUCH SENSE at the moment because folk who are politically inclined to develop such a view have not been doing so.
they are themselves caught in the same problem: the collapse of the older left tradition has created serious problems for the articulation of alternate possibilities.
what ought to happen is that folk who think that other ways of organizing are possible should stop wasting their time on messageboards and begin the long, patient work of constructing counterhegemonies.

in the french revolution, the trigger for chaos was the implosion of the state. the phases of the revolution itself can be seen as collective efforts to work out and implement alternative arrangements in the context of intense real-time pressure.
the end result was military dictatorship.

in the russian revolution, a parallel type of dynamic unfolded, and the end result was another form of dictatorship, which was substantially worse.

without some kind of sustained effort to generate political positions that outline how another type of arrangement is possible, what it might look like, what kind of collective self-organization is entailed and so on, the implosion of the existing american order--which i sometimes think the american right is preparing for---will result in nothing good.

The_Dunedan · 12-29-2006, 10:44 AM

I wonder why everyone assumes that it's market libertarianism that's the cause of all this, when libertarian Capitalism expressly disallows things like corporations, protectionism, union-busting, and strike-breaking. Either such things are viewed as Market Distortions, which are impermissible, or Initiation of Force, which is likewise impermissible.

It's not Capitalism, that much is obvious. So the question is, if it's not Capitalism, what is it?

roachboy · 12-29-2006, 11:22 AM

the dunedan: what you post sounds like hayek or some such ideology about capitalism. there is nothing descriptive about it. the question here is not about what one wishes capitalism was: it is about the particular variant of capitalism that is unfolding in the states in real time, more or less. within this, it is about the politics of the concentration of wealth. the idea that you can separate the concentration of wealth from the economic system that enables it is not tenable. period.

you can wish capitalism was anything you like.
but that has nothing to do with the question at the core of this thread.

no-one denies that the problem of the distribution of wealth is of a piece with the capitalist mode of production---no-one who is looking at the empirical world, at any rate: that is at the actual history of capitalism as it has unfolded in historically.

not even american conservatives deny that there is a problem that follows from the distribution of wealth: they just think it is normal, natural etc. and that those who loose out in the game deserve to loose, are worth in every way less than are those who do not loose.
and they construct ideological fictions to justify this position---and insofar as these fictions acknowledge the problem of the unequal distrbution of wealth, they are preferable to those of a hayek or von mises.

host · 12-29-2006, 12:10 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by roachboy

the dunedan: what you post sounds like hayek or some such ideology about capitalism. there is nothing descriptive about it. the question here is not about what one wishes capitalism was: it is about the particular variant of capitalism that is unfolding in the states in real time, more or less. within this, it is about the politics of the concentration of wealth. the idea that you can separate the concentration of wealth from the economic system that enables it is not tenable. period.

you can wish capitalism was anything you like.
but that has nothing to do with the question at the core of this thread.

no-one denies that the problem of the distribution of wealth is of a piece with the capitalist mode of production---no-one who is looking at the empirical world, at any rate: that is at the actual history of capitalism as it has unfolded in historically.

not even american conservatives deny that there is a problem that follows from the distribution of wealth: they just think it is normal, natural etc. and that those who loose out in the game deserve to loose, are worth in every way less than are those who do not loose.
and they construct ideological fictions to justify this position---and insofar as these fictions acknowledge the problem of the unequal distrbution of wealth, they are preferable to those of a hayek or von mises.

Quote:

Originally Posted by roachboy

it seems to me that the information host is posting is an index of the scale and effects of conservative class warfare. it provides a good indication of what has been happening behind the screen of conservative market-libertarian ideology, behind the one-dimensional militarism, behind the jingoism, behind the demonization of the state and dismantling of regulations.
it is an index of the degree to which the right's response to globalizing capitalism is to give up trying to render the american system coherent.

"take what you can now, boys, the shit is going to hit the fan.
we dont know what to do, so taking short-term profits seem a good idea.
and dont worry about the social consequences: there is a nice extensive "security" apparatus set up to crush any and all coherent response.".....

Yes....roachboy, you aptly described what I am trying to do here. Before you edited your most recent post, it contained a description of capitalism as one group that controls capital and the means of production, enjoying the ability to buy the service of the larger group which sells the only thing that it has to sell....the labor of each of it's individuals to the highest bidder, or words to that effect.

It is no "small thing" that recent tax "reform" included reduction of the percentage of taxation on capital gains to a mere flat fifteen percent, while providing no such break to those who sell their labor.

My great grandmother was born here....it is still one of the poorest places in the UK. The nearest village was at least 5 miles from the coal pits. The population swelled in the late 19th century to about 800. All of the housing units, about 200,were built by the employers. It is reliable to assume that the living conditions that my great grandmother was born into were as described....

Quote:

http://www.ayrshirehistory.org.uk/Bi...monos/amr3.htm
Rankinston
Glengarnock Iron and Steel Co., Ltd. Accommodation.

There are 148 houses in the village of Rankinston, arranged in rows of twenty at the top end. It is in the parish of Coylton, and belongs to the Glengarnock Iron and Steel Co., Ltd., with the exception of about one and a half rows, which are under the Coylton Coal Co. They are all double apartment houses, i.e.., room and kitchen, with a weekly rent or 2s 5d.
Closets

There is one earth closet, with a door, for every five houses.

Wash and coalhouses.

There are coalhouses, but there are no washing-houses.

Coylton Coal Co.

The Coylton Coal Co. have about two blocks, exactly the same as the others with same closet accommodation and coalhouses, one slight difference being that there is one washing house. The rent here is 2s 6d a week.
Population.

The population, roughly, is 700.
Water

There is a fairly plentiful supply of gravitation water.
Material and age.

The houses are built of stone, and probably between 40 and 50 years old.
<center><img src="http://www.ayrshirehistory.org.uk/postings1/images/rankinston_dlaw.jpg" WIDTH=466 HEIGHT=290></center>

....great grandma emmigrated to the US in 1920....here immigration record at Ellis Island lists Rankinston as her birthplace.

My father, the oldest son of her only daughter, was the first in his family to go to college.
He earned a law degree. His father's family emmigrated in the mid 1800's to Northumberland, UK, from Ireland. The Irish who were too poor to afford passage to America ended up seeking work in the UK coal mines, but were mostly deemed unworthy to do that work, and instead, were employed in the chemical plants fed by the coal mines. The UK 1881 census shows, for my father's grandfather's brothers, such employment was the case.

In the early 1920's, they too, emmigrated to the US. The 1930 census shows that my father's grandfather, and Irishman born in Northumberland because of the never ending search of workers for opportunity to sell their labor, was a "janitor", at age 58, in a New England grocery store.

On my mother's side, here maternal grandmother could trace here ancestry to an emmigrant to the US from England, in 1635. She became pregnant with my grandfathe, in 1884, at age 14, by an Irish immigrant, ten years her senior. She married just two weeks before the birth of my grandfather in early 1885.

My point is, that for all of their moves in search or work, and in spite of my father's education, and my own, and my work experience since, I see no commonality with either side of my family, and the circumstances of the "rich". There is no family advantage on my mother's side, to ancestry in America, nearly 300 years before the great waves of immigration.

Almost all of us are eternally beholden to a system controlled by the elite, where are politcal power is bought from under us, where we are kept unorganized to prevent any advantage in our constant quest to sell our labor to those who control the capital.

I am puzzled that so few of us recognize our lot, or that we don't believe in organizing into strong unions or trade guilds, or why we are eager to reduce the tax burden of the rich, in our own time. Was my great grandmother's father, better off that an unemployed citizen, today, in France or Germany, because he "enjoyed" employment in the 1880 Ayrshire coal pits that affored him the miserable quality of life pictured above?

Isn't it obvious that the primary purpose of the Department of Homeland Security is to control us? Indeed, president Bush insisted that DHS be exempt from civil service and union regulations that benefitted the workers of that agency, as a condition of it's formation.

desal75 · 12-29-2006, 02:35 PM

If everyone is so in favor of revolution I propose that you, yourself fire the first shot. If such things as stated above have driven you to that level of anger than act upon it.

Or would you rather not place at risk the comfortable place you occupy with such actions.

I do agree that things could be greatly improved but are they terrible enough that a violent uprising (and killing) is necessary?

shakran · 12-29-2006, 03:27 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by desal75

If everyone is so in favor of revolution I propose that you, yourself fire the first shot. If such things as stated above have driven you to that level of anger than act upon it.

Or would you rather not place at risk the comfortable place you occupy with such actions.

I do agree that things could be greatly improved but are they terrible enough that a violent uprising (and killing) is necessary?

We have invaded and overthrown a government that had done nothing to us and did not have the capabilities of doing anything to us. Then we mismanaged that war so terribly that the end of it isn't even in sight, and we have most likely started a civil war that may well degenerate into a regional war, and perhaps grow even larger than that since all the other countries will get interested once their oil supply is in question.

We have then, through no-bid contracts, wasted BILLIONS of taxpayer dollars by letting Haliburton and a few others corrupt their way to riches, all acquired on the backs of the poor and middle class tax payers.

We have allowed a man to be appointed by a council of judicial ministers rather than to be elected by the public, then when he ran for election in 2004 we have allowed suspect voting machines (I promise to deliver Ohio for President Bush, said the CEO of Diebold) to call in to question even that election. In short, our leader, is not our rightful leader.

If this isn't bad enough to make you think we need to stop the government, NOW, then I don't have any idea what it would take to get you angry enough.

Why don't we start shooting? Because there aren't enough of us, and it wouldn't do any good. Even if 25% of the country rose up to fight the government, our pistols, rifles, and shotguns cannot hope to defeat the military. And, once they'd killed or arrested all of us, there would be that much less of a check on the runaway power of the neoconservative movement. In short, at this point, until more people get angry, a revolution would be a very dumb idea.

desal75 · 12-29-2006, 05:44 PM

Maybe the crushing of that 25% would be enough to anger the rest of the population to rise up.

If you feel so strongly, wouldn't your martyrdom be worth the outcome?

Revolutions are started by people willing to give it all up for their cause.

dksuddeth · 12-29-2006, 07:00 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by shakran

We have invaded and overthrown a government that had done nothing to us and did not have the capabilities of doing anything to us. Then we mismanaged that war so terribly that the end of it isn't even in sight, and we have most likely started a civil war that may well degenerate into a regional war, and perhaps grow even larger than that since all the other countries will get interested once their oil supply is in question.

We have then, through no-bid contracts, wasted BILLIONS of taxpayer dollars by letting Haliburton and a few others corrupt their way to riches, all acquired on the backs of the poor and middle class tax payers.

We have allowed a man to be appointed by a council of judicial ministers rather than to be elected by the public, then when he ran for election in 2004 we have allowed suspect voting machines (I promise to deliver Ohio for President Bush, said the CEO of Diebold) to call in to question even that election. In short, our leader, is not our rightful leader.

