host

I am going to keep this short, but I urge you to read the examples I've previously posted at the three links below, to get a sense about why I am taking the opposite side of the argument of this, from the Politics Thread titled "Inequality":
Is loquitur's premise, "most wealth in this country is earned", when we consider great wealth, an accurate statement, or does he just assume it is accurate? Doesn't the "grease" from massively increasing wealth, even if it is legal influence....political contributions, influencing zoning boards to transform the marginal property you have an opportunity to purchase, into prime zoned land, compared to the clout that you or I could wield with zoning officials, really the difference? Don't even the legitimately wealthy have ways to creat their "own opportunities", to open doors mostly closed to the rest of us, that consolidate their opportutnities, and thus, rob the rest of us of our potential ones....the opportunity cost to the rest of scoiety....that today, in retail, and in shopping center development, only a Walmart can wield and reap the benefits from?


http://www.tfproject.org/tfp/showpos...8&postcount=39

http://www.tfproject.org/tfp/showpos...6&postcount=54

More support for post at preceding link:
http://www.tfproject.org/tfp/showpos...7&postcount=41

I read loquitur's post on the other thread (he made it clear that he did not want a discussion like the one I want to have here, happen in his thread, even though he posted statements like the one I highlighted in his post copied above), so I created this thread as a forum for this tangent of discussion.

At the first link I posted above, I provided support for statements I posted there that made the points that the CEO of the largest US Bank, and the CEO of the largest US Brokerage, both made public statements, last Sept/Oct, concerning the losses that their firms would be announcing in the near term, that they absolutely had to know to be false....they both dramatically understated the limpending loss amounts. The immediate results were that they "stabalized" the stock market indexes, and reversed the plummeting share prices of their own firms.

Both CEO's were forced to resign, shortly after these events, but they were allowed to leave with additional amounts of $100 to $200 million, each. The impact of their false statements benfited their firms, but negatively impacted the wealth of those who believed them and held stocks, or bought more, instead of selling at much higher price levels at that time, than were available later.....

I also documented, in that same post, the fact that the original parent of the bank described above, Citi Group, was National City Bank, and the fact that it's chairman, Mr. Mitchell, was found to have committed fraud and manipulation against his bank's pre-depression and depression era investors, according to the 1932 US Senate investigation led by attorney Ferdinand Pecora:
http://www.tfproject.org/tfp/showpos...6&postcount=29

In the last two links above, I documented my example of John McCain, and the background of his in-law's and now his, tremendous wealth.

Do we all agree that personal assets of $100 million or more, these days, is tremendous wealth?

I detailed, and I think....thoroughly supported the facts that McCain married into a family where his bride's father had a well publicized background as a convicted felon who was employed by the wealthiest man in Arizona, Kemper Marley, for at least eight years, and was arrested on felony liquor distribution charges twice while employed by this man, and convicted on federal felony charges the first time. I also documented that the man McCain's father worked for was suspected of ordering a "mob hit" against an investigative reporter who exposed his organized crime activities in the local newspaper, and that a close acquaintance of this man was convicted, and is serving a life term for car bombing the reporter.

I documented that McCain's father-in-law, along with his brother, also convicted and imprisoned in the first liquor felony arrest, and arrested in the second liquor felony indictment, and later convicted and imprisoned twice more on income tax evasion charges, bought a horse racing track in neighboring New Mexico, in 1953. and denied in a Gaming Commission hearing that an individual with mob gambling ties, "Teak" Baldwin, was their partner. Two years later it was determined that that the individual was an equal partner in the race track purchase with the two brothers. A New Mexico state police investigation of the brothers and their hidden partner, Baldwin found that the brothers' employer in Arizona, Kemper Marley,
I documented that McCain's father-in-law sold his share of the racetrack in 1955 and was somehow able to buy the Budweiser beer distributorship business in Phoenix, at a time when his former employer, Kemper Marley's United Liquor distributors enjoyed a monopoly of the sales of all liquor in Arizona.

I posted the details of the company that held the race track refreshment concession contract at the brothers' horse racing track, a firm that financed the later purchase of the track from McCain's father-in-law's brother and partners, to new owners, along with the remaing years of the concession contract at the track.

The last words of the dying, car bombed investigative reporter, including the name of this sports venue refreshments concessionaire, "EMPRISE". The articles the reporter published, indicated that Emprise had become a lender to professional sports team owners, and was transitioning into actually purchasing some of the teams. The reported published his question of whether those purchases would put the Buffalo, NY company, known to have well documented relationships with organized crime, into the position of being able to actually influence the outcomes of professional sports contest, presumably for the purposes of benefiting sports betting bookmakers.....