If this isn't bad enough to make you think we need to stop the government, NOW, then I don't have any idea what it would take to get you angry enough.

As a journalist, you should know that people will ONLY get riled up enough when they are PERSONALLY and PHYSICALLY affected by government oppression. A botched war, misspent billions, and troops dying for little to nothing are never going to be enough to start any kind of focused action against the government.

Quote:

Originally Posted by shakran

Why don't we start shooting? Because there aren't enough of us, and it wouldn't do any good. Even if 25% of the country rose up to fight the government, our pistols, rifles, and shotguns cannot hope to defeat the military. And, once they'd killed or arrested all of us, there would be that much less of a check on the runaway power of the neoconservative movement. In short, at this point, until more people get angry, a revolution would be a very dumb idea.

What is the population of this country? 300 million...approximately? 25% is 75 million people. 75 million vs. 5 million and you think that the government would still defeat us? enough threadjack though, in regards to this particular subject and taxation.....rebellion has been done for excess taxation in the past...if it continues, it will eventually happen again.

EaseUp · 12-29-2006, 08:07 PM

The complacency which defies understanding is that of anyone who would accept being taxed at a 90% rate. Furthermore, anyone who thinks another SHOULD be taxed at a 90% rate has a degree of confidence in the government usage of those funds that is inaapropriate, at least in light of historical spending by our elected leaders. Or possibly an enormous amount of envy.

A reduction from ninety percent is bad policy? Here is an example yet to be discredited by any logical argument.

Quote:

"Suppose that every day 10 men go to a restaurant for dinner. The bill for all ten comes to $100. If it was paid the way we pay our taxes, the first four men would pay nothing; the fifth would pay $1; the sixth would pay $3; the seventh $7; the eighth $12; the ninth $18. The tenth man (the richest) would pay $59."

The 10 men ate dinner in the restaurant every day and seemed quite happy with the arrangement until the owner threw them a curve. "Since you are all such good customers," he said, "I'm going to reduce the cost of your daily meal by $20." Now dinner for the 10 only costs $80. The first four are unaffected. They still eat for free. Can you figure out how to divvy up the $20 savings among the remaining six so that everyone gets his fair share? The men realize that $20 divided by 6 is $3.33, but if they subtract that from everybody's share, then the fifth man and the sixth man would end up being paid to eat their meal.

The restaurant owner suggested that it would be fair to reduce each man's bill by roughly the same percentage, being sure to give each a break, and he proceeded to work out the amounts each should pay. And so now the fifth man paid nothing, the sixth pitched in $2, the seventh paid $5, the eighth paid $9, the ninth paid $12, leaving the tenth man with a bill of $52 instead of $59.

Outside the restaurant, the men began to compare their savings. "I only got a dollar out of the $20," complained the sixth man, pointing to the tenth, "and he got $7!"

"Yeah, that's right," exclaimed the fifth man. "I only saved a dollar, too. It's unfair that he got seven times more than me!"

"That's true," shouted the seventh man. "Why should he get $7 back when I got only $2? The wealthy get all the breaks!"

"Wait a minute," yelled the first four men in unison. "We didn't get anything at all. The system exploits the poor."

Then, the nine men surrounded the tenth man (the richest one, paying the most) and beat him up. The next night the richest man didn't show up for dinner, so now the nine men sat down and ate without him. But when it came time to pay the bill, they discovered something important. They were $52 short!

"And that, boys, girls and college instructors, is how America's tax system works. The people who pay the highest taxes get the most benefit from a tax reduction. Tax them too much, attack them for being wealthy, and they just may not show up at the table any more. There are lots of good restaurants in Switzerland and the Caribbean."

Is someone concerned that their free lunch is, in fact, exploitation?

roachboy · 12-29-2006, 09:31 PM

so wait:

in the beginning, this thread was about among other things the effects of conservative tax reductions, which are of a piece with the largest transfer of wealth toward the wealthy in history. it was about the effects of neoliberalism as they have played out in the states. it was about wondering why people accept this state of affairs.

dk never seemed to exactly understand what was being discussed...then late in the thread, things began to take a turn for the strange, despite shakran's best efforts to head it off at the pass: now the topic is being inverted wholesale.

if you post rightwing libertarian/militia group tax revolt fantasies and/or the usual extremeright arguments about the magical properties of guns in providing orientation for political action....

and you do not recognize that it has nothing to do with the topic of this thread....

then it is clear you haven't read the thread. or maybe you read it and didnt understand it. either way, start another one that has something to do with your premises and maybe---maybe----folk will come to play there too.

it's not hard: arguments that are logically connected to a thread are ok there. arguments that aren't logically connected to a thread belong in a different thread.

powerclown · 12-29-2006, 10:33 PM

There is no earthly substitute for brains and determination.
No government intervention can reallocate them, either.
One’s life begins when it begins.
From then on it’s all about a person’s upbringing and environs and how he/she responds to them.
The best we can do as a society is strive to give every person a chance to succeed. I think the USA does that pretty well.
But again, there is no earthly substitute for brains and determination.
It is also not the government’s responsibility to provide everything for everyone (immigrants included) and ensure what many define as “fairness”.

I laugh when I hear/read how the upper classes need to do more for the lower ones.
Sorry, it simply doesn’t work that way.
Life isn’t a Panglossian Utopia.
Go read our world history. Past is indeed prologue.
There is no substitute for brains and determination. None.

Income inequality is a characteristic, not a problem.
And it isn’t a characteristic of something bad.
The key is to have a society structured so that everyone can make the most of what they’ve been given.
We should recognize that life is a meritocracy, and we haven’t all been given the same abilities - intelligence, innovativeness, energy, and leadership skills are as unevenly divided as physical attributes like height and hair color (and have a lot more to do with earning potential).

I think someone’s reaction to income inequality says a lot about where they fall on the political spectrum.

True Story: A friend of mine works for a software company in the human resources department. He says his company has a hard time finding competent Americans who want to make nearly $90K/year in a semi-rural area developing software. They don’t require a college degree, but they do expect candidates to be able to code. He remarked that there has never before been a profession so accessible to almost anyone with smarts and determination. With a used computer for $100 and a $15/month DSL connection, one can learn enough to catapult oneself into the upper middle class in a few years. Sure, the first job one might take might only pay $10/hour, but it’s not too hard to move up quickly when you’re competent.

--

The gini coefficient (Income Inequality, worldwide) is measured on a scale of 0 (complete equality) to 1 (complete inequality—one individual receiving all income), ie. lower numbers mean more equality:

host · 12-30-2006, 02:38 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by powerclown

There is no earthly substitute for brains and determination.
No government intervention can reallocate them, either......

I laugh when I hear/read how the upper classes need to do more for the lower ones.
Sorry, it simply doesn’t work that way.
Life isn’t a Panglossian Utopia.
Go read our world history. Past is indeed prologue.
There is no substitute for brains and determination. None.......

powerclown, welcome back !

Whether we realize it, or not, we are all involved in the struggle of our lives, and it has been ongoing since at least the beginning of the industrial revolution. Since that time, and probably earlier, most of us and our ancestors have been involved in a life or death competition with those who control the bulk of the wealth, and hence, the political power.

These elite are very serious about this competition, but the question is, are we?

Here's where "we" were....here's what they are doing to take and keep a larger portion of the "pie". The main ingredients of the "pie" are the assets of the country, and the the amount of political influence each side can summon to legislate/regulate or achieve via executive decree, what it perceives to be in it's own best interests.

In 2005, the Gini coefficient in US households<a href="http://www.census.gov/hhes/income/histinc/f04.html">reached .44</a>, from a low of .349 when Lyndon Johnson left office in 1969.

"We" are losing this struggle, and the "losses" can be measured. I don't think that it matters whether a 90 percent "top tax rate" was "fair", or whether 50 percent inheritance taxes levied against millionaire dollar plus estates, was "fair".

Here is what the richest are doing to compete....to change the status quo that is already moving in their direction at a disturbingly impressive rate:

Quote:

http://www.citizen.org/pressroom/release.cfm?ID=2182
April 25, 2006

Public Citizen and United for a Fair Economy Expose Stealth Campaign of Super-Wealthy to Repeal Federal Estate Tax

Report Identifies 18 Families Behind Multimillion-Dollar Deceptive Lobbying Campaign

WASHINGTON, D.C. – The multimillion-dollar lobbying effort to repeal the federal estate tax has been aggressively led by 18 super-wealthy families, according to a report released today by Public Citizen and United for a Fair Economy at a press conference in Washington, D.C. The report details for the first time the vast money, influence and deceptive marketing techniques behind the rhetoric in the campaign to repeal the tax.

It reveals how 18 families worth a total of $185.5 billion have financed and coordinated a 10-year effort to repeal the estate tax, a move that would collectively net them a windfall of $71.6 billion.

The report profiles the families and their businesses, which include the families behind Wal-Mart, Gallo wine, Campbell’s soup, and Mars Inc., maker of M&Ms. Collectively, the list includes the first- and third-largest privately held companies in the United States, the richest family in Alabama and the world’s largest retailer.

These families have sought to keep their activities anonymous by using associations to represent them and by forming a massive coalition of business and trade associations dedicated to pushing for estate tax repeal. The report details the groups they have hidden behind – the trade associations they have used, the lobbyists they have hired, and the anti-estate tax political action committees, 527s and organizations to which they have donated heavily.

In a massive public relations campaign, the families have also misled the country by giving the mistaken impression that the estate tax affects most Americans. In particular, they have used small businesses and family farms as poster children for repeal, saying that the estate tax destroys both of these groups. But just more than one-fourth of one percent of all estates will owe any estate taxes in 2006. And the American Farm Bureau, a member of the anti-estate tax coalition, was unable when asked by The New York Times to cite a single example of a family being forced to sell its farm because of estate tax liability......

Until recently, capital gains taxes were at least as large, as a percentage, as income taxes levied on earned income. Each of these changes, shifts some of the tax burden away from the richest few, and onto the rest of us. The changes are symptomatic of increasing political influence of the rich, and diminishing political influence of the rest of us.

The result is a significant shift in who possesses what percentage of the "pie", and as the OP article stated, the quality (i.e. liquidity, appreciation, maintenance costs, risks.....) of the assets controlled by each of the two competing groups.

This discussion is not about entitlement expectations from government. It is about the lack of reaction to the very real erosion of the bulk of the US population's wealth and it's political influence on the agenda of it's federal government. The government should be acting in the best interests of the most people, while protecting the rights and property of the least of us.

It is not doing that.....it hasn't since sometime during Nixon's administration. The result is that a Moroccan, for example, who achieves citizenship in France can rest assured that his savings and property will not be wiped out by an unplanned illness (are there planned illnesses ?), if he becomes unemployed or is unable to work, he is eligible for government benefits, and the government will provide medical treatment to deal with his illness.

In contrast, in the US, thanks to the campaigns in 1993 by insurance and medical industry opponents of Clinton admin. health care reform, a relatively small PR investment <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harry_and_Louise">(Harry & Louise ads)</a> resulted in the destruction of the agenda to provide a safety net of government managed medical care that our Moroccan in Paris example can rely on.

The bankruptcy "reform" bill was passed last year and signed into law by president Bush. Passage of that legislation was long a goal of the banking and credit card company lobbies. When it was passed by the house and senate towards the end of the Clinton administration, the president refused to sign it. and the house and senate did not have the votes to override his veto.

The two senators and all of the republican house delegation from Georgia voted for the "reform" bill, and voted against all amendments proposed by democrats that would have exempted households filing for bankruptcy that could prove illness as the cause of insolvency. Even though the effect of the new "reform" law was that everyone contemplating filing for chapter 11 bankruptcy, filed in record numbers before the new "reform" law went into effect last October 17, here was today's headline:

Quote:

http://news.google.com/news/url?sa=t...29a.html&cid=0
Georgia leads nation in bankruptcy filings
Creditor-friendly laws, not economic conditions, drive debtors to court --- especially with a home foreclosure on the horizon

By Carrie Teegardin
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Published on: 12/29/06

Georgia is positioned to earn an unfortunate new distinction: bankruptcy capital of the nation.

During the first three quarters of 2006, more bankruptcy petitions were filed in Georgia than in any other state, according to an Atlanta Journal-Constitution review of bankruptcy statistics.

The state's rise to the top of the statistical heap follows the most sweeping changes to federal bankruptcy laws in a generation, which took effect in October 2005. A rush of filings ahead of the new requirements sent bankruptcies soaring to record levels last fall; that rush was followed by a sudden and steep drop in bankruptcies under the new law.

During this erratic period for bankruptcy filings, Georgia jumped to the top not because of any startling new trend, but because filings didn't decline as much here as in other large states.

For example, in California, which usually tops the charts, filings were 75 percent lower in the first three quarters of 2006 than in the same period of 2005. In Georgia, filings dropped by 51 percent during that period.

Even so, Georgia stands out not only for its raw numbers of bankruptcies, but also for the number of filings relative to the state's population. Only Tennessee had more filings per 1,000 residents than Georgia, according to the AJC analysis.......

Has the bankruptcy "reform" lowered the rate of interest or the terms of any of your credit card or consumer loans? The rates levied were high enough before the "reform", to cushion the small level of default protected by former chapter 11 bankruptcy law. The "reform" was simply a windfall profit, bought by a small, in proportion to the gain, lobbying effort by large money center banks who own politicians like Sen. Joseph Biden D-MBNA, who voted for the "reform", despite it's impact on his won Delaware constituents and despite the refusal of republicans to be influenced by a Harvard study which found that 50 percent of household bankruptcy filings were caused by illness, ironically, mostly in households that enjoyed private medical insurance benefits.

If you've read Russ Winter's article linked in the OP, consider one of his conclusions because it supports my point that in this "struggle" the rich hold and allegiance only to themselves and their own profits, not to a country:

Quote:

http://wallstreetexaminer.com/blogs/...p=228#more-228
....My conclusions:

* Short of a depression with wide scale consumer debt defaults, or large scale civil disorder, the financial condition of the wealthiest 1% gives the impression of being untouchable. The weak link in this group’s armor is that they have moved much of the means of production (GaveKal’s platform companies) to potentially unstable or even unfriendly foreign countries such as China. In the process they have also exposed the US economy (and themselves) to supply chain disruption, in addition to over dependence on the “kindness of strangers” for more large scale external borrowing at cheap, plentiful rates.

My genes are "weary" from the moves that the last five generations have been forced to make to chase opportunities to sell their labor to the highest holder of capital, and as Russ Winter commented, they've moved many of the former US job opportunities to China, to further enhance their profits.

I am not a violent person, but I am an observant one. I think that is counterproductive to renounce it as an option in this competition. At least four of my ancestors fought under Washington in the continental army in the American revolution....Begin, Rabin, and Shamir certainly never renounced violence to achieve the founding of their state of Israel

I once had a quote from Ghandi as my "sig" here at TFP. Ghandi preached non-violence, and he was killed by an assassin. Nelson Mandela and his ANC would probably never have achieved liberation from white supremacy in South Africa if they had renounced violence.

Martin Luther King Jr. preached non-violence and like Ghandi, he too was assassinated. Here's a sample of what is now happening to his "dream":

Quote:

http://www.palmbeachpost.com/busines...bush_1224.html
Executive power: Jeb Bush's assertive style has earned him a love-hate place in Floridians' hearts

By Frank Cerabino

Palm Beach Post Staff Writer

Sunday, December 24, 2006

........Six years ago, [Jeb] Bush became the focus of sit-ins and protests by black leaders, who were blindsided by his decision to end affirmative action as a tool for admission in the state university system.

Bush replaced the affirmative action program with one that guaranteed state university admission to Florida high school seniors graduating in the top 20 percent of their classes.

Despite his predictions of greater inclusiveness, the result has been that black freshmen enrollment has fallen from 17.6 percent to 14.1 percent in Florida's state universities under the One Florida Initiative.

Bush has blamed the decline on other factors, while being lauded by social conservatives for the move. .........

I'm all for organizing and participating in non-violent protests and in civil disobedience, but my experience is that you don't get taken seriously by the opposition when you do only that, and I predict that it will be the heavy handed responses of the "authority" controlled by the rich who will react first with violence against those engaged in non-violent protests.

The competition in this class warfare to stop the ever rising Gini number and the incessant reduction of our portion of the pie....a war to get our government out of their hands and back into ours, must begin with discussions like....this one. The reaction, so far, seems to indicate that many are not inclined to do that. I ask what the harm is in an exercise like this one. And.....if we refuse to discuss it now.....when will it be appropriate to do so. The Gini number in Japan is about .25, in Canada and in Europe, it is much lower than in the US. Mexico is Gini .54 and violence is the predicted reaction when it reaches .60.

Why would anyone defend the politics and the economic system that the US currently operates in, when it appears to be taking our living and our social conditions in a direction that is closer to the circumstances experienced in Mexico, than in Japan, Italy, or in Canada?

Consider the steps that our opposition has already taken, how much they have achieved in tax reduction, in bankruptcy protection laws, and in eroding our rights to privacy, due process, and 4th amendment protection. They created DHS, and we are on the verge of needing permission from that agency to leave the country, unless we walk or swim away.

They've got control of the pentagon, and they've even created their own mercenary armies:

Quote:

http://www.thenation.com/docprint.mh...0605&s=scahill
In the Black(water)

by JEREMY SCAHILL

[from the June 5, 2006 issue]

........It's hard to imagine that the cronyism that has marked the Bush Administration is not at play in Blackwater's success. Blackwater founder Erik Prince shares Bush's fundamentalist Christian views. He comes from a powerful Michigan Republican family and social circle, and his father, Edgar, helped Gary Bauer start the Family Research Council. According to a report prepared for The Nation by the Center for Responsive Politics, in all of Erik Prince's political funding generosity since 1989, he has never given a penny to a Democrat running for national office. Company president Jackson has also given money to Republican candidates. For his part, Joseph Schmitz--the former Pentagon Inspector General turned general counsel to Blackwater's parent, The Prince Group--lists on his résumé membership in the Sovereign Military Order of Malta, a Christian militia formed before the First Crusade. Like Prince, he comes from a right-wing family; his father, former Congressman John Schmitz, was an ultraconservative John Birch Society director who later ran for President. Joseph Schmitz was once in charge of investigating private contractors like Blackwater, but he resigned amid allegations of stonewalling investigations conducted by his department. He now represents one of the most successful of those contractors.

Schakowsky charges that the Administration has written Blackwater "blank checks," saying that the internal DHS review of the company "leaves us with more questions than answers." She points out that the report fails to address the major issues stemming from deploying private forces on US streets. In her testimony this past September, Schakowsky said, "Ask any American if they want thugs from a private, for-profit company with no official law-enforcement training roaming the streets of their neighborhoods. The answer will be a resounding NO."

Blackwater's ascent comes in the midst of a major rebranding campaign aimed at shaking its mercenary image. The company is at the forefront of the trade association of mercenary firms, the International Peace Operations Association, which lobbies for even greater privatization of military operations. Blackwater and its cause have clearly found serious backing in the Bush Administration. Hiring Blackwater, says Schakowsky, "may be legal, but it is not a good deal for taxpayers and Gulf region residents in particular." Blackwater's sweetheart deals, both domestic and international, are representative of how business has been done under Bush. They are a troubling indicator of a trend toward less accountability and transparency and greater privatization of critical government functions. It's time that more members of Congress ask tough questions about Blackwater and its rapid, profitable rise. .........

I recognize that it is a challenge and even a threat to be exposed to the ideas that the rich are not your friends, that their agenda runs counter to that of yours and your family's, and that you have more in common with the poor folks of New Orleans, stranded in the Superdome during the hurricane Katrina and subsequent levy failure disaster in September, 2005, than you do with George Bush or his friend Erik Prince and his private Blackwater "army" that Bush authorized, paid, and set loose in the flooded New Orleans streets.

That appears to be the case, though, and you should be able to mull it over, discuss it, accept that the developments are accelerating away from a direction that even preserves, let alone enhances, your civil rights, personal wealth, physical or economic security, political influence, or employment opportunity. IMO, this is a real description of what is happening, and I conclude that our competitors expect us to attempt to counter their agenda, that they are taking steps to make it easier to observe us and listen in on our communications, and to arrest us, hold us indefinitely, or to lock us down, en masse. They are not ruling out force as a tool to blunt our competition, and their focus on capital investment is not related to American endeavors.

But some of you say that we should either not discuss this, or if we do, renounce violence as a tool to compete with our rich opponents, or launch violent attacks against them right now.....in a "put up or shutup" fashion.....is that the jist of some of your posts?

As roachboy has posted, some of the reaction to this thread is predictable but incoherent. Why not, instead, if you disagree, show us where we have it wrong in our assessments of the direction, velocity, and probable outcome of the political and financial agenda of the rich?

desal75 · 12-30-2006, 05:46 AM

If we are currently locked in a life or death struggle, where are the deaths? I see life all around me. True, I do see high taxes. I live in New York State where we have it worse than most. But I do not see millions and millions of people starving to death in the streets.

Some of you are asking a population to revolt against the rich. A population which spends more time watching the antics of Paris Hilton than reading a news paper.

Most of us are happy, even though over taxed and over worked. People in this country have an inherent hope and optimism for many reasons. Some real, some imagined.