Today, the company founded by McCain's in-law has been described as the fifth largest beer distributor in the country, and McCain and his mobster's daughter wife are worth $50 to $100 million, all from the profits of his in-law's businessed. The Business nets $50 million per year, and his wife, the potential first lady of the USA, is the firm's chairwomen.

The holding company that Emrpise has morphed into, is now called Delaware North Corp., and the owners, the Jacob's family of Buffalo, were described as having net worth of $600 million and owning businesses with annual revenues over $1 billion, in a <a href="http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9F01E5DD1F3AF935A2575BC0A96E958260">NY Times article</a> ten years ago.

My core point is that the issue is not as easy to determine as loquitur described..... Kemper Marley and McCain's father in law, and the owners of Emprise/Delaware North, extract both wealth and opportunity cost from the rest of us, first by engaing in organized crime activity that the system does not confront and constrain, for a variety of reasons....corruption of regulators and law enforcement via bribes, political contributions to politicians who help thugs to thrive in their illegal and then laundered business acitivities, instead of representing the rest of our interests in government and in society, and through the impact of what the impression on the rest of us that their organized, illegal activities, effect.

They corrupt "the system" to the point where we lose faith in it, and perversely embrace, "private business"...."private capital", when we should actually be embracing tax policies that fucking confiscate it, to mitigate what all of the unenforced, unmitigated, illegal, unethical, and cronyized activity has taken away from the rest of us.

<h3>Instead, we observe a vehement "hands off" attitude towards those worth $100 million, and up, and we have a focus on demonizing the poorest and most powerless, because they are "the takers"....WTF?</h3>

I am not saying that everyone who controls $100 million or more is a crook, a thug, or a thief, but you don't get there by being an altar boy or a descendant or heir of an altar boy, either.

<h3>If we could reach a consensus of whether, given where all of his assets and the money that supported his initial political career came from, and the fact that he had to know, early on....about the background of his father-in-law and the source of the man's initial business investment, and the circumstances of his opportunity to buy such a "one of a kind" beer distribution business originated from, I think we would progress a long way on reaching some agreement about what society driving goverment, can and should do to confront and to mitigate growing wealth inequity in the US.</h3>

Mericfully, none of this discussion needs to focus of whether the poorest are truly poor if they own a microwave and a dvd player, or not.

We can shift discussion to whether they were wronged if they are working behind the counter of a sports venue refreshment concession, and paid a shitty li'l wage and no benefits because Delaware North even exists today, to own the concession's contract, and maybe the sports team itself, vs. whether it had it's ass shutdown, 60 years ago, when then incorruptible public enforcement officials, prosecuted it's mobbed up founder, as they should have, instead of accepting bribes to look the other way, and the assets of Emprise, way back then, were confiscated by a criminal court judge.

ngdawg

OK, I did my best to read what you had to say and I don't get your point. You used less than 5 examples of wealth thru nefarious means, but there are more than 5 wealthy people in the US.
No one would deny that some of our wealthy are not the most honest kids on the block, but are you suggesting that none are and therefore need to be dragged down a peg or hundred?

dksuddeth

wealth that is honestly obtained should never be punished, however, hiring a CEO who causes a 4 billion dollar loss to the company but saves 1.5 billion by laying off 25% of their workforce and STILL gets that 20 million bonus????
nuh uh. no way. no how.

__________________
"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."

Ustwo

And what would you do about it?

__________________
Agents of the enemies who hold office in our own government, who attempt to eliminate our "freedoms" and our "right to know" are posting among us, I fear.....on this very forum. - host

Obama - Know a Man by the friends he keeps.

host

I am asking if the reason some of us vehmently do not want to tax earnings over, say.... $1 million per year, at 90 percent or 70 percent, when earnings over $400,000 were taxed at 90 percent in the 1950's, is because the objectors have faith that the extremely wealthy did not amass their wealth at the deliberate expense (or offense) to the rest of us, and, if so...where they get their opinion that this is so....

What changed since the 1950's to make taxing the wealthy less justified or necessary? Do they own a smaller amount of total wealth now, than they did then? Do they operate more magnanimously or less corruptly than they did in 1955, and are they rest of us in a better position to pay the taxes that they used to pay, but are not paying anymore?

I am asking specifically what to do about John McCain....has he forfeited his opportunity, in the eyes of the rest of us, to lead us as our president, because he looked the other way when he accepted and amassed a fortune of "dirty" money, because he was greedy and ethics deprived, or able to rationalize that he was committing no crime in taking the money from his in-law's, or because he was too stupid or incurious to know or to think about where the wealth came from?