If wealth should be more redistributed than start the process. Some of you probably have money in the bank your not using. Share it.

host · 12-30-2006, 12:19 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by desal75

If we are currently locked in a life or death struggle, where are the deaths? I see life all around me. True, I do see high taxes. I live in New York State where we have it worse than most. But I do not see millions and millions of people starving to death in the streets.

Some of you are asking a population to revolt against the rich. A population which spends more time watching the antics of Paris Hilton than reading a news paper.

Most of us are happy, even though over taxed and over worked. People in this country have an inherent hope and optimism for many reasons. Some real, some imagined.

If wealth should be more redistributed than start the process. Some of you probably have money in the bank your not using. Share it.

Is your "happiness" enhanced by what your website link in your profile indicates.....offering a deadly, addictive product for sale, "tax free", to those unlucky enough to crave it? Isn't that addiction, for those folks, a "life or death" situation, if they continue to consume the product you offer at such a compelling price?

How do you think that you acquired the ability to profit from avoiding paying NY state taxes on tobacco that afford you an opportunity to undercut the price of the product that you sell on the internet, vs, the price that mom and pop convenience store owners all over NY state are required to charge?

Quote:

http://select.nytimes.com/gst/abstra...A00894DC404482
Indian Web Sales Of Taxless Tobacco Face New Pressure
Eduardo Porter. New York Times. (Late Edition (East Coast)). New York, N.Y.: Sep 26, 2004. pg. 1.1

Many people would love to put Larry Ballagh out of business. All antismoking groups, for instance. The National Association of Convenience Stores, too.

New York lawmakers would happily close him down. So would the attorneys general of most states.

The reason for all this animosity is that Mr. Ballagh, a hefty 65-year-old of half-Irish, half-Seneca American Indian stock, sells cigarettes nationwide over the Internet, free of state excise and sales taxes that can add as much $3 a pack to the cost of smoking.

The bustle in his offices on the Cattaraugus territory of the Seneca reservation here attests to the brisk growth of his business. There's the new extension to the warehouse, the high stacks of cigarette cartons, the huge piles of empty ''Priority Mail'' boxes waiting to be loaded and dispatched.

But as his venture has grown, so has the opposition to his trade. Fast-growing online sales of untaxed cigarettes -- available for less than $25 a carton over the Internet compared with about $65 in New York City -- are provoking a stampede of protests from a disparate collection of antitobacco groups, cash-strapped state governments and local retailers. These groups are hard at work in the courts, legislatures and in Washington to try to end the practice.

Earlier this year, the New York state legislature passed a law intended to force collection of excise taxes on tobacco and fuel sold by Native Americans to non-Indians. New York City, which estimates it loses hundreds of millions of dollars a year from untaxed cigarettes, is cobbling together a legal strategy that it could use against Indian tribes by characterizing the Internet sales as mail fraud. The revenue department of Washington State -- which has successfully sued nontribal online vendors -- is mulling lawsuits against Indian retailers.

The campaign has marshaled forces on Capitol Hill as well. Last December, the Senate passed a bill to stamp out untaxed cigarette sales over the Internet, and the organization representing state attorneys general is urging the House to do the same.

The trade group for convenience stores, meanwhile, has been lobbying intently for a different House bill that would take a harsher stance, explicitly allowing states to take Indian nations to court.

The widespread government hostility, however, has not dented the Ballagh family business. ''We are adding about 80 to 100 new customers a month,'' said Charles Ballagh, Larry Ballagh's son and partner. At that rate, their venture would double in size in about two years.

Larry Ballagh's business remains hard to crack because it operates behind tribal sovereignty. States are generally barred by treaties from taxing Indian tribes or enforcing other laws against their activities. Businesses operated by American Indians have long taken advantage of this protection to sell tax-free tobacco products in reservation shops to non-Indians.

But the Internet has allowed the Seneca entrepreneurs to take their business to a new level. That has intensified the debate over the legality of such commerce, which has taken off in recent years as many states have sharply increased taxes on cigarettes.

Today, Mr. Ballagh regularly advertises in ''Pennysaver'' shopping sheets in states with high excise taxes. From Web sites like Mr. Ballaghs's travelingsmoke.com, and others like Senecahawk.com and Senecatabacco.com, smokers can buy cartons of Marlboro and Camel for as little as $24.25, compared to about $58 in a Hoboken, N.J., convenience store and $49 at a supermarket in Seattle.

At least a decade worth of rulings, ranging up to the Supreme Court, have determined that while states cannot tax Indian commerce, they can collect taxes on purchases by non-Indians from Native American businesses. States have limited power to enforce these decisions, however. Some tribes in other parts of the country defused the issue by negotiating deals with state governments to collect tribal taxes and eliminate their retailers' competitive advantage.

By contrast, the 7,500 Seneca, most of them living on the Allegany and Cattaraugus reservations in western New York, have dug in their heels. ''Cigarettes have raised our standard of living,'' said Rickey Armstrong Sr., the president of the Seneca nation......

You mock and twist my premise here. The holders of capital have kept my family "on the move" for the last 5 generations, they've taken over the government, "of the people" that my revolutionary ancestors fought and sacrificed, to establish, and now they are honing in on the remnants of the bill of rights that we specifically reserved for ourselves, not the government that they've bought away from us.

You sell your tax free cigarettes because western NY state native Americans fought a long, sometimes violent fight for your right to do so.

....and for the masses in the US, it has historically been a "life or death" struggle that has won worker protections by government, that Bush's intentional destruction of the NLRB is intended to reverse:

Quote:

http://www.time.com/time/magazine/ar...5257-2,00.html
From the Magazine | National Affairs
Model T Tycoon

Posted Monday, Mar. 17, 1941

.......Until recently Ford has paid and publicized the highest wage, and the Ford method of keeping organizers out of the plants has been simple and direct: hit them first. Keeping organizers out has been the job of Harry Bennett's "service department," whose personnel is far-from-prissy.

Bennett got a cracked head in a fight outside the Rouge plant in 1932, in which four jobless marchers were killed. Brutally beaten by Ford agents were two other men who are now in the very front rank of U. A. W.—Richard Frankensteen and Walter Reuther (whose plan for making airplane parts in auto factories was projected last winter). Brutal beatings took place in Dallas, Tex. ........

Far from eliminating government, I am calling for competing against the rich who have taken it over, and getting it to work for the rest of us, as I see that it does in Canada, Italy, France, and in Germany.

Is it only coincidental that the owners of the corporations who contributed to Bush's campaigns and paid lobbyists to actually draft the legislation that was taken up in the congress in the last six years, gain from taking over this regulatory agency that enforced the rights of workers?:

Quote:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn...2004Aug14.html
Bush Forces a Shift In Regulatory Thrust
OSHA Made More Business-Friendly

By Amy Goldstein and Sarah Cohen
Washington Post Staff Writers
Sunday, August 15, 2004; Page A01

First of three articles

Tuberculosis had sneaked up again, reappearing with alarming frequency across the United States. The government began writing rules to protect 5 million people whose jobs put them in special danger. Hospitals and homeless shelters, prisons and drug treatment centers -- all would be required to test their employees for TB, hand out breathing masks and quarantine those with the disease. These steps, the Occupational Safety and Health Administration predicted, could prevent 25,000 infections a year and 135 deaths.

By the time President Bush moved into the White House, the tuberculosis rules, first envisioned in 1993, were nearly complete. But the new administration did nothing on the issue for the next three years.

Assistant Secretary of Labor John L. Henshaw said "writing another standard" is not the answer to occupational safety. (Gerald Martineau -- The Washington Post)

Then, on the last day of 2003, in an action so obscure it was not mentioned in any major newspaper in the country, the administration canceled the rules. Voluntary measures, federal officials said, were effective enough to make regulation unnecessary.

The demise of the decade-old plan of defense against tuberculosis reflects the way OSHA has altered its regulatory mission to embrace a more business-friendly posture. In the past 3 1/2 years, OSHA, the branch of the Labor Department in charge of workers' well-being, has eliminated nearly five times as many pending standards as it has completed. It has not started any major new health or safety rules, setting Bush apart from the previous three presidents, including Ronald Reagan .......

Quote:

http://www.politicalaffairs.net/arti...ersion=enabled

Bush vs. Working People

By Joel Wendland
Archives - Dates and Topics Online Edition Archive March – April 2006 Mar. 20 - Mar. 26 click here for related stories: Labor movement

3-20-06, 8:53 am

"The Bush administration continued to demonstrate its strong bias against workers' rights in 2005," states a report put out earlier this month by the International Confederation of Free Trade Unions (ICFTU). ICFTU is one of the world's largest federations of labor unions and represents 155 million workers across the globe.

The report cataloged numerous breaches of international standards concerning freedom of association, the right to collective bargaining, and child labor. It also highlighted a clear trend towards lower standards under the Bush administration.

"The credibility of the US, which takes a strong international stand on human rights issues, is severely damaged by the lack of protection for working people, especially the most vulnerable, within its own borders," said Guy Ryder, ICFTU General Secretary, adding that "this only encourages other governments to seek competitive advantage in global markets by violating fundamental workers' rights."

The report noted that while US law protects the right to organize unions, in practice, private employers are allowed to use a number of coercive tactics that "chill the right of association."

The report found that 30% of employers illegally fire workers for union-related activity. More than 9 in 10 employers faced with union activity hold closed-door "captive audience" meetings that push anti-union propaganda and pressure employees not to join. And 70% of employers in the manufacturing sector threaten to close the workplace or move it overseas if a union is organized.

Despite laws guaranteeing the right to join or organize unions, about 25 million private industry workers have been denied this basic right.

When workers file grievances with federal regulatory bodies designed to prevent employer abuses, they wait a median of 690 days for a hearing. Currently, more than 16,000 grievances are on file since 2004 waiting to be heard.

When they do finally get a hearing, working people rarely see justice. "Many employers who violate labor laws are never punished," the report found. "Even when they are, the penalties are too weak to deter them from doing it again."

Even worse, since Bush has been in office and has appointed anti-union Republicans to the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB), the federal agency created to mediate labor disputes and prevent abuses, its rulings on labor grievances have more often gone against workers, even when clear violations of law occurred.

The report noted some key examples. When pro-union workers at Stanadyne Automotive charged the managers with implicitly threatening to close the plant by stating that other plants owned by the company had closed in retaliation against unions, the right-wing dominated NLRB ruled that such phrasing did not constitute a threat.

When workers at Flying Foods complained that their employer showed new hires an anti-union film, despite the fact the union had already won a negotiated contract, the NLRB dismissed their complaint.

The NLRB also seems poised to weaken rules governing the status of unions that were voluntarily recognized by the employer without a vote. Auto parts manufacturers Dana Corp. and Teledyne want to weaken these rules in order to decertify existing unions at their plants.

Numerous other examples of violations of workers' rights are noted. The report concludes that under lax enforcement, and even outright hostility by Bush administration officials, employers have become more aggressive in their anti-union activities without fear of punishment, even when they break the law.

The Bush administration and the NLRB have also blocked or overturned the rights of federal and other public workers to collectively bargain contracts. The report found that as many as 40% of public workers currently have no say in their wages, work conditions, health benefits, safety regulations or other aspects of their work.

"An entire industry," the report states, "exists in the United States to defeat union organizing drives through coercion and intimidation." Anti-union campaigns are widely used by employers in the case of organizing, and 82% of the employers hire union-busting consultants to stop workers from joining unions. .......

Lizra · 12-30-2006, 06:01 PM

Violence will hurt a cause. Most people tend to view violence as a desperate act, something that crazed, unstable people resort too.....and it makes them back off and turn away. The common man....the middle class, will have to try to regain the power the same way it was lost, bill by bill, vote by vote, slowly...hard work....There is no quick cure. This thread is a good effort! Spread the word...talk/vote about it.....turn the tide.....

desal75 · 12-30-2006, 06:07 PM

Please lets not make this personal. A family member of mine has a business and I choose to help him out by posting his link in my profile and you somehow equate me to forcing people to smoke cigarettes?

I'm sorry you feel victimized by the rich that have kept your family on the move for five generations searching for a better life.

Perhaps cro magnons felt victimized by the mastadons that kept them on the move in search of a plentiful food supply.

Look around you. You seem to imply that most Americans are just too ignorant to realize how angry they should be. Or maybe, how angry they would feel if they were just as educated and intelligent as yourself.

You are clearly a very smart person Host. But so are many of us, and quite a few of us are happy.

shakran · 12-30-2006, 08:55 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by dksuddeth

As a journalist, you should know that people will ONLY get riled up enough when they are PERSONALLY and PHYSICALLY affected by government oppression. A botched war, misspent billions, and troops dying for little to nothing are never going to be enough to start any kind of focused action against the government.

Yeah, I do know that. The question was about what people SHOULD do, not what they WILL do.

Quote:

What is the population of this country? 300 million...approximately? 25% is 75 million people. 75 million vs. 5 million and you think that the government would still defeat us?

Absolutely. They can easily kill 1000 for every 1 of them the people get. More if they decide to use the big bombs. Look how quickly the military rolled through Iraq in both wars, and they were up against people with much better weapons than we can get.

Quote:

enough threadjack though, in regards to this particular subject and taxation.....rebellion has been done for excess taxation in the past...if it continues, it will eventually happen again.

That, I agree with. As the gap between the rich and the poor widens into a yawning chasm, the violence is already getting worse. Murders, fights, "road rage," "air rage," all of that crap that's escalating is, in my opinion, a reaction to the anger people feel at the fact that they have so comparatively little while a tiny minority has most of the country's wealth. Such a thing cannot continue, and the longer it takes to stop, the more violent and bloody will be the stopping process.

FoolThemAll · 12-31-2006, 08:31 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by roachboy

libertarian politics of course has nothing to say. it is a self-paralysing variant of the dominant ideology, one that takes (for example) the neoliberal opposition of the state to a logical conclusion. it provides nothing that would enable a sustained critique of the existing order because it duplicates its ideological underpinnings. libertarian politics presupposes that there is a natural order within capitalism that is determined by the playing out of "free markets"--this playing out is distorted by the state. that is idiotic.

*snip*

so bend over, folks, and accept the gifts of capitalism.
if you can't work out a coherent critique, then you have little choice but to learn to enjoy whatever comes your way.

A coherent critique? Such as "they have nothing to say" or "that is idiotic"? Coherent, I guess...but not much content to it.

I'm still most struck by the idea that 90% is a reasonable marginal tax rate. Simple as it was, EaseUp's first post in this thread seems very appropriate.

host · 12-31-2006, 09:37 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by FoolThemAll

A coherent critique? Such as "they have nothing to say" or "that is idiotic"? Coherent, I guess...but not much content to it.

I'm still most struck by the idea that 90% is a reasonable marginal tax rate. Simple as it was, EaseUp's first post in this thread seems very appropriate.

Republican Eisenhower was president when the top rate was <a href="http://www.truthandpolitics.org/top-rates.php">91 percent</a> (on annual income above $400,000), when new college graduates often worked for less than $4000 per year....and the <a href="http://www.census.gov/hhes/income/histinc/f04.html">Gini coefficient was 35.1</a>....it's 44 now.

I think that Shakran (post #3) summed up best, where you are probably coming from:

Quote:

....We see all these displays of wealth around us and dream of one day having it for ourselves. The American Dream myth lives on.....

Recognize that the rich have bought the potential of your government to control their endeavors. They are taking for themselves, the rights, the political influence, and the wealth that common folks stood up for in the past, and were bloodied or killed by the thugs that the rich hired to discourage them from doing so. These accomplishments and controls....NLRB, OSHA, SEC, FCC, are being intentionally compromised as we watch. But you don't seem as concerned about that as you do about the top tax rate paid during a republican administration, 50 years ago.

My question is, why are you more concerned about what the tax rate on income above a level of more than 100 times average income of a worker just out of college was, 50 years ago, than you seem to be about what has happened since, about the trend, and the current status quo, and the inroads that the rich have made, using the political and the propaganda clout that they've bought with their increasing wealth, that now enables them to carve out a chunk of the "pie" for themselves. that is nearly 1/3 greater than 50 years ago. That leaves the rest of us....the other 90 plus percent, with 56 percent, instead of the 65.9 percent that we controlled in 1956.

What do you suppose the trend will be, with the stacking of the SCOTUS with Roberts and Alito, and the stacking of the NLRB entirely with 5 pro-management republican members, and the softening of inheritance tax rates for at least the next 3 fiscal years, and the doubling of the defense budget, and then some, in just the last 6 fiscal years, in the guise of fighting a GWOT that has rendered us less secure, with fewer allies, enemies with many more grievances against us, and with new US treasury debt of nearly $5 trillion, by the end of next year.

Your concerns seem misplaced, IMO.

Quote:

http://www.ustreas.gov/education/fac...es/ustax.shtml

.....Seen in a broader picture, the 1986 tax act represented the penultimate installment of an extraordinary process of tax rate reductions. Over the 22 year period from 1964 to 1986 the top individual tax rate was reduced from 91 to 28 percent. However, because upper-income taxpayers increasingly chose to receive their income in taxable form, and because of the broadening of the tax base, the progressivity of the tax system actually rose during this period........

.....Between 1986 and 1990 the Federal tax burden rose as a share of GDP from 17.5 to 18 percent. Despite this increase in the overall tax burden, persistent budget deficits due to even higher levels of government spending created near constant pressure to increase taxes. Thus, in 1990 the Congress enacted a significant tax increase featuring an increase in the top tax rate to 31 percent. Shortly after his election, President Clinton insisted on and the Congress enacted a second major tax increase in 1993 in which the top tax rate was raised to 36 percent and a 10 percent surcharge was added, leaving the effective top tax rate at 39.6 percent. Clearly, the trend toward lower marginal tax rates had been reversed, but, as it turns out, only temporarily.......

.......The Bush Tax Cut

By 2001, the total tax take had produced a projected unified budget surplus of $281 billion, with a cumulative 10 year projected surplus of $5.6 trillion. Much of this surplus reflected a rising tax burden as a share of GDP due to the interaction of rising real incomes and a progressive tax rate structure. Consequently, under President George W. Bush's leadership the Congress halted the projected future increases in the tax burden by passing the Economic Growth and Tax Relief and Reconciliation Act of 2001. The centerpiece of the 2001 tax cut was to regain some of the ground lost in the 1990s in terms of lower marginal tax rates. Though the rate reductions are to be phased in over many years, ultimately the top tax rate will fall from 39.6 percent to 33 percent......

........Another feature of the 2001 tax cut that is particularly noteworthy is that it put the estate, gift, and generation-skipping taxes on course for eventual repeal, which is also another step toward a consumption tax. One novel feature of the 2001 tax cut compared to most large tax bills is that it was almost devoid of business tax provisions......

Confining it's subject matter to examining why Kansans overwhelmingly vote republican, the 2004 book "What's the Matter With Kansas?", pondered the question of how and why "have nots", support candidates financed by wealthy conservatives and corporations:

Quote:

Downwardly mobile and picking up speed
Once-radical flyover country now votes against its own interests, Frank says

Reviewed by Paul Buhle

Sunday, June 20, 2004
What's the Matter With Kansas?

How Conservatives Won the Heart of America

......Today's Mr. and Mrs. Block are downwardly mobile but eager to enshrine the very right-wingers who are ruining their public institutions, their environment and their children's futures.

Why do they do it? Frank spends a great deal of time in close observation of repackaged reality, from congressional offices to public displays to the private lives of the faithful. In the inner ring of suburbs and fading factory towns where the American Dream grows steadily out of reach, he pinpoints the "plent-T-plaint." This "curious amassing of petty, unrelated beefs with the world" neatly combines assorted gripes about the obscenity, disrespect and immorality of a supposed liberalism run rampant. No combination of enhanced tax benefits for the wealthy, no increase in military weaponry, no assault on abortion rights or local victory against Darwinism can calm this orchestrated road rage. ......

Paul Buhle teaches at Brown University, and his latest book is "From the Lower East Side to Hollywood: Jews in American Popular Culture."

The U.S. has experienced political shifts, beginning with the the "great depression" in the 1932 elections, that transferred the presidency to a democrat.......and democrats dominated in the executive and legislative branches, with the exception of the 8 year Eisenhower presidency, for the next 36 years. Compared to later republican presidents, Eisenhower could be described as a "centrist".

Today on a webpage at the Milton S. Eisenhower Foundation site, (Milton was the late younger brother of republican president Dwight Eisenhower,) the following is displayed:

Quote:

http://www.eisenhowerfoundation.org/..._economic.html

.......With an eye to Thomas Jefferson's warning against the antidemocratic "aristocracy of our moneyed corporations," the United States needs to return corporate taxes to the levels in force during the Eisenhower administration. We also need to increase the top marginal tax rate for the super-rich to about 50 percent. This would still be far below the top marginal income tax rate of 91 percent during the Eisenhower administration.

Repealing the tax cuts given to the super-rich would return more than $85 bilomglion per year from the richest 5 percent of the population. Returning to corporate tax rates in force during the Eisenhower administration could increase tax revenues by roughly $110 billion more per year. Returning to a 50 percent top marginal inomgcome tax rate far below the top rate in the Eisenhower administration could capture as much as $90 billion more per year from the richest 2 percent of the population.

At the same time, we should provide tax cuts to the 150 million hard-working workers who are struggling because they can't afford to buy all they need. Millionomgaires don't need additional spending money. Workers, middle-class Americans, and the poor do. Their spending will stimulate the economy more effectively, help busiomgnesses, and be more fair to the Americans who need fairness the most. There is amomgple economic evidence that putting money in the pockets of average Americans stimulates the economy much more than further lining the pockets of the rich........