If any of the answers about McCain are true, what does he stand for?

Arizona is the newest of the 48 states. It is unique in that two studies, "the Phoenix 40", and the "Arizona Project", tell us (no, scream at us....) that the wealthiest and most powerful in Arizona came to have what they have, almost to a man....via their relationships with each other, and with organized crime. Del Webb, for example, the contractor who built the Flamingo Hotel in Vegas in 1946, and who owned the NY Yankees for 20 years, and who built Sun City, the first retiement community in the US, was "mobbed up", his wealth and the growth of his businesses were directly related to his relationships with organized crime figures and their illegitmate and semi-legitimate businesses....

Other centers of wealth, in California, in Florida, and of course, in Chicago and in New York, are no different than what the studies of connections in Arizona have revealed, because the "players" in Arizona, are directly connected to the players in the other cities where US wealth is concentrated.

If you don't see and accept the idea that the collaberation of 18 of the welathiest US families to spend collectively, $150 million to push PR and a political agenda to first, rename inheritance taxes, "the death tax", and then to push incessantly for their repeal, because "they hurt family farmers", is an offense to the rest of us....we get saddled with making up for the inheritance taxes that they formerly paid, than you probably don't recognize much of the rest of what I am talking about.

Our "system" did not start yesterday or today. It began in the last century. When the taxes of the welathiest are reduced, as they were beginning in 2001, we move from an increased federal debt of $18 billion in 2000, to $700 billion this year...the wealthiest pay less, who makes up for it?

So, there are two problems, denial that there is an organzied mix of criminal or unethical collaberative activity of the wealthiest to make up for what they lack in numbers, by leveraging their connections and the influence that their money buys, to control our political system, weaken enforcement of rules implemented to contain their abusive activity, or to eliminate the rules themselves....see <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glass-Steagall_Act">Glass-Steagall Act</a>..... and the influence on our thinking that the wealthiest buy....ownership of the news media and funding of several hundred conservative or libertarian "think tanks"....are examples of this....

I'll settle for your thoughts on what to do about John McCain? Do you want him and his mob princess wife, stinking up the white house?

dc_dux

Greater worker representation on corporate boards which is commonplace in Europe, Japan, Korea and most other economically developed countries.

__________________
"The perfect is the enemy of the good."
~ Voltaire

ngdawg

OK, they distribute beer. He ranks 7th in wealthy senators. I'm betting Kennedy is higher and how'd he get rich? Daddy-it's been long rumored Daddy Kennedy made a fortune as a rum "distributor" during Prohibition.
Now, did you vote for John Kerry in 2004? Ketchup money through the wife.

Your post reaks of Republican bashing, not of wanting to understand the disparities of the classes or how they came about.

Ustwo

http://www.forbes.com/compensation/2...ml?partner=rss

Try again.

__________________
Agents of the enemies who hold office in our own government, who attempt to eliminate our "freedoms" and our "right to know" are posting among us, I fear.....on this very forum. - host

Obama - Know a Man by the friends he keeps.

loquitur

We have laws against fraud. There are huge incentives for private plaintiffs to bring corporate fraud-doers to heel. Prosecutors (I'm thinking federal prosecutors, mainly, but some state and local as well) can make their reputations bringing down big shots, and do. (Google the name "Phil Bennett" as a recent example.) So the notion that there is massive undetected fraud and theft in all big companies and the majority of rich people is just lunacy.

Of course there are some bad rich people. There are bad people everywhere. That doesn't mean most wealth is garnered by fraud and theft, it simply means that there are some bad people out there. The fact is, for every bad name Host throws out, I can throw out two (or more) names of people who made their money honestly and are well-respected for it. I bet I could even do it sticking with the names of rich people who are liberal Democrats. (They probably can't match Host's lofty ethical standards, but I doubt anyone who ever fired an employee can.)

dc_dux

Ustwo....How does that Forbes article (yes, I just read it) negate the value of having company workers participate in a minority position on the board of directors of said company?

__________________
"The perfect is the enemy of the good."
~ Voltaire

dksuddeth

never invest in any company that hired him ever again would be about the only thing little ole me can do.

__________________
"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."

host

The evidence in the article I provided from the March 26, 1977 edition of the Albuquerque Journal, citing the minutes of meetings of the New Mexico Racing Commission, is overwhelming that James Hensley worked, for at least 8 years, for Kemper Marley and that Hensley fraudulantly received approval from the Racing Commission to purchase Ruidoso Downs Race track by concealing that one of his two equal partners in the purchase was a mob connected gambler specifically prohibited by the Commission, from being a partner seeking approval from the commission to purchase the track.

The evidence is that Hensley was convicted of multiple felonies of liquor invoice fraud, and received a suspended 6 months federal prison sentence, and then was indicted, 5 years later on similar felony charges, and was defended successfully against those charges by William Rehnquist, future SCOTUS chief justice.

The evidence of those racing commission hearing minutes shows that Kemper Marley..., the Hensley brothers employer for at least 8 years (1945 to 1953) and friend since the 1930's, was:
We also know that, despite felony convictions for liquor invoice fraud, James Hensley was allowed by the liquor commission of the state of Arizona to purchase an alcoholic beverage distributorship.

You have the gall to describe what I'm doing as "republican bashing", yet you offer nothing about Joseph Kennedy's background or activities that rises to the level of substance...a conviction, and material from official minutes of a state regulatroy hearing, backed by later reporting in articles I provided from the Arizona Republic azcentral.com, or Hensley's felony convictions, fraudulant assertions to conceal his mob ties at the racing commission hearing, AND YOU NOT ONLY IGNORE MY QUESTION ABOUT HOW TO REACT TO McCAIN, because of all of this evidence, but you attempt to blur the issue by comparing JFK to McCain.

Can you not see that there is no comparison between McCain and JFK? The comparison would be between McCain's wife, Cindy Hensley, born into a family, just as JFK was. Being born into a family is an involutary act. Once you are a child in a family, and grow up loved and nurtured, you do not have the objectivity that McCain, 45 years old when he married, should have had in deciding how close company to keep with his mobbed up in-law?

Can you not see that difference? Cindy Hensley and JFK could not not be their father's child.....but McCain could have married Cindy, and not taken a no show, VP position in her father's company, then accepted his campaign financing, and accumulated as his own personal wealth, $50 to $100 million that came directly from profits of his in-law's business.

I was pleased to read your earlier posts on this forum, especially the candid one about your own personal tax filing info.... posting that took guts, it was real, I gained a new respect for you, but the comparisons you made in your last post, make no sense, and I don't see where you get the "reaking" part...at alll.

If you have some "dirt" on some wealthy Dems...and it ought to be more convincing than what I've posted about McCain's in-law, since even compelling evidence like I provided did nothing to sway you....I'll be happy to discuss it with you.

I am the author of the "Historians looking at Bush presidency may well wonder if Congress actually existed", thread, and I think what I've posted there indicates that I have the capacity to be very critical of democrats who fail to represent the larger interests of the American people.

Let's see what you've got, besides an unsupported emotionally charged reaction....

ngdawg

Where in those links does it mention that McCain's in-laws are running for office?
While Clinton was president, he pardoned 140 convicted felons, including.....his own brother.
Every bottle of Heinz you bought put a portion into John Kerry's campaign box.
I'm about as unemotional about this election as a person can get....yet you're on some sort of get'em because McCain's inlaws weren't stellar(well, gee whiz, Wally!) and then accuse me of being emotionally charged....
Relax, dude....
As a footnote, Hillary has both black and Jewish bloodlines.I find that about as interesting as McCain's inlaws being convicted of something decades ago.
In other words, ain't got nothin to do with anything now. Come back when MCain makes daddy-in-law a Cabinet member.

host

C'mon, loquitur, the fraud and corruption at the top is rampant.

Here is an example, you can verify it yourself. Bush and his partners purchased the baseball team in the 80's for about $86 million, and they sold it, 14 years later, for less than $300 million, those numbers are part of the public record, but so is this:
Shouldn't Bush's long term capital gain on the baseball team investment, considering that he never invested personally more than $1 million in the team, (and maybe even less than that...), if the team was sold for an amount that was less than 4 times the purchase price, been a capital gain of no more than $4 million?

How do you explain Bush paying taxes on at least $14 million in income in 1998, at the 20 percent long term capital gains tax rate, instead of at the higher, earned income rate of 39.2 percent?

Bush explained that his accountants took an "aggressive position" in deciding how to categorize Bush's actual capital gains. What do you call what Bush did, loquitur? It looks like he ducked paying an additional $3 million in taxes that he clearly owed.

If you disagree, don't you need to provide data that Bush invested more than I've posted, or that they team was purchased for less or sold for more than I've posted?