FoolThemAll · 01-01-2007, 09:02 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by host

My question is, why are you more concerned about what the tax rate on income above a level of more than 100 times average income of a worker just out of college was, 50 years ago, than you seem to be about what has happened since, about the trend, and the current status quo, and the inroads that the rich have made, using the political and the propaganda clout that they've bought with their increasing wealth, that now enables them to carve out a chunk of the "pie" for themselves. that is nearly 1/3 greater than 50 years ago. That leaves the rest of us....the other 90 plus percent, with 56 percent, instead of the 65.9 percent that we controlled in 1956.

Because it jumped out at me. It was a clear highlighting of an alleged problem area amongst many vague and/or complex problems. I don't necessarily have a problem with a statistic such as 90% holding 56% - what are these 90% doing with their resources? What value are they providing? How do I know that there's any injustice in that figure at all? A 90% marginal tax rate, on the other hand, is clearly absurd. There's really no way that the government's services for the rich - no matter how disproportionately rendered - make up for that 90% confiscation of income.

Point to an instance of corporate welfare or other such redistribution to the wealthy and I'll condemn it. But reducing the tax burden to a figure still proportionally higher than what anyone else pays - that doesn't cut it.

host · 01-01-2007, 10:45 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by FoolThemAll

Because it jumped out at me. It was a clear highlighting of an alleged problem area amongst many vague and/or complex problems. I don't necessarily have a problem with a statistic such as 90% holding 56% - what are these 90% doing with their resources? What value are they providing? How do I know that there's any injustice in that figure at all? A 90% marginal tax rate, on the other hand, is clearly absurd. There's really no way that the government's services for the rich - no matter how disproportionately rendered - make up for that 90% confiscation of income.

Point to an instance of corporate welfare or other such redistribution to the wealthy and I'll condemn it. But reducing the tax burden to a figure still proportionally higher than what anyone else pays - that doesn't cut it.

FoolThemAll, even with the income tax instituted in 1913....at first, solely a tax on the wealthiest few, and likewise, an inheritance tax begun in 1916, the richest have continued to grow richer in wealth, power, and influence. The political and financial agenda of the rich have been out in "full force" since Jan. 20, 2001. This is their mess....a more moderate, more populist president and senate majority handed these bastards a balanced budget, a trend towards reduced federal government employment and military spending in line with the actual international threat level, which, except for the message of fear pushed so forcefully by the folks who took the reigns that day, really didn't change, if not for the mess in the middle east and the deterioration in foreign relations, that they created, via their over reaction. If the 9/11 attacks had been treated as what they actually were.....crimes....matters for law enforcement to respond to, with of course, help from the DIA and the CIA, where might this country find itself today, compared to the "watch out for the domestic sleeper cell/islamo fascists are bent on destroying our way of life because they hate us for our freedom" that the "new political order" heaped on us, instead.

Now, politically, the will is there to make the wealthy who mostly backed the disaster of total republican party control, pay reparations, and, they're ambition and greed has caused so much damage to the formerly balanced budget vs. revenue scheme in place in Jan. 2001, and to foreign relations and middle east security, that I doubt, even if we taxed them at a 100% capital gains and income rate, the damage that they've sponsored could be undone to Jan. 2001, levels.....

Given the history of federal taxation of the past 90 years, and the disaster brought on us by the elite since Jan., 2001, my sentiments are much more conventional than you, with your firm, "tax the rich fairly" stance, have recognized, up till now. I maintain that when you are rich enough to buy the government and steer it in directions that you see fit....to lower your own taxes, to even entertain the elimination of inheritance taxes, and to fund the possibility, and then continue to sponsor a "collection" like the Bush white house and the Tom "the hammer" Delay congress, and their political agenda, you are rich enough to pay dramatically increased taxes, and you deserve to pay them. "K Street" was a creature of the rich, as well.

When I attempted to update the Milton Eisenhower link in the last quote box in my last post, I visited the page where I got the quote in that box, and I read more. It appears that the ideas I've expressed in this thread parallel the work and the conclusions of the Milton Eisenhower Foundation:

Quote:

http://www.eisenhowerfoundation.org/about.html

The Milton S. Eisenhower Foundation is the international, nonprofit continuation of the National Advisory Commission on Civil Disorders (the Kerner Riot Commission, after the big city riots of the 1960s) and the National Commission on the Causes and Prevention of Violence (the National Violence Commission, after the assassinations of the Reverend Martin Luther King, Jr. and Senator Robert Kennedy). We identify, fund, evaluate, build the capacities of and replicate multiple solution ventures for the inner city, the truly disadvantaged, children, youth and families. Through national policy reports, the Foundation communicates what works (and what doesn't) to citizens, media and decision makers. We run a strategic communications school for nonprofit organization staff and youth to help change political will and create action.

Quote:

http://www.eisenhowerfoundation.org/..._economic.html

......The Tax Cuts and Increasing Debt Are Part of the Right's Long-Term Ideology. As articulated by Robert Greenstein, the massive tax cuts are part of a long-term agenda by the radical right in America to reduce public programs that benefit the middle class, working class, and poor. For example, a leading strategist of the radical right has argued for reducing by half the size of the domestic part of the federal government over future decades. As this ideology indicates, the tax cuts and the goal of shrinking the fedomgeral government are being pursued as complementary long-terms strategies. Those pursuing these strategies are patient. They are willing to wait until 2010 to have the estate tax repealed. They are willing to take a long time to squeeze down the federal governomgment, with the squeezing occurring gradually and incrementally but eventually reaching huge proportions.

In 1995, conservative Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich overreached and moved too fast. Today, the extreme right is not repeating that mistake. There is a clear understanding on the part of conservatives that, if one were to publish in the official federal budget today the kind of budget cuts that the recent federal tax cuts ultiomgmately will entail, the tax cuts would have a considerably harder time being passed. So the deep budget cuts are not being published in the federal budget today alongside the tax cuts. This is part of the broader strategy to deceive and mislead the American people and an accommodating mainstream media—in economic policy as in foreign, naomgtional security, and Middle East policy.

<h3>The radical right also is lobbying for still larger tax cuts for the rich. Some want to eliminate all taxes on capital gains, dividends, and other forms of income and move toward a "flat tax." The scheme is to allow deficits to continue to balloon unomgtil Wall Street demands larger and larger domestic spending cuts as a condition for holding down long-term interest rates.......
</h3>

....Solutions

Following American public opinion in national polls, alternative economic policy needs to rescind the recent tax cuts for the rich and legislate demand-side tax cuts for the middle class, workers, and the truly disadvantaged—all of whom need a Fair Economic Deal. The Deal should provide average Americans economic security against the class warfare of the rich, just as they need physical security against teromgrorists and criminals. Tax cuts for average Americans should be complemented by increased federal support to students seeking postsecondary education and by demand-side investments in public infrastructure, national security, the reconstrucomgtion of the inner city, and new high tech sectors, including alternative energy. As a result, millions of public and private sector jobs will be created. A federal revenue sharing program must stop the financial hemorrhaging of state and local governomgment. The public sector must finance sound Social Security and Medicare systems, while a new National Medical Defense system should ensure that everyone has health insurance. To stabilize America's international financial position, we need to rethink our present commitment to the free-trade system.

What Do the People Say? In recent polls, 88 percent of Americans believed the budget deficit is a "serious" or "very serious" problem. Some 58 percent thought tax cuts should be targeted to middle-income and low-income people, and 40 percent more thought taxes should be distributed equally for all income brackets. That means 98 percent of the people disagreed with tax cuts going mostly to the wealthy. Some 67 percent of the American people in an ABC News- Washington Post poll preferred to have more spending on needs like education and health care, rather than on tax cuts for the rich. Three times as many Americans say they want to be in a labor union than are in a union. Some 64 percent said it is the federal government's reomgsponsibility to make sure all Americans have health insurance. More than half said the government should create a plan to cover everyone, even if it requires a tax inomgcrease on them. Polls also have shown public opinion support for financially sound Social Security and Medicare systems and rejection of privatization........

....Economic Security: Protection from the Ruling Classes. But demand-side strategies are only part of alternative economic policies. Just as average citizens need physical security to protect them from terrorists and criminals, so they need economic secuomgrity to protect them from the class warfare launched in America by the rich.

As Jeff Faux observes, it has become a cliche in America that workers must adomgjust to being churned through many companies, none of which will provide a seomgcure working life. As a result, most workers are in constant anxiety about their ecoomgnomic condition, as companies under pressure from brutally competitive markets abandon responsibility for health care, pensions, and job security.

In addition to unemployment, the American economy contains a great deal of underemployment among wage earners and middle-class citizens. Many wage-earning and middle-class families need two people working to make ends meet. Toomgday, there are almost five million Americans who are working part-time but who need full-time employment. Many are working in low-skilled, dead-end jobs. Many family providers have zero health coverage. The poor always have been worried about decent child care, affordable housing, and enough money to send their kids to college. But today most wage-earning and middle-class families have similar worries.

A Fair Economic Deal. To address the need for economic security, a Fair Ecoomgnomic Deal should be launched that serves a broad middle-class, working-class, and lower-class constituency. The constituency should recapture some of the national mood that existed after World War II, when Americans sought to build a more inomgclusive, equitable society, one in which everyone had a fair chance of making it.

What story or message might update that post—World War II American feeling and build the new economic alliance for the twenty-first century? Here are some words around which to rally, building on the suggestions of Jeff Faux:

You, the average citizen, are not alone in your search for a safe niche in this I-win-you-lose world. The very rich have profited at the expense of the families of salaried and working people of America. It is not fair for the rich to get richer at the expense of the rest of us. Power has shifted so significantly toward those at the top of the income and wealth pyramid that the majority of Americans who are struggling must mobilize to force the rich and the elites back to the bargaining table. We must close the income, wage, and job gaps.

Americans deserve a higher quality of life. We must invest in the human capital of all of our citizens, so all can deal successfully with technological change and the global economy. The role of the federal government must be to make investments that serve the interests of the salaried and working classes, along with the poor.

The need for a Fair Economic Deal and complementary alternative policies must be better communicated to the American people in practical, commonsense ways. We need more efforts to "personalize" the impact on the daily lives of ordiomgnary Americans of the type of policy choices discussed in this chapter and to bring to life the federal disinvestment that our citizens face if the nation does not change course.

Public Infrastructure Creation and Economic Klondikes. Historically, the public secomgtor has been pivotal for ensuring that economic growth benefits all, services are proomgvided to all who need them, and new jobs are created. Public-sector job stimulation is a countercyclical policy. But the public sector also is the generator of medium- and long-term seed capital that forges the direction the economy takes and creates milomglions of jobs in the process.

Public infrastructure investment has shaped America's future. Early on, public inomgvestment built canals and subsidized the railroads to settle the West. Government fiomgnanced the first assembly lines. President Eisenhower began building the interstate highway system in the 1950s. Federal investments developed the jet engine, began the exploration of space, and helped develop silicon chips, the computer, and the Internet.

Each of these public sector investment programs created jobs and businesses in the short term. In the long run, they spun off technological advances that became what economist Robert Heilbroner calls economic "Klondikes"—massive veins of private investment opportunities that have been the building blocks of American prosperity.

Other nations have invested hundreds of billions in public-sector infrastructure over recent years, such as the high-speed rail systems in France and parallel investomgments in Germany and Japan. Yet American public-sector infrastructure investment has declined precipitously under supply-side ideology, beginning in the 1980s under President Reagan. Today, the United States is the only major industrial society not expanding its public infrastructure.

On September 11 and thereafter, America has paid the price—through, for exomgample, a woeful airport security system unprepared for biological, chemical, and nuomgclear attacks. Here is a starting point for public investments that both create meanomgingful jobs for unemployed or underemployed Americans and address an urgent national need. A related public-sector, job-creating investment is development of a high-speed train system for the United States. A recent USA Today poll found that 47 percent of plane travelers thought flying the most stressful form of transport, but only 2 percent of train passengers found that travel was stressful. Yet our public rail system has been allowed to atrophy by our leaders......

"We the people" are waking up to a "class war" that the richest have never ceased to wage. Polls show that working class Americans want their government to pursue a social agenda that is much closer to the one existing today in non-British Europe and in Canada.

FoolThemAll · 01-01-2007, 03:13 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by host

Now, politically, the will is there to make the wealthy who mostly backed the disaster of total republican party control, pay reparations, and, they're ambition and greed has caused so much damage to the formerly balanced budget vs. revenue scheme in place in Jan. 2001, and to foreign relations and middle east security, that I doubt, even if we taxed them at a 100% capital gains and income rate, the damage that they've sponsored could be undone to Jan. 2001, levels.....

Quote:

I maintain that when you are rich enough to buy the government and steer it in directions that you see fit....to lower your own taxes, to even entertain the elimination of inheritance taxes, and to fund the possibility, and then continue to sponsor a "collection" like the Bush white house and the Tom "the hammer" Delay congress, and their political agenda, you are rich enough to pay dramatically increased taxes, and you deserve to pay them.

You seem to be advocating indirect forced reparations paid by wealthy people whose lobbying choices brought about a less than ideal political situation. Do I have that right?

If so, I just don't agree. The idea strikes me as a dangerous club just as easily wielded by the right when they hold control. I really dislike the idea of punishing people with the force of government for how they choose to influence the political process. To put it bluntly, I'd rather not sink to their level (assuming even that they, the wealthy, are uniformly guilty of such abuses). This whole idea strikes me as too much of an eye for an eye mentality, and a broad, careless version at that.

dksuddeth · 01-02-2007, 07:42 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by host

"We the people" are waking up to a "class war" that the richest have never ceased to wage. Polls show that working class Americans want their government to pursue a social agenda that is much closer to the one existing today in non-British Europe and in Canada.

The American people want a socialist economic system? Not hardly, I think that most would just like to have the thousands of nickel and dime regulations that are limitations to financial prosperity removed. In other word, a free market.

12-28-2006, 09:09 AM	#4 (permalink)
roachboy Super Moderator Location: essex ma	the facts of this matter are in a sense evident. enabling this has been a centerpiece of conservative politics since the reagan period. the ideology that enabled it, and that enables it still functions: you see it all the time, implicitly in the way in which the dominant media apparatus--which mediates folk's relation to the world but only by providing infotainment, but also (more so) by framing reality as an accumulation of objects and politcs as the extension of the fact of their arrangement with the effect that whatever the existing order is is necessarily legitimate--and explicitly in the variants of neoliberalism--the ideology of "rational" markets (for example) that continues to be so dominant in the united states that it functions without a name. people do not react to states of affairs at the empirical level. in a sense, there are no states of affairs at the purely empirical level. another way around: any state of affairs can be explained away because no state of affairs is understood independently of an ideological framework. the perverse beauty of the existing order is that it has controlled the system of social reproduction long enough that it no longer needs to explicitly dominate people because people dominate themselves. its easy peasy: if people understand capitalism to be a force of nature, then the states of affairs generated within it are simple effects of inevitable, natural processes. to revolt would then be to like king lear, trying to stop the ocean. this is obviously insane, but it is also obviously how most americans live. the effects of hegemony are ugly: if you control the frames of reference, you can generate consent for almost anything. and at this time, there is no basis for political oppostion. libertarian politics of course has nothing to say. it is a self-paralysing variant of the dominant ideology, one that takes (for example) the neoliberal opposition of the state to a logical conclusion. it provides nothing that would enable a sustained critique of the existing order because it duplicates its ideological underpinnings. libertarian politics presupposes that there is a natural order within capitalism that is determined by the playing out of "free markets"--this playing out is distorted by the state. that is idiotic. personally, i think that this would be a good time for people to begin thinking about what a truly radical oppositional politics might look like, to work out its conceptual premises, to generate positions and float them in the netaether (for example), opening them up to critique, etc. seen from a certain distance, the conditions for a radical change are beginning to emerge from within the exercize in sustained incoherence that is the present american system, but there are very few frameworks that enable people to see what is happening, and almost none that enable folk to imagine other alternatives toward which they might move, so there is no real political action and seemingly little possibility of such political action. there are and will no doubt once again be oppositional movements directed at specific issues like the bushwar in iraq, but these are not necessarily movements that go beyond being single-issue matters--and single-issue matters are interest group politics. they are not revolutionary politics. there are no revolutionary politics. so bend over, folks, and accept the gifts of capitalism. if you can't work out a coherent critique, then you have little choice but to learn to enjoy whatever comes your way. who knows, maybe you can even convince yourself that getting fucked in this way is fun--not only that you like it, but that you deserve it because it has to be this way and only a deviant would think otherwise. if you need reinforcement, watch more tv. good luck with that. __________________ a gramophone its corrugated trumpet silver handle spinning dog. such faithfulness it hear it make you sick. -kamau brathwaite

12-28-2006, 09:55 AM	#6 (permalink)
roachboy Super Moderator Location: essex ma	i am not clear that you know what socialism means, dk: i have seen posts that equate it with fascism from you, which i think simply nutty. so i am not sure i see the point of entering into a conversation with you about this under the terms you choose to frame it. this is not to say that i am unwilling to debate--quite the contrary--but i see nowhere good for it to go if these are the terms within which it has to move. step a bit outside your frame of reference and sure. got a way to rephrase the question that might make the conversation more open? __________________ a gramophone its corrugated trumpet silver handle spinning dog. such faithfulness it hear it make you sick. -kamau brathwaite

12-28-2006, 10:06 AM	#7 (permalink)
dksuddeth Junkie Location: bedford, tx	ok, I can leave the socialism and fascism out of it and ask you simply, how does capitalism find itself responsible for the taxation system that host is saying is deserving of a revolution? __________________ "no amount of force can control a free man, a man whose mind is free. No, not the rack, not fission bombs, not anything. You cannot conquer a free man; the most you can do is kill him."

12-28-2006, 01:57 PM	#9 (permalink)
Seaver Junkie Location: Fort Worth, TX	Why is there no revolution like in 1776? It's not because more people cared back then, but because our protests are not ending in massacres. Our "revolution" was nothing more than a bunch of drunks dumping tea and rich merchants protesting a tax before the Boston Massacre. After that people were willing to stand up to the British, and the justifications for revolution followed afterwards. There is no revolution because there is no bloodshed, and even the poor in this country have it pretty good. The vast majority have cars, TVs, and ample education if they seek it out. So they will have a few perks withdrawn, it's not as if they will be evicted because their new tax burden will bleed them dry. __________________ "Smite the rocks with the rod of knowledge, and fountains of unstinted wealth will gush forth." - Ashbel Smith as he laid the first cornerstone of the University of Texas

12-28-2006, 03:14 PM	#11 (permalink)
The_Jazz Asshole Administrator Location: Chicago	Seaver, that's pretty historically innacturate. The Boston Massacre was of "common" people, not of rich merchants/drunks. Tensions were running pretty high at the time, and while I think everyone would agree that you've found the match that set off the whole explosion that was the Revolution, you've oversimplified the facts you've chosen and ignored others that are salient to the arguement. __________________ "They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety." - B. Franklin "There ought to be limits to freedom." - George W. Bush "We have met the enemy and he is us." - Pogo

12-28-2006, 04:56 PM	#12 (permalink)
roachboy Super Moderator Location: essex ma	the version of the american revolution seaver presents is inaccurate on a number of levels: the one that links to the point i was making earlier is that it did not happen in an ideological vacuum, but rather took inspiration from tons of whiggish political agitation. and from the tradition of the english revolution itself. in comparison to others--like the french revolution--the american was relatively tepid and modest in many ways, but it was nonetheless what it is called. there is nothing comparable in terms of oppositional political discourse at the present time. such an opposition remains to be built...so at the moment, if there were a revolt, it would probably come from the extreme right and would rely on bankrupt notions of nationalism to orient it, not because they are coherent---they aren't---but because they exist. political actions are not things. they are processes. people have to have some idea of what they are doing and more importantly why they are doing it before they will act. dk: short of time at the moment i am---i'll get back to this later. my apologies. __________________ a gramophone its corrugated trumpet silver handle spinning dog. such faithfulness it hear it make you sick. -kamau brathwaite

12-28-2006, 06:46 PM	#13 (permalink)
Elphaba Deja Moo Location: Olympic Peninsula, WA	Our "revolutions" can be violent as evidenced by the civil war. I would add to that the union movement of the 30's. Marx's prediction of the uprising of the proletariat was correct, but failed to consider an eventual agreement between management and labor. Unions are now making their way into other countries, and they may become a force here again. The majority of our "revolutions" have occurred due to public protest and the power of the ballot box. When the "robber barons" had won control of the government, there was a political "correction" such as the one under Teddy Roosevelt and later by FDR. The latest "capitalist" overtaking of the government and economic policies will be a more difficult challenge under the "global" economic initiatives of the past two decades. As of today, we are no longer the preferred currency of exchange, and our debt is primarily held by China. More than a year ago, Host referred to our currency as "script" and once again he has been proven prescient. We may very well become a third world nation under present economic conditions, and that may very well lead to a violent uprising against the government. Folks, this is a broad sweep of history and heavy on opinion. I ask only that you give the "idea" of violent revolution some consideration.