Isn't anything else, no matter how you slice or dice it, clear evidence of gross income tax fraud? What kind of example does it set, or influence perception that we live in a two tiered oligarchy of gross wealth inequity?
We're not even in the same discussion, ngdawg.....I gave you specifics, you ignored or distorted them, and now you've marched on Clinton, HHuh???? ngdawg, I showed you that the money that McCain now possesses, had to knowingly come to him, and that it is proceeds from original investments made with organized crime proceeds invested into an opportunity provided by organized crime connections.

I asked at what point you think McCain's money was cleansed, and above is your response.

You've moved onto new things....how many criminals, in his own administration, and in Reagan's administration, did Bush Sr. pardon? Who had congressional hearings held about his pardons, Bush Sr. or Clinton? What was determind by those hearings?

Again, did McCain or did he not, immerse himself in the employment and the money of an Arizona organized crime figure?

It seems like a valid and a simple question, because he's running for president, and his past with Hensley either makes him stupid and incurious, or unethical.

Tully Mars

I'm lost. Did he save the company and it's shareholders money or loose their money? Did he first lose the 4 million and then make it and another 1.5 up by laying off workers or is the net loss 2.5 million?

__________________
I used to drink to drown my sorrows, but the damned things have learned how to swim- Frida Kahlo

Vice President Starkizzer Fan Club

ngdawg

Re: previous, in no part of my post did I compare JFK to McCain. What I stated was that the wealth of the Kennedys (note the plural) has been stated/rumored to have been obtained through liquor sales during Prohibition.
I've marched on Clinton because it's just as (un)important. Hillary married the brother of a known drug addict/felon...so is her campaign fund box funded with drug money? Does it make her a druggie?
McCain married the daughter of a felon/fraud. So, like Hillary, is he now a felon by osmosis? I'm not the one missing the point here.
Put it another way: I have had at least 3 speeding tickets. Does that make me a wreckless driver now? Now, if you were to bring up a point known that the campaign funds of McCain were illegally obtained by the fraud committed by his father-in-law, you might have something. There's no evidence of that. You're making a case of osmosis only. Perhaps you're having some trouble understanding. I got what you're attempting to say, it just doesn't have any bearing on McCain and where his funds come from now. Besides, the old man did his time and the state of AZ forgave that and gave him license to distribute. If a state can see to do that, perhaps you need to get past it as well and base your choice for president on the current merit of the candidates, not the errors of their felonious relatives.
If that was done across the board, no one would live in the White House.

dksuddeth

i wasn't speaking about any specific company with direct regards to my example, however, I do remember last year that some CEO was hired by an airline, the airline lost nearly a billion dollars, but cut their labor force by 25% and then the CEO got several million in a bonus upon his resignation.

__________________
"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."

roachboy

host--i wonder if this is the strongest way to go about arguing your position:

it seems to me that the generating social and economic inequalities is a *structural* feature of capitalism.
arguing from corruption of individuals within that structure seems weaker simply because you can always find examples of that.
the link would be to demonstrate something qualitatively different about corruption within this system that goes beyond the fact that we experience it in real time...

personally, i think the question of inequalities and the politics that lay behind it run way beyond the characteristics of the oligarchy/ruling classes...

__________________
a gramophone its corrugated trumpet silver handle
spinning dog. such faithfulness it hear

it make you sick.

-kamau brathwaite

Baraka_Guru

What would it be, then? International trade and the individual anonymity of globalization?

__________________
Knowing that death is certain and that the time of death is uncertain, what's the most important thing?
—Bhikkhuni Pema Chödrön

Humankind cannot bear very much reality.
—From "Burnt Norton," Four Quartets (1936), T. S. Eliot

roachboy

o let's see: inside the logic of the globalizing capitalist order, you could see alot of problems flowing from the ideological assumption that a firms only coherent task and so only real obligation is to make money for shareholders---this is a royal road to irresponsibility...

personally, i think the main structural problem that lay behind all others is the division between wage labor and capital, but that leads in a more radical direction: the first could be addressed within the existing order--the second requires a transformation of that order.

__________________
a gramophone its corrugated trumpet silver handle
spinning dog. such faithfulness it hear

it make you sick.

-kamau brathwaite

loquitur

Roachboy, I think your argument is a much better one than host's. I disagree with it, primarily because I think any alternatives to capitalism are likely to be much worse, especially in terms of stifling human freedom and squelching innnovation and entrepreneurialism. But you're right that inequality is built into the structure of capitalism. Whether that's a feature or a bug is a different question.

Host's position as set forth in the OP makes me think, mainly, "I wish he could get over his bitterness, it's consuming him."

host

Since we can count on one hand, the number of us who even are of the opinion that there is a problem, does it really matter what approach we take to describe it and attempt to attract interest enough to discuss it?