12-29-2006, 05:53 AM	#15 (permalink)
dksuddeth Junkie Location: bedford, tx	host, it's great to see you coming around and recognizing the tyranny and oppression that is utilized by the 'government', but have you thought about HOW effective a violent revolution will be without civilian access to standard military weaponry is going to be? has any of this changed your position on the gun control laws in this country? It is all well and good to be up in arms about violations of civil rights, but only if you can be up in arms about all of them, not just a select few. __________________ "no amount of force can control a free man, a man whose mind is free. No, not the rack, not fission bombs, not anything. You cannot conquer a free man; the most you can do is kill him."

12-29-2006, 06:25 AM	#16 (permalink)
Lizra Insane Location: rural Indiana	I don't think violence is the answer...hell no! It's all about the money.....we stop giving it to them....make them give it to us! __________________ Happy atheist

12-29-2006, 09:17 AM	#18 (permalink)
roachboy Super Moderator Location: essex ma	it seems to me that the information host is posting is an index of the scale and effects of conservative class warfare. it provides a good indication of what has been happening behind the screen of conservative market-libertarian ideology, behind the one-dimensional militarism, behind the jingoism, behind the demonization of the state and dismantling of regulations. it is an index of the degree to which the right's response to globalizing capitalism is to give up trying to render the american system coherent. "take what you can now, boys, the shit is going to hit the fan. we dont know what to do, so taking short-term profits seem a good idea. and dont worry about the social consequences: there is a nice extensive "security" apparatus set up to crush any and all coherent response." so it appears that we are the enemy: those of us not participant in the feeding frenzy of the past 20 years, those of us not part of the american economic aristocracy. and who knows, maybe the right really does think at some level, collectively, that there will be a deus-ex-machina of armageddeon time to absolve them of responsibilty for the consequences of what they have been doing. the american system is obviously very vulnerable at this point. but that vulnerablity--and internal incoherence--does NOT automatically translate into anything like a call for revolution. we are already seeing, and have been seeing, the "management" of class warfare by state repression: anything like a direct violent confrontation with the state now would be a simple, ugly bloodbath---which would no doubt be accompanied by systematic approval across the whole of the existing media apparatus, if such a thing were to remain in place. there is nothing to prevent the orchestration of such consent, just as there is nothing to prevent other forms of suicide. where the existing order is vulnerable is ideology. there must be a sense that another way of doing things is possible generated--and consent for the existing order will perhaps begin to evaporate as a sense that something else is possible takes hold. but there IS NO SUCH SENSE at the moment because folk who are politically inclined to develop such a view have not been doing so. they are themselves caught in the same problem: the collapse of the older left tradition has created serious problems for the articulation of alternate possibilities. what ought to happen is that folk who think that other ways of organizing are possible should stop wasting their time on messageboards and begin the long, patient work of constructing counterhegemonies. in the french revolution, the trigger for chaos was the implosion of the state. the phases of the revolution itself can be seen as collective efforts to work out and implement alternative arrangements in the context of intense real-time pressure. the end result was military dictatorship. in the russian revolution, a parallel type of dynamic unfolded, and the end result was another form of dictatorship, which was substantially worse. without some kind of sustained effort to generate political positions that outline how another type of arrangement is possible, what it might look like, what kind of collective self-organization is entailed and so on, the implosion of the existing american order--which i sometimes think the american right is preparing for---will result in nothing good. __________________ a gramophone its corrugated trumpet silver handle spinning dog. such faithfulness it hear it make you sick. -kamau brathwaite

12-29-2006, 10:44 AM	#19 (permalink)
The_Dunedan Junkie	I wonder why everyone assumes that it's market libertarianism that's the cause of all this, when libertarian Capitalism expressly disallows things like corporations, protectionism, union-busting, and strike-breaking. Either such things are viewed as Market Distortions, which are impermissible, or Initiation of Force, which is likewise impermissible. It's not Capitalism, that much is obvious. So the question is, if it's not Capitalism, what is it?

12-29-2006, 11:22 AM	#20 (permalink)
roachboy Super Moderator Location: essex ma	the dunedan: what you post sounds like hayek or some such ideology about capitalism. there is nothing descriptive about it. the question here is not about what one wishes capitalism was: it is about the particular variant of capitalism that is unfolding in the states in real time, more or less. within this, it is about the politics of the concentration of wealth. the idea that you can separate the concentration of wealth from the economic system that enables it is not tenable. period. you can wish capitalism was anything you like. but that has nothing to do with the question at the core of this thread. no-one denies that the problem of the distribution of wealth is of a piece with the capitalist mode of production---no-one who is looking at the empirical world, at any rate: that is at the actual history of capitalism as it has unfolded in historically. not even american conservatives deny that there is a problem that follows from the distribution of wealth: they just think it is normal, natural etc. and that those who loose out in the game deserve to loose, are worth in every way less than are those who do not loose. and they construct ideological fictions to justify this position---and insofar as these fictions acknowledge the problem of the unequal distrbution of wealth, they are preferable to those of a hayek or von mises. __________________ a gramophone its corrugated trumpet silver handle spinning dog. such faithfulness it hear it make you sick. -kamau brathwaite Last edited by roachboy; 12-29-2006 at 11:39 AM..

12-29-2006, 02:35 PM	#22 (permalink)
desal75 Psycho Location: Western New York	If everyone is so in favor of revolution I propose that you, yourself fire the first shot. If such things as stated above have driven you to that level of anger than act upon it. Or would you rather not place at risk the comfortable place you occupy with such actions. I do agree that things could be greatly improved but are they terrible enough that a violent uprising (and killing) is necessary? __________________ The Man in Black fled across the desert and the Gunslinger followed.

12-29-2006, 05:44 PM	#24 (permalink)
desal75 Psycho Location: Western New York	Maybe the crushing of that 25% would be enough to anger the rest of the population to rise up. If you feel so strongly, wouldn't your martyrdom be worth the outcome? Revolutions are started by people willing to give it all up for their cause. __________________ The Man in Black fled across the desert and the Gunslinger followed.

12-29-2006, 09:31 PM	#27 (permalink)
roachboy Super Moderator Location: essex ma	so wait: in the beginning, this thread was about among other things the effects of conservative tax reductions, which are of a piece with the largest transfer of wealth toward the wealthy in history. it was about the effects of neoliberalism as they have played out in the states. it was about wondering why people accept this state of affairs. dk never seemed to exactly understand what was being discussed...then late in the thread, things began to take a turn for the strange, despite shakran's best efforts to head it off at the pass: now the topic is being inverted wholesale. if you post rightwing libertarian/militia group tax revolt fantasies and/or the usual extremeright arguments about the magical properties of guns in providing orientation for political action.... and you do not recognize that it has nothing to do with the topic of this thread.... then it is clear you haven't read the thread. or maybe you read it and didnt understand it. either way, start another one that has something to do with your premises and maybe---maybe----folk will come to play there too. it's not hard: arguments that are logically connected to a thread are ok there. arguments that aren't logically connected to a thread belong in a different thread. __________________ a gramophone its corrugated trumpet silver handle spinning dog. such faithfulness it hear it make you sick. -kamau brathwaite Last edited by roachboy; 12-29-2006 at 09:35 PM..

12-29-2006, 10:33 PM	#28 (permalink)
powerclown Junkie Location: Detroit, MI	There is no earthly substitute for brains and determination. No government intervention can reallocate them, either. One’s life begins when it begins. From then on it’s all about a person’s upbringing and environs and how he/she responds to them. The best we can do as a society is strive to give every person a chance to succeed. I think the USA does that pretty well. But again, there is no earthly substitute for brains and determination. It is also not the government’s responsibility to provide everything for everyone (immigrants included) and ensure what many define as “fairness”. I laugh when I hear/read how the upper classes need to do more for the lower ones. Sorry, it simply doesn’t work that way. Life isn’t a Panglossian Utopia. Go read our world history. Past is indeed prologue. There is no substitute for brains and determination. None. Income inequality is a characteristic, not a problem. And it isn’t a characteristic of something bad. The key is to have a society structured so that everyone can make the most of what they’ve been given. We should recognize that life is a meritocracy, and we haven’t all been given the same abilities - intelligence, innovativeness, energy, and leadership skills are as unevenly divided as physical attributes like height and hair color (and have a lot more to do with earning potential). I think someone’s reaction to income inequality says a lot about where they fall on the political spectrum. True Story: A friend of mine works for a software company in the human resources department. He says his company has a hard time finding competent Americans who want to make nearly $90K/year in a semi-rural area developing software. They don’t require a college degree, but they do expect candidates to be able to code. He remarked that there has never before been a profession so accessible to almost anyone with smarts and determination. With a used computer for $100 and a $15/month DSL connection, one can learn enough to catapult oneself into the upper middle class in a few years. Sure, the first job one might take might only pay $10/hour, but it’s not too hard to move up quickly when you’re competent. -- The gini coefficient (Income Inequality, worldwide) is measured on a scale of 0 (complete equality) to 1 (complete inequality—one individual receiving all income), ie. lower numbers mean more equality: Last edited by powerclown; 12-29-2006 at 11:37 PM..

12-30-2006, 05:46 AM	#30 (permalink)
desal75 Psycho Location: Western New York	If we are currently locked in a life or death struggle, where are the deaths? I see life all around me. True, I do see high taxes. I live in New York State where we have it worse than most. But I do not see millions and millions of people starving to death in the streets. Some of you are asking a population to revolt against the rich. A population which spends more time watching the antics of Paris Hilton than reading a news paper. Most of us are happy, even though over taxed and over worked. People in this country have an inherent hope and optimism for many reasons. Some real, some imagined. If wealth should be more redistributed than start the process. Some of you probably have money in the bank your not using. Share it. __________________ The Man in Black fled across the desert and the Gunslinger followed.

12-30-2006, 06:01 PM	#32 (permalink)
Lizra Insane Location: rural Indiana	Violence will hurt a cause. Most people tend to view violence as a desperate act, something that crazed, unstable people resort too.....and it makes them back off and turn away. The common man....the middle class, will have to try to regain the power the same way it was lost, bill by bill, vote by vote, slowly...hard work....There is no quick cure. This thread is a good effort! Spread the word...talk/vote about it.....turn the tide..... __________________ Happy atheist Last edited by Lizra; 12-30-2006 at 06:10 PM..

12-30-2006, 06:07 PM	#33 (permalink)
desal75 Psycho Location: Western New York	Please lets not make this personal. A family member of mine has a business and I choose to help him out by posting his link in my profile and you somehow equate me to forcing people to smoke cigarettes? I'm sorry you feel victimized by the rich that have kept your family on the move for five generations searching for a better life. Perhaps cro magnons felt victimized by the mastadons that kept them on the move in search of a plentiful food supply. Look around you. You seem to imply that most Americans are just too ignorant to realize how angry they should be. Or maybe, how angry they would feel if they were just as educated and intelligent as yourself. You are clearly a very smart person Host. But so are many of us, and quite a few of us are happy. __________________ The Man in Black fled across the desert and the Gunslinger followed.