We have some excellent historical resources....The IRE.org "Arizona Project", and the study of the Phoenix 40, from the information in those two resources, and our knowledge of the development of Las Vegas, and of Arizona, it isn't a leap to have the opinion that two of our most recent states in the lower 48, were corrupted during their boom phases, openly and dramatically, with connections to organized crime that run so deep that they surface today in examples like the one I attempted....leading to the question of when, if it was profits from organized crime activity, and it can be directly traced to that....the millions of dollars now residing in US presidential frontrunner John McCain, became "clean" money....what was the date that the money was transformed from mob money to clean, respectable money?

This reporter had his legs and arm blown off, his life snuffed out, for reporting about the man, Kemper Marley, who was the employer, and source of McCain's in-law's money, business, and connections....and about the company the in-law and his brother contracted to manage the Hensley's NM horse racing track concession, and financed the sale of the track when they sold it:
I want to understand how others view this cleansing process, if it is a process?

I mentioned in the loquitur's "Inequality" thread, that the only investigation of power and wealth in the US, ended nearly 67 years ago, resulted in a collection of recorded data that is still partially sealed.....why?
More and more, participation here on this forum has opened my eyes to the nearly universal levels of deep denial, indoctrination, and objection to presentation of detailed information, in ....of all places, a political discussion forum....go figure?

I am left to sort out whether the aversion to progressive taxation as an obvious means to deal with the grwoing "problem" of wealth inequity, an aversion that has grown, since the '50s, in direct proportion to the amount spent to create and support conservative think tanks and the conservative owned media and funded advertising blitz, is more a result of the success in indoctrinating so many, especially the younger members of our population, or because of the intensity of the incuriousness and short attention span.

So, roachboy, I drive them away, the way I try to present the problem, but I think that on some level, some understand what I am trying to convey....I am not so sure that your way of trying to communicate, even reaches the pathetically poor level of connection I've achieved.....

roachboy

i wasn't looking to step on anything host--there is a logic question that i had about both the theads on this topic--i raised them in both, and it turns out that in this one there was a response. it's just a matter of what the most efficient way to move from anecdotal to structural problems might be. i don't see this route as the most efficient. that's all.

carry on however you like comrade.
i have stuff to do and not a whole lot of energy or time to play about here at the moment, so am entirely in this mode.

__________________
a gramophone its corrugated trumpet silver handle
spinning dog. such faithfulness it hear

it make you sick.

-kamau brathwaite

host

LOL.... I'll trade you your lack of concern/rationalizations for my alleged bitterness? Deal?

You post that you read a lot....have you ever heard of TNEC ? There was a heated political struggle to prevent it from getting started, ceaseless attempts to defund it, and they were successful in 1941, when TNEC was less than three years old.

Are you at all curious what is in TNEC's sealed records? 67 years seems like an excessive amount of time to conceal the abuses of the wealthiest and most powerful of the time, from the descendants of the oppressed, dontcha think?

After all, didn't the greatest generation fight a war, and take a large number of causalties, to contribute profits to the oligarchy of the time?

If I am bitter, was Smedley Butler bitter? How would you describe your own outlook, does it match the political and economic fundamentals and the history of the last 75 years, more rationally than my outlook?

ngdawg

You article re: the Bolles bombing and your subsequent conclusions are equal to the Kennedy/rum running I mentioned. It is barely circumstantial at best. Bolles was in investigative reporter for much of the fraud and mafia goings on in AZ and while the fingers can point to Marley they cannot PINpoint him.

I agree with loquitur: "I wish he could get over his bitterness, it's consuming him."

You are at the point now that you aren't even discussing your own OP's query.

Ustwo

I once had my lunch bought for me by Tony Accardo.

I knew his daughter and hung out with his grand daughter.

I was even once at a mafia pig roast (didn't know it at the time, was just a pool party to me).

Good thing she and I didn't hit it off, otherwise I'd be disqualified from ever being a public figure, after all my wifes grandfather would have been the big Tuna, and I'd be guilty by association.

__________________
Agents of the enemies who hold office in our own government, who attempt to eliminate our "freedoms" and our "right to know" are posting among us, I fear.....on this very forum. - host

Obama - Know a Man by the friends he keeps.

loquitur

I would describe my own outlook as tolerant and forgiving about most things, and accepting that people are human and thus flawed. I also think people should be left alone to live their own lives as they see fit, and that we should be wary of trying to impose our preferences on others. To my mind that's realistic, but others might disagree. That's why I don't get outraged about many of the things you do, host. There are things that genuinely are outrageous, and I'll save my outrage for those. If I got my knickers in a knot over every twist and turn of politics I'd have unmanageable blood pressure and wouldn't be the laid-back, somewhat wonkish, humor-loving fellow I picture myself to be.

host

I'm taking the risk that putting these exchanges all in one post might influence another member, or two....to pause and take stock of what is going on....every day, in this forum....and it sure as shit isn't a discussion:

<h3>post #7</h3>
<h3>post #13</h3>
<h3>post #14</h3>
<h3>post #16</h3>
<h3>post #21</h3>

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Consider that all of the above was predicated on an OP that provided strong support....as much as we ever usually get to inluence and eventually fix our political opinions....and, for that matter, most or all of our opinions about the outside world...a series of newspaper news reports from the Albuquerque Journal, (circa 1977), the NY Times, (circa 1996), and the Arizona Republic, (circa late 90s through 2007)...for the notion that all of John McCain's current wealth, ($50 to $100 million) and almost all of the financing of his first campaign, and his first employment in Arizona, and a significant portion of the contributions for his later political campaigns, came from one source.

The source was James W. Hensley, and his businesses, the most prominent being Hensley and company. Hensley was convicted on multiple federal liquor fraud counts, in 1948, and re-arrested for further incidences related to liquor related tax fraud, in 1953. I documented that Hensley and his brother were employed by, and or business partners with, Kemper Marley, for at least 8 years, and that a NM State police investigation found:
I asked...more than once, when McCain's wealth and political financial support could be consider, "cleansed", since it evidently came principally from business activity originally funded by organized crime activity and connections.

Read the reactions, and responses, if they even can be called responses. They run the gambit from "well, the Kennedy family....", "Hillary married the brother of...." and "lunch brought by Tony Accardo.....after all my wifes grandfather would have been the big Tuna, and I'd be guilty by association..". ....and, oh yeah....speculation about my own emotional/mental state.....

If anybody can explain to me how we can actually discuss the facts....the details of any news reporting related to politics, My eyes will be glued to the screen, reading the explanation(s). What is the problem, are my sources not specific or detailed enough, do they have poor overall reputations, was James Hensley convicted of federal felonies related to liquor distribution fraud, and were he and Kemper Marley, from the record of reports I've presented, reasonably believed to be involved in organzied crime, for a number of years leading up to when Hensley began the business operations that John McCain has so handsomely benefited from?

Do John McCain's decisions, first to accept a high salary, low demand job from Hensley, and over time, campaign financing, employment for his son, and multiple millions of dollars of wealth, deserve discussion? Are they relevant, if we can put aside, Kennedys, Clintons and Tony Accardo, and my mental and emotional state....to whether he is ethically fit to be president of the United States?

....And if you believe that all it takes for corruption to dominate society, is for good men to stand by and do nothing in response to signs of it, how do we, as a democratic republic, and a society based on the rule of law, react to Hensley's and Marley's fortunes and power, and if you have no coherent argument that a result of it is something other than McCain's emergence as a wealthy and influential, top US political figure, how do we react to McCain's emergence?

ngdawg

Given the pasts of almost every president this country has had, from Jefferson's boinking his slave to Clinton diddling his intern and pardoning his drug-addled brother, yea, MCain is "ethically fit".
If you are naive enough to believe that everyone else trying to get to the White House got their funds from sweet little old ladies and politically righteous organizations, I got this bridge.....

roachboy

curious.
on the one hand, there's a series of posts that argue corruption is no big deal because it is a natural feature. like those stone heads on mount rushmore: you know, perfectly natural.

on the other, there's the problem of arguing from conspiracy--the implication that were you to erase the conspiracy, the system itself would be ok. conspiracies are agents of system distortion. remove the distortion and what remains?

__________________
a gramophone its corrugated trumpet silver handle
spinning dog. such faithfulness it hear

it make you sick.

-kamau brathwaite

loquitur

OK, Host, I'll come back to your OP and deall with it head-on. You're right that there has been some drift here. Not terrible drift, but there has been some.

The thesis you were propounding (if I might formulate it bluntly, the way it came across to me) was that the way rich people got that way is by theft and fraud. You illustrated that thesis with a few examples of bad people who were rich. Sorry, it doesn't wash. First of all, it's an illustration of the difference between anecdotes and data. Anecdotes don't prove a general proposition; you need data to do that, and you haven't supplied any. Second, it's illogical on its face - you're using a computer to write these posts. Do you think the people who got rich making computers stole their money? Or the people who wrote the software? You pour milk on your cereal in the morning - do you think the people who own the dairy stole it? Think, host, think! You get a checkup from a doctor who likely has a lot more money than you do - did he steal it too?

I said a few posts ago that humans are flawed, and they are. There is cupidity and venality in every walk of life.

Roachboy, I didn't suggest that corruption is not a big deal. It is, and we should fight it. But there's a difference between saying corruption is a bad thing (which it is) and saying that any society that has some measurable degree of corruption is bad. The latter I think is demonstrably false, because there is some degree of corruption in every society. The issue is how endemic it is, and whether it's crowding out legitimate endeavors. I haven't seen any indication that in this country we have corruption at levels rivalling many countries in the third world. We could do better, but we're not doing badly.

roachboy

but loquitor, you're repeating my objection in your response...sure, it's upside down, but the logic is still the same.

__________________
a gramophone its corrugated trumpet silver handle
spinning dog. such faithfulness it hear

it make you sick.

-kamau brathwaite

loquitur

Let me see if I get what you're saying: corruption is a system distortion mechanism. Conspiracy theory holds that systems are captives of powerful conspirators, which is also a system distortion. Therefore if you accept that some degree of corruption is normal, you must accept conspiracy theories.

You can't really mean that.

host

loquitur, do you see the pattern here, the same propaganda, over and over? Do you understand how the left has been distorted, demonized, and subdued at gunpoint, again and again, to the point of it's near extinction in the US, today? Are we really, in our entirety, the better for it?

Do you see that islamofascism is the "red baiting du jour"? Are the interests of the majority today, in any way in common with the modern equivalents of the studio owners or the Willaim Randolph Hearsts? Who are the actual subversives? Can the majority properly be categorized as subversive?
The background can be read here:
loquitur, the cycle plays out repetitively, in California currently it manifests itself via the right wing overthrow of former Gov. Gray Davis in favor of Gov. Terminator.....If you believe that the propaganda sponsored by Hollywood corporate media and William Randolph Hearst drove an election result that defeated Upton Sinclair in the 1934 California governor's race, in favor of Gov Merriam, was beneficial for the majority of the depression era electorate, you may not understand the point of this post.

Upton Sinclair had written the 1906 expose, Jungle, about the meatpacking industry. Gov. Merriam was simply a conservative politcal hack, in service to his corporate masters.

I know you don't see the difference, or the harm. It is criminal, because it is such a distortion, and when it boils over, out come the machine guns, gas, and billy clubs, in the name of civil order.

Is what you defend, if it is always based on lies and bogeymen....reds, communists, al-Qaeda, really worth the defense you reflexively mount? Is the alternative, really worse? How could it be?

loquitur

I might not be the best guy to ask if you want agreement that the left has been suppressed to the point of death. I live in NYC and all my friends are lefties, including my wife. Pretty much everyone I know (with some exceptions) is a liberal Democrat. I don't see any suppression here at all.

And honestly, I'm not "defending" anything, host. I'm just saying that you get your moral outrage frothing over things that are simply not outrageous - these things are nothing more than human beings behaving in the flawed ways human beings behave. In any crowd, there is some percentage that is nasty, some that is greedy, some that is violent, some that is dishonest, etc etc etc. People are people. We don't have to like the bad things people do, and we can hold people accountable if they do something wrong, but I'm sorry, I don't find the existence of some (low) level corruption in and of itself cause for outrage. Government by its nature breeds corruption by creating opportunities for it.

host

loquitur, the dilemma for the top ten percent wealthiest in the US is that there is no natural, mass constituency for their political goals. They compensate for that in two major ways, they "cage" the vote, we saw this at work with the phony "felon purge list" in the 2000 Florida election, and we see it with the Federalist Sociey "Op" of positioning thousands of lawyers and other "volunteers" as "poliing place obervers", challenging the credentials of voters who are attempting to vote, and we see it with the subversion of the voting rights protection section of the DOJ, the movement for "Voter ID" restrictions, and the Marc "Thor" Hearne led "Op" by republicans against a fictitious "voter fraud" problem, famously and fraudulantly described by our President, himself.

The other method is the use of the news media that these wealthy elite own and control, along with conservative and authoritarian factions in government:

Buckley's life was probably a "deep cover", domestic disniformation "Op". Tiny message, tiny "natural" constituency, successful effort to persuade large numbers to support an entire political philosophy against the best interests of 95 percent of them:

[/quote]

Consider this "proud" chapter in our nation's politcal history:

loquitur

Words fail me.

Most of the rich people I know are liberal Democrats, host. The densest source of Democratic party fundraising is right here in Manhattan, on the Upper East and West Sides.